Western Animation / Metalocalypse

Left to right: Murderface, Skwisgaar, Nathan, Pickles, Toki.

"We are here to make coffee metal. We will make everything metal. Blacker than the blackest black, times INFINITY."

— Nathan Explosion, "The Curse of Dethklok"

No other band in the world comes close to touching the extraordinary popularity of Dethklok. The heavy metal musicians command an exceptionally (and often psychotically) loyal fanbase, and the group's immense wealth has turned the Band into the world's seventh-largest economy (right above Belgium) — but their success could become a harbinger of global doom...

An animated series from the mind behind Home Movies, Metalocalypse focuses on the adventures (mundane or otherwise) of the five members of death metal band Dethklok:

• "Lyrical visionary" (i.e: frontman and lead vocalist), from Florida, Nathan Explosion (yes, "Explosion" is his real last name)
• The world's fastest guitarist, from Sweden, Skwisgaar Skwigelf (taller than a tree)
• The world's second fastest guitarist; from Lillehammer, Norway Toki Wartooth (not a bumblebee)
• Bassist William Murderface (Murderface Murderface)
• Pickles the drummer; from Tomahawk, Wisconsin (doodily doo, ding dong doodily doodily doo)

Each band member possesses their own naively sociopathic tendencies, and they generally fail at doing anything not related to music, partying, or contract negotiation. (Hell, they can't even get grocery shopping right.) The five generally leave most of their business and legal affairs in the hands of their longtime manager, CFO Charles Foster Offdensen. Once Dethklok gets on stage, however, they put on a hell of a show — one which may or may not result in the violent deaths of their fans and other innocent victims, as the group tends to leave a trail of death and destruction anywhere they travel. (Dethklok even requires fans who attend concerts to sign "pain waivers" that absolve the band of legal liability for these occurrences.)

The Tribunal, an Illuminati-esque organization of various world leaders, attempts to curb Dethklok and their widespread influence at every possible step once they learn of the group's connection to prophecies in the Dead Sea Scrolls telling of an event known only as "the Metalocalypse". The mysterious leader of the Tribunal, Mr. Salacia, often forces The Tribunal to wait for Dethklok's actions to play out in full — and while he appears to have a role in their rise to power and glory, his true motives (as well as his ultimate connection to Dethklok and the Metalocalypse) remain unclear...

The series aired fifteen-minute episodes over the first two seasons (with the exception of two special half-hour episodes in Season Two), switched to a full half-hour format for Season Three, and returned to the fifteen-minute format for Season Four. A one-hour movie special, The Doomstar Requiem -- A Klok Opera, aired in October 2013 and picked up the Metalocalypse storyline directly from the Season Four finale. While Brendon Small once said he once intended to make four seasons and a movie, Doomstar's ending sets up a future for the story.

Unfortunately, Adult Swim passed on greenlighting either a final season or another movie, and, for nearly eight years, that was it for Dethklok. It's believed that the show's cancellation had to with Small's own music career and the use of the Adult Swim IP to promote it, along with a falling out between Small and then-president of Adult Swim, Mike Lazzo. Adult Swim also spared no expense in trolling fans who expressed hope for a revival for years.

However, all was not lost. Six years later, it was announced that Dethklok would "reunite" for the 2019 Adult Swim Festival, bringing some hope for a conclusion even if Adult Swim did not publicize any plans for one. Two years after this, news would finally come that Adult Swim would be producing three movies based on previous series they had aired, with Metalocalypse being one of them. The synopsis for the show's movie confirmed that it would finally follow up on The Doomstar Requiem and end the series proper. The movie, Army of the Doomstar, was finally released on August 22, 2023.

Aside from animation, Dark Horse Comics published a Crossover Comic Book Dethklok versus The Goon in 2009 and a Dethklok series from October 2010 to February 2011. The series also received five albums, with the first three dedicated to music from the first four seasons, the fourth dedicated to The Doomstar Requiem, and the fifth (Dethalbum IV) released the same day as Army of the Doomstar, which itself received a soundtrack several days later.

Before Doomstar was completed, Brendon Smalls developed Brendon Small's Galaktikon, a Spiritual Successor to Metalocalypse. After the show wasn't renewed for a fifth season, Brendon would later come back and incorporate both properties into his next album "Brendon Small's Galaktikon II: Become the Storm", with the narrative of the story implementing elements of the intended conclusion of Metalocalypse.

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Metalocalypse contains brutal examples of the following f*guitar*ing tropes:

