Western Animation / Middlemost Post

L - R: Angus, Parker, and Russell.

Once there was a captain, he was a serious dude
Well, he crashed into a mountain, but man, it lightened the mood
Speaking of lightening the mood, speaking of thunderous joy
In comes Parker J, a raincloud, looking for a new employ
The beardful captain said 'hey!', the cheerful raincloud said 'hi!'
They started working together, what a magical sight!

— Theme Song

Middlemost Post is a Nickelodeon animated series. Created by John Trabbic III (previously a storyboarder on SpongeBob SquarePants and Pig Goat Banana Cricket), it stars eager cloud-child Parker J. Cloud, who is determined to leave his stormy past as a raincloud behind and bring smiles to everyone's faces. Along with Parker's guardian-slash-workmate Angus Shackleton, a former sea captain, and their walrus companion Russell, the trio run the eponymous Middlemost Post, and are in charge of delivering mail around the mountaintop community of Mount Middlemost. Zany antics ensue as our protagonists attempt to fulfill their given duties... or simply slack off and mess around.

It premiered on July 9, 2021. Prior to that, a number of shorts were screened in advance on June 11, 2021, and can be watched on YouTube here. A second (and final) season of 13 episodes premiered on August 2, 2022.

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Middlemost Post provides examples of:

• Acid Reflux Nightmare: In "Boom Goes the Cloud", Parker starts having bad dreams wherein he's an evil raincloud terrorizing the populace of Mount Middlemost, causing him to involuntarily unleash destructive thunderclaps in his sleep that wakes up the entire town. The bad dreams (and him constantly disturbing everyone's sleep) end up scaring Parker so badly that he almost leaves town until Angus talks him down, and they finally trace the dreams to an excessively sweet and fruity toast dish at The Middlemost Toast that Parker has been eating every day (the nightmares promptly stop the first night Parker goes without it).
• All Animals Are Dogs: Russell is a walrus, but behaves more like how a pet dog would.
• Ambiguous Gender: Per the creator, Parker has no true gender, as of course clouds do not have genders. That said, Trabbic has actively avoided using labels such as "agender" or "non-binary" to refer to the character, his stated philosophy being that "the neat thing about a cloud is that different viewers will see different things", and that he hopes anyone watching relates to Parker regardless of their gender. Pre-release materials largely use masculine pronouns to refer to the character, whilst Parker's voice actor, Becky Robinson, is female.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Needless to say, real-life clouds are nowhere near as peppy as Parker.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: One of the challenges Parker and Angus take in the "Challenges" short is the "Hot Toast Challenge", which is about eating a piece of toast with such a sauce. Merely poking it with their tongues apparently causes them to explode into fire.
• Blush Sticker: Parker has permanent ones on his cheeks.
• Boats into Buildings: Middlemost Post very much looks like a boat, due to it being Angus' former ship before it crashed on top of Mount Middlemost.
• Christmas Episode: Parker Saves Christmas, a half-hour special where Parker takes over Santa Claus' duties in delivering the presents after getting injured. The special revealed that Mayor Peeve was born on Christmas Day, and his birthday is always overshadowed by the holiday. In the end, it is revealed that Santa Claus and Angus are brothers.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The six neighborhoods that make up Mt. Middlemost are all a specific color.
  • Orangefield is orange, and is farm-themed.
  • Greenwood is green, and is filled with nature.
  • Yellow Springs is yellow, and is desert-themed.
  • Purpleton is purple, and is filled with space motifs, gems, and weird alien-like creatures.
  • Bluberg is blue, and is a wealthy neighborhood that is water-themed.
  • Red Ridge is red, and is filled with lava, heat, and stone people.
• Color Failure: Parker, who is usually clad in a colorful rainbow unitard, becomes quite literally dull and gray when he's depressed.
• Companion Cube: In the DIY short, the gang makes a new 'friend' named Burt, who's made of boxes and bubble wrap.
• Crying a River:
  • In the "Skip Ads" short, Angus tells a funny joke. Parker laughs so hard, his tears completely flood the room.
  • In "The Tooth Hurts", Parker admits to Angus that Russell is barfing up letters, and cries so much that it floods the Middlemost Toast with tears.
• The Cutie: Parker is so adorable, happy, and naive.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Parker's backstory is that he's a "reformed raincloud" who used to "rain on people's parades, but now wants to brighten everybody's days". He doesn't seem to let that get him down, though.
