Just For Fun / Candle Cove

"You have. To go. Inside!"

— The Laughingstock

Candle Cove was an obscure children's show that aired in syndication in 1971. It chronicled the adventures of a little girl named Janice, who sailed Candle Cove with Pirate Percy aboard their talking ship, the Laughingstock. As they searched for treasure, they had to stay one step ahead of the Skin-Taker and his accomplice, Horace Horrible, who tried to end their journey at every turn. They also occasionally talked to the Banana King, who they would go to for information on treasure. Season 2 brought a new minor villain with Milo, a rival pirate and Pirate Percy's older estranged brother who attempted to upstage Percy at every turn.

Remembered by the few who saw it for its god-awful special effects, inappropriately creepy villains and omnipresent soundtrack of calliope music, the show didn't air for very long and little information is available. So if you were fortunate enough to record it, remember to Keep Circulating the Tapes.

Not to be confused with Candle Jack, who is going to run out of rope soo Oh, you know me like a book. And I just used up all my rope.

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Tropes demonstrated:

• Abnormal Ammo: In the episode "The Terror of Captain Lao", The Laughingstock has run out of cannonballs while being pursued by Lao's ship. Janice raids a toy box for langrage, loading the cannons with handfuls of marbles, jacks, tin soldiers, building blocks, a top, a tin drum, and a jack-in-the-box.
• Affably Evil: Captain Milo is a nice guy, when not trying to prove he was better than Percy, although as the show went on obsession got the better of him.
• The Ageless:
  • Abyssians (which includes The Skintaker) are unable to be killed.
  • Sir Periwinkle, for unexplained reasons. He also implies the above may not be true after all. Little wonder the Skin Taker kept his distance.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Percy gets a lot of flack for being a "wimpy" pirate but really he's not. I mean, the dude goes out of his way to pick up a targeted, defenseless little girl and keep her out of the clutches of Horace Horrible and the Skin Taker. Think about that. He does his best to save this little girl he doesn't even KNOW from possibly the creepiest villans ever to grace puppetry and then tries to keep her entertained with "adventures" and the like as he does his best to keep them both alive. That takes some serious BALLS man, Pirate Percy was a hero. Fear of the dark and all.
• Anachronism Stew: The Skin-Taker's "skeleton crew"^* Get it? Because they're all skeletons! which show up in the episode "Rocks of Arcadia" are equipped with a bizarre array of weaponry, from cutlasses to muskets to wicked-looking surgical equipment to what looks suspiciously like an SKS rifle. Perhaps even weirder are their clothes, which include traditional pirate garb, one of those cone-shaped Asian hat things, and what may or may not be (you can't really tell since it's so tattered and faded) a British redcoat's uniform. They play a pretty important role in the episode (especially the part where they capture Pirate Percy) but no explanation is ever given for why their appearances are so varied and unsuited to the setting.
  • And then there's the episode that had a group of street musicians performing a Surf Rock arrangement of "Down Among the Dead Men."
• And I Must Scream: Often whenever any of the Skeleton Crew are dispatched, they let out a joyful laugh or (in a few cases) a relieved sigh, as though they were just relieved of some terrible pain.
• Animate Dead: The Skin Taker can do this due to being born under the sign of Death Magic.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: In one scene, Horace Horrible holds Percy and Janice at gunpoint and does some minor Evil Gloating while gesturing emphatically with his pistol, waving it about and even pointing it at his own head at one point.
• Aside Glance: When asked why his jaw slides back and forth, the Skin-Taker looks to the audience to give his reply. "To grind your skin!"
• Bad Boss: The Skin Taker. See under Nightmare Fuel below.
  • Milo as well. By the end of his run almost all of his crew are gone and the rest are too frightened to even breathe.
• Ballistic Bone: One of the Skeleton Crew is shown flinging his own bones during a battle scene.
• Berserker Tears: Percy breaks out into these as he rips apart the Skeleton Crew, all to keep the Skin-Taker away from Janice. He then breaks down sobbing in Janice's arms once the battle is over.
