Maryoku Yummy is a TV show aimed towards preschoolers. The show takes place in Nozomu, a fantastical world where all children's wishes go to be granted, populated by the colorful 'Yummies.' Created by American Greetings, the series is based on a rather obscure series of greeting cards dating back to 2001.
Gentle and understanding Maryoku is a wishsitter, who watches over wishes with her friends Fij Fij and Ooka. In the US, it aired on Discovery Family's former preschool block HubBub.
Tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: Seen in spades. Hadagi always forgets to be kinder to others, Fij Fij forgets to be less panicky, Shika forgets to be less uptight, and Ooka forgets to be less lazy.
- Animesque: Just by its name you would think it's Japanese, but it was actually made in America and based on the Edo period of art, most characters have Japanese names, and the characters make anime eyes sometimes, such as Fudan in "Doggone Dog" and Maryoku in "Cinderyoku."
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Yuzu and Nonki, both invertors. The former is shorter and does most of the talking, while the latter is taller and doesn't say a lot.
- By "No", I Mean "Yes": Baburu did this while commenting on Hadagi's latest scheme in "Ha Ha Hadagi."
- Catchphrase: Everyone says "Wishy Wish, Wishy Woo, another wish is coming true!" frequently.
- Cinderella Plot: In "Cinderoku", the eponymous Cinderoku (played by Maryoku) is excited to go to Prince Fij Fij's ball. Ooka the Fairy Yummother shows up and tries to teach her to be "special" by making her act fabulous (read: not like herself at all). Bob the chauffeur falls asleep at the wheel and causes the car to start coasting, so Cinderoku makes the Fairy Yummother make her dress disappear so that she can stop the car. Upon finding out that Fij Fij didn't even need Cinderoku to be fabulous, the Fairy Yummother apologizes for not letting Cinderoku be herself.
- Coincidental Accidental Disguise: Maryoku in "The Yorglesclubber." Ooka makes up a story about the Yorglesclubber that ends up scaring not only the wishes, but herself and Fij Fij. Maryoku goes out to prove that there's no such thing, but along the way she gets covered in mud and various plants, so that when she comes back, the others think she's the Yorglesclubber and attempt to trap her.
- Cowardly Sidekick: Fij Fij is Maryoku's sidekick and is quite a wimp.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Played with when Maryoku and Shika are searching for Bob. Shika starts out by systematically checking every spot in Nozomu, but Maryoku suggests starting with the places they'd usually find Bob.Shika: Well, it sounds crazy, but—
Maryoku: Good! Follow me!
Shika: But I said it sounds crazy!
Maryoku: Yet you're still going to give it a chance. That's so nice. - Doomy Dooms of Doom: Fij Fij loves adding "doom" to a lot of his sentences.
- Fake Interactivity: The Wishing Ways segments have Maryoku talking to the viewer on what they want to wish for.
- Feigning Healthiness: In "Flip, Flop, and Float", Maryoku has Mega-mimi-itis, which makes her antennae grow and causes her to lose her balance. Since she wants to help Ooka and Fij Fij, she hides her antennae with a huge hat and claims she's recovered, only for a wish to knock it off.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome:
- In "Shika's Wish", Shika wishes Maryoku would follow the rules. It gets granted, but she winds up turning into an even bigger Obstructive Bureaucrat than he is until he renounces it, turning her back to normal.
- Flower from the Mountaintop: "Golden Flower". Maryoku tells the wishes a story about The Golden Flower of Fun, that supposedly grows in a cave and brings happiness to whoever finds it. Fudan decides to go find it, so to dissuade him from making the long journey (and after a confusing conversation with Tapo Tapo), Maryoku goes off to find it herself. She eventually stumbles upon it, but leaves it where it is when she sees a record of the Yummies who had been there before.
- Getting Sick Deliberately: In "Hiccles", there's an outbreak of "hiccles" (which are very much like hiccups). Ooka is not happy that she has to help out around town, so she goes outside and starts shouting for hiccles to affect her, to no avail. By the end of the episode, she finally gets them...right after everyone else has recovered, no less. She's even run out of Frizzle Boos (the cure), much to her disappointment.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Inverted. It's not so much the with a dialog but it's more so with the characters' names, in which case, it's Bob, Oolong, Jeppy, Tapo Tapo, and Fij Fij's names that stand out.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: The word "Yum" is regularly used in place of actual words. In just one example, we have "Yum'snote the word."
