Characters / Recess: The Main Six

Recess character index
The Main Six | Other Students | Faculty members | Other Characters

---

General

"Turns out, we don't care about glory, we're happy being friends."

The six main protagonists of the show who have an intense love for recess.

---

• Badass Adorable: They're all cute, friendly fourth graders who pull off incredible feats from time to time.
• Badass Crew: A leader with an expert in planning. A Gentle Giant poet. A military brat with skill at dodgeball. A Cute Bruiser with the boots to match. A sports prodigy who only gets better. And a Child Prodigy. Needless to say, they are one amazing gang of fourth graders.
• Bully Hunter: They stand up for bullied kids and each other when they're being bullied. T.J. will get back at any kid who steps out of line, Spinelli sticks up for kids who can't defend themselves, Vince once defended younger kids from Lawson and even Gus demolished Lawson and his cronies at dodgeball when Hector got hurt.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Leader — T.J.
  • The Lancer — Vince.
  • The Smart Guy — Gretchen.
  • The Big Guy — Spinelli.
  • The Heart — Mikey (also a Gentle Giant).
  • Sixth Ranger — Gus.
• The Friends Who Never Hang:
  • Gus and Vince hardly interact with each other, compared to them with the other members of the gang.
  • Mikey and Gretchen interact the least out of the group.
  • Gus and Spinelli don't interact much.
  • Gretchen and T.J. only speak directly to each other on a few occasions.
  • Vince and Spinelli are both considered T.J.'s right hand, yet they don't associate as much as they do with other members of the gang.
• Hairstyle Inertia: They all kept the same hairstyle they had as pre-schoolers.
• Jerkass Ball: There are some episodes where they grip it tightly, but in "Here Comes Mr. Perfect" they all grip it together when they become huge bullies to Jared when he unintentionally beats them at everything. They even have a Never My Fault moment when Jared reminds them that they brought this on themselves.
• Kid Hero: Especially in Recess: School's Out when they foiled the plans of the Big Bad from stopping summer vacation.
• Limited Wardrobe: Unless there is a special episode, the gang will most likely wear the same attire as seen in the group photo.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The main six children are split into pairs of a downplayed version of this trope. We have Mikey the sensitive Gentle Giant and sweet, intelligent Gretchen (nice), aggressive and short-tempered Spinelli and occasionally egotistical jock Vince (mean), and The Prankster T.J. and neurotic Gus (in-between).
• Odd Friendship: The large, sensitive, thoughtful Mikey and the short, hot-headed, violent Spinelli..
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of them aren't referred to by their real names: Theodore James is T.J. or "Teej"; Ashley Spinelli is Spinelli; Gretchen is "Gretch"; and Vince is "Vin." Averted with Gus (who's always referred to by that name after being introduced as "Gustav") and Mikey (presumably his full name is Mike or Michael, but no one in the show calls him that).
  • Both Lawson and Miss Finster also use the guys' last names when addressing them.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Spinelli and Gretchen fill these roles, respectively. Downplayed in that Gretchen isn't exactly a "girly girl," but she is more feminine than Spinelli (granted, that's not exactly hard) and also has more knowledge of traditionally female spheres, including sewing, cosmetics, and etiquette. Spinelli is a tough, aggressive, and somewhat cynical Cute Bruiser with a more masculine appearance including black leather jacket and leather boots, while Gretchen is sweet, naive, unathletic, wears a dress with a pink bow, and has pink socks as well.
• True Companions: No matter what, they always stick together.
• Two Girls to a Team: A Five-Man Band with dorky girl Gretchen Grundler and One of the Boys Ashley Spinelli.

Theodore Jasper "T.J." Detweiler

Debut: "The Break In"

Voiced by: Ross Malinger (Season one and first two episodes of season two), Andrew Lawrence (Season two to the end of the series), Myles Jeffrey (Direct-to-video movies), Axel Alba (Lilo & Stitch: The Series crossover), Randy Crenshaw (Singing (Credits of movie only), Kōki Uchiyama (Japanese dub, though Yoshinari Kobayashi voiced him in the first few episodes)

The outgoing and fun-loving leader of the main six. He's the one who comes up with plans for the gang to execute if needed.

