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Schoolhouse Rocky
Schoolhouse Rocky
"'Cause knowledge is power!"
- Chest Insignia: "SR"
- The Klutz: How Rocky would topple the "Y" in his intro.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: Rocky wears a blue one.
- Transformation Sequence: Rocky's torso swells with muscles as his tights appear after a brief, spastic display.
Multiplication Rock
My Hero, Zero
Zero
"Why, we could never reach a star without you, Zero, my hero; how wonderful you are."
- Ascended Extra: Originally representing zeroes and place values, Zero was soon repurposed as a Series Mascot.
- Cape Snag: A Running Gag with Zero was how he would get caught up on his long red cape.
- Chest Insignia: "0".
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Zero's power seems useless on the surface... but then he alters any number by the power of 10 through adding (and presumably removing) zeroes. He also alters weights by the same means, making them literally heavier. He even creates money by altering the $4 written on a piggy bank to a $4,000... and there doesn't appear to be any limit to any of this. Granted, he didn't do much in the song besides making some small-time money, but he is still young...
- The Klutz: The aforementioned Cape Snag.
- My Hero, Zero: The Trope Namer.
- Phone Booth Changing Room: Zero changes into his superhero clothing by entering a telephone booth.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: Zero wears a red one.
- Super-Strong Child: Zero manages to support a 500-pound weight for a solid second, and kept his hold on a piggy bank holding four grand (possibly all in coins).
- Transformation Sequence: Zero jumps into a phone booth, of course.
- Youthful Freckles: A trio plastered on each cheek.
Elementary, My Dear
Noah
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"Elementary, my dear. Two time two is four!"
- The Ark: A reimagining of the Noah's Ark story... with math.
- Character Catchphrase: "Elementary, my dear."
Noah's Son
"Hey, dad. How many animals on this old ark, anyway? Huh?"
Three is a Magic Number
The Magician
Voiced by: Mike DeLeon (computer game)
- Biomanipulation: Assuming the magician is the one multiplying various objects by three in the "Now multiply from ten, backwards" sequences, this is one of his powers. One of the things he multiplies is an octopus' tentacles, increasing their number from 8 to 24. The octopus is visibly terrified.
- Butt-Monkey: He has terrible aim while playing at a carnival shooting range, and gets constantly trampled by a football team.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: While playing at a carnival shooting range, he attempts to shoot thirty duck targets, and ends up missing every single shot.
- Rule of Three: What the song is about.
The Four-Legged Zoo
The Schoolchildren
Miss Simpson
The Zoo Animals
The Four-Legged Zoo
- Ambiguous Syntax: Its name could either be referring to the fact that all the animals inside the zoo have 4 legs, or the zoo, itself, has 4 legs.
- Bigger on the Inside: Appears to be the size of a standard gazebo, yet the majority of the song takes place inside.
- Living Structure Monster: The cage comes alive at the end of the song before roaring the visitors out.
Ready or Not, Here I Come
The Counting Man
Voiced by: Bob Dorough; Bill Wise (computer game)
"Apple, peaches, pumpkin pie; who's not ready? Holler 'I'."
- Friend to All Children: Doesn't mind spending his time playing hide-and-seek with a bunch of kids.
- Pie in the Face: He juggles apples, peaches, and a pumpkin pie, but he ends up dropping the pie on his head.
- Rough Overalls: A rural man wearing overalls in the country.
I Got Six
- Marry Them All: The prince has twelve wives wearing traditional Arabic hoods and veils.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: The prince has 72 children, six with each of his wives.
Lucky Seven Sampson
Lucky Seven Sampson
Voiced by: Bob Dorough; Jim Canning (computer game)
"Now, you can call me 'lucky', 'cause Lucky's my name. Singing and dancing, that's my game. I never did a whole day's work in my life; still, everything seemed to turn out right."
A white rabbit "born 'neath a lucky star" down in Sweet Home Alabama.
- The Artful Dodger: Admits he hasn't worked a day in his life, and gets around by stowing rides traveling the country.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: He wears a tanktop and pants, but no shoes. Though this is because he shows off the "7" on his feet.
