Originating out of Chicago, Toon In With Me is hosted by Bill The Cartoon Curator (Bill Leff) and his puppet sidekick Toony the Tuna (Kevin Fleming), with fellow series regular Leila Gorstein playing a wide array of supporting characters for the show's first year & a half. Kevin and (to a lesser extent) Bill also play various extra characters. Episodes generally have the hosts taking part in a celebration, plan, or activity that often ties into the selection of (typically) five cartoons shown on air, typically ending with Bill and Toony showcasing fan art from viewers. Since September 2021, Fridays are traditionally "Fan-tastic Friday", where viewer requests and questions dictate what cartoons are shown and what segments take place.
Companion to MeTV's block of Saturday morning cartoons, which features cartoons from the pool used by Toon In With Me in timeslots themed after the cartoons' originating companies. Spun off with series Sventoonie in the spring of 2022, featuring Toony in his horror host alter-ego, conveniently airing following the network's airing of Svengoolie on Saturday nights.
Toon In With Me contains examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Toony The Tuna, Fan-tastic Friday, Cartoon Curator, Felton Fanboy, Felicia Fangirl, etc.
- Animated Credits Opening: Each episode's intro features a cartoon of Toony swimming past televisions showing many of the bigger cartoon franchises that they run on air.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Bill finds butter and milk too spicy for his tastes.
- Bob Ross Rib: Mel Attonin (get it, "melatonin") is basically a parody of Bob Ross if he had overtly creepy and sinister undertones, usually unsettling Bill and Toony in the process.
- Butt-Monkey: Bill often becomes this as he tries to keep the show on track from the antics of Toony and other characters. His penchant for finding almost any food to be too spicy doesn't help.
- Catchphrase:
- Episodes tend to end with Bill saying "Hope your day is toonerific!" or Bill & Toony saying "Bye bye from Bill, and thanks from the tank!"
- Mr. Quizzer also has his own catchphrase when he exits a scene, which is “Quizzer out!”
- Benny the I.T. Feller has "Put 'er on a truck!" accompanied by a harmonica riff.
- Celebrity Cameo:
- During their Best of Bugs Bunny Week in April 2021, Toon In With Me got virtual interviews with animation historian Jerry Beck, Bugs voice actors Jeff Bergman and Billy West, and children of Looney Tunes directors Bob Clampett and Robert McKimson. When reprised in 2022, current Bugs Bunny voice actor Eric Bauza also stopped by.
- The likes of Gilbert Gottfried, Yakov Smirnoff, Bill Kurtis, and Bill Mumy have made cameos in episodes.
- Lisa Whelchel from The Facts of Life and fellow MeTV original series Collector's Call made a guest appearance in Tiny Toony's Christmas Carol. Bill had already appeared on Collector's Call in April 2020 (before Toon In With Me premiered) to show off his impressive toy collection.
- Christmas Episode: Multiple, including abbreviated versions of the MeTV's Colossal Cartoon Christmas special that aired in primetime, though the Christmas ties of the extra episodes were mostly just tied to the host segments.
- Christmas Special:
- MeTV's Colossal Cartoon Christmas from December 2021 featured nine Christmas cartoons from their pool of available licenses in a two-hour special, notably including a brand-new restoration of the Fleischer Studios short Somewhere In Dreamland.
- 2022 saw the premiere of Tiny Toony's Christmas Carol. Bill tells Toony a wacky version of Yet Another Christmas Carol. Some of the featured shorts were different this time around, including Holiday Land and Mister and Mistletoe. Most others, however, were reused from the first special, including Bedtime for Sniffles, The Night Before Christmas, The Peachy Cobbler, Gift Wrapped, and The Fright Before Christmas.
- The Collector: Bill in spades. His vast real-life toy collection is frequently cited on air, and he showcases items from it on each Fan-Tastic Friday, usually prompted by viewer requests (and usually getting lampshaded by Toony in some form).
- Cool Shades: Detective Abouttoretire and Lieutenant Newtotheforce are always seen wearing them.
- Cross-Cast Role: Leila Gorstein frequently played female and male characters. This rarely works the other way for her co-stars, given that Bill & Kevin have facial hair.
- Every Episode Ending: After Bill & Toony sign off, Bill will almost always walk over to Toony's tank to talk to him in an extension of their remarks from the viewer art segment, as if the cameras aren't rolling anymore. This is followed by a short preview of the next episode.
- Game Show Host: Mr. Quizzer, who frequently pops up on a TV monitor on set to host quick trivia segments.
- Gasshole: If there's an opportunity for a fart joke, Toony will make one.
- Genre Shift: Starting in season 3, Bill and Toony's segments started to become more edutainment-based and most of the supporting cast's roles became minimized.
- Halloween Episode:
- "Billoween": The characters dress up in costume and present some horror-themed shorts, such as A-Haunting We Will Go and Scaredy Cat.
- "When Blob E. Met Bill E.": A Crossover, as Toony again dons his Sventoonie garb and brings Blob E. Blob to the set (leaving Bill feeling put out). Most of the shorts are different from the previous example, including Broom-Stick Bunny and Pink Panic.
- "Trick-or-Treat!": Bill comes up with a last-minute Halloween costume (Chuck Jones). Included the show debut of the Universal short Fowled-Up Party. It's worth noting that the previous six episodes were Halloween and/or fall-related too, particularly "The Haunted Elevator" (which crossed over with Svengoolie).
