The Weekenders

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
PEW PEW PEW!

Lor It's the crazy backwards universe again-
Tino: Where cats chase dogs and sitcoms are funny?

An animated series, aired in 2000, created by Doug Langdale, which ran for four seasons. It followed the lives of four friends: Deadpan Snarker Tino Tonitini, The Smart Girl Pteratishkovna "Tish" Katsufrakis, Tomboy Lor MacQuarrie, and not so cool Cool Loser Carver Descartes. Oddly enough despite having four school-age children in the main roles, the show hardly (if ever) touches on aspects of school life, since stories nearly always begin on Friday afternoon and end on Sunday evening.

Staying away from broad and cartoonish plots; the show is one of the subtler among animated comedies, with much of the humor deriving from its many one-liners (and Tino's screams, of course).

Noted for its surprisingly good writing, averting the Limited Wardrobe (unusual for an animated show) and for often breaking the fourth wall, with the audience being addressed directly by (usually) Tino, serving as a narrator of sorts; other characters have also taken this role, or even Lampshaded it on occasion. Also had quite a set of Once an Episode recurring gags, such as the seemingly indecisive pizza place (never having the same name or theme twice), Tino's Mom serving highly questionable food, and of course "Later Days!" One other reason this show stands out is the aversion of the Adults Are Useless trope - showing that adults can be useful and still have a good show.

It was mostly forgotten by Disney, returning only in reruns until 2008 or 2009, until 2013, when it became the first Disney cartoon to receive a full DVD release.

Tropes used in The Weekenders include:
  • Adorkable: Tino
  • Adults Are Useless: Averted for the most part. Tino's mom's advice is frequently what helps the kids get over the problem of the episode and the other parents, while not perfect, are usually shown being pretty reasonable and receptive to their kids.
  • Aesop Amnesia: More than one episode has Lor learning that she doesn't have to change herself to get the attention of her crush, Thompson. She never seems to fully pick it up despite going through the same plot two or three times.
  • Alliterative Name: Tino Tonatini.
    • As well as his near-clone, Tony Tordellaro.
  • Amicably Divorced: Tino's parents. While Tino's dad doesn't visit very often, his relationship with his mom still seems to be friendly enough that they can have a friendly dinner now and then with her new boyfriend.
  • Bad Bad Acting/Dull Surprise: Lor whenever she tries to act or lie.
    • Take this scene from "Radio Drama" for example:

Lor: (blandly, reading) "After all these years I finally feel truely alive."
Tish: Umm... that was great Lor, but do you think you could try reading it with some, you know, emotion?
Lor: OH, SURE, RIGHT, YEAH, I GOT IT, OKAY! (blandly, reading) "After all these years I finally feel truly alive."
Tish: Greeeeeaaaat. One more time.
Roughly four hours pass
Lor: (blandly, reading) "After all these years I finally feel truely alive."
Tish: Okay, we'll come back to this scene... maybe.

  • Bare Your Midriff: Lor has one outfit that follows this trope.
  • The "B" Grade: subverted in "Imperfection"
    • inverted in "Brain Dead". This trope usually entails the "nerd" overreacting to a low score, while his/her friends wonder what's so bad. In "Brain Dead", Tish tries to brush off her "B" grade, but her friends are hesitant to accept the fact that she didn't get an "A". This leads the group attempting to give Tish a new reputation, since she could no longer be the "nerd".
  • Big Eater: Carver. Tish's mother, when she hangs out with them she wins a chili dog eating contest.
  • Black Best Friend: Carver
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The group as a whole is a mixed example: Lor, Tish, Tino, and Carver.
  • The Cameo: Jennifer Love Hewitt in "My Punky Valentine."
  • Catch Phrase: "Later days!"
    • Also, Tish's Mother frequently exclaims "Is what I say!" after her English is corrected.
    • Parodied with DJ Jan "The Man" Testeverde's super-annoying catchphrase "Hey, yowza, dudes!", that he ends almost every sentence with. Carver was actually amazed when Jan went a whole minute without saying it.
  • Channel Hop: The show started out on ABC. Then One Saturday Morning went defunct and the remaining episodes aired on Toon Disney in 2003.
  • Continuity Nod: There are quite a few mentions of Chum Bukkit song "suffused elephant quaff winces exasperating" throughout the series. The name came from an early Season One episode when Carver tried to write a message to the band and, because of his bad handwriting, that's what they thought it said.
  • Crack Defeat: "Talent Show" again: Lor plays guitar. Bluke throws hams into the air. Bluke wins the ribbon. Go figure.
  • Creepy Child: Never put Carver's brother Todd and his friend Quinty together.
    • Also Francis, the girl who's always saying that she likes pointy things and giggling.
  • The Celebrity Lie: "Band"
  • Darkskinned Blonde: Tino
  • Deadpan Snarker When Tino isn't being a total coward, he definitely falls under this, as mentioned above. He even wins "Most Sarcastic" in the Yearbook Awards.
    • Of course, he gets it from his mother. Leading to at least one incredibly snarky catty dinner scene between them per episode.
      • Actually, all the main characters have shades of this. The Tonitinis definitely win first prize, but Lor isn't far behind. And Carver has his moments.
    • Let's not forget the perpetually deadpan woman who runs the Foods of the Worlds exhibit.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: The charity organization, Helpers Helping the Helpless.
  • Different in Every Episode: The pizza restaurant has a different theme and the museum offers a sample of a different exotic food in each episode.
  • The Ditz: Lor...kind of. In one episode she takes it to the extreme when shes acting like a teen in a TV show when the gang are being filmed by a documentarist. It Makes Sense in Context.

