Caterpillar Thriller

	This article is a stub - It needs expansion!	(Edit \| (Similar)
	You can help Kirby Wiki by editing it.

	This article contains information that does not coincide with the main series canon.	(Similar)

“	Mosugaba truly wants to live in peace. It is only attacking to set us free. But we can sing to Mosugaba to calm him down.”
	— Island Sisters • Caterpillar Thriller

Caterpillar Thriller is the 74th episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!.

Synopsis[]

King Dedede starts making everyone sick with hay fever by causing immense amounts of pollen to spread. Dedede fails to make Kirby sick, however, so he has to take other measures to accomplish this; he gets the Island Sisters from Nightmare Enterprises to lure Mosugaba, which is spreading dust due to the disappearance of the Island Sisters, to Cappy Town to make even Kirby sick. Not realizing Mosugaba to be the monster he was luring over, King Dedede begins attacking it when it approaches his castle. It isn't until after Mosugaba transforms that he realizes it's the monster he wanted, due to all the dust it's spreading, which ends up making not only Kirby sick but Dedede as well.

Episode Summary[]

The episode begins on a distant island, where two small twin girls sing together on a flower, as a giant caterpillar eats vegetation nearby. After a brief moment, the skies go dark, and a large hand descends to grab the girls and then take them away into the sky. Meanwhile, at Castle Dedede, King Dedede is walking around the castle and notices that everybody except him is sneezing. King Dedede makes light of their predicament, hinting that he may be aware of what is responsible. The same sneezing situation is present down in Cappy Town, and is starting to interfere with daily activities. Everyone presumes they have a cold, but Tiff shows up and tells them that there is pollen in the air that is causing allergies, and has Doctor Yabui confirm it, though he also loses their trust by suggesting they stop breathing to get rid of the symptoms. Tiff then points out that the pollen must be particularly concentrated, and notices that it can be seen in the air. Later that night, King Dedede is seen disturbing cedar trees to extract their pollen. He tries to use the pollen to make Kirby sick by driving over to his house and dumping him into a pile of it, but he remains completely unaffected, forcing Dedede to pull back. Once he returns to the castle, King Dedede contacts Night Mare Enterprises and asks them to send a monster with more potent pollen, and the N.M.E. Sales Guy instead recommends a monster that sheds "special dust". He informs King Dedede that this monster cannot be called through normally, but instead must be summoned from its home island, so he sends Dedede the twin girls that were captured earlier, now locked up in a tiny cage. King Dedede promises to set the sisters free if they agree to summon the monster, so they begin to sing, which causes Tiff and Tuff to wake up and comment on it. From across the sea, the giant caterpillar Mosugaba hears the song and swims to Dream Land, arriving at the Cat's Eye Lighthouse.

Hearing the monster arrive, Kirby runs out of his house and sees Mosugaba eating the pollen-filled cedar trees from earlier. Kirby approaches and tries to speak to the caterpillar, but it ends up spitting silk at him, which encases Kirby completely and sends him tumbling. From there, Mosugaba makes its way to Castle Dedede, causing the guards to go on high alert. King Dedede sees the caterpillar and orders his guards to fire at it, apparently not recognizing it as the monster the Island Sisters were calling. Captain Waddle Doo orders the cannons to fire, but they do nothing to the giant caterpillar, and it proceeds to climb onto the castle. From there, Mosugaba spits out a continuous stream of silk, encasing itself in a massive cocoon and affixing itself to Castle Dedede. At this moment, Kirby (having mostly freed himself from the silk) and Tokkori arrive on the scene. As day breaks, Escargoon uses Channel DDD to broadcast the news of the giant cocoon to Cappy Town, and everyone shows up to have a look at it. After Tiff explains that it is going to transform into a butterfly, King Dedede and his Waddle Dees show up with torches and wood and light the cocoon on fire to get rid of it. Despite this attempt to kill it, the cocoon hatches and Mosugaba emerges as a vibrant moth. It proceeds to flap its wings, spreading dust out that makes everyone sick, including King Dedede. Kirby tries to inhale this dust, but he ends up choking on it.

Seeing Kirby struggle, King Dedede realizes that this was the monster he ordered, and tries to stick around to finish the job, but the power of the dust forces him and everyone else to fall back. To help Kirby, Tiff calls for the Warp Star, but despite this, Kirby still struggles against Mosugaba. Escargoon then decides he has had enough of the hay fever and helps Tiff and Tuff by giving them the key to the Island Sisters' cage. Tiff and Tuff then run into the castle and free the trapped sisters, who reveal that Mosugaba is not inherently hostile and promise to sing to calm it down. Tiff and Tuff take them outside and they start to sing, bringing Mosugaba back down and causing it to perch on the castle. After the Island Sisters apologize for all the trouble, Kirby places them on Mosugaba, and they proceed to return home atop the giant moth. King Dedede cries out for the moth to return amidst a sneezing fit, but he is left unheeded. The episode ends as Mosugaba disappears over its island in the South Seas.

Changes in the dub[]

Inside Chef Kawasaki's restaurant, several kanji on the wall were airbrushed out.
In the Japanese dub, the pollen that the mayor and Chief Bookem observe in the microscope was moving in random directions. In the English dub, the pollen does not move, for unknown reasons.
The scene where the Waddle Dees are trying to catch up with King Dedede from a long distance was removed from the English dub, likely due to time restraints.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

The song that the Island Sisters sing is remixed in Kirby Mass Attack. The track is called "Lifted Upward" in that game; it is also used as part of "Desert Scorcher," another track from the game. It is directly recycled in the "More Dig and Dash" track in Kirby and the Rainbow Curse.
The episode is a reference to a 1961 movie called "Mothra."
This episode reveals that Kirby is only allergic to the dust from Mosugaba's wings, since it's even stronger than pollen.
The giant hand that takes the Island Sisters at the beginning of the episode looks very similar to that of Master Hand.
Oddly, the characters in this episode wear masks when they are affected by the pollen as if allergies are contagious. In real life, allergy sneezes aren't contagious.
Meta Knight makes only a very brief appearance in this episode when the cocoon burns.
The way the Mosugaba's metamorphosis is sped up by the bonfire's heat is similar to how the Dyna Chick's egg hatching process was in Kirby's Egg-Cellent Adventure.
This is one of the only episodes where the Waddle Dees' voices are heard. These are heard when the Waddle Dees sneezed in the hallway.

Other languages[]

Language	Name	Translation	Airdate
Italian	Che strana allergia!	What a strange allergy!	December 1, 2014
Korean	모스가바의 역습!	Mosugaba's counterattack!	Unknown
Spanish (Latin America)	Una oruga gigante	A giant caterpillar	Unknown