A.N.T. Farm

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A.N.T. Farm was a series which aired on the Disney Channel between 2011 and 2014. The series follows three best friends, Chyna, Olive and Fletcher, who are part of the Advanced Natural Talents, or A.N.T., which allows gifted middle schoolers to go to High School immediately.

Like many Disney Channel sitcoms, it serves as a vehicle for their new singing star, China Anne McClain.

May be a part of the Disney Channel Universe due to a recent[when?] episode having a Tears of Blood poster in the background.


Tropes used in A.N.T. Farm include:
  • Abhorrent Admirer: Angus to Olive and is one of the rare male cases of this.
  • Accidental Art: Chyna's monologue in "ParticipANTs".
  • Achievements in Ignorance: Paisley, sometimes to Reality Warper levels. She made a helicopter out of balloons that worked. She did a full body giftwrapping of herself!
  • Alliterative Name: Susan Skidmore.
  • Alpha Bitch: Lexi, though she's more of a Lovable Alpha Bitch whenever she's interacting with Cameron or showing genuine care toward Paisley.
  • Alternate Reality Episode: As a Halloween Special, the first episode was re-created, but with the A.N.Ts being M.U.T.A.N.Ts, complete with monsters and all. Chyna was a Gorgon, Olive was a Mad Scientist, Fletcher was a Vampire, etc...
  • Artistic License Linguistics: Played for Laughs in-universe, Gibson spoke with a French accent while attempting to do a British accent.
    • Chyna exclaims that it's better than his Australian accent, which is actually an Italian accent.
  • Ass Shove: Implied to have happened to Fletcher in the episode "Ballet dANTser".
  • Attention Whore: Lexi would do anything to be in the school paper, even if it means appealing to Olive, despite the fact that she generally dislikes the ANTs.
    • Even calls a girl, who is constantly in the school paper for doing genuinely good deeds, a publicity hog while fighting with her over a fire extinguisher. The struggle ends when she gets sprayed with said extinguisher. When Olive takes pictures of Lexi, instead of being embarrassed, Lexi begins posing for the camera.
    • In "PatANT Pending", Paisley's broken arm gets all the attention and Lexi gets ignored and becomes jealous, and decides to pretend to have broken limbs in order to get noticed.
  • Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop: Daryl Parks. He isn't necessarily a dirty cop, but he doesn't follow all of the rules and he definitely abuses being an officer of the law. He is more of the incompetent, Played for Laughs, Police Are Useless Disney version of this trope.
    • He takes evidence from the station and gives the items to his kids as gifts, and not good gifts.
      • To his credit, he does pay for the evidence, Not sure if cops can do that. He otherwise plays this straight for the reasons below, but the "gifts" he gets his kids show signs of a completely different trope.
    • He did his marksmanship training with a fake gun made from his index finger and thumb.
    • He couldn't find a note that a bank robber gave the teller during a robbery.
      • Chyna found it in her "gift" he gave her. His response, "That's where that went."
    • In "The ReplicANT", Cameron asks him to arrest Olive, He says "Why?" Cameron replies "Oh now you need a reason [to arrest someone?]" Leading us to believe that he arrests people for any reason he can think of (or no reason) if it suits him.
    • The radio dispatcher announces over the radio a 1-3-9. which Daryl says is code for the local taco joint having burritos for only $1.39, implying that the rest of the department is just as incompetent as he is. Let's hope there isn't a truly corrupt cop in his precinct doing whatever they please and getting away with it due to everyone else's incompetence.
      • In that same episode, when he finally makes an arrest, his says it which much enthusiasm, implying that he doesn't make many arrests.
    • But to his credit, in the episode InformANT, he apparently is a detective. But that may serve the purpose of showing how bad his precinct is if he is a detective, unless he ends up being a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
    • Even more evidence that the precinct is full of incompetent cops. In the pilot, Darryl says his meeting hosted by the Chief of Police is cancelled because the chief's car was stolen. Which hints to him having a chief similar to Clancy Wiggum.
  • Big Eater: Angus: he once ate everything at a restaurant in less than an afternoon but was still starving so he ordered a pizza. He also bought everything from a bacon truck even though he doesn't like the food that much.
  • Boastful Rap: Although it was written by Chyna, Olive spits one of these. None of the lyrics make any sense, except when she says "...my skills to recount are innately phenomenal" speaking of her talent for remembering everything she sees, hears or reads.
  • Brain Bleach: Fletcher needed this in an episode in which he had to paint the principal in an extremely skimpy Catholic school girl uniform.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: At the start of "StudANT Council".

