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File:TinyToonsGang.jpg
Cquote1

 "We're Tiny, we're Toony, we're all a little Looney!

It's Tiny Toon Adventures! Come and join the fun!

...and now our song is done."

Cquote2


A revival of sorts for the Looney Tunes style of comedy, using teenage Toons highly reminiscent of several classic characters. But rather than pure rip-offs, they were actually being taught in school by the originals on being funny and the finer parts of Cartoon Physics and being a Toon. This continues the proud tradition of Warner Brothers Animation having a heavy dose of meta-humor, shtick and Lampshade Hanging of many cartoon tropes, but this also incorporated themes of teen adolescence, Aesops, and nineties sensibilities. It was executive produced by Steven Spielberg, who, along with fellow executive Tom Ruegger, thought the Looney Tunes style was due for a make-over on television after the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. TTA started the Silver Age of Warner Brothers cartoons, resulting in similar shows that shared many of the same tropes and were produced in much the same way (writing, storyboards, key animation and voice work done in the US, inbetweening done by Asian studios (T Ms excluded; preferring to do most of their own work themselves, albeit with an uncredited staff), Steven Spielberg as executive producer). It was also one of the first shows to contribute to the '90s animation boom, following The Simpsons by less than a year.

TTA premiered in syndication in the fall of 1990. Many of the stations that ran it were Fox affiliates, leading to Fox officially adding it to the afternoon lineup for its last season (1992-1993). After it left the Fox Kids lineup in 1995, it's since been shown in reruns on Nickelodeon, Kids WB, Cartoon Network, and the Nicktoons Network.

The characters included:

  • Buster and Babs Bunny ("no relation") - A (respectively) blue and pink pair of Bugs Bunnys. Served as the main characters and would alternate between Like Brother and Sister and love interests of each other. Would often host and close each episode. While Buster was the Straight Man, Babs had more of a concrete personality, and was known for her excellent impersonations.
  • Plucky Duck - A green (he's a mallard), white tank-top-wearing Daffy who's about as scheming and (un)successful as his inspiration.
  • Hamton J. Pig - A neat freak who acts more like Plucky's sidekick. About the furthest distanced from his counterpart, Porky, out of all the characters.
  • Fifi La Fume - A purple female skunk who's just as oversexed as her male counterpart, Pepe Le Pew. Unlike Pepe, however, she seems to have far more control over her odor, she's a tad more melodramatic, and she doesn't have a problem with her object of desire chasing her.
  • Montana Max - Based on Yosemite Sam in name and temperament. The richest and meanest kid in Acme Acres, and owner of the legendary Acme company. Oddly, the Big Bad of Hellsing might be named after him.
  • Elmyra Duff - Bears a strong "wesembwance" to Elmer Fudd (she kind of resembles him in a wig and dress, and then there's the last name), but without the speech impediment. Instead of hunting for sport, she absolutely loves animals of all kinds. That is to say she loves to hug them and cuddle them and squeeze them to itty-bitty pieces and perform laboratory experiments on them. So she is also based off of the Abominable Snowman from the original Looney Tunes.
  • Dizzy Devil, pink/purple-haired mentee of the Tasmanian Devil. Is a party animal who, despite being disgusting, is actually considered attractive to women.
  • Furrball, spiritual successor to both Sylvester the Cat and Penelope Pussycat, and (with three exceptions) The Voiceless (like the latter). Inevitably, he pursues Tweety's female counterpart Sweetie Pie (who unlike many of the Sylvester/Tweety shorts is the instigator while Furrball is minding his own business). Most of the time, though, he's just the Butt Monkey.
  • Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper, Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner analogues.
  • Gogo Dodo - A thoroughly off-the-wall incarnation of cartoon surrealism, Word of God states that Gogo is the son of the original Dodo from Porky in Wackyland. He resides in the supposedly SAME Wackyland, which is just outside the town of Acme Acres.
  • Shirley Mcloon- A Valley Girl, part-time psychic, and part-time Love Interest of Plucky. Supposedly created by putting Melissa Duck and Shirley MacLaine into a blender.
  • Little Sneezer- A mouse in a diaper who has a chronic sneezing problem inversely proportional to his size. Could be the Spiritual Successor to Chuck Jones's Sniffles the Mouse.
  • Arnold, who is basically an Arnold-Schwarzenegger impersonator in a white pitbull costume with shades. One of the only recurring new characters who is not an expy of a 'Tune.
  • Mary Melodie, a black girl who often had Furrball as a pet. Is often featured as a background character or extra. Looks like a teenaged, less-stereotypical version of So White (the black princess) from the banned Bob Clampett cartoon "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs", though Tom Ruegger denied that this resemblance was intentional.
  • Concord Condor, a rather dopey purple condor who is probably an Expy of minor Looney Tune Beaky Buzzard.
  • Fowlmouth, a little chicken with a tendency to swear excessively. Is most likely a Verbal Tic reminiscent of his mentor Foghorn Leghorn's.
  • Bookworm, a green, well, bookworm with big glasses based off of the companion to the Merrie Melodies character Sniffles. Naturally, he works in the library and is shown to be quite smart and good with computers.
  • The original Looney Tunes, most of whom are faculty members of Acme Looniversity, and who all make cameos sprinkled everywhere in the show. Often, they are personal tutors and greatly admired by their younger, respective spiritual successors.

Episodes were either broken into three 7-minute shorts, or made into half-hour full-episode adventures. Similarly, these would be split among stories dealing with misadventures in school, Looney Tunes-like shorts out in Acme Acres, or the occasional music video. (The show's renditions of They Might Be Giants' "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man", for example, are favorites amongst fans of both the show and the band to this day.)

A feature length direct-to-video movie, Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation, shows the misadventures of the kids on various summer road trips. (It was eventually split up into four parts and worked into the show's syndicated run.)

The show was a precursor to - and the inspiration for - Animaniacs; they were both produced by the same staff and shared many of the same writers. The main difference is that Tiny Toons generally had all the characters interacting with each other, while Animaniacs focused mostly on individual characters or groups for their Three Shorts.

As was often the case for Western animation of the '80s and '90s, Asian studios handled much of the animation production, most notably Japan's Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment, Ltd.), which made the intro and several episodes (including the direct-to-video Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation) also animated Lupin III, Devilman Lady, a Golgo 13 film, Detective Conan, Hamtaro, and the original version of Aim for The Ace!. Fans often consider the TMS-animated episodes to be of the highest quality of animation. Fittingly, the series has a big fan base in Japan, where it aired on TV Tokyo and was later rerun on Cartoon Network.

The first season is now available on iTunes, broken up into volumes. Here it is.

The show has been reaired in Russia since 2010, and "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special" was reaired in the UK last month, but doesn't appear to be reairing in America or the rest of Europe, unless Nick is willing to get back the rights for The 90s Are All That or The Hub gets the rights.

A reboot, Tiny Toons Looniversity - featuring slightly older versions of the characters - premiered in September 2023 on the Max (formerly HBO Max) streaming service and is also being aired on a weekly basis on Cartoon Network.

