Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is a 2009 CGI animated film based on the children's book of the same name. In a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean named Swallow Falls, Flint Lockwood always dreams of "inventing something AWESOME," but his inventions never quite work the way he wants them to. Even when he grows up, he still prefers to invent more and more things instead of getting a suitable job at his father's sardine shop.

But when all the residents have to eat around the island are sardines, Flint becomes a hero when he invents a machine that can convert water into any kind of food the user wants! This makes him world-famous thanks to the coverage of junior anchor-woman Sam Sparks, who Flint forms a crush on. But can he keep the machine under control, get his father's approval, and win Sam's heart?

Created by Sony Pictures Animation, who also made Open Season and Surfs Up. Written and directed by the same two guys from the short-lived animated show Clone High. Cloudy has had the biggest opening week for Sony Animation yet, and it stayed in 3rd place in the box office after a month in theaters. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe award.

A sequel, tentatively titled Cloudy 2: Revenge of the Leftovers, is currently in the works, with a February 7, 2014 release date. It is to be directed by newcomers Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn who have worked on the previous film, and is being written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein of Horrible Bosses fame. Meanwhile, Phil Lord and Chris Miller will remain as executive producers.

The book provides examples of:

 * Deliberately Monochrome: There is barely any color outside of the main story.
 * Framing Device
 * Level Ate
 * Giant Food
 * Monumental Damage
 * Narrator: A girl for the Framing Device, and her grandpa for the main story.
 * Scenery Porn: With a premise like raining food, and illustrations as detailed as these, it's expected.

