Western Animation / Pocoyo

The main cast as of the 2016 reboot^note L-R:Fred, Pato, Nina, Roberto, Elly, Pocoyo, Caterpillar, Loula, Baby Bird and Sleepy Bird.

Pocoyo (2005-10; 2016-present) is a Spanish-British children's Animated Series, narrated by José María del Río, Stephen Fry, or Orlando Arenas (depending on the dub). It tells the adventures of a young boy named Pocoyo, a duck named Pato, the pink elephant Elly, and since the 2016 reboot the girl Nina (and many other characters). In each episode, the characters go through wacky and entertaining adventures commonly learning some kind of Aesop. Notable for its minimalist style — the characters lack any textures and all of the action takes place on a white background — as well as its lack of backstory.

Also notable for being cute.

In the United States, Cartoon Network's preschool block Cartoonito started to air the show after its launch in 2021. However, it was later pulled from the schedule. In 2022, a fifth season started production with a significant refresh to the characters as well as introducing Pocoyina to the cast.

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This show contains examples of:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Pato wears a hat, Elly wears a backpack, and Caterpillar wears a bow.
• Acrofatic: Elly is an elephant and has epic dancing skills and one episode shows her doing good martial arts moves.
• Aerith and Bob: We have Pocoyo and Pato, then names like Elly and Fred.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Elly's a pink elephant.
• Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Horse!", Pocoyo learns about horses and becomes obsessed with them. He then goes around repeating, "Horse!" over and over again, which gets old for the narrator, Pato, and Elly.
• Anti-Climax: The song "The Great Race" has all of the racers neck and neck, close to the finish line...and then their cars run out of fuel. Then they decide to move the finish line to the back of their vehicles so they can win together.
  Narrator: Attention, just before reaching the finish line, the racers have run out of gas! How exciting, a race has never been this close!
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Parodied in “Poczilla”. Pocoyo and Pato find a miniature toy city and pretend to be giant monsters, unaware that they’re endangering tiny civilians.
• Babysitting Episode: "Baby Bird Sitting" has Pato (and later Pocoyo) looking after Baby Bird and Caterpillar while Sleepy Bird is away.
• Balloonacy: This happens to Loula in "All For One".
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Various episodes that involve space travel show Pocoyo and co. have no problems breathing and talking in space.
  • Subverted in "The Bee", where the titular character wears a space helmet to follow Pocoyo, Pato, and Elly in space.
• Beach Episode: "Fetch Loula Fetch", "Going to the Beach", "Are We There Yet?", and "Christmas...at the Beach?".
• Berserk Button: In later appearances, Sleepy Bird is always angry whenever someone wakes her up.
• Big Brother Instinct: Pocoyo has this towards Baby Bird, who sees him as an older brother. In “Twinkle Twinkle”, Pocoyo is the first to show concern for Baby Bird when he cries and gets angry at Elly for causing it. Pocoyo is also the first to put his whistle away after realizing it makes Baby Bird upset in “Who’s Calling Me Now?”.
  • Inverted in “Pocoyo’s Puppet Show”: Pocoyo is discouraged from putting on his puppet show when it offends Pato and Elly, so Baby Bird angrily drags them over to make them apologize.
• Big "NO!": Pocoyo gives one after breaking Elly's favorite doll, Skyward Scream and all.
  • Also used a couple of times in "Pocoyo's Balloon," often accompanied by Rapid-Fire "No's".
• Bilingual Bonus: Pato and Nina mean "duck" and "girl" in Spanish respectively.
  • Also, Pocoyo's convertible vehicle is called the "Vamoosh" which is a portmanteau of the onomatopoeia "Whoosh" and "Vamos" ("Let's go" in Spanish)
  • Pocoyo's own name is a combination of the words "poco" (a little bit) and "yo" (me). Or in other words, "a little bit me".
  • In the Spanish dubs, Fred is called "Pulpo" (which also means "octopus" in Spanish).
