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"He's action-packed and sister-charged and Dukey-dogged for living large;
In triple-cloning, T-Rexing, royal throning, Johnny X-ing;
You never know what’s coming next, cos it’s J-J-J-J-Johnny Test!
"
2021 series revival Theme Song

Johnny Test is an American-Canadian Animated Series featuring the eponymous 11-year-old hero and his "super talking dog", Dukey. The duo find themselves going on various crazy exploits thanks to Johnny's older twin sisters' tendency to use him as an often willing guinea pig for their science experiments, or him just screwing around in the laboratory in general. In short, think Dexter's Laboratory if Dee Dee was the main character and gender-bent, and Koosalagoopagoop was a sardonic caffeine addict. The series was created by American producer Scott Fellows, a writer on early seasons of The Fairly OddParents! who is best known for his live-action series Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide and Big Time Rush.

The show premiered on the Kids' WB! Saturday morning block on September 17, 2005 and proceeded to run for 3 seasons with 39 episodes in total. In the second season, Canadian studio Cookie Jar Entertainment jumped in to help Warner Bros. Animation produce the series, and Canadian network Teletoon began funding production. The series also switched from traditional animation to Adobe Flash in Season 2, as Warner Bros. decided to cut costs by outsourcing the show to Halifax-based studio Collideascope Digital Productions. The show originally ended after its third season in response to the cancellation of Kids' WB! in 2008, but was Uncancelled in 2009 when Cartoon Network picked up the series for broadcast and began co-commissioning episodes with Teletoon. From there, it ran for three more seasons, each with 26 episodes, and became Adored by the Network until its second cancellation in 2014. But with Collideascope having closed shop between seasons, animation was instead outsourced to Vancouver-based Atomic Cartoons starting with the fourth season.

In 2019, it was revealed that the show would be uncancelled again, this time in the form of a web series on YouTube and two more seasons on Netflix. For the webseries, none of the original cast (not even James Arnold Taylor, the voice of the title character) returned, and it proved extremely short-lived. The revived series, on the other hand, brought most of the original cast back and another change in animation, with series owners WildBrain (which had acquired Cookie Jar back in 2012 after Warner Bros. gave up their part of the rights to the show) using their Vancouver studio to animate the show via Toon Boom and Netflix now funding the show. While still sporting short episodes, it no longer runs on the 2 episode format. The first season of the revival premiered in July 2021, with the second season dropping on January 2022. The revival series could also be caught on Canadian channel WildBrainTV starting on October 2021.

Not to be confused with Jonny Quest, which this show was clearly named after.


This show provides examples of:

  • Absurd Altitude: An amusement park ride meant to deter Johnny from having an amusement park at his house.
  • Accidental Public Confession: In "Johnny Gets Mooned", The Moonsies do a Type 2 when Johnny and Dukey see their plans to invade the Earth; it's a Type 2, because although Johnny and Dukey see the plans, they don't understand them because they can't read Moonsie.
  • Actor Allusion:
  • Actually a Good Idea: When Johnny comes up with an idea that would let him and his sisters into an ice-cream factory, his sisters initially hear him out only because they wanted to laugh at his plan. They laugh for about a second but then realize his plan was perfect and say the trope name almost word for word.
  • Affably Evil: A decent amount of the villains can be surprisingly sociable when they aren't trying to take over Porkbelly or kill Johnny, to the point where they genuinely enjoy competing in Johnny's races and such. Notably Dark Vegan, despite being one of the most evil villains in the series, is more of a Bumbling Dad when he's not after Johnny's head. Albert is a notable example as well, Justified since as Tim Burnout's butler, Mr. Mittens forces him into his schemes and he genuinely bears no ill will towards Johnny.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: When Susan and Mary build boy-borgs to make Gil jealous, they become very possessive of the twins.
    • Later happens to Johnny's new smartphone in "iJohnny", and the Super Smarty Pants.
    • Pretty much anything that the girls make with A.I. will turn evil save for something that Johnny's supposed to immediately break.
    • Also anything the military makes in Area 51.1, like the look-alike cyborgs in "Johnny Johnny" and the super soldiers in "Johnny X Strikes Back Again".
    • In Johnny's Super Smart Home, Mary and Susan build a computer that controls every aspect of the Test household, but then it turns against and tries to get rid of them as it views them as inferior to machines.
  • Air-Vent Passageway: Lampshaded: "When did your dad install these giant ducts?"
  • Aliens Speaking English: The Vegans from Vegandon; this, of course, is Lampshaded.
  • All Animals Are Dogs: Repto Slicer likes to chase sticks and rubber balls.
    • A giant vicious space lizard who tries to eat the kids just wants a belly-rub.
  • All Just a Dream: Rock-A-Bye Johnny.
  • Alpha Bitch: Janet Nelson Jr.
  • Ambiguously Bi:
    • Johnny has displayed many traits of this as he clearly shows attraction towards Sissy and some other girls in the series but his friendship with Dukey can get invokeda little silly and the way he behaves towards Gil is also a little weird as he is not repulsed by any of Gil's comments towards him and even agreed to go on a date with Gil, which involved a candlelit dinner.
    • Dukey has displayed several behaviors that can be considered gay due to his mannerisms, his comments about other guys, and the fact that at one point, he almost humped Johnny's leg. However, he has shown attraction towards Missy and fell in love with a female counterpart version of himself from an alternate reality.
    • Gil has made several questionable comments and behavior towards Johnny and mostly ignored the advances of Susan and Mary Test but he has shown interest in girls as he went offscreen in a beach episode to apparently flirt with a girl that passed by him and he showed affection towards Jillian Vegan during a sleepover at Johnny's house.
  • Ambiguously Gay:
    • Zizrar The Mole King and The Mole People. Zizrar is dressed mostly in purple clothing while he acts flamboyantly and lisps often. His minions are all male and most of them are dressed up in biker leather and no female members of their species have made onscreen appearances. They never flirt with anyone though.
    • Nobeard and his merry band of pirates. Many of them are dressed up in Camp Gay style and their ship is colored pink. They even dream of spending whatever treasure they find on kitchens, classical dance lessons, and tickets to see the opera. They also are afraid of fighting others, especially Blackbeard and his crew and would rather slap their opponents lightly than sword fight them. Nobeard even admits that he is not really interested in pirating but does it because its part of the family business.
  • Ambiguously Human:
    • Mr. Black and Mr. White. In their début episode, they had the ability to shoot webs out of their wrists, which heavily implies them to be mutants of some sort. This combined with the fact that they work for a federal agency, along with the fact that the only people they are friends with outside the agency is the test family, shows that Mr. Black and Mr. White's identities are very shady and there is a possibility that they are not even human at all.
  • Amusingly Awful Aim: Susan and Mary's shooting skills are consistently depicted as bad, usually leaving Johnny or someone else to operate anything involving projectile weapons.
  • And Zoidberg
    Hugh Test: I have such brilliant children! And Johnny.
  • Animal Superheroes: Super Dukey.
  • Animal Talk: Dukey can speak to animals regardless of what species they are.
  • Anime Hair: Johnny himself of course.
  • Art Evolution: Season 1 is significantly different compared to the rest of the series, due to the show switching animation studios.
    • The 2021 revival has streamlined character designs and much more gradients used on the backgrounds. The animation is also noticeably more fluid.
  • Ascended Extra: Montague Mouse, who debuted as a gag character in a season four episode to playing a part in several episodes later.