Chyna: Which dance should I dance for my first school dance? The Dougie? [does the Dougie] The Robot? [does the Robot] Dougie the Robot? [does the Dougie in robotic motions]
Cameron: You just took two of my favorite things... and made them horrible.

  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • Chyna on does this twice in the episode "You're the One That I wANT". After Olive explains what theatrical asides are.

Chyna: Can you believe she is pitching an idea where characters breaks the reality of the play and speaks directly to the viewer? It makes no sense.

    • And later she says:

Chyna: Y'all see what I have to deal with? Writers, unbelievable.

Cameron: But dad, does she have to go to my high school? I mean she's only 11.
Daryl: It's not Chyna's fault that she's gifted anymore than it's your fault that you're...not.

  • Call Back: "MutANT Farm" is a Halloween-themed reflection of the first episode and as such reuses a lot of dialogue from that episode.[1] Also, Chyna sings a song at the school dance after the music is no longer available, just like she did at Lexi's party.
  • Camp Gay: Mr. Zimbaldi, the drama teacher, and in "You're the One That I wANT" Samuel French.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Chyna sings in various episodes. Sometimes it's an actually performance, but most of the time it's a song written on the spot and plot-related, such as thinking of a song to cheer up Gibson, a student council campaign song, singing words to the Jack-in-the-box theme to explain a Zany Scheme during the Christmas Episode and singing about a soccer ball on her webcam. The latter song is later rearranged and she performs the real song for a music executive in the same episode.
    • Stefanie Scott, who also is a young up-and-coming singer/songwriter, finally got a chance to sing on the show, albeit a ridiculous song about being a donut.
  • The Cheerleader: Of both types, at that rate.
  • Christmas Episode: Entitled "SANTa's Little Helpers", which referenced A Christmas Carol and Olive mentions that our economy would be worse off if not for the huge amount of money spent during the Christmas shopping season, and states that that is what Christmas is really about.
  • Chroma Key: When Olive paints Chyna's bedroom wall green during a slumber party, Chyna uses Stock Footage from a movie for her background while video chatting with Lexi, to prove that her slumber party is cooler than Lexi's. Everyone in the background is at least 10 years older than Chyna and are dressed like they're in a nightclub. However it works, even when Olive puts on a hoodie the same color as the green wall, which blanks out everything except her head until Chyna covers it up. Lexi doesn't catch on until a ninja drops in and attacks the people in the nightclub.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Olive, as seen in "The PhANTom Locker". She blow dries her hair in Chyna's locker. It barely makes sense in context. Gibson is even worse. In fact, it's outright insulting that Olive's mentioned before Gibson.
  • Cover Version: Chyna has performed two: "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz in "TransplANTed" and "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera in "America Needs TalANT".
  • Cunning Linguist: Olive is called upon by the principal to translate Japanese to a prospective Japanese Ant.
    • Olive also says a few phrases in other languages in other episodes such as German and Danish, and speaks English in quite a few different foreign accents.
  • Cute but Cacophonic: Olive speaks relatively loudly and with an overdone accent of sorts. But not as loud as their science teacher.
  • The Danza: Chyna is played by China Anne McClain. One letter off, but still counts.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Although a mild case of redundancy, Chyna says the same word a lot in this sentence.

Chyna: Cameron, what dance should I dance for the first dance of my first high school dance?

