The Yattering and Jack
The Yattering (Phil Fondacaro) is a demonic imp who has been tasked by Beelzebub (Tom Newman) to obtain a soul. Specifically, its target is pickle salesman Jack Polo (Tony Carbone), who the imp intends to drive to madness. As its master warns it, however, the Yattering must be sure to avoid physically touching Jack before formally claiming his soul, as the imp will become his slave for eternity. The Yattering uses its devilish magic to make all sorts of things go wrong around his house, but Jack demonstrates his utterly carefree nature by refusing to acknowledge the damages. When Jack's daughter Amanda (Danielle Brisebois) visits the house, she notices the strange happenings and becomes convinced that something is in the house, and that her father's devil-may-care attitude is hiding something from her.
Tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: As the carolers' singing gives it excruciating pain, the Yattering begs its master to hear its pleas to make it stop. He does so, but only to tell the imp to shut up and remind it of its task.
- Amicable Exes: Jack caught his wife in bed with his best friend, but with his carefree attitude, he wasn't too broken up about it. There are implications that the pair are still on good terms, as Jack tells Amanda that he may come over to her house for a visit.
- Anthropomorphic Food: In what may be its most ridiculous act in the whole episode, the Yattering brings the Christmas turkey Jack bought at the store to life. It preens itself despite its lack of feathers and a head, and flies itself to the top of the tree, gobbling like a live bird all the while. Jack tries to shrug the event off as the bird being "too fresh", claiming he should've gotten a frozen turkey instead.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Per its mission and its demonic nature, the Yattering boils the fish in Jack's aquarium alive (again). Sometime before the episode began, it also threw his cat in the microwave, calling the scene of "fur and cat brains all over the kitchen wall" its masterpiece.
- Catchphrase: Jack has "Que sera, sera." to establish his (faux) carefree attitude.
- Christmas Carolers: A group of young women from St. Anne's serenade Jack and Amanda with a rendition of "Angels We Have Heard on High", which gives the Yattering immense pain.
- Christmas Episode: The Yattering tries to torture Jack around Christmas, while he's seemingly unaware of anything going wrong.
- Downer Ending: It's a downer from the Yattering's point of view, as it fails its mission to claim Jack's soul and is made his slave forever.
- Dramatic Thunder: Beelzebub's entrance and departure is marked with the sound of booming thunder.
- Establishing Shot: The opening scene is a pan across Jack's living room, decorated for Christmas, as the invisible Yattering breaks a lamp, launches a fire poker at a painting, sweeps Christmas cards off the chimney, and boils the fish in Jack's aquarium alive just as the salesman himself gets home.
- Evil Is Hammy: The Yattering spends a good amount of its time on camera growling and snarling like a rabid dog as it tries to drive Jack insane.
- Beelzebub is the same, parading his status as the lord of all things wicked and anticipating when Jack should finally break.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Towards the end of the episode, when the Yattering keeps locking the front door to prevent Jack and Amanda from leaving the house, Jack suggests that they use the back door. Or rather, he puts his hand to the side of his mouth and announces it to the house.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Jack acts like one for the whole episode, blaming the damage caused by the Yattering on the house settling and raccoons getting inside while he was away. The ending reveals that he was actually well aware of what was going on, and was only acting this way in order to drive the Yattering nuts, duping it into touching him before it claimed his soul.
- Foreshadowing: As Amanda tells him that she's visiting because he shouldn't be spending Christmas alone, Jack foreshadows his knowledge about his demonic stalker by alluding that he's not really alone.
- Good Parents: Jack treasures Amanda with all his heart, gifting her a necklace and trying to hide the Yattering's presence from her so she wouldn't get scared, while also continuing his mission to antagonize it.
- Harmful to Touch: The Treaty of Job mentions that demons are forbidden from touching their intended targets before claiming their souls. If they do so, for any reason, they'll become their victim's slave for eternity.
- Hero Antagonist: Jack, who pretends to have no knowledge of the Yattering's brand of chaos to get it riled up so it'll fail its mission.
- Historical Domain Character: Biblical figure Job is mentioned by Beelzebub, as a treaty in his name was drafted to grant rules in the procedure of stealing a human's soul, as well as the penalties for breaching these rules.
- Holy Burns Evil: At one point, a group of carolers singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" approach the front door of the Polo house, causing the Yattering to cover its ears and scream for the singing to stop.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The Yattering's one utterly pathetic imp, as it fails to claim its victim's soul and is stuck as his servant for the rest of its eternal life. With the torment his chosen victim puts it through, it makes one want to give the little guy a hug.
- Invisible Monsters: The Yattering spends most of the opening act invisible as it trashes Jack's living room, and even when it's not, it's trying to hide from him at every opportunity to throw him off its scent.
