"
Let's hit the road, Rovers!"
Road Rovers was a short-lived animated series (1 season, 13 episodes), which told the story of "The Road Rovers", a group of ordinary dogs who were turned into humanoid superheroes by a mysterous scientist known as "The Master". They used their special abilites and high-tech gadgets to save the world from villains most notably, General Parvo who was trying to take over the world by turning dogs and other animals into monsters. (There were other villains, but he was the most prominent.) The dogs were also inserted as the beloved pets of world leaders (such as Queen Elizabeth II and President Bill Clinton) and sometimes had to work in their 'civilian' identities to convince their owners not to go to war.
- The Ace: Hunter
- Animal Superheroes
- Action Girl: Colleen
- Androcles Lion
- Boisterous Bruiser: Exile
- The Cameo: One episode ends with a villain sent away to an insane asylum for megalomaniacs. The Brain's voice is heard among the inmates.
- Catch Phrase / Running Gag:
Blitz: [insert statement involving his desire to bite the rumps of his enemies]
Exile: "Don't be weird boy."
- More running gags involve Shag pointing weapons backwards. Subverted when he has it right to begin with and someone tells him to turn it around, which he blithely does.
- And when they release their Ax Crazy friend, Muzzle, on the bad guys with a shout of "Let's Muzzle 'em!" Cue Gory Discretion Shot.
- Colleen pretending not to know Blitz's name and instead calling him other more amusing B names.
- Complete Monster: Donovan Bell.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: The end of the episode "Gold and Retrievers" where Oso, a guide dog makes a wish that his blind boy can see again and it comes true. Also, when Hunter gets reunited with his mom in the last episode.
- Dog Stereotype
- Drives Like Crazy: Colleen.
- Elaborate Underground Base
- Eye Beams: Exile and the Master (sort of).
- Five Man Band
- Fridge Logic: How the Rovers react in the first episode, and several other places. It gets worse when the Rovers call attention to the fact that they haven't got any idea of how to fly jets or drive cars. That doesn't stop them from knowing what an ignition is, or how to stay on the road. Or how not to crash into the ground.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: The episode with werewolves opens with Princess Diana and Prince Charles finalizing details of their divorce just before werewolves attack them. Following Diana's death, this particular bit was cut from re-runs.
- Genius Bruiser: Exile is quite muscular AND skilled with mechanics.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar: It worked only once. While discussing Russian names they used the example of "Sonov". Add that to the patronymic suffix "-ovich" and you'll see why that song got cut for later airings. See the video here
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- Hairy Hammerspace: Shag
- Handwave
- Hermit Guru
- Heroic Sociopath: Muzzle.
- Ho Yay and Fan Yay
- Its Personal
- Lampshade Hanging: Used liberally; arguably Better Than A Bare Bulb.
- Lets Split Up Gang: Hunter always sticks with Colleen and makes Blitz go with Exile — possibly to get rid of him.
- Lovable Coward: Shag.
- Mad Scientist
- Mandatory Twist Ending: Expect Hunter to call out "Another unexpected development! I would not have predicted this!" every single time there is a plot twist.
- Military Mashup Machine
- Mistaken Declaration Of Love: The Rover's plane is about to crash, and Blitz grabs the hand next to him and declares his love for Colleen. The hand was Exile's. His response?
Exile: "Please seek therapy."
- The Mole: Sport, but only because his master was held hostage by Parvo.
- Most Common Card Game
- Multinational Team: The Rovers came from the US (Hunter), the UK (Colleen), Germany (Blitz), Switzerland (Shag), and Russia (Exile)
- My Name Is Not Durwood: Colleen to Blitz.
- Non Human Sidekick: Muzzle, sort of.
- Oblivious To Love: Hunter, it is hinted at throughout the series, but in the last episode it is made quite obvious that Colleen has a crush on Hunter. She asks him if he would like to go for walk on beach to which he responds with an enthusiastic "You bet!" Cut to Hunter as a regular dog with Colleen holding his leash.
Colleen: "Not exactly what I had in mind."
- Maybe Hunter's been fixed?
- Ooh Me Accents Slipping: The entire cast except for Hunter.
- Painting The Fourth Wall: "Then why is there surf music?"
- Prophecies Rhyme All The Time
- Recycled INSPACE: The short-lived toy line (and dropped TV show) K9 Corps took the show's premise and shoved it all the way to this side of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
- Relax O Vision: Thankfully used almost all the time. We say "thankfully" because it's heavily implied that most of the Road Rover's enemies are killed in the most grisly ways possible, usually involving explosives or animal attacks.
- Ruritania
- Screams Like A Little Girl: Blitz.
- Stable Time Loop
- Stock British Phrases: Colleen, far too frequently.
- The Starscream: Blitz to Hunter.
- Theme Tune Roll Call
- Token Minority: The small Latin-American boy. He was also blind, which was probably to make him even more endearing and helpless.
- War For Fun And Profit
- Where Did They Get Lasers: Extremely obvious in the second episode, where two attack helicopters are fitted with rocket pods. Guess what they shoot? Lasers.
- This is actually mildly-subverted in episode 6 when three F/A-18/Su-25 lookalikes open fire on our heroes with regular machine guns. They're about as realistic as a potato in a root beer factory, but they're there.