Adorkable: 99% of the cast can be considered this, but the most obvious offenders seem to be:
Paper. He has an adorable, high-pitched voice.
Fan. He's cute whilst awkward.
Test Tube. Her socially awkward personality makes her this.
Alas, Poor Scrappy: While not entirely a scrappy character, Cabby's elimination made people feel pity for her, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Once her Exit Interview popped up, when people watched it, the fans felt pity for this cabinet, and some of them even changed their view and opinions on her.
Angst Aversion: Some fans don’t care for the darker direction in the latter half of season 2, with some stating that it seemed that the show was getting more depressing with every episode. This is part of the reason the second season was put on hold and the third season was made.
Angst? What Angst?: The show tends to switch from an angst-filled scene to comedy fairly quickly. An example can be seen with how the hard-hitting revelation that both Balloon and Nickel are being eliminated is announced by Toilet jumping out of a giant cake.
Awesome Art: The series got a major Animation Bump in its second season, and for the four years that it's been going on the art has progressively improved that by the time "Alternate Reality Show" debuted in early 2018, it's surprisingly well-animated for a Flash cartoon on YouTube made by only a handful of people
"Waffling About", with paper-like, South Park-esque stop motion, got instant praise for the animation.
Starting from “Everything’s A-OJ” to the end of “Alternate Reality Show”, some people praised Paintbrush for having hilarious rage moments, while others were left unimpressed on how they Took a Level in Jerkass, how take things way too seriously and unable to control their rage, and how they outright batter anyone who slack off, especially Fan. This died down at the end of "Alternate Reality Show", however.
Believe it or not, Marshmallow has become this. She is seen as a Moe by some of the fandom, but others see her more as a wangsty and annoying saccharine character.
OJ from Season 2 has also faced some mixed reactions from those who admire him for being the winner of Season 1, to often criticizing him for his hosting career in the 7th episode.
Ghost Bow. While the original Bow was an Ensemble Dark Horse, she Took a Level in Jerkass after dying and blatantly possessed Apple to break Marshmallow's friendship, which certainly broke the base.
Cheesy. For the minority of his base, he's either seen as an In-UniverseHate Sink, or actually quite hilarious for the minority who have known him since season one and like him for his Plucky Comic Relief.
Salt and Pepper, especially the former, seem to be this. Some think that they are quite interesting characters, getting a bit more development starting in Season 2, while others don't like their obsessions with OJ, and their Valley Girl trait.
Cabby from Season 3. While some enjoy her helpfulness and secretary-like personality, others took a dislike to her following Episode 2 for her manipulative tendencies and elimination of Fan out of anger for him reading her files without permission. This is strengthened by her elimination and Exit Interview, where some people felt pity for her for wanting friendship and acceptance, others are still disliking her due to what she did to Fan. She rejoins the game in episode 10, and gets swift revenge on Test Tube by eliminating her by getting her former teammates to help. This muddied the water even more, especially as Cabby feels confused over if it was a good choice.
Goo from Season 3. While some like his voice and find him charming, cute, and funny, others hate him for his voice and often find him and his antics annoying, as well as their perception of him being stupid.
MePhone4S' talking hand. It has appeared three times, and has no impact on the plot in any way.
Firey's brief appearance in "Crappy Anniversary", where he steals OJ's cake. There were a few instances where BFDI characters appeared in Season 1, but they were at least lampshaded. In this instance, it serves no purpose other than to crap on OJ being safe from elimination.
Crosses the Line Twice: Tootsy Wootsy feeling extremely guilty for being forced to kill his fellow Inani-mates? Pretty sad. Floory casually telling him that when he kills the others, he's getting him an apple juice? Hilarious.
Lightbulb is implied to have Pica, an eating disorder that involves eating inedible items. Throughout Season 2, she has eaten a stick and a ball of yarn and has attempted to eat a bucket.
Paintbrush has some traits in common with Borderline Personality Disorder or Intermittent Explosive Disorder. The most prominent is their Hair-Trigger Temper at their teammate's nonsensical behavior, going from friendly and pragmatic to violent and destructive, even going so far as to attack their teammates.
