From left to right: The Flea, Rikochet, and Buena Girl
"¡Mucha! ¡Lucha! ¡Mucha Lucha!
It's a way of life!"
It's a way of life!"
¡Mucha Lucha! (roughly translated to A Lot of Wrestling!) was a Flash-animated show (one of the very first in fact) created by Eddie Mort and Lili Chin that ran on Kids' WB! from 2002 through 2005.
Running for 52 episodes (and being retitled ¡Mucha Lucha!: Gigante in its third and final season), the show focused on the young Luchadores (masked wrestlers) who are students at the FOREMOST, WORLD RENOWNED, INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF LUCHA!!!!. Most prominent of the students are the main trio, consisting of Rikochet, who aims to become Luchadore Supreme, and his two friends, The Flea and Buena Girl.
DC Comics published a three-issue Comic Book ¡Mucha Lucha! series in 2003.
¡Mucha Tropes!:
- Academy of Adventure: The Foremost World Renowned International School of Lucha is a school for Mexican wrestlers, where each luchador has their own gimmick and wrestling is treated as Serious Business.
- Adobe Flash: One of the very first (and arguably the first truly successful) animated shows created for TV broadcast to have its animation done entirely with vector-based Flash. This later allowed the show to be remastered in high-definition when it went to streaming.
- A Day in the Limelight: While most of the episodes focus on the Power Trio, just about every wrestler seen in the title sequence gets at least one 11-minute spotlight.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Honor... family... tradition... AND DONUTS!"
- Audience Participation: The three protagonists and Cindy Got Volunteered for this watching a pro match after one wrestler "dares" the other to fight with four junior luchadores in his jersey. (And they help him escape a pin.)
- Badass Santa: "Santo Claus" and his evil brother "Rudo Claus"
- Big Eater: The Flea. Mostly donuts, but willing to gorge on any edible (and occasionally inedible) thing.
- Bouncing Battler: Rikochet, when he uses his "Pulverizing Pinball" move.
- The Bully: The superheavyweights tend to get this characterization. And of course the three American wrestlers.
- Calling Your Attacks: A constant of the series has the characters yelling the name of their attack before transforming into said object.
- Catchphrase:
- Buena Girl's "That's not buena." and "It's all buena."
- Rikochet's "Ay, basura."
- The Flea's "Zapatos de rata"
- The Chosen One: In the movie, turns out Rikochet is the Chosen One that must defeat the evil El Maléfico to save the Earth. Somewhat averted in that they only win by he, Buena Girl, and the Flea working together. He doesn't even get the finishing blow.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: DC Comics published a three-issue mini-series, one for each of the main trio.
- Couch Gag: In some of the intros would often have different wrestlers submitted by fans using the "Build Your Own Wrestler" game.
- Disco Dan: Senor Hasbeena, whose career peaked at the height of roller-lucha.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the movie, the Big Bad turned out to be a random girl that appeared at the beginning.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first episodes have a character talk in the opening titles of each episode.
- Eating Contest: One episode has Rikochet trying to gain weight as fast as possible in order to battle 3 students twice his size. Him and his friends treat it like a contest.
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Seriously, is there anyone here who doesn't know lucha?
- Evil Teacher: Headmistress.
- Exceeded the Goal: In the episode "Weight Gaining" Rickochet wishes to challenge Potato Potata Jr., El Haystack Grande and Francisco of the Forest to a 3-on-1 wrestling match after they make fun of him. The problem is he has to gain their accumulated weight for the match to be official, since The Foremost World-Renowned International School of Lucha goes by a weight class system. By the end of his food binge, Rickochet becomes a literal giant and outweighs his potential opponents by TONS! Putting himself in a weight class all his own.
- Evil Twin: In the first episode of season 3, Rikochet is framed for many misdeeds by an evil leprechaun named Rick O'Shay, who wants to destroy his reputation in order to salvage his own. "It wasn't me! It was Rick...O...Shay!"
- Expy: El Rey (the actual one, not Rikochet's talking action figure) is intended to be one for El Santo. Rey Dinamico is intended to be one for Rey Mysterio Jr. (also doubles as a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo).
- The Faceless: Rikochet when he can't find his mask. When he isn't wearing something random on his head to hide his face, all that we can see are close-ups of his eyes.
- Feud Episode: Happens to Rikochet and Buena Girl in "Doomien".
- Finishing Move: Each character has their own special move.
- Freudian Trio: Rikochet as the Ego, Buena Girl as the Superego, The Flea as the Id.