- Born Lucky: He was "born 'neath a lucky star", and as such, bad things never come his way.
- Filching Food for Fun: He steals a head of lettuce, fifty-six scoops of ice cream, and a slice of huckleberry pie throughout his song.
- Karma Houdini: Doesn't receive any comeuppance for his mischief aside from the occasional trip, but that only slips him up for a second or two at most.
- Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Lucky likes to flaunt his right foot, with a black birthmark of a seven on the sole.
- Lucky Seven: The rabbit has a birthmark shaped like the number 7 on the sole of his foot.
- Rascally Rabbit: Manages to catch the ire of three burly men, all of whom he loses in a chase.
- Talking Animal: As well as a singing animal, able to not only talk to the children (who seem to understand him), but also carry a tune well.
Figure Eight
The Figure Skater
Voiced by: Blossom Dearie; Mary Flanagan (computer game)
"If you skate, you would be great if you could make a figure eight. That's a circle that turns round upon itself..."
- Creepy Child: She can come off as pretty unnerving. Especially with her unusual cheery voice and describing how thin ice is dangerous in an ominous tone.
Naughty Number Nine
The Pool Cat
Voiced by: Mike DeLeon (computer game)
"Number Nine will put you on the spot. Number Nine will tie you up, ooh, in a knot."
- Anti-Role Model: He's a mafioso cat who smokes a cigar and needlessly torments an innocent mouse. Not a character children would want to emulate.
- Bad Guys Play Pool: And he puts a mouse through absolute hell on the pool table, even tying him up and using him as the cue ball.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Animal Jingoism notwithstanding, he inflicts some rather cruel and unusual tortures to the mouse he put on the pool table.
- Cats Are Mean: He's got "naughty" in his name.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: Never explicitly mentioned, yet the fact that a cat was chosen to teach a lesson about the number 9 has to have been deliberate.
- Cigar Chomper: He smokes so much that his cigar's smoke fogs up the room he's in while he's tormenting the mouse.
- Expy: Of Minnesota Fats.
- Fat Bastard: As with any fat cat, he's morbidly obese and a dastardly piece of work.
- Karma Houdini: He gets absolutely no comeuppance for putting the mouse through hell, tipping his hat with a smile on his face and casually leaving the building.
- Villain Protagonist: He's undoubtedly the villain of the song for all of the hell he puts the mouse through, but he also ends up taking the central focus of the song all the same.
The Mouse
- Be the Ball: The Pool Cat ties him up with his tail into a ball shape, using him as the cue ball.
- Butt-Monkey: Is tormented by the Pool Cat throughout the song.
- Named by the Adaptation: In the CD-ROM games, the mouse is named Elroy.
The Good Eleven
The Good Eleven
- Those Two Guys: A pair of number 1s that together, make the number 11.
Angels
- Running Gag: They bump against the number 10 at any utterance of "She never gave me any trouble till after 9."
Little Twelvetoes
Farmer
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"If you help me with your twelves, I'll help you with your tens, and we could all be friends, Little Twelvetoes. Please come back home..."
A Farm Boy pondering the nature of twelve when he has First Contact with an alien.
- Never Bareheaded: His hat pops off for only a second, once he comes face to face with Twelvetoes.
- Rough Overalls: A farmer in the country, only shown wearing overalls with no shirt or shoes.
- Southern-Fried Genius: Is quick to list off the first dozen multiples of twelve and is pretty open to the concepts of an Alternative Number System and alien life.
Little Twelvetoes
An extraterrestrial with the extraordinary feature of Extra Digits.
- Alternative Number System: Due to his name sake, he uses a base-12 arithmetic compared to our base-10.
- Creepy Good: While he can come across as unsettling with his musical motif and powers, he is not harmful or malicious, and in fact helps the farmer learn math.
- Hat of Power: The brim segment leads to his Hammerspace, and he can morph the pieces into a curved strip of piano keys.
- Floating Limbs: Little Twelvetoes takes the concept to extremes. Empty space is apparently a key part of his biology (and his hat). His head, hands, and feet are held on like with magnets (i.e., pretty easy to remove and stick on somewhere else) instead of like with flesh and blood.
