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Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation is The Movie of Tiny Toon Adventures, produced between the show's first and second seasons in 1991, released between the second and third seasons in 1992 and animated by TMS Entertainment. Originally intended as a theatrical release, How I Spent My Vacation became the first Direct to Video animated film released in the United States and later aired on television as a four-part episode of the series. (Warner Bros. released the movie on DVD just over twenty years later, in August 2012.)

The movie covers various interweaving stories involving the Acme Looniversity students during their summer vacation, with the main focus going to:

  • Buster and Babs getting into a water gun fight that results in them and Byron the Basset riding a raft down the river, where they meet all sorts of dangerous, Southern animals.
  • Plucky Duck joining Hamton and his family on their trip to Happy World Land — only to find himself in the car trip from Hell, especially with Hamton's Uncle Stinky and a deranged hitchhiker who just escaped from the prison psych ward.
  • Fifi La Fume pursuing her favorite movie star, Johnny Pew, in hopes of getting his autograph.
  • Fowlmouth dragging Shirley (who has a summer job giving psychic readings to people on the beach) to see a movie with him — the horror flick Skunknophobia — which he's seen 100 times.
  • Elmyra causing chaos in the search for a new kitty cat, first while on a drive-thru safari.

Other cast members show up in one-note incidents that weave in and out of the main storylines.


Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation contains examples of the following tropes:

  • Abhorrent Admirer: The three alligator women who want to marry (and then eat) Buster.
  • Adults Are Useless: You would think that Hamton's family would at least notice a guy revving a chainsaw inside of their damn car, whether they did something about it or not.
  • All for Nothing: Several summers don't pan out as well as others:
    • Buster and Babs's summer is spent trying to get back to Acme Acres from the impromptu river escapade their water gun fight landed them in. By the time they do, summer's over and it's the first day of school.
    • Plucky's summer was spent enduring the quirks of Hamton's family and nearly getting killed to get to Happy World Land. They make it there... and the family instantly turn around as soon as they arrive only content to ride the monorail cause the trip up there was what they considered the vacation.
    • Fifi meets her heart throb, Johnny Pew, but he turns out to be a jerk when he gives away the autograph he gave her to another girl. She does get even by telling him off and unwittingly booting him right into the arms of Elmyra, but still.
  • Alone with the Psycho: Only Plucky is aware that the hitchhiker the Pig Family picked up is an escaped convict. Said convict has a "psychotic aversion to pork", yet ignores the pigs he's among to try and murder Plucky.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: At the movie theater is a rule, "no smoking cigarettes in the theater". This cuts to a talking andromorphic cigarette, with smoke coming out of him, leaving and complaining.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Babs attempts to give one to Buster right when it seems they're going to go over a cliff, but Buster shushes her, saying "I feel the same way."
  • Badbutt: Perhaps in consideration of cinema-goers' sensitivities, Fowlmouth is reduced to saying "dad-gum" instead of his usual cussing, pretty much losing the character's (admittedly one-dimensional) point for existing in the first place.
  • Bankruptcy Barrel: A variant; Dizzy Devil is afraid to spin because he's shedding, and doesn't want to end up naked. Eventually he does spin and lose his fur, and spends the rest of the movie wearing a cardboard box. He passes by some skaters, who think he's started a new trend and wear cardboard boxes of their own. At the end of the film, Dizzy's fur has grown back, so he stops wearing the box and the skaters think that the box look is now out of style.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: Fifi attempts this by disguising herself as Michelle Lovitz, Johnny Pew's agent. Unfortunately for her, the real Michelle Lovitz is there too. But even then, the hotel manager knew she was an impostor.
  • Big Bad: Mr. Hitcher, who attempts to kill Plucky, Hamton and his family, and Babs and Buster for food throughout his appearances. He's later shown trying to chase down Plucky at the end.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: While Mr. Hitcher is the most consistent villain, the Babs and Buster sub-plot also features the Possum family, The Boos, and the crew of the Delta Burke all wanting to eat them, or force Buster into an arranged marriage.
