A Ding from Down Under

General	Script	Gallery

"Lights Out"

"A Ding from Down Under"

"The Wedding Destroyers"

"A Ding from Down Under"
Episode name reference to/pun on: None
Season 2, Episode 44
Airdate:	CAN: May 22, 2005 USA: November 24, 2008
Directed by:	Gary Hurst
Written by:	Terry McGurrin
Story Editors:	Jennifer Pertsch Tom McGillis
Episode Guide

A Ding from Down Under is the 44th episode of 6teen and the 18th episode of the second season. It aired in Canada on May 22, 2005 and in the United States on November 24, 2008.

When Jude hears a pay phone ring, he picks up and finds a girl from Australia on the other end. He becomes friends with her, and soon becomes obsessed with being there when she calls. Meanwhile, Jen deals with Coach Halder and his son practicing for a paintball tournament by using her for target practice at work, and Wyatt gets a job at Burger McFlipster's after Wayne fires him from Underground Video.

Plot

Main Plot

Jude, who is always willing to pick up spare change, is checking the pay phone bank at the mall for forgotten quarters when a phone rings. When he picks it up, the person on the line is asking for a "Jara." Unfortunately, no Jaras seem to be around, as when Jude calls out for one nobody comes to take the call. As a result, the voice on the phone starts crying, but Jude starts talking to the person on the other end, and soon makes her laugh.

Later that day, half of the gang has gathered around the Big Squeeze to chat and hang out. Jen is one of the people there, and she is covered in paint. When asked about it, she reveals that apparently Coach Halder and his son Cory are prepping for a paintball tournament and using her for target practice. After she vents about her job, she realizes that her break is over and returns to work. At that point, Wyatt shows up with a giant wet spot on his shirt and, when questioned about what happened, reveals that he has had the worst day of his life: he slept in, broke his guitar, had his bike stolen, and spilled his coffee on a rare DVD of Wayne's–the last of which he got fired for, so now he needs new employment.

Meanwhile, Jude is still talking to Callie, who is apparently a surfer from Australia whose boyfriend Jara just moved to Canada. When their conversation finishes, Jude heads over to the Big Squeeze to see his friends, and when they ask him where he's been, he reveals that he's found a new girlfriend. His friends are duly impressed, and ask to meet her, so Jude obliges and leads them to the pay phones. They're surprised by this new friend of Jude's, but the more pressing matter is brought up by Caitlin: pay phones are not supposed to accept incoming calls. Nikki confirms this, and adds that if the mall officials find out, they'll likely shut down the pay phone. This shocks Jude, but he accepts Caitlin's advice to not draw attention to the broken phone, and decides to protect the phone and his new girlfriend.

As Jude spends more and more time on the phone, however, his life starts to suffer for it. He begins to lose sleep in order to make sure he's there whenever she might call, as the time difference between Canada and Australia is throwing him off. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that he must set up a tent by the pay phones in order to make sure that he never misses a call.

The next day, he is there when she calls, but he's so sleep-deprived that he nods off in the middle of the call and she hangs up on him. To make matters worse, even though his friends visit him in his tent over the next couple of days, they think he's going a bit crazy in there. When Nikki tells him, he laughs it off, but soon enough he makes sock puppets of his friends to keep himself company in the tent. That night, however, his life is turned upside down when the arm of Ron the Rent-a-Cop reaches into his tent, pulls him out, and evicts him from the mall.

The next day, Nikki helps Jude out by letting him take a bathroom break. Unfortunately for Jude, as soon as he runs off to use the facilities, the phone rings and Nikki gets to have a conversation with Callie. To make things worse, this conversation is Callie's goodbye conversation, as her boyfriend is apparently moving back to Australia. Depressed by this news, Nikki accepts it and hangs up while contemplating how to break the news to Jude.

When Jude comes back, however, Ron is removing the faulty phone from the wall. This sends Jude into a tizzy, but Nikki intervenes and tells him that Callie did call, in order to say that she was going into the Australian astronaut program but as a result would not be able to talk to Jude anymore. Jude is happy to hear this, and he and Nikki walk off to have lemonades.

