In Carrot and Celery's love song in "How Come the Moon Changes Shape?", one of the lyrics is about "dirty dishes".
In "A Visit From Uncle Zucchini", Mindy tells Sunspot and Moonbeam that they "make beautiful music together."
In "Space Junk", Uncle Zucchini unveils his Big Bortronian Junk Sucker. While it's a device used to clean up garbage, the "junk sucker" part ends up sounding very sexual.
In "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!", during the "Grow, Plant, Grow!" number, Sunspot is shown riding on an eggplant. Any internet-savvy viewer knows what the eggplant emoji is used to substitute.
Jet Propulsion, who is a Cheerful Child with his Large Ham tendencies and naivety about "Earthie" culture.
Carrot Propulsion may be Jet's Bumbling Dad, but he is lovable nonetheless, especially since he cooks many odd Bortronian foods throughout the series.
Sean. He is intelligent, cute, yet easily nervous and possesses Youthful Freckles.
Even Mitchell can be this when he's not being a Jerkass, especially in the episode "Solar-System Bake Off!", where he acts socially awkward around Jet and his friends when he is trying to gather information about their entry, especially Mindy.
Dr. Skelley, because she's still an avid Commander Cressida fan.
Dr. Rafferty shares Sean's Nervous Wreck tendencies, especially when performing her spontaneous "Standing in the Rain" ditty in "My Fair Jet".
Is Jet really stupid, or just unaware of his surroundings at times?
Some of the show's detractors like to depict the Propulsions as child kidnappers since they always take Sean and Sydney into outer space without their parents' permission.
Some fans think that Mitchell's parents are abusive towards him, which is why he acts condescending to Jet and his friends.
It's very easy to think of Sean as a Stepford Smiler considering how much crap he goes through (including being forced to go into outer space against his own will) and how he still manages to be a Cheerful Child.
Does Sunspot really not know how to speak, or does he, but keeps it a secret? He's shown to speak a little bit when under the effects of the sunspot in "Sunspot's Sunspot", but even after he gets cured, he says "I am lovable, aren't I?". It's possible that there's more to him than meets the eye, but has to hide this to keep up appearances.
Jet, Sydney, and Mindy's actions in "Sean's Year In Space". Were they really trying to annoy Sean and ruin his plan, or were they concerned about his well-being and kept interrupting the plan to keep him from going hungry, among other things?
Is Zerk racist on purpose, or is he just misguided? His later appearances suggest that he's misguided, but that begs the question — was Bortron 7 racist against humans all along? What caused Zerk to think this way? Note how in "Earth Mission to Moon", Zerk asks Jet who was the first Earthie to land on Bortron 7, a question on a class test. Did a human land on Bortron 7 before Sean and Sydney? You would think that Sean and Sydney visiting Bortron 7 would create more of an uproar.
One interpretation is that Face 9000's family was competitive and favored Face 9001. This could be why Face 9001 has a superiority complex and bullies his brother. It could also be why Face 9000 is shown to be jealous easily, has a deep fear of abandonment and desperately craves approval (see "Kid's Guide to Mars", "Moon Face", "My Three Suns", and "Back to Bortron 7").
Among the DSA scientists, Mr. Peterson is the only one who doesn't have a doctorate, which is why he's called Mr. and not Dr. like the rest of them. If you've seen The Big Bang Theory, Howard doesn't have a doctorate and is made fun of because of it. What if Mr. Peterson, like Howard, has an inferiority complex because of his lack of a doctorate, but he compensates for it with his commanding, domineering, bombastic personality? Not to mention that he's always pushing his son Mitchell to be the best.
Alternative Joke Interpretation: In "A Star is Born," Sunspot is cast as the literal star of the movie because the sun is a star, while Sean is playing the animal in the movie. Is this a simple irony joke, or could it be a Take That! at nepotism in Hollywood?
And You Thought It Would Fail: Many people (mostly young GoAnimate users making reaction videos on YouTube) were highly negative when it was announced back in January 2016. The show wound up having a positive overall reception which resulted in that hatedom quickly fading away.
