The things people do for internet likes.
Ding DongersWhen Remy signs up for a video sharing app, he discovers Cricket is the key to gaining popularity and keeps pushing him into doing more and more dangerous stunts for views, much to the risk of his health and safety.
"Ding Dongers" contains examples of:
- Agony of the Feet: In the first video Remy films of Cricket, a chicken pecks his toe.
- Answer Cut: Just after Remy says "Who wants to be the type of person that benefits from the pain of their friends?", it is revealed Benny mooched off their viral effort at the park, becoming popular in Remy's place.
- Big "NO!": By Remy when trying to stop Cricket's skate park stunt.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Remy fills a kiddie pool full of Organ Melter brand hot sauce. Him and Cricket making contact with it actually give them skin burns.
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Broken Aesop: The moral of the story is don't put your friends in danger for the sake of being popular. Yet in the climax, Benny has been filming the whole thing, thus he sells out his friends and becomes the most popular DingDonger that Remy would've been. - The Bus Came Back: Itchaboi makes his second appearance. And it looks like he's hit rock bottom after losing all his followers to DingDong.
- Glass Smack and Slide: Cricket pogo sticks near Remy's window before smacking right into the glass; it's not until Remy agrees to come over does he slip and fall off back first.
- Here We Go Again!: The episode ends with Benny filming the stunt at the park, thus selling out Cricket and Remy for the sake of becoming famous himself.
- Humiliation Conga: Remy puts Cricket through a series of painful stunts to achieve popularity on DingDong. It all culminates in a massive obstacle course set up at the skate park, as Cricket is to be flung down a ramp, past a couple of sheep and a cow, through a beehive and finally landing on an inflatable pool full of hot sauce. At the last minute, however, Remy feels remorseful and does the stunt instead, ending up seriously hurt.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Itchaboi reappears in this episode and he hit rock bottom and lost followers since last time we saw him. Probably people realized he's a bad influence after all, kids don't even remember him at all.
- Memetic Mutation: In-universe; Remy's post of Cricket flying into his window behind him and asking "Wanna come over later?" going viral ends up setting off the plot of the episode as Remy tries to keep his newfound internet popularity going (at the increasing expense of Cricket).
- Mondegreen Gag: Cricket mishears "clout" as "trout". Tilly even notes trout season is coming up soon.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Remy's reaction when he discovers he was only using Cricket to become popular and that the stunts he keeps making Cricket do are causing harm to Cricket.Remy: Oh my gosh, I put my best friend in harm's way, all to be verified by strangers? That's verifiably stupid!
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The only reason Remy became popular on DingDong is pushing Cricket into doing so many dangerous stunts until he's become brutally injured. It's not until a visit from the now broke Itchaboi does Remy come to his senses and realize he willingly hurt Cricket just to be famous.
- Shout-Out: DingDong is a parody of TikTok, which ironically, almost got banned in the US.
- Skyward Scream: Remy does this after getting 1000 subscribers.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Itchaboi only appears in one scene, but his sole cameo appearance is what leads Remy to the realization he only used Cricket to get attention, and tried to brutality risk his life for the sake of people liking him.
- Status Quo Is God: Tilly decides to never let the internet soil her friendship with Phoenix again, and willingly forsakes the phone Gloria gave her, leaving her and Cricket with no devices as per the norm.
- Take That!: The logo of the Ding Dong app says the app is for kids, and Gloria is put off the moment she sees a video.
- Taking the Bullet: Upon realizing he willingly hurt Cricket to get attention on the internet, Remy manages to get him out of doing the dangerous skate park stunt while inadvertently running into it himself.
- Tempting Fate: Just after Remy says, "Who wants to be the type of person that benefits from the pain of their friends?", it is revealed Benny filmed the stunt at the park, giving him the benefits.
In which the Greens meet their makers.
Animation AbominationCricket and Tilly go with Gloria to the animation studio where their favorite cartoon, Kingdom of Lore, is produced, but when the producers approve Cricket's nonsense ending, Tilly doesn't like it.
"Animation Abomination" contains examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Cricket, who was new to Kingdom of Lore and has only seen that episode, never gets Princess Tarina's name right, referring to her as "Tortilla" and "Tostada".
- Artistic License – Film Production: The animation process is grossly simplified and exaggerated for laughs.
- At Arm's Length: In the recording room when Cricket presents the spare copies of the Cricket cut, he holds Tilly back with one arm to prevent her from interfering.
- Big Word Shout: Tilly screams, "WAIIIT!" to stop Zed from approving the Cricket cut and ask him to reconsider her ending.
- Book Ends: The episode starts and ends with Cricket and Tilly in the living room watching Kingdom of Lore.
- Call-Back: Tilly's storyboarding skills come into play briefly.
- Creator Cameo: The Houghton Brothers, Chris and Shane, appear as animated parodies of themselves working at the animation studio.
- Crazy-Prepared: When Tilly edited the scripts so that it has her revisions, Cricket thought ahead and kept extra copies of the originals.
- Didn't Think This Through: Gloria gets a job working at the animation studio. It’s actually an internship that she needed to sign up for classes to obtain, so she’s actually losing money.
