Is Belson really a rich Jerkass who just wants to be left alone or is he like this because of his Disappeared Dad? That and his jealousy with Clarence and how his mom spoils him.
Bizarro Episode: "Rough Riders Elementary". Aberdale Elementary gets a sponsorship from local fast-food joint Rough Riders. However, later, Rough Riders brainwashes the students into joining their cult with cinnamon ranch dressing. A bunch of action heroes show up, and the school explodes. It was all a crazy story written by Clarence.
Cult Classic: Despite being nearly niche like all other slice of life cartoon shows, it seems to have a decent following.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Fans could assume that Clarence is autistic and Sumo has ADHD/Jeff has OCD.
The supporting/background characters are popular to some degree.
Amy Gillis is also a favorite among fan artists, despite only appearing in one episode.
Fan artists fell in love with Kimby ever since she first appeared as a background character.
Chelsea had gotten this, mainly due to her actions and as well being loyal.
Her friends, Courtlin and Malessica are popular too.
Breehn seems to be getting this treatment as of late as well, due to his meekness and Adorkable nature.
Belson's henchman/friends, Nathan, Percy and Dustin are also popular too.
There's also Ashley and Chelsea with their ship tease.
Bella from "Mystery Girl" seems to be getting this too.
Lauren from "Big Trouble in Little Aberdale" had received this also.
Mary and Ms. Baker as well as Mel and Chad counts as this too.
Epileptic Trees: Wirt and Greg's cameo, as well as their own series featuring the Aberdale skyline in "Into the Unknown" has fueled a lot of speculation as to whether they're living there, and if so, calls the mundane nature of the show into question.
Mostly Sumo and Chelsea, since they slapped an onscreen kiss after arguing.
Jeff/Sumo has this also with fans preferring this, ever since Slumber Party And The Breakup can specify this, making it one of the series most popular character shipping, mostly popular than Jeff/Clarence.
And then there's Clarence/Belson, early on since "Zoo", Clarence was relatively close to Belson most of the time despite of Belson not willing to reciprocate anything from Clarence.
Clarence/Sumo. Mostly due to both hanging out with each other to engage in crazy hijinks, you see some fanart of both of them.
Jeff/Breehn has this also, due to both being smart and often close to each other from time to time.
Fandom Rivalry: Well almost similar to other shows note such as Regular Show, Steven Universe, and Adventure Time, who in particular, shares the same hatred towards Teen Titans Go!!, almost goes without saying, really. The rivalry between Clarence and Teen Titans Go! only became even more heated when the former was quietly canceled in 2017, leading to the Clarence fandom accusing Cartoon Network (especially with Christina Miller being solely responsible) for their favoritism ofTTG! getting Clarence cancelled sooner than it should have.
Clarence had once paired up with Steven Universe due to being aired in the same timeslots and having similar characters. If you go on Tumblr, you can usually find fan art of the two shows.
There's quite a bit of mixing between the Clarence and Ed, Edd n Eddy fandoms due to the similarities in tone and characters. Almost has it with other shows that share the same type.
Also Harvey Beaks, mainly due to having three main characters that may relate to the characters based on personalities.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series is somewhat relatively popular in Latin America, where they even have some unofficial merchandise, something that is uncommon in the US.
Growing the Beard: Mostly for the second and third seasons, as many episodes are improved over the first season as the writers either fix some of the mistakes of the first season, with the focus on other characters and had introduced some new core ideas to experiment with, and had some of the main characters become less flanderized.
In Man of the House, Sumo dreamt about sending missiles and bombing Florida. Later on in Too Gross for Comfort, he said his grandparents live in Florida. In other words, Sumo dreamt about bombing the state that his grandparents lived.
Hurricane Dillis shows Clarence's grandmother presumably suffering from senile dementia. In the next episode to reference her (Plane Excited), it is revealed that she has died.
In Neighborhood Grill, Larry constantly writing down notes on pretty much everything is played for laughs. But then in Ice Cream Hunt it's heavily implied he does this because he has Alzheimer's.
The Join the Hug Force promo and banner ad are pretty tough to watch and look at once you've heard about the sexual harassment case involving creator & former showrunner Skyler Page which resulted in him being fired. As well as the episode where the scene itself comes in, Slumber Party. (there is also a part before the "hug force" scene where Clarence is playfully hitting Malessica, the girl with glasses, which can also be hard to see due to this). It should be noted that this episode as well as the others listed below, with the exception of Clarence Gets a Girlfriend, first aired after the incident.
