Tuca & Bertie / YMMV

Accidental Aesop:
- Growing Up Sucks because you never stop growing up. Every stage of your life will have ups and downs and you need to take them as they come.
- Big, obvious conflicts that seem insurmountable to you are actually easier to deal with than the more banal, unsexy internal conflicts. Tuca and Bertie standing up to their abusers or overcoming childhood traumas are exciting adventures with easy resolutions because they involve pointing out the flaws of others. The two of them dealing with their own flaws (ie, Bertie taking care of her mental health without it burdening Speckle or Tuca trying to grow up), not so much. The first episode even hangs a lampshade on this when Bertie freaks out about Speckle being gently disappointed in her: both she and Tuca agree that it'd be easier if he was just mad, because she can react to it. Instead, she just has to swallow her guilt so as not to come off as defensive, which just makes her feel worse.
- People can and do fall for sexual predators' tricks, but that doesn't make being a sexual predator any less wrong.
- No matter how bad patriarchal values are for society at large, it still doesn't mean that every individual male is abusive or chauvinistic. Indeed, for every male character in the show who's a Hate Sink, there's one who's kind and helpful.
- "Having your shit together" isn't a one-size-fits-all concept. Fulfilling society's benchmarks for success doesn't necessarily mean that you're happier or mentally healthier, and becoming the best you you can be is a personal journey.
- Not all people who let you down are lost causes. After two season finales that revolve around cutting toxic influences out of their lives, the episode before season 3's finale ends with Tuca getting back together with Figgy, her alcoholic ex-boyfriend when he chooses to stay sober for her. They stay together through the finale, the episode focusing on Tuca's overall mental state instead. This shows that, so long as a person approaches in good faith with a reasonable expectation to change, you don't necessarily need to sever ties if someone disappoints you.
Adaptation Displacement: Unknown to most fans (especially those who first knew Hanawalt from her work on BoJack from 2014 onwards), the show is based on a short-lived webcomic (NSFW for similar nudity to the show itself) called "Tuca the Tucan" which Lisa Hanawalt drew between 2013 and 2014. Tuca was the only major character, though this strip contains what may be a proto-Deli Guy (with this one foreshadowing the concept of Tuca being attracted to a deli guy) and one painting contains what may be a proto-Bertie. The gag of Tuca cooking and eating her own egg was a Running Gag in the comic.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- The Reveal that Bertie was molested by a lifeguard as a child and has some psychosexual issues as a result raises a few questions.
  - Bertie masturbating in Pastry Pete's bathroom after he puts her through some sort of hazing ritual. Was she trying to regain some control over her psyche after receiving unwanted attention from creepy men all day, legitimately turned on by this very attractive man she has a crush on manhandling her without her permission, or some tangled up combination of the two? "Vibe Check" shows she is legitimately turned on by fantasies of Pete treating her roughly even after her Broken Pedestal moment, but the episode also makes it clear this is not necessarily a result of her trauma, and could just be something that happens to turn her on.
  - It's left ambiguous as to whether or not she knows Pete's actions were inappropriate and she's excusing it because she has a crush on him or doesn't and was just overwhelmed by him giving her what she otherwise considered to be innocuous physical attention. Muddying the waters even further, her Erotic Dream about him doesn't happen until after he does this. Is she trying to rationalize what she knows to be sexual harassment by writing it off as a crush? Or did she really enjoy it as this is just a (relatively) normal reaction? There's a third possibility that she simply doesn't know what to make of the situation at all, hence why she doesn't warn Dakota, who saw it as nothing but predatory, and why Bertie has to be pushed by Tuca to so much as see Pete as the bad guy, let alone stand up to him, later on: her feelings about it were so complicated that she didn't know what the appropriate response would be.
  - Or, it's an example of Truth in Television. The way the "fruit roux" scene is framed, in context of "Jelly Lakes", makes it clear exactly what was going through Bertie's mind. It's a form of hypersexuality, a common result of childhood sexual abuse; since her first sexual experience was of an authority figure using in control of something she loves by bestowing attention on her, and then abusing that trust to make a sexual(ized) advance on her against her will. She literally has no control over herself because the point is that the defining moment of her sexuality was a moment where she had no control to begin with.
