The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy / Tropes A to D

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Trope Examples
A - D | E - H | I - M | N - R | S - Z

---

A

• Accidental Downer Ending: In "The Schlubs", has an In-Universe example. Grim is watching a series called "My Troubled Pony", which is stated by Mandy that it was cancelled and that it has No Ending. It ends on a grim cliffhanger with the protagonist falling into a volcano before it cuts to a "The end?" screen, devastating Grim. In the credits sequence of this episode, Billy is paid to make his own ending to the series as Mandy had bought the company behind it, which Grim wanted to do.
• Accidental Misnaming: "Guess What's Coming to Dinner" had a running gag of Eris and Hoss Delgado getting Principal Goodvibes' name wrong, often addressing him with different names beginning with the word "good" such as "Goodwater", "Goodchild", and "Good Burger".
  • In that same episode, Hoss can't remember Billy's name either, referring to him as Randy, Otis, and Remus.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services:
  • In Season 2 "Educating Grim", when Billy tries to race Grim and Mandy to school, he immediately runs into the school's front sign. Cue Nurse Penbroke walking outside hold first-aid kits looking annoyed. After Billy and Mandy leave school, Billy is already covered in bandages and walking with a crutch. When Nurse Penbroke happily waits outside for Billy, he tells her he's done for today and then she releases an exhausted sigh.
    Nurse Penbroke: Oh, Billy.
    Billy: (cheerfully) Hi, Nurse Penbroke. I can't feel my legs.
  • Grim has this relationship with the nursing staffs at the retirement homes when he comes for the elderly residents, as shown in Season 5 "Home of the Ancients".
    Gloria: Hi, Grim.
    Grim: S'up, Gloria.
    Gloria: Aw. Are you here for Mr. Silverman?
    Grim: No. That's next week.
• Actor Allusion:
  • In the two-part episode, "Brown Evil", Billy mistakes Hoss Delgado for a wussy video game character named Pat the Baker, both of which are voiced by Deiderich Bader.
    • Speaking of Deiderich Bader, one of Hoss' win quotes in the video game is "Bow to your sensei!"
  • Dean Toadblatt's voice actor is John Vernon, the same guy who played Dean Wormer in Animal House. This explains why he yelled "Gunderstank House!" after getting pranked on the episode where Billy and Mandy go to a Hogwarts-style school for kid wizards.
  • In the Christmas Special, the vampire Baron von Ghoulish, voiced by Malcolm McDowell, is first seen filing his teeth and singing Singin' In The Rain.
  • Two episodes feature Kurtwood Smith as Grim's dad, who is pretty much a skeletal Red Forman in terms of appearance and mannerisms.
• Afraid of Clowns:
  • Billy is deathly afraid of clowns, which so annoys Mandy that she decides to cure him, and ropes Grim into helping her.
    Billy: "Ya gotta believe me, Mandy. The clowns are nothin' but ultimate evil! They want to be the dominant species on the planet and they will destroy us all to make it happen! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! I'll take the chicken. DESTROY US ALL!..."
  • Eventually, Billy's "inner frat boy" encourages him to not be afraid of clowns, but to instead be angry at them for being different. The cartoon ends with not just Billy, but also Mandy and Grim all hating clowns.
• Alpha Bitch: Mindy, especially in the final Halloween special of the show.
• Alliterative List: Trying to help Nergal to make friends, Billy introduces him to the five C's of friendship. Cleanliness, Consideration, Compliments, Conversation, and, uh, Sharing.
• Alternate Universe: It shares the same universe as Evil Con Carne, a universe where Abraham Lincoln is still President and the League of Nations still exists. It's also hinted that it shares the same universe as Codename: Kids Next Door and Ed, Edd n Eddy, per the crossover. In one episode, due to the collapse of time and space, the universe is rebooted and the characters are reincarnated as the cast of The Powerpuff Girls... which might also be part of the same universe anyway, since Billy's first reaction upon seeing the Kids Next Door is to comment that they're not the Powerpuff Girls.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: In India the show is known as Billy Mandy Aur Life Me Haddi and has two different them songs. One in Indian and one in English.