Tiny Toon Adventures contains examples of:
  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: In "Concord the Kindly Condor" (part of "Toons From the Crypt"), one of the vultures keeps circling Concord who, instead of turning his whole body to look at the vulture, merely keeps turning his head. He turns it 360 degrees at least three times.
  • Accidental Art: Plucky, after realizing that he was able to pause a dog fight in "Oh For Art's Sake", passes off the paused picture as a painting.
  • Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Oh For Art's Sake", Plucky instantly becomes a snob when his "painting" is a big hit and he becomes wealthy.
Cquote1

 Babs: Hey, Plucky.

Plucky: Call me "Pluck". It's more artistic, if you know what I mean, and... how could you?

Cquote2
    • To be fair, Plucky was a narcissist anyway. He is based on Daffy Duck.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The episodes Two-Tone Town and Fields of Honey are tributes to the original Warner Bros. cartoon stars--and no, we're not talking about Bugs and the gang--we mean the ORIGINAL Warner Bros. stars, Bosko and Honey, as well as Foxy, Roxy and Goopy Geer, all of whom had been stuck in cartoon limbo for decades by that point.
  • The Ahnold / Angry Guard Dog: Arnold.
  • Alan Smithee: He is credited as a director on the two shorts animated by Encore Cartoons.
  • All That Glitters
  • And Call Him George: Elmyra loves doing this. It even gets to the point where one short revolves around the many animals she has inadvertently killed over the course of her childhood coming back to get revenge. And she loves them anyway.
  • Animal Stereotypes: Subverted with Hamton. Elmyra believes he's filthy just because he's a pig, even though many instances show he's the exact opposite. His uncle fits the pig stereotype, though.
  • Animated Actors: At the start of the second act of "A Quack in the Quarks", Buster, Babs, and Hamton are out of character and discussing Plucky's salary. They're told by an off-screen director to get into places, and when he says "Action", they get back into character and vow to save Plucky from space aliens.
    • The first episode goes even further and suggest that not only are Babs and Buster actors, they created the show from scratch! They even get a "created by" credit in the credits roll.
  • Animated Anthology
  • Animation Bump: Different episodes were animated by different studios[1], so the animation style would noticeably vary between them.
    • One can tell which animation team did which episodes. For example, several episodes (including the pilot) resemble A Pup Named Scooby Doo, being animated by Kennedy Cartoons (whose head, Glen Kennedy, was the animation director on the first season of APNSD). Kennedy's work was reportedly so poor that Warner had parts of their episodes re-animated by other studios.
    • As mentioned in the intro to this page, T Ms animated several episodes, and their work was, as always, gorgeous.
  • Anvil on Head: Played straight, subverted, lampshaded, you name it! And we didn't even mention the "Anvil Chorus" short.
  • Artifact Title: Some might wonder why the episode titled "Animaniacs!" has nothing to do with the Animaniacs TV series to come later.
  • Art Shift: The dialog-free short "Sound Off" is drawn in rubber hose '30s animation style.
    • The various student films in "Animaniacs!" are each drawn in a different style than usual.
  • Ascended Extra: Gogo Dodo and his residence of Wackyland are a large part of the show, to the point that Gogo appears in the opening theme. He is based on a character from a single 1938 Porky Pig short, not counting the color remake.
  • Assumed Win: Played straight in "Hare-Raising Night" when Plucky assumed he won an Emmy and started to walk towards the stage. It went to Melvin instead.
  • Ate the Spoon: Does this a few times as a shoutout to their predecessors.
  • Bad Future: In the final Christmas Special episode, Buster is treated to a world where he was never drawn up. Montana Max had bought out EVERYTHING (Acme Acres now Montyville), the show itself is basically nothing more than shameless self-promotion and glorification for Plucky, and Acme Looniversity is now a BUSINESS Looniversity where students learn to be suck-up actors/actresses rather than on comedy. The real problem was a shot to Buster's heart when he finds out that Babs is forever miserable with her life, a complete opposite of how she used to be. It also didn't help that in that timeline, she's Plucky's personal Butt Monkey. All because in this timeline Buster was never drawn up.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Several. In the single segments lots of the main characters ended up on the wrong side of Elmyra at least once, and a lot of her cartoons end with her still chasing them. They always end up fine after the end of the cartoon, though. "Out Of Odor" is a good example.
Cquote1
Cquote2
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animals: Most of the main cast, with a few exceptions. Fowlmouth wears sneakers and so did Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Hamton, a few times.
  • Big Eater: Dizzy. To a lesser extent, Hamton.
  • Birthday Suit Surprise Party: Happens to Hamton after skinny-dipping.
  • Biting the Hand Humor
  • Born in the Theatre: Tiny Toons would sometimes show the outer edge of the film itself as a gag, despite not actually being on a reel.
    • This is because it's a Shout-Out to the original Looney Tunes.
  • Brick Joke: During a Global Warming cartoon, Buster asks to book a trip on Noah's Ark.
    • The Cameo: An Animaniacs short about Noah would later have Buster and Babs cameo as the rabbits.
    • Early in "Hollywood Plucky", we see Buster and Babs sitting at an abandoned bus stop in the middle of nowhere, due to faulty directions Plucky gave them. At the very end of the episode, after Plucky finally makes contact with Cooper De Ville, Cooper mentions that he already made the script that Plucky was pitching, only starring Buster and Babs. He found them at a bus stop while out driving.
  • Butt Monkey: Plucky. Hamton drifts between this and the Woobie.
    • To say nothing of the treatment Furrball receives. Lampshaded in the lyrics to the opening theme, "Furrball's unlucky".
    • Meta example with Kennedy Cartoons' animation.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: Lampshaded, naturally. In "Gang Busters" Buster and Plucky decide to play Pong and Pac-Man with their stretched-out eyeballs, then witness something unexpected when they decide to light a match...
  • Call Back: In "A Bacon Strip" (part of "The ACME Acres Zone"), Hamton tries to sneak home naked, but is spotted by a tour bus, where the tour guide says, "And to your left is a naked pig." This joke is re-visited in "Kon Ducki" when Hamton briefly loses his grass skirt.
  • Canon Immigrant: Superman in How I Spent My Summer Vacation. He's a Warner Bros. property, so it makes perfect sense.
  • Captivity Harmonica: "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow".
  • Catch Phrase: Buster: "Now, it's personal."
    • Also: "It's time to party, Buster style!"
    • Fifi: "Do not fear my dear, Fifi La Fume is here!"
  • Channel Hop: From syndication in its first two seasons to Fox Kids for its third.
  • Chick Magnet: A Running Gag is that Dizzy is considered especially cute and charming among beautiful, older women.
  • Christmas Episode: "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special".
  • Chronic Pet Killer: Elmyra.
  • Circling Birdies: In one episode, Elmyra gets the circling birdies but, being the animal lover that she is, grabs one of the birdies and squeezes it.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Gogo Dodo.
  • Color Me Black: In "A Walk On The Flip Side" (a parody of The Twilight Zone) has Montana Max, "rabbit-hater extraordinaire", wake up to find that he's a rabbit himself.
  • Continuity Nod: "Buster Versus the Wolverine" features the Mynah Bird as a Walking Gag.
  • Credits Gag: The end credits always included a gag credit; Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation had tons of them.
  • Crowd Song: The opening theme song, of course!
    • And the first few minutes of "How I Spent My Vacation".
  • Cruella to Animals: Gotcha Grabmore.
  • Culture Police: "Washingtoon" had a woman representing an organization "against funny cartoons" and taking over Acme Acres with a device that stripped most of the kids of their "tooniness" so they could become bland, pro-social educators.
  • Cute Kitten: Furrball.
  • Cyberpunk: Spoofed in the Blade Runner parody "Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli".
  • The Danza: Julie Brown as Julie Bruin.
    • Henny Youngman as... Henny Youngman.
  • Darth Vader Clone: Duck Vader
  • Dastardly Whiplash: The villain in Honey's cartoon in the episode "Fields of Honey".
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The short "Sound Off", appropriate since it was parodying silent cartoons. Also Two Tone Town in the episode of the same name.
  • Depending on the Artist: Several animation studios worked on the cartoon and it often shows. Kennedy Cartoons, in particular, had a tendency to do "squash and stretch" Up to Eleven, leading to very polarized opinions (fans calling it energetic, fluid, and bouncy, haters calling it sloppy). They were fired after season 1.
Cquote1

  Babs, after trashing a TV that was showing a rerun of Tiny Toons: I hate the way I was drawn in that episode. I hate the way I was drawn in this episode too.

