Ron comes home tired and frazzled from the inability to come up with a comedy sketch, and Ritchie gives him a good idea: an anthropomorphized bowling pin. Unfortunately, there's one flaw — the sketch has already been used by notoriously litigious kids' show star Uncle Spunky.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: Subverted. Alan calls Uncle Spunky about the bowling pin sketch and says the show doesn't own it; a young comedian in 1939 did a bowling pin sketch. This prevents Uncle Spunky from suing The Alan Brady Show. The onlookers assume Alan meant he did a bowling pin sketch in 1939. Presumably, that was what Alan meant for Uncle Spunky to assume, but he's really just running a bluff, suspecting that someone must have done the bit before but Uncle Spunky won't do the research to find out who.
- Dartboard of Hate: Buddy sets up a punching bag with a sketch of Mel's face on it.
- Depraved Kids' Show Host: Uncle Spunky encourages his young viewers to throw fits if they can't get the cookies/candy he peddles and has a reputation for suing people left and right off-screen.
- Distracted by the Sexy: When Rob is trying to think of a sketch idea, he compliments Laura on her new outfit, then asks her to put on something messy, because "That way I could give my whole attention to the show."
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Mel calls Buddy "it" when he's greeting the writers.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Subverted; Ritchie begs Rob to read him The Raven or The Tell-Tale Heart. Rob refuses because he doesn't want any more nightmares. It turns out he meant himself, not Ritchie.
- Meaningful Name: "Crummy buttons", a type of candy/cookie that Uncle Spunky sells, apparently have a mediocre taste and a terrible aftertaste. Not even Ritchie, who loves the show, likes them.
- Pie in the Face: At Rob's suggestion, Alan proposes that he appear as a guest star on The Uncle Spunky Show. Unfortunately, Rob didn't know that every guest star gets pied in the face. Alan orders a pie to use on Rob in revenge, but Mel becomes accidental collateral damage.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Ritchie tells Rob a sketch idea from another show, without telling him he saw it on television. The next morning, Rob and the other writers run with the idea, accidentally mostly rewriting the same sketch. The deli man explicitly calls it stealing. Unfortunately, Uncle Spunky loves to sue the pants off people.
- Red Baron: Uncle Spunky is known as "the suer" in media circles.
- Running Gag:
- People keep sticking out their tongues and saying "Yuck" when "Crummy Buttons" are mentioned.
- Sally quips twice that she should start wearing darker lipstick after being grouped with the "fellas."
- Why Didn't I Think of That?: When the writers finally tell Alan that the sketch was inadvertently plagiarized, Mel suggests that Alan call Uncle Spunky and buy the sketch from him. Sally asks why she didn't think of it.
