Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Goes To The Doctor
March 12, 2015 8:49 AM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe
Titus auditions for "Spider-Man Too" while Kimmy visits Jacqueline's plastic surgeon.
I legitimately did not recognize Martin Short.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:53 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by everybody had matching towels at 8:53 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
oh god martin short was so gross and terrifying. and that moment where he squeezed his face together to talk normally! ahhhh!!!
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:06 AM on March 12, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:06 AM on March 12, 2015 [15 favorites]
The best part of this episode is that Tituss Burgess played Sebastian in the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid, and his nemesis Corialanus Bert is played by James Monroe Iglehart, who is the (Tony award winning!) Genie in Aladdin on Broadway.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:25 AM on March 12, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 9:25 AM on March 12, 2015 [17 favorites]
The constant Disney princess references are a nice callback too.
I wonder what the thought process was for Short's hair and makeup "Could we go for ....a latex gnome?"
posted by The Whelk at 9:58 AM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
I wonder what the thought process was for Short's hair and makeup "Could we go for ....a latex gnome?"
posted by The Whelk at 9:58 AM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
Also, things like "scream lines" and the inspirational speech turned slurred incoherent rant are great examples of how the show mixes some seriously dark material with manic absurd whimsy.
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 AM on March 12, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 AM on March 12, 2015 [14 favorites]
( okay Short's character was based on a real person and aaaahgh)
posted by The Whelk at 10:09 AM on March 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:09 AM on March 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
Wow, Julian Assange has really let himself go.
posted by sobarel at 10:12 AM on March 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by sobarel at 10:12 AM on March 12, 2015 [8 favorites]
I liked the recurring Febreeze gag. During college I knew so many people who thought that Febreeze was a magical mist that made everything clean instead of barely masking abysmal hygiene and sanitation practices.
Thankfully, none of my friends have anything like Febreeze in their domiciles. Or maybe I just have a lot less friends these days than I did in college.
posted by porpoise at 10:29 AM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thankfully, none of my friends have anything like Febreeze in their domiciles. Or maybe I just have a lot less friends these days than I did in college.
posted by porpoise at 10:29 AM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Spider Man song was great, and New York is increasingly turning into a cartoonish, parodic version of itself, with a Spide Man musical that is not only filled with dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of Spider Men, but all of them have been injured simultaneously, and the injuries are so expected that you must audition with a simulated Spider Man falling on you. This is the sort of thing Fey and co do very well, and it really starts to congeal in this episode.
The perverse, wicked white man preying on others in this episode is obviously Martin Short's Doctor Frampf, and he may be the most grotesque in the show. He's so Martin Short-y as well! Short has always danced, elfin-like, across that line between comedy and nightmare, but for this character he seems to have taken up permanent residence in Nightmareville. He's sort of a Spider Man as well, except that his super power is being able to instantly identify where women hate their own bodies and to offer a solution.
The little drug nightmare that Kimmy has while prepping for surgery is also astonishing. The show does have the occasional 30 Rock moments, where unreality intrudes into the story, but in Kimmy's world these moments are often as terrifying as they are funny.
posted by maxsparber at 10:33 AM on March 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
The perverse, wicked white man preying on others in this episode is obviously Martin Short's Doctor Frampf, and he may be the most grotesque in the show. He's so Martin Short-y as well! Short has always danced, elfin-like, across that line between comedy and nightmare, but for this character he seems to have taken up permanent residence in Nightmareville. He's sort of a Spider Man as well, except that his super power is being able to instantly identify where women hate their own bodies and to offer a solution.
The little drug nightmare that Kimmy has while prepping for surgery is also astonishing. The show does have the occasional 30 Rock moments, where unreality intrudes into the story, but in Kimmy's world these moments are often as terrifying as they are funny.
posted by maxsparber at 10:33 AM on March 12, 2015 [11 favorites]
This was the hardest episode for me to watch because oh god, Martin Short's face, auuugh the horror! I just couldn't get past how horrifying he was.
posted by lunasol at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015
posted by lunasol at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015
As I watched this episode, I thought, "hey, wasn't Martin Short supposed to cameo in this? I wonder where....oh my god."
