"Child pageantry is an essential part of the American fabric. You know what, we should dress up our kids, just to show other people that we can."
— Charlie
Frank inadvertently invests in a child beauty pageant and becomes worried that he'll be branded a pedophile as the previous emcee was arrested for molesting one of the contestants. Meanwhile, Dee plots revenge on the pageant's bratty front-runner by teaming up with her older sister, and Mac, Dennis and Charlie attempt to turn the only male contestant into their dark horse.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Dee reveals that Barbara used to encourage her not to enter beauty pageants, as she "wasn't pretty enough".
- Actor Allusion: Frank, played by Danny DeVito, ends up in an old-fashioned tuxedo with an extremely pale face and gaunt makeup that makes him look rather terrifying. Why does that seem so familiar? Not to mention that Frank also ends up as the victim of a Is This Thing Still On? moment, much like the Penguin did.
- To boot, Frank breaks his nose in the episode, causing it to bleed. Didn't Oswald have a comment on that?
"Still, could be worse; my nose could be gushing blood!" - Alpha Bitch: Samantha is a pre-pubescent version, constantly handing out bitchy comments to her fellow contestants and Dee.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Frank's dead set on making sure he doesn't get Mistaken for Pedophile as a result of him hosting the show. He instead gets mistaken for necrophiliac thanks to his mic remaining turned on while he was asking a mortician vulgar questions.
- Beauty Contest: The episode revolves around the gang putting on a child beauty pageant after Frank accidentally invests in one.
- Big Eater: Dennis and Charlie note with some disgust that Mac is now wheezing as he eats.
- Blood Is the New Black: Frank falls flat on his face at the beginning of the episode and busts his nose, leaving him wandering around covered in blood until he gets a funeral director to cover him with makeup for the show.
- Butt-Monkey: The guys take the opportunity to snark on Dee's looks when she claims to have won similar pageants in the past.Mac: How did you win pageants? Did you have a different face?
Frank: No, she was a dog back then, too. - Call-Back: Charlie composes the gang's song on his keyboard.
- Creepy Mortician: Frank invites the extremely creepy funeral director who does his makeup to the show in the hopes that it'll throw suspicion off him. The rest of the gang aren't convinced.
- Determinator: Dee won multiple beauty pageants as a child, despite still looking like a dog.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Walter Harris himself is a diddler who poses as a fake child welfare inspector to gain access to pageants, which the show foreshadows several times by showing him getting more close than necessary to the girls, including eating lunch at their table.
- Did Not Think This Through: Frank believes associating with a mortician will somehow make him seem less creepy by comparison; however, the others in the Gang point out that being close to a Creepy Mortician does not make Frank look any better.
- Dropped-in Speech Clip: Mac, Charlie, and Dennis create a remix of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" which includes a clip of Ronald Reagan saying "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
- Eagleland: Charlie tries to invoke a Type 1 by portraying child beauty pageants as a proud American tradition, but the episode veers into Type 2 by showing how crass and tasteless they often are, as well as magnets for child molesters. Notably, during the scene when Walter is arrested and exposed as a diddler, "America the Beautiful" is playing in the background.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- The gang as a whole are uncomfortable with the idea of holding a child beauty pageant, especially Frank, but Charlie's combination of Insane Troll Logic and Patriotic Fervor convinces them to push ahead with it.
- Dee also laments the fact that the kids' parents left them unsupervised in a bar with a bunch of strangers.
- Frank may be an utterly depraved hedonist, but he draws a very hard line at "diddling" (aka pedophilia).
- Foreshadowing:
- Walter wants the Gang to make sure the kids are featured in any performances. This comment seems innocuous at first, but Walter's intention is much darker when it's revealed he's a diddler, too.
- After the very uncomfortable Yankee Doodle Chippendales routine, Walter is the first to start clapping.
- Mac notes that Walter looks “very pleased” at the pageant.
- Hotter and Sexier: Charlie, Dennis, and Mac's attempt to "improve" the only boy contestant's act accidentally turn into this.
- I Love the Dead: Discussed when Frank asks the funeral director whether he's ever "banged" the dead bodies. He then goes on to say that people can do what they like to him once he's dead for all he cares.Frank: If I was dead, you could bang me all you want. Who cares? A dead body's like a piece of trash, I mean, shove as much shit in there as you want.
- Is This Thing Still On?: The above conversation happens while Frank is backstage and still wearing his microphone at the show, horrifying the parents in the audience.
- It's All About Me: The gang take the opportunity to steal some of the limelight by inserting their own song and dance routine into the beginning of the show, while Dee does a routine with Samantha's older sister in order to try and win the competition after Samantha calls her ugly.Mac: I didn't even know it was a conversation. I always assumed we'd be heavily involved.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot:Dee: Your mom doesn't know dick! She's a dumb fat cow, and your sister... she is a stupid little shit-mouthed bitch, isn't she?
