Characters / Milo Murphy's Law: Main Characters

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Milo and friends:

Milo Danger Murphy

I'm not sitting here watching the world turn!
You know, I'd rather spin it!

Voiced by: "Weird Al" Yankovic (present day), Sam Lavagnino (child)

The title character of the series and the descendent of Edward Murphy, Milo Murphy is positive, enthusiastic, and makes the best of everything. He considers life to be an adventure and feels lucky to experience Murphy's Law. After all, isn't it more exciting to run to school chased by a pack of wild llamas than to take the bus?

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• 13 Is Unlucky: Milo's thirteen years old and things tend to go badly when he's around.
• Absurd Phobia: Chinese finger traps. They're the only thing that's made Milo go into a full-blown panic, leaping into a river of lard and flailing about hysterically the way Zack does around fish. Thankfully, he knows how they work now.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services:
  • 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 Murphy's luck that they 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) But no.
• Action Survivor: He has to be to survive his life.
• Actor Allusion: Much like Weird Al, Milo plays the accordion.
• Alliterative Name: Milo Murphy.
• All-Loving Hero: Milo doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He's friendly and pleasant with everybody, even the likes of Bradley, Elliot and the Pistachions.
• All There in the Manual: Milo's "condition" is called Extreme Hereditary Murphy's Law condition, or EHML, in press materials. By the admission of the creators, this was invented in the early conceptual stages and never really referenced in the show.
• Amusing Injuries: Breaks his thumb in "Rooting For the Enemy", and ends up wearing a comically oversized cast over it.
• Angst? What Angst?: In-Universe example, as mentioned below, Milo is hardly fazed for his bad luck and often sees the positive side no matter what.
• Bag of Holding: His backpack carries everything he could possibly need, including (but not limited to) a seatbelt, a concertina, car parts, posters, maps, GPS systems, helmets, flashlights, granola bars, and a ship-sized anchor. It also handily accommodates anything he might happen to pick up, such as a live duck.
• Been There, Shaped History: He played a part in the lost pilot of Doctor Zone.
• Big Man on Campus: While most steer clear of him, the tales of his various misadventures ^note and occasional chances to watch them from a safe distance makes him popular at school.
• Born Unlucky: Having been born with Extreme Hereditary Murphy’s Law condition (EHML).
• A Boy and His X: A boy and his dog. He seems to have this kind of relationship with Diogee when he's not telling Diogee to go home. Milo houses, feeds, and plays with Diogee and Diogee returns the favor, by saving Milo's life, when he's in a fix.
• Boyish Shorts: Milo is almost always shown wearing greyish-brown, knee-length shorts as part of his usual attire. This helps to emphasize his friendly, cheerful personality, and his optimistic outlook on life even when he's faced with misfortune—and is in contrast with the more cynical, new to town (and the chaos) Zack.
• Brainy Brunette: Milo is fairly knowledgeable about common and obscure trivia (i.e. fire trucks) and is a quick thinker who knows how to use a variety of scientific tidbits to get out of his many sticky situations. That said, Melissa still has better grades than him (though his constant accidents and class absences don't help much).
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Does this quite often.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Like any character played by Weird Al could avoid this one entirely.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: He's learned to make the best of being at the constant epicenter of disaster. For reference, dodging flaming dumpsters, falling trash cans, streams of ball bearings, and waves of Slinkies while riding his bike is a "light day" for him. He almost seems put out when it doesn't seem to happen.
• Cosmic Plaything: He's aware of it and, unlike other examples of this trope, completely okay with it.
• Covered with Scars: Apparently.
• Crazy-Prepared: Because he's aware of his terrible luck, he keeps his backpack stocked with supplies to help him out of any bind. He even keeps a full-body hazmat suit hanging up in his room at home.
• Cursed with Awesome: He sees it this way; Murphy's Law inconveniences him, but it keeps his life exciting and sometimes even works out in his favor.
• Deadpan Snarker: Milo's reactions to the various disasters that happen to him can be rather wry at times.
  Zack: So do you even know where we are?
  Milo: Oh yeah. The fire dried out my phone. We are now in the middle of Coyote Woods!
• Dissonant Serenity: Not consistently (he can react as strongly as Zack and Melissa can to random disasters like the loss of his doctor's note and you can bet his friends being in trouble is met with a quick rescue), but this seems to be his autopilot in the face of truly life-threatening danger.
  Zack: Why aren't you screaming?!?!
  Milo: I find it doesn't help. Just hurts the larynx.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Has a not-so-hidden crush on Amanda in "Smooth Opera-tor", who is somewhat unnerved by the chaos that follows him everywhere he goes. But she begins to reciprocate the feeling after he goes out of his way to salvage the dance she worked so hard to plan in "School Dance", subverting this trope.
• Doom Magnet: The whole deal with him.
• Dork in a Sweater: "Look at my sweater vest, I look so fly".
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: He regularly recites trivia about a wide variety of subjects.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first episode, "Going the Extra Milo", features him talking to Zack, who is unfamiliar with his reputation. After a concrete drainage pipe starts rolling toward him and Zack, he treats the situation about as casually as one would a leisurely stroll, including saying that screaming doesn't do much except hurt the larynx.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: The one person Milo is not friendly and pleasant toward is Victor Verliezer. In Verliezer's second appearance, Milo shows clear distaste and hostility towards the Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite being accustomed to the daily disasters his life brings, Milo never intentionally goes looking for trouble. In "Wilder West", he is unnerved by Jackie's reckless, thrill-seeking ways.
  Milo: You can't keep danger away, but why seek it out?
• Famous Ancestor: He is the 4th-great-grandson of Edward A. Murphy Jr., namesake of the original Murphy's law.
• Foil: To Phineas Flynn. They're both lovable, optimistic, cheerful kids who thrive on action and adventure and "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" really establishes this dynamic
• Friendless Background: There's no indication that he had any friends prior to Melissa.
