History WesternAnimation / TotallySpies

''Totally Spies!'' (2001-2008, 2013-2015) is an animated show produced by French company Creator/MarathonMedia. [[PowerTrio Three]] {{action girl}}s--Alex, Clover and Sam--are (totally) spies and also [[OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent regular high school (later college) students]] working for the World Organization of Human Protection (more commonly called "WOOHP" for short), an ultra-top secret spy agency that fights global crime. In each episode, the girls battle the plans of some variety of {{supervillain}} with an axe to grind while also dealing with their personal lives, including their collective rival, [[AlphaBitch Mandy]] (who's their classmate in both high school and college). Like ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', ''Totally Spies!'' mines both spy and teen clichés.

* ExcitedShowTitle

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: In one episode, even the heroines are ''very'' surprised at how well Jerry can handle himself in a fight.

* TheNudifier: The [[BareYourMidriff clothes-shrinking]] ray in "S.P.I." is a milder variation.

** Very noticeable from about Season 3 onward (like how the girls -- and everyone else -- finally got belly buttons to go with their assortment of BareYourMidriff outfits).

* BareYourMidriff: They're teenage girls from Beverly Hills. Do we really need to explain this one?

* ShapeShifting

* ShutUpHannibal

* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: The girls wind up taking a lot of comedic abuse, not just by villains (Jerry's methods of transporting them are often ''unorthodox'' to say the least); the brunt of this usually falls on whoever the DesignatedVictim is.

* YoureNotMyType: Clover has stated on numerous occasions that she is not interested in dating nerds, preferring strong, muscular, and handsome men. And while Clover is not a bully that openly looks down on and picks on nerds, she makes it clear she's not intreated in them and sometimes even resents when it seems that she's a geek magnet. In "The Iceman Cometh" and "Totally Mystery Much?", where Daryl and Martin Mystery were interested in her, she turns them down because they're nerds; ironically, the events of the episodes cause Clover to reconsider her thoughts on dating them, only for them to reject her because they lost interest in her.

* EEqualsMCHammer: TheMovie has a lot of issues.

* EmbarrassingAdGig: The sub-plot of one episode involves Clover competing against [[AlphaBitch Mandy]] for a spot in an ad. The role ultimately goes to Mandy, which bums Clover out until she sees it's a picture of Mandy wearing a massive hamburger suit. She even sees Mandy on the phone demanding to have it taken down.

%%* CheekyMouth:

** [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness In the first two seasons of the show]], Mandy was more likely to come off as a JerkWithAHeartOfGold--she's still sometimes portrayed as that in the later seasons, but not as much as she was early in the series.

* DontTellMama: See BigNo above.

* ShoutOut: Multiple times.
** References to ''Anime/SailorMoon'' are probably an inside joke, as at least one of the voice actors -- namely Katy Griffin, who plays Alex -- also voiced Raye in the early Creator/DiC-dubbed episodes of that show.
** ''Series/CharliesAngels'', when a villain impersonating Jerry accidentally calls Alex "Farrah".
** WOOHP sounds suspiciously similar to WOOC(P), the employer of the protagonist of ''The Ipcress File'' and other Creator/LenDeighton novels.
** There is a ShoutOut to Tsukasa Hojo's ''Manga/CatsEye'' in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. More precisely, the tomboyish brunette ActionGirl with a yellow SpyCatsuit Alex is an {{Expy}} for Ai Kisugi, the youngest of the three sisters. It's much easier for the French viewers to figure it out, since Ai was named ''Alex'' (short for Alexia) in the French dub. It also helps that ''Manga/CatsEye'' was broadcast multiple times on French public channels in the '80s (and well beloved). And yes, it was displayed on kids programs. Which the creators of the show grew up watching. [[ValuesDissonance Explains a lot, doesn't it?]]
*** In the episode "Spies Vs. Spies", the agents who predate the girls, Pam, Alice, and Crimson, seemed to have been directly modeled after the girls from ''Manga/CatsEye''.
*** Crimson is a reference to the rock song "Crimson and Clover"
*** Wait a minute, [[ComicStrip/SpyVsSpy Spies Vs. Spies?]]
** Also, whenever the girls are shown playing soccer, the animation draws much inspiration from ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'', from the balls taking on an oval shape after being kicked, all the way the ball spinning in the goalkeeper's hands until his gloves are fizzled out. Especially if Alex (who is a professed soccer fan, as per "Spy Soccer") is involved.
** In the episode "Miss Spirit Fingers", Alex and Clover have a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment where they crash into a ''Film/PulpFiction'' poster.
** Jerry's [[Film/TheMatrix Matrix-style]] jump to the helicopter in the episode "A Spy Is Born (part II)".
** And there's another possible ''Matrix'' reference in the series 2 episode "It's How You Play the Game" with the wriggly silverfish robots used to infect people's minds by the BigBad. They go in through the ear, though, not the belly button.
** Oooh! And the ''Film/JamesBond'' crotch-laser in the episode "Starstruck".
** Also when Jerry's mother, in a flashback, rises from the sea in an orange bikini with a white belt.
** ''Film/KingKong1933'', when the gorilla climbs up a skyscraper with Alex on its back in the episode "Animal World".
** Averted with G.L.A.D.I.S.. Despite what many would think, this show's [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} G.L.A.D.I.S.]] actually came first.
** But G.L.A.D.I.S.' main interface looks a lot like Shirka from ''Anime/{{Ulysses 31}}''.
** Margie from "Brain Drain" shouts [[Literature/MommieDearest "NO WIRE HANGERS!"]]
** Geraldine Husk sounds and looks a lot like Emma Peel, which ended up being the breakout star of ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'', a mod spy show.
** Alex briefly snaps a [[Franchise/StarTrek Vulcan salute]] when encountering aliens.
** Does Clover's [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/totallyspies/images/8/89/Lara_Croft-02.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20120625113610 virtual trainer]] in season 3's "Evil Promotion Much" remind anyone of [[Film/LaraCroftTombRaiderTheCradleofLife a certain globetrotting adventuress?]]
** Season 3's "Morphing Is Soooo 1987" sees recurring villain Tim Scam creating multiple [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay morphing robots that can effortlessly create an exact copy of anyone it touches]] in an effort to destroy WOOHP.
** Though it is possibly unintentional, the design for Gargantuan's head in episode 12 season 3 is strikingly similar to that of the Combat Boomers from ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis''.