Despite Mitchell's scathing comments towards her, Mindy, being a Cheerful Child, appears to be unfazed by these.
In "My Fair Jet," Sean gets into danger when he gets carried away by a weather balloon, but doesn't seem shaken at all when he is returned to safety. It's especially weird considering that Sean has a fear of heights.
Anvilicious: "Who Messed Up The Treehouse?" makes it very obvious that the treehouse being untidy is a metaphor for trash filling Planet Earth, and that we should take care of the place where we live. Then again, Tropes Are Tools, and this is a very important message in this day and age.
Applicability: The show invites a lot of different interpretations.
The Propulsions struggling to adapt to the human way of things is reflective of the struggles of immigrants immersing themselves in the culture of the country they immigrated to.
The show can also be a metaphor for being neurodivergent. The Propulsions, Jet especially, take things literally and have their own quirky way of doing things. Plus, one common metaphor for being neurodivergent is 'feeling like an alien', which the Propulsions actually are.
The show's LGBT Fanbase sees the show through a Rainbow Lens and think that the show is a metaphor for being queer. Jet has to hide his alien identity because there could be negative consequences of him revealing it. But all Jet wants is to be free to express himself, which is why he struggles to keep his identity a secret.
A lot of themes of growing up are sprinkled about. Mindy's character arc especially is filled with this. She longs to travel to space, tired of sitting by the wayside watching her friends go there, but still learns a lot about space and science. She eventually accepts that Pluto just isn't a planet anymore and makes wise decisions for someone her age (see "Mindy's Bedtime").
Award Snub: At the 2017 Kids Cynopsis Kids !magination Awards, the show was snubbed in almost all of the categories it was nominated in. It had better luck in 2018, only losing in one category and winning the rest.
Despite having a limited budget, the show makes good use of it in its later episodes. The characters have varied facial expressions, the space scenes are obviously stellar, and the character models are crisp and detailed. Special mention goes to the musical number in "A Visit to the Planetarium", which is near Pixar-quality.
The clouds from "My Fair Jet" look absolutely breathtaking, to say the least.
Base-Breaking Character: Mindy, oh dear. Younger fans think she's cute and funny, while older fans think she's annoying, rude towards Sean, and a spotlight hog. Mindy's fans argue that moments like triggering Sean's PTSD are just her being Innocently Insensitive and not outright malicious due to being a little kid. She was generally liked in Season 1, but Season 2 was when the schism happened. This seems to have lessened after the show got cancelled.
In "Mindy's Meteorite Stand", the gang does a Team Power Walk on the way to Jet's garage, complete with metal music in the background.
In "Sunday Drive", the Propulsions dance around to hold music several times.
In "Mindy Turns Five", Celery briefly sings about the outer planets. The moment was just there for filler and was never mentioned again.
In "Galileo, Galileo!", there's a Disney Acid Sequence where Mindy sings about the word "heliocentric" while the kids inexplicably treat Sunspot like a celebrity.
At the end of "Fact Or Fiction?", the cookie dough that Carrot stored in the fridge comes to life. The characters freak out, but the cookie dough ends up befriending Jet. This scene comes completely out of nowhere and doesn't quite match the rest of the episode's tone.
"Mindy Turns Five" is likely the most divisive of the two-part episodes. The younger fans like it because Mindy finally gets to go to space, while the older fans don't like it because of its Pandering to the Base and lack of conflict.
The takeoff song. Some find it funny, others think it's annoying. Regardless, the extended version is universally beloved.
Continuity Lockout: While it's not a heavy story arc-driven series like Beast Wars or Steven Universe, it does have continuity. For example, Face 9000 gets an upgrade in "Face on the Fritz", so new viewers who see a post-FOTF episode, and then see a pre-FOTF episode might be confused. And then there's Mindy going to space in season 2, which might cause confusion for those who watch an episode where she does go to space, and one where she doesn't.
