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FoxTrot: Difference between revisions
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A comic strip begun in 1988. It centers on the Fox family, a reasonably average 2.5-child household. Most of the humor comes from the characters or commentary on pop culture, occasionally both at once.
The characters are known for their quirkiness. Peter starves himself for three days before each Thanksgiving and is an overall [[Big Eater]] to the extreme. Paige has an imaginary boyfriend named Pierre who factors heavily into her dream life (the strips involving him usually repeat the phrase "Ooh, Pierre!" a lot and end with a panel outside the dream, where Paige is sleeping and Jason has Quincy (a pet lizard) pressed to her lips or the like). Jason plays ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' with his [[Black Best Friend]] Marcus, but their battles are usually against fictitious versions of Paige. The (vegetarian) mom tries to sneak tofu into their diet on a regular basis (and doesn't like the thermostat set above freezing). The techno-fossil dad should never be allowed to plan vacations. Ever. And Jason occasionally draws a comic book called [[Her Codename Was Mary Sue|Slug-Man, whose nemesis is the evil Paige-o-Tron]]. Written and drawn by [[One of Us|a genuine nerd]], which makes for a lot of in-jokes with Jason's video games, comic books and general geekery.
At the end of 2006, the strip changed to be [[Sunday Strip]]-only.
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=== This strip is the [[Trope Namer]] for: ===
* [[Her Codename Was Mary Sue]]:
* [[Souvenir Land]]
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== A-F ==
* [[Aborted Arc]]: A two-week 1995 storyline had Paige getting the role of Cleopatra in the school's ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'' play, (with Morton playing Antony, of course). The story ended before the play started, with Roger noticing Paige's name in the play program. After that strip, the story suddenly ended without any resolution — the main "hook" of the arc being that Paige was apprehensive about playing Cleopatra with Morton Goldthwait as Anthony, and it could've been resolved but wasn't.
* [[Accidental Aiming Skills]]: Peter throws a baseball at an apparently far-off tin can sitting on a fence post. In the final panel, we see that he was actually aiming for Roger's much closer glove.
* [[The Ace]]: Grandma.
** Grandma also ends up deconstructing [[The Ace]] a bit in her first appearance when she learns that her [[Monty Oum]] levels of awesome had given Andy resentment and a desire to prove herself since the seventh grade.
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* [[Butt Monkey]]: Peter. [[media:buttmonkey_3097.png|Here]] is a collection of his moments.
* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: In-universe, Jason portrays Paige(-O-Tron) in Jason's "Slug-man" comics as the most horrible character possible.
* [[Catapult Nightmare]]: Paige experiences a standard "falling" dream. Midway through, she realizes that it's a dream, and concludes that she'll wake up before hitting the ground. Sure, enough, she does. The last panel has her realizing she was right... as she falls out of bed.
* [[Characterization Marches On]]: If you read the early comic strips you'd notice that Jason actually seems to act the way a normal kid would about school — that is, not wanting to go. But later on? He ''loves'' school. Roger Fox, too, also was shown as being ''good'' at chess and wasn't [[Too Dumb to Live]]. Of course, the chess part was [[Flanderization|flanderized]] within a couple years.
** An early strip has Jason and Peter playing ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', something Peter would never do under normal circumstances.
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* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: {{spoiler|Eugene}}.
* [[Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs]]: During one shopping trip, Andy asked Jason to pick out one cereal whose first ingredient wasn't sugar. Jason found one cereal whose ''last'' ingredient was sugar... because sugar was its ''only'' ingredient.
* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]: Denise suddenly disappeared from the strip in the mid-2000s, although Peter never broke up with her. Oddly, strips after Denise's disappearance show Peter attempting to impress other girls.
** Virtually all of the supporting cast disappeared from the strip regularly when the strip moved to Sundays. Marcus is the only character outside of the Fox family to appear on a regular basis nowadays.
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: Played with and ultimately subverted: When Jason decided to take over ''[[The Boondocks]]'' while Aaron McGruder was focusing on making the animated adaptation, one of his ideas was, after hearing that the strip references "[[N-Word Privileges|N-words]]", to use several of them. However, Jason doesn't actually know what the N-word actually means, so it shows [[Added Alliterative Appeal|a lot of N-words]], but neither of them are ''the'' N-word.
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** Paige goes to see ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Return of the King]]'' [[Just Here for Godzilla|just because Orlando Bloom is in it]], and wishes they would stop wasting time with that "filler stuff about a ring."