    • Interesting example with Hank Anchorman; he appeared as a one-off character in "Johnny's Pink Plague" in season 1, then became a recurring character ever since "Johnny's Big Snow Job" with his previous design replaced by the anchorman in "Take Your Johnny to Work Day" but with brown hair instead of white, who was also a one-off character. Two one-off anchormen merged into one!
  • Aside Glance: After Dukey shouts "I LET YOU RIDE ME LIKE A HORSE!", Johnny gives the audience one of these.
  • Assuming the Audience's Age: In "Johnny Hollywood", Johnny and Dukey are trapped in an action movie (through the use of VR helmets created by his genius sisters), and when they realize how the movie's supposed to end (think Thelma & Louise) Dukey screams at Johnny "You couldn't have just stayed home and watched cartoons like normal kids!". Johnny and Dukey then pause and look at the viewer before continuing to panic about getting out of the movie.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: "Too much female growth hormone."
  • Author Appeal: Gender-bending and crossdressing (usually of the male-to-female kind) play huge roles in many episodes.
  • Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: The opening sequence depicts Johnny going through several transformations from his scientist sisters' experiments. One of them turns Johnny into a girl, with an Impossible Hourglass Figure and growing taller such that his shirt ends above his midriff.
  • Baseball Episode: The episode "Johnny Impossible" in which Johnny receives a baseball and bat named "The XMTLH Baseball and Custom Bat" so he can win the baseball game, however while practicing he accidently breaks an old man's window and needs to get the baseball back from said old man before the game starts.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: In "Johnny Gets Mooned", Johnny, Dukey and a Canadian astronaut duo are able to breathe on the moon without any spacesuits or helmets. Sound familiar to anyone?
  • Batman Gambit: A trap set by Dukey to capture Johnny's Evil Twin requires that the Good Twin reveal the trap to the evil one and the evil twin to step contemptuously over the trigger - at which point he steps right into a different trap.
  • Bee Afraid: In the episodes "Johnny Bee Good", "Johnny Holiday" and "Irresistible."
  • Bee-Bee Gun: The Bee Keeper.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension:
    • Between Johnny and Sissy.
    • Dukey and Missy have some of it going on as well.
  • Best Out of Infinity: Occurs at the end of "The Enchanted Land of Johnnia" after Johnny and Dukey find out they were actually in a virtual reality game. Johnny's sisters win and Johnny challenges them to rematches twice with the usual "best two out of three" and "best three out of five"... but after he and Dukey win the first time, the girls challenge them to "best four out of seven." They could've just won the next game to beat Johnny and Dukey's last challenge instead of making it harder for themselves.
  • Be the Ball: Happens to Johnny in the Turbo Time Rewinder episodes; the person doing it even says the trope's name.
  • Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: Cows are brown-and-white. In "Johnny X" his sisters give him hurricane and shapeshifting powers. One of the animals he shapeshifts into is a black bull.
  • Big "NO!": E'gads. this is used too. A LOT.
  • Big Red Button: While controlling a fake monster, Dukey keeps telling Johnny not to push the red buttons they see.
  • Bizarro Universe: Johnny and Dukey shrunk down beyond the atomic level and arrived in a reversed Porkbelly.
    • In a later episode they end up in Leadbelly, a genderbent version of Porkbelly where Johnny naturally falls for his female counterpart.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah: Johnny does this quite a lot.
  • Blackmail: No, not Mr. White. Johnny does this to his sisters if they don't need a favor, but he wants something from them.
  • Blatant Lies: Dukey is "a kid with a rare hair disorder".
    • "Did I say I was eleven? I meant... eighteen!"
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The members of the Test Family. Johnny & Hugh (blonde), Lila & Dukey (brunette), Susan & Mary (redhead)
  • Body Horror: Often the result of Mary and Susan's experiments on Johnny.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A few listings of possible side-effects from tests usually are this.
    Mary: ...oooor your head could explode.
  • Broken Glass Penalty: One episode goes through all the variants of this trope when Johnny accidentally ticks off a crazy man in one episode, and goes through a variety of completely pointless and ever more complex plots to try and get the ball back.
  • Butt-Monkey: Susan, at times.
    • Eugene (Bling-Bling Boy) is this ALL invokedTHE TIME.
    • Poor, poor Dukey gets it the worst of all of them.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Shapeshifting Powers Go!
  • Canada, Eh?: Despite the show's production affiliations with Canada, the trope is generally averted, as the show is (mostly) set in the States. However, the moon episode and "Johnny Mustache" do indulge a bit in the trope, with Johnny encountering Canadian astronauts who constantly say "Eh" in the former and meeting Mounties in the latter.
  • Canine Confusion: Dukey has been shown to eat chocolate even though chocolate is lethal to dogs. It could be justified since Dukey is an Uplifted Animal, though.
  • Capture Balls: In "Johnny'mon", it's shown that Tiny'mon are kept inside boxes as opposed to balls.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: All of them.
  • Cash Lure: Used in "Johnny Bench" where Johnny uses twenty bucks tied to a string to lure Bumper out of the woodshop class so that he can use his bench to trick Mr. Teacherman that he made that bench but he then saw what he did to it by using someone else's bench, causing the plan to backfire as he has to make a bench made entirely by him or else he will go to summer school.
  • Catchphrase: Multiple. Includes "Whooooa... Didn't See That Coming", "Ooh, so close," and "Say wha?"
    • Susan and Mary: "We're such geniuses."
    • Everyone in the Test household at one time or another: "To the lab!"
    • "Did that dog just talk?" "No!"
  • Cats Are Mean
  • Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: "Johnny Johnny"
  • Character in the Logo: Johnny's silhouette appears in the "O" in the word "Johnny" in the show's logo.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The incinerator that Janitor Dukey uses to burn trash throughout "Johnny Bench". Guess how they stop the rampaging turbo-wood-bench.
    Johnny: Incinerator! Coooooool. Can we burn something?
    Dukey: Maybe later.
    • There was also Hugh's terrible cookies in "Johnny's Amazing Cookie Company", in which Johnny mentioned tasted worse than dirt; later on, when warthogs attack Porkbelly, the gang uses the cookies to send them back to eating dirt in the desert, which again, tastes better.
  • Child Hater: Wacko, who is ironically a toymaker for children. The products he usually builds are designed to get them out of his life.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Remember Janet Nelson Jr.? Nobody in Porkbelly seems to.
    • Also used with Tim Burnout for awhile, but he has returned twice.
    • BBB's Cyborg lady-servants Ms. X and Ms. Z. Last seen delivering Baby Bling Bling to the Test house.
    • The Beekeeper hasn’t appeared since Season 3.
  • City of Adventure: Porkbelly.
  • Clockwork Prediction: In "Stinkin Johnny", After a scheme to win a TV through a wrestling contest goes awry that involves their mother having to save them. Johnny, Susan and Mary are later grounded and barred from TV and the lab. They decide to play some baseball instead, but Johnny hits the ball too hard and breaks a window and the TV they had just brought. He then counts down before their parents are yelling for them.
  • Clone Degeneration: The reason why robotic clones of Johnny do not obey commands.
  • Comedic Underwear Exposure: In the episode "Johnny Fu", Johnny blows Bumper Randalls' clothes off, leaving him only in his underpants in public.