---

• Accidental Hero: In the episode "The Shiner", T.J. gets a black eye and everyone thinks he did a heroic act to get it. However, he told everyone at the end of the episode why he got it, and that he was too embarrassed to tell: His parents put him in a youth group, and they had a square-dancing class, and during that, a girl accidentally punched him in the eye
• Acrofatic: He's a more subtle example. While he's not "huge", he's definitely chubby, yet can pull off some awesome stunts.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Which is why he's adored in Japan.
• All-Loving Hero: He's generally kind and cares for the well-being of his fellow students.
• Ambiguously Jewish: TJ has a nebbish father and an overprotective mother, and once played "Harvey Hanukkah" in the school holiday pageant.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: In Becky's eyes he's an annoyance, but deep down, she cares about him.
• Art Evolution:
  • In season one, he was a lot chubbier (and more so in the more Off-Model episodes of the season) and had highlights in his eyes, which were gone by season two for unknown reasons (either because he was the only character that had them and it looked weird, or because the artists forgot to draw them 50% of the time anyway so they were removed).
  • In later episodes, he looks a bit different. He's taller, not as chubby, and his eyes are bigger.
• Badass Adorable: Short, chubby, wide-eyed, sweet, and adorable. He's also the leader of the gang, who's responsible for all of their awesome moments.
• Berserk Button: Four words: Don't. Mess. With. Recess. Or messing with his fun in general. Which is the reason why he went and thwarted the evil plans to get rid of summer vacation in The Movie.
• Big Brother Instinct: Towards Gus, despite being the same age, due to Gus's "new kid" status and vulnerability.
• Big Eater: While it isn't shown on-screen, "The Great State Fair" and "Omega Kids" hint that he can be one, and this was also hinted at in some print material. In the episode "Omega Kids" TJ is shown with a lunch tray piled high with pizza, though he isn't shown eating any of it on-screen.
• Big Good: Outside of King Bob, T.J. is the one most of the other kids look towards for help and to lead them against threats. In the movie, Hustler Kid and Digger Dave both think the kids are doomed without having T.J. around to come up with a plan to stop Benedict.
• Big Fun: He's not "huge", but he's a bit plump. As for "fun", you'd best believe it.
• Big Man on Campus: Oh, yes. He's cool, street-smart, somewhat athletic, and rather cute.
• Book Dumb: He got a C- on a book report because he used the book's cover blurb, thinks "spy" is spelled S-P-I, gets a 10.1% on a test, however, on the playground, he can pull off elaborate schemes (literally) under his hat.
• Break the Cutie: Happens after seeing one of his plans go wrong, hurting Gus in the process in "Lost Leader".
• Brilliant, but Lazy: While he is somewhat ditzy, ignorant, and lazy in class, he's a genius when it comes to pulling schemes on the playground. He's also actually quite gifted when it comes to money and knowledge of economics, as he manages to take over the currency system of the school in just a few days. While he loses it all when the currency changed, he was willing to go right back to it albeit with restrictions.
• The Cassandra: In the movie. He tries to tell his friends something weird is happening at their school, but they just think he missed them.
• Character Catchphrase: "Ten-der!", as well as any use of the word "whomp" (meaning, "to be unfair" [used in the context of ""This stinks" or "This sucks"]).
• The Charmer: In "Good Ol' T.J.", his talent for charming his way out of any situation is revealed.
• Cheerful Child: He's usually in a happy and fun-loving mood.
• Chick Magnet: A Downplayed Trope since it only goes into effect for one episode, but TJ is shown to be surprisingly popular with his female classmates. In My Funny Valentines, TJ decides to give practical joke Valentine's Day cards to all of the girls in his grade. Only problem is they all take the cards at at face value, leading to a whole swarm of girls now expecting him to choose one of them.
• A Day in the Limelight: "The Break In", "The Experiment", "The Legend of Big Kid", "The Box", "The Break-up", "The Substitute", "Economics of Recess", "The Story of Whomps", "Bad Hair Day", "Principal for a Day", "Space Cadet", "The Shiner", "Lord of the Nerds", "My Funny Valentines", "The Barnaby Boys", "The First Picture Show", "The Big Prank", "The Madness of King Bob", "Nobody Doesn't Like T.J.", "The A.V. Kid", "Good Ole T.J.", and "Lost Leader".
• Deadpan Snarker: At times. This is more evident in the earlier episodes. He's especially sassy to authority figures.
• Determinator: When he wants to do something, he's going to make sure he does it, especially if it's for the benefit of his friends. "A Great State Fair" is one example.
• The Ditz: A subtle example at times in some of the later episodes. He gets a 10.1% on a test (out of 100%), and says that it's one of his better grades.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": While the first name doesn't sound embarrassing when one thinks about one tough leader with that name, he prefers to be called T.J., even the school administration does this.
• Dub Name Change:
  • His first name is changed to "Tobias" in the Swedish dub.
  • His named is shortened to "Jay" in the Greek dub.
• Embarrassing First Name: His first name is Theodore.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: His middle name is Jasper. No wonder he goes by his initials "T.J."
• Expy: Essentially a kid version of Robert Hogan from Hogan's Heroes. The school is framed like a prison, and he leads a crew of rebels within it, even using military terms for his strategies.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: In "The Shiner," everyone thinks he got his black eye doing some awesome heroic thing. It turns out to just be the result of a square dancing accident.
• Fat Idiot: He's pudgy, though his dumb side comes out of laziness instead of actual stupidity. He's very street smart, just not book smart.
• First Kiss: With Spinelli, but as an experiment.
• Flanderization: At least his Book Dumb side. He starts off being a "C" student in school, but drops down to a "D" and "F" student later on. "The Secret Life of Grotke" was an offender of this.
• Friendship Favoritism: Defied. In the Season 2 episode "The Breakup", Ms. Grotke asks the class to write about their best friends. This causes problems for T.J., however: he can't choose a best friend. And while this strains his friendship with his friends and causes the gang to break up, he still can't choose a friend. In the end, T.J. writes a report about how all five of his friends are his best friends, and how special they all are. This ends up reconciling the group.
• Fun Personified: He takes having fun very seriously.
• Genius Ditz: He's not too bright when it comes to school work, but he always comes up with fool-proof plans when needed on the playground.
• Going Native: In "The Legend of Big Kid", when he's kidnapped by the kindergartners and adapts to their primitive society.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Invoked. He made the word "whomp" because he got in trouble for swearing.
