Most families don't make a simple group picture take so outlandishly complicated like Elder Kettle's.
All Elder Kettle wants is a family photo of him and his boys. But is it so simple with the cups? Nope!Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: When the family has found a beautiful sunset, it turns out that thanks to Cuphead and Mugman's squabbles, they missed out. But they found a sunset in the form of a billboard advertising "Sunset Tires".
- Blackmail: When the attempt at a family photo reveals an embarrassing advertisement with a baby Kettle, the Cups get a hold of the camera and the picture taken, making Elder Kettle take them wherever they want so they don't expose it. Elder Kettle outright calls it blackmail, and the Cups agree that it is. It doesn't work.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Cuphead wants to go to the Amusement Park, Mugman wants to go to the Movies, and they can't stop fighting about it. Elder Kettle convinces them to stop fighting long enough for a decent family photo, promising to take them to both places, but it doesn't work.
- Broken Record: "AMUSEMENT PARK! MOVIES! AMUSEMENT PARK! MOVIES!..."
- Callback: The police haven't forgotten about Cuphead and Mugman breaking into the cookie factory or their jailbreak. The episode ends with them being arrested again (this time with Elder Kettle joining him due to his Diaper Baby billboard arson). However the next episode has all three of them out of jail without explanation.
- Downer Ending: A lighter shade of this trope. The boys and Elder Kettle are locked away in prison (the former for the cookie factory caper and the jailbreak that followed, the latter for all the billboards he burned), but on the bright side of things, they can still get their family portrait, even if it's in a less than ideal situation.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Try Embarrassing Old Billboard. The Diaper Baby billboards are this for Elder Kettle thanks to his mother entering him in a contest long ago. He won and became the mascot of the product, but he was bullied and mocked for it ever since. So much so that he's been trying to destroy them all for years.
- Former Child Star: Elder Kettle used to be a famous baby model for diapers, much to his embarrassment.
- Jerkass Ball: Cuphead and Mugman usually try not to tick off Elder Kettle. This episode has them caring more about their own interests than fulfilling his own single one. When they see him depressed by them ruining it, they decide to use an embarrassing photo of him to make themselves feel better instead of getting rid of it. Then, they decide instead to blackmail him with the photo to get what they want instead of making it up to him. To top it off, they continue to fight even when Kettle repeatedly tells them not to. No wonder he's slowly losing it.
- Kill It with Fire: Elder Kettle has spent decades using a flamethrower to get rid of the Diaper Baby ads.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- The Cups had previously escaped from Inkwell Penitentiary in "Jailbroken", with some help from one of the inmates. It took a while for the police to recognize them and haul them back to finish their sentence.
- There are likely better (not to mention legal) ways to take down an unwanted billboard ad. The fact that Elder Kettle has spent literal decades destroying them all led to his own arrest for vandalism and arson. There's also a possible assault charge for trying to attack his own kids (with a fire poker, no less).
- Last-Second Photo Failure: Cuphead and Magman are about to get their picture taken with Elder Kettle in front of a billboard, but the boys start fighting. The fight results in the billboard catching fire and revealing a Diaper Baby ad featuring an infant Elder Kettle as the picture is taken.
- Monochrome Past: When Elder Kettle recalls using arson to destroy the billboards of his "Diaper Baby", the scene flashes back to black-and-white with a younger Elder Kettle destroying these billboards with a flamethrower.
- Rage Breaking Point: After dealing with the boys' shenaningans regarding their refusal to co-operate to do the family picture and attempted blackmail of his embarassing Diaper Baby ads that leads to his camera being destroyed, Kettle loses it to say the least and proceeds to attack them with a fire poker in anger.
- Sanity Slippage: Elder Kettle isn't the soundest of mind when he learns that not only was there another Diaper Baby billboard, but now Cuphead and Mugman have a photo of it. His desperation to convince the boys to let it go takes its toll on his sanity. But when they're in prison, he's much better.
