Western Animation / OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes

LET'S BE HEROES!

OK K.O.!
You fight til' the end
You are my best friend
Let's be heroes!
OK K.O.! Let's start the show!

— The Theme Tune

OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes is a Cartoon Network series created by Ian Jones-Quartey, formerly co-executive producer for Steven Universe, also known for his work on Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors. Jones-Quartey even uses this series as the Grand Finale of his infamously abandoned RPG World webcomic in one episode.

Set in the year 201X, In a World… populated entirely by the kind of characters you'd find in trading cards and old-school fighting games, a fierce battle rages on two sides of the road on Route 175: the villainous Box More, created by Lord Boxman (Jim Cummings) to sell weapons to ne'er-do-wells, and the righteous Lakewood Plaza, a strip mall of ragtag heroes that combat Box More's petty schemes. Among the residents of Lakewood Plaza are the staff of the hero supply shop/convenience store Gar's Bodega: K.O. (Courtenay Taylor), an energetic young boy determined to prove himself as the world's greatest hero, Radicles (Jones-Quartey), an apathetic, narcissistic alien, and Enid (Ashly Burch), their levelheaded sister figure.

Originally Lakewood Plaza Turbo, a short that premiered as one of Cartoon Network's minisodes, it was expanded into a series of shorts and an app game with the name now changed to OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes. The minisodes were animated by various studios, including Science SARU, Studio Yotta, Moi Animation/MUA Film, and Powerhouse Animation Studios. On August 1, 2017, it premiered as a full-length series on the network, with Studio TRIGGER providing the storyboards for the opening sequence and animation production duties alternating between Digital eMation and Sunmin Animation.

On June 14, 2019, a few weeks ahead of the premiere of season three, Dana Snyder (the voice of Doctor Greyman) said on Reddit that production on the series has ended, with creator Jones-Quartey later confirming it. The Grand Finale aired on September 6, 2019.

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The pilot, shorts, and series feature examples of:

A-M

• Action Girl: Considering this is a World of Badass where heroes and villains battle pretty much every day, we get a lot of these. Some of the most prominent hero examples include Enid, Carol/Silver Spark, her P.O.I.N.T. teammates Foxtail and Rippy Roo, Red Action and the rest of the Hue Troop, Elodie, and Dynamite Watkins of ACTION! News. (See Dark Action Girl for villain examples.)
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jim Cummings plays another Hollywood Cyborg Big Bad who commands an army of robots in a single-minded quest to destroy the heroes.
  • In "K.O., Rad, and Enid!", while trying to come up with a group costume gimmick, Enid chooses a barbarian-style outfit, making her look remarkably similar to Aloy.
  • In "Let's Watch The Pilot", Enid wears an outfit that's almost identical to Chloe's.
  • The character Combo Breaker is an obvious parody of Astro Boy. He's voiced by Candi Milo, who also voiced Astro in the 2003 anime.
• Aerith and Bob: The character names range from normal (Enid, Carol) to more exotic (Radicles, Drupe) to what might be nicknames (K.O., Red Action). Interestingly, Lord Boxman gives all his robots human names, like Darrell or Shannon.
• Affectionate Parody: The world is a love letter to Beat 'em Up and Fighting Games, as well as Shōnen Fighting Series. K.O. himself was even originally voiced by Stephanie Nadolny, the former English voice for young Goku and Gohan.
• Affably Evil: Lord Boxman and Professor Venomous. Both are like A Father to His Men. In "We're Captured", Boxman even tries to balance having a dinner party with Professor Venomous and keeping K.O., Enid and Rad captured and keeping Shannon and Darrell from messing it up (which Shannon almost does by singing "her song" which happens to be The Diarrhea Song) with disastrous results.
• After the End: If Crinkly Wrinkly's character sheet is to go by, the world of OK K.O.! has gone through two apocalypses and three doomsdays, and Crinkly is 500 years old. It's quite evidenced as shown in "No More POW Cards", the map of the world shows that some areas are altered, such as Australia being divided into three continents and California and Florida being separated from the United States.
• All There in the Manual: Several details about the minor characters and background characters can be found in the official OK K.O.! tumblr account.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The human[oid] characters have natural skin tones as well as unnatural such as blue, pink, and purple.
• Ambiguous Time Period: It's set in the year 201X, so it could be set anywhere between 2010 and 2019.
• Animesque:
  • The show's creator describes its style as combining decidedly-American character/art designs and Limited Animation with the visuals effects and snappier editing more common in anime, especially the older type. He dubs this mix of styles "Hanna Barb anime", citing Steven Universe (which he previously worked on) as another example, and credits Dexter's Laboratory with inventing the concept.
  • The opening sequence is very reminiscent of Hiroyuki Imaishi's work at Studio Gainax and Studio TRIGGER. It helps that the man himself did the storyboards.
  • The cartoon has animesque style character due to the fighting game and shonen anime influences.
• Apathetic Clerk: Enid puts as little effort into her job at Mr. Gar's bodega as possible. She prefers to lounge around rather than help customers with anything.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Many episodes feature Glorbs, glowing sense energy-orbs that are used for a variety of functions, most namely powering robots and gaining a power boost and are considered very valuable on the villain market.
  • Glorbs were invented by the President of the Universe to embue Rule of Fun. He explains that they're how Cartoon Physics are present in this universe and why magic and superpowers exist.
• Arc Villain: Foxtail is this for the P.O.I.N.T. arc in Season 2 (both the five-episode P.O.I.N.T. Prep arc, and the season finale), though of the Anti-Villain variety.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "The Power Is Yours" starts with Dr. Blight noting how well Boxman pollutes the area. Cue examples of Jethro sliding through an open oil slick, Ernesto getting melted by radioactive waste spraying out of a pipe, and Darrell leaving the faucet on when brushing his teeth.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • In "Let's Not Be Skeletons", a single congresswoman is able to make a unilateral decision to ban skeleton remotes on the spur of the moment.
  • In "Boxman Crashes", the same congresswoman is able to give Professor Venomous his ransom money.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Quite a bit.
  • The Mega Jethro in "Jethro's All Yours".
  • The Big Darrells in You're Level 100" and "T.K.O".
  • K.O. himself in "Just Be a Pebble".
  • The Humongous Mecha Plazamo in "Dark Plaza" is a heroic example.
• Author Avatar: Three of the writers/storyboard artists, Ryann Shannon, Geneva Hodgson, and Stevie Borbolla, are represented by three of K.O. and Dendy's classmates, Nanini, Genesis and Bobo, respectively.
  • Sweetie Pie (the onion with the glasses) might be Ian JQ's Author Avatar, who has a Power Level of◊ ∞...
• Bad "Bad Acting": Vormulax in the "Boxmore Infomercial" short is obviously reading aloud her lines from a cue card, judging by the poor inflection and random pauses in her dialogue.
• Battle Rapping: In "You Are Rad" - though the purpose was to identify the "real" Rad, not insult each other.
• Beach Episode: The aptly titled "Beach Episode", where the main characters are challenged to the ultimate beach battle.
• Berserk Button:
  • Do not trash Enid's counter, or insult/hurt K.O. in front of her or Carol.
  • T.K.O., being a manifestation of K.O.'s rage and negative emotions, naturally has several: the phrase "Good hustle", being called "cute", and just Shadowy Figure in general.
• Big Bad: Lord Boxman, the CEO of Boxmore, is the overall antagonist of the series, but most prominently so in the first season, where he routinely sends his robotic minions to attack the Plaza, until he's ousted by Darrell.
• Beware the Superman:
  • Foxtail is an example of this. As more is revealed about her, the more morally questionable her actions become, such as her manipulation of Chip Damage and her exploitation of Glorb energy.
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • The second season has Boxman partner up with his client, Professor Venomous, to run Boxmore as a Big Bad Duumvirate. Meanwhile, Foxtail is the mastermind of the season's P.O.I.N.T. Prep arc, and became the main villain for the finale, "Dark Plaza" (see Arc Villain above). She returns to being a hero after realizing the error of her ways.
  • The third season initially has Boxman and Venomous as the main villains, until Shadowy Figure steps up as another candidate in the ensemble as his identity and agenda becomes the focal point of the season, with The Reveal later that he's the Turbo form of Professor Venomous. Shadowy claims the Big Bad spot for himself in the final episodes after overtaking Venomous, ousting Boxman, and teaming up with T.K.O.
• Big Sibling Mentor: Rad and Enid serve as this for K.O., as well as his superiors at Gar's Bodega.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Old lady Ginger convinces K.O. to steal a rare piece of candy with her, and openly lampshades the fact that she'll double-cross him at the end, which she does, and enjoys every moment of it.
• Bland-Name Product: A few examples of parodies in real life products have been hidden throughout the series. Notable examples include:
  • The tumbleweed customer was after a product called Frosty Blaze. That sounds an awful lot like a parody of Icy Hot.
  • Enid's manga during the flashback include a Death Note parody called "Debt Note" complete with a character resembling Light Yagami holding a pear instead of an apple, a Bleach parody called BEACH which has a spiky black Anime Hair young man with a blade, a generic Yaoi-Looking cover, and a series called Ninja Love which was pretty much designed to look like a romance between Naruto and Sasuke.
• Book Ends:
  • At the end of the series premiere, Let's Be Heroes, Mr. Gar launches himself from the sky to defeat Darrell. At the end of the series finale, K.O., who at age 35+ has become a level 100 hero and owns Gar's Bodega, launches himself from the sky to take down a futuristic Darrell-like robot named Robbie.
  • Said series finale is called "Thank You for Watching the Show", and the song plays one last time at the end of the episode, with K.O. speaking these words aloud over the same lyrics.
• Boss Subtitles: Exaggerated and Downplayed. Whenever a new character appears, their names usually appear on the screen in bold, big bright words and tend to detail their strengths and weaknesses. However, most of them aren't actually "bosses".
• Bragging Theme Tune:
  • The second part of the pilot episode's theme song tells how K.O., Rad, and Enid beat up robots.
    "But the heroes of Lakewood Plaza ARE READY TO FIGHT!
