History WesternAnimation / MiloMurphysLaw

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/milo_murphys_law.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[Main/WorldGoneMad "Never boring even for a minute, it's my world and we're all living in it!"]] [[note]]Front row, left to right: [[DeadpanSnarker Melissa]], [[WalkingDisasterArea Milo]], [[CowardlyLion Zack]]. In the background on the left, top to bottom: [[TheCatCameBack Diogee]], [[SitcomArchnemesis Elliot the Crossing Guard]], [[ObsessivelyOrganized Amanda]], [[GranolaGuy Mort]], Bradley. In the background on the right, top to bottom: a [[ShowWithinAShow Doctor Zone]] billboard, [[BritishStuffiness Cavendish]] and [[BigEater Dakota]] saving [[ArcSymbol pistachios]], [[AgentMulder Chad]], [[AmbiguouslyHuman Mr. Drako]]. All over the place: [[NoodleIncident llamas]].[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Main/WorldGoneMad "Never boring even for a minute, it's my world and we're all living in it!"]] [[note]]Front row, left to right: [[DeadpanSnarker Melissa]], [[WalkingDisasterArea Milo]], [[CowardlyLion Zack]]. In the background on the left, top to bottom: [[TheCatCameBack Diogee]], [[SitcomArchnemesis Elliot the Crossing Guard]], [[{{Super OCD}} Amanda]], [[GranolaGuy Mort]], Bradley. In the background on the right, top to bottom: a [[ShowWithinAShow Doctor Zone]] billboard, [[BritishStuffiness Cavendish]] and [[BigEater Dakota]] saving [[ArcSymbol pistachios]], [[AgentMulder Chad]], [[AmbiguouslyHuman Mr. Drako]]. All over the place: [[NoodleIncident llamas]].[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Main/WorldGoneMad "Never boring even for a minute, it's my world and we're all living in it!"]] [[note]]Front row, left to right: [[DeadpanSnarker Melissa]], [[WalkingDisasterArea Milo]], [[CowardlyLion Zack]]. In the background on the left, top to bottom: [[TheCatCameBack Diogee]], [[SitcomArchnemesis Elliot the Crossing Guard]], [[{{Super OCD}} Amanda]], [[GranolaGuy Mort]], [[GrumpyBear Bradley]]. In the background on the right, top to bottom: a [[ShowWithinAShow Doctor Zone]] billboard, [[BritishStuffiness Cavendish]] and [[BigEater Dakota]] saving [[ArcSymbol pistachios]], [[AgentMulder Chad]], [[AmbiguouslyHuman Mr. Drako]]. All over the place: [[NoodleIncident llamas]].[[/note]]]]

The first episode premiered on October 3rd, 2016 on Creator/DisneyXD. The series moved to Creator/DisneyChannel for its second season, which began on January 5, 2019 with the {{crossover}} episode ''[[Recap/MiloMurphysLawS2E1ThePhineasAndFerbEffect The Phineas and Ferb Effect]]''. After the events of that episode, some members of the ''Phineas and Ferb'' cast (namely Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz) [[{{Transplant}} became recurring characters]] on ''Milo''. The final episode of season two, "Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space", aired on May 18, 2019. Writer Joshua Pruett would confirm the same day that [[https://twitter.com/zombietardis/status/1129758025345114115 the show had not been greenlit for a third season]], with Dan Povenmire later stating that an additional season was highly unlikely.

''Milo Murphy's Law'' is an animated comedy series created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh that follows the life of the titular Milo Murphy (voiced by Music/WeirdAlYankovic), and [[TheVerse takes place in the same town of Danville]] as the duo's previous show, ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''.

The production crew would move on to make ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieCandaceAgainstTheUniverse'' and Povenmire's next show for the network, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRqA-ha5wz8 Hamster & Gretel]]''.

''Milo Murphy's Law'' is an animated comedy series created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh that follows the life of the titular Milo Murphy (voiced by Music/WeirdAlYankovic), and [[SharedUniverse takes place in the same town of Danville]] as the duo's previous show, ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''.

-->-- "Going the Extra Milo"

[[folder: N to Z]]
* SeenItAll:
** Milo has been through so much that he barely reacts to anything beyond mild surprise.
** Most of Milo's peers are fully aware of what happens to him day after day, and just pretty much expect the crazy to occur within his vicinity.
* SeldomSeenSpecies:
** A pileated woodpecker first appears in "Murphy's Lard".
** A flock of red-billed choughs appear in "Perchance to Sleepwalk".
** An olive flounder appears in "Some Like it Yacht".
** "Love Toboggan" has a family of chukar partridges.
** "Island of Lost Dakotas" has a catalina macaw (a hybrid of a blue-and-gold macaw and a scarlet macaw).
** The skeletons of ''Ambulocetus'' and ''Chasmosaurus'' briefly appear in "Doof's Day Out".
** "Safety First" has a herd of capybaras.
** Black veil angelfish and copperband butterflyfish appear in "First Impressions".
* SelfDeprecation: In "Worked Day", when Milo is looking at a list of possible careers he could choose for Career Day:
-->'''Milo''': And some of these don't even sound like real jobs. ''Animator''? I think it's a typo. But what if that is a real job?
* SelfParody: The song "Toboggan of Love" is a parody of "Boat of Romance" from ''Phineas and Ferb''.
** Milo has platypus pajamas that look like all platypuses seen in ''Phineas and Ferb,'' leading to this exchange:
--->'''Sara:''' [...] Why are they teal? [[SomewhereAMammalogistIsCrying Aren't platypuses brown?]]
--->'''Milo:''' [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife Someone's idea of "artsy."]]
* SequelSeries: This show begins with the first day of school after the summer which ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' took place during. From time to time, characters bring up the ways Phineas and Ferb’s actions affected their own summer, like the time the boys’ roller coaster fell out of the sky and nearly crushed Melissa. This affects the second season more than the first, as a major arc is Doofenshmirtz trying to learn how to do good, after formally having a HeelFaceTurn in the GrandFinale of ''Phineas and Ferb''.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The main reason BOTT exists is to fix the past, from World Wars to pistachios going extinct. Sometimes needed because Dakota and Cavendish made things go wrong in the first place when originally they hadn't. Dakota also does it often to [[spoiler:save Cavendish after the many times he dies]].
* ShaggyDogStory: In "We're Going to the Zoo", after Milo, Sara, and Zack have gone to all the trouble of retrieving Brigette's T-shirts, which they had accidentally donated, it turns out she had planned on donating them to begin with.
* SharedUniverse: As stated, it's set in Danville, [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb Phineas and Ferb's]] own hometown, but just a few neighborhoods away from the two stepbrothers.
** "Rooting For The Enemy" features a reference to [[{{Recap/PhineasAndFerbMyFairGoalie}} Football X-7]].
** In "Worked Day", Balthazar is seen with a Danville map as they try to deliver a pistachio truck to its appropriate warehouse.
** The Dr. Zone fan with the braces in "Wilder West" was a background character in [[{{Recap/PhineasAndFerbNerdsOfAFeather}} "Nerds of a Feather"]] during the "Our Movie's Better Than Yours" song, among the Stumbleberry Finkbat fans.
** In "Murphy's Lard," Melissa reveals that on the first day of summer, her science project was destroyed by (unknown to her) Phineas and Ferb's falling rollercoaster from the latter's first episode.
** Milo is seen wearing Perry the Platypus pajamas in "We're Going to the Zoo." Perry's theme is briefly used in the score. In the same episode, one of the rock band T-shirts stolen by the monkeys is for Love Händel and another for Lindana.
** In "The Substitute" there are two hints. First, one of the zoetropes shows the Klimpaloon dancing. The second is on the mysterious moving periodic table, which has Pzl (for Pizzazium Infinionite) on the 19th column and below the rest of the table.
** In "The Phineas And Ferb Effect" we get the long awaited crossover between the words, once and for all putting to rest that the two shows share the same world.
** The song "I'm Lindana and I Want to Have Fun" shows up a few times in season 2.
* ShipperOnDeck:
** Buford for Zack and Melissa in "The Phineas and Ferb Effec."
** Milo also playfully but approvingly teases Zack when Melissa kisses the latter on the cheek at the end of "Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space." Earlier in the episode, Perry also similarly teases him after he and Melissa have a moment.
* ShoehornedAcronym: In the climax of "The Phineas and Ferb Effect", Derek reveals his M.U.L.C.H. device, standing for "Machine Used for Literally Converting Humans? To Plants". Baljeet and Buford point out that would make the acronym MULCHTP, with Derek shouting at them that the TP is silent.
* ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow: PlayedWith; while many plots revolve around school, in one episode we find out that with all of the commotion that goes into Milo's everyday life, he can't attend school like any normal person and has a lot of school to make up for, having to bring in a ''month's'' worth of doctor's notes to explain his absences.
* ShoutOut: Has [[ShoutOut/MiloMurphysLaw its own page]].
* ShowWithinAShow: ''The Dr. Zone Files'' is a show about a time traveler with the same name and his sidekick Time Ape. Milo and Sara Murphy love this show to the point where they would watch it all night.
* ShownTheirWork:
** In "Going the Extra Milo", Milo correctly points out that bees are responsible for far more human fatalities than wolves are.
** In "Murphy's Lard", Milo calls a woodpecker "Picidae", the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picidae scientific term]] for woodpeckers.
** The giraffes in "We're Going to the Zoo" have blue tongues like real giraffes. In the same episode, there is a female ostrich with brown plumage instead of black and white like the males.
