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{{quote|'''Earl:''' ''Do good things and good things happen to you. Do bad things, they'll come back to haunt you.''
'''Randy:''' ''That's deep Earl, so why don't you stop hogging those vicodins they gave you and we can all chat about that for a while?''
NBC sitcom starring Jason Lee as Earl Hickey, a petty criminal, drunken vandal and all-round piece of obnoxious white trash who comes upon one fateful day. He wins a hundred thousand dollars from a Scratch 'n' Win lottery ticket only to get hit by a car during his celebration dance, losing the ticket to the wind and putting him in traction. While he's high on painkillers his promiscuous wife Joy hands over divorce papers so she can run off with Earl Jr's real daddy Darnell. While watching TV, he sees Carson Daly explain the concept of karma.
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* [[Acrofatic]]: Randy gets a couple moments of this, such as doing a perfect backflip off of the back of Earl's El Camino.
* [[Adam Westing]]:
** Geraldo Rivera in the ''[[Inside Probe]]'' episodes portrays a slightly [[Large Ham]]-ier version of himself.
** Actor Tim Stack often plays a bitter, drunken version of himself.
* [[Alcohol-Induced Idiocy]]: The pre-reformed Earl had a lot of acts of this in his past.
* [[The Alleged Car]]: Earl's "perfectly good 1973 El Camino with a 1977 door and a 1987 Camaro transmission." It won't go over 40 miles per hour ever since Randy put gum in the gas tank.
* [[Amicably Divorced]]: After a rocky first half of the first season, Earl and Joy eventually became rather good friends, and in the fourth season, Earl (after two brief marriages in between) fondly admitted that she was his favorite wife.
* [[Analogy Backfire]]: Earl wanted his post-marriage relationship with Joy to be more civil, "like [[Bruce Willis|Bruce]] and [[Demi Moore|Demi]]
* [[Ascended Meme]]: Taken to ultra-meta levels. Creator Greg Garcia started up an account on [[Television Without Pity]] under the name of whojackie, and began writing all these little bits and pieces on the ''My Name Is Earl'' forum that eventually coalesced into an actual episode of the series where whojackie is revealed to be a (very) minor character on the show. When TWoP users saw the episode they looked up Jackey's post history and saw that many of the things he posted on there [[Fore Shadowed]] the events of that episode, including being worried about his Murphy's (wall) Bed. After the episode aired they even had "Joy" post on the site under Jackey's name mirroring the events of the episode. All of the details are discussed in the [[DVD Commentary]] of that episode.▼
* [[Ash Face]]: Occurs when Earl decides to [[Aerosol Flamethrower|light a cigarette while Joy is using lots of hairspray.]]▼
{{quote|'''Earl''': ''(gleefully)'' "Randy, get in here! We look like cartoons!"}}▼
* [[Art Shift]]: When Earl tries saving everyone from pollution and melts down from the realization there's too much for him to do alone, he starts seeing himself in claymation for a while.
** Randy starts seeing every human character in claymation after ingesting some powerful herbal ointment after being explicitly warned not to in the same episode. This lasts until Earl's done with the meltdown mentioned above.
* [[Artistic License: Law]]: When Earl falsely confesses to Joy's crime. First of all, the fact that Joy's prints are mentioned as being also on the truck would mean she at the very least would be an accessory to the crime, the fact that she jumped bail and escaped to Mexico is also a major felony and her star witness deciding to suddenly confess at the very least would require a retrial to rule out Earl making a false confession. All-in-all, Joy ''still'' would have done some jail-time for her either being part of the crime or the felonies she committed while attempting to resist arrest.
▲* [[Ascended Meme]]: Taken to ultra-meta levels. Creator Greg Garcia started up an account on [[Television Without Pity]] under the name of whojackie, and began writing all these little bits and pieces on the ''My Name Is Earl'' forum that eventually coalesced into an actual episode of the series where whojackie is revealed to be a (very) minor character on the show. When TWoP users saw the episode they looked up Jackey's post history and saw that many of the things he posted on there [[Fore Shadowed]] the events of that episode, including being worried about his Murphy's (wall)
▲* [[Ash Face]]: Occurs when Earl decides to [[Aerosol Flamethrower|light a cigarette while Joy is using lots of hairspray.]]
