iHatch Chicks
When given a science project on life science, Carly and Sam decide to hatch chicks. But the chicks hatch too early and escape their incubator, scattering about all over the Shays' apartment, setting off a mad search.
Tropes:
- Animal Lover: Freddie's partner turns out to be this, which motivates him to help free a chick.
- Artistic License – Ornithology:
- The chicks are able to move around, fly, and have full feathers upon hatching early, when they shouldn't have done that until they are at least a week old.
- All six chicks hatched at once, when in real life, only about three of them would hatch in between intervals.
- Celestial Deadline: The chicks have to be fed every four hours, otherwise "bad things happen".
- Dumb Muscle: Freddie's project partner.
- Entertainingly Wrong: When Freddie sees the empty incubator, he assumes Sam ate the chicks. Sam's response — that she wouldn't eat them raw— makes it clear he was right to worry.
- Fetch Quest: The second half of the episode.
- Four Is Death: Implied. The chicks have to be fed every four hours or they'll die from hunger.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: Spencer gets stuck in the heating duct when attempting to retrieve a chick from inside and spends the majority of the episode trapped there, leaving Carly, Sam, and Freddie to find the others. That very chick turns out to be Poachy, who somehow ends up behind the elevator panel before wandering right back into the duct and into Spencer's mouth, allowing him to be freed at last.
- Never Say "Die": If the chicks are not fed within four hours, Carly points out "bad things will happen", like "six cute baby chick funerals".
- Punny Name: The unseen teacher Mr. Soo-Mak (sumac).
- Race Against the Clock: Carly and the gang have three hours and four minutes (the chicks escaped 56 minutes ago, subtracting such from four hours) to find the baby chicks and feed them, otherwise "bad things will happen".
- Skewed Priorities: When Carly agrees that they need to find the rest of the chicks, Sam suggests that they get some food ordered first. Carly and Freddie negatively say no.
- Shout-Out: The website Freddie accidentally accesses, Worldofchucks.com, has famous Chucks such as Chuck Jones, Chuck Yeager and Chuck Norris. There's also someone named Chuck Barry, which could be a take on Chuck Berry.
- Theme Naming: All of the chicks are named after egg-related puns: Shelley, Huevo, Omlet, Benedict, Yokonote , and Poachy.
