Zipi y Zape

Zipi y Zape are the names of two iconic Spanish comic book characters created by José Escobar Saliente in 1947, and of their eponymous strip. With Mortadelo Y Filemon, they are the most popular and most translated Spanish comic books. Their name is derived from the Spanish word zipizape, meaning "turmoil" or "chaos".

Zipi and Zape are young twin brothers who do poorly in school. Mischievous and energetic, they are fans of soccer. They are distinguished solely by their hair color: Zipi is blond, Zape black-haired. Other featured characters are their father, Don Pantuflo, a professor of philately and Colombophilia; their mother, the hard-pressed Doña Jaimita; Don Minervo, their strict teacher; Peloto, the teacher’s pet (and thus the twins’ enemy); Sapientín, their genius cousin, and Toby, their faithful dog.

Their stories are usually short, about one to eight pages long, but occasionally some are longer, about 44 or 48 pages. They are humorous, based on the twins' antics and their effects, since often they backfire spectacularly.

The popularity of Zipi y Zape has prompted the creation of derivative works, like video games, an animated TV series in 2003 and a live-action movie, Las Aventuras de Zipi y Zape, in 1981.

This comic provides examples of:


 * Animated Adaptation
 * Two episodes can be viewed on YouTube here and here.
 * Book Dumb: The twins. They can build a time machine out of a barrel and a broken grandfather's clock, but then they'll struggle to do their assignment: calculate 5*13.
 * Brick Joke: The "Around the world" story has one. When the family wins a free trip around the world and they're told that any extra cost will also be covered. Once they finish the trip, they find that the company that gave them the trip is now in bankrupt after paying for all the destruction caused by the twins.
 * Child Prodigy: Sapientín.
 * Class Clown: The twins are portrayed this way sometimes.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Sometimes, Zipi and Zape are chastised for really stupid reasons, one notably one is when Doña Jaimita punish them to cutting grass in the garden just because they didn´t know how to use a flypaper.
 * And Jaimita is by far the nicest one of the parents. Pantuflo, the father, borders on the Abusive Parents trope, as he's able to punish them for things they've clearly done not deliberately just as if they've done that way, and sometimes for things whose blame is actually his.
 * Driven By Envy: Peloto.
 * Franchise Zombie: The series continued briefly after Escobar's death, now in the hands of cartoonists Juan Carlos Ramis and Joaquín Cera, who put the characters forward to the 21st century.
 * Half Identical Twins: Zipi and Zape look exactly the same... except for their hair color.
 * Harmless Villain: Manitas de Uranio, resident burglar of the neighborhood, is totally inept and gets owned by the twins every time he tries to steal from their house.
 * Hypocrite: Don Pantuflo.
 * Just to add some examples: one story features him telling Zipi and Zape off because he thought they were smoking cigarettes (they weren't), explaining how unhealthy they are. It doesn't mind that he's almost always smoking himself.
 * Don Pantuflo often tells Zipi and Zape off because of their bad marks on school, telling them he always got A. One story, however, revealed he never achieved more than a B. Although whether this is canonical is questionable, the fact is that Pantuflo is always depicted as having problem at the time of helping Zipi and Zape with their homework.
 * Informed Flaw: The twins have bad publicity and some stories show the citizens running away in panic from Zipi and Zape as if they were terrorists or horrible monsters. In reality, Zipi and Zape are two of the nicest characters in the comics, and they always want to help people.
 * Besides, their father is always telling off his children how they are going to fail at every possible way in their life. He doesn't seem to realize how incredibly intelligent they are. Come on, in one story they even managed to creaty a vaporizer able to enlarge or shrink objects!
 * Insufferable Genius: Sapientín.
 * Long Runners
 * Meaningful Name: Zipi and Zape are named from the Spanish word zipizape ("chaos", "turmoil").
 * Peloto takes his name from one of the meanings of the Spanish word pelota ("suck up"), Sapientín's name obviously comes from sapient, etc.
 * Name and Name
 * Negative Continuity
 * Smug Snake: Peloto, a particulary repulsive one.
 * Stern Teacher / Sadist Teacher: Don Minervo.
 * Teachers Pet: Peloto.
 * Teen Genius: Zipi and Zape actually fit here. Despite having bad marks at school, they are both depicted as extremely intelligent, and always being able to figure out an answer to any problem.
 * The Movie: One in 1981, which almost nobody in Spain remembers today.
 * Then another one based on the Animated Adaptation.
 * Timey Wimey Ball: All the story about the time travel machine built in a barrel revolves around this trope. In the first chapter, the twins use it to transform a wall lizard into its evolutionary ancestor (which turns out to be a crocodile). In all the other chapters, the twins use it themselves; it no longer makes anything appear in the present time, but depending on the chapter, it either just takes them to the past, or somehow transforms them in their ancestor (and, somehow, with all the knowledge and remembrances that those ancestors have). In one chapter, when their mother makes an omelette with an egg found in the past, the twins remark that its strange look is due to the fact that the egg had over two hundred years, even though the time travel should have prevented the egg from aging. Finally, in the last chapter, the twins get trapped in the future when their machine gets broken; strangely, in a rare example of a inverted San Dimas Time, it's said that house prices were getting higher because of the twins' absence.
 * Walking Disaster Area: In many stories, but especially the "Around the world" story.