Ready Jet Go / Tropes A to I

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#-A

• 30 Minutes, or It's Free!: In "How Come the Moon Changes Shape?", Carrot orders a pizza and the joint tells him that it will be delivered in less than 30 minutes or they'll cheerfully refund his "Earth money".
• Abhorrent Admirer: Mindy was one towards Mitchell at first, as she constantly sneaks up on him, which he finds uncomfortable. However, later on, he takes a genuine liking towards her and they become good friends.
• Aborted Arc: In "So Many Moons", Mindy mentions that her parents are thinking about having another baby. This could have set up an arc about Mindy preparing to be a big sister, but this was subsequently dropped and forgotten about in later episodes.
• Accent Interest: In the episode "Kid-Kart Derby", Mr. Peterson takes note of Jet's apparent Midwest accent. Jet says that Bortron is in the middle of their spiral arm of the galaxy, so midwest was accurate. Luckily, Mr. Peterson avoids finding out that Jet is an alien by assuming that Bortron is somewhere in Iowa.
• Accidental Pun: Carrot and Celery think their names are "Earth" names. They were probably going for Garrett and Sally, respectively. Uncle Zucchini was most likely going for Zachary. Auntie Eggplant was likely going for either Agatha or Edna.
• The Ace:
  • Jet. He can stretch his body, is really tall, smart, and the leader of his gang.
  • Sunspot is scarily good at everything. He can even pull objects from Hammerspace.
• Ace Pilot: Celery. She is great at piloting the flying saucer, avoiding asteroids and other threats with ease. In fact, Carrot mentions in "How Come the Moon Changes Shape?" that Celery has been voted the best driver (well, technically pilot, but the Bortronians tend to treat saucers like cars) in the Bortron system for three years in a row.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Not a Sound", Sean already knows that there is no sound in space, yet Jet and Sydney are convinced that there is sound in space. Sean uses this as an opportunity to look smart and rub the fact that they're wrong in Jet and Sydney's faces.
• Acting for Two: Several In-Universe examples.
  • In "Lone Star", Sydney tells the other kids about the legend of Lone Star, and they imagine themselves as people in the story. Sydney plays both one of the townspeople and the town's only science teacher.
  • In "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Mindy plays both the Head Elf and the Head Scientist in the Christmas pageant.
  • In "A Star is Born", Jet plays both hydrogen and helium in the kids' movie about the formation of a star.
• Action Girl:
  • Commander Cressida, Sydney's favorite comic book character, has competed in solar-system showdowns and drilled into the center of the Earth.
  • Sydney herself can slip into this territory at times, most notably in "Back to Bortron 7," where she uses parkour to evade Eggplant and save the presentation.
• Action Mom: Celery. Besides being an Ace Pilot, she has super strength as revealed in "A Hammer and a Feather", and is generally the most action-y of the Propulsion family.
• Acrofatic:
  • Despite Sean's weight, he was able to do a perfect somersault over Jet's aunt, Eggplant in "Back to Bortron 7".
  • It's also worth mentioning that in "What Goes Up..." he could run at almost the same speed as super-athletic Jet.
• Adaptation Distillation: The books based on some of the show's episodes (like "Night of a Bazillion Stars" and "From Pluto With Love") remove some scenes and lines to make them shorter.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • "Commander Cressida Begins" mostly revolves around Sydney and Mindy. Jet and Sean do appear, but they have non-speaking cameos.
  • "Fact Or Fiction?" gives Lillian the most focus.
  • Sunspot is the focus of "Sunspot's Sunspot".
• Ad-Break Double-Take: A variant occurs in TV broadcasts of the two-parter, "Mindy Turns Five".^note PBS doesn't have commercials, so live-action segments with Astronomer Amy Mainzer are used to fill the timeslot on this show At the end of Part One, Mindy says "This is one small step for Mindy, and one giant leap for Stuffy Bear!" and she steps on the camera. At the beginning of Part Two, Mindy says it again and her stepping on the camera is accompanied with puff effects and the other kids cheering.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: In "Earth Camping", Carrot and Jet go through their packing list, which consists of pickle juice, a ping pong paddle, and a pocket protector. It turns out, that their "packing list" was the "P" section of the dictionary!
• Adjective Noun Fred: The Korean dub is titled Space Explorer Jet. The Chinese dub is Space Boy Jet GO!
• Adorably Precocious Child: All of the kids are exceptionally intelligent for their age, thanks to their parents being astronomers (or in Jet's case, intergalactic travel writers). Mitchell, for example, is about Mindy's age and can make an exact copy of Saturn V. Dr. Bergs compliments Jet's knowledge of space in "Visit to Mom's Office." They also act quite responsible, though they still do have their immature moments.
• Advanced Tech 2000: Face 9000 is a computer who answers the kids' questions. He also has a brother named Face 9001.
• Aerith and Bob: We have Mindy, Sean, Sydney, and then there's Jet. It's a relatively rare Earth name, but it is still normal compared to family member names such as Carrot and Celery.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
  • Dr. Rafferty gives one to Sean in "Face on the Fritz".
  • Sunspot headpats Sean after pinching him in "Space Junk".
  • Dr. Bergs gives one to Mindy in "Solar System Bake Off".
• Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: Nose-booping is a common way the characters show affection. The Propulsions all have Gag Noses that squeak or honk when booped. Celery does this to Carrot in "How Come the Moon Changes Shape?" and Sunspot does this to Jet in "Mindy's Mystery." Jet also boops Sydney's nose during the "That's How We Roll On Bortron 7" song in "Back to Bortron 7." In "Earth, Wind, and Flyer," Jet's saucer has a nose-booping function of all things, and it boops Sean's nose.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • As of the episode "Constellation Prize", Sean refers to his mother as "Dr. Mom," since he's so proud of her for being a scientist.
  • Numerous times in Season Two, Jet calls Sean "Sean-zo".
• Ageless Birthday Episode: Mindy has her birthday in "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", but it is unspecified what age she became. However, Mindy was 4 up until Season 2.
• Agent Mulder:
  • Mindy and Lillian, but especially Mindy. They believe that witches, ghosts, and the like are real as shown in "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!".
  • Taken further in "Fact Or Fiction?", where they both believe that clouds are made out of cotton candy, until they are proven wrong. Jet also joins in on this.
• Agent Scully:
  • Mitchell, on the other hand, doubts that Halloween is magical, until he is proven wrong at the end of "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!".
  • In "Fact Or Fiction?", Sean and Sydney don't believe that clouds are made of cotton candy. Obviously they're right, but Jet, Lillian, and Mindy don't believe them. Luckily, Sean and Sydney are proven right by the DSA scientists.
• Agony of the Feet: In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", Bergs hurts his foot after Beep runs over it.
• Air Quotes: In "Kid-Kart Derby", Jet makes air quotes when saying the word "winning".
• Alien Among Us: The whole premise of the show is that the Propulsions are aliens from the planet Bortron 7 who are living on Earth to study its customs, but must keep their alien identity a secret.
• Alien Animals: Sunspot is kind of a mix of a rabbit, kangaroo, and raccoon. He's a "Bortronian mutt," as said by Jet in "Visit to Mom's Office."
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Carrot grows to love Earthie cooking, even watching an Earthie cooking show in "What's a Satellite?".
• Aliens Love Human Food: To say that Jet loves human food is an understatement. He's obsessed with it, especially when it comes to donuts and pies.
• An Alien Named "Bob": Downplayed with Jet, as his name is pretty rare, but he gave himself an "Earthie" name after he and his family moved from Bortron 7 to Earth. His other family members named themselves after vegetables (Carrot, Celery, etc).
• Aliens Steal Cable: "How We Found Your Sun" reveals that the Propulsions discovered Earth by picking up a primitive radio signal playing a 1950s rock and roll song called "Jet Propulsion", which they found catchy. This is also how our young hero Jet Propulsion got his "Earth" name.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Jet's parents are intergalactic travel writers from the planet Bortron 7. They came to Earth to study it and write reports on it. In "Back to Bortron 7", they state that their number one rule is "don't freak out the locals", which basically means that they can't expose their alien identity to humans or tamper with Earth in any way. Jet struggles to keep his alien identity a secret throughout the series, and it fuels the drama and comedy of several episodes. Heck, the official PBS description of Carrot and Celery even calls the rule the Prime Directive.
• All-CGI Cartoon: The show is animated in CGI.
• Alliterative Name: Mindy Melendez and Sydney Skelley.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Lampshaded within the show. Sunspot, an alien animal, sometimes behaves like a dog, and people often confuse him for one.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: In "Every Day Is Earth Day", Sean points out that deserts have cacti in them.
• All-Loving Hero: Jet, being new to Earth, loves everything about it, and is nice to everyone, even Mitchell, who sometimes acts like a jerk to him and wants to find out if he's an alien.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Mindy is affectionate towards Mitchell, often sneaking up on him and randomly saying 'hi' to him, but he doesn't return the feeling. He does show signs of liking her back in later episodes, however.
• All of the Other Reindeer: In "Visit to Mom's Office", when Jet is telling Dr. Rafferty, that he is an alien, she says that she felt like an alien when she was a kid, which implies that she was teased as a kid.
• All Work vs. All Play: Whenever the kids need to solve a problem, Sean wants to use the Scientific Method and work to get the problem solved, while Jet wants to play around and deliberately make mistakes in order to solve the problem.
• Aliens Speaking English: The Bortronians can speak English perfectly.
• The Aloner: In "Sean's Year in Space", Sean tries to live in the treehouse for a full year all by himself, but eventually comes down for dinner.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot: In "A Star is Born", Sydney and the gang create a Commander Cressida fan-film about the birth of a star, complete with cardboard props.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In "Project Pluto", Dr. Rafferty unintentionally embarrasses Sean by mentioning that when he was four, he insisted on carrying a purple hippo plush everywhere.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: It seems like any kid who isn't named Jet Propulsion only has one parent. Sean's dad, Mitchell's mom, Sydney's dad, and both of Mindy's parents are mysteriously absent. However, Mitchell's mom was heard talking to him in "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", and Mindy's mom can be heard calling to her in several episode.
• Ambiguously Bi: Jet always shows signs of being attracted to both Sean (a male) and Sydney (a female). While he was merely ambiguous throughout the show itself, Craig Bartlett stated that Jet was bi after the show ended.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Jet's cousin Zerk, who bats his eyes at Sean and calls him "adorable".
  • Sean himself can also apply, due to the amount of Ship Tease he has with Jet, especially in Season 2. He does have rare moments with Sydney, and did try to impress a background girl in "Mindy's Meteorite Stand", but this could be chalked up to overcompensation. Also, Sean loves it when Jet calls him "Sean-zo", but gets annoyed with the very female Mindy when she calls him that in "Mindy's Bedtime".
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • In "You Can Call Me Albedo", it is unknown why Mitchell made Cody wear the black sweater in the first place.
  • The identity of Mindy's mother. Apparently, her mother as seen in "Jet Can't Sleep" is Dr. Rafferty and Dr. Bergs' boss from "My Fair Jet". However, when Mindy's mother is calling for her offscreen, she is voiced by Meg Roe. The boss was voiced by Ashleigh Ball. It is unknown if they are the same person or the animators used an already existing character model for Mindy's mom.
  • Despite what the title of "Sean Has A Cold" implies, he seems to be fine other than a slight cough.
  • In "One Small Step", the kids land their saucer in Little Dipper Lake, where Mitchell is rowing a boat. When the kids are rescued by Mitchell, Jet explains that they built a super saucer and went to the moon. Later, Mitchell is invited to the kids' slumber party, where everyone, including Mitchell, sings about how hard it is to get back to Earth from space. It's really made unclear if Mitchell knows that the Propulsions are aliens or not.
• American Gothic Couple: In the episode "The Mindysphere", Sunspot shows a picture^note The picture was made for the show by Etch-a-Sketch master Christoph Brown on his tablet of Carrot and Celery posing as the American Gothic couple, with Carrot holding a rake instead of a pitchfork.
• Amusing Alien: The Propulsions provide a lot of comedy for the show with their alien antics. They talk in a rather eccentric English (for example, they say "way the by" instead of "by the way"), cook odd dishes such as deep-fried lollipops, think that Valentine's Day decorations are scary enough to put in a haunted house. Overall, they are just very wacky.
• Anachronism Stew: Lampshaded during the planetarium show, which includes Pluto as a planet, after it had been demoted, something Sydney points out.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Sometimes, the Amy Mainzer segments reiterate what was taught in the episode. For example, the segment that aired after "Total Eclipse of the Sunspot" also talks about eclipses.
• Animal Athlete Loophole: In "Mini-Golf at the DSA", Sunspot helps Mindy score the hole-in-one needed for the kids' team to win. Bergs thinks that they might be cheating, but Mr. Peterson allows it since there's no rule in the rulebook about animal assists.
• Animal Motif: Mindy seems to have a bear motif going on. She wears a bear hat, and she wears a different bear hat when she goes to sleep. She has a teddy bear named Stuffy Bear, who she dresses up as for Halloween. And her space helmet has bear ears on it.
• Animals Fear Neutering: In "Castaway Carrot", Celery says "let's fix this puppy" (referring to the saucer) and Sunspot screams in terror. Jet reassures him that Sunspot isn't going to be 'fixed' and the 'puppy' in question is the saucer. Due to Bizarre Alien Biology and Barbie Doll Anatomy, it's unknown if Bortronian pets even need neutering, but the context suggests that they do and Sunspot is afraid of it.
• Animation Bump: .
  • The show is animated by multiple different studios, with some episodes looking better than others. Here's a handy guide to the studios and their animation:
  • Hot and Sour Animation animated the early episodes of Season 1, from "Tour of the Solar System" to "What Goes Up...". They're generally considered to have the weakest animation, with overly shiny, somewhat unfinished textures.
  • Digitales Studios takes over for the next portion of Season 1, from "Solar System Bake-Off!" to "Sunday Drive". Their episodes have less shiny animation, full textures, and an overall soft feel. The colors can be a bit muted at times. The biggest instance of Animation Bump in the show has to be the show-stopping Milky Way song in "A Visit to the Planetarium," which was animated by them.
  • Enchanting Studio Limited takes over for the rest of Season 1 and most of Season 2. They have the strongest animation overall, with stunning attention to detail, prominent colors, and bouncy, fluid movement.
• Animation Evolution: The series has pretty inconsistent animation due to being bounced around several different studios around the world. The first 15 episodes were animated by Hot and Sour, and their episodes have overly shiny, somewhat unfinished textures. From that point on, Digitales took over (after animating a few random episodes during the Hot and Sour era), resulting in more polished textures, vibrant colors, and bouncy movements. After that, Enchanting Studios Limited took over and had THE best animation in the show, with crisp character models and attention to detail.
• Animesque: The characters' huge, shiny eyes and spiky hair on some of them could bring anime to mind. Also, the comic-book style transitions and montages resemble anime just a little bit.
• Anti-Hero: Mitchell can be sarcastic, condescending, and harsh towards the group, but he has a few Pet the Dog moments that show that he can be nice. The Christmas Episode pretty much reveals that he's a lonely kid who just wants to have friends.
• Appointment Television: In "What's a Satellite?", Sydney is very anxious when the satellite TV service stops working because she doesn't want to miss the new episode of Commander Cressida. Mr. Peterson is also frustrated when his sports game fizzles out. Carrot isn't that bothered by his cooking show being interrupted though, just very, very confused.
• Arc Words:
  • "Oh I'm sure, I'm sure-sure" is repeated multiple times throughout "Mindy's Mystery".
  • Whenever Mitchell fails to expose Jet's alien identity, and his parents tell him that he has a "great imagination", Mitchell always tells them that he has no imagination. He even says this to his mom in "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", his first appearance. However, in "Moon Face", he finally sees a face on the moon and realizes that he does have an imagination after all. "Moon Face" is also Mitchell's final appearance in a regular episode. In his final appearance overall, the One Small Step special, he says that Jet has "quite an imagination".
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Happens in a few episodes between Jet and one other person. For example, in "Which Moon is Best?" Jet points out that there are many other moons besides Earth's moon. Sydney then asks "Jet, are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" Jet responds "That I'd love a piece of pie right now?"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • In "Earth Camping", Mr. Peterson, Jet, Mitchell, and Carrot get lost in the middle of the woods on their camping trip. Carrot reveals that he has been marking their trail with Mitchell's jellybeans, but then a nearby squirrel comes and eats up the jellybeans that Carrot had laid.
  Mitchell: Hey, that squirrel took all my jellybeans!
  Jet: This is bad. He's eating our trail markers back to camp!
  Carrot: Plus, his teeth are gonna be just awful if he doesn't brush.
  • In "Eye in the Sky", after it is discovered that it will indeed rain on the night of the Space Scouts' sleepout.
  Mitchell: Bad news for Sean's sleepout, but good news for plants and flowers, and umbrella salespeople!
• Artificial Gravity: The Anti-Gravity Fluxinator takes away gravity from the other saucers and adds it to Eggplant's saucer in "Asteroid Belt Space Race".
• Art Shift:
  • In several parts of "Diggin' Earth", Sydney imagines Commander Cressida and her crew digging to the center of the Earth, in a 2D style.
  • Several times in the show, transitions and montages are drawn in a comic book art style, such as in "Sean Has a Cold", "The Mindysphere", "Jet Cooks Dinner", "Detective Mindy", "Treehouse Observatory", "The Tide is High", and "Sean's Robotic Arm".
• Ascended Extra:
  • Dr. Skelley, Sydney's mom. She was only ever mentioned by Sydney during some episodes of season 1, and appears in the very last episode of said season, but season 2 gives her a lot more screentime and focus.
  • Lillian only appeared in one episode of season 1, and another two as cameos. Season 2 bumps her from minor character status to recurring character status.
• Asian Airhead: Lillian is Chinese-American according to Word of God, and is rather absentminded. In "The Grandest Canyon" she doesn't know what "perspective" means, and in "Mindy Turns Five", she outright tells Mindy what she got her for her birthday instead of keeping it a surprise like she said she would. In "Fact or Fiction?" she believed that clouds were made of cotton candy.
• Ate It All: Several instances. For example, Sunspot eats all of Sean's peanut butter sandwiches in "Sean's Year in Space", and the entire pizza in "Satellite Selfie". In "Earth Camping", Cody eats all of the Petersons' camping snacks.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • In "The Plant From Bortron 7", Jet's Bortronian plant becomes enormous after it grows under the light of the Sun. It also becomes a monstrous Godzilla-like creature.
  • At the end of "Jet Shrinks the Kids", Mindy uses the shrink ray in reverse to become a giant, and startles Mitchell in the process.

