Western Animation / 6teen

Life begins after school, that's when we bend all the rules... ^note Left to right: Nikki Wong, Jonesy Garcia, Caitlin Cooke, Jude Lizowski, Jen Masterson, and Wyatt Williams.

I'm sixteen, life is sweet
When you're growing up so fast
You gotta make the good times last!

— The Theme Song

6teen is a Canadian animated sitcom aimed at preteens and younger teenagers. The series follows a sextet of 16-year-olds named Jude Lizowski, Jen Masterson, Jonesy Garcia, Nikki Wong, Wyatt Williams, and Caitlin Cooke — the first five having known each other since kindergarten and the last being a new addition to their circle. These six friends all hang out and work part-time jobs at a megaplex shopping mall somewhere in Canada known as the Galleria Shopping Mall, where they always head to after school and on weekends. A Slice of Life series, 6teen focuses not on their lives in high school, but the common everyday things they do in their free time as they struggle to balance work in their first ever jobs with the daily problems of being a teenager, from romance and friendship to getting their first tastes of sweet freedom and making the most of their youth while it lasts.

6teen lasted from November 2004 to February 2010, with four seasons and a total of 93 episodes. The series was a co-production between Nelvana and Fresh TV, being the latter company's very first series. It aired on Teletoon in Canada, becoming one of the channel's most popular and long-running series during its time. Broadcasting in the United States was originally handled by Nickelodeon in 2005, but they dropped the show quite quickly afterwards. The show was then picked up by Cartoon Network in 2008 due to the success of Fresh TV's second series Total Drama (part of a general trend of Canadian imports rising to prominence on the channel at the time). But despite its flagship status for Teletoon throughout mid-late 2000s, the show had little success stateside, in part due to heavy editing from American censors. Nonetheless, it still managed to develop its own American fanbase, and it remains a favorite of many on both sides of the border.

You can watch every episode on Nelvana's Retro Rerun channel on Youtube here.

Eight years after 6teen ended, Jude appeared as one of the main characters in the Total Drama spin-off Total DramaRama, which also featured a few other references to 6teen. Not long later, following confirmation by several cast members, a reunion mini-episode was released to encourage former viewers in the United States to "Vote, Dude!".

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Contains examples of:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The show takes place in a mall instead of a school, but otherwise Tricia fills the role perfectly in "Unhappy Anniversary" where she manages to get Caitlin banned from every store in the mall.
• Actor Allusion: The mention of "Christian Lotenza" in "The List". Any dedicated fan can see Jude is referencing his voice actor, Christian Potenza.
• Accidental Pervert: In the Christmas Episode, Caitlin, who is wearing the Christmas costume for Jonesy, is knocked over by some children and accidentally gropes a woman in front of Nikki's mom. Since everyone thinks it's Jonesy, Nikki is absolutely furious, and Jonesy gets fired as a result. Things only get worse when Jonesy thoughtfully buys Nikki a travel atlas for Christmas with a note saying "Hoping we can use this together some day" and in the process of being wrapped, the note gets mixed with the candy underwear Jen mentioned seeing a guy buy for his girlfriend earlier.
• Afraid of Blood: Jonesy tried to overcome this so he could get the free snack after a donation as well as prove to Nikki that he isn't a wuss.
• Agony of the Feet: In "Waiting to Ex-Sale", Nikki has to wear the Punta Cana flip-flops that the Khaki Barn is promoting. They're poorly designed and hurt her feet, making them blister and bleed.
• Alliterative Name: Caitlin Cooke and Wyatt Williams.
• All Just a Dream: Most of the events in the episode "Dude of the Living Dead" are just a lengthy nightmare, which resulted from Jude watching a 24-hour long monster movie marathon.
• All Men Are Perverts: In "Dude of the Living Dead", Jonesy scores a job at a lingerie store, which has a peephole in the fitting rooms, so he can stare at the female customers while they're changing and trying on clothes from the store. It gets destroyed by a zombie early on.
  Wyatt: So if everybody knows about the peephole in the change room, why don't all guys apply there?
  Jonesy: They do. They just almost never hire guys to work there.
  Wyatt: So how'd you get a job?
  Jonesy: I told them I was gay.
• All Periods Are PMS: Played with in "Enter The Dragon". The three main girls' menstrual cycles are synchronized, causing them to behave in unusual ways. Jen, who is usually sporty and active, takes some muscle relaxants to soften her debilitaing cramps, becoming lethargic as a result. Nikki, who is snarky and insociable, becomes kinder and more talkative, but has wild mood swings that cause her to shift between overjoyed and sorrowful states. Finally, Caitlin, who is generally calm and jolly, gets a Hair-Trigger Temper that scares away most of the other characters.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Discussed In-Universe. "The Girls in the Band" starts with Jen and Caitlin listening to a cheesy love song called "My Fantasy" sung by a boy band called DawgToy, from the point-of-view of a guy who pines for his crush from a distance. While Jen and Caitlin (who're big fans of the group) think the song is sweet and romantic, the boys and Nikki all seem creeped out by it, with Nikki^note Who, in the end, is revealed to be just as much of a DawgToy-fan as Jen and Caitlin are—if anything, Nikki's actually more obsessed with the group that either Jen or Caitlin. going so far as to describe the song as "[sounding] like a stalker wrote it."
• Anachronic Order:
  • In the first episode, someone mentions summer break has just started, but then a few episodes later it's Christmas, then a few episodes after that Caitlin says she's only been working at the Big Squeeze for four weeks.
  • In the second season, Caitlin tells a story ending with, "and then he mooned the entire store," to her date. At the time, it seems like a Noodle Incident, but a few episodes later, Jonesy gets a job at Albatros and Finch, which culminates in him throwing off his pants.
• Artistic License – Biology: In "Waiting to Ex-Sale", Jude gets literally Overdrawn at the Blood Bank, donating seventeen times in one day under different Paper-Thin Disguises just to get the complimentary donuts in the recovery room after you donate. Obviously for Rule of Funny, but had the show handled it realistically, Jude would probably have died around the fourth or fifth donation.
• Awkward Poetry Reading:* Zig-zagged in the episode "Deadbeat Poets Society":
  • In the main plot of the episode, Wyatt gets dragged into live poetry readings at the local coffee shop in an attempt to help him out of the funk of a recent breakup. Despite being Pushed in Front of the Audience with no material, Wyatt ad-libs a poem venting his anger towards his ex, which not only makes him feel better, but ends up being well-received by the patrons. He ends up planning on coming back, but backs off from letting his friends know out of fear that they'll make fun of him — when they end up finding out anyway and show up, he finds himself embarrassed and angered by how immature they end up being (including Caitlin farting really loudly during Wyatt's poem).
  • In an effort to make up for the incident above, the gang groups together and writes Wyatt an apology poem, which is recited before him and the rest of the coffee shop. It's absolutely terrible (enough to earn outright boos from the audience), but Wyatt recognizes the sincerity and forgives them.
