Teen Titans (animation): Difference between revisions

The show [[Comedy Ghetto|has drawn some flak for its frequently less-than-serious tone]], and the many differences between the heroes in the comics and their cartoon incarnations (like animated Raven's exaggerated Gothiness, and animated Starfire being less aggressive and more naive than in the comics). In addition, the physical appearance of the characters in the animated series is profoundly different than that of the original comic book series which, despite its title, depicted the Titans as being in their 20s (at one point the comic series even dropped the ''Teen'' from the title as it had become apparent they weren't anymore), with Starfire and Raven being arguably the two characters most noticably "kiddified" for the animated series. Of course, taking a hard left on the [[Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness]] might have gotten the show more fans [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|than it lost]], and consequently, it also has a fairly large and devoted fan base.

 

 

 

Reruns are now airing every weekday on Boomerang at 11 pm through midnight. The show is also returning in the form of chibi-fied shorts for Cartoon Network's new DC Nation block, called, appropriately enough, ''The New Teen Titans''. If these reruns and shorts receive good ratings, there is hope for a 6th season! There's also a [http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/get-a-6th-season-for-teen-titans.html petition] you can sign to help.

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* [[20% More Awesome]]: Subverted in the episode "Only Human." Since Cyborg is, well, a cyborg, the machine part of him can measure how much effort he's actually putting in.

* [[Action Girl]]: Most of the female characters in the series. Starfire, Raven, Terra, and Bumblebee in particular.

* [[Actor Allusion]]:

** The quote "You're just jealous cuz I sound like a rock star" is a nod to [[Greg Cipes]]' actual career as a reggae-ska rock singer.

*** On top of that, Cipes has lived on a vegan diet since age 8, and actually is a professional surfer, so he fits with Beast Boy's [[Totally Radical|lingo.]]

* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: Most of Cyborg's episodes revolve around him accepting, again and again, that he's human.

** Well Cyborg switches, depending on the episode, from angsting over being human and angsting over being robot. He just can't win. (Though over all he's pretty happy.)

* [[Affectionate Parody]]: "Employee Of The Month" appears to be a nod towards [[Invader Zim]], with some [[FLCL]] thrown in too.

* [[Age Without Youth]]: General Immortus of the Brotherhood of Evil.

*** Also the beginning of the movie.

** And Brother Blood assaults and takes control of the Titans East tower in the third season finale.

* [[All Your Powers Combined]]: The Master of Games

** Also how Raven beat Trigon in "Nevermore".

** But Starfire can.

* [[Battle Couple]]: {{spoiler|Robin and Starfire.}} [[UST|Eventually.]]

** "Nevermore", Raven against her inner demon.

** And to some extent, "Haunted."

** Trigon for season 4 (with Slade as his [[The Dragon|right-hand man]]).

** The Brain in season 5. (Not [[Pinky and The Brain|that Brain]], amusing as that would have been.)

* [[Big Entrance]]: "Birthmark" starts off with Dr. Light fighting the Titans. At first he seems to be holding his own, until Raven makes her entrance. She mimics the last time the two of them encountered each other, with scaling up her size a fair bit, [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]], and tentacles made of shadow.

{{quote| '''Raven''': Remember me?<br />

** According to canon, Beast Boy can transform into any creature so long as he has seen a picture of it and/or can visualize what it would look like. Basically, his powers run on imagination.

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]

* [[Collapsing Lair]]: Slade gets this twice in the first two season finales, Brother Blood gets it twice in the third, and the movie starts off with an attack on Titans Tower.

* [[Combat Tentacles]]: The Centauri police-robots in "Sister".

* [[Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames]]: A non-film example: "Deathstroke the Terminator" is simply Slade here. Averted with every other character, though.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Also, Dr. Light's instant surrender when he came face to face with Raven, as he recalled the [[Mook Horror Show]] she'd subjected him to before. Guess he was still scared of the dark...

** When Raven pulled Dr. Light into some sort of dark vortex within her cloak, and when he came out he was curled up in the fetal position muttering, "S-so dark. Make it stop. Please make it stop."

