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Recap / Littlest Pet Shop 2012 S 1 E 9 DUMBDUMBWAITER

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"I'M A SPACE MONKEY!!!"

Written by M.A. Larson (as Mitchell Larson) and Roger Eschbacher
Teleplay by Roger Eschbacher

As Mrs. Twombly stacks cans of cat food down in the pet shop, Blythe has a makeup session with Zoe, Minka, Penny, and Pepper. Pepper's understanding of makeup proves more limited than the others, however, and Zoe takes offense to her garishly orange eye-shadow. When Blythe takes out her "emergency brush," which she always carries on her, Minka insists on having it, but Blythe refuses.

The boys, meanwhile, lazily hang out in the day care room. Sunil soon grows bored of not having the girls around, but Vinnie and Russell brush him off and demonstrate they're having a blast.

During Blythe's makeup session, she receives a call from Sue reminding Blythe to come to Sue's Flashmob at the grocery store. Sue points out that last time they tried this, Blythe and Youngmee had forgotten, leaving Sue dancing to loud music in a library by herself and getting in trouble. This time, Youngmee also calls Blythe asking where she is. With no time to lose, Blythe rushes into the dumbwaiter to take a shortcut down via The Littlest Pet Shop, along with Pepper, Minka, and Zoe, but accidentally fall down the column before Penny can get in, and they get trapped mid-chamber. Blythe soon notices Penny is not with them and asks Penny if she can tug on the rope. Penny tries with all her might but discovers the rope has been ridiculously tangled on the pulley. Blythe suggests Penny go alert the boys down below, but Penny points out that there's a good chance of being caught by Roger or Mrs. Twombly. Blythe then asks if Penny can drop down through her bedroom window and enter the pet shop from the outside, but Penny notices there is no way for her to safely climb down.

In the day care room, the boys grow getting impatient waiting for Blythe and the others to return. In an attempt to do something exciting, Sunil and Vinnie throw Russell into the air and get him stuck on the ceiling due to his spines.

In the dumbwaiter, Minka realizes how confined the space they are and becomes increasingly nervous, constantly spouting out the words "SPACE MONKEY". Contrary to Pepper's assumption that Minka traveled to outer space, she soon learns that the monkey is claustrophobic and needs more room than they are currently in. Later, Zoe criticizes Pepper's choice of makeup colors. Pepper snaps back at her perfectionism, and the two get into an argument. Minka, standing directly behind Pepper, ends up smelling the skunk stench Pepper emits when upset, which gives Minka a panic attack. To placate Minka, Blythe hands Minka her emergency comb, which keeps her in one place for the time being.

Seeing no other alternative, Penny opens Blythe's bedroom window, chews on a stick of gum, and floats down using a bubble. Along her descent, a pigeon destroys her bubble, and after getting flung around above the streets, lands harmlessly in a garbage can. She leaps out and sneaks past Mrs. Twombly and into the day care room, where she finds the boys and informs them of the situation in the dumbwaiter. Sunil gets Russell off the ceiling by tossing a cobra plush at him, and they clamor over who gets to save the girls. In the middle of this dispute, Mrs. Twombly spots Russell, Vinnie, Sunil, and Penny at the dumbwaiter and puts them in a large cage. As Mrs. Twombly leaves, however, Penny instantly finds a means to escape and sneak herself and the boys outside of The Littlest Pet Shop. Russell suggests using the fire escape stairs on the side of the building to return to Blythe's room.

Back at the dumbwaiter, Blythe's attempts to stop Zoe and Pepper from going at each other's throats have been in vain, and they continue to scream and shout at each other. Zoe peacefully offers Pepper her dog bone Pepper had been wanting, however, which also calms Pepper down, and Pepper decides Zoe can keep it.

Penny returns to Blythe's room with the boys. Vinnie and Sunil start thinking themselves as macho heroes saving the ladies, but Penny yells back at them that this is her plan and that she's in charge. The four of them slide down the dumbwaiter rope, and Penny commands the boys to jump in unison. As they do so, the dumbwaiter very slowly but surely heads down with each impact. Eventually, the knot, slamming itself against the pulley, unties itself, and everyone freefalls down the dumbwaiter. Minka, having regained her composure, wedges Blythe's emergency comb between the dumbwaiter and the wall, slowing down the dumbwaiter so everyone can safely disembark from it.

With everyone in the day care room, Blythe thanks the boys for getting the dumbwaiter unstuck. Russell says the credits should go to the girls, Penny and Minka. In return for her help, Blythe lets Minka keep the emergency brush, though it's become horribly misshapen.

Later, Blythe tells Sue and Youngmee about what happened and why she couldn't attend the flashmob. They show her that it's for the best, as Roger was caught on camera dancing a few feet away, facing the wrong direction.