  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Lexi on a couple of occasions.
    • In an early episode, when Chyna doesn't know much about her, Lexi talks Chyna into trying out for the cheerleading squad. Chyna surprisingly makes the squad. But at practice, Lexi puts Chyna through a torturous first day, which leaves her bruised up, but more importantly, Chyna loses her voice. And Lexi reveals that she did this to stop Chyna from auditioning for the lead role in the school's musical. When Lexi is introduced in the Pilot, she shows that she was the lead nearly every play or musical at the school, clearly making her a front-runner even with Chyna as competition, since someone in Chyna's position might get a few minor roles, or at least one, before she would be considered a viable threat to Lexi.
      • Lexi barely put any effort into the song for her audition, instead she seemed to try pandering to the casting director, which appeared to work. Time wasted on hindering Chyna's audition could have been spent writing a more legitimate song, or rehearsing something else. Chyna shows up the audition anyway and tells Lexi off with her weakened voice, which gets mistaken for a monologue and she gets the lead role.
    • And again in "America Needs TalANT", she works hard to find out what Chyna is singing for the finals so she can sing it first and make Chyna look foolish. Instead of working on her own song. Chyna was aware of her attempted sabotage and as well as being misleading to Lexi, she 'carelessly' leaves a fake song for Lexi to steal. Lexi ends up looking foolish after singing a song about being a donut and getting no applause. Chyna even points out that Lexi didn't need to cheat. And while Lexi wasn't necessarily the favorite going into the finals, the judges apparently liked her.
  • Did Not Do the Bloody Research: In "ReplicANT", Fletcher calls someone a 'plonker'. While it's still not a strong swear in Britain, it still isn't the sort of language Disney would use deliberately.
  • The Ditz: Gibson, Paisley, and Fletcher.
    • Genius Ditz: Fletcher's great at art, but thinks snow angels are dead snowmen.
    • Also Olive might qualify. While very book smart due to having super memory, she has very childish moments, such as believing Cameron's ghost story, having way more fun while the rest of the ANTs are playing musical chairs, and her overall naivete.
  • Does Not Understand Sarcasm: In "TransplANTed":

Olive: Let's go to a high school party. It'll be fun.
Fletcher: Another one? Wasn't this one bad enough?

    • Fletcher sometimes doesn't even understand it when he dishes it out.

Fletcher: Thanks a lot Chyna. (walks away [beat]) And to be clear, I wasn't thanking you.

  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "StudANT Council", Olive and Angus talking at the A.N.T. Party the previous night. Olive says that the party was crazy and that she overdid it. While Angus says that "everything is hazy" he even say, "I am never eating candy again." Then eats candy anyway. Almost radar since most kids that age might not understand the joke.
    • Even more so since Angus was more or less a candy bartender at the party.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Fletcher, to Chyna.
  • Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune: The show's opening, "Exceptional", performed by China Anne McClain. Justified as Chyna is meant to be a musical prodigy.
  • Dumb Blonde: Played completely straight with Paisley. Subverted with Olive since she has the greatest mental capacity on the show, she rarely puts it to good use, as a result, she sometimes ends up looking dumb and childish at times. And there's this crowning example from Paisley.

Paisley: Yay! I want to thank all the other cheerleaders for reminding me that there is no "I" in team, because I use to spell it with an "I".

