Western Animation / Monsters vs. Aliens (2013)

Monsters vs. Aliens is a TV Series based on the movie of the same name and developed by Kim Possible creators Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle. It premiered on March 23, 2013 on Nickelodeon.

The plot revolves around the team of monsters from the film (minus Insectosaurus, allegedly due to budgetary limitations) waiting quietly at their military base for something to happen so that they can rush to the rescue. As luck may or may not have had it, the president ends up getting imprisoned by a telepathic alien named Coverton, who wants to make a peaceful deal with the monsters. Unbeknownst to our heroes, Coverton is working for an evil alien bent on world domination. Other aliens join the team in the course of the series: Sqweep, an adorable, highly-intelligent child from an advanced race writing a school report on Earth; Sta'abi, a fierce warrior woman; and her energetic hunting beast Vornicarn.

On November 17, 2013 producer Bob Schooley announced that the series would not be renewed for a second season. The series finale aired on February 8, 2014.

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Tropes:

• Adapted Out: Insectosaurus is nowhere to be seen in this series, with no in-universe explanation contextualizing his absence.
• Adaptational Wimp: While the president wasn't exactly that smart in the movie, he at least had some degree of confidence and respect from his peers, here he's a No-Respect Guy that is also a complete coward. He also seemingly Took a Level in Dumbass as well.
• Abnormal Ammo: A computerized, voice-activated tank uses Coverton as its ammunition after hearing a word-salad order from a malfunctioning recording of General Monger.
• Air Quotes: Coverton does them, then tries to pass them off as "helpful bunnies".
• Alien Animals: Vornicarn.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Once tamed, the Vornicarn acts more like an overeager puppy.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: Sta'abi rejects Link for a multitude of reasons, among them the fact that she sees Link as weaker than her.
• Amazon Chaser: Link instantly has the hots for Sta'abi.
• Ambiguous Gender: So far, Sqweep. Even its character profile on Nickelodeon doesn't give any hints. There's a picture of their parents in their room, and the only way to tell their genders is by the dad's mustache. B.O.B. does call Sqweep "she" in "Number Seven" (then again, he thought Susan was a he in the movie), but in the next episode Sqweep is unaffected by the pheromone spray that is driving every female (human and alien) to eat Link.
• Amusing Injuries: Mostly inflicted on Coverton.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Dr. Cockroach makes his cell phone sentient and starts treating it like a son.
• April Fools' Plot: "It Got Out Of Hand", where Link and Dr. Cockroach's escalating pranks appear to cause a disaster, which was in fact a prank by Susan and Monger.
• Ass Shove: In "The Sneezing Horror", Sta'abi, pressed into nurse duty when the base is suffering from Coverton's alien flu, believes it would be more practical to harvest the organs of the weakling humans. One unlucky soldier thus finds himself on the business end of a meat thermometer, though presumably someone stopped her from actually cooking the poor guy.
• Astronomical Exchange Rate: Sqweep's allowance is worth quadrillions of dollars in Earth currency.
• Bad Liar: Coverton. Even a clone of B.O.B. could see it!
• Beard of Evil: B.O.B. makes himself one out of his slime when his brain goes full evil in "The Thing with One Brain". He even takes it off when playing dumb to a guard.
• The B Grade: Sqweep's report on Dr. Cockroach (which Cockroach tampered with) gets her the lowest grade in the galaxy, sending her into a depression.
• Big Red Button: Or switch, rather, in "Flipped Out". A big red missile launch button appears in "The Thing with One Brain", which B.O.B. confuses for a "lunch" button.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Coverton, possibly.
    Ginormica: Team Monster is ready to kick alien butt! And we're happy to start with this one! (points to Coverton)
    Coverton: Good luck finding my buttock. You think it's here? (points to his rear) But an alien anatomy... who knows? Maybe it's on my foot.
    Ginormica: Eww. Get your foot-butt out of my face, Coverton!
  • When sick, Coverton drips orange mucus and sneezes from his jowls.
  • Once a year, Coverton undergoes a rejuvenating chrysalis state.
  • Every seven years, Sqweep's species has to undergo a "number seven", a process of defecation so strong that it requires a specialized toilet to handle it. During this state, her farts are electrically-charged and have enough force to send her flying or blow up a wall.
  • B.O.B. hallucinates when sick, changing into different personae every so often.
