Meta-TV Stuff: My Name is Earl has hidden depths
My Name is Earl is my new guilty pleasure TV viewing (still on iTunes, so each episode is only 23 minutes of my life that I could have spent reading Tolstoy). (And, yes, I know I am very late to this, like every other, party.)
Julia was baffled as to why she was having trouble following Catalina’s jags in Spanish. Turns out, context is everything. The translations turn out to be the kind of self-aware gags that made Earl famous when they screwed around with the border space and easter eggs for HDTVs:
In “Barn Burner”(1.11), while it appears that Catalina is cursing out Joy, she is actually saying: “I want to thank the Latino audience that tunes in towatch the show every week. And to those of you who aren’t Latino, I want to congratulate you for learning another language.”
“In “Number One”(1.24), Catalina appears to be matching Joy’s drunken insults with insults of her own, but she’s actually saying: “With this, we conclude our first season of Earl! We’re very grateful for your company, and we hope to see you next fall!”
In “Robbed a Stoner Blind”(2.8), the cartoon version of Catalina delivers this message: “This was going to be me taking my head off to dust with it, but animation is so expensive, it’s better you see me dance!”
In “The Trial”(2.23), after being asked to be a character witness for Joy, Catalina replies: “Thanks for watching our show; we will miss you this summer.Doesn’t it seem funny to you that Earl thinks I’m saying how much I hate Joy while in reality I’m saying how much I love you?”
In “The Frank Factor”(3.4) Catalina explains that a continuity error was noticed by the producers.
In “Frank’s Girl”(3.6) Catalina says after being photographed in the bathroom: “if you were offended by these jokes, we’re very sorry but we thought they were funny.”