    K.O., Rad, and Enid are in battle mode
    Punch and kick the bad guys 'till they all explode
    Power up and fight, let's watch an episode of
    LAKEWOOD PLAZA TURBO!"
  • The series' theme song compliments K.O.'s Determinator and Cheerful Child traits.
• Breaking the Fellowship:
  • Kwame mentions that infighting was the reason the original Planeteers broke up and pursued real jobs.
  • Happened to the original P.O.I.N.T. team after Laserblast's disappearance. The rest of P.O.I.N.T. blamed El-Bow/Gar for what happened (though at least Carol eventually got over this) and kicked him out, Silver Spark seemingly left not long after to raise her child, Rippy Roo quit because P.O.I.N.T. was going in a direction she didn't approve of and she couldn't be part of it anymore, and Doctor Greyman lost his powers in an accident, which meant that he could no longer be an active member of the team, so he became a teacher at P.O.I.N.T. Prep instead.
• Bystander Syndrome: Despite there being other heroes at the plaza, none of them bothers to help K.O. and his friends fight off Lord Boxman's robots, and they would usually just flee the scene. Some characters are level 0 heroes just like K.O. himself, so there's not much they can do anyway. This is averted in "You're Level 100".
• The Cameo:
  • The Planeteer Alert at the end of "The Power Is Yours" features Wheeler, Gi, Linka, and Ma-ti in nonspeaking roles, as well as Gaia.
  • "Crossover Nexus" is a crossover episode where K.O teams up with Ben 10, Garnet, and Raven to take down the villain Strike. The four soon find out that Strike had already eliminated at least one character from almost every single Cartoon Network cartoon ever made in the last 20 years, including but not limited to: Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Sym-Bionic Titan, Megas XLR, Dexter's Laboratory, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls, Generator Rex, Cow and Chicken, Mighty Magiswords, The Amazing World of Gumball, Uncle Grandpa, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, Regular Show, Adventure Time, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Evil Con Carne, Chowder, Time Squad, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Sheep in the Big City, We Bare Bears, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Squirrel Boy, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Apple & Onion, Craig of the Creek, Clarence, Over the Garden Wall, Summer Camp Island, Codename: Kids Next Door, Mike, Lu & Og, Out of Jimmy's Head, among others.
• Cast Full of Gay: The show has a very diverse cast of LGBT characters: Enid and Venomous are bisexual, Red Action is a lesbian, Boxman is pansexual, the Hue Troops are all LGBT+, Gregg is non-binary, Nick and Joff are a gay couple, Rad is queer, Raymond is gay and there are a number of Ambiguously Gay or Ambiguously Bi characters (such as Elodie, RMS, Brandon, Pastel, and Koala Princess.)
• Cast of Snowflakes: This show has a little bit of everything in its cast. Humans, aliens, sentient food, anthropomorphic animals, robots, cyborgs, demons, angels, mutants...
• Casting Gag:
  • Stephanie Nadolny, the original voice of K.O., is known for voicing kid Goku and young Gohan in the original dubs of Dragon Ball. All three characters shoot blue energy beams, scream as they power up, and have a righteous sense of justice.
  • Lord Boxman is voiced by Jim Cummings, and is partially robotic but fairly incompetent- much like Dr. Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog's workprint pilot.
  • Steven Ogg is once again a villainous chemist, only this time a more family friendly variant as opposed to an Ax-Crazy, sociopathic meth cook.
  • Melissa Fahn provides the voice of Dendy the hacker, who was also the voice of Ed the hacker in the English dub of Cowboy Bebop.
  • Jonathan Davis guest stars as an aging headbanger who's dialogue is largely comprised of lyrics to various Nu Metal songs from his prime.
  • Michael Patrick Bell voices Principal Claus who happens to be Santa Claus. And this isn't the first time he played Santa.
• Close on Title: The shorts had a habit of doing this.
• Creative Closing Credits : It happened in few episodes where it plays a different song instead of a regular one.
• Company Cross References: In the episode "Mystery Science Fair 201X", Dendy takes K.O. to her secret lab to figure out how to get him to transform into T.K.O. as part of Dendy's science project. The entire sequence in Dendy's lab contains several references to Dexter's Laboratory (among other things, K.O. and Dendy's footsteps make the same sounds to Dexter and Dee Dee's footsteps and the former characters also walk similarly to the latter characters, and Dendy at one point speaks in Dexter's accent, even saying "Get out of my observatory!"). It gets to the point that there's literally a line of text saying "With apologies to the crew of Dexter's Laboratory :)" in the episode's The End tag.
• Compliment Backfire: From "T.K.O.", when Mr. Gar tries to stop T.K.O. (K.O.'s Superpowered Evil Side) from destroying the Plaza:
  Carol: Tell him what all his hard work means to you!
  Mr. Gar: Uh, huh? Oh, oh... uh, you're a valuable help at the Bodega, K.O.! Uh, excellent work! You're a very nice, helpful boy!
  T.K.O.: Enough! Your approval's useless to me now!
• Credits Gag: Just like in The Venture Bros., supervising animation director Kimson Albert has a different nickname in the credits of each episode, taken from a line in said episode.
• Crossover:
  • The episode "A Hero's Fate" featured characters from Ian's webcomic RPG World and served as the finale to that comic after over a decade of waiting.
  • The episode "The Power Is Yours!" is a crossover with Captain Planet and the Planeteers, with David Coburn and LeVar Burton reprising their respective roles as Captain Planet and Kwame.
  • The episode "Crossover Nexus" is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover featuring Garnet, Ben Tennyson, and Raven trying to restore the Cartoon Network multiverse after a villain started eliminating various show protagonists.
  • The episode "Monster Party" reveals that Enid used to attend the titular school from Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School, and features the monster girls from the film.
  • In the other direction, Rad was pulled out the show's universe in order to appear as a Guest-Star Party Member in the final episode of Mighty Magiswords.
  • The episode "Let's Meet Sonic!" is a crossover with Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Mostly averted, as Lord Boxman runs a successful company producing robotic mooks for other super villains. The problem comes in that he is so obsessed with Mr. Gar and Lakewood Plaza that he often neglects his orders, so his investors threaten to cut him off if he doesn't shape up.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: In this world, training can give you the ability to preform slide kicks, or smash a boulder with your bare fists.
  K.O. [to his mum]: My whole life is training!!
• Damned by Faint Praise:
  • In "T.K.O.", after Enid and Rad helped do a good job defending the Plaza and K.O. has one of those "off days":
    K.O. [thinking to himself]: I spend all my time with cool heroes at the plaza now, but I'm still getting thrashed by Darrells? Why can't I be strong like Rad and Enid? [spoken] And how could I call myself a hero when I can't even shoot a power fist when I need it?
    Enid: Hey, power isn't everything, brush-head. You've got your own heroic qualities, like ... being cute! At least you're cute.
  • Later when Mr. Gar commends the heroes for their efforts:
    Mr. Gar: Good work, employees! I'll now praise your acts of heroism one by one: Enid, very impressive foot-eye coordination, as always; Rad, well done saving that small child with your finger beam. Great improvements from you both!
    Rad: Yes!
    Mr. Gar: K.O.! [eagerly awaiting what Mr. Gar has to say about him] Ehh, uh... good hustle out there, now get this cleaned up.
    K.O.: [disappointed as Mr. Gar hands K.O. a broom]: Oh.
• Dark Action Girl: Shannon, Mikayla, Fink, and Dr. Blight. Foxtail also falls under this during her time as an Anti-Villain.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • A number of the shorts focus on different characters other than the three main characters, such as Carol and Dendy.
  • The series proper is filled with this. While there are, of course, quite a few episodes that advance the Myth Arc or develop the main characters, there's an incredibly high number that also focus on secondary characters or antagonists, which has the effect of making most of the people in the series at least somewhat fleshed out and developed.
• Disappeared Dad: K.O.'s dad isn't there, and all we know about him is that Carol is raising her son alone. According to Carol in "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad", he was a great hero. It's later revealed that this was indeed true at the time K.O. was conceived, as his father is Laserblast...but unfortunately, Laserblast turned to villainy and is now known as Professor Venomous.