• Blind Obedience: Dr. Cockroach creates an Air of Obedience for the President, which makes everyone temporarily obey whoever wears it. Hilarity Ensues when a whole bottle of it falls on B.O.B.
• Body Horror: "98 Pound Cockroach" has Dr. Cockroach giving himself more cockroach DNA (resulting in extra strength and more arms) to pass a mandatory fitness test. Things go wrong very quickly, with the cockroach DNA rapidly mutating and overwriting his human DNA, causing him to lose the ability to talk and become more insect-like.
• Brain Bleach:
  • This is Link's reaction to seeing Sqweep covered in human noses.
  • In "That Which Cannot Be Unseen", Team Monster witness Coverton in his chrysalis state and are so disgusted that they borrow Sqweep's mind wiper to make them forget. And then they have to keep on doing it over and over again when they inevitably investigate the cause of their missing time. However, it doesn't work on B.O.B. since he has no brain. He spends most of the episode trying to stop the rest of the team from investigating and mentally scarring themselves again... and again... and again. Eventually he gets sick of it all and destroys the mind wiper, telling everyone that if he has to suffer with the memory of what they saw, then they all have to suffer too.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "Race to the End... Zone!", Coverton's malfunctioning hoverchair causes him to crash into Link and rocket down the hall. On the way they crash into a crate of hammers, a crate of cinderblocks, and finally a crate of hammers and cinderblocks.
• Brick Joke: Early in one episode, Coverton hints that his butt may be on his foot (see Bizarre Alien Biology above). Later, Sqweep tugs at one of Coverton's feet.
  B.O.B.: (whispering to Sqweep) You're gonna wanna wash that hand!
• Brought Down to Normal: Ginormica gets hit with this in the first episode. She gets her powers back by the end, with the added bonus that she can switch between regular and giant size at will.
• Brown Note: B.O.B.'s potty training rock song in "Number Seven" apparently causes anyone who hears it to need to poop.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: Dr. Cockroach's "infinity bucket", which not only hovers over the air (to compensate for the fact that all the base's doors slide) but also replenishes itself using the moisture in the air.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Link still isn't being cut many breaks.
  • Coverton, though he does deserve it.
  • Henry the Janitor is a frequent victim of bystander accidents, odds are if you see him in the scene, something bad is about to happen to him.
• Button Mashing: How B.O.B. manages to beat Link and Sta'abi at video games in "My Monster, My Master". In fact, he wasn't even aware that he was playing a video game; he was just fooling around with the controller.
• Call-Back:
  • In "I Predict Terror", Ginormica mentions wanting something frivolous on her birthday, like a bedazzled cupcake. In "Debtor Alive!", she borrows money from Sqweep to start up a bedazzled cupcake business.
  • In "Number 7", Sqweep has to go Number 7, a once in seven years event that requires a specialized toilet to avoid destroying a planet's sanitation system. In "The Grade That Wouldn't Pass", needing a way to stall for time, Dr. Cockroach says he needs to go Number 7. The automated test gives him an hour, when before mentioning needing to use the bathroom gave him a minute.
  • The Zombie Moon Ape from "Attack of the Movie Night!", which was banished to the moon by the end of the episode, returns in "You Can't Breathe in a Diner in Space!" when B.O.B. and the President are accidentally teleported there too.
• Cargo Ship: invoked B.O.B. is still dating the jello, until he dumps it for a pudding cup.
• Cassandra Truth: B.O.B. is a victim of this in "That Which Cannot Be Unseen", when the group repeatedly wipe their memories of a particularly hideous sight, only to go look at it right after because they don't remember it. B.O.B. is the only one who does (because he doesn't have a brain for the memory wiper to work on) and keeps telling them to just let it go, to no avail.

  B.O.B.: Guys, do you mind? I'm writing a novel! It's called The Blob Nobody Listened To!

• Cat Up a Tree: This is the "big emergency" Team Monster has to deal with at the beginning of "Ginormicat!" In retrospect, having B.O.B. on lookout was a bad idea.
