Recap / Pinky And The Brain S 2 E 1

Episode: Season 2, Episode 1
Title: It's Only a Paper World
Directed by: Liz Holzman
Written by: Brett Baer & David Finkel
Air Date: September 7, 1996
Previous: The Third Mouse/The Visit
Next: Collect 'em All/Pinkasso

"It's Only a Paper World" is the first episode of the second season of Pinky and the Brain.

Brain creates a papier-mâché copy of the Earth, and lures the entire population to it with free T-shirts in order to take over the real Earth.

Tropes:

• Accidental Hero: By creating another world and luring humanity there, Brain inadvertently saves them when the real Earth is destroyed by a meteor.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • While Pinky goes shopping to get supplies for the plan, he gets distracted by frivolous stuff on sale. You'd expect Pinky to forget to get the supplies and blow Brain's budget on a bunch of junk that will have no use in the plan. Instead, Pinky DOES remember to buy the supplies in addition to some unnecessary purchases like tortoise wax and glasses.
  • After luring humanity to Chia-Earth and the mice return to the original Earth to take it over. You'd expect the plan to fail by the humans coming back but instead, the humans end up liking Chia-Earth more than the original one and choose to stay. The status quo is restored when the original Earth is destroyed and Pinky and Brain have to take over Chia-Earth now.
• Bland-Name Product: Pinky buys a jar of "tortoise wax", as opposed to turtle wax.
• Bob Ross Rib: The "Happy Bob" show Pinky watches.
• Didn't Think This Through: See Gone Horribly Right.
• Egopolis: Brain renames the now-vacant original Earth as "Brainus".
• "Eureka!" Moment: Brain is inspired when he hears a Martha Stewart Expy talk about a papier-mache bust of Art Buchwald.
• Foreshadowing: Both Happy Bob and the Martha Stewart Expy mention the meteor that is going to smash into the planet before it even shows up.
• Gone Horribly Right: Brain's plan to take over the world by tricking people into leaving it for a fake Earth works! Unfortunately, since everyone is on Chia-Earth now, he's the ruler of an empty world, with no subjects to rule over except for Pinky.
• Insane Troll Logic: Pinky believes that he and Brain can make up a new word (Chramecirum) since they are the only ones on the original Earth.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Brain gets the idea for his plan from an Expy of Martha Stewart.
  • David Letterman makes a cameo doing one of his late-night show’s signature "Top Ten List" segments.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Apparently, Brain once loaned Pinky to a cigarette company.
  • Brain apparently once went to Dollywood and brought Pinky back a T-shirt.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Pinky's reaction when Brain irately declares he's loaning him to another cigarette company.
• Pyrrhic Victory: It turns out, being ruler of the world is no fun if you don't have people (besides your best friend) to rule over.
• Rushmore Refacement: Pinky's attempt at Rushmore has Neil Sedaka, Nick Nolte, Abe Vigoda "and of course, Abe Lincoln".
• Scrabble Babble: Pinky tries to make up a new word while playing Scrabble because as the only people in the world, they can do so! And once he goes away, Brain adds an "S" to his word to get the points for himself.
• Shout-Out:
  • Pinky's attempt at making the Sphinx resembles Garfield.
  • Pinky mentions the Ark of the Covenant.
  • The episode’s title comes from the 1933 song "It’s Only a Paper Moon".
  • Pinky's guesses as to Brain's plan include taking Debbie Allen hostage, forcing people to listen to Mandy Patinkin, and using the talents of Paul Anka and Carrot Top to stage the comeback of Jamie Farr.
  • Pinky references Dollywood (a theme park in Tennessee named after Dolly Parton), the famous advertising slogan for Certs breath mints, The Wayans Bros., Xuxa (a famous Brazilian actress, singer and kids’ TV show host) and the jingle for King Vitaman cereal.
  • While ripping up the newspapers, Pinky recreates the front page of Variety – specifically, a fictional version featured in the Animaniac song "Variety Speak".
  • Pink sees Regis Philbin's autobiography I’m Only One Man at the Bulk N' Buy.
  • Brain riffs on the title of A Fistful of Dollars and Fists Of Fury.
  • "Chia Earth" refers to Chia Pets.
  • The Oval Office has a "Presidenting For Dummies" book sitting on a bookshelf, a reference to the "For Dummies" book series.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • After successfully luring humanity to Chia-Earth, Brain and Pinky try to send the fake planet into orbit by pushing it and fail. Pinky and the Brain are two small rodents and do not have the strength to do such a feat and thus, must settle with having the original Earth and Chia-Earth being "neighbors".
  • As Brain finds out the hard way, being ruler of the world is no fun when you and your only friend are the only ones on it.
• Take That!: In his first speech as ruler, Brain promises a world free of "war, hunger and Quentin Tarantino movies."
• Toilet Humour: When Brain mentions utilising something that's used by toddlers, the elderly and the criminally insane, Pinky thinks he's talking about disposable diapers.
• Victory Is Boring: Brain discovers that ruling an empty world is not very rewarding.
• Writer's Block: Brain is suffering from "conqueror's block" at the start of the episode.

---