Unable to play Sandwich Shop, Muffin sadly sits at the back of the garden, until Chilli gently encourages the girls to play a game that Muffin can join. The girls start brainstorming and soon discover there are lots of games Muffin can play with her cone. Seeing how unhappy the cone made her daughter (and realizing how hard it is for even a grownup to break a bad habit), Trixie decides to find a different way to help Muffin stop thumb-sucking.
By the following week, Muffin's gotten better at controlling her thumb-sucking—but on the way to her next playdate, she makes her dad put on her Cone of Shame on purpose, so that she and her cousins can have more fun with it.
Tropes:
- Cone of Shame: Muffin is made to wear one by her parents in order to break her thumb-sucking habit. Muffin is rather unhappy about it, especially when it keeps impairing her vision and getting in the way of playing Sandwich Shop with Bluey and Bingo, until her cousins figure out ways to incorporate the cone into their games.
- Furry Reminder: In a rare example of the culture of the Bluey universe incorporating the fact that the people are dogs, the method for weaning a child off their thumb-sucking habit is the Cone of Shame.
- Not So Above It All: Trixie and Chili debate on whether it's a good idea to put the cone of shame on Muffin so she can stop sucking her thumb. Trixie is all for the cone, only expressing doubt at the fact that three-years-old isn't such an old age for thumb-sucking. She voices that it's all in the name of practicing self-control, all the while Chili puts out corn chips. Despite talking about self-control, Trixie can't help eating the chips out of simple habit, despite that it's not healthy for her. When she comes to term with her own lack of self-control, the double standard is not lost on her.Trixie: (Sheepishly) It might be time to take Muffin's cone off.
- Shout-Out:
- When Muffin picks up the toy carrot instead of the toy knife because she can't see what she's doing, Bluey says "That's not a knife!"
- The Cone of Shame is called exactly that in the final line of the episode, referencing the trope namer, Up.
- Unishment: Muffin's cone becomes this after Bluey and Bingo find they can have all sorts of fun pretend games with it. So much so that Muffin deliberately relapses into her thumb-sucking habit in order to wear it some more.