  • Big Dam Plot: Buster and Babs' subplot is kicked off when an escalating water fight ends with Babs intentionally opening a dam and flooding Acme Acres.
    • But then Buster tops that by hitting Acme Acres with a tsunami.
  • Big "WHAT?!":
    • Plucky belts out one upon realizing Hamton gave his address to Mr. Hitcher.
    • He belted out an earlier one when Wade tells him they're leaving Happy World Land after the monorail ride because they "don't wanna over do it on the first visit".
  • Bittersweet Ending: Of sorts, though played for laughs, but to make a long story short, many of the cast have high hopes for their summer that ultimately goes south. Not EVERYONE is unhappy, however (Already having an awful summer, Plucky is relieved to go back, until he sees they have a test coming up immediately and to make matters worse, Hamton gave his address to Mr. Hitcher, who already wants his revenge), and even Babs admits she kinda had fun.
  • Black Comedy: Plucky gets chased around by Mr. Hitcher at the end of the movie. And everyone completely ignores his plight to sing the theme song.
  • Black Widow: The Boo Sisters are these types who pick male foreigners as suitors, whom their father (Big Daddy Boo) has to wed them to (even if it means said suitors have to Marry Them All); and once they marry said suitors, these girls will get to eat them.
  • Book Ends: This movie begins at ACME Looniversity on the last day of school, and ends at ACME Looniversity on the first day back. Both scenes feature the Toons singing a variation of the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song.
  • Boring Return Journey: For all that had happened between Hamton's family and Plucky leaving Acme Acres and arriving at Happy World Land, the return trip was apparently not as interesting.
  • Boring Vacation Slideshow: After Plucky and Hamton make it back to Acme Acres near the end of the film, when Plucky attempts to head home, Hamton's father drags Plucky to watch the slideshow of their trip. The slideshow lasts several days, and going by what we hear, it includes the likes of a hotel room, a parking lot, and a crazy guy with a chainsaw. As soon as the last slide is shown, Plucky immediately makes a break for it, revealing that he only watched because he was handcuffed to the projector, which gets dragged along with him.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: Buster mocks Babs by stealing her "ears up or down" shtick, by saying, "Do you like your ears dry... or wet?"
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: In-universe, after having enough of Fowlmouth's loud commentary during a showing of the Film Within a Film Skunkophobia, the angry audience throws him at the screen. He somehow ends up inside the movie, where the actors also chew him out for talking through it. After a brief argument, the entire cast of Skunkophobia shows up to throw Fowlmouth back through the screen and out of the theater completely.
  • Broken Pedestal: Fifi was downright ecstatic to meet Johnny Pew, who she had a humongous crush on. But when he takes her photo of him to give the older Bimbette an autograph, which Fifi had been begging for, she lays right into him (and sends him flying out of the theater, to the joy of the crowd). The end song, she says that he was "a pity".
  • Buffy Speak: Babs, disguised as a fireworks salesman, describes her wares as thus:
    Babs: We've got them Roman candles, yucky curly snake-y things, and the little spinny whirlibob that never works.
  • The Cameo:
    • Ralph the Guard shows up to chase Plucky in the intro when he and Hamton are camping in the sporting goods store.
    • Fifi tries to get into the hotel Johnny is staying at, where she encounters Jay Leno, Roseanne Barr, David Letterman (who is there for one of a few reasons listed in the end credits), Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, and Arsenio Hall.
    • The Road Runner gets run over by a mail truck.
    • Roseanne appears again later on in the movie theater, along with Jack Nicholson and Pee-Wee Herman (which, given that Paul Reubens' arrest for indecent exposure at a porno theater happened a year before this was released on VHS and LaserDisc, makes the joke of him in an actual theater with a big bucket of popcorn on his lap very disturbing).
    • At one point Babs, Buster and Byron are saved by Superman.note 
    • Steven Spielberg replaces the head of the sphinx when the Pig family inexplicably find themselves in the Egyptian desert.
