All a Clone by the Telephone
Leon (Harry Anderson), a failing TV screenwriter, discovers that his answering machine has developed sentience and a snarky demeanor. Speaking in Leon's voice, the machine tells Leon that it comes from an alternate universe where automated voices like itself are the dominant race, and demonstrates its boastful and strong-willed nature by taking over Leon's life. Leon soon grows tired of the machine and turns it off, but this results in him being hounded by the machine's friends, who endlessly repeat useless information to drive him mad.
Tropes:
- Alternate Universe: Where Leon's answering machine purportedly comes from.
- Cargo Ship: In-Universe. As a demonstration of its power to Leon, his answering machine contacts the answering machine of a local movie theater... and then begins hitting on it.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Leon is seen smoking as he watches TV, sometime after the voices start coming after him.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Before Leon turns his answering machine off, the machine ominously warns him that it has "friends" that'll come after him. Its friends, a bunch of automated hotlines, do indeed come after Leon, hunting him down wherever he is and bombarding him with information that won't affect him at all.
- Downer Ending: Leon discovers that what the machine wants is the credit for his TV miniseries, and he's forced to type down everything it comes up with as its uncredited ghostwriter. Given the comedy styling of the episode, it's Played for Laughs.
- Faint in Shock: Leon does so as he hears his answering machine flirt with the one from the theater.
- Funny Answering Machine: Leon's machine houses an alternate version of himself that exists as an automated voice, and it soon runs roughshod over Leon's life.
- Haunted Technology: Leon's answering machine, which speaks in his voice and takes over his life, claiming it comes from an alternate universe full of sentient automatic voices like itself. When Leon shuts the machine off, the voice sends its "friends" after him, who drive him insane by reciting information that's utterly useless to him.
- Hearing Voices: A literal variation, as automated messages, friends of the voice in his machine, keep hounding Leon while he's at home, his agent's office, even out on the street, with completely impractical information.
- Large Ham: Leon's answering machine absolutely pours on the ham whenever it talks.
- Lighter and Softer: It's not as ridiculous as the previous episode, but this one still plays things for comedy.
- Loser Protagonist: Leon can never catch a break, since his fiancee drifts in and out of his life, he hasn't had work or sold one of his ideas in months, and the answering machine basically turns him into its ghostwriter.
- Relationship Revolving Door: Thanks to the machine's meddling, Leon's lover Dolores keeps going from wanting to marry him to never wanting to see him again, and then right back to wanting to marry him.
- Shout-Out:
- The miniseries pitch that Leon's machine comes up with at the end borrows heavily from Casablanca and Gone with the Wind. Given that the voice is from an alternate universe, it's justified from its point of view, since these films may not exist where it comes from.
- The answering machine flirts with the one in the movie theater by saying it has connections to Ingmar Bergman, offering to let her dub his films in English.
- Someday This Will Come in Handy: Sharply averted for Leon, as the automated voices that follow him everywhere bombard him with information that won't be useful to him at all, punishing him with boredom for turning off his answering machine.
- World of Ham: Leon, his answering machine, Dolores, and pretty much everyone else go overboard on the ham.
- Writers Suck: Leon hasn't been able to sell even one of his ideas for six months, and Dolores lets him know that his writing sucks before she breaks up with him a second time.
