Mortadelo Y Filemon / Tropes S to Z

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

---

S

• Scenery Censor: In "¡Okupas!", the few times that the squatters' protest signs or banners have a swear word written on them, it is blocked from the reader's view by another conveniently placed sign or banner.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You/The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Parodied in "¡A las armas!". The agents have been tasked with testing a bazooka that fires automatically when placed in horizontal position. When they leave their apartment, the weapon accidentally hits the lintel of the door and leans down. Meanwhile on the outside, a bystander is looking at a movie advert that depicts the main character in the "about to shoot you" pose:
  Bystander: What agressiveness in that face! You could say he's about to start shooting and...
  [Big boom. The wall has a massive hole where the advert was, while the bystander is stunned and not only has an Ash Face, but his upper body is completely covered in ashes.]
  Bystander: Th-they should ban such realistic adverts...
• Self-Deprecation: Francisco Ibáñez draws himself into the comics from time to time, and he's not afraid to use his cartoon version to poke fun at himself. For instance:
  • The ending of "El pinchazo telefónico" reveals it was him who hired the Villain of the Week to spy on his bosses and find out if his comics were selling well enough to ask for a pay rise. His editor punishes him by using him as a figurehead for her yacht.
  • In the introductory story for El ordenador... ¡qué horror!, Ibáñez depicts himself as someone Hopeless with Tech, whose attempts to use a computer end up making it disappear before his eyes.
  • Mortadelo and Filemón occasionally refer to Ibáñez as a "pintamonas", which is a Spanish word to describe a bad painter or cartoonist.
• Self-Disposing Villain: It is a rule in the comics that when a villain really tries to destroy the pair for real, he will fail miserably and get himself owned. A notable example is "El señor todoquisque" the bad guy is a man who can disguise himself and, in the first half of the album, humiliates our heroes in very painful ways. However, when he decides to take care of them himself and goes to the TIA, his plans brutally backfire on him, and, at the end, he goes insane.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: One comic features a government spokeswoman who is so fond of using long and overly complicated words that her speeches are almost impossible to understand. Mortadelo goes mad from trying.
• Sexy Secretary: Irma, the newest (and most short-lived) member of the team that fits this trope to a T.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: if their mission is about searching something, 9 times out of ten will be revealed as this. For example: one long story is about having to search an envelope hidden in one of the Super's paintings he sold some time ago, which supposedly contains something important. In the end, after a long, grueling mission where they suffer at every turn and the Super punished them for not finding the envelope... it is just a recipe to make fish taste better.
  • In La Gallina de los Huevos de Oro, the duo seeks the eponymous golden egg-laying hen. After months of traveling, they succeed, and the hen lays an egg that Mortadelo angrily throws at Bacterio - only to learn that the eggs were perfectly normal eggs with some glitter on the shell, because Bacterio had botched the experiment and the supposed priceless eggs were useless.
  • A part of a longer story has a message from the Super being stolen by enemy agents. The main characters fear repercussions for failure and endanger themselves to retrieve the secret message. Once retrieving it, they realize that the Super was simply instructing them to pick up some cigarettes for him from a local store.
  • Hay un traidor en la T.I.A. has the main characters searching for The Mole in the organization's ranks, which is thought to be the explanation for a leak in its security systems. After stalking most of their work colleagues, alienating their friends, and nearly falling out with each other, the duo finally question the Super on how are messages from his office delivered. They realize too late that there is no Mole: the reason the enemy agents learn the plans is that the Super is shouting them to someone in the next building through an open office window.
  • In 20,000 Leguas de Viaje Sibilino, el Súper gives the duo a key he claims to be so important that, in order to avoid potential enemy agents trying to steal it, he orders them to go around the world to reach their destination in Vigo (just a few hundreds of kilometers from Madrid). When they finally arrive, thinking it has to be some important stuff, it turns out that the person at the place they are going is just the Super's brother-in-law and the key opens the door to the bathroom.
