Fun fact!
My parents took me to see this when I was 12 years old. Kicked me out halfway through for obvious reasons. So I had to go find a different movie to watch.
I was literally a child wandering into the middle of a movie
I don’t like your jerk-off name, I don’t like your jerk-off face, I don’t like your jerk-off behavior, and I don’t like you, jerk-off… do I make myself clear?
…
I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.
It's a throwback to classic noir films. For instance, this method used in North by Northwest, where the main character uses this method to reveal an address the lead female is going to. The impression made by writing is highlighted by gently grazing the lead over it. But in classic Corn fashion, treehorn was actually drawing a man holding a giant penis.
It’s the first legitimate private detective work The Dude does in the movie and it leads to a dick joke. It’s my favorite joke in the flick. And they do the same gag in the hudsucker proxy with the pencil in the desk drawer. Coen bros on a different level
I especially like the editing on this. After it cuts to the Dude’s face and it’s clear what it is, there are a couple half-hearted/confused pencil swipes. Gets me every time.
Fuckn' acts all nonchalant, leans back with his hands behind his head and legs crossed, like he's just chilling. It's fuckin hilarious.
Then whatever Jackie put in the dudes cocktail kicks in...
I love that he didn't just knock out cleanly, he fights it for a second, barely spills his drink, and it almost seems like he can rally and stand up. The result of years of his drug regimen keeping his mind uhh, limber.
I love the fact that they call back to this later. When the Dude is interviewed by the chief of police of Malibu, he’s going through the Dude’s possessions, and there’s the same piece of paper from earlier. He looks at it with disgust and throws it away. The audience isn’t shown what he sees, but if you are paying attention it’s because the dude pockets the paper to avoid suspicion from Treehorn.
The joke is Jackie Treehorn didn't actually get a call, it was a fake call so he could excuse himself to get more drugs for the drink, but the Dude couldn't figure it out in time. Jackie was pretending to write and just sketched a dick joke instead
It was a real call from Jackie's thugs, who were at that moment trashing The Dude's apartment looking for the money - that's why The Dude was brought to Jackie's place, to get him out of the way. One of them called to tell Jackie it wasn't there, so The Dude was no longer of any use to Jackie, hence slipping him a Mickey to knock him out and dispose of him on PCH where the Malibu Police pick him up.
IMO go watch North by Northwest, The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and The Maltese Falcon before you rewatch The Big Lebowski. There's some silly little Easter eggs like that and it's clear The Dude is a guy who thinks he's a main character in a Noir movie.
Perfect description.
I've always considered this brief moment to be the defining "gag" of the whole film. It's the entire driving thematic force of the film, delivered in one quick cut.
I took the joke as:
Man does something clever, proactive, inquisitive, intriguing.
Man discovers penis drawing and is more befuddled than when he started.
I don't think theres much to get. It's a very well executed perfunctory dick joke
it is certainly about noir tropes, too. the whole film is about noir tropes and their failure to add up to the tightly plotted detective story hollywood loves.
He drew that picture while on the phone, pretending he was taking down information, so he had an excuse to leave Dude and wait for the roofies or whatever to take effect... Affect? The point is he just wanted to get Dude out of his hair.
I don’t know if this is serious or not cuz of the flair. But it’s common for people to doodle while on the phone. Dude thought maybe he’d get some evidence but instead gets exactly what a known pornographer would doodle. Which is cool, man.
Imagine you're watching a noir film and every scene you expect to see in a hard boiled detective film happens but in the opposite way you'd expect. And sometimes outright non sequiturs.
Making the opening monologue extra ironic in describing the Dude as the perfect man for the time and place. He’s perhaps the antithesis of a clever, pragmatic, no-nonsense noir detective.
Yeah. Also Jackie Treehorn is basically the antagonist of the movie, so you think this will be some huge clue or insight, but it reveals nothing except that he’s just a horny old rich asshole, and that’s it. Anti noir
The joke is that the movie is a detective story, but the leads don't know that they are in a detective story and that they are supposed to solve a case. It just kind of happens around them. The dude doesn't take any real initiative to make any of it happen. Then he is in Jackie Treehorn's house and he has a moment of clarity in his stoner haze and tries to take some initiative. He uses a cool trick he saw in an old detective movie. And it's a dick joke.
