Western Animation / Littlest Pet Shop (2012)

Little Pets, Big Personalities.^NoteClockwise from top: Blythe, Pepper. Centre: Penny Ling. Bottom: Russell, Sunil, Zoe, Minka, Vinnie.

The best-known Animated Show adaptation of the Littlest Pet Shop toyline, which ran on The Hub (later Discovery Family) between 2012 and 2016. This incarnation was developed by My Gym Partner's a Monkey creators Timothy Cahill and Julie McNally Cahill.

The series follows young, aspiring fashion designer Blythe Baxter and her father as they move into a big city apartment above the Littlest Pet Shop—a day-camp for pets of all kinds. Her adventures begin when she discovers that she alone can miraculously understand and talk to all of the pets. Learning that the pet shop is about to close down because of the Largest Ever Pet Shop, which is run by the wealthy Biskit family, Blythe agrees to help save the pet shop. After this initial setup, the series focuses on Blythe and the pets' wacky adventures. It also follows Blythe's life as an Ordinary High-School Student and her comical conflicts with the Rich Bitch Biskit Twins.

In America, Shout! Factory's Shout! Kids imprint has released several first season episodes on DVD. All four seasons were also available for streaming on Netflix for a time, but unfortunately have been taken down, likely due to lack of interest in renewing the show's license.

Not to be confused with Littlest Pet Shop (1995) or Littlest Pet Shop Presents, which have their own entries.

Had a comic book from IDW Publishing, but only lasted five issues.

Ran for four seasons from 2012 to 2016, making it the third longest running show originally from The Hub behind The Haunting Hour and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Eventually reached its end when Hasbro cancelled it due to poor toy sales. The Series Finale aired on June 4, 2016. Succeeded by Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own in 2018.

The entirety of the show can be found on Tubi.

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Littlest Pet Tropes:

A-F

• Acquired Situational Narcissism:
  • Blythe in "Terriers & Tiaras" when she gets too caught up in the competition and turns into a pageant mom.
  • Jasper in "Commercial Success".
• Actually Pretty Funny: Pepper's reaction when she hears Zoe's plans for Penny's anniversary party will include a "dunk-a-skunk" booth.
• Aerith and Bob: The seven pet shop regulars all have normal names (though "Pepper", "Sunil", and "Minka" are somewhat less common), but chances are you will never find any real-life humans named "Buttercream" or "Sugar Sprinkles".
• Aesop Amnesia: In "Penny For Your Laughs", Pepper learns a valuable lesson of not making fun of your friends, especially Penny Ling. In "The Very Littlest Pet Shop" the very first lines are of Penny complaining about Pepper making fun of her fat bottom, not to mention Pepper later YET AGAIN takes her humor too far (Though this time on a guest pet) despite everyone telling her to stop.
• Afraid of Clowns: In "Sue Syndrome", Sue is extremely nervous about having to give a speech at an assembly. Youngmee suggests imagining that the audience is full of clowns and this just freaks Sue out even more because she fears clowns.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Sunil is really worried about the robotic pet toys.
• All Animals Are Domesticated: Every creature imaginable can be a pet in this universe and nobody raises an eyebrow. At one end are things like dogs, cats, bunnies, and ferrets, while at the other end there are things like monkeys and frickin' bears! Of the main cast, everyone except Zoe counts as an exotic pet (for varying degrees of "exotic"). However, this is all completely intentional - animals of all species in manageable sizes and unusual colors being tame enough to keep is part of the wish fulfillment of the LPS toyline.
• All There in the Script: A few characters have their names either partly of fully revealed by the credits. Vi was credited as Vi Tannabruzzo, Mr. Payne was credited as Morgan Payne, and Tiger and Chef Henri weren't even named until the credits.
  • After the toyline went through a "Franchise Re-Invention", some unnamed characters got named by the merchandise. A recurring dachshund was named Oscar Long, and Philippe was named Philippe Boudreaux.
  • On the establishments' side, we have the high school, Downtown City High, and a thrift shop, The Thrifty Armoire.
• Alpha Bitches: The Biskit Twins.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The main pets are multicolored.
• Ambiguously Gay: Roger's old flight school buddy Ken from "Helicopter Dad".
  • Christopher Lyedecker, the host of Terriers & Tiaras.
  • Ramon from "The Big Feathered Parade".
  • Oliver St. Oliver from "Some Assistance Required".
• Animesque
• Animal Facial Hair: Some of the pets and other creatures featured in the show have this.
• Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Room Enough", the only thing Meow-Meow says is "Why?", which throws the other pets in for a loop, as they don't know the answer to all his questions. Ironically, his only other line is when he comments that they ask too many questions.
• Apathy Killed the Cat:
  Blythe: "Why can I suddenly understand pets? I mean, who can talk to pets?"
  Russell: "That's not important, Blythe."
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Between Russell and Zoe in "Tongue Tied".
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Russell's song in episode 7, he says that he and the other pets will make a mess and not clean it up, blow all their money shopping, and they'll take a wrong turn and get lost.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: In "Topped with Buttercream", the pets are shown eating candy and suffering no ill effects apart from a stomach ache and a bad sugar high. In real life, candy would be poisonous to most of them.
  • Yet again when Blythe shares her cake with them in "Bakers and Fakers" especially Zoe which the cake may or may not have chocolate in it.
  • Having a bunch of different species in a day-camp together probably would not end well, since different behaviors, to say nothing of predator-prey relationships, would result in a lot of conflict.
    • Also, the pet door leading from the camp directly outside, onto the sidewalk? That certainly won't result in any lost pets.
  • There is a lot of species-specific care that goes completely overlooked in this show, to say the very least.
• Artistic License – Biology: Russell being mistaken for a porcupine is a Running Gag. In real life, porcupines and hedgehogs only have the bare minimum of similarities, though most prominently their quills, and are not only completely different in size and physique, but are also from completely different families, so it should not be so hard to distinguish the two unless one simply considers the fact that they both have quills.
  • Vinnie the gecko possesses a small pair of rounded ears. Real geckos, on the other hand, don't have external ear flaps - like most lizards, they have small, circular openings on both sides of their heads geared towards catching sound.
• Ascended Fanboy: In "The Big Feathered Parade" Vinnie's Hero turned out to not be a real iguana but a hologram, after the actor rage quits, Vinnie then is given control of the motion capture suit for the parade, literally becoming his hero
• Baffled by Own Biology: In "Hedgehog in the Plastic Bubble", Blythe gets red bumps on her forehead. She looks up what this means and the internet claims that it's a fatal disease called Geri-Beri, much to her horror. As it turns out, though, it was just acne and everything else was psychosomatic.
• Balloon Belly: In "Topped with Buttercream", Russell, Sunil and Penny get some.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: The main pets when they wear tuxedos to greet Parker the penguin in "Winter Wonder Wha...?".
• Beach Episode: "Pump Up the Panda".
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In the first minute of episode 1, Blythe makes a comment to a puppy and squirrel that she wishes she knew what they were saying, only to have a minor freakout when she finally gets to Littlest Pet Shop for the first time.