• Guile Hero: When it comes to pulling schemes on the playground.
• Hates Being Alone: As soon as he finds out that his friends are going to be at camp for the whole summer in Recess: School's Out, he's heartbroken.
• Heroic BSoD: In "Lost Leader" (the final episode aired before the DTV movies), he becomes depressed when one of his schemes goes awry and injures Gus, and gives up being the gang’s leader until the others concoct a plan to snap him out of it.
• High-School Hustler: An elementary variety, constantly outfoxing adult authorities like Miss Finster.
• Idiot Hero: He's the main hero and very Book Dumb, though this comes out of laziness instead of actual stupidity.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Subverted, as it wasn't intended, but he does look a lot like his second voice actor, Andy Lawrence. Ashley Johnson lampshades this in the bonus features on the DVD of The Movie. TJ also quite strongly resembles his original voice actor, Ross Malinger, in his younger years (for visual reference, he played the kid in Sleepless in Seattle).
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He has bright baby-blue eyes according to Word of God.
• In-Series Nickname: Aside from T.J., he also goes by "Teej".
• Intergenerational Friendship: Developed one with Frank Dudikoff (the "original" T.J. back in the `80s), who's in his early twenties, and eventually develops one with fifty-year-old Principal Prickly.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: He may be a bit ditzy, at least when it comes to schoolwork, but he's got a huge heart.
• The Leader: Lampshaded by Gus' dad in the episode where he runs away: "Well son, let's just say you've got one heck of a platoon leader."
• Loved by All: TJ is the most beloved kid on the playground. So much so, that one episode made a huge deal about someone not liking him. Even Ms. Finster admitted to liking him in spite of nailing him for his misbehavior.
• Magnetic Hero: He frequently saves the playground through personality alone and is adored even by his enemies.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: While not feminine in general, he is the Feminine Boy to Spinelli's Masculine Girl. TJ is characterized by loyalty and caring while Spinelli is violent and aggressive. The most obvious example is during "The Experiment" when they both say goodbye to their childhood: TJ gives his old cuddly toy a hug while Spinelli uses hers to trash the room.
• My Greatest Failure: When his plan at the beginning of "Lost Leader" went wrong and ended up injuring Gus.
• Naughty Is Good: He's very mischivious and rebellious, though he's also a good kid nontheless and a total sweetheart.
• Never Bareheaded: He's always seen wearing his red baseball hat and very rarely takes it off (Making him take it off is his Berserk Button, though he did take it off when Dr. Slicer ordered him to, out of fear). The only occasions where he doesn't wear it is for formal occasions or when he's sleeping.
• Nice Jewish Boy: He's Ambiguously Jewish and he's a sweetie.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Only in the pilot, as he was the only character drawn with irises.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know a situation is hopeless when he doesn't have a plan or his cockiness and upbeat nature slides.
• Odd Friendship: One episode reveals that pre-series, preschool specifically, he was actually best friends with Menlo. While they are now enemies at school, he still attends every one of Menlo's birthday parties and is fawned over by Menlo's mother when she sees him each year.
• Only Known by Initials: Mainly because he doesn't care for his first and middle names.
• Patriotic Fervor: In "Recess is Cancelled", Vince asks if T.J. has any ideas to get around the notion of recess being cancelled. T.J. says he has no plans as going up against his own country is something he just will not do, as it is unpatriotic.
• The Prankster: Prankster Prince is an actual title and TJ campaigns to win it by pulling a prank on King Bob (a former Prankster Prince himself). Bob comes out of retirement to try and prank TJ back.
• Properly Paranoid: In Recess: School's Out, he's the only one who believes that there's suspicious activity going on inside the school during summer vacation (until he gets the gang to see what's going on).
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: He's able to give this◊ to Gretchen to urge her to help him with his plan in "A Great State Fair".
• Red Is Heroic: His hat is red.
• Rousing Speech: T.J. is renowned for his many public speeches, and is great at persuading others to join whatever his cause of the week is.
• Sanity Slippage: After being placed in "The Box", Miss Finster's new punishment for the kids- a square drawn on the blacktop. At first, he laughs at it like everyone else, but then he ends up being the first attendent in the box. After ten minutes, he's found sitting in the fetal position singing "This Old Man" and laughing to himself. After being taken out, he continuously speaks in the third person and promises to be a good boy.
• Ship Tease: With Spinelli. It is implied they have a crush on each other.
• Shirtless Scene: In "The Big Prank", after almost becoming King Bob's fanner boy.
• Shrinking Violet: He was rather introverted when he was in kindergarten (until Gus came).
• The Strategist: He comes up with brilliant plans for the main six. This is only on the playground.
• Sweet Tooth: He loves anything sweet.
• Tareme Eyes: In season one, they even had highlights in them.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: In season one, he was pretty average in the classroom. In season two, he became more Book Dumb. In the middle of season three, he became The Ditz when it came to schoolwork and memorizing facts.
• Undying Loyalty: In spades. He may be a pain for teachers but will go incredible levels for anyone he cares about, often risking to himself in the process.
• Vocal Evolution: Season one saw him with a high-pitched voice courtesy of Ross Malinger. Then, in the beginning of season two, his voice got a little deeper due to Malinger going through puberty. Only two episodes into season two, and Malinger was replaced by a younger voice actor, Andy Lawrence, who gave TJ the somewhat low (but not too low for a prepubescent kid), slightly scratchy voice we're all familiar with. Then, for All Growed Down and Taking the Fifth Grade, Myles Jeffrey took over the role, with a voice higher than either Lawrence's or Malinger's had been.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Menlo. However, even though they stopped hanging out, they made an agreement that TJ would still go to Menlo's birthday party every year.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
  • After becoming the principal for a day (In the episode of the same name), he gets power over the whole school...but easily becomes corrupted and power-mad.
  • And again when they invented schoolyard currency. At the same time he financially took over the school, he got incessantly more insane. This is cemented when he only offered one mark for his own hat. Which was his goal in first place.
• Your Size May Vary: Sometimes he and Spinelli are the same height, but sometimes he's taller. He's noticeably taller in the later episodes.
• Youthful Freckles: He has freckles.