- Bruce and his relationship with the two main characters take on a whole different meaning if you consider him a Chivalrous Pervert who's only crime is making creepy comments and only acts on them with women who consent.
  - Bertie is never bothered by his flirting and is even kind of morbidly fascinated when Tuca mentions that she had sex with him, going so far as to invite him into her apartment to help her bake in "SweetBeak." Is it because she knows he's harmless and, unlike Dirk or the strange men who gawk at her when she goes running, most likely won't act on his creepy comments? is it because he only flirts with her when it's with her and Tuca at the same time and Tuca's presence makes her feel safer? or does she find him so pathetic that she doesn't take anything he says seriously? It helps that, unlike the men Bertie is put off by, Bruce's flirting never includes direct offensive comments about her or Tuca's bodies.
  - Tuca credits her fling with him with convincing her to get sober and he even jokes that he'll be around when she relapses, but it's implied that Tuca sleeping with him was a desperate-but-consensual act and not rape, supporting the first theory that Bruce is a pervert, but has standards.
  - While Bruce does flirt with both Tuca and Bertie as a duo in "The Sex Bugs," he never goes after Bertie when she's without Tuca. Does Bruce not flirt with Bertie because he respects the fact that she's in a relationship, because he never gets her alone and knows that either Tuca or Speckle would kick his ass if he tried to put the moves on Bertie, or is he just not interested in Bertie sexually? Or does he realize it'd be menacing when she's on her own?
  - Brought back in 'The Dance' where he shows genuine (if not creepily conveyed, in his usual manner) support for Tuca and manages to get through to her in a way that not even Bertie was able to. He even laments his inability to be a better friend/lover to her... before shrugging it off and masturbating in public.
- While the creepy plumber is definitely violating Bertie's privacy and says some extremely skeevy things, does he have predatory intentions or just No Social Skills and is really just there to do his job, not caring whether or not Bertie was home?
- Who's more at fault for getting Speckle's grandmother's ashes baked into a cake? Was it Speckle, who never told Bertie about the sentimental value of the contents of his sugar bowl or was it Bertie who should have known better than to lend out something that didn't belong to her?
- Kara's texts to Tuca in "Corpse Week". While they do look normal enough, they can easily be read with a passive aggressive tone, as we see in the following episode is a very common behavior for Kara, and she could have been upset at Tuca for not spending Corpse Week with her.
- Muriel Nocturna. Was she a manipulative teenage girl who only hung out with Bertie because she was fighting with her “real” best friend and dropped her cause she got bored of her? This is backed by the fact she gave Bertie goth clothes and makeup then got mad for “copying” her and winning “Gothiest” because she’s not a “real goth” cause her interests include the color pink, boy bands, and romcoms (some commentators have argued that real goths don’t care about other people’s interests and many of them like those things too, and besides pastel goths exist). She even does the same as an adult to her own toddler son, basing her movie "Screech Leeches" off of him. Or does she have intimacy issues due to, like Bertie, also being molested by an older man and had parents who just dumped her on the incompetent school counselor, causing her to not let people get too close to her, all of which was backed up by regular angsty teenage hormones? She does start to act more distant from Bertie after she kisses her, which could even raise the argument she might be closeted gay/bi, since a lot of her interactions with Bertie read as flirtatious, and Bertie was admittedly getting too clingy, copied things Muriel didn’t even impose on, and even stalked her out of jealousy when she started hanging out with Jessica again.
Anvilicious: The show dedicates a lot of time to pushing lessons about mental health and sexism, with boisterous characters (especially Straw Misogynists) clearly representing all the wrong ways to behave when it comes to these subjects. Fans still appreciate these messages, however. Lisa Hanawalt even noted that she had to tone down some real-life experiences that came across as too unsubtle in fiction.
Awesome Art: The show is filled to the brim with wacky designs, cool colors, and crazy-fluid animation which really pushes the limits of Adobe Flash. Those who didn't like Lisa Hanawalt's designs for Bojack Horseman found the more simplified versions of her drawing style seen here much easier on the eyes.
