Total Drama / Tropes A to G

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A to G | H to P | Q to Z

Tropes with their own pages:

• Aborted Arc
• Arc Hero
• Arch Enemy
• Breaking Old Trends
• Deconstructed Character Archetype
• Even Evil Has Standards
• Expy
• Fatal Flaw
• Flanderization
• Foil
• Foreshadowing

Other Tropes:

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#

• 20 Minutes into the Past: Island is the only season to take place in the year it originally aired in: 2007. Action takes place during the second half of the summer of 2007,^note "Masters of Disasters" states that there are two days between the seasons. even though it was released in 2009. World Tour and Revenge of the Island take place in 2008,^note "Walk Like an Egyptian - Part 1" and "Awwwwww, Drumheller" jointly state that World Tour ends in April, meaning it would take place half a year after Island. Revenge of the Island is then a logical fit for the summer season. despite being released in 2010 and 2012, respectively. All-Stars and Pahkitew Island take place in 2009,^note Several episodes, among which "Heroes vs. Villains", state that All-Stars takes place at least a year after World Tour and Revenge of the Island. Pahkitew Island is a logical fit for later that summer, since the seasons are also in-universe shorter than before. while the actual seasons were released in 2013 and 2014. The Ridonculous Race was released in 2015, but it takes place in 2010.^note The intended ages of the contestants have been released online. The three who were 16 in Island are now 19, while Leonard from Pahkitew Island is still 16. The 2023 revival of Island, however, tries to rectify this — Part 1 is mentioned to be taking place "fifteen years" after the original, which would place it around 2022. Part 2 pf the revival takes place one year after Part 1, placing it in 2023.

A

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Cody has an obsession with Gwen that leads him to disregard any concern for her personal space. Aside from that she's plain not attracted to him, this ensures that she often doesn't even want to be around him.
  • Katie and Sadie decide to team up with Justin in "Total Drama Drama Drama Island" purely because they are attracted to his looks. Their talkative nature soon irritates their teammate, who abandons them in a cave early into the competition.
  • Sierra's main trait is her abnormal, almost pathological desire to be with Cody. Ironically for her, Cody himself is an Abhorrent Admirer towards Gwen and thus rejects all her advances while still being dumped by the girl he truly likes.
  • Ezekiel seems to have a thing for Bridgette in "Haute Camp-ture", as he tries approaching her even as she makes out with Geoff. His last attempt to get close to her earns him a punch to the head.
  • Ezekiel falls head over heels for Anne Maria. He wouldn't be her type normally, but at this stage in time he's a feral monster with an army of mutant gophers. Her only response to his interest is "ew".
  • Gaming addict Sam starts out as an abhorrent admirer to Dakota, but his kind nature and respect for her eventually win her over.
  • Rodney suffers chronic one-sided Love at First Sight and switches from one interest to another. None of the girls return his feelings and for the most part, are put off by his overbearing nonsense.
  • Downplayed in "This Is The Pits!". Upon seeing Dave's and Sky's blossoming romance, Sugar voices her concerns about a potential alliance between the two to Shawn. With just a hint of flirtation, she proposes that she and Shawn form an alliance. His answer is that he'd rather get eaten by a zombie than team up with Sugar.
• Abnormal Ammo:
  • Chris's seagull-firing machine gun in "Beach Blanket Bogus". It returns two seasons later in "Backstabbers, Ahoy!", except the seagulls are part rattlesnake now.
  • Chris uses Lindsay as the final bit of ammo against Duncan in "Beach Blanket Bogus" when he's out of anything else to throw.
  • Jo twice uses Cameron as a projectile in Revenge of the Island.
  • Chef Hatchet has a "spaghetti cannon" in "Eat, Puke, and Be Wary" and "The Final Wreck-ening".
  • The leeches in the leech dart guns "Saving Private Leechball".
  • The challenge in "Twinning isn't Everything" involves the teams throwing balloons at each other that are filled with all sorts of unpleasantries. The selection includes talc, paints, itching powder, sneezing powder, bees, spiders, bird poop, slime, and a triple mixture of mustard, relish, and something unknown.
• Accidental Misnaming: After Tyler is eliminated in Island (2007), Lindsay goes around asking people if they are Tyler. This persists through Action. Both are back in the competition in World Tour, where she keeps calling Tyler names that start with "T" except for his actual name until the episode where she gets eliminated.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Geoff, after he becomes a co-host of the aftermaths in Action, though Bridgette would break him of it.
• Aerith and Bob:
  • The Revenge of the Island contestants are: Anne Maria, Cameron, Dakota, Dawn, Jo, Mike, Sam, Scott, Staci, & Zoey, and ... B, Brick, & Lightning. Although B's real name is revealed to be Beverly and in the source material Lightning's real name is Rudolph Jackson, thus technically making Brick the true Odd Name Out.
  • The Pahkitew Island contestants are: Amy, Dave, Ella, Jasmine, Leonard, Max, Rodney, Scarlett, Shawn, & Topher, and ...Beardo, Samey (she's rarely ever referred to as Sammy), Sky, & Sugar.
  • The Island (2023) contestants are: Axel, Caleb, Chase, Damien, Emma, Julia, Millie, Priya, Raj & Wayne, and ... Bowie, MK, Nichelle, Ripper, Scary Girl, and Zee. MK and Scary Girl are rarely ever referred to as Mary Kate and Lauren respectively — while Zee's name, Hezekias, is still delightfully uncommon.
• Affectionate Nickname: Played with. Owen makes a genuine effort to befriend Alejandro and nicknames him "Al". Unfortunately, it's later revealed that Alejandro's brother uses that exact nickname to taunt him, causing the two castmates to develop an increasing animosity towards each other as the season goes on.
• All for Nothing:
  • Total Drama apparently operates on this principle, as there is no mention of runner-ups receiving any compensation, and even the winner is not guaranteed to retain their winnings.
  • "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island" ends up being this when the $1 million prize money is eaten by a shark, and 14 (15 after Courtney successfully wins her lawsuit) of the 22 campers have to endure Chris' sadistic game for yet another season.
  • Regardless of whoever won World Tour, whether it's Heather or Alejandro, they lose the prize money by Ezekiel stealing the case and falling into a volcano.
• All Girls Like Ponies:
  • In "That's Off the Chain", Lindsay fashions her bike into a unicorn, basing it on a bike she wanted as a child but never got.
  • Subverted. In "So, Uh This Is My Team?", Sugar is disappointed her team didn't win and thus won't get take-out food from the Petting Zoo Barbecue. She grumbles to herself that she always wanted a pony, meaning not one to ride, but one to eat. Later, she's the only one on her team happy when in "I Love You, I Love You Knots" they do win and they get take-out food from Humpty-Dumpty's Meat Shack, which sells horse meat.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • Courtney falls for Duncan in the first season, despite her being an uptight Control Freak and him a juvenile delinquent. Gwen, who is the friendly goth girl, would also start a relationship with him in World Tour.
  • In All-Stars, Courtney hits it off with Scott. It's debatable how sincere their relationship is, but at least on the surface it's there.
  • Anne Maria likes Mike's Vito persona, who is an arrogant brute.
  • Chase might be an absolute douchebag with little to no care for anyone other than himself, which doesn't stop Emma from going after him even after he almost kills her with one of his pranks.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The character biographies, audition videos, and online interviews reveal more information about the campers than the show ever does.
  • Chris uses this to his advantage in Pahkitew Island's finale to make things interesting. He uses Sky's audition tape to reveal that her "but" to Dave was that she had a boyfriend at home (who she planned to break up with before leaving but ran out of time). Not only did Dave not take it well, but fans who did not see her audition were shocked.
• The Alleged Car: Most of the vehicles featured in the show are low budget, poorly designed, broken down, and not well maintained.
  • The Boat of Losers, although it's in better condition compared to most of the other vehicles regularly featured on the show.
  • The Lame-o-sine, complete with an obnoxious set of bull horns on the hood.
  • The single-prop plane from Island and the Total Drama Jumbo Jet are both certainly less than airworthy. The First Class section and the "reserved for hosts only" rooms are the inside parts of the latter in better condition than the other rooms in the plane.
  • The contestant-built bikes in "That's Off the Chain" deserve a nod, being built from salvaged bike parts and other materials. Some held together, others fell apart, and some exploded.
  • The go-karts in "Grand Chef Auto" played with this. Some looked a bit beat-up but worked just fine, but Scott couldn't drive at all due to his missing front wheels.
  • In "Up Up and Away in My Pitiful Balloon", the remaining contestants had to build flying machines out of junkyard scrap. While the machines were functional, they were all destroyed by the end of the episode.
• Almost Kiss:
  • The Action opening ends with Geoff and Bridgette almost kissing before staring at the camera from the Aftermath set.
  • Gwen and Trent in "Search and Do Not Destroy", the moment is spoiled by Chris.
  • Geoff and Bridgette in "Hide and Be Sneaky", the moment is spoiled when Geoff gets a whiff of Bridgette's skunk smell.
  • Justin and Courtney in "The Princess Pride", the moment is spoiled when Chris announces that Justin has to fight Courtney for immunity.
  • Lindsay and Tyler in "Can't Help Falling in Louvre". The moment is spoiled by Chris preventing Tyler from giving Lindsay a goodbye kiss before the latter's elimination.
  • Mike and Zoey in "Grand Chef Auto", the moment is spoiled when Mike gets catapulted off the island. They also attempt to kiss in the All-Stars opening, only to get interrupted by Sierra taking a photo of them.
  • In "I Love You, I Love You Knots", Sky, having to perform a dare, has to kiss Dave. She then burps in his face due to being nervous and having drank a whole gallon of mineral water.
• Alpha Bitch:
  • Within the first generation, Heather and Courtney. Heather is a classic mean girl and served in this role on the Screaming Gophers, while Courtney revealed herself to be an Academic Alpha Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and served the role on the Killer Bass (and later, the Killer Grips and Heroic Hamsters). Both girls clash for the position on Team Amazon, and Heather clashes with Jo early on for leadership of the Villainous Vultures.
  • Within the third generation, Amy and Sugar. Amy is a Cruel Cheerleader who is essentially a less cunning and more overtly cruel version of Heather. Sugar is a pageant brat who asserts herself as the dominant female, especially over Ella and Sky.
  • Within the fourth generation, Julia. After her true mean nature is exposed for the world to see, she decides to embrace her new personality and become a catty bratty selfish girl who easily judges other people's appearances and has no problem physically bullying them for her own amusement.
• Alternate Identity Amnesia: Mike has no recollection of anything that happens whenever his multiple personalities take control.
• Amazon Brigade:
  • In World Tour "Team Amazon" consists of four girls, along with Cody as The One Guy.
  • In Pahkitew Island "Team Kinosewak" gets reduced to three girls and Topher after "This Is The Pits!", before he gets kicked out and they become an all-girl team.
• Ambiguously Bi: Owen. He gets into a relationship with Izzy and even makes out with her, but he is also constantly smitten by Justin's looks.
• Ambiguously Brown: This is the case for quite a few characters in the series, though Word of God has cleared up some of the confusion regarding a few of them:
  • In Island (2007), Courtney is Hispanic, Noah is Indian, Justin is native Hawaiian and Katie is white with a tan.
  • In Revenge of the Island, Mike is confirmed to be Italian, and Anne Maria is also implied to be Italian.
  • In Pahkitew Island, Dave is Indian, Sky is Native-American, and Jasmine is heavily implied to be Australian Aboriginal.
  • In Island (2023), Priya and Raj are Indian (though Raj does speak with a heavy Canadian accent), Zee is Hispanic, Axel is Latina, Chase has Southeastern Asian features, and Nichelle seems to at least be part-Italian, as her last name is "Ladonna" (Italian for "the woman").
• Amicable Exes: Gwen and Trent remain good friends after breaking up. In "Aftermath Aftermayhem", they crack some friendly jokes towards each other and laugh together, and are seen sitting happily next to each other for the duration of the episode.
• Amusing Injuries: To the point where nearly every character has had at least one, and some of the Butt Monkeys have had more than can be easily counted. Tyler is the most prominent example, and the unofficial wiki also has a page listing all of the injuries that happened during the course of the series.
• Ancestral Name: Harold's named after his great-great-great-grandfather, possibly, as his name is Harold Norbert Cheever Doris McGrady V.
• And Your Reward Is Edible:
  • The tradition for the elimination ceremony is to hand out some form of food to everyone who gets to stay. The default food is a marshmallow, while in Action and World Tour respectively the food is a chocolate Gilded Chris Award and a barf bag filled with peanuts. Revenge of the Island is the only season in which the eliminated contestant gets something too: "the Toxic Marshmallow of Loserdom", a radioactive marshmallow, which they'd best avoid catching.
  • In Pahkitew Island, there is no camp and the contestants have to forage and hunt for their own food. However, the team that wins and doesn't have to vote anyone off receives a sponsored dinner that night. It may be a questionable or marginally edible dinner, but it's dinner nonetheless.
• Animals Hate Him:
  • DJ clumsily hurts countless animals in World Tour. When he is asked to pet one of the injured critters in "Revenge of the Telethon", they all viciously try to attack him from within their cages.
  • Duncan's been bitten by raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, and anything that would give him rabies in the real world.
  • Max has been attacked by bats, moose, crocodiles and a freaking mechanical bear.
  • Scott was constantly stalked by Fang after taking one of his teeth. His encounters with other animals also tend to go awry, especially in All-Stars.
• Answer Cut: In "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island", the contestants are fighting over the million-dollar briefcase. When it lands in Lindsay's hands, Justin parachutes from the staff airplane. Cut to Chris and Chef watching from the "Playa De Losers" resort. When Chris rhetorically asks how Justin got the keys to the plane, his aide looks at an autographed photo of the mega-hot Justin, conceals it, and professes ignorance.
• Anyone Can Die: Played with. Interns and animals die by the busload, while contestants never do. Contestants get eliminated and booted off the game as per the usual rules of a competitive reality TV show. There's only room for two finalists, so there's no telling who's gonna get booted and who gets to stay for another day.
• Appease the Volcano God: Subverted in the finale of World Tour. Throwing pineapples into the volcano pisses it off and pineapples just happen to be the objects used for the heads of the effigies.
• Appetite Equals Health:
  • Owen is a Big Eater. After eating the prop food in "Monster Cash", the next episode he suffers from indigestion and he loses his appetite. Everybody is surprised when he chooses to eat some prunes over pancakes.
  • After Chef throws a massive book at Owen that breaks his jaw in "Masters of Disasters", he can only drink blended food through a straw for a while, which causes him another digestive problem. After he heals, he's back to enjoying normal food.
• Apologetic Attacker: Despite competing in dodgeball to escape elimination, DJ apologizes to Gwen when he successfully gets her out.
• Arc Villain: Each season except for Pahkitew Island has one contestant who takes the role of the main antagonist: Heather in Island (2007), Courtney in Action, Alejandro in World Tour, Scott in Revenge of the Island, Mal in All-Stars, and Julia in Island (2023).
• Art Shift:
  • A childlike crayon-drawn style is used whenever Owen has a thought sequence. "Oh, My Izzy" is presented in this style as well.
  • What's Not to Love? uses simple colors to look like a Broadway musical poster.
  • In Versus the two finalists and their helpers are presented in a single color: Blue for one finalist, red for the other.
• The Artifact:
  • During Island (2007), Eva, Justin, Katie, and Sadie didn't get to do much and their specific archetypes and skills have been transferred to Courtney and Sierra, Alejandro, and Beth and Lindsay. They still show up in everything the full generation cast is involved in, but only to dress up the sidelines.
  • Several characters' outfits were designed to fit a summer stay on an island and these characters have been wearing these clothes ever since no matter where they go. The list includes Geoff, Izzy, Heather, Katie, and Sadie.
• Artifact of Doom: In "Up the Creek", Beth finds a tiki idol on Boney Island and keeps it, not knowing it was cursed. After she takes it back, the Screaming Gophers suffer a multi-episode streak of bad luck (Izzy is caught by the RCMP, Cody gets mauled by a bear, Trent is concussed by a box of oranges). In "If You Can't Take the Heat...", Heather discovers the idol and gets Beth voted off, although Beth breaks it up and flushes it down the toilet to break the curse.
• Artifact Title:
  • Episode #22 of ''Island' (2007)' was originally called "Haute Camp-ture", a play on "haute couture", and featured a fashion photo shoot challenge. This idea was scrapped in favor of a "look in on the losers" story called "After the Dock of Shame". Some networks aired the episode with the original title, even thoughh the final plot line has nothing to do with fashion.
  • Episode #2 of Revenge of the Island is titled "Truth or Laser-Shark", in reference to the original plans for Fang to have laser eyes. He doesn't have laser eyes in the final product. An alternative name for the episode, which was used in Australia, is "Truth or Mutant Shark".
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • In "Phobia Factor", DJ had to face his fear of snakes by picking up the "smallest snake ever." After a dramatic pause, DJ freaks out because the snake blinked. Snakes don't have eyelids.
  • Harold claims that tarantulas are deadly to humans. Although tarantulas can deliver a fair dose of venom, their venom is mild and the overall effect is a little worse than a bee sting. Some tropical varieties have more potent venom, but even these pose no threat to non-allergic humans.
  • In "Crouching Courtney, Hidden Owen" one of the ingredients to the Kung-Fu Noodle Soup is "Rabid Piranha". Piranhas are incapable of catching rabies, as it is a disease exclusive to mammals.
  • In "This Is The Pits!", Sugar eats a glow slug, which causes her to emit light from her belly button as if there's an open line between it and her stomach.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • Given the amount of potentially fatal injuries that occur throughout the series, Total Drama wouldn't be allowed air at all if it were a real-life reality show. Especially considering that this is all happening to underage teenagers.
    • In "Masters of Disasters", Chris frets that if the teens drown in the locked submarines, his show will be cancelled, but is relieved when they manage to escape. However, in reality, the show would've been cancelled anyway due to the near-death of nine kids (not that anything else they have to do on the show is much better). The only difference being that if they did happen to drown, Chris would have been arrested rather than simply fired.
    • Speaking of contestants being underage teenagers, Heather's Shower Scene in "Hook, Line, and Screamer" reveals they're recorded from within the bathroom stalls as well. The show wouldn't be able to get away with recording minors showering without facing and losing a lawsuit, along with getting cancelled. Chances are, it wouldn't have even been greenlit to begin with.
  • It’s repeatedly mentioned that every contestant had to sign a contract to enter the show, and Chris occasionally brings up when they question or refuse to do something. However, because the contestants are below the age of majority^note In Canada, the age of majority is either 18 or 19, depending on the province or territory, their parents/guardians would have to cosign the contract. Most parents in the series either failed to Read the Fine Print, or in some cases, they did read it but allowed their child to go on the show anyway. Or in Priya's case, her parents signed her up without her consent.
  • No reputable reality show production company would award their show's top prize on the spot as a Briefcase Full of Money, or at least one filled with legal tender. Generally, winnings are withheld until the season airs its final episode to ensure the contestant has met all legal requirements to claim the prize, particularly complying with all non-disclosure agreements, and the prize check is either mailed to the contestant's home address listed on their tax claim forms or directly deposited.
  • As an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking example, real-life broadcasting standards and practices would have likely prevented Katie & Sadie, Amy & Samey, Chase & Emma as well as Raj & Wayne from competing in the same season, as many real-life reality and game shows in which contestants compete individually generally only allow one person per family or household to audition or appear on a show within a given season. While some Survivor seasons have relatives or significant others compete as part of the season's twist, the contestants are usually separated during the team phase in a "Blood vs. Water" format.
  • According to All-Stars, Mike has a criminal record and spent time in juvie. In reality, there would be no chance Mike would be faced with juvie, as he clearly displays symptoms of multiple personality disorder, and especially with the strong emphasis Canada places on rehabilitation regarding youth in the criminal justice system.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Sierra was (and still is) a huge fan of the show, having watched every episode of it multiple times and heavily researched nearly every contestant (especially Cody).
  • Zoey mentions having been a fan of the show before joining in Revenge of the Island.
  • Topher idolizes Chris more so than Sierra.
  • Ella, considering that she loved the musical season that is World Tour.
• Aside Glance:
  • Noah occasionally does this, although there's no way of knowing which audience he's directing them at.
  • Tyler does this whenever Lindsay gets his name wrong.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Mike's subconscious (which is a Pocket Dimension inside his head where his personalities reside) has the ground and structures be made of pink brain matter and the sky covered with neuron-like structures.
• Athletically Challenged: Tyler dresses up in a tracksuit and is very enthusiastic about sports, but is abysmal at them. His audition tape involved him attempting to impress with his athletic prowess, but just managed to get himself hurt on every try.
• Attention Whore:
  • The theme song lampshades it quite well.
  "You asked me what I wanted to be, now I think the answer is plain to see: I wanna be famous."
  • As host of the show, Chris; in particular, the "Gilded Chris" awards in Action and the "McLean-brand Chris Head" in Revenge of the Island and All-Stars are testaments to his ego.
  • All of the contestants qualify to some degree; however, some stand out more than others.
    • Among the first generation: Courtney for her Go-Getter Girl attitude, Heather for being the series' main Alpha Bitch, Izzy for her crazy antics, and Sierra for her unhealthy obsession with Total Drama in general and Cody in particular. In All-Stars, Duncan becomes this when Courtney starts to fall for Scott.
    • Among the second generation: Dakota for her fame-mongering and Staci for her constant lies.
    • Among the third generation: Amy for her always upstaging her twin sister Samey, Ella for her impromptu and often inopportune singing, Max for his wannabe supervillain shtick, Sugar for her beauty pageant mentality, and Topher for his desire to replace Chris as the host of Total Drama.
    • Among the fourth generation: Both Chase and Juila for being Bad Influencers, and Nichelle for being an already famous actress.
• Auto-Tune:
  • Used in the theme song on the words "I want to live close to the sun/Well, pack your bags 'cause I've already won."
  • Sierra, Lindsay, Cody, Leshawna, Ezekiel, Noah, Gwen, and Duncan in "Come Fly With Us".
  • Used more and more prominently with Alejandro throughout season three as he gets cockier and more confident of winning.
  • Harold when he raps about Cody in "Who You Gonna Root For?"
• Award-Bait Song: I'm Sorry. Possibly a parody, this song uses special effects and chord progression similar to other apology ballads.
• Award Snub: An in-universe example occurs during the Action special when the characters don't win the Gemmie award for "Best Reality Ensemble". However, this could have just been a part of Chris's Batman Gambit to get them on season three. A Gemmie is nice but another season is better.

