Just so you know, they're skydiving to prove Sticks isn't crazy. Good luck with that.
After noticing a shortage of water supply, Sticks is fed up that all the news is fluff, so she creates a podcast to speak truth to power. But things quickly spiral out of her control.Tropes
- Air Quotes: In the news station, D.B. Platypus does this after Sticks turns off the radio.D.B. Platypus: I'm telling ya Dixon,"real news" is "in"! Just like "quote fingers".
- Blunt "Yes": Soar the Eagle only agrees to help Sticks when she offers him an award, sacrificing his journalistic integrity in the process.Soar: An award, huh? That'll show my father.
- Call-Back: When Sticks starts up her pirate radio station to deliver the political truth to people, Fastidious Beaver is the first to bail:Fastidious Beaver: Actually, I can't handle the truth. (curls up in the fetal position on the floor)
- A Day in the Limelight: For Sticks the Badger.
- Gilligan Cut: Disappointed that the news is covering the opening of a new giant scissor factory instead of the village's water crisis (complete with Mayor Fink struggling to cut the ribbon with a pair of small scissors), Sticks believes the whole thing to be a government plot, with Amy attempting to get her to reconsider.Amy: Our elected officials are here to help us. They're smart, hard-working, no-nonsense public servants with a passion for helping the common man.
(cut to Mayor Fink attempting to cut coupons with a pair of giant scissors)
Mayor Fink: Steady... one wrong move, and no discount corn for me. If only I had a smaller pair of scissors...- Explicitly called out and taken to the next level when Sticks recognizes the irony:
Sticks: I should've known Amy was settin' up a Gilligan flip! I'm gonna find...
Mayor Fink: No, no! Don't do another Gilligan flip! Those are really painful.
Sticks: ...a crusading journalist to blow the lid off of this water scheme!
(cue another Gilligan flip cut, followed by Mayor Fink screaming)- At the end of the episode, Soar the Eagle promises not to waste his power as a reporter again, only to immediately start reporting about the third generation of Mayor's puppies.
- Hollywood Skydiving: In order to prove her point, Sticks heads to Eggman's lair with Tails in the latter's plane, at which point she jumps out, telling Tails not only to catch her, but get footage of the confrontation.Sticks: This is Sticks the Badger, and I've jumped out of an airplane to prove to you all that I'm not crazy!
- K-I-S-S-I-N-G in a Tree: When Sticks decides to bend on her usual stance against technology in the interest of getting the truth to a wider audience, he recruits Tails to help her out with her pirate radio station, he celebrates the occasion with a variant on this:Tails: Sticks and technology, sittin' in a tree! I-N-T-E-R-F-A-C-I-N-G!
- Literal Metaphor: In her broadcast with Mayor Fink, Sticks has to do a fluff piece...with kittens.
- Musical Pastiche: The song heard while Tails and Sticks skydive is a direct Homage to "Danger Zone", by Kenny Loggins, which is associated with Top Gun.
- Not Where Your Ears Are: Both Tails and Sticks are shown having headphones below their ears and on the side of their heads. Notably, for a show as self-aware as this (moments earlier, the Mayor mentions the Gilligan Cut transition by name), this isn't Lampshaded or made fun of.