B

• The Baby of the Bunch: 4 year old Mindy to the other kids, who are about 10 years old. She is the youngest of the group, but is still treated as an equal. However, Mindy being 4 means she can't go to space with the older kids just yet. Eventually, she turns 5 and gets to go with them in Season 2.
• Babysitting Episode: In "Uncle Zucchini Babysits", Uncle Zucchini looks after Jet and his friends when Jet's parents are busy. The kids end up teaching him about the three states of matter.
• Badass Adorable: Sean, Sydney, and Jet are innocent, young, and cute, but they take a level in badass in "Back to Bortron 7." They race towards Jet's parents' intergalactic travel writers meeting, and Sean actually does a perfect somersault over Jet's aunt. We also have Mindy, a 4 year old that in one episode, reveals that she takes jiu-jitsu lessons.
• Badass Crew: Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Sunspot, and Face 9000 (with some assistance from Zerk and Jet 2) all prove to be this in "Back to Bortron 7", where they combine their efforts to save Carrot and Celery's presentation. Highlights include Zerk chauffeuring them to the headquarters in record time, Jet, Sean, and Sydney doing acrobatic stunts to get past Eggplant, Sunspot and Face 9000 saving the PowerCube, and Mindy and Jet 2 unintentionally causing an eclipse which distracts the townspeople from noticing that the Propulsion house is gone.
• Bad "Bad Acting": During the rehearsal of the pageant in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Mindy performs her lines extremely woodenly.
• Baffled by Own Biology: In "Endless Summer", Carrot catches a cold. As an alien who isn't used to human illnesses, he wonders why he keeps having "face explosions" (read: sneezing strongly enough to send himself flying). He also finds it strange that it's called a cold since he's feeling hot.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The episode "Mindy in Space" is about the kids pretending to take Mindy to space, complete with Mindy singing the take-off song.
  • The episode "Mindy and Carrot Bake" is about Mindy and Carrot getting lost in outer space.
  • In "Treasure Map", when Mitchell encounters the treasure chest, he is confused by its contents...and then declares that he loves it and does a dorky Happy Dance.
  • In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", the scientists hear footsteps approaching the door, and think it's Ellen. It turns out to just be the kids.
  • In "Mars Rock for Mom", when Sean shows his mom the rock he found, Dr. Rafferty comments that she knows where it came from. At first, Sean is worried that she knows that it came from Mars, but Dr. Rafferty says that she knows that it came from Sean.
• Balloonacy:
  • In "Every Day Is Earth Day", Sunspot is able to puff up like a balloon, and Jet flies away while holding on to him.
  • In "My Fair Jet", the DSA weather balloon gets away in some nasty weather. Sean tries to grab it, but it ends up carrying it with him.
• Banana Peel: Sunspot slips on a banana peel that Jet left lying around in "Mars Rock For Mom".
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Sean, Sydney, and Mindy can breathe in space, even without spacesuits with oxygen tanks.
• Beach Bury: A photo on Sunspot's tablet from "Endless Summer" shows Jet being buried in the sand, and in the comic-book montage in "The Tide is High", Mindy is shown with a sand mermaid tail.
• Beach Episode: "The Tide is High", where the kids go to the beach and try to figure out why the ocean looks different from when they last went there.
• Bearer of Bad News:
  • In "Mindy's Meteorite Stand", Dr. Rafferty breaks the unfortunate news to Mindy that that her rock isn't really a meteorite, since it has quartz in it.
  • In "Project Pluto", Jet loses to Sean and Sydney in a game of "not it" and has to tell Mindy that Pluto is no longer a planet. However, he gets off easy because when he tries to tell her, she tells Jet that she already knew.
  • In "Back to Bortron 7", Eggplant tells Carrot and Celery that after they do their presentation, they're done with Earth. They respond appropriately.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Sean doesn't get to sing much outside of rhythmically talking during song numbers, but when he does sing, everyone acknowledges that he's got talent. Sean apparently gets this from Singing in the Shower. Jet spends a good chunk of "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace" gushing over Sean's beautiful singing voice.
• Becoming the Mask: Implied. As shown in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Mitchell fakes his jerk attitude to hide his loneliness and social insecurity. Even after he befriends the other kids in this episode, he still acts like a jerkass in some episodes of season 2, although he's mellowed out a lot more. Since he is shown acting rude towards the other kids in many episodes of season 1, it is implied that he's been hiding behind his jerk mask for so long, that it's become a part of his personality, and its something that he can't shake off, at least for the time being.
• Befriending the Enemy: Later on, the main characters befriend Mitchell, a jerk who had tried to expose Jet's alien identity multiple times throughout the series. Mitchell becomes kinder as a result.
• Benevolent Boss: As revealed in "Back to Bortron 7", Carrot and Celery's boss is one of the nicest aliens in the Bortron system. Also, Dr. Rafferty's boss in "My Fair Jet" praises Jet for livening up the Open House.
• Berserk Button: Mitchell has zero tolerance for being snuck up on. Every time this happens, he chews out whoever did it. Jet and Mindy both learned this the hard way.
• Be Yourself: Played for Drama in the episode "My Fair Jet". Jet wants to go to the DSA Open House with Sean and Sydney, but Sean and Sydney will only let him go if he behaves like a regular Earth kid. He can't say he's from Bortron 7, he can't use his "tool-armed backpack thingy" (which doubles as a jetpack), and he can't sing. However, at the Open House, the DSA weather balloon flies away in some bad weather, carrying Sean along with it. So, Sydney convinces Jet to be himself, so he can save Sean. He ends up rescuing Sean with his jetpack, and sings a song about how he is Bortronian. Pretty much, if Jet wasn't himself, Sean probably would've been killed.
• Big Ball of Violence: In "Uncle Zucchini Babysits", Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Uncle Zucchini, and Moonbeam form one of these while trying to grab Sunspot so they can give him a bath.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Eggplant, Jet's aunt, is an attractive women with a large build.
• Big Brother Bully: More like Little Brother Bully. In "A Kid's Guide to Mars", Face's younger brother, Face 9001, is mean to him, argues with him, and always try to show off, to the point of the original Face calling "MOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!" at least two times.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In "Back to Bortron 7", just as Celery and Carrot are about to fail their presentation, Jet, Sydney, Zerk, Sean, and Sunspot save the day by putting on a musical number about how Earth is full of water, which convinces Carrot and Celery's boss to let them stay on Earth for another season. Actually, Zerk didn't even perform in the musical number, but that didn't stop him from bragging about how it was supposedly his idea.
  • In "One Small Step", Sydney and Jet 2 get their moment when they fix the super saucer together, allowing the gang to head back home. Mitchell also gets his moment when he saves the kids from drowning in the lake.
• Big Eater:
  • Jet is this. It seems that every few episodes, he develops a new food interest, whether it be pie or sushi. He even listed eating as one of his favorite things in "Treehouse Observatory". Despite this, he is still very skinny.
  • Sean is this to a smaller extent. In "Sean's Year in Space", he tries to stay in the treehouse for a year but comes down when he smells pot roast. Also, it is revealed in "Whole Lotta Shakin'" that he stress-eats, and in "Project Pluto", he said that the Propulsions usually have snacks when the kids go to ask Carrot a question about Pluto, which earned him a funny look from Sydney.
  • Sunspot also loves eating. Sunspot eats all of Sean's peanut butter sandwiches in "Sean's Year in Space", and scarfed down an entire pizza pie in "Satellite Selfie". He even ate an entire sub sandwich in "Mindy in Space".
• The Big Guy: Jet is the tallest of all the children, as well as super athletic.
• Big "NO!":
  • Zerk screams "NOOOOOOOOO!" at the end of "Whole Lotta Shakin'" after Jet throws his smartwatch away, which means Zerk can no longer bother Jet.
  • Sean delivers one in "Sean's Robotic Arm" when his Neil Armstrong action figure falls into a hole.
• The Big Race:
  • In "Kid-Kart Derby", Jet races against Mitchell in the annual Boxwood Terrace Kids' Soapbox Derby.
  • The sequel episode "Racing on Sunshine" is essentially the same plot, but Sydney, Sean, and Mindy are involved, and in this episode, the kids have to design solar-powered karts.
  • The episode "Space Race" has Celery racing against her brother Zucchini.
  • The sequel episode "Asteroid Belt Space Race" has Celery and the kids racing against both Zucchini and Eggplant & Zerk.
• Big "YES!": In "Potatoes on Mars", when Jet suggests that they go to Mars, Sydney and Mindy shout "YES!"
• Bilingual Bonus: In Norway, the show is called Jet fra Bortom, which literally translates to Jet from Beyond. "Bortom" sounds exactly like "Bortron", the star system that Jet and his family are from. So they really are from beyond.
• Binary Suns: In "My Three Suns", the gang visits Proxima B, an exoplanet that has three suns.
• Binocular Shot: Binocular shots are used usually when Mitchell is spying on the gang.
• Birthday Episode:
  • "Mindy's Moon Bounce House" features Mindy's ageless birthday.
  • "Earthday Birthday", even though it is about the anniversary that Jet landed on Earth, and not an actual birthday.
  • In "Mindy Turns Five," Mindy celebrates her fifth birthday.
  • "Moon Circus" celebrates Carrot's 250th birthday in Bortronian years, which would be around 42 in Earth years.
• Bizarre Alien Locomotion: Sunspot moves underwater by whirling his striped tail like a propeller.
• Bizarre Beverage Use: In "Uncle Zucchini Babysits", it's mentioned that Bortronians bathe their pets in milkshakes.
• Black Bead Eyes: Sunspot and Moonbeam both have these eyes.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: In "Pet Sounds", Sydney says that all Cody hears is "Blah blah blah, food, blah blah blah."
• Bland-Name Product: Jet mentions wanting to play Bortropoly when he and his parents get home in "Castaway Carrot".
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The four main DSA scientists: blonde (Dr. Bergs), brunette (Mr. Peterson and Dr. Skelley), and redhead (Dr. Rafferty).
• Blowing a Raspberry: In "Ain't No Mars Mountain High Enough", Sunspot blows a raspberry at Sydney because he wants to hike alone and doesn't want to team up with the others.
• Blue Is Calm:
  • Jet and his parents all wear blue. While they are usually peppy and cheerful, they are rarely angry and stay calm when others get frustrated. The one exception to this was when Zerk provoked Jet in "Whole Lotta Shakin'".
  • Dr. Skelley's entire outfit is varying shades of blue, and she is the calmest and most level-headed of the DSA scientists (Bergs is a coffee addict, Rafferty is a worrier, and Mr. Peterson is....Mr. Peterson).
• Blue Is Heroic: Jet and his (immediate) family are heroes, and they wear blue space-suits.
• Boring Vacation Slideshow: In the episode "The Grandest Canyon", the Petersons get back from their vacation in Arizona and force the Propulsions to watch a slideshow of their trip to the Grand Canyon. It includes an embarrassing photo of Mr. Peterson and Mitchell wearing matching canyon hats, causing Mitchell to pout in the photo. All it does is leave Jet and Carrot perplexed as to what the Grand Canyon is.
• Botanical Abomination: The titular plant from "The Plant From Bortron 7" becomes this after it grows in the sun's light.
• Book Ends:
  • The season 1 premiere, "Tour of the Solar System", starts off in Jet's backyard. The season 1 finale, "Commander Mom", ends in Jet's backyard.
  • In "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", Mitchell's first appearance, he tells his mom that he saw Mindy floating, but she doesn't believe him and says that he has a "wonderful imagination", and Mitchell protests that he has no imagination. In his final appearance in a regular episode, "Moon Face", Mitchell sees a face on the moon and realizes he does have an imagination after all.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In the Uzbek dub, they censor any and all kissing scenes because Moral Guardians in Uzbekistan think that kissing in kids' shows is inappropriate. (This may have to do with Uzbekistan being a majority Islam country; the Islam religion has specific rules on romance.)
  • Since Halloween and Valentine's Day are illegal in Uzbekistan, they skipped "Jet's First Halloween" and "From Pluto With Love", and heavily censored "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!".
• Brain Freeze: Sunspot gets one in the beginning of "Mindy's Ice Rink" after he eats a whole popsicle in one gulp.
• Brainy Brunette:
  • Sean and his mom are both know a lot about science, and they both have brown hair. Although Dr. Rafferty's hair is a bit reddish.
  • Mitchell is an Adorably Precocious Child who has brown hair underneath his hat. His father, Mr. Peterson, also has brown hair, and happens to be a DSA scientist.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Happens in "Commander Cressida Begins".
  Mindy: I guess, a planet. No, a moon. No, a planet with a moon?
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • In "Mindy's Weather Report", Mindy is watching TV and comes across a channel which is showing Dinosaur Train, one of Craig Bartlett's shows.
    • In the same episode, we get these meta lines, which are referencing how bland Mitchell was as a character at that point (He eventually got some Character Development):
    Mitchell: Dad, this sandbag is kind of heavy.
    Mr. Peterson: That’s okay, son. Mine is too. Builds character.
    Mitchell: I think my character’s big enough.
  • In "Tiny Blue Dot", Sydney says "Somehow, this day just turned into a space-travel musical!" referencing how the episode is a Musical Episode.
  • In "Back to Bortron 7", Sean says "There's not a moment to lose!" and "Come on Zerk! Back to the house, and step on it!". Both times, he looks directly at the viewer and says "I've always wanted to say that".
  • In "A Star is Born", Sunspot shows some crude drawings on his tablet. Those drawings are the storyboards for the episode,
  • This is probably the most meta moment that the show has to offer, courtesy of the episode "Commander Mom"
    Dr. Amy Skelley: Well, it's about time you all came to see me, after all those times you've been by to see Sean's mom in the other building.
  • There's an extremely meta line in "Mindy and Carrot Bake: When Mindy and Carrot are stuck in space, they try to call Face 9000 for help, but they find out he's on vacation, which explains his overall absence from the show as of late season 1 and early season 2.
  • In "Mini-Golf at the DSA", Sean breaks the fourth wall when he says "Hey, that's my line!" in response to Mr. Peterson using his catchphrase.
  • In "Every Day Is Earth Day", after it is mentioned that Earth is the only planet with life, Jet looks at the audience and says "That we know of!" and then winks, since he's an alien from another planet.
• Breather Episode: In some episodes, the show will take a break from teaching science to provide entertainment and character development in its episodes: "My Fair Jet", "Jet's First Halloween", "Date Night", "Jet's Time Machine", "Mindy in Space", and "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace" all qualify for this trope, all of them having little to no actual curriculum (even though "Jet's Time Machine" provided an important Aesop and "Jet's First Halloween" tried to teach viewers about harvest moons).
• Brick Joke:
  • One early example of Carrot's weirdness is when the kids find him mowing the roof of his house. We find out it's not (quite) so silly in "Back to Bortron 7", which reveals that Bortronian houses are designed to blend in with their natural surroundings and hence, have red grass on their roofs that needs mowing.
  • In "What's Up With Saturn's Rings?", Mindy and Sunspot wish that Saturn's rings were made out of cookies. In "Solar System Bake Off!", the kids bake a Saturn cake for the titular bake-off. They make the rings out of cookies.
  Mindy: I always wanted Saturn's rings to be made out of cookies!
  • In "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Mr. Peterson is annoyed at a random kid pitching him a pageant idea involving a surfing Santa Claus. In "Endless Summer", the kids go to Australia (during the Christmas season) and get to see a real surfing Santa.
  • In "Earth Mission to Moon", Zerk asks Jet who was the first human to land on Bortron 7. Then Sean and Sydney became the first humans to land on Bortron 7 in "Back to Bortron 7".
• Brief Accent Imitation:
  • In "Castaway Carrot", while Carrot is stranded on the moon, he decides to go in his "talk-with-an-accent" crater, and briefly talks with a British accent.
  Carrot: 'Ello, guv'nor. Fancy a spot of tea or bangers and mash?
  • In "Bortron Leprechaun", Carrot briefly puts on an Irish accent.
• Broken Record: When Sean, out of nowhere, says "Help, help, help, help, help!" in "Sean's Robotic Arm".
• Buffy Speak:
  • The Propulsions talk like this sometimes, such as calling the humans "Earthies".
  • In "My Fair Jet", Sydney refers to Jet's robotic arm backpack as a "tool-armed backpack thingy".
• Bumbling Dad: Carrot is this due to be very silly and often clueless compared to his wife. However, he provides helpful information to the kids and is a great baker, making him a downplayed example.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • In "Mindy Turns Five", Lillian finally comes back after disappearing for a while. She even had the same voice actor that she had in "The Grandest Canyon"!.
  • Sydney 2 and Dr. Rafferty's boss both reappear in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa".
• Butt-Monkey: Due to this being a show for young children, this is very mild, but Sean can't seem to ever catch a break. He's often the Only Sane Man in the group, always trying to think logically and use the Scientific Method, and yet no one listens to him. He's also absolutely terrified of going into space, but everyone always forces him to go against his will.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes:
  • Briefly in "Jet Can't Sleep". There was a brief black out, and only the Propulsions' eyes were visible.
  • This also happens in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa".

