Line #19 WesternAnimation/Cro


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cro_resized.png]]
7	''Cro'' is an animated educational/informative show from the [[Creator/SesameWorkshop Children's Television Workshop]] (now known as Sesame Workshop) and Creator/FilmRoman about mechanical engineering and technology. It was based on a children's technology book called ''Literature/TheWayThingsWork'' by Creator/DavidMacaulay. The show ran from September 1993 to October 1994 on Creator/{{ABC}} for 21 episodes. In 1999, the show returned to the air on Creator/{{Noggin}}, a channel co-founded by Sesame Workshop.
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9	The premise: A mammoth from the ice age is frozen in a glacier, and thawed out by a scientist and her kid {{sidekick}}. The mammoth, named Phil, can speak perfect English and comes from a surprisingly sophisticated tribe of mammoth scientist/engineers. Each episode, Dr C. and Mike would, in a [[TheTeaser cold open]], encounter a tricky engineering problem with some device, and Phil would tell a story about solving the same problem years ago. Cue titles, then a FlashBack.
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11	The titular Cro was a young human boy (presumably a Cro-Magnon man), whose adopted Neanderthal family was assimilated into the mammoth community. Although the humans were, for the most part, pretty stupid, the mammoths found their opposable thumbs useful.
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13	Each FlashBack would have the mammoths coach Cro and his Neanderthal family through the solving of a problem with some type of simple machine. It differed from the typical BambooTechnology in that all the devices were built on a foundation of good solid science.
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15	----
16	!This program provides examples of:
17	%%* AllCavemenWereNeanderthals: All of them, except for Cro.
18	* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Saline the purple Smilodon, bright orange and red dire wolves, mammoths that are unrealistically bright red, orange, and yellow, etc.
19	* AnachronisticAnimal:
20	** Invoked when Phil is reanimated in the present day.
21	** Bobb in the past, as ''Australopithecus'' went extinct several million years before the evolution of Neanderthals, modern humans, or woolly mammoths.
22	%%* AnimatedSeries
23	* AreYouSureYouCanDriveThisThing: The ending to "Let Me Help" has Phil attempt to use a bulldozer to help out with gardening. Predictably, it goes haywire after Mike asks this question.
24	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: The mammoths are depicted living in mixed-sex herds with Phil and many other grown bulls. Similar to living elephants, fossil evidence indicates that only female mammoths and juveniles lived in large herds, while males lived alone or in small bachelor groups. Of course, it’s safe to say real mammoths didn’t speak English or have an advanced understanding of modern science, either…
25	* CatsAreMean: Saline the saber-toothed cat.
26	* CruelElephant: Earle and Mojo definitely qualify.
27	* DownerBeginning: And how. The opening sequence starts off with the main family of cavemen being saved from reoccurring villain, a purple sabertooth tiger, by Phil the Mammoth. Then the ground underneath Phil's feet collapses and he seemingly dies before the eyes of his friends when he plummets to his [[DisneyDeath "death"]]. This is made all the more depressing with the knowledge that Phil would not be found for thousands of years, so Cro and company never found out that Phil survived and ended their lives never knowing. Then by the time said Mammoth would be reanimated, everything he knew and loved had long since died, and all other members of his entire species. However, this is never is brought up in the actual series. And if that's not not enough for you, the opening theme song is done to the tune of Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion."
28	* {{Edutainment}}: The science lessons aren't rammed down the viewers' throats like, say, the math lessons on ''WesternAnimation/CyberChase'', focusing first and foremost on entertainment. It helps that the dialogue itself is genuinely funny.
29	* ElephantsNeverForget: Specifically, a woolly mammoth. Despite being thawed in the present day after spending a million years frozen in ice, Phil is still able to recall every memory from his past life.
30	* EternalEnglish: Phil and Cro speak a version of English that is still in use thousands of years later.
31	* EveryEpisodeEnding: Dr. C's always heading into some kind of extremely perilous situation just as the episode ends.
32	%%* ExpositoryThemeTune
33	* FantasticRacism: Earle, Mojo and (sometimes) Esmeralda, the older mammoths in the herd, are shown as conservative and don't really like or trust the humans.
34	%%* FlashBack
35	* FootBathTreatment: Phil can be seen with his feet in a large basin of water in the opening credits.
36	* FramingDevice: Dr Celia and/or Mike have a problem which reminds Phil of a story about having a similar problem in Woollyville and how they solved it, setting up each episode.
37	* FrazettaMan: Naturally Bobb the Australopithecus.
38	* HulkSpeak: Most of the Neanderthal characters would talk like this. Complete with the [[Film/BlazingSaddles Mongo Pawn In Game Of Life]] moments:
39	-->'''Ogg''': That not funny! [[LampshadeHanging Not politically correct either!]]
