The eighteenth episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, but the first in production order.
Babs, as Tinkerbunny, welcomes the viewers to Acme Acres, when suddenly, she is run over by a stampede of scared animals. The animals are all running from Elmyra Duff, who is looking for an animal to make her pet. Buster sees the swarm of animals pass by his burow, which now includes Babs, who warns him that Elmyra is coming. When Elmyra comes to Buster's burrow, she notices Buster and wants to make him her pet. Buster manages to escape from Elmyra, and even scare her with a lion. Elmyra is now upset that Buster won't be her pet, saying she wanted to give him a nice home with all the food he can eat. Upon hearing this, Buster changes his mind and agrees to be Elmyra's pet for the day.
At Elmyra's house, Buster is dressed in baby clothes and sitting in a high chair as he waits for Elmyra to bring him his lunch. Elmyra serves him what looks like a chocolate pie, but when she shoves it in his mouth, he finds out it's a mud pie with real mud. Elmyra tries to get him to eat the rest, but he splats it on her face in retaliation, and she decides to give him a bath. She takes him to the bathroom, but he puts her in the tub and sends her down the drain. Buster is relieved to have gotten rid of Elmyra, but as he tries to leave her house, she shows up as if nothing happened. As Buster runs away from Elmyra, he tells the viewers never to go home with a stranger. With every door and window Buster runs to, Elmyra is there. Unable to escape from her, Buster reluctantly decides to play doctor with her. When she tries to test his reflexes, he decides to be the doctor and have her be the patient. He then wraps her up in bandages and unwinds them, sending her away.
Buster tries to get out of Elmyra's house, when he suddenly smells the familiar aroma of carrots. He follows the aroma into what looks like a box of carrots, only for Elmyra to reveal a cage underneath. Elmyra tells Buster that since she loves him so much, she made a cage for him. Buster tells Elmyra that he has to go home now, but Elmyra refuses to let him go. Buster tries to convince Elmyra that he belongs in the wild, and can't survive in a cage. He then plays dead (with Plucky trying to ask him for his videotape collection and Hamton presenting him with an award for Best Death Scene in Daytime Televsion), and Elmyra feels guilty about killing him. After she leaves, Buster digs through his cage, but he doesn't get too far before he falls into another hole, dug up by Elmyra. Elmyra tells Buster that since she's now aware he was playing dead, she decided to play funeral. Buster tries to run away from Elmyra, who enjoys having him as her new pet. As she chases after Buster, he tells the viewers to stay tuned for part two.
In the second act, night has fallen. Babs, as Tinkerbunny, tries to introduce the viewers to Acme Acres again, but she begins to worry about Buster. As it turns out, Buster is still at Elmyra's house, in a cage in her backyard. He decides he doesn't want to be Elmyra's pet anymore, and he digs through his cage again. He says goodnight to Elmyra, when he hears various animals groaning. Buster decides to investigate the noise, and sneaks into her bedroom, where he finds Furrball trapped in a cage, as well as Fifi La Fume, who is writing in her diary. He also finds a goldfish marking the days on its calendar, a frog playing the harmonica, and a sad Tyrone the Turtle. When Buster comes across Fifi, he asks her if he saw her picture on a milk carton before. Fifi tells him he's right, as Elmyra has locked her and her friends in cages. Buster asks the animals how long they've been at Elmyra's house, and Fifi tells him, "Weeks!", the Frog tells him, "Months!", and Furrball tells him, "Years!" Fifi then tells Buster that Tyrone has been at Elmyra's house his entire life, so he doesn't know what it's like to live in the outside world. Buster asks Tyrone if he really doesn't know what it's like to be free. Tyrone asks him what being free is like, and Buster tells him, "It's sort of like this, except the trees aren't made of plastic.'' Tyrone likes the idea of being free, so Buster decides to help the animals escape. The animals all cheer, but Buster tells them to be quiet so they won't wake up Elmyra. He then asks them where the keys to their cages are, and the Frog tells him, "Up there!" as he points to the keys hanging on a shelf above Elmyra's bed. Buster tries to get the keys, but accidentally falls onto Elmyra's waterbed, slightly waking her up. Elmyra is thirsty, and Buster poses as a water bottle when she grabs him instead of the glass of water on her nightstand. After she goes back to sleep, Buster tries to grab the keys again, but accidentally knocks over Elmyra's nightstand and lands in her waterbed, waking Elmyra up again. Buster tries to put the nightstand back up, but since he accidentally broke Elmyra's lamp, he poses as it when she tries to investigate what woke her up. Elmyra goes back to sleep when she thinks she was just having a bad dream, and Buster tries to grab the keys a third time. He succeeds, but accidentally lands near Elmyra's slippers, waking Elmyra up. He poses as one of Elmyra's slippers as she asks her animals if they made a noise. They assure her they didn't, and Elmyra, thinking she imagined things, goes back to sleep. Buster unlocks the cages, freeing all of Elmyra's captive animals.