C

• Call-Back:
  • "The Grandest Canyon" references an earlier episode where Mindy mishears "perspective" as "respective", only this time Mindy can say it and it's her friend Lillian who has the same trouble with the word. Mindy lampshades the situation.
  • In "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Jet seems confused by Christmas at first, and Sean brings up how Halloween was confusing for him and his parents in the Halloween Episode.
  • "Endless Summer" includes a call-back to "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", with Sunspot showing images from that episode on his tablet.
  • "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!" has a call-back to "Jet's First Halloween" when Mindy shows a picture of a witch (actually Jet) flying across the moon.
  • In "Mars Rock for Mom", a reference to the end of "Try and Try Again" is made, and is a crucial plot point. In that episode, the kids want Jet 2 to be their Mars rover, so they give him a new set of wheels and take him to Mars. However, Jet left Jet 2 there. During the time in which he was stranded there, he has adapted to the Mars environment and apparently formed a relationship with Boop.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: In "Back to Bortron 7", after Sydney asks him what he wants to do, Sean says he has to go to the bathroom. He never does actually go to the bathroom, though.
• Came from the Sky: As shown in the theme song, Jet's house just fell to Earth.
• The Cameo:
  • Sean's dad appears in a photograph in "Sean's Year in Space".
  • Dr. Rafferty, Dr. Bergs, and Dr. Skelley make cameos in "Every Day Is Earth Day".
  • For some reason, Mitchell makes a cameo in "Sunspot's Sunspot".
  • Mr. Peterson, Celery, Dr. Rafferty, and Dr. Bergs make cameos at the end of "Mindy's Mystery".
• Camping Episode: "Earth Camping", where Carrot and Jet go camping with Mr. Peterson and Mitchell.
• Camp Straight: Carrot. He does feminine activities such as cooking and ballet (as revealed in "Castaway Carrot"), wore a pink scarf in the aforementioned episode, and yet he is married to Celery.
• Canine Companion: Cody is a dog sidekick to Mitchell.
• Cannot Keep a Secret:
  • Jet has a hard time keeping his alien identity a secret.
  • Even the Propulsions have a hard time keeping other secrets. In "Earthday Birthday", Carrot and Celery let slip that a surprise party is being planned to Jet, luckily they don't tell him that it is for him (to celebrate the anniversary of when he arrived on Earth).
  • Lillian can't keep secrets. She told Mindy what her surprise birthday present was in "Mindy Turns Five".
  • In "Moon Circus", Celery says that this is a shared trait between Jet and Carrot.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: In "My Three Suns," Face 9000 tries to take up comedy, but fails due to not being funny.
• Cartoon Juggling: In "Freebird", the shower variant occurs when Jet is juggling some meatballs.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Commander Cressida, in-universe. It has a show, a comic book series, and tons of merchandise, including wristwatches, toys, backpacks, and Halloween costumes.
• Cassandra Truth: Expertly played with in "Back to Bortron 7". In order to keep the Propulsions' alien identity a secret, Jet 2 has to project a hologram of their house so that no one would notice that they were gone. However, Jet 2 later has trouble keeping the hologram stable, which leads to it glitching. Mitchell even stays up all night to prove to his parents that the Propulsions are aliens from another world. However, when he takes his father outside, the hologram is perfectly fine, which leads to Mr. Peterson scolding Mitchell for waking him up at 2:00 AM. When the Propulsions are just about to land back on Earth, the hologram disappears completely, and then Mitchell tries to expose Jet's secret to the entire population of Boxwood Terrace, however Jet 2 causes an eclipse which distracts the townspeople from seeing the Propulsion house land back on Earth. Mr. Peterson scolds Mitchell again, telling him that he has quite an imagination, but Mitchell claims that he has no imagination.
• Cast Herd: The show has three groups in which the characters are split. The main cast consists of Jet, his immediate family, and his closest friends. The Bortronians include Jet's extended family from Bortron 7. The Earthies are recurring friends/family of the main cast who are from Earth.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Somewhat. All of the characters have unique designs, especially the adults.
• Casting Gag:
  • This is not the first show to have Ashleigh Ball playing the main protagonist. Just ask Blythe Baxter.
  • Uncle Zucchini, Jet's uncle, is voiced by Ian James Corlett. We have Ashleigh Ball voicing a young male character, and his uncle is voiced by Ian James Corlett. That's not the first time it happened.
  • Tatyana Vesyolkina voices Jet in the Russian dub. She also voiced the protagonists (Arnold and Buddy) in the Russian dubs of Craig Bartlett's two other shows.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: The flying saucer can go to space in a short amount of time. This is because they have interstellar overdrive.
• Cat Concerto: In "Sunspot's Night Out", Sunspot participates in a neighborhood animal choir with some alley cats and Mitchell's dog Cody. They howl "Ode to Joy".
• Celeb Crush: Dr. Bergs seems to have one on Ellen Ochoa. He has a coffee mug with her face on it, and when she shakes his hand, he looks at his hand and smiles with absolute glee, almost like he's thinking "I'll never wash this hand again!". Dr. Rafferty can be seen giving him a funny look after that happens.
• Central Theme:
  • No matter what happens, keep a positive attitude and persevere through obstacles, no matter how impossible they may seem.
  • Another overarching theme of the show is that Earth is a beautiful planet that is worth protecting.
  • Nobody's perfect and it's okay to make mistakes. The show emphasizes that making mistakes is part of the learning process, while also emphasizing each character's flaws by having them act unkind, arrogant, overconfident, jealous, selfish, etc and having them make rash decisions at times. They all go through character development to become better friends and people overall. Sean particularly gets hit hard with this theme. He sets very high standards for himself and is distressed when things don't go exactly as he planned, but he learns that it's okay to try and fail.
  • Imagination. While science facts are important, it's also beneficial to let your imagination roam wild and create new ideas. Sydney helps to promote this theme, being the Ms. Imagination. Imagination and creativity help the kids a lot, and represent innocence in that Sean wants to grow up already and become a professional astronaut, but he realizes he should enjoy his childhood while he can. Mitchell, who repeatedly fails to expose Jet's alien identity, constantly gets told that he has a "great imagination", which he denies. While true to some extent, Mitchell does have an imagination but his low self-esteem causes him to push it away. In "Moon Face", he sees a face on the moon and realizes he does have an imagination after all.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Beginning with the episode "What Goes Up..." the show switches between silly and semi-serious episodes. One episode might have the light-hearted plot of the kids trying to build a tower on the moon, the next might be bleaker and focus on the kids struggling to prevent the local Deep Space Array from not getting funded.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Excelsior!" (onward and upward in Latin) - Jet
  • Also, "SUNSPOT, CAR TRIP!" and "What an amazing/funny/great Earth word!"
  • "Let's think scientifically" - Sean
  • "A kid's place is exploring space!" - Sydney
  • "POPPYCOCK!" - Western!Sean in "Lone Star".
  • "Hi, I'm Astronomer Amy Mainzer." - Amy Mainzer
  • "So the next time you do X..." - Amy Mainzer
  • "Booyah, science!", which has been said by multiple characters, but most often said by Sean.
  • “Hello. Yes. Play. Haha.” - Jet 2.
• Character Check: Even though Mitchell has been taking a level in kindness in Season 2, in "Our Sun Is A Star!", he's just as mean as he was in Season 1. However, this episode takes place in January, and Mr. Peterson is shown taking down Christmas decorations, so it's possible that this episode could have taken place after "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", where Mitchell becomes part of the group. That episode was one of the very last Season 1 episodes, and Mitchell didn't start becoming nicer until "Try and Try Again", a Season 2 episode.
• Character Development:
  • As time goes on, Sean becomes less and less scared of going to space. He even calls himself "Mr. Adventure".
  • Zerk was initially stuck up and rude towards Jet and his friends. Come "Back to Bortron 7", he is much nicer to them, but still keeps a bit of his It's All About Me attitude. In "Zerk Visits Earth", his vain attitude disappears completely, and he is polite and respectful towards his cousin and the Earthies.
  • Mitchell was a bit naive before, as he actually believed Jet when he told him (in his alien costume) that he was from Bortron 7 in the Halloween Episode. Come season 2, however, Mindy explicitly tells him that she went to the moon, and even holds up a moon rock, but Mitchell doesn't believe her. Besides that, he is shown to have taken a level in kindness, especially in the second half of season 2.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: "Sunspot and the Great Red Spot".
• Character Narrator: Sydney narrates "Mindy's Mystery".
• Character Tics: Jet often walks with his elbows out, as if he's marching.
• Character Title: The title has Jet's name in it, and it is named after the Jet Propulsion Lab. It also helps that the show used to be titled Jet Propulsion.
• Cheerful Child: All of the children count as this, but special mention goes to the protagonist, who sees the good in everything, is a Friend to All Living Things, and is perpetually enthusiastic.
• Cheesy Moon: In "Mindy Turns Five", it's implied that Mindy told her teddy bear that the moon is made out of green cheese.
• Chekhov's Gun: The big rock Mindy sits on in "Mindy's Meteorite Stand". Turns out that while Mindy's meteorite was really an Earth rock, the rock she was sitting on was a real meteorite!
• Child Prodigy:
  • Jet has repaired a satellite, named all the moons of Jupiter, quickly calculated how many Earths could fit inside the sun, built his own flying saucer, and has even built a working time machine! He's also only around 10.
  • Sean is also one, as his mom is a scientist who works at the space program.
• Chirping Crickets: In "Ice Moon Enceladus", the kids make their own sno-cone stand so they can raise money to send astronauts to Mars. Sean insists that since it's so hot out, they should be able to sell a ton of them, but then crickets start chirping since no one is there.
• Christmas Episode: The show now has its own Christmas half-hour special entitled "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", which focuses on the gang putting on a Christmas pageant and desperately trying to seek and define the Spirit of Christmas.
• Chroma Key: In Season 2, green screen is used for all of the Amy Mainzer segments.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Face 9000's brother, Face 9001, only appeared in the episode "A Kid's Guide to Mars" and never came back.
• Circus Episode: The episode "Moon Circus" focuses on the kids setting up a circus for Carrot's birthday. They can't do their stunts on Earth, so they take it to the moon instead.
• Clashing Cousins: Zerk often likes to annoy Jet and try to compete with him, as shown in "Whole Lotta Shakin'". However, they seem to get along better as of Season 2.
• Clockwork Prediction: In the episode "Mars Rock for Mom", Jet keeps forgetting his things. He forgets his jacket. After he leaves, Celery counts down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then Jet comes back to announce that he has forgotten his wallet.
• Cloneopoly: In "Castaway Carrot", Jet mentions wanting to play Bortropoly, presumably a Bortronian version of Monopoly.
• Close-Knit Community: Boxwood Terrace, WA is a small, semi-mythical, science-based Quirky Town where all the residents are close to each other, and they're made even closer when Jet arrives. You can find almost all of the characters at town events like kart races, cooking contests, pumpkin growing competitions, Christmas pageants, Earth Day shows, watching the solar eclipse, going to the Open House at the DSA, mini-golf tournaments, and more.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Propulsions are all perpetually optimistic, they love making mistakes, eat odd food, talk in eccentric English, perform strange dances, and more.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Sydney and Sean are both in charge of making sure Jet's crazy ideas don't get out of hand.
• Color-Coded Characters:
  • Red - Mitchell.
  • Orange - Mindy, Sunspot, Face 9001, and Dr. Bergs.
  • Yellow - Mr. Peterson and Uncle Zucchini.
  • Green - Eggplant, Zerk, and Sean.
  • Blue - Jet, Carrot, Celery, Moonbeam, Face 9000, Dr. Rafferty, and Dr. Skelley.
  • Grey - Sydney.
  • Pink - Lillian.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Celery's saucer is blue, Zucchini's saucer is green, and Eggplant's saucer is pink.
• Color Motifs: Character types are sorted by color. Jet and his family all wear blue because of their heroism and optimism/serenity in dire situations. Enthusiastic and kind characters, like Mindy, Bergs, and Sunspot wear orange. Sean's green shirt emphasizes his connection and love for Planet Earth (and his nausea, since he gets nauseous in space). Yellow is used for bombastic Large Hams like Zucchini and Mr. Peterson because of how bright yellow as a color is. Sydney's grey shirt emphasizes her serenity and peace-keeping demeanor. Finally, Mitchell's red jacket helps him stand out from the crowd and has an interesting multi-faceted meaning. Red is a color associated with anger, and Mitchell is The Napoleon. But it's also associated with passion, and Mitchell is very passionate and dedicated to his amateur detective work. Finally, Red Is Heroic, and Mitchell is a trusted ally to Team Propulsion by the end of the series.
• Combat Commentator: In "Space Race", while Celery and Zucchini are racing, Sydney briefly provides sports-like commentary.
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: The show is usually goofy and light-hearted, but "Beep Has the Blues" is rather sad and one scene in particular stands out as being quite serious. The kids find that their rover pal Beep doesn't feel like playing. Via video call, they find out that she has a sister on Mars named Boop, who is really sick, and the two of them are unsure about their future. This is the reason for Beep's sadness. Everyone is properly worried about the situation, even the happy-go-lucky Jet. This scene adds depth to the show because it demonstrates that robots have feelings too; it makes you feel sorry for a pair of rovers.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • In the Camping Episode, a squirrel eats all of the jellybeans that Carrot had been marking their trail with. Mitchell and Jet are concerned that they are lost, but Carrot is only concerned about the squirrel's dental hygiene.
  • In the beginning of "The Mindysphere", Sean tells Jet and Sydney about how his mom taught him about the heliosphere while eating breakfast. Jet is only interested in what Sean had for breakfast. ^{What was it?}Omelettes. But why would you want to know that? Weirdo.