- Fun with Flushing: Rikochet, Buena Girl and the Flea fight a masked toilet twice in the series. Also, The Flea swims in a toilet at one point.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel:
- Buena Girl and The Flea appear as Rikochet's angel and devil, respectively, in "Honor Thy Lucha". At the end, The Flea is convinced by two devils to melt the ice caps.
- A later subversion has The Flea with a devil and an angel, but in this dilemma (in which The Flea has an unfair advantage because Rikochet is in very bad shape), the angel actually agrees with the devil.
- Grand Finale: A
Direct to Video movie which saw Ricochet, Buena Girl and Flea fighting an evil luchador, El Maléfico, for the fight of Lucha wrestling (and the world of course). - Grandparental Obliviousness: Averted in The Movie, when Rikochet's grandfather knows how to defeat El Maléfico and save the Earth, and that Rikochet is The Chosen One.
- Gratuitous Spanish: In the original English version. For obvious reasons, the Mexican Spanish dub fix this.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Cindy Slam.
- Hates Baths: One episode indicates that The Flea's suit is actually white, and it's layered in dirt due to poor hygiene habits on his part.
- Here We Go Again!: Both episodes featuring the Masked Toilet end with The Flea being attacked by another Cursed Item
- Humongous Mecha: The donut shop turns into one. Seriously.
- Insistent Terminology: THE FOREMOST WORLD RENOWNED INTERNATIONAL SCHOOOOOL! OF! LUUUUCHAAAAAA!
- It Amused Me: In an episode that had Rikochet haunted by a ghost showing a bad future as a consequence of stealing a fellow student's trading card, the ghost shows Snow Pea stuck in cement. Horrified, Rikochet asks the ghost if Snow Pea's fate was a consequence of stealing said trading card, the ghost admits that he only showed it to him because he thought it was funny.
- Lampshade Hanging: In the final episode, The Flea points out the one thing that occurs throughout the series - cutting to a big word onscreen instead of showing the action.Flea: Why do they always cut to a word on the screen instead of showing the action?
- Latino Is Brown: Averted; the luchadores have many skin colors
- Living Toys: El Rey. There was also an episode where Rikochet found out he was secretly competing in wrestling matches with other Living Toys.
- Masked Luchador: Seeing that the whole show is about a school for luchadores, it would only make sense for almost everyone to be one. Including animals. And inanimate objects. Even the guys that don't wear masks are still WWE wrestlers.
- Make My Monster Grow: Some wrestlers' finishing moves involve increasing their size. In The Movie, the Big Bad does this after they beat him the first time. The trio follows suit for an epic battle.
- Meaningful Name; Señor Hasbeena is a has-been.
- Organ Autonomy:
- Our Founder: The guy's signature move, The Founding, actually founded the school.
- The Pig-Pen: The Flea. His costume is really white, but his lifestyle and possibly his power relies on him being dirty.
- Pokémon Speak: Snow Pea can only say his name and "Rutabaga" when playing online video games.
- Prophecies Are Always Right: Rikochet, Buena Girl, and the Flea all had prophecies told to their parents before they were born. Rikochet was predicted to defeat El Maléfico and save the Earth, Buena Girl was predicted to love the Code of Masked Wrestling and help defeat El Maléfico, and Flea was predicted to be extremely fond of doughnuts. All three were true, though given Flea's parents owned a doughnut shop, his makes sense.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The Mummy is an ancient undead lucha horror who spells doom for the world, but she's also willing to wait until the next day when the kids call a halt to the match so they can go eat dinner. She also gratefully accepts an invitation to join them for dinner, is a very jovial dinner guest, and makes friends with the kids and Rikochet's family while spending the night. They promptly go back to fighting as soon as they get to the ring.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: In the camp episode, when Buena Girl shoots a beehive during archery practice and they attack her.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: El Maléfico was sealed away in the bowels of the Earth for 100,000 years. From his prison, he hypnotizes The Flea to get Rikochet to set him loose by reading a complete sentence from Buena Girl's copy of the Code of Masked Wrestling backwards. In the end, he gets put back in his can.
- Serious Business:
- Lucha Libre has saved the world on at least one occasion, and most characters live their lives around it. The degree to which it is taken seriously is only a slight exaggeration. The school is even divided by wrestling personas, the rudos are given training in their own classroom.
- Mucha Lucha, Mucha Lucha! It's a way of life!
- Honor! Family! Tradition! And donuts! (yes, the donuts are also Serious Business)
- Taking off your mask, a Luchador must NEVER take off their mask.*
- Shout-Out:
- Many. One notable one was to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", surprisingly, in the episode featuring Rey Dinamico coming to Buena Girl's birthday party.
