Rated "A" for Awesome is a Canadian/American Animated Series created by Nerd Corps Entertainment, the Vancouver animation studio previously known Dragon Booster, Storm Hawks, League of Super Evil, and Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5.
The show focuses on the adventures of the Awesomizers, a group of 12-year-old kids made up of stepsiblings Les and Thera Awesom, their friends Lars and Noam, and pet monkey Mr. Twitchy, as they strive to make anything that's lame or boring awesome.
As Nerd Corps' second comedy-focused show after League of Super Evil, Rated "A" for Awesome aired on YTV from September 3, 2011 to February 25, 2012, ending with a total of 26 episodes over a single season. As a result, it was their shortest-lived original series until Endangered Species. The series also appeared in the United States on Disney XD, becoming the second Nerd Corps show to appear on a Disney network after Dragon Booster, with Nerd Corps' next series, Slugterra, following in its footsteps after Storm Hawks, LOSE, and HWB5 all aired stateside on Cartoon Network.
Rated "T" for Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Holly Hotley never gets Les' name right, even calling him "Lindsey" on one occasion.
- AI Is A Crap Shoot: Some of the machines the Awesomizers build end up turning on them, most notably ALEC, a smart computer designed to organise the school yearbook; It developed an unhealthy fixation with its creator, Noam, and tried to get rid of the others.
- All There in the Manual: Minor characters Chiffon and Maddie are only named in the credits. Chiffon is the redhead and Maddie is the blonde.
- Alpha Bitch: The Trishas.
- Ambiguously Brown: Thera and her mom, Angelina. Though Thera's first name and their surname, Kerplopolis, seem to imply they're Greek.
- Angst Nuke: Noam spent one episode wearing a device to remove his negative emotions (The "Blues Smoother"). The others, wanting the old Noam back, desecrate his favorite shirt, making him so angry that the Blues Smoother overloads and explodes.
- Animals Lack Attributes: Averted with Mr. Twitchy's visible nipples.
- Animal Testing: In "The Truth About Twitchy," Mr Twitchy is revealed to have escaped from a shampoo factory where the products are tested on monkeys.
- Artistic License – Medicine: In "Dental Denial" Thera's teeth manage to be repaired by an ordinary dentist with ordinary equipment despite rotting to the point that one fell out and looked like a gooey, green marshmallow.
- Attention Whore: The Trishas in "When Mascots Attack"; When Lars is accepted onto the cheer squad, they put him in the "Growly Gopher" costume, so he won't draw attention away from them. When an Awesomization foils their plan, they leak the tech to the school's rivals, and start cheering for them instead.
- Balloon Belly: A group of Mole Men get these in "Garbage In, Garbage Out" after eating lots of garbage. Unlike other examples, this is explained somewhat by the Mole Men having a fast metabolism (Which allows them to work off the weight just as quickly).
- Bigger Stick: Thera's cousin Abby upstaged her one Thanksgiving by presenting a much bigger turkey than the one Thera cooked. It proceded to come to life and eat Thera's turkey.
- Black Eyes of Evil: The glambies in "Mall of the Living Dolls".
- Blow You Away: In "Go For The Gusto", Les develops a new martial art, "Gusto", adapted from fanning away bad odors. Waving his hands creates a whirlwind that carries away his opponents.
-
Broken Aesop: In "Best Frenemies Forever," Les exposes Chet's music video as a fake, causing him to be laughed at and rejected by everyone else. In the end, Team Awesome is forced to restore Chet's popularity, and he returns to his Jerkass ways. The lesson seems to be "Don't expose the local rich jerk as a fake, because it's better for him to keep being a popular bully who looks down on everyone else and treats them like garbage." - Call-Back: "Against All Awesome" features flashbacks to "Melting The Ice," "Erik The Biking," and "Don't Judge A Mutant By Its Slobber."
- Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Thera tries and fails to get detention in "Club Detention".
- Can't Spit It Out: Noam has a crush on Thera but never seems to have the nerve to tell her.
- Cats Are Mean: Holly's cat Tonga. She gets even worse when her intelligence is enhanced.
