My Gym Partner's a Monkey

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"You think your school's a zoo? My gym partner's a MONKEY!"

A Cartoon Network animated series created by the husband-and-wife team of Timothy and Julie [McNally] Cahill that aired from 2005 to 2008.

Due to a clerical error involving a misspelled last name, a middle-school aged human named Adam Lyon is sent to attend Charles Darwin Middle School: a school for talking zoo animals. Rather than fix this problem, he befriends an animal named Jake Spidermonkey and deals with the obvious problems of being a human in an environment made solely for animals.

Tropes used in My Gym Partner's a Monkey include:
  • All Just a Dream: "Notorious Windsor Gorilla", which also transitions to a Dream Within a Dream in the end.
  • Animal Jingoism: Here, the animals are sentient and speak and are humanoid (mostly) but the snake kid still fights with the mongoose kid.
    • They were playing tag.
    • There was also a commercial bumper on Cartoon Network for a while where Adam walked past a lion, whose locker was banging and making noises from within. Adam amiably asks "Whatcha got in there?". The lion replies "Lunch."
  • Ambiguously Gay: Jake.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Bull's weak point is his nose, the nerdy crocodile is beating him up after he ask a question & Pixiefrog is getting sued.
  • Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: When the animals all see shiny doorknobs, they get hypnotized and very distracted when they say "Pretty Pretty! Shiny Shiny!"
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Principal Pixie Frog, believe it or not. While trying to boost Mr. Hornbill's (Who is a rhino) confidence to help him woo Mrs. Tusk, they have him wrestle Pixie Frog. Pixie Frog whoops. His. Ass.
  • Bad Impressionists: Windsor dressed as a human
  • Balloon Belly: Subverted. Adam has the food court sell human food and all the animals quickly get addicted. Instead of the usual cartoon result, the animals gained more permanent weight. At the end of the episode they were shown jogging, trying to burn it off.
    • Though played straight in so far that it was gone by the next episode. Still a bit of a subversion, though.
  • Banned In Australia: The episode "Amazon Kevin", which features a Crocodile Hunter Captain Ersatz, was never aired in the country again in the wake of Steve Irwin's unfortunate demise. Watch the episode for yourself, and you'll know why.
  • Better Than a Bare Bulb: Many episodes include jokes like this.
  • Non Sequitur Episode: Robo Frog 3000. The plot has the school board replacing Principal Pixie Frog and the rest of the teachers at Charles Darwin with robots(called robuts by everyone in the episode) and plan on replacing the students with robots, the teachers and Pixie Frog bringing out a wizard in their trunk to fight them, the school board bringing out a robot wizard that defeats the other wizard, and the robots eventually exploding due to running out of love. Adam and Jake lampshade this while the robots are exploding

Jake:Adam?
Adam:Yeah Jake?
Jake:Remember when this show used to be about a human kid going to an animal school?

  • Blind Without'Em: Adam deliberately takes off the Spiffies' (nerds) glasses to avoid detection of a killer mob, as they were killing off the smart people (literally) and were under the assumption that anyone with glasses is smart (despite the fact that there at least two people in the killer mob who wore glasses). In their blind state, the Spiffies' were wondering around helplessly, pretending to be so dumb they can't tell where they're going (well, it worked).
  • Butt Monkey: Poor Adam!
  • But Not Too Foreign: Kerry has Indonesian blood.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Happens constantly, yet done so naturally you wouldn't notice until you thought about it.

"Maybe you'll get a show on Cartoon Network!"