▲{{quote|'''Earl''': ''(gleefully)'' "Randy, get in here! We look like cartoons!"}}
* [[The Atoner]]: This show is all about Earl atoning for his past mistakes.
* [[Ax Crazy]]: Chubby Sr. is [[Affably Evil]] for sure, but this is the same guy who not only threw his wife out of a moving vehicle in the past, but also has a hell of a temper should the word [[Berserk Button|"Boobies"]] be used in front of him.
** Not to mention [[Betty White]]'s character, "Crazy Witch Lady".
** Donnie, before he went to jail (while taking the wrap for Earl's robbery because of his cold) where he had a religious epiphany.
* [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other]]: While much of the time they are at each
* [[Badass Mustache]]: Earl, full stop, as well as Big and Little Chubby.
* [[Batman Gambit]]: Earl pulls off a fairly impressive one in "Orphan Earl
* [[Becoming the Mask]]: Earl genuinely has become a better person, originally he was just wanting bad stuff to stop happening.
* [[Berserk Button]]: Harming Joy's kids, emotionally or physically, causes her to turn into [[Mama Bear]].
** Do ''not'' say the word boobies in Chubby Sr.'s presence. Fortunately for Randy, the gun used on him was full of vodka, but Chubby Sr. has one full of bullets also on hand that he regularly mistakes for it...
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Randy. They've shown on various
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Catalina's supposed insults to Joy in Spanish are actually comments to her fans, breaking the [[Fourth Wall]]
* [[Biting the Hand Humor]]: "Inside Probe Part I".
{{quote|'''Randy''': "Network executives, they sure take the cake."
'''Joy''': "Plus, they don't let people cuss anymore on TV until a certain time at night ..." * looks at her watch for a few seconds* "Douchebags."
** This line was censored in the C4 airing, making it even more funny reading it here. The sequence in question came right after a bit when the guys question why Inside Spot needed a "[[To Be Continued]]", and [[Lampshade Hanging|Darnell explained that they didn't have enough episodes for a full season, and just split one episode into two]] (ironically, this was said in an episode from the longest season of the show).
* [[Bland-Name Product]]: Earl refers to a Nyquil [[Expy]] as "Generic brand, nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, best sleep you ever got with a cold" Medicine.
* [[Blessed Are the Cheesemakers]]: Darnell.
* [[Boobs of Steel]]: Referenced by Randy in regards to Joy-
{{quote|'''Gym Patron:''' "How big is your bully?"
'''Randy:''' "About 'this' tall, about 110 pounds,'' (pantomimes feeling her chest) ''about a 38 C."
'''Gym Patron:''' "Wait? Your bully is a girl?"
'''Randy:''' "Yeah, but not just any girl... ''38 C!''"
* [[Book Dumb]]: Except for Darnell (a child genius) and Patty (who has a master's degree), everyone in Camden.
* [[Bottle Episode]]: The crew admitted that the ''[[
* [[Bounty Hunter]]: Jesse is this, and one with a long-standing grudge against Joy.
** And Dog the Bounty Hunter.
* [[Broken Aesop]]: Does anyone else find it a little strange that Earl puts his list away for a day so people will stop calling him "Karma Guy" while saying an Aesop about not letting other people's labels define you? Since when does changing your actions because of people's labels fit into that Aesop?
* [[Broken Record]]: Episode 94 "Inside Probe
* [[California Doubling]]: We really don't know [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|where Camden is]], but most hints put it somewhere in the US southeast.
** Coming from someone who lives a short ways away, a likely guess would be Camden County, North Carolina.
* [[Call Back]]: The people Earl helps often come back to help him out. This happens as early as the third episode, when the first guy Earl helped comes back to make a fake birth certificate so that [[It Makes Sense in Context|Randy can go to high-school]].
* [[Camp Gay]]: Kenny ''really'' toes the line on this. He is certainly effeminate, but not quite "fabulous
* [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]: Because karma will ''get'' you.