- Convection Shmonvection: In "Silent Night, Awesome Night", the Awesomisers stand right next to a flow of lava with no ill effects (Noam even proclaims it to be the safest place to be when the lava threatens to engulf Glickersville).
- Cool Teacher: Mr. Fadenjeans.
- Compelling Voice: Lars develops this in "Voice of Lars."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Chet's dad, the head of Cashola Company.
- Criminal Amnesiac: In "Noam No More," Noam's attempt to improve his memory causes him to lose it. Chet finds him wandering around, completely unaware of who he is, and convinces him that he is "B.T.," his personal enforcer. Under Chet's control, Noam embarks on a reign of terror at the school, until his friends snap him out of it.
- Curtains Match the Window: Les, Thera and Noam.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The slime mutants from "Never Judge A Mutant By its Slobber," supposedly the enemies of the video game they're part of, are revealed to be completely peaceful and nice.
- Department of Redundancy Department: From "Mall of the Living Dolls":Trishas: Hellooooo!Trisha #1: If anyone gets one of these awesome mega makeovers, it's uuuuus!Trisha #2: Although I seriously doubt it'll make us awesomer than we already are.Trisha #1: Unless it makes you more like me!Trisha #2: Or me more like you!
- The Dividual: The Trishas are very rarely seen apart.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Gus Tangerine framed Team Awesome for ruining Glickersville's birthday celebrations, simply because he had accidentally got caught in the crossfire of some Awesomisations gone awry.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Captain Scar from "Never Judge A Mutant By Its Slobber."
- Dumb Blonde: Subverted with the Trishas. They're Book Dumb, but they can be pretty devious.
- Dumb Muscle: Burt Chunder is this for Chet Flickman.
- Eat the Evidence: In "ET Phone Noam", when Noam decides to leave with the aliens, Thera writes him a love letter confessing her feelings for him, telling him not to read it until he gets to his new home planet. When the aliens turn out to be evil and the group rescues Noam, he goes to read the letter, but Thera snatches it from him and gulps it down.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The Trishas as glambies in "Mall of the Living Dolls".
- Expospeak Gag: Noam delivers one in "When Hall Freezes Over", when everyone is complaining about the constant rain:Noam: The prolonged absence of sunlight seriously trashes my serotonin levels.Les: Huh?Noam: I'm bummed, too.
- Expy: Almost every member of Team Awesome has a L.O.S.E. counterpart.
- Short team leader with a huge ego? Les/Voltar.
- Tall scientist? Noam/Doktor Frogg.
- Overly cheerful and kind of weird foreign guy? Lars/Red Menace.
- They all even share the same voice actors.
- Fluent In Gibberish: In "Always Be Awesome", Lars claims that gibberish is his second language.
- Foreign Queasine: Many of Lars' Norgish food counts, particularly the pickled herring.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: In "Thera's Brother the Car" at the costume party the Trishas are just wearing their usual cheerleader outfits.
- Friendship Bribe: Chet keeps his friends around by giving them money.
- Funny Foreigner: Lars.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Noam.
- Gasshole: When the Power-Up Food mentioned below wears off, it causes the eater to belch loudly.
- Geek Physiques: Noam is the tallest and lankiest of the group.
- General Ripper: Captain Scar, from the game "Mutant Marauders." He is obsessed with freezing the slime mutants, laughs at the idea that they could be good, and attacks anyone who tries to stop him.
- Genius Ditz: Les is Book Dumb, but in "You've Got Blackmail" it's shown he can awesomize stuff all by himself.
- Goofy Print Underwear: Les. In one instance, they ponies on them, and in another, Crunch McPound, a local kung-fu celebrity.
- Hypno Ray: In "Club Detention" they use one disguised as an apple on Vice Principal Nitpickler so they can turn the detention room into a club.
- Hand Wave: Noam's explanation for how the fishengars in "Go Fish" ended up becoming Power-Up Food? "Who cares?"
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The Trishas are mirror versions of each other (one's hair parts to the left, the other one's hair parts to the right) and they often wear pink and white respectively.