  • Cardboard Pal" "Sick Day"
  • Catch Phrase: Euripedes Sharkowski "(insert compliment; followed by insult) your face. Thank you!"
  • Chaotic Stupid: Adam attacking Nerdy Crocodile, not letting anyone get his wish & upsetting Windsor
  • The Chew Toy: Adam (More than Once).
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Nika Futterman as Adam. Both Spanish dubs (Mexico and Spain) subvert this; Abraham Vega (Mexico) and Miguel Rius (Spain) are male.
    • And Brian Doyle-Murray as Coach Gills!
    • Phil LaMarr as both Sharkowski's
  • Yet Another Christmas Carol: Animas Carol to be exact.
  • Couch Gag: Though not featured in the show's intro, the sign outside Charles Darwin Middle School changes EVERY SINGLE TIME.
  • Cute and Psycho: Lola Llama in "Save the Drama for Your Llama". Lola befriended Ingrid Giraffe but in truth she had no interest in being her friend. By Windsor's explanation, Lola was attempting an aggressive pack assimilation by targeting the weakest member. As Lola slowly began to steal Ingrid's identity, she became more and more crazed about wanting to keep it.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: Ingrid. Having such a really long neck doesn't help.
  • Cute Is Evil: The subject of one episode, when Adam gets hosed by a group of cute miniature animals.
  • Cute Mute: Horace the ferret.
  • The Danza: Student counselor Mandrill's first name is Maurice, as in VA Maurice Lamarche.
  • Delinquent: Larry Raccoon, a minor character, is the only student in history to be expelled from CDMS.
    • The Mole: As a result, he tries to reenter the school, disguised as a panda.
  • Depending on the Writer: Henry Armadillo is either a Jerkass or a Woobie.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: "Lie, Cheetah, Steal": Coach Gill keeps gushing over her new assistant, Mr. Cheetah, via internal monologue, and other characters keep overhearing her "voiceover".
  • Different in Every Episode: The sign outside Charles Darwin Middle School.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Jake shunning Adam for almost an entire episode due to him saying that Bull Sharkowsci had "Gone ape on him". In the monkey world "Going ape" is supposed to be a compliment, unlike in the human world where it means "Go crazy".
  • The Ditz: Nerdy Crocidile
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: There is the human school and the animal school...and the animal school doesn't really teach much. Of course,the series presents this as more or less a good idea.
    • well they learn useful stuff for animals.
  • Deus Ex Machina: "Robo Frog 3000": Because when any middle school faculty is confronted by the school board with robots ready to destroy them, you always keep a wizard in your trunk just in case. Right?
    • Subverted. The school board had their own robot wizard, so it didn't save them at all. But the robots couldn't leave the school cause they were powered by the school walls, saving Adam and Jake from being chased further.
      • Actually, the robots shut down because they ran off of the love in the facility. With all the students replaced with robots, they shut down blew up.
        • Lampshaded by the school board.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady:
    • Euripedes Sharkowski. Yes, despite the mustache and masculine voice. And the way the students talked about her, Adam (and likely the viewers) were shocked to discover that Euripedes was a girl.
    • Slips Python's older sister, complete with deep voice.
    • Adam Lyon, more notable in the episode "Notorious Windsor Gorilla"
  • The Eeyore: Windsor Gorilla
  • Erudite Stoner: Slips Python. Dude, can you please pass me the bong?
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Duh.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: (Episode Titled,) The Spiffies
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Guess which class Adam meets Jake for the first time?
  • Expository Theme Tune: See plot summary.
  • Expy: Keep a look out for a human version of Mr. Hornbill when Adam temporarily goes back to his old school.
    • Also, Windsor is simply Double D as a gorilla.
      • Though not much of a Neat Freak and more laid back.
  • Fake Brit: Tom Kenny as Dickie Sugarjumper.
    • In-episode example: When everyone at CDMS are forced to wear school uniforms, everyone, except Dickie (who is British of course), Adam and Principal Pixiefrog, started speaking in obviously fake British accents.
    • Speaking of Tom Kenny, David Coppertrout also qualifies.
  • Five-Man Band
  • Fire-Breathing Diner: In "Have a Joyous Little Animas", eating a plate of wasabi causes Adam to breathe fire through his nose.
    • Which ends up saving the day, strangely enough.
  • Fish Out of Water: Series premise. Seen literately a few times.
  • Frivolous Lawsuit: Principal Pixiefrog's number one fear.
  • Geeks: The Spiffies.
  • Genius Bruiser: Windsor the gorilla.
  • Genki Girl: Lupe Toucan.
  • Gentle Giant: Windsor again.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Rhino Pie
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: Jake gaining a "Mustache" inexplicibly gives him 1337 skills with nunchucks, but Adam counters this by challenging him to a round of fisticuffs. Subverted in that neither of them actually knows what comes next.
  • Gratuitous Spanish: Lupe.
  • Gross-Out Show: Surprisingly, one of the better ones.
  • Hands Go Down

Mr. Hornbill: (explaining an assignment involving eggs) Any questions?
[a girl Badger happily raises her hand.]
Mr. Hornbill: No, Lacey, you may not eat the eggs.
[Her hand goes down after turning her smile into a frown.]

