The dogs wake Helen up and Martha asks if it's feeding time. Helen feeds the dogs, while Weaselgraft and Pablum make an ad on the radio. However, Martha then asks, "Am I hungry?", and seemingly doesn't remember asking to be fed. She keeps asking questions, and when Helen asks her to stop, Martha replies, "But what if I can't stop?!". Helen then leaves for school, leaving Martha confused and worried since she still can't stop asking questions. Then, the dogs notice question marks in the soup, but neither know what they mean, so they decide to find out.
Then, it turns out that Dr. Pablum is the one making the question marks, and he's a new employee at Granny Flo's factory. The "C" maker is confused as to why Granny Flo would hire a punctuation-maker, since they've always had only letters, and if she wanted punctuation, why only question marks. Pablum acts awkward and shifty and then gets a phone call. He answers it, and it's Weaselgraft, asking if he got a key yet. Pablum hasn't, but promises to get it by that night.
The dogs go to the soup factory, and Martha sees Dr. Pablum. The dogs try to go in, but are stopped by a grumpy security guard. Then, Martha spots O.G. entering the soup factory, so they sneak through a different gate to the door. The break whistle sounds, so they run in while the door's open.
In the factory, Pablum asks the "C" maker, whose name is revealed to be Carmen, who's in charge of the can closet. When she says that she is, he claims "C" is his favourite letter and points out that "C"s and question marks are both curvy. Martha and Skits walk past, and she realises she probably ate question marks. Then, Pablum offers to clean the can closet for Carmen. However, it turns out that the can closet doesn't have the sought-after key, since it doesn't lock. He then plans to steal the empty cans, confusing Martha and Skits, who don't know what Dr. Pablum would want with empty cans. The dogs are about to stop the can theft, when the security guard shows up and starts chasing them. They hide with O.G., who denies having seen them.
O.G. then takes the dogs to his place, and Martha explains her situation as best she can. O.G. reveals that Dr. Pablum isn't on the employee list and Martha explains about how he wants to steal cans but she doesn't know why. O.G. looks at some soup and confirms there are question marks in it. He cuts the curvy parts off the marks, leaving only the periods, and this brings Martha back to normal.
That night, Pablum shows Weaselgraft the can closet, then Martha, Skits, and O.G. go to the factory and notice the bad guys' van there. They hide and see the crooks stealing the cans, then running back in. O.G. and the dogs look in the back of the van and see string along with the cans, making O.G. realise the crooks want to build a bunch of tin can phones. They use them to trip up the crooks with the string and tell them to drop the cans. Then, Weaselgraft and Pablum are arrested.
This episode provides examples of
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Carmen says alliterative sentences, like "New guy! Stop nibbling the noodles!" and "What if George gobbled his G's?".
- Bait-and-Switch: At first it seems as though cutting the curvy parts of the question marks off didn't restore Martha's lexicon, since the first thing she says is "Is there more soup?". However, it turns out it did work; she was just genuinely still hungry.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Weaselgraft is defining "enquire" to Pablum, he says that, hypothetically, if he was enquiring about Pablum's health, he might say, "How are you feeling, Dr. Pablum". Dr. Pablum replies that he's not sick but has a little headache, even though Weaselgraft was speaking hypothetically.
- When Weaselgraft knocks and Pablum asks, "Who is it?!", Weaselgraft replies, "Otis, nincompoop!". Pablum replies, "Otis Nincompoop?! I don't know any Otis Nincompoop!".
- Constantly Curious: Subverted. Martha was asking many questions, but then it turned out that she was being forced to.
- Dramatic Irony: The audience probably knows what a question mark is, but Martha and Skits don't because they're dogs.
- Evil Laugh: Pablum laughs evilly when planning to steal the soup cans, then later Weaselgraft does when actually stealing them.
- Exact Words: O.G. denies having seen Martha and Skits without actually lying by saying, "Dogs? When did we start allowing dogs in the factory?".
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: Pablum pauses a lot when trying to lie to the "C" factory worker about why there's an extra worker at the factory.
- Loud Gulp: Martha gulps when O.G. says he'll have to "perform a small operation", since she thinks he means "operation" as in surgery.
- No Animals Allowed: The reason the security guard doesn't want Martha and Skits in the factory is because the factory doesn't allow dogs.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: When Martha asks the guard if she and Skits just saw "Dr." Pablum, he assumes she meant a medical doctor and says, "This is a soup factory, not a hospital".
- Oh, Crap!: Martha says, "Uh-oh?!" when the guard catches her.
- The Pratfall: The security guard lands on his bottom when chasing the Lorraine dogs.
- Pun: O.G. jokes that the soup is "riddled" with question marks.
- Slapstick: When Weaselgraft is pretending to work at a string factory, the string ties him up.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: Weaselgraft and Pablum are shown on a split screen when they're on the phone.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Played with — Dr. Pablum was intending to do something bad (steal the cans), but he didn't intend to make Martha speak in questions.