** "Perchance to Sleepwalk" features "red-beaked crows", a seemingly fictional species of bird. However, when the birds show up, Cavendish's device identifies them as ''Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax'', the scientific name of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-billed_chough red-billed chough]], which is a real species of corvid with a red beak.
* SiblingTriangle: A minor example, as both Brulee sisters seem infatuated with Milo in "Family Vacation" (though he [[ObliviousToLove doesn't seem to notice]]).
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Sara, Melissa, and Savannah (averting BeautyIsNeverTarnished) all get treated the same as the men by Murphy's Law
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Phineas and Ferb''. Instead of making every day awesome with something your parents would clearly disapprove of but never find out about, it's how to find the fun in awesomely bad luck that would send your parents into a frothing panic if they ever found out (assuming they didn't suffer from it themselves).
* SpringtimeForHitler: In "Doof's Day Out", Dr. Doofenshmirtz is experiencing a slump, so he decides to volunteer at a life-size exhibit of the human digestive system where he builds a go-cart [[NoodleImplements out of exhibit pieces that resemble a liver, blood corpuscles, a heart, and a spleen]] to get Zack out of the body exhibit. Later, he goes to the nature center and volunteers in the raccoon exhibit, where he releases the raccoons and rounds them up by blowing a whistle that also summons a herd of pigs. At Mr. Murphy's workplace, he accidentally pushes the safety button with his butt. As Doof muses on his apparent failures back at the Murphys' house, news reporter Destiny Summers comes to the door to interview him, with the museum curator noting that Doof's go-cart attracted more visitors to the human body exhibit, the nature center received thousands of donations after a video of Doof's incident went viral, and accidentally pressing the button at Mr. Murphy's workplace flooded the generator with coolant, preventing a possible explosion due to the warning system not working properly. The curator, museum supervisor, plant foreman, and the crowd give Doofenschmirtz their congratulations.
* SpySatellites: A spy drone crosses Milo's neighborhood to check on one of the agent's brother-in-law in "The Note." His superior admonishes him for crossing "the Murphy Sector."
* StableTimeLoop:
** In "Missing Milo." [[spoiler: As Milo, Cavendish and Dakota attempt to navigate the BadFuture, a peach hits Cavendish in the back of the head, alerting him to impending disaster. Dakota grabs the peach and puts it in his jacket. Later, Cavendish sees his past self in danger, takes the peach from Dakota and throws it at him to redirect his attention. [[OverlyLongGag Cue endless talking in circles as they attempt to figure out where the peach came from in the first place]].]]
** Later in the episode, Milo's friends give him a letter in his own handwriting which he will eventually, while trapped in the past, place in care of Orton Mahlson to pass on to them. From Milo's perspective this hasn't happened yet, so he decides to [[GenreSavvy hang onto it so he won't have to write it]].
** "Fungus Among Us" confirms that Milo inspired the original run of ''Doctor Zone'' by [[spoiler: telling its creator all about the show as he knew it from his own time, down to episode summaries]].
* StalkerShrine: [[PlayingWith Played with]] when Zack interprets [[spoiler: Melissa's room full of pictures of Milo]] as this; it's actually [[StringTheory serving a more practical purpose]].
* StatingTheSimpleSolution: Zack, Melissa, Cavendish, Dakota, Doofenschmirtz, and Perry have to figure out a way to get an alien carburetor back into place to get a spaceship moving. Unfortunately, touching it temporarily turns your bones into a jelly-like substance. They all set themselves up in a line and toss it to each other so they only have to touch it a few seconds, with the last one getting attaching it. When they're all lying on the floor waiting for their bones to solidify, Zack realizes that they could have just used tongs to move it without touching it.
* StealthSequel: According to hints, WordOfGod, and the eventual crossover, it's set in the same universe as ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''.
** "Fungus Among Us" makes this even more evident as it implies the crossover is happening due to [[spoiler:Doofenshmirtz being implied to be "Professor Time," previously mentioned as the inventor of time travel]].
** Season 2 outright confirms it by [[spoiler:frequently featuring Doofenshmirtz in episodes as well as a few other characters in some like Perry and Monogram, and "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" ends up heavily tying the two shows together. Considering Doofenshmirtz is the future Professor Time, his appearance is more than justified]].
* StuffBlowingUp: The title sequence of ''The Dr. Zone Files: The Movie Files'' has an explosion in an empty desert.
** The show proper has more than its fair share of this trope, naturally.
* StylisticSuck: The Doctor Zone Files have SpecialEffectsFailure to rival some of the classic episodes of ''Series/DoctorWho'', possibly as a ShoutOut.
* SuddenlyBilingual: Both Milo and Diogee are able to speak Spanish according to "The Llama Incident".
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** People tend to adapt to new situations, no matter how unpleasant or hazardous. In the event that a person, let's call him Murphy, should be prone to a city destroying level of bad luck, then the people who survive long enough, who also are too stubborn to move, will eventually adapt ways of protecting themselves from the impending doom that is Murphy's presence. Such behaviors are known to include carrying riot shields, keeping the proper authorities on speed dial, and giving Murphy a ten meter radius at all times.
*** Similarily, instead of having to shield himself from everyone else due to his condition, Milo just learns to adapt to it.
** MadeOfIron is also {{averted}} a couple of times in the show, as Milo does get injured frequently due to his status as TheJinx. Examples include him breaking his thumb, and wearing a sling for an entire episode [[NoodleIncident with no explanation.]]
** "Athledecamathalon" has Melissa trying to channel her anger into doing a shotput. She does not get it far.
** Sometimes there just isn't a romantic spark. All the elements might be there, compatibility, chemistry, even sharing high risk lives and depending on each other, but it sometimes just doesn't happen. This is the fully acknowledged situation between Brick and Savannah. While they may seem like a couple straight out of James Bond, they really are JustFriends. Even they seem to think it's weird.
** Derek (the then-last remaining Pistachion) survives in 1955 to continue his king’s legacy. After finding Milo, Chavendish, and Dakota in 1965, he goes on about how he spent 10 years coming up with his plan, as well as how he was even able to profit it.[[note]]His plan was to replace everyone with Pistachions disguised as them, a la ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers''[[/note]]
--->'''Derek:''' Well, the first seven years were brainstorming, and you know, I had to find an apartment, and I did take one summer off to do some modelling. Yes, I was young and foolish, but I regret nothing!
*** As revealed in "The Phineas and Ferb Effect", Derek was ''terrible'' at managing an actual TV show, resulting in Dr. Zone getting cancelled after two episodes.
** In "Teacher Feature", Mrs. Murawski goes on a date with Scott the Undergrounder. At the end, while she did genuinely enjoy their date admires his kind personality, she was still put off by his... "tendencies" while underground.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In ''Smooth Opera-Tor:'' "Yeah, it's not like we tied up the guy who usually does this and stashed him in the basement."
* SwappedRoles: In "Backwards to School Night," Martin Murphy, Eileen Underwood and Richard Chase [[BabyMorphEpisode are turned into three-year-olds]], leaving Milo, Zack and Melissa to parent their own parents. It's harder than they thought it would be.
* TheSwearJar: "Family Vacation" includes an eye-roll jar, an "unnecessary use of 'grand'" jar, an "anthropomorphizing national monuments" jar, and an "[[RunningGag unnecessary wordplay during crisis]]" jar for the Brulee family. [[BrickJoke The final scene shows that Milo's family has a "sappy sentiment" jar.]]
* TakeThat: The episode "A Clockwork Origin" contains a few jabs at Apple.
* TakeThatAudience: The opening narration of "Milo's Halloween Scream-a-Torium!" addresses the audience as "children and immature adults".
* TalkingAnimal: The alternate timeline that occurs in "World Without Milo" somehow gains talking squirrels.
* TaxonomicTermConfusion: Subverted in "Love Toboggan". A train operator misidentifies a family of partridges as quail, but later realizes his mistake.
* TemporalMutability: The show seems to make use of type 4.
* TemptingFate: The entire show is a giant example of this one, especially when concerning people who haven't been acquainted with Milo. Melissa even name drops it "The Wilder West".
-->'''Melissa:''' Isn't it dangerous to tempt fate?
* TheEndOrIsIt: [[spoiler:The "Missing Milo" special ends this way, with the last of the Pistachio people ending up in the 1955 Town fair]].
* ThoseTwoGuys: Cavendish and Dakota.
* ThreeAmigos: Milo, Melissa, and Zack.
* TimeMachine: Time travelers use car-shaped time vehicles.
** Doctor Zone and Time Ape use the Time Bee-hicle, a beetle-shaped car shaped like a bee.
** Agents Cavendish and Dakota use a near-broken time vehicle that looks like a hybrid between a beetle and a jeep.
** Agents Brick and Savannah use a limo, possibly driven by a man named Lars.
* TimePolice: Savannah and Brick take care of more serious time-related incidents. Vinnie Dakota and Balthazar Cavendish are also from the future, tasked with protecting the world's Pistachio supply, because it's stated pistachio plants will go extinct.
* TimeTravel: It's a plot element in the Doctor Zone Files ShowWithinAShow, but it's also a recurring plot element in this series involving a Time Agency.
* TimmyInAWell: At various points in "Missing Milo," Zack and Melissa each [[LampshadeHanging wonder]] how the other is able to understand Diogee's speech.
* TokenTrio: Milo, Zack and Melissa.
