Angry with Arthur for ruining her intended trip to the movies, D.W. dreams of another reality where she was the older sibling and could boss him around, only to realize the responsibilities of being older.
Tropes for "D.W.'s Time Trouble" include:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: D.W. gets to experience what it's like being the older sibling to a young, bratty sibling. Even more poetic, Arthur is the aforementioned younger sibling in this alternate timeline.
- Chekhov's Gun: Invoked and then subverted. At the end of her dream, D.W. tries to take Arthur on the shortcut that he used at the beginning of the episode in real life. However, since she doesn't know the shortcut, she only gets them lost.
- Didn't Think This Through: D.W. tries to use the shortcut Arthur led her on only to realize she didn't know it herself.
- Everyone Has Standards: Though she initially enjoys being the spoiled only child, the thought of Arthur being alone and forgotten is enough to move D.W. to arrange for her parents to adopt him. Not to say it doesn't backfire in its own way.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: In the alternate universe, D.W. keeps Arthur on a proverbial leash by using cookies to keep him in line. It works in the short run. But one day, at the worst possible time, she runs out, and Arthur (who hasn't learned to behave without cookies) completely loses it.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As selfish as D.W. is, the movie trip to see Doll Story 2 evidently had already been agreed upon, so Arthur's parents have a right to punish him for forcing her to go to a different movie with his friends at the last second.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For the better part of the series, D.W. often gets her way on the basis of being the younger sibling and gets Arthur in trouble for it. The final act of the story has D.W. putting up with a reversal of the roles, where she's the older sibling and Arthur's the bratty younger sibling who gets her in trouble.
- Unreliable Narrator: D.W. gives a cold opening claiming how although her parents may spoil her, she has her fair share of hardships being the younger sibling. Her parents don't always give into her whims (I.E. they can't give her a kitten because Arthur already has a dog), she's given Arthur's hand-me-downs clothes, and her teacher makes unfair comparisons to Arthur. Given the exaggerated nature of the adults' treatment, it's very likely that she's seeing her life through an unappreciative lens, and Arthur's older sibling status through rose-tinted ones.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Arthur's friends chose to go to a movie together and are able to successfully tempt Arthur into abandoning D.W.'s movie to go see theirs. It results in Arthur receiving a long grounding from going to the movies.
Buster is so taken with the Amish lifestyle on a field trip that he tries to emulate it at home with mixed results.
Tropes for "Buster's Amish Mismatch" include:
- The Aloner: Since nobody else wants to live the Amish way, Buster ends up isolating himself from his friends and mother.
- Didn't Think This Through: It forms the basis of the episode as Buster realizes the pains of trying to adapt to the Amish lifestyle on his own. He practically starves himself at mealtimes because he refuses to eat any food prepared with electricity like the school cafeteria food, which as Mrs. MacGrady points out, the Amish aren't that extreme in excluding modern technology from their lives; he freezes himself in his own room because he asks Bitzi to turn off the heat; and he isolates himself from his friends since nobody else is interested in sharing the lifestyle.
- Ironic Echo: The episode begins with Buster having an Imagine Spot about chasing down aliens with a combine harvester. After his attempts to adopt the Amish lifestyle have backfired, he has another Imagine Spot of how his new lifestyle will interfere with the stuff he's passionate about, to the point he doesn't even have the technology to keep up with aliens.
- Meaningful Echo: The Cold Opening has Arthur remark that Buster has poor luck getting a good souvenir that's not stolen or ends badly. The episode ends with Buster having a good souvenir for once, that being the crust of the pizza his mother made from scratch.
- Not So Similar: Mrs. MacGrady tells Buster that although he wants to follow the Amish lifestyle, what he's doing isn't truly what being Amish is about. What he does is self-imposed, while the Amish don't use technology out of choice nor do they shun technology to the level Buster is doing. And while Buster is alone and isolated in his quest to live the Amish life, Mrs. Lapp and her son get by on it because they had each other and their neighbors.
- Pet the Dog: Everyone gets together to do a barn-raising but to build Pal a new doghouse at the end of the episode, also allowing Buster to do one fulfilling thing associated with the Amish lifestyle before he goes back to his previous lifestyle.
