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* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
* AlmostKiss: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AnimalReactionShot: Digby, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* ArrangedMarriage: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* BadHabits: In [[CaptainObvious "Bad Habits."]]
* BananaIntheTailpipe: A potato variety appears in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E9Corpsicle Corpsicle]]"
* BedsheetGhost: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E5Girth Girth]]"
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BulletTime: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]" has [[PlayedForLaughs a humorous example]] with a steam explosion.
* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: Alluded to in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]".
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Pie Hole regulars:
** The Cynic: [[DeadpanSnarker Emerson.]][[note]]KnightInSourArmor[=/=]TheSnarkKnight. OnlySaneMan also applies considering he works with a dead girl, a miracle worker, and a zany girl.[[/note]]
** The Optimist: [[ThePollyanna Chuck.]][[note]]TheHeart[=/=]PluckyGirl. Also TheDeterminator considering she doesn't give up despite losing everything save for an extremely difficult relationship with Ned.[[/note]]
** The Realist: [[TheFettered Ned.]][[note]]TheCaptain who frequently makes the final call [[GreyAndGrayMorality between Chuck's/Olive's unbreakable idealism and Emerson's extreme cynicism.]][[/note]]
** The Apathetic/Conflicted: [[CloudCuckoolander Olive.]][[note]]SupportingProtagonist[=/=]CuteAndPsycho[=/=]TheDitherer, especially considering she is frequently left out on secrets and goings-on.[[/note]]
** The Cynic: [[DeadpanSnarker Emerson.]][[note]]KnightInSourArmor[=/=]TheSnarkKnight. OnlySaneMan also applies considering he works with a dead girl, a miracle worker, and a zany girl.[[/note]]
** The Optimist: [[ThePollyanna Chuck.]][[note]]TheHeart[=/=]PluckyGirl. Also TheDeterminator considering she doesn't give up despite losing everything save for an extremely difficult relationship with Ned.[[/note]]
** The Realist: [[TheFettered Ned.]][[note]]TheCaptain who frequently makes the final call [[GreyAndGrayMorality between Chuck's/Olive's unbreakable idealism and Emerson's extreme cynicism.]][[/note]]
** The Apathetic/Conflicted: [[CloudCuckoolander Olive.]][[note]]SupportingProtagonist[=/=]CuteAndPsycho[=/=]TheDitherer, especially considering she is frequently left out on secrets and goings-on.[[/note]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: Emerson Cod, who runs the B-Plot in almost every episode; as numerous episodes are Ned/Chuck/Olive central for the A-Plot, Emerson always takes care of the murder case alongside it when other plots are explored elsewhere.
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Deleted line(s) 274 (click to see context) :
* PreviouslyOn: The Narrator mentions Ned's ability and its rules OnceAnEpisode so new viewers are not lost.
* ThePollyanna: Chuck. Despite losing her father, being unable to speak to her aunts, and completely unable to make contact with the man she loves, she still keeps her optimism for the majority of the series.
Changed line(s) 280 (click to see context) from:
* PowerTrio: Ned/Chuck/Emerson as Ego/Superego/Id, respectively.
to:
* PowerTrio: Ned/Chuck/Emerson as Ego/Superego/Id, respectively.[[FreudianTrio Ego/Superego/Id]], respectively.
** Also: [[BigThinShortTrio Thin/Short/Big]] (respectively) and ThreeAmigos.
* PreviouslyOn: The Narrator mentions Ned's ability and its rules OnceAnEpisode so new viewers are not lost.
** Also: [[BigThinShortTrio Thin/Short/Big]] (respectively) and ThreeAmigos.
* PreviouslyOn: The Narrator mentions Ned's ability and its rules OnceAnEpisode so new viewers are not lost.
* RedOniBlueOni: [[TheCynic Aunt Lily]] and [[TheIdealist Aunt Vivian]].
* TheRunaway: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]". (Kids still run away to join the circus in this world.)
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SexyBacklessOutfit: The Dandy Lion model costumes in "Dummy". At the same time, the front leaves everything to the imagination.
* UranusIsShowing: Young Emerson gets sent to the principal's office for making this joke.
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
Deleted line(s) 382,405 (click to see context) :
!Specific episodes provide examples of:
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
* AlmostKiss: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AnimalReactionShot: Digby, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* ArrangedMarriage: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* BadHabits: In "Bad Habits", the TropeNamer
* [[strike: Banana]] [[BananaIntheTailpipe Potato In The Tailpipe]]: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E9Corpsicle Corpsicle]]"
* BedsheetGhost: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E5Girth Girth]]"
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BulletTime: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: alluded to in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]".
* TheRunaway: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]". (Kids still run away to join the circus in this world.)
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SexyBacklessOutfit: The Dandy Lion model costumes in "Dummy". At the same time, the front leaves everything to the imagination.
* UranusIsShowing: Young Emerson gets sent to the principal's office for making this joke.
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
* AlmostKiss: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AnimalReactionShot: Digby, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* ArrangedMarriage: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* BadHabits: In "Bad Habits", the TropeNamer
* [[strike: Banana]] [[BananaIntheTailpipe Potato In The Tailpipe]]: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E9Corpsicle Corpsicle]]"
* BedsheetGhost: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E5Girth Girth]]"
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BulletTime: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: alluded to in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]".
* TheRunaway: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]". (Kids still run away to join the circus in this world.)
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SexyBacklessOutfit: The Dandy Lion model costumes in "Dummy". At the same time, the front leaves everything to the imagination.
* UranusIsShowing: Young Emerson gets sent to the principal's office for making this joke.
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
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** In the conclusion of "Comfort Food":
-->'''Widow''': Now that I have [my husband's] recipe, that nice donut man and I are gonna go into business together: "Finger-Lickin' Donut Holes".\\
'''Ned''': Sounds delicious. ({{beat}}) [[LampshadeHanging And]] [[DoubleEntendre filthy]].
-->'''Widow''': Now that I have [my husband's] recipe, that nice donut man and I are gonna go into business together: "Finger-Lickin' Donut Holes".\\
'''Ned''': Sounds delicious. ({{beat}}) [[LampshadeHanging And]] [[DoubleEntendre filthy]].
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Changed line(s) 68 (click to see context) from:
* ChekhovsGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]" has Chekhov's ''Cannon''. A midget with a cannon happens to pass by when Ned and Emerson are at the ringmaster's trailer... then, later in the episode, the human cannonball gets fired at them. Also with Chuck's father's pocket watch, which the mysterious Dixon wants for some reason. It was shown ''in the very first episode'' and has only become relevant now, halfway through Season 2.
to:
* ChekhovsGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]" has Chekhov's ''Cannon''. A midget with a cannon happens to pass by when Ned and Emerson are at the ringmaster's trailer... then, later in the episode, the human cannonball gets fired at them. Also with Chuck's father's them.
** Charles Charles' pocketwatch, which the mysterious Dixon wants for some reason. watch also applies. It was shown ''in the very first episode'' episode'', and has only become cropped up again when Lawrence Schatz stole it [[note]]the funeral director revealed to be running a grave robbing racket in [=S01E03=][[/note]], and then became relevant now, halfway through again come Season 2.2.
** Emerson Cod's revolver also applies; throughout the show it is used only to wave around, but it finally gets fired in [[spoiler:"[=S02E07=]: Robbing Hood" when he destroys an escape rope.]] It's even noted by Cod:
-->'''Emerson''': It's about time I get to do the gun pointing around here.
** Charles Charles' pocket
** Emerson Cod's revolver also applies; throughout the show it is used only to wave around, but it finally gets fired in [[spoiler:"[=S02E07=]: Robbing Hood" when he destroys an escape rope.]] It's even noted by Cod:
-->'''Emerson''': It's about time I get to do the gun pointing around here.
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Changed line(s) 383 (click to see context) from:
* ArrangedMarriage: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
to:
* ArrangedMarriage: in In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"Sum]]"
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]", when discussing the gambling regulars:
-->Shrimpboy's the gangster in charge of the table and paying off the manager. Anson Chen did eight years in the state pen for armed robbery. Jin Quin is a thug for hire who'll do anything for a few dollars. Louie Lu strangled his mother-in-law, got off on a technicality. Jim is a plumber.
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** Emerson describes a character as going [[RedHarvest Blood]] [[BloodSimple Simple]].
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Changed line(s) 313 (click to see context) from:
** Emerson describes Chuck as [[BreakfastAtTiffany's happy go-lightly]].
to:
** Emerson describes Chuck as [[BreakfastAtTiffany's happy go-lightly]].[[BreakfastAtTiffanys happy-Golightly]].
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** Emerson describes Chuck as [[BreakfastAtTiffany's happy go-lightly]].
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Deleted line(s) 277,279 (click to see context) :
* RefugeInAudacity: Usually, when fifteen people die, it's a very big tragedy. Except when it's clowns and they all die in the same [[ClownCarBase clown car]] crash. And then their bodies are taken out one at a time, with one dead clown having enormous stilts. Then it's ''hilarious''.
** It was also pretty hilarious when in episode 3 of season 2, Olive prays for a sign from God. Then a dead nun falls from above where she was praying. It's so morbid but funny at the same time.
** [[DeadLikeMe Fifteen would be a calamity, actually.]]
** It was also pretty hilarious when in episode 3 of season 2, Olive prays for a sign from God. Then a dead nun falls from above where she was praying. It's so morbid but funny at the same time.
** [[DeadLikeMe Fifteen would be a calamity, actually.]]
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** Arguably, Ned's name - an anagram of "end", symbolizing his connection to death.
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Ah, I take that back.
Deleted line(s) 28 (click to see context) :
* Adorkable: Ned, with his ramblings and bittersweet smiles, certainly qualifies. In her teenage flashbacks, Chuck was as well.
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* Adorkable: Ned, with his ramblings and bittersweet smiles, certainly qualifies. In her teenage flashbacks, Chuck was as well.
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** They also got a fair bit of use out of Lee Pace as well. Perhaps the best example for him is the two minutes or so he's standing in nothing but a pair of boxers in the season 2 opener.
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Everythings Better With Bunnies cleanup. Examples not fitting into other tropes will be deleted.
Deleted line(s) 118 (click to see context) :
* EverythingsBetterWithBunnies: Subverted, as the bunny appearing in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic" dies.
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Changed line(s) 140 (click to see context) from:
* FlirtyStepSiblings / NotBloodSiblings: How they explain Vivian and Lily having the same last name as Charles and Vivian thinking Chuck is hers and Lily’s niece if Charles is Vivian’s ex-fiancé and [[spoiler: Lily’s secret daughter.]]
to:
* FlirtyStepSiblings / NotBloodSiblings: How they explain Vivian and Lily having the same last name as Charles and Vivian thinking Chuck is hers and Lily’s niece if Charles is Vivian’s ex-fiancé and [[spoiler: Chuck being Lily’s secret daughter.]]
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* FlirtyStepSiblings / NotBloodSiblings: How they explain Vivian and Lily having the same last name as Charles and Vivian thinking Chuck is hers and Lily’s niece if Charles is Vivian’s ex-fiancé and [[spoiler: Lily’s secret daughter.]]
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* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Ned and Chuck... more or less.
Deleted line(s) 361 (click to see context) :
* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Ned and Chuck... more or less
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* AbsoluteCleavage: Olive rocks some while wearing the Darling Mermaid Darling outfit.
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Changed line(s) 306 (click to see context) from:
** ''{{Vertigo}}'': in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
to:
** ''{{Vertigo}}'': ''Film/{{Vertigo}}'': in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
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Changed line(s) 165 (click to see context) from:
** As well as the Hitchcock references in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]", culminating with Emerson's dream homage to {{Vertigo}}.
to:
** As well as the Hitchcock references in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]", culminating with Emerson's dream homage to {{Vertigo}}.''Film/{{Vertigo}}''.
