Western Animation / Monster Loving Maniacs

Grandpa has a monster prison, but his grandkids have a different vision!

Grandpa, he's a monster hunter training us to become like him
He's a brave old man, but we simply can't allow him to win
'Cause we're the Monster Loving Maniacs
Monster Hugging, Monster Loving Brainiacs
We love monsters and we have to save them all
Big and small!
Monster Loving Maniacs!

— The show's Expository Theme Tune

Monster Loving Maniacs is a 2022 European animated series created by Rune Christensen and Anders Berthelsen and produced by Denmark's Ja Film with help from Belgium's Ginger Pictures and Belvision, as well as Italy's Mondo TV.

The show follows three siblings - 15-year-old eldest sister Edith, 10-year-old middle brother Ernest, and 5-year-old little sister Bo - all of whom are united by their obsession and adoration for all things supernatural, monstrous, and horrific. Dubbed by their wildlife conservationist parents as "monster loving maniacs" for their interest, the three kids are sent by their mother to the tiny town of Grusselbrook (famed as the most haunted place on Earth) to stay with their maternal grandfather, whom their mother has never really talked about prior. As it turns out, their grandfather Arthur Van Alten shares his grandkids' interest in monsters; in fact, being into monsters is a family trait that happened to skip a generation, with the kids' mom having agreed to leave them with her father if they showed just as much of an obsession with monsters as he did. Naturally, the kids are all too eager to stay with their monster-obsessed grandfather (as well as his butler Randall and talking cat Phil) in his fancy old mansion and learn their family's ways.

However, Arthur isn't interested in monsters the same way his grandkids are. Arthur, like his ancestors and very much unlike his grandkids, is a Hunter of Monsters. He protects Grusselbrook from its frequent altercations with demons, undead, mutants, and other horrors and abominations, placing these creatures in suspended animation so they may never terrorize humanity. Edith, Ernest, and Bo are not happy to see how their grandfather treats the monsters they love so much, and so they make an agreement with him - they'll stay to train under Arthur in the ways of dealing with monsters, but in order to study them and learn how to help them coexist with humans instead of capturing and imprisoning them. Arthur is skeptical of his grandkids' claims of being able to save and protect monsters, but he accepts their deal. Can Edith, Ernest, and Bo prove to their grandfather that monsters are worth rehabilitating, or is Arthur right about monsters being too dangerous for the world?

The series has been broadcasted on Super RTL's Toggo block in Germany, CBBC in the UK (with an English dub using Canadian voice actors), SVT Barn in Sweden, NRK Super in Norway, and DR in its native country of Denmark.

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The following tropes appear in this series:

• Accidental Hero: How Arthur captured Dracula, actually. Victor Van Helsing resurrected Dracula to kill Arthur while he was distracted by his weapons jamming, and a misfire as he repaired it ended up encasing Dracula in time slime.
• Actually Not a Vampire: Arthur becomes convinced Ishaani's mother Mrs. Anderson is a vampire in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", certainly not helped by him seeing her covering up all the reflective surfaces in her home. This ultimately leads to Ishaani and her mother revealing their specubus powers to him.
• Affably Evil: Dracula is depicted as this. While he's acknowledged in fullness as a dangerous and powerful monster, he is nonetheless very polite and almost friendly with the Van Altens.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Edith, Ernest, and Bo can't help but feel hollow and unsatisfied by defeating Dracula, understanding that by killing him and being made true monster hunters as a result, they had essentially proven Arthur's point about it being impossible to help all monsters (on top of also learning Dracula's interest in the Van Alten family was driven by his loneliness and how dead he felt inside without a family of his own). This drives them to resurrect Dracula shortly afterwards, this time intent on helping the one monster they failed to save.
• All Trolls Are Different: Trolls like the family we meet in "Way of the Troll" are green-skinned humanoids with horns and tails that spend their days mining for gemstones to eat and live in cottages protected by invisibility magic, but otherwise live lives pretty similar to those of humans. We also meet a mountain troll in "Time Slime", an utterly gigantic creature that spends most of its time sleeping. In "The Coming of the Light", we learn that regular trolls seem to worship mountain trolls as gods and conduct magical rituals around them.
• Alucard: Double subverted in "Prankula Strikes Back". Edith finds who she believes to be Dracula's secret identity in a "Dr. Acula". When said "Dr. Acula" turns out to be just an unfortunately-named man, Edith end up stumbling on the real Dracula hiding himself as "V. Alucard".
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Tamsyn Van Alten has blue skin on account of being a sorceress.
• Animals Hate Him: Edith, Ernest, and Bo's father, despite being a wildlife conservationist, can't ever seem to get on the good side of any of the endangered species he's trying to protect.
• Another Dimension: Specubi originate from such a place, but the pyramid that Ishaani's specubus is bound to is located in a different one.
• Arc Villain:
  • Count Dracula. While he's not a central character on the show, his rivalry with the Van Alten family (especially Edith) gets a lot of focus in the series and forms a major recurring plotline.