• Ambiguously Related: While it ultimately ends up not being the case, the first couple episodes aren't very clear as to whether or not on Billy and Mandy are siblings. The Pilot Episode makes no mention of what their relationship is and it ending with the two of them (and Grim) sharing the same bed certainly didn't help matters. It isn't until Mandy's parents are introduced is it more or less confirmed that Mandy simply just spends her free time at Billy's house. A gag in a later episode even lampshades the fact that she almost never goes home.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Miss Butterbean pulls a non-villainous example of this after being kidnapped by Fred Flintstone in "Modern Primitives". He... doesn't react well.
• Anime Hair: Eris in "Creating Chaos", whenever she's enjoying herself. "CHAOS!!!"
• Animesque:
  • Billy's favorite show, The X-Treme Adventures of Brandon and Mallory. It features ninja fights, high-speed chase scenes, giant robots and wailing guitars and stars two kids with the Grim Reaper.
  Mandy: Who watches this drivel?
  • Also used for a quick one-off gag when Grim was trying to use his magic to fix Billy's eyesight, Grim and Mandy appear in his eyes in an anime style. Somehow, this includes speaking Japanese.
  • At the end of "My Fair Mandy", it turns out to be The Powerpuff Girls, another somewhat Animesque show.
• Apple for Teacher: In "Smarten Up!", when Billy's cat Milkshakes, possessed by a "book worm", takes it upon himself to tutor him. Billy gives him an apple, which touches Milkshakes until he find a worm in it.
• Are We Getting This?: In "No Pain, No Game" (Cartoon Network Block Party #53), Billy auditions for an extreme Japanese game show. He has Mandy record his actions with a video camera, none of which gets on tape because Mandy (perhaps deliberately) left the lens cap on.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In the episode "Grim in Love", Mandy gives one to Grim regarding his new goth girlfriend, Malaria.
  Mandy: So I take it your date went well?
  Grim: I’m King of the Underworld!
  Mandy: Have you told her you’re not human yet?
• Arrowgram: Parodied in Wrath of the Spider Queen. The titular villain has invaded the Endsville school with the sole purpose to steal Grim's position as the Grim Reaper. She has her Dark Elf vassals send "messages from the Spider Queen" through this trope. First with an arrow pierces his forehead, revealing herself as Velma Green, which doesn't ring any bells. An ax then lands at the back of his skull with another note tied to it: "From junior high school, stupid." Grim still dismisses the connection until a lance pierces him from behind, this time with a familiar school photo of Velma tied to it.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Billy's dad's lucky pants are immune to lasers, supernatural forces, and mustard.
  • In "Night of the Living Grim", Grim does this when he complains about his Humanity Ensues situation.
    Grim: I hate being mortal. I have no powers, I get beat up every two minutes, I have to go to the bathroom all the time…
  • In "Bully Boogie", the Boogeyman blames kids being hard to scare nowadays on cartoons, video games, and the tuba.
  • In "Complete and Utter Chaos", when Mandy takes the Apple of Discord and plans to use its power herself, she goes on a long rant of everything she will do, such as ruling humanity and being a "dark and terrible queen", and then finishes it by saying "and I might punch Irwin in the mouth!" just as dramatically.
• Art Evolution: Lampshaded in "Billy and Mandy Begins", where scenes from the original episode accompanied by Mandy's narration are played to end the dispute over the character's conflicting origin stories. Grim remarks, "That doesn't even look like us!"
• Art Shift: An episode ended with Billy needing Grim to fix his eyes, and with each attempt, he sees the world rendered in a different animation style, until finally, he gets real human eyes.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The final season (including "Big Boogey Adventure" and "Underfist") saw the switch from 4:3 to 16:9. The KND crossover was, however, produced in 4:3 since it was a Kids Next Door episode.
• Assimilation Backfire:
  • Happened to a brain-eating alien, when it was dumb enough to consume Mandy's brain. Mandy takes over and gets the same craving for brains as the alien.
  • Happened again in the Kids Next Door crossover. Billy getting Grim's scythe stuck in his father's pants combined with overloading the Delightful Children's Delightfulization device causes them to meld into a giant Hive Mind Reaper entity that assimilates every person it reaps. Mandy intentionality lets herself be assimilated, as she knows her willpower is strong enough to overpower the rest of the collective consciousness in the Reaper.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Billy and Mandy Save Christmas.
• Apocalypse How: Played for laughs at the end of the episode "My Fair Mandy" when Mandy smiles, causing a Class X-4 apocalypse, leading to the trio having replaced the The Powerpuff Girls.