• Glass Slipper: Milo's missing loafer in "School Dance" is what gets Amanda to realize that Milo saved the party she planned (after his bad luck wrecked it).
• Hereditary Curse: Because he's the descendant of Edward A. Murphy Jr., he and his father go through a lot of bad luck in their lives.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: With the exception of his cousin Nate, all the Murphy men we've seen so far have the same hairstyle.
• Idiot Hair: His tiny little pomp looks surprisingly like an Ahoge.
• In Harm's Way: Although he doesn't have much choice in the matter, he prefers the excitement his own life hands him to the routines his classmates are trapped in.
• The Jinx: Milo is a classic example since whatever weird fate awaits him is liable to hit whoever's nearby, though he doesn't like to use the J-word;
• Keet: He maintains a calm, cheerful, optimistic, unshakeable and resourceful personality that perseveres whenever things start to go wrong.
• Kid Hero: Milo is thirteen years old and is the main character.
• The Klutz: His luck also tends to make him clumsy as well.
• Lethal Chef: Played with. His attempts at making macaroni and cheese from a box turn out mostly successful... until he decides to add some yeast for the pizzazz factor, upon which his bad luck kicks in and causes the yeast to expand rapidly until the macaroni and cheese explodes, splattering everything around him. It helps that he went to a cooking class prior to this event, but even then the stoves all broke down in time.
• Limited Wardrobe: He loves his sweatervests and is only rarely seen wearing anything else unless it's for school purposes (i.e. gym class).
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: Owns a CD called "Sounds of Disaster" which mimics the crashes, screams and other cacophonies that tend to be heard in his wake.
• Made of Iron: Averted. Milo has scars from his misadventures, to the point where casual acquaintances can discern when he has a new one, and has a suite at the hospital reserved for him (and presumably his father). Milo may survive the chaos in his life, but he doesn't exactly come out of it physically unscathed. His injuries rarely carry on between episodes though.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: "Like my dad always says, [ridiculous statement]."
• Metaphorgotten: A lot.
  "But you know what they say: 'sticks and stones can damage your vital organs, so always wear body armor.'"
  "Well, you know what they say: 'whatever breaks our egg only helps our egg-dropping contraption utilize the forces of gravity, inertia and weight distribution better.'"
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Combined with His Name Really Is "Barkeep"; Danger really is his middle name (though it's pronounced Dawn-Zhay), derived from his grandma's maiden name apparently.
• The Millstone: His bad luck tends to be the source of all the conflict in each episode. It's to the point where, in Sunny Side Up, he helps keep their project intact by not helping.
  • On the other hand, in full-blown crisis situations such as the Pistachion takeover, his skill at dealing with chaos makes him useful enough to be worth the handicap, particularly since Murphy's Law is as likely to affect opponents in his radius as anyone else. In "The Phineas and Ferb Effect" Candace discovers this for herself after trying to convince him to keep a safe distance from her brothers' pistachio-fighting operation, and he becomes the mission's key weapon after the kids figure out that Murphy's Law can be strategically aimed.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Milo is a thirteen year old kid (as of his birthday) who has a trim physique, yet he routinely wears body armor that had the school principal knocked over and asking for help along with an entire ship's anchor, which can easily weigh anywhere between fifteen and a hundred pounds in his backpack. He carries both so frequently that his mother immediately questions why the anchor isn't in his backpack at the end of "Worked Day".
  Opera Actor: [After Milo replaced an actor, Operactically] You're shorter than I remember.
  Milo: [Operactically] This is the physique that I was cursed with.
• Nice Guy: Despite the constant chaos in his life, Milo is always optimistic, friendly, and polite.
• Opposites Attract: At first, a one-sided version: Milo, who creates chaos everywhere he goes, has a crush on Amanda, who is an obsessive perfectionist. In time, the feeling is reciprocal.
• The Pollyanna: Despite the chaos that unfolds around him, he has so far been shown smiling through it and looking on the bright side of it all.
• Seen It All: Because of everything that happens around him, he's hardly fazed by any oncoming disasters. Although normally optimistic, as a result, his overall expressions to danger tend to be that of disgruntlement and bemusement.
• Ship Tease: He gets a bit flustered around Amanda when trying to make sure nothing bad happens to her, and she reciprocates when he manages to do great good.
• Spanner in the Works: In "Missing Milo", he runs up a tree and puts his backpack on it as it falls. When King Pistachion is attacking the school, Milo picks up a baseball and throws it, and after giving a piano winch and cable snares to Zack, an extra-large straight jacket to Sara, wind chimes and a self-inflating air raft to Melissa, he summons a woodpecker whistle, and the woodpeckers start to peck away at King Pistachion, followed by Diogee taking a tinkle on Pistachion, and the uric acid stops the mutant pistachio plants.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Gets all of his physical looks from his father.
• Two First Names: Either "Milo" or "Murphy" can be used as a first name.
• Unluckily Lucky: A textbook example. If there's anything more unlikely than the messes he gets himself into, it's the fact that he manages to get out of them. If there's a one in a trillion chance of something going wrong around him, it will, but the string of disasters that he's followed by rarely does any worse than inconvenience him, even when it's something like being chased by wolves or falling off a cliff. Sometimes they even end up working out in his favor. For instance, on the day of his surprise birthday party, Diogee ended up eating or otherwise messing around in Milo's birthday cake. Cue various trucks filled with cake and ice cream careening off the road along with a shipment of fireworks falling out of the sky and crashing simultaneously in mid-air, raining cake and ice cream on Milo and his friends while treating them to a brilliant display of fireworks.
• Vocal Dissonance: It's a bit of an aberration to hear a young 13-year-old boy speaking with the voice of "Weird Al" Yankovic.
• Walking Disaster Area: His condition means that his mere presence causes things to go haywire around him. To hammer this home, in "Sunny Side Up", he wakes up to a perfectly normal and undamaged room... and immediately assumes it's a dream before waking up for real and finding that a tree plowed through his window.
• Weirdness Magnet: Milo's bad luck can attract some really strange things, like time-agents or space aliens.

