The Moon: When darkness falls across the town, the people start to settle down. And into bed, they gently drift, unless they're on the nighttime shift. When everyone has hit the sack, and Richard's eaten his nighttime snack. When everything is tired and bleary, they spoon together snug but weary. Off they drift to a distant place. Not bound by rules of time and space. A place of wonder, of sounds and sights, a place of joy, of fear or frights. So join me now and we'll explore, the dreams of those down in Elmore.
The male version of the Moon (voiced by special guest star Sir Derek Jacobi) — and by proxy, the viewers — take a look at the dreams of Elmore's residents.
Tropes
- Anxiety Dreams: One of Larry's nested dreams has him manning the counter in an apocalyptic landscape with a decrepit version of himself shouting he's wasted his life.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: During Teri's "Not Wearing Pants" Dream, she runs into the teachers lounge, interrupting a talk about appropriate school attire.
- Bait-and-Switch: One of the dreams shows Anais having somehow turned into a doll and being tortured by a giant anthropomorphic Daisy the Donkey. We're led to believe that this is Anais' dream, but it's actually Daisy's.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Alan sleeps contentedly while we're treated to a blipvert of fire, brimstone, cryptic imagery, and skulls.
- Big "NO!": Carrie and Juke both get one in their respective dreams.
- Call-Back: Mr. Small's nightmare of being giant and stuck in a small room is a reference to the claustrophobia he had since season one's "The Sock", when he was locked in a file cabinet with no one to get him out.
- Continuity Nod:
- In Hector's dream of being normal-sized, he approaches Sarah, who is reading the How to Draw Superheroes book she used to create her LaserHeart comic on "The Comic".
- In Alan's nightmare, the image of gloved hands twisting a balloon into a balloon animal is the same one from the video in "The Saint" of the creepy clown turning Alan's parents into balloon animals.
- Catapult Nightmare: After a series of injuries in a falling dream, Gumball jumps upright in his bunk bed, bumping his head and falling right back asleep.
- Crashing Dreams: Nicole's dream of relaxing on the beach is spoiled by Richard. His snoring becomes loud rumbling, breathing in her face a massive wind, tilting the bed tilts the world and rolling on top of her becomes a drowning tsunami.
- Creepy Doll: Daisy the Donkey proudly claims ownership of the disturbing dream where she tortures a doll version of Anais.
- A Day in the Limelight: For the moon.
- Dream Episode: The plot is all about the moon observing the dreams and nightmares of everyone in Elmore while they're fast asleep.
- Dream Weaver: Mr. And Mrs. Robinson have separate dream bubbles of being on the front lawn through which they play out their usual antics on each other. It culminates in a Dragon Ball-esque Beam-O-War that makes a real explosion that blows them out of bed.
- Dream Within a Dream: Larry gets a series of recursive dreams. When Donut Cop comes into his store, he still thinks it's another dream and messes with him. Larry then wakes up in jail, but he still thinks it's another dream and tries to wake himself up.
- Eye Scream: During a montage of Elmore citizens being put to sleep by glittery sand, William, being a winged eyeball, just gets sand in... himself.
- Fantasy Twist:
- Darwin dreams he's in a slightly larger bowl.
- Mr. Small goes on about how he can do anything in a dream, but just ends up dreaming about being stuck inside a small room.
- Fully-Clothed Nudity: Teri says she's "naked" in her dream. That's already weird enough coming from a piece of paper that wears no real clothes, but the pixellation is missing in a few frames, showing she actually has a tank top and undershorts drawn on (the latter is partially visible even with the pixellation). Teri's Limited Wardrobe is a collar, sleeve-ends, and two buttons, so that makes her looks like she's more clothed than she usually is!
- Furry Reminder: We're shown how some Elmore residents go to sleep.
- Teri erases her eyes to draw on a night mask. During her naked dream, she wads herself up and throws herself in the trash to avoid being seen.
- Sarah puts her scoop head in the freezer for the night.
- Bobert plugs in to charge while going into sleep mode.
- Ocho pauses like a video game for the night.
- After falling asleep, William twitches and flies around
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- Half the Man He Used to Be: In Banana Joe's dream, he ends up chasing his rear like a dog, before accidentally snapping himself in half. Then, his torso and rear grow extra versions of themselves on the opposite ends and continue to chase each other before Banana Joe finally catches his rear. But when he wakes up, he quickly realizes the being torn in half part wasn't a dream.
- I Just Want to Be Normal:
- Hector dreams of being normal-sized and pursuing all the opportunities that grants. He sleepwalks during his dream and destroys part of the town.
- Juke dreams about being able to talk normally, but his dream has the ironic twist of everyone else talking through music.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Sussie dreams about waking up as the actress playing her (Aurelie Charbonnier) at the end of the take and freaks out over looking like a monster.
- Larry speaks to the narrator about the pixie dust coming down so he can get out of jail.
- Marshmallow Dream:
- Banana Joe dreams that he's chasing his tail like a dog, eventually snapping himself in two. He wakes up chewing on his detached lower half.
- Teri dreams that she has no clothes on and frantically tries to draw some on, but it doesn't work. Cut to a sleeping Teri scrawling on herself.
- Mood Whiplash: Daisy's dream is a pretty jarring shift in tone, even relative to Alan's, since it's humor derived from explicit morbidity concluding with Doll Anais' requested Mercy Kill being sadistically denied.
- Mundane Luxury:
- Darwin just dreams about a roomier bowl to sleep in.
- Hector dreams of being normal sized and doing all the ordinary things he normally can't do - such as ride the bus, wear clothes, go to the bathroom - all of which he enjoys with great glee.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream:
- Teri dreams about being naked at school. She doesn't wear actual clothes, so "naked" for her means not having drawings on her body that suggest clothing. Even once she gets a pencil, it is incapable of drawing clothes on her.
- When Larry is trying to wake up from his nested dreams, one of them shows him with no clothes on.
- Overworked Sleep: Larry claims that he's never allowed to sleep, but still falls asleep at his counter at the gas station.
- Shoe Slap: The Moon is hit in the face with Mr. Fitzgerald's sandal amongst public complaints of his closing narration disturbing people's sleep.
- Sleepwalking: Hector dreams of being small enough to dance without destroying everything. Cut to the waking world, where his dancing is destroying everything.
- Special Guest: Sir Derek Jacobi (who was the narrator on "The Lie") is the voice of the moon narrator in this episode.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Larry's first dream is of Richard singing the same song from Richard's dream.
- Sugar Bowl: Carrie dreams of being in a overly-cheery candyland, which to her is a nightmare.
- Swapped Roles: Anais' Daisy the Donkey plush dreams about being the girl and Anais being the doll. Daisy mockingly pretends to play with Anais while actually torturing her (shoving her head underwater because she's "dirty", fighting over Anais with another girl/doll until her limbs are ripped off, hugging her until her button eyes pop off), apparently in retribution for Anais inadvertently damaging Daisy.
- Tempting Fate: Gumball dreams he's falling to the Earth from space, but isn't worried because he's sure he'll wake up before he hits the ground. He then hits many other things on the way down (include a satellite, the Chanax building, and his house's roof), only waking up inches from the ground.
- Tomato Surprise: The audience is shown what appears to be Anais's nightmare where she'd switched places with her doll Daisy, who treats her pretty terrible. Transition back to Anais in bed, who seems strangely peaceful and content. Then Daisy comes to life, informing the viewer in a deranged tone that what they saw was her revenge fantasy.
- Tragic Dream: Hector dreams of doing things he's too big to normally do, which isn't just impossible, even dreaming about it causes disasters.
