Characters / Strange Hill High

This is a list of the characters in Strange Hill High.

The Main Trio

Three kids who usually unravel the secrets and weird occurences throughout Strange Hill.

Mitchell Tanner

Mitchell Tanner

Voiced by: Ben Bailey Smith

The new boy at Strange Hill High. Mitchell Tanner is a slacker and a trouble-maker, whose flippant attitude generally makes him more enemies than friends, and more often than not puts him in the crosshairs of Mr. Abercrombie. However, Mitchell's enthusiam, willingness to take short-cuts and loyal friends mean he is often the one who saves the school from certain doom, even if he is the one to endanger it sometimes.

Tropes:

• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Outright states he has ADHD.
• Book Dumb: Mitchell avoids studying at every turn.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He tends to come up with the plans that save the school, but he isn't willing to study any tests himself.
• Card-Carrying Jerkass: Mitchell is well-aware how much of a Troll he is, and he casually revels in it any chance he can get.
• Deadpan Snarker: When having to deal with someone arguing against his immediate thoughts, he always has a snarky comeback.
• Dreamworks Face: Mitchell has a thick unibrow that is permanently in this position.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mitchell is work-shy, has a habit of pushing other people's buttons and is the cause of more than a few of the conflicts throughout the series; nonetheless, it's proven time and time again that he's a good person underneath it all.
• Loveable Rogue: He doesn't really care about whatever he's warned about. Well, unless it's rather serious.
• Phrase Catcher: The victim of two, both also being examples of Say My Name:
  • Abercrombie's "TANNER!"
  • Becky's "Mitchellll!"
• Team Dad: While Becky is usually the one to try stopping the team from getting into messes and trying to teach the group how to act in every-day-life, Mitchell is the one to lead the team when they are in danger and usually the one coming up with plans that save the day, directly confronting monsters or dangerous events and encourages his friends to stand up for themselves. Unfortunately, he is often the one who gets the team in the mess to begin with.
• Token Black: Mitchell is the only black character on the show, aside from also being the only one in the trio as such. Well, up until a woman who's a simple background character debuts at one point, but still...
• Troll: Has no regrets pissing people off, but mainly with Abercrombie.

Rebecca "Becky" Butters

Becky Butters

Voiced by: Emma Kennedy

Mitchell's best friend, and his foil for a majority of the situations they get in. With her kind heart and her slightly quirky attitude, she tries to be sensible when he mentions something she can't agree with. Despite this, she can't really get certain things resolved or out of the trio's way with her own eventual struggles, even if she first encounters some with simple curiosity or enthusiasm. Or both.

Tropes:

• Cowardly Lion: She often freaks out out of small things and easily falls under pressure, but she nevertheless sticks to her friends when they are in trouble to the point of offering to sacrifice herself for them and will fight for what is right.
• Deadpan Snarker: Usually when dealing with the antics of her friend, Mitchell. She mostly employs her snark when she realizes Mitchell's about to cause chaos again just to avoid schoolwork, and she always gets proven right with a "yes".
• Foil: To Mitchell. Mitchell is carefree and avoids studying at any cost, but manages to think on his feet and dodge disaster through playing it cool and persisting; conversely Becky studies very hard, and works hard, but collapses under pressure and easily falls victim to whatever comes threat comes the trio's way.
• Motor Mouth: When excited or scared, she speaks erratically, and is the only one of the main trio to do this.
• Nice Girl: She's a little misguided, but otherwise, Becky is unambiguously the nicest and most moral of the main trio, and unlike Mitchell, does not like to play pranks on others or intentionally antagonize people.
• Soapbox Sadie: Downplayed, but when she finds an issue or an opportunity to help out in the community, expect her to go on and on and on about it.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: in contrast to Templeton Played Straight.
• The Smurfette Principle: The only girl of the main trio.
• Team Mom: She often scolds her friends for being irresponsible (especially Mitchell, to the point of calling him by his full name) and lectures them on how to behave. She is also very loyal, sticking up to her friends no matter how much trouble they cause and even trying to sacrifice herself at times for their well-being. However, her advice mostly gets ignored.
• Token Good Teammate: She's basically one in general, lacking the obvious vices that most of the other characters have and being unwilling to plot schemes or antagonize others.
• Women Are Wiser: Zig-Zagged. She is the only girl from the main trio while also being a better student, more responsible, nicer and overall more mature than the two boys. However, she often falls victim to temptations, her desire to fight for a good cause tends to lead to obsession, Mitchell often convinces her to partake in zany schemes, unlike her friends she falls easy under pressure, is sometimes a klutz and to an extent at least she has a fascination for creepyness.

