Down in the sea so blue, Hector wants to welcome you. With all his friends we'll learn a thing or two, 'bout technological breakthroughs, Hector's world, Hector's world. We'll have some fun and learn a thing or two, in Hector's world.
—Opening theme
Hector's World
is an online website for children (and their families and school staff) created in New Zealand, about cybersafety and "digital citizenship" (which is essentially online etiquette).
It is named because the main character is a dolphin named Hector (sometimes called "Hector Protector", although it's unknown if that's his actual last name or just a nickname).
The website itself is split into two sections: Information Island (also known as Info Island), which looks like an island and, when clicked, leads to information about the site, and Silicon Deep, which is Hector's hometown and has several places:
- The Signpost: An anchor belonging to the crashed ship that bought technology to Silicon Deep that has two signs: one pointing East and one pointing West. It is where you go if you click on the Silicon Deep Kids button.
- The Games Arcade: Where games can be played.
- The Music Club: Where songs can be downloaded.
- The Tech Cave: A place that contains info on how computers work, also where Ranjeet and Aretha hang out.
- The Library: Where stories can be printed out.
- The Town Hall: Where the mayor works, where you can have tutorials of the site, and where the character profiles are.
- The Police Station: Where Constable Solosolave works, and also contains the character profiles for the Info Gang.
- The Digital Citizens' Advice Kiosk: Supposedly where the players get advice, although it isn't working at the moment.
- The Workshop: A place to download activities to print out.
- SDTV: Where kids can win prizes.
- The Phone Booth: A telephone booth with a "temporarily out of order" sign.
- The Episode Theatre: Where animated episodes can be watched.
From the site, people can download a "safety button", which is a picture of Hector swimming and when clicked, he will cover the screen if a child sees something disturbing online.
Hector's World provides examples of
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: While most of the sea creatures go naked, Tortoisnapper Quince wears a hat and belt, the Info Gang wear clown accessories, and Constable Solosolave wears a police hat.
- Ambiguous Situation: Is "Protector" Hector's real surname or a nickname?
- Artistic License – Biology: Well, besides the whole "animals can talk" thing, Tortoisnapper Quince blushes twice, even though tortoises are reptiles.
- Awesome Underwater World: While there are some flaws, Silicon Deep is generally a nice place, what with the video game arcade and the friendly creatures.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Sometimes, characters will speak directly to the viewer, especially when there's a lesson to be learned.
- Butt-Monkey: According to Ming, Ranjeet and Sprat are "magnets for trouble".
- Carnivore Confusion: The predators' diets are never brought up, although an angler fish is seen in a montage of "dangerous individuals" that you don't want finding your information.
- Civilized Animal: Despite being able to speak and use modern technology (the latter being explained by a ship carrying technology having crashed and the intelligent animals discovering it) the characters are pretty much normal sea creatures.
- Comically Wordy Contract: The evil Info Gang have the protagonists sign a contract that looks like a long scroll of indecipherable words.
- The Confidant: Senorita Ortega's job is giving advice. Kui also gives pretty good advice.
- Con Man: The Info Gang trick kids into giving out their personal information, which they then sell. One of them even lies that there are computers he wants to sell that don't exist.
- Cool Old Lady: Kui is described as "ancient" and she's very wise and gives good advice.
- Crying Critters: Ming the clam cries when she gets cyberbullied.
- Cyberbullying: The animation "You're Not Alone": Ming the clam gets sent a photo of herself with glasses and a moustache drawn on, which sets off an Embarrassment Plot and the word "cyberbullying" is said many times, but it turns out that the two fish who sent it, Bella and Brooke, only meant it as a joke, and not to bully her.
- Deadpan Snarker: Ming scoffs a lot and she's the most snide of the group.
- Descriptiveville:
- Information Island is an island with information on it.
- Silicon Deep's name counts. Silicon is an element that many computer parts are made of, and "deep" comes from "deep sea".
- Edutainment Show: The theme tune outright says, "We'll have some fun and learn a thing or two."
- Electric Jellyfish: When Tama stings things, there's a "zap" sound effect and what looks like lightning.
- Ending Theme: The episodes end with an instrumental version of the theme.
- Expository Theme Tune: The theme explains that the show is set underwater and teaches about technology.
- Face Palm: In the episode "The Info Gang", the squid puts his tentacle to his face when he's frustrated.
- Fake Interactivity: The episodes "Oops" and "You're Not Alone" have characters asking the audience to suggest things.
- Good Parents: Ming's mother and Sprat's father seem to be good at raising their kids.
