"The Control Freak is a dork, yes?"
—Starfire
Control Freak busts out of jail and hot-wires some high-end A/V equipment to escape into a TV set. The Titans follow him in, going through various TV shows until they finally corner him on Clash of the Planets, where Beast Boy defeats him using his extensive knowledge of the series.
Tropes:
- All Part of the Show: Beast Boy theorizes this is the reason why Robin's warning for everyone to stop watching before the TV literally rots their brain has no effect — the show is too good!Beast Boy: Of course they're not listening! Breaking news, escaped criminals, a handsome green heart throb, this stuff is ratings GOLD!
- Aside Glance: When chasing Control Freak through the TV universe in the beginning, Robin gives a confused look towards the screens they pass by.
- Bears Are Bad News: The Steve Irwin Expy gets mauled by a bear while Robin is fighting the Outlaw.
- Beam-O-War: Cyborg gets into one with a killer robot during the advertisement for Zinthos.
- Binomium ridiculus: In a Shout-Out to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, we get Control Freak (Couchus Potaticus) being chased by Beast Boy-in-a-Coyote-form (Animalus Switcheroonium)
- Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Beast Boy and Control Freak wind up in a cooking show during their fight only for the chef to immediately wave a white flag.
- Then again he just had some fat guy and a gorilla crash through his celling. Any chef would freak out over that.
- Cool Sword: Admit it, that double-bladed Laser Blade from Clash Of The Planets is awesome, perhaps more than the Lightsaber.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Control does this at the beginning of the episode, giving the speech found on the trope quotes page. In a twist, he's not just bothering the transmission, he's teleported himself into the broadcast.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Lampshaded. The Titans stops laughing in the middle of it, as they are realizing there is a Laugh Track going while they look mildly disturbed. The Laugh Track keeps play until the end though.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Control Freak's interference causes all TV sets to emit alpha waves that liquefy the brain of anyone watching. Robin grabs the screen and tells you, the viewer, to stop watching!
- Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Starfire finds herself in a cartoon where everyone, including herself and Beast Boy, speaks in rhyme and a fairly strict metrical foot.
- I Know Karate: Control Freak does this as a The Matrix reference.I know kung-fu.
Woah. - Jedi Mind Trick: Beast Boy casually swipes Raven's cloak and tries to do this on robot guards. It doesn't work.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Control Freak steals a movie spy's tuxedo and all his gadgets before pushing him over a balcony. When he looks down at the spy, who gives him a hopeful smile while silently pleading for help as he hangs on to the balcony for dear life, Control Freak reaches down as if to help him, only to instead steal his watch and leave him hanging.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Delivered with exactly the same inflection as a similar comment in "Nevermore".Cyborg: Hey, I remember this scene! We're in the first episode of Season Four.
- The episode's title uses the production code of the episode itself.
- Delivered with exactly the same inflection as a similar comment in "Nevermore".
- Legion of Doom: Control Freak recruits "the most notorious villains in television history", Creature from Jones Lake, Seven-Gorn-Seven, and Offworld Outlaw, commanding them to destroy the Teen Titans.
- "Lesson of the Day" Speech: Parodied. Robin states that watching too much TV is bad for you, before Starfire points out that watching too much TV allowed Beast Boy to win. Raven questions whether there's no moral at all.Cyborg: Nope! It was all completely meaningless!
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: The first time Control Freak is a genuine threat and not a Bit Part Baddie.
- Oh, Crap!: When the Titans first encounter the Creature from Jones Lake, Cyborg initially assures the others it isn't a real monster, just some dude in a costume. But when he touches the creature he realizes it isn't a costume right before being thrown across the lake. The others all realize it might be fake in the real world, but is real here.
- Parody Commercial: "Boo-Yah Energy Drink" and "Zinthos."
- Rhymes on a Dime: Starfire in the kiddy cartoon world.Stork: Oh have you seen my hippo? He hides and I must seek!
Starfire: I cannot play, please, do you know, a strange man named Control Freak? He is big not tall and nasty, and known for causing strife. He escaped into the TV...
Beastboy: (runs past) HEY STAR RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! - Screen Tap: Played with when Robin grabs the screen around the edges and tells viewers to stop watching. It makes sense given that he is on television In-Universe, but it's still edging on Medium Awareness.
- Shout-Out: Too numerous to list on a recap page. Every channel change while the Titans are trapped in Control Freak's television world is a parody of a popular show or film. At points where the channel changes frequently, the references come seconds apart.
- Spoof Aesop: Robin tries to deliver a message about too much TV being bad. Starfire points out that said message makes no sense, given that they only won because Beast Boy watches too much TV. Raven and Cyborg both lampshade this in quick succession.
- The Good Guys Always Win: Lampshaded by Beast Boy when Control Freak rants about having lost despite his new power. Currently provides the page quote.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Raven finds herself in a dark area where she reflexively catches a football flying at her. Realizing where she is, Raven could only respond with "Nice" just before she gets dogpiled by several hundreds of pounds of meaty football players.
- Took a Level in Badass: Control Freak starts learning martial arts and acquiring tech and powers from the TV programs. He actually puts up a great fight and is only defeated because Beast Boy is even more of a nerd.
- Trapped in TV Land: Courtesy of Control Freak's latest scheme.
- Troperiffic: Possibly one of the greatest examples in recent television.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Inverted: Control Freak spends most of the episode distracting the Titans while he gains skills, technology, and weapons from various television shows. This causes him to upgrade from having little to no combat ability of his own to being able to give the entire team serious trouble in a straight fight.
