Air date: March 25, 2024
"A Little Batty": When Molly posts a picture of a bat in her attic, one of her followers tells her it's a rare, Australian megabat!
"A Little Batty" contains the following tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: Molly forgets the lesson she learned in "A Splash of Mink" about the importance of not automatically believing everyone who claims to be an expert.
- Bait-and-Switch: Molly gets an email from someone who tutors Randall named Leonard, who is a "bat expert." Except he's not. Randall is actually Leonard's tutor, and Leonard is only seven years old and an expert on baseball bats. Walter read the email wrong.
- The Cameo: Olin Benedict, Auntie Cecelia, and Grace make cameos at the Qyah Co-Op. Violetta also appears as the reporter, but she doesn't speak and is not named.
- A Dog Named "Cat": Molly names the bat "Foxy" because it is clever and has ears like a fox.
- Double-Meaning Title: The episode title can refer to a literal bat and to things getting a bit crazy in the climax. But it also refers to the fact that the bat Molly finds is not a megabat but a microbat. A little brown myotis, to be precise. It's not a big batty, it's a little batty.
- Failed a Spot Check: Walter initially misreads Leonard's email as saying that Leonard is Randall's tutor, which kickstarts the main action of the plot. Later, when it comes out that Foxy is definitely not a megabat, Walter rereads the email and realizes, much to his embarrassment, that it says that Leonard is tutored by Randall.
- The Ghost: Leonard is only mentioned, and never seen on-screen.
- Idiot Ball: All Walter did was read an email incorrectly. But actual scientists were fooled by a viral video from a 10-year-old girl with one photo in poor lighting. Not one so-called "expert" thought to take a closer look at the photo or contact Molly directly about the bat.
- Implausible Deniability: Walter insists that he is definitely not afraid of bats, even though he gets really jumpy at the mere mention of them.
- News Travels Fast: Soon after Molly finds the bat in her attic, news about it goes viral on the internet, to the point where a reporter from Fairbanks comes to interview Molly about the bat.
- Seldom-Seen Species: Played with. Molly is told the bat in her attic is an Australian spectacled fruit bat, a tropical species found in Queensland. It's actually a little brown myotis, which is commonly represented in media but rarely identified by exact species.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After being hazed and scratched by a bat in a cave, Walter is no longer a fan of bats. Even less so after Foxy the bat escapes the box he's been put in and takes his frustration out on Walter's hair.
"The Clean Up Mix Up": Travis helps Molly, Tooey, and Trini earn their wilderness clean-up badge, but his ideas of cleaning up make a big mess of things.
"The Clean Up Mix Up" contains the following tropes:
- The Bus Came Back: Travis Hightower is back in town.
- Call-Back: "You're not looking for woolly mamoths again, are you?"
- Didn't Think This Through: Travis tries to reference a book about lawncare in suburban Florida, thinking it'll apply just as well to the wild places of Alaska. He ends up damaging a patch of wilderness with his weedwhacker, and costs the Neegoo Tsal their wilderness cleanup badge.
- Polar Penguins: When reminded that the flamingo isn't an arctic bird, Travis sets up a penguin lawn ornament instead, to represent Alaska's cold climate. He doesn't believe Trini when she tells him there are no penguins in Alaska.
- Scenery Porn: When Molly tells Travis that the land is beautiful.
- Security Cling: In order to distract Travis, Tooey pretends to be scared of a spider and jumps into Travis' arms.
- Unwanted Assistance: Travis' attempts to help clean up the wilderness only make things worse, since he is referencing a book about lawns in Florida.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Travis returns to Alaska with a goal of beautifying the wilderness. But his idea of "cleaning up" and "beautifying" the wilderness is to make it look more like Florida.