Sub-Plot One: Paintball at the Penalty Box

At the Penalty Box, Jen is put under fire by Coach Halder and his son. No matter what she's doing, from manning the register to helping customers, she's always a target for the duo. Eventually, though, the barrage ceases, and Coach Halder comes forward to thank her for being a good sport. When this happens, Jen happily accepts–until Cory Halder nails her from a hiding spot with more shots and her boss mocks her for letting her guard down.

This angers Jen immensely, and she gears up for war. Painting her face in camouflage colors and wearing a military helmet, she grabs a paintball gun and proceeds to get revenge on Cory and his father by shooting them while rollerblading through the store. She soon downs both of them with a barrage of paint pellets and proclaims victory.

Sub-Plot Two: Burger Songs

Wyatt, meanwhile, goes off to interview at Burger McFlipster's and, after an odd interview with Tim, gets the job. Part of the job involves singing to the meat in order to make it taste better, and luckily for Wyatt, this is right up his alley. In addition, when Wyatt makes up songs to sing to the meat, both Tim and the customers appreciate them, and soon enough he is attracting girls to the store and has been made assistant manager for increasing sales.

Seeing this, Jonesy tries to wrangle a job from Wyatt. At first Wyatt resists, but when Jonesy turns the puppy-dog eyes on him, he can do nothing but ask Tim to give Jonesy a job. Soon, Jonesy has a job mopping the floors of Burger McFlipster's, even though he really wants to work behind the grill and attract girls like Wyatt. However, Tim believes that Jonesy needs more experience before he's ready to serve customers.

After a couple days on the job, Jonesy is given his shot behind the grill. Unfortunately, his singing voice is terrible, and he drives away the customers. The end result is that Tim sends Wyatt to fire him. However, since Jonesy has seen the writing on the wall, he asks for the opportunity to do something he's always wanted to try, and then quits on the spot. He then reassures Wyatt that they're cool, since he's been fired before, and he's glad that Wyatt is doing a good job at the burger joint.

Quotes

• Jude: (checking pay phones for quarters) C'mon, big money, big money... (finding one) Alright, free scratch! Sooweet!
• Wayne: (in Wyatt's memory) This movie meant more to me than your life!
• Nikki: What are you laughing at? You're Caitlin Cooke, Lemonhead!
• Tim: (interviewing Wyatt) Hi Wyatt, I'm Tim.
  Wyatt: Hi Tim!
  Tim: Did I tell you that you could call me Tim?
  Wyatt: Well, that was how you introduced your–
  Tim: You can call me sir. Wyatt, there are three ways to do things here: the right way, the wrong way, and my way.
  Wyatt: Is your way the right way?
  Tim: Absolutely.
  Wyatt: So...wouldn't there just be two ways to do things then?
  Tim: (standing up) Oh, I'm sorry. Are you interviewing me today? Because I thought I was interviewing you. (calling to the employees) I don't hear any singing!
  Employees: (singing) My burger lies over the ocean/My burger lies over the sea/And if I could send you my burger/How yummy and tasty it'd be!
  Tim: Do you like music, Wyatt?
  Wyatt: Actually I sing, play guitar, and write my own songs.
  Tim: Are you going to answer my question or just waste my time?
  Wyatt: I like music.
  Tim: Good. Some people think it's silly to sing for the customers. Do you think it's silly to sing for the customers?
  Wyatt: Uh...no.
  Tim: I do. I think it's silly to sing for the customers. That's why we don't.
  Wyatt: You don't?
  Tim: No. We don't. We sing for the meat. You talk to a houseplant and it grows faster–fact! You sing to meat, it tastes better. Also fact. This is the Burger Bible, it has all of our songs in it. Learn them. (calling to the employees) Let's get that singing 8% louder, people! (to Wyatt) You start tomorrow.
• Tim: You've got a brain, Wyatt. I like that in a person.
• Tim: If you got a job at the airport, they wouldn't let you fly a plane.
  Jonesy: They would if I was a pilot!
  Tim: Are you a pilot, Jonesy?
• Jude: You guys don't get it. She's gorgeous, easy to talk to, and her accent is really cool.
• Ron: Okay, that's it. The mall's closed, and you're going home.
  Jude: But I have a girlfriend in Australia!
• Coach Halder: That Masterson, she's snapped! Be on your toes. Stay sharp, Cory, stay sharp.
• Wyatt: So we're cool?
  Jonesy: Totally! It wasn't my scene. You go get those burger-eating girls, Wyatt. You go get em.