• Attack of the Political Ad: Kind of- Grim and Nergal duke it out over their own pizza recipes in one episode; their ads duel each other, mocking each other- ie. when Nergal claims that Grim puts bugs in his pizza, Grim counters with Nergal's supposed usage of dirty socks and underwear.

• Attractive Bent-Gender: Averted. When Sperg the bully gets ahold of the wish-granting skull, the only thing on his mind is being able to go into the girl's restroom to rob them all of their money. Cue him turning into a girl so he can go in there, but the girls ridicule girl-Sperg for being such an ugly girl that he/she runs out crying. "Girls are so mean!"
• Autocannibalism: Billy is turned into chocolate, and finds himself so irresistible that he eventually eats himself down to just his head. Apparently, he's not the first to do so.

B

• Bad Santa: Voiced by Gilbert Gottfried in a Christmas episode/movie. Actually, Santa isn't really bad, he's just occasionally turned into a vampire by Mrs. Claus, who was a vampire before they married. That's happened quite a few times before.
• Balloon Belly: Billy sometimes gets a big belly when he binge-eats.
• Bat Family Crossover: In the episode "Company Halt", Skarr gets a visit from his ex-co-workers Hector Con Carne and Major Ghastly, as they reinstate the Evil Con Carne criminal organization, develop a new diabolical weapon^note A giant rubber band launcher on wheels and use it to terrorize the citizens of Endsville. Needless to say, Grim, Billy and Mandy go out and stop them.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Ordinarily played straight, then averted in "Wishbones": Skarr wishes to Thromnabular that he could rule the world, and a giant statue of himself rises up beneath him. As Skarr is talking down to everyone, he doesn't notice that the statue is extending up into space, where he suffocates and explodes.
• Batty Lip Burbling: By the end of "Opposite Day", Billy and Mandy pointed out that when they said it was Opposite Day, that meant that it actually was not Opposite Day and that they had tricked him into doing all of their chores. Having spent the whole episode confused beyond his wits, Grim responds by motorboating his lips while hitting his head with a mallet.
• Bears Are Bad News: Billy has to run from a disheveled Yogi and Boo-Boo in "Here Thar Be Dwarves!".
• Beware the Silly Ones: Billy is often the dumbest one on the show, but he has been shown to have bouts of psychotic rage that scares even Mandy.
• Bigger on the Inside: Grim's trunk. Billy points this out by name in one episode when he, Mandy, and Irwin climb inside it. Also, Hoss Delgado's tank from Underfist.
• Big Beautiful Woman: The Valkyries from "A Kick in the Asgard".
• Big "NO!": Regularly used by Billy and Grim, though Mandy gets one when she's unwillingly turned into a milk-themed superhero in "Billy & Mandy Moon the Moon", while Irwin gets one when he's sealed in his newly-built pyramid in "King Tooten Pooten".
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The Dwarven battle cry is "laven sus manos", Spanish for "wash your hands". The Mexican dub didn't even bother changing it, it was considered funnier that way.
  • One of Hoss Delgado's Pre Ass Kicking One Liners is "Piso mojado, dirtbag!" Spanish for "Wet floor, dirtbag!"
• Bizarrchitecture: In "Substitute Creature" it's shown that Endsville Elementary is built on a mesa overlooking a desert. This was likely just for a one-time gag, as later episodes depict the school having a football field.
• Black and Nerdy: Irwin, who in spite of being a nerd is just as dumb as Billy. He even tried cheating off of Mandy's answers on a test.
• Black Comedy: The whole genre in the series. One of few kids shows with it, combined with Grossout Show.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The two main kids Mandy (blonde) and Billy (redhead) form this dynamic in episodes where they are joined by their other friend, Irwin (brunette).
• Bloodless Carnage: Despite being one of the most violent shows in Cartoon Network's catalogue and having some genuinely brutal slapstick, actual sights of blood are very rare.
• Bloodsucking Bats: Discussed. Dracula himself clears up the misconception about vampires. Contrary to popular belief, vampires don't suck the blood of their victims. Bringing up the comparison to actual vampire bats, they scrape and lick their victims.
  Dracula: Dracula don't suck!
  Grim: You're a vampire! Vampires suck! Blood!