• Shaky P.O.V. Cam: Often used when something is thrown at someone's face.
• Shapeshifter Showdown: The most epic one happens at the end of "El disfraz, cosa falaz", although there had been an earlier one between Mortadelo and Ruiz Mosqueos, in the form of a disguise duel.
• Share Phrase: "Quite, quite ¿Qué le hace pensar que...?" ("Bah, bah, what does make you think that...?); "Tenía que hacerlo, ¿entiende? ¡Tenía que hacerlo!" (I had to do it, do you understand? I had to do it!). They're used by many characters in the comics.
• She's a Man in Japan: A strange case: in the German translations the title characters were originally British intelligence agents. Later this was changed to them just being Germans to open up possibilities for jokes relating to German culture, current events etc. However, there were often cases where the comic being originally from Spain just couldn't be written around (like when they actually go to Germany as foreigners). So, in Germany, they are German, except when they can't be anything but Spanish and somehow have English names (Fred Clever und Jeff Smart).
• Shoe Phone: A very early example of this trope. Sometimes, both Mortadelo and Filemón have it, but usually it's only Mortadelo.
  • Hilariously played with, as sometimes the Shoephone will have something that makes it ridiculous or painful (such as having an actual phone into the shoe, or an antenna that extends without warning into the ear of the listener) or Mortadelo has done something to the shoe that usually backfires on him (for example, making it sound like a cat and, the next time he is called, a huge bulldog is passing by).
  • Another joke is having the phone ring at the worst minute possible. Mortadelo performs a mission needing some degree of stealth, for example a burglary. He has managed to not awake their sleeping enemy or bypassed a few guards. Then the phone rings, alerting everyone to his presence.
• Shout-Out / Reference Overdosed: There are tons of shout-outs, tributes to and parodies of political figures, actors, and characters of comic-books and animation.
  • In a story, Mortadelo plants an electrified trap and he declares that it has power enough "to fry even Mazinger Z". Given that Spaniards Love Mazinger-Z, it is pretty normal finding a shout-out to that series.
  • And in another story, Mortadelo and Filemón have to disguise themselves like Super Heroes (such like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man or Tarzan) to scare the local miscreants.
  • In a short stoy, they met Capitan Trueno.
  • A story-long one to Don Quixote in Mortadelo de la Mancha.
  • "¡Silencio, se rueda!" has Mortadelo and Filemón in a journey through the history of cinema due to one of Bacterio's inventions. To cite just a few of the many nods of this story, the agents crash several scenes of Gone with the Wind, and there are cameos by the Marx Brothers, Darth Vader and Rambo.
  • In "El Preboste de Seguridad", the title character, who wants to improve security in the country so he can present his candidacy to president of the government, exclaims "I will be the president instead of the president!", with Wa'at Alahf passing behind him and wondering where he has heard that before.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Played Straight
  • While no genius and prone to do the same mistakes as his partner, Filemón is far smarter and has more common sense than Mortadelo when it comes to completing the mission; he is also shorter than El Súper
  • In the promotional album Dibujalos Tu Solito, Bacterio is revealed to be the shortest of the main cast, and he is the most prolific inventor of the series.
• Show Some Leg: In one album, Sexy Secretary Irma appears in bikini, so that Mortadelo and Filemón can open their mouths in astonishment and Bacterio can throw them his pills.
• Slapstick: The stories' humor is chock full of slapstick. No one is immune.
• Snipe Hunt:
  • The search for the titular traitor in the story "Hay un traidor en la T.I.A." ("There's a traitor in the T.I.A.") eventually turns into this. The enemies knew all the secret plans because the Super transmitted them to Fulgencio, the service coordinator who is located in the building across the street from the T.I.A. headquarters, by yelling them at him from the window, so the enemies only had to place a spy waiting on the sidewalk below and record everything.
  • In the movie Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure, the main characters are told by their superior to go and find the Holy Grail (which they confuse with the Davis Cup) as a way to have them away from the real missions. At the end of the movie, Mortadelo is about to die, and Filemón gives him a sip of water from a trophy cup. It instantly heals Mortadelo, Filemón is amazed and declares he has found the Davis Cup.
