LEGO City Adventures is an American-Danish computer-animated animated television series produced by The LEGO Group and animated by Passion Pictures. It premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States on June 22, 2019, making it the second LEGO series on the channel, following 2010's LEGO Hero Factory.
LEGO City Adventures provides examples of:
- Accidental Hero: In “Lights, Camera, Grizzled,” this is revealed to be how Sam Grizzled became a legendary police cop. They had gotten credit for stopping an art heist single-handed, but it turns out that the thieves had simply trapped themselves in the exhibit on accident. They attempted to set the record straight, but every attempt just led to people believing in an even wilder turn of events.
- Actually Not a Vampire: Ave Empire, whose debut episode (which also spotlights him) has him being constantly mistaken for a vampire, not helped by his appearance, awkward communication, constant Contrived Coincidences, and Shifty believing him to be a vampire to the point of sending an angry mob after him while he's trying to save the city. Ave eventually manages to get the townsfolk to believe him, though.
- Alliterative Name: Duke Detain, Harl (and Horacio) Hubbs, Top Hat Tom, Hacksaw Hank, Big Betty, Cluster Clampots, Gracie Goodhart, Rocket Racer, Marc McCloud, Sandra Storm, Stacy Strikeout, Dynamo Doug, Donn Dedundun, and Sweetie Sinclair.
- Anti-Hero: Mary Sinclair may contribute a lot to opposing R. E. Fendrich's criminal empire, but she mostly does it for her own gain.
- Anti-Villain: Tippy stole, kidnapped and sabotaged a very important event for the city to take over the world by taking everybody to a world made of doors but Tippy only wanted to create a utopic world for everybody, albeit because he wanted to be on top.
- Arc Villain: Season 1 had a mysterious criminal mastermind, later revealed to be Tippy, trying to enact their plan to hijack the Mars mission.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In "Lights, Camera, Grizzled", R.E. Fendrich is able to avoid being charged for his attempted theft of the stick by saying he and his cronies were acting in the movie. Grizzled just asks him how it feels to have failed to steal what effectively amounts to a stick, twice, which gets under Fendrich's skin enough that he does a Skyward Scream (screaming Sinclair's name out of habit despite her not being involved at all).
- Ascended Extra: Daisy Kaboom was a recurring character who didn't show up regularly in Season 1, but became one of the regularly rotating spotlight characters in Season 2 and 3, with the latter adding her to the new opening.
- Berserk Button: Just hearing Sinclair's name is enough to drive Fendrich insane.
- Big Damn Heroes: In "Slam The Door", Harl saves the city from Tippy, who wanted to take over the world through a supposedly magical door.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "The Spooky One", Duke, Freya, and Shirley complain about kids spending most of their time desensitizing themselves to the world by watching cartoons, only for Shirley to backtrack and say that there isn't anything wrong with watching cartoons, with the three then giving Puppy-Dog Eyes as Freya begs the viewer to not turn off whatever the viewer is watching the episode on.
- Brooklyn Rage: In addition to her gravelly voice, Shirley Keeper seems to speak in a New York accent and is mostly grumpy (though not without reason).
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Most of the named cast fits, but the stand-out examples are:
- Police Lieutenant Duke Detain, who is super effective at arresting criminals but is constantly talking with his plushie of the police mascot, Cubbie, whenever he's not doing untold amounts of collateral damage.
- Police Chief Percival Wheeler, who rates ideas based on how Totally Radical they are and gets around on a skateboard.
- Fire Brigade Chief Freya McCloud who routinely calls for Noodle Implements to be brought to the scene of a fire while en route, and then proceeds to solve the situation perfectly with them.
- Garbage Truck Driver Shirley Keeper who uses the "I Want" Song format to get people to pay attention to public sanitation rules.
- Mayor Solomon Fleck who wears a corn cob costume all the time but whenever he sees the consequences of the situation of the week, he dryly remarks "Hmm, that's odd" and goes back to work.
- "The Funky 46". The fire crew from Ladder 46 dance to disco music endlessly, and are just as effective in a crisis as the main crew is.
- Butt-Monkey: Fireman Clemmons, Allen Conigsburgh and Top Hat Tom are the most frequent ones.
- Catchphrase: Chief Freya McCloud always cuts people off by saying "No time!".
- Duke and Cubby have "The easy way is rarely the best way", and just Duke has "The kids could be watching".
- Comically Missing the Point: In "Fendrich In The Wild", Fendrich hires Daisy Kaboom to blow up Mary Sinclair's warehouse although he speaks in code and tells Daisy to bring some "poets" (criminals) and plant some "daisies" (explosives) around the warehouse and make it look like they just "blossomed" by accident. Unfortunately, Daisy misunderstands and believes that Fendrich actually wanted to her to plant flowers instead of blowing the place up.
