Jason and Michelle's parents drive them to their grandmum's cottage. Michelle is excited to go there, but Jason would rather go to Space Camp. Before Jason and Michelle's parents leave, they give Jason a Turbo 3000 Game Console. He manages to plug in the Turbo 3000, but not without some difficulty. Michelle, to Jason's surprise, is prepared to use the console. They begin to argue over who gets to play it until Grandmum comes and lectures them about patience. With the lecture going completely over his head, Jason tells Michelle that she should wait her turn. He plays the game on the console until it goes boom, smoke rising from the T.V. included. Jason remains dumbfounded by what just happened, even at the dinner table.
Jason, Michelle, and Grandmum have a discussion about some strange dishes before they prepare to eat a dish known as kidney pie. When the kids find out about what their dinner is, they ask Grandmum if they can skip dinner and play since they already ate. Grandmum permits them to do so, and adds that she was going to show off her collectibles, but she can wait until tomorrow. As Michelle follows her brother upstairs, she notices four penguin figurines, a gift from Granddad to Grandmum on their honeymoon in the Falklands.
Upstairs in his and Michelle's bedroom, Jason can only lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling. Michelle, on the other hand, is playing with the penguin figurines. A golden ring hanging from the ceiling is more than enough to alleviate Jason's boredom. He grabs it, and gravity pulls Jason and a hidden staircase down. Michelle is none too pleased at a staircase just missing her head. Jason wonders where the staircase leads to, but Michelle tries to kill his curiosity by ordering him to put the stairs back in the ceiling before Grandmum comes upstairs. Jason claims that he'll have to pull the staircase from the top as an excuse to climb up the staircase. Only a few seconds fly by until Michelle realizes what that would mean. She ends up following him up into the attic.
In the attic, Jason finds various outer space memorabilia, including a retro-futuristic space helmet and the penguins' ship, the Rockhopper. Michelle notices some pictures of her and Jason's granddad. When Jason asks how she knows that is Granddad, Michelle answers that it couldn't be anybody else since he's with Grandmum standing in front of the cottage. Jason then turns his attention to a picture of Granddad in front of a large telescope. He wonders where that picture was taken. Jason and Michelle turn to the cloth covering that large telescope. They both run to it, and once again begin arguing who gets to use it first. Michelle uses the "she's the oldest, therefore, she gets to decide who uses the telescope first" argument, even though the age difference is only five minutes. Michelle claims she can decide that he can go first, but decides instead that she goes first.
Jason attempts to pass the time by stuffing the four penguin figurines into the ship and annoy Michelle by making loud airplane sounds as runs right across her. Michelle pretends not to hear him in a mocking fashion. Jason responds to her mockery by approaching her and being as obnoxiously loud as humanly possible. When that doesn't work, Jason starts to back up, but he ends up tripping over a toolbox, which results in him dropping the ship. It ends up flying on its own. He tries to tell Michelle what he just saw, but Michelle brushes it off. The ship's top opens to reveal Captain Zidgel standing proudly, who declares that he and his crew need Jason's help. Jason protests that he's too big, but Fidgel fixes that little problem by galeezeling him into the ship.
Aboard the Rockhopper, Zidgel makes due with the introductions to Jason. He's the captain, Fidgel is the scientist, Midgel is the first officer, pilot, and engineer, and Kevin is...stuck inside a vacuum cleaner. The penguins' mission, which is delivered by FAX machine, is that a planet named Wait-Your-Turn is in crisis. What that crisis is, they don't know, they were low on toner. Zidgel orders Midgel to engage their hyperdrive, but Midgel points out that their destination is only ten miles away. Zidgel attempts to read the map, but is unable to do so without his glasses. He doesn't wear them because he doesn't want red marks on his beak, not because they make him look silly.
Upon Midgel's announcement to buckle up for landing, Zidgel and Fidgel assure Midgel that he can make this landing, much to Jason's confusion. The Rockhopper crash lands, and Jason describes the rough landing as if the landing gear broke off. Apparently, none of the Rockhopper crew has ever heard of the concept of landing gear, since Fidgel considers it a groundbreaking idea. The Rockhopper crew argues over who should exit first, until it's decided that Kevin should go first. After he exits the Rockhopper, it's revealed that the planet's inhabitants are vacuum cleaners who are waiting in line for something. Everyone else exits the ship. Two Wait-Your-Turners get into an argument concerning cutting in line. Midgel points out the irony of a planet named "Wait-Your-Turn" being inhabited by a bunch of impatient little vaccums. Zidgel orders the crew to get back to the ship after calling the inhabitants barbarians for constantly cutting in line. Midgel stops him, pointing out that they've got a job to do.
