Looks like The Ludovico Technique is catching on...
Beast Boy: Am I the only one who has no idea where we are?
Mad Mod: Why you're right where you belong, my duckies! You're in school!
The one with loads of trippy visuals.
The Titans find themselves trapped in a school run by Mad Mod, and must escape it before he brainwashes them.
This episode provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged. In the comics, Mad Mod was a largely-unimpressive smuggler and thief who would probably be more at home matching wits with Mystery Inc. This animated version is pretty much Arcade in all but name, capturing all five Titans offscreen and building a whole complex of technological (and psychological!) terrors to torture them with. But when all the gimmicks are stripped away, he's revealed to be a withered old man who folds the second Robin confronts him.
- Alliterative Name: Mad Mod (and his VA, Malcolm McDowell).
- Antagonist Title: This is Mad Mod's debut episode. In addition to being the villain, the episode is titled after him.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: In the midst of their
Genius Bonus- When Robin and Starfire fall from the Zr tile, the column to their right goes Y, La, Ac, Ce, Th. (Yttrium, Lanthanum, Actinium, Cerium, Thorium) The current positions of La and Ac do not mean the elements, but are merely placeholders on the periodic table for the Lanthanide and Actinide series. The proper places for the elements (each box to the left for both Cerium and Thorium) are instead both blank.
- Badass in Distress: All of the Titans are strapped to chairs that negate their powers. Beast Boy in particular tries to change into smaller animals, to no avail, while Starfire exclaims that her starbolts are useless. With that said, Robin, Cyborg and Raven manage to escape their bonds, while Starfire and Beast Boy need the others to help them.
- Bilingual Bonus: A montage in "Mad Mod" in which the team chase down the titular villain is accompanied with the song "K2G" by Puffy AmiYumi. The lyrics are in Japanese, but if translated they make numerous references to sex and alcohol.
- Breather Episode: This aired in between two Wham Episodes, "Masks" and "Apprentice, pt. I". Since then, it became a tradition of the show for each season to have one Breather Episode immediately before the finale.
- Deranged Animation: Though the entire series is notorious for it, this particular episode is only the first time where things are really trippin'...
- Disproportionate Retribution: In the library where Starfire is trapped, Mad Mod tries to squish her with a giant library stamp because she refuses to look at the screen and says they are full of "meanness".
- Disco Dan: "Mod" hasn't been in style since the '60s. Interestingly, the character wasn't originally this, as he was created in the '60s (and was a young man in that interpretation).
- "Eureka!" Moment: Robin realizes that Mad Mod is fake after running through him and finding out he's a hologram. This allows him time to get behind the screens and to tear down the wire.
- Evil Brit: Mad Mod. He's even the page image for the trope, albeit in a different episode.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Mad Mod is implied to be one, as he did create all his robots and illusion-machines.
- Idiot Ball: Beast Boy with the hypno screens, if you know a hypno screen is coming, turn into an animal that doesn't need eyes... like an earthworm!
- Jump Scare: Played for laughs. During the Scooby-Dooby Doors sequence, Robin gets all the Titans together to open the doors at the same time. This narrows it down to one door, which Robin approaches with a huge grin. When he opens it, however, a giant T-rex sticks it’s head through the door and roars at all the Titans.
- Knockout Gas: Mad Mod mentions he captured the Titans by somehow filling their tower with knockout gas.
- The Ludovico Technique: Mad Mod's method of brainwashing, which is pretty fitting considering his voice actor.
- Master of Illusion: Mad Mod, by way of hologram to trick the abducted Titans to go on a wild-goose-chase all over the place.
- Mind Control: Mad Mod's intention is to brainwash the Titans to being more compliant.
- Mind Screw: Robin lampshades that the school makes him crazy from the inside out.
- Near-Villain Victory: Despite the team's best effort to escape his lair, Mad Mod manages to successfully capture four of the five Titans. It's only Robin noticing that the Mad Mod they've been fighting the whole episode is a hologram shortly before he can be recaptured that puts a wrench in the villain's plans.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Although they are shown to have escaped by themselves upon meeting with Starfire and Robin, Cyborg and Raven's escape is not shown at all.
- Older Than They Look: Subverted; Mad Mod is actually an old man but uses his illusions to portray himself as a hip young man (who still sports the British mod style that was popular in the 1960s).
- Running Gag: Beast Boy getting put under Mind Control and the Titans having to make him laugh to snap him out of it.
- Sadist Teacher: Mad Mod fills this role.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: During the song sequence. Bonus point for frequently messing with the perspective, and with the doors opening in various ways.
- Screaming Woman: Starfire, and amusingly, Raven, become this trope when Robin accidentally opens a door with a T-Rex inside of it during the infamous chase sequence.
- Sensory Abuse: Holy hell.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Realizing that going through the Scooby-Dooby Doors is wasting the team's time and messing with them, Robin tells everyone to stop chasing Mod blindly. He has each of them open a door, narrowing it down to one. Unfortunately, a T-Rex is behind that one and Mad Mod appears in the corridor.
- Stupid Evil / Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Mad Mod successfully captures the Titans by knocking them out with knockout gas. But instead of taking the opportunity to kill them while they’re unconscious and helpless, he lets them wake up so he can have fun “teaching them a lesson” first. This decision comes back to bite him when the Titans catch him in the end.
- Tempting Fate: Beast Boy declares he's not going to fall for Mad Mod's hypnoscreens again... only for a hypno-screen to immediately pop out and hypnotize him.
- Variations on a Theme Song: This isn't the first episode to have the opening theme performed in Japanese (that's "Nevermore"), but it is the first one that's completely and utterly bizarre. An episode with the opening theme in Japanese, for those unaware, is one that's going to be very, very strange, and this one most definitely is.