  • Continuity Nod: In the episode "Who's Johnny?", before the final sequence returning Johnny to his original personality, Johnny changes personalities contained in his genetic code every time he gets hit; one personality he gets is of a dog, with the same design when the girls altered his DNA to make him a dog in an early episode.
    • The series as a whole, for all of its lazy writing, actually did have a loose continuity, though some elements (such as Brain Freezer's Heel–Face Turn) were subject to Status Quo Is God.
  • Couch Gag: The 2021 reboot does this at the end of the theme song. When Johnny gets zapped one last time, it showcases the episode title and Johnny (and sometime other characters) in outfits, in transformed states or having objects related to the episode.
  • Cowardly Lion: Dukey.
  • Crossdresser:
    • In Episode 41a: "Join the Johnny Scouts", Johnny becomes a Girl Scout and tries to sell 1,000 boxes of cookies to get a new bike. His father is clearly uncomfortable with this and Johnny tells him that "you said you'd love me and accept me no matter what", but he is using this situation to bribe his father into buying the last 37 boxes of cookies.
    • Gil also buys a box of cookies because: "I hate those cookies, but I love you Bro-man!".
    • He asks Johnny earlier in the scene what's different about him. Johnny deadpans "I'm a girl.", and Gil goes "Nooo, that's not it."
    • He also does it in "Take Your Johnny to Work Day" and does so again in "Johnny Dodgeball", albeit that time it was reluctantly.
    • Also in the episode where Mr. Mittens was introduced and Johnny and Dukey were tricked into it.
    • Not that other characters don't do it too. Let's see, Dukey's done it, Gil's done it, Mr. Black's done it, etc...
  • Deadpan Snarker: Dukey, Jillian.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: "Johnny Swellville" when Johnny and Dukey are in the 50s.
  • Demoted to Extra: Janet Nelson Junior was Johnny's supposed love interest in the first season until Sissy Blakely came along. Last seen as a background character in Season 2 before disappearing altogether after that season.
  • Depending on the Writer: Can apply to many members of the cast, particularly secondary characters. Mr. Teacherman, Johnny's teacher, can either be a Reasonable Authority Figure who is only hard on Johnny because he wants him to succeed, or a Sadist Teacher who will do anything to make Johnny get into summer school.
  • Destination Ruse: In "Bathtime for Johnny", Johnny refuses to take a bath. His mom convinces him to go in the car under the pretext of going to a toy store, but she actually brings him to a car wash, which she drives through with the car's hood down. Despite this, she fails to clean Johnny up, as he surrounded himself with umbrellas.
  • Destroy the Security Camera: In the episode "Johnny Escape From Bling-Bling Island", Bling-Bling does this when he realizes there is a video camera recording him breaking into the lab and stealing Susan's shoes.
  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Brain Freezer in the Wacky Racing episode. His racing partner asks why they are doing this when their car is literally the fastest one in the race.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Parodied in the form of a Running Gag. You can hear the line in almost every toon, usually after some form of "plot twist."
  • Didn't Think This Through: Along with the above, alot of the sheninagans happens because Johnny or the Twins (or both) don't have the foresight to think of the bad sides to a lot of their plans.
  • Disappeared Dad: Not once has Bling Bling's dad been mentioned.
  • Distaff Counterpart: The whole show, to Dexter's Laboratory; Red-haired geniuses, blonde sibling breaking experiments, etc; even the parents on both shows somehow look alike, especially the dad.
    • This could be because Chris Savino, who was the main director for seasons 3 and 4 of Dexter's Laboratory, worked on Johnny Test.
  • The Ditz: Gil.
  • "Double, Double" Title: The episode "Johnny Johnny".
  • The Drag-Along: Dukey.
  • Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Susan and Mary want Johnny to invite Gil over for a sleepover so that they can kiss him while he sleeps; on a similar note, Bling Bling insists that Johnny invite him as well so he can kiss Susan while she sleeps.
  • Dumb Blonde: Gil.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Season 1 is a foreign planet compared to the rest of the show. It was the only season to be traditionally animated, the infamous whipcrack sound effect is nowhere to be heard, the voice acting is a lot more relaxed, the background tracks aren't repetitive, and the theme song is completely different.
    • It was also the only season to be produced in-house at Warner Bros. Animation.
    • Throughout the first season, Janet Nelson Jr. was portrayed as Johnny's love interest. Her role was then replaced with Sissy afterwards.
    • The first episode implies Dukey was actually once a human turned into a talking dog by Susan and Mary. Later episodes established he was adopted from the pound and given genetic enhancements to talk.
  • Eating the Enemy:
    • In the episode "Tom and Johnny", Johnny's sisters turn Johnny into a mouse by cashing in one of their experiment coupons for an experiment. Unfortunately Mr. Mittens crashes in and freezes Mary, Susan, and Dukey. And upon realizing Johnny is a mouse, Mr. Mittens then spends the whole episode trying to catch and eat him while Johnny constantly foils him Jerry-style.
    • In the episode "Johnny Trick or Treat", Dark Vegan tries to destroy Johnny with traps he set in a haunted house. Unbeknownst to him, his daughter Jillian is with them dressed as a ghost. Eventually they run into a giant worm monster that sucks them up, but not before it sucks off Jillian's bed sheet. Dark Vegan then has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and rushes down to save his daughter. Fortunately, Johnny is able to tickle the monster's insides with pillow feathers until they're coughed up. Dark Vegan then repays them by getting them to the Halloween Costume Party before it ends.
  • Episode Title Card
  • Even Evil Has Standards: When Zizrar plots to steal the Porkbelly Library, he send the authorities a letter warning them about what he's doing after the setup is complete because although he wants to make the humans stupid, he doesn't want to hurt anybody.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: A number of episodes, but the third season ending is notable for the villain of the piece joining in the laughter until he lampshades it. Then he swears revenge.
  • Evil Laugh - Both Johnny and Susan used one at certain times; a person whom the SSGA is monitoring has one as well.
    • Mary also used one in "Johnny Susan Susan Johnny".
  • Expository Theme Tune
  • Expy: A parody of Fred appears in "Johnny Tube", involving the characters trying to find instant fame from posting videos online like him after seeing him become rich and get a movie; in the end, they see the character's movie is terrible because its only gimmick was he had a squeaky voice.
  • Face Palm: Dukey does this. A lot.
  • Failed a Spot Check: In "Johnny's Royal Flush", Johnny is turned into a fish, and goes to sleep in his bowl just as Hugh bursts in to vacuum. Evidently, he fails to hear the fish snoring, as he chides Johnny for “not takin care of it” and tosses the fish down the toilet.
  • Faked Food Contaminant: In "Bugged Out Johnny", Johnny finds out that he can get a refund for purchased food if a bug is found in it, so he keeps putting bugs into the food he buys so that he can use the money for other purposes. Eventually, Johnny runs out of bugs and tries to use a ladybug from Susan and Mary's lab, but it turns out to have an enormous appetite due to experimentation and needs to be stopped before it eats all the town's plants.
  • "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: See Incredible Shrinking Man entry below.
  • The Fat Episode: Happens to Johnny in "Phat Johnny" where he uses his excess poundage to become a rapper.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: In the episode "Johnny Daddy Day", it is shown that Johnny's super-busy working mom Lila and genius inventor sisters Mary and Susan have no experience in cooking whatsoever. They aren't even sure what a spatula is or does. Under the guidance of Johnny (who took a cooking class to get an easy A grade), they manage to make a meatloaf for Hugh for Father's Day, only for it to come alive and attack him.