Bluke: I think we won the best prize...I mean with a pizza, you can split it five ways, but how are you going to split a pool table?

  • Drowning My Sorrows/G-Rated Drug: In the "Celebrity" episode in which Tish becomes a Local Celebrity, she can be seen drowning her sorrows in Chug-A-Freezes when she realizes she's not famous anymore. She even asks for another, but the man at the counter tells her he thinks she's had enough.
  • Dysfunctional Family: Lor's family doesn't have many personal problems or anything like that. But Lor has so many brothers that it reaches the double digits, and quite frankly she admits that she does not know how many brothers she has. That has to count for something. She has somewhere between thirteen and sixteen.
  • Feud Episode: "Taking Sides"
  • Free-Range Children: They're allowed to go everywhere in Bahia Bay on the weekends it seems. They never run into any issues where their parents specifically forbid them from going somewhere. It's possible that since they're in middle school and they rarely travel alone that their parents will think they're okay.
  • Flowers for Algernon Syndrome: "Sense and Sensitivity"
  • Five-Token Band: Black Carver, Scottish-American Lor, Eastern European Jewish Tish, and Italian-American Tino (whose family is apparently also pagan)
  • Flat Joy: One of the problems with Lor's Bad Bad Acting. Tish fixes it later by having Tino say shes still under the zombie curse.
  • Funny Foreigner: Tish's mother, whose main purpose was to mangle "kiss and make up" into "kitchen my cup".
  • Genre Savvy: Tino's mom.

Tino: "How do you know something's up?"
Tino's Mom: "Oh, it just seems like you always have some kind of problem by Saturday night."

  • Get Out!: Tino combines this with Laughing Mad in "Croquembouche." When the others vote for Carver to be their spokesperson in the Foods of the World competition, Tino gets extremely jealous, and when Carver asks him if he's angry, Tino throws them all out of the house in between bouts of hysterical laughter.
  • The Ghost: The frequent mentions of Chloe Montez, who we never do get to meet.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Quite possibly the Trope Namer despite not applying in any sense except Ms. Tonitini's sarcastic remark.
  • Greek Chorus: Tino. He actually pauses the show at several points to provide commentary.
  • Hide and No Seek: In one episode, Tino's divorced parents need to discuss him. Tino obligingly goes upstairs. "I'll just go organize my collection of Things That Aren't My Parents Having A Private Conversation."
  • How We Got Here: "The Most Awful Weekend"
  • Hyperventilation Bag: Carver does this once.
    • Unsurprisingly, so does Tino. According to Lor, he does it for at least 20 minutes.
  • I Ate What?: Occasionally one of the characters will eat something from the Foods of the World exhibit at the museum before it's revealed that it was made from something gross or unusual. Also, when Carver ate that 40 year old pickle which was in Lor's savings in "Lor's Will", which became a Running Gag for that episode.
    • Not to mention Tino's mom's exotic dinners, which is another Running Gag for the series.
  • Informed Judaism: Tino is an Informed Pagan; aside from a Solstice celebration in lieu of Christmas, we don't hear anything about it.
    • Although it is mentioned in two separate episodes; his mother celebrates both Solstices. And the Vernal Equinox.
    • Tish is a straightforward example. In the Holiday special, it's mentioned that she celebrates Hanukkah, but there are no other indications throughout the series of her family's religion.
  • In with the In Crowd: "The Lone Wolves Club"
  • Inept Aptitude Test: "Careers"
  • Ironic Inversion: "Talent Show". Lor is a finalist, while Tish is conspicuously absent.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Lor's Will", Tish uses the excuse "I have to go paint... my... lawn," after thinking Lor 'betrayed' her.
    • "Look... up in the sky! It's the Lor signal! The President needs me!"
      • "And she'll need her trusty sidekick, Carver Lad!"
  • Knife Nut: Frances likes pointy things.
  • The Ladette: Lor is about as close to this trope as a 12 year old girl can get on a kid's show.
  • Left Hanging: "Croquembouche": so, who won the food contest anyway?
  • Lethal Chef: Tino's mom, though where she gets the ingredients and how she prepares them are extremely questionable, the result is at least edible, most of the time. This overlaps with the I Ate What? Running Gag, also.
  • Like Father, Like Son: Tino's dad shares his son's looks and neurotic obsessions. And his Girly Scream. As Tino's mother observes:

"It's like a cloning experiment Gone Horribly Right."

