The Tafoya Family

The Tafoya Family is the ninth episode of Season 4 of the American Supernanny show.

Episode Summary
Jo Frost travels to Arizona and meets Holly (26) and Jimmy (28) who have three small boys: James (7), Tyler (5) and Ryan (2). James is described as a "Tornado" and is aggressive, He also has a tendency to lie. Tyler is hyperactive. Ryan screams, destroys things and throw fits. All 3 boys play age-innapropriate games with blood, gore, guns, violence, mugging and swearing.

Observation
As soon as Jo arrives, Tyler goes outside to pedal in his go-kart while James and Ryan play video games with their dad. Jo went outside then caught Tyler cycling on the road which made her worried and she brought Tyler in the house to discuss the issue. Holly told Jo that she let James and Tyler out but not Ryan.

Video Game Segment
James and Tyler head to their friend Colton's house and Jo follows them. During an interview segment, Holly says that James and Tyler like to go to their friend's house and play games that they’re "not supposed to play". Jo asks James to give her a case for the video game he is holding. Jo points out the "T" rating and the "violence" part of the rating. She asks James and Colton what the "violence" part is there for and James responds, "When they say it's 'violent', it's not really 'violent'. They're just trying to get you not to play it." Tyler then says, "she's lying." During an interview segment, James says "In video games, you race, shoot, and, um...tackle...you pop 'em in the head!". Tyler shoots something at Colton. James giggles and continues during the interview, "Really, you do." Later, Jo asks James what "10+" means in the "E10" rating. James replies with "You have to be 10 and under." Jo says that the sign is a "plus", and then points out that James is too young. James asserts that the rating means 10 and under. Jo says during a narration segment that she knew James knew what some of the ratings were but not the others, and that had her concerned. Jo later finds a game with an "M" rating on it. Jo says during a narration segment that the "M" rating meant "Mature". The oldest, James tells Jo that it's a "very, very, very hard game." In a narration segment, Jo points out in a shocked tone that the 7-year-old boys were playing games that were rated "T", "10+", and "M". After a quick segment of the kids slapping each other, Jo continues in the narration segment, "You won't want kids this young watching an R-rated movie." Jo continues to say that it's a "scary thing" and that parents need to be in control of these situations. Tyler continues to shoot stuff at Colton.

The boys were acting up in the house, Dad made empty threats to them and lied about it, so Jo pulled the boys outside to ask why they lie all the time.

During dinner time, Dad was in a frustrated mood and takes his anger on the family, especially on Ryan. Dad saw Ryan not eating his food, took his food away and he threw his plastic forks at him. Dad hit him back with it and swore "I'm going to f****** throw it away!". Therefore, Jo confronted Dad to leave the table and then he became emotional when discussing about his past of not knowing his own father until aged 14 and the importancy of him having a relationship with his sons.

Parents Meeting
On the same night, Jo sits the parents down. Jo voices her concerns about letting the kids out of the house and Holly says it is not a busy street. She then brings up the topic of the boys playing video games which contain violence and "strong language"; Mom says they cannot control what the boys do at their neighbors' house. Lastly, she demands the parents that they stop the biting, hitting and kicking and Holly admits she hits the kids in the mouth and that Ryan breaks their spirits.

Teaching
Jo introduces the House Rules for the kids, then she put the family into the test by taking them into an antiques store. Ryan after attempting to run away, breaks a glass cup and is placed on the naughty chair for 2 minutes. Holly finds the confidence to take the boys out in public on her own.

James and Tyler participate in rock climbing to show they can get on together and support one other.

Next, Jo teaches the family about the video game rating system. She mentions that only 21% of kids say that their parents have rules regarding ratings. She pulls out all game ratings, E,E10, T, M and 18+. Whilst James is defiant, he makes a valid point stating that the games he plays are only, well games. Laurie, the Tafoya’s neighbour, also comes round. And everyone aside from James (for now), accepts the new rules

Jo noticed that James was upset about his Dad being gone and thought he only cared about his work. The boys spend time with their dad by playing football.

