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We're Tiny, we're Toony, we're all a little Looney!
It's
Tiny Toon Adventures! Come and join the fun!
...and now our song is done.

A revival of sorts for the Looney Tunes style of comedy, using fun-sized, teenage Toons highly reminiscent of several classic characters. But rather than pure rip-offs, they were actually being taught in school by the originals on being funny and the finer parts of Cartoon Physics and being a Toon. This continues the proud tradition of Warner Bros. animation having a heavy dose of meta-humor, shtick and Lampshade Hanging of many cartoon tropes, but this also incorporated themes of adolescence, Aesops, and '90s sensibilities. It was executive produced by Steven Spielberg, who, along with Warner Bros. executive Terry Semel, thought the Looney Tunes style was due for a makeover on television after the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Tom Ruegger was hired as Showrunner, as he had recently found success launching A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

TTA started the Renaissance Age of Warner Bros. cartoons, resulting in similar shows that shared many of the same tropes and were produced in much the same way (writing, storyboards, layout, voice work and some animation done in the USA; with animation, paint, and camera work done by Asian, Canadian and New Zealand studios — TMS excluded; they preferred to do most of their own work themselves, albeit with an uncredited staff). It was also one of the first shows not made by Disney to contribute to the '90s animation boom, following The Simpsons by less than a year.

The show's pilot episode premiered as a prime-time special on CBS, who had declined to order a full series, on September 14, 1990, before officially beginning its run on weekday afternoon syndication beginning September 17. Many of the stations that ran it were Fox affiliates, leading to Fox officially adding it to the afternoon lineup for its last season (1992-93). After it left the Fox Kids lineup in September 1995, it's since been shown in reruns on Nickelodeon (1995-99, 2002-03), Kids' WB! (1997-2000), Cartoon Network (1999-2001), Nicktoons TV (2002-05), and The Hub (2013-15).

The characters included:

  • Buster and Babs Bunny ("no relation") — A (respectively) blue and pink pair of Bugs Bunnys. Served as the main characters and would alternate between Like Brother and Sister and love interests of each other. Would often host and close each episode. While Buster was the Straight Man more in tune with the 1950s-style Bugs character, Babs had more of a concrete personality, and was known for her excellent impersonations more akin with a gender flip of 1940s Bugs.
  • Plucky Duck — A green-feathered (he's a mallard), white tank-top-wearing Daffy who's about as scheming and (un)successful as his inspiration.
  • Hamton J. Pig — A neat freak who acts more like Plucky's sidekick. About the furthest distanced from his counterpart, Porky, out of all the characters (and he didn't even stutter!)
  • Fifi La Fume — A purple female skunk who's just as oversexed as her male counterpart, Pepe Le Pew. Unlike Pepe, however, she seems to have far more control over her odor, she's a tad more melodramatic, and she doesn't have a problem with her object of desire chasing her (unless it's Elmyra.)
  • Montana Max — Based on Yosemite Sam in name and temperament. The richest and meanest kid in Acme Acres, and owner of the legendary Acme company. Oddly, the Big Bad of Hellsing might be named after him.
  • Elmyra Duff — Usually referred to as simply "Elmyra", she bears a strong "wesembwance" to Elmer Fudd (she kind of resembles him in a wig and dress, and then there's the last name), but without the speech impediment. Instead of hunting for sport, she absolutely loves animals of all kinds. That is to say she loves to hug them and cuddle them and squeeze them to itty-bitty pieces and perform laboratory experiments on them, thus she is also based on the Abominable Snowman from the original Looney Tunes.
  • Dizzy Devil — pink/purple-haired mentee of the Tasmanian Devil. Is a party animal who, despite being disgusting, is actually considered attractive to women. As his name implies, his spinning makes him dizzy.
  • Furrball — "thpiritual thucthethor" to both Sylvester the Cat and Penelope Pussycat, and (with three exceptions) The Voiceless (like the latter). Inevitably, he pursues Tweety's female counterpart Sweetie Pie (who unlike many of the Sylvester/Tweety shorts is the instigator while Furrball is minding his own business). Most of the time, though, he's just the Butt-Monkey.
  • Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper — Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner analogues. These are the least disstanced with their behaviors being virtually identical, except that they fight in a cityscape instead of the desert, and that Calamity is trying to steal Beeper's pizza instead of eat him. They do occasionally interact with the others, where Calamity's mute nature is mostly highlighted.
  • Gogo Dodo — A thoroughly off-the-wall incarnation of cartoon surrealism, it is confirmed by the creators that Gogo is the son of the original Dodo from Porky in Wackyland. He resides in the supposedly same Wackyland, which is just outside Acme Acres.
  • Shirley The Loon — A Valley Girl, part-time psychic, and part-time Love Interest of Plucky. Supposedly created by putting Melissa Duck (from The Scarlet Pumpernickel) and Shirley MacLaine into a blender.
  • Little Sneezer — A mouse in a diaper who has a chronic sneezing problem inversely proportional to his size. Could be the Spiritual Successor to Chuck Jones's Sniffles the Mouse. His name on the other hand is a pun on "Little Cheeser", a non-Warner Bros. character, and his inaugural appearance references Tom and Jerry a fair bit.
  • Arnold — who is basically an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator in a white pitbull costume with shades. One of the only recurring new characters who is not an Expy of a Tune.
  • Mary Melody — a black girl who often had Furrball as a pet. Is often featured as a background character or extra. Her name is, of course, a pun on "Merrie Melodies".
  • Concord Condor — a rather dopey purple condor who is probably an expy of minor character Beaky Buzzard.
  • Fowlmouth — a little chicken with a tendency to swear excessively, most likely a Verbal Tic reminiscent of his mentor Foghorn Leghorn's.
  • Bookworm — a green, well, bookworm with big glasses based off of the companion to the Merrie Melodies character Sniffles. Naturally, he works in the library and is shown to be quite smart and good with computers.
  • Lightning Rodriguez — a Speedy Gonzales expy only seen in cameo roles. Officially, this is because Little Beeper's existence rendered a second fast character redundant, but Speedy's then-network TV ban for racial stereotyping concerns can't have helped.
  • The original Looney Tunes — most of whom are faculty members of Acme Looniversity, and who all make cameos sprinkled everywhere in the show. Often, they are personal tutors and greatly admired by their younger, respective spiritual successors.

Episodes were either broken into three 7-minute shorts, or made into half-hour full-episode adventures. Similarly, these would be split among stories dealing with misadventures in school, Looney Tunes-like shorts out in Acme Acres, or the occasional music video (the show's renditions of They Might Be Giants' "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man", for example, are favorites amongst fans of both the show and the band to this day).

A feature-length direct-to-video movie, Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, shows the misadventures of the kids on various summer road trips. It was eventually split up into four parts and worked into the show's syndicated run.

The show was a precursor to — and the inspiration for — Animaniacs; they were both produced by the same staff and shared many of the same writers. The main difference is that Tiny Toons generally had all the characters interacting with each other, while Animaniacs focused mostly on individual characters or groups for their Three Shorts. The two universes intersected in the ill-fated 1998-1999 retooling of Animaniacs' popular spinoff, Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain

The show spawned copious amounts of merchandise, most notably video games from Konami. It also had toys from McDonald's, plush dolls produced by Hasbro through Playskool, and two separate comic book series, one produced in North American magazines by DC Comics, and another series published in traditional comic book issues for most of Europe by, of all people, Marvel Comicsnote .

The first season is now available on iTunes, broken up into volumes. Here it is. The entire series is available on DVD.

The series is animated by seven different studios: Wang, Taiwan (30 episodes), Akom, South-Korea (23 episodes), TMS, Japan (19 episodes), Kennedy, Canada (17 episodes), StarToons, USA (3 episodes), Freelance, New-Zeeland (3 episodes) and Encore, USA (3 episodes).

The show has reaired in Russia since 2010, "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special" reaired in the UK in December 2011, and the one hour special "Night Ghoulery" on Vortexx on October 27, 2012, with a repeat airing a month later on November 24. Tiny Toons went on to air on The Hub (now Discovery Family) from July 1, 2013 to June 8, 2015. In 2018, the entire series came to Hulu as part of the deal for the streaming service to revive Animaniacs, alongside How I Spent My Vacation and the Night Ghoulery and Spring Break specials. On January 4, 2023, it was removed from Hulu when its contract expired and was not renewed.

On October 28, 2020, it was announced that a reboot, called Tiny Toons Looniversity, would be produced for HBO Max and Cartoon Network. Spielberg returned as executive producer, with Erin Gibson (of the podcast Throwing Shade) serving as co-executive producer and showrunner. The series premiered in the fall of 2023.

Now has a Recap page. See also Noteworthy Tiny Toon Adventures Staff.


Tiny Toon Adventures provides examples of:

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    #-D 
  • 555:
    Steven's Car Phone #:
    555-5555 ($1.95 Per Minute)
    • When Plucky, as Bat Duck advertises his merchandise, the phone number is also 555-5555
  • A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In the segment "Born to Be Riled" of "The Buster Bunny Bunch", Babs' classmates become offended by her impersonations of them and retaliate by impersonating her.
  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: In "Concord the Kindly Condor" (part of "Toons from the Crypt"), one of the vultures keeps circling Concord who, instead of turning his whole body to look at the vulture, merely keeps turning his head. He turns it 360° at least three times.
  • Absurdly-Long Limousine: Montana Max has one with a built-in swimming pool, as seen in "Buster's Guide to Part-Time Jobs" (part of "Career Oppor-Toon-Ities").
  • Academy of Evil: Perfecto Prep is the rival school of ACME Looniversity, and its students serve as the evil counterparts of the Tiny Toons, trying to outdo them at everything, especially sports, even resorting to cheating to ensure that they don't lose.
    O Perfecto Prep, the perfect school,
    where winning is our only rule,
    there is no team we cannot beat,
    because, you see, we always cheat!
  • Accidental Art: Plucky, after realizing that he was able to pause a dog fight in "Oh for Art's Sake", passes off the paused picture as a painting.
  • Achilles' Heel: Played literally in the segment, "Rent-a-Friend" from "Rainy Daze". When Buster tricks Max's Acme Bunny Basher robot, it is about to drop Monty out of the top of his mansion. Buster decides to save Monty by pulling a Durasmell battery out of its heel, which is labelled as the Achilles Heel. This powers the robot down. The robot drops Monty anyway, but Buster saves Monty from a nasty fall with a very expensive call to the Acme Rescue Center, which he charged to Monty's account.
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Oh for Art's Sake", Plucky instantly becomes a snob when his "painting" is a big hit and he becomes wealthy.
    Babs: Hey, Plucky.
    Plucky: Call me "Pluck". It's more artistic, if you know what I mean, and... how could you?
  • Actor Allusion:
  • Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Casey at the Bat adaptation called Buster at the Bat, with Buster in the titular role. While the Disney version followed the poem, the Tiny Toons adaptation ends with a last-minute switch in the final line as Buster knocks a home run out of the park. When immediately called out on that not being how the poem ends, Buster remarks that he's the hero.
  • Ahem: In "Bat's All Folks" (part of "Inside Plucky Duck"), the phone rings and Elmyra the maid doesn't answer it.
    Plucky: A-he-hem. (phone continues to ring) A-HE-HEM! (more ringing) A-HAH-HAM!!!
    Elmyra: You should do something about that cough!
    Plucky: ANSWER THE PHONE!!!
  • All the Worlds Are a Stage: In the game Montana's Movie Madness, the final level puts you through four mini-stages (literally and figuratively: there are spotlights and movie cameras scattered around them) themed off of the previous levels before going up against the final boss.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe. According to the "Particle Man" music video, Particle Man is Person Man's secret identity (this is shown by Plucky (playing Particle Man) shedding his costume and then being referred to as Person Mannote .)
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song:
  • And Call Him "George": Elmyra loves doing this. It even gets to the point where one short revolves around the many animals she has inadvertently killed over the course of her childhood coming back to get revenge. And she loves them anyway.
  • Angst Nuke: In "Toons Take Over", Cooper DeVille is so furious at the movie Buster, Babs and Plucky created that flames shoot out the top of his head.
  • Animal Stereotypes: Subverted with Hamton. Elmyra believes he's filthy just because he's a pig, even though many instances show he's the exact opposite. His uncle fits the pig stereotype, though.
  • Animated Actors: At the start of the second act of "A Quack in the Quarks", Buster, Babs and Hamton are out of character and discussing Plucky's salary. They're told by an off-screen director to get into places, and when he says "Action", they get back into character and vow to save Plucky from space aliens.
    • The first episode goes even further and suggest that not only are Babs and Buster actors, they created the show from scratch! They even get a "created by" credit in the credits roll. Lampshaded in "The Looney Beginning."
  • Animated Anthology: A lot of episodes consist of segments wrapped in a framing device where Buster and Babs introduce the cartoons.
  • Animation Bump: Different episodes were animated by seven different studios, before sub-contractorsnote , so the animation style would noticeably vary between them.note 
    • One can tell which animation team did which episodes. For example, several episodes (including the pilot) resemble A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, being animated by Kennedy Cartoons (whose head, Glen Kennedy, was the animation director on the first season of APNSD).
    • As mentioned in the intro to this page, TMS animated several episodes.
  • Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Henry Youngman Day", the segment "The Potty Years" is a Whole Episode Flashback of the time Plucky was toilet-trained. He becomes quite amused by how the water disappears whenever he flushes the toilet, so he starts flushing everything that he sees, reciting the phrase "(insert thing) go down the hoooole!" His parents yell at him to cut it out, but he insists on continuing to flush it. At the end of the episode, it's revealed he still hasn't grown out of it, much to his father's annoyance.
  • Anthropomorphic Typography: One skit featured Gogo running into a group of living letters in Wackyland, and getting into a Who's on First? style routine with them, such as asking one of them "Who do you think you are?", followed by the letter R popping up.
  • Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: Depending on the episode, Furrball can be either be as much of a Funny Animal as the other kids attending the Looniversity or he can be a Nearly Normal Animal who doesn't speak, lives in alleyways and can be adopted as a pet.
  • Anvil on Head: Played straight, subverted, lampshaded, you name it! There's also the "Anvil Chorus" short.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • In "The Learning Principal", when the Great and Powerful Principal tries to decide on how to punish Buster for disrupting Yosemite Sam's class, he thinks about boiling him in oil, stretching him out on a rack and confiscating his stereo.
    • In Night Ghoulery, during the "The Devil and Daniel Webfoot" sketch, Mr. Scratch presents his Jury of the Damned to Plucky, consisting of some of the most vile scum to ever walk the Earth; Pirates, Thieves, Traitors and Network Executives.
    • In the same special, during the "Frankenmyra and Dizzygor" sketch, Elmyra orders Dizzy to fetch a brain for her monster. While he does not find a brain, he does find a spleen, a pancreas and some frozen waffles.
  • Artifact Title: Some might wonder why the episode titled "Animaniacs!" has nothing to do with the Animaniacs TV series to come later.
  • Art Evolution: Compare Wang Film Productions' crude-looking animation from their early season 1 episodes to their more refined animation from their season 3 episodes.
  • Art Shift: The dialog-free short "Sound Off" is drawn in rubber hose '30s animation style.
    • The various student films in "Animaniacs!" are each drawn in a different style than usual. Interestingly, Gogo's film is live-action!
    • "Duck Dodgers Jr." has a scene towards the end where an animator working on the short is drawn in a more realistic style, almost as if he was rotoscoped.
  • Ascended Extra: Gogo Dodo and his residence of Wackyland are a large part of the show, to the point that Gogo appears in the opening theme. He is based on a character from a single 1938 Porky Pig short, not counting the color remake.
  • Assumed Win: Played straight in "Hare-Raising Night" when Plucky assumed he won an Emmy and started to walk towards the stage. It went to Melvin instead.
  • Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: From "Rent-a-Friend" (part of "Rainy Daze"), after Buster tricks Montana Max's Acme Bunny Basher robot into attacking Monty:
    Monty: "Let me go! Let me go!"
    (Monty looks down and realizes the robot is about to drop him from the top of his mansion.)
    Monty: "Don't let me go! Don't let me go!"
  • Ate the Spoon: Does this a few times as a shoutout to their predecessors.
  • Attending Your Own Funeral: In "Grandma's Dead", one of Elmyra's pet hamsters dies around the same time her grandmother visits, and Elmyra's inarticulate Inelegant Blubbering about it leads everyone to believe it was her grandmother who died. When Elmyra throws a funeral for her pet hamster, everyone believes it to be for her grandmother, and thus are shocked when she shows up alive and well.
  • Babysitting Episode:
    • In "Li'l Sneezer" (part of "Test Stress"), Furrball disguises himself as a babysitter as part of his plan to catch Sneezer and get his picture in the Hall of Cartoon Pussycats. Sneezer's powerful sneezes end up foiling his every attempt to catch him.
    • In "Drooley Davey" (part of "The Wide World of Elmyra"), Elmyra (who is clearly too young and stupid to be a proper babysitter) looks after the titular salivating infant. At one point, she tries feeding him extremely hot milk.
    • In "I Was a Teenage Bunnysitter" (Part of "The Acme Home Shopping Show"), Babs looks after Duncan Potter, a toddler rabbit who demands a "mashed-topato man with pasghetti hair" for dinner and a scary story at bedtime.
  • Bad Future: In the final Christmas Special episode, Buster is treated to a world where he was never drawn up. Montana Max had bought out EVERYTHING (Acme Acres now Montyville), the show itself is basically nothing more than shameless self-promotion and glorification for Plucky, and Acme Looniversity is now a BUSINESS Looniversity where students learn to be suck-up actors/actresses rather than on comedy. The real problem was a shot to Buster's heart when he finds out that Babs is forever miserable with her life, a complete opposite of how she used to be. It also didn't help that in that timeline, she's Plucky's personal Butt-Monkey. All because in this timeline Buster was never drawn up.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Several. In the single segments, many of the main characters ended up on the wrong side of Elmyra at least once, and a lot of her cartoons end with them still in her clutches. They always end up fine after the end of the cartoon, though. "Out Of Odor" is a good example.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • In "Sticky Fingers Duck" (part of "The Best O’ Plucky Duck Day") after guilt and a nightmare consumes Hampton and Plucky per them stealing an Acme Super Duper Munch-and-Crunch Bar (with almonds!), they go back to the store and explain to the clerk what happened. The clerk applauds their honesty and the duo wonder if this means they’ll get the candy as a reward... NOPE! The clerk bluntly tells them he’ll call the police on them if they ever come to his store again.
    • In “Animaniacs”, Plucky finds out he has to create an animated cartoon for a class he had skipped the entire semester, which is set to play in the student film festival that night. Somehow, he manages to finish the cartoon just in time, and not only that, he wins the festival! Despite this, Bugs Bunny informs him that because he skipped the class, he still has to take it over again the next semester.
  • Bait-and-Switch Time Skip: In "Prom-ise Her Anything", Babs rushes home to wait for Buster to ask her to the prom. A montage is shown, wherein she passes the time by tossing cards into a hat, playing with a paddleball, making a paper doll, and knitting a scarf. It is then revealed that all of that only took two minutes.
  • Ballet Episode: In the short, "Loon Lake" (part of "Music Day)", Shirley the Loon attends a ballet class alongside the snooty Perfecto Prep swans, led by Giselle. The Swans bully her, mostly by making fun of the way she talks, but with Babs' encouragement (and backstage sabotage), Shirley manages to outshine the Swans at their recital.
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Most of the main furry cast, with a few exceptions. Fowlmouth wears sneakers and so did Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper.
  • Baseball Episode: "Bleacher Bummer" (part of "The Wacko World of Sports") and "Buster at the Bat" (Part of "Son of The Wacko World of Sports").
  • Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Fifi, Shirley and Babs form this trio respectively.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: G-rated variety between Plucky and Shirley. They're the Beta Couple to Buster and Babs. Plucky is pretty consistent with his interest in Shirley, and is quick to come on to her whenever a short explores relationships (such as "Thirteensomething"). Shirley, however, tends to waver between interested in turn ("Prom-ise Her Anything") and violent rejection ("Thirteensomething"). Or sometimes both in the same episode (usually because Plucky's more obnoxious behavior turns her off).
  • Be the Ball: "Party Crasher Plucky", "Hollywood Plucky", "Journey to the Center of Acme Acres", "Hero Hamton."
  • Beta Couple: Plucky and Shirley are this to Buster and Babs whenever the story calls for exploring dating and relationships.
  • Beta Outfit: The show spoofs this in "Bat Duck", where Plucky plays a Batman parody. He decides to dress as a bat, but he first puts on a baseball bat costume.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Hamton, a few times.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Bugs sometimes tends to act this way toward Buster, though Bugs does occasionally get frustrated whenever Buster's antics start causing problems.
  • Big Eater: Dizzy. To a lesser extent, Hamton.
  • Binomium ridiculus: As a nod to the earlier Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner shorts, the short called "Love Stinks" introduced Calamity Coyote as "Devius Coyotius", Little Beeper as "Expedious Birdius", and Fifi La Fume as "Sexius Skunkius".
  • Birthday Episode:
    • Montana Max celebrates his birthday in the short, "Sleight of Hare" (part of "You Asked For It"). He hires a magician, and Buster has a job as the magician's rabbit. When Monty's bratty behavior causes the magician to quit, Buster takes over for the magician to get back at Monty for costing him his job.
    • The short, "A Bacon Strip" (part of "The Acme Acres Zone") is revealed to be this for Hamton at the end. It turns out to be a Birthday Suit Surprise Party when Plucky tells Hamton that it was his job to distract him by making him skinny-dip at the pool of Montana Max's mansion while he and his friends set up the party.
    • Hamton celebrates his birthday again in the short, "Happy Birthday Hamton" (part of "Playtime Toons"). When Buster, Babs, and Plucky want to keep the toys they bought Hamton for themselves, they decide to give Hamton some of their old toys, but their childhood memories of those toys soon come flooding back to them, and they convince Hamton to trade for the new toys. At the end of the short, Hamton tells the viewers that it isn't really his birthday.
  • Birthday Suit Surprise Party: Happens to Hamton after skinny-dipping.
  • Biting-the-Hand Humor: One of the most notable examples is during the show's Channel Hop to the Fox Network. An episode called "Fox Trot" features Buster and Babs being chased by a pair of hungry foxes, which Babs flat-out states are the Fox Network executives.
  • Bizarre Beverage Use: In the "Out of Odor" segment in "Viewer Mail Day", Elmyra bathes Fifi in tomato juice to get rid of her stench.
  • Black Bead Eyes: Most of the characters have these.
  • Body Paint: In "A Bacon Strip" (part of "The Acme Acres Zone), Hamton uses graffiti to paint a suit on him when he is forced to get back home naked. The paint only covers his front side, but that isn't what leads to his downfall. It's a car splashing him that does.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Lampshaded with Dr. Gene Splicer in "Hare Raising Night".
    Splicer: "Do you ever notice how bad guys always leave at these critical moments? Oh, well."
  • Book Ends:
    • Series-long examplenote : The first episode begins with Bugs Bunny narrating the episode and concludes its final episode with him making a brief one-liner.
    • "Hog Wild Hamton" begins and ends with Ed McMayhem announcing a winner in the clearing house contest.
    • "Toons Take Over" begins and ends with Buster and his friends in the rehearsal hall, reading over a script involving Buster dressed like an aardvark.
    • "Ruffled Ruffee" (part of "Music Day") begins and ends with Buster playing his electric guitar.
  • Born in the Theatre: Tiny Toons would sometimes show the outer edge of the film itself as a gag, despite not actually being on a reel.
    • This is because it's a Shout-Out to the original Looney Tunes.
  • A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: The Duff Family from the episodes, "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead" consists of two girls (Amanda and Elmyra), a boy (Duncan) and a baby (who is referred to as "Baby").
  • Bragging Theme Tune: "The Plucky Duck Show".
    Singers: There's other toonsters at the school...
    Plucky: But who cares who they are?
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Amanda Duff, Elmyra's older sister in "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead".
  • Breather Episode: In "Toons from the Crypt", "Concord, the Kindly Condor" is a lighter segment sandwiched between the darker "Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Even" and "Night of the Living Pets".
  • Brick Joke:
    • During a Global Warming cartoon, Buster asks to book a trip on Noah's Ark. An Animaniacs short about Noah would later have Buster and Babs cameo as the rabbits.