  Dracula: Naw, ya see, dat's a myth, Dracula scrape wit' his fangs an' then lick up the blood, like this.. (wiggles his tongue) See? Scrape and lick. (wiggles his tongue)
• Broken Record: "DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! I'll take the chicken. DESTROY US ALL!" Also doubles as a Madness Mantra.
  • Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, Fred Fredburger, yes!
    • Judge? (No! Shut up!) Judge? (Shut up!) Judge? (I order you to shut up!) Judge? (WHY WON'T YOU SHUT UP?!!) Judge?
  • In "Scythe for Sale", when Irwin rejects the worthless junk being sold at Billy's garage sale, Billy fires away his machine gun mouth with an infinite ammo of "COME ON COME ON COME ON COME ON"
• Broke the Rating Scale:
  • Billy managed to score himself a NEGATIVE 5 on an IQ test, being outperformed by a shovel and a pair of candy bracelets.
  • In "Substitute Creature", Mandy somehow scores an A with six pluses on her test.
• Butt Cannon: In the episode "It's Hokey Mon!", one of the many eponymous Hokey Monsters has a literal cannon in its butt, which another Hokey Monster loads cannonballs in manually.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Grim and Billy, naturally, but "Super Zero" had this adorable alien creature, who wanted to be Billy's friend, but kept taking Billy's constant, near-lethal abuse. When Billy finally notices him he decides to call him Winston and take him back to Earth, but he falls off Billy's shoulder and gets left behind.
  • Nergal doesn't start out this way, but as of "Loser from the Earth's Core," this becomes one of his defining character traits — including a cameo during "The Incredible Shrinking Mandy" solely for the purpose of having him be crushed by random falling things. Even lampshaded slightly in "Underfist," when his family knows something bad is coming because he brought up how well things are going for him...
  • Let's not even start on Irwin.
    • Or Pud'n.
  • There's also Tom Smith from "The House of No Tomorrow".
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In "Nigel Planter and the Order of the Peanuts", Nigel Planter goes back to his old school to act out his revenge, only to find that Dean Toadblatt doesn't remember him.
  Toadblatt: I torment thousands of students every semester. I can't be expected to remember them all!

C

• Call to Agriculture: Skarr, the Canon Immigrant from Evil Con Carne just wants to be left alone and do his gardening. He gets his wish by turning into a plant, but with dangerous results.
• The Cameo: Scooby-Doo briefly appears in "Keeper of the Reaper" to testify against Mandy, who apparently mocked his speech impediment.
• Canary in a Coal Mine: In "The Secret Decoder Ring", the secret of the universe can be found at the bottom of a mind shaft where the ghosts of canaries can be seen flying in and out, and couple of cockatoos and toucans and kiwis.
• Captain Ersatz: Occasionally an obvious reference to a non-Cartoon Network property (such as Hellraiser or The Little Mermaid) will appear, lampshading how clear of a ripoff they are by starting to say the original character's name before cutting themselves off and saying a parody name.
• Casting Gag:
  • The Latin dub has a sort of one with Nigel Platter, as the VA that voiced him actually voiced Harry Potter too.
  • This isn't the first time Phil Lamarr voiced a vampire.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first episode she appeared in, Eris acted like a typical giddy blond teenage valley girl. Afterwards though, she acted more regal and queenly with a British accent. Also a Shout-Out to Madonna.
  • By her next appearance, her personality change is lampshaded and Hand Waved away by her going through "a Valley girl stage" as is Grim's crush on her during that episode/stage. She also turned into a boyfriend-eating woman that dated and dined on Hoss more than once.
  • Mandy used to smile on occasion — though, usually after doing something horrible to the human race. In a much later episode, Mandy smiling tears apart the fabric of space and time.
    • Mandy started out as an apathetic Anti-Hero before becoming a sociopath who only saves the world so it will be free for her later, takes pride in being utterly evil, and suffers physical strain to say "please."
  • Grim wanted to kill the kids at first, but later decided they're his only living friends and will do anything to avoid their doom.
  • In the first few episodes, Mandy forbids Grim from reaping people. It wasn't long before just about every episode has jokes about Grim's job.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The episode Major Cheese is about Grim being obligated to give bonus years to a hulking old man name Mighty Moe, who can indefinitely extend his lifespan through a healthy lifestyle and plans on selling a book teaching others how to do the same.