  • Tamsyn Van Alten takes center stage as antagonist for a few episodes.
• Artificial Limbs: Arthur has a peg leg, although how he got it remains unexplained for now.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Some of the monsters the characters deal with, such as the mountain troll from "Time Slime" and the glarbergastling from "The Glarbergastling", are utterly gigantic.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Bo is the youngest of the three children at 5 years old, with an innocent, playful, and cheerful personality. She is very fond of her grandfather's bigger and more dangerous weaponry though.
• Bad Future:
  • In "Door No. Three", a vision of this shown to Ishaani by her specubus is revealed to be the reason why she befriended Ernest in the first place. In said vision, Edith and Bo end up becoming monster hunters like Arthur as a result of Ernest's decision to quit monster hunter training, leading to a war that destroys Grusselbrook and kills everyone except Ishaani. Ishaani was able to prevent this future by helping Ernest realize he should stay and train as a monster experts instead (and convincing his sisters to do the same), but now she and Ernest have to ensure their families are able to get along.
  • "Dark Tomorrow" sees Door No. Three open again. This time to a future where Dracula has destroyed Grusselbrook and the Van Alten Mansion, released all the imprisoned monsters (resulting in Grusselbrook being put under mass quarantine to prevent them from getting further), and turned Edith into a vampire (which in turn led in his death when Edith betrayed him), with Bo becoming the last human in Grusselbrook and staying to protect the friendly monsters who remain.
• Badass Family:
  • The Van Altens. Let's see. Grandpa's a Hunter of Monsters with hi-tech firearms that shoot time-freezing goo and a Cool Car; his grandkids are made up of a trio of monster-experts-in-training (the oldest kid is rivals with Dracula, the middle kid is The Smart Guy, and The Baby of the Bunch can befriend almost any monster); mom and dad are wildlife conservationists who travel around the world to protect endangered animals; and Grandma is an Evil Sorceress. And while not members of the family biologically speaking, the Van Altens' butler and cat are definitely honorary members, so they count as well, what with the former being Mission Control and the latter being the magical Frankenstein's Monster-looking Team Pet.
  • The Andersons too. What else do you call a single mom and her preteen daughter who are magically linked with a pair of interdimensional Mirror Monsters who act as their guardians?
• Berserk Button: Tamsyn Van Alten hates it when her grandchildren call her Grandma and insists they address her by her name.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tamsyn Van Alten introduces herself as a cool New-Age Retro Hippie who adores her grandkids, even despite her complex history with Arthur. However, Randall and Phil both warn the kids not to trust her, and their mom is alarmed to learn she's been freed from suspended animation. Sure enough, while Tamsyn isn't "evil" in the same way as Dracula, she eventually reveals herself to be very amoral and power-hungry. When the kids condemn her brainwashing monsters, Tamsyn mind controls the entire Van Alten family into her servants, and after learning of Ishaani's specubus, tries to capture it for herself.
• Boy Meets Ghoul: In "The Vampire of My Dreams", Edith dates a vampire named Edward. Their first date proves to be an utter disaster due to Edward's boring and pretentious attitude, leading Edith to quickly breaks things off with him. Unfortunately, Edward takes her dumping really badly and ends up becoming utterly obsessed with her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Phil does this in "Dreamscapes" after explaining to the kids that all cats have Dream Walker powers.
  Phil: (up close; aside) Your cat does it too. Walks right into your dreams when you're sleeping.
  Ernest: ...Phil, who are you talking to?
  Phil: Never mind! (up close; aside) I'm talking to you.
• Broken Ace: When Arthur is first introduced, he is presented as a beloved and highly competent monster hunter who has successfully defended Grusselbrook for many decades from monsters. However, as the series unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear Arthur is growing out of touch and getting stuck in his ways as a result of his age, meaning his grandkids, more often than not, are the ones who have to save day.
• Broken Pedestal: Played with regarding the kids' relationship with Arthur. They are disappointed to discover their grandfather, the local celebrity and renowned monster expert/afficionado he is, is actually a Hunter of Monsters, and while they still love and respect him, they try to show him alternative ways of dealing with monsters. Furthermore, they also show greater knowledge in certain subjects than Arthur (for instance, he actually has very little expertise with vampires compared to the vampire-obsessed Edith), even discovering new information about monsters Arthur has dealt with before that had remained unknown prior because of Arthur's preference for eliminating monsters rather than letting them coexist peacefully with humans.
• Cats Are Magic: Phil is as magical as he is mysterious. He refuses to explain why he's able to speak, is able to enter others' dreams (although he claims all cats can do this), appears to have been stitched together a la Frankenstein's Monster, and was even used by a mummy as a makeshift magical crown in one episode. We also learn in Tamsyn Van Alten's introductory story arc that he used to be the familiar of a witch.
