The 44th episode of the first season of Tiny Toon Adventures (and 44th overall), "Hero Hamton" finds Hamton having to fight Montana Max after school. This episode is the last one to be primarily animated by Encore Cartoons.
Hamton is feeling pretty chipper on the way to school one morning and inadvertently provokes the wrath of Monty, who challenges Hamton to a fight after school. Much of the episode involves Hamton first trying to get out of the battle before eventually accepting it and being trained by his friends for the inevitable showdown.
This episode provides examples of:
- Animation Bump: Much like "Strange Tales of Weird Science" a handful of scenes were animated by Kennedy Cartoons (apparently to pad out the episode) and stand out from Encore's animation.
- Be the Ball: When Buster and Babs substitute for Hamton as the Masked Marauder and Mata Harey, respectively, Monty sends Dizzy to attack them. Dizzy shapes them into basketballs, and he, Monty, and Calamity take turns bouncing them around the ring, until Hamton steps in and scares the three bullies away.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Invoked by Hamton when he finally faces Monty. He gets the idea to beat Monty through sheer intimidation alone. He does get the idea when he sees Monty, Dizzy, and Calamity tossing Buster and Babs around, though.
- Challenging the Bully: Hamton accidentally hits Montana Max with his locker door. When he tries to apologize, Monty threatens to beat him up, and Plucky makes the situation worse by telling Monty that Hamton could easily beat him in a fight. Monty then challenges Hamton to a fight after school, with Plucky charging people admission to see the fight. Much of the episode involves Hamton first trying to get out of the battle before eventually accepting it and being trained by his friends for the inevitable showdown.
- Chekhov's Gun: Porky Pig's gag props from his Cartoon Prop workshop, which Hamton uses in his show at the end.
- Credits Gag: Capitol of New Jersey: Trenton
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The otherwise mild-mannered and friendly Calamity Coyote's antagonistic role in the episode makes a bit more sense when you learn that "Hero Hamton" was the sixth episode in the actual production order for the first season.
- Hoarding the Profits: When Monty challenges Hamton to a fight after school, Plucky charges the students admission to see the fight. When Buster and Babs find out about this, they tell Plucky that since Hamton is his best friend, he should split the profits with him equally. Near the end of the episode, when Hamton wins the fight, Plucky keeps most of the money for himself, giving Hamton a single dollar. Karma catches up to Plucky, as Porky takes the money from him to pay to replace the breakaway props that Hamton used to scare Monty away. Desperate to keep at least some of his profits, Plucky takes the dollar he gave Hamton back from him, but Porky takes that dollar from him as well to pay to replace the last chair.
- Jerkass: Plucky is at his worst in this episode; once it's decided that Hamton will fight Monty after school, Plucky proceeds to try and make a profit from it at Hamton's (and later Buster and Babs') expense. He also gives Hamton training from heck that hurts Hamton more than it trains him, steals Hamton's lunch, and stands by when Monty and company wipes the floor with Buster and Babs. You could even argue that he's the one who got Hamton into the whole mess in the first place by making wild claims to Monty about Hamton's fighting while Hamton tries to stop him.
- Jerkass Ball:
- The normally non-antagonistic Calamity Coyote is one of Monty's cronies in this episode.
- Gogo Dodo has a bit of this too when he refuses to let Hamton leave the school to avoid fighting Max.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The episode sees to it that Plucky does not profit from his friends' troubles by having Porky take all the money Plucky made off the fight to pay for new cartoon props for his class, to Plucky's chagrin.Plucky: This never happens to Don King.
- Miles Gloriosus: Monty was gloating about how he was going to beat up Hamton. The moment his opponent started smashing brick walls to rubble and bleachers into planks, Monty forfeits the match and runs screaming out of the stadium.
- Piano Drop: This is one of the cartoon gags that happens in Porky's Prop Class. A piano lands on Hamton, who comes out with piano keys for teeth.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Invoked and defied. When Plucky gets Hamton into the mess of fighting Max after school, he tries to run off to avoid the fight. Unfortunately, Gogo Dogo doesn't approve of students ditching school and foils all of Hamton's attempts to escape his fate.
- Terrible Trio: Monty, Dizzy, and Calamity, during the boxing match.
- That's All, Folks!: Hamton ends the episode this way, having been given permission to do so by his mentor, Porky Pig, the trope namer himself.
- Victory Through Intimidation: With the help of some props, Hamton makes it look like he obtained Super-Strength via reaching his Rage Breaking Point and he tells Max that You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry! Having been expecting an easy target, Max and his cronies run away.
- Wild Take: Monty's scream as he, Dizzy, and Calamity flee the gym after Hamton scares them.