Melissa Chase

When the going gets tough, the tough get going,
You know, girl! (You go, girl!)

Voiced by: Sabrina Carpenter

Confident and self-possessed, Melissa is smart if sometimes somewhat scattered. She was the first person brave enough to befriend Milo and is fiercely loyal and supportive of him. She's calm and controlled and loves when Murphy's law shakes things up.

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• Absurd Phobia: Played with. Melissa has a mortal terror of roller coasters, which both Zack and Milo point out is fairly commonplace. It's the reason why she's afraid of roller coasters that's absurd. She was almost crushed by the Coolest Coaster Ever when it fell from the sky. And it did crush her science project. (We never do find out why she was working on a science project on the first day of summer...)
• Action Girl: She is constantly on mis-adventures with Milo and Zack and is perfectly capable of dealing with the danger and hurdles that such activity entails. She is also seen practicing various forms of martial arts in some episodes. Then there's everything she does in "The Speech and Debate League of Death and Destruction Cross Town Explosion Event".
• Action Survivor: Because she hangs out with Milo and has to deal with his luck, she becomes this.
• The Anticipator: She's good at knowing when Murphy's Law is going to strike.
• Awesome by Analysis: Becomes a darling of the Doctor Zone Files fans after she correctly deduces that Time Ape and Doctor Zone are brothers after an all night marathon of the most current series and a quick perusal of a reference book.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. She has been covered in egg ("Sunnyside Up"), cheese at least once ("Secrets and Pies"), been left looking like a Shell-Shocked Veteran with a Thousand-Yard Stare ("Murphy's Lard"), and on at least one occasion that had nothing to do with Milo, caught a pop fly in the face that knocked out two of her permanent teeth, leaving her wearing dentures to replace them ("Secrets and Pies" again).
• Big Sister Instinct: Stands up for Milo in the first episode via her bet, refuses to let Milo lose out on coming to high school with her and Zack in "The Note" and in "Worked Day", tells off her father when he round-aboutly accuses Milo of causing the fish hatchery fire. This is present for Zack (though more subdued) as in "Wilder West", she's not pleased with him throwing himself into danger to impress Jackie.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: She'll often share conversations like this with Milo in the midst of a chaotic situation, given how used to it they both are.
• Character Catchphrase: "Boom!"
• Character Tics: Melissa is prone to raising one eyebrow, even in resting position.
• Composite Character: In a sense. She somewhat resembles Candace Flynn, but both physically and in personality she is closer to Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, with a bit of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro thrown in.
• Covert Pervert: Milo, who doesn't get why people need a rally to inspire pep, asks Melissa if she finds it at all peppy. She watches the Gecko mascot fall out of his costume and replies that it does.
• Deadpan Snarker: Keeps her wits about her by keeping her wit dry.
• Damsel in Distress: Ends up stuck on a Conveyor Belt of Doom in "The Note".
• Dissonant Serenity: Not to Milo's extent, of course, but it usually takes a lot in her everyday to make her lose her composure.
• Exotic Eye Designs: At least by the standards of this show's art style, which it shares with Phineas and Ferb. Melissa has actual pupils and irises, as opposed to the colored dots that serve as a pupil/iris combo for most other characters in both shows.
• Fiery Redhead: A redheaded girl with spunk and the ability to pack a punch, exhibited best in "Spy Little Sister".
• Forgetful Jones: Zack notes her as this in "The Undergrounders."
  • The plot of "The Math Book" starts because Melissa forgot her book inside the classroom, and it's implied it's not the first time she has done that.
• Genre Savvy: She was confident she'd win all the bets because she knows how much an Action Survivor Milo is.
• Gratuitous French: When critiquing Milo in "Secrets and Pies".
  Melissa: [After Milo pulls out a Sherlock Holmes-style hat instead of a chef's hat] Wrong chapeau, Chef de Cuisine.
• Guile Hero: Manipulates Amanda into helping with Milo's birthday in "Party of Peril", playing on Amanda's OCD tendencies by saying things like "Color coordination isn't important".
