Murphy & Mitzi is an animated comedy web series of comic strips and micro-shorts created in 2019 by Ajmarekart on Twitter
and Instagram (also on YouTube and TikToknote , but containing only the shorts).
The series features Murphy: a mischievous 12 y/o skater cat with very bad luck who believes himself to be a junior Tony Hawk and a professional hacker, but actually is a dorky kid who is too afraid to perform his "X-Treme Stunts" when girls are around and plays videogames whenever he's not breaking half his bones trying to actually do one of these, and essentially, a good boy that wants to be a bad boy and Mitzi, a sweet although, extremely impulsive squirrel who has good intentions and a kind heart but somehow got kicked out of the Cookie Scout camp after "her hijinx became too much". As both engage in chaotic and reckless activities all around New Lennium City, often causing collateral damage, hurting others and themselves in the process. Or simply provoking an unfortunate event for both.
Along others like [bunny], the mysterious, well, bunny... kid who-the-heck-knows her-name who likes hanging around the sewer who no one knows where she came from or even belongs to and Zoe, a rollerskater, laid-back 16 y/o dog who acts as a bigger sister figure to the duo, often having to keep up with their antics be it on a casual day or at whatever her current day job is.
The series is set in New Lennium City, a futuristic-ish, New York-like like city in the early 2000s, being this era the main attraction of the whole series and a tribute thereof. With the art style irradiating and closely mimicking that of a Y2K cartoon. Full with simple, geometric designs and your good ol' thick outlines.
Currently the series just composes of the mentioned earlier "micro-shorts" which are called that for being less than a minute long, ranging from 5 to 55 seconds of duration, the average duration being 10-25 seconds, posted in a gap ranging from 2 weeks or even 2 months depending on AJ's time for the series, as he works as a freelance animator. And the also ocassional comic strips which are put out more often than the shorts. Not counting the "Thank you" image for the patreons at the end of the month and miscellaneous images the creator does of the series.
Plans are taken in consideration by him to make it a full fledged series in the future.
Murphy and Mitzi contains examples of:
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Delia towards Murphy at times, from pulling up on a helicopter to his window just to see her son wake up and remind him to brush his teeth to calling him out on live TV for not giving her a Mother's Day present.
- Anachronism Stew:
- Combined with a Series Continuity Error. "Stocking Up" takes place during the COVID-19 Pandemic, but the main characters are still kids, despite the comics showing that they would be adults by that point.
- In "Sound Styles", "3 Small Words" and "Almost Dead" can be heard, despite having been released after 2000. While it isn't implausible for "3 Small Words" to be around when Murphy and Mitzi look like they are still twelve, since it was released in 2001, by the time "Almost Dead" was released, the two would be in their late teens.
- Art Shift: This usually tends to happen with the monthly "Thank you" images for patreon with one of them from February of 2023 being in the style of Rocky & Bullwinkle and one from February of 2024 being in the style of Ed, Edd n' Eddy as the two examples.
- Butt-Monkey: Nearly every short or strip has Murphy get hurt in some way. Mitzi too, sometimes.
- Carnivore Confusion:
- In "Not So Thankful", [bunny], of all characters, is shown eating turkey.
- Lampshaded in "An Unfortunate Meat-ing". Murphy and Mitzi visit a fast food restaraunt, but leave when they notice a bull and a chicken looking angry at them. They then go to a vegan restaraunt instead, but find a cabbage and a carrot glaring at them...and the former draws a pistol...
- Cool Big Sis: Zoe tends to act like one towards the titular duo.
- Deadly Distant Finale: The series hasn't ended yet, but in the shorts and comics that show the characters' future, Murphy, Mitzi and Zoe are shown to have died in their eighties or older (and at least Murphy's death wasn't of old age).
- Dragged Off to Hell: Happens to the titular duo in "Grave Danger". Vivian did it.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- In "Dangerous Streets", Mitzi hits Murphy with a bat for no reason at all. In later shorts, which estabilish her as an overall Nice Girl, it would be hard to imagine her deliberately hurting any of her friends, as she looks worried whenever Murphy is hurt.
- Zoe was originally a 14 year old, until she was aged up slightly in 2021 where she is currently a 16 year old according to one of her bios from 2021.
- Flash Forward: A few shorts and strips show what the characters are up to in mid-2000s, 2020s and 2070s.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the third panel of "A Life Well-Lived", depicting the titular duo's adulthood, the two's wedding photo can be seen, though partially obscured.
- Furry Confusion: "ValentineDay.WMV" features edited photos of non-anthropomorphic cat and squirrel, right next to anthropomorphic versions of said animals.