This episode contains examples of (YMMV entries go here):

  • Artistic License – Biology: Sunil can be seen eating celery. Mongooses do not eat celery. Of course, it's not like they can show what mongooses actually eat.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: A frustrated Penny is a scary thing, especially if you try to steal credit away from her accomplishments.
  • Bold Inflation: The episode's title card is written in all-caps.
  • Bubblegum Popping: Penny's bubble gets popped by a passing pigeon.
  • Buffy Speak: Penny calls the dumbwaiter an "up-and-down box thingy."
  • Captain Oblivious: Russell tells Penny he can help, seemingly forgotten that he's stuck on the ceiling.
    • Mrs. Twombly doesn't seem to notice that Zoe, Pepper, and Minka are missing.
  • Captain Obvious: Penny advises not to go anywhere to Blythe stuck in the dumbwaiter.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Penny Ling likes eating popcorn lying around in Blythe's room.
    • Blythe remembers Minka's preoccupation with her emergency comb from the Cold Open and uses it to occupy Minka in Act 2. In Act 3, Minka uses it to slow the dumbwaiter down to soften their landing when the knot at the top finally loosens.
  • Claustrophobia: Minka reveals to not handle well in closed spaces, so she freaks out faster and more severely than anyone else in the dumbwaiter.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Pepper interprets Minka's outbursts of "I'm a space monkey!" to mean she's been in outer space.
  • Continuity Nod: Penny shows her aggressive side again. From the same episode, Russell also gets stuck due to his spikes.
  • Damsel in Distress: How Vinnie and Sunil view the dumbwaiter situation. Penny will have none of that mindset.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending
  • Floating in a Bubble: A variant, anyway—Penny blows a bubble with some gum and holds onto it with her teeth as she floats across the front of the building.
  • Hypocritical Humor: During the "If You're a Guy" musical number, Vinnie and Russell call the girls gross. Earlier, Vinnie belched so loud that it somehow opened the day camp door and knocked down Mrs. Twombly's cans.
  • Irony: Blythe, in a hurry to get to Sue in time, incapacitates herself on her way and wastes much more time. Zoe points out that Blythe may have overloaded the dumbwaiter by trying to bring everybody down with one trip instead of the usual two if she needs to transport herself with four pets.
    • Penny rules out the apartment stairs as an option because she might be caught by Roger, but Roger leaves the building not long afterwards.
    • Mrs. Twombly warns Russell, Vinnie, Sunil, and Pepper that they could get stuck in the dumbwaiter.
  • Trapped in a Dumbwaiter.
  • MacGuffin: Minka adores Blythe's comb, which makes it a perfect coping mechanism to handle her claustrophobia.
  • Madness Mantra:
    Minka: I'm a Space Monkey! I'm a Space Monkey!
  • Meaningful Name: Minka keeps calling herself a "Space Monkey" because she prefers to be in a wide open space. When trapped in the tight dumbwaiter with the others, she freaks out due to Claustrophobia and uses this as a Madness Mantra.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Sunil disrupts "If You're a Guy" for Russell and Vinnie twice as he can't think up suitable lyrics in time. He lampshades it by pointing out that he's not good at this sort of thing, though the other two continue the song anyway.
  • Running Gag: Mrs. Twombly repeatedly almost finishes stacking the triangle of cat food when something causes it to collapses.
    • After Zoe calls the flashmob a "splashknob," Blythe accidentally calls it that for the rest of the episode.
  • Sanity Slippage: Minka quickly loses it. Pepper and Zoe follow suit in the second act. By the third act, Pepper has completely lost track of time (though she points out that she never had any to begin with), perceiving what looks to be less than an hour as week and coveting Zoe's old dog bone.
  • Smelly Skunk: Zigzagged in this episode. Smells come from Pepper which can be odorous or pleasant depending on her emotional state. She has limited control, but they will always be either good or bad.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: In "If You're a Guy," each time Sunil is asked to rhyme, he utters a synonym of the intended last word instead.
  • Take That!: Roger hears what is obviously monkey-screeching, dog-yapping, and skunk-growling in Blythe's room and interprets that as modern music.
  • Title Drop: Blythe refers to the "dumb dumbwaiter" recalling the incident to Sue and Youngmee.
  • Troubled Fetal Position: Minka does one as her claustrophobia starts to take effect.
  • Unusual Euphemism: "Barking buzzards!"

 
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I'm a space monkey!

Minka Mark is extremely claustrophobic, referring to herself as a "space monkey". If she doesn't have enough space around her, she goes on a crazy freakout.

How well does it match the trope?

4.43 (14 votes)

Example of:

Main / Claustrophobia

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