Mortadelo Y Filemon / Tropes D to L

Mortadelo y Filemón Trope Examples
A - C | D - L | M - R | S - Z

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D

• Dartboard of Hate: Usually with the Súper. Examples include a punching bag with the shape of the Súper's head used by Mortadelo and Filemón to practice boxing (in Los Bomberos) and a dedicated photo by the Súper that Mortadelo tapes to a toilet seat (in La Perra de las Galaxias).
• Deadly Euphemism: In the 2014 animated movie, a newscaster reporting on Tronchamulas's escape from prison claims that the criminal is searching for Filemón with the intention of doing "el aquello" (roughly "that thing") to him. Given the context (a big, strong, angry criminal chasing down the man who got him sent to prison fifteen years ago), the clear implication is that Tronchamulas is out to kill Filemón.
• Decided by One Vote: At the end of ¡Elecciones!, which parodies the Spanish general election of December 2015, it's revealed that there were so many parties in the running that each of them got one single vote... except for one candidate who managed to gather two votes and is subsequently named president.
• Defiant Stone Throw: In La cochinadita nuclear, when a ship arrives at a seaside town to dump the nuclear waste there, a random villager starts throwing bricks at the crew. It works to a degree, as the captain quickly instructs the crew to move the ship somewhere else outside of his throwing range.
• Depending on the Writer: Some stories were written during the late 80s by other authors, since Ibáñez didn't have the rights to write his own stories during that time. Those "apocryphal" stories tend to have Continuity Nods to the previous "official" stories, much more than the ones actually written by Ibáñez.
• Deranged Animation: While Ibanez's style is very well drawn (particularly when it comes to buildings, ships, etc.), it can also get pretty over the top/wacky at times, occasionally due to Depending on the Artist in the case of The '80s installments. It carries over to the BRB cartoon, too.
• Detail-Hogging Cover: Ibáñez prides himself in these. He is usually late delivering them, though. In at least a short story it becomes a plot point.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • The Súper at the end of "El bacilón". OK, you have an urgent necessity to go to the bathroom, but the unstoppable Muck Monster that has been terrorizing the city for the last week is obstructing your way. What do you do? If you are the Súper, deliver a SINGLE slap so that it dissolves into nothing and stops obstructing your way. No more Bacilón. But, unfortunately, this does little to help him relieve himself.
  • In "La máquina del cambiazo" ("The swapping machine"), Mortadelo is warped into a creepy old castle through the titular swapping machine (a teleportation device, which swaps one person on item for another), and a bat enters the TIA offices instead. Filemón tries to catch the bat so that they can swap it back with Mortadelo, when the bat suddenly turns into a very menacing (for the comic standards) Count Dracula. Unfazed, Filemón delivers a single slap to the vampire's face, leaving him groggy, and drags him by an arm. The agent mumbles: "Yeah, such a moment for counts to show up... Come on!", before unceremoniously kicking the Count back to the machine.
• Digging to China: One episode contains a Running Gag where the two characters repeatedly drop onto a traffic light from great height, driving it deeper and deeper into the ground with each landing. The final iteration shows the traffic light's base sticking out of the ground in China.
• Dinner Deformation: The thrown variant is often used.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In one of the comics, El Sulfato Atómico, Filemón is imprisoned and Mortadelo decides to dress as a commander of the Tiranian Army (Tirania is the country which they are infiltrating). Hs uniform is perfect, but when time comes for him to give the orders, he realises that he does not know how to speak Tiranian.
• Driving Up a Wall: In the intro for "Fórmula Uno", a narration mentions that some off-road vehicles can run up "impressive slopes", accompanied by an image of one of them going right up the wall of a building, with the driver even taking a moment to wave at a bewildered bystander who is watching it from a balcony of the same building.

