Trivia / Amphibia

Trivia tropes for Amphibia

Trivia With Their Own Pages

• Acting For Two
• He Also Did
• What Could Have Been

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A-I

• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Anne is Thai-American, and she's voiced by Brenda Song, who is half-Thai. Also a Creator-Shared Background in Matt Braly's case. However, both are half-Thai, while Anne, judging by her Thai mother and Thai surname, is fully Thai.
  • Anne's parents are Thai-American like their voice actors, On Braly and Brian Sounalath.
  • Marcy Wu is Chinese-American, like her voice actress Haley Tju.
• Adored by the Network:
  • Being renewed for a second season before the show premieres is definitely a sign of this. Being renewed for a THIRD season before season 2 even aired basically confirmed it. It also briefly surpassed DuckTales and Big City Greens from April 2021 to April 2022 as the most aired show on Disney XD, which says a lot considering how much both were Adored by the Network.
  • Despite initially screwing over the original airdate for "True Colors," Disney Channel did end up airing a three hour marathon of episodes starting with "The First Temple" leading up to "True Colors" the day the latter episode finally aired.
  • While reruns on Disney XD have decreased after the series ended, it appears to have some fondness for "All In" with the episode being aired every week since its premiere there.
• All-Star Cast: The series' cast includes Brenda Song, Bill Farmer, Anna Akana, Stephen Root, Jack McBrayer, James Patrick Stuart, and Keith David, many of whom play cast regulars, and established voice actors such as John DiMaggio and Maurice LaMarche are recurring members.
• Author's Saving Throw: Marcy's Journal seemingly offers many characters inside and how they truly felt during the event of the series.
  • Many fans didn't take kindly to Anne not reacting much to Marcy's supposed death and seemingly having fun on Earth. When it's her turn to write the journal, it reveals that Anne has been angsty not only for returning the Plantars home (feeling like she's the only one to take it seriously) but legit guilt and fear her friends, Sasha and Marcy, may not be alive. Anne even reveals she hopes Marcy is okay because if she, for a moment, believes she's dead, she would break down and be unable to help her family.
  • The journal reveals more details about Sasha and Marcy's family. Sasha's father remarried with a new wife who already has kids, and her mother has a steady boyfriend. And Marcy's parents, mostly her dad, were strict with her, leading to a heavily strained relationship and the decision to move out to be the last straw for her.
  • While the ending was well-received, some fans thought that Anne and everyone being separated was too much sadness for a found family story. By the end of the journal, Terri called them with big news. It wasn't revealed what the news was, but the last time they spoke, Terri and X planned to get the portal working, and this could be that news.
• Cast the Expert: For the episode "Temple Frogs", Lhakkana Nhaksiri (Polly's Thai dub VA and the show's Thai dub translator) was brought in to guide Amanda Leighton on how to pronounce the Thai dialogue Polly speaks fluently in the episode, which Nhaksiri also wrote for the episode. She appears in the episode herself as the Thai language teacher that Polly runs into. More info here.
• Cast the Runner-Up: At 35:30 in this interview, series creator Matt Braly reveals that both Anna Akana and Haley Tju originally auditioned for Anne before Brenda Song was cast. They would later be cast in the respective roles of Sasha and Marcy.
• Content Leak:
  • In February 2021, "Night Drivers"/"Return to Wartwood" aired on Disney Channel Africa early, and people managed to record and leak them online.
  • The season 2 finale "True Colors" was accidentally released early by iTunes on May 1st, 2021. The episode was actually supposed to air that day, but was delayed just a few hours before the intended premiere. The episode was removed from iTunes later that day.
  • A week before the above incident, an image from the episode that spoiled Polly gaining her legs circulated around online.
  • Just like "True Colors", "All In" was accidentally released early by Xfinity, and screenshots and clips of the episode soon surfaced on the internet. Fortunately, unlike the previous incident, fans made extra sure not to share any of the leaked footage on social media this time around. (The only pirated copy being available before broadcast being a cell phone recording probably helped.)
• Creator Backlash:
  • Matt Braly apparently doesn't like the lyrical version of the intro, to the point that he barfed, according to his Reddit AMA about the show. He has said that he likes it separate from the series, but lobbied for it to get dropped from the series proper due to it not fitting with his vision of the show.
  • According to a QNA he did on the Amphibia Reddit page, Matt's also not a fan of the rollout season 1 had, calling it "Yuck".
• Creator's Favorite: Matt Braly has stated in his Reddit AMA that Anne is his favorite character in the show.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: From what was revealed on the show's Cartoon Universe Q/A, there are several:
  • Matt Braly considers "Toad Tax" his favorite episode of the show's first season, with "True Colors" being his favorite of the second season and the show overall. He’d later call the Grand Finale, “The Hardest Thing” his favourite episode of the series.
  • Bill Farmer's are "Night at the Inn", "The Shut In", and "Children of the Spore".
  • Amanda Leighton's are "Night at the Inn", "The Shut In", "True Colors", and "Reunion".