Vince LaSalle

"If you start something, you might as well finish it."

Debut: "The Break In"

Voiced by: Rickey D'Shon Collins, Miyu Irino (In the Japanese dub; The Other Darrin for Taya Hayabusa)

Vincent Pierre "Vince" LaSalle is African-American, part French and is one of the main characters of Recess. Out of the six members of the Recess Gang, he is known to be the most athletic.

---

• The Ace: When it comes to sports or games, Vince is the best.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "The Bet", when he becomes even more of a competition freak and more egotistical than usual.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In "Me No Know", he uses T.J.'s catchphrase "Tender" when he realizes that he can quote Nitwitz 3 with the rest of the kids the next day at school.
• Break the Haughty: In "I Will Kick No More Forever", he actually has a Despair Event Horizon over one of the Ashleys kicking better than him.
• Broken Ace: His athletic skills are above most of the other students, though he's very insecure about losing and failure.
• Competition Freak: Vince is highly egotistical about winning any game he takes part in. The others become irritated by this and dare him to last a day without winning once, at which point he becomes drunk on losing at every game he plays.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Big Brother Chad", "I Will Kick No More Forever", "Copycat Kid", "Bad Hair Day", "The Bet", "The Barnaby Boys", "Good Luck Charm", "The Candidates", "The A.V. Kid", "Chez Vince", and "The Principals of Golf".
• Facepalm: Vince has been prone to doing these a lot.
• Fatal Flaw: His over-competitiveness has sometimes made Vince more of a jerk than usual and in a few episodes, like "The Bet," nearly ruined his friendships.
• Heroic BSoD: In "I Will Kick No More Forever", a fluke kickball kick by Ashley Q. that far surpasses his own sends Vince into such a shock he practically becomes a statue.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: A few episodes have shown that he has a bit of an inferiority complex, and is extremely insecure about losing.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A mild example. Vince is a nice guy, but his superior athletic abilities compared to those of his friends often make him egoistic. However, deep down, he knows how important his friends are to him and will *almost* always choose their friendship over winning in the end.
  • A rare exception comes in "Soccer Boy" when Vince does choose winning over his friendship with Mikey and refuses to let him play with him, T.J. and Spinelli because he's worried Mikey will wreck the team's chances. This allows Lawson to make Mikey his team's goalie and win the tournament because Mikey proves excellent at the position. In the final, Vince's egotistic nature again costs him: with all of Lawson's team out of position, rather than charging at Mikey and setting up a back pass for T.J. or Spinelli to put into an open net once Mikey's out of position (something even a professional keeper couldn't stop), he takes the shot himself from several yards away. Mikey makes another save and punts into the open net at the other end of the field, winning the match 1-0.
• Lovable Jock: He's a jock, but he's not antagonistic
• Meaningful Name: In the Roman Catholic tradition, Jean Baptiste de La Salle is the patron saint of teachers of youth.
• Mr. Vice Guy: He can have a huge ego at times, but he'll always stand up for his friends, as well as any other kid being picked on, and will always do the right thing.
• My Beloved Smother: The focus of one episode. Vince's parents are strict Moral Guardians who forbade him from seeing a movie the rest of his classmates saw just because he's not 11. When he sneaks in to see it, he's grounded for a month.
• Numerological Motif: Of the #1. He wears it on his sleeveless, green t-shirt, known to be the best at sports, and is obsessed with being number 1 in anything.
• Only One Finds It Fun: In "The Substitute", Mr. E substitutes for Mrs. Grotke during the latter's bunion surgery. During recess, he makes all the students do push-ups and jumping jacks. Most of the students are miserable and exhausted from doing so, but Vince, being the gang's jock, is the only one who enjoys them, saying that if they exercised as often as he did, they would be in better shape and he wouldn't have to carry them all in kickball. Mr. E even praises Vince for doing such a good job exercising.
• Out of Focus: While still appearing in every episode, Vince got the least amount of character focus of the gang.
• Pride: Mainly from being the best at anything athletic.
• Real Men Cook: He becomes the new school cook when the other kids try his cooking.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Not only does he cook, he is also a fan of beauty pageants, and he actively and eagerly shows Spinelli how to participate in one such Beauty Contest.
• Small Name, Big Ego: A more low-key example, he occasionally develops an ego due to being The Ace.
• Supreme Chef: He is such a great cook that he fed the school (Student and staff alike) with his dishes. He was even invited to study abroad in a cooking school in France but stayed behind.
• Tuckerization: He was named after a college friend of the show's creators'.
• Vicariously Ambitious: Vince becomes Spinelli's self-appointed coach for a beauty pageant the Ashley's roped her into mostly because he's her friend and wants to help her get back at them, but also because it's just like any other competition that he really wants to win. During her training he tells Spinelli that he's driving her as hard as he would himself and later gleefully plans to put her victory sash in his trophy case!
• Verbal Tic: Probably the only kid in the show that has one, man.
• Vocal Evolution: His voice was higher in the first episode and part of the first season.
• Younger Than They Look: Vince might be nine, but he doesn't look any younger than his thirteen-year-old brother, Chad.

Ashley Spinelli

"Let me introduce you to my good friend Madame Fist!"

Debut: "The Break In"

Voiced by: Pamela Adlon

Ashley Funicello Spinelli is the tomboyish, aggressive, and ill-tempered Italian-American substitute ringleader of the Gang. She's known to be the toughest kid at Third Street School.