- Christmas Episode: Season one's Police Navidad and Season two's Arrest Ye Merry Gentlemen take place during Christmas.
- The Comically Serious: Mayor Solomon Fleck is a deadpan workaholic who dresses as an ear of corn.
- Competition Freak: Tread Octane.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Downplayed with Mary Sinclair. Exaggerated with R. E. Fendrich.
- Cowboy Cop: Duke Detain.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: "Bob and Clemmons'Excellent Adventure" reveals that the usually cowardly and prone to panicking Clemmons is pretty cool-headed competent in getting all the Noodle Implements Freya sends the duo after. Too bad this usually happens off-screen.
- Dark Action Girl: Daisy Kaboom and Clara.
- Demolitions Expert: Daisy Kaboom's modus operandi.
- Denser and Wackier: While the series is generally more Slice of Life fare than LEGO's more action-oriented lines, it also heavily emphasizes the incredibly quirky cast and is fond of making fun of numerous stock tropes.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Shirley Keeper.
- Also a running joke with Gabby Tocamera. She's an ace reporter, but is always ranked below Craig Woodman according to the network. Craig's the anchor and Gabby's the co-host, despite being essentially nothing more than a mannequin.
- Dysfunctional Family: The Fendrich family. Apparently almost (if not) all of them were/are criminals. The remaining members of their family, R.E. Fendrich and his mother seem to be on bad terms with each other and Fendrich himself is a jerk towards his step son, Tippy, who tried to rule the world at one point.
- Easily Forgiven: Tippy Doorman's punishment for theft, kidnapping, and trying to take over the world was eight hours in jail and after that he went back to normal as if nothing happened.
- Embarrassing First Name: And the middle one as well, unfortunately for Rachel Elizabeth Fendrich, whose parent were expecting a girl.
- Ensemble Cast: The series has no singular main character, with each episode giving the limelight to one of LEGO City's many characters.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Yes, Daisy Kaboom specializes on using explosives in her crimes, but she wasn't happy with Sinclair hiring her to stop Fendrich from gaining control over LEGO City just so that she could have it, believing the city belongs to its people, or with Snake Rattler manipulating an amnesiac Duke.
- In Thank Hank Hacksaw Hank is disgusted with the fact that Fendrich would use fake evidence saying that his family founded the city.
- Feud Episode:
- "Thank Hank" between Hacksaw Hank and Fendrich.
- "Give Em' A Hand” between Billy and Madison.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the end of "Meet Harl Hubbs", Harl says that he hopes he can help the city in a big way one day, with the Narrator saying that day will come. The episode closes off with them driving down the road while a child is in a rocket ride, hinting Harl will ultimately be the one to save LEGO City in "Slam The Door".
- Both “Sky Police” and “Poppy Starr” end with a criminal disguised as police officer hinting the arc villain.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Daisy Kaboom's mother yells Daisy's full name: Daisy Kathleen Lewis, to make it clear that she is not happy with the hour she came home at even though it was pretty early, with Daisy calling her out for not calling her "Daisy Kaboom" as well as pointing out that she didn't come home late but her mother simply brushes her off.
- Goldfish Poop Gang: Most of the criminal characters, particularly the ones who work under Fendrich, don't really pose much of a threat to the law enforcement of the city.
- Good Parents: Carol Yea is a very loving and caring mother to Madison. Both Ann & Marc McCloud (to Billy) quallify equally.
- Hidden Depths: Poppy Starr is a singer who specializes in pop music (most notably "The Loud Song", a tune that often appears throughout the show), but is shown in "Harpy Stubbs" to be a talented pianist.
- Frankie "Bad Guy" Lupelli is one of Fendrich's criminals, and in "Running Mates" and "Duke Time"; an excellent painter.
- Hot Pursuit: Expect to see this in episodes that focus on the police, especially Duke Detain.
- Institutional Apparel: A Downplayed old school prisoner variant. Most criminal characters in the series tend to wear outfits with dark horizontal striped shirts, reminiscent of old school prisoner uniforms. Played Straight in "Poppy Star" where Fendrich has his henchmen dress up in black and white striped prisoner uniforms to steal a gem, and Lampshaded when Hacksaw asks why he's having them put on such obviously criminal looking outfits.