• Ceiling Cling: Sta'abi tends to randomly drop in from the ceiling. In "Driven to Madness", when Ginormica questions her entrance, Sta'abi admits to having been up there for two days.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Indirectly in "Driven to Madness", where Link and Sta'abi compete for the chance to pilot Sqweep's new rocket car. Coverton sabotages Link, only for Sqweep to end up sneaking his way into the pilot seat, forcing Link to save the day. When Coverton blurts out his misdeed while complaining about the turn of events, Sta'abi attacks him for dishonoring her family name.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Coverton's "self-snugging underwear" in "The Toy from Another World".
  • Sta'abi's electric staff in "Ginormicat!"
• Chick Magnet: Link becomes one in "The Friend That Wasn't There" thanks to some alien pheromones. Unfortunately, it came from a species whose female eats the male after mating, so Link's instant harem has different priorities.
• Clone Degeneration: Inverted in "Maximum B.O.B.". When Coverton tries to clone B.O.B., each clone is linked to the original through quantum entanglement, and with each clone the original B.O.B.'s essence gets weaker.
• The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right:
  • In "The Grade that Couldn't Pass", Dr. Cockroach needs to know what the Earth's core is really made of, and B.O.B. suggests nougat. To seek the answer, Cockroach travels to the center of the Earth and finds that inside the core is indeed full of nougat. Sqweep later explains that it was put there by aliens.
  • When Dr. Cockroach needs fuel for his teleportation ray, B.O.B. suggests hamburgers. Cockroach naturally dismisses this, but B.O.B. stuffs one in anyway and, sure enough, it actually works.
• Collector of the Strange: Sqweep's financial adviser collects on debts by stealing abstract concepts from the debtors and selling them on the intergalactic market. Link loses his gravity, Ginormica loses her concentration, Dr. Cocokroach loses his vocabulary, and Coverton loses his dignity. He's eventually paid off with B.O.B.'s "fortune" of "Bob Bucks", which are pieces of paper with his face on them, with a chech, which is a sticky note with some check marks on it.
• Colony Drop: An asteroid is headed to Earth in "The Beast From 20,000 Gallons", and the plot follows the shenanigans involved in preparing a rocket to blow it up.
• Confusion Fu: B.O.B.'s style of choice. Sta'abi successfully emulates it in order to defeat Rule-Bot, who could otherwise predict and counter any rational assault.
• Consuming Passion: In one episode, Link tries a love potion on himself. However, an unintended consequence of this is that rather than merely being attracted to him, now every woman he encounters really wants to eat him.
• Containment Field: The Isolation Zone, where unruly monsters are placed until they learn to behave. Link was put there when he was first captured, and it apparently traumatized him.
• Cut Short: Due to the show being cancelled after one season, the Grand Coverlord's plans for Earth were never followed up on, with nobody learning of his existence or that Coverton is working for him.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Everyone reacts this way towards Sqweep, even hardened General Monger. Coverton is disgusted by this.
  • Also the kitten in "Ginormicat". Even after it's grown huge.
• Cutting the Knot: When Sqweep's educational television demands the answer to a ridiculously hard question to prevent it from destroying the Earth (which will take longer to answer than they have time left), Ginormica offers the answer "one foot"... then crushes it with her giant foot.
• Deep-Fried Whatever: In "Destroy Chickie D!", the Chickie D restaurant has somehow managed to deep-fry root beer.^{Useless trivia}Deep-fried root beer is a real thing, ridiculous as it may sound.
• Deface of the Moon:
  • Dr. Cockroach and his son, Smarty the sapient cell phone, use mirrors to put a giant smiley face on the moon.
  • In "Debtor Alive!", Coverton carves his face on the moon with a laser.
• Delusions of Doghood: In "Night of the Living Dog", Sqweep tries to make B.O.B. act more like a dog with a device intended to modify his brainwaves. Lacking that important bit of anatomy, the device instead makes everyone else act like dogs, save Sqweep himself.
• Denser and Wackier: Certainly a lot more slapstick-oriented than the film.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Coverton frequently blurts out his plans for world domination, then has to hastily backpedal to cover for it.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: "This Ball Must Be Dodged" features a no-rules dodgeball game. The aliens take out everyone except Susan first, since they considered her low priority. They thought wrong, as she turns out to be scary-good at dodgeball.
• Exact Words: Coverton exploits this to get B.O.B. to sneak Derek into the secret base. Susan mentioned that she wouldn't get back with Derek "if he was the last man on Earth"... and since Derek isn't the last man on Earth, B.O.B. comes to the conclusion that she would get back together with him and spends the episode trying to reunite them.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Pretty much 90% of the problems the Monsters fix were caused by them to begin with. And 90% of those were because of B.O.B.
