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''Zits'' is a comic strip written by Jerry Scott (creator of ''[[Baby Blues]]'' and one-time cartoonist for ''Nancy'') and illustrated by Jim Borgman about the life of 15-year-old high school freshman Jeremy Duncan.
Jeremy lives with his parents, Walt and Connie, who both possess boring jobs and spectacular ignorance (according to Jeremy, anyway). He dreams of 'making it big' as a rock musician, but feels like he lives in the shadow of his highly successful college brother Chad.
Many strips deal with relationships with his friends, the sensible Hector and the extremist Pierce, not to mention his on-off girlfriend Sara. Notably for a teen strip, many of the comics also deal with Connie and Walt, and many of the funniest moments come from their perspectives.
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* [[Accidental Unfortunate Gesture]]: After Jeremy accidentally cut his middle finger, he was told to elevate it. The nurse quickly changes her mind after she overhears a few "Same to ''you'', Duncan!" comments in the school halls.
* [[The Ace]]: Chad.
* [[All Cheering All the Time]]: A group of cheerleaders use cheers to encourage Pierce to put some litter in the bin, causing him to remark that "There is such a thing as too much school spirit!".
* [[All Drummers Are Animals]]: Pierce, sometimes.
* [[All Women Love Shoes]]: Sara.
* [[The Alleged Car]]: Jeremy's 1962 VW Microbus. Most of the time, he and Hector just hang out in it, but once, they slipped the tires from Connie's station wagon on it and (barely) got it up and running. Once Jeremy finally got his license, it moved from being a hangout to an actual (somewhat) mode of transportation for good.
** Jeremy's parents at one point decided that they would have to buy Jeremy a car in the future just to prevent him from driving this deathtrap.
*** Apparently they changed their minds, most likely because the microbus can't even make minimum highway speed.
* [[Amazingly Embarrassing Parents]]: Practically the fuel of the series.
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** He got a minor update to his hair, and Hector has gotten a completely new hairstyle, which was badly needed - Jeremy's hair is (and mostly was) generic enough to pass anytime from the late 80's to today, but Hector's original 'do was pure 90's.
* [[Anyone Remember Pogs]]: Walt attempting to describe tiddlywinks to Jeremy and Pierce.
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: Jeremy's mother says there's something she wants to talk to him about. He then deadpans several wild guesses, including "You're having a sex change?" and "You and dad are cousins?" She gets increasingly frustrated and finally yells out, "No! We're changing salsa brands!" "...WHAT??"
** Repeated a second time when his parents try and tell him they're changing toilet paper brands, which "seemed more monumental at the store."
* [[Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity]]: Walt and Jeremy's fishing trip.
* [[Bacon Addiction]]: "Dad seems a lot happier since they started making bacon-flavoured cholesterol medication."
* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: Jeremy whines to his parents about how "nothing ever happens here!" Cue Walt, tearing off his shirt and dancing around while singing "Shake Your Bon-Bon!"
* [[Beach Bury]]: Jeremy and Sara bury Pierce on the beach, giving him a sand suit and tie and just about driving him into shock.
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** Most notably when Jeremy learns from his mother he was ''conceived'' to the song ''Stairway to Heaven'', actually sticking his head under a faucet and pouring water into his ear to try to erase what he had just heard.
*** His friend Hector later reveals his own mother told him he was conceived while blueberry muffins burned in the oven. To this day, Hector can't even ''look'' at one without feeling sick.
* [[Brilliant but Lazy]]: Jeremy is often shown as this.
* [[Buffy-Speak]]: Jeremy once described Sara's lips as "two moist, delicate, perfectly formed... [[Shaped Like Itself|lip-shaped things]]."
* [[Car Meets House]]: In one strip, Jeremy manages to ''hydroplane'' the car while pulling it ten feet forward into the garage and puts it through the back wall of the garage.
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** [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|What job as a child therapist]]?
** Since Connie has been shown to fantasize about the days when Jeremy was younger, it could be she is a therapist for younger children, and adolescence is still a mystery to her.
*** An early strip shows she does at least some work with teenagers.
** Honestly, despite his sullen teenage attitude (which, let's face it, is completely normal for his age group), Jeremy is very well-adjusted.
** This question is also brought up in the arc where Jeremy painted his room black and began wearing a dog collar in an attempt to make his parents think he was emotionally disturbed. He figured they would try to please him by buying him expensive toys. They decided to try to help him by giving him lots and lots of HUGS!