Mindy, as of season 2, due to her being shoehorned in many episodes (one notable example being in "Earth, Wind, and Flyer"), and due to her being over-promoted by PBS while not giving her much character development.
Jet 2 isn't very popular among fans due to just being a Living Prop, but the writers adore him and shove him where they see fit in any given episode.
Cult Classic: The series is considered one of PBS Kids' more overlooked modern-day series, especially since it only ran for two seasons despite having a large audience of children and being fairly popular, leading to a teen/adult Periphery Demographic that's not especially large but can be quite dedicated to the show.
Fans commonly interpret Sean as having high anxiety disorder due to being afraid of going to space and acting paranoid whenever someone touches his birthday telescope.
A number of fans headcanon Mitchell as showing early signs of BPD due to his Rejection Projection tendencies. He's also headcanoned as autistic because of his lack of social skills and special interest in detective work.
Ditto for Lillian, despite being in only one episode, and another two as cameos in season 1. This is due to her status as a Moe. Thanks to this status, she has a lot more screen-time in season 2.
Dr. Bergs, due to his interesting personality, dynamic with the other DSA scientists, and love of coffee.
Amy Mainzer from the interstitial segments is one herself due to not talking down to children and for being a good role model. In fact, some people only watch the show just for her segments.
Face 9001 has only appeared in one episode, yet he's loved due to his cockiness and rivalry with his brother.
One Reddit user proposes that Mitchell and Mindy are actually Carl and Ellie based on their looks alone (it helps that Mindy and Mitchell have frequent Ship Tease). The theory also proposes that Ellie/Mindy is unable to have children because Mindy was affected by cosmic radiation in space.
A particularly depressing theory: Jet isn't real and is just an imaginary friend that Sean, Sydney, and Mindy created to cheer themselves up. Jet is pretty much everything anyone could ever want in a person: smart, funny, talented, kind, and with supernatural abilities and technology. He's also very much an idealized version of Sean, Sydney, and Mindy combined. He has Sean's intelligence, Sydney's creativity, and Mindy's curiosity.
Fandom Rivalry: A minor one with the WordGirl fandom. WordGirl fans believe that their show got canned in 2015 due to RJG! However, this has faded away since then.
The fans give nicknames to the four background children:
The boy with the red cap and blue sweatshirt is nicknamed Riley.
The boy with the green jacket is nicknamed Diego, Jason, or Otto.
The girl with the pink shirt is nicknamed Nina or Kate.
The girl with the pixie cut that Sean was trying to impress in "Mindy's Meteorite Stand" is nicknamed Mabel, Theresa, or Savannah.
Before Sydney's last name was revealed to be Skelley, people called her Sydney McCoy.
Before Lillian was revealed to be Chinese, fanfics called her Lillian Takami, which is a Japanese surname.
The main cast consisting of Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Sunspot, Carrot, Celery, and Face 9000 are sometimes referred to as "The Core Eight". Jet, Sean, and Sydney in particular get called the Space Explorers, while Mindy, Mitchell, and Lillian are the Earth Explorers.
Jet has the memetic nickname of JeJ thanks to a YTP.
The Stock Audio Clip of Sean screaming has been dubbed "The William Scream" after his first voice actor, William Ainscough, since this clip was still used even after Sean was recast.
Lillian having an older sister who wears yellow. Lillian is based on a character from one of the shorts that Craig Bartlett made for Sesame Street, called "Lillian, Big Sister". She has the name of the big sister from the short, but has the appearance of the little sister, which causes some to believe that she has an unnamed older sister who wears yellow clothing.
Some fans like to think that Bergs' first name is Don. In "A Visit to the Planetarium", the guy at the planetarium booth (who the kids refer to as "Don") had a silhouette that looked exactly like Bergs, and he was voiced by Brian Drummond, the same person who voices Bergs. Other fans believe that Don is Bergs' relative.
Fans like to portray Jet and/or Sean as gay or bisexual, and Sydney as asexual. Jet being bi later came true via Word of Gay. Other sexuality headcanons include Lillian as lesbian, Mitchell as pansexual, and Mindy as the token straight.