A — E

• Abusive Parents: Played with.
  • Serveta Skwigelf is emotionally abusive. She kept having sex with strange men regardless of how it would affect young Skwisgaar, and made absolutely no effort to shield her own son from her lewd activities. This resulted in Skwisgaar growing up to become musically talented yet utterly unable to love and lacking in social skills outside of sex.
  • Pickle's parents Molly and Calvert are also emotionally abusive, openly lavishing their love and attention to their Jerkass, mooching, and manipulative older son, Seth, while completely disregarding all achievements their musically talented, multi-trillionaire younger son made. Calvert told Pickles before he ran away that he belonged "in a garbage can", while Molly constantly disapproving of everything Pickles did in "Motherklok" to the point where Pickles reaches a breaking point and furiously tells her to "Go FUCK yourself!".
  • Murderface's deceased father committed murder-suicide on himself and Murderface's mother right in front of their infant son (which had an effect on him as shown in "Performanceklok"), and his grandmother, Stella, verbally and physically abuses him despite being in a mobile wheelchair. Murderface hates her to the point where he tried choking her to death in "Dethfam" and doesn't help her up in "Dethmas" when a wooden cross prop fell on her, instead deriving satisfaction from seeing her struggle.
  • Toki's father, Aslaug, heaped tremendous levels of physical and mental abuse, treating him like a servant than a son and making him perform extremely back-breaking work that would certainly kill a child. If Toki transgressed in any way, he would be slapped, flogged, and/or thrown into an underground cellar. His wife, Anja, never once stepped in to stop the abuse and could be seen glaring at young Toki with equal vehemence.
  • Subverted with Nathan's parents, Oscar and Rose Explosion. Nathan acts awkwardly around them and says almost nothing but hateful things about them, leading one to think they might be as abusive as his bandmates' parents... but Oscar and Rose are actually decent people whose only flaws consist of being the typical embarrassing parents who (seemingly) don't know how to connect with their metalhead son. Their calling out Nathan for blowing them off when they visited in "Dethfam" was only, in context, telling him off for thinking they don't know how to be brutal as him. Oscar and Nathan would later patch things up thanks to Nathan's "Explosion Sauce" hot sauce, and in "Fatherklok" Nathan openly states — in front of his bandmates, no less — how he loves his dad and they often hang out together, complete with flashbacks of Nathan and Oscar enjoying father-son activities like fishing, scrabble, and kart racing.
  • Averted with Týr, Skwisgaar's new stepfather in "Fatherklok", who treats him like an actual father would his son, to the point where Skwisgaar starts warming up to the idea of having him as his parent. Too bad it doesn't stick. Once Týr discovers Serveta's infidelity tendencies, he is unable to handle the truth and runs off, leaving Skwisgaar very heartbroken.
  • Played for Laughs when they had to adopt a Fat Kid in a misguided attempt of charity for tax reasons. They treat him so horribly, feeding him nothing but sugar, treating him like a pet and even tried to neuter him. After that they just left him in an island filled with cats.
• Acrofatic: Edgar Jomfru, if only in his ability to swim.
• Affectionate Parody: Creator Brendon Small is an avowed fan of Death Metal (and metal generally) — and every true metalhead knows the genre is ripe with excesses and silliness worth poking some lighthearted (if dark) fun at.
• The Alcoholic: This could potentially describe all of Dethklok, but it applies most obviously to Pickles, whose drinking manages to put even the other members of the band to shame. It seems to be a holy calling for him: when his former band reforms without him and headlines an anti-alcohol event, he takes it as a mortal offense.
  • When tabloids speculated that he doesn't get as drunk as he acts, he vows to get even more drunk just to show them up.
  • Pickles' drinking is also a not-so-subtle reference to his Wisconsin roots.
  • Toki also goes notably heavy on the alcohol during most of Season Two, peaking in the final episode, "Dethrelease" , when he is dragged out of Mordhaus' destruction by Nathan, who reluctantly voices his concern for Toki's behaviour.
• All Just a Dream: The intro to "Go Forth and Die" was this for Nathan. He dreamed that a flock of Creepy Crows came while Dethklok was performing and murdered everyone except him, leaving him with the only option of becoming a Burger Fool.
• All Part of the Show: The accidents, destruction, and mass deaths really happen — and the fans don't care.
• Ambiguously Brown: Dethklok's new producer Abigail is definitely this. Leonard Rockstein/Doctor Rockzo, the Rock and Roll Clown (he does cocaine) appears to be at first, but is confirmed as Caucasian in "Cleanso".
• Ambiguously Gay: All the characters toy with this to some degree, such as when Skwisgaar admits "he would eat a hot dog", when conversing with the band about Murderface's refusal to eat phallic foods because that's gay. Murderface plays this trope hard — to the point where he flips out if it's even hinted that he is gay, yet his behavior in certain episodes (e.g. "Dethfashion", "Dethhealth") suggests that he is.
• And Zoidberg: It is repeatedly stated that Murderface is the least popular and respected member of the band, to the point where many fans don't even recognize him as an actual band member at all. There are even times where the others turn off Murderface's amp for entire concerts without anyone noticing. Runner-up for least popular band member is Toki, who is considered the worst player in the band (though, unlike Murderface, fans still acknowledge him). This is why Murderface and Toki are frequently hanging out together. On the other hand, when Nathan, Skwisgaar and Pickles try to write songs without them, they manage to knock out 47 songs in a short time — but end up dismissing them all as crap because they lack the sort of pure anger and hatred that songs written with Murderface's and Toki's influence have.
  • When Murderface discusses a solo television special with Dick Knubbler, Knubbler refers to him as "almost part of Dethklok".
  • One of the many factors (legitimate or otherwise) keeping Murderface and Toki on the outs is Skwisgaar. He's very likely the most talented guitarist on the planet and has an ego to match; his attitude seems to be that anyone else playing a guitar in his band is redundant. He may be right. Skwisgaar also seems determined to keep Toki in his shadow. The movie reveals in flashback that the reason he agreed to let Toki join in the first place is that he considers him the second greatest player after himself so the need to always outshine Toki will keep Skwisgaar at his personal best.
• Animation Bump: The video for "Thunderhorse", with detailed shading and much smoother animation than the majority of Season 1.
  • Also the bit in "Prankklok" where Nathan and Pickles fight before Nathan destroys the liquid master is gorgeously animated and coloured, right before going back to the same quality used throughout the rest of the series.
• Apocalypse Maiden:
  • The Tribunal believes Dethklok has a connection to the eponymous end-of-the-world prophecy. Dethklok's music itself seems to cause insanity and chaos to ensue. The process that Dethklok's scientists developed for Dethklok to record music onto water causes entire landscapes to turn to blight.
  • It turns out that Mr. Salacia is one himself.
• Arc Words:
  • Go into the water. Live there. Die there.
  • "That's my bread and butter you're fucking with"
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: This occurs towards the end of "Fatklok", after Dethklok' attempts of parenting Fatty Ding-Dongs utterly fail and they unanimously vote to just abandon the kid.
  Nathan: I think I know what you are all trying to say... I, um... I think we have to build a space helicopter.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Pickles is sent to rehab, the doctors ask sing "Why do you drink?!" until Pickles breaks down and blames his brother for his drinking habit.
  • What finally starts convincing Nathan there's something to the prophecy in Season 4:
  Ishnifus: What drove you to destroy your record?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
  Skwisgaar: "Dude, where's are we's?! What the *pinch harmonic* we just flies in?! ...and what the hell was wrong with your guitar sounds tonight?"
• Art Evolution: The quality of the animation gets much more fluid and improved with each season, with much more movement as opposed to standing rigidly in place at all times.
• Artist Disillusionment: In-Universe, the band hates their fans. All of them. (Even the hot ones.) They also hate other people in the music industry. They even despise working on new albums. Offdensen has to keep forcing them to work so they meet release dates and don't slack off all the time.
• Artistic License – Space: Nathan suggests they create a space helicopter in "Fat Kid at the Detharmonic". They get one.
• Ascended Extra: Offdensen.
  • Edgar Jomfru fits this to a T. He is seemingly killed off-screen in his debut episode, only to later make appearances during the Revengencers sub-plot. He then goes on to have a lengthy song about his backstory and motivations in ''Doomstar Requiem''.
• Ascended Fanboy: Toki, he's a good deal younger then the rest and joined the band after they were already becoming successful and looking to add a second guitar. He was a big fan of theirs before joining and still worships (and emulates) Skwisgaar in particular
• Asian Speekee Engrish: Dethkrok, the Korean Dethklok tribute band in "Tributeklok".
• As Longs As It Sounds Foreigns: Toki and Skwisgaar's Norwegian/Swedish.
  • Actually, they really speak Swedish/Norwegian, though the actors' horrible accents make it sort of hard to make out.
  • Skwisgaar's name is an example in itself, as it isn't recognisable as any actual Swedish name.
  • It is, however, worth mentioning, that adding needless "S" where they don't belong and omitting them where they do belong is a common mistake of speakers of the Scandinavian language group, as these languages - while close enough to English - do not have verb conjugation (all persons use the same verb form). Hence, real life Swedes, Norwegians and Danes tend to say stuff like "they comes" or "they does".
• Asshole Victim: Some Dethklok fans tend to be real assholes. An example is when the fans congregate inside a Dethklok-themed coffee shop. Two in particular share stories of how dedicated fans they are. One stole his child's entire college fund to pay for a ticket to see Dethklok perform, while the other tried to poison his little sister by forcing her to drink motor oil "until she got sick". The Revengencers blow up the coffee shop shortly afterwards, killing the former and irreversibly disfiguring/maiming the latter.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: "Put the boots to him — medium style."
• Audience-Alienating Era: In-Universe example — as of Season Three, Dethklok seems to have entered theirs, facing more accusations of being sell-outs, losing their edge, and so on.
  • After seeing their ad for Pentuplemint Gum, even Nathan is forced to admit that it is absolutely irredeemable as anything but selling out.
• Back from the Dead: Offdensen at the end of the season three premiere, "Renovationklok".
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Offdensen can sign contracts and kick your ass while wearing a business suit with a pair of glasses. And he manages to keep them both clean at once.
• Badass Longcoat: Offdensen in "Doublebookedklok" in his winter gear.
• Badass Native: Nathan, at least in "Dethcarraldo".
• Badass Transplant: Knubbler lost both of his eyes due to pressure changes by resurfacing far too fast while trying to outrun a giant mutant seahorse. He appears in a Blip Vert at the very end of the episode as Dethklok's new music producer with new robotic eyes.
• Banana Peel: Happens to Dr. Twinkletits with a banana sticker.
• Battle Butler: Offdensen is not only Dethklok's manager, he's also their glorified caretaker and servant. He also will personally kill someone to protect the band if he must.
  Skwisgaar: Ands listens, yous the best butler wes ever had so, we no want yous to quit.
  Offdensen: I'm not a butler... never mind.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in just about every episode. No matter how pretty you are, something's going to happen that will smash your pretty face to bits.
• Bedmate Reveal: Played with. In "Tributeklok", Nathan lies in an unfamiliar bed, speaking to someone beside him about the band (uses 'we' and 'us'). The shot lingers on Nathan for awhile before abruptly revealing him to be speaking to a room full of naked, passed out supermodels.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Offdensen puts up TREMENDOUS shit from Dethklok, a group of childish Jerkasses who either ridicule him or pile ludicrous demands on him. The times he snaps at them for their antics can be counted with one hand.
• Between My Legs: In "Klokblocked", Lavona Succuboso's legs frame a shot of a Nathan dummy right before they test the Loin Extractor.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Toki.
  Murderface: TOKI, I'LL KILL YOU! MOTHERF*pinch harmonic*ER!
  (Murderface comes across Toki stomping the face of a very obnoxious concert-goer who got on his last nerve, while Nathan and Skwisgaar stand by watching in shock)
  Toki: WHATS THE F*pinch harmonic* DO YOU WANT, MOTHERF*pinch harmonic*ER?!?!
  Murderface: (scared shitless) ...what's up, bro? What's happenin'?
  • In "Dethkids", he shows his disdain for being the "kid-friendly" band member by speaking in a raspy voice, covering himself with blood, and setting things on fire.
  • One episode has Toki take notice of how he's always being excluded from the group's activities, and demands that they show him some attention to make up for it. When they finally say yes, Toki manipulates Murderface into changing his hairstyle and mustache and convinces the other three to let him handle all the costume designs for their big "we're not racist" publicity event. Toki's bandmates have a massive Oh, Crap! moment when they realize that they just walked out on stage dressed up as Klan members with a big burning cross behind them — and Murderface was made to look like Hitler. But the real kicker? Toki didn't even get to enjoy it because they left him behind again.
• Big Beautiful Man: According to the Tribunal's chart in "Dethvanity", Nathan is considered the second-most attractive member of the band in-universe — even though the show often refers to him (and shows him) as overweight. In the same episode, he lets himself go hard and ends up breaking the hot tub.
• Big Damn Heroes: Offdensen, of all people, shows up at exactly the right time to prevent Dethklok from signing a new contract with a corrupt record executive at the end of "Renovationklok".
  • Also Pickles at the end of "Rehabklok". He decides to take a Third Option by doing what he does best - drumming and drinking.
• Big Bad: Mr. Salacia, head of the Tribunal. Especially as of the season 4 finale.
• Big Eater: Deconstructed thrice.
  • Of the band, Murderface eats the most, leaving him with quite a bit of pudge in his gut.
  • While not as bad as the above example, Nathan was shown to be a football-playing Hunk in his highschool days before he lost a bit of his muscle to Dethklok's current hedonistic rockstar lifestyle, though he's still attractive enough to turn into a Big Beautiful Man. In "Dethvanity", he lets himself go HARD and gains enough weight to break the hot tub when he jumped into it. In the same episode, the Dethklok Minute shows off how obese he is, much to his embarrassment.
  • In another deconstructed example, Toki starts gorging on lots of candy after he starts endorsing it in "Skwisklok". Nathan wisely tells him not to eat so much because it'll give him diabetes, but Toki tells him to fuck off. He ends up in a diabetic coma shortly afterwards and has to take insulin for everything he eats for the rest of the show.
• Big Guy:
  • Nathan is a SOLID type 3. He's scary-looking, due to his sheer size, his perpetual "death growl" voice, and physical strength that surpasses those of his bandmates... but underneath the brutality is a Gentle Giant who loves Disneyland, kittens, reading, and his parents (especially his dad). Also his bandmates, even if he won't admit it openly.
  • Subverted with Murderface. He LOOKS like he could hurt you... but all his threats are just bluster and his tough and brutal facade is only a front. He's actually very insecure and emotionally sensitive.
• Big "NO!":
  • The series is peppered with Big "NO!"'s from Nathan, so much so that it could nearly be considered a catchphrase.
    Nick Ibsen: You are all going to be reunited with your families.
    (A panel opens up, revealing the families of each of the five band members)
    Nathan Explosion: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You're going to pay for this!
    Ibsen: Pay for what? Journalistic integrity?''
  • When Nathan tries to record the entirety of Shakespeare's works for books on tape in a single session and a very drunk Pickles tells him he forgot to press 'Record', his Big "NO!" turns into a Little "No" because he's all out of voice.
  • Skwisgaar gets one in "Dethlessons" when Murderface, Pickles and Nathan trick him into thinking that Toki is getting better at guitar than him.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Murderface utters one during the band's interrogation about his sensitivity to penis-shaped food.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Jomfru brothers. Jomfru is the word for "virgin" in some Scandinavian languages such as Icelandic and Danish, although it usually refers to female virgins.
  • In "Dethstars", Pickles is wearing a karate headband with his name written on it in katakana.
  • Of the two Scandinavian band members, Toki is the only one seen speaking or writing his native language. In "Dethdad", he speaks with his mother in Norwegian ^note Hellos? Mor, han dør kreft? Han er nesten død? Han hoster opp blod? Okay, ha det bra. (Hellos? Mother, he dies of cancer? He is almost dead? He coughs up blood? Okay, goodbye.), and in "Dethsiduals", he drafts a contract with the blanks filled in with (seemingly absurd) Norwegian words.
  • In "Detharmonic", the laser console has Russian text on it. It reads "военный лазер сорта оружия". The meaning is comprehensible, but the phrase doesn't make sense and could be translated as "military lazer of sort of weapon".
  • Another example of using Russian is seen in "Dethwater". Murderface eats beans labelled "Бобы Пукания", which literally means "beans of fart".
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: In "Dethwedding", while Nathan is sorting through mail:
  Nathan: "Subpoena, subpoena, subpoena, Netflix. Huh, yeah, awesome, naked lady fan mail — possibly awesome, possibly horrible. Subpoena..."
• Black Comedy: In "Dethkomedy", this is taken half literally.
  Nathan: Oh hey, body bag!
• Black-and-Gray Morality: For all their morbid, hedonistic ways and their immense apathy for all the death, despair and destruction that follows in their wake, the members of Dethklok generally aren't actively malicious and are just tormented musicians trying to make the most of their huge success in their own twisted way. It's actually noted that for all the suffering their concerts bring, the end result is always a major boost to the economy in the surrounding area. The Tribunal on the other hand is actively trying to keep people weak-minded and easy to control. They're most threatened by Dethklok when their actions could actually benefit the population like in "Go Forth and Die" or "Dethstars" where the effects of Dethklok's action could inspire a social revolution with the general public becoming smarter and harder to control.
  • Then there's their leader Mr. Salacia, a mysterious Eldritch Abomination plotting to start the apocalypse or rather "Metalocalypse".
• Blood from the Mouth: Nathan pukes up blood during the Vomit Chain Reaction scene in "Mordland". He does so again before going under anesthesia for a liver transfer.
• Bloody Hilarious: Most of the concerts feature explicit carnage, and yet they're amusing to watch due to Dethklok's utter incompetence.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Inverted when the band is talking about their fathers. In order, Skwisgaar never knew his father, Toki had to watch his father drown beneath frozen ice, Murderface's father was a chainsaw-wielding serial killer, Pickles and his father hated each other so much that he never even learned his dad's first name, and Nathan...fucking loves his dad, with whom he still regularly goes fishing, go-karting, and plays scrabble with, even in adulthood.
  Nathan: (proudly) My dad's *pinch harmonic*in' awesome.
• Break the Badass: Despite their apathy toward all the death and destruction they cause, Dethklok has been shown to be visibly disturbed when they witness unexpected gore up close. Special mention goes to the end of "Dethfashion", and the final post-credit scene of "Dethhealth" where Nathan and his dentist are on a hunting trip: when the dentist blows his head off in a sudden act of suicide, Nathan's expression is priceless.
• Break the Cutie: Toki in the second season, though it's all played for (very dark) laughs.
• Brick Joke: Too many to count. Basically, any item or element that seems like a silly throw-away gag in the beginning of the episode will reappear, usually to hilariously destructive ends, by the end of the episode.
• Broke Episode: Without Offdensen around to protect them, Dethklok find themselves cut off from their income by the record company until they renegotiate their contract in "Renovationklok".
• Brown Note: Dethklok's music tends to drive the listeners into a bloodthirsty frenzy. They also seem to get more violent whenever Dethklok doesn't release an album over long periods of time.
• Bullying a Dragon: In "Mordland", the Jomfru Brothers walk into Dethklok's living room and point blank tell them they're going to upload their secret fan song on the internet unless they're paid off. Ofdensen makes sure they never do so by luring the brothers into a firing zone.
• Burger Fool: Dimmu Burger.
• Butt-Monkey: Toki and Murderface, mostly, but this can (and usually does) happen to whichever band member that a given episode focuses on.
  Nathan: (addressing the whole band) Do not *pinch harmonic* this up...Murderface.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "By The Power Of All That Is Evil, I command you to awaken and MAKE ME A SANDWICH!"
• Calling the Old Man Out: Pickles does this in "Motherklok" at the end to his mother after she expresses disapproval in everything he did for a job.
  *Pickles thinks back*
  Skwisgaar: You shoulds go tells your mom to go *pinch harmonic*s herself.
  Nathan: You should go tell your mom to go *pinch harmonic* herself.
  Charles: You should go tell your mother to go *pinch harmonic* herself
  Pickles: Hey mom! GO *PINCH HARMONIC* YOURSELF!
• Calling the Young Man Out: In "Dethfam", the band members' parents call them out on the way they've been treated throughout the episode:
  Stella Murderface: Oh, you gutless pieces of living garbage! You think you know what it's like to be brutal?! Can you imagine cleaning the feculent crud off this moron's diapers every morning?? Well let me tell you billionaire lowlifes something. There's nothing — NOTHING! — in this world more brutal and grotesque than raising children!!!
• Came Back Wrong: SEWN! Back together WRONG! Back together. SEWN!
  • Despite being sewn back into a grotesque patchwork that wouldn't be out of place in the dungeon of Naxxramas, Jean-Pierre's life resumed normally as the band cook and has been incident-free ever since.
• Cannot Spit It Out: When Nathan tries to apologize to Pickles for being the asshole that he is, it causes him to vomit blood before he's finally able to show any emotion and say he was sorry.
• Cartwright Curse: Anyone or anything that Toki loves will die before the end of the episode. Fans, music teachers, pets, and even his father after he finally forgave him for a lifetime of abusive parenting. Only Doctor Rockzo seems to have avoided this, though Joker Immunity may be preventing his death by Toki friendship.
• The Cameo: Major players in heavy metal have voiced a variety of minor characters. The list of cameos include Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield of Metallica, Marty Friedman of Megadeth, King Diamond of Mercyful Fate, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher of Cannibal Corpse, and event the actual band members who play on Dethklok's live tours.
  • From a fictional character standpoint, Goat from Megas XLR appears in the first episode as a fan that lost an eye during a Dethklok concert.
  • For a promo for the videogame Brütal Legend, the game's lead character, Eddie, saves Dethklok from a "Bouncer"-style enemy from the same game.
  • Mike Patton voiced Rikki Kixx in "Snakes n' Barrels II".
  • Season Three gets maybe the weirdest cameo ever: Kirk Hammett as Toki's penis.
  • While Slash gets vocal credits in a few episodes, he doesn't speak much in public, so it would be hard to spot him...