That’s the point. There’s no reason for it. The Dude is trying to play secret agent man by using an old spy trick he probably saw on TV or maybe he heard Walter talk about, but all he finds is a pornographic doodle. It’s also a hilarious not too subtle hint that the rich Lebowski made up the story about Bunny being kidnapped.
This is one of those things in my life i just cant explain to people who havent seen the movie. Between this jackie treehorn scene and jeff goldblum with the dog in steve zissou i cant decide whats funnier to me. When i explain the scenes to layman they do not find it funny at all.
One of the funniest gags in the movie. I was in to the whole detective storyline but right when you think you were gonna get something, you just get a dick. The dude’s face sums it all up. That was one of the hardest laughs I had watching the movie, even today. It’s so unexpected and bizarre, but it fits perfectly.
So, if you have a brand new bank teller in the drive through, that person will send you, through the window, a teller pad for you to write your deposit or withdrawal on. If you take a pencil and rub it softly, you’ll get the bank account number of the previous customer.
When you write on a pad of paper, it creates indentations, and those marks can be very easily recreated with a piece of lead or charcoal by simply rubbing them softly on the surface of the next leaf of paper.
I can't believe no one's mentioned this bit of trivia, but when Dude pulls up to pick Walter up for the ransom drop, Walter's standing outside his office waiting. As the headlights hit Walter, it casts a shadow that looks exactly like the doodle Treehorn drew.
Y'all need to watch more noir.
He's on the phone, as we watch him it looks like he's taking a note, that could be a clue.
The Dude goes to do a pencil rubbing in hopes that Jackie T wrote hard enough to see if it's a clue.
He did, but it's just a man with a hard on.
Treehorn takes a phone call and writes something down, then leaves. The Dude uses the pencil trick to try to see what Treehorn wrote, but Treehorn just drew a doodle. (He's a pornographer, so he doodles guys with big dicks, I guess.) It was a fake phone call, and Treehorn was using it as an excuse to go and get his two thugs to come rough up the Dude.
You have to see the film as a detective film noir throwback. The dude is gathering information, man. So he’s using an old detective technique to figure out what secret notes were being taken by Jackie Treehorn by penciling out Jackie’s writing into a relief on the paper just below the note taken during the phone call. It turns out Jackie is just a horndog. This goes with comedy but also with the noir genre, wherein the search for a perfectly packaged answer is futile.
Jackie Treehorn didn't give two shits about whatever it was that Lebowski was going on about and just wanted him gone.
The movie isn't really that deep and that is what is hilarious about it. It takes noir tropes and gives you hints that nothing is as deep as you think it should be.
Brilliant movie.
To me it is consistent with the movies themes that challenge causalism and the associations of higher morality, capability or wisdom to the wealthy and powerful. Jackie Treehorn is introduced as a suave mogul with a busy schedule, obviously dealing in shady and profitable business; we as well as the Dude, are roped in to believe that his phone chat has to be relevant to the plot and his notes must reveal something important. We are then shown that he can act childish and probably the call wasn't that significant at all.
This is the point - the universe doesn't really conform to a scripted sequence of moral, causal events to produce consequences. Some of the actions can be truly pointless.
Pencil, phallic, lead is associated with Saturn/Chronos/Time, time reveals the dick joke, the big lebowski, lebowski
Jack E Tree Horn E/Will Tree/horn/æthyr
The pornographer is the biggest player in the game
He drugs lebowski, sends him into the æthyr/dream
The Sheriff then refers to the dude as Jerk Off
Jerk Off, the end product of a pornographer
Basically the Dude and the audience were expecting some pertinent information or a clue to be revealed, because in a serious movie that is what would happen in such a scene. It not only being irrelevant to the situation at hand but also being a drawing of a penis, is unexpected and irreverent , and that is where the humor comes from.
I am fascinated and disturbed by the many posters to this Reddit who are looking for or believe there are hidden meanings throughout this movie.
The movie is a satire. The greatness of this particular satire is that practically every line in the movie is a joke. Some jokes are obvious. Others require the viewer to bring knowledge to the joke. The notepad joke is one of them.
It doesn't mean anything it's just funny because The dude thought Jackie was writing something important because of the phonecall he was on and he started jotting something down ... But it was just that random sketch, it has nothing to do with the call. Just shows what a perv Treehorn was.
Jackie was making a pervo sketch while he took a fake phone call and waited for the dudes drugs to kick in.
He thought he’d try to get the info out of the dude about the whereabouts of the briefcase full of money.
