Phil: That settles it! We're the goddamn Mob Squad.
Cooper: And we're gonna kill that motherfucker!
Mob Squad is a web toon by Hank And Jed set in the world of Minecraft.
A new monster has appeared in the forest. It kills animals, builds bizarre structures, and leaves junk everywhere it goes. Fed up, a group of friends from a nearby cave band together to form the Mob Squad, and dedicate themselves to killing the monster.
Most of the season one episodes are privated on YouTube. The full series can be watched on Internet Archive instead, season one can be watched here
and season two here.
Two seasons are complete, with a third announced, but with no progress announcements after several years. With the tragic and untimely passing of Tony Schnur, who voiced Phil, it's quite likely the series has ended permanently.
Mob Squad provides examples of:
- Admiring the Abomination: Cameron is deeply obsessed and impressed with the monster's creations. Reaches truly ridiculous heights when he gets sidetracked by the beautiful complexity of the Mob Grinder, which comes very close to killing Cooper.
- Happens again when he breaks down in tears at the sight of the monsters' city. This time though, Marcus joins in, hypnotized by a statue of a pickaxe.
- All Women Are Lustful: The Witch is the only female, and she talks almost non-stop about sex.
- Angrish: When enraged, Cameron can only speak a mess of profanity.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Cameron is obsessed with blocks.
- Berserk Button: Like any Enderman, Cameron goes ballistic when stared at.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: When the Mob Squad notice the monster's bed smells like sheep, they assume he's a "sheep-fucker".
- Beware the Nice Ones: Cameron is one of the nicest guys you'll meet if a little block obsessed. He also able to teleport to anywhere he wants, is the only one of the group that can pick up blocks, and will totally kill you if you look at him to long.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the season 2 finale, just when the rest of the squad is about to be killed by a group of players, Cooper returns from the Nether with a horde of Ghasts.
- Calling Your Attacks: Marcus has a habit of saying the name of whatever tool he's presently using.
- Character Development: Most prominent with Marcus, who develops an interest in crafting. He also starts getting sarcastic in season 2.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Marcus the Zombie. He can't remember instructions, loves messing around with weird stuff and gets distracted really easily.
- Cameron also qualifies. He can't stop messing around with blocks, thinks he is friends with the monster who tried to kill his other friends, forgets that other people can't teleport, and gets very angry when you look in his eyes.
- Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: Phil. He spends the entire series looking out for Marcus, and making sure he doesn't get in trouble.
- Lyle helps out too, spending time with Marcus when Phil isn't around and generally being the only other member of the Squad with his head screwed on straight.
- Collector of the Strange: Marcus, to the minds of the rest of the Mob Squad, when he announces his intention to keep the "poop" (actually a nugget of coal) he'd just dug up.
- Creator Thumbprint: It's another Hank And Jed series with their trademark realistic stuttering, interrupting, talking over each other dialogue.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Ghasts decimate the player town in the season 2 finale.
- Deadpan Snarker: Phil and Cooper in general, but everyone exhibits at least some of this to Cameron.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Cameron incidentally mentions that he beat one of the monsters to death with his bare hands. It takes a bit for the rest of the Mob Squad to finish freaking out over what that implies.
- The Ditz: Markus.
- Eternal Recurrence: This isn't the first time the monster has appeared. Nor is it the last.
- Failed a Spot Check: The monster walks right past TNT without noticing it.
- Fantastic Racism: Joe reacts with shock, then condescension, that the squad lets Lyle speak freely, treating the spider as if he were a talking show dog.
- Friend to All Living Things: The mobs live in peace with the animals of the world. They're horrified when the monster kills animals. Marcus adores ocelots. Cooper tries to adopt a baby cow that the monster orphaned, though he's clueless at it.
- Gilligan Cut: Phil and Lyle coax Cooper into a minecart by assuring him that it's a perfectly safe mode of travel, not fast at all. Cut to Cooper screaming in terror as they go rocketing into the depths.
- The Heart: Lyle, through and through. He's the most diplomatic member of the squad, smoothing over arguments and trying to resolve disagreements constructively.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Cooper freaks out at the sight of anything not naturally occurring, quickly devolving into shrieking and screaming about "evil" and "devil magic". Starting in season 2, he adds yelling about wanting things to go back to normal to his panicking repertoire.
- Hive Mind: Nigel.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: The central premise of the show.
- Insufferable Genius: Nigel is extremely knowledgeable, yet has a personality that could be charitably described as "acidic".
- Irony: Cooper scoffs at the idea that the world is full of caves and mines.
- Kick the Dog: The Monster gets a lot of these. Killing a sheep the first time he is seen, killing Kirby the spider, mating two cows and then killing them, ect.
- The Leader: Phil. Whenever the group starts bickering, he is always the one to take charge and straighten things out.
- Medium Blending: The characters are flash animated on top of backgrounds composed of in-game footage. The fact that the monster is likewise rendered in-game helps highlight just how different he is from the Mobs.
- Noob: The monster doesn't seem to be particularly adept at playing Minecraft.
- Only Sane Man: Between the Mob Squad, Phil is by far the most clear headed and reasonable character.
- Perpetual Frowner: Nigel's default expression is a scowl.
- Rage Breaking Point: Phil outright SNAPS in Episode 4 when the Monster goes into their cave and starts placing items down and breaking blocks inside it, marking the group's first attack on the Monster.Phil: No. No, this is our home. He's coming into our home, putting SHIT into our home! That's not right! No, no I'm not gonna calm down! This is bullshit! I'm gonna put a goddamn arrow between his eyes! No, you can't stop me, THIS SHIT ENDS TODAY!
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted. This is probably the most misunderstand able, jumbled dialogue you will find in a fictional work.
- Reverse Psychology: Cameron is quite susceptible to it, easily getting duped into giving up his new hat twice with the exact same trick.
- Smoking Hot Sex: The Witch, after being with Lyle.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The show is actually surprisingly idealistic (especially for something that airs on Machinima Happy Hour), being about a group of close knit friends that live together, who do their absolute best to keep themselves and each other alive from an outside evil.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The Mob Squad bicker amongst themselves constantly, but are still tight friends. Contrast this with Nigel, who simply insults everyone he talks to, and whose death goes almost totally unnoticed by the team.
