Nursery Crimes
Airdate: July 9, 2004
Billy wants a bedtime story to help him go back to sleep and Grim is there to get him and Mandy involved in it… literally!
The episode beings with Billy calling Mandy in the middle of the night to tell her he’s eaten 19 Atomic Frenzy Cakes and now he can’t sleep at all so she and Grim have to read him a story to go back to sleep. Once Mandy and Grim arrive they start telling Billy his stories, starting with Mandy’s “Humpy Dumpty”.
Humpty Dumpty (played by Billy) sat on a wall and had a great fall. And he fell and fell and fell until he didn’t. Humpty Dumpty explodes into a shower of egg innards and coats everyone in the kingdom with it. To celebrate “all the King’s horses, and all the King’s men and the starving villagers” are forced to eat eggs for every meal again and again. The end.
Billy is unhappy with her story its lack of a happy ending and makes his own. The story starts with a village in the middle of nowhere called “Happy Nowhere Village” where everyone was always happy, save for a wizard named Chuck who lived in a tree with his yapping pet Pomeranian named Benjamin. Chuck was never invited to the village as he was evil, mean, smelly, had terrible oral hygiene, and “was a 910-pound giant”. When he came to take his revenge he was so moved by the happiness of the village he too became happy and turned their lake into solid gold. With all the money they bought new houses and stuff for them, got better oral care, and had Benjamin’s vocal cords removed. And everyone was happy ever after.
Before Billy can leave Grim wants to tell a story from his own supernatural storybook. He starts with Hansel and Gretel and pulls the duo into the book. They’re forced to do the story to leave… and of course, Billy wanders off to hang with Pinocchio instead. He loves hanging out with him until it turns out that Pinocchio wants to be a real boy like Billy and the only way he can is to eat the flesh of a real boy. Meanwhile, Mandy spends the rest of the episode searching for Billy by meeting various fairytale characters (the Big Bad Wolf, the Evil Witch and Snow White etc.) Billy is nearly boiled alive until Mandy arrives to save him yet again. Pinocchio is turned into a tiny rocking chair and sent to the Witch’s house and crushed underneath her. When it’s time to go home it turns out Billy has finally fallen asleep and so has Grim. The episodes ends with Mandy still trapped in the book and as it fades to black Mandy gives one last ominous warning: “Someday you will all pay…”
"Nursery Crimes" features examples of:
- Become a Real Boy: Pinocchio wants to be one... and he'll eat Billy in an attempt to become one.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mandy saves Billy from being eaten, but they're now trapped in the storybook until Grim wakes up in the morning.
- Butt-Monkey: Irwin appears as a Little Bo Peep character but gets quickly eaten alive by a wolf.
- Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Mandy spends the first half being angry and surly enough to burn Billy's book and tells a dark fairytale to scare Billy and Grim after being woken up at night. But then she spends second half of the episode searching for Billy, knowing he's going to get into trouble and saves him. Its very sweet, considering Mandy had an option (being in a fantasy fairytale land full of possibilities) to not bother with Billy and do something else, but she naturally goes after him.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Mandy dishes one out to her story's Humpty Dumpty/Billy
- Derailed Fairy Tale: The gist of the episode, chief among them being that Pinocchio has to eat a real boy in order to become one.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Mandy takes getting left in the storybook overnight very poorly, swearing vengeance on everyone for it despite only getting trapped in it presumably just for the remainder of the night.
- Fairy Tale: A lot of them though few actually matter to the plot. The ones featured are Humpty Dumpty, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Adventures of Pinocchio.
- Friendship Moment: It's implied Mandy's been reading bedtime stories to Billy before. Awww...
- Happy Ending: Both Billy's and, to an extent, Mandy's as at least the starving villagers have a steady food supply, even if it's only eggs.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Pinocchio believes that eating the flesh of a real boy will make him one but we're never shown if this is true.
- I Fell for Hours: Both Humpty Dumpty and Chuck fall for a pretty long time, though Humpty Dumpty's fall was much worse.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chuck the evil wizard. He pokes his own dog off the tree to show how bad he is, but it turns out he isn't so bad.
- Kick the Dog: Chuck pokes his obnoxious Pomeranian off the tree to show how mean he is.