B

• Back for the Dead:
  • Eva returns in the Island (2007) episode, "No Pain, No Gain", only to be eliminated in the same episode.
  • Amy returns in "A Blast from the Past" and gets eliminated in the same episode.
• Back for the Finale:
  • The first three seasons bring back all of the contestants that competed in the series to watch the final two compete.
  • Revenge of the Island and Island (2023) only showed those from that season returning.
  • All-Stars breaks this trend, kind of. All the contestants from that season return, but they are trapped in balloons and float away before the challenge begins, with the exception of Gwen, Cameron, Heather, and Alejandro, who are freed by Mal and Zoey.
  • Pahkitew Island only brings back two helpers: Jasmine and Dave.
• Backing Away Slowly: In "Beach Blanket Bogus" from Action, when Beth offers Trent a friendship bracelet, he starts counting to nine while poking his head with the bracelet, which causes her to back away slowly. When she whispers to Lindsay that Trent is kinda weird, Lindsay mishears that Tyler is back in the game and thinks she has a "dental block" instead of a mental block, which also causes Beth to back away.
• Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch:
  • After enduring Heather's bossiness for the entire season, Beth finally snaps in "Paintball Deer Hunter" and pelts her own teammate with paintballs. In the following episode, she and Lindsay cooperate with Leshawna when the latter comes up with a plan to lock Heather in the kitchen freezer.
  • Courtney's reign of terror got put to an end by Beth (again) in "2008, A Space Owen".
  • Jo's underling, Cameron, turned on her in an ironic You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness betrayal.
  • Amy got taken down in this fashion by Samey in "Twinning Isn't Everything".
  • Bowie does this with Julia in "Bad Becave-ior" after pretending to be her ally for the entire episode, voting her off while she believed he was in cahoots with her.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Team Victory and Team Chris is Really Really Really Really Hot showcase some fairly bad acting during their commercials in "Super Happy Crazy Fun Time Japan". Bridgette falters during her speech, DJ freezes up and is unable to say his lines, Harold goes overboard with the dramatics, Alejandro says his line out-of-sync, Noah recites his line in monotone, Izzy gets her line wrong, Tyler yells his line, and Owen reads his sound effects out loud.
• Badass Biker: Trent, according to his biography for Island (2007), as he would buy a new chopper if he wins the money.
• Bald of Evil:
  • Played with, when it comes to Heather. In "I Triple Dog Dare You!", her head is shaved, forcing her to wear wigs for the remainder of the season and the entirety of Action. However, the event also causes her to lose much of her vanity, and she becomes a considerably nicer person as a result.
  • Karma catches up to Alejandro in the World Tour finale, when he is trampled by all the contestants he manipulated throughout the season, then engulfed by lava. His bald, severely injured body is last seen being placed in a life support machine, parodying Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith.
• Bandage Mummy: Several contestants get so severely injured to require heavy bandaging. Notable examples are Cody in "Paintball Deer Hunter"; Justin, after falling down a five-story castle, hitting every level as he goes, and Blaineley, who is in a full-body cast after being ejected from the plane.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Many of the girls, with Beth, Eva, Leshawna, Dawn, Jo, Staci, Ella, Scarlett, Sky, Priya, Millie, Emma and MK as the exceptions, show midriff to varying degrees either on their regular outfits or on their alternate outfits (e.g., sleepwear, swimwear, etc). Most of the aforementioned exceptions are either athletes (Eva, Jo, Sky, Priya) or are otherwise not supposed to be appealing to the boys (Beth, Staci). In contrast, the boys either cover their top completely or are a Walking Shirtless Scene (Geoff). So far, the only boy to ever show his midriff is Bowie.
• Batman Gambit:
  • In "Search and Do Not Destroy", Heather tearfully tells Trent that Gwen is just using him to get further into the game, then forces a kiss onto him. In the meantime, she has Lindsay deliver a fake letter to Gwen, luring the latter to the Dock of Shame, where she witnesses the scene. Heartbroken, Gwen confesses what she saw to Leshawna, who then spreads the news to everyone in the island, convincing the rest of the campers to vote off Trent. In a single move, Heather has both dealt a severe blow to her rival's feelings and destroyed one of the most stable alliances in the show.
  Heather: I'm really getting into this game. I can play these losers like a violin!
  • Alejandro's modus operandi is to flatter his enemies in order to convince them to make poor decisions. His flirtation causes Bridgette and Leshawna to get distracted in the challenges, leading to both girls' eliminations, and his encouragement of Harold causes the latter to have a twisted view of honour, which culminates in him quitting the game out of belief that it's what is best for his team.
  • If Jo isn't using either force or necessity to get her teammates to play along, she'll work on their emotions. For instance, in "Ice Ice Baby", she insults Anne Maria, who refuses to participate in the challenge, specifically so that her retaliatory desire to punch Jo gets her to climb along. And in "The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean", she twice dangles the prospect of being team captain in front of Lightning to get him to cooperate. Mind that there's little promise of leadership involved; it's purely the title that gets Lightning invested.
  • In "Twinning Isn't Everything", Samey pretends to eat a poisonous Manchineel fruit solely because Amy always takes what Samey has. It works. Amy takes the fruit, eats is, and ends up with a swollen throat. When Samey is eliminated that evening, Samey pretends the verbally-challenged Amy is Samey and gets her sister booted in her place.
  • In "A Blast from the Past", Dave convinces Shawn, who believes that the island is infested with zombies, that Team Kinosewak are zombified to get Shawn to participate in the water jousting challenge.
• Battle Discretion Shot: Eva's fight with Sasquatchanakwa in "No Pain, No Game" occurs inside a large wooden crate; we get to see the results of the Curb-Stomp Battle ten seconds later, when she walks out with a hat and boots made from his fur.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Invoked by Amy towards Samey in "I Love You, Grease Pig!" She claims to be the beauty and brains and so Samey's only value is getting the dirty work done.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Cody refers to Sierra as "the stalker girlfriend he always thought he wanted, until he got one!"
  • After receiving a large bribe from Dakota's dad, Chris lets her back on the show...as an intern.
  • In the All-Stars episode "You Regatta Be Kidding Me," Duncan finally gets his wish of being seen as a bad boy again, in exchange for being booted from the competition by Chris and arrested and sent to an adult jail instead of juvie for blowing up his cottage.
  • In Pahkitew Island, Sky wishes a few times for Dave to come back. He does just that in the finale, where Chris manages to turn him against her.
• Bears Are Bad News:
  • A large brown bear would often serve as an obstacle during challenges.
  • Cody and Owen are attacked by a polar bear in "Anything Yukon Do, I Can Do Better".
  • A violent baby panda called T'sing-T'sing pummels DJ in "Super Happy Crazy Fun Time Japan" and tackles Katie in "Aftermath: Revenge of the Telethon".
  • Bridgette befriends a large black bear called Bruno while trapped in Siberia. Bruno is very protective of his owner and attacks anyone who ventures too close to her, especially her beloved boyfriend Geoff.
  • Scuba/Bling/Pasta Bear in Pahkitew Island. Scuba Bear reveals himself to be a Killer Robot in "Scarlett Fever".
  • The bear that's chosen as MK's jousting opponent in "Canoe Believe It" which beats her to a pulp and gives her actual brain damage.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • Courtney and Duncan's relationship basically revolved around this, with her being uptight and him being the criminal punk.
  • Heather and Alejandro, primarily because she can see what he's doing unlike most of the other girls.
  • Dave and Sky from Pahketew Island.
• Berserk Button:
  • Sierra beats up anyone that insults Cody, even her own teammates.
  • Chris deals Disproportionate Retribution to anyone who dares bring up his actual age.
  • Alejandro hates being called "Al", because it's what his older brother always calls him. He also doesn't like it when people call any aspect of Heather "unattractive".
  • Julia goes insane when someone accuses her social media followers of being bots.
• Bestiality Is Depraved:
  • A reverse scenario occurs in "Celebrity Manhunt's Total Drama Reunion Special". Ezekiel clumsily gets himself tied down in his own gold chain, much to the heart-eyed interest of a bull passing by.
  • The campers have to go collect eggs from mutated animals in "No One Eggspects the Spanish Opposition". One of the eggs collected belongs to Larry, Chris's giant mobile Man-Eating Plant, and it hatches just as it is put into the bowl for a point. Numerous plant babies emerge from it, most duplicates of Larry, but one with Chris's face. Chris just whistles innocently.
  • A reverse scenario occurs in "This Is the Pits!". Dave goes in for a kiss with Sky, but a swarm of bats interrupts them. One of the bats ends up taking Sky's place and so Dave accidentally kisses it. That alone freaks him out plenty, but the realization that the bat was into it makes it so much worse. Regardless that it was an accident, Sugar later claps back at Dave for calling her disgusting by calling him a "batkisser".
• Beta Couple:
  • Island (2007) has three pairings that get together with some amount of drama — Gwen/Trent, Duncan/Courtney and Geoff/Bridgette — while Tyler/Lindsay, Harold/Leshawna and Owen/Izzy all manage to hook up with relatively little interaction.
  • In later seasons, the original pairings' comparative dynamics and focus change only a little. Owen and Izzy break up with the same ease with which they once got together, while the other three do go through some rough patches: Geoff/Bridgette have mutual infidelity and jealousy issues, Leshawna backs out of romantic commitment with Harold, and Lindsay's lesser mental capacity means she only remembers Tyler as a concept. However, they all work through it wholesomely (while Harold and Leshawna don't officially get back together, their feelings don't diminish), with the semi-volatile Geoff/Bridgette in particular being confirmed as stable in Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race. Meanwhile, Gwen/Trent and Duncan/Courtney crash and burn in favor of Duncan/Gwen, which then crashes and burns too with more than a few unresolved elements.
  • The Revenge of the Island cast has the relative stability of Sam/Dakota versus all the problems that Mike/Zoey face.
• Betty and Veronica: There have been a few cases of this kind of trope throughout the series:
  • Gwen (Archie), with Trent as the Betty and Duncan as the Veronica.
  • Duncan (Archie), torn between Gwen's Betty and Courtney's Veronica.
  • Between Alejandro, Heather, and the girls Alejandro has seducted throughout Total Drama: World Tour (Bridgette,Leshawna and Courtney) and said girls' boyfriends, there are several perspectives: Alejandro is the Archie, while Heather is the Veronica to the three girls' Betty; Courtney, Bridgette and Leshawna are the Archies to Alejandro's Veronica, and Duncan, Geoff and Harold's Betty's.
  • In Pahkitew Island, oddly, Dave is the Archie, with Ella as the Betty and Sky as the Veronica.
  • In Revenge of the Island, Mike is the Archie, with Zoey's Betty and Anne Maria's Veronica. (Although, it's Vito, one of Mike's alters who likes Anne Maria, while Mike only has eyes for Zoey).
• Beware the Nice Ones: Suffice it to say, almost every heroic character that makes it far in the game has their moment where they become a force to be reckoned with.
• Big Bad: Every season has a respective problem starter who is hell-bent on kicking everyone else out of the competition.
  • Island (2007): Heather callously manipulates every camper to ensure she avoids elimination while simultaneously getting rid of whoever she deems to be the biggest threat to her advances. Her strategy gets her all the way up to the Top 3, where Owen and Gwen's mutual hatred of her ultimately proves to be her downfall.
  • Action: Justin subverts this. The show hints he may be the most malicious contestant, but his massive ego and absurd incompetence prove he is not that much of a threat to the others. It's not until halfway through the season that the true antagonist, Courtney, comes into the game and starts bending its rules with the help of her lawyers.
  • World Tour: Alejandro successfully manipulates virtually the entire cast, and his ruthless methods are such that even Heather is shocked at how cruel he is.
  • Revenge of the Island: Scott is the most active schemer, but Lightning ends up being the last meanie standing.
  • All-Stars: Mike under the control of his evil alternate personality Mal, who even Duncan is afraid of.
  • Pahkitew Island features multiple villainous characters, but no one character truly featured as the big bad.
  • Island (2023): Julia is established as the antagonist after MK exposes her true nature, embracing her spiteful personality, being openly mean to the contestants and actively working to get rid of anyone in her way. Bowie is also an antagonist, but he is more of a strategist than an outright jerk, being rather nice compared to Julia and many other past antagonists in the series and genuinely forming a friendship with Emma and a relationship with Raj once the competition ends.
• Big Bad Duumvirate:
  • Heather and Alejandro switched between this and Evil vs. Evil throughout World Tour depending on how much they needed an ally at any given moment.
  • Justin attempted to be this with Courtney in Action but found himself getting stabbed in the back.
  • Alejandro and Mal in "All-Stars" until Mal betrayed him an episode later, that is.
  • Max and Scarlett in Pahkitew Island, though in actuality one serves as The Dragon.
  • Season 2 of the reboot has MK and Julia working together to cheat and scheme their way through the competition.
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • Revenge Of The Island has Scott who schemes against his own team and Lightning who serves as a threat to Cameron.
  • All-Stars basically brought back every Big Bad and villain who had ever appeared in the series (coupled with Mal, the evillest villain to date) and put them on one team, where they predictably spend every challenge arguing and betraying each other. They only manage to stay in the game by doing what villains do best: deceit, blackmail and sabotage, but somehow they still end up winning more challenges than the heroes do. However, starting with Cameron in "Zeek and You Shall Find", every one of them gets eliminated in consecutive order.
  • Pahkitew Island had an unusually high amount of antagonists for a new cast: Amy, Max, Sugar, Scarlett, and Dave.
  • Island (2023) has Bowie, and Julia, the two pulling any schemes they can to get ahead in the competition, and frequently butting heads with each other.
• The Big Bad Shuffle: Pahkitew Island is the only season where the main antagonist is made ambiguous. With several potential candidates but all of them are either thwarted early on before they can make a lasting impression or only take an active role in the last few episodes before their elimination:
  • Amy, until Twinning Isn't Everything.
  • Max could be considered the closest thing to an antagonist for the middle part of the season, though he is too incompetent to be considered a legitimate threat.
  • Scarlett as a one-episode antagonist for Scarlett Fever.
  • Sugar after Scarlett Fever.
• Big Beautiful Woman:
  • Leshawna is one of the fattest contestants in the show, but she works her measurements quite well, with Harold being strongly attracted to her.
  • Emma is a bit pudgy but is still portrayed as attractive. Most tellingly, she had a relationship with Chase prior to competing on the show and is quickly stated that Chase is still attracted to her.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies:
  • During the amazon rainforest challenge in World Tour, Cody gets momentarily kidnapped by a giant mosquito until Sierra rescues him, and Team Chris Is Really Really Really Really Hot gets attacked by massive caterpillars when they settle for the night, which they apparently fight and fend off until morning.
  • Revenge of the Island featured a giant cockroach and a giant spider, though the latter turned out to be Izzy in disguise.
• Big Eater:
  • Owen. In fact this seems to be his defining trait. It's to the extent that in the second season, he eats an entire feast in minutes without realizing that it's all prop food.
    Duncan: The dude ate foamcore and wax! Full props for that, man.
    Leshawna: You know what Owen has? Guts. Guts filled with foamcore and rubber, but guts just the same.
  • Also Sam (Owen's replacement in All-Stars), though he's not nearly as good.
• Big Fun: Owen is a very heavyset guy, but completely friendly and prone to being silly and hammy. When asked what he would do with the prize money if he won Island, Owen's response is simply that he would host a huge party and invite everyone who was on the show with him.
• Big "NO!":
  • Heather when she lost in Island, when she found out that she threw Alejandro's dummy into the volcano instead of her own in World Tour, and when she got voted off in All-Stars thanks to Alejandro.
  • Lindsay when Courtney suggested voting off Tyler in "Not So Happy Campers - Part 2" and again in "Broadway, Baby!" when she learned she wouldn't be able to shop in New York.
