You can't stop the girl!
A
Cartoon Network original series created by
Judd Winick, cartoonist (who created the comic strip
Frumpy The Clown and the comic book
Barry Ween Boy Genius) and alumnus of
The Real World. It ran from 2005 to 2007, with a total of three seasons.
Juniper Lee (June for short) is a Chinese-American girl who also happens to be heir to the title of
Te Xuan Ze. Basically, that means she has the ability to see the members of a society of monsters living invisibly among humans, low-level super-strength and agility, and the responsibility of keeping the peace among said monsters and maintaining the
Masquerade when necessary.
As is always the case, being the Te Xuan Ze comes with all the other headaches and responsibilities of being a pre-teen girl. Fortunately, she has the help of her kindly grandmother (the former Te Xuan Ze), a snarky talking pug named Monroe, and her plucky kid brother Ray-Ray.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Monroe's father Williams, especially during the Easter episode.
- Action Girl
- Adults Are Useless: Mostly...
- Affably Evil: WAY more frequent than you can imagine.
- All Part of the Show: In It Takes A Pillage June, Ray Ray and Monroe hijack a tour boat to chase after their viking possessed friends. June manages to convince the tourist that the chase, bombardment and sinking of their ship is part of the tour.
- Aloof Big Brother: Dennis. He gets better though.
- Alpha Bitch: Melissa O'Malley, the school diva.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Ray-Ray, and how.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:This happens quite frequently on the show.
- Author Appeal
- Batman Cold Open
- Bare Your Midriff
- Between My Legs: In episode 1.
- Bilingual Bonus: Auntie Roo's flying fish and Ophelia in There's No Mitzvah Like Snow Mitzvah
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti: Lila is a smart, young girl sasquatch. By contrast, adult male sasquatches are incredibly dim (if harmless).
- Blessed with Suck: As the Te Xuan Ze, June is physically incapable of leaving her hometown...
- Captivity Harmonica: Played by the koala in "The Great Escape". Lampshaded when the zookeeper tells him to stop.
- Chain of Deals: "It's the Great Pumpkin, Juniper Lee".
- Compulsory School Age: Happens to Jasmine, who experiences Fountain of Youth syndrome for one episode.
- Contagious Powers: The main reason Ray Ray can see monsters. During an attack by some monsters just as June was coming into her powers, they try to suck it out of her. However Ray Ray interrupted the transfer and some of June's power got implanted in him.
- Cut Short: The final episode ends with Juniper on her way home, happily jumping superhumanly high in the process, unaware that Jody is watching her. The series ends before this can be resolved.
- What's more, Jody carrying a book on how to spot magical creatures. So...yeah.
- Cute Bruiser: Lila
- Emergency Transformation: Ray Ray in one episode when he permanently transforms his original body into a T-Rex. June and Monroe have to make a golem body and transfer his soul into it.
- Expository Theme Tune: "In a World full of monsters and demons / June is the only one who sees them..."
- Follow the Leader: Averted. A teenager is given awesome magic powers brought through their bloodline, is taught by their grandparent, has a younger sibling who affiliates with said magic powers, and a talking dog. Also, the bloodline containing the superpowers is one of Chinese descent. Both shows rotted in Development Hell for years, with the creators of each blissfully unaware of the others existence during production according to interviews.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Dennis teasing some camels at the zoo.
One hump or two?
- Goth: Ophelia.
- Guarding The Portal
- I Just Want to Be Normal
- I Just Want to Be Special: Ray-Ray occasionally.
- Interspecies Romance: Ray-Ray has a crush on Lila.
- Invisible to Normals: All the monsters. (But not the sasquatches, as they are not technically magical.)
- Jerkass: Dennis sometimes.
- Knight Templar: A secret government Men In Black organization known as H.A.M. is out to get all monsters, bad or otherwise.
- Lighter and Softer: Two episodes were adapted from the more adult Barry Ween.
- Limited Wardrobe
- Masquerade
- Missed the Call: Juniper's dad was originally supposed to be the next Te Xuan Ze, but it skipped and passed on to her instead.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: One episode centers around a bat-otter.
- Monster Is a Mommy: The episode "Meet The Parent" has a giant, stone-eating monster terrorizing the town looking for its baby, which, due to June getting sprayed with said baby's scent, it thinks is June.
- Nineties Anti-Hero: One episode has one as a Refugee From TV Land, named "Boomfist". Master of the Family Unfriendly Aesop, but not really that bad at the whole hero thing.
- The Obi-Wan: Grandmother.
- Only Sane Woman: Lila among the sasquatches.
- Our Monsters Are Different: As shown in the first episode, leprechauns are really tall.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Roger.
- Squashed Flat: Just once in the Halloween special.
- The Snark Knight: Ophelia.
- Talking Animal: Monroe.
- The Cast Show Off: This show really put Lara Jill Miller through her paces, in both shouting tone and singing.
- Valley Girl: Ophelia would occasionally slip into valley girl mode when excited over a girly interest, such as boy bands.
- Van Helsing Hate Crime: H.A.M (Humans Against Magic), an organization dedicated to wiping out all and anything monsters and magic related. This includes humans that help them i.e: Juniper.
- Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World
- We Can Rebuild Him: Ray-Ray's soul now occupies a replica of his original body, after he became a huge monster and could not be turned back.
- Writer on Board: Not as blatant as some of Winick's other works, but still obvious.
- You Fight Like a Cow: On occasion.
- You Just Ruined the Shot: "Star Quality"
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