- Fluorescent Footprints: His six-fingered handprint materializing on the mailbox catches the farmer's attention, with a trail of footprints leading him around the farm before he pops up in his face.
- Flying Saucer: Twelvetoes' means of soaring through the stars... with an anchor.
- Little Green Men: Well, blue in this case.
- Starfish Aliens: An alien with six fingers who can detach his head and spin it around is quite odd to say the least.
- Stealth in Space: Presumably when the farmer is following his trail, it has something to do with his ship.
Grammar Rock
A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing
The Noun Girl
Voiced by: Lynn Ahrens; Amy Wright (computer game)
"Well, every person you can know, and every place that you can go, and any thing that you can show, you know they're nouns."
- Named by the Adaptation: In the Grammar Rock CD-ROM game, she is named Connie.
- Oh, Crap!: Has this reaction to the bandits chasing her train.
- Perpetual Smiler: Smiles for most of her song.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Her relationship with her best friend appears to be this, as her best friend catches her in his arms upon arriving to Liberty Island, and the two share a malt through two straws.
- Suddenly Voiced: She speaks normally in the VHS/DVD intro, as opposed to singing or using a text bubble. She also speaks normally in the CD-ROM games.
The Noun Girl's Brother
The Noun Girl's Best Friend
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: His relationship with the Noun Girl appears to be this, as he catches the Noun Girl in his arms upon arriving to Liberty Island, and the two share a malt through two straws.
Mrs. Jones
- Laser-Guided Karma: Sends her dog to harass the narrator and her brother. They give the dog a bone, thus causing Mrs. Jones to be the one barked at.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Implied. The noun girl's brother gives her a flower, thus apparently changing Mrs. Jones' personality.
Verb: That's What's Happening
Verb
Voiced by: Zachary Sanders
"I don't know my own poweeeeerrr!"
- Cool Shades: He wears blue sunglasses.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Insists that he doesn't know his own power, likely attributing to the practicality of verbs.
- Jack of All Trades: He demonstrates all sorts of talents.
- Perpetual Smiler: He almost always has a heroic grin.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: He has a blue one.
Conjunction Junction
The Conductor
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
"'And', 'But', and 'Or' get you pretty far!"
- Big Fun: He's very fat, as he admits himself, but he's also a jovial railroad conductor who knows his manners.
- Perpetual Smiler: He almost always has a grin on his face.
- Rough Overalls: Dressed in these, owing to his job as a train conductor.
- Self-Deprecation: He calls himself fat and prone to having "absurd" thoughts (such as what a duck and a drake would say if they could speak).
- Weight Woe: Briefly implied when he's singing about food. He comments that he could, "grow thin or fat," then immediately decides to avoid it because, "I'm fat enough now!"
The Hobos
- The Artful Dodger: They're constantly traveling from place to place by boxcar, but they're reasonably content with their homeless lives, being described as "dirty, but happy".
- Big Guy, Little Guy: One is a massive, fat guy, and the other in a puny, little guy.
- The Napoleon: The smaller hobo kicks his larger compatriot's behind, and later drops a sandbag on his head.
- Nice Guy: The big hobo is quite friendly and polite to the Conductor and offers him a cup of tea.
Interjections!
Voiced by: Essra Mohawk
- Large Ham: Pretty much anyone who talks, to drive the point of how an interjection makes a difference.
Reginald
Voiced by: Bob Dorough (demo); Tom Yohe Jr. (final track)
"Ouch! That hurt!"
- Afraid of Needles: He shudders and hides under a pillow when the doctor pulls one out, and complains about the pain after receiving the injection.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The shot appears to cure Reginald's flu pretty quickly, but he still calls it unfair of the doctor to inject it "down there".
Geraldine
Voiced by: Lynn Ahrens
"Oh! I've never been so insulted in all my life!"
- Creator Cameo: She's voiced by the writer of the song; a rare example in which the writer doesn't narrate as well.