• Creator-Driven Successor: This show is a successor to Gravity Falls due to the creator being a former director of that show, as it is a show that centers on the weird and fantastic side of things, not to mention there is a larger mystery involved that the protagonist must discover.
• Credits Pushback: The series suffered this when its second season began, completely removing the mellow credits scene and ending music and interspersing the credits with the last seconds of the show. The credits can still be viewed when watching the show online or on-demand, however.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Nonbinary actor Kaitlyn Robrock voices Felicia Sundew.
  • Dee Bradley Baker, no stranger to voicing male, female, and all other animals, voices Bessie.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Brenda Song was in her 30s when recording the voice for 13-year-old Anne Boonchuy. Averted with Anne's child actress Kai Zen, as she was in her early late 0s-10s while voicing her in the flashbacks where she's a child.
  • Sprig Plantar, who is 10 years old, is voiced by the 18-year-old Justin Felbinger. Likewise, Polly, who is a tadpole, is voiced by the 27-year-old Amanda Leighton.
  • Sasha Waybright, who is around Anne's age, is voiced by the 31-year-old Anna Akana.
  • Marcy Wu, who is around the same age as Anne, is voiced by 19-year-old Haley Tju.
  • Ivy Sundew and Maddie Flour are voiced by women in their early 30s.
  • Toadie, who is now confirmed to be around his 30s, is voiced by 48-year-old Jack McBrayer.
• Defictionalization:
  • The Koalas of Passion jigsaw puzzle from the episode "A Caravan Named Desire" is available as a real 285-piece product.
  • Marcy's journal, which contains several pieces of lore regarding the world of Amphibia and anecdotes of Marcy's adventures there, will be recreated and published as a licensed, real life book.
• Descended Creator: Minor character Chuck is voiced by series creator Matt Braly. Braly also voices Frobo on the occasions where he speaks.
• Diagnosis of God: Marcy Wu shows signs of both being autistic and having ADHD, what with her obsession with anime, video games, and tabletop games, clumsy nature, her excessive knowledge and her desire to learn more, her short attention span and tendency to "get caught in the zone" (hyperfocus). She even says she has trouble looking people in the eye sometimes. When originally asked about it in a Reddit AMA, Matt Braly stated that Marcy wasn't created with the intention of making her autistic, but also that there’s still "a lot to learn about her, even on our end", implying that her being neurodivergent could eventually become canon later on if it suits the show's story. On June 15, 2022, the Amphibia crew confirmed via Twitter that Marcy is indeed autistic, making her the first canonically autistic character in any Disney Television Animation series, and also the second canonically neurodivergent Disney TVA character (following Luz Noceda from The Owl House). Matt Braly would later clarify that he still did not intend to make Marcy canonically Autistic, and that she belongs to the audience.
• Distanced from Current Events: In March 2020, the episode "Contagi-Anne" was pulled from reruns in light of the coronavirus outbreak due to the episode's plot involving Anne faking that she is sick to skip her chores. It remained available to stream on Disney+, however, and eventually returned to cable television on October 5, 2020.
• Early-Bird Release: "Anne or Beast?/Best Fronds" was shown on YouTube and DisneyNow on June 14, 2019, while the TV premiere date was June 17.
• Executive Meddling: The season two finale "True Colors" features the opening sequence for season 3 as The Stinger to lessen the emotional blow of the episode, due to Disney executives being concerned about its final scenes being too intense for younger viewers. Creator Matt Braly originally planned to have viewers spend the hiatus between seasons believing that Marcy was actually killed by King Andrias, instead of being Only Mostly Dead, a reveal that the new opening spoils, but acquiesced to revealing it early, as the alternative was the episode being edited instead.
• Fake Nationality: Sasha is white, but her voice actress is Asian.
• God Never Said That: For awhile after the show ended, it was claimed that Matt Braly had said that Polly wouldn't remember Anne when she grew up. In actuality, Braly had praised a fancomic with that premise and seemed quite alarmed that people had taken his words out of context.
• Inspiration for the Work: According to Matt Braly, this show is basically the result of him watching Pepper Ann and Dragon Ball Z back-to-back.
• Invisible Advertising:
  • When the promo for Season 2B launched, only clips from "Night Drivers"/"Return to Wartwood" were featured, and no other episodes. This was possibly done to avoid spoiling really dark moments in episodes after that, one in particular being "After the Rain".
  • When the March 2021 episodes were first revealed on Twitter, the synopsis for "After the Rain" was somehow kept hidden. This was possibly because of what happens in the episode, which was revealed when the synopsis was finally put up.
  • This was done again with the last half of the season when their synopses were revealed on March 10, 2021; the synopsis for the finale "True Colors" is covered up by question marks, to avoid spoiling something really big.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • In "Anne of the Year", Hop-Pop tanks when he attempts improvisational stand-up comedy. Bill Farmer, his voice actor, regularly performs improv.
  • In "Fight or Flight", Sasha is reluctant to look after the baby caterpillars while Anne goes to rescue Domino 2, saying she's a dog person. Anna Akana has several pet cats.

