"I may not be smart enough to do everything… but I’m dumb enough to try anything."
Beast Boy
Beast Boy attempts to play a bootleg video game on Cyborg's system recharger, uploading a computer virus to his brain in the process. Cyborg suffers food-related hallucinations while the others kidnap Gizmo and force him to help. But when the operation to insert him into Cyborg goes hilariously wrong, Gizmo and Beast Boy are forced to work together to stop the virus before it spreads beyond Cyborg...
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Never illegally download anything. Never disable the security protections on your computer. And never go into someone's room or use their stuff without their permission.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- The Seeker White Blood Cells are shaped and colored much more like red blood cells.
- Cyborg mentions during his virus-fueled food craze that there were 456 varieties of yams. In reality, there's around 600 varieties of yams. May be somewhat justified due to the virus messing with Cyborg's mind.
- Artistic License – Law: Beast Boy downloads a copy of Mega Monkeys 4, but every computer in the tower rejects it, because they are programmed to detect pirated software. In addition, in real life, Beast Boy would also face the following penalties for making his bootleg video game copy:
- Up to five years in prison.
- A fine of up to $150,000.
- Though one can assume that the Titans came forward, apologized on Beast Boy's behalf, and paid the fine offscreen. There's also a possibility that Robin called in a favor from Bruce Wayne AKA Batman, his ex-mentor and adoptive father, to help with the financial problems.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Beast Boy goes into Cyborg’s room to play his bootleg video game, he comes across what he believes to be Cyborg’s computer and puts the disc into the slot, only to mess up the machine. When Cyborg comes into the room and goes to check on his computer, Beast Boy stands in front of the machine only for Cyborg to reveal that his computer is actually hidden in the wall. It turns out the machine Beast Boy tried to play the pirated video game on is actually Cyborg’s system recharger, and Cyborg ends up infecting himself with a virus when he tries to recharge himself.
- Blatant Lies: When Cyborg catches Beast Boy in his bedroom and asks the latter what he’s doing in there, Beast Boy says he’s practicing his nose whistling. Cyborg doesn’t buy it.
- Bolivian Army Ending: The episode ends with Gizmo still shrunken and fleeing the drones. Starfire points out the Titans should find him, and he managed to escape at some later point.
- Break the Cutie: A poor girl has to watch Cyborg eat her teddy bear.
- Breather Episode: Especially when you compare it to the next episode.
- Collective Death Glare: Beast Boy accidentally infects Cyborg with computer virus. All three titans glare threateningly at him every time he suggests ways to fix things.
- Computer Virus: One enters Cyborg thanks to Beast Boy messing around with his recharging station, leading to Cyborg going on a rampage.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: Parodied with Beast Boy trying to play Mega Monkeys 4, which he illegally downloaded, and unintentionally uploading a virus to Cyborg.
- Enemy Mine: Gizmo unwillingly works with Beast Boy to stop a rampaging Cyborg.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Beast Boy tries to play his bootleg game on what he believes to be Cyborg’s computer and messes it up, he tries hightail it out only to be caught by Cyborg. When Cyborg goes to check on his computer, Beast Boy stands in front of the machine only for Cyborg to unveil his real computer from the wall…Beast Boy: That’s your computer? Then what’s this?
Cyborg: My system recharger. And speaking of, I could use a little juice. [takes out a cable to plug into himself]
Beast Boy: Wait! I- I think your recharger might have a—
Cyborg: [plugs the cable in] Virus!!! - Expy: The virus drones resemble Keramon.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Gizmo and Amoeba!Beast Boy after getting injected in Cyborg's butt by mistake.
- Fictional Video Game: Mega Monkeys 4, a pirated copy of which starts the whole problem.
- Hollywood Hacking: The virus-ridden game that Beast Boy downloaded manages to infect Cyborg's battery charger.
- Insult Backfire: What ultimately leads to the virus' defeat.
- It's the Only Way to Be Sure: When it turns out Cyborg is in danger of destroying the whole city, Gizmo sets a bomb that will destroy the robotic half of his brain. Beast Boy objects, for obvious reasons, but decides to leave it as a backup plan—which Gizmo would have used prematurely if the virus hadn't stopped him.
- Kidnapped Scientist: Since the one who usually repairs Cyborg is Cyborg, his team grabs Gizmo and Raven press-gangs him into helping with a Nightmare Face. Yes, for once, it's the heroes kidnapping a villain.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Invoked by Amoeba!Beast Boy right after enveloping Shrunken Gizmo to save both of them from Cyborg's human immune system. Subverted a couple of minutes later when Beast Boy has to threaten to envelop Gizmo a second time to get him to keep going.
- Madness-Induced Omnivore: Virus-ridden Cyborg. To his credit, he thinks it's all regular food thanks to the virus.Cyborg(after returning to normal): Ooh, my stomach - feels like I ate a tire. (burps out formless blob)
Raven: That's a distinct possibility. - Meat-O-Vision: Cyborg thinks Robin is a Robin-sized T-bone. Later, he sees Starfire and Raven as pineapple and broccoli. Still later, he sees Robin, Raven and Starfire as giant fried eggs.We need gravy, and PLENTY OF IT!!!
- Mushroom Samba: Cyborg's string of food-based hallucinations thanks to the computer virus.You're the nasty egg people who stole all my WAFFLES!
- Nanomachines: The virus somehow creates "drones" which act as an army of microscopic Mecha-Mooks.
- Nothing Is Scarier: What exactly Raven turned her head into to scare Gizmo so much isn't shown to the audience, but the implication is that it's pretty horrifying.
- Self-Duplication: Amoeba Beast Boy defeats the virus by using cell division to become a swarm of amoeba that overwhelms it.
- Seeker White Blood Cells: Cyborg gets infected with a virus, so Gizmo and Beast Boy go micro and fight the virus. One scene shows white blood cells chasing them.
- Series Continuity Error: Beast Boy is able to speak while in his amoeba form. He's never able to speak while transformed in any of the other episodes.
- Shout-Out: At one point, Cyborg smashes through a wall shouting "Oh yeah!", the catchphrase of the Kool-Aid Man. However, Cyborg is making a grand exit instead of a grand entrance.
- Space Whale Aesop: If you illegally download games, you'll infect your half-robot best friend with a virus and almost destroy an entire city. Made even worse because the virus makes no sense—it seems to be a computer program at first, and then it's a nanobot infection, and then it acts like a computer program again. Gizmo, it should be noted, did manage to obtain a 'clean' copy of the game, suggesting that the moral only applies to the technologically incompetent.
- Smart Ball: Beast Boy grabs it when he realizes that an amoeba can use mitosis to "multiply", creating an army of clones to overwhelm the virus. As he says later, "I may not be smart enough to do everything, but I'm dumb enough to try anything!"
- Something We Forgot: It's not until after the Titans return to the Tower that anyone wonders what happened to Gizmo, who got left behind in the pile of snot Cyborg expunged the virus in.
- Stab the Scorpion: Shortly after entering Cyborg, Gizmo aims his gun at amoeba!Beast Boy. Turns out he's aiming for a virus drone.
- This Billboard Needs Some Salt: Thanks to his virus-induced Meat-O-Vision, Cyborg sees everything as some kind of food.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The entire mess is started by Beast Boy, who mistakes Cyborg's system recharger for his computer and tries to play a bootleg video game on it, infecting Cyborg with a computer virus. For this reason, the other Titans initially refuse to let him do anything to help, feeling he's done enough damage already.
- Villains Out Shopping: The Titans kidnap Gizmo whilst he was getting ready to play a video game. Granted said game was illegally downloaded but digital piracy is a rather tame crime overall for a super-villain.