* TheTriple: In "The Little Engine That Couldn't" when Melissa's dad describes Milo as being "like whatever the opposite of a rabbit's foot is":
-->'''Milo:''' A rabbit's head?
-->'''Melissa:''' A fox's foot?
-->'''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Milo]]:''' [[NonSequitur A pound of sugar?]]
* TwoGuysAndAGirl: Again, Milo, Zack, and Melissa.
* UnfazedEveryman: Milo is so used to the strange things that happen to him that he barely even reacts. Melissa as well to a certain extent since she has known Milo for a long time to the point that she can accurately predict what will happen and for how long Milo will be held up.
* UnknownRival: Initially, Cavendish and Dakota are unaware that Milo triggers all the pistachio-related disasters. As of "Time Out", the roles are reversed, with Milo unaware of their plans towards him.
* UnluckilyLucky: Given Milo's curse, he's usually rather short on good luck. After a lifetime of dealing with it though, he's a master at turning it to his advantage.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Those who have known Milo for a while tend to be pretty blasé about the weird things that happen to him... as long as they don't get caught up in it.
* ViewersAreGeniuses: Milo and Veronica haven't seen each other in 300 fortnights. That's roughly 11.5 years. So, the last time they saw each other, Milo was 3 years old. Since Veronica also recognized Diogee, and said he was bigger than the last time they'd met, we have to assume everyone's favorite stout pooch is also around 12 years old.
* VillainousCrush: More like Rival crush, as Bradley isn't villainous, per se. But "Sunny Side Up" makes it obvious that he is interested in Melissa, what with >ahem< '''[[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial not]]''' naming his team after her, [[BlatantLies but a different Melissa.]]
* VocalDissonance: Milo is 13, but due to being voiced by Weird Al, who is in his mid-fifties, sounds much older.
* WalkingDisasterArea: Milo's condition means that his mere presence causes things to go haywire around him.
* WarIsHell: Parodied. A gigantic pistachio is about to crush Milo and Phineas and Ferb's friends, until he sees the fighting all around him, having an existential crisis by asking "WhatHaveIBecome". And then decides to WalkTheEarth. In the middle of the warzone no less.
* WeaksauceWeakness: [[spoiler: King Pistachion's species of pistachio plant is extremely vulnerable to uric acid (which is found in urine)]].
* WealthyYachtOwner: Milo's school has been underfunded ever since [[RunningGag the school board bought that yacht]].
* WhamEpisode:
** "The Island of Lost Dakotas" [[spoiler: reveals that Dakota repeatedly goes back in time to avert Cavendish's numerous deaths and sends the previous versions of himself to live on a deserted island as to not disturb the time stream]].
** "Fungus Among Us" [[spoiler:ends on a cliffhanger with most of the characters having been captured by pistachions. The ending also features the appearance of Dr. Doofenshmirtz, initiating the crossover with ''Phineas and Ferb'']].
** "Snow Way Out" [[spoiler:ends with Cavendish and Dakota getting banned from time travel.]]
* WhamShot: The final shot from the Season 1 finale "Fungus Among Us" is one. Milo and co have arrived at Professor Time's abode as they get trapped, when he gradually walks into the scene, revealing it to be [[spoiler:Dr. Doofenshmirtz from ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''... who set the trap in the first place for the pizza delivery guy]].
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman / WhatMeasureIsAMook: When the sproutlings, clearly sentient, attack the group, Dakota decides he'd like a snack and chows down on a vast majority of them.
* WhatTheHeckIsAnAglet: Milo mentions that shoelace tips are called aglets in "The Island of Lost Dakotas", a CallBack to ''Phineas and Ferb'' in which this fact was the focus of an entire episode.
* WhenTreesAttack: [[spoiler: The "Missing Milo" special has the mutated pistachio plant from "The Substitute" grow into the sentient King Pistachion and take over the world]].
* WithAFriendAndAStranger: Milo’s best friends are Zack, who he meets for the first time in the pilot, and Melissa, who he’s known [[ChildhoodFriends since first grade]].
[[/folder]]

* NeverTrustATrailer: Pre-release trailers suggest that Milo sees riding the bus as a MundaneLuxury. When the scene actually showed on TV, it's actually him saying that it's boring compared to his death-defying daily life.
* NewhartPhonecall: The recurring trucker sometimes engages in these:
-->'''Trucker:''' "...Well I am doing something about it; I'm calling to say you guys didn't strap it on right!"
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In "Backward to School Night", Milo commands Diogee to drop the de-aging device, with causes it to fall on the ground and break into pieces.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Victor Verliezer from "A Clockwork Origin" appears to be based on UsefulNotes/SteveJobs.
* NoEndorHolocaust: Despite the amount of damage the Murphys cause wherever they go,[[note]]examples include ruining the entire stadium twice, smashing holes in the school, and devastating an amusement park[[/note]] the city/school/location visited is never bankrupted by repair bills and nobody is ever killed (and rarely hurt). The place is usually fully repaired by the next time we see it.
* NoodleIncident:
** Starting in "The Undergrounders", Milo and Melissa make several references to a "llama incident" throughout the first season. In this case, the trope is eventually subverted ''and'' played straight in the episode appropriately titled "The Llama Incident". While the episode is spent on them telling Zack exactly what happened, the FramingDevice of the story resulted from its own unexplained event that the characters later dub "The Woodpecker Incident".
** "Sunny Side Up" begins with an elaborate partial story about an orangutan wanting Milo's pistachios. Doubles as a BrickJoke as Zack asks where the nearest zoo is. This gets answered near the end of the episode.
** Melissa records their misadventures on her phone. She references several incidents we've yet to see in "The Note". Including a kangaroo, a tangerine fight at Mardi Gras, and an asteroid.
** Due to a series of events that we don't get to hear about, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is a copy painted by Milo's cousin.
** The existence of time travel creates plenty of these. Earth apparently used to have two moons until Cavendish and Dakota blew one up in the past, leading to the timeline we have today. They also accidentally created and then prevented at least two other alternate timelines in which the [[ForWantOfANail point of divergence]] was never revealed (one where [[spoiler:Milo didn't exist, but balloons resembling him did, and squirrels could talk]] and another with [[spoiler:multiple identical Milos]] [[GoneHorriblyRight when they tried to prevent the former]]). Also, Dakota became a time traveler so he could prevent the "Mississippi Purchase."
--->'''Cavendish:''' You—you mean the Louisiana Purchase?
--->'''Dakota:''' [[RippleEffectProofMemory You're welcome]].
* NorseByNorsewest: Tobias Trollhammer, the star of the "Krillhunter" franchise, of Swedish origin, with a possible Finnish heritage, due to his mistaking Milo for a menninkainen, a mythical being of Finnish folklore similar to leprechauns, goblins, or gnomes.
* NotWhatItLooksLike: Melissa's room is filled with stalker-esque pictures of Milo, but she insists she doesn't have a crush on him. She started researching the Murphy Effect to see if she could find a way to cure it, and by the time she realized he didn't want to be cured, she was already invested in understanding (and potentially monetizing) it. Milo himself figures this out immediately upon seeing her room.
* OnceAnEpisode: Milo's dog, Diogee, pops up unexpectedly and is told to go home. Milo often justifies this by explaining "He's not supposed to be ______"
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Dr. Zone says "button" twice in different ways: one with the glottalized T ("Time Ape, press the button.") and one without ("I've got to hit that button."), indicating that his accent is inconsistent.
* OutdatedOutfit: Cavendish and Dakota, nicely summarized in "Time Out".
-->'''Cavendish:''' It's all the past. We decided to go with the '70s.\\
'''Savannah:''' Yes, but one of you is from the 1970's and one from the '''18'''70's.
* OverlyLongGag: The scraping noises of the chart with the Periodic Table of Elements that Dakota and Cavendish use for cover in "The Substitute".
** In "Party of Peril", the crossing guard ("SAFETY CZAR!") being accosted by an affronted duck. It drags on for a long time, with Milo just watching.
** In "Smooth Opera-tor", the performer's attempt to begin the song constantly being interrupted by pieces of the set collapsing behind him, to the point where he just stops and waits it out as the set completely falls apart and various other calamities occur backstage, only finally starting the song when several seconds pass without anything breaking.
** Dakota and Cavendish's attempt to make sense of a StableTimeLoop involving a peach in "Missing Milo."
** In "Mid-Afternoon Snack Club", the gang has detention by a substitute teacher he leaves and slams a metal door closed. You hear about a dozen different locks being locked. Melissa asks if that door has always been there. All the locks are then unlocked, the door is opened, the sub says he had it installed during lunch. Then the door slams and all the locks are locked. Milo turns to the camera and tells the animators they are welcome.
* ThePerfectionist: Amanda. With her and Milo being {{Ship Tease}}d, this forms a conflict in her personality.
* ThePollyanna: Despite the chaos that unfolds around him, Milo has so far been shown smiling through it and looking on the bright side of it all. In fact, he pretty much prefers getting past dangerous scrapes just to get to school while the other kids just ride a bus. It's much more fun.
* PopularSayingBut: Dr. Zone, a time traveler, when he is flying off with the Time Bee-hicle:
--> '''Dr. Zone:''' Time waits for no man, except for me!
* PosterPatchup: In "Disaster of my Dreams", Elliot, in his zeal to become the school's safety inspector, follows [[TheJinx Milo]] around all day, even spying on him from the [[AirVentPassageway air vents]]. After falling out of the vents and leaving a hole in the science class ceiling, Elliot covers up the hole with a nearby poster.
