The fifty-first broadcast episode and the sixty-third production episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.
A collection of music videos, starring the Tiny Toons cast.
Music Video One: ''Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by They Might Be Giants
Plucky and Hamton are hired to retrieve a stolen statue from Montana Max.
Music Video Two: "Particle Man" by They Might Be Giants
Plucky takes on various wrestlers and loses.
Music Video Three: "Respect" by Aretha Franklin
Babs & her walkman skate and dance about the library, courtroom, pet cemetery, etc.
Music Video Four: "Money (That's What I Want)" by Barrett Strong
Money-grubbing Max sings about his love of money.
Short: "Top Secret Apprentice"
In a spoof of Fantasia's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment, Buster decides to play with Bugs' new cartoon creator.
This episode provides examples of:
Overall:
- Affectionate Parody: Of MTV.
- Butt-Monkey: Plucky's entire role in the music videos he’s in is nothing but slapstick and being constantly thrown under the bus.
- Credits Gag: Istanbul - Not Constantinople.
- The Danza: Julie Bruin is voiced by Julie Brown.
- Deleted Scene: A phone number appearing before the "Respect" music video was removed from the Tiny Toon Adventures: Season 1, Volume 2 DVD release.
- In 2019, Tom Ruegger uploaded an actual deleted scene
on his Twitter account that closes the episode. We check back in at Julie Bruin's party, where Buster, Babs and Fuddonna are tangled up from playing Twister (called Tangle here). Babs wonders how they're going to close the show, then Buster starts a triva game for a contestant, who happens to be Plucky. The question was what were the names of the songs that played throughout the episode. Plucky gets them all right, except "Istanbul - Not Constantinople", where Plucky answers "Constantinople." After Plucky gets it wrong, Babs corrects him and the camel from said music video falls on him.
- In 2019, Tom Ruegger uploaded an actual deleted scene
- Fan Disservice: Elmer Fudd as "Fuddonna".
- Formula-Breaking Episode: This episode abandons the Three Shorts format in favor of some music videos.
- Ms. Fanservice: Julie Bruin. She is sexy and really, really buxom.
- Musical Episode: This episode features four music videos and one music-themed short.
- Sexy Silhouette: Julie's intro has her orange sillouette dancing and her breasts were swaying back and forth.
- Shout-Out: Buster's introduction to "Top Secret Apprentice" is done in the style of Elmer Fudd's introductions from A Corny Concerto, complete with the droopy gloves and the outfit coming apart.
- Special Guest: Julie Bruin is a caricature of comedian Julie Brown, who also provides her voice. Brown had a show on MTV entitled Just Say Julie. Brown would later go on to voice the voluptuous Minerva Mink on Steven Spielberg's next animated series, Animaniacs.
Istanbul (Not Constantinople):
- Butt-Monkey: Plucky at the end. Not only does he find out that the caliph's cute daughter is really Elmyra, but she breaks the jade duck statuette he retrieved, and he gets punished by being forced to serve as a stand-in for it.
- Dramatic Drop: At the end of the music video, Plucky drops the priceless duck statue in this fashion upon learning that his "reward" for recovering the thing is to be paired up with Elmyra.
- Interspecies Romance: Plucky is shown swooning over the caliph's cute human daughter, until said human daughter is revealed to be Elmyra Duff.
- Misplaced Retribution: The jade duck breaking in the end was entirely Elmyra's fault, but the caliph and his guards react angrily to Plucky instead as though Plucky had walked in with the duck, smashed it on the ground in front of him, and proceeded to shake his butt at the caliph for good measure.
- Misplaced Wildlife: This music video shows a two-humped, or Bactrian, camel, as opposed to the one-humped camels found in the Middle East in real life.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: After all the trouble Plucky and Hamton went to get back the caliph's jade duck, the duck gets broken at the very end.
Particle Man:
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Particle Man is Person Man's secret identity (this is shown by Plucky (playing Particle Man) shedding his costume and then being referred to as Person Man).
- Universe Man is described in the song as "kind to the smaller man." In the short, he's anything but.
- It says he's ''Usually'' kind to the smaller man. Apparently this was an unusual situation. And he does gently pat Plucky on the head before squashing him flat.
- Butt-Monkey: Plucky Duck... again.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Plucky is on the receiving end from all three wrestlers.
- Frying Pan of Doom: "Person Man, Person Man, hit on the head with a frying pan..."
- The Giant: "Universe Man, Universe Man, Size-of-the-entire-universe Man..."
- Matchlight Danger Revelation: Done by/to Person Man (AKA Plucky) at the end, revealing the wrestlers who have been pummeling him throughout the video (and Hamton for whatever reason).
- Metronomic Man Mashing: The Crusher from "Bunny Hugged" and "Rabbit Punch" inflicts one on Plucky.
- Mythology Gag: The Crusher from "Bunny Hugged" and "Rabbit Punch" appears.
- No-Sell: It should come as no surprise that Particle Man can't put a dent on Universe Man. He can't put a dent in Triangle Man, either.
- Oh, Crap!: Plucky at the end. See Matchlight Danger Revelation.
- Pro Wrestling Episode: The characters mentioned on the lyrics are presented as wrestlers, with Plucky as the titular Particle Man.
- Your Size May Vary: When Universe Man competes against Plucky in the ring, he is literally the size of a giant. However, at the end of the song, when Plucky runs into a cabin to hide, only to find that his opponents beat him to it, Universe Man is now the size of a regular human.
Respect:
- Cheek Copy: Babs does this to her face with a photocopier at the library.
- 555: The prologue for this music video features one of these. However, it was a toll-free 555 number, made right around the time when they were available publicly. It went to an “adult entertainment” line, and the episode was removed from rotation for some time. Some edits censored the number from the segment (which produces a minor Plot Hole as the characters referred to a supposedly onscreen number), while other edits, including the one on the ‘’Tiny Toon Adventures: Season 1, Vol. 2’’ DVD release removed the entire prologue.
- Hypocritical Humor: Babs sings the titular song whilst doing all kinds of disrespectful things, like skating through a library whilst loudly singing and disrupting both a trial and a funeral for a kid's pet.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For doing disrespectful things throughout the short, the Librarian, Judge, and Funeral Speaker tie Babs up in the letters that spell RESPECT and tape a sign that says, RESPECT over her mouth.
Money (That's What I Want):
- Early-Bird Cameo: Ralph the Guard, who would later become a prominent character in Animaniacs, appears in this music video as the guard of Fort Knox.
- Reveal Shot: A cruse ship appears in the ocean, then the camera zooms out to reveal Monty's cruise ship, the S.S. Monty, which is much, much bigger.
Top Secret Apprentice:
- 65-Episode Cartoon: This short reveals that Tiny Toon Adventures was originally this, until the show got renewed for two more seasons.
- Affectionate Parody: Of the "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment from the 1940 Walt Disney film, Fantasia.
- Always a Bigger Fish: When Buster is in the prehistoria setting, he gets chased by velociraptors. Eventually, though, the hungry dinos freak out and run away, and Buster thinks he safe until he realizes the velociraptors were running from the T-rex Buster is now standing on.
- Butt-Monkey: Bugs intentionally makes Plucky this, having him narrowly avoid falling objects.
- No-Dialogue Episode: The only spoken dialogue in this short is at the end, when Buster asks Bugs, "I suppose this means I don't get an A in the course?"
- Threatening Shark: A shark chases Buster when he recovers treasure from a sunken pirate ship.