- Playing Hard to Get: As noted by the singer, Geraldine does this while resisting Geraldo's advances.
- Tsundere: Within the span of one verse, she goes from objecting to Geraldo's affections, to calling him "kinda cute", to showing disgust at his frog form.
Geraldo
- Abhorrent Admirer: For Geraldine.
- Bewitched Amphibians: He inexplicably becomes a frog after winning Geraldine's heart.
- Dreadful Musician: His serenade sounds so off-key, that Geraldine covers her ears.
Franklin
- The Klutz: Throws the ball in the wrong direction, losing his team the game.
- Oh, Crap!: It seems he didn't anticipate being the one to make the winning play, as his eyes bulge when he realizes he's holding the ball.
Cheerleader Girl
Voiced by: Lauren Yohe
"Darn! That's the end!"
- "YEAH!" Shot: She does this at the end of the song.
Unpack Your Adjectives
Backpack Girl
Voiced by: Blossom Dearie; Jessica Moodie (computer game)
"Got home from camping last spring. Saw people, places, and things."
- Awesome Backpack: Not only is hers twice her size, but she can make a tent out of it.
- Boots of Toughness: Wears a large pair for the more muddy parts of her travels.
- Crazy-Prepared: At least when presented with something to describe.
- Named by the Adaptation: In the CD-ROM games, she is named Molly.
- Youthful Freckles: She's got freckles all over her face to emphasize how young she is.
Turtle
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"Woah! Boy, that was one, big, ugly bear!"
- Loyal Animal Companion: To the Backpack Girl.
"Dumb" and "Brainy"
- Smart People Wear Glasses: The Backpack Girl assumed this was the case, until the boy without glasses spoke a complex mathematical equation, subverting this trope.
- Smug Smiler: The boy with glasses had a smug smirk on his face until he was labeled "Dumb".
Tall Girl and Small Boy
- Giant Foot of Stomping: Once one became the tallest and one became the smallest, the tall girl smushed the small boy under her sandal.
- Giant Woman: The tall girl got taller until only her legs could fit onscreen.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: The small boy got smaller until he was barely over half his initial height.
- Jerkass: The small boy laughed at the tall girl because of her growth.
Bear
- Bears Are Bad News: An adjective used to describe this bear is "scary".
- Extreme Omnivore: It ate the adjectives "hairy" and "scary".
Boyish-faced Man
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here
Lolly, Lolly, and Lolly (In General)
Lolly Sr.
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"We have every adverb in the book, so come on down and look."
Lolly Jr.
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"Ready, Pop?"
Lolly III
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
"Let's go!"
- Rollerblade Good: He's primarily seen roller skating around the store, allowing for better stocking efficiency.
Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla
- Adventurer Outfit: Rufus wears expedition clothing, while Albert wears inspector clothing. Rafaella is the exception, wearing traditionally girly clothing.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Rufus, Rafaella, and Albert often end up taking their kangaroo, aardvark, and rhinoceros on the bus, and don't seem to comprehend why the riders and bus driver end up raising a stink over it.
- Edible Theme Naming: Both Rufus' and Rafaella's last names are based on the sarsaparilla drink, that is sometimes associated with root beer.
- Full-Name Basis: Zigzagged. For the most part, they're either referred to by their full names, or just their pronouns.
- Overly Long Name: The characters' names are an overexaggerated reason why pronouns are a thing.
- True Companions: The trio have a really strong bond between not only themselves, but with their animal companions.
Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla
Rafaella Gabriela Sarsaparilla
- Cheery Pink: She's got a happy demeanor and wears pink.
- Rhyming Names: Rafaella Gabriela Sarsaparilla.
- Tricked-Out Shoes: She wears shoes with springs on the bottom.
Albert Andreas Armadillo
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
"You see, a pronoun was made to take the place of a noun, 'cause saying all those nouns over and over can really wear you down."
- Alliterative Name: Albert Andreas Armadillo.
- Character Narrator: He's the song's narrator and third main character.
- Mistaken for Related: He goes out of his way to avert this when he first introduces himself.Albert: And my name's Albert Andreas Armadillo! No relation to the Sarsaparillas...