The film provides examples of:
"The idea was to achieve an extremely clean silhouette while treating the mouth as a two dimensional element. If you could see the other side of Flint’s face its terrifying, the skin is pulled back almost to his ear wrecking all the geometry on that side of his face. In the end it didn’t matter as long as you could see clearly through his mouth."
 * 3D Movie
 * Actor Allusion: Officer Earl Devereaux is voiced by Mr. T, and his character sure acts a lot like him. One of his lines also includes a variation on "I pity the fool."
 * He has a bald spot which is the exact opposite of Mr. T's bald head with Mohawk, and T-shaped facial hair.
 * Not to mention that
 * Adaptation Expansion: The book was a story about a grandpa telling a tall tale about an island that had significantly different weather where it rained food. The movie is about a scientist who invents a method that turns water into food, and it affects the weather across the world.
 * Adorkable: Flint, in spades. Also Sam.
 * AI Is a Crapshoot: The Remote Control television which runs off, & is then seen at various points throughout the movie doing its own thing. Also the FLDSMDFR
 * All of the Other Reindeer: No one in the town (except his mother, but she's dead anyway) accepts Flint Lockwood and his mad scientist demeanor until he creates a machine that makes it rain delicious food, meaning that they no longer have to suffer through eating their disgusting sardines.
 * Also applies to
 * All There in the Manual: Earl, Brent, and the mayor's last names are never mentioned in-film, but are given on the official website (Devereaux, McHale, and Shelbourne, respectively).
 * Actually, Earl's last name IS revealed in the film for a few seconds. When Earl goes to Flint's lab to ask him for something special for Cal's birthday, it shows "Earl Devereaux" on the monitor for a few moments.
 * Plus, the Mayor is credited as Mayor Shelbourne in the ending credits. Truthfully, Brent's last name (McHale) is the only one NOT mentioned in-film in any way. He's even credited at the end as "Baby Brent".
 * Almighty Janitor: Manny. Doctor, pilot, comedian.
 * Almost Kiss: Lampshaded repeatedly to great comedic effect.
 * Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Shoko Nakagawa wrote "Rainbow Forecast" as the Japanese ending theme, differing slightly from Miranda Cosgrove's "Raining Sunshine". If you picture the ending credits with this, the song actually fits pretty well.
 * Anthropomorphic Food: Toward the end, giant roast chickens and walking gummi bears appear.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Almost literally. When we are first introduced to Officer Devereaux, he is stopping Flint from hooking up his food machine to the town's electric generator to power it. Flint distracts Devereaux with a jaywalker.
 * Elements Do Not Work That Way: Water does not have a genetic code and thus can't mutate. Besides, most food is mostly made from sugars, and food made from water would have no nutritional value. Unless he's mutating the microbes IN the water, which is gross.
 * It also said he mutated the water with microwave radiation. That is not possible, as microwave radiation only speeds up the movement of atoms, causing it to heat up.
 * Plus he is surprised to see the atoms shaking around in the foods' molecular structure.
 * Though microwaves can't do that, it could potentially be a form of elemental fusion/fission. Remove two protons from an oxygen's nucleus and you get carbon... but that would still be failing physics.
 * This film depicts a storybook world that runs on the Rule of Funny. Any scientific errors are probably as fully intentional as everyone in Swallow Falls being forced to eat sardines 24/7 just because the plant closed down.
 * Due to people finding them really gross no less (it reaches front-page news).
 * In fact, Flint's whole explanation of how the machine works amounts to an announcement from the writers that they're not even pretending to have done any research.
 * If you consider "mutation" simply a change in basic structure or reasons of this structure and not necessarily DNA, then you can mutate water if you employ strong electromagnetic field or somehow manipulate vacuum polarization effectiveness or even change universal constants, but effects wouldn't generate meatballs, only possibly make existing ones inedible. However, if one would want to make food from thin air (or water), one would have to transmutate a lot of atoms and combine a lot of molecules; the process could also provide enough energy to self-sustain the machine's work (if fusion and not fission is the dominating process), which actually happens in the story. This might be partially intentional.
 * Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Not only does the food start getting bigger...
 * Attack of the Killer Whatever: ...it starts fighting back!
 * Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: "Oh, my gosh, a jaywalker!"
 * Author Appeal: Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the writer/directors, are total nerds, hence the shift from a tale about cool food to a tale about how awesome it is to be nerdy.
 * Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: The sole content descriptor for the film (rated PG) is "brief mild language." "Hellhole," "crabballs" and "crotch kick!" (when ) are probably what qualified the film for the rating.
 * In the UK release, the language is still there, but the film is certified U (The UK equivalent to a G) with the content descriptor reading 'Contains one use of mild language and scenes of mild comic threat'.
 * Bathos: The scene where Flint takes his father to the Roofless. It's a sad and serious scene, but you can help but laugh when the steak lands on Flint's head, and the commentary to the movie reveals this was intentional.
 * During several scenes in the film, the drama is interrupted by food falling everywhere. The characters usually just ignore it.
 * Beat Still My Heart: Parodied when.
 * Beautiful All Along: Flint encourages Sam to embrace the "nerdy" image she abandoned from childhood because that's who she is. Drops an anvil about the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
 * Big Eater: The Mayor,
 * Big Ol Unibrow: Tim Lockwood, Flint's dad.
 * Big Red Button: Flint installs one to activate the orders into the food weather machine, and of course, he HAD to make it big, bright, and glowing red.
 * Bilingual Bonus: When Manny first sees the Gummy Bears, he whispers "Was ist das?" which is "What is that?" in German, not Spanish...
 * Blah Blah Blah: "Here's what I heard: blah blah blah, science science science BIGGER."
 * Blinding Bangs: Flint's father. Though in his case, it's a blinding unibrow.
 * As well as Manny's blinding baseball cap.
 * Blind Without'Em: Before putting on her glasses, Sam apparently sees Flint as a blurry, big-chinned, handsome man.
 * Born in The Wrong Century: Flint's dad, who can barely send an email to his son (and ).
 * Brand X: Averted. Jello-O is mentioned by name.
 * Break the Haughty: Happens to Brent over the course of the film.
 * Bring My Brown Pants: Brent comments "Glad I'm wearing a diaper.", upon seeing.
 * The Bully: Brent, especially to Flint.
 * Bungling Inventor: Flint.
 * Butt Monkey: Flint. He got better throughout the course of the movie though.
 * By the Lights of Their Eyes: After, only Flint, Sam, and Brent's eyes can be seen.
 * By Wall That Is Holey: done several times, and still remains fresh.
 * Calling Your Attacks: Flint's habit of announcing his actions and also adding his own sound effects and soundtrack for drama.
 * "Making! More! Awesome!"
 * "Saying what I'm doing!"
 * "SNOOOOOOBAAAAAAAAAAAALL!!"
 * While Brent at one point he shouts "Crotch-kick!"
 * Character Blog: Flint has a twitter account.
 * Cheeky Mouth: Inverted; the animators deliberately altered the models so they would have a distinctive profile. See "Cutaway Mouths" header.