  • Car Ride Games: We see Hamton and Plucky playing two of these while driving through a desert. First, they play Spot the Car, which the family gets far too excited over, leading to Plucky getting Squashed Flat as they jump up and down. After two rounds of that, they come up on a tunnel, where they hold their breath to make a wish. Plucky, of course, can't hold out for the whole thing, and ends up flying out the back window, then dragged across the road when he grabs the car from behind. Eventually, when everyone else all breathes out at once at the end of the tunnel, the excess air causes the car to pop like a balloon, before returning to normal in the next scene.
  • Chaotic Car Ride: Plucky's sub-plot has him join Hamton's family on a car trip to the HappyWorldLand amusement park. The road trip is both hellishly boring and hellish in general for Plucky, due to him having to deal with Car Ride Games such as "Spot the Car" (which means spotting any car as opposed to a specific type) and holding his breath through a seven-mile-long tunnel. The Pig family also pick up Mr. Hitcher, a chainsaw-wielding escaped criminal who has a psychotic aversion to duck and pork, and are completely oblivious to him trying to kill Plucky. By the end of his sub-plot, Plucky finally makes it to HappyWorldLand with the Pig family, only for them to head back home after one monorail ride so there'll be something to look forward to when they come back next year.
  • Chekhov's Gag: Two occur back-to-back during the mine cart chase:
    • The tracks lead into a tunnel at one point. Buster tells Babs to hold her breath and make a wish. The same was done by Plucky and the Pig family when they drove through another tunnel earlier in the movie. Babs gets her wish granted when the next section of the tracks goes through a mall.
    • Near the end of the journey through said mall, Buster and Babs discover the "new box look", which was inadvertently started by Dizzy after he had to wear a box to hide his furless body near the beginning of the movie.
  • The Chew Toy: Several of the characters, but especially Plucky (as usual) and Babs. In fact, the entire Buster and Babs subplot can be described as "hilarious stuff happens to Babs with the occasional reprieve."
  • Coincidental Broadcast/Ignored Vital News Reports: The Pigs' radio picks up the report of Mr. Hitcher's escape from prison immediately after the Pigs offered him a ride. Unfortunately, Plucky was the only one paying attention to it and realized who Mr. Hitcher was. Even worse, before he could get the important number to call the authorities, Hamton's mom turned off the radio, saying there was too much sensationalism in the media.
  • Color Failure: On their way to HappyWorldLand, the Pig family pass the time by playing a game where they hold their breath through a tunnel and make a wish, with the wish coming true if they hold it the whole time. Uncle Stinky continues to hold his breath long after the game is over, and when Plucky tells him this, Uncle Stinky exhales on him, causing Plucky to lose his color and Hamton to have to paint it back on.
  • Comedic Underwear Exposure: When a female possum's green mini-skirt falls off, she is left in her blue bloomers or pantalets. Facing the viewers, she tries to cover up with modesty and coyly giggles as she exits the scene.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Buster and Babs telling Superman to "get [his] own video" after he rescues them from a waterfall results in him dropping them back into the water.
  • Conspicuously Light Patch: The classroom clock, right before it strikes three and pops open to reveal Gogo Dodo acting as a cuckoo bird.
    • Averted during the Rollercoaster Mine chase near the end, when it ends up becoming an actual rollercoaster at Happy World Land, the "Happy World Land Mine Bender" sign is painted like the rest of the background up until Mr. Hitcher slices it apart with his chainsaw.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Numerous one-shot villains from past episodes are in Buster and Babs' audience on the Delta Burke.
    • When Buster is opening his locker at the end, a photo of Rover, his pet dinosaur from the episode "Rock and Roar", can be seen on it.
    • Plucky is electrically attracted to Hamton upon hearing he’s going to Happy World Land. Fifi did something similar when Hamton admitted he was going to ask her out in "Prom-ise Her Anything".
    • Elmyra mistakes skunk-movie star Johnny Pew for a "stinky kitty," the same thing she did to Fifi - with the same results - in "Out Of Odor."
