Written by Charlie Johnson
All aboard the nostalgia train. This week’s episode of Philly is a parody of the classic 90’s film Home Alone. Bearing in mind, this is one of the few episodes in the series that gets left with a “To Be Continued” at the end and runs a bit shorter. Let’s see how a resourceful Charlie Kelly copes with being left Home Alone.
“I Wish You’d All Just Disappear!”
It’s time for the Superbowl and once again the Philadelphia Eagles have made it to the big stage. The day before the big dance, everyone is getting ready for a road trip. As is his tradition, Charlie wears a green morph suit.
Only today he can’t find it. The Gang gathers outside getting ready to leave and we see Mac and Frank talking about the rest of the group gathered. We see some old favourites including Rickety Cricket, Bill Ponderosa, Uncle Jack, and Ben The Soldier. Charlie hangs a sign on the bar door that says “Clozed 4 Salmonella Becoz Sooper Bol” as The Waitress gets mad at him for not taking their family seriously. Charlie ignores the offered asparagus because it isn’t part of his colour scheme. He has to wear green, drink yellow, and eat brown. He wishes everyone would disappear before storming inside to check again for his morph suit. Meanwhile, the party bus that Frank hired picks everyone up and they leave with someone in a green suit that isn’t Charlie.
Wish Come True
A la Macaulay Culkin, the first thing Charlie does when he realises everyone is gone, is to jump on the bed eating popcorn. He soon starts touching everyone’s stuff and messing around, doing everything he isn’t allowed to. He even tries aftershave. Everything is going swimmingly until Charlie hears the boiler downstairs making threatening sounds. Immediately after, two men try to get into the bar and are confused by the poorly written sign. Scared and alone, Charlie takes it upon himself to create some defence mechanisms.
How to Defend a Bar the Charlie Way
- Place a heated element on the doorknob so that anyone who touches it burns their hand.
- Chug many bottles of beer and smash them on the floor. Anyone who enters will probably slip and fall cutting themselves to ribbons.
- Rig a nail gun to a tripwire. You trip the wire, you get a face full of high velocity nails.
- Dangling paint cans make for a great dropping weapon. Timed perfectly, they can knock out any assailant.
- Place lots of animal traps. The bigger the better. Why use a mouse trap if you have a perfectly good beartrap hanging around?
- Remember the location of each one of your traps. Nothing more embarrassing than getting caught by your own genius.
Caught by His Own Genius
Charlie lays out his perfect battleplan and rolls back through his many, many tripwires feeling safe and secure. That is until he gets his leg stuck in the beartrap. Yikes! That was a bit of blood. What started of as a Home Alone Parody has swiftly become a possible 127 Hours scenario. Against all the odds, Charlie is able to wiggle over to the door. He yanks the element of the handle, catches the hot end in his hands and then uses it to cauterise the gushing wound in his leg. What a boss! The pain is too much, and he passes out. An alarm for the start of the game wakes him up. It’s now night-time and the race is on for Charlie to complete his colour ritual and help the Eagles to victory.
Brown, Yellow, and Green
Charlie first hears a rat scurrying nearby. He coaxes it over, avoiding the traps that he set earlier. He picks up the critter, empathising with what it’s like being caught in a trap. But the rat is just so cute, and tiny, and brown. The next thing we see is Charlie choking down the tail of the rat. The Brown is down, now it’s time for some Green. Not before the rate violently disagrees with him. Charlie pukes everywhere before passing out again. When he wakes up, the Patriots have just scored. He has some Green paint dangling above him. That will do. Gotta keep using the colours. Charlie ties his shoes together and slings them over the rope holding the paint. He celebrates. It’s premature. Now both his shoes and the paint are suspended. Thinking like the rat he just ate, Charlie chews through the tripwire and tries to catch the paint can. It’s an incomplete pass as the can hits him in the head and he’s out again. He wakes up again covered in green paint and red blood, but he has to get some yellow. He starts crawling towards the beer he left at the bar. It’s no use. The chain on his beartrap is wrapped around a stool and he has no more slack to give. Thinking on his feet, he uses his spiked baseball bat to hook the glass and move it towards him. Unfortunately, it tumbles over and the beer spills. In a desperate attempt to finish his colours, Charlie resorts to drinking his own urine.
The Gauntlet
This man is unstoppable! It wasn’t by himself though. He had his personal cheer squad of Eagles players Jason Kelce and Beau Allen hallucinations. From here, adrenaline and hallucinations egging him on, Charlie runs through the gauntlet of his own traps to get to the tv only to fall agonisingly short. Until one of the players reminds him that there was a release on the beartrap this whole time. Come on Charlie, what are you doing? Finally, he’s free and the Superbowl is on tv. Huzzah! But wait, the patriots have the ball. The hallucinations have only one solution to help the Eagles get back in the game. Charlie needs to put his leg back in the trap. To Be Continued.
Summary:
Wow! Charlie is a passionate man. I love my football, but I would never go through any of that if it guaranteed a win for the boys. Nothing like some classic hijinks from a stupid character to make a half hour fly by. I am very intrigued to see what the second half of this story has to offer. I can only hope nothing serious happens to Charlie’s leg in the meantime. Solid comedy episode with some good parodic material with a fresh twist.
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