- Narrator: Ax
The Animorphs learn of a plot to mind control humans through hamburgers.
Tropes:
- Aliens Steal Cable: Ax steals a power line so he can power a satellite dish and watch TV in his spare time. It causes a power outage in Jake's neighborhood.
- Animal Gender-Bender: Ax accidentally acquires a cow instead of the steer he was supposed to acquire. It's an easy fix, but it does confuse him for a minute.
- Brutish Bulls: Tobias and Ax acquire steer, and then learn that neutering doesn't apply to morphs. The bull's instincts make them square off until Cassie gets them to stop.
- Cow Tipping: Some drunk college students show up at the pasture to try their hand at cow tipping. They come across Ax, who knocks them out with his tail.
- Drives Like Crazy: Ax admits even he fears Marco's driving, but Marco has "experience", which is why he drives the truck. It does not go much better than before, but at least this truck doesn't get totaled.
- Dung Fu: Visser Three shows up to inspect the chimps just as Cassie demorphs to unlock the cages. Marco has the idea of throwing poop at the Visser to distract him. All the chimps in the room, not just the Animorphs, join in.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Of all the TV he watches, Ax enjoys "These Messages" the most, AKA, commercials.
- Nose Shove: Because of the Gleet BioFilters in the slaughterhouse, only Tobias and Ax morph into cattle while the rest morph to flies and hide in their nostrils.
- Put Their Heads Together: Marco in gorilla morph knocks out the Controllers driving the truck this way.
- Saw It in a Movie Once: Ax spends the book imitating or referencing human behaviors he sees on TV.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The mind control was never going to happen. Visser Three had the idea, but it couldn't work, but the human-Controllers assigned to it had the choice of trying to do it, or be executed. The Animorphs are all annoyed when the human-Controller in charge of the project stops ranting.
- Share the Male Pain: Marco crosses his legs when Ax explains the difference between bulls and steer and then asks what neutering is.
- Shirtless Scene: Ax tries going out in human morph without a shirt because of what he sees in The Young and the Restless.Ax: The men who are young and restless do not wear shirts. I am young. And I am occasionally restless.
Marco: Ax?
Ax: Yes, Marco?
Marco: Put on a shirt. - Sickening Slaughterhouse: Ax and Tobias have to morph into cattle to sneak into the slaughterhouse. They're electrocuted by humans and nearly shot dead to be strung up on meat hooks for processing.
- Silly Simian: The chimpanzees do the usual silly ape behaviors, like screeching and pounding, with only minimal aggression, even when hungry Taxxons show up. However, the chimpanzee morph is human-like enough to unsettle even Ax.
- Space Whale Aesop: Don't support slaughterhouses or animal testing, because they may be alien plots to mind control you through the beef you eat.
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Two human-Controllers wonder why bulls are being sent to the slaughterhouse. One suspects the Andalite bandits, but the other is skeptical, saying that Andalites couldn't possibly be dumb enough to infiltrate a slaughterhouse as the soon-to-be-slaughtered. This is exactly what the Animorphs are doing, mind you.
