Ms. Flint leaves her daughter with Tylor on Mini-Monsters Day with Tylor seeing this as another chance to be promoted to a comedian.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Henry Winkler alludes to his best known role when, after doing Percussive Maintenance on Vendi 2, Fritz calls it "the old Fritzarellli touch."
- At Least I Admit It: Inverted. Thalia admits she could tell that Tylor was trying to butter up her mom through her because other Scarers have tried to do the same back when scaring was the company's focus, but she's pleasantly surprised and grateful that Tylor admitted that this was his actual motive to her face, rather than keeping silent about it, which actually gets her to properly bond with him.
- Banana Peel: For Tylor's first jokester audition, he tries stepping on banana peels, only he doesn't slip on them, and wonders if the peels are supposed to do anything. On his last audition, he ends up slipping on a whole banana, but even that doesn't garner a laugh.
- Chekhov's Skill: Played With: it's not actually a skill or something he does intentionally, but when Tylor's audition goes wrong in the Cold Open, he utterly trashes the training room, including setting the dummy on fire somehow. When chasing after Thalia in a blind panic, he winds up colliding with a donut-selling stand that plasters the pastries all over him and has to play this off like a jokester act before the other observing monsters, which the kids and such find funny (including Thalia, despite trying to hide it). This indicates that Tylor does have the ability to be funny— but only if it's a complete accident.
- Continuity Nod:
- Adorable is still selling snow cones on Monsters Inc.
- Phlegm once again does his falling on jacks routine, which is derived from his accident at the beginning of Monsters, Inc..
- The slug monster who mops the floors and then leaves a trail of slime from the first movie reappears. Here, his slime trail is what causes Tylor to crash.
- Curse Cut Short: Played with, as the subject doesn't sound especially curse-like, but Kurt (the monster overseeing the security monitors on the door shafts) says that Fritz has to fill out a form before she can do anything to help, otherwise Roze will have her- before the scene shifts.
- Epic Fail:
- Tylor's auditions go...poorly, to say the least. It gets so bad that he fails all seven times in a row and gets barred from auditioning ever again.
- Apparently Needleman and Smitty have lost multiple kids during Mini-Monster day each year.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Mike only realizes after lampshading the odd terminology of "goofball" only really fitting if they're ball shaped, like him, that his description of the goofball actually matches him better than that of the straight man, while also smattering it with passive aggressive deprecation. He slowly shuts up before asking why Sulley didn't point any of it out.
- Hypocritical Humor: During the comedy class, Mike explains "straight man and goofball" comedy, using himself and Sulley (respectively) as examples. He characterizes the "goofball" side of the classic comedy duo as someone who keeps talking and never knows when to keep quiet...while he's doing exactly that.
- In the Style of: Keeping with the theme of children, the Monsters, Inc. theme in the credits is played on a toy piano.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Ms. Flint's criticism of Tylor was brutal, but she was correct in saying he just wasn’t improving and surmising not all scarers can become jokesters.
- Tylor realizes he really should have thought twice ranting about Ms. Flint (in front of her own daughter no less), but his frustration with her overly harsh words was justified.
- Last-Second Word Swap: When Tylor rants to Val about how he can't get Thalia to think he's funny and starts blaming Ms. Flint for it, Val tells him "Maybe if you weren't being such an aaaaaa...mbitiously focused individual".
- Late to the Realization: Mike is most of the way through his "Straight Man and Goofball" spiel before he realizes that he's been acting like the goofball while implying he's the straight man.
- Oblivious to Their Own Description: Mike uses Sulley as the "goofball" during his spiel about duo comedy, ignorant of the fact that he actually fits the role better. He realizes it midway through getting sidetracked by the etymology and asks Sulley why he didn't warn him that he was embarrassing himself.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The surveillance monster won't do anything Fritz asks her to until she gets the proper forms filed, even when there's a baby in serious danger.
- Straight Man: Sulley's role as this between him and Mike gets Lampshaded in the Mike's Comedy Class Segment, with Mike describing the role but believing that he's the straight man to Sulley's wise guy even as Mike demonstrates the very traits he attributes to a wise guy before he catches on.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Fritz kicked the surveillance monster away just to use the cams after the monster keeps forcing him to do some paperwork.
- Touché: When Thalia says she wasn't excited about being assigned to MIFT because she thought they were "a bunch of weirdos hidden in an underground looney bin", Cutter happily says she isn't that far off.
- Villain Respect: When Duncan, the Token Evil Teammate of MIFT, tries to get Oscar to sign a contract that legalizes his response that he isn't interested in Fritz's job, Oscar responds by asking Duncan to sign his own contract that will release Oscar of all liability of his actions. Duncan is silent for a moment, glancing between Oscar and his contract, before telling him he likes his style.
- The Unwitting Comedian: Tylor discovers a comedy act that works...by falling victim to his normal klutziness and accidentally getting splattered with donuts while chasing Thalia.
- Whoopee Cushion: The monster who auditions for Flint before Tylor plays "Blue Danube" on whoopee cushions like a xylophone.
- Smitty: What are production babies?
Needleman: I'll explain when you're older.
Smitty: But I'm older than you.
Needleman: Oh, then you can explain it to me.