** The episode "Haunted" also ranks up there as one of the creepiest pieces of [[Western Animation]] targeted towards kids. They took Slade, a villain who's already creepy in his own right, and left the audience constantly unsure whether he was [[Back From the Dead]] and torturing Robin, or whether Robin had gone insane and was mutilating ''himself''. {{spoiler|The truth is somewhere in between.}}

* [[Deranged Animation]]: Bits of it in (nearly) every episode.

* [[Distribution of Ninjutsu]]

* [[Disney Dog Fight]]

* [[Downer Ending]]: Beast Boy suffers this in "Things Change", not so much to the fact that his real name is Garfield.

* [[Drop What You Are Doing]]: Terra drops the T-communicator when Robin announces her big secret: that she can't control her powers. She thinks Beast Boy lied to her and told, but Robin once worked for [[Batman|the world's greatest detective]] and figured it all out on his own, unaware it was a secret.

* [[Dysfunction Junction]]: Each Titan has a dark past.

* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: Silkie had a few blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos before "Can I Keep Him?"

* [[Eloquent in My Native Tongue]]: Starfire is a little better at English than most online translators. But not by much.

* [[Emotionless Girl]]: Subverted by Raven, who actually ''has'' emotions, but is forced to keep them in check by the nature of her powers. ("Fear Itself" provides a pretty good example of what happens when her emotions become too much for her to handle.)

* [["Everybody Laughs" Ending]]: ''Teen Titans'' is not a particularly bad offender, but it did provide a subversion (from [[Trapped in TV Land|season four, episode one]]).

{{quote| '''Starfire:''' Oh, yes, I am second in line for the throne... perhaps I forgot to mention?}}

* [[Everytown, America]]: Jump City, California & Steel City, New York.

** The latter is especially ironic for those aware that "The Steel City" is a nickname for [[Pittsburgh]], PA.

* [[Evil Costume Switch]]

** Terra in ''Aftershock'', who wears nothing but a breast plate and underwear, with the rest of her body covered in bandages.

* [[Evil Counterpart]]: Blackfire. And later, Red-X served as sort of a 'morally ambiguous' counterpart to Robin. Jinx was designed to be a sort of evil counterpart to Raven, both magic users with a "dark" colour theme.

** Slade acts like a sort of Evil Counterpart to Batman (as he was intended to be in the original comics, complete with Wintergreen, his own Anti-Alfred). So it's no wonder he and Robin are so similar, since Robin takes after his mentor.

* [[Evil Minions]]: Various catspaws of Slade's.

* [[Expressive Mask]]

** Robin's mask basically emotes as if it were his eyes, and he ''never'' takes it off (except once in the movie, and then he was wearing sunglasses).

** Pretty sure it's supposed to be a Portmanteau of "Brush" (y'know, [[Don't Explain the Joke|like a paint brush?]]) and "Shogun."

*** Yes, but it would still be pronounced ''and'' spelled "Bra Shogun" in Japanese. The whole point is what [[Punny Name|worked]] or [[Rule of Cool|sounded cool]] in one language [[Lost in Translation|does not always]] [[Gone Horribly Wrong|work that way in another]].

* [[Green-Eyed Monster]]: Starfire during "Date with Destiny". The kicker? She really has green eyes.

* [[Green Lantern Ring]]

** Argent's powers seem to work this way as well.

* [[Grenade Tag]]: Robin.

** Pantha gets a few of these scenes, only the body she's doing grievous harm with isn't usually a willing participant.

* [[Grumpy Bear]]: [[Doom Patrol]]. [[Butt Monkey|Poor Doom Patrol]].

* [[Harmless Villain]]: Mostly the one-shots.

* [[Half Arc Season]]

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Raven is half-demon. A case could be made for Cyborg as a half-robot.

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|Jinx}}

* [[Humorless Aliens]]: Starfire has some trouble understanding why, exactly, Beast Boy's jokes are supposed to be funny. When exposed to "Why are ducks so funny? Because they're always quacking jokes!", she said something like, "Oh, I get it! It is humorous because ducks lack the large brains necessary for the telling of jokes!"

