Release date: November 20, 2020
Opening line: (Wakko) "Part Great Dane-y!"
The Cutening: Dot gains the ability to turn everything super cute.
Close Encounters of the Worst Kind: Pinky and the Brain attempt to gain the attention of alien life to help them conquer the world.
Equal Time: The Warners parody the 2020 election.
Tropes found in "The Cutening":
- Art Shift: Dot turns the world into a chibi wonderland.
- Black Comedy: Dot pulls out an apparently sentient cupcake that she considers the cutest thing she's ever seen. She decides to eat it and asks the cupcake if that's okay with it; the cupcake attempts to protest before it's promptly swallowed whole.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The gross-looking pigeon at the beginning proves essential to reversing the Cutening, as the Warners lick it to unleash a World-Healing Wave of gross sludge that returns everything to normal.
- Color Wash: The beginning of the cartoon has dull greys, greens, and browns, to emphasize the boring, drab, and disgusting nature of the Water Tower.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Dr. Scratchansniff has a brief appearance before his (more prominent) role in episode 13.
- Eye Beams: When she turns super-cute, Dot gains the ability to shoot rainbows from her eyes.
- Fake Better Alternate Timeline: Dot changes the world so that it's cuter — all dogs are puppies, some mouldy bread smiles, etc. However, the Warner siblings then decide that it's too cute and set it back to normal.
- Forced Transformation: Disgusted by the grossness of daily life, Dot decides to cutify the entire world, starting with her own brother Yakko, who, like most people, is opposed to it. Wakko is more or less indifferent to it and lets it happen.Yakko: Wait, wait, Dot. You don't have to make everything cute.
Dot: Yes, yes I do!
Yakko: No, no! I'm the one who yaks! I've got a rakish charm about me! - Friendly Tickle Torture: Dot tickles Wakko and Yakko when they are turned cute.
- Gone Horribly Right: Dot succeeds in making the world cute... and soon decides she can't stand it.
- Gratuitous Japanese: As a part of the chorus, Dot sings she'll make the world a little more kawaii.
- Hellish Pupils: After grabbing the diseased pigeon, the Warners loom over it with sharp-toothed slasher smiles as Yakko and Dot's eyes change from having cutesy yellow and blue highlights to having unnerving black-rimmed yellow vertical slits for pupils... and Wakko's eyes undergo the opposite change.
- Scare Chord: When the Warners grab the pigeon with the intent of doing something gross to undo the cutification, a menacing chord starts up as they leer hungrily at it.
- Shout-Out: The episode references cutesy Japanese characters and J-Pop.
- Sickeningly Sweet: Dot cutifies everything in the world, turning the entire Earth into a colorful land free of pollution and full of cutesy creatures with huge eyes. 28 days later, everyone is sick of this (even Dot), and sugar is coming out of Yakko's eyes.
- Slasher Smile: After grabbing the diseased pigeon, the Warners sport nightmarishly sharp-toothed grins, with Yakko lolling his tongue and Wakko hungrily licking his lips.
- Super Cute Superpowers: Dot mentions the trope by name when she realizes the cupcake she ate gave her the power to shoot rainbows from her eyes that cutie-fy whatever they hit.
- Super-Deformed: All of the characters turned cute become this.
- Take That!:
- Yakko watches "Fake News", with expies of three Fox News personalities yelling and arguing at each other.
- At one point Dot turns some gross things floating around her into cute stuff. In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, one of these things is a floating Donald Trump head that gets turned into a cute piggy.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After the Warners lick the pigeon, the water tower projectile vomits all over the world, causing everything to turn back to normal.
- World-Healing Wave: The Warners reverse The Cutening by licking the neck and eyes of a gross and sickly pigeon, creating a wave of green sludge that undoes everything... but makes the Warners' lower bodies that of giant pigeons.
Tropes found in "Close Encounters of the Worst Kind":
- Alien Invasion: Brain tries to invoke this in order to get aliens to help him takeover the world. He instead gets a couple of affable and unsophisticated aliens who are only interested in partaking in Earth's culture.
- Area 51: Pinky and Brain end up here at the end of the cartoon after being mistaken for aliens.
- Berserk Button: When the aliens hear microphone feedback, it causes them to go berserk.
- Blunt "Yes": Brain's response to Gabriella asking him if he really wants to destroy the wonder and beauty of Earth.
- Catchphrase Interruptus: Brain tries to declare that they're going to "Try to take over the world!" before the scientists fill his and Pinky's cage with foam.Pinky: WHEEEEEE! FOAM PARTY!
- Feedback Rule: The feedback from a microphone dropping causes the aliens to briefly go berserk.
- Innocent Aliens: The aliens came to planet Earth not because of Brain's message, but because of Pinky's singing.
- Last-Second Word Swap: When Pinky sees the aliens on "The Shout", he replies "Shut the Ffffront door!"
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The aliens put on human clothing, and everyone thinks they're human.
- Raised Lighter Tribute: Gabriella and her companion hold up lighters while performing with Pinkie at a karaoke bar.
- Recycled Soundtrack: During part of the food court scene, some of the score from Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights can be heard, which was also scored by Steve Bernstein (who is the main composer for the revival).
- Shout-Out:
- The title references Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- The mall Pinky and Brain take the aliens to is named Cloverfield Lane Mall.
- Translator Microbes: Gabriella, the orange one-eyed alien, has a collar that allows her to speak English once she gets to Earth.
Tropes found in "Equal Time":
- Full-Body Disguise: The Surprise Party candidate's campaign manager is wearing a full-body tiger suit at the zoo as yet another example of "surprise."
- Hurricane of Puns: The "totally insane-y" third parties include the Pool Party, the Surprise Party, and the House Party (which in a double-pun, features a DJ playing House Music).
- Mythology Gag: Wakko tries singing "Wakko's America" from the original series, only to give up when he realizes nothing has changed about the country's lay-out.
- Place Worse Than Death: Iowa is depicted as a backwoods farm covered in half-melted snow, and Dot describes it as "the one state we pretend to care about one January every four years".Dot: I'm cold and lonely... just like everyone else in Iowa!
- Take That!:
- The episode parodies coverage of the 2020 Presidential Election, and also depicts third-party presidential candidates as show-boating crackpots.
- One of the Russians is concerned with Americans not wanting to elect a drone as President, but the other say’s he's more human than the last guy.
- We Interrupt This Program: The House Party's ad is interrupted by a thinly disguised Russian Psyop ad endorsing Johnny Thanksgiving (who is totally not a drone) for President.
