Western Animation: Biker Mice from Mars aka: Biker Micefrom Mars
A cartoon about giant mice from Mars who ride motorbikes. Wandering out in space after fleeing from their near-dead planet, Throttle, Modo and Vinnie are shot up by Plutarkians and crash-land in a Chicago scoreboard in the middle of a game.While attempting to find a mechanic to fix Throttle's bike, they find Charley's Last Chance Garage and stop in. They find that she's being bullied by a henchman of the show's Big Bad, an alien who calls himself Mr. Limburger, to sign over the property. Mice step in, ass gets kicked, and they all get embroiled to save the planet from the ravening maw of the Plutarkian Empire (which apparently has a practice of strip-mining and carting off everything of value on and in a planet).Biker Mice from Mars first aired in 1993 and ran for three seasons. The show received a Revival in 2006; in this Sequel Series, the evil aliens are a felinoid race, the Catatonians. Both series were created by Rick Ungar.
Tropes:
Action Girl - Charley. Most of the time. On the other hand, Carbine is always an Action Girl.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking - Grease Pit tries to justify to a judge why the mice are to be locked up. Various heinous crimes are listed, such as kidnapping the mayor, blowing up a diamond store...and trespassing with malice and forethought on the steel foundry's property. Oh, and they held up a toy store. And resisted arrest. Yeah.
Bad Moon Rising - On Mars, though Phobos (Deimos?) is normally red.
Band of Brothers - A trio of guys who survived a war and being marooned out in space for nobody-knows-how-long without killing each other? Sounds about right.
Berserk Button - All three of them react very, very badly if you threaten their bikes or Charley. But you really, really don't wanna piss off Modo, so please don't call him a rat.
Bland Name Product - One of Limburger's schemes involves polluting Earth's water and then selling it to Plutark as "designer drinking water". He calls it "Limburger's Perilous Mineral Water—but we only see the "Perri" part of the label. It requires a spelling error, but that aside.
The same episode also gives us Dodge's grille guard in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot.
Boisterous Bruiser - The three mice, though Vinnie's the biggest example.
Camera Abuse - Various occasions where Grease Pit's, well, grease splatters the camera.
The Cast Showoff: The Mice were particularly fond of breaking out into classic rock songs while they were kicking bad-guy butt in the first series, and none of them were really bad singers. Except for Vinnie.
City of Weirdos - Happens on occasion. In one instance while the titular Mice are fighting a villain in the street, we see a civilian calmly check his watch and wander off as though nothing odd is happening.
Combat Pragmatist - Brie's Number One seems to be this—he went from dispatching goons to almost killing Grease Pit in a matter of moments in his introduction—but because it's a kids' show, he doesn't get to, ahem, demonstrate it.
Corrupt Corporate Executive - Limburger in the original series. The sequel series includes a recurring villain named Ronaldo Rump and a parody of Sir Richard Branson.
Desert Punk: Mars at present, though it wasn't always that way—and getting it restored serves as a small subplot.
Destructive Saviour - The Biker Mice don't seem to care how much property damage they cause when they fight against bad guys.
Doomy Dooms of Doom - The Pit of Everlasting Doom. Not a Bottomless Pit as you would expect, but just a spike-filled pit, which makes the "everlasting" part a bit out of place.
Enemy Mine - In the last part of "Back to Mars", Limburger allies with the mice to defeat Brie; on the other end of the spectrum, Karbunkle (somewhat against his will) betrays Limburger to work for Brie. Limburger also makes use of this trope in the same episode in convincing Number One, Brie's dragon, that he's taking over his position.
And again in Karbunkle's case, who originally worked for Limburger's old boss, Dominic T. Stilton (as shown in "Once Upon a Time, on Mars"), and harboured a blatant dislike for Limburger.
Getting Crap Past the Radar - Modo: "That makes me more than just mad. Now, I'm mad as—" [cut] Limburger: "Hello, fellow citizens of Chicago."
One of the reasons the Finnish dub is so well loved is because of all the crap it managed to get past the radar. In one particularly memorable instance, Modo calls Limburger's newest investment (a ridiculously destructive fighter plane) a dildo of all things. Another notable moment comes after the Sand Raiders' boss's attempt at Go-Go Enslavement mentioned below; Charley up front calls him a "sex addict" after subduing him.
Good Animals Evil Animals - The mice are always good (except for their government and one rat traitor), while the Plutarkians and most of the Catatonians are always evil.
Go-Go Enslavement: Attempted with Charley, in "Back to Mars", but it doesn't go so well.
Government Conspiracy - While initially presented as a straight-up invasion, the Plutarkians' arrival on Mars is later on alleged to be allowed by the Martian government.
I Lied - When Hard Rock agrees to work for Limburger again if he spares Darla and the Biker Mice. As soon as he leaves, Limburger gives the order to "dispose of them- slowly, and painfully."
Throttle: What? You gave your word!
Limburger: If my word was worth anything, I wouldn't be much of a villain, now would I?
Throttle: No surprise there, buddy—I'm makin' this one up as I go.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Hard Rock, who was one once but doesn't really want to be a minion of the Plutarkians now. He even has a cute and sweet Love Interest to come home to.
Vinnie, frequently. He shoves his foot into his mouth several times, but he really means well.
Lampshading - "You were expecting turtles, maybe?" and "This is stupid macho man stuff, remember?" - many others
Large Ham: Many, but Limburger gets the foul-smelling cheese cake.