- It's All About Me: Sweetie Sinclair, as shown in “Give ‘Em A Hand”. At the climax of the big race, Sweetie is shocked to see the crowd cheering for Billy and Madison instead of her, even though she had just won the race. After the kids make it to the end, Sweetie forces a smile and attempts to sway the crowd to cheer for her by playing the graceful winner and presenting Billy and Madison with the trophy. But the crowd keeps cheering for Billy and Madison and don’t even acknowledge Sweetie. The latter quickly drops her smiling veneer, shouts at everyone in frustration, and storms off in a huff.
- Limited Wardrobe: The characters very rarely change their clothes. Some of them even sleep and shower in their everyday outfits.
- Little Miss Badass: Madison Yea who is not easily scared by terror stories and managed to save herself and Mayor Fleck from a burning building. She also secretly became the city's top investigative journalist ("Nomi DePlume") in "Quantifying Intrepidness". The fact that she's only 9 didn't hold her back at all.
- Living Prop: Craig Woodman, the second newscaster on Channel 6+, never speaks or even moves.
- Manchild: Duke Detain still loves to play with toys since he hasn't let go of his childhood stuffed animal Cubby The Cop.
- Meaningful Name: Tons. Notably: Rooky Partnur; Poppy Starr; Gabby Tocamera; Stacy Strikeout; Tippy Doorman; Mr Produce; Craig Woodman; Ave Empire; Immuv Empire; Grizzled & Duke Detain. All directly reference their personalities, their jobs, or (in the cases of Gabby or Grizzled) both.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Marc McCloud is the Feminine Boy, to the Masculine Girl of... well, pretty much every woman in his family. It's not a coincidence.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Big Betty is this among Fendrich's gang.
- My Beloved Smother: Daisy's mother is bossy and overbearing. She is so controlling that thinks she can control what time of the day it is when Daisy comes home "past" her curfew even though she didn't. She also has no qualms about turning her in to Duke Detain when he shows up to arrest her and made Daisy have the phrase "Don't ignore your mother's calls!" played repeatedly as a ringtone while Daisy was also driving her crazy with her shenanigans and while she was not supportive of Daisy's business "Kaboom it", seems relieved when Daisy is finally able to get her own place thanks to it. Nevertheless she still tells Daisy she loves her and once Daisy moves into a dynamite factory she helps her daughter clean her new home. Additionally, Daisy's father is apparently not around and her mother appears to be single since Daisy's family photo only had her and her mother.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Duke has this reaction when he places Frankie "Bad Guy" Lupelli under false arrest, thinking he was stealing a painting when it was actually his own.
- Mythology Gag: When Tippy Doreman is revealed as the villain who wants to hijack the Mars mission, of the aliases suggested by the scientists on the Mars mission, "The Tipster", is likely a tongue-in-cheek reference to The Brickster.
- Rocket Racer is either named after the character with the same name from LEGO Racers, or he is him.
- Neat Freak: Daisy's mother appears to be this since she irons her iron table since the latter having wrinkles annoys her, uses a small vaccum to clean her other vaccum and cleans her brushes with a sponge. She is also very annoyed at Daisy constantly leaving boxes of explosives everywhere.
- Never My Fault: Fendrich blocks his statues on the sewers and when he's caught, blames it all on Vito.
- Noodle Implements: Freya sends Bob and Clemmons out to get several bizarre and random items to use when they put out fires. We almost always see them being used.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Fendrich says this to Daisy Kaboom in Business is Booming.
- Never My Fault: Fendrich blocks his statues on the sewers and when he's caught, blames it all on Vito.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Mayor Fleck requests for the citizens to stop the city from being destroyed, he doesn't wear his corn costume. Parodied when he has to put it back on when nobody recognizes him at all.]
- Only Sane Man: Captain Bennett tends to play this when compared to Wheelie and Duke.
- Parental Abandonment / Disappeared Dad / Missing Mom: Tippy's mother is never seen nor mentioned even though she was married to Fendrich, who now appears to be single and neither Tippy's, Daisy's, Fendrich's, or Madison's birth fathers were seen nor mentioned (except Fendrich’s) either. There’s even no mention of Sweetie or Poppy and Bradyen’s parents and the former's grandfather is never mentioned as well as the latter two’s grandmother.
- Parental Favoritism: Sam Grizzled seems to show favoritism towards his grandson Brayden due to their alike personalities and not to mention Sam's initial reluctance to spend time with his granddaughter Poppy and even told her right on her face that he doesn't consider her job to be important or relevant. Season 3 introduces, Sweetie Sinclair, Mary Sinclair’s granddaughter, who sometimes goes with her grandma somewhere.
- Quarter Hour Short: The series is presented this way on Netflix.
- The Rival: The Fendrichs and Sinclairs have been rivaled for generations because they say that they were the city's founding family. Sweetie Sinclair may rival the Fendrichs but she is shown to be a rival to Billy and Madison.