  • Reversed with DJ when he WON the challenge in "Can't Help Falling In Louvre", as he intended to lose and get eliminated.
  • Alejandro when he learns that the money was destroyed in "Hawaiian Punch".
  • Geoff when he found out he wouldn't be competing in World Tour.
  • Dakota, after she is eliminated for the first time, after Chris makes her an intern, and when she wakes up in the infirmary and learns that all her hair has fallen out from radiation poisoning.
  • Cameron in "Suckers Punched", after Sierra decided to not "dump" him.
  • Mike, once Mal takes control.
  • Cameron, after Mal reveals himself.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio
  • The last members of the Killer Bass are DJ (big), Geoff (thin), and Duncan (short).
  • DJ (big), Harold (thin), and Duncan (short) comprise this for the Screaming Gaffers.
  • The male heroes on Team Chris in the World Tour season were Owen (big), Tyler (thin), and Noah (short).
  • Initially, in the All-Star season, the male contestants on the Heroic Hamsters were Sam (big), Mike (thin), and Cameron (short).
  • The male contestants on Team Kinosewak on Pahkitew Island are Rodney (big), Topher (thin), and Max (short).
  • The last three male and female members of the Ferocious Trout follow this. The male ones are Ripper (Big), Zee (Thin), and Chase (Short), while the female ones are Millie (Big), Scary Girl (Thin), and Priya (Short).
• Big "YES!": Tyler when Lindsay finally remembered his name. Of course since they're in the Alps, he also triggers an avalanche.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Alejandro's last name, Burromuerto, is Spanish for dead donkey. Chris eventually points this out.
  • "Mal" translates to "Bad" or "Evil" in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French.
  • Nichelle's last name "Ladonna", is Italian for "the woman".
  • In the World Tour episode "Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles", after Cody stole first place in the race, the scene cuts to Alejandro cursing in the confessional.
    Alejandro: ¡Mala suerte, mierda!^note Translation: "How unlucky, shit!".
• Birds of a Feather:
  • Gwen and Duncan start bonding during Action due to their shared interest, and actually hook up during World Tour.
  • Mike and Zoey share a common background of loneliness; Mike because of his disorder and Zoey because of the differing interests she has from her town. They also have similar tastes in food and movies.
• Bitch Alert:
  • When Heather arrives at Camp Wawanakwa, she gives the other campers an intimidating Death Glare. Also, when Beth introduces herself to Heather, the latter recoils in disgust as the former accidentally spits on her.
  • In her audition tape, Jo goes from confidently arguing she will win Total Drama to demanding she'll be handed the money outright because her victory is assured anyway.
  • In both Samey's and Amy's audition tapes, Amy's need to be better than and dominate Samey are loud and clear as she insults her and puts herself forth as the better twin.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Most of the antagonists use this to get further in the game.
  • Courtney is introduced as being civil and polite; however, as the series progressed, she reveals herself to be as big of an Alpha Bitch as Heather. Her overly competitive and bossy personality has alienated practically everyone she meets.
  • At first glance, Scarlett appears to be an awkward and rather shy genius. However, she quickly allies herself with the Card Carrying Big Bad Wannabe Max, and her seemingly non-threatening facade hides her true sinister personality.
  • Julia pretends to be a sweet Granola Girl during her introduction and the first few episodes of the season, but it doesn't take long for her true colors to show up and expose her as an Alpha Bitch willing to manipulate and bully her fellow competitors for a shot at winning the million. Ironically, this actually lends her more followers on social media, who like her Bad Influencer personality more than her good girl side.
• Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: In "African Lying Society", Heather, Alejandro, Duncan, and Sierra accidentally sedate each other with tranquilizer balls and have to perform a song while struggling to get their limbs to function properly.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Both Action endings are presented this way. In his ending, Duncan wins but Beth at least gets to see her boyfriend and in the alternate ending, Beth wins but Duncan gets to go to dinner with Courtney.
  • "Grand Chef Auto" has Mike learning to control his disorder, and Zoey accepting him for it. Then he gets eliminated.
  • In both endings of Revenge of the Island Cameron states that he doesn't need to live in a bubble anymore.
  • At the end of All-Stars, Mike finally manages to get rid of Mal, at the cost of losing his other personalities as well. However, they reassure him he'll always have a piece of them with him, both figuratively and literally, as he retains all of the abilities they had. Additionally, the iconic Camp Wawanakwa ends up sinking at the very end of the episode, setting the stage for Pahkitew Island (though it comes back with no explanation in the 2023 reboot).
  • The ending for Island (2023) has Bowie lose to Priya, but he at least gets to start a relationship with Raj.
• Black Dude Dies First: Parodied on a few occasions throughout the show when it comes to elimination.
  • Zig-Zagged with "Revenge of the Island" as B was the first guy to be eliminated, but the two finalists were Cameron and Lightning.
  • Straight with "All-Stars" as Lightning was the first male to be eliminated.
  • The first two contestants eliminated on "Pahkitew Island" are Beardo and Leonard.
  • Happens again when Leonard's team is the first one sent home in "Ridonculous Race".
• Blame the Paramour: During World Tour, Duncan cheated on Courtney with Gwen, who she'd become close friends with during the season. When Courtney found this out, while she was still angry at Duncan, she focused most of her energy on getting revenge on Gwen. In fact, a majority of characters found Gwen to be the problem, and Duncan's role was only touched upon a few times.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Sierra uses a social media app called Tweeter.
  • Macintosh Apple products have a banana symbol on them.
  • Sam plays a video game console called a "Game Guy".
  • The Gemmie awards are a parody of the Canadian TV awards, the Geminis, as well as the well-known Emmy Awards.
  • A self conscious Chris has himself "slotoxed" in order to look younger in Pahkitew Island.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Among many translation errors in the Brazilian dub, one that stands out is in the episode "The Ex-Files", where the dubbers apparently forgot that "Chris Is Really, Really, Really, Really Hot" is actually the name of one of the competing teams. As a result, one line of dialogue has Gwen celebrate that they are ahead of the other team, then suddenly blurt out a Non Sequitur where she praises Chris' appearance.
• Blofeld Ploy: In "Greece's Pieces".
  Chris: The drop of shame will be taken by... This intern!
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead
  • Heather's alliance after Beth left included Lindsay (blonde), Heather (brunette), and Izzy (redhead).
  • Owen, Noah and Izzy in World Tour.
  • The original female contestants on the Mutant Maggots are the dirty-blonde Jo, the brunette Anne Maria, and the red-haired Zoey.
• Body Horror: Alejandro's fate in the World Tour finale. In both endings, Alejandro ends up being smothered in the lava of the erupting Kilauea volcano. Saying the result was unsettling is an understatement.
  • Dakota's fate after getting turned into Dakotazoid. At least Sam likes her better this way.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Dave and Sky on Pahkitew Island. On Sky's side, Dave was being creepy and annoying and didn't let her get a word in when she tried to tell him she wanted to focus on the competition and she hadn't broken up with her previous boyfriend despite her intentions to. On Dave's side, Sky kept leading him on throughout the show, and there were plenty of times she could've sat him aside and told him but chose not to. Even after he moved on, she continued to take advantage of his feelings without regard to how they affected him. Making matters worse, she didn't try to mend fences after shooting him in a challenge under Jasmine's order, further confusing him on how she felt.
• Book Ends:
  • Justin's closing line in "The Princess Pride", which is his last appearance as a contestant, is "With me gone, this competition just got 80% less handsome... Alright, 79!" Starting World Tour, Justin gets effectively replaced by Alejandro. Alejandro's own near-closing line in "The Obsta-Kill Kourse", which is his last appearance as a contestant, is "This show just got 100% less beautiful."
  • Staci only appears in the first episode and the last episode of Revenge of the Island.

• Boot Camp Episode: "Basic Straining".
• Bowdlerise: Cartoon Network (a channel known for letting dodgy content fly in their original programming... only to edit out the same dodgy content in their acquired and imported programming, like the Looney Tunes cartoons and most anime series) loaded the season one episodes with censors for words like "crap", "suck", "freak", Canadian slang and even censor bleeps. Some of these words like "stupid", "hot" and "shut up" had been uncensored in CN's Y7 rated programs for years while Total Drama has a PG rating. Not a lot of these edits were smooth either.^note One example was Heather asking the Killer Bass "How does it feel to suck so much?". The CN version never added a substitute word for "suck", so the new line goes "How does it feel to so much?" This also notably ruins the reveal of eating bull testicles, only calling it "bull meat balls". And that's not even talking about the censored nudity. The "Celebrity Manhunt's Total Drama Reunion Special" has Izzy chewing out a stagehand in a Christian Bale-esque rant, and while most of her rant had its wording changed to something less offensive, part of it is still muted. The editing died down in Action as it, World Tour and Revenge of the Island was barely touched and All-Stars and Pahkitew Island were completely uncensored. The European version is very strict, even to the extent of removing scenes featuring vomiting, farting, and Groin Attacks.
  • Following initial airings in Italy, Asian character MK from the 2023 series had her skintone edited to be less yellow in further airings to avoid allegations of racism.
• The Boxing Episode: In "Suckers Punched" in All-Stars, the contestants have to enter the ring, boxing gloves and all, against their greatest fear or something equally upsetting. Scott loses against Fang, Sierra loses against the two-headed rat's mother, Alejandro wins against Jose, Mal wins against Izzy, Cameron loses against four mutant gophers, Duncan can't bring himself to punch a bird, and Gwen and Courtney tie against each other.
• Boxing Kangaroo: The kangaroo that appears in "Picnic at Hanging Dork" and "Aftermath Aftermayhem" has successfully defeated Duncan, Leshawna, and Harold.
• Brains Versus Brawn: The season finale of Revenge of the Island is titled "Brain vs. Brawn: The Ultimate Showdown" since the final two contestants are Black and Nerdy Cameron and Jerk Jock Lightning. The season actually has two endings in which one or the other wins, however both win moreso out of luck, than actual skill on either of the brains or brawns side, as the final challenge completely exhausted them. During the actual fight however, Lightning uses a crude weapon and armor and him trying to simply brute force his foe results in several mutant animals getting released into the arena. On the other hand, Cameron designs a high tech suit of armor and outmaneuvers his foe with a lot of quick thinking.
• Brainy Brunette:
  • Alejandro has an IQ of 163 and manages to eliminate Harold, Bridgette, Leshawna, DJ, Noah, Tyler, Owen, Duncan and Cody in World Tour while seeming perfectly innocent for most of it.
  • Courtney is a former C.I.T., and has enough legal knowledge to sue her way onto Action.
  • Noah has an IQ of 180, although is more Brilliant, but Lazy than anything.
  • Beth isn't conventionally smart, but has an encyclopedic knowledge of her cast mates that helps her keep up with Duncan during the final challenge of Action in "Mutiny on the Soundstage".
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: One of the promotional trailers for Total Drama All-Stars opens with the line (referring to the contestants), "You love them! You hate them! You love to hate them!"
• Breaking Old Trends: Has its own page.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Heather is subjected to the entire cast's dares when Gwen and Owen team up against her in "I Triple Dog Dare You", which culminates in her losing her hair, the game and much of her self-esteem. She becomes a Butt-Monkey in the following seasons, as the bad blood between her and the other contestants means she is offered no sympathy when she gets injured.
  • In Action, Justin and Courtney are eliminated by the very person whom they are attracted to.
  • In World Tour:
    • Blaineley fails to activate her parachute and crashes into a Chinese hut. She spends the rest of the season wrapped in bandages and unable to do anything, even speak, as the other contestants mock her.
    • Alejandro is trampled by the entire cast and covered in lava, and only survives by being placed inside the Drama Machine.
  • Scott is constantly getting hit by karma during All-Stars, especially when the shark comes back for his tooth.
  • After all the abuse he's inflicted on the contestants, Chris gets some just desserts in the final episode of Island, where the boys hurl him off the Dock of Shame.
• Breather Episode: "Brunch of Disgustingness", a gross food challenge smack-dab in the middle of season one. With no elimination and a one-off rejiggering of the teams, this episode is essentially the season's halftime show.
  • All of the Aftermath episodes focus on the recently eliminated contestants, which usually doesn't affect the main competition.
• Briefcase Full of Money: This is how the prize money is delivered. However, sometimes the case either gets stolen by a rogue former contestant (Ezekiel in season three and Heather in season four) or comically destroyed (eaten by a shark in season one's special and burned in a volcano in season three).
• Bridal Carry:
  • For a challenge in "Mutiny on the Soundstage", Duncan fails to answer a question and has to compensate physically by carrying Chef Hatchet in his arms across the bridge while Chef is wearing a dress and a tiara.
  • Alejandro has to bridal pick up Izzy out of the meat grinder to prevent her from becoming one with the sausage in "Slap Slap Revolution". He throws her at Noah to keep her safe, but Noah gets injured in the process, requiring Izzy to bridal carry Noah for a while.
  • Sierra carries Cody in her arms after he falls into her arms in "The Am-AH-Zon Race".
  • Alejandro carries Gwen bridal-style out of electric eel-infested water in "Jamaica Me Sweat".
  • Invoked during the wedding-themed "Niagara Brawls" challenge. The characters are expected to carry each other as part of a challenge, though not all couples play it straight: Alejandro and Heather fulfill the expectation, Cody and Sierra gender-invert it.
  • After Alejandro rescues Heather from under a rock in "Awwwwww, Drumheller", he picks her up in his arms. She immediately demands to be put down, but it's obvious from her tone that she's enjoying the moment.
  • During Mike's last few mindscape sequences in All-Stars, the elderly Chester is usually carried by either Mike or Vito. Mike carries him piggyback style but Vito is strong enough to use the bridal carry.
  • Sugar bridal carries a semi-conscious Sky out of the bear cave after she's farted them all to death in "Sky Fall".
• Broad Strokes: In "Million Dollar Babies", Leshawna says she wants to end her long-lasting rivalry with Heather and become her friend, a feeling which Heather ultimately reciprocates come the following Aftermath episode. Though the events of the season are still referenced in World Tour, the two girls are portrayed as even fiercer enemies than before, with Leshawna taking great pleasure in beating up Heather in "Slap Slap Revolution".
• Buffy Speak: When Tyler tries to remember the name of a T-bar (a device used to ride down a zipline) in "The Am-AH-Zon Race", he calls it a "hanging-on-thingy", "riding-stick", "grabby-whachama-call-it", and "zipper-buckle-handle".
• Buried Alive: This is Gwen's phobia. She's forced to undergo it in both "Phobia Factor" and "The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean".
• Burping Contest: The teams change to Guys vs. Girls in "Brunch of Disgustingness" and the guys' team bonds over out-burping each other.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • The poor interns. So far they've been tossed to crocodiles, thrown off cliffs, shoved off planes, eaten alive by scarabs, used as footstools for Chris, and chased around a studio by Beth.
  • Tyler's label as the "jock with no talent" means most of his humour comes from him attempting to perform impressive physical feats only to fail in humiliating ways. In "Aftermath Aftermayhem", clips of his many injuries throughout the show were compiled and presented to the competitors during a "try not to laugh" challenge.
  • Both Eva and Dakota were the second campers voted off in the only season they competed in, and when they eventually returned to the competition were voted off in the same episode.
  • Ezekiel was eliminated first in the first season, failed to qualify for the second, was personally eliminated at the beginning of the third season while Chris was explaining the rules, was the first contestant voted out again when he was let back in after Duncan quit, and was jokingly brought back to compete in the fifth season only for him to be immediately thrown far away while Chris says "like he'll ever compete again."