• Cats Are Mean:
  • Downplayed with Phil, who tends to be more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. He's very blunt, self-centered, and likes to mess with people, but even despite his ever-shifting loyalties and refusal to share much about his true nature, he does care a lot for the Van Altens and can be counted on to help them save the day when they really do need him.
  • Played straight by the Yule Cat, a vain, gluttonous monster feline who makes himself a most unbearable and high-maintenance guest at the Van Altens' mansion, all while threatening to eat his hosts or putting curses on them if they don't meet his high standards for food, fashion, and comfort. And on top of that, he also enjoys bullying Phil.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: Phil, of course. Although after the events of "The Banshee", he no longer has all of them.
  Phil: Well, I guess I'm down to eight now. (thinks for a second) No, seven. Coyote incident. No, no, no, wait. I forgot about the electrical socket. Word of advice: never stick your paws in there. So I have six lives left... or is it five? I can't remember. (sighs) This is gonna keep me up all night.
• Cool Big Sis: Edith fulfills this role to Ernest and Bo, often acting as the leader of the trio while also generally being a lot more laidback, mischievous, and impulsive when compared to her innocent baby sister and more cautious and inquisitive younger brother.
• Cool Car: Arthur's car is a big jeep equipped with all the tech a monster hunter needs.
• Cool Old Guy:
  • The kids' grandfather Arthur Van Alten is a Hunter of Monsters celebrated as a hero by the people of Grusselbrook, and he's got a ton of hyper-advanced tech and awesome vehicles, on top of also owning a talking monster cat. As the series unfold however, it is deconstructed as Arthur is shown to be deeply stuck in his ways and consequently growing out of touch, meaning that even despite his well-earned reputation, he's prone to making mistakes and false assumptions that his grandkids wouldn't due to their fresh and modern approach to dealing with monsters.
  • Played straighter with Randall. He may seem like your typical stuff-lipped butler, but he also acts as Mission Control for Arthur's monster hunting endeavors, often gives useful advice to the kids, and is an expert fencer.
• Cool Plane: Arthur has a big aircraft he sometimes pulls out for missions, bringing the kids along, of course.
• Covered in Gunge: Only this gunge is special! Arthur's firearms generally shoot out time slime, a green goo that temporarily freezes anything it encases in time, giving him plenty of time to take a frozen monster back to his mansion and place it in his basement's suspended animation chambers.
• Creator Cameo: A variation. The logo of the show's production studio Ja Film appears as a poster at the ticket booth of Grusselbrook's movie theater.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Arthur Van Alten deconstructs the Cool Old Guy archetype. When we are introduced to him, he's presented as a local hero due to his long career of defending Grusselbrook from monsters, on top of also having a supernatural talking cat for a pet and a ton of hi-tech gadgets and vehicles at his disposal. However, we see over the course of the series that even despite his bravery and his well-earned reputation, his advanced age has caused him to grow increasingly out of touch. As a result, Arthur often makes makes mistakes that end up causing trouble, forcing his grandkids Edith, Ernest, and Bo to step in and save the day instead. Furthermore, Edith, Ernest, and Bo's strategy of rehabilitating monsters is consistently more effective than Arthur's preference for imprisoning them, even helping the kids learn new information about monsters Arthur himself was unaware of. However, Arthur scoffs at his grandkids' ideas as naive, only further demonstrating just how stuck in his outdated ways he is
• Demonic Possession: "Saving Lemmy" involves the characters having to deal with a hamster possessed by a demon.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Ernest himself sings the show's theme song. In-universe, it's a song written between him and Ishaani.
• Dracula: The vampire himself is sealed away in Arthur's basement, the prize trophy of his collection of captured monsters. Edith frees him early on in the show to learn more about vampires from him, but naturally, Dracula escapes and goes on to become a major recurring antagonist.
• Dream Walker: Phil is revealed to be this in "Dreamscapes". He claims all cats can do this.
• Fish People: In "Jill Gets a House", the kids help one named Jill find a new home due to all the human disturbing her swamp. "Jill" (she claims she doesn't have a name, so the kids nickname her that) is a burly Creature from the Black Lagoon-type monster, albeit with a small tail and an anglerfish-like lure on her head.
• Fluffy the Terrible:
  • What does Ishaani call her specubus? Shirley
  Ernest: Shirley?
  Ishaani: I was six when I came up with that. You can't be afraid of someone called Shirley, right?
  • The giant mutant seagulls that terrorize Grusselbrook? They're nicknamed Hansel and Gretel.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Despite being the older of the two, the sassy, reckless, and prank-loving Edith is the Foolish Sibling to the timid, reserved, and knowledgeable Ernest's Responsible Sibling. This is well-reflected by their respective plotlines, with Edith's rivalry with Dracula being overall comedic in nature and involving a prank war whereas Ernest's friendship with Ishaani is generally darker and more serious in tone with a much larger mystery involved.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: Compared to other cartoons with overarching narratives, Monster Loving Maniacs differs in that it has two plotlines going on at once separately from one another rather than focusing on a single big story. In this case, said plotlines are Edith's rivalry with Dracula and Ernest's friendship with Ishaani.