- Robosexual: As close as one can get to in a G-rated title, but Fire Engineer Feldman seems to prefer the company of her robot over her husband, complete with watching robot-centric Interspecies Romance movies with the both of them.
- Running Gag:
- Mayor Fleck seeing something weird going on, remarking "Hm. That's odd.", and often going right back to work.
- The man who has never finished a sentence in his life being on the news, only for the news to ignore him as soon as he's about to finish.
- Sam Grizzled claiming he has a few days left until his retirement, only to keep his job as a policeman in the next episode he appears in.
- R. E. Fendrich misidentifying Snake Rattler (a modern day cowboy) as an archetype from other genres (such as a knight or noir detective) due to being "genre blind". He also misidentifies Ave Empire as a clown.
- Schedule Fanatic: Police Captain Tom Bennett fits this to the T.
- Self-Applied Nickname: Totally Radical Police Chief Wheeler is constantly trying to convince his officers to call him "Wheely." He even suggests someone name their daughter Wheely in his honor. They typically stick with "Chief," to his disappointment.
- Self-Deprecation: In "Meet Harl Hubbs", the Interactive Narrator mocks the writing team for trying to be "meta" when he meets the cast.
- Ship Tease: Played for Laughs in "Buster" when the eponymous character was chasing after the criminal Clara and the two end up spinning around with romantic music playing and a romantic looking background, much to Hacksaw's dismay.
- Shout-Out:
- Snake Rattler is pretty clearly based on Snake Plissken, sharing his first name, eyepatch (albeit on the right eye instead of the left), and his hair looks similar to Kurt Russell's.
- Everything about Buster is basically an extended shout out to Buster Keaton, complete with him being a Silent Protagonist (as he never utters a single word and even screams in terror soundlessly).
- Slice of Life: While there are episodes with upped stakes, the series is generally about the civilians of LEGO City and what they get up to in their daily life.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Seasons 1-3 rotate focus around the ensemble cast, with some characters having multiple starring episodes but no real protagonist role, shared or otherwise. Season 4 belongs to Madison Yea and Billy McCloud. Even episodes that highlight other characters heavily feature Madison and Billy, and the plots revolve around the kids helping the adults in some way.
- Technician vs. Performer: This sums up the conflict between Madison and Billy in “Give ‘Em A Hand”. They consult the Stunt Team for advice on how to prepare for the upcoming race and the ideas are split down the middle. Rocket Racer and Spotlight suggest studying the course, making a plan, and sticking to it, which Madison agrees with, while Raze and Wallop urge the kids to trust their instincts and just go with the flow, which Billy prefers.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Harl Hubbs, the oblivious mechanic LEGO City generally considers useless due to his tendency to create problems while trying to solve them (enough that "Harl'd" is in the city's lexicon), ends up gaining the respect of the city in the penultimate episode of Season 1.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Freya's orders for Bob and Clemmons usually include a thermos of hot cocoa for her to drink after a job well done.
- Ungrateful Bastard: In "Jailbreak", Tippy reassures Fendrich that he would never betray his stepfather and that he loves Fendrich very much but Fendrich immediately offers to turn Tippy in to Sinclair in exchange for the reward money.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Parodied. Duke Detain tends to do this in pursuit of criminals even when running would get the job done better, and does it to scale up a building at one point.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Characters in the background tend to continue doing mundane things even as odd things happen in LEGO City.
- The Voiceless: Buster is never heard talking or making a single sound.
- Also Incognitro.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: In “Of Dads and Dudes”, Police Chief Wheeler dons a full policeman uniform and hides his usual rad skateboarder self in an effort to not disappoint his super-serious businessman father, who has come to the police station for a visit.
- Wildlife Commentary Spoof: The episode "Fendrich in the Wild" has an actual nature documentary crew following around local corrupt businessman R.E. Fendrich as if he were a wild animal. A later episode shows the host is eccentric and somewhat looked down upon within the field, but he's ultimately vindicated in his crazy assertions, so it isn't clear whether he considers Fendrich an animal or not.
- Workaholic:
- It's nearly impossible to get Mayor Fleck to stop working and not even his office being set on fire can discourage him from doing so.
- Duke Detain. So much of his identity is tied into being a police officer, he has no idea how to function outside of it. The only way the captain can get him to take a holiday off is by convincing every other cop in the city to work so that he knows the city will be well protected, and even then he's stuck in work-mode and thinks a petty Christmas party squabble is Die Hard. When he accidentally arrests an innocent man and forces himself to take a proper day off to recharge, he realizes he doesn't even have food in his apartment since he spends no time there also the fact that he hasn't cashed any of his pay checks in the past eight years.