C

• Call-Back:
  • In "One Million Bucks, B.C." Chris uses the top half of Mr. Coconut for a cup while ending the episode.
  • Gwen still suffers her phobia of being buried alive as of "The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean".
  • The hat Sierra is wearing during her cameo with the rest of the previous cast at the beginning of Revenge of the Island is the same one that Cody wore as a Drama Brother.
  • A minor one, but the Villainous Vultures team logo is actually of the condor from the World Tour episode "Rapa-Phooey".
  • Before Alejandro takes the Flush of Shame in All-Stars, his Elimination Statement is very similar to Justin's in Action.
  • The exclusive Flush of Shame clips for All-Stars all take place in locations from World Tour.
• Calvinball: Some of the challenges on the show follow this kind of formula. Such examples include the paintball deer hunt, the greased-up obstacle course, and the bungee cord sheep-catching challenge.
• Camp Gay: Bowie introduces himself as the first openly gay contestant, which is also reflected in his speech patterns and fashion sense.
• Camp Straight: Justin is this because he acts like a male model, is obsessed with his looks, and behaves and speaks effeminately along with unintentionally making some guys, including Owen and Chef Hatchet fall head over heels for him. He flirted with Courtney and dated an unknown girl in the season two special.
• Camp Wackyname: Camp Wawanakwa offers the classic Summer Campy experience alongside the usual tortures of reality television for the teenage competitors.
• Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': DJ tries really hard to get kicked off in the third season, but it never seems to work for him. And of course, the moment he does try winning again, Alejandro gets him eliminated.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: In the World Tour finale, the Hawaiians freak out when they see the finalists throw pineapples inside the volcano, as doing so causes it to erupt. They then ask them if they didn't read the "Do not throw pineapples in the lava" sign... cue the Peanut Gallery taking a few steps to the side to expose a ridiculous amount of said signs behind them.
• Career-Ending Injury: If a competitor becomes severely injured to the point of it being impossible for them to continue the challenges, they will be permanently disqualified. This is how Cody, Cameron and Wayne & Raj met their eliminations in Island, All Stars and Part 1 of Island (2023), with the four of them being put in full body casts.
• Casting Gag:
  • Doubling as an Actor Allusion, Cory Doran is essentially voicing a tanned Jimmy Two-Shoes.
  • In the Hebrew dub, Emma and Kitty are voiced by the two actresses that voiced Sammy and Amy, respectively. To make matters more interesting, Emma and Amy are the bad sisters, whilst Sammy and Kitty are the good ones. Yet, Lauren Savir voices Amy and Kitty, while Eden Gamliel voices Sammy and Emma, despite their personality differences.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Each character has a unique design. Word of God says this was done intentionally so that each character could easily be recognized in silhouette.
• Catchphrase:
  • Alejandro - "Butter donkey."
  • Cody - "Gwen."
  • Courtney - "I was a CIT."
  • Harold - "Gosh" and "Idiot," sometimes together.
  • Lindsay - "Are YOU Tyler?"
  • Sierra - "Cody," "Cody-Wody," "Cody-Bear," etc.
  • Heather - "As if!"
• Cats Are Mean:
  • In "Super Hero-ld", Chef Hatchet's cat sidekick "Dander Boy" sabotages Leshawna's attempt at making a superhero costume.
  • In Topher's audition video, his cat, Chef, attacks him because Topher shouted into a megaphone, waking Chef up.
  • In Jasmine's audition video, her cat, Whiskers, bites her upper arm for no apparent reason.
• Chained Heat: In the triathalon challenge in Island, the Big Bad is tied to the most friendly member of the cast; the Sassy Black Woman is bound to the Jerkass bully; and the loner is handcuffed to the party-obsessed guy.
• Character-Driven Strategy: As a show where the lines between the game and personal matters are blurred, personalities have a large say in how things play out.
  • Heather, the Alpha Bitch of the original cast, impacted the game accordingly. Notably, she had Trent Mistaken for Cheating to get him voted out. Further, despite Lindsay being close to her, Heather was entirely happy to eliminate her during a sudden-death challenge.
  • Despite his kind outward appearance, Alejandro is highly selfish and sees the other contestants as pawns to get ahead of. Reflecting this, Alejandro manipulates several contestants into seeing him as a friend or romantic interest, only to set them up for failure. He even went so far as to endanger Duncan to feral Ezekiel for a win in the challenge.
  • Another antagonist, Scott, threw challenges in the pre-merge to make the other tribe overconfident. This reflects his low opinion of his tribe, who he has no remorse Framing Up and voting out.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • After Island, Gwen's love for art is never acknowledged again outside of online bios.
  • Noah is flat out contemptuous towards Owen in "Island" calling him "a ticking time bomb of noxious fumes" and the feeling is mutual as Owen is happy when Noah gets voted out in "Dodgebrawl". In "World Tour", the two have developed an Odd Friendship with Noah liking Owen even if he could do without his constant farting, being overly affectionate personality, and naivety.
  • Halfway into World Tour, Sierra using her uber-knowledge of the show to her advantage competition-wise is completely dropped to focus purely on her obsession towards Cody. While her knowledge of the show is still present, it becomes more Cody-centric and she no longer uses it to win.
  • Dave's fear of germs is all but forgotten about after the 7th episode of Pahkitew Island to fixate purely on his crush on Sky.
• Chastity Couple:
  • Gwen and Trent only shared one on-screen kiss during their relationship.
  • Harold and Leshawna only kiss once as well, although this is mainly because Leshawna is slightly conflicted about her feelings for Harold.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In "Broadway, Baby":
    • Played with when Heather gets a meat grinder as a reward, but tosses it off the plane because she thinks it's a Joke Item, ignoring Courtney's protests that it might be important. The next episode revolves around the teams having to grind enough meat to make a giant sausage, a task that would be monumentally easier if one had a grinder. Heather's team is understandably upset.
    • The episode establishes that Cody really, really likes candy, to the point where large amounts of it almost seem to hypnotise him. Half a season later, Alejandro wins a cart filled with candy as a reward and promptly uses it to manipulate Cody into being his ally.
    • Furthermore, Cody uses some of the candy he collects in this episode in "The Ex-Files", throwing it on the ground to clear a path through a minefield.
  • In "Hawaiian Style", the eliminated contestants participate in a challenge where the reward is the ability to give a supposedly helpful item to the finalist of their choice. At the end of the episode, Harold and Courtney's efforts lead to Alejandro and Cody being granted a wheelbarrow and a baby carriage, respectively. During the finale, both items turn out to be a subversion: Alejandro's wheelbarrow is useless when it comes to transporting his mannequin over a pit of lava, whereas Cody's baby-carriage crumbles under the weight of Heather's dummy when she tries to claim it for herself.
• Chekhov's Volcano: The final episode of World Tour takes place in Hawaii, as the finalists race to the top of an active volcano to claim the cash prize. As soon as the challenge is completed, the volcano erupts, forcing everyone to run all the way back to the ocean below.
• Chew Toy:
  • Heather is subjected to a lot of torment following her elimination from Island, mostly because her teammates still haven't forgiven her for her manipulative behaviour in the first season and wish to get back at her. Her suffering is always played for laughs.
  • Owen in Island has fallen off a cliff (several times), impaled his foot on a rake, been stung by swarms of hornets multiple times in the same episode, had some contrived coincidence cause one bad thing happening to him make something even worse happen two seconds later more times than I can count, and in general has had ridiculously bad luck, even more so than the rest of the cast.
  • Trent gets the raw end of the deal as well. The poor guy has suffered a concussion, been poisoned, put in a full body cast after falling out of a plane, landed on a fence post crotch first, and finally suffers a mental breakdown. All of this is Played for Laughs.
  • If Tyler is competing, expect him to be hurt the worst out of all the contestants. Heck, he couldn't even debut without getting hurt.
  • Scott figuratively and literally, especially so in All-Stars. His Iron Butt Monkey status and increased stupidity have earned him a lot of fans from his very large hate base.
  • Max in Pahkitew Island; more often than not, he brings his pain upon himself.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: After destroying a mummified dog in World Tour, DJ comes to believe that he has been placed under a curse that causes him to accidentally harm every animal he interacts with. Leshawna tells him that curses only affect those who believe in them; a theory that is later proven to be true, as DJ stopped injuring animals when he believed the curse had been lifted, only to go back to clumsily harming them once Alejandro convinces him he is still jinxed.
• Cliffhanger: "Not So Happy Campers - Part 1" ends with the shocking revelation that the first challenge is jumping off the cliff into the lake. "Not So Happy Campers - Part 2" features everyone except Beth, Courtney and DJ jumping off.
  • "Mutiny on the Soundstage" ends with Duncan and Beth tying for 1st place. "The Aftermath: IV" is all about breaking the tie.
  • "Walk Like an Egyptian - Part 1" ends with the allocation of the prizes whose purpose is unknown. "Walk Like an Egyptian - Part 2" explains how the prizes are used throughout the episode.
  • "Jamaica Me Sweat" ends with the cast all stranded in Jamaica. "Aftermath: Revenge of the Telethon" is a fundraiser to help them continue the show.
  • "Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles" ends with Alejandro and Cody tying for 2nd place. The first half of "Hawaiian Punch" is about breaking the tie.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Courtney to Duncan in Action. She is constantly suspicious of his friendship with Gwen in this season, although both insist repeatedly that they are just friends. This is justified in the following season when Duncan cheats on her with Gwen.
  • The Action special mentions that Bridgette once smashed a surfboard over Geoff's head because he was paying too much attention to a group of female fans.
  • Sierra to Cody in World Tour. Played straight, especially when it involves Gwen. An example of this is calling for a Group Hug then telling Gwen, Courtney and Heather to back off while she's holding Cody.
  • Again in World Tour, Heather does not want Courtney to have Alejandro.
• Clingy Sleepers: In "The Big Sleep," Noah and Cody fall asleep next to each other and end up spooning, with Noah even kissing Cody's ear in his sleep. They both scream in humiliation upon waking up, and Noah does not live down the fact he kissed a dude on television. As a Call-Back in the Celebrity Manhunt special next season, Noah ends up with his head on Cody's lap when the cast falls asleep.
• Clip Show: Subverted in "Beach Blanket Bogus", where the group makes a return to Camp Wawanakwa.
  Chris: If you need to take a moment to reminisce about the great times you had here...
  (everyone else laughs)
  Chris: Fine. We'll skip the good memories montage.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Izzy is so random, it's near impossible to predict what she'd do.
• Cloud Cuckoo Landers Minder:
  • Owen tries to be this for Izzy but has trouble getting her to listen.
  • Noah keeps Owen from doing anything stupid or detrimental during World Tour, and in "Slap Slap Revolution" he's assigned to watch over Izzy so that she doesn't injure herself.
  • Bridgette keeps Geoff from going overboard with his pranks and games during the Action and World Tour aftermaths.
  • Beth is arguably this for Lindsay when she's not being one herself.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb:
  • In two separate episodes of Island, Lindsay and Owen fire a long string of insults at Heather, which get bleeped to the audience. However, in the case of the former, the bleep is replaced by "...no-good selfish, heartless, pushy, bossy, mean, bully of a girl!" in the American version.
  • In a parody of the Christian Bale incident from Terminator Salvation, Izzy flips out at her movie crew for no apparent reason in the Action special. It's bleeped out in the original Canadian airing, but was one of only a handful of times Cartoon Network censored dialogue in Total Drama Action when the bleeps were replaced, mostly by words like "stinking."
    Izzy: (yelling) Or I'll kick your (bleeping) butt! I want you all off this (bleeping) set! No, don't be (bleeping) "sorry"! Think for a second! No, no, will not take five, (bleep)! You call yourself a director of photography?! Why were you walking right through the set?! WHY were you walking right through the (bleeping) set?!! (in a more calm voice) Okay, I was just kidding. Guys? I just went ballistic there for no good reason. What?
• Combat, Diplomacy, Stealth: The three main antagonists and strategists of Total Drama (2023) are all on the "Frogs of Death" and follow this dynamic:
  • Julia is the Combat since having no allies or manipulation skills post-merge left her with only one choice: brute-force her way through challenges in the single-minded pursuit of immunity, which often works to her advantage, and isn't afraid to use her sharp tongue and fists to fight dirty.