• In "Sean's Neptune Tune", Sean keeps running away from Jet and Sydney because he doesn't want to go to Neptune. While Sydney realizes that Sean is upset, Jet thinks that Sean is playing hide-and-seek.
• In "Earthday Birthday", Sean, Sydney, and Mindy make up a lie that they're planning a surprise party for "Brett", so Jet won't find out that the party is actually for him. Jet thinks that Brett is real and starts to look for Brett. Later, when Jet comes to the surprise party, the other kids explain that Brett isn't real, but Jet still thinks that he is and wonders where he's at.

• Comic-Book Time: One year has passed In-Universe, but the characters (save for Mindy and Carrot) never get any older. There have been two Halloween episodes, one Christmas episode, an episode referencing said Christmas episode as being 'last year', and Mindy and Carrot both had birthdays. Besides them, none of the characters age. Making things more confusing, "One Small Step" takes place on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, meaning it took place in July 2019. For reference, the show started in 2016.
• Comic Trio: Jet, Sean, and Sydney. Jet comes up with crazy ideas, Sydney eagerly follows, and Sean is the Only Sane Man.
• Companion Cube: Sean, Sydney, Mindy, and Mitchell all have one. Sean has his Neil Armstrong action figure, Sydney has her Commander Cressida action figure, Mindy has her teddy bear, Stuffy Bear, and "Sean's Robotic Arm" reveals that Mitchell has one as well - his Sherlock Holmes action figure.
• Company Cross References: In the episode "Mindy's Weather Report", Sunspot flips through the channels on Face 9000. One of the programs he flips to is Dinosaur Train, another PBS Kids show created by Craig Bartlett, complete with a second of the Dinosaur Train theme song playing.
• Complexity Addiction: Jet loves coming up with convoluted solutions to problems, because he considers those plans to be fun. For example, in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", he has a Mundane Made Awesome plan for making lemonade. Also, in "Sydney 2", he and Sean build a Rube Goldberg Device just to deliver snacks. This also helps to show Sean's Character Development. In Season 1, he wouldn't even think of going to all this trouble, and would likely just state the simple solution. But now he is more open to trying new ideas and taking risks, no doubt thanks to Jet's positive influence.
• Conforming OOC Moment:
  • The usually logic-minded Mitchell joins in on the investigation to see if there's a face on the moon in "Moon Face".
  • There are several instances where Sean does want to go to space like the other kids do, despite being hesitant to do so most of the time.
  • In "Lone Star", the kids act out the Lone Star legend. Sunspot plays Lone Star's horse. Lone Star (Jet) is shunned by the town for his "loopy ideas", and they all point shovels at him, including Sunspot. A moment after, Jet leaves while riding Sunspot.
• Constantly Curious: Mindy. 8 times out of 10, her constants stream of questions are what prompt the kids to go into space and find an answer.
• Continuity Cavalcade: In "My Fair Jet", one of the tasks that Jet has to do in order to be a regular Earth kid is to sort a bunch of pictures that Sunspot took in previous episodes, such as the butt picture from "Satellite Selfie", and the Great Red Spot Club group picture from "Sunspot and the Great Red Spot".
• Continuity Nod: See Call-Back above.
  • In "Mindy Pet-Sits", Mindy comes across the meteorite that she found in "Mindy's Meteorite Stand".
  • In several episode, the kids point out how they have already been to certain planets.
  • Jet builds a robot in the episode "Jet 2". In later episodes, the robot can be seen around the children.
  • Some in "Mindy Turns Five::
    • Similar to how Mindy was jumping on the bounce house in "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", she is seen jumping on it again, and is singing a song that is sung to the tune of "My Name is Mindy".
    • Before the gang gets back to Earth, they look at and describe Earth like they looked at and described it in the episode "Tiny Blue Dot".
    • The gang goes to Pluto a second time, and they sing "Dear Little Frozen Pluto" again.
  • The squirrel that ate Mitchell's jellybeans in "Earth Camping" makes several more appearances throughout the show, in "The Mindysphere", "Space Race", "Jet Shrinks the Kids", and in "Mindy's Bedtime", he is finally given a name: Floyd.
  • In "Galileo, Galileo!", Mindy unintentionally makes Sean nervous to do his report on Galileo, and while doing so, Sean imagines himself on the exact same stage that the kids did their Christmas pageant in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", which is where Sean got nervous to perform his song in front of everyone.
  • In "Total Eclipse Block Party", Sean and Sydney initially won't let Jet perform on the DSA stage for fear that he will sing and use his Bortronian robot arms, which is a reference to the events of "My Fair Jet".
  • "Racing on Sunshine" takes place one year after "Kid-Kart Derby".
  • "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!" takes place one year after "Jet's First Halloween".
    • In the same episode, Jet uses the Bortronian sun lamp from "The Plant from Bortron 7" to grow a pumpkin.
  • In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", Mindy's love for Pluto gets mentioned again.
    • In the same episode, Sean setting up a lemonade stand to raise money for a rocket to Mars is similar to the plot of "Ice Moon Enceladus".
  • In "Potatoes on Mars", Sean says he sings in the shower, which was previously mentioned in the Christmas Episode.
  • In "Bortron Leprechaun", Jet's birthday badges from "Earthday Birthday" get brought up again.
  • In "Magnet, PI", Mitchell's scooter from "Try and Try Again" makes another appearance.
• Convenient Eclipse: Played straight in "Back to Bortron 7". When Mitchell is about to expose Jet's secret to the entire town, Jet 2 causes an eclipse which distracts the townspeople from seeing the Propulsion house land back on Earth.
• Cool Big Bro: Mindy sees Jet as one, and he does act as one to her due to his caring, optimistic personality. He even gives her a piggyback ride in "Project Pluto".
• Cool Big Sis: Sydney serves this role to the other group members. She's easily the most level-headed, wise member of the group, and she's also a creative (if a bit over-ambitious) go-getter with a kind personality.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Zig-zagged with Jet 2. Jet 2 is rusty, always falling apart, and has a limited vocabulary. Jet explicitly states in "Sydney 2" that while Jet 2 looks cool, he doesn't do much useful stuff, and can hardly say anything. However, Jet 2 has been proven to be useful at times, most notably in Back to Bortron 7 where he causes a Convenient Eclipse.
• Cool Shades:
  • Sunspot wears some sometimes, such as when he's playing the instruments to Jet's songs.
  • In "Sunspot's Sunspot", Dr. Rafferty gives the kids some colored sunglasses to wear so they can see what it's like to live on a planet with a different colored sun. Jet has a little too much fun with it, much to Mitchell's annoyance.
• Cool Uncle: Uncle Zucchini. He's a fun and friendly guy who is an intergalactic garbage-man.
• Cosmic Motifs:
  • Fitting with the show's astronomy theme, the main characters are all associated with Earth's moon.
    • Jet's first mission with the Super Saucer is to go to Earth's moon, where he and Sunspot build a mini-golf course.
    • Sean idolizes Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon.
    • In "Earth Mission to Moon", Sydney becomes the first girl on the moon, plus her shirt is silver like the moon.
    • In "Mindy Turns Five", the first place Mindy goes to when she goes to space for the first time is the moon.
    • Carrot and Celery have a love song called "Let's Fly Our Little Saucer to the Moon".
  • Sean tends to be associated with Mars, since he really wants to lead the first human mission to that planet. It also serves to represent his youth, masculinity, and passion for knowledge.
  • Mindy is associated with meteors and meteorites. She found a meteorite in "Mindy's Meteorite Stand" and she has witnessed meteor showers twice, in "Mindy in Space" and "Jet's Time Machine".
  • Sunspot is associated with Earth's sun, obviously. The sunspots on the sun affect his behavior.
• Cowboy Episode: "Lone Star", where Sydney tells the rest of the gang the story of a pioneer named Lone Star who built the town's first observatory on a hill. It is also a Western-flavored Musical Episode. "Lone Star 2 - Rocket Kids!" is also this.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Sean's idea to combine various items together to make a robotic arm is explicitly stated by Sydney to be this in "Sean's Robotic Arm".
• Crazy-Prepared: A Running Gag in "One Small Step" involves Sunspot conveniently packing a lot of items the kids need and pulling them out whenever they needed. He packed food, Mindy's teddy bear, a moon rover, a parachute, and more.
• Creative Closing Credits:
  • The credits have crude doodles of all the characters scattered around the credits, with some of them even foreshadowing certain episodes. It even includes half of the show's theme song, without Craig Bartlett's vocals. The special Back to Bortron 7, technically being part of season 2, includes newer doodles, including Mindy in a spacesuit, which foreshadows the fact that Mindy goes to space in season 2.
  • In some episodes, like "Diggin' Earth", the Commander Cressida theme song plays in the credits instead of the RJG theme song instrumental.
• Creator Provincialism: The series takes place in Washington state, where the creator, Craig Bartlett, grew up.
• Cuddle Bug:
  • At least implied with Jet. He always puts his arm around Sean or Sydney (but mostly Sean), sometimes putting his hand on the former's chest or back. He also seems to enjoy group hugs, as evidenced in "Back to Bortron 7" and "Racing on Sunshine".
  • Mindy always hugs Sunspot or one of the older kids (mainly Jet). In "Sean's Robotic Arm", she hugs Mitchell.
• Cultural Translation: In "A Visit from Uncle Zucchini," Carrot makes an "enchisushisagna" using enchilada, sushi, and lasagna. In the Korean dub, the sushi is changed to gimbap, a Korean food that is similar to sushi.
• Curtains Match the Window: Mindy has brown hair and brown eyes.
• Cutaway Gag: In "Every Day Is Earth Day", when Jet mentions how he and his family always mix up certain words, it cuts to Carrot and Celery hammering toasts on the wall, instead of posters.
• Cute Machines: Beep and Boop, the twin rover sisters. Beep lives at the DSA and Boop lives on Mars.
• The Cutie: Jet proves to be this trope entirely with his endearing tendencies. Mindy and Mitchell also qualify for this trope.

