Not the kind of "body switching" we were thinking of.
Written and storyboarded by Casey Crowe and Gideon Chase
While doing inventory in the storage room, Mordecai and Rigby find a teleporter and can't help but mess with it. However, Rigby knocks Mordecai into it during a scuffle and the two go through together, coming out with with each others' bottoms. After Benson kicks them out of the room, the two have to find a way to get the storage room keys off him to fix the problem. Otherwise, as revealed by Muscle Man (who is a licensed teleportation technician following his Space Tree training), the effects will shift their bodies and make the change permanent after a set of time.
Tropes:
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Following an recalibration error with the teleporter that leaves the duo switching body frames again, and Mordecai's insensitive comment about being stuck in Rigby's short body, Rigby decides to take the opportunity to do what he's wanted for eight seasonsnote and finally beat Mordecai at Punchies using the latter's own arms, making him feel what he's felt for so long.Mordecai: I just wanna be me again! It's not fair!
Rigby: (sighs) You're right, it's not fair. (smirks) We should play "Punchies" for it.
Mordecai: Huh?
[Rigby punches Mordecai with enough force to knock him straight to the floor, leaving him writhing and moaning in pain.]
Rigby: I guess we'll stay like this, then. (walks away) - Body Horror: The trip through the teleporter causes these when not calibrated right. When Mordecai, Rigby and Muscle Man all go through together, Rigby ends up as a fused amalgamation of all three.
- Breather Episode: After the drama of Space Escape and action of New Beds. This one focuses on the usual hi-jinks of Mordecai and Rigby.
- Continuity Nod: Mordecai beating Rigby at Punchies and Rigby's damaged butt cheek are both brought up.
- Jerkass Ball: Rigby when a second trip through the teleporter gains him Mordecai's height which he hopes to keep. Muscle Man and Mordecai have to actually tie him up, drag him back to the teleporter and force him to go through it.
- Oh, Crap!: Muscle Man when Rigby manages to pull him into the teleporter as Mordecai and he are trying to push him in. Luckily it doesn't do anything to him. But both Mordecai and he have one when they see Rigby come out with both his, Mordecai and Muscle Man's features.
- Shout-Out:
- On a popular YouTube series of fanmade crossover videos of cartoons fighting each other called Ultimate Cartoon Fighting, Mordecai and Rigby fused at one point, but the fusion broke off once they started arguing over what their fusion name was going to be; Mordeby or Rigbecai?
- Rigby's amalgam form of traits from Mordecai and Muscle Man slightly resembles the mutated Kevin 11 from Ben 10, another Cartoon Network original series.
- Spit Take: Eileen does one when she sees a mutated Rigby running by while she and Fives are trying to turn waste into pure water so they can drink.
- That Came Out Wrong: When panicking over having Rigby's body, Mordecai states he looks like a freak. Rigby, of course, would take offense to that.Mordecai: Look at me, dude! I'm a short, tiny FREAK!
Rigby: (offended) Oh, so that's what you think of me?
Mordecai: Aw, come on! That's not what I meant!
Rigby: Oh, I knew what you meant. You don't like being in MY shoes! - Whole-Plot Reference: To The Fly (1986) with it's plot on teleporters and body horror.