- Narrator All Along: The first half of the song doesn't reveal who sang it until it gets to him.
- Non-Indicative Name: His last name makes it sound like he owns an armadillo, but he actually owns a rhinoceros.
- Odd Name Out: Out of the three, he's the only one to have his full name starts with the appropriate letter. He's also the only one where his last name goes by an animal, unlike Rufus and Rafaella.
- Third-Person Person: Zigzagged. He refers to himself by his full name multiple times in the song, but it's all to show how efficient pronouns are in comparison.
Rufus' Kangaroo, Rafaella's Aardvark, and Albert's Rhinoceros
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The aardvark is pink to match Rafaella's color scheme, and the rhinoceros is yellow to match Albert's color scheme.
- Ambiguous Gender: Because the song only focuses on their owners, the animals' genders were never revealed.
- Uncatty Resemblance: The animals are colored to their owner's outfits.
Busy Prepositions
The Prepositions
The Tale of Mr. Morton
- Fat and Skinny: Mr. Morton and Pearl, respectively.
- Happily Married: The episode ends with the couple heading towards their honeymoon, while the text "The Mortons Lived Happily Ever After" types onscreen. Enforced in the Schoolhouse Rock! Earth song "The Little Things We Do"; Mr. Morton and Pearl are still married years later, and raising their first son, Norton.
Mr. Morton
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
"Roses are red, but Mr. Morton is blue. Boo hoo hoo."
- Acrofatic: Despite his heavy build, he manages to sprint his way out of some socially-awkward situations.
- Easily Forgiven: Mr. Morton's shyness around Girl Next Door Pearl leads him to prematurely ditch their first date, but she doesn't feel scorned afterwards.
- Introverted Cat Person: He's incredibly shy, and typically relies on Orton, his pet cat, for company.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: His Establishing Character Moment has him complimenting his cat, Orton, for looking good that day.
- Shrinking Violet: He doesn't have the nerve to talk to Pearl, to the point where he runs away when she invites him over. But she was apparently so touched by the poem he wrote for her that she went over to his house and proposed to him.
- Weight Woe: He starts jogging in hopes of losing weight.
Orton the Cat
Pearl
Voiced by: Lynn Ahrens
- Chubby Chaser: She's in love with Mr. Morton, who's rather obese.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Exaggerated; she proposes to Mr. Morton before dating him at all.
- Girl Next Door: She lives next door to Mr. Morton during their first song, is very upfront about trying to discuss things with him, and becomes his Love Interest and eventual wife.
America Rock
No More Kings
King George William Fredrick III
Voiced by: Lynn Ahrens
- Big Bad: Of this song, at least.
- Bucket Booby-Trap: One of the Colonists scoops up some dumped tea from the Boston Tea Party with a bucket, and somehow manages to fling it all the way over to England, wherein it lands right on George's head.
- Evil Brit: Justified, given that he's a British monarch and Big Bad of the song.
- Evil Is Hammy: Most of the song features him gleefully scheming of ways to screw over the Colonists, all the while laughing his head off.
- Evil Laugh: He's constantly chuckling deviously, either when he's scheming or counting the amount of taxes he's collected.
- Hand Rubbing: Upon seeing the Colonists first forming their residences, he rubs his hands as he schemes of unrulily taxing them.
- Royal Brat: He's incredibly selfish and childish, and yet is in a position of power as king.
- Satire: He's a political pastiche of the actual King George III, warped to the point of being a greedy, hedonistic Psychopathic Manchild who gets amusement out of the Colonists' misfortunes.
The Shot Heard 'Round the World
The Preamble
Sufferin' Till Suffrage
Singer
Voiced by: Essra Mohawk
"Since 1920, sisters unite! Vooote ooooooooon!"
A shapeshifting girl who's a vocal advocate for women's rights when it comes to voting.
- Breakout Character: During The '90s, she became one of the faces of Schoolhouse Rock! alongside Schoolhouse Rocky, Bill, the Conjunction Junction Conductor, and Noah.