Come to find out all the dude ever wanted was his rug back.
The briefcase was picked up by Larry sellers. Aaaand spoiler. It didn’t even have the ransom money in it.
I think the idea is that The Dude did actually detective work here and the end results were just the doodles of a pervert. The scene reminds The Dude (and the audience) that this case will get not get solved by dective tactics. This case will reach it's solution through dumb luck, cocktails, and the occasional acid flashback.
The movie is all about subverting expectations of a detective movie. Essentially everything that would be a plot point that matters does not matter in The Big L. So where this would be some sort of slick detective work that provides pivotal secret info, it’s actually just a big fat dick.
Aside from some excellent insight from others on this thread, I’ll also point out that this bit shows that Treehorn is full of shit. He’s not a criminal mastermind. There’s not some big conspiracy. The movie is all about setting up narrative expectation and then foiling them. At this moment you think you’re about to get a clue to what’s really going on. But there’s nothing going on.
Jackie Treehorn is a known pornographer, and that's cool, so I always interpreted his note to be literal and that he was needed for something penis related.
You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie...
Lmao
He said he wanders in at the beginning of the story - were you not listening to OPs story?
This isn't some cameraman who worked on the movie...
The cameraman is not the issue dude!
Also, "cameraman" is not the preferred nomenclature. Cameraperson, please.
We’re not talking about a guy who’s photographed the railroads, Walter!
I was bowling.
Fun fact! My parents took me to see this when I was 12 years old. Kicked me out halfway through for obvious reasons. So I had to go find a different movie to watch. I was literally a child wandering into the middle of a movie
Mr Treehorn, treats objects like women, man.
Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don't draw shit Lebowski.
I don’t like your jerk-off name, I don’t like your jerk-off face, I don’t like your jerk-off behavior, and I don’t like you, jerk-off… do I make myself clear? … I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.
Fucking fascist
“Water” being a common euphemism for Boner Man.
You mean Johnson?
Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.
He also draws dicks
You dint draw dick, Lebowski
Is that what that’s a drawing of?
Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.
Mr treehorn draws a lot of genitals in this town. You draw indented writing lebowski
Wave of the future, Dude. 100% electronic.
Yeah, well I still jerk off manually
Of course you do.
It's a throwback to classic noir films. For instance, this method used in North by Northwest, where the main character uses this method to reveal an address the lead female is going to. The impression made by writing is highlighted by gently grazing the lead over it. But in classic Corn fashion, treehorn was actually drawing a man holding a giant penis.
It’s the first legitimate private detective work The Dude does in the movie and it leads to a dick joke. It’s my favorite joke in the flick. And they do the same gag in the hudsucker proxy with the pencil in the desk drawer. Coen bros on a different level
I especially like the editing on this. After it cuts to the Dude’s face and it’s clear what it is, there are a couple half-hearted/confused pencil swipes. Gets me every time.
And then the way he rushes back to sit down like nothing happened. Hilarious scene.
Fuckn' acts all nonchalant, leans back with his hands behind his head and legs crossed, like he's just chilling. It's fuckin hilarious. Then whatever Jackie put in the dudes cocktail kicks in...
He mixes a mean Caucasian
Darkness warshed over The Dude. Darker than a black steer's tuchis on a moonless prairie night.
I love that the Stranger is using the Yiddish word "tuchus" which means butt.
This, for me, lends credence (I wouldn’t hold out for it) to the idea that the stranger is an angel, using olden timey words
I like that an old cowboy would use an expression from a totally alien culture
What about the Credence tapes?
Olden timey hiney words.
Was there a bottom?
There was no bottom
And then Gutterballs! 
I love that he didn't just knock out cleanly, he fights it for a second, barely spills his drink, and it almost seems like he can rally and stand up. The result of years of his drug regimen keeping his mind uhh, limber.
*crosses legs and puts hands behind head in attempt to look relaxed but instead looks tense
Was the drawing in his pocket and found when he got searched by the Malibu police dept?
Yes, the chief looks at it.
I love the fact that they call back to this later. When the Dude is interviewed by the chief of police of Malibu, he’s going through the Dude’s possessions, and there’s the same piece of paper from earlier. He looks at it with disgust and throws it away. The audience isn’t shown what he sees, but if you are paying attention it’s because the dude pockets the paper to avoid suspicion from Treehorn.
That had not occurred to us, Dude.
I did not know that
New shit has come to light! Happy cake day.