Clarence Gets a Girlfriend is also kind of hard to watch itself after the aforementioned situation regarding Skyler Page. In the same episode, Jeff's rant about how he should have gotten a girlfriend first because he's a "nice guy", which is done with a very creepy tone, is much, much less funny in wake of Elliot Rodger's murderous rampage under a similar ideology, which ocurred around the time the episode first aired.
Yet another scene that is awkward to watch after Skyler Page's firing occurs in Neighborhood Grill, where Clarence attempts to break into the restroom stall Miss Baker is in and give her a hug in spite of her protests.
Puddle Eyes features a scene where Jeff tries wrestling the blinded Clarence down to help him only for him to escape by losing his shirt and wandering the hallways crazily, much like a description of one of Skyler Page's mental breakdowns.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: On a lighter note, however, this could also mean that Clarence loves his friends so much, he would literally risk his life.
Jerkass Woobie: Jeff and Belson, depending on who you ask. Also Ms. Shoop to a certain extent when we see how her childhood went in "Lost Playground". Joshua also deserves some sympathy since he's the victim of random abuse and has no idea of why it keeps happening to him.
Just Here for Godzilla: Many people were quick to join the fandom upon discovery of it being one of the many children's cartoons to deal with LGBT in a positive light.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Jeff is often paired with Clarence, Sumo, Kimby, Amy, Malessica, Chelsea, Breehn, Belson, Cynthia (Belson's mom), Ms. Baker, and even Nicolaus Copernicus (his hallucination from "Tuckered Boys").
LGBT Fanbase: Thanks to the show's positive (and surprisingly casual) representation of gay people. It helps that one of the main characters has lesbian parents.
Jeff can still be adorable in his own right, regardless of his Neat Freak tendencies.
Pick any background/recurring kid, all of them are qualified.
Nausea Fuel: Clarence has some... interesting tastes. He eats a number of leftover pizza crusts in "Money Broom Wizard" and in ''Clarence's Millions", Jeff mentions that Clarence eats chewing gum stuck on the bottom of desks.
In "Jeffery Wendle", Jeff accidentally spilled milk and tried to wipe it up, but Mary insisted on doing it, except she rinses the milk back to the cup, having all of the dirty stuff from the ground, causing Jeff to drink it as if he had no choice. Mary mentioned that Clarence usually does it all the time.
Nightmare Retardant: As mentioned on the aforementioned page, the scene in Rise And Shine with the mountain lion started out somewhat disturbing, only to be deliberately undermined by the overall silliness of the speech Clarence gives to it at the end.
Overshadowed by Controversy: While downplayed in that the show continues to be popular, mentioning this show anywhere online will inevitably have at least one person bringing up creator Skyler Page's breakdown/firing. This may also be the reason why CN ultimately lost interest in the series and quietly cancelled it.
The same goes to a lesser extent for Jeff and Belson, who in spite of coming off as self-centered jerkasses, are a lot saner, only to deal with Clarence and Sumo's escalatingshenanigans at the expense of the former two but not the latter.
Seasonal Rot: Mostly the second half of Season 1, to where the fanbase was divided: where many found some of the episodes of the second half notably slow-paced, focused too much of an emphasis on being bizarre, to where Clarence was flanderized from a naive but well-intentioned person that focused on helping others into increasing incompetence and dimwittedness, with Sumo went from a rather streetwise kid with a set of standards to being no more than an accomplice to Clarence's buffoonish antics, while Jeff went from a rather stable moral person into an over-the-top, selfish jerkass, and had some episodes becoming rather bizarre and uninteresting.
Somewhat rectified by Season 2 and 3, as most of the episodes were more grounded than the second half of Season 1.
Self-Fanservice: Many fans like making fanart putting Clarence and friends in relationships with one another and drawing Jeff in girl clothing.
Chances are it will be Clarence/Amy vs Clarence/Kimby, since Amy and Kimby, from all indications, are the foremost female characters besides Clarence's mom Mary, although the former is a one-time character and the latter only interacted with Clarence once.
And after Clarence gets a Girlfriend there's Clarence/Ashley (who, like Amy, was an episodic character) and Clarence/Jeff.
There's also Jeff/Breehn, Sumo/Chelsea, Jeff/Sumo, Clarence/Sumo and Clarence/Belson.
Ever since 'Plant Daddies', there's Chelsea/Kimby.
So Okay, It's Average: The general consensus is that the show isn't necessarily bad, but it also isn't really anything to write home about.