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Changed line(s) 166 (click to see context) from:
** In some episodes Chuck's fashion style is a clear tribute to Audrey Hepburn
to:
** In some episodes Chuck's fashion style is a clear tribute to Audrey HepburnCreator/AudreyHepburn
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Changed line(s) 278 (click to see context) from:
* RetroUniverse: From Chuck's [[AudreyHepburn Hepburn-esque]] wardrobe to Ned's and Emerson's beautiful old cars, the world is like a more colorful version of the past... or the past as it should have been (although the idealized past apparently includes the Reagan administration as seen in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]").
to:
* RetroUniverse: From Chuck's [[AudreyHepburn [[Creator/AudreyHepburn Hepburn-esque]] wardrobe to Ned's and Emerson's beautiful old cars, the world is like a more colorful version of the past... or the past as it should have been (although the idealized past apparently includes the Reagan administration as seen in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]").
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* BlindIdiotTranslation: The S2 episode "Robbing Hood" erroneously claims that the wholly nonsensical Latin phrase ''orbis pro vox'' translates as ''ring for rights'' (as in, "ring doorbells for rights").
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** Main character Charlotte "Chuck" Charles
to:
** Main character Charlotte "Chuck" CharlesCharles and her father Charles Charles.
** Episode 11 of season 2 is full of alliteration.
** Episode 11 of season 2 is full of alliteration.
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Yes, and the Michigan theory is later disproved by the zip code in \"The Fun in Funeral\" and the graphic in \"The Norwegians\". Let\'s stick with \"internally inconsistent\".
Changed line(s) 46,47 (click to see context) from:
* CameBackWrong: All of the bodies of the people Ned brings back to life remain as they were when he touched them. This is not always pleasant to watch.
** Interestingly, this doesn't seem to apply to strawberries. One explanation or rationalization could be that Ned's powers can reverse/heal the effects of time or death by "natural" causes but can't reverse physical trauma.
** Interestingly, this doesn't seem to apply to strawberries. One explanation or rationalization could be that Ned's powers can reverse/heal the effects of time or death by "natural" causes but can't reverse physical trauma.
to:
* CameBackWrong: All of the bodies of the people Ned brings back to life remain as they were when he touched them. This is not always pleasant to watch.
**watch. Interestingly, this doesn't seem to apply to strawberries.the fruits Ned resurrects. One explanation or rationalization could be that Ned's powers can reverse/heal the effects of time or death by "natural" causes but can't reverse physical trauma.
**
Changed line(s) 68,69 (click to see context) from:
* CityWithNoName: The city where the main action takes place is never named, though we do know that it's in (fictitious) Papen County, 131 miles due north of Coeur d'Coeurs (Ned and Chuck's equally fictitious hometown). Information on placing Papen County in a US state or region is internally inconsistent.
** In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in MI.
** In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in MI.
to:
* CityWithNoName: The city where the main action takes place is never named, though we do know that it's in (fictitious) Papen County, 131 miles due north of Coeur d'Coeurs (Ned and Chuck's equally fictitious hometown). Information on placing Papen County in a US state or region is internally inconsistent.
** In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in MI.inconsistent.
** In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in MI.
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** In the first episode, Lily mentions that Chuck used to threaten to bake anti-depressants into their food in order to cheer them up. Come Season Two...
to:
** In the first episode, Lily mentions that Chuck used to threaten to bake anti-depressants into their food in order to cheer them up. Come Season Two...episode two...
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Changed line(s) 69 (click to see context) from:
-->In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in .
to:
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-->In the Pie-lette, it's suggested that the main city is in Michigan (a journalist reporting on the very first Emerson/Ned collaboration describes the victim as a "Michigan businessman"), and, by that assumption, Coeur d'Coeurs is also in .
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* BlackHumour: All the time, from the word go:
--> Digby was three years, two weeks, six days, five hours and nine minutes old... and not a minute longer. '''''*splat*'''''
--> Digby was three years, two weeks, six days, five hours and nine minutes old... and not a minute longer. '''''*splat*'''''
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* IgnoredEnamoredUnderling: Olive to Ned, who eventually hashes it out with her.
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pushing_daisies_sm_6389.jpg]]
->''"Well, I suppose dying's as good an excuse as any to start living."''
-->-- '''Charlotte "Chuck" Charles'''
[[CatchPhrase The facts are these:]]
There once was a piemaker who could raise the dead with a touch--but only for sixty seconds, or else someone else would have to die to take their place. If he touched the resurrected person again, they died permanently. One day, the piemaker was given the opportunity to raise Chuck, his childhood sweetheart... So he did. This act brought the two much closer, but tragically kept them apart; one more touch would mean Chuck would be dead forever. Along with his undead dog, a grumpy private eye, her eccentric aunts and a singing waitress, [[TheyFightCrime they solved murders]], asking the dead who their murderers were in those sixty seconds and then collecting the often substantial reward for finding the killers.
That could be the premise of ''Pushing Daisies'', if it weren't a laughably inadequate description.
Created by ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' and ''DeadLikeMe'' executive producer BryanFuller, and set InAWorld lavishly [[RetroUniverse decorated in Fifties styles]], the show effortlessly makes its faintly ridiculous plots believable, as it deftly traces the line between earnestness and irony. Its fast-paced and witty dialogue, quirky characters, and great acting really bring out what can only be called the heart of the show: showing how people connect, or don't connect, with their fellow humans.
Unfortunately, it ended up doomed to live up to its name. The first season was truncated by the 2007 WritersStrike, and the second season didn't have much of a head of steam under it. The writing team was given 3 episodes to wrap up the series, and the last episode was aired on June 13, 2009 - [[LudicrousPrecision one year, eight months, one week and three days]] after the first. The two seasons together make up a normal full-sized season.
[[Recap/PushingDaisies Recaps page is here.]]
----
!!Provides Examples Of:
* AbortedArc: When the first season was cut short due to the Writer's Strike, most of the plot threads set up during the first half received abrupt AssPull resolutions. When the second season suffered a similar fate upon the show's cancellation, most lingering threads were simply left hanging, though a choice few received mention in a AssPull epilogue. Sadly, the two half seasons do not equal a whole in terms of story.
* AccidentalKidnapping: [[spoiler:Olive Snook]] as a child.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: The writers seem very fond of this. See also RepetitiveName, below.
** Recurring character Dwight Dixon
** Merle [=McQuoddy=], his boat the ''Knockout Nora'', and Typhoon Tyrone, which sunk her.
** Main character Charlotte "Chuck" Charles
* AllGermansAreNazis: Invoked and subverted twice. In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]", a threatening guy with an accent, thought to be an 'Angry German' by Emerson Cod, was actually Swiss (and non-threatening). In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]" was the Waffle Nazi, who appeared with full Lederhosen get-up, GratuitousGerman, [[AdolfHitler speech patterns]], and threatening personality - only for it to be revealed as fake: he is neither German nor actually speaks the language, but is putting on a show.
* AmbiguouslyGay
** Leo Burns, the coordinator in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]. HilariousInHindsight as he's played by [[ModernFamily Eric Stonestreet.]] [[spoiler:Oh, and he's the murderer of the week.]]
** Virtually all the males involved with the aqua dance show in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E13Kerplunk Kerplunk.]]
* AnachronicOrder: each episode opens with a segment showing one of the principals--usually Ned, but sometimes Chuck, Olive, or Emerson--as a child.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: despite having magical necromancy powers, Ned finds the notion of ghosts risible.
* BackFromTheDead: Chuck, most obviously; but also, briefly, the week's murder victim(s).
** And now, it would seem, [[spoiler: Charles Charles.]]
* BadassBystander: [[spoiler: Lily, who blasts Chuck's assassin with a shotgun, complete with a nice PreMortemOneLiner: "I can hold my breath for a long time."]]
* BalancingDeathsBooks: There's a grace period of a minute, but if Ned doesn't re-touch the re-animated, something else of approximately equal "life" value will die in exchange. And even after said grace period, Ned can't touch the re-animated person/creature/whatever, or they'll be dead again.
* BandagedFace: [[spoiler:Chuck's dad.]] He even has a smiley face drawn on it.
* BlatantLies: Any lie [[BadLiar Ned]] ever tells.
* BlessedAreTheCheesemakers
* BlessedWithSuck: Sorry, you can't touch your girlfriend...
* [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Boarding School of Loneliness, Grayness, and Crushing Depression]]: The Longborough School For Boys
* BornDetective: Emerson Cod
* BrickJoke: Emerson's confusion of "narcoleptic" and "necrophiliac"--set up in "Pie-lette" for a payoff in "Pigeon".
* BrainyBrunette: Chuck is book smart on just about everything.
* CameBackWrong: All of the bodies of the people Ned brings back to life remain as they were when he touched them. This is not always pleasant to watch.
** Interestingly, this doesn't seem to apply to strawberries. One explanation or rationalization could be that Ned's powers can reverse/heal the effects of time or death by "natural" causes but can't reverse physical trauma.
* CanineCompanion: Digby (though of course, Ned can't touch him, as Digby was the first thing Ned had ever brought back to life).
** Combine this with JustForPun and you get Olive's pig companion, Pigby.
* CantHaveSexEver / ChastityCouple / CourtlyLove: Ned and Chuck, though they've apparently found ways around the "no touching" problem.
--->'''Ned''': It's hard enough being in a relationship where we can't touch. But… we improvise, figured out ways around that. I've even built contraptions.
* CaptainObvious: The Narrator at times.
* CassandraTruth:
-->'''Ned:''' How much does Olive know?
-->'''Chuck:''' Don't worry about what Olive knows. Even if I told her the truth she wouldn't believe me.
-->'''Ned:''' You don't know that.
-->'''Chuck:''' Yes I do, because I told her and she wouldn't believe me.
* TheCastShowoff: KristinChenoweth can sing! Ellen Greene as well.
* CatchPhrase: The narrator has "At this very moment" and "The facts are these..."
** Emerson's CatchPhrase is "Aw, ''hell'' no!"
*** Which was stolen by Olive on more than one occasion.
** Played with once with the narrator saying "Oh, hell no!", and once with this exchange:
-->'''Rob Wright:''' I know how it must sound, but the facts were these...
-->'''Chuck:''' Huh?
-->'''Rob Wright:''' These were the facts...
* ChekhovsGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]" has Chekhov's ''Cannon''. A midget with a cannon happens to pass by when Ned and Emerson are at the ringmaster's trailer... then, later in the episode, the human cannonball gets fired at them. Also with Chuck's father's pocket watch, which the mysterious Dixon wants for some reason. It was shown ''in the very first episode'' and has only become relevant now, halfway through Season 2.
* ChineseLaborer: Wilfred Woodruff's ancestor, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E3TheFunInFuneral The Fun In Funeral]]".
* CityWithNoName: The city where the main action takes place is never named, though we do know that it's in (fictitious) Papen County, 131 miles due north of Coeur d'Coeurs (Ned and Chuck's equally fictitious hometown). Information on placing Papen County in a US state or region is internally inconsistent.
* ClearMyName: Ned is jailed for the murder of Billy Balsam in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E8BitterSweets Bitter Sweets]]".
-->'''Emerson:''' I mean, it's a broad generalization, but my guess is an attractive man who makes pies for a living [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar shouldn't spend even a short amount of time in prison.]]
* ClingyJealousGirl: Olive Snook, who bordered on StalkerWithACrush early on.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Even without Ned's aid Emerson Cod is a capable investigator. But he still can't find his daughter.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The interiors of many buildings. The Pie Hole and the morgue are green, Betty's Bees is yellow, the convent (and the nuns' habits) are aqua, and the Chinese restaurant (plus Emerson's office upstairs) are red.
* ComicRolePlay: Olive on Aunt Lily-- who tells her to pretend she's [[spoiler:Chuck, her daughter, and to tell her what she'd say if Chuck were alive. Chuck is listening in.]]
* {{Confessional}}: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]".