Face 9001 is theorized as being owned by Zucchini, Eggplant, Zerk, and Moonbeam.
Since Eggplant doesn't really have a personality in canon, fans attempt to make up for this by depicting her as loving beauty. And there are several things in canon that indicate this: Eggplant has a blonde streak in her hair which other Bortronians lack, indicating she put it there herself; she wears bright pink lipstick, which all the other adult women on the show lack; and in "Asteroid Belt Space Race", she admires herself in a mirror during the "Space Racin'" song.
Moonbeam is powered by the moon, to go with Sunspot being powered by the sun.
The whole fandom agrees that Sean's father is onboard the ISS as an astronaut, which is why he isn't around.
Fanon Discontinuity: Some people pretend that the episode "Sean's Year in Space" never happened because of its mean-spirited undertones.
Fanon Welding: Fans theorize that the series takes place in the same universe as Molly of Denali, mostly because Trini (who has the same voice actress as Sydney in Season 2) believes aliens exist, and Jake bears a striking resemblance to Sean, meaning that Sean moved to Alaska and changed his name because he got tired of Mindy's teasing, or Jet cloned Sean and sent it to Alaska. Dinosaur Train is an In-Universe show in Jet if "Mindy's Weather Report" is anything to go by.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Jet/Sydney seems to be supported in the show itself, but Jet/Sean is a more popular ship.
The fandom of this show gets along great with fans of other popular PBS Kids shows, most notably the fandoms of Odd Squad and Wild Kratts.
A lot of Dinosaur Train and Hey Arnold! fans like this show as well, due to all of them being created by the same person.
With the fandoms of Let's Go Luna! and Molly of Denali, due to their similar characters and writing. This "where y'all sitting at?" meme made by KLRU (the PBS station in Austin, Texas) even shows Jet, Molly, and Luna sitting together at lunch. Coincidentally, Jake from Molly looks exactly like Sean from Jet.
After RJG! for cancelled, fans flocked to Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, which has similar character archetypes and episode structures.
As of 2021, many fans of RJG also tend to be fans of Jelly Jamm, especially because Mina from JJ shares the same love of science as Jet and his friends.
Gateway Series: The series is touted as being "a kid's first space show", serving as a kid-friendly introduction to astronomy and earth science, hoping to spark a lifelong love of the Earth and the solar system into today's kids. It can also act as a gateway into sci-fi.
The show has a few jokes here and there relating to astronomy, which would catch the attention of some astrogeeks.
It also helps to know numerology when watching this show. For starters, Bortron 7 is the ideal, 'slice of heaven' planet in the Bortron system because 7 symbolizes completion and perfection in multiple religions. In the show, it's a huge deal when Mindy turns 5, since she can finally go to space. 5 represents freedom, curiosity, and change, which all perfectly describe Mindy's character. Finally, Jet is 63 years old in Bortronian years, which symbolizes his idealism, compassion, and love for his family.
The show is quite popular in Latin America. By the time Nat Geo Kids launched in Latin America, the show had garnered a huge fandom over there, along with shows like Jamie's Got Tentacles! and Chuck's Choice.
It airs up to 20 times a day in Russia. Not bad for a cartoon that only talks about the American side of the Space Race.
The series is beloved in Sri Lanka, with one of the most popular automatic search results for RJG! on YouTube being the Sinhala dub.
This show is the most popular cartoon in Uzbekistan, to the point where it gets more viewership in Uzbekistan than in America. Specifically, it gets over 900,000 viewers there - that's more than Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood's American viewership (over 700,000), which is the highest viewership any PBS Kids series gets in the United States.
The show started off as a fairly average cartoon show. However, starting with the episode "Beep Has the Blues", the show started showing how really good it can be, improving its soundtrack, animation, plots, and developing its' characters further over the course of many episodes.
