Musica
While looking through his old photo album, Manny recounts the story of how Abuelito’s vihuela became the first thing he ever repaired. Then Abuelito walks into Manny’s shop, and, hey, whaddya know? The very same vihuela needs to be fixed again.
“Musica” provides examples of the following:
- Artistic License – Music: Vihuelas are guitar-like instruments which have five strings; Abuelito’s “viheula” has twelve strings. Presumably, the animators confused the vihuela with the bajo sexto, another Mexican guitar-like instrument with twelve strings.
- Chekhov's Gun: Manny decides to bring his photo album with him to Kelly’s store on a whim when he needs to get a new tuning peg for Abuelito’s vihuela. Kelly doesn’t seem to have any vihuela tuning pegs- but in the old photo album is a picture of her bringing some supplies into her store on opening day, and among those supplies is a box of vihuela tuning pegs that Kelly in the present day is then able to find.
- Continuity Nod:
- Among the pictures in Manny’s photo album is a picture of the doghouse he built for Fixit at the end of “Supremoguy”, and the image of Kelly on her store’s grand opening Jasmine Chung had in her newspaper in “Best Repairman”.
- Manny’s flashlight makes a return.
- The glue from “A Sticky Fix” is used to repair Abuelito’s vihuela.
- Early Personality Signs: Manny is shown to have enjoyed fixing things as a kid just as much as he does as an adult.
- "Eureka!" Moment: One happens when the tools look through Manny’s photo album, see a photo from Kelly’s grand opening of her carrying boxes into the store on a hand truck, and realize that one of the boxes on the cart has an image of a vihuela tuning peg on the side- Kelly had previously said she doesn’t have any vihuela pegs, but it turns out she forgot she still had that box somewhere.
- Foreign Language Title: The title is Spanish for “music”.
- Furry Confusion:
- In one of the flashbacks, a young Manny is seen trying to fix Abuelito’s gate with an inanimate screwdriver.
- In the present, Manny employs an inanimate file to fix Abuelito’s vihuela.
- Manny’s flashlight, which retroactively becomes (Became? Will become?) another instance of this when Flicker is introduced later in the season, is also put to use at one point.
- Hairstyle Inertia: Manny as a kid had the same hairstyle (and the same hat to cover it) that he does as an adult.
- Improvisational Ingenuity: Manny’s first-ever repair involved him fixing a peg that had snapped off Abuelito’s vihuela using only the resources that would reasonably be available to a small child (specifically, he used a twig to scrape out the hole it was supposed to go in and then stuck it in with some gum).
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Manny points out a picture of Abuelito in his photo album right before Abuelito walks into his shop.
- Kazoos Mean Silliness: Mr. Lopart is a self-proclaimed “expert” on the kazoo, and is only too happy to demonstrate this for Manny and the tools. His atrocious playing makes Fluffy yowl and run for the hills.
- Last-Second Photo Failure: In the beginning of the episode, Manny and the tools are trying to take a group picture for their photo album, only for this to happen twice- first by Rusty making a bizarre expression, and then by Pat tripping and falling as he runs back to the group after setting the camera’s timer. The third attempt produces a good photo.
- One-Word Title: "Musica"
- Picture-Perfect Presentation: The first flashback begins with the camera focusing on a picture of a young Manny sitting on Abuelito’s porch listening to him playing the vihuela, before it cuts to the exact scene as it happened. (This ends up raising some
Fridge Logic, however, as there doesn’t appear to have been anyone around in the past who took the photo that ended up in the album.) - Same Clothes, Different Year: Manny as a kid wore (smaller versions of) the exact same Limited Wardrobe he has in the present day.
- Third Time's The Charm: In the opening, Manny and the tools are trying to take a group photo; the first two attempts become subject to Last Second Photo Failures, while the third one produces a nice picture.
- Title Drop: This is done for a joke in a flashback.Abuelito (to a young Manny): Someday your fixing skills will come in very handy, Manny.
- Tyop on the Cover: The episode serves as a prime example of how having a Foreign Language Title can lead to this, as the title is spelled with a normal “u” while the Spanish word it’s supposed to be has a “ú” with an accent mark.
- We Sell Everything: Kelly’s hardware store has a box of vihuela tuning keys, although (as presumably no one had actually bought any before) Kelly forgot she has it and needs to have her memory jogged by an old photo.
Ice Cream Team
On a hot summer’s day, Manny receives a call from Tanya, who works the ice cream stand in the park- her freezer is broken, and all her ice cream is melting. Repairing the freezer is doable, but it will take quite a bit of time, which Tanya doesn’t have- so the tools volunteer to try and sell her entire stock of ice cream before it melts.
“Ice Cream Team” contains examples of:
- And Your Reward Is Edible: Tanya gives Manny and the tools free ice cream as thanks for fixing her freezer.
- Big Eater: Pat apparently ate 10 triple scoops of ice cream, all by himself. How did he do it? Offscreen.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Manny and the tools bring Fixit to the park so she can play; late in the episode, it turns out that Fixit is the key to solving their ice cream problem, as people are willing to follow her around the park due to Cuteness Proximity, so she can lead them right to Tanya’s ice cream stand where, as it’s a hot day, they’re going to buy some ice cream.
- Heat Wave: It’s a hot summer day in Sheet Rock Hills, and the freezer in Tanya’s ice cream stand is broken; fixing it will take a while, so the tools end up having to try to sell all of the ice cream before it melts.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Felipe tries to get people to buy Tanya’s ice cream by singing jingles for it, but his singing is so bad that anyone who hears it tries to get away from him as fast as they can.
- I Can't Hear You: This happens when Squeeze tries to pitch ice cream to Cameron, who is listening to loud music on his headphones.Squeeze: You know, the yummy stuff you get in a cone!
Cameron: No, I don't have a phone! But I think there might be a pay phone over there. (Points and skateboards away) - Lemonade Stand Plot: Mr. Lopart’s subplot of the episode involves him having set up a lemonade stand, although being Mr. Lopart he doesn’t actually get to sell any lemonade- first he can’t figure out how to work his juicer, and then by the time he gets it to actually work properly he’s used up all his lemons on various failed attempts.
- Literal-Minded: When Mr. Lopart says that it’s so hot out you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, all of Manny’s tools look at the sidewalk worriedly.
- Pun: When on the phone with Manny, Tanya says her ice cream stand has a problem that’s “heating things up”- that is, her freezer is broken and her ice cream is melting.
- Rhyming Title: Has one.
- Too Dumb to Live: Stretch, who really should know better, decides to get customers for Tanya by stretching his tape across the path near her stand as a “speed bump”, so people will have to slow down and might notice her stand. Of course, what actually happens is that a kid barrels through the “speed bump” on a scooter, causing Stretch to be dragged along with him.
