Ba Da Bean is a Brazilian-American animated Preschool Show that debuted on Discovery Kids Latin America on November 29, 2021, the same day it was launched on the Discovery Plus Brazilian feed. The creation of Brazilian animator Pedro Eboli (the mind behind such cartoons as Ollie's Pack, Cupcake & Dino: General Services, and Oswaldo), the series is a co-production between Brazil's famed Birdo Studio (which also did Oswaldo and Cupcake & Dino) and the Brazilian-American company Chatrone.
The series follows the adventures of Bean, a potted plant grown for an elementary school science project. One day however, Bean ends up far outside his home in the school's science classroom and finds himself in a bright and colorful world of endless possibilities and unlimited creativity - the school's art classroom! Fascinated by this strange and unfamiliar world, Bean, ever the restless young scientist, is quick to befriends the art classroom's inhabitants and becomes determined to discover everything he can about his new home. And in a world where creativity is not just encouraged, but celebrated, Bean will find that this new environment and its artistic approach to life might be the best thing that could have ever happened to him!
Tropes of the series:
- Always Someone Better: Flash who always seems to do things better than Bean and Cosa can. Ultimately subverted a lot of the time, as even though Bean and Cosa's methods often come off as simplistic and primitive compared to Flash's, they do often prove their merits to him.
- Amphibian at Large: Bean's pet frog and fellow science classroom escapee Galileo is much larger than any of the residents of Big Tabletop, although this is more of a relative example due to the tininess of everyone around Galileo.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The residents of Big Tabletop are composed of sentient objects, tools, and materials commonly found in art, such as a piece of clay (Cosa), an origami bird (Kami), a painted easter egg (York), a ripped sheet of drawing paper (Oodle), paper people (Becky and Cleo), and much more. Bean himself qualifies as being a potted plant for a science project.
- Animesque: The show would sometimes take on some anime-like visual cues whenever a character makes a wild expression, including Sweat Drops, Cross-Popping Veins, Luminescent Blushes, and Blank White Eyes. It's also not uncommon for characters, namely York, to perform a Bishie Sparkle.
- Authority in Name Only: Panto is the self-declared "Emperor of Color".
- Babysitting Episode: "Baby Eraser" sees Bean and Cosa babysit a newly arrived infant eraser who seems to love messing with the pencil drawing they're working on. Subverted in the end however when it turns out that said eraser is actually a tiny adult whose baby talk is actually a foreign language.
- Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: In "The Bottle Episode", a young Kami is introduced with a dark shadow and red eyes after York claims what kind of "horrible, scurvy-ridden, showing-skipping, rectracted-gum" pirate lives under the ship he, Becky and Cleo landed on, complete with ominous music playing in the background. Immediately after that, Kami prepares a tea party for her Companion Cubes, establishing the quirky bookworm personality she actually is.
- Black Bead Eyes: With the exception of Galileo (who is a frog) and Panto, all of the characters are drawn with black dotted eyes. Sometimes, they'll have the regular Black Dot Pupils whenever they're shocked, astounded, or angry.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Kami is depicted as a shy Cute Bookworm who lives in a library that is hidden inside an impossible bottle, far away from her hometown. She's also the only character in the main cast to wear glasses, which can change depending on her emotion.
- Bottle Episode: The appropriately titled "The Bottle Episode" focuses on York, Becky and Cleo talking about their younger years in Big Tabletop (before Bean transferred there) and how they met Kami.
- Central Theme: Many episodes teach a lesson of some sorts for both the characters and the audience. Given the general schtick of this show, most are related to art and creativity in some way, but many of those lessons tend to also have applications outside of those areas.
- Cheery Pink: Cosa's energetic and self-confident personality is highlighted with her body being made entirely out of pink clay (with a few splatters of purple and yellow paint).
- Christmas Episode: "Secret Santa". While Christmas is never explicitly referenced in the plot, the story still focuses on gift-giving during a holiday with decorations everywhere and snow being featured at one point.
- Circus Episode: In "The Happiest Place", Bean forms a circus with Flash, York, and Becky and Cleo to cheer himself up after Cosa leaves for an art summer camp, believing that creating his own "happiest place" will help him feel better about Cosa's absence.
- Cowboy Episode: Parodied in "The Magnificent Flash", where Bean comes face-to-face in a showdown with a stranger from out of town Wild West style... except they're composing portraits instead of gunslinging. Bean even wears a cowboy hat through the whole episode.
- Cute Bookworm: Kami, while introverted and socially awkward, is the most knowledgeable of the main cast, having owned an ENTIRE library as her house (which she has been living in for presumably years) with hundreds and hundreds of books she stores at her shelf, and is a bibliophile who loves reading books and researching off from them. Her quirk of talking to and playing with her Companion Cubes also adds on to the cuteness.
- A Day in the Limelight: While Bean is the nominal protagonist of the show, many episodes give ample focus and screentime to the other inhabitants of Big Tabletop, such as Kami, York, Oodle, and Becky & Cleo. These episodes often shine light to new aspects of their personalities or dig deeper into their characterizations, with Bean and Cosa often taking a backseat in the plot.
