A tchotchke shop owner has been shrinking city landmarks and putting them in bottles, for his growing Impossible Bottles collection. When Hamster, Gretel and Kevin discover he's the culprit behind those disappearances, they too get shrunk too and put in a bottle. Their only hope is for Fred, who enters the shop soon after, to discover them (and hope she doesn't get distracted).
Tropes:
- Bottle Episode: Aside from the episode literally being called as such, and being about things in bottles, the episode itself only takes place in a single location, and only includes a handful of characters.
- Condensation Clue: Kevin gets the idea of turning on the steamboat's engine so that the steam creates condensation and Gretel can write a message for help on the bottle. Unfortunately, she writes "Help Us" from the inside, so from outside the bottle it reads as "Supleh". Fortunately, Fred saw the message and knew they needed help, she just pretended to not notice to keep Tchotchke off the trail.
- Dramatic Thunder: Lampshaded. As a storm forms inside the bottle, Hamster tells a panicking Kevin "Don't get dramatic." Suddenly, there's a clap of thunder, and Hamster turns to the general direction of the sound and says "What did I just say?"
- Foreshadowing: Hamster's pack of walnuts in the trash bin, Kevin touching one of the bottles with no gloves, Gretel's titanium pen... all of these add up to be clues for Fred to figure out something's amiss in Tchotchke Jones's shop.
- Idiot Ball: Fred seems to be a bit less smart than usual in this episode, not quite being able to put two and two together... until it's revealed she was Obfuscating Stupidity the whole time so that Tchotchke doesn't suspect anything.
- Hidden Depths: Turns out Fred has an immense passion for "impossible bottles" (ships-in-a-bottle, and the like), which she doesn't advertise much. And no, while she was Obfuscating Stupidity, she was not faking her passion for these tchotchkes.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: As Tchotchke readies to shoot her with his shrink ray, Fred jumps out of the way so he hits the mirror behind her instead, shrinking and bottling himself because of the ray reflecting back at him.
- Mirrors Reflect Everything: Fred defeats Tchotchke by standing in front of a mirror, so that when Tchotchke fires his ray at her, she ducks out of the way and the ray reflects back and shrinks him.Fred: Never bring a shrink ray to a mirror fight.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: While investigating the place, Fred doesn't seem to figure out what has happened with Hamster and Gretel, seemingly not finding the place suspicious, but it turns out she was actually perceptive of the situation the whole time. She even pretended she didn't see Hamster, Gretel and Kevin trapped in a bottle, for the sake of suspense.
- Shrink Ray: Tchotchke Jones uses some invention called the Shrink-O-Bottle ray to shrink landmarks around the city and bottle them up instantly.