  • Also, fairly often you can see famous figures and other knick-knacks in the background, like during "Cleanso", a picture of toddler Toki with John Wayne Gacy, "Religionklok" has a picture of Tom Cruise when the Senator talks about religious celebrities, and probably the oddest, Argentinian ex-president Nestor Kirchner behind Skwisgaar in "Dethlesson".
  • Death from Darksiders II appeared in a crossover promotion for the game, with him offering the band wishes before leaving due to their idiocy.
  • The London Philharmonic Orchestra performed with Dethklok in "Fatklok", then they we're sliced to death by a laser beam.
• The Cassandra: Dethklok won't listen to Offdensen, or their band physician, for even the most basic common sense advice.
• Catchphrase: Everyone gets one.
  • Doctor Rockzo: I DO COCAINE!!!
  • Nathan: "Brutal." Also, as of Season Four, "That's Do-able!"
  • Murderface: "Piss!" and other variants.
  • Skwisgaar: "Dildos!"
  • Toki: "Wowee!"
  • Pickles: "Douchebags!"
  • Offdensen: "For the record, I tried."
    • Phrase Catcher: "That's my bread and butter you're *pinch harmonic*ing with."
• Caught with Your Pants Down: "Dethhealth" has a variation on this with Murderface. While he is getting the infamous "turn your head and cough" test administered, he imagines that a hot woman, not the doctor, has their hands on his penis. Hilarity Ensues.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: Lampshaded in "Dethdoubles".
  Pickles: You know, it would be great to walk down the street and not be bothered for once.
  Toki: Walks where?
  Pickles: I don't know, walk down the street, you know.
  Toki: To where?!
  Pickles: I don't know, walk to a store. Walk to a store.
  Toki: Then buys it on the internet, have it delivered!
  Pickles: I know I can buy it on the internet, but what if I want to walk to the park, you know, and look at swans?
  Toki: Well maybe you should have thought about that before you gots famous!
  Nathan: Toki's right.
• Celebrity Power: The overarching theme of the show is the deconstruction of this trope and how fans who worship celebrities hurt both themselves and society at large.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The series became far more plot-oriented after Season One's ending.
• Characterization Marches On: Rather than portraying William Murderface as the member who is the most incompetent and reviled by the public (as well as by the rest of Dethklok), "Birthdayface" paints him as being an incredibly skilled bass player (especially through means other than his hands) who has the respect of his bandmates and just as much admiration from the fans.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Hilariously subverted and then played straight in "Dethtroll" via the Dethphones.
  • There tend to be quite a few of these in the series, with many of them also acting as Chekhov's Brick Jokes. Toki's diabetes from all the candy he ate during "Skwisklok" seemed like a one-off joke (as it's never brought up again over the rest of Season One), but it becomes a major plot point in an episode three seasons later...
  • The 5$ Hot Topic gift card, arguably for the whole series. It was originally given to the Blues Devil and then passed hands to Liz Bane, who gave it to Pickles. It is then converted into an explosive and used to help the band escape from the trap set up by the Revengencers in The Doomstar Requiem.
  • Also from The Doomstar Requiem, each member of the band receives a specialized accessory with deadly upgrades. An acid shooting lyric pen, a throwing star bass pick, poison dart drum stick, and razor wire guitar strings. Each one gets used against the angry fans in "Givin' Back to You" for their mundane purposes. Nathan uses the pen to write checks, and the others are given away as musical gifts.
• Chekhov's Skill: Nathan punching Damien in the first few minutes of "Renovationklok". He later does it again to stop Damien from attacking the recently-returned Offdensen.
• Chekhov's Volcano: The 'dormant' volcano in "Dethdoubles". It erupts and takes out Crozier's Tribunal agents who were spying on Dethklok while masquerading as their body doubles, leaving them all horribly disfigured.
• Christmas Episode: Season 3's "Dethmas".
• Christmas Special: In-universe example — in "Dethmas", Murderface and Knubbler put on a Christmas special that ended up being funded by the Christian church, which... displeases Nathan, who proceeds to dock Murderface in the face when Dethklok walks onto the film set at the end of the episode.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Toki, who only wears a hat in "Dethcamp", was not recognized by anyone except Magnus Hammersmith.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The finale of Season Two — Mordhaus burns to the ground, and no one knows if Offdensen will make it out alive.
  • The finale of Season Four sure as hell counts. Salacia kills the band's label's CEO and reveals himself to them. The Revengencers strike at Dethklok during said CEO's funeral. Magnus Hammersmith grabs Toki from behind and stabs him with a knife, a Revengencer runs Abigail through from the back, then the two Revengencers escape with their new hostages. The episode ends with the Church of the Black Klok saying they believe that both Toki and Abigail are still alive, but the viewer is given no further indications that they could be — until the trailer for The Doomstar Requiem shows them to be alive, anyway.
• Comedic Sociopathy — The Series!
• Conspicuous Consumption: A recurring note of the series is that whenever Dethklok is given any kind of freedom with how to spend their money, they'll default to this. Part of the reason Offdensen is so important is that he's the only one willing to turn down ideas like solid ruby metronomes and endangered species lounges.
• Continuity Nod: Midget Klokateer #216 — who won Murderface's diamond encrusted codpiece in an employee raffle — shows up in background of later episodes wearing said codpiece.
  • Also, Nathan still having his "That's Doable" coffee mug in "Dethcamp".
    • "That's Doable" merchandise was shown at the beginning of the real life Dethklok's performance at the 2019 Adult Swim Festival (years after the show's cancellation) as part of the Tribunal's rundown on Dethklok fans.
  • The band's chef, who got chopped up by the helicopter in the very first episode, and then got stitched back together because the band couldn't cook a meal for themselves, has visible scars and stitches in every single subsequent appearance.
• Continuity Porn: After Season One, virtually every episode of the show contains a subtle Call-Back to a previous episode, from the Dethphones to the diamond codpiece to the hideously-scarred host of the Dethklok Minute.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Dethklok loves making things "more metal", even if doing so makes them far worse at their intended functions. The most prominent recurring case of this is the Dethphone, a model of phone used by the band. It's essentially a regular phone, but covered with spikes and blades and chains to the point that it takes up twice the space of a regular phone and it's difficult to hold without hurting oneself. Dethklok apparently designed the phone while drunk, and blamed Offdensen for not talking them out of it at the time. (It is rather helpful for choking trolls to death, though.)
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Charles Foster Offdensen, who is the Man Behind the Band, is willing to have people killed and/or tortured (and sometimes doing it himself) for the sake of Dethklok's (his "Bread and Butter" by his own words) career and happiness. Although he is at least generous to the Klokateers, who seem to get paid well when under his control.
  • Subverted in "Dethsources". The band hires a second manager because they start to think that Offdensen is ripping them off financially, but the second manager plans to gain power of attorney over the band so he can steal their fortune for himself. He never gets that far because Offdensen kills him in a fencing duel.
  • Played straight in "Renovationklok". Damien, the son of the executive that gave Dethklok their contract, had been holding a grudge against them (particularly Nathan) for punching him years prior. When he took power from his ailing father, he cut off both Dethklok's finances and the power to their concert so he could force the band to sign a new contract that would benefit him more than it would the band. When Offdensen intervened, Damien tried to attack him — only to get punched by Nathan again.
• Crapsack World: This appears to be the work of the Tribunal, as most of their efforts are conducive to keeping the world's masses dull and controllable.
  • Dethklok's presence tends to exacerbate this. Their fans probably wouldn't be so dangerous if it weren't for their current malleable state. On more than one occasion, the opposite has been true, as the Tribunal fears that Dethklok's antics could stimulate the masses' minds in a positive manner.
    • With the exception of General Crozier (whose primary worry is that Dethklok stirs the world to ridiculous levels of ultra-violence) and Salacia (who wants Dethklok to cause the Metalocalypse), the Tribunal is primarily worried that because Dethklok does what they want, how they want to do it, regardless of any consequences or obstacles, they will actually improve the life of the common folk by setting an inspirational example. The potential release of "Blood Ocean" stirred up fears of a return of creative control to artists, and Nathan's pursuit of his GED stirred fear that people would realize that the working class is just as smart as the upper class.
  • Nathan's lack of leadership resulted in the entire state of Florida becoming a lawless no-man's land. He introduced a state currency that became immediately worthless due to inflation, named the upcoming hurricane instead of alerting any citizen to its incoming arrival (due to the pillaging of the emergency systems), and allowed things to get so bad that every police officer abandoned their service. Nathan was still voted as "the best governor Florida ever had".
    • To be fair, it is *pinch harmonic*ing Florida.
  • There are a number of other horrible things about that don't seem to be the work of either Dethklok or the Tribunal. One episode features an apparently mainstream game show where the price for losing is being murdered, for instance.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Dethklok, at varying points in the show, the prime example being the Season Two finale.
• Cruel Twist Ending: In "Dethhealth", Nathan befriends his dentist and it seems like the latter isn't going to kill himself. Then the very last scene of the episode is the two of them going on a hunting trip and the dentist shooting himself in the head (in a disturbingly peaceful manner).
• Cryptic Background Reference: Both the Cold Open and Credits of "Renovationklok".
• Cute and Psycho: Toki, and it gets harder and harder for him to control himself as the season progresses. Only time will tell if hugging it out with Offdensen helped.
  • Season Four starts off with Nathan announcing that he's dating one of his fans, an attractive girl who has a complete obsession with him. Not just Nathan, but EVERYONE WHO LOOKS LIKE HIM. They're all Nathan in her eyes, and she's willing to blow herself up with a bomb if it'll mean getting the "perfect explosion" to show her love to him.
• Darker and Edgier: Far more violent, darker and brutal than the previous show, also created by Brendon Small.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Dethklok. Despite all of its members being brutal (death)metalheads, when not performing or being brutal, they're all just really, really stupid.
• A Day in the Limelight: Several — "Go Forth and Die" (Nathan), "Rehabklok" (Pickles), "Fatherklok" (Skwisgaar), "Dethdad" (Toki), "Birthdayface" (Murderface), and also the episodes focusing on Doctor Rockzo.
• Deadpan Snarker: Offdensen at times.
  "Have, uh, fun being fat."
  • "Nice work, guys," is another favorite of his. Which is what makes his angry outburst in "Doublebookedklok" all the more unsettling when he says it with such bile.
• Deal with the Devil: Subverted — the band proves so remarkably adept at contract negotiation that instead of trading their souls, they offer a $5 Hot Topic gift card for blues fame and a 7% backend of the Blues Devil's soul. He decides to sleep on it.
• Death by Looking Up: This always seems to happen to some unlucky person when the freak accidents erupt.
  • A Running Gag, actually. Not only does it keep happening, it keeps happening to the same person, with different clothes and skin tone. At one point it was physically impossible. He got impaled by a blunt picket sign which would have bounced off a normal person.
  • Double subverted in "Dethfashion": when a fashion model's blade-adorned armcuff flies off, it seems as if it'll impale the usual victim's face — but then the blade smashes a tank of electric eels, which then fall onto the guy (and electrocute him).
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Dethklok does this in "Murdering Outside the Box" after realizing that they've been embezzling from themselves. They decided to blame it on Agent 216, whose head/face is destroyed when he falls headfirst into Murderface's diamond encrusted codpiece, leading to the infiltrator's Viking funeral.
• Demoted to Extra: Nathan increasingly edges toward this trope in Season 3, what with the other band members stealing the spotlight.
  • So did the Tribunal in Season Three. A few episodes don't even have them show up at all.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The "Church of Christian Churchology" in "Religionklok".
• Diabolus ex Machina: Toki would have given Doctor Rockzo a well-deserved beatdown had Murderface's grandmother not run into a cross, making it crash on them both.
  • Dethklok finally finished their newest album and explicitly produced it in the 100% Piracy-proof water format. On the day that the album was meant to be shipped out, horrible stormy weather all across the globe ended up sinking the entire fleet of cargo ships containing every copy — except for the master copy in Mordhaus. Nathan, in a drunken (and whale-influenced) stupor, realizes that the album needs to be destroyed and takes an axe to it. However, this actually turned out to be a Deus ex Machina, as it's later revealed that had the shipping been successful, the Tribunal would have obtained enough funds to start up the Falconback Project (which is potentially part of the Metalocalypse).
• Disappeared Dad: Played for Laughs when Foster tells them to be nice to Skwisgaar because he never knew his father, this turns out to be the case for every member of the bad but Nathan (who "fuckin' loves his dad").
• Disney Acid Sequence: Whenever Toki sings a song.
  • The one in "Dethhealth" is even MORE of an acid sequence, with everyone singing at some point — Pickles becomes a giant head in the sky with his dreadlocks acting like tentacles as he sings about how he's not actually going to die, Nathan he sings about how his dentist doesn't want to commit "Hamburger Time" (which is quickly subverted right before the Titmouse logo), and Murderface sings happily about how he "jacked off on a doctor's face". Skwisgaar, being the only member of Dethklok who didn't get a major event that episode, joins Murderface, singing "He jacks offs on a doctor's face!" with the same amount of glee.
• Disproportionate Retribution: This happens to the rap/rock band Get Thee Hence in "Dethsiduals" for simply being allowed to open for Dethklok in concert. The fans immediately rush the stage and killed them all. Even Nathan, who said that he hated Get Thee Hence, was shocked to see this happen.
  • On the other hand, the band members of Get Thee Hence had been nothing but obnoxious assholes up to that point. So although it was disproportionate on the fans' part, since they could not have known, it had shades of Karmic Death from the viewers' point of view.
  • In "Dethgov", Dethklok fans take the Governor of Florida hostage and threaten to lynch him simply because he refused to name a state holiday after Nathan. When Nathan, who's from Florida, finds out about this, he simply says "*pinch harmonic* that guy", and the rest is history.
• Distaff Counterpart: Ladyklok, the female Dethklok tribute band in "Tributeklok". Dethklok is affronted by this, with Murderface saying women don't know how to be metal.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Andromeda's Crevice, the trench that Dethklok creates to record their album in in "Going Downklok".
  Orlaag: Yet there is no warm port waiting for Dethklok, no matter what size the vessel.
  • Also, Mr. Salacia's chair in his private room looks more than a little bit yonic.
• Doing It for the Art: In-Universe; while recording his guitar parts for a new album, Skwisgaar hears a buzzing noise. It only happens while he stands on the ground, though. To avoid the buzzing, Skwisgaar skydives out of the Dethklok airship and records his guitar parts in mid-air. When Toki accidentally erases the only copy of Skwisgaar's track, guess what he has to do again...
  Skwisgaar: It may be the most dangerous thing I'll ever do in my lifes.
  Toki: Then whys you does it?
  Skwisgaar: Because, I ams a tones chaser.
• Do You Want to Copulate?: Toki's Gonk internet date wants to do this, to both his horror and the viewers'.
  Caroline: Don't forget, keep the fifteenth open so you can deposit your sperm into my vagina with your penis.
• Dramatic Thunder:
  Nathan: Guys. I've been thinking. *Thunder* IT'S TIME I STARTED DATING AGAIN.
• The Dreaded: The bands own parents are this, due to various reasons, from embarrassment to physical and mental abuse from them.
• Dressed Like a Dominatrix: Villainous Stalker with a Test Tube Lavona Succuboso and her followers wear a uniform of low-cut black bodysuits, black tights, High-Class Gloves, and high-heeled boots.
• Drives Like Crazy: In "Dethmas", the band's mothers have insisted on spending some quality time with them, and Nathan is trying to find a parking spot at the mall on Christmas Eve...
  Other driver: You hit my car!
  Nathan: Hey, I have four mothers telling me how to drive! What's your excuse, asshole?
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Toki, still dealing with his father's death (which the band accidentally caused), is drunk throughout the whole season 2 finale.
  • Pickles, Murderface and Nathan do this in "Mordland", the night before Fan Day. It's justified as this means they have to put up with hordes of fans who get to watch them making asses of themselves in their private lives.
    Nathan: (groaning) Why do I drink so much before Fan Day?
    Murderface: I believe you drink because it's Fan Day.
  • Although Pickles is widely (rightfully) regarded as the most hard drinking member of the band, Toki seems to have the biggest problems with alcohol. In "Dethwedding", Skwisgaar references past experiences where he needed to babysit a sloppy drunk Toki. And during the Pentuplemint Gum party scene in "Tributeklok", he's visibly hammered again. Even Skwisgaar notices, though it's never mentioned. In "Rehabklok", it's revealed he started drinking when he was six-years-old due to mental (and probably physical) abuse from his brother and parents.
• Drunk Driver:
  • Nathan almost kills Murderface in "Religionklok" after Dethklok decides to go motorcycling in a drunken state, leading to Murderface flying out of his sidecar and getting hospitalized for serious injuries.
  • Skwisgaar and Toki in "Dethrace". They were forced to go to a driving school for this.
• Drunk with Power: Toki, any time he has (or thinks he has) any amount of authority. Particularly in "Dethgov":
  Toki: You dos what I say or I haves you all killed! Now shits your pants!
  Nathan: Toki, your boner is showing.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Played for laughs in "Writersklok" when they end up in a Middle East country who thought of them as women with long hair. Even the Sultan mistakes the disheveled and dirty band he captured for women and wants them to join his harem and suck his dick.
  • In "Going Downklok" thanks to a laundry mishap, Toki has to wear a tight pink crop top and short pants, rollerskates and even puts his hair up in a ponytail. Thanks to this Murderface began to have sexual thoughts about Toki.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Nathan dated a famous actress named Rebecca Nightrod, who fell into a coma after falling down several flights of stairs. Nathan stayed with her throughout it all, claiming she was "the perfect girlfriend".
  • She later breaks up with him and gets a new boyfriend while still in a coma, leaving Nathan heartbroken and angrily playing golf in the rain.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: Toki and Skwisgaar did this to each other when they thought they were about to die.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Ishnifus Meaddle is quoted on the back of the Season 3 box set. It also mentions the Church of the Black Klok by name.
  • Magnus Hammersmith showed up in a flashback in "Renovationklok".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 4 makes a big deal out of Nathan's inability to apologise, something he didn't have any trouble with in a few Season 1 episodes.
• Easter Egg: The DVD's for Seasons 1 and 2 both have a couple hours each of bonus animated skits...all of which are only accessible by clicking on certain parts of the background or logo. The bonus features are referenced on the back of the DVD boxes, and a few of them are even listed (such as on the back of the Season 2 boxed set) but they don't tell you how to get them. You'll either need to click around, or find a cheat sheet.
• Eats Babies: One of the anti-Dethklok prisoners in "Dethecution".
• Eldritch Abomination: Mr. Salacia is one of these.
• Ephebophile: Doctor Rockzo, who got busted with a fourteen-year-old girl. And possibly with her daughter of the same age, twenty years later.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Skwisgaar doesn't believe in religion. No, he doesn't mean that he personally is not religious, he means that he doesn't believe religion exists. Nathan proceeds to utterly upend his worldview simply by pointing at a copy of The Bible lying on the floor.
  • The guys don't like that Toki has befriended Dr. Rockzo the Rock and Roll Clown^note he does cocaine and has him over - Nathan angrily exclaims "Clowns aren't real!!!
• Even Metal Has Standards: In the first episode, despite the callous, idiotic responses to their lead chef being torn up by the Hatredcopter's rotors, Dethklok are horrendously disgusted and horrified when their head chef is sewn back together wrong.
  • Happens at the end of "Dethfashion" when they find out the "leather" used in their clothing line is actually human skin, torn off of still-living models. Nathan informs their deranged fashion designer that he's fired while screaming at the horrific sight.
  Nathan: Oh my God, what a horrible - you're fired, by the way - oh my God!
  • At the end of "Dethsiduals", Dethklok is visibly shocked at the sight of Get Thee Hence being mauled onstage by Dethklok's rabid fans.
  • In "Dethzazz" While Charles is fine with either direct or indirect mutilation or even murder of those who would do much as even pirate a Dethklok album? He is against scalping tickets, even if it’s Dethklok themselves doing the act. He refuses to actively rip-off fans of even their competition.
• Evil All Along: Magnus Hammersmith has been a member of the Revengencers from the very start.
• Evil Laugh: Facebones. In one of the DVD extras, Facebones offers a tour of Mordhaus; when he comes to the secret hallway where the Jomfru brothers were shot, he can't stop laughing...
• Evil vs. Evil: The conflict of the show revolves around Dethklok and the Tribunal. Neither side is good. Dethklok is chaotic and responsible for massive amounts of death and collateral damage, and the Tribunal is a Nebulous Evil Organization with the intent of controlling the world.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In "P.R. Klok", a game show host announces that a man will be killed with money. That's exactly what happens.
• Expy: .
  • All of the members of the band are intended to be expys of real life musicians. Murderface is Geezer Butler (and looks an awful lot like Glen Benton, which is probably coincidental); Nathan is an expy for George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher; Pickles is very clearly an expy for Devin Townsend; Skwisgaar is an expy for both Alexi Laiho and Yngwie Malmsteen, both guitar virtuosos; and Toki is intended to be an expy for Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth.
  • Rockzo is a mix; his speaking voice (and clown theme) closely resemble KISS singer Paul Stanley, while his music and general behavior evoke David Lee Roth (even though Roth swears he has never done hard drus).
  • Magnus Hammersmith bears a striking resemblance to Joe Perry. The only difference is that Magnus has a goatee, Joe doesn't. Plus, Magnus' relationship with the band is clearly based on Dave Mustaine's relationship with Metallica...
• Eye Scream:
  • "Performanceklok" has a video of an eye operation going on in the background of the band meeting. The video even references what happens if said surgery goes wrong:
    Narrator: When squozen with considerable pressure, the hard, marble-like lens can jettison back into the patient's eyes, blinding them.
  • Dick Knubbler's explosive decompression incident at the end of "Dethwater".

