Mega-Pinocchio

Ring Man is out for a spin on his fancy hoverboard, and he lands next to an electrified fence, where a guard unwittingly tells him how to get in, and he proceeds to give himself access by shutting off the generator, but before he can be put under arrest, the guard's rifle is sliced in half with a ring. Ring Man signals for Cut Man and Guts Man to enter, and they demolish the fence while the guard is just standing dumbfounded.

Inside, Doctor Petto is working on a robot while Guts Man enters and is about to make off with him, until Mega Man pops in through a ceiling window. Ring Man fires a ring at him, but Rush grabs onto when it returns and crashes straight into it's owner. Mega Man takes his power, and uses a single ring to cut off Cut Man's blade, trap him out the talon of a huge robot bird hanging from the ceiling, and pwning Guts Man with glue and stupidity.
 

Petto then proceeds to marvel over Mega Man, but they can't stay long and both of them return to Light's lab on Rush. He tells them all of what he does, and says that he's ready to turn his first robot into a human being, and suggests it to Mega Man, saying he will be able to smell a rose or get tingly at the sight of a pretty girl, but our modest hero says he's just happy as he is. Petto starts another "half-full or half-empty" question by asking if he knows what happy is.

During the night, Petto is back in his lab continuing work on that robot, when Mega Man shows up and says he wants to be human after all. Petto begins the operation, and switches him off, but Wily and Proto Man show up, zap him, and reveal he was just a robot they built! They then insert a "telepathic mind chip" in Mega Man, putting him under their control, and it fades to after the operation, with Petto giving him a rose to smell. Wily, wearing a goofy headset, tells Mega Man how to respond ("you feel all mushy and tingly inside"), and he does so in a monotone fashion; Petto is convinced, and Mega Man sets out to tell the others while Wily laughs to himself over his plans for Mega to wreck havoc and have Dr. Light get the blame.

Telling them of the news, Light and Roll are delighted, but before he can tell them how it feels, emergency! Wily is attacking the satellite tower! Mega Man sets out on Rush Jet, and Roll follows after to assist without Light's permission. Some stupid news woman (named Brea Racona or something stupid like that) is reporting on the scene while Magnet Man, Spark Man and Crash Man cause some mischief while the people inside the tower evacuate. Mega Man shows up and grabs Crash Man's bombs from a building, but Wily tells him to be afraid of dropping the bombs, and that's precisely what he does. What does Mega Man have to say for letting the bombs blast a hole in the tower and make it start tilting?

"Oh no! I really blew it this time."
 

The news woman blames Mega Man for the damage, much to Wily's joy, and then she realises that Wily's robots are actually STEALING THE BUILDING WITH A HELICOPTER. Light shows up with his "robo rescuers" who try to secure the building, as does Roll, while Mega Man reaches the top of the building and demands the building to be left. He's nearly battered off by Guts Man with a pole until somehow a plasma shot electrifies it and the wielder. Before he can finish him off, Wily tells him he doesn't want to hurt Guts Man, giving the big lug the opportunity to flee on the helicopter, dropping the building.

Everyone including the news reporter and robo rescuers flee (previously everyone had just been standing right by the building), and the tower collapses into a giant pile of rubble. Somehow, Mega Man is unscathed, but the news woman and angry mob come to Dr. Light and ask him after this why they should trust him and his creations. Dr. Light simply stutters, and the interview is over. Wily is ever so happy.
 

Light and Mega Man are at a junkyard, donating broken machinery and damaged robot parts from the wreckage, and Mega Man laments on letting his creator down, while talking about conflicting emotions, suggesting he should either be one thing or the other. Back at Light's lab, the doctor thinks to himself if he hadn't programmed his self-determination, he wouldn't have become human, giving Mega Man more of an existential crisis than ever.

Wily, following Proto Man's suggestion to "get to the action part", tells him to reprogram Light's robots and remove their self-determination, but before he can get to work, Light asks him what he's doing. The blue bomber tells him flatly what he's up to, and Light tells him it's just an emotion he's going through, but Mega Man ignores this and sends them down a convenient trap door to the trash compactor. Wily and his goons show up conveniently as well, praising Mega Man for his work, and tell him to turn on the trash compactor. Doctor Light states the obvious.

