Save the Past Dance

“	A bath? Never! Viva la stink!	”
	— Dr. Colosso

Save the Past Dance

Season 4

Episode 17

Production

Air Date

November 18, 2017

Prod. Code

427

Crew

Writer

Anthony Q. Farrell

Director

Robbie Countryman

Episode Guide
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Save the Past Dance is the seventeenth episode of Season 4 of The Thundermans and the 88th episode overall. It aired on November 18, 2017, to 1.34 million viewers.

Synopsis[]

Tired of hearing tales of Hiddenville's legendary mayor, the kids use a time machine to travel back 60 years to disprove the myths; but when they inadvertently alter the past, the effect is disastrous for their hometown.^[1]

Plot[]

It is a heavily windy morning, where it can be heard from everywhere around town. Max, Billy and Nora are trying to convince Hank and Barb to let them skip school so they won't have to walk in the extreme wind. However, Hank and Barb refuse to let them skip. Phoebe then arrives and says she's willing to go to school despite the wind, because she has dressed for it. After Max, Billy and Nora realize they can't skip school, they try to get Chloe to teleport them there, but they still haven't given her the candy they promised her for the last time she did, so that doesn't work. Then the parents decide to tell them the story of Heinrich Hiddenville III. He would go to school every day, even on November 4th, 1955, when he fought off a bear using just a pencil. He even won a dance contest on that same day. The kids don't believe the story one bit.

A few seconds later, Blobbin appears, and decides to offer the Thundermans a free vacation in his "timeshare." The kids decide to go to school instead of Blobbin's vacation, and Hank and Barb decide to try and give Dr. Colosso a bath. After arriving to school, Max says that that was the worst walk to school ever. Phoebe has her hair messed up by a tree. Then, Gideon and Cherry arrive, saying that their parents told them the same story about Hiddenville. Wolfgang also arrives. When Principal Bradford shows up, the five ask him why he looks so perfect, and Max says that it's because he lives in the school. In order to deny it, he deflects back to Phoebe having tree hair. Both Max and Phoebe agree that they should have stayed home, and they decide to go to the library to try and prove that the Heinrich Hiddenville story is fake. However, none of the books help them, saying the same story. Billy and Nora also arrive, and later Blobbin does as well.

Blobbin is dressed like a pirate, and he explains how he went back to the 1700's and sailed the high seas with Captain Blackbeard. Max then asks Blobbin if his "timeshare" is a time machine, and Blobbin says that it is. Then Max decides that they should go back to November 4th, 1955 to prove that the Heinrich Hiddenville story is fake. While initially hesitant, Phoebe decides to join her siblings. They arrive in 1955.

Later, they see Hiddenville walking around observing flowers. Max believes that there is no way that a person like him is able to fight off a bear with a pencil. However, a few moments later, Hiddenville does exactly that, leaving the kids dumbfounded. Max says that they can still make him miss school, and they do this by having Billy and Nora laser him and scare him. Hiddenville trips on a rock, making him unable to go to school. The kids go back into the future...

But when they return to their "house", they see that it's occupied by members of the puking scorpion gang. After questioning the gang, the gang is about to attack them when the kids just barely escape. Max and Phoebe decide to go to Hiddenville High, but it also looks like a crime ring too. They see Gideon and Cherry dressed like criminals, and they start to ask them what is going on. However, that doesn't help them as Gideon and Cherry only threaten to hurt them. They leave when Wolfgang appears to be making some sort of call.

Max and Phoebe later see Principal Bradford, who's also dressed like a criminal. They ask him about whether Mayor Hiddenville made the town an awesome place. Bradford then tells them the story about what they did, and how Hiddenville decided to become a crime boss and banish all superheroes and bears from the town. Max then realizes that Hank and Barb were not in the house because their parents never moved there because Hiddenville had become a crime town. Max and Phoebe decide to go back to 1955 in order to not make Heinrich hate them.

When they arrive back in 1955, they see that Heinrich has a cast on his foot, and they decide that in order to help him, they should help him win the dance contest. After Heinrich says that his partner ditched him, Phoebe volunteers to become his new partner. Phoebe showcases her moves, and Heinrich quickly agrees. They go to splatburger, where the contest is being held. There they see Grandma Wong, who's Mrs. Wong's grandmother, and Colonel Chad Bradford, Principal Bradford's grandfather. The two are shown to be in love with each other, which grosses out the kids.

The dance contest starts, and Max decides to help Heinrich dance by using telekinesis to keep him up. As the contest goes by, they progressively dance better and better. However, when Colonel Bradford spots Max's hair and tries to change it, Max runs away and is unable to help Hiddenville dance. Phoebe then forces Max to take the gel with his hair and continue to help Hiddenville dance with her. The two do their "boogie bus" dance and they start to win over the crowd. Grandma Wong stops the contest and looks like she's about to give the win to Phoebe and Heinrich, but she doesn't and lets their competitors win. Max, Billy and Nora are all disappointed that their efforts amounted to nothing, and Phoebe believes that Heinrich will be devastated by the loss. However, Heinrich is actually really happy despite not winning, as everyone was doing his and Phoebe's "boogie bus." The kids want to go, but they decide to take a picture with Heinrich so that he can remember them. After seeing Colonel Bradford and Grandma Wong slow dancing they finally decide to go home.

After arriving home, they all greet Barb who asks them about their old timey costumes. The kids lie and say that they created an old-fashioned family band and that they just broke up. Then Hank, Chloe, and Blobbin arrive. Blobbin is surprised that the kids went to school in this terrible weather, and Hank begins to tell Max, Phoebe, Billy and Nora about the revised story of Heinrich Hiddenville on the day of November 4th, 1955. Hiddenville would go to school every day except the day when he fought off a bear and tripped on a rock. He would go on to compete in a dance contest that day, in which he won over the whole town, but lost because of his partner, which history has "forgotten." Phoebe then whispers to Max that she "heard that she was the bees knees" (what Hiddenville called her). However, Chloe notices the picture that the four took with Hiddenville remarking that the people in the picture look exactly like them. Hank, Barb and Blobbin look at the picture and notice the same thing, and Max, Phoebe, Billy and Nora are exposed. When Blobbin asks if they messed around with his timeshare, the kids try to joke their way out of it by saying that they have no idea what he's talking about. However, they're exposed again when Colosso gets mad at them for leaving him in the past, showing himself to be old and bearded and with a cane. And Max knew they forgotten something.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Recurring Cast[]

Audrey Whitby as Cherry
Jake Borelli as Wolfgang
Kenny Ridwan as Gideon
Jeff Meacham as Principal Bradford/Colonel Bradford
Helen Hong as Grandma Wong
Harvey Guillen as Blobbin

Special Guest Cast[]

Owen Joyner as Heinrich Hiddenville III

Continuity[]

The fact that Principal Bradford lives in school was first revealed in 21 Dump Street.
In this episode, the sign shows "Welcome to Hiddenville, a city of 999 parks" 60 years ago. By 2014, (Four Supes and a Baby), Hiddenville had added one more park to become "a city of 1000 parks."
Billy has said in multiple episodes that he doesn't wear underwear, including He Got Game Night and One Hit Thunder.
When Heinrich complains about his perfect attendance being ruined, Phoebe says she's been there referring to Back To School when Max revealed that he had ruined Phoebe's perfect attendance.
When Bradford says that Heinrich's hatred of superheroes drove him to be a crime boss, Max says he's been there referring to his Evil Phase, particularly Phoebe vs. Max when he told Phoebe that he wants to be a supervillain because he thought he couldn't be a better superhero than her.
Max caring so much about his hair and calling it "swoosh", was also seen in Patch Me If You Can.
Time travel on the Thundermans was first implied in On The Straight And Arrow when Billy and Nora lied to their parents that Max's time machine blew up and took them back to Friday. In that episode, Billy's main interest in traveling to the past was seeing dinosaurs as well.
It’s revealed that Hank doesn’t like mermaids.

Trivia[]

This was the first episode to air after a five-month hiatus. However, the next set of episodes will likely air from January 2018.
The episode title is a reference to the 2001 American dance film, Save the Last Dance and a parody of the 1985 blockbuster Back to The Future.
- Kira posted pictures of Phoebe on her Instagram story, showing a DeLorean and the costumes that Kira and Jack were wearing resembles 50s styles.
- When Heinrich sees Max's freeze breath, he exclaims "Great Scott" which was Doc Emmett Brown's catchphrase in the Back to the Future trilogy.
- 1955 is the same year which the main events of Back to the Future take place.
The episode is about Max and Phoebe time-travelling to the past and back to the present too, introducing time travel to the Thundermans.
Owen Joyner from 100 Things to do before High School guest starred in this episode.
Nico Greetham from Power Rangers Ninja Steel appears as one of the background characters in the 1955 Splatburger.^[2]
- Greetham is the second Power Rangers actor to appear in The Thundermans, the first one was Camille Hyde from Power Rangers Dino Charge who played the recurring character Roxy in Season 3.
The Puking Scorpions gang is seen to live in the The Thundermans' Home while most people in Hiddenville are evil, in the reality where the Thunderman kids altered the past.
The Thundermans-related articles in the book, "The Complete History of Hiddenville", are in fact inserted into the book, "The Secret Language of Birthdays". The pages do not seem to fit the book properly and a portion of a page from the original book can be seen on the page before Mayor Heinrich Hiddenville III's article.
Jack Griffo considers this episode one of his favorites. ^[3]
Jeff Meacham mentioned that this was the last episode he shot.

Goofs[]

Gideon says that "Wolfgang is lucky, I bet his host family didn't make him come in." When in fact, in One Hit Thunder, Gideon's family is Wolfgang's host family.
- It’s possible that he changed host families. It’s common for foreign exchange students to switch host families each semester.
Splatburger was shown to have been around in Hiddenville in 1955. However, in Shred It Go, all the Splatburger employees say that it is a brand-new restaurant that has just opened there.
- This could be a different version of Splatburger which was closed but revived years later. Restaurants often get closed and reopened later.