• High-School Hustler: Spends the entire first episode running a betting pool over whether or not Milo and Zack will make it to school on time, goading the other kids to up the ante with every misstep that happens to the two. She wins and gives the proceeds, which were comprised of lunch and food items, to Milo and Zack, who had both lost their lunches earlier in the day.
  • In "Worked Day" she gives Zack 14:1 odds on a disaster occurring with Milo and his dad in the same spot at the same time. We see her collecting on that money as everything goes south.
  • In "Acadecamathalon", she tells everyone who's ready to give up to step to one side and give her $5. Chad actually pays her before Milo gives a Rousing Speech. When Chad fails to perform in the contest, Melissa tells him he's not getting the money back.
• Magic A Is Magic A: More than once, she's called out Zack on being weirded out by one thing, when there's something even weirder going on.
  Zack: I'm the lard... arbiter of good taste? What's that all about?
  Melissa: Really? And you didn't have a problem with the spaghetti people from another dimension?
• Magic Skirt: Even when hanging upside-down from a pistachio tree.
• Missing Mom: Her dad appears to be parenting her by himself.
• Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed. Her figure is noticeably more mature for a girl of her age, and her legs are often showcased.
• Not So Above It All: She appears at first to be the always cool, calm and collected Straight Man to their adventures, but as the series goes on she shows quite a few silly and oddball quirks of her own and is not always as unfazed as she looks, putting Zack more in the role while she plays more of a Blithe Spirit.
• Only Friend: Before Zack came along, it's implied that she was Milo's only friend as she is willing to tolerate his luck unlike the other students.
• Passionate Sports Girl: While not athletic, she does enjoys sports to the point that she caught a baseball with her face at the cost of two of her permanent teeth.
• Perpetual Smiler: Her default facial expression is a calm, composed smile, and she will regress to it if there's no contextual trigger for other emotions.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: She has 'doe eyes': for emergency use only.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Certainly invokes this in "Milo's Lard" after her harrowing roller coaster ride with Milo. Notably averted most other times.
• Ship Tease: Increasingly so with Zack in Season 2, and she even gives him a peck on the cheek in "Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space."
• The Smart Guy: Has a stellar GPA and wants to keep it that way.
• String Theory: She has an entire room that uses this to find a way to counteract Murphy's Law.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Melissa is more tomboyish while Amanda is more feminine. Melissa speaks in boyish slang, enjoys martial arts, and lacks "femergy" while Amanda wears lipstick and earrings, is a bit of a neatness freak, and is generally more outwardly romantic with Milo, in contrast to how Melissa shares a rougher and more banter-like relationship with Zack. In "The Mid-Afternoon Snack Club", Amanda gives Melissa a makeover to make her look more feminine, and Melissa doesn't appear too impressed with the results. Interestingly, Melissa is the one who more frequently wears a skirt out of the two.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Melissa may look fairly feminine with the pink skirt and shoes, and she isn't above wearing dresses for fancy occasions, but personality-wise she seems rather tomboyish. "Spy Little Sister" has a scene where she voices her disdain for her dad wanting her to have more "femergy" while she would rather be doing cool spy stuff than knitting and having tea. She also snarks a lot and speaks with boyish slang (like her "boom" catchphrase), and is shown to play and be good at a lot of sports including martial arts like karate and wrestling.
• Unfazed Everyman: To a certain extent; in the theme song, she calmly ensures she and Zack are safely out of the way of the falling title, but otherwise doesn't react at all.
• Verbal Tic: Melissa often ends her sentences by saying "boom!"

Zack Underwood

Chop chop chop!
Chop away at my heart!

Voiced by: Mekai Curtis, Aaron D. Jacob (singing)

The new kid in town and the voice of reason when things get out of hand. While the rest of the town is used to Milo, Zack is trying to enjoy the adventure of being Milo's best friend without getting destroyed.

