Helen, Martha, Skits, and Alice are playing ball in the park, but they leave after the ball lands in a pie. Then, a storm starts, so they rush for the Boxwood house. The front door is locked, and the parents and Ronald aren't expected to be home until nighttime. She goes in the back, borrowing a raincoat Helen found, then takes off the raincoat and it blows into a tree.
They enter, and then Nelson hisses at Martha and meows at two other cats outside. Meanwhile, the girls are wondering what to do while they wait for the storm to end, and Helen suggests telling spooky stories. There's a knock on the door, scaring Alice, but it's just T.D. When Alice lets him in, Nelson and the two other cats can be seen on the stairwell.
After drying himself, T.D. tells the first scary story: The Invisible Man's Best Friend. It concerns a mad scientist who invented some kind of purple invisible ink, but then when he threw his arms up in excitement, he spilled the ink and it dripped into a dog's water dish, turning the dog invisible. Luckily, he soon realised where the dog was because, like Martha (who she's portrayed as looking like) she could talk. He went to find an antidote, but she liked being invisible and used it to play pranks, steal food, etc. Eventually, she went too far by stealing a sausage link, inadvertently causing more dogs to follow her for it, and getting his owner and her friend covered in mud when she and the others ran through a mud puddle. The owner pleaded with the scientist to turn the dog visible again, and he does, but she ends up growing very huge.
In reality, the cats sneak behind the couch and one of them (a ginger one) knocks a vase off the coffee table to scare the kids and dogs. Nelson proves that it wasn't him who did it because he is on T.D.'s lap. The kids are a little unnerved by this, but they brush it off and Alice tells her story.
Hers is called The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart. It follows Helen, who, along with Martha, went downstairs at night after hearing a weird noise in the kitchen. When they entered, they found T.D., who suspiciously denied hiding anything. Then, Martha discovered that the noise (a thumping sound) was coming from under a floor tile. He admitted that the noise was keeping him up all night, so he brought it to the Lorraine house, and Helen picks it up, revealing that it's a can of artichoke hearts. Then, a sentient artichoke heart came out, made jokes, and ran away.
Then, the two non-Nelson cats knock over some canned food, and Alice says that it has to have been Nelson, but he's on the chair. Alice is a bit scared, but Helen assures her that Mrs. Boxwood probably stacked the cans too high. While they clean the cans up, Helen tells her story.
Hers is titled Night of the Phantom Scarecrow. It begins with her, Alice, and Martha on their way home on a dirt road, but as they started off, Danny warned them of the Phantom Scarecrow. The girls and Martha tried to claim that the Phantom Scarecrow was fake, only to run into it. It stole Alice's ball, used it as a head (since it was headless), and ran off.
In reality, the two visiting cats start yowling ominously, which the kids mistake as a phantom. Then, Nelson knocks a volleyball down the stairs, scaring the kids even further. They run out of the house and onto the back patio, then T.D. finds the raincoat in the tree. The kids mistake this for the Phantom Scarecrow, and Helen thinks that it wants the volleyball. The dogs volunteer to retrieve the ball, but Helen decides that she will go with Martha while Skits stays with Alice and T.D.
Helen gets the ball, but Martha discovers the cats. The girls try to bring the volleyball to the Phantom Scarecrow, only to find out that he isn't there and what they thought was a phantom was just a raincoat. Meanwhile, Martha drapes herself in a white towel and yells, "Boo!" to scare the cats back. The cats run out, and Martha accidentally locks herself inside. Then, when they try to re-enter the house, Martha reveals that Nelson and his friends were the ones scaring them and apologises for accidentally locking everyone out. While Alice and Martha look for open windows, T.D. unlocks the door by leaning on it, then the rain stops.
This episode provides examples of
- Anthropomorphic Food: The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart features a walking, talking, joking artichoke heart.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: In Night of the Phantom Scarecrow, Martha, despite being a talking dog, thinks that the Phantom Scarecrow must be fake, and Alice agrees with her.
