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Western Animation / The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
aka: The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron

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He's gotta save the world and get to school on time!

Jimmy: Sometimes it's a heavy burden being a man of science.
Sheen: I know what you mean, Jimmy. That's why I decided early on to sabotage my highly scientific mind with cartoons and sugar.

Based on the 2001 movie Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, this CGI Nickelodeon series continues the adventures of Jimmy Neutron, a preteen genius who builds all sorts of inventions in his underground lab. He, his robot dog Goddard and his best friends; Carl Wheezer, Sheen Estevez, Libby Folfax, Nick Dean and Cindy Vortex save Retroville/the world from invention-induced disasters just about every episode. The show lasted from July 20, 2002 to November 25, 2006. It is the first fully CGI-animated Nicktoon.

Of interest is that both the film and television series were made from consumer-grade programs. The show strains to compensate for the lack of raw technical power with very clever visuals. As per the very nature of its premise, the "science" was either never explained or clearly made up.

It was a fairly successful show, running for three seasons. Throughout the early run of the series, Jimmy became a mascot for Nickelodeon. It was involved in a few crossovers with The Fairly Oddparents and in later Massive Multiplayer Crossovers in the Nicktoons Unite! series, Nicktoons MLB, and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

Although it's now closed, it also received a simulator attraction, known as Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast; which is yet another spin-off that has Jimmy crossing over with other Nicktoons.

A short-lived Spin-Off was made: Planet Sheen.


This series provides examples of:

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    Tropes A-M 
  • Abnormal Allergy: Carl has a ridiculous number of allergies, as do his parents. His father is once shown to have an allergy to ice of all things.
  • Aborted Arc: The ending of "Men at Work" implies that the alien bandits Zix, Travoltron, and Tee, will attempt to hunt down and capture Skeet, whom they believe to be the technologically-upgraded McSpanky's captain, due his Employee of the Month plaque. However, when they're next chronologically seen in "The Incredible Shrinking Town," they not only don't care for Skeet in the slightest, but he isn't even shown.
  • Accidental Hug: Between Jimmy and Cindy in "Retroville 9" after they win their first baseball game against Butch's team, complete with a brief dance of joy until they catch on to what they're doing and promptly separate with an embarassed look on their faces.
  • Action Figure Justification: Sheen does not like when someone calls his Ultra Lord action figures dolls. A good example of this is in this exchange in "The Junkman Cometh", when Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen visit Brobot on the moon.
    Carl: I think Brobot's kind of cute.
    Sheen: You think everything's cute!
    Carl: Well, you think Ultra Lord is cute!
    Sheen: I do not!
    Carl: Yes you do, you told me!
    Sheen: No, let me clarify; I said Baby Ultra Lord is cute.
    Carl: Yeah, he is. Hey, can I borrow your Baby Ultra Lord doll when we get home?
    Sheen: He's an action figure! And just for that, you can't borrow him!
  • Action Mom: Jimmy's mother is incredibly athletic, coordinated, intelligent, and she keeps a plasma rifle in her utility closet (for those tough ground-in stains!)
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Jimmy once refers to Carl as Rob.
    • Sam's Verbal Tic ("Yeah!") is a reference to The Weird Al Show, where in the first Adventures of Fatman segment, Billy West played Al's Evil Uncle Frank, who plotted to flood the city and loot it using melted ice cream; the voice and tic was carried over from Frank. DNA Productions, before getting into 3D animation, animated the Fatman segments.
    • When Bolbi (voiced by Phil LaMarr) decides to recite an excerpt from Macbeth, he uses a voice incredibly similar to his Samurai Jack voice.
    • In "Win Lose or Kaboom", Hugh manages to win the game show with a single question, including a car. His voice actor, Mark DeCarlo, won a car (along with a boatload of other prizes and cash) on Sale of the Century in 1985; he managed it by tying with his opponent in the Speed Round and the opponent answered the tiebreaker incorrectly, sealing his win. He also briefly notes Studs is one of the shows on the galactic cable hookup; said show was hosted by Mark in the early 90s.
  • Adaptation Decay: Show Within a Show example; "Out Darn Spotlight" gives us Principal Willoughby's In Name Only play "Macbeth In Space". This version of the Scottish play is a thrilling science fiction with laser swords, alien witches, a romanticized Lady Macbeth, and a space pirate.
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • Betty gets two in "Out Darn Spotlight" and "Vanishing Act".
    • Goddard gets one in "Best in Show".
    • Judy gets one in "Maternatron Knows Best".
    • The only season one episode to revolve around Libby is "Beach Party Mummy", which is also the season one finale.
  • Adults Are Useless:
    • In the movie, this is taken to its literal extreme when the grown-up population of Retroville is kidnapped by aliens.
    • Played straight with Jimmy's dad in the TV series, who is probably one of the biggest idiots in the city.
    • Inverted with Jimmy's mom.
  • Aesop Amnesia: There wouldn't be a lot of conflict if Jimmy and his friends didn't have to learn time and time again that abusing science for their own selfish and personal end always has consequences.
    Cindy: Jimmy, haven't we learned from the Yolkian incident not to talk to intergalactic strangers?
  • Affably Evil:
    • Professor Finbarr Calamitous, who would be a menace if he didn't forget half of his schemes.
    • His daughter Beautiful Gorgeous inherited this from him.
    • Grandma Taters counts as well.
    • The Nanobots, by virtue of also being Obliviously Evil. Though they're only this towards Jimmy and are a lot jerkier to everyone else (including each other)
  • Affectionate Nickname: Hugh calls Jimmy "Jimbo". He also calls Judy "Sugarbooger".
  • Affectionate Parody: "Lights! Camera! Danger!" contains several spoofs of iconic movies.
    • The action sequence on the rooftop is based on The Matrix.
    • The "medieval" roller coaster segment makes several nods to The Lord of the Rings.
    • The big musical number, "Save the Day", is a direct parody of "All That Jazz" from Chicago.
    • The wizard scene is a parody of the Harry Potter films.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Nanobots have a bad habit of taking Jimmy's orders to their most logical extreme. After being told to correct for errors and then (attemptedly) Logic Bombed with "humans' flaws are what make them perfect", they decide to delete humanity.
    • In the episode "Men At Work", when the modified Mcspanky's restaurant overhears Hugh complaining that he likes Taco Shack better, it comes alive and goes on a rampage, destroying its competition. At first, Jimmy thinks this will make it stop, but then it starts to head toward the supermarket, making him realize it wants to destroy any place that sells food.
  • Aliens Speaking English: Taken to quite an extreme with not only the Yolkians, but the fact there is a "galactic television lineup" with billions of channels, all in English.
  • All-CGI Cartoon: Notable for being the first film and series animated entirely with off-the-shelf (as in, anyone can buy it) programs, more specifically, LightWave 3D.
  • Alternate History: "Time is Money" has Jimmy go back in time to convince his dad to invest in a fledging fast food franchise. It causes the Neutron family to become rich in the present, but they've become selfish, emotionally distant Jerkasses as a result. Jimmy undoes the change at the end of the episode.
  • Always Someone Better: Jimmy and Cindy's conflict is based on this. Cindy was the smartest kid in her old school, but in Retroville, Jimmy has her beat in terms of raw intelligence. His inventions easily beat her school-level projects, he has a massive underground lab and she doesn't, and Jimmy's robot dog Goddard is far more capable than Cindy's normal dog Humphrey. Naturally, the hyper-competitive Cindy is very insecure about this and frequently tries to upstage Jimmy.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Principal Willoughby, with his campy behavior, his love for Judy Garland, and his love of musical theater.
  • Animated Outtakes: In two episodes (the one with Sheen learning kung-fu; the other with Jet Fusion, a Brosnan-era James Bond expy, on his wedding) featured these kind of bloopers.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Almost. Cindy attempts this tactic to calm Hulk-Jimmy down in "The N-Men", but passes out before she can complete her confession.
  • Anime Hair: Jimmy's. This is lampshaded pretty regularly.
  • Annoying Laugh: Beautiful Gorgeous, as pointed out by Sheen in "My Big Fat Spy Wedding."
  • Apocalypse How: Evil Jimmy and Meldar attempt to cause a Class X event by erasing the Earth from existence and blow up the Earth respectively.
  • Apple of Discord: Hugh's lawn lopper in "The Feud"; when Mr. Wheezer is accused of forgetting to return it, this leads to the Neutrons and Wheezers brawling each other.
  • Area 51: Appeared in the movie. In "The N-Men", Cindy, Libby, Sheen, and Carl are taken to "Area 86" after they prove unable to control the superpowers that they developed from contact with space radiation.
  • Arc Words: From "Battle of the Band": "You kids, good luck tonight, and remember, have fun with it!" It causes Jimmy, Sheen, and Carl to have a Jerkass Realization when they've been fighting the entire episode over their band.
  • Argument of Contradictions: "Stranded" begins with one between Jimmy and Cindy, over whether Australia is a continent or a country. Technically, they're both right.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • In "Jimmy for President", this is actually inverted, then played straight.
    Miss Fowl: It has come to my attention that some of our candidates have been guilty of bribery, blackmail, and MURDER!! [the kids in the audience gasp] Sorry, not murder, I meant operating a zeppelin on school premises.
    • In "Grumpy Young Men," the boys want to buy a violent video game that has a Media Classifications describing it as "for mature players only due to violence, exaggerated mayhem, and old lady kicking."
    • In "Professor Calamitous, I Presume", when Jimmy first meets Professor Calamitous, who is struggling to remember his own name, he notices all the things he didn't finish; a tank, a rocket, and a puzzle.
    • In "Clash of the Cousins", when Judy tells Jimmy's relatives that Jimmy has saved the town numerous times, they point out that they also brought down the very things they saved it from. They cite a giant meteor, an army of evil aliens, and an army of walking pants, all of which appeared in previous episodes.
    • From "Maternotron Knows Best":
      Judy: That is the last dig-darn straw! I'm tense and underappreciated, and... and... sandwichless!
  • Art Evolution: The animation in the series was a MAJOR improvement from the pilot. The show itself gradually improved in scope and visuals, which (as mentioned) was limited by consumer-grade software. Later episodes could be compared to the look of an hour-length drama vs. a studio sitcom, with other shows being more cinematic.
  • Artistic License – Biology:
    • In "Journey to the Center of Carl", Jimmy and Sheen enter Carl's body in order to get a virus's mitochondria so Jimmy can make a cure for the disease caused by the sick patches. In reality, this would make no sense, since viruses don't have mitochondria (though this was admittedly a genetically-engineered super virus).
    • In the same episode: Jimmy also forgot that when someone is sick, the viruses don't exclusively inhabit the stomach. If anything, they are more concentrated in the bloodstream. Jimmy would have been better off drawing a sample of Carl's blood, saving him the effort of shrinking down and going into Carl's stomach. Though this can be justified as the sickness not letting Jimmy think clearly.
    • In "My Son, the Hamster", Jimmy (having accidentally swapped bodies with Carl's pet Hamster) tells the bird of prey about to eat him that he's high in HDL cholesterol, which according to him is the bad kind. HDL cholesterol is actually the good kind, with LDL being the bad one. This one is arguably justified given Jimmy's panicking state possibly causing him to misremember.
  • Artistic License – History: There are a lot of historical inaccuracies in "The Big Pinch".
    • When Jimmy disputes Cindy's report, he doesn't mention one of the most glaring problems: she claims that Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio in 1870, when Marconi wasn't even born until 1874.
    • In reality, Thomas Edison had little to do with the invention of the radio, since Marconi based it on a device invented by Heinrich Hertz to prove the existence of radio waves. Moreover, the key component of Hertz's apparatus was an induction coil, which was invented in 1836 — over a decade before Thomas Edison was even born.
    • Edison dismissively refers to Henry Ford as "such a knucklehead". Historically, Edison had great respect for Ford's work, and the two were close friends. Though it's possible he meant it as a term of endearment.
    • Edison was married to his second wife in 1886. The episode makes no mention of this. Since there's no evidence that he was an adulterer, his affair with Ms. Fowl seems unlikely.
    • While Edison was and still is well known for his experimentation with and promotion of direct current, he didn't invent it. It was first developed in the early 19th Century and would gradually be further developed over time by a succession of experimenters and engineers. Furthermore, Edison was largely against alternating current, which was an important development in electric power.
    • One of the episode's central conceits — that Edison disappearing from the past would outright prevent many important inventions and advances — is deeply flawed. While Edison was an important figure in the proliferation of electric power and did invent (or at least improve upon) many things we take for granted, it's very doubtful that him somehow being removed from history would prevent the development and proliferation of modern electric power, or the invention of most electrical devices and machines.
  • Artistic License – Paleontology:
    • In "Sorry, Wrong Era", the friends travel back 200 million years to what Jimmy describes as the "Late Cretaceous"; 200 million years ago was actually the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, hence long before animals like Tyrannosaurus or any large Pterosaur had appeared, let alone mammals like the Leptictidium.
    • "Sorry, Wrong Era" a Pteranodon that, for a short list, is called a "pterodactyl", is scaly, has pointed leathery wings, can pick things up with its feet, rears its unusually large young like a bird, flies inland, eats lizards instead of fish, lives in the same time as T-Rex and is bipedal. That being said, the writers did manage to get the lack of teeth and single wing finger right (although said wing finger is unusually flexible).
  • Ascended Extra: Despite having a decent amount of screen time, Sheen actually had a very minor role in the movie and shorts, basically filling out Jimmy's social circle beyond Carl, only to become exceptionally popular and a much more prominent character in the show.
  • Aside Glance: Jimmy does it a lot, to such a point that it almost makes him a Fourth-Wall Observer. For example, in "Sorry, Wrong Era", Jimmy briefly does one when Carl starts dancing calypso and singing while wearing a hula costume.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Ms. Fowl in "Substitute Creature".
  • Back Blocking:
    • "Beach Party Mummy": Jimmy, Sheen, Carl, and Cindy were crowding around Libby to give her a makeover. Carl was the one mostly covering up the screen.
    • "Win, Lose, and Kaboom": At one point when fighting Meldar's robot army, the camera pans over to the right until April's mother's back fills the screen. Then the camera zooms out from, Meldar's assistant, Vandana's back.
  • Backing Away Slowly:
    • In Season 1 "Raise of the Oozy Scab", Jimmy, Carl, Sheen, and Cindy go underwater in a submarine to look for treasure. When they get lost, Sheen panics saying they don't have enough food and he's not going to eat Carl. Carl says he's not going to eat Sheen, but then retracts his statement saying maybe a bite, which freaks Sheen and Cindy out making them back away from him.
    • In Season 2 "The Junkman Cometh", when Jimmy, Carl, Sheen, and Goddard sees a "Moonie Man", Carl ask what should they do. Sheen thinks the only three choices they have are crying, running, or having an embarrassing accident, Carl says he might do all three, making Jimmy, Sheen, and Goddard move away from him.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Cindy and April in the made-for-TV-Movie "Win, Lose, or Kaboom!" There's even a scene where they run towards each other and then run up each other's feet as though running up a wall.