* [[The Cast Showoff]]:
* [[Catch Phrase]]: Earl and Darnell's "Hey Earl - Hey Crabman" routine and Joy's "Oh snap!"
* [[Celebrity Paradox]]: Earl and Randy are fans of ''[[Smokey and the Bandit]]'' and Burt Reynolds plays a local respected and feared businessman.
* [[Censorship by Spelling]]: After Earl slept with Joy before the latter's wedding with Darnell, Joy and Earl have this conversation in front of Earl Jr.
{{quote|'''Earl''': I have to tell [Darnell].
'''Joy''': Like H-E-double-L you do.
'''Earl''': I can't live like this Joy, he needs to know we....H-A-D sex together.
'''Joy''': That is B-U-double-L honkey!
* [[Character Development]]: Earl in particular, due to working on his list he has become a genuinely good person even if it doesn't involve his list. But Joy has also been shown to not be quite as mean and selfish as spill-over from Earl's good attitude.
* [[Characterization Marches On]]: Revisiting the first season it is interesting to see what was different in the beginning. Not quite to the degree [[Flanderization]], but Earl was the only one to escape this trope as he had a sharp degree of character development. Randy was simple-minded but not all that stupid, Joy looked more like a streetwalker than a trailer park mom (her signature hair bands aren't in the early episodes), there is no hint of Darnell being a super-intelligent {{spoiler|ex-spy}} and Catalina was a bit [[Spicy Latina|less
** With Darnell, [[Fridge Brilliance|it makes sense.]] {{spoiler|He is in the Witness Protection Program, so he wouldn't want to hint at it. He even admits at one point that his behavior up to that point had been a ruse
* [[Citizenship Marriage]]: Catalina marries Randy so she can get her green card.
* [[Cliff Hanger]]: Of the unresolved type. In the last episode, it's revealed that {{spoiler|Dodge is actually Earl's son but Earl Jr. isn't Darnell's son
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Randy.
* [[The Comically Serious]]: Stuart.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: Countless instances of references, varying in subtlety.
{{quote|Season 1: "This is the sweetest, most justified kidnapping I've ever seen" - "How many have you seen?" - "Five or so."
Season 2: "This is the cruelest, most unjustified kidnapping I've ever seen" - "How many have you seen?" - "Six or so."
* [[Cosmic Plaything]]: The titular Earl, if there's an opportunity for karma to strike him, it will hit him ''hard''.
* [[Crazy Cultural Comparison]]: One episode involved an incident where [[Funny Foreigner|Nescobar Aloplop]] received a lap dance from a stripper, who then got into an argument with [[Spicy Latina|Catalina]], because Nescobar Aloplop is one of her regular "clients". His response:
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** And then he was informed by staff at the strip club, "Sir, just because a woman sits on your lap does not mean you're married to her."
* [[Crazy Prepared]]: Darnell is like this at times and attributes it to his super-spy training. One episode had Catalina's voodoo practicing nephew cause a [[Torches and Pitchforks|mob to form]] with Earl, Randy and Darnell trying to keep him safe. Darnell produced a trunk with various [[Hidden Supplies|survival supplies]], including passports, and explained, "I've been trained to think three steps ahead. I saw this coming 7 months ago."
* [[Creative Closing Credits]]: In the episode citing ''[[Smokey and the Bandit]]''.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Subverted for laughs in every fistfight. Whoever appears to be the strongest fighter always gets their ass kicked by the person you would ''least'' expect to win. Earl once gets beaten to a pulp by the one-legged girl's boyfriend who has no legs and a single arm.
* [[Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon]]: One of the prison inmates during
* [[The Cutie]]: Natalie, Joy while taking her meds (which, in this troper's opinion, matches her dollish looks perfectly).
* [[A Day
* [[A Day in the Limelight]]: "Buried Treasure" has Randy, Joy, Darnell and Dotty the Librarian replicating Earl's opening introduction and narrating part of the episode.
* [[Death Seeker]]: Minor side-character Philo constantly tried to commit suicide until Earl and Randy's attempts at cheering him up convinced him that he had friends.
* [[Deep South]]: ''[[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|Where]]'' [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|in the South, however...]]