• Solve the Soup Cans: Balones y patadones, one of the comic's official computer games, had a puzzle in which, in order to open a trophy cabinet, the player would have to flip a series of switches up or down in the correct manner. Most notable for the big fat lampshade the character you're controlling when facing the puzzle (either Mortadelo or Filemón) will hang on it:
  Filemón: Hmm... Looks like one of those combinatorial puzzles shoehorned in to slow down the game's pacing.
• Springtime for Hitler:
  • In the book ''El Tirano", the titular pair of agents are given the mission to eliminate a fascist dictator (a parody of Augusto Pinochet), but their constant failures actually stop murder attempts from other people (not to mention screwing with each other's attempts). When they are told that they have to protect the man so that he can be taken to Spain and judged for his crimes, they try, but their attempts at protecting him subsequently send him to the intensive care wing at the closest hospital.
  • When the Spanish national soccer team decides to sit out the World Cup so that Mortadelo and Filemón won't join the team to go undercover, they completely throw the first leg of the repechage match, allowing themselves to lose 18-0 against Fartovakia. When they already think that they are safe, Mortadelo is also happy to not have to attend the World Cup and prepares a cocktail to celebrate with the Fartovakian players. Unfortunately, the cocktail goes horribly wrong and the squad suffers of a collective diarrhea during the second leg, which allows a player added at the last minute to the Spanish team (and who bears a striking resemblance to former Prime Minister José María Aznar) to turn the tie around as Spain wins the second leg 19-0 and qualifies for the World Cup.
• Spy Speak: The odd code languages used by the T.I.A. Usually people around take these words literally with odd results.
  • It doesn't help that several arranged codes seem to be offensive. Requiring the agents to insult people having facial hair or a certain ideology or ethnicity. At that moment, an aggressive member of that group happens to overhear and deals with them accordingly.
    • Fun fact: In Real Life, Enrique Chicote, the only man who ever got the top prize in the Spanish version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, answered one of the last questions correctly thanks to one of these jokes that he read in the comic books.
• Staggered Zoom: Parodied in a short history where they have to resolve a case in a TV studio. Mortadelo removes the safety lock of a crane that has a TV camera mounted on it while recording a news program, and as the latter falls over the television host we see his horrified face being zoomed on the camera's screen followed by a "CRASH!" and static.
• Steal the Surroundings: A staple used to establish the competence of a thieving Big Bad. In one album, a particularly crafty gang of car hijackers routinely make their hits on manned vehicles, stealing everything except the seat and the steering wheel, without the driver noticing.
• Strange Secret Entrance: The T.I.A. has hundreds of these; either being extremely inconvenient and/or humiliating, or completely reality-defying.
• Strictly Formula: The series' run during the Bruguera years was pretty formulaic, with very few exceptions. Since stories would be published in eleven 4-page weekly installments, Ibáñez decided to make each one of those installments a short, mostly independent chapter, to make it easier to write and for readers to follow. The result is a lot of albums in which they have to find 10 McGuffins, protect 10 people, catch 10 animals/monsters, investigate 10 places or just take 10 attempts to catch the Villain of the Week, with the remaining chapter serving either as an introduction or as the finale in which they finally succeed.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Very, very common, but since this comic follows the laws of cartoon physics, they are all Non-Fatal Explosions.
  • Except for the villains. Sometimes.
• Suckiness Is Painful:
  • Crappy music and films are used as a method of torture. The title characters are tortured by their boss with an LP of Spanish blockbuster songs (apparently repeated ad infinitum). They are driven mad, and other characters talk about the cruelty.
  • Also repeated speeches by a politician. In later albums these are often replaced with whatever sensationalist TV show or politician speech Ibáñez seems to have a problem with at the moment.
• Suddenly Speaking: Chapeau el Esmirriau was pretty much The Voiceless in the album he was the Big Bad from. In the 50 anniversary special that brings back many former villains, he talks like any other character.
• Swap Teleportation: The titular machine from "La máquina del cambiazo" and its sequel "¡La maldita maquinita!" works this way: an object or person is placed inside the machine, coordinates are introduced, and whatever object or person was in those coordinates is swapped with the one in the machine.
• Symbol Swearing: Normally features Chinese symbols or images of animals.