Cquote2
  • Deranged Animation: Seen in many episodes that were animated by Freelance, Kennedy Cartoons, and the early Wang Film Productions episodes.
  • Deus Ex Machina: Hamton winning a brand new house at the end of "Hog-Wild Hamton".
  • Did Not Do the Research: Arnold the Pit Bull looks more like a Bull Terrier.
    • Actually the Italian dub corrects this and calls him a Bull Terrier.
    • Also, Shirley Mcloon looks nothing like a Common Loon (or any other species of loon for that matter) and instead looks like a domestic duck.
  • Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: In the parody of "Kon Tiki", when their raft starts to sink for a second time.
Cquote1

 Plucky Duck: It can't be! We did that gag already!

Sweetie Pie: What?! You're going to bring up redundancy now?!

Cquote2
  • Diet Episode: In one episode, Hampton tries to go on a diet, only to be constantly tempted by a chocolate cake.
Cquote1

 Cake: (in a deep voice) Eat meee... Eat meee...

Cquote2
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In "Wait 'Till Your Father Gets Even" (from "Toons From the Crypt"), Plucky is put onto a table saw for winning Hamton's dad's bottle cap collection in a game of jacks.
  • Do Not Call Me Paul: Babs does not like her whole name Barbara Ann. Buster calls her this twice, once in the show and the other in the Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation film. Her response: "Don't call me that!"
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Fifi La Fume.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: The plot of the short "Lame Joke" stems from Buster's titular joke (anthropomorphicly personified by a clown) dying due to Babs, Plucky, and Hamton not getting it and Buster only saying in response, "Get it?" Hamton ends up explaining it after he and Babs finally get it, after which Plucky also joins in on the ensuing laughter. This somehow revives the dead joke.
  • Down to the Last Play: Pretty much any time they do a sports story, most notably "Buster at the Bat" which is a parody of the poem Casey at the Bat and another episode where they were playing Football. Averted in another baseball story where Buster's team was getting slammed, and they won by proving the other team was cheating.
  • Drugs Are Bad: One Entire Episode which was pulled off the line of reruns where Buster, Plucky and Hamton get a single beer from the fridge and goes on a drunken rampage ending with a car over the cliff scene to show kids that beer and drugs are bad for you.
    • The episode in question was in a Three Shorts format, but the other two cartoons didn't contribute to the ban. One of them is about Dizzy Devil obsessing over television and refusing to read books, and the other was about Montana Max discriminating against a robot.
    • Roderick and Rhubella Rat were introduced in "Butt Out" as a pair of smokers who annoy Babs, and Babs ensures they will never smoke again.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Played straight in the Tiny Toon Adventures movie, in which the cast is being pursued on an Indiana Jones-style minecart ride with a chainsaw wielding psychopath trying to kill them, and Babs and Buster both confess their feelings for one another.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Ralph the Guard from Animaniacs.
  • Ears as Hair: Babs Bunny. "Do you like my ears better up or down?"
  • Edutainment Show: "Animaniacs!", which shows how a cartoon is made.
  • Episode Title Card
  • Everybody Do the Endless Loop: In several Kennedy Cartoons episodes.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Toons Take Over".
  • Evil Counterparts: Roderick and Rhubella Rat are pretty much this to Buster and Babs, even sharing their voice actors.
    • Perfecto Prep (Roderick's school) has evil counterparts for several of the Tiny Toons.
  • Experimental Archeology: Parodied in "Voyage of the Kon-Ducki".
  • Expository Theme Tune: Quoted above.
  • Expy: Justified, as they're teen-aged toons who want to be like their idols.
    • Roderick and Rubella Rat, of the Perfecto Prep crew, are pretty obvious parodies of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
      • Not to mention Margot Mallard and Danforth Drake for Daisy and Donald Duck, and the entire University of Woodpeckers for Woody Woodpecker.
  • Extranormal Institute: Acme Loo.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Dizzy's prom date, Mitzi, has the boys heart-eyed and drooling and even manages to charm the girls!
  • Everyone Has Standards: Buster and Babs get pissed when Max stands Elmyra up for the prom, declaring that even their cuddle-crazed stalker deserves to have a good time.
  • Eye Shock: In one short, Plucky practices a really over-the-top version of the trick but loses control and gets stuck as a giant eyeball.
  • Eye Take: There's a class for it at the Looniversity. The plot of an entire short even revolves around Plucky getting stuck in one.
  • Face Death with Dignity: At the end of "The Acme Bowl", Roderick Rat is furious over Perfecto's defeat when he sees Dizzy Devil and the rocket powered football coming straight for him. First he tries to avoid Dizzy, but then just gives up, ties a blindfold over his eyes, and just waits for the impending pain.
  • Fantastic Voyage: "Inside Plucky Duck" features Buster and Babs going into the depths of Plucky's mind.
  • Faux Horrific: Babs' school photo.
  • Foot Focus: Babs's line "Don't I just have the cutest toes?"
    • Also in "Acme Cable TV" in a commercial for "Foot Loops", where we are treated to shots of Gogo's feet.
  • For the Evulz: Rhoda Queen from "Can't Buy Me Love". Justified, in that she was based on Rhoda Penmark from The Bad Seed.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Entire cast.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: Buster is phlegmatic, Babs is choleric, Plucky is sanguine, and Hampton is melancholic/supine.
  • Funny Animal: Entire cast.
  • Funny Foreigner: Fifi.
  • Fun with Flushing:
    • A baby version of Plucky Duck is learning how to use the toilet for the first time. He gets a lot of enjoyment flushing various items down it, such as toilet paper, Furrball, his toys, even his own diaper! He even climbed into it himself and tried to flush himself down the hole! The toilet gets clogged up as a result.
    • This gag was repeated in two more episodes, which consist of a trip to the mall where he plays with the elevator controls, and a miniature golf course with Plucky struggling to knock the ball in, going as far as to cheat (He gets better at it, though). It was also done in several Animaniacs episodes whenever he made a cameo.
    • "The Undersea World Of Fifi" had Elmyra searching for sea monkeys, and it ends with her draining it and having her say the exact same line as baby Plucky did.
    • The Kon Ducki episode had Plucky flushing a boat down the toilet as part of the "special effects" during the behind the scenes portion of the episode.
  • Fur and Loathing: Gotcha Grabmore.
  • Furry Confusion: Furrball vs. the rest of the cast. Furrball was usually portrayed as being a "normal" cat instead of a Funny Animal, but kept weaving back and forth between the two extremes.
    • Then there's the owner of the pet store in "Elmyra at the Mall" (part of "You Asked For It Again"); he's a standing, talking dog instructing other animals how to get sold. The other animals act like regular animals.
  • Gainaxing: Very noticable on Julie Bruin.
    • Also the female pigs in the beauty portion of the "Swine Search" program that Hamton's watching in "Fox Trot".
  • Game Show Appearance: "Win, Lose, or Kerplooey", "Toonywood Squares" and "That's Incredibly Stupid." Several episodes had game show references hidden somewhere.
  • Gender Flip: Several characters are gender-switched versions of the characters that inspired them:
    • Babs Bunny for Bugs Bunny. (Lola hadn't been invented yet.)
    • Elmyra Duff for Elmer Fudd.
    • Fifi la Fume for Pepe Le Pew.
    • Sweetie Pie for Tweety Bird.
    • Marcia the Martian for Marvin the Martian.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Rhoda Queen, Elmyra's bratty Neighbor, in "Can't Buy Me Love".
  • Give Me a Sword: Played for laughs during the opening of "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian" -- Hamton asks Plucky for his sword, and Plucky appears dragging the sword across the floor, asking if they could have taken an elevator instead. Hamton responds, "Ahem!" Plucky then tries to actually lift the sword, only to fall down and flatten himself with the blade. Hamton then nonchalantly picks the sword up himself.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Elmyra and Montana Max both go to school with the main characters. This occasionally poses a problem.
  • Going Commando: As a running gag, Babs sometimes doesn't wear panties under her skirt, although other times this is averted.
  • Good News, Bad News: In "Lame Joke" (part of "Henny Youngman Day"), Henny delivers this one-liner:
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  Henny Youngman: I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, your joke died. The bad news is, who cares?

