Line #39 WesternAnimation/ThePJS


1	[[quoteright:248:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_pjs-show.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:248:''"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah-yeah, Yeah!\
3	Livin' in the [=PJs=]!"''[[note]]Thurgood Stubbs and other tenants of the projects[[/note]].]]
4
5	->'''Narrator:''' Once upon a time, in the projects...\
6	''"[=PJS=]! Projects! (Low-rent high rise, y'all!)\
7	[=PJS=]! (Oh yeah!) Projects! Livin' in the [=PJs=]!\
8	Holdin' down a cardboard condo, homeboy in a homemade bungalow\
9	In the middle of the end of a dead-end, one-way street!\
10	(Livin' in the [=PJs=]!)"''
11	-->--The opening theme song, sung by Music/GeorgeClinton.
12
13	''[=The PJs=]'' (Short for "The Projects") is a StopMotion television sitcom created by Creator/EddieMurphy, Creator/LarryWilmore, and Steve Tompkins, and produced for Imagine Television and [[Creator/TouchstonePictures Touchstone Television]] that ran from 1999-2001. The show centers around Thurgood Stubbs (voiced by Murphy in the first two seasons, Phil Morris in the third season), the superintendent of a housing project in a fictional city modeled after Chicago. It is best remembered for its unique use of claymation[[note]]Courtesy of Will Vinton Studios, for which this was their SwanSong prior to their reformation as Laika.[[/note]] when most animated primetime shows still relied on hand-drawn animation.
14
15	It lasted for two seasons on Creator/{{FOX}}, after which the show was canceled. Then, Creator/TheWB [[NetworkToTheRescue swooped]] [[ChannelHop in]] and gave the show one more season before it was canceled for good due to high production costs.
16
17	The third season of ''The [=PJs=]'' had a number of major changes in production, with the most notable being the recasting of Thurgood Stubbs due to Murphy leaving the series over contractual disputes, as well being involved in other projects at the time. Other notable changes include smaller production budget, outsourcing from Will Vinton Studios to Charged Productions, and Disney having no involvement in the third season, as they were uninterested in making a third season. As a consequence, the season was co-produced by The WB's production arm Creator/WarnerBrothers Television in Disney's place (Warner Bros. eventually agreed to give the rights to the third season to Disney in order to settle ownership claims).
18
19	Not to be confused with [[PajamaCladHero characters wearing PJs]].
20
21	----
22	!!This stop motion animated series provides examples of:
23	* AshesToCrashes: While demonstrating his new cleaning solution in "Miracle Cleaner on 134th Street", Thurgood intentionally dumps the ashes of Sanchez's late wife onto Sanchez's floor, then cleans them up with the solution.
24	-->'''Thurgood''': Don't you worry Sanchez, she's in a much cleaner place now.
25	* BigEater: Juicy. In early episodes his mother has to affix a "Do Not Feed" sign on him when he goes out. This is ironic, as both his parents are so fat they literally can't leave their apartment (though perhaps they were hoping he wouldn't reach their extreme state).
26	* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in the episode "Robbin' HUD" where a one-shot TokenWhite character is the first and only one to die.
27	* ButtMonkey: Emilio Sanchez, who's by far the biggest whipping boy in the entire projects.
28	* CampGay: Tarnel
29	* ChristmasEpisode: "How the Super Stoled Christmas". See below.
30	* ClipShow: One episode served as one, with "Clip Show" even being the title. Notably, the episode wasn't aired until after the series' cancellation.
31	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: In "Miracle Cleaner On 134th Street", Thurgood isn't getting that the CorruptCorporateExecutive wants him to keep quiet about the addictive additive in Thurgood's cleaning spray until he explicitly stated it.
32	* ConfidentialityBetrayal:
33	** In "Boyz 'n the Woods" Thurgood tells a ghost story on the spot to try and scare Calvin and Juicy, as part of an effort to salvage an already lackluster camping trip. He refers to Red Moley as "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs", to which his friend Walter Burkett protests by saying "Thurgood, I told you about my childhood in complete confidence!"