  • Among the other characters reciting poems throughout the episode, Ron The Rent-A-Cop recites an... intense poem about the horrors of jungle warfare, evidently drawing from personal experience. While the patrons are generally polite and respond with kind to all the poem readings, this particular one leaves everyone silent and freaked out by what's happening.
    Jonesy: That... didn't make me want to laugh.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform:
  • The Big Squeeze is the most notable. Its employee has to wear a hat shaped like a giant lemon.
  • Nobody wants to work at Wonder Taco for similar reasons; the uniform includes a large taco-shaped hat.
  • Jonesy has had a few in his jobs: for example, when he worked at a fruit store, he had to wear a banana costume, and when he worked at a soup store, his costume included a large soup can hat. He even inflicted it on himself in "Dirty Work", when he made himself wear a giant rooster head in order to attract customers.
• Balloon Belly:
  • Caitlin fattens herself up (to the point of looking heavily pregnant) after eating too much chocolate in "Girlie Boys", and unlike most examples of this trope, she kept the weight until she went to the fitness center to lose it.
  • "Over Exposed" has Jude get one when he eats too many Rajin' Cajun Fries from Burger McFlipster's.
• Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Done in at least one episode with dressing cubicles instead, where Tricia overhears Caitlin calling her mean.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • An entire episode revolves around Nikki trashing Jonesy's bathroom after a particularly nasty bowel movement. Jonesy is forced to accept the fact that this trope does not exist in reality, and that girls are not, in fact, above such grotesque things.
  • Though not shown, Jen won the Garcia family Thanksgiving turkey eating contest and won, and then apparently ended up making a huge mess in the bathroom.
• Birthday Episode: Twice, with Wyatt in Season One and Caitlin in the Season Three premiere.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Serena, Wyatt's first girlfriend in the series, becomes this post-breakup. At first, she seems liked a mature and level-headed person who tries advising Wyatt to trust her more, but she ended up getting back with her ex-boyfriend while still technically dating Wyatt, and then she ends up dumping Wyatt via text message. She gets worse as the series goes on, especially after Wyatt finally gets over his feelings for her and moves on to other girls. When Marlowe (Wyatt's first girlfriend after Serena) starts working with her at Spin This, Serena gets jealous of their relationship and tries getting back together with Wyatt behind Marlowe's back—and this happened while Serena was still technically dating Chad, the guy she had dumped Wyatt for in the first place.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the Grand Finale Nikki's family moves to Iqaluit after her father gets his dream job; the episode ends with the remaining five realizing that while she's not there right now, their lives will still be all right without her and they'll still be in contact with each other.
• Bland-Name Product: Prevalent throughout the series. (e.g. Albatross and Finch = Abercrombie and Fitch, Stereo Shack = Radio Shack, Soft Rock Cafe = Hard Rock Cafe, etc.) However, the series also averts it on several occasions, such as flat-out saying Star Wars, The Cat in the Hat, and Vin Diesel instead of replacing them with false equivalents.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Jude creates an extremely hot sauce in Dude of the Living Dead, which becomes a Chekhov's Gun when it turns out to be an effective zombie-killer.
• The Blind Leading the Blind: Characters often make the mistake of taking romantic/dating advice from Caitlin or Jonesy.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In 2012, PopGirl in the UK suddenly started censoring the show after a few years of airing it uncut.
    • All onscreen vomiting is cut.
    • In "Deck the Mall", they edited the scene where Stanley pants'd Jonesy in front of Yummy Mummy and got him fired so it looked like he got fired for taking back the candy cane after Stanley made fun of him.
    • In "Unhappy Anniversary", they cut every mention of the bowl Jonesy made looking like a boob. Though they kept the joke about Jude wanting to have it and stroking it.
    • In "Mr. Nice Guy", they cut the part where the girls said they thought Jonesy and Wyatt were gay, but in "Dude of the Living Dead", they left in the scene of Jonesy getting a job at a women's clothing store by claiming he's gay so he can get away with peeping in the changing rooms. However, they still air "Stupid Over Cupid" uncut, keeping in the Gay Cowboy wanting to date Jonesy.
  • When Cartoon Network (a channel known for lacing dodgy content in their original programming, yet editing out the same dodgy content in any imported programming, like the Looney Tunes cartoons and any anime series) aired the show, it was heavily censored, removing any and all suggestive content and banning two episodes: "Mr. Nice Guy" (which centers on homosexuality) and "Enter the Dragon" (which centers on menstrual cycles and how they affect women). That said, they were allowed to keep most of the inappropriate language, so they at least got off better than a certain other Fresh TV series... Nickelodeon also edited the series and banned the same episodes.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Stanley, Yummy Mummy's son, is a whiny little jerk who's constantly bothering people for fun.
• Building of Adventure: Almost all the show's plots take place in and around The Galleria Mall.
• Burger Fool: Burger McFlipster's—The restaurant itself appears to be a pastiche of McDonald's & Burger King.
• Changing Yourself for Love: In "Lights Out", Starr, Jude's love interest, decides to go goth in pursuit of other interests. Jude tries to follow suit as well but both know that's not who he is and mutually break up over it. Which wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Jonesy and Nikki—they and the rest of the gang (minus Caitlin) have known each other since they were in Kindergarten, and in an early episode (before they became an Official Couple) it's mentioned that Jonesy has had feelings since they were at least 14.
• Christmas Episode: There are actually 3 of these,... all taking place within the same year?
• Clear My Name: In "A Crime of Fashion", Tricia plants a halter top from Albatross & Finch in Caitlin's bags to frame her for shoplifting after Tricia hears some unsavory gossip about herself. After Caitlin gets caught, she tries several times to get the security tape to prove that she didn't steal the top. After Ron the Rent-a-cop finally reviews the security footage, proving Caitlin's innocence, Tricia gets sentenced to 100 hours of community service.
• Closet Geek: Chrissy is a big Star Wars geek but hides it from her friends. Note that she's one of the clones.
• Company Cross References: In "Blast from the Past", a picture of Camp Wawanakwa can be seen in the art exhibit. Both 6teen and Total Drama are made by Teletoon.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: Jonesy decides to make Nikki a clay bowl to celebrate their three-month relationship. Unfortunately, his lack of practice causes the end product to resemble a female breast, much to his girlfriend's embarrassment.
• Credit Card Destruction: In the pilot episode, the Khaki Barn staff cut Caitlin's credit card in half while she's holding it in her hand, commencing the Credit Card Plot.
• Comfort Food: In "The Journal", Jen drowns her sorrows in bags of mini brownies in her room after the entries of her diary go public.
• Cool Big Sis: Jen has one who she's jealous of—at least until it turns out to be Mutual Envy.
• Credit Card Plot: The reason that Caitlin got her job at The Lemon and met the other 5. Also a recurring weakness, if she ever gets completely out of debt.
• Cringe Comedy: In "The Birthday Boy", when the gang tells Wyatt they're going to throw him a birthday party, completely forget to do so, and make him think a bridal shower is his party to hide it.
• Curse Cut Short: There are many uses of this involving the word 'Bitch'. Once completely averted in "The Sushi Connection" when The Clones teased Nikki due to her assistant manager nametag saying "ASS. MAN" (short for Assistant Manager).
