One evening, the Princess is hanging upside down from a tree, flapping her arms. She explains that she's pretending to be a bat, when the Maid arrives and carries her to bed, despite the Princess's protests that bats are nocturnal. The Maid changes the Princess into her nightie and has her brush her teeth, but she is sulky due to not feeling tired yet.
The Queen tucks the Princess into bed, while Puss also decides to sleep in her room because Scruff was taking up all the room in the pet basket. The Princess then stalls by demanding water, then later pretending she needs the bathroom.
However, when the Princess runs out of stall tactics, she begins to have legitimate reasons for not falling asleep. She sees scary shadows cast by the tree outside and by Puss and thinks they're cast by monsters that are in her room. She screams, and the King and Queen arrive. They tell her monsters don't exist, but agree to search her room. They obviously don't find any monsters and leave.
The Princess falls asleep, but is woken by an owl and can't fall back asleep. The reason she can't is because she feels jealous of the King and Queen getting to share a bedroom, so they move the Maid's bed into the Princess's room. However, the Maid snores, which keeps the Princess awake. She tries poking her with Gilbert, getting her to turn over, flicking the light on and off, and opening the curtains, but none of it works.
The next morning, the Maid wakes up to find the Princess gone and screams because she thinks the monster has kidnapped her. She searches, along with the King and Queen, then later the General and Chef, and find her in the pet basket. They wake her up, but she's tired and so goes back to bed.
This episode provides examples of
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Puss wears a nightcap at one point and then later puts a sleep mask on too, then later earmuffs (because the Princess woke him up by calling out for the King).
- Bathroom Search Excuse: The Princess pretends to need the bathroom to stall going to bed.
- Big "NO!": The Princess screams, "NO!" when the Maid carries her upstairs.
- Captain Obvious: When the narrator sees the Princess being a bat, he says, "You're... hanging upside down."
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: When the Princess is pretending to be a bat, her dress falls down, exposing her underwear.
- Diurnal Nocturnal Animal: Downplayed. Puss sleeps all night, even though he's a cat, which aren't strictly nocturnal but they're semi-nocturnal.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: The episode ends with the Princess going back to bed.
- Heavy Sleeper: The Maid sleeps right through being poked and shoved and the lights turning on and off and the curtains being opened.
- Inelegant Blubbering: The Princess sobs loudly when she's feeling lonely in her room.
- Insomnia Episode: The first part of this episode is about the Princess trying to stall going to bed, the rest of it is about her having trouble sleeping due to nighttime fear, loneliness, and then the Maid's snoring.
- Non Sequitur: One of the Princess's bedtime protests is "I can't sleep; my eyes are open!".
- Not So Above It All: The Maid, despite being one of the sanest members of the adult cast, still believes in monsters.King: (unamused) "There's no such thing!"
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The title voice-over is said in an angry way, and it comes out like "I! Don't! WANT to GO to BED!"
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The Princess says, "Flap, flap, flap!" when she's pretending to be a bat.
- Scary Shadow Fakeout: Downplayed. The shadow the Princess thinks is cast by a monster looks like a scary arm, but it's never implied to be anything more dangerous than the shadow of a tree.
- Sleep Deprivation: The Princess is sleep deprived at the end of the episode due to being kept up by the Maid's snoring.
- Speak in Unison: The King, Queen, Maid, General, and Chef say, "Princess?" in unison when they find her in the pet basket.
- Tempting Fate: The Maid says that she expects she won't get a wink of sleep, only to instantly fall asleep.
- Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Discussed. The Princess sees spooky shadows in her room and thinks they're cast by monsters, but they're actually only cast by Puss and the tree outside. The King says that there are no such things as monsters, and there's no evidence that he's wrong. The Maid later thinks the monster has taken the Princess, but she has only gone to sleep in the pet basket.
- Title Drop: The Princess yells the trope title, followed by a big "NO!", when the Maid carries her to bed.