34	** In "Weave's Have a Dream", Muriel lets it slip that Bebe had sex with an exotic dancer the night before her wedding to Jimmy, not realizing that Tarnell is behind her getting his hair permed. She begs Tarnell not to say anything, which he does before yelling after Mrs. Avery. Muriel protests that she told Tarnell that in complete confidence, before admitting that Bebe trusted her with that secret. This sets in motion a feud between the two sisters.
35	* CouchGag: The subtitle for the HUD building changes with every appearance.
36	* DagwoodSandwich: In the episode "A Hero Ain't Nothing But a Super" Thurgood contemplates eating one before compacting it to fit his mouth. But then he says. "Muriel, I think the mayonnaise has gone bad."
37	* DeepFriedWhatever: While Thurgood already loves his fried food, it's taken to a comical extreme in "He's Got To Have It", when he's trying to get his blood pressure up to qualify for a drug trial, and Muriel serves him a meal consisting of "chicken-fried steak fried chicken, beer-battered fish (no fish, extra batter), and a fried salad".
38	* DeliveryGuy: "What's Eating Juicy Hudson?" reveals that Thurgood was this for Juicy. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson didn't even know she was pregnant, until she went into labor, so they couldn't even try to get to the hospital. Thurgood had to step in, after Mrs. Avery fainted, and he actually managed quite nicely.
39	* DependingOnTheWriter:
40	** Sometimes the characters try to be upstanding citizens and hate being associated with ghetto stereotypes, and other times they happily embody those stereotypes to a T.
41	** Sometimes the tenants of the Hilton-Jacobs are a close knit group and other times they hate one another.
42	* EconomyCast: The Hilton-Jacobs housing projects is a large, multi-story building that's part of a complex of three other buildings. And yet we never see anyone besides the dozen or so characters that make up the main cast (aside from some brief glimpses of other tenants in the Christmas Episode).
43	* EEqualsMCHammer: Actually written by Thurgood in an attempt to prepare for school. His second attempt read, "E=[=McNuggets=]"
44	* TheFaceless:
45	** The CorruptCorporateExecutive in "Miracle Cleaner On 134th Street".
46	** Also the recurring HUD-lady that is mean to Thurgood, but quite pleasant to Muriel.
47	** Rasta Man, who is often either behind a door or covered up by his familiar cloud of ganja smoke.
48	* FatBestFriend: Juicy.
49	* FramingDevice: The ChristmasEpisode is framed as Walter telling a guy he's just arrested the story of Thurgood learning the true meaning of Christmas.
50	* GoldenSnitch: The gumbo contest from "Operation Gumbo Drop"; the contest has several events, including a quiz, artistic interpretation and a stage show, all of which Thurgood dominates... only for the final event, the gumbo cook-off, to make up ''95%'' of the total score, making the rest of the competition a complete waste of time.
51	* HatedByAll: Just about every adult in the projects sans Muriel hates Thurgood's guts.
52	* HiddenDisdainReveal: In "Survival: In tha hood" Mrs. Avery goes into what seems to be a hours long rant over how she completely hates Calvin while mistaking Juicy for him.
53	* HintDropping: Subverted in the ChristmasEpisode. Muriel drops repeated hints about wanting a computer as a present, but Thurgood acts completely clueless (such as claiming she wants some cheapo [=CDs=]). After an irritated Muriel storms off, Thurgood demonstrates he was just messing with her, so he sets out to find a way to get her what she wants. He admits to Walter that this is the first time he ever successfully picked up the hint.
54	* HollywoodVoodoo: Haiti Lady. Whether or not her magic actually works varies by episode. It works fine for quick gags, but not when it could affect the plot.
55	* HowTheCharacterStoleChristmas: In "How the Super Stoled Christmas" Thurgood becomes a repo man so he can earn enough money to buy his wife a computer. Since residents of the projects have recently quit paying their bills on new items, his job becomes quite easy.