- Ironic Echo: Jack makes the Yattering repeat his catchphrase of "Que sera, sera" in the final scene to establish how he doesn't care that he's going to Hell.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After failing its mission to claim Jack's soul by grabbing his hand, Jack puts the Yattering to work cleaning the mess it made trying to drive him insane.
- Lighter and Softer: The Yattering intends to drive Jack to madness by making all sorts of outrageous phenomena happen around his house, with Jack not caring about anything it does.
- Loser Protagonist: The Yattering not only fails to get Jack to notice its presence or claim his soul, it ends the episode becoming his slave for eternity.
- Mellow Fellow: Jack takes his mellowness to unnatural extremes, taking everything that the Yattering does around his house in stride, even when it bombarded his ex-wife with lustful dreams to the point where he walked in on her cheating on him with his best friend. The ending reveals that he knew what was going on all along, and was only acting so mellow to drive the Yattering mad with desperation so it would touch him.
- Mirror-Cracking Ugly: Played with. Jack isn't ugly, but the Yattering breaks his mirror as he sings "Deck the Halls" in front of it, prompting him to excuse it as the house's foundation settling.
- Mr. Exposition: Beelzebub, who reminds the Yattering about Jack's background and its mission to obtain his soul.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Jack actually knew that the Yattering was trying to claim his soul the whole time, so he acted like a carefree boob to drive it to desperation so it would screw up its mission, just as it was trying to do to him.
- Only Sane Woman: Amanda clearly notices that the Yattering is causing chaos around her father's house while invisible, and is greatly troubled by her father's relaxed attitude and continuous lying in the face of the situation.
- Papa Wolf: Jack tries to keep Amanda in the dark about the Yattering's presence in the house, even defending her with a fire poker when the demon throws presents at them.
- Paranoia Gambit: The Yattering's mission, as detailed by Beelzebub, is to surround Jack with its demonic magic via trashing his house, to the point where he'll ultimately renounce God to make the madness stop. Unfortunately for the imp, Jack knew what it was up to the whole time, so he promptly turned the tables.
- Playing with Fire: Being demons, Beelzebub and the Yattering are able to conjure great amounts of heat and flame, such as when the former provides a copy of the Treaty of Job, and the latter boiling the fish in Jack's aquarium and leaving scorched claw marks on the door.
- Ransacked Room: While invisible, the Yattering tears apart Jack's living room. When he gets home, he assumes that raccoons must have gotten inside. When Amanda sees the mess, he claims that it was his own clumsiness that's responsible.
- The Reveal: Jack's mother/Amanda's grandmother turns out to have been a witch, and this is why Beelzebub wanted Jack's soul so badly.
- Satan: Beelzebub, to be precise. He is indirectly summoned by the Yattering when it struggles in its mission to claim Jack's soul, during which he reveals that the imp can't physically touch Jack before formally claiming his soul.
- Too Spicy For Yogsothoth: The Yattering was sent to drive Jack to insanity and despair, but instead finds itself driven crazy by Jack's complete and utter refusal to get upset about anything it does, or even acknowledge that anything unusual is happening. This happens to be what Jack was counting on the whole time.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: As the Yattering vents its frustration to Jack's mellowness to its master, the Yattering reminds Beelzebub of how it subliminally planted erotic dreams into his ex-wife's mind, to the point where she cheated on him with his best friend. True to Jack's nature, he gave the scene his typical "Que sera, sera".
- Villain Protagonist: The Yattering, tasked to drive Jack insane so it can claim his soul for its master.
- Wham Line: If you needed any more proof that Jack knew more about what was going on than he appeared, then take the following line into consideration, after Amanda finally discovered the Yattering and screamed at it:Jack: (to the Yattering, holding it by the collar) Now... you see what you've done? You've frightened my daughter... And don't you ever do that again.
- Wham Shot: When the Yattering blindly grabs Jack to keep him from leaving, Jack, instead of being shocked, tenses up in frustration and glares at it.
- Worth It: The end of the episode has the Yattering point out that having it for a slave means Jack's not going to Heaven anytime soon. Amanda brings this up to her father, but Jack doesn't really care.Amanda: Dad, isn't that true what he just said about Heaven?
Jack: Possibly, yes. But you know what I always say. (to the Yattering, overhearing its angered growling) What are you muttering about back there, Yat?! What is it that I always say?!
Yattering: ..."Que sera, sera"?
Jack: Right! (to Amanda) That's what I always say. - Your Soul Is Mine!: The Yattering is tasked by Beelzebub to claim Jack's soul by driving him to insanity. In a variation of the trope, Beelzebub notes that the process of claiming a soul has rules, as outlined in the "Treaty of Job". The most prominent of these rules is that if the imp touches Jack in any way before claiming his soul, it’ll become his slave forever.
