Western Animation / Oh Yeah! Cartoons

After leaving Hanna-Barbera in late 1996 to form Frederator Studios, Fred Seibert was still in love with the idea of making Animated Anthology shows in order to showcase new, up-and-coming talent. Having just finished up the What A Cartoon! Show over at Cartoon Network, where he produced 39 animated shorts that led to the creation of five successful television series, Seibert called up Nickelodeon to see if they were interested in their own equivalent program. Considering that this was the person who helped the competition suddenly become a threat to the popularity of their Nicktoons brand, their answer was obvious. And so Oh Yeah! Cartoons was born.

Unlike What A Cartoon (whose shorts were later compiled into a half-hour show, after initially airing by themselves under the "World Premiere Toons" banner), OYC was a half-hour show from the start; various live-action hosts were used (another departure from WAC) — real school kids for the first season, Kenan Thompson for the second and Josh Server for the third.

In some ways, Oh Yeah! Cartoons was more successful than its predecessor, producing over a hundred shorts, some of which became short mini-series within the program itself, such as Rob Renzetti's Mina and The Count. On the other hand, less full-length series were actually greenlit from this large batch of content. Whereas WAC had five full-length shows come out of it, OYC had Nickelodeon make only three of its shorts into series:

• The Fairly OddParents!, created by Butch Hartman. Greenlit from a series of ten Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts, the show would go on to become the network's second longest-running scripted series, with over 270 segments across ten seasons, as well as several television movies.
• ChalkZone, created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber. ^note The duo served as producers for OYC, with Burnett also composing the anthology's theme music. The duo also made several other shorts for the series, together or with different collaborators, in addition to the ChalkZone shorts. Greenlit from a series of eight Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts and lasting 40 half-hours (consisting of 136 segments) across four seasons.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot, created by Rob Renzetti. Greenlit from the short "My Neighbor was a Teenage Robot" and lasting 39 half-hours (75 segments) over three seasons. The original short was developed when Nickelodeon declined making the aforementioned Mina and the Count into a full-length series, with Teenage Robot taking the place of an additional Mina cartoon.

A few other noteworthy creators who created Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts and eventually got their own solo projects unrelated to it include Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Dave Wasson (Time Squad) and Carlos Ramos (The X's). Other noteworthy creators include Mike Bell, Alex Kirwan, Tim Biskup, Pat Ventura, Steve Marmel, Zac Moncrief, and Vincent Waller, who would reappear as writers and directors for several popular and influential animated series in the following decades, such as SpongeBob SquarePants. Another prominent creator, Guy Vasilovich, would repurpose elements from his shorts ("Earth to Obie, "Lollygaggin", "The Boy Who Cried Alien" and "Elise: Mere Mortal") for his Nelvana-produced series Moville Mysteries.

Random! Cartoons was a similar Nickelodeon anthology show that was originally intended as a fourth season of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, but was retooled into being its own thing at the last minute, known mainly for giving birth to Fanboy and Chum Chum, Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors (the first of the three being the only one to have the series also produced by Nickelodeon, as Adventure Time was picked up by Cartoon Network instead after Nickelodeon rejected it and Frederator Studios produced a Bravest Warriors series with no involvement from Nickelodeon as part of their Cartoon Hangover YouTube channel).

Compare the Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program, Nickelodeon's own animation incubator made without the involvement of Frederator, which has its shorts periodically uploaded online.

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The Shorts:

Season 1 Shorts

• ChalkZone
• Slap T. Pooch: What Is Funny?
• Jelly's Day
• The F-Tales
• Teddy and Art: 25¢ Trouble
• Cat and Milkman
• Jamal the Funny Frog: Mind the Baby, Jamal
• Thatta Boy
• Hobart: The Weedkeeper
• Protecto 5000
• Ask Edward by Rob Renzetti
• Peter Patrick, Private Investigator
• Max and his Special Problem by Dave Wasson
• Tutu the Superina
• Blotto
• Tales from the Goose Lady: Jack & the Beanstalk
• Twins Crimson
• Olly & Frank
• Apex Cartoon Props
• A Cop & His Donut
• Enchanted Adventures
• The Fairly OddParents!
• Hobart & the Merman
• Super Santa
• Kitty the Hapless Cat
• That's My Pop
• Hubbykins vs. Sweetiepie
• The Man with No Nose
• Youngstar 3
• Hey Look!
• ChalkZone: The Amazin' River
• Tales from the Goose Lady: Hamsel and Grande
• The Feelers
• Planet Kate
• Fat Head
• Max & the Pigeon
• Zoomates
• Microcops