    • Beforehand, Fifi calling Johnny 'stinks' is a call back to "Born to be Riled", whereas she explains to Babs that if a skunk says that someone 'stinks', that was mean to be a serious insult, which explains just how pissed Fifi was against Johnny.
  • Covers Always Lie: The DVD cover shows Buster, Babs, Plucky, Hamton, Elmyra and Dizzy on a ride at Happy World Land, but in the movie only Plucky and Hamton go there and they don't even get to go on any rides.
    • Averted with the VHS and LaserDisc covers, particularly the second one depicting the Toons running down the steps of Acme Looniversity on the last day of school.
  • Credits Gag: So many.
  • Darker and Edgier: It's still a light-hearted kid's movie at the end of the day, but compared to the show, there are several moments where the characters are close to death, whether by drowning or at the hands of a serial killer.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Fifi, who got a main role in this movie.
    • Also Fowlmouth and Byron, who weren't even part of the group of characters that sang the show's theme song.
  • Demoted to Extra: Montana Max only appears in the opening and closing with no speaking lines.
  • Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Used throughout — Buster plays it with the opossum kid, Emyra hums it throughout her segment, etc. The most overt is when Plucky's eyes turn into TV screens for a gag, then Buster and Babs appear in his eyes and sing the first few lines of the song, before Hamton shuts them off.
  • Disgusting Public Toilet: Not actually shown, but when the Pigs pull up to a rest stop, they put on hazmat type suits so they can clean the public restrooms. Including Hamton's incredibly filthy Uncle Stinky.
  • Disney Villain Death: Mr. Hitcher seems to get this during the mine cart chase... until he reappears to chase Plucky during the closing song.
  • Disrupting the Theater: Shirley and Fowlmouth's subplot culminates in the two going to the ACME Cinema to see Skunknophobia, a film that Fowlmouth has seen 100 times before, and will not shut up through. Fowlmouth eventually ticks off the other theater-goers so much that they throw him into the movie screen, where the cast of Skunknophobia tell him off for talking during the movie. It's also implied that the amount of times Fowlmouth saw this movie and presumably yielding the same result made the producer aware on how disruptive he was and put up the label "Not suitable for Fowlmouth" during the title screen.
  • Don't Try This at Home: As Elmyra gets out of her family's car, the zoo's announcer (who sounds like Dr. Scratchansniff) gives this warning:
    May I repeat so that Warner Bros. doesn't get sued if anybody really does this, do not get out of the car!
  • Dramatic Thunder: Punctuates most of Mr. Hitcher's entrances.
  • The Dreaded Toilet Duty: Subverted when Hamton Pig and his family take a long car trip to Happyworldland, and stop at a gas station for relief. Wade, Winnie, Uncle Stinky and Hamton all don full-body hazmat suits, each with a tank of sanitizer on the back, and charge into the restrooms. There, the Pigs are so fervent about their cleaning that soap suds ooze around the door frames.
  • Eleventh Hour Super Power:
    Buster: Hey, Byron can fly!
    Babs: Who knew?
  • Escalating War: Buster Bunny starts a water fight with Babs. By the end, Babs opens a dam, then Buster triggers a massive tsunami, and Acme Acres ends up underwater.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: During Babs and Buster's trip down the river, every single person or thing they run into tries to eat or kill them. Lampshaded, naturally.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin
  • Extreme Doormat: Fifi bore all of the mistreatments and refusal Johnny Pew threw at her without complains, although her face started to get sourer and sourer unlike the beginning. That is, until Johnny blatantly cheated on her and used her photograph to give someone else his autograph. And that's when she reaches her Rage Breaking Point and stops being the trope.
  • Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: The Southern belle alligators' father is a weirdly Affably Evil version, given he's the In-Universe equivalent of a cannibal who weds his daughters to strangers so they can then eat them.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: While most characters in the Tiny Toons universe have four-fingered hands, the celebrity cameos all have five-fingered hands.