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• Absurd Phobia: Fish. Especially if they're in bags.
• Action Survivor: He becomes one after being Milo's best friend and he's always caught up in his luck.
• Aesop Amnesia: Despite Milo convincing him how much fun, dealing with Murphy's law is, when they first met, Zack occasionally complains about how dangerous and frightening it is, every now and then, later on into their friendship.
• Audience Surrogate: As the new kid in town, his initial reactions to the chaos that follows Milo around is something for the audience to relate to as they ease into the series.
• Butt-Monkey: One of the most frequent victims of Milo's misfortune... and Melissa's punching.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Though not as often as the other two, he'll sometimes do this during Murphy's Law moments.
• Claustrophobia: He prefers "claustroavoidant."
• Continuity Drift: Despite his fear of fish, as mentioned in "Lard World", he was perfectly fine with going fishing in "Time Out".
• Cowardly Lion: Has a number of fears, such as Coyotes^note Which would be a terribly specific form of Cynophobia, a fear of canine animals, Claustrophobia, and Ichthyophobia^note a fear of fish, but he's so far kept up with Milo with little problems, even devising a plan to save the three of them after they fell off a cliff right before they fell in a convoluted escape they now refer to as "The Woodpecker Incident".
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially the show is highlighting his role as Only Sane Man. Particularly noticeable in "The Math Book", in which he constantly downplays Melissa and Milo's characterization of their mundane objective of retrieving Melissa's math book as a "quest".
• The Everyman: Probably the most down-to-earth member of the gang. He acts sort of like how a viewer of the show would behave if he/she were to encounter someone like Milo.
• Foil: Often grouchy and pessimistic, while Milo is cheery and optimistic.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Zack's black hair uses a bright red outline.
• The Hero: In "The Mid-Afternoon Snack Club", he was this for once.
• Hidden Depths: While he's a somewhat easily startled Only Sane Man much of the time, he's also a talented singer who was once the leader of a hit boy band. His only known song is still on the air long after he quit. By the end of the first episode, he finds Milo's disasters exciting in moderation.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Played with in the first episode. Zack complained about all of the chaos he had to go through, just getting to school and asked Milo how he could deal with it every single day. Milo convinced him that living a normal life is boring and he should be thankful that he can get at least a taste of the adventures, that take place in his life.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Even official accounts spell his name as "Zach" sometimes.
• In Harm's Way: Naturally happens via being Milo's friend but really gets into this trope while trying to impress Jackie.
• Literal-Minded: Something of a running gag.
  Melissa: You're really into semantics.
• Lovable Jock: He's in the football team, and is definitely not a jerk.
• Love Makes You Dumb: His crush on Jackie in "Wilder West" causes him to drop his Only Sane Man status with alarming speed. His friends are less than thrilled.
• Naïve Newcomer: Because he's new in the area, he's not aware of Milo's bad luck and the destruction he causes when he first meets him.
• New Transfer Student: When the show starts.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, he's not too proud of the fact he was in a Boy Band, the Lumberzacks.
• Only Sane Man: By far the most level-headed and normal of the three friends. This sometimes works against him, as he naturally assumes fantastically unlikely/impossible disasters won't happen every few minutes.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Keeps having to deny that he and Melissa are a couple in "The Phineas and Ferb Effect."
• Ship Tease: Increasingly so with Melissa in Season 2, who even gives him a peck on the cheek in "Sphere and Loathing in Outer Space."
• Sidekick: In "The Mid-Afternoon Snack Club", he revealed that his secret gripes about how Milo was always the one who solved all the problems, while he was just "that guy, who's always with him".

Diogee Ex Machina Murphy

I'll get from here to there.
You can count on me.
It's just a matter of time.

Voiced by: Dee Bradley Baker

Milo's dog. He always follows Milo and usually helps him out when he's in trouble.

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• Action Pet: He'd easily give Perry a run for his money if he joined the OWCA.
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: He follows commands pretty well, knows how to make a pulley system, and apparently understands Spanish due to attending a Spanish class alongside Milo. Diogee can also fend off wolves, herd and wrestle llamas, and run across the country just to reach Milo in time to save him. Later on he's seen riding the subway, running through airport security, and skydiving out of a passenger plane to reach Milo after he got stranded on a deserted island.
• Badass Adorable: A cute little dog that tackles a wolf to save his master.
• Big Damn Heroes: He has a knack for showing up right when he is needed the most.
• The Cat Came Back: No matter where Milo's luck takes him, even miles underground, Diogee can somehow find his way to his master.
• Cartoon Dog Breed: A yellow dog with a big brown spot on his back. Whatever breeds he's made up of, at least one of them is the fictional "llama hound."
• Deus ex Machina: To the point where "Ex Machina" is his middle name.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Say each letter out very slowly - D-O-G - Diogee.
• Dogs Are Dumb: Averted. Diogee has proven himself to be exceptionally intelligent, between being bilingual, a llama herder, being able to interpret a city map, skydive unassisted, and create pulley systems with only a rope and a tire. However, he's still prone to doing things that dogs tend to do, like eating any kind of food that isn't nailed down (like the eggs for Milo's science project and his birthday cake) and makes some questionable choices (i.e. wearing a foam finger over his head and tail, making it impossible for him to see and hard to walk around him).
• Foil: To Perry the Platypus. Whereas Perry is a secret agent, an uncommon animal (especially for a pet), and has a habit of disappearing, which makes people say "Hey, where's Perry?", Diogee is an ordinary (albeit very intelligent) dog, a common animal (especially for a pet), and has a habit of staying with Milo on his adventures, though this makes people, Milo included, say "Diogee, go home."
• Heroic Dog: He's responsible for helping and shadowing Milo out of his more dangerous scraps.
• Leitmotif: So far associated with Smooth Jazz.
• Meaningful Name: His name is eventually revealed to be Diogee Ex Machina Murphy, a Punny Name based off Deus ex Machina. Appropriate, since there have been a number of time where his sudden appearance has aided the protagonists (like an actual Deus ex Machina).
• Nonstandard Character Design: He looks much more cartoony than the other dogs (or other animals) in the show - aside from a lookalike pig in one episode.
• Phrase Catcher: "Diogee, what are you doing here?" and "Diogee, go home. He's not supposed to be at/in X."
• Punny Name: off Deus ex Machina
• Scarily Competent Tracker: He always manages to find Milo, no matter where he goes.
• Spanner in the Works: In "Missing Milo", King Pistachion focuses on preventing Milo and his friends from harming his younger self, but he didn't take into account Diogee, who proceeds to urinate on the sapling and destroy it.
• Urine Trouble: Nearly pees on the pistachio tree, being the "threat" to the pistachio tree that Cavendish and Vinnie were after in "The Substitute".
  • He succeeds in doing so in the "Missing Milo" special, and since the plant is King Pistachion's younger self, and very weak to uric acid, he vanishes.