** In one strip, Andy rants about how almost all of that day's comics mention golf in some way, asking "what kind of group mind-rot is at work here?!" She shows the paper to Roger, who remarks, "No kidding! Seven strips don't even ''mention'' golf!"
** Another strip has Peter and Roger watching the Super Bowl, with the rest of the family only ducking in for the commercials.
{{quote|'''Peter:''' You're supposed to be caring about the GAME!
'''Roger:''' Welcome to Super Ad Sunday, son. }}
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'''Peter''': Um, shouldn't this be a little more realistic?<br />
'''Jason''': ''You'' try painting [[Pointy Ears|Vulcan ears]] with a number two brush. }}
* [[Comically Small Bribe]]: Roger tips the paperboy with a nickel and then wonders why the paper always ends up on the roof or in the rosebushes.
** Similarly, Peter Fox, while making a real complex order at a coffee shop, pays him $4.97, to which Peter pays $5.00 and tells him to keep the change. He also admits to Jason that he realizes he was being annoying, which was why he tipped him. Cue the three pennies flying towards his head.
* [[Confusing Multiple Negatives]]: Paige tricks Peter into driving her to the mall by adding several "not"s to her statement ("Do you ''not'' want to take me to the mall?" "Yes." "Do you ''not not'' want to take me to the mall?" "No.") She outsmarts him by skipping from four to six "not"s.
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* [[Defictionalization]]: There was a 2005 strip that had Jason putting a picture of Paige on Wikipedia's warthog page. In Amend's collection, ''The Best of [[FoxTrot]]'', he said that someone actually really uploaded a picture of Paige on the warthog page.
** Another comic has Jason geeking out over "Doomulus Prime", a rare and powerful hammer in ''World of Warquest''. Blizzard responded by putting [http://www.wowwiki.com/Doomulus_Prime the weapon] in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''.
* [[Delegation Relay]]: Andy asks Peter to take the garbage. Peter says that Paige owes him a favour so that Andy should ask her. Paige says that Jason owes her a favour so Andy should ask him. Jason says that Peter owes him a favour so Andy should ask him. Andy asks Peter (again) who then willingly takes out the garbage.
* [[Denied Food as Punishment]]: Andy did this to Roger after he was accused of ruining the computer. It turns out that Jason and Paige had done so by spilling a can of pop on it.
** A Sunday strip had something similar: Andy fed everyone ''except'' Roger pancakes, all after giving an extended question along the lines "Would you like some pancakes made from the heart-shaped spatula that your father gave me for Valentine's Day?" as a message that she did not like Roger's gift.
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'''Jason:''' I just needed to warm up.
'''Paige:''' Tell me it's not true! Tell me it's not true! }}
* [[Filth]]: Parodied:
** Peter finds Jason drooling over a centerfold. Of a computer. ("Hey: this video card looks airbrushed!")
** Andy and Roger once catch him drooling over old ''National Geographic''s, and Roger believes it is due to pictures of topless women, when it turns out to be the Apollo 11 issue.
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** An arc had Roger attending an out-of-state business meeting, then returning home to find Jason needs stitches due to a Hot Wheels incident. After two days devoted to Jason and his stitches, Roger quits work to spend more time with his family. He then gets conned into buying a $199.99 booklet on making money (which turns out to be worthless) and then tries to make money selling stocks on the internet. After losing $3,000 in the second hour, he sells the family computer and they buy an iFruit.
* [[Headphones Equal Isolation]]: In one strip, Andy appears to be scolding Peter, but her dialogue is represented as [[Painting the Medium|tiny squiggles]]. In the last panel, she yanks off his (previously unseen) headphones and screams, "AND TAKE OFF THIS STUPID WALKMAN!"
** Also, the kids give Andy a Walkman and then proceed to ask her questions like "Tell me if it's not all right for me to blow off my homework tonight" while she is plugged in.
* [[Heads-Tails-Edge]]: Peter, trying to decide on a prom date when caught in a [[Love Triangle]] among Denise and a new character named Mindy. (She's eventually [[Pair the Spares|set up with Peter's friend Steve]], [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome|and then never heard of again]].)
{{quote|'''Peter''': It doesn't count. It landed on a crumb.}}
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'''Andy''': Now, then. What's all this about a fight?... }}
* [[Idea Bulb]]: Parodied in one strip where Jason takes every bulb in the house and uses them to make a mobile of light bulbs over his desk, saying that it "enhances my aura of creative genius."
