Arguably 4Kids' best attempt at making a Japanese wordplay gag relevant in the English dub.
Team Rocket has stolen Ash's Johto badges, and entrusts Wobbuffet with holding on to them. This goes awry when a hungry Wynaut gets a hold of the case.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Bayleef and Noctowl protect Wynaut from Team Rocket. Later, they find one of Ash's recovered badges missing. Wynaut returns it to them.
- Crazy-Prepared: Subverted. Team Rocket tries to make sure that Wobbuffet doesn't mess up stealing Ash's badges by giving him a flag (with Jessie's face on it no less) to wait by until they get back. What they didn't count on was Wobbuffet trying to gather cherries for his teammates, leading to Wynaut stealing the badges.
- Film Felons: Team Rocket is able to take Ash's badges by pretending to be a news crew.
- Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: Jessie decides to steal Ash's badges so she can enter the Silver Conference for herself, rather than go to all the trouble of simply defeating each gym leader and winning them fair and square (though seeing as Team Rocket attacked most of those gyms, it's very unlikely they'd be allowed anywhere near them).
- Honor Before Reason: Clair suggests Ash inform the Johto League officials so he can get his badges replaced. Ash refuses, seeing his badges a sign of what he accomplished.
- Idiot Ball: Team Rocket would have gotten away clean with Ash's badges had they resisted the urge to blow their cover when Ash accidentally says their catchphrase.
- It's a Small World, After All: How convenient that Ash's badges fell onto Dragonair's nose, Ash's, Clair's, and Pikachu's hands, Noctowl's beak, and Bayleef's vines.
- Mistaken Identity: When Wobbuffet tries to draw out Wynaut to show who took their (stolen) badges, James thinks it's his old nanny.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Wobbuffet filled the case holding Ash's badges with cherries to feed Team Rocket. This is what attracts Wynaut to the case.
- Replaced with Replica: Team Rocket takes Ash's badges and replaces them with worthless bottle caps.
- Right Behind Me: Bayleef and Noctowl end up sneaking up on Wynaut when it's trying to open Team Rocket's case to get the cherries Wobbuffet collected.
- Tyop on the Cover: The original title card reads "Why? Why Not!" This is corrected in later digital releases, including the Pokémon website.
- Who's on First?: The "argument" between Wobbuffet and Wynaut when the latter grabs the case full of cherries and Ash's badges.