40	* HumansAreSmelly: [[ZigzaggedTrope Zig-zags]] into literal territory in "What That Smell?". The mammoths were repulsed by the Neanderthals' stench, but Seline considered it an appetizing aroma. After most of them bathed, the latter was disgusted.
41	* IntellectualAnimal: Turns out mammoths were all trained science teachers who spoke perfect late 20th century American English. Who knew?
42	* LastOfHisKind: Phil, although he takes it [[AngstWhatAngst remarkably well.]] Maybe all the reminiscing helps.
43	* LiteralAssKicking: Cro got a lot of this in "Meal Like A Pig." He was repeatedly gored in the backside by a wild boar [[spoiler: (which turned out to be just a baby)]] and he repeatedly fell off a small cliff and landed on his butt. He got tangled up in a vine and was dragged butt-first over some rocks. [[spoiler: What's more, it's implied that his adventure ended with him getting a huge dose of this trope from an entire pack of (adult) boars!]]
44	* LogoJoke: After the end credits, a rolling stone square would collide with a stone circle and a stone triangle, causing all three shapes to crumble into the initials "CTW" (short for Children's Television Workshop, the name that Sesame Workshop went by until 2001).
45	* MisplacedWildlife:
46	** The show is set in modern and prehistoric California, but has a family of Neanderthals (found only in Europe and Asia) and an ''Australopithecus'' (found only in Africa) as main characters.
47	** Phil and the other mammoths are identified as woolly mammoths, which didn't roam that far south, only Columbian mammoths did.
48	** A cave bear appears in one episode, even though like Neanderthals, they were endemic to Eurasia in real life.
49	* NeverSayDie: Averted ''hard''. Not only is the concept of death very frequently brought up, in the first episode, Earle and Mojo advocate outright '''''[[FinalSolution GENOCIDE]]''''' against the humans.
50	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Creator/CharlieAdler voices Mojo as an impersonation of Creator/PaulLynde.
51	* NoFourthWall: The series is very self-aware. For example, in "Lever In a Million Years", after Ogg successfully learns how to use a lever to lift a large rock, a light shines down, and Gogg notes [[MediumAwareness "That good special effects!"]]
52	* NoodleImplements: While the majority of the mammoths' "Or Else!" threat in "What That Smell?" is left unrevealed, it's painful and somehow involves pineapples.
53	* NoodleIncident: Gogg and Nandy mention that Bob turned into a potato once via magic, but not the circumstances or how he turned back. Just that he hasn't been the same since.
54	* ThePigPen: Ogg is this in "What That Smell?", refusing to bathe even though his stench kept Seline right on his trail.
55	* PredatorsAreMean: Played straight. Both the saber-toothed cat Selene and the dire wolves are portrayed as stereotypical villainous predators. Meanwhile the humans show no interest in hunting the mammoths.
56	* RunningGag: In "Play It Again, Cro... Not!" Mojo keeps getting interrupted before he can play his triangle.
57	%%* {{Sidekick}}: Mike to Dr. C.
58	%%* SmugSnake: Earl and his companion Mojo.
59	* ShapedLikeItself: Ogg once remarked, "Mung very mung-like today."
60	* ShoutOut: "Play It Again, Cro... Not!" has several:
61	** The band Phil puts together is referred to as "The Woolyville Philharmonic Marching Band".
62	** The dire wolves' leader says he once saw "[[Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof Dire Wolf on the Roof]]"
63	** Bob plays "Flight of the Bumblebee" on his nose flute.
64	** Cro and [[spoiler:the dire wolves]] play part of "Turkey in the Straw".
65	** [[spoiler:The dire wolves' leader]] says "We're [[Film/OurManFlint in like Flynn]]."
66	** Later, Ogg sings "Me-me-me-me! Ogg-Ogg-Ogg-Ogg!" to the tune of [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven]]'s "Symphony No. 5" a couple of times.
67	** The characters' band performs their own rendition of Music/AndyWilliams' "Feelings".
68	** There's one to ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'' in "What That Smell"?
69	--->'''Ogg''': Bath?! Ogg no want bath! Ogg no need no stinking bath!
70	* StuffBlowingUp: One episode was dedicated to gunpowder.
71	* TheTeaser: Involving Phil and the scientists having a problem in the present which cues the flashback.
72	* TitleThemeTune: "So listen as Phil takes us back to wonders of long ago / And weaves a tale of Woolyville and ice-age boy named Cro-o-o-o, Cro-o-o-o... ''WesternAnimation/{{Cro}}!''"
73	%%* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Nandy to the cavemen.
74	%%* TheUnintelligible: Bob
75	* TranslatorBuddy: Bob, being an ''Australopithecus'', only speaks in monkey sounds. Gogg translates for him, though Ogg has attempted to translate on at least one occasion and was way off the mark.
76	%%* WelcomeEpisode
77	%%* WholeEpisodeFlashback

Context WesternAnimation / Cro