D

• Dame with a Case: In "Sean's Robotic Arm", Sean drops his Neil Armstrong figure down a hole and needs help getting it out. Mindy approaches local Mitchell (who has a crush on her) to ask him to help. He says that it doesn't sound like a detective problem, but lets her borrow Cody to help dig the hole.
• Dark Horse Victory: In "Asteroid Belt Space Race", Eggplant and Zerk end up winning the race because of their anti-gravity fluxinators.
• Daydream Believer: In "Diggin' Earth", Jet seems to believe that he and his comrades can dig to the center of the Earth just like Commander Cressida and her squad. Sydney reminds him multiple times that Commander Cressida is a made-up story and is not real.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mitchell, Mindy, and Sean all varying levels of sarcastic streaks. For example:
  Sean: Well, would you look at that? Clouds! Who would've thought they'd appear?
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Sean deconstructs The Perfectionist. Sean strives to be the best that he can be and to lead a team of astronauts to Mars in the future, but his obsessive-compulsive, fact-driven tendencies clash with Jet's cartoony alien ways and Sydney's love of fiction. Plus, in spite of his dream of being an astronaut, he fears cramped spaces and heights. When Sean fails at something, he becomes very upset and self-deprecating.
  • Mindy deconstructs the Tagalong Kid and The Baby of the Bunch. Because she's the youngest, she can't go to space with the older children ( at least not until her fifth birthday), and she increasingly feels left out, and ashamed of being the youngest and the smallest.
  • Jet deconstructs the Magnetic Hero. Jet is a lovable kid who is friends with every character in the show, but he can't stand to be apart from anyone. Even if he's on his own, he's with his loyal pet Sunspot. In "My Three Suns", he has a nightmare about him being lost in a void, away from everything and everyone. He is absolutely distressed at this, reflecting his fear of loneliness.
• Defrosting Ice King: Mitchell starts out as a cold, loner detective who acts like he hates Jet, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy. However, the episode "Detective Mindy" shows that he does have a nice side. In "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", where it is revealed that he is a Shrinking Violet that hides behind the cold appearance and jerk behaviour. He defrosts completely when he joins the other kids' pageant and they assure him that he is always welcome in their group.
• Determinator: All the Propulsions are this, as they never give up. In fact, there's no word for failure on Bortron 7. Jet even has his own song about not giving up.
• Deus ex Machina:
  • Sunspot often functions as this, figuring out what is going on and what needs to be done and then conveying that information to one or more of the children.
  • Some of these occur in the secret alien identity arc. In "Visit to Mom's Office", Jet openly tells Dr. Rafferty that he is an alien from Bortron 7, but luckily, Dr. Rafferty thinks that Jet is pretending to be an alien due to "feeling" like one. And the residents of Boxwood Terrace don't notice the Propulsion vehicle transforming into a flying saucer.
    • As mentioned above, Jet 2 causes an eclipse in the TV movie "Back to Bortron 7", which distracts the townspeople.
• Demoted to Extra: Face 9000. Back in the day, he appeared in practically every episode alongside the rest of Team Propulsion; Jet, Sunspot, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Carrot and Celery. Ever since "Sunday Drive", he has been making less and less appearances. Nowadays, the kids usually get answers to their science questions from Celery, the DSA scientists, or by figuring it out themselves.
• Depending on the Artist: For whatever reason, the characters' looks can change from episode to episode.
  • Mindy might have slightly darker skin but reddish-brown hair, or slightly lighter skin but blackish-brown hair. Also, Mindy might be way shorter or the same height as Mitchell.
  • Sean may either have light brown, reddish-brown, or flat out blonde hair. His eye color also varies. It might be green, blue, or grey. His shape varies as well. Sometimes he has a bulging stomach, other times he doesn't. A common animation error also gives him a longer torso than in other scenes. Occasionally (for example, in "Racing On Sunshine"), he will actually appear rather muscular!
  • Sydney sometimes has a different color hair-tie than her usual yellow, like green or red. She might even wear grey leggings at night as shown in the end of "Back to Bortron 7" and "Jet's Time Machine".
  • Jet's hair color also varies. It might be reddish-orange, red with orange tips, dark red, or even pink! (Jet seems to have pink hair in the beginning of "Lone Star".)
• Depending on the Writer: In some episodes, Mitchell can be a quiet yet obedient spy and in other episodes, he can be cold and anti-social.
• Desperate Object Catch: In "A Hammer and a Feather", Jet gets a bit carried away with a gravity experiment and thoughtlessly tosses Sean's telescope off the treehouse balcony. Sunspot dives underneath it and puffs up his belly like a balloon, so the telescope bounces back up again where Sean can reach over the balcony and grab it safely.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: In "Asteroid Belt Space Race", Eggplant stops to turn on the anti-gravity fluxinators in her saucer. Upon using them, the other saucers lose gravity, causing Eggplant and Zerk to win the race.
• Did Not Think This Through: In "Kid-Kart Derby", Mitchell finds the plans for an ion drive, but it does not work because Mitchell didn't read farther down in the plans.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Several.
  • In "How We Found Your Sun", it is revealed that the Propulsions found Earth by picking up a radio signal that was playing a 1950s rock 'n' roll song called "Jet Propulsion". It sounds just like the show's theme song, and is the protagonist's namesake. However, it has different lyrics. Here are some lines from the song that can be heard during Jet's narration:
  Jet Propulsion, that's what I've got. Jet Propulsion, man I'm hot. I'm on fire, baby give me some room. You've brought love to light up the room. It was a love by the light of the moon. E=Mc2, baby you could take me there.
  • In the beginning of "Satellite Selfie", Jet hums the show's theme song.
• Disappeared Dad: Sean says he has a dad in "Night of a Bazillion Stars", but he is never seen, though Sean's mom is always shown.
• Disco Dan: Jet is shown to be fond of notably dated music, specifically '50s rock and roll and Broadway.
• Distaff Counterpart: In "Sydney 2", Sydney builds the eponymous robot, who is a female version of Jet 2 and is designed specifically to be friends with him.
• Distant Reaction Shot: At the end of "What Goes Up...", Mitchell screams at the sky, and his scream is so loud, that the camera zooms out on the Earth.
• Distressed Dude:
  • In "My Fair Jet", the DSA weather balloon flies off in some nasty weather, and carries Sean along with it. But luckily, Jet saves him with his jetpack.
  • In "Castaway Carrot", Carrot gets stranded on the moon, but gets rescued by his family.
• The Ditherer: "Commander Cressida Begins" explores Mindy's indecisiveness on where to go next in space. Luckily, she learns that just like Commander Cressida, she can explore space one adventure at a time.
• The Ditz:
  • Lillian, who believes in ghosts and witches, can't keep secrets, and doesn't know what perspective is. She also unironically believed that clouds were made of cotton candy in "Fact Or Fiction?".
  • Uncle Zucchini. In his debut episode, he believed that Saturn's moon Titan was Earth. In "Uncle Zucchini Babysits", he was somehow unaware of the three states of matter.
• Ditzy Genius: Jet can name every one of Jupiter's moons, but can't try to keep his alien identity a secret.
• Do-Anything Robot: Sydney's mom programs Jet's robot clone, Jet 2, to a robot that can do practically anything in the season 1 finale. He is renamed to Jet 3.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • "Lone Star" has Jet portray a pioneer who wasn't afraid of new ideas. Because of that, he clashes with the people of Boxwood Territory, who want things to stay the same. There's even a song about how you shouldn't be afraid of new ideas, and that "Old ideas ought to move aside, so the new ones can replace 'em".
  • In "Who Messed Up The Treehouse?", the kids all make a huge mess in the treehouse. None of them want to take responsibility for the mess. They try to find different places to play, but they don't work out. They eventually realize that this problem isn't going away unless they do something about it, and that they only have one treehouse, so they have to learn to share the responsibility and clean it up. This is a metaphor for the trash problem on Planet Earth, and how Earth is the only place we can live, so we have to take care of it.
• Dogs Hate Squirrels: At the end of "Magnet, PI", Mitchell's dog Cody barks at Floyd the Squirrel and chases after him.
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: Sean says this in "Back to Bortron 7" after a bunch of TV screens show him saying "Booyah! Science!"
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: People of Earth, you ain't seen nothing yet! I'm from Bortron 7 and my name is Jet!, I'm a space tripper and a galaxy crosser. My parents brought me here in a flying saucer, and Nice to meet you, human race, tell me all about the place! all of which are spoken by Jet.
  Sydney: Jet Propulsion!.
  Sean: Jet Propulsion!
  Mindy: Jet Propulsion!
  All: Ready Jet Go!
• Does Not Like Spam: In "Mindy's Weather Report", Jet reveals that he hates ice cream. This hatred is also shown in "Asteroid Patrol" and "Detective Mindy". He'd give it a chance if it wasn't "so cold".
• Don't Try This at Home: In "Our Sun Is A Star!", when Dr. Rafferty conducts her experiment with the campfire and poker, she warns the kids to not try the experiment at home.
• Door Slam of Rage: In "Mindy's Mystery", Mitchell is very angry at Team Propulsion because he thinks that they're not real detectives, so he slams the door to his house in their face very hard.
• "Double, Double" Title: "Galileo, Galileo!".
• Double-Meaning Title: "A Star is Born" both refers to the educational theme of the episode (how stars are born) and the plot of the episode (the kids making a movie).
• The Drag-Along: Whenever the gang has to go on a space mission, Sean always wants to stay on Earth. He is always forced to go regardless.
• Drama Queen:
  • Jet is this in the episode "Jet's Time Machine". He builds a time machine, and he wants to go back in time because the previous weekend, he ate a delicious pie and forgot to ask for seconds. Then he makes a big deal over it.
    "How could I have been so foolish?"
  • In "The Tide is High", Sunspot makes friends with a crab. When he discovers that the crab is gone, he gets way too upset and faints on Dr. Skelley's lap.
  • Dr. Bergs is this in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa" when his coffee mug with Ellen Ochoa's face on it breaks.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Series-wide example: No one knows that Jet is an alien except for Sean, Sydney, and Mindy.
  • In "A Visit to the Planetarium", Jet sings a bombastic song about the Milky Way to entertain the kids at the planetarium. Mr. Peterson, the curator, is away. When he comes back and sees the kids cheering, he doesn't know why they're so happy, because the planetarium film is the same as it's always been, unaware that Jet entertained them.
• Dreadful Musician: In "Mindy's Mystery", Mindy's flugelhorn playing isn't very good when she's sleepy.
• Drink-Based Characterization: In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", Ellen Ochoa drinks some lemonade from the kids' lemonade stand. This gives us some insight into her character by telling us that even though she's a major scientist, she's really just a normal person and is also One of the Kids.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: When the show premiered in Sri Lanka, the first installment to be dubbed in Sinhala was the Back to Bortron 7 special. They removed all the songs, even the theme song. Each song in the special is crucial to the plot, so as a result, the Sinhala dub creates plot holes regarding how Sean is convinced to go to Bortron 7, how Sean bonds with Jet, the Bortron solar system, the history of Bortron 7, and the kids saving Carrot and Celery's presentation — without the songs, Sri Lankans will be confused, and think these developments came out of nowhere.
• Dub Name Change:
  • In general, Jet's family members, who are all named after vegetables, will often be renamed in accordance with what the vegetables are called in a specific language. For example, in the Spanish dub, Carrot becomes Zanahoria and Celery becomes Apio.
  • In the Norwegian dub, Sean is Lars, Sydney is Signe, Mindy is Mina, and Mitchell is Harald.
  • In the Polish dub, Carrot and Celery have regular human names (Karol and Celina, respectively), because Polish is a gendered language and the words for the vegetables are the opposite gender from the characters Carrot and Celery.
  • Zig-zagged with the Hungarian dub. Jet's name is different in the intro than in the series proper; in the intro, his name is "Hungarianized" to "Rakéta Jet". But in the episodes themselves, Jet uses his English name. His parents and Sunspot have Hungarianized first names, but keep their English last name.
  • Most dubs keep Sunspot’s name in English, but some dubs translate or change his name:
    • Finnish: Sputnik (a reference to the famous satellite)
    • Hungarian: Napfolt (“Sunspot”)
    • Latin American Spanish: Mancha Solar (“Sunspot”)
    • Latvian: Saules Zaķis (“Sun Bunny”)
    • Russian: Лучик (“Little ray of sunshine”)
• Dynamic Entry: Zucchini slides right on into Boxwood Terrace, in "Uncle Zucchini Babysits", complete with Moonbeam playing guitar.
  Uncle Zucchini: Hi-ho, Propulsions! Found your house this time!

E

• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In Zerk's wristphone picture in "Whole Lotta Shakin'", he bears an uncanny resemblance to his cousin, Jet. In "Back to Bortron 7", he makes his first physical appearance and has a new, permanent design that is different from his cousin's.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The earlier episodes of the show are very strange to watch in comparison to the later ones. There's the wonky CGI, voices being higher or lower-pitched than normal, the show having a very small cast of only eight characters, episodes following the same format, and weird one-off jokes such as Mindy taking jiu-jitsu lessons and the frozen star system of Marzipan. However, they're still entertaining to watch and the show eventually starts to improve in quality.
• Earth Day Episode: In "Every Day is Earth Day", Jet learns about Earth Day and the rest of the gang travel the planet to see what makes Earth so unique. They even paint a hot-air balloon to look like the planet and perform a Crowd Song about how great Earth is. Also, Mitchell recites a little poem of his about Earth.
• Earth Song:
  • "Tiny Blue Dot" is a soft ballad sung by the characters about how precious Earth is, and how it's worth protecting.
  • "Every Day is Earth Day" is about how Earth Day should really be celebrated every day. It talks about the various features of the Earth and how unique and livable it is compared to other planets in the Solar System.
• Eating Pet Food:
  • In "Sunspot's Night Out", Cody goes missing and Mitchell leaves a trail of dog treats for him to find. Jet and the gang stumble upon the trail while trying to find Sunspot, who's also missing. Jet almost eats a dog treat, but his friends warn him not to.
  • In "Pet Sounds", the gang is petsitting Cody and realize that he can do tricks if he gets treats as a reward. Jet ends up eating a dog treat, and remarks that it's better than the school cafeteria food on Bortron 7.
• Eat the Camera: During the takeoff song in "Back to Bortron 7", the camera zooms in on Sean's mouth.
• Eccentric Townsfolk: While the Propulsion family are obviously a Quirky Household, the people living in Boxwood Terrace are all eccentric in their own ways. We've got:
  • A perfectionist Child Prodigy who idolizes Neil Armstrong and fears going to space.
  • A science-fiction geek who is obsessed with Commander Cressida and writes fanfiction.
  • A geeky little kid who tries to be a detective.
  • A girly Asian Airhead.
  • A DSA scientist whose past is very mysterious, but she says that she felt like an alien when she was younger, hinting at this.
  • Another DSA scientist with an obsession for coffee.
  • A robotics engineer who still loves Commander Cressida.
  • Another scientist who always speaks very bombastically, is the judge/referee of every single contest in the neighborhood, and is somewhat of an Extreme Doormat. He also treats mini-golf as Serious Business.
• Edible Theme Naming: The Propulsion family, with the exceptions of Jet and Zerk, are named after vegetables. Examples: Carrot, Celery, Eggplant, Zucchini, and Spinach. Jet even calls himself Cucumber in the Halloween Episode.
• Edutainment Show: This show teaches kids about Earth science (gravity, force) as well as space science (planets, the Sun) but also gives good lessons.
• E = MC Hammer: In "Jet's First Halloween", Sean's "can't fail scientific method formula" to get candy in the least amount of time goes "T = H + C^2" or in Layman's Terms, houses + great costumes = lots of candy.
• Embarrassment Plot: In "Sean's Neptune Tune", Sean is scared to visit Neptune and is embarrassed to tell Jet and Sydney. They assure him that he can tell them anything and he should never feel embarrassed. Jet helps soothe Sean's fears by coming up with a song.
• Ensemble Cast: While Jet is definitely the main character, Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, Sunspot, Carrot, Celery, and Face 9000 (or Team Propulsion) all get episodes focused on them.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: In "Treasure Map", Mitchell the Kid Detective reads Treasure Island. Mitchell is also shown to be a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
• Entertainment Below Their Age: Dr. Skelley likes the Show Within a Show Commander Cressida, just like her daughter Sydney.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Happens in a few episodes, such as "Kid-Kart Derby," where everyone laughs after Jet suggests using cold pasta to power a kart.
• The Everyman: Downplayed with Mr. Peterson, who is pretty average compared to the other characters (all he does is work and act like a typical suburban American father), but can also be as comical as the rest of them.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: Played with in "Mindy's Mystery". The kids interview everyone they know and interrogate them about the mystery smell.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: The entire premise of "Bortron Leprechaun". Jet sees a rainbow for the first time and thinks it's the most beautiful and magical thing he's ever seen.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Mindy thinks everything is better with glitter as shown in "Every Day Is Earth Day", but Sean isn't sure how that will improve her poster.
• Everytown, America: Boxwood Terrace, a fictional town located in Washington state. It is quite the Quirky Town.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • What is "Jet Cooks Dinner" about? Jet cooking dinner.
  • Guess what the plot of "Sean Has a Cold" is.
• Excited Kids' Show Host: Amy Mainzer, the host of the show's interstitial segments, is a Type 3. She can be quite energetic at times, but normally talks in a calm manner and never talks down to kids. Her segments also appeal to adults.
• Exploding Closet: In "Space Junk", Jet tries to clean the garage by stuffing all of his boxes in the closet. Then the closet explodes, letting all the boxes out, and the garage is messy again.
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song of this show explains the plot of this show in one minute.
  Jet Propulsion, that's his name. Jet Propulsion, he'll rocket to fame! When he arrived, he created a buzz, cause there was no house, and then there was.
• Expy:
  • Celery is an expy of Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. They are both eccentric ladies with red hair, and they drive vehicles that take children on wacky science adventures.
  • Sean is also an expy of Arnold from that same show, because they are both butt monkeys and lovable cowards, and are always hesitant to go on trips.
  • Jet and Carrot are quite similar to a character from The Groovenians who had Jet's name, Carrot's appearance, and a (somewhat) similar personality to them.
• Extracurricular Enthusiast: Mindy does a lot of extracurricular activities. Whenever the older kids go to space, she leaves by saying she has to go to a specific class. She takes jiu-jitsu, rumba, and especially flugelhorn lessons.
• Eyed Screen: Used in "Racing on Sunshine" when the camera does a closeup on Mitchell's eyes during the race.
• Eyelash Fluttering: In "Back to Bortron 7", Zerk bats his eyes at Sean when he meets him and calls him "adorable".