The Frog, Furrball, and Fifi are relieved to have made it out of Elmyra's house. Buster follows them into Elmyra's backyard, carrying Tyrone, who asks him if he's free yet. Buster tells him he's as free as a bird, except without the wings. Buster then tells him and the other animals to follow him, but not to make any noise. The animals follow Buster, but Furrball gets distracted and digs in a trash can. He knocks it and several others over, which wakes up Elmyra, who finds out that all of her animals have gone missing. Buster opens the back gate, and Furrball, Fifi, and the Frog escape, but because Tyrone is a turtle, he doesn't move very fast. Fifi points out to Buster that Tyrone is still in Elmyra's backyard. Elmyra catches Tyrone, but Buster decides to go back for him. Tyrone manages to escape when Buster accidentally causes him to fall into Elmyra's tricycle, which gets launched into the air and flies past the moon. Tyrone falls near Fifi and Furrball, the latter of whom catches him. Elmyra then grabs Buster and takes him back into her house. Furrball, Fifi, and Tyrone all witness this, and Tyrone decides that since Buster helped them escape from Elmyra's house, now it's their turn to help him.
In the third act, Babs, as Tinkerbunny, is in no mood to introduce the viewers to Acme Acres. She feels like her whole world has fallen to pieces ever since Buster went missing. Hamton shows up as a rent-a-shrink to tell her that she has to find Buster. Babs asks him where he is, and Tyrone tells her that he's still at Elmyra's house, and he, Fifi, and Furrball are going to set him free.
Babs disguises herself as a nerd, and tells Fifi, Furrball, and Tyrone to hide in the bushes while she distracts Elmyra. When Elmyra answers the door, Babs asks her if she's seen Buster, but Elmyra refuses to tell her where he is, and slams the door on her. Babs decides to resort to drastic measures, and disguises herself as a marathon runner. She then tricks Elmyra into running a marathon around the world. With Elmyra distracted, Babs, Fifi, Furrball, and Tyrone find Buster in a cage in the kitchen, which they pull him out of. Tyrone tells Buster that he's free now, and Buster tells him he is. He then tells him, Babs, Fifi, and Furrball that they're going to teach Elmyra a lesson in pet care.
As Elmyra continues running her marathon around the world, she suddenly screeches to a halt and realizes she has been tricked by Babs. Buster then runs past her, disguised as a citizen, and tells her that space bunnies from Mars are invading. Elmyra is excited to meet cuddly life-forms from another planet, and Buster and Babs, disguised as the space bunnies, take her to the Planet of the Bunnies in a cement mixer disguised as a rocket.
When the cement mixer arrives at the Planet of the Bunnies, Elmyra finds giant carrots and rabbits that resemble Bugs and Buster. Buster and Babs, disguised as the Space Bunnies, take Elmyra to a hamster wheel and tell her that they like their pets to get plenty of exercise. Elmyra tells them that she's not a pet; she's a human being, and rabbits are pets. Babs tells her that on The Planet of the Bunnies, humans are the pets. She then turns on the hamster wheel, which launches Elmyra into a cage. Elmyra tries to escape, but to no avail. Buster disguised as a space bunny kid, asks Babs, who is disguised as his mother if he can take Elmyra home for a pet. Babs reminds him that he microwaved the last one, and upon hearing this, Elmyra runs out of the cage in horror. She wants to go home, so she comes across what looks like a rocket headed towards Earth. She climbs into it, and Buster reveals it to be a cannon that launches her back into her house, causing her to land on her waterbed, destroying it, and the water carries her into her backyard.
Elmyra thinks she just awakened from a bad dream, but four Buster Bunnies appear and tell her, "Eh, we wouldn't say that!". Not wanting to see another rabbit for a long time, Elmyra runs away. The four Buster Bunnies say goodbye to her, and three of them remove their disguises, revealing them to be Fifi, Furrball, and Tyrone. Babs then says goodbye to the viewers from everyone at Acme Acres, The Magic Land of the Free, and the Home of the Bunnies.
This episode provides examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Elmyra gets a dose of what it's like to be a mistreated pet, and it seems to scare her straight. Later episodes show that this didn't take.