F — J

• The Faceless: The Klokateers. All wear "medieval executioner"-style hoods and we never see their faces underneath.
• Face Palm:
  • Murderface's reaction upon Dr. Rockzo's first appearance in "Dethday".
  • Offdensen does the nose-pinching variety often when having to deal with Dethklok's shenanigans.
  • Skwisgaar does it in "Dethsiduals" in response to Toki and Murderface drunken antics in France.
• False Credit: In-Universe, Murderface and Toki do not perform on the band's albums due to the rest of the band viewing them as incompetent. The bass and rhythm guitar parts are instead performed by Skwisgaar.
• Fan Convention: Klokiton. The band was forced to go there after finding out Trindle's plans, they get disgusted seeing overweight guys on scooters cosplaying as them, furries, and lots of sleazy fan arts plastered around. In Dethklok fashion, everything explodes in a fiery accident and every con-goer gets crushed after Trindle suicide bombed herself.
• Fan Disservice
  • Anytime Murderface's ass is shown and Toki's hideous internet date, especially since the season 3 DVD set doesn't have the black censorship bars.
  • Dory McClean, if only because she's such an uncomfortably accurate caricature of a young teen circa 1985.
• Fanservice: Toki poledancing at a strip club for extra cash in "Renovationklok".
  • If you like groupie tits, you'll be happy to know that the season 03 DVDs are uncensored. But there are Skwisgaar's preferences to consider. And Toki's date, as stated above.
  • "Going Downklok", an episode largely focused on sexual frustration, takes this trope all the way over the top. Trapped in a submarine with only one technically-off-limits woman - and banned from masturbation - the boys take it upon themselves to either break out the dressy bolo tie (Pickles), bulk up (Nathan and Skwisgaar) or roller skate around in a ponytail and tight pink underwear (Toki).
• Faux Horrific: Several episodes open with Dethklok making a petty, trivial decision, with ominous music and Hostile Weather happening at the same time. These petty choices usually put the Tribunal on alert and have massive economic and cultural repercussions and set the topic for the episode:
  • *earthquake* Coooommmmmedyyyyyyyy!
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: At the start of the concert where Dethklok make neutering pets metal, Nathan growls: "Most of you know dogs have balls. We just found out cats have balls too."
• Fiction 500
• Fictional Counterpart: FaceFriends is the show's equivalent to Facebook, and Toki is addicted to it.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In "Dethwater", the 2nd episode of the 1st season, Toki comments that the recording "picks up the whales saying hello". Fast forward to season 4, where the whales on the recording actually become a plot point!
  • In "Murdering Outside The Box", when Agent 216 is first introduced, a tattoo is seen on his left arm. It's the Falconback Project logo.
  • "Mordland" has Offdensen, while accompanying the Jomfru brothers to the elevator, press both buttons with a certain hand gesture. He does the same in the season 3 finale, which takes him to the imprisoned Edgar Jomfru.
  • "Writersklok"'s Tribunal segment predicts Abigail driving Dethklok apart, which actually happens in "Going Downklok" and "Dethdinner".
  • Several of Werner Herzog's opening voiceovers in season 4 predict things that happen during the episode.
    • "And the ocean was at once the destroyer and the savior." from "Prankklok", predicts the album being destroyed completely, plus the revelation that it was meant to be destroyed, as it was not "the right song".
    • "And the harvest did dry and wither, and the sun did cease to shine. The hour of forebodement was upon us." from "Motherklok", predicts the dire aftermath of the album being destroyed.
    • "And the death song of the man who stands behind shadows began." from "Dethcamp", predicts Magnus Hammersmith's return. In addition, as the voiceover plays, his shadow can be seen overlapping the moon. Additionally, it predicts his death during "The Doomstar Requiem".
• Free-Handed Performer: Nathan is the vocalist and unofficial leader of Dethklok, but has never been shown playing an instrument. He is skilled in other areas of creating music beyond his vocals, including as the main producer of Dethklok's albums with apparent mixing responsibilities and final say.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • The reason Pickles drinks so much is revealed to be because his brother burned down their garage and blamed it on him. His parents believed it.
  • Part of why Skwisgaar's such a Jerkass was that as a child, his mother frequently neglected him emotionally and often had sex with other men in full view of her son. While he did later become the fastest guitar player in the world, the Parental Neglect really screwed him up and left him unable to love and socially connect with others (outside of sex) as an adult.
  • Murderface's life was anything but happy. When he was a baby he witnessed his father pulling a murder-suicide with his mother. He was subsequently raised by his grandparents, but his grandmother Stella was verbally and possibly physically abusive. In a Dethklok comic published by Dark Horse Comics, a flashback showed Murderface being frequently bullied during his high school years... to the point where he snapped and set a school bus on fire with his classmates trapped inside.
  • The reason why Toki acts so childish as an adult is because when he was a child, he was constantly subjected to severe abuse and torment by his religious parents. He was forced to do backbreaking chores such as carrying large piles of logs and sweeping the path to their house even though it always snowed in Norway. If he made even the slightest infractions, he would be slapped, chained and whipped to the point of scarring, and kept in a small underground chamber with a coin-like opening. It's also hinted that Toki harbors some deeply suppressed PTSD and anger issues because of this.
  • Subverted with Nathan. Despite publicly claiming to hate his parents, it's heavily implied that it's more out of embarrassment towards them as well as keeping his brutal celebrity image. In private, he is fond of his parents and loves them both, especially his father, with a flashback montage dedicated to showing him and Oscar doing things like fishing, drag-racing, and playing Scrabble. If anything, Oscar and Rose Explosion are flawed at worst and it's because of his relatively normal upbringing (aside from the incident where some crazy truck driver mowed down his entire second-grade class as a child) that Nathan is significantly more reasonable and emotionally well-adjusted compared to his bandmates, who had Abusive Parents (and grandparents). It's rather telling when Nathan openly declares in front of his bandmates in "Fatherklok" that he loves his dad.
• Funny Background Event: In the first episode, while Nathan is saying the chefs and employees are cursed, you can see a Klokateer falling and impaled in a pole. His leg even twitches after it cuts back to Nathan.
• Funny Foreigner: Toki and Skwisgaar are humorously out of touch with...pretty much everything, really. They also ams speakings like this constantslys.
• Gag Penis: The Sultan in "Writersklok". Although it's not actually shown, he has a freakishly large bulge in his pants.
• Gagging on Your Words: Nathan's apology to Pickles in the season four finale. The effort it takes him to say "I'm sorry" is comparable to another person uprooting a tree stump with their bare hands.
• Gas Leak Cover Up: Duncan Hills chooses this approach to explain the attacks on their stores by The Revengencers.
• General Ripper: Crozier was originally a mostly-sane example of this trope, later losing the 'sane' part thanks to Mr. Salacia.
• Genius Ditz: The core band in a nutshell; peerless as magicians, very knowledgeable about partying and good with contract negotiations, but hopelessly moronic at pretty much everything else. In the first episode alone, they couldn't figure out how to make their own food. In spite of this, every member of Dethklok has occasionally shown some degree of cleverness that doesn't involve the above things.
  • They also seem pretty capable as general negotiators, as shown when Satan once demanded their souls in exchange of blues music mastery. They bargain it down to a five dollar Hot Topic coupon, while demanding a percentage of Satan's soul as part of the bargain. Satan wisely decides to walk away and think it over.
• Gentle Giant: While not a straight example, Nathan's is more amiable and warmhearted than his reputation and appearance would have you believe.
  "This is MY band. You're MY stupid, dumb, *pinch harmonic*ed up, dysfunctional family, alright?!"
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When Murderface's unfathomably bizarre scheme to to get in good with Serveta Skwigelf makes Pickles and Toki start directing all their pent-up daddy issues at him, Nathan slaps the crap out of them both and tells them to wake the (pinch harmonic) up.
• A Gods Ams I:
  • Skwisgaar, in relation to the vast number of children he's fathered.
  • In "Fatherklok", it's implied that Skwisgaar might actually be a demigod himself, his absent and untraceable father being (perhaps) one of the Norse gods.
  • The drum machine from "Rehabklok" cites this once he realizes he's famous.
• Gonk: Murderface. One of the five wealthiest men on Earth and no woman will touch him.
  "The perfect specimen of devolution: -cro-magnon brow, distended jaw, clammy hands, buckled stomach, back pimplage, hitchhiker thumbs, hammer-assed, fallen arches, chicken-plucked legs, sandpapery, eczema-styled skin, dry, unkempt triangle hair."
  • And he's a bass player.
  • Also Toki's hideous internet date.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: In "Dethhealth", Nathan experiences this while visiting his dentist. He sides with Murderface.
  Murderface: Gas means your wiener's being played with by a suicidal weirdo! Gas means you're gay!
  Pickles: Dude! Who cares if he plays with your dick?? You'll totally be out!
  • In "Rehabklok", Pickles is confronted with this after the drum machine kidnaps the rest of the band in order to kill them, locking Pickles in a room with an entire table's worth of alcohol after he had just completed his last rehabilitation step. The devil tells him to get drunk; the angel tells him to save the band. Pickles decides to just do both.
• Good Parents: Oscar and Rose Explosion to their son Nathan, which may explain why Nathan is (marginally more) emotionally and socially adjusted compared to the rest of Dethklok. Even though Nathan claims he hates them and Oscar and Rose tend to be the typical embarrassing parents, they actually have a good relationship with each other. Nathan loves his father in particular and they hang out frequently, to the point where Nathan has no shame with openly stating it in front of his bandmates in "Fatherklok". It's a very stark contrast to his bandmates' fathers, who were all physically/mentally abusive to their kids (and in the case of Skwisgaar's father, not physically present).
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Offdensen sports one on the left side of his face after being brought back to life. (Although it disappears as the series continues).
• Gorn: The show is famously among the most gruesome and violent series to ever air on [adult swim]. Virtually every episode has a couple graphic injuries or insanely brutal deaths at minimum, and that's not getting into Dethklok's concerts, which are absolute bloodbaths the majority of the time.
• Groupie Brigade: Dethklok is so famous and powerful that they have their own huge army of employees, despite the fact that the training process has at least a 60% mortality rate.
  • Female groupies around the world broke out into open warfare upon learning that Nathan was single.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Murderface was raised by his grandparents instead of his parents, neither of whom are the most pleasant people to be around, especially his grandmother Stella.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Zig-zagged: Toki is the world's second best guitarist by virtue of talent alone, but nowhere near as good has Skwisgaar, who is just as talented and spends insane amounts of time practicing.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: "I assure you all...I am not gay."
• Heavy Mithril: One of Skwisgaar's side projects is a Harry Potter tribute band called "Ten Points to Gryffindor".
  • Murderface's NASCAR-type-theatrical-hybrid-event was apparently trying for this effect, with the wizard narrator and the dragon-based decor and medieval-themed racers. Pity that it didn't actually make any sense.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Dick Knubbler; the power of Dethklok's metal brings him into their fold in an instant.
  • Later on, John Twinkletits was brought in as an advisory role (with two cybernetic arms to replace the ones ripped off by the yard wolves).
  • Magnus, after nursing a long grudge against Dethklok and being revealed as a villain in "Church of the Black Klok", starts regretting his actions during "The Doomstar Requiem", and remorsefully kills himself after viewing Dethklok's combined unholy power.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Each member of the band, albeit in a naive way.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: The band, counter to what you may think, is very, very aware of its many flaws. In other words, Dethklok really hates Dethklok.
  Nathan: (screaming) WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIIIGHT!
• He's Back!: Doctor Rockzo in "Snakes & Barrels II" and Offdensen in the season 3 premiere.
• "Hey, You!" Haymaker: Nathan delivers one to Murderface when the band gets into a fight onstage in "Performanceklok".
• High Turnover Rate: The chefs, up to Jean-Pierre. Not because they couldn't handle the job, because they literally get killed doing it. Also, the Klokateer army.
• High-Voltage Death:
  • One of Dethklok's songs, "Bloodrocuted" is about an electrician who uses a pool of his own blood and an electrical outlet to fry some mercenaries who are after him.
  • This is also how Nick Ibsen died, thanks to Stella a) knocking over a light that injures Nick and b) severing electrical cables that fall into the pool of blood Nick stood in. This gave Nathan the inspiration to write "Bloodrocuted".
• Holy Backlight:
  • Offdensen during his Big Damn Heroes moment at the end of "Renovationklok".
  • Also Dory McLean, Rockzo's (all grown up) young lover, who shows up at the Zazz Blammymatazz reunion concert at the end of "Dethzazz". She got old. And fat. Much to Rockzo's dismay. However, her daughter....
• Human Shield: In "Church of the Black Klok", Offdensen has no choice but to use the torso of Roy Cornickleson's body just to defend himself against the metal masked man.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the beginning of "Tributeklok", Nathan chews out Murderface for creating his latest media disaster with his Entitled Bastard behavior, which caused the public to see Dethklok as spoiled, out-of-touch trillionaires... except they really are.
    Nathan: (to Murderface) YOU consistently make us look like a bunch of dumb, rich, sheltered assholes! (cue zoom-out to show them being pampered by Klokateers)
  • They get Doctor Rockzo to give up cocaine, when they regularly use drugs themselves. Though, at least they know their superhuman limits, and are not obnoxious about it.
  • They are uncomfortable with the concept of death, and demand that it be referred to as "Hamburger Time". This is despite the fact that they are a death metal band, and so many of their fans die during their performances.
  • The existence of the Church of Atheists...who are often prone to physical assaults by agnostics.
  • In "Rehabklok", the rest of the band criticize Pickles for his heavy drinking...while drinking large amounts of beer themselves.
  • Skwisgaar, of all people, teasing Pickles for being a "beautiful ladies" during his glam days.
  • Another one from Skwisgaar: he makes fun of Toki when, during a jam with medieval instruments, he admits that he cannot read sheet music. Toki quickly shoots it back to Skwisgaar, who says he can't either.
  • In the episode where they perform a song during a public execution, one of the inmates, a cannibalistic baby-eater, considers Dethklok scum.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Toki, Doctor Rockzo, and General Crozier's are an icy pale blue.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Nearly all of the episode names include either "Deth" or "Klok".
  • The exceptions are:
    "Snakes n' Barrels"
    "Mordland"
    "Murdering Outside the Box"
    "Go Forth and Die"
    "The Metalocalypse Has Begun" (which is a Title Drop, also known as "It Has Begun")
    "Cleanso" (also known as "Cleanzo")
    "Snakes n' Barrels II" (the two-part episode)
    "Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem" (the rock opera)
  • Episodes that have both Idiosyncratic Episode Naming and non-:
    "Birthdayface/Happy Dethday"
    "P.R. Pickles/P.R. Klok"
    "The Revengencers/Sicklok"
    "Black Fire Upon Us/Dethrelease"
  • There is even one episode that has two Idiosyncratic Episode Naming titles:
    "Fat Kid at the Detharmonic/Fatklok"
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: When a Klokateer who was a spy for the Tribunal dies and is given a Viking Funeral, Murderface kills the moment with this line:
  Murderface: I got his pension! Dibs! Called it.
• The Illuminati: The Church of the Black Klok has existed for thousands of years, watching upon the various developments of the world, all waiting for the moment when Dethklok would rise up to prevent the Metalocalypse. They're the ones who brought Offdensen back to life.
• I'm Standing Right Here:
  Skwisgaar: Just let me record it. Each take is worse. He's slowly learning how to un-play the guitar.
  Toki: I can hear that, the talk-back mike is on.
  Skwisgaar: Pickle, please let me know when the talk-back mike is on so Mr. Sensitives don'ts goes to cry-baby's house for vacation.
  Toki: I can stills hear you.
  Skwisgaar: So what do you want, a be-able-to-hear-things award?
  Toki: Not really. Doesn't sound like a greats award, to be honest.
  Charles: Alright moving on, your new producer should be here any minute.
  Pickles: Yeah okay, what's his name?
  Knubbler: I'm still here in the room!
• Immune to Drugs: During Pickles' reunion tour with his old band Snakes n' Barrels, a radical new drug is introduced to the band, who then asks Pickles to do the drug with them before their first show. Snakes n' Barrels is completely destroyed by the drug; Pickles remains unharmed, however, since his growing up "smoking government weed every day" made him immune to just about any hard drug in existence and any drug to be invented. The only exception, for the sake of that episode, is the Yopo plant that the Amazonian natives use in "Dethcarraldo".
  • In "Dethrace", Murderface is nervous about a press release, so Pickles gives him a drug that he himself takes to relax...and gives him the same dose he uses on himself. Murderface spends the rest of the episode completely unaware of where he is and literally incapable of seeing straight.
• Implausible Deniability:
  Skwisgaar: You ams... slaps me in face.
  Twinkletits: (cheerfully) No I didn't!
• Impossibly Cool Wealth: Dethklok is so wealthy that they as a group are ranked above the country of Belgium. This means that the entire world is utterly dependent on Dethklok's actions — if they stop cranking out albums or do anything like step out of the limelight, the national economy is going to tank. However, Dethklok themselves is utterly oblivious to this and blow their money left and right; the only reason why they haven't driven themselves into poverty long ago is the shrewd management of their CEO and band manager, Charles Offdensen.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  Nathan: Oh, I hate Finland. I need a hundred beers. Exactly — exactly one hundred.
  Pickles: Nice one, what are you trying to do, depress us? Now I need a drink. A different one, not this one. And in a different place.
• Informed Ability: Murderface is a notary public.
  • Less mundane example: Nathan's description as "lyrical visionary" doesn't hold a lot of water if you look at the lyrics too closely. This could, arguably, also be linked with Toki and Murderface (as their parts are canonically re-recorded by Skwisgaar and their skills are repeatedly stated to be lacking), as well as the entire band, which is unable to tune instruments without breaking them.
    • Although how good Toki and Murderface are varies a lot throughout the series. In a recent episode, they recorded an entire album by themselves, and the remainder of Dethklok discovered that their music was less hateful (and thus worse) without Toki and Murderface to inspire them.
• In Medias Res: Aside from Toki confirmed as the Replacement Goldfish, no explanation is given about how these five men came together to form Dethklok, or how they picked up Offdensen to be their manager.
  • The season four episode "Dethcamp" did explain why the former rhythm guitarist, Magnus Hammersmith, was kicked out of the band, while "The Doomstar Requiem" covers how Toki joined.
• Insane Troll Logic: In "Dethhealth", after their latest bender spirals out of control and worsens their physical health, Dethklok tries to drink bleach so they can trick the doctors into thinking they're all in perfect shape. Nathan justifies it as thus:
  Nathan: Bleach is healthy. It's mostly water, and we're mostly water. Therefore, we are bleach.
• Insistent Terminology: Dr. Rockzo, the Rock and Roll Clown (he does cocaine).
  • Don't say "die", say "hamburger time."
  • The band's term for their own fans is "regular jackoffs."
• Instrument of Murder: The season 2 finale has Skwisgaar kill invading Revengencers with his guitar. Pickles is shown a couple feet away, choking another Revengencer with a drum stick.
• Insult Backfire: The comic at Toki's birthday party/roast joked that Pickles was so high he thinks he's watching the roast on YouTube. Pickles (only a few feet away) says that he actually DOES think he's watching it on YouTube.
• Intercontinuity Crossover:
  • Eddie Riggs once worked as their roadie or something like that...
  • Dr. Rockzo sings one for his old Lolita girlfriend.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Parodied in-universe as the focus of "Tributeklok".
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • Serveta went from first-place winner of 1956 Miss Sweden to a wrinkly slut of a mother with sagging breasts. She claimed having Skwisgaar ruined her figure (though aging was most likely the main factor).
  • Thanks to Dethklok's depraved and hedonistic lifestyle, Nathan went from the muscular, football-playing Hunk he was in high school to the somewhat tubby guy he is in present-day, though he's still attractive enough to become a Big Beautiful Man. He regains some of his lost muscle in "Going Downklok" by working out as he couldn't masturbate.
• Jerkass: While most of the band members fulfill this trope (usually unintentionally), Murderface is an unrepentant asshole to everyone he meets.
  • Let's be honest here. Every single member but Toki is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold to various degrees. Especially Murderface, who at one point even all-out apologizes for being a jerk, claiming he just can't resist it, and then proceeds with asking everybody present to just kill themselves so he would not have to be one. Toki, however, is the complete opposite of this trope. He is a nice guy most of the time, but harbors a deeper, darker side.
    • When Dethklok confronts their therapist Dr. Twinkletits, Murderface admits that he prides himself on being a Jerkass but that he is in awe of the doctor's ability to constantly antagonize everyone. He adds that he really respects that personality trait.
  • Seth definitely qualifies. He's a complete dick to EVERYONE.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: In-Universe. The fans don't care about the wanton death and destruction that follows Deathklok, but they turn on Skissgar when the truth of how poorly he treats Toki comes out. One fan even cites that they all have bullies in their lives, a major reason behind this audience reaction.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Seth, in spades.
• Just a Stupid Accent: Skwisgaar. Toki speaks Norwegian in "Dethdad" when on the phone with someone from Norway, but Skwisgaar spends most of "Fatherklok" in Sweden with his mother and stepfather, who speak broken English the entire time.
• Just for the Heli of It: One episode had Nathan say; "Guys, I think we need to build a space helicopter!" He's immediately shot down with "That's impossible!" (though the end credits show the Hatredcopter possibly being spacebound). The band also frequently uses the Hatredcopter, a helicopter the size of a good-sized house, to travel within when they're not using their longship car.

