Episode 36: Can I Keep Him?
<< previous episode
"Please be nice to monster. "
- Starfire's sign on Silkie's island
Originally aired: November 6th, 2004
Written by Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott
Directed by Michael Chang and Christopher Berkely


Starfire adopts a weird mutant silkworm named silkie as a pet. But when she feeds him some alien food from Tamaran, Silkie has an unexpected - and monstrous - growth spurt. Can Starfire keep her beloved worm?


Dee Bradley Baker as Silkie
Henry Rollins as Johnny Rancid
Marc Worden as Killer Moth


This episode is a sequel to second season's DATE WITH DESTINY. At the end of that episode, Beast Boy wanted to keep Killer Moth's orphaned worm
Silkie has appeared in the background in three episodes in season three: X, BETROTHED and HAUNTED
Thomas Hayden Church provided the voice of Killer Moth in DATE WITH DESTINY; He was not available for this episode and the role was assumed by Marc Worden
The opening crowd scene shows the Goth kid from the club scene in SISTERS
Robin says "We're shutting you down Jonny" and Raven adds, "and you're little dog, too." Raven's line is a reference to the Wicked Witch's line from "Wizard of Oz"
Starfire tries to feed Silkie mustard - which is her favorite food - as revealed in SUM OF HIS PARTS
The mutant-Silkie and mechanical-lizard battle is a send-up of "Godzilla vs. Mothra"
Star Wars reference: Killer Moth tries to coax Silkie by saying: "Larva M319, I am your father. Join me and we can... go on a picnic or something." It's similar to the speech Darth Vader gave Luke at the end of "The Empire Strikes Back."


Producer/Story Editor David Slack on CAN I KEEP HIM?: "Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliott wrote that one. and I want to apologize to everyone for how gross that was [laughs]. It was Glen [Murakami]'s idea for Starfire to eat the carcass at the end. I tried to talk him out of it. "

"[...] One would think we developed that story way far back. What happened was, we did DATE WITH DESTINY in season two and designed these larvae things at the end of it. And Ben Jones - who is now a director but he was a storyboard artist at the time - he just wouldn't let them go. So in all his boards, he would put this thing in the background - and he named him "Silkie." So that caught on and some other artists started doing it. So we had all these episodes where Sillkie is crawling around in the background, still leftover from season two. So it started to seem like we needed to do something with that. It was similar to the situation with Larry [the Titan]. It grew out of a joke that the artists were tossing around. So that's how that came about."

Producer/Story Editor David Slack on giving Silkie to Starfire rather than Beast Boy: "It also seemed to be a nicer story for Starfire. When you're doing a show like this, you do have to look at things like that. Episode nine was a Beast Boy episode, so we didn't want two Beast Boy episodes in a row. But it seemed to fit Starfire; We thought it made sense that she would feed it something that would make it grow and mutate. Plus, since Starfire is so genuine and sincere, that when we started talking about her lying it got really, really funny. Like her line, "What is this sofa of which you speak?" It gave us a chance to do a different type of humor with Starfire. "


Starfire had a Tamaranean pet as a child. She adored the animal - which died under mysterious circumstances - in the presense of her evil sister, Blackfire. The story is recalled in Tales of the New Teen Titans mini-series #4 [1982] which shows the origin of Starfire.

For more information on the comic book versions of the characters - including many images - visit titanstower.com's meeting room page.

 

EPISODE SCREEN CAPS