• Big Bad: The Skin Taker.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Milo is this during his first appearance he believe he has the strongest fleet on the sea and seems to not even know of the skin taker's existence.
• Big Sister Bully: Melrose in the Pilot.
• Bizarro Episode: Yeah, the show got darker as it went but... Even so, what was with the "screaming episode?"
• Bottomless Magazines: Most of the guns seen in the series appear to be flintlocks or similar single-shot muzzle-loaders, but they are often fired repeatedly without any need to reload.
• The Bus Came Back: Sometimes one-off characters will return, either for a quick joke or a Chekhov's Gun being fired. The most notable time this happens is in the final arc, where Janice hears Sir Periwinkle's voice in her head several times, and she returns to Misty Moors to see Mina again, as it turns out to be a safe haven from the Skin-Taker and... Whatever it is he was doing.
• Cain and Abel: Milo tried to kill his younger brother Percy on multiple occasions.
• Catchphrase: "You have... to go... INSIDE."
• Cannibal Tribe: The Laughingstock crew run afoul of a rather stereotypical tribe of Hollywood Voodoo practitioners who intend to cook Percy in their enormous cast iron cooking pot.
• Canon Discontinuity: There was a 2 parter that had the Laughingstock getting destroyed and being replaced by another similar ship. At the end of the story arc, it was revealed they were All Just a Dream.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The show gets progressively more disturbing and disjointed throughout the series.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • The Banana King is last seen in the episode introducing Milo. He makes a joke about giving up pirating and is never seen again.
  • Horace is not seen after Milo accepts his job. You hear him do his trademark giggle when it cuts to black after Milo dies
• Cigar Chomper: The Banana King.
• *Click* Hello: Horace gets the drop on Percy in this manner in one episode. Notably, his gun clicks even though he doesn't cock the hammer.
• Coconut Meets Cranium: Something of a running gag throughout the series. Virtually every major character fell victim to it at least once. Yes, that includes the Skin-Taker.
• Comedic Spanking: At the end of "The Treasure of Konga Temple" Horace gets grabbed by the gorilla that's been pursuing the heroes and villains throughout the episode, who proceeds to turn Horace over its knee to give him a good old-fashioned spanking set to the cheery outro calliope music.
• Cool Ship: The Laughingstock, sorta. At least it's got a talking face on it. That's gotta count for something.
  • The war ship Manrow from the dream episodes was this as well.
  • Cool Airship: The Laughingstock briefly became one when it was equipped with a balloon in order to escape from a tree it had been thrown into by a hurricane.
• Cowardly Lion: Pirate Percy, of course.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Milo gains this when he becomes so fed up with losing to Percy that he decides to try to join The Skin Taker. He appeals to Skin Taker by killing his own crew and when that wasn't enough, he tracked down and skinned a girl he apparently used to be good friends with.
• Cute Ghost Girl: Mina, the title character of "The Ghost of Misty Moors" is perfectly sweet and harmless. Of course, Percy is still afraid of her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Years before the series began, Percy was part of a crew captained by a pirate named Poppy. At first he's hesitant to even talk about it, because at that time he was a Dirty Coward that would threaten and even attack his own crewmates in a panic to save his own skin. He doesn't elaborate on how, but he believes his cowardice was responsible for the captain's death. Thus while still easily spooked to this day, he will always fight his fear for Janice's sake.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Horace Horrible combines this with Cloudcuckoolander to make an...interesting character.
  • One way to describe him is the mixture of one half of the namesake, Dick Dastardly and Fearless Leader of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
• The Dead Can Dance: Skin-Taker and his troupe of skeletons.
• The Dead Have Eyes: The Skin-Taker's eyes are too big for their sockets.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Banana King in Season 1.
  • Captain Milo could be such a snarker to put the Banana King to shame.
• Dem Bones: The Skin-Taker
• Digital Destruction: While never burned to DVD (or VHS, for that matter) signal scramblers often tricked people into believing that fans were watching nothing but static.
• Downer Ending: It's been suggested that final episodes were actually about an Eldritch Abomination eating the universe.