• Chekhov's Gun: From "Meet the Reaper," "Kiss kiss." ^note The phrase that makes Ms. Snuggles attack the nearest person.
• The Chew Toy: NOBODY in this show is safe from this trope. Yes, that includes Mandy.
• Circus Episode: "Circus of Fear", where Grim goes to an underworld circus with Billy and Mandy, who end up getting kidnapped by the ringmaster Doctor Fear.
• City of Adventure: Endsville. Billy, Mandy, and Grim are always finding an adventure and forces of evil to thwart.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Billy and Fred Fredburger both tend to have very odd beliefs and habits.
• Comically Missing the Point: In "Substitute Creature", when Nergal Jr. as Ms. Butterbean fails Billy on a math test for drawing a clown with a flamethrower in place of an answer, Billy remedies it by adding a pirate hat.
  • In "Tween Wolf", Irving is bitten by a werewolf. When he starts transformating and sees his body growing fur, he screams: "Oh no! It's puberty!".
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Comic stories based on this show were featured in Cartoon Cartoons and Cartoon Network Block Party.
• Comic Trio: Mandy is the schemer, Billy is the follower, and Grim is the complainer.
• Company Cross References:
  • In "Sickly Sweet", Grim is watching Codename: Kids Next Door.
  • In "Herbicidal Maniac", Cow giving Skarr a bag of manure for his garden, while Johnny Bravo makes a background cameo at Skarr's party.
  • In "Billy and Mandy vs. the Martians", Billy sees a giant holographic screen and laments "Hey, this isn't Codename: Kids Next Door!"
  • A Ham Being from the I Am Weasel episode "The Magnificent Motorbikini" appears in "The Incredible Shrinking Mandy" as one of three giant beings who were growing infinitely in the Realm of the Infinite.
• Confirm Before Reveal: In Season 7 "Yeti or Not, Here I Come", when the trio are trying to catch the Yeti and the Yeti brings them to his home, they pass by a glacier and he tells them that a glacier can move six feet a day. After the Yeti escapes them several times, Grim finally corners him at the same glacier they passed by. Grim pulls out a tape measure and asks the Yeti to remind him how far can a glacier travel in 24 hours while measuring how far the glacier will move, the Yeti reminds him six feet and asks for his point, and then Grim reveals that it's about to be midnight right now and the glacier moves and crushes him.
• Conjoined Twins: Hoss Delgado and Billy at one point encounter a pair of conjoined twin zombies in the episode "Brown Evil". Hoss slices them into ribbons as soon as he sees them.
• Cool Old Lady: Mrs. Doolin in "Who Killed Who?". The fact that she's voiced by Betty White certainly helps.
  • Irwin's Grandmama certainly has her moments, too.
• Cool Plane: Underfist was intended to have the "Fistflyer", with speeds of up to Mach 4; like Hoss' tank, it's got a giant metal fist mounted to the front that Jeff would use to punch threats. It's briefly glimpsed during the credits of the Underfist special.
• Couch Gag: A message to the viewers, usually from Mandy, at the end of the theme song.
• Counter-Productive Warning: When it is revealed that the Vampire who attacked Santa Claus was Mrs. Claus herself, Mandy says that she doesn't like the plan of Santa going to all houses and turn everyone into vampires for the Vampire Leader to take over the world. She admits she simply wanted some rest and quietness, but that Mandy's idea is great.
• Cranium Chase: Grim is a constant victim of this.
• Crapsack World: Many episodes show that Endsville is a pretty bad place to live in, even without all the Lovecraftian horrors that makes Dunwich, Massachusetts seem uneventful by comparison that the main characters have to deal with on a frequent basis. Though if the Codename: Kids Next Door crossover is to be believed, it's confined to Endsville, and the rest of the world is just fine.
• Creator Cameo: Show creator Maxwell Atoms appears in one episode, just long enough to poof out of existence after Billy breaks the hourglass representing his lifespan.
  • C.H. Greenblatt shows up as a small boy in the episode "Duck". Grim strips naked in front of him.
• Crossover:
  • Sort of. Numbuh 3 appeared four times in Big Boogey Adventure.
  • In "Modern Primitives," Billy finds Fred Flintstone frozen in his backyard.
  • Early on in "Here Thar Be Dwarves," Billy's picnic is interrupted by Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. The years have not been kind to them.