  • At the start of "Secret Cupet", Russell and Penny Ling pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend to catch a mysterious being that causes pets to fall in love with each-other. Penny is all too willing to go through with this and adores the (fake) attention and compliments. Though... when Russell falls under the Cupet's spell and ends up acting like Pepi Le Pew on crack, she is terrified and wants nothing more than to get away from him
  • Inverted in "In The Loop" Russell wishes his day with Harold would end, while Harold wishes the day would never end. Russell ends up being the one stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop
• Beleaguered Assistant: Philippa to Judi Jo in "Terriers & Tiaras".
• Big Ball of Violence: Happens in Inside Job and Secret Cupid.
• Bigger on the Inside: The Littlest Pet Shop itself. The daycamp alone looks bigger than the exterior.
• Bilingual Bonus: Blythe meets a ferret who only speaks in Korean.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Tangier. Despite his seeming friendly disposition, he savagely sabotages Russell's photoshoots. Either he is so obsessed with his image, he will do anything he can to destroy the careers of any male models that he works with, whether professional or newbie, to avoid any future competition... or he just personally hates Russell for some reason.
• Blatant Lies: Largest Ever Pet Shop's motto: "Largest Ever Pet Shop, the only pet shop in Downtown City!"
  • The Biskits while sucking up to Blythe, tell her that their spa cucumbers are harvested by unicorns, and their pizza was ordered from outer space.
• Bond Gun Barrel: In "Books and Covers", this is used to transition to the spy Fantasy Sequence.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Concerning Minka's fantasy sequence in "Bad Hair Day."
  • Also Delilah's interpretation of the song fantasies.
    Delilah: I suppose this is the part where we enter an alternate reality and I lay it out for you lot by a sanguine musical vocalization and rhythmic capering about isn't it?
    Russell: Does this mean we're going to do a musical fantasy?
    Delilah: Yeah, like whatever.
    • In the following song, Delilah at one point stops singing and looks towards the viewers.
    Russell: Uh... What's she looking at?
    Sunil: I don't know, but it looks interesting...
  • In "Room Enough", the guest pet goes missing, only for Minka to look off-screen in shock. The others look off-screen and gasp. But the shot is still centered on the pets causing Minka to literally grab the fourth wall, and shift it to where everyone else is looking.
• Brick Joke: At the beginning of "Mean Isn't Your Color", Mrs. Twombly brings home a garish dress. At the end of the episode it is implied that she decided to give Blythe said dress since she was so busy making the pets and Roger's outfits that she didn't have time to make her own. Blythe is less than enthusiastic.
  • The hair on the counter in "Eve of Destruction".
  • At the start of "Littlest Bigfoot" the pets plan to dig a hole to trap Bigfoot, and Blythe jokes that her father if he sees Bigfoot will probably fall into the trap himself. Guess what happens at the very end of the episode.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • In "Lights, Camera, Mongoose!" the pets meet the famous movie star mongoose, Shahrukh, who they all admire. That is until they see that Shahrukh is a lazy jerk who expects everyone to do everything for him.
  • In "The Big Feathered Parade", Blythe meets her favorite designer Ramon, who she thinks is amazing until he steals her designs for the titled parade and tries to pass them off as his own.
  • This trope has been subverted twice in this show. The first time was in "Lotsa Luck", where Pepper meets her comedy idol, an orangutang named Old Bananas. At first, Old Bananas acts like a miserable old grump who does not laugh at any of Pepper's jokes. But then it turns out that the whole thing was just an act to help Pepper get ready for the big leagues. The second time took place in "What's So Scary about the Jungle? Everything!" where Penny Ling gets to meet Tess McSavage, the host of her favourite show, only for her to run away from Penny Ling in fear. It turns out that Tess had just suffered a bad experience involving a gorilla and its stuff panda toy, which caused Tess to be afraid of not just gorillas, but pandas as well.
• Buffy Speak:
  Blythe: You saw something that looked like a spaceship hovering on top of a building, right?
  Sunil: Yes, you are correct.
  Blythe: And where was this building?
  Vinnie: In the middle of Downtown City, on the way back from the veter-na-narian lady person.
• The Bus Came Back: Madison in "War of the Weirds".
  • Francois in "Winter Wonder Wha...?" though the episode was pushed forward to much confusion of the viewers.
• The Cameo: Tootsie and Tiger reappear for a few seconds in "Secret Cupet".
  • Internet comic book reviewer Linkara appears in the background in one of the comics.
• Canine Confusion:
  • In "Topped with Buttercream", the pets, including Zoe the dog, eat a ton of candy and ice cream. Besides acting high and getting a stomachache, Zoe doesn't suffer from any lasting damage even though she would have been seriously ill or even dead in real life.
  • In "Bakers and Fakers", Blythe gives Zoe a slice of chocolate cake. Chocolate is toxic to dogs.
  • There are several dogs with unnatural colors; Zoe is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel with purple fur, her sister Gail has pink fur, and Tootsie (Gail's Identical Stranger) has pink fur and purple hair at the top of his head, as well as purple ears.
  • In "Bad Hair Day", when Zoe gets an atrocious haircut, she is shown to have beige skin even though dogs actually have dark gray (or black) skin in real life.
• Carnivore Confusion: All animals in the world are apparently sapient, but the pets don't seem to have a problem with eating meat products. Though while Mongooses are carnivores, Sunil specifically requests a vegetarian hotdog in a fantasy, this makes sense as Indians are forbidden to eat pork or beef.
  • In "What Did You Say?", Vinnie befriends a fly that he had been trying to eat.
  • "Game of Groans" has Vinnie and Sunil drooling over a tofu turkey leg.
  • Sunil is grossed out by most insects despite mongoose usually eating them. He does ask for crickets and earthworms in "Heart of Parkness" however, which is okay, until you remember that insects in LPS are just as sapient as the animals.
• Catchphrase: Blythe's "What the huh?"
  • Buttercream's "Anywhoooo"
• Chainsaw Good: One of the things "Fun Russell" throws Pepper to juggle is a chainsaw.
• Chekhov's Gun: Blythe's headphones in "Gailbreak!" and her emergency comb in "Dumb Dumbwaiter".
  • While Blythe is acting as Mona Autumn's assistant, Mona requests lunch, and specifically tells Blythe to hold the Asparagus. Later on Blythe gives her her lunch, only for it to turn out that later on, Mona gets a severe allergic reaction because the (Swamped) Blythe forgot to hold the Asparagus. Starting an Oh, Crap! moment as Mona was just about see a very very important client.
  • "In The Loop" reveals there had been a loose floorboard which had spring-launched Russell into the wall since he was a little kid on his first day Russell and Harold bonding over fixing the floorboard seemed to have been what stopped the "Groundhog Day" Loop
• Chekhov's Gunwoman: In the first episode, a woman named Christie visits the then-closing Littlest Pet Shop in search of possible locations for a sweet shop. In "Topped with Buttercream", it turns out she is Youngmee Song's aunt and she ultimately opens the sweet shop next door to the Littlest Pet Shop.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Anyone that is not Blythe or the Biskits^note species notwithstanding. Though the more notable ones are Mrs. Twombly, Buttercream and Sugar Sprinkles.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • In "Summertime Blues" after Mrs. Twombly gives her crazy plan to keep Blythe from leaving by framing her and having her put under house arrest.
  Mr. Baxter: I don't think we can do that, Mrs. T...
  Mrs. Twombly: Oh, you're right. She'll have to get out to work at the pet shop.
  • In "So Interesting":
  Russell: That was a great story, I couldn't have thought of a better one myself.
  Sunil: I concur.
  Vinnie: I don't, but I do agree.
  • In "A Night at the Pawza" Francois is driving a rickshaw bicycle. With Fisher and the twins in the back, and immediately stops.

