When Dad brings a pair of tenacious crabs home from the beach, Bluey and Bingo want to play a game of Tickle Crabs. Dad must learn to endure the pain of their tickles until he is finally rescued by a friendly seagull.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Played with. It's more like "Actually Pretty Impressive". Bandit is exasperated that his daughters are trying to making him play Tickle Crabs through Puppy-Dog Eyes and guilt-tripping, and he can clearly see through the ruse. Once he finally gives in, he admits to himself that he's very impressed by the execution of this method.
- Anything but That!: This titular game is not Bandit's favorite game, for the sole purpose that, well, it involves his daughters being tickle crabs.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bandit, who really doesn't want to play the titular game, interrupts the card. The card eventually plays as it's supposed to after Bandit lets the kids play it with him.Bluey: This episode of Bluey is called 'Tick'-Bandit: Uh-uh, no way, I am NOT playing Tickle Crabs.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Bluey and Bingo pull this to get Bandit to play "tickle crabs" with them.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Discussed. Throughout the episode, Bandit's game requires a "true love" to come along and solve his problem. When he meets Chili's character while hiding from the titular Tickle Crabs, he explains this mindset to her, and wonders why she hasn't come yet. To this, Chili responds "Maybe your true love has problems of her own". This is food for thought for Bandit.
- One-Hour Work Week: Lampshaded; one piece of Bluey's guilt-slinging is to complain that Bandit is always at work, to which he is very quick to retort, "I'm never at work!"
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: At hearing Bandit refuse to play Tickle Crabs, Bingo and Bluey bring out their secret weapon: big, sad teary eyes and lots of guilt-triping Bandit into playing the game anyway. It works, of course.
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: At one point, Chili explains to Bandit that the reason a "true love" hasn't come to his aid yet is because somewhere out there, she must have problems of her own to deal with. This leads Bandit realizing he needs to fix his own problems first instead of waiting around for his true love. At first, fixing his own problems by throwing the titular Tickle Crabs back in the ocean works, and he's triumphant. ...until Bluey changes the narrative where the wave merely washes the crabs back to Bandit. Knowing he at least tried, Bandit is about to resign himself to the crabs. But at the last moment, Chili comes to his aid (in the form of a seagull).