* [[Depending on the Writer]]: How civil Joy and Earl are to each other tends to vary, mostly in later seasons (
* [[Development Gag]]: The scene where Catalina demonstrates her American accent is a joke that Nadine Valazquez actually uses a fake Spanish accent to play Catalina.
* [[The Ditz]]: Randy was flanderized into an extreme version of this.
* [[The Documentary]]: Two fictional episodes of
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: Inverted with the show's basic premise. An uncouth, impoverished thief renounces his ways after gaining wealth and being abandoned by his family, and [[Buddhism|embarks on a mission to
* [[Driven to Madness]]: What Earl (and the other Camden residents) did to the Crazy Witch Lady.
* [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]]: At his birthday party a year into his quest to do good things, people still only talk about the stuff Earl still needs to make up for instead of giving him the pat on his back he hoped for. {{spoiler|Turns out the party was just a prank and there is a real one waiting for him at home}}.
* [[Eagle Land]]: A [[Running Gag]] has it that whenever Earl is trying to make a good impression he always makes mention of being (specifically) a law-abiding American.
** Joy would be the perfect patriot if she didn't have zero respect for the law.
* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: "Number 87: I stole a car from a one-legged woman."
* [[Easy Amnesia]]: Sweet Johnny.
* [[Eccentric Townsfolk]]: Camden seems to accumulate [[Flanderization|more and more]] of these as the series progresses.
* [[End-of-Episode Silliness]]: You'll always see Earl and Randy talking too each other about various silly topics before going to bed before the credits roll.
* [[Erudite Stoner]]: Darnell.
* [[Eskimos Aren't Real]]: During one episode Randy tries to make a list of famous rich people he and his brother could borrow from, like [[The Beverly Hillbillies]]. Earl points out that they're fictional TV characters, "just like [[Richie Rich]] and [[Donald Trump]]".▼
* [[Everything Sounds Sexier in French]]: The only reason Pierre wanted to travel back to America aside from hitting Earl was to do lots of American women, which he found extremely easy because of his accent.
* [[Evil Albino]]: [[Played for Laughs]]. When Earl is in prison, one of the prison
* [[Expansion Pack Past]]: Patty's character has elements of this.
* [[Expy]]
* [[Faking the Dead]]
* [[Fan Service]]
* [[Fascinating Eyebrow]]: Well, more like weirded-out/confused eyebrow. Earl does this pretty often. Almost [[Once an Episode]].
* [[Fat and Skinny]]
* [[Fat Idiot]]: Randy isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
* [[Flash Back]]: Almost guaranteed to introduce the current list item that Earl needs to check off.
* [[Foreign Language Tirade]]: Catalina does a [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|fourth-wall-breaking]] one.
** Pierre in "Foreign Exchange Student".
* [[Foreshadowing]]: Mid-
* [[Forgotten First Meeting]]: Randy goes to meet his childhood crush "Pinky
* [[French Jerk]]: Pierre, though it was Earl's fault.▼
* [[Fourth Date Marriage]]: All three of Earl's marriages (none of which ultimately lasted) were examples of this.
▲* [[French Jerk]]: Pierre, though it was Earl's fault.
* [[Funny Foreigner]]: Nescobar Aloplop, the man to whom Earl tried to teach English, shows up occasionally to help him.
* [[Girls with Moustaches]]: In junior high, Earl made fun of a girl with a
* [[God Guise]]: In one episode, Earl used a walkie-talkie to transmit messages through his religious cranky landlady's hearing aid to get her to do nice things for him and his friends. She later became a nun... and Earl had to tell her what he did, thus shaking up her faith.
* [[Good Feels Good]]: Randy brings this up to Earl when Earl decided to abandon his list and karma altogether. Although he will follow his brother anywhere he knew that doing good things felt good.
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* [[Gosh Hornet]]: When Earl falls for a sexy woman named Alex and begins to ignore his list to spend time with her, the forces of karma send bees after him and, when that fails, a whole swarm after her.
* [[Gotta Catch Them All]]
* [[Groin Attack]]: Lil Chubby's highly effective torture scene where he ties Earl to a baseball chamber, intent on making him impotent. "Free Bird" plays in the background. Oooh yeah.