56	* InSeriesNickname: Several.
57	** Muriel calls Thurgood "Goodie" on occasion. The other tenants (and Smokey) refer to him as "Super."
58	** "Smokey" itself is one; his real name is Elister. Thurgood tends to call him "Crackhead", and called him "Mr. Crack" and "Mr. Crackhead" in early episodes.
59	** Garcelle Dupree, a Haitian [[HollywoodVoodoo mambo]], is usually referred to as "Haiti Lady", though she tends to take offense to that name.
60	* ItsAllAboutMe:
61	** Thurgood. It's not uncommon for him to ruin good opportunities for the other tenants just because it disagrees with him in some way.
62	** Played with in the episode where Muriel beats down a criminal (including [[AssShove shoving a hot comb up his ass]]) and has him arrested, but everyone thinks it was Thurgood. He goes along with it because the tenants are actually respecting him for the first time, but then the criminal's brother comes looking for revenge and kidnaps him. Muriel sees them but doesn't realize the situation, and casually brags about beating down that crook. Thurgood begs the brother not to listen to her and that ''he'' was the one who did it. She outshouts him...GilliganCut to her tied up along with him.
63	* JerkassHasAPoint: While Thurgood's laziness doesn't help, his argument that he has very few resources for the upkeep of the Hilton Jacobs building is absolutely true; HUD gives him little to work with (to the point where he had to resort to ''burglary'' just to get a new water filter in one episode), and the fact that they live in a crime-ridden ghetto means that many of the improvements Thurgood could do to the building would just be stolen, as seen in "The Door".
64	* LawOfInverseFertility: Despite being married for decades and Muriel's blatant sex drive, Thurgood and Muriel have no children due to Thurgood having "lazy sperm" that causes a level of impotence according to Muriel. However, Thurgood did manage to unintentionally impregnate Muriel's sister after accidentally sleeping with her while drunk.
65	* LighterAndSofter: By a ''very'' slim margin, but the show toned down quite a bit of its humor for its move to the WB in the third season.
66	* LimitedWardrobe: Outside of special occasions, the characters always wear the same outfits.
67	* MadeOfIron: Mrs. Avery has a stroke at least OnceAnEpisode, and is still kicking.
68	* NWordPrivileges: Played with in "The [=HJs=]" when Juicy finds a copy of ''[[Creator/RichardPryor Bicentennial Nigger]]'' in the radio station, Thurgood complains that they can't even say the name of the album, let alone play it, because of "African-American pleas" while the cover itself is given some screen time completely intact.
69	* NewYearHasCome: Season 3's "Scarthroat". When Sanchez becomes the only resident of the projects to prepare for Y2K, Thurgood and the other residents have to take his rations of supplies when a power outage and food shortage hits the projects.
70	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: One-shot character Deke "The Physique" Van Owen, the ex-professional wrestler turned senator in "Let's Get Ready to Crumble", is based on Jesse "The Body" Ventura.
71	* NoOSHACompliance: One of the biggest sources of comedy in the series, especially in the first two seasons. The Hilton-Jacobs projects are almost 60 years old, and have barely seen any upkeep during that time, not helped by HUD's shoestring budgets and Thurgood's laziness. It has features such as ventilation pipes held on by tape, ledges held on by gum, doors put up with plastic twist ties, asbestos insulation, safety levers held in place with paint cans, and a ''nuclear-powered furnace'', which almost went critical in one episode.
72	* NutritionalNightmare: Intentionally invoked with Thurgood's deepfried dinner in "He's Gotta Have It", but also applies to his regular diet, such as deep-fried smothered pork chop sandwiches, and chocolate milk made with Coco Puffs.
73	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Thurgood can never get resources he wants/needs out of the lady behind the window at the HUD. She [[VerbalTic always ends sentences]] to him with "'''NEXT!'''" even if there's nobody in line behind him. (There's a reason their slogan is "Keeping you in the projects for over 30 years.") The HUD Lady, however, is much nicer to Muriel.