---

• Action Girl: She is strong and often tries to use violence to solve her problems.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Her parents almost always embarrass her, especially seen in their debut, "Parents' Night". This includes saying embarrassing stuff about her in public, getting her friends' names wrong right in front of them, and revealing the fact that Spinelli has a crush on T.J.
• Ambiguously Brown: Spinelli's ethnic background has been called into question:
  • Since she has almond-shaped eyes found on Asian girls in cartoons and light brown skin, many viewers have assumed that Spinelli was originally from an East Asian conutry and was adopted by Caucasian parents.
  • On the other hand, Spinelli's skin tone is also found on Southern Italians (Silicians, specifically) and That Other Wiki has established that Spinelli's family (possibly her father's side, as he has really dark hair and almost the same skin tone as his daughter, and her mother looks like she could be white European) is Italian (right down to Spinelli's penchant for fighting, which comes from the stereotype of the hot-blooded Italian) so either Spinelli's mom isn't really her mom, Spinelli's mom being a redhead is an Actor Allusion to Katey Sagal [who played Peggy Bundy — a redheaded housewife who wore tacky 1960s housewife clothes and has a big bouffant, like Spinelli's mom does — on Married... with Children], Spinelli's mom dyes her hair, or Spinelli takes after her father more than her mother (which further reinforces Spinelli's aversion to all things she thinks are for girly-girls).
  • In addition, the surname Spinelli is one of the most common surnames among Italians of Romani descent. The Romani are a race of nomadic people who originated in Northern India and slowly migrated through the Middle East and into Europe over the span of several centuries. If Spinelli were of Italian-Romani descent, she would have South Asian ancestry.
  • In one episode, Spinelli mentions a grandmother who ran the Iditarod, meaning she might be of Inuit ancestry as well.
• Badass Adorable: One of the biggest examples in the series, as she's the most physical out of all the kids, and is downright adorable as well. The fact that she tries to fight it just makes her even cuter.
• Beautiful All Along: She's pretty, but doesn't play it up because she has no interest in girly things, until "The Beauty Contest" shows she cleans up nicely. As soon as she wins the contest, though, she goes back to her usual tomboy look.
• The Big Girl: In terms of character, not her size. She's the quickest to resort to violence to deal with any of her problems.
• Big Sister Instinct: She's got strong protective instincts towards her friends, so hurting her friends will set her off.
• Blessed with Suck: Her first name is Ashley, after her great aunt who is a family hero since she was the first woman to win the Iditarod. Spinelli is honored and actually does like her name because of this. Sadly the name is ruined for her because how every other girl she's ever met named Ashley has been one of The Ashleys, who are shallow popular jerks, and she doesn’t wanna be a part of them. She keeps her first name a secret since there’s a rule that everyone whose name Ashley must join them.
• Book Dumb: Moreso earlier on in the series. Though she was never as book dumb as T.J.
• Boots of Toughness: Spinelli wears extremely stompy boots, and is one of the toughest kids on the playground.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: She brings the hurt, but ceases when her heartstrings are pulled.
• Brutal Honesty: She never hides her disdainful thoughts about the situation at hand.
• But Not Too Foreign: On the episode in which Randall discovers Spinelli's embarrassing first name (Ashley), Spinelli reveals she was named after her great-aunt who was from Alaska and ran in the Iditarod, meaning that Spinelli could be Inuit (Alaskan Native) on her mom's side and Italian on her father's side.
• Character Catchphrase: "She's gonna blow!" or some variant.
• Cute Bruiser: A young tomboyish girl and the toughest kid on the playground.
• A Day in the Limelight: "The Experiment", "First Name Ashley", "The Trial", "Parents Night", "Swing on Thru to the Other Side", "Mama's Girl", "Weekend at Muriel's", "Dance Lessons", "The Beauty Contest", "A Career to Remember", "That Stinking Feeling", "Good Luck Charm", "Spinelli's Masterpiece", "Don't Ask Me", "More Like Gretchen", and "No Strings Attached".
• Deadpan Snarker: She can be very sarcastic and snarky.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Hates being called "Ashley". Not because of the name itself but because of how the name was basically ruined for her since it is associated strongly with The Ashleys.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: She frequently threatens to punch boys, especially Randall, for making her angry. If she was a boy and Randall a girl, it wouldn't be anywhere near as funny.
• Dub Name Change: Her first name is changed to "Patricia" in the Portuguese dub, to fit with the other Ashleys who were also called this^note Patricinha, the diminutive form of Patricia, is the Portuguese-language equivalent of Valley Girl, which the Ashleys are. Her last name remains the same.
• Embarrassing First Name: She's embarrassed by her real name, so much to the point where being addressed really angers her. She actually does like her first name, but thanks to The Ashleys' rule mandating that anyone named Ashley must join them, she had to hide her first name so that she wouldn’t have to join.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Ashley Funicello Spinelli.
• First Kiss: With T.J., as an experiment.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Whenever she is angry she is prone to spout out a lot of these.
• Girlish Pigtails: Her pigtails highlight her youth.
• Good Is Not Nice: Still one of the heroes but the most aggressive and antagonistic kid in the gang.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It takes little to set her off.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Downplayed, as she only wears a leather jacket, which suits her tough girl personality.
• Hidden Depths: Spinelli is a very talented artist as seen in "Spinelli's Masterpiece". She also becomes an amazing dancer in "Dance Lessons" and the only one at the dance school who can pair up with Mikey.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: She does have a softer side. She'd just rather you didn't know about it and will threaten you with violence if you try to expose it.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Before Mikey has voice lessons, he says that he sings "almost as bad as Spinelli."
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In "King Gus" she is about to wail on Gus when he was Drunk On Power and mocked her friends for excusing his behavior for letting the power go to his head, only for King Bob's side to tell her she has a meeting with him about her proposal to become emperor of the west side of the playground. Immediately she goes off on a whole spiel about how "This is only the beginning" to her new power.
  • She almost attacked the Safety Patrol leader when he calls her a rebel and an anarchist, only to later reveal she stole his rule book and watch.
• In-Series Nickname: "Spin".
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Miss Grotke and Miss Finster.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being quick-tempered and violent, she's always rooting for the underdog and protecting her friends.
• The Lad-ette: As close as a nine-year-old girl can get. She's particularly interested in wrestling and roughhousing activities, and holds a disdain for anything considered feminine.
• Last-Name Basis: Justified in that her first name carries a stigma on the playground.
• Let Me at Him!: Her usual reaction to anyone mistreating her friends or just making her mad in general.
• Little Miss Badass: A small nine-year-old girl with her hair in pigtails, yet she's the toughest kid in school.
• Little Miss Snarker: She's the snarkiest out of the group, and she's a nine year old girl.
• Lonely Doll Girl: Surprisingly, she used to be one in kindergarten.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She is the Masculine Girl to TJ's Feminine Boy. TJ is characterized by loyalty and caring while Spinelli is violent and aggressive. The most obvious example is during "The Experiment" when they both say goodbye to their childhood: TJ gives his old cuddly toy a hug while Spinelli uses hers to trash the room.
  • She also serves as the Masculine Girl to Mikey's Feminine Boy. While Mikey is kind, good-hearted, gentle, peaceful, and poetic, she is tough, aggressive, angry, tomboyish, and rebellious. Mikey is interested in poetry, singing, art, philosophy and is more interested in arts and culture, while she is interested in wrestling, fighting, sports and physical activity. While Mikey's interests are spiritual, her interests are more physical and manly. Also, Mikey's interests are considered more suitable for females, while her interests are considered more suitable for males. While Mikey is sensitive, tolerant and forgiving, she is rough, less tolerant and less forgiving.
• Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: "Let me introduce you to my good friend Madame Fist!"
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Much stronger than she looks.
• Never Bareheaded: Like T.J., she's hardly ever shown out of her hat. The only occasions where she doesn't wear it are when she's sleeping or for formal occasions.
• Older Than They Look: In the pilot, as she looked like she never left kindergarten.
• One of the Boys: Almost, though one of her best friends is a girl.
• Pet the Dog: In the episode "Don't Ask Me," when Spinelli takes over Guru Kid's job of giving kids advice, Spinelli gives Randall advice on how to defend himself. It may not seem like much, since she took over Guru Kid's job, but Spinelli has a huge dislike for Randall, you expect her to either refuse to help him, sabotage the advice she gives him, or at most grudgingly help him. But instead, she gives him advice to help him with his problem, which he gratefully thanks her for.
  • In the episode "The Economics of Recess", Randall was holding a bidding auction for all the school's balls for everyone to play in exchange for "Monstickers". However, considering the fact that all of the students were into the sticker fad, they have no problem of paying some of their Monstickers to Randall; even Spinelli herself is willing to pay seven Monstickers to Randall for a ball.
• Perpetual Frowner: She's usually seen with a scowl on her face.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Her short stature seems to be complimented by her fiery temper and strength, which makes one wonder if she has a Napoleon complex.
• Rambunctious Italian: Italian-American, and the member most prone to anger and solving problems with fisticuffs.
• Red Is Heroic: Her signature color.
• Ship Tease: With T.J., and it's been confirmed on her side.
• Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: She has a crush on T.J.
• Tomboy: She's a big wrestling fan and the "toughest kid in school", and strongly despises almost everything feminine.
• Tomboyish Voice: She speaks with a fairly raspy voice and is the toughest kid on the playground.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Spinelli is a Lad-ette through and through, who despises her mother forcing her to try and be girly. However, she shows that - when she's entered in a Beauty Contest against her will - she can look very fine in an evening gown when she wants to. She's also the first of the gang to get a crush, and she actually enjoyed the ballet lessons her mother enrolled her in. Plus her standard outfit involves a red dress and pigtails, albeit with a leather jacket and boots to go with it.
• Tsundere: She is (usually) dere-dere towards the other five main kids, but tsun-tsun to everyone else. Also, she's the most dere-dere with T.J., whom it's hinted she has a crush on…
• Tsurime Eyes: And the fact that they're slanted has caused fan debate regarding her ethnicity.
• Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: This happens a couple of times to Spinelli. The first of which was done as blackmail by the Ashleys when it was learned that Spinelli's first name was Ashley as well, the other in which Spinelli is entered in a Beauty Contest as a bet to win out over any of the Ashleys.
• Vocal Evolution: As the series went on, her voice became slightly more scratchy.
• When She Smiles: Spinelli's already adorable, but when she's in a good mood and isn't threatening or attacking someone, expect that to be taken up to eleven.
• Would Rather Suffer: In the Beauty Contest episode, when she finds out that she's been entered in the Little Miss Blush beauty contest, she angrily declares that she'd "rather scarf down a dead bird."
• Wrench Wench: Spinelli was taught by her older brother how to work on cars and helped fix a broken down bus in one episode. "Regular, or ratchet?"
• Your Size May Vary: While she's the second shortest of the gang, how short she is will vary. Sometimes she's a little taller than Gus, sometimes she and Gus are the same height, and in the later episodes, she's the same height as T.J., possibly due to a growth spurt.

