To improve his image, Jay brings his mother onto the show. However, things start to backfire when he ends up yelling at Eleanor.
This episode has examples of
- Actor Allusion: While Jay works on a plan to improve his image, Duke puts in filler in place of the show: a speech from the 1988 elections featuring Michael Dukakis. Jon Lovitz portrayed him on Saturday Night Live.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Jay when he finally explodes at Eleanor.
- Calling the Old Man Out: A subversion involving Jay standing up to Duke, his boss, over his stupid and humiliating ways to gain new viewership, but the thought still counts:Jay: Ah, I'm sorry, boss. It's clear you've worked long and hard to come up with these MIND-BOGGINGLY STUPID IDEAS!!! I mean, I might even go for them, if I had the BRAINS OF AN ICE CUBE, AND THE SELF-ESTEEM OF A WORM!!
- Caustic Critic: The episode opens with Jay denouncing a remake of The Pride of the Yankees for changing the ending to a happy ending and attempting to inform the audience of what really happening. The focus group is also shown watching a clip in which Jay says he was glad that The Beatles broke up. Naturally, none of this has endeared Jay to viewers, with him being denounced as cold, uncaring, and homely.
- Focus Group Ending: Parodied in-universe with the remake of The Pride of the Yankees. After Gehrig delivers the famous speech, he's about to leave, but Babe Ruth stops him and say the team has been working on a cure. Once injected with it, Gehrig is back to form and hits a homerun, with a newsboy announcing the end of the Great Depression and the birth of Bill Cosby. Naturally, Jay is displeased.
- Hypocritical Humor: After Jay yells at Eleanor on air, Franklin (dressed in a diaper and sash) calls him a disgrace to the family. And this was before he begins dancing.
- Orphaned Punchline: "...and that's why I'm glad the Beatles broke up."
- Recognition Failure: The teens at the focus group test have no idea who Adolf Hitler is.
- Take That!:
- When Duke says he's going to spend five days to make him more likable, Jay asks if that's gonna be enough.Duke: Son, I only spent three days with a young man named Bill Clinton and look at him now.
Jay: Maybe you should've taken four.
Duke: [under his breath] Yeah. - Duke says focus groups should be listened to because they decide such thing as the leaders of America. Enter two spaced out, ditzy teens asking when they get their free cookies for participating.
- When Duke says he's going to spend five days to make him more likable, Jay asks if that's gonna be enough.
- Tastes Like Disdain: Jay tries to apologize to his mother Eleanor after humiliating her on television with various methods. One is sending her a Hillshire Farms gift basket loaded up with food; Eleanor's reaction is to destroy it with a shotgun blast as target practice.
