Line #46 WesternAnimation/StrokerAndHoop


1	[[quoteright:248:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_stroker_and_hoop_4385.png]]
2	An animated [[SatireParodyPastiche parody]] of the BuddyCopShow, especially ''Series/StarskyAndHutch''. Features two semi-competent yet ineffective {{Private Detective}}s, John "Stroker" Strockmeyer, his partner Hoop Schwartz, and their self-aware robotic car, C.A.R.R.
3
4	Stroker (Creator/JonGlaser) falls short as a detective mostly due to his own short-sightedness, self-involvement and greed more than bad investigative skills. He has a young son (by his Latina ex-wife), whom he loves, even if he can't quite seem to show it properly.
5
6	Hoop (Speed Levitch) is a very touchy-feely, sensitive, pacifistic sort who's dressed like a bad motivational speaker. He prefers to talk problems out rather than skip straight to the gunplay. [[ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption This never works.]]
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8	C.A.R.R. (Paul Christie) is essentially the opposite of K.I.T.T. from ''Series/KnightRider''. He's a junky old beater (not quite TheAllegedCar, but past his prime), he's not too smart, and lacks any really useful gadgetry other than [[DeadpanSnarker talking]] and the ability to drive himself. He listens to a lot of ultra-right-wing talk shows, since he doesn't have an FM radio. He was built by Stroker's mechanic friend "Double-Wide" (who is voiced by Creator/CurtisArmstrong), whose ''odd'' private life is often helpful.
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10	Finally, they are aided by the jovial, and perhaps [[OnlySaneMan most competent]], Coroner Rick. He is often played as a TokenBlackFriend to quite nearly every main character.
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12	Since the two titular characters have detective skills that are mediocre at best and generally lack decent resumes, they have to settle for taking cases for people too poor to afford more competent detectives.
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14	The characters were mostly GenreBlind, as they often failed anyway, and many a {{Lampshade\|Hanging}} was hung on various tropes. As far as trope use in parodies goes, this show is a great example.
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16	[[ShortRunners Canceled only after a season of 13 episodes]] and with [[LeftHanging no ending]].
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18	The entire series is available for free viewing on the Adult Swim [[https://www.adultswim.com/videos/stroker-and-hoop website]]
19	----
20	!!This show provides examples of:
21	* AntiHero: Stroker. By contrast, however, Hoop is very kind and innocent (When not provoked into avenging his fallen comrades).
22	* AttackItsWeakPoint: With [[ItMakesSenseInContext the giant diamond monster]], C.A.R.R. suggests Stroker and Hoop aim for the leg containing Lou Diamond Phillips (on the grounds that having "Diamond" for a middle name means he's not a true diamond). It works.
23	* AttendingYourOwnFuneral: Though Stroker later admits that bringing his son to his own funeral was a crappy idea.
24	* AtrociousAlias: It's never revealed exactly what gave Stroker the inspiration for his nickname, but it can't have been anything good.
25	* AutopsySnackTime: Coroner Rick does this.
26	* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:"XXX Wife" ends with the tape of Judd Winner's misdeeds destroyed, Stroker and Hoop hypnotised into doing a [[BestialityIsDepraved bestiality movie]], and Stroker gaining an AbhorrentAdmirer.]]
27	* BaitAndSwitch: In the ChristmasEpisode, Santa doesn't care much for any of the Christmas Ghosts--not because they're not white, but because he never liked the idea of three creepy ghosts in a Christmas narrative.
28	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Hoop, though this does get played with in a few ways.
29	* BilingualBackfire: During this exchange in "Rube Job".
30	-->'''Tio:''' (In Spanish) Then we'll kill you.\
31	'''Henchman:''' (In Spanish) After we cut your balls off and feed them to you.\
32	'''Double-Wide:''' (In Spanish) I sure wish I didn't know Spanish.
33	* BlackComedy: Coroner Rick is an in-universe example...if only to himself.
34	-->"Why they always gotta land face-down like that?"
35	* BlofeldPloy: [[spoiler:{{Double Subver\|sion}}ted.]]
36	** Further, too much of this causes a villain to run out of henchmen for when Stroker and Hoop appear.
37	* {{Bond\|One Liner}}[=/=]PreMortemOneLiner: Hoop in one episode. They're all [[{{Pun}} pretty bad]].
38	* BuddyCopShow
39	* CasanovaWannabe: Stroker. And '''how.'''
