Western Animation / Hailey's On It!

The future's in her hands.

"Chaos bots have been sent from the future to stop the one person who can save the world!"
Hailey: "Me?!"

Hailey's On It! is a 2023 animated Science Fiction/Romantic Comedy series created by Devin Bunje and Nick Stanton. It stars the voices of Auli'i Cravalho, Manny Jacinto, and Gary Anthony Williams. The series premiered on Disney Channel on June 8, 2023.

The show follows Hailey Banks (Cravalho), a risk-averse teenage girl who finds herself visited by a time traveler named The Professor, (Sarah Chalke) and charged with completing a to-do list of the things she was always afraid to do because that’s the first step on her road to ending climate change and saving the world. Assessing her in her mission is the mouthy robot Beta (Williams). However, one of the more important items on her list involves kissing her nice, but ditzy best friend (and secret crush) Scott Denoga (Jacinto), but Hailey isn't quite ready to complete that mission yet...

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Hailey’s On It! contains examples of the following:

• Actress Allusion:
  • In "Smells Like Queen Spirit", Hailey says that a girl like her wasn't likely to become a princess, a reference to Auli'i Cravalho's role as Moana. To make it even more obvious, Hailey then holds a pillow to her chest, which has the same pattern as Moana's dress. Later on in the episode, she has a confrontation with a Mega Chaos Bot that has taken the guise of a giant crab decoration. In other words, Hailey's actress had to deal with another giant crab again.
  • Another allusion to Cravalho's role as Moana is that Hailey's baby twin brothers are named Dwayne and Johnson, an obvious reference to Dwayne Johnson who starred alongside Cravalho as Maui.
• Actually Pretty Funny: On the verge of Scott hearing a video message from Hailey confessing her feelings for him in "The A-maize-ing Maze", Hailey panics and throws his phone into the path of a combine harvester, destroying it. With Scott shooting her a rare Death Glare, Hailey chalked it up to her hand slipping, which breaks Scott into laughter and calls her "butterfingers".
• All for Nothing: "Dance Like No Mom is Watching" has Hailey decide to pick an item on her list without Beta's help, since he needs to update his software. She goes through training to get good enough to get the high score on a DanceDanceRevolution-style arcade game, only for Beta to angrily inform her she already completed that one, which she doesn't remember because she and Scott got drunk on slushies and the resulting brainfreeze left her with little memory of the event.
• Almost Kiss:
  • Hailey and Scott almost kiss in the Tunnel of Love in the pilot, but the spinning of the previous ride catches up to her and she vomits on him.
  • In "Kissed Opportunities", Hailey throws a party with Scott and fellow classmates that leads to a truth-or-dare card game being played. With a card that forces players to kiss, Hailey initially thinks it's a way to scratch "Kiss Scott Denoga" off her list without the I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship implications, but as they lean in, Hailey realizes if she ever kissed Scott, it should mean something, and opts out of the game.
• Alpha Bitch: Kristine Sanchez has all of the typical characteristics of a New 20's version of one, being highly popular on social media and in person, being traditionally attractive... but it's then subverted because she's actually a nice person, which causes complications for Hailey's list, as she starts dating Scott.
• Ambiguous Situation: Is the To-Do List really what will help save the world? Or is it all a lie to convince Hailey to try new things? The fact that Chaos Bots have been sent back to stop her implies the former, but it's still unclear, and if Hailey doesn't save the world eventually, what's the point of such a complicated plot?
• Artistic License – Law: Hailey adopts a flamingo from an animal shelter in episode 10, which many viewers will be disappointed to learn is very illegal in real life.
• Art Shift: When Hailey puts on a leather jacket, she sees her reflection in an art style reminiscent of a more action-oriented cartoon, to fit with the bad girl persona that accompanies the outfit.
• Bad Future: There are occasional glimpses of a world ruined by climate change that will come to pass if Hailey doesn't complete her list.
• Balloonacy: In "The Puffle Kerfluffle", the Puffles wear helium-filled pants that render them almost weightless, allowing for airborne acrobatics as part of their act.
• Baseball Episode: "The Umpire Strikes Back" has Scott take over as pitcher for the local baseball team, the Barnacles, while Hailey serves as catcher, hoping to fulfill her list item of catching a foul ball.
