"This Show Is Called Squidbillies" is the first episode from the first season of Squidbillies. It first aired on October 16, 2005 on [Adult Swim]. This episode serves as the backstory for the series, focusing on Rusty's conception and childhood leading to his reunion with his father, Early Cuyler.
Plot[]
The show’s Narrator introduces the main setting of Squidbillies. The show takes place in a quiet little mountain town nestled in the North Georgia Mountains, which has a Gas Station, a dance studio, and a Sheriff's Office. The town’s Sheriff immediately comes out of the dance studio, in a ballet outfit, smoking a cigarette but starts coughing. The Narrator claims that in three years from now he’ll die of emphysema while the Sheriff continues to stretch. A large building known as Dan Halen’s Sheetrock International is then introduced, which specializes in various products such as sheetrocks and a dangerous baby care product known as the Baby Hammock. The latter of which is responsible for killing infants. The building’s current CEO Dan Halen got another report of a baby that died from the Baby Hammock, prompting him to sue the infant’s parents. During a lawsuit at the courthouse, the parents had violated Dan Halen’s copyright by calling the Baby Hammock as the term, Baby Death Trap, which Dan Halen was already using for another product with the same exact name.
The Narrator introduces more people that live in the town of Dougal County. The people revealed here are Space Baby, an alien baby, Snakeman, a Snake resident that kills and eats a nearby bystander, and Billy Morton, a young boy that has sticks for arms and wooden planks for legs who is also the star of a local football team. The latter of which heads to the Sheriff and tries to throw his football, but falls onto the ground. Billy tells the Sheriff that he has to go back to practice but gets hit by a nearby truck, leaving nothing but his stick arms and wooden plank legs on the streets, as soon the Sheriff goes back to doing his ballet. The Narrator explains that this is the story of all the people that live in this mountain town, but was mostly the story of Early Cuyler, a green Appalachian Mud Squid, who is seen licking a pumpkin on the porch of someone’s house. He is then interrupted by a man who tells him to get off his porch before Early throws Molotov cocktail at him, which ends up setting the man and his own house on-fire.
Early Cuyler’s real story begins fifteen years ago where he was a young squid who fell in love with an obese woman from the Junkyard named Krystal, who asks to give her a Walkman before he can intimately touch her front butt. Early Cuyler, resorting in an armed robbery, steals a Walkman from a store clerk named Boyd at the local convenience store. Early returns to her to offer the Walkman to marry him but finds her with Snakeman in a community toilet and also forgot to get a tape cassette for the Walkman. Early returns to Boyd’s to steal a tape cassette named Company’s 10 from 6 but gets the wrong tape instead and even threatens Boyd with his 12 gauge shotgun. He was then caught by the Sheriff and was sentenced to prison for the next fifteen years. Meanwhile, his dear fiancé Krystal waited for him for over 12.14 seconds and marries Snakeman. Unbeknownst to Early, she was pregnant with a child named Rusty, who is shown in his mother’s womb, along with an unknown man who asks the Narrator for help. Krystal abandons baby Rusty onto a doorstep and is left with Early’s sister Lil Cuyler, a squid who owns a beauty salon. Lil finds Baby Rusty in a chicken bucket but drops him out of the said bucket, making him cry, as Lil wanted some chicken to eat.
Rusty was raised by Lil after that and also gives the Sheriff a perm while Lil just watches some television. The Sheriff discovers Lil’s Meth Lab and asks her if the lab is moonshine or not, due to moonshine being illegal in Dougal County, which the lab wasn’t. The Sheriff starts speaking gibberish and commits suicide as Rusty shampooed him with over half a million dollars of crystal meth, before Lil starts to smoke his head with a chainsaw. The Narrator states that after this occurred, the state of Georgia stepped in and entrusted Rusty to a more positive environment with his grandmother Granny Cuyler, before escaping via jumping out of the window. Granny also screams as she had a gigasm. Sometime later, Rusty becomes lonely in the woods for a while and attempts to shoot and kill himself with a rifle, but was saved by a Wolf. Although, the said creature then mauled his face after that. Rusty was raised by Wolves for the next eleven years in the woods, but they would often attack and maul his own face. The Narrator reveals that Rusty also stuffed himself with 130 pounds of nitroglycerin, which blew all of the Wolves and much of the forest into a fine brown mist. This was all luckily a dream that he had. Rusty also has another dream where he is a rock-star in the band Rush, but wakes up from it and explains his dream to Lil while the latter watches some more television. After Rusty is told by Lil that he is actually naked, the Narrator cuts a dream but Rusty is shown humping a nameless creature in the next scene. The Narrator claims that this actually happened, revealing that this wasn’t actually a dream at all.
