The sixteenth episode of the second season of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.
To raise money to fund the gold for Jimmy's Hover Hats, Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen get jobs at McSpanky's Burger factory, the #1 fast-food restaurant in Retroville. While Carl and Sheen adapt quickly to their respecitve positions as fry cook and drive-thru attendant, Jimmy gets demoted to more demeaning tasks like cleaning the floors and wearing a burger costume. When he becomes sick of the humiliating work, he turns McSpanky's into an automatic and hygenic restaurant. Everything goes smoothly at the new and improved McSpanky's until Hugh's preference for Taco Shack causes McSpanky's to come to life and attack every place in Retroville that sells food.
This episode provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: This episode's ending implies that the alien bandits Zix, Travoltron, and Tee will attempt to hunt down and capture Skeet, whom they believe to be the technologically-upgraded McSpanky's captain, due his Employee of the Month plaque. However, when they're next chronologically seen in "The Incredible Shrinking Town," they not only don't care for Skeet in the slightest, but he isn't even shown.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Hugh's preference of Taco Shack is what causes McSpanky's to come to life and destroy every fast-food restaurant in Retroville.
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: When Jimmy gets demoted by Skeet for calling Salt "Sodium Chloride", he has to wear a burger costume while standing outside advertising McSpanky's. This results in Cindy and Libby teasing him with a Hurricane of Puns.Cindy: Congratulations, Spewtron. When were you elected leader of the one-man dork parade?(Cindy and Libby laugh)Jimmy: Ladies, aren't we all a bit too old for sophmoric name calling?Libby: He's right, Cindy. Call him by his real name; Patty!(Cindy and Libby continue laughing)Jimmy: I'll have you know that jobs like this are hard to come by!Cindy: Really? I thought they were only medium rare!(Cindy and Libby continue laughing)Jimmy: That's it! I don't have to take this!Cindy: Calm down! Don't pop your sesame seeds! (continues laughing)Libby: Bye, Jimmy! I relish this moment!
- Bait-and-Switch:
- When Sam and Ms. Fowl are seated at a table together, Sam tells Ms. Fowl "Winifred, there's something very important that I want to ask you.", implying that he's asking for her hand in matrimony. He then asks "Are you gonna finish those fries?"
- When Sheen comes in with a wheelbarrow of money, Jimmy asks him if they're their profits for today. Sheen tells him that it was just in the tip jar, and they had to rent a truck for the profits.
- Bizarrchitecture: McSpanky's is in a burger-shaped building, which also includes the giant head of the mascot sticking out of its side, with his mouth serving as the drive-thru window.
- Bizarre Taste in Food:
- Skeet's breakfast of choice is a McSpanky burger with hot sauce, medium fries, and a small soda.
- Bolbi is revealed to eat a burger, fries, and milkshake kabob, as it's what was served in his home country of Backhairistan.
- Principal Willoughby is revealed to enjoy a pineapple burger with low-cal thousand-island dresssing.
- Burger Fool: Jimmy, Carl and Sheen get jobs at McSpanky's to fund the gold for Jimmy's Hover Hats. While Carl and Sheen actually enjoy their jobs (and even prove to be pretty competent workers), Jimmy gets the short end of the stick when manager Skeet makes him advertise the place wearing a ridiculous burger costume.
- Can't Take Criticism: It only takes one person wanting something else for the McSpanky's computer to see its entire service as unsatisfiable.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Carl says that he knew a fast-food restaurant that lets the customer have it their way was just a crazy dream, Jimmy exclaims, "Hey, wait a minute! Carl, that's it!" Sheen then exclaims "You mean this is all a crazy dream? All right, bring on the dancing tubas!"
- Continuity Nod: When Carl's life begins to flash before his eyes, he brings up the time he ate toothpaste and his burps were minty fresh.
- Dumbass Has a Point: When Jimmy works the cash register, instead of ringing up the customers' orders on the register, he memorizes the prices and does the taxes and change in his head. Skeet chastises Jimmy for this, telling him to push the buttons with pictures of food on them, which Jimmy brushes off. While Skeet may be a ditzy manager, in reality, what Jimmy was both illegal for a business that needs all of its transactions monitored by the register for the sake of both inventory and taxes, but also impractical since it leaves the customer without a sales receipt. Later, when Jimmy's asked to mop up the restaurant's floor, Skeet tells him that he missed a spot of spilled salt, Jimmy insists on correcting him by calling it by its chemical name; "sodium chloride". While Skeet demoting Jimmy because he thought he didn't even know what salt was and thinking he was too stupid for mop duty is a bit harsh, using scientific names and five-dollar-words in a simple fast-food job is textbook Insufferable Genius behavior, and talking back to bosses for trivial reasons rarely ends well.
- Employee of the Month: Skeet, the manager of McSpanky's is the Employee of the Month even though he seems to be the only person working there before Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen came along. He apparently cherishes his award so much that he initially refused to leave the building after it goes haywire, that is, until he's almost crushed by a falling pillar.
- From Bad to Worse: McSpanky's starts destroying every other fast-food restaurant due to Hugh complaining how he preferred Taco Shack. After it succeeds in this, instead of landing like Jimmy expected it to, it started to head to the supermarket instead. Jimmy realizes it isn't satisfied just being the only fast-food restaurant in town, it wants to destroy every other place that sells food so people will have no choice but to eat there.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The conflict for the first half of the episode is Jimmy and friends getting jobs at McSpanky's to replace the gold belonging to their parents that they accidentally destroyed with Jimmy's new invention. Halfway in, this plot point is dropped as the conflict turns to Jimmy trying to impress Skeet by upgrading the restaurant into a high-tech self-automated dining facility, only for the place to go haywire and attempt to destroy every competing restaurant in town.