  • Bowie is the Diplomacy with the best social game and the most strategic-minded, compartmentalizing his schemes to eliminate the competition and his actual feelings towards them. He's also the only one out of the three to have genuine or even any connections with the other contestants at all.
  • MK is the Stealth as evidenced by her ability to fly under the radar without coming off as either a threat or The Load. She usually operates behind the scenes with borderline cheating tactics such as hacking into the confessionals for blackmail material and stealing her teammates' belongings to auction off.
• Comically Small Bribe: After the talent show challenge, Heather assembles an ad hoc coalition to eliminate the innocent Justin to protect her guilty self after she alienates the other contestants. She recruits Owen by giving him a piece of cake. In a game where $100,000 is at stake.
• Comic Trio: Izzy, Eva, and Noah have shades of this in "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island", especially notable during their encounter with Justin. Izzy is the unpredictable and unstoppable leader, Eva is the muscle that goes along, and Noah has a near-zero hold on them.
• Compressed Vice: Trent develops an OCD level of obsession with the number 9 in Action. Harold claims that this obsession always existed, even though Trent never showed any signs of it in Island.
• Confession Cam: As to be expected from a Reality Show. It invokes the Rule of Funny, so expect it to be used when it quite logically and explicitly cannot. In Island, the confessional is also an outhouse. Which is sometimes in use. When the camera is on. Thankfully, above belly button level.
• Continuity Cameo: In the finale of the spin-off The Ridonculous Race, Chris and Blaineley appear, except their faces are obscured by a newspaper and shopping gifts respectively. Anne Maria can also be seen wandering around New York.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The first episode of World Tour has Owen terrified of getting on the jet, a reference to his fear of heights in season one.
  • At the start of World Tour, Chris asks Lindsay if she understands the voting process this time around, a reference to how she accidentally voted herself out in Action.
  • In "Haute Camp-ture", Noah mentions that he owns a golden Labrador. Two seasons later, in "Can't Help Falling In Louvre", Noah distracts Sasquatchanakwa by pretending to throw a ball for it to fetch, explaining that the trick always worked on his dog back home.
  • In "Celebrity Manhunt's Total Drama Action Reunion Special", Justin mentions that despite being a Drama Brother, he can't play any instruments. For every Drama Brothers song from then on, Justin is only seen shaking a tambourine to the beat of the song.
  • In "Grand Chef Auto", Chris mentions that Duncan still owes him camera time for skipping out on World Tour.
  • In "Up, Up, and Away", Heather states she was "robbed" of her million dollars. This is referencing the previous season where she either won but still lost the money in a volcano or was tricked into helping Alejandro win.
  • The first half of All-Stars pits the Heroes and the Villains against one another.
  • "Suckers Punched" is full of them:
    • Cameron is still scared of Izzy.
    • Alejandro is still scared of his brother, José.
    • Mike is still scared of mutant gophers.
  • Pahkitew Island has Ella randomly breaking into song, as she loved the World Tour season.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • Justin compared to Heather. Both started off as main antagonists of Island and Action respectively, but while Heather had hard time hiding her nature amongst most contestants because of her personality, Justin was able to hide his nature from everyone, save for a few contestants, by using his good looks. However, Heather made up for this by being strategically cunning and made it all the way 3rd place and kept her role as the villain of Island, while Justin didn't really have any smarts or competence beyond using his looks and only reached 7th place, while his role as a villain was replaced by Courtney.
  • Unlike Heather and Justin who were already villainous prior to joining the show, Courtney started out alright (a tad overbearing and competitive) but thanks to Flanderization and the game progression became increasingly villainous to the point of becoming worse than either of them. Also, while Heather and Justin were Big Bads of the start of a season (Island and Action respectively), Courtney appeared in the middle of a season (Action) and takeover someone's position (Justin) as the Big Bad.
  • Alejandro was the first Big Bad to be both a chessmaster with strategic smarts, and being polite and charming with a good reputation among his fellow contestants. His predecessors were either strategic but disliked by others (Heather and Courtney), or well-liked by everyone but have little in the way of intelligence (Justin).
  • Scott distances himself from the Big Bads of the previous seasons with his strategy off throwing challenges to vote off his own teammates, attempting to have full control on who gets eliminated. He's also the only Big Bad to date who never formed any sort of alliance in the season he was the main villain.
  • The biggest contrast from any Big Bad before him. At the time of his introduction, Mal was the darkest villain to ever appear on ''Total Drama'', being a sociopathic Split Personality, who does evil deeds for the fun of it. He's also the first villain to be truly evil, and not a Punch-Clock Villain like his predecessors who were being villainous as part of the reality show strategy.
  • Scarlett is the first and only Big Bad who stays hidden from the audience for the majority of the season, with only small hints being revealed of her true nature along the way, before The Reveal where she shows her true antagonists colors for one episode before she's gone.
  • Sugar's very unique when compared to the other villains in that she's portrayed more as a Fat Comic Relief rather than a legitimate villain even in the episodes where she officially takes over as the Big Bad. While temperamental, she's also prone to being Affably Evil, in contrast to the others being Faux Affably Evil. That, and as mentioned above she ultimately feels more like an Arc Villain as the events triggered by her antagonism still would've transpired even without her being there.
  • Bowie is a manipulative schemer like most of the above but unlike them, he has no real malice towards the rest of the cast. Each previous antagonist was a bully in some way whereas Bowie is a Punch-Clock Villain who gets along with everyone once he's off the clock. Bowie isn't really a bad guy, he is just very competitive.
  • Julia is a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Heather, but the two of them played the game differently. Heather relied primarily on her social game and tricking others into working for her, Julia abandoned her fake niceness with relish and got by in the competition through her own skills. Julia also lacks Heather's Plot Armor, as she won her immunities by her own merit rather than random chance, other players screwing up, or Chris throwing out the votes just because.
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • The final challenge of World Tour is a race to the top of an active volcano, over a river of lava. Ezekiel falls seemingly to his doom into the volcano, only to somehow survive after the volcano erupts.
  • The All Stars finale also had a section where they needed to cross lava.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In season four, Mike doesn't tell anyone he has Multiple Personality Disorder and especially doesn't want his crush Zoey to learn about it. Even when his personalities come out and cause disruption, Mike lies and tells Zoey he's an overly dedicated method actor. However, towards the end of the season, he confesses to Zoey and admits that he should have just done so from the start. Lying to her caused much more problems than it was worth, and Zoey assures Mike that he has nothing to be ashamed of and accepts him completely.
• Covered in Kisses: In the intro sequence of Revenge of the Island, Dakota pulls the camera towards her and kisses the lens, leaving a lipstick print. An intern pops in to wipe the lens clean.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Gwen is introduced as an aloof, antisocial goth girl who ignores the other campers, but when Trent arrives, we see her turn away and smile for the first time. This is the first sign of the Defrosting Ice Queen plot she undergoes via her summer romance with Trent.
• Crapsack World: Downplayed. While the series doesn't focus entirely on Canada, in a show often filled with idiots, jerks and morons and Butt Monkeys who have terrible luck and a state that doesn't do anything about the fact that two contestants have suffered from Body Horror, Total Drama's take on Canada seems like a rather crapsack world to be a part of.
• Crossdresser: Chef Hatchet in a few of the "Gilded Chris" ceremonies. It's happened a few times since, under varying degrees of convincing. However in an interview with Total Drama fan, Erin after she asks Chris why he "makes" Chef wear dresses, Chris admits that he does not force Chef to wear any of the dresses but that Chef's cross-dressing is "his own thing".
• Crossdressing Voices: Clé Bennett as DJ's mama
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Harold frequently proves that the many skills he claims to have really do exist.
  • Cody toughens up when he's cornered or sufficiently determined.
• Crying Wolf: In All-Stars, both Duncan and Alejandro try to warn people about Mal's existence but are dismissed because of their bad reputations.
• Cucumber Facial: A running gag of the series is that any person and animal can show up enjoying a facial treatment. For instance, in "Haute Camp-ture", Beth and two sharks are relaxing with a cucumber facial. And in "Sky Fall", a robot bear is sleeping with cucumber slices on its eyes.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Eva's battle with Sasquatchanakwa in "No Pain, No Game". It only takes her 10 seconds to literally skin him alive, she even comes out with a hat and a pair of boots made from its fur.
  • In Action, the Screaming Gaffers won eight challenges to the Killer Grips three, one of which was only won because Gwen took the fall for them, one of which was only a reward challenge, and the final being because they kissed up to Chris. Chris lampshades the lopsided nature of the contest:
    Chris: Stay tuned to find out who will win this week. Could it be...the Grips?
    Owen: Hey! We heard that!
    Beth: It could still happen! We're not losers! (accidentally spits out her retainer)
  • The Epic Fail that is Team Victory in World Tour. Every single member is gone by the season's halfway point. The only contestant that was eliminated before Team Victory was Izzy of Team Chris is Really Really Really Hot, and that was only because the army took her in.
  • The Toxic Rats vs. the Mutant Maggots in Revenge of the Island as well, though this is less because the Rats are a weak team and more because Scott keeps screwing them over from within.
  • Mal Vs. Izzy in the All-Stars episode "Suckers Punched", thanks to Cameron claiming that the challenge was rigged.
  • Once Team Maskwak eliminates its millstone, Leonard, they never lose to Team Kinosewak ever again. However, they do lose one of their members before the merge.
• Curse:
  • In the Island episode "Up The Creek" Beth picks up a cursed tiki-idol that causes her team's winning streak to come to an end.
  • In the first episode of World Tour, DJ accidentally destroys the remains of a mummified dog, and henceforth believes that it laid a curse on him as revenge. Said curse operated on Clap Your Hands If You Believe and caused him to accidentally hurt any animal that crossed his path, leaving him miserable and stressed out for most of the season.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • From "Newf Kids On the Rock":
    Courtney: Look, I am a very experienced swimmer. I was a synchro captain. I coach minnows! I am a CIT!
    Heather: More like a B-I-T-C-
    Gwen: Guys, let's get going.
  • Same thing occurs to Heather when the horn, from the Guys' victory in the Brunch episode, concealed her swearing.
  • When he's about to get flushed in "Evil Dread", Lightning prepares to call Jo, who's partially to blame for his elimination, an obscenity. He gets flushed just in time to keep the show family-friendly.
  • Duncan in "3:10 to Crazy Town", explaining that he's bullying Harold because he found out about Harold rigging the votes to get Courtney eliminated in Island.
    Duncan: Payback's a - (gets cut off)
• Cute Bruiser: Courtney manages to beat up three sharks in "Top Dog" and Duncan is regularly on the receiving end of a Groin Attack from her.
  • Izzy frequently goes toe-to-toe with Chef, winning on four separate occasions ("The Aftermath: I", "The Aftermath: II", "Aftermath: Bridgette Over Troubled Water" and "Finders Creepers").
  • Sierra chokes out the much larger Owen in "Greece's Pieces" and defeats a whole swarm of baboons to save Cody in "African Lying Safari".
  • Zoey during her time as Commando Zoey in "Eat, Puke, and Be Wary" and "The Enchanted Franken-Forest" becomes skilled with a bow and arrow.
• Cute, but Cacophonic:
  • The Killer Rabbit guarding Bridgette's key in "Search and Do Not Destroy" roars loudly when she tries to steal it from him.
  • Team Maskwak, particularly Sugar, finds Ella's singing to be annoying. Chris is also especially annoyed by it, to the point where he has to remind Ella that there is no singing in Pahkitew Island and he eventually threatens to expel Ella from the show if she keeps singing.
• Cute Machines: Early in B's audition tape, a little robot rolls by that is designed in B's own likeness. A Mini-B, if you will.
• Cute Mute: This could describe Justin in Island since just about every girl on the island (even Owen) was head-over-heels for him despite how he almost never spoke.