• Bears Are Bad News: In "Bad Bear Day", Scott puts on a honey-based hair gel that was discontinued because it attracted bears. Sure enough, a bear smells it and attacks a secret club that Scott was invited to, revealing that all the other members also used the same gel.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • A brand of potato chips called Dingles (a stand-in for Pringles) is featured throughout multiple episodes. First appearing in "Beta'd and Hooked", it would go on to have a major role in "Who Let the Dogs Out? (Hailey)" when Hailey and Scott visit the Dingles Factory.
  • In "Road Trippin", an inter-state bus line known as the Greenhound is taken by Hailey, Scott and Kristine to get to Flagstaff, Arizona for its surviving Butter Burger location.
• Blind Without Them: Inverted, then played straight on "The Umpire Strikes Back". Scott is made pitcher for the local baseball team, but has trouble focusing, so Hailey gives him her spare glasses, which make everything out of focus, allowing Scott to focus on Hailey's glove, the only thing he can see. Later, the glasses break, so Hailey gives him her regular glasses, leaving her almost blind as she has to catch a foul ball. She manages to catch it when it gets lodged on her catcher's mask.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "Road Trippin", Hailey isn't sure if the local Butter Burger closed because of "rats, a fire, or a rat fire".
• Brick Joke:
  • One of the list items in the theme song is "eat a [raw] onion". In "Dance Like No Mom is Watching", Beta tries to get her to cross it off at the start of the episode, but she refuses. When she wants to cross off an item without Beta's help, only to do an item she already accomplished, she asks Beta how she could make it up to him.
  (Beta wordlessly pulls out an onion)
  Hailey: (sighs) Fine. (takes a bite) This is so much worse than it looks.
  • Another list item that was revealed in the theme song is "Conquer the circle of Corn Fusion Maze", where the lyric for it is "Do a corn maze, hope I don't get lost". In "The A-Maize-Ing Maze", Hailey does go through the maze and gets lost.
  • In "Kristine-ceañera", Hailey compares the pair of high heels Kristine gave her to ice picks at the start of the episode. Near the end, Hailey successfully walks in the heels and immediately tosses them into the ice sculpture afterwards, with them being stuck in the ice like how ice picks would be.
• Burger Fool:
  • "Road Trippin" has Hailey, Scott, and Kristine, taking a trip to Butter Burger, a grotesque food joint that sells meals literally made with butter, holds an F from health inspection, Signs of Disrepair, a ball pit littered with garbage, and is being shut down for being overrun with rats.
  • Kiley in "The Puffle Kerfluffle" has a job as a singing waitress at a pizza joint wearing a giant bowl full of garlic knots around her waist.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Lucy is called "Unlucky Lucy" by the cheerleading squad for a reason, in that she's so unlucky that she somehow gets struck by lightning indoors. ("Don't ask why")
  • Scott has his moments (like when he's pushed from the roof from Hailey in the intro), as does Hailey when she ends up doing humiliating things as part of her list.
• Butterfly of Doom: Hailey completing her list starts a chain of events that eventually leads to the effects of climate change being reversed. If she fails to complete the list, climate change will instead spiral out of control, leading to The End of the World as We Know It.
• Cats Are Mean: In the theme song, when Hailey gets to the part about teaching a cat to play the piano, she's using a laser pointer to try to do just that; after a while the cat attacks her, pouncing on her, and knocking her to the floor.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Parody: In "Who Let the Dogs Out? (Hailey)", Scott and Hailey win a trip to the Dingles factory, a whimsical place run by the Wonka-esque Chip Dingle. Hailey's there to investigate online rumors that the company tests their products on dogs, and uncovers the factory's true secret: the dogs actually run the whole company and Chip Dingle is just a front.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • When the super-hot Black Scorpion chili pepper is shown in a tour of the grounds of Kristine's house in "Kristine-ceañaria", you knew that somebody was going to end up eating it—it turned out to be Kristine, annoyed at Scott and another guy getting into a hot-sauce-eating contest and wanting to take control of the situation herself.
  • In "I Know What You Did Last Slumber", A.C. shows off his new jacket (complete with functional hidden pocket) to Hailey, Becker, Lucy and Kennedy while bragging about the supposedly amazing jetski tricks he'd do in an upcoming water show. When Kennedy determines that it was actually A.C. himself that had sabotaged his (mom's) jetski, she discovers the linchpin he used to unhook the jetski and cause it to roll off a ledge hidden inside the previously mentioned hidden pocket.