Season 2 has had great reception from parents, their children (at least according to the parents), and the Periphery Demographic, for several reasons: stronger continuity, more Character Development, several Call Backs and Continuity Nods to plot points and characters from season 1note For example: Lillian came back, the characters sang "I'm Not Afraid of New Ideas" again, and references to the Christmas Episode were made in both "Endless Summer" and "Galileo, Galileo!", Mindy finally going to space, and Mitchell.
In a 2017 interview with Collider, Craig Bartlett said that the show could go on "forever" due to science always evolving and making new discoveries. Then the show would be unceremoniously cancelled in 2019, with many topics still yet to be covered.
In "Backyard Moon Base", the remote to the Propulsion house gets buried. When it gets dug up again, Mindy pushes some buttons to see what it does. The kids don't realize it, but the remote actually caused the house to hover in the air. Carrot freaks out, but luckily the house lands back on Earth. A light-hearted, one-off gag, right? Wrong. This isn't so funny anymore when we learn in "Back to Bortron 7" that the Propulsion house is actually a starship that can be activated by pressing the buttons on the house remote. Carrot did have a reason to freak out after all.
In "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!", Sean decorates a green pumpkin to look like someone ill and uses a hot water bottle. Cute, right? Not so cute after "Sean Has A Cold", where Sean has that exact same hot water bottle when he is sick.
He Really Can Act: Mitchell's VA for season 2 has managed to pull off a delightfully hammy performance. So much so, that he was nominated for a Young Entertainer Award for his role in "Back to Bortron 7".
In "Jet's First Halloween", Mitchell contemplates wearing a clown costume but thinks it's too scary. One year later.....
In the episode "Potatoes on Mars", the characters were unable to grow plants on Mars. In February 2022, Curiosityfound flower-like rocks on Mars. Guess there is life on Mars after all.
Jerkass Woobie: Mitchell. Sure, he may be the resident douchebag of the cul-de-sac (This Twitter user puts it nicely), but in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", it's heavily shown that he's a lonely kid and just wants to have friends, but he's too shy to ask Jet's group if he can hang out with him. So, he puts on a Jerkass facade. It's pretty much impossible not to feel sorry for him.
A number of fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic watch this show because Ashleigh Ball, who plays Rainbow Dash and Applejack, also plays Jet Propulsion.
A large number of parents and their children have admitted to watching this show only for the Amy Mainzer segments at the end of every story.
Craig Bartlett created this series. That alone would draw people in.
LGBT Fanbase: While not as prominent as shows like The Owl House, a lot of the show's fanbase are LGBTQ+ or at least supportive of it. It helps that Jet is canonically bi according to Word of Gay, even though it wasn't confirmed on the show proper.
In early 2017 on Tumblr, there were memes pointing out the show's animation error and weird-looking paused moments
"BOOYAH, SCIENCE", both in-universe and out.note Dr. Bergs coined the phrase in "Beep and Boop's Game". Sean would later use it in "Space Race", and famously in the Made-for-TV Movie "Back to Bortron 7", during his interview on Bortron 7. It was later looped on several TVs as shown when the gang is leaving Bortron 7.
Face (Over) 9000!note Since Face has 9000 in his name and is voiced by none other than Brian Drummond, people have inevitably made references to the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z
"X is a furry!"note Whenever a character dresses up as an animal for whatever reason, some people get the impression that they're a furry. The most obvious examples being Cat!Mr. Peterson and Dog!Sean
Since when did Sean leave Washington? Explanation A lot of fans ask this in regards to Jake, who looks exactly like Sean. One fan suggested that he had gotten tired of Mindy's crap, so he moved from Washington to Alaska.
In the same vein, at least one Common Sense Media reviewer pointed out that Sunspot looks like a Sentret.
Referring to Jet as JeJ has become something of an inside joke in the fandom, thanks to this early YouTube Poop based on the show.
OOBY DOOBY DOOBYnote The Sinhala dub of "What Goes Up (Must Come Down)" has Sunspot's lines be translated as "OOBY DOOBY DOOBY", resulting in it being spammed in comment sections.
