New Girl S2 E4 – Neighbors

Last updated on May 26, 2021

This podcast covers New Girl Season 2, Episode 4, Neighbors, which originally aired on October 9, 2012 and was written by Berkley Johnson and directed by Steve Pink.

Episode Recap

This episode, the loft gets some new younger neighbors and while Jess and Schmidt try to be friends with them, they worship Jess and hate Schmidt. Meanwhile, Nick feels compelled to “break” Schmidt and make him feel like he’s old which he does through pranking him. Winston is realizing what more he wants out of life and makes a career change.

Episode Notes

On this episode’s Pop Culture section we reviewed:

• Central to this episode, Jess creates “catch phrases” that come from TV shows like: 
  • “Did I Do That” by Steve Urkel from Family Matters
  •  “How rude” by Stephanie Tanner from Full House

Additional Pop Culture References such as:

• Old Spice + “the guy on the horse” – Nick is wearing Old Spice deodorant and Schmidt was unsure of the smell. Nick tries to explain that Old Spice as a brand is coming back in style, especially because of the “guy on the horse”, which is a reference to a series of Old Spice commercials. 
• Mr. Belvedere – Jess was watching Mr. Belvedere at the beginning of the episode. Mr. Belvedere is an American sitcom that aired between 1985 and 1990 based on the 1947 novel Belvedere. The series follows posh butler Lynn Belvedere as he struggles to adapt to the Owens household. 
• Characters from 80s Sitcoms – Jess mentions she can do character voices from any 80s sitcom. Specifically she mentions: 
  • Alf – Alf is an American TV sitcom that aired between 1986 to 1990. The title character is ALF (an acronym for “alien life form”) who crash-lands in the garage of the suburban middle-class Tanner family.  
  • Cousin Larry Appleton [Perfect Strangers] – Larry Appleton is a character on the series Perfect Strangers, which aired from 1986 to 1993. The series chronicles the coexistence of midwestern American Larry Appleton and his distant cousin from eastern Mediterranean Europe, Balki Bartokomous. “Get out of the City Cousin Larry Appleton” was a phrase used by the character Balki in the show. 
  • Fraiser Crane [Fraiser] – Dr. Fraiser Crane is the title character of the series Fraiser which aired from 1993 until 2004. Fraiser was created as a spin-off of the TV show Cheers, continuing the story of psychiatrist Frasier Crane as he returned to his hometown of Seattle and started building a new life as a radio advice show host while reconnecting with his father and brother and making new friends.
• Dolla-dolla bills, y’all – Schmidt mentions he’ll be at the neighbors party with bells on, and then makes a bad reference to the phrase ‘Dolla Dolla Bills, Y’all’ by instead saying ‘Dolla Dolla Bells Y’all’. This phrase is made known from the lyrics of the 1993 song C.R.E.A.M by Wu-Tang Clan. This phrase has also gone on to become a larger part of internet culture.
• [Jewish] Peter Pan – Schmidt mentions he’ll never stop growing and that he’s like a Jewish Peter Pan (that he also phrases as “Petya Pan”, “Petter Pan”, and “Pesach Pan”). Created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan is a fictional character that is a free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up. This Screen Rant article also compares the entire show New Girl to Peter Pan (note: there are spoilers in this article).
• Gran Torino (as in referring to Clint Eastwood being old) – When Nick is trying to talk to Schmidt in the middle of his spiral about the neighbors thinking he’s old, Schmidt calls Nick Gran Torino. Gran Torino is an American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also starred in the film and plays an older man.
• Top Gun / Anthony Eds, the “Goose” man – Schmidt walks into the neighbors’ apartment and sees they are watching the movie Top Gun and calls out the character “Goose” played by the actor Anthony Edwards. Top Gun is a drama movie that follows United States Naval Aviator LT Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) LTJG Nick “Goose” Bradshaw as they are stationed aboard the USS Enterprise. 
• Hilary Swank – Schmidt mentions that the actor Anthony Edwards is like the Hilary Swank of bald men. Hilary Swank is an American actress and film producer known for her roles in Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don’t Cry — both of which she has won awards for — P.S. I Love You, and The Horseman. 
• [F]rank Sinatra – Winston calls himself “Prank” Sinatra after the famed musician Frank Sinatra as if to say he could smoothly pull off pranks. Francis “Frank” Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
• Parkour – Schmidt proclaims Parkour when he is quickly moving around and jumping on items in the apartment. Parkour is a training discipline where people aim to get from one point to another in a complex environment, without assisting equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible.