K — O

• Karma Houdini: Dr. Rockzo^note He does cocaine in "Dethmas". He breaks parole, steals Toki's Christmas gifts for coke money, ruins Murderface's Christmas special, gets a handjob from Skwisgaar's mom, and escapes a well-deserved Pissed!Toki beatdown due to a freak accident.
  • Not to mention Pickles' brother Seth, who makes every other character in this show look like a saint and continuously gets what he wants. Even when they try to shove him right in karma's path, he twists it to his advantage. Pickles usually does end up strangling him during his appearances in episodes.
  • Every member of the band is a sociopath in some way or another, and they are responsible for countless deaths. They almost never have to deal with long-term consequences for their actions thanks to legal contracts and pain waivers.
• Karmic Death: The sultan and his men in "Writersklok" are killed in a harem uprising.
• Killed Off for Real: Cardinal Ravenwood, Roy Cornickleson, Ishnifus Meaddle.
• Lampshade Hanging: A pretty good one shows up in "P.R. Klok".
  Pickles: We got any songs with "destiny" in the title?
  Nathan: Um, no, but I could stick it in. Doesn't matter. No one can understand what the hell I'm saying, anyway.
  • This is a literal Shout-Out to American death metal band Suffocation being charged in England in the early 1990s with their music being obscene and vulgar. The entire case hinged on the fact of whether or not the songs could 'damage' the youth. Their defense attorney's argument is VERBATIM what Nathan regurgitates in the response.
• Large Ham: Mr. Salacia gives Dr. Orpheus some competition.
  • Nathan, on occasion.
  • Pickles in his dream sequence in "Motherklok".
  • Dr. Rockzo the Rock n' Roll Clown^note He does cocaine.
• Lesser Star: It's a running joke that neither Toki nor Murderface have any real input into the songwriting process. Their parts are written by Skwisgaar, and usually also performed on the records by Skwisgaar, when they aren't just being mixed to inaudible levels during production.
  • However, Murderface does contribute one major element to the recording process: his dickish behavior. In his absence, the rest of the band is too happy to make properly angry-sounding death metal.
  • It's not really explained why Toki, a perfectly capable musician, is excluded from the creative process, but Skwisgaar's bullying dominance over Toki, as well as possibly just immaturity and lack of desire on Toki's part, are plausible explanations. "The Doomstar Requiem" reveals that Toki's audition was successful because his skill inspired Skwisgaar to be a better guitarist to keep topping Toki.
  • It's also shown in Dethsiduals that they CAN record a decent sounding album all by themselves to cover for the drugged-up Get Thee Hence. It's just that the above problems prevent them from showing off their musical talents. That same episode reveals that the hate they inspire in the rest of the band makes their music better.
• Lethal Klutz: Dethklok manage to kill fans at every show, the faulty and badly-conceived products they endorse cause countless deaths, and that's not even getting into the times when either they or their fans have people murdered intentionally.
• Likes Older Women: Skwisgaar is an extreme example — while he sleeps with many young women, he prefers "GMIL Fs" (i.e. elderly ladies), and is seen flirting with one at the grocery store in the first episode.
• Limited Wardrobe: While they do wear some new clothes and costumes every few episodes, they're mostly seen with the casual black/dark blue garments they use to perform on their shows. You'd think with all the money they make, they can splurge on cooler outfits.
• Long Song, Short Scene: Naturally, as most episodes are eleven minutes long. The only exception is "Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle" and "Crush My Battle Opponent's Balls".
• Loony Fan: Trindle, Nathan's girlfriend in "Fanklok" is this mixed with Yandere. And it's not just Nathan, but she's willing to be with anyone who resembles Nathan and kill them. Then she plans to blow herself and the group after she's discovered sucking a large line of Nathan's lookalike dicks in Klokiton.
• Love Triangle: Nathan, Abigail, and Pickles are in a lust triangle. She picks Nathan, but only after her vibrator dies. The aftermath leads to Pickles quitting Dethklok.
• Mad Artist: Pretty much anyone who shows any form of creativity (including Dethklok themselves), and often applied humorously.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: Toki.
• Made of Plasticine: Used to comic effect.
  Offdensen: That's my bread and butter you're *pinch harmonic*ing with.
• Man Hug: Nathan and Pickles share one in the fourth season finale, after Nathan apologizes for destroying the master record and pursing Abigail, telling Pickles that what he wants more than anything is for the band to stay together. That means that man hugs are officially Metal.
• Masochist's Meal: In "Dethecution", Toki sprays mace on a turkey after the band decides they're not going to eat any more of it. At the end of the episode, Toki and Skwisgaar get hungry and decide to eat the rest of it anyway. It tastes "stingy".
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Nathan, Skwisgaar, Murderface, and even Charles share one in "Dethdinner" when Pickles quits the band.
• Meaningful Name: Charles Foster Ofdensen, Dethklok's manager.
  • His first and middle name come from "Charles Foster Kane" of the movie Citizen Kane. To those who haven't seen the movie, Offdensen is an entrepreneur whose practices follows much along the line of his namesake. Additionally, Offdensen is the band's Chief Financial Officer.
• Melodic Death Metal: The sound of their music.
• Men Don't Cry: Pickles tells Toki that none of the band will talk about missing Offdensen because "Admitting sadness...makes you gay."
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: The band is tied to the Metalocalypse, and don't have the slightest idea.
• Mind Rape: Done to General Crozier by Mr. Salacia during the season 2 finale.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Glowing white on the Revengencer Mooks, red or white on General Crozier.
• Mister Seahorse: Well, that's how Murderface interpreted his infestation with parasites, anyway.
• Money Fetish: Skwisgaar.
  Skwisgaar: So f*pinch harmonic*kings expensive that it makes me horny.
• Monumental Damage: Dethklok fans torch The Louvre after Murderface says all 30,000 pieces of art stink.
  • The Sphinx is decapitated during a Dethklok concert in Egypt. It's being repaired at the end of the episode, but is crushed when the coffin (inside a coffin inside a coffin) with Toki's dead cat inside falls on it.
• Mood Whiplash: The five members of Dethklok recall their relationship with their parents: Toki's religious father abusing him; Skwisgaar watching his mom prostitute herself; Murderface as a baby watching his father murder his mother; Pickles's drunken dad calling him garbage; and Nathan's dad... taking him fishing and riding go-karts with him.
• The Moral Substitute: Christklok, the Christian Rock Dethklok tribute band in "Tributeklok".
• More Dakka: An absurd scene in "Dethcarraldo", in which the Hatredcopter fires upon the Amazon rainforest with many gun mounts until all ammo is exhausted. They take a break to reload and continue.
• Mr. Exposition: Offdensen spends the beginning of the season 4 finale explaining EVERYTHING that has happened throughout the series in relation to Mr. Salacia from since when Mordhaus was attacked by the Revengencers and he was first thought to have died.
• Mr. Fanservice: Offdensen, surprisingly enough. Especially in Papa Wolf mode. Fangirls everywhere let out a collective Squee when he showed up at the end of "Renovationklok" dressed in an awesome leather jacket, no glasses, hair all mussed and out of place...
  • Toki has his fair share of female fans as well, being the most fit member of the band, as well as The Woobie.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The series is full of examples:
  • The Duncan Hills Coffee jingle.
  • "Let the blackness that is the fashion industry take its intended path."
  • The Dethklok Home for Wayward Kitties. "Release...the KITTIES!"
  • Dethwater: it's metal — for fish.
  • This is Nathan's reaction to Christmas in "Dethmas". He's initially turned off by the idea of Toki wanting to put up a tree, etc., until he takes a moment to really look it over. He sees it as the corpse of a tree, further humiliated and desecrated by being strung up in Mordhaus and decorated. He feels the whole thing is pretty brutal.
  • "Ok, hold on now, so you're telling me that you put these little guys in boiling water and they shriek and they turn red, and they die. ...That is the most metal thing I ever heard in my whole life. High five."
• Mushroom Samba: Nathan goes through one after chugging bleach.
• Musical Episode: "Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem — A Klok Opera" picks up where the end of the 4th season left off, only everyone is singing everything.
• Myspeld Rökband: 'Death Clock' is A Good Name for a Rock Band. So good, they had to spell it 'Dethklok' because there is a Real Life thing named 'Death Clock' already! By the way, it's a website that counts down to the day you die based on lifestyle choices and other factors.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Explosion. Wartooth. Skwigelf'.
• Nerves of Steel: It takes the imminent possibility of global, thermonuclear war to elicit so much as an unnerving change of tone from the band's manager Offdensen.
• Never Say "Die": In-universe example, "Hamburger Time".
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Murderface brings this up in a roundabout way when Twinkletits supposedly falls to his death.
  Murderface: Now that he's dead, it's easier to say... emotional things about him.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for "Dethvanity" implied that Murderface's facelift was successful. The scene was actually just an imagine spot, and Murderface's surgery turns out as expected.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Dethklok has the power to enforce the copyrights on their music, engage in horrendous acts of violence without any authorities so much as batting an eye, and possesses a fleet of jumbo-jet sized helicopters not to mention the rockets in the season 2 finale. Officially, they're the world's seventh-largest economy.
  • Doctor Rockzo^note He does cocaine at the end of "Snakes n' Barrels II".
• Nightmare Fetishist: Murderface is interested in "morbid crap". The other band members might qualify as well, given their fondness for brutal things.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In-Universe, the Super Tits Candy Snake Project (which was sadly never completed or fully defined).
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • A number of the band's exploits seem taken from the real world's biggest heavy metal band, Metallica. They've gone to band therapy, as Metallica famously did in the early '00s; they fought against MP3s, much like Lars Ulrich did; they once kicked out a band member for being violent and abusive before they got famous, much like Metallica did with Dave Mustaine. Their late-career creative exhaustion and their bullying of the "lesser" members Toki and Murderface out of the creative process, could very wel have also been inspired by Metallica.
  • Doctor Rockzo^note He does cocaine appears to be partially inspired by David Lee Roth, in terms of his music and outfit. Fittingly, his former band, Zazz Blazzymatazz, appears to be based on Van Halen, complete with matching logo.
  • Nick Ibsen is clearly a parody of Larry King.
  • Toki is apparently based on Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt.
  • Pickles' former band Snakes n' Barrels is based on Guns N' Roses.
  • Murderface is based (quite obviously, if you compare the two) on Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, at least appearance-wise.
  • Nathan himself is visually based on Cannibal Corpse vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher.
    • Who actually voices the Masked Metal Assassin.
  • Skwisgaar is based on Children of Bodom's Alexi Laiho, with a little bit of Yngwie Malmsteen, according to Brendon Small.
  • Pickles is based on Devin Townsend of Strapping Young Lad.
    • As an added bonus, Gene Hoglan, a fairly long-standing member of Strapping Young Lad, is the real life drummer for Dethklok.
    • Pickles also bears more than a passing resemblance to Axl Rose, past and present.
  • The host of Dethklok Minute bears a resemblance to Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray pre-meteor strike, but is possibly based on Ryan Seacrest.
  • Get Thee Hence is a parody of late-90s / early 00's Nu Metal bands, particularly Papa Roach^note The one song they perform is essentially "Last Resort" with the Serial Numbers Filed Off.
• No OSHA Compliance: Mordhaus is such a dangerous place to work employees are given a bell to ring when they find a dead body.
  • Nathan also systematically refuses to fix the deadly sewer system because it's more metal this way.
• No One Could Survive That!: Many examples, so let's go with the most notable ones.
  • Jean-Pierre: Got shot out of a helicopter and hacked to pieces like a tomato in a blender by said helicopter's blades. Is still alive, after being sewn back together.
  • Dick Knubbler: Eyes exploded from pressure increases while surfacing in a Dethsub. He seemed to have no other physical ailments from the experience, and became a recurring character with prosthetic eyes whose pupils expand, contract, and change color depending on his mood!
  • Dr. Twinkletits: Fell out of a window many stories up and then attacked by yard wolves. Survived with prosthetic limbs and voice.
  • The Dethklok Minute host: Struck by a meteor. Survived only with disfigurement and still cheerfully hosting Dethklok Minute.
  • Offdensen: Shot through the chest with an arrow, then savagely beaten by the Metal Masked Assassin, getting his glasses shattered and cut up in the process. Revealed in Seasons 3 and 4 he actually didn't survive that. But the Church of the Black Klok revived him.
  • Doctor Rockzo: Nose fell off after doing a little too much cocaine. Recovered with no comment.
• Notary Nonsense: Nathan Explosion is actually really good at contract negotiations. When Dethklok tries to obtain talent for singing the blues, the Devil himself offers to give them that talent in exchange for their souls. Nathan managed to renegotiate their contracts where they offer a $5 Hot Topic gift card for blues fame and a 7% backend of the Blues Devil's soul. The Devil clearly wanted to get away from Dethklok as soon as possible and makes the excuse of leaving in order to get the contract notarized, where Murderface then reveals that he's a notary. The Devil still declines the offer and leaves.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Offdensen shows Toki a DVD containing a song about Little Julliette Sarmangsadandle's wishes to be brutal, Toki has a Troubled Backstory Flashback of his own brutal childhood and connects with her.
• Not So Stoic: Offdensen has never let his calm demeanor slip in front of the band. Then they double-book a gig in Syria and Israel in "Doublebookedklok". He manages to stay mostly calm, albeit with a very angry tone in his voice and a noticeable eye twitch.
  • This is also how they know they fucked up, too. He never raises his voice, but the change in tone prompts the question "Why are you yelling at us?"
    • "Dethdinner" shows him visibly nervous for the first time. Even Nathan notices how odd that is.
• Not What It Looks Like: After Skwisgaar and Murderface get freaked out and too scared to sleep after a marathon of sugar and horror movies, they ask Pickles if they can just sleep in his bed for safety. Nathan walks in on Pickles and sees Skwisgaar and Murderface cuddling up on either side of him.
  Nathan: What the *pinch harmonic* are you guys doing in this bed?
  Pickles: I'd rather not talk about it, ok?
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: Pickles gets two in "Rehabklok"; once when his hoverdrums "land" face-up, and once when he lands in Soft Water.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: For security reasons, the band decides to hire body doubles. The doubles all resemble the actual band members to varying degrees, but Murderface's double is a dead ringer, leading to this:
  Murderface: Hold on, this guy doesn't look like me! He's hideous, he's grotesque, look at 'im!
  Offdensen: Actually, Murderface, he—
  Murderface: Look at that head, that disgusting forehead, that stupid-shaped hair, beady eyes, like, stupid flat nose, wide hammer-ass, chicken-plucked legs idiot! (addressing Ofdensen) You need to get your eyes checked, you piece of shit! This guy doesn't look like me!
  (pause)
  Murderface: (about to cry) Oh God, he looks just like me.
• Odd Job Gods: The Blues Devil, a snazzily-dressed demon whose entire existence appears to consist of trading people's souls for greatness at the Blues.
• Odd Name Out: All of the band members have violent or fantastic names, sometimes in other languages, except the drummer, who is known only as Pickles.
• Off the Wagon: Doctor Rockzo, in epic fashion.
• Oh, Crap!: "Did you. Book a gig. In Syria. Without telling me. *eyetwitch*"
  • Despite efforts to disprove potentially career ending allegations of racism, a chain of events at the end of "Diversityklok" leaves the entire audience offended and the stage burning.
  Charles: Oh dear God.
  • Charles gets this again in "Dethdinner" when Toki arrives drunk with Doctor Rockzo^note He does cocaine in tow, even saying it as "Oh Dear".
• Old Media Are Evil: Dethklok's record label.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, Pickles used to be the front man for hair metal band Snakes n' Barrels.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Tribunal.
• Once a Season: Toki getting traumatized:
  • Season 1 has him refusing a little girl with a dying wish to meet him in "Dethkids". After watching her sing her song, he has a flashback to his own childhood. He runs to meet her, only to find she has just died, and sees a vision of her rotting before his very eyes.
  • Season 2 has his father dying of cancer in "Dethdad". He grants his father's last wish of carrying him to die in his ancestral home, but Toki slips, drops him and screams in horror as his father plunges down to the lake, gets trapped under the ice, and drowns.
  • Season 3 has him spending "Dethzazz" catatonic after seeing a bicentennial quarter (It Makes Sensein Context). It ends with him freaking out from the bag of bicentennial quarters Murderface collected while scalping tickets, accidentally destroying the concert, and being sedated again.
  • Season 4, he has a panic attack in Bookklok after his wire was unplugged. Then he was backstabbed by Magnus in an attempt to get revenge from getting kicked out of the band. Toki even thought of him as a close friend before this.
• Only in Florida: Can Nathan be elected Governor when he didn't even run?
• Only One Name: Pickles, along with the rest of his family.
• Only Sane Man / Only Sane Employee: Offdensen, in comparison with everyone in the whole Metalocalypse universe.
  • Pickles shows various degrees of being this in the band. From season 2 onward, however, Pickles has become increasingly neurotic, and Nathan has proven much more reasonable, socially adjusted, and intelligent. In Seasons 3 and 4, Skwisgaar seems to be sharing this status as well.
• Opening Shout-Out: Senator Stampingston's descriptions of Dethklok's members in the first episode are taken verbatim from the opening lyrics. He concludes by saying that that's all they know. Of course, this was literally all the viewers knew about them at that point, too.
• ...Or So I Heard: Nathan claims this in regards to how he knows so much about previous failed Zazz Blammymatazz reunions.