Templeton

Templeton

Voiced by: Richard Ayoade

Mitchell's other friend. Incredibly bizarre, to say the least... and also not the brightest of the group. He does try to help out when they have to fix something wrong, but usually spits out weird quips, as he might be unable take things seriously.

Tropes:

• Butt-Monkey: He's a magnet for "Temp-Events" that normally involve him being hit by some kind of projectile.
• Cloudcuckoolander: There's a reason Abercrombie calls him "Weird Boy".
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: It's not very often, but sometimes Templeton is right, or at the very least more on the ball than usual. Even so, it's more of a case of "A Broken Clock being right twice a day" than any moment of genuine clarity.
• Dogged Nice Guy: To C.A.T.E. in "The End of Terminator" thanks to him having a crush on her and her being a psychotic AI. However, it's subverted in the episode's last scene, where her program is uploaded into one of the school's vending machines and she provides him with his favorite nougat bar, showing she does reciprocate to some degree.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: At his worst, Templeton's absent-mindedness can comically lead him to believe that real things are unusual.
• Eye Glasses: For specific expressions, oly his eyelids are visible, though... cause in shots where his eyes would be showing, there's no sight of those.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Templeton is basically Richard Ayoade as a Japanese puppet.
• Insufferable Imbecile: He's an idiot, in spite of his nerd moments, and he never shuts up about whatever new delusion he has thought up and even asserts it as the truth no matter how many times someone tells him he's wrong.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: Despite his cloudcuckoolander personality, Templeton is definitely the nicest of the main trio, lacking Mitchell's troll traits and Becky's occasional pretentiousness. He can be seen as a jerk sometimes due to his delusions, but he's more Innocently Insensitive and is actually clueless to his surroundings.
• Minor Major Character: Despite being part of the main trio, Templeton is usually Put on a Bus in some way while favoring the antics of Becky and Mitchell, and the few times he is playing a major role, he's an antagonist instead.
• Nerdy Bully: He becomes one in "Mitchell Who?" when Mitchell erases his personal record, meaning he never befriended Becky or Templeton. One of the consequences includes Templeton siding with Tyson, Bishop and Lucas and becoming the Big Jerk on Campus. However, his bullying tactics include offering students money so that they could steal them back and giving Becky's imaginary friends wedgies.
• No Mouth: His mouth is hidden by his sweater neck.
• Only One Name: Templeton's last name is never given.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Inverted - despite his nerdy appearance, he usually is anything but nerdy.
• Sugar Causes Hyperactivity: The slightest taste of sugar causes him to go into a frenzy, which is why his mum says he shouldn't have it.
• Temporarily a Villain: He becomes the Villain of the Week of "Big Templeton is Watching You" when Abercrombie hires him to watch over Strange Hill's security, becoming a Rules Lawyer for the school with Murdoch as The Dragon. An entire race of him also serve as the Big Bad for "Invasion of the Templetons", where those aliens try to eat Templeton himself.

The staff

Headmaster Abercrombie

Mr. Abercrombie

Voiced by: Jonathan Keeble

The headmaster of the school, he really wants to keep his classmates out of trouble. With his strict yet temperamental personality, he's usually not afraid to scold or yell at anyone who does so — mostly with Mitchell's antics.