* PullARabbitOutOfMyHat: Referenced in "Worked Day."
* RammingAlwaysWorks: Subverted in "Fungus Among Us". While the protagonists are navigating through a sewer system, Dakota tries to ram open a grate with their boat, but completely fails.
* RaptorAttack: ''Franchise/JurassicPark''-style dromaeosaurids appear in "A Christmas Peril".
* RascallyRaccoon: Recurring Raccoon. He has no role in the show other than to appear out of nowhere and make things difficult for the characters.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Dakota and Cavendish are given a scathing one by their fellow time agents in "Time Out".
* RidiculouslySuccessfulFutureSelf: [[spoiler: Doofenshmirtz of all people. In the future he's known as Prof. Time and he's known as the genius who invented time travel.]]
** This is how the Orton Mahlson of 1965 feels upon finding out that his show is destined to become an enormously successful franchise. [[spoiler:He and Doofenshmirtz get a duet about the pressure of living up to their future selves in "The Phineas and Ferb Effect."]]
* RefugeInAudacity: In "Rooting for the Enemy", Milo helps his football team, The Jefferson County Middle School Geckos, win by cheering for the ''opposing'' team, The Middletown Tigers, which causes his bad luck to rub off on THEM!!! Milo goes the extra mile by dressing himself completely with Middletown Tigers merchandise. He even goes as far as to sing about it to the opposing team and spectators and they happily go along with it, and he even got their cheerleaders to dance to his song.
* RippleEffectProofMemory: The standard rule that anyone who personally changed the timeline can remember the original timeline seems to be in place, but [[spoiler:Elliot]] also demonstrates this in "World Without Milo" due to [[spoiler:the fact that [[ChekhovsGun he sleeps with his lead-lined stop sign]], [[HandWave which shielded his brain from "time waves."]]]]
* RunningGag:
** A herd of llamas, referenced in several {{Noodle Incident}}s, and which literally run through the Title Sequence.
** The reason that the school is underfunded (the school board bought a yacht).
** Recurring Raccoon. This animal just shows up, steals something from the characters, and leaves. He's even got [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_fo8ujeaKY a jingle]].

* IAmNotWeasel: In "Milo Murphy's Halloween Scream-a-Torium", Elliot dresses as a dinosaur for Halloween, and Milo guesses he's a ''T. rex'' while Zack assumes he's a ''Velociraptor''. Elliot corrects them that he's an ''Allosaurus''.
* IAmSong: The Murphys have a song about what it means when you knock over DisasterDominoes everywhere you go.
--> And the wall falls down,
--> And the wall hits a tree,
--> And the tree hits a poll,
--> And the poll hits a bee.
--> That's how you know you're a Murphy.
** The opening and ending theme itself, which is also a BraggingThemeTune.
* IGotARock: Referenced in Dakota's song "Tonight's The Last Halloween":
-->''We should avoid that house, I hear they're giving fresh fruit''
-->''But right next door they got full-size candy bars!''
* ImmediateSequel: WordOfGod states that the first episode of the show, "Going the Extra Milo", takes place immediately after the series finale of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''. The former takes place on the first day of the school year, while the latter takes place on the last day of summer vacation.
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: The Brulee twins have this reaction to Milo in "Family Vacation".
* InkSuitActor: Savannah and Brick are basically toon versions of Creator/MingNaWen and Creator/BrettDalton.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Milo with Dakota and Cavendish.
* IPhony: Victor Verliezer's vTech Corp., Inc. manufactures the vPhone and the vTablet in "A Clockwork Origin".
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Not only the Murphy's Law effect, but Milo's Dad has been shown to have the same laid back, calm approach to calamities that Milo has.
* ItsAWonderfulPlot: "World Without Milo," in which Elliot, after wishing for Milo's absence, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor wakes up in a world where no one's heard of the kid]], including his best friends and his sister. Unusually for episodes of this kind, the ButterflyOfDoom is averted; the only person deeply affected is [[AntagonistInMourning Elliot]], whose job is [[VictoryIsBoring meaningless without the conflict Milo brings]]. [[ForWantOfANail Also, squirrels can talk]].
* JustFriends: [[BattleCouple Brick and Savanna]]. Even they seem to think it's weird.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: A bald eagle flies off with a sleepwalking Milo in "Perchance to Sleepwalk".
* LamePunReaction:
** In "Rooting for the Enemy", Melissa says that the stadium used to sell German sausages, but they were the worst/wurst. Cue {{Rimshot}}.
---> '''Member of school band:''' [[LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn Check it out, guys, I found a snare drum!]]
** In "Sunny Side Up", Milo and Zack both begin making egg puns, only for Melissa to angrily order them to stop.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Happens a couple of time in the crossover episode.
->Pistachion Guard: "Stop foreshadowing, Bob."
* LethalChef: Well, it's not so much that the Murphy men can't cook. It's just that when they do things go horribly wrong and the people around them end up maimed or injured or on fire.
* MagicSkirt: Actually averted, in a Disney show no less. In The Substitute (1x15) when [[ItMakesSenseInContext a sentient blob holds Ms. Baxter upside-down]] she actually has to hold her skirt up to keep it from succumbing to gravity.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: Milo is prone to this:
--> '''Milo:''' Well, people have used [[TheJinx the "j" word]]. But you know what they say: "sticks and stones can damage your vital organs, so always wear body armor."
** Sometimes, these manifest as "My dad always says..."
* MurphysLaw: Milo and his family are constantly plagued by it. Dealing with their daily disruptions is the whole premise of the show.
* MisplacedWildlife:
** Lampshaded in "Time Out":
--->"Swordfish? In freshwater?"
** Red-billed choughs (from Eurasia and parts of Africa) show up in "Perchance to Sleepwalk", despite the series taking place [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield somewhere]] in North America.
* MissingReflection: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]]; Chad claims that [[AmbiguouslyHuman Mr. Drako]] has covered all the mirrors in his office due to this. They're actually pictures of his ex-wife.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: In "The Math Book", Milo and especially Melissa play up retrieving Melissa's math book after school as a fantastical quest. Though Murphy's Law meant that they did run into several extraordinary circumstances, Zack points out many moments where their supposed quest was perfectly mundane.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: # to M]]

* DareToBeBadass: In the first episode, Zack (who's starting to get fed up with the danger) asks why Milo's okay with being a living Jinx.
-->'''Zack:''' How do you live like this?!\\
'''Milo:''' How do you live like ''that''?\\
'''Zack:''' What do you mean?\\
'''Milo:''' I mean, you wanna live like those other kids? They took a bus to school today. A ''bus''. [[ArmorPiercingQuestion Does that seem like more fun to you?]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: "Island of Dakotas" may be PlayedForLaughs, [[spoiler:but Cavendish's deaths make up the ''highest onscreen'' death count out of any episode. The nature of his death can get as [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath family unfriendly]] as seeing him fall into lava and leaving behind his skeleton]].
* ADayInTheLimelight: "Disaster of my Dreams" follows Elliot.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The Doctor Zone Files Files.
* DescriptionCut: In "Time Out" when Cavendish starts to believe that Milo is a counteragent sent to undermine his and Dakota's mission:
-->'''Cavendish:''' Just look at him over there, plotting our demise.\\
''(Cut to Milo enjoying some fast food with Zack and their respective dads.)''\\
'''Milo:''' I sure love cheese fries!\\
''(Cut back to Cavendish and Dakota.)''\\
'''Cavendish:''' Oh, this is ''not'' over, Milo Murphy. Not by a ''long shot.''\\
''(Cut back to Milo.)''\\
'''Milo:''' [[TriviallyObvious They're fries with cheese!]]
* DeusExMachina: In "Snow Way Out", Melissa has a wager with Bradley that Milo will make it before the first bell, with the loser shoveling the winner's sidewalk. At first, after Milo and Zack have a series of mishaps with a giant snowball, it looks like Bradley will win the bet... until Milo meets Balthazar and Vinnie, asking if they can take Milo and Zack 5 minutes back in time. Balthazar and Vinnie mention that they can't since they were banished, but there's nothing prohibiting Milo and Zack from time travel, with Milo and Zack going 5 minutes back in time and arriving just before the first bell.
* DisasterDominoes: Milo's luck is very notorious in causing these types of situations. Hell, when a show '''begins''' with a form of them...
* DisneyAcidSequence: Poor Mrs. Baxter experiences one after being sucked into a wormhole caused by mistaking Dakota and Cavendish's time device for a cell phone.
* DiurnalNocturnalAnimal: In "Perchance to Sleepwalk", a bald eagle (usually diurnal) carries off Milo in the middle of the night.
* DoctorWhomage: Milo and Sara's [[ShowWithinAShow favorite show]] is ''The Doctor Zone Files''. The main character is a HumanAlien with a British accent, TimeTravel motif, and totally bananas fashion sense. ''He's got one foot in the future / And one foot in the past / He's got one hand in the present / [[VisualPun Or at least in a gift-shaped cast]].''
* {{Dogface}}: Milo briefly appears as one in "Milo's World", as shown through Diogee's eyes.
* DoItYourselfThemeTune: Not only does Weird Al voice Milo, he also sings the main theme, "It's My World (And We're All Living In It)".
* DontExplainTheJoke: In "The Note", Melissa tries to make the others laugh by asking whether Milo was carrying osmium (it's actually a stack of doctor's notes). No one gets the joke, so she had to explain that it's the heaviest chemical element.