E

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The duo ran a detective agency of their own long before joining the T.I.A, and their wardrobe mirrored that of Sherlock Holmes, complete with period caps (which doubled as disguise storage for Mortadelo) and a wool coat and smoking pipe for Filemón. The latter would wear a jacket for a while after joining the organization. Other TIA members chose differently-colored versions of their base outfit before finally setting for one of them.
  • "El sulfato atómico", Ibanez' first album, also has this when compared to the later ones. While the two titular agents are shown as being barely competent at their jobs in said later albums, their mission to retrieve the titular substance from a ruthless dictator goes off barely without a hitch.
• Earthquake Machine: In Desastre, a Mad Scientist threatens by cities using several types of a Doomsday Device, the last one causing earthquakes and threatening the heroes' own city.
• Eat the Bomb: Happens often when a thrown grenade hits a wall and unexpectedly bounces back into (most of the time) Filemon's mouth. An explosion ensues, usually followed by some comment from Mortadelo in the lines of: "Boss, if you were that hungry, why didn't you have a sandwich instead?".
  • Played with in a short story. The Súper and Filemón think that Mortadelo has eaten a sandwich with a sausage that had a time bomb hidden inside. They try to get Mortadelo to the hospital to have the bomb removed, without letting him know so that he won't get nervous, and also preventing him from falling or getting a sudden shock. It turns up that Mortadelo had eaten only the bread, and had put the sausage apart; when he retrieves the sausage, the bomb explodes on the three of them.
• Epic Fail: The invariable result when the agents try to show athletic skills to the Superintendent.
  • In the 2006 World Cup album, Filemón tries to show him that he can work undercover in Spain's national team. He makes a paper ball and tries to send it over the Super's head with a kick, but misses the ball and hits the Super right on the crotch instead. A few panels later, he is out-failed by Mortadelo, who uses a globe as his ball... and it somehow ends up ricocheting around the room, destroying the Super's glasses, a crystal lamp and a very expensive computer.
  • There is also that time when Mortadelo tried to break five bricks with a karate chop. He ended up with five broken fingers.
  • In an older short story, Mortadelo and Filemón are asked to work undercover in Spain's national soccer team to investigate a bomb threat in the stadium. Mortadelo decides to show the Super how fast he can run, but when he is at full steam, an old man greets him and asks him if he is "out for a walk with no rush". The old man easily outpaces him and excuses himself for leaving Mortadelo behind, saying he has to catch a bus.
  • For a non-M&F event, in "Concurso: Oposición", one of the candidates to become an agent is incredibly short-sighted, and he's tasked with shooting a target. Mortadelo keeps moving it closer because the candidate complains that he can't see it - until it is so close the gun cannon is sunk into the target. Mortadelo walks away, the candidate shoots - and hits Mortadelo.
  • Non athletic-related examples are when they disguise as workers having absolutely no idea of the job, much less qualifications. For example, in "Los Secuestradores", Mortadelo and Filemón disguised as aircraft mechanics mount the jet engines of an airliner the other way around, causing it to go backwards, or mount a large radar designed for a fishing boat in a small propeller plane.
• Escaped Animal Rampage:
  • In the album "Pánico en el zoo" all zoo animals escape and Mortadelo and Filemon have to catch them.
  • "Dinosaurios" has the two agents dealing with an Escaped Dinosaur Rampage a la Jurassic Park after some dinosaur eggs accidentally revived by Bacterio are stolen by a criminal gang, and the bad guys let loose the grown dinosaurs in the city.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: In the story about the 2018 World Cup, M & F are flying across space after getting a Megaton Gore from a bull, and an astronaut talks to them in Russian from inside a space station. The bottom of the panel features this caption:
  Note from the Author: No idea what they're talking about!
• Everyone Chasing You: There is a high probability of any episode ending like this.
• Evil Is Petty: Usually, the Villain of the Week will have a rather petty reason to commit the crimes Mortadelo and Filemón want to arrest them for.
  • In "El pinchazo telefónico", the villain is Ibáñez, who's trying to listen in on conversations... so he can learn the salary raises other authors are getting.
  • In "¡Llegó el euro!", the villain is an old man who's been making fake euro bills because the 1000 pesetas he has managed to save are "only" worth 6 euros.
  • In "Mundial de baloncesto 2023", the villain is shrinking international basketball players because he wants to turn his vegetable patch into a basketball pitch, but since it's too small he figures shrinking players will ensure they want to use his "pitch".
• Exact Words:
  • If you ask Mortadelo to check for any guard dogs, he won't mention the hungry crocodile... Also, if he tells you that there is "nothing" behind a door, don't go rushing through it too fast. Chances are that there is an empty space behind the door.
  • In Magín el Mago (Magín the Magician), the duo is in the city pursuing the titular villain. Filemón is taking the lead and asks Mortadelo to attack Magín if the magician tries to hypnotize him. Magín appears by surprise, attacks Filemón and beats the hell out of him, while Mortadelo stares at them without doing anything to protect his partner. When Magín leaves, leaving a very battered Filemón behind, Filemón angrily asks Mortadelo why he did not attack their enemy. Mortadelo simply replies that he had been told to attack Magín if he tried to hypnotize Filemón.
  • Another one in Cacao espacial (Space havoc) has Filemón wanting to investigate a barn. He sends Mortadelo first to check whether the cows are loose. Mortadelo says that all the cows are on leashes and Filemón enters the barn, only to run away seconds later ... chased by a huge bull.
  • A recurring gag had Filemón putting several locks on the door so that the Super or Bestiájez, who were expected to visit, wouldn't be able to enter when they turned up, while Mortadelo repeatedly assured him "he won't come". In the end, an annoyed Filemón would ask Mortadelo, "Why are you so sure he won't come?"; then Mortadelo would point at the expected visitor sitting on an armchair and give a reply to the effect of "Because he is already here!". Cue Oh, Crap! reaction from Filemón.
  • In "El otro yo del Profesor Bacterio", Bacterio tested an invention on himself, and created a Hyde-like criminal version of his personality. Early in the story, Bacterio is hurting victims with a blackjack and Mortadelo and Filemón are ordered to stop him from beating any more people. They find him... and they only return with the club, because they weren't ordered to arrest him.
  • At the beginning of "Los Guardaespaldas", the Superintendent tells the duo that the woman they must protect is nineteen, Swedish, and her measurements are 92-44-92, so they think she's a beautiful young adult. When it turns out the woman is an elder, the Super explains himself: the woman's age is nineteen lustrum (=95 years old), and her measurements are 92 spine, 44 shoe, and 92 bun. The only lie was about her being Swedish.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Parodied at the beginning of the album about the 2006 World Cup. The Spanish national team has just received word that Mortadelo and Filemón will be working undercover in the team if they qualify for the tournament. So during the first leg of the repechage tier against Fartovakia, the players decide to not even bother, sitting down to eat a tortilla, sweeping and mowing the grass for the opposing strikers, indicating to the strikers them the perfect goal trajectory... and the goals just keep coming while the goalkeeper waters the plants, shaves his beard, or takes a nap.
• Excuse Plot: The comics usually have extremely thin plots that just function to place the characters in random settings or situations, and then let slapstick ensue. Usually Mortadelo and Filemón's investigations do not advance one iota over the course of one story until the very ending, and often another agent will solve the case, or it turns out that there was no case to solve at all.
  • "Argentina 78" opens with an African dictator threatening a terrorist attack during the 1978 World Cup, because his country's bid for hosting the event was rejected. The agents spend the whole album investigating suspects at the tournament, and causing mayhem, but they are unable to locate any terrorist. The final page reveals that the terrorists used a man who can't read maps as their guide, and they are hopelessly lost. They are searching for Argentina, but have ended up somewhere in China. The heroes and villains do not meet at any point in the story.
  • In "La Estatua de la Libertad", Mortadelo has overheard people plotting to demolish the Statue of Liberty with explosives. The Super sends the agents to New York City, where they spend months fruitlessly looking for terrorists. After returning to Spain, the agents learn that the conspirators were simply trying to demolish the only monument of a tiny Spanish village, which depicts the wife of a local politician. Her name happened to be Liberty. The mission in New York was completely unnecessary.
  • A few stories featuring Bacterio's teleportation devices have the agency trying to use them to capture one or more criminals. The villains barely appear, and the plot focuses instead on the main characters randomly teleporting to dangerous locations around the planet, and sometimes off the planet.
• Explosive Stupidity: Characters exhibit this several times in every story. A particular instance had Mortadelo use a lighter to light up a stick of dynamite to throw at a foe, then throw the lighter instead, with the stick of dynamite blowing up in his hand.
• Expressive Accessory: Hats and wigs tend to jump off people's heads when the character is shocked. Filemon's bowtie and Mortadelo's collar sometimes untie themselves in surprise. Even pants might drop just because of a fright.