* [[Happily Married]]: Joy and Darnell.
* [[Happy Place]]: Earl's sitcom world with Billie in the coma.
* [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?]]: Kenny and Stuart, taking the [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]] route
* [[Her Codename Was Mary Sue]]: Randy's fantasy. Not much more needs to be said.
* [[Hollywood Evolution]]: In one episode, Joy attempts to disprove evolution by showing that a fish won't grow legs when the only food available is outside the water.
* [[Homage]]: Season 3: {{spoiler|A guy gets innocently thrown into prison, improves the lives of his fellow inmates and becomes an asset for the warden. When his release from prison is in sight, the warden fucks with him to keep him inside and the guy begins to rebel and finally breaks out. Sounds familiar? Then you probably watched ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]''}}.
* [[Humans Are
* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Not every episode, but the vast majority of them read like an item from the list: "Made a lady think I was God
* [[I Know Mortal Kombat]]
* [[Improbably Cool Car]]: One of the obnoxious students has a mint 1967 Chevrolet Camaro, despite being sixteen and in a town implied to be largely poor and rundown.
** An early episode has Earl get back the first-gen Mustang his father bought intending to give to Earl when he turned sixteen. [[What Happened to the Mouse?|The Mustang]][[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome|is never mentioned or seen after that episode.]]
* [[The Internet Is for Porn]]:
* [[Invisible to Gaydar]]: Stuart, although he may be Bi given that he was interested in a woman before settling down with Kenny.▼
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Several, but mostly Joy▼
* [[Jerkass]] There are LOTS of these, but the psychotic Little Chubby and the [[Fat Bastard]] burger joint boss played by Jon Favreau really stand out.
▲* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Several, but mostly Joy
* [[Juggling Loaded Guns]]: Chubby carries a loaded pistol and an identical looking water pistol filled with vodka that he uses to freshen patrons drinks (and
* [[Jumping the Gender Barrier]]: Stuart settles for Kenny.
* [[Just Friends]]: Randy towards Catalina. Then after their green card wedding and its disastrous wedding night ([[Fridge Logic|Why didn't Catalina just say no to sex?]]) there was an [[Unrequited Love Switcheroo]] that wasn't followed up on.
* [[Karma Houdini]]: Played with in one episode
▲* [[Juggling Loaded Guns]]: Chubby carries a loaded pistol and an identical looking water pistol filled with vodka that he uses to freshen patrons drinks (and occassionally squirts directly into his mouth). He is shown shooting at least one patron's glass and (between episodes) the invetible happens and he shoots himself in the head.
▲* [[Karma Houdini]]: Played with in one episode; the boss of the burger joint Earl temporarily worked at was a colossal jerk ''and'' a lawbreaker, yet had everything in life a man could want. But the moment Earl lost his temper and hit him, he lost it all and wound up in prison when all his dirty laundry got exposed. Earl concluded that karma had borrowed his fist to [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|give the man what he deserved.]]
** Averted with Earl himself, natch.
** For a series whose entire ''premise'' is based on averting this trope at all costs, this is played depressingly straight with Billie. She's an outright bitch who mistreats Earl and Randy, and deliberately hinders Earl from doing his list whenever she gets a chance. Later on, she goes completely [[Yandere
*** Well, she ''does'' give up all her worldly possessions to spend her life with backwards farmers who, IIRC, think the wheel is "devil's work" and whose women use corn husks for sanitary napkins. So it's not exactly a vacation.
*** The whole show falls completely down the idealist side of [[the Scale]] it isn't about punishing Billie (or indeed anyone), it is about her getting redemption and happiness. She learns to work hard, stop doing bad things, and be happy in herself. Karma.
* [[Keeping Secrets Sucks]]: The entire basis of one [[Christmas Episode]].
* [[Knife-Throwing Act]]: Earl volunteers to be on the target to help win a mother and daughter beauty pageant. The knife-throwing girl doesn't want to spend her life doing pageants though, so Earl encourages her to "accidentally" hit him in the leg during the act. He forgot how much getting stabbed hurt.
** In an act of [[Art Imitates Art]], or something like it, the knife-throwing daughter is played by Chloe Grace Moretz, who went on to play Hit Girl in ''[[Kick-Ass]]''.
