Feeling bored? Here's a challenge. Find a page on this site that doesn't reference at least one of these series.
Being Trope Overdosed indicates how popular a series is among The Contributors. The longer a series has been around has an effect. It's not hard to use a lot of tropes when you're a Long Runner.
Not to be confused with Overdosed Tropes, which are the same but inverted.
Trope Saturated — on more than 4000 pages
Buffyverse - Which makes sense considering TV Tropes has its roots in Buffistas.org, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel community. Two shows, lasting from 1997-2004, each with a comic book continuation and the limited series Fray as well as a Spike spinoff comic.
Digimon - Seven anime series and a separate film, five manga and at least thirty video games, almost all within their own Alternate Continuity, and all spawned from the Spear Counterpart of Tamagotchi.
Dragon Ball - Old-school martial arts Science Fantasy manga. 500 episodes and manga chapters (not counting its ongoing Recut with 60+ more episodes), 16 animated theatrical films, 3 TV specials and a live action movie, with dozens of video games along with an MMO in the works.
Fallout - Long Running post-apocalyptic video game series. Four main games, two spinoffs, somehow lighthearted and dark all at once, and plenty of humor to spare.
Final Fantasy - Extremely popular Eastern RPG series, with over a dozen games in the main series, some of which are overdosed in their own right.
Fullmetal Alchemist - one manga, two different anime, and a few videogames for good measure.
Mass Effect - A critically acclaimed and commercially successful ReconstructorFleet of 70's and 80's sci-fi space operas, it merrily throws in tropes from outside the genre as well and has become incredibly popular over the past three years. Three main games, one spin-off game, three books, and a comic series and OVER 30 PAGES before the third game was even released.
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Most of them are from the original 26 episode series and the End of Evangelion movie, by themselves making this franchise one of the shortest works to be included on this list. There's also an ongoing manga and 4 planned Rebuild movies, 2 of which were released as of this writing. And lots of other adaptations.
One Piece - Over 600 manga chapters, 500 TV episodes, and ten movies. Long Runner, since its first publication on Shonen Jump was in 1997.
Power Rangers - Long Runner children's Sentai series. Helped by its nature. Each year, the cast, story, props, sets, and costumes (and all associated tropes) are scrapped and they start clean the next season, making it less like "one show" and more like "17 separate but closely related shows"*
Or 14. It didn't start with a whole new cast each season until the 7th season
.]]. And yes, each of the seasons from Zeo on has its own individual page.
Shin Megami Tensei - Video game franchise that kicked off on the NES, as the video game adaptation of a novel. Currently has four main games, a couple of obscure OVAs, and countless spin-offs with their own merchandise, including the Persona games (two of which are Trope Overdosed by themselves!). Also predated Pokémon as the creator of the Mons genre.
The Simpsons - The animated sitcom. 23 seasons, 500+ episodes, a movie, comic books, some shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show and a lot of games and other merchandise.
(3), TAS (2), TNG (7), DS9 (7), VOY (7), and ENT (4), the franchise clocks in at thirty seasons]]; eleven movies; and one of the most massive and internally consistent ExpandedUniverses in history, second only to Star Wars. The original series was a Trope Maker many times over, and the franchise as a whole is responsible for an astonishing number of trope titles. And it invented slash.
The Elder Scrolls - An RPG franchise renowned for its open-ended worlds. Has five official titles, numerous spinoffs, and a devoted modding community the creators have been very welcome to.
Grand Theft Auto - Rockstar's controversial long-running flagship franchise, consisting of four main games and several spinoffs.
Half-Life - Valve's popular debut game with three arguably canon expansions by Gearbox. Also spawned a just-as-successful (if not moreso) sequel with two episodic expansions (and one more getting delayedAGAIN!*
It's worth mentioning though that Valve has decided to stop doing episodic games, so the likelihood of there ever being an episode three is close to nil
Homestar Runner - Eccentric Flash animated series with famous Fourth Wall Mail Slot spinoff show with over 200 episodes and a ton of further spinoffs from that. Created in 2000, on hiatus since late 2009.
Law & Order - Concluded crime and punishment series, lasting 20 seasons, survived by various spinoffs.
LOST - Screwy genre busting show on ABC that lasted six seasons about survivors of a plane crash on a magical Island, known for its flashbacks, flashforwards and flashsideways and giving psychic nosebleeds to both viewers and characters.
The Order of the Stick - With over 800 strips (not counting stories unique to the print collections), based off of D&D, with a Genre SavvySpoony Bard in the party and a board game based on it, it has earned its position on the list.
