While up for The Nicest Person of the Year award, the Goodies find that they, along with every other contestant other than a Dr. Petal, are suddenly committing uncharacteristic acts of rudeness.
- Actor Allusion: Patrick Troughton plays a a man with an ambiguous doctorate.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- The fake Goodies are sighted “frightening twelve old ladies in Edinburgh, assaulting 12 ladies in Leeds, thumping five coppers in London, stealing 20,000 pounds of bullion in Bristol and saying ‘Knickers’ to Vera Lynn”.
- Inverted with the celebrities committing offences. We go from Kenneth Mckellar and Moria Anderson opening a sex boutique, Julie Andrews starring in a porn film, and Tony Blackburn strangling a kitten on the air.
- Of the Nicest Person of the Year awards competitors, 85 have left the country, 73 are in hiding, 29 have changed their names and had plastic surgery done, 18 are helping the police with their enquiries, and 8 have locked themselves in the bathroom.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Though he fails to win the contest legitimately, Ratfink still manages to steal the crown and get away, since Graeme and Bill were replaced with his robots.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: The one thing against Ratfink winning the award is that “(he’s) a repulsive creep”.
- Broken Record: When Ratfink tries to pass his robots off as the real Goodies, Android!Graeme stutters on the word “Goodies”.Ratfink: There you are, you see. That proves it.The Goodies: No it doesn’t.The Baddies: Yes, it does.
- Camp Gay: The Bishop of Lanchester, whose hobbies include whipping choir boys, talking to sailors and dressing up as women. He enjoys travel and meeting people. His ambition is to be immortal and to star in his own blue movies.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Dr. Wolfgang Adolphus Ratfink von Petal, who won a Nobel Prize for being the most irresponsible scientist in the history of humanity. He self-describes himself as “wicked, evil and cruel”.
- Chekhov's Gun: Amongst the real world luminaries up for the Nice Person of the Year award is one Dr. Petal, who Tim allowed to enter because “he sounds nice”. He soon gets revealed as the mastermind behind the fake nice people
- Circling Vultures: Ratfink is accompanied everywhere by his vulture Lucretia, his only friend since he left her something in his will.Bill: What have you left her?
Ratfink: Me. - Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: Inverted. The Police Sergeant starts to believe that the Goodies are innocent when it’s pointed out that they’ve been in his office during the time they were supposedly sighted causing havoc on Brewer Street.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Ratfink recounts how his parents not only christened him “Ratfink”, but they put him in kennels and emigrated when he was three weeks old, since they couldn’t stand the sight of him.I was the Ugly Duckling who grew up to be the Ugly Duck.
- Death Trap: Dr. Petal puts the Goodies in two separate ones to stop them from revealing his scheme. They escape the first one comically easily, while the second one merely propels them towards the contest.
- Despair Event Horizon: Graeme very briefly gives up when the Goodies are trapped in Ratfink’s
- Dull Surprise: Graeme figures out the cause of the problems when he notices that “Tony Blackburn” has a strange fixed expression with Dull Eyes of Unhappiness.Bill: He always looks like that.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Ratfink has helped the Russians, the Americans, the British and the Nazis in his long life trying to help people.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After noticing that the fake Goodies are moving inhumanly fast and that all the nice people acting rude are entrants in the Nice Person of the Year Award, Graeme realises someone is using fakes to discredit them.
- Failed a Spot Check: The Police Sergeant fails to realise he’s the head of the Brewer Street precinct until the Goodies ask for Brewer Street’s location.
- He Knows Too Much: After trying to butter up Ratfink so he’ll let them go, he states that now they know his “little secret”, “I’ve got to kill you”.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Tim Brooke-Taylor’s former radio co-star John Junkin appears here as the Police Seargeant.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Michael Aspirin, the presenter of the Nice Person of the Year Award, is a knock off Michael Aspel.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Unlike most villains leaving adversaries in a Death Trap, Ratfink is Genre Savvy enough to be waiting by the door, and puts them in an even more inescapable trap.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Goodies escaping from the first Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts trap with a potato peeler.
- Police Are Useless: Even once they stop harassing the Goodies for things they haven’t done, the police are very much powerless to do anything about the nice people gong barmy.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Police Sergeant, who believes the Goodies once they point out a hole in the narrative of them being villains, and helps them investigate afterwards. Though sadly, he vanishes once Dr. Petal enters the narrative.
- Saying Too Much: Ratfink gives his scheme away when the Goodies threaten to dismantle his creations.You keep away from them. I spent hours putting them together.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: One of the fake nice people is an ice cream man who invites children into his van, before pulling off a sign to reveal he works for “Uncle Jolly’s Meat Pies”.
- Shameless Self-Promoter: David Frost calls the Goodies to nominate himself for the Nice Person of the Year award.
- Take That!: After learning that Huey Green, Spiro Agnew and Lovelace Watkins are considered “nice people” for the awards nomination, Bill asks why they’re all so horrible.
- Verbal Backspace: The bookie taking bets on the finalists lowers the odds for “the little old lady” and “the bishop” after the Police come in to take them away for the crimes committed by Ratfink’s androids.
