Pretty hilarious episode.
The Badge WAS The One Ring, right? When it was first unearthed in the stream it kind of clicked…but the end scene with Gollum (err…Creepy Guy) digging through the stuff, finding The Badge, and then losing it to Joy just seemed SO ‘Lord of the Rings’.
Or am I just a nerd?
-Joe
It was the music, man. Borrowed heavily from Gollum’s Song on TTT soundtrack.
I’m so glad somebody else made the connection—I thought for a moment that I was insane!
Oh, duh! I was wondering why it seemed to familiar. Anyway, fun episode, as always.
“We aren’t getting a puppy.”
My daughter and I were watching when they found the badge. I said, “This is the Ring, right?”
“Well, DUH!”
Yeah, I liked the episode. Loved the way the cops kept hiding when the crazy, smelly guy started shooting up the joint.
Still, the ending was a total cop out. It’s like the writers thought up the premise, wanted to include the part with Earl apparently getting arrested, but never bothered to write a realistic (by sit-com standards even) out.
“I reached for my ball, not my gun”…groan!
Poor Clint oward… Forever will he be the creepy guy since he played that creepy alien on Star Trek. It must be hard living in Opie’s shadow.
That actually wasn’t Clint Howard. If was this guy
No, it WAS Clint Howard.
That wasn’t Clint Howard? Holy Cow. My wife and I were both sure that was Clint Howard. Any chance the IMDB is wrong on this one?
Funny Episode. I enjoyed. I’m a Tolkien geek and I didn’t pick up on the Badge as the Ring. In fact with the Bowling ball capture of Earl I was thinking Mystery Men.
That was one tough Mom, poor guy. I try not to apply logic to the show otherwise the cop could have easily tracked down the creepy guy afterthe shooting otherwise. He was dumber than Randy and that pretty darn dumb.
Great Music for the show as usual.
Jim
I’ll join the chorus of “no way”! Max Perlich used to be on Homicide and that creepy guy was not him.
IMDB isn’t wrong about this character, just not up to date (as is often the case the week a TV epsiode first airs). Clint Howard’s character’s name is Rodney, not Paul.
I don’t remeber a Paul. Was that the cop? If so, then I believe IMDB is wrong about that. I thought the cop character was played by Mike O’Malley of “Yes, Dear” fame [shudder]
Maybe Clint went uncredited in this epsiode. But it was Clint Howard playing Creepy Rodney.
I paused the TIVO to watch the credits and they said it was Clint Howard.
gigi’s link confirms that Clint Howard played Rodney and Mike O’Malley played Stewart (the cop). But as she asks, “Who was Paul?” I don’t remember him either.
That and the baby dressed as a cop in the snuggli while his mom took down a perp . . . This episode was definitely a journey far from the beaten path of the mundane world and into the deepest reaches of the My-Name-Is-Earl-iverse. (Hmmm . . . can we just shorten that into ‘earliverse’?)
I think that somehow “My Name is Earl” actually exists in The View Askewniverse. A lot of people in that Universe looks like Earl & Randy. 
Jim
I know - suspend your belief and everything.
But the bowling/capture really bothered me. I kept thinking, “Who can’t jump over a bowling ball?”
Totally OT, but reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:
Q: Which breed of dog can jump higher than a house?
A: All of them.
Add another LOTR fan who failed to catch the reference.
Let me be the first to say that I am not a LOTR fan (I know, I know, string me up by my privates, whatever), and I did not get the reference. But I can imagine the enjoyment of those LOTR fans, for whom the episode worked for them on that level in addition to just working on its own.
Huh. I thought this was a pretty weak episode. Granted, it had Catalina AND Joy, so of course, it’s a decent episode right there, but I honestly didn’t think it was all that funny. The writing was weak, and it just didn’t strike me as a particularly good episode.
E.
I caught the LOTR reference when they fished it out of the stream, and it was driven home when they started fighting over it.
“I want a puppy. Not just any puppy, a puppy that can do tricks.”
“No, Randy, we are not going to find an octopus committing a crime.”
So if this was LOTR, what were the Cop Sisters? The Ringwraiths?