Cartoon Hooligans is a YouTube channel
whose content is primarily focused around parodies usually involving famous superhero characters like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. However, content based on Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super and One-Punch Man has also been featured on the channel.
Jon Bailey has occasionally done voice work (such as narration and voicing certain characters) for the show.
The channel currently has over 1 million subscribers.
Cartoon Hooligans provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: "Which Avenger killed Hawkeye? Tony Stark, that's who!
- Bait-and-Switch: In "What if Hulk Ripped His Pants #4", after Iron Man gives Hulk a pair of "pants" from his spare armor parts, it appears that Hulk is about to go on another rampage, but it turns out that he likes Iron Man now for giving him "pants", and they become friends again.
- Break Them by Talking: In "Batman vs Avengers" Batman somehow defeats most of the Avengers using this method.
- Chirping Crickets: This is sometimes used in the gags that involve Stunned Silence.
- Chocolate Baby: The parody "What If Avengers Endgame Ended Like This?" finishes with Tony Stark suddenly noticing Nebula with a blue-skinned little boy, who had an arc reactor in his chest...
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "What if Superman Got Sick?!", Supes does this to J'onn when deliriously attempting to expose him as the Hulk. J'onn isn't happy about it.
- Covert Pervert: At the indicated section of "What if Hulk Ripped His Pants #4", a little boy's mum starts blushing and giggling when she sees Hulk naked, complete with heart symbols around her.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Superman is subjected to three of these in "What If Superman Got Sick?!", the first with Darkseid and the next two with the rest of the Justice League (bonus points for all of them involving actual stomping on Superman).
- Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Laughs in "What if Superman Got Sick?!", when the Justice League beat up Superman twice, first for using his X-ray vision to spy on women in the JLA female locker room and then for stripping J'onn naked except for his underwear while he's ill from the flu.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "The Rumors About Spider-Man and Deadpool", when Deadpool attempts to help Spider-Man free his arm from his own webbing (which has it stuck to his crotch), both of them are grunting and groaning... rather suggestively, which is then followed up by the two being Mistaken for Gay.
- Expressive Mask: Iron Man's helmet in later animations can change expressions at will.
- Funny Background Event: In "What If Superman Got Sick?!", while Batman is comforting J'onn J'onnz, the rest of the Justice League are visible beating up Superman in the background.
- Goofy Print Underwear: Spider-Man is revealed to be wearing underwear with polka dots in "The Rumors About Spider-Man and Deadpool".
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Spidey's attempts to clone himself with the DNA of other Marvel superheroes. It didn't end well, to say the least...
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: In "What If Superman Got Sick?!", when the Justice League starts beating Superman up for peeking into the women's locker room of the JLA headquarters, Green Lantern says "What the frog, Superman!"
- Laugh of Love:
- In "What if Hulk Ripped His Pants #3", Black Widow giggles as she hangs out with Thor, complete with Wingding Eyes at one point.
- In "What if Hulk Ripped His Pants #4", the little boy's mum does this (as mentioned under Covert Pervert).
- Make-Out Kids: Black Widow and Hulk are portrayed as this in "Ages of Ultron", as are Ultron and Baymax.
- Male Gaze: Invoked with the thumbnails for "What If Superman Got Sick?!" and "Not So Fantastic Four", where Wonder Woman and Sue Storm's butts are prominently displayed (the latter even has an arrow pointing to it!). This doubles as a case of Thumbnails Always Lie, as their asses are not prominently displayed in the videos themselves.
- Mistaken for Gay: In "The Rumors About Spider-Man and Deadpool", when Deadpool inadvertently pulls off Spider-Man's suit leggings, Spider-Gwen happens upon them before running off crying. Immediately afterwards, Captain America and Iron Man also happen upon them, and Iron Man decides to post a picture of the "couple" on Instagram with the tags "#SpideyPool", "#HahGay" and "#Bromance", over their vehement denials.
- Naked People Are Funny: Quite a few of the gags rely on this. This is even invoked with the titles of "What If Doctor Strange Ripped His Clothes" and the "What If Hulk Ripped His Pants" series of videos.
- No-Sell: This happens when Superman tries to fight Darkseid in "What If Superman Got Sick?!". This is justified due to Superman being sick.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Captain America and Iron Man happen upon Spider-Man and Deadpool as described under Mistaken for Gay, Spidey frantically says "No, no, no! It's not what it looks like!".
- Overly Long Gag: Spiderman's attempts to flirt with Black Widow, in a two-part episode that is just Spidey throwing out one pick-up lines after another, failing, getting beaten up, rinse and repeat for 10 minutes...
- Parody:
- As noted above, a lot of the channel's content consists of parodies involving superheroes.
- "Santa Claus: Civil War" is one of the second trailer for Captain America: Civil War.
- Power Perversion Potential: In "What If Superman Got Sick?!", Superman uses his X-ray vision to peek into the Justice League headquarters' female locker room, with Supergirl, Batgirl and Wonder Woman inside. The three are understandably pissed at him when they find out, along with the rest of the Justice League.
- Record Needle Scratch: This is frequently used, particularly in the gags involving Mood Whiplash.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Three instances in "What if Superman Got Sick?!":
- Superman screams like this twice, first when Darkseid blasts him with his Omega Beams, and then when Green Lantern's energy fist knocks him down while he's peeking into the women's locker room of the JLA headquarters.
- J'onn also screams like this when Superman strips him naked (except for his underwear).
- Shout-Out:
- In "What If Doctor Strange Ripped His Clothes", when Doctor Strange apparently shrinks Hulk's penis in retaliation for his mocking him, it is represented as a Mega Blaziken devolving into a Torchic.
- In "What If Superman Got Sick?!", Superman says to Batman, "Everyone knows your name is Bruce. And your mom's name was Martha. Just like mine."
- Sick Episode: "What If Superman Got Sick?!"
- There's a sequel. It ends with the entire Justice League catching Superman's flu
- There's a sequel.
- Stunned Silence: This is a frequent part of the parodies' gags, particularly those involving nudity.
- The Talk: In "Not So Fantastic Four", when the kid reveals that he made a figure of Mr Fantastic out of the little rubber tube bag thingies from his dad's room's trash can, the dad quickly says that they need to have a talk.
- Take That!: In "Not So Fantastic Four", the kid's dad says about a turd meant to represent the Thing, "No, this is just a piece of crap! A piece of CRAP! Just like the movies!".
- Teeny Weenie:
- Implied in the following exchange in "What If Doctor Strange Ripped His Clothes", after Doctor Strange and Hulk both lose all their clothes:
Hulk: [grins] You no Doctor Strange, heh, you Doctor Small! Hahahaha!
Doctor Strange: [glances down and blushes] Today is pretty cold, okay?! Gimme a break!- The above is then followed up by Doctor Strange shrinking Hulk's penis, which is represented as a reverse-evolution process (see Shout-Out above). Hulk gets teary-eyed and says that he doesn't like Doctor Strange.
- Unreadably Fast Text: The credits of "What if Hulk Ripped His Pants #4".
- What If?: The premise of the "What If" series of videos.