P — T

• Papa Wolf:
  • Do not mess with Offdensen's boys. While mostly a Beleaguered Assistant to Dethklok, he gradually starts seeing and treating the band as his own sons, even calling them "[his] boys". If need be, he reveals himself as a deadly combatant capable of fighting toe-to-toe with enemies like the Metal Masked Assassin. When his harshness with Dethklok drives them to run away in "Doublebookedklok", he realizes his mistake and personally leads the search for them.
    Offdensen: That's my bread and butter you're fucking with.
  • As much as they hate to admit it, Dethklok comes to care about Toki, who, despite being close to the others in age, acts like The Baby of the Bunch. Their angry reactions to Toki hanging out with Dr. Rockzo, a clown and known cocaine addict, come off as parental disapproval towards their child for befriending shady people. In "Dethcamp", Dethklok panics when they learn they left Toki alone with Magnus Hammersmith (who they kicked out of the band for being a Jerkass and stabbing Nathan), and Nathan deals with a bully who exploited Toki's diabetes by chasing the guy down and destroyed any musical future he may have had by cutting up the nerves in his hands with a broken snow globe. This comes to a head in Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem when Dethklok, after undergoing a lengthy Heroic BSoD, snaps out of their funk and runs over to the Depths of Humanity to rescue Toki and Abigail, who were held captive by the Revengencers.
• Pass the Popcorn: Nathan and Murderface watching Pickles beat the living crap out of his brother at his own wedding.
  • What about the band watching Twinkletits being eaten by wolves? To top it all off, Nathan was filming it.
    Pickles: Gosh, maybe this is weird to say, but...am I the only one who's being made to feel hungry by watching this?
    Nathan: Let's eat. (Dethklok's eyes glow red)
• Periphery Demographic: In-universe, children everywhere are becoming avid fans of Dethklok's music because of Toki.
• Perpetual Frowner: Nathan Explosion seems to be capable of only one expression.
• The Pete Best: In-Universe; Magnus Hammersmith, Dethklok's original rhythm guitarist, was kicked out of the band early on for being violent and abusive. Toki Wartooth now holds his place in the line-up.
• Pluralses: Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth do this alls the times to reminds yous that they're from Europes. Hilariously, one of the only things they don't pluralize is Pickles' name, which is supposed to have an 'S' at the end.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: In-Universe. During the time Nathan dated Rebecca Nightrod, the media referred to them as 'Natebecca' or 'Rebasplosion'.
  • Toki and Murderface's label in "Dethsiduals" was known as 'Murdertooth Records'.
• The Power of Rock: Where to start?!
  • The Tribunal's whole problem with Dethklok is that they're apparently going to cause an "apocalypse of metal" (or, more succinctly, a "metalocalypse") with their music.
• President Evil: Nathan's term as governor of Florida ends with the depopulation of the entire state as the result of his gross disregard for human life. Though to be fair, he eventually tried to resolve things with a song from the band...only for them to summon a hurricane.
  • And he's still regarded as the best governor Florida ever had.
• Pretty Boy: Skwisgaar is the definition of this, being slender, pale, pretty, has long flowing blonde hair, and is an unstoppable sex god.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: The members of Get Thee Hence are either Ambiguously Brown or this.
• Primal Scene: Played for drama. Skwisgaar stumbled in on his mother engaging in a threesome twice — once as a young child, and the second time when he was coming home with his stepfather. The first instance is used to explained how witnessing his mother's sexual escapades shaped Skwisgaar's personality and future as the show's primary guitar and sex virtuoso. The second instance is what irrevocably ruins Skwisgaar's chance of enjoying a genuine father-son — and by extension, a normal life — he never got to have as a child, which convinces him that his true father is a god.
• Prison Rape: Implied in "Dethzazz": Rockzo is shown shaking in his sleeping cellmate's arms.
• Product Placement: Gibson guitars and Krank amplifiers (later replaced by Marshall), in addition to the band's in-show endorsement of Duncan Hills Coffee and other fictional products.
  • In a DVD extra showing one of Skwisgaar's guitar tutorials, he takes the first few minutes to fully explain all of his gear (from the guitar to the pedals and everything in between), and names every brand associated with his equipment.
  • In a combination of this and Defictionalization, season 4 has Skwisgaar and Toki using the "Thunderhorse" Explorer and "Snow Falcon" Flying V, both real guitars sold by Gibson as Metalocalypse tie-ins.
• Quarter Hour Short: For the first two seasons. Season 3 expanded it to a half hour, but Season 4 switched it back.
• Real Men Take It Black: Nathan Explosion has this to say about Dethklok's new song, the Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle:
  "We're here to make coffee metal. We're here to make everything metal. Blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The doctor in "Rehabklok" seems to genuinely want to help Pickles.
• Red Shirt: The Klokateers. With them dying left and right even inside the Mordhaus that there is even a cleanup crew for them and the sewers are filled with their bodies. Although Happiness in Slavery if in effect for them, so this is not a deterrent for them to join.
  Facebones: And most important, remember - death is an everyday part of the workplace! If you see a dead body, don't freak out!
  Toki: (is taking out the trash and comes across a rotting corpse) Wowee!
  Facebones: Just... ring your Deth-bell!
  Toki: (rings his Deth-bell)
• Removing the Crucial Teammate: In "Dethsiduals", the band gets sick of Murderface's shitty attitude and performance and fire him. Without him, Dethklok becomes far more productive, but realize they can't make properly angry-sounding death metal without Murderface's negative energy, and they have to invite him to return. Murderface is more than happy to accept because since his firing, he had been dealing with the nu-metal bad Get Thee Hence, whose members treated him even more worse than Dethklok.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Deconstructed. From the very first episode, Dethklok is severely inept at handling their money despite being billionaires richer than even Belgium. Not only do they struggle to understand the concept of "grocery shopping", but in "Tributeklok", they have completely forgotten what it's like to live as regular jackoffs and thus are ill-prepared when they try it after some years. Season 3 reveals what could happen if Offdensen is not around to manage their finances — they blow all their money on useless vanity projects like a giant Dorito-themed amusement park (not open to the public), and the ill-defined "Super Tits Candy Snake Project", among other things. It comes to a head in "Renovationklok", when Dethklok's poor spending habits drive many Klokateers into unemployment and themselves into further debt, which Damien Cornickelson exploits by cutting off their revenue to spite Nathan for a past insult. Nathan eventually realizes the band needs to massively cut down on their spending and convinces the others to do so, which results in them living similarly to how they started out before they entered superstardom. Fortunately, Offdensen arrives just in time to save Dethklok in their Darkest Hour, restoring all their wealth and, by extension, the status quo.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Inverted in "Crush The Industry" whereas it's about destroying all the worthless cash in an economic recession.
• Right Now Montage: In "Renovationklok", Skwisgaar wonders what happened to the Klokateers who were let go after their checks bounced. They're shown holding signs for work ("Will roadie for food."), getting in soup lines, waiting for jobs at hardware stores, mugging people, robbing stores, washing windshields, and donating sperm.
• Rule of Cool: The band make all their decisions based on how "brutal" they perceive a course of action to be. ALL of their decisions. For example, there is an extended scene in which they will fully accept that they have conditions in which their employees are dying and rotting on-site at great numbers as long as the situation is "metal". They even refuse to care about this suffering specifically because doing so is also metal.
  • Not to mention when Skwisgaar played an electric guitar solo while skydiving just to avoid audio feedback in "Dethrecord". Twice.
  • Scream-activated lighting!
• Rule of Funny: Dethklok's general level of competency is dependent entirely on what makes for the funniest situation.
• Running Gag:
  • All of the "Dethklok specialists" brought in each episode to discuss the current issue at hand before the council all have extremely absurd names.
    • Brendon has admitted that, to come up with these names, he literally smashes parts of his body on his keyboard and scripts whatever he can make of it.
  • A two-in-one deal: General Crozier combines every Dr. Rockzo catchphrase and his own "That's all we know" in "Dethclown":
    Crozier: "His name's doctor Rockzo. He's the rock-and-roll clown. He does cocaine... and I'm afraid that's all we know.
  • See "Death By Looking Up"
  • Dr. Rockzo^note He does cocaine being kicked repeatedly by the Klokateers.
  • In the DVD Extras, Nathan struggling to read Shakespeare. He reads a different play every time, and fails horribly.
  • In "Fan Klok" someone will call another person a dildo followed said person walking in the room at the time it's said and the two exchange hi's before a scene change.
  • Nathan often dictates ideas for song names with a tape recorder based on incidences or observations.
  • Charles' meetings with the band always get interrupted by their shenanigans.
• Save Sat: In 'P.R. Klok', a big P.R. plate Dethklok brought into space (a satellite in the loosest sense of the term) collides with and diverted comet that is about to fall on a spot where Dethklok is performing.
• Scare Chord: A strong bassy stomp sound and long ringing tones pitched up higher and higher while fading out always plays whenever something scary to traumatic happens. Most memorable one was when Toki's father falls to the lake and drowns.
• Scrabble Babble: In "Klokblocked".
  Toki: "'Quhzks!' It's what the duck says!"
• Serial Escalation: The size and awesomeness of the Tribunal's room each season.
  • The length of the instrumental intro to the season finale songs. Just listen to the songs and see what time the lyrics finally start in!
    • Seemingly subverted for the album version of Season 3, as the lyrics start earlier, putting it behind "Black Fire Upon Us".
• Serious Business: Metal in general, and Dethklok in particular, especially to The Tribunal.
  • "I'M EATING CHIPS!!!!!"
  • "Don't you ever *pinch harmonic* with me and alcohol. Got it?"
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Doctor Rockzo, Snakes n' Barrels, and frequently Dethklok.
• Sexual Karma: Averted. Despite the fact that the members of Dethklok are pretty much sociopaths, they have legions of women who want to sleep with them (well, except for Murderface, that is).
• Shower of Angst: Murderface takes one after he accidentally ejaculates on his male doctor during a hernia check in "Dethhealth", thinking that it makes him gay. Later, when he finds out the doctor jacked him off on purpose and that he's not gay, he takes a Shower of Relieved Joy.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shown Their Work: The animation of Dethklok's playing is often carefully synced to the music, with the chord positions and fingering of the guitar parts shown in some detail.
  • And all their guitars, amplifiers and effects-pedals show a surprisingly satisfying amount of details. When they switch from Krank Amps to Marshall Amps, it is pretty easy to read the names of each model on the front, such as "JCM 800 Lead Series" or "JCM 900". Normally, simply drawing a box with a speaker and a few knobs would suffice for an amplifier, but not for this show!
  • When Pickles decides to try his hand at being a real-estate agent, a graph is shown depicting his sales throughout various cities in Wisconsin. Tomahawk, Plover, Appleton.. they all exist.
  • When Skwisgaar and a girl in the bar he's in notice one another in "Fatherklok," pay close attention to their eyes. Their pupils dilate, much like a real person's eyes when they see someone or something they like.
• Side Effects Include...: You might not be able to read Twinkletits as Twinkle-tits ever again.
• Skepticism Failure:
  Senator Stampingston: Gentlemen, it's clear that we're in a universally precarious situation. Dethklok has summoned a troll.
  General Crozier: That's impossible, there's no such thing as trolls.
  Senator Stampingston: Then how do you explain the dead unicorns? *The screen behind him shows butchered unicorns*
• The Slow Path: Time Travel Face Bags. You can move through time at the speed of regular time with the use of plastic bags.
• Snap Back: Whenever something bad happens to a character at the end of an episode (generally Murderface), he is completely recovered by the next episode and no mention of the recovery is ever made. This includes being infested with parasites, dropped from a height of several stories into a mob of angry fans, having his junk broken, shaving his moustache, and having his face infected by a botched surgery.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Any instance of cursing is covered up with a pinch harmonic.
  • While DVDs for the first two seasons keep the Sound-Effect Bleep on the episodes, they don't show up on the deleted scenes. Season three featured no censorship.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: A rather gentle and understated orchestral piece plays during the season 2 finale while Mr. Salacia Mind Rapes General Crozier.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is it "Dr. Rockso" or "Dr. Rockzo"? Both spellings are frequently used. Not helping is both have been used in universe: The Zazz Blammymatazz flashback and Rockso's Facefriends page used 'S', while the documentary Dethklok watches and the Dethklok Wiki use 'Z'^note also, he does cocaine.
  • For the longest time Charles's last name was subject to this: Until Season 3 most people spelled it 'Ofdensen' based on what closed captioning rendered it, and Season 3 gave out both 'Offdensen' (in "Renovationklok") and 'Offdenson' (in Fatherklok). 'Offdensen' with two f's, two e's is the generally accepted spelling nowadays, though the one-f spelling is still present some places.
• Start of Darkness: Start of Alcoholism, anyway. "Rehabklok" reveals that Pickles became the drunk he is now as a way to cope with being blamed for the burning down of his family's garage. (Seth did it.)
• Stepford Smiler: Toki seems to have developed this trait when talking about his father now that he's dead (he mentions that he's come to peace with his father's death while a clip of Toki watching his father drown and freeze to death at the same time under a lake of ice while a horrible Scare Chord plays).
• Stock Scream:
  • Special credit to Nick Ibsen, who combines three of these during his death sequence in "Dethfam".
  • A Howie Long Scream pops up as Dr. Rockzo is fleeing Mordhaus at the end of "Dethclown".
• The Stoic: Offdensen, as long as the personal safety of the boys aren't in danger.
  • Or if the boys don't do something really stupid, like double book concerts that could start World War 3.
• Stop Copying Me: Skwisgaar and Toki get into this in "Dethcarraldo", made funnier by their imperfect English:
  Stops copies me!
  Stops copies me!
• Straight Edge Evil: Rikki Kixx's entire motivation for promoting the movement is that he no longer able to indulge in alcohol and drugs himself, and if he can't have it, no one should be able to.
• Straight Man: Offdensen to Dethklok.
• Stylistic Suck: The Dethklok movie "Blood Ocean" is this with the nonsensical story and really bad acting from the band. Everyone sans Toki can't help but cringe watching it at its premiere.