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  • Gosh Dang It to Heck: While most Fowlmouth episodes bleeped him whenever he swore, at least one had him continually saying "dadgummed", like it was a dadgummed verbal tic.
  • Grande Dame: One appears in the short "A Night in Kokomo" (part of "New Class Day"), which is unsurprising, considering it's a parody of all those Marx Brothers flicks.
  • Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: This is a class at Acme Looniversity. Buster, Babs, and Plucky once crossed a ravine by literally walking over it while looking up at the sky.
  • Green Aesop: "Pollution Solution".
  • Green Around the Gills: Buster entirely in "Buster And Babs Go Hawaiian" after eating a carrot chip.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: The premise of the second half of "No Toon Is An Island".
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Buster, and Babs on some occasions (like her tribute to Groucho Marx); in some cases, she's wearing pants or a skirt, but no shirt (her hula outfit from "No Toon Is an Island", for example). Buster and Babs are pantsless obviously and as well as Plucky Duck and Hampton J Pig. Babs Bunn is also known to wear a blouse and skirt but nothing underneath.
  • Hanging Judge: In one of the skits in "K-ACME TV", Yosemite Sam plays "Hanging Judge Sam".
  • Hellevator: The Bullet Train to Heck.
  • Hello, Nurse!: Played with in the case of Fifi La Fume. She would knock 'em dead with her good looks... if it wasn't for her scent. However, she did have her moment when she appeared as "the mystic maid of musk, Scentanna!"
  • Heroic BSOD: Montana Max has a big one (complete with a shot of a nuclear explosion and scorched, dead earth in the background) in "Prom-ise Her Anything", after Mitzi's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • Homage: The premise of the whole show.
    • The episode "Starting From Scratch" is a homage to An American Tail, only it's done with fleas instead of mice. One must wonder if Steven Spielberg had a say in that episode, since he produced An American Tail too.
      • The episode "High Toon" featured a Mousekewitz-esque family of Mexican chihuahuas, complete with the kid that voiced Fievel voicing the young chihuahua Pedro.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Ever notice that most of the antagonists on this show are humans? Mostly Montana Max and cloud cuckoolander Elmyra Duff but the only sole exception to this is Mary Melody, in fact she is a better owner for Furrball than Elmyra was. It seems pretty hard to find a human on this show who isn't a total jerk to the main characters.
    • That basically stems from the fact that humans were usually the antagonists in most of the Looney Tunes shorts as well. When Bugs and Daffy weren't at each others' throats, it was either Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, or some other guy.
  • I Am Not Weasel: Elmyra once mistook Dizzy for a dog, and Fifi for a cat.
  • I Can't Dance: Buster, before a school dance.
  • Ice Cream Koan: Plucky's inspirational speech to the alien kids in "A Quack in the Quarks", which included such gems as "Let the force be... your umbrella" and "A stitch in time saves... a lot of embarrassment."
  • I Fell for Hours: In the episode "Journey to the Center of Acme Acres", Plucky and Hamton fall down a crack in the ground when a huge earthquake hist Acme Acres. After a while, they start getting bored and hope they eventually hit something just to break the monotony. They eventually end up at the center of the Earth where they float because their gravity reaches an equilibrium.
  • I Have a Family: A lobster tries this on Hamton in "Drawn and Buttered" (part of "Here's Hamton"). Hamton knows he's lying because he has the same photo; it came with the wallet.
    • Played straight in "Easy Biter" (part of "Stuff That Goes Bump in the Night") when the mosquito shows Hamton a picture of his family from his wallet. Hamton lets him live.
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: During "Duck Trek", Furrball's character (who resembled McCoy) said, "Darn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a barber!"
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: "Kon Ducki" begins with: "Plucky Epic Pictures presents: A Pluck Production of a Plucky Duck Film, "The Voyage of Kon Ducki", starring Plucky Duck as Pluck Heyerdahl, a film directed, produced, written, visualized, conceived, choreographed, and catered by Plucky Duck." Oh yeah, and there's a brief mention that Hamton is in the film.
  • Interspecies Romance: Dizzy was often found in the company of (sometimes several) beautiful, human women.
    • Fifi has also gone after Dizzy, but she usually chases Furrball, who she thinks is a skunk. In one episode she chased Calamity for the same reason. She also went to the prom with Hamton, who has a crush on her. Chalk it up to the lack of skunks at Acme Loo.
    • Plucky and Shirley the Loon are a fairly consistent couple, despite Shirley being...well, a loon. (She looks exactly like a duck.) Fowlmouth also likes Shirley, though, and in "The Return of Pluck Twacey", it seems that Plucky, like his mentor, has a thing for the pigeon from "Plane Daffy".
  • Iris Out
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special".
  • Jerkass: Sweetie Pie, who hijacks a themed episode to indulge in her own egotistical fantasies where she tortures anyone and everyone in her path. One short has her attempting to get Furrball to chase and eat her, heaping various punishments and humiliations on the poor cat, and when he does finally reach his breaking point and attempt to off the little hellspawn she just heaps MORE violence on the poor cat, who at the beginning of the short was minding his own damn business.
    • Montana Max, Plucky Duck, and Little Beeper are also jerkasses more often than not.
  • Jury of the Damned: "Night Ghoulery".
  • Kangaroo Court: In "Gang Busters", Buster and Plucky are put on trial for a crime Montana Max framed them for. The jury is made up of clones of Yosemite Sam.
  • Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: In "Duck in the Dark," Plucky watches a marathon of "Eddie Cougar" horror movies, including one that has him attacking a screaming Bambi. Of course it ends up giving Plucky horrible nightmares.
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 Plucky: Only a total idiot would be afraid of these movies!

