Kaeloo removes Smileyland's "cartooniness" so that the kids watching the show will have realistic expectations for their lives.
"Let's Play Cartoon or Nothing" contains the following tropes:
- Appropriate Animal Attire: Discussed. Kaeloo says that as an animal, Pretty shouldn't be wearing clothes at all if the show is to be realistic.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Kaeloo's second nightmare, she sees what her friends' lives would really be like if they were realistic: Stumpy is put in a straightjacket, locked in a mental hospital, and heavily drugged because he's insane. Mr. Cat is taken to an animal shelter and locked in a tiny cage with hundreds of other cats, and is forced to act "cute" in the hopes that maybe, someday, someone will adopt him. And Pretty... works in retail.
- Catapult Nightmare: Both of Kaeloo's nightmares end with her sitting upright and gasping for air.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: After Kaeloo magically makes Pretty's clothes disappear, the latter spends the rest of the episode wearing a cardboard box.
- This Is Reality: In-universe, Stumpy can't do cool basketball moves since physics works realistically and he's never actually practiced any, Quack Quack gets a stomachache from eating too much yogurt, Mr. Cat can't lift 100 ton mallets, Pretty's unicorn disappears and Olaf's robot Serguei stops working since in real life kids don't have unicorns and Do Anything Robots, Quack Quack and Eugly are forced to break up because of their Interspecies Romance, and the flowers don't talk anymore.