* ConspicuousCG: Most exterior shots of large buildings.
* ContinuityNod: After nabbing a criminal with a fake arm in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E4Pigeon Pigeon]]" (Ned: "Is this the hand you were holding?"), Ned keeps the arm. In later episodes, he uses it to pet Digby and fish things out of a vat of taffy.
** The bee brooch used as a [[StealthPun bug]] in "Bzzzzzz!" is also used for the aforementioned ComicRolePlay in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic"
* CoolOldLady: Both of Chuck's aunts are cool old ladies, but especially Aunt Lily, [[spoiler: who shot Chuck's murderer. After nearly being killed herself. With zero depth perception. ''In the very first episode.'']]
* TheCoroner: Mmm-''hmmm.''
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E2Dummy Dummy]]", "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]", "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E4Frescorts Frescorts]]"
* TheCorpseStopsHere: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E8BitterSweets Bitter Sweets]]"
* CosmicDeadline: The last couple of episodes are a very obvious rush job that fail to resolve most of the lingering plot threads.
* CostumePorn: Everyone dresses very nicely, but it's Lily and Vivian who pull out the bejewelled eyepatches and qipaos.
* CurseCutShort: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]", a dead clown mentions that the clowns had made up a limerick about an audience member named Bryce von Deenis. Chuck and Ned speculate on the contents of the limerick:
-->'''Chuck:''' There was a young man named von Deenis
-->'''Ned:''' Who they said had a very big-- (act break)
** The show also uses SoundEffectBleep--see below.
* CursedWithAwesome: Ned can revive the dead with a touch, and has used that power to revive his dog and later his childhood sweetheart, make lots of money investigating murders, ''and'' open a thriving bakery by using old, rotted fruit in his pies (since it becomes fresh-off-the-vine as soon as he touches it). And as a result, he can't touch the woman he loves lest she drop dead instantly, ditto his beloved pet, and if he ever ''eats'' any of his pies the fruit will wither and rot in his mouth.
** Although, if he ever wanted to make a pie for himself, he could get around the whole rotting-in-his-mouth problem by actually using fresh ingredients, which he does later in the series.
** His second revival was his mother whose lingering caused the death of Chuck's father and then she promptly died when she kissed him good night.
* CutesyNameTown: Coeur d' Coeurs. You can't really get more cutesy than that. For the non-Francophones in the room, it means "Heart of Hearts"
* CutShort: The finale is a mad rush to try to tie up several of the loose ends, and misses a few in the process. Stupid network.
** We never did find out what happened to [[spoiler: Charles Charles]] or meet Ned's dad beyond a five second shot at the end of one episode. He was going to be played by George Hamilton. ''Stupid'' network.
* CymbalBangingMonkey: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* DaydreamSurprise:
** Olive, as she realizes (too late) how Alfredo feels about her.
** In "Comfort Food", Lily imagines a conversation with Dwight while she waits for him.
* DeadpanSnarker: Emerson Cod, Aunt Lily
** {{Lampshaded}} in "Dim Sum Lose Sum", where a sudden lack of snarkage clues Ned and Chuck into Emerson's absence.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: "Pigeon"
* DeathAmnesia: Though the newly-revived are generally aware that they have died, they do not remember any sort of an afterlife.
* DeathByChildbirth: Chuck's mom. [[spoiler:This is later subverted when it is revealed that Aunt Lily is really her mother. She lied because Vivian was engaged to Charles.]]
* DeliciousDistraction: Ned's pies, especially those Chuck bakes with cheese on the crust for her aunts.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: ''everywhere'', as well as all over the place. (See also RepetitiveName, below.) Chuck's aunts used to be the Darling Mermaid Darlings. There's a life insurance firm called Uber-Life Life Insurance. The travel agency Chuck frequented was Boutique Travel Travel Boutique. It was run by... Dee Dee.
* DiggingToChina: Young Olive in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]"
* DiscriminateAndSwitch: A bartender refuses to serve Emerson in "Girth"--not because he's black, but because he's too tall (the bar, as it turns out, is specifically for horse jockeys).
* DoubleEntendre: [[HehHehYouSaidX Hur Hur,]] Bee-Girls. It's a pun on B-Girl, a euphemism for prostitute.
* {{Dramedy}}
* DropInCharacter: Olive, initially
* EquivalentExchange: Giving someone life costs another's: a human's for a human's, an animal's for an animal's, a plant's for a plant's.
* EroticDream: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Specifically, Jim Dale always refers to "Young Ned" in the flashbacks, but adult Ned is always "The Piemaker."
* MessyPig: Pigby [[spoiler:who accidentally killed someone in "Bad Habits"]].
* EverythingsBetterWithBunnies: Subverted, as the bunny appearing in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic" dies.
* EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks: Bubba the Shark in "Kerplunk".
* EvilClown: in "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]".
* EvilGloating: Dilly in "Bitter Sweets"... until the Pie Hole gang proved they had nothing to do with her brother's murder.
* EyepatchOfPower: Aunt Lily
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Chuck [[spoiler: is the daughter of the woman she always believed to be her aunt.]] See also ParentalAbandonment, below.
* FairyTale: Essentially. It mixes what is something of a fairy tale romance with some of the darker themes present in the older fairy stories.
* FakeAmerican: Britain's Anna Friel as Chuck. The end credits even make mention of her "dialect coach."
* FakingTheDead: Chuck, sort of. Olive thinks Chuck's faking her death.
* {{Fanservice}}: Used a fair bit, especially with Olive's outfits -- the costuming department really got the most out of using KristinChenoweth, that's for sure. The ultra-low-cut mermaid costume with the one-leg so she had to [[{{Gainaxing}} hop up and down to move]] is probably the shining example.
* FilmNoir: The show's aesthetic draws pretty heavily on the Film Noir, particularly Emerson's office, the clipped, rapid-fire dialogue, and a good portion of "Dim-Sum Lose Some". Also, several film noir classics can be seen playing in the background in a few scenes of "Corpsicle".
* FirstEpisodeResurrection: Chuck dies and is revived in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]".
* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Ned
** TheLancer / TheBigGuy: Emerson Cod
** TheSmartGuy: Chuck
** TheChick: Olive
** TeamPet: Digby
** [[SixthRanger The Sixth Ranger]]: Simone or Randy Mann
* FlashBack:
** As mentioned above, each episode begins with a segment indicating something about young Ned's past.
** Usually the VictimOfTheWeek recounts something about their murder, or the Narrator sums up the clues Emerson and company have found to solve the MysteryOfTheWeek.
* FootPopping: Olive, in a DaydreamSurprise.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]" Aunt Lily mentions a sweater that belonged to Charlotte's mother. The narrator mentions that this made her go to "her dark place." The moment is framed such that it appears Chuck's aunt simply misses her niece. [[spoiler: But a later episode reveals that Aunt Lily is Chuck's mother.]]
** In the first episode, Lily mentions that Chuck used to threaten to bake anti-depressants into their food in order to cheer them up. Come Season Two...
* FreeTheFrogs: Young Ned, in "Bitter Sweets"
* TheFunInFuneral: TropeNamer?
* FriendlessBackground: Ned very explicitly had no friends as of the start of the series. Emerson and Olive start as more business associate and [[ObliviousToLove oblivious crusher]] than anything.
* FriendlyLocalChinatown: As part of the Emerson's PI status, as well as the pervasive noirish milieu, his office is located in the local Chinatown, directly above a dim-sum restaurant, and his sign is in Chinese as well as English.
* GenkiGirl: Chuck, determined to make the most of her second chance at life.
* GenreSavvy: Chuck is aware of and afraid of Film/{{CHUD}}s ('''C'''annibalistic '''H'''umanoid '''U'''nderground '''D'''wellers).
** [[spoiler: Chuck's father]] is aware of and afraid of becoming a [[ZombieApocalypse flesh-eating Zombie]].
* GratuitousGerman: Used by the Waffle Nazi, who, funnily enough, neither speaks the language nor is German at all. He's just cultivating [[AllGermansAreNazis an image]].
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: "Jock-off 2000." "Well, I'll be dental-dammed." "Simone had come... and gone." How in holy hell do they get ''that'' past the radar?
** Also in the episode "The Norwegians," the crime lab used by the titular Norwegians is called Mother, with the lettering on the side saying "Mobile Investigative Lab Facility." The acronym spells a certain popular term for a hot mom.
*** In that same episode, Emerson ate at a Noodle bar called [[NaughtyTentacles Hentai Noodles]]
** Naming an episode "Bitch''es''" when only one female dog is involved?
** [[DoubleEntendre Randy Mann]]. That is all.
** Olive, in one episode: "I used to think 'masturbation' meant chewing."
** Chuck in episode 2 talks about a tee shirt Ned gave her for her eighth birthday, "Be kind to animals, kiss a beaver." Also {{Lampshaded}} by Chuck's aunts, who said Ned had a dirty mind and called him "Beaver Boy" following that incident.
** Ned referring to his abilities as "Waking and Baking".
** In "Corpsicle," one of the suspects deliberately messes up Emerson Cod's name, referring to him as Mr. ''Cox''.
** Come & Sleep Hotel.
** from "Oh Oh Oh It's Magic" "I would have eaten anything for that man!"
* GRatedDrug: Chuck spikes her aunts' pies with homeopathic remedies, and Aunt Lily accidentally get an overdose in "Corpsicle". A MushroomSamba results, and HilarityEnsues.
* HasTwoMommies: Chuck, raised by her two aunts [[spoiler: or rather, one aunt and her mother masquerading as her other aunt...]]
* {{Homage}}: Exactly how much this show owes to the classic French film ''{{Amelie}}'' varies from "it's the writer's favourite film, there's bound to be some similarities" to "attempted shot-for-shot remake".
** Also see the homage to Creator/AlfredHitchcock's TheBirds in "Bitter Sweets".
** As well as the Hitchcock references in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]", culminating with Emerson's dream homage to {{Vertigo}}.
** In some episodes Chuck's fashion style is a clear tribute to Audrey Hepburn
** A lot of scenes are shot in style of a Film Noir with the window shades casting shadows over the characters faces, most notably "Girth", "Bitches", and "Bad Habits", when Olive goes to hire Emerson.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Aunt Vivian seems to have ''really'' bad taste in men.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Casting Lee Pace and Chi [=McBride=] (6'3" and 6'4", respectively) opposite Anna Friel and KristinChenoweth (5'2" and 4'11", respectively) guaranteed lots of this.
* HumanShield: The villain in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic" does this to Olive, and is mocked for his choice of hostage by Emerson.
-->'''Emerson''' You need a bigger human shield or something. You're hanging out all shorts of places I can shoot!
* HumiliationConga: Buddy suffered one in his FlashBack in "Frescorts."
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All of them are whimsical, from "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]" to "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* IdiosyncraticWipes: Often an IrisOut. These were once extremely common, especially in cinema, but they look old-fashioned or even slightly cheesy to modern eyes, which are used to more unobtrusive scene wipes. (Therefore, perfectly suited to the show's theme of retro charm.).
** In "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic", some of the scene transitions are curtains opening and closing.
** "Robbing Hood" uses an animated bell for some of its scene transitions.
** "Window Dressed To Kill" uses slide-close doors.
** "Kerplunk" used shark jaws.
* ImpairmentShot: In "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic", we see what the dead person sees when Ned touches them a second time.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"; Emerson, in "Robbing Hood".
* IndirectKiss: Ned and Chuck, by necessity, in increasingly creative ways.
* InstantMessengerPigeon: in "Pigeon", naturally.
* InstitutionalApparel: Ned wore a bright orange jumpsuit when he was MistakenForMurderer in "Bitter Sweets".
* IntercontinuityCrossover:
** In "Comfort Food"; Mary Anne Marie Beattle, from the ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' episode "Muffin Buffalo", appears.
