Now loading Recap for Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E.:
Recorded
Children's
History
Is
Very
Enlightening
Accessing KND Historical File 72368, "The Creation of Adults", we learn the dark roots of the war between Kids and Adults.
In the beginning, the world was inhabited by kids, who built themselves simple treehouses and lived a life of carefree play and rambunctiousness. Eventually, their joyful anarchy gave way to laziness and boredom, and the kids grew tired of trying to look after themselves. So, they engineered the creation of adults; beings made in the image of kids, but "fatter, funnier-looking, and bigger so they could reach cereal boxes from high shelves", whom they dressed in stupid clothing and gave ridiculous names so they could laugh at them.
Adults became a race of servants, worked to the point of exhaustion in entertaining the children and attending to all of their many needs, such as cleaning up their messes, preparing their meals, and constructing ever-more elaborate treehouses and play centers for their masters. And all the while, the kids treated their creations with no respect, mocking them ceaselessly and giving them no rest or chance to enjoy themselves. Blind to the growing dissatisfaction of their slaves, the kids demanded that the adults construct the ultimate monument to kiddom; a treehouse so large that the world's entire population of kids could live in it at once: The Super Double Mega Triple Treehouse. This vast project pushed the adults to the limits of their endurance, especially as they were given no chance to rest from their ordinary labors whilst working on the monument.
Inevitably, rebellion began to take root. The first to rise up was an adult named Mr. Wigglestein; when his master's incessant demands for "horsey-rides" after an exhausting day's work on the almost complete monument proved too much, he grabbed his master and spanked him, the first time in history that an adult had struck a kid in such a fashion. Furious, the kids banished all adults from their land forever, before turning their attention to completing the Super Double Mega Triple Treehouse.
Walking the earth, the adults founded their own place to live; Cleveland. Here, they prospered in peace, and their own experimentation ultimately created goods that the entertainment-seeking kids could not resist: Toys. But they would not just give toys to the kids, no; in exchange for the fruits of their labor, adults demanded the kids pay them money, luring them to complete tasks on behalf of the adults in much the way that the adults had once labored for the kids.
This outraged kiddom; why should they work for goods from those who had been created to serve them? Thus, they instead declared war on their former slaves, attempting to launch bombing raids on the precious coffee houses that gave adults their strength. Unfortunately for them, this was a complete farce; the construction techniques of the adults were proof against the primitive, water-balloon-based military technology available to those early kids. Enraged by this attack, the adults struck back, creating monstrous ant-like spanking robots and attacking the territories of the kids; their water balloons useless, the kids fled to the moon whilst the victorious adults tore down the Super Double Mega Triple Treehouse behind them.
For a time, the two races lived peacefully in their separation, but the kids grew bored of their dull new world, and the adults began to wish they could have the kids doing chores for them again. Diplomatic contact was re-established, and promises of peace exchanged. The "family" unit of mixed kids and adults was created.
...And then betrayed. Adults created schools to brainwash kids into forgetting kids created adults, stripping them of their childishness as much as possible and deluding them into not rebelling against adult control, before adding homework and after-school activities to further their control. In an increasingly paranoid rant, we are informed that the fluorescent lights are part of the brainwashing device, that adults care so much about preserving kids' teeth to be able to implant tracking devices, and that the cafeteria is serving Rainbow Monkey meat.
And then we learn that this is Numbuh 1 giving a history report in class. His unamused teacher scolds him for making up a load of nonsense and gives him a Double F-Minus for his facade of a report. The bell rings then, ending that lesson, and the kids leave... whilst the teacher picks up his apple and opens it to reveal a phone, informing somebody on the other end that "They Know".
Tropes included in this episode:
- And Man Grew Proud: The Super Double Mega Triple Treehouse was meant to be the ultimate monument to kiddom. It's also The Last Straw that sparks the adult rebellion.
- Artistic License – Military: Neither sides of the Kids-Adults War wore uniforms in battle.
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: After charging at what was apparently a small Adult military patrol, the Kids army scattered upon discovering that the Adults had brought in overwhelming numbers of Humongous Mecha to bear against them.
- Create Your Own Villain: Turns out that children created the Adults to be their labor workers, and it horribly backfires as the Adults surpassed the children both intellectually and technologically.
- Completely Off-Topic Report: The episode as a whole is presented as a widescreened history of kids and adults, narrated by Numbuh 1. Towards the end of the story, Numbuh 1's teacher interrupts and scolds him, revealing this story to be just an oral report, saying that the report had nothing to do with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The attack against the children by the adults. The giant spanking robots tears through the kids water-balloon weapons and chops down all their precious treehouses. The children are forced to retreat to the moon before The Super Double Mega Triple Treehouse is chopped down, securing victory for the adults.
- Didn't Think This Through: Waterbomb-based military technology is useless against anything constructed decently.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When only one adult finally fights back against a bratty kid and spanks him, he and every single adult are banished from the land, forced to travel out into the unknown world.
- F--: Numbuh 1's "report" gets a Double F-minus from the teacher.
- Fauxshadowing: The model used for Mr. Wigglestein is later used for a figure heavily implied to be Father himself. However, the Unreliable Narrator nature of the episode leaves it questionable if Father is him at all. Operation: Z.E.R.O. would show that Father's isn't Mr. Wigglestein. He's Benedict Uno, Numbuh 1's uncle.
- Hope Spot: At first, it seems the episode is going to end on the peaceful, heartwarming note where the adults and the children find a middle ground living together as a family. ...Until the narrator questions "...Or COULD THEY?!?"
- Medium-Shift Gag: As Numbuh 1's rant becomes more frantic and paranoid towards the end, the episode cuts to several live-action examples of things he's saying.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Treating your Slave Race like garbage will not pay off in the end.
- Moral Event Horizon: In-universe—the invention of spanking as a punishment is regarded as the point where the adults became pure evil in the eyes of kiddom.
- Mundane Utility: Adults were deliberately created to be taller than kids so that they could get things from high shelves.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Despite kiddom being made of both boys and girls, the latter is still thought of as being less than the former.Boy (upon seeing the adult army): Run away like little girls!
- Slave Race: Adults were made by children to be physical laborers and entertainment.
- Stylistic Suck: The Children's strategy against the Adults' coffee shops was portrayed in a ludicrously cartoonist fashion.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The adults inevitably revolted against the way the kids treated them.
- Unreliable Narrator: In the end, the whole episode is revealed to be Numbuh 1 giving a history report. Operation: Z.E.R.O. would go on to completely contradict the history presented here.
- Wanting Is Better Than Having: The adults wanted the world all to themselves, and the kids wanted a place of their own to escape the adults. Each gets what they wanted (one in the form of the kids "running away from home", and the other in the form of the Moon Base). But each side finds their wish sadly unsatisfactory. The kids grow homesick for Earth, and the adults find they actually miss the children.
- Wham Line: "They Know" - this turns what could just be Numbuh 1's paranoid rant into something that actually has some roots in truth.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Animatrix segments "The Second Renaissance".
