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"Kids Next Door... BATTLE STATIONS!"
Numbuh One

Codename: Kids Next Door (2002-2008) is an original animated series from Cartoon Network about a team of five elementary school-aged kids who are members of an international organization that fights adult tyranny. It was created by Tom Warburton (credited as Mr. Warburton).

Those five kids are Sector V, a Five-Man Band in the worldwide organization known as the Kids Next Door: Numbuh One (Ben Diskin) is a Properly Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist who is always seen wearing sunglasses (and has no hair); Numbuh Two (Diskin) is a pilot and inventor known for cracking puns at inappropriate times; Numbuh Three (Lauren Tom) is The Heart of the team, constantly happy and serving as the team medic; Numbuh Four (Dee Bradley Baker) is a Book Dumb kid who holds an invaluable amount of street smarts and serves as a combat specialist and the team's enforcer; Numbuh Five (Cree Summer) is the only sane girl trying desperately to keep the team together.

Together, the KND of Sector V fight alongside their compatriots-in-childhood against numerous villains — including The Delightful Children from Down the Lane (and their creepy father, Father), Numbuh Five's traitorous teenage sister, Cree, and the Corrupt Corporate Executive Mr. Boss — who hates children and wants them enslaved.

The show has two Licensed Games, Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. for consoles and Operation: S.O.D.A. for the Game Boy Advance. The series also appeared in two Massive Multiplayer Crossover games: the FusionFall MMORPG, with various characters from the show serving as NPCs, and the fighting game Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, with Numbuh One, Father and the Toiletnator appearing as playable characters.

In March 2015, Mr. Warburton's blog started an ARG with a Rainbow Monkeys site (revealing a database search when clicking the nose) and a video teasing a possible sequel series, Galactic: Kids Next Door. It was revealed to essentially be an April Fool's joke after this video was posted, but with the caveat that it appears to be the lead-in to an attempted viral campaign to get a sequel series made. A petition was made to get the series greenlit here. This was later proposed to Cartoon Network, but executives refused due to their lack of interest.

This show now has a character sheet and its movie now has its own page: Operation: Z.E.R.O., as does its original pilot, No P in the OOL.


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    Tropes A to D 
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
    • Sector V's treehouse when it turns into a rampaging monster chasing Nigel and Lizzie in "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D." is blatantly animated with three-dimensional computer graphics.
    • This pops up in a few other episodes from time to time, like the giant ring of Rainbow Monkeys around Saturn in "Operation S.A.T.U.R.N.".
  • Abnormal Ammo: Goes hand-in-hand with the 2x4 technology used by the KND, but used by other organizations and villains as well. The Six Gum Gang uses revolvers loaded with already-chewed gum, a sea coffee-drilling rig is equipped with coffee-bean turrets and one episode even has the U.S. government using giant robots that shoot bubblewrap. However, the weapons used by the KND seem to flip-flop between firing weird ammo or just firing laser or energy beams. Teens and adults typically use lasers, though.
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Or just Student President. The class presidents are treated like genuine elected officials, and seemingly have clout not only in school itself, but also with the city council. Since the main characters are in 4th grade, this is most notable with their class president, who has his own Secret Service.
  • Adorably Precocious Child: Most, if not all male KND operatives have a tendency to act mature for their age.
  • Adults Are Useless: Adults in the series tend to be evil or clueless. Exceptions include Vin Moosk (who hunts monstrous ties), Dr. Sigmund Teef (who actually helps Sector V during their first encounter with Knightbrace), and possibly Lasso Lass (who fought against adult tyranny as a child and has apparently not outgrown her role of defending children's right even though she's now elderly). Some of the episodes that feature the kids' parents also prove to be exceptions as well, especially in the Operation: Z.E.R.O. movie. More often than not, those not in on The Conspiracy are susceptible to being Unwitting Pawns.
  • Affectionate Parody: Several episodes spoof other works of fiction.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
    • The A.I. of Sector V's treehouse starts singing "Daisy Bell" when Nigel tries to attend Lizzie's sister's wedding.
    • Also, the Safety Bots. Lampshaded by their creator:
      Senator Safety: How come every time you build giant robots, they gotta take over the world?
  • All According to Plan: A plot twist so common that it's also a Running Gag for one character for a time.
  • All Just a Dream: A few episodes end this way, most of the time with an Or Was It a Dream? vibe.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife:
    • Rainbow Monkeys, as their name implies, come in a variety of colors that primates are seldom seen with in real life.
    • In "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", the characters' animal forms tend to look realistic as far as colors go. However, there are a few exceptions: Numbuh Four, who becomes a yellow koala, and two unknown operatives that respectively turn into a pink elephant and a green rooster.
  • Ambiguous Clone Ending: The ending of "Operation: P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.".
  • And I'm the Queen of Sheba: "Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E." has Numbuh One wake up in a reality where he's an adult, President of the United States, and expected to sign a bill ensuring the destruction of the Kids Next Door. When he tries to explain to the current incarnation of the Kids Next Door that he really is Numbuh One, one of the operatives snarks "Yeah, and I'm Queen of the Rainbow Monkeys".
  • Angels Pose: The series' logo is a clear parody of the Charlie's Angels one. Its intro animation actually shows them jumping into the logo one by one.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling:
    • Numbuh Two's little brother Tommy tends to get on his older brother's nerves.
    • Numbuh 86's little brothers. No wonder she hates boys. (Though this in her own words. When shown, it's revealed they're not as bad as she made them out to be.)
    • Numbuh Three's sister, Mushi. Which is ironic as they actually started out getting along with each other.
    • Numbuh 362's little brother Harvey, Numbuh 363, who constantly antagonizes Numbuh One.
    • Numbuh Four's baby brother Joey. (But Numbuh Four quickly turns into a Papa Wolf if someone messes with Joey.)
    • Cree considers Numbuh Five to be this to her.
  • Anthropomorphic Food: Grandma Stuffum creates living food that force themselves into kids' mouths.
  • Anti-Villain:
    • Count Spankulot makes it a point to only spank children who deserve it.
    • Professor XXX-L. His actual goal is really nothing sinister (he is trying to perfect the snowcone) but he does tend to violently oppose anyone who tries to stop him. His goal in the "Kenny and the Chimp" segment in the pilot was to fight the PTA; exactly why, he didn't say, but apparently, he got his ass handed to him by them.
  • Arc Words: "I'm the best there is." served as this for Chad's entire character arc, first said in his debut episode and then receiving a Call-Back in his last appearance, which was the penultimate episode of the show.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
    • In "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.", Numbuh Two calls for the following items while performing the surgery to turn Bradley into a cyborg: A scalpel-laser-claw (a scalpel with a laser attached), a reboninator (a jackhammer-like device), and a chili dog.
    • The crossover with The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy mentions that Billy's dad's lucky pants are immune to lasers, supernatural energy, and mustard.
    • In "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", it is said that the Kids Next Door follow a code of bravery, strength, and all-night chocolate milkshake parties.
    • "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D." has Lizzie go on a tirade about Numbuh One's shortcomings. She brings up his tendency to spend so much time on his missions that he's barely around for their dates and that he accidentally beat up her grandmother, ending the list by pointing out that he ate a meatball sandwich as if it was a truly horrible thing to do.
  • Art Evolution: Over the course of the series, the animation became more consistent and the colors became richer. Seasons 1 and 2 also have much thicker lines than the rest of the show.
  • Artistic License – Biology: In "Operation: S.P.R.O.U.T.", Numbuhs One, Two, and Five shrink themselves in order to get a Brussels Sprout out of Numbuh Four's stomach. At one point, Numbuh Five has to go swimming in his stomach juice. Stomach juice is hydrocholric acid, and would've eaten through her clothes and skin if portrayed realistically.
  • Art Shift: In "Operation: R.E.P.O.R.T.", each member's "Rashomon"-Style account of what happened to the package they were supposed to deliver is animated differently. Numbuh One's looks like a 3D video game, Numbuh Two's resembles an old-fashioned comic book, Numbuh Three's is in a stick-figure drawing style, Numbuh Four's is a homage to Dragon Ball Z, and Numbuh Five's looks like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
  • Ascended Fangirl: Numbuh Three grows up to become the president of the Rainbow Monkey Corporation in "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.".
  • Asian Airhead: Kuki Sanban (a.k.a. Numbuh Three) is an adorable, girly, kindhearted, rather prissy girl who is personified as being extremely scatterbrained. That Other Wiki says that she is only acting stupid so she doesn't feel sad.
  • Assumed Win: "Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S." has Numbuh One assume he's won the election for class president twice. The first time it turns out the Delightful Children from Down the Lane won by rigging the election. The second time, it's revealed that the candidate who won fair and square is Eggbert Eggleston.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Used in "Operation: A.F.L.O.A.T."
    Numbuh Three: Nobody's eating my Rainbow Monkey! You can just go eat a—
    Numbuh One: Great white asparagus!
    Numbuh Three: Well, that wasn't what I was thinking...
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: There are lots of episodes that involve a Humongous Mecha (or even more than one) but one that doesn't, but still fits the Trope, is "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E.", where Grandma Stuffum uses a "Slamwitch" (a giant, demonic, carnivorous, sandwich) to fight Sector V; they respond by calling their pet hamster Joaquin, who uses some device to grow to giant size to fight it (and then eat it).
  • Attack Pattern Alpha: "Kids Next Door: Battle Stations!"
  • Author Appeal: Humongous Mechas. Mr. Warburton is also a huge X-Men fan, explaining "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y." and "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y.", both X-Men parodies.
  • Authority in Name Only: King Sandy really isn't king of anything. In fact, it's possible he and his three cousins simply Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Numbuhs Four and Five assume this pose when fighting candy pirates in "Operation: P.I.R.A.T.E."
  • Badass Adorable Army: The entire Kids Next Door, though the "adorable" part may depend on certain operatives.
  • Badass Boast: There are quite a few, in particular Negative Numbuh 86's epic line in "Operation: P.O.O.L.":
    Negative Numbuh 86: In the name of the One Supreme Ultra DNK Leader, Welcome... to the worst day of your lives.
  • Badass Family: The Unos, so very much. We have Nigel's father, the original Numbuh Zero, who in his youth started a new age of KND. The last episode also reveals his mother was the first female operative. He is also related to the villains of the series as Father is Monty's brother meaning Father is Nigel's uncle and Grandfather is his actual grandfather.
  • Badass Normal: Essentially the whole premise of the KND is about a team of kids who do amazing things in spite of being ordinary human beings considering more than half of the things they can do, and end up pulling off. Hell sector V took down Father after he TURNED INTO A FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON!!!!
  • Badass Santa: In "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.", Santa is a clear satire of Professor Charles Xavier, complete with a team of elves that are satires of the X-Men.
  • Bad Future: "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E." shows a dystopian future where the world is run by girls who hunt down and turn boys into girls. Fortunately, they are able to Set Right What Once Went Wrong to prevent it from happening.
  • Bad Guy Bar: We see it in "Operation: F.L.U.S.H.", with plenty cameos from minor villains of the show.
  • Bad Humor Truck: Ice cream men are bad guys in this series, or at least one group of them; both Father and Mr. Boss have them as Mooks.
  • Balloon Belly: All of Sector V get huge stomachs after Gramma Stuffum's attack in "Operation: N.O.-P.O.W.U.H." (but not as bad as Numbuh Two).
  • Bamboo Technology: The series iconic "2x4 technology", highly sophisticated tech cobbled together from all manner of junk and everyday items. Basically, the kind of things kids will build for their imaginary games, except it actually works.
  • Banana Peel: In "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", Numbuh One throws some banana peels before a quadruped Humongous Mecha (straight out of The Empire Strikes Back). The mecha pilots burst into laughter at this sight, but then their vehicle steps on a peel in the snow... and immediately topples to the side.
  • Baseball Episode: "Operation: B.R.E.A.K.U.P." revolves around a game similar to baseball that uses fragile and priceless objects for the ball.
  • Bathroom Break-Out: President Uno tries to escape by lying about needing to use the bathroom during "Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E.".
  • Batman Gambit: Double subversion in "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R." One of the Delightful Children becomes a mole, making Sector V think he's helping them destroy the other DCFDTL's coffee supply, when it's actually a trap to steal the teams top-secret plans. As it turns, out, the KND are pulling a Batman Gambit of their own; the briefcase they steal actually has a bomb, and after the Delightful Children spring their trap, the heroes get the last laugh and manage to destroy the coffee supply anyway.
  • Beach Episode: "Operation: B.E.A.C.H." takes place at the beach.
  • Beard of Evil: Negative Numbuh Four in "Operation: P.O.O.L." has a goatee.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: "Operation: B.E.A.C.H." — after spending the entire episode telling everyone he's only rescuing Kuki because she owes him a quarter, Numbuh Four asks for it at the ending.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Short-fused shorty Numbuh Four and Genki Tsundere Numbuh Three. Truly, a destined pair.
  • "Be Quiet!" Nudge:
    • Numbuh Five is usually the one to elbow her teammates when they need to shut it, like with Numbuh Four at the end of "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S.", or Numbuh Three in "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E.". Note that it hardly works on the latter: if you truly want Kuki to shut up, you need to gag her. Even then, there's no guarantee.
    • "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E." also has an example, as after they seemingly defeat Grandma Stuffums, she starts gearing up something big to attack the group, but Kuki is continuing on cheering while the others look on worried. Numbuh Five has to hit her in the arm to shut her up and get her to pay attention.
  • Berserk Button:
    • As shown in "Operation: L.I.C.E.", Numbuh Three will want bloody vengeance towards anyone who destroys her stuffed toys.
    • Numbuh 83 is incredible scared of the dark. So much that hearing she will be locked in a dark closet angers her to the point of overpowering a villain that just a moment ago defeated her and two other operatives.
    • The Great Puttinski gets furious whenever anyone tells him mini-golf is "just a game".
  • BFG: Including but not necessarily limited to ones that shoot kangaroos, mattresses, and grizzly bears.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Father and Mr. Boss, depending on the episode.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • In "Operation "C.A.K.E.D. T.W.O.", when the kids are attacked by the Delightful Childrens' pound cake at the stadium and it looks like all hope is lost, Lizzie comes out of the sky piloting half of the Delightful Childrens' ship and dives into the cake, blowing it up, and also saving the KND.
    • In "Operation "N.O. P.O.W.U.H.", when it looks like Sector V would all have been blown up by Gramma Stuffum overfeeding them, the hamsters return from their vacation and eat all the food to save the kids.
  • Big Eater: Numbuh Two. He not only loves to eat (and has the girth to prove it) but he's far more resistant to Grandma Stuffum's demonic food than the other members of the team.
  • Big Good: Numbuh 362 for most of the series. The movie introduces Numbuh Zero as a more mythical Big Good, who is revealed to be Nigel's dad.
  • Big Labyrinthine Building: A huge, labyrinthine, treehouse.
  • Big "NO!": Numbuh Four, once Numbuh Five becomes a senior citizombie.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Unos. Father is Numbuh Zero's brother and thus Nigel's uncle, and their father is the aptly-named Grandfather, who is ten times worse than Father. Add in the Delightfuls (missing KND operatives turned permanently evil) as Father's adopted children... and there you go.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": Lizzie in "Operation: D.A.T.E.".
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • Numbuh Three's last name, Sanban, loosely translates to "third" in Japanese.
    • Mushi's first name translates to "insect".
    • In "Operation: T.R.I.P.", the Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain crash into a poster which reads いたい ("itai"), which translates from Japanese to "painful", lampshading their Chew Toy status in the episode.
    • Numbuh One's last name, Uno, is Spanish for "one".
  • Birthday Episode:
    • There are plenty of episodes where it is one of The Delightful Children from Down the Lane's birthday and the KND try to take their cake.
    • "Operation: F.A.S.T.F.O.O.D." dealt with celebrating Numbuh Three's birthday. (The episode sets it up to make the viewers believe she's a Damsel in Distress; however, as it turns out, she becomes the hero, defeating the villain by herself.)