F

• Face Palm: Happens quite often. For example, Mindy face palms in "Mars Rock for Mom" when Jet reveals that he left behind her camera.
• Face Plant: Sean falls face first onto the ground in "Sean's Robotic Arm".
• Failed a Spot Check: Carrot when he removes the spigot valve from the lemonade machine in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa". Lemonade ends up flowing everywhere, but luckily, Sunspot serves lemonade to the neighborhood cats.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter how many times Mitchell tries, he just can't successfully expose Jet, because in this universe, the identity of the Propulsions is apparently the Cassandra Truth.
• Fainting: Mitchell faints at the sight of Mindy at the end of "Jet Shrinks the Kids".
• Faint in Shock:
  • Moonbeam faints after Sunspot flirtatiously winks at her in "Back to Bortron 7".
  • Jet faints after Zerk informs him that his parents will be assigned to another planet after their presentation in "Back to Bortron 7".
• Failures on Ice: A Running Gag on the show, usually involving Sean.
  • In "What's Up With Saturn's Rings?", Sean slips while trying to skate on Saturn's rings.
  • The kids also have trouble standing on Pluto in "From Pluto With Love".
  • Sean slips on the ice rink in "Mindy's Ice Rink.
  • In "Water, Water Everywhere", Sean has trouble skating on the South Pole, and Europa.
• Fake Band: The kids have their own band. Jet is the lead singer, Sean plays the drums, Sydney plays the piano, Mindy plays the flugelhorn, and Sunspot plays the electric guitar. However, it only appeared in "Potatoes on Mars".
• Fan Boy:
  • Sean is a huge fan of Neil Armstrong, as well as Ellen Ochoa. "One Small Step" can best be described as Sean gushing over the Apollo 11 mission for 60 minutes.
  • Dr. Bergs is also an Ellen Ochoa fan. He even has a mug with her face on it.
• Fangirl: Sydney is a huge fanatic of Commander Cressida.
• Fantastic Anthropologist: The Propulsion parents came to Earth to study it. They return to Bortron in "Back to Bortron 7" and give a report on it.
• Fantastic Racism: In "Whole Lotta Shakin'", Jet's cousin Zerk says that humans are not good at building. In "Back to Bortron 7," he says that Earth having one moon must be weird and boasts about Bortron 7 being better than Earth. This is all gone in "Zerk Visits Earth," though.
• Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: Whenever the kids ride their hover scooters or go-karts, they always make sure to wear helmets. The kids also always buckle up whenever they're about to go into space.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: In the one-hour special "Back to Bortron 7", the Propulsions convert their house back into a starship for a visit to their home planet. Whereas their usual saucer has used Interplanetary Hyperdrive to bring the kids on tours within the solar system, this much longer journey requires Interstellar Superdrive. Details on how it works aren't given, but their journey is accompanied by a flashier, more colorful variant on the light-speed F/X from Star Wars.
• Fast-Forward Gag: In "Measure for Measure", while Jet is measuring how many astronomical units Neptune is from the Sun, a video progress bar appears. Sunspot appears behind the bar and fast forwards, speeding up the process.
• Fatal Flaw: Sean's fatal flaw is that he fears cramped spaces, heights, and gets space-sick easily, but he must overcome these fears in time so he can achieve his dream of being an astronaut when gets older.
• Fat Best Friend: Sean is the most overweight of the group, but he doesn't really fit into any categories, as his main defining traits are his high intelligence and reluctance to go to space.
• Feud Episode:
  • "Treehouse Space Station.", where the kids fight over who gets to use the treehouse for whatever reason.
  • In the episode, "Which Moon is Best?", Sean wants to be the first person to walk on a specific Moon. For the rest of the episode, Jet's parents argue over which moon Sean should walk on: Enceladus or Europa. They even have an argument in song. Luckily, they discover that both Enceladus and Europa are good moons in their own right.
• Feminist Fantasy: Although Jet, a male-presenting alien, is the main character, the series has an Ensemble Cast and so girl characters like Celery, Sydney and Mindy get extensive focus. Many of the characters' parents are also successful women in STEM, something never questioned or mocked. Sydney and Mindy don't exist solely to be friends with Jet, they also stand on their own and are crucial to the plot. Each of the female characters has a unique design. The series had the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media as part of its advisory board along with a mostly female writing team^note Three women - Rachel Lipman, Christie Insley, and Michelle Lamoreaux; two men - Craig Bartlett and Joe Purdy, resulting in it being quite feminist.
• Fictional Counterpart:
  • In a presentation, the creator, Craig Bartlett said that Commander Cressida is supposed to be a long running franchise like Doctor Who.
  • The Deep Space Array, where all the kids' parents work, is an Expy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
• Fictional Fan, Real Celebrity: In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", Sean geeks out when the titular Ellen Ochoa first arrives at the treehouse, and he even addresses her with a Full-Name Basis out of respect. In that same episode, Dr. Bergs is also shown to be a fan of Ellen, and he even has a mug with her face on it.
• Fictional Video Game: In "Asteroids, Meteors, and Meteorites", Sydney and Sean play a video game called Astro Tracker, where to win, you have to identify and name certain asteroids.
• Fiery Redhead: Jet, the energetic type.
• Fish out of Water: The Propulsions are aliens trying to fit into Earthie society.
• Five-Token Band: Jet is a human-like alien (so he isn't actually white), who appears male but is actually sexless. The other kids featured in the show are
  • Sydney Skelley (African-American)
  • Sean Rafferty (implied to be Irish-American)
  • Mindy Melendez (Latina; her exact nationality is never stated on the show, but she is most likely Mexican-American as the show's official social media pages often use Mindy to promote Cinco de Mayo)
  • Mitchell Peterson (white; judging by his name, he's probably of English, Scottish, and/or Scandinavian descent)
  • Lillian (Chinese-American)
• Flying Saucer: The Propulsions have a minivan which turns into a flying saucer in space.
• Foil: Has its own page.
• Food as Bribe: In "Pet Sounds", the kids realize that they can use dog treats to motivate Cody to do tricks.
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Zig-zagged. Carrot is something of a Manchild House Husband who stays home while his intelligent wife Celery takes the gang on space adventures. However, Carrot can be quite competent, particularly at culinary arts and survival skills, while Celery is as goofy as her husband at times.
• Forgetful Jones:
  • The Propulsions always forget not to tell people that they come from Bortron 7.
  • Jet, who always needs to Sean to teach him the Scientific Method over and over.
  • A Running Gag in "Mars Rock for Mom" is Jet leaving his things behind and forgetting where he put them. First, he forgets his jacket. Next, he forgets his wallet. Then, he devises a plan to get Jet 2 to pick up after him so he doesn't leave his stuff behind, only to realize that he left Jet 2 on Mars. Finally, Jet leaves behind Mindy's camera. Luckily, the camera was inside Jet 2's stomach compartment.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: In the Halloween special, Jet dresses up as a stereotypical green alien, and gets away with telling people he is from Bortron 7.
• Foreshadowing: Plenty of examples.
  • In "Backyard Moon Base", the kids find the house remote. They press some of the buttons on it, which causes the house to fly in the air, unbeknownst to them. In "Back to Bortron 7", it is revealed that the Propulsion house is actually a starship turned house. Pressing the remote converts the house back to a starship. No wonder Carrot was especially freaked out when he saw the house flying in "Backyard Moon Base".
  • In "Project Pluto", Carrot at one point utters "little frozen Pluto". And in the planetarium show in "Visit to the Planetarium", the aforementioned show refers to Pluto as "dear little frozen Pluto". Both foreshadow the song "Dear Little Frozen Pluto" from "From Pluto With Love".
  • Tons of examples in "Back to Bortron 7":
    • During the first song "Is Your Planet Like My Planet?", one of the lyrics is There's no planet like my planet, which foreshadows the song aptly named "There's No Planet Like My Planet".
    • Somewhere at the beginning of the movie, Carrot and Celery are practicing their PowerCube presentation. Their lines are It's not too hot, and not too freezing / And is suitable for breathing / Not too big / And not too small / And planet Earth is what its called!. Later, during the Just Add Water song, the cast sing these lines: Plus it's not too hot, and no, it's not too freezing / Add to which its atmosphere is suitable for breathing / It's really not too big / And really not too small / And planet Earth is what its called!
    • At one point, Jet says "What do you call those things in cities that shoot water in the air?", and Sydney and Sean respond with "Fountains.". Later, during "Just Add Water", the song stops so Celery can asks what they call those things in cities that shoot water in the air. Guess what Sydney, Jet, and Sean respond with.
    • In the show credits, doodles of the characters are scattered throughout. However in the credits for "Back to Bortron 7", at one point we see Mindy in a space suit, which foreshadows the fact that Mindy turned five in season 2, and is now able to go to space.
  • In "Asteroid Belt Space Race", Eggplant's lyrics in the song "Space Racin'" foreshadow to her having anti-gravity fluxinators installed in her saucer.
  Eggplant: Well, boosters and carbifonators may sound good, but I've got something special sittin' under my hood.
  • In "Bortron Leprechaun", Carrot's can of green paint falling on Sunspot foreshadows that the leprechaun was actually Sunspot all along.
  • In "One Small Step", during the song "Super Saucer", the kids sing about how it's easy going to space, but hard getting back. Later, the gang has trouble getting back to Earth from the moon because Sydney used the landing gear crank to fix the saucer. The gang ends up using a parachute and crashing into Little Dipper Lake, where they almost drown but Mitchell rescues them.
    • In that same special, Jet 2 presents Sydney with a mysterious object that Sydney thinks is a robot arm. She asks Jet 2 if they will need it in the future, and he says no, so Sydney uses it to fix the saucer. It turns out that the "robot arm" was the landing gear for the saucer. Without the landing gear, the landing will be difficult. So, the kids end up using a parachute and crashing into Little Dipper Lake back on Earth instead.
  • At the end of "Back to Bortron 7", Zerk asks Jet when he can come to visit Earth, which is foreshadowing to Zerk visiting Earth in "Zerk Visits Earth".
• Forgot to Mind Their Head:
  • In "Sean's Year in Space", on the deck of the treehouse, Sean is lying underneath the fence. When Mindy starts talking to him on the walkie-talkie, Sean gets startled and hits his head on the fence.
  • In "Asteroid Belt Space Race", Eggplant looks under Celery's saucer to see her dual custom carbifonators, then bumps her head on it.
• Foul Cafeteria Food: Mentioned/implied in "Pet Sounds". After eating a dog treat, Jet quips that it still tastes better than the school cafeteria food on Bortron 7.
• The Four Loves: The show manages to cover all four forms of love.
  • Storge (Affection/Family): Jet and his family have a powerful familial bond and love each other very much. Carrot and Celery are truly loving parents who aren't abusive, deceased, neglectful, or 100% perfect goody-two-shoes. They're realistic, rounded-out, loving parents who both have well-paying jobs and are both there to support their kid. The other kids love their parents too. Sean is proud of his mother's work at the DSA, and Sydney sees her mother as a role model.
  • Philia (Friendship): From the moment he landed on Earth, Jet has been best friends with Sean, Sydney, and Mindy, and they are inseparable. Throughout the show, Jet learns about traditional childhood activities and in turn, takes his friends on epic sci-fi adventures. Obviously, the gang gets into spats, and they've been through A LOT of drama regarding Jet's alien identity, but they love each other to death and will do anything for each other. Mitchell is a shy loner kid that envies their friendship and wants to join in, but doesn't know how to ask. Eventually, he becomes an Honorary True Companion of Team Propulsion.
  • Eros (Romance): Carrot and Celery are Happily Married parents and their relationship is the focal point of several episodes. The children are too young to get into any serious romantic relationships, but Jet has had a Precocious Crush on Dr. Rafferty, then had Ship Tease with Sydney before having even more obvious Ship Tease with Sean. Mindy has slight affection for Mitchell and really wants him to come out of his shell, because she sees the good in him, and Mitchell feels the same way towards her.
  • Agape (Unconditional Love): Jet is an All-Loving Hero who vows to protect Earth. Jet is kind to every living creature big and small, even if some people are rude to him. Jet and his friends do their part to take care of and appreciate the Earth, while Jet teaches Boxwood Terrace to love again.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The main cast of kids fit into this.
  • The Cynic: Sean. He's usually the most logical of the group and doesn't always agree with Jet's ideas. However, this is downplayed, as Sean is not as mean as most examples.
  • The Optimist: Jet. He's a Genki Guy who always looks on the bright side of things and sees the good in everyone.
  • The Realist: Sydney. She usually meditates between Jet and Sean's differences and balances them out, often acting as the Team Mom towards them.
  • The Apathetic: Mindy. Being a little kid, she just doesn't care either way.
  • If Mitchell is involved, then he'll be either The Cynic, The Apathetic, or The Conflicted (he's not only morally complicated, but he was also insecure about fitting in with the group).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The children fit into this archetype, while also subtly representing the different stages of emotional development.
  • Jet (Sanguine) is transcendent. Given that he is not a human, he is "built differently", so to speak, and loves the Earth unconditionally. He is kind and loving to a fault, and is the happiest and bubbliest of the gang.
  • Sean (Melancholic) is group-dependent. A traditional perfectionist, Sean is a go-getter who looks out for the rest of the team, being cautious and wary during space missions. Sean is prone to bouts of anxiety and illness. Sean has tried to work alone in "Sean's Year in Space" and "Sounds Abound", but in both instances, it is proven that he cannot be successful without the assistance of the rest of the team.
  • Sydney (Phlegmatic) is independent. Serene, trustworthy, and benevolent. Sydney acts as the Team Mom, and compared to the Eccentric Townsfolk of Boxwood Terrace, Sydney is relatively well-adjusted. She's the heart of the team, acting as their moral compass. When Jet isn't leading the team, Sydney takes on the leader role, like in "A Star is Born" and "Backyard Moon Base".
  • Mindy (Choleric) is codependent. Given that Mindy is the youngest of the gang, she relies on them for knowledge and support. Early on in the show, Mindy couldn't go anywhere past Jet's yard without the older children accompanying her, but later on, her boundaries are expanded and she finally goes to space in Season 2. As children tend to be, Mindy is inquisitive and excitable, but also brutally honest, sarcastic, and impulsive, because she does not know any better. Mindy is eager to be a big girl, but needs guidance from other characters
• Free-Range Children:
  • The children are always doing stuff on their own, such as building a treehouse. Craig Bartlett even stated that the kids' adventures are supposed to be similar to his childhood adventures where the kids would just run around without adult supervision.
  • However, the kids always have adult supervision in outer space.
  • Taken further in "One Small Step", which marks the first time that the kids go to space by themselves. However, they got Carrot and Celery's permission to go by themselves.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Plenty in "Back to Bortron 7". At one point in the movie, Mindy wakes up at midnight and tries to make Jet 2 put the hologram of the house back, and Jet 2 instead projects many other holograms that can only be seen if you pause. The holograms include Sean standing with his hands folded, that same hologram with Sean's mouth closed, a hologram of Sydney, a hologram of Sean in his space-suit, the weather balloon from "My Fair Jet", a hologram of Mitchell cackling, a hologram of Sunspot in a Greek outfit from "Jet's Time Machine", a hologram of Mindy in her pajamas on the flying saucer, and a hologram of the pineapple jack-o-lantern from "Jet's First Halloween".
• Freeze Ray: Sunspot builds a freeze ray for Mindy in "Mindy's Ice Rink," and uses it to turn the water in Mindy's sandbox into ice.
• Friendly Tickle Torture:
  • In "I Feel The Earth Move", Dr. Rafferty tickles Sean's belly.
  • In "Satellite Selfie", Jet and Sydney tickle Face 9000. Apparently, computers are ticklish.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Zerk, mostly because he was a racist bigot to the Earthies in the past, and he is quite irritating. The other kids only hang out with him because he's Jet's cousin. Everyone is actually glad when he leaves at the end of "Zerk Visits Earth".
• Friendship Moment:
  • In "Jet 2," Jet builds his own robot clone, and Sean and Sydney hang out with the robot more than Jet himself. Towards the end of the episode, Jet tells them how he feels. Sean and Sydney apologize to Jet for making him feel left out, and assure that they will always be his friends.
  • In "Which Moon is Best?" Sean was the first to walk on Europa, so he decides that Sydney should be the first to walk on Enceladus. Mindy lampshades how nice of a guy Sean is.
  • As shown in previous episodes, Mitchell thinks that the other kids hate him and tries to distance himself from them, even though he wants to be friends with them. This is shown to be completely untrue in "You Can Call Me Albedo." Out of the kindness of their hearts, the other kids make a reflective collar for Cody so Mitchell will be able to find him easier. Mitchell is genuinely surprised. He nervously thanks the other kids and says it was so nice of them.
  Jet: That's what friends are for.
  • In "Chore Day," Sean, Sydney, and Mindy set out to help Jet with his own chore, since he helped them with theirs.
  Mindy: When you're on Earth, that's what friends are for.
• Freudian Trio:
  • Sydney is the Id. Unlike Sean, Sydney wants to become a successful science fiction author and is more into science fiction and Greek mythology. She is also more emotional, kind, and loving than any of the group.
  • Sean is the Superego. Sean is studious and smart, and wants to grow up to be a great scientist and lead the first human mission to Mars. Sean is also concerned about his grades most of the time and uses the Scientific Method, as well as logical reasoning, to solve problems. Due to this, he has a terrible imagination.
  • Jet is the Ego. While Sean and Sydney are polar opposites, Jet is one of the sole reasons why they hang together and the arrival of Jet pretty much brought them together. Jet is talented at acting, singing, and dancing, and is curious about everything, especially Earth. Jet is also kind and generous, and always has a positive attitude and great leadership skills.
  • The younger kids trio fits into this as well:
    • Lillian is the Id. She's the most emotional and loving of all of them, and she easily believes that Halloween is magical.
    • Mitchell is the Superego. Mitchell is nerdy and tries to use logic and reasoning when dealing with strange things. He's also a bit of a jerk.
    • Mindy is the Ego. She's Lillian's best friend and Mitchell's (speculated) crush, which is why they both hang out with her. She easily balances them out.
  • Dr. Rafferty, Dr. Bergs, and Dr. Skelley end up forming one in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa". Dr. Bergs is the Id, because he's the most emotional of the trio. Dr. Rafferty is the Superego, since she seems more composed than Bergs, though that's not saying much. Dr. Skelley is the Ego, being the middle point between the two and the most level-headed one.
• Friendly Enemy: Mitchell is this to Jet and his group. Mitchell is rude to the group, but he can get along with Jet and Mindy sometimes.
• Full-Name Basis: Sean does this with Ellen Ochoa during her episode.
• Fun with Homophones: In "Constellation Prize":
  Jet: No way! A dog star? You can't be serious.
  Dr. Rafferty: Actually, it is Sirius.
  Jet: I get that it's serious, but I wonder what the star is called.
  Dr. Rafferty: It's Sirius.
  Jet: What's serious? I just want to know what the dog star's name.
  Dr. Rafferty: It's seriously called Sirius.
  Jet: Whoa! Slow down...