• Frankenstein's Monster: While not explicitly stated, Phil appears to be the feline equivalent of such, judging by the numerous stitches across his body making it appear as if he was put together from other cats' parts.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: The subject of the episode bluntly titled "Body Swap". Dracula and Edith accidentally end up in each other's bodies as a result of a wayward invention. While Edith quickly finds she does not enjoy being a vampire as much as she hoped, Dracula begins bonding with the Van Altens and finds himself no longer hampered by common vampire weaknesses, resulting in him deciding not to swap back after the invention gets fixed. Notably, the series averts mental voices, with both characters speaking in their regular voices rather than each other's. They do however adopt each other's speech mannerisms, and Edith also develops shadows under her eyes reminiscent of those on Dracula.
• Friend to All Living Things: Bo has a talent for befriending other creatures, particularly the monsters the characters often deal with. On a few occasions, her ability to make connections with the monsters ends up saving the day.
• Friendly Enemy: Dracula's dynamic with the Van Alten kids is something along the lines of this. While Edith, Ernest, and Bo know to be wary of him and understand how dangerous he is, Dracula seems to have an underlying fondness for them. He is quite impressed with the kids when he first meets them and praises them as Worthy Opponents several times, even saying he would be proud to see them follow in his footsteps and become vampires too. Likewise, the kids are able to confront Dracula on a non-hostile grounds, being able to reason with or engage in an Enemy Mine with him on a few occasions. Edith even describes Dracula as being like their uncle.
• Fur Against Fang:
  • Edith is a huge vampire fan and Ernest loves werewolves, so they often debate which monster would win in a fight. Edith insists a vampire would always win because they can just wait for the werewolf to turn back into a human before attacking. A minor Running Gag is that everyone else seems to agree with her on this, to Ernest's annoyance.
  • In the climax of "The Vampire of My Dreams", Ernest and Bo recruit the help of friendly neighborhood werewolf Wolfchefski to battle Edith's vampire ex-boyfriend Edward. Subverted however because Wolfchefski is reluctant to fight Edward and instead ends up comforting about his breakup with Edith and then befriending him.
  • "The Dark Lord Cometh" finally sees the trope blossom when Wolfchefski helps the kids fight Count Dracula himself. Ernest's werewolf friend puts up a good fight, but Dracula ultimately managed to subdue him with some silver chains.
• The Generation Gap: One of the big themes of the series. While Arthur has managed to earn himself a well-deserved reputation as the protector of Grusselbrook and an excellent Hunter of Monsters, his age means he's very much stuck in his increasingly dated approach to dealing with monsters aggressively. Edith, Ernest, and Bo however manage to inject fresh new blood into their family's monster hunting tradition by choosing to deal with monsters in a more diplomatic fashion. And while Arthur scoffs at their idea of helping monsters coexist with humans, the three kids show him time and time again that their approach is not only every bit as effective as Arthur's traditional time-slime-and-imprisoning, but also helps them learn things about monsters that Arthur himself was previously unaware of.
• Ghost Pirate: "The Shavening" sees the Van Altens confront a gang of undead pirates who come to Grusselbrook every ten years in search of vengeance for the town having taken their treasure and sunk their ship. However, by the present, the one-a-decade fight has evolved into a more ritualistic event that ends with the losing side being forcibly shaved bald.
• Giant Eye of Doom: One of the three doors in the lair of Ishaani's specubus has one behind it. Ernest and Ishaani later discover it to be a baby Space Whale that got stuck at the pyramid's entrance.
• Giant Flyer: Grusselbrook has a problem with giant mutant seagulls, and a minor Running Gag involves one suddenly showing up to attack or fly off with some unfortunate.
• Girl Next Door: Ishaani is a laidback, music-loving girl who lives in the house next door to the Van Alten mansion. Ernest regularly visits her when he needs a friend to confide in about his problems while also sometimes playing music together.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Bo, being a 5-year-old girl, has tons of stuffed animals and monster plushies she takes with her everywhere.
• Grand Finale: "The Dark Lord Cometh". The Van Altens confront Dracula in one final battle, getting help from Ishaani and her specubus, as well as Wolfchefski. When the kids ultimately defeat Dracula and reduce him to skeleton again, Ishaani frees her specubus from servitude and leaves with her mom to travel the world, while the Van Alten kids are made official monster hunters. Dissatisfied with being dubbed "hunters" instead of "experts" and their own inability to help Dracula as they did for all the other monsters however, the kids rescurrect Dracula again... this time, to help him become a part of their family.
• Griping About Gremlins: "Cakes on a Plane" features a trio of them summoned by a magic gong. They're small blue humanoids resembling wingless humanoid bats in flight engineer outfits that are only able to say "Toby". They are able to teleport and destroy machinery using cartoonish antics, but can be distracted from their sabotage through quality stage entertainment.
