The Tick (animation): Difference between revisions
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[[File:thetick.jpg|frame|'''''[[Big Word Shout|SPOOOOOOON!!]]''''']]
{{quote|''Yes, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or [[Joseph Stalin]], but you can't let the package hide the pudding! [[And That's Terrible|Evil is just plain bad!]] You don't cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!''}}
1994 [[Animated Series]], a casual but incisive send-up of [[Superhero]] shows (based on [[The Tick (comic)|an independent comic]] by Ben Edlund written in the early 90s), featuring as its title character a super-strong, "[[Nigh Invulnerability|Nigh Invulnerable]]" (or so he says), and <s>probably</s> insane moron with a hypertrophied sense of justice and [[Melodrama]], given to bold, thoughtless action and near-incomprehensible [[An Aesop|Aesop]]-[[Spoof Aesop|like]] pronouncements. Assisting [[Cloudcuckoolander|the Tick]] in his daily struggle against the forces of Evil is [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Arthur]], a former accountant, now moth-themed [[Sidekick]]. Frequently joining their adventures are [[Handsome Lech|Die Fledermaus]] and [[Action Girl|American Maid]], two fellow crimefighters [[Expy|who bear a funhouse-mirror resemblance]] to a pair of well-known characters from [[The DCU]].
[[Cloudcuckoolander|The Tick's]] adventures are evenly split between well-intentioned cluelessness and actual battles against supervillains. These villains -- such as Chairface Chippendale, [[Badass Spaniard|El Seed]], Brainchild, and the Terror -- are frequently just as bizarre as [[Cloudcuckoolander|the Tick]] and his allies. Some, like the Evil Midnight Bomber [[Repetitive Name|What Bombs At Midnight]] (''"One of these days, baby! Milkshake! Boom!"''), have even developed their own fan followings.
In every episode, this program [[Deconstruction|gleefully skewers the]] [[Trope|tropes]] and [[
In 2001, [[FOX]] attempted to revive the series in a [[The Tick (television)|live action format]] with Patrick "Puddy" Warburton in the title role. The short-lived series was surprisingly good, but did not last even an entire season.
{{tropenamer}}
<!-- %%'''Someone should really go through and separate this page into examples from the Comic, the Cartoon, and the Live-Action''' -->▼
* [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress]]
* [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten]]
* [[Nigh Invulnerability]]
▲<!--
{{tropelist}}
* [[Achilles in His Tent]] - Handy might well have named this trope.
* [[Adaptation Distillation]] - Most fans agree that the cartoon version was a great step for the franchise.
* [[Alien Among Us]]: Tick and Arthur get new neighbors in one episode: Thrakkorzog, some normal guy, and Thrakkorzog's brain-eating tongue.
* [[All Psychology Is Freudian]] - In one episode, [[Cloudcuckoolander|The Tick]] goes to see a psychiatrist. His "therapy" consists of being forced to wrestle the psychiatrist's assisstant <s> Shaft</s> [[Expy|Taft]] in various disguises.
{{quote|''Taft:'' Come on man, I'm your mother!
''[[Cloudcuckoolander|Tick]]:'' No, you're not! You're Taft! }}
** That cat Taft is one bad mother... [[Shaft|Shut yo' mouth!]]
* [[Animal-Themed Superbeing]]: The Tick... even if he doesn't actually suck blood. Also, Arthur is not a bunny.
** Not to mention Sewer Urchin, Die Fledermaus, The Ant, Man-Eating Cow, Bumbling Bee, Caped Cod, Portuguese Man-of-War, Cockroach, The Praying Mantis, Blowfish Avenger, Caped Chameleon, Captain Lemming, Fishboy, The Angry Red Herring, The Fin, Octo-Raymond, Shiela Eel, and more.
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* [[Amazonian Beauty]] / [[Statuesque Stunner]] - Jungle Janet
* [[Animated Shows]]
* [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]]
* [[Auction of Evil]]:
* [[Ax Crazy]]
* [[Badass Mustache]]
** It didn't grow so much as...find its way onto his face.
** He seeks moustache advice from Taft, a man with a [[Badass Moustache]] [[Expy|who is totally not]] [[Shaft]].
* [[Badass Normal]]: In the cartoon at least, most of the heroes aside from [[Cloudcuckoolander|the Tick]] himself are this or at least trying to be this. Some have a gadget based gimmick like [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Arthur]].