Buster: I rest my case.

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  • Kill the Poor: Buster and Babs once tried to get into Montana Max's house, claiming to be collecting money for "fighting the poverty fund." He is about to slam the door in their faces when they explain that the plan is to send all the poor to the Moon.
  • Kissing in a Tree: Sung sarcastically by various characters to Montana Max in "My Dinner With Elmyra" (part of "Love Disconnection").
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Ed McMayhem from "Hog-Wild Hamton".
  • Limited Animation: Averted so hard it almost counts as a subversion. Due to Seinfeld Is Unfunny, it may be difficult to convey how professional and un-cheap-looking this was for a TV show of its era.
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: Humans and talking animals attend ACME Looniversity together.
  • Logo Joke: One sight gag in "The Looney Beginning" featured the classic "WB shield" chasing the "Big W" logo from The Seventies with a large hammer.
  • Loud of War: Seen in "Hog-Wild Hamton" when Plucky plays loud music from Hamton's house, which causes Egghead Jr. to eventually retaliate by blowing up their house.
  • Lounge Lizard: Plucky parodies Bill Murray's Nick the lounge singer character from Saturday Night Live in "Weekday Afternoon Live".
  • Madness Mantra: "Ohwhatalooniam... ohwhatalooniam..."
  • Woman Of A Thousand Voices: In one episode, Babs does imitations of the entire rest of the cast; at a convention, Maurice LaMarche commented that Tress MacNeille's portrayals put the rest of the cast in just a little fear of their jobs.
  • Marilyn Maneuver: Roxy in the episode, "Two-Tone Town". In one scene of a short film where she, Foxy, Goopy Geer, and Big Bee appear, her skirt gets blown up briefly when a swarm of bees fly between her legs.
  • May the Farce Be with You
  • Meaningful Echo: In "Washingtoon", Babs comments to Buster that his "tooniness" is too much for the censor lady's vaccum machine. Later near the end, Buster's tooniness gets sucked into the machine...and it becomes so much for the machine, it explodes, releasing his and the others' tooninesses and saving Acme Acres.
  • Medium Awareness: Characters will often mention that a commercial break is about to start.
  • Medium Shift Gag: Though not really animated, during the "Love Among the Toons" segment of the episode "Spring in Acme Acres", we see clay model versions of the toons through a ViewMaster.
  • Mickey Mousing: One of the first cartoons in years to do this, due to an orchestra scoring each episode individually, rather than recycling canned scores for the entire series.
  • Mid-Battle Tea Break: Seen in "And All That Rot" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits"): During a high-paced chariot chase/duel through city streets, Big Ben chimes, to which everyone (including the horses) stops for tea time. After a few seconds of this, the chase resumes.
  • Mismatched Eyes: Dizzy Devil has a pink right eye and a green left eye.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Ducktorate: Not only used (Plucky being an Expy of Daffy), but implied to be an in-universe stereotype about ducks. During the "Acme Looniversity" song in the first episode, Bugs directs Plucky toward "classes ducks might find appealing/Like, for instance, Spotlight Stealing!" (The Spotlight Stealing class is taught, of course, by Daffy.)
  • Ms. Fanservice: Bizarrely enough, Babs (as much as is possible, anyway), mainly due to some of her costume changes.
    • "One word, girls: SPANDEX." (Cue Babs revealing herself a spandex bodysuit with more curves than usual, and Buster promptly losing his mind Tex Avery style).
    • Fifi La Fume totally plays this trope to a T.
  • My Friends and Zoidberg:
    • "Ladies and Gentlemen... and Monty..."
  • Needs More Love: An in-universe example was "Fields of Honey" when Babs discovered the work of forgotten cartoon star Honey (from the "Bosko the Talk Ink Kid" cartoons), and began championing her to everyone.
    • And "Two-Tone Town" where Buster and Babs try to revitalize the careers of some of Warner Bros. oldest characters, Foxy, Roxy, and Goopy Geer.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Sappy Stanley from "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny".
  • Nightmare Fuel: Click for more examples.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Plenty of 'em. One of the more obvious ones involves the bunnies trying to save Princess Diana, which may count as a Funny Aneurysm Moment.
  • No Dialogue Episode: There was even an episode done in faux-retro style, with black and white animation and no spoken dialogue whatsoever.
  • No Fourth Wall: The characters very frequently acknowledge that they're in a cartoon and/or address the audience in some way.
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 Buster: (facing the camera) Hiya, toonsters!

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    • In fact, the first episode of the series has no fourth wall, as it's about a cartoonist under a deadline creating Buster, Babs, and Acme Acres and interacting with his backtalking, suggestion-offering creations as they look up at him from the page.
  • No Name Given: In "Toon TV", Babs introduces herself as "Downtown Babsy Brown", while Buster introduces himself as "someone else".
  • Ocular Gushers: Parodied to the extreme in "The Return of Pluck Twacy" (part of "New Character Day"): Shirley cries so much that her tears flood Pluck Twacy's office and send him onto the street, miles away.
  • Off-Model: Daffy and Plucky in prison at the end of "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" look noticeably off-model and sloppy.
    • "Buster and the Wolverine" had quite a few off-model shots as well.
    • Plucky is briefly wearing a sleeved shirt in "What's Up Nurse?" of "Looniversity Days". In the same episode, during the first segment, he's colored purple.
      • Also, in "The Learning Principal", Bugs is briefly drawn without whiskers. In the very next shot, Bugs is drawn with whiskers as usual.
      • Of course, this is all due to multiple studios working on the series.
  • Older Than They Look: The main characters all go to a university. If this troper is right, then those kids are in college!
    • No, they go to a LOON-iversity. And in the pilot eposide Babs, at least, states that she's 14. The Looniversity is also more like a high school than a college.
  • The One Who Wears Shoes: A few, such as Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper. It's especially weird because it's the only thing they wear.
  • Only Smart People May Pass: Done in "Day For Knight" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits") when Buster wants to cross the bridge.
  • Overly Long Name: In "Thirteensomething": Babs Bunawalskioversmith.
  • Painted Tunnel, Real Train: Demonstrated by Wile E. Coyote to the class in "Thirteensomething".
  • Pair the Spares: Basically the reason why Hamton and Fifi are occasionally paired together, usually seen alongside the other main couples Buster/Babs and Plucky/Shirley. "Prom-ise Her Anything" is the best example of this.
  • Panty Shot: Sometimes when she does wear any, this is a common occurrence with Babs and they're often white panty shots.
    • This is also frequent with Elmyra, although sometimes her panties are white with laced trimming, other times they're baby blue or Tiffany blue. In "Sepulveda Boulevard", she wears pink panties.
    • Rhoda Queen in the "Fox Trot" segment, "Can't Buy Me Love". Her white panties are seen from behind when she's dragging Elmyra out of the theater and when she jumps back down, after putting Elmyra's hair bow-with-hamster-skull back on her head.
    • Itchy in "Flea For Your Life". Her panties (which match her white skirt) are shown when she bounces due to the vibration of Furball's back as he scratches himself, when she's climbing one of Byron's fur strands, and as she lifts a table to attack Boss Tick with it, she jumps up and down while doing so.
    • Little Boo, from the special, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". In most of her scenes, her panties are white, but in one, they're pink.
  • Parental Bonus: Many references to old-school Hollywood, for one.
    • This pun from the movie (after three bayou gator sisters kidnap Buster so he can marry them all)
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 Buster: I can't marry all three of them, that's bigamy!