** Happy Time Temp Agency from ''DeadLikeMe'' is mentioned in the first episode of season 2
* InterrogatingTheDead: At least OnceAnEpisode
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Olive expresses this sentiment at the end of "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]" but struggles to actually stay true to it.
* JawDrop: Ned, when he's shocked.
-->"If I could breathe I would ''vomit.''"
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: {{Subverted}}. The murderer in "Dummy" explains his entire plan... without realizing that the heroes, who are trapped inside a car, can't even hear him.
* KeepingSecretsSucks
* KlondikeFive-0155 is Emerson Cod's phone number.
* LampshadeHanging: "What the hell happened to people shooting each other with guns?"
* LastRequest: Chuck appends asking for this to Ned's usual "who murdered you?" once she enters the picture.
* {{Leitmotif}}:
** In the season two opener, "Bzzzzzzz!" a [[RearrangeTheSong cheerfully tango-ized]] variation of "Flight of the Bumblebee" threads under and through the rest of the background music.
** Arrangements of "Ave Maria" appear in convent scenes fairly often.
* LemonyNarrator
* LighthousePoint: One episode featured the murder of a lighthouse keeper.
* LipLockSunBlock: Ned and Chuck's first kiss as children
* LiteralCliffhanger / TakeMyHand: towards the end of "The Norwegians".
* LiteralMetaphor: Emerson Cod is fond of these.
** In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]":
--->'''Emerson Cod:''' Your book was a bomb.
--->'''Napoleon:''' Who are ''you'' to criticize my life's work?!
--->'''Emerson Cod:''' [deadpan] Your book. Was a ''bomb''. It ''exploded''.
** And this from "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]":
--->'''Emerson:''' That's bat crap.
--->'''Olive:''' It's a frickin' convent. Show some respect.
--->'''Emerson:''' (pointing at the white-streaked wall of the bell tower) I'm ''showing'' you bat crap.
* LittlestCancerPatient: Subverted, in "Corpsicle", by heart patient Abner Newsome, the least likable kid-with-a-terminal-disease in the history of the trope.
** It's because he's ''heartless.'' (See also StealthPun.)
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Olive doesn't know about Ned's strange touch-related gift, other than that he can't/won't/doesn't touch Chuck or Digby and has a locked room full of rotten fruit. Chuck actually [[CassandraTruth told Olive the truth, with predictable results]].
** Chuck's aunts don't know that Chuck has been brought back to life.
*** [[spoiler:At least, not until the last few seconds of the series finale.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Olive grew up this way.
* LongLostSibling: Ned has twin half-brothers from his father's second marriage. Ned's father abandoned ''them'', too
* [[LostHimInACardGame Lost Her In A Card Game]]: how Mei got engaged, in "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Ned, Olive
* LoveTriangle: Ned, Chuck and Olive- TriangRelations Type 4.
** Getting slightly more complicated with Alfredo and Oscar Vibenius
** Also made awkward in the episode where Ned dreams Chuck and him getting intimate and actually touching [[spoiler: and then it turns out that it's actually Olive in a Chuck suit.]]
* LudicrousPrecision: The narrator when explaining how long ago something happened.
* MacGuffin: Charles Charles' pocket watch, apparently.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Emerson suggests this to Ned, about [[spoiler: Chuck's alive-agained father, Charles Charles]].
* MeaningfulName: ''Many'' of them, including
** Harold Hundin ("Hundin" is German for "female dog") in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
** Buddy Amicus ("amicus" is Latin for "friend") in "Frescorts"
** Bao Ting ("bao" is Cantonese for "bun") in "Dim Sum Lose Sum"
* MenDontCry: in "Bzzzzzzz!", the Season 2 opener, Emerson is quite outspoken about this. Even Ned agrees.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}
* MsFanservice: Olive Snook.
* MistakenForMurderer: Ned, in "Bitter Sweets"
* MommasBoy: [[spoiler: John Joseph Jacobs]] in "Girth".
** And to a lesser extent, Emerson seems to be a bit of a mama's boy when we meet his mother in "Frescorts".
* MoodMotif:
** There's music intended to bring to mind ''wind'' in the episode "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]".
* MotorMouth: Ned tends to babble rapidly when he's nervous, and he's nervous quite frequently.
** Arguably Chuck as well. The two of them together have a lot of whiplash-inducing back-and-forth conversations together.
* MundaneUtility: Ned's pies are great because the fruit he uses is extremely fresh; all the fruit he touches is brought back to life, so it tastes like it's not more than a few minutes off the plant when it hits the oven.
* MurderArsonAndJaywalking: when Olive tells the legend of Merle Mcquoddy:
--> ''Olive'': He flew into rages! Roamed the beaches at midnight! Shunned indoor plumbing!
* MrViceGuy: Emerson Cod and Greed.
* MushroomSamba: Aunt Lily in "Corpsicle".
* MysteryOfTheWeek
* {{Narrator}}
* NeverSayDie: Ned is reluctant to ever refer to someone as dying or having been killed if it's due to his touch.
* NeverSayThatAgain: {{Averted}}
-->'''Emerson:''' And don't you say "ginormous", 'cause that ain't a word.
* NeverTrustATrailer: the episode "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]" was advertised in a way that implied Ned and Olive would hook up.
* NewspaperThinDisguise
* TheNicknamer: [[DeadpanSnarker Emerson]] has a nickname for just about every character, every episode.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: in "Bitter Sweets". Ned goes to clean up a vermin infestation planted by Olive and Chuck (a task made even more difficult for him because he can't directly touch the dead rodents) in a rival's store--only to [[TheCorpseStopsHere find a corpse]] and get MistakenForMurderer.
* NoNameGiven: If Ned has a last name, we haven't yet learned it. The narrator, who often refers to characters by their full names, calls him "young Ned" in the flashbacks and "the pie maker" in the present. Doubles as a meaningful name, given that it is an anagram for 'End' and 'NDE', the synonym for 'Near Death Experience'.
* NotUsingTheZedWord: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"; he thinks it's disrespectful.
* NunsAreFunny
* ObfuscatingDisability: In a season 2 episode we see a brief flashback to Emerson Cod's childhood. His mother faked putting him in danger to expose a man who had made fraudulent insurance claims. She pushed a stroller with a baby doll in it down a flight of stairs- the allegedly wheelchair-bound man with a neckbrace and a broken arm ran from his wheelchair to catch the baby with both hands.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Used to flush out the victim's murderer. Of course, done with the advantage that, for one minute, he ''is'' alive...
* OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe: {{Subverted}}, as is usual for this trope: Olive asks Ned if that isn't really a rolling pin under his apron; Ned silently produces the rolling pin, to Olive's dismay.
* OverlyLongGag: All the clowns being taken away on stretchers in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]. It doesn't help that one of them is still on stilts.
* PreviouslyOn: The Narrator mentions Ned's ability and its rules OnceAnEpisode so new viewers are not lost.
* ParentalAbandonment / ParentalNeglect: Ned and Chuck both ended up orphaned and eventually grew up in the care of others.
** MissingMom: Ned's mother died suddenly when he was nine. Chuck grew up believing that her mother had [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]], but later discovers that her mother [[spoiler:is her "Aunt" Lily]].
** DisappearedDad: Chuck's father died when she was eight, as an unfortunate side effect of Ned bringing back his mother. Ned's father just abandoned him. Emerson Cod is himself a DisappearedDad...but not through any fault of his own.
* PostKissCatatonia: Ned sort of dangles in the air with his eyes closed and his lips puckered even after Chuck has stopped kissing him. It happens every time she kisses him, along with the [[MoodMotif theme music swelling with violins]].
* PowerIncontinence: Ned is forced to use an extendable arm with a fake hand on the end to pet his dog, and to come up with multiple creative ways to touch Chuck, because his power is always on.
* PowerTrio: Ned/Chuck/Emerson as Ego/Superego/Id, respectively.
* PrivateDetective: Emerson Cod
* PunnyName: Randy Mann.
* RefugeInAudacity: Usually, when fifteen people die, it's a very big tragedy. Except when it's clowns and they all die in the same [[ClownCarBase clown car]] crash. And then their bodies are taken out one at a time, with one dead clown having enormous stilts. Then it's ''hilarious''.
** It was also pretty hilarious when in episode 3 of season 2, Olive prays for a sign from God. Then a dead nun falls from above where she was praying. It's so morbid but funny at the same time.
** [[DeadLikeMe Fifteen would be a calamity, actually.]]
* RepetitiveName: Charlotte "Chuck" Charles and her father, Charles Charles
** Which is why the recurring fan favorite choice for Ned's last name is Edwards.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: Although a rather rushed epilogue of sorts was stuck on the end of the final episode, a "third season" of comics is due to be published by DC in 2011. It will apparently involve a "fresh take on the ZombieApocalypse"
* RetroUniverse: From Chuck's [[AudreyHepburn Hepburn-esque]] wardrobe to Ned's and Emerson's beautiful old cars, the world is like a more colorful version of the past... or the past as it should have been (although the idealized past apparently includes the Reagan administration as seen in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]").
* RetrauxFlashback
* SarcasmMode: Emerson, basically all the time: "Oh, look at that, a dumb idea just found a friend!" And very occasionally, Ned: "'Come to our show, Frère Pie-Maker! It's a ''magic'' show."
* ScoobyStack: Chuck, Emerson, and Ned peeping out from a curtain in "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Though it was aggressively promoted in its first season, ABC had evidently lost interest by the second season premiere. After a ten-month hiatus plus half a season, all without any promotion for the show, they canceled it, citing low ratings.
** Tragic thing is it won a posthumous Emmy (the series won seven in all, including for Kristin Chenoweth and Barry Sonnenfeld).
*** This trope also applies to how it was handled in Britain; the series was bought by {{ITV}} and unusually for an American import screened in primetime on the flagship [[{{ITV}} ITV1]] channel - most American series currently bought by the channel are either relegated to off-peak slots (like ''InPlainSight'') or shown on their digital offshoots (like ''GossipGirl'') - but the channel held back one episode because it would clash with a World Cup match. For which England failed to qualify. Needless to say, fans weren't happy.
* SecretChaser: Oscar Vibenius
* SecretKeeper: Though most of the main characters are keeping secrets, Olive seems to be an especially popular secret repository.
** Except, of course, the biggest secret of all...
* SeriousBusiness: Very nearly ''everything'', from honey to pop-up books to scratch-and-sniffs to synchronized swimming to department store window dressings.
* SesquipedalianSmith Emerson Cod
* ShapedLikeWhatItSells: The Pie Hole is shaped like a giant pie.
* SherlockScan: Oddly enough, it's not PrivateDetective Emerson Cod who does this, but smell experts Napoleon Le Nez and Oscar Vibenius.
* ShortRunInPeru: The series will start and finish the second season in the UK, before the final three episodes are shown in the US.
* ShoutOut:
** "[[Film/TheWizardOfOz Follow the yellow thick hose]]!"
** Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''TheBirds''
** ''Film/TheGodfather Part II'': "I knew it was you, Fredo."
** [[DeadLikeMe Happy Time Temp Agency]]
** TheSoundOfMusic
** Father Dowling Mysteries
** [[{{MASH}} M* A* S* H* ]]
** ''{{Hamlet}}'': "What got thee to a nunnery?"
** Sister Christian
** "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]" is larded with shout outs to the 1977 Disney movie ''PetesDragon''. The movie had starred ''PushingDaisies''' narrator Jim Dale.
** ''{{Superman}} The Movie''
--->'''Olive:''' You've got me? Who's got you?!
** ''{{Vertigo}}'': in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
** "You want to walk down together?" "That'd be swell, [[NotSoImaginaryFriend Harvey]]."
** TheyMightBeGiants : Olive makes a metaphor about "a birdcage in your soul" and sings ''Birdhouse In Your Soul'' not long after in the same episode.