Justine: You just said a lot of bad words. - Limited Social Circle: The gang's lack of other friends is lampshaded when it's revealed that they've got Artemis to do the sound board.Dee: Is that a good idea? Does she know how to work a sound board?
Mac: Who else are we gonna get? We don't have a deep bench, Dee. - Mistaken for Pedophile: Frank is deeply concerned that this will happen to him after the last guy to run the show was convicted of molesting one of the contestants. It happens to the rest of the Gang after the performances they come up with for the kids, such as a shirtless Yankee Doodle Chippendale's routine that makes his father freak out and confront Artemis.
- Musical Episode: The second half of the episode features several musical numbers.
- Not Helping Your Case:
- All of Frank's attempts to make sure everyone knows he's not a "diddler" only make it look like he is. It's lampshaded when Frank tells the guys that they have to write a song called "Do Not Diddle Kids"—"I wouldn't do it with anyone / younger than my daughter! No little kids, gotta be big!" Mac's reply: "There is no quicker way for people to think that you are diddling kids than by WRITING A SONG ABOUT IT!"
- At the show itself, "Welcome, welcome to our legitimate show of kids!"
- Opinion Flip Flop: Mac and Dennis both change their stance on child beauty pageants after Charlie calls them an American tradition.
- Parental Neglect: Dee points out that the Stage Moms were perfectly happy to abandon their kids at a bar with a group of strangers for a beauty pageant that's currently under investigation. (Although she does say this while abandoning the kids with Walter.)
- Patriotic Fervor: The gang throw themselves into the pageant wholeheartedly once Charlie insists that it's part of their American culture. Their tendency to make everything about patriotism is later lampshaded when Mac tries to claim that it's his right as an American to eat as much as he wants.Dennis: Stop making all of these things about America! You're fat, not because of America.
- Pet the Dog:
- Frank mentions how hard Dee worked to win beauty pageants as a kid.
- Dennis, Mac, and Charlie try to help the one boy contestant win, due to being amazed by his enthusiasm.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Frank tries to blame his Is This Thing Still On? moment on a Puerto Rican janitor.
- The Scapegoat: Dee makes it clear that Frank is the one in charge should anything go wrong.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Dennis, Dee, Mac and Charlie all decide to cut their losses and leave Frank to it once the show devolves into chaos.
- Skewed Priorities: Even after the cops bust in and the guy claiming to be overseeing the pageant is arrested for being a pedophile, the mothers still want to know who the winner is.
- Stealth Pun: Mac reads out the acronym for Walter's fake child welfare organization — "FAPC, huh?" as a throwaway remark, but it isn't dwelled on. This is one of several pieces of foreshadowing that Walter is the actual diddler.
- The Stoner: Artemis states that she's going to get high before the show, and is later seen smoking a joint during one of the performances.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Dee's pageant song, "Moms Stink": "Moms are stupid! I'd like to throw them all in the trash! They're nothing but a big humongous pain in the butt! A big humongous pain in my vaaaAAAGINA!"
- Sure, Let's Go with That: When the police show up at the end, Frank initially assumes they're there to arrest him on suspicion of pedophilia. When it turns out they were there to arrest Walter Harris instead for being an actual diddler, the gang pretends to go along with the pageant being a sting operation to get the heat off of them.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Played With; Frank spends the entire episode insisting to everyone who'll listen that he is definitely not attracted to kids, and at one point he even tries to get the gang to write a song about it until Mac points out that it's a surefire way to make people suspect him. However, it's more so him being very uneasy with the notion of hosting a child beauty pageant and the fact that the guy he accepted the job from turned out to be a diddler.
- Take That!: To the entire industry of child beauty pageants.Mac: Mothers force their kids into this so that they can dress them up like dolls and parade them around like sex objects. It's creepy.
- The One Guy: There's only one boy entering the pageant. The guys initially assume that he must have been forced into it by a pushy mother who wanted a girl instead of a boy, but after watching his performance and seeing how genuinely enthusiastic he is they decide that he's their dark horse and set him up to win instead.
- Too Much Information: To prove to the parents that he is most definitely not a pedophile, Frank informs them that he "had no problem getting it up" with his ex-wife. They react by preparing to leave the pageant.
- Uncanny Valley Makeup: Frank's sketchy-looking bruises from his fall lead him to get a makeup job from a local mortician, complete with heavy foundation and dyed brows, when he has to present the show; the gang recoil at the sight of him backstage, and he looks even more sickly and ghoulish under the stage lights.
- Wrong Assumption: Charlie, Dennis, and Mac assume the Yankee Doodle kid is being forced into pageants by a Stage Mom who always wanted a little girl. They quickly change their minds after he gives an enthusiastic performance of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
- You Are Fat: Charlie and Dennis shame Mac for "breathing and eating" at the same time, and Dennis chides Mac for claiming being able to eat at his chosen rate is "American" and not about obesity.
- You Are What You Hate: In spite of her vocal disdain for stage moms, Dee becomes an outright terrible one (to a girl that isn't even her daughter) when Samantha insults her looks.