Big Daddy: No that's big a' ME!

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  Announcer: When you've got a smell so strong, nothing can cover it up.

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  • Picked Last: One cartoon sees Hamton complain about always getting picked last on the soccer team. At the end, the team apologizes, saying that it's not because they don't like him...
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 Plucky: It's because you're a lousy goalie.

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  • Picky Eater
  • Pie in the Face: Fowlmouth (and later Buster) gets one while strapped to the anti-swearing machine.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Babs and Buster. (No relation.)
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Plucky Duck, and no other.
  • Political Correctness Gone Mad: The episode "Washingtoon", where a lobbyist calls for the cancellation of Tiny Toons because it contains comic violence. She wants every kids program on the air to be touchy-feely, inoffensive, and bland.
  • Poorly-Disguised Pilot: The episodes with Elmyra's family.
    • The first one introduced us to Mr. Skullhead, as the subject of Elmyra's imaginary TV show. He went on to become a recurring character in Animaniacs.
    • Elmyra ended up starring in another show anyway, but her family (and even Furrball) got left out of it.
    • "Fields of Honey" and "Two-Tone Town" were also suspected of being this; the latter even lampshades the show's eventual replacement (with Animaniacs "ACME Oop!").
  • Positive Discrimination: Young black female Mary Melody, the only non-villainous human, whose main purpose is to be nice. She wasn't used often or in significant roles, to the point that Lampshade Hanging was done when she turned up as one of the hero's Merry Men in a Robin Hood parody: "Another cameo, another paycheck."
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: Happens at the end of "My Dinner With Elmyra". After Elmyra plants a big one on Montana Max, he was left shocked and then went to his limo saying to himself:
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 Montana Max: I think i'm in love.

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  • Prehensile Tail: Fifi, who can use her tail to grab "boyfriends", as a bat (As seen in Buster at the Bat), as a shield (As seen in the Defenders of the Universe licensed game), and to spray stink (Being a skunk and all).
  • Prima Donna Director: Sappy Stanley from "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny". Just one example of his demanding nature:
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  Stanley: NOBODY drinks coffee on my set! I make one phone call and there won't be any coffee in this town for a month!!

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  • Pun-Based Title: "Born to Be Riled", "Fang You Very Much", "Easy Biter", "Bird-Dog Afternoon", "Senserely Yours, Babs", "Prom-Ise Her Anything", "Tennis the Menace", "Fur-Gone Conclusion", the list goes on.
  • Puni Plush: Perhaps an American example. They're portrayed as teenagers, but look rather younger. Of course, they are toons.
  • Punny Name: Mary Melody is a play on the Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" shorts. Also Fowlmouth, the foul-mouthed rooster.
  • Rascally Rabbit: Babs and Buster Bunny.
  • Rated "M" for Manly: The second protagonist the animator comes up with is big, muscular, and fires a machine gun.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "Prom-ise Her Anything", Max gives one of these to Elmyra, and then he receives a very similar one from Dizzy Devil's date Mitzi a few minutes later.
    • Fifi gives one to Johnny after he gives away her photograph to Bimbette in the movie.
  • Reference Overdosed
  • The Renaissance Age of Animation
  • Repeat After Me: "Say Goodnight, Babs." "Goodnight, Babs."
  • Retcon: The episode "Fields of Honey" re-writes the Bosko history for the purposes of the plot; in real life, the Bosko series ended because Harman & Ising left Warner Bros. and took Bosko with them. In "Fields of Honey", however, Bosko and Honey lost popularity once new star Porky Pig debuted. In real life, Porky didn't debut until 1935, though, and arguably didn't make it big until 1936, a good three years after Bosko shorts already ended. Then again, who could blame them for wanting to Retcon the existence of Buddy?
    • In "Elmyra at the Mall" (part of "You Asked For It Again"), Elmyra has a completely different set of parents than the ones which later appeared in "Take Elmyra, Please" and "Grandma's Dead".
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Furrball, Fifi, Sweety and Little Sneezer.
  • Right on the Tick: Plucky waits for school to end in "One Minute 'Till Three."
  • Running Gag: Several. "No relation!" is one of the most well-known.
    • Episode specific example: In "The Learning Principal" (part of "Looniversity Days"), everyone requesting Buster's stereo.
  • Running on All Fours: Fifi sometimes does this.
  • Sapient Cetaceans: This show had occasional appearances by Orson Whales, who had the same voice as Brain.
  • Saw a Woman In Half: Buster does this to Montana Max in "Sleight of Hare" (part of "You Asked For It").
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Montana Max's M.O.
  • Self-Deprecation: The characters made fun of the writers all the time, from lampshading their falling through literal plot holes to the lyrics for the Wonderful Life Christmas special ("Our writers aren't gifted/the story has been lifted...").
    • From "Strange Tales of Weird Science", after one of the segments:
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  Babs: Wow, you came back??

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  • Sexy Santa Dress: Babs and Cher wear skimpy dresses when shooting a video (Babs even wears a wig matching Cher's hair).
  • Ship Tease: Buster and Babs can't seem to decide whether they're just really good friends or a couple, and the writers had quite a bit of fun teasing us about it until the third season (when they finally started being overtly romantic).
  • Short Distance Phone Call: Seen in "Day For Knight" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits") when Buster and Hamton talk on the phone, and are standing right next to each other.
  • Shout-Out: In "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits", Babs performs a train-whistle style scream that is a shout out to a similar scream done by Roger Rabbit.
  • A Roger Rabbit look/sound-alike also appeared in "New Character Day" and "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian."
    • "The Return of Pluck Twacy" is Eddie Fitzgerald's tribute to The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
      • For that matter, "Bat's All Folks" (also an obvious shout-out to Batman) introduced a set of Batman villain parodies and had Plucky react to them in the same way Duck Twacey reacts to his rogue's gallery.
    • "Inside Plucky Duck" is the Shout Out towards the Clampett Corneal Catastrophe, in Book Revue.
    • There's also Buster's dance moves in "Prom-ise Her anything". Which come straight out of Bugs' Hot Cross Bunny
    • Shirley's psychic rampage in "The Amazing Three" is reminiscent of the prom scene of Carrie. Babs even asks Fifi if she remembered that particular movie.
    • In "Drawn and Buttered" (part of "Here's Hamton"), the lobster pranks Hamton and then says a line used in many Tex Avery cartoons:
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  Lobster: I do this kind of stuff to him all through the cartoon.

