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"Hello. Welcome to Hotel Nakamura. May I help you?" |
iGo to Japan is iCarly's first feature-length movie. It was produced in 2008 and first broadcast by Nickelodeon on November 8, 2008 at 90 minutes in length. iGo to Japan stars Miranda Cosgrove, Jennette McCurdy, Nathan Kress, Jerry Trainor, and Mary Scheer in their traditional iCarly roles.
Despite being considered a movie, the film's format is identical to the TV series, using the same Season 2 opening credits and theme song, and the closing credits play out over a regular "submitted video" sequence. The series' laugh track is also used. The movie is included in the Season 2 Volume 1 DVD set as an extended-length episode.
Plot
This episode won third place for Best Long Episode at the iCarly Wiki Awards!
The iCarly team is nominated for the annual iWeb Awards, and are invited to attend the ceremony in Japan, where in order to qualify for the award they will be expected to perform a skit live on stage. Prior to their trip to Japan, they create a sketch called Melanie Higgles: Space Cheerleader. They receive three first-class tickets. Mrs. Benson initially refuses to allow Freddie to go on the trip, even after Spencer volunteers to chaperone the kids; she agrees, instead, to come along. Since they don't have enough airline tickets for five people Spencer gets the idea to trade the three first-class tickets for five lower classed ones. However, he subsequently calls in a favor from Socko which results in the team riding to Japan aboard an unsanitary, possum-filled cargo airplane bound for Korea, flown by Freight Dog. After a rough ride, they are forced to skydive into Tokyo. The group winds up landing in a deserted area but are, fortunately, found by a police officer who brings them safely to the hotel they would be staying at. After checking in and sleeping off of their jet lag, they are visited by Kyoko and Yuki, the stars of a competing webshow. Kyoko and Yuki give Spencer and Mrs. Benson free passes to a spa, and take Carly, Sam, and Freddie shopping.
Carly and Sam dressed up for their iWeb Awards.
As generous as their gestures seem, Kyoko and Yuki have their minds set on sabotaging iCarly's chances of winning the iWeb Awards. They purposely fight over and over again for directions until Yuki "admits" they are lost. They take Carly, Sam, and Freddie to the middle of nowhere and, after staging a kung-fu fight, drive off. Meanwhile, Spencer and Mrs. Benson find themselves bound to their massage tables by seaweed, naked, a problem rectified by Spencer's appetite, in which Mrs. Benson sees him naked twice (first is while freeing himself and secondly when his towel falls off when he gets the sword to free Mrs. Benson).
Eventually, the gang reunites and is able to get to the iWeb Awards, only to be prevented from entering the studio because the security guards don't speak English. Mrs. Benson distracts the guards and they get in, only to be quickly apprehended. The guards keep them in a room, and Carly and Sam try to communicate with them having to act out what happened to them during their trip. Freddie cleverly decides to videotape them, plugging his camcorder into the iWeb Awards screen. Unknown to the girls, their manic performance is being broadcast to the audience, overshadowing Kyoko and Yuki's performance. They are saved by Theodore Wilkins, the man who invited them, who speaks fluent Japanese.
iCarly wins the award for best comedy though Carly and Sam have no idea how they won until Freddie explains what he did. Kyoko and Yuki are taken into custody for kidnapping. Finally, the iCarly gang along with Spencer and Mrs. Benson return to America on what appears to be a fishing boat owned by one of Socko's family members.
Early Viewing
The movie was made available to watch on Nickelodeon On Demand for Comcast customers in October, a month before the premiere on Nickelodeon.
Goofs
- Before the opening sequence, Carly and Freddie are swinging, with Sam downstairs. However, in the scene after the opening sequence, Sam comes downstairs with Carly and Freddie when she should have already been downstairs.
- After everyone jumps out of the plane, Freddie's backpack is red. However, later in the film, Mrs. Benson finds Freddie's backpack and it is blue. (Kind of a goof, but Freddie's red backpack might be a special one for a camera or he's using it as a suitcase. The blue one might be the one he'd carry around with everything he needs.