The So Bad, It's Good quality of almost every "What Goes Up (Must Come Down)" dub are pure meme fodder for the fans.
The wine tumbler Explanation There is an official RJG! wine tumbler available for purchase on the PBS Kids online shop. Due to how unexpected this was, it has become an insidejoke in the fandom
Misaimed Merchandising: While the memetic wine tumbler can be used for any beverage, and it is likely aimed at the Periphery Demographic, the target audience of Ready Jet Go! isn't old enough to drink alcohol.
Moe: Every child character is precious in their own way. Baby Jet◊ in particular.
Celery's singing. It's absolutely beautiful, especially in the song "You're Never Too Big For a Lullaby" from the episode "Jet Can't Sleep".
Anytime Jet sings is bound to put a smile on anyone's face.
Regardless of your opinion on the takeoff, the dramatic violin that plays during the song is just lovely. Especially towards the end of the song, it just sounds so peaceful.
Sydney rarely gets to sing solo. When she does sing, it's with the group. But she is revealed to be a beautiful singer in the song "I'm Not Afraid of New Ideas" from "Lone Star".
Sean also rarely gets to sing by himself, usually, he sings with the group or rhythmically talks. But he does get to show off his singing power in "There's No Planet Like My Planet" from "Back to Bortron 7". It's just lovely. It makes one wonder why he doesn't sing more often on the show. It's even lampshaded by the other characters in the Christmas Episode, where everybody comments on how beautiful his voice really is.
The scene where Beep the rover jumps across the Mars Yard in "Beep and Boop's Game" is supposed to be serious, but the fact that it's in slow motion makes it corny.
The scene where the gang is having a tea party on the moon and Mindy's teacup slowly falls....and it doesn't even break. It just comes off as corny.
In "Sean's Robotic Arm", Sean is so distraught by losing his beloved Neil Armstrong action figure that he...faceplants onto the ground, making this otherwise tear jerking scene rather silly.
A lot of the show's appeal lies in how campy and over-the-top it is. It helps that it uses voice actors from The Ocean Group, who were responsible for a lot of cheesy anime dubs.
Carrot and Celery's Sickeningly Sweethearts antics are impossible to hate because of how sincere they are. Craig Bartlett once said that their sentimental moments are supposed to showcase a healthy marriage to kids. In that way, kids with dysfunctional/abusive parents can be comforted by Carrot and Celery being Happily Married, Good Parents.
Older Than the Demographic: Jet, Sean, and Sydney are around 9-12 years old, contrasting with the show's demographic of 3-8-year-olds. The makers of the show were well aware, and during development, added Mindy, who's 4, to appeal to young kids.
Pandering to the Base: Season 2, big time. The season has more spotlight on fan-favorites Dr. Skelley, Mitchell, and even Lillian, along with more Ship Tease for Jet/Sean and Mitchell/Mindy, more absurd yet exciting plots, and of course, Mindy going to space.
Periphery Demographic: The show has garnered a decent older fanbase who enjoy the show for its clever writing, awesome music, and space information. It also helps that the creator of this show also made Hey Arnold!, a show with a large fanbase, and Dinosaur Train, which is popular among dinosaur geeks, and the fact that the main character is voiced by Ashleigh Ball of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fame.
Jet/Sean - Propulsean, being a pun on 'Propulsion'
Mindy/Mitchell - Mindell or Mitchlendez
Sunspot/Moonbeam - Sunbeam or Moonspot
Questionable Casting: In-Universe example - in "A Star is Born", Sydney casts Sunspot (the pet) as a literal star solely due to nepotism (the sun is a star), and casts Sean as Sirius, the dog in her fanmade Commander Cressida movie. Sean points out how ridiculous this decision was.
Rainbow Lens: Owing to the show's LGBT Fanbase, certain things in the show can be interpreted as metaphors. For example, Shep turning out to be a female rover named Beep in "Solar Power Rover", and the characters accepting her as she is and using her correct name and pronouns without error throughout the rest of the show is interpreted as a metaphor for being transgender. Also, the whole concept of Jet having to hide his alien identity and being in danger if he ever reveals it can easily be seen as a metaphor for being a closeted LGBT person.