    Fisher: Don't stop! My doctor says I should bicycle ride for at least one hour a day.

• Company Cross References: "Littlest Pet Shop of Horrors" has Blythe Baxter dressed as a cowgirl riding Applejack for Halloween. Doubles as an Actor Allusion, since Ashleigh Ball voiced both characters.
• Complexity Addiction: Russell's plans in "Gailbreak!".
• Conditioned to Be Weak: In "Sue Syndrome", Mitzi is a skunk who produces a perfume-like scent. She lets others smell it as often as they want even though it exhausts her, due to being too polite for her own good. She's repressed this frustration so much that she has lost the ability to produce any foul smells. Pepper encourages her to put her foot down and outwardly show her negative emotions, and she is finally capable of smelling bad once more.
• Continuity Nod: In "Topped with Buttercream", Pepper's face paint includes orange eye shadow.
  • "Terriers and Tiaras" shows that Blythe is still very camera shy (At first).
  • In "Sweet (truck) ride" the pets take turns licking Sugar Sprinkle's candy coated fur, which Vinnie spits out a pink hairball. Later in "Blythe's Pet Project" Shivers takes interest in a "Pink Cat Hairball" while he and Blythe are digging through the dumpster.
  • In "Blythe's Big Idea" during the Pet Jet fantasy, almost every single animal to appear in the show (At least every day camper) makes a cameo.
  • In "To Paris With Zoe" as the pets are flipping through the TV channels, it shows every single Show Within a Show in the entire series so far.
  • In "Gailbreak", "Topped with Buttercream", and "What Did You Say", Sunil is shown dancing "The Robot"
• Corpsing: In-Universe in "Sweet (Truck) Ride." The pets are trying to film a re-enactment of how they accidentally got the truck going and not Blythe, but Zoe and Pepper get a bad case of the giggles when trying to film their part of the incident.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Zigzagged with Fisher Biskit. The Largest Ever Pet Shop may have all the warmth and comfort of a Home Depot located in the Ninth Circle of Hell and Fisher himself frequently engages in unscrupulous business practices in the name of industry dominance, but oftentimes whenever showing up Twombly is not involved, Fisher Biskit is actually honest, polite, and strongly believes in the value of hard work, trying and failing to instill the same values in his daughters.
• Covers Always Lie: Some ads on the Hub's Facebook page made it look like the episode, "To Paris with Zoe" was going to be all about the pets going to Paris, but Zoe is the only pet who actually goes to Paris while the rest stay at the shop.
  • Subverted with "The Hedgehog in the Plastic Bubble" before the episode aired, the synopsis for the episode on wikipedia said, "Russell and Blythe find themselves in a (partially imagined) state of solitude" which could easily lead one to assume that Russell and Blythe spend some time alone away from the other pets, and bond. (Similar to "Eight Arms to Hold You") the reason this does not really count, is that it all depends on the point of view of whoever is reading the info.
• Crazy-Prepared: Roger has in his car facial tissue, cotton balls, and Blythe's favorite brushes in case the latter needed / forgot them.
  • Also the Biskits have a armoire filled with hundreds of fresh new laptops in case they ever need it. Which is often since they throw out their laptop if they even click on a website they don't happen to like.
• Crossover: The Hub's promos sometimes put multiple Hub shows together, in this case with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
  • Blythe herself was originally a real-world doll unrelated to LPS. In 2010, Hasbro started the Blythe Loves the Littlest Pet Shop toyline to market her to children, which led to this show (which was originally going to have the same name).
• Crush Filter: Varies by the occasion, but pretty much anytime Blythe sees her crush Josh Sharp. "Helicopter Dad" has a lulu of an example leading into Crush Blush and Roger going into another example of Amazingly Embarrassing Parents when he mistakes the blush for a fever.
• Crying a River: In the episode "Penny For Your Laughs", Penny Ling cries so much over Pepper's jokes she floods the day camp and almost drowns her.
• Cyber Cyclops: Monban the robot, used as security in "Gailbreak!".
  • He appears again in "Super Sunil" as the Biskits' Chauffeur.
  • Then again in "Sleeper", as a paper shredder / analysis machine.
  • And again in "Hamster Hoods".
• Dance Party Ending: "Gailbreak!".
• Dark Is Not Evil: In "What Did You Say?", Vinnie gets lost in the city dump and meets a rat named Pete. He has got an evil looking mustache, an eye patch, ^note  though it shows for a second that he has an eye under it, so it seems to just be for Rule of Cool and a large gold chain. And instead of wanting to harm Vinnie, he is actually very nice and friendly and helps Vinnie find his way home.
• A Day in the Limelight: "What Meme Worry" Jasper is a major character, in fact he set the entire episode into motion. Even more so in "Commercial Success".
• Delayed Reaction: In "Sweet (Truck) Ride" when Vinny accidentally steps on Sugar Sprinkles' tail, she holds back her scream of pain until after she asks him not to be offended when it happens.
• Delivery Not Desired: In "Secret Cupet", Blythe writes up an over-the-top mushy love letter to her crush in an attempt to vent her feelings. She then throws it away, but misses the trash can. When her father passes her room later, he sees the envelope sitting on the floor and assumes that Blythe, being a teenager and unfamiliar with things like "snail mail," didn't realize she had to actually mail a letter for it to reach its recipient, so he "helpfully" takes care of that for her.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Blythe's and the Biskits' relationship varies from begrudging respect, to indifference, to mutual dislike.
  • Fisher Biskit is an Uncle Pennybags most of the time, but can be a Corrupt Corporate Executive if the plot calls for it.
  • Sometimes Russell can be cool and confident like Vinnie, a total coward like Sunil, or stuck in the middle.
• Depth of Field: In "Terriers & Tiaras", the camera has to re-focus itself when any sort of zoom happens in the Terriers & Tiaras footage. For some reason, the cameraperson seems to be relying on autofocus rather than manual focus.
• Deus ex Machina: In "Fish out of Water", the pets' dilemma of trying to cross a sewer is resolved by a bunch of sewer animals who suddenly show up, sing a song about building a boat out of junk, then immediately leave once they're done.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Penny Ling says this word for word in "The Pet Expo" while the other pets are glaring at her because she made a remark that her pillow is as soft as Sunil's belly.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The theme song is sung by Ashleigh Ball.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: A running joke in the series is whenever Vinnie says something dumb or innocently insensitive, Pepper hits him rather aggressively with her rubber chicken. But she and the other girls never receive physical punishment if they say inappropriate things.
• Dream Intro: Season 2 two-parter finale begins with Blythe running through the International Pet Fashion Expo, trying to find her clothing kiosk as it is nearly her time to be judged. She is surrounded by her friends and the judges unprepared, until she finds herself in pajamas and holding a teddy bear and subsequently wakes up from her nightmare.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: That dog that the cast rescue in "Gailbreak!"? Let's just say that "she" is not Gail.
  • Also, Princess Stori.
• Dumbwaiter Ride: Blythe and occasionally the pets use a dumbwaiter to get in and out of the Littlest Pet Shop building.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Mary Frances and Olive Shellstein briefly appear among the crowd of pets and owners in the closing scene of "Blythe's Big Adventure, Part 2."
  • Youngmee Song's Aunt Christie has a little appearance towards the end of the first episode, 15 episodes before her first major appearance.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Early episodes had the titular pet shop as having a full staff, such as Raul, the groomer, albeit none were seen onscreen except Mrs. Twombly and Blythe. Several episodes in, however, all of them were quietly removed with no explanation, leaving just those two. In addition, pets were dropped off for reasons other than the day camp, such as the aforementioned grooming, but as the rest of the staff was removed out the series, people would drop off their pets solely for the day camp.
  • In the episode "Eve of Destruction", we see pets for sale at the front area. Later episodes would demonstrate Littlest Pet Shop does not sell pets, even having "We don't sell pets" in their slogan.
  • The first season is the only season that does not end with the second part of a two-part episode. Instead, the season ends with the first part ("Summertime Blues") and the second season opens with the second part ("Missing Blythe"). This two-parter is also the only one to not have a "(title) - Part 1" and "(same title) - Part 2" naming scheme, and the only one to not have a To Be Continued segment (though it did have a Previously on… segment).
  • In the very early episodes, Russell's voice was slightly deeper and not as nasally. The reason for this is unknown.
• Eating Contest: In "Spendthrifty", Blythe enters a pie-eating contest while in desperate need of money. After finishing her first pie, she looks over and watches to her dismay as the very large biker next to her picks up three pies and shoves them all into his mouth at the same time, still in the pie tins, after which he is promptly handed the prize.
• Elevator Failure: Episode 9 revolves around Blythe, Zoe, Pepper, and Minka stuck in the dumbwaiter.
  • And again in "The Secret Treasure of Henrietta Twombly" the pets enter the Dumbwaiter and try to make it rise, but halfway up they realize they aren't strong enough and the whole thing crashes to the bottom and even further by smashing through the floor into a subterranean cave. Though luckily, this worked out for them, since it led them straight to the treasure they were looking for.
• Epic Fail: In "Pawlm Reading" the phony pet psychic's analyses of the pets are not only incorrect, but also the exact opposite of what they are really like.
• Everybody Knew Already: In the series finale it turns out Roger knew Blythe could talk to pets the entire time, because Blythe's mother Betty had the same ability, which she passed on to her daughter.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: "Every Children's Tricycle is a Pinto". As demonstrated in the climax of "Sweet (Truck) Ride".
• Evil Laugh:
  • Blythe does this in "Penny For Your Laughs" at the end of the first musical number.
  • The Biskits throughout most of "The Expo Factor", and their pet chinchillas in "Two Pets For Two Pests".
    Blythe (Pretending to be angry): Are your pets... laughing at me?
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Throughout the entire series, there has been a German Shepherd as a background character. ^note  not to be confused with the Canine Cop in Super Sunil who was also a German Shepherd in "The Expo Factor", he is finally given a voice, and he is German.
• Expy: Fans from My Little Pony looked at Zoe and immediately came to the conclusion that she was a dog that looked like Twilight Sparkle but had the voice of Princess Celestia.
  • Russell is pretty much Edd/DoubleD as a hedgehog.
  • Harold Winston from "In the Loop" is Cliff Clavin as a groundhog.
  • The female, and incredibly reckless and danger-prone parakeet "Crash Dangerfeather" (Whom we never actually see) seems to be one for Rainbow Dash.
• Face–Heel Turn: Blythe temporarily in "Penny For Your Laughs".
  • Delilah and McKenna too, in "Pitch Purrfect" and "Snipmates" respectively. However, unlike Blythe, this is permanent.
• Failed a Spot Check: Youngmee and Aunt Christie seem to be completely unaware there is a cat living in the back of their truck.
  • In season two, Sugar Sprinkles is seen buckled into a car seat next to Russell, which would seem to indicate she IS Christie's pet after all.
• Fantastic Racism: In Penny Ling's story in "So Interesting" when the watering stone was stolen, they immediately accuse the goblins, since goblins are well, goblins. It turns out the goblins are very friendly and do not steal.
  • There are also other cases at times with the animal characters, for example, even after it is shown that Mushroom the Sasquatch is like the other animals, Sunil and Vinnie still treat her like a horrifying creature. The rest of the pets, however, are friendly with her.
• Flanderization:
  • Buttercream seems to get less coherent with each new episode.
  • When the show started, Fisher Biskit was simply a stern businessman, nothing more. Further and further into the show, he becomes more shady and corrupt such as selling an illegal water cobra, selling cheap water bottles that explode when trying to open, and intention to decimate a public forest for profit.
    • As of the season 3 premiere, Fisher seems to have taken a level in dumbass, as he can't understand why LPS has become more popular than his store, sends his idiot daughters to spy on LPS, and then uses their "intel" to make an incredibly moronic business decision. If this keeps up, he'll be an older, male version of the twins in no time.
    • Not to mention seeing the pets in a Totem Pole Trench moronically thinking it is an actual man despite Zoe's face is clearly visible. And wanting to make the "man" vice president for no other reason than... "it was walking around awkwardly".
    • Though in "Winter Wonder Wha...?" Fisher is unflanderized back into his mature and morally strict earlier self.
    • In "A Night At The Pawza" during Fisher's song explaining what it means to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive to his daughters, he notably uses the lines "Embrace your inner villany" and "Do not let your conscience make you nice." This is probably the worst he has ever gotten.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Actually, 8.
  • Zoe Trent and Pepper Clark are Choleric
  • Russell Fergusson and Sunil Nevla are Melancholic
  • Penny Ling and Blythe Baxter are Phlegmatic
  • Minka Mark And Vinnie Terrio are Sanguine
• Freudian Slip: In "Blythe's Crush", Blythe keeps slipping in the word "cute" when describing how she bumped into Josh.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: In the Season 1 finale, Blythe has to decide whether to leave for fashion camp over the summer and stay with the pets. She chose the former, but the Season 2 premiere reveals it is not what she thought.
• Full-Name Basis: The panda bear is more often than not referred to as "Penny Ling", and rarely ever just "Penny".
• Funny Background Event: In "Topped With Buttercream". During the "Sweet Shop" song, Buttercream sings atop of a candy covered table surrounded by the other pets. During this time, Penny Ling takes a bite of the table. Later, Minka and Penny Ling jump on plates of jello. Minka bounces, but Penny Ling gets stuck.
  • Also, Youngmee eating all her aunt's ice cream while the latter was trying to find the key to the sweetshop.
  • In "Secret Cupet", Russell and Penny Ling in ridiculous outfits, are awkwardly pretending to be a romantic couple to lure out the Secret Cupet. Cue Blythe looking at them in the background with probably the best "What the hell...?" face in the entire show.
• Fun with Acronyms: Literally. The fashion school Blythe hopes to attend is called "Fashion University North", or "F.U.N." for short.

