Roughly a third of the whole crew.
Commander Clark is a French cartoon produced by Go-n Productions. An Affectionate Parody of Star Trek much like The Orville, although even more comedic and obviously toned down for the younger children who were the target demographic. After having a run on European television, it was officially uploaded to YouTube, to let everyone else have a look at it. Has an official English dub,
along with the French one.
This animated space adventure contains these tropes:
- Breakingthe Fourth Wall: In the episode "Shlurp comes to visit" , upon learning that Shlurp is Rex in disguise, Kitty turns to the audience and remarks: " Thank goodness all bad guys like to announce their plans in a loud crazy voice"
- Christmas Special: the 2-part final: Clark saves Christmas.
- Cool Big Sis: Kitty to Lionel. Though usually annoyed at time by his and Elmor’ prank, in the episode “Be yourself”, Kitty does end up genuinely trying to make Lionel a better crew member by giving him encouraging advices along with numerous academic text books to help him familiarize with his new position as lieutenant.
- A Dog Named "Dog": play straight with multiple characters: Kitty the cat, Foxy the fox, Porko the pig, Kong the gibbon (monkey), Jelly the jellyfish and Panther the Animatronic panther. Slightly subverted for Lionel, who is a chicken.
- Elite Mook: Panther: A new Animatronic model with enhanced agility and intelligence. However, being a kid's show, her "deadly" Sonic disruptor only manages to make the Ark's crew...unconsciously dance. She does manage to subdue the entire crew though, with her plan only managed to be foiled by Rex.
- Edible Ammunition: The Federation standard issued weapons are blasters which shoot really sticky bubble gum projectiles.
- Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Clark and Kitty
- Faster Than They Look: the mutant bats in the episode “Attack of the mutant bats”, while portly and clumsy looking in terms of physical appearance, are agile enough to evade multiple bubble projectiles fired from the Ark. It is later explained that despite their mutation, the bats still retain their echolocation ability to detect the projectile patterns of the cannons.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: Kitty and Clark.
- Flash Back: Most of the episode "Goodbye Kitty" consists of flashbacks of older episodes, which is understandable considering the fact that the episode mostly centers around the titular character preparing to depart upon being assigned to a new squadron.
- Giant Flyer: The titular characters in the episode “Attack of the mutant bats” grow to the size of the Ark.
- Gossipy Hens: Taken to the extreme with Jennifer the nurse as her only notable personality trait seems to be her obsession with spreading other crew members’ rather private information around .
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Being Clark’s first officer within the chain of Command of the Ark, Kitty maintains a rather professional relationship with her superior. Should anyone get a bit too close and personal with Clark, be it Betty or Gloria, however, it should be no surprised that Kitty will quickly be reduced to a jealousy-spurred monster who will do whatever it takes to prevent any attempt of a relationship from being formed.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners:
- Clark and Foxy are this most of the time, as most evident in the episode “Meat-ites”. The episode mostly centers around Clark coping with the fact that Foxy may leave the crew for good since an alien tribe adopts the latter as their king. Clark definitely does not take this well:
"Maybe he (Foxy) was always getting everything backwards but it’s just not the same without him on board."- Lionel and Elmor definitely fit this trope to a T, considering their mutual fondness of causing pranks.
- It's All About Me: Narcissism is probably the core character trait of Foxy. Predictably, one should expect Foxy to be flaunting his makeup, clothes, or in short, anything related to personal cosmetics every time he is on screen, regardless of other crew members’ reaction. His self-absorption can come across as borderline insensitive at times, as evident by him “mourning” for Kitty as the latter is prepared to be transferred away only because he thinks himself as more deserving of a promotion or making everyone around him conform to his overly demanding wishes upon being promoted to commander.
- Jetpack: the standard Federation spacesuit are all equipped with advanced jetpacks, the boosters of which are mounted at the tip of the retractable wings instead of the central hull, thereby solving the issues of Toasted Buns.
- No Focuson Humans: it is heavily implied that human exist, or at least used to, in this universe, though they never physically appear in the show.
- Ray Gun:
- The majority of weapons used by the Animatronics can be considered as this. The power level of which vary inconsistently, ranging from piercing through hard metal (and rocks) with ease in one scene to barely being able to stun Clark for a few seconds in the next scene, as demonstrated in the episode "Clark and the galaxy treasure".
- In the episode “Bubble gone”, the Animatronics replace their standard blasters with the more powerful laser guns, similar in appearance to the 19th century cameras. Rex also manages to outfit himself with six new appendage-like laser guns attached to his body.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Clark's the red oni to Kitty's blue oni as the former is usually enthusiastic and impulsive while the latter's more laid-back and stoic.
- Shout-Out: The show contains multiple pop culture references from the later half of the 20th century. Examples include:
- Two of the monitors of the ship’s bridge feature retro games reminiscent those of Pacman and Galaga.
- In the episode: “Spaceball”, a xenomorph-like creature makes a cameo appearance in Kong’s lab.
- In the episode “Panther”, modified UAC logos from the Doom franchise can be seen on multiple boxes inside the hanger.
- In the episode “Clark sees double”, the scene where a shuttle slowly docks into the Ark contains multiple reference to the Star Wars franchise, most notably Return of the Jedi; ranging from multiple identical gorilla soldiers standing in formation, Shlurp’s Darth Vader like heavy breathing upon stepping out of the shuttle, to even the music motif reminiscent of the Imperial March.
- The name and design of title card of the episodes “The name is Clark…Commander Clark” and “Pseudo-Spy” respectively are rather obvious references to the famous James Bond franchise.
- In the episode “Lost in translation”, Bernie is introduced as Foxy’s “Geraldine’s uncle’s husband’s brother”. His long-wind, somewhat nonsensical description of his relative can be considered as a loose reference to a similar quote from Spaceballs, which in turn is a parody of the famous “I am your father” scene from Star Wars.
- Shorter Means Smarter: General Rex, the leader brain of the Animatronics’ faction, is among the shorter characters of the series. Though his plan fails constantly, Rex at times have demonstrated rather cunning and emotionally manipulative behaviors as a means to making best use of his surroundings, as best demonstrated in the episodes: “Pseudo spy”, “Metal heart” or “Shlurp comes to visit”.
- The Scrooge: Bob the accountant, most notably in the episode “Penny pincher”. Though it is initially understandable given that the Ark is reported to be repeatedly overconsuming energy, Bob starts cutting corners at every chance possible, from randomly shutting down the ship’s artificial gravity or the lights to heavily rationing water and food for energy saving purpose. Not really a bright idea for a patrol vessel constantly travelling in the darkness of space. It is no wonder that throughout the series, Bob is heavily implied to be not even close to being one of the most adored crew members.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kitty, the second-in-command, is a tomboy to Sylvie's girly girl.
- Toxic Waste Can Do Anything: In the episode “Attack of the Mutant Bats”, the size and overall physical appearance of the mutant bats can be attributed to the fact that Federation has been dumping nuclear waste into the nesting ground.
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What Could Have Been: the pilot/trailer introduces a giant Tentacled Terror like monster as one of the villains, which is likely a Shout-Out to Cthulu in terms of appearance. Said character never appears in the series, leaving the Animatronics as the sole antagonists of the series.