    • Early in "Hollywood Plucky", we see Buster and Babs sitting at an abandoned bus stop in the middle of nowhere, due to faulty directions Plucky gave them. At the very end of the episode, after Plucky finally makes contact with Cooper DeVille, Cooper mentions that he already made the script that Plucky was pitching, only starring Buster and Babs. He found them at a bus stop while out driving.
    • At the beginning of "Hog Wild Hamton", a commercial for the Acme Clearinghouse sweepstakes airs, featuring people who have won enough money to buy a new house. Hamton enters the sweepstakes only for the magazine subscriptions. At the end of the episode, Hamton wins the sweepstakes, and a new house to replace the one that got destroyed as the result of Plucky throwing a Wild Teen Party behind Hamton's back.
    • At the beginning of "Two-Tone Town", Buster worries that when Tiny Toon Adventures gets cancelled, he and Babs will become has-beens forced to get jobs at Toonywood Squares. Guess how the episode ends.
  • Butt-Monkey: Plucky. Hamton drifts between this and the Woobie.
    • To say nothing of the treatment Furrball receives. Lampshaded in the lyrics to the opening theme, "Furrball's unlucky".
    • Meta example with Kennedy Cartoons' animation.
  • Butt Sticker: In How I Spent My Vacation, while Hamton's family is playing "Spot the Car", Hamton's Uncle Stinky is hopping up and down on Plucky.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: Lampshaded, naturally. In "Gang Busters", Buster and Plucky decide to play Pong and Pac-Man with their stretched-out eyeballs, then witness something unexpected when they decide to light a match...
  • Call-Back: In "A Bacon Strip" (part of "The ACME Acres Zone"), Hamton tries to sneak home naked, but is spotted by a tour bus, where the tour guide says, "And to your left is a naked pig." This joke is re-visited in "Kon Ducki" when Hamton briefly loses his grass skirt.
  • The Cameo: Besides the above examples, in the Spring Break special, the red-headed Dead End Kid from the Bugs Bunny short, "Easter Yeggs" is among the children participating in the White House Easter Egg Hunt, still repeating his infamous line of "I wanna Easter Egg!"
  • Canine Confusion: Arnold the Pit Bull has a tail that looks more like that of a cat.
  • Canon Immigrant: Superman in How I Spent My Summer Vacation. He's a Warner Bros. property, so it makes perfect sense.
  • Can't Hold His Liquor: Buster, Plucky, and Hamton in "One Beer" (part of "Elephant Issues"); they're instantly winos after one beer. Justified in they're technically teenagers and the point of the short was to show kids the dangers of underage drinking.
  • Captivity Harmonica: "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow".
  • Cardboard Box Home: One episode of is a parody of Citizen Kane, which has a scene where Montana Max is shown to live in a cardboard box until his family wins the lottery.
    • Furrball lives inside one when he's not an unfortunate pet of Elmyra.
  • Catchphrase: Buster: "Now, it's personal."
    • Also: "It's time to party, Buster style!"
    • Babs: "I just can't help myself!"
      • Also, whenever she greets her mother she refers to herself as her "darling, talented brilliant daughter."
    • Buster and Babs together: "Buster and Babs Bunny. No relation."
    • Fifi: "Do not fear my dear, Fifi La Fume is here!"
  • Centrifugal Farce: Hamton's family go to Epcot and go on a centrifuge-like ride (this episode debuting years before Epcot even had such a ride); Hilarity Ensues.
  • Chick Magnet: A Running Gag is that Dizzy is considered especially cute and charming among beautiful, older women.
  • Christmas Episode: It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special.
  • Chronic Pet Killer: Elmyra.
  • Circling Birdies: In one episode, Elmyra gets the circling birdies but, being the animal lover that she is, grabs one of the birdies and squeezes it.
  • Circus Episode: In "Sawdust and Toonsil", Silas Wonder's Wonderful Circus of Wonderment comes to Acme Acres, and he invites Buster, Babs, and Plucky to see it. Is it later revealed that Silas is a Repulsive Ringmaster who captures rare and exotic animals, horribly mistreats them (practically poaching them), and extorts them for profit. When Gogo Dodo tries to rescue them, he gets captured by Silas, who needs him to complete his collection of rare and exotic animals. This, it's up to Buster, Babs, and Plucky to sneak into the circus to save Gogo and his friends.
  • Class Clown: In "The Learning Principal" (Part of "Looniversity Daze"), Buster is one and gets sent to the Principal's office for disrupting class. It is later revealed that the class was Class Clowning 101, and the reason why he was sent to the principal was because his class clowning antics weren't funny enough for him to pass.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Gogo Dodo.
    • Lots of other characters can veer into this territory, particularly Babs or Plucky when Buster is playing Straight Man to them.
    Babs: What are you doing down there?
    Buster: I'm spelunking.
    Babs: There's a medication you can take for that.
    Buster: ::knocks on Babs's head, making an empty echoing noise::
  • Clown School: Acme Looniversity is essentially this. Along with normal high school courses, the students also study how to do Wild Takes and other Zany Cartoon tropes, taught by the original Looney Tunes cast.
  • Clue of Few Words: One episode parodied Citizen Kane with Montana Max screaming the word "Acme", with Babs & Buster wondering for the rest of the episode what he meant.Max later revealed that he actually shouted "Acne", as he had a bad pimple.
  • Color Me Black: In "A Walk on the Flip Side" (a parody of The Twilight Zone (1959)) has Montana Max, "rabbit-hater extraordinaire", wake up to find that he's a rabbit himself.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In "Butt Out", Rodrick and Rubella haven't stopped smoking, even after Babs (posing as a doctor) inflates them and sends them flying out the door:
    Rodrick: Good thing that doctor came along.
    Rubella: Yeah. If she hadn't cleared up our coughs, we might've had to give up smoking.
  • Continuity Nod: "Buster and the Wolverine" features the Mynah Bird as a Walking Gag.
  • Conveniently Close Planet: In "A Quack in the Quarks", the planets are really close to each other and it doesn't take very long to make it to Planet X.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive:
    • Arthur Jabba in "Take Elmyra, Please".
    • Ronald Grump in the cartoon, "Jungle Bungle" from the episode, "Pollution Solution".
    • Montana Max himself is one at times, notably the Toxic Revenger cartoons.
  • Corrupted Character Copy: The students of Perfecto Prep are broad parodies of various Disney characters: Roderick and Rhubella Rat are based on Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Danforth Drake and Margot Mallard are based on Donald and Daisy Duck, and other unnamed students appear to be based on Goofy, Pete, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Dumbo, and Bambi.
  • Cowboy Episode: In the episode, "High Toon", Buster and Babs take a wrong turn on their way to the amusement park, AcmeLand, and wind up in Prairie Junction. While there, they defend it from the Coyote Kid and his gang of outlaws.
  • Creative Closing Credits: The ending credits and stinger for "Two-Tone Town" are shot in black-and-white.
  • Credits Gag: The end credits always included a gag credit; Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation had tons of them.
  • Crippling Castration: In the short, "Minister Golf" (Part of "Sports Shorts"), Baby Plucky is learning how to play miniature golf, and at one point, he accidentally hits his father hard in the groin with a golf ball. After the ball goes down the hole, we get this line:
    Mr. Duck: Congratulations, Son! You're going to be an only child!
  • Crossover Relatives: Despite fans' beliefs to the contrary, only Gogo Dodo and the original Dodo from the classic short "Porky In WackyLand" are officially related as per Word of God.
  • Crowd Song: The opening theme song, of course!
    • And the first few minutes of How I Spent My Vacation.
  • Cruella to Animals: Gotcha Grabmore.
  • Cuckoo Clock Gag: Gogo Dodo frequently emerges from the clocks at Acme Looniversity.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: At the end of the Spring Break Special, Buster reveals to the viewer that he is, in fact, the Easter Bunny, as Elmyra's plot in the special was her pursuit of him under that assumption.
  • Culture Police: "Washingtoon" had a woman representing an organization "against funny cartoons" and taking over Acme Acres with a device that stripped most of the kids of their "tooniness" so they could become bland, pro-social educators.
  • Cute Kitten: Furrball.
  • Cyberpunk: Spoofed in the Blade Runner parody "Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli".
  • Dark Horse Victory: Throughout the short, "The Year Book Star" (Part of "Toon Physics"), Babs and Plucky compete to see who can get the most photos in the school yearbook, with the loser having to suffer the humiliation of the winner's choice. During the official count-off, they appear to have tied, until it is revealed that a boy wearing an orange hat appeared in the background of each photo either of them was in, causing him to win easily. During his speech, the boy reveals himself to be a disguised Buster Bunny, who entered the competition to teach Babs and Plucky not to compete to win a bet. This prompts Babs and Plucky to beat him up as the cartoon irises out.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: The villain in Honey's cartoon in the episode "Fields of Honey".
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • The episodes "Two-Tone Town" and "Fields of Honey" are tributes to the original Warner Bros. cartoon stars, Bosko and Honey, as well as Foxy, Roxy and Goopy Geer, all of whom had been stuck in cartoon limbo for decades by that point.
    • Elmyra, of all people, got two episodes centered around her family, "Take Elmyra, Please" and "Grandma's Dead", both being Poorly Disguised Pilots to see if Elmyra could star in her own show.
    • The Flea Family, who were introduced in "Starting from Scratch" got another starring feature in "Flea for Your Life".
  • Deadline News: Played straight in "Cinemaniacs!". Buster Bunny's video game session gets interrupted by a news anchor reporting that a giant blob is devouring Acme Acres. The blob later infiltrates the news studio as well, and the anchor, caught by surprise, screams before the broadcast is terminated.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The short "Sound Off", appropriate since it was parodying silent cartoons. Also Two Tone Town in the episode of the same name.
  • Depending on the Artist: Several animation studios worked on the cartoon and it often shows. Kennedy Cartoons, in particular, had a tendency to do "squash and stretch" up to eleven, leading to very polarized opinions (fans calling it energetic, fluid, and bouncy, haters calling it sloppy). They were fired after Season 1.
    Babs, after trashing a TV that was showing a rerun of Tiny Toons: I hate the way I was drawn in that episode. I hate the way I was drawn in this episode too.
    • There was also Encore Cartoons, a studio that completely went against the point of the show: to have quality animation on top of quality writing. It was even lampshaded in the Credits Gag of "Strange Tales of Weird Science," an episode they animated.
    Number of Retakes-Don't Ask
  • Deranged Animation: Seen in many episodes that were animated by Freelance, Kennedy Cartoons, and the early Wang Film Productions episodes.
  • Deus ex Machina: Hamton winning a brand new house at the end of "Hog-Wild Hamton".
    • In How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Byron, Babs and Buster's useless pet bassett hound, suddenly revealed he can fly with his ears to take Babs and Buster to safety.
      Buster: (surprised) Byron can fly!?
      Babs: Who knew?
  • Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: In the parody of "Kon Tiki", when their raft starts to sink for a second time.
    Plucky Duck: It can't be! We did that gag already!
    Sweetie Pie: What?! You're going to bring up redundancy now?!
  • Die Laughing: In "Fields of Honey", a guy in the theater showing Honey cartoons laughs so hard he explodes.
  • Diet Episode: In one episode, Hamton tries to go on a diet, only to be constantly tempted by a chocolate cake.
    Cake: (in a deep voice) Eat meee... Eat meee…
  • Dining in the Buff: Hamton finds himself naked outside after doing something stupid at Plucky's urging (namely, skinny dipping in Montana Max's personal pool). When Hamton finally makes it home, a surprise party is awaiting him. He uses a "happy birthday" banner as a loincloth and starts eating the cake.
  • Disney Acid Sequence: Plucky channeling Einstein, in a shout out to the Pink Elephants sequence from Dumbo.
    • "Elmyra's Round the World" also certainly counts.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In "Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Even" (from "Toons From the Crypt"), Plucky is put onto a table saw for winning Hamton's dad's bottle cap collection in a game of jacks.
  • Disqualification-Induced Victory: In "Bleacher Bummer" (part of "The Wacko World of Sports"), Perfecto Prep's baseball team clobbers Acme Looniversity's in a game that Dizzy and Furrball are trying to sneak into. When they get chased by Arnold, who is working as a security guard, they break the Perfectos' bat, revealing they have been cheating using the "Magnet-in-the-bat" scam, thus resulting in Perfecto Prep being disqualified and Acme Looniversity winning the game by default.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Babs does not like her whole name Barbara Ann. Buster calls her this twice, once in the show and the other in the Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation film. Her response: "Don't call me that!"
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Fifi La Fume.
  • Domesticated Dinosaurs: In "Rock N' Roar", Buster picks up an egg while trying to get his soccer ball back, which hatches into a dinosaur. He tries keeping him as a pet, naming him "Rover" and even raising him to be a vegetarian, but Rover's massive size makes a mess of Acme Acres and Montana Max tries to trap him. At the end, Buster has to return Rover to the cave where he found his egg.
  • Don't Eat and Swim: On one episode, Calamity Coyote works as a lifeguard at a pool. After he sees Hamton eat something and try to get in, Calamity warns him (with a sign) to wait 30 minutes. Hamton shrugs it off, and as soon as he dips his toe in the pool, he gets cramps all over and falls in.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: The plot of the short "Lame Joke" stems from Buster's titular joke (anthropomorphically personified by a clown) dying due to Babs, Plucky, and Hamton not getting it and Buster only saying in response, "Get it?" Hamton ends up explaining it after he and Babs finally get it, after which Plucky also joins in on the ensuing laughter. This somehow revives the dead joke.
  • Downer Ending: Occasionally, although the trope is always Played for Laughs and never sticks.
    • "One Beer" (part of "Elephant Issues"), where Buster, Plucky, and Hamton drive drunk, crash their car and die. This is all just an act designed to teach kids a lesson.
      Buster: (taking his fake angel wings off) I hope the kids got the message.
      Plucky: Yeah, drinking's uncool!
      Hamton: I hope so.
    • "Out of Odor", in which Fifi ends up getting captured by Elmyra in the end despite Fifi getting her stink back due to Elmyra getting an allergic reaction from roses and not being able to smell it.
    • "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" ends with Daffy, Plucky, and Hamton still in jail (the former for a crime he didn't commit, and the latter two for trying to break him out).
    • In "Two-Tone Town", Buster and Babs help obscure Warner Bros. stars Foxy, Roxy, Goopy Geer, and Big Bee get parts on an upcoming television show when they are down on their luck. Unfortunately, the new show replaces Tiny Toon Adventures in its time slot, thus cancelling it and forcing Buster and Babs to get jobs at Toonywood Squares.
    • The short, "Buster at the Bat" (part of "Son of the Wacko World of Sports") subverts the original ending of Casey at the Bat with Buster actually making the home run. When Sylvester calls him out for this, saying it wasn't part of the story, Buster replies, "You were expecting me to strike out? I'm the star of this show!".
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Elmyra Duff towards everyone she encounters, Beauty Pageant Contestants, Catwoman, Shirley the Loon, Etc, all towards Plucky the Mallard. Also Babs Bunny on Buster Bunny.
  • Down to the Last Play: Pretty much any time they do a sports story, most notably "Buster at the Bat" which is a parody of the poem Casey at the Bat and another episode where they were playing Football.
  • Dramatic Drop: At the end of the "Istanbul" music-video, Plucky drops the priceless duck statue in this fashion upon learning that his "reward" for recovering the thing is to be paired up with Elmyra.
  • Driven to Madness: In "Paper Trained" (part of "Life in the '90s"), Buster harangues Monty to pay his newspaper fees (a mere $2). Eventually, Monty gives in and pays. The newspaper he receives informs him of a market crash, which has reduced Monty's fortune to $2...which he just gave away. Monty flips out and the next day's paper headlines that Monty was admitted to a madhouse.
  • Drugs Are Bad:
    • In "One Beer", which was dropped from the reruns for a while, Buster, Plucky and Hamton get a single beer from the fridge and goes on a drunken rampage ending with a car over the cliff scene to show kids that beer and drugs are bad for you.note 
    • Roderick and Rhubella Rat are introduced in "Butt Out" as a pair of smokers who annoy Babs—who ensures they will never smoke again.
  • Dunce Cap: In "Never Too Late To Loon", Plucky has to wear one after he is put in detention for failing his math test. (He had asked Shirley to "channel Einstein" for him, not realizing that Albert Einstein was a dunce at basic math as a child.)
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Played straight in the How I Spent My Vacation movie, in which the cast is being pursued on an Indiana Jones-style minecart ride with a chainsaw wielding psychopath trying to kill them, and Babs and Buster both confess their feelings for one another.