* [[I Cant Take It Anymore]]: Not word for word, but [[Break the Cutie|Beast Boy]] delivers one of these to Raven in "The Beast Within". To be fair, he ''actually'' makes a good point at the start, however due to the [[Implied Death Threat]] he's drawn as the bad guy.

* [[I Shall Taunt You]]: One of Gizmo's usual battle strategies . . . it rarely actually works, though.

* [[Idiot Ball]]: Robin gets hit with a ''big'' one in the fifth season.

{{quote| '''Robin:''' You know, Robins, the mask makes me feel cool, too.}}

* [[It Came From the Fridge]]: "Final Exam". Later played with, as Mammoth has absolutely no problem scarfing the entire fridge.

{{quote| ''(after Red X saves Robin's life)''<br />

'''Robin:''' I thought you didn't like to play the hero.<br />

* [[Knight of Cerebus]]: If Slade or Trigon is in an episode, it's pretty much a guarantee it won't be humorous (except for the first few Season One eps with Slade, but even then ''he'' wasn't played for laughs, though he also wasn't as creepy as he'd become later on).

* [[Kuudere]]: Raven -- although [[Plucky Comic Relief|Beast]] [[The Pollyanna|Boy]] occasionally manages to push [[Grumpy Bear|Raven]] over into using the more aggressive [[Tsundere]] tactics.

** [[Hey, It's That Voice!|Both voiced by]] [[John Dimaggio]], no less.

* [[Last-Minute Hookup]]: Robin and Starfire are [[Ship Tease|ship teased]] throughout the whole series. They finally kiss in the last few minutes of ''Trouble in Tokyo''.

* [[Laughably Evil]]: A few villians, with Control Freak being one of the most apparent.

** In the [[Trapped in TV Land]] episode "Don't Touch That Dial" Cyborg recognizes the episode of the show they're in as being episode 1 of the fourth season. Feel free to guess what episode and season "Don't Touch That Dial" is.

** The same episode (also known as "Episode 257-494", its production number) also has Robin grabbing the camera, declaring that watching television {{spoiler|while Control Freak was inside}} will liquefy your brain. For added comedic value, the show they were interrupting during the scene featured a doctor who had discovered the secret to world peace and was going to share it with the viewers.

* [[Magic Skirt]]:

** Starfire has a really short skirt that magically sticks to her somehow.

* [[Mailer Daemon]]: Malchior

* [[Male Gaze]]: The camera seems to suffer from this, but it's subtle enough you don't notice unless you look.

** Terra. Guess what her powers are.

** In a similar vein, Cyborg's cover identity when he infiltrates the HIVE Academy: Stone. This is more of a nod towards Cyborg's real name Victor Stone. The fake power more likely came about because of the name, not the other way around.

* [[Me's a Crowd]]: Billy Numerous.

* [[Metaphorgotten]]: "Run run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me... catch you, uh... I'm Billy Numerous!"

** Cyborg almost suffers this at the hands of Fixit.

** Robin in the episode "Haunted" suffers one big [[Mind Rape]].

* [[The Mole]]: {{spoiler|Terra}}

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The show basically had three kinds of episodes: dark and serious ones with occasional comedy, largely serious plotlines but with plenty of wacky hijinks on the side, and completely insane goofy ones. Apart from the multiparters (which were pretty much all the first type) all bets were off as to what the next episode would be like, and it wasn't at all uncommon for something serious to be followed up immediately by something bizarre (or vice-versa).

* [[More Than Mind Control]]: {{spoiler|Terra}}

* [[Most Common Superpower]]: Raven is... very well... "developed", compared to the other female characters. Starfire is a very (emphasis on very) close second, with poor Terra as dead last.

* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Starfire and Raven seem to be nearly neck-and-neck here.

** [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Don't you mean chest-and-chest]]?

* [[Mushroom Samba]]

** A very unfunny version. In the episode "Haunted", Robin accidentally inhales an unnamed hallucinogen from an old mask of Slade's. Unlike most examples, however, this [[Mushroom Samba]] leads to one of the darkest episode of the series - Robin hallucinates that Slade is everywhere and goes on a rampage trying to stop him, even going so far as physically hurting Starfire (his best friend and love interest) and threatening to "take down" his team if they try restraining him. The drug manifests every blow on his body as though he really is battling someone, and so before he realizes that bright light disperses the visions, he's nearly beaten to death... by himself.