- But You Were There, and You, and You: In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the mad scientist looks like Truman, the dog (before turning invisible) looks like Martha, a man who looks like Danny appears with a daughter who looks like Helen and a dog who looks like Skits and is even named Skits, some background dogs resemble Rinty, Cisco, Francois, John, and Burt, and another girl is seen who looks like Alice.
- Canis Major: At the end of The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the dog grows to a giant.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The raincoat that blew into a tree at the beginning is later seen by T.D., scaring him and his friends.
- Martha uses one of the towels seen earlier when the kids were drying themselves to scare the cats.
- Dogs Love Fire Hydrants: In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, some dogs that resemble Burt, Cisco, Francois, John, and Rinty are crowded round a fire hydrant.
- Dramatic Irony: The humans and dogs spend most of the episode unaware of the two non-Nelson cats. Even when they see them, the humans and Skits don't realise that they were pranking them. In fact, Alice even asks Nelson if he was scared.
- Episode Tagline: When people suggest explanations for the goings-on, other people keep replying, "Or not".
- Fear of Thunder: Martha and Skits are still afraid of thunder, as they look afraid when it thunders.
- Good News, Bad News: At the end of The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the scientist gives good news (he managed to turn the dog visible) and bad news (she's now a giant).
- Ghost Story: The kids tell each other spooky stories to pass the time while a storm is happening.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: In Night of the Phantom Scarecrow, Alice claims that the Phantom Scarecrow isn't real, only to immediately run into it.
- Intentional Mess Making:
- In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the invisible dog pranks the Danny and Helen lookalikes by leaving muddy pawprints.
- The orange cat knocks a vase down to scare Alice and her friends.
- Irritation Nightmare: Discussed. Martha apparently once had a nightmare in which she was given a ton of free dog food with no can openener.
- Is It Something You Eat?: When Martha says it was "unexpected" of the unnamed man and woman to share their pie with her and Skits, Skits apparently thinks "unexpected" means "tasty".
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: The mad scientist in The Invisible Man's Best Friend wears a lab coat.
- Ladies and Germs: The artichoke heart in The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart addresses Helen, Martha, and T.D. as "ladies and germs".
- Last-Second Joke Problem: The Invisible Man's Best Friend ends with the dog now visible again, but grown to a massive size.
- Mistaken for Undead: Invoked when Martha deliberately disguises herself as a ghost to scare the cats.
- NOT!: In The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart, the artichoke heart says, "I can assure you I'll be late for dinner - not!".
- Ominous Knocking: Subverted. The girls and dogs hear a knock at the door, which frightens Alice since her parents and Ronald aren't due to be home for hours... but it's just T.D.
- Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe. Alice and Helen end their stories by noting that the antagonists may still be around.
- The Prankster: The dog in The Invisible Man's Best Friend
- Rain, Rain, Go Away: The plot of the episode is that Helen, Martha, Skits, T.D., and Alice are telling scary stories to pass the time when stuck in the Boxwood house on a stormy day.
- The Scapegoat: In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the Helen lookalike blames Skits for leaving the pawprints when it was actually the invisible dog.
- Scary Scarecrows: Night of the Phantom Scarecrow features a ghostly, headless scarecrow.
- Shout-Out:
- T.D.'s story is The Invisible Man's Best Friend, which references The Invisible Man (1933).
- Alice's story is The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart, which references The Tell-Tale Heart.
- Speak in Unison: In Night of the Phantom Scarecrow, the girls shout, "Aah! The phantom!" in unison upon seeing the Phantom Scarecrow.
- Stock Animal Diet: In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the invisible dog steals a sausage link and five other dogs chase her for it.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: In The Tell-Tale Artichoke, when Helen asks T.D. what he's doing in her kitchen in the middle of the night, he says he didn't hide anything.
- Technicolor Science: In The Invisible Man's Best Friend, the mad scientist owns several vials and beakers full of glowing, colourful liquids.