- The Hairy Knuckles Academy trio is packed with Shout Outs to American Pro Wrestlers.
- Primadonna Hodges is basically a short female version of The Rock with dreadlocks.
- Carlton Cold Jones's name is clearly a reference to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, but his appearance is more evocative of Triple H.
- Heavy Traffic's name evokes the "Diesel" persona of Kevin Nash, but his appearance mirrors the stereotypical long haired muscle-man wrestlers of the Attitude Era.
- The aforementioned Santo Clause is named for El Santo, legendary masked wrestler. Speaking of El Santo, The Return of El Maléfico'' introduces El Silver Mask Jr. (Son of El Silver Mask!), a clear Shout-Out to El Hijo del Santo, El Santo's actual son and successor.
- The episode "Heart of Lucha" is loosely inspired by Heart of Darkness and its film adaptation Apocalypse Now, with El Kolor De Kurtz being based on Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (as played by Marlon Brando).
- Signature Move: Naturally, a part of the curriculum in becoming a Luchadore. Everyone is expected to develop and master a special move.
- Snot Bubble: Rikochet gets one in "Woulda Coula Hasbeena"
- Sleep Cute: Buena Girl sleeping on Rikochet's shoulder in "Big Worm".
- Stable Time Loop: Señor Hasbeena caused that bright flash which made him lose a match.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When Rikochet tries to come second on purpose against Potato Potata Jr. because he wanted the runner-up prize. He ended up winning anyway after which Potata Jr. has this to say to him
"I've got one thing to say to you, wanna trade."
- Sudden Videogame Moment: One episode has this.
- Team Pet: Masked Dog. A masked dog.
- Third-Person Person: The Flea family.
- Title Reading Gag: Whenever the title card appears, one of the trio members will pop up and say, "A true luchador knows that (insert goofy phrase relating to the episode's plot here)".
- Token Evil Teammate: The Flea. He once performed a brief Face–Heel Turn with no changes to his style whatsoever.
- Tsundere: It is shown Cindy Slam is this in the Dare to Lucha episode, Headmistress too.
- The Unreveal: Buena Girl's face in "Not So Buena Girl".
- Useless Spleen: The Flea thinks his spleen is useless. Until he doesn't.
- The Voiceless: French Twist, except in one episode. There also La Flamencita who only speaks through her castanets.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Zero Kelvin and Pierre Del Fuego
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: It seems like it's just to illustrate the move at first, but later on in the first season it's revealed they actually do this in real time.
- Weight Taller: The episode "Weight Gaining" is about Ricochet bulking up to increase his weight class so he'd be allowed to have a match against the Super heavyweights. When he's finished he becomes a behemoth as big as a building, which means such a heavyweight now he's still not allowed to fight them.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: In the episode "Flea's Bueno Twin", the Flea eats a shiny fresh apple that transforms him into an opposite version of himself whose costume is white and clean and will respect and help others in need. However, the Flea has begun to criticize the imperfect conditions of the Foremost World-Renowned International School of Lucha, along with most of the students who are considered slackers and cause tardiness. He thinks of improving it and even changes the Code of Masked Wrestling to make it better, which puts a lot of pressure on Bueno Girl. When the Flea has suggested that lucha wrestling matches should end in a tie so that everyone will be neither winners nor losers, which will (to quote Ricochet) "Eliminate wrestling from masked wrestling", this is the last straw for Bueno Girl. She picks up a stale doughnut from the garbage can and throws it on the Flea's mouth, reverting him back to his disgusting but lovable self again.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Where the hell is the FOREMOST, WORLD RENOWNED, INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF LUCHA!!!!?: It's never outwardly stated, but there are some clues to its location. An episode showing Ricochet being launched into space shows a big star on the California/Mexico border.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Megawatt is afraid of heights
- With Catlike Tread: Rikochet trying to sneak past the Headmistress' office while a mariachi band follows him around.
- The Worf Effect: El Silver Mask Junior (Son of El Silver Mask!) was a character introduced specifically in the movie as being The Ace in the world of Lucha. Not long after his introduction he easily beats the Power Trio and after an short chat goes to fight El Malefico just to be defeated without much effort.
- World of Ham: LUUUUUUUCHAAAAAA-RAAAAAAAAN!
- Your Mime Makes It Real: French Twist who is a wrestler who happens to be a mime, and has the power to turn the imaginary objects he acts out into real invisible objects.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The episode "Late Night Lucha" is about El Rey battling a Mechanical Abomination in an underground fight club for Living Toys, just when it seems he won the robot reveals that it can detach its body into three differents beings.