    E-I 
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Ralph the Guard from Animaniacs.
  • Ears as Hair: Babs Bunny. "Do you like my ears better up or down?"
  • Eating Shoes: In "Citizen Max" a flashback shows then poor Montana Max and Buster Bunny talking about eating a shoe.
  • Edutainment Show: "Animaniacs!", which shows how a cartoon is made.
  • Elaborate University High
  • Emergency Cargo Dump: Towards the end of "No Toon is An Island", Buster, Babs, Plucky, and Hamton escape from Booty Island with the treasure and the X-Bird. The combined weight of those items causes their boat to start sinking, and Buster declares that they need to throw something overboard. Plucky is about to throw the X-Bird off the boat, but the others toss out the treasure instead, despite Plucky's protest.
  • Episode Title Card
  • Even the Dog Is Ashamed: In "Toons Take Over", a boy, a girl, and their pet dog are watching TV when Babs pirates the signal to show the world an adventurous, romantic, and dramatic cartoon that she, Buster, and Plucky made. The dog, along with the boy and girl, are disgusted by the cartoon.
  • Everybody Do the Endless Loop: In several Kennedy Cartoons episodes.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Toons Take Over".
  • Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: The plot to "My Brilliant Revenge" (part of "Fox Trot"): Plucky's loud bagpipe playing overpowers "Swine Search" on TV (which Hamton has been waiting all year to watch). After missing the entire show due to the noise, Hamton rips up Plucky's bagpipes.
  • Everyone Has Standards: In "Her Wacky Highness", the Wackylanders eventually prove to be too wacky even for Babs.
  • Evil Counterparts: Roderick and Rhubella Rat are pretty much this to Buster and Babs, even sharing their voice actors.
    • Perfecto Prep (Roderick's school) has evil counterparts for several of the Tiny Toons.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Evil Versus Obliviously Evil in this case. The show was fond of pitting the nastiest of vile villains against little Elmyra, only for the bad guys to find to their dismay that Elmyra is even worse. This happened quite a bit to Monty, but featured with other baddies as well.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Plucky Duck's Brilliant Art Project".
  • Experimental Archeology: Parodied in "Voyage of the Kon-Ducki".
  • Exposed Embarrassing Purchase: Montana Max is forced into taking Elmyra on a date, and they end up at a popular burger joint. Elmyra then talks Max into ordering her meal, which is something for small children called the Happy Baby Puppy Face Meal. Max tries to discreetly whisper the name to the cashier, trying to maintain his cool demeanor. But the cashier loudly states "Oh, you want the Happy Baby Puppy Face Meal!", causing the entire restaurant to burst into laughter at Max.
  • Expository Theme Tune: Quoted above.
  • Expy: Justified, as they're teen-aged toons who want to be like their idols.
    • The entire University of Woodpeckers for Woody Woodpecker.
    • The spring break special has obvious chicken and beaver expies of Ren and Stimpy and a pair of familiar characters named Beaver and Bighead.
    • Sappy Stanley is a parody of the Terrytoons character Sidney the Elephant, also known as Silly Sidney.
  • Extranormal Institute: Acme Loo.
  • Eye Shock: In one short, Plucky practices a really over-the-top version of the trick but loses control and gets stuck as a giant eyeball.
  • Eye Take: There's a class for it at the Looniversity. The plot of an entire short even revolves around Plucky getting stuck in one.
  • Face Death with Dignity: At the end of "The Acme Bowl", Roderick Rat is furious over Perfecto's defeat when he sees Dizzy Devil and the rocket powered football coming straight for him. First he tries to avoid Dizzy, but then just gives up, ties a blindfold over his eyes, and just waits for the impending pain.
  • Fake Interactivity: In the first "You Asked For It" episode, Plucky uses a mind-reading machine to read the viewers' minds and determine who will star in the upcoming cartoon. In "Duck Out of Luck", he rigs it to only display Plucky after the first two attempts resulted in Buster and Babs cartoons, but the bunnies have modified the machine so that the viewers could determine what happens to Plucky. Plucky is placed in what seemed to be favorable scenarios at first, only to end up in a Butt-Monkey situation. At the end of the cartoon, he gives up and asks the viewers what they'd really want to see. He ends up being split into Buster and Babs.
  • Fake-Out Opening:
    • "The Wheel of Comedy," opens with Buster stating that it's "Spectacular Day," which is going to be looking at epic adventures, only for Babs to come in and tell him that the episode is running over-budget, forcing them to resort to shorts.
    • "How Sweetie It Is," starts with Buster attempting to show the adventures of history's greatest rabbits, only for Sweetie to hijack the episode.
    • "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian," starts out as a dramatic action-adventure episode starring Hamton complete with fake title cards. Minutes into it Buster and Babs come in upset that they're being completely cut out of the episode, kickstarting the real plot of the story.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death:
  • Fancy Camping: When Montana Max goes to the woods to hunt deer, he brings his entire mansion with him!
  • Fanservice Extra: All the Dizzy's girlfriends, especially Mitzy Avery.
  • "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: "Inside Plucky Duck" features Buster and Babs going into the depths of Plucky's mind.
  • Fate Worse than Death: When Hamton fails to boil a lobster, he sends the lobster to Elmyra instead. The lobster then decides that being boiled isn't so bad at all.
  • Faux Horrific: Babs' school photo.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: When Plucky and Hamton stole a candy bar.
    • At least they subverted the "reward the child thief for his honesty" trope.
  • File Mixup: In the short, "Plucky's Dastardly Deed" from the episode, "Son of Looniversity Daze", Plucky forgets to study for a test and decides to swap his test with that of Egghead Jr., the smartest kid in class. He later feels guilty about doing it and decides to confess it to Foghorn. Before he can though, Foghorn reveals that he accidentally dropped all the test papers in a mud puddle, and because this happened before he could look at them, the students have to retake the test, which Plucky decides to do the honest way.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode:
    • The episodes "Tiny Toons Music Television" and "Toon TV", which abandoned the three shorts format in favor of some music videos.
    • "How Sweetie It Is" also counts, since all the shorts star Sweetie and two of the three shorts don't feature any recurring characters.
    • "The Kite" (part of "Pledge Week"), which is about a moth befriending a kite. Hamton and Buster are briefly in it, but for the most part it's focused on the moth and the kite, with a minimal amount of gags.
    • The two episodes starring the Flea family, "Starting From Scratch" and "Flea For Your Life". They do feature regular characters (prominently Furrball), but the focus is mainly on the fleas.
    • While the episode itself isn't radically different, "Hog-Wild Hamton" is the only episode to have a "Gags by" opening title credit.
  • Flawless Token: Young black female Mary Melody, the only non-villainous human, whose main purpose is to be nice. She wasn't used often or in significant roles, to the point that Lampshade Hanging was done when she turned up as one of the hero's Merry Men in a Robin Hood parody: "Another cameo, another paycheck."
  • Food Fight: In the short, "The Horn Blows at Lunchtime" (part of "Music Day"), Li'l Sneezer practices his trumpet in the Acme Looniversity basement while eating Limburger cheese, causing assumed flatulence in the cafeteria. This leads to everyone blaming and tossing food at each other, until Buster finds him in the vent towards the end of the short. Sneezer then plays his trumpet gracefully, and the food fight continues.
  • For the Evulz: Rhoda Queen from "Can't Buy Me Love". Justified, in that she was based on Rhoda Penmark from The Bad Seed.
  • Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: The episode that parodies Citizen Kane shows Buster Bunny and Montana Max used to be friends until Max's parents won the lottery.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Entire cast.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: Buster is phlegmatic, Babs is choleric, Plucky is sanguine, and Hamton is melancholic/supine.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus/Unreadably Fast Text:
    • The credits of "Honey, I Shrunk the Clothes" in "K-ACME TV."
    • In the "Toon In, Toon Out" video, there is a note attached to the animation board when Elmyra finishes her rap: "This drawing is %$#@! See Rich!" (Referring to animation director Rich Arons).
  • Funny Animal: Entire cast, except for Elmyra, Montana Max, and Mary Melody.
  • Funny Foreigner: Fifi.
  • Fun with Flushing:
    • A baby version of Plucky Duck is learning how to use the toilet for the first time. He gets a lot of enjoyment flushing various items down it, such as toilet paper, Furrball, his toys, even his own diaper! He even climbed into it himself and tried to flush himself down the hole! The toilet gets clogged up as a result.
      • This gag was repeated in two more episodes, which consist of a trip to the mall where he plays with the elevator controls, and a miniature golf course with Plucky struggling to knock the ball in, going as far as to cheat (He gets better at it, though). It was also done in several Animaniacs episodes whenever he made a cameo.
    • "The Undersea World Of Fifi" had Elmyra searching for sea monkeys, and it ends with her draining it and having her say the exact same line as baby Plucky did.
    • The Kon Ducki episode had Plucky flushing a boat down the toilet as part of the "special effects" during the behind the scenes portion of the episode.
  • Fur and Loathing: Gotcha Grabmore.
  • Furry Confusion: Furrball vs. the rest of the cast. Furrball was usually portrayed as being a "normal" cat instead of a Funny Animal, but kept weaving back and forth between the two extremes.
    • This becomes especially noticeable with Furrball's front limbs. When he's in cat/quadruped mode, he has front paws. When he's in anthropomorphic/bipedal mode, he has human-like hands.
    • Then there's the owner of the pet store in "Elmyra at the Mall" (part of "You Asked For It Again"); he's a standing, talking dog instructing other animals how to get sold. The other animals act like regular animals.
  • Game Show Appearance: "Win, Lose, or Kerplooey", "Gyp-Parody", "Toonywood Squares". "Sloppy Dirty Dare", and "That's Incredibly Stupid." Several episodes had game show references hidden somewhere.
  • Games of the Elderly: In the episode, "Grandma's Dead", Elmyra's grandmother goes to Penewawa to play Contract Bingo. Near the end of the episode, she wins a hamster in her game of Contract Bingo and gives it to Elmyra to replace the one that had earlier passed away.
  • Gender Flip: Several characters are gender-switched versions of the characters that inspired them:
    • Babs Bunny for Bugs Bunny. (Lola Bunny was not created until after the show ended its initial run)
    • Elmyra Duff for Elmer Fudd.
    • Fifi la Fume for Pepé Le Pew.
    • Sweetie Pie for Tweety Bird.
    • Marcia the Martian for Marvin the Martian.
    • Furrball behaves more like Penelope Pussycat than Sylvester.
  • Genius Bonus: In "Elmyra's Round The World," Buster encounters an Elmyra genie: he then wishes he was "10,000 miles from here!," which she grants. Assuming Buster is in Iraq (Baghdad, where the Aladdin legend takes place), 10,000 miles to the southeast puts him right on Papua New Guinea, which is where the next segment starts. The geography is correct!
  • Genre Throwback
  • Girlish Pigtails: Rhoda Queen, Elmyra's bratty Neighbor, in "Can't Buy Me Love".
  • Give Me a Sword: Played for laughs during the opening of "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian" — Hamton asks Plucky for his sword, and Plucky appears dragging the sword across the floor, asking if they could have taken an elevator instead. Hamton responds, "Ahem!" Plucky then tries to actually lift the sword, only to fall down and flatten himself with the blade. Hamton then nonchalantly picks the sword up himself.
  • Going Commando: Sometimes with Babs as a recurring running gag.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Elmyra and Montana Max both go to school with the main characters. This occasionally poses a problem.
  • Gone Horribly Right: In "Two-Tone Town", Buster and Babs Bunny do everything they can to ensure that Foxy, Roxy, and Goopy Geer make a successful comeback. Unfortunately, the old toons' newfound popularity surpasses that of Tiny Toon Adventures, leaving Buster and Babs out of a job.
  • Good News, Bad News: In "Lame Joke" (part of "Henny Youngman Day"), Henny delivers this one-liner:
    Henny Youngman: I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, your joke died. The bad news is, who cares?
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: In an entire episode dedicated to anti-smoking one episode has Babs trying to enjoy some cake in a diner while two extremely rude rats constantly blow smoke in her face. Though it turns out they were more intent on doing it to annoy other people than for their own pleasure
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: While most Fowlmouth episodes bleeped him whenever he swore, the movie inexplicably had him continually saying "dadgummed", like it was a dadgummed verbal tic.
  • Grande Dame: One appears in the short "A Night in Kokomo" (part of "New Class Day"), which is unsurprising, considering it's a parody of all those Marx Brothers flicks.
  • Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks: in the episode "Hare-Raising Night." There's a panning shot of what appears to be Dr. Gene Splicer's Mad Scientist Laboratory, with a bunch of spiraling glass tubing and oddly-shaped chemistry equipment (flasks, beakers, etc.) in the foreground... only for the pan to continue and reveal it's just a painting, titled "Dad's Place." Dr. Splicer's actual laboratory is a surprisingly mundane office building (the giant vat of "gene juice" aside).
  • Grave Humor: There is one in "Lame Joke" while Buster eulogizes the dead Lame Joke:
    Grave #1: Knock-knock!
    Grave #2: Who's there?
    Grave #3: No one; I'm dead.
    Grave #4: [unamused] Puns!
  • Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: This is a class at Acme Looniversity. Buster, Babs, and Plucky once crossed a ravine by literally walking over it while looking up at the sky.
  • Green Aesop: "Pollution Solution". Also, any episode involving Plucky's superhero alter-ego, The Toxic Revenger, or Gotcha Grabmore.
  • Green Around the Gills: Buster entirely in "Buster And Babs Go Hawaiian" after eating a carrot chip.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The premise of the second half of "No Toon Is An Island".
  • Guilt-Induced Nightmare: In one episode, Plucky cheats on a test in Foghorn Leghorn's class. That night he has dreams of a mob of Foghorn Leghorns, complete with torches, chasing him around yelling, "Cheater!" The next day, Foggy shows up in class and announces that he accidentally dropped the tests into mud and had the class redo it. Plucky is the only student who's delighted at that.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Most of the cast in their normal outfits: Buster, Plucky, and Shirley. Babs does this in some of her alternate outfits (bottomless in "Her Wacky Highness" and "A Night in Kokomo"; shirtless in "No Toon is an Island"). Hamton sometimes does this in alternate outfits as well.
  • Hanging Judge: In one of the skits in "K-ACME TV", Yosemite Sam plays "Hanging Judge Sam".
  • Happy Birthday to You!: Sung in the "You Asked For It" short "Sleight of Hare".
  • Heads or Tails?:
    • At the beginning of "Thirteensomething", Plucky does this to help Buster and Babs decide what to watch on TV after school, as Buster would rather watch a football game, while Babs would rather watch the titular teen soap opera. Buster chooses the heads side, and Babs chooses the tails side. The coin lands on the tails side, and Buster is forced to watch Thirteensomething, much to his disdain. It is then revealed that Plucky's coin was double-sided, but he forgot which side was doubled.
    • Played straight in the opening wraparound to "Weekday Afternoon Live", when Buster and Babs argue over who gets to host the episode. Buster chooses the heads side, and Babs chooses the tails side. This time, the coin lands on the head side, meaning Buster gets to host the show.
  • Head-Turning Beauty:
    • Early in the series, Buster is shown to be easily aroused by Babs when she does her sultry routine (such as her Jessica Rabbit impression in "The Looney Beginning") or just decides to fix herself up to look nicer (her dress and what not for the prom in "Prom-Ise Her Anything").
    • Played with in the case of Fifi La Fume. She would knock 'em dead with her good looks... if it wasn't for her scent. However, she did have her moment when she appeared as "the mystic maid of musk, Scentanna!"
  • Heart Beats out of Chest: The episode "The Acme Bowl" shows Plucky Duck's heart pound beyond his breastbone when he sees Margot Mallard in the pool.
  • Hellevator: The Bullet Train to Heck.
  • Helping Granny Cross the Street: In "A Bacon Strip", Hamton is trying to get home so no one will notice that he is naked, and has used graffiti to paint a suit on the frontal half of his skin. On his way home, Granny asks him to help her cross the street, which he reluctantly does. When a car splashes him, it washes the painted suit off and a horrified Granny whacks him with her purse.
  • Hero Stage Show: In "Slugfest", Plucky drags Hamton into not only attending a Immature Radioactive Samurai Slugs live show but also wearing appropriate slug costumes — which becomes a problem when the Slugs' actual villain takes the place of the fake one, and on top of that Plucky and Hamton can't get out of their costumes...
  • Heroic BSoD: Montana Max has a big one (complete with a shot of a nuclear explosion and scorched, dead earth in the background) in "Prom-ise Her Anything", after Mitzi's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • He's Dead, Jim/Flatline: The Lame Joke flatlines from the terminal illness that is caused by Buster's unlaughable lame joke in "Lame Joke". As a result, Henny Youngman delivers this one in the form of Good News, Bad News.
  • Helping Another Save Face: In "Prom-ise Her Anything", Buster Bunny decides to copy the dance done by Bugs Bunny in "Hot Cross Bunny" (one of the original Looney Tunes shorts), in an attempt to hide the fact he doesn't know how to dance. When he actually performs the dance during the prom, however, everyone stares at him and his date Babs is aghast and embarrassed. Luckily, Bugs steps in and performs the dance too, leading the others to think Buster has just begun a new dance craze and getting them to join in too.
  • Hollywood Heart Attack: In "Lame Joke", the Lame Joke suffers one after Buster told his friends a bad joke that can't make them laugh, then collapses and slowly dies.
  • Hollywood Natives: In one episode, Buster, Babs and Hamton are stuck on an island and chased by natives. Animated Actors is invoked at one point, where Buster says, "Look, there are some naivetes," and Babs points out that it's a typo in the script, at which point Buster screams and runs away.
  • Homage: The premise of the whole show.
    • The episode "Starting From Scratch" is a homage to An American Tail, only it's done with fleas instead of mice. One must wonder if Steven Spielberg had a say in that episode, since he produced An American Tail too.
      • The episode "High Toon" featured a Mousekewitz-esque family of Mexican chihuahuas, complete with the kid that voiced Fievel voicing the young chihuahua Pedro.
  • Honest John's Dealership: Bicycle Bob's scheme to extort Buster while selling him a bike.
  • Hotter and Sexier: "Thirteensomething". As the editor of the Tiny Toon Adventures Reference guide said:
    "For the new season, we see B&B sharing a smooch, Babs with cleavage, Plucky hitting on Shirley ... did the toons complete puberty during reruns?"
  • Humans Are Bastards: Ever notice that most of the antagonists on this show are humans? Mostly Montana Max and cloud cuckoolander Elmyra Duff but the only exception to this is Mary Melody; in fact she is a better owner for Furrball than Elmyra was. It seems pretty hard to find a human on this show who isn't a total jerk to the main characters.
    • That basically stems from the fact that humans were usually the antagonists in most of the Looney Tunes shorts as well. When Bugs and Daffy weren't at each others' throats, it was either Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, or a one-shot human antagonist.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • The big running gag when Buster does a "Mr. Popular" episode — where he gives bad advice on how to be cool, backslides when that advice goes hilariously sour, and turns out not to be all that cool in the first place. Mr. Popular also gave advice against buying stuff bearing images of people they idolize, prompting the person who asked for the advice to inquire about a refund for Mr. Popular merchandise. Buster moaned the loss of his Christmas Bonus.
    • In "Take Elmyra Please", Arthur Jabba admonishes his lackeys for using double negatives and then uses double negatives himself when he continues giving them orders.
  • I Am Not Weasel: Elmyra once mistook Dizzy for a dog, and Fifi for a cat.
  • I Can't Dance: Buster, before a school dance.
  • Ice-Cream Koan: Plucky's inspirational speech to the alien kids in "A Quack in the Quarks", which included such gems as "Let the force be... your umbrella" and "A stitch in time saves... a lot of embarrassment."
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Episode titles frequently fall into one of three different categories; having "Acme" in the title, having "Toon" in the title, or having "Day" at the end of the title.
  • I Fell for Hours: In the episode "Journey to the Center of Acme Acres", Plucky and Hamton fall down a crack in the ground when a huge earthquake hist Acme Acres. After a while, they start getting bored and hope they eventually hit something just to break the monotony. They eventually end up at the center of the Earth where they float because their gravity reaches an equilibrium.
  • If You Die, I Call Your Stuff:
    • In "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow", when Buster plays dead to trick and escape from Elmyra, Plucky stops by in the middle of his performance to ask if he can have his videotape collection. Buster asks if they could talk about it later, and Plucky angrily storms off.
    • A Running Gag throughout "The Learning Principal" (Part of "Looniversity Daze") has Buster's friends ask for his stereo. The Principal even thinks about using this as an appropriate punishment for Buster. Buster then asks the viewers if he's the only one with a CD player.
  • I Have a Family: A lobster tries this on Hamton in "Drawn and Buttered" (part of "Here's Hamton"). Hamton knows he's lying because he has the same photo; it came with the wallet.
    • Played straight in "Easy Biter" (part of "Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night") when the mosquito shows Hamton a picture of his family from his wallet. Hamton lets him live.
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: During "Duck Trek", Furrball's character (who resembled McCoy) said, "Darn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a barber!"
  • Improbably Low I.Q.:
    • In the "Acme Cable TV" sketch, "Toonywood Squares", when Buster is asked what the difference between Mayonnaise and Elmyra's brain is, Buster answers with "The Mayonnaise has a higher IQ. After this answer is confirmed to be correct, Blink Winkleman says that the Mayonnaise has an IQ of 1 and Elmyra has no discernible IQ (meaning an IQ of 0).
    • While the actual number is not specifically stated, in the "Toon TV" music video, "Toon Out, Toon In", Dizzy Devil's IQ is implied to be between that of a dopefish and a chicken leg.
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It:
    • The full on-screen title is Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, a convention that would be followed for every Warner Bros. Animation show he would be involved with.
    • "Kon Ducki" begins with: "Plucky Epic Pictures presents: A Pluck Production of a Plucky Duck Film, "The Voyage of Kon Ducki", starring Plucky Duck as Pluck Heyerdahl, a film directed, produced, written, visualized, conceived, choreographed, and catered by Plucky Duck." Oh yeah, and there's a brief mention that Hamton is in the film.
  • Incessant Music Madness:
    • In the short, "My Brilliant Revenge" from the episode, "Fox Trot", Plucky is practicing his bagpipes for the Acme All-Bagpipe band outside Hamton's house. Hamton is trying to watch his favorite show, Swine Search, and can't hear it over Plucky's bagpipes. At first, he politely asks Plucky to stop, but Plucky ignores him and continues practicing. When Hamton misses the entire show, he destroys Plucky's bagpipes in a fit of rage. At the end of the cartoon, it is revealed that Hamton taped the show...and that he somehow missed Plucky's final musical attack: a tape recording of bagpipes cranked up to eleven (Plucky ends up setting it off himself).
    • In "Toon TV", the song "Do You Love Me?" appears to conclude, only to iris in on Babs plucking her eyelashes and getting annoyed that the song is still going.
    Babs: MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!!!
    • The short, "Ruffled Ruffee" from the episode, "Music Day" begins with Buster playing his electric guitar and inadvertently interrupting a children's concert hosted by the Raffi Expy Ruffee, who yells at him to be quiet and tosses his electric guitar and speakers into his burrow in response.
  • Informed Flaw: The cast attends the Looniversity in order to learn the basics of being cartoon characters while simultaneously starring in their own cartoon show and having perk filled contracts with Warner Brosnote .
  • In-Joke: During the beginning of "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian", the duo are trying to sneak in to Steven Spielberg's office to complain to him about Hamton's day in the limelight. On their way, they pass a group waiting to be seen by Spielberg: Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown, George Lucas as Darth Vader, and...some guy dressed up as a tiger. The joke here is that tiger is the school mascot of Kate Collins Middle School in Waynsboro, VA, The school the three young ladies who wrote this episode, Renee Carter, Sarah Creef, and Amy Crosby, attended at the time they wrote "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian".
  • Injured Limb Episode: In "Psychic Fun-Omenon", the short "Rear Window Pain" has Plucky injure his leg and Babs give him some binoculars as a present. He then sees Elmer talking to some eggplants he's growing like they're his children and thinks Elmer is making clones of himself.
  • Ink-Suit Actor:
    • Julie Bruin from "Tiny Toon Music Television" is based on and voiced by Julie Brown.
    • Musical sister trio The Roches portrayed anthropomorphic insect versions of themselves in their self-titled segment of the episode "New Character Day".
    • Henny Youngman guest-starred in "Henny Youngman Day" as a rooster version of himself.
  • Instant Roast: An American bald eagle incinerated by some fireworks bears a striking resemblance to a Thanksgiving turkey.
  • Interspecies Romance: Dizzy was often found in the company of (sometimes several) beautiful, human women.
    • Fifi has also gone after Dizzy, but she usually chases after characters (namely Furrball, Calamity, and Beeper) that she thinks are skunks. She also went to the prom with Hamton, who was revealed to have a crush on her. Chalk it up to the lack of skunks at Acme Loo.
    • Plucky and Shirley the Loon are a fairly consistent couple, despite Shirley being...well, a loon. (She looks exactly like a duck.) Fowlmouth also likes Shirley, though, and in "The Return of Pluck Twacey", it seems that Plucky, like his mentor, has a thing for the pigeon from "Plane Daffy".
    • Monty had a brief romance with Babs in the cartoon, "Love Among the Toons" from the episode, "Spring in Acme Acres" as a result of Concord Condor filling in for a lazy Elmer Fudd-esque Cupid. Among the other couples Concord tried to pair were Hamton and Elmyra, Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper, and Bookworm and an Elephant.
  • Iris Out
  • Ironic Hell: Silas Wonder, an evil circus ringmaster who kidnapped Wackyland residents for his sideshow collection, drove his train engine off a cliff to his death near the end of the episode. He was deposited directly in a cage in Hell next to strange-looking demonic creatures. The devil in charge then provides an Ironic Echo of what Silas had said earlier upon catching Gogo Dodo: "Now my collection is complete!"
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special".
  • I Will Show You X!: In "Buster's Directorial Debut", Plucky interrupts Buster's "Furrball on the Roof" film and demands rewrites so that he's included. Buster replies, "Rewrite? I'll give you a rewrite!" He then makes a deal with some anvils to produce Ducklahoma, where anvils are repeatedly dropped on Plucky.