G-L

• Gender Reveal: Tootsie, Mary Frances, and Princess Stori. The writers seem to like this one.
  • Seems to be a Take That! at pet owners who never bother to figure out what gender their pet is.
  • Many viewers were led to assume "Sweet Cheeks" was a girl for most of the episode.
• The Ghost: Played with for one episode. Despite the B-Plot of "War of the Weirds" relied almost entirely on Fisher Biskit, we never actually see the character physically.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: A Running Gag in "Summertime Blues" whenever anyone squeals excitedly.
• Great Detective: Russell's alter-ego is a Sherlock Homage known as Cyril McFlip.
• Green Gators:
  • Wiggles McSunbask the alligator from "Alligators and Handbags" has bright green skin.
  • Big Al the Sewer Gator from "Fish Out of Water" has dark green skin.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: A few relatively tame ones.
  • Shahrukh's feet in "Lights, Camera, Mongoose!".
  • "Senior Day" gets two; the senior citizens' legs and Jerry's mushy breakfast.
  • Pepper's, uh, manicure◊, in "Guilt Tripping".
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In "In the Loop", Russell repeats the day a groundhog visited the day camp.
• Growling Gut: Russell, Zoe, and Vinnie are the only pets who are prone to this trope. It also happens to Blythe in "The Hedgehog in the Plastic Bubble" during a daydream she has, and to Sue in "Why Can't We Be Friends?".
• Gypsy Curse: The plot of "The Very Littlest Pet Shop" is that the newest pet at the shop is a slow loris who claims to know voodoo and uses it to shrink the shop when the other pets push her too far.
• Heel–Face Turn: Played with when Roger sings to the Biskits about the joys of working hard and being nice. It is a textbook musical Heel–Face Turn, with the girls joining in and discovering that Good Feels Good... a large factor of the Heel–Face Turn was because Roger acted like a good Dad towards them, by giving them quality family time (something Fisher never bothered to do) to the point where the twins wanted to steal him from Blythe. Blythe entering the room reminded them of who they were triggering them back to their old selves.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: Blythe, about Josh, a skater dude.
  • Averted in "Secret Cupet", which she confides to Youngmee that she likes him, but is too awkward to talk to him.
• Heroic BSoD: Minka gets hit with one in "Bad Hair Day" when she is pressured by the rest of the pets to create art that will propel them all to fame and fortune.
  • Blythe has one in "Alligators and Handbags" and a very minor one in "Feud for Thought"
• High-Pressure Blood: In "Bakers and Fakers", because the Biskit Twins' poorly-made cake of themselves is filled to the brim with red borscht berry filling, this trope ensues when the cakes' "heads" slide off.
• Hilarious Outtakes: Parodied in "Sweet (Truck) Ride" when the pets are trying to record a re-enactment of the accident.
• Hippy Teacher: Blythe comes in late for class and gives not being "mentally ready" as an excuse. Mr. Banks responds by making the entire class take a "mental break".
• Hollywood Natives: The raccoons in "Heart of Parkness" are modeled after this trope.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Vi Tannabruzzo, who is One Freakishly Large Head Taller than Blythe.
• Human Ladder: The pets have done this a couple times in the series.
  • Alluded to in "What Meme Worry?" after Sunil's meme getting a million likes, Vinnie asks how much a million is. Russell says that if a million mongooses stood on each-others shoulders they'd be really really high up. Vinnie then says "Sounds really heavy for the Moogoose on the bottom" which Sunil admits that is what he feels like.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Sunil has these. He uses them in "Gailbreak!"
• Hypocritical Humor: Vinnie claims not to be a fan of Shahrukh, the famous Bollywood mongoose. When he walks out of his trailer, Vinnie fangirls out.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: In "Topped With Buttercream", the pets get high on too much sugar. This is way exaggerated with the pets actually showing some symptoms of drug use, like extremely small irises, jitteriness, disorientation, eye twitching, trembling, nausea, strange and aggressive behavior and hallucinations (though this is partially Truth in Television if you introduce sugar to people who never had it before). Penny Ling even had a straight-on Mushroom Samba. It ends in them dressing in tribal sugar-themed outfits and behaving more or less insane.
• Identical Stranger: Sunil and Shahrukh which leads to a Prince and Pauper story.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Shahrukh claims he just wants to be treated like a normal person... then makes the pets wait on him hand and foot.
• Ill-Timed Sneeze:
  • Blythe sneezes and gives herself away when she is hiding behind the pets from her father in "Helicopter Dad".
  • In "Pawlm Reading" Sunil is on a skateboard: "I will be perfectly safe if I do not move a muscle - ah-ah-ah-CHOO" ZOOM *CRASH*
  • In "Some Assistance Required", Russell keeps sneezing and ruining a photo shoot.
  • In "Snipmates", Russell and all the girl pets form a pet pyramid while balancing on a ball to keep Sugar Sprinkles entertained, but Penny Ling (at the bottom) unfortunately sneezes causing the pyramid to collapse.
  • In "Paint a Picture, it Lasts Longer" Minka sneezes while hiding under Blythe's smock.
• Imagine Spot: Most of the times when a song by the pets happens, or the pets happen to parody something else from pop culture, a more fantastical sequence illustrates the scene.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Blythe's Big Adventure, Part 1" and "Blythe's Big Day", Blythe tries to get out of talking with the Biskit Twins by telling them, "I... have to go do anything else."
• In One Ear, Out The Other: In "What Did You Say?" at one point Blythe cleans out her ears this way.
• Insane Troll Logic: In "Bakers and Fakers" when Brittany and Whittany learn the winners will earn half a grade, they come to the conclusion that since there is two of them that is one whole grade for both of them.
  • The Biskits AGAIN in "The Nest Hats Craze!", while holding Blythe against her will.
    "Like, if you didn't want to be tied up and held against you will, you like, never would've become a celebrity."
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: The episode "Gailbreak!" reveals that the Largest Ever Pet Shop has a high-tech security robot.
  • He appears again in "Super Sunil" as the Biskits' Chauffeur.
• Interspecies Romance: In "Sweet Pepper" Pepper (a skunk) falls in love with Captain Cuddles (a polecat).
  • In "The Expo Factor", Sunil (a mongoose) had a crush on Delilah (a cat).
  • In "Sleeper", Penny Ling (a panda) develops a crush on Otto Von Fuzzlebutt (a raccoon).
  • In "Secret Cupet", Baa Baa Lou (a goat) falling in love with an unnamed female pig.^note In the toyline, she is called "Lolly Pinkington".
    • Russell (a hedgehog) falling in love with Penny Ling (a panda), Vinnie (a gecko) falling in love with Minka (a monkey) and Sunil (a mongoose) falling in love with Pepper (a skunk) in the same episode.
• Intoxication Ensues: When the pets go on a sugar binge in "Topped With Buttercream". Penny in particular starts hallucinating.
• Invisible Parents: Owners, anyway. Part of the premise is that the store is a day camp for the pets that their owners leave them at. Throughout season one, Zoe's owners are the only ones who make a physical appearance.
  • Though not stated directly, in "So Interesting", Pepper said she was on the bus with her owner. She was standing right by the feet of a dapper looking man with a mustache, so chances are high he may be her owner.
  • As of "Pet Sounds", Russell, Penny and Pepper's owners have been shown too.
• Ironic Name: One of the Biskit Twins is named Whittany and has black hair, while the other is named Brittany and has white hair.
• It's All My Fault:
  • In "Summertime Blues", Pepper and Russell wonder if it is their fault Blythe is leaving.
  • In "Penny for Your Laughs", during the "I'm Sorry" song, Pepper blames herself for every single bad thing that happens to Penny, despite the fact that they were all accidents.
• Jabba Table Manners: Subverted, Otto Von Fuzzlebutt eats like a complete slob, but he is (despite his two minutes of being awake) shown to be a very nice guy.
• Jewish and Nerdy: Basil the Peacock. As he seems to be a parody of Woody Allen.
• Joke Exhaustion: Pepper uses various methods of splattering others with pistachio pudding, which quickly gets old for the other pets.
• Kaiju: The Cold Open Fantasy Sequence in "So You Skink You Can Dance" is an Affectionate Parody of this.
• Killer Rabbit: Dolores the Slow Loris tries to be this. she is completely adorable, and has a high-pitched squeaky voice, but piss her off and she'll put a horrible curse on you (or at least she'd like to)
• Kitsch Collection: Mrs. Twombly and her antique doorknob collection.
• Knew It All Along: Roger reveals to Blythe in "Littlest Pet Street, Part 2" he knew Blythe had the power to talk to animals the whole time, because his late wife had the same power which she somehow inherited.
• Ladies and Germs: "Ladies and gentlemen...hipsters..."
• Left Hanging: "Littlest Pet Street, Part 2" ends with Blythe contemplating whether she should let Mrs. Twombly in on her secret too.
  • Also as of the series finale, the plot point of Whittany Biskit secretly liking Blythe in Door Jammed is ultimately never brought up again. Nor does Blythe get any real closure with the Twins, with their last plot-relevant appearance coming in Paint A Picture, It Lasts Longer (their last actual appearance being a 3 second non-speaking cameo in the first part of the series finale).
• Level Ate: Penny's sugar-induced fantasy.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: The Bisket Twins, like, can't go at least one full sentence without the word "like" in it.
• Lighter and Softer: Most of the plots in certain episodes are surprisingly not too serious nor dark.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted with Blythe, played straight with everyone else.
• The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The pilot kind of plays up this angle, with Roger remarking that he didn't notice it before, and then a shot of Mrs. Twombly peeking out of the blinds while tense music plays. The shop turned out to be pretty mundane, save for the animal communication abilities it apparently gave Blythe. It is then parodied when Blythe hears the air conditioner and thinks the shop is purring.
  • Though subverted in the second episode where Jasper says he "Loves that store" meaning it has been there for some time.
• Lots of Luggage: Blythe packs a mountain of luggage for an all-summer fashion camp, although some of this is supplies she'll need for drawing and designing.