J-Z

• Meaningful Release Date: There are two cases of this with Brenda Song and her birthday, which is March 27, 1988. Her involvement in the series was announced on her 31st birthday, while the episode "New Wartwood/Friend Or Frobo" aired on her 33rd birthday.
• Method Acting: Amanda Leighton practiced Thai for Polly's Thai lines in "Temple Frogs", working with Polly's Thai voice actor in order to pronounce the language correctly.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Braddock, who's part of Grime's forces, was voiced by Kristen Johnston in season 1. In season 2, she's voiced by April Winchell.
  • In the original Amphibiland pilot, Sprig was voiced by Thurop Van Orman, Grime is voiced by Bill Farmer (who still voiced Hop Pop there), and Mrs. Croaker is voiced by an unidentified female voice actress, while the series proper replaces them with Justin Felbinger as Sprig, Troy Baker as Grime, and Laila Berzins as Mrs. Croaker.
  • While "Lost in Newtopia" has Kai Zen voice Younger Anne, other episodes showing younger Anne in flashbacks have her voiced by her usual present-day voice actress Brenda Song.
  • While Chef Flour is normally voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, Fred Tatasciore voices him in "New Wartwood".
  • When Tyler and his boyfriend first appear in "Thai Feud", both are voiced by Sam Riegel. When they reappear in "Sprig's Birthday", they are instead voiced by Jeff Bennett and Roger Craig Smith.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Outside of her role as Wendy Wu, Anne Boonchuy defies all of the tropes usually associated with Brenda Song's past Disney roles, including London Tipton. While she's impulsive, she's not an Asian Airhead or a Spoiled Brat. She was both of those in the original Amphibiland pilot, though.
  • Kevin McDonald usually plays kooky, zany characters like Tallest Purple and Waffle. Here, he plays the subdued and snobbish Albus Duckweed.
  • Of all the characters Kristen Schaal has voiced, Bella's the most grounded of the bunch, in complete opposition to both Mabel Pines and Louise Belcher.
• Promoted Fanboy: Kermit the Frog is a fan of the show. He made a voice cameo in season two.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor:
  • Sasha is bisexual, like her actress Anna Akana.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus of Mr. X's phone contacts, which include one named "Hubby", implies that Mr. X is gay, like his voice actor RuPaul.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • On Braly, the voice of Mrs. Boonchuy, is Matt Braly's mother.
  • Twin sisters Mia and Ella Allan voice Maddie's sisters Lavender and Ginger.
  • Sam Riegel voices Bartley, Branson, and Blair (as well as some additional minor characters), while his sister Eden Riegel voices Anne’s racist bully Maggie.
• Renewed Before Premiere: The show was renewed for a second season before it premiered, as well as a third season prior to the season 2 premiere.
• Same Voice Their Entire Life:
  • "The Third Temple" shows Sasha and Marcy still voiced by Anna Akana and Haley Tju as 5-year olds like their present-day selves. Similarly, every episode showing Anne as a young kid in a flashback (aside from "Lost in Newtopia") has her still voiced by Brenda Song, as with her present self.
  • In the Distant Finale end of "The Hardest Thing", Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are still voiced by Brenda Song, Anna Akana, and Haley Tju, even though they're now ten years older.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • It's a minor example that they seemed to have learned from, but Disney Channel burned through the entire first season in a matter of weeks during summer 2019. As mentioned down below, this may be part of the channel's new binge-watching "strategy."
  • After November 2020, Disney Channel stopped airing reruns of the show, with all reruns only on Disney XD. While the show eventually did return to Disney Channel's schedule on March 6th, 2021 for the new episodes, it only aired new episodes on Saturdays at 9:30 AM, and the only reruns the show has are on Sundays at 9:30 AM, though the show ended up pulled from Disney Channel's schedule again after May 30th, with both its timeslots being given to more Big City Greens reruns.