40	* CeilingCling: Subverted, the guy they're hiding from sees them immediately.
41	* ChekhovsBoomerang: one episode was set in motion by the duo buying a billboard for "Stroker and Hoop, ''[[FailedASpotCheck Detectvies]]''". In a later episode the pair lampshade that they'll have anonymity against a gang who has no idea who they are. The gang leader looks up and sees the billboard still there, still misspelled. Stroker even says he forgot they had it.
42	* ChickMagnet: Hoop actually pulls in a fair share of legit tail. Including a short lived girlfriend, Judd Winners wife, and {{Ninja}} girl Sukko.
43	* CliffHanger[=/=]LeftHanging[=/=]NoEnding: [[spoiler:The final episode see Stroker, Hoop and Double Wide locked in C.A.R.R and dangling over a canyon via a giant magnet by a mysterious caller who gives them three guesses to name who he is. The whole episode is mostly a clip show of the season before its revealed that their captor is a minor background character who had the same voice but kept changing his appearance due to his run ins with Stroker and Hoop and their direct or indirect actions which ruined his life. Coroner Rick manages to find out who he is and shoots him. But the captor ends up landing on the switch to the magnet which drops C.A.R.R into the canyon followed by an explosion. The show ends ambiguous of the protagonists' fate. Though WordOfGod said if there had been a second season, the protagonists would've ended up in heaven and eventually ended up back on earth with several other people from heaven]]
44	* ConspiracyTheorist: Ron Howard is trying to control his mind.
45	** Subverted, in that Ron Howard actually was trying to control his mind.
46	%%* EitherOrTitle
47	* EvilTwin: Hoop suffers from this trope in one episode.
48	* FakingTheDead: Stroker and Keith in "Ninja Worrier".
49	* ForcedTransformation: In "XXX Wife" the villains turn two women into real life furries by splicing them with the DNA of tigers. [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody Their tiger instincts take over and they eat the Japanese investor]].
50	* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Averted and lampshaded in "The Wrath of Khan'Ja" when Stroker [[DressingAsTheEnemy knocks out a guard and steals his clothes]] to try to get into the FPI headquarters. It turns out the other guard was watching the camera.
51	* HeadBlast: In the episode "Just Voodoo It (aka, For Whom The Bear Tolls)", before rushing in to face a horde of zombies, Double-Wide wires C.A.R.R.'s AI to a shotgun mounted on a helmet that he wears into the fray. When C.A.R.R. starts firing the gun, however, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Double-Wide remembers guns have recoil,]] and he ends the episode in a neck brace.
52	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Composed of {{Pun Based Title}}s
53	* IHaveBoobsYouMustObey: One episode has a henchwoman who has the ability to hypnotize people regardless of gender by getting them to stare at her breasts. She also swirls them around, like a hypno-spiral.
54	* ImDyingPleaseTakeMyMacGuffin: Lampshaded. A dying karate instructor entrusts the handle of a magic sword to Stroker's son Keith and warns that reuniting the handle with the pieces of the blade would be disastrous. Stroker asks why, if it's such a big deal, the sword wasn't destroyed completely, even suggesting flushing it down the toilet or something.
55	** When the sword is reassembled, it's nothing more than an over sized flashlight. Hoop, who was fighting with the villain using the sword, noted that when the sword was broken and separated centuries ago, that people in ancient China would've seen that as amazing or terrifying.
56	*** Of course, when you shine the light on the dead...
57	* ImAHumanitarian: Stroker and Hoop have the misfortune to run into these ''three times in a row.''
58	** In "Tinfoiled Again" it is revealed [[spoiler:Stroker and Hoop's appendixes and coccyxes where stolen by a cult called the Kindhearted Cannibals, who only eat vestigial organ and generally spare their victims. [[HeKnowsTooMuch They however make an exception for Stroker as he was snooping in their affairs.]] They also poison themselves, much to the chagrin of the two junior members who stole Stroker and Hoop's vestigial organs.]]
59	** In "The Rube Job" Hoop's cousin Mumu, a sheriff's deputy, has the ''disturbing'' habbit of eating the digits of pageant contestants who where murdered in fashions based the food they where named after. Stroker and Hoop understandably find this horrifying and disgusting. [[spoiler:This turns out to be {{Forshadowing}}, as he is later revealed to a SerialKiller.]]
