Codename: Kids Next Door/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • Combined with Late to the Punchline; to most children, t is plainly not a number. Fast forward to high school and algebra classes. t is very much a number, it's a variable. Or unreliable. Like Tommy.
  • Before the present KND was founded by Numbuh Zero, Grandfather ruled the world. Considering how he ruled the world, the distrust of the KND towards adults suddenly becomes far more justified.
  • Numbuh 4, as his number designates, is the unluckiest member of Sector V. However, add Numbuh 3 into the figurative equation and you have 7, widely considered the luckiest number. Even their codenames tease these two.
  • This is one for Doctor Who fans: We first hear of Doctor Time-Space Continuem in the 2004 episode "Operation: U.N.C.O.O.L.", with the kids watching what's likely a fictional counterpart to the Classic Series, which, given the KND's disdain for "old" and "nerdy" things, can explain why they're not really having fun. The next time we hear of the show again is in 2007 ("Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D."), during the height of the David Tennant era. Which might be why Numbuh 362's taken a liking to it...
  • During the first season of Codename: Kids Next Door, having the Delightful Children show up in every episode like some sort of Mandatory Line was something that bothered me at first, as many of their appearances were irrelevant and seemed forced. After thinking about it recently, it hit me: that was the point! Their repeated appearances were meant to get the audience jaded enough so that by the time they did do something important (picking up the age changer), no one would suspect it was a Chekhov's Gun! (This was before the audience was aware of how tight the show's continuity would be.)
  • Another KND-related one, this one related to a very late series spoiler: I was recently wondering where there was an earlier hint of Chad's true allegiance (read: with the KND). Apparently somebody said that there was one in "Operation E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.", when Chad and the high school kid were discussing how the high school were about to deal Gallager a Curb Stomp Battle and apparently Chad got worried. I checked the scene in question: Chad's evil face does go away, but he's still smiling. So I eventually decided to leave the subject, then just now I thought about some RL issues of mine, and then somehow I thought of this: why didn't Chad just avoid any interaction with Nigel so that Chad would have an easier time trying to launch the Moonbase into the sun without being detected until it was too late, hanging the KND out to dry? There's your hint: right at the beginning of the whole issue.
    • Holy crap. Fridge Brilliance indeed.
    • Not exactly, even if Chad's true allegiance is to the KND, what made him think hurling Moonbase into the sun himself was the only way to stop Cree from doing so? Why didn't he just warn the KND about Cree's plan so that they would be prepared to stop her or make reparations so that Moonbase's destruction would have little effect on the KND? I believe Chad's loyalty is genuine, but his actions imply his loyalty is put into question due to incompetence.
      • To test Numbuh 1's resourcefulness, duh.
      • Well it is possible it was a gambit to make sure Cree wouldn't do the same. After all if a scheme failed once then it is usually abandoned. But put Cree in Chad's place the first time launching the moonbase. She's definitely a competent schemer and fighter and could probably succeed in doing it. Plus it was also a way to prove his allegiance/worth to the teens by enacting such a plan.
    • Realized just yesterday night: the whole premise of KND suddenly makes sense as Brilliance if you read these stories: http://www.cracked.com/article_19339_the-6-dumbest-things-schools-are-doing-in-name-safety.html Not only does the adult-tyranny thing suddenly sound much more real and creepier, but at least their world has a limit -- represented by the Kids Next Door. In real life, we don't have a kid-led limit to what adults can do -- taking this into respect, it seems like these adults have been painstakingly trying to emulate the KND version of adulthood, knowing that there is no limit or special group stopping them.
      • That's it! I'm going to build a freaking huge treehouse on top of my house, make 2x4 technology using every day household objects like mustard and gather up a bunch of kids to build a base on the moon! WHO'S WITH ME!?!??!
  • Remember Lenny and Ogie from Sector Z and how they seemed to be love with each other? Well, considering that back in there "original" days there was probably a lot of racism and making fun of "overweight" people, so their bond suddenly makes more sense.
  • Just hit me when reading the Sudden Downer Ending KND's entry. It said that Numbuh 3 and 4 got married along as numbuh 2 and 5. Add them both up. You should get the lucky number 7 for each.