- Hands-Off Parenting: Toony's owner/foster mom Goldie Fisher is an avid world traveller who left him in Bill's care, though she frequently made virtual guest appearances on the TV monitor, only rarely appearing in studio. Bill became his new guardian after Leila (and most of her characters) left the show.
- Handy Remote Control: Bill's clicker that he most often uses to start cartoons in episodes. It also allows for other functionalities, usually to make things turn into other things, as needs of the episode dictate.
- Horror Host: Toony's alter-ego Sventoonie, who even got his own mini-series spinoff in 2022! Sventoonie-centric episodes of Toon In With Me typically have cartoons themed around horror and sci-fi subject matter. Svengoolie himself and his own talking puppet Kerwyn have made numerous guest appearances as well.
- Hurricane of Puns: Corny humor abounds in the host segments, some days moreso than others.
- Interdimensional Travel Device: Goldie Fisher has a smartphone app that allows her to travel anywhere in the world on a whim, frequently via fan requests on Fan-tastic Fridays.
- Large Ham: Goldie and pretty much all the characters played by Kevin Fleming
- Lampshade Hanging: Toony wears a shirt in the studio, but the Animated Credits Opening always depicts him without it. A question in a Fan-tastic Friday episode inquired about this, leading to Toony expressing embarrassment (as he hadn't been aware his shirt disappears whenever he goes for a swim).
- Moral Dilemma: In Leila Gorstein's farewell episode, Goldie Fisher announces her planned never-ending trip through space, having been everywhere and seen everything on Earth, and indicating that she plans to take Toony (technically her pet) with her. The host segments featured Toony grappling with whether he really wants to leave Earth (and the show, and Bill) forever or not. He eventually told Goldie that he wanted to stay, and she was fine with that, understanding his friendship with Bill.
- Never Bareheaded: Bill, something he has been lampshaded about by Toony. One episode explained that he only has the one hat, he can just use his clicker to make it turn into any other types of hat at will.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: Goldie has one.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Plenty, ranging from Benny the I.T. Feller to Sham-Rock to Todd Herling.
- Parody Commercial: Numerous, usually to Bill's annoyance at a Toony scheme.
- Pie in the Face: Bill is often a victim of this.
- Public Domain Animation: A number of different Warner Bros., MGM, Fleischer, and Columbia shorts on the list have appeared on the show. Pantry Panic is a particularly notable example, as it allowed the show to feature Woody Woodpecker a couple times before gaining the rights for assorted Walter Lantz cartoons in 2023.
- Pun-Based Title: Oh, there are LOTS. Goldie Fisher, Sue P. from Sales, Misty Drizzle, Detective Abouttoretire, Lieutenant Newtotheforce, Lorna Greene, and movie critics Shaddup & Showacartoon are just some of the more notable examples.
- Put on a Bus: More like put on a spaceship, which is how Goldie Fisher and many of Leila Gorstein's recurring characters were written out of the show in June 2022 (Goldie left Earth permanently to travel the cosmos, taking many characters with her as crew).
- The absence of Bill's mom (another of Leila's characters) is usually explained by Bill's dad (Kevin Fleming) noting that she's away or in the other room, perhaps helping Bobby Martin from All My Children wax his skis in the attic?
- Retirony: Detective Abouttoretire is the living embodiment of this trope.
- Running Gag: Toony's love for donuts and Bill's dislike for food/drinks any spicier than mayonnaise.
- Signing Off Catchphrase: Before talking to Toony for the Every Episode Ending, Bill bids the audience goodbye by saying, "Hope your day is toonarific."
- Similar Squad: A common plot in the first two seasons is Bill and Toony watching another kids' show that happens to be very similar to their own. The most common of these is "Yee Howdy!"
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
- Following the premiere, Toony has developed an ongoing rivalry with Kerwyn, the puppet rubber chicken from Svengoolie. Toony got miffed about Kerwyn beating him for a "Mascot of the Year" award, and in crossover appearances on both shows, the two are quick to trade insults and try to upstage one another, much to the annoyance of Sven and Bill. The rivalry continued on Sventoonie.
- Bill also has one: Johann Von Schnauzer, the little European boy who beat him out for the role of the "Lingonbuddy," a mascot representing a brand of lingonberry-flavored doughnuts.
- Straight Man: Bill, though Toony has his moments if special guests are particularly out there, or if Bill's eccentricities are on display.
- Straw Loser: Played for laughs with Mr. Quizzer. For whatever misfortunes befall Bill or Toony, multiple episodes show he always has it much worse. He has no friends outside the show, has lived in squalor, desperately tries to get the minimum of screentime so he can get paid that day, and went to jail for a pyramid scheme. He himself has noted that he leads a very sad and lonely life.
- Superman Substitute: "Supermania" is devoted to this concept, with shorts parodying the Man of Steel before getting to The Arctic Giant.
- Terrestrial Sea Life: Toony (and his Transatlantic Equivalent Tuuni) can happily breathe air and live outside of water, though Toony does have a fish tank in the studio. He is seen swimming in the intro, and some episodes do feature him entering and exiting the tank. A Fan-tastic Friday question did ask how he could breathe out of water, leading to him briefly realizing that he couldn't breathe (for comic relief, of course).
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- Toony just loves donuts.
- Bill loves plain toast.
- Boxcar has beans.
- Dippy eats crayons because he's really an alien.
- Transatlantic Equivalent: Tuuni, Toony's Finnish doppleganger.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: The two-hour Christmas special "Tiny Toony's Christmas Carol", in which Bill teaches Toony the meaning of Christmas with his own unique spin on the Dickens classic, plus a collection of appropriate cartoons.
