KEY POINTS:
After two weeks of midnight sittings and debates on the weighty topics of biofuels, domestic violence and the economy, Parliament ended for the year with Bugs Bunny, Homer Simpson and an underpants theory.
The adjournment debate began with some substance, as Bill English set out the challenges facing
the Government and paid tribute to the way the Maori Party had dealt with its "historic" deal with National.
It didn't last. Goaded by Mr English laying the blame for the state of the Government's books at Labour's door, its deputy leader Annette King was ready to retaliate.
"After only two weeks in Parliament, John Key has gone from being the Energizer Bunny to Bugs Bunny," she says, and breaks into a Bugs Bunny squawk: "He's saying: 'What's up Bill? What's up Bill?"'
National's Gerry Brownlee carries on with the cartoon theme, noticing Labour has adopted a "Homer Simpson defence" to the election result. "I wasn't there, it didn't happen, it wasn't me."
This is bait to Labour's Michael Cullen who has made much of Mr Brownlee's own "doh!" moments as he bungled the procedures of the House.
He began by lulling National into a false sense of security by congratulating them on a "comprehensive" election victory.
But this is Dr Cullen and when honey flows it is swiftly followed by a bee.
He proceeded to announce a new theory in the art of voter psychology - the "underwear principle".
"That election was basically won on what one might call, slightly indelicately, the 'underwear principle'. And that is, it was time for a change. It was not won upon the basis that one wanted different underwear, it was simply a time for a change of underwear."
The debate brought to an end a hectic final fortnight during which Parliament sat in urgency to get through National's tax cuts, and laws including stronger bail and sentencing provisions, and the repeal of the biofuels law and the ban on thermal generation.
The long sittings at least provided a glimpse of the standard of debate that awaits under the change of Government.
For National came the challenge of the first Question Time in which John Key and Simon Power thrived while others - Anne Tolley - struggled.
It proved a punishing time for the Maori Party - whose MPs came in for much mocking over its new "mana enhancing" relationship with National.
It led Pita Sharples to observe rather dolefully in his adjournment speech that while there remained respect for the National leadership, he was certain there would be "many opportunities for us to consider the 'agree to disagree' provisions".
For the Greens there was despondency as National took one week to dismantle the projects so close to its heart. Jeanette Fitzsimons could only ask, her eyes rolling: "Has New Zealand been awarded the fossil of the year award yet?"
But Labour came back looking rather like a pig in mud - Darren Hughes, revving at National from the mid-benches, and observers were astonished to hear Parekura Horomia speaking in a comprehensible, even eloquent manner.
Helen Clark made a graceful, quiet return to the public eye, often turning up in the House to watch her colleagues speak and fronting for Labour on the Fiji issue.
But the MP having the most fun must be Michael Cullen who has now ankle-tapped National so repeatedly over its slip-ups in parliamentary procedure that Brownlee starts to blush every time Cullen stands up.
So to Dr Cullen goes the last word, who re-visited the barb he so smugly biffed at National after the 2005 election: "We won, you lost, eat that."
This time the phrase was a bit different - but said with even more glee given that it is no longer his job to deal with the dire predictions of debt, unemployment and red ink in the HYEFU released that morning.
"You won, we lost. Digest that, and come up with a plan."