** In another strip, Paige is struggling with her essay on Thomas Edison when one of these flashes above her head. It turned out to be Roger who's holding a literal bulb up because he wants to impress her with all his Edison knowledge.
* [[If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You]]: Andy is such a health food nut, and even some real life equivalents would find her dishes to be [[Nausea Fuel]]. (Beet and Cheese Subs, Curry Loaf, Corn on the Cob in a Hot Dog Bun, Lima Bean pizza?) Often played for kicks though, due to the [[Rule of Funny]]. This was almost the [[Trope Namer]] for this very trope as one strip calls it "The irony of health food."
* [[If You Die, I Call Your Stuff]]: Occurs in one arc where Jason "coaches" Peter on football in 95-degree heat: "You know, it occurs to me that if you die, I'll get your stereo." "OK, OK, I'll pay you ''two'' dollars! Just cool it with these push-up drills!"
* [[I Just Want to Be Special]]: [[Played for Laughs]] with Jason and his constant desire for superpowers, such as standing out under a full moon after being nipped on the finger by a chihuahua in case it was a baby werewolf.
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* [[Just One More Level]]: In one arc, Jason tries to convince his mom that she will like ''Doomathon II'' after playing it. Although she is apprehensive at first, she quickly falls victim to this trope.
* [[Klatchian Coffee]]: Any of Peter's coffee based drinks.
* [[Know Your Vines]]: Jason and Marcus get sent on a night hike through poison ivy as part of an Escalating War of pranks with the girls. They compound the folly by deciding to use the leaves as camouflage.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] crossing over into [[Better Than a Bare Bulb]] territory: Plenty of it. For instance, in one of the aforementioned Elseworld trips, Paige finds herself transported into a pastiche of ''[[The Nutcracker (theatre)|The Nutcracker]]'', then asks if anyone could imagine such a trick being attempted in a comic strip.
** Also notice how many of the tropes listed here are shown to have lampshaded examples.
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*** The rule is usually that, as long as Andy is cooking real-people food you would expect people who don't hate themselves to tolerate, she's competent if not actually thrilling. When she's on one of her health-food kicks, sanity and skill go out the window. And the thing about burning the turkey when her mom came over was a whole other bag of issues.
* [[Let's Have Another Baby]]: Andy goes through a mid-life crisis of sorts and suggests this. Roger immediately tries to talk her out of it... only to start to recant when she suggests [[Midlife Crisis Car|getting a Ferrari instead.]]
* [[Lipstick and Load Montage]]: Done in a Sunday strip that apparently shows Paige putting on her make-up getting ready to go out. The last panel reveals it to actually be a grounded Peter trying to sneak out of the house disguised as Paige.
* [[Logic Bomb]]: In one strip, Paige asks both parents if Nicole can stay over, and each tells her to ask the other, with her concluding that it's okay for Nicole to come over. Jason got the same answers from asking both parents, but instead consulted logic books.
* [[Long List]]: Peter, after discovering that all of his clothes smell like Paige's perfumes:
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** Also taken quite literally in a few strips, such as Jason writing his Christmas lists, Jason comically forgetting to specify essay length with several piles of presumed essay pages, and annual strips of Roger having several Tax-returns to fill out (with one even making a pun out of the 1040 form and his having 1,040 forms to fill out.).
* [[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop]]: Andy's unnamed mother, although appearing more than most examples of this trope, hasn't appeared in the strip since 1999.
* [[Loophole Abuse]]: The kids try this all the time.
** Peter combines this trope with [[Cut a Slice, Take the Rest]] and [[Exact Words]] in one strip. He tells Andy that he and Jason only had "one slice each" at the pizza parlor before dinner, which translated to one pizza cut in half (coincidentally, on a night when Andy happened to be making "curry loaf" for dinner). Afterwards, Peter tells Jason "The Book of Peter, verse 1: Know thy loopholes."
*** Paige does a similar one: her mother says she can only have one scoop of ice cream before dinner, so she jams a spoon into the ice cream tub and pulls out its entire contents as a single cylindrical "scoop."
{{quote|"One scoop. You're my witness."}}
*** The above-mentioned ice-cream gag was also recycled in a later strip, except it used Jason and Halloween candy, and his tactics involved keeping his bag of Halloween candy next to the radiator so it would all fuse together into "one piece."