** Sewer Urchin is probably the closest when acting in his element, since he has faced off against those weird filth monsters and won.
* [[Badass Spaniard]]: El Seed, to a certain degree.
* [[Bad Guy Bar]] : The Evil Eye Cafe
* [[Bad Santa]]
* [[Badass Grandpa]]: The retired superheroes from ''Grandpa Wore Tights'', who despite their advanced age and failing powers, put up quite a fight against [[Giant Mook|The Human Ton]] and [[Companion Cube|Handy.]]
* [[Baleful Polymorph]]: In the animated episode "Coach Fussell's Lament, Brain Child uses one of his inventions to turn the Tick into [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|a two-headed bluebird that only speaks high school French and lays chocolate eggs]]. Later, as Arthur tries to reverse the transformation, he is briefly turned into a flatworm, a chimp, an ant, a sock and a cow before his sidekick finally finds [[Reset Button|the button marked "NORMAL"]].
* [[Bat Signal]]
** Der Fladermaus has one, as pointed out by the mayor, but leaves town and stops answering his phone whenever it's lit.
* [[Battle Cry]] /CatchPhrase - ''''"SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!"''''
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***** "Knock Off All That Evil!"
** "[Something]. Definitely [something]."
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]
** This is averted in the Colombian Spanish dub, since they translated his name ''literally'' from German to Spanish and it's translated as ''La Rata Voladora'' (The Flying Rat)
* [[Body Horror]]: "ARTHUR! My mustache is touching ''my brain''!" [[Real Life|Actually possible]] - a little bit of your brain actually does protrude into your sinuses (that's how you can smell). Also, The
** In the animated episode "Armless But Not Harmless", the Tick and Arthur are struck by a ray [[Bloodless Carnage|that causes their arms to fall off]]. The Tick takes his sudden debrachiation in stride. Arthur…not so much:
{{quote|'''Tick:''' (clears throat) All right…uh…this is quite a pickle. But no reason to panic, Arthur.
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** Averted in Arthur's backstory in multiple adaptations - he attempted to wear his moth suit all the time at his accounting position, and this bothered the higher-ups enough that he was "encouraged" to take a leave of absence and get psychiatric help.
** The Tick himself qualifies, as well. When compared to most of the other "heroes" in The City, at least The Tick has the drive and focus to get the job done.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]
▲* [[Captain Ersatz]] - All over the place. The live action series had them for the major characters.
** In ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', of all places, The Tick gets one. Sentinel Prime is voiced by Townsend Coleman, resembles the Tick (he's large, blue and has a lantern jaw and antennae) and even speaks like the Tick at times. The biggest difference being that Sentinel is a [[Jerkass]] instead of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]].
* [[Canon Foreigner]]: Die Fledermaus did not appear in the comic; he was designed specifically for the cartoon.
* [[Captain
* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: Many of the antagonists, particularly Chairface Chippendale and The Terror.
* [[Catapult to Glory]]: the Human Cannonball.
* [[Chainsaw Good]]
* [[Characterization Marches On]]
* [[Chef of Iron]] / [[Evil Chef]]
* [[The City]], called, oddly enough, "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The City]]". It's said to have been poorly Anglicized from the French "Les Citrons" (The Lemons). Apparently early French explorers found a large quantity of ''some'' kind of fruit in the area.
* [[Closer to Earth]]:
▲* [[Closer to Earth]] (American Maid, compared to Die Fliedermaus and most of the rest of the cast)
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Tick, turned to 11.
** ''11?'' The Tick's dial goes all the way to "Justice"!
* [[Combat Stilettos]]: [[Action Girl|American Maid]] wears them and actually uses them in combat as throwing weapons.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: Countless examples, in addition to the [[Deface of the Moon]] example below. In one case, Handy loses one of his eyes at the end of "The Tick vs. Arthur's Bank Account" and when Handy returns in "Grandpa Wore Tights", he's wearing an eye patch.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Tick versus the Infinity Orb.
* [[Dating Catwoman]]: Die Fledermaus meets his own personal Catwoman when he encounters The Ottoman, a stylish woman who knows everything about furniture.
