Biosphere Johnny

Biosphere Johnny
Season	3
Episode	5b
Date Aired	September 22, 2000
Written By	Gene Grillo Jed Spingarn
Storyboarded By	Mary Hanley
Directed By	Kirk Tingblad
Previous	The Johnny Bravo Affair
Next	Spa Spaz

"Biosphere Johnny" is a Season 3 episode of Johnny Bravo.

Synopsis

Johnny locks himself in a biosphere with a lady scientist, Carl, and two others who are attempting a year-long survival experiment.

Plot Summary

One night, Johnny is attempting to contact "hot alien space chicks" using a poorly-made device. He wanders and falls down a steep precipice before spotting the biosphere dome, believing it to be a spaceship. He spots Dr. Rachel Levy in her bionaut outfit, assuming she is an alien and begins to flirt with her. Rachel beats him up and Carl appears behind him, carrying equipment. Carl clears up the misunderstanding and explains that Levy is leading him and two other scientists in an experiment to see if humans can survive an entire year inside the biosphere. Johnny ignores this information and goes back to flirt with Rachel. She drops a heavy box on him and tells Carl to enter the biosphere with her. Johnny then overhears that Carl and the others are going to be living in an "enclosed space with [no contact] from the outside world."

In the biosphere, the team is ready to begin their experiment. Rachel activates the door airlock, sealing them inside. Celebrating, Carl goes to fetch some seaweed snacks, only to discover Johnny in a food crate. Angry at Johnny and his advances, Rachel tells him that their resources were carefully balanced for four and that he is trapped with them for an entire year. Carl confirms this and remains optimistic, causing Johnny to scream in terror.

Four hours into Day One, Carl films himself in the style of a Captain's log, claiming that everyone is adjusting well to isolation. He soon notices that Johnny is unstable and paranoid, deciding to give him a tour of the biosphere. He shows him each ecosystem and the hydroponic garden where their only food, roots and vegetables, is grown. Later, Dr. Fritz (a German scientist) enters the garden room, only to learn that Johnny replaced all the vegetables with corn chips.

On Day Nine, Rachel concludes that the food in the garden will be enough for them to survive, but only if their water supply lasts. Immediately after, the water drains out, much to the surprise of the team. They discover that Johnny is wasting the water on his laundry, not to mention trying to get a plum stain out of his sock.

On Day Twenty-one, Dr. Wang informs Rachel that they can ration out the remaining water, redirect the solar panels and survive by growing 5 soy beans a day, but only if the power grid holds out. Immediately after, the lights go off. The bionauts then discover Johnny trying to get a tan by using all their solar panels, shorting out the grid. Furious, Rachel concludes that the only way they will be able to survive is to eat a member of the team. Wang and Fritz refuse until Johnny reveals he also used the oxygen scrubbers as loofah sponges. Dramatically, Carl tries to offer himself as a sacrifice to save Johnny.

Rachel orders everyone to stop, saying that they can find a way to complete their mission and keep their humanity. Ignoring everything Rachel had just said, Johnny wears a chef outfit and presents Carl tied to a platter with an apple in his mouth. Rachel and the other two scientists decide to attack Johnny. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and the door unlocks, revealing a pizza delivery man. Johnny claims he ordered the pizza and had been using a flashlight to blink "pizza" in Morse code for days. The delivery man tells the team how lucky they are that he knew how to unlock the door. Johnny then takes the pizza and gives him a nickel, slamming the door shut. The lock reactivates, much to the horror of the bionauts. Oblivious, Johnny defends his meal-for-one before all four scientists attack him.

Trivia

• Storyboard artist Mary Hanley added the gag of Johnny falling off the cliff at the beginning of the episode.
• Lead writer Jed Spingarn originally wanted to end the episode with a Johnny voiceover gag, but Kirk Tingblad pleaded to keep the silence to accent the characters' loneliness and lack of help.

Cultural References

• The plot is a parody of the critically panned 1996 movie Bio-Dome.
• Johnny claims to be "watching" his favorite TV show on the microwave, "Macaroni and Cheese Spinning Around, and Around, and Around, [...] and Eddy!", referencing Ed, Edd n Eddy.
• One of the biosphere's many ecosystems is a replication of downtown Newark, New Jersey.
• While doing laundry, Johnny sings a verse from I've Been Working on the Railroad, "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, someone's in the kitchen I know," replacing the name with his own and "I know" with "I guess."

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