G

• Gadgeteer Genius: Dr. Skelley, Sydney's mom. She knows all about robotics, engineering, and technology. She also holds a strong belief that robots are the future, and teaches the kids about the types of jobs robots have, like helping out at a grocery store, rescuing trapped animals during a flood, collecting comet dust samples, and exploring volcanoes on Mars. She even rebuilds Jet's robot clone, Jet 2, at the end of the episode and makes him into a Do-Anything Robot. Now that is awesome.
• Gag Nose: In "Mindy's Mystery", Sunspot squeezes Jet's nose, and it honks.
• Gasp!: In "Sunspot's Sunspot", when Sunspot says "No, thank you", all the kids do a dramatic gasp.
• Gender-Blender Name: Sydney is a girl, but her name is traditionally a boy's name.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: In Jet's gang, there are two boys (Jet and Sean), and two girls (Sydney and Mindy), if one does not count the Team Pet Sunspot.
• Genki Girl: Due to being a Bortronian, an entire alien race of energetic folks, Celery is an older example than most. Mindy is a more traditional example - she's a young girl who's always happy and upbeat.
• Geodesic Cast: For the older kids, there's Jet, the upbeat leader, Sydney, the levelheaded nice one, and Sean, the anxious intelligent one. The younger kids directly mirror them: Mindy is the upbeat leader, Lillian is the nice girl, and Mitchell is the smart guy with many emotional issues. The DSA scientists also mirror these dynamic: Dr. Skelley is levelheaded, Bergs is energetic, and Rafferty is a Nervous Wreck.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: The gang is usually this to Sean, who is usually apprehensive about going to space
• Get Out!: In "Mindy's Mystery", Mitchell tells the other kids to exit his yard in an extremely rude manner.
• Giant Food: Using his Bortronian grow lamp, Jet grows a huge pumpkin in "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!"
• Gilligan Cut: Happens in "Space Junk", where Sean says there is no way he is flying outside the saucer. In the next scene, he says he can't believe he's flying outside the saucer.
• Girlish Pigtails: Mindy wears her hair like this.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Mindy and Lillian both have teddy-bears.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: "Commander Cressida Begins" mostly focuses on the female characters, namely Mindy, Sydney, Celery, and Dr. Skelley. On top of that, Celery takes only Sydney and Mindy to space to see Jupiter's moons, while leaving behind Jet and Sean.
• Girly Girl: Mindy, at least in comparison to Sydney. Mindy enjoys dolls and tea parties. Lillian is even more so, since she wears purple and has a pink bow in her hair.
• Glass Smack and Slide: In "Castaway Carrot", the saucer malfunctions which causes Jet, Celery, and Sunspot to end up smushed against the saucer window. They then slide off.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing:
  • Jet is a ray of sunshine who is perpetually optimistic, energetic, and friendly. Sean^note Who has a subtle crush on him isn't all that grumpy, but he can be stubborn, a Nervous Wreck, and is prone to bouts of angriness and upsetness.
  • Mindy and Mitchell's relationship directly mirrors Jet and Sean's. Mindy is a Cheerful Child who is enthusiastic and curious about everything. Mitchell is a snarky, deadpan, egotistical, antisocial know-it-all. Mindy helps draw Mitchell out of his shell and become a better person over the course of the show. Like Jet and Sean, they also have Ship Tease here and there.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Carrot undergoes a major Sanity Slippage in "Castaway Carrot" while stranded on the moon. He gets a twitchy eyelid at one point, attempted to farm pizza on the moon, and drew pictures of his family on rocks, and made out with the Celery rock.
• Good Luck Charm: "Magnet, PI" reveals that Mitchell wears a lucky magnet under his jacket.
• Good News, Bad News: In "Sean's Robotic Arm", Jet delivers this in the form of "Good News, Better News". The "Good News" (which is actually bad news) is that Jet's broken Bortronian robot arms have been sent back to Bortron 7 for parts, which will take a week even with expedited intergalactic shipping. Then Jet reveals that there are no better news.
• Good Parents:
  • Jet's parents are very kind, tolerant, and encourage the children in their science exploration, and are always happy to take them into space.
  • Dr. Rafferty and Dr. Skelley are also excellent parents.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  • In "Who Messed Up The Treehouse?", Jet says "It's those darn squirrels again!".
  • In "Lone Star 2 - Rocket Kids!", Western!Sean says that going to space is "dag-blamed" impossible. This is a child-friendly version of "goddamned".
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Part of Lillian's dress is purple. Fitting the "graceful" part, she's a Girly Girl and she also likes to do gymnastics, even doing a somersault with ease.
• Graceful Loser: In "Kid-Kart Derby", Jet ends up losing the derby, but takes this in stride and is glad that he had fun in the race anyways. This contrasts with Mitchell's reaction to winning the derby, where he's happy about it at first, but sad because no one's cheering for him.
• Gratuitous Disco Sequence: In "Moon Circus", part of Carrot's famous flip is to do a disco dance, complete with techno music.
• Gratuitous French:
  • In "Sunday Drive", Celery briefly practices French and says "Allons à Mars", which is French for "Let's go to Mars".
  • In "Sunspot's Sunspot", Celery says "Bon appetit, as the French Earthies say".
• Great Big Book of Everything: As of season 2, a new element of the series is "The Big Book of X", an In-Universe book series that will sometimes be brought up by Sean, and will always relate to the topic of the episode. There's "The Big Book of the Sun", "The Big Book of Birds", "The Big Book of Eclipses", "The Big Book of Clouds", and possibly even more.
• Green Around the Gills:
  • Mentioned in "You're Never Too Big For A Lullaby" from "Jet Can't Sleep", where one lyric is "I'll sing a song if you're green or you're blue".
  • Played with in "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!". Sean's pumpkin stays green instead of turning orange, so he decorates it to look like someone sick. Complete with a cold cloth and thermometer!
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • In the episode "Jet 2", Jet gets jealous of his robot clone, Jet 2, because Sean and Sydney are playing with the robot and not the real Jet.
  • In "Back to Bortron 7", Face 9000 is extremely salty that the Propulsions have chosen the PowerCube for their presentation and not him. He does get to help with the presentation at the climax, though.
  • In "My Three Suns", Face was jealous that the kids found Sunspot to be funnier than him.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Happens in "Jet's Time Machine", where the kids go back in time, but are stuck in an endless loop and keep missing the meteor shower. However, once they correct their mistakes, they break out of the loop and are able to watch the meteor shower.
• Groupie Brigade: Mitchell tries to invoke this in "Kid-Kart Derby" by asking anyone if they want autographs from him after he won the race, but fails.
• Group Hug:
  • Jet, Sean, and Sydney share one in "Back to Bortron 7".
  Jet: Come on guys, bring it in!
  • Jet, Sean, Sydney, Mindy, and Sunspot share one at the end of "Racing on Sunshine".
  • Jet, Sean, and Mindy share one when Mindy and Sean find him in "One Small Step".
• Group Picture Ending: The episode "Space Race" ends with Jet, Sean, Sydney, Celery, Zucchini, Sunspot, and Moonbeam taking a picture together.
• Growling Gut:
  • Happens to Carrot in "Castaway Carrot" due to hunger.
  • Mindy gets one in "I Feel The Earth Move" due to hunger
  • Sean's tummy gurgled in "Tour of the Solar System", "Jet's First Halloween", "The Mindysphere", "Jet's Time Machine" ^note for a split second in between looking like he's about to throw up and saying "I'm not really meant for this kind of travel!", and "Mindy's Ice Rink", all times due to stomach pain.
  • For some reason, a stomach rumble was heard in "More Than One Moon" when Mindy says "That's a moon?"

H

• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Bergs has blonde hair, and is very kind and friendly.
• Halloween Costume Characterization: In both Halloween Episodes of the show, the kids wear costumes that reflect their personalities:
  • Jet, the local alien, wears an alien costume to conceal his identity even further. He also thought that the costume was a cucumber, showing his eccentricity.
  • Sydney wears a Commander Cressida costume, showing her nerdiness and her love of the titular comic book heroine.
  • Sean wears a Neil Armstrong costume, showing his love of space and adoration of Neil Armstrong.
  • Mindy wears a costume of her teddy bear, Stuffy Bear, showing her innocence and her Animal Motif that involves bears.
  • Mitchell wears a Sherlock Holmes costume, showing his aspiration to be a detective. Sherlock Holmes being a classic literature character also shows Mitchell's love of classic books and desire to be taken seriously.
  • Finally, Lillian wears a pirate costume, showing Hidden Depths - she's more than just a girly girl.
• Halloween Episode: "Jet's First Halloween" and "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!" take place on Halloween.
• Handshake Substitute: In "Detective Mindy", the kids put together pieces of evidence and discover that Mr. Peterson had knocked his wife's sunglasses down with his glass of water, and then Mrs. Peterson vacuumed them by mistake. Jet and Sean then proceed to do a fist bump.
• Happily Married: Carrot and Celery, even having a love song dedicated to them.
• Happy Dance: Mitchell does a delightful dance upon uncovering the treasure in "Treasure Map".
• Harmless Electrocution: In "One Small Step", while attempting to turn on the engine of the super saucer, Jet 2 is electrocuted. However, he turns out okay, and since he's a robot, it doesn't inflict much damage as it would a human or alien.
• Hartman Hips: Jet's aunt, Eggplant, has wide hips.
• Hates Baths: Sunspot loathes taking baths, as shown in "Uncle Zucchini Babysits" and "Bortron Leprechaun".
• Haunted House: In "Jet's First Halloween", Carrot and Celery turn the garage into a haunted house, but it isn't scary because they used Valentine's Day decorations. However, the ominous glowing light and behavior of Carrot and Celery freak Mitchell out.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: "My Fair Jet", Sean and Sydney try very hard to get the alien Jet to behave like a human so he can blend in and not risk his true identity being exposed. They try to get him not to be an alien even though that's pretty much impossible, and Jet's alien quirks end up saving the day in the end.
• Head Desk: Sean does one in "Fact Or Fiction?".
• Height Angst: Mindy expresses angst about being small in "Jet Shrinks the Kids", which kickstarts the main plot of the episode.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: A Running Gag in "Jet's Time Machine" involves Carrot repeatedly getting a vase stuck on his head. At one point, Sean ends up with the vase on his head, even though his head is too big to fit inside it.
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of "Sean's Robotic Arm", Cody runs off with Sydney's Commander Cressida figure and puts it in his hiding spot. The kids use the robotic arm to take it back.
• The Hero: Jet, of course.
• He Went That Way: In "What Goes Up...", Mitchell tries to chase after Jet's flying saucer. Mindy tells him that the flying saucer went to the right. Mitchell assumes if Mindy says he's going to the right, then he must be going to the left. Of course, Jet didn't actually go left.
• Hey, Let's Put on a Show:
  • The synopsis of "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", but without monetary gain in mind.
  • This is also the plot of "A Star is Born".
• Hey, That's My Line!: In the episode "Mini-Golf at the DSA", Sean says this when Mr. Petersen scores a hole-in-one and says Sean's catchphrase "Booyah, science!".
• Hidden Depths:
  • Sunspot is revealed to have many talents. He can pull objects out of Hammerspace, and can play several instruments, including concertina and pan-pipes.
  • Jet has these, too. He turns out to be very handy with tools, and a great musician.
  • Carrot is revealed to be a great cook, and "Castaway Carrot" reveals that he taught himself ballet.
  • "Eye in the Sky" reveals that Mitchell is an expert on weather.
  • "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!" reveals that Dr. Skelley has a knack for gardening.
  • "Freebird" reveals that Dr. Rafferty likes studying birds.
  • Sean is a drummer and Sydney is a pianist, as shown in "Potatoes on Mars".
  • In "Mars Rock for Mom", Jet 2 is revealed to have adapted to the Mars environment when he was stranded there, and also learned how to play checkers. Meanwhile, Dr. Rafferty is revealed to have a rock collection.
  • Sydney is shown to have a real knack for engineering and mechanics. She builds her own robot in "Sydney 2", and fixes the saucer in "One Small Step".
• Hidden in Plain Sight: The show thrives off of this trope. The Propulsions coincidentally look like humans, which allows them to hide in plain sight on Earth easily without anyone discovering their secret alien identity. Averted with Sunspot, some characters like Dr. Rafferty and Mitchell often question what kind of animal he is.
• High-Pressure Emotion: In "Jet's First Halloween", Jet's ears leak steam - not because he's angry, but because he's so excited to learn about Halloween. This is also the only instance in the show where steam comes out of someone's ears.
• Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: In "Measure for Measure", the kids decide to make a scale model of the solar system in the yard. They use Sunspot as an astronomical unit.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Mitchell's loneliness and lack of social skills cause him to build up a snobby jerk persona that is keen on exposing Jet's alien identity. However, these traits prove to be self-destructive; despite Jet, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy not having any animosity towards him, they often leave him out, forget about him, or are even cautious of him because of his stalker behavior and mean attitude, as the Christmas Episode shows. Mitchell shuts all his potential friends out by telling them to go away or leave him alone, since he does his detective work by himself. He realizes this and attempts to make a change in season 2 by being more polite to the other kids and helping them out instead of spying on them all the time. Sure enough, it works, and Mitchell is an Honorary True Companion of Team Propulsion.
• Historical Figures in Archival Media: The show has access to NASA's archives, which allows them to use such footage. In "A Hammer and a Feather", they showed a video of David Scott dropping a hammer and a feather on the moon at the same time. Both "Earth Mission to Moon" and "One Small Step" show footage of the Apollo 11 launch, as well as Neil Armstrong's famous 'one small step' quote.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: An odd example. In "Kid-Kart Derby", Mitchell cheats by installing an ion drive into his kid kart, but then when he starts to use it, it doesn't work. Jet then informs him that ion drives only work in the vacuum of space. Mitchell still wins the derby, however.
• Holding Hands:
  • In "Back to Bortron 7", Carrot and Celery hold hands as they're about to enter the Intergalactic Travel Writers' headquarters.
  • In "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!", Mitchell, Mindy, and Lillian all hold hands as they go trick-or-treating.
• Hologram: Ever since "Back to Bortron 7", holograms have been used egregiously on the show. They have been used to deceive the neighbors, show maps of the galaxy, take online classes, and more.
• Hologram Projection Imperfection: Played straight in "Back to Bortron 7". Jet 2 has to project a hologram of Jet's house, while the real house converts back into a starship for a trip to Bortron 7, so Mitchell doesn't get suspicious. However, Jet 2 has a hard time keeping the hologram stable, as it keeps glitching. Towards the end of the movie, it disappears completely, which gives Mitchell an opportunity to expose Jet (which luckily fails).
• Hook Hand: Lillian wears this as part of her pirate costume in "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!".
• Honorary True Companion: While Mitchell is not a member of the main cast of characters, by the end of the series, he's a trusted ally to them. He often helps them out like in "Sean's Robotic Arm" and "Eye in the Sky", and is much more of a sweetheart than he was in season 1. Solidified in "One Small Step", when he rescues the kids from drowning in Little Dipper Lake, and is invited to their sleepover. It's even implied that he now knows that the Propulsions are aliens.
• House Husband: While Celery is always taking the kids to space, Carrot stays home and does things like cooking.
• Hover Bike: "Chore Day" introduces the hover scooters (or "ka-flooples"), which are basically scooters that have a large platform, no wheels, and can hover. Jet doesn't want to test them out at first, but ends up enjoying it. The hover scooters are seen in later episodes such as "Space Race."
• Huddle Shot: In "Back to Bortron 7", this happens while Jet, Sean, and Sydney are thinking up ideas to improve the presentation.
• Human Aliens: The Bortronians seem to be humans, but they treat the human earthlings as though they are members of a different species.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: Jet and his family do not seem to get the Earthlings' behaviors and vocabulary, often using them the wrong way. Once, Carrot was shown mowing the roof.
• Human Traffic Jam:
  • In "Mindy Turns Five", the gang is about to go to the moon but Jet is distracted by Mitchell and stops in his tracks, causing the others to bump into him.
  • In "Try and Try Again", the kids are walking home and Jet suddenly gets an idea, which makes him stop and causes the others to fall like dominoes.
• Hyperventilation Bag: In "Jet Cooks Dinner", the kids are running out of time to cook a meal for Jet's parents before they return home. This causes Sean to have a panic attack, and he briefly breathes into a brown paper bag.
• Hypocrite:
  • In "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!", Mitchell chastises Jet for singing to his pumpkin, but Mitchell himself creepily talks to his own pumpkin and calls it his "precious". Er...you okay, Mitch?
  • Mitchell is a huge one in "Mindy's Mystery". He dismisses Mindy's case as fake because she's looking for a smell, and yet Mitchell's case could also be considered silly by his logic because he's looking for a light.