• Doom Magnet: Gar's store in general, considering how frequently it nearly gets destroyed. Gar even lampshades this in "Point to the Plaza".
  Gar: WHY DO BAD THINGS KEEP HAPPENING TO MY STORE?
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The series finale. Only through finally accepting that TKO was a part of himself, KO finds inner peace and wins the tournament. The President grants him one wish, and since he just found happiness through acceptance and fulfillment, he makes a wish that everyone else can live their lives to their fullest as well. This results in everyone getting their happy ending, even villains; for example, Venomous wished to be the most powerful being on the planet, so he was moved to his own world that he can dominate and destroy to his heart's content without anyone having to worry.
• Emotional Powers: Telling Rad that he's beautiful makes him blush so hard that he shoots powerful energy blasts from his cheeks.
• Enemy Mine:
  • K.O. teams up with Darrel and Shannon in "Sibling Rivalry" so K.O. can get the sign back and the bots can prove they're better than their new brother. Double crossing ensues.
  • In "Beach Episode", the Bodega trio teams up with the main trio of Boxmore bots to defeat the giant, sentient wave attacking the beach visitors.
  • K.O. and Fink pull one to defeat Shadowy Figure in "Let's Get Shadowy", which Fink agrees to on the condition that they go back to hating each other afterwards.
  • Fink later does this again with Rad and Enid when she gives them Turbo collars and glorbs to try to defeat T.K.O.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When K.O. asks Lord Boxman if he intends to cook and eat him and the others, Boxman simply says "I'm a villain, not a monster." He later repeats these words to Shadowy Venomous while expressing his disapproval of Shadowy's and T.K.O.'s violent rampages to re-emphasize this.
• Everybody Knew Already: In "Monster Party" Enid spends the entire episode trying to keep her childhood friends from finding out she's a ninja and not a witch. In the end they admit they knew already.
• Everyone Went to School Together:
  • Lord Boxman said that he went to college with a certain "Egghead" in "Let's Meet Sonic!".
  • P.O.I.N.T. is a case of "Same Superhero Team + Prep School for the Team" example. In addition to two of the leaders of P.O.I.N.T. Prep (who are famous for having been in P.O.I.N.T.), other current or former members or students include the owner of the Bodega (and thus the boss of K.O., Enid, and Rad), the owner of the Fitness Dojo and K.O.'s mom, the local evil Mad Scientist and Archnemesis Dad of K.O., Enid's former best friend, Enid herself, and fellow Plaza hero Sparko.
• Evolving Credits: Once Enid gets to POINT Academy, there are more doodles in the closing credits with each episode.
• Expository Theme Tune: The first part of the pilot episode's theme song.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Social Media app used by the characters.
• Extra-Long Episode: There are four episodes that are double the Quarter Hour Short length of the others, those being "T.K.O." (the midpoint episode of Season 1), "You're in Control" (the Season 1 finale), "Dark Plaza" (the Season 2 finale), and "Let's Fight to the End" (the penultimate episode of Season 3 and of the overall series).
• Falling into Jail: Parodied; Mr. Gar grabs a customer who was only reading magazines in his store for a long period of time and places him in a cannon, which launches him in the air. The next shot pans to a prison, but the customer flies over that and crashes into a library nearby.
• Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: Dinosaurs and pterosaurs are the main fauna of the show's world. Baby Pteranodon soar the skies like sparrows or pigeons, while baby sauropods and ceratopsians skitter around like squirrels. Gar's Bodega even has a baby tyrannosaur or allosaur as a pet.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Rad is the subject of this in the episode "Everybody Likes Rad?"
  • Discrimination against Kappas is the subject of the episode "No More Pow Cards."
• Fantastic Vermin: Gloops are Blob Monsters that, while seemingly harmless, can multiply and infest any place they're in within short periods of time, consuming everything in their path. If left unchecked they can grow big enough to consume whole buildings and even entire cities, crossing entirely from this trope into something closer to the Horde of Alien Locusts. The best way to get rid of Gloops is to freeze and then shatter them.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: A very downplayed example in the series finale: while Enid and Rad, understandably, leave the Bodega to pursue their own dreams, meaning that their time of working together and having adventures at the Bodega comes to a close, they still remain best friends with K.O. and attend his birthday parties over the years. What's more, since K.O. eventually becomes the new owner of Gar's Bodega after he retires, Enid co-owns the Fitness Dojo with Red Action after Carol also retires, and Rad opens up a cat café, the three of them are still together and close by each other in the Plaza.
• Fictional Province: Said to be set in "the midwestern state of Minnexploda", though it's based much more on Maryland.
• First Love:
  • Though not full-on "love", Rad and Enid were each other's first crushes that we know about. Those feelings didn't last after their disastrous first date, and in the present, they are Just Friends and decidedly not interested in a relationship with each other despite their friend K.O. shipping them.
  • Carol's was Laserblast, who's been presumed dead since "The Sandwich Incident" and was The Lost Lenore for her for quite some time. He's also the father of her son, K.O.. She finds out near the end of the series that he's not actually dead, but is definitely not at all interested in him anymore, since 1. she's already dating Mr. Gar by then, 2. she's furious with him for disappearing all those years without a word, and 3. he's now a supervillain.
  • Carol/Silver Spark was Laserblast's first love as well (that we see, anyway), but he was always insecure in their relationship, despite her support, due to feeling like his powers were inferior to hers and everyone else's in P.O.I.N.T.. During the Sandwich Incident, after his teammates believed him dead, he overheard her say something that made him think her support for him wasn't genuine (though it was, and sadly, Carol had just been Innocently Insensitive with the way she phrased it), so he decided not to return to her and P.O.I.N.T. and let them all think he was dead, effectively ending their relationship. In the present day, as the supervillain Professor Venomous, he eventually gets together with Boxman.
• Floating Continent: P.O.I.N.T. Prep is built on this.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Every character shown so far has three fingers and a thumb.
• Friendship-Hating Antagonist: One of the show's antagonists, Lord Boxman is a businessman who despises the bonds of friendship between the Lakewood Plaza heroes because he feels friendship distracts customers from buying his product.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: The episode "A Hero's Fate" serves as a finale for Ian Jones-Quarty's webcomic RPG World.
• Fun with Acronyms: According to their theme song: "P.O.I.N.T.: We are powerful operatives, and we're super-cooperative; we investigate and neutralize every single trouble..."
• Funny Background Event: In the first episode, a Freeze-Frame Bonus reveals Ginger flying out of the Fitness Dojo and into the parking lot, most likely due to Carol.
• Genre Throwback: To '90s Cartoon Cartoons. When mentioning the show's key influences, Ian said that the main inspiration for the show was Dexter's Lab, and the 'Hanna Barbanime' on the network that would follow it throughout the '90s.
• Goblin Face: The show is not afraid to have its characters make up their faces to absurd levels for the sake of comedy.
• Green Aesop: Captain Planet admits that neither he nor the Planeteers have been able to hold back the effects of climate change. In traditional Captain Planet and the Planeteers fashion, "The Power Is Yours" ends with a genuine but hilarious Planeteer Alert that gives good tips on how to protect the environment.
• Hartman Hips: A good amount of the female characters on the show have narrow waists and thick lower bodies.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: In "The Power Is Yours", K.O. gets the Power of Heart from Kwame. After Rad, Enid, R.M.S. and Brandon start fighting, K.O. uses his power to get them to see the error of their ways and focus on working together.
• Heel–Face Turn: Darrell, Shannon, Raymond, Ernesto, and Mikalya become the new defenders of the Plaza in "Dendy's Video Channel". However, at the end of "Let's Fight to the End", they went back to being evil with Boxman from T.K.O.'s redemption.