• Dressed to Plunder: Most of the characters.
• Dying Vocal Change: Captain Milo, who normally spoke with an accurate British accent, randomly changes into more of a mock-British accent just before the Skin Taker kills him.
• Ear Worm: The one thing everybody remembers about this show (apart from the Skin Taker, that is) is the calliope music. Supposedly this is what it sounded like.
• Eldritch Abomination: In one of the last episodes, the Skin Taker is seen sitting on a rock and whispering inaudibly to what appears to be a small, bubbling whirlpool in the water. The whirlpool's voice actor is the same as the Skin Taker's, but its only lines are high-pitched giggles filled with either Nightmare Fuel or Narm, depending on the viewer. This scene cuts immediately to one of Percy and Janice on a beach, and is never mentioned again.
  • Some fans speculate that the final episode was a result of one of these eating the universe. Perhaps the whirlpool monster and the final episode monster are one in the same?
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Though the Skin Taker doesn't make a great number of appearances (as mentioned above), any discussion of the show is practically guaranteed to bring him up at some point.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Milo killed his lover Sariah, even the Skin-Taker felt sorry for her, and reassured her dead soul that someone would kill Milo one day.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Candle Snuffer's bartender is only ever called "Barman."
• Eyepatch of Power: Scary-Ann has one.
• Eyeless Face: Horace Horrible, despite his fancy monocle. May be a case of Hidden Eyes.
• Failure Is the Only Option: How most of Milo's plans end.
• Faux Affably Evil: Milo slips from genuinely Affably Evil to this as the show goes on.
• Femme Fatalons: Captain Lao has long black talons as part of his Yellow Peril aesthetic.
• Firing in the Air a Lot: Pirates are seen doing this with impunity, firing round after round into the air from their flintlock pistols without ever having to reload.
• Five-Finger Fillet: One of the background pirates in The Candle Snuffer can be seen playing this in a few episodes. In one of the later episodes he's missing a finger.
• Flaying Alive: The Skin Taker.
• Flynning: The sword fighting scenes are pretty much made up entirely of the characters waving their swords while lunging forward and back. This was later parodied by the puppet fight scenes in Team America: World Police.
• Follow the Leader/Spiritual Successor: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack may well have drawn a lot of influence from this show. One could even make a strong case of it being a deconstruction or parody.
  • Dr. Heartfelt, the Laughingstock's resident medical officer (as mentioned on the now-defunct Troper Tales page), is very similar to the Medic in both voice acting and personality.
  • It is has been suggested that Thurop van Orman watched it, but Pendleton Ward may also have seen at least one episode, as the Lich is eerily reminiscent of the Skintaker.
  • Centaur World features The Nowhere King, an ichor-laden riff on the Skin-Taker, and his theme, which appears to be very remiscent of "the Laughingstock Lullaby" from "Sleepy Janice."
  • Michael Dante Dimartino and Bryan Konietzko's Korra, when she is spiritually regressed into a child, is heartrendingly helpless, and her scenes bring to mind similar ones from Candle Cove, such as when Janice, at the request of the Banana King, begs the clearly dead wishing fish to "wake up and come home with [her] now..." in song.
  • Musically, it's clear Doctor Steel himself borrowed parts of the Candle Cove theme song's leitmotif, as well as incorporating the melody of One Year Closer (played backwards!), for his song "Childhood (Don't) A Go-Go."
  • Much of Regular Show's Woman Scorned episodes seem to be inspired by Milo's encounter with a one shot character, "Tempest the Merlady."
  • Most surprisingly, references to Candle Cove pop up throughout Rebecca Sugar's work. References to Pirate Percy and Janice's familial relationship occur in "I Remember You", and "Simon and Marcy", and the most disturbing scene in "Rose's Room" parallels a meeting between Janice and an illusion of her sister in "Paradise Isle." "So Many Birthdays" borrows so liberally from Janice's Birthday Episode that it's unnerving.
  • Captain Black Ferro looked remarkably like Hell's Chef from the Gregory Horror Show, although he was more like Judgement Boy in terms of personality. Not to mention the name.