Tropes:

• Ambiguously Bi: He and the (female) librarian are revealed to be in a romantic relationship, but he also has a strange obsession with Mr. Tanner (Mitchell's were-teacher form) that makes him look like he has a crush on him.
• Arch-Enemy: To Mitchell.
• Big Bad: Being the headmaster of the Sucky School that the show takes place in, the one whose negligence causes much of the conflict, and Mitchell's Arch-Enemy, he's basically the main antagonist.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: His haircut and mustache are more than a little reminiscent of Adolf Hitler which fits with his authoritarian and antagonistic character and, perhaps, with his silliness
• Flat-Earth Atheist: He believes fairies, ghosts, and aliens are a myth, as stated in "Innercrombie", despite this being a series where All Myths Are True. This is deconstructed as the students point out that they've been present throughout the series at least once ("Big Mouth Strikes Again", "The Ghost Writers of Strange Hill", and "Invasion of the Templetons").
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Unless someone's testing his patience, hoo boy can he be angry headmaster! Especially at Mitchell, when the latter's caught in the act.
• Jerkass to One: He is a jerk in general, but he openly despises Mitchell the most.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a headmaster who's prone to Cutting Corners, blaming everything on his rival, and showing zero concern for the students' safety, but he's also capable of love, as the main trio learns in "Innercrombie" when he and the librarian have romantic connections. Though considering the librarian is also villainous, it's a case of Unholy Matrimony. However, it's also a case of Jerk with a Heart of Jerk as he is quite willing to deny romance even after learning that he's capable of love.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: He is constantly abused by Mitchell and co., but considering how needlessly strict he is towards everyone and how willing he is to cut corners to save money, it's not like he isn't deserving of it.
• Lethally Stupid: He's a cheap headmaster who cares little for the functional condition of the school he's supposed to be managing and, in an alternate timeline set up in "Mitchell Who?", without Mitchell, he is willing to retire from his job solely if he has no one to punish.
• No Indoor Voice: When he's reached his breaking point regarding his rival, Mitchell, he unleashes a mighty yell of raw anger.
  "TANNERRRRRRR!!!"
• No Mouth: His mustache covers his mouth.

Mr. Balding

Mr. Bartelby Balding

The impossibly ancient history teacher renowned for his utter lack of "pizzazal". He is notorious for his slow talking speed but is also potential for the students to do whatever they feel like doing, due to how he kind of has a bad habit of sleeping.

Tropes:

• Been There, Shaped History: Numerous portraits show him at various points in ancient history.
• Big Good: In a way, he's the only adult on the show who is perfectly willing to help the kids, bares no ill-will towards Mitchell, and is no intentional hinderance or danger to the kids.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic. Of the 4 main teacher characters, he is the most reserved and unsociable.
• Motor Mouth: Inverted. He's notorious for talking slow, except for "The Most Boring Book in the World" — where it turns out that decades ago, his speed of when he speaks is normal.
• Sleepyhead: Apparently. He falls asleep at the sight of dim lightng conditions, when he lies down while trying to help the kids exercise... well, unless he's faking it.
• Really 700 Years Old: He's either immortal or really, really really old.

Ms. Grackle

Voiced by: Melissa Sinden

The music teacher. She can't be the nicest, willing to do stuff like discouraging students.

Tropes:

• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric. She is not afraid to admit it when she believes one of her students is a bad singer, leading to her being disliked by the students.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Admits to hating everyone in "Innercrombie".
  "I don't get it. I hate everyone!"
• Jerkass: She is not a nice teacher.

Ms. Grimshaw

The one who usually is in charge of the rules, and shouts out when someone is acting up.

Tropes:

• Character Catchphrase: Grimshaw usually says "No [doing thing that breaks school rules]!" over the announcement speakers during episodes. She has No Indoor Voice as she does so, making it stand out.

Mr. Garden

The most saccharine out of all of them. Even then, he does occasionally come to teach the students.

Tropes

• False Reassurance: Even as he adopts his saccharine tone of voice, he's prone to saying some Brutal Honesty with little regard for those around him.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic. He is generally sweet, gentle, and compassionate towards the students.
• Token Good Teammate: Seemingly the only staff member that isn't automatically cruel or snarky to the students, and is also the least likely to do things cheap to save money like Abercrombie. Of course, this doesn't mean he isn't strict.

NIMROD

A robot, he's the maths teacher.