We also cover Schmidt’s happiness that the neighbors don’t hate him because of his age but rather his personality as our “Schmidtism”. In the “In the 2020s” section, our “not” was how Schmidt dismissed Nick as a professional because he wasn’t wearing a suit and our “yes” was how the loft were good friends including Schmidt encouraging Jess to follow her passion of teaching and the loft encouraging Winston with his job. We also give a brief look into the careers of Charlie Saxton (Chaz), Morgan Krantz (Fife), Jinny Chung (Sutton), and Jasmine Di Angelo (Brorie), the guest stars of this episode.

Also in this episode were the following guest stars who we do not discuss in the podcast: Stone Eisenmann (Young Nick) and Jordan Fuller (Young Winston).

On this episode, we discussed actuarial life expectancy and shared our results from this quiz which we took for fun. We also discuss Schmidt and Nick’s ages being inconsistent through the show so far as well as top pranks within movies listed on this article and youtube link. Lastly, we also mention how Zooey Deschanel has made a guest appearance on the show Frasier who Jess does an impersonation of in the beginning of the episode.

While not discussed in the podcast, we noted other references in this episode including:

• When Schmidt is sharing that he’s younger and more successful than the rest of the loft, he considers himself Snow Leopard and the rest of the loft DOS.
  • Snow Leopard – This is the 7th major operating release for the Apple operating system for their Macintosh computers. This operating system was released in August of 2009 and the next major release didn’t come until July 2011.
  • DOS – This was a disk operating system that was initially used in IBM PCs but the acronym was used for over a dozen other operating systems in the time frame of the 1960s – 1990s.
• TGIF – In this episode, Jess mentions that there’s a TGIF marathon on. The TGIF lineup specifically stood for “Thank Goodness It’s Funny.” and was a block of family friendly comedies from 1989 – 2000, 2003 – 2005, and 2018-2019.
• Sitar – When the neighbors are trying to invite Jess over, they mention that they have a sitar. The sitar is an Indian string instrument used in Hindustani classical music. It was invented in medieval India and was popularized by the composer Ravi Shankar and was used in the 1960s by bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
• Pigskin – When Winston is making his big speech, he compares his job to the “pigskin” in the game of life. Pigskin is slang for a football which was originally inflated with the bladders of animals like pigs that were later covered by leather leading to the term “pigskin”. Footballs that were made from the inflation of pig bladders were replaced in the 1860s when vulcanized rubber was invented.
• After Schmidt realizes the neighbors don’t like him, he tries to act cooler by doing burpees:
  • Olympics – When Schmidt is doing burpees, the neighbors sarcastically ask when the next Olympics is. The Olympic Games are an international sports competition featuring summer and winter sports where thousands of athletes from around the world compete and represent their countries. They are held every 4 years with either a Summer or Winter Olympics every 2 years.
  • “Set a PR” – When Schmidt is doing burpees, he exclaims that he’s going to “set a PR”. A “PR” is a personal record and is used to evaluate one’s own best performance as a goal to beat in future workout sessions.

This episode got a 7/10 Rating from Kritika and a 7.5/10 from Kelly and we both had the same favorite character again: Nick!

Thanks for listening and stay tuned for Episode 5!

Music: “Hotshot” by scottholmesmusic.com