Blythe Baxter is a quiet girl with a knack for fashion design. She lives a comfortable life free of surprises in the suburbs when her father Roger gets a promotion and they have to move to an apartment in Downtown City.
When the Baxters reach their destination, Blythe soon notices that the bottom floor of the apartment building is occupied by The Littlest Pet Shop, which has a banner proclaiming it's going out of business. Also right by, and to Blythe's surprise, are Brittany and Whittany Biskit, a pair of Alpha Bitch twins who initially intend to invite Blythe along for shopping. Blythe, not comfortable in her new surrounding and overwhelmed by what she sees, turns down their offer and unintentionally creates who would be her two biggest enemies. Roger's clowning around with the pets in the window turns them off so much that they leave, however. Meanwhile, a mysterious old lady watches the Baxters from inside the pet shop…
Blythe and Roger start unpacking their things and share a bit of familial bonding with each other. Blythe goes to her room and, after passing the time, realizes it's getting rather stuffy. She sees what she believes is a window nearby and opens it (breaking her guitar in the process), only to find out it's a cover for a dumbwaiter that leads straight down to the pet shop on the first floor. Upon seeing a spider, she loses her grip on the rope and tumbles down with a crash. Blythe finds herself in a cloud of dust in the pet shop with a bunch of voices coming closer—only to find out it's the pets themselves uttering them. When the pets realize she can understand them, they break into a song and dance number introducing each other. This only frightens Blythe further, backing her into a corner, but Mrs. Twombly, the old lady from earlier and the owner of the pet shop, reassures Blythe that the animals cannot speak. Blythe hears some ominous growling, and she charges out of the building screaming, only to charge back in when a yorkie speaks to her on the sidewalk. Turns out it's just a noisy air conditioner. Meanwhile, Christy, a busy businesswoman with a cell phone on both ears and a Bluetooth headset, comes into the Littlest Pet Shop interested in acquiring the space to put up a sweets shop. The pets overhear this and turn to Blythe, as she has the unique ability to understand them.
Blythe wakes up the next morning to see all of the pets messing around with everything in her room, discovering the newfound world outside of the pet shop playroom. Vinnie explains that as Blythe took the dumbwaiter down to the pet shop, the pets did the logical thing and took them up into Blythe's room. There, they give Blythe urgent news: She has to save the pet shop, and she has to do it by the following day.
This episode contains examples of (YMMV entries go here):
- All Just a Dream: Blythe initially thinks her talking to the pets was this. What she thought was her dad is actually Russell, the orange hedgehog.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Blythe has to put up with seeing her dad literally act like a monkey in front of the Biskit Twins.
- Aside Glance: Blythe looks at the camera to say "Uh-oh" before falling down the dumbwaiter shaft.
- Backing Away Slowly: Blythe slowly backs away from the pets as they corner her at the end of their musical number, still shocked at her new ability to somehow understand them.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Blythe offhandedly wished to understand animals but didn't actually expect anything of it. Her wish came true the next day.
- Big "WHAT?!": Blythe lets out a variation when she finds out the pet shop has to be saved by tomorrow.
- Cliffhanger: Blythe has only until the next day to save the pet shop, and it's uncertain if she succeeds or not. It's revealed in part 2.
- Disney Acid Sequence: The background around Blythe turns blue with a purple splotch for a couple seconds before she gets beaned in the head with a Frisbee.
- Drives Like Crazy: Roger unfolds a road map and looks at it as he's driving, obscuring his half of the windshield. He nearly runs over dozens of people in the process.
- Exact Words:Vinnie: What's your name?
Blythe: Uh... Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Blythe...
Pets: Hi, Uh... Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Buh-Blythe! - Friend to All Living Things: Even before Blythe meets the LPS pets, she seems to attract the attention of animals around her.
- Funny Background Event: When Blythe is trying to get Roger away from the pet shop window, Minka can be seen grabbing Vinnie and swinging off with him.
- Gasp!: A collective one is let out by the pets after Russell discovers Blythe can understand everything they're saying.
- Hive Mind: How else could you explain the men of Blythe's neighborhood mowing their lawns in perfect unison?
- "I Am" Song: "The Littlest Pet Shop Pets", which introduces the pets of Littlest Pet Shop and their talents.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Played with when Roger says he doesn't remember Littlest Pet Shop being there when he last visited the apartment.
- Mood Whiplash: After Blythe finds out the pet shop has to be saved by next day and drops the pets down the dumbwaiter in shock, it cuts to the cheerful, happy closing theme.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Penny Ling is the first one to suggest asking Blythe for help keeping the Littlest Pet Shop open. She gets ignored by all of the other pets—Russell eventually comes to the same idea.
- Not What It Smells Like: When Roger smells Pepper's fumes from behind the door he asks Blythe if she's feeling okay, seeming to think she has bad gas.
- Oh, Crap!: Happens twice to Blythe.
- Blythe's reaction after getting scared by a spider and accidentally letting to of the dumbwaiter's rope.
- Blythe's initial reaction upon gaining the ability to understand animal language.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Brittany and Whittany teleport into the doorway to block Blythe from going in.
- Pilot Episode
- Powers in the First Episode: Being the first episode of the series, Blythe unintentionally receives the ability to talk to animals and understand them after entering the pet shop for the first time.
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: How the pets convince Blythe to help keep the shop in business.
- Spiders Are Scary: While in the dumbwaiter, she says to herself that it's like a dust bunny convention inside the lift. Then a spider drops down scaring her, making her accidentally let go of the rope, and she doesn't even have enough time to grab it back with her hands, meaning she's in for a free Tower Of Terror freefall.
- Scare Chord: Accompanying the busted air conditioner.
- Shout-Out:
- "I must have hit my head harder than I thought."
- The yorkie's line may be a call back to Tweety Bird's recurring line of, "I like him. He's silly" that would conclude a short.
- "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH?!!"
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Blythe's power she receives unintentionally after she enters the pet shop.
- Start of Darkness: The Biskit Twins were not initially mean to Blythe—just rather pushy and used to seeing people do whatever they tell them to do. The first thing they ask of Blythe is to be friends, in fact. Blythe just happens to be the first person to turn them down due to her introverted nature, which sets the tone between Blythe and the Biskit Twins for the rest of the series.
- That Was Not a Dream: Blythe thinks after her first day at the pet shop her animal whispering was a dream, but finds out it isn't when she learns it was Russell who talked to her and not Roger.
- Truck Driver's Gear Change: Towards the end of "The Littlest Pet Shop Pets."
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Roger is not the least bit surprised to see a pet shop selling a panda, a mongoose, and a monkey, though to be fair, neither does anyone else. note Roger even starts imitating Minka.
- Wham Line: "Animals are speaking, and...I can understand them!"
- Wheel of Feet: When Blythe makes a run for it hearing a yorkie speak to her on the street.