"Crawl: And we have temperatures in the 60's in --what the-- what the heck are those cheeseburgers falling from the sky?!"
 * Chekhov's Armoury: Every minor detail will show up again eventually.
 * Even the Hair Unbalder shows up again about halfway through. When.
 * Also, the peanut allergy, while it does come up, isn't as important as one would guess from the first time it's mentioned.
 * Another example is the "Remote Controlled TV" Flint invented as a kid. In the opening, it kicks open the door and runs away. Later, during the giant food storm, a cherry smashes the window of a TV store and someone takes the opportunity to loot it. The RCTV then appears, smashes another window and steals the store clerk.
 * Chekhov's Gunman:, who doesn't even speak until the last third of the film,
 * Parodied when
 * Chroma Key: Used by the mayor in his commercial for the unveiling.
 * Circling Monologue: Done very amusingly when the mayor, so obese as to need a cart, wheels around Flint and magically alternates whispering into his right, then left (then left again) ears. And then, slowly rises up from below(!).
 * Crawl: Used every time the WNN is shown.

"Sam: Can you believe I've been watching this for three hours?!"
 * Comically Missing the Point: The reporter was more concerned with the change in Sam's appearance instead of the disaster that's befallen the town.
 * Crazy Consumption
 * Creative Closing Credits: They are awesome.
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Baby Brent when
 * Cute Kitten: Flint manages to divert Sam's attention with a Flash animutation of these.

"Flint: It's fine, it's just pain.."
 * Deceased Parents Are the Best: Flint's mom was loving and supportive of Flint's inventive ways. She died off screen before Flint grew up, leaving the more distant and less supportive father behind to deal with Flint.
 * Devil in Plain Sight: The Mayor.
 * Did You Get a New Haircut: Subverted, as Flint clearly can see what's different about the mayor, but asks this anyway.
 * Double-subverted, as the Mayor DID get a haircut, too, and takes his question to heart!
 * Dirty Coward: The Mayor. Sure, blame Flint for your ignorant meddling.
 * Disturbed Ratbirds: Right when Flint cuts the ribbon, before the spaghetti twister hits.
 * The Ditz: Baby Brent.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything??: During the massive food storm across the world, pies are seen striking the faces of Mt. Rushmore, except one that strikes the Lincoln head from behind, which begins leaking custard out it's eyes and nose. Lincoln was killed by being shot in the back of the head.
 * Dramatic Curtain Toss: Almost as epic as the GASP below.
 * Dub Name Change: In the Latin American dub, Flint's surname has been changed from Lockwood to Loko (as in "Krazy" in English), while Officer Earl's name was changed to Elias.
 * Eiffel Tower Effect: Lampshaded when a news reporter mentions how all the national monuments are all getting hit before the rest of the world. Heck, the Eiffel Tower itself is turned into a giant sandwich!
 * Einstein Hair: Flint.
 * Eldritch Abomination: When the Fldsmdfr
 * The Elevator From Ipanema: to Flint's lab, actually. It's also a porta potty.
 * The End Is Nigh: Two men with signboards in New York, one proclaiming "The End of the World is Today!" and the other "The End is Tomorrow!"
 * Everything Makes a Mushroom: Flint Lockwood gets a mushroom cloud early in the movie.
 * Everything's Better With Monkeys, especially if they can talk!
 * Everything's Better With Rainbows: The opening and end credits, the jelly bean rainbow, not to mention the Spray-On Shoes spray out a rainbow.
 * Everything's Better With Sparkles: The spray on shoes sparkle whenever used. Also, the upbeat montage at the end credits sparkle at various points.
 * Everything's Worse With Bears: Especially gummy bears that act like Gremlins. To be clear, WWII airplane wrecking gremlins, not the other ones.
 * Exact Time to Failure: Flint was smart enough to install a "Dangeometer", which measures how much use he has in the machine before everything goes horribly wrong.
 * Eye Am Watching You
 * Eye Scream: Flint gets accidentally kicked in both eyes at one point.