T

• Teeth Flying: Very common as a result of punches to the face or explosions. For example, there is one scene where Filemón gets hit by a boxer off screen, and Mortadelo asks him if he lost a tooth. Filemón comes back into view, counting a handful of loose teeth: "No, I think I got all of them... 22, 23, 24..."
• Tempting Fate: In a short story, the Superintendent is checking the TIA's account book, and has just reprimanded Filemón over an incident that has cost them a lot of money. No prize for guessing what happens after this line:
  Super: This is incredible! May my mustache fall if I find an even higher note of expenses!
  • The Súper is telling the pair about their next assignment. It looks dangerous, but the Súper assures them that their lives will not be at risk. Filemón, worried, asks again whether it is true that they will be safe. "As true as this closet is made of wood!", the Súper replies, hitting a nearby closet for emphasis, "May the world fall on my head if I'm lying!". The desk globe that was on the closet falls right on his head.
  • Filemon rattles off the Long List of Amusing Injuries he has suffered in that mission, that go from getting punched in the face to being transmutated into a head walking on four legs by a biological agent and ends saying "I only miss being impaled!". Guess what happens in the following panel.
• There Was a Door:
  • Played with: The two protagonists find themselves in a cell with a steel door. Filemón starts making a hole in the wall, all the while brushing off Mortadelo, who is trying to tell him something. When, after considerable time, he finally breaks through the wall, he finds Mortadelo there waiting for him — it turns out that the bad guys forgot to lock the door...
  • In another case, a number of prisoners are discovered to have escaped through an equal number of Man Shaped Holes from the same cell. Lampshaded when Filemón comments on how stupid one would have to be to not just use the same hole for everybody... only to find out that the thought hadn't occurred to either his partner or his boss, either.
  • Yet another case was an inversion of the standard scheme: Filemón attempts to pick the lock on a door but eventually has to give up, only to find that in the meantime, Mortadelo has made a very artistic new door by "having some fun with [his] penknife".
• This Page Will Self-Destruct: The comic often plays with this trope, too, but the methods by which the message is destroyed are usually bizarre.
  • For example, one recorded message states, "This message will be destroyed within five seconds," then proceeds to play a song which one of the main characters apparently hates, causing him to destroy the record (and the player) in a fit of rage. In another, the tape player deploys a pair of legs and walks towards the edge of a table while playing the countdown. When it reaches zero, the tape player falls to the ground and breaks.
  • Other examples: having Mortadelo burn a dynamite stick attached to the note - directly referencing "Mission: Impossible" - or making them eat the note.
  • Hilariously subverted in a short story:
    Super: (from a recording on a tape) This tape recorder will not self-destruct, because it is Japanese and costs a fortune. To make the tape useless, use the system X-28. Out! (cue Mortadelo eating the tape in the next panel)
• Throw the Pin:
  • A Running Gag. Mortadelo is given a grenade, wonders about how they are used, Filemón tells him to pull the pin, count to ten and throw it, and Mortadelo ends up throwing the pin.
  • A common variation is that one of the two, after pulling the pin, attempts to throw the grenade with all his might, only to discover that the grenade is attached to his hand due to chewing gum, ultra strong glue, or whatever sticky substance he had previously held.
  • A less frequent variation has Mortadelo lighting up a different explosive, for example, a stick of dynamite, with a lighter, and after the count and throw, realize too late he has thrown the lighter.
• Title Drop: If the title of the comic is not pictured on the first page, expect it to be said in large, distinctive font by a major character soon after. (The author will sometimes appear saying that he keeps forgetting to put the title on the first page.)
• Toilet Humour: Specially in recent years.
• Too Dumb to Live: Most of the cast, with only Filemón as a very occasional exception.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Filemón in the movies. While not very bright, he is still portrayed as clearly more intelligent than Mortadelo in the comics. In the movies, his intelligence is downgraded to the point that sometimes he is even dumber than Mortadelo (the scene where Mortadelo refers to him as "The Load" clearly shows this).
• Torpedo Tits: Ofelia is capable of knocking out Mortadelo with one of her breasts.
• Toxic Waste Can Do Anything: In "La cochinadita nuclear", a foreign country plans to send to Spain a massive dump of nuclear waste, just so that they can get rid of it. The man who informs the TIA staff of these plans so that Mortadelo and Filemón are sent to foil them is seen throughout the story suffering all kinds of body mutations as a result of exposure to nuclear radiation. And during the story's intro there are two more instances: a man who works with nuclear waste asking a doctor if it is normal to have three legs, and Mr. Escombriájez, the man in charge of deciding the fate of the aforementioned nameless country's nuclear waste, being warned by a cameraman on a TV interview to not turn around so that his dorsal fins aren't seen on screen.
• Translation Matchmaking: The Big Adventure of Mortadelo and Filemón, a 2003 Spanish comedy based on the comic book series was renamed for unknown reasons in Poland to... "Liga najgłupszych dżentelmenów" (The League Of The Dumbest Gentlemen ).
• Trauma Button Ending: A mainstay of the comic. Stories frequently end with some character innocently making a remark that reminds Mortadelo and Filemón in some way to the mission that just ended, resulting in the agents skipping town after dishing out some form of Disproportionate Retribution on the poor sap.
• Trojan Horse: In 'Los Mercenarios' ("The Mercenaries"), Mortadelo and Filemón attempt this to access the titular mercenaries' camp. Needless to say, the mercenaries use the horse to practice shooting.
• Trope Telegraphing: Whenever the Instant Bandages on a character last for more than a single panel, it is guaranteed that the bandaged body part will suffer at least one more Amusing Injury.
• Trust Password:
  • They have an arbitrarily catalogued amount of them. A Running Gag is said password to be very offensive to some group or collective that happens to be within earshot. A beating ensues.
  • One particularly extreme password was reciting Don Quixote in its entirety. After unsuccessfully trying to convince the guard on the other side of the door to skip the password for once, Filemón just starts reciting aloud the whole book, which he proves to know by heart. Time passes, it rains, Filemón grows a beard, and right before he is done reciting the book, the door collapses. When Mortadelo and Filemón enter the building while shaving their beards, they notice that the guard has died of old age.
• Tsundere: Miss Ofelia. When her co-workers aren't being morons (read: very rarely), she is quite sweet to them (deredere).

