Frowning Friends
Original air date: 1/10/2022 (produced in 2021)
The Smiling Friends charity finds itself a new competitor in the form of the Frowning Friends, a group that's the exact opposite of them in every way; encouraging people not to do anything with their lives except wallow in their own negative emotions because they'll all die one day. Naturally, this causes the Smiling Friends, especially the Boss, much vexation in running their business, forcing them to find ways to keep afloat while deal with their rivals.
In Memoriam Gag: Sir Oliver Peanut (1892-1944)
Frowning Friends contains examples of...
- An Aesop: It's important to be aware of the world's problems, but unrelenting nihilism is just as unhelpful as unrealistic optimism. Especially if you're unable to genuinely stand by such an ideology.
- Artistic License – History: The Renaissance Men look more like Crusaders than actual Renaissance Men. An uncharacteristically annoyed Pim lampshades to Charlie, who gets defensive about mentioning them earlier. He points out that all he did was say they were in town, not that they were accurate or that he knew they'd kill Grim and Gnarly.
- Atrocity Montage: The Frowning Friends show this to a crowd to coax them to their nihilistic way of looking at things, though Charlie remains unimpressed.
- Brick Joke: The Renaissance Men eventually come into town to riddle the Frowning Friends full of arrows at the end of the episode after Charlie mentions that the group is coming into town.
- Character Death: Grim and Gnarly (but not Mr. Boss, who is protected by Plot Armor) are killed by a volley of arrows fired by the Renaissance Men when they come into town, finally.
- Evil Counterparts: Grim and Gnarly, towards Pim and Charlie. It's even parodied given their overly edgy appearances, such as their leather jackets and dull color palettes.
- Evil, Inc.: somehow Exaggerated, Downplayed, AND Subverted in a way with the Frowning friends. In Exaggeration, since they are the opposite of the Smiling Friends they make people upset and depressed, thing is, no body visibly hires them as clients to do any of this; and in spite of it they somehow have a helicopter and a monitor set up for gatherings. In Downplayed, that's all they really do; they're certainly active nuisances - and while they're able to rile up a crowd, they fold like paper towels when someone is actually confrontational, which leads to a rather easy subversion when Mr. Boss calms down and explains how they were good enough to drive him mad with jealousy, leading them to have a Heel–Face Door-Slam.
- Gaslighting: Discussed: When DJ Spit gets confused over seeing Pim and Charlie, given he previously met Grim and Gnarly, Charlie's attempt at explaining what's going on causes DJ Spit to accuse them of trying to trick him, before pulling out a gun and demanding they "get out of his head". This winds up happening again when the two meet Mr. Man.DJ Spit: I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK NO MORE, MAN!
- Hallucinations: The Boss hallucinates Warren Buffett, Ronald Reagan, and Mr. Peanut as useless financial advisors representing his mental struggle on how to deal with the Frowning Friends. He also hallucinates his reflection as a feral, demonic version of himself chastising him and egging him on and on to kill the Frowning Friends, until he gives in.
- Mind Screw: Mr. Man's head transforming in DJ Spits and pulling a gun out of nowhere. To make matters more confusing it's later shown that Mr. Man and DJ Spit are two different characters entirely.
- Orange/Blue Contrast: The Frowning Friends' building is blue, in contrast with the Smiling Friends' being yellow.
- Sanity Slippage: The Boss has a painful mental breakdown over the course of the episode, culminating in him taking a rifle and going to hunt down the Frowning Friends to gun them down in cold blood. Thankfully he regains his composure the instant he sees Grim begging for his life.
- Take That!:
- DJ Spit is one giant walking one to Soundcloud rappers, given that his abysmal rapping talent, which consists of him mumbling incoherently into his microphone over a mediocre beat, a clear parody of "mumble rappers" that are common on Soundcloud, to his Atrocious Alias being a clear reference to the bizarre names that some of them have.
- Grim breaking down and crying, begging for The Boss not to kill him the instant he shows up with a rifle in hand to gun Grim down immediately after the latter says that "Nothing in life matters because we're all going to die some day." is this towards the philosophy of Nihilism as a whole.
- Too Dumb to Live: Both times Pim and Charlie find themselves getting threatened with a gun, Charlie attempts to de-escalate the situation by trying to yank the gun away. Both times he fails, but at the same time, they leave before the gun is used.