La Résistance - The mice are from this, and Carbine now leads it. While the mice still had an army, the two often clashed. It's a wonder they're still together.
Last of His Kind - The bat-mouse-thing that only lives on Mars and only eats one flower, of which there is only one remaining sample, preserved in Limburger's museum. The mice then proceed to feed the last bit of the plant to the bat, destroying any hope of either species living again. Somebody didn't think that through.
Latex Perfection - Limburger's mask. Taken to an extreme when Grease Pit wears Limburger's mask with no appreciable difference between them—aside from the neck down.
Also, Mace's disguise in "Once Upon a Time, on Mars".
Life or Limb Decision - In Verminator Modo has to remove his bionic arm to avoid getting run over by a truck. He gets a new arm in the end of the episode.
Love Triangle - Stoker, Harley and Vinnie from Once Upon A Time On Mars.
Mr. Fanservice - In one episode, Modo attends a costume party at Limburger's, dressed in a tuxedo, where he proves to be a huge hit with the women present, who cannot stop swooning over him and even fainting in his presence, especially after he easily takes out an attacking Greasepit and looking suave and smooth while doing so.
Almost every one of the named Plutarkians has a cheesy name. Ohohoho. Glorious.
Dr. Karbunkle has a new title of respect for Limburger every time they speak (Your Supreme Cheesiness, Your Thick-Sliciness, etc)
Limburger's evil headquarters is demolished once an episode by the Biker Mice. One episode had the protagonists destroy the building at the BEGINNING of the episode, forcing Limburger to rebuild it over the course of the show, only to have it destroyed AGAIN at the end.
Grease Pit's pay—specifically the lack thereof.
Grease Pit slipping on his own grease—which happens almost every time we see him.
Evil Eye Weevil breaking his fragile bones and his henchmen having to fix them.
Setting As A Character - A variation on this trope, though never expanded upon: the bikes are alive, and have feelings. When neglected, they buck their riders and sulk. Lil' Hoss (Modo's bike, the only named bike on the show) has the most AI.
In one episode, the mice had to prevent a nuclear explosion. Their manual had a picture of Homer Simpson running away with lots of donuts.
The Mexican Spanish dub does this to almost Product Placement levels, since the dub mention many soap operas who were broadcasted in the same network the series was showed at the time of broadcasting.
Stay in the Kitchen — on occasion, the Mice have this attitude towards Charlie. She's never seen as pleased with this, and she's at least as competent as the mice are—partially because they've got egos the size of mars, and hers is much more realistic. In their defense, it's mainly because they don't want her to get hurt because they desperately need her mechanical skills.
Super Window Jump - Epitomized in Grease Pit's lament "Don't these guys ever use doors?"
Surrounded by Idiots - Limburger's lamenting that "it's so hard to find good help these days". It also serves as a Catch Phrase for him.
Telescoping Robot - Each of the three bikes do this. Vinnie's flare-things also expand before being used.
Temporary Blindness - Two mice get eye injuries. With Modo, it's only one, but Throttle gets both taken out. They are kindly "replaced" (necessary or not) by Dr. Karbunkle, but a malfunction in Throttle's eyes renders him blind. The sunglasses fix that.
It could be speculated that Modo also had both eyes taken out and had only one replaced, which could explain why it glows when he gets angry.
That or Karbunkle implanted something into his eye.
Theme Naming - Most Plutarkians have cheese-based names (Limburger, Brie); the Catatonians have cat-based names and the Mice are named after either weapons or motorcycle parts/terms.
The Ahnold - The Exterminator (more than a passing reference) and one of the Loogey Brothers.
Totally Radical - All three Biker Mice (plus the radio station) do this, but Vinnie takes the cake.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight - The "ice asteroids" from "Back To Mars" are patently weird, but nobody pays it any mind. They are a minor plot point later on. They bring water back to Mars. Which isn't exactly the problem with the planet, but anyway...
Upgrade Artifact - The bikes get equipment upgrades quite often, courtesy of Charley's Wrench Wench-ery, in order to handle episode-specific theme problems.
Weirdness Magnet - Chicago is the target of alien and monstrous beings sent to rid Limburger of the mice, who are the only thing between him and gobbling everything up. Which makes one wonder how he was stopped before the mice got there.
Walking Shirtless Scene - Um, the 8th episode. And Vinnie's outfit 90% of the time. Two green belts across your chest in a X shape don't count as a shirt.
All of them, really. Throttle's vest and Modo's chestplate are constructed seemingly to show off how outrageously muscular they are.
Weird Trade Union - Grease Pit mentions a henchmen's union in an offhand remark. Rat Trap also mentions getting a medical plan—presumably for monsters of the week.
Throttle: Sand raiders? I can take sand raiders with both eyes tied behind my back.
Wrench Wench - Charley, and the short-lived Harley from "Once Upon a Time on Mars".
You and What Army? - When Lawrence Limburger's Mooks and later Greasepit and Karbunkle went on a strike, he hired someone to train a better team of mooks. Unfortunately, the villain he called decided to overthrow Limburger, who decided to ask the question, and the betrayer showed the new mooks and answered: "YOUR army!"
Hard Roack poses the same question hen Limburger first tries to pressure him into working again.
Limburger: Since you asked... *gestures to his group of mooks, all with weapons at the ready* this army.
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