- The Dividual: Topher and Blaine seem to function as a single entity, and are never seen apart.
- Everything Explodes Ending: Cricket's idea for the season finale of Kingdom of Lore is for the Princess to explode everything in sight. The writers like it because it's easy.
- Evil All Along: Cricket's ending has the Princess reveal she's evil.
- Feud Episode: Between Cricket and Tilly over their conflicting endings.
- Foil: Cricket and Tilly to Topher and Blaine, two siblings who keep fighting and bickering between them and have different ideas, but when they work together they create amazing things. While Topher and Blaine get along mostly during the entirety of the episode, despite the ocassional bickering, Tilly and Cricket spend the whole episode angry at each other for their conflictive ideas, but ultimately they work together and create a finale that both of them enjoy.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Topher and Blaine are dead-ringers for the show's creators, Chris and Shane Houghton. Same goes for the "Kingdom Of Lore" voice actors who are basically animated versions of Bill and Alice Green's voice actors Bob Joles and Artemis Pebdani.
- Jerkass Ball: Cricket is at his worst during the majority of the episode, as he wants his version of the finale, be done like he wants. Disregarding entirely if that doesn't make sense. On the other hand, Tilly was no better. Her efforts to sabotage production because it wasn't her ending, combining with her unwilling to compromise until the end of the episode, also implies. Not to mention that she openly and smugly insults Cricket for his ideas in the beginning.
- Jumping the Shark: Cricket's version of the season finale is this, completely foregoing all earlier established elements for a surprise Plot Twist that would completely change the show's formula.
- Long Runner: In-Universe, Kingdom of Lore was running for at least five seasons according to Tilly.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Tilly's idea for the finale is to have the ghost revealed as the king and the Princess' father.
- No, You: When Cricket sees Tilly change the storyboards and runs to change them back to his:Tilly: Cricket, back off!
Cricket: YOU back off! - Oh, Crap!: Cricket and Tilly have this in unison at the very end when they see the feedback from their combined ending, implying it got rather polarizing reception from viewers.
- Only One Finds It Fun:
- Implied; Cricket and Tilly are the only fans of the show who like the ending they came up with, and judging by their shocked reactions over what other fans on the Internet thought, it probably wasn’t very good.
- Inverted with the Cricket cut. All the writers immediately approve of it because it's "easy", but only Tilly hates it, as it ruins the princess's character and rewrites the show all together. The same for Tilly's ending, though they choose the easy one due to time.
- Out-Gambitted: Basically Tilly's attempts to stop the Cricket cut end up being ruined.
- Tilly sneaks into the storyboard room and swaps out the storyboards for the Cricket cut with her own, but Cricket finds out and undoes her work.
- Tilly writes directions on the script to change bits of it to her own, but Cricket saved a copy of it.
- Tilly swipes the episode's work from each of the other departments, but Gloria takes them from her assuming she's getting them for her.
- Tilly blows out the flame burning the catapult to stop the details being sent, but Cricket chomps the rope apart, slinging it.
- In the end, it seems as Ed is about to approve the Cricket cut, but just before he finishes his sentence, Tilly cuts in and asks him to reconsider her ending.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Cricket starts removing Tilly's storyboards, he yells, "My! VERSION! IS!! BETTER!!!"
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Ed the executive is actually a nice guy who cares about cartoons, being sincerely impressed by Tilly’s passion for the show, wishing there was more of it in the industry, and accepting her ideas for a new ending at the eleventh hour.
- Robotic Reveal: When Ed agrees to mash up both kids' ideas together, he pulls up his sleeve to reveal he's really a robot — the Robo-CEO 5000 — whose battery wears out.
- Satire: In reality, a whole episode of an animated series can take up to a year to produce. This condenses the whole process in eleven minutes.
- Self-Deprecation: The executive calls out the Brothers as yes men.
- Self-Made Orphan: In the completed Kingdom of Lore finale, the Princess kills the King, stating that she is about to become an orphan.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The ending heavily suggests that the final version of the Kingdom of Lore finale was mixed, as the final shot of the episode is Cricket and Tilly seeing the online reaction to the finale and collectively going: "...Oh..."
- Stalker Shot: After Tilly changes all the storyboards and is wheeled out, the camera pulls back to reveal Cricket watching everything opposite the room, eating popcorn and looking angry.
- Take a Third Option: Tilly doesn't like Cricket's nonsense ending and does whatever she can so her more story-wise ending gets produced. When she succeeds last minute but sees her brother heartbroken, she suggests a third ending which plays off Tilly's version, but adds a portion of Cricket's ending where the princess willingly kills her ghost-revealed father and he explodes.
- Take That!: Cricket’s idea of suddenly having the Princess of Kingdom of Lore suddenly turn evil in the finale without any real reason is reminiscent of what happens with Daenerys Targaryen, and it is treated as the bad ending compared to Tilly’s idea.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: For the first time since Big Coffee shut down, Gloria does not lose the job she applied for in the episode. Downplayed as she admits it’s an internship and she’s basically paying to have it.
- Title Drop: Animation Abomination is the name of the TV network/block Kingdom of Lore is on.