* [[Mythology Gag]]

** In one episode Red X, an alter-ego Robin used, returns, and it's definitely not Robin. On BB's board-o'-theories, a careful viewer can notice "Jason Todd" and [[Nightwing]].

** In "Mother Mae-Eye", the titular villain character combs Robin's hair in the style that the original Dick Grayson version of the character wore (y'know, the one without pants), which he eventually shakes out

** When Beast Boy dresses up in Robin's costume, he jumps through a screen held by Starfire that proclaims him "The Sensational Character Find of 1965". This is an homage to the title page of Robin's first-ever appearance in ''Detective Comics'', and the date of Beast Boy's first appearance (Robin himself was "The Sensational Character Find of 1940").

* [[Never Split the Party]]: As explained by Beast Boy.

{{quote| '''Beast Boy:''' When you split up, the monster hunts you down one at a time, [[Death By Genre Savvy|starting with the good-looking funny relief guy -- ME]]!}}

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: {{spoiler|Terra could have probably been persuaded from Slade's influence earlier if it wasn't for the fact that Beast Boy pushes her off the edge when he declines her friendship at the very end of "Betrayal".}} Way to go, hero.

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: {{spoiler|Thanks to Terra going ridiculously overboard in trying to destroy the Titans and the city, and generally prove herself a villain, the Titans manage to put aside any past feelings toward her and kick her butt easily the next time she confronts them by herself.}}

* [[No Ending]]: The last episode, verging on [[Mind Screw]] territory.

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Pretty much the entirety of "Haunted".

* [[Peek-a-Bangs]]: Terra, which symbolizes when {{spoiler|she's working for Slade.}}

* [[Pettanko]]: Terra and Jinx.

* [[Plot Induced Stupidity]]: Raven has a very diverse set of magical powers...that she mainly uses to throw things at people. There's also Cyborg's seldom used detachable limbs and grappling hook hand.

** In the episode "Kole" the entire Titans team ends up falling through a huge hole into a prehistoric world. Despite Beast Boy being able to turn into flying animals, Cyborg's above mentioned grapple hook and Robin owning every swinging rope gadget imaginable. Starfire and Raven on the other hand somehow completely forget ''[[Forgot I Could Fly|they can fly]]''.

* [[Remembered I Could Fly]]: Seemingly played straight when Beast Boy wants a moped and Robin reminds him he doesn't need one, because he can fly. Then averted when Beast Boy says he already knew that, but complains that ''his arms get tired''.

* [[Reverse Mole]]: {{spoiler|Robin, when he is [[Face Heel Turn|recruited as Slade's apprentice]] [[Sadistic Choice|in exchange for his friends' lives.]]}}

** Who is Red X?

** What was in Robin's briefcase?

* [[Shonen Hair]]: Robin, probably to invoke an "anime" look more than anything.

* [[Shoo the Dog]]: Starfire with Silkie.

* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: The exchange between Slade and Robin in "Masks".

* [["Shut Up" Kiss]]: How Starfire "learned" her English.

** Gizmo

** One-shot villain Fang, who ''has a spider for a head!''

* [[Sssssnaketalk]]: The snake guardian in ''The Quest''.

* [[Status Quo Is God]]

* [[Stealth Pun]]:

{{quote| '''Robin:''' Cardiac, you're under arrest!}}

* [[Still Wearing the Old Colors]]: Beast Boy still wears the outfit of his old group. He ditches the goggles after Raven calls them dorky, but that's about it.

* [[Stolen Good, Returned Better]]: The Hive takes over the Titans' (filthy) Tower. By the time the Titans retake it, the Hive have cleaned it up and alphabetized their CDs. The Titans are [[Subverted Trope|appalled]], since now they can't find anything and they were saving [[It Came From the Fridge|that blue mold.]]