    Mary and Susan: We... might have used too much DNA.
  • Fighter Pilots are Useless: When Sky Brigade appears to solve whatever problem is terrorizing Porkbelly in their Stealth Jets, they usually either retreat because they can't deal with the situation, or get shot down by whatever happens to be the Monster of the Week.
  • Fictional Holiday: Johnny, Dukey, and the twins decide to create a new candy-giving summer holiday to fill in the dry spell of free candy between Easter and Halloween. After many failed attempts, they finally succeed and create Bee Happy Day, where the newly allied Beekeeper has his swarm of bees deliver Piles o' Honey bars around the world for people to enjoy.
  • Fluffy Dry Cat: This happened to Dukey after he fails to thwart an evil pair of paints who have taken over the titular character's mind.
  • F--: "Extra Credit Johnny" and Johnny's Z-, and later ZZ-.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Lampshaded two different times. Once when Susan waved her pinky around when trying to indicate the number four on one hand and other when the General up another finger on the other hand to represent the number three.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Hugh and Johnny complain that the other has an easier life so to prove it, they switch bodies with Mary and Susan's help; at the end of the episode, after they've learned how hard each others' lives are and switch back, Susan and Lila get into the same fight and switch places as well.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: The episode “Johnny Mustache” credits the director of in universe movie “The Beast” as Larry Jacobs, a real director for the show.
  • Friendly Enemy: Johnny is on surprisingly good terms with his Rogues Gallery when they're not trying to destroy him. Go-Karting with Bowser examples aside, he's also gone to them for help now and again. Bling Bling Boy once mentioned that he liked Johnny, seeing a lot of himself in the boy. And then there's the time Johnny tried to get Brain Freezer a girlfriend.
  • Freudian Trio:
    • Johnny: Id (the reckless one)
    • Dukey: Superego (the sane one)
    • Susan & Mary: Ego (the experimenters)
  • Garrulous Growth: In the episode "Johnny's Got a... Wart!", Johnny develops a huge wart on his hand from numerous activities involving warts. The girls try to remove it, only to accidentally give it sentience. The wart at first makes Johnny's life better at school, but later tries to take over his body, but is thwarted by Dukey and spends his days living in Johnny's locker.
  • Gender Bender: Quite a lot, even from the very first episode where Susan and Mary have him test 'Hottie Body flakes' which turns him into an attractive teenage girl for a few seconds before turning into a giant ugly girl monster.
    • The next time it was so prominent was when the girls deliberately turn their brother and dog into muscular twenty-something Roller Derby competitors. The device was even called the gender bender.
  • Gender Flip: It's been described as "Dexter's Laboratory but with the genders reversed. Also there's a dog."
  • General Ripper: Played for comedy. The General really likes missiles.
    Johnny: The military would never fire at us in a heavily-populated area!
    General: FIRE ON THE HEAVILY-POPULATED AREA! * missiles*
  • Genre Savvy: But often too late for Johnny.
    • When did we land in a bad [decade] [genre] [medium]?
    • When Johnny and Dukey are transported into a fantasy story and called Chosen Ones, Johnny reassures Dukey that they'll win because Chosen Ones always win; subverted when it turns out to be a simulation and they were playing against Susan and Mary, but he gets points for trying.
  • Getting Sick Deliberately: In "Johnnyitis", Johnny consumes an isotope to poison himself so that he won't have to take a test that he neglected to study for. However, this backfires when it's revealed that if he's not cured within four hours, he'll explode and die.
  • Glacial Apocalypse: In "Johnny Degrees Below Zero", Johnny and Dukey take a Magnetism Manipulation gun too far and cause Earth to realign, making their hometown Porkbelly the new North Pole. As piles of snow start falling and Santa Claus moves in, they must urgently set out to restore Earth's alignment before the town freezes to death.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: The Test siblings regularly engage in various forms of races with Brain Freezer, Mr. Mittens, Dark Vegan, and Bling-Bling Boy. The prize? Being able to call yourself Super Champion of the World.
  • Gotta Pass the Class: In "Johnny Bench", Johnny joins wood shop to improve his grades to avoid getting sent to summer school.
  • Green Gators: The Sewer Gator from "Johnny's Royal Flush" is bright green.
  • Grounded Forever: Johnny's dad threatens to ground Johnny and his sisters FOREVER! One of the sisters reminds him that he can't ground them past 18, so he says he'll ground them UNTIL 18.
  • Groupie Brigade: In the episode "Phat Johnny", Johnny gets mauled by a horde of screaming fangirls at the height of his popularity as a rapper.
  • Guinea Pig Family
  • Harmless Villain: Bling-Bling Boy.
  • Hartman Hips: Sissy. You wouldn't really notice it the first time you look at her.
    • Johnny when he's turned into a girl for a few seconds in the 1st season intro and the first episode.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Bee Keeper in the holiday episode.
    • Also Bling-Bling Boy whenever Susan is in danger.
    • Brain Freezer seems to have dropped his evil ways since taking a level in handsomeness. He later returned to them because Status Quo Is God.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners:
    • Johnny and Dukey are clearly an example of this as they hang out with each other a lot and consider each other to be best friends
    • Mr. Black and Mr. White although the heterosexual part can reach very low points at times.
  • Historical Domain Crossover: Johnny brought back several historical figures, including Attila the Hun and a caveman, to create the most powerful hockey team.
  • Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: When traveling back in time, a woolly mammoth becomes enamored with Dukey. A later episode plays the trope closer to its namesake as a sperm whale has a crush on Dukey as well.
  • Homage: Pokémon, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo have been parodied. The latter of the two has Johnny repeatedly lampshading the fact with "I know I've seen this before!".
    • Nevermind that Johnny X and Super Dukey's outfits have similar colour schemes to Blue Falcon and Dynomutt.
    • Star Wars, of all things, has also been parodied via the terrifying villain, Dark VEGAN. Funnily enough, he's voiced by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
    • Don't forget the Homage to Men in Black with Mr. Black and Mr. White.
    • "Johnny Cart Racing" is a homage to Wacky Races, complete with the villain team (Brain Freezer and Mr. Mittens in place of Dick Dastardly and Muttley) stopping when in the lead to try and keep the others from finishing with nefarious schemes. This was also lampshaded by an increasingly frustrated Mr. Mittens.
    • As well as the old Wile E. Coyote cartoons, with Johnny and Dukey as the Roadrunner(s) and Eugene as the Coyote.
    • The episode "Old School Johnny" parodies the first and the third Back to the Future movies.
    • "Sleepover at Johnny's" referenced the works of Dr. Seuss.
    • Good Old Johnny Test
  • Humiliation Conga: Bling Bling gets one in "Johnny Cruise". After his plan to get Susan Goes Horribly Wrong and nearly gets everyone killed (which was pretty unhinged to begin with, even for him), Johnny forces him to personally perform every job on the entire cruise for his family in a rather humiliating manner. However, in this case, it was well deserved.
  • Hypocritical Humor: While using a machine that turns base metals into gold, Hugh Test yells at the girls for inventing such a device.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: The reason Princess Mirabelle goes missing.
  • "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Dukey tries to reach the uncorrupted part of Johnny's brain after the Super Smarty Pants have taken most of Johnny's brain over.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: Inverted.
    Susan: What does she have that we don't?
    Johnny: A gorgeous face, a perfect tan and strong white teeth.
    Susan: Hey! We have... strong white teeth!