  • Bittersweet Ending: The series finales ends with Numbuh One being selected to join the Galactic Kids Next Door. But he is forced to leave Earth and it's unlikely that he will ever see his friends and family ever again...until we see the absolute final scene, that is. Then we discover, from what Numbuh Five says, that the grown-up Sector V had the last laugh on Father, and Numbuh One is, indeed, coming home.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: The adults and teenagers that the Kids Next Door fight against are unarguably shown as supervillains that need to be handled but the KND itself engages in more than a few dodgy actions, the most notable of which is decommissioning operatives once they're thirteen regardless of their dedication to the organization and has resulted in more than a few betrayals just to avoid the prospect.
  • Black Bead Eyes: What most of the characters have, however there are a few exceptions; notably, the Delightful Children all have Creepy Blue Eyes, and Numbuh 362 has brown eyes.
  • Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Exaggerated in the episode "Operation: V.I.R.U.S."; Numbuh One is confronted by Cree Lincoln and pulls out a handgun, which she shoots it out of his hand with her Arm Blaster. Then he pulls out seven other guns from various spots on his body which she blasts out one by one. Thus Nigel is left with only... a comb, which Cree also shoots from his hand.
  • Boats into Buildings: The Bizarrchitecture treehouse bases from which KND agents operate are constructed out of a combination of local buildings, monuments, and vehicles, including ships:
    • The Treehouse in Sector V, out of which the protagonists operate, includes the prow of a large cruise ship.
    • Greek Sector Treehouse has two cruise ships incorporated into the structure.
    • Peruvian Sector Treehouse has what looks like an old fishing trawler incorporated into the structure.
    • Kids Next Door Arctic Training Base and Prison plays with the trope: the "treehouse" is built into the roots of a lone pine tree that appears to grow out of the arctic ice, with salvaged structures including a large cruise ship hidden below the surface. Not technically land-based, but it fits the spirit of the trope.
    • The Central Bike Hub in Sequoia National Park, California is built into the branches of a Redwood tree, and includes a large ship.
    • Zigzagged in the Deep Sea Science Lab, with is underwater. The salvaged oil platform and cruise ship that make up the base are tethered to the bottom of the ocean by seaweed, resembling the treehouses operatives utilize on land.
    • Despite being on the moon, the first KND Moonbase included both a cargo ship and a submarine in the structure.
    • The Seriously Cool Museum of Artifacts and Stuff was built with what looks like a Spanish galleon in the branches of the tree.
    • The Super Convention Center, perched in the branches of a tree atop the Empire State Building, has a large cruise ship parked on top of an airport as part of the design.
    • Sector J's Treehouse base, in Jamaica, is a treehouse built on a palm tree. A large cruise ship with what looks like a cannonball hole in the side is part of the design.
    • The Sector U Treehouse in Guatemala appears to have a small boat hung on a lower bough.
  • Bond One-Liner: "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.": "I've always wondered how the Delightful Children from Down the Lane all went to the bathroom together."
  • Boisterous Bruiser:
    • Numbuh Four, and how.
    • Also, Moosk from "Operation: K.N.O.T.".
  • Book Dumb: Numbuh Four is this, big time. He also grows out of it big time, graduating from Harvard of all places and becoming a doctor.
  • Brains and Brawn: Numbuhs Two and Four.
  • Brainwashed: Double Subversion in "Operation: C.A.M.P.".
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane
  • Brick Joke:
  • Broken Win/Loss Streak:
    • In "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.O.U.R.", the Gilligans' Tube-A-Thon losing streak is broken by Tommy. Hoagie would've finished the race as well, had there not been a Friend-or-Idol Decision.
    • Speaking of the "C.A.K.E.D." missions, each one that comes up usually has the KND ruining the Delightfuls' Birthday in some form or another. However on the Sixth one (the title which cleverly omitted the "C.A.K.E.D." from it), the Delightfuls manage to get one over on the KND in a delicious irony: they have three of Sector V deliver the cake without them even knowing it till the end.
  • Bucket Helmet: A lot of operatives have one of these, especially Numbuh 86 and Numbuh 362 who have ones that are made of colanders.
  • Burning with Anger: Father is not just Wreathed in Flames, but they increase in intensity when angry.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Numbuh Five (and her sister Cree) are half-French, half African-American. Both of their parents are still Black, though. And their father is a parody of Bill Cosby.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Numbuh Four, who is often the first to get beat up or made fun of by villains or fellow teammates due to his stupidity and occasional moments of arrogance.
    • Tommy, whose desire to be a hero is often undercut by his flair for the theatrics that makes it hard for some people to take him seriously.
    • The Toiletnator, the laughingstock of all the KND villains (to the point that his fellow adults are ashamed to be associated with him). Even when he makes an effort to improve in his villainy, it often comes at the expense the other adults' plans.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Indeed, on several occasions, the K.N.D. end up losing. Though depending how the outcome turns out, it could be played straight (such as "Operation: S.I.X.", "P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T." and "S.L.E.E.P.O.V.E.R."), end up something of a Mind Screw ("S.A.F.A.R.I." and "S.I.T.T.E.R.") or not end up a victory as the villains intended ("M.A.C.A.R.R.O.N.I.", "R.O.B.B.E.R.S." and "C.A.N.Y.O.N.").
  • Cain and Abel: Three groups.
    • Numbuh Five and Cree.
    • Numbuh Three and Mushi, to a lesser extent.
    • Not to mention Numbuh Zero and Father.
  • The Cake Is a Lie: In "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", KND scientist Numbuh 74.239 claims he has taken the Delightful Children from Down the Lane's cake and announces a scavenger hunt for it. Numbuh One wins — only to find out that the scavenger hunt was a test to see who will be chosen to be the representative of Earth in the Galactic KND, and the promised cake was actually just a cupcake, which 74.239 happily scarfs down.
  • Cannot Tell a Lie: Mrs. Thompson. Being unable to lie was a downside of the curse that made her the Were-Dog Queen.
  • Canis Latinicus: While not stated in the show itself, Mr. Warburton once stated the actual name of the real Rainbow Monkey species is "Ohsovereeroundus Simianatus" (referencing the Rainbow Monkey theme song).
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Nearly all of the villains are this. Supervillain meetings are held regularly. They shop at a supermarket which is "for villains only, and even hold a Villains Choice Awards ceremony, which is shown on public television! Several lines in the series directly mention this trope, like this gem from "Operation: T.R.I.C.K.Y.":
    Stickybeard: [to Dumb John Silver] You're supposed to be an EVIL pirate!
  • Casting Gag:
    • Moosk from "Operation: K.N.O.T." is a parody of Minsc from the Baldur's Gate franchise, right down to being voiced by Jim Cummings.
    • Also, Frank Welker voices Professor XXX-L, who in the "Kenny and the Chimp" short, dealt with all kinds of crazy chemicals and diseases; furthermore, he's always got a different set of animal body parts, making him a sort of mutant. All of which seems a bit similar to Welker's character in SWAT Kats, Dr. Viper, who got mutated into a half-animal creature after dealing with an unstable chemical, and spoke with a similar voice (albeit with hissing as opposed to XXX-L's lisp, and it's a bit more sinister).
  • Cereal Vice Reward: The KND stealing the Delightful Childrens' birthday cake and ruining their birthdays in the "C.A.K.E.D." episodes).
  • Cerebus Syndrome: The later seasons became darker with an introduction of the extremist splinter cell, only for the fact that they were made up for the Galactic: KND
  • Chained Heat: Numbuh One and Chad as part of a subplot of "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y.". Notably, the usual way this plays out is subverted. It worsens their relationship and ends with the two of them fighting to the death in a way that's not Played for Laughs.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: In general, all of the operatives — especially Numbuh One and Numbuh Four — who come out of training seem to have some degree of superhuman power in one way or another; leaping ridiculous distances, surviving explosions and hard blunt trauma, punching out and tossing around grown men and teenagers, and other odd displays of strength are put on display pretty often. Numbuh Four in particular, despite his small stature, is once even seen launching a solid gold dodge-ball several feet into the air hard enough to destroy a stone statue, among other things. All in all, the more normal operatives are usually still strong enough to beat up the average adult or teen thug bare-fisted — such as Numbuh Two and Three from time to time — but the very best operatives can even take down the super-villains, such as Numbuh One.
  • Chef of Iron: Granny Stuffum and her creations.
  • The Chew Toy: Poor H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P. gets totaled every time it appears. (Even in "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.", the one time it actually does something right.)
  • Chewing the Scenery: Everyone, at least once. The voice actors really held nothing back.
  • Child Hater: Although most of the KND's foes are evil adults, only a few of them actually qualify as disliking children (others have different reasons for causing them grief). Among the worst are Father, Mr. Boss, Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb, Chester, and a few one-shot villains. Note that Mr. Boss makes an exception for his own children.
  • Children Are Innocent: Played with in with some cases but subverted in other cases.
    • It's subverted for all KND-operatives as the operatives are very rebellious but played in that most of them (or at least Numbuhs One thru Four) don't even know where babies come from.
    • Numbuh Five's generally the most mature/least innocent of Sector V — her dad's a doctor (he's a parody of Bill Cosby's character from The Cosby Show) and she mentions having an older brother who has some kids of his own, and in one episode, she tries explaining to her teammates how babies are supposed to be born in a hospital.
  • Children's Covert Coterie: The eponymous Kids Next Door are an organization with international reach, comprised of kids fighting for the rights of kids in a world ruled by adults. While the premise sounds ridiculous at face value, this is set in a world where there are adults, teenagers and some kids who are outright supervillains out to eradicate all the positive aspects of childhood, whether it requires brainwashing, enslavement, artificially aging them into adulthood or just straight-up murdering them. What the KND is collectively differs between seasons, operating anywhere between a paramilitary espionage-organization, to a guerilla-army, an international Super Team, to even a nation unto itself!
  • Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: Rainbow Munchies, a cereal that everyone, heroes and villains alike (except Knightbrace) love. "Operation: M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S." has Sector V fighting with practically every villain on the show over the last box of the stuff in a supermarket.
  • Christmas Episode: "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y."
  • Civilized Animal: Oddly common. Well-known examples include the KND hamsters, Bradley/Numbuh 6, the chicks from "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.H.R.E.E." and the shark family from "Operation: F.A.S.T.F.O.O.D."
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Nigel's girlfriend, Lizzie.
  • Closet Geek: Numbuh One towards Rainbow Monkeys.
  • Closer than They Appear: The mirror on one vehicle says "Missiles in mirror may be closer than they appear."
  • Codename Title: Blatant about it, and uses this for Fun with Acronyms-type Idiosyncratic Episode Naming with acronyms relating to the plot, such as:
    • C.A.K.E.D: Capturize And Kidnapify Enemy Dessert.
    • G.H.O.S.T stands for "Ghostly Hamsters Overwhelm Spooky Treehouse"
    • L.U.N.C.H is "Lizzie Underappreciates Nigel's Chowtime Hardworkingness"
  • Color-Coded Characters / Five-Kid Band: Sector V
  • Combat Tentacles: The giant turnip's roots in "Operation: T.U.R.N.I.P." serve as prehensile weapons.
  • Comic-Book Adaptation: Comic stories based on Codename: Kids Next Door were featured in Cartoon Cartoons, Cartoon Network Block Party, and Cartoon Network Action Pack. Unlike most tie-in comics to Cartoon Network shows (especially at the time), a lot of these were directly written by Mr. Warburton himself, and are considered Canon (most notably the story revealing the Toiletnator to be Numbuh Four's uncle).
  • Comedic Spanking: Count Spankulot is built around this trope, as should be apparent from his name. He's pretty much a vampire, except that his powers are based on spanking naughty children rather than sucking blood. (Note that Spankulot is the only villain in the series to get in actual legal trouble for what he does, as he has taken this too far more than once.)
  • Company Cross References: Dexter makes a cameo as a balloon in a Zombie Apocalypse episode.
  • Competence Zone: Anyone 13 or older is a threat to the Kids Next Door, and must have their memories of the organization erased. In this universe, unlike the real one, many teenagers serve as loyal minions for adults (although there are plenty who just view kids as irritants). The show eventually subverted this in the episode "Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E.", which revealed that some teenaged KND agents are retained as undercover operatives. Which may or may not be a subtle Shout-Out to the Steve Miller Band.
  • Completely Off-Topic Report: "Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E.". The episode as a whole is presented as a widescreened history of kids and adults, narrated by Numbuh One. Towards the end of the story, Numbuh One's teacher interrupts and scolds him, revealing this story to be just an oral report, saying that the report had nothing to do with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: This show is practically built on conspiracies (sometimes literally). Not surprisingly, the KND were even responsible for the fake moon landing (presumably to keep the adults from discovering their lunar base).
  • Continuity Drift:
    • The first season finale, "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P.", seems kind of off after viewing later seasons. Instead of getting decommissioned, Nigel just leaves the group and gets a job with his memories intact. It stands to reason that they had no reason to go after him. By the system he was still 10 years old and it wouldn't have alerted the decommissioning department. (That, combined with the fact that Numbuh 86 hasn't been introduced yet.) None of his team would report him, either, so as far as anyone outside his team knew, nothing had changed.
    • The true scale of the KND itself only became clear in the later half of the first season. Before, it was implied Sector V was the KND as a whole. Related to this, Chad's actual role as KND's leader and Numbuh 1's friend was something added only in Season 2.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Frequently, such as Numbuh One recognizing A Glitch in the Matrix when he remembers that Numbuh Four can't swim.
    • A more subtle one is when the Toiletnator mistakes Knightbrace for Numbuh Four and refers to him as his greatest nemesis, likely due to Numbuh Four ruining his chances to look good in front of the other villains in "Operation: M.O.V.I.E.".
  • Continuity Snarl: The reason that Numbuh Five hates the Delightful Children so much is because they apparently made Numbuh One permanently bald, yet in "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y.", Numbuh One is seen during his training as already being bald (unless they somehow made him bald before his training).
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: In "Operation: U.N.C.O.O.L..", the Nerds Force captured members of the team to watch reruns of a show called Dr. Time-Space and the Continuums. (Not the last time this obvious parody of Doctor Who is mentioned negatively. Clearly, the writers were not fans. Though Numbuh 362 would beg to disagree in "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.")
  • Cool Shades: Numbuh One's got 'em.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: There are several villains on the show who happen to be unethical and vile businessmen.
    • Recurring antagonist Mr. Boss hates children and at one point tried to send all his employees' children into space solely to maximize the length of their working hours.
    • "Operation: R.AI.N.B.O.W.S." introduces Mr. Mogul, the head of the Rainbow Monkey Corporation. He manipulates Numbuh Three into helping him capture real Rainbow Monkeys with the intent of doing something horrible to the living, breathing creatures as well as Numbuh Three (exactly what he plans to do isn't revealed, but it's strongly implied that he wants to kill them and make them into toys).
    • The main villain Father is established in some episodes as owning a company called Evil Adult Industries, Inc. It's obvious the company does bad things if the name includes "evil".
  • Cowboy Episode:
    • "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S."
    • "Operation: M.E.S.S.A.G.E."
    • "Operation: N.U.G.G.E.T."
  • Crapsack World:
    • The world under Grandfather's rule. Imagine child labor during the Industrial Era and take it up to eleven.
    • What the world normally is. Let's face it, KND is one of the most screwed-up worlds.
  • Crazy Cat Lady: There's a recurring villain on the show with that exact name. She not only has an army of feral cats, but can combine them all to function together like one giant cat.
  • Creator Cameo: According to Mr. Warburton, a few of the crowd-filler villains are caricatures of the show's staff.note 
  • Credits Gag: The production team is given military-inspired job titles.
  • Creepy Blue Eyes: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane all have this.
  • Creepy Child:
    • Creepy children: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who all speak and even move in unison. Subverted in one episode where one of the DCFDTL appears to break free from the group to act as a spy for the KND. Double Subverted when he turns out to be The Mole and levitates back to them, and there's even a sickening squelching noise when he reasserts his place. His football helmet actually grew back on his head at the time, too. And that's on top of all five Delightful Children actually being brainwashed KND operatives. Triple The Mole?

