"She my precious Plum..."
Precious Plum is a series of videos by CollegeHumor. It is an exaggerated parody of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and focuses on the escapades of the Millers- Mama (Josh Ruben) and Plum (Elaine Carroll). Through staggering stupidity, the two often get themselves into life-threatening situations, which are Played for Laughs. While the series started as a direct parody, it started to have more fun with its own characters and took the stories in their own direction.
The series continues with a web series See Plum Run, in which twelve-year-old Plum tries to run for Student Body President after the Millers move to an upper-class suburban neighborhood and Plum gets into prep school.
Tropes applying to the series include:
- Abusive Parents: Plum and Mama have a clearly dysfunctional relationship, and Mama does some terrible things to her, even seeing little concern in her daughter getting lost and giving her a note for her finder to keep her. All the same, Mama isn't portrayed as malicious to Plum in any way and is mostly dangerous due to her stupidity.
- Analogy Backfire: Mama's encouragement to Plum in the gator pit.Mama: Do it like one of those karate fail videos...except the opposite!'''
- Bat Out of Hell: Plum's pet bat named Dog, which is a wild bat Mama caught in the chimney that flies around and bites Plum.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Mama needs to fight a gator to win money.*Mama dramatically removes jacket*Mama (to Plum): Plum, put this on and get in there with that gator.
- Big Eater: Mama. In "A Blood Drive", she donates blood multiple times, to the point of near-death, because she gets a free cookie each time she donates.
- It seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as in See Plum Run, Plum wears a hamburger-shaped hair clip and a hot dog-shaped lapel pin, and her campaign for student council president hinges on her opposition to Buckingham Academy's "no eating candy in school" policy.
- Catchphrase: Mama has "fuck a bag" — said in extremely bad, difficult or interesting situations. It has variations like "fuck a big, big bag" or "fuck a fancy bag".
- Chekhov's Gift: The grenade Boof gives to Plum in "A Gator Fight". She later uses it when she has to fight a gator, which causes the gator to explode and Plum to win the fight.
- Comedic Sociopathy: An offscreen example with the film crew. They never intervene and don't seem to care what happens to Plum and Mama, even as they nearly end up dying multiple times. This is lampshaded in two episodes, with the man who finds Plum hitchhiking asking why the crew is okay with this and the man at the car yard asking the crew why nobody told him there was a little girl in the car about to be crushed.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef:
- At one point, Mama serves Plum a drink made of Monster energy drink, frappucino, and Dayquil. It's so nasty that Plum throws it up after drinking it.
- In See Plum Run, she serves a drink called "Mama's Moonshine" to party guests, which is made from tequila, nail polish, taco seasoning, contact lens solution, anti-anxiety medication, a Reese's McFlurry, orange soda, expired milk, and the secret ingredient- herself (i.e. she bathes in the liquid before she bottles it up and serves it).
- Crazy-Prepared: Mama thinks she's this in regards to tornadoes, but her provisions are a mountain of band-aids, a shelf of milk she's been collecting for months (which is thus all expired), and a cannon.
- Deep South: Plum and Mama are from this area, as indicated by their accents, and they fit a lot of stereotypes of the region. See Plum Run reveals they are from Mississippi specifically.
- Demonic Possession: When Plum gets red spots all over her, Mama thinks she "swallowed a gremlin" and got possessed, and needs a "holy man" to get the demon out of her. It was only chicken pox, as a drive-thru worker easily identifies.
- Disproportionate Retribution: A pawn shop employee didn't "put Mama in his eat pile," so she foisted a six-figure medical bill she couldn't pay onto him.
Mama: He didn't eat my pussy, so he can suck my dick!
- DIY Dentistry: In "Some Vampire Teeth",
Mama ties a string around Plum's loose tooth and attaches it to her car. She intends to drive forward to pull it out, but accidentally reverses into Plum.Mama: Her tooth did come out... And so'd a whole bunch of her other tooths too so mission too accomplished I guess. - Dumbass Has a Point: Mama, a colossal idiot, successfully gets Plum enrolled in an exclusive wealthy school by pointing out that refusing Plum would undermine their proud claims that they can educate anybody.
- Edible Theme Naming: According to "See Plum Run", Mama's name is Blueberry- both being names of fruits.
- Election Day Episode: The general premise of See Plum Run, in which Plum runs for student body president.
- Failed a Spot Check: In one episode, Plum falls out of the car, and Mama doesn't notice until 4 hours later.
- Fan Disservice: Mama serves this purpose a couple of times. There's an uncomfortable scene where she gets it on with a pawn shop worker where neither of them are very attractive, and the censor blurs of her nude body in "A Tormado" don't leave enough to the imagination.
- Fat Idiot: Mama. She is very, very fat, and her stupidity has gotten her and her daughter into several bad situations.
- George Lucas Altered Version: For a time, the ending of "A Biker Shop" (which features Plum getting overtanned so she accidentally resembles a black person and enters a pageant for black girls when the one she'd been trying for ends) was edited so Plum's skin was red due to the Blackface connotations of the gag. Later on, the episode was removed altogether.
- Grail in the Garbage: In one episode, Mama finds a "good sword" in the dump.
- Grossout Show: The show is deliberately crass and vulgar, and thus gross-out humor is a big part of the comedy.
- Hitchhiker's Leg: In "Hitchhiking", Plum lifts up her skirt to expose her whole lower front to attract a ride. Apparently, she learned this from her mother.