  • An Ice Person: Brain Freezer.
  • Identical Stranger: Johnny looks exactly like Princess Mirabelle, so the SSGA gets him to take her place when the princess goes missing.
  • Identical Twin ID Tags: Susan and Mary's hairstyles and glasses.
  • Idiot Hero: Johnny.
    • Not really, Johnny actually isn't that stupid... just really, really immature: he usually can outsmart his sisters/parents if sufficiently motivated; his sisters even comment in one episode that he's actually pretty smart.
  • Incest Subtext: Mary gives Johnny quite an infatuated look after they make him into a pheromone-ridden stud magnet. "You really are adorable, Johnny."
  • Infection Scene: In "Johnny's Got A... Wart!", Johnny heads off to school, only to find a huge wart on his hand, and he and Dukey discuss all the events that could've lead to its formation. Respectively, the events recalled are Johnny juggling toads and touching his eyeballs at the same time, kissing a warthog, and receiving a lollipop from a witch in a gingerbread house. Johnny says nothing comes to mind.
  • Insanely International Ancestry: According to "Who's Johnny?", the Test family apparently have a rich bloodline, since Mary and Susan's Personality Twister also makes Johnny a different race (like British, Spanish, etc). invokedAnd somehow also has dog ancestry.
  • Insistent Terminology: Early on the series, Eugene kept demanding that he be called Bling-Bling Boy. In later episodes, though, he dropped this, most likely because he realized no one would ever call him Bling-Bling Boy.
  • In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: The many varieties of robots Susan and Mary create.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: Down past atoms into a Bizarro Universe.
  • Inside a Computer System
  • Insistent Terminology: Bling-Bling Boy does not like being addressed by his real name, Eugene.
  • Intellectual Animal: Dukey.
  • Ironic Echo: Johnny makes a speech to guilt Dukey into going on a field trip because Johnny needs parental supervision to go; Dukey then uses almost the exact same speech to get Johnny to help free some animals later in the episode.
  • It Tastes Like Feet: Johnny's dad was experimenting with healthy cookies and had Johnny try one. Johnny proclaims that the cookies taste like dirt. Johnny's Dad then produces a plate of dirt and insists that Johnny eat some for comparison. Johnny does and apologizes for saying the cookies taste like dirt, because the dirt tastes *better*.
  • Kent Brockman News: Hank Anchorman.
  • KidAnova: So far, the 11 year old Johnny has managed to charm the class tomboy, the school's queen bee, an alien Rebellious Princess five years older than him, and a cute Daddy's Little Villain (literally, since she turned out to be the villain, not her dad). And possibly invokedGil.
  • Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Johnny and Dukey, after several attempts, get an M-rated game; they get nightmares after they play it.
  • Labcoat of Science and Medicine Johnny's sisters wear lab coats.
  • Laborious Laces: Gil joins an effort to save Johnny as a return favor for telling him his shoe was untied.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Consistently applied. Particularly in the episodes that spoof various Hanna-Barbera toons.
    Johnny: I know I've seen this somewhere before.
  • Large Ham: So many. Johnny, Dukey, Bling Bling Boy, Brain Freezer just to name a few.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: To the point where there is an episode about it.
  • Law of Disproportionate Response: Dukey dumps large amounts of water onto a neighbor's cats because one of them scratched him the other day; of course, Dukey's a dog so he feels disliking cats is part of his job.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "I'm telling ya, I've seen this somewhere before!". Said by Johnny in the Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry-inspired episodes.
  • Sorry, I Left the BGM On: Done in "Tom & Johnny", with the home network music player providing the musical background for the Tom and Jerry-inspired antics.
  • Lethal Chef: Hugh Test.
    • Subverted in that he does seem to be competent, as long he avoids experiments and meatloaf; sadly, he loves meatloaf...
      • He once made "Healthy" cookies that Johnny claimed "Taste like dirt". Hugh asks for proof and presents Johnny a plate of dirt. He obliges and corrects himself that "Dirt tastes better"
    • Johnny seems to believe 'Mint Chip' ice cream is made of Mint, potato chips, rocks and salt (instead of rock salt).
    • In "Johnny Daddy Day", the rest of the Test family manage to become these. (see the Feminine Women Can Cook entry above)
  • Lethal Joke Item: In a fighting game called Sacred Sword IV, there is a Joke Item called the building block sword that Dukey claims is powerful if you know how to use it; Dukey, however, does not but Johnny, through the course of the episode does figure it out and defeats Sissy Blakely with it.
  • Limited Animation: After Season 1, and it gets worse from there.
  • Literal Ass-Kicking: How Johnny catches his foot in "Johnny's Left Foot"
  • Literal Split Personality: Susan and Mary remove Johnny's negative brain plasma and it grows into an Evil Twin
  • Long-Runners: By the standards of Cartoon Network, at least. Six seasons long, and the first show ever on Cartoon Network to come close to cracking 200 episodes.
  • Loophole Abuse: In the first episode Dukey points out to Johnny that Hugh told him "touch [his camera] and die", after which Johnny states he's not physically touching it, since he's operating it using a stick.
  • Lost Aesop: "There's a lesson in all this, but darn if I know what it is."
  • Love Makes You Crazy: Mary and Susan, when it comes to Gil; Smartpants when it comes to Johnny.
    • Also this exchange from the episode "Johnny Cruise", after Eugene reveals his plan to deliberately sail a cruise ship full of passengers into an iceberg so that he can heroically and romantically rescue Susan as it sinks:
    Johnny: Are you nuts?!
    Eugene: Close, I'm in love.
  • Machine Monotone: Double Subverted in "The Dog Days of Johnny" where Susan and Mary fit Dukey with a brainwashing collar that sways his will much more towards their whims than his own or Johnny's without taking it away completely. However, when he persists in desiring to sleep in their room rather than Johnny's, they fire an "Obey" override that forces their will over his, signified by... well, this trope.
  • Mad Scientist: Mary and Susan, Bling-Bling Boy, Brain Freezer
  • Made of Explodium: The non-explosive water snake and when racing Johnny through the woods, the stuff Susan and Mary make out of natural things.
  • Mama Bear: Lila Test.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Lila and Hugh Test. Lila is the one who has a job and makes the money for the family while Hugh is basically the spouse who stays at home and does all the chores that are considered housewife work as he does all the cooking and cleaning. However this trope only applies to their occupations as Hugh still considers himself man of the house and is very strict towards his children while Lila still shows mother like qualities towards her children.
  • Meaningful Name: Hank Anchorman is the local news anchorman.
  • The Men in Black: Mr. Black & Mr. White, two guys in suits who work for Area 51.1 and often (try to) assist in stopping the threats that the Test family frequently unleash upon Porkbelly.
  • Mid-Battle Tea Break: While "playing" a game of Uncle where each person beats the hell out of the other to get them to say "Uncle", Johnny, Dukey, Susan and Mary stop in the middle to have snacks.
  • Misspelling Out Loud: In "Johnny's Super Smarty Pants", the title character is in a Spelling Bee and is asked to spell "go". He spells it "G-E-A-U-X".
  • Monster Roommate: Johnny shares his bedroom with Dukey, who is an ordinary dog but Susan and Mary gave him the ability to speak and think on human levels.
  • Mystery Meat: Johnny's dad's horrible meat loaf recipes. Doesn't just serve meatloaf by itself, he also serves it in burritos, tacos, etc. Every proclamation of Mr. Test's meatloaf for dinner is met with screams of horror from his family.