• Grumpy Old Man: Arthur can be this sometimes. He tends to get irritated by his grandkids' rehabilitation-based approach to dealing with monsters, in particular.
• Holy Burns Evil: Subverted. In the show's universe, vampires can only be repelled by a cross if the user has absolute faith in something (not necessarily religious). Edith's inability to make this power work is a recurring point in the series.
• Hunter of Monsters: The Van Alten family are a lineage of monster hunters who have been protecting the haunted town of Grusselbrook for centuries, with Arthur being the current town defender. Subverted by his grandkids, who take on monster hunter training, but for the purposes of learning to help monsters instead of getting rid of them.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: It's heavily implied Dracula's own fondness for the Van Alten family, particularly the kids, is derived from his own desire to have a family to call his own. He more or less confirms this with his dying words in the Grand Finale, prompting the kids to resurrect him afterwards so they can adopt him into their own family.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Wolfchefski, an adult werewolf, is good friends with 10-year-old Ernest.
• The Jeeves: Randall is Arthur's stereotypically classy and ever-loyal butler. He often acts as mission control for Arthur's monster hunts, even deploying tech when needed.
• Jerkass: Victor Van Helsing is Arthur's narcissistic, greedy, self-centered rival. In his first appearance, he betrays Arthur to take Dracula's skeleton for himself, but when the battle goes in Arthur's favor, Victor opts to remove the stake in Dracula's remains to resurrect the vampire so that nobody can claim Dracula's bones. And in "The Mirror of Souls", he's outright proud about the fact the eponymous Magic Mirror shows his true self as a snake, reflecting his conniving, backstabbing nature and just how shameless he is about it.
• Living Toys: The title character of "Safari Jack" is a sapient action figure of an Egomaniac Hunter who Arthur describes as irredeemably evil. The kids do their best to try their usual rehabilitation methods on him, but Jack frustrates them with his attempts to assassinate Arthur and his blackmailing of Phil.
• Magic Mirror: The eponymous item of "The Mirror of Souls" allows one to see a reflection of their true self in it. Dracula, longing to see his reflection for the first time in centuries, ropes the kids into helping him find it.
• Mega Neko: The Icelandic Yule Cat shows up in the episode of the same name. Much like in the folklore, he's a massive feline who terrorized the people of Iceland in ages past if they were dressed improperly. The monster hunters were unable to defeat him, but they did strike a bargain to let him stay at the home of a different monster hunter every day in exchange for being pampered by them, except Christmas when he returns to Iceland.
• Mind Control:
  • Tamsyn's usual brand of magic. She uses this to brainwash the Van Alten family, turning them into her servants so she can capture Ishaani's specubus.
  • Also an ability the Van Alten kids gain when transformed into vampires in "The Mirror of Souls", done in the classic hypnotic gaze style. However, they find that this ability is nullified if the target is wear silver headgear of some kind. In "The Dark Lord Cometh", Edith learns from the Book of Vampires that this ability can be done at will to anyone a vampire has drank the blood of, which Dracula uses to turn all of Grusselbrook against the Van Altens.
• Mirror Monster: The shadowy entity that lives in Ishaani's mirror is one of these, a creature known as a specubus or mirror wraith. It protects Ishaani from harm and has the ability to switch places with her when Ishaani makes contact with a reflective surface at night, but the catch is she can't leave Grusselbrook's city limits. Ishaani's mother has the same power.
• Missing Reflection: Dracula, of course. It doesn't impact the plot too often, but as it turns out in "The Dark Lord Cometh", it makes him invisible to a Mirror Monster like Ishaani's specubus.
• Mission Control: Randall often plays this role, working from a control room on the mansion's top floor to report and monitor for Arthur while he's on monster-hunting missions.
• Monster Is a Mommy: At the end of the episode "The Power Phoenix", it is revealed that the eponymous monster had a nest with three chicks, which are initially dead until their mother resurrects them with a feeding of electricity.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: In "Grandma and Werewolf", we meet Arthur's wife and the kids' grandmother, a sorceress named Tamsyn Van Alten. Arthur froze her in his basement years ago after discovering she was a sorceress, so understandably, they have a... complicated relationship.
• Multi-Part Episode: The show has several of these, including the first episode "Welcome to Grusselbrook", "Door Number Three", "Grandma and Werewolf" and its immediate followup "Peace, Love, and Harmony", "The Vampire of My Dreams", "The Mirror of Souls", and the Grand Finale "The Dark Lord Cometh".
• Mummy: Naturally the Monster of the Week in "The Mummy". This one is the undead corpse of a notorious pharaoh (identified by the kids as "Ozymandias") who has returned from the dead in search of his magical plague-summoning crown. He's very vulnerable to fire, but he takes a great liking to Phil (him being a magical talking cat and all) and turns out to actually be quite pathetic without the anything to back up his authority.