• Darker and Edgier: The "Vote, Dude" PSA/reunion episode. Due to it being released on the internet it features swearing, references to real world politics and the confirmation that Jude is a stoner.
• Dark Reprise: A melancholy version of the main theme appears in the series finale and drives home the point that the series is actually ending.

Defying the Censors: Granted Canadian censors and USA censors different, but you have to wonder how they get away with certain jokes like the candy cane underwear joke from "How The Rent A Cop Stole Christmas"

• Depending on the Writer:
  • Sometimes the six friends act twice their age and are making witty pop-culture references, and next episode they're making fart jokes.
  • Chrissy. On occasion, she's smart and a capable boss (most often seen in the first season). Usually, however, she acts like she's only a few IQ points above the other clones. (Ironic, given that she's stated to have scored a few points better than Nikki on an IQ test.)
  • Serena varies from nice girl to total bitch depending on the episode.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Caitlin says this word-for-word after telling Jen she's bossy and overbearing, leading to a bet that Jen can't last the rest of the day without telling somebody else what to do, and the others going out of their ways to make her crack. Hilarity Ensues.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Wayne firing Wyatt from the video store simply cause he accidentally spilled some coffee on a rare video. Before that, Wayne fired Jonesy minutes after hiring simply because Jonesy liked the movie Top M-16s.
  • Tricia tends to do this a lot, especially towards Caitlin. In "Unhappy Anniversary," she has Caitlin banned from every store in the mall just because she was dating a boy Tricia used to like. Also, in "A Crime of Fashion," she frames Caitlin for shoplifting after she overheard her saying mean things about her.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Wyatt sings the theme song with Jude.
• Double Entendre: This quote from Dude of the Living Dead?
  Nikki: ...[Jonesy's] oversized male ego!
  Jonesy: I think you like my 'oversized male ego'.
• Dramatic Wind: Parodied in "2-4-1" with Blake, whose scarf and hair constantly flow in the wind even though there is none.
  Caitlin: Is there a draft in here?
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In "Oops, I Dialed It Again" Wyatt saves a baby's life and catches three handbags (one in each hand and one on his foot), but that's immediately forgotten about when he sneezes and has snot hanging from his nose.
• Ear Worm: All of Wyatt's songs at Burger McFlipsters are seen as this by the customers at the store, as they find the usual songs boring at best and annoying at worst.
• Erudite Stoner: Jude can be surprisingly insightful for a skater bro, and his general behavior and mannerisms don't leave much ambiguity about his personal hobbies...
• Everyone Has Standards: Upon finding out Serena dumped Wyatt by text message, even her new boyfriend Chad sympathized with Wyatt on that.
• Evil Counterpart: Subverted in "Losing Your Lemon", with the introduction of six teenagers who look and behave exactly like the main cast, but are friends with Tricia. Surprisingly, they turn out to not be nearly as malicious as her when it comes to their interactions with the protagonists, playing a largely neutral role throughout the episode. In fact, Caitlin's counterpart seems to get along just fine with her, while Jonesy's proves to be kinder than him when he returns in "The New Jonesy".
• Evil Is Petty: In "Losing Your Lemon", after Caitlin gets her credit card back and quits her job, Tricia encourages her to go on a shopping spree just to get her back into debt and so she and her friends can steal the gang's spot in front of the Lemon while Caitlin is away.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Invoked in-universe with the title of a movie.
  Jonesy: [to Wayne] "So, my good man, what have you got for me?"
  Wayne: "Rabid Albino Vampires."
  Jonesy: "What's it about?"
  Wayne: Rabid. Albino. Vampires.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After the meat he was selling starts making everyone sick, Jonesy begins wondering what went wrong since he "Did everything right this time". He calmly starts recapping all his previous actions and is horrified once he remembers he had asked Jude to refrigerate the meat. It doesn't take long for him to discover his friend had forgotten to plug in the freezer, causing the meat to spoil as a result.
• Eyelash Fluttering: One of Caitlin's tactics of attracting guys is this trope, with every guy that witnesses it performing a Jaw Drop and then shaking their head. Jen tries to do it too, only to fail and have her eyes go wonky.
• Fanboy: Darth's entire life revolves around Star Wars.
• Fanservice:
  • The scantily-clothed belly dancers in "Major Unfaithfulness".
  • In "Wrestlemania", Nikki has her dress caught in an escalator and it gets torn off, leaving her standing there in her underwear just as her ex bumps into her.
• Fan Disservice: Two characters are shown wearing Leia's gold bikini: Julie and Jonesy.
  • Weaponized in “Major Unfaithfulness” when Jonesy and the guys (including the out of shape Wayne) dress in belly dancer garb and dance in front of the bought-out Underground Video. This drives the customers away so that Wayne can buy the store back from Taj Mahome.
• Fan Hater: In-Universe in "Going Underground"; Wayne refuses to hire Jonesy because he likes Top M-16s.
• Fashion Hurts:
  • In "Waiting to Ex-Sale", the Khaki Barn starts selling a new brand of flip-flops that really hurt to wear, to the point of making Nikki's feet start bleeding like crazy after she's forced to wear them as part of the promotion (and, in fact, this is how the gang finds out Jonesy's afraid of blood). Still, they're so popular that a girl offers to buy them from Nikki at the end of the episode, despite them being visibly covered in blood.
  • One episode sees Caitlin gleefully getting strappy high-heels that are three inches tall.
    Jen: Can you walk in them?
    Caitlin: Shoes that are made for walking are never the cute shoes.
  • A male example with the episode "Girlie Boys", where Jonesy gets taken to a spa to get his unibrow waxed, and while painful, he and a few of his guy friends become regulars after finding it to be a great place to find girls, willing to go through similarly painful treatments to stick around. Subverted later on when it's pointed out that — much to his surprise — there's far more relaxing stuff to do at the spa that won't hurt them.
• The Fat Episode: Caitlin's story in "Girlie Boys", where she gains weight working at a chocolate shop.
• Feigning Intelligence: When Caitlin pretends to be a college student in "Smarten Up". The rest of the gang does the same when they're drawn into the scheme, which ends up with Jonesy delivering a baby.
• Feud Episode: While they're not long time friends, Nikki gets into a fight with Caitlin but all is forgiven after Jude's pet fish dies in "Fish and Make Up".
• Fire Alarm Distraction: Discussed. Jonesy mentions getting grounded after pulling the fire alarm to get out of math class, and Jude thanks him for it due to it getting him out of dissecting a worm in biology class.
• Five-Finger Discount: The episode of the same name features the main characters talking about the little things here and there they take from their jobs. Jen takes it too far when she shoplifts an expensive jacket, and the episode ends with a lesson against stealing.
• Five-Second Rule: Jude ends up losing his job at Stick It after it gets closed for multiple health code violations, and when asked by his friends on if he even had the decency to handle the food safely, he less-than-reassuringly describes himself as living by the "three-second rule." Jen — who had recently eaten at Stick It — imagines that Jude dropped her order on the dirty, cockroach-ridden floor while she wasn't looking and then served to her anyway, and understandably gags.