- The area where the iCarly team land is shown to be in an area that is devoid of just about everything, without any visible water their suitcases could drown in (as they later claim).
- Spencer turns off the Swedish translator when he talks to Socko, but when he starts talking to her again, she's turned on (and, of course, shocks him).
- Kyoko and Yuki leave the stage to complain about iCarly's interruption to Theodore Wilkins. When the camera cuts to a wide shot of the projections screen, showing the gang finishing up their story, the 2 are back onstage for no apparent reason.
- Carly, Sam, and Freddie believed Kyoko and Yuki when they said they didn't have cell phones with them, but they obviously heard Yuki's when he got the text. They also believed them when they said they had a gift for them in their car, but it is very unlikely that they would have a gift on hand at that exact moment.
- Kyoko and Yuki's steering wheel on their car should be on the right side of the car, not on the left, since they are in Japan. Japan, Australia, UK, and other countries have their steering wheels on the right side of the car. However, left-hand-drive imports are common in Japan, as seen in the cramped Fiat 500 taxi that Spencer and Mrs. Benson hailed to find the kids.
- In this case of Kyoko and Yuki, it's unlikely that the car would be imported or shipped back to the States. It's a second generation Scion xB, built in Japan, but only sold in North America (as a Scion, at least. In fact, the Scion marque as a whole is only sold in the United States and Canada). It's unlikely that the vehicle would be imported back to Japan (or somehow intercepted before being shipped to North America in the first place) because it's already sold in that market as the Toyota Corolla Rumion.
- When Kyoko and Yuki pull the car over, it's on the right side of the road. Japan drives on the left. As well, the road sign indicating a 30 km/h speed limit is also on the right side of the road when it should be either on the left side of the road or facing in the opposite direction.
- Seaweed, especially dry seaweed, is especially crackly and easily ripped, even without much effort.
- Mrs. Benson says that they'll need a voltage converter, but in Japan, they use 100V AC power. That's only a minor difference from the 110-120V used in North America, which isn't enough to affect most devices. Mrs. Benson's misconception probably came from the fact that the vast majority of the world outside of North America uses 200-240V power. Japan in this case is a notable exception, it even uses the same type of plugs. This is why many Japanese electronics (for example, the Nintendo DS) have AC adapters or chargers with writing in both Japanese and English on them: exactly the same units are used for both markets.
- The gang's luggage lands on them after they parachute into Japan. But the luggage was not tossed out at the same time as they jumped, and so it is more likely that it would have landed far away from them.
- The plane was still moving at the same time as Carly, Sam, Freddie, Mrs.Benson and Spencer jumped, so when they jumped out they would have landed in different positions.
- Some of the signs on the stores in Tokyo are in English when they probably would have been in Japanese.
- Some of the "Japanese" people have poor accents and don't actually pronounce Japanese words correctly.
- The videos by the French and Japanese contestants are both in English when they probably would have been in French and Japanese, respectively.
- Spencer loses the tracker Mrs. Benson had. However, in iStill Psycho, Freddie's tracking chip went off giving her his location so she must’ve either got it back or had a spare.
Trivia
- If one counts this as three separate episodes, it is the first time more than one episode is based on the same plot.
- This is the first iCarly television movie. It began production in Spring 2008, with a November 8, 2008 release.
- What Mrs. Benson is wearing inside the hotel after Kyoko & Yuki (which she thought they work in the hotel) comes to Carly's hotel room is a kimono. Hotels in Japan, however, do not give out kimonos, as they are traditional costume for acts like ceremonies.
- It's possible that it was a bathrobe that looked like a kimono.
- This is one of the only iCarly episodes to display the episode's title in it, and was the first to do so.
- Look for a photograph of series writer-producer Dan Schneider, as his Head of the Class TV character Dennis Blunden, on the message sign held up by one of the non-English-speaking studio guards. There is an extreme closeup of the photo during the fight scene.
- The iWeb award trophy can be seen in the iCarly studio in subsequent episodes, such as iChristmas and iBelieve in Bigfoot.