• Felony Misdemeanor: The president is keen on preventing another monument-destroying battle with aliens... because the last one was really hard on his approval ratings. Ginormica uses this later on to invoke Glass-Shattering Sound.
• For Science!: A trait both Dr. Cockroach and Sqweep share.
• Gilligan Cut: In "Flipped Out", the team tries to get B.O.B. to swear not to flip the doomsday switch. He can't even finish saying it before the cut to him trying to do so.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Ginormica uses the president's girlish scream to break him out of a protective glass tube he's accidentally trapped himself in.
• Grand Finale: "The Invisible Threat (Also Silent)", the final episode of the show, has the monsters and aliens finally coming together to save the base (from the President) as one big, coherent team. To punctuate it, the "MVA!" snippet of the show's theme plays right at the final group shot.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Coverton answers to a Grand Coverlord, who is the real mastermind behind their people's planned invasion of Earth.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Sta'abi is a Yellow-Skinned Space Babe.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The intro has Sta'abi using Link to beat Dr. Cockroach into the ground.
  • Later, Coverton gets uses as ammunition by a tank!
  • Sta'abi does this in the series proper with Coverton, when he and most of the monsters and aliens have been brainwashed into serving the Control Freak Rule-Bot.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Sta'abi, one notable example being in "I Predict Horror" when she trashes the base just because she didn't get elected Employee of the Month.
• Happy Place: Instead of getting involved in Link and B.O.B.'s shenannigans in "When Luck Runs Out", Susan and Dr. C. close their eyes and imagine they're in Acapulco.
• Harmless Electrocution: Susan gets hit with lightning twice in "Ginormicat!" and gets little more than frizzy hair and soot on her face. Of course, she was full-size on both occasions, and the quantonium in her body gives her some invulnerability. Less excusable is the fact that the kitten she was holding the first time wasn't killed by the jolt, but then it did get her powers out of the deal.
• Hates Baths:
  • B.O.B. in "The Bath Effect". Ginormica gets him to take one by saying that baths cure crankiness, which B.O.B. hates more. This results in him forcing everyone else to take baths.
  • Also Coverton, who claims that the layer of grime on his head is the only thing keeping his psionic powers in check. In reality, it only makes his legs shrink; he just said it to keep from being embarrassed.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Link and Coverton beat the leprechaun by tricking it into breaking a mirror, turning its own luck manipulation against it.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Dr. Cockroach in "The Sound of Fear".
• Horrible Camping Trip: Monger takes B.O.B., Susan, and Sqweep on one of these.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Ginormica has some initial trouble retaining her small size after gaining the ability to shrink herself.
• Humans Are Morons: It seems like every human at the base aside from Monger and Susan are idiots.
• Human Shield: Or blob shield. B.O.B. offers himself as a shield against an immobilizer ray so Ginormica (reduced to normal size) can get past it and rescue the president.
• Hurl It into the Sun: In "Educational Television", B.O.B.'s unending stream of stupidity angers Sqweep's educational television to the point that it almost does this to the Earth.
• Impact Silhouette: When the monsters refuse to allow Sqweep to watch a horror film with them and lock her out, Sqweep cuts a hole in the wall shaped exactly like herself.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: In "The Sound of Fear", Ginormica (yes, Ginormica) is shrunk down by Dr. Cockroach so she can sing for him inside his mouth. Things go bad when he accidentally swallows her and only has ten minutes before the effect wears off.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: On "Bride of the Internet", Susan attempts to get an embarrassing video of herself off the internet.
• Insufferable Genius: Coverton
  • B.O.B. becomes one in "The Thing With One Brain", after Dr. Cockroach installs an artificial brain. He also becomes an Evil Genius, thanks to some tinkering by Coverton.
  • Sqweep also has traces of this, although she doesn't mean to be insensitive. When accused of being a know-it-all by Dr. Cockroach, she replies "I don't know it all, just significantly more than you."
• Jetpack: Monger is rarely seen without a jetpack and often uses it to get around. The one time he did not have one, he commanded his soldiers to lift him up and take him away while making the sound.

  Monger: Nobody messes with my jetpack.