  • Bad Future: "The Tomorrow Boys": Garbage-Surfer!Sheen, Wanted!Carl, and Loser-Married-To-Cindy!Jimmy.
  • Bad Job, Worse Uniform: "Men at Work".
  • Bait-and-Switch Time Skip: In "Who framed Jimmy Neutron?", Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen are stuck in prison picking up trash and Carl begins to lose it.
    Carl: I can?t take it anymore! I'm going crazy! I'M CRACKING UP!
    Jimmy: Carl, we've only been here for two minutes.
    Carl: It feels like four.
  • Bald of Authority: The head of the BTSO (Big Top Secret Organization) in "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion" is black and bald.
  • Bamboo Technology: Trapped in prehistoric times because of his Dad goofing around with a time-warping device, Jimmy built a replica with wood.
  • Band Episode: Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen form a band called the "Llama Lords of Science" to compete in the school talent show using instruments that are powered by thought. Initially in it for the fun, the early success of the band goes to their heads and they decide they want to go in their own separate creative directions, leading to infighting. Hugh's repeated advice of "Good luck tonight and remember, have fun with it!" snaps them out of it, but not before they threw out their instruments in frustration, forcing them to improvise with Carl blowing a giant snot bubble to the audience's disgust.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Lampshaded in one episode, where Sheen asks how this is possible. Jimmy's explanation is not heard due to Carl singing during it.
  • Becoming the Costume: Happens in the Halloween episode, caused by one of Jimmy's inventions.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Jimmy and Cindy are often at each other's throats, but it's implied on more than one occasion that it's all an act to hide their denied attraction to one another.
  • The Bermuda Triangle:
    • One episode takes place in the "Bahama Quadrangle", which Jimmy, Sheen, and Carl visit so that Jimmy can prove them that nothing supernatural is going on there. They end up finding a super villain/scientist that appears to be the cause for odd sightings and disappearances... though the ending leaves us questioning it.
    • Sheen once refers to the Bermuda Triangle as the mythological North Dakota.
  • Berserk Button: Do NOT Insult Ultra Lord in any way, shape or form in front of Sheen.
    Sheen: What are you guys so worried about? Ultra Lord's gonna be here any minute.
    Cindy: Ultra Lord's not coming, you ding-dong! The Yolkians lied to you!
    Sheen: WHAT?! Then they have awakened the wrath of Sheen!
  • Beta Couple: Sheen and Libby.
  • Betty and Veronica: An unusual example. Betty serves as the well...Betty, but looks more like Veronica and Cindy is the Veronica, but looks more like Betty. In the end he chooses the Veronica, Cindy.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Jimmy lets out one in "Brobot" when Brobot ends up being dropped off back at his house.
    • By Sheen in "Ultra Sheen" after Ultra Lord is defeated by Robo-Fiend.
    • Jimmy screams three in a row in "Broadcast Blues" when Cindy and Libby become his co-producers.
    • Jimmy does another big no in "Love Potion 976/J" after realizing he asked Cindy on a date.
    • Jimmy does an overly long one in "The Tomorrow Boys" when he finds out the future Jimmy is married to Cindy; it in turn lasts four minutes.
  • Birthday Episode:
    • "Hypno Birthday To You" has Jimmy hypnotize his parents into thinking it's his birthday, resulting in a string of nonstop parties for him.
    • "The Tomorrow Boys" is set on Libby's birthday.
    • "Clash of the Cousins" takes place on the birthday of Jimmy's Great Aunt Amanda.
  • Bizarrchitecture:
    • McSpanky's, which is in a burger-shaped building, also including the giant head of the mascot sticking out of its side, with his mouth serving as the drive-thru window.
    • The lollipop on the Candy Bar. Although according to Nicktoons Unite!, these are only huge to the cast, and would be even smaller than normal to real, live action humans.
  • Bizarre Dream Rationalization: Parodied and inverted in the episode "I Dream of Jimmy." Jimmy goes into Carl's dream to help him get over his nightmares. He keeps trying to convince Carl that they're in a dream by pointing out all the strange things happening, such as talking llamas and people being able to pull their brains out of their ears. It takes seeing Jimmy kissing Cindy for Carl to realize he must be asleep.
  • Blackmail:
    Carl: Not that fresh air and ticks in your sleeping bag isn't fun, but why do we have to go camping with you, Jimmy?
    Jimmy: Because if you don't, I'll be forced to publish these high-definition photos of you two playing with Pompono Beach Debbie Dolls.
    Sheen: Pompono Beach Debbie is an action figure! She possesses special powers that can defeat any adversary... except Ultra Lord, of course.
    • In the episode where Libby, Sheen, and Jimmy run for class president: Sheen blackmails Carl with an embarrassing photograph of him at a party.
      Sheen: The one with the bubbles!
  • Blaming the Tools: In the episode "Send In The Clones," one of Jimmy's clones borrows Nick's skateboard and starts doing tricks on it. When he breaks the board, rather than admitting fault, he claims that the board couldn't "handle the Neutron style."
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Professor Finbarr Calamitous in "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion".
  • Brain Critical Mass: Jimmy's normally ditzy friend Sheen gets his intelligence increased with Jimmy's Phlebotinum and gains telekinesis.
  • Brain Monster: The Brains, contestants in the Galactic Showdown game. They bragged on how they evolved to not need bodies anymore, as they consisted of nothing but floating brains.
  • Brain Wash Residue: Depending on your interpretation of the episode "Love Potion 976/J". Considering that we don't know the extent of the after effects of those love potions, you could have a nice debate on whether Jimmy, Sheen, and Carl's respective loves for Cindy, Libby, and Judy is "real".
  • Brawn Hilda: After time traveling into an alternate future where he is rich, Jimmy soon discovers he has a cranky, hideous nanny named "Hilgo."
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The "Lord of the Rugs" bit from "Lights! Camera! Danger!".
    Jimmy: One rug to rule them all! One rug to find them! One rug to bring them all! And one rug to cover up that spot in the living room!
  • Brick Joke: In the Christmas Episode, "Holly Jolly Jimmy", Jimmy tells Carl and Sheen that stopped believing in Santa Claus because he didn't a dwarf star from 2 years prior. Sheen believs it was because Jimmy was on the naughty list that year, much to Jimmy's skepticism. Later in the episode after Santa saves from falling to their death, Santa reveals that Sheen was right about Jimmy being on the naughty list.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Why do something as simple as neatly put away your piles of pants when you can implant chips in them that do it for you? Carl and Sheen call him out on this, though.
  • The Bully: Butch is a typical school bully who doesn't have any friends, but an even bigger one is Terry in "Safety First".
  • Bumbling Dad: Hugh.
  • Burger Fool: In "Men at Work", Jimmy and his pals end up working at the local fast food joint, McSpanky's. While Carl and Sheen actually enjoy their jobs (and even prove to be pretty competent workers), Jimmy gets the short end of the stick when manager Skeet makes him advertise the place wearing a ridiculous burger costume.
  • But Thou Must!: In "Win, Lose & Kaboom!", the kids have to participate in the Intergalactic Showdown challenges no matter what; if they refuse, they automatically forfeit and their home will be destroyed immediately.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Jimmy. His inventions usually cause troubles. And when it doesn't come to his inventions, he's picked on by those left and right.
    • Carl. He's the Guinea pig to all of Jimmy's experiments.
    • Nick becomes this in later seasons of the show, with almost every scene usually involving him getting in an accident and injuring himself.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Cindy and Jimmy to each other, and, to a lesser extent, Libby to Sheen.
  • Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Carl is too safety-prone to ever get in a bind.
  • Captivity Harmonica: After being thrown into the brig by the Junkman, Sheen does this.
  • Catchphrase:
    • Jimmy has "Gotta Blast" for the movie and "Brain Blast" for the series.
    • Brobot has two: "WOW! That was amazing!" and "Can we, can we, can we, can we, please?!"
  • Cat Fight: Cindy and Green-Skinned Space Babe April the Gorlock in "Win, Lose and Kaboom".
  • Cerebus Syndrome: While the show never really veers into pure drama, post-season one it began developing deeper, more character-focused plots and exploring darker themes (such as the Bad Future episode).
  • Character Development: Throughout the series you can note small but noticeable changes in character interaction. Especially when it comes to romantic couples. A bit odd considering in the movie the kids were True Companions.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Once per Episode, once things are at their worst, Jimmy will say "Think, think!", and the view will zoom into the atoms of his brain, where a shot of something from earlier in the episode will be shown. Jimmy will then exclaim "Brain Blast!" and use this thing as inspiration to solve the issue.
  • Chic and Awe: Cindy is complaining about Jimmy, only to stop stunned as Jimmy shows up in a handsome tux for a wedding. Libby has to snap her out of it.
  • Chosen One: Sheen is called "The Chosen One" by the monks of Shangri Llama, thanks to his strange ability to put his foot behind his head. Subverted because the monks don't really believe he's the true Chosen One - they were just sick of waiting around for the real one to show up. So he's a chosen Chosen One?
  • Christmas Episode: "Holly Jolly Jimmy". The only one Christmas-themed episode in the entire show as well as the only one that aired in the month of December (2003 to be exact).
  • Cliffhanger: The two-part cut of "The Eggpire Strikes Back" features one, complete with a To Be Continued screen. Part 1 ends with the Yolkians' giant egg (seemingly carrying Poultra) getting ready to hatch, with Jimmy being too late to stop it; it's revealed to be a giant party invitation in the second part.
  • Colony Drop: Played for Drama in "Normal Boy", when Jimmy dumbs himself down in attempt to be "normal". Just a few hours prior, Jimmy's orange-juicer went haywire and shot dishes into space, disrupting an asteroid into hurtling directly towards Retroville.
  • Comedic Underwear Exposure:
    • Jimmy, Carl, Sheen and Cindy's pants get minds of their own and run away... in the first episode.
    • The famous "I see London..." gag is actually said in the first episode/movie, by Cindy, when Jimmy's pants fall down.
      Cindy: I see London, I see France!
      Carl: Wow, you have really good eyesight....
    • It should be noted that this gag is usually used for females. Which turns this into Tempting Fate when, in the very next shot of her seconds later, Cindy's pants have run away, giving both the world and the audience a great look at her own underpants.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Throughout "Lights! Camera! Danger!", Hugh misinterprets Quentin Smithee's attempts to get rid of him as discussions about his role as "Donutboy".
    Quentin: Donutboy, Take a hike!
    Hugh: So I look all sweaty for the big action scenes? Love it.
    (Later)
    Quentin: No, this is the scene where you GET LOST!
    Hugh: Donutboy goes missing to increase the suspense? I love it!
  • Comic Trio:
    • For the boys, Jimmy, Sheen, and Carl.
    • For the girls, Cindy, Libby and Brittany.
  • Confusing Multiple Negatives: Sheen does this to trick Mrs. Fowl into letting him go early in "Sheen's Brain". Jimmy does it right after so he can go after Sheen and then when Carl tries it, a fed up Mrs. Fowl just tells him to "PLANT IT!"
  • Continuity Cavalcade: In "Who Framed Jimmy Neutron?", Sheen asks if several villains Jimmy faced in previous episodes are responsible for framing him of the theft of a million dollars. The villains mentioned include Professor Calamitous, Dr. Moist, the Yokians, and "those three aliens" (Zix, Travoltron, and Tee).
  • Contrived Coincidence: See Colony Drop above.
  • "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Though none of them say directly, the Neutrons and Wheezers are angry at Sheen for this at the end of "The Feud" since he never told Hugh that Sam at The Candy Bar borrowed Hugh's Lawn Lopper prior to the titular feud. Now realizing that they started the whole feud for nothing, everyone becomes furious with Sheen and they advance on him as the episode ends.
  • Countrystan: Bolbi Stroganovsky is a Foreign Exchange Student from Backhairistan.
  • Covered in Gunge: In "The Tomorrow Boys", a bucket full of Mrs. Vortex's repulsive chafing-foot scum gets dumped all over Sheen's head.
  • Crossovers: Three times with The Fairly Oddparents in the Jimmy Timmy Power Hours.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: When Jimmy hulks out and becomes a menace to his other superpowered friends, he trounces them, but only decides to end their time as superheroes after realizing that he had injured them.
  • Daddy's Little Villain: Beautiful Gorgeous is Professor Calamitous' daughter.
  • December–December Romance: Sam and Ms. Fowl become an item at some point.
  • Deliberate Under-Performance: The episode "Trading Faces" has Jimmy and Cindy switch brains and at one point decide to take advantage of the situation by doing things that they know will screw each other over. One scene has them intentionally flunking their tests just to give the other person a failing grade out of spite.
  • Demonic Dummy: Hugh's dummy Flippy becomes quite sinister when he gains sentience.
  • Demoted to Extra: Nick - he was a somewhat relevant character in the movie, even with just an Informed Ability. In the series, he hardly gets any screen time. There were plans to bring him back to the main cast in season four, however.
  • Denser and Wackier: The crossovers with The Fairly Oddparents generally use humor more like the latter show, with the characters acting even sillier and getting into screwier situations - as well as much more slapstick. This happens especially when the characters are actually in Dimmsdale (which compared to Retroville is practically Cloud Cuckoo Land).
  • Disney Death: In "Brobot", Jimmy decides to deactivate Brobot so he doesn't have to put up with him anymore, but Brobot is worried as this means he can't play with him anymore. Feeling guilty, Jimmy sheds a Single Tear which shorts out Brobot's circuits, deactivating him as Jimmy starts to grieve him... but then suddenly, Brobot comes right back to life, as it was revealed Jimmy made Brobot indestructable.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In "Hall Monster", Jimmy is elected as the Hall Monitor and the power immediately goes to his head, causing him to bust students for the smallest things (ex. Carl having too many llama stickers on his lunchbox, Sheen having gum wrapper in his backpack). It takes watching security footage that Goddard recorded and a reminder from his dad to realize the error of his ways.