74	* ParentalSubstitute: In "What's Eating Juicy Hudson?", Thurgood is asked to look after Juicy. They take to building a treehouse and doing other activities together, which causes Juicy to regard Thurgood as a better father figure than his actual father. Amid the ensuing friction, Thurgood tries to mend fences and convinces Mr. Hudson to step outside as a show of good faith.
75	* PoliceBrutality: Zigzagged when two cops accost Thurgood during a blizzard. They clearly ''intend'' to do this, but neither wants to get out of their warm patrol car to rough him up in the bitter cold. They instead order him, via the car's loudspeaker, to frisk himself, slap himself around, beat himself up, and make it look like a black-on-black assault, followed by an open-mike discussion of whether that technically would make it a black-on-black assault.
76	* PoliticalOvercorrectness: Parodied in "The HJ's" when Thurgood shows Creator/RichardPryor's album ''Bicentennial Nigger'' to Calvin after finding it in the old projects radio station, and says they can't even say the ''name'' of the album anymore.
77	--> '''Thurgood''': African-American, please!
78	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: Well, Jimmy's Asian, but he still fits the bill. He acts this way due to being the illegitimate son of a U.S soldier who was supposedly black, though it's revealed in season 3 that he was actually native-american.
79	* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Let's Get Ready To Crumble"; Thurgood reveals that he used to wrestle for the NWA back in the days before the Wrestling/{{WWE}} (still known as the World Wrestling Federation when the episode aired) rose to prominence. Not the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance, the ''Negro'' Wrestling Alliance! He ends up coming out of retirement to face Governor Deke "The Physique" Van Owen, an Expy of Wrestling/JesseVentura, to decide the fate of the Projects.
80	* RememberTheNewGuy: Parodied for all it's worth in "Robbin' HUD", when we meet a never before mentioned TokenWhite guy named Buster. Who is along for OneLastJob and just had a baby. [[{{Retirony}} You can guess what happens.]]
81	* RewindReplayRepeat: In "Operation: Gumbo Drop", Thurgood discovers that Muriel taped over his "happy tape" (a recording of O.J Simpsons aquittal) to film a documentary about the projects. When he realizes that the footage contains Juicy making his own Gumbo (Thurgood's main conflict in the episode), he decides to take advantage of this and use the tape to study Juicy's cooking methods.
82	* RougeAnglesOfSatin:
83	** In the Christmas episode, Thurgood explains why he paid for all his friends' back payments on their rented stuff because "there's no 'I' in 'friendship'".
84	** And in another he leaves a director a note that says he won't get his "flim" back.
85	** When the government wants to offer residents free flu shots, Thurgood insists that "Flu" is like "Ful", which you'd be if you trust the government. The episode ends with him having written a ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' puzzle in Muriel's diary that turns out to be "[[AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther I Luv Yuu]]"
86	* RuleOfThree: Combined with InherentlyFunnyWords. Thurgood is [[ItMakesSenseInContext working on a stand up act]] and the book he got on how to be funny says things in threes are funny, as well as words with a hard k (like knish, tukas, fakakta). He logically assumes then that the funniest thing ever [[RefugeInAudacity is KKK]].
87	* SadisticChoice: In the ChristmasEpisode, Thurgood takes a repo job to pay for Muriel's present (a computer). He does it fine with random tenants he doesn't know very well, but he's reluctant to repossess the stuff belonging to his actual friends. He's about to forget the whole thing and return the computer, but then Muriel stumbles onto him with it and is ecstatic. Thurgood is left torn, as he doesn't want to hose his friends or disappoint his wife. The choice becomes a lot easier when he thinks his friends actually stiffed him on tips, only to learn later that they were pooling money to buy him a gift.
88	* SassyBlackWoman: Every woman in the cast, most notably Muriel's sister and the lady at HUD.
89	* ScaryBlackMan: The street thugs who were frequent antagonists.
90	* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Mrs. Avery.