  • Less than 12 hours before "True Colors" was intended to air in America on May 1st, 2021, Disney Channel abruptly revealed that the episode would be delayed with no official reason as to why. The most commonly cited reason was initially assumed to avoid competing against Disney Channel's "Halfway to Halloween" event that night, until Matt Braly confirmed this wasn't the case, and it was later presumed to be because of the scene where Andrias stabs Marcy. ^note To clarify, the episode would've aired at the usual 9:30am timeslot while the marathon started at 7:00pm, making it unlikely that they would interfere with each other. To add salt to the wound, the episode wasn't delayed anywhere else in the world, and iTunes wasn't informed of the delay until after putting the episode up online. Many crew members were understandably upset at Disney abruptly pulling the season 2 finale. Even Disney cartoon creators such as The Owl House creator Dana Terrace got in on it, saying "Disney did Amphibia dirty. The crew deserved to celebrate their incredible work and the fans deserved a thrilling finale. This whole situation screams of cowardice and incompetence. 'Won’t you get in trouble for saying that' doesn’t matter, who cares, it’s been a year of loss and I wanted to watch my friend’s finale. Please show Radrappy and the Amphibia crew some love."
  • This would lessen once season 3 began airing in October 2021, with reruns returning with more time slots compared to when the second half of season 2 was airing, and it would stay on the schedule even when the show went on hiatus mid-season 3. However once the series ended, the show would be fully removed from Disney Channel's schedule (much like previous series such as DuckTales 2017, Big Hero 6 The Series, Star vs the Forces of Evil, Milo Murphy's Law, and Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure), only returning for occasional airings of "The Shut In" during Halloween season in October and "Froggy Little Christmas" during Christmas season in December.
• Series Hiatus:
  • The series went into a year-long hiatus following the season 1 finale, due to Disney Channel's new "binge-watching" strategy where the crew has to finish producing about ten episodes instead of one to three at a time, and release them all at once. It status was left further unknown with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, in late June, it was confirmed that the second season would premiere on July 11, a week away from exactly when the first season finale aired.
  • In addition to another hiatus after the first half of season 2, the first half ended on a huge cliffhanger, as did the other members of Disney Channel's "Big 3" (Big City Greens and The Owl House), aside from a Breather Episode that's Halloween-themed, until March 6, 2021, with the hiatus lasting five months this time (six if one doesn't count the Halloween episode).
  • The hiatus between seasons 2 and 3 would last five months, being shorter than the previous mid-season hiatuses.
  • There would be one final hiatus after "Froggy Little Christmas", lasting until March 19, 2022 for a total three months.
• Shrug of God: In a Q&A after the finale, when inquired about Anne's status as a clone, though he suggested that the Anne that returned was indeed a clone, he kept it ambiguous if Anne's soul was transferred into a new body, or if Anne was "laid to rest", citing the mysterious and philosophical nature of the soul and the Theseus' ship paradox.
• Studio Hop: Minor example, the third season's intro would be handled by series regulars Saerom instead of Studio Yotta. Saerom, ironically, would be replaced for the ending animation of the season by in-house animator and director Jenn Strickland.
• Time-Shifted Actor:
  • In flashbacks that show her as a child in "Lost in Newtopia", Anne is voiced by Kai Zen instead of Brenda Song, though other episodes showing younger Anne avert this where Song still voices her (albeit in a higher pitch) instead of Zen.
  • Keith David voices Andrias as an adult, but flashbacks to his younger self show him voiced by Zeno Robinson.
• Troubled Production: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in crunch time to deliver the episodes on schedule, usually finishing only a week before airing.
• Tuckerization: Sasha Elizabeth Waybright is named after the show's development executive, Elizabeth Waybright Taylor.
• Word of Gay:
  • Per Matt Braly's Twitter:
  "And oh yeah, Sasha Waybright is bi."