    J-P 
  • Jackass Genie: Wishing Star variant; In the short, "Once Upon A Star" (part of "Toon Physics"), Elmyra wishes on a star that her Barbette doll were real so that they could play together. The wish brings Barbette to life. However, Barbette is very selfish, rude, and arrogant. The following night, Elmyra wishes on the same star, saying that she wants her Barbette doll to be just like her other dolls. Instead of turning her Barbette doll back to the way she was before, the star brings all her other dolls to life, who act just as selfish, rude, and arrogant as Barbette.
  • Jerkass: Sweetie Pie, who hijacks a themed episode to indulge in her own egotistical fantasies where she tortures anyone and everyone in her path. One short has her attempting to get Furrball to chase and eat her, heaping various punishments and humiliations on the poor cat, and when he does finally reach his breaking point and attempt to off the little hellspawn she just heaps MORE violence on the poor cat, who at the beginning of the short was minding his own damn business. Another episode has her use a machine to redirect Furball's cravings so he won't want to eat her. Rather than give him a harmless new craving so they both live in peace, she switches his craving to pit bulls so he'll antagonize Arnold.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: "Inside Plucky Duck".
  • Junior Counterpart: The whole show is about kids who are mentored by the classic Looney Tunes stars and as such, they retain their mentors' traits (mostly).
  • Jury of the Damned: "Night Ghoulery".
  • Kangaroo Court: In "Gang Busters", Buster and Plucky are put on trial for a crime Montana Max framed them for. The jury is made up of clones of Yosemite Sam.
  • Kavorka Man: Dizzy, who despite having lackluster hygiene and generally being uncouth, has no problem attracting the ladies. This is especially true in "Prom-ise Her Anything" when he shows up to the prom with a smoking hot blonde date that all the guys go nuts for. That being said, he's also a pretty nice guy who, according to said date, knows how to treat a woman (namely with respect.)
  • Kids Hate Vegetables:
    • In the short "Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli", the titular mistake is all that Buster Bunny needs to see to know that he's dealing with robot replicas of the rest of the cast planning to Take Over the World.
    • In "The Return to the Acme Acres Zone", the androids posing as kids are found out by a Stock "Yuck!". The evil droids like broccoli, something real kids don't eat.
  • Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: In "Duck in the Dark," Plucky watches a marathon of "Eddie Cougar" horror movies, including one that has him attacking a screaming Bambi. Of course it ends up giving Plucky horrible nightmares.
    Plucky: Only a total idiot would be afraid of these movies!
    Buster: I rest my case.
  • Kill the Poor: A kid-friendly variant. Babs, in order to raise funds to build a classic cartoon theater (long story), finds a way to scam Montana Max: she disguises herself as a rich woman and comes to his door seeking donations "to fight poverty on Earth." When he's about to slam the door, she continues, "...We're going to send all the poor people to the Moon."
    Max: Ooh! I'll give for that.
  • Kissing In A Tree: Sung sarcastically by various characters to Montana Max in "My Dinner With Elmyra" (part of "Love Disconnection").
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: "New Character Day" begins with Babs and Buster rejecting the audition of Roger Rabbit. To avoid legal action from Disney, however, we don't get a good look at Roger's face and he is credited as "White Rabbit".
  • Latex Perfection: Surprisingly happens quite a bit, mainly for some sort of surprise or twist...
    • In the very theme song, during the Theme Tune Roll Call Babs and Buster jump onto the screen, and then unzip to reveal that they were disguised as each other.
    • "Stuff that Goes Bump in the Night" had Buster and Babs trying to prank each other with such disguises of monsters in the bridging sequences, with Babs in a devil suit (with crotch entry), Buster as a stereotypical vampire (complete with stilts), ending with the two disguised as a two-headed monster.
    • "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow" had a scene near the end where four Buster Bunnies scare Elmyra and send her running for the hills. Once she's gone, three of them tug off their masks to reveal Furrball, Fifi La Fume and Tyrone Turtle.
    • In "Buster and the Wolverine," Babs uses a rubber mask to disguise herself as a female wolverine to trick the real one, and even though her true bunny ears are still visible, it manages to fool the Wolverine until the mask comes off.
    • In "Real Kids Don't Like Broccoli," futuristic private eye Buster finds out his friends are really the stolen androids he was looking for, all dressed in rubber masks. What tipped him off was how they were all munching on broccoli, something real kids don't eat.
    • "Pluck of the Irish" combined this with Totem Pole Trench, when the young lass Bridey reveals herself to be three leprechauns Disguised in Drag.
    • Also seen in "Out of Odor," when Elmyra disguises herself flawlessly as Pepe Le Pew as a trap to catch Fifi and remove her stench. Despite her voice sounding nothing like Pepe, it manages to fool Fifi anyways.
    • In "The Year Book Star," a boy in an orange hat is awarded for being in most pictures in the Acme Looniversity yearbook. But when he reveals himself to be Buster Bunny in a latex mask and suit, trying to teach them a lesson, Plucky and Babs beat him up in a rage.
  • Leitmotif: Acme Looniversity had its own leitmotif; every time there was an establishing shot of the school, the opening bars of Gaudeamus igitur would play.
  • Limited Animation: Like many WB animated shows at the time, this was sometimes the case depending on which company the animation was coming from — such as the Kennedy Cartoons episodes.
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Humans and talking animals attend ACME Looniversity together.
  • Liquid Assets: The episode, "Washingtoon" had the A.C.A.F.C. (standing for Adult Coalition Against Funny Cartoons, of course) Chairperson, the main villain of the episode, using a machine to drain cartoon characters of their "tooniness." Buster's tooniness is too strong for the machine, destroying it and returning everyone's tooniness (Although not all of them to their proper bodies.), including The A.C.A.F.C. Chairperson's tooniness, which had been lost many years ago, and saving Acme Acres.
  • List Song: The opening has a verse that lists the main characters and sums them up perfectly:
    They're Babs and Buster Bunny
  • Live Mink Coat:
    • In the episode, "Prom-ise Her Anything", Elmyra wore Furrball as a sash as part of her prom outfit.
    • In the short, "Fur-Gone Conclusion" from the episode, "Rainy Daze", Babs, as Buffy Vanderbunny, wears a Baby Seal as a sash in order to save him from being skinned alive by Gotcha Grabmore. She even tells her that wearing live animals is the latest fashion.
  • Living Dinosaurs: A Tyrannosaurus rex that Buster adopts in "Rock 'N' Roar".
    Buster: I never did buy that extinction theory.
  • Logo Joke: One sight gag in "The Looney Beginning" and "Her Wacky Highness" featured the classic "WB shield" chasing the Warner Communications "Big W" logo from The '70s with a large hammer.
  • Loud of War: Seen in "Hog-Wild Hamton" when Plucky plays loud music from Hamton's house, which causes Egghead Jr. to eventually retaliate by blowing up their house.
  • Lounge Lizard: Plucky parodies Bill Murray's Nick the lounge singer character from Saturday Night Live in "Weekday Afternoon Live".
  • Love Bubbles: Accompanies the reveal of Babs, Shirley, and Fifi's makeover in "The Amazing Three". Bonus points since it was animated by TMS, who does this kind of thing all the time in anime.
  • Lustful Melt: Performed by both Buster and Babs, on the occasion that one is kissed by the other, and also by Plucky, whenever he is fondled by an attractive female.
  • Magical Defibrillator: In one short, Plucky plays dead to escape Elmyra in the nurse's office. She uses a defibrillator. On his head.
  • Manchild: Then-U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle is portrayed as this in "Washingtoon", being completely obsessed with Tiny Toon Adventures and having a race car bed.
  • Marilyn Maneuver: Roxy in the episode, "Two-Tone Town". In one scene of a short film where she, Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Big Bee appear, her skirt gets blown up briefly when a swarm of bees fly between her legs.
    • In "The Roches" segment of "New Character Day", this occurs with Terre, whose skirt flips from behind when she and her sisters jump off the snout of Hampton's gas mask, and land on the kitchen counter. Part of her rear is briefly shown.
  • Matchlight Danger Revelation: Done by/to Person Man (AKA Plucky) at the end of the "Particle Man" music video, revealing the wrestlers who have been pummeling him throughout the video.
  • Woman of a Thousand Voices: In one episode, Babs does imitations of the entire rest of the cast; at a convention, Maurice LaMarche commented that Tress MacNeille's portrayals put the rest of the cast in just a little fear of their jobs.
  • May the Farce Be with You: "Quack in the Quarks" is an episode-long Star Wars spoof.
  • Meaningful Echo: In "Washingtoon", Babs comments to Buster that his "tooniness" is too much for the censor lady's vaccum machine. Later near the end, Buster's tooniness gets sucked into the machine...and it becomes so much for the machine, it explodes, releasing his and the others' tooninesses and saving Acme Acres.
  • The Meaning of Life: In the Indiana Jones parody "Pasadena Jones", Buster is searching for the Secret Of Life. He finds out it's friendship. So he turns to the camera, and announces next time, he'd rather look for gold.
  • Medium Awareness: Characters will often mention that a commercial break is about to start.
  • Medium-Shift Gag: Though not really animated, during the "Love Among the Toons" segment of the episode "Spring in Acme Acres", we see clay model versions of the toons through a ViewMaster.
  • Mickey Mousing: One of the first cartoons in years to do this, due to an orchestra scoring each episode individually, rather than recycling canned scores for the entire series.
  • Mid-Battle Tea Break: Seen in "And All That Rot" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits"): During a high-paced chariot chase/duel through city streets, Big Ben chimes, to which everyone (including the horses) stops for tea time. After a few seconds of this, the chase resumes.
  • Mini-Golf Episode:
    • In the short, "Miniature Goof" from the episode, "The Wacko World of Sports", Buster and Babs try to play a game of mini-golf on a course owned by Roderick and Rhubella Rat. After being treated unfairly by the Rats, Buster and Babs, disguised as Biff and Buffy Vanderbunny, challenge them to a game of mini-golf to claim ownership of the course.
    • In the short, "Minister Golf" from the episode, "Sports Shorts", while playing a game of mini-golf with Buster, Babs, and Hamton, Plucky tells them about the time he first played mini-golf as a baby with his father.
  • Miscarriage of Justice: One incident that really sticks out is the short, "Bear Necessities" (part of "Fairy Tales for the 90's"), wherein Elmyra is the Goldilocks to the Three Bears. After breaking into their house, trashing everything, and messing with their stuff, followed by causing great pain and abuse to the bears, they summon the police with an emergency alarm. Instead of arresting Elmyra, the police mistaken the bears for wild creatures, capture them, and haul them to the zoo. Though Pa and Ma weren't all too happy, Junior wasn't very comfortable living in a modern home, and didn't complain about the change.
  • Misplaced Wildlife: The animated music video for They Might Be Giants's cover of Istanbul not Constantinople shows a two-humped, or Bactrian, camel, as opposed to the one-humped camels found in the Middle East in real life.
  • Mistaken for Dog:
    • Even though Elmyra knows Fifi is a skunk, she is under the impression that "Skunk" means "Stinky Kitty", and thus at one point, tries to entice her with cat-related items, including milk and a litter box.
    • Played straight with Dizzy Devil, who Elmyra outright thinks is a dog. When he agrees to be her pet for the day upon hearing the free food she'd give him, she treats him like a dog, which includes playing with a rubber dog toy, feeding him from a dog bowl, and even grooming him to look like a poodle.
    • In the short, "K9 Kitty" (part of "Furrball Follies"), Furrball is mistaken for a dog by a near-blind couple who despise cats. He takes advantage of the situation for shelter by acting like a seeing-eye dog. His ruse is exposed when the couple get two new pairs of glasses.
  • Mistaken for an Imposter:
    • In the first wraparound of "Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night", Babs scares Buster while disguised as a devil. In the second wraparound, Buster gets even by scaring Babs while pretending to be disguised as a vampire. In the third wraparound, a Two-headed Monster sneaks up behind Buster, who thinks it's Babs in disguise again trying to get him back. The real Babs shows up, and the two bunnies run for their lives from the Two-headed Monster.
    • Buster spends the majority of "Ruffled Ruffee" (part of "Music Day") spoiling a children's concert hosted by the Raffi Expy Ruffee, while dressed in a diaper and a green bonnet. When Ruffee reaches his breaking point, he yells at who appears to be the disguised Buster, but when he picks him up, he's actually a human baby dressed in a nearly identical way. This proves to be a big mistake when said human baby's oversized father scolds Ruffee for doing so, and later beats him up.
  • Mistaken for Incest: Avoiding problems like this is presumably why Babs and Buster Bunny chime in with their "no relation" catchphrase when introducing themselves.
  • Mistaken for Murderer:
    • In the short, "America's Least Wanted", Plucky confuses Hamton with Knuckles Cutlet, a criminally inclined Identical Stranger he sees on America's Top 10 Criminals, and spends a majority of the short trying to turn Hamton in for a $25,000 reward. Towards the end of the short, it is revealed that the Police arrested the real Knuckles almost an hour ago, but Plucky, still desperate for the reward, tries to turn Knuckles in himself. He only ends up getting Hamton arrested and Knuckles and himself kicked out, with Knuckles trying to kill him as the cartoon irises out.
    • In "Grandma's Dead", Duncan, who has been watching a parody of Rear Window while he was sick in bed, believes his next-door neighbor, Mr. Bump, killed his grandmother when he thinks he spots parallels between the movie and Mr. Bump.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Dr. Gene Splicer specializes in making these. His most notable creation is Melvin the Monster, who has the head of a bulldog, the horns of a bull, the body of an orangutan, the wings of a bat, the legs of a pig, and the tail of an alligator.
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    • This is one of the reasons why Fifi La Fume is more remembered and adored than possibly most of the other Tiny Toons. Besides the French accent, she is often drawn with Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes and she boasts a rather curvaceous figure, it isn't hard to see why so many had a crush on her as a kid.
    • Babs doesn't ordinarily qualify, but some of her 'impersonations' and costume switches deliberately evoke it. "One word, girls: SPANDEX." (Cue Babs revealing herself a spandex bodysuit with more curves than usual, and Buster promptly losing his mind Tex Avery style).
    • Julie Bruin. This is the main reason why fans remember her despite appearing only in one episode. She is sexy and really, really buxom.
  • Mugshot Montage: In "Gang Busters", Montana Max gets a series of photos taken at various angles until he is somehow standing upside down, after which he falls down.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg:
    • From "Animaniacs!"
    Bugs Bunny: "Distinguished friends, honored colleagues, beloved cartoon stars, and, uh, you too, Daffy."
    Daffy Duck: "Oh, har har, it is to laugh."
    • Later, from the same episode:
    Buster: "Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen... and Monty."
  • Mystery Meat: In one episode, Babs Bunny enters a normally crowded school cafeteria, which is now empty. She handwaves this to herself with the phrase "Hmm. Must be serving mystery meat today".
    • Also according to Montana Max, the airplane food served to Buster and Babs hasn't been classified by science yet.
  • Naïve Animal Lover: Elmyra Duff is both an idiot and an animal lover. It doesn't matter if the animal is ferocious and has sharp teeth and claws, her undying love for them keeps her quite oblivious to how dangerous they are. When she does manage to get her hands on them, the animals find out from the way she treats them that she's even more dangerous than they are.
  • Needs More Love: In-Universe
    • An in-universe example was "Fields of Honey" when Babs discovered the work of forgotten cartoon star Honey (from the Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid cartoons), and began championing her to everyone.