• Sword Fight: Two so far: one was a (presumably) staged one for a music video between Skwisgaar and Toki, and the other was a very real fencing match between Offdensen and Melmord with the position of band manager at stake.
• Take That!:
  • "Dethsiduals" contains a very obvious Take That! against Papa Roach and other Rap Metal Alternative bands.
  • The fashion designer from "Dethfashion" is a hilarious exaggeration/parody of Karl Lagerfeld, head of Chanel and real-life supervillain.
  • An entire episode is devoted to shitting on Florida's Good Ol' Boy population.
  • Go on, look at Doctor Rockzo. Doesn't he look like a thinly-veiled insult at a certain 1980s cartoon series about music and its similar character designs?
  • In the episode where the band visits Los Angeles, the band makes it a point to say that every single person in the city is incredibly stupid, and that every single TV network based out of LA is "a piece of shit." This is a gag on the fact that Adult Swim, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the few TV networks NOT based in LA.
  • So was the Tribunal, at least for the first season.
  • One-shot character James Grishnackh, head of Behemoth Productions, the company that produced Blood Ocean, is an overweight abusive prick, whose last name is a reference to avowed Neo-Nazi and convicted murderer Varg Vikernes. He gets his face burned off (but survives) when the oil rig on which Blood Ocean was to premiere is destroyed.
• Take a Third Option: Pickles. "I'm gonna get drunk AND save the band!"
• Team Dad: Offdensen, though when he's not around, Nathan is the substitute. Murderface believes himself to be this, even though he is the least qualified.
  • It can be argued that Nathan has been established as the Team Dad since season one (beginning with his interactions with Toki in "Skwisklok" and "Dethclown" and confirmed in "Fatherklok"). Charles, with his nagging and usually clumsy attempts at comfort, is more the Team Mom.
  • In the B-Plot of "Dethcamp", Charles acknowledges that Nathan and Pickles are the most responsible members of Dethklok. Even though they're initially offended by the remark, their actions in the episode (such as Nathan making sure Toki has everything packed before going to camp and going after the bully that attacked Toki and broke his snowglobe, as well as Pickles letting Skwisgaar and Murderface sleep in his bed after they were having nightmares) basically read as trading off Team Dad and Team Mom duties. Pickles even accuses Nathan of "overparenting Toki just a little bit."
• Tears of Blood:
  • In "Birthdayklok", Murderface cries a single bloody tear when, after being given an empty box as a birthday present, he receives actual presents, such as like a limousine containing furniture that two US Presidents died on, as well as official entry into "the first ever Dethklok, Dethmolition Klok-amatay Death Derby".
    Murderface: (looking over his birthday presents) You mean, I get to destroy United States history literally?
  • Nathan also cries blood while signing away his tax money in the Detharmonic video, because taxes are just that brutal.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: In "Dethmas", Toki blows up at the rest of the band, saying he's going to buy them gifts for Secret Santa despite being told it wasn't metal. Nathan's reaction sums it up:
  Nathan: I don't believe I've ever been spoken to like that before.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: As referenced above in the description:
  Skwisgaar Skwigelf, taller than a tree,
  Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee,
  William Murderface Murderface Murderface,
  Pickles the drummer, doodily doo, ding dong doodily doodily doo,
  Nathan Explosion
• Those Two Guys: Toki and Murderface have started being shown hanging out together separately from the rest of the band.
  • Toki and Skwisgaar can count as this too, despite hating each other they are almost always seen with each other. (Mostly in seasons 1 and 2.)
• Title Drop: The Metalocalypse Has Begun, itself dropping the series and episode titles, are also Cardinal Ravenwood's final words.
• Too Dumb to Live: In "Dethsources", the band and the intentionally invoked Replacement Scrappy remain in an area of Mordhaus that has been proven to contain a flesh-eating virus.
• Trademark Favorite Food: None last more than an episode, but there have been Pickles with cinnamon buns, Toki with candy, and Nathan with potato chips. The band has also mentioned popsicles a few times.
• True Companions: Though they'd deny it, Dethklok fits the trope.
  • Pretty much confirmed by Nathan in "Fatherklok".
  • In "Rehabklok", a line in one song confirms that Pickles considers Dethklok his family, and he worries that they'll replace him while he's in rehab. Which they do. But that turned out to be a bad idea.
  • After the chaos surrounding the last few episodes of season four, the guys seem to have agreed that they are sticking together, no matter what. Even if it means going in themselves to track down the Revengencers once and for all to get Toki and Abigail back, which they eventually do in "The Doomstar Requiem".
• Tsundere: Murderface, specifically in "Performanceklok".
  • Toki can't seem to decide whether he hates Skwisgaar or idolizes him.
• Turn to Religion: One episode has Murderface considering religion after nearly dying in a car accident.
• Turn Your Head and Cough: Murderface became..."stimulated" when he reached this point of a medical exam in "Dethhealth", which was rather unfortunate for the doctor.
  • Except it wasn't. That was the doctor's goal in the first place.

U — Z

• Under the Sea: "Dethwater". Complete with Toki's memorable song "Underwater Friends".
• Undying Loyalty: The Klokateers to the Band and Charles. They'll follow orders without complaining, have no problem dying in droves and will charge to a one-sided fight just to protect them. One even killed himself just to keep the band's secret safe from the Masked Assassin.
• The Un-Favourite: Pickles is always treated as lesser than his older brother, Seth, despite being a vastly successful trillionaire and drummer to one of the greatest death metal bands of all time. Every time his parents appear, they heap emotional and verbal abuse on him, and Seth exploits this by bullying Pickles into giving him money. In "Motherklok", the Tribunal theorizes that Molly, Pickles' mother, treats him as such because she feels threatened by her younger son's success. Understandably, the subject of family is a very sore spot for Pickles, and a major reason for his perpetual alcoholism. Eventually, Pickles gets fed up with Molly's abuse and angrily tells his mother to "go fuck [her]self", to Molly's shock.
• Unfortunate Implications: Invoked and parodied in "Diversityklok". A news reporter asks some questions about the demographics of their fanbase and what that says about their commitment to diversity, before dropping the "Implications" part and asking outright "Are you racist?" Then, at the end of the episode, they invoke it again by coming out to the opening of an urban center dressed in Toki's special club outfits. Skwisgaar say it best^note and first, since the others are initially oblivious:
  Holy s*pinch harmonic*t guys!!! We ams dressed likes the *pinch harmonic*ings Klans!
  • Murderface only makes it worse by stumbling out at that exact moment with an unintentional Hitler 'stache and the hair to match, while the lights reveal Toki's fan club symbol to be a white lowercase t. Then, while the band is fleeing from the angry mob, said lowercase t gets set on fire.
• Unpleasable Fanbase: (In-Universe example) The little boy calling Dethklok, as the Dethklok tribute band called Thunderhorse, sellouts even after they decided to go back to their roots as a tribute band in "Tributeklok".
  • Also a Brick Joke and Hypocritical Humor; that was the same kid from the beginning of the episode who told Dethklok, before being a tribute band, that they were sellouts (the former for doing a health benefit, the latter for doing an ad for European gum). The kid also resembles the one who orders from Nathan in his recurring dream in "Go Forth and Die".
• The Un-Reveal: We never did find out who Skwisgaar's father is in "Fatherklok" (though it's hinted that he is divine).
• The Unintelligible: Pickles' brother Seth.
  • Also, as mentioned above, Nathan. Though his unintelligibility is pretty standard fare for a death metal band.
  • Murderface even more, with his lisp rendering him Daffy Duck levels of unintelligibility.
• Unusual Euphemism: Dethklok isn't too comfortable when talking about dying "Hamburger Time", despite the fact that they have witnessed and/or caused Over Nine Thousand "Hamburger Time"s. They're just uncomfortable about their "Hamburger Time".
• Verbal Backspace:
  Skwisgaar: Well, there are two things to do in a black out. Get drunk. One thing to do.
• Vetinari Job Security: In a nutshell, Offdensen is indispensable.
  • In "Dethsiduals", Nathan, Pickles, and Skwisgaar kick out Toki and Murderface (who never write music for the band) only to discover that their creative process simply doesn't work without Murderface's constant negativity.
• Villainous Rescue: Salacia, of all people, pulls this off when he saves Nathan, Pickles and Murderface from Crozier and Ravenwood.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The whole band, specifically Toki and Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar constantly belittles Toki for his guitar playing, among other things, and on numerous occasions, Toki and Skwisgaar openly state they "hate" each other. It really hits home in the season 1 finale when Toki states "I've always hated you, Skwisgaar," and Skwisgaar responds with "I know, Toki. I know.", in an affectionate tone. Their odd relationship often ventures into Ho Yay territory.
• Vocal Evolution: While everyone's voice slightly changed over the seasons, Toki's is the most extreme, having started out fairly low-pitched, mellow, and with a thicker Norwegian accent. It is now very high-pitched and sometimes manic.
  • The most notable has to be Murderface, as it took several episodes before Tommy Blacha could create an acceptable sound without stuffing his mouth with paper towels.
• Villainous Harlequin: Doctor Rockzo^note He does cocaine.
• Walking Disaster Area: Each of the members of Dethklok has this effect, and it seems to amplify when they're together. They can barely do anything without inadvertently causing a tragedy for innocent bystanders around them. Fortunately, this does serve to inspire a lot of their music.
• We Have Become Complacent: Despite many people getting injured, mutilated, or even killed, during Dethklok's shows, survivors fell it's Worth It.
• Western Terrorists: Many of Dethklok's fans can be like this.
• We Wait: Mr. Salacia tells the Tribunal to do this every time they want to do something to curb Dethklok's growing power. When Cardinal Ravenwood and General Crozier try to assassinate Dethklok, Salacia kills Ravenwood and eventually brainwashes Crozier for their refusal to follow orders.
• Wham Episodes: "The Metalocalypse Has Begun" (Season 1), "Black Fire Upon Us" (Season 2), "Renovationklok" (Season 3), "Doublebookedklok" (Season 3), "Breakup Klok" (Season 4), and "Church of the Black Klok" (Season 4) all advanced the Myth Arc of the show with major events related to — or revelations about — said Myth Arc. "The Doomstar Requiem" was an hour long Wham Episode.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Where is Mordhaus? Early on, it seems like their methods of travel to various countries may hold the answer. And then you see Dethklok travel to Finland and parts of the USA in their bus, and Norway by Dethcopter (twice). The only places that we're sure it isn't are Los Angeles ("Snakes n' Barrels II"), the Southern US ("Bluesklok"), Wisconsin ("Dethwedding"), Florida ("Dethgov"), Peru ("Dethcarraldo"), Connecticut ("Dethdad"), Canada ("Dethdad"), Scandinavia ("Fatherklok"), Finland ("Dethtroll"), France ("Birthdayface"), Germany ("Birthdayface"), Jordan ("Performanceklok") and Israel/Syria ("Doublebookedklok").
  • Somewhere in Scandinavia until the third season, where it really could be anywhere (and likely does move around regularly).
  • Not in Australia either; Seth was given the job of head of Dethklok Australia to get him as far away from them as possible.
  • Returning from space at the beginning of "Fanklok".
  • Word of God had it in Arizona at one time, but it's not clear if this is still the case, and at any rate the show seems inconsistent (at best) about showing that.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Toki has an irrational fear of bicentennial quarters.
  • Which never really gets explained by Twinkletits' therapy session.
• World of Weirdness: This is the only way to possibly explain why a death metal band is wealthy enough to be considered one of the top 10 world economies, and why that no one seems to be bothered by the sheer number of casualties during Dethklok's concerts, public appearances, etc.
• Worst Aid: When the band catches colds, they try to cure themselves with leeches and bloodletting, in a sauna, with predictable results.
  • Although it is shown that Murderface got that idea from the book about medieval medicine.
• Worst News Judgment Ever: The real-life tendency for this to happen is parodied in "Writersklok," wherein a third-world Sultan growing increasingly tyrannical and instituting mass beheadings is considered less newsworthy than Nathan Explosion having writer's block. Then again, given how powerful Dethklok is, this might not actually be an example.
• Writing Around Trademarks: When the show was first pitched, it was titled Deathclock Metalocalypse, later shortened to Deathclock; when it was discovered that there was already a band with that name in existence, the band became Dethklok and the show's name eventually became Metalocalypse.
• Yes-Man: The band's record producer Dick Knubbler has been a constant enabler of all their bad habits and laziness, which is a big reason why Dethklok albums take so long to produce.
  Nathan Explosion: (halfheartedly) Falling down / hurt yourself / Really can hurt...really, can, really now...
  Dick Knubbler: That "falling down" stuff was good! ...I mean, it's good enough.
• You Are Fat:
  • Usually what the insults to Murderface boil down to.
    Nathan: And Murderface, I mean, you're getting really really really fat.
  • One Klokateer tried a roundabout way to say this to Nathan after he got fat in "Dethvanity"
• You Kill It, You Bought It: This is the only way to ever truly take Offdensen's job away from him. Good luck with that.
• You No Take Candle: Skwisgaar and Toki, whose speech routinely involves sounding out words, making up new ones, misinterpretation, and most commonly the addition or subtraction of s's. Toki is generally slightly stronger in English, though his naïvete undermines this. This is justified as it's clear that English isn't their first language.
  • Played hilariously in "Dethcarraldo" when Toki and Skwisgaar have a conversation where the former repeatedly says similar things to the latter, which soon devolves into an episode-spanning argument consisting mostly of repeated synchronous shouting of "Stops copies me!"
• You Bastard!: The band really hates their fans, as noted in the special "Fan Day" song; Nathan regularly ends messages to fans (and others) with "Go die". If they are ever asked to care about their fans (including those who have been killed/mutilated attempting to buy from them), their reactions range from indifference to rage.
  • "Fansong" is 2 minutes and 53 seconds of Dethklok insulting their fans. Nathan calls them "brainless mutants" and "hunched and blinded eunuchs" (among other things), and says that "they're a bunch of banks that [he'd] like to rob".
  • When musing on what their lives would be like if they stopped being famous, the process is referred to as becoming "a regular old jack-off".
  • Subverted slightly with Toki, in that there are times where he'll connect with a fan enthusiastically. However, he generally resumes his hatred for everyone shortly thereafter.
    • Really on display in "Fan Klok", and from what we see, Dethklok is totally justified in their disgust.