      AND they turn back into KND operatives in Operation: Z.E.R.O. after being recommissioned. (Quadruple The Mole) This turns out to be a temporary Subversion of the Creepy Child. Unfortunately, this is a Double Subversion, as they turn back into the Delightful Children. (Quintuple Mole — Let's leave it at that.) Of course they stop talking in unison then too for the most part when they figure out they've been had; the others turn to Lenny and say, "Lenny, you're an idiot", suggesting the whole thing was his idea.
    • Their counterparts from Japan, The Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain, also fall into this.
  • Creepy Monotone: See directly above. The Delightfuls subvert this a few times, though, most notably in "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P.", mainly to highlight just how scary an angry Father is.
  • Crossover: "The Grim Adventures of the Kids Next Door". Oddly enough, although Numbuh Three made a Crossover Cameo appearance in Billy & Mandy's Big Boogie Adventure, she didn't acknowledge — or even seem to remember — that in the actual crossover. (Over course, while the crossover was shown after the special was, it was never stated which story happened first, chronologically.)
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Sector V, initially. Being the main characters of the show, it's implied at first that they're the only Kids Next Door operatives; however, when the organization is shown to have teams across the globe, Sector V is shown to be one of, if not the best around. Numbuh 362 even explicitly refers to them at one point as the best team in the organization.
  • Cyborg: Bradley, after getting run over by a car (Which incidentally Cree happens to be driving) and then being healed with cybernetic implants, becoming R.O.B.O.B.R.A.D.L.E.Y.
  • Dance Battler: The school musical episode, where the performers (led by the gang) use choreographed dancing to dodge laser blasts fired by the Delightful Children's battlesuit.
  • Darkest Hour: The season 1 finale. The Delightful Children have turned Numbuh One into an adult, leaving Sector V leaderless, the treehouse is destroyed, and Numbuh One has been forced to get a job as an ice cream man for the Children. This was before the rest of the KND was introduced properly, so they couldn't even call on any reinforcements. Sector V is reduced to using a cardboard box as a temporary HQ.
  • Darkhorse Victory: "Your new fourth grade president is.... EGBERT EGGLESTON!"
  • A Day in the Limelight: All of the Sector V members get at least one episode focusing on them as the main protagonist, Numbuh One and Numbuh Five in particular get several.
  • Defeat by Modesty: In "Operation: B.U.T.T.", the Delightful Children from Down the Lane get their comeuppance for blackmailing Numbuh One over an embarrassing photograph of his bare butt when their pants and skirts are stolen by the other members of Sector V.
  • Demon Head: Numbuh Three often displays this.
    Kuki: Toys? I don't want toys... I WANT REVENGE!!
  • Developer's Foresight: The G:KND website has a number of responses to things you can type in. Many recognized keywords include characters who were only present for an episode or two, such as the Amish KND. Non-KND keywords are also recognized, such as Curious Pictures or Cartoon Network. Humorously, inputting swears will garner responses.
  • Disability Alibi: In Season 4's "Operation: C.L.U.E.S.", when someone stabbed Numbuh Three's Rainbow Monkey doll in the back with a fork during dinner, Numbuh Two accuses his grandma of doing it due to being old and mean. His grandma admits she would have done it too if it wasn't for her back, her arthritis, that funny little crick in her neck, and her bunion.
  • Disguised in Drag: Numbuh Four becomes Numbuh 4-30teen-7 for "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.".
  • Disney Villain Death: The Delightful Children and Father both fall victim to the trope of falling to their deaths in the Grand Finale, though the latter case is subverted.
  • The Dissenter Is Always Right: This role will usually get swapped around between Numbuh One and Numbuh Five on occasion. If Nigel's suggesting ridiculous theories of what the adults could be planning, they'll likely end up being true. For Abigail, most of this role is relegated to Heinrich Von Marzipan, a former partner who refuses to believe every warning of hers due to his greedy sweet tooth, which would lead to things not ending in his favor, and then immediately blaming her for it. His way of holding a grudge for what happened between them in Guatemala.
  • Distant Finale: The "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." series finale sees the members of Sector V as adults.
  • Doctor Whomage: The Show Within a Show "Doctor Time, Space, and the Continuum."
  • Does Not Like Men:
    • Numbuh 86. Subverted in a comic where she's accidentally decommissioned, and starts to smooch every boy on Moonbase. Hilarity Ensues. She recovers, though.
    • Madame Margaret in "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.". She goes so far as to try to wipe out the gender over 75 years, with the help of time travel.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Operation: P.O.I.N.T.":
    Numbuh One: How can they do that in a car?
    Numbuh Two: Cooo-oool! What are you guys so grossed out about? Cheese fries always taste better after a couple of days!
  • Door Dumb: In "Operation: F.A.S.T.-F.O.O.D.", Numbuh Three goes to open the double-sided door to the fast-food restaurant. After trying to open from the left side and failing, Numbuh One opens it from the right without any trouble.
  • Dope Slap: Numbuh Five dope-slaps Numbuh Four after the latter eats some Coco Nut Logs despite being allergic to coconut.
  • Double Standard: Violence, Child on Adult: The series revolves around his trope. Children beating up adults is played for laughs, while it's played as a Kick the Dog moment when an adult hurts a child.
  • The Dragon: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane are Co-Dragons to Father.
  • Drinking Contest: The Pirates of the Caribbean parody episode replaces the alcohol with mugs and sacks of pure sugar.
  • Driven to Suicide: Both unintentional and subverted with Hotheaded Numbuh Three in "Operation: H.O.T.S.T.U.F.F.". Subverted because while her house is about to blow up due to her messing with the thermometer, she doesn't care, because she has power over the house, though it's not exactly suicide.
  • Dude, Where's My Reward?: Tommy Gilligan saves the organization, but doesn't get re-enlisted due to security measures.

