Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Pitched my vision for a show
They loved it! Thought I was a pro
They got my contract back to find
To their alarm... a dog had signed!

FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman (2006-2010) is a PBS show that is part game show, part parody of game shows, and part reality TV (the children who take the roles of contestants actually have to go out and do something, ranging from adventures in space camp to working out a "haunted castle", but they also have interactions with the titular dog and each other inside a sort of hub for the show). It is also a Spiritual Successor to Zoom. The host is Ruff Ruffman, an animated dog who, as it is explained in the catchy opening tune, got bored with normal dog things and decided to host a game show. In his owner's garage. There is the cat, Princess Blossom Pepper-Doodle Von Yum Yum who started season two as Ruff's assistant, and then in season three became his producer. And then starting in season three there is Ruff's assistant Chet, a mouse, who almost never does anything the way Ruff would actually like him to.

Hilarity Ensues, but so does education.

Each episode generally follows a standard format, with the introduction of the six contestants. These change each season, but are generally middle-school aged kids. Ruff sends some of them (and occasionally all of them) out on various challenges. The contestants who stay behind have to answer trivia questions about the challenges during the Half-Time Quiz Show. At the end of the show, each contestant is awarded points, leading up to the final episode in each season and the crowning of another Grand Champion.

A handy animated machine manned by Ruff, called the Fetch 3000, divides the young contestants (excuse us, Fetchers) into three groups: Some of them (the exact number changes from episode to episode, but the "Fetch Fairness Guarantee" ensures that all contestants are given an equal opportunity for points by the end of the show) charge to the front of Studio G - otherwise known as "Ruff's garage", though he always insists that it isn't – to collect their missions from the mailbox, with Ruff's cheery yell of "Now g-o-o-o Fetch!" accompanying them. The chosen group all go off to enjoy their challenges, and the show focuses on them until about halfway through the program, at which point Ruff provides the leftovers with a "Half-Time Quiz Show" with some good opportunities to score points based on what the field Fetchers had been doing. While the kids left over can't score as many points as the away kids, Ruff points out in every episode that every contestant gets the same number of home and away missions, so they all have the opportunity to win the same amount of points by the end of the season. The focus turns back to the kids in the field until they return to Studio G, at which point the Fetch 3000 calculates their scores. Often, at the start of the week, Ruff will send the Fetchers out all together on one big mission.

Ruff constantly provides the Fetchers with taunts of a "big prize" to be awarded by the end of the season, but he never tells them what it is and admits on a few occasions that he doesn't know what to give them, either.

There is also some sort of unifying seasonal story arc.

Tropes used in Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman include:


  • Actor Allusion: Part two of the Season 5 opening episode shows a scene with Ruff holding a tiger shark toy. Jim Conroy, Ruff's voice, was also the voice of Kenny on Discovery Kids' animated series Kenny the Shark.
  • The Archaeologist Was Right: In the Season 4 Finale Uncle Macruffmintosh warns Ruff not to go tobogganing because of a curse the Ruffman family had for 1,000 years placed by an ice fairy. Ruff doesn't believe in this...until he meets up with Racer X/Scruff Ruffman who stole all of Ruff's stuff to take tobogganing lessons to break the curse.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Ruff's foreign relatives, especially Uncle Macruffmintosh and Rüf the Swedish rock star. Who also embody Bonnie Scotland and Norse by Norsewest, respectively.
    • Le Fleape, the flea in Ruff's ear also has this.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Among the items Scruff stole from Ruff in the Season 3 finale were Ruff's bark-a-lounger, Fetch 3000...and his fancy pants. This was all to pay for toboggan lessons.
  • Big Eater: Ruff, also Chet as long as it's cheese.
  • Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: Chet once made, among other things, a cheese hovercraft. One challenge had a Fetcher going to a cheese factory and making her own mozzarella.
  • Brand X: Ruff insists that every product on the show be branded with pictures of himself.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In an episode towards the end of the fifth season, Ruff has his Fetchers become private investigators and they infiltrate the headquarters of P.U.R.R.S., the Pussycat Underground Rather Rotten Society and the group responsible for the rip-off show Go Get It! Inside the headquarters, they discover a grocery list written by one of the members of P.U.R.R.S. that reads Get Milk. Get Tuna. Take Over the World.
    • Also used earlier in season 5 when Grandma Ruffman has the Fetchers make a picnic basket to keep out squirrels, chipmunks and grizzly bears
  • Cats Are Mean: Subverted; as season 2 progresses, Ruff slowly loses his stance on cats to where he asks Blossom to come back for the next season.
    • And in season three, Blossom becomes his boss.
    • Even Tom and Trixie averted it by turning out to actually be Ruff's long-lost parents in disguise.
  • Chekhov's Gun: "I love public television, and viewers like you. Have I mentioned that this week?"
  • Comm Links: The contestant's cell phones fill this role.
  • Continuity Nod: True to form, in later seasons there are stuff that's mentioned in past seasons. The season premier for the 4th Season mentions different objects that Ruff had in his doghouse and mentions other obscure facts from Season 2 and 3 (one of them being that pineapples float).
  • Cliff Hanger: A couple in season 2, and one at the end of season 3.
  • Courtroom Episode: "The People vs. Grandma Ruffman".
  • Cute Kitten: A few episodes in the series had cat based episodes. Props go to Season 2 when two of the FETCHers had to bottle feed a little kitten and Ruff – who notably hates cats – couldn't resist saying it was cute.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Jay in Season 3 and the champion for said season was this. After hearing his partners (Noel and Sammy) scream from seeing a rat, what does he do? He gets a call from Ruff and asks him that before he [Ruff] sends a live thing in a box to send him earmuffs.
  • Disembodied Eyebrows: Ruff hung a lampshade on this. So did one of the contestants in their application video for the fifth season. Ruff told them to not get personal.
  • Dogs Are Dumb: He gets a few facts wrong, but Ruff pretty much averts this.
    • The NASA episode ramps this Up to Eleven when Ruff thinks the Fetch satellite is faulty, but it's really just a discarded bone in the Fetch 3000.
  • Duct Tape for Everything: Lampshaded. "We can never use enough duct tape on this show."
  • Edutainment Show
  • Evil Twin: Scruff Ruffman and Le Purrrr, Blossom's twin. (She's a burglar. Think about it.)
  • Excited Kids' Show Host: Ruff. Very much so.
  • Expository Theme Tune
  • Eye Glasses: Ruff, and his family.
  • Fat Idiot: Ruff.
  • Fear of Thunder: Ruff. He and Blossom are also afraid of vacuum cleaners, though this is also rather Truth in Television.
  • Female Feline, Male Mutt: Blossom manages the sass without saying a single word.
  • Final Exam Finale: Every season has ended with one of these, including a literal final exam near the end.
  • Flash Animation
  • Follow the Leader: "Go Get It!" is an in-universe example.
  • Freaky Friday Flip: In a Season 3 episode, one of the challenges was for two FETCHers (Jay and Noel) to live each other's lives. For Noel, this meant playing guitar and playing lacross. For Jay, it meant placing makeup on Noel's sisters...and wearing a cheerleader outfit.
  • Genius Ditz: Chet. He made an engine that was powered out of Ruff's leftover pineapple-liver shakes from Season 1...but has no idea how to file.
  • Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut : Rüf Rüfmün, Ruff's Swedish rock star cousin.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: Neither Charlene, the poodle Ruff has a crush on, nor Spot Spotnik, his arch nemesis, have ever been seen other than in pictures.
  • Hollywood Nerd: Glen Glendalf
    • Shout-Out: This character's name may very well be a nod to show head writer Glen Berger.
  • Hostile Show Takeover: At the end of season 3.
  • Insistent Terminology: It's not a garage!
    • Although in the Season 2 premiere he admits that the "G" actually means "Garage".
  • I Spoke That As: In "Dog of the Rings", Ruff's nephew Glen asks for the FETCHers to get the "Majestic Ring Goblet of Infinite Awesomess". However the six find out that inside the goblet were buffalo wings. Jay was the one who explains the reasoning – the goblet was in Wings Castle – while Ruff exclaims that Glen was trying to get a Ring Goblet. Glen then emphasizes that they were looking for the Wing Goblet, not Ring Goblet. It didn't help that Glen was wearing braces, thus it made it hard to decipher whether it was either a "r" or a "w".