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**** Maybe he intended to write just "Chairface".
* [[The Ditz]]: The Tick.
* [[Does Not Know His Own Strength]]
* [[Doppleganger Spin]]: Multiple Santa, who duplicates whenever touched by an electrical spark.
* [[Dumb Muscle]]: The Tick himself.
* [[Egopolis]]: Pineapple Pokopo and Pokoponesia.
* [[Embarrassing Old Photo]]: In The Tick vs. Brainchild.
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* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Thrakkorzog, Tun-La Not Of This Earth.
* [[Eureka Moment]]: Given the less than stellar intellects of many cast members, these tend to be gems such as "...Water. People swim... in ''water''!"
* [[Expy]]
** For added hilarity, <s>
* [[Everything's Better with Cows]]: The Man-Eating Cow, possibly-heroic scourge of the criminal underworld and star of her own spin-off comic.
* [[Everything's Better with Monkeys]]: Yank.
* [[Evil Plan]]: Parodied in the pilot episode, when the heroes catch one of the Idea Men and demand he tells them his scheme:
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* [[Foot Focus]]: Find a fighting scene with American Maid
* [[For Science!]]: The primary motivation of most of the shows various mad scientists, most notably [[Mad Scientist|Dr Chrome Dome]].
* [[Genius Ditz]]: The Tick may be very, very ditzy in just about everything, but he has shown a certain level of philosophical thought in some cases.
* [[Good Guy Bar]]: The Comet Club; all the heroes are regulars.▼
▲* [[Good Guy Bar]]: The Comet Club
* [[Gratuitous Latin]]: [[Gadgeteer Genius|Milo]] from the supervillain team [[Tiny Guy, Huge Girl|Venus and Milo]] spouts Latin phrases constantly.
* [[Grievous Harm with a Body]]: "Arthur, my body is a weapon. Use it!"
* [[Hand Puppet]]: Handy, the Human Ton's good pal. Read a book!
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* [[Idiot Hero]]
* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: Keith "Crime Cannibal" Donner, superhero with the power to ''eat human beings incredibly quickly''.
* [[Implacable Man]]: Blow-Hole, who was a weird variation (well, no more weird than most stuff on the show). A giant whale with arms and legs dressed in overalls, he wasn't malevolent — at least not on purpose, although he did a lot of collateral damage — but he was determined for some odd reason to jog from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, and wasn't going to let anything stop him until he made it.
* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hN-uCyWbjo "It's a YULE TIDE!!"]
** Another episode had a gun that turned half The City into "[[Ray Gun|some guy named Ray]]".
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* [[In with the In Crowd]]
* [[Instrumental Theme Tune]]
* [[Jungle Princess]]: Jungle Janet
* [[If You Know What I Mean]]: The Tick ''doesn't'' "know what they mean".
* [[Lampshaded the Obscure Reference]]: A hand puppet compared The Tick to Achilles in his tent. When no one, even his ventrilloquist, got it he said "It's from ''The Illiad''. Read a book!"
* [[Lantern Jaw of Justice]]: Really, just look at the Tick's profile (preferably against the Tick-signal).
* [[Let's Get Dangerous]]: "That'll be QUITE ENOUGH OF THAT!"
* [[Limited Wardrobe]]
* [[Live Action Adaptation]]: See ''[[The Tick (television)]]''.
* [[Love Freak]]: The Tick. He avoids being a [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]] simply by the world being only *slightly* less loony than himself.
* [[Mad Bomber]]: The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight (yes, that is his full title).
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** Well, they would. They carefully studied the situation, and came to the conclusion that the fact that he was pantsless was Neil's beef.
* [[Matryoshka Object]]: The Living Doll.
* [[Mayincatec]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140212143915/http://home.jps.net/~lsnyder/7_tick.html#aztecs The Deertown Aztecs] are classic examples of this, right down to the trap filled temple pyramid.
* [[Meganekko]]: Arthur's sister Dot
* [[Metaphysical Fuel]]: The Whats' starships run on fear -- their own.
* [[Miles Gloriosus]]: Die Fledermaus
* [[Mini-Dress of Power]]: American Maid
* [[Monster Clown]]: The Proto-clown.