 * Flint's eyes again seem to go through this when attempting to look his father in the eye. In all fairness, Tim's eyes are creepy when he lifts his unibrow...
 * The mayor gets a chili pepper in the eye when
 * Fat and Proud: While proclaiming to Flint, "Bigger is better," the mayor slaps his enormous belly.
 * Fat Bastard: The originally svelte and short corrupt mayor becomes morbidly obese after eating too many raining snacks, and remains that way through the end of the movie,
 * Fat Idiot: "Baby" Brent.
 * The Film of the Book: ...Sort of.
 * Flung Clothing: Brent somehow manages to pull off his entire tracksuit in one swift motion.
 * Flying Car ...this time, with wings!
 * Food Porn
 * Foreshadowing: One of the many that immediately comes to mind is the Mayor wanting to become big... and he does. He gets really big.
 * Gaze upon the sunset cresting over Mount Leftovers,
 * And one that's easy to miss if you're not paying attention: When Flint is speaking voice-over in the beginning, there's a short scene that shows the present-day Flint, and can be written off as drama.
 * Former Child Star: "Baby" Brent is a parody of this.
 * Funny Background Event: Too many to count.
 * Fun With Acronyms: Flint's food-weather machine. Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator, or Fldsmdfr - and Flint actually pronounces it. Sam does too by the end.
 * GASP
 * Gadgeteer Genius: Considering all the things Flint was able to make, failures or not, he definitely counts.
 * Geek Physiques: Flint Lockwood is of the skinny variety.
 * Geeky Turn On: Sam gets some love at first sight from Flint when her Obfuscating Stupidity slips looking at his spray-on shoes.
 * Gelatinous Trampoline: Flint takes Sam to a large castle made entirely of jelly, and they have fun bouncing around inside.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: The "SWALLOW FALLS" on top of the sardine factory after the "S" in falls starts to sag and Flint knocks the "F" off.
 * And a literal version too.
 * There's also a background character who mouths "What the fuck?" during one crowd scene. The producer didn't think it was funny, but it stayed in the completed film.
 * Gingerbread House: both the book and the movie feature a house made of Jello.
 * The Glasses Gotta Go: Inverted when Flint convinces Sam to embrace her nerdiness. He prefers her with the glasses.
 * Gone Horribly Right: The machine converts water into delicious food, and there's a lot of water in clouds...
 * Gone Horribly Wrong: ...unfortunately the machine has limits and when it reaches them the results aren't pretty.
 * Good Times Montage
 * Groin Attack: Surprisingly effective considering it was done to
 * Hammerspace: Brent shoves the giant golden ceremonial scissors somewhere behind his back. Subverted when they don't disappear, but are shown to be in his pants when he turns around. Double subverted when the viewer realizes that the blades seem to have vanished.
 * Sam spends about half the movie carrying a bulky glasses somewhere on her, despite wearing tight clothing.
 * Flint shoves a can into his lab coat, and it immediately vanishes.
 * Hartman Hips: Sam Sparks and a lot of background female characters
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Homage: The whole film is an homage to disaster movies, particularly Twister, Armageddon, The Perfect Storm, and The Day After Tomorrow. The main characters are based on archetypes frequently found in the genre.
 * The looming shadow from Independence Day also counts as an homage.
 * Homemade Inventions: Flint's inventions are functional some of the time, but they are all clearly a conglomeration of household accessories, with the exception of the DNA-spliced rat-birds. His lab is also functional, but looks like an 80's-style futuristic computer made of flat cardboard in his own backyard, which he enters and exits through a porta-potty.
 * Hope Spot: When Flint destroys Sardine Land, the world's biggest sardine screams "Yay!" as it falls from its tank, through the flaming hoop, into the ocean to freedom... just before a ratbird catches it in its talons.
 * Also, near the end of the film,
 * Hot Scoop: Sam Sparks.
 * I Am What I Am: Flint convinces Sam to embrace her nerdy side, telling her, "This is the real you."
 * I Just Want to Be Special: Flint
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: "Nice to BEET you."
 * "That's a radish!"
 * Most of the weather report sign-offs.
 * In Name Only: Inverted. This is what many thought the film was going to be once they saw the trailer, but it actually retains many elements from the story book!
 * Those who really know the book will be able to see illustrations lifted directly from the book during the good times montage.
 * It Got Worse: Since the  appears, the entire end of the movie proceeds through this course. It Gets Worse at least five times. It's like the writers DON'T want Flint to win or something.
 * It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time: A possible aversion:

""I can't believe I've been watching this for three hours!""
 * It might not fit perfectly, but the question of why Flint thought the Ratbirds would save the town comes to mind.
 * Kick the Dog:
 * Kids Are Cruel: And woefully uncreative:  "Four-eyes, four-eyes, you need glasses to see!"
 * Kiss Diss: When Flint tries to complete the Almost Kiss earlier in the film; a bitter Sam stops him flat.
 * Kitschy Local Commercial: The Mayor's commercial for Sardine Land. The animators went the extra mile to make it look as cheap as possible, even faking the worst blue-screen effects possible in a medium that doesn't even require it.
 * A Lady On Each Arm: Brent's first appearance involves this.
 * Lampshade Hanging: Throughout the entire film. Any plot twist or action has at least one character (often more) do this. They also enjoy Playing With a Trope, mainly those usually seen in animated comedies.
 * Level Ate: The clouds rain all kinds of food, which cover the town of Chewandswallow (previously "Swallow Falls").
 * Like a Son to Me: The mayor uses this line on both Brent and Flint.
 * Limited Animation: More like Limited Character Models, as some minor characters (such as the "Remote Control TV") reappear throughout the film, albeit on different situations.
 * Joe, the redneck citizen, is particularly guilty of this,as he appears in almost every scene of the movie.
 * This may have been intentional, as he's one of the few background characters to get a last name: Joe Towne. Joe is also the only extra to be voiced by a celebrity: Will Forte, who played Abe in Clone High and the eponymous MacGruber.
 * According to the writers, Joe is meant to be the voice of the town, hence the name.
 * The Load: Baby Brent. So much.
 * LOLcats: Flint has a video of cats singing "Fight The Power" by Public Enemy on his computer, which he uses to distract Sam.