- Imagine Spot: In "Dental Denial" Thera has one about going to a Depraved Dentist.
- In Medias Res: In "Sleep Smart" Les talks about The Cashola Company as if Team Awesome has been foiling their schemes for a long time, but they're never even mentioned in any episode before or after this.
- Jerkass:
- Chet, Vice-Principal Nitpickler, and the Trishas.
- Ned Falcon; A professional skater who entered a small-town contest, knowing full well he would outclass most of the other contestants.
- Jerk Jock: Burt Chunder.
- Joisey: Burt's mom.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Subverted in "Sleep Smart". Thera is only one not scared when watching a horror movie, and though Lars was scared while watching the movie, he gets over it after it ends, while Les and Noam are still shaking after it's over.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: When a bolt of lightning hits Noam's Clothes Picker Upper 3000, it causes all the clothes it was used on to come to life.
- Love at First Punch: Chet develops a crush on Thera when she sprays him with ketchup. He loses it when she acts nice towards him later on.
- Magic Skirt: Averted in "Club Detention" when they make the hypnotized Nitpickler dance on her desk.
- Minnesota Nice: Miss Shapenfeatures, the P.E. teacher.
- Moving the Goalposts: In "You've Got Blackmail" the Trishas do this with Les, blackmailing him with an embarrassing video to force him to make things for them and, after giving him the video when when they promised they would, revealing they saved a copy of it.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Les has this reaction when he learns that Noam has a crush on Thera.Les: Dude! That's my sister!
- Noodle People
- Odd Friendship: The Trishas and Holly. Sometimes the Trishas treat Holly like a servant, but other times Holly thinks for herself and they're still friends with her.
- Offscreen Teleportation: In "Bend It Like Burt" Thera manages to kick a soccer ball to herself this way.
- In one episode Lars is seen carrying one end of a couch, only to go off-screen and then appear again carrying the opposite end, with Thera in the background witnessing this and looking puzzled.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted with the Trishas and their cousin Trisha.
- Only Six Faces: A lot of characters share the same basic character model. This is most obvious with Vice Principal Nitpickler and the lunch lady.
- Our Zombies Are Different: In "Mall of the Living Dolls" the Trishas are turned into glambies (fashion obsessed zombies) when they go into Noam's makeover machine at the same time, causing it to malfunction. They turn other people into glambies by forcing them into the same machine.
- People Puppets: In "Dancing More Or Les", One of Noam's inventions turns Les into a willing version, perfectly replicating Thera's dance moves.
- Perky Goth: One is a minor character.
- Personality Swap: Thera and Chet experience this in "Merry-Go-Round of Doom", as does Les and Lars during the process of fixing it (And even Les's dad and Mr. Twitchy).
- Plaster Cast Doodling: In "My Brother the Car", Les breaks his arm trying to impress his crush Holly, and has to have it in a cast. Local bully Chet proceeds to write the word "loser" on the cast.
- Popular Is Dumb: Chet, Burt and the Trishas. Subverted with Thera sometimes, as she's smart, but how popular she is depends on the episode.
- Averted in the case of Thera and Les's parents, who are famous because of their smarts. In "Always Be Awesome" when they get their awesomeness drained they become idiots.
- Power-Up Food: An attempted to Awesomize Lars' pickled fishengars turns them into this. Each kind of fish temporarily grants a different power:
- Readings Blew Up the Scale: In "Always Be Awesome" when Noam tries to scan Mr. and Mrs. Awesome with his awesomeness scanner.
- Refugee from TV Land: In "Don't Judge A Mutant By Its Slobber", the team's attempt to "awesome-ize" a video game results in the games Sergeant Rock protagonist and mutant villains escaping into the real world.
- Rich Bitch: Chet, in a rare male example.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: In the credits, Vice Principal Nitpickler is usually listed as Miss Nitpickler, but sometimes she's listed as Mrs. Nipickler.
- Ruritania: Lars hails from the country of "Norg".
- Sadist Teacher: Vice-principal Nitpickler. She makes up school rules just so she can put kids in detention for breaking them.
