Bubba's grades are deplorable, so the nephews use one of Gyro's latest inventions to increase his IQ, but they all soon become annoyed with the new Bubba.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: The Ancient Thinkas were a race of intelligent beings that lived thousands of years before, and developed an advanced civilization as a result. Unfortunately, their intelligence eventually died out as their present-day descendants are neanderthal-like.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The theme of trespassers being murdered appears yet again. Scrooge, his nephews and Bubba are shot down by the dimwitted descendants of the Ancient Thinkas. The dimwitted natives lock Scrooge and company in a pyramid to starve to death.
- Dumb Is Good: What Bubba usually is until he's exposed to Gyro's machine.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Bubba Duck becomes intelligent, civilized, and utterly ruthless and incapable of compassion, something indicated to be directly connected to his new intelligence. He becomes dumb and barbaric again when his brute strength is needed to pound a monster threatening his friends.
- Only Smart People May Pass: You need to solve several puzzles to access the center of the Ancient Thinkas' pyramid — luckily, with his thinking cap, Bubba is equal to the task. It then becomes subverted when the final obstacle is a monster guarding the treasure room, and Bubba had become so smart, he's forgotten his primitive fighting skills.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Getting the treasure in the pyramid was the original goal, but when Bubba just continues on not caring Scrooge's nephews and Tootsie are at the final monster's mercy, Scrooge stops Bubba, saying that getting the treasure is meaningless if his family dies, and no treasure can ever replace that.
- Status Quo Is God: Bubba's back to his old brainless self by the end of the episode.
- What Would X Do?: Since the current smart Bubba can't fight, Scrooge tells him that if the real caveduck Bubba were here, he would beat the crap out of the monster threatening his family. This helps restore Bubba to his original self and promptly beats up the monster.