M-R

• Made of Explodium: In episode 3, when Blythe makes Zoe a sweater out of her fur, it promptly bursts.
• Magic Realism: Apart from Blythe's ability to talk to animals and the occasional cartoony gag, the show is pretty down to earth. Until "In The Loop" in which that something supernatural is actually confirmed, and not a fantasy.
• Martial Arts and Crafts: Mrs. Twombly had used (and popularized) the use of kung-fu for quilting.
• Merchandise-Driven: Notably in two episodes. "Topped with Buttercream" to showcase the Candy Pets toyline, and "The Very Littlest Pet Shop" where in they are not even trying to hide the fact the episode is one big shout-out to the toyline as a whole, though if anything it seems more of a "cute reference" than "BUY OUR TOYS!"
• Mind-Control Eyes: In "Gailbreak!", Sunil hypnotizes the Biskit Twins; after this, their eyes contain the same concentric circles as his.
• Mind Screw: In "Bad Hair Day", Minka is having a fantasy that she is making art by splashing paint around, which some splashes on Blythe. Blythe immediately ends the fantasy, yet is still covered with the paint.
• Missing Mom:
  • Blythe's mother is never mentioned or seen even when she and her dad are moving. And "Mean Isn't Your Color" confirms that Roger is single.
  • Also, the Biskit Twins' mother is never shown, and the only relative we see of Youngmee is her aunt. Seriously, does anyone have a mother on this show?
    • Youngmee brings up her parents in "Feud for Thought". It is possible they still live in Korea and she keeps in contact with them.
    • The Biskit Twins' mother finally shows up in "Steamed", handwaving her long absense saying she was nursing a really bad headache the whole time.
    • Biskit Twins: "Mother, where have you been the past three seasons?!?"
  • Blythe's mother is mentioned for the first time in the season 4 premiere, and it is implied that she passed away.
• Mistaken for Special Guest: The plot for episode 12 involves Blythe being mistaken for a dance show contestant.
  • And in episode 13 Sunil is mistaken for a movie star.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The rats in "What Did You Say?". At first they appear to be antagonists, but then the leader agrees to help Vinnie get back home and even goes out of his way to rescue Vinnie when he is captured by the episode's true antagonist.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens somewhat frequently:
  • Just as in Friendship Is Magic, whenever the first part of a Multi-Part Episode ends on a dramatic cliffhanger, the happy end credits play as a running gag.
    • The first part of the series premiere has Blythe shocked that the pet shop has to be saved by tomorrow, she drops the pets still in the dumbwaiter as a result. After this, the happy end credits theme plays.
    • The Season 2 finale takes it up to eleven - Blythe's scooter hatch to hold her kiosk together has disappeared. The Biskit Twins are revealed to be behind this, and as they let out a malicious laugh as Blythe wallows in misery, the happy closing theme kicks in.
    • Happens again in the Season 3 finale - Blythe and the Biskit Twins can't join the Pet Fest without a permit, but the Biskits decide to set it up without one. As Blythe sits on the curb worrying, cue the happy ending tune.
• Morality Pet: The Biskit Twins genuinely love their grandmother, Lorraine. Also in a more literal sense, their pet chinchillas, Velvet and Cashmere (although Blythe had to trick them into adopting them).
• Multi-Part Episode: The series premiere "Blythe's Big Adventure Part One" and "Blythe's Big Adventure Part Two".
  • The Season 2 finale is a 2-parter as well.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Lost and Found Box!
• My God, What Have I Done?: Pepper has this response after Penny's Ocular Gushers moment below.
• My Little Phony: "Blythe's Pet Project" has a joke involving a show called "My Small Squirrel" and includes multicolored squirrels with the names Lavender, Cotton Candy, and "Multicolor Stripe". This is a reference to the fact that a great amount of LPS's cast (and some of its crew) had also worked on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the show that preceded LPS during its entire run.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: In "Door-Jammed" Brittany senses a disturbance when Whittany starts getting along with Blythe.
• Mythology Gag: Blythe and other characters have big eyes and heads because that is how the original Blythe dolls looked.
• National Animal Stereotypes:
  • Seriously averted in "Feud for Thought"; one would likely expect the two koalas to have Australian accents and say "G'day mate", but it is completely flipped on its head, as they are instead old-fashioned American hillbilly stereotypes.
  • Subverted with the mongooses. Despite having Indian accents and being portrayed as such, they are based on banded mongooses, which actually live in Africa.
• Never Heard That One Before: The response to Pepper's joke about a dog's slobber.
• Never Say "Die": Blythe's mother has passed away, the cartoon hints at this, but it has never outright been said. Characters have used words like "dead" or "die" metaphorically.
• Never Trust a Trailer: See Covers Always Lie. (This example should be rephrased to stand on its own rather than point to another trope)
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Old Bananas... Subverts this. It is a facade to prepare Pepper for the actual Jerkasses she'll meet in showbusiness.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • Since there are three males in the main cast as apposed to the four females (five if you count Blythe), it's given they're going to be this, with fearful but kind hearted Sunil as the nice, dumb but short-tempered Vinnie as the mean, and uptight but intelligent Russell as the in-between.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dr. Mooser's voice and physical appearance in "Un-Vetted", are modeled after vaudeville and movie actor and comedian Ed Wynn.
• Non-Indicative Name: Normally a pet shop sells pets as well as pet supplies.
  Littlest Pet Shop: We don't sell pets, we cater to them.
• Noodle Incident: Harold's story of Carlos the hedgehog from Peru, who was apparently trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Russell immediately cuts him off to say that hedgehogs are not native to Peru, ending whatever Harold was going to say, so we never find out what happened to Carlos.
• Ocular Gushers: Penny Ling after one joke from Pepper too far.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Downplayed in "Sleeper", as the trope is used completely straight except for the fact (being a kid's show) there is no death; the character is just hibernating.
• Offscreen Teleportation: The Biskit Twins have a penchant for teleporting in front of Blythe. Also used constantly with Were-Russell in the Wolf-i-fied song.
  • Lampshaded in "Fish Out of Water".
    Blythe: Oh... Sorry, Brittany and Whittany, I didn't see you standing there.
    Brittany: You never do.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Sunil Nevla says "Not again..." after a failed magic trick blows up in his face and makes his magician hat disintegrate.
  • Blythe says it in "Blythe's Crush" when the person she is trying to return his keys to leaves.
• One-Book Author: The singing voices for Penny and Zoe (Laura Hastings and Kylee Epp, respectively) have no other TV credits.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted thrice thus far:
  • In "So You Skink You Can Dance", all the male dancers of Shake-A-Leg are named Igor and all the females are named Karina (though they all have different last names, of course).
  • Morgan Payne in "Bad Hair Day" and Morgan the man who plays Bruce the Legal Iguana in "The Big, Feathered Parade".
  • Fred, Old Bananas' owner in "Lotsa Luck", and Fred the museum mummy mascot actor in "A Day at the Museum".
• One-Word Title: "Gailbreak!", "Frenemies", "Grounded", "Sleeper", "Spendthrifty", "Snipmates", "Petnapped!" and "Steamed".
• Onion Tears: In "Two Peas in a Podcast" when Blythe and the pets tear up after Penny Ling thinks she is leaving the pet shop for good, Mrs. Twombly enters, also crying from raw onions in her hand, making everyone cry harder.
  Penny Ling: Blythe, I do have one request...could you please get Mrs. Twombly to stop eating those onions?!?
• Only Sane Woman: Blythe is the only main, principal character (gender and species notwithstanding) who is not a Cloudcuckoolander, or a "queen bee".
• Open the Iris: Many of the characters, especially Penny Ling.
• Out of Focus: Zoe, Russell, Sunil, Vinnie, and Buttercream are the only pets featured in "What's in the Batter?", and Sunil is nowhere to be seen when the pets go to help Blythe.
  • Only Blythe, Zoe, Minka, and Russell have major roles in "Terriers and Tiaras". Pepper and Sunil are reduced to non-speaking cameos in the Cold Open, while Penny and Vinnie do not appear at all.
  • Jasper Jones is an afterthought throughout pretty much the entire first season. Sue to a lesser extent, but still very much out of focus in comparison to Youngmee.
    • Just recently Jasper was a major part of an episode. (In which Youngmee barely had any lines at all and Sue was absent completely) This seems to foreshadow we'll see more of him from here on.
    • Unfortunately, Jasper was once again pushed out of focus in the 4th season. Barely appearing and having no appearances at all after the 12th episode.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: In Russell's school fantasy, he get a trophy labeled, "Best Student Hedgehog Ever".