  • This was confirmed minutes after it was confirmed on-screen in the series finale, with future Sasha having a bi flag in her car.
  • Matt also confirmed in Twitter that both Toadie and Frodrick are in a romantic relationship.
• Word of God:
  • Matt Braly confirmed on Reddit the series would be a three-part story.
  • Matt Braly confirmed that time between Earth and Amphibia does not operate on Narnia Time during an Amphibia x Owl House panel during Comic Con @ Home 2021.
  • According to Matt Braly, Marcy is Taiwanese and Sasha is German and Slavic. He also confirmed that Marcy's parents are second and third-generation Taiwanese immigrants, which is why when they are heard in "True Colors", they have no apparent Taiwanese accents.
  • Matt Braly confirmed in his last interview that there would be no canonical romance amidst the Calamity Trio, but there would be some worthwhile intimacy across the main cast to be found in the incoming finale.
  • When the possibility of the girls using Terri's portal was brought up, Matt reminded that at best it could be used to send messages to Amphibia in the form of a pinhole sized portal and that said portal was confiscated by the FBI. He did however, hint that Mr. X and Terri could call the girls some years down the line...
  • Also, to not bring any drama around the recent confirmation of Toadie and Frodrick being a couple, he also confirmed Toadie's age the next day: He is around his 30s, confirming that he was never a kid during the show.
  • According to Matt, the reason the Core wanted to possess Marcy was because, as an immortal undying being, it craved the ability to experience life again.
• Working Title: The series was originally going to be called Amphibiland, but it was changed to Amphibia since that name was already used in Kulipari. Coincidentally, Keith David also stars in that show.
• Write What You Know: Anne is Thai-American, with both Matt Braly and her voice actress Brenda Song being half-Thai. When creating the concept and world of Amphibia, Matt was inspired by the yearly summer visits to Thailand that his mother took him on, stating in an interview that the experience always felt like traveling to another world.^note Anne developing a taste for insects may be related to this, since insects are a major component of Thai cuisine.
• Write Who You Know:
  • Anne's hair and overall look were inspired by a childhood photo of Matt Braly's grandmother.
  • The Calamity Trio's dynamic and personalities were very inspired by a trio of friends Braly himself was part of in his youth. He specifically mentioned being the Marcy of his group, though the character he relates to the most is Anne. He also shared that another member of his trio was very similar to Sasha in terms of behaviour ("good intentions, bad execution") and even went through his parents divorcing, which apparently had an impact on the group's dynamic.

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