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  • Sidekick: In the first episode, Plucky is hired specifically to be the joint sidekick of Buster and Babs. He angrily points out that Hamton (who they've already hired as the Straight Man) "has all the earmarks of a sidekick" and reveals that Hamton really does have "sidekick" written on his ear. These two characters pretty much play the sidekick roles throughout the series, and in a lot of the action parodies Hamton becomes Plucky's sidekick, making him the sidekick to a sidekick.
  • Slapstick Knows No Gender: Babs even pies herself in the show's opening.
  • Smoking Is Not Cool: The "Butt Out" segment in "Life in the '90s" is all about Babs being unable to enjoy her ice cream sundae because of secondhand smoke from Roderick and Rhubella. Buster also delivers an anti-smoking message (albeit non-Anvilicious) in the segment's intro.
  • Sneeze of Doom: Lil' Sneezer's signature trope.
  • So Bad It's Good: In-universe example; Cooper DeVille realizes that Buster, Babs, and Plucky's movie in "Toons Take Over" falls into this category, though he initially feels it's horrible.
  • Something Completely Different: The episodes "Tiny Toons Music Television" and "Toon TV", which abandoned the three shorts format in favor of some music videos.
  • Something We Forgot: "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny" ends with Buster asking this question. Turns out they forgot to release Plucky and Daffy from jail.
  • Sound Effect Bleep: Used liberally in "To Bleep Or Not To Bleep" (from "Test Stressed"), as Fowlmouth can't stop swearing.
  • Species Surname: Buster and Babs Bunny. (No relation.)
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Many fans still misspell "Hamton" and "La Fume" as "Hampton" and "Le Fume." respectively. Also "Fowlmouth," not "Foulmouth." Furthermore, "Furrball" has two R's.
  • Spinoff Babies: Perhaps one of the best-loved examples of this trope.
  • Spiritual Successor: "Class Cut-Up" is basically "One Froggy Evening", only with Hamton and featuring some dialog.
  • Split-Screen Phone Call: Parodied in "Born to Be Riled".
    • Also "Happy Birthday Hamton", where Buster and Plucky's screens crush Hamton in the middle.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: There's actually a Spotlight Stealing class at the Looniversity (taught by notorious Attention Whore Daffy Duck). Plucky, Buster, Babs, Hamton and Elmyra must have done especially well, considering how much focus they got.
    • This is lampshaded at the end of "How Sweetie It Is", in which the secondary characters protest against Buster and Babs for not giving them enough focus.
  • Steven Ulysses Perhero: Parodied on "Superbabs", wherein Babs Bunny, as Superbabs, protects the general metropolitan area. The other characters realize at the end of the short that she must be someone they know.
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 Plucky Duck: Now who do we know named "Super"?

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  • Stock Footage: "Take Elmyra Please" begins with reused animation from "K-ACME TV", except with new dialog reflecting that Buster and Babs are presenting an episode centered around Elmyra's family. This is particularly odd because the "K-ACME TV" footage was by Wang, but "Take Elmyra Please" was done by TMS.
    • An odd example: The opening of "Strange Tales of Weird Science" (that is, Elmyra forcing Buster and Babs to play with her) was actually stock footage, though it wasn't used in any aired episode. It was originally intended for "The Looney Beginning", but was cut for time. Since "Weird Science" was running short, this bit was inserted into that episode and some new dialog was ADR'd into the scene to change the context that Buster and Babs are late starting the show because they're being hounded by Elmyra. It's easy to tell this footage was meant for another episode, however, because it was animated by Kennedy Cartoons and Wang Film Productions, while "Weird Science" was by Encore Cartoons.
  • Straight Man: Hamton, much like his mentor Porky Pig was to the Looney Tunes. Mary Melody in the rare times she actually interacts with the main characters.
    • Lampshaded in the first episode, when Hamton auditions for the show. He's specifically hired because Babs says they need a straight man.
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  Hamton: I react to characters funnier than I am!

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  • Suck E. Cheese's: Cheesy Sneezer's. Although the name brings to mind Caesarland, the Chuck E. Cheese's clone made by Little Caesars.
  • Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: In the episode where the main gang ends up in England, Babs reveals she's fluent in "royalese," which was necessary in order to talk to Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
  • Suddenly Voiced: Furrball, and not consistently, either. One time it was Frank Welker performing Furrball's voice (basically, a higher version of his Fred Jones voice); another time, it was just Frank meowing; yet another time, Rob Paulsen did his voice instead.
    • It should be noted that two of the instances where Furrball speaks (specifically, "Cinemaniacs" and "Buster and the Wolverine") were early in the production order, and thus can be seen as testing whether he should have a voice or not. The writers quickly decided Furrball worked better as a normal cat who just meows.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: A music cue in "Hollywood Plucky" sounds very similar to "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky; appropriate, since the scene in question was a "Rocky" parody.
    • In "Bat's All Folks" (part of "Inside Plucky Duck"), a music cue similar to the Batman TV series theme is heard.
    • For some reason, the show never quite played the Raymond Scott piece "Powerhouse" (used in tons of Looney Tunes shorts), but instead used a sound-alike.
    • "Concord the Kindly Condor" is a sound-alike to "Frosty the Snowman".
    • "Happy Birthday, Hamton" (part of "Playtime Toons") features a parody of "We're Off to See the Wizard", called "We're Off to Spend Some Money".
  • Taken for Granite: Happens to Roderick in "The Acme Bowl" after running through and smelling a cloud of Fifi's stink, Hamton in "The Just-us League of Supertoons" after being hit by a blast of Fifi's stink, and Hamton in "Pluck O' the Irish" by a banshee's stare.
  • Take That: The Spring Break special directs one each at Beavis and Butthead and Ren and Stimpy.
    • The above-mentioned Roderick and Rhubella Rat are almost certainly meant to be the Tiny Toons counterparts to Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
    • The creepy fanboy in "Night Ghoulery" is based on a stalker who sent Tress MacNeille disturbing letters which caused her to fear for life and cancel any convention appearances she was planning to make around where he lives[2].
    • Censors are frequently bashed, even making a whole episode ("Washingtoon") about how it's bad. It doesn't help they openly bash them in the theme song.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: In-universe, the first idea the animator comes up with for a rabbit protagonists is a cute little critter with a high-pitched voice and big eyes. The animator declares it'll give people cavities before crumpling the drawing and throwing it away.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: And how! Babs being piiiink and wearing bows in her ears.
  • Theme Tune Roll Call: In order of appearance: Babs, Buster, Montana Max, Elmyra, Hamton, Plucky, Dizzy Devil, Furrball, and Gogo.
    • Also parodied in "The Buster Bunny Bunch", due to it being a parody of The Mickey Mouse Club.
  • They Might Be Giants: "Particle Man" and "Istanbul" were made into videos with the TTA characters, but both have Plucky and Hamton in the starring roles. In one part of "Istanbul", they even have Plucky and Hamton portray TMBG themselves.
    • Those videos are still fan favorites today. A lot of people only got into They Might Be Giants after hearing their songs in the show.
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  Buster: Who are these guys?!