"I can't believe it! Mega's... turned against us!"
 

Doctor Light programs a robot hand with only a few twists of a screw driver, and uses it to not only open the trap door, but also to give Ring Man a beating. They escape on Rush Jet, but Wily isn't fazed and they continue reprogramming the robots; Light and Roll head to Dr. Petto's lab, but see for themselves he was a Wily robot, and that Mega Man is being controlled by telepathic mind chips. Light says he'll try and find the frequency of the chip and free Mega's mind, meanwhile all the robots are reprogrammed, and Wily plans to parachute them down over the city, where after enough rampaging, the citizens will beg for mercy. Villainous!
 

While Light is working on the mind helmet, he receives an emergency message from the secretary of defence to stop his robots' attack at the Whitehouse. Roll sets out to take care of it, while Light has finished the helmet, and claims Mega Man is lost forever if it doesn't work. Over at the scene of the attack, Mega Man disables three tanks before Roll shows up, who tries to bring him back to the good side, and thus results a three-way persuading contest between Roll and Light (in a helicopter) against Wily, but after being told to go with what he thinks is right, he pretends to side with Wily, whispering to Roll to just play along. He shoots down Light's helicopter and hides behind some trees with Roll, taking out the mind chip and having a quick "oh glad to see you again"ing.
 

He returns to Wily and unites with them, but his friendly gesture to Magnet Man is just a clever way to pinch his power and get the mind helmet for himself. He commands the reprogrammed robots to attack: The fire fighter robots repel Cut Man's blade to cut down a pillar and crush him, the "jack bots" shake Magnet Man to pieces, and the welder bots use a heated girder to bind Guts Man. A short fight with Proto Man ends when Mega Man gets in the way of a blast aimed at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, draining his energy to above zilch, but Eddie comes to the rescue, tripping up Proto Man and refilling Mega's health.

With the energy recharge, the brothers fire at each other, but Mega Man's shot prevails, blasting Proto Man back into the helicopter, and the baddies fly off. Back at the lab, Light has removed all the mind control chips from his robots, and Mega Man asks why he cared so much about saving a stone statue. Light answers that Mega Man has self-determination and compassion, which Wily's robots lack.

The obligatory Rush gag involves him chewing messily on some dog biscuits, and Mega Man saying he needs some human emotions, such as good manners. Roll puts a mind control chip in him, and tells him he is the most perfect robo dog in the world. Rush then takes a biscuit and politely eats it, before burping. "Looks like you can't teach an old robo dog new tricks." Laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh.

The first time I watched this, I, for whatever reason, didn't hear Wily's comment about building Petto, nor did I hear the metallic clank of him hitting the floor, so when Roll and Light found him I presumed he was dead or still unconscious while standing or something. On repeat viewings I heard those, but it just made me realise that the whole episode would've been less stupid and confusing if they simply excised the whole "i'm human now whattaya think" part of the story, and had more Magnet Man and Crash Man.
Confusion and wishes aside, it's a semi-decent episode. There are some good lines and a couple of humourous ways to dispose of the bad guys, plus there's some nice use of lighting and angles (by the standards of the series), but this is hampered by every character suddenly becoming whiny jerks, and honestly, can't they just get him brainwashed without some theme that is only cared about for three minutes and then ignored for the rest of the episode?

3 out of 5 angry cowboys.

The DVD menu lacks the hyphen and second C in "Pinocchio".

When Mega Man tells Roll to play along with his faking, she pulls the funniest face ever.

And there's the obvious humour of him having his hands on her while she pulls it but I'm not stooping to the "Wood Man and Hard Man lol" level of humour here.

There are four guest Robot Masters in this episode, although they don't do terribly much; Ring Man disappears after being beaten senseless by the hand, Magnet Man is in a few shots of the tower destruction and replaces Ring Man once he's down, Crash Man appears only during the tower destruction and only says one line, and Spark Man is in only one shot of the tower destruction with no lines at all.