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N
- Never Trust a Trailer: Pre-release trailers suggest that Milo sees riding the bus as a Mundane Luxury. When the scene actually showed on TV, it's actually him saying that it's boring compared to his death-defying daily life.
- Newhart Phonecall: The recurring trucker sometimes engages in these:Trucker: "...Well I am doing something about it; I'm calling to say you guys didn't strap it on right!"
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "Backward to School Night", Milo commands Diogee to drop the de-aging device, with causes it to fall on the ground and break into pieces.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Victor Verliezer from "A Clockwork Origin" appears to be based on Steve Jobs.
- No Endor Holocaust: Despite the amount of damage the Murphys cause wherever they go,note the city/school/location visited is never bankrupted by repair bills and nobody is ever killed (and rarely hurt). The place is usually fully repaired by the next time we see it.
- Noodle Incident:
- Starting in "The Undergrounders", Milo and Melissa make several references to a "llama incident" throughout the first season. In this case, the trope is eventually subverted and played straight in the episode appropriately titled "The Llama Incident". While the episode is spent on them telling Zack exactly what happened, the Framing Device of the story resulted from its own unexplained event that the characters later dub "The Woodpecker Incident".
- "Sunny Side Up" begins with an elaborate partial story about an orangutan wanting Milo's pistachios. Doubles as a Brick Joke as Zack asks where the nearest zoo is. This gets answered near the end of the episode.
- Melissa records their misadventures on her phone. She references several incidents we've yet to see in "The Note". Including a kangaroo, a tangerine fight at Mardi Gras, and an asteroid.
- Due to a series of events that we don't get to hear about, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is a copy painted by Milo's cousin.
- The existence of time travel creates plenty of these. Earth apparently used to have two moons until Cavendish and Dakota blew one up in the past, leading to the timeline we have today. They also accidentally created and then prevented at least two other alternate timelines in which the Point of Divergence was never revealed (one where Milo didn't exist, but balloons resembling him did, and squirrels could talk and another with multiple identical Milos when they tried to prevent the former). Also, Dakota became a time traveler so he could prevent the "Mississippi Purchase."Cavendish: You—you mean the Louisiana Purchase?Dakota: You're welcome.
- Norse by Norsewest: Tobias Trollhammer, the star of the "Krillhunter" franchise, of Swedish origin, with a possible Finnish heritage, due to his mistaking Milo for a menninkainen, a mythical being of Finnish folklore similar to leprechauns, goblins, or gnomes.
- Not What It Looks Like: Melissa's room is filled with stalker-esque pictures of Milo, but she insists she doesn't have a crush on him. She started researching the Murphy Effect to see if she could find a way to cure it, and by the time she realized he didn't want to be cured, she was already invested in understanding (and potentially monetizing) it. Milo himself figures this out immediately upon seeing her room.
O
- Once an Episode: Milo's dog, Diogee, pops up unexpectedly and is told to go home. Milo often justifies this by explaining "He's not supposed to be ______"
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dr. Zone says "button" twice in different ways: one with the glottalized T ("Time Ape, press the button.") and one without ("I've got to hit that button."), indicating that his accent is inconsistent.
- Outdated Outfit: Cavendish and Dakota, nicely summarized in "Time Out".Cavendish: It's all the past. We decided to go with the '70s.
Savannah: Yes, but one of you is from the 1970's and one from the 1870's. - Overly Long Gag: The scraping noises of the chart with the Periodic Table of Elements that Dakota and Cavendish use for cover in "The Substitute".
- In "Party of Peril", the crossing guard ("SAFETY CZAR!") being accosted by an affronted duck. It drags on for a long time, with Milo just watching.
- In "Smooth Opera-tor", the performer's attempt to begin the song constantly being interrupted by pieces of the set collapsing behind him, to the point where he just stops and waits it out as the set completely falls apart and various other calamities occur backstage, only finally starting the song when several seconds pass without anything breaking.
- Dakota and Cavendish's attempt to make sense of a Stable Time Loop involving a peach in "Missing Milo."
- In "Mid-Afternoon Snack Club", the gang has detention by a substitute teacher he leaves and slams a metal door closed. You hear about a dozen different locks being locked. Melissa asks if that door has always been there. All the locks are then unlocked, the door is opened, the sub says he had it installed during lunch. Then the door slams and all the locks are locked. Milo turns to the camera and tells the animators they are welcome.
P
- The Perfectionist: Amanda. With her and Milo being Ship Teased, this forms a conflict in her personality.
- The Pollyanna: Despite the chaos that unfolds around him, Milo has so far been shown smiling through it and looking on the bright side of it all. In fact, he pretty much prefers getting past dangerous scrapes just to get to school while the other kids just ride a bus. It's much more fun.
- [Popular Saying], But...: Dr. Zone, a time traveler, when he is flying off with the Time Bee-hicle:Dr. Zone: Time waits for no man, except for me!
- Poster Patchup: In "Disaster of my Dreams", Elliot, in his zeal to become the school's safety inspector, follows Milo around all day, even spying on him from the air vents. After falling out of the vents and leaving a hole in the science class ceiling, Elliot covers up the hole with a nearby poster.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: Referenced in "Worked Day."
R
- Ramming Always Works: Subverted in "Fungus Among Us". While the protagonists are navigating through a sewer system, Dakota tries to ram open a grate with their boat, but completely fails.
- Raptor Attack: Jurassic Park-style dromaeosaurids appear in "A Christmas Peril".
- Rascally Raccoon: Recurring Raccoon. He has no role in the show other than to appear out of nowhere and make things difficult for the characters.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dakota and Cavendish are given a scathing one by their fellow time agents in "Time Out".
- Refuge in Audacity: In "Rooting for the Enemy", Milo helps his football team, The Jefferson County Middle School Geckos, win by cheering for the opposing team, The Middletown Tigers, which causes his bad luck to rub off on THEM!!! Milo goes the extra mile by dressing himself completely with Middletown Tigers merchandise. He even goes as far as to sing about it to the opposing team and spectators and they happily go along with it, and he even got their cheerleaders to dance to his song.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self:
- Doofenshmirtz of all people. In the future he's known as Prof. Time and he's known as the genius who invented time travel.
- This is how the Orton Mahlson of 1965 feels upon finding out that his show is destined to become an enormously successful franchise. He and Doofenshmirtz get a duet about the pressure of living up to their future selves in "The Phineas and Ferb Effect."
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: The standard rule that anyone who personally changed the timeline can remember the original timeline seems to be in place, but Elliot also demonstrates this in "World Without Milo" due to the fact that he sleeps with his lead-lined stop sign, which shielded his brain from "time waves."
- Running Gag:
- A herd of llamas, referenced in several Noodle Incidents, and which literally run through the Title Sequence.
- The reason that the school is underfunded (the school board bought a yacht).
- Recurring Raccoon. This animal just shows up, steals something from the characters, and leaves. He's even got a jingle
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