Gretchen Priscilla Grundler

"I've been trying to dumb myself down ever since kindergarten and it hasn't worked so far."

Debut: "The Break In"

Voiced by: Ashley Johnson, Anndi McAfee (Singing (Credits of movie only))

Gretchen Grundler is the intelligent member of the main six, and is one of the smartest kids in Third Street School.

---

• Adorably Precocious Child: She's a through-and-through Child Prodigy yet has a fondness for recess like the rest of the gang.
• Alliterative Name: Her first and last name both begin with a "Gr".
• Awesome by Analysis: Subverted in Gretchen And The Secret of Yo where she believes that studying the forces in play in sports will automatically make her excel at them. Her lack of practice and athleticism, however, cause her to fail at everything she tries until she discovers she has a degree of talent in doing yoyo tricks.
• The B Grade: She didn't take to kindly to her A- in "The Dude".
• Berserk Button:
  • Never suggest that she's dumb. You may not be able to live to regret it.
  • Teasing her about her PDA. Kristen Kurst learns this the hard way.
• Beware the Nice Ones: There are times where she has shown a dark side; "The Girl Was Trouble" and the film are good examples of this.
• Badass Bookworm: Her brains help the gang save the day on a regular basis.
• Blind Without 'Em: She is completely unable to see without her large glasses.
• Book Smart: She is very good at school and helps her friends thanks to her knowledge.
• Brainy Brunette: She has reddish-brown hair and is the smartest kid in school.
• Character Tics: Adjusting her glasses.
• Child Prodigy: In a few episodes, it's shown that she's smarter than almost everyone else in town, as shown in "A Genius Among Us", where it's established that she's smarter than most of the teachers.
• Class Representative: She once did everyone's homework expecting that they were going to use it to help themselves learn the material. Another time she ran for class president on her academic ideals.
• Cute Bookworm: The most studious girl of the group.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: At times. She's very unathletic, as shown in "Gretchen and the Secret of Yo".
• A Day in the Limelight: "My Fair Gretchen", "The Pest", "Outcast Ashley", "Gretchen and the Secret of Yo", "The Girl Was Trouble", "A Genius Among Us", "Space Cadet", "A Science Fair to Remember", "The Candidates", "This Brain for Hire", "More Like Gretchen", and "Good Ole T.J."
• Endearingly Dorky: She's an intelligent, cute, nerdy Nice Girl, with red hair in Girlish Pigtails, freckles, buck teeth, and Nerd Glasses, and quite a few kids at school have had crushes on her.
• Fiery Redhead: Subverted; she's pretty calm, but if you push her enough, she's this.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Being the Smart Girl of the group, she's easily able to construct gadgets and devices if the need for them arises.
  Gretchen: Oh, you could make lots of devices out of the spare parts out of your family's garage. Why, I once fashioned a particle accelerator out of a broken hair dryer and a four slice toaster oven.
• Geek Physiques: Of the really skinny variety.
• Girlish Pigtails: She has reddish-brown hair in pigtails.
• Goofy Buckteeth: She is a nerdy girl with buckteeth to go with her glasses and Youthful Freckles.
• Huge Schoolgirl: She's one of the tallest kids in school.
• Innocent Prodigy: Although she is very smart, she can also be bit naive. At times, she can easily fall for most of the crazy stories told on the playground, such as the outcomes of the Stinky Peterson fortune teller in "Gus's Fortune".
• In-Series Nickname: "Gretch" (shortened by TJ).
• Little Professor Dialog: She has rather sophisticated vocabulary for a fourth grader.
• Lovable Nerd: She is both nerdy and really sweet.
• MacGyvering: Somehow fashioned a particle accelerator from a hair dryer and a four-slice toaster.
• Nerds Are Naïve: She's a Child Prodigy, Stereotypical Nerd, and The Smart Guy of the crew, but in "The Girl Was Trouble," when she ventures through the school's "underworld" and makes deals with the jerks and bullies to get her Galileo computer back, however she leaves a trail of clues linking her to their misdeeds. As Miss Lemon says, her smarts are "all book and no street."
• Nerd Glasses: She wears large circular glasses to highlight her nerdiness.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork:
  • For Gretchen, college level math is like kickball.
  • This trope ends up saving the day in the Crossover episode with Lilo & Stitch: The Series. The Recess Gang (plus Miss Finster) win a trip to Hawaii and cross paths with Lilo, who's trying to hunt down the Experiment of the Week: Experiment 285, or Lax, a creature that fires a beam which instantly makes people so relaxed that they lose all concern about everything and focus exclusively on having fun. This causes trouble when Big Bad Dr. Hamsterviel is plotting to attack the islands with a giant laser cannon in space; the kids and Stitch work to stop him, but one by one fall prey to Lax and stop caring about the mission. Gretchen is all set to reprogram the cannon when she is finally hit with Lax's beam...and, after a brief sigh, immediately gets back to work. That's right—doing advanced-level calculus and trigonometry is her definition of relaxation!
• Nerdy Nasalness: Gretchen Grundler, the resident Smart Girl with large Nerd Glasses to match, speaks with a very nasally voice.
• Nice Girl: Although not to the levels of T.J. and Mikey, she's very sweet, friendly, and easy-going.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Slightly. She has a more cartoony design to her than the rest of the gang.
• Noodle People: The thinnest of her friends.
• Odd Name Out: She's the only member of the main six who uses her full first name instead of any kind of nickname (Or last name in Spinelli's case) most of the time. Although, "Gretch" is a common nickname for her.
• Perpetual Smiler: She fits a rarely explored realistic version of this trope as she has a very pronounced lisp or some other kind of speech impediment that indicates excessive saliva.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: She often speaks like this. She also spoke this way for her first line in the series.
• The Smart Girl: The very brainy one of her friends.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Wears glasses and is the smartest kid on the playground.
• Squishy Wizard: She may be extremely smart for her age, but is probably the worst in the gang when it comes to anything athletic. Unless it's yo-yo's.
• Stereotypical Nerd: Gretchen Grundler is The Smart Guy of the group, being a Child Prodigy in terms of all natural and physical sciences and something of a Gadgeteer Genius. Visually, she has a huge pair of Nerd Glasses, wears her hair in dowdy pigtails, and wears a relatively unfashionable long blue dress. She is very tall (only shorter than The Big Guy Mikey) and very lanky exhibiting the pale and thin version of Geek Physique and has very prominent and protruding buck teeth. She also speaks with Nerdy Nasalness.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Gretchen may be a science nerd who has very little interest in girly things. But one episode shows her making friends with Alpha Bitch Ashley A and engaging in a few feminine past times. Her picture day outfit also has a pink bow as part of it. Her usual outfit consists of a gingham farm-girl dress, with her hair in pigtails with ribbons.
• Took a Level in Badass: It takes a lot of bravery to stand up to someone like Kurst the Worst and more to hold her own in a food fight with her!
• True Blue Femininity: Her signature baby-blue dress.
• TV Genius: Gretchen fits this trope to a T: ten years old, yet an improbably brilliant polymath with extraordinary science and engineering skills, knowledge of history, literature and mathematics. And yes, susceptible to overwrought verbiage. Surprisingly though, she's not that socially awkward though her friends express wariness at her nerdier activities.
• Valley Girl: She becomes one in "Outcast Ashley" after befriending the Ashleys.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: She has shown the ability for academic feats that other students in her grade find complicated.
• Wrench Wench: The internal combustion engine is apparently a passion of hers. In "Operation Field Trip," she and Spinelli are the ones who repair the bus's engine after it breaks down.
• Youthful Freckles: To go with her Girlish Pigtails.

Mikey Blumberg

"There's no telling what the future holds, besides rainbows and happiness."

Debut: "The Break In"

Voiced by: Jason Davis (Speaking), Robert Goulet (Singing), Zack Ewing (Lilo & Stitch: The Series crossover)

Michael "Mikey" Blumberg is one of the six main characters and a member of the Recess gang. He is the most sensitive and artistic in the group, and he has a fondness for theater and poetry.