Trivia

• Jonesy's job: employee at Burger McFlipster's
  Reason for Firing: would've been fired for scaring off the customers with his bad singing, but he quit before he could get fired.
• Wyatt's job: Underground Video employee
  Reason for Firing: His coffee flew into the air and landed on one of Wayne's favorite movies.
• The line of girls listening to Wyatt sing are as follows:
  • Pre-teen Girls
  • Tricia
  • Gwen
  • Mandy
  • Charmaine
  • A nerdy girl
  • A pretty girl
  • The Salon Ladies
  • The Clones
• This is the first appearance of Tim.
• This is the first time someone is outright stated to be from a foreign country (Callie).
• Jen describes Coach Halder's son as a "psycho", even though in his previous appearance he had been nothing more than a bad date. It is possible that she was simply stressed by being shot at (and knew that more shots would be headed her way) and was taking out her aggression by calling Cory a psycho.
• Cory Halder makes his final appearance in this episode.
• The following things happened to Wyatt to make this the worst day of his life:
  1. He slept in.
  2. In his rush to get ready, he stepped on his guitar, breaking it.
  3. Found out that his bike had been stolen out of his open garage.
  4. Tripped and spilled coffee all over one of Wayne's tapes, causing Wayne to fire him.
• Jonesy says that that "Samurai Space Warriors" was the first movie to take place in space. In the real world, it is commonly believed that this honor goes to the 1902 Georges Méliès film A Trip to the Moon. (This cannot be proven due to the fact that many early films are lost forever for various reasons.)
• It is never explained where the huge stain on Wyatt's sweater comes from.
• Wyatt's job at Spin This is referenced when Wyatt points out that he's been fired from two jobs in a row.
• This is the second time that Wyatt has been fired from a job.
• For some reason Caitlin knows that pay phones aren't supposed to accept incoming calls, even though in "Labour Day - Part 2" she is unable to bring herself to use a public phone, and the scene suggests that she's never done so before.
  • Of course, the ability of a pay phone to receive calls is directly linked to whomever owns it. In some cases, the ability for it to receive calls is enabled, and you can dial a pay phone, while in other cases said ability is disabled. It's possible that the Galleria Mall phones allow calls to come through.
• Wyatt says that he needs money to fix his guitar, which implies that it's his only one. However, in numerous episodes before and after this, he has been seen with both an acoustic and an electric (the electric resembling a Gibson Les Paul).
• Kirsten reveals that she finds Wyatt cute. This indicates that she may have a crush on him.
• Most of the "burger songs" are ripoffs of songs in the public domain.
  • The first song is sung to the melody of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.
  • The third, fourth, and fifth songs are sung to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
• In this episode, it is revealed that the mall opens at six o'clock AM. This makes sense, as in "Waiting to Ex-Sale" Jen and Caitlin are seen in the mall at 6:30 in order to get good spots in a line for a sale.
• It seems that Jude doesn't understand the concept of time zones, as he doesn't understand that a call wouldn't take five hours to traverse the Pacific Ocean.
• Wyatt's singing voice is revealed to be nigh-hypnotic; in fact, Tim runs some numbers and finds out that sales go up by nearly a quarter (23.6%) when Wyatt is on the job. For this reason, Wyatt becomes assistant manager.
• Jonesy can do a really good puppy-dog look.
• Jonesy says that he loves Burger McFlipster's and would never make fun of it. Interestingly, this is what he says to Julie about Wonder Taco in Take This Job and Squeeze It, even though he made fun of the store right in front of her.
• Apparently, even though Jonesy is afraid of blood, he would still prefer to suffer through it rather than ask Julie out on a date.
  • Of course, his knuckles didn't actually bleed.
• Jonesy has a horrible singing voice, which is referenced later in Quit It.
• Tara makes a cameo as Jonesy's third customer. She would reappear as part of Liza Lomen's entourage in Over Exposed and had a large role in Snow Job.
• A small part of the scene in which Wyatt first sings a song (his original creation) is reused late in the episode as a scene transition.

Gallery

Jude on the payphone.

Jen the paintball victim.

Worst day of Wyatt's life.

Wayne's movie is ruined.

Jude continues talking on the payphone.

Tim interviewing Wyatt.

Video

This clip was provided by 6animestar14 on YouTube.