Bedtime Stories in Amphibia are no joke
Should've left me back in Wartwood, huh?! Hmm... well, maybe if they don't want me on the trip, maybe I won't go on the trip anymore!
— Polly, after overhearing Hop Pop say he should have left her with Mrs Croaker and not hearing the rest of the conversation.
Polly is feeling restless on the long trip, and after a few attempts to have the others join her in fun just ends with everyone annoyed with her. Polly hatches a plan she thinks will get back at her family for not appreciating her.
Full Recap
TBA...
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: For Polly.
- Anger Born of Worry: Hop Pop is angrier about Polly running away than he is about her accidentally causing the fwagon to be wrecked by a Roc Bird.
- Bag of Holding: The roc egg is the size of Polly, the roc that hatches from it is roughly the size of the wagon.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Soggy Joe (the Crazy Survivalist from "Anne vs. Wild") comes back as one of the truckers—he ends up helping Polly rescue her family, even going by "Speedy Joe."
- Mrs. Croaker is mentioned a couple of times, though she doesn't appear in person.
- Chekhov's Gag: Polly plays "Zap Tag" with Hop Pop, which involves using static electricity to zap him. Because she spilled bathwater everywhere, it shocks everyone. When she sees Sprig splash bathwater in the roc's eyes, she realizes she can do the same to the roc, shocking all its feathers off.
- Continuity Nod: Anne is shown driving Bessie with Hop Pop's permission after learning to do so in "Anne Theft Auto".
- Didn't Think This Through: Polly dresses up the pink ball as herself in a sleep mask as a prank, assuming the family would figure it out and realize they've been played. It doesn't occur to her that they might just let her sleep and not notice, so Polly suddenly finds herself abandoned when they just drive off without realizing she's gone...and it only gets worse when she realizes that the pink ball isn't what it seems to be.
- Eye Scream: Downplayed. Sprig throws a bucket of soapy water at the roc's face, leaving the bird's eyes bloodshot from it.
- Feathered Fiend: The egg Polly swapped with her belongs to a Roc Bird, which would devour the first thing it sees after hatching.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: The storybook the Plantars read at the end features the protagonist hunting down his wife's murderer and killing him out of revenge.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Hop Pop is reading the storybook to Polly for the first time, a message in one of the pages reads "To Sprig, Love Mom".
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Hop Pop addresses Polly as "Polly Petunia Plantar".Polly: Uh oh. Full name.
- Giant Flyer: The roc hatchling is already bigger than the fwagon, despite hatching from an egg as small as Polly.
- Hidden Depths: Soggy Joe and the truckers are able to psychoanalyze Polly's behavior quite accurately. One says that being out all alone on the road encourages them to better themselves.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming:Polly: No one terrorizes my family but me!
- Insistent Terminology: The family corrects Soggy Joe's use of "wagon" to "fwagon" in unison. He's not convinced that's a word.
- Instantly Defeathered Bird: The electric shock Polly gives the roc fries off all its feathers (yet is somehow able to fly away).
- Missing Child: Hop Pop, Sprig, and Anne are all very freaked out when they find out they accidentally left Polly behind. Even after everything with the Roc, Hop Pop is still most angry that Polly's trick could have resulted in her being hurt or lost or worse.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Polly tells her family the reason she ran away was because she heard them talking about how they thought she was always getting in the way, Anne, Spring, and Hop Pop all feel terrible about it. Sprig even covers his mouth in shock. They then all apologize to Polly.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Polly grabs a random pink ball near the truck stop and dresses it like herself to prank the family. When they don't notice and take off (assuming that the rock is just Polly taking a nap), she learns from another patron that it's actually an egg containing a carnivorous roc.
- Non-Indicative Name: "Fergus Frog Finds a Friend" is a Shout-Out to the 2010 children's book "Fergus Finds a Friend" (which is about an otter). The title of the book would make one think that it's going to be some cutesy children's book, but when the family reads it together at the end of the episode, it turns out that the book is actually about a man who's trying to get revenge on the person who murdered his wife. Anne's quick to note just dark the book is.
- Noodle Incident: Something happened to Sprig that caused him to very wary about waking his sister up from a nap.
- Not Now, Kiddo: The episode's conflict started because the family members didn't give Polly attention. It's justified since Hop Pop was bone tired after driving for so long while Anne and Sprig were trying to stay focused on driving on their own.
- Oh, Crap!: Polly has a brief freak-out when she sees her family leave without her—she gets another one when she realizes that the pink ball she found is the egg of a roc, a carnivorous bird that eats animals like frogs (or humans like Anne).
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Polly is so homesick and desperate for some normalcy she intentionally gets dirty so she'll have to be bathed, even though it's previously been established that she Hates Baths.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Polly overhears the rest of the family discussing how annoying she's been, and when Hop Pop wonders whether he should've left her with Mrs. Croaker, she angrily hops away. She therefore misses the rest of the conversation, in which Sprig notes that she must be acting up for a reason, and Hop Pop concedes that he didn't really mean that; he's just so tired he can't think straight.
- Shock and Awe: Polly beats the roc with a massive static shock, complete with X-Ray Sparks.
- Status Quo Is God: The fwagon gets severely damaged by the roc during the climax, but Speedy Joe offers to tow them to the next truck stop so they can get it repaired, and it's good as new by the following episode.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Polly accidentally puts her family in danger when she mistakes a giant bird egg that's about to hatch for a pink rock.