  • "Bad Bear Day" has two. Scott gets invited to the school's secret club after using a hair gel that attracts bears; when a bear inevitably shows up at the school, Hailey can't warn him over the phone because he's not allowed to use his phone in there, so she uses the dumbwaiter that she saw the lunchlady use to deliver food to the club to get to him. The club also happens to have a chocolate fountain, which Hailey accidentally knocks over and covers herself in chocolate with, fulfilling a list item that Beta had been urging her to complete.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Invoked; the one item on Hailey's list that she is deliberately leaving for last is to kiss her best friend Scott.
• Class Princess: Kristine Sanchez is Ms. Perfect, and the fact that she's also genuinely nice only makes her more annoying to Hailey. It doesn't help that she's the one to end up dating Scott when Hailey awkwardly gives her her blessing in the pilot, and after she earlier commented that he and Hailey would make a cute couple, no less.
• Coincidental Accidental Disguise:
  • In "Mer-made in Oceanside" Scott accidentally gets seaweed wrapped around his ankles while diving with Hailey to look for a mermaid, around the same time that A.C, who is also looking for the mermaid, has taken Scott's toy diver while collecting sea glass. When Scott attempts to get the toy back, he has to swim with his feet tied together and sand ends up being spread throughout the water, resulting in A.C seeing and taking a picture of what he thinks is the silhouette of a mermaid.
  • In "Bad Bear Day", Beta wants Hailey to get becoming a human candy bar done from her list. At the end of the episode, Hailey accidentally knocks over a chocolate fountain, and the chocolate spills over her in a block shape, making her look like a candy bar and fulfilling the list item.
• Company Cross References: In "Smells Like Queen Spirit", Hailey laments about not being meant to be a princess and is shown to be holding a pillow that has the same design on it as the dress worn by the eponymous character of Moana.
  • The episode "Cos-played" homages Avengers: Endgame when cosplayers from the future arrive through portals to help Hailey.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: In "The Last Sand", the sponsor for the contest sells cakes that are topped with gravy. Nobody enjoys them.
  Hailey: This is disgusting.
• Couch Gag: The noise when Scott hits the ground in the opening is different in each episode.
• Cowboy Episode: In "The Wild, Wild Mess", Hailey becomes a sheriff while having to deal with dirt bikers causing trouble.
• Detention Episode: "The Saw-shank Redemtpion" involves Hailey and Scott getting sent to detention, which is a problem since it's the same day as the kite festival where Hailey needs to win a ribbon as part of her list.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "In A Pinch", Hailey's mom Patricia reminds her husband Kai that they're getting rid of his old, dirty lucky couch with the promise that he can buy whatever couch he wants as a replacement. As soon as the junk movers take the couch, Kai buys it back, as it immediately went up for sale online, and tells Patricia he indeed bought any couch he wanted per their agreement. Patricia admits she got duped fair and square.
• Diegetic Switch: In "Seas the Day", Hailey and Scott sing along to a song when partaking on their ferry's on-board karaoke. A (non-diegetic) rendition of the song is played over a montage of Hailey and Scott taking part in various activities on Catalina Island, none of which manage to get Scott out of his slump.
• Dismotivation: Hailey tends to avoid trying new things. The to-do list she must complete, however, is set to push her far out of her comfort zone.
• Documentary Episode: "Splatter of the Bands" is presented as a documentary made by Kristine for class about Hailey participating on the titular event. (At the end, it's revealed that Kristine was supposed to do her project about the solar system, which she justifies as everything in the documentary having taken place inside the solar system.)
• Dog Walks You: In "The Last Sand", Scott is dragged by Hailey's younger brothers that are tied to leashes.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Kristine introduces her friend Logan, who models belts for a living. Hailey appreciatively comments "Yeah, he does...", much to Scott's confusion.
• Embarrassing Nickname: In "The Beginning of the Friend", Scott brings up that when she was younger, Hailey threw up on the Zero Gravitron ride, so all the other kids called her "Hurley" for a week.
• Epic Fail: Hailey's Christmas organization was so bad that if it wasn't for Scott renting out a skateboarding reindeer (the only thing that everyone liked and was so adored it completely overshadowed everything Hailey organized), Christmas would have been canceled in the future.