U

• Ultimate Job Security: The protagonists are never fired from the TIA, no matter how they screw up things. Explained in-story with the two incompetent agents being apparently the most competent agents that T.I.A. has, or even the bravest ones. One story has the Super fed up with the duo's refusal to accept a mission, so he asks for a volunteer agent to replace them. The building is nearly evacuated within seconds, as every other agent runs away in panic.
• Unexplained Recovery: In the 50º anniversary album a lot of previously deceased enemies appear with little or no explanation.

V

• Vague Age: The actual age of the characters is never mentioned, but most of them seem to be somewhere between their late 30s and early 40s.
  • Though in a different 50º Aniversary Album most characters are implied to be, well, 50 or more and have several (totally disproportionate for their age) health issues, which guide the plot/jokes. It is Just for Fun though, and promptly forgotten in the next issue.
• Villain Of The Week: The plot of a sizable amount of the comic books hovers around capturing a criminal or gang of criminals who are rarely seen again. In part, explained by the villains dying or retiring at the end of the story. In one story, the captured villain has blackmail information on high-ranking government politicians, so he is sentenced to "exile" on a Pacific island, actually living in luxury with his concubines.

W

• Walking Disaster Area: Mortadelo and Filemón, being anywhere near them is very bad for your health. And this is in-universe. A lot of people recognize Mortadelo & Filemón as bad news and some even have attempted suicide before having to deal with them.
  • In-story, the duo seem to have no secret identities. A number of their past crimes and the disasters which they have personally caused have been covered by the press, along with their real names and their photographs. Their are known by reputation even by people they have never met.
• Walking Techbane: In "Los invasores", after Mortadelo and Filemón discover the alien which they have been fighting during the chapter is actually a robot, Mortadelo tells Filemón to just touch it, to invoke this trope with Filemón and destroy the robot. He succeeds.
• Walk into Mordor: In "El Antídoto" ("The Antidote"), the titular characters must enter the country of Bestiolandia ("Beastland") to take a sample of a plant that only grows there. Notably, said country is very hostile to foreigners, and has gained a reputation of "nobody ever comes back". The protagonist, during the whole story, constantly face both the wild fauna (which includes giant snakes, man-eating ants and piranhas) and the aggresive guards.
• Wet Cement Gag: Happens several times. For instance, on "La máquina del cambiazo", the titular characters are trying to run away so the Superintendent won't force them to enter the titular machine. During the escape, Filemón is thrown by Mortadelo over the wooden wall that marks the limit of a construction, and falls right into a pit of wet cement. The next thing we see is Mortadelo using a giant drill to try and get him out.
• What the Fu Are You Doing?: In "Los superpoderes", Mortadelo tries to show off his karate skills in front of the Super:
  Mortadelo: Watch those five bricks, watch them! IAIAAAAAAK!
  [Mortadelo hits a karate chop on the pile of bricks, to no apparent effect]
  Mortadelo: That's it! All five broken!
  Super: Broken? They don't even look bruised to me...
  Mortadelo: [showing his badly injured hand] I mean all five fingers! Ow! I don't have a healthy bone left in them!
• Where It All Began: In many stories where the heroes have to travel across the city or the world, the last chapter takes place on the T.I.A. headquarters, where they were assigned their mission.