  • Disqualification-Induced Victory: During a parent/child competition, Jimmy uses technology to augment his dad's athletic skills and ends up disqualified.... and his Rival-slash-not-girlfriend also gets disqualified because she used an Olympic-athlete aunt as a ringer for her mom... and then every other team admits to doing a disqualification-worthy fault at one point of the competition or another, leaving only Jimmy's Chew Toy friend Carl and his equally-unlucky dad (who were dead last) the winners by default.
  • The Dissenter Is Always Right: Most of the time Jimmy is completely right and he'll always be the one to solve the problem, but no one ever trusts him because he's such a jerk about it and half of the problems were caused by him in the first place. For example, when the Yolkians (the villains from The Movie) come to the Earth, Jimmy says they're not to be trusted, even after they seem harmless and give everyone free stuff. It turns out they were trying to destroy the Earth and were only giving them stuff to get on their good side. After saving the town, Jimmy makes them say "We were wrong and you were right" in English and French (and tries with Chinese, but nobody knows it).
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Sheen with practically any attractive female (most notably Libby, Beautiful Gorgeous, Sally and Princess Guan Qi "Peggy" Tsu); Jimmy with Betty Quinlan, Sally, April, and later with Cindy. And Carl with Jimmy's mom.
  • The Ditz - Bolbi, though he seems like just a goofy foreigner at first.
  • Do-Anything Robot: Goddard, Jimmy's Robot Dog, seems to have a large arsenal of gadgets tucked away inside his chassis. To quote Hugh: "He does eleven billion and four things...except clean after himself."
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • The Nanobots more or less "worship" Jimmy as their creator and often do really, really misguidedly bad things to "please" him. They're essentially religious extremists with Jimmy as their "god".
    • "Krunch Time" has Retroville citizens become so obsessed with Jimmy's candy that it borderline mimics addiction as they literally can't live without it.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the ending of "Crime Sheen Investigation", it was revealed the Ultra Lord figure was stolen by a squirrel to use as a nutcracker for its family; it was in turn one of the suspects which Jimmy eliminated at first, but later went back to consult the one he would least expect.
  • Door-to-Door Episode: Complete with Jimmy using science to employ a Zany Scheme.
  • Dream Episode: In "I Dream Of Jimmy", Jimmy decides to go into Carl's dream in order to help him prevent his nightmares. The rest of the episode is devoted to Carl's dreamworld antics, such as a giant evil lima bean that chases him around, and Carl being the smart student while Jimmy is the class dunce.
  • Dreaming of a White Christmas: Averted in "Holly Jolly Jimmy". There is no snow in Retroville during Christmas, understandably, since it's in Texas. However, there are snowflakes falling right before the credits roll, so...
  • Drunk on Milk: Purple Flurp, a popular soda in Retroville, is apparently treated like a fine beverage amongst adults. Eustace's father even has a Flurp cellar where he and Hugh engage in some day drinking (and lots of burping).
  • Dub-Induced Plotline Change: The Arabic version of the show removes pretty much anything that hints at there being anything more than just plain friendship between child characters. It's done in such a crude manner that entire scenes are reduced to just a few lines of dialogues with an awkward transition to the next and some of the more Ship Tease prone episodes end up downright incomprehensible.
  • Dutch Angle: Spoofed in "The Evil Beneath" where during the villain's brief and crazy Motive Rant the camera slowly tilts itself, which causes his henchman and furniture to slide in the direction the camera is tilting.
  • Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Most of the core cast have had their clothes and/or hair changed between the movie and the show (Libby's case it was between Season 1 and 2):
    • Jimmy originally wore navy blue shorts and brown loafers giving him a more nerdy look, this was changed to blue jeans and sneakers making him look more kid-like.
    • Carl wore suspenders in the movie but loses them in the show.
    • Cindy wore a pink button-up shirt and black jeans. She also had her hair in pigtails. In the show she wears her hair in a single ponytail and wears a green halter shirt with khaki pants.
    • Libby retained her movie look until "Beach Party Mummy" when she decided to keep her Egyptian style braided hair used to disguise her as an Egyptian queen. In the following episode, her wardrobe also changed from a green dress to a pink shirt with navy blue pants.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • Sheen mentions a sister in "I Dream of Jimmy" and his mother in the movie’s PC video game, but the creators have said since to disregard it. Canonically, Sheen is an only child who lives with his father and grandmother (at least until Planet Sheen).
    • A major theme throughout the first season was that Jimmy didn't want anyone inside his lab aside from Goddard, Sheen and Carl, to the point where, when Cindy learned how to get inside in "The Eggpire Strikes Back", he erased her short-term memory to stop her from doing so again. This was quietly dropped later on, with anyone and everyone - even Cindy and Libby - casually visiting based on plot convenience.
    • When the Hypno Beam was first used in "Hypno Birthday To You", the user has to record a command into it before using it on someone; in all later uses, the user simply tells the victim what they want them to do after zapping.
  • Eat the Camera: Done quite a bit.
    • One example is seen at the end of "The Phantom of Retroland" after among seeing the real Phantom, Hugh runs screaming right into the camera, his mouth covering the frame and turning it black.
    • It's also done during the "Funky Jam Dance Party" musical number in "Broadcast Blues", zooming into Brittany's singing mouth.
    • It also happens in "Grumpy Young Men" when scouts Cindy and Libby attempt to help the elderly Jimmy across the street, as he yells "I'm being old-napped!"
  • Edible Treasure: In the episode "Raise the Oozy Scab", Jimmy and his friends complete a school project by going in a submarine to find the lost treasure of a sunken ship. When they find the treasure, it turns out to be filled with salt water taffy, much to Jimmy's dismay. But at least they got an A+.
  • Egocentric Team Naming:
    • When Jimmy and his friends gain superpowers due to cosmic radiation he immediately calls them the "N-Men" (as in, Neutron Men), despite a couple of protests.
    • In the episode where they form a band, Sheen proposes the name "Sheen and the Sheenettes".
  • Eigen Plot: "Win, Lose, and Kaboom", where Jimmy's Character Development is based around realizing it is one and learning he can't do everything by himself.
  • Election Day Episode: One episode had Jimmy, Sheen, and Libby face off against each other for class president. They were all disqualified for cheating (operating a campaign blimp, blackmail, and bribery respectively) so the election is given to Bolby the weird new foreign exchange student.
  • Employee of the Month: The episode "Men at Work" has Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen getting jobs at McSpanky's burger joint. Their boss is a guy named Skeet, who is also the Employee of the Month, even though he seems to have been the only person working there before the trio came along. He apparently cherishes his award so much that he initially refused to leave the building after it goes haywire, that is until he's almost crushed by a falling pillar.
  • The End... Or Is It?: "Attack of the Twonkies" ends with Jimmy realizing he forgot to send Sheen’s Twonkie back, who didn’t mutate because of his awful singing, and it ends up producing offspring which bounce into Retroville.
  • Entertainment Above Their Age: One episode had Jimmy and his friends wanting to buy a game called Doom Bringer II, which is apparently "for mature players only due to violence, exaggerated mayhem, and old lady kicking". The plot is kickstarted when the cashier denies their purchase because they're too young, prompting Jimmy to try and make them all older.
  • Epic Fail: After losing to many times in a gym race against Cindy, Jimmy sprays his shoes with a chemical compound to give him super speed. He runs in circles around her and showing off how fast he is, all gloating and confident, but he still lost. Why? Because he fell for the old point-and-look-behind-your-back distraction, the object of interest being a "1957 Van de Graff electrostatic generator".
  • Episode Title Card: Shown as stylized variations followed by the opening credits against a teal-tinted animated image of Jimmy's atom emblem.
  • Eskimos Aren't Real: Sheen is positive that ancient Egyptian curses are a myth, just like the Loch Ness Monster and North Dakota.
  • "Eureka!" Moment: Almost every episode has Jimmy coming with a solution to the problem of the day with his mind.
  • Everyone Can See It: Jimmy and Cindy. Thankfully, the Belligerent Sexual Tension gradually faded into a genuine attraction, and they finally got together in the last episode of the series.
  • Evil Twin: Jimmy's evil clone in "Send in the Clones".
  • Evolving Credits: Certain clips in the opening eventually got replaced with clips from newer episodes. Libby got promoted to opening titles at the same time.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: From the opening credits: "This is the theme song... for Jimmy Neutron".
  • Expy:
    • When they all get superpowers, it is exactly the same as other well-known superheroes. Cindy has Superman's flight and strength, Libby is the Invisible Woman, Sheen is The Flash and Carl... well, has burps that seem like Black Canary. Jimmy was originally just turned orange, until he got angry...
    • Tee is an alien who talks and acts like Mr. T.
    • And another alien, Travoltron, acts like John Travolta. Or at least his character in Saturday Night Fever.
    • The third one, Zix, talks like Jon Lovitz. A bit more devious than Jon Lovitz though ...
    • Quentin Smithee seems to be simply an expy of Quentin Tarantino (combined with a nod to the tendency for directors who have disowned films to credit themselves as "Alan Smithee"invoked) up until we find out he's actually Professor Calamitus in a robot disguise.
    • Jet Fusion is a James Bond expy.
  • Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong (Carl is impregnated with an alien child in "Who's Your Mommy?". The extra fat grows out from well, his butt - but let's not go there.)
  • Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: Pops up at the end of the sleepover episode. The climax of the episode features a series of increasingly-nonsensical Catapult Nightmares involving the various characters and a flying vampiric cannibal pizza. The final nightmare turns out to belong to an actual pizza vampire, sleeping in his pizza box; when he explains his terrible dream to his wife, she consoles him that children don't exist, everyone knows that.
  • Famous, Famous, Fictional: In "The Incredible Shrinking Town", Carl tried to cheer Jimmy up after he said he was upset for being short.
    Carl: Aw don't let it get to you, Jim. I mean, think about the famous short people; Napoleon, President John Adams, Frodo...
  • Fancy Camping: Jimmy does this with the help of one of his inventions (guided by a holographic butler) not only because he couldn't bear to enjoy any trip without those conveniences, but also because his father is bad at being a camp leader
  • The Fantastic Faux: As a direct reference to The Fantastic Four, Jimmy and his friends get superpowers while flying through a radiation belt in space, becoming the N-Men. Cindy gets super strength, Sheen gets super speed, Carl has super burps, Libby has invisibility, and Jimmy turned orange, though it turns out that he can turn into a raging monster when upset.
  • "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: "Journey to the Center of Carl".
  • Fem Bot: In the episode "Maternotron Knows Best", Jimmy constructs a robotic substitute mother while Judy is away at the spa.
  • Feud Episode:
    • "Battle of the Band" becomes this between Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen, when they suddenly become so focused with becoming rock stars that it almost leads to the end of their friendship.
    • The aptly titled "The Feud" is this between Hugh and Mr. Wheezer after he accuses him of supposedly not returning his lawn lopper, which results in Jimmy's friendship with Carl threatened. Midway through the episode, Judy joins in feuding Mrs. Wheezer when attempting to intervene.
  • Flanderization: Quite prevalent. The cartoon adapted a few prominent traits of each character shown in the movie and ended up heavily exaggerating them over time.
    • Jimmy lost a few sympathetic traits in favor of emphasizing his pride, notably his kindness regarding Carl.
    • Carl's and Sheen's geeky interest in Llamas and Ultra-Lord became the chief focus of several episodes and defining character traits in others.
    • Judy Neutron jumped from being the more competent of Jimmy's parents with skills in vehicle maintenance to a notable Action Mom who discussed science theories with her son.
    • Nick's fainting at the end at the end of the movie was later emphasized into making him an Adaptational Wimp who was constantly injuring himself.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The Twonkies in "Attack of the Twonkies". They start out as a Ridiculously Cute Critter, but once they hear any type of in-tune music, this causes them to hulk out.
  • F--: In one episode, Sheen gets an F with four minuses on a history test.
    Sheen: Well, how would I know Ultra Lord wasn't our founding father? That's what it said in the Ultra Lord website!
    Jimmy: Wait...didn't you write the Ultra Lord website?
    Sheen: Your point? (Jimmy walks away as Sheen thinks for a moment) Oh...
  • Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Hugh is a goof who has a strange obsession with ducks and often tells nonsensical pieces of advice. His wife Judy, on the other hand, is presumably where Jimmy got his intellect from and tends to be more focused on doing chores. Unlike her husband, who has messed up Jimmy's inventions on several occasions, she seems to know how to work Jimmy's contraptions.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Jimmy and Cindy swap bodies in "Trading Faces". Incidentally, at the end (where they had to manually switch back their memories), they found that one of the two had an extreme dislike of the other one. However, Sheen said that it got too confusing reading the hilariously long name and deleted it, never getting to the end (and thus, figuring out who it belonged to). It is after that one that the two started getting closer.
    Carl: "Extreme dislike of girls who dislike boys who dislike girls who dislike show-offy boys who dislike..."
    Sheen: TOO CONFUSING! Just throw that one away!
  • Free-Range Children: The elementary school-aged main characters behave more like older teenagers/young adults. They often run about in Retroville and hang out at the local food joints unsupervised, and that's only what they do when not on an adventure caused by one of Jimmy's inventions.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes:
    • Sheen. He constantly annoys everyone with his constant ramblings about Ultra Lord, his annoying shouting, his low intelligence and there's the fact that he can be insensitive.