• Flirty Stepsiblings: Jen used to have a crush on Jonesy before they became close and their parents married, and Jonesy can't help but make fun when he finds out.
• Foreign Queasine: Wyatt loves sushi, but the rest of the gang find it gross.
• Freudian Trio:
  • The Boys:
    • Id: Jonesy — Is almost completely driven by his hormones. Losing his job every episode, usually because of an incompetent decision, is also a Running Gag.
    • Ego: Jude — Comes across as The Stoner and not above Toilet Humor. However, he does often give a surprisingly powerful motivational speech and can be more intelligent than he lets on.
    • Superego: Wyatt — Sensitive, logical Nice Guy who often finds himself as the Only Sane Man.
  • The Girls:
    • Id: Caitlin — In Love with Love, very kind but often completely clueless. Typically Once an Episode, she ends up crying so much over something minor that her mascara runs.
    • Ego: Nikki — Immature when it comes to her job, which she somehow keeps despite not caring about it at all, yet very mature for her age otherwise with a very developed Deadpan Snarker sense of humor, and can often find herself as the Only Sane Woman in the group.
    • Superego: Jen — Easily the most responsible girl in the group, she takes her job and her life very seriously and is very motivated to do well. Like Wyatt and Nikki, she often finds herself as the Only Sane Woman due to caring more about the things that really matter.
• Fun With Blenders: The very first episode has Caitlin's cell phone accidentally falling into a blender while it's running.
• Funny Background Event: In "Jonesy's Low Mojo", Nikki spills coffee on Kirsten. The other clones become involved in the mess, and pretty soon chaos envelops the Khaki Barn.
• G-Rated Drug:
  • Chocolate-covered jellybeans for Ron Rent-a-Cop in "Welcome to the Darth Side".
  • Coffee for Jude in "Smarten Up" when he becomes obsessed with winning Grind Me's giveaway contest.
  • It's brought up several times that Wyatt is addicted to caffeine. He becomes incredibly irritable when he hasn't had a cup of coffee in more than a few hours, and Ron the Rent-a-Cop even codenamed him "Coffee Pot".
• Gang of Bullies: The Escalator Girls steal from people and bully those who come near their "territory".
• Gassy Gastronomy: In one episode, Jonesy and Jude are crawling through air vents. Jonesy starts farting, prompting Jude to ask if he had a chili bowl earlier. Jonesy clarifies that he actually had chili fries.
• Geek: Darth, is a scrawny, acne-ridden, bespectacled tech expert and Star Wars fanatic who is intelligent but possesses nothing resembling social skills.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Three boys (Jonesy, Jude and Wyatt) and three girls (Nikki, Jen and Caitlin).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Invoked in-universe when Jude mentions a German docudrama narrated by the man himself.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man:
  • Caitlin slaps Nikki to snap her out of the Clones' brainwashing.
  • In "Dude of the Living Dead", Caitlin clings to Talon's severed arm to cope with the fact he's been zombified. A disgusted Jen snatches the member and uses it to slap Caitlin three times, forcing her to deal with the fact that her boyfriend is dead.
  • In "Smarten Up", Wyatt slaps a caffeine-crazed Jude four times to sober him up.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: In order to get out of exams, Jude tried to catch a cold on purpose by sticking his head in a freezer.
• Girls Love Chocolate:
  • In "Girlie Boys", Caitlin gets fat after getting a job at a chocolate shop.
  • In "Enter the Dragon", when Nikki is on her period, she craves chocolate (even though she hates it).
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: In "Bring It On," Jonesy challenges the girls into a battle of the sexes after he claims that his being a male makes him an objectively better salesperson than Jen. The boys lose the first three but win the fourth (having to avoid vomiting after eating thirty Stick-Its and riding the mall's rollercoaster), which Jonesy declares to have been the only challenge that counts. He is eventually forced to recant his sentiment when he and the other guys fail at finding a way to make the children Jude is babysitting behave, only to have the girls suggest putting them down for a nap.
• Godwin's Law: A roundabout example; in one episode when Ron is acting more unreasonable and authoritarian than usual, Nikki outright calls him a fascist. Ron responds by sheepishly admitting he doesn't know what that word means.
• Gold Digger: Trisha tries to be a platonic girlfriend version to Caitlin in "Prank'd" when she thinks Caitlin is rich.
• The Ghost: Jen's dad, Jonesy's mom and Jude, Wyatt and Caitlin's parents are mentioned several times, but never actually appear in person.
• Gonk: Darth and Julie ain't exactly winning any beauty contests any time soon.
• Halloween Episode: "Boo, Dude" and the hour long special Dude of the Living Dead both take place during Halloween. The former follows the gang as they try to prank Ron to celebrate the holiday, whereas the latter is a prolongued nightmare Jude has due to watching a monster movie marathon.
• Handsome Lech: Jonesy, who is attractive and is also a huge Casanova Wannabe.
• Hartman Hips: The mall cougar has them. This could be one reason why she's called Yummy Mummy.
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After Wyatt gets dumped by Serena, Caitlin declares ice-cream in a necessary part of post-breakup therapy. She should know, considering how many boyfriends she loses over the course of the show.
• Heroic BSoD: Ron the mall Rent-a-Cop goes through one in "The New Guy" when it's revealed exactly how empty his life is without his job.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Played with in "Bicker Me Not" where while don't say the word gay in describing Caitlin's Coworker Kevin, he's referred to as "playing for the other team" in conversation.
• Hope Spot: In the final episode, Nikki's family agrees not to move after seeing how much Nikki's friends care about her, but she decides that she has to do the mature thing and move anyway so her father can have his dream.
• Hopeless Auditionees: Played with in "Idol Time at the Mall". Wyatt's five friends audition to a singing contest despite being aware that they're terrible singers, knowing that their poor performances would make Wyatt look even better by comparison.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • When the gang reveal their embarrassing secrets to each other, Caitlin adamantly tells them that hers won't be repeated before telling. Soon after, she goes and blabs their secrets to her boyfriend of the day because since they're dating, they shouldn't keep secrets from each other (while conveniently neglecting to tell him her own). This goes downhill as said boyfriend blabs said secrets while under hypnosis, causing the gang to cut Caitlin off from them for breaking their trust. Once the gang plan to take their revenge, she says best friends don't go blabbing other people's secrets (which she had done in the first place).
  • When Jen and Nikki are taking a survey and ask Jonesy if he'd dump a girl for answering the phone with "Y'ello" he says he would because it's annoying. Later in the episode, he answers his phone that same way.
  • In the pilot episode, Tricia ends her friendship with Caitlin because of her Big Squeeze uniform, leaving her devastated as to why Tricia would do that to her for such a trivial reason. Wyatt comments on this, asking what kind of person would judge people simply by what they wear, to which Caitlin admittedly raised her hand to. She then tries to justify it by saying she wouldn't do that to a friend at least.
  • Caitlin spends the majority of the first season complaining that her previous boyfriends have dumped her for superficial reasons, but, in the second season's premiere, much of the humour in her sub-plot is derived from her wondering whether she should dump her so-called soul mate because she has discovered he is a lousy kisser.