- Implied Love Interest: Tortoisenapper Quince blushes upon seeing Senorita Ortega and leaves flowers for her, implying that he has a crush on her.
- In-Series Nickname: The main cast all have usernames like "Clamgirl" (Ming), "Supercrab" (Ranjeet), etc.
- Insistent Terminology: When Tama says that Ranjeet is about to go chatting, Ming says, "Instant messaging, actually!".
- Internet Safety Aesop: The website teaches both how to be safe online and how to be polite online. It teaches about various topics such as cyberbullying, viruses, and sharing personal info.
- Interspecies Romance: Tortoisenapper Quince (a tortoise or possibly turtle) is implied to have a crush on Senorita Ortega (a fish).
- Introductory Opening Credits: The majority of the animated episodes have the main characters (Hector, Ranjeet, Sprat, Tama, Ming, and Constable Solosolave) introduced with their names onscreen.
- Literal-Minded:
- When Constable Solosolave says that he thinks something is afoot, Tama thinks that means he wants to inspect Ranjeet's foot.
- Sprat thinks that computer viruses make computers "sick".
- Tama thinks that a "strong" password has big muscles.
- Little Miss Snarker: Ming is rather snarky and she's quite young, although she could be anywhere between seven and fifteen.
- A Lizard Named "Liz":
- Tortoisnapper Quince has "tortoise" in his name.
- Sprat is a fish, and his name means "little fish".
- The mayor is a sea snail named Shellton Shellsby.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Kui. She's described as a "spirit" and Hector gets dizzy and seems to be pulled into a different place when he speaks to her, but she could just be a normal whale.
- Mistakes Are Not the End of the World: In one animation, Hector signs Tama up for a video game using his personal details, but the arcade turns out to be run by the Info Gang, who plan to steal people's personal details and sell them to dangerous characters like sharks. Hector worries that he's bad for accidentally endangering Tama, but Kui tells him that although he knows to do better in the future, he's not bad because he would never endanger Tama on purpose.
- Monster Clown: The Info Gang are bad guys and they wear clown outfits.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Hector signs Tama up for a game, but it turns out that the game is being run by the Info Gang (a gang of con men who steal information to sell to shady people), he feels bad for accidentally endangering Tama.
- Non-Mammalian Hair: Not usually, but in one episode, Ming gets cyberbullied by people drawing a mustache (as well as glasses) onto a picture of her. The squid member of the Info Gang also has a mustache.
- Oh, My Gods!: Ming says, "For Neptune's sake" in the first episode of the "personal information" arc.
- One of the Boys: Most of Ming's friends are boys.
- Poor Communication Kills: In "You're Not Alone", Ming gets sent a photo of herself with a moustache and glasses drawn on. When she hears Hector laugh (actually because of Tama accidentally zapping Ranjeet), she thinks he's laughing at her. Rather than ask for clarification, she goes off to sulk.
- Sapient Eat Sapient: Implied. The main characters are sapient and the Info Gang mention selling their information to sharks and fishermen.
- Say My Name: The series features a few instances of characters calling one another, and the characters have a habit of saying someone's name if that person looks unhappy.
- Tentacled Terror: There is a squid is an evil Con Man and leader of a criminal gang. Octopi are also seen as antagonists when characters imagine shady people.
- The Smurfette Principle: Downplayed. There are five girls, but there are a lot more boys and there's only one main girl.
- Theme Tune: There's an opening theme to each of the episodes.
- Title Theme Tune: The phrase "Hector's World" appears several times in the theme.
- Too Smart for Strangers: A series of episodes talk about not giving out your personal information to strangers.
- Unnamed Parent: The parents are just "my mom", "my dad", etc.
- Vague Age: We know that Tama's the youngest and that Constable Solosolave, the mayor, the parents, and Kui (who's described as "ancient") are adults, but everything else is unclear. The main characters are just learning about technology but able to wander around without direct adult supervision, yet they go to school and live with their (much larger) parents. Ming is also rather snarky and most kids aren't snarky until they're about eight, and Ranjeet and Aretha are very technologically-competent for children.
- Water Is Air: Downplayed. Hector and Kui can breathe underwater and electricity works underwater, but other than that it just acts like regular water.
- Water Is Blue: The water is seen as blue. Justified as this is the ocean, which really does look blue.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's created in New Zealand, and many characters have NZ accents, but some of their accents sound more Australian and in one instance, Tortoisenapper Quince calls his mother "mom" so the actual location of Silicon Deep is unknown. And if it is around New Zealand, where abouts?
- Would Hurt a Child: Discussed when they talk about how sharks and fishermen could access the internet and eat the young sea creatures.