- Hash House Lingo:
- Sheen is at the drive-thru window and calls out the order through this. Carl replies, "Doing the tango or whacking the goose?" Sheen looks back at the car and asks, "'You want a dollar salad?" then refers to "yes" as "He's packing light!"
- This becomes a Running Gag, to the point where the following exchange occurs:Sheen: Hey, Carl. Gimme a fat taxi driver with a Polish accent.Carl: You want a hamburger with peanut butter on it?Sheen: No, but if Jimmy's leaving, we'll need a ride home.
- Later, when Jimmy tricks the computerized restaurant into flying into the sun by ordering four deluxe burgers cooked at 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit, Sheen cries out "A King Arthur with a hip replacement, on a bed of coals?!".
- Hurl It into the Sun: When McSpanky's decides to destroy the supermarket, not being satisfied after having destroyed every fast-food restaurant in Retroville, Jimmy defeats the computerized restaurant by tricking it into flying into the sun by ordering four deluxe burgers cooked at 20,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Ironic Echo: Cindy and Libby mock Jimmy when he gets put in a burger costume, with Cindy calling him "leader of the one-man dork parade". After McSpanky's gets upgraded, he sticks them both in the utility closet to eat, with Cindy complaining they know him. Jimmy smugly reminds her of her earlier comment that he's the "leader of the one-man dork parade".
- Jerkass Has a Point: After Jimmy redesigns McSpanky's and tells Cindy and Libby that they'll have to wait an hour for the next available table (unless they want to sit in the utility closet), Cindy tells Jimmy that just because he works at Retroville's most popular fast-food restaurant doesn't mean he's not still a stuck-up jerk.
- Job-Stealing Robot: Practically speaking Jimmy's upgraded McSpanky's amounts to this, but the actual plot tries to downplay it, as everyone who gets replaced (Sheen, Carl, Skeet) still keeps a job afterwards. Hell, even though he spent the previous day complaining about Jimmy's performance, Skeet seems to have absolutely no problem being reassigned to standing in a corner and watching the customer satisfaction meter.
- Logo Joke: Paul is missing from the DNA Productions Vanity Plate.
- Look Behind You: After Jimmy redesigns McSpanky's, Carl becomes the doorman and refuses to let Hugh into the restaurant. Hugh manages to distract Carl by saying "Hey, look, a famous movie star!" while he and the other customers sneak into the restaurant.
- My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Carl experiences this as the Hover Hats start to malfunction.
- Noodle Incident:
- This episode reveals that Judy keeps several gold bars buried under the lawn in case Hugh gives all the Neutron family's money to telemarketers... again. Jimmy uses it to power his Hover Hat.
- When Hugh tells Judy about the Mucho Carne Fiesta he's planning to have at Taco Shack, Judy reminds him of what happened last year. Hugh assures her that with today's anesthesia, he doesn't even know his stomach's being pumped.
- Only One Finds It Fun: When Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen look for places to apply for a job, each of them finds a job that only one of them likes; Jimmy's is a nuclear physicist, Sheen's is a yoga instructor, and Carl's is a belly dancer.
- Really 17 Years Old: When Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen apply for jobs at McSpanky's, Skeet asks them how old they are. While Carl admits that he's only eleven, Jimmy lies that he's seventeen and Sheen lies that he's twenty-seven. Skeet accepts this without questioning it.
- Rhymes on a Dime:
- McSpanky's slogan is "Big McThankies from McSpanky's!" When Jimmy finds the slogan cliched, he tries to come up with a better one; "Don't let our food be denied you, Put our polyunsaturated fats and triglycerides inside you!" Skeet is not amused and demotes Jimmy to janitorial work for this.
- When Jimmy gets demoted to wearing a burger costume and advertising McSpanky's, he is forced to chant "If you want cheap food with taste, put McSpanky's in your face!"
- Taco Shack's theme song, as sung by Hugh, is as follows:Taco Shack, Taco Shack,You'll eat cheese until you yack,Frijoles there are always black,And give a big Pinata whack!Taco, Taco, Taco Shack!
- Scary Stinging Swarm: Sheen attacks a beehive, which causes a swarm of bees to chase him, and Carl until Jimmy sprays Bee-Be-Gone poison to kill the bees.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Hugh and Judy had a hand in McSpanky's coming to life and destroying every restaurant in Retroville. Hugh had been planning to have lunch at Taco Shack for at least a day, but Judy insisted on having lunch at McSpanky's to support Jimmy's new job rather than go there later. When Hugh makes it clear that he'd rather have lunch at Taco Shack, McSpanky's AI goes berserk and starts destroying not just Taco Shack, but other fast-food restaurants as well.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The bit about Jimmy and co. accidentally destroying the gold used to power the Hover Helmets and having to raise money to replace them, the reason they took jobs at McSpankeys in the first place? It's never brought up again after they get the jobs and the conflict shifts to Jimmy, fed up with being constantly demoted, upgrading the restaurant to be automated and having to save the town from it when it goes haywire.
- The Worst Seat in the House: Played With; Jimmy purposely makes the only seats available for Cindy and Libby at the upgraded McSpanky's be the ones in the closet, as revenge for how they made fun of him earlier. Cindy is outraged and initially begins to walk away, but Libby still asked for the seat anyway with Cindy excitedly coming back as well. Apparently the upgraded McSpanky's is so good that even the worst seat is still a good experience.