** Another common gag has Peter getting permission to eat "the last" of some snack food item, and proceeding to eat through several boxes in order to get to the "last" one.
** The kids buy Andy a Walkman, and while Andy is listening to it and is oblivious to what's going on around her...
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'''Peter''': They never specified font size. }}
* [[Look Behind You!]]: Paige managed to trick an ice cream vendor at the Zoo this way in order to distract him long enough to have her ice cream cone be given a huge amount of swirls. He implies afterwards that she pulled the same trick on him the previous summer.
* [[Loud of War]]: In one strip, Paige is annoyed at the sounds of Jason making sweet talk to Quincy in the next room, and eventually yells at him. The last panel shows that Jason has been using a megaphone pointed at her room the whole time.
* [[Love Letter Lunacy]]: Peter (in one of his more [[Jerkass]] moments) leaves notes in Paige's locker, pretending to be a secret admirer.
** In another series of strips, Jason writes his mother a particularly mushy Mother's Day note, hoping to butter her up before asking for a new computer. Unfortunately, he hides it in his math book, and both he and Eileen accidentally take each other's math books home...
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* [[Not Allowed to Grow Up]]: The kids are always attending the same school in the same grades every year. Lampshaded in a strip shortly after 9/11 when Roger goes to donate blood and Jason asks [[Medium Awareness|if he's suddenly stumbled into]] ''[[For Better or For Worse]]''; Andy reassures him that he can stay ten years old.
** There is precisely one character in the strip who has aged. Katie O'Dell, the little girl Paige babysits, was six months old in her first appearance, but later aged up to two years and froze there.
* [[Obnoxious In-Laws]]: Inverted: Andy herself dreads her mother's visits because the whole family absolutely adores her mother, and Andy feels pushed to the sides.
* [[Old Shame]]: An in-universe example would be Roger hiding his college diploma in the attic, because his name was spelled Orger Fox on it.
* [[One-Two Punchline]]: Very common.
* [[Only Six Faces]]: The characters' faces are almost all alike, with only hair styles and accessories to differentiate. Andy's hair style even changed early on to make her look less like Paige.
* [[Out-of-Character Moment]]:
** The 1990 story where Jason tries to fix Paige's sweater after Quincy chews on it. Usually, he tells Quincy "good boy" when he does that.
** In one arc, Paige actually attends a Halloween party held by Morton, because she doesn't want to be rude.
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** Jason downloading a swimsuit calendar and happily noting how big Miss October's "hooters" are. Normally, Jason's attitude is that [[Girls Have Cooties]] regardless of whether said girls are his peers, teenagers, or adults. A similar [[Out-of-Character Moment]] also had Jason attempting to make a snowman modelled after Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, despite his earlier fear of her for being a girl.
* [[Overly Long Gag]]: One Sunday Strip had Jason pacing for '''''[http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/09/06 NINETY-SIX PANELS]'''''.
** A strip has Jason and Marcus establishing the ground rules for their snowball fight, which lasts so long all the snow melts by the time they're finished.
* [[Pac-Man Fever]]: Averted. Even in the early days, any references to gaming were completely accurate. It should come as no surprise that Amend is a nerd.
* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: Done so much it's a [[Running Gag]].
* [[Paranoia Gambit]]: Being the target of a "Jason Vow of Vengeance" causes Peter to completely freak out and spend the day subjecting himself to ever-nastier hiding places (winding up grounded in the process). That ''is'' Jason's vengeance.
* [[Patriotic Fervor]]: In a parody of the "freedom fries" debacle, Paige insists on her French homework being called "Freedom homework."
* [[Picture Day]]: A frequent source of humor. One of the best has Peter ending up with his face covered in mud while retrieving his trademark baseball cap, so that he can have it on for his picture.
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* [[Put Off Their Food]]: A strip where Jason ties the ends of his spaghetti noodles together so he can eat them all in one long, unending slurp ends with Andy adding spaghetti to the list of things she can no longer make for dinner.
** Another time, Paige had just dissected a frog in Bio class and she thought it was really cool. She tells her family about the intestines and they stare in horror at the spaghetti they're eating.
* [[Quote Mine]]: One strip had Jason recording Paige talking on the phone: "Mr. Vivona says we have to cut three articles from a newspaper for social studies class every day this week, and the only pair of scissors I have are totally dull." He then gets on the computer and edits it so she's saying "I cut social studies class every day this week. Mr. Vivona is totally dull."
