Clockwise from the top: Nonny, Oona, Gil, Molly, Deema, and Goby.
"Hi! I'm Molly, and it's time for..."
Bubble Guppies is an Animated Show created by Jonny Belt and Robert Scull, who previously worked on The Backyardigans. And it shows.Each episode follows the adventures of a group of mer-children and the lessons they learn in preschool. Along the way, they sing, dance, and have imaginary adventures while exploring concepts of the episode's theme, such as pet care, the solar system, or how to run a restaurant.The series premiered on Nick Jr. on January 24, 2011.Now has a Character Sheet.
Bubble Guppies provides examples of the following tropes:
Aesop Amnesia: Mr. Grumpfish has a bad case of it in "Happy Holidays, Mr. Grumpfish!". Justified in that it's a story being told by Mr. Grouper to Bubble Puppy.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Bubble Puppy, bar the intro and related routine sequences, is noticeably absent from nearly every subsequent episode. He's still still shown in group shots, though.
Cool Teacher: Mr. Grouper buys his students their dog, and lets them build a badass doghouse for it by themselves. He also takes them to a hospital, lets them start a band, and open a restaurant.
Cowardly Lion: Gil. He's scared of planes, chickens, ducks, T. rexes, tubas, ghosts, caterpillars, gorillas, the planet Jupiter...
Darker and Edgier: "Haunted House Party!", mainly in the toned-down color scheme - very accurately giving it it a creepy, Halloween-y feel. Although, all the characters do wear Excessive Evil Eyeshadow...
Giant Food: Inverted in a rather humorous way as everything in the giant's house is, well, giant, with the exception of the regular-sized golden eggs that the guppies need.
Free-Range Children: Never addressed directly, but the guppies walk to school by themselves, with only the Little Fish to watch them. They also tend to go on very improbable field trips for preschoolers, including the planetarium, camping in the woods, and a farm to watch a cow have its baby. Who's signing these permission slips?
Furry Confusion: During "I Want a Pet Today", while Molly is singing about pets Nonny is seen with a pet fish in a bowl. This being a Disney Acid Sequence, no one notices.
Meaningful Name: Molly and Goby are named for small fish similar to guppies, while Gil is named for an imporant part of fish anatomy.
Medium Blending: The characters themselves have CGI bodies and Flash animated facial features. The show also has segments with Flash characters and backdrops.
Mind Screw: The characters are all either mermaids or aquatic life, implying that the series would take place underwater. However, the majority of the settings consist of above-water like aspects such as trees and grass. It could be Justified by the fact that bubbles are often seen rising around them, however in some of the Story sketches the characters are blatantly above water (etc. there is running water in the background, or on the moon) and there are still bubbles rising. Added to this that in the episode "The Moon Rocks!", the spaceship they travel in appears to be rising out of somewhere in Canada.
In the camping episode, they build a bonfire. Underwater.
The Narrator: Whichever character happens to be presiding over the recess sketch of a particular episode.
Never Say "Die": In "Haunted House Party", they constantly dance around just what a zombieis, calling them 'spooky monsters' whose breath is the worst, yet their very best feature.
Pun: The lunch jokes. There's a lot more than that.
Puppy Love: All the characters, notably Molly/Gil, Goby/Deema and Nonny/Oona.
Ruleof Cool: In "Have a Cow!", Goby and Gil are having their carrots stolen by a giant robot rabbit. To get it to leave, they use a giant, rocket, robot carrot.
In the episode "Who's Gonna Play the Big Bad Wolf?", if you look into the background during the Shop sketch, you can see a picture depicting a lobster wearing a very familiar mask.
Tempting Fate: "Hey, Molly, have you ever wondered why they call it the rainforest?"
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Averted with the snails, lobsters, crabs, and fish, where there's no physical way to differentiate between the males and females (some females will have hair, however.)
Water Is Air: Hoo boy. There are cars and trucks that make normal engine sounds. There are trees. There are things in the "air" that pretty much stand in for clouds (very non-puffy, but easily mistaken for being clouds that look this way due to the animation style, and if not clouds, what the halibut are they? The background turns colors the sky can be but water should never be. Characters do swim, but mostly hovering over the ground at the exact height they'd be standing if they had legs. It's to the point that when you see someone swim upward or otherwise move as if they are under water, you will say "wait, what?!" Amusingly, though, the Disney Acid Sequencesdo have them more believably underwater.
Weird Moon: Though slightly subjective, in several shots featuring the moon it appears to be hovering in the water. This is most evident in the beginning of "The Moon Rocks!"
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: At the end of the movie, Bubble Puppy has been changed back. The end, right? Turns out the witch escaped at the last minute. When Gil and Molly point out that she can't change anyone into frogs, the witch says she still has her original Mean Green Bubble Potion. Cue Oh Crap from the main cast.
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