Incredible Crew is a live-action Sketch Comedy series created by Nick Cannon that aired on Cartoon Network for one 13-episode season from January 24 to April 11, 2013, previewed beforehand on New Year's Eve 2012 in a special titled "Incredible Crew Year's Eve". Two soundtracks compiling the show's songs were also released.
The show stars six young comedians — Jeremy Shada, Brandon Soo Hoo, Shauna Case, Shameik Moore, Tristan Pasterick, and Chanelle Peloso — and consists of skits, Candid Camera Pranks, and music videos that fall squarely under a surreal and Non Sequitur-laden brand of humor.
The show seemed to disappear after its season finale, and there was no news about it for months on end until it was eventually announced on July 29, 2013 that it had been cancelled, making this the last live-action show Cartoon Network had made for its channel before 2021, when the sitcom Family Mash-Up was picked up for HBO Max.
Incredible Crew has the following tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: Played for Laughs in the "Cola Thief" sketch, where a teacher keeps her class after school because someone stole and drank nearly sixty sodas from her cabinet and won't let anyone leave until the thief confesses. One of the students points out that a boy named Wyatt, who's very plainly going out of his mind from a sugar rush, probably did it. The teacher just says they can't accuse someone without proof.
- And I Must Scream: Played for Laughs in the "Prize Surprise" skit where the contestants are so overstimulated with surprise that they're frozen and turned into statues.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Just like Mad
, nearly every false product they advertise. Examples include Hot Dog Cereal, Nacho Tortillahose, Face Jeans, and so on. - Big Little Sister: Shauna plays Jeremy's in the "Magical Video Game Controller" sketch.
- Body Horror: Played for Laughs in the "Perso" skit, where the characters of an 80s-esque kids show transform into letters to make up "SMILE".
- Candid Camera Prank: A few sketches see the cast interact with the public.
- Comically Missing the Point / Adults Are Useless: In the "Cola Thief" sketch, a teacher keeps her class after school because someone stole and drank 58 sodas from her cabinet, and she won't let anyone leave until the thief confesses. One of the students points out that a boy named Wyatt probably did it, but the teacher says they don't accuse anyone without proof. As if Wyatt hopped up on sugar and running around the classroom like the Tasmanian Devil isn't proof enough. Wyatt confesses after a couple minutes, but now the teacher says that somebody else stole over 300 pieces of bubblegum and wants to know whodunit, failing to see a student clearly chewing a huge wad of gum.
- Covered in Gunge: There are few sketches where one of the cast get some kind of liquid sprayed or dumped on them.
- Dead Pet Sketch: In one short skit, Tristan plays a boy whose goldfish has passed away (refrain from confusion), and his mother instinctively gets a new one. However, he is able to find out when the goldfish keeps saying, "Hey."
- Department of Redundancy Department:
- "Exploring Explorers of Exploration".
- "Super duper gross things are super duper gross".
- Disaster Movie: Parodied remorselessly with the "Torcano" skit. The title disaster is a tornado pulling molten lava from an active volcano into itself, but by the end of the skit it is basically composed every natural disaster at once with the Overly Long Name of "Torcanoquake Blizvalanche Fireicanebees".
- Eat the Evidence: The point of "Cheat Sheet Tacos".
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: In one skit, Shada's character ventures into a ball pit and discovers rainbows that talk.
- F--: The teacher gives this at the end of "The Worst Thing That Could Happen During A Book Report".
- Found Footage Films: Parodied in the "Santa Claus Hunters" sketch. The premise of the sketch stars a group of kids who want to capture Santa on tape, and one part of the sketch has Chanelle freaking out and crying under a table.
- Gainax Ending: A lot of sketches end like this.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Michael Shin, 5th grade ninja.
- Grossout Show: On occasion.
- The bake sale skit takes the cake.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Kylie, the Embarrassed Girl. She seems nice at first glance, but once you do something to embarrass her...
- Insane Troll Logic: You don't know the half of it.
- "Just So" Story: At the end of the "Prize Surprise" sketch, after the contestants have turned into statues from excitement, Shameik states that all statues are made in this way.