• Who Watches the Watchmen?: A short story has the agents investigating allegations of some Corrupt Cops taking bribes from The Mafia.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: A running gag in the album "El ascenso" is that Mort and Phil do all the work to catch criminals that by a series of Contrived Coincidences always end up falling in the hands of rival agent Migájez, who then takes all the credit.
• Women Drivers:
  • Exploited by Mortadelo. One trick he has pulled once or twice to shake off pursuers in a car chase consists in disguising himself as a woman, then using blinkers properly.
  • "¡El carnet al punto!" shows that Ofelia is a terrible driver, going so far off the road that she ends up driving on the city roofs.
  • In "¡El cocherito leré!"'s last episode, Ofelia is tasked with driving the organization's entry to the big race. When the agents doubt she can drive at all, Ofelia proudly produces her license. An alarmed Mortadelo looks at the license and notices: "Yesterday! She was given her license yesterday!". She was also named the driving school's honorary daughter, because they were able to pay for large reforms with her payments, and her instructor decided to join a monk order out of stress.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Kamikaze Regúlez, the Big Bad of the story that bears his name. A Mad Bomber Tragic Villain who wants to blow himself up... and take other people down with him.
• Wrong Parachute Gag: Very likely to happen at the end of any segment involving planes.

Y

• Yank the Dog's Chain: Sometimes Mortadelo and Filemón seem to have successfully carried out a mission before some mistake comes back to foil them.
  • In the mines of King Salmeron animated short, just as the agents blow up a cave and are about to get rich by recollecting all the diamonds that were dispersed near them, the head animator became infuriated by this ending due to thinking it isn't "commercial enough" and decides to change the ending to one where the duo ends up being cooked alive by cannibals, much to their horror.
  • In a short story, the agents try to gather evidence of police officers accepting bribes from the mafia. Unfortunately, Mortadelo's dubious timing when taking the pictures results in a judge issuing a search warrant against Filemón, whom he gives a Longer-Than-Life Sentence for attacking an officer, coercing a citizen with fraudulent use of a uniform, and assaulting another officer at knife-point.
  • In "¡El carnet al punto!", they are gathering evidence against corrupt policemen, and Filemón repeatedly bribes agents who approach them to fine them while Mortadelo records everything. Too bad that what Mortadelo thought was a recorder turns out to be an alarm clock.
  • In one story, the main duo competes with other T.I.A. agents for promotion to a directorial position that would come with a large increase in their salaries. After they win the desired promotion, it is revealed that the department which they were supposed to head is suffering major budget cuts and that their salaries are consequently reduced. They don't even have enough money to buy food.
  • In a story taking place in Hong Kong, the agents have caused a diplomatic incident between various world leaders and there is a threat of war. But the duo have apparently managed to keep their role in the incident secret, and they seem to suffer no consequences. Until Fidel Castro sends them medals for apparent services to Cuba (one of the few countries benefiting from the incident), and the act convinces the Super that they are double agents. They end the story as wanted men.
• You Just Ruined the Shot: During Mortadelo and Filemón's journey through the history of cinema in "¡Silencio, se rueda!", they wander into the set of Gone with the Wind and the director belittles them for disrupting the "I shall never go hungry again!" scene.

---