"SILENCE!"
The One With… the Silence Snake.
When Gumball and Darwin say their dad ate their homework, they get sent to Mr. Small (the hippie guidance counselor made of clouds) to learn about honesty, but Gumball and Darwin use their newfound Brutal Honesty to upset everyone... and things get worse when they're told to shut up by Mr. Small's sock puppet.
Tropes:
- A Dog Ate My Homework: The whole episode starts because Richard ate Darwin and Gumball's homework, thinking he would make himself smarter, but no one believes the boys until their dad actually admits to it in person.
- Adults Are Useless:
- Mr. Small's 'honesty' lessons weren't well thought-out (which demonstrates just how incompetent he is as a guidance counselor). First he taught Gumball and Darwin that it's best to be honest, but didn't tell them that Brutal Honesty can hurt. So then he taught them that people didn't like hearing bad things, so they lied when they thought that telling Principal Brown that he was on fire was a bad thing. Finally, he scared them into not talking at all.
- Mr. Brown and Miss Simian didn't think to check with Mr. Small over what he told Gumball and Darwin. Furthermore, when the boys tried to tell them that Mr. Small was trapped in his filing cabinet, they assumed that Miss Simian was in a well and jumped out the window to save her.
- Donut Cop immediately jumped to the conclusion that Gumball and Darwin trashed Mr. Small's office when he sees everything upturned.
- Almost Kiss: Principal Brown and Miss Simian almost kiss before being interrupted by Gumball.
- Bowdlerization: The Cartoon Network channels in Asia and Arabia (North Africa/Middle East) edit out the part where Principal Brown and Miss Simian talk of quitting their jobs and living on a desert island and are about to kiss until Gumball interrupts them, though while CN Arabia edited the entire part out (which makes Gumball's line when he interrupts them nonsensical), CN Asia just cuts the part where they move in to kiss before Gumball interrupts. The Australian version also edits the same scene that CN Asia and Arabia does, in the same way that CN Asia does (read: leave in Principal Brown and Miss Simian's romantic interlude, but cut the Almost Kiss).
- The CN Asia, Australia, and New Zealand version also cuts out the three scenes of Miss Simian, Principal Brown, and Rocky the janitor hurling themselves out the window, though Cartoon Network Australia actually left in Miss Simian, Principal Brown, and Rocky the janitor hurling themselves out the window and just cut the aftermath where they are on the ground, whereas Asia and New Zealand's version just has the three of them run off-screen and never be seen again until the end of the episode.
- Brutal Honesty: When Mr. Small convinces Gumball and Darwin "honesty is the best policy," they immediately start insulting or otherwise upsetting everyone they run into with brutally honest truths, including Tina Rex, their teacher, and their principal.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Mr. Small.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Though Darwin and Gumball's aforementioned comment did make Miss Simian and Principal Brown angry, they do raised a good point about Brown's relationship with Miss Simian compromising his professionalism as a principal.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Mr. Small gets stuck in the filing cabinet and tries to instruct Darwin and Gumball how to get out.Now, there should be a little gold key, on my desk...Oh, don't worry, I've got it here...Oh gosh, please no!
- Gone Horribly Right: Most of the lessons Gumball and Darwin take to heart due to Mr. Small's poor advice keep making the situation worse.
- Gumball and Darwin are told not to lie. They proceed to talk truthfully to people, but with no filter, which annoys everyone involved.
- They're told that sometimes you shouldn't be completely honest, so Principal Brown ends up turning on the school's sprinklers because they didn't want to tell him that his hair being on fire is a bad thing.
- Mr. Small proceeds to teach them to be quiet by intimidating them with a sock puppet. The two become afraid of speaking at all when they need to help Mr. Small out of his cabinet he's stuck in, and even when everything is cleared up, they still can't talk because Donut Cop shows the puppet, which makes them hesitate on telling him where Mr. Small is.
- Hope Spot:
- Darwin and Gumball manage to knock the cabinet shelf open, briefly freeing Mr. Small before Gumball accidentally hits it an extra time and jams the cabinet closed again. They both Face Palm afterward.
- In the last scene of the episode, Rocky is standing by the office as Mr. Small is yelling for help. Rocky lifts his headphones to listen right as Mr. Small is taking a breath and puts them back on before Small starts screaming again.