• Must Be Invited: The classic vampire weakness pops up time and time again with Dracula-related plots. The show adds some specifics, such as the invitation being specifically from the home's owner and the owner being able to "un-invite" the vampire. Notably at the start of the show, Dracula is able to freely visit the Van Alten mansion due to being technically invited in when Arthur put his frozen form in his basement.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: Due to having originally met Arthur back in the 1970s (and having spent most of their life together in suspended animation), Tamsyn Van Alten still dresses and acts like a classic hippie, even preaching regularly about peace, love, and harmony.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Our heroes, Edith, Ernest, and Bo, aren't called Monster Loving Maniacs for nothing! They are obsessed with all things monstrous and freaky, and will do anything they can to protect both humans and monsters, on top of also being massive horror movie fans.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Bo's full name is Bonita, but she's rarely ever called that by anyone.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: The eponymous monster of "The Banshee" is a ghostly blue-skinned girl with long red hair and an Irish accent who visits those of Irish descent fated to die in order to collect their souls. Unlike most depictions of banshees, she doesn't have sonic powers, but she does wail and sing a lot. Also unlike most banshees in fiction, she's actually very friendly and proves flexible with letting her targets live if they survive past their scheduled time of death.
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves are small blue humanoids with pointy ears, blank white eyes, and long technicolor hair like a troll doll's. They live under hilltops and are able to turn invisible and levitate; abilities that the ones seen in seen in "The Monster Police" use to cause trouble after their hill is leveled to make way for a public art piece.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts like Rebecca appear as standard cartoon Bedsheet Ghosts, with most of your standard ghost abilities, as well as a sonic scream they use when enraged. Several kinds exist, with Rebecca's type being specifically linked to the locations they haunt, meaning that if they aren't indoors when the sun comes up, they evaporate.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Glarbergastlings are enormous and spectacularly ugly giants that resemble obese humanoid naked mole-rats. They are very stupid and disgusting, causing destruction to surroundings as they obliviously prance around. And when a male and female glarbergastling encounter each other, they will dance together to pound a massive hole into the ground before melding together and melting to create a new lake.
• Our Manticores Are Spinier: "Invincible" sees the characters confront a manticore. It's able to speak, but also basically unstoppable, being immune to laser blasts from Arthur's weaponry and unaffected by time slime. Fortunately, his stinger tail is the only part of him that can be harmed.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: There are two kinds - saltwater mermaids and freshwater mermaids. The former are the classic Ariel-style mermaids, but the latter are huge, hideous, and extremely dangerous. "Lady of the Lake" has the characters encounter one, and the kids discover in the end that freshwater mermaids transform into saltwater mermaids once they enter the sea and vice versa if they end up in a lake or river.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The episode "The Vampire of My Dreams" expands significantly on the series' vampire lore. The powers of vampirism vary between individuals (for instance, one might need to turn into a bat to fly, another might just be able to supernaturally fly without wings). Additionally, vampire blood temporarily transforms any living thing that drinks or comes into contact with it into a vampire.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They can live their whole lives unaware of their lycanthropy, but freeing them of their curse is basically impossible, as it usually just results in them remaining permanently in wolf form and losing their human side forever. When the characters meet one named Reschefski in "Grandma and Werewolf", they find a way around the issue by helping him "balance out" his wolf and human sides (essentially making him a bigger, hairier, and toothier version of his human self). He goes to become a minor recurring character named Wolfchefski, even striking up an Intergenerational Friendship with Ernest and Ishaani.
• Perky Goth: Edith describes herself as a "luxury Goth", and she fits it pretty well, being a sassy, mischievous, and rebellious teenage girl who dyes her hair blue and is obsessed with vampires and other monsters.
• The Phoenix: The eponymous monster of "The Power Phoenix", a giant green spectral bird that consumes electricity to sustain itself, being reduced to a skeleton if drained of electricity — at least until another dosage of electricity resurrects it. Arthur says they used to follow lightning storms, but with the development of human electricity, "they've grown lazy". Edith however suggests on instead calling it a Thunderbird.
  Edith: Turns out I'm not loving the name "power phoenix". How about "thunderbird"?
  Arthur: It's not a thunderbird! Thunder is a loud noise caused by the expansion of rapidly heated air after lightning.
  Edith: Yeah, that's what I mean. It's after lightning. Get it?
• Portal Door: The lair of Ishaani's specubus has three of these. One opens to outer space, another contains a Giant Eye of Doom (later revealed to be a Space Whale that got stuck on it), and the last opens up when needed to reveal predictions of the future. A fourth one can be conjured using a specific ritual created by the witches who enslaved the specubi, created by merging all three doors and thus revealing a gateway to the specubus home dimension. Only a specubus can go through this fourth door, forever freeing them from the human they are bound to.
• Power Crystal: Tamsyn Van Alten has these to enhance her magic, although they play out somewhat like New Age healing crystals as part of her whole New-Age Retro Hippie characterization.
• Powered Armor: Arthur puts these on to battle Dracula in the Grand Finale.
