Line #8 Recap/BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E12Retired


1	Jules and Verne take advantage of April Fool's Day to play a number of mischievous pranks. However, their actions wind up being no laughing matter when their sabotage of Doc's Brain-Wave Analyzer convinces him he's used up most of his brain capacity. Depressed at being deprived of his career as a scientist and convinced that he's a burden to his family, Doc wanders off to find something else that he can do with his cerebral deficit. Can his family stop him before the prank gets too far out of hand?
2	!!Tropes:
3	* AprilFoolsPlot: The episode takes place on April Fool's Day and centers around Jules and Verne's April Fools' prank convincing Doc that he has only a tiny amount of his brain capacity left.
4	* BrickJoke:
5	** In the beginning, one of the pranks Jules and Verne play is switching the sugar in the sugar bowl for salt. It quickly gets forgotten thanks to the fallout of their other pranks but comes up again when Doc puts "sugar" in his cup of coffee at the end of the episode.
6	** Early in the episode, Verne packs worm-filled apples for Principal Strickland. Later, when his mother and Marty turn up at school to tell the boys about Doc's disappearance, Verne asks if the reason they're here has anything to do with Principal Strickland going to the nurse around lunchtime.
7	* CassandraTruth:
8	** Clara initially passes off her husband's attempt to explain his problem as an April Fool's joke. She only realizes he means it when he passes out.
9	** Thanks to the day (and the craziness of their story), the police just laugh at Marty and Clara when they tell them Doc's run away from home thanks to the brain-wave problem.
10	* FailureMontage: After Doc runs away from home, he decides to drown his sorrows by getting a job. A series of moments showing Doc messing up everything else he tries to do follows.
11	* GroundedForever: A variant; Clara discontinues the boys' allowances until around the turn of the century.
12	* HardWorkMontage: The FailureMontage of Doc messing up his attempts to get a new job gets intercut with shots of his family and Marty attempting to find him.
13	* HeroicBSOD: Doc becomes depressed after finding out that he can no longer continue his career in science, to the point of simply sitting around in a bathrobe watching television.
14	* HypocriticalHumor: The depressed Doc is watching a soap opera where one character is pleading with another to do something with his life and not waste it. Doc calls it "unrealistic", but a few moments after he turns off the television, he and Clara have the same exchange word for word.
15	* IGaveMyWord: Clara asks Marty if he's sure Doc will turn up at the Pinheads' big concert so Jules and Verne can confess their sabotage. Marty answers that he's positive, because Doc promised he would be there and he's never broken a promise to him before.
16	* TheLastDance: At the end, Doc is thrust into the position of coming up with a clever idea to deal with the flooding caused by the out-of-control weather machine. He protests, given that he only has one or two ideas left, but decides he may as well finish off with a bang.
17	* NeverMyFault: When they have to explain to their father that his mistaken idea is the result of their sabotage, Verne tries to pin the blame entirely on Jules.
18	* NotSoAboveItAll: Jules may be a ChildProdigy, but as proven by his cheerfulness as he and his brother are setting up their tricks at the beginning, he still enjoys childish pranks.
19	* TakeThat: Clara tries to get her husband interested in another career to break him out of his slump, but Doc claims his intelligence was the only useful skill he had. When Clara says many jobs don't need someone with brains, Doc retorts that he's not becoming a politician.
20	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
21	** Jules and Verne kick off the entire plot by sabotaging one of their father's inventions. While this was intended as a simple April Fool's Day prank, it spirals into the events of the rest of the episode.
22	** Clara, upon failing to snap Doc out of his HeroicBSOD and watching him accidentally break two things, says she's going to get Marty to talk to him "before [he] destroys the entire house." This convinces Doc he needs to strike out on his own to avoid being a burden to his wife and sons.

Context Recap / BackToTheFutureTheAnimatedSeriesS1E12Retired