* [[Laser-Guided Karma]]: But of course.
* [[Latin Land]]: Catalina's undisclosed South-American home country contains [[Up to Eleven|every possible stereotype associated with this trope]]. Her home village is called "Guadela-tucky
* [[Left Hanging]]:
** While the final cliffhanger is never resolved, the pilot of Greg Garcia's new show ''[[Raising Hope]]'' worked in a brief nod that indicates that Earl eventually did finish his list:
{{quote|'''Newscaster:''' "In lighter news, a small-time crook with a long list of wrongs he was making amends for has finally finished, and you’ll never guess how it ended..."
* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: Darnell has literally three sets of clothes: a white tank top, a white ribbed long-sleeved t-shirt and a purple tuxedo (not counting his Crab Shack apron). Earl often wears an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a solid
** Generally the only time the characters' clothing varies is when they don disguises for various wacky hijinks. Darnell and Joy stealing the priest's and nun's clothes comes to mind. Then there's Darnell's spy costume, too.
{{quote|Earl: "I know what you mean, the rich kids would tease me for wearing the same two shirts every day. I promised when I got older I would have a different flannel shirt for every day of the week. And I do... by god I do."}}
* [[List of Transgressions]]: The main drive of the show, Earl starts writing in the first episode a laundry list of every bad thing he's ever done, knowing he will ''somehow'' have to make it right. The list has well over 200 items and will frequently find more of them added as fixing ''one'' bad thing leads to discovering a consequence he hadn't been aware up to this point but is nonetheless directly responsible. The easy to fix items are usually the ones that reveal a much more complex consequence that require an entire episode to make right.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]
* [[Loophole Abuse]]
* [[Lost Love Montage]]: Randy has a character tic of playing Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" on a boombox after a woman rejects him or breaks up with him. This is depicted in an hilarious montage where he sings the song in a monotone voice. Also, when Earl and Randy are in Mexico, a mariachi band is heard playing this song.
* [[Magnetic Plot Device]]
* [[Malaproper]]
* [[Mama Bear]]: Joy.
* [[Man Child]]
* [[Mandatory Line]]: Catalina at times, mostly because she doesn't have quite the same history with the other characters as they have with each other.
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* [[Monster of the Week]]: In the form of the individual improprieties Earl sets right episode by episode
* [[Motionless Makeover]]: Ernie's Crab Shack has a Christmas tradition that the first one to pass out drunk gets to be the Christmas tree.
* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Catalina, as when she started working as a stripper at Club Chubby's again she had a tendency to lounge around in her stripper outfit, which included the Crab Shack and one time visiting Earl ''in prison.''
* [[Murder Is the Best Solution]]: The Crazy Witch Lady thinks killing people is the best way to deal with all the idiots in Camden that tormented her over the years.
** Also Darnell agrees that killing Catalina is the best way to hide that Joy tried to drunkenly run her over with a mower in an effort to prevent Joy getting her third strike
* [[Naked People Are Funny]]: One episode featured a former stoner who joined an outdoorsy environmentalist group which included some nudists. In particular, an old woman tastefully sitting in a garden.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: Most everything is explained, but one [[Running Gag]] is Darnell's unexplained proficiency with weapons and [[Pressure Points]].
* [[No Theme Tune]]▼
▲* [[Noodle Incident]]: Most everything is explained, but one [[Running Gag]] is Darnell's unexplained proficiency with weapons and [[Pressure Points]]. {{spoiler|Darnell was a trained by and worked for his father as a secret agent. The reason he is in Camden is that he is in Witness Protection}}. And there is all that worry over his love of cheese...
* [[Nostalgic Narrator]]: Earl.
▲* [[No Theme Tune]]
* [[Not My Lucky Day]]
* [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome]]
* [[Oh, Cisco]]
* [[Oh My Gods]]: Earl's ''"Holy Moses!"'' and Joy's ''"Oh Snap!"''
* [[Only a Flesh Wound]]
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Earl, well eventually anyway. At first he is just another Camden idiot, but by about halfway through the run he has become the only person with a working brain in Camden. It even becomes a plot point in the Prison-Arc where the Warden needs Earl simply because of this.