The whole cutting in line started when President No-I'm-The-President pushed his way into office. It turns out, the distress call was about the heat, not the cutting in line. Midgel activates the satellite viewing system to find out what's up with the heat. The satellite reveals that Planet Wait-Your-Turn is literally trying to cut ahead of the other planets. Fidgel uses his Quantum Spectrum Analyzer (a pepper mill-like device) to find that there is a cutting in line bug infecting the planet, introduced by President No-I'm-The-President. To make matters worse, the planet is heading directly toward the sun. However, none of the Wait-Your-Turners care about the sun problem, since their planet is ahead of all the others.
Midgel soon starts to think that their little predicament is a good thing. Jason suddenly realizes that the cutting in line bug is having an effect on them. Midgel argues against him, but he says it infected him first if it did at all. Fidgel retorts that he was actually first. Kevin just pipes in with, "Me! Me!" Zidgel snaps that he should have cut in front of the rest of them hours ago. Jason states that they'll burn up if they get too close to the sun. Once the planet starts to catch on fire, everyone starts freaking out. Jason and the penguins (and a Wait-Your-Turner) begin to fight over who gets to enter the Rockhopper first until Jason gives the speech about why you should wait your turn, Bible verse included. He inadvertently destroys the cutting in line bug and causes the planet to return to its normal orbit by offering someone else to board the ship before him.
After President After You thanks Jason and the penguins for saving Wait-Your-Turn, Jason asks what was so important that everybody had to cut in line to see. The president claims that there's a strange creature spying on them. This strange creature is revealed to be...Michelle looking into the telescope.
Once the Rockhopper leaves the planet, Zidgel recaps their mission with a little help from Kevin. When Jason says he only saved Planet Wait-Your-Turn with the crew's help, Fidgel muses he doesn't quite understand this whole daydreaming thing. And just like that, Jason is back at the cottage, playing with the model of the Rockhopper, and this time, he is patiently waiting until Michelle is finished with the telescope.
Before they go to bed, Jason and Michelle say their prayers at Grandmum's prompting. Michelle's prayer involves thanking God for Grandmum, her cottage, and the telescope that Michelle got to use first. Jason's prayer involves thanking God for the spaceship and helping him learn the importance of patience, as well as asking him to teach Michelle something next time. Later on, the Rockhopper is seen flying outside the cottage, indicating that Jason's adventure may be real, after all.
Tropes on Planet Wait-Your-Turn:
- Aside Glance: Jason does one after Zidgel says, "When I was your size, I was twice your size!"
- The Cameo: Larry the Cucumber briefly appears as a green vacuum cleaner.
- Captain Crash: According to Fidgel, Midgel's past landings have been bumpy, and until Jason arrived, he had never even heard of landing gear.Jason: What went wrong?
Fidgel: Wrong? That was a pretty good one! Spot on!
Jason: It — it felt like the landing gear broke off! - Feathery Reminder: In this episode's commentary, Midgel mentions that he was up for hours, preening himself all morning.
- Foreshadowing: Zidgel, Midgel, and Fidgel arguing over who exits the ship first when they first arrive on Planet Wait-Your-Turn. It's an early symptom of the disease wreaking havoc on the planet.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Kevin (who got himself sucked into a vacuum cleaner) tries to exit the Rockhopper. Zidgel stops him so he can get him out, saying he'll scare the locals if he goes out wearing the vacuum. The natives turn out to be sapient vacuum cleaners.
- Mathematician's Answer: When Jason asks where they're going, Kevin ponders briefly before answering "Up."
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Michelle was able to see the inhabitants of Planet Wait-Your-Turn clearly despite the fact that the planet is light years away from Earth.
- Sibling Seniority Squabble: Jason notes that Michelle is only 5 minutes older and holds out his hand to indicate "5" only to realize that as a cartoon he only has four digits per hand.
- Shaped Like Itself: Jason asks how he's supposed to fit in their space ship when he's so much taller than they are. Zidgel answers, "Ah, too big, too big. When I was your size, I was twice your size!" Cue Jason's Aside Glance.