    Tropes E to H 
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The early episodes, mainly season 1, portrayed Sector V as fairly flat characters with little real personality or emotion beyond their main traits. Later in season 1 and especially from season 2 onward, their personalities and emotions were fleshed out more and they had more depth added to them.
    • Similarly, at first, Sector V seemed to be the only existing group of the Kids Next Door as some sort of unique and special operations group of friends, but they were quickly referred to as merely an outpost of a larger group starting around "Operation: Q.U.I.E.T.", which would eventually grow into the organization's Myth Arc and steadily be expanded by numerous characters both recurring and one-off. Sector V was also originally depicted as being a bit more prone to failure on their missions, getting battered around like they really were just a bunch of kids way in over their heads without their 2x4 technology.
    • The early episodes are a lot more prone to Monster of the Week if the Delightful Children were not the recurring antagonists, to the point that moreso than any other season there's a bunch of one-off villains and evil things never seen or mentioned again. This worked with the early formula of just kids messing around fighting whatever kids could consider evil, but as the story started to emphasize more continuity, some of the villains would become recurring as well as less random, though the series never entirely disposes of one-offs.
    • Teenagers were initially introduced as a neutral party from kids and adults, with the Kids Next Door even being horrified with the implication of them turning into adults. However, the second season established them as villainous as the adults and the Delightful Children.
  • Eating the Enemy:
    • In the episode "Operation: N.O.P.O.W.U.H.", Grandma Stuffum, a Lethal Chef, invades the kids headquarters and force-feeds them her sentient Anthropomorphic Food when all their weapons are out of power. It's then that Big Eater Numbuh Two tries to invoke this trope by eating all the food, but ends up getting too full. Just when it seems Granny's won, the KND hamsters return from their vacation and devour all the food. Numbuh Two then sends Granny flying on his catapult.
    • Granny returns later in the episode "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E.", where this time she tries to invoke the trope on the KND. After fighting with her food minions for a while she summons Slamwich, a giant sandwich monster that gobbles up the KND. But fortunately, Numbuh Two is able to call upon their hamster Joaquin who used the growth ray to get big and eat the sandwich back, freeing the KND.
  • Edible Treasure: Played with, where the food — specifically candy — is literally treasure, apparently worth more than gold. This leads to a number of pirate and Indiana Jones-style romps as Numbuh Five continues her everlasting quest to satisfy her Sweet Tooth.
  • Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Battle-Ready Armor in its inactive state.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Numbuh 86's real name is Fanny.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • In "Operation: I.T.", the Delightful Children sell Father out and help the KND, because even THEY can't stand broccoli.
    • Rather large example in "Operation: M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S.". After Sector V spent the whole story fighting nearly ever villain in the series over the last box of cereal in a supermarket, Knightbrace grabs it, but since he's a villainous dentist he intends to destroy it, not eat it. So the heroes call a truce with the other villains to get from him. (And then all of them are able to share it at the end, making it a happy ending for everyone except Knightbrace.)
    • The KND and Delightful Children team up to escape the Child Zoo in "Operation: Z.O.O.".
  • Epic Fail: In "Operation: D.A.D.D.Y.", Mr. Boss intends to save money by cutting the hair of his own children instead of taking them to a barber. The resulting haircut on his son is impossibly bad.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Subverted by Black John Licorice; according to Stickybeard's sea shanty, he would even steal candy from his own mother.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In "Operation: D.A.D.D.Y." Mr. Boss and his daughter, Numbuh 86, are shown to have a very solid and loving relationship, despite the fact that she is a KND operative.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Plenty of villains in the series have shown to do this:
    • Stickybeard saves Sector V from the giant white asparagus because while he steals candy from kids, he won't allow anyone to be forced to eat asparagus.
    • Every villain in "Operation: M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S." is shocked and appalled when Knightbrace reveals that he bought the last box of Rainbow Munchies cereal just to destroy it. They don't even hesitate in teaming up with Sector V to beat Knightbrace up and take it from him.
    • If you type in any profanity in the GKND site, it will tell you to watch your language. In fact, it will react in disgust if you type in a certain part of the male anatomy.
  • Everyone Has Standards: KND's mission is to fight adult tyranny and oppression, but some kids want to eliminate adults all together.
  • Evil Duo: Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb, parodies of James Bond's Mr. Wynt and Mr. Kidd.
  • Eviler than Thou: A lighthearted and hilarious example occurs in "Operation: A.W.A.R.D.S." The nominees for best villain of the year are Father (who is favored to win), Mr. Boss, Grandma Stuffum, and Stickybeard. Unfortunately, after Numbuh One (who they intended to use as the reward) is rescued by the rest of Sector V, the four villains get into a fight over who should win, and when Knightbrace actually opens the envelope to announce the winner, a bomb set by the heroes goes off, preventing anyone from knowing who the winner is. (The fight between the four continues into the end credits.)
  • Evil Counterpart: "Operation: P.O.O.L." is all about this. Everyone in the alternate reality is an Evil Counterpart of the people in the "real world" (except if they're evil in our world, in which case they are Good Counterparts. The biggest difference is, in this case, a few Evil Counterparts seem to have some capacity for good at the end. Except Evil Numbuh Four.
  • Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor:
    • The Delightful Children usually gloat and make jokes about how their enemies are going to meet their demise or be humiliated by them. For instance:
      Delightful Children: So, Kids Next Door, what do you say about a trip to Pluto? Have a "delightful" flight! [cue evil laugh]
    • Subverted with Negative Numbuh Two in "Operation: P.O.O.L.". Since the good Numbuh Two has an awful sense of humor, his Evil Counterpart is funny.
  • Evil Teacher:
    • While you would have expected this type of villain to have been common, the team tended to have bigger problems with evil students than with teachers. In fact, the closest they ever came to a villain like this was Mrs. Thompson, the Were-Dog Queen, and she was a subversion, having been inflicted by the curse of lycanthropy by an angry ex-husband. She turned out to actually be a rather decent sort in the end. (Well, not decent enough to bend the rules and excuse Numbuh Four's bad schoolwork, even though he was the one who broke the curse, but still decent compared to most adults on the show.)
    • One possible example is Mr. Frybingle, Numbuh One and Two's history teacher from "Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E.", whose actions appear to imply Nigel's insane, conspiracy-heavy report is actually true.
    • The Parent-Teacher Organization of Eradicating Youngsters fits the bill pretty well, but they're incredibly minor members of the KND's Rogues Gallery. Hell, they weren't even the focus of their debut episode!
  • Exact Words: In "Operation: Z.O.O.", Sector V gets invited to a children's zoo. It turns out to be a zoo that keeps kids in cages instead of animals... and the lady running it makes them one of the exhibits!
  • Expy: Moosk in "Operation: K.N.O.T." is obviously an Expy of Baldur's Gate's Minsk, right down to both characters being voiced by Jim Cummings.
  • Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Played with. In the episode "Operation: P.O.O.L", Sector V discovers Numbuh 4's pool leads to an alternate universe of identical evil doppelgangers, and multiple times the doppelgangers try to take the original's place. Both Numbuh 1 and Numbuh 4 are able to immediately tell they weren't talking to Lizzie and Numbuh 3 by looking into their eyes, with Numbuh 4 even pointing out that Negative Numbuh 3's eyes look "mean" compared to her counterpart. However, the artstyle gives everyone Black Bead Eyes no matter which side they're on, so the audience themselves can't tell the difference.
  • Face–Heel Turn:
    • Cree and Chad after they turned 13. Except in the case of Chad he's a Fake Defector.
    • Also every other decommissioned KND operative (with the exception of the special ops who keep their memories to spy on the teenagers/adults).
    • This actually applies to kid characters too; in "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R." one of the operatives betrays the others because her birthday is coming up and she'd rather just get her heel turn over with sooner than later.
  • The Faceless: The trope of a character always having their face obscured is played with for all of Sector V's parents. Numbuh Two and Numbuh Three's parents are Aversions. Numbuh One's dad is played straight and then subverted in his first appearance. Lenny's is played straight then subverted in "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R." Numbuh Four's parents are subverted and played straight when wanted, and Numbuh Five's parents play it straight.
  • Face Palm: Frequent, mostly for Numbuh One and Numbuh Five.
  • Fake Defector: The teenager in "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E." is often mistaken for pretending to betray the Kids Next Door as a cover for helping them out. Maurice and Chad are actual ones.
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: Numbuh Four busts out laughing in "Operation: F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N." when Leona threatens to kill him and his friends, because of her horrible lisp.
  • Fallen Hero:
    • Both Cree and Chad used to be Kids Next Door operatives, but are now enemies working for the Teen Ninjas. Cree is also a Broken Pedestal to her younger sister Abigail, who looked up to her in her days as a Kids Next Door operative.
    • Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb might qualify, possibly. They were members of a group that was similar to the KND before they grew up and turned rotten. (Whether they were any good at it, on the other hand, isn't clear.)
  • False Start: Numbuh Four's crush on Numbuh Three. This quickly becomes a Running Gag.
  • "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: "Operation: S.P.R.O.U.T." had the team get inside Numbuh Four's body in order to get rid of a brussel sprout he ate before it permanently changed him.
  • Fat and Skinny: "Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W." introduces the obese head of the Rainbow Monkey Corporation named Mr. Mogul and his thin assistant Simon.
  • Fat Bastard: One thing this show has no shortage of would be overweight people who happen to be mean or evil.
    • Cheese Shogun Roquefort, an obese samurai who likes to steal cheese from people.
    • Chester, a fat guy who often attempts get-rich-quick schemes that revolve around exploiting and/or harming children.
    • Numbuh Five's rival Heinrich Von Marzipan, a chubby lad who will do anything to get candy, even if he has to steal from other children or kill a first grade class's pet in order to get it.
    • Stickybeard, an obese candy pirate who loves stealing candy from children.
    • Grandma Stuffum is a Lethal Chef who is overweight and is often trying to force-feed children with her revolting food.
    • Mr. Boss is a fat Corrupt Corporate Executive who once tried to send his employees' children into space just so that their working hours would last much longer.
    • The Crazy Old Cat Lady is yet another obese enemy of the Kids Next Door. The Toiletnator even refers to her as "portly" in "Operation: F.L.U.S.H." when he mistakes her for a disguised Numbuh Two.
    • Mr. Mogul, the rotund head of the Rainbow Monkey Corporation, who in "Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W.S." tried to manipulate Numbuh Three into helping him capture real Rainbow Monkeys with the intent of doing something horrible to the living creatures. The exact details aren't given, but it's implied he wants to kill the real Rainbow Monkeys and make them into toys.
    • Former class president James Nixon McGarfield used to be on the Kids Next Door's side, but eventually became a corrupt and pudgy antagonist.
    • Subverted with Professor XXXL, who's a stocky mad scientist, but only wants to create the perfect snow cone. The sole reason he fights the Kids Next Door is because they assume he's up to no good and attack him unprovoked.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Eating broccoli is seen as this. Even so much as the threat of it is one of the few things that can bring the series Big Bad, Father, to his knees. Brussels sprouts as well, as indicated in "Operation: S.P.R.O.U.T.".
  • Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Jimmy Nixon McGarfield, the Fourth Grade President-for-Life, is a tween example. He starts out with the typical white suit but gets a black one once he's officially a villain (and Vader parody).
  • Felony Misdemeanor:
    • Almost all the villains are built on this. Simple things most kids don't like doing such as homework, washing dishes, and eating vegetables are blown to world-destroying proportions. Usually because said villains take it to said proportions.
    • One episode features a hardware-store owner who wants to eliminate two aviators who bought their plane parts from him. Why? Because they kept smudging his counter with chili. Disproportionate Retribution much?
    • This kids = good/adults = bad thing is taken to such a degree that in "Operation: P.O.O.L." it is made to be a bad thing that the adults were doing the things kids do (playing games, getting allowances, etc.) while kids do the things adults do (go to work, taking care of the adults) on a relatively daily basis. How funny that the actions are only awful when they're not being done by their accepted respective age groups.
    • It's normally only shown to be bad when the supervillains take it to extremes; the KND are normally shown having really good relationships with their own parents, even when 86's father is Mr. Boss, and they even state in some episodes that they only fight evil adults. The supervillains' plots are normally something most normal adults in the series would likely have a problem with if they knew (in some cases, this is shown actively).
    • And at the end of "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", it's revealed that adulthood is literally a disease. One that's spreading unchecked across the universe.
  • Fiery Redhead: Numbuh 86, topped off with her being from Scot Ireland.
  • Finale Credits:
    • The end credits of the season 1 finale "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P." has sector V rebuilding their Treehouse.
    • The end credits of season 2 finale "Operation: E.N.D." shows the aftermath of the battle with the now traitorous Numbuh 274 where Numbuhs Two to Five are all recommissioned. Then they, along with Numbuh One, are having fun on the Moon while Tommy has to clean up the mess made from the battle and then ends with Sector V returning to Earth.
    • The end credits for the series finale "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." shows a quick montage of stills from every episodes with the ending song playing until it ends with a picture of Sector V watching a sunset outside the Treehouse with the words "Stay young" above them.
  • Fireball Eyeballs: Numbuh Three's eyes can get this way when she gets angry enough for whatever reason.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: Numbuh 19th Century, a KND operative from the 1800s frozen in time, thawed out in the present, and thoroughly confused by the modern world.
  • Five-Token Band: One Brit (with a Spanish or Italian name), one American Jew, one Japanese, one Australian, and one half-French African-American. The extended cast is even more varied, though most of the stories take place in the U.S.
  • Flanderization: A minor case with The Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who have always spoken and moved in unison, but in later episodes this is taken even further as they are practically considered a single entity, from wearing a single costume large enough for them to all fit in to having all five of them simultaneously date Numbuh Three.
  • Flashback: Used to open "Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E.", "Operation: H.O.M.E.", "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E." and "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y.".
  • Forced Transformation: In "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", almost the entire KND is turned into animals by the DCFDTL's "animalization" ray.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Assuming it isn't rendered non-canon, "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." ends up being a retroactive one for the GKND plotline. Since Earth is still intact and all of Sector V has grown to adulthood with the GKND still being a secret, it obviously means that the GKND's plans were foiled and Nigel is back on good terms with Sector V.
  • Foreshadowing: In "Operation: P.O.O.L.", the Delightful Children's good counterparts are called the "Little Traitor Dudes for Children's Defense", indicating they may have been defectors from the KND's Evil Counterpart, the DNK. In Operation: Z.E.R.O., it's revealed that the Delightful Children are KND operatives turned "traitor", although they were brainwashed, mirroring their Mirror Universe.
    • Also, the gag with "Daddy"? Not just a gag.
    • In "Operation: R.E.C.R.U.I.T.", the mother of the KND recruit yells "I told you to keep it down up there, kids". An odd statement given that there is only one kid up there, hinting that the recruit is really The Interesting Twins.
  • For the Evulz: Negative Numbuh Four.
    Numbuh Two: Why are you doing this?
    Negative Numbuh Four: A simple reason really. I'm EVIL!
  • Formerly Friendly Family:
    • Abby and Cree. Back when Cree was still a KND operative, she and Abby were as tight as could possibly be, with Cree even being the prior owner of Abby's hat. However, in present day, Cree is now a teen and a traitor to the KND, as well as being a common minion of Father's, with the two now being bitter enemies.
    • Numbuh Three and her younger sister, Mushi, start the show very close, with there being hints that Mushi looks up to Kuki. Then Mushi ends up falling for King Sandy and things take a turn for the worse. She ends up stabbing Kuki's Posh Party rainbow monkey, leaving the sisters hating each other.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Averted. And to a degree that makes it clear why this trope is usually played straight.
  • Fratbro: Numbuh Four finds a whole tribe of them living under his couch.
  • Free-Range Children: The kids in this series can do whatever they want with little to no adult supervision. In fact, most adults barely seem to care about what the kids get up too.
  • Friendly Enemy: "Operation: E.N.G.L.A.N.D." shows us that Sector E and the "Rowdy Hooligans from Across the Square" put aside their differences to relax and tell jokes. Numbuh One questions why they don't fight each other, and they respond that fighting over a Rainbow Monkey library book is something that Americans would do.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes:
    • Thanks to her Drill Sergeant Nasty, sometimes misogynistic attitude and having a Hair-Trigger Temper, Numbuh 86 secures herself a spot as one of the least tolerated members of the KND. In "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.", she has to recruit four operatives into coming to spend the night at her house since she isn't formally friends with anyone, and when all is said and done, only Numbuh Three is willing to befriend her.
    • Numbuh 13 also, mainly due to being The Millstone and The Jinx. It's to the point that in "Operation: I.T.", being presented with the possibility of him being Soopreme Leader is enough for many operatives to forgo their dislike of the job and dog pile him just so he wouldn't be it, with one even exclaiming "anyone but him!"
    • The only operative who appears to like Numbuh 363 is his sister. This is because he's an arrogant brat who cares for no one but himself and flies off the handle the second someone touches him. Even his own teammates don't like him and no one sheds a tear who he gets himself decommissioned.
    • On the villains side, the Toiletnator is this for likewise being incompetent and immature, only serving to exasperate his associates or ruining their plans altogether.
  • Friend to All Living Things:
    • Numbuh Three. Even the Crazy Cat Lady's cats seem to show affection towards her (much to the villain's dismay).
    • Numbuh One seems to have a way with animals too in at least one episode, where he befriends a herd of Rainbow Monkeys (big ones) and at the end of the episode, sics them on the Delightful Children.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: Parodied in an episode where root beer is treated like actual beer, complete with references to U.S. Prohibition. In fact, all soda is pretty much treated like alcohol in the KND universe. And then there was the ep where Numbuh Five and Stickybeard had a drinking contest, by downing huge frothy mugs of pure sugar.
  • Fun with Acronyms: In spades. The KND seem to absolutely LOVE invoking this!
    • Goes hand in hand with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, but the various machines the kids use also have acronym names. Some episodes will pause the action when an invention is about to be used, showcasing that invention and rattling off the acronym. The evil KND in "Operation P.O.O.L" got one of these scenes of their own with the S.P.L.A.T.T.L.E. (Smartalecky Prisoner Lobotomizing Apparatus Terrifyingly Tortures Loser Enemy).
    • And in the Mirror Universe episode, the acronyms are even reversed — the counterpart to the Kids Next Door (KND) are the Destructively Nefarious Kids (DNK) and the counterpart to the Delightful Children From Down The Lane (DCFDTL) are the Little Traitor Dudes For Children's Defense (LTDFCD).
    • Only the pilot episode didn't have fun with them — "No P in the OOL".
  • Gainax Ending: Several episodes end rather weirdly, sometimes leading into It Was All Just A Dream... until it seems that they'll really face the danger for real. Notable examples being "Operation: S.I.T.T.E.R.", "S.A.F.A.R.I." and "D.U.C.K.Y.".
  • Garnishing the Story: Candy pirates.
  • Gender Bender: "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E."
  • Gender Bender Angst: In the episode "Operation C.A.R.A.M.E.L", it's revealed that Heinrich Von Marzipan turned evil as the result of a magical gender change without the benefits of Attractive Bent-Gender.
  • Genki Girl: Numbuh Three. "Genki" is even her mother's name (which is rather a subversion as Genki is anything but). What's more, they're both voiced by Lauren Tom. Also, her sister Mushi is this.
  • Ghostly Animals: In "Operation: G.H.O.S.T.", Kuki's favorite hamster Chubbo dies. During the night, the spirits of all the deceased hamsters that once served the KND drag Kuki into their afterlife, where she gets reunited with Chubbo and is given the choice to stay. Because she denies the offer, the spirits start haunting the outside world until some currently alive hamsters stop them.
  • Girl Scouts Are Evil
  • Girls Have Cooties: "Operation: O.U.T.B.R.E.A.K."; Sector V is sent on a mission to decontaminate the organization's underwater research center from the much-feared Coojatisnal Octo Oogie Terta Infecto Epi Streptacaucus.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: And they absolutely adore Rainbow Monkeys.
  • A Glitch in the Matrix: Numbuh One finds one when he notices that Numbuh Four is at a pool party paddling around despite being unable to swim.
  • The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry:
    • Exaggerated with Numbuh Five and her sister, Cree, a teenager and thus a sworn enemy of the Kids Next Door.
    • Also, there have been hints of this between Numbuh Three and her younger sister, Mushi, especially in "Operation: C.L.U.E.S.".
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: "Operation: M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S." ends with Sector V and several of the villains happily enjoying the last box of Rainbow Munchies cereal together in the Supervillains Supermarket. Count Spankulot even politely passes Numbuh Four the milk when he asks for it.
  • The Good Guys Always Win: Refreshingly averted. The KND fail almost as often as they win, which gives the show a little more tension.
  • Good-Guy Bar: Lime Ricky's, seen in "Operation: P.O.P." and "Operation: P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.".
  • Gonk: With the exception of Cree, some other teenagers, and Ms. Thompson (if you consider the last a villain) bad guys are almost always ugly, and a few are deformed. At very least, a villain usually has something odd about his or her appearance.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Numbuh Four's constant use of the word crud.
  • Grand Finale: "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." serves as the conclusion to the series, where the adult selves of Numbuh Two, Numbuh Three, Numbuh Four, and Numbuh Five are interviewed about the events of their last mission with Numbuh One before he was selected to join the Galactic Kids Next Door.
  • G-Rated Drug: The show has a few examples.
    • Soda is treated like alcohol in a few episodes (the main focus of "Operation: P.O.P.").
    • In "Operation: S.P.A.N.K.E.N.S.T.E.I.N.", Numbuh Two reveals that he was once "addicted" to chocolate sauce, but quit. (But at the end of the episode, eats some of it after Mushi runs away with King Sandy, saying that she's "enough to make you go on the sauce", "the sauce" being a common slang term for alcohol.)
    • Coffee is still coffee outright but its effects on people and reputation in the universe are drug-like (giving the drinker bullet-time abilities, super speed, and having notably addictive qualities, in addition to the drinker crashing hard after it wears off).
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Frequently used by the KND and the villains.
  • Grounded Forever: Mushi by the end of "Operation: C.L.U.E.S." is grounded for life after she "killed" Kuki's Posh Party Rainbow Monkey. Later, in "Operation: S.P.A.N.K.E.N.S.T.I.N.E.", her punishment is increased to a five lifetime grounding after she brings the Rainbow Monkey back to life as a giant monster.
  • Growing Up Sucks: Oh so very much, however a fair few could considered to be lucky enough. In "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." however, the now adult members of Sector V discover it is a lot better than they thought.
  • Gum In Hair: This is a favorite tactic of the Six-Gum Gang. Since their revolvers fire chewing gum, they commonly fire it at other kids' hair.
  • Half-Identical Twins: The Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain.
  • Halloween Episode: The episode segments "Operation: T.R.I.C.K.Y." and "Operation: U.N.C.O.O.L."
  • Hammerspace: Where the KND store most of their cool gadgets.
    • There is an episode where Numbuh One pulls out at least eight weapons one at a time from nowhere, only to be blasted by Cree.
    • And in "Operation: E.N.G.L.A.N.D.", Numbuh One gives the airport security a nightmare with the mountain of junk on his person.
  • Hand-or-Object Underwear:
    • All of Sector V (sans Numbuh Four) get hit by a nude torpedo in "Operation: A.R.C.T.I.C." They use their hands to cover up their nudity.
    • In "Operation: B.U.T.T.", Numbuh One covers himself with his hands when he loses his swimming trunks and the Delightful Children from Down the Lane cover their pelvic regions with their hands when the other members of Sector V steal their pants and skirts.
  • Harmless Villain: The Toiletnator. Even at his best, when he actually bypasses the treehouse's security systems and takes control of Sector V, he STILL SCREWS UP a much larger plan that Mr. Boss and the other villains were planning beforehand (leaving him out of ammunition and easily beaten by the real team when they show up). In fact, he does that twice. The Toiletnator is so pathetic that he can't even claim the title of "Best Toilet-Based Villain". In "Operation: A.W.A.R.D.S.", he was nominated for that title in an awards ceremony hosted by Mr. Boss, but lost to Potty Mouth.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Father. He says so himself in Operation: Z.E.R.O.
  • Hate Sink: Numbuh 363 in "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." His entire purpose in the episode is to screw with Sector V as much as possible, gloat when he steals their wins, use his sister's position as Supreme Leader to boss people around, and ultimately, due to his extreme hated of being touched, being the one to alert Father that KND members were inside his house. He's such an enormous pain that the grown-up Numbuh Five explains that, upon being appointed Supreme Leader, she had to have him decommissioned due to his tendency to freak out upon being touched, often resulting in compromising the mission for his team.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Mr. White, a a pair of underpants hired by the Delightful Children to assassinate Numbuh One. He changes sides when he discovers that Numbuh One folds his underwear.
    • The Destructively Nefarious Kids (except for Negative Numbuh Four) decide to stop enslaving other kids and decide to create a perfect world for kids and adults.
    • Heinrich (or Henrietta) stops being a greedy and corrupt candy hunter when he/she turns back to normal.
  • Hero Academy: The KND's Arctic Base Cadet Training program counts as this.
  • Heroes Unlimited: What, you thought the main characters were the only ones?
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Inevitable in a series that revolves around children being enemies with people of older age groups. Everyone has to grow up sometime, you know?
  • Hidden Eyes: Each operative from Sector V has hidden eyes of different varieties. Numbuh One has Cool Shades, Numbuh Two has goggles that do nothing, Numbuh Three has Eyes Always Shut, Numbuh Four has bangs, and Numbuh Five has a hat covering her top face (Never mind the fact that they have Black Bead Eyes anyway).
  • High on Catnip: Catnip causes the Cat Lady's cats to have a sudden dance party.
  • Hive Mind: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who seem to represent conformity personified; although later episodes make it clear that they're not a literal case of one mind shared by five bodies, they always speak and act in unison. It's kind of telling that in "Operation: R.E.P.O.R.T.", Numbuh Two's side of the story is the only one that depicts them with five separate bodies rather than five heads on a single two-armed body.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: A few villains are defeated in this fashion.
    • For example, Chester being trapped in his own Lotus-Eater Machine.
    • An interesting example of this is the way Father was defeated in "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.". While his plan did fail and it did indeed fit this trope, Father was such a Manipulative Bastard that he was able to use it to his advantage for a later scheme, in "Operation: I.T.". (Unfortunately for him, he was ultimately Hoisted by His Own Petard at the end of that scheme as well.)
  • Homage: Many separate occasions.
    • Their parodies of Star Wars border on ripping it off and The Matrix homages don't even pretend otherwise.
    • "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.", the Christmas Episode, is presented like a comic book. It includes a group of Santa helpers which Expies the X-Men (they have one Wolverine, one Nightcrawler, one Angel and one Colossus) with a name parodying Alpha Flight, a group of enemies that Expies the Fantastic Four (with reference to an unseen team that are expies of The Avengers), a present-delivery machine that resembles Cerebro and Numbuh Three turns crazily overpowered and evil, only to be stopped by Numbuh Four, à la X-Men 3. Tom Kenny even narrates in the style of Stan Lee (as The Man himself narrated Marvel cartoons— most notably Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the unsold Pryde of the X-Men pilot).
    • "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y." is also an X-Men homage, Senator Safely being an expy of Senator Kelly, and the Safety-Bots the Sentinels.
  • Hostage-Handler Huddle: In the episode "Operation: L.I.C.O.R.I.C.E.", Heinrich ate the seed that Black John and crew needed to break their curse. The crew gives suggestions on how to get it back:
    Pirate 1: Then I say we plunge his stomach to get the seed!
    Pirates: Yeah!
    Pirate 2: I say reach down his throat and grab it!
    Pirates: Yeah!
    Pirate 3: I say kick him in the stomach 'til he coughs up the seed!
    Pirates: Yeah!
    Pirate 4: I say we plunge him, reach down his throat, kick him in the stomach, and give him the worst wedgie of his life!
    Pirates: Yeah!
    Heinrich Von Marzipan: I say we send him home.
  • Hourglass Plot: "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y." between Numbuh One and Chad. To hammer the point home, the dominant color of their clothing in the Flashback (Blue for One, Red for Chad) is the opposite of their clothing in the present (Red for One, Blue for Chad) and Numbuh One beats Chad by using the same technique Chad beat him with in the flashback.
  • Human Popsicle: Numbuh 19th Century was frozen in an ice cream explosion in the early 1800s and was the only operative at the Alamode who was not discovered within a few years of the incident. He ended up being found and thawed out in the present day.
  • Humongous Mecha: H.I.P.P.Y.-H.O.P., and many, many others, made of everything from lawn chairs to treehouses to cats.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: "Operation: S.A.F.A.R.I."
  • Hurricane of Puns: The puntastic Numbuh Two gets one of his own in "Operation B.U.T.T.".
  • Husky Russkie: Moosk has a Russian accent and is a very large and strong man.
  • Hypno Trinket: The Boyfriend Helmet.
  • Hypocrite:
    • If any villain embodies this trait on the show, it's Mr. Fizz. When adults make soda illegal for kids, he becomes a sort of evil Eliot Ness in charge of enforcing the law, and tells the Operatives that the reason children are such a problem is because of their addiction to the stuff. However, his credibility is ruined by the fact that he is far more addicted to stuff than any of them are, even going so far as to use a caffeine rush to fight them.
    • There are also the Vespinaccians; see Straw Hypocrite, below.
  • Hypocritical Humor: In one episode, Lizzie criticizes Nigel about his weight when she's much fatter than he is. Although, her fatter form is merely a holographic disguise...

