The third episode of the second season of Tiny Toon Adventures, and the sixty-eighth overall.
After finishing a cartoon of him in Wackyland, Gogo explains to the viewers that today he is going to take a break from his wackiness to discuss important issues. An elephant mishears him, and brings him a box of tissues.
Short One: "Why Dizzy Can't Read"
Buster and Babs discover that Dizzy Devil can't read because he wastes his time watching television.
Short Two: "C.L.I.D.E. and Prejudice"
A robot student named C.L.I.D.E. joins Acme Looniversity, and turns to Buster for help after being teased by Montana Max.
Short Three: "One Beer"
Buster, Plucky and Hamton become intoxicated after finding an unopened bottle of beer, steal a cop car, take the car to a tall mountain, and "kill" themselves by driving the car off the mountain.
This episode provides examples of:
Overall:
- Animated Actors: Gogo Dodo. On the set, he is his ordinary wacky self, but off the set, he's actually very sophisticated.
- Credits Gag - Today's Lesson - Reading Ir Berry Impertant.
- Rule of Three: In the third wraparound, the Elephant has three different dares. The first two (jumping off a cliff and swallowing live porcupines) Gogo ignores, but the third (dressing in cold cuts and running through the lion pit screaming, "Lunchtime!") Gogo is unable to resist.
- Three Shorts
- Unexplained Recovery: In the third wraparound, the Elephant is in a full-body cast from jumping off a cliff when he tells Gogo that he's going to swallow live porcupines. When the Elephant returns to tell Gogo that he's going to dress in cold cuts and run through the lion pit screaming, "Lunchtime!", he is no longer in his full-body cast.
- A Very Special Episode: Parodied; this episode deals with illiteracy, racism, and alcoholsim/drunk driving, and in the opening wraparound, Gogo mentions that the main reason they're doing this is as a fruitless attempt to win another Emmy.
Why Dizzy Can't Read:
- Animated Actors: Bugs Bunny. After Dizzy leaves, Bugs asks the director if he can get his paycheck, since his scene's over.
- Kick the Dog: Babs, Mary, Fifi, and even Elmyra, who are all normally nice, all cruelly laugh at Dizzy for reading his script upside-down.
- Never Learned to Read: It is revealed in this episode that Dizzy has trouble learning how to read because he is addicted to television. He shows interest in reading after reading from a book of nursery rhymes (and wanting to eat the food from it).
- Noodle Incident: As a Show Within a Show example, one fictional episode of Tiny Toon Adventures involved Plucky getting thrown into a Turkish prison. Babs doesn't like it because she hated the way she was drawn in it.
- "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: Dizzy is addicted to television, but eventually embraces reading after a Dream Sequence he has upon being knocked out by a book on fairy tales. The punchline of the episode is that we see a group of kids so engrossed in reading that they're not watching cartoons, leading Dizzy to stick his arm out of the TV set and turn it off.
- Shoot the Television: When "Plucky's Turkish Prison" is about to come up on Dizzy's television, Babs grabs a lamp and chucks it through the screen, on the grounds that she didn't like how the animators drew her in that episode.
- Shout-Out:
- This short's title is a reference to the 1955 book, Why Johnny Can't Read.
- Bugs asks Buster and Dizzy to act out scenes from the Looney Tunes short, "Devil May Hare", with Buster and Dizzy in his and Taz's respective roles.
- On their way to Dizzy's cave, Babs asks Buster if this same plotline happened to Tootie in an episode of The Facts of Life. note
- At one point, Babs imitates Bill Cosby, who at the time, was an advocate for children's reading.
- When Dizzy gets hit by Buster's book, he says, "Me so Dizzy, me head be spinning!", a reference to the Tommy Roe song, "Dizzy".
C.L.I.D.E. and Prejudice:
- Anvil on Head: C.L.I.D.E. transforms into an anvil after he saves Monty as revenge for trying to program S.N.I.D.E. to attack him.
- Fantastic Racism: Throughout the short, Monty discriminates against C.L.I.D.E. for being a robot.
- Fun with Acronyms: Cybernetic Laser Ionized Digital Entity, and Super New Improved Droid Eradicator.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Having spent the short discriminating against C.L.I.D.E. and trying to program S.N.I.D.E. to attack him, not only does Monty get chased by S.N.I.D.E., but after C.L.I.D.E. rescues him, he transforms into an anvil to flatten him.
- Save the Villain: Monty orders an attack robot called S.N.I.D.E. to attack C.L.I.D.E., specifically, programming S.N.I.D.E. to "Attack Nearest Geek". As a result, S.N.I.D.E. tries to attack Monty. C.L.I.D.E. transforms into a race car to catch up to them, then to an airplane to catch Monty and get him away from S.N.I.D.E..
- Take That!: During lunch, the students of Acme Looniversity are served Green Eggs and Spam. When C.L.I.D.E has his lunch of oil, nuts, and bolts, Plucky tells C.L.I.D.E. that they look more appetizing than what he's eating.
- Thumbtack on the Chair: Monty does this to C.L.I.D.E. with a bolt.
- Verbal Tic: C.L.I.D.E. speaks in game show metaphors, and refers to everyone as "Dave".
One Beer:
- Animated Actors: At the end of the short, following their "deaths", Buster, Plucky, and Hamton remove their angel costumes and hope that the viewers got the message about the evils of alcohol.Buster: [taking his fake angel wings off] I hope the kids got the message.
Plucky: Yeah, drinking's uncool!
Buster: So, do we get to do a funny episode tomorrow?
Hamton: I hope so. - Anti-Alcohol Aesop: Spoofed when Buster, Plucky, and Hamton immediately get drunk after a single sip of beer, ending with them stealing a cop's car and driving it off a cliff. The short itself admits that the characters are doing this both in an attempt to win an Emmy and to teach kids the message that drinking is uncool.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Buster, Plucky, and Hamton immediately get drunk after one sip of beer. Justified in they're technically teenagers and the point of the short was to show kids the dangers of underage drinking.
- Donut Mess with a Cop: The cop car that Buster, Plucky, and Hamton take for a joyride is conveniently parked next to a donut shop called The Donut Hole. The cops are inside, enjoying coffee and donuts, until they hear Buster, Plucky, and Hamton crashing their car.
- Downer Ending: The short ends with Buster, Plucky, and Hamton driving a stolen cop car off a cliff, causing it to land in a graveyard and kill them. Somewhat averted since it was all just an act designed to teach kids a lesson.
- Drunken Montage: Shown after Buster, Plucky, and Hamton first drink the beer.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Buster, Plucky, and Hamton get drunk and die in a car accident.
- Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet: Buster, Plucky and Hamton (All young teens at the oldest) drink beer.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Lampshaded at the beginning of the short with Hamton telling Buster that it isn't like him to drink beer or make them do it. Buster tells him that while he's aware, the point of the short is to teach the viewers the evils of alcohol.
- Police Are Useless: The cops left the car window open, and the key in the car, allowing it to be easily stolen. They fail to notice the car crashing into other cars for a good few moments, and then when the Toons set off, the cops make no effort to stop them.
- Shout-Out: When in their drunken state, Buster, Plucky, and Hamton dress like Larry, Darryl, and Darryl from Newhart.
- X-Ray Sparks: An interesting variant. When Plucky drives the cop car into a subway, and it's almost run over by a train, the skeletons of himself, Buster and Hamton are visible thanks to its headlamps.