    • One episode hints that there isn't anything in there that can be remotely called meat. He doesn't seem to try and hide that either.
  • Negative Continuity: The continuity of this show is little to none to say the least. Many episodes end with either Porkbelly and/or the Test house being ruined or destroyed but they appear fine by the next episode. There is the occasional Continuity Nod but even then they sometimes create contradictions such as when Dark Vegan and his armada start hurting the Earth in the season 3 finale but in a later episode, Johnny is blamed for it by his family.
  • Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Dark Vegan comes off as a parody of this.
  • Never Say "Die":
    • Played straight for the most part, but weirdly averted in "Johnny's Royal Flush" where a gator is heavily implied to have been chopped up in Porkbelly's sewer system and turned into luggage.
    • The actual word "die" - not to mention the word "kill" - is averted, however. Johnny's enemies always wants to "destroy" him.
    • What about in "Deep Sea Johnny" when it was implied that the octopus was killed and served as sushi?
    • Also in "Johnny Testosterone" Mary and Susan mention their dad will kill them if anything bad happened with Johnny.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At least half or more of the problems in the series were caused by Johnny, one of his sisters' inventions Gone Horribly Wrong (or right) or a combination of the two; in "Johnny Test in Black and White", the General explicitly states that the Test siblings have caused more damage to Porkbelly than floods, earthquakes, and summer music festivals.
  • Niche Network: "The Nutz Channel. We're all nuts, all the time."
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Bill Humanguy sounds like William Shatner
  • No Indoor Voice: Seriously. In later seasons, the characters yell frequently. To be fair, would you calm down if the Earth's rotation stopped or a villain tries to turn every creature into cats?
  • Nonstandard Character Design: Speed McCool and his sidekick Monkey look jarringly more realistic than the other characters.
  • Noodle Incident: Several. Occasionally used as Blackmail by Johnny or a reason they can't do an experiment without getting in trouble with Dad. For example, experiments somehow resulted in a gigantic Johnny bursting out of the roof of the Test house and shooting lasers from its eyes...twice.
  • Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: "Bathtime for Johnny" has Johnny refusing to clean himself, while the subplot is Dukey being sad over Johnny overfocusing on that and not even acknowledging his birthday. At the end of the episode, Johnny haggles with his family to get clean in exchange for letting him build something in the house, which turns out to be an indoor water park for Dukey.
  • Oblivious to Love: Gil in regards to Mary and Susan.
  • Obviously Evil: One shot character Larius Nefarious; hell, it's the whole reason the SSGA decide to investigate him. As it turns out, his daughter was the evil one.
  • Only Sane Man: Dukey
  • Our Vampires Are Different:in Fangs a Lot Johnny, Susan and Mary transform into vampires in order to impress Gil. They wear gothic black dresses, their eyes turn a cat-like green, and they glitter in the sunlight.
  • Outlandish Device Setting: ** The episode "Johnny Bench" has Johnny being assigned by Mr. Teacherman to build a bench in woodshop, only for Johnny to refuse to make it himself because of his dislike of Teacherman and being told what to do. Instead, he gets Susan and Mary's construction drones to build a hi-tech bench that by his own words will "make Teacherman freak out and give him an A". However, the drones take this description too literally and include a setting called "Freak Out Teacher Mode" ("F.O.T." for short, the drones tried to mention it and all the bench's other features to Johnny, but he was too eager to hand it in to listen), which turns the bench into a killer robot that Johnny and Dukey have to stop from hunting down and killing Teacherman.
    • The episode "Johnnysicle" has Brain Freezer's freeze ray, whose settings range from -20 degrees, to -40 degrees, to "Nor-Easter".
  • Oven Logic: In "Johnny Bench", Johnny takes Home Ec when trying to get an A in a class. He's next shown putting a mixer on high speed in an attempt to speed up the process when the teacher said to put it on medium, resulting in a mess and no A grade.
  • Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: Subverted in "Johnnyland". Johnny wants to get into a roller coaster, and waits literally 12 hours to ride it. When his turn finally arrives, the roller coaster is so tall that it goes into the atmosphere, but when he falls the ride abruptly stops at the bottom of the peak and nothing else happens.
    Johnny: That's it?
  • Overused Running Gag: "Whooooa, Didn't See That Coming."
  • Packed Hero: Subverted. Johnny and his friends visit an ice cream factory, and Johnny's dog is thought to have fallen into the vat and been packed into a tin. After Johnny eats his way through the entire batch, the dog walks up to him and asks Johnny what he's doing.
  • Painted Tunnel, Real Train: In "Johnny vs. Bling Bling 3", with Shout-Outs to old Road Runner cartoons.
  • Papa Wolf: Hugh Test.
  • Parking Problems: The sisters' van is towed for parking in front of a fire hydrant.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
    • Passwords set by Susan and Mary always include Gil's name.
    • In the episode, "Johnny Escape from Bling-Bling Island", the password to one of the locks is "Susan".
    • Apparently Mary and Susan realized this, because in another episode they changed the password(s). Yet Johnny, and even Lila, were able to figure it out, and it still involves Gil.
  • Phrase Catcher: "Whoa. Didn't see that coming." Dukey lampshaded this at least once.
  • Plot Parallel: Dawg & Bone.
  • Powers as Programs: Johnny's ever-changing mutant powers.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The villains teamed up with Johnny Test in the Series Fauxnale only because they can't take over the world if there's no world.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: Johnny, a rare voluntary example, and Dukey, rather less so. It's a fair exchange, since Johnny volunteers in return for getting his sisters to make him whatever gizmo he wants at the time. So it's like The Fairly OddParents!, only that Johnny actually does something to earn his wishes.
  • Protagonist Title: Main character Johnny Test shares his name with the show.
  • Projectile Toast: In "Johnny vs. Smash Badger 3", Johnny accidentally brings a Crash Bandicoot parody to life, who uses Johnny's toaster to shoot flaming toast.
  • Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Johnny uses this when wearing a helmet designed to telekinetically turn objects into weapons.
  • Pro Wrestling Episode: In Stinkin Johnny Johnny enters a wrestling tournament in order to get enough money to buy a new hd tv after he broke the old one.
  • Pull the Plug on the Title: The opening sequence includes a short scene of Johnny and Duke rocking. It ends with Duke jamming his guitar, fireworks exploding, and a yellow, glowing, multi-bulb sign that reads "Johnny Test". Johnny's sisters pull down a lever to reveal the show's logo.
  • Pun: The Bee Keeper's and Brain Freezer's puns related to bees ("Bee afraid! Bee very afraid!") and cold ("Time to chill out!"), respectively. The latter is most likely a reference to Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin.
  • Punny Name: Mary and Susan... Johnny TEST?
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: Used by Johnny on his family to go to a ski resort. Used by a whole bunch of kids including Johnny on a ski captain but it is subverted when "The Look" doesn't work.
  • The Psycho Rangers: The Johnny Stopping Evil Force 5.
  • Quarter Hour Short: The 2021 revival shortens the series from its original two-segment half-hour format to a single-segment quarter hour, to mirror Cartoon Network's switch to airing its episodes that way since 2010.
  • Quivering Lip: in early episodes the titular character would use this method to guilt trip his parents into buying him what he wants.
  • Recycled In SPACE: The show's core set-up is basically a gender swapped Dexter's Laboratory from Dee Dee's point of view; the parents' basic personalities seem to be gender swapped from that show as well.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Boy-borgs and Gil.