** [[StarWars "I'm channeling fear into anger." "Anger leads to hate." "And hate leads to stress baking."]]
** [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment "Magicians?" "Illusionists!"]]
* SiblingYinYang: The Aunts
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: "I grew up" is the reason Ned gives for disliking Halloween, even though it is really because [[spoiler: that's when he found out his father had a second family.]]
* SimilarSquad - the Norwegians though judging from some viewer reactions, they weren't similar enough
* SingleTargetSexuality: Ned doesn't want anyone but Chuck.
** He's claimed to have had girlfriends before Chuck, albeit not very believably. It may be a case of FirstGirlWins.
*** Aside from various emotional issues he has with getting too close to people, stuff like the little story about the bear skin rug explains a lot.
* SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty: Very, ''very'' shiny.
* SmokingGunControl: The newly-revived generally have incomplete or imperfect information regarding their deaths.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Veronica Villanueva, in "Frescorts".
* SoundEffectBleep:
** in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]", Ned repeats the secretary's description of the head clown as a "real low-down, dirty _____________" just as a circus performer walks by breathing fire, the flames both drowning Ned out and preventing viewers from [[ReadingLips reading his lips]]. When the flames clear, Emerson says "I've never heard ''you'' say those words."
** in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]", a revived nun swears a blue streak, conveniently drowned out by a church bell.
* StageMagician: Ned's twin half-brothers and their mentor, the Great Hermann.
* StealthPun: Usually {{Subverted}}, in that the narrator does not spare himself the joy of actually making the pun. For example, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]" Ned dredges up a sock from the sink in the kitchen of the Pie Hole. By the reactions of Chuck, Olive, and Emerson, its smell is most unpleasant.
-->'''The Narrator:''' The message was clear. Someone wanted to make a stink.
* StigmaticPregnancyEuphemism: [[spoiler: Lily]] spent time at a convent when pregnant [[spoiler:with Chuck.]]
* StupidSexyFlanders: Emerson can't stop looking at the [[AmbiguouslyGay highly effeminate]] male aqua dancer in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E13Kerplunk the series finale.]] And he's not happy about it.
* SugarBowl: The ''PushingDaisies'' world is brightly coloured, full of pies, tender sweet moments, coy glances, happy honeybees, whimsy, and little charming gestures. This offsets the bizarre murders, morbid humor, and unflinching examinations of personal responsibility and morality.
* TheSummation: The narrator does this, sometimes several times an episode, and always starting with the phrase "the facts were these..."
* SureLetsGoWithThat: As to why Chuck is alive, the simplest answer is that she faked her death. See also CassandraTruth.
* SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel
* SwordFight: in "The Fun in Funeral".
** With Improbable Fencing Powers justified by the page quote of SwordFight.
* SynchronizedSwarming: While following a case where a woman says she was attacked by a "terrifying bee man", Ned speculates about being chased by a human-shaped swarm of bees. [[spoiler:Turns out it was actually a person covered in bees.]]
* TaxidermyIsCreepy: the reason Randy Mann doesn't have many friends.
* TaxidermyTerror: Ned is terrified of preserved animals, but not for the usual reasons. He's afraid of accidentally resurrecting them.
* ThatPoorCat: "Comfort Food".
* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: With Broadway actresses Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene in the cast, it was [[TheCastShowoff inevitable]].
** Unfortunately, Olive was provided a missed love connection in the person of one Broadway veteran Raul Esparza, who... well, would a duet been too much to ask for?
*** File his song-less appearances on the show along with that of Christopher Seiber.
* ThemeNaming: Ned's three closest human associates all have food-related names: ''Olive'' Snook, Emerson ''Cod'', ''Charlotte'' Charles. (A ''charlotte'' is a French dessert: a "crust" made of ladyfinger cookies enclosing a mousse of some sort. Her nickname, "''Chuck''", can also refer to a cut of beef.)
** Also, both Snook and Cod are types of fish.
* TheyCalledMeMad: The scent scientists--both Napoleon Le Nez and Oscar Vibenius.
* TheyFightCrime: But as private investigators primarily motivated by big rewards.
-->'''Emerson''': I suppose I ''could'' pay my bills with blind kids' smiles, but their ''money'' is a lot easier.
* TheydCutYouUp: Ned's greatest fear.
-->'''Ned:''' Ever since I was a kid, I'd have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do. It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut.
* ThisIsNoTimeForKnitting: Literally--Emerson Cod's knitting needles turn out to be instrumental in saving himself, Ned and Chuck from the bad guy.
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: "The Fun in Funeral" has a slight variant--Ned throws his sword into the wall, where it trips the fleeing villain.
* TimeshiftedActor: Because of the opening flashbacks mentioned above.
* TitleOnlyOpening: Made in some way out of daisies.
* TomboyishName: Charlotte "Chuck" Charles. (A common trope in BryanFuller works.)
* TranslationConvention: {{Subverted}} in "Dim Sum Lose Sum", when the Narrator notes that "Bao chose to respond in English."
* ThemeTwinNaming: Averted if you consider the show tendency to alliterative and repetitive names.
* TwitchyEye: Ned. As noted by Olive, it twitches when he's lying.
* UndeathAlwaysEnds: Averted with Chuck, Digby, and [[spoiler:Mr. Charles]]. Exaggerated with everyone else, for good reason.
* UnlimitedWardrobe: To the point Chuck can dress thematically to the centerpiece of a given episode. So can Olive. And Chuck's aunts... right down to Lily having eyepatches to match her outfits.
* UnPaused: In the first episode, the first thing Chuck does after Ned brings her back to life is grab his tie and bang him on the lid of her coffin in self-defense against her killer.
* VictimOfTheWeek
* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Ned and Chuck... more or less
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: at least OnceAnEpisode, starting with Chuck in the first episode
* WeatherAndEnvironment:
** RedemptionInTheRain: the aunts, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
** SnowMeansLove: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E9TheLegendOfMerleMcQuoddy The Legend of Merle McQuoddy]]"
** AStormIsComing: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]" and "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E9TheLegendOfMerleMcQuoddy The Legend of Merle McQuoddy]]".
* WeHelpTheHelpless
* WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs: The guy down at the morgue is understandably leery of Ned--the guy just keeps changing his job description.
* WhodunnitToMe: Chuck helps solve her own murder in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]".
* WindowLove: Practically obligatory for Ned and Chuck, as they can't touch in any other way.
* WordOfGay: According to the writers, whilst there are other people working at the morgue, we only see that one coroner ever because he's the only one who'll let Emerson and Ned in no questions asked, due to having a crush on Emerson.
* WritersStrike: Like many shows, it was harmed by the 2007 writer's strike, cutting down the number of episodes in the first season. The overall narrative never really recovered.
!Specific episodes provide examples of:
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
* AlmostKiss: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AnimalReactionShot: Digby, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* ArrangedMarriage: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* BadHabits: In "Bad Habits", the TropeNamer
* [[strike: Banana]] [[BananaIntheTailpipe Potato In The Tailpipe]]: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E9Corpsicle Corpsicle]]"
* BedsheetGhost: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E5Girth Girth]]"
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BulletTime: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: alluded to in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]".
* TheRunaway: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]". (Kids still run away to join the circus in this world.)
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SexyBacklessOutfit: The Dandy Lion model costumes in "Dummy". At the same time, the front leaves everything to the imagination.
* UranusIsShowing: Young Emerson gets sent to the principal's office for making this joke.
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
----
->''"Well, I suppose dying's as good an excuse as any to start living."''
-->-- '''Charlotte "Chuck" Charles'''
[[CatchPhrase The facts are these:]]
There once was a piemaker who could raise the dead with a touch--but only for sixty seconds, or else someone else would have to die to take their place. If he touched the resurrected person again, they died permanently. One day, the piemaker was given the opportunity to raise Chuck, his childhood sweetheart... So he did. This act brought the two much closer, but tragically kept them apart; one more touch would mean Chuck would be dead forever. Along with his undead dog, a grumpy private eye, her eccentric aunts and a singing waitress, [[TheyFightCrime they solved murders]], asking the dead who their murderers were in those sixty seconds and then collecting the often substantial reward for finding the killers.
That could be the premise of ''Pushing Daisies'', if it weren't a laughably inadequate description.
Created by ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' and ''DeadLikeMe'' executive producer BryanFuller, and set InAWorld lavishly [[RetroUniverse decorated in Fifties styles]], the show effortlessly makes its faintly ridiculous plots believable, as it deftly traces the line between earnestness and irony. Its fast-paced and witty dialogue, quirky characters, and great acting really bring out what can only be called the heart of the show: showing how people connect, or don't connect, with their fellow humans.
Unfortunately, it ended up doomed to live up to its name. The first season was truncated by the 2007 WritersStrike, and the second season didn't have much of a head of steam under it. The writing team was given 3 episodes to wrap up the series, and the last episode was aired on June 13, 2009 - [[LudicrousPrecision one year, eight months, one week and three days]] after the first. The two seasons together make up a normal full-sized season.
[[Recap/PushingDaisies Recaps page is here.]]
----
!!Provides Examples Of:
* AbortedArc: When the first season was cut short due to the Writer's Strike, most of the plot threads set up during the first half received abrupt AssPull resolutions. When the second season suffered a similar fate upon the show's cancellation, most lingering threads were simply left hanging, though a choice few received mention in a AssPull epilogue. Sadly, the two half seasons do not equal a whole in terms of story.
* AccidentalKidnapping: [[spoiler:Olive Snook]] as a child.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: The writers seem very fond of this. See also RepetitiveName, below.
** Recurring character Dwight Dixon
** Merle [=McQuoddy=], his boat the ''Knockout Nora'', and Typhoon Tyrone, which sunk her.
** Main character Charlotte "Chuck" Charles
* AllGermansAreNazis: Invoked and subverted twice. In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]", a threatening guy with an accent, thought to be an 'Angry German' by Emerson Cod, was actually Swiss (and non-threatening). In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]" was the Waffle Nazi, who appeared with full Lederhosen get-up, GratuitousGerman, [[AdolfHitler speech patterns]], and threatening personality - only for it to be revealed as fake: he is neither German nor actually speaks the language, but is putting on a show.
* AmbiguouslyGay
** Leo Burns, the coordinator in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]. HilariousInHindsight as he's played by [[ModernFamily Eric Stonestreet.]] [[spoiler:Oh, and he's the murderer of the week.]]
** Virtually all the males involved with the aqua dance show in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E13Kerplunk Kerplunk.]]
* AnachronicOrder: each episode opens with a segment showing one of the principals--usually Ned, but sometimes Chuck, Olive, or Emerson--as a child.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: despite having magical necromancy powers, Ned finds the notion of ghosts risible.
* BackFromTheDead: Chuck, most obviously; but also, briefly, the week's murder victim(s).
** And now, it would seem, [[spoiler: Charles Charles.]]
* BadassBystander: [[spoiler: Lily, who blasts Chuck's assassin with a shotgun, complete with a nice PreMortemOneLiner: "I can hold my breath for a long time."]]
* BalancingDeathsBooks: There's a grace period of a minute, but if Ned doesn't re-touch the re-animated, something else of approximately equal "life" value will die in exchange. And even after said grace period, Ned can't touch the re-animated person/creature/whatever, or they'll be dead again.
* BandagedFace: [[spoiler:Chuck's dad.]] He even has a smiley face drawn on it.
* BlatantLies: Any lie [[BadLiar Ned]] ever tells.
* BlessedAreTheCheesemakers
* BlessedWithSuck: Sorry, you can't touch your girlfriend...
* [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Boarding School of Loneliness, Grayness, and Crushing Depression]]: The Longborough School For Boys
* BornDetective: Emerson Cod
* BrickJoke: Emerson's confusion of "narcoleptic" and "necrophiliac"--set up in "Pie-lette" for a payoff in "Pigeon".
* BrainyBrunette: Chuck is book smart on just about everything.