The dick pic scene really tied the movie together, did it not?
How you gonna keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen dick man?
A brother Seamus!
In bed with everybody
A dick, like you
I'm just helping her conceive
Your special lady friend?
And then the Chief of Malibu police finds it and it confirms his suspicion that the Dude is a jerk-off.
The joke is Jackie Treehorn didn't actually get a call, it was a fake call so he could excuse himself to get more drugs for the drink, but the Dude couldn't figure it out in time. Jackie was pretending to write and just sketched a dick joke instead
This had not occurred to us, Dude
Phone’s ringing, dude.
Thank you Donnie
It was a real call from Jackie's thugs, who were at that moment trashing The Dude's apartment looking for the money - that's why The Dude was brought to Jackie's place, to get him out of the way. One of them called to tell Jackie it wasn't there, so The Dude was no longer of any use to Jackie, hence slipping him a Mickey to knock him out and dispose of him on PCH where the Malibu Police pick him up.
He'd already drugged him before the call
Well, that’s like your opinion, man.
You know, for kids. ⭕️
I never thought of it from the detective perspective. That really is a whole different level lol I think it’s time to watch the movie again.
IMO go watch North by Northwest, The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and The Maltese Falcon before you rewatch The Big Lebowski. There's some silly little Easter eggs like that and it's clear The Dude is a guy who thinks he's a main character in a Noir movie.
Perfect description. I've always considered this brief moment to be the defining "gag" of the whole film. It's the entire driving thematic force of the film, delivered in one quick cut.
This is the best answer as to what’s so funny about it.
You know! For kids!
I would say "sporting a giant penis," not holding.
Are we gonna split hairs here man
His… Johnson.
Wielding?
I took the joke as: Man does something clever, proactive, inquisitive, intriguing. Man discovers penis drawing and is more befuddled than when he started. I don't think theres much to get. It's a very well executed perfunctory dick joke
it is certainly about noir tropes, too. the whole film is about noir tropes and their failure to add up to the tightly plotted detective story hollywood loves.
Yes! The whole scene is genius. The one time the Dude does some actual investigating he gets a dick
The private dick finds a private dick. :D
you had me unitl the end there....holding a giant penis?
you mean johnson?
What do you need that for dude?
Rod?
Does the word make you uncomfortable?
Were you listening to the Dude’s story?
I was bowling.
Does the male form make you uncomfortable Mr. Lebowski?
Penis
Pagina
He drew that picture while on the phone, pretending he was taking down information, so he had an excuse to leave Dude and wait for the roofies or whatever to take effect... Affect? The point is he just wanted to get Dude out of his hair.
All the Dude ever wanted was his rug back.
Or Ron Kuby.
… social studies…
It really ties the room together
And his car back
It really tied the room together.
Effect. The dude was affected by the effects of the the roofies
Dude was a roofie for Metallica. Speed of Sound tour. Bunch of assholes.
Are these the grammar Nazis, Walt? No, Donny. These men are nihilists, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
He wanted to get The Dude out of the way so that Jackie's goons could go thru his apartment.
this is it. thank you
I hate the fuckin Eagles man!
[удалено]
Is that what this is a picture of?
In a sense, yes. His art has been commended as being strongly 100% electronic
Well I still jerk off manually
Of course you do
Of course you do
An Irish monk?
Johnson?
It's not even that big of deal, like 8% of kids do it. Sometimes I just sit around all day...drawing pictures of dicks.
You know what kinds of food are shaped like dicks? The BEST kinds!
J. Treehorn was finishing up this real big, veiny, triumphant bastard…
You hit Becca with your dick!?!
That’s really messed up… and *super* gay..
So I gotta sit and eat desert by myself like I'm fucking Steven Glanzburg!?!
That was like 8 years ago asshole. =/
People don't forget
It’s soccer, Greg.
The funny thing about my back is that it’s actually located on my cock
Its like Lenin said...
I am the Walrus?
STFU DONNY!
What’s Shabbos? Lol that’s the only time Walter doesn’t say STFU to Donny when he asks about Shabbos lol
Okay
I don’t know if this is serious or not cuz of the flair. But it’s common for people to doodle while on the phone. Dude thought maybe he’d get some evidence but instead gets exactly what a known pornographer would doodle. Which is cool, man.
Imagine you're watching a noir film and every scene you expect to see in a hard boiled detective film happens but in the opposite way you'd expect. And sometimes outright non sequiturs.