The ex-Time Agents:

Balthazar Cavendish

I can't stick around, I'm going absentee
I don't know what you think you found, but you didn't find me

Voiced by: Jeff "Swampy" Marsh

A time travelling agent in charge of guarding pistachios, paired with Dakota. He's a bit standoffish and tends to take things a bit seriously. He and Dakota later have been demoted to cleaning outhouses in the Renaissance era, and in Season 2, both of them get fired and banished to the present time, there hired to take care of alien trash.

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• Been There, Shaped History: He's the inspiration for Doctor Zone.
  • Apparently Earth had a second moon before he and Dakota blew it up.
• British Stuffiness: Dresses like a reserved Englishman and has a standoffish personality to boot.
• Cassandra Truth: After "Missing Milo", he can't convince Mr. Block that Pistachio plants mutated into a monster that would take over the world, justifying why they have to be destroyed.
• Character Development: In "Time Out", we see the subtle serialization in the series. Based on past episodes, when the male Murphys and Underwoods go on a father-son fishing trip, Cavendish starts to take his mission more seriously, even believing that Milo is a counteragent sent to thwart their mission, and he makes apprehending Milo his secondary mission. In the hour-long special "Missing Milo", he eventually realizes that Milo wasn't intentionally disrupting their assignments at all.
• Character Tics: He is prone to pulling off the Fascinating Eyebrow.
• Enemies Equals Greatness: Believing Milo is intentionally trying to prevent him and Vinnie from fulfilling their assignment makes him happy because he takes it as a sign their assignment isn't meaningless.
• Fanboy: He's a huge fan of Professor Time, squealing once the latter recognizes him.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: In a world where there is time travel and other weird stuff, he doesn't seem to believe in the curse of Murphy's Law.
  • This changes in the episode Missing Milo where he learns about Milo's condition and starts believing in it fairly quickly.
• Glory Hound: He desperately wants a mission of acclaim and glory, but got the most useless one their agency could give. When he starts thinking that Milo is out to thwart them, he's overjoyed because he thinks it means they're actually doing something important. He thinks that once they bring in Milo, it would mean that they would finally be taken seriously. He falls into this again in the second season, believing that an alien invasion if on the way, and that he is the hero who can stop it.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Cavendish's grey hair against Dakota's dark one. Cavendish's the uptight against Dakota's laidback personality.
• Hero Antagonist: Cavendish has gone into this role, trying to pursue Milo when he gets the chance. However, he believes Milo is the villain, and that bringing him in will do everyone a favor. He stops after Milo explains that he's not trying to sabotage his missions, and is more or less amicable with him after "Missing Milo". Of course afterwards, he tries to avoid him now that he understands what Murphy's Law is.
• Hypocrite: In the Grand Finale. After spending most of the season seeking out the "alien menace", when everyone finds themselves on the Octalians' homeworld, he spends a great deal of time complaining about the situation and how he wants to go home. Vinnie ultimately calls him out on this.
• I Just Want to Be Special: He is desperate to prove that his and Vinnie's mission is a meaningful one. He latches onto the idea that Milo is a counter agent sent to thwart them for this very reason. In season two, he becomes convinced that there's an alien invasion on the way, and that he's the only one who can prevent it.
• Inspector Javert: Starting with the "Time Out" episode and ending in "Missing Milo", Cavendish believed Milo Murphy was a counteragent sent to thwart their pistachio-guarding mission, and he begins a relentless pursuit of Milo.
  Dakota: That's that Milo Murphy I was telling you about! Every time our pistachios get ruined, he's there. Every time!
  Cavendish: No.
  Dakota: And he almost took out the shipment just then!
  Cavendish: That's preposterous. [The scuba tank suddenly discharges, hitting the shipping crate of pistachios from Tunisia]
  Dakota: Whoa!! [Cavendish and Dakota literally hit the deck to avoid the wild scuba tank] See?
  Cavendish: But that would mean… [gasps] He's trying to stop us! He's trying to ruin our mission! Dakota, what we are doing here is not inconsequential! If it's important enough to send a counteragent, it must be vital!
  Dakota: Hey, now you're getting a little-
  Cavendish: We are not just nut-guarding nobodies, we are secret spy somebodies with our very own counteragent!
  Dakota: Well, I guess things are looking up.
  Cavendish: Just look at him over there, plotting our demise!
  Milo: I sure love cheese fries!