• Expository Theme Tune: The opening sequence explains how Hailey has to complete the list to save the world, with robots being sent back to stop her.
• Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Subverted by Chainsaw in "Bringing Home the Beacon": The equipment really did fall off the back of a truck. It was his truck; he's just a bad driver.
• Flying Car: A brief glimpse of the future at the end of "Cos-Played" shows flying cars around the city.
• Free-Range Children: Most of the time, Hailey and her friends (and enemies, etc.) seem able to roam freely with little sign of any interference from parents or other authority figures except in the rare cases when that is necessary to the plot (like Hailey's mom initially saying no to her adopting a flamingo as a pet or attending a K-Pop concert on the night she'd agreed to babysit her twin brothers), which generally end with her managing to do the thing anyway without getting in serious trouble for it. Taken to the extreme in "Road Trippin'" where Hailey, Scott, and Kristine take a bus ride from Oceanside, California to Flagstaff, Arizona, a 500-mile trip in one direction.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • When Hailey's going over her list in the third-to-last shot of the theme song, it shows she has already eaten junk food for a day, done synchronized swimming, volunteered at a shelter, and made a pie. Those were numbers 149, 148, 145, and 141.
  • In "We Wish You A Merry Chaos-Mas", the newspaper about the Oceanside Christmas Festival is briefly shown around the end of the episode to be dated "December 24th 2023". This confirms that all episodes of the series released thus far take place in 2023, excluding flashbacks and the future itself.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: In "Seas the Day", Beta sets up a romantic dinner for Hailey and Scott now that Scott and Kristine have broken up. When Hailey calls Kristine to see if she'll be ok with it (without specifically referring to herself), Kristine freaks out about Scott dating so soon, so Hailey sabotages the dinner rather than betray Kristine.
• Game-Breaking Injury:
  • Kristine suffers from one in "The Show Must Go Wrong", with her being blinded by the spotlight and falling off a giant hat prop, beaking her leg in the process. This later results in Hailey taking her place and singing "You Fit Me Perfectly" with Scott in their musical's finale.
  • Lucy ends up with both her arms broken in "Flippin' Out" after an accident involving Hailey's spilled marbles and a bunch of instruments. Similarly, Hailey ends up performing the cheerleading team's "Flying Swordfish Manuever" in Lucy's stead.
• Hair Reboot: "Sight for Dinosaur Eyes" begins with Hailey attempts to learn how to give a haircut, and butchering poor Scott's hair in the process. After freaking out for a bit, Scott rationalizes that he just has to style it, rubs his hair for a bit, and somehow completely restores it to normal, even though Hailey shaved the side of his head. Hailey is appropriately baffled.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: It's not explained who is behind the Chaos Bots or why they want to destroy the world, just that they are.
• High Heel Hurt: "Kristine-ceañera" has Hailey tasked with learning to walk in heels for Kristine's quinceañera. She compares them to ice picks based on their ridiculously high and sharp heels, which at one point get stuck in the grass. Once she finally manages to walk a few steps in them, fulfilling the condition, she immediately takes them off and tosses them at an ice sculpture, causing them to stick in the ice.
• Horsing Around: In "The Wild, Wild Mess", Hailey requires the assistance of a horse called Bitter Bertha who refuses to let anyone ride after her previous owner abandoned her for a motorbike. After Bertha learns she and Hailey have a common enemy against a motorbike gang, she allows Hailey to ride her.
• Identical Grandson: Hailey's maternal great-great-grandfather P.H. Phlorange in "Bringing home the beacon" looks very much like her. Defied by Hailey, who claims she can't see the family resemblance.
• Identical Stranger:
  • In "The Puffle Kerfuffle", Kylie and Thacher are the stars of a children's show called The Puffles, with Thacher looking very much like an older Scott with piercings. At the end, Thacher introduces his wife, Bailey, who looks like an older Hailey — right down to the glasses — and shares similar interests. Hailey even imagines herself and Scott as them.
  • In "Cubix Dudes", Scott thinks he sees Hailey backstage (when he's joined a performance group), but it turns out to be a guy named Harley who's in the crew, whose back side looks just like Hailey.