    • And "Two-Tone Town" where Buster and Babs try to revitalize the careers of some of Warner Bros. oldest characters, Foxy, Roxy, and Goopy Geer.
  • Nemesis as Customer: In "Buster's Guide to Part-Time Jobs" (part of "Career Oppor-toon-ities)", Buster and Babs get jobs at Weenie Burger. Their boss is very rude and ill-tempered and his policy is "Service With a Smile" no matter how much an obnoxious jerk the customer is. When Montana Max is their customer, Buster and Babs try their best to serve him and still follow Weenie Burger's policy, but Monty continually gives the two bunnies trouble. Eventually, Buster and Babs decide to get back at Monty by kicking him out of Weenie Burger, which gets them fired (Buster describes this as "the best time to quit your job").
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Sappy Stanley from "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny".
  • "Nighthawks" Shot: Done in "Thirteensomething".
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Plenty of 'em.
    • Ed McMayhem from "Hog-Wild Hamton" is a play on Ed McMahon.
    • The episode "Pollution Solution" featured in the segment "Jungle Bungle" a Corrupt Corporate Executive named Ronald Grump, who is obviously a play on Donald Trump.
  • No-Dialogue Episode: There was even an episode done in faux-retro style, with black and white animation and no spoken dialogue whatsoever.
  • No Fourth Wall: The characters very frequently acknowledge that they're in a cartoon and/or address the audience in some way.
    Buster: (facing the camera) Hiya, toonsters!
    • In fact, the first episode of the series has no fourth wall, as it's about a cartoonist under a deadline creating Buster, Babs, and Acme Acres and interacting with his backtalking, suggestion-offering creations as they look up at him from the page.
  • The Noisy Straw: In one episode, Buster and Babs get a job at the local Burger Fool. Montana Max's "large soda" consists of a cup of ice with a single drop of soda in it, which explains why they always make that horrid slurping noise.
  • No Name Given: In "Toon TV", Babs introduces herself as "Downtown Babsy Brown", while Buster introduces himself as "someone else".
  • Non-Indicative Title: Only the first short in "Sports Shorts" deals with sports (miniature golf, specifically, which is the loosest definition of "sport" as it is). The double-length short that accompanies it is a parody of Jacques Cousteau films.
    • "A Cat's Eye View": Only one of the shorts stars a cat; the other two star Byron Basset and Plucky, respectively.
  • Non-Ironic Clowns: The Lame Joke and the Running Gag as Visual Puns.
  • Non-Mammalian Hair: Shirley the Loon has long blonde hair.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Many of the female characters, including Margot Mallard, Binky Bunny, Bimbette, and particularly Julie Bruin who has a Buxom Beauty Standard figure.
  • Not His Sled:
    • In keeping with "Citizen Max" being a parody of Citizen Kane, a discarded bicycle that Monty used to ride with Buster when they were friends is shown with the "ACME" logo on it, leading viewers to believe that that was what Monty was referring to when he said "Acme!". Monty then appears and tells Buster, Babs, and Hamton that he didn't say "Acme!", he said "Acne!", and shows them an outbreak of pimples on his face.
    • The short, "Buster at the Bat" (Part of "Son of the Wacko World of Sports"), ends with Buster hitting a home run and winning the game, much to the surprise of Sylvester, who serves as the short's Interactive Narrator.
    Sylvester: Say! That's not the way the poem goes!
    Buster: You were expecting me to strike out? I'm the star of this show!
  • Not in Front of the Kid: That wacky Fowlmouth.
  • Not Now, Kiddo: Elmyra's little brother Duncan gets this treatment in "Take Elmyra Please" when he tries to alert his parents that Elmyra's been kidnapped.
  • Obliviously Evil: Elmyra, to a staggering extent. She's generally totally confused as to why her smothered and mistreated pets keep running away.
  • Obvious Stunt Double:
    • In the "Making of" segment of the episode, "Kon Ducki", Plucky's original plan was to have Hamton as his stunt double during the scene where the mast falls on him. However, Hamton's inability to remember his lines led to Plucky having to do his own stunts.
    • Plucky himself became one in "The Return of Batduck", as Michael Keaton's stunt double during the filming of Batman Returns. He is even referred to as the "Stunt Duck" by the director.
  • Ocular Gushers: Parodied to the extreme in "The Return of Pluck Twacy" (part of "New Character Day"): Shirley cries so much that her tears flood Pluck Twacy's office and send him onto the street, miles away.
  • Official Couple: Buster and Babs.
  • One-Steve Limit: There are two characters named "Duncan" in the series; Duncan Potter, the little rabbit boy that Babs Bunny babysat in "I Was a Teenage Bunnysitter" (Part of "The Acme Home Shopping Show), and Duncan Duff, Elmyra's younger brother who appears in the episodes, "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead".
  • The One Who Wears Shoes: A few, such as Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper. It's especially weird because it's the only thing they wear.
  • Onion Tears:
    • In "A Quack in the Quarks", Buster, Babs, and Hamton try to find Plucky by inserting one of his feathers into their rocket's computer. The feather tickles the computer and makes the rocket go out of control, so the gang have to peel onions in order to make it cry and function normally.
    • In "Eating Between the Lines" (part of "Looniversity Daze"), Sweetie lands in The Onion Field and slices onions to trick Bookworm into crying with her so she can eat him when he's off guard. This plan fails because everyone goes to the library when lunch period is over, giving Bookworm enough time to escape.
    • In "Grandma's Dead", Mac Duff, Elmyra's father, is trying to desalinize tears so he can turn them into drinking water. To collect his tears, he intentionally chops onions while listening to sad music on the radio.
  • Only Smart People May Pass: Done in "Day For Knight" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits") when Buster wants to cross the bridge.
  • Outlandish Device Setting: Trying to impress a Hollywood director, Hamton and Plucky get jobs at a Hollywood restaurant, where one set of guests turn out to be Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Upon being served, the cloche over the tray is lifted, revealing a live chicken.
    Kirk: Bones, analysis?
    Bones: It's raw, Jim.
    Kirk: Set phasers...for...shake and bake. (Phasers are drawn and we cut away as the cast zaps the bird)
  • Overly Long Name: In "Thirteensomething": Babs Bunawalskioversmith.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: In the wraparounds for "Henny Youngman Day":
    Henny: People are always askin' me, "How do ya keep your act fresh?"
    Hamton: Practice!
    Henny: This kid's got more talent in his little finger than he does in his big finger.
  • Painted Tunnel, Real Train: Demonstrated by Wile E. Coyote to the class in "Thirteensomething".
  • Pair the Spares: Basically the reason why Hamton and Fifi are occasionally paired together, usually seen alongside the other main couples Buster/Babs and Plucky/Shirley. "Prom-ise Her Anything" is the best example of this.
  • Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Subverted as Babs Bunny and Hampton Pig are the only ones who wear a full set of clothes except they don't wear shoes as Babs wears a blouse, skirt and two pigtails on her ears, Hampton wears overalls to cover his full torso, while the rest of the characters are either naked, wear small accessories, or wears shirt at best.
    • Most Notably Buster and Babs Plays Straight while two other females with Hampton Pig are Inverted.
  • Parental Bonus: Many references to old-school Hollywood, for one.
    • This pun from the movie (after three bayou gator sisters kidnap Buster so he can marry them all)
    Buster: I can't marry all three of them, that's bigamy!
    Big Daddy: No that's big a' ME!
  • Parody Episode: "Cinemaniacs" featured three movie spoofs in the form of Superbabs, Duck Trek, and Pasadena Jones. "A Quack in the Quarks" was a Star Wars parody. "Ducklahoma"... you know.
  • Passing Judgment: In "Bacon Strip", Hampton tries to get home in the nude after his clothes get stolen during a disastrous attempt at skinny-dipping. Naturally, one of the first things he runs into is a late-night tour bus, with the guide pointing out "And to your right, a naked pig."
  • Performance Anxiety: Seen in "Stand Up and Deliver" (part of "Henny Youngman Day") when Babs realizes she has to go on stage after the immensely popular Robin Killems.
  • Perfume Commercial: Seen in "K-ACME TV", starring Fifi no less.
    Announcer: When you've got a smell so strong, nothing can cover it up.
  • Phone Aholic Teenager:
    • The short, "I was a Teenage Bunny-sitter" (Part of "The Acme Home Shopping Show"), opens with Babs talking to her unseen friend, Harriet on the phone, but then she has to leave to babysit and says she'll call back. After meeting Mr. and Mrs. Potter there, she makes a sandwich and calls Harriet back, only to have to hang up again to make a mashed-potato man for Duncan, the kid she's babysitting. At the end of the cartoon, Babs is seen sleeping on the couch while Duncan is talking to Harriet on the phone.
    • In "Take Elmyra Please", Amanda is seen on the phone, talking to her friend, Stephanie. She has to call her back when her mother needs her help calming her baby brother back to sleep when he awakens from his crib and causes a mini-rampage through the living room. During her conversation, Amanda tells Stephanie she's lucky to live in a family where her parents are always gone, and without brothers, sisters, or pets.
  • Picked Last: One cartoon sees Hamton complain about always getting picked last on the soccer team. At the end, the team apologizes, saying that it's not because they don't like him...
  • Picky Eater
  • Pie in the Face: Fowlmouth (and later Buster) gets one while strapped to the anti-swearing machine.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Babs and Buster. (No relation.)
  • Planetary Core Manipulation: In the episode "Journey to the Center of ACME Acres" the Earth's core is revealed to made of solid gold. Montana Max, driven by greed, strip mines and acquires the core in the form of one giant nugget. In doing so, gremlins who live at the Earth's center start rampaging over having their gold stolen, causing earthquakes on the surface. Buster and Babs Bunny end up having to recover the gold in order to stop the earthquakes.
  • Playboy Parody: One episode has Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, as faculty of Acme Looniversity, sitting as judges for the students' animated films, a duty each of them hates. At one point, Bugs notices Daffy reading a "Playduck" magazine instead of paying attention and snatches it away. Then he starts reading it himself.
  • Plot Hole:
    • In the made-for-tv movie, "How I Spent My Vacation", Buster, Babs, Byron, and a possum literally go from a Rollercoaster Mine to falling into a Plot Hole (or so the sign says) which lands them back at Acme University just in time for the fall semester to start.
    • Lampshaded again in "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian", where Babs' luggage is eaten by Dizzy Devil, but reappears in a later scene. Babs pronounces this plot hole as one "Big enough to drive a Mack Truck through!".
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Plucky Duck, and no other.
  • Political Overcorrectness: The episode "Washingtoon," where a lobbyist calls for the cancellation of Tiny Toons because it contains comic violence. She wants every kids program on the air to be touchy-feely, inoffensive, and bland.
  • Post-Treatment Lollipop: In the short, "Concord the Kindly Condor" from the episode, "Toons From the Crypt", Concord becomes a veterinarian, much to the chagrin of his three older brothers, who hunt and eat defenseless animals. After Concord treats his patents he gives them a lollipop. Near the end of the short when Concord nurses his brothers back to health after they get mauled by a bear, Concord tells them he's going to give them something he gives all of his patients. Concord's brothers expect to get lollipops, but instead, he gives them their medical bill, then says, "Who says I don't prey on the weak and sickly?".
  • Power Trio: The series sports two, both of the Nice Mean And In Between variety, and each being made up of the primarily Love Interests of the opposing trio. Respectively:
    • For the guys, there's Buster, Plucky, and Hamton.
    • For the girls, it's Babs, Shirley, and Fifi.
  • Poorly Disguised Pilot:
    • The episodes with Elmyra's family. The first one introduced us to Mr. Skullhead, as the subject of Elmyra's imaginary TV show. He went on to become a recurring character in Animaniacs.
    • Elmyra ended up starring in another show anyway, but her family (and even Furrball) got left out of it.
    • "Fields of Honey" and "Two-Tone Town" were also suspected of being this; the latter even lampshades the show's eventual replacement (with "ACME Oop!", a.k.a Animaniacs).
    • "The Return of Batduck" was a pilot for The Plucky Duck Show, which wound up airing only as a package of previously-aired Plucky Duck cartoons from Tiny Toons.
  • Porky Pig Pronunciation: In "Gang Busters":
    Rocky: Keep diggin', rabbit.
    Mugsy: Yeah, keep rabbit, diggin', I mean, keep dabbit riggin', I mean, just... keep going.
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: Happens at the end of "My Dinner With Elmyra". After Elmyra plants a big one on Montana Max, he was left shocked and then went to his limo saying to himself:
    Montana Max: I think I'm in love.
  • Prehensile Tail: Fifi, who can use her tail to grab "boyfriends", as a bat (As seen in Buster at the Bat), as a shield (As seen in the Defenders of the Universe licensed game), and to spray stink (Being a skunk and all).
  • Premature Eulogy: Double subverted near the end of "Lame Joke" when, after Buster finishes the eulogy, and he and his friends say goodbye to the dead Lame Joke, he suddenly recalls his lame joke that didn't make them laugh before but now makes them laugh with a little bit of reasoning... and brings the Lame Joke Back from the Dead.
  • Prima Donna Director: Sappy Stanley from "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny". Just one example of his demanding nature:
    Stanley: NOBODY drinks coffee on my set! I make one phone call and there won't be any coffee in this town for a month!!
    • In-universe, Steven Spielberg in "Phone Call From the 405" (from "Fox Trot"), as he re-writes pretty much everything about a skit Buster and Babs just finished, and even after they do everything he tells them, Steven criticizes that their fall off a cliff was all wrong and they should just do it over.
  • Produce Pelting:
    • In "A Ditch In Time", Plucky tricks the prehistoric ancestors of the show's cast into thinking he is their new leader. When Buster and Babs tell the truth about Plucky to them, they toss their fruit and vegetables at him when he returns.
    Plucky: "Yesterday's leader, today's tossed salad."
    • Montana Max does this to Buster in "Animaniacs!" at the beginning of the Acme Looniversity Film Festival. Fortunately, Buster dodges the vegetables, grabs one of the carrots (obviously so he can eat it later), and catches a watermelon with his ears and tosses it back at Monty.
  • Propeller Hat of Whimsy: Dizzy Devil is the Junior Counterpart of Looney Tunes star Taz the Tasmanian Devil. His only article of clothing is a yellow propeller beanie, which besides being a symbol of his ability to spin like a tornado, much like Taz himself, is a symbol of his hyperactive party animal personality.
  • "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: In "Devil Doggie" (part of "The Wheel O' Comedy"), Dizzy washes his mouth out in the shower after eating a spicy lunch. Elmyra sneaks up on him, holding what appears to be a knife, however, when she pushes the curtain open, it is revealed to be a brush. She thinks Dizzy wants a bath, and thus bathes him.
  • Puddle-Covering Chivalry: In the opening wraparound of "Here's Hamton", Hamton places a shirt over a puddle so Shirley can cross over it. When Shirley steps on the shirt, she falls through the puddle as if it were a trap door.
  • Pumpkin Person: The opening credits of Night Ghoulery has The Pumpkin Guy, a parody of Jack Skellington with a pumpkin for a head.
  • Pun-Based Title: "Born to Be Riled", "Fang You Very Much", "Easy Biter", "Bird-Dog Afternoon", "Senserely Yours, Babs", "Prom-Ise Her Anything", "Tennis the Menace", "Fur-Gone Conclusion", the list goes on.
  • Puni Plush: Perhaps an American example. They're portrayed as teenagers, but look rather younger. Of course, they are toons.
  • Punny Name: Mary Melody is a play on the Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" shorts. Also Fowlmouth, the foul-mouthed rooster.
  • Pyromaniac: Leonard, one of Arthur Jabba's henchmen from "Take Elmyra Please" loves fire and constantly asks his partner George if he can burn things. When they kidnap Elmyra and take her to their hideout (which she thinks is the studio for a TV show starring her), at one point, she asks Leonard to light the stove for her, since she's not allowed to play with matches. Leonard is happy to oblige and ends up blowing the hideout because Elmyra poured gasoline into the frying pan.