  Cavendish Oh, this is not over, Milo Murphy! Not by a longshot.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Can easily lift Milo by his backpack with one hand, the same backpack that houses a full sized anchor, car parts, musical instruments, and other heavy equipment. That's not even taking into account Milo's body armor.
• Never My Fault: When their missions go awry, Cavendish is often quick to blame Vinnie for whatever happened. Later on, he's shifted the blame to Milo.
  • Subverted in "The Substitute", when he tries to prevent Diogee from "doing his business" on the pistachio seedling, only for Cavendish himself to accidentally step on and crush the pistachio plant:
  Cavendish: Whoa, whoa, no no, no, no, no! Get out of here, you beast! [Cavendish chases Diogee away] Well, there you go, our first successful mission. [Dakota taps him on the shoulder, pointing to the pistachio plant Cavendish just stepped on] Oh, nuts.
• Not So Above It All: Particularly after "Missing Milo," when his all-encompassing mission falls to the wayside out of necessity and he's far more open to any tomfoolery Dakota might happen to suggest (the "Ditch Day" sequence in "Perchance to Sleepwalk" about sums it up).
• Odd Couple: His formal, uptight demeanor often clashes with the more laid-back Dakota.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Is prone to vanishing the instant the camera is no longer focusing on him.
• Steampunk: Aside from his top hat with goggles, his gadgets follow this style.
• Straight Man: He may look and act like he's this, but it's rather quietly subverted; its almost implied that he's slightly less smart than Vinnie. For example, in the "Doctor Zone Files", when Sara orders pistachios, Balthazar condescendingly informs her the correct pronunciation ("pi-stash-ee-oh") but Vinnie tells him that's exactly how she said it. And in "The Island of Lost Dakotas", we see that he frequently DIES due to his own blunders while on missions, and that Vinnie constantly has to go back in time to prevent his deaths from happening.
• They Killed Kenny Again: The episode "The Island of Lost Dakotas" reveals that Cavendish is this trope, though he is completely unaware of it. Dakota has created a system where he goes back in time to prevent his friend's constant deaths, with all the prior versions of himself that result from doing this going off to live on a deserted island to minimize temporal irregularities.
• Time Police: Ordered to protect the pistachios. He's been demoted further to cleaning Rennaisance outhouses, but he regularly shirks these duties to do his own thing.
• Too Dumb to Live: Literally. Several of his deaths from "The Island of Lost Dakotas" were due to his own poorly thought out actions, such as trying to ski down an expert-level slope, leaning against the railing of a walkway over a vat of molten lava, and walking out onto an alien planet without putting on his space suit's helmet first.
  • To be fair, the majority of those deaths were due to plain bad luck. Like having a beam drop on him out of nowhere on a construction site, the aforementioned railing suddenly giving way (no it wasn't weakened by the heat, it broke!), and having a T-rex eat him and only him despite Dakota standing right next to him when they were traveling around prehistoric times. Cavendish seems to attract bad luck at an extent like Milo does.
• Ultimate Job Security: He and Dakota were already considered bad agents, then they were caught deliberatedly failing to protect pistachios and destroying them instead, and neither seem to have the slightest interest on actually working ever since they were reassigned to cleaning Rennaisance outhouses, yet they still have a job. They finally lose this in season two, where they are fired and banished to present-day Earth.
• Unknown Rival: Both of them, technically, but Balthazar briefly became obsessed with "thwarting Milo" (see Wrong Genre Savvy), while Dakota would rather not bother. Thanks to Murphy's Law and their own incompetence, Milo barely even knew who they were for several episodes, apart from being pistachio vendors.
• Windmill Crusader: He was convinced that Milo is a threat to their plans and had it out for them for a short period of time.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: After learning about Milo's presence whenever one of their missions fails, he becomes certain that Milo is an enemy agent out to stop them. It isn't until they properly converse in "Missing Milo" that he learns and accepts that it was just localized bad luck caused by Milo's Murphy's Law.

Vinnie Dakota

Check my schedule, I've got nothing pressing
Nothing on my to-do list that needs addressing

Voiced by: Dan Povenmire

A time travelling agent in charge of guarding pistachios, along with Cavendish. He's a bit more laidback and lazy comparted to his partner. He and Cavendish later have been demoted to cleaning outhouses in the Renaissance era, and in Season 2, both of them get fired and banished to the present time, there hired to take care of alien trash.

