Who knew Civil War-era criminals were masters of The Dark Arts?
Production Code: 219
Jake, Trixie, and Spud become counselors at the summer camp Jake attended as a kid. Left in charge of a group of dorky kids, Jake not only has to compete against Brad but also a group of vengeful ghosts.
Tropes
- 6 Is 9: Jake and Spud mistakenly enter Cabin 6, excited to see it's full of athletic kids, only to find it's actually Brad's cabin with the sign upside-down.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Played With. Jake doesn't believe in the existence of ghosts despite being a dragon and interacting with other mythical creatures on a regular basis. However, it's the fact he has interacted with all of these creatures while never meeting any ghosts that makes him consider them a myth.
- Black and Nerdy: Marky is this trope, as well as Terrified of Germs.
- Bubble Boy: One of Jake's cabin boys, Benny, intentionally sealed himself up to avoid having to interact with people due to his constant bullying.
- Camp Wacky Name: Camp Mugwomp.
- Genre Blind: Despite being a dragon and having faced and seen numerous other magical creatures, Jake does not believe in ghosts or that the legend of Shackles Jack might be true.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Brad pranks Cabin 9 with the legend of Shackles Jack by making them that he and his crew are currently here. He finds out the hard way that the legend is true when he gets kidnapped by the actual Shackles Jack who intends on taking his body for himself. Jake adds to it by letting everyone at camp know that Brad tried telling the authorities that he was kidnapped by an actual ghost, which naturally they don't believe.
- Magical Security Cam: Brad's slideshow of Cabin 9's fear over his ghost story and Jake's fall in the mud from several summers back somehow all contain images that could only have been captured by close-up cameras that were previously never seen in-universe.
- Meaningful Echo: In the flashback at the beginning of the episode, we see that a young Jake had to run a race against Brad despite having a sprained ankle, and was told by his camp counselor, Counselor Jenkins, to "Just suck it up!" He wound up losing that race (ironically because his dragon powers were starting to activate, and he was surprised when he started breathing fire) and the Mugwomp Cup, much to Jenkins’ disappointment. In the present day, Jake spends the majority of the episode training the Cabin 9 campers to win the Mugwomp Cup and redeem himself for losing to Brad all those years ago. When it’s time for the race, the Cabin 9 camper that has to run it, Eugene, has a sprained ankle, just like Jake did. When Jake decides to pull Eugene from the race, the now Head Counselor Jenkins says, "Can’t he just suck it up?" That’s what helps Jake realize that he doesn't want to win after all, he just wants Cabin 9 to have fun.
- Motivation on a Stick: One of the overweight twins does this to himself with a candy bar to keep himself running quickly during a sprint.
- Pseudolympics: One of the main conflicts of the episode is Jake attempting to get his cabin of wimps prepared to win the Mugwomp trophy at the end-of-camp Olympics.
- Running Gag: Spud wearing different outfits from the lost and found.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The final fate of Shackles Jack and the other ghosts is to be sucked into and sealed in the Mugwomp trophy, which then gets left behind in the cave-in.
- Second Place Is for Winners: Jake and Spud consider coming in second to Brad as a perfectly respectable position so long they retained their integrity.
- Splitting the Arrow: Marky pulls of a calculated ricochet with his arrow to split his opponent's down the middle.
- The Stinger: Spud sings a campfire song about Cabin 9.
- Training Montage: Jake training his Cabin 9 campers is set to a song reminiscent of the Rocky theme.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Jake lost the race 6 years ago because he began to show traces of his dragon powers, startling him.
- When the Planets Align: Shackles Jack cast a curse that would revive his and several of his friends' spirits when the planets were in alignment, which just so happens to occur the night Jake arrives at the camp.