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Bakers and Fakers" the Biskit Twins wear trench coats, hats, and mustaches in an attempt to appear as Newspaperist... er Journalist, in order to figure out what the gang is doing to make their cake. The gang is completely aware of who they are but still humor them.
• Parental Neglect: In "Helicopter Dad", the Biskit twins notice Blythe's dad is at the school, and we get this dialogue:
  Brittany: Whittany, look who brought her own, like— wait, what's that person called, who, like, takes care of you?
  Whittany: Like, a care-type person?
  Brittany: That's it! Ugh, look who brought her own, like, care-type person with her today.
  Whittany: Seriously.
  • Makes us wonder how their relationship with their "care-type person" is like...
    • From what we see later, the problem is that he takes an active interest in their growth and expects them to work hard and get ahead honestly, when they'd actually prefer a neglectful Dad who just throws money at them and spoils them in lieu of genuine love and support.
    • "Grounded" shows another side. Rodger while spending time with them was acting like a loving father figure would, giving them attention and playing games with them. Something they had never experienced before then, and they felt "real happiness" for the first time because of that.
• Partially Civilized Animal: The pets, while still doing various animal traits like chewing on balls, are just as sapient as humans and often wear clothing. This even goes to the point where Zoe has been shown to sometimes forget that she is a dog. This goes even further with Dodger and Twist who wear clothing 24 / 7 and seem to live within a Mouse World.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Blythe and the pets each have one.
  • Blythe: Designing
  • Minka: Painting
  • Penny Ling: Ribbon dancing
  • Pepper: Comedy
  • Russell: Organizing
  • Sunil: Magic tricks
  • Vinnie: Dancing
  • Zoe: Singing
    • Averted with Russell as he seems to be gradually heading into a pet modeling career (with no choice in the matter) though he is easing into it, and even admitted it is starting to become fun, he does not seem to care regardless if he does it or not.
• Performance Anxiety: Blythe when she has to dance on a TV show.
  • In "Terriers & Tiaras" when she is first interviewed she is rendered catatonic with camera shyness and can't say anything other than her name.
  • Also Russell when he is chosen by the draw to be Blythe's model for the Expo, in "The Expo Factor". He is terrified.
• Pet the Dog: Fisher Biskit provides an instance in the climax of "Grounded" by encouraging Roger to hurry home to Blythe.
• Photographic Memory: In "The Secret Recipe", Due to Youngmee's Genius Ditz status, when she finds out Blythe can talk to animals she recalls quite a few instances throughout the series to cement that. Despite most instances in her point of view, would be completely insignificant and easily forgotten. Also she remembered the plans for their cake in "Bakers and Fakers" quite accurately despite most of it being missing.
• Pie in the Face: Penny throws a pistachio pudding pie into Pepper's face after the latter apologizes.
• Place Worse Than Death: The Largest Ever Pet Shop is describe as this in episode 1. When we actually see the inside of the store in episode 4 it turns out said description might have exaggerated a bit.
• Playing Cyrano: In "Trading Places", Zoe (Who has a large blemish on her nose) asks Penny to talk to her crush Digby for her.
• Poke the Poodle: Fun Russell's zany antics include: switching the positions of two pet beds, not flossing his teeth, and not separating his laundry.
• Poor Communication Kills: Blythe drew the design for her dad's outfit in "Mean Isn't Your Color". Problem? Well, the head on that paper is Penny Ling's.
• Posthumous Character: Heavily implied to be the case with Blythe's mother, Lauren (aka Betty).
• Potty Dance: Sunil does this in "Sweet (Truck) Ride", and Zoe does this in "The Very Littlest Pet Shop".
• Powers in the First Episode: The first episode revolves around Blythe first entering Littlest Pet Shop from an accident with the dumbwaiter, which in turn unintentionally gives her the ability to talk to animals and understand them.
• Predatory Business: Largest Ever Pet Shop.
• Pseudo-Crisis: In "Dumb Dumbwaiter" Mrs. Twombly locks Penny, Russell, Sunil and Vinnie in a cage, inadvertently hindering their efforts to save their other friends from the dumbwaiter. After the break, Penny just undoes the latch with her paw.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: The pets somehow manage this on Blythe near the end of "Blythe's Big Adventure Part One," even though Littlest Pet Shop toys are known for being in perpetual Puppy-Dog Eyes mode. Needless to say, it is adorable.
  • Zoe does this to Blythe in "Terriers and Tiaras", so she can be in the reality show. It almost does not work, until the pets used a flashlight, watering can, and violin music to make it more sad.
  • Russell does this to Penny Ling when he asked her if he is too serious in "Russell Up Some Fun".
  • Sunil is also very well known for this. He seems to do it at least once or twice in almost every episode he is in.
  • Buttercream does this to Blythe in "Sweet Pepper".
  • Exaggerated in "Day at the Museum".
  • Blythe falls victim to this again in "Secret Cupet".
• Put on a Bus: The Biskits' butler Francois at the end of "The Expo Factor".
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In "Winter Wonder Wha...?" it is revealed that Francois has been replaced by his twin brother, also named Francois. But then it turns out Francois 2 was really Fisher in disguise spying on his daughters and he had hired Francois back.
• Quivering Lip: In "Terriers & Tiaras", Zoe invokes this trope by quivering her lip and giving Puppy-Dog Eyes to convince Blythe to take her to the titular pageant.
• Ragequit: Mrs. Twombly in "Dumb Dumbwaiter" after the cans she is trying to stack into a pyramid collapse for the fifth time.
  • Pepper, after Zoe and Russells' (Fantasy) help talk show stops being about helping pets and instead simply to fuel their egos.
• Reality Warper: Their fantasies seem to imply this at times. Especially in "The Very Littlest Pet Shop", where it seems implied that Vinnie threw them all into a fantasy adventure without warning, so they thought it was really happening, the others finally catching on that it was just a fantasy when things started to go weird
• Rearrange the Song: The opening theme uses the same tune as the Littlest Pet Shop Presents opening theme.
• Recurring Extra: A few of the same people keep showing up in the background. You can also find them in crowd scenes, both real and imaginary.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Biskit Twins.
• Remember the New Guy?: In the season 4 episode "Steamed" Mrs. Biskit finally appears, explaining she was staying in the east wing of the mansion with a terrible headache for the past three seasons (summer, fall and winter).
• Retcon: In "Commercial Success", Littlest Pet Shop's motto was revealed to be "We don't sell pets. We cater to them." However, several times in season one, it was shown to have pets for sale, such as snakes and turtles.
  • The first couple of episodes seemed to imply Mrs. Twombly lived in Littlest Pet Shop, as she has a bed and her doorknob collection there, but in the season 3 episode "Snow Stormin'" it is revealed she lives in an apartment somewhere else.
  • Julie McNally Cahill stated that the mustachioed man Pepper was standing near in her flashback in "So Interesting" wasn't her owner, but "Pet Sounds" confirmed he is.
  • "Frenemies" revealed that Zoe and Penny Ling are the newest additions to the core pets, with Penny's one year anniversary party kicking off the main plot. However, the flashback to Russell's first day (shown at the start of "In The Loop") shows that all the other pets were already there. Additionally, the flashback shows them as "kid" versions of their present selves (even though the photos seen in "Frenemies" of Zoe and Penny Ling's first days depicted them as looking more or less the same as they do in the present).
    • However, it is possible that Blythe mistook Zoe's photo as her first time at LPS, and Zoe just let her believe that.
• Reverse Polarity: Russell claims doing so to a cash register will disable the Biskits' robot. The other pets are a bit incredulous.
• The Rival / Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Madame Pom to Zoe.
  • Mr. Biskit to Mrs. Twombly.
• Rule of Cute: In an Imagine Spot, Penny wanted to name Minka's art, "Minka Inka". "Because it is cuter!"
• Rule of Perception: In the pilot, Blythe mistakes a dumbwaiter door with a window painted on it for an actual window.
• Rummage Fail: Youngmee's aunt, whenever she needs to get something from her purse. Which is not helped by her having a small kitchen's worth of tools inside.
  • There is a subtle gag the second time she does it: the first thing she pulls out is icing pops, which were what she was looking for the first time.
• Running Gag: When someone hugs Russell one of his spines gets stuck in their face.
  • "Dumb Dumbwaiter" gives us a constantly collapsing pyramid of cans.
  • Usually once per episode with Buttercream, has her spewing insane gibberish, a character saying "what?" her saying "what" back and her ears twirl together when untwirl as she sighs, then follows up with her catchphrase: "Aaanywhooooooo..."
    • This running gag is averted for laughs in "The Treasure of Henrietta Twombly" where Pepper asks a question, Buttercream responses with "Do you mean... *says complete gibberish*" and starts to prepare position for the ear twirl. Yet instead of saying "what?" Pepper says "No" and walks away.
  • Lampshading that Blythe's head is large.

