Miss Simian: An outbreak. An outbreak of joy.
In this homage to zombie apocalypse/survival horror/found footage horror films, Miss Simian has to save herself from a contagious Joy virus that's infecting the whole school after Gumball and Darwin come to school smiling and acting happy on a Monday.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: For Miss Simian.
- Apocalyptic Log: Miss Simian makes one all the way until she gets infected.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Everybody Simian tries to warn scoffs at the idea of a virus that causes joy, despite living in a world with dinosaurs, ghosts, anthropomorphic objects, robots, giants, and a void where mistakes go.
- Blood from the Mouth: Parodied by the joy zombies leaking rainbow-colored something (most likely drool) from their mouths.
- Camera Abuse: A closeup on Miss Simian hits the camera lense on her face... one scene before she started using an In-Universe Camera.
- Chekhov's Gun: Miss Simian's impulsive insistent that Banana Joe follow the dress code ends up foiling her attempt to blend in with the zombies later.
- Correlation/Causation Gag: Rocky sprays himself with body spray, and concludes it works when the infected school nurse tackles and hugs him.
- Death Glare: Miss Simian's hate-filled glare literally burns the back of Darwin's head... along with a hole in Teri's head and melting Sarah's.
- Downer Ending: Miss Simian fails to stop the spread of the happiness virus and can't even leave a message about how to cure it (play "Moonlight Sonata") because she does not know the song's name, nor can she sing it, and ends up being the joy virus' latest victim before the video cuts off and shows the embarrassing video that Principal Brown recorded earlier.
- Episode of the Dead: Details the spread of a happiness-inducing Mystical Plague.
- Even Beggars Won't Choose It: Even when they're zombies, girls still avoid having anything to do with Tobias. He doesn't even get infected with the virus until the last shot of the zombies trying to get into the room where Miss Simian is.
- Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Played With. Halfway through, an infected Bobert hugs and shorts out the school's power grid, shutting off the fluorescent lights with only the blinding sunshine from the bright sunny day outside acting as the lighting. It's surprising how well it goes with the theme of the story.
- Flatline: The ECG Darwin and Gumball are hooked up to starts going flat...then the line turns into a rainbow.
- Flipping the Table: Miss Simian flips over a table exactly 360 degrees, landing it back where it started with no change.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: A homage to zombie apocalypse/survival horror films shot mostly on a camcorder and featuring Miss Simian as the protagonist.
- Furry Reminder: Ms. Simian escapes the zombified band-aid nurse by taking off the plastic cover on her back then sticking her to a wall.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: A "wonder hug" from Richard, filled with all of the love and happiness in the world, makes a rainbow explosion and causes Gumball and Darwin to be uncontrollably happy even when they have no reason to be. Miss Simian treats it like a disease, but the nurse and principal think she's just insane. It's quite a bit more than just a disease.
- Giving Up the Ghost: Darwin and Gumball start flatlining and spit out bright colors, stars, and hearts.
- Grossout Fakeout: Miss Simian pulls out a jar of yellow liquid from a medical cabinet and throws the contents on Darwin and Gumball for getting too close to her. She claims it's just water, but the nurse angrily corrects points out it was actually... cough syrup.
- Hating on Monday: The bad mood that prompted Richard's "wonder hug" was caused by it being a Monday. Everyone else is depressed too, something Miss Simian greatly enjoys and she finds it suspicious when Darwin and Gumball aren't.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Miss Simian mostly just finds Darwin and Gumball's happiness wrong because she's a killjoy, but she's right that's it isn't natural.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Miss Simian took glee in the students' misery, and was more happy with being right than concerned about Gumball and Darwin's apparent "deaths". She ends up being infected by the very two.
- Logic Bomb: Miss Simian tells Bobert to run off because he's late to class but also that he can't run in the halls. Bobert figures if he can't fulfill such a task he's useless and self destructs.
- Mistaken for Undead: Being ignored by all the girls left Tobias the only one not infected with the happiness virus that gives you rainbow drool, but his technicolor appearance made Miss Simian think he was anyway (possibly that's why none of the male infected bothered him either).
- Mystical Plague: Somehow, Richard's 'Wonder Hug' infected Gumball and Darwin with one of these.
- Ninja Prop: One of the bloody time prompts hits Miss Simian in the face and she uses it to pull herself up.
- Patient Zero: Gumball and Darwin are the first to be infected with the virus.
- Perpetual Smiler: Anyone with the joy virus is unable to stop smiling: Gumball even literally takes his smile off and flips it upside down, but it just contorts his face back into place.
- Pretend We're Dead: Ms. Simian gets the joy zombies to ignore her by pretending she's already infected. It works until her impulsive desire to enforce the dress code causes her to break character.
- Rainbow Puke: The last symptom Gumball and Darwin exhibit before succumbing to the Joy Virus is vomiting a star with a rainbow trail. They then reanimate as "happy zombies", who constantly drool a rainbow-coloured fluid.
- Skewed Priorities: When it appears Gumball and Darwin died on the hospital bed, all Miss Simian can think about is that this proved her right. In Simian's defense, though, everybody scoffed at the idea that a virus may be going around the school causing joy.
- Sole Survivor: Principal Brown was the only one to be cured from the virus onscreen. However, he may have been reinfected offscreen.
- Stylistic Self-Parody: Gumball accidentally takes Darwin's arm off and sticks it on his noseless face to give him a Gag Nose like Pinocchio.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: We get a first person view of Darwin with the joy virus: he sees everyone as live action props changing colors with sparkles everywhere.
- Undeath Is Cheap: Playing sad music ("Moonlight Sonata" specifically) causes the joy zombies to recoil, and Miss Simian assumes it will turn them back, but she's turned before she can play it to the school—or even explain in her video which song to use. Everything is back to normal next episode, so they may have turned back anyway.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Richard's wonder hug is what gets the joy virus started.
- Visual Innuendo: Banana Joe has his peel forcefully "zipped" back up onto him. Part of his inside gets pinched in the peel and he makes a very pained face, making it a lot like when something else getting caught in a man's pant zipper.
- Zombie Apocalypse: At least the whole school is infected, but given the ending we can only guess how much farther it went.