• Black Bead Eyes: Pocoyo, Elly, Loula, Baby Bird, Angry Alien, and Nina have these, probably to add cuteness to their appearances.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Pocoyo acts like this sometimes.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Baby Bird becomes a weeping mess when the stars stop shining in “Twinkle Twinkle”, Pocoyo and Pato refuse to play ball with him in “Having a Ball”, and Pocoyo, Pato, Elly, and Loula torment each other with whistles in “Who’s Calling Me Now?”.
  • In “Super Pocoyo”, Pocoyo is subjected to this when his misguided rescue attempts make Loula, Sleepy Bird, and Elly angry, causing him to stop playing superhero. He recovers when Pato gets his hat stuck on his head, allowing him to perform a real rescue.
  • During their feud, Pocoyo and Pato are reduced to tears after seeing a picture of them together in “A Little Something Between Friends”.
• Camera Abuse: "Great Shot!" ends with this trope. When the characters decide to clean up everything after their game, Elly kicks the ball forward...which then hits the camera, leaving a huge crack in it, prompting everybody to run away in horror. Even the Narrator is horrified at what happened.
• Camping Episode: “Let’s Go Camping!” and “We’re Going Camping”.
• Character Catchphrase: Unsurprisingly (as he's the most intelligible character and the one who speaks the most), the narrator has one: "Hooray for X! And hooray for Pocoyo!"
• Cheer Up Episode: “Giggle Bug” has Fred trying to make Pocoyo, Elly, and Pato laugh when they’re in bad moods.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Fred and Caterpillar.
• Continuity Cavalcade: "Remember When..." is this.
• Dark Horse Victory: Sleepy Bird manages to win a race that was only supposed be between Pocoyo and Elly. Granted, the two managed to break their own vehicles and were so busy combining their broken parts that she slowly passed by them unnoticed.
• A Day in the Limelight: If well every character has their own focus on various episodes, the official YouTube account has compilations of every character called "packs". There are packs for Elly, Pato, Fred, and one focused on Nina as "The Adventures of Pocoyo and Nina".
• Demoted to Extra: A rare case with Loula the dog. She's still a main character but 3 recurring characters have more appearances than her. Most noticeable in season 4 with Nina replacing Loula in the opening and her getting very few appearances in that season.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In “Pocoyo’s Balloon”, the way Pocoyo deals with losing his balloon closely resembles the five stages of grief.
• "Double, Double" Title: "Umbrella Umbrella" and "Pocoyo Pocoyo".
• Dub Name Change: Some characters have changed names in the Spanish dubs, like Pulpo (Fred), Pajaroto/Pájaro Dormilón^note Castilian and Latin American respectively (Sleepy Bird), and Pajarito/Pájaro Bebé^note Castilian and Latin American respectively (Baby Bird). An inverted case is Caterpillar, in which her original name in Castilian Spanish is "Valentina"^note The Latin American dub calls her Oruga, which means "caterpillar" in Spanish.
• Easily Forgiven: Any episode where a mistake is made against another character.
• Edutainment Show:
  • You'd be surprised, but beyond the cute dancing and adorableness there are actually morals throughout the show.
  • Let's Go Pocoyo goes into a more traditional education about words, shapes and colors with the other segments.
• "Everyone Is Gone" Episode: Where's Pocoyo serves as the exact opposite. Pocoyo has gone, and it's up to the viewers to know where's pocoyo hiding. Which later he falls asleep at the ending.
• Expressive Accessory: The ear flaps on Pocoyo's hat go upwards when he's surprised. His hat also goes over his eyes somewhat when he's annoyed.
• Feud Episode: In "A Little Something Between Friends", Pocoyo and Pato build a brick castle. When it falls apart, they blame each other for it.
• Fishing Episode: “Fishing With Pocoyo”.
