Spoilers: Yes, they are.
After seeing a zombie movie, the Cup brothers decide to take a shortcut through the cemetery to get home. As they do, some local ghosts hear them stating that "ghosts ain't real" and decide to take them up on that claim.
Tropes
- Absurd Phobia: Mugman claims that he is uncomfortable around the dead, and yet he can see and/or touch his brother's soul without flinching in fear, such as in "Carn-Evil" when he pulls the soul by the tail end out of the soul ball machine, and in "Sweater Luck Next Time" when he pushes Cuphead's soul back into his body after putting the protective invisible sweater on the Devil.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Cuphead initially insists that ghosts aren't real despite seeing the Devil in the first episode and getting his soul sucked out.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Not actually seen, but discussed. After the movie premiere, Mugman said that he's proud of himself, as he only had to change three pairs of pants whilst watching the zombie movie. And later at the cemetery, while sitting on a log alone and scared, Mugman tells Cuphead that he doesn't have any spare pants.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: Occurs when Cuphead and Mugman are hiding in a pitch-black crypt.
- Creepy Cemetery: The episode mostly takes place in a cemetery filled with ghosts and skeletons.
- The Dead Can Dance: Plenty of the skeletons display quite creative moves.
- Dem Bones: Cuphead and Mugman encounter a whole bunch of skeletons. See The Dead Can Dance above.
- Dope Slap: One of the ghosts does this to the fat, slow-witted ghost whenever he does something stupid.
- Downer Ending: Played for Laughs, after spending most of the episode being tormented by the ghosts, the bruised Cuphead and Mugman arrive home believing that they are finally safe... and then Elder Kettle mistakes them for zombies and beats the crap out of them.
- Everyone Has Standards: The ghosts take pleasure in tormenting Cuphead and Mugman, but they realize they went too far when they believe they drove them to their deaths.
- Ghost Song: "Ghosts Ain't Real," in which the main ghost trio mockingly sings about how ghosts aren't real, and how there's nothing to be afraid of, while summoning an army of ghosts to scare Cuphead and Mugman.
- The Grim Reaper: At the haunted house, the two Cups open up mysterious doors that are offered to them. One of them involves what seems like Death coming toward them. The scared Cup brothers close the door in time, but the reaper's scythe bursts through the wooden door behind them.
- Here We Go Again!: The cup brothers manage to escape from the ghosts' terror... Only for Elder Kettle to mistake them for zombies and start chasing them.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Cuphead insists that ghosts don't exist. The ghosts are eager to prove them wrong.
- Ironic Echo: Cuphead begins the episode not believing in ghosts and saying "ghosts ain't real" when finding out they're trapped in a graveyard. When the ghosts formally reveal themselves to both Cuphead and Mugman, they throw those words right back at him (in song).
- Matchlight Danger Revelation: When running into a cave, the two Cups stay there briefly while the sound of teeth chattering is heard. Cuphead assumes that Mugman is doing that, and tells him to stop. Mugman mumbles that he wasn't the one who was making that sound. They bring out a match and light up the place, to reveal that an encircled crowd of living skeletons are all clicking their teeth together.
- Mistaken for Undead: At the end of the episode, Cuphead and Mugman run back home while wounded and dirty from their fall in the cemetery. But once they get inside, their relief is cut short once the Elder Kettle screams at the sight of them, thinking that they're zombies.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The ghosts have fun scaring the pants off the boys, but show remorse when they find they may have literally scared them to death. Luckily, they were playing dead long enough to escape.
- Ominous Owl: Mugman is left to sit on a log while Cuphead goes to get supplies, and he's scared by an owl hooting. Cuphead assures him in the distance that it's simply an owl, so there's nothing to be afraid of. A frightened Mugman looks around and sees what is indeed just an owl, who stops hooting when it notices that it's being stared at.
- Playing Possum: When Cuphead and Mugman fall off the clock tower to their apparent deaths, the ghosts realize that they went too far in literally scaring them to death. Unbeknownst to the ghosts, the cup boys are playing possum, so that while the ghosts turn toward each other in discussing ways to mourn them, the two would sneak out of the cemetery to escape.
- Shout-Out:
- To Swing, You Sinners! which likewise had the protagonist there chased by ghosts. Though in this case, the ghosts are just messing with the Cups for kicks then trying to punish them.
- The skeletons' dance number in the crypt invokes Disney's The Skeleton Dance.
- The marching band ghosts in the "Ghosts Ain't Real" song are modelled after the Pink Elephants in the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence from Dumbo.
- One of the background ghosts was a criminal in an electric chair surging with lighting, referencing Tony Scoleri from Ghostbusters II.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The Cupbros manage to escape the graveyard, only for Elder Kettle to mistake them for zombies and begin beating on them with his cane.
- Title Drop: Cuphead insists "ghosts ain't real", which the ghosts appropriate in their song.