- An instrumental version of the iCarly theme song plays in the background during the scene where iCarly wins the iWeb Award.
- The "stoopid poopet" and the ventriloquist might have inspired Robbie and Rex in Dan Schneider's next show, Victorious.
- When this movie is shown in three separate episodes, the latter of the two do not show an iCarly webcast.
- The iWeb awards host shares the same name as a dancer in the Drake & Josh episode "Dance Contest."
- The scenes where the characters land after parachuting and when Carly, Freddie, Sam were being driven by Kyoko and Yuki were filmed through the usage of chroma key. You can see flickering outlines when the actors move.
- In Part 2 of the movie, Yuki does the Akanbe, which is a Japanese rude gesture and is done by stretching the eye to reveal the red part underneath.
- It is revealed that Freddie's mom had a GPS locator chip placed in his head when he was a child by a questionable Venezuelan doctor. Many fans have speculated that this is why he speaks random Spanish.
- Though the 1st episode filmed for Season 2, it is the 5th aired. This movie comes before the season two opener, "iSaw Him First", in production order. Here, however, Freddie has his deep voice from that episode, which was mentioned in that episode but not here.
- Most of the background music is the normal background music used in the series but redone with different instruments to sound like Japanese traditional music.
- The scene where Kyoko and Yuki's car stopped at the deserted road is the exact same set from the Drake & Josh episode, "The Wedding".
- The announcer at the iWeb Awards is actually the series creator Dan Schneider.
- During an interview with Miranda and Jerry, it is revealed that they had never been in Japan for the filming. Every single scene was filmed at the Nickelodeon On Sunset studios.
- A clip of Lisa Lillien (wife of Dan Schneider, as well as the Hungry Girl) at the iWeb Awards was later seen in Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh, which happened to air less than a month after this episode did.
- The gift basket that is given to Carly has a big red Yoshi (from the Mario series) inside. This makes sense, considering the fact that Nintendo's (the company who owns the Mario series) headquarters are in Japan.
- Freddie gets caught looking out the peephole of his apartment door, waiting for Carly to come home. This is a reference to iPilot, when he ran out to pick up Carly's water bottle almost as soon as she arrived. In neither episode was it ever explained why Freddie would think that Carly would necessarily take the main elevator to her floor, rather than take the freight elevator directly into her apartment.
- This is the first episode to be 74 minutes long; making it, at its time of airing, a record as the longest iCarly episode ever. However, at 120 minutes, iParty With Victorious beat that record.
- Melanie Higgles yells "Whatsup whatsup whatsup!" This is a reference to the pilot episode of Kenan & Kel (one of Dan Schneider's first Nickelodeon series) where Kenan and Kel, imagining themselves in a new car, yell exactly the same phrase.
- The names Kyoko and Yuki are possibly a reference to the characters "Kyo" and "Yuki" from the anime "Fruits Basket."
- The Japanese words said by the iCarly crew aren't actually Japanese, with the exceptions when Spencer says, 'Arigato', which is Japanese for 'Thank you', and when Kyoko and Yuki called each other 'baka', which is Japanese for 'idiot'. You can also faintly hear Spencer say 'omaeda' which translates into 'you guys.'
- Gibby does not appear in this episode.
- The iWeb award makes a cameo in the subway lost and found in 'Lost Jacket, Falling Piegons' in Game Shakers along with other iCarly props, like Freddie's camera and Sam's remote
Running Gags
- Spencer keeps thinking that the soap in wrappers that look like candy wrappers is actually some Japanese traditional candy.
- The ventriloquist complaining about his "stoopid poopet."
- Mrs. Benson getting hit by falling objects from the cargo plane and collapse. Then Freddie rushing to her side to see if she is okay.
- Someone (Sam and Spencer) causing the ventriliquist to chase after Oompe.
Reception
Quotes
Sam: You sure you don't mind if I hang out at your place 'til dinner?
Carly: Yeah, it's fine. But don't you think you should go home and be with your mom?
Sam: What for?
Carly: 'Cause she's in bed with pneumonia!