  • It more recently seems that the British know about the show, as Jeopardy Mouse is eerily reminiscent of Captain Milo.
  • The design of Captain Brineybeard's ship appears to have been based on the Laughingstock, with the default state looking the wooden/plastic puppet stage and its narwhal form resembling the foam puppet they used when the ship talked. The uvula even seems to be based on the lantern the ship talked through when they were inside it.
  • The scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest where Will Turner finds himself trapped in a hanging cage along with several of the Black Pearl's crewmen and belatedly realizes the cages are made of human bones is a beat-for-beat echo of a scene in which Percy and Janice are imprisoned by the Skin Taker in bone "birdcages" hanging from a dead tree. Though in the Candle Cove scene it's implied the cages may have actually been built from members of the Skin Taker's Skeleton Crew, and may still be aware of their predicament.
• Fridge Horror: When Janice's actor changed, the Skin-Taker's cape got longer. Could be purely coincidental, but it's still pretty damn terrifying.
  • Coincidence. His cape would get longer several times over the course of the series. That one instance just stood out because he was wearing an elaborate costume made of the same material while doing that trippy dance with all the skeletons.
    • Not that the Skin-Taker's cape getting longer isn't fridge horror in itself...
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Averted. The Candle Snuffer is explicitly called an "alehouse" and it is shown to serve a veritable Gargle Blaster as its "Special."
• Functional Magic: It was stated in the show that all Abyssians (or descendants of Abyssians) could use magic, although it was rarely shown.
  • The Skin Taker was stated to be born under the sign of Death Magic
  • Red Mary was born under the sign of Fire Magic
• Gainax Ending: Descriptions from people who watch the show indicate the final episode makes no sense. There's a YouTube video that's supposed to have the final episode, but the entire second half of it is static.
  • What are you talking about? It's the first half that's static.
  • That video is fake. The Skin Taker was never seen without his cape, Horace never wore a hood, and his teeth were always visible, and while ManBearPig or what's his name only appeared in the last episode (besides a brief cameo in the first), he was in a cave, and wasn't wearing a plaid shirt.
    • Before that South Park episode, nobody thought to nickname it that. Its original name was Bigfoot, and it threw big rocks at Pirate Percy if he came near its treasure. Rumor has it, it's a brown painted and badly damaged replica of the Abominable Snowman from the Rudolph Christmas special and it was claymation rather than the puppet format the rest of the show was, hence why it took so long to produce episodes with him in it and why he was never used outside of a few appearances.
    • Only Janice called him Bigfoot. Everyone else called him 'Gorger' or 'Hungry'.
  • It's been suggested that the "Screaming Episode" wasn't a real episode or even the final episode but just a test broadcast. Why it involved everyone screaming and why no later episodes have surfaced remains unknown. Others suggest that that it's the result of an Eldritch Abomination driving the cast except Janice insane, later going on to eat the universe.
    • Another longtime fan, however, suggests that it was just a tape error that looped what was merely a reaction to the Skin-Taker's latest plan.
• Gargle Blaster: The vaguely defined "Special" served at "The Candle Snuffer." One sip of it causes smoke to shoot out of Percy's nostrils and ears.
  • Hilariously, though in the subsequent scene while Percy and the banana King are discussing their plan to thwart Horace, Janice can be seen in the background taking a sip from Percy's unfinished drink. She makes a face, but is otherwise unaffected. Is Percy just a lightweight who can't handle his drink? Was Janice's actress going off script and trying a prop drink out of curiosity? We may never know.
• Godiva Hair: Tempest the Merlady sports this rather than the Seashell Bra you'd be likely to see in most kids' shows.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: While the Banana King is a Cigar Chomper and several friendly pirates are shown enjoying a pipe, The Skin-Taker prefers a long cigarette holder. How he can smoke it without lips, lungs or a trachea is anyone's guess.
• The Heavy: Horace Horrible. Most viewers forget Skin Taker only shows up a handful times in the whole series, and Horace was more the main antagonist for the rest of it.
• High-Class Glass: Horace Horrible's monocle.