  • Fur Is Clothing:
    • Dizzy Devil is afraid to spin because he's shedding, and doesn't want to end up naked. Eventually he does spin and lose his fur, and spends the rest of the movie wearing a cardboard box and feeling ashamed for being naked.
    • Later in the movie, Elmyra visits the ACME Wild Safari Zoo, where she sneaks out of her parents' car and grabs a cheetah by his tail. The cheetah tries to run away from her, but loses his fur in the process. Elmyra wears his fur, and in a later scene, the furless cheetah is wearing a censor bar over his groin.
  • Half-Witted Hillbilly: Buster and Babs get captured by a menacing family of possums in the Louisiana outback (as well as gators and a boat full of predators that want to eat them alongside Mr. Hitcher who, after failing to kill Plucky and the pigs earlier, just happens to show up) and are rescued by the son of the possum family, who they bring back to Acme Acres. He then enrolls in the Looniversity, saying "Hoo-eey! I'm gonna get me an ejumucation!"
  • Hammered into the Ground: Happens to Mr. Hitcher when he is dropped off and tries to attack Plucky and the oblivious pigs, accidentally cutting down a telephone pole that lands on him.
  • Harmless Liquefaction: One of the rides shown at Happy World Land is the Happy Centrifuge, a capsule on the end of a rapidly-rotating arm. When it stops, the occupants are poured out into a puddle, complete with blinking eyes.
  • Hate Sink: Johnny Pew, who spends the whole special acting like an arrogant Jerkass to Fifi and doesn't involve many slapsticks, just some mean-spirited words that utterly crushes Fifi until she loses it. Considering Tiny Toons thrives on various slapsticks, Johnny's Jerkassery without one clearly is meant to show that he's not to be liked or considered funny and the TV audience (not just the movie-goers) more likely would also cheer the moment Fifi booted him out. One may just wonder if one of the storywriters just happened to meet Johnny Depp in a bad day and decided to get even by making a parody of him as a Hate Sink.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Bimbette, who catches Johnny Pew's eye before she even walks into the shot.
  • Hitchhiker's Leg: Plucky Duck briefly and inexplicably transforms his leg into a beautiful woman's leg in order to stop a passing car.
  • Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: Mr. Hitcher has both, though he wears the hockey mask only briefly.
  • Hope Spot: Plucky had a moment of relief when the news report said that the escaped psycho was wearing green hightops (Mr. Hitch was wearing orange). But then the news reporter said he made a mistake and it was orange hightops.
    Plucky: Mama.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Hamton and his family, who can't seem to realize that Mr. Hitcher is probably a dangerous criminal, even with the chainsaw and hockey mask.
  • Hostile Hitchhiker: Mr. Hitcher, a chainsaw-wielding psychotic killer with a strange aversion to pork and duck. When Hamton's Family, who are on their way to Happy World Land, pick him up, they don't see him as a psychotic killer. Plucky, who is going to Happy World Land with them, is the only one who does, as he listened to a radio broadcast describing Mr. Hitcher as an escaped convict. Even worse, before he could get the important number to call the authorities, Hamton's Mom shut off the radio, saying there was too much sensationalism in the media. After narrowly avoiding getting sliced by Mr. Hitcher's chainsaw, it is later revealed that Hamton gave Mr. Hitcher Plucky's address, rather than his own, and at the end of the movie, Mr. Hitcher is seen chasing and trying to attack Plucky after Hamton shows him to the class.
  • I Lied: And That's The Final End Credit. (five or so seconds of blank screen) We Lied.
  • Idiot Ball:
    • Plucky holds one in the comic book scene. Hamton gets carsick when he reads in the car, and Plucky does everything BUT get the comic book out of the line of fire.
    • Hamton's mother warns Plucky that they don’t allow Hamton but doesn't outright state it. Even so, Plucky ignores this and shoves the comic into Hamton's face.
  • Impossible Hourglass Figure: Bimbette, who is an older and hotter version of Fifi.
  • Incredibly Lame Fun: Hamton's family in general. Double subverted even in that they agree going to one of the best parks in the country is a fun thing, but not only is the trip hellishly boring (and hellish in general) for Plucky, but once they arrive they refuse to ride any of the attractions so there'll be suspense for next year's trip.