• Friendly Neighborhood Spider: There are a few secondary spider characters with one eye who are despised even though they're actually nice. A good example is the episode "Pato's Egg" in which Pato finds an egg and raises it, only to find that it hatches a spider instead of a bird. Everyone finds it scary, including Pato, but later it is seen that this baby spider is very nice and is embraced by Pato as his father, later accepted by Pocoyo and Elly. He can be seen in other Pocoyo shorts like "The Big Race!", having his own car.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Pocoyo (choleric), Pato (phlegmatic), Elly (melancholic), Loula (sanguine)
• Funny Octopus: Fred (Pulpo) is a friendly octopus that will make jokes along the main characters.
• Furry Confusion: In “Wackily Ever After”, Pato briefly adopts a canary. The Narrator is dumbfounded by this.
• Gainax Ending: A rather downplayed and Played for Laughs version, crossing over with a bit of a Sequel Hook even by Preschool Television Standards. While Pato, Elly and Pocoyo are finally relieved that there are no more Pato clones, we see lots of Caterpillars after Caterpillar got cloned at the end of "Double Trouble".
• Gentle Giant: Elly, who sometimes scares new characters with her boisterous size and finicky personality, is actually extremely kind. Yanko is also this, but sweeter and shyer than Elly.
• Girly Bruiser: Elly, nonetheless. Seen in the season 2 episode "Talent Show", in which Elly shows her skills in "ballet karate".
• Hair-Trigger Temper: On the other hand, Pato gets angry somewhat easily - he's also the most serious and business-like character. Then there's the Angry Alien.
• Heavy Sleeper: Sleepy Bird. She was literally put on this show to be asleep all the time.
• Heroic BSoD: After letting go of his balloon, Pocoyo just stands there pointing at the sky, staring dumbfounded in that position for a while.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Pato may be short-tempered, serious, and stubborn, but his heart's still in the right place and he cares about his friends.
  • Elly can be very bossy sometimes, but she still means well and will apologize if she goes too far.
• Jump Rope Blunders: In "Keep Going Pocoyo!", Pocoyo insists that he knows how to use a jump rope, only to accidentally tie himself up in it, and later he accidentally tosses it into the air. As such, Pato and Elly have to teach him.
• Jump Scare: Pocoyo does this twice to the narrator and audience at the beginning of "Boo!" A third one happens with Pocoyo, Elly, Pato, Baby Bird, and Loula at the end.
• Keet: Baby Bird. Just look at that happy face. Also Fred and Caterpillar.
• Large Ham: When they put on a play in "Wackily Ever After", Pato plays "THE CRAZY DUCK!" and does ham it up quite well (which is impressive since he doesn't talk)...until he starts resenting playing the villain and everyone else gets bored and does their own thing.
• Leitmotif: Pay attention! It's subtle, but most characters have one. Even Elly's doll gets one.
• Like Brother and Sister: Gender-inverted. Baby Bird idolizes Pocoyo as if he was his older brother.
• Limited Wardrobe: Subverted with Elly. When she dances, she puts on a leotard and tutu.
• Meaningful Name: See Bilingual Bonus above.
• Never Bareheaded:
  • It's never revealed what Pocoyo looks like without that hat of his.
  • Nina has her hair covered, but she shows some of her red hair on her forehead. In the music video "Fred's in Fashion", she wears a wig over her hat.
• Nice Guy: The Narrator. He's always ready to intervene in all conflicts than arise, he is usually the one that administers the moral of the day, and the characters seem to like him quite a lot - for a disembodied voice he sure has a lot of personality. Granted that the English narrator is Stephen Fry, who is well known for having one of the most whimsically cheerful British voices of all time.
• No Antagonist: Zigzagged. Angry Alien wants to conquer Pocoyo World, but he is too small to be harmful and has no choice other than doing a Heel–Face Turn. He still acts antagonistic in his later appearances, most notably in "Pocoyo and the Space Circus" and "Pocoyo and the League of Extraordinary Super Friends".
• No Fourth Wall: The Narrator asks the viewer to do various things from pepping up Pocoyo when he's feeling sad to waking up Sleepy Bird.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Pocoyo's birthday is October 14th, but when his "birthday" rolls around, he's still four years old!