• Hook Hand: One of the background pirates in The Candle Snuffer is seen in several episodes drinking from a flagon held in his hook.
• Horny Vikings: Captain Sven, a one-episode villain who despite the show's ostensible Caribbean setting wears a horned helmet and a fur cloak and sails a Viking Longship. The closest we get to an explanation for this is that he's from "the North."
• Humanoid Abomination: The Skin Taker, probably.
  • Hoody Hans might be one as well, considering that nothing is known about his physical appearance aside from the fact that he covers himself with a yellow raincoat (the hood of which conceals his face, showing only his sharp teeth)
• Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: Invoked pretty much any time the characters visit an island with dense foliage.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Even though it has a strong nostalgic fan base online, there's pretty much no chance these days of finding any recordings of the show.
• Killed Off for Real: Milo, Percy's brother and rival, is killed off screen during his last appearance.
  • It's rumored that because of his abrupt departure and the change in his voice when he speaks his last lines, that this may actually be an example of The Character Died with Him.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Sir Periwinkle the Deep Sea Knight, who dressed in an old-fashioned diving suit and carried the magic anchor Durendale as a weapon. Implied to be immortal. Notably the one person to scare the Skin Taker, he unfortunately only appeared in one episode.
  • Strangely, in the penultimate episode his voice echoes in Janice's mind to keep running from the Skin Taker when she exhausts herself.
  Sir Periwinkle: "You have... to go... OUTSIDE!!!"
• Knight of Cerebus: The Skin-Taker. Initially just an example of Vile Villain, Saccharine Show, towards the end of the show's run he appeared more often, and the more often he appeared the darker the plot got.
• Large Ham: The Skin-Taker and the Laughingstock.
• Laughably Evil: Horace Horrible could be pretty damn funny. The time he threw a trash bag at Percy comes to mind.
• Leitmotif: The melody which is played every time the Laughingstock goes inside; it's mostly known as the "Muddy Boots Song" because it was also the melody of said song.
• Local Hangout: "The Candle Snuffer" attracts clientele a bit too unsavory to be classed as a Good-Guy Bar, although it is frequented by the Banana King and Percy, and it seems many of its customers don't do much actual pirating anyway.
  Banana King: "The Candle Snuffer. Best place to go for bad food, bad drinks and rumours that probably aren't true."
• Lovable Coward: Pirate Percy. Despite his Hidden Depths and burst of courage in the pilot in defying the Skin Taker, he always had to be coaxed by the Laughingstock into the hideout of the Monster of the Week in order to pilfer its treasure.
• Medium Blending: The occasional animated sequences, which invariably slipped into Deranged Animation and Disney Acid Sequence.
• Memetic Mutation: There's a pretty random forced meme of people claiming they only see static when shown footage of the show, or alternately saying they see the show when shown static. It's kind of weird, actually. The infamous "Screaming Episode" has made a lot of YouTube cameos, as well.
  • That's also a way of trolling others who haven't heard of the show.
• Misplaced Vegetation: Sandy Isle has cacti growing on it.
• Missing Episode: There have been numerous "last episodes" that have surfaced, some more obviously fake than others.
• Ms. Imagination: One theory says that the whole show actually took place in Janice's imagination.
  • Another theory holds that the show took place in Pirate Percy's imagination.
• Moral Event Horizon: It was played for laughs, but the episode where Milo rigged a chest full of bombs and tried to trick Percy into opening it showed just how insane Milo had gotten by wanting to murder his own brother.
• Musical Episode
• Narm Charm: Even though the bad special effects should kill any Willing Suspension of Disbelief, the storytelling was effective enough that nobody really paid attention to how obviously low budget it was until after the fact, preventing the show from being a Narm-fest.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Skin-Taker, a living skeleton wearing a top hat and cloak made from the skin of children.
  • The puppets in general were pretty damn creepy looking.
  • There was this one scene in the second-to-last episode that featured the Skin Taker in a fit of anger curb-stomping Horace face-first into the corpse of a giant dead rat. The scene made no sense and was never mentioned again, but the cruelty of the Skin Taker in that scene was bone-chilling; also, Horace could not stop uttering "master, master" in the saddest voice for a good twenty seconds.