""THERE'S A MACARONI ON MY HEAD!""
 * Mad Scientist: Flint.
 * Magical Computer: In Flint's lab.
 * Meaningful Echo:
 * Meaningful Name: Flint Lockwood and Sam Sparks.
 * Meganekko:
 * A Minor Kidroduction: The first scenes show Flint (and Brent) at eight-years-old, before skipping ahead to present day.
 * Miraculous Malfunction: Flint hooks up his machine to the town's power station to give it enough electricity to create food from water. Instead, the extra power makes the machine take off like a rocket and start orbiting in the lower stratosphere, creating food that comes down in showers using moisture from the clouds. Later, being overworked makes the machine start overmutating the food and it eventually gains sentience.
 * Missing Mom: Flint. She did have a brief scene with him as a kid, and they mentioned she died. We just don't know how. She even appears as a ghost during the end credit montage.
 * Mix and Match Critters: The ratbirds.
 * Moment Killer: Overlaps with Almost Kiss. Flint gets a call when he and Sam are about to kiss inside the Jell-O structure.
 * Monumental Damage: Lampshaded.
 * Most Definitely Not Accompanying Us: When Flint makes the plan to stop the Meateroid, Brent's role is "President of the Back Seat."
 * Mundane Made Awesome: Flint's habit of dramatically announcing even his most trivial and insignificant actions.
 * "ROLEPLAYING!"
 * "HANGING UP!"
 * "RE-PSYCHING!"
 * "Engage Coffee Break!"
 * "Saying what I'm doing!"
 * And from Steve, "HELPING!"
 * Officer T Deveraux repeatedly flipping all around Flint during his stopping him from getting to the power plant.
 * Naked People Are Funny: Baby Brent.
 * Nerds Are Sexy: Not only does Flint invert the Beautiful All Along plot with Sam, he seems to have several Geeky Turn-Ons. For instance, he fakes a peanut allergy because he thinks it will get Sam to like him.
 * Never Trust a Hair Tonic: One of Flint's failed inventions is "Hair Unbalder." A little bit squirted on the scalp causes his dad to burst out with hair on his entire face.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: Minor animation and editing tweaks in some shots were changed after the trailer was made.
 * Nobody Can Die: You'd think that food raining down at terminal velocity would hurt someone even before It Got Worse, but despite spaghetti tornadoes and avalanching leftovers, the only serious injury in the entire movie is a child going into a "food coma" from eating too much candy. (He's revived by waving celery under his nose a la smelling salts.)
 * Noodle People. Not just for the pun.
 * Noodle People. Not just for the pun.

"Mayor: Otherwise I'm just a tiny mayor of a tiny town full of tiny sardine-sucking knucklescrapers.
 * No Ontological Inertia: averted at ground level, but the destruction of the machine creates a shockwave that apparently clears out the red sky across the whole planet.
 * No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Steve the Monkey
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Sam.
 * Offscreen Teleportation: A minor example, when Flint & Sam are talking about what kind of food the machine can produce, they are standing facing each other about a yard apart with the camera cutting back & forth between them. When Sam says Jello, he sidles up to her from off camera & Sam briefly looks puzzled glancing from him back to in front of her where she was addressing a second before.
 * Opening Monologue
 * Override Command: the Kill Code.
 * Papa Wolf: Officer Devereaux loves his son so much that
 * Parental Bonus: Oh so many...
 * Genius Bonus: Sam describes events as an " " compared to what's to come. You can hear someone in the background asking what that is.
 * Planet of Hats: When the populations of various countries around the world are shown, all of them are wearing the same hats respective to their nation; i.e. the English wear bowler hats, the French wear berets..
 * Poster Gallery Bedroom: Flint has posters of famous scientists in his room and puts up a picture of himself as a scientist.
 * Present Company Excluded

Brent: But not me, right?

Mayor: Oh, not you, Brent, no. You've always been Like a Son to Me."