** In "Smooth Opera-tor", when Cavendish doesn't react to Dakota's lobster bib joke, Dakota starts awkwardly explaining it, but Cavendish cuts him off.
* DoomMagnet: Milo being a living one is the premise of the show.
* DreamworksFace: Melissa is prone to this as she makes one in [[http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/File:Milo_Murphy%27s_Law_poster.jpg the poster]] and makes one with Zack on [[http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/File:Melissa_and_Zach.jpeg the official website]].
** Dr. Zone [[http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/File:Dr._Zone_Theme_Song.png makes this face]] in the opening credits of "The Dr. Zone Files".
* EarlyBirdCameo: Milo has a Dr. Zone and Time Ape poster in his room before the characters debuted on the show.
** Dakota and Cavendish also appeared in some runs of "The Undergrounders" (they were digitally removed after the premier) and they also have a brief cameo in "The Doctor Zone Files," before they were named and officially introduced 3 episodes later.
* EasterEgg: In some runs we can see Dakota and Cavendish appearing as cameos.
* EggSitting: A variant for three in "Sunny Side Up"; Zack and Melissa have to partner with Milo on a project which requires them to build a container that will prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a height. They break a ''lot'' of eggs in the planning stages.
** Notably, due to making the egg proof against, well, MurphysLaw, the final egg is practically invincible while in the container. It also was one Milo himself picked out from the entire supply.
* EnemiesEqualsGreatness: For the brief period that he believed Milo Murphy was intentionally trying to prevent him and Vinnie Dakota from fulfilling their assignment, Balthazar Cavendish was happy because he took it as a sign their assignment wasn't meaningless.
* EngineeredPublicConfession: One of these proves to be Victor Verliezer's undoing when he confronts his ex-partner Clyde in "A Clockwork Origin":
-->'''Victor Verliezer''': You want to talk genius? How about making people believe that they needed my vCo products? I mean, look at this vPhone 6, it's just smaller than the 5 and bigger than the 4. That is literally the only difference and it's flying off the shelves!
-->'''Zack''': People have different-sized pockets.
-->'''Victor''': People are sheep! People are stupid gullible puppets [[ManipulativeBastard that I can manipulate at my whim!]] Who's the genius now?
-->'''Melissa'': Actually, it's still Clyde, because he didn't just say a bunch of horrible things about the public while we were live streaming on our phones.
-->'''Victor''' [''replayed on the big-screen video display'']: People are sheep! People are stupid gullible puppets that I can manipulate at my whim!
** Everyone quickly sells their vCorp stock and he goes out of business soon afterwards.
* EpilepticTrees: Discussed in-universe as fan theories about "The Dr. Zone Files" emerge when Wally says pistachios being Dr. Zone's favorite nut is just a theory and when Melissa had a theory that Dr. Zone and Time Ape are brothers.
* ExpandedUniverse: Same art style as ''Phineas and Ferb'', as it's set in the same universe and a few neighborhoods away from Danville.
* {{Expy}}:
** Milo, personality-wise, is extremely similar to Phineas. Nothing fazes either of them, they tend to do the impossible daily, and one of the early jokes for both of them is having official documentation.
** Doctor Zone is an expy of the titular character of ''Series/DoctorWho'', with one alien race being mentioned, Trashcandroids, possibly being a mashup of Cybermen and Daleks from that show.
* ExtinctInTheFuture:
** While the series seems to take place in the present day, the time travelling syndicate that operates in the background reveals that pistachios are extinct by the year 2085. Dakota and Cavendish are tasked with trying to remedy this but given what happened when they succeeded, they end up believing that they're better off extinct.
** The fact that Cavendish doesn't know what a giraffe is and Dakota mentions that they rarely see animals anymore suggests that many wild animal species are extinct by their time.
* FamousAncestor:
** Milo is the descendant of Edward A. Murphy Jr., the namesake of the original MurphysLaw.
** Jackie from "Wilder West" is the descendant of Calamity Jane.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Cavendish and Dakota are from the future, but their understanding of the past is ''very'' limited. For instance, Cavendish thought TheSeventies referred to the ''18''70s, and they're unfamiliar with Halloween because it doesn't exist in their time, and they need the holiday explained to them. Thankfully, they were able to save the holiday, which means it will continue exist in their future.
* FlintstoneTheming: In-universe example in "The Dr. Zone Files" where the characters abuse the word "time" a lot. Even Dr. Zone's sidekick is called Time Ape.
* FluffyTheTerrible: In "Wilder West," Milo is, naturally, assigned to a horse named "Psycho," who proceeds to buck him off repeatedly. It's quickly revealed that the horse is normally the gentlest of the horses and was given that name as a joke.
* {{Foil}}: Cavendish is one to Milo. They are both unlucky and tend to get into dangerous situations, but while Milo is CrazyPrepared, allowing him to come out none the worse for wear, Cavendish's lack of attention and smarts often results in self-made misery and [[spoiler:regular death]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's quite a bit, but some of the most notable examples include...
** In "The Llama Incident", a FreezeFrameBonus shows [[spoiler:a Pistachion]] in the football field, indicating that [[spoiler:the Pistachions wind up travelling back in time to the day the incident happened]].
** While on their mission at the beginning of "Missing Milo," Cavendish says to Dakota he refuses to be "the butt of some cosmic joke," before a Dr. Zone billboard (which they are unknowingly copying the photo on) collapses behind them. [[spoiler: It is revealed later in the episode that Cavendish and Dakota were actually the inspiration for Dr. Zone and Time Ape, respectively.]]
** A few episodes depict Dakota reaching for Cavendish and pulling him away from oncoming disaster. "The Island of Lost Dakotas" reveals that [[spoiler:he's been regularly traveling back in time to prevent his death]].
---> '''Dakota:''' If you're still alive, can we go home now?
* FreezeFrameBonus:
** In "Sunny Side Up", Melissa only reads out a small portion of her egg hazard list.
** ''The Dr. Zone Files'' has some silliness in the closing credits, but they go by ''way'' too fast to read normally.
** Dakota and Cavendish appear in almost every episode. If they don't have speaking lines, you can usually catch them briefly in the background.
** In "The Llama Incident", there is some {{Foreshadowing}} due to it being possible to note [[spoiler:a Pistachion]] in the football field, indicating that [[spoiler:the Pistachions wind up traveling back in time to the day the incident happened]].
** The sign in front of the school has a different message each time it appears.
** In "Love Toboggan", we briefly see the first 13 items on Milo's list of 62 ways things can go wrong with snow. A giant snowman is indeed #12.
* FrenchAccordion: In the episode "The Undergrounders", Zack is revealed to be claustro-avoidant, and as he, Milo, and Melissa are trapped in a runaway metro wagon, Zack needs to be distracted in order to calm down. Milo's second attempt is to hang up posters of Paris, don a beret and play music on an accordion, leaving Zack ''too'' distracted.
* FruitCart: Pistachio carts appear to be getting a raw deal to the point time travelers have to protect them.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In "Rooting For the Enemy", after Joni mentions she just got the cast off, she walks off a few steps before getting hit by a stray football, right during the middle of a conversation.
** Continuing Joni's [[ButtMonkey misery]], in "Spy Little Sister!", after she made small-talk with Milo, a [[ClingyJealousGirl jealous Amanda]] attacks when Milo returns to his seat.
** In "Abducting Murphy's Law" when [[spoiler:Doofenshmirtz rips the head off the Milo android]], a man who happened to be walking by quickly covers his son's eyes and they run away.
%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* GlassSlipper: Milo's missing loafer in "School Dance."
* GoodScarsEvilScars: "Hey Milo, is that a new scar?" "Yeah. Thanks for noticing."
* GoofyPrintUnderwear:
** Zack seems to have heart-printed underwear in his hamper in "Sunny Side Up".
** The gecko mascot when he's out of his costume. Also from "Rooting for the Enemy", the quarterback somehow took the underwear from another player.
** Cavendish tells Doofenshmirtz that he's wearing underwear with his face on it. Doof declines the offer to see them.
* GotVolunteered: When hearing that the class would be breaking off into teams of 3 for their assignment in "Sunny Side Up", everyone in the class besides Milo, Zack and Melissa hide under their desks.
* GratuitousSpanish: As Amanda is a Latina, she is naturally able to speak Spanish, and quite evidently so in "Cake 'Splosion!"
* GroundhogDayLoop: In "Managing Murphy's Law", Dakota and Cavendish are tasked with retrieving a piece of alien rubbish located at the Slushy Dawg, assigned to meet Jeremy. Each time Cavendish and Dakota drive through, they pass the radioactive alien rubbish, which causes them to experience temporary amnesia as it warps them into a video game arcade, fills their van with fast food wrappers from 79 hot dogs they didn't recall ordering, warps them into a circus where they're leotard wearing trapeze artists, find themselves jousting on Segway scooters with foam pool noodle floats, turns them into rock-and-roll hippies with a vanful of guitars and amps, and Cavendish finally decides not to use the drive-thru to get the alien device, while Dakota plugs and stops the leak with fast food wrappers.
* GrumpyBear: Bradley, as a foil to Milo's optimism.
* HalloweenEpisode: "Milo's Halloween Scream-a-Torium!" has Milo building a haunted house and trying to use it to scare Zack. Meanwhile, Cavendish and Dakota take advantage of the last Halloween ever to learn how it's supposed to work and have fun.