• Joke of the Butt: In the series, several jokes are made about Susan's "ginormous bum", such as accidentally crushing her friends with it when she grows big, using it to plug a wormhole, and suffering a Potty Emergency after listening to B.O.B.'s potty song. The lowest point has to be in "Bride of the Internet", where she gets pickles shot onto her butt and becomes an internet meme known as "trashface picklebutt".
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Sqweep watches one in "Attack of the Movie Night" and is scared out of his wits.
• Ladies and Germs: Monger refers to the assorted monsters and aliens as "Gentlemen, lady, and assorted etcs."
• Lampshade Hanging: At one point, Susan lampshades how the base self-destruct is always on the verge of being activated.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: When Derek returns to try and get the scoop on the aliens at the base, Ginormica eventually has his memories erased by Sqweep.
• Lawful Stupid: The Rule-Bot, programmed with every rule in the book, assumes charge when Monger is away. Unfortunately, it enforces even the most trivial rules (it even cites goody-goody Susan for not tying her shoes), and threatens punishment to all violators. However, it actually has no way of enforcing punishment, and the others just ignore it. That is, until it gets a hold of Coverton's hoverchair.
• Left the Background Music On: In "This Ball Must be Dodged", the other characters provide the epic background score for Susan's dodgeball mania.
• Leprechaun: One enters the base in "When Luck Runs Out". It turns out to be an alien that manipulates probability, giving people good luck when he's friendly... and bad luck when he's angry.
• Lethal Chef: Sqweep tries to create a food for Vornicarn to keep him from acting up. It tastes so awful even Extreme Omnivore B.O.B. tears out his own tongue after eating some.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Dr. Cockroach makes this declaration after being cured of Sqweep's dog brain ray.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: A lightning strike gives Ginormica's powers to a kitten, and a shock from Sta'abi's staff reverses the effect. B.O.B. even lampshades it as "comic book math".
• Literal Split Personality: "The Two Faces of Dr. Cockroach", where the Mad Scientist is split into a "mad" side and a "scientist" side.
• Little Professor Dialog: Sqweep speaks like this. Justified in that she's an advanced species.
• Loan Shark: "Debtor Alive" has the cast having to deal with Sqweep's financial advisor Tip after they spend all of her money on extravagant purchases. Given that they have no way of repaying the debts, Tip instead steals their abstract concepts to sell on the galactic market. By the end of the episode, the debts are instead repaid with B.O.B.'s B.O.B. bucks, but B.O.B. himself demands they repay him back, with Vornicarn acting as his own financial advisor.
• Logic Bomb: Susan stops Rule-Bot by making it break a rule (she put her shoes on it and left them untied). In its (chronologically second) appearance, it has adapted to this weakness.
• Love Potion: In "The Friend Who Wasn't There", Link puts on some pheromones Sqweep was experimenting on to make Sta'abi fall in love with him. Unfortunately, the pheromones were derived from preying mantis pheromones, making Sta'abi and all the women in the base want to eat Link.
• Magic Pants:
  • Ginormica's new uniform shrinks and grows with her. Since it glows, it may be the one Gallaxhar gave retailored into her old uniform.
  • Lampshaded in "Danger Wears a Diaper". When the President is de-aged into an infant, Link is weirded out by the fact that he already has a diaper.
• Mars Needs Women: "The Mystery of Dr. Cutter" has Coverton falling in love with the titular Dr. Cutter. Dr. Cutter, for her part, is more interested in dissecting his brain to obtain his telekinetic powers, forcing Ginormica and B.O.B. to save him.
• Meaningful Name: Coverton.^note More like Ironic Name as he is hardly covert about it.
• Mega Neko: The kitten in "Ginormicat!"
• Milkman Conspiracy: After initially believing squirrels were secretly in charge, Sqweep decides to redo her report with humans as the focus. A pair of squirrels then come up and destroy her old report with Eye Beams.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: To help Sqweep get over her fear in "Attack of the Movie Monster", the monsters dress Coverton as the Moon Ape from the film. Unfortunately, Sqweep's attempt to extract the memory of the Moon Ape brings it to life, and it's the real Moon Ape that the monsters have to deal with while Coverton is trying to scare Sqweep.
• Mistook the Dominant Lifeform: Sqweep is initially convinced that squirrels secretly control the entire planet, until it is explained that humans are actually in charge.
• The Mole: Coverton infiltrates the organization after his attempt to de-power Ginormica fails.
