Handy Manny’s Motorcycle Adventure
Handy Manny takes his tools on a road trip to a family reunion; unfortunately, what should be a smooth ride goes awry as Pat sets out in search of a family of his own.
Tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: At one point, Pat describes the kind of jokes he tells as “hammer humor”.
- Arc Words: “That’s a big family”, each instance of which is usually followed by “familia grande”.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Pat does this at the end of the special to ask the audiencePat: Do I have a great family or what?
- Brick Joke: At the beginning of the episode, Manny mentions how his Aunt Lupe would always pinch his cheeks when he was younger. When Aunt Lupe finally appears in person at the end, she insists on pinching her now-grown nephew’s cheeks… and Turner’s, too.
- Continuity Nod: At the family reunion, Manny once again demonstrates his guitar-playing skills.
- Driving Song: “Rolling”, which plays as Manny and the tools set off on their road trip to the family reunion.
- Elderly Blue-Haired Lady: Manny’s Great Aunt Ida has blue hair.
- Extra-Long Episode: 44 minutes long, while a normal episode of Handy Manny is 22 minutes with a Two Shorts format.
- Family Eye Resemblance: As a gag, Pat the hammer, who is searching for his family, rejects various inanimate hammers on the grounds that they “don’t really have [his] eyes”- meaning that they don’t have any eyes, period. This later becomes a Brick Joke when Felipe comments on Pat’s “cousin” (a cartoon mascot of Big Town Hardware) resembling Pat, “especially [in] his eyes”.
- Family of Choice: The end of the special has Pat realizing that, while the cousin he spent the better part of the day searching for may not actually exist, he does have a real family in the form of Manny and the other tools.
- Food Coma: Manny alludes to this in the reprise of “Family Reunion”.Manny: (singing) I’m so full of tamales
Might be siesta time - Furry Confusion: Pat, a sentient hammer, encounters various inanimate hammers, up to and including an entire aisle of a hardware store full of them. None of the characters seem to bat an eye at this.
- Grammar Correction Gag: This exchange during “Somebody Somewhere” uses a grammar correction as the setup for a Sublime Rhyme.Pat: (singing) […] who likes to fix things when they’re broke.Squeeze: (spoken) You mean “broken”!Pat: (spoken) Hammer grammar.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the beginning of the episode, the tools are watching a home movie of Manny as a toddler, and Pat comments on how Manny wasn’t very good at staying upright. Pat, being Pat, then immediately trips and falls off of the table the tools had been sitting on.
- It Was with You All Along: Pat spends most of the special searching for a family of his own, only to realize near the end that he does have a family in the form of Manny and the other tools.
- "I Want" Song: Pat has “Somebody Somewhere (Just Like Me)”, where he sings about wanting to find a nonexistent cousin (the “somebody somewhere just like him”) that he somehow managed to convince himself he has. (It Makes Sense in Context, really.)
- Miniscule Rocking: “Rolling” is all of 56 seconds long, while both the original and reprise versions of “Family Reunion” are each about a minute and a half.
- Missed Him by That Much: Late in the special, the truck that Pat, Squeeze, and Flicker were riding in stops at Big Town Hardware to make a delivery. Manny pulls up soon after, and heads for the truck… just as the three tools walk into Big Town Hardware. After determining them not to be in the truck, Manny reasons that the tools would probably be in the store and enters… just as Flicker, Pat and Squeeze leave the store (via a different exit). And then the trio decide that Manny is probably looking for them, and that they should wait for him… in the truck. Which then pulls away just as Manny walks out of the store.
- Multilingual Song: “Family Reunion” and its reprise are, as is par for the course for the show, half in English and half in Spanish.
- Multi-Part Episode: Well, it wasn’t one originally, but certain releases (including the show’s upload on Disney+) split the 44-minute episode into two 22-minute parts to bring it more in line with the length of a normal episode.
- Musical Episode: While Handy Manny normally has songs that occur Once per Episode, “Motorcycle Adventure” still manages to qualify as one by having four songs unique to it alone: “Family Reunion” and its reprise, “Rolling”, and “Somebody Somewhere (Just Like Me)”
- Ode to Family: The reprise of “Family Reunion” is about the joy of being with family, including Family of Choice. The original also has shades of this, but was more about the party at the reunion than the reunion itself.
- Orbital Shot: One occurs of Pat during “Somebody Somewhere (Just Like Me)”
- Ramp Jump: At one point, Manny and the tools encounter a bridge over a ravine that’s been washed out. Needing to get to the other side, and being in such a hurry that they can’t turn around and go another way, they manage to cross by using a conveniently-placed sloped rock as a ramp for their motorcycle to jump off.
- Ramp-rovisation: Manny uses a sloped rock to Ramp Jump a ravine.
- Running Gag:
- Rusty thinking they should take the truck and not the motorcycle, and not being at all hesitant about saying this.
- Felipe really, really, really wants to try Aunt Sonia’s tamales.
- Series Continuity Error: Pat’s longing for a family of his own is a major driver of the plot, despite it having been shown in “Amigo Grande” that Pat does actually have a family.
- Short Cuts Make Long Delays: Manny, needing to catch up to the truck Pat is riding, attempts to save travel time by taking a shortcut suggested to him by a gas station owner. Unfortunately, the shortcut only causes more delays- first he blows out a tire swerving to avoid a cow that had wandered onto the road, and then discovers that a crucial bridge is broken.
- Stuck in the Doorway: Mr. Lopart’s Disaster Of The Week involves him tightly wedging himself in his shop’s doorway while trying to bring in some very oversized popcorn tins.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: The song “Rolling” subverts the Driving Song standard of rhyming “highway” with “my way”, in a way that’s almost painful.Rolling, rolling, rolling down the highway
Rolling, rolling, hope you’re going our way - To Be Continued: The Multi-Part Episode version throws up one of these cards right after the scene where Manny and the tools fix a broken pasture fence.
- Triumphant Reprise: “Family Reunion” receives one at the end of the special, once Manny and the tools have actually reached his family’s reunion.