  • In "Irwin Gets A Clue", while Hoss Delgado drives his monster truck, he runs over Yogi, Boo Boo, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, and Secret Squirrel.
  • The Codename: Kids Next Door crossover episode, which was not only a crossover of KND and this show, but of every one of CN's original shows (that weren't created after its release). At least one character from each show appears in the episode, even one from Squirrel Boy.
  • Mandy even appears in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "The Big Picture". She was there as part of a montage of people returning imaginary friends to Foster's in Bloo's speculation of what happened on the year where no one was present in the annual group picture. The one that she was returning was deemed "too happy."
  • The Great Grape Ape appeared as a giant monster on "Giant Billy and Mandy All Out Attack."
• Crossover Punchline:
  • In the episode "My Fair Mandy", Mandy enters a child beauty pageant in order to show up her arch-rival Mindy, and is coached that she would win if she would simply smile. With great effort, Mandy begins to smile, and reality shatters, placing Billy, Mandy and Grim in Townsville as distorted Powerpuff Girls with Irwin as Mojo Jojo. They even got Tom Kane to play Professor Utonium and Tom Kenny to play the PPG Narrator!
  • There are several cameos from Hector Con Carne, with which they originally shared a Three Shorts program with (Grim and Evil). On one of these occasions, annoyed by the situation, Hector states that "I'm not even supposed to be on this stupid show anymore!"
  • The short "Dream Date" ended by revealing it to be a Dream Within a Dream within a dream within a dream within Wilt's head.
    Wilt: I'm sorry, but what a weird dream. I don't even know any of those people!
  • In The Movie Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, when they ask who's going to be the Grim Reaper now that Grim has been removed from the position, Numbuh Three shows up in a portal, wielding the scythe and thanking Boogey for the new job opportunity. The two shows did eventually crossover as The Grim Adventures of the Kids Next Door.
  • Speaking of the crossover episode, when Billy wore his dad's "lucky" pants, which kicked off the entire episode and nearly destroyed all civilization as a result, the KND weren't even the first call he made. No, he called Eddy first, who then directed him to the Kids Next Door upon learning he's broke. And then when they show up at his door, he exclaims, "Hey, you're not The Powerpuff Girls!" The episode as a whole has at least one character from every series produced for Cartoon Network up to that point appear as cameos, and The Stinger features fake posters a number of joke crossovers (Ed, Edd n Mandy, Evil Camp Carne, Class of Numbuh 3000, My Gym Partner's A Mandark, and Samurai Mac).
  • "Billy and Mandy Moon the Moon" ends with the alien leader attempting to learn Earthling secrets by drinking brain juice harvested from five typical Earthlings. Drinking the brain juice instead turns him into a babbling dum-dum, afterwards it is revealed that the brain juice was harvested from moronic characters Fred Fredburger, Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy, Skip from Camp Lazlo, Cheese from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Slips Python from My Gym Partner's a Monkey.
• Cursed Item: In one episode, Grim summons up a suit of armor for Billy to wear, but forgets to mention that the armor is cursed. Billy finds this out when he attempts to go to the bathroom only to be unable to take the armor off. The only way to remove the armor is to win a challenge.
• Cut Apart: In "Secret Snake Club."

D

• Dance-Off: The episode "Billy Idiot" features a ballet dance-off between Harold and Ms. Pollywinkle the Witch Ballet Teacher. It gets parodied quickly as they start switching up dancing styles, such as the Hawaiian Hula and That Russian Squat Dance.
• Darker and Edgier: The early seasons were significantly much darker and morbid in tone. After which, the later seasons were particularly toned down and emphasizing more on comedy, surrealism and toilet humor.
• Dawn Attack: Mandy puts on an army helmet and says "We attack at dawn" in the show intro.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The finale movie starring the side characters, Underfist. Billy, Mandy, and Grim only made some cameos while Fred Fredburger, Irwin, and Hoss are the actual heroes.
  • Mindy gets one in "The Wrongest Yard".
• Dead All Along: An odd example. In the episode "Who Killed Who," it's implied that Mrs. Doolin is either a ghost or somehow immortal. By her own admission, she beat Grim in "everything"; Mandy realizes that this means Mrs. Doolin beat death itself.