* CameBackWrong: All of the bodies of the people Ned brings back to life remain as they were when he touched them. This is not always pleasant to watch.
** Interestingly, this doesn't seem to apply to strawberries. One explanation or rationalization could be that Ned's powers can reverse/heal the effects of time or death by "natural" causes but can't reverse physical trauma.
* CanineCompanion: Digby (though of course, Ned can't touch him, as Digby was the first thing Ned had ever brought back to life).
** Combine this with JustForPun and you get Olive's pig companion, Pigby.
* CantHaveSexEver / ChastityCouple / CourtlyLove: Ned and Chuck, though they've apparently found ways around the "no touching" problem.
--->'''Ned''': It's hard enough being in a relationship where we can't touch. But… we improvise, figured out ways around that. I've even built contraptions.
* CaptainObvious: The Narrator at times.
* CassandraTruth:
-->'''Ned:''' How much does Olive know?
-->'''Chuck:''' Don't worry about what Olive knows. Even if I told her the truth she wouldn't believe me.
-->'''Ned:''' You don't know that.
-->'''Chuck:''' Yes I do, because I told her and she wouldn't believe me.
* TheCastShowoff: KristinChenoweth can sing! Ellen Greene as well.
* CatchPhrase: The narrator has "At this very moment" and "The facts are these..."
** Emerson's CatchPhrase is "Aw, ''hell'' no!"
*** Which was stolen by Olive on more than one occasion.
** Played with once with the narrator saying "Oh, hell no!", and once with this exchange:
-->'''Rob Wright:''' I know how it must sound, but the facts were these...
-->'''Chuck:''' Huh?
-->'''Rob Wright:''' These were the facts...
* ChekhovsGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]" has Chekhov's ''Cannon''. A midget with a cannon happens to pass by when Ned and Emerson are at the ringmaster's trailer... then, later in the episode, the human cannonball gets fired at them. Also with Chuck's father's pocket watch, which the mysterious Dixon wants for some reason. It was shown ''in the very first episode'' and has only become relevant now, halfway through Season 2.
* ChineseLaborer: Wilfred Woodruff's ancestor, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E3TheFunInFuneral The Fun In Funeral]]".
* CityWithNoName: The city where the main action takes place is never named, though we do know that it's in (fictitious) Papen County, 131 miles due north of Coeur d'Coeurs (Ned and Chuck's equally fictitious hometown). Information on placing Papen County in a US state or region is internally inconsistent.
* ClearMyName: Ned is jailed for the murder of Billy Balsam in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E8BitterSweets Bitter Sweets]]".
-->'''Emerson:''' I mean, it's a broad generalization, but my guess is an attractive man who makes pies for a living [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar shouldn't spend even a short amount of time in prison.]]
* ClingyJealousGirl: Olive Snook, who bordered on StalkerWithACrush early on.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Even without Ned's aid Emerson Cod is a capable investigator. But he still can't find his daughter.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The interiors of many buildings. The Pie Hole and the morgue are green, Betty's Bees is yellow, the convent (and the nuns' habits) are aqua, and the Chinese restaurant (plus Emerson's office upstairs) are red.
* ComicRolePlay: Olive on Aunt Lily-- who tells her to pretend she's [[spoiler:Chuck, her daughter, and to tell her what she'd say if Chuck were alive. Chuck is listening in.]]
* {{Confessional}}: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]".
* ConspicuousCG: Most exterior shots of large buildings.
* ContinuityNod: After nabbing a criminal with a fake arm in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E4Pigeon Pigeon]]" (Ned: "Is this the hand you were holding?"), Ned keeps the arm. In later episodes, he uses it to pet Digby and fish things out of a vat of taffy.
** The bee brooch used as a [[StealthPun bug]] in "Bzzzzzz!" is also used for the aforementioned ComicRolePlay in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic"
* CoolOldLady: Both of Chuck's aunts are cool old ladies, but especially Aunt Lily, [[spoiler: who shot Chuck's murderer. After nearly being killed herself. With zero depth perception. ''In the very first episode.'']]
* TheCoroner: Mmm-''hmmm.''
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E2Dummy Dummy]]", "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]", "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E4Frescorts Frescorts]]"
* TheCorpseStopsHere: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E8BitterSweets Bitter Sweets]]"
* CosmicDeadline: The last couple of episodes are a very obvious rush job that fail to resolve most of the lingering plot threads.
* CostumePorn: Everyone dresses very nicely, but it's Lily and Vivian who pull out the bejewelled eyepatches and qipaos.
* CurseCutShort: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]", a dead clown mentions that the clowns had made up a limerick about an audience member named Bryce von Deenis. Chuck and Ned speculate on the contents of the limerick:
-->'''Chuck:''' There was a young man named von Deenis
-->'''Ned:''' Who they said had a very big-- (act break)
** The show also uses SoundEffectBleep--see below.
* CursedWithAwesome: Ned can revive the dead with a touch, and has used that power to revive his dog and later his childhood sweetheart, make lots of money investigating murders, ''and'' open a thriving bakery by using old, rotted fruit in his pies (since it becomes fresh-off-the-vine as soon as he touches it). And as a result, he can't touch the woman he loves lest she drop dead instantly, ditto his beloved pet, and if he ever ''eats'' any of his pies the fruit will wither and rot in his mouth.
** Although, if he ever wanted to make a pie for himself, he could get around the whole rotting-in-his-mouth problem by actually using fresh ingredients, which he does later in the series.
** His second revival was his mother whose lingering caused the death of Chuck's father and then she promptly died when she kissed him good night.
* CutesyNameTown: Coeur d' Coeurs. You can't really get more cutesy than that. For the non-Francophones in the room, it means "Heart of Hearts"
* CutShort: The finale is a mad rush to try to tie up several of the loose ends, and misses a few in the process. Stupid network.
** We never did find out what happened to [[spoiler: Charles Charles]] or meet Ned's dad beyond a five second shot at the end of one episode. He was going to be played by George Hamilton. ''Stupid'' network.
* CymbalBangingMonkey: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* DaydreamSurprise:
** Olive, as she realizes (too late) how Alfredo feels about her.
** In "Comfort Food", Lily imagines a conversation with Dwight while she waits for him.
* DeadpanSnarker: Emerson Cod, Aunt Lily
** {{Lampshaded}} in "Dim Sum Lose Sum", where a sudden lack of snarkage clues Ned and Chuck into Emerson's absence.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: "Pigeon"
* DeathAmnesia: Though the newly-revived are generally aware that they have died, they do not remember any sort of an afterlife.
* DeathByChildbirth: Chuck's mom. [[spoiler:This is later subverted when it is revealed that Aunt Lily is really her mother. She lied because Vivian was engaged to Charles.]]
* DeliciousDistraction: Ned's pies, especially those Chuck bakes with cheese on the crust for her aunts.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: ''everywhere'', as well as all over the place. (See also RepetitiveName, below.) Chuck's aunts used to be the Darling Mermaid Darlings. There's a life insurance firm called Uber-Life Life Insurance. The travel agency Chuck frequented was Boutique Travel Travel Boutique. It was run by... Dee Dee.
* DiggingToChina: Young Olive in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]"
* DiscriminateAndSwitch: A bartender refuses to serve Emerson in "Girth"--not because he's black, but because he's too tall (the bar, as it turns out, is specifically for horse jockeys).
* DoubleEntendre: [[HehHehYouSaidX Hur Hur,]] Bee-Girls. It's a pun on B-Girl, a euphemism for prostitute.
* {{Dramedy}}
* DropInCharacter: Olive, initially
* EquivalentExchange: Giving someone life costs another's: a human's for a human's, an animal's for an animal's, a plant's for a plant's.
* EroticDream: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Specifically, Jim Dale always refers to "Young Ned" in the flashbacks, but adult Ned is always "The Piemaker."
* MessyPig: Pigby [[spoiler:who accidentally killed someone in "Bad Habits"]].
* EverythingsBetterWithBunnies: Subverted, as the bunny appearing in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic" dies.
* EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks: Bubba the Shark in "Kerplunk".
* EvilClown: in "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]".
* EvilGloating: Dilly in "Bitter Sweets"... until the Pie Hole gang proved they had nothing to do with her brother's murder.
* EyepatchOfPower: Aunt Lily
* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Chuck [[spoiler: is the daughter of the woman she always believed to be her aunt.]] See also ParentalAbandonment, below.
* FairyTale: Essentially. It mixes what is something of a fairy tale romance with some of the darker themes present in the older fairy stories.
* FakeAmerican: Britain's Anna Friel as Chuck. The end credits even make mention of her "dialect coach."
* FakingTheDead: Chuck, sort of. Olive thinks Chuck's faking her death.
* {{Fanservice}}: Used a fair bit, especially with Olive's outfits -- the costuming department really got the most out of using KristinChenoweth, that's for sure. The ultra-low-cut mermaid costume with the one-leg so she had to [[{{Gainaxing}} hop up and down to move]] is probably the shining example.
* FilmNoir: The show's aesthetic draws pretty heavily on the Film Noir, particularly Emerson's office, the clipped, rapid-fire dialogue, and a good portion of "Dim-Sum Lose Some". Also, several film noir classics can be seen playing in the background in a few scenes of "Corpsicle".
* FirstEpisodeResurrection: Chuck dies and is revived in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]".
* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Ned
** TheLancer / TheBigGuy: Emerson Cod
** TheSmartGuy: Chuck
** TheChick: Olive
** TeamPet: Digby
** [[SixthRanger The Sixth Ranger]]: Simone or Randy Mann
* FlashBack:
** As mentioned above, each episode begins with a segment indicating something about young Ned's past.
** Usually the VictimOfTheWeek recounts something about their murder, or the Narrator sums up the clues Emerson and company have found to solve the MysteryOfTheWeek.
* FootPopping: Olive, in a DaydreamSurprise.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]" Aunt Lily mentions a sweater that belonged to Charlotte's mother. The narrator mentions that this made her go to "her dark place." The moment is framed such that it appears Chuck's aunt simply misses her niece. [[spoiler: But a later episode reveals that Aunt Lily is Chuck's mother.]]
** In the first episode, Lily mentions that Chuck used to threaten to bake anti-depressants into their food in order to cheer them up. Come Season Two...
* FreeTheFrogs: Young Ned, in "Bitter Sweets"
* TheFunInFuneral: TropeNamer?
* FriendlessBackground: Ned very explicitly had no friends as of the start of the series. Emerson and Olive start as more business associate and [[ObliviousToLove oblivious crusher]] than anything.
* FriendlyLocalChinatown: As part of the Emerson's PI status, as well as the pervasive noirish milieu, his office is located in the local Chinatown, directly above a dim-sum restaurant, and his sign is in Chinese as well as English.
* GenkiGirl: Chuck, determined to make the most of her second chance at life.
* GenreSavvy: Chuck is aware of and afraid of Film/{{CHUD}}s ('''C'''annibalistic '''H'''umanoid '''U'''nderground '''D'''wellers).
** [[spoiler: Chuck's father]] is aware of and afraid of becoming a [[ZombieApocalypse flesh-eating Zombie]].
* GratuitousGerman: Used by the Waffle Nazi, who, funnily enough, neither speaks the language nor is German at all. He's just cultivating [[AllGermansAreNazis an image]].
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: "Jock-off 2000." "Well, I'll be dental-dammed." "Simone had come... and gone." How in holy hell do they get ''that'' past the radar?
** Also in the episode "The Norwegians," the crime lab used by the titular Norwegians is called Mother, with the lettering on the side saying "Mobile Investigative Lab Facility." The acronym spells a certain popular term for a hot mom.
*** In that same episode, Emerson ate at a Noodle bar called [[NaughtyTentacles Hentai Noodles]]
** Naming an episode "Bitch''es''" when only one female dog is involved?
** [[DoubleEntendre Randy Mann]]. That is all.
** Olive, in one episode: "I used to think 'masturbation' meant chewing."
** Chuck in episode 2 talks about a tee shirt Ned gave her for her eighth birthday, "Be kind to animals, kiss a beaver." Also {{Lampshaded}} by Chuck's aunts, who said Ned had a dirty mind and called him "Beaver Boy" following that incident.