  • In "Major Unfaithfulness", Caitlin gets a bad haircut and spends the brunt of the episode hiding from her boyfriend out of embarrassment. When she believes he is about to dump her, she furiously confronts him and says that a bad hairdo is not a justifiable excuse to break up with someone, after which they patch things up. However, the episode's final joke is that the boyfriend gets an equally hideous haircut, prompting Caitlin to immediately leave him.
  • Some of the jokes the girls make at the expense of guys, not just their friends but in general. Some are just "Guys easy to impress", and then other jokes seem to go a bit too far.
• I Ate WHAT?!:
  • In at least two instances. When Jude becomes jobless after the Stick It food stand is shut down for health hazard reasons, Jen asks Jude if he at least handled the food safely. He replies that he follows the "three second rule". Cue flashback of Jude serving Jen a stick-it, but accidentally dropped it on the dirty, bug-infested floor while she wasn't looking, then serves it to her. Jen immediately felt nauseous at the memory.
  • Jonesy bootlegs canned lemonade to Caitlin since the blender was broken by hiding them up his kilt (uniform for his current job). Nikki was shocked where he pulled them out from.
  Nikki: (looks at her lemonade glass) ... you mean this lemonade came from under Jonesy's skirt...?
  (a nearby customer overheard and immediately did a spit-take on his lemonade)
  Nikki: Yeah... good call.
• Indy Escape: At one point, the giant lemon that houses Squeeze It, where Caitlin works, breaks free of its supports and rolls around the mall.
• Informed Judaism: The only hint to Jude being Jewish is when he said he needed to go home for the Hanukkah celebration in one of the Christmas episodes.
• Innocent Innuendo: From "A Lime to Party": "There's only room for one giant fruit in this mall!"
• Insistent Terminology: With Jude's help, Jonesy makes a bowl for Nikki, but the lid makes it look like a breast. Jonesy protests otherwise.
  Jonesy: It's not a breast, it's a boob--I mean a bowl!
• Insufferable Genius: Starr becomes more egotistical after she joins the nerd trend, dumping Jude again because his IQ isn't high enough.
• Insult Backfire: In "The Sushi Connection", Kirsten attempts to insult Nikki by calling her The Khakinator, but Nikki likes the nickname.
• Introductory Opening Credits: The theme song starts out with silhouette flashes of the six main characters with their names displayed along the bottom: Jen, Nikki, Jonesy, Wyatt, Jude, and Caitlin, in that order.
• It Was with You All Along: Near the end of "Enter The Dragon", it's revealed that the movie tickets the guys spent the entire episode trying to get back from the girls were in Jude's pants pocket the whole time.
• Jerk Jock:
  • Coach Halder is pushy, abrasive, uncaring, and sports-obsessed enough to give Andy Clark's dad a run for his money.
  • Charlie Dobbs suddenly became one when the writers needed an excuse for Jen to break up with him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Jonesy is usually a selfish, lecherous egomaniac, but is deeply devoted to his friends, even deciding in multiple episodes that losing his job is a low price to pay if it means he can use the day to help someone in need.
  • Nikki is the most insociable member of the group, as she openly insults her co-workers and doesn't even bother hiding her contempt for Caitlin when the two first meet. However, she is deeply loyal to her friends and usually acts as the voice of reason when they need help.
  • The nameless doctor from the episode "Waiting to Ex-Sale" is extremely sarcastic towards Jonesy, but gives Jude the rest of the donuts at the end of the episode in exchange for not telling anyone that she took his blood 17 times.
• Joke Name Tag:
  • During an episode where Nikki becomes the assistant manager of the Khaki Barn, she wears a name tag that reads "Ass. Man."
  • In "The Big Sick," when Wyatt and Jude are disguised as paramedics, Wyatt's nametag has a legitimate name, whereas Jude's nametag says, "Dude, I am totally a paramedic."
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Caitlin tends to dump guys for incredibly trivial reasons. In one episode, she finally gets a taste of her own medicine when a guy dumps HER for an equally trivial reason (for once being seen with a "toilet paper tail").
  • In one episode Caitlin forces Jen to go on a double date with a hot guy and his less than attractive and somewhat slovenly friend. Not only does she stick Jen with the friend she dumps the hot guy when she finds out he has backne. Before she finds that out however Jen and the guys friend get her back by using her card to pay for dates at the amusement park and arcade.
  • Caitlin dates a guy at a costume party, but decides to dump him just because he is a nerd out of costume. She tries to do so by giving him a fake number, but, in her hurry, fails to notice that she wrote it on her shopper's card. Throughout the episode, Caitlin jumps through hoops in her bid to find the guy and get her card back from him, repeatedly injuring herself in the process. When she finally finds the guy, he mistakes her behaviour as stalking and is creeped out. Telling Caitlin that he doesn't have her card at the moment, she asks for his number so she can contact him later. Predictably, the guy gives HER a fake number, which leaves Caitlin infuriated.
  • In "Smarten Up", Caitlin pretends to be in college to attract a guy named Josh. When Caitlin's lies about her friends results in Jonesy having to deliver a baby, which he had no training or experience to remotely do, her boyfriend dumps her because he thinks her friends are too serious. He then reveals to be dating Kristen, and it is heavily implied that Kristen told Josh about who Caitlin and her friends really were.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Occasionally a character will mention how it's a good thing they aren't in a TV show, because if they were then it would be likely that whatever zany scheme happens to be occurring would go horribly wrong after the commercial break.
  • Jude will sometimes just directly break the fourth wall and warn the kids watching to not try whatever dangerous stunt they see being performed.
• Limited Wardrobe: The entire cast wears the exact same outfit or outfits (usually just a specific uniform they change into for a job) every day, despite multiple episodes showing them spending their money at the mall's clothing shops.
• Literal-Minded: In "Love at Worst Sight", Jude failed an eye exam because he thought he was supposed to literally read the chart.
• Local Hangout: The Big Squeeze serves as this.
• Make-Out Kids: There is a specific pair of extras whose every appearance is marked by their continuous game of Tonsil Hockey.
• The Mall: The design of the Galleria Mall incorporates aspects of two of Canada's most famous malls, the Toronto Eaton Centre◊ (tall glass ceilings and 3+ levels of stores on each side) and the West Edmonton Mall (indoor rollercoaster, ice rink◊).
• Mean Boss:
  • A constant theme in the series is that the bosses are either apathetic towards or outright abuse the gang. While Coach Halder and Wayne are consistently depicted as jerks, depending on the episodes, some of the episodes have it set as a blatant abuse of power.
  • Tim, the manager of Burger McFlipster's, is a downplayed example. He establishes a strict, vaguely antagonistic rapport with Wyatt right from the start of their interview (leading Wyatt into trick questions and dryly snipping back when he falls for them by answering honestly), but he ends up establishing himself to be a perfectly Reasonable Authority Figure. He is very strict and blunt on the standards he expects his employees to uphold, but is ultimately fair and gives props when they're earned.
• Meaningful Background Event: In "Dude of the Living Dead", several zombies are seen zombifying people in the background.