  • Informed Attribute: A radio report claims that Mr. Hitcher hates both pork and duck. Despite his, his wrath is focused entirely on Plucky, with the madman barely even acknowledging Hamton and his family.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Hamton's father won't turn on the air conditioning because it eats up gas (fair point). Hamton's mother won't let him crack a window because she's afraid other motorists will think their car is cheap.
  • It Amused Me: When Babs finally rescues Buster from being married to (and eaten by) the gator family, he asks her what took her so long. She admitted that after all the torment he put her through, she was enjoying watching him sweat.
  • Jaw Drop: Johnny Pew's jaw hangs down as she stares at Bimbette.
  • Jerkass:
    • Johnny Pew, without a doubt.
    • Foulmouth absolutely refuses to shut up until he's literally kicked out of the plot, loudly spoiling Skunkophobia and being a (TV-Y7-rated) walking Cluster F-Bomb. He even insults the movie's leading actress right to her face, which subsequently gets him thrown out.
  • Karma Houdini: Although he never kills any of his intended targets, Mr. Hitcher never gets arrested or killed for his violent behavior. He even shows up at the end to continue chasing Plucky.
  • Kissing the Ground: Plucky is so happy to be home from a horrible road trip that took all summer that he kisses Hamton's lawn, only to discover that there's fertilizer on it as plants start to grow on his tongue.
  • The Knights Who Say "Squee!":
    • This is how Fifi reacts after realising that Johnny Pew gave her a hankie. Next thing Johnny knows, she's all over him.
    • Hamton acts like this to "Spot the Car", his favorite car game.
  • Leitmotif: Several, some of which are reprised in the end credits suite.
    • Hamton and the pig family are represented by "Turkey in the Straw" and "Pop Goes the Weasel", which is also constantly hummed by Wade.
    • "Happy World Land" gets its own jingle, whose lyrics are not sung until the final act.
    • Buster and Babs' water fight is accompanied by a 4/4 arrangement of Strauss' "On the Beautiful Blue Danube".
    • As always, Elmyra is accompanied by "I Went to the Animal Fair".
    • Byron is musically represented by Gounod's "Funeral March for a Marionette" (aka the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents.)
    • Fifi is musically represented, naturally, by "Alouette".
    • Fowlmouth is accompanied by "Listen to the Mockingbird".
    • Banjo Possum and his family are represented by "Old Folks at Home (Swanee River)".
    • The Boo family is accompanied by "Buffalo Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight".
    • The Wild Safari Zoo animals are represented by "Polly Wolly Doodle All the Day".
  • "Last Day of School" Plot: The first musical number has the cast waiting for the final bell of the final day of school to come, while likewise listing what they plan to do for summer vacation.
  • Literal Man Eater: The Boo Sisters apparently have a thing going where they marry travelers who stumble upon their home, and then the whole family makes the hapless groom into the wedding feast dinner.
  • Medium Awareness: There are quite a few references to this movie being on video.
  • Movie-Theater Episode: Shirley and Fowlmouth's subplot culminates with them seeing Skunknophobia in the theater. Fowlmouth is rude and annoying at every step of the way, and eventually ticks off the other theater-goers so much that they throw him into the movie screen, where the cast of Skunknophobia tell him off for talking during the movie.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Johnny Pew (though Bimbette probably disagrees).
  • "No Talking or Phones" Warning: The Skunknophobia screening at the movie theater is preceded by what starts out as an advertisement for the Acme Gazette newspaper that then turns into the warning "No smoking cigarettes in the theater". A giant, anthropomorphic lit cigarette leaves the venue, grumbling all the way, as the kids who were seated near it cheer.
  • No Endor Holocaust: Buster and Babs manage to put Acme Acres completely underwater during their opening fight. It doesn't appear to have any real effect on the city.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Uncomfortably applied to the southern belle alligators. One of them even sends Buster straight to Marshmallow Hell.
