"Scaring is Caring" is the first segment of the nineteenth episode of the first season of The Ghost and Molly McGee, and the thirty-seventh episode overall.
Synopsis
When Scratch is unable to scare the day before his report is due, Molly takes over his scares.[2]
Plot
While working on an art project, Molly is surprised by the appearance of a very nervous Scratch who tells her that he is one day away from his scare report, which he has put off at the last minute. He goes outside to try and scare Pete, but to his own surprise, he instead does something cute. Somehow, Scratch is incapable of doing anything scary and instead can only act cute now, causing his appearance to change as well. Molly casually suggests that she take over his scaring duties for the day, which he laughs at, as he does not find Molly scary. Molly is offended at this and challenges Scratch by telling him that she will try to scare someone before the day is out.
Molly and Scratch, the latter of whom begins to exhibit a squeaky voice over time, go to their first target, a baby. Molly manages to give the baby a startle, but immediately begins to try and calm the baby once he starts crying. Later, Molly tries to scare a boy texting, but he flips her over with judo. She then dresses up as a zombie, but only gains empathy from her targets. Scratch goes to see the ghost doctor to see what is wrong with him and she tells him that he has been infected with "joy", represented by his insides resembling a happy colorful world. She tells him that he needs to "find your fear", which Scratch does not understand.
Molly dons her dinosaur costume from fifth grade in a pitiful attempt at trying to scare people, but only manages to amuse, annoy or confuse people with her lousy scaring. She ends up accidentally stepping in and landing on things that snowball into her actually scaring some people, only for her to walk into traffic. Scratch, having just returned, sees her in danger and reverts to his old self and rescues her from being hit by a truck. Scratch realizes that his "fear" was seeing Molly in distress. Molly takes this as a sign that she is technically scary because of this and Scratch casually agrees with her.
Cast
Main article: Scaring is Caring and All Night Plight/Credits
- Ashly Burch as Molly McGee
- Dana Snyder as Scratch
- Jordan Klepper as Pete McGee
- Secunda Wood as Ghost Doctor
Additional voices
- Ashly Burch as Phone Operator, Birthday Mom
- Marieve Herington as Little Boy
- Secunda Wood as Tyrus, Redhead Girl, Black Girl
Mentions
Song
Names in Other Languages
| Language | Title | Translation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Spanish (Latin America)
|
Asustar es amar | Scaring is loving | |
 Spanish
|
Sustos de cariño | Love scares | |
 Japanese
|
可愛いスクラッチ！？ | Cute Scratch!? | |
 Russian
|
Пугать - значит заботиться | To scare is to care |
Videos
Trivia
- This is the first episode where only Pete appears without Sharon or Darryl, though he does call for the former.
- In this episode Scratch, sidetracked by his own "I'm in a pickle" analogy, specifically states that bread-and-butter pickles are his favorite and he considers dill pickles to be "extra sour".
- One of Scratch's intended scare props happens to be a gallon of expired milk. This is most likely based off ancient ghost stories saying that one of the pranks ghosts/boggarts are known for is turning fresh milk sour at an instant.
Continuity
- In several previous episodes, the Ghost Council kept pointing out that joy is a bad thing. In this episode, it is revealed that the reason for this is because overexposure to positive emotions can cause a spiritual illness in ghosts that weakens their ability to terrify others, and the only cure for it is fear itself.
- In "Innocent Until Proven Ghostly" and "Scare Tactics", Molly is shown to be afraid of spiders, and attempts to be scary herself by dressing up as one... but ruins the effect by throwing in a sympathetic backstory, namely that she's a "single mother spider trying to feed her thousands of babies". Clearly she got inspiration from her bad experience with Darryl's pet spider, Heidi Hairylegs.
- Among the scare props Scratch intended to use (but didn't, since he couldn't phase them through the wall) was the Baby Jessie doll Molly put in the "donation bag" while home alone in "Scare Tactics".
- Also among those scare props were a bunch of realistic looking tombstones, which might've been left over from Andrea Davenport's studio in "Hooray for Mollywood!". He also had a pail of fake blood, which Darryl uses in this same episode.
Allusions
- The inside of Scratch when he is filled with Joy looks like the plants from the Silly Symphonies short Flowers and Trees.
- One of Scratch's scare prop tombstones had the inscription "Here Lies My Hopes And Dreams". This is probably inspired by the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "One Krabs Trash", in which Mr. Krabs sees Squidward visiting a grave labeled "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams", to which he rolls his eyes and calls Squidward a baby.
- In the scene where Molly hugs her stuffed animals, the stuffed bear with a top hat is most likely a reference to the horror game, Five Nights at Freddy's.
Errors
- Michaela Dietz is credited as Darryl in this episode and "All Night Plight" despite not appearing in either of them.
- When Molly jumps out to scare a teenager, her right sock was in a few frames.
Molly's missing sock.
References
- ↑ Metcalf, Mitch (July 6, 2022). Showbuzz Daily's Saturday 7.2.2022 Top 150 Cable Originals & Network Finals. Showbuzz Daily. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved on December 19, 2023.
- ↑ July 2022 Programming Highlights. Disney General Entertainment Concent (June 20, 2022). Archived from the original on June 20, 2022.