• Morality Dial: Coverton installs one in B.O.B.'s mechanical brain, though he neglects to add a way to deactivate it.
• My Little Panzer:
  • Coverton has an innocuous-looking stuffed bear that is actually stuffed with weapons and programmed to eliminate "the leader" (though it doesn't have a very strict interpretation of that). Once it's stopped, he has to hastily claim that his species makes all their toys like that.
  • Played straight with Sqweep's educational television, which can violently (and potentially world-endingly) retaliate to stupid answers to the questions it poses its viewers.
• Neat Freak: Sqweep. When Ginormica tries to room with her after getting fed up with the guys, she constantly freaks out about every little thing, such as shedding skin cells or blowing on dice.
• Negative Continuity: Most prominently at the end of "Flipped Out", where the entire base is vaporized, with everyone inside, for the sake of a gag.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In "It Spoke with Authority", Coverton is forced to fix the nuclear reactor to save himself when his original plan - to escape and leave everyone else to die in the explosion - fails after his escape pod runs out of power. The base, unaware of the fact he caused the meltdown to begin with, praise him as a hero.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The three main aliens: Sqweep, Coverton and Sta'abi. Sqweep is consistently kind, friendly and innocent, Coverton is a self-centred jerk who constantly concocts evil schemes and is spying on Earth to prepare it for his planet's invasion, and Sta'abi is a hot-headed alien warrior with a soft spot for Vornicarn.
• No Flow in CGI: Ginormica's hair is very smooth, static and tied in a ponytail due to the show's lesser budget.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: This is Link's response to B.O.B. trying out skinny jeans.
• Non-Giving-Up School Guy: Dr. Cockroach's second grade school teacher tracks him down to the base and threatens to make all his scholarly achievements null and void — all because he missed one singing recital.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Ginormica initially objects to Link and Dr. Cockroach manipulating B.O.B. into making Coverton's life miserable for their own amusement, but quickly finds herself enthralled.
  • Likewise, she and Dr. Cockroach scold Link and Coverton for abusing Sqweep's generosity with her allowance, when in fact they've been taking money from heras well.
• Not What It Looks Like: Coverton tries to introduce himself peacefully by landing at Area Fifty-Something and meeting with the president. He's forced to erect a jamming field since the president keeps getting side-tracked by cell phone calls from his wife, then encases him in a "fun ball" which the president thoroughly enjoys. The monsters, watching from a distance, assume it's some sort of attack and respond accordingly.
• Obviously Evil: Coverton
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The werewolf in "Curse of the Man-Beast" is a Twilight-esque wolfman while his human form is a Jerkass with B.O.B.-level intelligence.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: In "The Wormhole Has Turned", Dr. Cockroach's teleportation device yields one that only goes as far as twenty feet. Also, it's lactose intolerant.
• Pardon My Klingon: In "Speak Not The Q-Word", it is revealed that alien swear words can cause real damage, and one needs to use T Word Euphemisms instead. In fact, the titular Q-word is powerful enough to destroy the world.
• Picked Last: As a kid, Susan was always picked last for dodgeball. (They even picked the football tackle dummy before her.) She channelled her anger into becoming the best dodgeball player ever.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: In "The Thing with One Brain", Ginormica plucks a missile out of the air, bites off the warhead and spits it at the other missiles to blow them up.
• Planetary Core Manipulation: A rare harmless example occurs in "The Grade That Wouldn't Pass!" After Dr. Cockroach drills to the Earth's core and finds that it's made of nougat, Sqweep explains that aliens put it there as a joke.
• Pokémon Speak: The leprechaun in "When Luck Runs Out" can only say "Leprechaun". That is until the end, when he says "I'm outta here!" and beams back to his home planet.
• Potty Emergency: "Number Seven". The eponymous emergency is a condition of Sqweep's species that occurs once every seven years, creating a bowel movement so destructive that Earth's entire sanitation system would be destroyed by it.
• Prophecy Twist: In "I Predict Horror", B.O.B. gains the ability to predict the future for 24 hours ahead. Unfortunately for everyone trying to exploit this, B.O.B. is too stupid to properly explain what he sees, and often leaves details out.
• Proud Warrior Race Girl: Sta'abi, to the point of parody.