D

• Danger Takes a Backseat: For the whole of World Tour, Ezekiel hides out in the cargo hold of the Total Drama Jumbo Jet. He starts out as a normal teen who can't accept his early elimination, but the longer he stays in hiding, away from humans and alone with rats, scavenging and biding his time for food, the more he feralizes and the more he is framed as a potential threat to those on board whenever he's present in the shadows. It doesn't come to that if nothing else because Chris has him captured.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • While not as bad as the other examples on that page, Revenge of the Island is this when compared to the first season; due to radioactive waste, the island is now filled with assorted mutants and monsters, not to mention some of the new contestants' personalities seem a lot "darker" than the previous ones' (take for example Mike's multiple personality disorder, Staci's constant lying to get attention, Scott being a bigger Manipulative Bastard than Alejandro and Heather combined, Dakota being turned into a monster thanks to radiation, etc).
  • All-Stars, with Mal being the first villain who intentionally tries to kill people. One confessional scene even has Alejandro mentioning that he genuinely thinks Mal needs to go to jail rather than be eliminated.
  • Exaggerated with Scarlett, who not only is a legitimate sociopath but also tries to kill the other contestants.
• Dartboard of Hate:
  • The control room of the abandoned film lot in Action contains a notice board. On the notice board is a black paper cut-out in the shape of Chef Hatchet's head. There are two darts poking out of it, but it's unknown who threw them.
  • Some of Jo's training equipment is visible in her audition tape. Among it is a punching bag with Chris's photo taped to it.
• Dashing Hispanic: Alejandro is a Latino who peppers his dialogue with Gratuitous Spanish and frequently shows off his physique to charm and manipulate the female competitors.
• Deadly Game: The titular series zig-zags this. The first season had a few dangerous challenges that could potentially get the campers hurt, but it was mostly played for laughs, with Chris and Chef showing concern for their safety at various points, and the only actual "deaths" were a few unlucky animals and some interns Chris said died setting up challenges. As Chris was Flanderized into becoming The Sociopath though and lost what little concern for the campers' safety he had, he started making the challenges not just more difficult but as dangerous and potentially deadly as possible. Though no contestants in the various seasons have ever died due to playing the game, several of them have been viciously maimed and/or forever scarred due to competing, and it has generally become accepted in-universe that joining the show means putting your life at risk and/or enduring being tortured by Chris for the chance to win $1,000,000.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Chris and Don have very little sympathy for the contestants' drama, offering condescending remarks at every opportunity.
  • The more levelheaded contestants frequently snipe at the zanier ones. Prominent snarker examples include Gwen, Duncan, Leshawna, and especially Noah and MK.
• Death Glare:
  • Being easily aggravated or disgusted by almost anything or anyone, Heather often gives this look.
  • Chef Hatchet is nearly locked into this look.
  • Duncan gives this look often enough to the other contestants - but he gives it even more to the camera in the confessional stall.
  • Dawn gives one to Scott prior to her elimination in "Backstabbers Ahoy".
  • Courtney at times seems a little too fond of these.
  • Mal does these very frequently.
• Decided by One Vote: While most vote counts are unconfirmed, with Chris instead handing out marshmallows (or an equivalent) to each contestant until only one is left, there are instances where the vote was confirmed to come down to one player. Here are a few examples:
  • Due to the events of Island, Duncan and Courtney weren't on very good terms with Harold in Action. Combine that with Courtney increasingly rubbing Beth and Lindsay the wrong way, and sides were quick to form. This culminated in the second final six votes, where, by throwing a vote on Courtney (who was immune anyway), Owen allowed Lindsay, Beth, and Harold to team up against Duncan, voting him out by a single vote. However, Lindsay, being distracted, mistakenly voted for herself, causing her to be the one sent home by a single vote instead.
  • Also from Action, after a long string of ties, the winner of the series, be it Duncan or Beth, came down to the last vote.
  • Revenge of the Island saw a rather divided dynamic in the endgame. So much so that Scott went home in a 2-1-1 vote. Had either Scott vote been for someone else, that person would have gone home instead, whereas Scott changing his vote would have been enough to force a tiebreaker.
  • Although eliminations in Pahkitew Island were either implied to be unanimous or conducted through means other than voting, the first vote of the merge would have been Sky. However, Dave, having campaigned and voted against himself, was able to narrowly exit the game, per his wishes.
• Defrosting Ice Queen:
  • Gwen visibly learns to care more for many of her fellow campers as the show goes on, though she'd never admit it.
  • Heather in Action. Though most people prefer to think of it as Villain Decay.
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel: After Cameron tells Zoey that Mike usually snaps back to his normal self when she is in danger, Zoey (who is at the moment worried whether Mike or Mal is the real personality) uses herself as bait for a school of piranhas. It works at first, but then Mal catches on, dominates Mike's mind again, and rescues Zoey while pretending to be Mike so as not to look suspicious.
• Demonic Dummy: In "Sundae Muddy Sundae", Vito is given a puppet of Mal and forced to perform with it. The Puppet is actually controlled by Mal and he speaks through it.
• Demoted to Extra: Downplayed with Mike in All Stars after episode six. Mal takes control over Mike's body full-time, but he does it under the guise of Mike. As such, Mike is still mentioned extremely often, and an impersonation of him appears in every episode. The real Mike, however, goes from being one of the most prominent characters to only being featured in one or two scenes each episode.
• Denser and Wackier:
  • The original series was a relatively realistic "animated reality show" that takes place on Wawanakwa Island. The second season takes place in a movie studio and every episode is a shout-out to films with much cartoonier antics. The third season is a musical in which the contestants fly around the world in a jet. The fourth season takes place on Wawanakwa again, but it is now a radioactive waste deposit which mutates all of the wildlife. The island remains the setting of the fifth season and while it's now cleaned up, the wildlife remains mutated. Then the island gets sunk and the action is relocated to Pahkitew Island, which is largely mechanized and remote-controlled. For instance, the animals are all robots and the weather can be set too.
  • The series' move deeper into cartoon logic is also reflected by the way contestants are kicked off the show each season. In Island, a boat comes to take the contestants off the island. In Action, a broken-down limousine drives the contestants off the movie set. World Tour has the contestants skydive out of the jumbo jet they're flying in. In Revenge of the Island, a giant catapult flings eliminated contestants off the island. In All-Stars, they're flushed down a giant toilet. And in Pahkitew Island, contestants are blasted off the island with a giant circus cannon.
  • The average realism of the cast also drops. In the first two seasons, each character was mostly realistic, with some exaggerated teenage and reality show stereotypes to boot. Come Revenge of the Island, and we've got Mike, a boy with multiple-personality syndrome who can turn into an old man, a treasure hunter, a Jersey Shore-esque bully, a female Russian gymnast, and an evil, chaotic supervillain in All-Stars. That's not even remotely how MPD works. Pahkitew Island introduces a teenage wannabe fairytale princess and a wannabe supervillain.
  • Injuries are also affected. In Island, the worst injury sustained is that a contestant gets mauled by a bear and nearly drowned, from which they recover. In World Tour, one contestant is engulfed in lava, leading him to become an Expy of Darth Vader. Another character, after being voted off, stows away on the plane, causing him to become feral with his skin becoming ghastly pale, eventually making him an Expy of Gollum. In Revenge of the Island, a contestant is exposed to radioactive material, causing her to become a giant, humanoid monster.
• Detrimental Determination: Refusing to accept defeat after being voted out, Ezekiel becomes a stowaway on the jumbo jet. By the end of the season, his time in the cargo hold has made him very feral, with no prize money to show for it.
• Deus Ax Machina: In the series premiere episode, Duncan uses a convenient fire axe to dispatch a cockroach that had "cornered" Lindsay in the Gophers' cabin.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Alejandro in World Tour and Scott in Revenge of the Island.
• Did Not Think This Through:
  • Harold's revenge on Duncan in "Basic Straining" by rigging the votes against Courtney to have her eliminated goes bad. First, he spends all of "Camp Haunt-ture" hiding from a vengeful Courtney and second, Duncan's bullying becomes much more vicious the following season once he finds out what Harold did.
  • Jo comes to regret getting Lightning voted off early in "Saving Private Leechball". Not only do the rest of the Villainous Vultures hold her responsible for the loss of their most physically fit teammate during a challenge his skills would've been useful for, but Jo herself doesn't think highly of the team either and acknowledges that Lightning would've done better in the challenge than the others. She's voted off herself at the end of the day.
  • Alejandro didn't consider the repercussions that would come from his deceptive method to eliminate Heather in All-Stars as revenge for what happened in the finale of World Tour. After this success, his gameplay strategy is severely hindered by how nobody is willing to form an alliance with him. This ultimately becomes his undoing in "The Obsta-Kill Kourse" when no one believes him about Mal, resulting in his elimination by an unsurprising 5-1 vote.
  • Chef realizes that using hydraulic fracturing to dig moats on a tiny island is inadvisable when Camp Wawanakwa sinks in "The Final Wreck-ening".
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • In "Ocean's Eight: or Nine", Chris' car horn plays the "I Wanna be Famous" tune when he drives up.
  • In the "Chinese Fake-Out", it's his ringtone, justified as the show is a Show Within a Show in-universe, so its theme song would be known by Chris. The ringtone shows up again in "Ice, Ice Baby".
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • In Action Justin gets replaced by Courtney after being defeated and voted off in "The Princess Pride".
  • In Revenge of the Island Scott gets voted off in "Eat Puke and be Wary", Lightning then takes up the role of Big Bad after accidentally giving Cameron the win, upon which Taking A Level In Jerkass, two episodes later, he defeats Cameron (depending on where you live).
  • In Pahkitew Island, Scarlett is eliminated along with Max in "Scarlett Fever", Sugar then takes up the role in subsequent episodes, followed by Dave in the finale.
• Disney Acid Sequence: Several of the songs from World Tour, most prominently What's Not To Love?
• Disney Creatures of the Farce: The animals that would often be around Ella in Pahkitew Island.
• Disney Death: Ezekiel survives being fully submerged in lava in "Hawaiian Punch".
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Aftermath: Bridgette Over Troubled Water", a flashback shows Harold annoying people with a mathematical palindrome. In response, Beth is ready to go at him bare-handed, Justin is wearing boxing gloves, Heather's picked up a baseball bat, Cody's itching with nunchaku, Chef's got a frying pan, there's a bear waiting with a chainsaw, and Leshawna's running out of patience too.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: One of Island's earliest challenges is a dodgeball game, causing the contestants several injuries.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Celebrity Manhunt reports that Courtney and Duncan are having a custody battle over a pet raccoon.
• The Dog Bites Back: More often than not, a villain's comeuppance comes from the victims they abused.
  • In "Paintball Deer Hunter", Beth finally stands up for herself against Heather, and in "If You Can't Take the Heat...", Beth helps Leshawna lock Heather in the camp's walk-in freezer.
  • In "Basic Straining", Harold gets revenge against Duncan by rigging that night's vote against Courtney. Later in "Crouching Courtney, Hidden Owen", Harold manages to punch through a sparring bag to choke Duncan and later gives him a mean left hook for insulting Leshawna.
  • In "I Triple Dog Dare You", Lindsay ultimately causes Heather's downfall by daring her to have her head shaved. Earlier in "That's Off the Chain", Lindsay gives Heather a well-deserved "Reason You Suck" Speech after the latter betrays the former.
  • In "Up, Up, and Away In My Pitiful Balloon", Cameron outsmarts Jo, who'd been bossing him around from Day 1, causing her to lose the challenge and get voted off later that day.
  • In "Eat, Puke, and be Wary", Scott is taken out of the game when he falls into one of Zoey's traps. Also, when Chris gets trapped in the washroom's septic tank, the interns actively make his plight worse.
  • In "Twinning Isn't Everything", Samey gets revenge on her Evil Twin Amy by tricking her into eating a poisonous fruit.
  • In the episode of season 1 of the reboot, "Jurassic Fart", Julia angrily insults a raptor's appearance which leads it to run away crying. In the season 2 finale, "Soar Losers", that same raptor gets to ruin Julia's appearance by biting down hair and ripping a good amount of it off which leaves her with a very bad looking Traumatic Haircut.
• A Dog Named "Dog": In the first season, D.J. has a pet rabbit named Bunny.
• Double Entendre:
  • In "Not So Happy Campers - Part 1", Duncan requests to bunk under Heather.
  • In "Slap Slap Revolution", the teams must assemble giant sausages. Due to circumstances, Cody's team is short on meat. Noah taunts him by claiming that "Cody's got a tiny sausage!" Cody retorts that at least his team has a sausage.
  • In "Heroes vs. Villains", Sierra picks a key during a challenge simply because it looks like Cody. Unfortunately, it's not the right key, prompting her to exclaim that Cody's key is too small.
• Double Knockout:
  • DJ and Gwen hit each other's faces simultaneously in a dodgeball competition.
  • Courtney and Sierra do this to each other in "Greece's Pieces".
• Downer Ending:
  • Multiple episodes end with the villain triumphing over the rest of the cast and eliminating a sympathetic character. Two examples include "Search and Do Not Destroy" and "That's Off the Chain", both of which conclude with a shot of the cast waving sadly as their friend leaves the island.
  • The end of Duncan's character arc in All Stars. He ends up getting arrested for blowing up Chris' mansion, his bad boy reputation is in ruins, both Courtney and Gwen now hate his guts, and is last seen in prison with the unfortunate implication that he may be raped by his cellmate.
  • In the same season, Courtney leaves the series completely empty-handed in terms of both relationships and rewards. She gets eliminated, rendering her series-long crusade of winning Total Drama with any tactic whether it be through strategy or lawsuits All for Nothing, her friendship with Gwen is in shambles, she's lost both Duncan and Scott, and nobody misses her after she's flushed. In her exclusive clip, she reemerges at a beach, a pair of sharks puke on her when she tries to ward them off with her sundae, leaving her a sobbing mess.
    • Even after all of this, in the season finale, the last we see of these two outside of their exclusive clips is them being trapped in balloons inflated by Owen's farts and being blown towards the sun by the wind after failing to be chosen as one of Mike and/or Zoey's helpers.
  • Samey left the series on a pretty sad note as well. In the end, she gets eliminated before the merge, never gets any reward money, has to return home with her Big Sister Bully and will have to deal with her at least until she moves out of their parents' home, and the Only Friend she's ever made completely forgets about her after she's officially eliminated.
  • Dave not only doesn’t get together with Sky due to him learning she had a boyfriend back home but he’s left stranded on Pahkitew Island and is last seen with the implication he’ll be mauled by Scuba-Bear.
• The Dragon: Chef helps Chris humiliate the contestants, as the only other recurring staff member in all the competitions.
  • MK later serves this role for Julia in the second season of the Reboot, with the two of them working together as a team until MK is eliminated, after which she serves as Julia's only supporter in the finale.
• Dreadful Musician: Lindsay, Anne Maria, and Sugar are all terrible singers as shown in respectively "Rock n' Rule", Anne Maria's audition tape, and "Pahk'd With Talent". The latter two are capable of Glass-Shattering Sound, but Lindsay is just off-key and appears to have worked on her singing skills leading up to World Tour.
• Dream Team: The premise of All-Stars is that the most heroic and the most villainous characters of the series join forces as the Heroic Hamsters vs the Villainous Vultures. Due to the limit of seven members per team and only the villains being well-defined (ie, the heroes aren't so much heroes as a semi-random selection of not-villains), the setup isn't thorough but it's there.
• Drop the Cow: The actual producers of the show do this.
  Courtney: Everyone likes me, I used to be a CIT!
  (a coconut falls on Courtney)
  Courtney: Ow! A coconut? We're in Muskoka, people! If you want to drop something on my head, at least make it geographically correct!
  (several pounds of snow, a toboggan, and an Inuit fall on Courtney)
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In Brunch of Disgustingness, Chef at one point fed them beef testicles, which causes Owen to throw up. In the American version, it was change into meatballs, yet Owen still throws up, leading some people to wonder why he did.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: In the alternate ending to the Revenge of the Island finale, Jo gets annoyed when Lightning refuses to share any of the prize money with her and the other contestants of the season, complaining that she carried both maroons to the finale and that she also got ripped off.
• Dumb Blonde: Owen, Geoff, pre-mutation Dakota, Lindsay (although her hair is dyed), Sugar (though she is more of a subversion), and Wayne.
• Dumb Is Good: Played completely straight in the first three seasons. The clearly less intelligent candidates like Owen, Sadie, Geoff, Lindsay and Katie were depicted as nice, genuinely friendly people. Revenge of the Island mixed the pattern a little giving us a Spoiled Sweet Dumb Blonde (Dakota) but also a selfish Brainless Beauty (Anne Maria) and a dimwitted Jerk Jock (Lightning). Actually inverted in Pahkitew Island which us a Book Dumb Alpha Bitch (Amy), an outright villainous Fat Idiot (Sugar) and a Ditzy Genius wannabe supervillain (Max) against only the clueless but sweet hearted Ella.
• Dwindling Party: Given the fact that it's an elimination-based competition, the entire premise entails this. Teams with somewhere around 7-11 members usually drop down to anywhere from 3-6 by the time everyone merges and teams are dissolved. But some challenges themselves also feature this, such as:
  • Both remaining teams in "I See London...", with Ezekiel abducting people left and right.
  • Happens to the cast as a whole in "Zeek and Ye Shall Find" of All-Stars. Ezekiel is the "monster" doing the abducting. Just like the previous example.