  • Oh, Crap!: Everyone in the theater freaks out when the THUD sound system promo kicks up. To the point where everyone ducks and covers.
  • Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: When Elmyra's at the Wild Safari Zoo, the announcement goes - "We hope you are enjoying Wild Safari Zoo. May I repeat - so that Warner Bros. doesn't get sued if anyone really does this - do not get out of the car!"
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: In addition to Babs and Buster Bunny providing the usual respective roles, this film features Bimbette, a female skunk with pink fur, and Johnny Pew, a male skunk with blue fur.
  • Playground Song: Plucky tries to sing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" during the car ride, but Hamton's family prefers to sing "99 Bottles of Non-alcoholic Beverage on the Wall" instead.
  • Plot Hole: A literal plot hole drops Buster, Babs, Byron, and Banjo back in Acme Acres.
  • Potty Emergency: Defied when Plucky goes to drink some water at a gas station and Hamton's mother Winnie stops him because if Plucky drinks all that water, they're going to have to put up with him begging to go to the bathroom. However Winnie didn't noticed that poor Plucky really needed that water.
  • Predators Are Mean: Overlapping with Carnivore Confusion, this is a recurring angle in Babs and Buster's plotline; first there's the encounter with the hillbilly possum clan that tries to eat Babs, then the Boo Gators try to eat Buster, and then they end up on the Delta Burke, where the entire crew and all of the passengers, including the two families from before, tries to catch and eat the two rabbits.
  • Prehensile Tail: Bimbette wraps her tail around Johnny Pew, tickles his chin with it, and finally slides the entirety of it against his face.
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: The opening song "Waiting for the Clock to Strike Three" is set to the piano piece "Spinning Song" by Albert Ellmenreich.
  • Punny Name:
    Buster: Babs, quick! Grab the lifesaver! (tosses it to her)
    Babs: Who can think about candy at a time like this? (lifesaver falls around her) Oh.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Fifi gives a short but effective one to Johnny after he gives her photo to Bimbette.
  • Right on the Tick: The beginning of vacation. There's a song about waiting for the tick at the start of the movie.
  • Rollercoaster Mine: Mr. Hitcher chases Buster and Babs through one.
  • Running Gag: The watergun fight in the "Babs and Buster" storyline.
    Buster: I do this water thing to Babsy throughout the entire video.
  • Sanity Slippage: Plucky.
  • Saw Star Wars 27 Times: Fowlmouth says that he's seen Skunknophobia 100 times.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Plucky manages to endure the whole road trip as he and Hamton's family finally reach "Happy World Land" But after a very brief tour of the park and the rides from a monorail, the family promptly files back into the car to drive home. Why? If they went on all of the rides, they'd have nothing to look forward to next year.
    • Buster and Babs' story, to a lesser extent: By the time they get back to Acme Acres, the Summer has ended, and it's back to school.
  • Shotgun Wedding: Buster is forced into this with the three Boo sisters.
  • Shout-Out:
    • When Buster and Babs go over the waterfall, they quote the "I gotcha!" / "But who's got you?" exchange from the first Superman movie. (And this is just moments before Superman himself shows up.)
    • Elmyra gives the lion a haircut that makes him resemble Bart Simpson.
    • Mr. Hitcher is an Expy of Jason Voorhees. Also, the sudden storm that accompanies his introduction is straight out of The Hitcher.
    • While Byron airlifts Buster and Babs to safety, he accidentally knocks ET and Elliot out of the sky.
    • When Babs falls off the waterfall she winds up in a knock-off of The Little Mermaid, complete with the characters singing a Suspiciously Similar Song version of "Under the Sea". Babs' response: "Oops, wrong cartoon".
    • The THX logo is parodied as THUD, very cleverly. Just about everyone in the theater covers their ears as the trailer begins, knowing to expect loudness. Then, they get blasted out of their seats as a sound similar to the THX Deep Note plays. There is also text below the THUD logo saying "A Division of Mucasfim," a reference to Lucasfilm, which used to own THX. At the end, an announcer (who some people think sounds like Alan Rickman, but was Maurice LaMarche) says "The Audience Is Now Deaf," spoofing THX's motto "The Audience is Listening."
