Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy
Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy is an episode of Invader Zim originally produced as episode 7B, but aired as episode 8B on August 24, 2001.
Plot
The episode opens with a piece from "Probing the Membrane of Science," one of Professor Membrane's TV shows. He explains how a space-time object replacement device works and warns of the dangers of time travel, ending the segment with, "anyone who would build a space-time object replacement device is a complete moron." (And something about giant fish in bear suits.) As Prof. Membrane's words echo, the next scene opens with Zim ready to test his new space-time object replacement device. Zim first tries to send a hunter-destroyer robot through to get rid of Dib in the past but discovers the object is incompatible with the temporal field. Furious that his hunter-destroyer plan won't work, Zim grabs GIR's stuffed piggy and throws it into the device, which, to his surprise, accepts it. As Zim watches on his monitor of the past, young Dib hops on his tricycle and goes after a stuffed alien toy, thinking it's real. Suddenly, the tricycle is replaced by the piggy and Dib crashes right into a tree at full speed. We then see Dib in the present and watch as his reality shifts and his hand becomes a claw, he loses a tooth, and he gains a lisp. Zim watches the result on his present monitor and realizes he can use the piggies to destroy Dib after all. Zim demands more piggies and starts sending them through, slowly but surely tearing Dib's life apart. (While giant fish in bear suits rampage in Tokyo.) After several near-fatal piggy-related accidents, Dib is seen being resuscitated by a paramedic whose paddles suddenly turn into piggies. As the paramedic crushes Dib's skeleton with the piggies, Dib's life signs slip further down and finally flat-line. Satisfied, Zim heads off to gloat, sipping a soda. But the past monitor then reveals Prof. Membrane announcing the Megaboy 3000 titanium exo-skeleton he's built to save his son. Moments later, the present Dib, in the new exo-skeleton, comes pounding on Zim's house, itching for revenge. Zim's defenses are useless and he smashes his way down toward Zim's lab, where Zim is frantically throwing piggy after piggy into the device to try and destroy Dib once and for all. However, the continued piggy onslaught only makes Dib stronger and gives him more armament. Finally, Zim realizes he must warn himself to not use the device in the first place. So he sends the last piggy in with a note written on it. Suddenly, everything goes back to the way it was before. Dib is seen banging on the wall of Zim's house, and realizes he doesn't have a powerful exoskeleton (or wounds due to piggies) anymore. GIR asks what happened and Zim shows him—his brain has been replaced by the piggy with the note on it telling Zim to not use the time machine, with love from himself.
Trivia
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- This is the first episode to contain a hidden Bloody Gir image. The frame is present at the moment the last piggy goes into the machine.
- For an unknown reason, it seems to take more time for Dib's memory to adapt each new reality than for Gaz's.
- After Zim tells Gir about his plans for the robot, GIR uses something similar to the grandfather paradox to warn Zim about the consequences saying that if he destroyed Dib then they would never be enemies in the first place, so he wouldn't make the robot so the robot would never destroy him so they would be enemies so he would make the robot, then the whole thing repeats itself, causing his head to explode. This is because he is a robot (and/or an idiot) trying to comprehend a paradox.
- Originally, this episode was going to mark the last episode for Dib, who, due to Jhonen's dislike, was going to be killed off and replaced with another paranormal child. It wasn't until Nick refused to kill off a main character that it was rewritten that Dib lives {citation needed}.
- This episode contradicts the fact that Zim's brain is in his PAK, not in his head, as explained in the script of an unfinished episode.