• Missed the Recital: When Wyatt performs a song in front of the entire mall in, he expects all 5 of his friends to be there. However, each member of their group becomes distracted by other events and all of them justify their absence with the expectation that the others will be there to support Wyatt. After Wyatt sees none of them in the audience, he changes the lyrics to a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to all of them.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • Jonesy and Wyatt are thought to be a gay couple by two women they are trying to pick up. Jonesy wasn't too thrilled about it (Jonesy: "Not gay! NOT GAY!").
  • Jonesy volunteers to tell Wyatt that Marlowe is dumping him, and telling him in a cafe infamous for being a hotspot for couples breaking up. When Wyatt shouts his reaction in the wrong way, the customers (particularly the females) immediately mistook them for a gay couple breaking up because "Jonesy is deciding to switch teams". For some odd reason, despite their own break-ups with their boyfriends, the girls were angry that Jonesy's "breaking up with Wyatt". It didn't help that after Jonesy gets chased out, Wyatt runs after, asking something that could also be taken the wrong way.
  • Nikki in "Role Reversal" when she tries to find out if her new friend has a crush on her. The girl thought Nikki was trying to ask her out and politely declines because she already has a girlfriend.
• Mistakes Are Not the End of the World: In "Awake the Wyatt Within", Caitlin accidentally breaks the blender at the Big Squeeze and spends the rest of the episode struggling to fix it and secretly trying to find alternate ways to make lemon juice, worrying that if her manager finds out, he won't give her the bonus he promised to reward her with for keeping the stand running smoothly. Eventually, he does find out it's broken... and simply shrugs it off and offers to get a new one without hassle, since replacing deprecated equipment is his job, with Caitlin getting her bonus anyway.
• Moose and Maple Syrup: As this show was made in Canada, it of course has numerous references to its culture, from the red $50 bills to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
• Must Have Caffeine: Wyatt shuts down when he doesn't get his coffee.
• Naked People Are Funny: Probably to be expected from the makers of Total Drama - Jen is shown naked at least three times with Jonesy a close second. Jude as well, while skydiving.
• Not Me This Time: While Jonesy is usually fired for a valid reason, there are a few instances where he is fired for something beyond his control and therefore cannot be reasonably blamed for:
  • The first example is "Khaki Girl" where Jude forgets to refrigerate the meat. As a result, Jonesy sells it to everyone, and when a vomiting epidemic breaks out, he gets fired even though it is Jude's fault.
  • A second one in the Christmas Episode, where Caitlin, who is currently in the mascot costume, is knocked over by children and accidentally gropes a woman in front of Nikki's mom which nearly destroys their relationship, because everyone assumes it is him in the costume.
  • A third example is in the Swami Jude episode, where the real Swami flatly refuses to show. Jude is then forced to improvise, and when this is discovered, the real Swami fires Jonesy, even though it is the Swami's fault for not showing up in the first place.
• New Job Episode:
  • The first episode follows the six main characters applying for jobs in various shops.
  • A Running Gag is Jonesy getting a new job, only to lose it at the end of the same episode.
  • In "Going Underground", Jude and Wyatt both lose their jobs and spend the remainder of the episode trying to find new ones.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Caitlin and Wyatt are nice, being the most sympathetic and outgoing members of the main cast. Jonesy and Nikki are mean, with the former being a self-centered Jerkass and the latter sardonic and irritable. Jen and Jude are in-between, as they are more sociable and selfless than the previous two, albeit still have pretty glaring character flaws (excessive strictness and laziness, respectively).
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • The security guard looks and talks an awful lot like Christopher Walken. This is never more obvious than if you see the video of Ron the Rent-a-Cop doing a perfect Homage to Christopher Walken's/Fatboy Slim's music video of "Weapon of Choice", as seen at the end of the episode "Lifeslaver". It should also be of note that Christopher Walken's real name is Ron.
  • The Talent Show episode had the judges look exactly like Randy, Paula, and Simon.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: The main characters stay sixteen despite there being several Christmas episodes.
• Not What It Looks Like: In one episode, Jonesy and Wyatt are accused of being a "couple" after the former breaks up for the latter's girlfriend. It didn't help that Jonesy took Wyatt to the icecream shoppe in the mall, where it's known that if you enter there as a couple, you leave broken up.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • In the season two opener, Jude allows a cockroach to get into his food supply and the Board Of Public Health and Ron the Rent-a-Cop shut down Stick It.
  • In "A Ding From Down Under", Jen is used as target practice by Coach Halder, which realistically would have led Jen to call the cops and Halder probably would have been fired.
• Oh God, with the Verbing!: Jude gets this way at times when it comes to the ice rink's ice.
  Jude: "The ice, with the hopping and the crunching!"
• Once an Episode:
  • Jonesy gets fired from his latest mall job (or, when he's running a scam, it fails miserably).
  • Coach Halder introduces himself every episode by yelling at Jen.
• One-Hour Work Week: While all the main cast seems to have fairly flexible job schedules, Jude in the first season has nearly limitless freedom in setting his own schedule and pay. As he learns in "Employee of the Month," the number Stick-It lists for his boss's phone is his own number, meaning the company likely allows him to do whatever he wants with the job so long as he at least brings in some level of profit. This is later lost in the following seasons when he allows a cockroach to get into the food, resulting in Ron banning him from ever working in any of the mall's food service stores.
• One Head Taller: All of the guys (and most one-shot dates) are at least a handful of inches taller than the girls.
• One of the Boys: One-shot character Joanie, who's basically a female-Jonesy. She dresses girly, but that belch of hers is all man.
• One-Word Title: The six main characters are sixteen.
• Only Sane Man: Wyatt, Nikki and Jen often take turns being the voice of reason to the rest of the group — usually only one at a time when the others prove to be Not So Above It All.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: While the series mostly manages to avert Canadian stereotypes, the way the cast pronounces "Sorry" consistently manages to give away their accents.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Near the end of "Dude of the Living Dead" when Jude goes to meet his friends at the mall after watching the 24 hour monster movie marathon, he sees that Jen has a zit exactly like the one in his nightmare, and he runs off screaming.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: In "Waiting to Ex-Sale", Jude donates blood seventeen times in order to score free doughnuts. At the end of the episode, the doctor gives him the rest of the donuts in exchange for not telling anyone that she took his blood 17 times.
• Pocket Dial: In "Oops, I Dialed It Again", Caitlin gives her friends new cell phones to test out and it leads to several misunderstandings. When Nikki starts admiring and complimenting the customers at her work so she can earn more money to buy Jonesy new skates, she accidentally pocket dials Jonesy during her work and he thinks Nikki is cheating on him. Later in the episode, when Jonesy is trying to build himself up, he accidentally pocket dials Caitlin and she thinks that he's hitting on her.
• Potty Emergency: Multiple:
  • In "Boo, Dude", the gang closes all but one of the restrooms in the mall as part of an elaborate plan to prank Ron. Caitlin, who was not with the group at the time, ends up spending the second half of the episode desperately looking for an open washroom, and ends up falling for her friends' practical joke instead.