While walking down a dirt path Rusty discovers and meets his father for the first time in a chain gang of Prisoners, but mistakes his father for one of the chained inmates. The Sheriff, in tears, unchains Early so he can go with his son to start a new life with his kin. Although, Early does kill one of the chained prisoners. The Sheriff also frees Snakeman but gets devoured by him. At the dinner table, Rusty settles into a normal family life with his father and aunt Lil. Early teaches him some fatherly advice as he is going on a date with two different girls on the same night who don’t even know he’s a squid. However, Early tries to beat him with a stick due to him forgetting that he has a family and still remembers being in prison before being stopped by Lil.
Early's Trucker Hats[]
- "Here's The Beef"
- "Breathe If You're Horny"
Characters/Cast[]
- Early Cuyler (Unknown Hinson)
- Russell "Rusty" Cuyler (Daniel McDevitt)
- Lil Cuyler (Patricia French)
- Granny Cuyler (Dana Snyder)
- Krystal (Mary Kraft)
- Sheriff (Charles Napier)
- Dan Halen (Todd Hanson)
- Rusty's Grandfather (Pete Smith)
- Reverend (Scott Hilley)
- Snake Man
- Billy Morton (Nick Ingkatanuwat)
- Prisoner / Tattoo Artist (Dave Willis)
- Man In Krystal's Womb (Christian Danley)
- Prisoners (Lane Grayson)
- Space Baby
- Wolves
- Yellow Creature
- Narrator (Dave Willis)
Trivia[]
- This episode is officially known as the first episode of Squidbillies. Although, the Rough Cut Pilot originally aired on April 1st, 2005.
- This is one of few episodes in the series not to have an Early Trucker Opening, despite this actually being the pilot episode.
- Live-action footage of a Mother struggling with her infant can be seen in the respective Baby Hammock and Baby Death Trap commercials. A photoshopped baby is also present in these said commercials.
- The production music Countdown by Killer Tracks/Universal Production Music plays in the respective Baby Hammock and Death Trap commercials. This music is also heard again in "Take This Job & Love It."
- When Early leaves the convenience store, he told Boyd that he’ll see him in church. This is the only mention of the Dougal County Church in the first season, which isn’t physically seen until the Season 2 episode "Giant Foam Dickhat Trouble."
- When Early heads to the junkyard to find Krystal and Snakeman in a community toilet, having sex, a shooting star appears in the sky just before the scene.
- The name of the wrong tape cassette that Boyd gave to Early was called Camper Van Who Billy.
- The chicken bucket that appears in this episode would later appear again in "The Appalachian Mud Squid: Darwin’s Dilemma" and "Reunited, And It Feels No Good" respectively.
- The crying sound effect used for Baby Rusty in this episode was also heard in two episodes of 12 oz. Mouse, another Adult Swim series, and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "HypnoGerm."
- This is one of the few episodes in the series where the Dougal County Hospital is actually a nursing home, with the others being "School Days, Fool Days" and "Asses to Ashes, Sluts to Dust." The nursing home also briefly appeared in the episode "Wing Nut."
- When Granny is talking to Rusty in her nursing room, Rusty actually tries opening the door using the knob to escape. Voices are also heard on the intercom during this scene.
- Granny stated that when she was little, she didn’t have fancy ketchup, only regular ketchup, which they made out in the back with opossum tails and only called it blood.
- When Rusty was raised by wolves, he was taught how to ride a bike, go to sleep so the Tooth Fairy would come and bring him money, and had to be educated about the birth of Wolf pups.
- The names of the two girls that Rusty had a date with on the same night are respectively named Tanya and Tara. They’re never mentioned again after this episode. These two girls could also be Hispanics, as implied by Early.
- Near the end of the episode, Early shows Rusty his own demon tattoo with a red demon-like creature with two heads, which has eyes in the back of it. This tattoo is never seen again after this episode.
- The name of the series’ final episode "This Show Was Called Squidbillies" is a direct reference and callback to this pilot episode.
References & Allusions[]
- The shape of Sheriff's fleshy face heavily resembles Meatwad, one of the main characters from the Adult Swim series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
- Two members of the Canadian rock band Rush can be seen in one of Rusty’s dreams.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Quotes[]
- To view Quotes from this episode, click this link.