  • Refugee from TV Land: Dawg and Bone from "Johnny Re-Animated".
  • Revenge: A lot of Johnny's enemies are obsessed with getting revenge on him. And less on their own schemes. And most of their revenges are for their previous revenges being foiled by Johnny himself.
  • Reverse Polarity: Averted when Johnny uses a fruit revitalization ray to bring back Porkbelly's founding fathers as zombies because the ray only works on people halfway. Susan reverses the polarity on the ray to de-animate the founding fathers but it doesn't work because they're already sort of dead.
  • Right on the Tick: Subverted, as it wasn't really the start of summer vacation.
  • Rube Goldberg Device: Dukey builds one of these to trap Johnny's Evil Twin. Subverted when the Evil Twin figures out the trap and steps over the trigger... into the actual trap which is a covered hole in the ground.
  • Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Johnny is an Annoying Younger Sibling who breaks it Once an Episode, though his more reasonable sidekick dog Dukey tries to get him to avoid doing so (and usually fails).
  • Rump Roast: One of the actions when Smarty Pants gets jealous about Johnny seeing other girls is that they get so hot in the rear area that Johnny has to jump out of them.
  • Running Gag: Dukey is stated to have money saved up 'for a rainy day.' It's referenced commonly enough to be used as a plot point every now and then. Just how much he has saved up tends to vary wildly, though.
  • Sarcastic Confession: Hugh Test angrily demands to know if Johnny lost his phone, so Susan tells their dad that they're looking for Johnny's phone with baseball bats because they want to smash it before it takes over the world. Which they are.
  • Screw Yourself: In the episode "Johnny Alternative", it's strongly implied that Johnny has fallen in love with what is obviously a female version of himself.
  • Self-Deprecation: "The Nightmare House! Super funny ending not included."
    • Though that seems more like "you TOO can have this nightmare house, but it won't come with the SUPER FUNNY ENDING we have here!"
  • Selective Obliviousness: Hugh Test clearly chooses to ignore the fact that nobody likes his cooking, regardless of horror struck faces, audible gagging, running to vomit and being told to his face that his cooking is awful. The most he ever said about people opinion of his food is "I'm beginning to think you people don't like my meatloaf."
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Johnny (macho) and Dukey (sensitive).
  • Shipper on Deck: In the episode "Big Sister Smackdown", Johnny supports Gil x Susan, while Dukey ships Gil x Mary. It's implied they're just egging the argument on for their amusement.
  • Shout-Out: "Where have I seen this before?"
    • "Tom and Johnny" has Johnny turned into a mouse, and the villain is a cat. Predictability ensues.
    • One of the early episodes had a toy series called Roboticles. Coincidentally, Johnny's voice actor would later voice a character in the actual series, while some of the other voice actors have already been in other BIONICLE movies.
    • At the end of "Johnny vs. Bling Bling 3", Johnny steals a page from John McClane's book (specifically, "surrendering" with a weapon taped behind him).
    • One one-off NPC is wearing Luigi's hat.
    • "Whatcha doooin'?"
    • The sleepover episode turns into a Cat in the Hat homage halfway through, with Bling 1 and Bling 2 running around with kites, a talking fish, and Dr. Seuss dialogue and gadget designs.
    • In "Johnny of the Deep", Bling Bling loses a ring that hypnotizes Susan into falling in love with him. When it falls overboard, he says "it was the rarest of gems."
    • The episode "Johnny vs. Bling Bling 3" where Bling-Bling gets his mission to destroy Johnny ends up as a Road Runner reference, complete with Canis Latinicus scientific names for the characters.
    • "Johnny Dukey Doo"
    • In "Rated J for Johnny", Johnny gets a brown, bushy mustache; when questioned about his name, what does he say it is? Earl.
    • Hi-Pitch Hal
    • "Johnny Test's Quest" not only was the episode a direct reference to Johnny Quest (Including Mr.White dressing up in Hindi clothing.) but wouldn't be surprising if the episode was only made as an in-joke because the names sound similar.
    • In "X-Ray Johnny", Johnny appears on a parody of Deal or No Deal.
    • Heck, they even did a parody of the show itself in "Johnny Re-Animated".
  • Shown Their Work: The first Tinymon episode actually grasped a lot of Pokémon's mechanics:
    • Cuddlebun = Magikarp.
    • Evolving by happiness.
    • Screechereen is a combination of (Shadow) Lugia, the legendary birds, Gyarados, Mew (may or may not exist), Missingno (may or may not exist), and invokedPikablu, Nidogod, etc. (may or may not exist). Also, in general, flying Pokémon are superior for some reason.
    • Stealing Tinymon.
    • The second Tinymon episode contains reference to Digimon, with de-evolving and Jogress.
  • Single-Minded Twins: The twins avert this but avoid being Polar Opposite Twins. They do not wear the same clothes and hair styles, and have different voices, but don't have exact opposite personalities. A very rare case of a cartoon making (relatively) normal identical twins.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: Mary and Susan only have eyes for Gil. Eugene only has eyes for Susan.
    • Inverted with Gil, who seems to love every attractive girl around his age except for Mary and Susan.
  • Ski-Resort Episode: "Downhill Johnny" which involves involves Johnny trying to find a way to go down a tall slope at Behemoth Ski Resort after the ski captain refuse to let him go down by himself and needs an adult to do it, and Hugh is too afraid to go down.
  • Snark Knight: Jillian, Dark Vegan's daughter.
  • Snowlems: The Brain Freezer attacks Porkbelly with a whole bunch of them.
  • Space Whale Aesop: The show throws an invokedAnvilicious "video games rot your mind" Aesop by having Johnny be unable to stop thinking about inanimate objects becoming random monsters. Which would be completely unimportant if his sisters hand't gotten a "make the user's imagination real" helmet stuck on his head.
    • Played for Laughs at the end of "Johnny-itis", in which Dukey tells the audience to "never drink isotopes."
  • Spoiled Brat: Surprisingly subverted. Johnny's attempts of getting his sisters' to help him through blackmail are balanced out (or possibly even caused) by his sisters' experimenting on him without permission. Been hinted to have happened since Johnny was a young child.
  • Spoofing Spoofiness: Dark Vegan and the episode he debuted in, "Johnny Test in Outer Space", were parodies of Dark Helmet and Spaceballs respectively, which in turn were parodies of Darth Vader and Star Wars.
  • Spoofy-Doo: The episode "Johnny Dukey Doo" is a parody of Scooby-Doo, with Dukey as Scooby, Johnny as Shaggy, Susan and Mary as Daphne and Velma, and Gil as Fred. Gil even changes into Fred's attire as part of his proclaimed "ghost hunting gear".
  • Spot the Imposter: When the military builds a Johnny Cyborg, it invokes this trope to avoid being shot by Dukey.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: Played with in the first episode with Mr. Mittens. His butler ask why his Doomsday Device needs a timer and instead of just setting it off now. Mittens explains it's to get him out of range so he can remain and continue to take care of him.
    • Occurs more frequently with Dukey asking the Brilliant, but Lazy Johnny why he doesn't just do his assignments instead of trying anything but.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Bling Bling Boy with Susan; Susan and Mary with Gil.
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: Dukey and Johnny, respectively.
  • Stock Sound Effect: The show turns the whipcrack sound effect into this, as every single character movement is given the same sound to the point that there are 191 in a single episode.
