Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law/SPF

SPF
Season 2, Episode 5
Airdate	May 9, 2004
Production Number	625-010
Written by	Michael Ouweleen Erik Richter
Directed by	Richard Ferguson-Hull
← 2x04 High Speed Buggy Chase	2x06 → Back to the Present
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law — Season Two

SPF is the fifth episode of the second season of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and the fourteenth episode overall. When he discovers a mole on his lip, Birdman becomes terrified of the sun and addicted to tanning cream.

Guest Stars: Grey Delisle (Cosmetician/Debbie), Chris Edgerly (Doctor), Maurice LaMarche (Apache Chief/Blue Falcone/Hi Riser), Neil Ross (Ding-a-Ling/Vulturo), Wally Wingert (Harry Twiddles/Moby Dick)

Plot Overview

After coming into the office, Peanut spots a mole on Harvey's face and tells him that he should have it checked out. The doctor at Birdman's HMO tells him to put on sunscreen and avoid the sun to prevent his condition from getting worse. He complies, despite the fact that he gets his energy from the sun. He passes out in his office in time for a new client to come in. Ding-a-Ling would like to issue a cease-and-desist order against the owners of Dingaling.biz, who are using the name to sell pornography.

Although Birdman is too drained to understand exactly what is going on, Peanut offers him a tube of tanning cream that re-energizes Birdman instantaneously. He takes the case and throws furniture. Birdman's energy fades quickly, and he starts selling his possessions to get another tube of cream.

Birdman and Ding-a-Ling go to trial, but again his energy fades. Peanut gets him another tube and he goes on with introducing several others who have had their names hijacked by pornographic websites like Hi-Riser, Big Duke, Bigger Duke, Kwicky, Shnooker, Magic Rabbit, Fluid Man, Dirty Dawg, Mother Load, and Galtar and His Golden Lance. Birdman calls Harry Twiddles to the stand, but passes out quickly after. Peanut offers to bring him up to "The French Stuff," but it costs Birdman his apartment, and he becomes a streetwalking prostitute to raise the rest of the money.

After the case (whose outcome isn't revealed to the audience), Harvey's friends hold an intervention about his addiction to tanning cream, but it doesn't quite stick until Reducto switches the tanning cream with hemorrhoid shrinking cream. At the end, it turns out that the mole was actually some gravy. The cast holds public service announcement about having your moles checked before it's too late at the end of the episode.

Notes

• Ding-a-Ling was the sidekick of Hanna-Barbera character Hokey Wolf; the two of them appeared together in the third and fourth seasons of The Huckleberry Hound Show.
• The other Hanna-Barbera characters who testified in the trial were:
  • Hi-Riser, from Wheelie and the Chooper Bunch.
  • Big Duke, Bigger Duke, and Mother Load, from Posse Impossible.
  • Kwicky Koala and Dirty Dawg, from The Kwicky Koala Show.
  • Shnooker, Mumbly's sidekick.
  • Magic Rabbit, from Laff-a-Lympics.
  • Fluid Man, from The Impossibles.
  • Galtar, from Galtar and the Golden Lance.
  • Mr Twiddles (as a parody of Larry Flynt), from the Wally Gator cartoons.
• Ding-a-Ling would appear again in the episode "The Death of Harvey," and also be seen during a brief flashback scene in "Identity Theft."

Trivia

The Show

• Composite: The pornographic image at the beginning of the episode on the front page of Dingaling.biz is actually a composite of several paintings by famous pre-19th century painters.
• Cameo: Harvey Birdman's parents in the episode are actually modeled after Richard Ferguson-Hull's parents, one of which works in a Yale law library.

Behind the Scenes

• Production: This is the first episode of the series that is produced using Flash Animation based in Atlanta instead of traditional animation with Korean animators. The series creators were skeptical about Flash initially, but they were so happy with the "punchiness" of the camera moves that they didn't go back to traditional animation.
• Cut Scene: Originally in the episode, there was going to be a court scene where Harvey would reflect on "the hilarious antics of Ding-a-Ling," but they would wind up showing several clips of him talking—which is about all that Ding did in the original series.
• Porn Names: Roger Ramjet and Sargent Blast were two cartoon characters with hijacked names that they were told that they could not use in the episode.

Quotes

• Harvey: Sunblock? So if I use this, I'll be alright?
  Doctor: Oh, you're gonna die. Maybe not now or of that, but eventually you'll die. Probably painfully, too.
• Debbie: A, [clears throat], Mr. Ding-a-Ling here to see you.
  [Harvey, Avenger, and Peanut laugh]
  Harvey: Mr. Ding-a-ling!
  Mightor: Ha ha, deedle-deedle-dee.
  Ding-a-Ling: Gee whizzes, Mr. Birdman, something awful's happened. I went to register my name, because I wanna do a website for all my fans...
  [Harvey, Avenger, and Peanut laugh again]
  Ding-a-Ling: ...and this is what came up. It's pictures, dirty pictures!
  Peanut: You think you've got it bad, you should see what Tweetypie.org looks like. Yeah, "Tawt I taw a puddy... tat."
• Peanut: So remember, even though we're stars...
  Phil: Doesn't mean we care. Don't!

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