"Baby Kate and the Imaginary Mystery"
Kate and Pal find that Nadine is missing, and they suspect that one of the Tibbles has kidnapped her.
Tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: For all of the trash talking Nemo does with Pal, he certainly doesn’t hesitate in begging the dog to not leave him alone in the kitchen after Grandma Tibble closed the window he came in from.
- All for Nothing: Kate and Pal's entire investigation and Pal's sneaking into and escaping from the Tibbles' house ends up being for nothing, as in the end it's revealed that Nadine was just on a trip and not missing or kidnapped at all.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Uncle Wormy, the Tibbles' Imaginary Friend introduced in this episode via Pal's Imagine Spot, is a giant, cycloptic, drooling brown worm.
- Company Cross References: In The Teaser, Kate introduces the episode as a segment on Mashed Peas Theatre, a play on the Masterpiece Theatre series that is also produced by PBS.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Mashed Peas Theater room is full of pictures and objects referencing previous episodes featuring Kate and Pal as major characters. It has the cake topper from "The Secret Life of Dogs and Babies," a sock from "The Great Sock Mystery," and the flea circus from "Flea to Be You and Me." Additionally, two books are labeled “The Great Sock Mystery” and “It Came From Beyond,” the titles of two previous Kate and Pal episodes.
- The "Om_ble" backpack from "D.W.'s Backpack Mishap" is seen in this episode.
- Double-Meaning Title: “Imaginary,” in that the mystery involves a missing Imaginary Friend and that it ends up all being in Pal and Kate's heads because Nadine was never really missing after all.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: Pal's Imagine Spot about what he thinks the Tibbles are doing to Nadine shows her chained to a chair and having her feet tickled by them with a peacock feather.
- Imaginary Friend: Pal and Kate are told by Vicita's imaginary friend, Treenie, that D.W's imaginary friend, Nadine, is missing and embark on a mission to find her.
- Little Stowaway: Pal stows away in one of the Tibbles’ backpacks to sneak into their house to try to find Nadine.
- Mystery Episode: Pal and Kate set out to find Nadine, suspecting that the Tibbles are behind her disappearance.
- No Peripheral Vision: Amazingly, Grandma Tibble manages to completely miss seeing Nemo after nearly vacuuming him up right under her feet.
- Our Pixies Are Different: Vicita's Imaginary Friend introduced in this episode, Treenie, is an anthropomorphic rabbit with harlequin skin/fur and pixie wings on her back. Basically, a rabbit-pixie hybrid.
- Screaming Woman: In Pal's Imagine Spot of the Tibbles having kidnapped Nadine, she screams in fright when she sees their Imaginary Friend, the giant cyclops worm Uncle Wormy.
- Think Nothing of It: Nemo tells Pal that he can pay him back later after generously offering to help him search for Nadine. This is, of course, after he’s been scared by Grandma Tibble and her vacuum cleaner.
- Tooth Fairy: When Nadine returns from her trip, she shows Kate and Pal a photograph of herself with the Tooth Fairy.
- Toy Disguise: To hide from the Tibbles, Nemo poses as one of the stuffed animals in Grandma Tibble’s attic. This works so well that the twins really think he’s a toy and their fight over him almost turns into a Tear-Apart Tug-of-War!
"Strangers on a Train"
Sue Ellen finds a diary on a train and wonders who it belongs to.
Tropes:
- Bottle Episode: The entire episode takes place on the Crown City Star train as Sue Ellen and her mom travel to Crown City.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Sue Ellen.
- Mystery Episode: Sue Ellen spends the episode trying to figure out if The Ghost of the Crown City Star is real and who left her the mysterious note and candy.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's title is a reference to the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock film, Strangers on a Train.
- Shout-Out: Sue Ellen's fantasy of the train in its glory days is a reference to the The Thin Man film series. Rick and Lola refer to the characters Nick and Nora.
- Traintop Battle: Sue Ellen has an Imagine Spot in which she and Buster are investigators in a 1930's mystery, chasing diamond thief Brain on the top of the train.
- Urban Legends: The train conductor tells Sue Ellen the legend of The Ghost of the Crown City Star about a little girl who lost her train ticket and, because she didn't have any money, she had to stay on the train as a ghost forever.