• Deadly Book: In "Big Trouble in Billy's Basement", Billy reads Grim's copy of The Bad Book against his warnings and becomes a demonic servant of Yog Sawhaw.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mandy definitely makes a lot of sarcastic comments throughout the series. Grim has his moments, too.
• Dean Bitterman: Dean Toadblatt, specifically against Weaselthorpe House, and especially against Nigel Planter. Extra points for being voiced by the original Dean—actor John Vernon—in a parody of his role in Animal House.
• Death and the Maiden: In "Grim In Love", Grim falls in love with a Goth woman named Malaria. She shares his sadistic sense of humor and they both enjoy each other's company. By the end, he reveals to her that he is the real Grim Reaper and that all of his friends are actual monsters, leading her to run away in sheer terror.
• Death by Cameo: In "The Halls of Time," Billy accidentally drops show creator, Maxwell Atoms', hourglass of life, causing him to poof out of existence immediately after coming up with his "best idea ever" (a fat walrus).
• Death by De-aging: In "Halls Of Time", Billy and Irwin end up putting theirs, Mandy and Grim's hourglasses upside down. They end up becoming younger and younger until they vanish.
• Death's Hourglass: Parodied when Grim, Billy, Irwin, and Mandy entered a sanctuary filled with the hourglasses of every human being on Earth. Not only do Billy and Irwin flip theirs and Mandy's hourglass, resulting in their lives instead moving backwards until the point where they don't exist anymore, but they even flipped Grim's hourglass too (odd considering Grim's hourglass was enormous.) They also break at least one, causing that person (the show's creator) to blip out of existence.
  Irwin: Whose hourglass was that?
  Billy: Eh, probably no one special.
  • We also see Jeff the Spider’s in "Jeffy’s Web". Grim actually adds more sand to it to prolong his life… but he did it mostly for his own amusement at Billy’s expense.
    Mandy: You stopped Jeff from kicking the bucket. That’s awfully nice of you…
    Grim: Well, I don’t care much for spiders… but I do love to see Billy wet his pants in sheer terror!
• The Death of Death: In "Night of the Living Grim", Grim ends up becoming sick with Encroaching Doom Syndrome, so he is brought to the doctors in the underworld. However, they are unable to save him, and he ends up passing away... in that he is now a living human being.
• Denser and Wackier: The show becomes more and more zany as it goes along, with several plots involving some reeeeaaally out there concepts. From season 3 onward, Mandy and her evil schemes get pushed away from the spotlight and more focus is given to Billy's wacky adventures, and the occasional episode would focus on Grim or a side character.
• Derailed Fairy Tale: "Nursery Crimes" starts the kids in the story of Hansel and Gretel, but they wander off and encounter characters from other fairy tales such as Pinocchio, who wants to Become a Real Boy by eating the flesh of a real boy.
• Detention Episode: "Detention X" has Grim becoming a substitute teacher and sending the class, Billy and Mandy included, into the Detention Dimension.
• Detonation Moon: In the alien invasion episode, which ends with the aliens teleporting the dummies from all 5 CN shows involved in the "Invaded" arc.
• Deus ex Machina: Grim, but more specifically, his scythe, which can do anything.
  • Perhaps the biggest example is from the KND crossover; with the Bone of Barnacles, which was supposed to be a torture device used on Numbuh 1 to get information out of him, but was later used to give Numbuh 1 a giant mecha sized suit of Bone Armor to fight the Delightful Reaper.
  • Two humorous examples occur in "Billy's Growth Spurt." When Billy eats too much junk food, Mandy and Grim try to cook up Grim's granny's famous healing recipe to heal him. The key ingredient is "screaming meemies"; to get them, Grim remarks that an interdimensional rift would have to open in the kitchen. A few seconds later, one does. At the end of the episode, Granny's remedy doesn't work; Mandy wonders aloud if the remedy has an antidote, and Granny quite literally appears in a thought bubble and passes her a bottle of "Heebie-Jeebie Juice," which wraps everything up.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Mandy is quite blatantly evil, but no one ever suspects a thing.
• Dhampyr: Irwin is Dracula's grandson, although he's more 1/4 vampire, 1/2 mummy, and 22/7 nerd.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In "Crushed", Mandy’s new crush Piff actually had the balls to spit in Grim’s face.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Seen literally in "The Prank Call of Cthulhu", where Billy, Mandy, and Irwin succeed in trapping Cthulhu in limbo.