* [[Comic Book Time]]: Jeremy has been 15 for over a decade. It's only since 2009 that he's turned 16, gotten a driver's license and moved up to being a sophomore.
* [[Cone of Shame]]: Pierce wears one to try to cut down his mobile phone usage.
* [[Convenience Store Gift Shopping]]: Jeremy and Sara were exchanging gifts for Christmas, but Sara forgot. She quickly grabs the first thing she sees, wraps it and gives it to Jeremy. Cut to Jeremy and Hector examining the very loud, wide necktie:
{{quote|'''Jeremy:''' What do you think she's trying to say?
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** Another time, Jeremy is getting progressively angry with Sara about something. It culminates with him dialing her number, getting her voicemail, and screaming, "YOU SKANK!" into the phone. A panel later, he's covering his mouth in [[Stunned Silence]], realizing the gravity of what he's just said.
* [[Dinner Deformation]]: Jeremy unhinges his jaw to eat a giant burger.
* [[Dinner Order Flub]]: Attempting to impress Sara, Jeremy orders the radicchio, "medium rare, of course". The waiter informs him that the raddicho is a salad and the chef prefers to serve it raw. As Sara and Connie dissolve in laughter, Walt attempts to make Jeremy feel better by saying that when he and Connie were dating he once ordered "jackets required".
* [[Dissimile]]: Pierce's family life "is like a symphony. But there aren't any musical instruments, and the musicians just yell at each other."
* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: Connie was a child psychologist in early strips. This in a comic which has featured tons of jokes about how Connie doesn't understand Jeremy or how he works. In the January 27, 2012 strip, she outright says that she might need a job outside the house, so apparently her job isn't canon anymore.
* [[Embarrassing Tattoo]]: The peace symbol on Walt's butt.
{{quote|'''Connie:''' That peace sign is as big as a stop sign now.}}
* [[Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn]]: Jeremy has done the 'fall asleep while sunbathing' version.
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** Earlier on, Jeremy had considered naming the band "Jughead's Hat," telling his mother that it was down to that or "Veronica's B-" "[[Curse Cut Short|Stick to the hat!]]"
** Later, they found another cool name based on something that sounded like a good idea at the time: "Creepy Clown Head Funeral."
* [[A Good Old-Fashioned Paint-Watching]]: Walt talks about leaving [[Woodstock]] because it was raining and going to paint his grandmother's kitchen (which he seems to have preferred).
* [[Gossipy Hens]]: The Posse.
* [[Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow]]: Walt.
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** Played straight in a [[Sunday Strip]] where Jeremy walks into the kitchen with headphones on. Connie gets on his case, ranting for three panels and asking, "Why not just save the headphones for those times when you want to block out unwanted noise?" The last panel is him with his headphones back on, blocking out her ranting.
* [[Heavy Sleeper]]: Jeremy.
* [[Heh
* [[Hidden Depths]]: Pierce started out as an angry punk jerk but gradually morphed into a nice guy with extreme tastes. Similarly, Chad started out as [[The Ace|an amazingly perfect guy]] (whose face wasn't even shown in the panels, except for a huge smile and an [[Lantern Jaw of Justice|even more huge chin]]) but soon morphed into a more casual, bewhiskered, laid-back (but still perfect) type.
** Likewise with Tim's sympathy for his mother after her breast cancer.
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'''Jeremy''': So you're busy then, huh?
'''Sara (thinking)''': Sara, he's a GUY... You have to be more obvious. }}
** And on another occasion, when Jeremy makes his approval of one of his friends' girlfriend's making cookies for him known.
{{quote|'''Jeremy:''' Yessir, nothing says ''I care'' like a delicious home-made plate of cookies!
'''Sara:''' And nothing says "knuckledragger" like the sexist expectations of a boyfriend. }}
* [[Hurricane of Excuses]]: Jeremy's explanations for why he's late.
* [[Improbably High IQ]] / [[Improbably Low IQ]]: Parodied. Jeremy and Hector once took an Internet IQ test with Jeremy scoring impossibly low and Hector scoring impossibly high, despite their virtually identical educations. Jeremy began to wonder if he was really that stupid and Hector started treating him like a dolt. Jeremy was only convinced the test was flawed after his father scored even higher on it.