    Tropes I to L 
  • I Ate WHAT?!:
    • Used in "Operation: P.I.N.K.E.Y.E.", where Numbuh Two is eating Nurse Claiborne's crumbles as he's investigating the mystery epidemic of pinkeye going around the school. Once it gets out that it is Claiborne herself who was the one infecting the students with pinkeye, it also becomes apparent that she was using eye crust for her crumbles, making Numbuh Two gag at the very fact that he was eating them. However, at the very end, he goes back to eating them. However, Numbuh Two may have second thoughts after finding out that the filling of the crumbles is mucus.
    • "Operation: H.O.M.E." has Nurse Claiborne improve Rainbow Monkeys cereal by making the sweet bits out of actual Rainbow Monkey dolls. Kuki was less than thrilled to find this out.
    • In "Operation: S.C.I.E.N.C.E.", Numbuh Two tries to win the 2x4 technology fair with an invention resembling snot called "I Can't Believe It's Not Boogers", only to gross everyone out, especially when he starts touting the substance's edibility. He gets the judges to try some after assuring them that it's not really made of boogers. They find "I Can't Believe It's Not Boogers" delicious, but are immediately disgusted when Numbuh Two tells them that it's actually made of earwax.
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!:
    • Hoagie (Numbuh Two) was so addicted to chocolate sauce that he used to bathe in it. Eventually he had to sign up to Chocoholics Anonymous.
    • In the KND universe, candy is the number one source of happiness. If a child is kept from candy too long or is given a non-candy substitute, they go through an exaggerated form of withdrawal.
    • In "Operation: L.I.C.O.R.I.C.E.", Black John Licorice challenges Abigail (Numbuh Five) to gulping down mugs of sugar. Numbuh Five's sugar level becomes so high that her eyes widen and she begins to shake violently.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode is titled "Operation: (insert acronym relevant to the episode's plot)".
  • Idiot Ball:
    • In almost every case, an enemy's shortcomings come with some twist of irony during their first defeats, which are preceded by a nearly foolproof plan that the KND narrowly escape due to a small oversight. Mr's Wink and Fibb's device destroys a pool they were protecting during adult swim, Father the pyro is buried under ice cream that only adults have access to after turning Numbuh One into an adult, Grandfather is decommissioned while fighting his son... AGAIN, candy-lover Heinrich is thrown in a chocolate volcano, and so on.
    • Father's most powerful robot single-handedly decimates the Kids Next Door without a scratch in the first season finale, yet he never deploys it beforehand... because he doesn't want it to get scratched. It makes a few minor appearances as a suped-up limo for the Delightful Children after.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The "School-yard bully" in "Operation: Z.O.O.". (Oddly enough, the same character appears later in "Operation: P.O.P.", as the bouncer in Lime Ricky's, a Good-Guy Bar, and seems harmless.)
  • Impossibly Delicious Food: Rainbow Munchies cereal is so delicious that everyone, KND members and villains alike, loves it. Everyone, that is... except Knightbrace, who buys the last box of Rainbow Munchies to destroy it. All of the villains promptly form a truce with Sector V to give him a collective No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Indy Hat Roll: One of the many trademark Indy moves executed by Numbuh Five. Complete with reaching back for her fallen hat in "Operation: L.I.C.E." — although this time it's a trap from the DCFDTL: this is not her hat.
  • Injection Plot: In "Operation: S.A.F.A.R.I.", Numbuh One goes to get a shot from Dr. Phineas B. Sharp, who hunts him in his jungle of an office. He then finds out the whole "moose-bump shot" is a plot by Chester to turn kids into literal moose, but the whole thing turns out to be a crazy story he's is telling his mom on the way to the doctor's.
  • In Medias Res: Many an episode start in the middle of the conflict rather than the beginning.
  • In Name Only: The defunct online game Operation: B.E.S.T. has seven missions taking place after or during seven episodes. Among all of them, "Operation: C.L.U.E.S." has very little to do with the episode it's based on. Instead of being a murder mystery, the player character has to protect Numbuh Three from Knightamatons while looking for Rainbow Monkeys. At the end of the mission, they have to defend the treehouse from the Delightful Children, who weren't even in that episode.
  • Instant Armor: Evil teenagers use Battle Ready Armor (or B.R.A.s) to fight the KND, which can go from actual bras to full sets of armor in a matter of seconds.
  • Insulted Awake: Happens to Nigel Uno a lot, including but not limited to getting overcharged at a restaurant while on a date with Lizzie.
  • Introductory Opening Credits: A variation; in the intro, each character's number is displayed before they make their entrance, and stays until they leave.
  • Invisible Parents: Zigzagged. Each member of Sector V's parents fit this trope to varying degrees, usually based on how much the particular member sees their parents as anything more than a voice yelling at them.
    • Numbuh One's father was The Faceless for most of his original appearance, but the camera panned up to actually show his face after he dejectedly accepted his son saying he didn't want to fish with him.
    • Numbuh Two and Numbuh Three's relatives are always clearly shown, as they usually play a prominent role whenever they're featured.
    • Numbuh Four's parents, similar to Numbuh One's, remain faceless until Numbuh Four actually views them as real people (such as when he was forced to fight his caffeine-crazed father or when they both protected him from what they believed were moon-monsters).
    • Numbuh Five's parents remain faceless for the entire series, as in each appearance they amount to little more than The Cosby Show parodies.
  • Irony:
    • Despite being an organization that fights adult tyranny, all of the KND operatives of Sector V have good relationships with their parents.
    • The biggest obstacle to Professor XXX-L's goal to perfect the snowcone is the fact that he suffers from ice cream headaches very easily.
    • An even bigger example of irony happened in "Operation: T.E.E.T.H.", the first episode featuring Knightbrace. He had attempted to become a dentist, but flunked out of school for forcing braces on people who didn't need them; he almost defeated Sector V in their first battle, but was defeated because they were helped by a licensed dentist — who was up to then their main suspect. Oh, and Knightbrace is also the reluctant owner of a candy shop.
  • It's Personal: Numbuh One and Chad Dickson's fight in "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y.", which was arguably the most personal fight seen in the entire show. The hostility between the two easily superseded nearly every other conflict seen in the show, as they were actively trying to kill each other. It was because of this that Chad was designated as Nigel's Arch-Enemy (seeing as Father and the Delightful Children are shared by all of Sector V), despite his minimal appearances and his Fake Defector status.
  • I Want My Mommy!:
    • When Chad detached the Moonbase and sent it towards the sun in "Operation: E.N.D.", Numbuh 86 ordered her subordinates to implement "Plan M-11", which consisted of running around screaming for mommy.
    • Mr. Wink can be heard crying for mommy after he and Mr. Fibb get spanked by Count Spankulot in "Operation: S.P.A.N.K."
    • The Dodgeball Wizard cries for his mommy after Joey breaks his nose with a dodgeball.
  • I Was Told There Would Be Cake: Seven of the episodes feature the KND trying to take the cake from the Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who refuse to share it with anyone. To make it worse, said DCFDTL brag and boast about it, giving the KND justification. The cakes seem to vary, in both appearance and what happens to it (as in destroyed).
    • To start, the first one (used in "Operation: C.A.K.E.D." is a normal one. It is destroyed by accident.
    • The second one ("Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.W.O.") is semi-sentient, and attacks the KND. It is destroyed and split into a ton of drops when Lizzie flew in to save Numbuh One. Everyone but the DCFDTL got a bit.
    • The third cake ("Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.H.R.E.E.") is a normal one, but bigger than the last one. It isn't destroyed per se, but it is soiled by Numbuh One's pet chicks doing their business, thus ruining the KND's mission. However, it also ruined The Delightful Children's plans, as they ate it!invoked
    • The fourth cake ("Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.O.U.R.") isn't really made, but it is a good thing, this time, because this year's competition is a trap by Father to mix in the kid competitors into the cake. Ruined by Numbuh Two, however, spilling the cake batter, and ruining his chances at winning the competition this year.
    • The fifth one... ("Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E.") well, three words. Death Star-sized. It functions both as an ice cream cake and as a battle station that would destroy all the ice cream on Earth. It is destroyed when one of the ships is shot down, cutting the cake in half.
    • The sixth one ("Operation: S.I.X.") is a doozy, because it pulls a delicious irony — the KND delivers the cake to them. Unknown if the KND retaliates or if the cake is destroyed. Probably not destroyed, because in "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", Numbuh Two said that they brought the cake back in one piece... once, but that did not stop Numbuh 362 from Pulling Sector V out of the Cake stealing mission and giving the case to Sector W.
    • The seventh one ("Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.") is almost taken by Sector V, but the DCFDTL gets away. Unfortunately, it is stolen by another operative, who put up a scavenger hunt to see who gets the cake. Numbuh One wins, but it turns out it is a cupcake. It is destroyed when the operative who stole it ate it. It turns out the scavenger hunt was a test for Numbuh One to see if he was ready to join the Galactic KND.
    • In "Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.", the DCFDTL became President of the Student Council by promising a slice of their cake to the officer in charge of counting the votes. After the election, they imprisoned him instead of keeping their word.
  • Jerkass:
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Is Numbuh 363 a Bratty Half-Pint? Check. Is he a Jerkass? Check. Is he incredibly cocky and belittling to anyone he disagrees with or gets in his way? Check. Is he incorrect when he claims that Sector V has never once gotten the cake from the Delightful Children and should be replaced "a real sector" (meaning his)? Ch-wait...maybe he isn't. Although his criticisms were entirely out of spite and cockiness, they actually are legit. Sector V hasn't ever once succeeded in retrieving the cake from the Delightful Children, a major reason being that they always fall for the Delightful Children's decoys and blindly walk into what ever traps they have set up for them. Compounding it, Numbuh 363 does prove himself to be a very effective operative, initially finding the most of amount of items in the KND scavenger hunt and outwitting Sector V on multiple occasions. So overlooking his ego and mean-spiritedness, can you think of any other reason why Numbuh 362 shouldn't have reassigned the cake missions to him.
  • Jetpack:
    • Numbuh One has Jet shoes, as do most of his teammates of Sector V, and they have very good use throughout the series.
    • Likewise, Both Numbuh One and Numbuh Five also have a jetpack.
  • "Join Us" Drone:
    • In "Operation: D.A.T.E.", the Delightful Children from Down the Lane hold a party, inviting every kid in town. They then lure the kids into having their photos taken, using the "camera" to brainwash them. When discovered by Numbuh One and Lizzie, the brainwashed victims all chant "Join us" in unison.
    • "Operation L.O.C.K.D.O.W.N." has a bit of a variant, since the power subjugating the Sector is caused by being spanked by a vampire without their glove. So when Numbuh Five is the Final Girl among the group who've been turned, they cite her as being "bad" as an excuse to spank her and turn her into a spank-happy vampire.
  • Just Like Robin Hood: Subverted. Robin Food and his Hungry Men claim to steal kids' lunches so that they can be given to the starving elderly, but as it turns out, the Hungry Men are the kitchen staff of a retirement center who are too lazy to actually make food for their elderly residents. The elderly residents aren't really that starved either, but they are unhappy with the food they were give as it is not good for them.
  • Kangaroo Court: Parodied to a dramatic degree in "Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.", as the DCFDTL are the judges. No witnesses, no jury, and a defense that didn't get a single shot at defending Numbuh One.
  • Kent Brockman News: Several episodes that feature public events had Nick and Chip, two pre-teen reporters providing annoying, pointlessly judgmental commentary which even got under the good guys' skin after a while. Their voices were satires of Howard Cosell and Harry Carey.
  • "Kick Me" Prank: One comic-book story features a "Kik me I'm Dum!" note placed by a hamster on Numbuh Four's back.
  • Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Monty Uno as a child, revolted against the oppressive Grandfather who forced him to work in Grandfather's tapioca factories, and became founder of the Seventh Age of the Kids Next Door, thereby setting the stage for the series' story. In the present day, Monty is an adult (and therefore no longer an official Kid Next Door) and the rarely-appearing father of Nigel Uno, though he does get recommissioned into the KND a couple of times.
  • Kidnapped from Behind: Upon leaving the candy store, Numbuh Four goes on a rant on how he would beat up any dentist attempting to mess with his teeth. When his rant stops, the rest of the team assumes he just decided to shut up. It's not until they return to base that they find him strapped down to a chair with his mouth braced. It immediately happens again to Numbuh Three and Numbuh Five, without Numbuh One or Numbuh Three noticing.
  • Kids Hate Vegetables: Broccoli is hated by all of the kids (and the adults, but unlike the kids, they can handle broccoli if they have to eat some). A number of other vegetables however, they can tolerate.
    • In the episode "Operation: I.T.", Father gets made the leader of the Global KND, but in order to get in the KND's good graces, he enacts a plan to rid the world of broccoli once and for all, something all of the KND are overwhelmingly in favor of. Unfortunately, to everyone's horror, the only way to get rid of broccoli is to eat it. Later in the episode, Numbuh 362 becomes comatose after eating broccoli.
    • In "Operation: S.P.R.O.U.T.", a "Fantastic Voyage" Plot episode, Numbuh Four accidentally eats a brussel sprout. The KND enact an entire ploy to get into Numbuh Four's body to destroy the brussel sprout before it begins to make him enjoy cleaning his room, among other things. Later on, he accidentally starts it all over with some liver.
  • Kids Versus Adults: The basic premise of this show is about children getting into conflict with adults.
  • Kryptonite Factor: As seen is "Operation: I.T.", broccoli has a Kryptonite-like effect on kids.
  • Lady Land: "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E." shows a dystopia run by girls where boys are hunted down and changed into girls.
  • Large Ham: Just about everyone on the show can be hammy, but ESPECIALLY Father and Grandfather.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Exaggerated in "Operation: P.A.R.T.Y."
    Random Kid: [wearing a lampshade on his head] Hey, I'm a lamp! Get it?
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: When a KND Operative turns 13, they usually are forced to retire from the Kids Next Door and have their memories erased so they can't give away KND secrets to the enemy. Some notable exceptions are the teens like Cree that managed to escape being decommissioned, as well as others like Maurice and Chad that were specifically chosen to act as double-agents within the teens' base of operations. It's also implied by the ending of "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S." that the remaining members of Sector V after Numbuh One's departure were also selected to keep their memories.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane photograph Numbuh One's bare butt after having a robot crab steal his swimming trunks and use the photograph to blackmail Numbuh One into leaving Sector V in "Operation: B.U.T.T." They get their just deserts when the other members of Sector V steal their pants and skirts and have their exposed rear ends photographed.
  • Latex Perfection: Pretty much the game plan for The Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain. They're able to change disguises when needed, without anyone knowing. They get foiled, however, because the Japanese KND and Sector V know about it and aren't fooled. In the first episode they appear in, it turns out that the KND foil them with a Batman Gambit by disguising as Numbuh Three's grandmother, by playing the very same trope. Same goes to the Japanese KND, who also played this trope to ALSO foil the Interesting Twins' plan.
  • Leader Wannabe: Numbuh Four wants to be the leader of Sector V.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The show usually avoids any fourth-wall breaking, but in "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y." it comes awfully close, when a Senator suggests passing a law that bans cartoons that make fun of adults.
  • Lethal Chef:
    • Villain Grandma Stuffum has horrible cooking as a literal power.
    • Lizzie is a more usual example of the trope. When Nigel is sick, she makes him her special "Chicken banana-fritter soup". With "extra curly fries". Nigel uses the soup as an explosive later on. Her pie in "Operation: H.O.L.I.D.A.Y." is so gross, it makes Numbuh Two pass out when he accidentally swallows just a slice.
  • Like Father, Unlike Son: Mr. Boss oppresses kids and is an enemy of the KND. His daughter Numbuh 86 is against adult tyranny and is a member of KND. Despite this, they care for one another partially thanks to Mr. Boss having a Double Standard to his treatment of kids whether or not they are his own.
  • Little Miss Badass: Played straight with Numbuh Three and possible Numbuh 86, but subverted with more or less all the other girls in the Kids Next Door (especially Numbuh Five and Numbuh 362) who for the most part are, well, still badass, but don't seem to be intentionally intended to be cute or especially effeminate in any way. Instead they tend to have some what androgynous dress senses (really especially Numbuh Five and Numbuh 362) and personalities to match.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Subverted with further seasons as the team gets a variety of gear in addition to pajamas and swimsuits. Numbuh Three has the most varied wardrobe.
  • Little Bit Beastly: A lot of adult villains, particularly those introduced in the first season, have animal traits for no apparent reason. This is a leftover from an aborted concept from development where a number of them would have been caught in a Freak Lab Accident.
  • Living Relic: Numbuh 19th Century is this as he is (presumably) the only Kids Next Door operative from the 1800s who is still alive. This is because he was frozen in time before being thawed out in the present day.
  • Logic Bomb: How Numbuh Four defeats the robots in "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y.", by making the main robot to realize that he and the other robots aren't making the world safe for kids since the robots themselves are potentially dangerous. Since the robots' main directive is making the world safe for children, they self-destruct when recognizing themselves as another threat. That, and Numbuh Four did a perfectly good Wounded Gazelle Gambit on them by tricking said main robot into thinking it accidentally hurt his little brother.
  • Longer-Than-Life Sentence: "Operation: S.P.A.N.K." ends with Count Spankulot being sentenced to prison for eleventy trillion years with no chance at parole after Sector V tricks him into spanking the judge and his wife.
  • Lost the TV Remote: The plot for "Operation: C.O.U.C.H." has Numbuh Four losing the remote in the couch and finding another world beneath the cushions while trying to find it.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: Chester's headband. Consistent with the series, it sends Nigel to a fake Destiny Islands, where an Expy of Kairi greets him and shows him around the paradise they have without adults. Nigel grows suspicious, but his "comrades" reassure him that he's just being paranoid, until he remembers that Numbuh Four can't swim, but he's doing the backstroke in a pool of soda. In the end, Nigel puts Chester in his own headband, convincing him he'd defeated him and was being praised by the other villains... that is, until Numbuh Four turns it to its nightmare setting.
  • Love Confession: Anna Worthington to Jimmy McGarfield in "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", in response to him asking her why she sabotaged his plans.
    Jimmy: Anna... but why?
    Anna: The same reason I've worked tirelessly for you semester after semester. I... I... I love you, James Nixon McGarfield!
  • Loved I Not Honor More: Comes up for Nigel and Lizzie in "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.".
  • Lovely Angels: Numbuhs Three and Five are a PG-Rated version in "Operation: H.O.M.E.", the first (and unfortunately) only story to exclusively feature the girl members of Sector V.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Jimmy McGarfield in "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.".
  • Lower-Deck Episode: "Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G."
  • Luke, I Am Your Father:
    • Nigel finding out his father, uncle and grandfather are Numbuh Zero, Father, and Grandfather respectively in the movie. Nice hat trick.
    • Added bonus reveal from the CN comic book: The Toiletnator is Wally's uncle. The story was written by Mr. Warburton, it must be canon.