- Just Here for the Free Snacks: In one episode, Mama goes through a blood drive multiple times just so she can get more of the free cookies they hand out. This ends up nearly killing her and she has to receive her own blood in order to recover.
- The Key Is Behind the Lock: Mama and Plum get locked out of their car once Plum's pet bat causes them to hurriedly get out. Plum then gets stuck upside-down in the sunroof while trying to grab the keys.
- Malaproper: Mama, befitting her evident lack of education and common sense.
- "I believe in holis-hom-homo-holocau-omelettes. Natural medicines."
- "I'm a vuluptuopotamus woman."
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: One episode revolves around a gator fight, which is concluded via grenade.
- No Name Given: Mama's name is never stated in the original series and neither is Mama and Plum's last name, but See Plum Run mentions that her name is Blueberry, and that she and Plum have the last name Miller.
- Noodle Incident:
- All of the clips that take place in the intros depict events that aren't shown in the episodes.
- A tow worker implies that in his experience, towed cars have been taken in with people in them, getting crushed in a compactor while still occupied, in response to seeing Plum in the same predicament.
- N-Word Privileges: Parodied in "A Biker Shop". Mama mistakes "Nigeria" and "Brown" (as in the university) for slurs, claiming that they're "their word".
- Pedo Hunt: All of the pageants are explicitly pedophilic in nature, to reflect the uncomfortable overtones of real-world pageants. Not only are the locations incredibly sketchy and not likely to be organized or "official" in many cases, but the names are rather disturbing, such as Little Miss Tiny Tits, Little Miss Skittle Nips, Little Miss Missing Pubes, Miss Tallahassee Tiny Hussy, Ohio Ho, KILF, or Little Miss Six to Eight Means Twenty to Life.
- Penny Among Diamonds: In See Plum Run, Plum and Mama end up moving into a wealthy neighborhood, and Plum is enrolled in a fancy prep school.
- Punk in the Trunk: In "Tow Truck", when Mama and Plum pull over on the side of the road to sleep in their car, Plum sleeps in the trunk, which Mama actually closes once she begins to fall asleep. When the car is towed to the junkyard to be converted into scrap metal (as it was thought to be abandoned because no one was in the drivers' seat), Plum wakes up inside the trunk and starts singing, which causes the tow truck driver to realize people are in the car and stop the crushing machine.
- Running Gag: Funny names of real places where the sketchy beauty contests take place: Dildo in Canada, Butts in Georgia, Dicktown in New Jersey, Chunky in Mississippi or Hell in Michigan.
- Skewed Priorities: On the way to a pageant, Plum gets lost after falling out of the car on the road. In response, Mama decides to dress up and compete in Plum's stead, rather than try to find her daughter and make sure she's safe. Plum ultimately makes it to the pageant and wins a trophy, while Mama is rewarded for her approach by not placing and getting a threat from Plum when she eyes the prize.
- Shout-Out:
- There's a dual reference to Star Wars when Mama finds the "good sword". At first, she says she feels like "Darf Vader" and pretends it's a lightsaber, but, more specifically, it leads to the parent cutting off their child's hand.
- In "A Bat Named Dog", when Mama and Plum get locked out of their car, Mama tells Plum she's going to "lower [her] in through the moon top, Mission Unpossible-style".
- In "A Car House", Plum and Mama are shown watching Blade on multiple occasions. They seem to be big fans of the series, as in See Plum Run, Mama and Plum, upon seeing their housemate (a college student whom Mama mistakes for a ghost) has thrown a party, dress up like Blade (complete with swords) in order to fight this "infestation".
- Sick Episode: "A Holy Man", in which Plum gets chicken pox. Mama, being incredibly stupid, assumes that she's possessed.
- Sunroof Shenanigans: Plum and Mama frequently use the sunroof while driving. In one episode, they get locked out of the car and Plum has to climb in through the roof. She gets stuck and has to perform for her pagentry while inside the car.
- Tastes Like Purple: When Mama eats some yogurt at the end of "A Blood Drive", she says "Tastes like a sit-up!"
- The Teaser: Subverted. While clips do appear in the intro of each episode, the context is never shown.
- A Threesome Is Hot: In "A Blood Drive", Mama says that she likes her cookies like she likes her men: double chocolate chip (i.e. two black guys).
- Too Dumb to Live: Mama is a total idiot who gets herself and her daughter in serious situations, and it's a wonder they are still alive. For example, Mama cuts off Plum's hand with a "good sword", they go for a swim in a lake filled with toxic waste, Mama hits a hospital wall in a car, sends Plum to fight a gator, tries to pull out Plum's loose tooth with a car, and so on.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mama and Plum are a cross-generational example. Mama is most often seen in casual non-feminine clothing without makeup and enjoys action movies, gator fights, and a good sword, while Plum is a more cheery, feminine girl who likes dolls and enjoys the pageants she competes in as well as the fashion associated with them.
- Unusual Dysphemism: displayed by Mama, and occasionally, Plum, using profane exclamations in place of more likely milder ones.
- Woman Scorned: In "A Good Sword", Mama foists a massive medical bill onto a pawn shop employee who didn't "put Mama in his eat pile"
- You Monster!: Mama gets Plum disqualified from a competition because she's "a monster" once Plum's upside-down routine through a car sunroof leads to some dialogue that has Mama get Mistaken for Pedophile.