  • In "U.F. Whoa!", Hailey and Scott pose as two government scientists who just fixed a youth ray. The two they stole their lab coats from then show up, looking superficially like an older Hailey and Scott.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Hailey's big hang-up on kissing Scott, and trying to save that item for last. She worries it'll ruin their friendship if he didn't reciprocate her feelings, and Scott is not only her best friend, but practically her only close friend.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: In "No More Mr. Rice Guy", Hailey hopes that the upcoming food event will help her raise enough money to visit the tin foil factory, which is on her list. She lampshades how boring it sounds in the middle of excitedly talking about getting to see how tin foil is made.
• Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: As revealed in "Dance Like No Mom is Watching", whenever Hailey engages in her Inner Monologue, she in the real world actually just stares at whatever she's monologuing about in complete silence. This is noticed by Sunny and commented by Scott as something that Hailey does a lot causing Hailey to tell herself to immediately change the subject out of embarrassment.
• Killer Robot: "Chaos Bots" are being sent back from the future to try to stop Hailey from completing the list.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The extended theme song lists one of Hailey's tasks as "Learn to play guitar and write my own theme song."
  Beta: Done!
• Leitmotif:
  • The lead of "The Future's In My Hands" serves as one for Hailey herself, playing in situations such as her successfully completing a list item.
  • The chorus of "The Future's In My Hands" serves as one for Hailey and Scott's friendship, playing in significant moments concerning the pair.
  • The Chaos Bots have a foreboding piece of electronic music play whenever they appear, establishing them as a mysterious threat from the future.
• Limited Wardrobe: Aside from very rare occasions where a wardrobe change is required, Hailey sports a red-and-white tee under overalls (always with the left side undone), and Scott wears a green shirt over a long white one and jeans.
• Literal Metaphor: In "Escape Doom", when the Chaos Bots sabotage the escape room, Scott tells Hailey to hurry and figure out an escape:
  Scott: It feels like the walls are closing in....because they are!
• Long List: A.C. pulls out a paper detailing every competition he and Hailey have been in.
• Loophole Abuse: In "Kissed Opportunities", Hailey gets involved in a Spin the Bottle-style card game where the "Mega Kiss" card requires the player who drew it to kiss the person the spinner lands on. Beta figures this is the perfect opportunity to cross "Kiss Scott Denoga" off the list, because it will be a meaningless gesture within the rules of the game. Hailey agrees at first, but ultimately backs down at the last moment because she wants it to mean something.
• Love Theme: "Kiss Your Friend" from the pilot recurs as a Leitmotif whenever there's Ship Tease between Hailey and Scott, such as when she meets her Identical Stranger in "The Puffles" that gives her a boost in confidence seeing as how she admitted to her best friend that she liked him, and in "U.F.-Whoa!" when Scott and Kristine break up.
• Love Triangle: Hailey's goal of kissing Scott, whom she genuinely has a crush on, for her list is complicated when Kristine ends up dating him after Hailey ends up too scared to go through with it, meaning the latter must now also weigh Scott and Kristine's feelings against her own, as well as the fate of the entire world. Scott and Kristine break up ten episodes later, but by then, Scott's sister Becker has fallen in love with Hailey. At least, until "Along for the Slide".
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Chaos Bots from the future are intent on stopping Hailey from completing her list and thereby saving the world.
• Narrator: Hailey sometimes will interject with narration to fill in certain backstories.
• Never Win the Lottery: In "The Beginning of the Friend", wanting to give Hailey an easy start to her mission, The Professor attempts to tell her the winning lottery jackpot numbers for the day after New Year's (which are shown on a lottery ticket), but is only able to give the first number before she gets sucked back to the future. She tries again in "Cos-played", but gets sucked back before she could say anything. In "U. F. Whoa!" she makes yet another failed attempt to give Hailey winning lottery numbers, making it an ongoing running gag. "We Wish You a Merry Chaos-Mas", where the Professor actually spends the episode hanging out with the main cast, has her reveal it was always a joke. If Hailey won the lottery, that would be a big change to her future, after all.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Out of the main three there's Scott the Kindhearted Simpleton (nice), Beta the wise-cracking robot who finds Scott annoying (mean), and Hailey who is mostly friendly but also snarky and more assertive than Scott (in-between).
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: "Frankly Fabulous" has mentions of musical artists named "Lady Goo Goo" and "DJ Salad".
