The Worse Than Derek Savage Christmas Pageant is the seventh episode of Season 1 of The Lenny Leggo Show. It is the seventh and final episode of Season 1 and the seventh episode overall. The first ten minutes were released on Christmas Day 2016, with the rest of the episode being released on January 14th 2016.
Synopsis[]
Lenny is more anxious than ever, as the Christmas Pageant he has directed will not only be recorded onto DVD, but a copy will be sent to his boss at down at the television studio he works for The quality of the play will determine whether or not Lenny will earn a promotion: if he get's it, he will be assigned to direct a new game-show coming after New Year's, and also get a raise.
Plot[]
In the prologue, Jonah Flenderson breaks the fourth wall by reminding the audience that Jesus' birth (essentially Christmas in itself) can be celebrated anytime of the year besides December: he then announces that this is the show's official excuse for the full episode not being up until January.
In preparation for the annual Christmas Eve Nativity Pageant, Lenny conducts a meeting by assembling his cast: The cast consists of Jonah Flenderson as Gabriel, Martin Anderson as Joseph, Randy Stallone as Mary (Randy is playing the role as a fill-in), Harvey Duncan as the narrator, and an unspecified actor as the innkeeper, who is late for the play and has not shown up yet. Lenny explains that a DVD copy will be sent to his boss, and that the quality of the play will dictate whether or not he get's a promotion at CSS Studios.
Backstage, Lenny is informed that one of the kids due up for the opening solo has not shown up yet. Lenny calls his father only to find out that the family forgot about the play and instead decided to visit family in Australia for Christmas. With one of the solo kids half way around the world, Lenny picks Pig-Pig Degariah, Harvey's nephew, to fill-in. Seconds later, Billy, another solo kid, shows up on time, but becomes so petrified of his performance that he ends up puking all over Lenny's tuxedo: as a result, a barf splatter is visible on his tuxedo for the rest of the episode (Lenny is also unable to clean it off due to the bathroom's containing all air dryers). A bit later, Pig-Pig attempts to stall the play by causing a commotion between Lenny and Harvey in the bathroom, but eventually comes out after Harvey promises a happy meal to him (this is one of the indications that Pig-Pig is a relatively spoiled child).
When the play starts, Lenny takes the stage to welcome the audience. While he does this, the "hobo" unexpectedly shows up and snatches a nearby offering basket before dashing out of the auditorium's side doors and out into the cold winter night. Lenny continues by welcoming the three solo children up onto the stage.
The solo portion, consisting entirely of dialogue (both among-st themselves and the audience), goes as planned, however, when it's Pig-Pig's turn to speak, he stands there silently for several seconds before screaming in terror and running off the stage. Valerie, the third of the three solo kids, then uses harsh language towards Pig-Pig and rudely dismisses the audience, much to both Lenny and Harvey's horror. This is immediately followed by a (terrible) children's choir.
When the play starts, Lenny relieves himself by telling himself that the kids part was probably bad because it involved kids, raising hopes that the adult portion will be better. However, when the play starts (with the innkeeper still absent), everybody in the play messes up one way or another: Harvey mislabels the story as Hanukkah rather than Christmas, Jonah forgets his angel suit (later revealed to be due to a co-worker loaning it and moving away prior to returning it) and instead appears unrealistically in his firefighting attire, Martin for having a piece of toilet paper hanging from his pant leg, Randy's acting just being "cancer's final form", and the innkeeper not showing up at all. The play comes to a sudden end when Jonah Flenderson, in an attempt to make a reappearing during the nativity scene, comes crashing down onto the stage, having had his ropes break, and puts a giant hole in the stage floor.
After the play, Lenny dismisses the entire play as a complete disaster and blames everybody involved for their terrible performances, as well as the innkeeper for (still) being completely absent. When the cast appears to be unapologetic (at least Jonah anyway), Lenny storms out of the church and goes to sit by himself outside the library. Everybody else goes to Lenny and Katrina's house to warm up.
At the library, Lenny rudely declines a young child's offer for a quarter, reasoning that he'll never get anything he wants in his life and should leave. Sometime after the child (eventually) leaves, Lenny decides to walk in the adjacent park area, where he finds that same kid from earlier, as well as his parents, and overhears that they have so little money, they can't even eat that evening. Lenny becomes horrified, learning that this is probably why he was asked for a quarter. Moments later, Lenny discovers the "hobo" hiding behind a nearby rock, greedily accepting his stolen offering basket until Lenny suddenly snatches it back.