S-Y

• Scooby-Dooby Doors: A certain hedgehog partakes in one of these in "Eight Arms to Hold You"
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Normally, you cannot fly on the Pet Jet without a pet, but Emma gets away with it because her mother is the co-pilot.
• Secret Identity: Blythe constantly tries to keep her animal whispering a secret to almost everyone because she does not want others to think she is crazy.
• Secret Test of Character: Old Bananas' supposed grouchiness and disappointment in Pepper is actually a facade meant to prepare her for the hardships of show business, as revealed when Pepper finally wins him and the pets over with her comedy.
  • The Fashion Magazine owner, Mona Autumn, whom Blythe pitches her designs to who is extremely critical and yells at everyone for the tiniest things, she admits to Blythe that she acts that way to secretly separate the determined from the unsteady.
    • Though regardless, despite now being very friendly with Blythe, she is still naturally scary.
• Security Cling: Sunil and Vinnie do this a lot in "Door-Jammed."
• Seinfeldian Conversation: The B plot to "So You Skink You Can Dance" consists of the pets trying to decide where to keep the TV remote.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Vinnie and Sunil often have this dynamic, with Vinnie as the cool and confident manly man, and Sunil as the not very confident sensitive guy. Russell can be either one Depending on the Writer.
• Sequel Episode: War of the Weirds seems to be one to Standup Stinker, as it is filled with callbacks and nods to the earlier episode.
• Serious Business: Pet fashion. In real life, most people who dress up their pets do so only for cute photos, holidays, and utilitarian purposes. While there are certainly folks who are more passionate about it, the business as a whole is still far smaller than in this show, wherein it is big enough to warrant an international expo.
• Temporarily Exaggerated Trait: Blythe's dad. He was always the stereotypical bumbling / clueless parent, but in "Helicopter Dad", he becomes the stereotypical "embarrassing" parent as well.
• Seven Pets, One Costume: It was discussed throughout "Shanghai-Jinks" that the pets were to perform the classic Chinese Dragon act in honor of Mrs. Twombly's ceremony in Shanghai. At first, they had to perform it without Penny Ling since she was off having dinner with her relatives. Things go moderately well until they got the tail of the costume caught on a nail on the floor of the stage, but fortunately, Penny Ling showed up just in time to get in the tail and save them.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The ending of "Gailbreak!". Doubles as a Stealth Pun.
• Ship Sinking: "Secret Cupet" seems to sink Sunil / Pepper, Russell / Penny and Vinnie / Minka, as the girls are not at all pleased about the boys being affectionate for them, and the boys are grossed out about the whole thing once Sugar Sprinkles removes the spell put on them.
  • Guilt Tripping seems to be another one for Sunil / Pepper. As Sunil spends the episode teasing Pepper and intentionally making her feel anxious about her upcoming punishment.
• Ship Tease:
  • A small hint of Sunil / Pepper and Russell / Minka during the third "Dance Like You Know You Can" rendition in Gailbreak.
  • In "Frenemies", Penny Ling remarks that Vinnie looks cute without his tail.
  • In "The Expo Factor", as the pets are resting on the cushions in Blythe's kiosk, Penny notes how they are soft "like Sunil's belly", reacting to the others' surprise with almost word for word Did I Just Say That Out Loud?.
  • There also seems to be a hint of Pepper / Shivers in "Blythe's Pet Project".
• Shout-Out: So many, they now have their own page.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Ms. Amster and Mr. Barish.
• Silence of Sadness:
  • In "Guilt Tripping", Vinnie is very upset when Pepper accidentally breaks one of his lucky rocks in half. He doesn't say a word when she tries to make small talk with him.
  • In "Penny for Your Laughs", Pepper accidentally makes Penny Ling cry with her insult comedy. Aside from tearfully saying she didn't find Pepper's jokes funny, Penny doesn't speak much. When Pepper tries to make her feel better, she does nothing but lie down on a cushion, moping. She talks again once Pepper apologizes.
• Sinister Tango Music: In "Guilt Tripping", Pepper and Blythe duet "The Guilty Tango" and the animation goes all dark and gloomy.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Despite the Biskits priding themselves on being "super cool" and "super popular", they seem to be very unpopular at school (unless they are giving away free stuff), and they seem to have no actual friends. Lampshaded in "The Expo Factor".

  Brittany: Don't tell anyone Whitney, but I forgot about that ippy effy thingy.

  Whitney: Who would I tell?

