Patrol 03 (Patrouille 03) is a French animated television series that aired in 1997 and was broadcast on Pop in the United Kingdom.
The show centers on a trio of animal police officers called Shorty, Wilfred and Carmen who solve crimes in the city of Los Diablos. The villains of the show are Police Chief Pamela Bondani and her mole assistant, Professor Molo, who are always trying to take over the city.
This show contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Carmen, mostly thanks to her gadget-filled wheelchair.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Carmen is a green-gray arctic vixen (although the "blue is gray" principle could apply).
- And I Must Scream: The fate of Diabolik, trapped in the conch shell that summons him and launched into space.
- Androcles' Lion: The monster that possesses vehicles (and Carmen's wheelchair) undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, after Snap tends to its lost tire while it possessed a tow truck.
- Annoying Laugh: Lt. Rhino, as demonstrated in the first episode. To make matters worse, it actually wrecks Pamela's office in the process.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In addition to possessing people, Diabolik could also make his hosts grow to gargantuan size.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Pamela is the city's police chief and has the abilities to back it up. In the pilot, she even destroys one of Molo's monsters with rapid fire martial arts kicks. (That said, her combat prowess falls down whenever the script needs it, often for comedic effect.)
- Bad Boss: Pamela is fairly uncaring of her police force, and usually misleads (and often victimizes) them in the course of her schemes. In contrast, she usually treats Molo much better, even if it is only for how useful he is to her.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: The main trio are treated like this by the rest of their department, although they're actually the most competent and most effective. They use this to their advantage, so as to continue monitoring Bondani's schemes.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Although it is never lampshaded, Molo starts the series being blackmailed by Pamela into working for her, but over the next episodes he becomes a very faithful henchman, acting cheerful and even sometimes flirty towards her. This is probably because she busted him out of prison and gave him a new chance to be a mad scientist again.
- Butt-Monkey: The elephantine store owner, whose china shop is constantly demolished. Makes you wonder how he manages to stay in business.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Averted with Pamela, who actually seems to believe she would be a better mayor to Los Diablos than Walrus, but played straight with Molo, as he calls himself a villain without any problem.
- Cats Are Mean: Pamela is a cat (although she actually looks like a vixen as well) and the main villain.
- The Chew Toy: Let's just say that Hoist by His Own Petard, Humiliation Conga, and Laser-Guided Karma are common tropes for Pamela Bondani. Her office also tends to get trashed.
- Cool Car: Patrol 03's squad car, which was formerly The Alleged Car, after Snap's modifications.
- Creator Provincialism: Despite Los Diablos ostensibly being in Eagleland, all the electric plugs seen in one episode are European style.
- Creepy Crossdresser: A few of Molo's schemes have involved disguising himself as a woman.
- Cunning Like a Fox: Carmen. Pamela is another example for looking like one even if she is a cat.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The pilot gives two examples, with Patrol 03's final exam/takedown of the heavyweight champion and Pamela's defeat of Molo's fly monster.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's implied for Carmen, who once mentions she used to be a dancer. It doesn't seem to affect her sunny disposition, though.
- Demonic Possession: One episode featured Diabolik, a Satan-like entity that possessed people, after getting them to laugh. He manages to possess Lt. Rhino, Wilfred, and Pamela in the course of the episode.
- Dirty Cop: Pamela Bondani, who is also Da Chief.
- Dirty Harriet: Carmen once disguises herself as what is clearly meant to be a prostitute, as she wears makeup, goes to a male character in a truck parked in a bad neighborhood and entices him out with sexy talk.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In "Electro Zapper Sapper", Carmen lures Professor Molo away from his controls by putting on makeup and flirting with him.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Snap has a big crush on Carmen, and does everything in his power to get her to like him back. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't seem mutual.
- The Door Slams You: Doors are being violently swung open quite often, and even more often characters find themselves on the wrong side when it happens. Especially Pamela.
- Edible Ammunition: One of Molo's non-monster schemes involved a robotic duplication of Mayor Walrus, which would fire cakes at a famous opera singer and ruin his reputation. Amusingly, it's tested twice on Pamela.
- Enfante Terrible:
- Subverted with Molo's baby monster, who is pretty docile when not riled up.
- Also subverted with Pamela's nephew, who shares her contempt for Mayor Walrus, but largely from him imitating her. Of course, he still unwittingly launches Pamela out the window after messing with her swivel chair's adjustment lever.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Pamela has her toddler nephew.
- Evil Is Hammy: Molo and Pamela both take turns in this department. Sometimes, it escalates to Ham-to-Ham Combat.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Molo and Joe Bull's associates are chased off by the vehicle-possessing monster after it undergoes a Heel–Face Turn. Two other episodes end with Molo being pursued by a royally PO'd Bondani, after his experiment of the episode left her disfigured and/or humiliated.
- Eyes Always Shut: Molo, which makes sense for a mole with thick glasses like him, although he opens them when he is very angry or scared.
- Fallen Hero: Implied with Pamela Bondani. A Bad Boss as she might be, it is obvious that the police force respects her, as well as the city's population, and despite her misdeeds and evil intentions, it is never stated she did not earn her job as police chief in the first place.
- Femme Fatale: Pamela evokes the archetype, being worldly, amoral and manipulative, as well as having a very sexy character design, although she never goes beyond that, unlike Carmen.
- Fighting Your Friend: Happens on the occasions where one monster possessed Carmen's wheelchair, and another possessed Wilfred.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Snap, who provides the trio with gadgets for battling Molo's monsters.
- Genius Bruiser: Wilfred demonstrates shades of this, such as in the electric monster episode, where he immediately figured out that they needed to create a positively-charged monster to counter Molo's negatively charged one. He also seems to have an impressive smelling sense.
