Phil invents an exciting (and very addicting) new game for the teens to try to keep them out of danger. Unfortunately, it works a little too well.
Tropes for this episode include:
- It Will Never Catch On: Phil finds a stack of Guy's "doomed" invention ideas, including a reclining chair, a diving suit and an airplane.
- The New Rock & Roll: Hope quickly loses her patient when everyone else becomes enraptured by Ball-in-Cup when everyone is more invested in playing it than catering to dinner-table etiquette. After Dawn nearly walks into the exposed volcanic vent while playing Ball-in-Cup, Hope starts conspiring to make them hate it before eventually stealing it from everyone.
- Palette Swap: After everyone grows bored of Ball-in-Cup, Phil manages to recapture their interest with "Ball-in-Cup Red", which is exactly the same as regular Ball-in-Cup, but painted red.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Ball-in-Cup is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but it manages to enrapture the adrenaline junkie teens and Crood-parents for days. Even Hope, who spends most of the episode lambasting it, winds up obsessing over it.Phil: Its simplicity is its supremacy.
- Take That!: Hope's Moral Guardian shenanigans towards Ball-in-Cup can be read as analogous to people blaming video games (or whatever else the kids are into) for the world's problems. She blames the game for endangering Dawn when she's wandering near the volcanic vent out of fear that she was going to walk into it (though to her credit, she actually does try to get Phil to fix the vent to no avail), she tries fabricating evidence to prove her point with Gran's help and eventually she just bans the game all-together.