• Non-Human Sidekick: The entire cast. Pocoyo is the only human before Nina's debut.
• Ocular Gushers: Done by a cloud in "A Little Cloud" after Pocoyo told it to go away.
• Parental Bonus: Pocoyo is surprisingly watchable by parents - and the creators probably know, as there are lots of small easter eggs that won't be noticed by kids. For example, in "Boo", when Pocoyo scares Pato in the shower, it's very reminiscent of the famous shower scene in Psycho. And in the episode "Dance Off!", Pocoyo starts playing air-guitar in a dance competition against Pato. The song that plays is very reminiscent of Metallica and Pocoyo puts Fred on his head, looking a bit like Kirk Hammett.
  • "Fussy Duck" has Pato emulating Neo as he tries to dodge flying chunks of mud.
  • The intro to "Crazy Inventions" sounds like Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger".
  • In "Dance off! Part Two", Pocoyo and Pato counter Elly and Nina's moves with Michael Jackson dances (Pocoyo emulates Billie Jean and Pato performs Thriller). Later, Roberto interrupts them with a robotic dance as Kraftwerk plays in the background.
• Picnic Episode: “Picnic Puzzle” and “Picnic”.
• Pink Is Feminine: Elly is a pink elephant who loves ballet and tea parties.
• Potty Failure: In "Baby Bird Sitting", when Caterpillar ate too much cake she wet herself on Pato, much to the chagrin of Pato and amusement of Pocoyo and Baby Bird. Angry Alien is also prone to this when he gets scared.
• Progressive Instrumentation: Pocoyo and friends try to make a music band by themselves, usually one starts with an instrument and the other members are added gradually until the song is complete.
• Protagonist Title
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy:
  • Elly and Pocoyo respectively. Thanks to simplistic character design and a lack of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, it's really the only way to determine their genders first glance.
  • Subverted by the parents of the "little alien friend". The Narrator assumes this about his mother and father, causing the pink dad to correct him with a grumpy look.
• Redhead In Green: Nina has red hair and wears a green-colored suit.
• Running Gag: Pocoyo and his friends dance at the every end of practically every episode.
• Ship Tease: Pocoyo and Nina are prone to this in promotional work as well as Pato and Elly. In-universe, this happens to Caterpillar and Angry Alien as well as Pato and an orange martian.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Tiny Fun Park" opens with a watercolor shot of Nina and Elly parodying the bus stop scene of My Neighbor Totoro, with Nina holding the umbrella and Elly with a leaf on her head like Totoro.
  • In "Dinosaurs", Sleepy Bird gets a slingshot and chases Pocoyo, Pato, and Elly away a la Angry Birds.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Pocoyo wears blue, Elly's pink.
• The Unintelligible: Elly makes trumpet noises, Pato quacks, Fred the Octopus speaks in random gibberish, and Nina speaks in a Spanish-like language. Thankfully, the Narrator understands all of them.
  • Although it must be said that as ducks go, Pato's got just about the most expressive face since Daffy.
• Third-Person Person: Pocoyo and sometimes Nina (as heard in "The Big Soccer Match"). Justified since they're toddlers.
• Token Human: Pocoyo is the only human until meeting Nina in season 4.
• Unwanted Rescue: This is the basic premise of "Super Pocoyo," in which Pocoyo tries to "rescue" several of his friends even though they're only just doing stuff like napping. The story finally ends though with Pato getting his hat stuck on his head and Super Pocoyo actually being able to do a real rescue.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Pato is able to do this due to his detachable limbs.
• White Void Room: All we know is that Pocoyo's World consists of a blank white space with random trees, houses, and other stuff. In some episodes, they go underwater and in space!
• Werewolves Are Dogs: Invoked by Pocoyo. In “Halloween Tales”, he tells Nina a story where he turns into a werewolf and plays fetch with Pato.
• With a Foot on the Bus: Played for laughs. “Farewell Friends” has the Narrator discover Pato is leaving, but the end of the episode reveals it is just a game between him, Pocoyo, and Elly.

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