* HaveYouTriedNotBeingAMonster: Melissa's father has this reaction to Milo before coming to understand his condition better in "The Little Engine That Couldn't."
-->'''Mr. Chase:''' Does this Murphy's Law thing have an off switch?
-->'''Milo:''' I haven't found one yet!
* HeadbuttOfLove: Between Milo and Brigette at the end of "Worked Day."
* HereditaryCurse: The entire "Murphy's Law" concept (only following the male heir to the Murphy name, causing mayhem and destruction around the target yet never actually killing them) has all the hallmarks of a family curse. Still, the way Milo views his life, if anything it'd be CursedWithAwesome.
* HeroicDog: Diogee, who is responsible for helping Milo out of his more dangerous scrapes.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: In "The Note", during a scene that is a ShoutOut to a similar moment in ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'', Milo meets a DistaffCounterpart and a pair of {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s.
* HistoricalRapSheet: In a non-villainous example, the bad luck of the Murphy family has caused many infamous historical disasters.
* HoldingBackThePhlebotinum: Milo is separated from his backpack for most of "Missing Milo", preventing him from pulling out useful tools at a whim like he usually does. [[spoiler:When he finally gets it back at the episode climax, he and his friends use its contents to incapacitate almost all the pistachio people in short order, with only the BigBad taking slightly more effort to defeat.]]
* HurricaneOfPuns: You could make a drinking game out of Doctor Zone's time puns.
* HypocriticalHumor: After the shareholders dump their vCorp stock:
-->'''Teenage girl''': How insulting! I'm selling my vCo stock immediately!
-->'''Teenage boy''': Yeah, I'm not a sheep. I'm gonna do exactly what she was doing.

[[foldercontrol]]

!!This series features examples of:

* TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects: The CG meat dinosaur in "Family Vacation" stands out. Though in general, most cars in this show look a little out of place too.
* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: The town's sewers are a frequent setting, with Milo regularly using them to navigate the city and Scott the Undergrounder more or less living there.
* AcquaintedWithEmergencyServices:
** Because Milo is BornUnlucky and a WalkingDisasterArea, the firefighters and police know him to the point that he keeps a framed photograph of them in his room.
** In "Rooting for the Enemy", it's revealed that his family, mainly Milo and his father, Martin, have their own hospital suite called the "Murphy Suite".
** In "The Note", the government is fully aware of the Murphys' luck and have dubbed their neighborhood as "The Murphy Sector".
** In "Worked Day", when Milo's class is having a career day, they meet Melissa's father, who's a firefighter, whose squad just put out a fire at a fish hatchery:
--->'''Mr. Chase''': Milo, you weren't here at the fish hatchery this morning, were you?\\
'''Melissa''': Dad!\\
'''Mr. Chase''': Ha! I kid! ... But seriously, you weren't here, right?\\
'''Milo''': ''(cheerfully)'' Why Mr. Chase, I'm flattered! ''(suddenly deadpan, visibly irritated)'' [[NotMeThisTime But no]].
* ActionSurvivor: Milo has to be to survive life. Melissa and Zack to a lesser degree, merely by being in proximity to Milo.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Mr. Drako asks Milo to list five historic disasters. Milo includes Drako's haircut on the list, and after remarking on the cattiness of the remark, Drako accepts it as an answer.
* ADogNamedDog: Played with. Milo's dog is named "Diogee." Say it slowly.
* AdvertisingByAssociation: The show was initially advertised as "from the team that brought you ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''". Somewhat justified since it's not only made by the same team but takes place in the same universe.
* AdultsAreUseless: When the class field trip is shipwrecked on an island in "Some Like It Yacht," the faculty ''immediately'' go feral and run off, leaving the middle-schoolers to strategize. It's probably worth noting that this field trip is happening in the first place because the school board, after [[ConspicuousConsumption blowing the year's budget on a yacht]], have decided they might as well get some practical use out of a vessel that crippled their finances so badly that the students have been forced to bring their own toilet paper to school.
* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler:King Pistachion is surprisingly family loving and polite for a sentient pistachio plant out to take over the world]].
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Zigzagged. The Brulee twins gush about how "dangerous" Milo is, but he remains the polite, optimistic young man we know and love. And they do make enthusiastic note of his sweater vest.
* AlliterativeName: '''T'''obias '''T'''rollhammer.
* AmusementPark: Lard World is Milo's favorite and shows up sometimes, especially as the setting of "Murphy's Lard". The end of the first season [[spoiler:has it turned into an AmusementParkOfDoom.]]
* AnimalGenderBender: Averted in "We're Going to the Zoo" where the female ostrich has brown feathers.
* AnimalMotif
** Primates seem to have a place in the show:
*** An orangutan once tried to steal Milo's pistachios.
*** Melissa recalls a time when an orangutan takes her away during a card game with Milo.
*** A poster in Melissa's room has a primate-like creature (most likely {{Bigfoot|SasquatchAndYeti}}).
*** Of course, the presence of Time Ape, Dr. Zone's sidekick.
*** There's a gorilla in a miniature golf course where Sara and Milo played in.
*** Monkeys are featured in one of the zoetropes.
*** Brigette's vintage t-shirts were stolen by monkeys for Milo, Zack, and Sara to chase.
** [[EverythingsBetterWithLlamas And so do llamas]]:
*** There's the whole Llama Incident that had been building up in the first half of Season 1.
*** The promotional poster (the current Page Image) features a llama emerging from a manhole getting stepped on by Zack, and a whole bunch of llamas stuck in a tree in the distance.
*** Llamas are seen watching Milo, Melissa and Zack in "Perchance to Sleepwalk".
*** The goal for the charity race in "Pace Makes Waste" is to raise enough money to take care of homeless llamas. Martin and Brigette even made plush llama merchandise for it.
*** The benefit concert Amanda got for Milo, Melissa and Zack in "Managing Murphy's Law" is called "Forget the Llamas, Save the Alpacas". Ironically, Amanda misnames the alpacas "llamas".
* ArcSymbol: Pistachios in Season 1, as well as the pistachio stand with "[[ArcWords Pistachios]]" written on it. It's the kind of nuts the two time traveling agents Dakota and Cavendish are tasked to protect. Pistachios are also Dr. Zone and Mr. Block's favorite kind of nut. As it turns out, mutated pistachio trees happen to be the ArcVillain for Season 1.
* ArtEvolution: The show's animation tends to be much more dynamic and fairly smooth, compared to its parent series.
** The character designs tend to be much more detailed and realistically-proportioned than in WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb. This is pretty noticeable in the 2018 crossover episode when the casts of both shows are shown side by side.
* ArtificialIntelligence: "A Clockwork Origin" has the robot C.I.D.D..
* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** "Going the Extra Milo" makes the common mistake of portraying wild beehives as [[StockBeehive resembling a hornet's nest]].
** Pileated woodpeckers are drawn with only three toes, lacking the second backwards-pointing toe in the zygodactyl foot. Also, macaws are drawn with generic anisodactyl feet.
** Ostriches are shown with three toes rather than two (a mistake also made in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'').
** Pelicans are drawn with oversized bill pouches, and their feet are shown as generic bird feet with only three toes and no webbing (another mistake also made in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'').
** The female gazelle in "We're Going to the Zoo" is drawn without horns. Plus there's the fact that she's pink.
** In "The Llama Incident", Milo claims that woodpeckers eat branches. Most woodpeckers feed primarily on insects; they peck at trees to find and uncover them.
** Spiders are drawn with [[FourLeggedInsect six legs]] instead of eight.
** Hilariously lampshaded in "We're Going to the Zoo" when Sara wonders [[WesternAnimation/PhineasandFerb why Milo's platypus pajamas are teal when platypuses are supposed to be brown.]]
* ArtisticLicensePaleontology:
** The ''T. rex'' model in "The Little Engine That Couldn't" has three fingers on each hand instead of two (again, a mistake also made in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'').
** The ''Velociraptor'' in "Christmas Peril" is, [[RaptorAttack as usual]], oversized and featherless.
* AwesomeBackpack: Due to having to [[CrazyPrepared prepare for unfortunate circumstances]], Milo has to keep a backpack that contains many things to protect him and his friends.
** Milo actually was gifted his backpack by his former babysitter, Veronica, who was so awesome, Milo says she was stronger than Murphy's Law.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The Murphy's Law Curse itself is ultimatly seen as this if you can get past constantly being in danger. Zack lampshades this in episode 1. Sure it puts your life at risk every day, but every day is an adventure and you get to be around some of the best people in the world.
** [[RunningGag The school has been woefully underfunded]] ever since the school board [[WealthyYachtOwner bought a yacht]], [[ConspicuousConsumption apparently just because they could]].
* BabyMorphEpisode: "Backwards to School Night."
* BagOfHolding: Milo's bag holds a carburetor, a bicycle tire, an accordion, a generator, a monkey wrench and even an anchor. It does not, however, have a clock in it.
* TheBandMinusTheFace: The Lumberzacks minus Zack, now known as "Lumbermax."
-->'''[[DeadpanSnarker Melissa]]:''' Well, now ''all'' the good band names are taken.
* BattleCouple: Averted. Brick and Savanna have all the makings of spy lovers, buy they just don't feel anything romantic or sexual for each other.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted. At the end of "Murphy's Lard", Melissa looks like a ShellShockedVeteran with wild hair and a ThousandYardStare.
* BeenThereShapedHistory: It's indicated that past ancestors of the Murphy family were involved in historical disasters such as the San Francisco Earthquake, the Hindenberg crashing, the sinking of the Titanic, etc.