F

• Failure Is the Only Option: Things simply can't end well for the protagonists. On the rare occasions when the author allows them a happy ending, it will be lampshaded.
• False Flag Operation: In "El premio No-Vel", the standard procedure for the No-Vel War Prize consists in bombing two entities and leaving in each of them a fake mocking note from the other part to frame them as the culprits. Targets of these bombings range from neighbor towns to the Soviet and American embassies.
• False Reassurance: In "El circo" Mortadelo has to take the place of the lion tamer in the circus. He wonders how many tamers the lion has sent to hospital, but he is told that none have gone to hospital... because all fourteen of them got eaten.
• For Science!: Prof. Bacterio tends to do this. He experiments on animals, humans, and sometimes on himself, and typically shows little concern for anyone's safety. Unfortunately his experiments tend to either kill the test subjects, or to transform them into a Living Weapon.
• Funny Background Event: Ibáñez is a master of these. In fact, he makes it a goal to put, at least, 2 or 3 of these events on every page.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • The two agents work for T.I.A. (tía means aunt in Spanish and also sounds very similar to C.I.A.); one of the older nemesis organizations was the A.B.U.E.L.A.^note As stated in one comic, the acronym stands for Agentes Bélicos Ultramarinos Especialistas en Líos Aberrantes (Overseas War Agents Specialized in Aberrant Trouble). ("grandmother"). And "La Vuelta" featured one-off villains T.I.O.^note Trojans Invictus Orbi ("uncle"), which prompted some lampshading from Mortadelo:
  T.I.O.? Ha, ha! T.I.A. against T.I.O.? Hey, why don't you put the matter in hands of one of those "marriage counselors" and have them air their dirty laundry?
  • The story El Brujo ("The Warlock") introduces another villain organization, the F.E.A (Federación de Espías Asociados, "Federation of associated spies"). Fea means "ugly woman" in Spanish, and in general an ugly or bad thing of feminine gender.
  • Taken up to eleven in the story about the 2015 general election in Spain, when almost everyone in the T.I.A. staff is setting up their own parties to run for president. For example, Professor Bacterio reveals himself as the candidate for "Científicos Unidos Liberando el Orbe" (United Scientists Freeing the Orb), which results in the acronym C.U.L.O. ("culo" is Spanish for "butt"). Unsurprisingly, Mortadelo bursts out laughing when he notices. Also, Spanish socialist party PSOE gets renamed as PSAO (which in Spanish sounds similar to "pesado", that aside from meaning "heavy", is used to describe a really boring and/or annoying person.)
  • In a short story, the duo ask about the Súper's whereabouts, and another agent tells them that he is at the bar. The duo start mocking the Súper, saying: "What could you expect from such a drunkard? Always at the bar!". Suddenly, a very sober Súper appears and explain: "Exactly: I was at the B.A.R offices", B.A.R standing for "Búsqueda de Agentes Raptados" ("Search for abducted agents").