    • Lexi isn't exactly a rocket scientist, but much smarter than Paisley.
  • Dumb Is Good: Played straight and averted. Paisley is dumb as a post, but kind. Chyna, Fletcher and Olive are considered geniuses, but also kind. Lexi is of normal intelligence, but mean and manipulative, though she improved in later episodes.
  • Expy: Many obvious and subtle ones are present on this show.
    • Chyna comes off as a very deliberate expy of Raven.
      • Chyna even has similarities to Carly Shay when you consider she can sing, is Oblivious to Love from Fletcher, and has a less than normal older brother.
      • Musically talented girl who finds herself in a Fish Out of Water situation when she begins attending a new school? Chyna is essentially the black Tori Vega.
    • Olive is Lilly Truscott as a middle schooler.
      • In the episode "The ReplacemANT", Her school teacher look makes her look like a female version of Mr. Denzel Crocker.
      • She also seems a lot tougher than Chyna, and is sometimes mean to Fletcher, given who Fletcher is an expy of,see below, Olive is a more book-smart version of Sam Puckett without all of the drama and binge eating. She might even live in a dysfunctional household, but not much is stated about Olive's home life.
      • Olive even has a similar hairstyle and color to that of Sam.
      • In "StudANT Council". she shows can even spit some fire into the M-I-C. Even though she didn't write the rap in-universe, she didn't sound corny. And she, much like Sam, has moderate mic skills for a white girl.
    • Fletcher is basically Freddie Benson reborn.
    • Gibson is basically Woody, if he was smarter and a bit less social.
    • Angus is a smarter, tech-savvy version of Gibby.
    • Paisley is a Dumb Blonde version of Cat.
  • 555: In the "Save Gibson" episode, there's the number 555-0192.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The German Shepherd that Cameron tries to enter in a dog show is named Snuggles and is police attack dog.
    • While Lexi's dog isn't shown as being vicious, it's a huge Mastiff named Princess.
  • Freudian Excuse: "America Needs TalANT" tells us that the reason Lexi makes fun of Chyna is because she's secretly worried that she isn't as good as Chyna.
  • Funny Afro: Gibson, whose Jewfro acts as a Bag of Holding.
    • The ANTs wear Jewfro wigs while trying to save Gibson's job.
    • Chyna dons a huge 1970's fro when Olive is producing a Greek play and called herself Afro-dite.
  • Fun with Acronyms: Right there in the title.
  • Gag Boobs: Of the Getting Crap Past the Radar kind. It's a part of Olive's disguise in the pilot.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: In the pilot, After their fellow ANT is caught in the wave of passing by high schoolers, Fletcher said that they should save him, only for Olive to say he's gone, complete with a Bright Slap.
  • Glass-Shattering Sound: Chyna does this in twice an episode. While Chyna might actually be able to do that, it's highly unlikely that she really did it in that episode since she shattered someone's eyeglasses.
  • Gilligan Cut: Subverted in one episode. Chyna refuses to do a music video in a string cheese costume. Cut to her brother on set in the costume. His face was blocked initially to invoke this trope.
  • Girlish Pigtails; Olive sports long girlish pigtails with bows that match her dress and even has to lollipop for her little girl disguise in "FraudulANT".
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop: Chyna suggests this to Olive in "FraudlANT" then Olive declines, but still does it after Chyna's attempt at taking the nice route doesn't work. Olive even threatens the criminal with violence.
  • Got Me Doing It: The "air quotes" from Chyna's favorite show, High Heels High. First Chyna does it, then later her dad gets in on the act:

Darryl: I did a little "research" (with air quotes). Wait, why am I doing this now? I actually did do some research.

    • And there's this from "FraudlANT":

Zanko: How dare you accuse Zanko of stealing?!
Chyna: Because Zanko is guilty of stealing! Chyna was there and Chyna knows the truth! Why is Chyna talking in the third person?
Olive: Olive thinks it sounds cool.

Chyna: Would you guys please stop saying stuff that makes us sound like little kids? [beat] Ooh, cookies!

Cameron: Chyna, you always exaggerate. You exaggerate like a million times a day.

Olive: I'm only scared of the really scary stuff. For example, I'm not scared of spiders. Like that one at the back of your neck? No biggie.
Cameron: That's not a spider. That's a birthmark.
Olive: AAAAAAAAAAAAH! BIRTHMARK!

  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title has "ANT" in it somewhere in capital letters. They also do this when the word that "ANT" is a part of isn't pronounced as it normally would be such as "You're the One That I wANT".
  • Innocent Prodigy: Despite her intellect, Olive is very much a child. Chyna is able to trick Olive into spending the night in the "haunted locker" (to prove it's not haunted) by leading her to the school blindfolded. Olive believes she's in Chyna's house playing a game of Pin The Tail on the Donkey.
    • Also when she has to go back to kindergarten for losing her memory, which at the time of her grade demotion, came back, she enjoys being in the same class as 5-year-olds in order to "get away from the big kids" as she puts it.
  • It's All About Me: Lexi.
  • Karma Houdini: Possibly Lexi in the episode when she and Cameron find Principal Skidmore's phone. In the end, Cameron is punished by his father, however Skidmore says she will deal with Lexi later. After Lexi walks away, Skidmore realizes her phone is insured and gets rid of it anyway and walks off. There is a good chance Lexi gets off scott-free, but maybe not considering how cruel Skidmore is.
    • In "You're the One That I wANT", Lexi says to Fletcher that if she sabotages the play, everyone will suspect her, so she talks Fletcher into doing her dirty work. During the play, its Lexi who sabotages the play while operating the spotlight, in plain sight to everyone. Not only does she get away with it, no one seems to care who the culprit is.
      • She even says "this is worst news ever" with a smile on her face. Yet no one catches on.
      • However, she does mention getting rid of Chyna would be blamed on her, but getting rid of Jared would be blamed on Fletcher, even if she does it. But no blame is placed on Fletcher either. So they both are.
    • In one episode, Cameron dislikes being "locker buddies" with the admittedly irritating Olive, so he fools her into believing the locker is haunted by a ghost because she has a phobia of ghosts. He procceeds to milk this for all it's worth, even laughing about how fun it is. At the end, when he's found out, he pays no consequence whatsoever for basically bullying someone with a phobia.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "CANTonese Style Cuisine", Goo Goo tells Chyna "don't bother with the birthday song, people just like hearing-" and then gets cut off by the theme song.
  • Literal-Minded: Gibson, as seen in "Bad RomANTs".

