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4X15 - Mental As Anything

J: Excuse me, question before we commit to your class...
Katoya: Are you afraid that you may not be able to handle the pain?
J: Look, I can put up with the fairy crystals and the jammies, but I need to know what else we get with the gym membership.
Jammies are pajamas. When you buy a gym membership, you usually get a package of amenities included such as weights, aerobics, swimming pool, sauna, etc.

J: D'Argo, I got your back on this. Grasshopper may be telling the truth. Katoya won't let us disrupt his class. You'll deal with Macton when school's out.
Katoya (on the speaker system): Return to the arena.
J: Recess is over.
To have someone's back is a reference to how two people can fight together against a crowd. John telling D'Argo "I've got your back" means that he is backing D'Argo up, that his is there to support him. John calling Scorpius, "grasshopper," is a reference to Kung Fu (see Into the Lion's Den 2). In Kung Fu, Kwai Chang's teacher calls him grasshopper in flashbacks. Recess is free playtime during school when you're a kid (at least that's what we call it in America).

Katoya wants John to enter the mental training sphere.
J: It ain't gonna happen, Mrs. Krabappel. Fail me, give me an F on my report card. I ain't going in your icosahedron.

• Mrs. Krabappel is the name of Bart Simpson's teacher on the cartoon, "The Simpsons."
• In school (American schools at least) the lowest grade you can get is an "F" which means you are failing the class.
• An icosahedron is a 20-sided polygon.

Scorpius is defeated by Katoya in the sphere
J: Well that was instructive. Kinda led with your chin there.

Macton: Do you know what Luxan hyper-rage is?
J: Yes I do. Do you know what a crock is?
Yes I do. A crock is short for "crock of sh**."

J: (to Katoya) Excuse me, Master Jedi
Another Star Wars reference.

Katoya: I hope what he learned will serve him well.
J: I'll tell you what we've learned. We've learned not to take classes from a head job.
A "head job" is a crazy person.

John wakes up in the heat cage
J: This must be detention then. Hey it's getting pretty ripe in here.
Detention is a punishment in school. You have to stay after school as a punishment usually in a classroom with other kids who also have detention. I think the worst part is that it's boring. In this context, "getting ripe" means beginning to smell.

John, stuck in the heat cage, is whistling when Katoya shows up
J: Are you real?
Katoya: Are you?
J: (with a groan) Oh riddles. Riddle me this, riddle me that. I have one...Why is it never just the heat; it's the humidity.

• The tune John is whistling is the "Colonel Bogey March" which was featured prominently in the movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai."
• "Riddle me this" was the favorite phrase of the Riddler in the Batman tv show (possibly the comics too, but I never read the comics).
• "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." is a cliché used to describe how bad the hot, humid weather is, particularly in the Southern United States.

Sc: I cannot protect you from them (the Scarrans).
J: Little Cat A -- I don't want you to protect me because, Little Cat B -- you haven't been doing such a bang up job of that in the first place which brings us to Little Cat C -- get me the hell out of here!
Thanks to everyone who wrote in. The "Little Cat A, B, or C" reference is to the Dr. Seuss book, "The Cat in the Hat" and/or "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.". The Cat makes a huge mess in the house. They can't get the stain out, and there's a cat under the hat, that's little cat A, who has little cat B under his hat, and so on. The Cat keeps pulling another cat from his hat, who makes the mess worse, and finally little cat Z cleans it all up, just before Mother comes home from the store. This site has a nice little wrap up.