    Tropes M to P 
  • Made-for-TV Movie: Operation: Z.E.R.O. was a movie of the series that premiered on television.
  • Mad Scientist:
    • Mushi Sanban turns her sister's Rainbow Monkey doll into a spank-happy zombie in "Operation: S.P.A.N.K.E.N.S.T.I.N.E.".
    • Basically a lot of KND Operatives are eccentric scientists.
    • Several villains also qualify, like Professor XXX-L (who goes to bizarre lengths to try and create the perfect snow cone) or Chester (who at one point created a Lotus-Eater Machine as part of a plan to make a lot of money so he could sell his invention for parents to use to keep their children under control).
  • Magic Skirt: Kuki's wedding dress in "Operation: B.E.A.C.H." still covers up the lower portion of her body when King Sandy hangs her upside down by her feet.
  • Make-Out Point: Doubly subverted. Although there is implication in another episode that The Point does live up to its name.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Father is the one giving orders to the Delightful Children from Down the Lane.
  • Manchild: A good number of the villains, pretty ironically, have childish tendencies.
  • May the Farce Be with You: The show's done three big Whole-Plot References to the Star Wars Original Trilogy — Operations "S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", "E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.", and "C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E."
  • Meaningful Name:
    • All of Sector V:
      • Numbuh One is Nigel Uno — "uno" means "one" in Spanish and Italian, and he's the team leader and an only child.
      • Numbuh Two is Hoagie P. Gilligan, Jr. — appropriately enough, a double reference. Bob Denver's character Gilligan was second-in-command of the S.S. Minnow on Gilligan's Island, and the "Jr." suffix means that he's the second consecutive person in his family to have the name.
      • Numbuh Three is Kuki Sanban — "sanban" is Japanese for "number three" ("san" is one of the words for "three" and "-ban" is a suffix used for ordinal numbers in Japanese), and "Kuki" is a reference to Numbuh Three being a Cloudcuckoolander.
      • Numbuh Four is Wallabee Beetles — there were four members of The Beatles, even though Numbuh Four is Australian (as implied by his accent and the name Wallabee [wallaby]), not from Liverpool. Also, the number four is considered bad luck in Chinese and Japanese culture (similar to the number 13 in Western culture), and Numbuh Four has the worst luck of all the Sector V operatives.
      • Numbuh Five is Abigail Lincoln — has the same initials as U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who is on the American $5 bill. She also served briefly as Numbuh One of Sector V, tying her in with Lincoln's appearance on the American penny (worth one cent).
    • Also, Numbuh Three's father is named Kani — Japanese for "crab" — which is pretty much his entire personality, and Numbuh Three has a little sister named Mushi, which is Japanese for "bug" and matches her irritating personality.
    • Heck, pretty much all the Operatives' Codenames are a pun on their profession.
      • Numbuh 30C, whose name was a clue as to the villain of the episode. It's 86 degrees F.
      • Numbuh 86, whose original job in her debut episode was decommissioning — or 86ing — teenaged operatives; plus, her real name is Fanny (short for Frances), seeing as she is an ass.
      • Numbuh Change-for-a-20 runs the KND moonbase cafeteria cash register.
      • Numbuh 12 has a more tragic side to her code name. She's twelve years old and her thirteenth birthday is coming up, which inspires her to defect from the KND to join the Teenagers early.
      • Naturally The Jinx of KND would be Numbuh 13.
    • Numbuh Four's brother is named Joey, which is a term for a baby kangaroo, another reference to his family's Australian background.
    • Father's real name is Benedict, as in Benedict Arnold... he's not really a traitor, though, so much as a coward who didn't want to stand up to his own father, Grandfather, and ended up siding with him out of fear of retribution.
    • Even Tommy Gilligan, who is a parody of Sixth Rangers in the series, shares his first name with the Trope Namer, Tommy Oliver, the Green Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger.
  • Meaningless Villain Victory:
    • "Operation: C.R.I.M.E." has everyone at school being sent to detention for offenses they haven't even done yet thanks to a boy who can predict the future through crayon drawings. It eventually turns out that the boy can't really predict the future and was only pretending so that with everyone else in detention, he'd be first in line at the cafeteria before all the good food is gone. As he succeeds in his scheme, he asks the lunch lady for pizza bagels, only to find that today's lunch is actually a lima bean sandwich.
    • In "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.H.R.E.E.", the KND almost win their battle against the DCFDTL for their cake that they were going to eat in front of the children around the world on TV, but they end up giving up and let them eat it. This is due to the fact that the chicks Numbuh One was saved by ended up going to the bathroom on it, making it soiled. Which the Delightful Children didn't know about when the KND decided to trick them into eating it. Much to the disgust of all the kids around the world that witnessed the whole scene.
  • Meat-O-Vision: In "Operation: A.F.L.O.A.T.", Numbuh Four ends up hallucinating that Numbuh Three's Rainbow Monkey is a cheeseburger and tries to eat it.
  • Medium Blending: "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", where the interviews with the adult Sector V is done in live-action.
  • Medium-Shift Gag:
    • In "Operation: C.L.U.E.S.", the flashback/Imagine Spot of Mushi stabbing the Rainbow Monkey is a live-action sequence of an overweight man dressed as Mushi. For some reason.
    • In "Operation: M.O.O.N.", the shot of Numbuh Three destroying the fake moon using a balloon and dart are done in live-action.
  • Merlin Sickness: "Operation: F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N." involves the protagonists uncovering a fountain that allows one of the students, Leaky Leona, to remain young for 300 years.
  • Mini-Golf Episode: "Operation: M.I.N.I.-G.O.L.F." pits Numbuh Two against "miniature golf" enthusiast Rupert Putkin, despite the fact that Numbuh Two has never played mini-golf.
  • Mining for Cookies: In episode "Operation: P.O.O.L.", the villain often threatens to send people to work in the broccoli mines.
  • Minor Major Character: The Steve. He's the leader of the Teen Ninjas, yet goes unmentioned and doesn't appear until the last episode before the Grand Finale. Instead, his subordinates Cree and Chad are the ones who drive the plot on the teen's side.
  • Mirror Morality Machine: The delightfulization chamber appears to be capable of this. The Delightful Children From Down The Lane were once highly skilled Kids Next Door operatives, presumably dedicated to the cause of fighting for kids' rights. After being delightfulized, however, they are entirely subservient to their new 'father', and believe that "the goal of every child should be to grow up".
  • Mirror Universe: "Operation: P.O.O.L."
  • Misplaced Sorrow: Numbuh Three is about to be married to King Sandy, a kid pretending to be a king. Numbuh Four claims that the only reason he wanted to rescue her isn't because he's jealous, but because she owed him a quarter.
  • Mobile-Suit Human: Margie uses one in "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.".
  • Moby Schtick: "Operation: D.U.C.K.Y." is a Whole-Plot Reference version, while "Operation: A.F.L.O.A.T." employs it secondhand by way of Jaws.
  • The Mole: In "Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E.", Maurice — a mole himself — reveals that a few special and loyal operatives still help the KND after their "decommissioning" and into their teen and adult years. Ironically, Chad was also one of these and he doesn't reveal it until the penultimate episode of the series.
  • Monster Progenitor: Miss Thompson was the Queen were-dog responsible for turning her students into were-dogs.
  • Mood Whiplash: Especially the later episodes.
  • Moon-Landing Hoax: "Operation: M.O.O.N." starts with Sector V watching footage from the 1969 landing and laughing about how KND had managed to fool the Apollo 11 crew into thinking that they had landed on the moon, to stop them finding their secret moon base. They then learn that for the anniversary, a family is going to be sent to the moon, and it happens to be Numbuh Four's family. They build a huge fake stage and control everything behind the scenes like The Truman Show in order to convince Numbuh Four's family that they actually had flown to the moon, lived there for a while, and came back to Earth.
  • The Movie: The series had its own movie in Operation: Z.E.R.O.
  • Mugged for Disguise: In "Operation: A.W.A.R.D.S.", Numbuh Four disguises himself as Knightbrace by stealing his costume after knocking him unconscious.
  • Musical Episode: There are several episodes featuring musical numbers.
    • "Operation: L.O.V.E.", doubling as a spoof of West Side Story.
    • "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E."
  • My Little Panzer: The Boyfriend Helmet is a painful mind control device that's apparently marketed as a children's toy.
  • Mythology Gag: To some of the staff's previous series:
    • Mo Willems, one of the writers, had previously created Sheep in the Big City with Curious Pictures and CN, so Sheep appeared in a few ways- he appeared as one of Numbuh Three's stuffed animals in "Operation: T.H.E.-F.L.Y."; during "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", when the DCFDTL got turned into sheep by Father's forcefield thing, the leader of the group looks suspiciously like Sheep; and during the convention center scene in "Operation: Z.E.R.O.", one of the villains behind Crazy Old Cat Lady and next to the Dodgeball Wizard looks like a humanized version of Sheep — complete with vertically stacked eyes.
    • Willems' previous segment from KaBlam!, The Offbeats, was homaged in Numbuh Five's segment from "Operation: R.E.P.O.R.T.", as it was drawn in the style of that.
  • Naked People Are Funny:
    • "Operation: A.R.C.T.I.C." has all of Sector V (except for Numbuh Four) get hit by a nude torpedo, leaving them butt naked in the arctic before they change into new clothes.
    • "Operation: B.U.T.T." has Numbuh One lose his swimming trunks and get humiliated when everyone at the beach laughs at his butt. The Delightful Children from Down the Lane reveal to him later that they have a photograph of his nude rear end and blackmail him into quitting the team by threatening to have the picture included in the school yearbook. The rest of Sector V end up laughing their heads off upon finding out about the picture before they collect themselves and start helping Numbuh One get even with the Delightful Children.
  • Naughty Is Good: The perfectly well-behaved Delightful Children from Down the Lane are villains; the heroes are rebellious, mischievous, and disobedient but, well-meaning such that they fight for the rights of kids everywhere. However, they are only well-behaved with good adults—it's the ones that hate kids with sheer malice the heroes have a problem with, so their behavior isn't entirely unjustified.
  • Negated Moment of Awesome:
    • The Cyclocannon. Right after Sector V finishes morphing their bikes and counting down from five, Tommy shows up and does what he does best, crashing right through it with his bike and destroying it.
    • Almost every appearance of Numbuh Three's Giant Mecha H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P., a giant robot bunny. It becomes a Running Gag early on in the series, where whenever it shows up for a Big Damn Heroes moment, it is immediately smashed.
  • Never Bare Headed:
    • One of the Delightful Children (Lenny) never takes off his football helmet, except in "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R.".
    • It's quite rare to see Numbuh Five (Abigail) without her red cap.
  • Never Had Toys: Numbuh 3/Kuki's mother Genki mentions that she wasn't allowed to play with dolls or other toys when she was little (though it's never explained why), and the memory of it visibly saddens her. It is implied that this is why her daughters Kuki and Mushi have so many Rainbow Monkeys, as she wants them to have a happier childhood than she did.
  • Never Land: During a Chase Scene, Numbuh One crashes and wakes up on a Utopian island inhabited entirely by children. He soon learns he's actually inside a Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • Never Say "Die":
    • Numbuh Four accidentally kills Kuki's pet fish in "Operation: F.I.S.H.Y.", but all the others say is that it's "...you know." Though eventually subverted when Wally offhandedly mentions how "playing with dead stuff" is cool.
    • Played straight in most every other episode, though. The Spinach Inquisition, for example, have their song cut off right when they're clearly about to say "die".
    Spinach Inquisition: We asked you very nicely, we asked you if you'll try, but if you will not taste it, I'm afraid you'll...have...to....
    Numbuh Two: STOP!
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • One by both Gilligan brothers. Early on, Tommy sticks one of Father's boogers in the decommissioning machine to count him as a member of the KND and turn his transforming ray on him. Later, during a tag game to decide who will take 362's place, Numbuh Two is rushing to find somebody to tag in the last few seconds, and he tags the first person he finds on the other side of the door he opens. Tag, Father, you're it!
    • The end of "No P in the Ool", where Numbuh One tries to hijack Mr. Fink and Mr. Fib's chair machine, only to accidentally activate the drill on it, which subsequently drains the pool, meaning neither side wins.
    • In "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y.", because Tommy made friends with the Common Cold, the entire Sector V (save for Numbuh Two) gets captured by the Flu Bug Machine. Numbuh Two's mother fixes everything, though.
  • Night of the Living Mooks:
    • "Operation: U.N.C.O.O.L.", with pasty-white-skinned nerd zombies.
    • This is practically Grandfather's modus operandi.
  • Noble Shoplifter: This happens when Numbuh Two has to go to the grocery store, but it's already closed. He picks up the items he needs and leaves money behind, but still gets accused of trying to steal.
  • Nobody's That Dumb: Near the end of the Grand Finale, "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", when Numbuh One is saying goodbye to his crew before he leaves Earth to join the Galactic Kids Next Door, he talks with Numbuh Three:
    Numbuh Three: Soooo, what we gonna do tomorrow Numbuh One?
    Numbuh One: Ahh, yeah, I'm not going to be here Numbuh Three.
    Numbuh Three: Oh... And what about the day after that?.
    Numbuh One: Oh, let me explain Kuki...
    Numbuh Three: Oh, I know you're leaving, silly. What do you think I am, an airhead or something?
    Numbuh One: Never for a second.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed:
    • Dr. Lincoln is based on Bill Cosby.
    • Robin Food's sidekick is pretty much Sammy Davis Jr.
    • Count Spankulot is modeled after Bela Lugosi's Dracula.
    • Numbuh 10-speed, leader of the KND Central Bike Hub, is a kid version of Lance Armstrong, Numbuh One even calling him "Lance" when trying to convince him to evacuate the Central Bike Hub. After Lance Armstrong's infamous drug scandal in 2012, however, the creators attempted a minor Take That! via Numbuh 10-speed, with the Galactic Database having his entry marked "undergoing testing", before being removed in a later update.
  • No-Dialogue Episode: "Operation: T.H.E.-F.L.Y." has all operatives of Sector V silent as they try to deal with a fly entering their treehouse base.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Played for Laughs; Sector V and most of the recurring villains give one to Knightbrace in "Operation: M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S." over a cereal box.
  • "No. Just… No" Reaction: In "Operation I.T.", Numbuh 362 declares a game of tag after she tires of being the Supreme Leader of the Kids Next Door, and anyone who is It by noon will be the new Supreme Leader; and judging by everyone's terrified reaction, they don't want the position either. After Numbuh 13 gets taggednote  and celebrates becoming the new Supreme Leader, a bunch of kids dog pile him to become It, because even though they don't want the position, they definitely don't want him to have it either.
  • Non-Lethal Warfare: In all the battles the Kids Next Door get into, there are no casualties regardless of the stakes of the conflict.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Numbuh Five refuses to assume leadership of the team until the series finale due to something that happened in the past, and will not say why. Numbuh 86 knows why, and will not mention the reason either, merely stating that she understands. It may have had something to do with her mistake that cost Nigel his hair, but this is only an assumption.
    • In the "Kenny and the Chimp" short that was part of the pilot, Professor XXX-L has some sort of grudge against the PTA, and heads off to fight them for the majority of the short; he returns having had his lobster arm ripped off.
    • In "Operation: L.I.C.O.R.I.C.E.", Numbuh Five asks Stickybeard where Heinrich Von Marzipan is and he replies that he's probably gotten in trouble with the Marshmallow Mayans again.
  • Noodle People: This is the show's art style, with the characters having skinny limbs with big hands and feet. Unless a character is fat like Numbuh 2 or Lizzie, they'll usually have a skinny torso too.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mr. Fizz appears to be modelled after Ricardo Montalban, and Jeff Bennett imitates his voice.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Numbuh Two does this when the candy store was closed.
    Numbuh One: Uh oh. Looks like we have a problem.
    Numbuh Two: Closed? But it's only midnight.
  • Not Hyperbole: When Cree says she'd turn the treehouse upside down, she means it.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Numbuh One says this exact thing to the members of the DNK who revolt against Negative Numbuh Four at the end of "Operation: P.O.O.L.", and in many ways, he's right.
  • Ocular Gushers:
    • Numbuh Three has broken down crying, complete with Ocular Gushers, more than a few times during the series, usually as a way of working on another character's sympathies.
    • And in "Operation: C.L.U.E.S.", it's revealed that this is a trait she shares with her father, Kani Sanban.b
    • Lizzie sometimes indulges in this too, usually to guilt-trip Numbuh One into going out with her.
    • Toiletnator opens the gushers in "Operation: F.L.U.S.H." after being denied by the other villains.
    • In "Operation: P.O.O.L.", the Mirror Universe counterpart of Father, the series' Big Bad, also does this on one occasion.
  • Oddly Visible Eyebrows
  • Official Couple: 3×4, 2×5, and Nigel×Lizzie temporarily. The relationships of the first two are cemented in "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", where it is revealed that both couples eventually married..
  • Older and Wiser: Sector V (except Numbuh One) appears as adults in the Series Finale. (And as the final scene shows, it's not as bad as they formerly thought it would be.)
  • One-Letter Name: Numbuh T sort of follows this trope. But T is NOT a number! There is no Numbuh T, only The Tommy!
  • "Operation: B.L.A.N.K.": Complete with acronyms. "Bland Lame Acronyms Now Kool"
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Count Spankulot is a vampire who spanks "naughty" children and can turn others into "spank-happy" vampires by spanking them gloveless.
  • Our Werebeasts Are Different: Our Werepoodles Eat Homework.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Compared to all the other villains, the Cheese Shogun didn't have a specific grudge against the KND or children in general; rather, he just captured everyone his Cheese Ninjas encountered and used them all as slave labor in his cheese mines.
  • Outlandish Device Setting: In "Operation I.-S.C.R.E.A.M.", when Sector V is breaking into the Tasty Taste Ice Cream Factory, Numbuh 3 melts the ice cream monster eating her teammates by turning the factory's heater to "Like, Eleventy Billion Degrees".
  • Overnight Age-Up: "Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E.". A young idealistic rebel wakes up one day and discovers that he has grown old and respectable and abandoned his ideals. His old comrades have become corrupt supporters of "The Man", he is married to a shrew who used to be his girlfriend (though she was a shrew when she was his girlfriend so nothing changed there), his son despises him, his best friend has been driven insane by his betrayal and he is faced with the choice of crossing a horrible line or being destroyed.
  • Palatial Sandcastle: In "Operation: B.E.A.C.H.", Numbuh Three is kidnapped by King Sandy, a boy who takes her to his palace, an enormous sand castle.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise:
    • Numbuh 4-30teen-7. Surprisingly no clear sign of being subverted.
    • Then there was the unfortunate incident (which happened off-camera) where Numbuh One bluffed his way past the Toiletnator to get into the villains' secret lair with nothing more than a T-shirt with the words "I am not Numbuh One" written on it as a disguise. Told by Mr. Boss to emphasize how stupid the Toiletnator is.
  • The Pig-Pen: Captain James P. Dirt from "Operation: D.U.C.K.Y." Supposedly, he ran away from home as a child after refusing to take a bath, and is encountered living in the sewers as an adult by Tommy, having never bathed since, leading a crew of lazy and filthy children.
  • Pirate Song: "Operation: L.I.C.O.R.I.C.E." has a more grim example than most with "LICORICE", sung by Stickybeard and his crew as they tell the story of a pirate named Black John who was cursed after stealing a whole forest of licorice trees, and how Stickybeard and his cabin boy Heinrich unwittingly invoked the wrath of the cursed pirates.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: Numbuhs One and Five. Justified in that the former is Sector V's head and the latter is his second-in-command/right-hand woman. To a lesser extent, the members of Sector V who aren't romantically interlinked to each other.
  • Plot Hole: When Tommy has his "Eureka!" Moment in "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", it involves turning the Delightful Children From Down The Lane and Father into impromptu Kids Next Door operatives to turn their animalization ray against them. The problem is that later on, in "Operation: Z.E.R.O.", we find out the Delightful Children were the long-missing members of Sector "Z", meaning fundamentally they should've been logged into the system and transformed into animals from the start, as the Recommissioning Module worked on them; no mention is made of their boogers being added to the K.N.D. Module a second time or reverifying the process to make this possible.
  • Poison and Cure Gambit: Numbuh Four attempts this in "Operation: M.I.S.S.I.O.N." when he gathers Stickybeard, Count Spankulot, Soccer Mom and Mr. Boss to form a soccer team to compete against that of his dad's. To force them into compliance, Numbuh Four tells the villains that the soda he's given them has been poisoned so that their tonsils will swell and explode in 48 hours and that he won't give them the antidote unless they do as he says. In the end, Numbuh Four unwittingly lets it slip that the soda being poisoned was a lie, which the villains are not too happy about.
  • Portal Pool: To the Mirror Universe.
  • Power Limiter: Count Spankulot can turn others into "spank-happy vampires" by spanking them gloveless.
  • Power-Up Food: "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R." has a Villain of the Week named Cuppa Joe that has Super-Speed from consuming large amounts of coffee regularly. When Numbuh Five gets a coffee overdose of her own, she gets temporary Super-Speed as well, but notably crashes pretty quickly and realistically.
  • Precision F-Strike: Delivered by Numbuh Three when Lizzie was revealed to be Agent Vine in the second "teaser" video for the Galactic Kids Next Door.
  • Precrime Arrest: One episode features a pre-delinquency unit that gives Gallagher Elementary School students detentions for future rule-breaking. Their seer turns out to be a hoax who just wants to be sure the school cafeteria won't run out of pizza before his turn to be served. His plan failed because he executed it during lima bean day.
  • Prejudice Aesop: The episode "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E." explores an allegory about how stupid sexism is. In the present, young Margaret claims that her brothers pick on her and boss her around. However, this is the same girl who's going to grow up to the tyrannical Madame Margaret who will create a dystopic future where girls have became oppressors to innocent boys everywhere, making her no better than the boys she despises (and no better than the adults the KND fight). Meanwhile, Numbuh Four has grown to be the jaded leader of a rebel band of boys who are trying to take down Madame Margaret. What sets them apart is when an ally comes forth in the form of a girl (Numbuh Three's granddaughter Sally) wanting to join the boys, Numbuh Four eventually acknowledges boys and girls can be allies.
  • President Evil: The 4th grade class president, and later, the Delightful Children
  • Product Delivery Ordeal: In one episode, Numbuhs Two and Three have to deliver a large truck full of soda to its destination without being shaken up. Turns out the truck contains a cake for the Delightful Children from Down the Lane.
  • Psycho Poodle: In the episode "Operation: H.O.U.N.D.", Numbuh Five gets attacked and has her homework eaten by a dog that came out of Valerie's house. She however denies that her dog did the deed. When she and Numbuh Two and Four investigate later, they find her dog to be harmless just like Valerie said. Unfortunately for Numbuh Five, when she said that her dog didn't eat her homework, she only meant her dog as she then turns into a Were-Poodle and tries to eat her. The gang is able to beat her by feeding her Numbuh Four's god-awful homework.
  • The Psycho Rangers: The Delightful Children from Down the Lane look eerily similar to Sector V, even sharing most of their voice actors. It's eventually revealed that they used to be KND operatives, but were "delightfultized" by Father.
  • Pun:
    • Numbuh Two is the Patron Saint of this trope. A real Pungeon Master.
    • Apparently, in one of the Indiana Jones parodies, Numbuh Five is tested about the Ice Cream flavor of the Day. Her answer? Sundae. The Ice Cream Gods must believe puns are a form of logic, because she is allowed access after she answered. Lampshaded by the Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who proceed to complain that it's the stupidest thing they'd ever heard until it actually works.
    • Towards the end of the series, a subplot about an extremist KND Splinter Cell develops. When it's revealed that they're operatives of the Galactic KND, and are flora-based aliens, meaning not only is the phrase Splinter Cell appropriate, but they're metaphorical and literal plants.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
    • Wally's response to his crush on Kuki:
      Numbuh Four: She. Just. Owes. Me. A. Quarter!
    • Also, Numbuh One's response to Numbuh Two's plan to steal the Delightful Children's cake with eggs:
      Numbuh One: That! Is! BRILLIANT!
    • In the next scene, Numbuh One sees a lot of eggs in his own room.
      Numbuh One: This! Is! STUPID!
  • Pungeon Master: Numbuh Two frequently makes puns.
  • Punk Punk: One of the codifiers of Kid Punk.