Chyna: What is Gibson's idea of a perfect date?
Gibson: November 3rd!
[[[Laugh Track]]]

    • All the main trio have at least one moment of this.

Olive: It's blueberry yogurt. *beat* You said to look natural and the label said all-natural.


Lexi: Chyna, you may be an ant, but you need to sound like a wolf!
Chyna: Okay. *makes dog noises*


Fletcher: You told me to paint what's on the inside.
Chyna: I didn't mean her skeleton!

    • Olive also did this when Chyna didn't study for her science test and Chyna says that since Olive memorized the entire book, and asks her to tell her everything in the book. Olive proceeds to recite the inner cover including the special thanks and copywrite info.
  • Manipulative Bitch: Lexi, like all Alpha Bitches, is this is spades. In "ParticipANTs", she lets Chyna onto the cheerleading squad just to wear her out so she would be too tired to audition for the school musical. This actually ends up working to Chyna's advantage when she shows up to audition and inadvertantly delivers the best monologue the drama teacher has ever heard.
  • A Minor Kidroduction: The episode "Bad RomANTs" featured a flashback of Gibson 25 years in the past with his last girlfriend. The flashback explains his hair and the breakup which caused him to think of his ex everyday of his life through to the present.
  • My God, You Are Serious: Angus reacts this way when he realizes Chyna wasn't joking about Gibson having an ex-girlfriend.
  • Never Say That Again: "Instead of the bling-bling, we got the wing-wing."
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After the A.N.T. are seen complaining about the faulty climate control of the school, Chyna asks Principal Skidmore to cut something unnecessary from the school budget. She, in-turn, fires Gibson and they spend the rest of the episode trying to raise the money to re-hire him.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: One of Lady Gaga in one episode.
    • Pauly D and Jersey Shore as a whole in the "America Needs TalANT" episode with Nicky G. and "Yo, I'm from Jersey".
  • No Indoor Voice: The science teacher.
  • Odd Friendship: Strangely, Lexi and Cameron seem to get along okay.
  • Older Than They Look:
    • Fletcher's actor, Jake Short. He's playing an 11-year old character who looks and sounds like he's around 9. He's actually 14.
    • Cameron's actor, Carlon Jeffery, is pretty noteworthy. While he isn't an A.N.T., he looks 15 and plays a sophomore, but the actor is 18.
  • Once Per Episode: Wacky the Wolf appears in every episode, despite being a minor character and not having any lines.
  • Pet the Dog: Frequent designated antagonist figures on the show, Lexi and Cameron, have some from time to time.
    • Subverted once, however. When Cameron and Lexi found Principal Skidmore's cell phone, Lexi's initial reaction was that they should return it, which is probably the one nice thing she's ever even considered doing. However, Cameron talked her out of it.
  • Police Brutality: In "The InformANT", a midget police officer called 3-9 is seen beating a thuggish looking man. As the man runs away, the officer goes on to say "That'll teach you to double park!" He is later seen beating another person up, probably for another minor "crime".
  • Preemptive Declaration: Olive uses this when Fletcher calls her ugly.

Olive: At least my face isn't black and blue.
Fletcher: My face isn't black and blue.
Olive: Not yet.