Clip 1
Holly places on separate walls of what game ratings they are allowed to play and not play. This time, James finally gives in.

Clip 2
James leaves the backyard and climb over the wall. Holly asks James if he left the backyard and said "No!", and asks Tyler to find out the truth though the same response. All of a sudden, James admitted that he left the backyard and he had lied to her.

Clip 3
James tells Tyler, "Smell your own butt crack!". Holly reminds James that she just warned him and she punishes him by putting soap in his mouth.

This leads to Jo demanding an explanation from Holly why she used soap. Holly claims she didn't use a whole pump. When Jo showed the labels of soap to prove it is a toxin, Holly says that "It's disgusting and they don't want to do it again!" and after Jo points out that soap has never worked in discipling children, Holly then cursed at Jo calling her a bitch three times and then walked out of the meeting. Jimmy fetches her and persuades her to come in while she was hiding in her car.

Reinforcement
Jo gave a reason to Holly why it is not necessary to discipline her children with using toxins. There was perfect opportunity for Holly to discipline James when he took a balloon and lied about it, he was placed on the Naughty Step for 7 minutes.

After that, Jo leaves the family.

Behind The Scenes
This episode was filmed in October 2007 as stated in the 100th Episode Special.

Episode outrage
One of the most well known and hated moments of this episode and the series as a whole, came during the Parent Evaluation, where Jo reviewed footage showing Holly squeezing soap into James' mouth as punishment for telling Tyler to “Smell your own buttcrack” Jo, of course was furious about this, whilst Holly defended herself, claiming she only used a little bit.

Things began to get worse, as when Jo began explaining to Holly why she shouldn’t have used soap on James and how it shouldn’t be used as a discipline method as a whole since it’s a toxin, Holly had finally had enough. She turned against Jo entirely, swearing at her three times, telling her to leave before proceeding to walk out of the house, saying she doesn’t need her anymore. Jimmy is luckily able to get Holly to come back, and she apologises to Jo.

This caused a massive outrage upon viewers, as they criticized Holly for walking out on Jo, when she was trying to help her, and criticised her as well for using soap on James in the first place

Pop Culture References
In this episode, there's a bedspread of Tow Mater and Lightning McQueen from Disney and Pixar's Cars.

Many games appear in this episode, these games include:

XBOX 360's Halo 3: Which appears in the episode, even though the cover was blurred out.

Several games consoles appear in the episode including the Xbox, Xbox 360, Sega Genesis, Nintendo GameCube, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and a V.Smile Learning System.

And then a scene had Jo holding Sega's infamous "Shadow the Hedgehog" for the PS2, a spinoff of their hit "Sonic the Hedgehog" franchise starring Sonic's rival of The same name as the game.

Events Post-Episode

 * Holly and Jimmy divorced despite their best efforts to save their marriage. Holly has custody of the children while Jimmy has visitation rights with the children.
 * Holly and Jimmy had a daughter named Serenity about a year after the filming.
 * Jimmy was arrested sometime in 2020 for theft.

Family Members

 * Holly Tafoya, 26 (born December 1, 1980)
 * Jimmy Tafoya, 28 (born 1979)
 * James, 7 (born December 23, 1999)
 * Tyler, 5 (born March 3, 2002)
 * Ryan, 2 (born July 31, 2005)

Trivia

 * This is the second time in the US series where Jo almost failed to Help a Family completely.
 * The 1st time was The Bailey Family where Jo almost got banned from entering The Bailey's House after Bill and Stacie got mad about how Jo talked to them, and The Jones-Nickolich Family when Jo was banned from the house for how she spoke to Todd and Heather during observation. Returning two days later to begin her teaching


 * Holly is one of two parents to ever walk out on Jo. The other is Corey from The McKeever Family
 * This and The Davis Family are both considered to be the worst episodes of Supernanny. This episode for the video game rating scene, and Holly. And the Davis Family for Phil clearly being shown to be sexist and abusive, and never getting arrested for it
 * Holly is the third parent, to have either gone against the techniques, or turned on Jo. The first to do so was Arthur from The Webb Family and the second was John from The Nitti Family