Refrain from Assuming: The song sung at the end of "Date Night" is actually called "Date Night" according to the episode credits, but fans often, mistakenly call it "Real Bortronian Deal" because of that phrase being repeated in the song.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In "Back to Bortron 7," Zerk is fleshed out a lot more and less annoying/speciesist than he was previously. In "Zerk Visits Earth," Zerk grows to adore the planet Earth. He's also respectful towards Jet for once. These installments made fans stop hating him, though he is still a Motor Mouth.
Mindy is the Antichrist; just ask some of the older fans.
Eggplant is a rather Flat Character in canon, so the fans make up for this by saying that she's a self-absorbed, vain, beauty-obsessed Karen.note "Karen" is a pejorative term for entitled busybody women, who like to speak to the manager
Mr. Peterson being abusive as noted in Alternative Character Interpretation. Although he and his son's relationship is...complicated, he's not at all abusive in canon.
Sailor Earth: Pick a type of family member, and give them a vegetable name. Congratulations, you now have your own Propulsion family OC.
The Scrappy: Zerk, Jet's cousin. Zerk has an annoying speech impediment and behaves like a bully towards Jet and his friends. He was eventually Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in "Back to Bortron 7". Zerk was more kind towards Sean and Sydney and actually contributed something important to the plot.
Signature Line: "Excelsior!" and "A kid's place is exploring space."
Signature Song: Apart from the obvious one (the theme song), the "Tiny Blue Dot" song sums up the show's series-wide message of loving the Earth.
Carrot and Celery's constant flirting was considered gross by the kids In-Universe at first. This has since faded away.
At one point in "Sean Has A Cold", Sean coughs into his hands instead of his elbow.
Superlative Dubbing: Even though the Korean dub only lasted one season, it's considered one of, if not the best foreign dub of the show due to the characters being well-casted. Even Jet's adult male voice grew on people over time. It also has the honor of being the only dub to get "What Goes Up (Must Come Down)" right and not screw up the autotune like other dubs.
Sweet Dreams Fuel: It's a sweet, light-hearted show that focuses on the joys of learning about outer space, science, and the like.
Tainted by the Preview: The show's commercials from early 2016 made it look bad — just another annoying, hyperactive kids' show, turning off would-be fans. The aggressive marketing didn't help. This didn't stop it from gaining high ratings with the target audience, but the Periphery Demographic didn't come until much later, when they gave it a chance, liked it, and spread the news that it was actually good.
Tear Dryer: In "Sean's Neptune Tune", Sean is scared to visit Neptune and is really embarrassed to tell Jet and Sydney. When they find out, they assure him that they'll always be his friend and he can tell them anything. With Sean still having reservations about visiting Neptune, Jet comes up with a funny song to ease Sean's fears, which works.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: People initially had this reaction towards Sydney, Mitchell, and later Sean's new voices for season 2, although they have warmed up to them over time.
Face 9001, Face 9000's brother from "A Kid's Guide to Mars". His moments in that episode were hilarious and his relationship with Face 9000 made for a solid Sibling Rivalry. However, he never appeared again after "A Kid's Guide to Mars", and wasn't even mentioned again in the show.
Mindy to an extent. While she gets a lot of screentime, especially in Season 2, most of it is just her forgetting facts she learned in previous episodes and rarely giving her actual characterization. It would be interesting if Mindy suffered angst about being younger and smaller than everyone else, something hinted at in "Jet Shrinks the Kids", or if she remembered the facts she learned and teaches Lillian about them instead.
Eggplant. She has an attractive design and showed a pretty cunning streak in "Asteroid Belt Space Race". Alas, she only appeared twice and never again. The same can go for the rest of Jet's extended family come Season 2. Zucchini, Zerk, and Eggplant all appeared only in "Back to Bortron 7", "Asteroid Belt Space Race", and for Zerk only, "Zerk Visits Earth".