    R-Z 
  • Raiders of the Lost Parody: There was a Raiders parody with Buster as Indy and Montana Max as Toht.
  • Rain, Rain, Go Away: The episode, "Rainy Daze" features three shorts about what to do on a rainy day.
  • Rascally Rabbit: Babs and Buster Bunny.
  • Real After All: In the spring break special, Elmyra pursues Buster under the belief he's the Easter Bunny. Buster and Babs get rid of her and return to their lives back home. Then there was this exchange at the end.
    Babs: Can you believe Elmyra thought you were the Easter Bunny?
    Buster: Haha, yeah, what a joke.
    (Babs leaves, then Buster opens his locker, revealing numerous baskets of Easter eggs. He grabs a textbook and winks at the camera before closing his locker.)
  • The Real Spoofbusters: The Halloween special "Tiny Toons' Night Ghoulery" has Furrball dress up in full Ghostbusters gear to take on the ghost of Sneezer.
  • "Rear Window" Homage:
    • In the short, "Rear Window Pain" (part of "Psychic Fun-Omenon Day"), Plucky breaks his leg, and Babs gives him a pair of binoculars as a present. Plucky uses the binoculars to spy on unsuspecting citizens. When he sees Elmer Fudd growing eggplants and talking to them as if they were his children, he thinks Elmer is making clones of himself. It later turned out that he was making eggplants for an eggplant-parmesan recipe, and he was planning to give some to his neighbors. At the end of the short, Elmer complains about Plucky accusing him of cloning, believing it to be impossible. When he isn't looking, his eggplants turn into purple-colored Elmer clones, who say, "He don't know us vewy well, do he?".
    • In the episode, "Grandma's Dead," Duncan Duff, Elmyra's younger brother, is sick and has to stay home from school. To pass the time, he watches a parody of "Rear Window" on his TV, which gives him the idea to snoop on his neighbors. Thanks to some shenanigans with Elmyra's hamster, Duncan comes to believe that his grandmother has been offed by Mr. Bump. Grandma isn't even dead in the first place.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Bugs Bunny is generally portrayed as one.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "Prom-ise Her Anything", Max gives one of these to Elmyra, and then he receives a very similar one from Dizzy Devil's date Mitzi a few minutes later.
    • Fifi gives one to Johnny after he gives away her photograph to Bimbette in the movie.
  • Red Live Lobster: The segment "Drawn and Buttered" features Hamton facing off against an obnoxious lobster he plans to cook for dinner. The lobster is bright red despite having not even gotten into the pot.
  • Reference Overdosed: This show is probably the earliest example since the end of The Golden Age of Animation.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Buster, who is the more intelligent and calm of the 2 bunnies is the Blue Oni, while Babs, who is the more crazy and mischievous of the 2 bunnies is the Red Oni.
  • Repeat After Me: "Say Goodnight, Babs." "Goodnight, Babs."
  • Repulsive Ringmaster: The episode "Sawdust and Toonsil" has a ringmaster named Silas Wonder as its antagonist. The episode starts with his circus coming to Acme Acres, and him inviting Buster, Babs, and Plucky to see his "Wonderful Wonderpieces". Everything goes downhill from there. He captures rare and exotic animals, and is shown to horribly mistreat them (practically poaching them) and extort them for profit. He is also the only Tiny Toon Adventures villain to get Killed Off for Real, as at the end of the episode, his train falls off a cliff, and the resulting crash sends him to Heck, where The Devil treats him the same way he treated the animals.
  • Retcon: The episode "Fields of Honey" re-writes the Bosko history for the purposes of the plot. In real life, the Bosko series ended because Harman & Ising left Warner Bros. and took Bosko with them, but "Fields of Honey" claims Bosko and Honey lost their popularity because new star Porky Pig debuted—although in reality, Porky didn't debut until 1935 (arguably didn't make it big until 1936) a good three years after WB's Bosko shorts already ended. Then again, who could blame them for wanting to Retcon the existence of Buddy?
    • Bosko and Honey are also significantly redesigned, as they were originally African-American racial caricatures. "Fields of Honey" makes them over into non-specific cartoon animals. This is even Lamp Shaded a bit by Plucky, who asks of Bosko "And just what are we exactly? A tree slug?"
    • In "Elmyra at the Mall" (part of "You Asked For It Again"), Elmyra has a completely different set of parents than the ones which later appeared in "Take Elmyra, Please" and "Grandma's Dead".
  • Reused Character Design: Coyote Kid in "High Toon" is more or less Wile E. Coyote if he wore cowboy clothes.
  • Rewind Gag: The Credits Gag for the episode, "Toon Physics" lists the top 5 "Facts" for that episode. Fact number five states that the short, "A Cub For Grub" becomes funny when it is watched backwards.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Furrball, Fifi, Sweety and Little Sneezer.
  • Right on the Tick: Plucky and the other classmates wait for school to end in the song "Waiting for the Clock".
  • Rise from Your Grave/Back from the Dead: The Lame Joke miraculously revives from his grave after Buster recalls the lame joke that didn't make them laugh before but now makes them laugh with some reasoning. And as a bonus for being raised from death, the Lame Joke no longer needs the crutches so he can walk with the Running Gag.
  • Road-Sign Reversal: At the beginning of "High Toon", Beaky Buzzard sits above two signs, one leading to the amusement park, AcmeLand, and the other to No Man's Land, otherwise known as Prairie Junction. Beaky sneezes and switches the signs around, and as a result, Buster and Babs, who are on their way to AcmeLand, go to Prairie Gulch, which at first, they think is the Wild West section of the park.
  • Rollercoaster Mine: Appears in the made for tv movie "How I Spent My Vacation".
  • Running Gag: Several.
    • "No relation!" is one of the most well-known, combining it with Catchphrase.
    • Episode specific example: In "The Learning Principal" (part of "Looniversity Days"), everyone requesting Buster's stereo.
    • Granny assinging her students thousand-page term papers whenever they answer one of her questions wrong in "One Minute Till Three" (part of "Best O' Plucky Duck Day").
    • Sylvester spraying his spittle whenever he's speaking. Furball has at least once used a slicker and umbrella to shield himself.
      • Sylvester flooding the booth with his spit in "The Acme Bowl".
    • In the wraparounds of "Henny Youngman Day", Hamton finishing a punchline for Henny:
    Hamton: Practice!
  • Running on All Fours: Fifi sometimes does this.
  • Sadist Teacher: Granny, of all people, was depicted this way in the first segment of the episode "Best O' Plucky Duck Day". She yells at her students when they get her questions wrong and punishes them by forcing them to do 8,000-15,000 page essays over the weekends.
  • Same Race Means Related: Defied by Buster and Babs Bunny, the only two rabbits in the cast, who always introduce themselves as "no relation" in unison.
  • Sapient Cetaceans: This show had occasional appearances by Orson Whales, who had the same voice as Brain (considering that that particular actor is the go-to guy in Hollywood for an Orson Welles voice, it's no shock the characters sound identical).
  • Satire: This show mocks and laughs at American Retro Pop culture, also old fashioned media censorship policies.
  • Save the Villain: Happens to Montana Max twice; both examples involving a giant robot he uses to attack the protagonists, that ends up attacking him instead. Both examples also involve a case of Laser-Guided Karma for Monty anyway at the end.
    • In "Rent-A-Friend" (Part of "Rainy Daze"), Monty uses the Acme Bunny Basher robot to try to attack Buster, who is his rent-a-friend for the afternoon. Buster hides his ears and puts fake rabbit ears on Monty to trick the robot, who at this point, tries to drop Monty from the top of his mansion. Buster powers down the robot by taking a Durasmell Battery out of the robot's Achilles' Heel. The robot drops Monty anyway, but Buster saves Monty by calling the Acme Rescue Team, which cost $200,000, which he charged to Monty's account.
    • In "C.L.I.D.E. and Prejudice" (part of "Elephant Issues"), Monty orders an attack robot called S.N.I.D.E. note  to attack C.L.I.D.E. note . specifically, programming S.N.I.D.E. to "Attack Nearest Geek". As a result, S.N.I.D.E. tries to attack Monty. C.L.I.D.E. transforms into a race car to catch up to them, then to an airplane to catch Monty and get him away from S.N.I.D.E.. Monty thanks C.L.I.D.E. for saving him, and tells him that he was wrong to judge him based on his looks, but C.L.I.D.E., aware of Monty's plan to destroy him, transforms into an anvil to flatten him.
  • Saw a Woman in Half: Buster does this to Montana Max in "Sleight of Hare" (part of "You Asked For It").
  • Scenery Porn: There's something undeniably pretty about the way the animators put Acme Acres together, especially the colorful trees in each episode's backgrounds.
  • Schedule Fanatic: The teacher in "Going Places", who reminds the bus driver that they're a few minutes behind schedule.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Montana Max's M.O.
  • Script Swap: In "Ruffled Ruffee", Buster does this to Ruffee so that his song about a monkey looking both ways to cross the street ends with the monkey getting hit by a bus.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: In "The Looney Beginning", when Buster and Babs need to find villains for their series, they find a box known as the "Villains Box", that has signs with warnings such as DANGER! STAY OUT! and GO AWAY! written on it. Upon opening the box, it releases many of the series' villains, many of which are minor and one-shot characters, such as the Candy Bar Monster from the "Best O' Plucky Duck Day" episode segment, "Sticky Feathers Duck", The Devil from the ending to "Sawdust and Toonsil", The Metropolis Marvels from "The Acme Bowl", and Dr. Gene Splicer from "Hare Raising Night". Eventually, it gets down to Dizzy Devil, Elmyra Duff, and of course, Montana Max.
  • Self-Deprecation: The characters made fun of the writers all the time, from lampshading their falling through literal plot holes to the lyrics for the Wonderful Life Christmas special ("Our writers aren't gifted/the story has been lifted...").
    • From "Strange Tales of Weird Science", after one of the segments:
    Babs: (to viewers) Wow, you came back??
  • Sexy Santa Dress: Babs and Cher wear skimpy dresses when shooting a video (Babs even wears a wig matching Cher's hair).
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Plucky's storyline in "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". Plucky endures the road trip from hell with Hamton's family to be able to go to HappyWorldLand...only for Hamton's family to just ride the monorail around and go home.
  • Shameful Shrinking:
    • In "The Return of Pluck Twacy" (part of "New Character Day"), Ticklepuss (based on the obscure Looney Tunes character, Sloppy Moe) shrinks when he is unable to tickle Plucky, as Plucky has deliberately hit himself on the head with a hammer repeatedly.
    • Throughout "The Horn Blows at Lunchtime", Sneezer practices his trumpet in the basement while eating limburger cheese during lunch, causing assumed flatulence. When Plucky blames Hamton, Hamton shrinks down to the size of a mouse and hides behind his milk carton.
    • In the Summer Vacation movie, Buster shrinks when he finds out he's about to be forcibly wed to all three of Big Daddy Boo's daughters.
  • Shaped Like Itself: In "Stand-Up and Deliver" (part of "Henny Youngman Day"), a Louie Anderson-esque walrus said, "I'm so fat, I'm... fat!"
  • Ship Tease: Buster and Babs can't seem to decide whether they're just really good friends or a couple, and the writers had quite a bit of fun teasing us about it until the third season (when they finally started being overtly romantic).
  • Shockingly Expensive Bill: Taken to a ridiculous extreme in "Whining Out" (part of "Life in the 90's"). After tying down the waiter to get some service at a very snooty restaurant, Buster, Babs, Plucky, and Hamton each end up a tiny stale piece of cheese in gravy, which costs them "Everything you own and first born". They pay the bill using Montana Max's student ID.
  • Short-Distance Phone Call: Seen in "Day For Knight" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits") when Buster and Hamton talk on the phone, and are standing right next to each other.
  • Short Teens, Tall Adults: They're not called "tiny" for nothing. Despite most of the main characters being teenagers, they're around half the size of most of their adult counterparts.
  • Shout-Out: In "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits", Babs performs a train-whistle style scream that is a shout out to a similar scream done by Roger Rabbit.
    • A Roger Rabbit look/sound-alike also appeared in "New Character Day" and "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian."
    • "The Return of Pluck Twacy" is Eddie Fitzgerald's tribute to The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
      • For that matter, "Bat's All Folks" (also an obvious shout-out to Batman) introduced a set of Batman villain parodies and had Plucky react to them in the same way Duck Twacey reacts to his rogue's gallery.
    • "Inside Plucky Duck" is the Shout Out towards the Clampett Corneal Catastrophe, in Book Revue.
      • "Eating Between The Lines" (Part of "Looniversity Daze") has several Shout Outs to Book Revue as well.
    • "Ruffled Ruffee" has several shoutouts to the Chuck Jones classic, Long-Haired Hare.
    • There's also Buster's dance moves in "Prom-ise Her Anything". Which come straight out of Bugs' Hot Cross Bunny.
    • Shirley's psychic rampage in "The Amazing Three" is reminiscent of the prom scene of Carrie (1976). Babs even asks Fifi if she remembered that particular movie.
    • In "Drawn and Buttered" (part of "Here's Hamton"), the lobster pranks Hamton and then says a line used in many Tex Avery cartoons:
    Lobster: I do this kind of stuff to him all through the cartoon.
    • Another reference to Avery is Mitzy Avery, Dizzy's date in "Promi-ise Her Anything."
    • One of the Credits Gags is based on the way George Burns and Gracie Allen ended a lot of episodes of their show.
    Buster: Say good night, Babs.
    Babs: Good night, Babs.
    • The Parody Episode A Quack in the Quarks is a big shout out to Star Wars. At one point, every character is dressed up like someone from the movie to battle "Duck Vader." And in the loading bay? If you look closely between all the ships, you can see the TARDIS!
    • In one "Night Ghoulery" sketch, a Witch tasks her pet cat Furrball with getting rid of a ghostly mouse (Li'l Sneezer). On his second attempt, Furrball emerges from behind the sofa, decked out in screen-accurate Ghostbusters regalia. Li'l Sneezer even takes the place of the "No-Ghost" on his shoulder patch!
    • One of the attractions at HappyWorldLand is the Stairway to Heaven (right next to the Bullet Train to Heck.)
    • Mr. Hitcher is basically a walking slasher film reference: a dangerous hitchhiker wearing a hockey mask and wielding a chainsaw.
    • In "Gang Busters", Buster, Plucky and Gogo dress as the Fat Guys, spoofing the Fat Boys.
    • The episode "Thirteensomething" contains several references, including the following:
      • The Show Within a Show is based on Beverly Hills, 90210 while that show (and the episode's title) is based on the then-recently canceled ABC drama "thirtysomething".
      • The Reveal scene where Buster and Babs reveal they are toons is based in part on a similar scene from the movie Tootsie where Dustin Hoffman's character on that soap reveals the Dorothy Michaels character to be a male actor named Michael Dorseynote 
    • Banjo the Possum, introduced in "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," is listed in the credits as Banjo the Woodpile Possum, a reference to the 1979 short film Banjo the Woodpile Cat, which was animator Don Bluth's first independent production after leaving Disney.
  • Show Within a Show: "Thirteensomething", which Babs eventually joins.
  • Shrunk in the Wash: In the sketch, Honey, I Shrunk the Clothes Trailer from the episode, "K-Acme TV", when Hamton and Gogo get jobs at the laundromat, and they accidentally shrink Fifi's dress to the size of a doll's dress.
  • Sick Episode:
    • In "Acme Cable TV", Buster and Babs come down with a case of the "Tiawan Flu", thus cancelling their original plans for the episode. They spend the entire day watching television, as Babs' parents have Acme Cable, and by the time they recover, they end up turning into couch potatoes.
    • Daffy Duck is revealed to be sick in "Henny Youngman Day". Although Daffy is never actually seen in the episode, Henny Youngman becomes his substitute while he's sick, and bores the entire class (except for Hamton) to the point of them leaving him.
    • In "Grandma's Dead", Duncan Duff, Elmyra's younger brother, catches a cold and is forced to stay home from school. To pass the time, he watches a parody of Rear Window on his TV. Thanks to some shenanigans with one of Elmyra's pet hamsters, Duncan is under the impression that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Bump, killed his grandmother. Grandma isn't even dead in the first place.
  • Sickeningly Sweet: The prototype rabbit in "The Looney Beginning".
    Bunny: (laughs) Golly geewiz!! Aren't I the kyu-test thing you ever sae? Uh-huh? I'm sure am! I'll go to your house and I'll live there forever and ever and ever!! And you'll never-ever-ever get tired of me. And i'll go hippity-hop, hippity-hop right in your heart!
    Animator: Eeww, that thing will gives people cavities.
    Bunny: I love everybody in all the world and I even love being crumpled up being thrown away. (Becomes muffled as animator crumples him and throws away).
  • Sidekick: In the first episode, Plucky is hired specifically to be the joint sidekick of Buster and Babs. He angrily points out that Hamton (who they've already hired as the Straight Man) "has all the earmarks of a sidekick" and reveals that Hamton really does have "sidekick" written on his ear. These two characters pretty much play the sidekick roles throughout the series, and in a lot of the action parodies Hamton becomes Plucky's sidekick, making him the sidekick to a sidekick.
  • Sneeze of Doom: At the beginning of "High Toon", Beaky Buzzard's sneeze causes him to switch the signs leading to AcmeLand and No Man's Land around, thus leading Buster and Babs to No Man's Land.
  • So Bad, It's Good: In-universe example; Cooper DeVille realizes that Buster, Babs, and Plucky's movie in "Toons Take Over" falls into this category, though he initially feels it's horrible.
  • So Much for Stealth: In "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny", after Daffy Duck is framed for the disappearance of Bugs Bunny and is throw in prison, Plucky decides to break Daffy out of prison by sneaking into the prison and picking the lock to Daffy's cell and leaving in the dead of night while dressed in black. The minute Plucky touches a lock on the roof of the jail building, a thousand alarms go off and he and Hamton get thrown in the click with Daffy.
  • Something We Forgot: "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny" ends with Buster asking this question. Turns out they forgot to release Plucky and Daffy from jail.
  • Sound-Effect Bleep: Used liberally in "To Bleep Or Not To Bleep" (from "Test Stressed"), as Fowlmouth can't stop swearing.
    • Also used in "Stand-Up and Deliver" (from "Henny Youngman Day") in the case of a briefly-appearing comedian named "The Roach" (based off of Andrew "Dice" Clay).
  • Species Surname:
    • Buster and Babs Bunny. (No relation.)
    • Also Plucky Duck, Hamton J. Pig, Calamity Coyote, Gogo Dodo... actually, about half the cast.
    • Julie Bruin is also this by way of Genius Bonus, as "bruin" is a somewhat archaic word for "bear" that many kids won't have heard.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: This show tends to play happy "That's all folks!" style music at the end of episodes, even if said episode ended badly for the main character. The ending to "Out of Odor" (part of "Viewer Mail Day") is a prime example.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Many fans still misspell "Hamton" and "La Fume" as "Hampton" and "Le Fume" respectively. Also "Fowlmouth," not "Foulmouth." Furthermore, "Furrball" has two R's.
  • Spin the Bottle: The episode, "Hog Wild Hamton" used this game. On the first spin, the bottle tracked Buster Bunny when he moved out of the way, and convinced Babs Bunny it pointed to an ugly man with big lips when Buster hid behind him. On the second spin, it pointed to Buster again even though he was well outside the circle.
  • Spinoff Babies: Perhaps one of the best-loved examples of this trope.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • "Class Cut-Up" is basically "One Froggy Evening", only with Hamton and featuring some dialog.
    • "Acme Acres Summer Olympics" is done in the style of those spot gag cartoons that Tex Avery was fond of making during his time at Warner Bros.
    • Tiny Toon Adventures had its own Spiritual Successor in Animaniacs.
    • Tiny Toon Adventures itself is this to Looney Tunes.
    • The Looney Tunes Show could be considered a spirtual successor to Tiny Toons, as they both focus on modern social elements combined with classic Looney Tunes slapstick.
  • Split-Screen Phone Call: Parodied in "Born to Be Riled".
    • Also "Happy Birthday Hamton", where Buster and Plucky's screens crush Hamton in the middle.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: There's actually a Spotlight Stealing class at the Looniversity (taught by notorious Attention Whore Daffy Duck). Plucky, Buster, Babs, Hamton and Elmyra must have done especially well, considering how much focus they got.
    • This is lampshaded at the end of "How Sweetie It Is", in which the secondary characters protest against Buster and Babs for not giving them enough focus.
  • Spraying Drink from Nose: The cartoon, "Milk, It Makes a Body Spout" from the episode "Here's Hamton" involves Buster and Plucky competing to see who can make Hamton laugh so hard, milk squirts out his nose first.
  • Status Quo Game Show: In the "K-Acme TV" sketch, "Gyp-Parody", Buster hosts the titular game show. His three contestants are Elmyra, Dizzy, and Calamity. However, none of them are able to win anything; Calamity because while he does know the question to each answer, his buzzer refuses to work, Dizzy because he ate his podium, and Elmyra because she's just plain stupid. The sketch ends with Elmyra's blunders driving Buster crazy and Babs quietly wheeling him away.
  • Stealing the Credit: Throughout "Sepulveda Boulevard", Montana Max steals scripts, crosses out the previous writers' names, and puts his name in their place. It starts with Plucky's script (though Plucky wasn't all that original to begin with, as he crossed out Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's names before putting his name in), and then he tries taking credit for Elmyra's script, "101 Cuddly Puppies Meet Princess Pretty Girl". He gets found out by Hamton towards the end of the episode. At the end of the episode, Mr. Cooper DeVille takes all the credit for Elmyra's film, prompting Monty, Elmyra, and Plucky to beat him up.
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: Parodied on "Superbabs", wherein Babs Bunny, as Superbabs, protects the general metropolitan area. The other characters realize at the end of the short that she must be someone they know.
