Trivia / Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero

• Cross-Dressing Voices: Sam Levine as Phyllis.
• The Danza: Larry Wilmore as Principal Larry.
• Descended Creator: Phyllis is voiced by Sam Levine, the show's co-creator.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The pictures mocking Penn in "The Last Mountain Beast" are actually made by fans.
• Schedule Slip:
  • Disney XD wasn't good at keeping its promise of airing a new episode every single week, despite it being advertised.
  • Season 2 premiered July 2017, which was 21 months after the first season ended. The season was also intended to premiere eight months prior, but slipped due to production difficulties that included finding a new animation studio.
• Screwed by the Network: The show was well received, but was always stuck in the shadow of the more beloved and publicized Star vs. the Forces of Evil. The show's second and final season ended up being two-thirds of the length of its first, and was burned off over the course of a month and quickly forgotten afterward.
• Shrug of God: Sam Levine dislikes expanding too much on the backstories of the characters and the universe, preferring to let the show speak for itself and feeling that explaining these things wouldn't add anything to the stories that they told. He's especially adamant on not explaining the Gainax Ending of the series.
• Star-Making Role: For those who haven't seen Silicon Valley, Penn is this for Thomas Middleditch.
• Throw It In!: The main cast is encouraged to take advantage of their improvisation skills. Larry Wilmore in particular is said to have extended a lot of Larry's anecdotes.
• Unfinished Episode: An episode called "Muddleberg", despite being fully written, was scrapped to make room for the multi-part Grand Finale when co-creator Sam Levine was told that season two would be the final season. The episode focused on an alternate version of Middleberg where Rippen and Larry are the Part-Time Heroes while Penn, Sashi and Boone are the Part-Time Villains. Their personalities would also be the opposite of their normal selves, with a Jerkass Penn, a cowardly Sashi, a brilliant Boone, a silent and serious Larry, and a heroic Rippen who never stops talking about justice.
  • Another episode involved a far-off dimension that was actually Middleberg, twenty years ago.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Penn looked completely different in the pilot, with a different shirt, straighter hair, lack of a buck tooth, and more rugged features.
  • Boone and Sashi originally swapped roles in their friendship with Penn with Boone being a slightly aggressive co-worker rather than Penn's best friend and Sashi offering Penn encouragement at his low points while still retaining her Action Girl attitude.
  • Levine initially planned for all the dimensions seen in the opening sequence to eventually appear within the show itself.
  • The caveman spy dimension was initially meant to be a musical instrument spy dimension where Penn would have been a saxophone, but was changed when the writers couldn't made it work and realized the former would be funnier anyway.
• Written by Cast Member: Thomas Middleditch, the voice of Penn, wrote the episode "Ultrahyperball".