While giving an interview on Rob's professional life, Rob and Laura recall one particularly unpleasant incident that happened at the end of Rob's time as a disc jockey. As part of a publicity stunt, Rob attempted to break the record for wakefulness and stay conscious for 100 hours...right before his interview with Alan Brady.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Brick Joke: With only a few hours to the record, Rob reads a bulletin about a kitten stuck in a tree and gets obsessed with it. When Alan Brady asks if the cat has Rob's tongue, it reminds him about it and causes it to break down. Then, finally, as the interviewer is wrapping up, he finds a photo of Rob holding a cat. Laura tells him that they had to tell Rob that was the one that had been stuck to get him to go see Alan.
- Cat Up a Tree: Late in the wake-a-thon, Rob reads a news bulletin about firemen attempting (so far unsuccessfully) to retrieve a nine-week-old kitten from an elm tree. Rob, already very badly affected by being awake for so long, chokes up and starts crying. He even wants to go save the kitten before his interview with Alan.
- Everybody Cries: When Rob's interview goes wrong, everyone except Alan Brady starts crying — Rob because Alan accidentally reminded him of the trapped kitten from the news bulletin, Laura because she's having to watch her husband humiliate himself out of his dream job, and Mel because he can't stand to see another man cry.
- Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: The very sleep-deprived Rob breaks a record trying to put it on the turntable, sets his mug down on the turntable, misreads the number on the board, and suffers fits of giggling.
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Downplayed; Mel has more hair in the flashback than in modern day.
- Motivational Lie: Soft-hearted (and very sleep-deprived) Rob gets obsessed with the story of a frightened kitten trapped in a tree. Laura admits she ultimately had to give him a completely different cat to hold and claim it was the same one in order to make him leave for the interview with Alan.
- Obviously Not Fine:
- After the 24-hour-mark has passed, Rob tries to say a version of the "Peter Piper" tongue twister, only to get it thoroughly mixed up without initially realizing it.
- Late in the wake-a-thon, Rob rallies himself and manages to look reasonably alert and intelligent for a few minutes...and then he goes back to fixating on a news article about a kitten in a tree.
- Publicity Stunt: Rob's boss on the radio station, believing that they needed a stunt to put the station on the map, hit on the idea of Rob breaking the record set by a Texas DJ who had stayed awake for almost 100 hours. Laura wasn't keen on the idea, especially given that said DJ was in the hospital afterwards.
- Sleep Deprivation: Rob is shown working as a radio DJ doing a promotional stunt trying to break the record for the most hours broadcasting continuously without sleep... immediately after which, it turns out, he has his important job interview to be a writer on The Alan Brady Show. Needless to say, he is so sleep deprived that he bombs the interview completely, being a weepy, rambling, incoherent sloppy mess. Fortunately, the producers recognize the situation and give him a second opportunity.
- Time Title: The title indicates the number of hours Rob suffered through during the wake-a-thon.
- Verbal Backspace: When he finds a photo of Rob holding a cat, the interviewer asks disbelievingly if that's the same one that got Rob wound up during the wake-a-thon. Laura answers that it wasn't, but she told Rob it was, and promptly claims that it was again when Rob gets disappointed about the knowledge.