  • In "Silent Butt Deadly", Nikki is at Jonesy's house when her stomach starts to act up. Since the downstairs bathroom is occupied, she is forced to decide between holding it in or using the restroom directly adjacent to her boyfriend's bedroom. After some pondering, she reluctantly goes with the latter.
  • "Fish and Make Up" includes Nikki and Caitlin splitting the mall sides due to an ongoing fight. The latter happily takes full advantage of the situation when she's finally forced to come over to the loathsome washrooms (which are on Nikki's side of the mall) after having been holding it all day.
  • "Cheapskates" has Caitlin refusing to use the loathsome washrooms due to how gross they are. She ends up having to go in there anyway after her friends taunt her with watery imagery.
• Precision F-Strike: In the reunion episode, "Vote, Dude", the word "bitchiness" is uttered by Chrissy in regards to Nikki.
• The Promposal: In "Snow Job", Jonsey presents a wrist corsage to Nikki while asking her to be his date for their school's Winter Wonderland dance—just like how a man would present a wedding ring to his future wife. She accepts as she cries Tears of Joy, and they embrace in a kiss (resignifying their status as a couple).
• The Psycho Rangers: In the episode "Doppelgangers", a darker version of the main group comes to take over their table.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: "Pomp and Circumstance" plays whenever Jude makes a speech.
• Public Hater, Private Fan: In "The Girls in the Band", Nikki says that she hates DawgToy, a boy band that Jen and Caitlin love. Near the end of the episode, her backpack rips open and a bunch of DawgToy merchandise falls out, revealing that she secretly loves the band just as much as Jen and Caitlin.
• Pushed at the Monster: In "Dude of the Living Dead", Jonesy tries sacrificing Nikki to the zombie horde in an attempt to save himself when the group is cornered.
  Jonesy: Here, take her! She's a bigger meal!
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Tim, Wyatt's boss at Burger McFlipsters, while introduced as imposingly strict and serious, is one of the few bosses in the show who manages his business with sincerity and respects his employees. He's very meticulous on Wyatt following the rules and standards, but upon seeing Wyatt deviating from the usual songs the employees are supposed to sing and making up his own, Tim likes it enough to encourage him to keep doing it. He hires the elderly Bickerson couple in an attempt to drive off the teenagers crowding the restaurant, but once the Bickersons themselves start driving away customers and threatening the business, he gets convinced by Wyatt to fire them.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: In "Smarten Up", Caitlin goes on a date with a college guy. To make her sound smart, they decide that Jen will text her with necessary info. This happens:
  Josh: Wow! So you're saying you studied Renaissance art?
  Caitlin: Oh! Uh, yeah! Renaissance art! [reading her cell] "Particularly the works of the late Middle Apes. Oops! Middle ages. Sorry about the typo. Laugh out loud."
  Jen: Gah! She wasn't supposed to read that last part.
• Retcon: Caitlin has her 16th birthday in the season 3 episode "Sweet 6teen", retroactively making her 15 in the first two seasons.
• Retroactive Stepsibling Relationship: Downplayed. "The Journal" reveals that Jen had a crush on Jonesy back in the 7th grade, some years before Jonesy's dad and Jen's mom got married.
• Rip Tailoring: Nikki makes two dresses Caitlin and Jen are fighting over "cool" by ripping and rearranging the fabrics by hand.
• Rousing Speech: Jude is the absolute king of this trope. While all of his speechs are odd since he is a Cloud Cuckoolander, his speeches always manage to elicit an applause from others (and are invariably set to "Pomp and Circumstance".) In the finale, he manages to make Ron cry with his speech.
• Sanity Ball: The role of Only Sane Man tends to be traded between Jen, Nikki, and Wyatt, depending on the situation
• Secret Diary: In The Journal, Jonesy finds Jen's diary while working at lost and found. The episode then follows each friend as they successively take the journal from each other, only to succumb to the urge to read it aloud, unwittingly revealing all of Jen's secrets to the rest of the mall.
• Secret Relationship: Jude had one with a girl who doesn't want to be seen with him, so they hide in various places and she even threatens to break up with him if her friends find out about their relationship. In the end, it's Jude himself who calls it quits, breaking up with her by farting while they are both confined in the mall's air vents.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Wyatt (sensitive musician), Jude (manly skateboarder to Wyatt, sensitive meditator to Jonesy), (manly hockey playing leech).
• Serial Romeo: Gender-flipped with Caitlin; she seems to get a new boyfriend in every episode. It's often lampshaded, for example Nikki referring to one of her boyfriends as "her twelfth 'The One'".
• Ship Tease:
  • In "The One with the Cold Sore", the main plot revolves around the rest of the gang mistakingly believing that Jude and Caitlin are dating.
  • In "Great Expectations", Wyatt and Caitlin become attracted to each other after accidentally kissing.
  • A couple of episodes have Jude pretending to be Jen's date or acting as though him and Jen are the parents of a picture of child.
  • Jude and Jonesy have a ton. One episode parodies the famous pottery scene from Ghost (1990) (with Jude holding Jonesy's hands as they partake on the activity), they have an onscreen kiss, and whenever Jude ends up in drag (which is surprisingly often) Jonesy ends up hitting on him.
• Shout-Out:
  • Wayne gives one to Seven Samurai, claiming "The 77th Samurai" is the best movie ever made and his prized possession.
  • The video of Ron that the guys watch at the end of the season 3 finale is a parody of the music video of "Weapon of Choice" by Fat Boy Slim. An allusion to Ron being based on Christopher Walken, who starred in the video.
  • The rules to Jonesy's wheelchair club in the episode "Labour Day" are identical to those of the Fight Club: "The first rule of wheelchair club is DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHEELCHAIR CLUB. The second rule of wheelchair club is..."
  • In the episode "Blast from the Past", there is a picture of a very familiar-looking summer camp in the art exhibit.
  • In the episode "Lights Out", where Jude tries to join the goth troupe, Caitlin recognizes one of the goths, "Morgana, Mistress of the Macabre", as Haley from tennis camp. In one of the Saturday Night Live "Goth Talk" sketches, Circe Nightshade (real name Stephanie) mentions that she and Countess Cobwella (real name Denise) went to tennis camp together.
  • In “One Quiet Day”, Caitlin shouts “Get me a milk. Chocolate.” and gulps it down, mirroring the famous scene from Back to the Future.
  • In “The One with the Cold Sore”, Jude buys what looks like a Ghostface costume.
  • In "Quit It!", Jonesy says "For those about to rock, and who paid the entrance fee, we salute you!", referencing the AC/DC album of similar name.
• Shower of Awkward: In "Over Exposed", Jonesy accidentally sees Jen completely naked as she steps out of the shower. To make this more awkward, she has become his stepsister by this point. He's completely freaked out and everything he sees or thinks about reminds him of the picture in his head.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: In "Smarten Up", Caitlin starts dating a college boy, but lies about being in college to impress him. Soon, he starts asking to meet her friends, but she pulls this trope on him to keep his mind off it.