* [[Rain Dance]]: Jason and Marcus do a snow dance. Paige joins them in the hope that school might be canceled if it works.
* [[Rank Inflation]]: Jason's report card usually consists of A+++ grades or higher.
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* [[Reverse Cerebus Syndrome]]: Although it was always a gag-a-day strip, ''FoxTrot'' was more realistic in the earlier years and had the occasional [[Very Special Episode]]-type plot and overreaching [[Story Arc|story arcs]] that sometimes lasted as long as two months, counting the Sunday strips. More serious subjects were often present, such as Paige and Jason finding a hypodermic needle on the beach, Peter trying to quit chewing tobacco, et cetera. In the late '90s, the humor style became [[Denser and Wackier|more off-the-wall]] and any trace of seriousness disappeared, with occasional exceptions such as the strips which followed 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
* [[Reverse Psychology Backfire]]: Used often. For instance, in one strip, Jason begs Andy ''not'' to buy a new computer and she doesn't. In another, Andy "supports" Roger's decision to quit his job, and he goes with it instead of seeing the reverse psychology.
* [[Ridiculous Procrastinator]]: Peter and Paige often become this before exam time or when homework is due.
* [[Right on Queue]]: A Sunday strip had the majority of the strip devoted to a ridiculously long airline check-in queue, with the final panel having Andy remark that she thinks she has forgotten the tickets.
* [[Ring Ring CRUNCH]]: Peter does it in a Sunday strip when the alarm clock interrupts a dream about making out with swimsuit models.
* [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]]:
{{quote|'''Peter:''' As your elf touches the gold doorknob, 45,000 volts shoot through his body. Your elf is now charcoal. What does your wizard do?
'''Jason:''' He calls the Dungeon Master a jerk. }}
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* [[Rube Goldberg Device]]: Jason has frequently designed them: one to illuminate a halo over his head to convince [[Santa Claus]] that Jason was behaving; and another to light the grill.
* [[Running Gag]]: Roger applying several bottles of lighter fluid to the barbecue, then the fire blowing it into his face (it originally was Peter who started this gag).
** Another gag involves Jason wearing a large overcoat and putting Quincy on his head to impersonate someone.
** And there's 'World of Warquest'.
* [[Run for the Border]]: Some of the strips, most notably the one where Jason learned that copyrighting the I-Don't-Like-You-Eileen-Jacobson Computer Virus, had this when he asked how long it would take to skateboard to Mexico.
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** A few comics have featured background portraits with characters from other cartoons, such as ''Calvin And Hobbes'', ''Dilbert'', etc.
** Various [[Peanuts]] characters, including Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Snoopy, have actually made cameo appearances in the strip.
** One particular one has Jason and Marcus creating an identical snow sculpture of a snowman with a hole in his chest and a cannon right next to it to one in a ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' strip - then creating sculptures of Calvin and Hobbes goofing around with the cannonball. "See, this way it's an homage, not a ripoff."
** Jason and Marcus often go to a store called [[Calvin and Hobbes|Calvin's Hobbies]]
** There were also several references to several movies and TV shows in [[FoxTrot]], namely ''[[The Matrix]]'' and ''[[Star Wars]]''. In one strip, Jason also started paraphrasing Frasier Crane on ''[[Frasier]]'' (namely something about Le Fou Cheval restaurant switching to an all-domestic cheese list all while he is hosting a soiree at the restaurant to impress the membership chair of the chamber music board).
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** In [http://www.foxtrot.com/2011/06/06052011/ one of the latest strips], part of it is in a first-person perspective with an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The person asks Paige, who is sitting at the computer, if they can get on to play [[Portal 2]]. She promptly tells the person to go away. A portal is shot above and below her as she then falls through. It then goes into a third-person perspective as you see Jason pointing a poorly made portal gun at Paige.
** [http://www.foxtrot.com/2011/10/10092011/ A brutal, oafish football player is named] [[Warhammer 40000|Ogryn]]ski.
** One Halloween strip has Marcus dressed as [[Mega Man X]], while Eileen was [[The Incredibles|Violet]], Phoebe was [[Calvin and Hobbes|Hobbes]], Eugene was [[Star Trek|Spock]] and Jason was [[Star Wars|Jabba the Hutt]] (although Jason's costume was part of the joke).