"Brent: I really shouldn't be running with these!"
 * Pre-Mortem One-Liner: At first Subverted, but then played straight between Flint &
 * Professor Guinea Pig and Guinea Pig Family: Flint is shown testing out his inventions himself (and spraying his own feet to demonstrate the spray-on shoes), but his dad is also involved with the Remote Control Television and Hair Unbalder.
 * Rapid Fire Typing: Flint
 * Recursive Adaptation: A movie novelization of the film was released.
 * Red Sky Take Warning: The sky turns a dark pinkish-grayish when
 * Relax-O-Vision: Patrick cuts from Sam reporting on the storm to a shot of a puppy scampering in the background while weather forecasts scroll down the screen.
 * Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
 * Road Apples: That's not chocolate ice-cream Steve is flinging.
 * Rocky Roll Call: Almost taken to an extreme towards the end, similar to the scene in Shrek 2.
 * This is probably the most drawn-out version of this trope in cinema history.
 * Rule of Cool: In universe example. Flint adds Tron Lines (in paint) and computer voices to his stuff for no reason other than because they're cool.
 * Running Gag: All of Flint's previously-failed inventions: the rat-birds, the "remote-control television".
 * When people surprise Flint, he always does a silly kung-fu pose. It's pretty easy to miss the first time you watch it, but he does it every single time.
 * "Saying what I'm doing".
 * Runs With Scissors: Brent, with the ceremonial scissors:
 * "Saying what I'm doing".
 * Runs With Scissors: Brent, with the ceremonial scissors:

"Devereaux: And my eye represents my eye!
 * Scary Black Man: Parodied by Officer Devereaux's devotion to his job.
 * Shaped Like Itself:

Flint: Everything's made of Jello! This piano, those sconces, that ghetto blaster, that Jello..."

"Sam: So when you shot it up into the stratosphere, you figured it would induce a molecular phase change of the vapor from the cumulonimbus layer?
 * She Cleans Up Nicely:
 * Shout Out:
 * The ending credits use a style inspired by Yellow Submarine. As a nod to this, they feature a short scene of the central characters dressed as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
 * Shout outs to other sources include:
 * The Baby Brent mascot may be based on the famous "Coppertone Baby"
 * During his first action montage, Flint appears to be throwing a Hadouken.
 * The first scene with the Ratbirds may be based on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, including the part where one crashes into the camera.
 * During the Spaghetti Twister sequence, Flint runs into his own billboard, reminiscent of a scene from The Day After Tomorrow.
 * The plan to attack the giant meatball - RotJ Death Star anyone? A Sarlacc pit even forms inside the giant meatball.
 * The giant chickens inside the meatball flock together on the ceiling like a certain species of xenomorph.
 * Towards the end, the machine is on the end of a tentacle and behaving like the alien probes from War of the Worlds.
 * When the Gummi Bears attack, it's just like when the destructo-bots attack in the first ten minutes of Revenge of the Sith. When the Flying Car Mark II blasts off there's a familiar-sounding music sting as well ...
 * The Gummi Bears ripping up the wing on the flying car: "There's a thing on the wing of this plane!!!"
 * No way was the explosion of  looking exactly like the Death Star's explosion unintentional.
 * Finally an insanely obscure one. The Remote Controlled TV strongly resembles the titular monster from the obscure 50's B-Movie The Twonky, a killer alien that resembles a TV set with legs.
 * Sleazy Politician: The mayor. According to the directors, the sleazier they made him, the more people liked him.
 * Being voiced by Bruce Campbell couldn't have hurt.
 * Snowball Fight: Done with ice cream.
 * During which Flint goes Snowball Crazy.
 * So Proud of You:
 * Souvenir Land: Sardine Land, and later, the entire town of Chewandswallow
 * Spaghetti Hurricane Of Puns: Sam Sparks uses puns whenever reporting the food weather.
 * This leads to a Crowning Moment of Funny during the ice-cream day when she describes Swallow Falls as being "truly a la mode". This is shown being translated into several other languages in various places until it is translated in London as Swallow Falls being "truly served with ice cream".
 * The mayor gets one too. "Nice to beet you!"
 * "That's a radish!"
 * Spider Sense: Officer Earl's chest hairs... which are really creepy when you actually look at them.
 * Suit With Vested Interests: The Mayor's the Suit and his Vest is the town's grand re-opening.
 * Sure Let's Go With That: Flint, with Sam's explanations of the Fldsmdfr.

Flint: That's... actually a really smart observation.

Sam: I mean, the clouds probably have water in them, which, uh, I guess is why you shot it up there in the first place.