* [[Our Nudity Is Different]]: In one episode, a foreign Sikh neighbor denies spying on Joy in her trailer and says "Look at the way she dresses! I can see her elbows any time I want to!"
* [[Overly Long Gag]]: During "Inside Spot
** Pointed out repeatedly in the [[DVD Commentary]] that making something longer than it really should be is part of the joke, like Joy playing Red Rover with senior citizens and spending 30 seconds on a lady trying to cross the gap with a walker.
* [[Person as Verb]]: Joy tried to sneak in past her accidental hostage, thinking he was asleep, when he managed to get past her in his underwear because he stuffed his regular clothes to make it look like he was taking a nap. Joy exclaimed, "Son of a bitch [[Ferris Bueller's Day Off|Ferris Bueller'd]] me!"
** A purely in-universe version occurs when Darnell "pulls a Castro" on Little Chubby.
* [[Posthumous Character]]: Josh, the guy Joy locked in the truck in the beginning of
* [[The Powers That Be]]: This is what karma is considered to be in this show.
* [[Pregnant Hostage]]: In "Randy in Charge (...of Our Days and Our Nights)", Earl has to point out to Frank that the very pregnant Joy makes the perfect candidate for a hostage situation.
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* [[Punch-Punch-Punch Uh-Oh]]: Joy is certainly no stranger to fighting, but she finds herself on the bad end of this trope dealing with a psycho lady who wanted comatose Earl as her husband. This includes using a phone as one of the punches...
{{quote|"Damn, and that was my go-to."}}
* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: Chubby had a squirt gun full of vodka he used to top off patrons' drinks at his strip club, and an identical-looking real gun. He didn't learn from his mistake when he shot a drink with the wrong gun on-screen. You can all guess how he died off-screen.
▲* [[
* [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?]]: Several instances. One even doubles as [[Overly Long Gag]], summing up a complete season.
** "Listen, do you still have that real doll you bought to {{spoiler|make Darnell think you're in bed when you ran to Mexico to avoid the cops but got caught by Dog the Bounty Hunter, went on trial and I went to prison for it then got out and got hit by a car and went into a coma where I thought I was living in a [[Sitcom]] world?
* [[Retcon]]: Darnell's [[Witness Protection]] backstory wasn't worked out until late in the first season, when they already had several visits from his extended family. Admitting the goof-up, Greg Garcia [[Hand Wave
* [[Retro Universe]]: Camden is stuck in the 80's with a dash of early 90's. Modern technology is shown as being a very foreign object to most people. Earl bumped a computer mouse while it was on a fish tank screensaver and he was visibly confused over what happened. In general, tape recorders are on large spools, TVs are never flat-screen or hi-def, very few people have cell phones (cordless phones have metal extendable antennas) and there is ''a lot'' of flannel.
* [[Running Gag]]: Earl is always in mid-blink when getting his picture taken. It was averted when Earl and Randy went to retrieve Catalina from South America and Earl had a portrait painted of him with a local couple; apparently the art department was going to have Earl with his eyes closed but Greg Garcia said it wouldn't make any sense.
** The old lady hitting a character with a car (or a bus) as a turning point where they stop being a [[Jerkass]] and start to be better people.
* [[Sassy Black Woman]]: Liberty Washington, Joy's enemy
* [[Screw the Money, I Have Rules]]: Doing his list is more important to Earl then his money, as shown in the Season 1 finale where he gave it all up for some time.
* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]: Chubby Sr. is [[Ax Crazy]]. But also rich, so no one minds that much. Little Chubby is much worse since he revels more in his [[Jerkass]] behavior.
Line 220:
{{quote|"If you recognize this man, you may be among the ''dozens'' who enjoyed his work on the small screen [...] Tim was found naked, except for a diaper, in a cucumber patch. ''He was fourteen years old.'' Taken in by ''former'' father Joe and ''former'' father Ed, Tim has blocked out nearly every memory of his childhood and now considers himself to have a healthy addiction to vodka."}}
* [[Sexy Coat Flashing]]: Joy does this several times, once even with a prison jumpsuit.