  • I Thought It Meant: Chet has this as his fatal flaw. Whenever Ruff says something to him, he takes it the wrong way. For example, when Ruff was showing images on his projector he asks Chet to blow it up. What Ruff wanted was to enlarge the picture; Chet brought out dynamite to do the job.
    • It goes into hilarious proportions in Season 5. After Ruff and Blossom lose a game of charades when Ruff couldn't tell that Blossom was a blue jay, Ruff asks Chet if he can do one. In response Chet gets some blue paint and paints a picture of Jay, Winner of Season 3 and paints it blue.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Scruff has this. He says hello to Grandma Ruffman when she appears in one episode, got a replacement trophy for the winner of Season 3 and when Ruff accidentally got sent to prison on Poodle Island, he finds the jail walls of Scruff's cell has pictures of the two when they were young and a poster for Ruff's show. The poster is justified as it actually hides the hole Scruff was digging to escape.
  • Lampshade Hanging: "Nobody ever walks to a challenge on this show. Have you noticed that?"
  • Large Ham: Ruff himself.
  • LARP: Glen is a LARPer and runs his introductory episode as one.
  • Latin Lover: In one episode, Ruff gets relationship advice from a disembodied voice with a suspiciously Spanish accent. It turns out to be Felipe, one of Ruff's fleas.
  • Legacy Game Show Host: Ruff's parents and his grandmother were also once game show hosts. His grandmother was said to be really amazing; she mentioned that she got a small audience of around 30 million viewers a week (but Ruff exclaims that it's more than he gets)
  • Magical Computer: The Fetch 3000. It can send kids back in time!
  • Medium Blending: The animated characters that appear via TV to the real-life contestants.
  • Morality Pet: Ruff may be self-absorbed and look down on his animal assistants, he gives nothing but positive encouragement to the fetchers. (Okay, there was a sarcastic comment ONCE, but that was more like "you're doing this for the points" then a dig at the kid).
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: In a challenge on season five, Marc and Shreya meet with a hand model who calls them pretty much any names starting with "M" or "S" other than their own.
  • Name's the Same: There have been two Brians (one in Season 1 the other in Season 4 spelled with a "y") two Jays (one in Season 3 and one in Season 5), two Sams ("Sam" for the boy and "Sammy" for the girl who were both in Season 3) and two Marks (One was "Mark" and the other was "Marco").
  • 90% of Your Brain: Explored and subverted in season 2.
  • Only Sane Employee: Blossom
  • Overly Long Name: Princess Blossom Pepperdoodle von Yum-Yum. Mainly a parody of people who give this kind of name to pet cats.
    • Lampshaded by Ruff several times, who usually just calls her Blossom or Blossom von Yum-Yum, since according to him, if he took the time to say her full name every time he talked to her, the show would end too quickly.
    • Blossom's evil sister "Le Purr" also has this. Her real name is Duchess Petunia Cupcake von Yum-Yum.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: In Season 4, Murray was replaced with Tank. The reason was because Murray – a real life Basset Hound – died prior to the Season 4 premiere.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Some episodes have boys dressing up in female outfits. Jay in Season 3 wore a cheerleading outfit (but it had shorts) and in the Superhero episode of Season 4, Bryan was with Bethany as part of the "Indestructible Butterflies"
  • Relax-O-Vision: Seen in one of the wallpapers for the show, featuring a picture of Ruff in a flower field and the message "We are experiencing technical difficulties." Seen on the show as well, in a few episodes where Ruff would have an off-camera scuffle with someone.
  • Repetitive Name: Ruff Ruffman. It was later parodied in a Superhero episode when Glen asks him to become "Ruffmanman".
  • Rule of Three: There will be episodes where a team of three have to take a challenge, when all six FETCHers are in a challenge, they're split into three groups of two or vice versa. There's the three main "hosts" of FETCH! (Ruff, Blossom and Chet) and there are three challenges before the quiz at the finale, etc.
  • Shout-Out: In the intro sequence for the fourth season, Chet the mouse is seen flying around, destroying stuff. Ruff comments on this using a rotating series of phrases and one of them is, "You know, I bet Arthur doesn't have to deal with stuff like this." Arthur is another production of WGBH Boston.
    • There was also a sly reference to a Sesame Street song at the end of one episode.
    • The haunted house episode in season 5 has a fair few Scooby Doo shoutouts. This was lampshaded when Ruff asks if he's allowed to say "Zoinks!".
    • Many of the episode titles have this. The episode "The Dog Vinci Code" was a direct reference to The Da Vinci Code and "Dog of the Rings" was based on The Lord of the Rings
  • Sibling Rivalry: The rivalry between Ruff and Scruff creates the challenges for the Season 3 finale.
  • Similar Squad: Tom and Trixie (and their show: "Go Get It!") in Season 5.
  • Six Token Band: Justified, as the kids are drawn from the Boston metro area, which is fairly diverse. Usually no mention is made of any of the contestant's ethnic background, other than the occasional mention of ethnic cuisine.
  • Skyward Scream: Done a couple of times.

Ruff: (as Ken L. Koff gets away) KEN L. KOFF!

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