- Gentle Giant: Wilfred, for the most part.
- The Ghost: Pamela's nephew. He does show up in the series finale though.
- Grand Finale: "Bringing Up the Walrus" brings the series to an end by having Professor Molo recaptured and sent back to jail, Pamela exposed as the city's criminal mastermind, and Shorty being promoted to Chief of Police so that he, Wilfred, and Carmen can continue righting wrongs.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The whole cast, barring Pamela (The One Who Wears Shoes) and Carmen (a Barefoot Cartoon Animal).
- Handicapped Badass: Carmen is a paraplegic, but is by far the most effective member of the patrol when dealing with monsters.
- Heroic Seductress: Carmen is pretty and often uses it to her advantage.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Molo is ultimately defeated and reimprisoned when he accidentally hits himself with the babyfying chemical he used on the mayor. This allows Patrol 03 to bribe him for the antidote with a lollipop, and then easily transport him back to his cell.
- Incredibly Obvious Bug: In the final episode, Pamela gives Mayor Walrus a bugged painting of an ear. Walrus lampshades just how suspicious it is, but he does not realize it.
- Internal Affairs: The main trio, even if they are technically rookies.
- Interspecies Romance: Snap tries to start one of these with Carmen, to no success. The pilot also features a cat baby whose mom is somehow a cow.
- The Jinx: Another of Molo's monsters is a tiny, pterodactyl-like creature that inflicts bad luck onto those it makes eye contact with. Molo weaponizes it through a camera, and even recorded footage of the monster carries the same effect.
- Karma Houdini: Pamela repeatedly avoids being exposed as the Big Bad, with her only punishment usually being her latest scheme failing, as well as being the victim of some slapstick or humiliation. Even when she's finally exposed in the final episode, she's given the choice of prison or demotion to traffic warden, and of course she chooses the latter.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: One of Molo's monsters is a babylike creature that emits loud noises when scared or angered, with enough force to bring down a building. Pamela finds this out the hard way when she ignores Molo's warnings and continues yelling at him.
- Maker of Monsters: Professor Molo uses his mad science create each episode's monster, in order aid in Pamela's latest plan to Take Over the City.
- Monster of the Week: Each episode, Molo creates a monster to try and get rid of the mayor or make him look bad.
- Nightmare Face: This was the most obvious clue to the vehicle monster's possession. Some of Pamela's Slasher Smiles also amount to this.
- Oh, Crap!: Pamela exhibits amusing reactions to when she's in trouble thanks to her rather expressive face.
- The One Who Wears Shoes: Pamela. Lampshaded by herself while chasing Rhino around the city, lamenting she is being forced to run on high heels.
- Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Pamela and Carmen are fully dressed, although Carmen is barefoot.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Molo's disguises are often little more than trading his labcoat for another article of clothing.
- Carmen also invokes this trope a couple of times, posing as a barely G-rated hooker and a talcum powder vendor. The former case was justified, due to wearing makeup and obscuring her wheelchair, and Molo sees through the latter case and makes off with the powder.
- Pet the Dog: Pamela has a nephew (who is only seen in the final episode) whom she takes good care of. She also knows Molo is a brilliant scientist who works earnestly for her and has no problem to acknowledge it to him.
- Police Are Useless:
- Somewhat justified by the fact that their chief is villainous and makes sure they don't mess with her contacts. Although many of their scenes show them to be a bunch of Jerkasses anyway.
- Played with in regards to Lt. Rhino. Despite also being a Jerkass, Rhino does try to do his job and generally takes Patrol 03's reports seriously. Problem is, his proximity and tendency to report everything to Pamela makes him very easy to manipulate and mislead.
- Power Trio: Patrol 03, as the title indicates.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: Wilfred is a fat rat who's taller than his teammates.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Carmen appears to be the only woman Snap is attracted to.
- Slasher Smile: One of Pamela's Obviously Evil habits.
- Slave to PR: The reason the Mayor can't just fire Pamela despite her Obviously Evil ways, as he has no firm proof. Also, why she believes she can get his job just by embarrassing him.
- Standard Cop Backstory: Possibly Carmen, as she claims not to have been always bound to a wheelchair.
- The Starscream: Pamela acts as this to the mayor.
- The Stoic: Shorty is really good at keeping his cool in humorous situations. This became a plot point in the episode featuring Diabolik, where he would possess people after making them laugh. Rather fittingly, this is turned on Pamela, who can't resist laughing at his antics, making her look like an utter fool and ruining her campaign against the mayor.
- Super Wheelchair: Carmen's wheelchair is tricked out with all kinds of gadgets, usually suited for whatever the situation needs.
- Super Cop: The trio are technically this, due to their Batman-esque gadgets and the fact that they fight off monsters.
- Thememobile: Molo once kidnaps the Mayor using a flying machine bearing a motif of his face.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Carmen does sometimes thank Snap for what he does with pecks on the cheek (which, in true cartoon fashion, tend to floor him).
- Token Good Teammate: The main trio are this to the Los Diablos Police Department, given Bondani's Big Bad status and her rather Jerkass police force.
- Trampoline Tummy: Used in the pilot to rescue a falling baby.
- Villainous Friendship: Between Pamela and Molo. He becomes pretty devoted to her despite having been originally blackmailed, not to mention all the chances he gets to revolt against her which he doesn't consider, and sometimes even addresses her with terms of endearment. Also, while she occasionally mistreats him for his failures, she also openly considers him a genius, and most of the time treats him much better than any other character under her charge.
- Who's Laughing Now?: To quote Molo, "And they say mad science is a worthless degree!"
- World of Funny Animals: Everyone is an animal in this cartoon.