60	** As stated above, in "XXX Wife" [[spoiler:a pair of college students are turned into [[CatGirl cat girls]] by splicing them with tiger DNA, which result gaining a taste for human flesh. After they are released from their cage, they attack an investor, noting how delicious he tastes.]]
61	* InstantSedation: Parodied. A camera guy gets hit in the head and falls down unconscious. After Stroker tries to explain to the other crew member that this trope is what's going on, he pretends he's knocked rather than risk brain damage/death.
62	* InterruptedCooldownHug: In "Ninja Worrier", when [[spoiler: Hoop manages to convince Souko not to kill him after he kills her ex-boyfriends avenging Stroker's (fake) death, but Stroker ends up shooting her, causing her to fall into power lines and eventually get run over.]]
63	* LogicBomb: Stroker notices a particularly devastating flaw in the cannibal cult's logic.
64	-->'''Cultists:''' Eat a person, be a person, eat a person, be a person...\
65	'''Stroker:''' So wait, your philosophy is you are what you eat, right?\
66	'''Cult Leader:''' Yes.\
67	'''Stroker:''' So, if I eat a hamburger, then I'm a hamburger, right?\
68	'''Cult Leader:''' Yes.\
69	'''Stroker:''' And then...if you eat me, ''you're'' hamburgers too, right?\
70	'''Cult Leader:''' ...
71	* MeaningfulName: Khan'Ja = Conned Ya.
72	* MostCommonSuperPower: In 'XXX Wife'. Actually ''was'' a superpower, as [[MeaningfulName Areola]]'s [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin areolas]] could hypnotize almost anyone into doing almost anything.
73	* MuggedForDisguise: Stroker and Hoop mug two camera men for a disguise, with Stroker breaking a bottle on one guys head, with the other freaking out, when the first man no longer moves. He convinces them not to knock him out (and possibly give him a concussion), by pretending to be unconscious. The two proceed to waste a lot of time getting the guys out of their clothes (with the conscious guy having to loosen his belt), and Hoop insisting on putting on one's underwear. The guy they're supposed to spy on gets mad when his "Camera Crew" turn up almost an hour late.
74	* NarratorAllAlong: The narrator for the Christmas episode amusingly turns out to be a turkey about to be taken to the slaughter.
75	-->'''Narrator:''' And that, my friends, is the story of how Stroker saved Christmas. Now, it took old Stroker a few years to get over losing the lottery, and then figure out this was a happy ending. But that's the funny thing about happy endings. They're not about getting richer. They're about growing older, and getting to share another year with the ones you love. ''(A man approaches and grabs the poor turkey around the neck)'' Wait! What the hell? No! No, I want to live! Dear God! Please, don't kill me! ''(He is dragged offscreen and utters a BigNo before being killed)''
76	** DeadStarWalking: And he was voiced by a moderately famous character actor (Eli Wallach, no less!)
77	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Pretty much the entire series.
78	%%* {{Ninja}}
79	* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Hoop's mother Rose, when wrongfully imprisoned after being framed for murder, [[spoiler: kills an inmate who stabbed her, then fakes her suicide in order to get Coroner Rick help her escape. And when he doesn't comply, threatens to give him a "Colombian jockstrap" by holding a knife to his crotch.]]
80	* OhCrap: After waking up from a night of drunken sex with a blonde bombshell, things go quickly downhill for Stroker.
81	-->'''Stroker:''' (wakes up alone) Oh crap. (notices ''Hoop'' is actually in the bed with him) Oh crap! (notices [[OrganTheft he has stitches where his kidney should be]]) Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap...
82	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Stroker (John Strockmeyer) and Double Wide (Name Unknown)
83	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: According to the Ghost of Christmas Future, ghosts can get shot and die like any living person.
84	* ParodyNames:
85	-->'''C.A.R.R.:''' "On Dashiell, on Danzig, on Randolph, on Blitzkrieg, on other non-copyrighted names!"
86	* RecklessGunUsage: Hoop reveals in "Ninja Worrier" that he's actually always aimed up during previous shootouts in order to avoid shooting someone. As Stroker flashes back to some examples, we see the duo firing wildly while riding a roller coaster.
87	* RegretEatingMe: When it looks like he's going to be eaten by cannibals, Stroker tells them, "I hope you choke on my assbone bitches."