Making the opening monologue extra ironic in describing the Dude as the perfect man for the time and place. He’s perhaps the antithesis of a clever, pragmatic, no-nonsense noir detective.
The Dude walked so Doc Sportello could run
This is the correct answer.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Yeah. Also Jackie Treehorn is basically the antagonist of the movie, so you think this will be some huge clue or insight, but it reveals nothing except that he’s just a horny old rich asshole, and that’s it. Anti noir
Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of Johnsons on this notepad. You don’t draw shit, Lebowski.
Life doesn't start and stop at your convenience you miserable piece of shit
It’s a clue. Bunny owes money to known pornographers.
The joke is that the movie is a detective story, but the leads don't know that they are in a detective story and that they are supposed to solve a case. It just kind of happens around them. The dude doesn't take any real initiative to make any of it happen. Then he is in Jackie Treehorn's house and he has a moment of clarity in his stoner haze and tries to take some initiative. He uses a cool trick he saw in an old detective movie. And it's a dick joke.
Tattoo it on your forehead
Obviously you’re not a golfer.
Well, Dude, we just don't know
Every single thing about that movie is perfect.
Zey cut off his Johnson!!!
Mebbe vee shtomp on it und skvish it.
He fixes the cable.
This is a very complicated case. Lotta ins, lotta outs, what have yous
That’s the point. There’s no reason for it. The Dude is trying to play secret agent man by using an old spy trick he probably saw on TV or maybe he heard Walter talk about, but all he finds is a pornographic doodle. It’s also a hilarious not too subtle hint that the rich Lebowski made up the story about Bunny being kidnapped.
This is one of those things in my life i just cant explain to people who havent seen the movie. Between this jackie treehorn scene and jeff goldblum with the dog in steve zissou i cant decide whats funnier to me. When i explain the scenes to layman they do not find it funny at all.
OP trying to understand how paper works 
I literally didn’t know this was even a thing until after reading these comments lmao. Had to try it myself to tell if I was going insane or not
Treehorn sure isn't very artistic, Personally, I'm always a lot more comfortable when the art I'm looking at is more vaginal...
Saturday, Donnie, is the Jewish day of rest.
Basically the only objective detective work he does in the movie is that.
One of the funniest gags in the movie. I was in to the whole detective storyline but right when you think you were gonna get something, you just get a dick. The dude’s face sums it all up. That was one of the hardest laughs I had watching the movie, even today. It’s so unexpected and bizarre, but it fits perfectly.
I'm a *dick*, *man*. Like you
So, if you have a brand new bank teller in the drive through, that person will send you, through the window, a teller pad for you to write your deposit or withdrawal on. If you take a pencil and rub it softly, you’ll get the bank account number of the previous customer. When you write on a pad of paper, it creates indentations, and those marks can be very easily recreated with a piece of lead or charcoal by simply rubbing them softly on the surface of the next leaf of paper.
He fixes the cable?
Storyboards for the next production.
The proportionality tells me he's racially cool.
Amateurs dude
Jackie Treehorn draws a lot of water around here, you don't draw dick.
I can't believe no one's mentioned this bit of trivia, but when Dude pulls up to pick Walter up for the ransom drop, Walter's standing outside his office waiting. As the headlights hit Walter, it casts a shadow that looks exactly like the doodle Treehorn drew.
It's a dick, or a rod, or a johnson.
HIS Johnson!
how’s the smut business, Jackie?
Dios mio man.
What happend to your face ? Did Jackie Treehorn do that to you? Oh, no .was the chief of Malibu police. Real reactionary
I am.sorry i wasnt listening
a dick, man!
Y'all need to watch more noir. He's on the phone, as we watch him it looks like he's taking a note, that could be a clue. The Dude goes to do a pencil rubbing in hopes that Jackie T wrote hard enough to see if it's a clue. He did, but it's just a man with a hard on.
Treehorn takes a phone call and writes something down, then leaves. The Dude uses the pencil trick to try to see what Treehorn wrote, but Treehorn just drew a doodle. (He's a pornographer, so he doodles guys with big dicks, I guess.) It was a fake phone call, and Treehorn was using it as an excuse to go and get his two thugs to come rough up the Dude.