    Tropes Q to U 
  • Raise Him Right This Time: The one-off villain Mr. B, after being hit by his own "babyfier ray".
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: If you're Supreme Leader, it's common knowledge you're a great fighter. I.e.: Numbuh Zero, 100, 274 and 362. Especially 362.
  • "Rashomon"-Style: "Operation R.E.P.O.R.T." does a partial version of this. Each operative does exaggerate their side of the story, but their accounts are consecutive, not simultaneous. The point of the episode isn't actually "find out what really happened," (which is that Sector V got their pizza order mixed up with the Delightful Children's), so much as simply letting the animators play around with five different Art Shifts.
  • Really 700 Years Old:
    • Leaky Leona, who turns out to have been using the Fountain of Youth to maintain her 10-year-old form for the past 300 years.
    • Numbuh 19th Century was frozen in time since the early 1800s and, while he is still physically a kid, he has to be nearly 200 years old.
  • Rebus Bubble: Courtesy of Numbuh Four: 2 + 2 = Pizza
  • Refuse to Rescue the Disliked: After Numbuh Four ruins her beloved plush toy and eventually draws the line after being forced to act as a replacement in "Operation: C.A.T.S.", Numbuh Three refuses to take part in a rescue mission after he is captured. She eventually changes her mind and pulls a Big Damn Heroes.
  • Remember the New Guy?: When Maurice is first introduced, he's established as one of the most beloved operatives in the KND and a close friend of Abigail. The show justifies this with the explanation that he had been away for years trying to find the source of the Teens' chicken pox weapons.
  • Reused Character Design: Some of the kids in the Ugly Children Exhibit from "Operation: Z.O.O." are reused for later named characters, most notably Eggbert and Leaky Leona.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: There are some adorable animals on the show.
    • Bradley (a.k.a. Numbuh Six).
    • The treehouse hamsters.
  • Right Behind Me: There have been two episodes where Numbuh Four makes the mistake of insulting someone nearby when they can hear him.
    • Rainbow Monkey Kong ends up attacking Numbuh Four after he had just placated him with a hug in "Operation: H.U.G.S." when Numbuh Four made the mistake of calling the creature "stupid" while Rainbow Monkey Kong was in earshot.
    • In "Operation: T.R.I.C.K.Y.", Numbuh Four berates Halloween as being for babies who get candy by dressing up as girly butterflies. He turns around and realizes to his embarrassment that his statement has pissed off Numbuh Three, who it so happens has chosen to go as a butterfly for Halloween.
  • Rule of Cool: This show thrives on the occurrence and existence of impossible things being excused on the grounds of being awesome. They have a moon base and it looks to be made out of gum.
  • Running Gag:
    • Every time H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P. (a Humongous Mecha piloted by Numbuh Three) appears, it gets smashed to pieces, even the one time it does something useful.
    • Every time Numbuh Three ejects from a vehicle she's piloting, usually she lands on the ground and her parachute deploys late.
    • In "Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E.", Mrs. Thompson would always say "I probably shouldn't have said that" or "I probably shouldn't have told you that" to Numbuh Four after answering a question that he asked, regardless of the current situation.
    • The kids tree-house has a tendency of being taken by Villain of the Week. Lampshaded by Numbuh One in "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.":
      Numbuh One: Oh, WHY? Why does everyone always take my treehouse EVERY SINGLE TIME?! WHO'S JUMPING ON THE "TAKE NUMBUH ONE'S PRIDE AND JOY BANDWAGON" NOW?!
  • Safety Worst: Parodies by exaggeration in "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y.".
  • Same-Sex Triplets: The Annoyingly Cute Triplets Who Lived Upon the Hill are all female.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Heinrich, when we finally learn what exactly happened in Guatemala that made him angry with Numbuh Five.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Numbuh Five and her sister, Cree.
  • Saved by a Terrible Performance: Whenever Numbuh Four does his homework, it is always one hundred percent incorrect. However, Wally's terrible homework is weaponized thrice in the series.
    • First time is when the Delightful Children from Down the Lane hire some kids to steal everybody's homework. Numbuh Four's is the first one the teacher looks at, which gets the Delightful Children in trouble (Wally attempts to call them out on it, but Numbuh Five stops him).
    • Second time is against a weredog who feasts on homework. Numbuh Five takes Numbuh Five's and feeds it to the weredog, giving it a stomachache (bad homework tastes terrible to weredogs).
    • Third time is against not just the same weredog from before, but an entire honor roll of them including Numbuh Five, who had been transformed into one. Done by Numbuh Four himself, even. He actually got help with his history homework from Numbuh Five and thus the were-dogs could actually eat it (though they still thought it tasted horrible), so he brandished two S.P.L.A.N.K.E.R.s loaded with his math homework (which Abigail didn't help with) and dispatched them with ease. It didn't work on Mrs. Thompson, who was the Queen and thus unaffected by bad homework.
  • Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Numbuhs 84 ("Tactical Yoyo Specialist") and 83 ("Soda, Snacks, and Treats Officer").
  • Scary Librarian: Count Spankulot
  • Schmuck Banquet: In "Operation: F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N.", Sector V find themselves an ancient school build underneath Gallagher Elementary School in order to rescue Leaky Leona. Their trek to rescue her leads them to a cafeteria where the food is laid out perfectly. Numbuh Five is aware that it could be a trap, so she orders everyone to not touch the food. But when the message is passed to Numbuh Three, she completely mishears the message and tells Numbuh Two to "try the onion rings" but Numbuh Two is already putting food on his tray. A gush of milk from where the food used to be begins flooding the entire room, which ironically helps them get out as the only way to the next room is a elevated exit.
  • Seadog Peg Leg: Captain Stickybeard has a peg leg made out of candy cane.
  • Second-Person Attack: At the end of "Operation: S.P.A.C.E.", Numbuh One points his mustard gun toward one of the characters, and his blast fills the entire screen and fades to black.
  • Serious Business: Don't get us started... Rainbow Monkeys and cake and card collections....
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E."
  • Shared Universe: With The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and by association with them, Evil Con Carne. Also Ed, Edd n Eddy apparently, since Eddy knows the organisation by name in "The Grim Adventures of the KND".
  • She Is the King: The Supreme Leader of the KND is always referred to as "sir" even if they're a girl, as seen with Numbuh 362.
  • Ship Out of Water: Captain Stickybeard's pirate ship is an absolutely massive vessel that crushes whole neighborhoods as it travels on land.
  • Shoehorned Acronym: In "The Grim Adventures of the Kids Next Door", to combat the Delightful Reaper, Mandy has the KND — turned MND (Mandy New Dictator) — build a giant robot in the likeness of her called the M.A.N.D.R.O.B.O.T., with its acronym standing for "Monkeys And Nice Doggies Relax On Bellies Of Turtles". Mandy complains about the acronym, with Numbuh Three telling her that she could have come up with a better one if Mandy didn't rush her.
  • Short-Lived Leadership: One episode involves Lizzie making herself the leader of a mission while Nigel is taking a shower. She manages to make the others follow her long enough to get them to the teenager's flying football stadium, but Nigel takes over again as soon as she finds him in a locker. She then decides to take over again while Nigel is away to get her some icecream, just before the credits roll.
  • Shout-Out: Loads and loads of these.
  • Sick Episode: Both "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y." and, to a lesser extent, "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.".
  • Slippery Swimsuit: Numbuh One loses his trunks in "Operation: B.U.T.T.", resulting in an avalanche of jokes about how big his butt is.
  • Smelly Skunk: Numbuh Six, otherwise known as Bradley, is a skunk, and the first non-human Operative in the series. His spray is actually a plot device, as it negates Chester's mind control. His real parents also show up and play the trope straight. Bradley later becomes R.O.B.O.B.R.A.D.L.E.Y. in "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L." where cybernetics turn his musk into even more potent rocket-propelled stink-bombs which he uses against Cree.
  • Spanner in the Works: Numbuh Three in "Operation I.-S.C.R.E.A.M." If she had not gone to look for a way to warm herself up while in the Ice Cream factory, the Delightful Children from Down the Lane would have won. While originally looking for a blanket, she settled for setting the heater to "Like, Eleventy Billion Degrees", which melted the ice cream monster that had Curb Stomped her teammates.
  • Special Edition Title:
    • "Operation: N.A.U.G.H.T.Y.", with the normally-white background turned green, snow falling over the titles, and the title decorated by Christmas lights (see here). That episode also had a teaser. Only "Operation: E.N.D.", "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", and "Operation: K.N.O.T." had a Cold Opening before this, and those were much shorter than the one in the aforementioned episode.
    • "The Grim Adventures of the KND" also has a special sequence which blends elements of both series' intros together; also preceding it is a cold open featuring Billy attempting to get the Eds' assistance, only to be redirected to the KND.
  • The Speechless: Numbuh Five was originally going to be voiceless (only fulfilled once in the No-Dialogue Episode "Operation: T.H.E.-F.L.Y.").
  • Spinning Out of Here: The Toiletnator spins when he makes an exit... but that's because he's "flushing himself" down a toilet.
  • Spot the Imposter:
    • "Operation: P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T." — Exploited by Father. Both the real President and the robotic duplicate work for him.
    • In "Operation: P.O.O.L.", Numbuh Four is clueless that Negative Numbuh One and Eizzil are not who they claim to be... But when Negative Numbuh Three shows up, he can tell she's an imposter just by looking at her. (In fact, Wally and Kuki's relationship seems to take a positive turn in this episode.)
  • Stalker with a Crush:
    • King Sandy becomes this to Numbuh Three; fortunately, he forgets about her in favor of Mushi. (Unfortunately, that only makes Mushi worse...)
    • Jimmy Nixon McGarfield is this to Numbuh One's girlfriend Lizzie Devine. He even uses a rewired boyfriend helmet on her to force her to fall in love with him. He would have been successful had his assistant Anna (who had her own crush on him) not sabotaged his plans. When Anna tells Jimmy she is in love with him, he subsequently returns her feelings, abandoning his fixation on Lizzie. Considering some recent developments, it's a good thing he did, for more reasons than one.
  • Starter Villain: Mr. Wink and Mr. Fibb, Professor XXX-L if you count the Kenny and the Chimp short from the pilot.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Numbuh 19th Century has this attitude toward girls, and is appalled that there are female KND operatives in the present day. When Numbuh 86 arrives with the intent of decommissioning him, the very first thing he does is to tell her to make herself useful by cooking and doing his laundry. He is subsequently clobbered by her.
  • Stealth Pun:
    • When Father is turning KND operatives into animals, Numbuh 86 is turned into a dog. Get it? Because she's a bitch! Or because she was already a "scottie" before being turned into a scottie. Although she looks more like an Irish Setter. Lampshaded by one of the agents who works under her:
      Numbuh 44: Well, THAT figures.
    • A more complex (and probably accidental) one comes in "Operation: B.U.N.N.Y.", where one of Heinrich's henchmen attacks Numbuh Two with a machine gun that shoots lollipops. This could be a double reference to the Dum Dum lollipop and the Dum Dum bullet, which saw heavy use in Colonial India (especially since the episode was basically a Whole-Plot Reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
    • One of the things Gramma Stuffum forces kids to eat are pies with tentacles. Octopies.
    • In "Operation: H.O.T.S.T.U.F.F.", instead of the show's normal intro, the episode begins with Kuki's father sternly telling her not to turn up the thermostat (even though the house is freezing cold). In other words, it's a literal Cold Open.
  • Stepford Smiler:
    • The Delightful Children from Down the Lane
    • Also Numbuh Three, as revealed in the final episodes.
  • Story Arc: Throughout the series there are many involved; some interconnect with one another in separate seasons, and all contain a good deal of continuity. They are as follows:
    • Season 1: "Operation: I.-S.C.R.E.A.M.", "Operation: T.U.R.N.I.P.", "Operation: T.H.E.-F.L.Y.", and "Operation: C.A.B.L.E.-T.V." contain elements that are brought back in the season finale "Operation: G.R.O.W.-U.P.".
    • Seasons 1 & 2: "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y", "Operation: C.H.A.D", "Operation: S.U.P.P.O.R.T.", "Operation: O.O.M.P.P.A.H.", "Operation: K.I.S.S.", "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.", and "Operation: S.P.A.C.E." set up a story that is concluded in "Operation: E.N.D.".
    • Seasons 1, 2 & 3: "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y.", "Operation: C.H.A.D.", "Operation: S.U.P.P.O.R.T", "Operation: O.O.M.P.P.A.H.", "Operation: K.I.S.S." "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.", "Operation: S.P.A.C.E." "Operation: E.N.D.", "Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G.", "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.", and a game in the Cartoon Network website set up "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.".
    • Seasons 3, 4, & 5: "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S.", "Operation: P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.", and "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G." set up "Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.".
    • Seasons 1, 2, 3, & 5: "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y.", "Operation: C.H.A.D.", "Operation: S.U.P.P.O.R.T", "Operation: O.O.M.P.P.A.H.", "Operation: K.I.S.S.", "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.", "Operation: S.P.A.C.E." "Operation: E.N.D.", "Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G.", "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.", and "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S." set up "Operation: I.T.".
    • Seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, & 6: "Operation: T.O.M.M.Y.", "Operation: C.H.A.D.", "Operation: S.U.P.P.O.R.T", "Operation: O.O.M.P.P.A.H", "Operation: K.I.S.S.", "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.", "Operation: S.P.A.C.E", "Operation: E.N.D." "Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G.", "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.", "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", "Operation: I.T.", and "Operation: E.N.G.L.A.N.D." set up Operation: Z.E.R.O.
    • Entire Series: "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.", "Operation: C.A.M.P.", "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.W.O.", "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-T.H.R.E.E.", "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.", "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.O.U.R.", "Operation:C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E., "Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E.", "Operation: M.E.S.S.A.G.E.", "Operation: S.I.X.", "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.", "Operation: A.M.I.S.H.", and "Operation: T.R.E.A.T.Y." set up the Grand Finale: "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.".
    • Seasons 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6: "Operation: F.L.A.V.O.R.", "Operation: J.E.W.E.L.S.", "Operation: R.A.B.B.I.T.", "Operation: C.H.O.C.O.L.A.T.E.", and "Operation: L.I.C.O.R.I.C.E." set up "Operation: C.A.R.A.M.E.L.", which explains the "Guatemala Incident" in detail. Turns out Heinrich was a girl prior to it.
    • Most episodes of Season 6 set up the Splinter Cell plot and the Galactic KND.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike:
    • A literal example is used with the above Creepy Children.
    • Numbuhs One and Two, having no clue what bras are, use a backronym generator on the word, and eventually conclude that it stands for "Battle Ready Armor" and is a secret Teenager armor device. After some embarrassing hijinx, The Stinger shows us that that is indeed what the Teenagers are using bras for (yes, even the boys). They even use the same backronym.
  • Straw Feminist:
    • Numbuh 86 again, though her attitude doesn't win her any points with the female members either.
    • Madam Margaret is an extreme version of this trope. She's the ruler of a dystopian future where girls hunt boys and turn them into girls with "girlifying ray guns", and gets the ball rolling by sending her past self said ray guns. Her stated goal is to create a world without boys, and practically accomplished that before an old Numbuh Four (aided by Numbuh Three's granddaughter Sally, ironically) uses her time machine to hit the Reset Button and undo her schemes. The creepy part is that she's a kid in the present. Her entire motivation for wanting guys gone is that she doesn't get along with her brothers.
  • Straw Hypocrite: The Vespinaccians, whose goal is to spread the glory of spinach. In truth, none of them like spinach at all, and their king only started the idea just so he doesn't have to eat it.
  • Stupid Evil: Many of the Delightful Children's plots fall into this trope, either due to their own incompetence or the fact that they grossly underestimate the KND's intelligence. "Operation: F.L.A.V.O.R." and "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R." are two of the best examples.
  • Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: In an episode, the kids are trying to save babies at a hospital. Numbuh Three, The Ditz, reveals that "I speak baby," and indeed she does.
  • Sunglasses at Night: Numbuh One mainly, but sometimes other members of the KND as well.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • The show averts The Good Guys Always Win, and the KND lose almost as often as they succeed. And conversely, as much as we may wish otherwise, sometimes bad people get away with what they do despite efforts to the contrary.
    • Robin Food and his Hungry Men are the kitchen staff of a retirement center who are too lazy to actually make food and settle for stealing kids' lunches. However, the senior citizens that reside there are unwilling to eat the stolen food because most of it is not healthy for elderly people.
    • As humorous as Sector V's constant failures at the cake missions are, you can't remain on a task if you fail it one too many times. When they fail yet again in the series finale, Numbuh 362's patience finally runs out, and the task is reassigned to her younger brother and his sector.
    • Speaking of said younger brother, Numbuh 363 is disliked by almost everyone in the Kids Next Door for his attitude, but he gets away with it because his sister is the Supreme Leader. The second he loses said connection via his sister stepping down, he is promptly decommissioned. Successful or otherwise, if literally no-one likes you, chances are that you won't get to hang around for too long.
  • Sweet Tooth: Taken to the extreme with Stickybeard and Heinrich Von Marzipan. Numbuh Five shares their interest in candy, but for her it's not an unhealthy (no pun intended) obsession.
  • Swiss-Cheese Security: Sector V's Treehouse, unfortunately. (Ironically, Numbuh One designed the security system for it, and received an award from the Moonbase for it, because of how good it supposedly was.)
  • Take Our Word for It: In "Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W.S.", Numbuh Three completely freaks out when Mr. Mogul tells her what he intends to do with the Rainbow Monkeys, something the viewers are not privy to. What makes this even more disturbing is that Mogul (whose name is a rather dead giveaway to his motivations) runs the company that makes the Rainbow Monkey toys.
  • Take That!: This whole show is a massive Take That! towards adulthood. Ironically, this show was made by adults.
    • If you look at it, it's a take that to two things. 1) Kids who are over-dramatic about punishments (such as "no candy") and 2) Adults who thinks they they are automatically better than kids because of age, and turn away from things they see as "childish". (Such as the tie episode, where one of the few adult allies still takes himself seriously from time to time when he needs to, but knows how to have fun when he can and it doesn't sacrifice too much.)
    • It's also clear from a few episodes that the writers are not big fans of Doctor Who. (See Cool and Unusual Punishment above.)
  • Taken During the Ending: In Season 1 "Operation: C.A.B.L.E.-T.V.", after Sector V stops Mr. B from turning everyone into babies using his Age Cigar, Numbuh One takes the cigar and throws it out the window, believing it's no concern to them. Unfortunately, the Delightful Children From Down The Lane find the cigar on the ground, pick it up and start laughing evilly once it's in their hands. They would later use the cigar during the Season One finale.
  • The Talk: A humorous subversion in "Operation: D.I.A.P.E.R." Numbuh One believes them to be birthed from baby eggs, and when Numbuh Five finally tells the team what is built up to be the real explanation, The Stinger shows the other four in various states of shock and horror. It is then revealed that whatever she said wasn't really about sex, as Numbuh One replies, "Wait a second. That's preposterous! Babies don't come from New Jersey!... They come from Philadelphia."
  • Team Rocket Wins: Sometimes, this happens to The Toiletnator, but unintentionally.
  • Temporal Paradox: Again, "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.".
  • Teens Are Monsters
  • Teen Superspy: Although, strictly speaking, they are tween superspies.
  • Telethon: The end credits for "Operation: R.E.C.E.S.S. / Operation: H.A.M.S.T.E.R." shows a telethon being held by Sector V and several hamsters to save recess. Numbuh One's discussion of the telethon eventually turns into a rant about what he believes schools are doing to kids, until it is cut off by a We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties screen.
    Numbuh Five: Numbuh Five here, Numbuh One's doing it again...
  • Thanksgiving Episode:
    • "Operation: C.L.U.E.S." (albeit an eleven-minute one).
    • Word of God claims that "Operation: S.P.A.N.K.E.N.S.T.I.N.E." was originally supposed to be one, but the plot, as written, was more Halloween-like, so it was changed.
  • Theme Naming
  • Thick-Line Animation: Season 1 episodes.
  • Third-Person Person: Numbuh Five says she makes referring to herself in the third person cool!
  • 13 Is Unlucky: Numbuh 13 is very unlucky, so unlucky that he's spent his entire career being foisted from one team to another because misfortune always befalls his new comrades.
  • 13th Birthday Milestone: Operatives of the K.N.D. are decommissioned on their 13th birthdays — when they officially become teenagers — so that they do not pass valuable secrets to the evil Teen Ninjas and adults. Abby's sister Cree and Chad are the rare examples that escaped the decommissioning, but the birthday still marked their Face–Heel Turn. For some operatives like Maurice, however, this birthday marks them going undercover as double agents instead.
  • This Cannot Be!: "But that's un-possible!"
  • This Is a Drill: The ending of "No P in the Ool".
  • Threatening Sharks: Especially when they can get a literal kid burger via fast food drive-thrus.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman:
    • The normally useless H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P. ends up being vital for defeating the younger Madame Margaret in "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E." because it's too girly for her girlifier rays.
    • Similarly, in "Operation: C.A.N.Y.O.N.", the normally harmless Toiletnator's toilet-flushing powers end up sinking all of the KND's cereal and milk out of the Grand Canyon, although that ends up screwing over Mr. Boss's attempts at sending them a sneak attack.
  • Time-Passes Montage:
    • "Operation: A.W.A.R.D.S." spoofs the Spinning Clock Hands version, where the spinning clock hands turns out to be just Numbuh Four playing with his watch.
    • Numbuh Four suffers through this previously during "bring your daughter to work day" in "Operation: O.F.F.I.C.E." He waits and waits and waits... and the hands on his dad's clock move backwards.
  • Three Shorts: "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.", "Kenny and the Chimp in Diseasey Does it! or Chimp 'n Pox", and "No P in the OOL" the 9th aired episode (or the series premiere depending on where you look) of the series.
  • Toilet Teleportation: The episode "Operation: F.L.U.S.H." features the Toiletnator both arriving through the toilet, and being disposed of by the heroes in this fashion during the credits.
  • Tomato Surprise:
    • "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.": the KND guard an operative... who turns out to be a skunk.
    • The movie has the Delightful Children turn out to be Sector Z, a sector of KND that went missing. Father had tested a machine on them that overloaded and turn them into their current state.
    • And of course the real kicker — Nigel's father being the original Numbuh Zero, and the brother of KND's sworn nemesis, Father, thus making Father Nigel's uncle.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Numbuhs Five and Three.
  • Town Girls: Sweet, cheerful, Rainbow Monkey-loving Genki Girl Numbuh Three (Femme), Fiery Redhead Numbuh 86 who is outwardly loud and mean but has a secret passion for the same girly things as Numbuh Three (Neither), and Deadpan Snarker, Little Miss Badass Numbuh Five who has little interest in anything girly (Butch).
  • Too Dumb to Live: Numbuh Four loves eating Coco Nut Logs even though he's allergic to coconut.
  • Totally Radical: The "Little Traitor Dudes for Children's Defense" native language.
  • Town Contest Episode: The Grand Finale has a mammoth worldwide scavenger hunt with almost every operative and villain of the show and the winner receiving the Delightfuls' Birthday cake. Near the end Nigel (Numbuh 1) wins and is selected by Numbuh 74.239 to join the Galactic KND, just to be informed that he might never return to Earth, which in turn means that he'll probably never see his friends and family again.
  • Tranquillizer Dart: Used in "Operation: Z.O.O." by Mrs. Goodwall against Sector V, to put them in a "Kids Zoo".
  • Transformation Conventions: In "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", the children of the world are transformed into animals and the end result follows National Stereotypes. Japanese KND Numbuh Three becomes a crane, fat Numbuh Two becomes a hippo, and Australian Numbuh Four becomes a koala. The best, though is the misanthropic Irish operative Numbuh 86 becoming a dog, at which a bystander comments, "Well, that figures". The Big Bad of the series, a shadowy man known as "Father", is hit with the animal transformation as well. He turns into a panther. Funnily enough, he still has the smoking pipe he always has sticking out of his mouth
  • Travel Montage: "Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W.S."
  • Traumatic Haircut: More often than not, at least one Kid ends up getting their hair chopped, shaved, pulled, or burned off during a mission.
    • Memorable example is Abigail in "Operation: L.I.C.E.", where her hair is eaten by giant chubby, shrieking mutant lice.
    • It's implied that Numbuh One is permanently bald as a result of being tortured by the DCFDTL.
    • In "Operation: D.A.D.D.Y.", parents giving their own children horrible haircuts is treated like this.
  • Treehouse of Fun: The KND operate from them all over the world and on the moon, and they're usually the largest landmark for miles.
  • Triage Tyrant: In the episode "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.", Sector V has to get into a hospital to rescue an injured operative who later turns out to be Bradley because operatives who are treated there are being assaulted. Numbuh One has no luck with the triage nurse; even though she seems friendly and harmless, she doesn't take his authoritarian demands seriously. Numbuh Five, who is more polite and often the Only Sane Woman of the team, is luckier and gets some information, but is still unable to get them admitted formally. Despite this, seeing as Adults Are Useless in this cartoon (the ones who aren't evil, anyway), sneaking in is surprisingly easy, and no one tries to stop them. Lucky thing too, because Bradley is targeted by the assailant, who happens to be Numbuh Five's evil sister Cree.
  • Troubled Fetal Position: In "Operation: I.T.", Father enters this position after being threatened at broccoli-point by Rachel, a.k.a. Numbuh 362, complete with an implied hallucination of his father making him eat broccoli during his childhood. Although given what his father is like, this was probably a truly traumatic experience.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The aforementioned Creepy Children.
  • True Companions: A very central theme of the series, especially applies to Nigel as no matter how busy he is he always puts his friends first.
  • Ugly Cute: The living Rainbow Monkeys look much more like real primates (with bulky bodies, large canine teeth, big snouts, and drooling mouths) than the stylized toys based on them that we see elsewhere in the cartoon, but they’re friendly and cute in their own way.
  • Unknown Rival: The Toiletnator is this to Numbuh Four after the events of "Operation: M.O.V.I.E.". Well, maybe Numbuh Four knows; he just doesn't care.
  • Unnamed Parent: Subverted. To the Kids Next Door, adults are the enemy, and so they don't really care what the adults are named beyond "Mom" or "Dad". All adults are either "Mr. ______" or some variation on the gimmick they use to fight the KND. The biggest villain for the majority of the series is the demonic figure known only as "Father". The one who eventually tops him is the Dracula-esque "Grandfather". Three guesses as to the nature of their relationship. In addition, quite a few of the kids' parents are named as the series goes on.
  • Unreliable Expositor:
    • Possibly the case in "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.". It is revealed at the end that the adult KND were deliberately misleading Father during the interview, so it stands to reason that the parts of the story that he did not actually witness could have been untrue.
    • In "Operation: R.E.P.O.R.T.", all five members of Sector V seem to be this. If one had to guess, Numbuh Five's version of the story was probably closest to the facts, but they were all rather farfetched.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Numbuh Three. Usually, she's sweeter than sugar, but make her angry enough, and she develops Scary Teeth, Fireball Eyeballs, her teammates run for cover, and she becomes strong enough to beat up Mr. Boss, by herself. (As she did in "Operation: M.A.C.A.R.R.O.N.I.")
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Sometimes averted, other times played straight.
    • If the Kids Next Door are doing a Humongous Mecha battle in town square for example, you will see civilians running away in terror. However, if the children are jumping into trap doors to escape class, pulling out crazy 2x4 technology in public or participating in other related craziness, expect the people around them to be either indifferent, or to bounce back quickly.
    • For example, in "Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S.", Chad and his friend are in class, wearing their Battle Ready Armor and doing some Evil Gloating complete with dramatic laughter. Neither the teacher nor their classmates seem very interested in the two hamtastic teenagers in lingerie-powered ninja gear. The teacher tells them to wait until after his class to talk about attacking an elementary school, but otherwise doesn't care.
    • In "Operation: F.A.S.T.-F.O.O.D.", the KND seem to take the fact that they're rescuing Number Three from a car full of sharks who ordered her for lunch relatively in stride — no-one seems to note the fact that they're sharks who can drive and are intelligent.
  • Unwilling Suspension: The villains have a fondness for tying up the heroes and dangling them upside-down, usually by their feet.
  • Useless Useful Non-Combat Abilities: Stealth in the defunct game Operation: B.E.S.T.. It allows you to sneak past enemies, but there is literally one segment in the game (outside the tutorial) where this is required to proceed. Since Death Is a Slap on the Wrist and returns you to the last checkpoint (with the boss' health bar not even going back up), more often than not you can just brute-force your way through fights.