  • This is confirmed in "Two Pets For Two Pests" Where Brittany admits that people only like them if they are giving things away for free.
• Smelly Skunk: Inverted and played straight. Skunks in the series produce scents that can differ based on their moods. Foul when negative, pleasant when positive. Pepper is the most prominent example of this.
• Sneeze of Doom: In "Un-Vetted", Blythe's Father's sneeze obliterates an igloo.
• Something We Forgot: At the end of "Books and Covers" Whittany forgets to get Brittany her ointment and she is still locked in the girls' room.
• Sophisticated as Hell: In "Penny for Your Laughs" Brittany and Whittany taste test some lemonade like it is wine.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: Peppers Jokes. Incredibly lame but she takes them so seriously you can't help but smile.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Blythe's special power, which she unintentionally receives after entering Littlest Pet Shop for the first time. The Grand Finale reveals her late mother had the same power, and her father was aware all along.
• Spoiled Brat: The Biskits.
• Springtime for Hitler: Blythe attempts to get Sue to stop copying her style by wearing mismatching clothes. It fails when everyone loves them.
• Squee: In "Topped With Buttercream", Blythe and Youngmee do this when they learn they'll be working neighbors.
• Stand-Up Comedy: Pepper takes this hobby up when she realized her pudding gags are getting old.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The B-plot of "Inside Job" is about bees.
  • At the end of "The Very Littlest Pet Shop" during a Mind Screw, in which reality goes berserk (revealing it was an Imagine Spot all along), Zoe's head turns into a giant eyeball. Zoe is a seeing-eye dog.
• Stylistic Self-Parody:
  • "I think that giant head of hers got the worst of it!"
  • From "Lights, Camera, Mongoose!": "Hey, large-headed panda! Come back here!"
  • From "Topped with Buttercream": "Curse my freakishly large head!"
  • From "Helicopter Dad": "Now your pupils look huge. Well, more huge than usual."
  • The cold open to "The Hedgehog in the Plastic Bubble" has Blythe struggling to put on a sweater because her head is so big.
  • In "Room Enough", when indirectly asked how Blythe can talk to animals, Zoe suggests that maybe Blythe can understand pets because of her large head. When indirectly asked why she has a large head, the animals are also lost.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Brittany and Whittany's music video in "What, Meme Worry?".
  • In "The Tiniest Animal Store", the eponymous TV show.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Blythe has a tendency to make these whenever her secret about talking to pets almost gets revealed.
  Blythe: Oh, those pets. They're just so cute and... "non verbal".
• Technicolor Eyes: Even on the pets.
• That Came Out Wrong: In "Door-Jammed" when Whittany is telling Blythe to get out of her bathroom.
  Whittany: This is my bathroom, just like everything else in this house.
  Blythe: Everything else in this house is your bathroom?
  • Zoe pulls this in "Blythe's Pet Project, quickly decending into Digging Yourself Deeper territory.
  Zoe: ...And I'm sorry I thought Sunil was that great a magician. Wait, that didn't sound right. I mean I don't know if he is great, but I can't say "good" with total confidence...
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Shivers in "Blythe's Pet Project".
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Vinnie is the smallest of the pets while Penny Ling is the largest, and the two are good pals and are often shipped together by fans.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Jasper in "Commercial Success".
  • In "Tongue Tied" both Zoe and Russell do this in their "Pet Advice Talk Show" fantasy, becoming so self-absorbed they start completely shunning the pets they were supposed to help in the first place. With Zoe, many may not be surprised, but Russell becoming shallow and egotistical caught many viewers off guard.
  • "Pitch Purrfect" has Delilah, who defied the Cats Are Mean trope in her first appearance, do a Face–Heel Turn. First, she prevents Zoe from entering the Battle of the Bands because she is a dog and the competition is for cats only; later, after Zoe and her friends get in anyway, Delilah's band steals the song Zoe's group planned to sing. Delilah claims it is a misunderstanding, but Zoe does not believe her.
• Totally Radical: Blythe's use of internet acronyms comes off as this. In fairness, the adults do occasionally poke fun at it.
• Totem Pole Trench:
  • All the pets perform a rather impressive one in "If the Shoe Fits", so that they can sneak into the Biskit's birthday party along with stilts and fake arms. Zoe was the head of course since the whole purpose was for her to see her favorite band performing live. Hilarity Ensues so many times since Fischer and Roger wanted to meet them, and not to mention, Pepper's musk, Penny Ling's appetite and Sunil's balancing problems on the stilts caused so many problems, but surprisingly, they managed to make it through the whole party without getting caught (only Blythe figured out it was them).
    • Surprisingly despite Penny Ling is the biggest and strongest, she was in the middle, not the bottom.
  • The alien costume that Sunil, Zoe and Penny Ling wear in "Stand-Up Stinker" is basically this. Even though Zoe and Penny Ling were sticking their heads out, it was all part of the act.
• Town Girls:
  • The female pets at Littlest Pet Shop has fabulous superstar Zoe and sweet sensitive Penny as the femmes, zany comedian Pepper as the butch, and hyperactive abstract artist Minka as neither.
  • When it comes to Blythe and her two human female friends she is the kindhearted fashion designer (femme), Sue is the athletic tomboy (butch), leaving the scatterbrained Youngmee in the neither category.
• Toyless Toyline Character: Blythe is the only human character to be made into toys.
• Tuxedo and Martini: The main Fantasy Sequence in "Books and Covers" is an Affectionate Parody Of this.
• Uncle Pennybags: Mr. Biskit is rich but also a pretty nice guy. He does not spoil his daughters and actually tries to get them to make an honest living.
• Unconventional Food Usage:
  • In "Topped with Buttercream", when the pets become addicted to sugar, they start a tribe and wear costumes made of candy.
  • Sugar Sprinkles always has sprinkles on her head, though she never eats them. This is even a plot point in "Snipmates", wherein it's shown that if she's without her sprinkles, she goes insane.
• Unexplained Accent: For some reason the Biskits' butler François LeGrande has an English accent.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Blythe's outfit and hairstyle changes every episode, on account of her being a fashion designer. This even extends to recolors of previously worn outfits.
• Unstoppable Rage: Sunil after Blythe tells him to see everything as cobras in "Gailbreak!".
  • And Penny Ling in "Mean Isn't Your Color".
  • And Vinnie at the beginning of "So You Skink You Can Dance".
• Vague Age: Blythe, her friends and the Biskit Twins don't have stated ages, nor is it said what grade they are in. They are in high school, so they are at least 14.
  • Exaggerated with the pets. Even if you know how fast each animal ages in comparison to humans, the show never explicitly says how long each pet has been alive for, even further that each pet ages at different rates. Based on the flashback seen in “In the Loop”, which is implied to take place several decades into the past (what appears to be the 80s or 90s), it would appear that the pets are at the very youngest late teens, and at the oldest, mid-to-late-twenties. Assuming they age like humans, that is.
  • Mrs. Twombly's age is hard to pinpoint. Going by looks, she appears to be at least 60. The only clue to her age is a flashback to 1969 where she looks to be in her 20s or 30s. She was also college buddies with Tess McSavage, who looks like she is in her 50s.
    • "In the Loop" has a flashback to when the pets were very young and in it Mrs. Twombly's hair hasn't turned gray yet and she still looks relatively young.
• Villain Song: BBF's song may count as one, even with Blythe's Evil Laugh at the end.
  • The Biskits' music video may count since the lyrics are just pretty much "We're better than you" over and over.
  • Two For One.
  • "Biskit Twins Rhapsody" kind of flip-flops this. It starts off with the Biskits praising themselves as shallow brats, but as the song goes on they proclaim their redemption, wanting to work hard and help others.
  • Fisher sings one in "A Night At The Pawza" teaching his daughters what it truly means to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive . He uses lines like "Embrace your inner villainy" and "Do not let your conscience make you nice"
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Roger and Blythe in a nutshell.
• We Will Meet Again: When Russell and his "knights" are ejected from the villain's compound in "Game of Groans", he promises them that "You haven't seen the last of us!"
• Wham Episode / Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • "The Secret Recipe", from which point on Youngmee is now in on Blythe being able to communicate with pets.
  • And then there is "The Tortoise and the Heir", in which Blythe learns that her presumably deceased mother could also talk with pets.
  • The series finale reveals that Roger has been aware of Blythe's ability to speak to animals from the beginning (knowing her mother also had the same ability). He was merely waiting for her to admit it to him on her own.
• Wingding Eyes: Zoe gets stars in her eyes when she thinks about making a movie in "Sweet (Truck) Ride".
• Worst News Judgment Ever: Mrs. Twombly's retirement from kung-fu quilting completely overshadowed the first moon landing.
• You Are the New Trend: In "The Nest Hats Craze!", a bird's nest falls on Blythe's head outside a fashion show, and a TV reporter declares it the newest trend. All Blythe wants to do is return the nest (and more importantly, the egg she found inside) to the tree it came from, but she is shanghaied by the media and the Biskit Twins as the face of the new trend. She is able to stop the trend (thus freeing herself) when she discovers that the hats are causing birds all over town to dive bomb people.
• You Mean "Xmas": Though "Winter Wonder Wha...?" is set around Christmas, Christmas is never mentioned by name. For example, the Biskit Twins call their Christmas list their "holiday gift list."
• Younger Than They Look: Emma is supposed to be around Blythe's age, but her face, voice and height cause viewers to mistake her for an adult.

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