- Screamer Prank: In "Bad News Noam" the gang puts one on Noam's computer in one of their attempts to overload his Blues Smoother.
- Ship Tease: Thera and Noam.
- Shout-Out:
- The title of the episode "A Nightmare on Glicker Street".
- In "Silent Night, Awesome Night", the Glinder-Bot gives the team a thumbs-up as it sinks into lava.
- Kitty Katastrophe, the star of Twitchy's favorite movies in "When Twitchy Met Tonga," is a parody of Catwoman.
- Principal Dudmuller's design was based on Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
- Mr. Noddenoff is a parody of the economics teacher from the same movie.
- In "Dancing More or Les", at one point Thera hides in a cardboard box for dog food with eye holes cut out of it as she controls Les's dancing.
- Similar Squad: In one episode, the team meet the "Incredi-Posse", a group of farm kids who resemble them (With a bipedal dog to match Mr. Twitchy) and "Incredi-whack" boring things.
- In "Too Many Monkeys," a newly super-intelligent Twitchy creates monkey versions of Team Awesome.
- Single-Minded Twins: The Trishas, to the point where they sometimes get confused.
- Slippery Swimsuit: Happens to Les in one episode where he loses his baggy trunks at the local water park. As he is sneaking around naked trying to get them back, the trunks get jammed in one of the water jets and threaten to cause an explosion. Made even funnier by the fact that this happened after he criticised Lars for wearing a tight thong.
- Status Quo Is God: In "Best Frenemies Forever," Les exposes Chet's music video as a fake, causing him to be shunned by everyone and cut off by his father. Team Awesome takes him in, but finds him so annoying that they are left with no choice but to restore his reputation.
- Subliminal Advertising: In "Sleep Smart" nearly everyone in town is hypnotised by a commercial so they'll buy a terrible potato-flavored soda.
- Supreme Chef: Mr. and Mrs. Awesome are both this.
- The Game Come to Life: In "Don't Judge A Mutant By it's Slobber", an attempt to turn "Mutant Marauders" into a virtual reality game results in the characters coming to life.
- The Twelve Principles of Animation: One of the few CG animated shows to incorporate Squash and Stretch.
- Theme Twin Naming: Exaggerated with the Trishas.
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: Lars' family all look ''exactly'' like him.
- Unexplained Accent: Thera's mother Angelina is of Greek descent, but has a Mid-Atlantic accent akin to Katherine Hepburn, while no-one else on their side of the family has such an accent.
- Valley Girl: The Trishas, especially in "Mall of the Living Dolls" after they're turned into Glambies and their accents are exaggerated further.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Always Be Awesome" Noam gets an unseen Swedish girlfriend named Inga who's only brought up twice, with no mention of them breaking up or anything.
- Which Me?: Averted with the Trishas. When someone just says "Trisha" without specifying which one, the Trishas somehow know which one they're referring to.
- Worth It: In "Dancing More or Les" Thera says this as she gets payback on Les by abusing herself while wearing a device that makes Les copy her movements.
- You Are the New Trend: In "Thera's Awesome Date With Destiny" Noam's big clown-esque shoes become a trend when the Trishas mistake his uncaring, nonconformist attitude for coolness, much to his annoyance.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Played with. In "Thera's Awesome Date With Destiny", Noam's "Fateinator" depicts Thera at the prom with Chet. Her attempts to prevent this results in the image changing to show her with someone even more repugnant. The last time it is used, she is with someone whose face is hidden, but has shoes similar to Noam's...
- You Must Be This Tall to Ride: The plot of "Armed and Dangerous" is started by Les being frustrated at not being allowed to use any of the exhibits at his dad's lab due to height restrictions. Even the shrink ray.
- You Need a Breath Mint: In "Dental Denial" Thera doesn't just need a breath mint, she needs a dentist.
- When she tries using breath mints to cover the smell, they fly out of her mouth.
- Your Head Asplode: Burt's reaction to Chet being charitable after a Personality Swap with Thera.
- You Mean "Xmas": Norgish people call Christmas "Glindermaus".
