The Three Old Men handle this episode’s preview, and by handle, I mean they argue about how to do the preview, realize they only have 30 seconds to do it, and then they forget the title of the episode.
Session #17: Mushroom Samba
Original Airdate: February 20, 1999
Written by: Michiko Yokote & Shinichirō Watanabe
Title Card Song: “Chicken Bone” – This song was released on the album Blue.
“Mushroom Samba” is probably the most out there episode of the series, even with “Toys in the Attic” taken into consideration. This episode is focused around Ed and Ein, and it is a parody and homage to Blaxploitation movies.
So we start with the Bebop flying on fumes and out of food. Faye has eaten their emergency rations, which turn out to be expired, and a hit-and-run forces a crash landing on Io. The sign we see out in the desert, “Western World Development Tract 8271,” is a reference to Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas.
Ed and Ein head out on an adventure to find some food, and we’re introduced to the episode’s “guest stars.” Coffee is a bounty hunter and reference to a Pam Grier movie called Coffy. The youngest Shaft brother is obviously a reference to Shaft. The coffin he is carrying is a reference to the original Django from 1966. Bebopedia says that Domino Walker is a reference to a song by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and to Walker, Texas Ranger, but given the context of the episode, I’d think Fats Domino would be equally possible.
I haven’t been able to confirm, but I’m pretty sure that Shaft is voiced by Jet’s voice actor, Beau Billingslea.
Even though this is a comedy episode, I still find the hallucinations the crew have on the mushrooms to be thematic. Spike climbs an endless staircase and meets a frog that tells him it’s the stairway to heaven. Faye shrinks down and is immersed in deep water. Jet is just talking to his bonsai trees.
Speaking of Spike’s stairway, Bebopedia points this out as one of several possible Led Zeppelin references this episode. There’s a restaurant called Mobi Dik, and Led Zeppelin has “Moby Dick” named after the novel. Then there’s Domino’s name mentioned above.
“Mushroom Hunting” is this episode’s signature song. The train fight is a really fun sequence, and if it weren’t for the cow talking back at the end, I’d assume it’s Ein’s part in this that seals the deal on his intelligence.
As often happens, though in much more symbolic terms, the crew gets what they need if not what they wanted with a bag full of shiitake mushrooms. According to her recent AMA, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn asked Beau to read one of Jet’s lines as “shit-take on ice,” and they were allowed to keep it in.
For an episode that would definitely feel out of place in just about any series with similar subject matter, it seems fitting that we close out with a card reading “LIFE IS BUT A DREAM…”
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