** The reason we know the 1803 land deal as "The Louisiana Purchase" as opposed to "The Mississippi Purchase" is because of something Dakota traveled back in time and did. Both him and Cavendish are also the reason the Leap Year exists... Dakota's idiotic misplacement of a time grenade (which can literally erase time) being the reason Halloween wasn't a holiday in the future until he successfully managed to undo his mistake... but not before he accidentally time-shifted himself and Cavendish to Ancient Rome where a run-in with Julius Caesar caused the time grenade to go off and erase February 29th, but not completely since Dakota had the time grenade one-quarter disarmed, so we'll still get one every four years, hence Leap Year.
* BelligerentSexualTension: {{Parodied|Trope}} and {{subverted|Trope}} with time agents Brick and Savannah, who try their best to evoke this as part of their TuxedoAndMartini aesthetic [[NoSparks but find that they have no chemistry]].
* BigDamnHeroes:
** Diogee regularly goes out of his way to help Milo in any situation, from crossing the country on foot to skydiving out of an airplane to a deserted island.
** In the crossover episode Phineas and Ferb show up in the nick of time to save their friends and Milo's from Nut-Jobbers. [[spoiler:And at the end, right when Milo, Phineas Ferb, Doofenshmirtz, Cavendish, Dakota and Orton are about to get captured by their mulched friends, Doof's future self, Professor Time, shows up just in time to pick up Orton and defeat Derek in 1955.]]
* BirthdayEpisode: "Party of Peril" is about everyone planning Milo's 13th birthday.
* BlackComedyBurst:
** In the closing moments of "The Llama Incident," we see what appears to be our three plucky young protagonists plummeting from a cliff and spattering the rocks below with their blood. The camera lingers lovingly over the shot before [[spoiler:pulling away to reveal the kids, who have safely escaped their doom offscreen, approaching Mort to ask him about his new job transporting flesh-colored bags of red paint.]]
** "The Island of Lost Dakotas" reveals that [[spoiler:Cavendish regularly ''dies'' during missions and Dakota has to repeatedly travel back in time prevent these accidents from occurring. A montage of Cavendish's deaths is PlayedForLaughs, including him being skeletonized after falling into lava and his head blowing up after neglecting to put on a space helmet.]]
** In "Fungus Among Us," the typically mild-mannered Milo uncharacteristically starts [[BewareTheNiceOnes violently threatening an antagonist with an electric cattle prod.]]
---> '''Cavendish:''' Milo! What in the devil was that?!
---> '''Milo:''' Oh! Um, I thought we were doing GoodCopBadCop.
---> '''Dakota:''' [[DeadpanSnarker And who are you, Dangerously Unstable Cop?]]
* BloodlessCarnage: "The Island of Lost Dakotas" shows [[spoiler:Cavendish dying in several gruesome ways, but no gore is shown]].
* BoringButPractical: A bit of an odd example. Whenever a Murphy man gets sick, the bad luck that constantly follows them lessens. While this is convenient for the non-cursed characters and anything they want to get done, it leads to the realization that an ordinary day without trouble is boring. [[CallBack Zack had to take a bus to school]].
* BornLucky: [[spoiler:Revealed in the crossover episode, half the reason Phineas and Ferb are able to do the things they do is that nothing they try ever goes wrong... or at least nothing did UNTIL they first come across Milo Murphy. When confronted with the way Milo's Extreme Hereditary Murphy’s Law condition affects the world around him, [[DoesNotCompute they are at a loss as to how to help]].]]
* BornUnlucky: Milo, having been born with Extreme Hereditary Murphy’s Law condition (EHML). Though in a twisted way, you could also say he's got a variant of BornLucky, since he survives everything the world throws at him and he and any companions he has at any given time generally get out of any situation with minimal injury.
** One episode shows Milo's mother flashing back to "the first time we met Milo." She and young Sara are standing in the kitchen when the wall spontaneously collapses.
--> '''Brigette:''' Sara, is your father home yet?
--> '''Sara:''' No.
--> '''Brigette:''' Hm. Murphy's Law but no Martin. [steps out from behind the counter revealing her pregnancy] Looks like we're having a boy! [winces] ''Right now!''
* BreadEggsBreadedEggs: From "Murphy's Lard", Cavendish asks if the pistachio stand is safe from fires or barnyard animals, like pigs. Dakota then asks if it's safe from flaming pigs. Even better, a flaming pig does come by and try to destroy the stand. [[spoiler:After being protected once, circumstances have the flaming pig succeed in destroying the stand.]]
** Also, since Cavendish and Dakota are time travelers, they most likely KNEW about the flaming pig.
* BrickJoke:
** When Zack asks Milo if he's some kind of tough guy, Milo says no one's ever called him tough. Then after he's chased off by the sewer pipe, Melissa calls him tough as the reason she thinks he'll make it to school.
** From the same episode, a super-strong bungee cord that holds construction equipment and a section of pipe find their way to Milo. Later on, at a construction site, the workers note the absence of these items.
** At the bus stop, Milo tells Melissa he's got a new scar and texts her a photo of it so that she can see it from a safe distance. Later in the episode, a construction worker asks Milo about the new scar.
** In "Sunny Side Up", Milo's opening story leads Zack to ask where the zoo is. When the egg pod is bouncing around, it ends up in a polar bear habitat, prompting a comment by Zack that ''that's'' where the zoo is. Same episode Milo puts an egg [[TemptingFate in his pocket]] and finds it still there and intact the next day which saves their demonstration.
** In "Party of Peril," there's a RunningGag about ducks attacking people, particularly Elliot. In the next episode, "Smooth Opera-tor," during an OverlyLongGag of things going wrong onstage, Elliot runs out, being chased by a duck again.
** One that crosses series, the rollercoaster from WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb crashed in Melissa's back yard, as we learn in "Murphy's Lard"
** In "The Note", The General was overly fond of the disintegration ray, with one of the men finding a way to reverse it. In "Family Vacation", that same general shows up, grabbing the Murphy RV. His subordinate asks if it's time to use the disintegration ray, but The General retorts that "there's more buttons than just that one, you know."
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Milo's gone through so much that he barely reacts to the improbable occurrences life sends his way. Doubles for most of his classmates and the town as a whole.
* ButtMonkey: With Murphy's Law as part of the title, you can expect a good bit of characters to be this trope.
** Notably averted with Milo. In any other show, he would be this. But with his cheerful outlook and his CrazyPrepared tendencies, Milo is having none of it.
** Milo may not be this, but Elliot the crossing guard (''[[InsistentTerminology "Safety Czar!"]]'') certainly seems to be exactly this trope every time he appears. Episodes which center on Elliott ("Disaster of My Dreams" and "World Without Milo") definitively confirm him as the show's alpha butt monkey.
** Dakota and Cavendish, who can never seem to accomplish any mission given to them and are regarded as incompetents because of it. Cavendish is this especially. Not only do his uptight, fuss-bucket ways make him a good victim for pratfalls, [[spoiler: but [[TheyKilledKennyAgain he often dies]] [[TooDumbToLive due to his own careless actions]], forcing his partner to go back in time to undo his deaths]].
*** Since "Missing Milo" that seems no longer the case when they start being proactive. Brick and Savannah seem to have [[LaserGuidedKarma taken their place instead]], not that Dakota and Cavendish are much better off.
** Minor classmate character Joni often gets injured or in trouble in several scenes she's in, whether her arm gets hit at a football game after the cast just got off, or being the one person that walks off the pier at the school yacht. [[spoiler:She's also the only minor character that was taken by the Pistachions on-screen in "Fungus Among Us".]]
** To a degree, Bradley Nicholson is the butt of several of Milo's disasters. Bardley is especially so at the end of "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" where [[spoiler:he is subject to a paradoxical leftover from the second Pistachion Takeover, as he had been turned into a Pistachion before the takeover had been averted. After which Bradley is left with a Pistachion right arm while the rest of him is made human again.]]
* CallBack: As expected for the successor to ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', this trope is in full effect. In addition to numerous callbacks to Phineas and Ferb, as the episode count for Milo Murphy's Law increases, so do the callback opportunities within itself.
* {{Calvinball}}: In "Game Night", Milo, Melissa, Zack, Sara and her friend Neal have a game night, playing "Lard World: The Officially Licensed Board Game", which takes on a whole new twist when Mr. Murphy's grill catches fire and scorches the game board. Later, when Cavendish and Vinnie Dakota arrive, Vinnie throws the table into the sky to stop a vortex, with Cavendish & Dakota participating in game night. Afterwards, when the game board is damaged, Milo makes a new game board out of pizza boxes and remnants of the other damaged board games, with a space where Milo lands and puts on a frog mask, a Twister-like treasure map, and a RubeGoldbergDevice perpetual motion machine chance card bonus in the style of Mouse Trap.
* CatapultNightmare: In "Sunny Side Up", each of the main characters gets their own. Zack worries that their device would be destroyed the next morning, Melissa worries the egg will be cracked, and [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Milo wakes up with absolutely nothing wrong]].
* TheCavalry: In "The Phineas and Ferb Effect", [[spoiler:the alternate Dakotas fly in to save Milo, Phineas and Ferb from getting M.U.L.C.H.ed. The Fireside Girls also show up to free them.]]
* CharacterAsHimself: InUniverse, Time Ape is credited as himself in "The Doctor Zone Files".