- Honesty Aesop: In "Do You Know the Muffin, Man?", Jeffy eats all the muffins Omoshi has baked and gets everyone else paranoid when he makes up a story about a scary monster having eaten them. Maryoku latches on to the trick and convinces Jeffy to admit his mistake.
- Ironic Echo Cut: In "Ooka Times Two," Ooka convinces Yuzu and Nonki to give their robot a test run by having it do all her chores, then goes off to play while it works. Mabui is surprised to see Ooka so soon, and asks if she finished her chores. Ooka replies, "Let's just say, I have everything under control." Back at the house, however, Yuzu cries out, "It's out of control!" as the robot goes haywire.
- It's a Wonderful Plot:
- A variation occurs in the episode "A Day Without Maryoku," with Shika so frustrated at Maryoku not following the rules that he takes it up with Tapo Tapo, insisting that their world would be better off without her. Tapo Tapo uses magic bubbles to show him how the day went down and then how it would have gone down without Maryoku. Apparently, a lack of Maryoku not only left him watching all the wishes, but kept Bob's van from starting.
- Played straighter in the episode "It's a Yumderful Life," when Maryoku, feeling the pressure of being "the greatest wishsitter," wishes she had an easier job, and then suddenly finds herself as not a wishsitter, but Bob's official clipboard holder. There's even a direct Shout-Out to the movie with "Yuzu's pedals," a pair of lucky bike pedals Yuzu gave her earlier in the episode, disappearing, and then reappearing when she's back to her regular life.
- I Would Say If I Could Say: Baburu does this in "Sound Advice." Baburu, seeing Hadagi pull out an accordion, comments, "It's times like this I wish I had hands to cover my ears."
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hadagi. She's a bully to Oolong and a jerk to Maryoku, but she (occasionally) learns her lesson.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Hadagi, of course. She's completely stuck up and narcissistic, and the polar opposite of Maryoku.
- Mood Whiplash: Ooka's reaction to the broken statue of herself in "Detective Ooka". At first she begins to cry, but then stops when she realizes that it "didn't look like her anyways". Ironically, it DID look like her.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Shika. He knows all the rules, how they work, and will get mad if someone breaks them. In one episode, Shika's Wish, he wished for Maryoku to follow the rules, which made her into this trope to a degree that the other Nozomu residents to think she's not fun to be around anymore.
- Odd Name Out: Bob is the only character with a common human name.
- Protagonist Title: The show's title is named after the main character, Maryoku.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The opening depicts a live-action boy blowing out the candles of an animated birthday cake, with the boy's birthday wish becoming sentient and emerging from the flames of the candles afterwards.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Bob and to a lesser extent, Yuzu, whose appearance in an episode usually includes coming up with a new rhyming catchphrase for his and Nonki's fix-it shop.
- Shaped Like Itself:
- In "The Ninth Wish," when Shika confiscates the eponymous wish (as wishsitters are only allowed to watch eight wishes at a time), Fij Fij worries that Shika won't let it have any fun, and Ooka adds, "Or give it any hugs!" This prompts Maryoku to say, "Without fun and hugs, that poor little wish will be... without fun and hugs!"
- In "Scatterday," Shika reads the rules for Scatterday, the second of which is "The first one to find the Scatter Crown is the first one to find the Scatter Crown."
- Short-Runner: It is one of Hub Network's shortest programming to date, more so than Dan Vs. note , and SheZow note , airing for one month with a total of 26 episodes in its first season, and only being re-ran once before being
taken off the network entirely. - Smurfing: "Yum" finds its way into all kinds of words. Yumgantic, yumderful, etc.
- Silent Partner: Oolong. He often partners with Hadagi, but doesn't talk as much as the latter.
- Swapped Roles: "Now You're Cooking!" had Omoshi and Maryoku switching jobs, mostly because Omoshi was annoyed that Ooka bragged that Maryoku, the best wishsitter in Nozomu, would also be a great cook.
- Third-Person Person: Fudan talks like this, probably due to his young age.
- Those Two Guys: Yuzu and Nonki are always seen together, so much so that the official site had one profile for the both of them.
- Unexpected Kindness: In "Maryoku and the Huzzle Beanstalk", Fij Fij and Ooka come across a giant version of Nonki and run away screaming, clearly expecting him to be dangerous. As it turns out, though, he's a Gentle Giant, and he saves them when they nearly fall off the clouds.
- Unusual Euphemism: There are plenty of cases where characters use the word "Yum" as a substitute for actual words. Fij Fij always says "Yappin' Yumblebum!" when something bad happens.