  • Sudden Name Change: Missy, who is Sissy's dog, had her name changed to Poochy. No explanation has to given out as to why Missy's name was changed.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: Susan and Mary use this when Hugh claims that Johnny is having an allergic reaction to the meal he made. The truth is that Johnny's brain has been devolved due to an experiment.
  • Take Over the City: Lampshaded when Mr. White & Mr. Black ask why the show's villains always seem to attack Porkbelly.
  • Take Over the World: Every single villain wants to do it (since they're all parodies of Obviously Evil villains).
  • Take That Us: When confronted with the cartoon "Dawg and Bone" which has a near-identical premise to his life, Johnny simply asks "Who'd want to watch something like that?" before glancing at the fourth wall.
  • Tempting Fate: Any time anyone says "We're safe! We're all safe now!" is a cue to the universe that it's time to make them unsafe again.
  • Theme Twin Naming:
    • Averted with Susan and Mary Test
    • Mr. Black and Mr. White, despite not being twins and related, have their last names based on the colors of black and white.
    • Sissy Blake and her dog Missy, although it gets subverted after Missy's name was changed to Poochy.
  • This Is No Time for Knitting: Johnny — confronted by some giant moon-men — hastily makes paper planes and throws them to poke the giants in the eyes, but not before Dukey scolds him for making paper planes.
  • Three... Two... One...: All the time.
  • Tickle Torture: Johnny, Albert, Susan, and Mary go through this by The Tickler, Wacko's twin brother. Subverted in Albert's case because he is not ticklish.
  • Time Machine: Susan and Mary designed a time machine in the shape of a tea house.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Bling Bling Boy is this just as often as he is the antagonist.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Johnny, especially in Johnnyitis.
    • Gil, not just the fact he is completely oblivious to Susan and Mary's existence, but he once started a babysitting service despite he knows nothing about babysitting. (Jumping on a small pull-out couch with the baby-fied Susan and Mary, feeding them chili, and watching a horror movie in front of them) "Babies like chili right?"
  • Totally Radical: Like you wouldn't believe.
  • Totem Pole Trench: Susan and Mary do this to get into a top secret lab. Johnny and Dukey use this to try and get past the ski captain to shred the Behemoth.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: While meatloaf certainly isn't the favorite food of most Test family members, it's obviously Hugh's favorite, since he makes it every night.
    • Described by Dukey as "dry as a desert muskrat."
    • Dukey will do anything for steak.
    • Dark Vegan and toast. He spends one episode trying to get home to Vegandon, only to find out there's no toast there. So he immediately returns to Earth. Another episode he plans to destroy the home planet of the Rib-eye Knights because he can't keep from burning his toast. Once Johnny shows him how to do so, he immediately drops the plan and befriends the Knights.
  • Trainstopping: Practically a Running Gag whenever Johnny X is involved; one episode took it into Overly Long Gag territory that culminated in "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE TRAINS IN THIS CITY?"
  • Twin Threesome Fantasy: Uniquely for this trope, it's the girls (Mary and Susan) who want this with Gil. They're always trying to make Gil "fall in love with us"! Though they seem to vary on whether they actually want to share him or not. Discussed briefly in the episode "Johnny Two-Face", where Johnny was given a second truth-telling mouth that revealed this uncomfortable truth to the girls:
    Mouth of Truth: ...you're not smart enough to realize there's only one Gil and two of you. And you both can't have him. You know that, right?
  • Unguided Lab Tour: In many episodes, Johnny is in need of a quick solution to the trouble he's gotten into but either his sisters aren't home or they can't/won't help him —he's been a nuisance or their experiment of the week is too unstable still. Behaving with the recklessness that characterizes him, Johnny often decides to screw it and forces his entrance to the lab. As he's searching for whatever is it that he was denied before (or that looks interesting enough), the viewers get a glimpse of the current state of the sisters' laboratory. On some occasions, Jonnhy triggers a security mechanism while he is grabbing (or already has) the experiment he wants.
  • Veganopia: Dark Vegan provides a Take That! against this trope.
  • Villain Protagonist: Johnny and his father feel like this in some episodes, namely in episodes like "The Good, the Bad & the Johnny" and "Guess Who's Coming to Johnny's for Dinner"
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Johnny and Bling Bling Boy often act like bitter enemies towards each other but in some episodes, they are decently good friends.
  • Vocal Evolution: Johnny's voice is a bit calmer and deeper before the first renewal.
  • Wacky Racing: On four separate occasions, once for a go cart race, again as a boat race, again on lawn mowers and once more for a sled race.
    • Five now, and in a Mario Kart-like setting no less.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Bee Keeper just wanted kids to eat healthily.
  • Weirdness Censor: Dukey often goes out in public in a cunning disguise to prevent people from realizing he's a talking dog. His disguise? A t-shirt that reads, "Not a dog."
  • We Want Our Jerk Back!: The subject of two different episodes. In one the change is forced on Johnny by his sisters, in another Johnny's personality is changed to more easily work with a classmate.
    • Three, if you count the episode where Dad was replaced with a robot duplicate.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The show is very inconsistent on whether its set in the United States or Canada. While the flag outside Johnny's school is that of Ontario and hockey is apparently Johnny's favorite sport (as well as scenes of him playing street hockey), the California flag also appears around Porkbelly and things like the CIA, an Area 51 knockoff, and the White House appear in many episodes. Heck, Johnny even makes an excuse that Dukey is his relative from Canada in one episode, and several episodes even have the characters visit Canada and meet Canadian stereotypes.
  • Who Would Want to Watch Us?: "Dawg & Bone" is an in-universe cartoon about a boy who has genius twin siblings and his dog and the adventures they have together. Johnny and Dukey consider the show lame.
  • Wild Card Excuse: Dukey the speaking dog is always "a kid with a rare hair disorder".
  • William Telling: "Dolly Johnny" has Johnny practicing shooting plungers at the apple perched on Dukey's head. He fails to hit the apple until he has to shoot something else that's more important.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: In the episode where the Test kids and Dukey play chess with the chess pieces brought to life, Johnny takes the role of the king. When he took a liking to chess, the title went to his head and the orders he made go from making moves on the board to terrorizing Porkbelly; this is known to the characters as "The King's Madness".
  • Yandere:
    • In "Johnny's Super Smarty Pants", Johnny asks his sisters for super-intelligence. He obtains a pair of pants, which become self-aware... and this.
    • The girls create three robot boys to make Gil jealous. It works. In both directions.
  • You Can Talk?:
  • You Don't Look Like You: In season seven, Mr. Teacherman's face changes quite noticeably. His features are less cartoonishly exaggerated with a smaller, shorter nose and a discernable space between his eyes which are now blue instead of brown. He no longer has any misaligned teeth, either.

 
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"3. 2. 1. JOHNNY!"

In "Stinkin Johnny", to try to get an HD TV to watch wrestling, Johnny tries to play baseball so he can hit the ball to the TV to break it so his dad can buy a new one. However, once he hits it too hard, it accidentally hits his dad's windshield instead, causing him to count down before he starts yelling at him. After a scheme to win a TV through a wrestling contest goes awry that involves their mother having to save them at the end of the episode, Johnny, Susan and Mary are later grounded and barred from TV and the lab. They decide to play some baseball instead, but Johnny hits the ball too hard again and breaks a window and the TV they had just brought. He then counts down again before their parents yelled for them.

How well does it match the trope?

4.25 (4 votes)

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