• Signature Scent: In one episode, the boys are in a contest to see who can smell the best without showering, which the girls are judging. Wyatt goes about halfway and Jonesy doesn't even go a full second, but Jude makes it. One comments that Jude just smells, well, like Jude.
• Similar Squad: Tricia's new friends in "Losing Your Lemon" are blatant copies of the main gang.
• Single-Minded Twins: Kristen and Kirsten, even though they're not really twins, look and act exactly the same, leading the other characters to label them as "Clones".
• Sixth Ranger: While not a Five-Man Band ensemble per se, Caitlin joins the core group of five in the first episode and spends part of the next couple trying to win a place in the group
• Skyward Scream: Jen, after she kissed Jonesy, thinking he was her boyfriend Smithy. Only after this mix-up does she realize they look almost identical.
• The Slacker: Jonesy is rarely shown doing actual work, which almost invariably ends with him being fired.
• Slice of Life: It's just a low-key show about the everyday lives of average teens at a mall.
• Smug Snake: Tricia is one of the few characters in the show to be completely lacking in redeeming qualities. She believes everyone to be below her and treats them with disdain, even breaking off her life-long friendship with Caitlin once she found out the latter had gone poor.
• The Snark Knight: Nikki is good-natured, but compulsively sardonic.
• Something Else Also Rises: Blink and you'll miss it, when Darth sees the girl of his dreams (dressed as a Vulcan), his lightsaber suddenly switches on. Happens again in "Snow Job" when he kisses Julie.
• Springtime for Hitler: Jonesy's attempts to masquerade as Mr. Wong and sabotage his job interview in "Bye Bye Nikki" only serve to get him hired instead.
• Squee: The Clones(and occasionally Caitlin) annoy Nikki to no end with their simultaneous "EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!". Ironically,Nikki herself does this at one point in "The Hunted".

  Nikki: EEEEEEEEEEEENOUGH!!!

• Status Quo Is God: Zig-zagged. There are certain constants: Jonesy will always be fired by the end of the episode, yet have no problem finding a new one by the next, and Caitlin can't hold down a love interest for more than two episodes. But anything that doesn't snap back to normal at the end of the episode tends to stick.
• Stealing from the Till: In "The Five Finger Discount" everyone in the gang except Jen admits they've stolen little things from work.
• Stripping Snag: In "Wrestlemania", Nikki has her dress caught in an escalator and it gets torn off, leaving her standing there in her underwear just as her ex bumps into her.
• Sue Donym: When Jude tries to be a goth, he goes by "Judas."
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Nikki's Guy of the week Stone, whom she dated for all of two episodes after breaking up with Jonesy. He's been referred to as a male Nikki in his debut episode.
• Talent Show: On Idol Time At The Mall, an American Idol-type show comes to the mall.
• The Picture Came with the Frame: Done in one of the Christmas specials, to show just how lonely Ron the Rent-a-Cop is.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girls of the main six are this to each other. Caitlin's the most girly and feminine while Nikki, who dislikes most conventionally "girly" things (such as shopping and the color pink), is the most tomboyish. Jen, compared to Nikki and Caitlin, is more of a mix between a tomboy and girly-girl—Jen's more of a tomboy compared to Caitlin (being more into things like sports and athletics) but is still more of a girly-girl compared to Nikki (having more of an interest in conventional girly things like fashion and shopping).
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Though it was All Just a Dream, in Dude of the Living Dead, two of the Clones become zombies, causing Kristen to beg them to bite her too because she is afraid of being behind on the latest trend.
  • Jude once donates his blood seventeen times for the sake of free donuts. When he collapses due to anemia, his friends rush him to get a transfusion.
• Town Girls: Caitlin (the fashionable girly girl), Nikki (the sarcastic punk-rocker), and Jen (the smart, sensible girl). The interesting thing about this is, while Caitlin acts more like the uptown girl and Nikki the out of town girl, Caitlin is the one who is technically from out of town since she is the newest member of the group.
• True Companions: There's a sense of it, considering they actually spend Christmas and other important holidays together, and most of their families are either dysfunctional or not mentioned.
• Ugly Spouse Sentence: In the prologue of one episode, the gang decides upon a challenge, with the loser having to go on a bunch of dates with Wayne, the fat, unpleasant clerk of Underground Video.
• Ultimate Job Security: Nikki's job at the Khaki Barn. She insults customers and does nothing all day. Regardless of whether she has been fired or quits of her own accord, Chrissy always re-hires her by the end of the episode.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: The Zombie Apocalypse special takes itself shockingly seriously in both how the characters react to it and which members of the main cast actually get infected. In the end, only Jude and his girlfriend, Starr, survive, and that's only for a few seconds as they accept death and decide to have one Last Kiss before dying. Which is then ruined when zombie Jen pops her zit on Jude's face, making him vomit in Starr's mouth. Though it turns out to be All Just a Dream, Jen arriving the following morning spotting the exact same zit prompts Jude into an Overly Long Scream.
• Vomit Chain Reaction: In "The Khaki Girl", Jude's carelessness causes food poisoning to spread throughout the mall, resulting in everyone but Caitlin barfing violently during the episode's climax.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Much like in its sequel series Total Drama, projectile vomiting is a frequent occurrence in this show, with the two most notable examples being Caitlin puking when she rides the roller coaster, and Jude barfing whenever he kisses Starr.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: On Caitlin's advice, Nikki wears a nice dress, to impress an ex. Unfortunately, said dress was just long enough to get caught in the escalator, get torn off, and leave her standing there in her underwear.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In "Idol Time at the Mall", Wyatt had prepared for a music competition by writing a song about how great his friends were. When they fail to show up to the audition (except for Nikki, who had been unable to sleep that night and naps through his entire performance), a disappointed and hurt Wyatt changes the lyrics to vent out his frustration by bashing his friends. The crowd loves the song, but also proceeds to ostracize the rest of the gang. Shocked that they became social pariahs, the group angrily breaks off their friendship with Wyatt.
  • In The Journal, Jen throws this at Caitlin, Nikki, Jonesy, and Wyatt when they read her private journal, out loud, and unknowingly in front of the whole mall listening in.
• Woman Scorned: In "Double Date", after being asked out by the same guy at the same time, some girls decide to start a vigilante group against jerk guys. This ultimately fails because the leader is Trisha, who has guys marked down as jerks for frivolous offenses or without getting all the facts.
• You Know I'm Black, Right?: The episode where Wyatt had a crazy Stalker with a Crush who thought that he and Wayne were identical twins. At the end of the episode, he finally snaps.
  Lydia: Gasp! I didn't know you had an identical twin!
  (Jude looks between Wyatt and Wayne, trying to figure out how she thinks they even look remotely the same)
  Wyatt: We're not twins! I'm black, and he's white!
  Wayne: Ah haha! And you're CRAZY!
• Your Makeup Is Running: Caitlin's mascara smudges down her eyes whenever she cries.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Dude of the Living Dead centers around the heroes trying to survive a zombie outbreak at the mall.

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Statler: I sometimes pine for the days when I was their age.
Waldorf: When you were 16?
Statler: No, when I was 96!
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!

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