Season 2 Shorts

• ChalkZone: Rudy's Date
• A Kid's Life
• The Fairly OddParents!: Too Many Timmys!
• Tales from the Goose Lady: The Little Pigs 3
• Freddy Seymore's Amazing Life
• Jamal the Funny Frog: His Musical Moment
• The Fairly OddParents!: Where's the Wand?
• Magic Trixie
• Tales from the Goose Lady: The Egg Who Would Be King
• ChalkZone: Snap Out of Water
• Earth to Obie
• Mina and The Count: The Ghoul's Tribunal^note  Mina and the Count was originally part of Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! Show.
• ChalkZone: Secret Passages
• Kid from S.C.H.O.O.L.
• Mina and The Count: The Vampire Who Came to Dinner
• The Fairly OddParents!: Party of Three!
• The Forgotten Toybox: Curse of the Were Baby
• Jelly's Day: Uncle Betty Comes to Visit
• ChalkZone: ChalkDad
• A Dog & His Boy
• Mina and The Count: Playing a Hunch
• The Fairly OddParents!: The Fairy Flu!
• Lollygagin
• Tales from the Goose Lady: The Tortoise & the Hairpiece
• ChalkZone: Chalk Rain
• The Dan Danger Show!
• Mina and The Count: My Best Friend
• The Fairly OddParents!: The Temp!
• Herb
• Jamal the Funny Frog: Milk Dreams
• Jelly's Day: Aunt Broth's Makeover
• Terry & Chris
• Mina and The Count: FrankenFrog
• The Fairly OddParents!: The Zappys!
• Let's Talk Turkey
• Tales from the Goose Lady: Goldie Locks
• ChalkZone: Rapunzel
• Zoey's Zoo: Lots of Ocelots
• My Neighbor Was a Teenage Robot

Season 3 Shorts

• The Fairly OddParents!: Super Humor
• The Boy Who Cried Alien!
• Jamal the Funny Frog: Dentist
• The Dan Danger Show!: Danger 101!
• The Tantrum
• Super Santa: Naughty
• Super Santa: South Pole Joe
• Sick -N- Tired: Bug Bite!
• Tales from the Goose Lady: The Ugly Duck Thing
• The Fairly OddParents!: Scouts Honor
• Skippy Spankerton: Hot Tamale Monster Movie Madness!
• Jamal the Funny Frog: Beach
• Super Santa: Vegetation
• Elise Mere Mortal
• A Kid's Life: Picture Perfect
• The Dan Danger Show!: A Lighter Shade of Danger!
• Kameleon Kid
• Jamal the Funny Frog: Camping
• The Fairly OddParents!: The Really Bad Day
• Baxter and Bananas: Monkey See Monkey Don't
• Tales from the Goose Lady: A Fisherman, A Fisherman's Wife, and a Fish
• The Dan Danger Show!: A Date with Danger!
• The Semprini Triplets
• Tales from the Goose Lady: Dot and Randy's Sad Tale of Woe

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Tropes applying to Oh Yeah! Cartoons include:

• Accidental Pervert: In "Max and the Pigeon Incident", Max accidentally steps into the girls' bathroom and gets attacked by a woman who accuses him of being a "sicko".
• Aesop Amnesia: The title character of the Dan Danger shorts keeps on having to learn not to be a wimpy coward. Every time he resolves to be braver from now on, he gets back to being easily frightened by the most trivial things.
• Affectionate Parody: Rob Renzetti's The F-Tales, a satire of The X-Files in which a vixen and a chicken investigate Fairy Tale stories.
• Alien Animals: "Planet Kate" is about a girl named Kate Moon befriending a group of alien dogs who happen to be archaeologists searching for a lost city on Earth where their kind used to live.
• Alliterative Family:
  • Bene and Beckette from "Twins Crimson and Those Amazing Robots" are twins whose names both start with B.
  • The titular characters of "The Semprini Triplets" all have names starting with M (Melvin, Melinda and Malcolm).
• Alliterative Name: Some shorts feature characters whose names are alliterations.
  • "Peter Patrick, P.I." stars a Kid Detective named Peter Patrick and his fez-wearing feline sidekick Persian Puss. They both address each other as "P.P."
  • The title character of "Skippy Spankerton: Hot Tamale Monster Movie Madness".
  • The lead singer of the titular insect rock band in "The Feelers" is named Mitzi Moth.
• Almighty Janitor: The titular character of "Herb" is a school janitor who helps the local students with their problems, even managing to create high-quality cuisine for the entire school when the principal demands him to do so with the ulterior motive of finding an excuse to fire him.
• Amazing Technicolor Population:
  • Jelly from the Jelly's Day shorts has pale purple skin and her cousin Hargus has yellowish-green skin.
  • The titular characters of "The Semprini Triplets" have purple (Melvin), red (Melinda) and blue (Malcolm) skin.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: "Apex Cartoon Props & Novelties" follows the mishaps of a blue wolf and a purple possum.
• Animated Adaptation: The short "Hey Look" is an adaptation of a series of comic strips of the same name that Harvey Kurtzman made in the 1940's.
• Anthropomorphized Anatomy: The short Microcops is set inside a man's body which is portrayed this way. Namely, the brain is a control center, the bowels is a sewer, the heart is a motor, and there is an elevator system to various parts of the body.
• Ascended Fanboy: Magic Trixie has the titular Trixie go from a massive fan of magic to being the assistant of a famous magician while discovering her own immense natural talent to being a headlining magician over the course of her short.
• Attack on the Heart: In "Microcops", the bug infitrates the man's heart and plugs a DJ turntable into it, giving the man heart palpitations by turning up the speed. Jones then starts shooting at the bug with electric blasts, inadvertently giving the poor man a heart attack in the process, until one of the blasts destroys the turntable, bringing the pulses back to normal.
• Bad Santa: Santa's rival South Pole Joe in Super Santa, though he's more a Bad Santa because he's completely incompetent rather than evil.
• Badass Santa: Super Santa depicts Santa Claus as a superhero.
• Banana Peel: In the Super Santa short "Vegetation", Santa removes the peel from a giant mutant banana and ends up slipping on it.
• Battle Couple: Super Santa and Emma Claus both fight crime.
• Bee Afraid: In "The Feelers", one of the members of the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects is a bee named Stinger who plays the bass guitar. While not exactly evil, he is established to have a temper, has to be restrained by Mo Skito when he expresses the urge to sting in response to being aggravated by two humans singing a cheesy romantic duet and is encouraged by Mitzi Moth at the end of the short to get Crusty's attention by stinging him in the rear.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Edward from the short "Ask Edward: All About Babies" tells a big lie to his brother about babies coming from eggs laid by the Delivery Stork at the North Pole, but ends up actually believing it when they find an egg near the house after Edward claimed it was impossible for their parents to have another baby.
• Big Brother Bully: It's established in the Dan Danger short "A Lighter Shade of Danger" that Dan's older brother Stan tried to scare him by lying to him that there were monsters in the closet, which persuaded Dan to lift heavy objects in front of the closet door enough times that he developed the muscular build he has today.
• Big Friendly Dog: "Ollie and Frank", where a Child Prodigy named Ollie creates a huge Frankenstein dog he names Frank. Frank is shown to be very loyal and friendly to his master.
• Big "NO!": In the Super Santa short "Vegetation", Dr. Carmine Miranda yells "No" after his mutated vegetables are returned to normal.
• Bird-Poop Gag:
  • In "Max and the Pigeon Incident", the titular pigeon poops on the papers on Max's desk in addition to doing so on Max's head at the end of the short.
  • "Kameleon Kid" at one point had the title character turn into a bird and poop on the bully who tormented him earlier.
• Brainy Baby: Jamal the Funny Frog's little sister Polly is able to speak in complete sentences even though she's a tadpole.
• Brain with a Manual Control: The brain in Microcops is portrayed as a command and control center. The virus bug later takes over the subconscious, making the host act like a chicken.
• Brown Bag Mask: "Fuzzy Bunny Presents: A Kid's Life" at one point shows Suzy Cornhusk wearing a paper bag over her head when she's tormented by the anthropomorphized blackheads on her nose.
• Bumbling Dad: "That's My Pop" was about a Child Prodigy bear girl named Naomi and her idiot father.
• Camp Straight: The titular character of the Dan Danger shorts adores cute animals and at one point fantasizes about having his show retooled to be about tea parties, but he dates a female police officer in the episode "A Date with Danger".
• Card-Carrying Villain: In "Thatta Boy", Ravenrant complains that as a supervillain he shouldn't be obligated to obey traffic laws.
• Catchphrase: Slap T. Pooch in "What is Funny?" repeatedly states "Was that funny? I don't know! I'm asking!"
• Circling Birdies: "Blotto" ends with the titular character stunned with stars spinning around his head after he is hit on the head by his love interest Dotto.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Chicken Little is one of Agent Mulder from the X-Files. He believes there are paranormal conspiracies behind strange going-ons, but he's also paranoid to the point of thinking that his Agent Scully and regular civilians are behind it all.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: The title character of the short "Blotto" lets the Balloon Goon have it when he sees that the jerk is trying to lure his love interest Dotto.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right:
  • At the end of The F-Tales, Chicken Little turns out to be right about the sky falling after spending most of the short coming off as some kind of paranoid conspiracy nut.
  • The premise of "Freddy Seymoure's Amazing Life" is that he spends the short telling outlandish and unbelievable stories, like being given a crown by an alien king as a reward for saving his planet by solving a giant puzzle sphere and beating a wrestler by tricking him into devouring his own body. When his dad asks him what happened to his tie and he answers that a monster ate it, it turns out that there actually is a monster ruining Freddy's dad's clothes, which implies that Freddy didn't make up his other stories either.
• Dance Party Ending: "The Feelers" ends with the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects dancing to their own song after Mr. Katzeneisner orders Crusty to find the Feelers due to liking their music.
• Dartboard of Hate: Elmer Scrooge is seen throwing darts at a picture of Santa thumb-tacked to the wall of his prison cell while in jail at the end of the Super Santa short "Naughty".
• Death Course: In the Dan Danger short "Danger 101", Dan has to make up for a day of gym class he missed when he was a kid by returning to his old school and going through a dangerous obstacle course, which includes a flamethrower, a guillotine and a quicksand pit. He manages to endure it by pretending he's in Puppy Town.
• Disney Death: Mitzi Moth appears to get killed by bug spray in "The Feelers", but eventually comes back to life when Crusty plays the Feelers' recorded song in front of Mr. Katzeneisner and Mo Skito sheds tears over her body.
• Dodgy Toupee: Elmer Scrooge from the Super Santa short "Naughty" has a very obvious powdered wig on his head, which he ends up losing after he's defeated and put in jail.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The short "The Feelers" at one point has Mitzi Moth bang against a lightbulb with an entranced look on her face. Mo Skito stops her and informs her that she knows this isn't good for her. The scene is easy to read as a reference to drug addiction.
• Donut Mess with a Cop:
  • "A Cop and his Donut" was about a cop being partners with a sentient donut.
  • Used for a joke in the Dan Danger short "A Date with Danger", where Dan is on a date with a female police officer and she is impressed when the dinner he orders for them turns out to be a plate of donuts. It is also pointed out how cliche the stereotype of law enforcers liking donuts is.
• Dr. Fakenstein: The short "Elise: Mere Mortal" featured an eccentric orthodontist named Dr. Toothinstein.
• Dumb Muscle: Bolivar of the crew of alien dogs in "Planet Kate" is the largest and strongest of the group as well as the dumbest.
• Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion: In "The Boy Who Cried Alien", Floyd spends the entire short delivering paranoid ramblings of an imminent alien invasion. By the time the aliens finally show up, they turn out to be really small and Floyd obliviously eats them with his cereal before they can even begin their conquest.
• Eat the Camera: "The Forgotten Toybox: Curse of the Werebaby" has the camera zoom in on the titular werebaby's mouth as he puts a police car in it.
• Elephants Are Scared of Mice: "Tutu the Superina" has the Vile Woman imprisoning and tormenting animals. One of the captives shown is an elephant frightened by a wind-up toy mouse.
• Elvis Lives: Used as a background gag in "The Feelers" during the titular insect rock band's song "Drop Me Off in Hollywood", where Elvis has a cameo among various unnamed celebrities.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: In the short "Baxter and Bananas: Monkey See, Monkey Don't?", Bananas threatens to show the people at Baxter's house an embarrassing baby picture.
• Every Episode Ending: With the exceptions of Planet Kate and Fathead, every short ends with a clip of a character (or multiple characters) from the short (usually but not always the protagonist) appearing in the Oh Yeah! Cartoons logo while shouting the show's title (though the one for "Max and his Special Problem" and "Max and the Pigeon Incident" instead has Max raise a finger while going "Uh" and then shrugging).
• Expy:
  • The titular characters of "The Semprini Triplets" are blatant ersatzes of the Warner siblings, especially due to being a trio of rubber hose cartoon characters whose shtick involves playing pranks on people who try to screw them over.
  • The protagonists of "The F-Tales" are parodies of Agents Mulder and Scully.
• Face–Heel Turn: "Thatta Boy" has Thatta Boy's sidekick Polly decide to change allegiances and become a villain near the end of the short.
• The Faceless: Mr. Shuttlecock in the Dan Danger shorts has his entire body except for his limbs obscured the few times he physically appears.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: The Dan Danger Show was a series of shorts about an adventurer hero who had a reputation of being able to survive dangerous encounters with wild animals, but in real life is a helpless coward who feared the most trivial of things.
• Falling into Jail: The Super Santa short "Jingle Bell Justice" ends with Bedlam Bunny falling into a jail cell.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: Old Man is revealed to be wearing false teeth in "Youngstar 3" when his dentures fall out and get stuck on the eye of the giant fish monster he, Shero and Youngstar are fighting.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: In "Skippy Spankerton: Hot Tamale Monster Movie Madness", Skippy tries to get Zola to breathe fire by feeding him tamales with hot sauce.
• First-Name Basis: The title character of the short "Planet Kate" has the surname Moon, as shown on the back of the map she drew for school that's taken by the alien dogs and in the end credits, but she is only ever called by her given name within the short.
• Frankenstein's Monster: "Ollie and Frank" is about a boy who creates a Frankenstein monster dog.
• Friend to All Children: Dan Danger is shown to be on good terms with children, to the point that Ruthie is able to motivate him to endure the situations that frighten him by reminding him that failing to face his fears would let down the children who look up to him.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: The title character of "Planet Kate" has a scene where she addresses the audience to explain how she has gotten involved with a group of alien dogs and is the only character in the short to acknowledge the fourth wall at all.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: "Tales From The Goose Lady" consists of the Goose Lady forcing two children to listen to bizarre versions of famous fairy tales.
• Fun with Acronyms: "The Kid From S.C.H.O.O.L.", the titular acronym stands for the Secret Command Headquarters Of Official Law Enforcement. (Apparently "Law Enforcement" is one word)
• G-Rated Sex: In Ask Edward: All About Babies, Edward tells Emo that babies come from storks who respond to "Baby Request Forms" from the North Pole. This belief is a crucial element of the plot.
• Garrulous Growth: "Fuzzy Bunny Presents: A Kid's Life" has Suzy Cornhusk tormented by sentient blackheads appearing on her nose.
• Gender-Blender Name:
  • The merman from the Hobart short "Deep Sea Diva" is named Ethel.
  • The "Jelly's Day" short "Uncle Betty's Strange Rash" has Jelly's uncle named Betty.
• George Jetson Job Security: In the Super Santa short "Naughty", Elmer Scrooge fires his butler for giving him a cup of tea with two sugars when he decided to have just one sugar instead at the last minute.
• The Grinch: The Super Santa short "Naughty" had Elmer Scrooge, a descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge, try to ruin Christmas for everyone by using gas to make all the children naughty solely because he grew to hate the holiday for Santa giving him coal all the time.
• Happy Place: The titular character of the Dan Danger shorts sometimes tries to calm himself and endure the hazardous situations that freak him out by putting on headgear themed after a cute animal (such as a rabbit or a puppy) and imagine he's in a world full of said cute animals.
• Held Back in School: The Dan Danger short "Danger 101" shows that Dan's bully Robert is still in the seventh grade while a grown man. Humorously, the school's current gym coach turns out to be his son.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • After the title character finally succeeds in getting his brain back in his head in "Max and his Special Problem", Max then ends up coughing up his heart.
  • The end of "Lollygaggin" shows the title character learned her lesson about lying. Her parents, on the other hand...
    Narrator: Well, I could say they lived happily ever after. But then, I'd be lying.
• Hollywood Prehistory: The 11-minute short "Fathead" takes place in a prehistoric setting where cavemen and dinosaurs coexist, with the plot concerning the titular character having to complete a rite of passage that involves taking a dinosaur egg.
• Honesty Aesop: "Lollygaggin" is about a young girl whose habit of lying results in her finding herself at the mercy of a giant monster who gets bigger as she continues lying and won't go away until she tells the truth to her parents.
• Horror Host: "The Forgotten Toybox: Curse of the Werebaby" has its Framing Device consist of the story being presented to the audience by a living ventriloquist dummy named Mr. Beasley after rummaging through the titular toybox to fish out a toy related to the story he's going to tell. Due to being one of the many shorts to not be picked up for a full-fledged series, "Curse of the Werebaby" was the only tale from the Forgotten Toybox that Mr. Beasley ever got to tell.
• Hypnotize the Captive: Simon Cerebellum does this to Stephanie with a Hypno Ray in at the beginning Kid from S.C.H.O.O.L. in order to make himself Homecoming King. Luckily for Stephanie, Jake Slade pulls him and his device away before he can fully brainwash her.
• I'm Melting!: In the Super Santa short "South Pole Joe", Santa defeats a giant gingerbread man by splashing him with milk, which turns the giant gingerbread man into gingerbread pudding and has him scream "I'm melting!"
• Improvised Weapon: In "Microcops", Jones is surrounded by multiplied bugs and is left with a feather duster as his only remaining equipment. Luckily, they happen to be inside the nose, so he blows up the duster causing the feathers scatter throughout the nasal passage and trigger a sneeze that expels out all the bugs.
• Inexplicably Tailless: With the exception of Rothgar, none of the alien dogs in the short "Planet Kate" have tails.
• Informed Species: The titular cat in "Cat and Milkman" looks more like a monkey than a feline.
• Instant Expert: The title character of "Magic Trixie" doesn't take much exposure to magic and practice to become a magician like few have ever seen.
• Intellectual Animal: A highly intelligent dog is one of the main characters in the short "A Dog and His Boy".
• Intercourse with You: In "The Feelers", Mitzi Moth at one point sings a song with somewhat suggestive lyrics called "100 Watts of Love".
  Mitzi: Whoa! I can handle any candle, I'm a match for any match, and most flashlights I can pass right by. But there is a light I see who is just fila-meant for me. You must agree I find him one bright guy!
  Mitzi, Mo, Max, and Stinger: 'Cause he's 100 watts of love! Yeah, he's 100 watts of love!
  Mitzi: Oh, his kisses really burn and yet I always will return to get 100 watts!
• Interspecies Romance: In the "Jelly's Day" short "Uncle Betty's Strange Rash", Jelly's Uncle Betty falls in love with a sentient flower.
• Intrepid Merchant: Tom in Let's Talk Turkey, he managed to sell all of the products he was saddled with, to a bunch of hungry hillbillies even as they were actively trying to chase him down to kill and eat him. He even managed to successfully convince them to spare him by selling them a can of processed meat, with a monthly subscription, as an alternative.
• It's All About Me: The title character of "Thatta Boy" is an egomaniac pure and simple, which drives his girlfriend/sidekick to turn on him.
• Just Following Orders: In the Super Santa short "Vegetation", a potato minion of Dr. Carmine Miranda pleads to Santa that he was only following orders.
• Kafka Komedy: The Goose Lady's rendition of Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are two greedy fat kids who keep trying to eat the Witch's candy house. Every time the Witch tries to stop them, they cry for help and a nearby Woodsman, assuming the Witch is trying to eat the kids, attacks her with his ax. The pattern repeats itself until the Witch's home is nearly entirely gone. She then constructs a new house made out of liver, which repulses Hansel and Gretel... but it turns out the Woodsman loves liver and starts eating the house while the Witch breaks down into tears.
• Karloff Kopy: One of the villains in "Thatta Boy" is a mad scientist named Ravenrant who sounds like Boris Karloff.
• Karma Houdini: The Goose Lady from the "Tales from the Goose Lady" shorts never gets punished for preventing Dot and Randy from attending school in order to force them to listen to her stories. While the final short "Dot and Randy's Sad Tale of Woe" has the kids turn the tables on the Goose Lady by tying her up and making her magic wand Juanito read a story that casts Dot and Randy as gifted children who are prevented from achieving their destiny due to being exhausted from decidedly unflattering representations of the Goose Lady and Juanito distracting them with stories, the Goose Lady doesn't learn a thing from the experience and goes on her merry way after Dot and Randy let her go.
• Kid Hero: There were several shorts where the main character was a child superhero.
  • The title character of "Thatta Boy" spends his short chasing after supervillains, only for his sidekick to betray him and set free all the crooks he captured.
  • Youngstar from "Youngstar 3", who fights crime with the aid of his grandpa Old Man and a Fembot named Shero.
  • The title character of "The Tantrum", who channels his frustrations at not getting what he wants through crime-fighting.
  • Jake Slade from Kid from S.C.H.O.O.L is more or less a child secret agent.
• Kid with the Leash: Mina and The Count is all about a little girl having a vampire under her thumb.
• Laugh Track: Used excessively in "Zoo Mates" and "That's My Pop!"
• Left Hanging: The short "Planet Kate" ended on a Cliffhanger and wasn't continued, leaving the alien dogs' quest to find the lost city unresolved.
• Living Toys:
  • A living plush rabbit named Fuzzy Bunny serves as the narrator for the "A Kid's Life" shorts.
  • "The Forgotten Toybox: Curse of the Werebaby" has a living ventriloquist dummy named Mr. Beasley serve as the short's Horror Host.
  • The villain of the first Super Santa short, "Jingle Bell Justice", is a plush rabbit named Bedlam Bunny who seeks revenge against Santa Claus because he's angry he wasn't something cooler like a toy robot and terrorizes the city with an army of toys he sends on a crime spree.
• Male Band, Female Singer: A fictional example can be found in "The Feelers", with the members of the titular insect rock band consisting of the female Mitzi Moth as the lead singer and the male Mo Skito, Stinger and Max as the respective guitarist, bassist and drummer.
• Man in a Kilt: Jelly's Uncle Betty from "Jelly's Day: Uncle Betty's Strange Rash" wears a kilt.
• Mirror Routine: "Hubbykins vs. Sweetiepie" had Hubbykins attempt to escape his irate wife Sweetiepie by pretending to be her shadow. He succeeds in deceiving her by mimicking her movements until Sweetiepie's real shadow points out that it's really her husband.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: In the Super Santa short "Naughty", Elmer Scrooge's lackeys end up turning on their boss on the simple basis that Santa Claus was nicer to them than he was.
• Miss Conception: "Ask Edward: All About Babies" has Edward and his younger brother Emo get completely inaccurate ideas about where babies come from. Edward first tells his brother that parents get a baby by sending a request form to the stork at the North Pole during Christmas, Easter, or when the tooth fairy comes to claim the lost tooth of one of the children they already have, afterwards the stork will lay an egg that will hatch into a baby after being delivered. When their mother tries to set them straight by having their dad explain the facts of life to them, they only end up thinking that eggs will only contain babies if bees have pollinated them.
• Missing Mom:
  • The title character of the Jamal the Funny Frog shorts has a father and a younger sister, but no mention whatsoever is made of his mother.
  • "That's My Pop" only shows Naomi's father, with no indication made on the whereabouts of her mother.
• Monster of the Week: Each of the Super Santa shorts had Santa Claus fight a different villain: A sentient toy bunny in "Jingle Bell Justice", a descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge in "Naughty", a Bad Santa in "South Pole Joe", and a Mad Scientist who tried to raise an army of mutated vegetables in "Vegetation".
• Morph Weapon: "Enchanted Adventures" stars a knight named Galen who is armed with a sword he can command to change into other weapons.
• Mouse World: "The Feelers" was about a rock band of anthropomorphic insects trying to get humans to notice them in spite of their small size. They succeed when a spider named Legs helps them record a song and has the recording play in front of the boss of the recording studio's owner.
• Mr. Imagination: The title character of "Earth to Obie", who pretends that he's at a prison for breakfast cereal mascots while at the supermarket.
• Mrs. Claus: Is also an Action Girl in Super Santa.
• Musical Episode: "Blotto" has nearly all the dialogue be sung to music.
• Naked People Are Funny: Due to struggling to get ready for bed and finish her movie at the same time in "Skippy Spankerton: Hot Tamale Monster Movie Madness", Skippy Spankerton at one point appears wet and naked in front of the monsters she's filming when she rushes to continue working on her movie after being told to take a bath.
• Never Say "Die": Played straight in the short "Protecto 5000". The titular robot bodyguard's original owner is implied to be killed at one point, but when Protecto 5000 tells his story to the little girl he befriends, he states that his owner "had an accident".
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The dragon Kaltor in "Enchanted Adventures" is clearly channeling William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.
• No-Dialogue Episode: "Hubbykins vs. Sweetie Pie" is Mime and Music-Only Cartoon. Even during the ending eyecatch, the titular leads remain silent, with the obligatory "Oh Yeah Cartoons!" delivered by the couple's cat.
• No Fourth Wall: "What is Funny?" has Slap T. Pooch repeatedly asking the audience whether everything he does and everything that happens to him is funny.
• Odd Name Out: In "The Feelers", Stinger is the only member of the titular insect rock band whose name doesn't being with M (the other members are named Max, Mo Skito, and Mitzi Moth).
• Old Superhero: One of the members of the titular hero team in "Youngstar 3" is Old Man, who is Youngstar's grandfather.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are four different shorts featuring a character named Max: The drummer of the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects in "The Feelers", the bully in "Terry and Chris", the protagonist of the shorts "Max and his Special Problem" and "Max and the Pigeon Incident", and the leader of the alien dogs in "Planet Kate".
• Open-Fly Gag: In "Kid from S.C.H.O.O.L.", Jake Slade distracts Simon Cerebellum by telling him his fly is down.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The short "The Forgotten Toy Box: Curse of the Werebaby" had a selfish and immature man cursed with turning into an adult-sized baby until he learns to act his age after being bitten by an infant.
• Parental Abandonment: Jelly from the Jelly's Day shorts is visited by one of her relatives in all of the shorts, but is always shown to live by herself with no mention made of where her parents are.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Jamal's dad in the Jamal the Funny Frog shorts tends to not practice what he preaches. For instance, he is seen playing his son's video game after telling him that playing video games will damage his mind in "His Musical Moment", while "Dentist" has him indulge in sweets and lose several of his teeth after lecturing his son on the importance of proper dental care.
• Picture Day: "A Kid's Life: Picture Perfect" has the premise of Billy Butter wanting to make sure his school picture comes out better than it did last year, so he makes himself smile the entire day, even in situations where it would look weird or insensitive to be smiling (e.g. being threatened by bullies, learning about the Great Depression, a sobbing girl in the hallway pleading that he provide donations for the victims of a recent tragedy and being served meatloaf and broccoli in the school cafeteria). After the picture is finally taken, Billy is shocked to see that he still had broccoli in his teeth.
• Pietà Plagiarism: In "The Feelers", Mo Skito carries Mitzi Moth's body in his arms during her Disney Death.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The twins Bene and Beckette from "Twins Crimson and Those Amazing Robots". Bene is a boy with blue hair and a blue shirt, while his sister Beckette has pink hair and a pink dress. The trope is also inverted in that Bene wears a pink scarf and Beckette wears a blue ribbon in her hair.
• Professional Voice Dissonance: The Dan Danger shorts have the title character appear on his TV show as a macho adventurer with a boisterous voice to match. When the cameras stop rolling, however, he's a regular Cowardly Lion with a high-pitched, quivering voice.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Some of the music used in "Jamal the Funny Frog" was from the classical era.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: OH! YEAH! CARTOONS!
• The Quiet One:
  • Very few of Max's utterances in the shorts "Max and his Special Problem" and "Max and the Pigeon Incident" are actual words, being slightly more talkative in the latter short.
  • The title character of "Magic Trixie" only has one line of dialogue ("I have natural talent"), two if you count the obligatory clip of the short's main character saying "Oh Yeah! Cartoons".
• Rewind Gag: "Hubbykins vs. Sweetie Pie" has a joke where Sweetie Pie glares at Hubbykins for carelessly tracking mud into the house and throwing his suitcase onto the floor, Hubbykins responding to his wife's anger by walking backwards as the mud prints vanish from the floor and his suitcase flies back into his hand.
• Rise of Zitboy: The premise of the short "Fuzzy Bunny Presents: A Kid's Life", where a girl named Suzy freaks out over having sentient blackheads on her nose the day before the school dance.
• Sassy Black Woman:
  • Jamal the Funny Frog's little sister Polly may just be a tadpole, but she does tend to act like a black woman with attitude.
  • Dotto from "Blotto" also has shades of this due to spending a lot of time kvetching about how much she hates it in Inkworld and showing unrestrained ire at Blotto for being swept up by the director in the comic book world's interest in making him a star.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Elmer Scrooge from the Super Santa short "Naughty" clearly has this mindset, as he boasts that being wealthy enables him to do whatever he wants.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: The Dan Danger short "Danger 101" has Dan Danger having to go back to his old school to make up for a day of gym class he missed in his youth. While there, he runs into his bully Robert, who still hasn't made it past the seventh grade and intends to clobber Dan again after school. After Dan makes the effort to stand up to Robert, Robert is so impressed by Dan's courage that he calls off the fight and instead asks Dan to sign his yearbook.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: The short "Youngstar 3" begins with Old Man having fallen asleep, leading to his grandson Youngstar and Shero to go and fight a monster without him. Once he wakes up, Old Man isn't happy that his two teammates went ahead without him.
  Youngstar: But Grandpa, you were napping!
  Old Man: (mocking tone) But Grandpa...
• Shout-Out: The Super Santa short "South Pole Joe" has Santa encourage a child asking if he's the real Santa Claus to tug at his beard, which references the film Miracle on 34th Street.
• The Smurfette Principle:
  • In "The Feelers", Mitzi Moth is the only female member of the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects.
  • Shero is the only female among the titular superhero team of "Youngstar 3".
• Snowball Lie: "Lollygaggin" is about a young girl with a habit of lying, who finds herself in trouble when she finds that her constant fibbing has created a monster that eats her toys and grows larger every time Lollygaggin continues to lie. In the end, Lollygaggin defeats the creature by telling the truth to her parents.
• Species Surname: Mitzi Moth from "The Feelers" is a moth, as her surname would indicate.
• Spotting the Thread: Exaggerated in "Thatta Boy"; the eponymous kid hero knows someone's up to no good when he notices a mini donut truck parked in a No Mini Donut Truck zone. In front of a reptile habitat. A real truck driver would know better!
• Stepford Smiler: The Goose Lady appears to be one, leading in to her guilt-tripping Dot and Randy into listening to her story in "The Egg Who Would Be King" by pointing out how ridiculous her entire existence is.
  The Goose Lady: You think this is easy for me? Look at me LOOK AT ME! I'M A TALKING GOOSE WITH FAIRY WINGS! I'm an outcast! My stories are all I have! (sobs hysterically)
• Stock Scream:
  • "The Feelers" features a use of the Howie Long Scream during the "Drop Me Off in Hollywood" musical number.
  • "Elise: Mere Mortal" also features use of the Howie Long Scream, where Elise sits in the waiting room and hears the scream accompanied by a dentist drill coming from Dr. Toothinstein's office.
• Surfer Dude: The short "The Feelers" featured a spider with a surfer accent named Legs.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Dan Danger's older brother Stan introduced in the Dan Danger short "A Lighter Shade of Danger" is shown to resent his younger brother for being a famous celebrity who overshadows him in spite of being far more cowardly than he is.
• Swiss-Army Tears: In "The Feelers", Mitzi's Disney Death is undone by Mo Skito's tears.
• Take That!: The Dan Danger short "Danger 101" has a brief scene of Dan Danger telling Aquaman that his power to command sea life is lame.
  Aquaman: Is talking to fish a good power?
  Dan Danger: No!
  Aquaman: Darn!
• Take This Job and Shove It: Such a statement turns up in the Super Santa short "Naughty".
  Servant: Scrooge, you can take this job and— (fires a laser at Elmer Scrooge)
  Elmer Scrooge: Ingrates.
• The Talk: The short "Ask Edward: All About Babies" has Edward mislead his younger brother Emo that babies come from eggs that the stork lays after receiving a baby request form from the parents during Christmas, Easter, or when one of the children they already have has lost a tooth. After Emo and Edward make a scene over their mother cooking an egg they thought was their new little brother, she tries to set them straight with a talk from their father, but that only causes them to assume that eggs only have babies in them after being pollinated by bees.
• They Called Me Mad!: In the Super Santa short "Vegetation", Dr. Carmine Miranda rants that he used his horticultural knowledge for evil because his peers laughed at him and called him a madman.
• Thick-Line Animation
• Three Shorts: Almost every episode consists of three shorts that are around seven minutes in duration, the one exception being the last episode of the first season (which consists of two eleven-minute shorts, Planet Kate and Fathead).
• Title Drop:
  • "Hey Look" has several segments of the short begin with the Big Guy or the Little Guy shouting the short's title.
  • "The Kid From S.C.H.O.O.L" also includes the main character referring to himself by the short's name.
• Title Theme Tune: Besides the show itself, at least one short (Zoey's Zoo) has a theme song of its own that mentions the title.
• Toilet Teleportation: The Hobart shorts both involved Hobart ending up in a different world after being flushed down the toilet, with "The Weedkeeper" having Hobart and the dog he got for his girlfriend Okra wind up in a garden world where they have to avoid the titular Weedkeeper (a green gnome who desperately wants a dog of his own) and "Deep Sea Diva" having Hobart and Okra find themselves underwater and Hobart having to rescue Okra from the clutches of a singing merman named Ethel.
• The Tooth Hurts: The Jamal the Funny Frog short "Dentist" had Jamal get a toothache from eating too much sweets. He initially dreads the trip to the dentist and is unwilling to part with his rotten tooth after it's been pulled out, but all is well for him when the dentist is able to fix up his decayed tooth and put it back in his mouth.
• Trap-Door Fail: Zoo Mates has the zookeeper trying to get rid of Helen, who is pushing to shut down the zoo, by opening a trap door, which unleashes a bear trap AND a roaring fire. Too bad Helen was standing few feet away from it.
• Two Girls to a Team: The quintet of alien dogs acquainted with Kate Moon in the short "Planet Kate" consists of three males (Max, Bolivar, and Rothgar) and two females (Juno and Cleo).
• Unskilled, but Strong: Trix, of Magic Trixie has natural talent for magic and learns quickly, but she is very much figuring it out as she goes along and stumbles into the means of successfully performing magic versus knowing what she's doing.
• Villain Song:
  • The Criminally Insane Gingerbread Men in "What is Funny?" briefly sing "Tough Cookies" when Slap T. Pooch finds himself at their mercy.
  • The Balloon Goon in "Blotto" sings "Git the Girl into My World" while scheming to steal Blotto's love interest Dotto.
  • In "Fuzzy Bunny Presents: A Kid's Life", the sentient zits on Suzy's nose sing "We are the Stinkin' Blackheads", where they revel in how much torment and humiliation they cause the children who get afflicted by them.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The short "Kameleon Kid" was about a boy who gained shape-changing abilities after a lab accident.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: Though at first he spends half the short stuck as a mouse before he realizes he can shapeshift.
• Wet Cement Gag: In the short "The Feelers", there is a gag where the titular rock band of anthropomorphic insects try to leave their hand prints in wet cement during the song "Drop Me Off in Hollywood". Being bugs, they fall right in and have to be lifted out of the cement by the spider Legs.
• Who Even Needs a Brain?: Type III is demonstrated in two shorts.
  • The short "Max and his Special Problem", where a man literally sneezes his brain out and has to try and find a way to get his brain back in his head. Aside from twitching every time his brain is poked, he is shown to act perfectly fine without a brain.
  • In "Ollie and Frank", Ollie removes part of an ordinary dog's brain to give his Frankenstein monster dog Frank a brain. The procedure isn't shown to have any ill effects on the normal dog, as it still acts the same after the operation is finished.
• Wingding Eyes: In "The Feelers", light bulbs appear in Mitzi Moth's eyes during the titular insect rock band's performance of the song "100 Watts of Love".
• Would Hurt a Child: In "Magic Trixie", Migmar Magma grows so jealous of being upstaged by Trixie that he puts the girl through acts that are overtly intended to kill her (fortunately, Trixie survives all of them).
• X-Ray Sparks:
  • The gag of electrocution revealing one's skeleton is used in the short "Max and the Pigeon Incident" when Max tries to catch the pigeon bothering him while he's walking on a powerline.
  • Also used in "Elise: Mere Mortal", where Elise's skeleton flashes after she recovers from being zapped during the tightening of her braces.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: When confronting Dr. Carmine Miranda in the short "Super Santa: Vegetation", Santa points out to the villain that he could've used his horticultural knowledge for good.

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