I

• I Always Wanted to Say That: Sean says this after saying "There's not a moment to lose!" and "Come on Zerk! Back to the house! And step on it!" in "Back to Bortron 7".
• "I Am" Song:
  • "Bortronian Is What I Am", written and sung by Jet himself in "My Fair Jet".
  • In "Lone Star", there is "Lone Star", sung by Jet, playing the titular Lone Star.
  • Mindy has "My Name is Mindy".
• I Ate WHAT?!: Mindy, Sean, and Sydney have this sort of reaction in "Satellite Selfie", where they discover that the cookies that they ate were made from a full cup of minced garlic and rutabaga.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: In "Back to Bortron 7":
  Sean: I can't believe I'm saying this, but, let's go to Bortron 7.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Sometimes. Some episode titles are based on a question ("How Come the Moon Has Craters?")
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: The show often uses spinning silhouettes of Sunspot for transitions.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Jet gets passed this in "Mindy's Weather Report". In that episode, Mindy tells the gang that a storm is on Saturn, and Jet believes that there's a storm in Boxwood Terrace, and tells all the neighbors (including the Petersons) to prepare, despite the number of times Sean, Sydney, and Mindy try to tell Jet that the storm in on Saturn. When the gang goes into space, they see the storm on Saturn and Jet says: "Why didn't you tell me?" with Sean and Sydney in annoyance.
  • Mindy gets passed the idiot ball in "Galileo, Galileo!", where she believes that the sun orbits the Earth, despite the fact that in "Round and Round", she portrayed the Sun and saw that the solar system revolves around the sun, not the Earth.
  • Mindy grabs the idiot ball in "Our Sun Is A Star!". In "How We Found Your Sun", she learned that the sun is a star, but in this episode, she's somehow convinced that the sun isn't a star.
  • All of the kids grab the idiot ball in "Face on the Fritz." The episode has Face 9000 getting an upgrade, meanwhile the kids try to use an old Earth computer. They literally try talking to it. They're supposed to know how to use computers, given that they are the children of scientists. Cue the rest of the episode talking about coding for no reason.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: This is most likely Mitchell's Freudian Excuse for why he acts the way he does. It is revealed in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace" that he is really a lonely kid and he acts like a jerk to hide it.
• Illness Blanket: In "Endless Summer", Carrot has a cold and is later wrapped up in a blanket.
• Ill-Timed Sneeze: In "Sean's Neptune Tune", Sean gave away his hiding place by sneezing.
• Imagine Spot:
  • Happens in "More Than One Moon".
  • There are several imagine spots in "Backyard Moon Base".
  • In "Sean's Robotic Arm", Sean has one where he's on the moon dressed as Neil Armstrong and Jet, Sydney, and Mindy are in their regular space-suits. Sean gives them a motivational speech and convinces them that they should combine the various parts together to make a robotic arm to retrieve Neil.
  • In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", the kids and Ellen have one where they fly in space and go to the International Space Station.
  • In "My Three Suns", Sean, Sydney, and Jet all have imagine spots about what it would be like to live on a planet with 3 moons. Sean imagines never being able to sleep, Sydney imagines having too many birthdays, and Jet imagines playing shadow tag and then being unable to find anyone.
  • In "Diggin' Earth", the kids imagine that they're Commander Cressida characters and that they're digging to the Earth's core.
• I'm Not Here to Make Friends: In a non reality show example, in the Christmas Episode, Sean asks Mitchell if he wants to join them, saying that "you are our friend", but Mitchell claims "he doesn't do friends". Of course, he's lying.
• Implied Love Interest:
  • Mindy enjoys sneaking up on Mitchell and playing around with him, which he finds uncomfortable. However, later episodes such as "Detective Mindy" and "Sean's Robotic Arm" demonstrate Mitchell warming up to Mindy, and them becoming good friends. In the latter episode, Mitchell is excited at Mindy approaching him with a detective case, only to get nervous about it and correct himself. Later on, she hugs him, which surprises him. It seems similar to Puppy Love, but it's not made clear.
  • Sean and Jet. At first, Jet seemed interested in Sydney, but this waned and the Jet/Sean shipping was boosted over the course of the show. Jet is very affectionate with Sean, always teams up with him when the situation calls for it, and has a nickname for him ("Seanzo"). Like Mitchell/Mindy, it's unclear whether they like each other that way.
• Impossible Pickle Jar: In "My Fair Jet", one of Jet's tasks, in order to behave like a human, is to open a pickle jar with his bare hands. Jet has a hard time doing so, and even tries to use his robotic arms even though it's against the rules. However, Jet does eventually open the jar.
• Impossible Shadow Puppets: In "My Three Suns", the kids learn how to make some very hard shadow puppets towards the end of the episode.
• Improbable Piloting Skills: In "Back to Bortron 7", Celery assigns Sydney the role of the co-pilot of the Mothership. Sydney figures out how to steer the mothership almost instantaneously. This continues into the regular season 2 episodes as well. In "Souped Up Saucer", Sydney becomes the Wingman of the flying saucer, proving herself to be just as skilled a pilot as she was in "Back to Bortron 7".
• I'm Standing Right Here: In "One Small Step", the kids have a brief 'moon monster' scare, and when it turns out to be fake, Sean says that it would be scary to find an actual alien lifeform and Sydney says it would be weird-looking. This is all said in Jet's presence.
  Sean: Man, the idea of finding an actual alien lifeform is really scary.
  Sydney: Yeah, think how weird looking it might be.
  Jet: Hey, guys? I'm right here.
• Incoming Ham: Lone Star's song in "Lone Star" features "In the quiet I hear the stars, calling to me from on HIIIIIGGGHHH!!!"
• Inconsistent Coloring: Sean has either blue, green, or grey eyes. Also, Mindy has really light skin and really dark hair or reddish-brown hair and tan skin. Some sunset scenes can even make it look like Jet has pink hair.
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • The Hungarian dub contains numerous inconsistencies and errors:
    • The Propulsion family is both referred to with their English last name and English name order (surname after given name), as well as with a Hungarianized last name with Hungarian name order (surname before given name). The usage of last name and name order varies from episode to episode.
    • Mindy's last name varies between "Melendez" and "Mendez."
    • During the "Scientific Method" song, whether or not the line where all the kids sing the chorus is dubbed or left silent varies from episode to episode.
    • During the "Night of a Bazillion Stars" song, the names of the stars which Jet sings do not match up to the stars he points at in the song. The beginning line is also repeated three times at various speeds, as Jet's voice actor flubbed the line; these outtakes are kept in the final version of the song.
  • The Uzbek dub contains numerous inconsistencies:
    • The name of Sydney's favorite superhero, Commander Cressida, was translated as "Qo'mondon Kressida" up until "So Many Moons," in which the translation used by this dub was changed to "Kapitan Kressida." However, beginning with "Scientific Sean," the "Qo'mondon Kressida" translation began being used again alongside "Kapitan Kressida."
    • The lyrics to the Commander Cressida Theme Song and Take-Off chant were inexplicably changed following the first 10 episodes. The changed lyrics more closely resemble the Russian-dubbed versions of the songs than their original English versions. The lyrics were reverted back to the initial lyrics in "Space Junk," but episodes following it such as "The Mindysphere" continued using the changed lyrics alternating with the initial ones.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: While Jet is by no means perfect, he is still an optimistic, kind-hearted kid who sees the good in everyone, and wants to help in any way he can. He's even able to put up with Mitchell's constant spying on him, and (to an extent) Zerk's over-the-top antics.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: This is the plot of "Jet Shrinks the Kids", where Jet shrinks himself, Sydney, Sean, and Sunspot to become Mindy's size. Things go awry, however, and they become the size of mice. Mindy spends the episode trying to reverse the shrink ray, while Jet, Sydney, Sean, and Sunspot try to evade Mitchell and Cody.
• Individualism vs. Collectivism: The show generally supports themes like friendship and teamwork. Each of the members of Team Propulsion contribute to the exploration of space and conduction of science experiments. Quite a few episodes emphasize teamwork: in "Sounds Abound", Sean wants to do his sound experiment alone and quietly but realizes that he needed his friends' noises all along. The closest thing the show has to an antagonist is Mitchell Peterson, whose smug, pretentious attitude and desire to be alone drives his potential friends away, saddening him. Mitchell realizes that having people help him can be worth it, and actually hangs out with and helps the gang in later episodes.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Whenever Mitchell is about to be caught spying, he always makes flimsy excuses to leave.
  • In "Kid-Kart Derby", when Mitchell overhears Sydney while he's in Jet's garage, Mitchell says that he thinks he left the hose on, or the lights.
  • In "That's One Gigantic Pumpkin, Jet Propulsion!", when Jet and Sydney catch him spying on them, he says he has to go water his dumplings. Later, when he's with Lillian and Mindy, he says that he has to go do something completely different from what they're talking about.
• Inherently Funny Words: Jet considers lots of "Earth words" (like "falafel") to be absolutely hilarious.
• Innocent Aliens: The Bortronians are very kind-hearted.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Jet means well, but can sometimes do some rather careless things when helping others.
  • Celery is also this. Best exemplified in "My Three Suns", where she doesn't let Sean go to the bathroom in the name of learning.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • In "Jet's First Halloween":
  Sean: "Eh, you're right. It is fun! And I'm not even space-sick!"
  (his tummy gurgles.)
  Sean: "Ugh, much."
  • In "From Pluto With Love":
  Sean: "At least the low gravity will keep me from getting hurt."
  (he falls)
  Sean: "Ow-that hurt."
  • In "Freebird", Jet states that there's only one snow goose in his yard. Cue a flock of snow geese arriving.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Jet, Sean, and Sydney, who are about 10, are friends with 4-year old Mindy.
• Interspecies Friendship: The humans Sean, Sydney, and Mindy are best friends with the alien Jet.
• Interspecies Romance: In "The Tide is High", Sunspot comes a little too infatuated with a crab at the beach.
• Intrigued by Humanity: The Propulsions are very interested in humankind, or as they call them, "Earthies", and are always trying to learn their customs.
• In-Series Nickname: Sean has "Sean-zo", an Affectionate Nickname coined by Jet in season 2.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • In "Night of a Bazillion Stars," Sean brings his Neil Armstrong figure to the sleepover. Sean insists that he's not sleeping with it, he just wants to keep Neil company.
  • Mitchell isn't "playing" detective, he is one......or so he thinks.
  • In "My Three Suns", Face 9000 demands that the kids call him "Funny Face".
• Insomnia Episode: In "Jet Can't Sleep", Jet is unable to fall asleep because he's so excited about a storm happening at the moment. His family tries absurd methods to get him to go to sleep, but Celery gets him to sleep using a lullaby.
• Instant Costume Change:
  • Whenever the group goes into space, Sean and Sydney instantly change from their regular outfits to their space suits.
  • In "Sean's Year In Space", Sean changes into his space suit when he tries to live in the treehouse for a year very quickly.
• Instant Wristwatch: This happens a lot. At any given moment, Sydney's Commander Cressida watch might randomly appear on her wrist.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side:
  • Mitchell, perhaps? In a leaked image of "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", he is shown wearing a lavender dress. Judging by the reaction on his face, he seems to be happy about it.
  • Also, in "Try and Try Again", Mitchell seems to have no qualms about wearing Mindy's lucky helmet...which has rainbows and unicorns on it.
  • Carrot too. Carrot is a stay at home dad, and he likes to cook. He is also revealed to like ballet in "Castaway Carrot", and he briefly wore a pink scarf while admiring himself in a mirror in the same episode.
• Invisible Parents:
  • Aside from Jet, whose two parents are always present, Mitchell, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy are all confirmed to have both a mom and a dad each, but almost none of them are ever shown. Mitchell's dad is always shown, but Mitchell's mom has only been heard. Sean's mom is always shown, but his dad is nowhere to be seen. Mindy's mom is heard, but not shown, and her dad is also nowhere to be seen. And Sydney's parents have been neither seen or shown, though Sydney's mom appeared in the season 1 finale, and makes frequent appearances in season 2.
  • As for Lillian, she is confirmed to have a mom in "Mindy Turns Five", but is unknown if she has a father.
• Iris Out: Part 1 of "Jet's First Halloween" ends like this. Sunspot breaks the fourth wall by stretching the circle opening, screaming, and then winking before closing it.
• Ironic Echo Cut: The episode "Castaway Carrot" has this exchange:
  Celery: Way the by, your dad is fine. I can hear him testing his moon wilderness skills.
  Carrot: (from outside the saucer) I love testing my moon wilderness skills!
• It Kind of Looks Like a Face: Dr. Skelley teaches Sean and Sydney that you can see faces on everyday objects. They proceed to envision faces on the objects around them, such as a car, a jetpack, and a control panel.
• It's All About Me:
  • Mitchell seems to have a bad case of this as shown in "Kid-Kart Derby". When he wins the soapbox derby, he is the only one cheering for him and even asks anyone if they want autographs from him, but instead, everyone is looking up at and cheering Jet (who was parachuting) even though he lost the derby. Mitchell is the complete opposite of Jet, who is very selfless and tries not to expose his alien identity because he doesn't want to be a celebrity and leave his friends.
  • Also in "Racing on Sunshine", before the race starts, Mitchell boasts that he was "ready to retire", but Cody convinced him to race again. Needless to say, the other racers weren't amused.
  • Mindy, to a lesser extent. "I guess you're just not me".
  • Jet's cousin Zerk. He is a huge braggart as revealed in "Whole Lotta Shakin'", and he also attempted to take credit for the "Just Add Water" in "Back to Bortron 7".
• It's a Long Story:
  • In "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa", Dr. Bergs says this word for word when Ellen finds his mug with her face on it.
  • In "Who Messed Up The Treehouse?", Jet says this when Sean asks why he has an egg in his ear.
• It's Always Spring: In this show, it always seems to be summer. Averted in both of Halloween 2-parter, where it's fall, and in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace" and "Endless Summer", where it's winter.
• It's for a Book: In the episode "Solar System Bake-Off", Mitchell sneaks into Jet's house to gather info on Mindy's baking contest entry. He writes down some information in his notebook. When Sydney asks what he's writing in there, Mitchell says its for a cookbook. Or a blog. Or webisodes.
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: In "Mini-Golf at the DSA", Sean tells Jet that he needs to use the right amount of force to get his golf ball to move properly and not bounce all over the place. Jet says he loves force, only to ask a second later what force is.
• I Was Born Ready: A variant occurs in "Asteroid Belt Space Race":
  Zucchini: Feelin' lucky today, sis?
  Celery: I was born lucky, Zucchini!
• I Will Find You: In "One Small Step", Sean and Mindy become worried when Jet and Sunspot go missing. At one point, Mindy even thinks that a "moon monster" got them. So, Sean and Mindy make it their mission to go and locate them. Along the way, they learn about the Apollo 11 mission. When they finally find Jet, they share a Group Hug.
• I Work Alone:
  • It isn't said verbatim, but Mitchell usually rejects help from other characters when trying to solve his cases, claiming that he needs to solve his mysteries himself, as shown in episodes like "What Goes Up...", "Kid-Kart Derby", and "Mindy's Mystery". However, this trope averts in "Detective Mindy", where Mitchell actually lets Mindy help him.
  • In the Christmas Episode, Mitchell claims that he "doesn't do friends". He's lying, of course.
  • Even after the Christmas Episode, Mitchell still rejects help from the kids in "Racing on Sunshine" and "You Can Call Me Albedo", but both instances stem from Mitchell's overconfidence in being a detective rather than outright hatred for the others.
  • Sunspot has this mindset in "Ain't No Mars Mountain High Enough". He doesn't want help from any of the other characters to climb Mt. Sharp.

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