Dethalbums and Animated Music Video Tropes

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The army of cyborgs featured in "The Cyborg Slayers" wants to kill every single human they can find.
• Animated Music Video: Some songs have music videos expanding or related to the episode it's featured in. Brendan Small uses these music videos in concerts, complete with backstage skits.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Inverted in the "Go Forth and Die" video. At the end, Nathan turns into a spirit, but he descends to Hell, where the rest of Dethklok are performing.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "Castratikron" has a giant demon rampaging and hunting down men to castrate their balls.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Averted hard in their music videos, where you can see nipples without any censorship.
• Blues Rock: Parodied in "Murdertrain A Comin", where Skwisgaar plays a blues progression chord in fast heavy metal style, that is until Mashed Potatoes Johnson takes over the lead.
• Book Ends: Their discography begins with ominous whalesong on the first song of their first album, "Murmaider", and ends with that same whalesong on the last song of their final album, "Murmaider III".
• Call-Back:
  • "The Galaxy" features the drum machine as the villain that captured Nathan.
  • "Dethharmonic" has the Fat Kid the group adopted featured in some scenes.
  • The cover of Dethalbum IV has the members' skulls arranged in the same way their portraits were arranged on the cover of the original Dethalbum.
• Capitalism Is Bad: "Crush the Industry" is a song about the 2008 financial crisis and recession, and seems to castigate those involved in it while dealing with the fear of how people watched their livelihoods disintegrate.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Similar to the show, the music of Dethklok from Dethalbum II onwards becomes much less of a parody as the song-writing and overtly dark themes and concepts evolve.
• Concept Album:
  • Semi-fictional example. The first album was written for sea life and was recorded in the Marianas Trench. Features songs such as "Go Into the Water" and "Murmaider" ("It's about mermaid murder."). The theme continues in the second album with "Murmaider II: The Water God".
  • Before the Dethwater collection, there is the Viking album that Nathan deleted in the first episode. It's later explained that it was recovered by unknown means and put into Dethalbum I and Dethwater, featuring songs such as "Thunderhorse", "Better Metal Snake" and "The Lost Vikings".
• Cycle of Revenge: The theme for "Murmaider". It's about mermaids killing humanoid sea crabs, which led to their queen to take revenge after a school of mermaids except for one child. The mermaid grows up and prepares to kill the queen. Unfortunately, the mermaid gets hacked to pieces before she can deal the final blow. "Murmaider II: The Water God" reveals she survived and her attempt made her a legend. She accepted a Deal with the Devil, becoming the Water God^note It's possible that she's the one featured on the cover for Dethalbum II. and killing everything to make her own empire, causing the other gods to hunt her down. By "Murmaider III", she's surrounded on all sides by the gods and all her enemies she made in carving a bloody path to greatness, and the best she could do is make a Last Stand in defiance.
• Deadly Graduation: Exaggerated in "Go Forth and Die", a gloomy song on how life after graduation sucks so much that dying is a better alternative. Fittingly, the music video has hordes of skeletons dressed in graduation robes walking into pits that lead to Hell.
• Deal with the Devil: This is what happens in "Murmaider II: The Water God". After surviving the events of the first "Murmaider", the mermaid visits a sea prophet who deems her The Chosen One destined to bring the oceans to greatness. However, the sea prophet warns that choosing this path will forever make her an enemy of the gods who are watching her. The mermaid accepts her destiny anyway, claiming that she had gone through much worse. By "Murmaider III", she comes to regret her decision — she has carved a bloody empire and is one of the most powerful beings of the ocean, but now everyone wants to kill her.
• Disproportionate Retribution: "Dethharmonic" with the lyrics saying that they'd rather kill than pay taxes to the government, preparing a laser beam to do so.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: Almost all of Dethklok's music features this, but it's especially noticeable in "Hatredcopter", "Dethsupport", and "The Galaxy".
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The mermaid of the "Murmaider" trilogy undergoes this process. In the first "Murmaider", the mermaid starts off as a child who loses her entire family to the the Queen of the sea crabs, who avenges her unhatched children that the mermaids have murdered. The surviving mermaid grows up and hunts down the crab Queen, leading to a brutal fight to the death. In "Murmaider II: The Water God", she kills the crab Queen and becomes a goddess through a Deal with the Devil, and launches a series of conquests that end with her sitting on the throne as Empress of her own empire. Unfortunately, she has become reviled by even the gods themselves for her crimes, and she is hunted down. In "Murmaider III", the mermaid's actions finally catch up her and she is besieged from all sides by her enemies. The best outcome she could hope for is a Dying Moment of Awesome as she prepares to fight in defiance of her coming fate.
• Fur and Loathing: "Symmetry". Although in this case its lyrics talk about skinning human skin and strutting it while the victims watch helplessly in pain.
• Goal-Oriented Evolution: Reversed in "Go Into the Water", The lyrics talk about de-evolving back into fish-like creatures, and swimming "home" back to the ocean.
• A God Am I:
  • The last line of "Impeach God".
  • "Murmaider II: The Water God" has the titular mermaid declare, "I am the Water God" after her transformation and becoming the ruler of her own k.
  • "I Tamper with the Evidence..." has a man time-travel back into the past and killing his younger self in order to become a god.
• Groin Attack: In song form in "Crush My Battle Opponents Balls". There's also the demon in "Castratikron" who hunts down and crushing all the balls she can get her hands on.
• Hair Metal: Kill You, a bonus song in the Dethalbum which has Pickles covering a song from the fictional band Snakes N' Barrels.
• Happy Birthday to You!: A morbid version with Birthday Dethday, the lyrics are all about how Murderface is one year closer to his death.
• Heavy Mithril: Quite a few of their songs are lyrically tied to classic fantasy and various mythologies i.e. "Andromeda" is filled with references to Classical Mythology starting from the name itself to the lyrics namedropping figures such as Medusa, Hades, and Medea. Some of the official music videos make it far more obvious:
  • The "Thunderhorse" music video focuses on a barbarian Nathan riding atop a Hellish Horse from the stars in a middle-earth setting.
  • Part of the "Black Fire Upon Us" music video shows Nathan on the same Hellish Horse leading a viking army and battling dragons ridden by hooded demons in a fantasy-like setting.
  • Played With in regards to "I Tamper With The Evidence At The Murder Site of Odin". Aside from the title and one line in the opening verse, there's surprisingly little relation to Norse Mythology. The music video itself initially focuses on the norse members of Dethklok, Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth, dueling each other with swords while wearing elaborate suits of armor before it gets rather... surreal.
• Hellish Copter: Hatredcopter is about an inexperienced pilot tearing off people's faces for his incompetence in flying a copter (and knowing he gets fired for it).
• High-Voltage Death: The music video for "Bloodrocuted" shows a special operations squad being electrocuted until they're bleeding blood.
• I'm a Humanitarian: One subplot of Bloodlines is about Nathan tracking his Yaneemango bloodline, the other is exploring the subject of carrying the bloodlines of ancestors long dead and embracing primitive instincts to survive and kill, and also to reproduce offspring so the bloodline may be carried onto future generations.
• Intercourse with You: "I Ejaculate Fire", although the act was less pleasurable and more on getting poisoned, corrupted, and filled with burning liquids of vile inside the body. Yup.
• Jingle: Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle is a one minute song on how coffee can be metal.
• List Song: "Murmaider", which contains a list of things a mermaid might need to commit murder or take revenge.
  Knives? Check
  Rope? Check
  Dagger? Check
  Chains? Check
  Rocks? Check
  Laser beams? Check
  Acid? Check
  Body Bag? Check
• Lyrical Dissonance: Pretty much every song is this, as they render everything, from the blues to a jingle for a coffee shop to a birthday song, as over-the-top death metal.
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: In-universe, "Crush the Industry" is a scathing Protest Song that attacks the financial institutions that created the Great Recession by treating people's lives like commodities... being sung by Dethklok, a group of multi-billionaires who spent the entire episode it originated from on a binge of Conspicuous Consumption and set millions of dollars on fire during the concert.
• Mind Screw: Some of the lyrics and themes of their songs on later albums can get surprisingly abstract for a satirical, cartoon metal band. One example is "I Tamper With the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin" which seems to be comprised of a god-like being boasting of all its reality-defying superiority, and a hapless challenger suffering a gruesome and excruciating fate that defies both space and time before somehow overcoming and becoming a god themself. Considering the music video, norse themes, and the episode of the song "Dethlessons", it's implied to be a metaphor for the conflict between Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki with Skwisgaar being the clear superior guitarist and believing himself Godlike whereas Toki tends to struggle much more musically and emotionally while still having enough talent and skill to be an impressive guitarist in his own right.
• Mondegreen Gag: In "Volcano", the Lyrics "Darkened Hills" can be easily misunderstood as "Duncan Hills". But this is Justified as it is Duncan Hills in the show, and it's changed to "Darkened hills" for the album version.
• New Sound Album: Dethalbum IV is noticeably heavier and far less melodic than their previous work.
• No Sense of Direction: "The Lost Vikings" who forgot their map at home and never stopped searching the way to war until they died of cold and hunger. They did stumble upon a witch who offered them help and even a map, but they lied to keep their pride intact.
• Protest Song: Impeach God manages to mix this with a Type I Religion Rant Song. Considering how it ends with a declaration of A God Am I and it's performed in the show in the midst of Nathan abusing his authority and power as the new governor of Florida, it probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.
• Public Execution: Laser Cannon Deth Sentence is all about a prisoner's lasts moments before strapped to a rocked and exploding in a fiery ball in the sky.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Averted in Thunderhorse. We can see Skwisgaar forcing his way on Nathan's wife in the video, who eerily looks like a female Skwisgaar.
• The Scrooge: "Dethharmonic" is all about wanting to orchestrate a murder to avoid paying taxes to the government.
  Because I'd rather you be dead
  Than lose a tiny shred of what I made this fiscal year
• Serial Killer: "Briefcase Full of Guts" features one that kills all the employees of the month and his clients by stabbing them with a pair of scissors and rips out their internal organs and puts them in his briefcase, leaving his victims dead.
• Sequel Song:
  • "Murmaider II: The Water God" to "Murmaider", which is a direct sequel. It's thought that Spiritual Successor in Brendon Small's Galaktikon's "The Ocean" is the third entry thanks to its similar premise and opening sound.
  • "Volcano" is thought to be this for "Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle" since its promoting the Duncan Hills brand in the show.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: "Dethsupport" details a victim of a car crash's thoughts as he is placed in a hospital on life support with his medical bills mounting. He begs the listener to "pull the plug" and harvest his organs and plasma and take his life instead of his money. Also serves as a Take That! to the medical industry.
• Soprano and Gravel: In "Hatredcopter", Pickles' cleaner tenor vocals contrast heavily with Nathan's guttural voice.
• Space Opera: The music video of The Galaxy is an obvious pastiche of Space Opera ala Star Trek.
• Summoning Ritual: "Awaken" is all about summoning the demon Mustakrakish and letting it rampage, until it devours the whole world. To be fair, Nathan says he took the lyrics from a Necromantic book in Finland.
• This Loser Is You: "Fansong" is a massive, scathing criticism directed to their in-verse fans. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, considering how hardcore their fans are), they loved it.
• Training Montage: The Klokateers have a call to arms song dedicated to them with "The Gear", showing their transformations from die-hard fans willing to Klokateers.
• Vocal Evolution: Nathan's singing voice started out as deeper and more guttural than it is now. This is Truth in Television - most death metal vocalists pitch up over time due to the stress being put on their vocal cords.
• You No Take Candle: The song "Face-Fisted", with lyrics that sound like Toki or Skwisgaar wrote it. Fittingly, the song was used when Toki joined and hinted to be the songwriter of a Dethklok parody band.

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I'm afraid that's all we know, gentlemen.