Flint: Right, right, that's why I, I did that... on purpose... right."


 * Still Got It: So says the mayor of Baby Brent.
 * Strange Minds Think Alike: At the start of the movie, Flint introduces his Spray-On Shoes explaining that they'll "end the untied shoelace epidemic". When Sam takes notice of them the first time they meet and Flint explains them, she says the exact same thing in response.
 * Strawman News Media: WNN
 * Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream is in here!
 * Take That: At the end of the film, when most of the damaging weather is being undone, we get a view of London as the shockwave passes over it. Beforehand, it's dark, grey, raining, and generally looks depressing. Afterwards, it's... dark, grey, raining, and generally looks depressing.
 * Tempting Fate: Far more examples than can readily be listed, with almost every form of this turning up at some stage. Put simply, seconds before anything remotely construed as negative happens, someone will suggest everything is great or that nothing can go wrong.
 * "This is a great idea."
 * "Thank goodness you only caused minimum damage to Sardine Land!" Cue the rolling fish bowl of death...
 * Ten Minute Retirement: Flint, . Dawwwwwww
 * Testosterone Poisoning: Earl. In practically every scene he appears in.
 * The Theme Park Version: The major cities of the world (and their inhabitants) as seen in the film are deliberately simplified, exaggerated stereotypes. It fits with the storybook illogical logic seen throughout the entire movie.
 * Lampshaded when the newscaster announces that "recognizable monuments" all over the world are being destroyed first, then the rest of the world.
 * Not to mention the mayor, twice, attempts to make mini-theme parks within his town based off of sardines and later, raining food.
 * Thing-O-Meter: The Dangeometer.
 * Title Drop: Played around with but never actually said.
 * Toilet Humor: When Flint confesses he's never been in a snowball fight, Sam reacts with surprise and says "Even Steve is throwing chocolate snowballs!" Cut to Steve on a patch of vanilla ice cream throwing "chocolate snowballs." Sam reacts with appropriate disgust.
 * Top Heavy Guy: Officer Devereaux, Tim Lockwood and "Baby" Brent.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Throughout the film Steve wants Flint to make it rain gummy bears, but Flint refuses because "We know how you are around gummy bears!"
 * Trailers Always Spoil: Some previews showed  Subverted as they didn't give details on it, but still.
 * Tron Lines: Parodied. Flint deliberately paints them all over his lab and inventions, entirely because it looks cool. "Coolness enhancement... complete!"
 * Troperiffic: Despite the Homage listed above, Cloudy takes the cliches of family films and makes them so blatantly obvious, toddlers could potentially understand what's going on! The directors themselves are aware of what they're doing anyway, pointing out the ENTIRE Chekhov's Armory in the audio commentary.
 * Troubled Fetal Position:
 * Ultimate Authority Mayor: Lampshaded. The mayor mentions spending the entire town budget on Sardineland "without consulting anyone", and later funds the revamping of Swallow Falls as Chew'n'Swallow by taking out a "very high interest loan".
 * Vanity License Plate: The 2nd Flying Car doesn't even disguise it. The license plate outright states, in big glowing letters:
 * Verbal Backspace: Sam does this a lot, whenever she accidentally blurts out something incredibly smart.
 * Villainous Glutton: The mayor's various hungers end up endangering the world.
 * Vomit Discretion Shot
 * Wafer-Thin Mint:
 * Weather Control Machine: The Fldsmdfr.
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Flint keeps trying to get his father's (and the town's) approval.
 * Also Inverted, Flint's father seeks his son's approval as well, which is why he was so desperate to get Flint to work in his shop.
 * Whooshing Credits
 * Womb Level:
 * World-Healing Wave: After disabling the machine.
 * Worthless Foreign Degree:
 * X-Ray Sparks: When Flint connects a jumper cable to the power station, the electricity flows through him, showing his skeleton briefly.
 * You Shall Not Pass: