"On the Blink"

Episode transcript (provided by phantym)
Episode transcript (provided by Kooshmeister)

Willy DuWitt and his friend Susie are at the zoo, looking at animals. Willy is explaining how hummingbirds can fly, and Susie says everything is a science project to him. Willy insists it's important to know how things work, and she replies that it's important to know how things feel, as well. Using some nearby koalas as an example, Susie says they would've gone extinct if nobody cared about them.

In the aniverse, Quentin, a koala on Rigel V, secretly contacts Bucky O'Hare on The Righteous Indignation on a makeshift radio, revealing the planet has been conquered by the toads and the koalas enslaved. He is interrupted when Frax appears and shakes him out of the tree he's in. Bucky says Rigel V is the koala homeworld and realizes they must intervene.

On Rigel 5, the toads have set up a deluxe resort called Club Toad and are using the koalas as servants to tend to their every need. The Air Marshal and Al Negator are playing golf and discussing the mammal defense shield Al recently installed for the toads. Al wants to be paid, but the Air Marshal refuses until they see whether it works. Frix and Frax run up with the captured Quentin, making the Air Marshal miss his putt.

Sometime later, The Righteous Indignation arrives over the planet, and Bucky and Deadeye attempt to go down to the surface on the Toad Croaker. They are repelled and held in place by the mammal defense shield, but Blinky reverses the polarity of The Righteous Indignation's plasma cannon and uses it to magnetically extract the Toad Croaker, saving Bucky and Deadeye. Realizing they need outside help, Jenny contacts Willy, who is still feeling down over being accused of not caring.

Once in the aniverse, Willy researches the shield but can't figure out how it works until they see a double bubble pass through unharmed, prompting Willy to realize the shield is programmed to keep only warm-blooded animals out. Bucky says that with the shield up, they have no way of reaching the koalas. However, Willy points out that Blinky, as a robot, can get through, so he is snuck onto a toad ship and smuggled to the surface posing as random junk in a supply crate. He is in the midst of deactivating the shield when Toadborg captures him and hooks him up to a machine of some kind, seemingly electrocuting him.

Frix and Frax are left to guard Blinky but are too engrossed in a Miss Toad TV contest on television to notice him escaping until it's too late. He eludes them and the Air Marshal, who he tricks along with several stormtoads by using a hologram of Bruiser> The android escapes in a double bubble, returning safely to The Righteous Indignation. Toadborg slyly reveals he intentionally put Frix and Frax on guard duty, knowing they'd screw up, because he reprogrammed Blinky and wanted him to get away.

Aboard the Righteous, Blinky lies about having deactivated the shield. Bucky is suspicious, but Deadeye's enthusiasm prompts them to launch their attack anyway. Heading into the engine room, Blinky's original programming begins to struggle with his new one installed by Toadborg, which wants him to sabotage the engines. Despite the little robot's best efforts, Toadborg wins out, and he pulls out several critical wires, causing the ship to spin out of control and into the sun, seemingly destroying it and killing the mammals.

KOMPLEX contacts Toadborg and recalls him to the toad mothership, to begin the invasion of Genus now that Bucky is dead. Al asks about his payment for the mammal defense shield, but the Air Marshal blows him off. Al stuffs a killer bee bomb down the Air Marshal's suit and threatens to detonate it unless the Air Marshal pays him, and the Air Marshal happily obliges.

Blinky reappears, pretending to still be reprogrammed, claiming to have escaped before the Righteous crashed into the sun. With the toads unsuspecting, he is able to sneak in and deactivate the shield successfully, then contacts Bucky. He also meets up with Quentin. It turns out Willy repaired the engines and fixed Blinky, and Deadeye reveals they faked their deaths by scuttling a spare fuel tank into the sun to create an explosion. With the advantage of surprise, the mammals land and, with Quentin's help, take over a Toad TV studio.

Using an idea of Quentin's, Bucky has Bruiser put live on Toad TV and broadcast all over the planet, shouting threats at the toads, who all begin fleeing Rigel V en masse -- except the Air Marshal, who believes Bruiser to be a hologram. He, Al, Frix, and Frax go to the studio and engage in a firefight with the mammals. A lucky shot from Frix takes Bruiser out, knocking him into a hole, and then the Air Marshal traps the mammals.

Suddenly, Bruiser reappears, having survived his fall. The Air Marshal, trying to prove to his terrified colleagues that Bruiser is a hologram, pokes him. Annoyed of being called "not real," Bruiser squishes the Air Marshal into a little ball and kicks him away. At this, the other villains pile into every available ship and escape. Bucky tells the koalas they're free now, and Quentin asks what will happen if the toads return. Willy says he can reprogram the defense shield to keep toads out instead of mammals, and the koalas all cheer.

Back on Earth, Willy goes back to the zoo with Susie. As they look at the koalas, Susie tells Willy maybe someday he'll do his part to protect innocent animals from the greed of mankind. Willy ironically says he already has, but from "toadkind." Susie thinks he is joking and says he is strange, prompting Willy to wink knowingly at the audience.

This episode is available on the US video "Corsair Canards" and was not released on video in the UK.


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