Lenny takes the offering basket to the family and gives it to them, asking for nothing in return. Lenny then returns home to apologize to everybody for his behavior earlier.
Meanwhile, Martin, who has gone out to find Lenny (unaware that he has already returned home by now), traces Lenny's location to the library, but does not find him there, as he has already left. As he turns around to head back, he jumps in horror to see none other than his ex-girlfriend, Jessie Roberts, who just so happens to be out walking as well. The two have a short, progressive conversation about what has happened since they have last met, revealing to each-other that, though officially broken up, do in-fact miss each-other and show desire to reconcile. When Martin finally decides to leave, he suddenly turns around and, nervously, explains that he's going for hot chocolate and asks her if she wishes to join: whether or not she accepts the offer is not made definitively clear, but the smile she shows just moments before the screen cuts to black suggests that she does.
In the mid-credits scene, Lenny and Martin return to the church the the following day to sort out some prop boxes left over from the play. When Lenny moves the first box, the two make a horrifying discovery: the innkeeper, dead from somehow having his head crushed by a stack of boxes.
Cast[]
- Lenny Leggo
- Jonah Flenderson
- Martin Anderson
- Harvey Duncan
- Randy Stallone
- Katrina Leggo
- Pig-Pig Degariah
- Billy Endanasor
- Valerie Stedson
- Jessie Roberts
- The Hobo
- The poor kid
- Bob Ringo
- The Innkeeper
Overview[]
This will be the Season 1 finale: season 1 was originally supposed to be ten episodes long, however, Cosby ended up ending it after seven so that he could go ahead and allow the show to undergo updates and get a fresh start for Season 2. He also felt that this episode, being the Christmas special as well as the final one to be released in 2016, would be a great place to end a season anyway.
The 2016 Christmas Special was supposed to be Buzz Tarco's Christmas Carol, however, due to scheduling complications, it was delayed until Christmas of 2017, while this episode, a previous candidate for 2016, was moved up from 2017 instead, since it would not take as long to produce as Buzz Tarco's Christmas Carol Would have.
Production[]
Audio Recording was conducted on December 18th 2016: unlike the previous episode, which was recorded in four separate "rough" files, this episode was recorded in just one, as episodes 1-5 were. Pick up recordings took place on December 20th.
Cosby himself described production on this particular episode "Tedious and disastrous" and that he was "lucky enough to get what I managed to out on Christmas Day". Since both this episode, as well as the previous episode, Thanksgiving Kerfuffle, only went into partial releases on their respective target dates, a new scheduling system is to be set in place for producing future episodes, particularly those pertaining to holidays, to prevent this from repeating itself.
This episode was originally going to feature a prologue, similar to Thanksgiving Kerfuffle, however, it ended up being removed from the episode. It will be shelved and recycled for a later episode.
Cultural References[]
- The episode's title refers to Derek Savage (who has also frequently referred to as "Daddy Derek"), a filmmaker from Hollywood California who became notorious for his infamous feature film "Cool Cat Saves the Kids". He later received even more widespread criticism after allegedly removing several YouTube reviews for the film, claiming that they breached fair use. The deleted reviews were eventually restored to YouTube, however, as Derek Savage's claims of copyright infringement were ultimately proven to be void. Days after the release of "The Worse Than Derek Savage Christmas Pageant", Aaron Cosby stated that he was surprised that the episode had not yet been removed for "copyright infringement", and that he wouldn't be surprised if that occasion ever happened.
Link[]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8OzLMOPTPE
Trivia[]
- The episode's working titles were "The Worse Than Michael Bay Christmas Pageant" and "The Worst Christmas Pageant Known to Man Kind". The former was based off of the episode's final title while the latter was loosely based off of the book "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" (on the front cover of the book, the title is stylized with the word "Worst" crossed out just before "Best").
- This is the only episode of Season 1 where Katrina interacts with any character other than Lenny.
- This is also the only Season 1 episode where Lenny's last name is spoken out-loud. In fact, the name is actually used in reference to Katrina, rather than Lenny: it is spoken by Jonah Flenderson.
Goofs[]
- Flying unmanned baggage through an airline is in fact possible, contrary to Jonah Flenderson's claim otherwise. Although it could be assumed that maybe he didn't realize this due to his lack of intelligence.