Go! Go! Cory Carson is an animated children's television show that came out on January 4, 2020 on Netflix. It's created by Alex Woo and Stanley Moore.
In a world of anthropomorphic vehicles, Cory Carson, a friendly little orange car, learns to make his way through the childhood struggles of starting school, making friends, and learning responsibility.
Tropes present in Go Go Cory Carson:
- Adaptation Expansion: Being an adaptation of a toy - Go Go Smart Wheels - the characters never had much of a personality to begin with, but in this case, they've got fully-developed personalities from the get-go. We also see a bit more of Bumperton Hills, the setting.
- Aesop Amnesia: In several episodes, Cory tries too hard to earn the respect of the older, cooler kids in town, only to learn that he is just fine the way he is. But he goes right back to trying to impress them in other episodes.
- Audible Gleam: In "Oil Leak", Carley's braces loudly gleam as she smiles during her Gaussian Girl moment.
- Book Ends: The Christmas Episode opens with Cory writing his letter to Santa, asking for a Honking Henry. Towards the end, Cory re-writes his letter asking Santa to reunite Benjamin Bells with his family.
- Both Sides Have a Point: In "Itchy Sweater", both Cory and Chrissy have a point in their respective arguments concerning the sweater their grandmother tries to gift them. When Chrissy wants to voice she doesn't like it for its itchiness, Cory points out that it's rude to refuse a gift your loved one worked so hard on, and it's good etiquette to accept it. But later, Chrissy also proves her point that it's okay to voice you don't like a gift that's unsuitable or makes you uncomfortable. After all, they are your loved ones and they don't want you to be itchy and miserable.
- "Speed Limits" explores the polar opposites of safety. Freddie is so obsessed with keeping everybody safe that nobody can have fun, everyone constantly get tickets for minor transgressions, and a few hide in fear of getting more tickets. When Cory takes over, he makes a recess without rules, but instead ends up making anarchy and chaos. Towards the end, when Freddie's made hall monitor again, he takes a middle ground where kids can have fun, if safely.
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Broken Aesop: Lampshaded. In "Stuck on the Tracks", Cory tells everyone that two cars once told him "If you want to help someone, you have to listen." His parents are eager to voice they told him that. Until Cory points out they were the worst offenders. - Brutal Honesty: This is reconstructed as the moral of "Itchy Sweater". Cory keeps dancing around the fact that he doesn't like the Itchy Sweater his grandmother made him. But when it shrinks and is passed down to Chrissy, she casually states "No thanks, too itchy."
- Dramatically Missing the Point: In "Baby Unicar Fever", Cory comes down with a fever on the day the "Baby Unicar Movie" is supposed to premiere. His parents advise he needs to rest in order for the fever to go down. Unfortunately, he misunderstands and believes lowering his fever is the only way to be well enough to go see the movie, instead of realizing he needs to prioritize some much-needed bed rest. He and Chrissy work hard to lower his fever, which works in the short run, but he ends up getting delirious during the movie premiere.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Reconstructed. In "Ice Skating", Cory comes to the conclusion that the only way for Freddy to overcome his fear of slipping on the ice is to do just that, slip on the ice. Because the first thing he and Chrissy learned about ice-skating is how to fall.
- Fantastic Aesop: There are episodes which, despite the setting, still have realistic consequences:
- "Sleepover" has the moral of "exciting as a sleepover is, not everything feels like home" but has the titular car sleeping on a building site where bulldozers live.
- "Speed Limits" has Cory being class safety monitor, removing all rules, then learning the moral they're there for a reason; in this case, the consequences are damaged tires and oil leaks, and in reality, it's equivalent to a human student removing all rules and there being blood and gore.
- Foreshadowing: "Bumper Bowling" has one of the big kids suggest to his older brother they put the bumpers up, and later mess up Cory's roll by accident. This sets up how, deep down, he still wants to use the bumpers.
- Two in the Christmas Episode. First, when Cory tries to clue in Chrissy that Santa Cars is in their home, she sees their Papa chatting with Santa-John-Doe. She mistakenly believes "Papa?" As it turns out, she was right on the money: Benjamin Bell isn't Santa Cars, but he is a family man. Second, Cory spends most of the episode trying to help jog the amnesiac Santa's memory by showing him Santa related things. The fact that none of it ever jogs his memory even once is meant to be a clue that this isn't the real Santa Cars like Cory mistakenly believes.