  • And there's Milo's death scene. The Skintaker grabs a sword, the silhouette of Milo's falling head, and then the cut to black is damn chilling. Supposedly if you turned the volume up just after the cut to black there was a faint grinding noise, and the next episode he got new gloves...
  • The Screaming episode is probably THE most notable example, it has no relation to the plot and came right the fuck out of no where.
  • The multiple implications that Janice is insane, and hallucinating the whole show.
• No Ending: Due to the show being canceled there was no real conclusion for any of the story arcs.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Laughingstock sounds like Ed Wynn.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Most fans consider both Horace and Milo this as their plans were more slapstick.
  • Horace had invented a weather machine which he used to make the Laughingstock crash. It turns out that was All Just a Dream though.
• Not-So-Safe Harbor: The eponymous Candle Cove.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: Pirate Percy is made up of various doll parts.
• Onion Tears: Horace Horrible attempts to torture Percy on one occasion by cutting onions in front of him. This results in both of them bawling their eyes out.
• One-Scene Wonder: Typical for a kid's show; besides the main characters and villains (and Milo), most characters show up once and are never seen again.
  • Some viewers may recall Danny, Milo's dragon. He managed to be so over the top in his debut episode he overshadowed Milo. The rest of the episodes with Milo never had Danny make an appearance.
• The Other Darrin: Milo had a British accent, but it changes noticeably in the lines before his death, to the point that it sounds like someone doing more of a mock British accent than the real deal.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: The Banana King states that The Candle Snuffer is "the finest alehouse in Candle Cove." He then adds that "it's also the only alehouse in Candle Cove."
• Our Ghosts Are Different: In one episode, they discover the Banana King's dead brother Henry, who haunts a bowl in a cave near Walter's Warf.
• Pirate Girl: Scary-Ann is a rather by-the-numbers example, being The Lad-ette, and a Fiery Redhead to boot.
• Pirate Parrot: The Banana King has one.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Pirate Percy can barely work up the courage to go after treasure.
  • The Banana king's brother Henry, spent most of his time complaining about his unusual circumstances. Which is fair, since he's a ghost inextricably bound to a small wooden bowl.
  • Subverted with Captain Poppy who, when he was seen, was usually on his way to the high seas to go adventuring.
• Port Town: The eponymous Candle Cove.
• Public Domain: Possibly. So far, no one has stepped forward and claimed ownership. It was on local stations in the US but no syndicated studios produced it. In fact, many of the local stations that supposedly aired it claim to have no recollection of the show. Although a studio who attempted to make a season 3 got C&D'd, so it's ultimately subverted.
• Quicksand Sucks: Invoked in the episode where Percy blunders into a pit of quicksand while searching for buried treasure on Isla Somna. Of course, Janice manages to pull him out just in the nick of time.
  • And then at the end of the episode Horace Horrible blunders into the same pit. He's fine in the next episode, though.
• Reactive Continuous Scream: The infamous encounter with Bigfoot (AKA Man-Bear-Pig). He was enough to scare all the characters into simultaneous hysterical screaming.
• The Rival: Milo was this to Percy for some of the second season.
• Referenced by...: South Park has Al Gore obsessed with the Yeti (which resembles a three-way cross between a human, a bear, and a hog) from this show, which he calls "Man-Bear-Pig."
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Percy, unsurprisingly.
• Screwed by the Network: Most stations aired it late in the afternoon, instead of in their usual children's morning lineup.
• Shout-Out
  • One of the background pirates seen in a few episodes sitting atop a barrel looks nearly identical to one of the pirate animatronics from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
  • In one episode, Horace Horrible calls his cutlass "Jimmy Corkscrew."
  • The Skin Taker's Villain Song, "One Year Closer" (below) sounds like the Oompa Loompa songs from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Now try to imagine them singing that.
  • Sir. Periwinkle apparently quoted The Nameless City as a Badass Boast to the Skin-Taker, after the latter asserts that he died long ago.