  • The whole show is about two kids who basically enslaved The Grim Reaper.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Super Zero", Captain Heifer from the Heifer Farms Yogurt commercial vaporizes villains with his laser vision just for interrupting him and also threatens to use his laser vision on the audience if they don't buy the yogurt he is advertising.
• The Ditz: Billy is incredibly stupid. For instance, when shown flash cards of basic addition in "Smarten Up", he somehow thought that "President Lincoln" and "a butterfly" are acceptable answers.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: This exchange in "Big Boogey Adventure" between Boogey and Creeper, after Boogey fails to scare Creeper.
  Boogey: Aw, would it kill you to fake it just once?
  Creeper: (sarcastically) It'll make the time when you really scare me all the more special.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Parodied at the end of "Circus of Fear," where it's revealed that Dr. Fear was actually an earthworm in disguise. There's absolutely no build-up to this moment, but Grim and Mandy act as though it was somehow obvious. And treat Billy (and the viewers by extension) as a moron for admitting he didn't see it coming.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Grim tries his darndest to be scary, but at his most badass, the guy's still an incompetent wuss. The way he became the Grim Reaper involved a pretty awesome display as revenge for ruining his friendship with his best friend. So he's somewhat weak-willed... unless you manage to REALLY piss him off.
• Double Entendre: Billy once visited Uncle Chokey the chicken juggler. Which is possibly a Shout-Out to Rocko's Modern Life.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title refers to not only Grim being one of the main characters, but also the copious amounts of Black Comedy.
• Downer Ending: A whole lot of the episodes leave the main characters, often along with the rest of the world dead, eaten, horribly transformed or in some surreal dead-end. The lack of any continuity was the one thing that kept the punch-line from being a gut-punch as well. For example, Wrath of the Spider Queen ends with Velma taking over the world with her spider people despite rekindling her friendship with Grim. This part can be chalked up to the show's usual Snap Back, but an even straighter example happens during the credits. It seems like Billy has finally made peace with his son, Jeff, only to go back to his abusive ways when he rediscovers his son is a spider.
• Dragons Versus Knights: In "Dumb-Dumbs and Dragons", Billy goes back in time to the Middle Ages to learn how to be brave, and becomes an apprentice to a knight who tells him that, as a rite of passage, all knights must slay a dragon.
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • In "Billy and Mandy vs. the Martians":
    Billy: I know Mandy's so mean, and Irwin's so needy. But that's just who they are. Sometimes our best friends are people we really don't like.
    Grim: Then you guys must be my best friends ever.
    Billy: Hee, hee, hee. Well, if there's anything I've learned from destroying Fancy Jake, and stowing away in your trunk to Mars, and returning in a last-ditch effort to save the planet is that you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose. You have to let them be who they are and pick it themselves.
    Grim: ...What have I done?!
  • Also in "The Incredible Shrinking Mandy" After Billy makes Mandy a giant, and she wants him to turn her back to normal:
    Grim: Billy! Just change Mandy back!
    Billy: NO! You always let Mandy have her way! I don't want to encourage her.
    Grim: Well... you were the one who encouraged her with the whole cannibalism thing.
    Billy: And you keep breaking my arms just because she wants you to. Who's the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him?
  • Billy has two in the Halloween Special:
    • When Jack explains that he plans to cut off Grim’s head with his own scythe as revenge for cutting off his head all those centuries ago, Billy comments that this would be pointless since Grim’s head is already removable. This gets subverted, however, when Jack reveals that anything cut off by the Grim Reaper's scythe stays off permanently.
    • Played for Laughs after he retrieves Grim's scythe and defeats Jack O'Lantern.
      Billy: You know, Grim, if you didn't loan me the scythe in the first place, this kind of thing would never happen.
      Grim: ...I hate you, Billy.
  • Harold of all people gets this in the episode Billy Idiot. When the Monster of the Week, Mrs. Pollywinkle, points out that the contract Harold signed included everything she was going to do, Harold counters by saying he can't read. While this moment is played entirely for laughs, when one thinks about it, Harold is right. Since Harold is too mentally incompetent to comprehend what the contract says, legally speaking his signature shouldn't count. If Billy's mother had signed the contract, Mrs. Pollywinkle's argument would've had some ground.

---