---

• Acrofatic: He is a talented ballet dancer.
• All-Loving Hero: Lampshaded in the episode "Nobody Likes T.J.," in which Mikey points out that there are people out there who don't like him because he's too nice.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Mikey Blumberg is a nice guy. Unfortunately there are kids who dislike Mikey because he can come across as too nice and because he can be a bit of a Extreme Doormat; a lot of kids take advantage of that and push him around. In the season 4 episode "Rumor Mill", Mikey had to turn the tables on his tormentors by starting a rumor about him losing his temper over another kid spilling his popcorn.
• Badass Pacifist: He always prefers a peaceful solution to conflicts.
• Bankruptcy Barrel: In the episode "Mikey's Pants", Mikey ends up splitting a seam in his pants. One of the attempts his friends come up with to cover the rip is to make barrel pants like they've seen in cartoons. Unfortunately, Mikey falls victim to one of the classic downfalls of barrel pants in those same cartoons; falling over and rolling down a hill uncontrollably.
• Berserk Button: Believe it or not, Mikey has one — don't ever mistake his kindness for weakness (as seen in the episode in which he becomes a goalie for Lawson and his soccer team).
• Beware the Nice Ones: There have been times where Mikey is revealed to have a dark side.
• Big Eater: In the opening credits, he eats a Dagwood Sandwich in one bite.
• Big Fun: Fat, lovable, and friendly.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The big to Gus' little.
• Birthday Hater: In "Bonky Fever", due to his fear of getting older.
• Camp Straight: He possesses an interest in characteristically feminine hobbies like poetry, dancing, and ballet, but is shown to have a Precocious Crush on his singing instructor, Miss Salamone.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Mikey's poems are enough evidence that his mind isn't operating on the same level as everyone elses.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Officer Mikey", "The Voice", "Copycat Kid", "Operation Stuart", "Yes, Mikey, Santa Does Shave", "Dance Lessons", "Kindergarten Derby", "Rumor Mill", "Mikey's Pants", "Bonky Fever", "Soccer Boy", "Germ Warfare", "Tucked in Mikey", "Old Folks Home", "Beyond a Reasonable Scout", "Big Ol' Mikey", and "Kurst the Not So Bad".
• Drama Queen: Fittingly enough for an art lover like himself, he has a rather theatrical way of reacting to misfortunes.
• Dumb Blonde: At times, though it's more "naive" than "dumb".
• Emotional Regression: The plot of "Bonky Fever" revolves around Mikey becoming obsessed with a Barney-esque series as a means to hold onto his childhood longer, only for the show to go to his head and regress him into an infantile phase.
• Extreme Doormat: Can sometimes be this, due to his sheer niceness. In "Rumor Mill" he finally gets tired of being pushed around, though, and starts a rumor about himself to make other kids afraid of him.
• Fat Best Friend: Type C, though he's more naive and a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander than stupid.
• Fat Comic Relief: The fattest kid in the bunch, and he is definitely a comic relief character, many jokes revolving around him overeating—including one in the show's opening where he belches.
• Fat Idiot: Mikey is a naïve Cloudcuckoolander.
• Gasshole: Sometimes tends to burp loudly after eating, as in the show's opening and at the worst possible time in The Movie.
• Gentle Giant: He sings, writes poetry, takes ballet lessons (his parents enrolled him because they felt he wasn't graceful, but he really does enjoy dancing too), and is very sensitive and compassionate.
• The Heart: He believes in notions of peace that are often dismissed by the others.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: At the beginning of "The Voice" he can only sing well in the bathroom; in public, his singing is hopelessly scratchy and out of tune. But with good voice lessons, he soon became the best singer in school.
• Hypocritical Humor: In the "Kindergarten Derby", Mikey bets a huge amount of Winger Dingers just to support Tubby, not caring whether he wins or loses, but in support of his friend...until Gretchen makes him realize exactly how many Winger Dingers he stands to win if Tubby actually wins the race. Then, all of a sudden...
  Mikey: RUN YOU LITTLE WHOMPER!! RUN!!!
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: He's notorious for having artistic leanings like poetry and ballet.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • Oddly holds it in "The Lost Ball" after Gus accidentally kicks the school's new kickball over the fence.
  • In "Germ Warfare" he actually threatens Gus when the latter hurts his germ "pets".
  • Grabs it tightly right at the end of "Bad Hair Day" when he refuses to help T.J. and Vince escape the angry mob after Gretchen and Spinelli accidentally ruin T.J. and Vince's hair-cutting "business". Not only did T.J. try to make the best of a bad situation that Mikey himself created with his bubble gum, but he and Vince made his bad haircut a trend on the playground, to the point where everyone BUT the Main Six had the same look. Even though Mikey's haircut *is* terrible, T.J. and Vince market it so well that their friend won't have to go through it alone. Yet when the mob chases them, Mikey callously tells Gretchen and Spinelli to help "as soon as my hair grows back."
• Kiddie Kid: He becomes one in the episode "Bonkey Fever" so he can have his mother on his side well into adulthood. It kicks off with Mikey developing an obsession with a Barney-esque series and becoming so infantile to the point of speaking in Baby Talk, throwing tantrums, and asking T.J. to walk him to the bathroom.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: An All-Loving Hero and the Cloudcuckoolander of the series.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: He is the Feminine Boy to Spinelli's Masculine Girl. While he is kind, good-hearted, gentle, peaceful, and poetic, Spinelli is tough, aggressive, angry, tomboyish, and rebellious. He is interested in poetry, singing, art, philosophy and is more interested in arts and culture, while Spinelli is interested in wrestling, fighting, sports and physical activity. While his interests are spiritual, Spinelli's interests are more physical and manly. Also, his interests are considered more suitable for females, while Spinelli's interests are considered more suitable for males. While he is sensitive, tolerant and forgiving, Spinelli is rough, less tolerant and less forgiving.
• Nice Guy: The sweetest of the main cast. He has a very sensitive soul.
• No-Sell: Was the only one unaffected when Pharaoh Bob's men doused the rest of the kids with a high powered hose.
• Precocious Crush: On Miss Salamone, his music teacher in "The Voice".
• Schedule Fanatic: Mikey briefly becomes this when Menlo shows him how to become more organized and schedule his time in the episode, "Tucked In Mikey." This over-regimentation of his schedule eventually takes a toll on the quality of his poetry and doesn't leave much time for him to play with his friends, so the gang eventually come up with a plan to get him to stop being this trope.
• Sensitive Artist: Mikey is a Gentle Giant who writes poetry, does ballet, sings and is generally charaacterized as being In Touch with His Feminine Side in terms of his interests.
• Singing Voice Dissonance: His singing voice sounds absolutely nothing like his speaking voice — to be specific, it sounds like the rich baritone of Robert Goulet.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Mikey, who towers over every other kid on the playground (he seems to be roughly six feet tall — and he's in fourth grade) is much taller than his extremely short father. Mikey apparently inherited his height from his mother, who's slightly taller from him.
• Stout Strength: Once he lifted the monkey bars off the ground with one hand and in another episode two muscular sixth graders were unable to restrain him.
• Vocal Evolution: Mikey's voice became lower in season 3, this is due to his voice actor going through puberty

Gus Griswald

Debut: "The New Kid

Voiced by: Ryan O'Donohue (First recording of "The New Kid"), Courtland Mead, Zach Shada (Lilo & Stitch: The Series crossover), Blake Ewing (Singing (Credits of movie only))

Gustav Patton "Gus" Griswald is one of the six main characters and was originally the newest member of the Recess gang.