• Disney Death: In "First Delivery", Angus apparently dies at one point. Parker mourns his death and attempts to evoke Swiss-Army Tears to revive him, but Angus was actually really tired, not dead.
• Episode Title Card: Every episode has a detailed one.
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains some of the backstory of the show.
• Fun with Flushing: Parker accidentally flushes himself down the toilet while trying to use the bathroom in "Worst Curse Scenario".
• Flapping Cheeks: Parker and Russell get these when riding the Tilt-A-Whirl.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: When Parker and Angus merely poke hot sauce with their tongues, they explode into fire.
• Flying Postman: Parker is a postman, and being a cloud, he can of course float.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The naughty list shown in Parker Saves Christmas are the crew members of the show. For example, series creator John Trabbic, is naughty.
  • Russell's 'Tongue Terms and Conditions' are seen for a split second, and actually do list everything that is later mentioned in the episode.
• Friction Burn: When Angus slides down the pole of the crow's nest, the friction causes it to go on fire.
• Gender-Blender Name: Despite the masculine-sounding name, Russell is in fact a female. Of course, the fact that she's pink and has prominent eyelashes sort of evidences that.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Angus has pink polka dot underwear.
• Goth: Parker becomes one in Darker Parker.
• Halloween Episode: Scary Stories to Tell Your Cloud and Pumpkin Pageant
• Hates Baths: Russell, who freaks out whenever the word bath is mentioned out loud.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": The Sleepover ended with Parker and Lily laughing at Angus mentioning the word "jam-jams." Also Parker laughing at the "B" word in the episode of the same name, and at "poop deck," in Love Letters.
• The Hermit: Levi Alone in "First Delivery". Parker recognizes this and attempts to reach out to him. He also wrote the letter addressed to Mr. Alone and they become Pen Pals.
• Hold Up Your Score: In the "Challenges" short, Parker and Russell hold up signs and give a score of 10 to Angus for mountain bowling.
• Instant Wristwatch: When Parker challenges Angus to hug him for 30 seconds, he instantly gets a watch on his wrist when it wasn't there before.
• Kids Hate Chores: Parker is initially thrilled to help out with the chores around the ship in "Chore or Less", but although he has a lot of fun with them, he rushes through the entire list at once and does a messy, mediocre job; when Angus walks him through the proper (incredibly boring) way to do everything, he quickly loses his enthusiasm for it. Eventually, he learns that chores are a constant thing that nobody entirely enjoys doing, but the important thing is to try your best at it.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: The short "Unboxing" concerns Parker receiving a package, but he prefers to not unbox it immediately and have some fun with the box first, despite Angus' protests. Among many other things, he takes it to the cinema, showers with it, and pushes it on a swing. When he eventually does open it, he finds out that there's ice cream on the inside that has since gone bad.
• Knuckle Cracking: Angus cracks his knuckles while preparing to hug Parker for 30 seconds.
• Love-Obstructing Parents: The unnamed Bluberg man in "To Narwal, with Love" acts wants the lower-class Russell to stay away from Winifred. This results in Russell and Winifred having a secret relationship.
• Mayor Pain: Mayor Peeve, while not particularly evil in general, will often let his grudge against Angus and the Middlemost Post (held because Angus’s ship, parked atop Mount Middlemost, leaves City Hall in its perpetual shadow) get in the way of his mayor duties to the detriment of his citizens; for example, purchasing a robot to drive the post out of business while not accounting for the damage it causes.
• Medium Blending: Middlemost Post is frequently shown as a clay or CGI model.
• Me's a Crowd: Parker can apparently create mini-versions of himself. He created a crowd of Parkers to cheer him on at baseball in "BURT! The Musical".
• Mundane Made Awesome: As revealed in the "Travel" short, extreme recycling is a common pastime in the Greenwood region of Mt. Middlemost.
• Musical Episode: "BURT! The Musical", with most of the songs being sung by the Recycle King.
• Mysterious Middle Initial: We don't know what the "J" in Parker's full name stands for.
• No-Dialogue Episode: "Parker Gets the Bird", in which Parker tries to protect their last remaining strawberry from a hungry crow. Subverted at the very end; Parker growls "Birds are the wooorst!" after the strawberry gets eaten anyways.
• Ocular Gushers: Parker's tears are shown to flood the entire Post. It's implied that it's because he's a cloud, and thus he "rains" instead of crying.
• Oddly Small Organization: Middlemost Post itself is only staffed by our three protagonists. Luckily, they do a good enough job that no one else is really needed.