* [[Story Arc]]

* [[Superpower Lottery]]: Raven, Brother Blood, and {{spoiler|Slade while working for Trigon}} all seem to develop five or six new abilities in every alternate scene. Their typical powers are also pretty damn out-there. It's probably a sign when quite a few of Raven's episodes ("Switched", "Fear Itself", "Bunny Raven", "The End") feature her losing her powers in some way.

** Jinx's powers seem to let her do anything as long as its considered "bad luck" for the target, ''anything''. This can be as simple as causing small explosions or electronic mishaps, to telekinetically dismantling the chair they are sitting on, to causing the ground itself to break apart so water mains can just so happen to burst out right into the person's face. Her powers definitely made her stand out among her comrades, who were just a [[Super Strength|Super Strong Guy]] and a [[Techno Wizard]].

* [[Swarm of Rats]]: Occurs as Starfire's "demise" in the episode "Fear Itself".

* [[Swiss Army Appendage]]: Cyborg's arms (and possibly most of his body) qualifies.

** See it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyGx3m1gPZI&feature=related here] and laugh.

** The tune was also used as a cue. If [[Puffy AmiYumi]] sing in Japanese, you're getting one of the wacky, goofy episodes. If they sing in English, it's a normal episode. The only exception to this rule was the first Raven-centric episode, "Nevermore".

** In the Movie, not only is a translated to Japanese and back to English version sung by Beast Boy during a Karaoke scene, but also in the credits of said Movie, each of the five main characters sing (or in Raven's case, deadpans in a way that you KNOW she must be trying to look away from everyone) at least two lines.

* [[There Are No Therapists]]: One wonders how society is okay with a group of teenagers with no parental figures involving themselves in horrific violence every day without any support, except from each other. Also, each Titan has an extremely dark past which quite obviously still affects them and even interferes with their work sometimes, yet they don't try to seek help in any way, and in the case of most of them, simply try to bottle it all up.

** For something more epic, "The End".

** Also, "Apprentice" in season 1 shocked people with how dark it was, back when the show was new and hadn't established itself yet as a serious show.

** Easy. It's shown that stuff from TV Land can be brought back to reality via Control Freak's lightsabers in the final episode. However, the [[Canned Laughter]] at the end also shows that they may have still been in TV land anyways.

*** Or maybe they just walked back over to a news station set and looked for an {{color|red|EXIT}} sign

** Wondergirl appears on the Wheel in ''Titans Together'', but never appears in the episode (either speaking or not). What is the in-series reason she's not with the other Titans?

*** Probably the police: the poor soul sent to kidnap him had no chanche in hell, and could have been [[Finger-Poke of Doom]]-ed to death in full public view.

* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: Whether or not you think the episode "Troq" is a [[Broken Aesop]] hinges on whether you consider robots to be sentient creatures.

* [[When She Smiles]]: Raven. Occasionally, this is a sign that something's horribly, horribly wrong...

* [[Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises]]

* [[Will They or Won't They?]]: Robin and Starfire.

* [[Wolverine Claws]]: Cheshire from Season 5's finale sports these.

* [[Word Salad Lyrics]]: The Japanese theme song. It's ''not'' a translation of the theme song, to put it simple.

* [[World-Healing Wave]]: At the end of Season 4.

* [[Wrench Wench]]: Raven, of all people, though its easy to miss. Terra has this aesthetic, but isn't.

* [[Xtreme Kool Letterz]]: Kyd Wykkyd seems to have a serious aversion to the letter I.

* [[Yank the Dog's Chain]]: Terra's now an official Teen Titan, made friends with her teammates and even [[Puppy Love|had a little romance with Beast Boy.]] You thought she's going to be [[Breakout Character|a permanant character]], right? WRONG. {{spoiler|As it turns out, after the debut appearance, she seeks Slade's help, and even give out vital information to him into order for Slade to send his robot minions to attack Titans Tower}}. For once, we should have actually ''believed'' Raven's instincts.

* [[You Are Already Dead]]: Robin does the [[Diagonal Cut]] version on an [[It Makes Sense in Context|animated cardboard samurai monster]] in "Fear Itself".

* [[You Didn't Ask]]: The True Master when Robin asks why {{spoiler|she}} didn't say who {{spoiler|she}} really was.