Sam: I'm not a doctor!
Sam: Hey, you think Freddie's home from school yet?
Carly: Yeah, he got a ride, why?
Sam: Bet ya he's looking through his peephole waiting for you to come home.
Carly: No, he grew out of that.
Sam: Uh huh.
[Sam creeps up to the peephole and slams her fist against it. Freddie screams and stumbles out of his apartment]
Sam: Sup?
Freddie: I was not looking out my peephole waiting for you to come home!
Carly: I know you weren't.
Freddie: Good.
Carly: Peeper.
Freddie: What?!
Sam: Carly, when Mrs. Briggs said that you couldn't pick people for the talent show did you give up?
Carly: No.
Sam: And what about the time when those cops were screaming and yelling at me to stop running, did I give up?
Carly: No, you kept running.
Sam: And Freddie, have you given up you hope that someday Carly might love you?
Freddie: No.
Sam: Well, you should.
Freddie: My mom is a nutcase!
Carly: Uh, you're just now figuring that out?
Mrs. Benson: [Holding up a syringe] Just one last shot, Freddie! Come across the hall and I'll give it to you at home.
Freddie: [Rolls up his sleeve] No, let's just do it here and get it over with.
Mrs. Benson: Um, this one doesn't go in your arm.
Freddie: Well, then, where does it ... Oh, man!
Mrs. Benson: I am not going to do my business in this bucket! I'm a lady.
Freight Dog: Oh, right. [hands Mrs. Benson a pink bucket with flowers] Sorry.
Freddie: Are you cold?
Carly: Little bit.
Freddie : Maybe we should snuggle close together, you know, to keep warm-
Carly: [Rolling her eyes] No!
Freddie: All right!
Sam: [Holding a possum] Hey! Look at me, with a possum!
Carly: [Sternly] Sam, don't eat him!
Sam: I'm not gonna... [Pauses to look at the possum] ...I'm not gonna eat him.
Mrs. Benson: Sam, be careful with that thing! You don't know where it's been!
Freddie: [Snorts] Like we know where Sam's been!
Freddie: Guys, there's no way my mom's jumping out of this airplane!
Sam: I know how to make her jump!
Freddie: No chance! She's been afraid of heights ever since...
[Sam pushes Freddie off of the plane]
OMG!!
[Sam checks the suitcase for her Fat Cakes]
Sam: The fat cakes are okay!
Spencer: I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't found us.
Policeman: Oh, you would have slowly starved in the wilderness until you all perished and were eaten by wild animals.
Spencer: ...Right.
Carly: Well, thanks so much.
[Policeman says good-bye and leaves.]
Freddie: He was nice.
Carly: He was weird.
Sam: I took his handcuffs. [Holds up handcuffs]
Carly: No way! Get outer my space! Oh yeah!
Secretary in Lobby: Hello. Welcome to Hotel Nakamura. May I help you?
Carly: [gestures to Freddie] Yeah, we're checking in.
Secretary in Lobby: Aw, honeymoon couple?
[Freddie looks at Carly suggestively. Carly slaps him]
[Spencer and Mrs. Benson enter the hotel with towels on. Spencer sees a man who looks exactly like the cutout who taught him Japanese.]
Spencer:Oh my god.[stares with shock] The pain did not help me learn! [steals his ice cream cone]
[The man grabs his towel. The hotel guests gasp.]
Spencer: Ha! I'm wearing a second towel!
[after acting out their whole journey]
Theodore: [in Japanese] They are supposed to be here. They are performers.
Guard: [in Japanese] Oh sorry my mistake, I have a bladder infection.
Theodore: [in Japanese] I'm sorry. [in English] Get him some cranberry juice.
Carly: [On the boat ride back to Seattle] I wish we brought something to eat.
Spencer: I just remembered! I still have those little candies from the hotel!
Sam Freddie and Carly: Thank god! [They all start coughing]
Carly: This is soap!
Spencer: Oh, yeah...
Related iCarly.com blog posts
Sam's blog: The Highlight of My Trip!
Photo Gallery
See photos for this episode here.