• No Hero Discount: Of the friendship variety. In "Cool Intentions" Becker lets Hailey use the master arcade card to complete a list item on the basketball game. Said item takes so many tries it racks up a $300 fine. Becker is quick to let Hailey know none of those games were free and takes Beta as collateral until they can pay her back.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The first Chaos Bot to appear goes straight for Hailey's list and tries to shove it in a shredder before she realizes its importance, only being stopped by the Professor's intervention. Future Chaos Bots, unable to so simply solve the problem since Hailey knows to protect it, take more aggressive and direct approaches, namely trying to kill Hailey and/or Scott. For example, they override the safeties on the closing-in walls of an escape room.
• Noir Episode: "Lady and the Trampoline", partially. The episode opens with Hailey and Scott watching a noir movie, and Hailey's flashback is in black and white with Private Eye Monologue.
• "Not Really Married" Plot: In "2001: A Spouse Odyssey", it turns out that Kai and Patricia never actually sent off their marriage certificate, which was left behind in the attic, because they couldn't decide which one of them would do it and then forgot about it. Hailey takes this as an opportunity to complete her list item of giving them a better wedding day, believing their original wedding to be underwhelming despite their insistence that they still enjoyed it. Things don't quite go to plan, but in the end, Hailey completes the list item successfully and decides that she and Scott will send off the paperwork this time. But then they accidentally drop the envelope in the attic and forget about it, leaving it behind...
• Once More, with Clarity: In "Lady and the Trampoline", Hailey remembers her friends mocking her for sweating too much at the trampoline park. Later in the episode, she is shown a video of that day revealing that they were actually being supportive, but Hailey was too self-conscious to realize it at first.
• Operation: Jealousy: Kristine attempts this with Scott in "U.F. Whoa!" when he's busy helping Hailey with the lost Chaos Bot. This being Scott, he's completely oblivious to the attempt and sees her spending time with a hot belt model as a win-win because he's too busy to help. Resulting in Kristine dumping him just before the credits.
• Our Presidents Are Different: Apparently tennis player Serena Williams becomes president at some point in the future, with the Professor's dialogue implying that her accomplishments as president eclipse her tennis career.
• Painful Rhyme: From the theme song: "Teach a cat to play the piano/Roller-skate all the way to Orlando/Use my earwax to make a candle?" Beta looks particularly bemused at the lyrics.
• Person as Verb: Hailey describes Scott's random and impossible list (modeled after her own) as "very Scott."
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Kristine is shown to be this (unsurprising since she has a bunch of followers). When she's forced to give up her cell phones in "Escape Doom", she goes through an Extended Disarming of cell phones she has hidden all over her person, and soon starts going crazy, talking in hashtags and emojis, calling the cell phones her babies and herself their mama. She even has a more old fashioned cell phone amongst her five other smartphones!
• Precocious Crush: In "Catching Felines", it's revealed that Scott's sister Becker has a crush on Hailey. Downplayed, as not only are they both teens but also have a one year age gap.
• Private Eye Monologue: Hailey, a fan of film noir, does this while reminiscing about an old trampoline mishap in "Lady and the Trampoline".
• Produce Pelting: San Diego has an event based on it, the Splatter of the Bands, where bands play and people throw tomatoes at them, unless they are really, really good. It commemorates the time some tomato seeds were accidentally dropped from a plane and the town decided to throw the surplus at a local boy band.
• Real After All: "Mer-made in Oceanside" involves Hailey looking for a mermaid that she saw many years ago, only to find that it was actually just an advertising model that was moved around from being played with by dolphins. However, while looking down at the sea at the end of the episode, she sees a real mermaid, who winks at the viewer.
• Red Herring:
  • At the beginning of "Smells Like Queen Spirit", Beta intercepts a message saying that a Chaos Bot is infiltrating the Crab Queen festival to prevent Hailey from being elected Crab Queen. Hailey's opponent is a teen from Canada named Joanne Droid, who talks in Robo Speak, has super strength and otherwise acts just like a robot. It's obvious to everyone that Joanne is the Chaos Bot, and Hailey even tries to unmask her when she's about to win. It turns out, however, that Joanne really was an eccentric Canadian, and the real Chaos Bot was the giant animatronic crab on top of the stage.
  • In "The Puffle Kerfuffle", ex-Puffle Kiley says she and her TV partner Thatcher were close friends, until they kissed because Kiley liked him and it ruined their friendship, which scares Hailey into thinking that will be her and Scott if she went the same route. In the end, Hailey learns that Thatcher's married to a woman named Bailey, and they're identical strangers to where Hailey can even see herself and Scott in their place and feels reassured.