Awesome Music:
- "I'm Losing My Shit," a hilariously spot-on musical interpretation of having an anxiety attack. Who knew Ali Wong and Steven Yeun could carry a tune?
- Crash Test Dummie by He Say She Say, the song that accompanies Bertie masturbating in response to being manhandled by Pastry Pete.
- Something Good by The Derevolutions, the song that plays over the credits of the first season finale, showing how Tuca and Bertie are finally taking charge of their destinies and heading towards a brighter future.
- It's short, but the parody of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in "Nighttime Friend" features a very up-tempo and exciting song about letting your freaky side out. Fans quickly wanted to see the entire in-universe musical for more music like that.
- "Eso Que Tu Haces" by Lido Pimienta, the song that plays over Tuca's surreal, breathingtaking imagine spot contrasting her relationship with Kara vs her relationship with Bertie, depicted by translucent dancing figures.
Base-Breaking Character: Due to how her anxiety is portrayed and how it affects her and her actions, Bertie has become this to some viewers, with some finding her struggles relatable and sympathetic, but some take issue as she (albeit unintentionally) comes off as self centered and emotionally neglectful, particularly with how she treats Speckle sometimes.
Can't Un-Hear It: Viewers who have watched Steven Universe and The Owl House may find it hard to respectfully unhear Dr. Mole's voice actor Tom Scharpling and Figgy's voice actor Matthew Rhys as Greg Universe and Emperor Belos.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- Speckle having to eat a cake with his grandmother's spirit in it (because her cremated ashes were baked into it by accident) crosses the line about a billion times.
- Bertie's coworker Dirk makes an inappropriate comment towards her. Not cool, which she acknowledges later. Her left breast coming to life and saying she's done with this shit, walking off to get a drink? Hilarious. Bertie walking around with a hole in her chest until her breast comes back wasted early in the morning? Comedy gold.
- The HR woman at Bertie's office, who's already as unhelpful as possible, giving her a pamphlet about landing the man of your dreams with "appropriate" workplace flirting.
- The sounds of Bertie's boob as she has a flashback about popping out at the water park, which it edited to sound like a Vietnam War flashback as she sits back back with bemused expression on her face.
- Tuca's friend appears on a Judge Judy-esque show claiming a car hit him. As it turns out, he hit the car first!
- The "I'm Losing My Shit" musical number. Bertie has an anxiety attack... IN SONG!
- Bertie's horror at seeing that Pastry Pete's business has somehow recovered from his scandal in "Kyle" isn't funny, but what is hilarious is when Dirk has the audacity to oblige Pastry Pete's request to subscribe to his channel right in front of Bertie.
Fandom Rivalry:
- Though largely cordial and having plenty of overlap due to sharing most of the creative staff, there's a (largely one-sided) rivalry between fans of this show and those of Bojack Horseman, mostly from T&B fans who feel as though Bojack eventually became too depressing to justify its anvil-dropping or preferred this show's more nuanced take on feminism over the dour or even lionized kind depicted in Bojack (it doesn't help that this show had a mostly female creative staff while Bojack's, while having a mixed-gender staff, was created and largely written by a man, or that Bojack has occasionally been accused of Slut-Shaming while T&B is largely sex-positive).
- Another largely one-sided example with Big Mouth, due to a monumental case of bad timing where it was announced that the latter show was renewed for three additional seasons mere days after T&B's cancellation.
- Briefly had one with Smiling Friends, due to Tuca & Bertie being picked up by Adult Swim while the latter was still in pilot limbo. This more-or-less disappeared once Smiling Friends was picked up for a full series, however.
Friendly Fandoms:
- Immediately sparked one with Rocko's Modern Life, another show which depicts the everyday struggles of contemporary young adulthood with funny animals, Deranged Animation and Surreal Humor. It helps that T&B is largely inspired by wacky '90s cartoons like Rocko.^note
- After the show was canceled, many fans migrated over to Netflix's next new animated show Twelve Forever, which coincidentally is also a show about growing up created by a largely female creative staff (and ironically was also short-lived without being revived).