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• Accidental Hero: In "Fungus Among Us", he saves Milo, Zach and Melissa from plummeting to their doom in a falling hot air balloon completely by accident (though given his Hidden Depths...).
• Almighty Janitor: Is the reason why the Louisiana Purchase happened, but is now protecting pistachios.
• Ambiguously Bi: Dakota felt rather offended when Cavendish wonders why he doesn't have an attractive partner, but in that same episode, Dakota hits on Savannah.
• Been There, Shaped History:
  • He ensured the Louisiana Purchase ended up happening, he's the reason for all the clocks in the time stream, and he's the inspiration for Time Ape.
  • Apparently Earth had a second moon before he and Cavendish blew it up.
  • In the Halloween Episode, to save the Halloween day from a time grenade, he took away February twenty-ninth so that it only occurs once every four years, creating leap years.
• Berserk Button: Tends to react badly to being called selfish.
• Big Eater: Is often munching on something, and in "Worked Day" he spends a good deal of time trying discuss where to go for lunch.
  • In an episode of season 2 where he is given repeated Laser-Guided Amnesia by an alien object at a Slushie Dawg drive-through, he basically clears the entire place out by himself.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Implied. He claims to have successfully prevented the Mississippi Purchase, which was his original goal in becoming a time traveler, but in the present he's way more interested in having a good time than he is in his job. He's also competent enough to have prevented Cavendish's death seemingly over a hundred times.
• Character Development: In the second season due to him and Cavendish being fired by Mr. Block and losing their ability to time travel as a result, Dakota displays a more serious behavior since he and Cavendish can no longer undo the trouble they cause or the accidents that happen to them, especially since Cavendish had died many times and Dakota had to use time travel to save Cavendish from all those accidents. It makes sense why he would be so upset at Cavendish for going rogue and then leaving him.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Easily distracted by lava lamps, fascinated by breakfast burritos ("it's breakfast inside of a lunch"), wears a tracksuit for no apparent reason (he's completely out-of-shape).
  (out of breath) "I should not have eaten all those wax lips."
• Cool Shades: He sports a pair of 70s-looking sunglasses.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • He proves to be this in the special "Missing Milo." He is the only one who takes down any of the pistachio creatures with physical force, shows himself to be extremely resourceful, and figures out how to use Murphy's Law to their advantage.
  • Shown more in "The Island of Lost Dakotas", where we see that he's actually the more competent of the duo and has saved Cavendish on multiple occasions.
• Disco Dan: Dresses in 80s/70s fashion.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Cavendish's grey hair against Dakota's dark one. Cavendish's uptight against Dakota's laidback personality.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dakota may be selfish and only thinks about himself according to Cavendish, but he really cares about Cavendish. Until "A Christmas Peril", Cavendish could never see this side of Dakota.
• Joisey: His accent and clothing is somewhat reminiscent of Jersey Shore.
• Manchild: Gets excited about the zoo, takes to trick-or-treating like a duck to water, and generally lets his partner handle the more adult hurdles of the job (or so it would appear). Being accidentally turned into a very young child in "Backward to School Night" barely made a difference.
• Me's a Crowd: As of "The Island of Lost Dakotas", we learn that there's an entire island populated with time-displaced Vinnie Dakotas who have built their own society.
• Odd Couple: His cool, laid-back persona is usually at odds with the more uptight Cavendish.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • If "Missing Milo" proved anything, it's that Vinnie is an extremely capable time agent, he just doesn't like to work hard. When put in the right circumstances, he is shown to be very intelligent and resourceful.
  • Despite his overall goofiness, Dakota can get serious when the situation calls for it. When he, Cavendish, and Milo arrive in the Pistashion-controlled future, he is quick to take charge and even made sure to tell Milo to stay close, showing his awareness of the danger they were in.
  • This is demonstrated further in "The Island of Lost Dakotas", where we see that he's more capable and responsible than Cavendish is, and has only been humoring Cavendish this whole time.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite being laid-back and easily distracted, he generally has a better sense of what is going on than Cavendish does. In "Time Out", he mentions preventing the "Mississippi Purchase".
  • In "Missing Milo," he figures out how to use Murphy's Law to his advantage after only knowing of its existence for a short amount of time.
  • In "The Island of Lost Dakotas", we see that he's regularly been going back and saving Cavendish's life each time Cavendish dies on a mission for an untold amount of time, and has never let Cavendish know this.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Is prone to vanishing the instant the camera is no longer focusing on him.
• Sticky Fingers: Dakota has a problem with stealing Brick and Savannah's belongings.
• Time Police: Ordered to protect the pistachios.
• Ultimate Job Security: He and Cavendish were already considered bad agents, then they were caught deliberatedly failing to protect pistachios and destroying them instead, and neither seem to have the slightest interest on actually working ever since they were reassigned to cleaning Rennaisance outhouses, yet they still have a job. They finally lose this in season two, where they are fired and banished to present-day Earth.

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