- Animation Bump: The "Planet of the Bunnies" sequence, directed by Eddie Fitzgerald and animated by Glen Kennedy, has some of the best animation in this episode, showing a strong Bob Clampett influence. Glen also animated a good chunk of this episode (including the entire third act), but the "Planet of the Bunnies" sequence stands out the most as being visually impressive.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Tyrone brings out a Big Brother Instinct from the other captive animals. Buster goes back to save him from Elmyra.
- The Cake Is a Lie: Buster agrees to play with Elmyra for a day in exchange for food. He learns that she's a Lethal Chef, who thinks mud pie literally is mud.
- Captivity Harmonica: The Frog has one.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Buster acknowledges a few times that he shouldn't have bought into Elmyra's spiel, since Babs did warn him.
- Credits Gag: Moral of Story - We Need More Animators.note
- Declarative Finger: Characters do this rather frequently in the episode, being one of Kennedy Cartoons's signature traits.
- The Dog Bites Back: Buster getting kidnapped starts the rest of the third act. After he's rescued, he decides they need to teach Elmyra a lesson. So they show her what it's like to be a mistreated pet.
- Don't Wake the Sleeper: Buster tries to get the keys to the animals' cages without waking Elmyra up, but wakes her up three times.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Being the first episode in production order, this episode has some of it, such as the crude Kennedy Cartoons animation, and the writing being an uneven mix of an "80s 'save the day' plot" with the usual Warner humor. Additionally, this episode is one of the few early episodes to have Furrball speaking intelligibly. Elmyra's also more directly villainous than she'd be in the rest of the show; later in the series she'd generally be portrayed as well-meaning but incapable of realizing how much she's harming her pets, but in this episode she seems more malicious than oblivious.
- Everybody Do the Endless Loop: When Buster and what appear to be three clones of him scare Elmyra after she thinks her "Planet of the Bunnies" experience was all a dream, they break out into a typical Kennedy Cartoons kick-dance (somewhat similar to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo). note
- Evil Laugh: Elmyra does it twice.
- Fauxtastic Voyage: Babs and Buster as the Space Bunnies put Elmyra in a cement mixer disguised as a rocket, then hastily disguise the surroundings as the "Planet of the Bunnies".
- Foreboding Fleeing Flock: At the beginning, Babs is introducing the show when she gets run over by a swarm of animals, who are running from Elmyra. A minute or so later, the animals run past Buster's burrow. Babs is now part of the swarm and warns Buster that Elmyra is coming.
- Full Moon Silhouette: When Buster helps Elmyra's captive pets escape from Elmyra's house, Tyrone falls into the basket of Elmyra's tricycle, which gets launched into the air, and flies past the moon, a reference to the 1982 Spielberg film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The story switches from Buster and the animals escaping Elmyra's house to deciding to teach her a lesson about mistreating her pets.
- If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: When Buster plays dead to trick and escape from Elmyra, Plucky stops by in the middle of his performance to ask if he can have his videotape collection. Buster asks if they could talk about it later, and Plucky angrily walks off.
- Lampshade Wearing: Non-alcohol (and non-party) example; Buster does this to pose as Elmyra's lamp when he accidentally breaks it. Cue Elmyra turning Buster on and his skull being exposed.
- Latex Perfection: Near the end of the episode, four Buster Bunnies scare Elmyra and send her running for the hills. Once she's gone, three of them tug off their masks to reveal Furrball, Fifi La Fume and Tyrone Turtle in disguise.
- Nightmare Face: Elmyra makes one when introducing herself.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Buster is about to quietly leave Elmyra while she's sleeping. Then he hears animals moaning, and sees them locked in cages. At a great personal risk, he moves to help bust them out.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Justified since Elmyra is the ditz; she doesn't realize that the space bunnies resemble Buster and Babs wearing red uniforms. Though she does have a Delayed Reaction to realizing the "fitness instructor" was actually Babs.
- Pet Dress-Up: When Elmyra makes Buster her pet, she dresses him in baby clothes.
- Rule of Three: While attempting to get the keys back from Elmyra, Buster wakes her up a total of three times, and poses as three different items; a water bottle, a lamp, and a slipper.
- Shout-Out:
- Babs as Tinkerbunny references Tinkerbell and her appearance in the opening of Walt Disney Presents.
- The Planet of the Bunnies spoofs Planet of the Apes.
- Babs references Jerry Lewis when reacting to Buster's plan to scare Elmyra straight, by quoting his "I like it, I like it!"
- Suddenly Voiced: Furrball says, "Years!" when Buster asks him how long he's been at Elmyra's house.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Towards the end of the episode, Buster and Babs take Elmyra to The Planet of the Bunnies, where they treat Elmyra the way she treats her animals.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The goldfish and frog that Buster freed in the second act are nowhere to be seen in the third act.