    • The entire possum plot, complete with the bridge shot and "Dueling Banjos" scene is a PG-rated version of Deliverance.
    • After Uncle Stinky exhales on Plucky, blowing the color off of him, and Hamton repaints him:
    • The raft ride is a reference to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with Babs and Buster having encounters with Southern stereotypes, enjoying the river scenes, and Babs referencing Huck Fin at the end of the ride.
    • When Hamton's family drives in the desert, they pass by a sphinx with a face that looks a lot like Chuck Jones'.
    • Big Daddy Boo's bigamy/big-o-me pun is a direct quote from Animal Crackers.
    • Skunknophobia is a reference to Arachnophobia, a popular film at the time.
  • Souvenir Land: Zig-zagged with HappyWorldLand; some of the park looks rather cool, as it's home to one of the only arguable precognative parodies of an actual ride found at Walt Disney World. Still, as the park's anthem puts it:
    Welcome to a land where the fun never stops.
    We have six thrill rides and four hundred gift shops...
  • Stairway to Heaven: Appears as a theme park ride, accompanied by the "Bullet Train To Heck!"
  • Take That!: Happy World Land is this toward Disneyland by mentioning in the song that the park has "six thrill rides and 400 gift shops". At the time, Disneyland definitely had a disproportionate number of shops.
  • Tempting Fate: When Plucky and the Pig family return to Acme Acres, Plucky starts walking home, muttering that he at least won't live through his torturous, terrifying, and ultimately disappointing trip to Happy World Land again. Then Wade drags him into the Pigs' house to watch a slideshow of their trip.
    Plucky: SLIDESHOW?!?!
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: Dizzy no longer has fur in this case since he spun it off, but he lightly blushes after becoming nude and he grabs a cardboard box to cover up his nudity.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Hamton's family gives a prime example as to why picking up hitchhikers can be dangerous. The hitchhiker in question turned out to be an Ax-Crazy maniac who goes into a murderous rampage over the smell of pork, and duck. Plucky ended up being the only one who realized the danger everyone was in. To top it off, in the end, it's revealed that Hamton ended up giving the killer Plucky's address.
    • Not to mention they crashed through Plucky's fake railroad crossing in an attempt to film the odometer hitting 100,000 miles. It's one thing that they ran over Plucky and completely destroyed his crossing signals, but if it were a real railroad crossing, things could turn out very badly for the family...
  • Trauma Conga Line: Plucky.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: When Superman of all people saves Buster and Babs, they bluntly tell him to get his own movie.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In addition to Hamton and his family being oblivious to Mr. Hitcher chasing after Plucky with a chainsaw in their own car, when Hamton brings him to school and Mr. Hitcher again chases after Plucky, the entire class acts as oblivious as Hamton's family. This includes Buster and Babs, who had also been chased by him, yet they don't seem concerned that he's shown up to their classroom.
  • Vacation Episode
  • Visual Pun: When Plucky gets a whiff of the filth Hamton's Uncle Stinky left on his hand after shaking it, his body turns black-and-white-checkered and he passes out. Get it? He checks out.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot:
    (shot of the Pig family's car Riding into the Sunset)
    Plucky: (voice over) No, Hamton! Not on the comics!
    (we hear a splash and Plucky's subsequent crying)
  • What's a Henway?: Buster gets caught by the Boo sisters, and all three of them insist on marrying him. The father obliges, leading to this exchange:
    Buster: I can't marry all three of them, that's bigamy!
    Big Daddy Boo: No, that's big o' me!
    (cue rimshot)
  • Wing Ding Eyes: Johnny Pew gets heart in his eyes when he first sees Bimbette.

Alternative Title(s): Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation

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"Not on the Comics!"

Plucky learns the hard way why Hampton shouldn't read comics during car trips.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (10 votes)

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