• The Prankster: Edith loves practical jokes. She even has a whole plot about getting into a prank war with Count Dracula (who turns out to be quite the skilled practical joker himself).
• Pyramid Power: In "Next Level Interdimensional Stuff", Ernest and Ishaani discover the lair of the latter's specubus is in fact a huge black pyramid floating in an alien dimension populated by Space Whales, with the specubus having been imprisoned there centuries ago by witches to protect them and their descendants.
• Quarter Hour Short: The series is aired this way in most countries, resulting in all its 30-minute episodes becoming Multi Part Episodes.
• The Rival: Victor Van Helsing is this for Arthur, being the descendant of Abraham Van Helsing himself. The two's squabble over the chance of safeguard Dracula's remains for themselves was what led to his resurrection and Arthur subsequently ending up with the famous vampire as the prize trophy of his basement prison.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Arthur captures monsters using a substance called Time Slime, which holds the monster in suspended animation and allows him to safely store it in his basement's archive room.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: Arthur is prone to randomly falling asleep, partly due to his age and partly due to being a narcoleptic.
• Sequel Hook: In the final scene of the Grand Finale, Bo resurrects Dracula with the intent on helping him become an honorary member of the Van Alten family, setting up the potential new plotlines for a second season.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Ernest's sisters often tease him about his close friendship with Ishaani, much to his frustration.
• Shout-Out: The show averts the usage of lawyer-friendly parodies of well-known media in favor of direct usage or mention of real-world pop culture.
  • Due to the kids being major monster movie fans, there are numerous instances of popular horror features being namedropped or watched by them.
    • In the first episode, Ernest tells Ishaani that two of his favorite monsters are The Blob and The Fly.
    • In "The Date", Ernest and Ishaani go together to see The Thing, with the movie's iconic poster even making cameo appearances throughout the episode and some music and dialogue from the movie being just barely audible in the background as they watch it.
    • As part of a monster movie marathon with Wolfchefski in "Regarding Wolfchefski", Ernest lists Ghostbusters, Gremlins, and The Monster Squad as some of the films they'll be watching. An animated version of the famous shadow sequence from Nosferatu is also seen during a montage of their movie marathon.
  • The character also namedrop celebrities surprisingly often. For instance, in "Professor Dracula", Edith explicitly compares getting to meet Dracula as her equivalent of getting to meet Lady Gaga, and in "Cakes on a Plane", she sarcastically calls Arthur "Patrick Stewart" when he puts on a very bad performance of Hamlet to entertain the gremlins.
  • A drawing of Godzilla can be seen in "Saving Lemmy" on the kids' bulletin board explaining the different categories of monsters.
  • In "Monster Police", Ernest describes a piece of postmodern public art as resembling "Optimus Prime after eating a bad taco".
  • The manticore encountered by the characters in "Invincible" mentions being an avid Dungeons & Dragons player.
  • Edith calls Randall "Randall Scissorhands" when he carelessly cuts the head of a topiary in "Grandma and Werewolf".
  • In "Regarding Wolfchefski", we learn that Wolfchefski is a huge Star Trek fan; a model Enterprise of his even plays a minor role in the episode's plot. He even invites Ernest to a viewing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
  • Edward from "The Vampire of My Dreams", as his name suggests, is quite obviously a parody of Edward Cullen.
    • In the same episode, Ernest refers to a vampire moving too fast and being too small for the mansion's defensive battery to hit as a "classic Death Star problem".
  • Speaking of Star Wars, Ernest pulls the Jedi mind trick hand gesture when trying to hypnotize somebody with his newfound vampire powers in "The Mirror of Souls".
  • In "Jill Gets a House", Edith calls a mailman "Postman Pat" ("My name is Brian").
  • In "Mrs. Jorgensen", the eponymous ghost transports the Van Alten mansion into the afterlife, where they find themselves in a desert infested with giant colorful, multi-eyed sandworms with rows of teeth. Now where else have we seen a depiction of the afterlife with ghosts living alongside monster worms of such a description?
• Sleep Paralysis Demon: "Dreamscapes" sees the characters confront a mare, an invisible, spectral monster resembling an exhausted, disheveled woman. Arthur claims they feed on the energy of sleeping humans, causing nightmares that eventually drive their victims insane. However, the kids discover that mares themselves suffer from nightmares, only being able to sleep soundly by embracing a sleeping human, subsequently transmitting their own nightmares to the human.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Ernest is the smartest of the three kids and wears large, thick-rimmed glasses.
• Space Whale: Time Whales are gigantic, cyclopean interdimensional entities that excrete time.
• Super Smoke: Dracula often transforms into mist to get around.
• Talking Animal: Phil is a sapient black cat who appears to have been stitched together. Edith questions why he can talk, but Phil simply says because that's how he is. Considering that he claims to have formerly been Tamsyn's familiar, it's likely he's supernatural.
• Team Pet: Phil is this for the Van Alten family in theory. In practice, he's more of a Wild Card.