      Sheen: Hey, Brobot! If the Junkman turns your parents into gravadiscs, can I have one?
      Jimmy: Sheen!
      Sheen: But they look so cool.
      Brobot: I don't like Sheen.
      Carl: Tell me about it.
    • Jimmy as well. His brains, brilliance and him constantly putting the town (and sometimes, the world) in danger make him very unpopular with the other kids. However, it is shown that while the others don't like him, they truly do care for him.
    • Cindy. Mainly because she's a bitch towards Jimmy and his friends. Libby and Brittany are the only members of the gang who truly like her.
  • From the Mouths of Babes: Baby Eddie, Jimmy's infant evil cousin, who can be very crass at times.
  • Funny Background Event: In some episodes of the third season after "Attack of the Twonkies!", Twonkies can be seen in the background, as a reference to Sheen's unmutated Twonkie reproducing having never been sent back.
  • Funny Foreigner: Bolbi Stroganovsky from Backhairistan. "Slap slap slap, clap clap clap, slap, slap, slap, clap clap clap..."
  • Future Loser: Jimmy in the bad future in "The Tomorrow Boys", who became a Henpecked Husband to an overbearing Cindy and he's clearly not as smart as he was in his youth.
  • Gadgeteer's House: Jimmy's bathroom has a machine that changes his hairstyle for him. He has a few in his room as well.
  • Garage Band: There was an episode where Jimmy & co. try to start a band for a talent show.
  • Gassy Gastronomy: In "The N Men", Carl drinks seltzer while he's on Jimmy's rocket, and he belches as the rocket is passing through the Van Patten Radiation Belt. This gives him the ability to let out sonic blast burps.
  • Genius Serum: Jimmy made a ray to this effect to make Sheen... less Sheen-like. Unfortunately, the enhanced intelligence seemed to sap Sheen's sense of ethics and he went all Evil Overlord on his friends.
  • Getting Eaten Is Harmless: In the Jaws Whole-Plot Reference episode Captain Betty, the Quint analog, is eaten by the giant turtle part way through the episode. However after Carl manages to shrink it down we see Captain Betty treading water, alive and well. He explains that the turtle spat him out at the last second as it was shrinking. This served not only to make the end happier, but kept Carl from possibly looking like he committed manslaughter by shrinking the turtle with the Captain still inside it.
  • Getting Sick Deliberately: The episode "Journey to the Center of Carl" has Jimmy invent the Neutronic Sick Patch to make him and his friends sick enough to miss school, but remove when their parents aren't looking so they can have fun. Unfortunately, the sick patches dissolve into their skin, prompting Jimmy and Sheen to shrink themselves down and travel inside Carl's body to extract mitochondria from the virus and make a vaccine.
  • Ghost in the Machine: Playfully parodied in "Incredible Shrinking Town", where Sheen pretends to be Tee's inner voice.
    Tee: Thanks, bug in mah head!
  • Girls Have Cooties: Jimmy, Sheen, and Carl all exhibit this sentiment from time to time, especially at the beginning of the series. It wears off as the show progresses, however, giving way to Distracted by the Sexy.
  • Give Geeks a Chance: Sheen and Libby, definitely. Also works with all the attention Jimmy gets from girls (such as Cindy, Sally, Betty and April).
  • Glacial Apocalypse: In "Jimmy on Ice", Jimmy is hoping for a snow day and decides to cool off the atmosphere with a giant bottle of sunblock. After the kids play in the snow for a day, Jimmy wakes up to discover it's -30 degrees Fahrenheit outside and that he caused a second ice age. The adults are leaving to go hunt for meat like they're nomadic cavemen, and the townsfolk think they need to sacrifice Jimmy to stop the snow.
  • Glasses of Aging: After Jimmy ends up turning himself, Carl and Sheen into old men in "Grumpy Young Men", Sheen sports a pair of glasses that he didn't have as a kid.
  • Godzilla Threshold: In the series finale, Jimmy asks Carl to take his rocket and bring the N-Men packets with him. You know, the chemicals that would bring back the superpowers that put the entire cast on the brink of death last time? Carl sure does.
  • Gold Fever: Ruby madness in "A Beautiful Mine".
  • Goofy Print Underwear:
    • In "When Pants Attack", Hugh runs around in a pair of white, heart-covered boxers. He can be seen wearing these (and only these!) again in "Lights! Camera! Danger!" during his Gollum impression.
    • In the same episode everyone else has these, including Sheen's imported Ultralord underwear, Jimmy's plaid boxers and Cindy's polka dot panties.
    • On one occasion, Carl's underwear was said to have llamas on them.
  • Grand Finale: The series finale, "The League of Villains", features several of Jimmy's enemies coming together to defeat him and his friends once and for all. The kids also regain their superpowers when they battle them. It also features the Space Bandits doing a Heel–Face Turn and Jimmy leaving the rest of the villains (except for Professor Calamitous who returned one last time in the 2nd Jimmy/Timmy Power Hour special) trapped in prehistory forever.
  • G-Rated Drug: Jimmy accidentally creates one in "Krunch Time" when he sets out to make the perfect candy. It's so addictive that most of the city acts like zombies when they don't have any more to eat.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: April the Gorlock.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: Jimmy's birthday in "Hypno-Birthday to You".
    • Justified in that his parents were brainwashed to think every day was his birthday.
  • Halloween Episode: "Nightmare in Retroville".
  • Hand-or-Object Underwear: After losing their pants in "When Pants Attack", Jimmy covers himself up with his remote, Cindy covers herself with her diary and Carl (despite being too wide to completely hide) uses his hands.
  • Hand Puppet: Sheen in "Broadcast Blues".
  • Handshake Refusal: In "The Eggpire Strikes Back", Jimmy refused to shake hands with King Goobot, suspicious of a picnic he's hosting.
  • Hands Looking Wrong: In "Trading Faces", after she and Jimmy accidentally swap bodies, Cindy asks what happened to the nail polish she was applying when the switch happened.
  • Hand Wave: Naturally, due to the show playing fast and loose with science. Most blatantly used when Sheen asks Jimmy how they could survive in space without spacesuits or how they can get to the moon in mere minutes, but Carl's singing blocks out Jimmy's answers.
  • Happy Dance: This is Bolbi's defining characteristic feature.
  • Hate Plague: Ruby madness in "A Beautiful Mine".
  • Head Desk: Done by Jimmy when he couldn't think of a script for a movie.
  • Heist Episode: "The Great Egg Heist". Princess Quin Su Shi sends Jimmy and his friends to the Retroville Museum to steal the Jade Egg and swap it with a replica, then bring the real Jade Egg back to her to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Princess is later revealed to be a disguised Professor Calamitous. Fortunately, his plans fail because Carl accidentally brought back the replica instead of the real Jade Egg.
  • Hidden Depths: The entire town gets a moment of this in "The Eggpire Strikes Back", as everyone knows French well enough to repeat their apology to Jimmy in French when he requests it.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: These appear out of the blue at the end of the episode "Crouching Jimmy, Hidden Sheen".
  • Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Sheen is mocked relentlessly for his inability to sing throughout the series - there is even a reprise song number at the end of "My Big Fat Spy Wedding", where the characters belt out in glorious harmony "We all can sing except Sheen!" Becomes beneficial in "Attack of the Twonkies" - Sheen's singing is so bad that it actually puts the Twonkies (who normally become enraged and then mutate when they hear music) to sleep.
  • Horned Hairdo: In one episode, Jimmy clones himself to make multiple Literal Split Personalities. The evil clone has two tufts of hair in contrast to Jimmy's one.
  • Horrible Camping Trip: "Aaughh!! Wilderness!!" due to Hugh's stupidity.
  • Humans Are Morons: Meldar and most of the aliens from "'Win, Lose and Kaboom" laugh at the human contestants because it took humans a very long time (over 5 centuries) to decipher the mysterious space rock message to transport themselves to the game show. (Of course, as Jimmy pointed out before, people were more concerned with destroying the rocks rather than bother trying to attempt to decipher them. Considering the consequences of actually translating it are being conscripted into an interplanetary game show where losing destroys your home planet, they were right to be paranoid.)
  • Hunger Causes Lethargy: Subverted in "I Dream of Jimmy". When Carl keeps falling asleep during Jimmy's experiments, Jimmy thinks Carl's lethargic because he's hungry. It turns out he's just sleep-deprived.
  • Hurl It into the Sun: In Men at Work, Jimmy tricks McSpanky's into flying to the sun. However, the lifeless corpse of McSpanky's survives, allowing it to become an alien spaceship.
  • Hypno Ray: This Trope Namer is one of Jimmy's inventions.
  • Hypnotic Head: In "One of Us", Grandma Taters uses this on The Happy Show Show to hypnotize her viewers into cheerful zombies.
  • Idiosyncratic Wipes: Almost every scene transitions with the show's trademark atom logo flying away and then back towards the camera, with several similar music cues to accompany it.
  • Idiot Hero: For a genius, Jimmy sure makes a lot of utterly stupid decisions. In fact, most of the conflict that goes on in this show is the result of Jimmy making a questionable judgment call in the first place regarding his experiments. But then again, Jimmy's lack of common sense is arguably one of the main points of the series. He may be a "genius," but he's still a child, and intelligence doesn't automatically equal wisdom.
  • I'm a Humanitarian:
    • Implicitly Carl, after thinking his stomach was growling during the Horrible Camping Trip (it turned out to be a bear.)
    Carl: Oh no... It's starting! The gnawing hunger! MUST... RESIST... DESIRE... FOR HUMAN FLESH!!''
    • Carl again in "Raise the Oozy Scab" after Jimmy's submarine gets lost in the Sea of Japan:
    Sheen: We can't be lost! We only have enough food for two days! And I'm not eating Carl!
    Carl: Well I'm not eating you either! (Beat) Okay, maybe a bite.
    *Sheen and Cindy both back away from Carl*
  • I Know Karate: Cindy - she actually says this in "King of Mars".
  • Important Haircut: Libby gets one in the episode "Beach Party Mummy" to fool a bunch of mummies that were chasing the gang. She keeps the new look for the remainder of the series.
  • Impossibly Delicious Food: In the episode "Krunch Time", Jimmy creates a candy that has every enjoyable flavor imaginable, which causes problems when everyone in Retroville becomes completely addicted to it.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: Jimmy at various points throughout the series. Lampshaded in "Incredible Shrinking Town".
  • Inevitably Broken Rule: Jimmy gets into these situations quite often, such as when he experiments on his Grandmother (effectively turning her into a baby) after his mother makes a rule against it.
  • Ingesting Knowledge: Jimmy creates Books Chewgum with this effect.
  • Innocuously Important Episode: "Trading Faces" primarily revolves around a "Freaky Friday" Flip between Jimmy and Cindy, with said episode's events barely being referenced afterwards. However, one scene has Carl, Sheen and Libby deleting a particularly long-winded memory involving one of the two's dislike for the other when they couldn't figure out who it belonged to, and it's only in the following episodes that Jimmy and Cindy's Ship Tease truly begins - implying that if the episode never happened and said memory remained, Jimmy and Cindy's relationship wouldn't have advanced beyond their standard rivalry.
  • Instant Taste Addiction: The episode "Krunch Time" is about Jimmy accidentally causing this trope when he creates a new perfect candy. Everyone who ate became incredibly obsessed with it. Jimmy eventually had to resort to aversion therapy to drive them off the stuff.
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: In "Normal Boy", Jimmy becomes hurt by Cindy's criticisms when he keeps stealing her thunder at Show-and-Tell that he should just depart for college that he decides being intelligent is less valuable than being loved and respected. Not to mention, he has a secret crush on Cindy (even if he dislikes her insolence).
  • Jailed One After Another: "Who Framed Jimmy Neutron", where Jimmy is wrongly accused of committing a bank robbery and sent to jail. Carl and Sheen attempt to break him out but don't do a good job at it and join Jimmy as convicts. The trio escape to Cindy's room to figure out who the real culprit is, but the Warden catches up with them and places the three and Cindy under arrest. Fortunately, Jimmy was able to figure out the identity of real criminal by this point, the Warden himself, which frees himself and his friends.
  • "Join Us" Drone: "One Of Us" has everyone try to force Jimmy into watching the Happy Show Show that has them turn into rather cheerful Zombies.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: Jimmy goes to Carl's mind in "I Dream of Jimmy".
  • Just Testing You: "Carl Wheezer, Boy Genius" has this exchange:
    Jimmy: May I suggest that instead of the arm-missiles button, you push the one right below it?
    Carl: I know what button to push! I was just testing you.
  • Kids Are Cruel: Most of the other kids feel no sympathy towards Jimmy and even hurl insults at him when his inventions go awry.
  • Kids' Meal Toy: invoked There exists a kids' meal known as "Silly Meals", as shown in the episode "Journey to the Center of Carl", in which Jimmy and Sheen find one of the toys inside of Carl's stomach.
    Sheen: Hey, Carl! You're supposed to play with the toys in the Silly Meals, not eat 'em!
    Carl: I know. But they always look so colorful and chewy.
  • Killer Rabbit:
    • The white bunny-like alien in "Win, Lose, and Kaboom!" is a direct parody of the Trope Namer, right down to residing in a cave.
    • The Twonkies. Cute at first, but if they hear music, they become rampaging beasts. They can also fuse into gigantic monsters. If they hear horrible music however, they fall asleep instead.
  • Knight of Cerebus: When Sheen has his brain altered in "Sheen's Brain", he slowly goes insane with increasing intelligence and growing Psychic Powers, ultimately becoming a Reality Warping Sociopath who's too power-crazed to care about the fact that his head will eventually explode. He even brutally strikes Jimmy and Carl with a lightning bolt. Thankfully, he ultimately realizes that he's turned into a monster and changes back to normal, but damn.
  • Lack of Imagination: In "Lights! Camera! Danger!", everyone's in agreement that Jimmy is terrible when it comes to non-science projects. Similarly, in the same episode, he gets ideas for his script from other movies, which makes it completely incoherent.
  • Lady Looks Like a Dude: Carl's mother is the ugliest female on the show. With a very raspy, hoarse, masculine voice. Helps that, like Carl and Mr. Wheezer, she is voiced by Rob Paulsen.
  • Language Fluency Denial: Jimmy's baby cousin Eddie can talk, but pretends he can't around adults until the end of "Clash of the Cousins".
  • Large Ham: Both King Goobot and Ooblar have their moments. "HELLO, TOAST!"
