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Zero Effect
Airdates: November 26, 2014 note , January 3, 2015 note
Olive and Otto must stop a number hog from stealing all the zeroes...before Otto turns into a baby forever.
Tropes:
- Agitated Item Stomping: When confronting Glenn, the number hog, Olive tears down the sign containing all the zeroes and begins stomping on it, sending them flying. Otto attempts to get her to stop, but she goes right back to doing it seconds later.
- All Take and No Give: The number hog, albeit accidentally.
- Big "NO!": Otto gives one when Olive informs Polly Graph that zeroes are disappearing around town.
- Birthday Episode: Otto celebrates his 10th birthday.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This episode shows Ms. O and Olive using landline phones to communicate, as opposed to the badge phones that would be used for primary communication in later episodes.
- Eleventy Zillion: We're pretty sure one million billion trillion isn't a real number. Until...it was.
- Establishing Character Moment: There's one for each of the Main 4. Olive is a no-nonsense, serious agent who is the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder, while Otto is the Cloudcuckoolander in question, effectively making the pair a Rookie Male, Experienced Female duo. Ms. O is established as a Mean Boss with No Indoor Voice, while Oscar is established as a dorky Gadgeteer Genius.
- Similarly, Polly Graph is also established as a Young Entrepreneur who is knowledgeable in the subject of graphs.
- Establishing Series Moment: After the Cold Open, Olive and Otto head back to Odd Squad and enter the bullpen, where a 360 view of various oddities—including rainbows in buckets, dinosaurs, and flying goldfish among others—are seen. This quickly establishes the show as being not your average workplace.
- Fanboy: Otto does this when the cupcake man tells him about all the flavors he has.
- Food Porn: If you have a birthday on any day that this airs, you may feel a sudden urge to hold your party at a local cupcake shop.
- Fountain of Youth: The conflict of the episode revolves around Otto faced with the threat of turning into a baby after zeroes disappear from everything, including his birthday invitation. Luckily for him, it doesn't actually happen.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Otto begins to panic about the 0 being removed from his birthday invitation, Olive is quick to grab his shoulders and assure him that they'll find the number hog.
- Heroic B So D: Otto briefly has one upon "0" disappearing from the "10" in his birthday invitation.
- Hiccup Hijinks: The client in the Cold Open suffers from a case of hiccups that causes her to shatter glass...including the cup with the cure inside it that Otto gives her to drink.
- Silence, You Fool!: Ms. O does this to Glenn when he refers to all of his flavors he has in his cupcake shop."Thank you Glenn!"
- Story Arc: This episode kicks off the beginning of the arc exploring Olive's previous partner.
- Welcome Episode: Introduces the audience the core 4 agents, as well as the precinct as a setting. Doubles with Everyone Meets Everyone, as the main cast is already well-acquainted with each other.
"Can you imagine playing for the Bears, Otto? The lights, the fans! Sinking the perfect basket!"
Bad Luck BearsAirdates: November 26, 2014 note , November 30, 2014 note , January 10, 2015 note
Olive and Otto have to figure out what's been going on with the former's favorite basketball team, the Burly Bears, to have such bad luck happen to them.
Tropes:
- 13 Is Unlucky: Coach Roberts's basketball team is having bad luck that is caused by the number 13, seen when combining the numbers of the players' jerseys. To remedy this, Olive joins the team wearing a #99 jersey, which cures them of their bad luck.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Burly Bears and the Rambunctious Rams.
- Ascended Fangirl: Olive turns into this when she becomes a player of the Burly Bears basketball team.
- A Simple Plan: Coach Roberts invents some kind of a Tic-Tac-Toe plan, which Olive later enforces by crossing off 3 O's, causing the team to cheer.
- Battle Cry: Olive sends one forth that echoes around the basketball court when tearing off her suit in its entirety to reveal her basketball uniform.
- Cheerful Child: Olive gushes over the Burly Bears when she meets them in person, even tripping up on her name at one point.
- Chekhov's Skill: The Grizzly Bear Growl is a swiping motion that Olive performs while explaining how much she loves the Burly Bears, although she does it in a wild up-and-down motion. Upon the game played later on, while it's Down to the Last Play, the move is used by Olive in a much more graceful, side-to-side motion (complete with a bear paw silhouette forming around her hand) to knock the players to the ground and make the shot, winning the game.
- Condescending Compassion: Ms. O gets a clean shot in.Ms. O: (in a sweet tone) I have an idea. Let's all stop working, and talk about how much you love the Bears.Olive: (excitedly) Really?!Ms. O: NO!! We have a case to solve!
- Down to the Last Play: As ten seconds remain and Olive is blocked from making the final shot by four players, she employs the use of the Grizzly Bear Growl to get a clear shot. She manages to sink the final basket in and win the game.
- Drench Celebration: Upon winning the game, Coach Roberts and a benchwarming Bears player drench Olive in water.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: When scanning the Bears players for any traces of the number 13, Oscar makes a whirring sound, which compensates for the gadget not making any sound. After this episode, gadgets are accompanied with various noises when in use.
- Ms. O uses the speakerphone on her desk to inform Oscar that he must be ready scan people for traces of the number 13. This episode and "The Jackies" are the only two episodes where she uses it, and it isn't mentioned or used again after that.
- Extra Digits: Invoked by Olive, who asks the Mathroom to give her extra fingers so she can count to 13.
- Freeze-Frame Ending: The episode ends on a freeze-frame of a drenched Olive celebrating the team's win.
- Littering Is No Big Deal: Ms. O haphazardly tosses her empty juice boxes away twice. The first time around, the juice box is picked up by one of her assistants.
- Only Sane Man: Otto is this, for once.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode is named after the 1976 comedy film The Bad News Bears.
- Not So Above It All: Olive, normally regarded as the serious one, loses it in front of Coach Roberts and the other Bears players, gushing over them and asking for their autographs at one point.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Basketball is only one out of many sports that Olive likes.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Oscar makes a whirring noise when using a scanner on the Bears players.
- Shout-Out: Olive's Grizzly Bear Growl move is similar in both movement and effects to the Scratch move seen in Pokémon.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Olive is apparently a seamstress, as she sewed her own Burly Bears basketball uniform.
