With his popularity dwindling, Jay tries to write another Pulitzer prize-winning article.
This episode has examples of
- Advice Backfire: Adolf Hitmaker encourages Jay be big and jolly, like Santa Claus or Rush Limbaugh. The result is a morbidly obese Jay.
- Bad "Bad Acting": The woman in Jay's Le Film Artistique delivers the closing line in wooden fashion (as well as mispronounces "Prometheus").Woman: Oh, no, Promothesus!
- Every Man Has His Price: After Jay takes home his Pulitzer, he finds Duke waiting and offering to hire him back with an increase in pay. Jay balks at this, until he sees the amount.Jay: You think you can put a price on my humiliation? [Duke hands him the check] Wow! That's it to the penny!
- Fun with Homophones: Professor Blowhard's class showcases some of the later works of Orson Welles, including a pea commercial.Orson Welles: Rosebud... yes, Rosebud Frozen Peas. Full of country goodness and green pea-ness. Wait, that's terrible. I quit.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Jon Lovitz's Saturday Night Live co-star Phil Hartman voices Adolf Hitmaker, Bernie Wasserman, and Professor Blowhard.
- If It Was Funny the First Time...: Duke explains that Jay is starting to repeat himself, and shows three clips from 1988, 1992, and 1993: "Rain Man / A Few Good Men / The Firm is the latest stinker from Tom Cruise. He doesn't act anymore, he's on Cruise-control! AHAHA! AHA! I JUST! MADE THAT! UP!"
- Impact Silhouette: Returning home from the ceremony, Jay finds Duke in his apartment and asks how he got in. Duke says he has his ways, and the camera pans over to a Duke-shaped hole in the wall.
- Intentional Weight Gain: Adolf Hitmaker convinces Jay that people will love him if he's "big and jolly, like Santa Claus or Rush Limbaugh," so Jay gorges himself to become obese. He then spends several months undergoing liposuction.
- Kick the Dog: Duke firing Jay from his job while the latter is naked (because he thinks it will help him creatively) isn't really that bad in-and-of itself. But Duke rubs salt in the wound when he tosses Jay's clothes out the window and tells him to go fetch them.
- Le Film Artistique: Jay shows off his college film (L'Artiste est Morte) to Marty, Margo, and Jeremy. He stars in it as an angsty, overly dramatic figure bemoaning being alone, which is followed by a hodgepodge of random clips. It ends with Jay's character's suicide (the impact of which is further undermined by him having to correct the woman's pronunciation of "Prometheus"). Even Jay has to admit this movie stunk.
- Naked People Are Funny: At one point, Jay tries to write in the buff because he thinks being naked helps his creativity.
- No Sympathy: Jay thinks Duke won't fire Jay because he's naked and it would be humiliating for him to lose his job that way. But not only does Duke fire him, not caring how vulnerable Jay is, he also tosses Jay's clothes out the window and tells him to go fetch them.
- Old Shame: Jay views his old college film as such.Jay: I know... It stinks.
- Obsessive Spokesperson: The episode parodies the food commercials that Orson Welles did late in his life. Welles has a low opinion of the peas and wine commercials,
doing them only for the money, but has an intense attachment to the frozen fishsticks ones. Several times when filming other works, some of which aren't even commercials, he'll switch to plugging fishsticks and eating them on camera. Even as a ghost he's still snacking on them, claiming they taste even better when one is dead. - Recognition Failure:
- Bernie and later Professor Blowhard mistake Jay for Stubby Kaye.
- A woman arrives at Jay's party saying she's a big fan and then asks him to sing the theme to Here Come the Brides. Duke realizes she's mistaken Jay for Bobby Sherman, but Jay opts to roll with it.
- Self-Serving Memory: Jay recalls the first time he won the Pulitzer involving a lousy time on the dance floor and a woman coldly rejecting him. Jay doesn't like this memory at all, so he tries again with "the power of self-delusion." This time, we see him dancing amazingly, the woman is infatuated with him, onlookers cheer him, and a "We Love Jay" banner appears.
- Take That!: When Bernie has one job for him, Jay will only accept so long as it's not on Fox.