- Closet Geek: At the start of the song, she's a nerdy-looking girl with Youthful Freckles, hair curlers, baggy pants, and a sweatshirt with the number 18 on it. Once the spotlights shine on her, however, she becomes quickly embarrassed and morphs into her more iconic look.
- Instant Costume Change: By simply spinning, she has the ability to shapeshift herself into different outfits, typically reminiscent of historical figures in women's rights.
- Medium Blending: She constantly interacts with black-and-white photos and drawings.
- Me's a Crowd: She has the ability to duplicate herself, being representative of every woman voter in the United States.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's got quite the attractive design, what with having a ponytail and her midriff being exposed, and during one of her costume changes, she's seen shamelessly flaunting her hip.
- Spirited Young Lady: She's got the personality of one, being spunky and vocally advocating for women's rights.
- Stay in the Kitchen: She calls out this mindset a few times. She unpleasantly recalls that before the suffragette movement and consequent passing of the 19th Amendment allowed women to vote for President, they just stayed home and did such menial tasks as mashing potatoes and washing dishes while the men cast their votes.
I'm Just a Bill
Bill
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
"I hope they decide to report on me favorably; otherwise, I may die."
A bill proposing for school buses to be required to stop at railroad crossings, going through a long, arduous journey to be signed by the President as a law.
- Animate Inanimate Object: He's a rolled up paper with a face, arms and legs.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: He's a living bill stating that school buses should stop at railroad crossings.
- The Eeyore: He spends almost the entire song frowning and saying that he lacks confidence in himself that he'll become a law.
- Iconic Sequel Character: He was introduced a few years later in the series, but became a popular character in the series.
- Knight in Sour Armor: He's incredibly pessimistic and doesn't believe that he'll become a law, but as the boy visiting Washington D.C. points out, he's got so much patience and courage that he's determined to finish what he set out to accomplish.
- Series Mascot: He's probably the most recognizable character from Schoolhouse Rock! alongside the Conductor from "Conjunction Junction". If there's going to be a parody of the cartoons, it's a safe bet that Bill will show up.
- When He Smiles: Being signed in as a law at the very end makes Bill have a wide, happy grin on his face in contrast to how pessimistic he was before.
The Great American Melting Pot
Elbow Room
Fireworks
Paperboy
Voiced by: Tom Yohe Jr.
"Extra, extra! Liberty declared!"
A newspaper boy from 1776, reporting on the United States successfully declaring independence from England.
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: Practically a Catchphrase for him, uttering it whenever a revolutionary moment in U.S. history occurs.
- Large Ham: Makes sense for a newspaper boy, but almost everything he says is said by shouting it aloud.
- Shout-Out: His newspapers are manufactured by the Daily Bugle.
- Volumetric Mouth: Every time he advertises his paper, his mouth takes up the entirety of his face.
- Youthful Freckles: He does have them to show how young he is, but they're hard to spot because they go away when he starts shouting out his paper-selling mantra.
Mother Necessity
Mother Necessity
Voiced by: Blossom Dearie, Lynn Ahrens, and Essra Mohawk
"Mother Necessity, with her good intentions, where would this country be without her inventions?"
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Of humanity's inclination and reasoning for innovation.
- Cool Old Lady: In her base state, she's shown to have skillful handiwork, crafting a rocking chair out of a regular chair.
- Depending on the Writer: Her personality has a tendency of changing depending on whose mother she's representing. As Thomas Edison and Elias Howe's mothers, she's a Good Parent, as Samuel Morse's mother, she's a directive, but reasonable parent, and as The Wright Brothers' mother, she's a complete and utter nagger.
Three-Ring Government
I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College
The Campaign Trail
Science Rock
A Victim of Gravity
Greaser
Voiced by: The Tokens
"Come back, Mary Jean!"
- Born Unlucky: As a result of being a victim of gravity, the gravity of every situation he's in results in things always going wrong for him. Whether it's dropping the dishes, having a Trauma Conga Line of things attempting to fall on him before he falls himself, or somehow falling right out of the sky.
- Butt-Monkey: Frequently falls over and makes a fool out of himself. Justified, since he's the titular "Victim of Gravity".
- Did Not Get the Girl: Most of what he does before he's victimized by gravity is to impress his girlfriend, Mary Jean, but on their date night, Mary Jean ends up dumping him.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He's really a victim of gravity!
Mary Jean
Interplanet Janet
Interplanet Janet
"Interplanet Janet, she's a galaxy girl!"
- Angelic Aliens: Her design holds a lot of divine imagery. Her wings are curved like a bird's and her exhaust funnel resembles a skirt.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Her appearance is quite Ambiguously Human. She could be a generic Humanoid Alien in a rocketship suit, or the rocket is part of her body.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: The humans on Earth look incredibly bizarre to Janet, to the point that she can't bring herself to greet them.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: What else would the two circles on her can represent?
- Passionate Sports Girl: Downplayed. The Comet Team she travels with is a softball team, but she's never seen playing softball herself.
- Sudden Anatomy: In roughly half her scenes, she's missing arms; and only once (in "Solar Power to the People") does she show legs.
- Super-Speed: Necessary to casually jaunt through the solar system.
The Body Machine
The Girl
A young fifth-grader whose anatomy is the subject of the song.
- Pint-Sized Kid: One of the shorter kids in her class.
The White-Shirted Man
Voiced by: Bob Dorough
The Itinerant Man
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
A chubby mustached man helping with the visuals and chorus.
- Renaissance Man: Entering the song as the driver for a city bus, he pops up throughout as a gas station attendant, a chef, a traffic officer.
Do the Circulation
The Energy Blues
The Earth
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
- The Eeyore: The Earth spends most of his time singing about using a lot of the planet's resources.
Them Not-So-Dry Bones
Barbershop Quartet
Voiced by: Jack Sheldon
- Dem Bones: The second singer from the left turns into a skeleton, and the short one's skeleton leaps out of his skin.
- The Tooth Hurts: The short singer hasn't been taking proper care of the bones commonly referred to as "teeth", as biting into an apple causes him great pain.
Electricity, Electricity
The Electrician
- Jerkass: Shocks a sheep with static electricity and finds it amusing.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Gets shocked himself after messing with a sheep using electricity.
- Rough Overalls: Dressed in white overalls to visually direct him as a working man.
- The Stoic: He never shows any emotion as he's delivering electrical currents, both as part of his job and being a jerk to the sheep.
Telegraph Line
Telegraph Delivery Boy
Voiced by: Jamie Aff
"There's a telegram for you, sir; better read it on the spot!"
A peppy boy likening the nervous system to his line of work.
- Courier: His job is delivering telegrams to the recipients they're addressed to.
- Singing Telegram: While he's delivering his telegrams, he sings about what each one says to their recipients.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Whatever the telegrams he delivers say, they force the person's nervous system to react exactly as written.
Chef
Voiced by: Bob Dorough and Jack Sheldon
"The whole enchilada and a side of fun!"
A Chubby Chef who runs the Conjunction Junction Diner.
- Ascended Extra: Originally a one-shot character in "Telegraph Line", he grew to larger prominence in The '90s as the one who owns the Conjunction Junction Diner on the DVD intros.
- Chubby Chef: He's very portly, and happens to be a very talented chef.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After having to endure getting his hand burned by his ladle, he gets to breathe a sigh of relief as he taste tests his soup and finds it a rousing success.
- Failed a Spot Check: He's too busy reading the telegram he's given to realize his ladle is scorching hot, causing him to burn his hand.
- Harmful to Touch: His ladle is red-hot, so when he grabs it, he gets a first-degree burn and has to run to the sink.
The Greatest Show on Earth
Computer Rock
Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips
Scooter Computer
Voiced by: Darrell Stern
"Here I am and there you stand, we're closer than we seem, though I am a human and you are a machine"
- Non-Indicative Name: He is neither a computer nor does he use a scooter. He's a boy who uses a skateboard.
Mr. Chips
Voiced by: Bob Kaliban
"Feed me those numbers; I'll do the work."
The Computer family's new family computer.