* [[Improbably Predictable]]: Jeremy comes down for breakfast with a stack of cards, and answers each of his mother's questions ("Orange juice? Eggs?") with the next card. Finally she insists, "I am not that predictable!" and he reveals the card which reads, "Wanna bet?"
* [[It Tastes Like Feet]]: In one strip, Jeremy commented that Walt's health drink tasted like licking the underside of a lawnmower.
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* [[Ping-Pong Naivete]]: Regarding Jeremy's knowledge of classic rock. Didn't know what his dad meant when he complimented Jeremy and Hector's songwriting as having a [[The Beatles (band)|Lennon/McCartney]] thing going, other strips has him referencing Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton.
* [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]]: References were made to Connie's work as a child psychologist, but only one strip ever showed her working.
** Several strips show her attempting to write a book on Psychology that Jeremy keeps interrupting.
* [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy]]
* [[Punctuation Shaker]]: D'ijon, whose real name is Dionne; she "started doing the punctuation thing in seventh grade." After finding out her real name, Pierce decides to change his name to "P'ierce," to which D'ijon responds, "N'o."
* [[Real Men Wear Pink]]: Pierce harbors a secret love of scrapbooking.
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]: When it lampoons parents ''and'' teenagers, people ''always'' laugh because so many of it is true. Like the teenager trying to give advice on parenting to his parents or parents interpreting "Leave me alone" to meaning that they want to talk.
* [[Ridiculous Procrastinator]]: Jeremy
* [[Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue]]: In one strip, Jeremy tried to apologize to Sara about some insensitive remarks he made by writing a [[Stylistic Suck|ridiculously bad]] poem. Sara's response?
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** Another strip has Jeremy ''saying'' "Star-Asterisk-Fishbone!" when he hurts himself, and when Hector comments on it (apparently it's the equivalent of [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]) he explains that his mother will kill him if he says [string of grawlixes].
* [[Tacky Tuxedo]]: In an attempt to persuade sara to go to the prom with him, Jeremy borrows a tuxedo that used to belong to Hector's grandfather. Only when Hector gives it to him does he discover that Hector's grandfather had been in a mariachi band.
* [[Tall Poppy Syndrome]]: One strip shows that Jeremy fears this when he at first is glad to have gotten an A on a test, only to instead have a fantasy where his parents are proud of him and say that from now on, they'll expect an A on every quiz. The next panel, he says he thinks he blew it.
* [[The Talk]]: Walt takes Jeremy on an early fishing morning trip as an excuse to have [[The Talk]] with him.
{{quote|'''Walt:''' Your mom and I just want to make sure that there's no risky behavior going on between the two of you.
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* [[Trash of the Titans]]: Jeremy's room, despite Connie's best efforts.
** Pierce's locker is possibly even worse than that. But it has killer chi.
* [[Truth in Television]]: Honestly, whose teen ''hasn't'' done some of that stuff like running a blender without the lid or texting people who're ''in the same room'' as them? And whose parents ''haven't'' done that sort of stuff like trying to talk to someone who says "Leave me alone"?
* [[Tsundere]]: Sara.
* [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]]: Husband Walt is shown as bald and cartoonishly obese, while his wife is ''much'' thinner and not altogether unattractive, having a body type resembling the teenage ''girls'' of the comic. This is actually lampshaded by Sara who comments "Isn't weird how your Mom and I have like indentical bodies?" (Cue the awkward moment) Connie's still not gorgeous given the art style, but it's a notable difference over Walt.
** And an older strip [[Lampshaded]] it when Jeremy asks Connie, "What is it about him [Walt] made you say, "This is what I want to wake up to for the rest of my life." which ends with Connie staring at Walt with a disturbed expression.
* [[The Unfavourite]]: Chad > Jeremy.
* [[Unsound Effect]]: "Essay! Essay!" for Jeremy writing an essay.
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* [[Visual Pun]]: Quite often. For example, when Connie "talks [Jeremy's] ear off," his ears, and other pieces of his face, literally fall off his head and onto the table.
* [[Wangst]]: Jeremy in-universe, though he tends to get mocked for it.
* [[What Are Records?]]: From Jeremy of course.
* [[What Were You Thinking?]]: Word for word, from Connie to Jeremy.
{{quote|'''Jeremy''': Everything's about cause and effect with you, isn't it?}}
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