G

• Gadgeteer Genius: Subverted with Bacterio. His gadgets almost never work right, and usually fail in some spectacular way. Once in a blue moon, they will actually work correctly, and the failure will be due to the agents using it improperly. Or because there are other things about them that they haven't been told.
  • Lampshaded in a feature about the first movie in a Top Comic album, where a brief allegedly written by the Superintendent states that Bacterio was hired as a lab intern while the T.I.A. searched for an actual scientist, and the reason that he is still around is that the position remains vacant.
  • Among his creations was a Super Serum intended to make people stronger and taller, but instead turned the subjects to Shrinking Men.
• Genius Bruiser: Sometimes the thugs are said to have degrees in engineering and philology. This is mostly said once and then forgotten, no Chekhov's Gun here (e.g., El Matraca in the second movie).
• Genius Ditz: Mortadelo is a ditz, but always expect him to have an idea to solve the problem. Besides, he is usually somehow the one who ends up saving the day (whenever the villain doesn't do it himself).
• Gilligan Cut: M & F are summoned by El Súper. The duo are informed of their next, incredibly dangerous mission, or the next of Bacterio's inventions which they will have to test. Cut to the duo simply disappearing from the office and El Súper calling for a Seek And Capture on the agents. Cut again to Bestiájez dragging the duo into the office, while they are still holding onto a landmark from the other side of the globe. Sometimes played in a more traditional form.
• Gone Horribly Right: YMMV in this case: in "El racista", the vice-president is a racist that is intent on kicking all members of other races and/or ethnic groups out of the TIA, assigning them dangerous and difficult missions so that, when they fail, he can present that as a consequence of what they are. After failing at helping those other agents with their missions, Mortadelo and Filemón plan to have Mortadelo disguise himself as an agent of another race and then Filemón tells some big story about that agent. The president becomes so impressed at those stories (without checking whether they are true or not) that he kicks the vice-president out... and then decides to put people of other races in charge of most of the organization's operations, leaving the Súper as a lowly delivery boy.
  • If Bacterio's inventions don't go horribly wrong, they WILL be this. It is part of the reason why Mortadelo and Filemón hate Bacterio and dread his inventions.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: The main characters would often use "corcho" ("cork") instead of "coño" (which can be equivalent to an F-bomb, but is also the Spanish equivalent of Country Matters). Other variations were used sporadically over the years; for example, in El señor de los ladrillos, Ladríllez Peñón says "¿qué recoña pasa aquí?" (roughly "what the re-joke is going on here?") instead of "¿qué coño pasa aquí?" ("what the fuck is going on here?").
• Gotta Catch Them All: Some of the plots are like this, such as catching all members of a gang, rounding up all animals that escaped from Bacterio's lab, or checking a bunch of paintings for a secret message hidden behind one of them.
• Got Volunteered: Mortadelo and Filemón have found themselves in this kind of situation several times, more often than not when the mission involves Bacterio's latest invention.
• Grandfather Clause: Averted Trope For the Lulz with Mortadelo's old-fashioned frock coat, because it is part of the joke. Mortadelo, a veritable master of disguise, can wear whatever he wants - but his default choice is a ridiculously old-fashioned suit, which emphasizes his physical defaults (baldness, lankiness). Word of God insists that Mortadelo's clothes were already obsolete in his first appearance - so the effect they cause in modern audiences is exactly the intended effect they were to cause in The '50s audiences. Note that frock coats were fashionable formal wear in the 19th century, but increasingly fell out of style between 1919 and 1936 (when their status as official court dress in the United Kingdom was formally abolished).
  • To a lesser extent, Filemón's olf-fashioned bow tie has been the object of mockery by several people he meets.
• Gypsy Curse: In one album, the Súper is victim of a curse from a gypsy he accidentally soaked with his car, and he starts growing different animal limbs. After several failed attemps from Bacterio to remove the curse, Mortadelo and Filemón are sent to capture the gypsy, to force her to undo the curse (which proves to be difficult, as the gypsy's curses are similar to Reality Warper powers). Eventually, the gypsy tells the Súper that the only way to undo the curse is to give the animal limbs to other persons, and the Súper gives them to Mortadelo, Filemón and Bacterio.