* [[My Brain Is Big]]: Brain Child and Dr. Chromedome.
* [[My Name Is Inigo Montoya]]
* [[Nested Mouths]]: Thrakkorzog has a little face on his tongue that talks about eating brains.
* [[Nineties Anti-Hero]]: Parodied with Big Shot.
{{quote|''Tick'': Guns and superheroes don't mix. Seek professional help.}}
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Sewer Urchin has Dustin Hoffman's "
** Die Fladermaus acts like the [[Adam West]] [[Batman (TV series)|Batman]].
* [[No Export for You]]: Finally averted when the live-action version got its UK premiere, in January of 2011. [[Friday Night Death Slot|At 9PM on a Friday night]].
* [[No Name Given]]: The Tick. Quite possibly, he doesn't even remember who he was before becoming a hero.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: American Maid is likely the closest thing to a competent hero here.
** Arthur, occassionally. While he was rather anxious to be a hero (having been fired from his previous job for showing up at work in his costume) he's clearly the [[Straight Man]] to the Tick.
* [[Paper Master]]: Papercut
* [[Plant Person]] : El Seed
* [[Pokémon-Speak]]: The language of the Whats and the Heys.
* [[Pulling Themselves Together]]: The Living Doll is, as his catchphrase goes, "full of tinier men". Of course, that means that once the fighting's over he has to round himself up and make sure he's got all of them in the right order.
* [[Punny Name]]: Scarf Ace, a knitting supervillain.
** For that matter, the "Rive Droite" bank whose fitting slogan is "The Right Bank for You"
* [[Reinventing the Telephone]]: Parodying the Bat Signal
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{{quote|'''American Maid:''' Oh well, I suppose I could do a lot worse.
'''Tick:''' Neat! }}
* [[She's Got Legs]]: American Maid
* [[Shout-Out]]: To many sources, including ''Dick Tracy'' and [[The DCU]].
* [[
* [[Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass]]: Evil giant ants plan to deliver [[Karmic Death|Karmic Deaths]] to all of humanity via one gigantic magnifying glass.
* [[Southern-Fried Genius|Southern-Fried Geniuses]]: In One issue the characters ran into a whole town of these type of hillbillies that got their hands on [[The Monolith]] from [[2001: A Space Odyssey]].
* [[Spikes of Villainy]]: Baron Violent's costume.
* [[Spoof Aesop]]:
* [[Super Breeding Program]]: El Seed had an ultimate goal of creating an army of super-strong animated plants.
* [[Superhero]]
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{{quote|'''Arthur:''' (sotto voce) "Who knew Sewer Urchin of all people would be this cool?"
'''Sewer Urchin:''' (revealing that he heard Arthur just fine) "Down here I'm the apotheosis of cool." }}
* [[Trademark Favorite Food]]: BLT sandwiches for both the Tick and Arthur.
* [[The Unintelligible]]: The Idea Men, while theyre helmets are closed anyway.
* [[Villains Out Shopping]]: Which can turn even that into doing unspeakable evil.
* [[Watch Where You're Going]]: Arthur manages to crash into ......
* [[Wearing a Flag on Your Head]]: American Maid
* [[Webcomic Time]]: "I dreamed I stopped existing for ''eight months!''"
* [[We Need a Distraction]]: "Hi, I'm Arthur, and this is my diversion!"
* [[We Want Our Jerk Back]]: With the ''villains'' bringing him back. "We've got to rescue the Blue Tick, who is also mad, but in a much more goal-oriented way."
* [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|What Kind Of Lame Power Is xxx]]: Many heroes and villains have weird/marginal abilities: The Indigestible Man, Pig Leg/The Deadly Bulb, Bi-Polar Bear, the Caped Chameleon, the Carpeted Man, Four-Legged Man, Baby Boomerangutan, loads more...
* [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?]]: The Tick fights crime in a city named The City.
* [[The Worm That Walks]]: "ANTS IN PANTS!"
{{reflist}}
[[Category:The Nineties]]
[[Category:Toon Disney]]
[[Category:Saturday Morning Cartoon]]
[[Category:American Series]]
[[Category:Western Animation]]
[[Category:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tick (animation), The}}
▲[[Category:Beat'Em Up]]
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