* CharacterTics: Balthazar is prone to pull a FascinatingEyebrow. Milo himself typically holds onto the straps of his backpack
* ChekhovsGag: Episodes such as "Murphy's Lard" and "Backward to School Night" have jokes where Dakota acts casually at best and indifferent at worst about Cavendish getting injured or nearly getting killed. Later, in "The Island of Lost Dakotas", it's revealed why he's so blasé about these situations: [[spoiler: [[TheyKilledKennyAgain Cavendish dies with such regularity]] that Dakota has created a system where he goes back in time to prevent his partner's constant deaths, then has the prior version of himself go off to live on a deserted island to minimize temporal irregularities.]]
* ChekhovsBoomerang: In "The Phineas and Ferb Effect", we discover that Milo is surrounded by an excessive amount of negative probability ions, that Phineas and Ferb harness ''positive'' probability ions, and that, if Milo is surrounded by Phineas and Ferb, Murphy's Law can be aimed since positive and negative probability ions cannot occupy the same space. They of course use this knowledge to combat the Pistachions with a Murphy's Law Suit. [[spoiler: Much later, in "Managing Murphy's Law", an Octalian spaceship discover Milo and his excessive amount of negative probability ions, which its Commander is ''very'' interested in, wanting to take Milo to their home planet (and therefor opening a new story arc).]]
* ChekhovsGun:
** Diogee's ability to return home or follow Milo in any circumstance helps the gang get through many situations. Diogee doubles as ChekhovsGunman.
** The "llama incident" which gets mentioned all through season 1 and finally comes into play in "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Llama Incident]]" and "Missing Milo".
** Woodpeckers turn up being nuisances to Milo and friends more than once, and then become the Guns in "The Llama Incident" and "Missing Milo" as well.
** In several episodes, instead of the normal ending, it ends with an ominous [[TheEndOrIsIt The End?]]... [[spoiler:Every single one of them features at least one Pistachion. ''Every one'']]
** Orton taking notes on everything he sees in "Fungus Among Us" later comes in handy when Cavendish's navigation device breaks and they need to find Professor Time's address. [[spoiler:It also reminds Professor Time to come back and save everyone.]]
* ChekhovsGunman:
** Dakota and Cavendish - their roles in early episodes is very small and doesn't influence what is happening with Milo at all. By the end of the first season, their mission as time travelers regularly affects Milo and the main plot.
** Scott the Undergrounder plays a small role in "The Undergrounders" and keeps showing seemingly as a throwaway gag in several episodes afterwards. Come "Missing Milo", and he is essential in Zack and Melissa's side of the plot.
** Professor Time is first metioned by Dakota in "Missing Milo" as the creator of time travel. In "Fungus Among Us", after losing both time vehicles they have access to, Dakota and Cavendish remember Professor Time lived during this era and decide to enlist his help in building a new time machine early. [[spoiler:Professor Time turns out to be Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, beginning the crossover between the two shows.]]
* ChildhoodFriends: Milo and Melissa met on the first day of first grade. Most of their classmates have known each other for at least that long.
* ChristmasEpisode: "A Christmas Peril" has Sara, Milo and his friends going around town in order to try and get the whole Murphy family together for Christmas.
* ColdOpening: The first episode uses one to {{establish|ingCharacterMoment}} Milo's character as an optimistic WalkingDisasterArea.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: From the first episode.
-->'''Milo:''' We are right in the middle of Coyote Woods.
-->'''Zack:''' Wait, Coyote Woods?! ''(Nervous Laughter)'' [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes I've got a thing about coyotes]]. They're like big dogs that are dangerous to pet!
-->'''Milo:''' Oh, don't worry. There's no coyotes here.
-->'''Zack:''' There aren't?
-->'''Milo:''' No. Actually, the woods were named after actor Peter Coyote.
-->'''Zack:''' Really?
-->'''Milo:''' Yeah. He donated all this land to the city as a wolf preserve.
-->''(Wolf Howl)''
-->'''Zack:''' [[LampshadeHanging You get how that's not better, right?]]
* CommercialBreakCliffhanger: A LiteralCliffhanger occurs in the middle of "Milo Murphy's Halloween Scream-a-Torium".
* CompanionCube: Milo's physics teacher has an unhealthy attachment to her desk.
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Every character in the show eventually becomes unperturbed at best and mildly annoyed at worst towards most situations, due to regularly dealing with Murphy's Law. Compare Zack in the first episode, who displayed shock and terror whenever something went wrong, to his DullSurprise at [[spoiler:seeing Milo, a pair of time-travelers, and a TV producer from the 1960s being hunted by pistachio creatures]] at the end of season one.
* ConsolationBackfire: From "Time Out":
-->'''Dakota''': Look on the bright side -
-->'''Cavendish''': My entire career has been one big, inconsequential joke. Where is the bright side?
-->'''Dakota''': The pistachio shipment is here and unharmed.
** Moments later, Milo, his dad, and the Underwoods are trying to steer a fishing boat to safety:
-->'''Dakota''': Hey, at least it can't get any worse.
** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when the fishing boat barely hits the dock and damages a food shack, leaving the pistachio shipment unharmed for the moment; [[DoubleSubvertedTrope double subverted]] when one of the scuba tanks hits and ruins the shipping crate full of pistachios.
* ContinuityNod: Similar to the above "Call Back" trope, there are far too many to count within the first season alone.
* ContrivedCoincidence: Many have happened because of Murphy's Law, such as:
** In "The Doctor Zone Files", Dakota and Cavendish's pistachio stand made a hole into the theater, letting Milo, Sara, Melissa, and Zack be able to watch "The Dr. Zone Files" Movie.
** In "The Note", Milo attempting to save Melissa by swinging caused a series of unfortunate events that ''saved'' Melissa.
** In "Party of Peril", a truckload of cake, ice cream, and some dynamite caused an explosion of ice cream cake as a replacement to the one eaten by Diogee.
* {{Cosplay}}: In the opening, we can see someone cosplaying as Dr. Zone, sans the hat.
** Various Dr. Zone fans; including Milo and Sara, wore this in "The Doctor Zone Files", while some of them even kept wearing them such as in "Wilder West".
* CousinOliver: Adding Doof to the cast was seen to some as a ratings gimmick to keep ''Phineas'' fans interested.
* CoverInnocentEyesAndEars: In "Rooting For the Enemy", a father is seen covering his son's eyes from watching Milo's cheering.
* CrazyPrepared:
** Because Milo is aware of his terrible luck, he keeps his backpack stocked with supplies to help him out of any bind. The walls of his bedroom are covered with warning signs, and he even has a full-body hazmat suit hanging up by the door.
** In "Sunny Side Up", Melissa brings a wagon full of egg cartons of 12 stacked 26 high, 4 long and 2 deep. By the end of the testing phase, they were down to just one egg...which itself gets broken the following day. Milo had a spare though.
** Milo's older sister is often prepared for any mishaps to a degree that even Milo finds to be unneeded.
** It turns out that Milo's babysitter, Veronica, was the one who gave him his BagOfHolding, and was so CrazyPrepared that she could handle any catastrophe that Murphy's Law threw at her while she sat for Milo.
* CreativeClosingCredits: The closing credits are presented over a series of clips from the episode.
* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation: In the episode where Milo and the crew are looking at potential careers, Milo remarks that 'animator' doesn't sound like a real job and thinks it's a typo.
** In a later episode Milo engages in some acting and comments on watching footage of him that he's not a very good actor.
* {{Crossover}}: The first episode of the second season, "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" was a crossover with, you guessed it, [[WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb Phineas and Ferb]].
* CrossoverCouple: In "The Phineas and Ferb Effect," [[spoiler:Baljeet]] has a crush on [[spoiler:Melissa]], though [[spoiler:he's respectful of [[ShipTease the relationship he and Buford believe she has with Zack]].]]
* {{Curse}}: All men of the Murphy family, and anyone in their immediate vicinity, are cursed to experience the worst possible luck in everything they do. An unusual case for this trope, in that the show doesn't center around trying to fix the curse, just making the best out of whatever mess it causes.
* CurseEscapeClause: Melissa has been looking for one, but not with any success yet. She admits that she eventually realized Milo wouldn't want to be cured and that her interest is more in figuring out how Murphy's Law works.
* CutawayGag: Slightly more frequent than in ''Phineas and Ferb.''
** [[RunningGag Several of these]] revolve around hypothetical TV show premises.
--->'''Doofenshmirtz:''' We [himself, Cavendish, Dakota, Orton and Perry] can all live together like a '70s sitcom! In the '50s!
--->''(Cut to title card:)''
--->'''Announcer:''' ''Four Men and a Platypus'' is filmed in front of a live studio audience.
** In "Fungus Among Us," Dakota announces "We're going back to the 60s!", cuing a cut to him dancing in a speedo and body paint. When the visual cuts back, [[MediumAwareness everyone else expresses confusion]].
--->'''Cavendish:''' What was that?
--->'''Dakota:''' Never mind, let's just get in the car.
** In "Now I Am a Murphy," Doofenshmirtz explains that a statue he accidentally brought to life [[InsistentTerminology isn't technically alive]] but "[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall animated]]...''and'' [[NoFourthWall expertly storyboarded]]." Cut to a photo of the episode's storyboard artist and a jingle: ''Jaaaaaaaaames Kim!''
--->'''Doofenshmirtz:''' He just became a daddy!

-->'''Milo:''' Yeah. He donated all this land to the city as a wolf preserve