• "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: In "The Bath Effect", General Monger flees from B.O.B., who wants to bath him, into a shower. B.O.B. suddenly pulls open the curtains, complete with strings and all, and cleans/stabs him with a bathing brush.
• Really 700 Years Old: Sqweep claims to be 768.
• Refugee from TV Land: Sqweep extracts the memory of a Moon Ape from a horror film she watched so as to get over her fear of it, but her equipment brings it to life.
• Rejected Apology: In "The Sorry Syndrome", Susan apologizes to Sta'abi, who considers it a great insult. This just make Susan apologize even more, which forces Sta'abi to hunt her down. She only backs off when Susan threatens to stomp her into the ground, which makes her see Susan as a mighty warrior like her.
• Rewriting Reality: The Internet (who is really an alien) hacks various websites in order to woo Susan, including changing her online status and making her favorite song the new national anthem.
• Ridiculous Repossession: In the episode "Debtor Alive!", monsters and aliens end up exploiting Sqweep's generosity by borrowing her money and spending it all. When Sqweep's financial adviser arrives to collect their debts, he decides to repossess their abstract concepts. Link ends up losing his mass and ends up not being affected by gravity, Susan loses her concentration and ends up being unable to focus on a single task without getting distracted, Dr. Cockroach loses his vocabulary and becomes The Unintelligible, and Coverton loses his dignity and starts constantly humiliating himself on public. Eventually, the debts are paid off with B.O.B.'s "Bob Bucks", which are pieces of paper with B.O.B.'s face on it, and the financial adviser returns their possessions back to their respective owners.
• "Risky Business" Dance: Coverton does it in "It Ruled With an Iron Fist".
• Road Apples: While acting like a dog B.O.B. somehow makes a mess in the hall, to General Monger's chagrin.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: While evading the monsters, Sqweep beats Link by handing him a beehive she's somehow procured during the chase.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In "When Luck Runs Out", when Susan realizes that Link is about to hatch another harebrained scheme that will definitely blow up in his face, Dr Cockroach says that he usually closes his eyes and pretends he's in Acapulco. They both do just that. At the very end of the episode, the scene cuts back to them still enjoying their imaginary vacation (with leis and coconut drinks).
• Security Blanket: Link keeps a stuffed bunny he calls Bun-Bun, which helped him get through imprisonment in the Isolation Zone.
• Shipper on Deck: B.O.B. tries to get Susan and Derek back together in "It Came From Channel 5".
• Shout-Out:
  • After Sqweep makes a doghouse to reverse the effect of the base thinking they're all dogs, B.O.B. is in the form of a dog lying on his back on top of it.
  • B.O.B. "stabs" General Monger in a shower. See "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody above.
  • When B.O.B. finally manages to corner Coverton in "The Bath Effect" to give him a bath against his crankiness, he raises his bathing brush and makes lightsaber noises while swinging it.
    B.O.B.: The cranky is strong in you!
  • "Vornicarn" has multiple allusions to The Thing (1982) and the Alien films.
  • "Curse of the Man-Beast" is full of references to The Twilight Saga (Susan is apparently a fan of a book series about sparkling werewolves), while "It Came From Level Z" references Night of the Living Dead (1968), mentioning that the zombies in Level Z were rounded up in 1968, the same year that film was released.
  • In "The Sneezing Horror", one of B.O.B.'s sickness-hallucination personas is Blobman.
  • In "The Sound of Fear", a musical based on Tic-Tac-Toe is mentioned, perhaps a reference to Chess.
  • In "This Ball Must be Dodged", Susan leaves a note that reads "Now I have a dodgeball. Ha ha ha!"
• Similar Squad: Team Alien to Team Monster.
• Sick Episode: "The Sneezing Terror", in which Coverton gets the flu and infects all the humans and monsters on the base, rendering them helpless while he runs amok through the complex. Unfortunately for him, B.O.B. gets delirious when sick, and runs him ragged as he acts out one hallucinatory fantasy after another.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Sqweep to Dr. Cockroach.
• Sizeshifter: Ginormica's new power, a result of losing most of her quantonium then absorbing the reactor overload from an alien spacecraft.
• Skewed Priorities: Sqweep is keen to save the Earth from destruction... because otherwise she will get a D- in Earth Studies.
• Smug Snake: Coverton.