---

• Abandoned Catchphrase: In the early episodes (and in a Toon Disney advertisement), he would often say "Sounds good to me", but this was later dropped. He also often says, "All my life, [insert something here]".
• Affectionate Nickname: Is called "Safety Man" by his kindergartner friend, Hector.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Gus Griswald was unpopular because he was the new kid, also being a little shy and somewhat dweeby did not help. While Gus escapes the new kid label, he doesn't always escape the stigma because of it. For example, in "The Lost Ball," he goes through Once Done, Never Forgotten when he accidentally kicks a ball into "The Yard of No Return."
• Alliterative Name: Gus Griswald
• Audience Surrogate: Being new to town, Gus is always confused about certain school rituals and legends, just like the viewer who's first hearing about them. This leads to the gang explaining the situation to him- and the audience.
• Badass Adorable:
  • Thanks to his identity as El Diablo when it comes to dodgeball, and for being one of the cutest kids in the gang.
  • In "The Coolest Heatwave" he reveals that he once helped his father thwart an Evil Plan to crash the global economy, which involved them chasing down a dangerous criminal while skiing in the Alps, James Bond style.
• Beady-Eyed Loser: The shy Lovable Coward who just moved to town. He's the only member of the regular cast with Black Bead Eyes.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The dodgeball incident; there's a reason why he's called El Diablo.
• Big Brother Instinct: Towards Hector. When Lawson hits the kindergartener in the face with a dodgeball, Gus (who'd sworn off the game forever after doing something similar to a child at his old school) gets dangerous and single-handedly wipes out the entire fifth grade class. In short, don't hurt a little kid in front of him, ever.
• Big Eater: A few episode showcase his taste for sweets. In "King Gus," he learns that he can have his advisors bring him whatever he wants and demands countless snacks, and he later implements a "cookie tax" on every kid on the playground. In Taking the Fifth Grade, he similarly eats a lot at the Fifth and Sixth Graders' Club (despite eating lunch right beforehand) and gains weight as a result.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The little to Mikey's big.
• Black Bead Eyes: Probably the only character in the show with this eye style (With the exception of Becky Benson, Gretchen's rival in Science Fair).
• Blind Without 'Em: He is apparently blind without his glasses. He even says "I'm blind!" when he accidentally steps on and breaks them. What's ridiculous is that when he finds that he's considered cool without them, he ditches them, sacrificing sight for popularity. The viewer is given a scene or two from his point of view: the images are blurred, but not even close to the severity of the blur of people with glasses in real life. It's only a slight blur, and the "lines" between objects are still distinguishable.
• Breakout Character: He ended up being the most prominent on certain promotional materials and had the second most episodes centered on him.
• Break the Cutie: On a few occasions when he feels he'll lose his first real set of friends, or when things go south in school, he tends to be the most likely one to elicit an emotional response.
• Bully Magnet: Gus is the new kid and is immediately on the low pecking order until he finds refuge with a group of the other main characters. Even then sometimes he gets bullied, for example when Barbaric Bully Gelman targets him in "Gus' Last Stand".
• Butt-Monkey: He suffers comical mishaps whenever the plot calls for it. The intro even features him falling victim to the stickiness of his bubble gum he was blowing, then proceeding to blindly fall on the dodgeball cart.
• The Chew Toy: He's frequently put on the end of the Amusing Injuries stick.
• Cowardly Lion: Despite being cowardly, he'll often stand up to anybody troubling him, which was shown when he was in kindergarten.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's a one-kid army at dodgeball, with the fearsome nickname "El Diablo".
• Cute, but Cacophonic: He's very cute, but his whining is considered to be pretty annoying, especially in "Germ Warfare", where he was almost screaming for the whole episode.
• Cute Mute: In "Jinxed" due to being jinxed by the Ashleys.
• The Cutie: He is one of the cutest members of the main six, due to his shyness, hopelessness, and naivety.
• A Day in the Limelight: "The New Kid", "Jinxed", "King Gus", "The Lost Ball", "Gus's Last Stand", "One Stayed Clean", "Dodgeball City", "Hustler's Apprentice", "Gus's Fortune", "Tattletale Heart", "Call Me Guy", "Gus and Misdemeanors", "Bachelor Gus", "A Great State Fair", "Yope From Norway", "Germ Warfare", "Beyond a Reasonable Scout", and "The Army-Navy Game".
• Drunk with Power: In "King Gus" it doesn't take long for him to go full tyrant when he becomes king for a few days.
• Dumb Blonde: He's not really "dumb", just very gullible.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Conflicted, usually too nervous to go on with some of the gang's plans, but due to peer pressure and his own need to make friends for once in his life, he goes along with them.
• Friendless Background: Having moved from town to town all the time (since he's the child of a military officer, meaning that whenever his dad gets stationed somewhere, he has to move with him), and being shy and somewhat dweeby, poor Gus hardly had any friends before moving to town, and meeting the main five.
• Future Badass: While he already has Hidden Depths in athletics, it's strongly suggested that he will grow up to be as tall and muscular as his father if a giant senior citizen who looked like him as a kid is anything to go by. Gus even considers a military career at some points and hypothetical future scenes do show him having grown into quite the soldier.
• He's Back!: After witnessing Lawson nail his kindergartner friend Hector with a dodgeball thinking he was a fourth grader, Gus decided it was time to bring back the deadliest dodgeball player in all the playground: El Diablo.
• Hidden Depths:
  • He's exceptional at dodgeball—to the point that a kid seeing him play guitar freaked him out and warned T.J. and the others to flee.
  • Due to his father being a Marine Corps officer, he's quite talented at military games and at times surprisingly quite athletic, as well as once helping his dad thwart a plan to crash the global economy while on a skiing trip. In addition, he often identifies civilian and military vehicles by name and designation on sight.
• I Was Just Joking: He is prone to delivering these lines, such as "What are we going to do, get the entire playground up here?"
• Inconsistent Spelling: His last name is spelled "Griswald" in official merchandise, most episodes, and in print material, however, it was spelt as "Griswold" in two episodes: "The New Kid" and "Gus's Fortune".
• In-Series Nickname: "El Diablo" and "Safety Man".
• Keet: In kindergarten. He was more outgoing and excited as opposed to his personality years later.
• Kid-Appeal Character: The explanations he gets are a survival guide to elementary school.
• The Klutz: He has his clumsy moments.
• The Load: To a few fans. He isn't as crafty as TJ, athletic as Vince, smart as Gretchen, gentle as Mikey or tough-as-nails as Spinelli. However, he does has his moments.
• Lovable Coward: He gets frightened easily.
• Military Brat: His dad is a career Marine and they moved around a lot because of it (Gus was in at least six schools before he moved to Third Street). Subverted in that he's actually a nice kid, unlike most fictional military brats, who are depicted as being bullies.
• My Greatest Failure: Before he came to Third Street, he was known as El Diablo, the greatest and deadliest dodgeball player in all the playground. However, that all changed the day he accidentally hit a little kid during a game. The kid was so traumatized that he never set foot on the playground again and Gus was so guilt-ridden that he hasn't picked up a ball ever since that event.
  Gus: Poor little kid was so shook up, he could never go near the playground again. Studied during lunch. I did that to him. Sorry, but I just can't play.
• Naïve Newcomer: When he arrives at Third Street School in the beginning of the series.
• Nerds Are Naïve: Gus is a Stereotypical Nerd who is meek, socially awkward, and on the receiving end of bullying at the start of the series. Often the other members of the crew have to explain to him the rules and rituals of school life and how to best navigate it. This allows Gus to also function as an Audience Surrogate and is justified by him being the Naïve Newcomer.
• Nerd Glasses: He wears glasses to showcase his social awkwardness.
• New Transfer Student: Introduced in the episode "The New Kid".
• Nice Guy: Generally good-natured.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Unlike the rest of the Recess Gang, Gus is drawn with Black Bead Eyes as oppossed to white eyes with black pupils. Only a very small number of minor characters are drawn this way as well.
• Really Moves Around: His family moved often because his father is a general. He admits to attending 11 schools by the time he reached the fourth grade and has never been at a school long enough to be known for anything other than being the new kid.
• Safety Freak: He takes safety very seriously, prompting Hector to call him "Safety Man" after saving him from falling down hole. He told the Diggers to contact electrical companies to verify for wires in the ground before starting any dig.
• Second Episode Introduction: He is introduced not in the second episode, but part B of the first episode. It was his Welcome Episode.
• Shrinking Violet: He's timid and shy, but luckily, he has True Companions.
• Sixth Ranger: A rare example of one appearing during the second part of the first episode in the series (Gus first appeared in episode 1B, the other five debuted in episode 1A).
• Stereotypical Nerd: Gus Griswald is the New Transfer Student who finds himself ostracized and bullied when he first arrives in episode 2. Personality wise, he's naturally timid, shy, and a bit naive due to his relatively sheltered life being a Military Brat with a strict dad. Appearance wise, he has the quintessential Nerd Glasses along with the beige button down, belted khaki pants, exposed socks, and loafers to complete the overall look.
• Sweet Tooth: Especially with chocolate.
• Temporarily a Villain: In "King Gus" when he Took a Level in Jerkass.
• Temporary Bulk Change: In Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade, Gus eats too much at the fifth and sixth grader club, and gains weight as a result. He remains this way until the next segement of the movie starts.
• Took a Level in Badass: When he's leading the other kids to save T.J. in Recess: School's Out
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate.
• Unlucky Everydude: Doesn't have any special talents or strengths to make him stand out as much as the rest of his friends, and so reacts to his Butt-Monkey status the same way an average kid will when things go south.
• Vocal Evolution: He had a slight lisp in the earliest episodes, but it went away. Justified, as his voice actor had one at the time.
• The Watson: He's usually the most confused about a certain school tradition (being a new student), which causes T.J. and the others to explain what's going on to him (and the audience).
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: When he becomes temporary king of the playground in "King Gus". He gets a lot of power, but it makes him get extremely power mad.

---