E

• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • All three contestants of World Tour debut in "Celebrity Manhunt's Total Drama Action Reunion Special", which is the special that ends Action.
  • Svetlana appears in the theme song that aired twice before her proper debut.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: While the first season tends to be the most well-regarded, it also had its share of weird quirks.
  • Characters would oftentimes go completely unvoiced, leading to drastic characterization when they were finally given character spotlight.
  • Owen and Courtney had deeper voices during the first few episodes.
  • Some of the first few challenges in Island are also far, far less insane than ones in later episodes and subsequent seasons. For instance, the earlier challenges in Island include being the last person to fall asleep, a game of dodgeball, a talent show, and surviving a night camping. Compare to Action and especially World Tour, where the first challenges involve outrunning a building-sized animatronic monster and climbing pyramids and escaping hungry scarabs in Egypt.
  • The prize for the first season was only $100,000 while all subsequent seasons make it $1 million, possibly justified In-Universe as the show likely didn’t have a budget for $1 Million.
  • The first few elimination ceremonies had the contestants walk up to collect their marshmallows instead of Chris throwing them over to the safe contestants.
  • There is also noticeably a lot more adult jokes and humor in the earlier seasons than the later ones. For instance, compare episodes like "X-Treme Torture" (which showed Heather getting her top snagged on a tree branch), "One Flu Over the Cuckoos" (which had a rectal thermometer joke) and "Broadway Baby" (which had a scene cut from the US version where Cody got stuck in the Statue of Liberty's breasts) to episodes from Revenge of the Island, All-Stars and Pahkitew Island, all of which have very few, if little, adult jokes.
  • There were no double eliminations.
  • The first episode depicts Chris as more subdued and kind than he usually is. As a result, the contestants are on better terms with him.
  • Very few episodes ended with Chris signing the episode off or giving a Title Drop, often instead showing the campers and their antics.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • Cameron, who was easily the biggest Butt-Monkey of Revenge of the Island, wins in his ending and later discovers that he doesn't need to live in a bubble anymore.
  • Mike in All-Stars. He wins the season and is cured of his Multiple Personality Disorder for good while still getting to keep the skills each of them had.
  • Shawn in Pahkitew Island. He manages to get Jasmine back and wins the season, and largely overcomes his paranoia and self-preservation issues.
• Easy Come, Easy Go: Most of the winners fail to hang on to their prize money long enough for it to matter.
  • In Island (2007) Owen and Gwen give up the money in exchange for a chance to win more money. The difference is that the former decides to go for it, while the latter has the money taken away by Chef.
  • In Action Duncan is implied to have lost at least some of the money by the time season three starts on his lawsuits with Courtney, while Beth has to use it to pay for bail.
  • In World Tour, Alejandro and Heather are robbed by Ezekiel, who then falls into the volcano, effectively destroying the money.
  • Revenge of the Island averts this, both Cameron and Lightning get to keep the prize money in their respective endings, but the former splits the money with everyone, while the latter doesn't.
  • In All-Stars, neither Zoey nor Mike are seen with the money, moments after one of them won it. Subverted in the bonus clip, where they are seen floating away with the briefcase
  • Pahkitew Island also averts this. Shawn and Sky get to take their cash home without facing any complications.
  • Part 1 of Island (2023) downplays this: Priya wins the million-dollar prize money, but on Part 2 she reveals that her father convinced her to put all of it away until she is 40. It's completely averted in Part 2 however: Wayne gets to keep the money without any problems.
• Easily Forgiven: Sierra will immediately forgive Cody for any indiscretion on his part. This happens often during her series.
• Easily-Overheard Conversation: Because the campers are on camera, pretty much everything they say is "easily overheard" to some degree. The most trope-relevant instance is when the campers forget this whilst bonding at the bonfire after Katie's elimination, thereby giving Chris all the information he needs to set up the phobia challenge.
• Eating Solves Everything: Owen won his team a challenge by eating an entire table of fake food until he found the hidden key.
• Eat That: This happens often. "Brunch of Disgustingness", "Chinese Fakeout", "Eat, Puke, and Be Wary" and "Taste Buddies" have challenges centered around this; however, the dishes were already prepared in the first, second and fourth episode while the contestants had to cook theirs in the third one.
• Electric Jellyfish: In "One Flu Over the Cuckoos", contestants have to dive into a pool full of them to retrieve body parts for a challenge.
• Elimination Catchphrase: Before the first elimination of each season, Chris will always state that "the loser must [walk down/take/go down/get shot out of] the [Dock/Walk/Drop/Hurl/Flush/Cannon] of Shame [to the Boat of Losers/Lame-o-sine], never to return, ev-er".''
• Elimination Houdini:invoked
  • In Island, Katie and Sadie wonder how Heather managed to make it so far into the competition despite being utterly despised by everyone. Eva angrily replies that it's because Heather is a "conniving, backstabbing little witch".
  • Discussed In-Universe in "Hawaiian Style", where Harold points out that Alejandro was going to be eliminated in the previous episode, but was spared because Sierra blew up their plane, causing Chris to disqualify her instead. Geoff immediately agrees, saying that Alejandro has a "horseshoe the size of Texas up his butt".
• Elimination Statement:
  • Varies from person to person, or not at all, during Island. Some gracefully say their goodbyes without regret. Some sore losers like Courtney or Heather threaten to sue the network on their way out.
  • With the introduction of the Hurl of Shame in Revenge of the Island, Chris suggests that this is allowed, but he usually catapults the eliminated contestant before they can say anything.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • In All-Stars, Duncan mentions in his confessional that since he's been much more kind and softer this season, he's been given nicknames like "Duncan-Do-Right" or "Captain Sweetheart".
  • In Pahkitew Island, Amy forces the nickname "Samey" onto her twin sister, whose real name is Sammy. Amy refers to Samey as a "spare Amy", inspiring her to rename Samey as "Spareamy".
• End-of-Series Awareness: Given that the show is a Show Within a Show, everyone is aware when the season is coming to an end and the finale makes a big deal out of it being the finale.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Like Real Life Reality shows, characters will instigate ever-shifting alliances to decrease their chances at elimination and gang up on those they want out first.
  • A massive one forms the climax of Celebrity Manhunt's Total Drama Action Reunion Special, when the entire 22-person first-generation cast (who have been fighting each other for two whole seasons over the million-dollar reward) team up to stop the cast of "Total Drama Dirtbags" from beating them to Orpah's studio and replacing them as the new faces of reality TV.
  Alejandro: (after his bus's windshield gets covered in chocolate) You're gonna regret this!
  Heather: Hah! You messed with the wrong reality show cast, mister!
• Entitled Bitch: Jo in Revenge of the Island, as her audition tape and Lightning's ending of the finale shows just how arrogant she is.
• Epic Fail:
  • In the sleep deprivation challenge, Owen falls asleep immediately after boasting that the competition is easy for him.
    Owen: Stay awake for twelve hours?! I can do that in my sleep! Woo hoo! (immediately falls asleep)
  • Tyler is full of them, but the worst of the lot would be the time he tried to eat a banana in World Tour and it ended up in his eye.
  • Geoff and DJ in "Hook, Line, and Screamer". The former walk around mindlessly looking for an ice cream truck while Chef, dressed as a serial killer, simply walks behind him (Chris even called it "The worst mistake yet"). The latter because he ran away screaming like a little girl from Heather and her facial, eliminating himself without ever seeing the killer.
  • Pretty much sums up Team Victory. Their terribly unfitting team name is only the tip of the iceberg, the curse of the Mummified Dog DJ put on his team, and his psychological freakouts over him injuring animals that he comes across with, and Alejandro's manipulation are the primary reasons. They amass just 2 challenge wins, both of which turn out to be reward challenges. As a team, they outlast just one opposing player (and only because she was evacuated due to injury). When the team is whittled down to just DJ, he gets discouraged and tries to get eliminated, but forgets to keep his mouth shut during the musical number (instant elimination had he not sung). He wins said challenge and it turns out to be a reward, meaning that even if he had succeeded in failing, all his efforts would have been for naught. In the very next episode he starts trying to win again, and that's when he gets eliminated.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Duncan votes off Courtney in Action after spending the entire season fawning over her and shortly after hooking back up with her.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Chris was genuinely disgusted when Heather read Gwen's diary aloud on National TV in "Not Quite Famous". In the same episode, he feels bad when Justin gets voted off.
    Chris: That's really messed up, dude.
  • Heather when compared with Alejandro. As she puts it:
    Heather: Even I'm not that ruthless!
  • And to complete the triangle, Alejandro when compared with Chris.
    Alejandro: You are pure evil!
  • For all her ruthless pragmatism, Jo felt Chris crossed the line when he strapped bombs to the contestants in "A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste".
    Jo: Too far, McLean!
  • Alejandro and Duncan feel this way about Mal's tactics.
    Alejandro: (distraught) Mal does not belong in juvie... He belongs in jail!
• Even the Guys Want Him: Whenever Justin shows off his looks, a lot of girls swoon over him but it also has an effect on guys such as Owen and Chef Hatchet. Alejandro had a similar situation in World Tour when he showed off his attractiveness.
• Everyone Can See It:
  • Everyone knew about Courtney's crush on Duncan in season one, even though the only person she admitted it to was the cameraman.
    Courtney: Who do I want to win? I can't believe I'm saying this but... Duncan. Don't tell the others!
    Izzy: Oh, we already know. You were all over him.
    Noah: My golden lab drools less over rib-eye steak.
  • During the song "Boyfriend Kisser", Sierra claims it was so obvious that Gwen wanted Duncan.
  • As of "Chinese Fake Out", everyone knows Alejandro and Heather have a thing for each other, with Blaineley flat-out telling them to make out before her elimination and Duncan and Chris calling them "lovebirds". Of course, they refuse to admit it.
• Everyone Hates Mimes:
  • Trent is scared of mimes due to a traumatic childhood incident.
  • When Lindsay ends up hanging on a gate in Paris after her World Tour elimination, a nearby mime manages to creep her out by imitating her instead of trying to help.
• Everyone Is Single: All the contestants are single when they first start the competition. The only exception is Sky, who didn't have time to break up with her boyfriend before being sent to the island. It's also downplayed with Emma and Chase, who had broken up before the start of the season, but Chase expects Emma to come back to him, which she does in spite of their relationship clearly being toxic and unhealthy.
• Everyone Meets Everyone: The premiere episode whenever there is a new cast is one of these with all the campers meeting each other for the first time. The only exceptions are Katie and Sadie & Raj and Wayne who were already friends, Duncan and Mike who met in juvie, Amy and Samey who are twins, and Chase and Emma who are exes.
• Evil All Along:
  • Justin, who had extremely little dialogue in Island, became one of two main villains in Action.
  • Courtney, who was also a major villain in Action despite not being too devious in Island.
  • Scarlett, who was revealed to be evil in the Pahkitew Island episode "Scarlett Fever". She didn't get too much time to be a villain, however, since this was the only episode where she was truly evil and she was eliminated in the exact same episode.
  • Julia, who is initially introduced as a Nice Granola Girl for the first third of the season, is eventually exposed as a massive Alpha Bitch and Bad Influencer who'll bully and manipulate people on her way to winning, becoming one of the main villains of the reboot season.
• Evil Is Burning Hot:
  • Various villains have all been accompanied by a flaming background. Most notably in "Heroes VS Villains", during the Villainous Vultures first confessionals, all of them are featured by a flaming silhouette accompanied by an Evil Laugh.
  • Mal is an exceptional example as half his appearances seem to feature the landscape behind him burning.
  • Eva also has this on her return in Island.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Mike discovers one in his mind in "You Regatta be Kidding me".
• Evil Cripple: Ineffectively invoked by wannabe-villain Max in "Three Zones and a Baby". He adores babies and wants to keep the one given to him for the challenge with him, so he hides it under his clothes on his back. When asked about it, he claims the giggling protrusion on his back is an evil hump.
• Evil Laugh: Chris does this often, as well as a few other characters.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Heather vs. Alejandro throughout World Tour up to the finale, where they actually face each other. Harold lampshades the situation in Versus:
    "Now it's evil versus wicked!"
  • Also occurs in All-Stars with Al vs. Mal, though by this stage, the former Big Bad has lost most of his villainous touch and has become more of an Anti-Hero. Unfortunately, none of the other contestants see it this way and still treat him like public enemy number 1.
    "I am not the real villain. A greater evil is lurking."
  • Pahkitew Island has Max vs. Scarlett throughout the season, as well as Chris vs. Scarlett and Scarlett vs. Sugar in "Scarlett Fever". Although Scarlett kept her evilness secret until her elimination episode.
  • Island (2023) has Julia vs. Bowie after the former is revealed to be Evil All Along, becoming sworn enemies and attempting to eliminate each other throughout the merge while serving as the Big Bad Ensemble of the season.
• Exactly What I Aimed At:
  • Zoey fires an arrow at Chef but it flies over him, prompting Chef to taunt, "You missed!" Zoey just grins at him as the arrow cuts through a vine holding a boulder she had tied up earlier that pendulums into Chef.
  • In "Zeke and Ye Shall Find", Ezekiel shoots his toxic saliva at Cameron, only to miss. Turns out he was actually aiming at the ceiling above Cam to trap him.
• Exact Words:
  • In "That's Off the Chain", Chris declares that "the last camper to cross the finish line will be sent home". During the race, Heather comes first and Lindsay places second, but the remaining contestants fail to complete the obstacle course and never make it to the finish line. As a result, he eliminates Lindsay on the spot.
  • In "Chinese Fake-Out", the contestants are racing along the Great Wall of China and Chris has announced that he will end the race by ringing a gong, after which no one else can cross the finish line. Cody arrives first, sees Sierra coming and begs Chris to ring the gong. He does...after Sierra has crossed the finish line.
• Excuse Plot: The premise for the series is that numerous sixteen-year-olds compete in life-threatening challenges to win a cash prize, with it all being aired on international television. When you think of it deeply, this premise raises several problems. For one, the challenges are so life-threatening that logistically, the show should have been cancelled immediately. Secondly, the fact that this is all happening to sixteen-year-olds makes it even more egregious. It’s repeatedly mentioned that the kids must keep doing this because they signed a contract, but contracts signed by minors aren’t legally binding. But, all in all, the logistics behind why the series is allowed to air in-universe is irrelevant. The show’s not trying to be realistic, and the premise is just an excuse to see some funny, exciting challenges, drama, and character interactions take place.
• Exhausted Eye Bags:
  • All the contestants in "The Big Sleep" develop these as a result of the challenge over who can go the longest without sleep.
  • Dakota gets massive bags under her eyes in "Truth or Laser Shark", due to not getting enough "beauty sleep".
• Exposition Already Covered: When one team loses, they have to vote off one of their teammates and have a ceremony at night and Chris explains to them that the camper who doesn't get a marshmallow has to leave the island. In "Paintball Deer Hunter", Chris does the same explanation again but Gwen cuts him off and quickly finishes it for him so they can move on, which angers Chris.
  Chris: There are only seven marshmallows on this plate. When I call your name, come up and claim your marshmallow. The camper—
  Gwen: [quickly] Who does not receive a marshmallow must immediately return to the "Dock of Shame", catch the "Boat of Losers" and leave. Can't we just get this over with?
  Chris: Fine. Whatever. Spoil the moment.
• Expy:
  • Katie and Sadie share the same personality and character dynamics with Kristen and Kirsten, from Fresh TV's previous cartoon. All of them are ditzy, cheerful and fashion-obsessed girls who cannot socially function without the other's company. They even share the exact same catchphrase, a high-pitched "Eeeeeee!", which they let out whenever they feel enthusiastic. They even have the same voice actors.
  • Harold is basically Napoleon Dynamite as a Canadian teen.
• Extreme Omnivore:
  • Owen is the "can eat anything" type, ready to chomp down on whatever, including things that do not qualify as food as long as they remind him of food. As stated in "None Down, Eighteen to Go - Part 2", he once ate half a shower curtain because it had pictures of cupcakes on it.
    Owen: I'll eat my own gitch if I have to. Will I have to?
  • Scott is the "unpicky eater" type, courtesy of growing up on a dirt farm. While he prefers actual food, he's fine eating stuff like dirt and sawdust and even thinks a little bit of the stuff enhances the flavor of normal dishes.
    Scott: Dirt would've been my first choice as a topping back home.
  • Sugar is the "unpicky eater" type, and she too grew up on a farm. Her hunger overlaps with her cruelty to animals, as she'll put her teeth in whatever critter she comes across, be they still alive or not.
    Sugar: My mama says I have a stomach like a raccoon. Probably from eating so much raccoon.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Due to the Boney Island rule, where someone on the winning team must spend the night on the island, one can observe that All-Stars takes place over the course of just two weeks.