In "A Visit to the Planetarium", Jet feels bad that Pluto got demoted, and wants to visit it one day and bring it candy. When the gang actually does visit Pluto in "From Pluto With Love", they don't bring it any candy. Compounding it, it was Valentine's Day in that episode, and people give each other candy on that holiday.
The show never went into depth about Mercury or Uranus. The gang visited these planets for brief lessons on the planets themselves, their rotations, and their distance from the sun, but that's it. They never even landed on Mercury.note Uranus is a gas planet
Similarly, Venus never got a full episode to itself. But at least the gang has landed on Venus and sang a song about it.
Toy Ship: Most of the show's ships (besides Sunspot/Moonbeam and Jet 2/Boop) involve the kids, who have innocent childhood crushes. The most common are Mitchell/Mindy, Jet/Sydney, and Jet/Sean, as each ship has at least some canon evidence supporting it. Though everyone agrees that they should wait until they're much older to get into serious relationships. Helps that Craig Bartlett's other shows have Puppy Love, such as Arnold/Helga and Shiny/Gilbert.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The series, in general, has beautiful animation, but special mention goes to the musical number in "A Visit to the Planetarium", which has absolutely stunning visuals and sharper, more fluid animation than usual.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: "Lone Star" and "Galileo, Galileo!". In both of the episodes, Jet and Sean portray a scientist who had new ideas that he wanted to share with the world (Lone Star and Galileo Galilei), but they get rejected by society (The citizens of Boxwood Territory and the Catholic Church) because of it. In both of the episodes, the characters sing about how you shouldn't be afraid of new ideas and how "old ideas ought to go so new ones can replace 'em".
Sean. He deals with being flown into space against his will (not helping this is him suffering from claustrophobia, acrophobia, and motion sickness), no one listens to his ideas since they insist on failing multiple times instead of getting it right the first time, his dad is never around and his mother is almost always working, and he's almost always a Nervous Wreck.
Beep and Boop in the episode "Beep Has the Blues". Boop was sick because of her dusty panels, causing Beep to fall into depression. Even though they're robots, you can't help but sympathize for them.
Sunspot is renamed to Sputnik in the Finnish dub, as a Shout-Out to the first artificial Earth satellite.
Likewise, he's Ray (Лучик) in the Russian dub and the adorable Sun Bunny (Saules Zaķis) in the Latvian voiceover.
In the Sinhala dub of "The Milky Way" song from "A Visit to the Planetarium", Jet sings a solfège (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) at the end instead of "Good evening friends!" like in the original English. This not only makes the song work better in Sinhala, but also highlights Jet's quirky nature.
In their dub of "My Three Suns", they made Face's comedian persona be named Joker Face, as a clever pun on 'poker face'.
In the Hungarian dub, whereas other characters keep their names in English and with English name order (surname last), Jet and his family’s names use Hungarian name order (surname first) along with having a translated last name. This is likely to indicate that they are aliens.
In the Polish dub, Carrot and Celery have regular human names (Karol and Celina, respectively), because Polish is a gendered language and the words for the vegetables are the opposite gender from the characters Carrot and Celery.
In the Russian dub, the "a kid's place is exploring space" Tag Line becomes "Best friends; the cosmos, the world and me", which is not only adorable, but reflects the themes of the whole series.
The Uzbek dub changes the components of a three-part Bortronian meal from a hoagie, Figinnuz, and exploding shake to "Bortron burger, potato fries, and an exploding sherbet".
In Norway, the show is called Jet fra Bortom, which literally translates to Jet from Beyond. "Bortom" sounds almost exactly like "Bortron", the star system that Jet and his family are from. So they really are from beyond.
In "Jet 2," Jet thinks 'jealous' is a type of jelly. In the Spanish dub, this is adapted to Jet thinking 'celoso' (jealous) is a type of bear ('oso').
, the show was snubbed in almost all of the categories it was nominated in. It had better luck in 2018, only losing in one category and winning the rest.