** Shout outs to ''[[Monty Python]]'' have appeared at least twice:
*** In one strip Paige and Peter sport heads as swollen as [[Monty Python's The Meaning of Life|Mr. Creosote's]] belly after cramming for math tests, with Jason offering them a "waffer theen" math formula.
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* [[Snowlems]]: Or snow dinosaurs in this case. In one strip Jason and Marcus make a demonic snowlem based on Paige.
* [[Some Dexterity Required]]: Parodied in an arc where Peter and Jason buy a [[Fighting Game]]: "Here's a fold-out chart showing how to kick..."
* [[Souvenir Land]]: [[Trope Namer]] (part of the amusement park Fun-Fun Universe).
* [[Spanner in the Works]]: Jason finds it impossible to beat one guardian monster in a video game, as it instantly squashes his character every time he tries. Paige, who almost never plays video games, takes the controller and gets by the guardian by simply walking around him.
* [[Sphere Eyes]]: Most of the characters have these.
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* [[Symbol Swearing]]: Parodied in one strip, overlapping with [[Medium Awareness]]:
{{quote|'''Peter''': Ow! I stubbed my toe! Ampersand! Asterisk! Dollar Sign! Pound Sign! Asterisk! Asterisk! [beat] Comic strip swearing leaves something to be desired.}}
** Also inverted at one point: In an arc where Jason attempted to fill in for Aaron
* [[Tattooed Crook]]:
{{quote|'''Andy''': What are you doing??
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** And again when he said that he was only using a plastic surgery software on a picture of her for fun: "I don't want some drop-dead gorgeous, hot-bodied wife!... (''beat'') ...I'm not helping myself, am I?"
* [[That One Boss]]: In-universe example. One story arc has Jason stuck on a boss in a video game he's been trying to get past for a month. Paige ends up getting past the boss by [[Sheathe Your Sword|simply walking past it]].
* [[There Are No Girls on the Internet]]: Peter found a girl who claimed to be a supermodel with the same interests as his, and assumed it to his brother, playing a prank. Cut to the model's apartment, as Peter types "and after I beat you to a pulp..." The model, with framed covers behind her, is calling the police.
* [[Title Drop]]: Inverted; as with many [[Newspaper Comics]], most of the anthologies are named after throwaway lines of dialogue contained therein.
* [[Tooth Strip]]: Parodied. Roger tries a whitening toothpaste which erases all the lines between his teeth.
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* [[The Trouble with Tickets]]: In one arc, Roger gets a parking ticket. Andy wants to pay the fine, but he wants to do a [[Perry Mason]] impression.
* [[TV Genius]]: Jason all the way. He's smart enough to write a computer virus that destroyed the Internet, but he does incredibly stupid things like try to convince the dentist to leave the X-ray machine on [[I Love Nuclear Power|to give him super powers]].
* [[Twerp Sweating]]:
** Denise's father does this to Peter when he arrives to take her out for their first date.
** Peter, himself, did this {{spoiler|justifiably, it turned out}} to one of Paige's prom dates.
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{{quote|'''Paige''': If you must know, I walked right by him.
'''Jason''': Well, of course you did, once he was dead! }}
** After he gets what Paige is saying, Jason muses, "So you're ''not'' supposed to attack the unstoppable killing machine of death? How counterintuitive."
* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: This strip is a treasure trove of nerd humor, to the point that they collected an entire book of such jokes titled ''Math, Science, and Unix Underpants''.
* [[The Voice]]: The strip has a few, including Miss Grinchley (Jason's original teacher) and Denise's parents.
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* [[Wheel-O-Feet]]: Parodied in one strip where Jason ties a pair of wheels with a spiral design around his waist and stomps on bottles of dry ice during gym class so that he appears to be running faster than he is.
* [[Whip It Good]]: Peter and Jason wield whips (with varying degrees of success) while emulating ''[[Young Indiana Jones]]''.
* [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?]]: Jason asked every member of his family if they wanted to have a snowball fight with him. They each reply "Do I look like an idiot?"... until he gets to Roger, who says "Let me get my coat" before Jason can even finish the question.
* [[William Telling]]: Roger asks Jason what sport he has taken up and Jason tells him to put an apple on his head and he'll demonstrate. Roger, wisely, flees.
** Inverted in one strip where Jason has an arrow tied to his head, and Marcus tries to shoot apples through a bow at it. He says that way, they're only being kinda stupid.
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