In season 3, Kaeloo doesn't seem to favoritize Quack Quack over everyone else that much. In this episode, she finds out that even Quack Quack has a bad side, just like everyone else.
Mr. Cat says that he "hates the holiday season". This makes a lot of sense when you remember that the previous episode had the main four experiencing a... less-than-pleasant Christmas.
Mr. Cat starts complaining about everything, but Kaeloo seemingly ignores this and happily yells about how everything is back to normal and "nothing has changed". Mr. Cat's griping was a confirmation of the statement that "nothing has changed", because it signifies that he's just as grumpy and perpetually discontent as before.
Kaeloo's intro to the show depicts Mr. Cat as some sort of flaming entity. Kaeloo thinks Mr. Cat is "hot".
In season 3, the main four interact with the director more often and more directly than before. In the season 3 premiere, Stumpy created a portal linking Smileyland with Cube Creative Studios.
Fridge Horror
Overlaps with Fridge Tear Jerker - Mr. Cat gets rid of his bad thoughts (which are represented by miniature versions of him) in order to save Smileyland. One of his bad thoughts is just walking around saying "I'm doomed" over and over again and the other bad thoughts are jerks to each other, calling each other stupid and ugly, and threatening and attacking each other. One of them tells another one that he "doesn't matter", and the other one outright kills him and callously tells him he doesn't matter either. At one point, Mr. Cat tells one of them that it is ugly. At first it may look like that's just Mr. Cat being, well, Mr. Cat, but remember, in this case, he is literally doing this to himself. Think about thatfor a second.
And if this does reflect that Mr. Cat is self-loathing and suicidal, the fact that the bad thoughts are more willing to hurt Quack Quack than each other does not bode well.
Worse still, given that this isn't even the first time he has shown signs of self-destructive tendencies, it's entirely possible that he hurts Quack Quack as a distraction from hurting himself.
Stumpy's friends are willing to stop picking on him when they find out how he's been feeling. In other words, Stumpy nearly killed the rest of the main four over an issue which could have been resolved easily if he had just talked to them about it.
The end of the episode ends with Stumpy taking over making the show's episodes. This would explain why in Season 3 (which this was the premiere episode for), the characters are relatively nicer to each other, Stumpy is slightly more intelligent and is treated better, and there's plenty of shipping fuel for Kaeloo and Mr. Cat (a couple that Stumpy ships).
Kaeloo, thinking that Mr. Cat is trying to pull off some horrific plan says that she will stop him "even if it costs her her life". In other words, Kaeloo has so little faith in Mr. Cat that she thinks he would kill her to get what he wanted, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Mr. Cat's ideal version of Smileyland is populated exclusively by himself and several Kaeloo clones. Where are Stumpy and Quack Quack?