Fan displays some symptoms of Autism, namely his fixation on the show and how he gets excited when talking about it, tendency to make irrelevant remarks, lack of self-awareness, and how he gets upset when the show's routine begins to change and his egg begins to hatch after months of nurturing it.
Suitcase seems to be developing a severe case of schizophrenia due to her hallucinations, complete with her Hearing Voices.
Apple may have some sort of learning disability such as Dyslexia or Age Regression disorder considering she is definitionally challenged, cannot spell, and even sucks her thumb in "Everything's A-OJ".
Some fans have begun to think that MePhone is Dyslexic due to him misspelling numerous words in Freeze Frame Bonuses.
Draco in Leather Pants: Several of the "evil" characters get this treatment in the fandom.
Cobs, being an Abusive Parent in canon, is treated like a good guy by a lot of the fandom, even to the point of people being attracted to him. We aren't making this up.
MePhone4S, while being a downplayed example because of his redemption, is seen as a strong man who has a affinity for Hello Kitty.
MePhone5S and 5C.
While MePhone4's previous self is not villainous, his child-like behavior is often exaggerated by his fans to the point where he is basically an adorable Manchild.
Nickel and Soap fall into the bottom 2 after the events of "Theft and Battery". Nickel was the one who forced Suitcase to steal a battery and ended up unknowingly kickstarting her escalating trust issues, while Soap only pointed out Suitcase's crime (though her abrasive behavior throughout the episode didn't help her much). Soap is eliminated (she even lampshades how unfair her elimination was), and Nickel's presence for the next two episodes only makes Balloon and Suitcase’s personal issues worse. He finally gets his just deserts in "Kick the Bucket".
Season 3 Episode 2 has Cabby unfairly eliminate Fan and she manipulated everyone except Test Tube to do so. She gets away with it. She gets her just deserts in "Best Served Cold",but this makes people pity her. She rejoins the game in episode 10, and gets revenge on Test Tube by getting her eliminated, but things are muddled a bit as Cabby is left confused and conflicted over doing so.
Yin-Yang literally won every viewer immunity vote he was eligible for in Season 3, forcing the team to scrap the votes altogether after the sixth time.
A lot of fans speculated that Taco was hiding inside of Box, this was eventually lampshaded after its elimination. It turns out that it's just an empty box with the words "Box" written inside of it. Nothing more
A lot of viewers also suspected that Apple was actually being possessed by Bow when she revealed that she was just pretending to be friends with Marshmallow in order to get farther in the game. However, this turned out to be true, as of Episode 11 Part 1.
Even since the first episode, people have been theorizing that Season 3 is a character's hallucination or dream due to the several inconsistencies with canon (such as Bow being alive) and the offhand line by MePhone4 implying that nothing matters. There is also the frequent out-of-character moments for the cast and Paintbrush simply being without Baxter despite being overprotective of him, strengthening the theory. Although Bow is later confirmed to be a robot duplicate instead of being the original, this theory is still in the air.
Growing the Beard: Inanimate Insanity was relatively silly and filled with generally crude animation in its first season. While still a comedy like the shows itis based on, it saw a shift in its second season towards a smoother visual style filled with nicely done shading, cleaner audio, original songs and more sound effects than just basic stock ones; and drama in the form of exploring the characters' relationships further and the consequences of playing on a game show that routinely subjects its contestants to torturous or life-threatening situations, encourages the breakdowns of the best of friendships and generally ruins the lives of all that compete in it.
The scene from "Mine Your Own Business" where Toilet gets fired because of his affiliation with Cobs becomes extremely hard to watch following his voice actor, Taylor Grodin, getting fired from the show due to his affiliation with LorenTzel.
MePhone calling Paintbrush an "Unknown Gender Freak" in season 1 is a lot more awkward and uncomfortable to hear after Paintbrush comes out as nonbinary in season 2
Back in the late 2000's to early 2010's, there was a relatively obscure toyline called Test Tube Aliens, in which you hatch and raise, well, an alien in a test tube. Here, Test Tube is studying and raising an alien egg.