Fridge Horror

  • "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E." introduces Numbuh Three's granddaughter, Sally Sanban (given Madame Margaret's female-dominated society, inheriting the mother's surname is Justified). She smuggles one of Madame Margaret's girlifier rifles to the Boys Next Door, who are led by an old Numbuh Four, who doesn't know her, so that they can reverse engineer it, launch a counterattack, and commandeer Margaret's time machine to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. This, combined with old Numbuh Four's advice litany to his younger self at the end of the episode imply that Kuki and Wally did not get together in that timeline. Now, at the end of "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", Kuki and Wally are revealed to be married. This heavily implies that Sally saved the world, but erased her own existence in the process. There are scenarios that could result in her being born anyway, but they all require other bad stuff to happen.
    • Actually, did anyone ever consider the possibility that she's actually Mushi's granddaughter instead of Numbuh Three's?
      • She said that her grandmother had fought alongside Numbuh Four, so she is Kuki's granddaughter.
  • The Delightful Children From Down The Lane are creepy enough on their own. It gets worse when you consider who they actually are and what happened to them. They used to be Sector Z of the KND, but they were captured by Father, who put them through such rigorous torture, or as he puts it, delightfulization, to the point that it's quite literally impossible to turn them back (any attempts are just temporary). To think that such honorable members of the KND have been turned into such monsters is not only scary, but you have to think of what kind of treatment Father put a couple of ten year olds through to make them like that permanently. Not to mention that the torture was so intense, that they work as one being, on the same wavelength, and speak in unison. And he constantly has the delightfulized Sector Z try to either delightfulize or kill other members of the Kids Next Door as well, who are basically their former teammates.
    • Another thing, wouldn't the Delightful Children have actual biological parents? Given that Father considers them his own children, it paints a light on how mentally ill he must be.
      • Don't forget the fact that they probably drowned and their real parents will probably never know.
      • Adding to the fact that they probably had families...some of the other operatives could be fighting their friends, cousins, or even THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
    • Actually, in one episode, it was shown that delightfulization is caused by a raygun. Normally, if it's caught early enough, it can be reversed by a jolt to the system, like having a camera flash going off directly in your face. When Father delightfulized Sector Z, it was an early experiment in the technology. The power was turned up too high, causing an overload. The machine exploded, but created five permanently delightfulized children. On another note, The Delightful Children have been shown to defy Father on occasion, though still being evil. If this pattern continues and the Delightfuls become more willful over time, Father could be in for some serious evil competition a few years down the road.
    • How long has Henrich been living with... that thing?
      • It also happened to her at a young age, that had to be traumatizing.
      • It occurred and was cured well before Henrich entered puberty, thus meaning before signifigant portions of her gender identity would be affected by it. Living as a tomboy and living as an actual boy would not be that signifigantly different without sexual characteristics that come with puberty, so it wouldn't affect her development in a signifigant way.
    • Operation F.U.T.U.R.E. introduces Numbuh Three's granddaughter, Sally Sanban (given Madame Margret's female-dominated society, inheriting the mother's surname is justified). She smuggles one of Madame Margret's girlifier rifles to the Boys Next Door, who are lead by an old Numbuh Four, who doesn't know her, so that they can reverse engineer it, launch a counterattack, and commandeer Margret's time machine to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. This, combined with old Numbuh Four's litany of advice to his younger self at the end of the episode imply that Kuki and Wally did not get together in that timeline. Now at the end of Operation I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S., Kuki and Wally are revealed to be married. This heavily implies that Sally saved the world, but erased her own existence in the process. There are scenarios that could result in her being born anyway, but they all require other bad stuff to happen.
      • It's possible she was born as somebody else.
    • In Operation I.T., Numbuh 5 says that Father would "grind kids into coffee and drink them". Seems like an exaggeration, until you consider C.A.K.E.D.-F.O.U.R., when he basically attempted to bake several children alive. Father could very well be cannibalizing children offscreen...
