Calvin And Hobbes / Tropes A to C

Main | Tropes A to C | Tropes D to I | Tropes J to P | Tropes Q to Z

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• Aborted Arc:
  • Watterson once wanted to run a whole month's worth of strips involving Calvin getting stuck on the ceiling due to his gravity polarity being reversed, and then growing larger and larger (to the point of the galaxy being the size of a hula-hoop, when proportionately compared) to see how the fans would react. Watterson feared the backlash and quickly pulled out, however. Here is the arc. Unlike some aborted arcs though, this one actually got a conclusion. He just didn't let it run as long as he originally planned.
  • He had also originally intended on having Uncle Max be a recurring character, and the original Max story ends with the suggestion that one day Calvin and his parents will go visit him. This never came to fruition because Watterson decided the character was not as interesting as he had hoped.
• Absurd Altitude: One Imagine Spot has Calvin picturing a playground slide as being so tall, it reaches into outer space. It's just Calvin's impression as his dad tries to coax him down the slide.
• Abuse Discretion Shot: Calvin is often spanked as punishment for getting in trouble, but it always only happens offscreen, with Calvin rubbing his sore behind after the fact. Probably because actually showing Calvin getting spanked is not as funny as the unseen implication.
• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Hobbes tends to wear scarves during winter...and nothing else. And if he's in the mood to dress up a little, he'll put on a necktie and nothing else. Maybe a sport coat too if it's a really special occasion.
• Accidental Good Outcome: In one strip, Calvin sneezes so hard that he sends himself into outer space. He lets out another sneeze, thus pushing himself back to earth.
• Acting Unnatural: In one story arc, Calvin attempts to fix a "leaky" faucet in the bathroom, only to remove the faucet without turning off the water valve first, inevitably flooding the bathroom. While trying to get buckets for the mess, he attempts to make it sound as casual and nonchalant to his parents as possible. Naturally, it doesn't work.
  Calvin: "La Da Dee Dee Da, I think I'll get a bucket... Dum Dee Doo.. Nothing's wrong... Da Dee Doo Ba... I just need a bucket to hold some... stuff. Ta Tum Ta Tum. Let's see, how many buckets do we have? Dum Dee Doo, no cause for alarm... no need to panic... I just want a few buckets. La La."
  Calvin's parents: (simultaneously) "Your turn."
• Action Insurance Gag: Several Spaceman Spiff strips have Spiff complaining that he just paid off/washed and waxed his spaceship as it goes down in flames, or regretting not taking a better insurance policy.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • In one strip Calvin combed his hair, put on his dad's glasses, and in an obvious parody of his father said to his parents "Calvin, go do something you hate. Being miserable builds character." In the final frame, his mother is laughing so hard she's fallen out of her chair, and whilst his father disapproves of what a sarcastic child they're raising, he reluctantly concedes "the voice was a little funny".
  • One time on school picture day, Calvin put shortening in his hair and with the help of Hobbes, got an Astro Boy hairdo. Susie actually wishes she had thought of that.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Often found in the Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man storylines.
  • Zorched by Zarches, Spaceman Spiff's crippled craft crashes on Planet Plootarg!
  • Zounds! The zealous Zarches have followed Spiff to the planet's surface to finish him off!
  • YES! It's... STUPENDOUS MAN! Friend of freedom! Opponent of oppression! Lover of liberty!
  • With stupendous powers of reasoning, the caped combatant concludes there's no need for homework if there's no school tomorrow!
  • STUPENDOUS MAN has the strength of a million mortal men! Give up!
  • With muscles of magnitude, STUPENDOUS MAN fights with heroic resolve!
• Adjacent to This Complete Breakfast: Calvin's favorite cereal qualifies as this. With a name like Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs it'd have to be. Lampshaded in one strip where Calvin and Hobbes are arguing over its merits:
  Calvin: Look, it says right here "Part of a wholesome, nutritious, balanced breakfast."
  Hobbes: Yeah, and they show a guy eating five grapefruits, a dozen bran muffins...
• Adult Adoptee: Discussed in one strip, where Calvin's dad, in a moment of exasperation thinks to himself that they should've adopted a twenty-five year old with his own apartment instead of having Calvin.
• Adults Are Useless: In the arc when Calvin joins the school baseball team, the coach gives Calvin no instructions, doesn't prevent the other kids from bullying him, and is more than happy to kick Calvin off the team when the boy decides to quit.
• Aerial Canyon Chase: One strip parodies this concept as Calvin imagining his mother as the alien battleship.
• An Aesop:
  • Things aren't as scary when you have someone you love by your side. Calvin frequently relies on Hobbes to get him through scary situations, including thinking there's a monster in his closet.
  • Consumerism won't make you happy. Calvin's dad, in particular, rails against the modern age quite frequently while riding on his bike (as well as other times) and Hobbes snarks about how Calvin buying into it makes him a dream come true for people wanting to take his money.
• Aesop Amnesia: Invoked. Calvin deliberately avoids trying to learn any moral lessons which might impact his behaviour in a meaningful way. He never stop trying to find shortcuts to not have to do his homework, never stops trying to smack Susie with a snowball, never stops trying to torment his babysitter, never stops tampering with cardboard box technology, even though it always gets him into trouble.
  Hobbes: Live and don't learn. That's us.
• Affectionate Parody: The Tracer Bullet and Spaceman Spiff stories are tongue-in-cheek riffs on the Film Noir and Raygun Gothic stories (Flash Gordon is mentioned specifically) that Watterson grew up around (although he admitted he's never actually read any noir stories).
• Afraid of Needles: When Calvin acts up at the doctor's office, it's usually because he wants to keep the doctor from giving him a shot. Although his behavior is way over the top, this is nonetheless realistic because many children Calvin's age are frightened of needles.
  Calvin: What's that? Is that a shot? Are you going to... AAUGHH! IT WENT CLEAR THROUGH MY ARM!! Ow ow ow ow!!! I'm dying! I hope you've paid your malpractice insurance, you quack!! Where's my mom??!
• Against My Religion: Calvin tried this more than once to avoid having to do his math homework (he's expected to rely on faith combining one number with another number somehow makes a third number??).
  Calvin: It's worth a shot.
• Age-Appropriate Angst: Shown in the different ways Calvin and his parents are emotionally affected by having their house broken into while on a family trip. All three are terrified to a degree, but that fear is resolved in different ways. Calvin calms down once he finds Hobbes and gets over it fairly quickly afterwards, to the point where the arc ends with him complaining about the TV getting stolen. Mom and Dad are more deeply affected. Dad reflects on how much faith he had in his dad as a kid to navigate emergencies and how he didn't realize how much his dad likely felt just as lost and scared as he does. Mom feels violated at the thought of a stranger going through their house and hugs Dad as she tries to sleep while reflecting on how family is more important than material possessions.
  • The dynamic is neatly summed up by one of the strips near the end of the arc, with the parents reflecting on how if it's this traumatic for adults, they can only imagine how hard it must be for Calvin. Cut to Calvin talking to Hobbes about how excited he is to tell everyone at school how his tiger scared the robbers off.
• Age-Inappropriate Art: Subverted in one strip where Calvin purchases a record album with songs that "glorify depraved violence, mindless sex, and the deliberate abuse of dangerous drugs". Hobbes tells Calvin his mom will have a fit once she sees this thing lying around, only for Calvin to explain that's the only reason why he bought the album, as he throws away the actual record.
  • One strip has Calvin bring up the subject of freedom of speech with his dad, with Dad acknowledging that freedom of speech means being okay with the existence of art you find crude, shocking, or offensive. Calvin is quick to interrupt his dad with "YOU'RE STAAALLING!" once his dad launches into a fatherly speech about how this doesn't mean he has to let Calvin watch whatever he wants.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: There was an arc where Susie invites Hobbes (and Calvin) to her birthday party. Her age isn't mentioned, but they all appear to be perpetually 6.
• Agent Scully: Hobbes frequently dismisses Calvin's six-year-old notions about how the world works. Ironic, considering he himself might be a figment of one boy's imagination.
• Agony of the Feet: In one Christmas Eve strip, Calvin and Hobbes are seen waiting for Santa to come. Suddenly, they hear a loud noise, and they think it's Santa dropping in. However, it was actually Calvin's Dad dropping a massive Christmas present on his foot.
  SLIPPIN-RIPPIN-DANG-FANG-ROTTEN-ZARG-BARG-A-DING-DONG!!!
  "Quiet, Dear, Calvin will hear you!"
  • In another strip, Calvin is trying to kick a football to Hobbes, but hurts his foot instead. He retaliates by letting all the air out of the football, to Hobbes' confusion.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Calvin's living creations pretty much always end up always turning against him.
  • The Snow Goon. Its first act on being given life was to attack Calvin, followed by giving itself an extra head and arm, creating more Snow Goons, and besieging the house.
    Hobbes: You brought a snowman to life?
    Calvin: I didn't think he'd be evil!
  • The duplicates. Being exact copies of Calvin, they refused to do anything Calvin wouldn't do (like clean his room). In fact, for a while, they actually went out of their way to cause trouble, knowing that Calvin would take all the blame.
  • Heck, even the embodiment of his good side turned against him.
• Air Quotes: Calvin mentions "making a hand gesture for quotation marks" on a list of "A Hundred Things that Bug Me."
• Alien Abduction: Calvin uses this as an excuse periodically, such as saying aliens abducted him and stole all his math knowledge, so that's why he can't participate in class, or aliens abducted him and replaced him with an evil robot, and that's who caused all that trouble around the house. Whether they actually happened isn't made clear though.
• Alien Sky: Frequently seen in Calvin's imaginary worlds. Watterson would eventually claim that, ultimately, print was an insufficient medium to capture the sheer scope of Calvin's imagination. Alas. Which is saying something, given how incredibly well he usually seemed to capture it.
• The Alleged Car: Mom's car breaks down in an early strip, and her reaction indicates this happens fairly frequently.
• Allergic to Routine: Calvin, which drives the story of many strips. He's tried to go to school naked or with his clothes on in reverse just because. This is also why he invented Calvinball, because he hated how real sports had strict rules that had to be followed.
• All Just a Dream:
  • The comic has the memorable "A Letter From Santa" Sunday strip, where Calvin gets a letter from Santa Claus encouraging him to be as bratty as he likes and that good kids actually nauseate Santa.
    "And then I awoke."
  • There was also the Sunday strip involving Calvin being unable to fall asleep, as late as 1:30 in the morning. He tosses and turns, and is really tired, but just can't get to sleep, until he hears his mom's voice, and wakes up from his insomnia dream. At breakfast, Calvin mutters to himself "This is going to be a bad day."
  • One arc began with Calvin about to hand in his completed math homework, when all the numbers suddenly spilled off the page, which then explodes into flame. His teacher turns into a tentacled alien and douses him with gasoline; Calvin leaps off his chair and is abruptly plummeting from the clouds. Calvin wakes up just as he was about to strike his house like a flaming meteor... only to remember he hadn't completed his math homework.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: One Sunday strip featured a poem Calvin wrote about alien invaders who, rather than landing on Earth and conquering it, simply drained its oceans and atmosphere, while a crowd of people is seen shouting and gasping for breath.

  The tube then sucked up the clouds and the air,
  Causing no small amount of Earthling despair.
  With nothing to breathe, we started to die.
  "Help us! Please stop!" was the public outcry.

• Alternate Personality Punishment: Played for Laughs in one arc where Calvin time-travels two hours into the future in order to pick up his completed homework from his future self at 8:30. Naturally, 8:30 doesn't have it because he went to the future to get it two hours ago, so 6:30 and 8:30 decide it's 7:30 Calvin's fault. They both go to 7:30 to confront that time's Calvin, threatening to beat him up...but 7:30 points out that that they're all technically the same person, so beating him up will mean that 8:30 Calvin will get hurt. In the end, they both return to 8:30 to find that 6:30 and 8:30 Hobbeses have done the homework for them (a novelization of the evening's events narrated by Hobbes). Calvin says it made him the laughingstock of the class even if it did get him an A+.
• Alternative Calendar: Calvin once began a history report by saying America was founded around 200 B.C., which he clarifies means "Before Calvin". His teacher is not amused and sends him to the corner with a Dunce Cap.
• Alternative-Self Name-Change: One arc had Calvin make several clones of himself. They refer to themselves by the order they were made—the second clone calls himself "Number Two" and so on.
• Alt Text: The anthologies usually contain alt text from Watterson, usually about what he had in mind when making something or real-life influences that bled into his work.
• Always a Bigger Fish: In an early Sunday strip, Calvin shrinks down suddenly to the size of a bug from the perspective of other bugs. A fly tries to step on him until a frog eats it.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • A major reoccurring plot element is how Calvin is living in his own reality separate from everyone else, but he never really questions why no one else sees the fantastical elements he does (such as when people call Hobbes "stuffed" to Calvin's face and he never acknowledges it), even during situations when Calvin should really know better (like how Calvin always seems to think people are fooled by his Stupendous Man "disguise"). Is Calvin living in some magic personal sphere of childhood wonder manifested or is it really just an overactive escapist imagination at work? Or is it both? It's never explained and explicitly so.
  • Is Hobbes a real, sentient talking tiger, or is he just Calvin using his imagination on his stuffed toy? Bill Watterson made a point of having almost all the stories go out of their way not to give a definitive answer.
• Amusing Injuries: Whenever he's tackled by Hobbes, Calvin typically ends up scratched and bruised, but never seriously hurt. The same when he falls off a cliff or runs into a tree at the end of a wagon ride or sledding sojourn.
• Amusingly Awful Aim: One strip has Calvin throw a flurry of snowballs at Susie, none of which make contact. Susie mocks him, saying he couldn't hit the ground if it wasn't for gravity.
• Amusingly Short List: The title characters have a game called "Calvinball" that only has two permanent rules: you can't play the same way twice, and everyone has to wear a mask.
• Anachronism Stew: A few minor elements of the comic, such as Calvin's house having an antennae television and a rotary phone, or Calvin occasionally being punished at school using a dunce cap, would have been long out of date even during the 1980s, but Watterson deliberately included them because he thought it added character. In the former two cases, it's actually very plausible that Calvin's parents - especially his mildly technophobic dad - would own an outdated phone and TV.
• Anatomically Ignorant Healing: The collection The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes features a poem in which Calvin imagines his bones being found and erroneously reconstructed by aliens.
  What if my bones were in a museum
  Where aliens paid good money to see 'em?
  And suppose that they'd put me together all wrong,
  Sticking bones onto bones where they didn't belong?
  Imagine phalanges, pelvis and spine
  Welded to mandibles that once had been mine!
  With each missassemblage, the error compounded,
  The aliens would draw back in terror, astounded!
  Their textbooks would show me in grim illustration,
  The most hideous thing ever seen in creation!
  The museum would commission a model in plaster
  Of ME, to be called, "Evolution's Disaster"!
• And the Adventure Continues: The final strip concludes with the line "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!"
• And You Were There: Calvin's Imagine Spot fantasies frequently include other people around him as aliens, dinosaurs, supervillains, or a Dame with a Case, particularly the Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, and Tracer Bullet ones.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • When Calvin went looking for Hobbes after his botched attempt to secede and relocate to the Yukon.
    Calvin: All right, Hobbes, you lunk-headed fur-brain! Where are you?! (gazes at the night sky with a regretful look on his face) I didn't mean that quite the way that sounded!
  • In the story arc where Calvin got lost at the zoo, Calvin's dad went off to look for him, while muttering to himself "Being a parent is wanting to hug and strangle your kid at the same time."
  • There's also a sense of this in the story where Calvin accidentally pushes the car into a ditch. He runs away, but when found is surprised to find his parents were more worried about what happened to him than about the car (which, luckily, wasn't damaged.)
  • In the Snow Goon arc, Calvin's mom has a worried expression after his dad brings him inside the house in the middle of the night. Her mood sours in the next panel after she sees that Calvin's all right.
• Angrish: "Slippin'-rippin'-dang-fang-rotten-zarg-barg-a-ding-dong!" The eloquent phrase screamed by Calvin's dad when he drops a huge Christmas present onto his foot provides the quote for this trope.
• Anime Hair: Calvin is a rare Western, non-Animesque example.
  • A literal example happens when Calvin styles his hair with Crisco and ends up looking like Astro Boy.
  • Lampshaded on another occasion when Hobbes asks how Calvin gets his hair to look like that, assuming it to be static electricity. He doesn't get an answer.
• Animorphism: Using the transmogrifier, Calvin has turned himself into a variety of things, including a tiger and a pterodactyl.
  • "I'll just point it at myself and transmogrify! I'm safe!" *ZAP!* (He's a safe.)
• The Annotated Edition: The tenth anniversary best-of book has notes from Watterson, many of which go into more detail on his assorted Author Tracts or give artistic insight.
• Annoyingly Repetitive Child:
  • In one strip, Calvin tries to annoy his dad by repeating whatever he says.
    Calvin: Hi, Dad. I'm repeating everything anyone says.
    Dad: Oh, you are, are you?
    Calvin: Oh, you are, are you?
    Dad: Knock it off, Calvin. That's very annoying.
    Calvin: Knock it off, Calvin. That's very annoying.
    Dad: I forfeit all my desserts for a week.
    Calvin: OK, give them to me.
  • Another time, he pretends to be "The Incredibly Annoying Human Echo" and starts following Hobbes around while repeating everything he says.
    Hobbes: Stop repeating everything I say.
    Calvin: Stop repeating everything I say.
    Hobbes: Quit it.
    Calvin: Quit it.
    Hobbes: I'm an ugly little maggot with lumpy gravy for brains!
    Calvin: At least you have the courage to admit it. (after being beaten up) Sooner or later, everyone falls for that.
    • When Calvin still doesn't stop, Hobbes reads a long passage from a philosophy book which he can't keep up with. Having outsmarted him, Hobbes blows a raspberry at Calvin, who says, "Cheater."
  • Calvin is mentioned to ask his father to read Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie every night. In one strip in particular, his father gets tired of this and suggests reading something else, only for Calvin to turn this down.
• Annoying Patient:
  • Calvin, playing Spaceman Spiff in the doctor's office. Really, any time Calvin goes to the doctor's office.
  • In one story arc where Calvin is sick, he yells for room service (his mom). His mom tells Calvin he's going to school tomorrow. Ironically, in this story arc, Calvin was too sick to raise much of a fuss at the doctor's office for once.
• Anthropic Principle: Calvin notices that his existence depends on everything that came before him, and deduces that the ultimate purpose of history must be to produce himself. Armed with this grandiose and self-affirming philosophy, he goes and watches TV.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Calvin occasionally fights with his parents' cooking. To be fair, a lot of their cooking is piles of greenish goo.
• Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: Hobbes' proportions are drawn differently depending on his role in a given panel. Sometimes he'll walk on two legs as a very cartoonish Funny Animal, with long arms and stubby legs. This stature is used mainly when he's doing something cerebral, like philosophizing or acting as Straight Man to Calvin's insanity, or else a task that requires manual dexterity, like throwing snowballs. At other times he'll go on all fours, usually for the purpose of pouncing on Calvin, and his body will take on more realistically feline proportions.
• Anvilicious:
  • In-universe, when Dad says he's too busy to read Calvin a bedtime story and Calvin yells that he won't go to bed without one:
    Dad: Once upon a time there was a boy named Calvin, who always wanted things his way. One day his dad got sick of it and locked him in the basement for the rest of his life. Everyone else lived happily ever after. The end.
    Calvin: I don't like these stories with morals.
  • Later, Calvin writes his own story "The Dad Who Lived to Regret Being Mean to His Kid" (in which the roles are reversed and the kid locks the father in the basement for the rest of this life), which he makes his father read to him.
    Calvin: You know how a lot of stories have morals to them?
    Calvin's Dad: I GET IT, I GET IT!
• Anything but That!: In one Sunday strip, Spaceman Spiff is captured by some disgusting aliens who want some information from him. Spiff tells them he's immune to all pain, so threats of torture don't scare him! But it turns out the aliens have something much worse than that...
  Spiff: Hey! Hey, what kind of dungeon is this?! Aren't you going to torture me?
  Yukbarf Alien: Oh yes! Have a seat and let's see how you withstand a calm discussion of wholesome principles!
  (Cutting Back to Reality)
  Calvin: AAAUGH!
  Calvin's Dad: Yes, life is tough and suffering builds character. Nothing worth having ever comes easy. Virtue is its own reward. And when I was your age...
• Apathetic Student: Calvin himself. He doesn't pay attention in class, constantly gets sent to the principal's office, rarely does his homework, and flunks almost all his tests. It's established that Calvin finds school immeasurably dull and hates being told what to do, so he actively avoids learning just for that reason. In fact, he finds it impossible that anyone would willingly go to school and enjoy the experience, thinking Susie must've been brainwashed into being a good student.
• Appeal to Inherent Nature: Calvin has used this argument to excuse his bad behaviour more than once, stating that since he's predisposed to want to cause trouble, it's society's problem for trying to quash his true self.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder:
  • To Calvin, Hobbes looks like a walking, talking, anthropomorphic tiger, but to everyone else he just looks like a normal, inanimate stuffed animal. In some strips where Hobbes is walking next to Calvin, it will cut to another person's perspective and show Calvin carrying Hobbes around. Whether it's something actually magical or just Calvin's overactive imagination is never made clear.
  • The same occurs with many of Calvin's fantastical adventures, such as when he's transmogrified into a tiger or an owl. Despite insisting that he's an tiger/owl, from the perspective of his parents he still looks exactly the same.
  • Calvin goes back to the Jurassic Period to take photographs of living dinosaurs, but when he shows the pictures to his dad, they just look like Calvin's plastic toy dinosaurs to him.
  • In one story arc, Calvin has aliens collect fifty alien leaves for him. However, to everyone else, it just looks like fifty maple leaves cut into weird shapes, and Calvin fails his leaf collection assignment.
• Arch-Enemy: Rosalyn the babysitter, whom Watterson says is the only person on Earth Calvin fears.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: A PG example occurs as part of the Running Gag where Hobbes will violently pounce on Calvin as a greeting every time he comes home from school. Sometimes, for different reasons (it was too cold out, he knew it was someone else, or he just didn't feel like it), Hobbes doesn't attack and Calvin will be insulted he wasn't savagely mauled for once.
• Are We There Yet?: In one of the early camping strips, Calvin quickly starts getting sick of sitting in the car for so long driving to their cabin, and drives his parents crazy.
  Calvin: When are we going to get to our vacation site? I wanna be there!
  Calvin's Dad: Calvin, it's an eight-hour drive. We're not even out of our state yet. It's going to be a while. Relax.
  [Beat Panel]
  Calvin: How much longer now?
  Both Calvin's Mom and Dad: (to each other) I told you we should have flown.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Calvin tries to exploit this on a number of occasions.
  • Invoked in one strip where Calvin tries to pad his request for a cookie by first asking for permission to do horribly dangerous things in order to make his actual request seem acceptable by comparison. It fails.
    Calvin: Mom, can I set fire to my bed mattress?
    Mom: No, Calvin.
    Calvin: Can I ride my tricycle on the roof?
    Mom: No, Calvin.
    Calvin: Then can I have a cookie?
    Mom: No, Calvin.
    Calvin: (thinking) She's on to me.
  • In another strip, Calvin tries to take advantage of the fact that his mother doesn't take his wilder fantasies seriously by rattling off a few to make her stop paying attention before getting to what he actually wants to do. Again, it fails.
    Calvin: When I grow up, I want to be a radical terrorist.
    Mom: Mmm-hmm.
    Calvin: I'm going to inhale this can of pesticide.
    Mom: Mmm-hmm.
    Calvin: I'm going to watch TV all night.
    Mom: That's what you think, Buster!
    Calvin: You can never tell if they're listening or not.
  • Another example of this, reversed, has Calvin try to exploit his mom telling him to go check the answers to his questions by himself to trick her into giving him permission to drive the family car. This also fails, but comes closer than previous attempts.
  Calvin: Mom, what time is it?
  Mom: Go check the clock and see.
  Calvin: Mom, what's the temperature outside?
  Mom: Go read the thermometer and see.
  Calvin: Mom, how fast can the car go?
  Mom: Go... nice try.
  • A minor version in the beginning of a Spaceman Spiff fantasy, Spiff is doing routine checks on his ship before taking off:
  Altitude-o-tron... check. Gamma beam macerator... check. Windshield defogger... check.
  • Reversed. According to Calvin, simple machines include the lever, the pulley, and the internal combustion engine.
• Art Evolution: Acknowledged by Watterson in the 10th anniversary book, where he claims that sometime into the strip's second or third year, he intentionally made the art a little more cartoony and removed the pads from Hobbes' paws because they were "distracting."
  • It was in 1986 (the strip's second year) that the character designs began to settle in. Compare Calvin and Hobbes in January and December.
  • The most drastic change over the strip's lifetime is in the increased realism Watterson put into drawings of animals, especially dinosaurs, feeling they helped convey the power of Calvin's imagination and enthusiasm for the subject. See Artistic License – Paleontology below.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • In one strip, Calvin imagines himself drinking so much water, he goes from 80% water to 90% water and turns into a liquid. Not only can this (obviously) not happen, but humans are less than 80% water anyway (it’s more like 60%).
  • In several strips, Calvin imagines finding a new dinosaur species and naming it the "Calvinosaurus". It shows how egotistical Calvin is, but in reality the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature has a rule that states you cannot name a new species after yourself. It's justified that Calvin, as a six-year old with limited knowledge of the adult world, probably wouldn't know that.
  • One strip has Calvin imagine himself as an ant who gets tired of slaving away for the colony and decides to stop working and relax, deciding some other chump can do the Queen's bidding. He would not being relaxing for long as forager ants that stop being useful (whether through injury or decision) are killed as soon as the rest of the worker ants take notice of their insubordination.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: In one strip, Calvin gets an extremely sticky mixture of peanut butter and bubblegum stuck to his hands. In reality, mixing peanut butter to bubblegum actually makes it less sticky due to the oils of the peanut butter dissolving the gum. (This is presumably why peanut butter is used to remove gum from hair.)
• Artistic License – Economics:
  • Occurs in-universe, and is justified because Calvin, as a six-year old, has no concept of how much things cost. For example, he thinks a dinosaur fossil can sell for ten billion dollars, while it only takes fifty dollars to build an autonomous robot from scratch.
  • Another in-verse example occurs in one strip where Calvin's dad tells Calvin the ATM works by having a man sit inside it and manually print out the amount of money you ask for. It's meant to be a joke, but Calvin is naive enough to believe it.
  • Once, Calvin attempted to sell ice-cold lemonade on the street for an absurdly high price (five dollars a glass, and remember, this is five dollars in 1990) and in the dead of winter. He doesn't understand why no one's bought anything and considers raising the price to ten dollars a glass so the profits will come in faster per glass.
  • Another case was when he started taking selling lemonade too seriously. His price is, again, stupidly high (fifteen bucks), which he justifies by having to appease his "stockholders" (himself) and pay "employee benefits" (for himself). When Susie points out that he's not even selling lemonade, but rather a pitcher of "sludge water" with a lemon in it, his response is "I'd have to charge more if I followed health regulations" and "I have to cut expenses SOMEwhere if I want to stay competitive". This is all Played for Laughs and, sure enough, nobody buys from him.
• Artistic License – Education: The classwork done in Calvin's class ranges from single-digit addition to knowing about the Byzantine Empire, even though it's a first-grade class.
• Artistic License – Engineering: In one Stupendous Man story, Calvin flies to the Palomar Observatory (at the time the largest telescope in the world), unscrews the giant lens and uses it as a giant Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass to vaporize his school off the map. The problem here is that giant telescopes, like the one at the Palomar Observatory, use mirrors instead of lens (both for the practical reason that making a series of mirrors is easier than making a gigantic lens and because mirrors retain much more detail). Of course, it's justified because the event is only occurring in Calvin's imagination.
• Artistic License – Law: One strip has Calvin report to 911 that he's being held hostage after Rosalyn punishes him by sending him to his room which results in a single cop stopping by for a welfare check. Even before 9/11 and Columbine, police still responded to hostage situations with extreme force consisting of heavily-armed SWAT teams, armoured vehicles, and even helicopters rather than a friendly knock on the door. Calvin would be in an entire universe of trouble with his parents, provided they didn't disown him on the spot and ship him off to a group home over it, and possibly the law as well.
• Artistic License – Paleontology:
  • Readily apparent in early strips where dinosaurs are concerned, which Watterson admits to drawing based on information he remembered from the '60s, and didn't care much about the anachronism of depicting cavemen and dinosaurs together. After getting caught up on modern paleontology he was able to draw them much more accurately, reasoning that Calvin would probably be very up-to-date on the subject.
  • In one of these early strips, Calvin refers to the sabre-tooth tiger as the only equal of Tyrannosaurus. Aside from the obvious anachronism, saying sabre-tooths could rival T. rex is incredibly generous considering the largest Smilodon topped out at one-thousand pounds, while Tyrannosaurus was likely several tons in weight (for comparison, one of Smilodon's famous giant sabres was about the same size as a tyrannosaur's normal teeth).
  • Some of the later dinosaur strips included a gigantic brachiosaur sauropod known as Ultrasaurus. There is a (dubious) sauropod called that but it's a different one from the species depicted in the comic, which was known as Ultrasauros (although now it's considered a diplodocid named Supersaurus).
  • In several different strips where Calvin tries to dig up dinosaur bones, he refers to it as archaeology. Archaeology is the study of ancient human cultures and does not involve dinosaurs; that would be palaeontology. A dinosaur enthusiast like Calvin really should known better. Calvin also thinks palaeontology is a high-paying profession, although that can be chalked up his general ignorance towards what adulthood is like.
  • Calvin makes the common mistake of referring to sabre-tooth cats (specifically Smilodon) as sabre-tooth tigers, and making them out to be Hobbes' ancestor. Sabre-tooth cats are not closely related to modern big cats, nor are they ancestral to the group; in actuality tigers and Smilodon would've existed contemporarily and tigers actually evolved first.
• Artistic License – Physics: Some of Calvin's snow creations look rather improbable for him to have made out of snow, in particular one strip which shows a snow octopoid lifting a full-size snowman with a single snow tentacle, seemingly with no further support.
• Art Shift: The usual simplistic style was occasionally replaced by a more detailed and realistic style for comedic effect. For example, this was used to create a Soap Opera strip atmosphere (imitating comics like Mary Worth or Apartment 3-G) whenever Calving was talked into Playing House with Susie.
  • Literal-Minded: A few Sunday strips have had Calvin stuck in a different art style, such as intense shades of black and white or one where "everything has suddenly gone Neo-Cubist!" as a literal metaphor for Calvin's mindset. You can tell Watterson had a lot of fun drawing these ones.
  • Watterson even comments that the real world is drawn cartoony while Calvin's fantasies are realistic, highlighting his perspective.
  • To a subtler extent, the Sunday strips in general often have much more spectacular visuals, because the greater newspaper space, together with the color printing, allowed Watterson to really go wild with his illustrations, experimenting with water color paints and other techniques. Most of the really memorable images come from the Sunday strips.
• Asbestos-Free Cereal: Once, Calvin tried to sell a magic "elixir", which was clearly just dirty ditch water with leaves floating in it. He described the leaves as "fortified with chlorophyll". Eventually he re-markets the "elixir" as a "disease drink" which you pay not to have.
• Aside Comment: It's more rare for them to address the audience, but this is seen for example in one instance where Calvin and Hobbes begin a G.R.O.S.S. meeting with a recitation; Calvin then turns to the fourth wall and says, "You can tell this is a great club by the way we start our meetings!"
• Aside Glance: Used frequently, mostly from Calvin. Other characters, such as Susie and Miss Wormwood, occasionally give them in response to Calvin's latest shenanigans.
• Asleep in Class: Calvin is Not a Morning Person and finds school extremely boring, so there are quite a few strips where he either falls asleep in class or looks like he's about to.
• Assimilation Academy: Calvin sees his school as one. One Sunday strip, for example, has him imagining school as, alternately, a chain gang, a cattle pen, and a conveyer belt where green slime is poured into children's jar-like heads, and visualizing himself as a round peg being pounded into a square hole.
• Assumed Win: Calvin enters a traffic safety poster contest in school, and is so sure he's going to win, he's already planned out what he's going to do with the prize money. In the middle of a daydream about the massive celebrations that will surely ensue once he wins, Susie walks up to Calvin to tell him her poster won. The next few strips are Calvin griping to his dad and Hobbes how the contest must've been rigged.
• Asteroid Thicket: In one Spaceman Spiff strip, he dives his spaceship into the rings of a Saturn-like planet (a lot denser than an asteroid field sure, but generally made up almost entirely of tiny granules, not giant rocks) to lose his hostile alien pursers. It works, but Spiff's not quite as "ace" a pilot as he thought, because he's struck by a huge boulder of ice and rock and goes down in a flaming wreck. Cutting Back to Reality shows Calvin being pummelled by Moe in dodgeball.
• Attack Backfire:
  • When Calvin and Hobbes fought the first Snow Goon, they tried throwing snowballs at it. Not only was it completely ineffective, but it gave the goon the idea to pack more snow onto itself to grow bigger.
  • Calvin throws a pine cone at Susie, but she happens to be carrying her lacrosse stick, so she just whips it back at him even harder.
  • Calvin saved a snowball in the freezer for the exact purpose of throwing a snowball at her in June. He misses, and while he's grousing about it, Susie takes the opportunity to make a new snowball from the remnants of the old one, which she then clobbers him with before he has a chance to realize what happened.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A recurring theme.
  • One strip has Calvin imagining he drinks a magic elixir and grows to over 300 feet. He proceeds to rampage through an imaginary town. His mom is not amused when Calvin asks for replacements for the toy cars that were lost in the rampage.
  • He also built several castles in his sandbox and said they were downtown Tokyo. Then he stomped across them with a growl and said he was Godzilla.
  • One winter day, he built about fifty tiny, foot-tall snowmen... at the base of a hill... and then went up the hill with his toboggan.
    Calvin: For the townsfolk below, the day began like any other day...
  • And, of course, the many strips involving a rampaging carnosaur qualify.
  • In one of Calvin's Imagine Spots, he becomes "the size of a bug to a bug" and a giant bug starts trying to step on him. The trope is then inverted when a giant frog saves his life by catching and eating the bug.
  • The back cover of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes shows a giant Calvin rampaging through what appears to be Watterson's home town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. This has lead to a popular interpretation that Calvin also lives in, or near, Chagrin Falls.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: Calvin's been attacked by random household objects so often it's basically a Running Gag. Most often it's his bicycle, but he's also been attacked by a school textbook, a baseball, a leaf pile, his blanket, a bubble bath, his dinner, and evil snowmen.
• Attack the Tail: In one early strip, Calvin tells Hobbes a giant hairy caterpillar is about to bite his bum. Hobbes yells at Calvin to kill it, cue Calvin stomping on Hobbes' tail. The last panel shows Hobbes furiously chasing Calvin, who blames Hobbes for not having a sense of humour.
• Author Appeal:
  • Watterson seems to have a thing for women with shortish brown hair. He has admitted that he designed Susie Derkins' design on the type of woman that he found attractive (or rather, what they must have been like as kids), and Calvin's Mom isn't much different. It's not a coincidence that they're the love interests of the characters Watterson himself most identifies with (Calvin and Hobbes for Susie, Calvin's Dad for Calvin's Mom.)
  • His environmentalist messages, dislike of the consumer culture, and support artistic integrity (admittedly while he was having to keep his syndicate from licensing the strip for merchandise) got quite heavy-handed at times.
• Author Avatar:
  • Calvin, Hobbes and Calvin's father (who is physically based partly on Watterson himself) all serve as Watterson's voice on different issues. More rarely, Susie, Miss Wormwood and Calvin's mother occasionally highlight other issues, often in the context of a larger story. Susie especially is based, personality-wise, on Watterson's wife.
  • A literal example occurs in a one-shot gag where Watterson drew himself as a frustrated cartoonist interacting with Calvin:
    Watterson: Come on kid, do something funny. I've got a deadline here.
    Calvin: Maybe I don't feel like it. What's it worth to you?
• Author Tract: Half the things Calvin and Hobbes say sound way too educated and ideological for characters who are expected to have childlike mindsets. Sometimes, it's like listening to grumpy old philosophical men trapped in youthful bodies. Depending on the author's mood, it can go from simple boyhood innocence that is truly believable, to a mountain of bitterly cold logical rambling betraying an innocent setting.
• Author Filibuster: Shows up in quite a few strips, particularly near the end of the comic's run, usually dealing with some issue Watterson had with corporate policy getting in the way of art, or how modern society couldn't appreciate nature or the power of the imagination.
• Auto-Doc: One of Calvin's daydream sequences has him visiting a robot neurosurgeon who gives him a "knowledge implant"; it provides him with all the wisdom he'll ever need, so he'll never have to go to school again. Of course, reality intrudes when the school bus arrives.
• Awesome, but Impractical: After Calvin "invents" the Transmogrifier Gun, Hobbes questions the usefulness of a "handheld iguana maker."
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: During the story arc where Calvin is peer pressured into signing up for baseball at school, his dad tries to teach him some basics. It goes about as well as you'd expect, and ends quickly after a ball smacks Calvin in the face and gives him a bloody nose.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: No matter how often Calvin and Hobbes might be at each others' throats, or how often Calvin and his parents drive each other crazy, they all really do love each other, and there are numerous strips that confirm this.
  • There are many strips which show that, despite the apparent tension and hatred between the two, Calvin and Susie really do care about one another.
  • Likewise, despite all the stress he causes his parents, every now and then there's an overtly heartwarming moment reassuring us that they do have some good times. One wordless comic, in which Calvin's dad sets aside some paperwork in order to help Calvin build a snowman, is remembered especially fondly by fans.
• Babysitting Episode: Periodically, Calvin would be babysat by Rosalyn, whom Calvin fears very greatly. That doesn't keep him from continually harrassing her, however.
• Badass Boast: Combines with But for Me, It Was Tuesday when Calvin introduces himself with several grandiose titles based on a random day's activities.
  Calvin: I am the downhill tumble and roll champ, king of the toad finders, captain of the high altitude tree branch vista club, second place finisher in the 'round the yard backward dash, premier burper state division, sodbuster and worm scout first order, and Generalissimo of the mud and mayhem society!
  Dad: Busy day?
  Calvin: About usual.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Calvin comes up with a completely flawed plan to trick Susie into coming behind his house where he'll ambush her with water balloons. He makes a fake "coded message" to Hobbes then walks out in plain sight of Susie where he makes a very obvious speech of what he wants Susie to do while dropping the message as bait. The first time, Susie does pick it up, but returns it to Calvin, much to his annoyance. He tries his plan again, and even all but shouts out to Susie to take the baited message. This time, Susie decides to humor him and easily decodes the message ("Hobbes, if Susie comes to the back of our house, our plans will be ruined"). Of course, Susie wasn't stupid enough to believe such an obviously baited trap. Susie herself does a bad act of her intentions to go behind Calvin's house to "ruin his plans". Unlike Susie, Calvin is stupid enough to fall for it. He winds up getting drenched by Susie instead as a result.
• Bad Liar: Due to his tendency to live in his own reality, Calvin can't make a convincing lie to save his life.
  Dad: LOOK AT THIS BATHROOM! WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU DOING?
  Calvin: Nothing, Dad! I was just in here looking for some dental floss, when PLOOIE! The faucet handle blows sky high all by itself! It... it... uh... (points to Hobbes) What I mean is Hobbes was fooling around with your tools. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. And sure enough, he went and... and...
  Dad: (not fooled in the slightest) One more try.
  Calvin: ALIENS, DAD! Big, evil, bug-eyed monsters from Pluto! They did it, and made me swear not to tell!
  • Another example.
    Mom: WHO MADE THIS MESS OUT HERE!? (glares at Calvin)
    Calvin: It wasn't me, Mom! It was... uh... it was... it was a horrible little Venusian who materialized in the kitchen! He pulled out this diabolical high-frequency device, pointed it at various objects and...
    (cut to Calvin in his room)
    Calvin: Mothers are the necessity of invention.
  • Calvin once hit Hobbes with a pillow that tore open and left feathers all over the room. When Dad asked him about the mess, he said that a herd of ducks flew in the window and molted. Dad's response was to say Calvin couldn't have dessert for a week.
• Bad Mood as an Excuse: Calvin sometimes uses this attitude.
  Calvin: Boy, I'm in a bad mood today! Everyone had better steer clear of me! I hate everybody! As far as I'm concerned, everyone on the planet can just drop dead. People are scum. (Beat) WELL-L-L-L? Doesn't anyone want to cheer me up?
• Bad Santa:
  • In one strip, Calvin ponders if Santa Claus has an Evil Counterpart who rewards bad kids with insane and outrageous presents that no sensible parent would allow their children to have and punishes good kids with socks and underwear.
  • Another strip had Calvin getting a letter from Santa, stating he was sick of giving presents to good girls and boys and repealing his naughty and nice lists, giving only presents to bratty, trouble-making kids from now on. Unfortunately for Calvin, it was All Just a Dream.
• Baffled by Own Biology:
  • In one arc, Calvin gets a stomach flu and worries that he's dying. Hobbes is less than sympathetic about it.
  • Calvin gets chicken pox and wonders where the itching is coming from. When he discovers his red spots, he finds them cool.
  • In one strip, Calvin sneezes into a tissue and thinks he's "leaking brain lubricant".
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison:
  • Calvin and Susie Derkins are cast in a school play in which the students play different body parts and nutrients. Calvin asks Susie what she is, and she answers, "I'm 'Fat.'" He replies, "No, I meant in the play." The next panel shows a thoroughly trounced Calvin while Susie asks if anyone else wants to try that one.
  • In a later strip, Calvin as Spaceman Spiff imagines touching down on "Planet Bog — [where] pools of toxic chemicals bubble under a choking atmosphere of poisonous gases. ...But aside from that, it's not much like Earth."
  • Inverted when Calvin gets lost at the zoo, and Calvin's dad jokes to himself that he might be in the tiger pit because he likes tigers so much, but then realizes the possibility is very real and starts running to go save him.
• Balloonacy:
  • A story arc had Calvin imagine he was being lifted into the stratosphere by a helium balloon.
  • Attempted in an earlier strip, where he jumps off a stepladder while holding a balloon, and promptly lands flat on his face as the balloon floats away.
• Bambification: Inverted in a strip where a pack of rifle-toting deer shoot a cubicle worker.
  Calvin: [Reading his creative writing assignment to the class] Needless to say, Frank's family was upset when he didn't come home that night. But everybody understood that the human population had doubled in just two generations to almost six billion, so some thinning of the herds was necessary to prevent starvation. (This parodies a common, and accurate, justification for deer hunting.)
  (Next Panel)
  Calvin's Mom: Another parent teacher conference.
  Calvin's Dad: Your turn.
• Bamboo Technology: Well, Cardboard Box Technology—Calvin uses his box as the Transmogrifier (when upside down), Duplicator (when on its side) and a time machine (when right side up). It's actually a plot point that the box's orientation and writing on the side are the only differences between those devices. The first Duplicator arc ends with all Calvin's clones hiding under the Duplicator box, so Calvin crosses out "Duplicator" and writes "Transmogrifier" on the side of the box, and transmogrifies his clones into worms.
• Banging Pots and Pans:
  • Calvin does it in one strip to rile up his mother. When she yells at him to stop, he makes a check mark on a calendar and says, "...and a check mark for Tuesday!"
  • Another time, Calvin says that he can't do any fun outdoor activities when it's raining, so "the only sport is driving Mom crazy." Then he picks up a pot and a wooden spoon.
• Baseball Episode: One story arc features Calvin's ill-fated attempt at joining his school's baseball team. In other one-off strips, he and Hobbes play baseball against each other, but those inevitably result in either a Big Ball of Violence between the two or the game turning into Calvinball. Or both.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space:
  • If we take the "sneezed himself into the atmosphere" strip at face value.
  • The strip where he kept growing and growing until he outgrew the entire galaxy.
  • In Weirdos from Another Planet, Calvin and Hobbes use the wagon to travel to Mars, land, and then come back, and never even bat an eyelash at the inability to breathe in space, nor in Mars' thin, carbon dioxide filled atmosphere.
  • In one Spaceman Spiff strip, he exits his little red saucer in the vacuum of space to do repairs, but apparently has no problem with the lack of air or freezing cold (of course, Spiff only exists in Calvin's imagination).
• Batman Gambit:
  • In one of Susie's earliest appearances, she tells Calvin to pass a note to Jessica in class, but to not read it because it's a secret note. Calvin, with a devilish grin on his face, opens the note and it reads:
  Calvin, you stinkhead, I told you not to read this. —Susie
  • Susie pulls one off against Calvin during a story arc in which Calvin steals Susie's "Binky Betsy" doll and holds it for ransom, demanding $100 for her return (via an "anonymous" note signed "Sincerely, Calvin.") Susie puts an envelope by "the tree out front," as she was instructed to do, but hides behind the tree, out of Calvin's line of sight. Calvin sees the envelope and is overjoyed, thinking she caved and coughed up the money. However, just as Susie had planned, Calvin takes his eyes off of Hobbes for a few seconds to check the envelope, inside of which is no money, but a note that reads "Now we're even." Calvin is confused and has no idea what that means... until he turns to see Susie running off with Hobbes, whom SHE holds for ransom. Susie even comes out ahead, because in the ensuing toy exchange, Susie gets both "Binky Betsy" and a quarter in exchange for Hobbes.
• Bathos:
  • One strip does a pretty good job of summing up bathos in one strip:
    Calvin: Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny. Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?
    Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
    Calvin: I can't tell if that's funny or really scary.
  • The strip also uses Art Shift to achieve this technique, using a sudden increase in detail to highlight the characters' childishness. For example, when Calvin and Susie play house, they're rendered as adults in the style of a dramatic soap opera-type comic, but their dialogue is still the kind of thing a couple of six-year-olds would come up with.
• Batter Up!:
  • One early strip had Calvin jazz up fishing by having Hobbes dangle him over the water with the rod while he tries to "catch" fish by whacking them with a baseball bat.
  • In one strip where Hobbes tricks Calvin into being stung by a bee, the last panel shows Hobbes hiding in a tree while Calvin is standing underneath holding a baseball bat.
  • Another early strip had Calvin whacking at monsters under his bed with a baseball bat, only for it to turn out it was Hobbes under his bed.
    Calvin: Sorry ol' buddy, good thing I missed occasionally, huh?
    Hobbes: Yeah. Let me see your bat a minute.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Calvin's attempt to score some cookies:
  Calvin: Quick, Mom! Aliens just landed in the back yard! They demand to talk to you! You go on out! I'll guard the cookies in the kitchen! Quick hurry!
  Mom: Calvin, just how dumb do you think I am?
  Calvin: *thinking* She's not buying this.
• Bears Are Bad News: When Calvin and Hobbes are running away from home after accidentally rolling the family's car into a ditch, they hear the sound of a large entity crashing through the brush towards them and assume it's a bear. The two fearfully climb a tree, but once the entity comes into view, it turns out to be Calvin's mom.
  Hobbes: Wait, that's not a bear. That's your mom!
  Calvin: AAUGHH! EVEN WORSE! CLIMB HIGHER! CLIMB HIGHER!
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Once Rosalyn grasps the (lack of) rules of Calvinball, she maneuvers Calvin into going to bed willingly when it's half an hour past his usual time (she hits him with the Babysitter Flag, which means he has to obey the babysitter). This is possibly the only time they actually have fun together.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Bill Watterson experienced this trope once he was allowed to design his own formats for the Sunday strips. It turned out to be rather difficult, especially since the strip had to provide a logical path for the reader's eye. Watterson noted that Sunday strips with the new format took two or three times longer to draw than strips with the old format.
  • It strikes Calvin's mother In-Universe when he's feeling sick at 2 AM.
    Mom: Calvin probably just ate too much dessert. If he's going to get me up at this hour, he'd better really be sick. (BARRRFF) I didn't mean it!
    Dad: Honey, pipe down, I'm trying to sleep.
  • This trope also kicks off the "snow goons" story arc, when Calvin makes a snowman and commands it to come to life. It came to life alright... but as a homicidal monster that immediately tries to kill Calvin.
• Bedsheet Ghost: In one Sunday strip, Hobbes steals Calvin's blanket and pretends to be a ghost to scare Calvin out of the bed after they get into an argument. Unlike most examples, he makes it work surprisingly well.
• Bedsheet Ladder:
  • One strip had Calvin use one of these to sneak out of the house and phone his dad saying that it was three in the morning and asking whether he knew where Calvin was now.
  • In one Rosalyn arc, Calvin and Hobbes climb out of the bedroom again with one of these.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: Calvin does this to Hobbes with the use of a cookie.
  Hobbes: Zz...cookies? For me? Why sure, back up the truck.... Zzzz.
• Behind a Stick: In the opening gag of one of the Sunday strips, Hobbes is slinking through the house, and somehow hides himself behind the pole of a floor lamp.
• Behind the Black: When Calvin cajoles Hobbes into helping him push the car out of the garage and onto the driveway, the car starts sliding backwards, even though according to every single panel, the ground is completely horizontal. Hobbes even says, "The driveway must be slanted downhill!"
  • This is Truth in Television; a subtle grade that people don't really notice can still be enough to cause an improperly braked car to roll.
• Being Good Sucks: Calvin occasionally attempts to behave himself for once, but these attempts are always short-lived because he hates not being able to get up to mischief and the fact no one rewards him for putting in the effort.
  Calvin: Throwing these snowballs would give me immediate and certain pleasure. Refraining from throwing these snowballs in the hope of being rewarded at Christmas is delayed and uncertain pleasure. (Beat Panel) As usual, goodness hardly puts up a fight.
• Being Human Sucks: Calvin sometimes espouses this opinion, not helped by Hobbes rubbing in Calvin's face the inherent superiority of tigers. In one case, Calvin decided to follow Hobbes' lead and become a tiger, until they discovered tigers are an endangered species and decided it wasn't worth it.
  Calvin: I wonder why people are never content with what they have
  Hobbes: Are you kidding? Your fingernails are a joke, you've got no fangs, you can't see at night, your pink hides are ridiculous, your reflexes are nil, and you don't even have tails! Of course people aren't content!
  Calvin: Forget I said anything.
  Hobbes: Now if TIGERS weren't content, that would be something to wonder about.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: In one strip during the summer, Mom comes home from the store and tells Calvin she ran into Miss Wormwood and that she said to say hi, which surprises Calvin, who apparently thought that teachers slept in coffins all summer.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Calvin and Susie, as much as their ages allow. This is especially true in the earlier strips, in which Calvin sends Susie a hate-mail valentine and she smacks him with a snowball, only for both of them to come away from the encounter thinking gleefully that the other likes them.
• Berserk Button:
  • Calvin may never live down the Noodle Incident (or possibly was innocent for a change and cannot prove it; even Santa isn't sure what exactly happened), and hates it when Hobbes teases him about it. He also doesn't like being reminded about his height (see The Napoleon below). He also explodes whenever Hobbes suggests that he likes Susie, and when his good duplicate starts sending Susie mushy notes.
  Hobbes: Why do you wear long pants in the summer? Don't you get hot?
  Beat Panel as Calvin fumes.
  Hobbes: (Bewildered) What? What did I say?
  Calvin: (Furiously pointing down) Short pants touch my feet, okay?!
  • This trope also applies to Watterson himself. Let's just say that he really does not like other people making money off of his creation.
• Best Years of Your Life:
  • In one strip, Calvin is complaining that he'd rather do anything than go to school. Calvin's dad suggests perhaps he'll like having a nine-to-five job providing for the household and coming home to an ungrateful, whiny kid instead. Calvin is seen in the next panel waiting for the school bus with a miserable expression.
    Calvin: It's nice to know there's so much in life to look forward to.
  • In another strip, Calvin asks his dad when the halcyon days of his youth are. Calvin's dad tells him you can only find out in hindsight, because "halcyonity is relative".
• Beware the Nice Ones: Susie Derkins. Don't hit her with a snowball or water balloon, or you'll be beaten up like Calvin.
• The B Grade: First-grader Susie Derkins fears that getting a bad grade on one research project (in first grade) will result in her having to go to a second-rate college. It didn't help that she was teamed up with Calvin. In another strip, being sent to the principal's office with Calvin makes her even more frightened, yelling at Calvin that he's "going to hear it from my parents if I don't get my Master's Degree!"
• Big Ball of Violence: Calvin and Hobbes' fights are often seen in clouds of dust.
• Big Brother Bully: Calvin tells his mom that he wants a baby brother. She's on board with it until she hears that he wants "somebody small [he] could beat up." The next panel, Calvin's mom interrupts a meeting with a phone call asking her husband about having an operation (presumably a vasectomy or something of the sort).
• Big Creepy-Crawlies:
  • Inverted in one Sunday strip where Calvin shrinks to the size of a bug to a bug. The bug tries to stomp on Calvin as an ironic punishment for all the bugs Calvin's stepped on until it's eaten by an even bigger frog.
  • One weekday strip has an Imagine Spot of a mile-high ant destroying whole cities with its footsteps, killing millions of people. The last panel Cutting Back to Reality shows Calvin deciding not to step on on anthill.
  • Two different strips have Calvin imagining a bee chasing him is humongous, with a stinger like a harpoon; in one it's entirely descriptive, while the other shows the supposed bee in full detail (at least, how Calvin pictured it).
    Calvin: HELP! A bee! A bee! Run for your life! Hobbes! Did you see it?? It was the biggest bee in the world! It was the size of a kaiser roll! It must've weighed 70 pounds! Is sounded like a helicopter and it's stinger was like a harpoon! It must've been a killer death bee! Man, I'm lucky it didn't get me!
    Hobbes: Life in the great suburban outback is certainly fraught with peril.
    Calvin: If you'd seen it, you'd have been scared too.
  • Calvin believes bats to be giant bugs in-universe because they're ugly, they're hairy, and they fly, and he's far too lazy to do any actual research for his homework assignment.
• Big "NO!": In one strip, Calvin's dad says that he has just fixed up Calvin's bicycle, and asks if he wants to learn how to ride it. Cue Calvin shouting "NO-O-O-O-O-O!!" in letters so big that they take up nearly half of a double-width panel.
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...:
  • In one strip, Calvin sorts through the mail in their mail box, muttering "nothing for me" a few times, then putting it all back in the mailbox once he sees none of it is for him.
  • One Sunday strip has Calvin's dad snarkily reading through all the junk mail and advertisements they get in a cynical analytical way.
• Binary Suns: Spaceman Spiff once crash landed on a planet scorched by twin suns.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Watterson did this subtly a few times during his long fight to keep his syndicate from licensing the strip, something that he did not want, unlike most cartoonists. For example, in one strip, the first panel has Calvin screaming, "I stand firm in my belief of what's right! I refuse to compromise my principles!" In the second panel, his angry mother is coming after him; in the last, he's in the bathtub, and says, "I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway."
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Calvin's eaten his Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs cereal with soda instead of milk, and regularly scoops even more sugar into it.
• Black Bead Eyes: The normal state of the characters' eyes, although they can turn into normal eyes when a particular expression calls for them.
• Black Comedy:
  • The infamous strip in which three deer hunt humans in an office building. Just think about it for a second: A man is shot to death for laughs in a comic that ran in the Sunday papers. Yes, it was gore-free and meant to be satirical, but still, Watterson was pushing the envelope as far as it could go with that one.
  • In addition, many of Calvin's snowman creations reveal a rather macabre sense of humor.
    • "Oh yeah? Define 'well adjusted!'" Said in defense of a snow sculpture depicting a snowman beheaded by a giant, cackling chicken.
    • Another snowman one. A snowman eating a snow cone... followed by another snowman with an ice cream scoop in his back.
      Calvin: It's a sordid story.
    • Perhaps Calvin's most disturbing snow tableau comprises a group of snowman gathered around his dad's parked car wearing expressions of anguish, while another snowman lies prostrate on the floor. Calvin's Dad's only comment: I think we'd better get that kid to a psychologist.
  • Perhaps the most disturbing strip of all time has Calvin imagining himself as a god and casting the entire human race into Hell simply because they "displease him." We then cut to what Calvin is actually doing — playing with his Tinkertoys — and the proud, unwitting smiles on the faces of Calvin's parents make the strip even creepier.^note To be fair, his parents couldn't hear what he was saying, as they were in the next room. Their only comment is to marvel that he is "building worlds in there."
• Blank Book: Invoked in one of Calvin's wild stories to avoid an assignment, stating that when he opened the book, all the words slipped and fell off the pages into an incomprehensible heap. His teacher wasn't amused, and sent him to the principal's office.
• Blanket Tug O' War: Calvin and Hobbes sleep in the same bed so this happens from time to time. More than one time, Calvin took his pillow and went to his parents' bed, where he ended up doing the same thing to his dad, while another time they ended up fighting and getting so worked up and sweaty, neither of them wanted the blanket anymore.
• Blatant Lies: Calvin is routinely a Bad Liar, so this comes up incredibly often.
  • One early strip has Calvin refuse to answer a simple addition question on a test because it's Against My Religion. Even he's not sure it'll work, but he still considers it "worth a shot".
  • An early story arc has Calvin's parents leaving him home alone while they go out (because they couldn't find a babysitter). Calvin's mom goes up to his room when the two come back home and is hit with a Bucket Booby-Trap when she opens the door. She furiously demands to know if Calvin watched a scary movie while they were gone.
    Calvin: (hiding under the covers) No. Don't come in. The rug is rigged too.
  • Calvin asks Hobbes what a long word he doesn't recognize in a book means. Hobbes sees it and gets so shocked he leaps into the air, his eyes go wide, he clasps his hand over his mouth, and his fur stands on end. Then he tells Calvin, "I don't know". Calvin doesn't believe him.
  • Calvin, dressed as a Native American and carrying a toy bow, is confronted by an angry Susie who shows him a sucker-top arrow and demands to know if he shot it at her. His reply: "No. What is it?"
  • Calvin is intentionally splashing back and forth in the bathtub to cause giant waves, until his mom comes back to find the bathroom is now flooded knee-deep. What's Calvin's explanation?
    Calvin: Beats me, mom. Maybe the seal around the tub leaks.
  • Calvin asks Susie during a test what 12 + 7 is. When she tells him that it's "a billion", he thinks that can't be right... because that's what she said 3 + 4 was.
  • One strip has Calvin faking having rabies with toothpaste foam around his mouth and casually announcing that he has rabies. Calvin's mom tells him to stop being silly, but Calvin thinks about trying again with his dad, by biting him first.
  • Calvin digs in the dirt with a shovel, sprays the dirt with a hose to make mud, and jumps into the mud. When he comes into the house muddy from head to toe and Mom gives him a disgusted look, he tells her, "It couldn't be avoided."
  • In one strip, Hobbes is watching Calvin writing a letter to Santa. When Calvin writes that he's "been extra good" this year, Hobbes can't hold in his laughter.
  • One similar story arc has Calvin hire Hobbes as his lawyer to argue that he's been good all year to Santa. Hobbes decides to argue for an insanity plea simply because he finds it that unbelievable that Calvin could ever be considered innocent of the alleged crimes. Calvin disagrees, but ends up later proving Hobbes' point totally right when he immediately forgets that he's supposed to be arguing that he's been a good boy all year in favour of pelting Susie with snowballs. Then, Calvin tries to claim to his mom that he was just minding his own business when Susie smacked him with a snowball unprovoked for no reason.
  • In an early strip, Calvin's dad comes into Calvin's bedroom demanding to know why he's making such a ruckus after bedtime and why there's feathers flying everywhere. Calvin explains that a flock of ducks flew in through the window, all simultaneously moulted, and then fled when they heard Calvin's dad coming.
    Hobbes: Nice alibi, frizzletop! No dessert for a week!
    Calvin: You want another pillow across the kisser? I didn't hear you offer any brainstorms!
  • The monsters under the bed are rather easy for Calvin to avoid because they're so dumb. Often, Calvin will ask the monsters directly if they're hiding under his bed and they'll enthusiastically say "Nope!" and try to convince Calvin they're talking dust bunnies.
    Calvin: They're all teeth and digestive tract. No brains at all.
    • In one such instance, the monsters attempt to lure Calvin under the bed by telling him they have a cool toy to give him. He obviously doesn't believe them, but the monsters then immediately pivot to claiming they have a slab of salmon fillet that they'll give Hobbes if he pushes Calvin over the edge. This time, Hobbes actually considers it.
    • Another instance has the monsters once more eagerly saying replying when Calvin asks if there are any monsters under the bed, only for Calvin to pull out the equally silly exclamation that if there were monsters he wouldn't be afraid to incinerate them with his flamethrower. Since the monsters are such bad liars, they are also incredibly gullible and believe him.
  • A Running Gag is Calvin's dad telling Calvin about Little Known Facts that are obviously and ridiculously made up, such as saying the wind is caused by "trees sneezing", that Calvin was purchased from Sears, or that the whole world was black-and-white up until the 1930s. Of course, Calvin is a naive six-year old and ignorant enough of the real world to believe it.
    • A closely related gag had Calvin ask his dad how a carburetor works, only for his dad to say that he couldn't tell him because "it's a secret". Not even Calvin buys that this time and immediately accuses his dad of just not knowing how it works.
  • A similar Running Gag is one of Calvin's parents (usually his mother) telling Calvin that they're eating something disgusting for dinner, like stewed monkey brains or maggots. Calvin thinks it's totally plausible people would eat stuff like that, nor does he question the fact the food in question doesn't really resemble what they say it is either.
  • A related gag in two Sunday strips has Calvin pretending his mom's cooking is so repulsive it's actually deadly, even for just a single taste. After his mom tells him the food is hamburger casserole and there's nothing in it he doesn't like, he gives the act up and eats it without complaining.
  • Another Running Gag is trying to convince his parents that aliens have landed, or pretending to be an alien, and are asking for cookies or small amounts of money, or something similar.
    Calvin: Quick, Mom! Aliens just landed in the back yard! They demand to talk to you! You go on out! I'll guard the cookies in the kitchen! Quick! Hurry! (thinking) She's not buying this.
    Calvin's Mom: Calvin, just how dumb do you think I am?
  • Calvin asks his dad why it takes much faster to vacuum than his mom. Calvin's dad says that he's "more efficient", but the fact Calvin immediately finds a giant dust bunny the size of a cantelope and his mom screaming in another, supposedly already-vacuumed, room about how filthy it is suggest otherwise...
  • One story arc has Calvin faking sudden onset amnesia to avoid explaining to his dad why his schoolwork grades are so terrible. Calvin's dad doesn't play along even for a second, and sends him to bed early as punishment.
  • Calvin tries fixing a leaky bathroom sink in one story arc, to predictably disastrous results. His dad demands to know what on Earth he was doing when he sees the room is completely flooded. Rather than tell the truth, Calvin lets out an implausible Hurricane of Excuses, saying the faucet just popped off by itself, that Hobbes was fooling around with the tools, and that "bug-eyed monsters from Pluto" did it. Calvin's dad isn't even remotely convinced.
  • Susie accuses Calvin of having thrown a snowball at her, Calvin says there's no way she can prove it, and then follows up by saying that he missed anyway.
  • Susie is buffeted by a huge barrage of snowballs and angrily confronts Calvin, who was standing nearby next to a wheelbarrow. Calvin claims that Susie only has circumstantial evidence that he did it, not that it saves him from a retaliatory pummelling.
    Calvin: (buried in the snow) You can't get a fair trial in this town.
  • A similar strip has Susie hit with a snowball and immediately accuse Calvin. Calvin innocently denies it, but of course Susie is quickly able to prove it was him just by examining his mittens, thanks to Calvin's unique flair for snowball making.
    Susie: There, look! Flecks of bark, pieces of gravel, spots of mud, and granules of ice! That was your snowball, all right!
  • One strip has Calvin run up to Susie and hurl at water balloon at her. He then immediately goes on a huge spiel about how he regrets his evil ways, begs for forgiveness, and resolves to repent for his sins with about as much believability as he can muster (read: none). She still clobbers him.
    Calvin: My penitent sinner shtick needs work.
  • Calvin threatens his mom with a stick of dynamite for some cookies. It's entirely obvious that the "dynamite" is actually a hot dog sausage with some string at the end.
  • One strip has Calvin announcing his intention to sell a pitcher of "curative elixir" on the sidewalk. Hobbes points out the "elixir" is clearly just dirty ditch water with leaves in it, and nobody is going to buy that obvious filth. Calvin decides to rebrand as a "debilitating disease drink" that passerby pay not to have.
  • In one Sunday G.R.O.S.S. comic, Hobbes is going over the events of the last meeting, but blatantly editorializes the recount by making himself look much better and Calvin much worse. Note that they're the only two people in these meetings, yet Hobbes is still convinced his interpretation of the events are truthful.
    Hobbes: 10:32: President-and-First-Tiger offers reasonable solution, but Dictator-For-Life takes needless exception.
    Calvin: Reasonable solution?!? You told me to go jump in a lake!
  • More than once, Calvin tries to tell his mom it was actually an evil alien, clone, or robot double which looked exactly like him that made a mess instead of him. This is sometimes set up in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, but either way, it's not even remotely believable to his mom.
  • Calvin plays the word "zqfmgb" in a game of Scrabble, which he claims is the name of a worm from New Guinea. Hobbes immediately calls him out on such a stupid fib, but Calvin calls him out on the equally questionable twelve-letter word he played using all the 'X' and 'J' letters. Then Calvin declares the score for "zqfmgb" is 957.
  • At the end of one Rosalyn babysitting story, Calvin's mom demands to know what happened this time. Calvin tries to say that he was perfectly well-behaved and nothing happened. For someone like Calvin, this is already a difficult enough lie to swallow, but then his mom points to the full confession Rosalyn forced Calvin to write detailing the mayhem he caused.
    Hobbes: Nice try, Pinocchio.
    Calvin: Well who woud've thought Rosalyn would make me write a full confession?!
  • Another babysitting story had Calvin trick Rosalyn into getting locked outside for the duration of the stay. He spends the whole time mocking her for it, but once his parents come home, inevitably unlocking the door and immediately finding out what Calvin's done, he tries to backtrack by saying it's "all a misunderstanding" and just "an innocent mistake". It doesn't help him.
  • At the beginning of one babysitting arc, Calvin refuses to let Rosalyn inside even though it's freezing and pouring rain outside. When his parents eventually notice she's still not inside yet and let her in, he sheepishly tells the soaking-wet and angry Rosalyn that the door was jammed and he couldn't get it open.
  • In one Spaceman Spiff story, Calvin flees from the school in the middle of class, back to his house. Calvin's mom demands to know why he's back so early, and Calvin, clearly not having bothered to think of a reason, hastily says that there was a gas leak and everyone evacuated. His mom easily disproves this claim by calling the school.
  • Calvin and Hobbes have a race to see who can go the slowest. Hobbes starts walking backwards claiming that he's just that slow. A similar strip has Hobbes throw a snowball at Calvin and then warning Calvin, just so he could claim that his snowballs are faster than the speed of sound.
  • Calvin tricks Hobbes into a game where they toss a water balloon at each other at gradually greater distances until it pops. Calvin takes the opportunity to just hurl the balloon right in Hobbes' face and call him an idiot for falling for it. Hobbes then proceeds to pick Calvin up to exact his punishment, so Calvin tries to hastily backtrack and say that it was just an accident! It doesn't save him from being dropped in the rain barrel.
  • In one Sunday comic, Hobbes is once again attempting to pounce on Calvin, but this time Calvin unknowingly ducks just in time to pick up a dime on the floor. Hobbes sails right over him, crashes, rolls, and, with as much feline dignity as he can muster, tries to play it off as having meant to do that the whole time. Calvin isn't fooled for a second.
    Calvin: He would just love me to believe that somersault was intentional and innocent.
  • Calvin tries to launch a giant snowball with a plank catapult. He's not nearly heavy enough to launch it far, but it does crash on his face. As he's lying on the ground, his entire head buried under the snowball, he declares that "I Meant to Do That".
  • Calvin ring's the doorbell to Susie's house and prepares to smack her with a huge snowball when she answers the door. When Susie's mom answers the door instead, he sheepishly and quickly explains that he's selling huge snowballs.
  • Calvin asks his dad to think up a random number and Calvin will be able to guess it. Sure enough, Calvin is able to guess the number in his first try, but then he realizes his dad may have just played along to get rid of him.
  • Calvin always expects everyone to be fooled by his Stupendous Man disguise despite the fact he's always wearing the same clothes, there's literally no one else it could be, and that it's a Paper-Thin Disguise. The real kicker is that he expects his mother to also be fooled even though she made the costume for him to begin with.
  • Miss Wormwood asks if Calvin read the history chapter she assigned as homework. Calvin says he couldn't because the words literally fell off the pages into a heap of gibberish, which gets him sent to the principal's office. He reflects that his excuses need to be less spontaneous.
  • Calvin asks his mom why it costs "four dollars a minute to talk on the telephone to goofy ladies who wear their underwear on tv commercials", but his mom instead demands to know when he was watching that.
    Calvin: Umm... it was on... uh... during my morning cartoons.
  • Calvin and Hobbes are playing checkers, and Hobbes has played a move that captures nearly all of Calvin's pieces in one fell swoop. After a long pause, Calvin announces that Hobbes has fallen right into his trap, but he's nice enough to allow Hobbes to redo his move to avoid certain defeat.
  Hobbes: Your remaining piece must have one heck of a plan.
  • One G.R.O.S.S. arc has Calvin trying to lure Susie into a trap via Reverse Psychology by "accidentally" dropping a "secret" letter saying that Susie should not go behind his house under any circumstances. The plan fails in part because Susie doesn't really care, and the fact that it's a trap is so utterly obvious that only an idiot would fall for it. Susie plays along to lure Calvin into her own trap; unlike Susie, Calvin is dumb enough to think she actually fell for it and gets soaked.
  • One strip had Calvin Playing Sick to avoid going to school, but the list of symptoms he gives his mom is so absurdly long and severe that she immediately calls his bluff.
    Calvin: It's pretty hard to hit that magic number of appropriately vague, mildly serious, but not quite worrisome symptoms.
  • Calvin tries to get out of class by faking a note from the President of the United States saying that "his genius is urgently required". He tries to make it more convincing by adding a "P.S. Really" disclaimer at the bottom, but the fact it's in his handwriting and on lined paper definitely didn't help.
  • Calvin's mom catches an extremely filthy Calvin tracking mud all over the house. Calvin's claims it wasn't him that it, it was another random muddy stranger that ran through the house while she wasn't looking!
  • During a game of baseball, Calvin asks Hobbes what the current score between the two is. Hobbes says the score is "ten billion to one, my favour". When Calvin calls him out on that, Hobbes tells Calvin to keep track of the score himself then.
  • Subverted in the last Rosalyn babysitting arc; Calvin's parents come back home dreading the latest horror story, only for her to say he was perfectly well-behaved this time. Considering every other time was a disaster, they think she's playing a joke on them.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce:
  • One strip begins with an Imagine Spot where a volcano called Mt. Calvin violently erupts, throwing lava far into the sky. Cutting Back to Reality shows that Calvin tried some really spicy hot sauce, against his dad's warnings, and spat it out all over the dinner table before chugging down a cup of water, much to his parents' disgust.
  • Another strip has Calvin describing an incident where, again against his dad's warning, he ate a really hot pepper and was in scorching pain for the rest of the evening. He ends off by telling Hobbes he should get a stunt double.
  • Yet another strip has Calvin decide to take a deep whiff of a jar of spicy mustard. In the next panel he's shown rocketing into the air with a cloud of smoke behind him, and in the last panel, holding his singed nose tenderly.
• The Blind Leading the Blind: Any time Calvin asks Hobbes for help with his arithmetic homework. If anything, Hobbes knows even less about math than Calvin, but it sure doesn't stop him from offering his knowledge.
• Blob Monster:
  • In one Sunday strip, Spaceman Spiff is devoured by a hideous gelatinous mass that crawls out of a crevice on a bleak alien planet and is immune to his blaster fire. The last panel shows Calvin making horrible faces over the cafeteria's tapioca pudding.
    Susie: If you don't like the cafeteria's tapioca, just leave it alone!
  • One strip has Calvin disguising himself as a giant amoeba by hiding under a bedsheet, reaching out for food by "extending a cytoplasmic pseudopod." It doesn't fool his mom for a moment, especially since the food happens to be a package of oatmeal cookies and loud crunching noises accompany its eating.
  • The green blob of Mystery Meat on Calvin's dinner plate comes alive and tries to kill Calvin in more than one Sunday Strip. In one strip, it attempts to escape and makes a mess of the house; in another, it starts acting as Hamlet.
• Bloodsucking Bats: Discussed during an arc where Calvin has to write a report on bats. Having not done any research, he claims that bats are blood-sucking bugs, which is immediately debunked by his teacher and classmates.
• Blowing a Raspberry: In one early Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes get into a long argument which just degenerates into the two of them making dumb impressions of the other and blowing raspberries at each other.
  Calvin: Leave it to mom to interrupt our repartee.
  Hobbes: Just when I had you wriggling in the crushing grip of reason, too.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • Bill Watterson played this trope for laughs in a poetic strip. According to Calvin's perspective, since his parents don't like or value things like fried foods and TV or even running as much as he does, they must be aliens from another planet.
  • Calvin has a similar mentality with Susie, thinking she must be brainwashed, or lobotomized, or an alien because she actually enjoys going to school and doesn't slack off on her homework.
• Body Horror:
  • In one strip, Calvin has a vision of inflating to unbelievably massive proportions from eating too much dinner.
  • In response to a bubble of gum that popped and covered his entire head: "Good heavens! I think I blew my face inside out!"
  • Played for Laughs when Calvin pours the school cafeteria's manicotti down his shirt. He then walks over to Susie, lifts his shirt (spilling the manicotti), and screaming "AAAGH MY INTESTINES ARE SPILLING OUT!" Susie screams and runs away.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Discussed in one strip, where Calvin has an Aside Comment to the reader about how he wishes certain people (read: Moe) would be incinerated by bolts of lightning, and the fact it doesn't happen makes it hard for him to be religious.
• Books That Bite: One Sunday strip combines this with A Dog Ate My Homework, where Calvin says his school textbook came to life and ate his pencil and homework, before attacking him.
  Ms. Wormwood: Your book ate your homework, hmm? That's a new one.
  Calvin: I'm lucky to be alive! I had to break its spine!
• Born in the Wrong Century: You can count the things Calvin's Dad likes about the modern-day world on one hand. As Calvin himself puts it, "I'm a 21st Century kid trapped in a 19th Century family."
• Both Sides Have a Point: When Susie notices Calvin signed up to play baseball at school because he was being teased about being a "wimp", he rants to her about how boys who don't play sports are called wimps and how girls supposedly have it easy. Susie doesn't necessarily disagree about the problems boys face, but she points out to Calvin that boys aren't the ones expected to spend their lives 20 pounds underweight, either.
• Bottom of the Barrel Joke:
  • In the Tenth Anniversary Book, Watterson discusses how he would sometimes "go for broke on the illustration" when time could not allow for good writing (the example provided was of Calvin popping an especially huge bubblegum bubble, winding up with bubblegum all over his face, and then saying "I think I blew my face inside out!").
  • He even made a comic about going to the bottom of the barrel. Calvin's mom finds garbage under his bed that he threw down there to "keep the monsters quiet". In the aforementioned collection, this was a comment on the comics he drew just to fill his quota even when he had no inspiration.
• A Boy and His X: The main characters are Calvin the boy and Hobbes, his stuffed tiger that is either alive or just an Imaginary Friend. Hobbes is technically Calvin's only real friend and generally acts the Straight Man to Calvin's more outlandish schemes and monologues.
• Boys Like Creepy Critters: This strip:
  Hobbes: Watcha doin'?
  Calvin: Looking for frogs.
  Hobbes: How come?
  Calvin: I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.
  Hobbes: Ah, but of course.
  Calvin: My mandate also includes weird bugs.
• Brain with a Manual Control: Two strips portray Calvin as a giant robot run by tiny versions of himself, running around in a panic because he's falling or having no clue what his dreams are supposed to mean.
• Bratty Food Demand: In one strip, Calvin gives his mom extremely specific instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich. His mom, of course, doesn't put up with Calvin's pickiness and totally ignores his instructions.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Calvin at first wanted to collect bugs. Then he wanted to collect stamps. He decides on stamped bugs.
• Breakfast in Bed: Calvin makes his Mom breakfast in bed when she's sick. However, as he was doing this unsupervised, it did not go to plan. Calvin brings in a frying pan with a chisel and tells his mother she might be able to chisel out the scrambled eggs. She asks what happened to the orange juice and toast. Calvin says that Dad told him not to tell her anything about that until she was feeling better.
• Breakout Character: Watterson had no plans for Rosalyn beyond her initial story arc, but quickly realized the way she could completely intimidate Calvin, unlike any other character, offered a rich vein of material. As such, every Rosalyn appearance is an event.
• Briar Patching: One time, Susie tells Calvin to pass along a note to another classmate and adds on that it's a secret note, so he had better not peek. Calvin, of course, immediately peeks, only for the note to say "Calvin you stinkhead, I told you not to read this".
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Calvin, who generally refuses to put effort in to school work, but displays a very advanced vocabulary, has considerable artistic skills and has thoughts of those who are much older than six.
  • He once explained himself to his father, however, when asked why he didn't do well in school despite being fantastically good at inhaling information about things he was interested in, such as dinosaurs. The answer? "We don't read about dinosaurs."
  • Another strip had our heroes finding a garter snake and then asking questions about snakes. Hobbes suggests that they get Calvin's Mom to get them a book from the library, but Calvin protests that he doesn't want to learn anything because it's summertime. Hobbes replies that "if no one makes you do it, it counts as fun," and with that revelation Calvin genuinely enjoys himself.
  • Another example where Calvin actually enjoys learning: One strip had Calvin tell his dad that he and his mom went to the library. Calvin checked out a book about insects and proceeds to talk about how mother wasps lay their eggs inside spiders so their larvae will eat the spider once they hatch. Unfortunately for Calvin's parents, he decides to tell them this with gross details at the dinner table.
  • Lampshaded by Mrs. Wormwood. "Calvin, if you put half the energy of your protests into your schoolwork..."
  • Tellingly enough, in the "Good Calvin" arc, where Calvin modifies his Duplicator machine to create a single copy that embodies all his good qualities and none of the bad ones, said copy becomes a model student to the point where Mrs. Wormwood pats his head and kindly asks him to let the other students have a turn at answering a question in class correctly.
• Broken Treasure:
  • The broken binoculars arc, where Calvin accidentally breaks his dad's binoculars and becomes so wracked with guilt that he eventually confesses what he did. While his dad is pretty angry at first, he calms down after Calvin shows genuine remorse for what he did, and he later gets Calvin his own set of binoculars. Calvin, being Calvin, doesn't learn much from this, though.
    Calvin: Maybe I should break Dad's power tools and see if I can get some of those.
  • There's also the "Propeller Beanie" arc when Calvin accidentally breaks a part while putting it together. However, this turns out to just be the battery casing, which Dad manages to glue back together (much to Calvin and Mom's utter surprise). However, this leads into a Worthless Treasure Twist, when Calvin discovers, after weeks of anticipation, that the propeller on the beanie only spins and can't actually make him fly like he thought it would. In the end, he and Hobbes decide to play with the box it came in.
  • Calvin goes for a brief "joyride" in his parents' car (he releases the parking brake and the car rolls straight back into a ditch). But, his parents are so relieved that he didn't get hurt and that he was honest with them that they don't get as mad as Calvin expected they would.
• Bubblegum Popping: One early strip had this happen to Calvin, covering his whole head in gum, prompting him to exclaim, "Good heavens, I think I blew my face inside out!". In the tenth anniversary collection commentary, Watterson used this strip as an example of a low-effort visual gag strip when he was pressed for time.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: Occurs in an early story arc where Calvin's parents leave him home alone for the night and he rents some scary movies. Calvin's mom comes upstairs to check on Calvin after coming home, only for a bucket full of water to fall on her when she opens the bedroom door.
  Calvin's Mom: DID YOU WATCH A SCARY MOVIE?!?
  Calvin: (hiding under the covers) No. Don't come in. The rug is rigged too.
• Bug Buzz: In one comic, Calvin complains about how irritating bugs' characteristics are, including their noise. Hobbes snarks that a lot of the same things apply to human kids, leading the enraged Calvin to chase him.
• Bug Catching: Calvin spends a lot of his time outside trying to catch "weird bugs" and other critters, although in one strip, Hobbes encourages him to set a butterfly free after Calvin caught it.
• Bullet Time: One strip did this long before The Matrix was even conceived; showing Calvin's point of view as Hobbes pounces on him as he comes home from school, and how to Calvin, time slows to a crawl. Hobbes, for his part, reflects that it's the opposite for him.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • A mild case where in one Sunday strip, Calvin spots a bees' nest, and decides to heave a rock at it. What happens next needs no explanation.
  • Calvin often insults Moe right to his face, and in the instances when Moe actually knows what Calvin is saying, gets beaten up for it. It's justified in this case, since Moe was going to beat up Calvin regardless, so Calvin decided if he's gonna get pummelled either way, he might as well do something to deserve it.
  • Calvin antagonizes Hobbes needlessly a lot, always seeming to forget Hobbes is not only bigger and stronger than him, but has sharp claws and teeth.
• "Burly Detective" Syndrome: When fantasizing himself to be private eye Tracer Bullet, Calvin refers to people he encounters by concise descriptions, such as "the brunette" for his mom.
• Butt Biter: Once, while Calvin was fishing, a fish jumping out of the water just to chomp his bottom. Hobbes later shows up to innocently ask if the fish were biting.
• Byronic Hero: Poor integrity? Check. Lack of respect for authority? Check? Self-exile? Inasmuch as one can do so in suburbia, check. Cynicism? Check. Unspecified past crime? Noodle Incident. A rare instance, however, where his self-entitlement is played for laughs, rather than drama.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes:
  • The monsters under Calvin's bed usually are only heard and not seen, but in a few strips their eyes were visible this way. On one occasion the monster's fingers also appear reaching out of the dark, overlapping with Nightmare Fuel.
  • Hobbes occasionally has his eyes glow in the dark when hunting Calvin, crossing this over with Glowing Eyes of Doom. This is partly Truth in Television, since cats have reflective membranes in their eyes that can make them shine in the dark.
• Calling Card: Calvin will sculpt a specific type of snowball with the perfect ratio of pebbles, sticks, wetness, and ice chunks to maximize its speed and the misery it'll cause when it hits. Unfortunately for Calvin, this comes back to to bite him when Susie gets smacked in the head with a snowball, she immediately goes to Calvin. He denies it, but she deduces that it was his snowball given the bits of bark, mud, gravel and ice in his mittens.
  Calvin: The curse of a signature style.
• The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: A variant is played for laughs as Calvin is taunted by an anonymous prankster who sends him insulting letters in code. Only when his mother remarks on his habit of "writing to himself" and leaving letters out for the mailman every day does Calvin put two and two together and realize the culprit is actually Hobbes.
  Calvin: Wait a minute! These are coming from our house??
• Calvinball: The Trope Namer. The only two rules: never have the same rules twice, and no one's allowed to question the masks.
• Camera Shy: Calvin really, really hates getting his picture taken, despite being an Attention Whore most of the time. Whenever his parents try to take a photo of him, he always makes an ugly face at the last second to mess it up.
  • In the December 14, 1988 arc, Calvin is in a bad mood because he has to wear a suit and tie (which he thinks are "dorky clothes") and get his hair combed for Christmas card photos. His dad keeps trying to take his picture, but he repeatedly makes ugly faces to ruin them.
    Dad: (later, looking at a series of ruined photos) We can't send these in our Christmas cards. People will think it's sacrilegeous.
    Mom: Well, these do look like Calvin...except for the combed hair.
  • The November 11, 1990 Sunday strip is just a long series of Calvin making goofy faces, with only the last panel revealing that they're photos.
    Dad: That's our son! (sigh)
    Mom: These pictures will remind us of more than we want to remember.
  • Yet another example: in the October 12, 1990 strip, Calvin's dad is taking a picture of him, and Calvin holds his smile for a few seconds before making a disgusted face just before the camera goes off.
• Camping Episode: Every summer, Calvin's dad drags the rest of the family on a Horrible Camping Trip to build some character. Watterson notes in commentary that these effectively replaced the cub scout troop strips which Calvin took part in early in the strip's run.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Calvin.
  Calvin: OK, this guy goes into a bar. No wait, he doesn't do that yet. Or maybe it's a grocery store. OK, it doesn't matter. Let's say it's a bar. He's somewhere in the vicinity of a bar, right? So anyway, there's this dog, and he says something odd, I don't remember, but this other guy says, um, well, I forget, but it was funny.
  Hobbes: I'll try to imagine it.
  Calvin: Yeah, you'll really laugh.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Calvin, always. Every time he tries to find some shortcut or loophole, he'll be punished for it. He tries to get out of having to do an assignment by time travelling to the future to pick it up or pawning it off to some aliens, but his assignment ends up being about what an idiot he is or his teacher doesn't believe his homework really came from outer space.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: This is implied with Susie and Calvin's relationship. Despite him constantly teasing or throwing things at her, she still tries to make friends with Calvin and he sometimes reciprocates, despite stating girls are disgusting unknowable creatures on the regular.
• Cape Snag: Calvin gets wrapped up in his own cape pretending to be Superman in an early strip.
• Captain Crash:
  • Spaceman Spiff is regularly described as an "ace pilot" but in nearly all of his many appearances, he's hurtling out of control towards the surface of some rocky planet. While many of these instances are him being shot down, once it was because his ship had run out of gas because he didn't know what the "E" on the fuel gauge meant.
  • Calvin insists he's a capable driver for their wagon or toboggan, but of course in nearly all of their sled/wagon rides, it's hurtling off a huge cliff or into a tree.
• Capture the Flag:
  • In one Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes are playing this, when Calvin stops the game because Hobbes, using his innate cat-like climbing abilities, hid his flag high in a tree, and Calvin can't climb that high. Calvin tries to change the rules to prevent flags from being put out of reach, but this devolves into an argument and then a Big Ball of Violence.
  • Calvinball often incorporates elements of gameplay similar to Capture the Flag, although of course it varies.
• Cargo Cult: Played for Laughs. Calvin is occasionally shown worshipping his television, but in a way it's clear Watterson meant it as a veiled Take That! towards television.
  Calvin: Oh greatest of the mass media. Thank you for elevating emotion, reducing thought, and stifling imagination. Thank you for the artificiality of quick solutions and for the insidious manipulation of human desires for commercial purposes. This bowl of lukewarm tapioca represents my brain. I offer it in humble sacrifice. Bestow thy flickering light forever.
• Carpe Diem:
  • Rebutted this in one strip.
    Calvin: "Live for the moment" is my motto. You never know how long you've got. You could step into the road tomorrow and — wham! — you get hit by a cement truck! Then you'd be sorry you put off your pleasures. That's why I say, "Live for the moment." What's your motto?
    Hobbes: Look down the road.
  • Another strip involves this during a story where Calvin believes the sun is going out within the next few days. Calvin claims he has nothing to fulfill before he dies, because he's always believed in living each day as though it were his last. The next panel is him eating candy and reading comic books, just as he does everyday. Hobbes lampshades how his sentiment might be inspiring, if someone other than Calvin had said it.
• Cartoon Creature: Occurs In-Universe in one strip where Calvin has an Imagine Spot having turned into one his own drawings, a crudely scrawled blob-like creature with three stalks protruding out of it (one from the top of its head and two on the bottom), ending in three small balls. Not even Calvin is sure what it's supposed to be.
  Calvin: Oh, no! Calvin has turned into one of his own childhood drawings! His anatomical references being obscure at best, Calvin finds it difficult to move! Are these lower appendages feet or wheels? His own mom thinks he's some kind of helicopter! If only Calvin had learned to draw better!
• Cartoon Juggling: Subverted in one strip where Calvin tries juggling a carton's worth of eggs.
  Calvin: Wanna watch me juggle? I can keep a dozen eggs in the air at once!
  (tosses eggs, which promptly splatter all over him and the floor)
  Calvin: Notice I didn't say I could do it for very long.
  Hobbes: This rug must need a thicker pad.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • One of the subtler Running Gags in the series is Hobbes trying to warn Calvin against whatever it is he's currently planning. Unfortunately, whether Calvin is trying to fix the leak in the bathroom faucet, pushing his parents' car out of the garage or duplicating himself to get out of cleaning his room, he never listens to Hobbes and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Some of the Silence Is Golden Sunday strips use this too. Something happens to Calvin that apparently makes him do something bad (he gets kidnapped by aliens and a robot duplicate cause trouble, his dad's leaf pile attacks him, a gust of wind pulls him back into bed after he was told to get up) and his parents refuse to believe him when he tells them what happened. Of course, this being Calvin, there's a fair degree of Unreliable Narrator.
  • In the last strip of Rosalyn's final arc, Calvin's parents are so used to hearing about the eventful aftermaths of Calvin being babysat by Rosalyn that Calvin's Dad doesn't believe her when she tells him they had a good night for a change.
    Rosalyn: (cheerfully) Calvin did his homework, then we played a game, and Calvin went to bed.
    Dad: (with a deadpan expression) It's awfully late for jokes, Rosalyn.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Their reoccurring wagon and sled rides, where Calvin has rambling philosophical musings with Hobbes as they weave at breakneck speed through the woods and usually right off a huge cliff, straight into a tree or into a river. Even as they hurl to a painful stop, they never break from their discussion. A few strips play this for laughs; such as one where Calvin tries to hold a conversation about human nature with Hobbes, but Hobbes just wants Calvin to focus on steering, while in another Calvin asks Hobbes what happens after death, but Hobbes just tells him to steer.
• Catapult Nightmare:
  • Parodied in one strip where Calvin has a dream about counting pebbles in the desert. He counts so many (over four-hundred trillion) he bores himself awake.
  • Played straight in a few strips where Calvin has a dream about falling from the sky and scares himself awake. In one strip, this happened twice in a row because it was a Dream Within a Dream.
• Catch and Return:
  • In one Sunday strip, Calvin stored a snowball in his freezer from winter so he can throw it at Susie in the summertime. Unfortunately for Calvin, when the moment of truth comes, he misses. Even worse, as he's busying grousing about it, Susie reforms the snowball from the remnants and smacks Calvin in the face with it. He irritably laments the irony of the incident.
    Calvin: The irony of this is just sickening.
  • Another strip has Calvin attempting to throw a pinecone at Susie. Unfortunately for Calvin, Susie whips it right back at bullet speed using a lacrosse stick.
  • Calvin invents a water balloon tied to a rope so that if he misses, it will swing back around and give him another shot. He tries it on Susie, he misses, and then she catches the water balloon as it swings back around, unties it from the rope, and then hurls it at Calvin.
• Catch Your Death of Cold:
  • In one Sunday strip, Calvin attempts to catch a cold by sticking his head out the window because he forgot to do his homework. He regrets it when his mom hears him coughing and makes him take some nasty-tasting cough syrup though.
  • Another strip has Calvin's mom refusing to let Calvin play out in the rain because he could catch pneumonia, run up a terrible hospital bill, linger a few months, and then die.
    Calvin: I always forget. If you ask mom, you get a worst-case scenario.
    Hobbes: I had no idea these little showers were so dangerous.
• Cats Are Mean: Hobbes has a few moments of this. He constantly beats Calvin up for no reason, mainly pouncing on him violently whenever he comes home from school.
• Cats Are Snarkers: Hobbes the tiger is the snarkiest character in the comic, mostly due to his judgmental view of humans. And that's saying a lot.
• Caught in a Snare: Hobbes gets caught in a snare in the very first strip, lured by a tuna sandwich. It's implied that this is how Calvin met him, though Watterson ended up regretting this strip, feeling that it ruined the ambiguity of Hobbes, and later strips implied that Hobbes had been around when Calvin was an infant.
• Celebrity Paradox: When Bill Watterson interviewed with the L.A. Times about Calvin and Hobbes, he drew a doodle◊ to accompany it, showing Calvin and Hobbes reading the newspaper and reacting to the interview.
  Hobbes: Man! This cartoonist does go on and on, doesn't he?
  Calvin: I'll say! What a drip.
• Central Theme: The uncertainty and imagination of childhood.
• Cerebus Roller Coaster: Make no mistake, the comic is almost entirely light-hearted and comedic. But every so often, there are small storylines with much less comedy and much more drama. For instance, when the family comes back from a wedding and overnight hotel stay to discover that their house has been broken into, and the comedy is gone for several issues before it slowly returns to normal.
• Cerebus Syndrome: This strip started as a comedy strip. Before becoming what is described above, it started with a more serious strip involving a dog taking Hobbes, leaving Watterson surprised how many letters of concern he was getting from emotionally-invested readers. One especially emotional story after that involves Calvin finding a badly injured raccoon who does not make it.
• Cessation of Existence:
  • Calvin ponders this on a number of occasions, wondering what the point of human existence can possibly be if it's just going to end someday. In at least one case he concludes that since everyone is going to die and stay dead forever, there was no reason to abide by any rules, and he decides to lead a life of shameless hedonism. Hobbes is more accepting of this possibility, pointing out that life is quite wonderful even if it's finite, so we should be grateful.
  • It's also very vague as to whether Hobbes experiences this when Calvin is not around or not looking at him. Evidence exists for both arguments.
• Chain Letter: Calvin receives a chain letter in the mail, and reads a list of people who were involved with it and what happened to them. One guy continued with the chain and got a raise, and another broke the chain and went bald. Hobbes tells him it's nothing but superstitious nonsense and advises him to throw it away. Calvin then continues reading: "And a dumb kid like you listened to a friend and got run over by a cement mixer."
• Changeling Fantasy: One strip has Calvin find a strange pushbutton device in the house. He pushes it and is whisked away to a secret high-tech underground base where his parents are preparing to go out and fight crime as superheroes! Of course, he's just daydreaming, and the last panel shows the real world, where his parents are as ordinary as ever. Some other strips also have Calvin wishing his parents were superheroes.
• Chaos Architecture:
  • For the most part, individual rooms within Calvin's house are portrayed consistently, but the arrangement of his bedroom is sometimes flipped around, and the position of his bed relative to the window sometimes changes. Also, whether his window opens over the side of the house or is on a dormer over the roof changes depending on the needs of the strip.
  • The same occurs to Calvin's classroom; it's usually portrayed on the first floor with the left wall facing outside, but sometimes the window is portrayed as being on the right side and in one early strip the classroom is portrayed as being on the second floor.
• Character Catchphrase: "[Something that Calvin hates] builds character!" from Calvin's dad, which apparently is based off a catchphrase of Watterson's father. In one strip, Calvin copies this to mock his father, in combination with his glasses and hairstyle. The last panel is Calvin's Mom laughing uncontrollably in a chair and Dad trying to play it off.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Early strips featured Calvin being part of a troop of Cub Scouts. Later strips however show Calvin as being someone who dislikes organized games, so Watterson abandoned the Scout strips. Although his personality was still the same — he really didn't work well with the Scouts and tried to avoid or lose them at every opportunity. It's easy to imagine he simply quit after it didn't work out (or more likely, got banned). Knowing Calvin's family, his dad probably urged him to try scouting as it "builds character."
  • The very first strip featuring Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie had Calvin being very skeptical of the book's quality (he said, "How good can it be if it hasn't been made into an animated TV show?") while his dad wanted to read it to him. In later strips, it's the only bedtime story Calvin ever wants to hear, and his dad is sick of it.
  • The first time Calvin's bicycle appeared, it was just an inanimate object that Calvin was comically bad at riding. Later appearances had it as an explicitly (or at least, as explicitly as possible in this comic) malicious and sentient monster that tries to run down Calvin at every opportunity.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Calvin's favourite storybook, Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie!, as well as its sequel, Commander Coriander Salamander and 'er Singlehander Bellylander.
• The Chase: Done several times with one or both of our heroes. Calvin will occasionally chase Hobbes whenever the latter sneakily insults him, while Mom, Susie, Rosalyn and Miss Wormwood have all chased Calvin when they're mad at his antics.
• Cheated Angle: Calvin's distinctive unkempt hair looks the same whether it's seen from the front, when he's turning to the left, turning to the right, or seen from the side. It only looks different when seen from behind.
• Chekhov's Gun: Lampshaded in a strip where Calvin finds his Transmogrifier gun during a mile-high plunge at the tail end of the Balloonacy arc. As Calvin himself puts it, "Boy, these things come in handy all the time!"
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Calvin gets these expressions on occasion when he thinks about doing something devious, such as right after blowing up a balloon and deciding to turn it into a water balloon to throw at someone.
• The Chew Toy: Calvin frequently gets beaten up by Moe, Hobbes, and even Susie. Moe abuses Calvin for no reason, just because he can. Hobbes tackles Calvin at the end of every school day when he walks through the door—and while he's usually the voice of reason, he can sometimes be as big a jerkass as Calvin to Calvin, and get away with it because he's bigger and has claws. And while Calvin is always the first to antagonize Susie, she wins nearly every fight; sometimes she's the one who escalates to physical violence in the first place.
• Chiaroscuro: All of the Tracer Bullet strips are drawn in this style to emulate the Film Noir genre. Unfortunately, Watterson noted the art style was time-consuming, so this contributed to Tracer Bullet not appearing very often.
• Child Eater:
  • Calvin frequently has to deal with monsters that want to eat him. The monsters under the bed aren't much of a threat as they aren't very smart.
  • In one of Calvin's nastier Daydream Surprises, his parents turn into bug-eyed aliens, dunk him in batter and try to make him into waffles.
  • In another strip, Calvin imagines that the gross slop on his dinner plate comes to life and devours him. His parents celebrate his death by dancing.
  • Another time his lunch bag comes to life at school and tries to eat him, but he kills it with his thermos.
  • He also was once attacked by a baseball that suddenly spouted teeth while he was playing baseball with Hobbes.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Inverted, twice.
  • In one strip, Calvin makes Susie sign an agreement stating that she'll never ask him out on a date in the future and limit any future interactions. Susie signs it so quickly that Calvin considers it almost insulting.
  • Another strip has Calvin telling Susie there's absolutely no way he'll ask her to senior prom. When Susie tells Calvin that's eleven years from now, Calvin replies that he thought that would be sufficient time to find someone who would. Susie is not happy and beats Calvin up.
• Childish Pillow Fight:
  • One very early strip has Calvin's dad enter Calvin's room demanding to know why he's making so much noise after bedtime and why there's feathers flying everywhere. Calvin tells him that a flock of ducks flew in through the window, all simultaneously moulted, and then fled en masse when they heard him coming. Unsurprisingly, his dad doesn't believe that's what happened...
  • One Sunday strip has Calvin and Hobbes arguing over who gets more of the blanket on an especially cold night. This eventually devolves into a fierce pillow brawl, which ends with both of them sweltering and neither wanting any of the blanket anymore.
• Children Are Innocent: One running gag is Calvin asking his dad a simple question, and then getting back a ludicrous response ("wind is trees sneezing"), which he takes at face value.
• Chickenpox Episode: In one story arc, Calvin comes down with chickenpox and has to be inside for a week during summer vacation. At least he thinks the spots are cool.
• Children Are Tender-Hearted: A dead bird and an injured, dying raccoon, at different times, cause Calvin considerable anguish.
• Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: Calvin's Trademark Favorite Food, which he proudly eats multiple bowls of, often adds even more sugar to, and then drinks the sugary milk sludge left over. It's disgustingly sweet, heavily caffeinated, and has an even unhealthier version with marshmallows in it that Calvin's mom refuses to buy. The first time Hobbes tries a mouthful he chokes on how sweet it is.
  Hobbes: MFFPBTH!! S-SW-SW-SWEET!!
• Christmas Creep:
  • Done after the strip's first ever Halloween arc. On November 1, the duo decides to go into town and look at the Christmas decorations.
  • Calvin deliberately tries to spread Christmas Creep in one strip. He sings "Silver Bells" at the top of his lungs in mid-November. His parents respond by forcing him outside. Calvin shoots back, "Not thinking about it won't make it go away, you know!"
• Chronically Crashed Car:
  • Calvin's little red wagon and the sleds he and Hobbes ride down steep slopes in the forest. Almost always, these rides end with them crashing into a tree or hurtling off a huge cliff at high speeds. This often leaves the wagon or sled absolutely mangled, but it's always back in tip-top shape very soon.
  • Spaceman Spiff's little red saucer gets wrecked so often it's a Running Gag. Nine times out of ten times it appears, it's been shot down by hostile aliens, is about to crash into a planet at high speeds, or both. Spiff has lampshaded that this occurs rather often.
• Circling Stars: Often used whenever Calvin or, less commonly, someone else is hurt along with ringed planets and lightning bolts.
• Classical Music Is Boring:
  • Calvin originally thinks so, but is, after hearing it, willing to admit he quite liked the 1812 Overture. When he finds out the piece is (in part) written for cannon, he even becomes quite excited, though mainly because he imagines the mayhem of fully-loaded cannons being fired in a concert hall.
  • A Sunday strip shows Calvin (wearing Cool Shades) and Hobbes dancing, while his parents wonder why classical music is playing at 78 RPM, at 2 AM.
• Classified Information: Played for Laughs when Calvin attempts to invoke this trope - as an answer to a school test question.
  "Where is Plymouth Rock? I am not presently at liberty to divulge that information, as it might compromise our agents in the field."
• Clothes for Christmas Cringe: One strip features Calvin writing a letter to Santa, expressing disappointment that he received clothes instead of the grenade launcher and other weapons he asked for. He claims that Santa must've mixed up his request with someone else's.
• Cloneopoly: In the strips had them playing Monopoly in several strips, but with their own Calvinball-like rules. For example, Calvin once robbed the bank, causing Hobbes to dump all 12 hotels on Baltic Avenue. Another time, we find out that they write their own cards for the game. Hobbes launches a massive computer scam on the bank ("I think I'll buy a few dozen hotels"), and Calvin vows revenge once he lands on Chance.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Calvin. His vivid imagination makes him a bit of a goof, particularly to outsiders who have no idea what he's doing. Even Hobbes considers Calvin weird sometimes, and he might be a product of Calvin's imagination!
• Clingy Costume:
  • In the school play story arc, Calvin gets his shirt stuck in the zipper for his onion costume when he tries to take it off due to a Potty Emergency. They ended up having to cancel the play and find the janitor just to get him out.
  • Calvin comes home from school and tells Mom he got stuck in his snow pants. He couldn't get them unzipped because the zipper was covered in ice, then he tried to force open the zipper and got a mitten jammed in it, then he tried to pull his pants off, but he had forgotten to take off his boots, so they got stuck as well, then the pants got all twisted and he fell down. It took the teacher and two custodians to get him out. Since Calvin lives to create mischief, he finishes this story by enthusiastically saying that he'll be sure to wear the pants again tomorrow.
• Clue from Ed.: Parodied as part of a Take That! against The Dark Age of Comic Books in one of the violent superhero comics Calvin is reading, where it says "See Ish #374!" when the "hyper-phase distortion blaster" is shown.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Implied in one strip at the end of another Horrible Camping Trip, where it finally stops raining just as they're packing up to go home. Calvin's dad facepalms and then it cuts away after some angry tirade (of course, it's equally likely it was unintelligible Angrish).
  Calvin: Did you know what any of Dad's words meant?
  Hobbes: No, but I wrote them down so we can look 'em up when we get home.
• Coincidental Dodge: In one strip, Calvin accidentally messes up Hobbes trying to pounce on him when he crouches down to pick up a dime on the ground. He looks up just in time to see Hobbes crash and roll in front of him and then get up pretending that it was all intentional. Calvin doesn't buy it for a second.
• Colony Drop: Imaginary version during one of Calvin's daydreams. Spaceman Spiff uses his Flying Saucer's grappling hook to drag one uninhabited planet into another "For Science!!" (He's trying to add 5+6, and It Makes Sense in Context. Kind of.)
• Comeback Tomorrow:
  • From Calvin in this strip:
    Calvin: Oh yeah? Oh yeah?? Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated then, I promise!
  • Lampshaded by Calvin in this strip:
    Moe: Wimp!
    Calvin: OH... OH YEAH?
    * Beat Panel*
    Calvin: What really bugs me is knowing I'll probably come up with a much sharper retort sometime tonight.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Hobbes often beats the snot out of Calvin or pounces on him out of nowhere at pure random just for the fun of it. But it sure is entertaining to read about.
• Comet of Doom: Calvin tells Hobbes that the world will be ending soon because Halley's Comet is going to appear and comets are harbingers of doom. Hobbes says this is just a superstition, so Calvin decides he'd better write his book report after all. Ironically, this was during the 1986 passage, when Halley's Comet was at it's furthest, least visible path in recorded history.
• Comic-Book Time: Despite the passage of summer holidays, Christmases, etc., Calvin and his classmates never age. Lampshaded, somewhat obliquely, by Calvin's father at one point:
  "Yeah, I know, you think you're going to be six all your life."
• Comically Missing the Point: Openly lampshaded in Calvin actively resisting most Aesops being handed to him.
  Hobbes: Live and don't learn, that's us.
  • When Calvin is terrified of Rosalyn, he tells Hobbes that if he takes one step out line, she'll kill him, cut his head off, and stick it on a post in the yard as a warning to other bratty kids. Hobbes says he thinks that would be a violation of housing zoning regulations, instead of telling Calvin he's overreacting.
  • In one of their "Time-Traveling Box" adventures, the duo encounter dinosaurs. Hobbes finds one, and asks what kind of dinosaur it is. Calvin turns around, then recognizes what type it is, and shouts "AN ALLOSAUR!" Hobbes doesn't get it.
    Hobbes: I'm right here! You don't have to shout.
  • During a story-line in which Calvin has to design a safety-oriented poster to win $5, he covers his poster in chunky spaghetti sauce to simulate the remains of someone run over by a car. He presents his poster to his class, which goes about as well as you'd expect. But this is Calvin we're talking about.
    Calvin: I can see you're all sick about your chances of winning.
  • Also:
    Hobbes: (reading a newspaper) It says here that by the age of six, most children have seen a million murders on television.
    Calvin: I find that very disturbing! It means I've been watching all the wrong channels.
  • Calvin has decided the key to human flight is to tape construction-paper feathers to your arms and have a friend hurl you off a cliff. Hobbes isn't exactly sure about the idea:
    Hobbes: You understand I assume no responsibility for this?
    Calvin: Right. I get the patent.
• Companion Cube: Hobbes, at least as seen by everyone other than Calvin.
• Competition Coupon Madness: Calvin wins a propeller beanie from Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs after sending in 4 proof of purchase seals. Although this is his Trademark Favorite Food, eating that much sugary cereal so often is nauseating even for him.
• Complaining About Complaining:
  • In one strip, Calvin goes into a full-blown rant about people who can't let one of their pet peeves go... in a rant that lasts for three whole panels. Hobbes sarcastically suggests that maybe they're just not self-aware, but it goes right over Calvin's head.
  • In another strip, Calvin is making a list of a million things that bug him. Hobbes snarkily suggests that he should put down "excessively negative people" as one thing, but it takes Calvin a few moments to understand what he means.
• Complaining About Things You Haven't Paid For:
  Calvin: You know what the problem is with the universe? There's no toll-free customer service hotline for complaints! That's why things don't get fixed. If the Universe had any decent management, wed get a full refund if we weren't completely satisfied!
  Hobbes: But the place is free.
  Calvin: See, that's another thing! They should have a cover charge and keep out all the riffraff.
• Completely Off-Topic Report:
  • Downplayed. Calvin does produce reports on the given subject, but they're either less than half-assed (his collection of fifty bugs consisted of a drowned earthworm, a squashed fly, a live ant and a piece of lint that looks like a bug), nonsensical (he needed to find fifty different types of leaves, but sold the planet to invading aliens to get fifty of their leaves instead, which look like maple leaves cut in weird shapes) or simply not even researched (his report claiming that bats are bugs). The one time he actually worked on a report that he was actually excited about (dinosaurs), it started out quite ambitiously thanks to his brain-enlarging device but became three sentences about how T. rex was a predator instead of a scavenger because it's cooler that way.
  • Played straight in two different instances where Calvin had an assignment on overpopulation. In one case, it was instead a story about a man being shot to death by deer, and in the other case it was a story about Susie being eaten by dinosaurs, with Calvin ending with "at least, that's how it ought to be."
    Ms. Wormwood: Thank you for that tasteless and entirely uninformative report on overpopulation. See me after class.
• Complexity Addiction: As members of the secret club "G.R.O.S.S.", Calvin and Hobbes often come up with schemes to annoy and/or terrorize their neighbor Susie. One day, Calvin devises a scheme that involves writing a message in code which Susie will believe was written by Calvin for Hobbes, and "accidentally" letting Susie discover and read the note, which says that Calvin doesn't want Susie to go behind their house at noon. Calvin thinks this will naturally draw her to the back of his house at noon, at which point he and Hobbes can hit her with water balloons.
  Hobbes: Why don't we just hit her with water balloons right now, where she's sitting?
  Calvin: You're a good officer, Hobbes, but let's face it, you don't have an executive mind.
