The Wing And Nut Challenge
Manny and the tools receive some thrilling news: Wing and Nut are hosting a live game show in Sheet Rock Hills’ park! The tools are naturally overjoyed to be able to help prepare the set, and even more thrilled when Wing and Nut select them as contestants- but, in her excitement, Squeeze forgets to perform a crucial task, and as a result the set of the show just might come crashing down around her.
“The Wing And Nut Challenge” contains examples of:
- Ascended Fangirl / Ascended Fanboy: Manny’s tools, who were longtime fans of The Wing And Nut Show, find themselves participating in Wing and Nut’s live game show. Squeeze, previously established as the biggest Wing And Nut fan among the group, is especially thrilled by this; unfortunately, her excitement leads to her forgetting to tighten an important bolt while setting up the show’s set.
- Furry Confusion:
- Pictures of inanimate tools appear on Wing and Nut’s prize wheel.
- Wing and Nut are anthropomorphic nuts and bolts (as in, each of them is one nut and one bolt as a collective entity), and yet the set for their live game show is held together by normal, inanimate bolts and nuts, with no one even seeming to bat an eye at this.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: At one point, Wing and Nut tell their audience to “Hold on to your hardware”, in lieu of saying “Hold on to your hats”.
- Magic Countdown: All of the timed challenges have one to some extent, but the most obvious case of this is during “Whack-A-Nail” when the timer happily stops while the tools have a nice long chat with Pat.
- Race Against the Clock: Most of Wing and Nut’s challenges, like a lot of challenges on real game shows, have a 30-second timer on them.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Wing and Nut are depicted here as being about the size of small children, despite previous episodes having implied that they’re as small as actual nuts and bolts.
- Speaking of contradictory implications, Wing and Nut had also previously been implied to be mere fictional cartoon characters, while in this episode they’re actual people within the universe of Handy Manny.
- Shout-Out: Possibly unintentional, but Wing and Nut’s timed challenges are referred to as “Beat The Clock” challenges.
- The Show Must Go On: Spinning prize wheel falls off its stand, rolls around, and makes an absolute mess of the set? No matter. Just take a few minutes to fix everything up and then continue like nothing happened.
- Sticky Situation: Mr. Lopart gets his foot stuck in a puddle of glue he accidentally created while trying to paste up posters.
- Throw It In!: In an in-universe example, Squeeze forgets to tighten the bolt on the prize wheel, which leads to it rolling around the stage. Wing and Nut are thrilled by the entertainment value of the chaos this caused, and decide to make the “Runaway Game Wheel” a part of every future show.
- Variations on a Theme Song: Wing and Nut get two more of these, both of which reverse the order of their names (and switch out the accompanying rhyme).
- When Mayor Rosa introduces Manny’s tools to Wing and Nut:
I’m Nut
I’m Wing
We love to dance and sing
(spoken) But what we really love is that you’re helping out today.- When Wing and Nut start their live show:
I’m Nut
I’m Wing
We love to dance and sing
But what we love most of all
Is the game we like to call
The Wing And Nut Challenge! - Wheel of Decisions: The last challenge Wing and Nut give the tools is spinning a wheel with various icons on it- if the wheel stops on the Wing & Nut icon, the tools will get extra prizes. Unfortunately, Squeeze forgot to tighten the bolt on the wheel while setting up the challenges, so the wheel ends up falling off its stand and rolling around the stage.
- Your Size May Vary: Wing and Nut, who were previously implied to be the size of actual nuts and bolts, are now suddenly as big as young children.
Dusty’s Big Day
Dusty has a dream where she gets to saw wood to her heart’s content, and awakens from it inspired to saw as much as she can today. She thinks she’ll have an opportunity to do so when Manny is called to make a cabinet to hold some new toys the Sheet Rock Hills preschool is getting- until Manny goes to Kelly’s and gets a pre-cut cabinet kit. Dusty is understandably less than thrilled by this, but when the preschool’s toys fail to be delivered, she realizes how to save the children from disappointment and fulfill her dream at the same time…
“Dusty’s Big Day” includes examples of:
- Continuity Nod:
- The cubbies Manny built in “Chico Goes To Preschool” can be seen in the background.
- One of the classroom’s many picture books has Pat’s “cousin” on the cover, with an outer space backdrop behind him as a reference to a line from “Somebody Somewhere (Just Like Me)”; another is the book about a boy and his dog Abuelito gives to Manny in “Abuelito's Yard Sale”.
- Dream Sequence: Dusty has one, where she saws loads and loads of wood while in a Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
- Dreams of Flying: While the main focus of Dusty’s dream is on sawing, it’s fairly noticeable that she’s levitating from board to board, and that the Fluffy Cloud Heaven her dream is set in doesn’t even have a floor.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Triggered by Dusty describing her work sawing blocks for Mrs. Thompson’s preschool class as having been “like a dream come true”.
- Fictional Document: The preschool classroom has a stand containing several (presumably) picture books, including one with Pat’s “cousin” floating in outer space on the cover, another with what appear to be nail versions of Wing and Nut, and one that appears to be a science-themed book about volcanoes.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Dusty’s dream is set in a pink-tinted, cloud-filled sky meant to evoke this trope.
- Screeching Stop: Pat skidding to a stop when Manny tells him he can’t go to recess (It Makes Sense in Context) is inexplicably accompanied by the sound of screeching car brakes.