  • Punny Name/Meaningful Name: A handful scattered here and there. "Olive Doyle" clearly evokes Olive Oyl. "Paisley Houndstooth" is named for two kinds of fabric. "Dixon Ticonderoga" is named for the Ticonderoga pencil brand from manufacturer Dixon. "Samuel French" in "You're The One That I wANT" is named for the [www.samuelfrench.com Samuel French theatrical licensing agency].
  • Running Gag: Although all of the A.N.T.s have been in costumes at various times, Olive does this way more than the rest of them, Examples included:
    • Queen Elizabeth the first.
      • Her teacher outfit in the same episode also counts.
    • A German Doctor named Ima Fraud.
    • A Nightclub singer circa 1930 with Yogurt-filled Gag Boobs.
    • Wonder Woman.
    • A lost little girl.
    • Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe in a split-costume.
    • A Mad scientist.
      • Halloween episode, everyone had a costume.
    • Cat Burglar, Chyna also and Fletcher wore an actual Catsuit.
    • Dressed as a Chinese Chef, Chyna did also.
    • Dressed as an Elf although with Fletcher. Chyna was Santa.
    • Her investigative reporter hat might also count.
      • Especially since she only wore it in that episode.
    • A Goth chick along with Agnus as an Ozzy Osbourne Expy.
  • Sand in My Eyes: Subverted by Daryl. He tears up about Chyna being old enough to go out with a boy, unsupervised. He says that their is tear-gas in the riot uniform Chyna is wearing. But then he wipes his eyes with her sleeve only to realize it does have tear-gas on it. Happens later while watching a Chick Flick on the couch.
  • Sarcastic Confession: Not completely a confession, but in this exchange with Lexi's Pageant Judge in which his trying to convince her that he is an elderly man that Lexi takes care of. He gives a bit of evidence that reveals his isn't an old man.

Cameron: I lived here before they finished building the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. I can still hear the sound of all 1.2 million rivets being put in.
Mrs. Busby: Wow, You can remember that?
Cameron: Like I read it in a book this afternoon.

    • When you realize that an elderly man reading about something that was alive for is pretty unlikely, but a sophomore in high school is very likely to have read that as part of his classwork, more than likely, that very same afternoon, and that Cameron isn't smart enough to remember something like that longer than a few hours, it just adds to the hilarity and confirms it's a confession.
  • Sassy Black Girl: Chyna, sometimes.
  • Serious Business: Donkey King is serious business to Cameron and Olive, Cameron says "for years you've been going to Chyna's concerts, recitals, award presentations; finally I do something that eclipses all of that, and you not even gonna come."
    • He also setup a real-life Donkey King simulation to keep her from competing in the tournament.
    • Olive memorized over 10,000 game patterns and subsequently gets the high score. Although that was easy for her to do. She still took the live game and arcade game seriously and was furious about being setup and her score getting wiped out because of a blackout.
  • Ship Tease: Fletcher/Chyna, Paisley/Fletcher, and even Cameron/Lexi.
  • Shout-Out: When Paisley pretends that she's choking, she exclaims that there's food lodged in her Snuffleuffagus.
    • The name of that episode is "Bad RomANTS".
    • "SciANTS Fair" features a recreation of the Hindenburg disaster, complete with Olive saying "Oh, the humanity!"
    • When Chyna is working on the fortune cookie machine, she recreates the famous chocolate conveyor belt scene.
    • The number 24601.
    • The tune Fletcher hums while making a puppet of Chyna play the trumpet sounds a lot like the original Super Mario theme.
    • On "America Needs TalANT", Lexi, upon hearing Paisley tell her she is going to be on a Game Show, tells Paisley that she is not smarter than a 5th Grader. A show that the actress playing Paisley's teammate for the show, Sierra McCormick was previously on said show.
    • The Game Show on which Paisley and Olive competed is named The Brainy Bunch and the host is Barry Williams.
    • Skidmore mentions being visited by the three Christmas ghosts.
    • "The InformANT" has a midget police officer disguised as a new student. When they ask of his name, he says it's Charlie. When they asked for his last name, he says it's Brown.
    • Cameron names the cat he disguises as a dog to enter and win a dog show, Snoop Dogg.
    • Olive goes Mr. Crocker (complete with looking like a female Mr. Crocker) on her classmates by the 2nd half of the episode "The ReplacemANT" as the substitute teacher, complete with this quote:

Olive: You know what funny starts with? F!