Sailor Moon - Probably the best-known Magical Girl series in the West. Its anime adaptation ran for five seasons (spanning 6 arcs), though not everyone got to see all five. Also 3 movies and 6 specials. Also the orginal manga spanning 5 arcs. Also adapted into a live-action series and 29 different stage musicals and a number of video games including an RPG. Also the prequel manga, Codename: Sailor V.
Team Fortress 2 - Crazy multiplayer FPS filled with over-the-top espionage assassins from the minds behind Half-Life. Updated frequently since 2007, and features quite a bit of supplemental material.
When They Cry - A series of four Visual Novels and their various adaptations (manga for each arc, manga arcs made for the manga, multiple seasons of anime and OVAs, remakes on various consoles, new arcs on consoles, spinoff games..) which involve people dying overand over again while the protagonists figure out the driving forces behind the murders. Includes Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.
Wikipedia - Referred to as The Other Wiki around these parts, it's nonetheless the most popular and powerful source for information on the Web.
Adventure Time - Troperifficwidget cartoon with a rather big cult following about two heroes named Finn and Jake; been on the air since 2010 and its fifth season is currently being written. Also has a comic book series published by Boom! Studios.
Ben 10 - A story about a young boy who finds himself with the Omnitrix, a watch that just happens to be able to turn him into different aliens. It's so much Better Than It Sounds. Has spawned numerous movies and two sequelseries about the now teenage Ben.
Cowboy Bebop - One of the few anime series that attempts to emulate a Western style, and pulls it off. Has since become a Gateway Series for many anime newcomers.
Criminal Minds - A show that centers around a team of FBI profilers who use their knowledge of the human mind to get into the heads of the worst criminals—and catch them. The offenders who on other shows would merit a special event or multi-parter—serial killers who taunt the cops, school shooters, child abductors—are just another Monster of the Week. Notable for focusing on the criminal not the crime.
Garfield - Long-running newspaper comic that has since evolved into a multimedia empire. Spawned twoanimated shows, two live-action movies, and a handful of games.
Ghost in the Shell - Based on the famous manga series that spawned two movies and a 52 episode anime- itself followed by another movie (and spawned another manga), with a live-action adaptation stuck in Development Hell. Codified many tropes for Cyberpunk anime. Was a big influence on The Matrix.
InuYasha - Long-running manga series, with an equally long-running anime adaptation. The anime became infamous for overtaking the manga and being Cut Short without a proper resolution. It has since been re-aired and resolved once the manga finally finished.
Left 4 Dead - From the makers of Half-Life, one of the first video games to truly capture the feel of the Zombie genre, includes co-op play and has a sequel with a host of new characters and settings.
Peanuts - A famed comic series that ran for nearly fifty years until the death of Charles Schulz in 2000. Spawned several animated specials and is still syndicated to this day.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica - A deconstruction of the Magical Girl challenge. Premiering in 2011, it is the youngest work at this status, and with only twelve episodes, a manga adaptation and two spin-offmanga (the latter of which is already over), is one of the shortest works on this list. It also has three upcoming movies.
Ratchet & Clank - A lombax with a wrench joins forces with a little robot and goes around beating stuff with weapons.
Red Dwarf - Cult mainstream comedy show from Britain set on a mining vessel.
Red vs. Blue - The Machinima credited with bringing the medium into the mainstream. 9 seasons so far, and still going.
Rugrats - the station defining animating series (predating SpongeBob SquarePants) with a series, two spinoffs, and three movies, one of which was a crossover. All about babies' adventures.
This doesn't mean that these series are actually better, just that more tropers watch them and add examples. Or possibly that one really, really crazy troper watches it and adds examples. Or possibly that the show just happens to have a really, really high trope quotient while a show you don't see on here doesn't.
A brief note on methodology. To determine a work's ranking under Trope Overdosed, you can take the "related to" number of the page related to a series that has the most references.
For those who want a perfectly accurate count, though, check out this Python script. Correct usage of it will allow you to determine exactly how many wiks a franchise with really complicated cross references (such as Final Fantasy) has. Note, however, that this page doesn't list exact numbers. We only care about the thousands digit. If you're making a change based on Python data, be sure to mention this in the "edit reason" box.
Listings here are alphabetical. If you are wondering what the previous statistics were, there is now an archived page. As for why the page has changed formats since April 25, 2010, see the forum topic and the discussion page to learn the details.
Python script. Correct usage of it will allow you to determine exactly how many wiks a franchise with really complicated cross references (such as Final Fantasy) has. Note, however, that this page doesn't list exact numbers. We only care about the thousands digit. If you're making a change based on Python data, be sure to mention this in the "edit reason" box.
Listings here are alphabetical. If you are wondering what the previous statistics were, there is now an archived page. As for why the page has changed formats since April 25, 2010, see the forum topic