H

• Hair Antennae: Filemón. That is all the hair he has. According to an origin story, he has been almost bald since his childhood.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Mortadelo had exceptionally great and long locks before losing all of it because of a failed experiment by the comic's resident Mad Scientist, Profesor Bacterio. Bacterio was experimenting on hair products.
• Hammerspace: Where Mortadelo keeps all of his disguises. Ibáñez has drawn from time to time very detailed diagram pictures of the inside of Mortadelo's garb, as well as all the blunt weapons Filemón keeps under his shirt for the sole purpose of punishing Mortadelo.
  • In the first years, he kept the disguises in his hat.
  • On the "Mexico 86" comic, after he is asked about the matter, Mortadelo mentions that he changes between panels.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: The titular characters have been working together for many years, lived for a time at the same house, and they are now living in the same hostel.
  • Rumours that they weren't so heterosexual led to the introduction of Irma in the late 80s.
  • A number of 1990s stories have jokes commenting on how people view our heroes as a couple. For example a story includes a section where a paparazzo "outs" Filemón as a homosexual and posts pictures of him holding hands with a particularly effeminate man. Other TIA agents start teasing him on the job - Mortadelo included. The paparazzo's next trick is having Mortadelo and Filemón photographed pushing their heads through holes in a wooden plank, which has been painted so that it looks like they are marrying, with Mortadelo as the groom. The same story had Ibáñez give a brief introduction on history's greatest romances... concluding with Mortadelo and Filemón. Followed by the two characters chasing their creator with murderous intent.
  Ibáñez: Okay, okay! Just kidding!
• He Went That Way: Master of Disguise Mortadelo often pulls this off. Once, he sent a pursuer straight up a wall...
• Hilarity Ensues: And how!
• Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: In a short story, Mortadelo mentions that he was going to dismantle an amulet that contained enough nitroglycerine to blow up a skyscraper. Of course, he only gets to say it right after Filemón has thrown said amulet out the window in a rage... no points for guessing what happens next.
• Historical Domain Character: Practically every single famous Spanish politician of the second half of the 20th Century has appeared in more than one volume. A lot of foreign politicians and world leaders, such as the US Presidents (from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump), Fidel Castro, or the European Prime Ministers, appear quite often too.
  • Adolf Hitler sometimes appears in the comics. For example, in "El racista" he has just talked with two Jews, one of which says that Hitler is preparing something to keep them warm next winter...
    • In "Mundial 78" about the 1978 World Cup, there was a fictional match (the finals) between Spain and Germany. The political authorities in the seats of honour were Adolfo Suárez, Spanish Premier at the time... and Adolf Hitler, who was waving at the reader.
  • Ronald Reagan shows up in several albums written in The '80s ("El Cacao Espacial", "La Perra de las Galaxias" and "Los Ángeles 84"). The stories often mock Reagan's poor health, and one implies that a team of doctors and scientists has to do repairs every time his body falls apart.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In a short story, the Super grows tired of Mortadelo and Filemón's incompetence and plots to get them fired. He tasks them with keeping safe a very important document, only to steal it himself. After his attempts to steal the document fail one after another, he overhears Mortadelo talking to the T.I.A. managing director and mentioning that the document is hidden in a cigar which they left on the Super's desk... which turns out to be the same cigar he is smoking. The Super is subsequently fired (but thankfully for him, Negative Continuity is in effect).
  • The ending of "La gripe U" sees Kamikaze Regúlez hospitalized after becoming infected by the very virus he had created.
  • In "Los guardaespaldas", the agents are protecting a rich old woman who has a slew of killers after her. One of them puts an alarm clock loaded with explosives ready to blast the woman, only for Mortadelo to take it to another room, and when he notices it has a half-hour delay he corrects it. The killer then takes the clock out of the room's window:
  Thank goodness I calculated the explosion for half an hour from now! [his expression changes as the realization hits him] Ha— half an hour! He advanced half an hour all of a sud— *BOOM*
• Home-Run Hitter: Done to an art in many comics. Several characters have been sent into outer space just with one kick.
• Horns of Barbarism: Parodied where it turns out that the Vikings they encounter are victims of one of Bacterio's experiments Gone Horribly Wrong, and the horns are really attached to their heads.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Taken to the extreme with Mortadelo's parents (as introduced in "Su vida privada"). His father is so tall that he does not even fit in the panels (similar to how Mum and Dad in Cow and Chicken were only seen from the legs down), while his mother appears to be just a few inches tall.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Filemón seems able to make appear any kind of weapon out of thin air. Too bad he only uses this skill against Mortadelo.
• Hypnosis-Proof Dogs: In a comic, Mortadelo tries to invoke this trope by sending a dog after a hypnotist thief to capture him. Unfortunately, it is subverted when the dog is hypnotized anyway, as the thief Speaks Fluent Animal.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Magín the Magician is a master hypnotist who combines this with a Compelling Voice. Therefore, he always starts hypnotising by telling the victim "Look into my eyes!".
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In "El nuevo cate", one of the priests who comes to the T.I.A. building prevents Mortadelo and Filemón from killing a cockroach and gives them a long speech about the sanctity of life that gives them a migraine... but when another agent appears with a machine gun and tells the priest that he is going to kill several criminals, the priest only blesses him and sends him on his way.
  • Priests and clergymen fall often under this trope. They're almost always depicted as very obese people who eat and drink copiously, then donate a small coin to feed the poor "because gluttony is a sin". Another strip had a slender middle-aged priest deliver a pious sermon about resisting temptation and lust. The next panel depicts the priest's private life: dancing in a night club with two floozies.