88	* ReliablyUnreliableGuns: Combined with AccidentalAimingSkills at the start of one episode. Stroker and Hoop are held up by a Columbian drug dealer and are forced to drop their guns.. which go off, injuring both the drug dealer and his wife (who was inexplicably not present until just then). Stroker immediately lampshades it by stating he can't shoot that well when he actually aims.
89	** The death of Stroker's original partner (Jermaine Washington) subverts this. He was killed in a shootout, and it was thought his gun had jammed due to not being properly cleaned. It turns out Stroker borrowed his gun's magazine without telling him and left him without any ammo.
90	* SantasExistenceClause: In the ChristmasEpisode, Stroker thought only a MallSanta had been poisoned, but it's the real deal.
91	* SkywardScream: "[[ShoutOut KHAAAAAAAAAAAN...ja]]"
92	* SpiritAdvisor: The Ghosts of Christmas parody this [[spoiler:as they turn out to be the culprits of the episode's crime.]]
93	* SpotTheImposter: Parodied when Stroker has to choose between shooting Hoop or Hoop's lookalike criminal cousin. Stroker kneecaps one of them, which is a relief to the Hoop still standing until he also gets kneecapped. Stroker reasons they can now figure out who's who at their leisure, but an anguished Hoop says he could've just asked questions only the real one would know, which Stroker concedes might've worked. In the end, they still get it wrong, with Hoop on a chain gang and his cousin riding away in C.A.R.R. However, Stroker, Double Wide, and C.A.R.R. notice him sport an evil grin, so they head back to make really sure this time about who's who.
94	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Many examples PlayedForLaughs:
95	** One time, the heroes hide from the suspect on the slanted ceiling, he walks in, sits at his desk, and calls for security to get them out of his office.
96	** A BadBoss keeps killing his ninja {{mooks}} [[YouHaveFailedMe for random failures,]] only to find that he killed all of them by the time the heroes showed up.
97	** Hoop and his ninja girlfriend fight, jumping high like the wire-work in Wuxia films, and fighting on the vertical face of a building, right up until [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Stroker just shoots her in the back from the ground.]]
98	** In one episode Stroker solves the whole "Which is the real one" cliché just like you would expect someone to in RealLife: he just incapacitates ''both'' people so that the good guys can figure out which is which at their leisure, without having to worry about making a mistake (and still screwed it up).
99	** In one episode, Stroker is attempting to sneak into a facility. He knocks out the guards outside the building, and proceeds to sneak past the security guard who watches the security monitors. The security guard asks who he is, so Stroker disguises his voice (badly) in hopes of fooling him. However, the security guard reveals he was messing with Stroker, and watched him knock out the guys on the security monitors. Stroker was apparently counting on him to be asleep on the job. The security guard responds by saying he just really likes his job (and finds the urine sample chamber hilarious).
100	** As mentioned above, Stroker and Hoop [[MuggedForDisguise mug two camera men for a disguise,]] with [[TapOnTheHead Stroker breaking a bottle on one guy's head]], with the other freaking out when the first man no longer moves. He convinces them not to knock him out and risk giving him a concussion by simply pretending to be unconscious. The two proceed to waste a lot of time getting the guys out of their clothes (with the conscious guy having to loosen his belt), and Hoop insisting on putting on one's underwear. The guy they're supposed to spy on gets mad when his "camera crew" turns up almost an hour late.
101	* TakeThat: The New Hampshire Fuzzy Bear company to the Vermont Teddy Bear Company.
102	** Almost every episode has a take that to somebody or some company, from Ronco to Ron Howard.
103	* TalkingAnimal: That poor turkey who gets killed at the end of the Christmas episode.
104	%%* TapOnTheHead: {{Averted\|Trope}} and {{lampshade\|Hanging}}d.
105	* TimeyWimeyBall: The YetAnotherChristmasCarol episode ends up with Stroker and Hoop going back and forth in time to save Christmas, or at least the secular side of it.
106	* TraitorShot: Hoop's EvilTwin slips into this mode at the worst possible moment. (Or at least worst from [[NiceJobFixingItVillain his point of view.]])
107	* WrongGenreSavvy: The Christmas Ghosts conspired to kill Santa after he invited them to his place for dinner (something he had never done before). They thought he was getting suspicious of their lottery scam, but it was simply because Mrs. Claus thought it'd be rude to exclude them.
108	* YetAnotherChristmasCarol: The episode "I Saw Stroker Killing Santa Claus".

Context WesternAnimation / StrokerAndHoop