- I Know You Know I Know: Gumball doesn't have much success at trying to figure out when to tell the truth or lie:Gumball: Hmm... Okay, I think I got it. You should always tell the truth unless you have to lie, but if you do lie you should tell the truth about it unless you're talking to someone who's lying because if they tell a lie and you tell the truth it'll be a lie because you were lying about telling the truth inside of a lie so the whole thing's a lie while still being true!
(Darwin's body/head explodes) - Ingesting Knowledge: Richard reveals that he ate their son's homework to be smart, which instigates the episode's events.
- Injured Self-Drag: Principal Brown misunderstands Gumball and Darwin's silent request for help as them saying Miss Simian is trapped in a well, so he jumps out a window to save her. Badly injured, he drags himself forward by the elbows, saying, "Elbows, don't fail me now." When they approach Miss Simian, she somehow also thinks she's trapped in a well and jumps out a window in the same way, dragging herself by her chin and saying, "Come on chin, don't fail me now."
- Insane Troll Logic: Donut Cop looks at Gumball and Darwin, then the filing cabinet, then a phone, and assumes they're responsible for destroying them.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After going through a whole episode of giving Gumball and Darwin confusing lessons in honesty, seconds after resorting to traumatizing them into silence and considering that a job well done, Mr. Small gets stuck inside a filing cabinet past the end of the episode.
- Love Confession: When trying to be honest, Gumball very nonchalantly tells Penny that he loves her, but Darwin chimes in that he'll never make the first move.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Mr. Small calmly mentioned that being stuck in the cabinet means that "my knees are digging into my back."
- Man on Fire: Principal Brown inexplicably walks by Darwin and Gumball with his head on fire and asks if it is. They think, because his head being on fire is a bad thing, they should lie about it, causing him to let it burn until the sprinklers drench the whole school.
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Richard when he had been found out that he ate Gumball and Darwin's homework.
- Piss-Take Rap: Mr. Small attempts to convey the idea of lying to spare people's feeling by dressing as the "honesty bear" and communicating in a language they can understand: "hippity-rap".
- Scare 'Em Straight: Mr. Small uses fear several times to teach about honesty, first saying lying makes your inside and soul turn grotesque and telling Darwin and Gumball that their mother said she hates them as an example of a lie that hurts. Later on, his last resort is to just scare them into total silence.
- Sickening "Crunch!": A crunch can be heard after Mr. Small does something to try and get out of the cabinet himself, eliciting a shudder from Darwin and Gumball and making him realize he's not getting out on his own.
- Speech Impediment: Gumball tells Darwin that his gills whistle when he makes an "s" sound, which happens for the next sentence Darwin says, then disappears immediately.
- Squashed Flat: When Gumball and Darwin share their honesty towards Tina.Gumball: You smell, and it's not very ladylike.
Darwin: It's like a sweaty watch strap.
Gumball: Nah, it's more like raw chicken and rancid milk in a plastic bag.
Darwin: Yeah — that's been left in the sun for a week.
Gumball: Okay, now that we have your smelliness covered, let's move on to your personality.
(Offended at this, Tina snarls in fury at the two. Smash Cut to a flattened Gumball and Darwin laying on Tina's footprint, indicating that Tina has stomped on them)
Darwin: Ow.
Gumball: Yep.
Darwin: Ah.
Gumball: The truth hurts. - Stylistic Suck: Mr. Small's honesty rap is accompanied by inexplicable visuals that looks like they came from a very low-budget music video. Mr. Small is even surrounded by fake chroma key errors, as if it was a video he made himself in front of a green screen.
- Timmy in a Well: When Mr. Small is stuck in his file cabinet, Gumball and Darwin have to get help even though he told them not to speak anymore. They try to non-verbally get help from Principal Brown, who thinks they're saying Ms. Simian is trapped in a well, and jumps out a window to try and rescue her. When they try again with Ms. Simian she ALSO thinks they mean she's trapped in a well and likewise jumps out a window to save herself. When they try to tell Rocky he understands exactly what they mean, gives them some crowbars to help, and then jumps out the window anyway.
- Tongue-Tied: After Mr. Small's other half-assed attempts at getting Darwin and Gumball to be honest in the "right" way, he just decides to have the Silence Snake, a sock puppet, yell at them to be quiet until they stop talking at all. He then immediately needs their help which they are unable to provide because of their forced silence. The two start talking again after the lie they were brought in for in the first place turns out to have been the truth, but they still don't tell anyone about Mr. Small because they see the Silence Snake again.
- Trivial Title: The title refers to Mr. Small's sock puppet, the Silence Snake, something that only appears twice in the last few minutes of the episode.