• The Power of Love: As seen in "Challenges", Angus hugging Parker for 30 seconds straight apparently produces enough love that the entire Post explodes.
• Planet of Steves: Purpleton has weird creatures who are all named Reggie, and creepily Speak in Unison.
• Previously on…...: Parodied on I Know What You Did Last Mail-Off as it recapped what happened after Parker got rid of the drone in POSTBOT 3000.
• Punny Name: In "First Delivery", the gang tries to deliver a letter to someone named 'Levi Alone'.
• Rainbow Motif: There are six neighborhoods that compose Mt. Middlemost, all themed after the six main colors of the rainbow and all with different biomes. Somewhere, where Parker, Angus, and Russell live, is at the peak of the mountain.
• Rainbow Puke: In "Challenges", one of the challenges between Angus and Parker is to guzzle down milk. Parker manages to defeats Angus, but immediately throws up a rainbow which hits both Angus and Russell.
• Rich Bitch: The residents of Bluberg are wealthy and rude.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: As shown in the "Travel" short, the residents of Bluberg like to say 'scoff' out loud.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Angus screams like this almost as much as Mr. Turner.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Parker is the cheerful and somewhat effeminate sensitive guy to Angus' tough manly man.
• Sequel Episode: There's a few. "I Know What You Did Last Mail-Off;" to "POSTBOT 3000," "Leprechauns 2;" to "My Buddy, Buddy;" "Summer Santa;" to "Parker Saves Christmas," and "Mayor Ariel," to "Ariel Force One."
• Shout-Out:
  • In "BURT! The Musical", Burt products start being mass-produced by Greenville, and they even have a store where one can build their own Burt, like Build-a-Bear Workshop.
  • In the same episode, Angus calls Burt "The Notorious BURT".
  • In I Know What You Did Last Mail-Off, Parker goes Super Saiyan.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: The side plot in "To Walrus, with Love" is Parker and Angus debating whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.
• Side Effects Include...: The side effects of being a cloud are apparently as follows:
  Nausea, diarrhea, headaches, crying, lightning emitting from face, shapeshifting, wet socks, the uncontrollable need to move slowly in the sky, befriending mailmen and walruses, that thing where you can never get comfortable when you try to sleep and spend the next couple of hours thinking about every embarrassing thing you've ever done and it's awful since you're still going to wake up super early, mood swings.
• Sigil Spam: Burt is made the new mascot of the recycling company in Greenwood, and his likeness is plastered on all their products. This makes Parker miss him even more.
• The Smurfette Principle: Russell is the only girl in the main cast.
• Spaghetti Kiss: Parker does this in "Unboxing". With a box. It only marginally makes a bit more sense in context.
• Special Guest: Billy Porter guest stars in "BURT! The Musical". Tony Hawk guest stars as the titular "Hawk Man."
• Species Surname: Parker's last name is Cloud, and he is one.
• Sphere Eyes: All the characters have oval-shaped eyes attached to each other.
• Stomach of Holding: Russell can store all sorts of objects inside her belly.
• Stealth Pun: The city of Somewhere sits atop the rainbow-colored townships of Mt. Middlemost. Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
• Team Pet: Russell, the walrus. She cannot speak, but that doesn't prevent her from joining in the fun.
• Theme Tune Extended: An extended version of the theme tune was released on the Mega Music Fest Album.
• Title Theme Tune: The Middlemost Post, ahaha, the Middlemost Post, ahahahah!
• Token Human: Angus appears to be the only human character in Mount Middlemost.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Angus has a wide torso and skinny legs.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Parker and Angus are both guys and Russell is a girl.
• Variations on a Theme Song: Every episode of Season 2 has a different remix of the theme song. Here are just a few of them.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Parker can do this. Comes with being a cloud, supposedly. Makes sense, as clouds don't have much of a consistent shape.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Parker does this a couple of times in the sneak-peek shorts and once in the ending of "Boom Goes the Cloud", but being a cloud, he only pukes rainbows. Angus and Russell throw up after eating some spoiled ice cream too, but thankfully, we don't see their vomit.
• Warm-Hearted Walrus: Russell is a friendly little walrus.
• Wham Episode: In Dentist Trip, Parker finds out they’re the reason Angus got shipwrecked atop Mt. Middlemost.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Being a raincloud, Parker unleashes a nasty storm anytime he gets tipped over the edge.
• Your Mom: In Darker Parker, Parker makes one of these jokes while in their goth phase.
• Zany Cartoon: The show is wacky with exaggerated movements and expressions.

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