Strawman Has a Point: In Puddle Eyes Jeff points out how unfair the "vision bee" is for people who can't see well, which is only made worse when we find out that he's one of the aforementioned.
The same with Average Jeff. The entire episode has the class separated into two separate classes based on test scores, Quills and Crayons. It comes across as intelligence-based segregation and Jeff is pretty disgusted at it (then again he wanted to be in the smart class for selfish reasons, so it may be a moot point). Indeed, the segregated classes are disbanded at the end of the episode, although for allegations of gender bias.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The punk rock song Clarence and Sumo play in the pilot sounds rather similar to Lionrock's Fire Up the Shoesaw and Black Flag's Rise Above.
An Expy of Yello's Oh Yeah is heard in Fun Dungeon Face-Off as it's revealed the light-up princess shoes Clarence "borrows" aren't his.
A rather obvious one to the DuckTales theme song is heard in Clarence's nightmare in Clarence's Millions, as well as one to Battle Without Honor or Humanity during the Clarence Dollar-copying sequence.
A piece of music that sounds similar to Baltimora's Tarzan Boy plays at the end of Dinner Party.
A mountain lion-themed pastiche of Erasure's Always plays behind Clarence trying to talk down the mountain lion in Rise and Shine.
Take That, Scrappy!: Detractors love it when Belson gets his comeuppance for his bad behavior. Special mention goes to Clarence punching him in the face in "Lil Buddy". Even the kids for a while weren't that upset when Belson was hurt.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Most of the classmates and the others. Because the series has a large number of characters, many are all way too recognizable in background roles, and several of them only get the spotlight once or twice a season. Heck, there’s a couple of other characters who hadn't gotten any spotlight or development in the series at all, with the series already ending pretty much cemented the idea entirely. Also, Amy Gillis, a good-natured character who actually bonded with Clarence, who was just written out after her only appearance.
Belson's Dad, who was arrested in "Company Man", then left out of jail in "Big Game", as he didn't even bother interacting much with his son or his wife at all.
In "Company Man", Belson's dad was arrested for business fraud and money laundering, but this doesn't seem to have had any effect on Belson's wealth in later episodes.
In "Merry Moochmas, Most of Clarence's friends didn't get much screentime, but rather wasted on Belson and his cousin.
in "Sumo Goes West": The construction site nearby Sumo’s House was never mentioned in any of the later episodes. The area remained untouched, with no explanation on the purpose of removing three kids to another school.
In "Rock Show" Clarence's father Damien finally shows up, only to have about a minute of screentime, and didn't even bother to stay a little longer to see Clarence note His so-called biological son or Chad.
In "Big Game", we get a short glimpse of Belson's dad, who winds up leaving his son to Clarence and Chad while he takes off scot free.
During the end of "Balance", where the character escapes and the ring leader and the others were not visible in the horse coach, with little to no knowledge of how he managed to escape past bars and seems to never return to get his revenge against Belson and Clarence, nor anyone will know where he'll end up.
In "A Nightmare on Aberdale Street: Balance's Revenge": anyone might think Balance would show up to get his revenge against Clarence and Belson, face to face, but unfortunately, the plot only involves Clarence and others facing against Balance, only during a dream, while Belson was absent throughout the entire episode.
In "Animal Day, after seeing Dustin transform into a odd looking werewolf, when everyone left after he was chased off by Sumo. However while he still remains in the forest, transforming again, no one knows how Dustin winded up like that or even if anyone will bother looking back for him.
Clarence is a chubby, misshapen, gap-toothed kid who lacks ears. It's hard to find him physically adorable but he can still come off as cute thanks to his free-spirited personality.
Sumo, despite being a Jerkass Woobie, but after we see what his home life is like in "Dream Boat", it's obvious that his dad legitimately cares about him to some extent but his family is so big that the man doesn't have much time to focus on him. That's not even getting into the fact that everyone in that family lives in a trailer near the town dump.
Ms. Julep from "The Substitute" clearly has anxiety issues and spends nearly the whole episode being mistreated by the students. When she returns in "Clarence and Sumo's Rexcellent Adventure", she is visibly hurt when the kids don't remember her at all.
Vindicated by History: Early on, throughout the series run, it was receiving moderate to mediocre reception from most of the fans from other shows with larger fanbases. Meanwhile the titular character was criticized for his appearance and personality, not to mention the artstyle. The sexual harassment scandal involving the show's creator, Skyler Page, didn't help in the slightest. But towards the last year of its run and after it ended, it gained a few fans who think that even though the show may not be the greatest, it's not such a bad show after all.
