Gus sees someone start a food fight, but he can't tell who started it lest he get branded a "tattletale."
Tropes:
- And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Which is what Jeffrey says when he gets mashed potatoes on his Hawaiian shirt.Jeffrey: Hey! My parents went on vacation in Hawaii, and all I got was this shirt!
- Apologetic Attacker: A little downplayed, but when Miss Finster started interrogated Gus for his side of the story of the food fight, it appeared in the end that she violently slammed her hand down on the table that he's sitting next to in an effort to traumatize him. However, it turns out that Finster was actually slamming her hand down to squash a fly that was on the table; she even apologized to Gus for scaring him like that.Finster: Sorry, there was a fly on the table.
- Bad Liar: Upon being found out, Randall insists the mashed potatoes slipped out of his hands.
- Batman Gambit: Miss Finster buying Randall a soda. By this point, she has both "a mashed potato fingerprint" and suspected him of starting the food fight, so she does this to discreetly get his fingerprints. After Randall leaves, she carefully hands the soda can off to Hank, who takes it down to the boys in the district crime lab for analysis.
- Big Damn Heroes: Miss Finster steps in right as Gus is ambushed and about to get shoved into a garbage pail.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Early in the episode, Gus tells Guru Kid who started the food fight, and Guru Kid advises him to keep this secret under lock and key. Right at the end, however, we learn that, not only did every kid reveal who started the food fight, but that they were told by Guru Kid.Guru Kid: Okay, so I blabbed!
- Code of Honor: "Tattletale, go to jail! Stick your head in a garbage pail!"
- Consummate Liar: Randall refuses to say that he started the food fight.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Among other punishments, Miss Finster threatens to institute mandatory maypole celebrations and make the kids wear traditional Scandinavian attire.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Gus is very upset on finding out that the entire student body was going to scapegoat him for telling on Randall, only to find out they blabbed. He says that his suffering wasn't worth it and tells them either the code was wrong or they are.
- Disappointed in You: Given to her platonic relationship with Randall for his skills in snitching, Miss Finster says this to Randall after exposing him as the true culprit while having two hall monitors to escort him to custody.
- Divide and Conquer: After an hour of no one coming forward, Miss Finster deduces the kids are strong as a group, so she opts for one-on-one interrogations.
- Food Fight: Which is what kick-starts the plot of the episode. And it's treated like a real battle.
- Honor Before Reason: The whole point of the episode. Gus tries to tell his friends who started the food fight but they don't want to know because telling them would be tattling. It gets subverted when the other kids, including Guru Kid, are far less honorable.
- Hypocrite: Not only does Randall accuse Gus of being a tattletale, but the student body threatens to throw Gus into a garbage pail, until Miss Finster reveals that, except for him and his friends, everyone told her that it was Randall who threw the first volley of mashed potatoes. When Gus points out that everyone who tattled has to put their head in garbage pails for this, King Bob quickly institutes a pardon because he says there aren't enough pails for everyone.
- Insult to Rocks: Miss Finster decides not to compare the children to wild animals because "even wild animals don't throw food, except for monkeys."
- Jerkass Has a Point: You can't blame Ms. Finster for laughing at the Honor Code after it turns out that everyone except the main cast broke it.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Randall is brought down in part by other kids telling on him for a change. Miss Finster opted for a scientific approach to prove that he did do it, but it was the kids all saying it was him that made her suspicious of him in the first place.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Panicked, Gus suddenly shouts that he'll never break and that the kids have a secret code of honor. Miss Finster forgoes alphabetical order and tells Gus he's next up for questioning.
- Properly Paranoid: Randall was the prime suspect early on, so Miss Finster had "the boys from downtown" do some lab work to prove it.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The punishment on the other kids is hard, but Ms. Finster brings the full brunt of punishment on Randall when she manages to prove that he started the food fight. She also protects Gus from the kids sticking him in a garbage pail because he didn't tell her anything and calls them out for being hypocrites.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gus after learning that the other kids except his friends "tattled" on Randall gives one to the masses. He tells them off for scapegoating him and that either they are wrong or the law is. King Bob opts for pardoning everyone, showing that the speech didn't take.
- The Scapegoat: After Randall accuses Gus of tattling, the other kids (outside T.J. and friends) gang up on him. We later learn it's because the other kids who were questioned (save T.J. and Mikey) tattled on Randall.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- The lunch ladies bail, as the food fight starts.
- Miss Finster vows to stop the food fight, sees how serious it is, and opts to wait in the hallway until things calm down.
- Series Continuity Error: This episode implies that Cornchip Girl's surname comes before Gus' surname (Griswald), but in "The Army-Navy Game", we learn that her real name is Teresa Laverne Lamaise, so her surname should have come after Gus'.
- Shaming the Mob: Ms. Finster does this when the other kids attempt to scapegoat Gus for being a "tattletale". She explains how she found out it was Randall, and laughingly reveals that everyone except for Gus and his friends "sang like a canary" in her words, exposing them as hypocrites.
- That Came Out Wrong: Miss Finster has the students stay in the cafeteria "until someone spills the beans... figuratively speaking, that is."