    Tropes V to Z 
  • Valley Girl: In "Operation: P.O.O.L.", we have the opposites of the Delightful Children from Down the Lane, the Little Traitor Dudes for Children's Defense.
  • Verbal Tic: Numbuh Five's parents (her father especially) speak in a style reminiscent of Bill Cosby. Her older sister, Cree, also occasionally lapses into this, though mostly when mocking her father.
  • Vetinari Job Security: In "Operation: I.T.", it turns out that Numbuh 362 is the Soopreme Leader because nobody else wants the job. She is genuinely good at it, though.
  • Villain Decay: Father started out as... well, pretty much Satan. Scary, always cloaked in darkness, and biblical in his wrath—and of course, his voice is Maurice LaMarche at his scenery-chewing best. Contrast this with the middle-aged dork he became later on.
  • Villainous Crossdresser:
    • Chad Dickson in "Operation: S.L.U.M.B.E.R.":
      Chad: Surprised to see me?
      Numbuh Three: Yeah, surprised to see you wearing a bra! [she, Numbuh 12 and 23 laugh]
      Chad: It's not a bra! It's a Battle Ready Armor! For disguises and stuff.
      Numbuh 23: Whatever you say, Chaderella.
    • This is actually also a Running Gag: the kids mistake bras for a new kind of weapon in "Operation: S.U.P.P.O.R.T.", which they turn out to be in fact at the end of the episode and in later ones.
  • Villains Out Shopping: A literal example. There is a supermarket specifically for villains only. One episode features the majority of the Rogues Gallery and the heroes fighting over a box of cereal.
  • Villainy-Free Villain: Professor XXX-L
  • Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Early episodes seemed to avert it in that pre-teen heroes didn't seem to even go to school, but as the series went on it established that, yes, these kids do attend elementary school, and goings on at the school in question even became crucial to various plots.
  • Walk Into Camera Obstruction:
    • "Operation: O.U.T.B.R.E.A.K.": A girl jumps towards Numbuh Four.
    • "Operation: M.O.V.I.E.": An usher taking Numbuh Four away for sneaking into an R-rated movie.
    • "Operation: T.H.E S.H.O.G.U.N.": When the cheese ninjas take away Numbuhs Two and Four, one of them obscure the camera.
    • "Operation: B.R.I.E.F.": When Numbuh One first encounters Mr. White, he obscures the screen when he attacks Numbuh One.
    • "Operarion: U.T.O.P.I.A.": Before Katie shows Numbuh One her home, she obscures the screen with her pink skirt.
    • "Operation: H.U.G.S.": Rainbow Monkey Kong tries to grab Numbuh Four inside Sector V; his hand obscures the screen when he finally does.
    • "Operation: H.O.U.N.D.": When Valerie shows her true form, Numbuh Five's hair fills the screen as she is backing away from her.
    • "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y.": With some fat kid filling the screen after going up the sky and into the air. And twice in a row with the senator and Numbuh Four while they and Numbuh Two travel through an air vent.
  • Walk the Plank: With Stickybeard and his pirates.
  • Walk Through the Camera:
    • "Operation: U.T.O.P.I.A.": Numbuh One runs away from Katie.
    • "The Grim Adventures of the KND" with Billy's dad. "I wear the pants around here! ME! me, me, me!"
    • "Operation: C.O.L.L.E.G.E.": The very beginning with Numbuh One drinking a shake.
  • Weaksauce Weakness:
    • As previously stated, Were-Dogs eat homework; however, badly done homework by poor students (like Numbuh Four) makes them sick. Mrs. Thompson herself doesn't have this weakness, however, being their leader and significantly stronger. However, there is another weakness that applies only to her: she can't lie. Numbuh Four quickly finds out that the best way to learn the easiest way to fight her and the other were-dogs is to simply ask her, and it works like a charm.
    • For Knightbrace, it's taffy, which he loves so much, he can easily be tempted and subdued with it. Very ironic, seeing as he's a would-be dentist who otherwise tries to force children to adhere to dental hygiene.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist:
    • Played for Laughs with Numbuh 20,000, who tends to go quite a little bit overboard.
    • Also with Count Spankulot during the first episode focused around him. He originally just spanked kids who deserved it (even if their crimes were fairly minor by most standards), and even attempted to join the KND to help fight evil adults after he accidentally spanked the wrong child. However, his mistreatment by the KND left him as being a straight villain by the end of the episode.
  • Werewolves Are Dogs: In Operation: H.O.U.N.D. and its continuation, Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E., the antagonist of those episodes is Valerie, a werepoodle that ate Numbuh 5's homework to disqualify her as a honor role student, and Mrs. Thompson, Numbuh 5's homeroom teacher who leads the weredogs as their queen. Numbuh 5 became one in Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E, due to her being attacked by Valerie on the previous episode. A literal example of A Dog Ate My Homework, where their weakness is bad homework, which poison to them, though Mrs. Thompson is immune to it due to being the queen. The weredog transformation is a curse, as the transformation came from Mrs. Thompson's necklace, which was given to her by her ex-husband.
  • We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: A G-rated version: All KND Operatives have to be decommissioned at the age of 13, and their memories of being in the KND will erased. There are teenage operative double agents though, and evil teenagers who escaped decommissioning.
  • Wham Episode:
    • In Operation: Z.E.R.O., we find out that Numbuh Zero is Numbuh One's dad, Father is Nigel's uncle and Grandfather, the Big Bad of the film, is actually his GRANDFATHER!!! Not to mention that the DCFDTL are actually the missing Sector Z, and (quite possibly) his adopted cousins.
    • In "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.", we find out that Numbuh One has been chosen as the best operative on the planet and is going to join the Galatic KND.
    • Also, "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D.", which results in the destruction of Sector V's treehouse and Lizzie breaking up with Nigel. Wow.
    • The "teaser" video and website for the potential Galactic Kids Next Door serve as this, big time. In order...
      • The Galactic KND's motives have been thrown into question.
      • Numbuh 74.23 is a Tree Alien who's been disguised as a human for years.
      • Lizzie might also have been an Alien Among Us, if the cryptic "EARTH MISSION COMPLETE" is anything to go by.
      • Numbuh One may undergo a Face–Heel Turn.
      • And the second video revealed that Lizzie is Numbuh Vine, a plant alien. Even the characters are shocked.
        "Holy *bleeep*"
  • Wham Line:
  • What the Hell, Hero?: This happens to Numbuh Four in two separate episodes.
    • The first time is in "Operation: M.A.T.A.D.O.R." when the rest of the team is angry at him for fighting in the Bully Fights. (The KND isn't fond of adults, but what the bullies do to them — trap them and give them Klatchian Coffee until they fly into a rage, and then fight them in a bullfight-like setting — that crosses the line.) Numbuh Four has a Heel Realization when his own father is a victim of this cruel sport, and when he ultimately saves the day, he's forgiven.
    • He isn't the second time, however, in "Operation: M.I.S.S.I.O.N." In this one, he tricks the authorities at the KND base in Antarctica into letting four dangerous villains go free — Mr. Boss, Count Spankulot, Stickybeard, and Soccer Mom — and then threatens them so they can compete against his dad's bowling team. All because he's sick of polishing his dad's trophy's. After everything that happened, the rest of Sector V actually sided with the four villains here, and he was punished in the end.
    • Numbuh Five gets one when she's willing to leave Leona to die in the collapsing Fountain of Youth, though somewhat understandable since Leona had tried to kill them to keep her secret. Numbuh Four convinces her that they should save her anyway.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: All of Sector A, the Amish sector, talk like this. The accent slides somewhere between Southern American, vaguely Scandinavian, and a really bad Ringo Starr impression, making it really hard to pin down WHAT it's supposed to sound like, exactly. It doesn't help that the accent never stays consistent from line to line.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: "Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S."
  • Whole-Plot Reference: A lot of the episodes do this. That Other Wiki's episode guide for the show has quite an extensive list.
    • "Operation: A.R.C.H.I.V.E." is, surprisingly, basically the "Second Renaissance" short in The Animatrix with the serial numbers filed off.
    • Later, "Operation: R.E.C.R.U.I.T." is the original The Matrix played totally straight until about half way through, where things start getting silly.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: When The Toiletnator sinks an ENTIRE GRAND CANYON'S worth of milk and cereal using his flushing powers. Unfortunately, he did it when the Operatives were about to eat said milk and cereal, and when the adults were actually planning an ambush on them. He unwittingly ruined both the adult's plans and the kid's cereal at once. Naturally, Numbuh 86 berates Numbuh One for what happened, especially letting the Toiletnator get by security, because of said incident. In short, neither side wins.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Anyone other than Santa who so much as touches the Reindeer becomes Drunk with Power. This happens to not only the Delightful Children, who you would expect to go power mad, but even Numbuh Three when she touches them.
  • Wild Teen Party: The Delightful Children accidentally start a TV-Y7 version of this trope by trying to kiss up to teenagers. They're forced to ask the Kids Next Door to help them stop the party before Father finds out; the KND are honor-bound to agree.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Poor, poor H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P. At least one time he managed to save the day, in "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.", before getting crushed.
    • Numbuh Four would also count, as he would be the first to charge in and is often the first to go down in battle.
  • World Gone Mad: It's a world where adults live to make the younger generation's lives a living hell. And people get away with turning stuffed animals and pinkeye crust into food. And there's candy pirates who wreck the suburbs pretty damn often, and Father, and Grandfather, and all the villains, and... hell, and some horrible plan about to ruin the lives of children forever and yet their parents always think they're just playing... And then there's "Operation: F.U.T.U.R.E.". My God. It's heavily implied that there's some sort of Weirdness Censor in place that causes non-villain adults to just ignore all the bizarre, catastrophic events around them.
  • World of Ham: You'd be hard-pressed to find a line in this show spoken at normal speed and volume.
  • World's Best Warrior: Chad Dickson, a.k.a. Numbuh 274, Soopreme Leader of the KND, was considered to be THE best operative on the planet, and possibly in all of the history of the KND. After his defection, the title eventually went to Numbuh One, Leader of Sector V and the primary protagonist of the show. Chad despises Nigel so much because even as a Fake Defector, Nigel was still believed to have surpassed — a fact that, much to the misfortune of Chad, is proven to be true.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Part of the reason how Numbuh Four defeated the robots in "Operation: S.A.F.E.T.Y.".
  • Wreathed in Flames: Father often does this, usually when he's angry.
  • Xanatos Gambit:
    • There's an episode where Cree's carrying out an Evil Plan to destroy Sector V but is defeated and sent to jail at the KND Moon Base. That was her true goal; to gain access to the Moon Base, but wiping out Sector V would have been good too. (She aborted The Plan when Chad told her he already tried it and he might have been trying to convince her not to try, seeing as he was a Fake Defector, but it likely would have failed anyway; the access code that she believed she got from her sister she actually got from a dummy that Numbuh Five left as a decoy.)
    • And then there's "Operation: P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.". Both the president and his robotic duplicate work for Father so it doesn't matter which one of them reaches City Hall.
    • "Operation: U.N.D.E.R.C.O.V.E.R." has one of these in the Kids Next Door's favor. Either Sector V destroys the coffee rig as planned, or, if they fail, the supposed "top secret files" they were meant to share with Lenny, who was pretending to work with them, is actually a bomb, which will go off after the Delightful Children steal it and destroy the coffee rig anyways.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: When Sector V had to improvise an attack on a "Villains Awards Show" without Numbuh One's help. It involved a lot of disguises, a chunk of sneaking around, and lots of snot. Worked out, until it was revealed that Numbuh One was Kid-napped and set up as an award, causing the plan to backfire. Thankfully, they managed to rescue him in time for the plan to work out. By simply rushing the stage and carting him away. The adults had no clue what was going on.
  • X-Ray Sparks
  • You Are Numbuh Six:
    • Given additional meaning with their, uh, Meaningful Names (see its entry above).
    • The actual Numbuh Six is a skunk. No hidden meaning there, he's just a skunk. But Numbuh Six was introduced before it was revealed that Numbuh's One through Five were just a sector of a much larger KND operation. Also, Bradley the skunk isn't an official Numbuh. Numbuh One granted him honorary status after the events of "Operation: C.A.M.P." They treat the honorary designation as official, however, even coming to Bradley's aid in "Operation: H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.".
  • Yandere: Numbuh One's computer towards him in "Operation: G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D."
  • You Know What You Did: "Operation: D.O.G.F.I.G.H.T."
  • You Meddling Kids: "Operation: C.A.M.P."; a angry camp counselor yells at a skunk, the one later used in the Tomato Surprise, after the KND freed a bunch of brainwashed campers.
  • You Monster!: Numbuh 86 to Father, in "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E.", after the destruction of the KND ice cream storage.
  • Zombie Apocalypse:
    • Or rather a Senior Citizombie Apocalypse in The Movie.
    • An earlier episode also dealt with nerd zombies. In that case, though, it was due to a collectible card getting stolen. Once it was returned, they changed back.

end transmission.

 
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Numbuh 1's Rant on Adults

At first, it seems the episode is going to end on the peaceful, heartwarming note where the adults and the children find a middle ground living together as a family...or COULD THEY? Adults then created schools to brainwash kids into forgetting kids created adults, stripping them of their childishness as much as possible and deluding them into not rebelling against adult control, before adding homework and after-school activities to further their control. Towards the end of the story, Numbuh 1's teacher interrupts and scolds him, revealing this story to be just an oral report, saying that the report had nothing to do with the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

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