Also, the Buhbreeze commercials were sufficiently spot on at first that I thought they were actual Febreeze product placement commercials, which was funny enough, but the escalation of the commercials was hilarious.
posted by yasaman at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
Also, the Buhbreeze commercials were sufficiently spot on at first that I thought they were actual Febreeze product placement commercials, which was funny enough, but the escalation of the commercials was hilarious.
posted by yasaman at 10:34 AM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
It took me a minute to get "Law Squiggle Order".
posted by Rock Steady at 11:06 AM on March 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Rock Steady at 11:06 AM on March 12, 2015 [9 favorites]
I really wished they'd played up the muppet gag at the beginning, but they never came back to it at all. But everything in this episode just clicks. I love the Spiderman song at the end.
posted by Catblack at 11:13 AM on March 12, 2015
posted by Catblack at 11:13 AM on March 12, 2015
The original songs on this show are SO GOOD which is no surprise, given the involvement of Jeff Richmond, but still: is there a soundtrack coming out? The 30 Rock soundtrack gets serious play in my house. Tennis Night is my jam.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:24 PM on March 12, 2015
posted by everybody had matching towels at 12:24 PM on March 12, 2015
I felt like this episode is where everything started to click, from the "Outside In" therapy that Jacqueline is using to the "It says Dr. Grant." "Yes, but he pronounces it Frampf." to the ongoing Buhbreeze gag...just everything feeling slightly surreal, with a hard dark edge underneath, ready to cut.
posted by nubs at 3:05 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nubs at 3:05 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Spiderman song is where I went from heh very amusing to legit ROFLing for the first time in a long time. This may be the best episode of the show so far.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:08 PM on March 12, 2015
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:08 PM on March 12, 2015
Except for maybe [SPOILER ALERT] Daddy's Boy.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:08 PM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:08 PM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
Ugh fuck that AV Club review "I hope this show doesn't continue to stick to the formula that it has invented, unlike the infinity other TV shows, which also do that."
TELEVISION IS FORMULAS GET OVER IT NERDS
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:15 PM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
TELEVISION IS FORMULAS GET OVER IT NERDS
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:15 PM on March 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
dear god, please please please stick to the formula forever, the formula is so good
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:55 PM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:55 PM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
*jumps up and down, screaming "I'M NOT REALLY HERE! I'M NOT REALLY HERE!"*
I want a GIF of this, please. Where is my GIF?
Also, I totally want to try this in certain places except.... I don't live in a bunker and can't get away with that.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:45 PM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
I want a GIF of this, please. Where is my GIF?
Also, I totally want to try this in certain places except.... I don't live in a bunker and can't get away with that.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:45 PM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Did anybody else feel like Martin Short's face had the effect of being a live-action bad photoshop job? The way he held his face at the same angle to the camera even while walking across the screen felt very cut-and-pasted to me.
In a way, I thought the show was making a clever visual comment about how plastic surgery has the same relationship to women's physical bodies that photoshop has to photos of women's bodies.
posted by gauche at 11:50 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
In a way, I thought the show was making a clever visual comment about how plastic surgery has the same relationship to women's physical bodies that photoshop has to photos of women's bodies.
posted by gauche at 11:50 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
My favorite lines:
"Ariel, this thingamabob is not going to work!"
"Quiete Vera"
"Is there a Sears near here?"
"The third Affleck brother, Myron"
"A third party that wasn't in the story?"
"I want a new face!" "I have some"
"Hashbrown no filter."
Dr. Grant's fingerless purple medical gloves!
Lillian shaving her legs on the couch watching the news!
posted by sweetmarie at 12:40 PM on March 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
"Ariel, this thingamabob is not going to work!"
"Quiete Vera"
"Is there a Sears near here?"
"The third Affleck brother, Myron"
"A third party that wasn't in the story?"
"I want a new face!" "I have some"
"Hashbrown no filter."
Dr. Grant's fingerless purple medical gloves!
Lillian shaving her legs on the couch watching the news!
posted by sweetmarie at 12:40 PM on March 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
I only just got that "Frampf" is how a man who can barely move his entire face might theoretically pronounce "Grant"
posted by figurant at 1:50 AM on March 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by figurant at 1:50 AM on March 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
And for my part, I only just got the significance of "he pronounces it Frampf" as opposed to "it's pronounced Frampf."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:41 AM on March 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:41 AM on March 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
"They were doing an all-black production of Oklahoma called Alabama."
posted by radioamy at 8:11 PM on March 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by radioamy at 8:11 PM on March 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
The plastic surgeon who inspired this character was found dead after having been "devastated and depressed" by this impression.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:20 AM on April 6, 2015
Oof. I didn't realize it was such a caricature of a specific person.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:36 AM on April 6, 2015
posted by Rock Steady at 5:36 AM on April 6, 2015
Oof. I didn't realize it was such a caricature of a specific person.
Me neither! The whole Martin Short bit had felt so cringeworthy and out of place for the series as it was.
posted by mochapickle at 9:12 AM on April 6, 2015
Me neither! The whole Martin Short bit had felt so cringeworthy and out of place for the series as it was.
posted by mochapickle at 9:12 AM on April 6, 2015
Yeah, the death of someone who felt (rightly!) that they were being personally attacked by this show personally pushes the mean-spiritedness of the humor into the "I can't enjoy this in good conscience and I want to take a shower" category. I enjoyed parts of the show, but as a whole I feel gross.
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:50 AM on April 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:50 AM on April 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
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posted by drezdn at 8:50 AM on March 12, 2015