• Hero of Another Story: When you have a series that takes place in a shopping center for superheroes, it's only natural some of the workers/patrons give off this vibe. One example being Shy Ninja and her battles against Vormulax, which we only see the tail end of.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: An odd example. Since mostly everyone in the show are heroes in some kind of form, some do regular work like normal people. Potentially subverted with the existence of P.O.I.N.T..
• Hide Your Lesbians:
  • Enid and Red Action has a lot of Les Yay moments between them and it was implied that Enid is bisexual because she has a peace sign sticker colored like the bisexual pride flag on her helmet in "Hope This Flies" and Red's past relationship with Yellow Technique implies they were more than friends. Word of God only confirmed their sexual orientation on Reddit and Twitter when the show was coming to an end, and it wasn't until "Red Action 3: Grudgement Day" to confirm they're a couple. "Back in Red Action" was about their first date but it was depicted as two friends just hanging out.
  • Boxman and Prof. Venomous' relationship appeared like a very friendly business partnership on the surface, but Word of God confirms they were a couple during their partnership.
• Hipster: In "Plaza Prom", Enid is asked to break out DJ Fireball for a prom, and she reluctantly goes along with it. She's visibly uncomfortable when she has to start playing "Mainstream trash", and is later shown hooked up to a respirator with an attending EMT nearby because it hurts her so much. K.O. later tells her to go ahead and play what's in her heart, prompting her to pull out the "GOOD MUSIC".
• Humongous Mecha: Lord Boxman occasionally makes bigger versions of his robots, like Mega Jethro or Big Darrell (which is piloted by a regular Darrell).
• Hypocrite:
  • In "Plaza Prom", when Brandon's alleged date doesn't show up, A Real Magic Skeleton accuses Brandon of lying about his date, only for R.M.S. to confess later on that he didn't have a date, to which Brandon admits as well.
  • In "K.O. vs. Fink", Fink mocks K.O. repeatedly for being a "Momma's Boy" who's dependent (emotionally) on his mom, even though her power comes from glorbs and technology that her boss and father figure, Professor Venomous, gives her. Furthermore, after she's defeated, it's shown that she wants the same kind of attention from him that K.O. gets from Carol.
• Interspecies Romance: Several.
  • One between human K.O. and kappa Dendy.
  • Enid's parents are a werewolf and a vampire.
• Introductory Opening Credits: The intro has the main heroes doing cool action poses that take up the screen, with their names filling in the remaining space. K.O. then punches the show's logo (which has his name in it) to pieces.
• In-Series Nickname: Three major examples include...
  • Radicles usually being shortened to Rad.
  • K.O. being called "Brush-Head" by Rad and Enid.
  • Eugene Garcia just being shortened to Gar.
• Invented Linguistic Distinction: A minor Running Gag is that, despite the non-specific American setting, everyone uses an exaggerated Canadian pronunciation for the word "sorry".
• Instant Costume Change: As per Rule of Funny, OK K.O. characters can do this on a dime. However, the episode "Stop Attacking the Plaza" shows a green aura covering Enid and Rad's entire body as they execute this trope, which might imply that it's an ability of sorts.
• Jaw Drop: K.O.'s jaw hits the floor, literally, when he sees Rad's belch in "I Am Rad". He does it again when Boxman Jr. demolishes both Gar and Carol effortlessly.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Turbo forms are the Hyde to their base character's Jekyll, Ian JQ even saying that the concept of going turbo were inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
  • For most people, though, this is heavily downplayed. Going Turbo seems to make the users tap into their darker, rougher, more aggressive sides of their personalities, but doesn't outright change them into a completely different person, as seen with Turbo Fink, Trad, and Tenid.
  • Played straighter with T.K.O., who actually is portrayed as a separate personality from K.O. At least, until the end of the series, when K.O. recognizes that T.K.O. and himself are really just different facets of the same personality, and they permanently combine.
  • Also played pretty straight with Professor Venomous and his Turbo form, Shadowy Figure, who's an outright Split Personality just like Hyde was and whom Venomous didn't even know about for most of the series. It's a variation since Venomous isn't exactly a perfect Jekyll example himself (he's a villain, and not all that nice), but Shadowy is still much, much worse.
• Keet: K.O., the titular hero, approaches each day working at Mr. Gar's Bodega with a never-say-die enthusiasm in his quest to achieve higher levels of heroism on his power card.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: The entirety of the Boxmore Infomercial.
• Lampshade Hanging: Dendy has a habit of showing up out of weird places when it's convenient. In "We've Got Fleas", Rad uncomfortably wonders what Dendy was doing in his own van. Then she shows up again, still in his van.
  Rad: Seriously, stay out of my van.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Played for Laughs. In "Know Your Mom", Brandon talks K.O. out of giving a homemade card with macaroni borders to Carol, and he eats the macaroni. Later on, he gets sick from eating it.
  Brandon: Why is this happening to me?
  A Real Magic Skeleton: Your actions have consequences.
• Lethal Joke Character: Joe Cuppa, a stand-up comic who is able to take down Shannon with his jokes, which manifest themselves as giant boxing gloves connected to coffee streams.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The show is populated by humans, humanoid creatures, Funny Animals, human-animal hybrids, robots, and aliens.
• Living Dinosaurs: Small dinosaurs are seen roaming around the Plaza, apparently filling in the role of small urban pests like squirrels or raccoons. Small pterosaurs also take the place of birds in this world.
• The Lopsided Arm of the Law: The police exist in this world, but aren't very reliable; they're generally nowhere to be found whenever a super villain is causing chaos, and only ever get involved whenever KO and his allies are doing something not-quite-legal ("One Last Score", "No More Pow Cards).
• Love Triangle: There was one in the P.O.I.N.T. flashbacks between Laserblast, Silver Spark/Carol, and El-Bow/Gar. El-Bow was in love with Silver Spark, even though she loved and was dating Laserblast. Silver just saw El-Bow as her close friend, and neither she nor Laser seemed to be aware of his feelings for her. They had a falling out during the "Sandwich Incident" after Laser's disappearance, when El-Bow trying to confess his feelings to her distracted them both at a crucial moment and seemingly prevented them from saving Laserblast, which she blamed him for at first and he feels an immense amount of guilt about, but in the present day, they get along fine and eventually fully make up over this incident, and Carol finally returns his feelings and starts dating him.
• Main Character Final Boss: The last opponent in the story is T.K.O., K.O.'s Superpowered Evil Side gone rogue.
• Malaproper: Video games are referred to as "videos game" by every character.
• Maybe Ever After: A few at the end of the series:
  • K.O. and Dendy are still very close in the future, but it's not made clear if they're still just platonic best friends or are romantically involved.
  • While we see that Enid and Red Action remain together for quite a while into the future, we see even later that the new Bodegamen working for K.O. are pretty much Patchwork Kids of Enid and Rad. The show creators have stated that this was left intentionally ambiguous so viewers could come to their own conclusions, with two of the most common theories being that Enid and Rad got together after Red Action returned to the future and the kids actually are theirs, or that they're Enid's and Red Action's kids and Rad acted as a surrogate for them.
• Mental World: After K.O. frees T.K.O. permanently, he occupies the inside of K.O.'s head, complete with a house that K.O. made for him. K.O. can visit whenever he wants to spend time with T.K.O.
• Metaphoric Metamorphosis: In "Special Delivery", Rad is suddenly wearing clown gear after he's humiliated by Enid bringing up the failure of his Radwing.
• Monster Mash: Enid's family is revealed to be one of monsters in "Parents Day", with Enid herself being a witch, her father being a werewolf, her mother being a vampire, and her younger twin brothers being a Frankenstein monster and a Pumpkin Person.
• Mooning: During their epic fight near the end of "You're In Control", Boxman Jr. taunts T.K.O. by mooning him.
• Mythology Gag:
  • "Legends of Mr. Gar" starts with Darrell spray painting the Plaza's sign so it reads "Lakewood Plaza Turbo Smells Bad", something he tried to do in the pilot.
  • K.O. defeats young Carol by hugging her, which is exactly what he did to get her to snap out of it in "OK K.O.! Lakewood Plaza Turbo".