- Forgot the Call: In the Christmas Episode, Cory suspects that the amnesiac stranger they took in is Santa Cars, but his joy quickly evaporates when he realizes the amnesia means he's forgotten it's his job to deliver presents for Christmas. The plot revolves around helping jog his new friend's memory with Santa-related things in time for Christmas. Averted, as it turns out the stranger isn't Santa Cars, but rather a lost father named Benjamin Bell.
- Freudian Excuse: In "Harry Hood-ini", Frannie implies that the reason she doesn't believe in magic is because she was swindled out of her favorite toy by one.
- Geographic Flexibility: Depending on what the plot demands, the town of Bumperton Hills can be small-town village, Mega City or a hamlet, and it seems to fluctuate from episode to episode.
- Gone Horribly Right: In "Cops and Robbers", Chrissy takes the titular game a little too seriously; she takes a ball from a local store (to Cory's horror).
- My Beloved Smother: Played with. In "Pet Plant", Freddie becomes a variation of this to his plant Lily, spending every moment moment with her. It backfires on him spectacularly when his smothering Lily leads to his beloved plant starting to wilt from too much attention. Ultimately, the moral of the episode is Freddie learning to ease up on this trope.
- In the same episode, the trope is invoked by Mrs. Carson when she pretends to love Cory 'too much'. This is meant to demonstrate to Freddie that while loving someone or something isn't bad, smothering them with too much love can be just as counter-productive as not loving them enough.
- Nice Guy: Although Cory is generally nice, it's a double subversion; there are moments when he's had a Jerkass Realization, although even then, that's downplayed too.
- No Antagonist: There isn't a true Big Bad, the main conflict comes from misunderstanding a situation, lack of social skills or a minor disagreement.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: In "Cory Loses a Tooth", Cory - believing his tooth falling out means he's falling apart - calls Freddy, and tells his best friend he loves him.
- Potty Emergency: Cory has one while being babysat by Carley, but doesn’t tell her until it’s too late as he wants to act grown up. He ends up having an “oil spill”, the automobile equivalent of a Potty Failure. Carley helps him feel better by confessing to suffering an accidental spill while performing in a school play.
- Precocious Crush: "Oil Leak" reveals that Cory has a crush on his neighbor/babysitter, Carley, to the point where he tries to act "grown up" around her.
- Pun: "You know I love hard rock."
- Quarter Hour Short: Every episode is just a single 7-8 minute short skit.
- Restored My Faith in Humanity: "Harry Hood-ini" starts with Frannie believing all magicians are fakes and swindlers who steal one's prized toys. But after Hood-ini pulls of an exceptional magic trick that brings back her toy in the process, Frannie's faith in magic is restored.
- Same Language Dub: The British English dub and American English dub exist; outside the U.S., no other dubs are offered in any other nation it is shown.
- Sentient Vehicle: All vehicles are sentient, there are no non-sentient vehicles in-universe.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "Ice Skating" has Freddy pull this when he sees the perils of ice skating, especially when he's never even done it before.
- Show Within a Show: Cory and Chrissy's favorite TV show is "Baby Unicar".
- Slice of Life: Every episode focuses on the daily life of Cory Carson as he goes about his daily business.
- Swapped Roles: Happens in "Switching Lanes". One evening, Cory and Chrissy make a deal with their parents to switch roles for one day: they get to be the grown-ups while their parents get to be the kids. Each side enjoys their new role at first, but they each learn both roles have their respective hardships. For Cory and Chrissy, having the power to do whatever you want is greatly negated by responsibilities, such as raising kids and maintaining the house. For Mama and Papa, being a kid means following rules, being restricted from doing as you please, and needing the stamina to keep playing with your fellow kids.
- Was It Really Worth It?: "Opposite Day" begins with Cory trying to cheat his way into the winner's crown by convincing Chrissy (who fairly won the game) that it's the titular day, and therefore he won. Unfortunately, that also entails that Chrissy's the older sibling and Cory's the "baby". All the while, Opposite Day culminates into a craze throughout Bumperton Hills, which turns the place upside-down. And it doesn't help when Cory's Opposite Day status as the baby sibling is televised on the News. Tired of being labeled the "baby", Cory finally confesses to Chrissy he made up Opposite Day just to be a winner, which wasn't worth the trouble after all.
- What You Are in the Dark: The titular "Mary Mailtruck" goes through great lengths to save a stray letter that somebody could be waiting for. ...Only to learn it's junk mail. Nonetheless, she teaches Cory that while she doesn't always mail what others want, it's still the mail carrier's job to do so.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Bumperton Hills' home state is never mentioned explicitly on screen.