91	* ShoutOut:
92	** In "Cliffhangin' with Mr. Super", [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Fry]] is shown as missing on the back of Thurgood's milk carton. This was a response to an episode of ''Futurama'' featuring the show's TitleCard manhole cover.
93	** In "Miracle Cleaner On 134th Street", Thurgood called one of the CorruptCorporateExecutive's bodyguards [[WesternAnimation/FatAlbertAndTheCosbyKids Mushmouth]].
94	** The Hilton-Jacobs Projects are named after Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, the actor who played Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington on ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter''.
95	** [[Film/{{Titanic\|1997}} I'M KING OF THE WORLD!!!]]
96	* SickEpisode: "Journal Fever" where Muriel comes down with the flu and Thurgood agrees to take care of her.
97	* SmallNameBigEgo: Thurgood, from time to time.
98	* SoundEffectBleep: With a truck backing up.
99	* TakeThat: In the ChristmasEpisode, Thurgood is surprised by a little girl seeing him repossess goods and asked what he's doing.
100	-->'''Water:''' ''[narrating]'' He thought up a lie and quickly you bet.\
101	'''Thurgood:''' ''[[Film/StarWarsEpisodeIThePhantomMenace Phantom Menace]]'' is the best ''Star Wars'' yet!
102	* ToBeContinuedRightNow: "Cliffhangin' with Mr. Super", a parody of {{Cliffhanger}} episodes, looks like it's about to end as one, with several different plot threads still needing to be resolved... only for the "[[OnTheNext scenes from next season's PJs]]" to end up resolving them all by way of exposition.
103	* WhenEldersAttack: Florence Normandy Avery has shown time and again why you shouldn't mess with her. She even has a gun, which Thurgood finds out the hard way.
104	* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: It's never said what city they live in, all the police cars says Metro Police Department on them. The projects is modeled after Brewster-Douglas public housing projects in Detroit, and the city seems to be an Ambiguous mix of Detroit, Harlem, and Chicago. Mrs. Avery does mention Cook County in one episode, where Chicago is.
105	* WretchedHive: The projects which are crime-ridden and rundown to the extreme, though they have their good spots where the residents have worked together to create something out of the squalor.
106	* WhosOnFirst: Thurgood and Smokey's "Who's on Crack" routine from "The [=HJs=]":
107	-->'''Thurgood''': I'm trying to clean up this neighborhood, and I'm wondering if you could help me by pointing out some of the drug addicts.
108	-->'''Smokey''': Mm, okay, but uh, nowadays drug addicts have some pretty peculiar names.
109	-->'''Thurgood''': You mean nicknames.
110	-->'''Smokey''': Well, street names like uh, Who's on crack, Say What's on smack, and uh, I Don't Know freebases.
111	-->'''Thurgood''': Well do you know the fellows' names?
112	-->'''Smokey''': I said Who's on crack, Say What's on smack, and I Don't Know freebases.
113	-->'''Thurgood''': Well, who's on crack?
114	-->'''Smokey''': Yes.
115	-->'''Thurgood''': I mean, the fellow's name.
116	-->'''Smokey''': Who?
117	-->'''Thurgood''': The guy on crack!
118	-->'''Smokey''': Who?
119	-->'''Thurgood''': The crack addict!
120	-->'''Smokey''': Who is on crack.
121	-->'''Thurgood''': I don't know!
122	-->'''Smokey''': I don't know freebases.
123	-->'''Thurgood''': Who freebases?
124	-->'''Smokey''': No, who's on crack.
125	-->'''Thurgood''': Say what?
126	-->'''Smokey''': No, he's on smack.
127	-->'''Thurgood''': Who's on smack?
128	-->'''Smokey''': No, who's on crack.
129	-->'''Thurgood''': I don't know!
130	-->'''Smokey''': Freebase!
131	-->'''Thurgood''': Shut up, you damn stupid crackhead!
132	** It ends up becoming their most popular skit, and is the most requested at the fundraiser performance in the end.

Context WesternAnimation / ThePJS