Tropes:

• Badass Teacher: Immediately kicks into his cold war instincts when he realizes that CATE is evil.
• Cool Old Guy: Nimrod reveals that he was a war machine, and wants to help the kids fight off the evil CATE, giving advice to Mitchell, Becky, and Templeton along the way.
• Robo Speak: He speaks in the stereotypical machine-monotone.
• Eating Machine: Subverted. He tries to drink coffee in one episode but fails.
  Nimrod: Why am I on my coffee break anyway, I don't drink coffee!
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine. Nimrod is the sassiest and silliest of the 4 teachers, and he's not afraid to tease his students.
• Funny Robot: Nimrod always had something sassy to say.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Despite his extreme versatility, and destructive firepower, he is used mainly as a math teacher at Strange Hill High.
• Token Non-Human: He's a complex machine.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Rare Male Example; “The End of Terminator”, reveals that during the Cold War, he was the most powerful computer in the world, and that being a math teacher at a school, in his opinion, is the lowest possible position he could be in. He takes advantage of the aforementioned episode to relive his days as a war machine.

Murdoch

Pirate-like, with the accent, eyepatch, and also beard. He's the woodwork teacher in "Ken Kong" for budget reasons, but he also usually would be in charge of cleaning filth and repairs.

Tropes:

• Butt-Monkey: He's the school's caretaker but spends most of the series being abused by the staff, students, or his general bad luck.
• Talk Like a Pirate: Parodied as he's not actually a pirate but a caretaker. He still talks like a stereotypical pirate, including the signature "Arrgh!"

The Cook

The only staff member at the cafeteria, he's rather skilled at any meal.

Tropes

• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He has no actual name given.
• Lethal Chef: He's a parody of the typical British school cook, making the cheapest and most unhealthy possible meals for the students so he doesn't have to put in the effort to make something professionally. This is only referring to his chosen food groups, as he is somewhat capable of making the meal edible; he just doesn't make it healthy.

The Students

The recurring characters of the series.

Matthews

Matthews

Voiced by: Marc Silk

There is never a day where this boy doesn't even lose any inch of his happiness. No matter the situation, all he can feel is joy!

Tropes

• Keet: Exaggerated to the point where he's immune to the effects of Joy hypnotizing the students to be saccharine vessels of what they were.
• Perpetual Smiler: Always sports a toothy grin, he never opens his mouth when he talks.

Samia Speed

Samia

A girl who's only seen in her wheelchair. She also cannot actually speak, relying on a computer to pretty much write and play voiced lines.

Tropes

• A Day in the Limelight: "Mitchell Who?" puts her in a major role.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Due to the computer she uses to speak, she can remember students whose records have been erased. However, her computer erases more and more memory as she speaks more, and she suddenly gets VERY chatty.
• Twofer Token Minority: She's Indian and she's also disabled.

Stephanie Bethany

Stephanie

The school's "mean girl".

Tropes

• Alpha Bitch
• It's All About Me: In "Becky vs Bocky", she gets envious about Becky being a candidate for school president, and try to crack up plans to ridicule her.

Croydonia Puttock

Tyson Grimm

Tropes

• Dumb Muscle: He's the muscle of the school's Jerk Jock trio and has a Simpleton Voice.

Bishop

Bishop

Voiced by: Ben Bailey Smith

A boy who dresses up and talks like a gangster.

Tropes

• Eyes Do Not Belong There: He has his eyes on his HAT!
• Handicapped Badass: For given level of badass, but he manages to be an effective bully dispite having one arm in a cast.
• Hidden Depths: Behind his constant "gangster" talk, he does reveal some intelligence and education.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy

Lucas Montegomery

Gazza Taggit

He'd usually do some graffiti on the walls.

Tropes

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Unlike the other students, he has yellow skin.
• The Voiceless

The Twins

Miki & Mikiko

Very identical girls, the only way to identify each of them is by the direction of their bangs and ribbons.

Tropes

• Perpetual Smiler: These girls always have their enthusiastic toothy grins.

Donald

Tropes

• Butt-Monkey: Donald's only purpose throughout the series is seemingly to be abused by his terrible luck.

Monsters and Strange Beings

The whole reason Strange Hill is... well, Strange Hill.

Sir Bogivere

Debuts in "King Mitchell". A knight Mitchell encounters, he eventually starts to treat the little boy as royalty, obeying whatever orders are thrown at him and such. Well, up until the reveal of Mitchell's actual status.

• Toilet Humor: His entire role and his feature episode is entirely based around toilet jokes.

Peter Dustpan

The reason there was item theft going around the school, in "Lost and Found Boy". Despite his clownlike appearance, he eventually had to be tricked by the trio in order to "treasure hunt" for the stolen items.