Genius Bonus:
- "A canary in a coal mine" is a term for something that acts as a premonition for something bad, or something that points towards it when another can't notice it^note. Dakota, a yellow canary, is the one who makes Bertie realize that something is up with Pastry Pete when he does something to her that she points out is obviously harassment, but Bertie took as him just doing his job.
- The architect company Speckle works for is called "Bower & Bower"; bowerbirds are known for making amazingly complex nests.◊
- When HR Lady (a duck) talks about giving a condom demonstration she holds up a condom and a corkscrew. Guess what duck penises are shaped like.
- After excusing herself to the bathroom to vent about Dirk, Bertie randomly screams "CLOACA!" The cloaca is the part of bird anatomy which serves as both a reproductive organ and waste disposal, and resembles a human anus. Basically, it's a really convoluted way for Bertie to call Dirk an asshole.
- Bertie pulling out her feathers when she's stressed isn't just a bird translation of hair-pulling or skin-picking; birds really do compulsively pluck their own feathers when they're stressed.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- The pilot has Pastry Pete actually being reasonable about the sugar bowl fiasco and spontaneous croissant cookoff. He even says he wants to hire Bertie after tasting her baking, saying the offer is open if she ever wants to quit her day job as a data controller. Now watch this moment again when it comes out he is a sexual predator that regularly feels up his female employess.
- Tuca's love of wacky car crash videos later turns out to be a coping mechanism for dealing with her mother's own fatal car accident.
- The entire show revolves around Bertie, a victim of repeated sexual harassment including child molestation, being friends with Tuca, a sexually liberated Ms. Fanservice who actively supports Bertie and helps her cope with her trauma. It might be more difficult to look back at the show now, however, after Tuca's voice actress, Tiffany Haddish, was accused of child sexual abuse in September 2022. Even though the charges were dropped, Haddish announced when questioned by the paparazzi that due to the lawsuit, she lost all her gigs, very likely meaning she would no longer get to voice Tuca. And to rub salt in the wound, two months later the show itself would get canceled a second—and final—time due to the WB/Discovery merger.
  - And just when it couldn’t get any worse: in April 2023, Ali Wong and Steven Yeun (Bertie and Speckle’s voice actors, respectively) became the subject of controversy when remarks resurfaced from their Beef castmate, David Choe, describing an encounter where he sexually assaulted a masseuse (though he claims this was a story he made up for the podcast he was on). In response, Wong and Yeun, along with show creator Lee Sung Jin (not only a writer on T&B, but one of the writers on the S1 episode “The New Bird,” about Dakota being abused by Pastry Pete and Bertie realizing that what he’s doing isn’t normal), released a statement saying that, while they did not condone his story, they were “aware David has apologized” and “had seen him put in the work…to better himself and learn from his mistakes.” It’s frankly insulting given that their defense of Choe goes against pretty much everything the show teaches about, especially when you consider the scene in season 3 where, after Pastry Pete starts making a comeback, Bertie finds out that Chef Winter, her mentor, is still buddy-buddy with him, and is clearly uncomfortable and hurt by the fact that she knows what he did to Bertie, and other women in general, and still chose to pal around with him.
He Really Can Act: As mentioned on the trivia page, this is the first time Reggie Watts has ever played a fictional character, let alone one who wasn't just his standup persona, and he is unrecognizable as Pastry Pete.
Informed Wrongness: Bertie's reluctance to buy a house with Speckle, while discussed sympathetically, is still treated as a sign that she has serious commitment issues. However, given that the couple only just started living together and are still navigating the issues that come with that, signing onto a 30 year fixed mortgage really isn't the best idea.
Jerkass Woobie: Terry is quite unfairly harsh towards Tuca, but she has a point that she also suffered from the loss of their mother, especially since she was Promoted to Parent due to being the oldest. Much of her cold treatment towards her younger sister stems from resentment that she never got a chance to really be a child.
Memetic Mutation:
- The "Speckle face"◊ is frequently circulated among the fandom.
- Dr. Mole's "I'm climbing up the vagina!" is often made into NSFW jokes with Greg Universe and the Diamond Authority due to Dr. Mole and Greg sharing the same voice actor.
