What's New? with Phil and Dixie provides examples of the following tropes:
Appliance Defenestration: Played straight in page 1 and page 2 of the comic in Dragon magazine #63 (July 1982), in which computers are hurled through open windows by owners frustrated with fantasy RPG programs.
Agent: Do you have any trouble working with elves, trolls, fairies, minotaurs, wizards, merfolk, werewolves, vampires, zombies or artists? Model: Ew...real artists?
Death by Origin Story: Parodied when a nascent superhero is subjected to so many different methods of acquiring superpowers simultaneously that he is reduced to ashes.
Description Porn: The comic in Dragon magazine (June 1983) played this for laughs. Demonstrating a spy's ability to be intimately familiar with all sorts of weapons, it shows a spy coolly rattling off the name and statistics for a Mauser 1906, an AR-15 assault rifle, and... a rubber duck.
"...capable of killing five men simultaneously."
Deus ex Machina: Invoked in a discussion of why overpowered superheroes are unsatisfying, where a superhero named Deus Ex Machina Man is saved from a gun-toting criminal by a falling safe.
Didn't See That Coming: The robot doubles have already read the comics ahead, analysed Phil's writing style and claim "There is nothing you can write that we are not prepared for." So, he gets Dixie to write the next page, which turns out rather unpredictably.
Phil: You're changing alignment? But why? Dixie: Are you kidding? The perks are fantastic! Better hair — bigger bust — bitchin' outfits — plus I get my own minions!
Hand Rubbing: In Dragon magazine #53 (September 1981), Phil shows us how it's done in panel #4.
Phil: Do with it? Why — I know exactly what we can do with it! Heh! Heh! Heh!
Heel Face Revolving Door: In the last few strips, after Phil turns evil, Dixie becomes "uber-good" when she realizes she can still dress sexy while being heroic... but mostly so she could continue kicking Phil's ass.
Matchlight Danger Revelation: The comic in Dragon #50 used this. Phil and Dixie were exploring the TSR dungeon in the dark and realized there was someone else with them. Phil lit a match, revealing that the other creature was actually a demon. Then the demon blew out the match...
Morally Ambiguous Ducktorate: In an issue about spy games, one of the spy gadgets identified by a recruit as a trainee test is a rubber duckie. Apparently not a normal one, as he points out that it's capable of killing several people simultaneously (and has a plastic squeaker device in its mouth, too).
Neck Lift: Once happened to a game-company flack who interrupted yet another attempt by the hosts to address the topic of Sex In D&D. One panel shows him being subjected to this trope; the next reveals that it's Dixie, rather than Phil, who's doing it.
Riddle of the Sphinx: In a What's New? report on riddles, Phil is caught by a sphinx who reveals that since everybody knows the answer to the traditional Riddle of the Sphinx now, she's switched to a new one: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
In the 1980s run of What's New?, Phil and Dixie kept promising that their expose of "Sex and D&D!" was on its way, only to be put off for another month each issue. When it finally did arrive, it was just about the mating habits of various monsters. Psych! One might suggest that they ultimately provided this with XXXenophile...
"This cartoon, for instance. It would be a shame if something happened to it."
Shock Party: One of the strips in Dragon magazine was about espionage Tabletop RPGs. Part of it explained why it was a really bad idea to throw a surprise birthday party for an undercover spy. It starts in the last panel here and concludes at the top of this one.
Head minion: Done much minioning? Krosp: "All is in readiness." "You're a genius, sir." "Don't screw around — kill him now!" Head minion: Not bad, but Volrath won't listen to that last one. Krosp: They never do.
Weapons Grade Vocabulary: The strip in Dragon magazine #72 (April 1983) was about jesters. The middle of this page has a jester killing a monster with bad puns. The next panel shows the danger of unintended side effects.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: An episode about superheroes included a panel about the need to have powers that are actually useful: "Gazebo Boy finds his singular power of metamorphosis useless against the evil Termite!"
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