Win, Lose, or Tie is the fourth episode of Grade in Action which was released on October 12th, 2001. It teaches a lesson in encouraging one another.
Plot[]
Mysterious space rocks are falling onto several different planets. One falls on Earth, and Albert feels the need to investigate it, whereas Erika feels no one should mess with it, as they learned from the Yolkian incident not to talk to intergalactic strangers.
When the rock is taken to Retroville's school, the mayor asked what they should do with it. Most agree on destroying it, but Albert shows up in time and explains the history of the rock. Since 1511, rocks with strange symbols have fallen from the skies. Every rock that landed on Earth over the last 500 years was destroyed before science had a chance to studying them. Although initially complied with the idea of studying the rock, the town instead votes (with Erika's encouragement) to make the stone into a tourist attraction after being reminded of Albert's mistake of talking to intergalactic strangers.
Before the theme song plays, Albert knows a message is on the rock and he wants to decode it. However, General Abercrombie takes it away. Fortunately, Albert pulls his dog's tail and shoots a locating device. Soon, Albert, Erika, Patrick, Eddie, Robo-Dog, and Lauren sneak into the military base to get it back. When they get in, they are surprised to see Jordan, and give up on how he got inside.
Once Albert decodes the message and answers its riddle (in the dark they arrive without being fetched; in the light, they are lost without being stolen), he and his friends are abducted and forced to play a life-threatening game show, Intergalactic Showdown, hosted by the evil Dracula Prime, who threatens to blow up the losing planets.
Their first opponents are the Gorlocks. Albert forms a secret alliance with one, named Daisy, and the two plan to end the game show and save the planets. They become friends and appear to develop some feelings for each other as they meet in secret to plot their attack.
Throughout the first two events, Albert feels like he can single-handedly win them without allowing his friends to help, so he causes his teammates to lose them, thus almost getting the Earth destroyed by Dracula and forcing the gang to vote off somebody. At their Survivor-like tribal council, Albert feels useless since he caused the others to lose both games. Albert, Erika, and Jordan become tied with votes. In the end, Jordan is eliminated in a 2-2-3 vote. They are surprised to see that Jordan voted himself out. As a result, Jordan is kept in the Cell of Indignity (which turned out to be dignity) until the end of the game.
The gang next competes with the Needleheads in an eating competition. One of the Needleheads gets his head blown up after eating a banana creme pie. Albert wants to go for his team, confident he can get the wheel to stop on banana creme pie again, but the others convince him to send Eddie because he can stomach anything. Eddie gets an alien dish and actually likes it. Team Earth wins.
After the event, Daisy and Albert meet and Albert decides to help Daisy stop Dracula from destroying all the planets. Daisy then kisses Albert, which is a sign of trust in her culture, which of course Erika misinterprets this as making out and gets jealous. She prepares to start a fight, but they are interrupted by Daisy’s father.
The next game is a race against the Brains, who lure them into a hypnosis. Robo-Dog is disqualified from the race, as Dracula forbids the teams to cheat (even though he lets the Brains do it). The gang runs and they see a short cut sign. which leads to the finish line. Erika asks why there would be a clearly labeled shortcut, but Albert dismisses her and says to trust him. They foolishly run to the shortcut, and they are instantly zapped back into their hometown.... or so they think. In actuality, they are sent into Dream State Retroville.
In the hypnosis, as they are sent back to their city, everything in Retroville is different and unusual. They notice that Jordan and Robo-Dog are still missing from the team and all the people are missing in Retroville. Things get from bad to worse. The street signs in the city are all blank. There are no clouds in the sky whatsoever. The moon had several unusual striped colors around its surface, which Albert denotes it as a meteorological impossibility. They hear voices that are haunted and strange in the Ice Cream shoppe, which are the voices of their parents calling their children's names. They run to the Ice Cream shoppe and no one was inside. Their parents emerged behind the counter of the store. Their parents’ eyes are not in a usual place; their eyes are in a position that defies the optical structure of the human eye; their eyes are all delirious and wild. They are starting to chant this word: "eat and forget". As Sam serves the ice-cream to Eddie and Patrick, Lauren complains that the ice cream tastes like sheetrock (Not to be confused with drywall sheets) and Eddie eventually eats it. Their parents walk slowly like zombies, continue chanting the same "eat and forget" line and they run.
As they leave the Ice Cream shoppe, everything was now devoid of the parts of the city except the Ice Cream shoppe. They have no choice but to leap in the chasm to escape the hypnosis. After escaping the hypnosis, the kids see that the Brains are about to win, but Albert realizes that they can still win if they help each other out and finally decides to be a team player. After Albert prays "1st Thessalonians 5:11", The kids work together, build each other up, and win the race.
Albert and the gang are then tied for the lead with the Gorlocks, in a Trivia Showdown and Dracula gives Robo-Dog back to Albert. Papa Gorlock beats Albert to smashing the Gong of Trivia but answers the question incorrectly. Then Albert is up, and out of the blue, Hugh falls into the scene, and having watched so much alien TV, becomes the team's lifeline and answers Albert's question for him. This causes Albert's team to win the new space-car and the Earth to be salvaged. Unfortunately, the other planets are going to be blown up and the losing teams are being forced to watch.
Not wanting to break his promise to Daisy, Albert still refuses to let Dracula blow up the other planets, so he and his friends decide to do the right thing and end Dracula's show forever. After using Robo-Dog to interfere with Dracula's technology, Albert's space car shoots a blue missile at Dracula, seemingly crushing him, but he returns momentarily and summons an army of robots, two Flargi, and Maisy to prevent them from doing anything to his show. Dracula transforms Maisy into a fierce fighting machine. In this form, Albert is able to use Robo-Dog to interfere with her positronic brain and get her to fight Dracula. Maisy then knocks his head off. All the races team up and defeat Dracula's robots. Eventually, Dracula retrieves his head, fires Vandana, and is about to use his generators to kill Albert. But Eddie throws a pie in his face and steals his Matrix Generators, which leads to Albert threatening to blow up the sector with them unless Dracula gives up his horrible game show and lets the Brains take over the entertainment. Dracula gives into Albert's demands, and Albert gives Daisy the generators. Daisy then gives Albert another kiss, making Erika angry once again. Our heroes return home safe, and sound and the planets are saved forever.
The next day, another space rock falls down to the Ice Cream shoppe with a message from Daisy and Erika angrily leaves, Albert prays that they'll build each other up and the episode ends.
At the Ice Cream shoppe, Albert and the gang perform a third song about sleeping on the tents, called The Night Camp.
Characters[]
- Albert Thompson
- Eddie Deezen
- Patrick Everest
- Erika Summer
- Lauren Beige
- Daisy Fields
- Jordan Bridge
- Mr. Fields
- Robo-Dog
- Dracula
- Maisy the Female Vampire
Home Video[]
Features[]
Trailer Appearances[]
Win, Lose, or Tie/Teaser and Trailer Appearances
Fun Facts[]
Trivia[]
- The first episode to be animated by Jam Filled Toronto.
Real-World References[]
- The episode refers to "Win, Lose, Tie" from A Little Curious.