Recap / Corner Gas S 1 E 04 Oh Baby

"I could help out with little Tanner. Tanner's a great kid! I love Tanner! ...His name's Tanner, right?"

A Plot: Wanda has to go into town to get her tooth fixed, so she recruits Brent to watch her son Tanner while she's gone. After everyone at the bar starts taking bets on what injuries Brent will suffer, Hank realizes he needs to help his buddy, only to lock himself out of his truck. Lacey decides to stop by and assist Brent, but proves largely ineffective and they call Emma to save them. However, it turns out that Brent calling Emma was Lacey's bet all along.

B Plot: With Brent gone, Oscar agrees to watch the gas station, and proves why he didn't have a great reputation when he owned the place.

Tropes Referenced:

• Actor Allusion: In the last scene, Brent makes several guesses as to Lacey’s middle name. One of the guesses is “Sunshine”, which is Lacey’s actress Gabrielle Miller’s real middle name.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Tanner continously pelts Brent with a barrage of metal toy cars. He has also somehow torn the back of Brent's shirt and pants by the time Lacey arrives.
• Batman Gambit: This is Lacey's whole plan involving Brent and Tanner. She shows up at Wanda's house to "help" Brent, proves just as ineffective as Brent has been at corralling Tanner, then convinces him he should call Emma to set the child straight. After Emma has saved the day, only then does Lacey reveal she took 3-to-1 odds at the bar that Brent would call his mom to deal with Tanner.
  Lacey: 50 bucks on "Brent calls Emma". 3-to-1 odds, that's 150 bucks! You know, I'd take a car to the head any day for that.
• Depraved Dentist: Wanda dealt with one in the past, which gave her a fear of dentists. He wore a leather lab coat.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: This episode implies Brent might be attracted to Lacey, as he immediately jumps at the chance to babysit Tanner when she mentions she finds men who are good with kids attractive. This wouldn't really come up again, outside of the first season finale and the second season premiere—in which he outright tells her they're Better as Friends.
• Enfant Terrible: Tanner has given most if not all of his previous babysitters PTSD. His victims include Hank (who was tortured with bird poop of all things), and a huge tough-looking guy who can no longer go ten seconds without looking over his shoulder in fear.
  Brent: He's a bit of a bratty kid.
  Wanda: Whaddaya mean, "bratty"?!
  Brent: You know, like, uhh... like a brat. Kind of Hellspawn-ish.
• Fake Food: For the scene in which squeezable mayonnaise reminds Hank of being pooped on by a pet bird, the mayo was mixed with caulking and glue so that it would look more viscous and come out of the bottle slower.
• Favouritism Flip-Flop: Brent first adamantly refuses to watch Tanner for Wanda, until Lacey mentions that she finds it attractive when men are good with kids. Then Brent offers to babysit Tanner, and asks Lacey to join him. She refuses because she hates kids.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: When Brent calls in Emma for help with Tanner, she bellows out one of these. Tanner listens to her immediately. We also get a flashback of Emma using it on Brent when he was a kid.
  Emma: Use their whole name. They hardly ever hear all three of their names, so it kind of puts them off-balance.
  Brent: Mentally?
  Emma: Exactly.
  • Brent tries to do this to Lacey at the end of the episode when he finds out that she placed a bet on him calling Emma... but fails because he doesn't know her middle name.
    Brent: Lacey Esther Burrows...
    Lacey: [mockingly] That's not my middle name! [leaves]
    Brent: [chases after her] ...Charlene? ...Gertie? ...Sunshine? ...Fern?
• Gag Echo: Oscar criticizes Brent for having impulse buy items on the counter, mocking a hypothetical customer saying "Here's 20 bucks for gas and- oh, what's this? Licorice? I know I shouldn't, but I can't resist." Later, when Oscar is filling in at the gas station, a customer comes in and says this exact line, word-for-word. Oscar accuses her of being sent by Brent as a prank, and shoos her out of the store.
• The Ghost: Tanner never appears on screen. We only see shots from his perspective.
• Hippie Parents: Or rather a decades-old Hippie Parenting book, written by a Dr. Spearmint Fur, which was the only parenting book the library had. Brent tries to use it to control Tanner.
• Impending Doom P.O.V.: This is Played for Laughs when showing action from Tanner's perspective. There is usually ominous music playing and he's looking through some kind of lattice work at his "victims". It even causes Hank to go bolting out of the house in The Tag, though Tanner is supposedly in bed by this point.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
  Hank: [Soccer]'s a complex sport. It took me quite some time before I fully understood the subtleties of the game. Hey, what's he doing? [yells at the TV] You can't pick up the ball and run with it like that, you moron!
  Paul: Uh, this is rugby.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The dentists in the phone book include the likes of Dr. Hertz, Dr. Payne, and Dr. Yankum. Brent thinks Wanda is making them up until she shows him. The dentist Wanda had previously went to (which gave her a fear of dentists) is named Dr. McGee, which doesn't sound bad... except his first name is Lance.
• Nine out of Ten Doctors Agree: When Wanda says that she hasn't seen a dentist since 1992.
  Brent: Well, you should try and squeeze in a visit every decade or so. Four out of five dentists recommend seeing a dentist. I'm not sure what the fifth guy's thinking.
• Never My Fault: Oscar never takes responsibility for fires that occur at the gas station.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Emma advises Brent to use vague, nonspecific threats when dealing with kids, because they have such an overactive imagination that whatever they fill in the blanks with will be much scarier than anything you can possibly think of. For example, a simple threat of "you won't like what happens next" causes a young Brent to imagine his parents sending a vampire up to his room to suck his blood, scaring him into obedience immediately.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: Brent thinks that "nougat" might be one, and wonders if it's real or made up.
• Police Are Useless:
  Oscar: Is it illegal for kids to smoke?
  Davis: [shrugs] What am I, a lawyer?
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  • After Emma gives Brent some sage advice on dealing with kids.
    Brent: You're like Yoda.
    Emma: ...I don't know what that means.
  • Brent tries to scare Tanner by pretending he's various gory horror movie villains such as Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, but it fails because Tanner doesn't know who they are (and even confuses one with someone else).
    Brent: I guess six-year-olds don't watch a lot of slasher flicks.
• Scary Librarian: Alice is very insistent that Brent whisper in the library, despite the fact that they are the only two people there.
• Shout-Out: For the second episode in a row Spider-Man is referenced, this time with Brent thinking that one of the dentists in the phone book, Dr. Payne, fought him.
• The Tooth Hurts: The A Plot is kicked off by Wanda suffering from a toothache.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Hank calls out the bargoers and himself for making bets on what cruel fate will befall Brent from looking after Tanner.
  Hank: We should be ashamed of ourselves. Our good friend is in grave danger and we're sitting here trying to profit off his misery. Well, I'm not playin' your sick game anymore. Brent needs my help.