Recap / Corner Gas Animated S 1 E 07 A Scary Cat Graffiti

A Plot: Lacey discovers graffiti scrawled on the side of The Ruby and assumes it has to be a sign of criminal activity, forcing Davis to investigate. Emma offers to cover it up, but gets a little too creative.
B Plot: Hank and Brent restore a vintage car they bought from Old Man Wilkie, a man Oscar hates… if only he could remember why.
C Plot: Karen prepares to have her photo taken for The National Bravery of the Year Award until a stray cat keeps her out of the spotlight.

Tropes referenced:

• The Alleged Car: The vintage car Hank and Brent buy is covered in rust and missing the driver's side door and the engine.
  Old Man Wilkie: She's a beauty of a car, ain't she?
  Brent: I feel like you're playing a little fast and loose with the word "beauty." And "car."
• Boob-Based Gag: Lacey points out that Emma's version of her in the graffiti is "a bit top-heavy", which is an understatement. Emma's answer is that sex sells.
  Lacey: I want it covered up!
  Emma: I can't do anything until it dries.
  Lacey: Then I want me covered up! Or at least bring me down to a B cup!
• Bookends: In the cold open, Lacey walks past Zeke, who's wearing a clown costume, then she turns around and remarks "That's weird." Zeke explains that he's on his way to a children's party, but Lacey says she was talking about the lightning bolt graffiti behind him. In the tag, Lacey walks past a man wearing a clown costume and says "Hi, Zeke," but he menacingly responds that he's not Zeke. Lacey worriedly says "Okay then," only to get distracted by Brent spray painting the same lightning bolt on the wall, which is actually just a mark to tell an electrician where to put a new outlet.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Oscar goes to Old Man Wilkie to see why he hates the guy, Wilkie points out that he wasn't always Old Man Wilkie. Oscar thinks he means he used to be Old Lady Wilkie. Wilkie corrects that he used to be a young man and Oscar actually hated his father.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Once Oscar realizes the current Old Man Wilkie is not the same Old Man Wilkie he used to hate, Oscar calls the original Old Older Man Wilkie Senior.
• Description Cut: Davis doesn't think graffiti is so bad, citing that Karen tags stuff all the time. A cut to the police station shows that Karen's "tagging" is just her writing her name on her yogurt cup so that Davis doesn't eat it. When the scene cuts back, Davis says he'll start investigating Lacey's graffiti once he's done eating, then pulls out Karen's yogurt.
• Fantasy Sequence: Hank imagines himself driving the fixed-up car with a female passenger swooning over his mechanic skills. Brent joins the fantasy, driving up in a completely different car, with his own female passenger swooning over his financial prowess for buying the car cheap and flipping it for profit. When Hank points out that Brent is imagining the wrong car, Brent changes it to the right car, but now both women are in his front seat and he drives away, leaving Hank alone.
• Grumpy Old Man: Oscar eventually realizes that he hated the original Old Man Wilkie for being a cranky old man who was mean to him when he was a teen. But now that Oscar is himself a cranky old man, he finds himself agreeing with everything Old Man Wilkie used to complain about.
• #HashtagForLaughs: Two hipsters show up to look at Emma's mural because they love to make fun of stuff by saying hashtags out loud, such as #SoBadItsStillBad and #WallVomit to describe Emma's mural and #PoorlyConstructedMidlifeCrisis for Hank's "refurbished" car. One also finishes a string of insults with #Blessed.
• If I Do Not Return: As Wanda charges towards the police cruiser to get back at Davis for having her car towed, he looks in the dashboard camera and says "If I don't survive, tell my wife and kids this is why they don't exist!"
• Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: While Brent and Hank are imagining themselves in their fixed up cars, Oscar just sees them with their eyes closed and making engine noises.
• Irony: Karen can't get ready for her Bravery of the Year Award because she's too afraid of the feral cat that got into her house. Wanda suggests they take a moment to revel in the irony of the situation.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Hanks assures Brent that he'll have the old car "fixed up in a montage."
    Brent: In a what?
    Hank: In a minute. What'd you think I said?
  • Later, Oscar bangs on the garage window and tells Hank to "wrap up this montage."
    Hank: What?
    Oscar: I said "Clean up this garage!"
• Lopsided Dichotomy: Davis calls the initial graffiti the work of either trained professionals or kids at recess.
• Mistaken for Junkie:
  • During a struggle with the feral cat, Wanda gets hit with a Tranquilizer Dart, causing her to slur her words in subsequent scenes. The newspaper article at the end, which mistakes Karen and Wanda trying to smoke the cat out for an actual fire, labels Wanda as the drug-addled suspect.
  • Then there's this exchange, which happens when Wanda still has trouble talking straight:
    Wanda: When I worked for the animal rescue, we once smoked some skunk.
    Karen: You know I'm a cop, right?
    Wanda: Smoked out some skunks from under a shed.
• Portmanteau: Her initial confrontation with the stray cat causes Wanda to call it some kind of hybrid cougar-wolverine, prompting her and Karen to speculate what that would be called.
  Karen: A cougarine?
  Wanda: A wougar.
  Karen: How about a wolvercoug?
• Shout-Out:
  • The episode title references American Graffiti. Brent Butt himself has admitted that it might be the cringiest pun he's ever made.
  • Brent tells Hank "Nice poker face, Gaga!" when he finds out that Hank's excitement over buying Old Man Wilkie's car drove up the price.
  • Upon discovering the car doesn't have an engine, Brent says that they can't just drive it like The Flintstones because they're not a couple of cartoons.
  • Karen calls Wanda Dr. Seuss when she starts mumbling incoherently due to the cat tranquilizer.
• Spinning Newspaper: Used twice. The first newspaper shows an article lauding Karen for saving a child who fell down a well, with a smaller article explicitly pointing out that Davis didn't help (He thought the "kid" was a baby goat). The second newspaper has an article showing that Davis took the Bravery of the Year Award from Karen for saving a cat from a housefire, which was actually Karen and Wanda trying to smoke the feral cat out of Karen's house.
• Spit Shine: Lacey and Davis both try licking their thumb and rubbing off the graffiti.
• Tempting Fate: Upon getting the old car to the highway, Hank says that "it's all downhill from here," meaning that they only need to move the car downhill to get it to his garage. But the car ends up rolling downhill by itself, causing Davis to freak out, thinking it's driven by a ghost, and he pushes the runaway car into a ditch with the police cruiser. So things both literally and figuratively went downhill for Hank and Brent.
• Terrible Artist: Emma's artwork hasn't improved much since she tried to design Wanda's tattoo, with her mural only attracting attention from people who love making fun of how bad it is. Her idea for a second mural at the police station, a "post-industrial take on criminal reform and '60s jazz" with some leprechauns thrown in for diversity, doesn't sound any better.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: When Hank and Brent check under the hood of Old Man Wilkie's car, they spook the feral cat that was hiding inside, which then goes looking for shelter in Karen's house and terrorizes her for the rest of the episode.