Pigs Next Door

Chuckie gets tapped a la “The Water Boy to play on his junior high football team. He quickly becomes the star of the team gaining wide spread adulation from his fellow students. Meanwhile at work, Phil, whose status has improved as the father of the team’s most valuable player. It all goes to hell when Chuckie discovers that footballs are made of pigskin.

When the Stymington’s new big screen TV is repossessed, they suddenly find themselves in the unfamiliar territory of massive debt and bad credit. In an attempt to generate more income and clear up their TRW, Phil starts winning big at the track. How? As a kid, his mother made him study “horse” as a second language, which gives him the unique advantage to eavesdrop on the thoroughbreds learning whose turn it is to win. Meanwhile on the other side of town, we enjoy watching Clara’s secret part time job. At “The Mud Pit” she is the new mud wrestling sensation, Clara “Pretty In Pink” Stymington.

Just when the family thinks they’ve assimilated into the neighborhood, (even Stump has run out of insults) Clara’s Uncle Leo, the ultimate pig, arrives at their doorstep and disrupts the entire neighborhood.

Now living in the human world, the Stymingtons are drifting further and further away from their roots and basic pig traditions. April is upset with the rest of the family when they all forget to commemorate the holiest pig holiday, All Hogs Day. The family re-embraces their swine values when the mythical pig god, The Grand Porcenus, arrives at their house and transports the family to Hog Island where the Stymingtons re-establish connection to their pigness.

Poor Chuckie. It’s “Salute To Parents Who Have A Fulltime Job” week at school. All the other kids father’s have cool jobs… cops… airline pilot… Elvis Impersonator. Chuckie dreads Phil coming in to talk about selling cars. What Chuckie doesn’t know is, at Jackson Motors the sales staff has been locked out by Jungle George who refuses to negotiate better health benefits. Facing unemployment, Phil lucks out by becoming the stand-in for the star pig in the Hollywood production, “Pig In Hong Kong.” Now Phil becomes Chuckie’s hero when day after day poor Phil is chopped, kicked and thrown by a Jackie Chan type star.

In a desperate attempt to drive the Stymingtons out of the neighborhood, Stump has come up with his latest “brilliant” plan; he has tracked down and hired “The X-treme Hog Caller.” (A mythical, shadowy figure whose sinister hog calls have the ability to make the Stymingtons run wild, jump through hoops or do the jig) And to the family’s embarrassment, they are compelled to do all of it, as local TV camera’s roll while filming a weekend feature, “The Pigs Next Door.”

Clara, now living in a world where women expect romance, realizes that as pigs she and Phil have none. (They mated but never dated). This ultimately leads to family discord as Phil is pressured to deliver on the romantic front. Untimely, the decision is made to be the first pigs to formalize their union and get married.

At a school dance where he finds himself delegated off to the side with Ben, the foreign exchange student, the school janitor and other losers, it becomes apparent to Chuckie that he’s being shut out of the dating game. After all of Ben’s attempts to play cupid backfire, Chuckie falls for a blind girl he meets at the veterinarians office. Complications ensue when he neglects to mention he’s a pig. Meanwhile, thanks to Stump, Phil and Clara are in Do-It-Yourself-hell. He’s sent them off to buy a home entertainment center at Ukea (Ikea) failing to mention that they’d have to put it together themselves. Now he sits back and enjoys the Symingtons slow descent into madness as they glue, saw, hammer and bicker into the night attempting to put the stupid thing together.

It’s “Bring Your Daughter To Work” day at Jackson Motors. April is on her best behavior… that is, until she notices the new butcher shop window across the street features a pig poster which diagrams various cuts of meat. April is hog-bent to get rid of the obnoxious, offensive poster. She wants to start a protest and is angered when Phil refuses to join in. It’s then that Clara reveals a secret about Phil’s past… as a young adult hog back on the farm, Phil was Abbie Hoofman, leader of the Pink Panther Party. In a series of flashbacks, we satirize the sixties while showing how Abbie Hoofman, aka Phil, rallies the farm animals to fight the system and save the farm from being auctioned off. April gains a new respect for her once militant dad.

In order to pay off a debt to “Joey Bag Of Donuts”, Jungle George needs to have the Schlichter Falls Library demolished so he can open his new R.V. Center. With Councilman Schlichter gone, they need to find a new candidate to follow through with their sinister plans. They then con Phil into running for office. It isn’t long before Phil learns how dirty “people” politics can be.

Due to a sudden police sick out, the Stymingtons, Crenshaws and Stumps must insure that their neighborhood is a safe place by forming a neighborhood watch. Phil and an unenthused Stump go on patrol together and end up in a porto-potty joy-ride.

In an attempt to boost sales at Jackson Motors, Jungle George does the absolute opposite as the sales staff morale lessens and lessens. Phil believes that if he was running the dealership, things would be a lot better. In a card game, Phil finds himself winning and taking over Jackson Motors. Phil quickly realizes it’s not easy being “Boss.”