** Ned referring to his abilities as "Waking and Baking".
** In "Corpsicle," one of the suspects deliberately messes up Emerson Cod's name, referring to him as Mr. ''Cox''.
** Come & Sleep Hotel.
** from "Oh Oh Oh It's Magic" "I would have eaten anything for that man!"
* GRatedDrug: Chuck spikes her aunts' pies with homeopathic remedies, and Aunt Lily accidentally get an overdose in "Corpsicle". A MushroomSamba results, and HilarityEnsues.
* HasTwoMommies: Chuck, raised by her two aunts [[spoiler: or rather, one aunt and her mother masquerading as her other aunt...]]
* {{Homage}}: Exactly how much this show owes to the classic French film ''{{Amelie}}'' varies from "it's the writer's favourite film, there's bound to be some similarities" to "attempted shot-for-shot remake".
** Also see the homage to Creator/AlfredHitchcock's TheBirds in "Bitter Sweets".
** As well as the Hitchcock references in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]", culminating with Emerson's dream homage to {{Vertigo}}.
** In some episodes Chuck's fashion style is a clear tribute to Audrey Hepburn
** A lot of scenes are shot in style of a Film Noir with the window shades casting shadows over the characters faces, most notably "Girth", "Bitches", and "Bad Habits", when Olive goes to hire Emerson.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Aunt Vivian seems to have ''really'' bad taste in men.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Casting Lee Pace and Chi [=McBride=] (6'3" and 6'4", respectively) opposite Anna Friel and KristinChenoweth (5'2" and 4'11", respectively) guaranteed lots of this.
* HumanShield: The villain in "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic" does this to Olive, and is mocked for his choice of hostage by Emerson.
-->'''Emerson''' You need a bigger human shield or something. You're hanging out all shorts of places I can shoot!
* HumiliationConga: Buddy suffered one in his FlashBack in "Frescorts."
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All of them are whimsical, from "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]" to "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* IdiosyncraticWipes: Often an IrisOut. These were once extremely common, especially in cinema, but they look old-fashioned or even slightly cheesy to modern eyes, which are used to more unobtrusive scene wipes. (Therefore, perfectly suited to the show's theme of retro charm.).
** In "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic", some of the scene transitions are curtains opening and closing.
** "Robbing Hood" uses an animated bell for some of its scene transitions.
** "Window Dressed To Kill" uses slide-close doors.
** "Kerplunk" used shark jaws.
* ImpairmentShot: In "Oh Oh Oh--It's Magic", we see what the dead person sees when Ned touches them a second time.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"; Emerson, in "Robbing Hood".
* IndirectKiss: Ned and Chuck, by necessity, in increasingly creative ways.
* InstantMessengerPigeon: in "Pigeon", naturally.
* InstitutionalApparel: Ned wore a bright orange jumpsuit when he was MistakenForMurderer in "Bitter Sweets".
* IntercontinuityCrossover:
** In "Comfort Food"; Mary Anne Marie Beattle, from the ''{{Wonderfalls}}'' episode "Muffin Buffalo", appears.
** Happy Time Temp Agency from ''DeadLikeMe'' is mentioned in the first episode of season 2
* InterrogatingTheDead: At least OnceAnEpisode
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Olive expresses this sentiment at the end of "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]" but struggles to actually stay true to it.
* JawDrop: Ned, when he's shocked.
-->"If I could breathe I would ''vomit.''"
* JustBetweenYouAndMe: {{Subverted}}. The murderer in "Dummy" explains his entire plan... without realizing that the heroes, who are trapped inside a car, can't even hear him.
* KeepingSecretsSucks
* KlondikeFive-0155 is Emerson Cod's phone number.
* LampshadeHanging: "What the hell happened to people shooting each other with guns?"
* LastRequest: Chuck appends asking for this to Ned's usual "who murdered you?" once she enters the picture.
* {{Leitmotif}}:
** In the season two opener, "Bzzzzzzz!" a [[RearrangeTheSong cheerfully tango-ized]] variation of "Flight of the Bumblebee" threads under and through the rest of the background music.
** Arrangements of "Ave Maria" appear in convent scenes fairly often.
* LemonyNarrator
* LighthousePoint: One episode featured the murder of a lighthouse keeper.
* LipLockSunBlock: Ned and Chuck's first kiss as children
* LiteralCliffhanger / TakeMyHand: towards the end of "The Norwegians".
* LiteralMetaphor: Emerson Cod is fond of these.
** In "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]":
--->'''Emerson Cod:''' Your book was a bomb.
--->'''Napoleon:''' Who are ''you'' to criticize my life's work?!
--->'''Emerson Cod:''' [deadpan] Your book. Was a ''bomb''. It ''exploded''.
** And this from "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]":
--->'''Emerson:''' That's bat crap.
--->'''Olive:''' It's a frickin' convent. Show some respect.
--->'''Emerson:''' (pointing at the white-streaked wall of the bell tower) I'm ''showing'' you bat crap.
* LittlestCancerPatient: Subverted, in "Corpsicle", by heart patient Abner Newsome, the least likable kid-with-a-terminal-disease in the history of the trope.
** It's because he's ''heartless.'' (See also StealthPun.)
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Olive doesn't know about Ned's strange touch-related gift, other than that he can't/won't/doesn't touch Chuck or Digby and has a locked room full of rotten fruit. Chuck actually [[CassandraTruth told Olive the truth, with predictable results]].
** Chuck's aunts don't know that Chuck has been brought back to life.
*** [[spoiler:At least, not until the last few seconds of the series finale.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Olive grew up this way.
* LongLostSibling: Ned has twin half-brothers from his father's second marriage. Ned's father abandoned ''them'', too
* [[LostHimInACardGame Lost Her In A Card Game]]: how Mei got engaged, in "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Ned, Olive
* LoveTriangle: Ned, Chuck and Olive- TriangRelations Type 4.
** Getting slightly more complicated with Alfredo and Oscar Vibenius
** Also made awkward in the episode where Ned dreams Chuck and him getting intimate and actually touching [[spoiler: and then it turns out that it's actually Olive in a Chuck suit.]]
* LudicrousPrecision: The narrator when explaining how long ago something happened.
* MacGuffin: Charles Charles' pocket watch, apparently.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Emerson suggests this to Ned, about [[spoiler: Chuck's alive-agained father, Charles Charles]].
* MeaningfulName: ''Many'' of them, including
** Harold Hundin ("Hundin" is German for "female dog") in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
** Buddy Amicus ("amicus" is Latin for "friend") in "Frescorts"
** Bao Ting ("bao" is Cantonese for "bun") in "Dim Sum Lose Sum"
* MenDontCry: in "Bzzzzzzz!", the Season 2 opener, Emerson is quite outspoken about this. Even Ned agrees.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}
* MsFanservice: Olive Snook.
* MistakenForMurderer: Ned, in "Bitter Sweets"
* MommasBoy: [[spoiler: John Joseph Jacobs]] in "Girth".
** And to a lesser extent, Emerson seems to be a bit of a mama's boy when we meet his mother in "Frescorts".
* MoodMotif:
** There's music intended to bring to mind ''wind'' in the episode "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]".
* MotorMouth: Ned tends to babble rapidly when he's nervous, and he's nervous quite frequently.
** Arguably Chuck as well. The two of them together have a lot of whiplash-inducing back-and-forth conversations together.
* MundaneUtility: Ned's pies are great because the fruit he uses is extremely fresh; all the fruit he touches is brought back to life, so it tastes like it's not more than a few minutes off the plant when it hits the oven.
* MurderArsonAndJaywalking: when Olive tells the legend of Merle Mcquoddy:
--> ''Olive'': He flew into rages! Roamed the beaches at midnight! Shunned indoor plumbing!
* MrViceGuy: Emerson Cod and Greed.
* MushroomSamba: Aunt Lily in "Corpsicle".
* MysteryOfTheWeek
* {{Narrator}}
* NeverSayDie: Ned is reluctant to ever refer to someone as dying or having been killed if it's due to his touch.
* NeverSayThatAgain: {{Averted}}
-->'''Emerson:''' And don't you say "ginormous", 'cause that ain't a word.
* NeverTrustATrailer: the episode "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]" was advertised in a way that implied Ned and Olive would hook up.
* NewspaperThinDisguise
* TheNicknamer: [[DeadpanSnarker Emerson]] has a nickname for just about every character, every episode.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: in "Bitter Sweets". Ned goes to clean up a vermin infestation planted by Olive and Chuck (a task made even more difficult for him because he can't directly touch the dead rodents) in a rival's store--only to [[TheCorpseStopsHere find a corpse]] and get MistakenForMurderer.
* NoNameGiven: If Ned has a last name, we haven't yet learned it. The narrator, who often refers to characters by their full names, calls him "young Ned" in the flashbacks and "the pie maker" in the present. Doubles as a meaningful name, given that it is an anagram for 'End' and 'NDE', the synonym for 'Near Death Experience'.
* NotUsingTheZedWord: Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"; he thinks it's disrespectful.
* NunsAreFunny
* ObfuscatingDisability: In a season 2 episode we see a brief flashback to Emerson Cod's childhood. His mother faked putting him in danger to expose a man who had made fraudulent insurance claims. She pushed a stroller with a baby doll in it down a flight of stairs- the allegedly wheelchair-bound man with a neckbrace and a broken arm ran from his wheelchair to catch the baby with both hands.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Used to flush out the victim's murderer. Of course, done with the advantage that, for one minute, he ''is'' alive...
* OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe: {{Subverted}}, as is usual for this trope: Olive asks Ned if that isn't really a rolling pin under his apron; Ned silently produces the rolling pin, to Olive's dismay.
* OverlyLongGag: All the clowns being taken away on stretchers in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]. It doesn't help that one of them is still on stilts.
* PreviouslyOn: The Narrator mentions Ned's ability and its rules OnceAnEpisode so new viewers are not lost.
* ParentalAbandonment / ParentalNeglect: Ned and Chuck both ended up orphaned and eventually grew up in the care of others.
** MissingMom: Ned's mother died suddenly when he was nine. Chuck grew up believing that her mother had [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]], but later discovers that her mother [[spoiler:is her "Aunt" Lily]].
** DisappearedDad: Chuck's father died when she was eight, as an unfortunate side effect of Ned bringing back his mother. Ned's father just abandoned him. Emerson Cod is himself a DisappearedDad...but not through any fault of his own.
* PostKissCatatonia: Ned sort of dangles in the air with his eyes closed and his lips puckered even after Chuck has stopped kissing him. It happens every time she kisses him, along with the [[MoodMotif theme music swelling with violins]].
* PowerIncontinence: Ned is forced to use an extendable arm with a fake hand on the end to pet his dog, and to come up with multiple creative ways to touch Chuck, because his power is always on.
* PowerTrio: Ned/Chuck/Emerson as Ego/Superego/Id, respectively.
* PrivateDetective: Emerson Cod
* PunnyName: Randy Mann.
* RefugeInAudacity: Usually, when fifteen people die, it's a very big tragedy. Except when it's clowns and they all die in the same [[ClownCarBase clown car]] crash. And then their bodies are taken out one at a time, with one dead clown having enormous stilts. Then it's ''hilarious''.
** It was also pretty hilarious when in episode 3 of season 2, Olive prays for a sign from God. Then a dead nun falls from above where she was praying. It's so morbid but funny at the same time.
** [[DeadLikeMe Fifteen would be a calamity, actually.]]
* RepetitiveName: Charlotte "Chuck" Charles and her father, Charles Charles
** Which is why the recurring fan favorite choice for Ned's last name is Edwards.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: Although a rather rushed epilogue of sorts was stuck on the end of the final episode, a "third season" of comics is due to be published by DC in 2011. It will apparently involve a "fresh take on the ZombieApocalypse"
* RetroUniverse: From Chuck's [[AudreyHepburn Hepburn-esque]] wardrobe to Ned's and Emerson's beautiful old cars, the world is like a more colorful version of the past... or the past as it should have been (although the idealized past apparently includes the Reagan administration as seen in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]").
* RetrauxFlashback
* SarcasmMode: Emerson, basically all the time: "Oh, look at that, a dumb idea just found a friend!" And very occasionally, Ned: "'Come to our show, Frère Pie-Maker! It's a ''magic'' show."
* ScoobyStack: Chuck, Emerson, and Ned peeping out from a curtain in "Dim Sum Lose Sum".
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Though it was aggressively promoted in its first season, ABC had evidently lost interest by the second season premiere. After a ten-month hiatus plus half a season, all without any promotion for the show, they canceled it, citing low ratings.
** Tragic thing is it won a posthumous Emmy (the series won seven in all, including for Kristin Chenoweth and Barry Sonnenfeld).
*** This trope also applies to how it was handled in Britain; the series was bought by {{ITV}} and unusually for an American import screened in primetime on the flagship [[{{ITV}} ITV1]] channel - most American series currently bought by the channel are either relegated to off-peak slots (like ''InPlainSight'') or shown on their digital offshoots (like ''GossipGirl'') - but the channel held back one episode because it would clash with a World Cup match. For which England failed to qualify. Needless to say, fans weren't happy.
* SecretChaser: Oscar Vibenius
* SecretKeeper: Though most of the main characters are keeping secrets, Olive seems to be an especially popular secret repository.
** Except, of course, the biggest secret of all...
* SeriousBusiness: Very nearly ''everything'', from honey to pop-up books to scratch-and-sniffs to synchronized swimming to department store window dressings.
* SesquipedalianSmith Emerson Cod
* ShapedLikeWhatItSells: The Pie Hole is shaped like a giant pie.
* SherlockScan: Oddly enough, it's not PrivateDetective Emerson Cod who does this, but smell experts Napoleon Le Nez and Oscar Vibenius.
* ShortRunInPeru: The series will start and finish the second season in the UK, before the final three episodes are shown in the US.
* ShoutOut:
** "[[Film/TheWizardOfOz Follow the yellow thick hose]]!"
** Creator/AlfredHitchcock's ''TheBirds''
** ''Film/TheGodfather Part II'': "I knew it was you, Fredo."
** [[DeadLikeMe Happy Time Temp Agency]]
** TheSoundOfMusic
** Father Dowling Mysteries
** [[{{MASH}} M* A* S* H* ]]
** ''{{Hamlet}}'': "What got thee to a nunnery?"
** Sister Christian
** "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]" is larded with shout outs to the 1977 Disney movie ''PetesDragon''. The movie had starred ''PushingDaisies''' narrator Jim Dale.
** ''{{Superman}} The Movie''
--->'''Olive:''' You've got me? Who's got you?!
** ''{{Vertigo}}'': in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
** "You want to walk down together?" "That'd be swell, [[NotSoImaginaryFriend Harvey]]."
** TheyMightBeGiants : Olive makes a metaphor about "a birdcage in your soul" and sings ''Birdhouse In Your Soul'' not long after in the same episode.
** [[StarWars "I'm channeling fear into anger." "Anger leads to hate." "And hate leads to stress baking."]]
** [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment "Magicians?" "Illusionists!"]]
* SiblingYinYang: The Aunts
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: "I grew up" is the reason Ned gives for disliking Halloween, even though it is really because [[spoiler: that's when he found out his father had a second family.]]
* SimilarSquad - the Norwegians though judging from some viewer reactions, they weren't similar enough
* SingleTargetSexuality: Ned doesn't want anyone but Chuck.
** He's claimed to have had girlfriends before Chuck, albeit not very believably. It may be a case of FirstGirlWins.
*** Aside from various emotional issues he has with getting too close to people, stuff like the little story about the bear skin rug explains a lot.
* SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty: Very, ''very'' shiny.
* SmokingGunControl: The newly-revived generally have incomplete or imperfect information regarding their deaths.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Veronica Villanueva, in "Frescorts".
* SoundEffectBleep:
** in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]", Ned repeats the secretary's description of the head clown as a "real low-down, dirty _____________" just as a circus performer walks by breathing fire, the flames both drowning Ned out and preventing viewers from [[ReadingLips reading his lips]]. When the flames clear, Emerson says "I've never heard ''you'' say those words."
** in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E3BadHabits Bad Habits]]", a revived nun swears a blue streak, conveniently drowned out by a church bell.
* StageMagician: Ned's twin half-brothers and their mentor, the Great Hermann.
* StealthPun: Usually {{Subverted}}, in that the narrator does not spare himself the joy of actually making the pun. For example, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]" Ned dredges up a sock from the sink in the kitchen of the Pie Hole. By the reactions of Chuck, Olive, and Emerson, its smell is most unpleasant.
-->'''The Narrator:''' The message was clear. Someone wanted to make a stink.
* StigmaticPregnancyEuphemism: [[spoiler: Lily]] spent time at a convent when pregnant [[spoiler:with Chuck.]]
* StupidSexyFlanders: Emerson can't stop looking at the [[AmbiguouslyGay highly effeminate]] male aqua dancer in [[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E13Kerplunk the series finale.]] And he's not happy about it.
* SugarBowl: The ''PushingDaisies'' world is brightly coloured, full of pies, tender sweet moments, coy glances, happy honeybees, whimsy, and little charming gestures. This offsets the bizarre murders, morbid humor, and unflinching examinations of personal responsibility and morality.
* TheSummation: The narrator does this, sometimes several times an episode, and always starting with the phrase "the facts were these..."
* SureLetsGoWithThat: As to why Chuck is alive, the simplest answer is that she faked her death. See also CassandraTruth.
* SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel
* SwordFight: in "The Fun in Funeral".
** With Improbable Fencing Powers justified by the page quote of SwordFight.
* SynchronizedSwarming: While following a case where a woman says she was attacked by a "terrifying bee man", Ned speculates about being chased by a human-shaped swarm of bees. [[spoiler:Turns out it was actually a person covered in bees.]]
* TaxidermyIsCreepy: the reason Randy Mann doesn't have many friends.
* TaxidermyTerror: Ned is terrified of preserved animals, but not for the usual reasons. He's afraid of accidentally resurrecting them.
* ThatPoorCat: "Comfort Food".
* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: With Broadway actresses Kristin Chenoweth and Ellen Greene in the cast, it was [[TheCastShowoff inevitable]].
** Unfortunately, Olive was provided a missed love connection in the person of one Broadway veteran Raul Esparza, who... well, would a duet been too much to ask for?
*** File his song-less appearances on the show along with that of Christopher Seiber.
* ThemeNaming: Ned's three closest human associates all have food-related names: ''Olive'' Snook, Emerson ''Cod'', ''Charlotte'' Charles. (A ''charlotte'' is a French dessert: a "crust" made of ladyfinger cookies enclosing a mousse of some sort. Her nickname, "''Chuck''", can also refer to a cut of beef.)
** Also, both Snook and Cod are types of fish.
* TheyCalledMeMad: The scent scientists--both Napoleon Le Nez and Oscar Vibenius.
* TheyFightCrime: But as private investigators primarily motivated by big rewards.
-->'''Emerson''': I suppose I ''could'' pay my bills with blind kids' smiles, but their ''money'' is a lot easier.
* TheydCutYouUp: Ned's greatest fear.
-->'''Ned:''' Ever since I was a kid, I'd have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do. It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut.
* ThisIsNoTimeForKnitting: Literally--Emerson Cod's knitting needles turn out to be instrumental in saving himself, Ned and Chuck from the bad guy.
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: "The Fun in Funeral" has a slight variant--Ned throws his sword into the wall, where it trips the fleeing villain.
* TimeshiftedActor: Because of the opening flashbacks mentioned above.
* TitleOnlyOpening: Made in some way out of daisies.
* TomboyishName: Charlotte "Chuck" Charles. (A common trope in BryanFuller works.)
* TranslationConvention: {{Subverted}} in "Dim Sum Lose Sum", when the Narrator notes that "Bao chose to respond in English."
* ThemeTwinNaming: Averted if you consider the show tendency to alliterative and repetitive names.
* TwitchyEye: Ned. As noted by Olive, it twitches when he's lying.
* UndeathAlwaysEnds: Averted with Chuck, Digby, and [[spoiler:Mr. Charles]]. Exaggerated with everyone else, for good reason.
* UnlimitedWardrobe: To the point Chuck can dress thematically to the centerpiece of a given episode. So can Olive. And Chuck's aunts... right down to Lily having eyepatches to match her outfits.
* UnPaused: In the first episode, the first thing Chuck does after Ned brings her back to life is grab his tie and bang him on the lid of her coffin in self-defense against her killer.
* VictimOfTheWeek
* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Ned and Chuck... more or less
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: at least OnceAnEpisode, starting with Chuck in the first episode
* WeatherAndEnvironment:
** RedemptionInTheRain: the aunts, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
** SnowMeansLove: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E9TheLegendOfMerleMcQuoddy The Legend of Merle McQuoddy]]"
** AStormIsComing: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E8ComfortFood Comfort Food]]" and "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E9TheLegendOfMerleMcQuoddy The Legend of Merle McQuoddy]]".
* WeHelpTheHelpless
* WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs: The guy down at the morgue is understandably leery of Ned--the guy just keeps changing his job description.
* WhodunnitToMe: Chuck helps solve her own murder in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]".
* WindowLove: Practically obligatory for Ned and Chuck, as they can't touch in any other way.
* WordOfGay: According to the writers, whilst there are other people working at the morgue, we only see that one coroner ever because he's the only one who'll let Emerson and Ned in no questions asked, due to having a crush on Emerson.
* WritersStrike: Like many shows, it was harmed by the 2007 writer's strike, cutting down the number of episodes in the first season. The overall narrative never really recovered.
!Specific episodes provide examples of:
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E7TheSmellOfSuccess The Smell of Success]]"
* AlmostKiss: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E1Pielette Pie-lette]]"
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Ned saves Chuck fully knowing someone else will die for it.
* AnimalReactionShot: Digby, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]"
* AppealToObscurity: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]":
-->'''Emerson:''' Have you ''seen'' the special lockup they keep for cocky young acrobats? Because ''I'' haven't.
* ArrangedMarriage: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* AshesToCrashes: In the episode "Girth", [[spoiler: in this case they aren't human ashes]].
* BadHabits: In "Bad Habits", the TropeNamer
* [[strike: Banana]] [[BananaIntheTailpipe Potato In The Tailpipe]]: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E9Corpsicle Corpsicle]]"
* BedsheetGhost: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E5Girth Girth]]"
* BeeBeeGun: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]"
* BindleStick: Young Ned, in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]"
* BitterAlmonds: Almond-flavored coffee creamer in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS1E6Bitches Bitches]]".
* BulletTime: "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E5DimSumLoseSum Dim Sum Lose Sum]]"
* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: alluded to in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E1Bzzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzz!]]".
* TheRunaway: in "[[Recap/PushingDaisiesS2E2CircusCircus Circus Circus]]". (Kids still run away to join the circus in this world.)
* SadisticChoice: In "The Legend of Merle [=McQuoddy=]", [[spoiler: Charles Charles, the father Chuck always longed for, offers to take his daughter on a life of adventure--far, far away from the man she loves]].
* SexyBacklessOutfit: The Dandy Lion model costumes in "Dummy". At the same time, the front leaves everything to the imagination.
* UranusIsShowing: Young Emerson gets sent to the principal's office for making this joke.
* ValleyGirl: Elise, the gold-digging wife in "Robbing Hood."
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