When Pascal befriends a baby dragon, he must decide between his new friend and the safety of Corona.
Tropes in this episode:
- All Animals Are Dogs: Little Big Guy more or less acts like an overgrown puppy dog, complete with wagging his tail and panting when happy.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Rapunzel orders the guards to stand down from hunting the dragon, they incredulously ask if she wants them to cease trying to capture a large, dangerous animal... then immediately agree to do so because they are more than happy not to risk themselves doing just that.
- Butt-Monkey: Eugene gets hurt a lot in this episode.
- Chekhov's Skill: Pascal's ability to wake up someone by sticking his tongue in their ear became very helpful in this episode.
- Continuity Nod:
- Nigel's fear of dragons from the previous episode is brought up again.
- Rapunzel would later ride on dragons in her guest appearance in Sofia the First.
- Homage Shot: Little Big Guy flying and stopping in front of the moon is one to Batman (1989); see below.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When the guards' corner Pascal and Little Big Guy, a few blasts of flame from Pascal are enough to convince them to just say they never found the dragon.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Little Big Guy's design is more mammalian than reptilian in design, he has a triceratops-like crest and a single horn similar to a unicorn.
- Shout-Out: The title is one to Petes Dragon.
- When Little Big Guy Gains the ability to camouflage he is reminiscent of Elliot from Petes Dragon
- Little Big Guy learning to fly by falling from a height with a small passenger on his head, only to pull out of the fall into a swoop at the last second is very reminiscent of Dumbo's first flight sans magic feather.
- Rapunzel's first flight on Little Big Guy takes several visual and musical cues from Harry's flight on Buckbeak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, most notably when Rapunzel goes from clutching around Little Big Guy's neck to stretching her arms out exultantly.
- In the same sequence, Little Big Guy flies up and pauses in front of a full moon with his bat-like wings outstretched, much as the Batwing did in Tim Burton's Batman.
- Super-Empowering: Dragons copy the traits of the ones they love and impart their own traits back on that person. This results in the dragon gaining Pascal's chameleon abilities while Pascal gains draconic features and powers.
- Transformation at the Speed of Plot: The dragon grows from the size of a tiny dog to as big as the largest breed inside of a single night, and by the next night has grown again to proper dragon size. Given the dragon is explicitly magical, the growth can be assumed to be a result of the same.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Nigel is willing to go against Rapunzel's orders to let her handle the dragon, because he's had personal experience with dragons burning down his village in search of their child and doesn't want the same happening to Corona.