- Furry Reminder: "Animal Nature" is built on this: Murphy (a cat) distracts Zoe (a dog), steals her fries and then runs up a tree to escape her. Zoe growls at Murphy, he hisses at her, and then Mitzi (a squirrel) pops out of the tree's leaves, her mouth filled with nuts. In fact, occasional Furry Reminders are implied to be the norm for New Lennium City's residents by the short's description.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Both played straight and averted. Mitzi occasionally exclaims "golly", but "god", "hell" and "damn" are given a pass when used and not censored, unlike F and S-bombs.
- Grave Humor:
- In "A Life Well-Lived" strip, Murphy's coffin is marked with words "The future is now,old man".
- "Annoying 'Till the End" short ends with a shot of Murphy, Mitzi and Zoe's tombstones, which read, respectively: "He died as he lived — sick as hell", "A Heart As Warm As Fire" and "Patient and Cool Until Her Last Sigh".
- Hartman Hips: Both Delia and Meryl have them, which is more noticeable when they wear something more form-fitting than skirts.
- Hypocrite: Although the bull and the chicken mentioned above glare at the heroes for eating at the restaraunt serving cow and chicken meat, there's no indication as to why they are attending the same restaraunt if they are opposed to eating their kin's meat.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Implied Love Interest: At times it's hinted that Mitzi sees Murphy as more than a friend: she actually likes [bunny]'s ship art and WMV of the two of them, "Hallow-Window" has her lick out a heart shape on his window, and the comic "A Life Well-Lived" drops the subtlety by showing her Happily Married to Murphy in the future .
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: The chicken from "An Unfortunate Meat-ing" appears to have them.
- Ship Tease: So much between Murphy and Mitzi that it probably warrants a separate page:
- Mitzi occasionally seems to show romantic interest towards Murphy, such as licking out a heart shape on his window or throwing flirtatious looks at him in shorts like "Explodreaming" and "Post-Valentine's Danger".
- In "DDR", Murphy and Mitzi assume Sonic and Amy's poses respectively in a few frames. The two characters have similar tensions despite not being a canon couple. In another frame, the two are in a partner dance pose, and Murphy is actually seen smiling, as opposed to his usual attitude.
- And that's not going into how "A Life Well-Lived" confirms that they will become an Official Couple - and spouses - in the future.
- Shipper on Deck: [bunny] ships the titular duo pretty aggressively, much to Murphy's embarrassment, while Mitzi doesn't seem to mind.
- Shoulder Teammate: Mitzi's preferred way of travelling is on Murphy's shoulders while he's skateboarding.
- Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: The instances when the school-aged characters are actually shown attending school can be counted on one hand.
- Shout-Out:
- In "Candy Cigarettes", Murphy is dressed up as Shadow the Hedgehog while Mitzi is dressed up as Sandy Cheeks dressed up as as a fish in a bowl.
- In "Claws and Effects", a plush of Sonic can be seen in the video.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Murphy doesn't exactly get along well with Meryl, Mitzi's mother. The fact that he keeps trying to get free treats from her, got her clothes wet once and even insulted her own mother probably didn't help.
- Sleep Cute: The titular duo, with Zoe sandwitched in-between them (and also asleep), in "Sleepy Subway". [bunny] chose to kill the moment, even if with good intentions.
- Take That!:
- One Patreon strip involves an older Murphy wasting all of his graduation money on an Xbox 360 and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), then venting out his frustration on YouTube.
Ajmarekart: Murphy's got a lot to say about terrible voice acting in video games about cartoon hedgehogs.- "Candy Cigarettes" calls out those who still sell or give out to kids the titular confectioneries in spite of their controversial nature.
- Tempting Fate: Murphy and Mitzi celebrating the New Year 2020:Mitzi: Golly, I sure hope this year is painless!Murphy: What could happen that we haven't seen already?
- Turn of the Millennium: The series takes place in the 2000s and invokes the common aesthetics of the era.
- Unexplained Recovery: The titular duo is subjected to "eternal damnation" in "Grave Danger", but seem to be free of it by the next short, with no explanation given. This wouldn't have been so bad had the series had Negative Continuity rather than the somewhat loose one it has.
- Wax Museum Morgue: An example involving chocolate instead of wax is Implied in an Easter-themed strip. Meryl makes a chocolate model of [bunny], and when Murphy asks if [bunny] herself is inside, Meryl denies it at first, but then recalls being under influence while making the model, and that she hasn't seen the girl since it's been finished.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Colin gets killed after only 6 seconds of screentime. The description of the short depicting his funeral lampshades this by calling him an "extremely important" character.
- World of Funny Animals: All characters seen so far are anthropomorphic animals, with no humans to be seen (though given the in-universe existence of Sonic the Hedgehog series, one would expect otherwise). One short lampshades this by showing a section titled "Are humans real?" on a website Mitzi is reading.