  Sir. Periwinkle: "Ah, but that is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
  • Horace Horrible would occasionally exclaim "That's the way to do it!" upon accomplishing a task.
  • When Pirate Percy first told Janice about his relationship with Milo, he showed her a photo which showed Milo pulling a football away just as Percy was about to kick it.
  • After hitting his head on a wok hanging in his ship's galley, Captain Lao shouts "Silly wok!"
• Sibling Rivalry: Milo and Percy have a pretty severe case of this, although it's pretty one-sided since Percy doesn't care about one-upping Milo.
• Special Effects Failure: Damn near everything. You can even see the fishhook they use to make the Laughingstock's mouth flap.
  • If there was an award for this, it would go to the giant octopus seen in 'Eight Legs Under The Sea'. Its head was a soccer ball painted purple with a face drawn on it (the face was admittedly well-drawn), and its tentacles were purple tongue depressors. What really puts it over the top, however, is that every time it changes its expression they use a whole new soccer ball, which are usually painted in completely different colors!
    • Possible Fridge Brilliance, as some species of octopus will change color with mood.
• Stepford Smiler: Probably unintentional, but Janice sometimes seemed this way. In a couple of episodes she started crying for no reason.
• Suckiness Is Painful: Percy's piano playing has this effect on Horace.
• Talk Like a Pirate: Oddly enough, almost no one save a few incidental characters indulged in this.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: In the 2-part dream episode, "Mrs. Skintaker" looks exactly the same as the normal Skintaker, only with big red lips, big eyelashes, and a big pink bow.
• Token Evil Teammate: Milo was a member of the Laughingstock crew until he went out on his own.
• Unusual Euphemism: Horace was fond of saying "Bilgewater!" whenever he got sufficiently annoyed.
• Villain Song: In one episode, the Skin Taker finds out it's Janice's birthday, and he sings an eerie song called "One Year Closer", made creepier by the minimalist, singsongy melody. Seriously, how did they let kids see this stuff? The fact that it sounds like the Oompa-Loompa songs doesn't help at all.
  One year closer
  Another year's past
  Soon you'll find out that your body won't last
  One year closer
  Another year's end
  A few more years with your family and friends
  One year closer
  The time flies by
  Get on your knees and begin to cry
  because
  One year's closer
  You can't hold on
  You will slip away and then you'll be gone
  One year closer
  Its too late
  Everyone in the world will share your fate
  One year closer
  Time grinding away
  I'll sew you in on that day
  So remember
  One year closer
  One year dies
  One year wasted
  No matter how you try
  No matter how you try
  One year closer
  One year closer
  I will hunt you
  And then it'll begin
  You will scream
  And I will grind the skin
  I will grind the skin
  • Milo had one called simply "Wimp", mocking Percy for his perceived unmanliness. Percy's offstage frowning during the number is rather disturbing.
    • There's a reason that look was disturbing. His normal wooden face wasn't capable of making that expression, and a completely different head was needed just for that scene. That's the one and only time it's used as well.
• Villainous Breakdown: Milo gets a bad one at the beginning of the episode "A Drastic Team Up" .
• Vine Swing: Done a few times by various characters over the course of the series. Notably, the one time Percy attempts it, he accompanies his swing with a Tarzan yell that quickly turns into Screams Like a Little Girl.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The Big Bad was a daemonic being known as an "Abyssian" who constructed his coporeal body from bones and flayed skin (taken from children, which he periodically needed to renew), most of the "comic releif" was of the Kafka Komedy variety, and it ends on the Apocalypse. It was reportedly scary enough to torment viewers with nightmares long into adulthood, with some people even suffering psychotic breakdowns because of it.
• Yellow Peril: Minor villain Captain Lao, who is pretty obviously an Expy of Fu Manchu.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Poor Milo. You should have never joined the Skin Taker.
  • To clarify: during his last two episodes, Milo became fed up with losing to Percy, and decided to join the Skin Taker, replacing Horace's role. He assumes that the two are in an equal partnership. He's wrong. Very wrong.

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