In "Everything A-OJ", when Suitcase is unfairly eliminated by OJ, Nickel tells Baseball, "We we're bound to outlast her anyway", come "Kick The Bucket" and The show switches to Contestant Voting and Suitcase votes off Nickel herself
In "A Kick in The Right Direction", the contestants try to figure out what's inside Box before he's eliminated, and Apple thinks that Taco is inside. Come Episode 9 and Taco makes an appearance in Season 2, then becomes a recurring character.
MePhone and Tea Kettle bickering like an old married couple in Season 3 Episode 3 over the latter's front-facing picture could be seen as a Casting Gag when realizing that the two of them are voiced by Adam's parents.
The scene between Knife and Pickle in Episode 7 can definitely be seen as this.
Marshmallow and Apple's entire story arc can be seen under the lens of a cheesy romance movie plot. In particular, their reunion at the end of Episode 11 Part Two seems like a stereotypical scene where a couple reconciles after a fight... but instead of playing a boombox, Marshmallow throws a boulder at Apple's window.
OJ and Balloon, in "Rain On Your Charade". Balloon paces back and forth outside of Hotel OJ for hours attempting to apologize to OJ. His note sheet has many interesting scribbles, such as "Hey OJ~!" (tilde included), "Bae" written under OJ's name but scribbled out, and an offer to get tofu burgers, although Balloon decides otherwise as he dislikes tofu. To top it all off, while talking to OJ in the hotel, Balloon blushes and cries out "It's gotta be you!"
Nickel and Balloon was a very popular ship due to their friendship arc in inanimate insanity Invitational. However, the ship received a lot of hate, mostly on Tumblr and Twitter, after s3e13 where they had an argument, though with them making amends around s3e17, the ship's basically become a revolving door.
Many fans correctly theorized that Apple was possessed by Bow in Episode 6 of Season 2.
Many people were right that the Bow seen in Season 3 wasn't the real Bow. This came true in episode 7 of season 3.
In the weeks leading up to the release of "You Can't Do This Forever", the fans on the Inanimate Insanity Wiki accurately predicted that Cabby would win the season, with Balloon and Silver Spoon placing 2nd and 3rd respectively.
The fact that Paintbrush is non-binary is well-known, even among people who have only heard of the show from social media and have never been into Object Shows.
The appearance of Bot, the robotic replacement of Bow is well-known. Even the team themselves didn't bother to hide it.
Nickel, by all accounts, is an absolute jerk who never wants to admit that he cares about anyone, but fans adore him for being a jerk, both because of his quippy sarcasms, and that he secretly cares for people like the ones in his alliance, showing he's not entirely heartless.
Knife is a Card-Carrying Jerkass who put Marshmallow through hell, but by Season 2, fans grew to love how much of a jerk he is, both because it allowed him to stand up for himself against the likes of Trophy, but also point out when others are acting worse than he is, such as with Taco to Microphone or Nickel to Suitcase.
The off-model faces are sometimes used as reaction memes.
Despite being such a minor character, Tissues has spawned two of the show's biggest memes, these being "Machine Gun Tissues"ExplanationHis crazy sneezing fit just before his elimination often gets compared to a machine gun and "Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Cause Global Warming". The latter was even adapted into a t-shirt!
Baseball's Death Glare at Suitcase in "Alternate Reality Show" is starting to be used as a reaction pic by some, specifically to things considered repulsive.
Test Tube TangoExplanationA still from the trailer for Hatching The Plan where Test Tube wraps her arm around Microphone while fireworks go off around them led fans to believe that a Tango number was going to occur. While that wasn't true, it later became an Ascended Meme when a Tango song on the soundtrack was named Test Tube Tango.
Bikini Cobs. ExplanationEarly in 2017, some fan of II, thankfully ironically, drew Cobs in a pink bikini. Although not as legendary as the other memes, it has received enough traction to have the original post liked by a member of the crew, Justin Chapman.
Bot's new voice ExplanationThe scene in Season 3 episode 10 where Bot shows their new voice was very easily edited to have different voices or even just sounds coming out of their mouth instead of their new voice actor Shooshies.
Experiment 21.ExplanationA gory, depressing fanfiction about Test Tube conducting an experiment on the Bright Lights. It's often referenced in the community.
Paintbrush and Kitkats.Explanation (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EXPERIMENT 21)Paintbrush ends up being snapped in half by Test Tube and Lightbulb, causing fans to draw parallels between their death and KitKat advertisements.
