YMMV / Rainbow Fish

• Accidental Aesop: The aesop of "Prince Blue" is that family history is not as important as who you are in the present. But there is another aesop to be learned from the episode: do your research thoroughly and properly.
• Continuity Lock-Out: While the series itself is self contained and can be watched in any order, there are a few episodes viewers might need to watch first as they contain certain character introductions or past mentions of previous episodes. These include:
  • "Rainbow Fish and the New Girl at School", as that introduces most of the supporting cast, especially Sea Filly as she's treated as a new character.
  • "Rainbow Fish Meets Wayne Grunion" as this episode is shown as flashbacks in "Riptide".
  • "Sherman Shrimp" as that introduces said character)
  • "Sibling Rivalry" as that introduces Blue's sister Turquoise who appears in a few later episodes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Riptide" has Sea Filly mocking Blue as "barnacle boy" when she and Rainbow decided to surf at the Danger Pool, which some people would think of Mermaid Man's sidekick. Years later before his death, Mermaid Man's actor Ernest Borgnine would narrate the original Rainbow Fish book.
• Jerkass Woobie: Ruby may be a little self-centered and bossy, especially towards her brother but considering how she has to constantly deal with him teasing her and being a general nuisance to her, it's not hard to see why she gets stressed out with him. Sometimes, even when Ruby is nice to Rainbow, he can still be rude towards her.
• Nightmare Fuel: In the episode 'Sherman Shrimp', Rainbow goes inside a dangerous abandoned shipwreck to retrieve a hockey puck, only to get trapped inside by a pile of rubble and rocks. The opening is so small that nobody can get in to save him. His worried parents and friends can only watch helplessly while the rescue workers try several different routes to get inside to save him (i.e: tunneling, mining), to no avail. If it hadn't been for Sherman's rescue, Rainbow probably would've been crushed.
• So Okay, It's Average: Most critics opinion of the series. While they generally agreed that that it wasn't a bad show and delivered servicable lessons, there was criticism over the show's stock plots, Seafilly looking too similar to Ariel and delivering grade-school show writing in a TV series based on a preschool book.
• The Woobie: Sherman is seen as an outcast in his debut episode by his peers (including Rainbow) due to his much smaller size and is visibly hurt by their insults. The fact that only Wanda and Sea Filly defend him (and even Sea Filly herself misjudged him) doesn't help.