* {{Cliffhanger}}:

* BalefulPolymorph: This tends to happen to the heroines ''a lot''. In fact, if this weren't a kids' show, the BodyHorror Trope would probably apply rather often. Alex even does it to herself on purpose in one episode, chowing on the villains' muscle-enhancing "Bulk Bars" so she can outfight them. Another episode Sam had her right hand turned into a crab claw, but she was the lucky one as Alex and Clover were turned into a full fish girl and elephant girl respectively.

* CursedWithAwesome: Not that they're ever reluctant to undo it, but the {{Baleful Polymorph}}s inflicted on the girls often seems to work to their advantage in some way.

** Plots involving BalefulPolymorph of victims or other body alterations almost always target Clover, with her being the most concerned about fashion, beauty and her appearance of the three girls, whether whether it's being shrunk, turned into a CatGirl, fattened up by highly-addictive cookies, turned into a muscular figure skater by nanomachines, or even having her legs stolen and replaced.

* EnlightenedAntagonist: {{Parodied}} with [[MonsterOfTheWeek one of the episodic villains]], Yin-Yang. He is a Feng Shui guru who intends to rearrange the continents into a yin yang image, which would obviously have catastrophic consequences for the world. {{Lampshaded}} when he captures the protagonists and tells them that his Chinese tea "will remove their fears of a new natural world order", and Alex points out that [[AffablyEvil he's pretty nice for a villain]]... and then it turns out that [[NotSoHarmlessPunishment he LITERALLY intends to drown them in a large cauldron of hot tea]].

** {{Averted}} to an extent with Tim Scam, who became evil because he felt that WOOHP never appreciated his genius, [[GenreBlindness despite the fact that he was using WOOHP technology for his own selfish goals]].

* EvilIsPetty: A ''lot'' of the villains fall under this. The movie villain Fabu takes it [[UpToEleven up past eleven]]; he wants to destroy Earth because [[DisproportionateRetribution somebody pulled his pants down in public and humiliated him as a child]].

** Jerry can range from being a true BenevolentBoss, to a goofy DitzyGenius, to acting like an exasperated {{Jerkass}}.

Has a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/TotallySpies Best Episode Crowner.]]

* KnowsAGuyWhoKnowsAGuy: When asked how Clover was able to get tickets to an event, she says:
-->"Oh it was easy! The manager of the arena has a cousin who lives next door to a guy who's best friends with a man who's married to a childhood classmate of a mother of a guy I know from the football team. I just flirted with him and he got the tickets for me." (Alex's brain breaks.)

* AbsenteeActor: In "Totally Mystery Much?" Martin's usual companions Diana and Java are mysteriously absent, though Martin does mention Diana when he says Sam is a "buzzkill" like her.

** Though it is possibly unintentional, the design for Gargantuan's head in episode 12 season 3 is strikingly similar to that of the the Combat Boomers from ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis''.

* RapunzelHair: In one episode, Clover was captured and her hair was grown really long to be used as a wig. Unfortunately, it made her very weak. The other girls even used the hair Rapunzel-style.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Matchmaker" is one of the few episodes not to feature Jerry summoning the girls to WOOHP for a new mission. It's also one of the few where Clover solo has to save the day.

* BewareTheSillyOnes: All of the villians usually have dorky themes and a screw or two loose, but a lot of them have come very close to dealing global level damage before they were stopped.

%%* CheekyMouth

** In "The Return of Geraldine", Clover is framed for plagarizing Sam's paper, trashing Alex's car, and stealing gadgets from WOOHP. [[spoiler:As the title implies, these were done by returning villain Geraldine as part of her revenge]].

* {{Cliffhanger}}

* DatedHistory: The World Trade Center is visible in the NYC skyline in “The Eraser”, which first aired in December 2001. This episode is also a FunnyAneurysmMoment because while battling with a villain shortly before hand, Sam says, “Who’s flying the plane?”

** With few exceptions, the spies would not return to Beverly Hills until the very end of an episode,with the B-Plots subsequently being so brief and having such little impact on the rest of the episode that they often amounted to padding.

In January 2022, six years after the last season, Thomas Astruc, one of the original writers for the series, [[https://twitter.com/thecartooncrave/status/1480048066740826112 announced]] the show would be returning ''again'' with a new season in the works. Though this time he'll just be producing, a new writing staff is taking over for this one.