* [[Shot in the Ass]]
* [[Shout-Out]]
** Also ''[[24]]'' was parodied in "My Name Is Alias".
** In the episode where Earl meets a non-conformist free-thinker, he's reading to some children at the beginning of the episode where a Blastoise plush can be seen in the background.
* [[Show Within a Show]]: The completely fictional game show ''Estrada or Nada'' and two fictional episodes of ''[[
* [[Sliding Scale of Realistic Versus Fantastic]]: Most of the Karma's actions are mundane, but Earl's
* [[Something Completely Different]]: The entire third season can be considered this, as {{spoiler|Earl spends most of it in prison due to taking the fall for a crime Joy committed
** There are also episodes based off of COPS which are shown in that show's style.
* [[Sports Widow]]: In one episode, the [[Monster of the Week|Karmic Restitution of the Week]] is fixing a relationship Earl ruined by making a guy obsessed with golf and getting dumped after turning his partner into a golf widow.
▲* [[Invisible to Gaydar]]: Stuart, although he may be Bi given that he was interested in a woman before settling down with Kenny.
* [[Straight Man]]: Darnell plays this to pretty much everyone.
* [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]]:
{{quote|'''Joy''': "Somebody switched my cake with a pile of dog turds! Either one of you know anything about this?"
'''Randy''': "Actually they're cat turds. But I don't know anything about it!"
* [[The Teaser]]
* [[This Is All The Tropes Bitch]]
{{quote|'''Earl''': "How's your English going?"
'''Nescobar''': "I speak better than you, bitch."
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: A lot of the Camden residents fall under this, but Randy definitely takes the cake.
* [[Tranquil Fury]]: Joy normally would go full on [[Unstoppable Rage]] if anyone crossed her, but when she was trying out some "happy pills" to help with her legal troubles nothing could faze her... until their neighbors
* [[Trapped in TV Land]] and [[Dream Land]]: The infamous coma episodes, in which Earl thinks he lives in a 50's [[Sitcom]] world.
* [[Twitchy Eye]]: Earl has this when stressed.
Line 250 ⟶ 246:
* [[Uncatty Resemblance]]: Every cat in the Camden Cat Show.
* [[Unrequited Love Switcheroo]]: Randy and Catalina
* [[Vanity Plate]]: Amigos De Garcia Productions has a different person wearing a sombrero each time. One episode, it was a cat that was in the episode.
* [[Verbal Tic]]: Not so much a tic as sort of the way his mind works, but Randy will often lock himself into a loop where he tries to analyze his own thought process and logic holes.
* [[Wanting Is Better Than Having]]: When Earl was in a coma, he dreamed of being married to Billie. Then he recovered and actually married her, and the results were... not awesome.
* [[We Want Our Jerk Back]]: Even though everyone else preferred him as a nice guy, Little Chubby gets some bull testicles transplanted into him in order to become a jerk again since he couldn't effectively run Club Chubby anymore (such as being too nice to turn down an [[Squick|old woman auditioning to be a stripper]]).
* [[Where Da White Women At?]]: Joy and Darnell. Plus the finale makes it obvious Joy probably did at least one other black guy. Inverted with Liberty and Ray Ray.
* [[Whole-Episode Flashback]]
* [[Win Your Freedom]]: Earl had to do a lot of good deeds in order to {{spoiler|get out of prison. However, the warden was quite content in having him make an extended stay anyway
* [[Witness Protection]]: Darnell is in this.
* [[Woman Scorned]]: At the time he met (and married) Joy, Earl had recently begun a relationship with another woman named Jessie. When Jessie finds out Joy has a bounty on her head (for failing to appear in traffic court), Jessie trains to become a [[Bounty Hunter]] so she can [[Cat Fight|fight Joy]] and get revenge on her for a) stealing her guy and b) knocking her front teeth out.
* [[You Wanna Get Sued?]]: Earl reads to the trailer park children, "The Adventures of [[Tarzan|Trazan the Ape-Man]]".
** He has a pet cheetah named Monkey!
*** According to Earl the Camden Library couldn't afford real classics and had to settle for the knockoffs.
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