  • Last-Minute Hookup: Jimmy and Cindy in "Lady Sings the News".
  • Last-Second Joke Problem: Jimmy hosts a party while his parents are out and encounters various problems, including Sheen bringing back a velociraptor with his time machine (which Jimmy keeps locked in the closet). At the end, Jimmy finally gets everyone to leave and cleans the house before his parents arrive, seemingly having gotten away scot-free. But when Hugh goes to put away his coat...
    Hugh: Honey, how long have we had a dinosaur in the closet?
  • Latex Space Suit: Cindy in "King of Mars".
  • Laugh of Love: Cindy sometimes laughs when she's having romantic moments with Jimmy, most notably in the episodes "Love Potion 976/J" and "Stranded".
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "A Beautiful Mine", Sheen repeatedly tries to invoke the traditional "To the lab!" scene change, and is continually disappointed when the next scene isn't the lab.
    Sheen: "Okay... to Jimmy's front yard, THEN the lab!"
  • Legion of Doom: "The League of Villains".
  • Leitmotif:
    • Hugh has his own character theme when ever he has a father-son moment with Jimmy or any scene where he gives a speech.
    • Jimmy has a few pop-rock themes whenever he puts his inventions to work. He also has an epic adventure theme during his Brain Blasts.
  • Life Saving Misfortune: In the episode The Great Egg Heist, Professor Calmitus successfully managed to fool Jimmy and his friends into retrieving the Egg-Drop Jade which had boundless energy that could be abused. He all but surely woulda won at that point...had Carl not bungled the gem heist earlier in the episode by mixing up the true Jade egg with a fake that he was supposed to put in place of the authentic one. This "blunder" causes Calmitus's Doomsday Device to explode in spectacular fashion. Carl even gets promptly praised by Jimmy and his friends for being an Accidental Hero.
  • Limited Wardrobe: The only time a character's plain-clothes outfit changes is the episode where Libby gets a makeover, and declares that she's keeping the new look. From then on, that became the outfit she wore every episode.
  • Local Hangout: The Candy Bar is the most common place for characters to meet up other than school or their own homes.
  • Love Triangle:
    • Betty and Cindy toward Jimmy, though the latter two would claim not to like each other.
    • In the Jimmy Timmy Power Hours, there was also Timmy/Cindy/Jimmy — the two boys fight over her in the second power hour ("When Nerds Collide"), but Cindy ends up in a way, going with both of them since she wished for a cross-dimensional dance party for Dimmsdale and Retroville's elementary schools so she can dance with both Jimmy and Timmy.
    • Carl's infatuation with Jimmy's mother.
  • Love Potion: Another one of Jimmy's inventions. It causes him to fall for Cindy, and Sheen for Libby. And Carl falls for Jimmy's Mom, which then goes on to become a Running Gag.
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Beautiful Gorgeous, Calamitous' daughter, subverts this: she's actually evil.
  • Malicious Misnaming: When not addressing Jimmy by last name as usual, Cindy often calls him "Nerdtron".
  • Marrying the Mark: Beautiful Gorgeous seduces Jet Fusion into marriage in the episode "My Big Fat Spy Wedding." She enlists Jimmy as ring bearer, then hypnotizes Jet to attack anybody who says "I have the ring," so Jet will attack Jimmy at the wedding. The plan falls apart at the wedding when all of Jimmy's friends say (and sing!) "I have the ring" so Jet gets confused trying to attack them all.
  • The Masochism Tango: Jimmy and Cindy
  • Me's a Crowd: Jimmy's clones in "Send in the Clones"; each one represents a different personality type.
  • Meaningful Name:
  • Memory Wipe Exploitation: "My Big Fat Spy Wedding" has Jimmy confront seemingly reformed criminal, Beautiful Gorgeous, after her groom, Jet Fusion, attacks Sheen when the latter says "I have the ring". Beautiful quickly overpowers Jimmy, confesses her Evil Plan, then uses Jimmy's own Hypno Ray to erase the last 30 minutes of his memory. If Carl and Sheen hadn't witnessed everything, Beautiful actually would have gotten away with her plan.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: Anyone who gets hypnotized of some sort (usually as a result of Jimmy's Hypno Beam) will have their pupils replaced with spinning red spirals.
  • Mind Screw: Jimmy traversing Carl's dream. Being well, a dream, for the most part, it has no logic or sense. Though like most dreams, Carl sees it as perfectly normal. So Jimmy, in order to prove to him, without a doubt, that this is not the real world, does something that could possibly never happen in real life, he kisses Cindy.
  • Missing Mom: Sheen. Word of God says his mother died when he was young - they don't say her cause of death, however.
  • Mistaken for Insane: In "The Eggpire Strikes Back", Carl falls from a high distance and utters, "Shiny metal chicken..." Jimmy thinks this is a Non Sequitur, *Thud* and that the fall has made Carl delusional, but then it's revealed that the metal chicken in question is the Yolkians' mother ship.
  • Mister Seahorse: See Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong above.
  • Monster Mash: Occurs in the Halloween Episode, "Nightmare in Retroville", where Carl and Cindy become vampires, Sheen and Libby become werewolves, Hugh becomes Frankenstein's Monster, and Jimmy becomes Hugh's favorite monster Octopus Man to stop them from wreaking havoc in Retroville.
  • Musical Episode: "Holly Jolly Jimmy", doubling as the Christmas Episode.
  • My Future Self and Me: Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen all get to meet their future selves as well as future Cindy and Libby.
    Tropes N-Z 
  • Naked People Are Funny:
    • In "Jimmy Goes to College", the boy genius is told by Seymour to streak through the halls of the Pomona School of Advanced Physics - only to find himself face to face with the elderly female patroness of the coveted Moran Grant, as well as the dean of the college. Later on in the scene, he quickly covers his front with a book and his backside with an exit sign, followed by this exchange:
    Dean Kane: What do you have to say for yourself?
    Jimmy: Is there an extra pair of pants lying around?
  • Nerdy Bully: In the episode "Jimmy Goes to College", Jimmy enters college and meets a Jerkass nerd named Seymour Flimelflarb. At first Seymour seems to be a good friend to Jimmy, yet it's all an act as he's actually jealous of Jimmy stealing his thunder. So Seymour spends most of the episode framing Jimmy for things he didn't do, sabotaging his work and getting him expelled.
  • Never My Fault: In "King of Mars", Cindy blames Jimmy for her brief Face–Heel Turn with Eustace, for never paying any attention to her, and after Eustace double-crosses​ her. Jimmy, predictably, brings it back on Cindy for not catching on that he's obviously pretending to not notice her to hide the fact that he likes her.
  • Never Say "Die": In "The N-Men", Jimmy has to save himself and his friends before their "life forces" are depleted. Overall, however, the show doesn't shun away from terms like "kill", "die" or "murder".
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The opening credits to "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion" feature Cindy and Libby who otherwise only appear in the classroom scene and disappear for the rest of the special.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Nearly every episode and movie is this. Jimmy's inventions and motives usually cause the problem of the week and it's up to him to fix the problem he caused.
    • Of course, Jimmy's friends also get in on the act every now and then. In "The Eggpire Strikes Back", Cindy told King Goobot how to get into Jimmy's lab, giving him the tools he needed to revive Poultra.
  • Non-Standard Kiss: Inverted in "Win, Lose and Kaboom!"; when April locks lips with Jimmy, he assumes that she's kissing him, but she states that it's the Gorlockan seal of trust, and has no idea what a kiss is. Averted when she does it again later, saying "that was a kiss" after Jimmy asks if that was the aforementioned seal of trust.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • According to "The Incredible Shrinking Town", Hugh Neutron got his head stuck in a trash compactor at least 19 times.
    • In "Jimmy for President", Sheen tries to blackmail Carl into voting for him by threatening to show off an embarrassing picture of Carl at Ike's slumber party. What exactly is so humiliating about this picture is never explained beyond somehow involving bubbles.
  • No Ontological Inertia: In "Hypno Birthday to You", destroying the hypno beam undos the effects of anyone who got affected by it. It causes Hugh and Judy to snap out and realize it's not really Jimmy's birthday.
  • "No Peeking!" Request: In "Who Framed Jimmy?", Carl tells Jimmy and Sheen not to look while he pees on a tree. They do so, but a bear chases them off before Carl can finish.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Betty Quinlan normally acts as a generic Nice Girl who doesn't have much of a personality or brains besides being cute and Jimmy having a crush on her. In "Vanishing Act," she reveals to Cindy that she's known about her and Jimmy's developing feelings for each other for some time now, and she mostly just plays ignorant because it helps in getting people to like her.
  • Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: For the first two-and-a-quarter seasons, we're given absolutely no hint as to what Hugh does for a living. Even when it finally becomes a plot point (season 3, episode 5, "Fundemonium"), we're not told exactly what he does, just that he works at a car company called Mallard Motors. And they lampshade it:
    Hugh: Howdy boys! Hey Jimbo, better start packin', we gotta move at the end of the week if I want to keep my job.
    Jimmy: We're moving?!
    Carl: You're moving?!
    Sheen: Your dad has a job?!
  • Obliviously Evil: The Nanobots. They believe themselves to simply be doing what Jimmy wants/programmed them to do, and they kind of are...but they always take it much farther than they should. They both genuinely respect and revere Jimmy as their creator otherwise.
  • Obsolete Occupation: In "Fundemonium", Jimmy's father said that he planned to move the family to another city. He explained that this is because he is a car salesman, but everybody in town already has a car, so he has no customers.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Seems to be an ability of the Needleheads from "Win, Lose and Kaboom".
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Jimmy, of course. Professor Calamitous seems to be one as well.
  • One-Wheeled Wonder: Jimmy Neutron designed his android little brother Brobot this way.
  • Out of Focus: Jimmy's parents, come Season 3, where they are absent for as many as 8 episodes, whereas in the previous two seasons Hugh and Judy Neutron respectively skipped as few as two and three episodes altogether, possibly because of Cindy, Libby as well as villains taking up much more screen time this time around.
  • Overly Long Gag: Judy telling Jimmy to pick up his pants in "When Pants Attack". According to Goddard, she's told him 54 times to date.
  • Overly Long Scream: Lampshaded by Carl in "The Tomorrow Boys" when Jimmy finds out in the Bad Future that he is married to Cindy. He starts screaming, we cut to commercials... We come back, and he's still screaming.
    Carl: "Wow, Jimmy, you just screamed for 4 minutes."
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Jimmy can handle most of his clones, but he really hated the craftiness of his evil clone.
  • Parody Names: Quite a few of the episode titles.
  • Parody Episode: Quite a few. "Lights! Camera! Danger!" is notable for combining parodies of The Matrix, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Chicago, and references a truckload more.
  • Playing Sick: Invoked by Jimmy when he invents patches that make the wearer sick when applied. He gives them to the rest of the kids so they can skip school. Until they get absorbed into their bodies, forcing Jimmy and Sheen to pull a "Fantastic Voyage" Plot into Carl to get the cure needed.
  • Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: In "Normal Boy", Jimmy invents a Brain Drain Helmet to give himself average intelligence, but it malfunctions and turns Jimmy into an idiot.
  • Pilot Episode: Included on some DVDs was the original pilot of the show, which involved Hugh trying to convince Judy that Jimmy would soon be back from his attempt to run away from home while Jimmy was in reality trying to fend off an invasion of aliens he'd inadvertently caused, which Nickelodeon liked so much that they made it into the Big Damn Movie that started it all.
  • Pivotal Wake-up
  • Plot-Induced Illness: Invoked when Jimmy invents a "sick patch" that make the wearer sick when applied, which the kids then use to stay home from school.
  • Potty Emergency:
    • Professor Calamitous's debut episode had Jimmy defeat him when he remembered that the villain didn't install a bathroom in his robot suit and had him lured past a statue fountain of a urinating boy, a dog marking its territory on a fire hydrant, and a man watering his lawn with a hose to force him to stop for a bathroom break. Jimmy then had a police officer occupy the men's room. Calamitous briefly considered using the girl's room, but is beat to it by a little girl, causing him to go home in defeat.
    • Sheen spends a lot of the episode "Beach Party Mummy" needing to pee.
  • Prank Punishment: In "The Phantom of Retroland", after Jimmy's parents discover that he snuck out with his friends to debunk the mystery of the titular Phantom, they get back at him by pretending to be the Phantom themselves and scaring the kids away. Ironically, they then encounter the REAL Phantom, sending the two fleeing in terror as the episode ends.
  • Precocious Crush:
    • Carl toward Jimmy's mom, Judy.
    • Carl and Sheen both show attraction to Beautiful Gorgeous in "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion" even though she is in her 20's.
  • Premiseville: Retroville has a retro theme.
  • Promotion to Opening Titles: A variant; the revised opening sequence in the third and final season has Libby Folfax added to the series title card, as she became a more prominent character during this time.
  • Punny Name: Ms. Fowl has a few bird-like attributes, like a beak-like nose and a squawking Character Tic.
  • Raygun Gothic: Many of Jimmy's inventions look like things you'd see in a 1950s sci-fi flick.
  • Real Award, Fictional Character: When Jimmy peeks into his and his friends' futures in one episode, he sees himself as the first-ever winner of the Nobel Prize in bulk.
  • Reality Warper: Meldar, the Big Bad of "Win, Lose and Kaboom!" can do this thanks to his matrix generators. He even says that he can warp reality.
  • The Real Remington Steele: In "The Great Egg Heist", Jimmy and the gang are recruited by Princess Quin Shi Su to steal a Jade Egg in order to keep it out of evil hands. It turns out that the princess is a disguised Professor Calamitous who tricked the heroes into stealing the egg for him. In "My Big Fat Spy Wedding", Su has a cameo as guest at Jet Fusion and Beautiful Gorgeous's wedding, while Calamitous is show in jail. This suggest Su is indeed a real person and Calamitous impersonated her in "The Great Egg Heist".
  • Recursive Canon: In Lights, Camera, Danger Jimmy requests that Goddard show him all of the world's most successful movies of all time at hyperspeed. The last film is none other than Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