• Romantic Comedy: A rare Western Animated example, with the main conflict being Hailey's quest to save the world being also intrinsically tied to her eventually kissing her childhood crush at some point, and hilarity ensuing as she tries to avoid it.
• Room Escape Game: "Escape Doom" has Hailey, Scott, Kristine and A.C. go to an Egyptian-themed escape room, which is sabotaged by Chaos Bots.
• Running Gag: Every time The Professor starts to share the night's winning jackpot numbers with Hailey, she's yanked back into the portal before she can finish. Eventually, in "We Wish You a Merry Chaos-mas" the Professor admits that this was just an elaborate prank and she had no intention of giving Hailey jackpot numbers, as it could disrupt the timestream.
• Saving the World: According to The Professor, completing her To-Do List is the first step towards Hailey one day saving the world from climate change.
• Saying Too Much: When presenting their taco at the fish taco festival, the judge asks what's the savory ingredient, Hailey tries to pass it off as a family secret, then Scott says the whole thing about it being Dingles.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Chaos Bots vaporize themselves if critically damaged, so they can't be examined by Hailey or anyone else unless captured intact (and even then, Hailey only manages to yank one part before the system activates).
• Shameless Self-Promoter: In-universe in "U.F. Whoa!", Scott's mom Sunny manages to insert promotions for the family restaurant, U.F. Dough, while being interviewed by a news reporter about a reported UFO.
• Shout-Out:
  • Beta says he got his cool shades from a Mr. Tomato Head.
  • Beta attempts using a harpoon gun while hunting the grand fish in "Beta'd and Hooked".
  • Hailey's little brothers are named after Dwayne Johnson.
  • In "Flippin Out", the movie Geraldine, about a giraffe playing water polo, is a reference to Air Bud. The fact that it's an inspirational sports movie starring a giraffe also brings to mind "It Takes A Hero" from Clone High. (Not to mention a whole bunch of other such movies, including a live-action Disney film, Gus, in which a mule kicks field goals in football.)
  • In "Bringing Home the Beacon", Beta says "Oh, the Indignity" while annoyed.
  • In "Catching Felines", Scott mentions that Hailey used to be in the Squirrel Scouts.
  • In "In A Pinch", Hailey and Scott apologize to their teacher Miss Jackson for thinking they had killed the Crab Queen mascot, inadvertently quoting OutKast:
    Hailey: I'm sorry, Miss Jackson—
    Scott: (climbing down from stage) Whew!
    Hailey: But can I be for real?
  • In "U.F. Whoa!", Hailey and Scott sneak into N.O.P.E. Headquarters by disguising themselves as scientists, and going by the names, Regina and George.
• Sitcom Homage Episode: "Full House (of Bugs)". The Denogas stay with the Banks while their house is being fumigated. The result is a parody of a typical 1980s family sitcom, punctuated by a Laugh Track from Beta, whose newest update comes with a selection of "standard sitcom noises" that activate automatically.
• Spit Take: Hailey's reaction when Beta suggests early on to kiss Scott and cross it off the list, noting that it had a 92% chance of success. Hailey is too nervous to go through it and decides to shelve it for last.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • Hailey completing her list leads to her creating an invention that reverses climate change, and the reason she is motivated to do so is because someone from that future tells her it will happen.
  • In "Cos-Played", The Professor asks Hailey to send her a signed autograph after she spilled a smoothie on it. After receiving it in the future, Professor ends up spilling her smoothie on it.
• Straying Baby: In "It's All Gonna be OK-Pop", Hailey sneaks off to a K-Pop concert when she's supposed to be watching Dwayne and Johnson at home. Predictably, the kids slip their harnesses as Scott and Hailey are enjoying the concert.
• Suicide as Comedy: In "Seas the Day", Scott's pouring his heart out about his breakup to a random guy on the pier. Who gets up and dives over the side to get away from it.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Hailey and Beta talk about the "Kiss Scott Denoga" item, with Hailey pointing out it's a little more complicated than "interlocking faceholes" as Beta put it, Scott appears in her bedroom unannounced.
  Scott: (suddenly appearing) Hey guys, what'cha talking about?
  Hailey: AHHH, nothing! Certainly not you, Scott! The world doesn't involve around your lips, I mean, your facehole, I mean, any part of your body!