I

• I Ate WHAT?!: Mortadelo and Filemon are often tricked into eating food that looks normal but has been somehow manipulated by Bacterio. Also, the agents discover - or are offered - a bottle of a fine wine or expensive whisky, and quickly drink from it, only for it to contain some potion, bleach or poison, after the original bottle was damaged.
  • In one instance, Ofelia tries to diet and orders a tomato juice from the nearby bar. A moment later Mortadelo arrives holding a glass and saying: "Here's the juice!". Assuming it's her tomato juice, Ofelia picks the glass and drinks it in one gulp. Turns out that it was frog juice - a liquified frog - that Mortadelo was bringing to Bacterio for one of the professor's experiments.
• Impact Silhouette: When the Súper wants to assign some dangerous mission to Mortadelo and Filemón (especially testing Bacterio's latest invention) he usually finds only their silhouettes in a nearby wall.
• Impossible Thief:
  • Many times, Mortadelo saves the day by stealing something without anybody else noticing. His speciality is when someone is holding an important object, which he manages to exchange for an useless thing (eggplants are perhaps the most common example). An ability that Mortadelo seems to be pretty proud of, as he likes to brag about it whenever he does it. This ability also comes useful when a policeman is holding either him or both M&F. Backfires also many times when he steals something from Filemón or the Súper.
  • In Los ladrones de coches, a story about a gang that steals cars, there are some instances of this. For example, there is one guy sitting on his sports car, waiting for the green light, and the thiefs take his car. While he was on it. And without him noticing. He ends up sitting on the street, his feet into the sewer and stepping on a sewer worker's ear, one of his hands on the sewer's lid as if it was the drive wheel, and the other on a dog's tail.
  • And again in ¡El carnet al punto!, when Mortadelo and Filemón are driving across the town searching for corrupt traffic cops and Bacterio's latest invention backfires on them, leaving them stuck in the middle of heavy fog. When it dissipates, they notice that the car they were driving is gone.
  Filemón: I hope the Super will understand...
  Cut to the Super in his office wearing a boxing glove in one hand, with a stain that might or might not be blood.
  Super: Of cooouuurse, of course I understand! Your car was stolen with you inside it... Completely normal!
• Incredibly Lame Pun: in one of the old short stories, Filemón receives a threat of assassination and asks Mortadelo to help him prepare a good defense against potential killers. His idea is to bring a neighbour of his that has an hiccup attack, on the basis that "the best defense is a good attack".
• The Infiltration: "Objetivo: Eliminar al Rana" and "El Tirano".
• Iron Butt Monkey: Filemón is the god of this trope, he constantly receives horrible beatings, explosions and even gets burned and frozen several times, only for him to recover one panel later. The rest of the cast qualifies, but Filemón overshadows everyone.
• Ironic Name:
  • Ofelia. Hamlet's Ophelia is commonly portrayed as a fair, fragile, delicate maiden, and Ofelia is exactly her opposite - fat, strong, aggressive, and ill-tempered.
  • "Contra el 'Gang' del Chicharrón" featured a member of the titular gang called Blancanieves ("Snow White"): a big, muscular black man who seemingly serves as The Brute of the group.

J

• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Played for laughs. In one episode, Mortadelo has arrested a suspect that was apparently planning a crime in an airport (revealed later to have already planted a bomb in a passenger aircraft), but the man refuses to confess or to identify who he is working for. Filemón suggests interrogating him under a strong, blinding light. Mortadelo rejects the idea and says that he has a more effective method. Less than 10 minutes later, the suspect has confessed to everything. Filemón is somewhat shocked to learn that Mortadelo's method consisted of removing all of the suspect's teeth with a pincer, and them intimidating him into speaking.
• Japanese Ranguage:
  • Every Asian speaks with the "L in place of R" variety, regardless of their country of origin. Then again, it's almost fitting considering that most of these characters sport Asian Buck Teeth and feature other clichés about Asian people that the comic only gets away with because of the Grandfather Clause.
  • Curiously lampshaded in "El premio No-Vel", when the Villain of the Week's assistant is annoyed by the misunderstandings caused by talking this way and decides to try another variety, using C instead of P. It instantly backfires when he calls his neighbor Paquita "Caquita" ("little poo"), and she responds by punching him.
• Job's Only Volunteer: In the agents' origin story "La historia de Mortadelo y Filemón", we see them posing proudly as number one and two of their promotion for the TIA agent examinations, but aside, the Super and the examiner are commenting that they are the only two people who applied.