      • Even worse when you realize eating kids is a lot of minor villians' goals. The KND live in a world where cannibalizing children isn't just acceptable, it's encouraged.
    • How about the fact that Father is actively trying to KILL HIS OWN NEPHEW on a daily basis?
    • Lizzie is shown to be seriously unstable sometimes and even tried to MURDER Sector V for getting in the way of her and Numbuh 1 (who she tried to borderline mind rape). We never see or hear from her family members. Could she be the KND universe's Yuno Gasai?
    • The Boyfriend Helmet and all the pain it caused. It was in a magazine ad. Which means it's mass produced. Sweet dreams.
    • More like a Fridge Tear Jerker, but Leona is 350 years old and is still physically and probably mentally 10. Everybody she knew and loved are looong dead. A (technically} little girl outlived all her relatives.
      • And if her family did live 350 years ago (with all the diseases and war and such), their deaths probably weren't that pleasant.
      • More Fridge Tearjerker--and this may seem obvious, but I didn't pick up on it when I was a kid; when Leona and Numbuh 5 hug each other in the bathroom, Leona lets herself age, 5 asks "Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"...We just watched someone decide to die, and 5 asking if Leona is okay with death.
    • Numbuh 3 could be mentally ill.
    • At first, the KND just seems like a fun group which helps kids against the tyranny of homework and broccoli. But then you realize, they're essentially Child Soldiers using weapons that could very well kill. And then you notice some of the adults plans include murder, torture and... worse. In essence, that means this fun, silly group of kids are the only thing keeping the world from tearing itself apart.
      • And keep in mind that a good chunk of them are going to turn evil (or already are, maybe) once they're thirteen. Talk about a Crapsack World.
    • Captain Stickybeard has an immense ship that sails on land, it plows the ground, and destroys houses in its path. What are the chances that those houses have people in them?
    • What if pedophiles exist in this world? They're probably supervillains too.
  • The sheer mortal peril that kids are put through in the world of C:KND goes beyond Could Have Been Messy. If for a second you ignore Plot Armor and Like You Would Really Do It, the prospects of some of the villains' plans are downright horrifying.
    • Chester tried to feed live kids to sharks for their currency.
    • Chad almost sent everyone in the Moonbase into the sun.
    • Valerie wasn't just going to kill Five, but eat her.
    • Mr. Boss was going to send his employees' children to Pluto.
    • Nurse Claiborne was willing to put Three and Five through what was essentially a giant woodchipper.
    • And last but not least, Father was damn close to baking children alive into a giant cake he would later give to his own kids to eat.
    • Besides the villains' plans, everything about the Kids Next Door is outlandishly perilous. This is an international organization of child soldiers who spend years battling very capable and downright murderous adults, sometimes in high-speed aerial dogfights that, with the slightest mishap, could send them spiraling down to earth and an early grave. It makes one wonder if any KND agents have ever died, and given the many, MANY high-stakes situations they get into and capable villains they have encountered in all the years existed, there almost certainly have been kids killed in action. On another note, their only defense against these monsters of people are highly dangerous and potentially deadly weapons (some of them weapons of mass destruction), which were made by other children out of junk. Yes, they are shown to work, and they are certainly more advanced than anything currently existing (lazers, giant aerial gunships, A PERMANENT INHABITABLE MOON BASE, etc.), but if these lazer guns ever malfunction, which they almost certainly do ...
  • Okay, now we all know that the recommissioning module recommissioned Grandfather... but wait. The recommissioning module can only recommission former Kids Next Door operatives! *stops and thinks* Oh. My. GOSH!!! GRANDFATHER USED TO BE A KIDS NEXT DOOR OPERATIVE!!!
    • Um, no, Numbuh Zero was the first KND operative. The Recommisioning Module just restores erased memories.
      • Actually, Numbuh Zero started the 7th age of the KND, not the 1st.
    • It can only restore KND operatives because only KND operatives have been made to lose their memories with KND equipment. Grandfather is the one exception to this.
  • In OP: P.O.O.L., the alternate universe counterparts of the Delightful Children are still delightfultized, even though their version of Father is a good guy. Heel Face Brainwashing, anyone?
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