  Hobbes: I still think my idea sort of makes sense...
• Composite Character: Calvin's father displays traits of both Bill Watterson's father (saying things "build character," taking his family on miserable camping trips, jogging in the snow, having a job as a patent attorney) and Watterson himself (the visual appearance, the love of bicycling, the love of the outdoors, the apprehension about consumerist culture and his role in it.)
• Condescending Compassion: In one strip, Calvin encourages a very unintelligent alien creature (read: Susie) and decides "compassionately" to put it out of its misery (read: shoot spitballs at Susie).
• Conflict Ball: Calvin, constantly. Because he's a bratty, impulsive kid, he constantly starts trouble with his parents, with Hobbes, with his teacher, with Susie, with Rosalyn, and so on, for no other reason than that it's simply in his nature to cause trouble (and also because it's entertaining to read).
• Conforming OOC Moment: One story arc sees Calvin as the only boy in school who didn't sign up to play baseball during recess. By his own admission, Calvin hates following rules and prefers running around using his imagination, so it's understandable -— until Moe teases him for it. Calvin thus signs up to play baseball too, knowing full well that he's going to have a miserable time.
• Congestion Speak:
  • In one story arc, Calvin's pressured into playing baseball at school. His dad offers to practice with him at home, and reassures Calvin that playing baseball "builds character". Within minutes, Calvin gets bopped in the face by a ball, leaving him with a bloody nose, a funny voice, and the desire to never play baseball again.
    Calvin: All by charagder id drippig out by node!
  • When Hobbes catches hay fever, his sneezing alerts Calvin whenever he tries to sneak up on him. When he complains, his voice is muddled from his congestion, depicted through the misspelled words.
    Hobbes: You thig id's fuddy, bud id's dot.
• The Conscience: Hobbes will sometimes serve as one to Calvin. And maybe if Calvin listened a little more, he probably wouldn't get in as much trouble as he does.
• Consulting Mister Puppet: Calvin very often get into heated arguments or fights with Hobbes, sometimes in the presence of others; since Hobbes appears as a live anthropomorphic tiger to Calvin himself, but as an ordinary stuffed toy to anyone else, outside observers just see Calvin wrestling with an inanimate object or holding one-sided conversations (and thus this trope in action). Whether they're correct to do so, or Hobbes is actually real, is never made clear; Word of God is that the intent was to portray two contrasting but equally plausible views of reality without favoring one over the other.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Calvin has a tendency to do this, usually with Hobbes, particularly true of the later Sunday strips. They tend to cap off with him going off a cliff in his wagon, attacking or being attacked by others, or some outside event otherwise intervening.
• Content Warnings: Parodied.
  Calvin: The TV listings say this movie has "adult situations." What are adult situations?
  Hobbes: Probably things like going to work, paying bills and taxes, taking responsibilities...
  Calvin: Wow, they don't kid around when they say "for mature audiences."
• Counterfeit Cash: In one strip, Calvin is trying to make fake dollar bills by drawing it on paper with crayons. Of course, he only has an average six-year old's drawing abilities, so his attempt at forgery is rather crude.
  Hobbes: Ol' George has the gout, I see.
• Continuity Nod: Occurs in a September 1989 arc where Calvin locks Rosalyn out of the house; at one point, Hobbes recalls the last Rosalyn encounter with, "Do you think she remembers how last time we threatened to flush her science notes down the toilet?" Then in a 1990 arc where Rosalyn has been hired again, Hobbes says to Calvin, "Do you think she'll remember how you locked her outside last time?" Meanwhile, when Rosalyn asks Calvin's parents for an advance at the beginning of one of her arcs, they have a quick whispered argument over how this is double-charging with the advance she asked for at the end of the last arc.
• Continuity Snarl: Occasionally, usually for Rule of Funny. For example, in one early strip Calvin attempts to fly using a helium balloon, but faceplants into the ground, but in a later arc he goes floating high into the atmosphere with no effort at all. For another example, in one Sunday strip Calvin is disappointed by the very small hill he's sledding off (with the implication he couldn't find a better hill), but every other sledding strip shows him finding many different giant hills without any issue.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Played for Laughs in an Imagine Spot, where a freight train and a passenger jet are both crashing on the exact same spot at the exact same time as an earthquake, which is itself about to strike a farmer's house, which unbeknownst to the farmer, has a gas leak. The last panel shows it being a situation with Calvin playing with his toys.
  • Played for Drama in Stupendous Man's last Story Arc wherein Susie's mom is able to see Calvin dropping a big snowball the size of a bowling ball on Susie's head, and call up Calvin's mom and tell her about what happened and finish the call right when Calvin is walking into his room and is telling Hobbes about what happened, despite the fact that the three panels of the "Stupendous Man drops a snowball on Susie's head while sitting on a tree branch" showed there was no one else around.
• Control Freak: Calvin once asked his father what the term meant. The very favorable definition he received ("That's what lazy, slipshod, careless, cut-corner workers call anyone who cares enough to do something right.") led Calvin to wonder aloud, "Am I in the presence of their king? Should I kneel?" Note that Calvin's dad is a patent attorney.
• Conversational Troping: Calvin frequently discusses the ways his snowmen demonstrate Art Tropes. He and Hobbes also discuss Comic Books, as in this iconic dialogue, which named a trope:
  Calvin: Mom doesn't understand comic books. She doesn't realize that comic books deal with serious issues of the day. Today's superheroes face tough moral dilemmas. Comic books aren't just escapist fantasy. They're sophisticated social critiques.
  Hobbes: Is Amazon Girl's super power the ability to squeeze that figure into that suit?
  Calvin: Nah, they all can do that.
• Conversation Hog: In one strip◊, Calvin describes the thrill of interrupting someone mid-sentence in order to change the subject, comparing it to an interception in football where the more sentences you cut off, the more you "win." Hobbes retorts, "Conversations aren't contests!" and Calvin replies, "Okay, a point for you. But I'm still ahead."
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • In one strip, Calvin is imagining himself in his Spaceman Spiff persona where he's abducted by a tribe of enemy aliens, who decided to put him through the "torture" of having his hair washed. The last panel shows Calvin is being forced to take a bath by his mom.
    Calvin: AUUGH! You got soap in my eyes on purpose! Sinister fiend!
    Calvin's Mom: If you'd stop thrashing around, maybe it wouldn't happen!
  • Another Sunday Strip has Spiff's alien captor (revealed in the last panel to be Calvin's dad) putting him through the wringer... by taking him to a mundane living room and talking about wholesome principles (including that Misery Builds Character).
• Cool, but Stupid: "Tyrannosaurs in F14's!"
  Calvin: This is so cool.
  Hobbes: This is so stupid.
• Cool Shades:
  • One strip has Calvin try to invoke this by having Hobbes and himself wear sunglasses.
    Calvin: (grabbing a pair of shades) Cool people wear dark glasses!
    (next panel, the two are wearing shades, and Hobbes has his paws out in front of himself)
    Hobbes: It's cool to bump into things?
    Calvin: You don't move, you just hang around.
  • One Sunday strip has Calvin trying to convince his mom to let him buy a pair of very snazzy green sunglasses at the store. She tells him "absolutely not" and angrily tells him to put them back (eagle-eyed readers can see she's also buying a box of aspirin).
    Calvin: Mom says no way.
    Hobbes: Grown-ups have no taste.
• Copied the Morals, Too:
  • Played straight when Calvin first creates his Duplicator to make a clone of himself to do the chores while he and Hobbes go play. Calvin is thwarted because the clone obviously hates chores just as much as Calvin does and refuses to do them, then later goes on to clone himself repeatedly.
    Calvin: OK, Dupe! Hobbes and I are going out to play. You clean my room and when you're done, I've got some homework you can do, too.
    Duplicate: WHAT?! Forget it, bub! Find some OTHER sucker to do your dirty work! Last one outside is a rotten egg!
    Calvin: HEY! COME BACK HERE!
    Hobbes: He's a duplicate of you, all right.
    Calvin: What do you mean? THIS guy is a total jerk!
  • Inverted again in a later arc when Calvin makes a clone of himself that's pure good (by adding an ethicator to the duplicator), and acts so differently that everyone gets suspicious. Despite the ethicator, Good Calvin ends up so frustrated at trying to deal with everyone expecting him to be bad that he threatens to beat up Calvin in anger, which makes him disappear in a Puff of Logic.
• Copycat Mockery: One strip has Calvin combing his hair and putting on glasses to imitate his dad: "Calvin! Go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!" Calvin's mom literally falls off her chair laughing, and his dad, while annoyed, admits that "okay, the voice was a little funny".
• Corrective Lecture: In one story arc, Calvin causes the family's car to roll back out of the driveway into a ditch opposite the house. Calvin's parents are relieved that no one was hurt, and lecture him on asking for permission for things and not attempting to handle something like a car on his own. Hobbes notes that it's a lot calmer than the time Calvin left earthworms in his father's sock drawer.
• Costume-Test Montage: A Sunday strip had an "all funny sunglasses" variant. Because it was Calvin's POV, the panels were tinted the matching color and just showed Hobbes' reactions. We only see the pair he settles on in the end - which, in a case of Hilarious in Hindsight, look just like those of a certain mecha pilot (except green).
• Could This Happen to You?: In one strip a TV news promo has this tone, and Calvin's father opts to read the newspaper instead.
  Announcer: Next, on Eyewitness action news: blood-spattered sidewalks and shroud-covered bodies! Could the next victim be YOU?? We'll get the story from the sobbing, hysterical relatives and we'll tell you why YOU should be paralyzed with helpless fear! That's Eyewitness action news! It's what YOU need to KNOW!
• Counting to Potato: The scoring system in Calvinball. A few scores we see are oogie to boogie, and Q to 12.
• Covered in Gunge:
  • A more family-friendly example occurs whenever our heroes have a sledding accident and end up covered in snow.
  • More than once, Calvin ended up covered in food slop after his lunch came to life and started attacking him.
• Covered in Mud: This happens to Calvin on a regular basis. Sometimes Hobbes pushes him into the mud, sometimes he trips and falls into the mud, and sometimes he jumps into the mud on purpose because he just feels like doing it.
• Creator Thumbprint: Bill Watterson cites Charles M. Schulz as one of his main creative influences, and it shows in his art style. A few of the stylistic twists Schulz used in his strip, such as profile shots of characters that show only their eyes and nose but not their mouths, or the use of the word "AUGH" when uttering a cry of surprise or dismay, were adopted by Watterson and later used in Calvin and Hobbes.
• Cowboys and Indians:
  • In one early Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes play "Americans and Soviets" (it was the Cold War) with dart guns and both get shot, and after a moment's pause subsequently deciding "War's a stupid game, anyway."
  • They also play more traditional Cowboys and Indians in the house, much to Calvin's mother's chagrin. A recurring trope is Calvin's attempts to cheat, zapping Hobbes with his cattle prod when Hobbes declares his gun's out of bullets. Hobbes also cheats from time to time, saying that Calvin missed since he's obviously still there talking to him.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: Two back-to-back strips have Calvin attempting to make his parents an ashtray out of modelling clay as a Christmas gift. When Hobbes points out that neither of his parents smoke, Calvin gets angry at him and suggests he sculpt something better (the implication being Calvin's modelling skills are lacklustre, so a vague bowl was the best he could do).
• Creepy Centipedes: Calvin seriously underestimates just how scary centipedes are in one strip when he tries to have Hobbes guess what he's holding in his hands.
  Hobbes: Is it some big centipede with poison pinchers?
  Calvin: ...Centipedes have poison pinchers?
  Hobbes: I think so.
  Calvin: (clutching onto Hobbes in fear) Man, it's a good thing you guessed it so fast!
• Crossword Puzzle:
  Calvin: I'm doing a crossword puzzle. Number three across says "bird."
  Hobbes: Hmm...
  Calvin: I've got it! "Yellow-bellied sapsucker!"
  Hobbes: But there are only five boxes.
  Calvin: I know. These idiots make you write real small.
• Crying Wolf: In one series of strips, Calvin refuses to demonstrate a problem on the blackboard, but won't explain why, only saying it would cause "complete pandemonium." Mrs. Wormwood is used to such excuses, but on this occasion, Calvin has a huge hole in the back of his pants, causing him to moon the class, causing mass chaos as he predicted.
• Cue the Rain:
  • A camping trip that no one but Calvin's dad is looking forward to and it starts raining upon arrival. Calvin's dad Comically Misses The Point.
    Calvin's Dad: At least it's not snowing! Right? Right? (Later, as they sit in the rain eating cold canned ravioli.) I mean, say it was snowing so hard we couldn't make a fire.
  • And it stops raining the exact moment they decide to leave.
  • In another strip, Calvin has a very bad day at school that ends with him missing the bus and having to walk home. And that's when it starts raining.
  • In another strip, Calvin mocks some flowers with a watering can, claiming that he's basically a god to them because he's the only one who can possibly give them water. As he's bragging, a massive rainstorm begins, soaking him.
  • In one Sunday strip, Calvin has just gone outside when it starts raining. He starts yelling at the sky to stop it because he had important things to do outside; instead it starts getting heavier, turning into a thunderstorm, and then it starts hailing. The last one is what finally forces Calvin inside.
• Cultural Translation:
  • In the Danish translation of the (in)famous arc about the baby raccoon, the raccoon was changed into a squirrel, probably because raccoons do not naturally occur in Denmark, while the squirrel is a fairly common and charismatic mammal that most people have encountered.
  • The Dutch Version did the same thing but with a bunny instead. In both cases, it works because the raccoon is never shown directly, so it could easily be made into another cute furry animal without needing to edit any of the illustrations.
  • In the French translation, a reference to the different varieties of peanut butter (chunky and extra chunky) was changed to jam (strawberry and raspberry). References to dollars were also changed to francs or euros, despite the characters still mentioning that they live in the U.S.
• Cultural Posturing: Hobbes, when talking about tigers (although it's rather ethnocentrism since tigers are not known to possess any culture at all.)
• Curious as a Monkey: Calvin. He throws water on his dad to test his dad's reflexes and drops an expensive compass out of a tree to study gravity.
• Cut and Paste Comic: This strip where Calvin talks about his grandfather complaining that all comics today are just xeroxed talking heads. The joke being that that particular strip is just two poses copied and pasted four times. ^note In the strip proper, there are minor differences that indicate they were all drawn separately. Watterson was just that good.
• Cut-and-Paste Note: One story arc played it straight by having Hobbes cut up Calvin's Mom's magazines and send Calvin insults in the mail. This eventually works against Hobbes because Calvin's mom tells Calvin to ask before cutting up their magazines, causing Calvin to realize the letters are coming from their house. Another gloriously subverts it when Calvin does the same... and the signs his note in the same manner, destroying the purpose of the anonymity.
  Susie: (reading) Susie, if you want to see your doll again, leave $100 in this envelope by the tree out front. Do not call the police. You cannot trace us. You cannot find us.
  Sincerely, Calvin.
• Cuteness Proximity: Calvin points this out at the end of the story arc with Rosalyn in It's a Magical World.
  Calvin: (looking a bit peeved) It seems like whenever we play with girls, you get caught a lot.
  Hobbes: (with a smug grin) Some of us are just plain irresistible.
• Cutting Back to Reality: Calvin's more immersive fantasy stories usually cut back to mundane reality once per strip at moments of situational irony. This was particularly common in older Sunday Strips, which would depict Calvin in all but one or two panels as Spaceman Spiff exploring an alien world, a Tyrannosaurus rex terrorizing prehistoric jungles, his six-year-old self trapped in an artistic nightmare or whatever.
• Cyanide Pill: When Calvin attempts to fix a dripping faucet without telling his parents, things naturally go awry, and he floods the bathroom by leaving the water on when he takes the sink apart. To avoid Mom and Dad's wrath, he looks for cyanide in the medicine cabinet.

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