    Plucky Duck: Now who do we know named "Super"?
  • Stock Footage: "Take Elmyra Please" begins with reused animation from "K-ACME TV", except with new dialog reflecting that Buster and Babs are presenting an episode centered around Elmyra's family. This is particularly odd because the "K-ACME TV" footage was by Wang, but "Take Elmyra Please" was done by TMS.
    • An odd example: The opening of "Strange Tales of Weird Science" (that is, Elmyra forcing Buster and Babs to play with her) was actually stock footage, though it wasn't used in any aired episode. It was originally intended for "The Looney Beginning", but was cut for time. Since "Weird Science" was running short, this bit was inserted into that episode and some new dialog was ADR'd into the scene to change the context that Buster and Babs are late starting the show because they're being hounded by Elmyra. It's easy to tell this footage was meant for another episode, however, because it was animated by Kennedy Cartoons and Wang Film Productions, while "Weird Science" was by Encore Cartoons.
  • Straight Man: Hamton, much like his mentor Porky Pig was to the Looney Tunes. Mary Melody in the rare times she actually interacts with the main characters.
    • Lampshaded in the first episode, when Hamton auditions for the show. He's specifically hired because Babs says they need a straight man.
    Hamton: I react to characters funnier than I am!
  • Stylistic Suck: In Animaniacs!, each of the animated shorts that the Toons produced were poorly done. This is lampshaded by the fact that Bugs had to force Porky and Daffy to help him judge the festival. In particular, Dizzy Devil and Elmyra's shorts were crudely done crayon pieces, Max's cartoon was a self-aggrandizing revenge fantasy(That he didn't even do himself!), Shirley's was a pretentious seventeeen-hour long tone poem, and Gogo's was... a live-action dance instruction film from 1953.
  • Suck E. Cheese's: Cheesy Sneezer's. Although the name brings to mind Caesarland, the Chuck E. Cheese's clone made by Little Caesars.
  • Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: In the episode where the main gang ends up in England, Babs reveals she's fluent in "royalese," which was necessary in order to talk to Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
  • Suddenly Speaking: Furrball, and not consistently, either. One time it was Frank Welker performing Furrball's voice (basically, a higher version of his Fred Jones voice); another time, it was just Frank meowing; yet another time, Rob Paulsen did his voice instead.
    • It should be noted that two of the instances where Furrball speaks (specifically, "Cinemaniacs" and "Buster and the Wolverine") were early in the production order, and thus can be seen as testing whether he should have a voice or not. The writers quickly decided Furrball worked better as a normal cat who just meows.
  • Super-Strong Child: In "Take Elmyra Please", Elmyra's baby brother has super strength, which he uses to bend the bars on his crib and go on a mini-rampage through the living room. However, in the follow-up episode, "Grandma's Dead", he does not display any of his super strengths and acts more like a typical baby.
  • Superhero Episode: The segment "Just-Us League of Super Toons" where Pluck play the role of Batman and Hamton the role of Robin. Buster play the role of Superman and introduces Plucky to the Just-Us League of Supertoons, consisting of himself, Wonder Babs (Babs as Wonder Woman), Little Dasher (Little Beeper as The Flash), Hawk Loon (Shirley as Hawgirl), Aquamutt (Byron Basset as Aquaman), Pink Canary (Sweetie as Black Canary), Keen Arrow (Calamity Coyote as Green Arrow), and Scentenna (Fifi as Zatanna).
  • The Take: Invoked and parodied in the second segment of "Inside Plucky Duck", the tiny toons are receiving a lecture on Cartoon Wild Takes. Given that Bugs is teaching them the basic ones, Plucky Duck is unimpressed, so he attempts one of the complex techniques (taught by Daffy in an advanced class) as his grand finale for his pop quiz. The problem? Plucky gets stuck as a legged, giant eyeball after trying his hand at the Clampett Corneal Catastrophe.
  • Take Our Word for It: The cow getting processed to make a hamburger in "Slaughterhouse Jive" (part of "Going Places"). We don't see it occur but Montana Max is visibly horrified.
  • Take That!:
    • The Spring Break special directs one each at Beavis And Butthead and The Ren & Stimpy Show.
    • The creepy fanboy in "Night Ghoulery" is based on a stalker who sent Tress MacNeille disturbing letters which caused her to fear for life and cancel any convention appearances she was planning to make around where he livesnote .
    • Censors are frequently bashed, even making a whole episode ("Washingtoon") about how it's bad. It doesn't help they openly bash them in the theme song.
    • "Acme Cable TV" straddles the line between being an Affectionate Parody and a Take That! to various TV shows and commercials of its era and before. The parody of The Cosby Show in particular is downright savage. Gogosby (Gogo parodying Bill Cosby) requests a cute new daughter to keep the show going, as his "movie career is in the dumpster".
    • The Perfecto Prep characters are broadnote  potshots at Disney animated characters.
    • Several shots are taken at Disney, especially the then struggling The Disney Channel.
    Happy the Cow: For those of you with weak stomachs, I suggest switching to The Disney Channel.
  • "Take That!" Kiss: Buster gives one to Ruffee in "Ruffled Ruffee".
    • Babs gives onto Elmyra in "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow" as part of a plan to rescue Babs and the other animals.
  • Taken for Granite: Happens to Roderick in "The Acme Bowl" after running through and smelling a cloud of Fifi's stink, Hamton in "The Just-us League of Supertoons" after being hit by a blast of Fifi's stink, and Hamton in "Pluck O' the Irish" by a banshee's stare.
  • Telethon: The episode, "Pledge Week" involves the characters from the show hosting a telethon, but nobody seems to be pledging any money, or even calling, aside from a prank caller. In the third wraparound, after telling the viewers the wonderful stuff they could get if they pledged (including the actual Plucky), they manage to raise $0.07.
  • Terrible Interviewees Montage: In "Thirteensomething", after Babs aces her audition for the titular Show Within a Show, Buster is left to hold auditions for a replacement cohost for Tiny Toon Adventures. The first candidate is a rabbit who's a Brainless Beauty, the second is a rabbit who is ugly and has Bad "Bad Acting", and the third is a Non-anthropomorphic white rabbit. When none of those work out, even Plucky Duck and Shirley the Loon offer their services as Buster's replacement cohost, but to no avail.
  • Terrible Trio:
    • Silas Wonder and his two nameless henchmen in "Sawdust and Toonsil".
    • Montana Max, Dizzy Devil, and Calamity Coyote form one in "Hero Hamton" during the boxing match.
    • Arthur Jabba, George, and Leonard in "Take Elmyra Please".
    • Boss Tick, Flick, and Flit in "Flea For Your Life".
    • Nasty, Slim, and Lardo Condor, Concord's older brothers in "Concord the Kindly Condor" (part of "Toons From the Crypt").
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: And how! Babs being piiiink and wearing bows in her ears.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: During the escape from Montana Max's mansion in "The Looney Beginning".
  • Theme Naming: Elmyra's pet hamsters in "Grandma's Dead," are named after main characters in The Brady Bunch.
  • Theme Tune Roll Call: In order of appearance: Babs, Buster, Montana Max, Elmyra, Hamton, Plucky, Dizzy Devil, Furrball, and Gogo.
    • Also parodied in "The Buster Bunny Bunch", due to it being a parody of The Mickey Mouse Club.
  • Thermometer Gag: In the short, "Concord the Kindly Condor" (part of "Toons From the Crypt"), a bear gets caught in a trap. Concord arrives, takes out a thermometer, and walks towards the bear's rear. The next shot is a close-up of the bear's satisfied face, surrounded by hearts. This gag is then revealed to be subverted, as Concord merely used the thermometer to pry the trap open so the bear could get free.
  • Thick-Line Animation: Certain scenes in most episodes animated by Kennedy Cartoons, which was not used after Season 1 due to quality control issues.
    • Wang is also guilty of this in its S1 episodes, though they got better, as mentioned above.
    • Parodied briefly in the cartoon, "Phone Call From the 405" from the episode, "Fox Trot."
  • Three Shorts: Some were in this format (usually with a bumper before each), while others were standalone 22-minute episodes. Even rarer are the "one short and one long" 2-ep format.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: Some characters have had this occur with them in some episodes, which would include the following:
    • In "To Bleep or Not To Bleep" from "Test Stressed", a furious Fowlmouth finds out that Shirley had already been asked to the prom by Plucky; he looks as if he's about to blow up once again, the few babies Buster used to ease up on the rooster's obscenities cry and flee, he's literally stomping mad, so much so he causes the earth to shake, his face turns violet and just as he's seemingly going to let loose with the bleeped, bad language, his facial color reverts to normal and he nonchalantly and coolly says, "rats, maybe next time".
    • In "Born To Be Riled" from "The Buster Bunny Bunch", Shirley and Fifi's faces turn red, as they're fuming at Babs' impressions of them.
    • In "Kat-Astrophe" from "Wake Up Call of the Wild", Hamton's face gets red, heated over Furrball's inability to resist destroying the house.
    • In "Pledge Week" from " It's All Relative", a ticked-off and irritated Babs' face turns red when her mother tells her once again to do "that other funny thing you do", which is hindering her plans with Buster. Babs quotes her except in first person, through clenched teeth.
    • In "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian", Buster's face turns into a paler shade of blue than usual, when steward Plucky asks if he'd like gray lumps with brown sauce or brown lumps with gray sauce. Save for his red shirt, Buster also gets ill from eating a carrot chip and in reaction to it, he melts into a puddle and dashes to the airplane's restroom (which is already full of occupants who also have upset stomachs) to throw up in there. He then exits the restroom and asks, "So you guys had the carrot chips too?"
    • In "The Voyage of Kon Ducki" from "Kon Ducki", Plucky's face is turned white during the sea storm part and he gets seasickness, and turned away from the viewers, he's seen vomiting over the ship, into the sea.
    • In the same segment/episode, a bashful Hamton is seen blushing lightly after his grass skirt falls from his waist and a tour bus guide points him out to the tourists.
  • Tickle Torture: Performed by a villain (Sloppy Moe from the Injun Trouble short with Porky Pig and Wagon Heels) on Plucky in "The Return of Pluck Twacy" (part of "New Character Day").
  • Time Traveler's Dinosaur: In "A Ditch in Time", Plucky invents a time machine to travel back in time and do his homework ahead of time, since he always waits until the last minute to do his homework. When he tests the time machine out, he travels back to prehistoric times. When he travels back to ACME Acres in the present day, he accidentally takes Dizzy Devil's dinosaur ancestor with him. Dizzy's dinosaur ancestor terrorizes ACME Acres until Elmyra Duff terrorizes him, at which point he begs for Plucky to take him back to his home time period.
  • Title Theme Drop: In "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?", during the climatic scene where Stanley attempts to get away from Buster and Babs.
  • Time Travel Episode:
    • In "A Ditch in Time", Plucky's future self builds a time machine, then travels back four days to show his present-day counterpart. The present-day Plucky borrows the time machine so he can travel back in time to do his homework ahead of time. However, when he shows it to Buster and Babs, he travels back to a Prehistoric Acme Acres, while Buster and Babs travel to a Medieval Acme Acres. They all meet the ancestors of the show's cast, mostly the Prehistoric ones. Plucky takes advantage of the Prehistoric ancestors, until Buster and Babs reunite with him and tell them the truth.
    • In "What Makes Toons Tick", Calamity builds a time machine so Buster can show the viewers why his friends are the way they are. He and Calamity travel back to Dizzy Devil's first romantic encounter, Baby Plucky's experience with a mall elevator, and Hamton and Sneezer's fearless encounters with a closet monster.
  • Tongue-Out Insult: Alluded to in one episode when Hampton is trying to boil a lobster, and the crustacean, in a thick Irish accent, demands "Don't stick your tong out at me!"note 
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: While Michigan J. Frog has never been a particularly nice or cooperative amphibian, he takes it to extremes in one episode where he outright mocks a turtle that's having trouble crossing a busy highway. He gets his comeuppance.
  • Toon Physics: Acme Looniverity teaches many different types of these.
    • An episode from the second season uses this exact title. The episode features the Orson Welles expy, Orson Whales, explaining to the viewers how toon physics differ from real-world physics.
  • Toothy Bird:
    • See Plucky in the above picture.
    • Fowlmouth too.
    • A non-avian example; Sappy Stanley from "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" is an elephant who has his mouth (with teeth) at the end of his trunk, though he was pretty inconsistent. Occasionally, he'd have his mouth in the normal location, so either he had two mouths or the animators weren't paying attention to what they were doing.
  • Tour Guide Gag
  • Trade Snark: In "Hollywood Plucky", Hamton was working a valet parking job, and Batman has him park his Batmobile. However, while attempting to do this, Hamton accidentally flies it into the moon. It turns into a Bat-signal, and a "TM" quickly flies up next to it.
  • Trash of the Titans:
    • In "Thirteensomething", after Babs aces her audition for the titular Show Within a Show and Buster is unable to find a replacement cohost for Tiny Toon Adventures, he goes into a deep depression and leaves his burrow filled with piles of trash. When Plucky and Shirley come over to visit him, they are quick to take notice.
      Plucky: "Yuck! Smells like something died down here!"
      Buster: "Yeah, my career."
    • At the beginning of "Compromising Principals" (part of "Best of Buster Day"), various garbage falls on Buster when he opens his locker in an attempt to clean it out for the Student of the Day contest. Plucky, who is wearing a gas mask, tells Buster he'll never win the contest with a messy locker.
  • Treasure Hunt Episode: In "No Toon is an Island", Buster, Babs, Plucky, and Hamton find a treasure map leading to Booty Island. During their travel, they are warned by the ghost of the Pirate Captain about the legendary Green-Eyed Monster. They split the treasure evenly, but when Babs, Plucky, and Hamton's shares get stolen by the Island's only inhabitant, the X-Bird, they all accuse Buster of stealing it and battle each other for the remaining share.
  • Twerp Sweating:: In "Dating Acme Acres Style," Buster picks up Babs for a date and has to spend some time with her father, who is portrayed as a huge hulking monster.
  • Twist Ending: Lampshaded in "A Walk on the Flip Side" (part of "The ACME Acres Zone"); Montana Max dreamed he was a rabbit and went through numerous hardships. But when Buster and Babs beg for carrots, Max shouts, "Carrots?! You have the nerve to ask me for carrots?! AFTER WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH?!" Babs is dismayed that Max didn't learn anything and that the short didn't have a twist ending (per usual for The Twilight Zone (1959)), but Buster tells her to wait for it. Sure enough, Max's mansion is then overrun by rabbits, a fitting punishment.
  • Two-Headed Coin: A two-tailed coin is used in "Thirteensomething", when Buster and Babs cannot agree on what to watch on television after school, as Buster would rather watch football, while Babs would rather watch the teen soap opera, Thirteensomething. Plucky helps them settle their dispute with a coin toss, with heads being football, and tails being Thirteensomething. Since the coin is a two-tailed coin, Babs gets to watch Thirteensomething, much to Buster's disdain. Plucky tells Buster his coin was double-sided, but he forgot which side was doubled.
  • Two Shorts: While most episodes typically adopted the Three Shorts format or a single story for the half-hour, eight episodes utilized the Two Shorts format: "Inside Plucky Duck", "Ask Mr. Popular", "Fairy Tales For the 1990s", "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits", "New Character Day", "Love Disconnection", "Buster's Directorial Debut", and "Sports Shorts".
  • Unconventional Food Usage: In the "I Was a Teenage Bunnysitter" segment from the episode "The Acme Home Shopping Show", Duncan gets Babs to carve his mashed potatoes into the shape of a man with spaghetti as hair. He is then reluctant to eat it now that it's been humanized until a frustrated Babs asks him what a T-Rex (his favorite dinosaur) would do to the mashed potato man.
  • Unexplained Recovery: "Two-Tone Town" reintroduces Foxy, last seen getting gunned down at the end of "One More Time".
  • Vacation Episode: The OAV Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation.
  • Vague Age: Somewhere from elementary school to college, although Babs says she's 14 in the first episode (oddly, 16 in the Brazilian dub).
    • If they are indeed in high school, they might fall into Older Than They Look. Indeed, some episodes portray Acme Loo as high school, or even middle school, instead of a university.
    • In almost every episode, Elmyra is seen going to Acme Loo with the others as if she were a teenager, despite having the mentality of a small child. In the episode "Grandma's Dead", though, she's seen going to a different school and in a class with young children. Possibly justified in that it was a Poorly Disguised Pilot.
  • Valley Girl: Like, Shirley Mcloon, or some junk. She was voiced by noted valley girl Gail Matthius.
  • Vapor Wear: Babs, see Going Commando above.
    • Elmyra in "Starting From Scratch", however, that was an animation goof. Seen in the scene when Furball in clinging to her.
  • Variations on a Theme Song
    • Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation — The characters sing about how they plan to spend (and at the end, spent) their summer vacation.
    • "Two Tone Town" — The Two-Tones sing about their new show and their home town.
    • "It's A Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special — The characters sing a Christmas-themed version of the song. Also, in the alternate timeline, Plucky is the star of Tiny Toon Adventures and sings his own lyrics describing him as the star.
    • When Plucky got his own spin-off (which mostly consisted of recycled "Tiny Toons" shorts with one original episode), the lyrics described Plucky as the star in a manner similar to the example above.
    • The CD "Tiny Toons Sing" has the theme song sung in different languages.
    • "Spring Break Special" — The characters sing about how they plan to spend (and at the end, spent) their spring break, similar to the Summer Vacation example.
    • "Night Ghoulery" — The characters sing about what they have planned (at the end, the results) for their Halloween special.
    • In Tiny Toons How I Spent My Vacation Buster plays a Dueling Banjos version with a possum banjoist. Buster plays his tongue.
  • Vegetarian Carnivore:
    • Buster's pet dinosaur Rover becomes one in "Rock N' Roar".
    • One episode has Furrball, Sweetie, and Arnold dealing with a machine that can change your cravings. At the end, Furrball switches his cravings to plants, but eats poison ivy by mistake
  • Vengeful Vending Machine: An episode had Hamton get frustrated over such a vending machine.
  • Very Special Episode: At first parodied ("Elephant Issues", the Toxic Revenger episodes), but later played straight ("Whale's Tales" and "Washingtoon").
  • Viewer Species Confusion: Invoked; the Credits Gag for "Pledge Week" aptly asks: "Quick Question: Those Babes Around Arnold— What Kind of Animals Were They?" (referring to the babes in "Lifeguard Lunacy")
  • Villain Decay: Many characters (Furrball, Dizzy, Calamity) started out as villains but quickly became neutral or sympathetic. Even Montana Max underwent a serious mellowing out after the first season (in the storylines, as a result of his parents asserting themselves in his life; in reality, because his young voice actor complained about being "the bad guy".)
  • Vocal Evolution: Charlie Adler's voice for Buster is noticeably higher in some of the earlier-recorded episodes (e.g. "Cinemaniacs" and "Buster and the Wolverine"), almost sounding as if it were pitch-shifted slightly. Montana Max's voice also became a little deeper over time, but it's justified in his case, as Danny Cooksey was one of the only actual children in the voice cast (Nathan Ruegger, who voiced Baby Plucky, was the other).
  • Watch Where You're Going!:
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Europe in 30 Minutes", what happened to the tour guide after Buster, Babs, Plucky, and Hamton jumped out of the out-of-control vehicle?
  • White-Dwarf Starlet: Elmyra in "Sepulveda Boulevard", which is a parody episode of Sunset Boulevard.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Many examples:
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: All the time.
    • Almost a literal example in "The Horn Blows at Lunchtime", which was basically an eight-minute fart joke. About six minutes in, Babs asks, "Who wrote this?" and promptly has one go off under her.
    • Plucky in the anvil chorus when he asks "who wrote this slop"? Turns out to be an anvil.
  • Wild Take: The short "Wild Takes Class" (see Eye Take above).
  • Wild Teen Party: The episode, "Hog Wild Hamton" featured one of these thrown at Hamton's house. It wasn't Hamton's idea, as Hamton originally intended to have a quiet party and just invite Plucky, but Plucky invited everyone in Acme Acres behind his back. Oddly enough, it isn't the guests who trash Hamton's house, but a neighbor, Egghead Jr., who does so out of retaliation for the noise the party is making, which disturbs his study time. Karma thankfully saves Hamton when a sweepstakes he entered at the beginning of the episode awards him with a new house.
  • With Lyrics: Originally, Bruce Broughton was just going to have his theme song be an instrumental, but the writers added lyrics to it and the rest is history.
  • World of Symbolism/World of Visual Puns and Lame Pun Reactions: These puns are symbolized by Non-Ironic Clowns in the entire "Lame Joke" episode.
  • Worst Aid: A short with Elmyra as school nurse and Plucky faking sick features a defibrillator gag. Suffice to say Elmyra doesn't know how to use one.
  • Written Sound Effect: Seen in "Bat's All Folks" (part of "Inside Plucky Duck") during the 1960s Batman parody.
  • You Won't Feel a Thing!: Subverted in "Buster and the Wolverine": Buster tells the wolverine, "I won't feel a thing!" before hitting him with a hammer.
  • You Say Tomato: Elmyra pronounces animal as "am-mi-nal."

We're tiny, we're dopey!
We're all a little tropey!
It's Tiny Toon Adventures, here on T! V! Tropes!
...read it or you're a dope!

Alternative Title(s): Tiny Toons, Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures

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Gogo has a confusing conversation with some letters.

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