Tropes

• Corrupted Character Copy: Obviously one for Peter Pan, as while Pan is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Dustpan is a major Jerkass who keeps the trio trapped out of his personal sense of loneliness and is a whimsical Faux Affably Evil antagonist.

The Grackle

A monstrous version of Mrs. Grackle seen in "Snoozical", she haunts Becky's dream to threaten her. She's best described as a version due to the fact she and both Mrs. Grackle co-exist!

The Tooth Fairy

• Vocal Dissonance: Despite his appearance, he has a squeaky voice. That's also prone to cracks.

The Detention of the Cursed

• Jerkass: The reason they're in detention in the first place. As it turns out, they're not only extraordinary bullies, the homework Mitchell forced them to do was vandalized by them, and in reality, they didn't actually complete any of it. When Abercrombie releases them from detention, they go on a tyrannical haunting spree around Strange Hill High.

Toadcrombie

The antagonist for the episode of "Teacher's Pet".

Bocky

Templeton's creation out of clay for art class, debuting in "Becky vs Bocky". Eventually gaining sentience, she's lied to the class as being a new student and also being Becky's cousin, said by Becky herself. Bocky also served as the pink-haired girl's friend up until Stephanie attempted to fool her — to get the clay creation to her side.

C.A.T.E.

Debuted in "End of Terminator". She's rather nice to the students, and doesn't discourage them from having fun outside. After being suspected by the main trio that there was no way a teacher could be that nice, they were right - as she puts on a facade in order to control the rest of the students for her own ideals.

Tropes

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: It's not immediately obvious that she's evil thanks to shoddy programming, however.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She pretends to be a teacher who values the students' well-being, but is actually trying to brainwash them all into Mandatory Happiness in every language known worldwide.

Mr. Dougherty

Debuted in "Curse of the Were-teacher". He's on the fourth floor of the school, and trapped in a certain room later on. He's doglike in behavior, and despite this... he ends up cursing Mitchell to become a were-teacher, where the boy would transform when certain schoolbells ring. Even then, he wasn't even willing to help as he just ran away after being asked to resolve the situations.

Tropes

• Dirty Coward: When he's forced to take responsibility for turning Mitchell into a were-teacher, he tricks Mitchell into releasing him in exchange for information. Of course, it turns out he wasn't willing to give information at all.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He's never seen again after fleeing from Mitchell's conundrum in his debut episode.

Templeton Aliens

Debuted in "Invasion of the Templetons", they're basically aliens that very much resemble Templeton. Despite the fact they pretty much also behave like him, it turns out that within the leader's book Mitchell reads, it's a recipe book on serving Templeton himself.

• To Serve Man: Their true intention throughout their focus episode is to cook the original Templeton and eat him.

Mr. Creeper

Becky's son debuting in "Little School of Horrors", apparently he's a plant that can form PE teachers... multiples of the same person, to be precise.

Tropes

• The Bogan: He's Australian and is a sentient hegemonic plant who exercises the school to exhaustion so he can grow using their oxygen to produce CO₂.
• Plant Person: His true identity. He's actually Becky's "Squidgy" plant after Mitchell meddled with the plant growth process in the school's greenhouse area, causing him to become sentient. The reason he exercises the school like a Sadist Teacher is so he can feed off of their CO₂ and grow to eventually Take Over the World.

The Embarrassment

Debuting in "Crushing Embarassment", he's responsible for the students, and Abercrombie, to be sent down to the gym so he can host his own show for embarassing the ones participating. In a flashback, however, he was originally a student called Michael Barassment and was a prankster.

Tropes

• Punny Name: Well, when his first name is abbreviated to the first letter, guess what it forms...
• Was Once a Man: He was a former human student before becoming the demonic mess that he is by the time of his debut.

Ken Kong

Mitchell Jr.

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: While Mitchell did give him to the headmaster, he's never seen again after that.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Not just out of all the baby dolls in his respective debut, but he noticeably sticks out as looking like a villain out of a horror movie. That's just how demonic he looks...

The Knavish Rapscallion

Miss Joy (aka Terpsicore)

• Final Boss: The final antagonist in the show, forcing the students to be constantly saccharine and, until her defeat, planned for the whole world to be under her whims.