In Sister Thornly's School for Wayward Tots, an orphan named Otto Osworth struggles to stay out of the watchful eyes of his tyrannical caretaker, Sister Thornly. Otto is in trouble again for breaking a rule of Sister Thornly's: No Reading. From first appearances, Otto leads a miserable and lonely life as the resident bookworm who finds solace in reading history books and would rather risk getting caught and face the consequences for disobeying Thornly than try to play with the other kids in the orphanage. Thornly punishes Otto for reading by forcing him to do difficult and demeaning chores until nightfall. And after a long day of work Otto plops down on his bed exhausted.
But then something peculiar happens. A riff opens into a corner of his bedroom, and electricity and a burst of light fills the bedroom for few seconds- and then suddenly two strange figures appear in the dark. Out of the shadows comes Officer Buck Tuddrussel and his robot partner the Larry 3000. Who are they? Well, they're Time Cops in search of their suspect, Eli Whitney. And they are totally lost.
Otto cowers in bed at the two strangers, but even in the face of danger as Tuddrussel blindly waves his gun at him he manages to strike up the introductions.
- Tuddrussel: Freeze mister! Officer Buck Tuddrussel, Time Squad! (whips out his badge)
Otto (timidly): Uhh, yeah, I saw the badge on your chest. (Buck realizes that he's talking to a child and puts his badge and gun away)
Tuddrussel: Oh, right. Well, unless I missed my guess, you're...uhh (Tuddrussel leans into Larry for help)
Larry(under his breath): Eli Whitney!
Tuddrussel: Eli Wimpy!
Otto (perks up): Eli Whitney?! Inventor of the Cotton Gin? Are you kidding? That was all the way back in 1793, you guys aren't even in the right state, no, my name's Otto and. . .I'm an orphan.
Larry checks his story out, and to Tuddrussel's dismay proves that he's an orphan from the 21st century and was completely off course.
This gets interrupted by Sister Thornly who knocks on the door to investigate the noise coming from his bedroom. Tuddrussel offers to take care of her by tasering her, but Otto insists that this requires something called "words" instead. Otto manages to talk to Thornly and quickly lies about what he was doing to make so much noise, (mending his toilet scrubbing rag), and she believes him.
Tuddrussel is impressed with Otto's ability to be so quick on his feet with "words" to solve a problem. He explains to the excited boy that he's from a organization from the far future called Time Squad, emphasizing their motto- "Enforcing the past to protect our future", it's a time cop's job to monitor history to make sure that the year 100 Million stays as it should: A utopia where there is no war, no pollution, and bacon is good for your heart. Otto is captivated by Tuddrussel's words, as it turns out that he's not just a bookworm, but a history wiz, and asks if Tuddrussel has met someone famous like Abraham Lincoln. Then the bitter truth comes out when Larry and Tuddrussel admit that while it's their job to protect history, they barely know anything about it save a few facts amongst them and Tuddrussel states that he's just supposed to be a cop and not some 'egghead'.
Otto thinks for a moment, and discovers his ticket out of the orphanage when he realizes that he's the 'egghead' that Tuddrussel needs and begs him to come help, urging that he needs someone like Otto around because he does have all the knowledge about history that he and Larry lack. Tuddrussel thinks on this carefully, considering that the kid DOES know a lot about history and is an orphan, after all. Larry reminds him that taking someone from the past is strictly forbidden, and that seals the deal for Tuddrussel to take Otto along.
In search of Eli Whitney, Larry returns to the Time Squad historical monitoring police satellite to get the right coordinates. In the meantime, Tuddrussel shows Otto around and explains the ship's "high tech" gadgets (most of which just involves Larry doing what Tuddrussel says). While Tuddrussel gets a kick out of Otto's presence, Larry does not find Otto amusing and with a cynical attitude tells Otto why he serves Tuddrussel and works for Time Squad, bringing up that at one point in time he used to be an ambassador robot, but he had to find a new job when all of the nations of the world became one "harmonious Super Nation".
In Savannah, Georgia, the town is nearly destroyed by fire and the townspeople have formed an angry mob and attack Larry immediately on arriving. Tuddrussel goes into police mode in order to get Larry back and we discover the root cause of this mob.
- Tuddrussel: Pardon me, sir, I'm a police officer. And I'm gonna have to ask you a couple of questions. Why you beaten' on him for?
Townsperson: He's one of them flesh eaten' robots that ol' Eli Whitney done built. They've wrecked our town, trying to our flesh!
- Otto: Mr. Whitney, why did you create an army of flesh eating robots?
Eli Whitney: I wanted to do something to help mankind!
Otto(confused): And. . .how is that helpful exactly?
Whitney(dumbfounded): UHH. Yeah. I guess I didn't think that one through too well.
Once outside the shop they soon realize that all the robots have swarmed around them and begin to target Tuddrussel because he is the fleshiest (and presumably never see Otto because he's so small) Tuddrussel fights by himself, doing fairly well against the robots, but eventually this becomes overwhelming and Otto and Larry believe for a moment that Tuddrussel may be a goner. But in the nick of time he overcomes the robots by using a phaser, which destroys them all in one blast.
After the robots are gone, the mob from before returns to town and mistakenly believes Otto is the one who destroyed the robots. One of the men feels Otto's shirt and comments on how soft and comfortable it is and asks what it is made of. Otto replies that it's just an ordinary cotton t-shirt, which inspires Eli Whitney to build a machine to process cotton that he would call the cotton gin (thanks to a suggestion from Larry).
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Adults Are Useless: Otto is shown to be either annoyed or disappointed in Eli Whitney's stupidity and Buck and Larry's general confusion and incompetence to their jobs.
- Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: Otto's bedroom in the orphanage is a grim little space in the basement with few pieces of furniture, including a bed with the box springs sticking out of the mattress, a ratty old blanket and a crate that's used as a nightstand.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': It's implied that Otto has gotten into trouble a lot and could never catch a break from Thornly.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Makes kidnapping a child an easier decision.
- Deadpan Snarker: Larry is dripping in sarcasm for 90% of the episode.
- Didn't Think This Through: Eli Whitney admits that this might be the case when confronted about the reasoning behind the robots.
- Establishing Character Moment: When Tuddrussel overreacts to Otto's scared call for "Hello?", he immediately whips out his gun and points it at Otto, establishing that Tuddrussel is going to be a Trigger-Happy cop.
- Evil Orphanage Lady: Sister Thornly is a Stern Nun and owner of the orphanage.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Larry cowers at the sudden intrusion of Sister Thornly as she pounds on Otto's door, and proceeds to throw a lampshade on his head.
- Jaded Washout: Larry bitterly explains to Otto that he was once an assistant to many a royal and political figure but since the one-world government of the future made him obsolete, he now has to be the manservant to a boorish time cop.
- Kids Are Cruel: The opening scene of the orphanage shows how most of the children in Sister Thornly's care are destructive and mean.
- Kid Hero: Otto is by all accounts, the lead protagonist here as we are just as new to the show's 'universe' as he is.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Tuddrussel and Larry are seen bickering when they appear together for the first time.
- Orphanage of Fear: Also seems to double for an Inner City School.
- The Runaway: Otto.
- Tagalong Kid: Otto does his best to help, but does not do much good since this is his first time on a mission and has no clue on what to do.
- Trigger-Happy: Tuddrussel REALLY loves to have his gun out and ready to fight anything in the first episode.
- The Woobie: Otto is portrayed as having a jarring Hilariously Abusive Childhood for the first five minutes of the whole episode so we as the audience can sympathize and understand why he'd be so willing to beg to be kidnapped by two strangers.