• Snipe Hunt: To get B.O.B. off his back, Dr. Cockroach tells him they're playing hide and seek. Unfortunately, B.O.B. chooses to hide in a fuel tank and ends up inside a missile headed to a meteor.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening sequence features several characters that aren't introduced until much later, not to mention deflating any suspense about Coverton being a mole. On the other hand, while it seemingly plays up the other aliens as threats, Coverton is the only one that is genuinely evil.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The series might as well be titled "The Adventure of B.O.B. and friends" from how many episodes focus solely on his antics.
• Stalker with a Crush: Susan is stalked by the Internet, which turns out to be an alien.
• St. Patrick's Day Episode: In "When Luck Runs Out," a leprechaun-esque alien (a Leprechonian) has the power to manipulate probability, giving people good luck when he's friendly... and bad luck when he's angry. The episode is implied to happen around St. Patrick's Day.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Sqweep often finds herself annoyed by the lacking intelligence of her associates.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Pretty much General Monger's Catchphrase is "May or may not have". Such as when he denies Sqweep's request for a dog based on his experience with various nieces and nephews, which he may or may not have.
• Take Over the World: Coverton's ultimate goal.
• Tank Goodness: A 500 ton flying tank; even Coverton can't help but drool at it.
• Taking the Bullet: In "Ginormicat!", Sta'abi shoots a charge from her staff at the giant kitten and Ginormica jumps in front of it. The charge gets both and restores the kitten to normal.
• Teleporter Accident: Dr. Cockroach has a half-a-hamster created through an attempt at teleportation. He later splits himself into his serious and fun-loving sides in "The Two Faces of Dr. Cockroach".
• That Man Is Dead: When B.O.B. is given a mechanical brain, he declares that "B.O.B." no longer exists, and henceforth he shall be known as "Robert".
• This Is My Side: In "The Two Faces of Dr. Cockroach", both sides of Dr. Cockroach can't get along with each other, so B.O.B. divides the lab in two sides with a chalk line (although his first intention was to give it a "racing stripe").
• Token Evil Teammate: Coverton is the only member of Team Alien who has a truly malicious agenda
• Too Dumb to Live: See Coverton in the episode where B.O.B. turns evil.
• Too Important to Walk: Coverton's legs don't work in Earth's gravity, so he uses a hover chair to get around. See also Gen. Monger's jetpack.
• Trigger-Happy: After being scared by the moon ape B-movie, Sqweep freaks out and starts shooting up the cafeteria when a soldier catches her off-guard.
• Truly Single Parent: See Animate Inanimate Object.
• Twitchy Eye: Monger gets these constantly during his camping trip with Susan, B.O.B. and Sqweep, who don't share his appreciation for roughing it and keep messing things up.
• Two Shorts: Except for the full- length episodes "Welcome to Area Fifty-Something" and "Vornicarn".
• Unabashed B-Movie Fan: In "Attack of the Movie Night", the monsters watch Attack of the Zombie Moon Ape.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Upon witnessing Link and B.O.B. running through the base blasting everything in sight, Ginormica only asks if they've broken anything important then goes back to her magazine. "Lazy Saturday."
• Verbal Tic: Sta'abi tends to sing her name at the end of a sentence.
• Visual Pun: Earth's core is composed of nickel, iron, and other trace elements, at least as far as humans know. When Dr. Cockroach tunnels his way down there, he finds the shell of the core is indeed composed of nickels (currency), iron (barbells), and other trace elements.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: Like Gallaxhar before him, this is Coverton's intention. However he is attempting it by being The Mole for an invasion.
• Wire Dilemma: When trying to defuse a bunch of rogue missiles, Dr. Cockroach explains how to disable them harmlessly. Link opts to just punch right through the casing and tear out whatever he can grab, predictably causing the missile to explode. They come out of it fine, with Link's only concern that it at least looked cool.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: When Coverton tries to clone B.O.B. and gets caught, he hastily claims that he did so because he was lonely. Link buys this because the only alternative is that Coverton was trying to create a B.O.B. army, and no-one would be that stupid.
• Women Are Wiser: As the rest of the men (or male aliens/monsters) panic while Sqweep's educational television threatens to destroy them, Ginormica decides to step in and solve the problem... by literally stepping on it. She even tells Sqweep as much when patting herself on the back for saving the day.
  Ginormica: Earth intelligence is fine. It's just stronger on the female side.

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