Mr. Katsufrakis: One time, mishkin tubelhauser goes just little bit wrong. Is reason we had to leave Old Country.

  • Overly Narrow Superlative: In one episode, one of the yearbook superlatives is "Best Tino." The main character didn't even win it.
  • Pac-Man Fever: Averted. In the episode "Shoes of Destiny" Lor and Tino are playing a game involving space robots fighting. The sounds match up to the movements, and when Carver shows up, the Konami pause sound even plays as the screen goes blank!
    • Not to mention, anyone with a keen ear can recognize the sound effects - plenty of which actually come from Super Mario Bos.
  • Parental Bonus: As with almost every cartoon, references most kid won't get show up in the dialogue. For example, in one episode when Tish was babysitting Carver's brother, Todd, she tries to read Oedipus Rex to him (she even described it as a story for kids of all ages).
  • Parent with New Paramour: Tino's Mom dates Dixon, who often gets along with the gang. And in a rare instance for cartoons, not only did he appear in future episodes instead of just being a oneshot character, they also didn't immediately jump to the two of them going straight to marriage.
  • Perfume Commercial
  • Person as Verb: "To Tish"
  • Put Me In, Coach: Many episodes, but often subverted.
  • Running Gag: Many, including the aforementioned pizza place, Carver's terrible penmanship, Tish's mom's broken English, Tino's Moms cooking, and Lor's sibling amount, among others.
    • Also, the exotic food exhibit at the Anthropology Museum. They usually are completely irrelevant to the plot.
      • With the completely apathetic server. "Couscous - the food so nice, they named it twice."
  • Ruritania: Tish's family may be from here.
  • Show Within a Show: Teen Canyon
  • Self Deprecating Humor: Every now and then characters lampshade how their character designs are fairly odd looking. With Tino's head being compared to a pumpkin, and Carver pointing out he resembles a pineapple.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Tish, to the extent that in the episode "To Tish", her name literally becomes synonymous with this trope.
  • Shout-Out: Somewhat randomly, many to famous French writers & thinkers. Obviously, one of the main characters is named Carver 'Rene' Descartes; more subtle are the girl named Cheri Montaigne, and the discussion of François Rabelais in the episode where Tish tries to be more mature (which is even thematically relevant!).
  • Show Stopper: Parodied.

Tino: "You knocked a lamp over and set fire to the stage."
Carver: "Which stopped the show!"

Lor: "Question 1, are you happy with your appearance?"
Owner: "I never had plastic surgery!"
Lor: "Question 2, do you enjoy travel?"
Owner: "I do not travel! Who told you I visited former Soviet Unions?"
Lor: "Question 3, what would you do if you had a million dollars?"
Owner: "I have never been paid for espionage! You can prove nothing! Go away! We are closed!"

  • Take Five: "Tino's Dad": Tino's mom wished to speak with her ex and tells Tino to do "that thing upstairs." Tino's reply? "Subtle as a train wreck, mom."
  • Team Mom: Tino's mother whose advice is pretty much there to solve their problems every episode. Tish's mom also hangs out with the kids in one episode.
  • Team Spirit: Parodied in "Sitters"
  • Teen Genius: Tish.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: In one episode, Tish's dad plays an instrumental version of the theme on his cello. In another, Carver can be heard singing "I'm living for the weekend" under his breath.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: In "Follow the Leader," Tino checks an answering machine. His Mom left him this message:

Ms. Tonitini: Hi, hon, Dixon and I are heading out to the movies and there's a seaweed casserole in the oven.
Tino: Drat, I wanted to ask her about --
Ms. Tonitini: -- Oh, by the way, don't worry. The power will go to Lor's head and the guys will realize that it's better to think for yourself. {Tino starts picking his ear} Please get you finger out of your ear.
Tino: She is freaking me out.
Ms. Tonitini: Don't get freaked out. Kiss kiss.

  • The Un-Reveal: The Katsufrakis family's "Old Country" in "Celebrity".

Documentary Narrator: Tish's parents, a university professor and a roller derby star, emigrated to the US from a country which our research staff was unable to determine how to pronounce. Or even locate on a map.

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