Misaimed Fandom: The bulldog policemen in "Planteau" have childish dialogue and are voiced by actual children to hammer in that Police Are Useless. If the title of this upload ("Petition To Have Cute Dogs In Every Job") is anything to go by, some fans found the dogs so cute, they missed the commentary on inadequate police interrogations.
Nausea Fuel:
- Both In-Universe and for the audience in "The Deli Guy," Tuca accidentally turning on the light at the glowworm exhibit, revealing that all those beautiful blue lights were coming from slimy, repulsive insects. From the same episode, the subway train that's a giant slug.
- Tuca's shelled egg being extracted on-screen in "Yeast Week" is gross.
- In "Kyle," the bros contaminate Pastry Pete's glaze with their spit. One of the customers comments on how "goopy" it tastes as it coats his mouth.
Nightmare Fuel:
- The ending of "Plumage" where, after a long day of feeling objectified by every man she encounters, Bertie almost loses it after being manhandled during her baking lesson with Pastry Pete, only to begin furiously and uncomfortably masturbating in the restroom of his bakery. It's the first hint there's more going on with Bertie than we initially suspected. Most disturbingly, the episode just ends on her doing this.
- "The Jelly Lakes" reveals that Bertie was sexually abused by a lifeguard when she was only 12 years old. While we’re fortunately spared the more unsavory details, the crude, cutesy paper cutout art style of the flashback combined with Bertie’s description of an authority figure she thought she could trust getting her alone so he could have his way with her, thus traumatizing her for life as a result, is just horrific — especially if anyone in the audience has had any similar experiences. Poor Bertie...
- Tuca and Bertie getting mugged by a gun-toting plant in "Planteau". Despite how silly that sounds, the moment is played dead seriously, and both of them, especially Tuca, are left traumatized.
- "The One Where Bertie Gets Eaten By a Snake": Tuca finding Figgy alone in his dark apartment, bottles everywhere, after he's binged for a few days. He's practically catatonic from his alcoholism, his leaves are falling off, and he can barely talk straight. Worst yet, he insists to Tuca that she not tell him to stop, and doesn't seem at all concerned for his health as he's apparently used to this state. Despite his odd species, the chilling depiction of what severe alcoholism can do to someone is full of Realism-Induced Horror.
- "Leaf Raking" has a creepy nightmare sequence when Tuca tries to have sex with a raker, but her feelings for Figgy distract her. She takes one of his figs, only to notice it's rotting and full of (fairly realistically-rendered) bugs. Then she looks at Figgy's face, which is disturbingly decayed.
- The implication in "The Mole" that Speckle screwed up removing the health inspector chicken's growth so badly that he ended up killing her, as evidenced by blood being everywhere, the health inspector disappearing and Figgy being horrified just from speaking with Speckle.
One True Threesome: Tuca/Bertie/Speckle is gaining some traction, due in no small part to Tuca blushing when Bertie kisses her on the beak and Speckle being part of her imaginary harem of "weird crushes," as well as him and Tuca getting along like a house on fire in "Plumage."
Spiritual Adaptation: This is probably the closest we're ever going to get to a Nicktoon made for adults.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The nameless pop song Tuca and Bertie sing along to in "The Jelly Lakes" sounds like "Lovefool" by The Cardigans.
They Copied It, So It Sucks!: A common criticism of non-fans is that the show has too many similarities to Broad City.
This Is Your Premise on Drugs: BoJack Horseman as envisioned by Richard Scarry on a cocktail of antidepressants and LSD!
Ugly Cute: Being a monkey, The Deli Guy's design is somewhere between Lisa Hanawalt's more wonky human designs and the more appealing animal characters. However, he's charming enough that his appearance becomes more appealing as a result.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The restrictions COPPA placed on YouTube "kids' videos" applied to clips of this colorful talking animal show. Keep in mind that the very first shot of every Netflix-era episode is a building with a pair of exposed boobs bouncing up and down. Fortunately after Adult Swim picked up the second season, YouTube stopped treating the series like a kids' show.

YMMV / Tuca & Bertie

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