- Laughing Mad: Pinocchio and Billy have an absolutely bizarre laugh fest after Pinocchio's nose grew after his lie.
- Mister Muffykins: Benjamin the Pomeranian who's "happy ending" involves his vocal cords being removed.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Humpty Dumpty explodes in a shower of eggs after landing. There was no way anyone was going to fix him after that.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Both Pinocchio and the Witch seem like pretty nice people outside of their desire to eat children. The Witch in particular comes across as a very sweet lady.
- Sugar Bowl: Happy Nowhere Village, which was so happy even somebody like Chuck could be made happy.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Technically they're just friends rather than boyfriend-and-girlfriend, but Mandy still fits the gist of this trope, since she does go out of her way to save Billy after her wanders off with Pinocchio. And when Mandy finally finds Billy about to be eaten alive by Pinnochio, in order to save him, she drags Pinnochio into the next room to chop and mold him into a wooden chair.
- Zerg Rush: Snow White's stepmom gets distracted by Mandy and absentmindedly takes a bite of the poison apple herself, realizing too late what she just did before she passes out. At which point the dwarfs show up and beat the crap out of her while she's unconscious.
My Peeps
Airdate: July 9, 2004
Billy has ruined his eyes and needs corrective surgery but fixing them is a real challenge, even if you’re the Grim Reaper.
The episode starts with Billy playing a video game in the dark for hours before being dragged to school by Mandy before staring at the sun for over a thousand seconds. It only causes him more trouble all the way to lunch, when Mandy decides he needs an intervention… and corrective surgery. Billy refuses to get contacts after the optometrist’s terrible demonstration and seeing the massive laser for eye surgery makes him head for the hills.
When Grim and Mandy finally corner him at his home Grim fixes his eyes perfectly. But the drawback is Billy now sees the terrible future where everyone is hurt in terrible accidents such as Irwin becoming mangled on his bike or Puddin’ being crushed by an elephant and only gets worse when he sees Mandy’s head on a table. In an attempt to fix things he tries to pull out his eyes with a plunger only for Grim, on Mandy’s orders, to zap him again to get rid of the mistake. With every zap Billy sees the world in different ways such as a hard Jhonen Vasquez-esque style, a retro-Anime style, and a saccharine world that last of which drives him nuts and attacks Grim and Mandy after he thinks Grim is messing with him. Billy rampages around the house and only stops when Grim gets back his scythe one last time and shoots Billy one last time. The episode ends with Billy having a pair of creepy looking eyes.
"My Peeps" features examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Following the first zap, Billy ends up seeing Mandy and Grim in a Jhonen Vasquez like-artstyle. Now what is Richard Horvitz’s most iconic role?
- Animesque: One of the ways Billy sees the world, complete with Japanese.
- Art Shift: Billy sees the world in different ways when his eyes are "fixed".
- Beware the Silly Ones: Billy's genuine panic and rage proves to be potent enough that even Mandy is cowed by it. She can't definitively outmuscle him in a fight and even runs in fear alongside Grim once Billy comes after them with the scythe.
- Chase Scene: A Shout-Out to Scooby-Doo.
- Eye Scream: Billy ruins his eyes in several ways including looking at the sun and what happens to them after isn't any better.
- The optometrist’s attempt to get a contact on winds up just ruining his only good eye. Although it's back to normal a moment later.
- Hypocritical Humor: Billy claims that glasses are for nerds, but when Erwin invites him to play "Dungeons and Dinobonoids" he runs off excitedly to get his dice.
- Nerd Glasses: Billy refuses to get glasses for this reason, claiming only nerds wear them.
- Not So Stoic: When Billy's blindness makes him walk out into a busy street, Mandy freaks out in shock at such a boneheaded action.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Billy goes on one with the scythe, chasing after Grim after seeing him laugh at him.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the worlds Billy sees is similar to Jhonen Vasquez's style with the hard and angular style. Might’ve been intentional considering who voices Billy.
- Billy seeing terrible future could be a shout out to The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Most Unusual Camera" or to the Final Destination series.
- The scene where Billy chases Grim and Mandy is one to Scooby Doo's own chase scenes.
- Smelly Skunk: One that Billy mistakes for a kitty.