Boy lobster: Oh, it is so nice to get out of the house after 97 years.
Girl lobster: Oh, you take me to the nicest places.
Boy lobster: Waiter, I'll have the lobster.
Girl lobster (as she is lifted out of the tank by the waiter): Nathan, how could you?

  • Inept Aptitude Test: Adam, the only human attending a school full of animals, takes a career aptitude test and become depressed when the results indicated his career would be "zoo animal"; the principal later reveals that the tests aren't graded and everyone is given the result of "zoo animal" as that's what they all want anyway.
  • Inherently Funny Words: CAMERRRRRRROOOOOOOON! COSTA RRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIICA!
  • Jerkass: Nerdy Crocidile
  • Jive Turkey: In "Grub Drive", Principal Pixiefrog tries to convince students to participate in the Annual School Sales Drive by rapping. The students' reactions are priceless.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Done a few times over the course of the series. One particular example coming from the result of a Deus Ex Machina:

Jake(to Adam): Remember when this show used to be about a boy going to an all-animal school?

  • Large Ham: Jake Spidermonkey.
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: Welcome to CDMS, Adam.
  • Lisa Needs Braces: Subverted. Bull Sharkowski has to wear headgear that's essentially reverse-SCUBA ear (gill) muffs.
  • Living Crashpad: After Jake Spidermonkey gains a huge amount of weight, he falls through the floor, but later calls up to Adam that "Principal Pixiefrog broke my fall!"
  • Meaningful Name: Adam's given name, which is also the name of the first man, created by God. And, since he's quite probably the first human to set foot in Charles Darwin Middle...
  • Medium Awareness: Several characters, most notably Prinicipal Pixiefrog, seem to know that they are characters in a cartoon.
  • Musical Episode: Aptly titled Animal School Musical.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Nerdy Crocidile
  • The Music Meister: The magical fish David Coppertrout casts a spell casts a spell that transforms the school into a musical in "Animal School Musical".
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: The show's entire premise is a typo in Adam's name.
  • The Napoleon: Adam & Pixiefrog
  • Never Say "Die": Subverted.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Virgil "Bull" Sharkowski should be renamed into Michael "Bull" Tysonowski. Seriously.
    • There is an episode where Adam and Jake visited the Neverland Ranch because Bubbles, Michael Jackson's pet monkey, is Jake's cousin. Their names are changed to avoid being sued.
  • No Indoor Voice: Principal Pixiefrog
  • "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: In "The Hyena and the Mighty", Adam had a dream that he came to school in his underpants. Jake informed him that it wasn't a dream.
  • Only Sane Man: Usually Adam.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-episode example: Slips accidentally talks normally, before going back to Brit Speak when in uniform.
  • Opening Shout-Out: Happens in "The Notorious Windsor Gorilla" with the credits re-done as My Gym Partner's a Gorilla and featuring Windsor instead of Jake.
  • Parental Abandonment: Adam seems to have parents, but they don't seem to object to him attending middle school with the animal kingdom.
    • And when they DID make an appearance and were asked that question (since they are allergic to animals and were wearing full hazmat suits), the viewer is unable to understand their answer. It also worthy to note that the same episode had Adam's friends think he lives alone and that he killed his parents.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Windsor collects cut-glass animal figurines.
  • Right Behind Me: "Robo Frog 3000", and probably elsewhere.
  • Running Gag: In the episode "The Ivy League" when everybody drops their coffee mugs whenever something even MODERATELY surprising happens.
    • There's also Principal Pixiefrog's ongoing fear that "we could get sued!"
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Adam discovers this natural defensive mechanism when the entire school wants to eat him. His high pitched girlish shriek causes everyone to run away.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: The episode where Adam and Jake joining the hall monitors. It turns out that the force is TOTALLY corrupt, useless and tries to get rid of Adam when he tries to stop the corruption. So Adam goes and tries to get rid of their Dirtnuts by bribing the truck driver not to get rid of them to stop them from being corrupt. However, the force has Dirtarts and then Adam is blamed for the corruption, since the bribe was caught on video so the force gets away scot free.
  • Shout-Out: Plenty.
    • Mr. Hornbill teaches the kids that rubbing mud on yourself will prevent predators from being able to see you. The camera shows a cartoon Predator sitting in a desk, who says, "It's true."
    • Samurai Jack had a cameo once, as a Cloudcuckoolander doctor who wants others to try his delicious blueberry pie.
    • From the same episode, Adam, after been hit on the head by a piece of concrete, became Joey Mack.
    • There's an episode where it ends with a spoof of the intro from The Love Boat.
    • Principal Pixiefrog resembles and sounds like actor Hans Conreid. Miss Loon sounds like Katharine Hepburn, a Shout Out to On Golden Pond, in which she played a woman who loved to hear the sounds of the loons calling across the lake.
    • During the infamous "I'm A Friendly Armadillo" episode, the judges of the school talent show are positioned in the same order as the ones from American Idol.
      • Cyrus Q Hornbill (Randy Jackson, the neutral one.)
      • Miss Chameleon (Paula Abdul, the nice one.)
      • Coach Gills (Simon Cowell, the mean and honest one.)
    • When Adam temporarily took over Coach Gills' job for the day, he found a very valuable item on her desk, an autographed picture of Brian Doyle-Murray (her VA).
    • There is one episode where The Spiffies are modelled after The Mafia, with ringleader Phinnius Porpoise doing a very good impression of Don Vito.
    • One episode has Bull Sharkowsci dress and dance like Napoleon Dynamite.
  • Silent Snarker: Possibly, Vice Coach Horace Ferret.
  • Species Surname: Used almost constantly.
    • In fact, Adam Lyon was sent to CDMS because his name was misspelled "Lion" in a file.
  • Spit Take: When Jake creates a routine using his bottom and tail (creating a puppet of sorts), he causes the whole student body to laugh resulting in much milk being spurted out, half the time it was in Adam's face.
  • The Spock: Windsor.
  • Stalker with a Crush: The Possum Girl
  • Stranger in a Strange School: The main premise, but taken to self-parody levels for an episode where Jake (whose last name is typo'd as "Spiderplant") is taken to a school for plants for an episode.
  • Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "Bull Shark, Porcupine, I don't know what, going to this school's a pain in the..."

