Little Bill's Giant Space Adventure

Overview

Little Bill is in his room playing with his Captain Brainstorm toys when he notices that his spaceship has stopped making noise and blinking its lights. He brings the toy to his father, and Big Bill deduces the toy needs new batteries, but they are out of the kind it needs and they'll have to go to the store. Little Bill offers to go to the store by himself, but Big Bill says he's not old enough to go anywhere alone yet. Disappointed, Little Bill goes outside to watch April and Bobby play basketball; he asks to join in the game, only to have his siblings tell him he's too little to reach the basket. Frustrated at having everyone tell him he's too little to do anything, Little Bill retreats to his room and begins drawing a story. He imagines that his alien friend, Max, has returned to ask Little Bill if he can come with him to another planet to rescue Captain Brainstorm. Little Bill gladly obliges, and when they reach the other planet, they find that the inhabitants, the Purple Burples, are gigantic, and have to be very careful not to get stepped on while locating Captain Brainstorm. When they find the Space Explorer, he explains that he was making a distress call on behalf of the Burples, not himself. It turns out the Burples were attempting to change a power switch for their space station when the battery fell and dropped behind a small grate, and even Captain Brainstorm is too large to fit through the opening and retrieve it. Little Bill thinks he might be small enough to fit, and he reaches in to get the battery. Having saved the day, Bill returns home. Just as he's finishing his story, Big Bill comes back from the store with the battery for the toy and fixes it. Suddenly, they hear Bobby and April yelling outside and rush to see what's happened; their basketball has rolled under the porch steps and they can't fit under to find it. Seeing an opportunity to imitate his story, Little Bill easily goes under the stairs and retrieves the ball, making him realize that sometimes being little isn't a bad thing after all.