Cameron breaks out his favorite clown costume to make Luke's birthday party a hit. However, a series of accidents causes the party to break into chaos and leads to an unfortunate injury.
Synopsis
Everybody is gathering at the hospital, but we don't know what's going on. Jay is beside himself, in spite of Mitchell's reassurances that it could have been worse. He wanted to know how this could happen.
It starts with the planning of Luke's birthday. Since Luke's birthday always falls around Thanksgiving, he tends to get the short end of the deal, although he tends to like the boxes his stuff comes in better than the stuff itself. Claire wants to give him an "arts and crafts" party in lieu of Thanksgiving dinner. Even Phil thought that was a boring idea, so he has a few ideas on bringing some exotic animals to the party, along with a rock climbing wall. He asks for a bearded dragon, expecting it to breathe fire. Cameron happily lends his karaoke machine, and Mitchell would be even happier if Phil doesn't return it right away...or ever. Cameron inquires about having a clown at the party, and Phil is quite resistant to the idea, Scared in fact. Perhaps because he found a dead clown in the woods once, but he didn't want to assume. Naturally, this won't stop Cameron from breaking out...Fizbo the Clown! Mitchell wants to settle for getting Luke a gift card, but of course Cameron won't be so easily dismissed on this front.
Grandpa Jay is the grandpa we'd all like to have, since he's getting Luke a crossbow. Gloria objects, but only on the basis of how accident-prone Luke is. Not like her, who had a machete as a kid. Manny needs advice from Jay on how to get a hot girl, since obviously Jay is an expert in this. Jay's advice to Manny is...be the funny guy. This instead of having power or money. It doesn't work, so Gloria tells him to just be sweet and adorable. That was an even worse idea. Manny goes to find out what he can do, while Gloria relives her youth in the bouncy castle...and the neighborhood dads watch.
Phil is upset with the animal handler because she brought over the PG-13 animals, as far as he was concerned, and he wanted the scarier ones.
Cameron insists on being Fizbo, and it's a little scary how much Cameron knows about clowns. Fortunately for Mitchell, Fizbo has Mitchell's back when a complete jerk hits Mitchell with his car and wants to pick a fight with him. Mitchell is now liking Fizbo a lot more. Unfortunately, Fizbo is scaring the crap out of Phil.
This was not a problem for Haley. Her problem was the animal trainer, Jungle Tanya. Her boyfriend, Dylan, was fascinated by the animals Jungle Tanya brought to the birthday, including a long snake. Tanya helps Dylan hold the snake, which of course sets off the jealousy alarm bells with Haley. Her solution? Open the container housing a scorpion to get Tanya in trouble.
Right when Mitchell is telling Claire that Fizbo "is a bad-ass," the scorpion makes its appearance and scares the crap out of Fizbo, who runs like a maniac, as do the kids near him. He knocks over the crafts table and gets too close to Phil, who freaks and backs into Jay. The crossbow goes off accidentally and deflates the bouncy castle, and Bianca, the girl Manny was trying to impress, was trapped. In comes Manny on the zip line (that Phil was too dumb to stay away from the whole day), to rescue her...and her balloon animal dog.
And the irony was, at least for Claire, Luke breaks his arm when he slipped on Claire's comb sheath beads. It was the best birthday he ever had. He loves his cast, since they smell after a few weeks, and he wants everybody to sign it. Claire provides him with a nice cast scratcher: a comb with a leather sheath. And Fizbo brought by a cake. Now everybody knows Phil is scared of clowns. And Haley is determined to do the same thing again if Animal Girl goes after her man, she's gonna take her down. And so will the scorpion still in her room.
Guest Starring
- Reid Ewing as Dylan
- Margo Harshman as Jungle Tanya
- Stacey Hinnen as Guy at Gas Station
- Kaitlyn Dever as Bianca Douglas
- Lonnie Colon as Rock Climb Operator
Trivia
- Eric Stonestreet won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance in this episode.
- Nolan Gould considered this episode his favorite of the series.
- This is the lowest rated episode of the series, only watched by 7.12 million of households.
- Phil is afraid of clowns.
Cultural References
- Phil has watched the film Ghostbusters.
- Dylan says he looks like Britney Spears when he has a snake around his neck.
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