Inanimate Insanity: A Gorey DemiseExplanationAn animatic music video depicting the cast from seasons 1 and 2 re-enacting the deaths from the Creature Feature song "A Gorey Demise" got a surge in popularity due to how hilariouslyabsurd the visuals are, the most referenced part is Baseball representing the letter G, which is "died in the womb".
The scene where The Thinkers break their egg and stare at it in shock in “Tragedy At 60 Feet” is a popular reaction and redraw image.
Apple, Balloon (post Season 1), Bow, Cherries, Marshmallow, Paper, Soap, Tissues, and Suitcase are really adorable.
Come Inanimate Insanity Invitational, Clover, Goo, and Bot fall into this trope.
Player Punch: Viewer Punch would be a better word. Soap is eliminated in Episode 9, mostly because of her abrasive behavior towards her team. However, she points out that Nickel’s behavior was even worse, given how he forced Suitcase to steal a battery and is a bigger jerkass than her. Her elimination also puts some heavy strain on poor Microphone, which likely made some of her voters regret their decision to vote her off.
Ships That Pass in the Night: Trophy and Fan are somewhat frequently paired together, although its popularity is surpassed by Test Tube x Fan. Despite this, they have only had two interactions so far.
Signature Song: "A Party" and "Afterlife in the Limelight" seem to be the top 2 songs from the show.
The first challenge, in which the contestants must jump off a cliff and land into clean water, or else they'll fall into elephant feces. Most of them are unlucky enough to fall into the feces.
Nickel defecating on Baseball in "A Lemony Lesson." It's only somewhat mitigated when Nickel claims that his chocolate bar melted in "Marsh on Mars." Even then, it's still gross.
The Taco Show, in which Taco makes OJ uncomfortable by asking him if he would rather eat raccoon feces or make out with Rebecca Black, and if he refuses to answer, she will pour a tub of "Strange Warm Yellow Liquid" into his glass. He is understandably grossed out and runs away.
Apple eating garbage in "Sugar Rush."
Tissues' "condishawn" can come off as this to some viewers. It doesn't help that his snot is green, which is a very clear sign of illness in real life. This may be the reason for his elimination.
In Pesty Besties, MePhone states his annoyances over the Inani-Mates eating the leftover Mile High Pie from Episode 7 that he was going to eat. Cabby points out that it was from several challenges ago.
Many Nickel x Clover shippers who don't outright see Nickel as being a Tsundere prefer to think that Clover loves him, but Nickel is incapable of reciprocating, mainly as a way of keeping in line with how Nickel has a hard time getting into meaningful relationships.
It's also not an uncommon headcanon that Cabby has unrequited feelings for Test Tube, given the way she still seems to admire Test Tube and strive for her approval despite their rocky relationship throughout the show.
A common fan theory was that Lightbulb is transfem, for three reasons. One, her voice is one of the more masculine ones in the show. Two, she was originally intended to be male, but was rewritten to be female to balance out the show's gender ratio. Third, and most importantly, she is the only one to figure out that Paintbrush is nonbinary on her own, which could imply that Lightbulb herself is LGBTQIA+.
Bot's story arc in Inanimate Insanity Invitational reads to many as a trans Coming-Out Story. They were built in Bow's image and experience distress from keeping up this persona, which could be an analogy for gender dysphoria; from finding a new name for themselves, to getting a new voice and body with Test Tube's support, this process comes off as an allegory for someone undergoing and adjusting to their transition.
Confirmed in "Home Is Where the Heart Is" when they pull out a drawing of their desired self, complete with their new name and they/them pronouns: thus marking them as canonically nonbinary.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: In "One Shot Wonder", we're supposed to see Balloon as a jerk to his team, but again, they repeatedly slack off during the middle of a challenge.
Unpopular Popular Character: Balloon and Tissues are these. Most characters despise them, but the fandom shows sympathy for them.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Because of MePhone7 not being referred to by any pronouns or gendered language, some fans theorized that he was genderless. However, Justin Chapman later confirmed he was male.
", with paper-like, South Park-esque stop motion, got instant praise for the animation.