Jake: ADAM!
Adam: What? I was gonna say "neck".
Jake: Oh... that's okay then.

"But torches and pitchforks are a cartoon riot tradition!"

  • Transformation Trauma: There's an episode where Slips comes to school feeling rather ill which leads everyone to believe that he has a horrible disease called the... "Eccch!" and the students start feeling weird (an ox student's fur starts coming out, a bear student gets really hungry and so on), at the end of the episode Principal Pixifrog calls an assembly- at this assembly he shows a video called "It's Only Natural" which is about changes animals go through, everyone is relieved to find out that it's not a disease going around, but then Slips shreds his skin and says..."It's only natural? Phew! I'm not a freak!" and throws his old skin off- the old skin lands on Principal Pixiefrog who then states..."No you're not" and then Slips 'sneezes all over him, Principal Pixiefrog exclaims in a very disgusted way "Yuck, that snake's got a cold! Germ alert, germ alert!".
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Bull, Pixiefrog & Nerdy Crocidile
  • Wild Child: The Possum Girl posed as one to get closer to Adam
  • What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: This show plays with this trope endlessly. The staff includes a warthog, a chameleon, a goldfish, a baboon, a pixie frog and an elephant, all of whom have personalities that vary wildly with their appearances; the snake is friendly, helpful and a member of the main cast (one notable episode had him apparently fighting with a mongoose, only to be revealed that they were just playing tag); the (spider) monkey is the resident Jerkass; and the human, instead of being a bastard, is just trying to survive amongst the insanity. The shark, however, is the school bully, but like most bullies in recent fiction he's a coward who hides his insecurities behind violence.
  • Who Is Driving?: "Slips, if you're here, then who's flying the plane?"
    • Fridge Logic/Horror kicks in when you start to wonder how Slips, who has no limbs, was flying the plane in the first place.
      • He was probably using his tail...
  • Won't Take Yes for An Answer: Adam & Jake celebrating Bull's "going away" party.
  • World of Funny Animals: More like a school of FunnyAnimals.
  • Yandere: Ingrid Giraffe
  • Yellow Sash of Power: Hall Monitor Sasquatch
  • You Mean "Xmas": In the animal world, it's "Animas".
    • And its in June.
    • And it's got something to do with excretory functions.
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