  • Recycled In Space: In-Universe. The school play from Out Darn Spotlight was known as Macbeth in Space.
  • Recycled Soundtrack: A few music cues from another Nicktoon The Angry Beavers may show up in a few episodes, which is unsurprising given that Charlie Brissette composed the music for both shows.
  • Recurring Extra: The Twonkies.
    • Also, Captain Betty after his major appearance in "Monster Hunt"; he'll make random cameos every so often in episodes afterwards, sometimes doing funny things like eating ice cream by using his real hand to hold his fake hand, which itself is holding the spoon.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: Jimmy and his parents could have been millionaires if he sold some of his inventions instead of just making them for fun. They backfire way too much for someone to mass produce them, though. Also, Jimmy's dad once got a job making toys, which Jimmy amped up with his technology. The first one was met with such success that he got the job... as long as he kept designing toys of that same calibre every day. Jimmy ended up exhausting himself after a few days, which led to the accident of the week; the Nanobots making a rampage on Retroville on a doll-faced toy tank that grew in size to be a real tank.
  • Reed Snorkel: Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen use these in Cindy's swimming pool while on the run from a cop in "Who Framed Jimmy Neutron".
  • Replaced with Replica: In "The Great Egg Heist", Princess Quin Su Shi sends Jimmy and his friends to the Retroville Museum to swap the Jade Egg with a replica and bring it back to her to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Princess is later revealed to be a disguised Professor Calamitous. Fortunately, his plan fails because Carl accidentally brought back the replica instead of the real Jade Egg.
  • Retro Universe: Retroville can best be described as "the 1950s, but with personal computers and cellphones".
  • Reused Character Design: Guilty as charged, although only occasionally:
    • In "Granny Baby", Granny Neutron is turned into a baby and her character model is reused for Baby Eddie, a recurring villain in some of the future episodes, as well as Beautiful Gorgeous in a slide featuring her as an infant.
    • In "Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 2", Professor Calamitous turns Cindy into a fish that just happens to look exactly like Carl's favorite pet, Swimmy.
    • Chip, Jimmy’s holographic camp counselor, would return in a later episode as Skeet the fast food worker (donning brown hair instead of blonde).
  • Rewind Gag: This (as well as a bit of Fast-Forward Gag) happens over and over again in "Sorry, Wrong Era", with Jimmy's Rewind, Replay, Repeat invention. Let's just say that Hugh abuses this power for his own amusement...
  • Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: Done in "The Mighty Wheezers," when Carl destroys his alarm clock with his fist with his new strength.
  • Rival Turned Evil: An unusual case in "The N-Men" — Jimmy himself is this due to finally getting fed up over how Cindy keeps overshadowing him. This sets him on a Hulking Out rampaging spree, and the irony is that the only one who stops him is Cindy herself.
  • Robot Dog: Goddard is Jimmy's robotic canine.
  • Robot Kid: Brobot was built by Jimmy to be his younger brother, so he's obviously a robotic child.
  • Rotten Robotic Replacement: When Judy goes to a spa getaway, Jimmy creates a "Maternotron" to be her temporary replacement, so that he and his father can get out of doing chores his mother would otherwise be doing. Maternotron however becomes too controlling and strict, such as forcing Carl and Sheen to complete a giant questionnaire to decide whether or not they are allowed to spend time with Jimmy at all.
  • Romantic False Lead: Betty Quinlin. She's not oblivious to Jimmy's crush on her or Cindy's crush on Jimmy for that matter. It is also implied that while she might be flattered by Jimmy's affections, she is fully supportive of his and Cindy's relationship.
  • Running Gag:
    • Jimmy making something using Hugh's toasters.
    • Carl's crush on Jimmy's mom, Judy.
    • Nick hurting his leg and stating the obvious immediately afterwards. Weirdly, the exact same footage is used for this scene every time this happens. "Lady Sings the News" even Lampshades it when Jimmy and Cindy note that this has happened 15 times with Nick, and that everyone is expecting it to happen to Nick again shortly after he recovers.
    • The Twonkies that Sheen had after an episode appear in several later episodes; they don't morph however.
    • Various iterations of "the little boy's room" are used when a character has to pee, including "the little boy's ocean" by Carl when the boy's are flying over the ocean in Jimmy's hovercraft.
    • Carl also had his highly sensitive scapula.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Beautiful Gorgeous. She was wearing robotic armor similar to Samus'.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: Cindy, oddly and ironically enough, in "Out, Darn Spotlight".
  • Sassy Black Woman: Libby.
  • Satire/Parody/Pastiche: Numerous examples of this include "Attack of the Twonkies" (Gremlins), Monster Hunt (Jaws), "Stranded" (Cast Away), "Love Potion #976/J" (Love Potion #9), "Lights! Camera! Danger!" (The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, to name a few), "Win Lose and Kaboom!" (every gameshow ever) and "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion" (James Bond).
  • Saved by a Terrible Performance: Sheen is noted a being a Dreadful Musician, yet in "Attack of The Twonkies", his horrible singing ends up proving to be a lullaby to the twonkies whereas everybody else's singing is what causes them to attack in the first place.
  • School Play: Macbeth in Space, an In Name Only adaptation of the Shakespeare play produced by Principal Willoughby.
  • Schmuck Bait: "Don't look in the peep hole!"
  • Science Hero: Jimmy, who solves the problems his inventions create.
  • "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Played with in "The Phantom of Retroland." Jimmy doesn't believe in Nick's history project about the titular phantom, thinking it's all a myth, and he recruits Carl and Sheen to accompany him to Retroland after dark to prove Nick false. Sure enough, the phantom shows up when midnight arrives, and Jimmy and his friends manage to unmask him to reveal Nick, who was obviously there to scare the others away. After this, Sheen says they should "beat it before the real phantom shows up," but just as Jimmy tells Sheen there is no real phantom, another Phantom of Retroland shows up rasping "I beg to differ!" But Goddard ends up pulling off the phantom's cloak, revealing Cindy and Libby in a Totem Pole Trench disguise, to get back at Jimmy for ruining Nick's report. But then as they are all leaving, a third phantom shows up, seeming to be the real one with a glowing skull face, and Jimmy confronts said "phantom" saying the joke's over, and pulls off his cloak to reveal a glowing bony body! This is when all the kids run and scream out of the park, and once they are out of sight this third phantom unmasks to reveal Judy Neutron, teaching Jimmy a lesson for sneaking out after bedtime. But just as she and Hugh leave, the real phantom shows up, sending the two parents running and screaming (and ending with zooming into Hugh's screaming mouth.)
  • Self-Destruct Mechanism: Goddard has one, though he can reassemble himself.
  • Series Continuity Error: In "Attack of the Twonkies", the Twonkies are shown to start off cute until they hear good-sounding music, at which point they mutate into monsters. After this episode, they make a multitude of cameos, one of which is in "My Big Fat Spy Wedding", but said cameo happens during a musical number and he can be seen dancing along, and he doesn't mutate despite this established rule.
  • Severely Specialized Store: Retroville has stores like Cheese World, Mime World, and Rug World.
  • The Shangri-La: Parodied with Shangrillama, which is just Shangri-La, but with Llamas.
  • Shady Scalper: Hugh once claims he paid a scalper one hundred bucks for tickets to Jimmy's free school talent show.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: "The Feud" ends with the reveal it wasn't Mr. Wheezer didn't take Hugh's lawn lopper — it was revealed from Sheen that Hugh loaned it to Sam who will be returning it a few days from now.
  • Share Phrase: "To the lab!" and other variations. It starts as Jimmy's phrase, then the other characters - mostly Sheen - start fighting over being the one to say it.
  • Shoddy Shindig: In "Hypno Birthday to You", thanks to Jimmy hypnotizing his parents, they believe every single day to be his birthday, and throw a party each day as well. At first they're a lot of fun, with even his rivals Cindy and Libby enjoying themselves. A few parties in, however, and things take a turn- in addition to everyone being utterly sick of partying (and cake), the party clown is unable to perform any new tricks, and his parents run out of money to get presents and supplies. The result is a string of miserable parties that leaves the guests bored and unhappy.
  • Show Within a Show: ''UltraLord'' — Sheen is crazy over it to the point of claiming that Ultralord fills George Washington's role as the father of America.
  • Singing Telegram: Sheen starts a business delivering yodeling telegrams. Jimmy's dad finds his Lawn Lopper appliance is missing, and accuses Carl's dad of borrowing it and failing to return it. When Carl's dad denies borrowing the tool, an enormous feud beings, resulting in the crabgrass on their lawns growing into giant mutant monsters. After the boys risk their lives defeating the monsters, Sheen recalls that he forgot to deliver a message from Sam Melvick informing Jimmy's dad that he borrowed the Lawn Lopper and will return it as soon as possible.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: Jimmy and Cindy.
  • Soda Can Shakeup: In "Maximum Hugh", Cindy finds out that Hugh's sudden athleticism at the parent/child picnic games is because of an experimental headband that Jimmy put on him, so she sabotages them by giving Hugh a "congratulatory" can of Purple Flurp that she shook up so the fizz can short out the headband.
  • Space Does Not Work That Way: Lampshaded when Sheen asks Jimmy how they could survive in space without spacesuits or how they can get to the moon in mere minutes, but Carl's singing blocks out Jimmy's answers.
  • Space Whale Aesop: "When Pants Attack" has one: Always remember to be responsible and clean up after yourself, because if you don't, those pants that you forgot to pick up off your floor might become sentient and go on a mad rampage.
  • Special Edition Theme Song: The Bowling for Soup theme used in The Movie.
  • Spin-Off: Planet Sheen. Guess who's the star?
  • Split-Screen Phone Call: Jimmy gets several split-screens in a row in the "sick patch" episode (season 1, episode 12a), when his classmates call to complain about the patches suddenly dissolving into their skin, leaving them permanently sick. The call is actually a conference call, but we only see one classmate at a time, as they take turns speaking. This ends with Jimmy visibly pushing the split-line off the screen with his hand; the phone call continues, but Jimmy is now the only one the audience can hear.
  • Spoofs "R" Us: In "Attack of the Twonkies", Judy throws a rock at a store named Ventriloquist Dummies 'R' Us.
  • Spotting the Thread: Seen in "Maximum Hugh", when Cindy and her mom have seemingly won the Parent-Child Picnic Games. Jimmy notices "Mrs. Vortex" having different eye color, foot size, ear lobe length, and a zipper on the back of her neck. (It turns out to be Cindy's athletic aunt, whose face resembles her mom.)
  • Spraying Drink from Nose: Jimmy successfully attempts by accidental Banana Peel to make Cindy and Libby laugh until the smoothie come out of their noses as an experiment for his time-powered remote control when previous attempts by Sheen and Carl fail to do so. When Jimmy's dad gets hold of the remote control, he continues to unintentionally time-torture Cindy and Libby until they get a Brain Freeze.
  • Stacy's Mom: A Running Gag is Carl Wheezer having a crush on Jimmy Neutron's mother Judy.
  • Stand-In Parents: Cindy Vortex had an aunt stand in for her mother at Retroville's parent/child sporting day in "Maximum Hugh".
  • Steal It to Protect It: In "The Great Egg Heist", the gang are recruited by Princess Quin Shi Su to retrieve a Jade Egg which her brother plans to use as a Power Source for his Doomsday Device. As the egg is in a museum, the heroes have to steal it and replace it with a fake. The entire mission is revealed to be a plan by Professor Calamitous to trick the heroes into stealing the egg for him by disguising himself as the princess. Thankfully, he ends up with the replica instead due to a mishap by Carl.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Played straight with some characters, averted with others.
    • Carl looks like a 20-odd year younger version of his dad and Libby, too, bears an obvious resemblance to her mother.
    • There's no doubt about Hugh Neutron being Jimmy's dad, although Judy Neutron's traits are also visible in her son.
    • Sheen's father, on the other hand, has a discernibly darker skin tone than Sheen, suggesting that his mother, whom we never see in the show, is of lighter complexion. Then we have Cindy who didn't even inherit either of her parents' hair color.
  • Suddenly Shouting: Cindy.
    Cindy: Uh, Excuse me, Neutron. Now that you're done talking to yourself...WE HAVE A SITUATION HERE!!!
  • Superhero Episode: "The N-Men".
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial:
    Sheen: Don't do it Jimmy. Don't tell him about the limitless power-source you found on Mar-(Jimmy covers his mouth)
    Carl: And we're not going there to get the limitless power-source if that's what your thinking- (Jimmy covers his mouth)
    Sheen: MARS! (beat) Sorry I just get excited.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Carl toward Jimmy's mom. It's shown in several episodes that he has a picture of her and Hugh. Hugh's face is obscured by Carl's taped over it. Cindy comes off like this to Jimmy In Season 3. She and Jimmy do get together in the Finale.
  • Subbing for Santa: "Holly Jolly Jimmy" plays out exactly the way you saw coming.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: In "Return of the Nanobots", Cindy recites her poem to the class, but the last line in her poem doesn't rhyme. However, she still gets applauded for it.
    "And somewhere, men are laughing.
    "And somewhere, children shout."
    "But there is no joy in Retroville."
    "Because Jimmy is an idiot!"
  • Take Our Word for It: In "Attack of the Twonkies", we never really see the Twonkies' full transformation into man-eating monsters.
  • Take That!: In "Beach Party Mummy", Miss Fowl plays a VHS of a fictional Ken Burns documentary on mummies, noting it's "part one of ninety-seven hours". As soon as it starts, the entire class falls asleep almost instantaneously.
    Narrator: Dear Achmedia, today I pulled a one ton boulder across the broiling desert sands. Then I had lunch. Then they cut my tongue out. [...] Tonight, it is my turn to tell stories around the campfire. This will be difficult without my tongue.
  • Taking You with Me: After being defeated, Evil Jimmy breaks the dark matter chip he used to create his evil copy of Earth, causing the entire planet to be sucked into the dark matter dimension in an attack to take Jimmy down with him.
