A 1998 Disney Made-for-TV Movie, Safety Patrol follows Scout, an accident-prone middle schooler who dreams of being a safety patrol (hall monitors) member. This goal is hampered by his accident-prone nature and the corrupt nature of the safety patrol members (and some staff members) at his new school. Kurtwood Smith, Leslie Nielsen, Curtis Armstrong, and "Weird Al" Yankovic act in the movie.
Tropes:
- Academic Athlete: Hannah does a lot of athletic flips as part of her cheerleading duties and is also the class valedictorian.
- Advertised Extra: Security Chief Penn (Leslie Nielsen) appears alongside Scout on the front of the VHS cover. The back also prominently features Nielsen, and the description implies he's one of the main protagonists. In reality, he only has about ten minutes of screen time.
- As Himself: Singer "Weird Al" Yankovic and TV show hosts Wink Martindale and John Walsh briefly appear as themselves.
- Engineered Public Confession: Scout and his friends play a tape exposing the villains during a "Weird Al" Yankovic concert that everyone has gathered to see, and the villains reactions in front of all those people make things worse.
- False Reassurance: When Scout's teachers tell Principal Tromp that his least favorite student, Scout Bozell, deserves to be on the safety patrol and that the rules say that they have to give him a turn, Tromp smiles and agrees that Scout does deserve to be on the safety patrol as long as he's a student at their school. He then proceeds to transfer Scout to a different school.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: In the climax, Mr. Miller nearly falls to his death from a hot air balloon because he won't let go of a bag of stolen money to grab Scout's hand.
- Girl Posse: Hannah is often accompanied by her fellow cheerleaders who don't get much development and have a tough air about them. Unusually for the trope, Hannah and her friends are heroic characters who stand up to the local bullies. They're also the middle school's Goths.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Principal Tromp's decision to crush Scout's dreams of being on the safety patrol and transfer him away from his friends isn't very nice. Still, the countless disasters Scout has already caused as a Heroic Wannabe without any official responsibility makes Tromp's lack of faith in Scout understandable, even if he is wrong.
- The Klutz:
- Scout is constantly injuring people or triggering Disaster Dominoes while trying to show off his dedication to safety.
- Within the space of two minutes, Chief of Security Penn pours an entire pitcher of water on his boss's arm while trying to fill her cup, accidentally breaks a pull-down chart by pulling too hard on the cord, and then falls out the window into a dumpster.
- Meaningful Name: Hannah's father, obsessed with making home movies and studying them for potentially funny clips, catches the footage of the bullies framing Scout at the school ceremony. Hannah’s last name is Zapruder.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Insofar as Principal Tromp wasn't that villainous, but if it wasn't for his decision to ship Scout off to another school to prevent him from being on the safety patrol (and therefore more disasters for Scout to cause), then Kent and the Bartletts' thefts from Laurelview probably wouldn't have derailed in such a public fashion.
- Non-Indicative Name: Scout's friend Lefty is right-handed.
- Noodle Incident: To illustrate Scout's clumsiness and bad luck, Principal Tromp rants about "the milk and cookie disaster of '89", "the Christmas pageant explosion of '91", "the museum debacle of '93" (which involved a wrecked brontosaurus skeleton), and a gifted music teacher who went insane after a semester of teaching Scout.
- Perky Goth: Most of Hannah's clothing is black (even part of her cheerleading uniform) and she wears dark lipstick and eyeshadow, but she's a pretty nice person who only gets mopey when there's something to be mopey about.
- Pom-Pom Girl: Perky Goth Hannah, who is the head of the middle school cheerleading squad (who wear fairly conservative uniforms and have a well-choreographed dance routine) and the valedictorian, starts dating the Straw Loser main characters and gets involved in their Amateur Sleuth antics. She and her fellow cheerleaders also stand up to a bully who's harassing Hannah's geeky little brother.
- Put on a Bus: In a literal example, Scout's friend Amanda is last seen sadly waving goodbye to him from a school bus window after he's sent to a different school about twenty minutes into the movie. The rest of Scout's classmates and teachers from his first school also disappear around that point.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Three of Scout's teachers are forgiving of his screw-ups and support his desire to be on the safety patrol while telling Tromp that the rules favor letting Scout fulfill his dream.
- Security Chief Penn is The Klutz, but he treats the amount of stealing at the school with appropriate seriousness and publicly recognizes Scout's heroism at the end of the movie.
- Recurring Extra: Hannah's fellow cheerleaders have several scenes and are friends with the main cast, but get little dialogue and only one of them might be identified in the credits as the hard to identify last listed character.
- Safety Freak: Scout has the mindset of one, but he's so clumsy that he usually causes more safety hazards on accident than he prevents.
- Shamed by a Mob: The concert audience chants "Slime! Slime!" at Kent after he is exposed as the ringleader of the plot against Scout. Even Weird Al joins in!
- Shame If Something Happened: Kent (a bully who runs the safety patrol) pointedly comments about how dangerous the hallways might get for kids who don't pay protection money.
- "The Villain Sucks" Song: "Weird Al" Yankovic and his band improvise one during the Engineered Public Confession:You did a really rotten thing and let Scout take all the blame!
Wrecked his reputation, left that poor boy in shame!
Yeah, but now I think it's time to show who really did the crime
Kent Marlowe, you're a dirty lyin' worthless hunk of slime! - Token Good Cop: The safety patrol is made up of thieves and bullies until Scout joins, and even then it turns out he was only accepted to be their scapegoat.
- Wedgie: After reciting the phrase "Wedgie airlines leave on time", Kent and his fellow bullies hang Red and Lucky from a lamppost by their underwear.