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  • Thick Line Animation: Certain scenes in most episodes animated by Kennedy Cartoons, which was not used after Season 1 due to quality control issues.
    • Wang is also guilty of this in its S1 episodes, though they got better, as mentioned above.
  • Three Shorts: Some were in this format (usually with a bumper before each), while others were standalone 22-minute episodes. Even rarer are the "one short and one long" 2-ep format.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: Some characters (both the furry and the fur-less) have had this occur with them in some episodes, which would include the following:
    • In "To Bleep or Not To Bleep" from "Test Stressed", a furious Fowlmouth finds out that Shirley had already been asked to the prom by Plucky; he looks as if he's about to blow up once again, the few babies Buster used to ease up on the rooster's obscenities cry and flee, he's literally stomping mad, so much so he causes the earth to shake, his face turns violet and just as he's seemingly going to let loose with the bleeped, bad language, his facial color reverts to normal and he nonchalantly and coolly says, "rats, maybe next time".
    • In "Her Wacky Highness", Elmer Fudd gets red-faced and he blows his top when he catches Babs using her impressions to make fun of him, right as soon as he returns to the classroom.
    • In "Born To Be Riled" from "The Buster Bunny Bunch", Shirley and Fifi's faces turn red, as they're fuming at Babs' impressions of them.
    • In "Kat-Astrophe" from "Wake Up Call of the Wild", Hamton's face gets red, heated over Furball's inability to resist destroying the house.
    • In "Rent-A-Friend" from "Rainy Daze", an irate Montana Max's face turns red, having had enough of Buster's antics with him and he attempts to call the eponymous service to replace the bunny.
    • In "Pledge Week" from " It's All Relative", a ticked-off and irritated Babs' face turns red when her mother tells her once again to do "that other funny thing you do", which is hindering her plans with Buster. Babs quotes her except in first person, through clenched teeth.
    • In "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian", Buster's face turns into a paler shade of blue than usual, when steward Plucky asks if he'd like gray lumps with brown sauce or brown lumps with gray sauce. Save for his red shirt, Buster also gets ill from eating a carrot chip and in reaction to it, he melts into a puddle and dashes to the airplane's restroom (which is already full of occupants who also have upset stomachs) to throw up in there. He then exits the restroom and asks, "So you guys had the carrot chips too?"
    • In "The Voyage of Kon Ducki" from "Kon Ducki", Plucky's face is turned white during the sea storm part and he gets seasickness, and turned away from the viewers, he's seen vomiting over the ship, into the sea.
    • In the same segment/episode, a bashful Hamton is seen blushing lightly after his grass skirt falls from his waist and a tour bus guide points him out to the tourists.
    • In "Corn-Heads" from "Weekday Afternoon Live", Elmyra's face turns red with anger, so much so that it causes the corn cob on her head to heat up and blow like a volcano. This causes the corn to turn into popcorn, a pile of which appears soon after, and she is then seen lain down and passed out.
    • In one wraparound of "Weekday Afternoon Live", a monster eats Blart Simpleton, then turns entirely green before exploding and Blart is freed.
  • Tickle Torture: Performed by a villain (Sloppy Moe from the Injun Trouble short with Porky Pig and Wagon Heels) on Plucky in "The Return of Pluck Twacy" (part of "New Character Day").
  • Took a Level In Jerkass: While Michigan J. Frog has never been a particularly nice or cooperative amphibian, he takes it to extremes in one episode where he outright mocks a turtle that's having trouble crossing a busy highway. He gets his comeuppance.
  • Toothy Bird: See Plucky in the above picture.
    • Fowlmouth too.
  • Tradesnark: In "Hollywood Plucky", Hamton was working a valet parking job, and Batman has him park his Batmobile. However, while attempting to do this, Hamton accidently flies it into the moon. It turns into a Bat-signal, and a "TM" quickly flies up next to it.
  • Tour Guide Gag
  • Twist Ending: Lampshaded in "A Walk on the Flip Side" (part of "The ACME Acres Zone"); Montana Max dreamed he was a rabbit and went through numerous hardships. But when Buster and Babs beg for carrots, Max shouts, "Carrots?! You have the nerve to ask me for carrots?! AFTER WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH?!" Babs is dismayed that Max didn't learn anything and that the short didn't have a twist ending (per usual for The Twilight Zone), but Buster tells her to wait for it. Sure enough, Max's mansion is then overrun by rabbits, a fitting punishment.
  • Two Shorts: While most episodes typically adopted the Three Shorts format or a single story for the half hour, five episodes utilized the Two Shorts format: "Inside Plucky Duck", "Ask Mr. Popular", "Fairy Tales For the 1990s", "New Character Day", and "Buster's Directorial Debut".
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The unfortunate side effect of all those contemporary pop culture references.
  • Vacation Episode: The OAV Tiny Toon Adventures How I Spent My Vacation.
  • Vague Age: Somewhere from elementary school to college, although Babs says she's 14 in the first episode (oddly, 16 in the Brazilian dub).
    • If they are indeed in high school, they might fall into Older Than They Look. Indeed, some episodes portray Acme Loo as high school, or even middle school, instead of a university.
  • Valley Girl: Like, Shirley Mcloon, or some junk. She was voiced by noted valley girl Gail Matthius.
  • Vapor Wear: Babs, see Going Commando above.
    • Elmyra in "Starting From Scratch", however, that was an animation goof. Seen in the scene when Furball in clinging to her.
  • Very Special Episode: At first parodied ("Elephant Issues", the Toxic Revenger episodes), but later played straight ("Whale's Tales" and "Washingtoon").
  • Vocal Evolution: Charlie Adler's voice for Buster is noticeably higher in some of the earlier-recorded episodes (e.g. "Cinemaniacs" and "Buster and the Wolverine"), almost sounding as if it were pitch-shifted slightly. Montana Max's voice also became a little deeper over time, but it's justified in his case, as Danny Cooksey was the one of the only actual children in the voice cast (Nathan Ruegger, who voiced Baby Plucky, was the other).
  • Watch Where You're Going: One ballet themed episode had Shirley Mcloon utilize some ballet inspired Deadly Dodging, causing two Swans trying to kill her to smash right into each other.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: When Plucky and Hamton stole a candy bar.
    • At least they subverted the "reward the child thief for his honesty" trope.
  • White Dwarf Starlet: Elmyra in "Sepulveda Boulevard", which is a parody episode of Sunset Boulevard.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: There's the It's a Wonderful Life episode, the Citizen Kane one, the Sunset Boulevard episode, the Blade Runner short, and of course Star Wars...
  • Who Writes This Crap?: All the time.
    • Almost a literal example in "The Horn Blows at Lunchtime", which was basically an eight-minute fart joke. Babs asks, "Who wrote this?"
    • And the "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian" episode mentioned in the Promoted Fangirls listing.
Cquote1

 Buster: What's with this script? It's like 13-year-olds wrote it!

Babs: 13-year-olds did write it.

Cquote2

Cquote1

 We're tiny, we're dopey!

We're all a little tropey!

It's Tiny Toon Adventures, here on T! V! Tropes!

...read it or you're a dope!
 

Cquote2


  1. They'd be AKOM, T Ms (and through TMS, Kyoto Animation, Nakamura Productions, Studio Jungle Gym, Mook DLE, Anime Spot and others), Wang Film Productions, Star Toons, Kennedy Cartoons (and through Kennedy, Fil-Cartoons and Wang) Freelance Animators New Zealand and Encore Cartoons.
  2. As an interesting historical footnote, this same guy, Dennis Falk, was also an early activist for the fair-use rights of privately owned internet fansites, which just goes to show you don't need to be sane, or even a decent human being, to get shit done.
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