- Kid Detective: The Worst Brothers Junior Detectives. Parodied in that they tear apart everything in sight.
- Ladies and Germs: "Ladies, gentlemen, werewolves."
- Large Ham: Shameik and almost every character he's played.
- Also, Olaf the Super Sensitive Viking.
- SOLAR SYSTEM WOLF CAN HOWL MUSIC!
- Laugh Track: Averted, and the jokes work better thanks to the added awkwardness.
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: In one sketch, Jeremy says that 100% of people in the world don't want to receive a snakebite.
- Mind Screw: The Complecatrix board game. Need we say more?
- No Fourth Wall: In the "Smile" skit, Jeremy (while on an 80s-esque kids show) actually says, "Yeah, roll the opening title!"
- No Indoor Voice: A LOT of screaming on this show.
- Non Sequitur: Where most of the show's humor comes from.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: You'd be surprised to see how many characters harness it.
- Overly Long Name: The "Torcanoquake Blizvalanche Fireicanebees". And yet characters always insist on saying the full name.Panicked Civilian: Saying the full name slows down my escape from it!
- Parental Obliviousness: The restaurant artist kid's parents exaggerate this trope to painful extents. Their son creates paintings, makes a colorful 3D clay stickman, makes it into the newspaper, and creates a giant metal stickman, while his parents don't notice a thing.
- Planet of Steves: To be more specific, a school of Dougs.
- Rockers Smash Guitars: Santa does this at the end of What Santa's Doing Right Now.
- Rule of Cool: In one sketch, a teacher gives a lesson about interdimensional portals!
- Running Gag: A stuffed unicorn that makes one of the most annoying sounds you've ever heard.
- Severely Specialized Store: The Shorts and Spoons Warehouse. Bonus points for all customers having to buy one of each.
- Shout-Out:
- The Foam Bat Guy from "Think Fast Go Hurry Up Okay?" notably resembles Boxman from Smosh.
- In the "Smile" sketch, Jeremy is seen playing the red SG controller from Guitar Hero.
- One sketch features a show called "WipeOuch!".
- Jeremy Shada plays a character named Captain Jake Blue Jay.
- Shauna and her friends go through a walk-in closet into another world.
- In one sketch, Jeremy does a Slasher Smile very similar to Jack Douglass'.
- The magical video game controller is a black-and-gold NES controller.
- A giant disembodied head tries to use rings to turn teens into a superhero team.
- In "Santa Claus Hunters", there's a scene featuring Chanelle breaking down in tears hiding from Santa.
- Sketch Comedy
- Space Whale Aesop: Don't bring a mop to school to cut classes or otherwise everyone will mistake it for you.
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Broken Aesop: However, it's made so that the "real" moral is to not cut class.
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- Stealth Pun: During a dream, Chanelle runs into a giant toe named Robert. Robert Toe.
- Super-Strength: In one sketch, Shauna is able to destroy a table with one fist and also becomes a great fighter.
- Surreal Humor: A good majority of the show is just randomness.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Robby during the "Mop Robby" sketch. See Space Whale Aesop above for context.
- Tempting Fate: The Bad Luck Rap, where a group of kids rap that they don't believe in bad luck and do various things that are stated to cause it (breaking mirrors, spilling salt, walking under ladders, etc). Of course once they do the deeds, bad luck instantly happens to them. One of the kids gets savvy when it only comes down to two of them and backs out instantly.
- Training Montage: Parodied in the "Last Pillow Fighter" sketch; the montage is only Shauna doing three push-ups.
- Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: MIRI has this moment at the end of its sketch.
- Weirdness Censor: In "Farting Grandpa", there's several of them. In one, a Big Bad makes nothing of seeing giant flying muffins. Also, a girl is too busy dancing to notice that she's being robbed.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In the sketch, which parodies the Indiana Jones film series, Jeremy Shada said this line but replaced the snakes with grandmas.Minnesota Rhodes: "Grandmas. Why did it have to be grandmas?"