- Cyber Green: While Mr. Chips' monitor face is capable of displaying multiple colors in order to make pixel art, his default face is purely black and green to evoke the computers before him.
- Feel No Pain: He's just a computer, he has no brain, so he can't feel pain.
- Just a Machine: He insists he is just this, and just because computers can store and process complex information doesn't mean they can truly think. This is justified by the educational nature of the show, as artificial intelligence was purely science fiction when his shorts were made.
- Meaningful Name: As he spells out in "Hardware", he gets his name from computer chips.
Money Rock
Dollars and Sense
Becky Sue
Voiced by: Val Hawk
"Are you sure Dolly Parton started this way?"
An aspiring country artist who learns about the concept of interest in order to afford stereo equipment.
- Country Music: She's hoping to become as talented as Dolly Parton.
- Farmer's Daughter: She lives on a farm, has an optimistic view on her desired career choice, and is incredibly good-looking.
- Money Dumb: Her understanding of balancing income is rather flimsy, as she doesn't want to invest due to it taking too long for her country career to get off the ground, thus leading to her learning about loans.
Tax Man Max
Tax Man Max
Voiced by: Patrick Quinn
A portly Broadway performer with an act as a friendly tax collector.- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's very similar to the main singer from "The Weather Show".
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The tiny guy to his five girls.
Max's Girls
- All There in the Script: The names of his girlfriends; Tracy, Annie, Katie, Joy, and Natalie.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Much like Max, the girls are very similar to the ones from "The Weather Show".
Where the Money Goes
$7.50 Once a Week
Tyrannosaurus Debt
Tyrannosaurus Debt
A Tyrannosaurus rex — red, white, and blue — that's grazing in D.C.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Of the U.S.'s national debt, emphasized by its appetite for money.
- Big Eater: Over the Debt's lifetime, it's garnered an appetite for five trillion greenbacks a year.note
- Currency Cuisine: It wouldn't be debt if it didn't routinely eat trillions of dollars.
- Extreme Omnivore: It regularly consumes small sheets of dried cotton fibers that have been stained green and decorated with pictures of long-dead people, a bunch of numbers, and some weird triangle.
- Really 700 Years Old: Since it is the United States' debt, it has been around since March 4th, 1789.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Downplayed. A 300-foot tricolored dinosaur loitering on Capitol Hill oddly isn't regarded as an anomaly of any sort; a mild oddity at most. It is recognized as a staple point for bus tours and given the respect worthy for a notable predator.
This for That
Caveman
- The Ageless: Didn't visibly age between the dawn of man and modern day.
- Been There, Shaped History: In-Universe, he's responsible for the creations of the barter system and modern currency.
Walkin' on Wall Street
Lester the Investor
Voiced by: Dave Frishberg
A rock pigeon that knows his way around the stock market.- Talking Animal: As stated above, he's a rock pigeon.
Leeroy
Voiced by: Dave Frishberg
Lester's stock broker. Yeah, he's a human. So?The Paperboy
A Manhattan boy selling newspapers on Wall Street. The Check's in the Mail
Earth Rock
Bob, Jack & Luke
Bob, Jack & Luke
Report From the North Pole
The Little Things We Do
See the "Tale of Mr. Morton" folder for tropes applying to Mr. Morton, Orton the Cat, and Pearl.
Norton Morton
Voiced by: TBA
- Rhyming Names: His first and last name rhyme.
- Spin-Offspring: The son of Mr. Morton and Pearl, and a major character in this song (though he doesn't completely overshadow his parents).
The Trash Can Band
Box, Bottle, and Can
- A Dog Named "Dog": They're well, a box, a bottle, and a can, respectively.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Again, they're a cardboard box, a plastic bottle, and a tin can.
- Trash-Can Band: The titular one from the short.
You Oughta Be Savin' Water
The Rainforest
Save the Ocean
Fat Cat Blue: The Clean Rivers Song
A Tiny Urban Zoo
Solar Power to the People
See the "Interplanet Janet" folder for tropes applying to Interplanet Janet.
Windy and the Windmills
Don't Be a Carbon Sasquatch
The 3 Rs