  • Tastes Better Than It Looks:
    • In the short "Hyper Corn", Jimmy's parents serve creamed corn for dinner. Jimmy refuses to eat it because, in his words, "It looks like somebody already digested it", and he tries to get rid of it by stuffing it into his hypercube. Unfortunately, Hugh mistakes the hypercube for a Rubik's cube and causes the creamed corn stored inside to fly everywhere. Some of it lands in Jimmy's mouth, and it's at this point that Jimmy finds out it actually tastes delicious.
    • In the movie "Win, Lose and Kaboom", the characters compete on an alien game show. During an eating challenge, Carl tries the disgusting-looking alien dish and finds it quite tasty, while the alien contestant finds the banana cream pie so repulsive that it causes his head to explode.
  • Time Machine: Jimmy's Time Booth.
  • Time to Move: "Funndemonium" begins with the Neutrons set to move away to Derryville due to Hugh's car company being transferred, prompting Jimmy to give him a job at a toy company should they wish to stay.
  • Time Travel: Some episodes involve use of a time machine in some capacity.
    • "The Big Pinch" has Jimmy use his time machine to bring Thomas Edison into the present in order to settle an argument with Cindy on when the radio was invented.
    • "Time is Money" had Jimmy go back to a time before his parents got married to convince his future father to invest $50 in Hank McSpanky's burger scheme to change history so that Jimmy's family would be wealthy enough to afford a set of encyclopedias he wanted. He goes back to set things right after finding his parents to be snobby and neglectful towards him because of the altered timeline.
    • "Sorry, Wrong Era" has Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen sent back to the Cretaceous Period because of Hugh meddling with Jimmy's time replay remote.
  • Time Traveler's Dinosaur:
    • Party At Neutrons: Sheen went back in time to get Harry Houdini to do magic tricks at Jimmy's party; however, he mistook a velociraptor for him instead.
    • Sorry Wrong Era: Hugh accidentally sends Jimmy, Carl and Sheen back to the Late Cretaceous Era with Jimmy's new remote. Naturally taking place in the Cretaceous dinosaurs and other affiliated animals like pterosaurs appear.
    • The League of Villains: During the series Jimmy and his friends end up in the Cretaceous era and get attacked by a T-rex, thankfully the Space Bandits; after having a Heel–Face Turn, manage to talk it out of attacking them.
  • The Full Name Adventures: The show's title is The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
  • The Scottish Trope: Discussed in the episode "Out, Darn Spotlight", in which the characters perform a version of Macbeth for the school play. Carl talks about how they've been saying "Macbeth" all day despite it being taboo, and sure enough, things do start to go wrong by the time the play ends.
  • Tall Poppy Syndrome: In "The Science Fair Affair" Cindy calls for Jimmy to be banned from competing in the science fair in order to give all the non-genius students a chance to win, since with Jimmy competing none of them ever really put any effort into trying.
  • Transformation Discretion Shot:
    • In "Attack of the Twonkies", whenever the Twonkies are Hulking Out from hearing music, we never really see them transform and they are always offscreen before they finish, likely because their transformations were too difficult to animate in the early days of CGI.
    • In "The N-Man", when Jimmy is Hulking Out, his transformation is only visible as a shadow on the wall which is witnessed by Goddard, before emerging from the lair completely bulky and monstrous.
  • The Voiceless: Despite appearing fairly often (mostly as a background character with little to no impact on the story though), Mr. Vortex, Cindy's father, never utters a single syllable throughout the entire show. His brief cameo in the movie is just as speechless, thus making him the only parent of the main gang to never get a line of dialogue in spite of making an actual appearance.
  • This Is a Song: "This is the theme song... for Jimmy Neutron!"
  • Too Long; Didn't Dub: The CCTV Mainland Chinese version of the show omits a few lines of dialogue:
  • Too Qualified to Apply: In "The Science Fair Affair", Principal Willoughby agrees to Cindy's decision to ban Jimmy Neutron from the school science fair, since he won the last three in a row, and all his scientific knowledge gives him an unfair advantage over the other students.
  • Totem Pole Trench: Seen in "The Phantom of Retroland", when Cindy and Libby dress up as the titular Phantom to scare Jimmy and his friends (Libby on top and wearing the mask, and Cindy on bottom.)
  • Trauma Button Ending: At the end of "Journey to the Center of Carl", Miss Fowl's class is back in school after almost becoming permanently sick thanks to Jimmy's latest invention. On this day, Miss Fowl introduces them to a new student, who happens to have a cold, causing everyone to freak out and clear the room.
    Miss Fowl: I think they like you!
  • Tropey, Come Home: The storybook Goddard Come Home!
  • Tsundere: Cindy.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Hugh and Judy, though Hugh's just a moron, and Carl and Elkie, though it's just a one-episode fling, and then there's The Junkman and Beautiful Gorgeous.
  • Undead Author: Jimmy points out the difficulties with this in "The Phantom of Retroland", asking how anyone would know the Phantom's victim's last words if no one was there to hear them.
  • Underdogs Never Lose: Averted 100% in "Retroville 9". Jimmy and his class qualify for the Junior World Baseball Championships in Nagoia, Japan. The rest of the kids don't know, however, that the only reason why they ever managed to win a game of baseball is because of the technological advances Jimmy applied to their bats and gloves. Right before the Big Game starts, Jimmy's conscience is aroused by "Tremendous Jackson's" (an obvious spoof of Bo Jackson) opening speech, in which he expresses pride over the fact that Jimmy's class qualified fair and square, without resorting to any technological tricks. And so, he proceeds to tell the others the truth as well as to encourage them to try and win the game clean. They all go out on the pitch full of zeal... only to end up having their butts handed to them without scoring a single point. That's just how cruel that show is.
  • Un Evil Laugh: Eustace Strych and Beautiful Gorgeous. Sheen lampshades the latter.
    Sheen: That laugh could get annoying.
  • Unexpected Kindness: Subverted in "The Eggpire Strikes Back". The Yolkians return to Earth, so Jimmy and the Retroville citizens think they're going to try to conquer the world again. However, the Yolkians say they've decided to move past their evil ways and give the townspeople gifts, though Jimmy still isn't sure about them. Jimmy is proven right when it turns out that they were just pretending to have had a change of heart so they could destroy Retroville.
  • Unfortunate Names: One of the series' directors is Mike Gasaway. One can only imagine the turmoil the poor guy had to endure in school...
  • Ungrateful Bastard: After Jimmy and his friends defeat a couple of prehistoric creatures that were terrorizing Jimmy's Rogues Gallery in "The League of Villains"...
    King Goobot: Thanks ever so for getting rid of dinosaurs, Jimmy. Now we can finally GET RID OF YOU!
  • Unnamed Parent: Except Hugh and Judy, all the other kid's parents are either unnamed, or just All There in the Manual.
  • The Unreveal: Beautiful Gorgeous brings up several times in "Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion" that she didn't want to be a villain, but she never gets a chance to say what it is she always wanted to be.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Jimmy and Cindy, which slowly developed into a real romance.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Some of Jimmy's catchphrases are these, including "Pukin' Pluto", "Gas planet", and even "Holy Heisenberg".
    • In "The Feud", Hugh and Ebenezer have their share of this when they find both of their lawns plagued with crabgrassnote .
    Ebenezer: HOLY JUMPIN' CATFISH!
    Hugh: GREAT STINKIN' BANANAS!
  • Uvula Escape Route: Alluded to in the episode Journey to the Center of Carl. Jimmy and Sheen are going down Carl's throat and spot his uvula. Sheen almost uses it as a punching bag before Jimmy tells him that'll make Carl throw up.
  • Viewers Are Morons: Considering the show's rather mature take on humor and little emphasis on slapstick, it may come as a surprise when characters (more often than not Jimmy) like to elaborate on scientific facts that any audience should probably be well familiar with or perfectly understandable. It's never too distracting but still.
    • "Beach Party Mummy" is quite possibly one of the worst offenders, with Jimmy rather unnecessarily explaining the definition of hieroglyphics and mummies.
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
    • At the end of "The Eggpire Strikes Back", the Yolkians flee back to Yolkus after Jimmy has destroyed Poultra.
    • In "Send in the Clones" when Jimmy manages to freeze his clones with the ice crystals, Evil Jimmy manages to escape and is still roaming around to this day.
  • Villain Team-Up: The League of Villains consists of King Goobot, Professor Calamitous, Beautiful Gorgeous, evil genius Eddie, the Junkman, Eustace Strych, Grandma Taters and the Space Bandits.
  • Visual Pun: Whenever Jimmy has a Brain Blast, we see his brain beating and storming up. It's having a brainstorm.
  • Vine Swing:
    • In "Stranded", both Jimmy and Cindy do this while they're getting used to the desert island that they're stranded on.
  • Volleying Insults: The episode "The Feud" has this happen THREE times!
    • First, with Hugh Neutron and Ebenezer Wheezer:
    Ebenezer: I already told you I gave [your lawn lopper] back, ya wingding!
    Hugh: And I'm telling you, ya didn't, tool hog!
    Ebenezer: Cheese brain!
    Hugh: Sneeze jockey!
    Ebenezer: Noodle head!
    • Second, with Judy Neutron and Martha Wheezer:
    Martha: You're just a dupe for that hateful husband of yours!
    Judy: "Hateful"?! You take that back!
    Martha: Never, allergy-giver!
    Judy: Venom-spitter!
    Martha: She-witch!
    Judy: Hag woman!
    Martha: (gasps)
    • And third, with Hugh and Ebenezer all over again:
    Hugh: Stupidhead!
    Ebenezer: Moron face!
    Hugh: Mucus monkey!
    Ebenezer: Duck lover!
  • Walk Into Camera Obstruction:
    • "Grumpy Young Men" with Jimmy when he is quickly dragged to his lab by Carl and Sheen.
    • "Nightmare in Retroville" with Sheen in his werewolf form, when he leads the other monsters on a rampage through town, his nose obscures the screen.
    • "Lights! Camera! Danger!" with Quentin Smithee when he is about to start the next scene the "Save the Day" song.
    • "The League of Villans" Where T grabs Jimmy and Sheen in the courtroom; hands fill the screen.
    • "Professor Calamitous, I Presume" Calamitus in the robot suit attempts to kidnap Goddard
  • Walkie-Talkie Gag, Over: In "Professor Calamitous I Presume", Jimmy is trying to rescue Goddard from the villain while Carl and Sheen are at the Candy Bar. They keep in communication with walkie-talkies.
    Sheen: Roger. We'll wait here at the Candy Bar in case the kidnapper comes in for a snack. Over and out.
    Carl: Who's "Roger"?
  • Walk Through the Camera:
    • "The Eggpire Strikes Back", the scene at school where Ooblar tries to break up Jimmy and Cindy's argument. "Pipe down!" And where Jimmy and Goddard run to the park where Poultra's egg is.
    • "Professor Calamitous, I Presume", with Calamitous in the robot suit walking to Jimmy's house.
  • Wedgie: Evil Cindy gives one to Evil Nick and tries to give one to Jimmy. Also in The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour, Cindy gives one to Carl.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The concept of Jimmy being extremely secretive about his lab, never allowing anyone inside except Goddard, Carl and Sheen is somewhat relevant in the first season, especially in "The Egg-Pire Strikes Back", where he goes as far as to wipe Cindy's memories of how to get in (using a device that, appropriately enough, will never be referenced to again throughout the rest of the show). Later on, it seems like everybody can and will enter the lab whenever they please (or plot convenience will require them to) and while Jimmy will occasionally express his dismay at the idea of Cindy or Libby hanging around his inventions (due to them being girls and all), other times he'll just have them stay behind a yellow line on the floor, and some other times he just won't care at all.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Apparently, Bolbi is from "Backhairistan". But his accent lacks a true real-world parallel.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
    • Averted - Retroville is in Texas. This is also played with in one of the episodes where Jimmy states that his script for a movie has one of the locations in 'a fictional city in Texas'. The theory is reinforced by the fact that the studio responsible for the show's animation itself was based in Dallas and the Christmas Episode is uncommonly snow-free.
      • However, in the first episode Cindy mentions that Jimmy's head is the size of Texas, to which Carl, upset, replies that his uncle is from Texas, and not that they live in Texas.
      • Naturally, considering that the voice cast is almost exclusively non-Texan, combined with the fact they never try to hide in the first place, the series could just as well take place in California.
  • Whole Costume Reference: When Jimmy and friends become the N-Men, they each wear costumes that evoke actual superheroes; Jimmy (when not in Hulk form) resembles the Green Lantern, Libby resembles The Invisible Woman, Sheen resembles The Flash, Carl resembles Plastic Man, and Cindy resembles Supergirl.
  • World of Jerkass: With some exceptions (such as Jimmy's parents, Carl, Sheen, Brittany, and Betty), the residents of Retroville are fairly unpleasant and obnoxious, especially where Jimmy is concerned. Even Jimmy himself isn't immune to this, being an Insufferable Genius who frequently causes issues due to his lack of initiative.
  • Women Are Wiser: Judy Neutron, Cindy, Libby, and Betty. Most of the female characters are more level-headed than the men and are more supportive of Jimmy.
  • Yellow Sash of Power: Jimmy in "Hall Monster".
  • You No Take Candle: Elke, Carl's pen pal from Sweden, suffers from this trope (Polandball variety):
    Elke (while riding Jimmy's rocket through an asteroid belt with Carl): Carl! Is too fast! Make with the slowing down!
    • Rather ironic (and possibly the result of Cultural Blending) considering that Swedish people are known throughout the world for their impeccable grasp of English with little to no foreign accent or grammatical slips to betray their origins.
  • Your Head Asplode: Almost happens to Sheen when Jimmy decides to increase his intelligence by growing his brain..


Alternative Title(s): The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron

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Sleepless in Retroville

The episode ends with a chain of "dream within someone else's dreams", ending with a monster pizza and his wife. No, really.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (12 votes)

Example of:

Main / DreamWithinADream

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