F

• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Lightning in Revenge of the Island, after accidentally giving Cameron the win in "Eat Puke and Be Wary".
  • Chris tries to invoke this on Dave and Jasmine during the Pahkitew Island finale and succeeds, though while Jasmine holds on to her good side at the end, Dave goes completely bonkers after discovering Sky already has a boyfriend, making his Sanity Slippage even worse.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Harold repeatedly during "Get a Clue", when he tries to oversensationalize Chris's "death".
• Fake Food: Owen devours a pile of prop food during Action.
• Falling into His Arms: Usually subverted for laughs.
  • When the contestants are tossed out of the jet at the start of "Slap Slap Revolution", Alejandro tries to catch Leshawna but ends up getting crushed under her weight instead. Leshawna still appreciated the gesture though.
  • "Slap Slap Revolution" has a second example later on: When Alejandro throws Izzy to Noah from atop a giant meat grinder, Noah raises his arms to try and catch her but she ends up smacking into his chest and knocking him over instead.
    Noah: (Sickening "Crunch!" is heard) And there goes my pelvis.
  • Gender-Inverted in "The Am-AH-Zon Race". A giant mosquito kidnaps Cody and begins to carry him away, but Sierra knocks it out with a rock and then catches Cody in her arms when he falls.
    Sierra: I'll always be there for you Cody, always!
    Cody: Ugh. I'm doomed!
• Fan Disservice:
  • Owen, who frequently appears naked.
  • Chef, anytime he crossdresses, especially in a Stripperiffic purple bikini.
• Fanservice:
  • Heather, Leshawna, and Izzy all get a censored nudity shot (both front AND back for Izzy), though it doesn't cross into Ecchi territory. There's also Gwen's panty shot, and just about any time the girls are seen wearing something other than their normal clothes.
  • Lindsay, Katie, and Sadie's bikinis.
  • Alejandro's speedo.
• Faux Affably Evil: Many of the antagonists such as: Alejandro, Scott, Mal, and Scarlett.
• Fetch Quest: A first-season challenge required the contestants to capture an animal of an assigned type and bring it unharmed back to camp.
• Feud Episode:
  • Chris and Chef Hatchet have one in "Mutiny On The Soundstage".
  • Katie and Sadie have one in "The Sucky Outdoors".
• Fiery Redhead:
  • The orange-haired Izzy is not only fiery, she's certifiably insane.
  • Although she's normally level-headed, Zoey can get fiery when provoked.
  • Scarlett also qualifies once she reveals her true nature.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences:
  • The Villainous Vultures do this in "Heroes Vs. Villains" where they finish each other's confessionals, followed by all of them sharing an Evil Laugh accompanied by fiery hue.
  • The Pahkitew Island Final 3 (Sugar, Shawn, Sky) also do this in "Pahk'd With Talent" also in the confessional, where they talk about exploiting each other's weaknesses.
• Five-Man Band Concert: In the third season, World Tour, Team Amazon forms a band and sings about... sheeps, specifically, about "Shearing Sheeps". Heather, who is surprisingly an Anti-Hero this season, as lead vocals; Courtney, The Lancer, as the guitarist; Cody, the The One Guy, as the bassist; Gwen, the Guile Hero, as the drummer; and Sierra, The Big Girl, as the squealing fangirl. Sierra and Gwen switched positions before the performance, though. Since this season's premise is a musical, this trope was very much expected, especially since everyone has been shown singing from the beginning. However, Courtney is the only one to play her instrument in other occasions.
• Flanderization:
  • DJ started off as a Bruiser with a Soft Center who was easily frightened but still able to step up when his team needed him. His sensitive nature and cowardice became more and more exaggerated over time, and by season three even the smallest of problems could reduce him to a blubbering wreck.
  • In Island, Cody hits on all of the girls, but he likes Gwen in particular, and is able to downplay that and let her be with someone else. Come World Tour, he's only and obsessively attracted to Gwen.
  • While Izzy was always a Genki Girl, in Island she was portrayed as quirky and weird but ultimately stable. Starting with Action, Izzy became full-blown crazy 100% of the time.
  • In Island, Chris was portrayed mostly as a washed-up celebrity, and the challenges he devised were mostly designed to embarrass or annoy. Action followed suit, with him outright admonishing Chef in "Masters of Disaster" for coming up with a challenge that could seriously injure the participants. However, by World Tour, he's become full on Affably Evil, with every challenge being potentially life-threatening, and Chris himself seemed to care more about inflicting pain than generating ratings. Pahkitew Island takes this change up to eleven: In the episode "Scarlett Fever", Chris shows no concern when Scarlett basically threatens to murder the remaining contestants.
  • Sierra is a very rare case of this happening to a character within their debut season! At the start of World Tour, she was Cody's personal Stalker with a Crush but this wasn't her most defining trait; being a huge fan of Total Drama meant she was incredibly Genre Savvy and knew how to play to win, even managing to trick Heather by Obfuscating Stupidity. However, as the season progressed more and more focus was placed on her obsession with Cody, and her own focus shifted from actually competing to just smothering him with (unwanted) affection. Come All-Stars her obsession has become so intense that she ends up using Cameron as a substitute for Cody during his absence, even referring to him as "Cam Cody", "Cody Cam", and "Camody".
  • Lightning was always an over-competitive braggart but in Revenge of the Island he at least had skills to back up his claims, while in All-Stars his ego seems completely unfounded in the face of his ineptitude and stupidity.
  • In Island, Courtney was bossy and uptight but still one of the more moral characters, and only threatened to sue when she was unfairly kicked off the show. In Total Drama Action, she becomes a control freak with a Hair-Trigger Temper who threatens to "call her lawyers" at least Once per Episode.
  • Duncan takes a level in jerkass with each passing season. In season one, he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with Courtney as his Morality Pet. By season two, his bullying of Harold went up to eleven. By season three he suddenly is able to cheat on Courtney without a single shred of guilt and acts like a Jerkass when she finds out and breaks up with him.
  • Lindsay started out as your typical Dumb Blonde, but, after her first elimination, her stupidity was turned up to eleven, with "Haute Camp-ture" establishing that she couldn't tell the difference between Tyler and DJ's bunny. By All-Stars, she became an exaggeration of the trope who doesn't even understand basic concepts such as the difference between pushing and pulling.
  • Dave from Pahkitew Island is also a rare example of a character having this happen to them in their debut season. His feelings for Sky and status as The Load gets exaggerated as the season goes on to the point where his fear of germs is all but forgotten at around the halfway mark of the season and he's also a complete wimp by the time of the finale.
• Flat "What": Noah's response to the Japanese promo for season two is a simple, uninterested "what?".
• Food as Bribe:
  • Heather gives Owen a piece of cake in exchange for voting for Justin in "Not Quite Famous".
  • Owen tries to bribe a guard with a candy fish tail in "I See London...".
• Food Coma: Invoked by Chris in "The Big Sleep", where the main challenge is to see who can stay awake the longest. To make things more difficult, they have to run twenty kilometers and eat from a large feast before the real challenge begins.
• Food Shove Gag: Staci is chatting away at Chef during the intro sequence of Revenge of the Island. After desperately finding earmuffs to protect himself, he shoves a spoon of food into her mouth to get her to shut up.
• Force Feeding: Leshawna does it to Duncan as part of the first challenge in "Trial by Tri-Armed Triathlon". All the contestants had to feed their partner, but Leshawna didn't wait for Duncan to swallow.
• For the Evulz:
  • Chris likes to mess with the contestants, a lot of times for no real reason.
  • It's made clear several times in Pahkitew Island that Sugar isn't even aware of there being any prize money (unlike every single antagonist before her). So she pretty much has even fewer reasons than Mal for why she behaves the way she does and the stunts she pulls.
• Foul Ball Pit: In "Million Dollars, Baby!" From Action, one of the challenges involves Courtney and Duncan wrestling in a ball pit. Duncan is distracted by a dirty diaper which he mistakes for a shark fin and a baby boy who cries for his mama, which makes him lose.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Every character is designed this way, though this gets averted on occasion.
  • Oddly, Trent's t-shirt has a five-fingered handprint on it.
  • Also, Izzy gains a fifth digit in two instances due to an animation error.
  • Geoff and Trent encounter testing dummies with five-fingered hands in the Action special.
  • Played for Laughs on two occasions in Island (2023). Zee becomes awestruck when one of his hands gains a fifth finger while hallucinating after being struck by lightning, and Julia freaks out when an extra finger pops out in her hand while counting to five in the confessional.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The final four contestants of each season tend to fit into this.
  • Island (2007): Owen is sanguine, Heather is choleric, Duncan is melancholic, and Gwen is phlegmatic.
  • Action: Owen is sanguine, Courtney is choleric, Duncan is melancholic, and Beth is phlegmatic.
  • World Tour: Sierra is sanguine, Heather is choleric, Alejandro is melancholic, and Cody is phlegmatic.
  • Revenge of the Island: Lightning is sanguine, Scott is choleric, Cameron is melancholic, and Zoey is phlegmatic.
  • All-Stars: Zoey is sanguine, Scott is choleric, Mike is melancholic, and Gwen is phlegmatic.
  • Pahkitew Island: Jasmine is sanguine, Sugar is choleric, Shawn is melancholic, and Sky is phlegmatic.
  • Island (2023): Bowie is sanguine, Julia is choleric, Priya is melancholic, and Millie is phlegmatic.
  • The Drama Brothers also fit this: Cody is sanguine, Justin is choleric, Harold is melancholic, and Trent is phlegmatic.
• Forgot Their Own Birthday: In "Awwwwww, Drumheller," Sierra is the only one who remembers Cody's birthday, which even Cody himself forgot. When Cody realizes this, he warms up to Sierra and votes for her to win the challenge.
• Friendship-Hating Antagonist: While most of the villains of the show tend to mock the idea of having friends while competing, since they're there to win, Julia, the villain of Island (2023), is the most overt about it, with her at one point comparing having friends to having zits: She doesn't have any, she doesn't want any, and she doesn't want to see other people having any.
• Frequently Full Moon: Whenever the Moon is shown, it’s always full. This is despite each season taking place over what Chris originally states to be eight weeks. This is most notable during the elimination ceremonies, which always take place at night and open with a shot of the set and a full moon.
• Freudian Trio: Jo, Brick, and Lightning are the Superego, the Ego, and the Id of Team Dude. Jo's dominating personality readily establishes her as the coach/sergeant figure the other two are familiar with, with the Fatal Flaw that she's only looking out for herself. Brick has some leadership qualities of his own and is the only one of the three who understands that teamwork is about more than what you get out of it. Lightning is a lot of muscle and little brain and whether his overconfident impulsivity leads to a good or a bad outcome is up to the situation.
• Friend to All Living Things:
  • Dawn, who spends most of her free time interacting with various Wawanakwa creatures.
  • Pahkitew Island has Ella, who can tame animals just by singing to them.
• Friends Turned Romantic Rivals: Played with. Courtney was already paranoid in Action that Gwen has a crush on Duncan and they aren't particularly good friends back then. In World Tour, they set aside their difference and become friends for real... until Duncan comes back in the competition and cheats on Courtney with Gwen. They only become friends again two seasons later, but there their friendship is ruined again for entirely different reasons.
• Fright Beside Them: In the episode "Hook, Line, and Screamer", which parodies many elements of the slasher genre, naturally includes this trope. Duncan has just confronted the Killer and managed to unmask him, revealing him to be none other than Chef Hatchet. All the losing campers cheer from the safe tent before Izzy notices Gwen is in the mess hall with the Killer. Only for Duncan to ask in shock that if Chef was here with them, then who was with Gwen? All of the campers realize Gwen is currently with a real killer, and all of them rush over to the mess hall to warn her. They manage to get there just in time to warn her, allowing Gwen to see the danger and kick the killer in the face, whereupon he promptly runs off.
• Funny X-Ray: Subverted in both "The Sand Witch Project" and the exclusive clip for "Moon Madness". In the former, Lindsay presents an x-ray photo of herself to prove that she does have a spine. In the latter, Cameron presents an x-ray photo of himself to prove that there's not an evil bone in his body.
• Fun with Foreign Languages: In "A Blast from the Past", Amy calls Samey a bowl of mush and herself a "parfait". She claims that "parfait" is German for "perfect", while in actuality it's French.

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• Gag Dub: In the In-Universe Japanese promo for Action (shown in the episode "Super Happy Crazy Fun Time Japan"), all the contestants' voices were re-recorded in English by other voice actors. According to Chris, this is because the Japanese did not like the sound of their original voices.
• Gambit Roulette:
  • The Island special, which was actually an overcomplicated plot for the Island powers that be (both in and out of universe) to use for the purpose of making the second season.
  • The Action special had elements of this too, especially with the introduction of Sierra and who would actually win the Gemmie.
  • Heather's plan in "Search and Do Not Destroy" required her to be randomly awarded invincibility to save her from elimination.
  • Alejandro's plan in "Anything Yukon Do, I Can Do Better" requires Bridgette to stay stuck to the flagpole even after leaving the area to keep her from revealing him to the other contestants.
  • Mal & Sugar are walking embodiments of this trope due to most of their successes being a result of dumb luck and/or the incompetence of others.
• Game Show Physical Challenge: A typical episode consists of players competing in one or two physical challenges, often dangerous, to determine who wins immunity from the vote. In a layered example, one of the challenges from World Tour had players run around a giant pinball machine on the set of a Japanese Game Show.
• Gassy Gastronomy:
  • In "Paintball Deer Hunter," Chris provides the campers with cans of beans for breakfast. Owen sings, "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you— " before somebody throws a can at his head and shuts him up.
  • Pretty much anything Owen eats makes him gassy, but beans tend to do the job the quickest. Incidentally, they're sometimes depicted as his favorite food Depending on the Writer.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble:
  • The original cast had eleven boys and eleven girls.
  • Two of the three newcomers in World Tour are a teenage boy and a teenage girl respectively.
  • Revenge of the Island tips the scale a bit by having seven boys and six girls.
  • Pahkitew Island has seven boys and seven girls.
  • Island (2023) has eight boys and eight girls.
  • Some teams manage to have an equal ensemble of boys and girls in their original state. The Killer Grips, the Screaming Gaffers, Team Victory, the Mutant Maggots, the Ferocious Trout, and the Frogs of Death all had an equal number of boys and girls at the time of being formed.
• Genius Serum: In "Jamaica Me Sweat", Izzy suffers from a case of head trauma which turns her into a super genius dubbed "Brainzilla." By the next episode though she suffers another case of trauma during the Aftermath game she plays which causes her to revert back to her old self.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Heather uses her understanding of what reality show producers like best (drama, villainy, fanservice, betrayal, etc) to get to the final three of Island.
    Lindsay: If you hate Leshawna, why are you being nice to her?
    Heather: Have you ever seen one of these shows before? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
  • Duncan and Gwen get a distinct advantage during slasher and alien monster themed challenges, due to being fans of both genres.
  • Watching every episode of the show has given Sierra acute knowledge about Heather's tactics, allowing her to turn Heather's own plans against her by Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Genki Girl:
  • Izzy is always insanely happy. Emphasis on insane.
  • Katie and Sadie are prone to squeal at the drop of a hat.
  • Sierra is just happy to be on the show, especially when she can be around Cody.
• Gentle Giant: DJ is one of the tallest and most muscular contestants, but also the most sensitive. He adopts a pet bunny during Island, and breaks down in tears when he believes it has abandoned him.
• The Ghost: The Producers. Many characters, including Chris McLean, bring them up on numerous occasions. However, following the show's cancellation in September 2018, they are never seen by the audience.
• Ghostly Glide: Dawn levitates to the finish line in the first episode of Revenge of the Island.
• Gilligan Cut: Used at least once.
  Courtney: ...Well, at least I broke up with Duncan on my terms. It was totally empowering.
  (cut to Courtney throwing a temper tantrum and Duncan with a bowl of spaghetti on his head)
• Girl Posse: Heather, Lindsay and Beth in Island, before the latter two realize how self-centered Heather is.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: This happens often throughout the series.
  • In the "Brunch of Disgustingness", Chris pits the boys (DJ, Duncan, Geoff, Trent, and Owen) against the girls (Gwen, Bridgette, LeShawna, Lindsay, and Heather) to see which team can eat the most disgusting food. Owen managed to win a weekend resort for the guys.
  • In the final four of the first season, Chef puts the boys (Owen and Duncan) against the girls (Heather and Gwen) in a race back to Camp Wawanakwa. The girls win because Owen managed to dodge the totem pole for Chef's sticky buns.
  • In the season two opener "Monster Cash", Chris split the girls and guys into two teams when it came to finding keys for the trailer. Owen's hefty appetite was what gave him first dibs on the trailer for the guys.
  • In "Crouching Courtney, Hidden Owen", Chris excludes Owen from the challenge and pairs Duncan and Harold (the guys) against Courtney and Beth (the girls). The guys get to advance to the next challenge, while the girls prepare the feast for the winner.
  • After Izzy's elimination—along with Team Victory's disbanding—the rest of the pre-merge episodes of World Tour became this. The teams left were Team Amazon (Cody and the girls) and Team Chris (the boys). The girls won in London, Greece, and Area 51, while the boys won in Australia and Sweden.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Anne Maria and Sugar are terrible singers but still capable of hitting those high notes that murder glass as shown in respectively Anne Maria's audition tape and "Pahk'd With Talent". Sugar's capacity is demonstrated to go even beyond glass, as she also fries the circuitry of a robot bear's head.
• The Glomp:
  • Sierra glomps Cody in pure happiness in "Super Crazy Happy Fun Time in Japan" when she learns they'll be doing the challenge together.
  • Zoey happily crashes into Mike and Cameron in "A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste" when she sees that they survived the fall from the mine tracks.
  • Sugar glomps Shawn to the ground in "Twinning Isn't Everything" because she's ever so happy he brought food.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: As of Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, the hosts consisted of Don (good), Chef Hatchet (bad), and Chris (evil).
• Gory Discretion Shot: In "Hook, Line and Screamer", the campers are watching a slasher movie. When the slasher encounters an amorous couple, the original version shows the blood spatter effect on the Fourth Wall, but the bowdlerized U.S. version doesn't even show that. The observant viewer will notice, though, that for several seconds the light beam from the old-style film projector alternates between its normal white and a pale red.
• Got Volunteered:
  • DJ becomes the victim of this in "Super Happy Crazy Fun Time Japan".
    Chris: Teams, select a ball guy or gal. Victory?
    Leshawna: We choose DJ.
    DJ: We do!?
  • In "Broadway, Baby!", when Chris explains that one member of each team has to sit in a baby carriage during the race everyone on Team Amazon points at Cody.
  • Happens to Gwen during the musical number of the guard-stripping challenge in "I See London".
    Courtney: If we're gonna find that clue...
    Heather: There's only one thing to do!
    Sierra: Force someone to strip him down!
    Courtney, Heather, and Sierra: (push Gwen forward) And sorry Gwen, that's you!
  • Likewise, this also happens to Tyler.
    Noah: If we're gonna find that clue...
    Owen: There's only one thing to do!
    Noah: Force someone to strip him down...
    Both Noah and Owen: (point at Tyler) And Tyler, dude, that's you!
  • In the All-Stars episode "Heroes vs Villains," the heroes all have trouble deciding who should drive the cart when Courtney, out of the blue, designates Lindsay.
    Courtney: Ugh, Lindsay will do it. (pushes Lindsay)
  • In "I Love You, Grease Pig!", Amy offers Jasmine a helping hand foraging for food. Only it's not her own hand she offers, but Samey's.
• Graceful Loser:
  • Jo and Cameron have a mentor-student relationship and when he gets her voted off, he tells her he learned from the best. Jo congratulates him on his technique.
  • Shawn in Pahkitew Island when he wrongly assumes he has run out of time in a challenge.
    "Good for you, Jasmine."
  • Surprisingly averted with Nice Girl Sky, who throws a temper tantrum when she and Shawn end up getting stuck atop a hoodoo during the Pahkitew Island finale.
• Grand Finale: Every season's last episode is a grand finale in which the two finalists face each other for the grand prize. The significance is emphasized by there being two versions of each last episode and each country gets to vote which finalist they get to see win. The first two seasons move into a special that introduces the new season, but starting World Tour the specials are ditched in favor of a Sequel Hook within the final episode.
• Grandma's Recipe: DJ's "Momma's Spice" makes even Chef's cooking edible.
• G-Rated Drug: During the boot camp party in Island, the underage Courtney recklessly wolfs down sandwiches in a child-friendly metaphor for binge drinking. Despite Bridgette's admonition that "I think you've had enough", Courtney eats one too many and shortly thereafter pukes over the porch railing.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: There's Spanish (courtesy of Alejandro), Japanese, and German.
• Green Gators: Crocodiles and alligators are always green and look virtually identical.
• Green Is Gross:
  • Farts, as demonstrated by many of the contestants (mainly Owen, Sugar and Ripper) are usually animated as green clouds.
  • Burps and other forms of bad breath, as demonstrated by Gwen and Blainely, are usually animated as green clouds.
  • Courtney's biggest fear in "Phobia Factor" is green jelly because she thinks it resembles snot.
• Groin Attack: Many, especially in the earlier episodes. Everyone, except for Geoff, Chris and Ezekiel, were victims to this, at one point or another, in the first three seasons. Most importantly, this is how Heather defeats Alejandro in the finale of World Tour.
• Gross-Out Show: Expect a lot of vomiting and farting—sometimes at the same time, and sometimes on other people. Especially when an eating challenge is involved.
• Grub Tub: In the episode "Phobia Factor", the challenge is for each contestant to face their biggest fear. Courtney's is green jello, so she has to jump into a pool full of it for her trial.

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