Characters / JumpStart Adventures 5th Grade: Jo Hammet, Kid Detective

Jo Hammet

Voiced by: Kath Soucie

Our plucky tomboy heroine, whom you, the player, control for the whole game. She loves skateboarding, mysteries, and sarcasm.

• Blank White Eyes: Jo has these, along the same lines as Little Orphan Annie.
• Catapult Nightmare: The opening cutscene shows Hooverville being blown up building by building, with Jo unable to escape the blast. Cut to her screaming in bed.
• Cool Shades: She picks up a pair of shades from Martin after he accidentally bumps into her at the museum. Not only are they cool looking, but they allow Jo to read people's minds when she puts them on.
• Deadpan Snarker: Jo, in varying degrees depending which lines you pick for her in the Dialogue Trees. Most of this is directed at Maggie Mead, the lady who runs the town mine shaft and whom Jo is convinced is the most boring person who ever lived. A sample of their relationship:
  Maggie: Do you work for the Park Service?
  Jo: Why, yes! Actually, I'm the director of the Park Service down from Yosemite! How did you know?
  Maggie: Lying will get you nowhere.
• Expecting Someone Taller: In the climactic cutscene, Jo finally comes face-to-face with Dr. X... and laughs at his unimpressive stature.
• Kid Detective: It's right there in the title.
• Player Character: You play as her. Notably, this is the first JumpStart game to utilize this trope. All the previously released games work on the premise that you exist as yourself in-universe.
• Shout-Out: Her last name is presumably a reference to mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. Note, however, that JumpStart spells it with one, "t."
• Territorial Smurfette: Kinda. Although the main protagonist is female, there are very few female characters in the game. Aside from Jo herself and non-speaking background characters, there's only Maggie Mead. Naturally, Maggie is the punching bag for most of Jo's snark.
• Tomboy: Our skateboard-riding, androgynously-dressing heroine is very much so. Later JumpStart games give her a Girliness Upgrade.
• Tomboyish Name: Obviously. In fact, it's never even mentioned what "Jo" is short for. Josephine? Joanne? Joan? The game never says.

Dr. X

A one-time brilliant scientist who went crazy after receiving "a heavy dose of radioactive toast." Now he wants to bomb the companies who cut their research funding.

• He Who Must Not Be Seen: For most of the game, Dr. X is seen only in silhouette. He's finally revealed at the end.
• Mad Scientist: As detailed above, he's a scientist who went crazy.
• Sinister Silhouettes: How he appears for most of the game.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: To quote the narrator at the end, "Since his mysterious disappearance, Dr. X hasn't been seen or heard from. Who knows where he may strike again."

The Henchmen

Dr. X's three brainwashed minions. They wear octopuses on their heads, which are normally disguised as purple hair and allow them to communicate telepathically.

• Amazing Technicolor Population: They have bluish gray skin.
• Brainwashed: In addition to allowing telepathy, the octopuses apparently keep them under Dr. X's control. At the end of the game, they return to normal after the octopuses are removed.
• Telepathy: The octopuses give them the ability to telepathically communicate with each other.

B. F. Skinny

A talking lab rat who delivers a new Crossword Puzzle to you at the beginning of each case.

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: B.F. Skinny just wears a bowtie and shirt cuffs.
• Forgetful Jones: B.F. Skinny often forgets important things that happened minutes ago, but he can remember Jo long enough to deliver her notes to the same place each time.
• Never Learned to Read: B.F. Skinny says that the notes he delivers can't be his because he can't write. Or read.
• Talking Animal: He talks like a vaudeville performer, and Jo finds him very annoying. His owner Martin semi-lampshades that his annoying personality removes some of the amazing novelty that he's a rat who can talk.

Bernie

A local reporter who is currently working undercover at the juice bar.

• First-Name Basis: Jo and Bernie refer to each other by their first names.
• Friend in the Press: He and Jo are close friends and he gives her objects she needs to help defuse the bombs.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Jo and Bernie had a pre-existing friendly relationship prior to the events of the game.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Several of Bernie's stories end this way, like one time he rode a burro to the bottom of a canyon and tried to climb back out without climbing equipment so they had to call search and rescue, and another where he broke his fishing rod trying to retrieve his mail without leaving his house.
• Lethal Chef: Bernie is really bad at mixing drinks and he makes self-deprecating jokes about it. One time when Jo asks him for oil to lubricate her skateboard, he jokes he used the last of it in his last milkshake. Another time Jo asks why people keep coming if he's so bad at mixing drinks, and Bernie says they probably come to see him fail.

Jimmy the Shadow

The sinister owner of the junkyard.

• Ambiguously Evil: He often hints that he's involved in criminal activities, but it's never confirmed, and he may just be teasing.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's certainly Jo's match in terms of snarkiness.

Maggie Mead

An eccentric, somewhat absent-minded ranger who presides over the mine shaft.

• Alliterative Name: Maggie Mead.
• The Hermit: She rarely sees other people, but why should she mind? The rocks are her friends.
• Meaningful Name: Her surname is a reference to Lake Mead, which connects to Jo's hometown being called Hooverville, like the Hoover Dam.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Poor, befuddled Maggie Mead doesn't understand sarcasm. Using snarky lines on her will just make her even more befuddled. She can use sarcasm, however. If you have Jo say that she's trying to stop a mad bomber from destroying the city, Maggie will reply that she's trying to save the world from brain-eating space aliens.
• Straw Loser: She's much ridiculed for being boring and dorky.
  Jo: How do you bring yourself here each day?
  Maggie: I drive. I have a moped.
  Jo: Of course you do! You know, wearing a helmet can protect you from head injuries!
  • Called back later when Bernie says he was going to write about a lady at the mine shaft who collects rocks, but his paper didn't think it was interesting.
• When I Was Your Age...: If you ask her for foot protection so that Jo can walk on acid, Maggie's reply is, "You know, when I was a girl, we played archaeologist, and it was a lot more fun than walking across acid."