    • As of "Some EnchANTed Evening", Chyna and Fletcher's friendship/relationship is now similar to Lizzie and Gordo's from Lizzie McGuire.
  • Gibson's Jewfro, which acts as a Bag of Holding, may be a shout-out to Nabeshin.
  • Sleepwalking: Olive does this during a slumber party. While sleepwalking she makes rooster noises, plays golf and sleep-knits, and isn't aware that she sleepwalks.
  • Spiritual Successor: To That's So Raven, but replace "Teen Psychic" with "Tween Prodigy".
    • A.N.T. Farm also has some similarities to Smart Guy (also produced by Disney, but aired on Disney Channel only in reruns after its WB run ended): both series focus on a tween who skips from elementary/middle school to high school, with the lead attending the same school as their Book Dumb older brother, employ the Three Amigos format (compare T.J., Marcus and Mo, with Chyna, Olive and Fletcher) and include a Cloudcuckoolander best friend character (compare Mo, with Paisley and to some extent, Olive).
  • Stalker with a Crush: Fletcher and Angus both exhibit this with Chyna and Olive respectively. Although Angus doesn't seem that bad, yet. However he is a tech-savvy hacker, so who knows.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Fletcher is prone to this, especially regarding his Stalker with a Crush behavior towards Chyna.

Fletcher: It's not like I stayed up all night making wax sculptures of you.
(in a later episode)
Olive: Where's Chyna? She's supposed to be helping me with this.
Fletcher: How would I know? It's not like I sewed a GPS transmitter to the lining of her backpack so I could track her every move.

  • Sustained Misunderstanding: Lexi is unaware of a fellow cheerleader's birthday since she never received her invitation. When she stopped trying to find out why, her Dumb Blonde friend Paisley says she has to deliver an invitation to someone named "IX 37" and assume its a robot. When Lexi sees the name, she realizes that Paisley had the envelope, which says LEXI, turned upside-down. When she tells Paisley, Paisley replies, "I didn't know my best friend was a robot!"
  • Swapped Roles: The point of the "MutANT Farm" Halloween Special, except instead of two people swapping roles, the entire social order of the school is changed, with the ANTs (cast as traditional Halloween monsters) being the most popular kids in the school and the regular kids like Lexi, Paisley and Cameron, being the outcasts. The main plot of the episode even mirrors the situation presented in "StudANT Council", with all of the monster kids throwing a school dance and excluding the regular kids.
  • Three Amigos: Chyna, Olive and Fletcher.
  • Two Girls and a Guy
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: Madam Goo Goo. Lampshaded, of course. She pairs it with the ability to change her outfit in the two seconds it takes her to walk through a door.
  • X Meets Y: That's So Raven meets Victorious.
  • The Voiceless: Wacky the Wolf never speaks and when Lexi impersonates Wacky, talking nearly blows her cover.
    • Maybe in the first few episodes she does, maybe.
  • Your Vampires Suck: In "MutANT Farm", Cameron attempts to kill Vampire Fletcher with garlic, then with a stake, then with holy water: In order, Fletcher points out that vampires love garlic, effortlessly takes the stake from Cameron's hand and shrugs off the holy water.
  • Zany Scheme: Not relied upon, but they do make use of them.
    • Lexi's attempts to find out why she was not invited to a popular friends Birthday Party.
    • When they try to retrieve Fletcher's painting from Zanko.
    • Lexi and Cameron's scheme to help Lexi keep her most recent pageant crown. While not that zany, it is definitely noteworthy for being an unusual plan. It gets Zany when the real Cameron is required to make an appearance for the pageant rep so she can talk to him and his disguised persona at the same time.
    • Pretty much the entire plot of "PerformANTs" complete with crazy costumes, convenient disguises, a song that is thought up at a moment's notice to keep their story straight that also contains a freestyle rap, and a singing perfomance meant to fool her mother that has some choreography.
      • Cameron's B-Plot even could be considered zany. He needs to get Lexi a backstage pass. But backstage passes are for employees only. What does Cam do? He grabs a help wanted sign and poses as a tattoo artist.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Chyna sometimes wears grade B. That's pretty impressive for a middle schooler...
  1. Slightly altered to fit the Halloween theme.