Series / Todd and the Book of Pure Evil

Destiny sucks.

Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is a Canadian horror/comedy series created by Craig David Wallace, Charles Picco and Anthony Leo. The series is based on a short film of the same name, and is perhaps best described as Kevin Smith meets the Evil Dead. Appropriately, one of the series' regulars is Jason Mewes. It premiered in September 2010 on Space Channel.

Todd is a metalhead and underachiever attending Crowley High who discovers an Artifact of Doom known as the Book of Pure Evil. Soon, he is pulled into a struggle against the forces of evil, which include the creatures spawned by the book, the local guidance counselor and a secret cabal of Satanists. Todd is joined by his friends: a fellow stoner and amputee named Curtis; a science geek named Hannah who has a massive crush on Todd; and Jenny, the object of Todd's desire.

The series is not one for the squeamish, as it combines copious amounts of Gorn, Toilet Humor and Black Comedy. It's also a loving tribute to heavy metal music, and numerous references to various metal bands can be found throughout the series.

The second season was the last, judging by the season finale's climax in which Todd wishes for the Book to go somewhere it will never be found. The series concluded with a crowdfunded movie released in December 2017, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil: The End of the End.

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Tropes featured include:

• Accidental Innuendo: Many In-Universe examples between Todd and Atticus.
  Todd: There is no Gang anymore. It's just me and you. And I'm gonna find the Book before you do, and then I'm gonna kick your ass!
  Atticus: Believe me, my ass can take a lot of pounding.
• Action Girl: Jenny, by Season 2. Notably, she even beat Todd to death in Loser Generated Content before a magical Reset Button was hit.
• Adults Are Useless: That, or they're utterly evil. Jimmy the janitor is something of an exception. He's often helping the main characters, despite usually not actually going on their adventures with them. Lampshaded by Curtis in one episode where he comments that the staff at Crowley High don't seem to care about what goes on in the school.
• Adults Dressed as Children: Atticus's attempt to blend in at a Wild Teen Party in "B.Y.O.B.O.P.E." might be the most halfhearted example ever. The only changes to his usual outfit are jeans with rolled-up cuffs instead of a more formal pair of pants, a leather football jacket over his usual sweater, dress shirt and tie, and insistence that his name is "Scooter". On one hand, nobody buys it, but on the other, they don't kick him out, either.
• All There In The Credits: In case anyone was wondering, the three metal dudes (left to right, based on how they usually stand in front of the car in the parking lot) are named Brody, Eddie and Rob.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Averted. Both Todd or Curtis were nervous about the prospect of having sex with their respective girlfriends.
• Almighty Janitor: Jimmy, who frequently dispenses helpful advice to the main character.
• Ambiguously Bi: Although he is interested in girls, Curtis seems to have a crush on his best friend, Todd.
  Todd: What the shit? My finger smells like ass!
  Curtis: *takes a long sniff of it with a big smile* …That's not the smell of your ass, dude...
  • All but confirmed by this exchange in 'The Toddyssey'. To be clear of the situation, Todd is walking away to ride on the back of the runner who will take him back to the past:
  Curtis: I always loved you!
  Todd: As a friend?
  Curtis: That too.
  • Also, Jimmy, who reads "manhole", a blatant male nude magazine.
  • Todd himself even gets a little bit of this due to the few hints that he might reciprocate Atticus' feelings to a certain extent. Nowhere near as much as the other guys though.
• Ambiguously Gay: "Ambiguous" may be too generous of a word to describe Atticus and his... suggestive relationship with Todd.
• Ambiguous Syntax:
  Jenny: This is what you get for being a Satanist kidnapper.
  Atticus: I don't kidnap Satanists!
• Anti Anti Christ: Todd ironically only starts to become a better person after he learns that he's fated to destroy all life.
• Apocalypse Cult: The retirement-home satanists who are trying to capture the Book of Pure Evil want to make Todd into the Pure Evil One who will destroy the world.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The tagline for the season 2 DVD is, "Monsters. Mayhem. High School."
• Artifact of Doom: The Book of Pure Evil. Well, what did you expect?
• Artificial Limbs: Hannah builds one for Curtis at the end of Season 1.
• Ascended Meme: As part of the fundraiser for the animated movie, one of the prizes was being able to finally take Atticus up on his offer about going out for pizzas with Troy.
• Asian Airhead: Clarence Lao in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers". He's Asian, and the dumbest kid in the school. At least until he reads the Book ...
• Ask a Stupid Question...: In what could count as an Out-of-Character Moment for Jenny:
  Jenny: Hey guys, you know that cheerleader? The thin, beautiful one?
  Todd: As opposed to all the fat, ugly cheerleaders?
• Asshole Victim: At least some of the people who use the Book of Pure Evil probably deserve what's coming to them.
  • In the second episode, the science teacher who belittles Hannah and is sleeping with two of his students.
  • The basketball coach who threatened to disown his own son for his shoddy performance.
  • The old Satanists, including Atticus' father.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Todd's ADHD is actually rather realistic, but some of the adults hit by the smoke in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers" seem to turn into this rather than becoming a ditz or Too Dumb to Live.
  Atticus: (To himself) Focus, focus! You have the Book! Ultimate power is in your hands! All you have to... (Somebody walks past the camera) Hey, is that poutine? (Drops the book and follows)
• Bad Future: "The Toddyssey" covers one where Hannah has become evil and rules the school alongside Atticus.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Hannah tries to seduce Todd this way, but it doesn't actually work.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The series basically combines this with a Monster of the Week premise.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Initially Hannah serves as the Betty to Jenny's Veronica, but Hannah eventually moves on to Curtis and Jenny becomes Todd's sole love interest. Well, apart from Atticus.
  • In season two, Jenny becomes the Betty to Nikki Kane's Veronica.
• Big Bad: The cult leader Atticus Murphy Sr. in season one. The Three Metal Dudes in season two.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Atticus attempts to serve as the Big Bad throughout season 2, but proves to be so hopelessly incompetent that he spends more time helping the gang then he does fighting them.
• Big "NO!":
  • Uttered by Hannah after Todd becomes an idiot in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers."
  • And Todd, when he thinks Jenny was eaten by a beast. She walks into the hall in the middle of the scream.
• Black Comedy: Although the excessive Gorn and sadism make it hard to tell if it really takes its issues seriously at all.
• Black Comedy Rape: Wolf rape, to be specific.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: And beheads one of the zombies in "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best." It gets luckier when you consider Hannah was actually trying to just throw the hatchet to Todd.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Jenny's father is revealed to be a total douchebag obsessed with the Book of Pure Evil. He later uses the book to become a skin-stealing shapeshifter.
  • Todd also becomes one to Curtis at the end of season 2, after he accidentally kills Hannah.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In the second season finale, Hannah died in Curtis' arms when Todd expelled the Book of Pure Evil from the school. In essence, saving the world ended Todd's friendship with Curtis.
• Bury Your Gays: Inverted in the fourth episode, since the wish made by the Victim of the Week, who wanted the straight guys in school to understand what he was going through, ended up switching the sexualities of every guy in Crowley High... making him the only straight male when an angry mob of students killed him.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Atticus, Atticus, ATTICUS! He's guaranteed to get screwed over at least once in every single scene he's in.
  • To a lesser extent, Curtis, who regularly finds his life destroyed by his "best friend" Todd.
• Canis Latinicus: The magic words that appear in the book. Lampshaded in the season 2 finale where (on the page but not read aloud) the inaction ends with "Makum Upus".
• Catapult Nightmare: Todd experiences this in the first season finale, when he imagines slaughtering his friends.
• Cat Girl: Hannah gets turned into one during Fisting Fantasy. Well, except for the giant cock.
• Catchphrase:
  Atticus: ...Which is what I am.
  Stoner #2: Loser! (With Todd and later, Atticus as the typical Phrase Catcher)
• Cerebus Syndrome: Parodied throughout season 2, particularly in the Bad Future episode, while still playing it straight.
• Character Development:
  • Todd grows from a useless stoner who only wants the book to get laid, to a legitimate hero who wants to save the world from himself from the end of season one throughout season two.
  • Atticus slowly goes from being The Mole to legitimately liking the gang across season one, to the point where he betrays the cult led by his father during the finally. Sadly, After the gang learns that he was The Mole, he gets kicked out of the group and all the previously mentioned character development vanishes. Subverted, in that season two shows that Atticus desperately wants to rejoin the gang but hides it behind his Card-Carrying Villain persona.
• Chubby Chaser: Jimmy the janitor. "When I want to grease my piece, I go obese."
• Cluster F-Bomb: "Fuck you, you cock-sucker whore-porking piece of shit fucker!"
• Covert Pervert: Hannah gets dreamy-eyed when watching Todd and Curtis kiss in Gay Day. Later, when Curtis expresses hesitation over having sex before Hannah is ready, she quickly answers "I'm ready" and pulls him on top of her.
• Crapsack World: Teens Are Monsters, Adults Are Useless and there's an Artifact of Doom on the loose that doesn't seem to be stoppable.
• Creepy Monotone: Curtis and Hannah develop this while hypnotized by one episode's villain. Played for Laughs, however.
• Cross Player: Curtis's avatar in an MMO called Fisting Fantasy (which only appears in the episode of the same name) is a busty witch. He ends up merging with her when the gang gets transported into the game (or a world similar to it) by the Book.
• Curse Cut Short: Only for Country Matters on one occasion, made obvious because the character in question spoke in rhyme.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Just before the guitar duel in the series premiere, this exchange occurs. And because he's possessed by the Book, Todd actually makes it happen:
  Stuart: I'm going to slay you, Todd.
  Todd: I'm going to make you bleed out of your ass.
• Darker and Edgier: Season 2 makes fun of this trope with its frequent declarations of being it, but still plays it straight none the less.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Jenny, from time to time. Or Todd, when Jenny isn't snarking.
  • Hanna got in on it during the opening of "How to Make a Homonculus", after her science teacher called a pair of Alpha Bitches "his two best students":
  Hanna: I wasn't aware you gave extra credit for handjobs.
• Demonic Possession: Has occurred twice in the series thus far, both in the series premiere (where Todd is possessed by the Book of Pure Evil) and in an episode where a basketball player is taken over by the ghost of a former alum.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Hannah in "Monster Fat," after she and a blimped-up Jenny question the Formerly Fat girl that used the Book.
  Hannah: This could be a huge problem. (Beat) I mean... a huge problem, not a huge problem. (Beat) Like, it could be like a massive problem.
  Jenny: You done?
  Hannah: Like a massive problem, not a massive person.
  (Jenny starts walking away)
  Hannah: Which you're not! A problem, I mean, or a person— oh, I- uh, of course you're a person!
• Disability Immunity: Todd's ADHD renders him immune to one villain's mind-control powers.
• Disability Superpower: While not a superpower per se, Curtis puts his prosthetic arm to good use.
• Distressed Damsel: Jenny frequently played this role in Season 1, but develops into an Action Girl in Season 2.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The chemistry teacher gets impaled through his groin by a baking soda volcano. It, uh, erupts.
  • When a student is "impregnated" by the Book of Pure Evil, she moans rather suggestively before falling off her swing.
  • A girl named Gina (who insists on pronouncing it like the end of "vagina") is turned into Mother Nature- a giant, sentient tree- and tries to drag Hannah into her.
  Gina: Come back to Mother, Hannah! COME BACK INSIDE MOTHER!!
• Double Entendre: Practically every other word out of Atticus' mouth.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Sort of. While Todd wasn't really willing to have sex with Nikki, and she does somewhat force it on him, but she's also portrayed as evil. In addition to this, the show plays so many other things for laughs, that's its hard to say if this is really a double standard, or just the show's usual Black Comedy. It's safe to probably go with the latter.
• Downer Ending: The season 2 finale has Todd banish the book to "somewhere faraway", but kills Hannah and loses Curtis' friendship in the process. The Metal Dudes are also still around and will no doubt find the book sooner or later which has Atticus sealed inside of it. All in all, Todd got kind of screwed.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Wanda Winterbanks is this misplaced in a cheerleader's body.
• Dumb Is Good: Averted in one episode, where the villain of the week is borderline retarded and intent on making everyone dumber than him.
• Easy Evangelism: It proves laughably easy for Atticus to convert the students of Crowley High to Satanism. Notably, the illustrated pamphlet his minions distribute to their fellow students resembles the infamous Jack Chick tracts. Comes back to bite him in the season 2 finale, when the same students prove just as easy to convert from Satanism to paganism: all Curtis has to do is to point out that pagans get to party and screw around every bit as much, but without all that lame "evil" baggage.
• Empty Piles of Clothing: The first clue to what happened in "Simply the Beast."
• Erotic Eating: Played for Laughs in a Nightmare Sequence Todd has in "Monster Fat." He's freaked out by an insanely-fattened Jenny coming onto him, especially when she seems to be moving in for a blowjob... only to chomp down on an unpeeled banana standing up on top of his crotch. It's easy to blink and miss, since he wakes up right then and there.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: One student tries to use the book to become the smartest kid in school. He ends up with the ability to emit smoke that turns people into morons and ends up infecting the entire school (except Hannah). Todd and Curtis initially assume that everyone is high.
• Everyone Is Bi: So far, the entire cast's sexuality has shown to vary from Ambiguously Bi, to anything that moves.
• Evil Mentor: The three metal dudes who perpetually hang around outside the school. At first they appear to be helping Todd, but their actual goal is to bring about the apocalypse.
• Evil Old Folks:
  • Virtually all of the residents of the Crowley Heights retirement home.
  • In the second season premiere, the Book of Pure Evil turns the retirement home residents into cannibal zombies.
• Exposition Fairy: "Fisting Fantasy" gives the gang one: a Muppet-like critter named "Mischievio," who quickly degrades into The Load and is actually the guy who used the Book to create the video game world.
• Face–Heel Turn: Atticus turned to the darkside after dispatching his father in the end of Season 1 and begins earnestly working against the gang
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Hannah and Curtis invoke this in one episode to avoid detection by Atticus, but Hannah feels a real spark from it and stops trying to attract Todd.
• False Utopia: A weird example, as the town was founded to serve as a Utopia for satanists. However, as only the elderly are still satanists, this concept eventually collapsed; and it went from being a secluded village to a regular town.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Book, being The Book, sometimes does this to its victims. For example, Jimmy used it to lock the metal dudes out of the school, so it locked him in. Granted, he's more or less made the best of it, but still...
• Flying Books: The titular Book of Pure Evil at the end of almost every episode.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Todd is Sanguine, Curtis is Phlegmatic, Jenny is Choleric and Hannah is Melancholic.
• Fusion Dance: The three metal dudes can fuse and create an apparently new person complete with her own personality ("Never know what she saw in you"). It was also heavily implied from the "dog hair" that Todd found in the Metal Dudes' car in the final episode that the three Metal Dudes also had the ability to fuse together into a wolf-like being and not just any wolf either, but THE very wolf who raped Atticus Murphy Jr. and kickstarted his Start of Darkness.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The gang is two guys and two girls. Atticus slips in and out of the group and Jimmy occasionally also pitches in, leaning it slightly towards favoring males.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Todd slaps Curtis and says this to him, word for word, to stop him from freaking out when there's no weed in the entire town.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • One episode revolved around Jenny hooking up with an aggressive lesbian classmate.
  • Todd also imagines Jenny getting felt up by her hot (and undead) friend.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Todd has these when he becomes the Pure Evil One.
• Gonna Need More X: In "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers," when Hannah vacuums up the smoke Jenny inhaled only for her to be reinfected.
  Hannah: I'm gonna need a bigger vacuum.
• Gorn: Very common. The teens who use the Book often meet incredibly grisly ends.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Jenny, once Todd hooks up with Nikki Kane.
• Harmful to Minors: Todd once watched a home-made sex tape starring Curtis' grossly obese parents. The experience scarred him for life, giving him a crippling fear of fat people. Curtis, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood:
  • Curtis seems to have one of these. He mentions in one episode that his parents are constantly trying to get rid of him. In another episode, when his friend Hannah questions how he learned to pick locks, he mentions that his parents lock him out of the house a lot. His parents also didn't bother to give him a middle name.
  • Anytime Atticus thinks about his childhood, we flash back to an memory of him cowering from a wolf.
• Hulking Out: A cheerleader who just wanted to be stronger to keep her position on the team.
• Hypocrite: Reggie, in his introduction, gave a speech to Atticus about how he took an oath to protect the privacy of others and try not to turn the entire school into a surveillance police state. But then in "Loser Generated Content," Reggie has absolutely no problem using the book to spy on Todd, tear apart his life, and watch in glee as Todd's life is destroyed and he dies at the hands of the girl he loved.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • When arguing against Jenny's father joining the team, Curtis comments that they don't want a cripple in the club.
  • Another in the Monster Fat episode, where the magically slimmed down Emily mocks Jenny for her Temporary Bulk Change. She is shown minutes later eating a massive plate of fatty food.
  • In the monster schlong episode, after he's been humiliated by Todd and photos of his privates are seen by the whole school, Bailey gives a rousing and heartwarming speech about how everybody's different and that he would like for everyone to show him the respect that he's never showed them.
  • Wanda calling Hannah a "skank".
• I Call Her "Vera": Todd names his sword "Sanddragon".
• Ignored Aesop: At the end of "Simply the Beast":
  Hannah: I think we learned a valuable lesson about teamwork: Not listening—
  Todd: That my leadership clinched our victory! Thank you, Hannah!
  Hannah: That's not what I was going to say...
  Jenny: But I was the one who talked them into killing each other.
  Todd: Yeah, because I told you to do it.
  Jenny: But it was Jimmy's idea.
  Todd: Yeah, but I implemented it.
  Jenny: But I was undercover.
  Todd: Yeah, but we were also undercover...
  (Beat)
  Curtis: We killed that pep rally!
  All four: YEAH! (Group high-five)
• I Just Want to Have Friends: A lonely girl seeking friendship uses the Book of Pure Evil and gains the ability to instantly befriend anyone through touch.
• Imagine Spot: Used frequently.
• Implied Love Interest: Because the heavy metal musical Atticus wrote for Todd and Jenny was based on his own life, from having a Satanist father all the way down to the wolf rape, it's heavily implied that the girl Jenny played may very well have been based on a real life girl that Atticus had genuinely fallen in love with in the past but their relationship was tragically cut short by Atticus Murphy Senior who eventually put Atticus through the Trauma Conga Line. While it was possible that this mystery girl from Atticus Murphy's past could have been explored more in-depth had the show continued, the series' cancellation pretty much assured that this particular plot point with regards to Atticus Murphy's past would never see the light of day.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: An incredibly dumb student who used the book to turn everyone into idiots asks Hannah if being smart has made her any happier.
• Jackass Genie: The Book itself. Just as an example, a bullied gay kid wished that the straight guys in Crowley High understood what he was going through, and the book flipped the sexualities of every boy in the school... including the one that made the wish, who was left as a straight male minority.
  • At the end of "B.Y.O.B.O.P.E.," the Book makes an exception and doesn't even try to warp a blind kid's wish to be able to see... because the first thing he could see, he'd want to unsee. It even aided him by adding a Braille transcription of the Latin spell he needed to cast.
• Jerkass: The main character, Todd. All the cast demonstrate shades of this from time to time, however.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Todd becomes one of these, verging one Nice Guy across season two. He's still a dick, but his heart's in the right place at least.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Len Bergman, the Chess Club president/Prophet of the Pure Evil One in the second to last episode of season one is possibly the first villain played completely seriously, and is extremely creepy to top it all off. He's also used as an avatar for the book, which makes him considerably more important than the other Monster Of The Weeks.
  • Once the Three Metal Dudes get serious, they become this.
  • The Pure Evil One is also never used for humor when he's onscreen.
• Know When To Foldem: A very subtle example. The town was founded by Satanists to practice their beliefs in peace and await the arrival of the pure evil one. However, considering that only the older generation (retirement age) are still satanists, the vast majority of the cultists eventually realized: he wasn't coming, gave up waiting, and abandoned the lifestyle.
• Large Ham: While Atticus is pretty much always hammy, once Todd goes into the future in 'The Toddyssey', the whole show becomes a World of Ham. Special mention goes to Melanie Leishman (Hannah) in that episode, as she plays up every Villainess stereotype you can think of, and clearly relishes each moment of it.
• Language of Magic: The Book of Pure Evil provides a Latin translation (although some don't seem to be grammatically correct) of what the person using it wants, and actives the wish once this is read out loud.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At the end of season 1, Atticus turns his head towards the camera and says, "Gee, I wonder what happens next?"
• Lighter and Softer: Than the original 2003 short, although it gets Darker and Edgier by the second season.
• Limited Wardrobe: The three metal dudes that hang out in the parking lot don't even swap out their band shirts. Possibly justified because they're not normal people, but it should probably make them stand out more than it does.
• Love Triangle: Hannah has a crush on Todd, who has a crush on Jenny, who has no interest in Hannah or Todd. Later this gets more complex.
• Made of Plasticine: As part of the generally gory tone of the series.
• Mauve Shirt: Wanda Winterbanks, the head cheerleader, and Ms. Dempsey, the gym teacher. Notably, they're the only two other than Atticus and the gang that are still alive in the Bad Future in "The Toddyssey," and it wasn't until the series finale that Wanda got her hands on the Book... only for Atticus to tase her and snatch it up.
• Metafictional Device: Weaponized by the two-person AV Club in "Loser Generated Content." This included warping a victim around the school using editing and later slicing him clean in half with a split-screen.
• Minion with an F in Evil:
  • Atticus is an utter failure to the Hooded Leader and botches every single effort he makes to get his hands on the book.
  • The minions are considerably less competent under Atticus, though it's unclear whether or not they ever were to begin with since all they ever did was sit around in the dark, and besides that, Atticus doesn't make a very good leader himself.
• Musical Episode:
  • The Phantom of Crowley High.
  • 2 Girls 1 Tongue is a sequel of sorts to the above and is also a musical predictably.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Curtis has to say this to Todd in "Fisting Fantasy," when the gang gets transported into an MMO and Curtis becomes his female avatar.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The show makes no effort to hide that the book is an Artifact of Doom. Snarkily lampshaded by Jenny in "Monster Fat."
• Neck Snap: Occurs when a horny clone is rejected by her creator.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Curtis. Severed tongue. Make-out session. Ewwwww.
• Ontological Inertia: Played with to the point that it seems to depend on the nature of the wish. The general rule seems to be that if the wish creates a separate physical monster ("Monster Fat," "Rock 'N' Roll Zombies Know Best," "Big Bad Baby"), killing the wisher isn't enough. But if the wish is something more abstract or mental ("The Student Body," "Gay Day," "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers"), it will usually revert the moment the wisher dies. Though sometimes there are exceptions like "Terrible Twin Turf Tussle"...
• All Periods Are PMS: In "Simply the Beast," where Todd speculates that an empty cheerleader uniform appeared with no traces of blood because the girl it belonged to wished to stop her period from occurring and had all her blood drained.
• Nobody Poops: Indiscreetly averted as of "See You Later, Masturbator." When Atticus's back is turned, the kid that made himself invisible using the Book craps on his desk, with the Gang noticeably grossed out as they see it happen.
• Noodle Incident: "The Incident" from "The Toddyssey." All we know for sure is it's not the threesome Curtis, Hannah, and Jenny had.
  • Atticus has a few that the show plays with. Each leads into an Imagine Spot, but it's always the same memory of him as a teenager, being intimidated by a snarling wolf in a forest. Doesn't matter what he said about it before the Imagine Spot.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Reggie from "Loser Generated Content" may have been a petty loser whom nobody took seriously but with the book, he orchestrated a plot that pretty much destroyed Todd's life and led to his death at Jenny's hands.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Type 1 and Type 2 are both used in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers," with some faint disembodied voices as the only sounds.
• Occam's Razor: Todd and Curtis first think a cheerleader was eaten alive by something they name "the Beast," leaving just her cheerleading outfit. When Jenny points out there was no blood left at the scene, Todd decides the cheerleader wished for no more periods and suffered total blood loss... and then got eaten by this creature called "the Beast," leaving just her cheerleading outfit. That implies two separate wishes, when the cheerleader actually just wished to be stronger to stay on the team and ended up becoming "the Beast" itself.
• Off with His Head!: In "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best," although with a hatchet instead of a sword.
  • And in the Season 1 finale, Atticus does this to his own father.
• Offscreen Teleportation: When Atticus is pursued by a man-sized monster baby spawned by the Book. Although the Big Bad Baby is only capable of shambling slowly, it somehow manages to get in front of Atticus as he sprints down a school corridor.
• Omni Disciplinary Scientist: Well, multidisciplinary science geek, anyway.
• Only Sane Man: Jenny and Hannah trade off with this position, though Hannah has it slightly more frequently. Atticus tends to play this role when he's not interacting with the gang.
  • When Jenny and Hannah aren't present, Todd will serve as this.
  • No longer the case for Atticus by the end of season two, where Sanity Slippage has made him possibly the craziest person on the show.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Hannah creates one in the second episode as a Science Fair project. It kills the science teacher.
• Out of Focus: In the first season, any kid who got the book and unleashed a monster would get a fair amount of focus and character development, with all their motives, insecurities, and sympathetic traits explored in-depth, whether they were insecure bullies, gay kids who got bullied, fat girls who wanted to be skinny and more accepted, or lower IQ students who only wanted to become smarter. In the second season, however, all the Crowley High students who use the book get significantly less focus and many are treated as generic Monster of the Week characters with much less of the in-depth traits that made the book victims of the first season more sympathetic.
• Overly Long Name: A screenname, to be exact: "Triple-X-Assassin-23-X-X-X," as it's pronounced.
• People Jars: In the last minute of the second season finale, a new Hannah walks out of one in the basement of the retirement home, after the original Hannah had been killed.
• Placebo Effect: One of the metal dudes in front of the school ends up smoking oregano when the whole town is out of weed.
  Todd: Why am I the loser if you're the one smoking oregano?
• Plant Person: A Granola Girl uses the book to turn the school into a prehistoric jungle and is turned into a living tree.
• Police Are Useless: Mentioned in the second season premiere.
  • Given the town was founded, and run, by Satanists it's likely they were ether paid off, or explicitly told not to interfere.
• The Power of Love: At least part of the reason Todd rejects the power of the Book.
• Protagonist-Centred Morality: Most of the main characters have used the book; they're among the only ones who haven't been karmically punished for this with a horrible death.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "STOP! MAKING! BABEHS!"
• Really 700 Years Old: The three metal dudes.
• Retcon: The story changes dramatically over the course of the series, partially because the concept of the "pure evil one" hadn't been written into it yet. Todd is the first shown wielder of the book, but it doesn't trigger the apocalypse as the second season predicted it would. Furthermore the subplot with Hannah and her connection to the book, was not present in the first season.
• Refusal of the Call: Todd only agrees to help locate the Book of Pure Evil in order to score with his love interest. In subsequent episodes, he exhibits little interest in actually finding it.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The Exposition Fairy Mischievio in "Fisting Fantasy," which is just a front. He's actually the guy who used the Book in the episode.
• Running Gag: If you don't control German herpes, German herpes will control you.
  • "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers":
  You wanna make a babeh?
  • Metal Dude #2: Stop being such a loser, loser!
  • "Checkmate":
  Hannah: We're so wasted.
  • "Daddy Tissues":
  Curtis: Hey, dude, that's my girlfriend! Not cool!
  • "2 Girls, 1 Tongue," where Charlotte wishes to switch places with Hannah (and everyone else thinks she's always been part of the gang):
  Charlotte: Kill her with no mercy!
  Jenny: Ooh, that's a bit extreme...
  • Atticus's Imagine Spot of himself as a teenager being menaced by a snarling wolf. The first use was when Atticus referred to his first sexual experience, but the changing context later on turns this into a stand-in for any Noodle Incident.
  • Any person with issues will run away crying out: "Nobody understands me!!"
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Atticus, when telling the Satanic Society about the Book's appearance in the series premiere.
  Atticus: I can't believe the Book actually exists. It was totally like... POW! And then I was like... WHOA! And then the Book totally flew away, like... WHRR, WHRR, WHRR! (Motions with arms to show the Book ascending)
• School Is Murder: The book murders anyone who uses and, for some reason, there are plenty of students willing to use it.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Todd and Curtis during "Rock 'n Roll Zombies Know Best."
• Screw Destiny: Todd's new goal at the end of season one is to prevent himself from fulfilling his destiny of destroying humanity.
• Screw Yourself: One student uses the book to produce a clone for this reason. It ends up going badly.
• Self-Made Orphan: Atticus becomes this in the first season finale.
• Senseless Sacrifice: The girl who made the wish in "Monster Fat" (see No Ontological Inertia).
• Shaming the Mob: Attempted during "Gay Day," when the student who used the book to turn every male student gay (except himself) makes a plea for tolerance to his fellow students. They tear him to pieces.
  Curtis: I did NOT see that coming.
  Todd: I did.
  • Attempted again when a bully is mocked for his small penis and asks the crowd to show him the respect that he never showed them. They just keep laughing at him.
• Shirtless Scene: During one movement of the rock opera that is the 10th episode of the second season, Todd rips of his shirt and dances on a picnic table.
• Shout-Out: "Fisting Fantasy," although it seems to share some aspects with MMOs like World of Warcraft as well. But even within the episode, there's a subtler Shout-Out to another game:
  Curtis: Wait a minute. Jenny, you play Boogie Woogie Uprising, don't you?
  Jenny: No comment.
  • And even subtler than that... The game announcer declaring "Purple Curtis needs food badly" during the end credits.
  • Mario Bava, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Dario Argento, and George A. Romero all have students named after them.
• Space Whale Aesop: All of them. Lampshaded in "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best":
  Marcy: Jenny, I'm really sorry about all this.
  Jenny: Hey, you're not the only kid who doesn't get along with their parents. I mean, how could you have known it'd lead to cannibalism and murder?
• Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream appears Once an Episode.
• Straw Feminist: Gina in "Jungle Fever" isn't just a Granola Girl, she's also this. Hannah remarks that she spells "women" as "womyn," just "to keep the men out of it."
• Stuffed into a Locker: Todd does this to Jenny in Episode 1. He wanted to keep the Book's power to win the Battle of the Bands, but didn't want to give into its urges to kill Jenny, so this ended up as a good compromise. Luckily, Curtis ends up finding her and getting her out before Possessed!Todd ends up killing the entire school.
• Swapped Roles: Forced upon Hannah [[Retconjuration by the wish in "2 Girls, 1 Tongue"]]. Charlotte, who first used the Book in "The Phantom of Crowley High," returns and switches places with Hannah. Everyone other than those two have been brainwashed to think it's always been this way, essentially bringing Charlotte closer to Curtis while framing Hannah as the Phantom.
• Take a Third Option: In the series finale. Todd accepts that he is the destined master of the Book of Pure Evil. He then uses his mastery of the Book to order it to go somewhere it will never be found.
• Surrogate Soliloquy: Atticus converses with his dead father's severed head.
• Taking the Bullet: Well, it was a poison dart, and Curtis actually wanted to use his prosthetic arm to block it, but it still counts.
• Taken for Granite: The Monster Penis can turn people to stone by looking at them. (It makes people hard — get it?)
• Teens Are Monsters: They've even killed their own classmates on more than one occasion.
• Temporary Bulk Change: A fat girl wishes herself thin in "Monster Fat," but the mutated fat causes anyone it comes into contact with to balloon up.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Todd's destiny as the Pure Evil One is to bring about the apocalypse.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In the Battle of the Bands in the first episode, when Atticus calls the first act "Pussy Fresh."
  Audience Member: "Posse Fresh," bitch!
  (Audience snickers)
  Atticus: Posse Fresh. Whatever... bitch.
• Toilet Humor: So much of this. One episode literally features an invisible pervert shitting on Atticus' desk.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Book of Pure Evil mostly functions as this, but can change its shape. It's become a guitar, a baby blanket, a basketball and shoelaces.
• Too Dumb to Live: Most of the students at Crowley High. Seriously, with all the deaths that occur in the school, does no one ever question the wisdom of casting a spell from a flesh-covered tome that mysteriously appears amidst your belongings?
  • The book only ever appears to those who are at their lowest point. It can sense those who are desperate enough to use it.
    • Except for B.Y.O.B.O.P.E, where it is used by 3 students in succession for petty things. But to be fair, everyone was drunk and the party was noted by Jenny to be a perfect place for the Book to thrive.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Crowley Heights was founded by Satanists to escape persecution for their beliefs (and carry out the Dark Lord's bidding).
• Twincest: The Girl on Girl Is Hot episode focused on a pair of incestuous identical twin sisters. When one sister chases after Jenny, the other sister ends up using the Book of Pure Evil to produce a clone as a replacement.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Jenny towards Todd whenever he rescues her, although justified in that he's a Jerkass
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Todd and Jenny.
• The Vamp: Nikki Kane, who sleeps with Todd so he may fulfill his destiny as the Pure Evil One.
• Voice of the Legion / Evil Sounds Deep: Todd when he's possessed in the series premiere.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Projectile vomiting during "Big Bad Baby."
• Wangst: Parodied In-Universe. Occasionally, whenever someone has an emotional issue (such as when Atticus sees Troy die or Elliot sees Atticus trapped inside the Book), they will run out of the room and cry, "Nobody understands me!"
• Weak-Willed: Curtis, when Atticus attempts to hypnotize him.
• Welcome to Corneria: When Crowley High gets trapped inside a video game, most of the characters outside the gang— including Jimmy, who becomes a blacksmith NPC— fall victim to this.
  Todd: Hey, Jimmy!
  Jimmy: Hey, gang! What can I get you from the Secret Chamber of Stuff?
  Hannah: Doesn't he recognize us?
  Todd: Hey, Jimmy...
  Jimmy: Hey, gang! What can I get you from the Secret Chamber of Stuff?
  • He also ends up repeating "Titty-Wizard just spent all your gold, dude" several times when Todd tries to make another purchase at the shop.
• Wham Episode: Arguably, the first season finale, in which the three stoners reveal Todd's true destiny as the Pure Evil One, Jenny finds her father, Hannah and Curtis finally kiss and Atticus recovers the Book of Pure Evil and then usurps his father as the leader of the Satanists.
  • The second season finale is even, uh, whammier. Atticus becomes trapped inside the book during his showdown with Todd, who in turn rejects the Book of Pure Evil. As a result, Hannah dies because of her secret connection to the book.
• Wham Line: "Gee … I wonder what happens next?"
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Jenny's boyfriend in the first episode never makes another appearance again after Todd beats him in a guitar shredding contest and makes him bleed out of his ass. It's never really mentioned what happened to him either, whether he died or simply left the school.
  • The Big Bad Baby is the only spawn of the Book not destroyed by the end of its episode, and is last seen being handed over into the care of the Satanists. After that, it never appears or is mentioned again until ''The End of The End,'' where it's living in the sewers beneath the lab beneath the retirement home, and aids the Gang in fighting the new Pure Evil One.
• Why Did It Have To Be Fat People?: Todd, scarred as a kid by a sex tape made by Curtis's obese parents.
• Wild Teen Party: In "B.Y.O.B.O.P.E." at a blind kid's house... and even the mom gets in on the fun without him knowing. Loud music, binge drinking, teens boning each other in the guest room and the Book of Pure Evil breaking records for how many wishes it grants and how many lives it ruins/ends.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Referenced in the episode "Fisting Fantasy."
  "Purple Curtis needs food badly!"
• Would Hit a Girl: Atticus. Right in the face. And a pregnant one at that.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Sanddragon gets broken in half by Atticus after his transformation into a goat-man.
  • The Toddyssey features Sanddragon breaking off in Hannah's head and Atticus' chest, making this a minor running gag.
• Your Head A-Splode: What happens to a student who tries to use mind control on Todd, because of his ADHD.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Usually whoever uses the Book of Pure Evil ends up with a dose of karma near the end of the episode. In "The Phantom of Crowley High," Charlotte wishes for an angelic voice to score the lead in the musical and then gets her tongue sliced off in only 4½ minutes. She goes on to spend the rest of the episode trying to eliminate the competition, and even fails to die by the end of the episode.
  • She finally gets her comeuppance in Season 2 during the second Musical Episode "2 Girls 1 Tongue."

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