K

• Karmic Misfire:
  • From time to time, Mortadelo gets away with things because some misunderstanding results in someone else — most often Filemón — being blamed for them. For instance, when Filemón sees him smoking a cigar and Mortadelo offers him one, he quickly goes to the cigar box to take it. Cue the Super appearing out of nowhere to catch Filemón red-handed and grab him by the neck, saying "At last I've found the jerk who steals my cigars!"
  • In one mission taking place in a gym, Mortadelo unwittingly causes a number of accidents that affect a bodybuilder. Each time, Filemón is left with the apparently incriminating evidence, and receives the beating from the infuriated bodybuilder.

L

• Lampshade Hanging: Pretty much the whole point of the tie-in Guía para la Vida de un agente de la T.I.A.^note A T.I.A. agent's guide to life book, which opens with two-page spreads of Mortadelo and Filemón's equipment, which includes: a reducing potion to fit in small disguises, plane tickets to faraway lands for when they are on the run from beating up their superiors, special glue for severed limbs, spare body parts, an array of weaponry (only for chasing Mortadelo) and a full dictionary of "idiot" synonyms, also for Mortadelo.
• Landslide Election:
  • In El candidato, the Súper decides to run for president of Spain, and the result is a spectacular failure: his main rival, Marcelino Cascajo, gets 38 million votes, while the Súper only scores one vote — his own.
  • Inverted at the end of ¡Elecciones!, where it turns out that there was a ridiculously big amount of parties in the running, and as a result each of them only gets one vote... except for a single candidate who manages to gather two votes and is subsequently named president.
• Large and in Charge: Inverted - El Súper is shorter than Filemón, who in turn is shorter than Mortadelo. Played straight for the villains. It is however contradicted by Dibujalos Tu Solito (a promotional album for drawing the characters) which state the height chart is Mortadelo>El Súper=Ofelia>Filemón>Bacterio
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Characters from the same publisher sometimes appear, mostly in cameos, sometimes as guest stars. The 35th anniversary special featured Mortadelo as a guest star in short stories starring many other characters (other characters by Ibáñez apparently share universe with Mortadelo).
• LEGO Genetics: Mr. Probeta, who can sprout the parts of any of the many animals that were used in his creation.
• Lethal Chef: One of the Running Gags associated with Ofelia, with the aggravating factor that she believes herself to be a great cook. Mortadelo and Filemón would often ask for some of her homemade dishes, only to use it as rat poison or to purge their bowels.
• Limited Wardrobe: White shirt, red pants and a bow tie for Filemón; looking glasses, long, black peacoat with an impossibly tall collar for Mortadelo (whenever he is not disguised); navy blue, bottle green and beige dress pants and coat for El Súper, Bacterio and the Director General, respectively.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Very common.
• Literal-Minded: Mainly Mortadelo. A recurring joke is for Mortadelo to be, for example, grabbing Filemón so that he doesn't fall through a window, then letting him fall when the Súper says something like "Drop everything you have on your hands and come here!".
• The Load: Filemón is treated as such in the first movie. He gets called this way twice, one by the Súper and another one by Mortadelo.
• Long Neck: In "Las embajadas chifladas", at the final chapter Filemón got his neck elongated to a point where it was about half a meter long, and had to hide it inside his shirt. Much later, once everyone thought his neck had gone back to normal, he used it to make everyone think that Mortadelo was a snake charmer, revealing it while Mortadelo played the flute. And at the end of the story, he and Mortadelo got tied with a bomb near them. What did Filemón did? He used his neck to take the bomb with his teeth and threw it to the Big Bad.
• Long-Runners: The longest runner Spanish comic series ever, starting in 1958 and still running.
• Lost in Translation: The Spanish puns and jokes often don't translate well into other languages, making some scenes look strange.
• Lots of Luggage:
  • At the beginning of "Valor y al toro", when the two protagonists are about to get on a cruise for their mission, Filemón tells Mortadelo to pack only whatever is indispensable for the mission. Filemón gets angry when Mortadelo shows up later with a big bag and reminds him of how he only had to pack whatever was indispensable. Mortadelo replies that he is only carrying his keys there, and points to more than a dozen of bags, saying that is his luggage. Eventually, Filemón allows him to carry only a hato.
  • In "Los guardaespaldas", the woman Mortadelo and Filemón have been tasked with protecting plans to travel around the world... and the two agents have to help her carry her absurdly massive luggage. Mortadelo snarkily comments, "Hey madam! Maybe you forgot the piano?", then we get a Gilligan Cut to them carrying the exact same luggage plus a piano, while the woman thanks Mortadelo for reminding her.

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