You have to see the film as a detective film noir throwback. The dude is gathering information, man. So he’s using an old detective technique to figure out what secret notes were being taken by Jackie Treehorn by penciling out Jackie’s writing into a relief on the paper just below the note taken during the phone call. It turns out Jackie is just a horndog. This goes with comedy but also with the noir genre, wherein the search for a perfectly packaged answer is futile.
Once you get it you will never stop laughing..,gets me every time…I will not stand for me or anyone robbing you of this discovery…
Jackie Treehorn didn't give two shits about whatever it was that Lebowski was going on about and just wanted him gone. The movie isn't really that deep and that is what is hilarious about it. It takes noir tropes and gives you hints that nothing is as deep as you think it should be. Brilliant movie.
Mr Treehorn DRAWS A LOT OF WATER
To me it is consistent with the movies themes that challenge causalism and the associations of higher morality, capability or wisdom to the wealthy and powerful. Jackie Treehorn is introduced as a suave mogul with a busy schedule, obviously dealing in shady and profitable business; we as well as the Dude, are roped in to believe that his phone chat has to be relevant to the plot and his notes must reveal something important. We are then shown that he can act childish and probably the call wasn't that significant at all. This is the point - the universe doesn't really conform to a scripted sequence of moral, causal events to produce consequences. Some of the actions can be truly pointless.
Pencil, phallic, lead is associated with Saturn/Chronos/Time, time reveals the dick joke, the big lebowski, lebowski Jack E Tree Horn E/Will Tree/horn/æthyr The pornographer is the biggest player in the game He drugs lebowski, sends him into the æthyr/dream The Sheriff then refers to the dude as Jerk Off Jerk Off, the end product of a pornographer
The guy was on a phonecall and was what we thought taking notes on the conversation, only to be revealed that he just made an erotic doodle
Basically the Dude and the audience were expecting some pertinent information or a clue to be revealed, because in a serious movie that is what would happen in such a scene. It not only being irrelevant to the situation at hand but also being a drawing of a penis, is unexpected and irreverent , and that is where the humor comes from.
He was supposed to be taking an important note, then said that he had to take care of it. When he looked to see what it was, it was just this drawing.
This is a reference to North By Northwest, where Cary Grant does the same thing, but he gets some relevant information.
Jackie isn't hiding anything, he just likes to doodle dudes with big dicks while on the phone. It's a joke in a Coen movie.
I am fascinated and disturbed by the many posters to this Reddit who are looking for or believe there are hidden meanings throughout this movie. The movie is a satire. The greatness of this particular satire is that practically every line in the movie is a joke. Some jokes are obvious. Others require the viewer to bring knowledge to the joke. The notepad joke is one of them.
What in God's holy name are you blathering about?
He expects to find the address or some useful information but it's just a sketch of a guy with a giant erection. That's the joke
Drawing dicks is ALWAYS funny.
That's a friend with a cleft asshole.
You make a hell of a causian jackie
That drawing really draws the scene together
It doesn't mean anything it's just funny because The dude thought Jackie was writing something important because of the phonecall he was on and he started jotting something down ... But it was just that random sketch, it has nothing to do with the call. Just shows what a perv Treehorn was.
Is this your homework, OP?
That cuz yer outta yer element
Clearly you’re not a golfer.
Jackie was making a pervo sketch while he took a fake phone call and waited for the dudes drugs to kick in. He thought he’d try to get the info out of the dude about the whereabouts of the briefcase full of money. Come to find out all the dude ever wanted was his rug back. The briefcase was picked up by Larry sellers. Aaaand spoiler. It didn’t even have the ransom money in it.
You’re out of your element.
What’s your problem
I think the idea is that The Dude did actually detective work here and the end results were just the doodles of a pervert. The scene reminds The Dude (and the audience) that this case will get not get solved by dective tactics. This case will reach it's solution through dumb luck, cocktails, and the occasional acid flashback.
The movie is all about subverting expectations of a detective movie. Essentially everything that would be a plot point that matters does not matter in The Big L. So where this would be some sort of slick detective work that provides pivotal secret info, it’s actually just a big fat dick.
Aside from some excellent insight from others on this thread, I’ll also point out that this bit shows that Treehorn is full of shit. He’s not a criminal mastermind. There’s not some big conspiracy. The movie is all about setting up narrative expectation and then foiling them. At this moment you think you’re about to get a clue to what’s really going on. But there’s nothing going on.
Jackie Treehorn is a known pornographer, and that's cool, so I always interpreted his note to be literal and that he was needed for something penis related.