Tracey McBean
Tracey McBean is an animated series from Australia film company Southern Star Entertainment chronicling the everyday lifestyle of the titular Gadgeteer Genius as she, with assistance from her best friend Shamus, uses her Homemade Inventions to solve whatever problem comes her way.
It was based on a one-hit children's book entitled Tracey McBean and the Stretching Machine written by Mary Small and illustrated by Arthur Filloy, which was published in 1989 and proved popular enough to be reprinted four times before getting an adaptation.
Tropes used in Tracey McBean include:
- A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: Tracey, Gordon, and Megan, though the latter isn't an infant.
- Animated Adaptation: Also counts as an Adaptation Expansion.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Megan, who's also a Bratty Half-Pint at times.
- Beach Episode
- Dramatic Wind: Invoked when Tracey is proposing a dare to ride down Mt. Massacre to Jim and Jake. Shamus turned it up to eleven by invoking a Dramatic Thunderstorm telling a bogus urban legend about a guy who suffered a Disney Death riding down the mountain (all they found of him was his nose).
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Many of the inventions count, but the Lost Thing Finder takes the crown.
- Funny Afro: Tracey's dad once had this, before he started losing his hair.
- Gadgeteer Genius
- Homemade Inventions: Tracey's signature talent.
- Limited Wardrobe
- Meganekko
- Me's a Crowd: "Multiplication", though the Shamus clones are bite-sized.
- Monster of the Week: Crazy Invention of the Week seems more appropriate.
- Mr. Exposition: Well, Miss Exposition in this case.
- Never Say "Die": Averted in one episode when Tracey walks in on Gordon after he went Walking Techbane on her breakfast making machine, which pushed her Berserk Button.
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Tracey: Gordon, you moron. I am going to KILL YOU!! |
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- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Happens on several occasions.
- Redheaded Hero
- Running Gag: Jake saying something intellectual and Jim telling him to shut up.
- Say My Name: Done at least five times in the introduction.
- Serial Escalation: There is literally next to no scientific basis for any of the inventions shown in the series. That and some of the episodes take things to rather ludicrous proportions.
- Sidekick: Shamus
- Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Jim and Jake McConnolly.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: During the "School Camp" episode, Tracey invents a device to communicate with aliens. She wound up communicating with glow worms instead.
- Thick Line Animation
- Two Shorts
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In an attempt to swindle Tracey out of her H2Grow formula, Jim McConnolly decides to make them tell him by telling Jake's fear, which he says is Custard. Tracey and Shamus don't believe him. When Tracey tricks them into taking a version of the formula spiked with Custard, it turns out that Jake's fear really is Custard. And after the events of the episode, Jake has gotten over his fear, but now Jim has a fear of Custard (it involved a Custard Twister, and we'll leave it at that).
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Tracey's aunt has pink hair.