• Telepathy:
  • Bo is discovered to have these abilities. They allow her to communicate with the baby monster in "Monster Under the Bed", discover the mare's true intentions in "Dreamscapes", and learn of Mrs. Anderson's specubus in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". In "Grandma and Werewolf", we learn she inherited these powers from her sorceress grandmother, Tamsyn Van Alten.
  • In "The Mirror of Souls", the kids discover this to be one of their powers after being turned into vampires by Dracula.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Bo encounters a baby one in "Monster Under the Bed". It's a small fuzzy creature with horns and telepathic abilities, and it requests Bo's help in being reunited with its family after they had abandoned the Van Alten mansion.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Book of Vampires, written by one of Arthur's ancestors, the vampire-obsessed Mortimer Van Alten, and containing all his research on vampires. Edith, being the massive vampire enthusiast she is, desperately wants her hands on it, but so does Count Dracula himself.
• Tractor Beam: Arthur's got tractor beam guns among his tech. Bo really likes playing with them.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ishaani's specubus loves Mexican food. The characters often use it to bribe or distract her, but she's also caused havoc running off in search of it when Ishaani has switched places with her.
• Überwald: Subverted by Grusselbrook. While its European-sounding name and architecture, as well as its association with the supernatural, give off the classic Uberwald vibe, the townspeople and their society are pretty modern, and the surrounding countryside is pleasant green forests and mountains rather than anything haunted or creepy.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: Averted. Dracula is immune to the effects of garlic on account of having lived in Italy for many years at some point during his unlife.
• Vampires Sleep in Coffins: She's not a vampire, but Edith's bed is in fact a modified coffin in reflection of her enthusiasm for vampires.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Arthur believes monsters are Always Chaotic Evil and can only be dealt with by force. His three grandkids take a more humanitarian approach to confronting monsters, seeking to find ways to help monsters and humans coexist instead of time sliming them and locking them in suspended animation forever. Arthur sees his grandkids' methods as naive and unrealistic, but the kids succeed more often than not.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Professor Dracula" plays out as a fairly regular episode initially. But then it ends with Dracula successfully escaping. No Status Quo Is God, no Snap Back, no anything. Just the characters standing and watching with uncertainty about their future as Arthur remarks that Dracula will most certainly return for his revenge. If the Wham Shot of the first episode didn't make it clear enough to viewers that the show would have overarching plotlines, this episode most certainly does.
  • The episode immediately after, "The Date", is even bigger. On top of everyone still dealing with the repercussions of Dracula's escape, Ishaani is forced to reveal to Ernest that she has the ability to open up a portal and switch places with the shadowy creature we saw in the first episode. What's more it turns out her mother has the exact same powers.
• Wham Shot:
  • At the end of Part 2 of "Welcome to Grusselbrook", Ishaani's mother warns her not to hang out with Ernest due to him being a monster hunter's grandson. As Ishaani reluctant tells her she understands, her mirror opens up a portal with a shadowy entity on the other side that makes contact with her.
  • At the end of Part 2 of "The Mirror of Souls", Edith looks into the mirror and sees a reflection of her soul; a vampire version of herself.
• Wicked Witch: A group of these were responsible for Ishaani being bound to her specubus. Centuries ago, a coven of witches in Grusselbrook enslaved the specubi to serve as guardians and seers for them and their descendants. While most of the specubi ultimately escaped and overthrew their masters, Ishaani's family is one of the last to still have specubi bound to humans.
• Wild Card: Phil is as capricious as one would expect from a magical talking cat. While nominally the Team Pet of the Van Altens, he's happy to switch sides or abandon the situation to pursue his own ends, although he can always be counted on to do the right thing in the end.
• Wolf Man: Wolfchefski begins as a regular werewolf named Reschefski, but thanks to the kids "balancing out" his human and wolf sides, he's transformed into this. In effect, he appears as large, musclebound human with wild hair, large fangs, and a lot of body hair, on top of also gaining Super-Strength and a Hair-Trigger Temper. However, he does revert back into a true werewolf when he loses his self-control.
• Wonderful Werewolf: Reschefski is a very affable guy, even before he became Wolfchefski (although this was more due to him being unware of his lycanthropy until the Van Altens balanced out his man and wolf sides). After becoming Wolfchefski, he still remains a good-natured character, even befriending the Van Alten kids and Ishaani and helping them out on a few occasions.
• Wooden Stake: The show elaborates a bit more on the classic vampire-killing method. The stake keeps the vampire permanently dead. Removing it in any way will resurrect the vampire. And it's ultimately how Dracula meets his demise in the Grand Finale.
• Worthy Opponent: Dracula considered the Van Altens to be this. He hopes to one day be able to confront Arthur in a proper face-to-face battle, saying it would do him no justice to simply kill him when he's vulnerable, and with the kids, he has a sort of Friendly Enemy relationship with them (especially Edith, whose rivalry with him is a long-running plotline), praising them as having the potential to be great vampires and happily acknowledging when they've beaten him.

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