- Fish out of Water: Titular protagonist Bean is a science project from a school's science lab living in an art-centric world, also located in an art room at the same school. Being the only character not based on an art tool, his plain design and more science-loving personality feels out of place compared to the more eccentric and creative Tabletopians. That said, he is more comfortable with his new home thanks to how friendly the residents of Big Tabletop are.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Bean often develops inventions to help him or other characters with things. Some of these are items that while familiar to us or science-types are foreign to the denizens of Big Tabletop, such as microscopes.
- Gangbangers: Parodied in "Whiteboard Story". When a giant whiteboard shows up in Big Tabletop, Bean, Cosa, and York get into a feud with a trio of brushes over getting to paint all over it, with the plot playing out as a spoof of West Side Story.
- Genki Girl: Cosa is always in a cheerful mood. She's very self-assured about herself, almost never breaks down, and is far more animated and talkative than her best friend to the point of being a Motor Mouth.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: "Loop Fiasco" sees Bean get trapped in one as he attempts to perfect his lines for a play. Subverted at the end however when it turns out there was no time loop; Bean simply hadn't been paying attention to his calendar.
- Heist Episode: "Night Heist at the Museum". When Cosa takes up a job as museum night guard, Bean, worried that his friend isn't capable of protecting the museum's most valued artwork from a notorious thief, organizes a heist with York and Flash to steal the art before the thief does and protect it for Cosa.
- It's All About Me: York is extremely full of himself and takes pride in being the best at anything. He loves to paint self-portraits, and his home is decorated with them.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: York may be smug and snobby, but he's a good friend to Bean and Cosa.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Becky and Cleo are the trendiest and most popular denizens of Big Tabletop and exude a cool if snooty vibe, but they're nonetheless friendly with Bean and Cosa and generally shown to be good-natured at heart.
- Mama Bear: In "My Friend Ruby", Kami takes care of a baby balloon bird, whom she later calls Ruby, after saving it from getting brushed away during a stormy night. Later on, she stands up for the bird (and Bean) when a visitor threatens to teach the two of them a lesson after Ruby unknowingly eats his donuts, to which Bean comments on how brave she is when it comes to protecting her friends.Kami: No one threatens my friends in my library! Now kindly leave!
- Me's a Crowd: In "Ever So Modern Times", Cosa splits herself into increasingly larger numbers of increasingly smaller duplicates to mass produce a popular new toy, with the catch being that she loses more of her memories of who she is the more she splits.
- Mouse World: The characters are all Animate Inanimate Objects living on a table in an elementary school art classroom, so they are proportionally tiny compared to their surroundings. As a result, many landmarks and buildings on Big Tabletop are in fact regular-sized objects; for instance, Kami's library is a ship in a bottle.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Becky and Cleo. Whereas Becky is a Genki Girl who loves fashion and trends, Cleo is a lot more grounded and more interested in arts and poetry. This aspect of their character is further explored in the episode "Cutting Loose".
- Punny Name:
- Kami is a bird made from an origami.
- Oodle is a pun on doodle, appropriate for a character whose a sheet of school paper scribbled over with colored pencils.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Cosa is the Red Oni to Bean's Blue Oni. While Cosa is extremely outgoing and prefers to act rather than think, Bean is a little more quiet and prefers to take a more cautious approach.
- Science Hero: Being originally from a science classroom, Bean tends to approach things scientifically, jotting notes and taking the time to make observations and apply methodologies.
- Shout-Out:
- Several episodes play out as parodies of or contain references to famous movies, such as "Whiteboard Story", "Ever So Modern Times", and "Night Heist at the Museum".
- In "Collage, Collage", Bean and Cosa's collage eventually transforms into a huge ball that absorbs everything in its path a la Katamari Damacy.
- The Tag: The credits for every episode include a little short featuring Oodle.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Cosa and Kami. The former is an outgoing Genki Girl who lives in an unorganized cave, constantly hangs around with a male friend, and likes to play with paint, making her the Tomboy. The latter is a socially awkward Gentlewoman and a Scholar whose house is an organized library, prefers to be alone most of the time (to the point that her only "friends" prior to the start of the series was an inanimate broom, a fishing rod, and a couch), and has reading books as her hobby, making her the Girly Girl.
- The Unintelligible: Downplayed with Oodle. He is only capable of speaking in scribbles, but the other characters can understand him.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Being made out of clay, Cosa is capable of changing into a different shape and form.
- "What Do They Fear?" Episode: In "Tears for Fears", Cosa admits to having never been afraid of anything, and wanting to experience fear for the first time, convinces her friends to try and scare her. Ultimately, it turns out her true fear is being alone.
- Writer's Block: In "Blocked", Bean undergoes a near-literal case when a freeloading anthropomorphic block drops by his place and proceeds to distract him while he's trying to come up with an art project.