N-Z

• The Neutral Zone: Lakewood Plaza Turbo is located in the Neutral Territory.
• New Content Countdown Clock: Cartoon Network in America did a promo for Season 2, promising a new episode every hour every weekend in May. So on Saturday and Sunday of May 2018 there was a Countdown clock leading to the top of the next hour and the next new episode.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It seems whenever there's a Villain Episode starring Boxman, K.O. and friends will unintentionally make things better for him while they make things worse for them.
  • In "We're Captured", the Bodega employees could have escaped and allow Boxman to have his dinner with Venomous, because Venomous only agreed to attend Boxman's dinner with plans to sever his business relationship with him, but Enid convinces the others to stay and try to ruin the dinner. They may have ruined the dinner but it drove Boxman into a Let's Get Dangerous! moment and he defeats them with his robots, which convinces Venomous to continue their business relationship.
  • In "Stop Attacking the Plaza", when Enid, K.O., and Rad tried to taunt Boxman, he ignores them. Then they think Boxman is really turning over a new leaf, so they decide to forgive him—and that sends Boxman up the wall. Unfortunately the latter happens after 24 hours have passed, so they don't get Boxman fired, they just provoke him to continue the attacks he considered stopping entirely.
  • In "Boxman Crashes", defeating Boxman and Venomous ends up reigniting Venomous' passion for villainy, so he and Boxman form a permanent alliance and become even more powerful. K.O. even says "Whoopsie!" at the end.
  • K.O. does this with Shadowy Figure a couple of times, too. In "Let's Have a Stakeout", he's tricked by Shadowy into pursuing him and breaking down the door the glorb tree room, which was the only thing keeping Shadowy out. Something similar happens again in "T.K.O.'s House", when he re-breaks the door to try to find and question Shadowy, giving the latter access again (and this time, Shadowy gets away with some glorbs).
• No Communities Were Harmed: Lakewood is based on the creator's hometown of Columbia, Maryland.
• Noodle Incident: Something happened in Carol and Mr. Gar's past that they never talk about, referred to as "The Sandwich Incident". The same flashback is shown each time it's brought up, involving an exploding donut shop and a sandwich falling to the ground. "Face Your Fears" reveals that Gar and Carol used to be part of a superhero team and were best friends until that day, and that the sandwich was his. It finally stops being this after "Let's Take a Moment", in which it is revealed in a flashback that Mr. Gar had a hard time forgiving himself when he had an overtalkative moment that involved Laserblast being destroyed and Carol initially blamed him for Laserblast's demise, until he opened up to Carol about the overwhelming guilt and she eventually forgave him.
• Odd Name Out: Most of the Turbo forms of various characters are just called "Turbo [character name]" (e.g. Turbo Fink and Turbo K.O.), sometimes shortening it with just a T at the beginning (like with T.K.O., Trad, and Tenid). Only one Turbo form doesn't do this, and just goes with a completely different name instead: Shadowy Figure, as opposed to calling himself some variation of Turbo Venomous. Though this is justified in that this Turbo form is a complete Split Personality totally separate from Professor Venomous, whom he doesn't even want to know he exists.
• Official Couple: Several throughout the show:
  • In the backstory, P.O.I.N.T. agents Laserblast and Silver Spark (Carol) were dating, to the chagrin of their fellow teammate El-Bow/Eugene (Mr. Gar). K.O. was even conceived from this relationship. Unfortunately, due to Laserblast's apparent death and disappearance in the backstory, it got cut short. It's later revealed that, while Carol did think he was dead and mourned him, Laser, after hearing her say something that made him (falsely) believe her support for him had been fake, chose not to return to her and P.O.I.N.T., and he eventually became the supervillain Professor Venomous.
  • In the present day, Carol and Mr. Gar start dating in the Time Skip between Seasons 1 and 2, and have a fairly steady, solid relationship throughout the rest of the series for the most part (minus a Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario in the Season 2 finale). At the end of the series, they get married.
  • Enid and Red Action show signs of attraction to each other in the first two seasons, and by Season 3, are revealed to have been dating for some time. They stay together for at least a long time into the future, too, running the Fitness Dojo together.
  • Nick and Joff, who marry at the end of the series.
  • Lord Boxman and Professor Venomous are confirmed to have become this by Word of God sometime between "Boxman Crashes" (where they start co-running Boxmore) and "All in the Villainy" (where it's pretty obvious they're together). They break up as of "Dendy's Video Channel" when "Shadowy Venomous" (who, personality-wise, is really just Shadowy Figure in all but name) kicks Boxman out for protesting his actions; however, in the series finale, after Venomous is returned to normal, he seeks out Boxman to make up with him, and they're later both shown wearing wedding bands, heavily implying they got married too.
• Oh, My Gods!: Characters will often say "Oh my cob!" when scared or shocked. The closest equivalent to God in their world appears to be a giant corn cob.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: K.O. is a nickname. According to Parking Lot Wars, the Flash game on the Cartoon Network website, his full name is Kaio Kincaid, which has been stated by Ian J. Quartey to be canon for the main series.
• Our Time Travel Is Different: According to K.O., there are no alternate timelines, meaning that paradoxes don't exist and interacting with your past or future-selves won't cause any wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey oopsies.
• Percussive Maintenance: "You're Level 100" starts with Rad telling K.O. that the best way to fix the POW card dispenser is to give it a good hit. The resulting hits from the duo makes the machine malfunction even more.
• The Place: The pilot is named after Lakewood Plaza, with an added "Turbo" at the end.
• Please Keep Your Hat On: It is revealed in "Let's Watch the Boxmore Show" that Ernesto wears his top hat to hide that his head is balding.
• Portrait Painting Peephole: Portraits with moving eyes are shown in Enid's house in the episode "Parents' Day".
• Production Throwback: The music used during the CN Studios Vanity Plate, as well as K.O.'s position at the end, is a reference to the Hanna-Barbera "All-Stars" logo used by early Cartoon Network productions, more specifically the mid-90s "Comedy All-Stars" logo.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: This happens when a character enters their Turbo form, as their hair gets much wilder and more anime-like as well as growing longer to at least some extent. In some cases, the growth itself isn't too much longer (like with Turbo Fink, who already has long hair in her normal state, and Shadowy Figure, where it mostly just looks more unkempt but still doesn't go past his shoulders), while others go from having fairly normal-length hair to ankle-length long hair (like Trad and Tenid). T.K.O. seems like an example of the latter, but is really a case of the former, as his natural hair length is shown to be much longer when he takes off his sweatband.
• The Power of Friendship: Shows up repeatedly, as befits a show so inspired by anime and video games. The heroes will frequently find that one or even just some of them aren't enough to defeat the villain(s) they're fighting, but when they all work together as a team, they have what it takes to win. K.O. even name-drops the trope in "Dark Plaza".
• The Power of Love:
  • K.O., Rad and Enid use a love beam to defeat Fink in "K.O. vs. Fink". This causes them to be filled with residual emotions afterwards.
  • Notably, when K.O.'s friends and family try this in "Let's Fight to the End" to snap T.K.O. out of his rampage, it doesn't work. K.O. himself has to calm him down.
• Purple Is Powerful: Purple is a recurring color choice with some of the major characters. Notable examples include:
  • Enid's hair
  • Rad's powers
  • Mr. Gar's necktie
  • Carol's outfit
  • T.K.O.'s wristbands, eyelids and aura/energy blasts
  • Crinkly Wrinkly's purple fur, if his Power Level and Hidden Depths are anything to go by.
  • Played with for purple-skinned Professor Venomous.
    • He seems to invert it in that he's less powerful now as Venomous than he was as the normal-skin-toned Laserblast (since Laser lost his powers, and his experiments to try to get them back failed and just turned his skin purple for his trouble).
    • However, it's also played straight in that he uses many potions, viruses, or other concoctions that are purple. Also, his Turbo form Shadowy Figure, who actually does have powers, has grayish-purple skin, and when they become Shadowy Venomous (who's more powerful than either individual identity), he wears a purple-blue longcoat.
• Queer Colors: Enid has a peace sign-shaped bi pride flag sticker on her bike helmet. When Mr. Gar gives her a new bike, she immediately adds some stickers to it, including an identical sticker.
• Random Power Ranking: POW Cards display a character's level, states, and/or achievements. As the series rolls on, crossover characters have a symbol to replace the level numbers (Sonic's Level "Ring" and Captain Planet's Level "Earth". Rad reveals that level rankings aren't everything or very important, and Carla reveals near the end of the series that they never made any sense to begin with.
• Reactive Continuous Scream: In "You Are Rad", Mega Football Baby, K.O. (as Rad), and the air hockey hologram all begin yelling at the intensity of the situation.
• Real Men Wear Pink: The male main characters have a bit of pink in their attire, specifically K.O.'s legwarmers and Rad's pants.
• Red Alert: Red lights flash and a klaxon sounds whenever Lord Boxman attacks the plaza.
• Redundant Romance Attempt: In "Second First Date", it's revealed in a flashback that Enid used to have a crush on Rad in middle school. He was a lot less macho and narcissistic than he is today. However, he gets bad advice from his friends and acts like a jerk for most of their first date, therefore ruining whatever chance at romance they could have had. Even after realizing he blew it and would have had a better shot if he had been himself, his friends convince him to deny any responsibility and "double down." Now Enid is extremely cynical but has a rather odd, platonic friendship with Rad.
• Reference Overdosed: The series is an unapologetic love letter to video games and anime, but especially to the history of Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera, and western animation in general. The episode "Crossover Nexus" is one of the biggest examples of this, with it paying tribute to many of the channel's past programs and on-air branding from across the globe.
• Rule of Fun: Why the President of the Universe created glorbs. Glorbs are the reason the world has superpowers, magic, aliens and all the other bizarre elements it does.
• Running Gag:
  • Lord Boxman's obsession with watching events through Venetian blinds, to the point where in "Let's Be Friends!" he has his own set of mini blinds that fly over his desk for when he wants to "watch from the shadows like a creep."
  • Kimson Albert rejoins Ian Jones-Quartey from their time working on The Venture Bros. and brings with him that show's running gag of giving him a nickname in the credits relating to a non-sequitur line in the episode (i.e. "Transformation Sequence", "Lord Butthead", etc.)
  • Dendy has a Signature Sound Effect of children cheering that will often play the first time she appears in an episode, and/or if she says or does something awesome (meaning that it sometimes plays more than once).
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Gender-Inverted with K.O. and Dendy, the former is hyperactive, playful, thrill-seeking Keet and Cloud Cuckoolander always finding the fun in everything and the latter is a tech-savvy, soft-spoken kid genius who comes out of her shell and becomes more adventurous after befriending K.O.
• Second Love:
  • Though it wasn't full-blown love, the first person that Enid had feelings for that we know of was Rad, back when they were in middle school. In the present, she has feelings for Red Action, whom she is dating by the third season.
  • Carol's First Love was Laserblast, who's been M.I.A. since the Sandwich Incident. She starts dating Mr. Gar (a.k.a. El Bow, her former P.O.I.N.T. teammate, who's always held a torch for her) between the first and second seasons, and they get married at the end of the series.
  • Since Laserblast is revealed to still be alive under the identity of Professor Venomous, this makes Boxman his second love after Carol. They are heavily implied to be married as well by the end of the series.
• Ship Tease: K.O. and Potato celebrate winning first place by dancing through a field and riding a BFF-shaped rollercoaster at the end of "Plazalympics", after the Tiny Tots team wins the key to the city, with K.O.'s and Potato's photos in a gold heart locket with "Gotta Love" and "My Bud" written on them.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page. Lots and lots of video game references.
• Single-Target Sexuality: The only person that Mr. Gar shows romantic interest in throughout the entire series (including flashbacks of his time in P.O.I.N.T.) is his former teammate Carol/Silver Spark. He gets to marry her at the end of the series.
• Snap Back:
  • K.O., Enid and Rad are turned into animals in "We've Got Fleas", and remain so at the end of the episode. They appear completely normal in later episodes, but this is eventually averted as "K.O.'s Video Channel" shows him in is puppy form putting on a perfectly-fitting costume of his human form.
  • Rad's turning into a burger wasn't reversed at the end of "Soda Genie", and he is completely normal in the next episode.
• Special Edition Title: Few episodes have these such as Monster Party and TKO rules for example.
• Spit Take: Rad does one in "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad!" when K.O says he doesn't have a dad.
  • "Big Reveal" does this three times, First when Carol tells K.O that Laserblast is his father, second time where Venomous notices the helmet and third time where K.O calls for Carol's help.
• Stealth Pun: One of the items for sale in Gar's Bodega is an "updog." As in "what's up dog?" "Nothing, what's up with you?"
• Stock Sound Effects: The show relies heavily on sound effect libraries from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation plus a few other effects like the bionic sound from The Six Million Dollar Man, the TIE fighter sound from Star Wars, and the Red Alert sound from Star Trek. And, of course, the numerous stock Howie and Wilhelm screams.
• Stranger Danger: A creepy, sinister, Obviously Evil man tricks your sweet-but-naive young child into following somewhere, then does something to them that traumatizes them and leaves them permanently changed, as Shadowy Figure does to K.O. by getting T.K.O. to surface (who damages the Plaza and hurts and almost kills K.O.'s family and friends). Carol even scolds K.O. for this when she finds out what happened, telling K.O. "Never follow strangers no matter who they say they are!"
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The "Documentary" that K.O. makes about his mom Carol. It consists of unfocused, glitch-filled footage (he even accidentally obscures a supposedly awesome technique with his thumb!), is poorly edited, and has a couple misspelled words. Carol loves it nonetheless.
  • Boxmore's Infomercial features poor video quality, a "customer" who is clearly reading off of a CueCard, and footage that's very awkwardly edited together, with the last bit even cutting off Shannon's jingle for the corporation.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Because Boxman spends most of his time sending robots to attack the plaza, he's been neglecting his actual job of creating robot minions, which causes his clients to not receive their robots and puts his production schedule below his company's quota, which angers his investors. When Boxman Jr., his latest creation, reduces Boxmore to rubble, Cosma, his main investor, snaps and fires Boxman... out of a cannon into the sun with the help of Darrell.
  • Elodie might have renewed her friendship with Enid and apologized to her, but that doesn't means she actually became a better person or that her friendliness extends beyond that. When K.O. suggests that he could enroll in P.O.I.N.T. Prep in the future, Elodie cruelly crushes his dreams, and Enid immediately steps in to defend him rather aggressively in spite of their friendship.
  • Two for Mr. Gar
    • His nervousness towards Carol when he was in POINT made him unable to properly seek a relationship with her. By the time he thought of finally confessing, Carol/Silver Spark had already started a relationship with Laserblast, which Rippy Roo points out.
    • While he wasn't really responsible for the Sandwich Incident, he still was more focused on getting to date Carol (who at the time was openly in a relationship with Laserblast) than helping his teammates. With his negligence occurring on top of Laserblast's death/disappearance and Greyman's permanent power loss all on the same day, it does make sense that Foxtail hates him, as all the factors coming together made it easier for him to be the center of all blame. It doesn't help that Carol also blamed him for the incident at the time, even if she did eventually realize this was wrong.
• Teach Him Anger: Shadowy Figure attempts to use K.O. as a pawn in his unclear scheme by giving him power via manipulating him. It fails him the second time when K.O. refuses to let T.K.O. out.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Many of the male characters have barrel chests and huge biceps but thin legs, particularly Gar and Radicles. K.O., despite being a little kid, also seems to be developing this way.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Parodied in "Crossover Nexus". The villain Strike takes so long to power up that K.O. is able to steal his pen gadget to return the powers to Ben 10, Garnet, and Raven. He doesn't even notice that it happens.
• Transplant: The President of the Universe was a one-shot supporting character on Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, which Ian Jones-Quartey worked on.
• Unexplained Accent: A specifically one word accent, where all the characters use the Canadian pronunciation of the word "sorry" (so it sounds like "soory").
• Unsound Effect: In "Legends of Mr. Gar", Mr. Gar explodes Shannon with a literal atomic elbow, with the explosion accompanied by "BABLOOZE!!"
• Vague Age: The show's tumblr has bios for most of the cast that list "age", but almost none of them are actual numbers. Instead most are broad categories or a variety of more descriptive answers:
  • K.O. is "6-11", as apparently are his classmates like Dendy. This even makes it into the actual show, as when K.O. learns that his mother quit being a superhero 6-11 years ago, he exclaims that's exactly how old he is. This extends into his later years, going from "13-17" to "18-23" and finally "35+".
  • Rad and Enid are "late teen".
  • Most of the minor characters of the plaza without any obvious age are categorized as "teen", "young adult", or "adult".
  • The robots are listed as "robo-[age group]". Jethro and Mikayla are "robo-kids", Shannon, Darrell and Raymond are "robo-teens", and Ernesto is a "robo-adult". The exception is Mr. Logic, whose age is "???" However, Darrel, Shannon, Ernesto and Jethro were produced shortly after Mr. Logic betrayed Boxman, and Raymond and Mikayla entered production after them, showing that these ages don't exactly align with how long they've existed.
  • Mr. Gar is "a little past his prime". Carol's age is "rude to ask!".
  • Word of God explains how this works to some degree; characters don't have specific ages, instead exhibiting behaviors and physical traits of a range of ages.
• Very Special Episode: "Let's Not Be Skeletons" is an episode that talks about gun control. Coincidentally, it was released on the CN app roughly two weeks after the Parkland school shooting.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Shadowy Figure towards K.O.; more specifically, he tries to Teach Him Anger and get him to release Turbo K.O.. For most of the series, we don't know why this is, but near the end of the third season, we learn that Shadowy Figure is himself the Turbo alter-ego of Professor Venomous, who was once known as Laserblast and is K.O.'s biological father. Since Venomous knew K.O. was his son since shortly after the events of "We're Captured", Shadowy no doubt knew this too, and figured that his son very likely also had a Turbo form dormant inside him and wanted to bring it out to advance his own plans.
• Wedding Finale: During the series finale, many characters are shown getting married - Nick Army and Joff, Potato and Colewort, and Carol and Gar - while Boxman and Venomous are shown with matching rings.
• We Have Reserves: Lord Boxman doesn't mind that his robots constantly get destroyed as he is always building more. In one instance, he throws Darrell in a furnace as punishment for failing him and a freshly-built Darrell immediately shows up. This is averted, though, with Boxman Jr. He only made one model with the single bio-chip he got from Venomous, and when he was destroyed, rather than making another one, he held a funeral, making it clear that he didn't have any backups or copies of him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Foxtail during Season 2. Laserblast's disappearance served as a Cynicism Catalyst for her, as she felt it could have been prevented if she was a better, stronger leader, resulting in her looking for ways to make heroes more powerful and valuing strength above all else so they can fight back against villains, even taking immoral measures like buying glorbs from Shadowy Figure on the black market and using them on heroes against their wills to power them up, and willing to permanently De-power other heroes who oppose her in the name of the "greater good". After the heroes defeat her, Carol and Gar are able to talk her down and make her see that she was wrong, and she apologizes for what she's done.
• Went to the Great X in the Sky: In "Boxman Crashes", Enid suggests that the reason she, Rad and K.O. haven't seen Lord Boxman lately is because he may have gone to the big cornfield in the sky.
• Wham Line:
  • Played with in "Big Reveal":
    • The first line in question is genuinely huge and changes the story in a big way, but it's casually revealed at the beginning of the episode while K.O. and Carol are eating breakfast.
    K.O.: (calmly eating oatmeal) So... who's my dad?
    Carol: Laserblast.
    (K.O. does a Spit Take)
    • However, played completely straight with the bigger reveal later in the episode, when K.O. goes up against Professor Venomous wearing Laserblast's helmet:
    K.O.: This helmet belonged to my daddy, the great hero Laserblast! I take it you've heard of him?
    Venomous: Heard of him? (Evil Laugh) Boy, take a good look. I am him.
  • This exchange between Venomous and Fink, which not only confirms a long-held fan theory that Venomous is Shadowy Figure, but throws a twist on it as well by making it clear that Venomous was not aware of this fact.
    Venomous: How did this Shadowy Figure hide a room under my home without my knowledge?!
    Fink: BECAUSE YOU'RE SHADOWY FIGURE!
  • We also get this in both spoken dialogue and visual Boss Subtitles in "Carl" when T.K.O. goes to confront Venomous/Shadowy, only to learn that the two of them have reached a "beautiful compromise" and Shadowy has essentially fully taken over as a result.
    "What's wrong, T.K.O.? Don't you recognize your dad, Shadowy Venomous?"
    SHADOWY VENOMOUS: Perfect Venomous | Venomous is Gone Now | Shadowy Figure has Overtaken Venomous
• Who's Watching the Store?: K.O., Rad, and Enid are the only employees at Gar's Bodega (besides a few who work entirely in the back), yet can all attending school and do other things together outside of work without that severely limiting the hours the store is open. One might assume the show is set during summer, but we still see K.O. in school occasionally and the Time Skip between the first two seasons covered a summer where he, Rad, and Enid took off (even though you'd think they'd be working more then).
• World of Badass: More or less everyone in the show is a hero or villain.
• Would Hurt a Child: Some villains, especially Boxman and Boxmore robots, likes to hurt K.O. and/or Dendy very bad.**
• Year X: The show takes place in the year 201X.
• You Have Failed Me: Lord Boxman is constantly berating his robots for being defeated. Ironically, this happens to HIM in "You're In Control" where Cosma (with Darrell's help) has him fired...out of a cannon, and into the Sun.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: In the season two premiere, Enid has taken up mime, but she insists it's a new ninja art she learned over the summer. She's able to do things like pour her teacher an invisible cup of coffee (and accidentally spill real coffee on his crotch) and drive an invisible car. Unfortunately, Enid's new powers prove to not be very effective in a fight with Big Bull Demon.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Enid can swallow people's souls when she's really stressed out. This doesn't kill them, though, and she can give them back. Apparently, it runs in the family and was inherited from her mom (who is a vampire), who was shown to be able to do the same thing to some ghosts that were possessing K.O. and Rad.

The games feature examples of:

OK K.O.! Lakewood Plaza Turbo

• Action Bomb: Sara, a robot that pops out of the ground when K.O. gets close and blows up in his face, but can be thrown at other enemies.
• Asteroids Monster: Ernesto mkII splits into three Ernesto Jr.s when defeated.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Ted Viking readily admits there's no reward for his final challenges other than this.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: At the beginning of the story, most of the Lakewood heroes are turned evil by Boxmore's Hero Tonic, and K.O. has to turn them all back to normal.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Teagan, Sara, Robbie and the other robots from the buggy sidequest, and Lord Boxmax appeared only in this game. Sara, Robbie, and Lord Boxmax make brief cameos in the series finale.
  • K.O.'s Super Mode from this game never appears in the show; while he does have Super Mode-esque abilities in the show, the circumstances are rather different.
• Collection Sidequest: Collecting the thirty Super Discs scattered around the world lets K.O. upgrade his Super Moves.
• Cosmetic Award: Completing Dendy's sidequest changes the loading screens. That's it.
• Defunct Online Video Games: No longer available from any official source, though accounts that picked it up before it was taken down can still redownload.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Between being a video game adaptation and being created when the series was just a pilot and a few shorts, there's a lot of differences here.
  • The Lakewood Plaza heroes all use early designs and voice actors where applicable.
  • Of the Boxmore robots, only Darrell and Shannon are characters in the story and have their own boss fights. Raymond, Ernesto, and Jethro are all ordinary mooks.
  • Jethro has arms and legs and is slightly tougher than he is in the show; his design with treads appears as a stronger enemy called Road Jethro.
• The Goomba: Jethro is the most basic mook. Unlike the show, he has arms, legs, and more than one line of dialogue, and actually puts up a fight, though he's still the weakest enemy.
• Ground Pound: Ernesto's preferred method of attack.
• Ground Punch: One of K.O.'s moves, it's a One-Hit KO to any robot that's been knocked down.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Power Fist, one of K.O.'s Super Moves.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Jethro mkII blocks punches, Raymond and his upgrades dodge kicks, and Ernesto and Teagan are too heavy/secure to throw.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Power Battle Cry, one of K.O.'s Super Moves. It damages enemies in a wide area around K.O. and heals him to boot.
• Motion Comic: The cutscenes are all motion comics.
• One-Winged Angel: Lord Boxman uses the Evil Tonic to transform into Lord Boxmax for the final battle.
• Optional Boss: Mrs. Quantum, the boss of Dendy's buggy sidequest, can only be fought after completing the main story.
• Sentry Gun: Teagan, a stationary turret robot that shoots at K.O.
• Storming the Castle: The main story culminates in all the heroes of Lakewood Plaza Turbo storming Boxmore.
• Super Mode: K.O. has one which gives him glowy blue hair, powers up his attacks, makes him invincible, gives him a set of unique Super Moves, and is the only thing that can damage Lord Boxmax.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Lord Boxmax can only be harmed by K.O.'s Super Mode, which can only be charged up with limited-use potions or by attacking enemies, so he'd be unstoppable if he didn't keep summoning Teagans for K.O. to charge up on.
• Underground Monkey: All the basic mooks have at least one upgrade with a Palette Swap, more health, and tougher moves.

OK K.O.! Let's Play Heroes

• Action RPG: The battles in the game are real-time, one-button Beat 'Em Ups.
• Card Battle Game: You can buy and collect POW Cards that can be traded with NPCs or used for "Powie Zowies" that summon assist characters in combat.
• Hub Level: Lakewood Plaza, naturally.

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It's only magic
Isn't it amazing when you know
Every second that you see is
Twenty-four connected pieces
Thank you for coming
Thank you for staying
Thank you for watching the show

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