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That:
  • Hailey is given a prerecorded message from her future self who's aware of how she'll react to the situation.
  • "Cos-Played" has the Professor send a prerecorded hologram to the same effect.
• Temporal Paradox:
  • Any time Hailey tries to modify her list or doesn't complete a task properly, a "time glitch" occurs, briefly showing her a vision of the Bad Future that would result and also allowing the Chaos Bots to travel back more easily.
  • When Hailey accidentally spills slushie on her list, it creates a rift in the sky, through which a flying Chaos Bot emerges.
• Tempting Fate: In "The A-Maize-ing Maze", Hailey and Beta are lost in a corn field with no reception.
  Hailey: Things can't get any worse!
  [Lightning flash, followed by a downpour.]
  Beta: You did this.
• Terminator Twosome: The Chaos Bots are sent back to prevent Hailey from completing her list (and setting herself on the path to save the world). The Professor comes back to destroy the first Chaos Bot before it can destroy the original list, ironically setting Hailey up to start checking things off her to-do list.
• "Test Your Strength" Game: Hailey uses the hammer from one such game to destroy a Chaos Bot at the end of the pilot.
• Troublesome Pet: In "The Flamingo Must Flamin-Go", Hailey adopts Frank, an overly affectionate flamingo that molts constantly, periodically coughs up slimy featherballs, and goes into a feeding frenzy whenever it smells shrimp. Unlike most examples, Hailey actually keeps Frank for the rest of the series.
• Tunnel of Love: In "The Beginning of the Friend", the last ride at the carnival is a tunnel of love which Hailey is hesitant to ride through with Scott, though he insists on accompanying her. Hailey gets used to it and nearly kisses Scott until she vomits on him moments before it happens.
• Un-Confession: When stranded in the corn maze in "The A-maize-ing Maze", Hailey sends a video message to Scott confessing her feelings under the worry she may never make it out, but the lack of reception halts it from being sent. When rescued and reunited with Scott, his phone pings and he begins to hear the message, only for Hailey to panic and throw his phone into the path of a combine harvester.
• Unobtanium: "U.F. Whoa!" reveals that Hailey invents a renewable power source in the future called "Haileytonium". Unfortunately, it's also powering the Chaos Bots being sent back to stop her.
• Vomit Discretion Shot:
  • In the pilot, Kristine literally tips her hat to Hailey for saving her and others from a runaway Tilt-a-Whirl, only for a small boy to throw up in said hat.
  • Later, during their ride in the Tunnel of Love, Hailey's nervousness on the ride causes her to vomit on Scott. Cut to a green drink being poured into a cup.
  • In "Beta'd and Hooked", Hailey and Scott go aboard Uncle Chunk's boat, which he owns even though he gets seasick very easily.
  • Played with in "Cos-played" where Scott throws up on Beta from eating too many popsicles, the vomiting is off-screen but we see Beta covered in Scott's teal-colored barf.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Played with in "Cos-played", Scott throwing up on Beta is offscreen, but we see Beta covered in his vomit.
• The Walls Are Closing In: In "Escape Doom", Chaos Bots sabotage the escape room game by having the walls slowly close in to eliminate Hailey.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: In "U.F. Whoa!", Beta is kidnapped by N.O.P.E. and the Professor travels back to give Hailey Omega, a more powerful, nicer version of Beta in every way superior, while Beta's memory will be wiped once his battery dies. Hailey refuses to abandon Beta and mounts a rescue, even choosing him over Omega when the Professor insists she can't have both, because he's "[her] grump".
• What Are Records?: "Bad Bear Day" starts with Hailey and Scott staring dumbfounded at a rotary dial telephone, having no idea what it's for.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "The Fart of War" is this for The Social Network, including direct quote-drops and the segment's score reminiscent of the film's soundtrack.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Hailey is shown to be able to pull off amazing acrobatic feats, Scott actually comments that he's amazed Hailey can do these things, and Hailey herself sometimes seems surprised too! This was the main message The Professor was giving to Hailey before she was pulled back into the future.
  • Scott, while often presented as clumsy and foolish, has occasionally also shown uncanny ability in some area or other, such as solving puzzle cubes in "Cubix Dudes", or juggling in "U.F. Whoa", where he seemed to be a natural at it while Hailey was unable to get far at it despite having it as a list item.

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