Western Animation / The Nutshack

IT'S. THE. NUTSHACK! IT'S. THE. NUTSHACK!

"Phil's from the 'Sco, Jack's from the P.I.
Horatio or Horat, so big-eyed!
Tito Dick, "Dickman", baby!
He raised Phil and loves the ladies.
Jack’s cool as lazy, he’s still learnin'.
And the ripe Cherry Pie, still a virgin!
Chita, meet the freak of the week-ah!
Phil’s homegirl, God, Jack wanna keep her.
But it’s not happenin’, neither!
Shakin’ like a seizure.
Hold up, lemme spark this, take a breather.
Breathe the reefer in my lungs.
I got grapes, what you watchin', son?!"

—The first rap verse from the show's Expository Theme Tune^note only preceded by — and subsequently followed by — "It's the Nutshack!"

The Nutshack is a Filipino-American animated television series created by Jesse Hernandez and Ramon Lopez, and the first animated television series aimed at a Filipino-American audience. Airing on Myx TV in the United States and Myx in the Philippines, the series lasted two seasons with sixteen episodes in total, airing during 2007 and 2011 (each year for each season). The series follows Filipino-American San Francisco native Phil, whose cousin Jack flies in from the Philippines to live with him and their Tito (Uncle) Dick in the Tenderloin district of the city.

The entire series is available to watch on Myx's official YouTube channel (though it's region-locked in the Philippines). Deleted scenes and other promotional content can be found on the show's official YouTube channel (which is not region-locked in the Philippines).

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The Nutshack provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The intro puts 2D characters in a 3D city environment.
• A Dick in Name: Tito Dick was very much intended to be this.
• Animated Shock Comedy: Contains a lot of swearing, sexual content, and Toilet Humor.
• All Gays are Promiscuous: Rainbow Scout and pretty much every other gay character in this show.
• All Men Are Perverts: Literally the entire male cast.
• Art Evolution: The animation marginally improves in season 2... emphasis on "marginally".
• Artistic License – Geography: While the show is said to take place in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, the characters state they live in Daly City. Daly City, while adjacent to San Francisco, is nowhere near the Tenderloin.
• Asian Speekee Engrish: Cherry Pie.
• Bilingual Bonus: Some of the show's humor as found in the characters' names etc. is derived from the Filipino language, for instance Jack's full name punning on "masturbator". Also, as revealed in the pilot, Tito Dick's real name is Richard Cabeza. Cabeza is Spanish for "head"... making him a "Dick Head".
• Black Comedy: To the point that it can hardly be called comedy.
• Broken Aesop: Parodied in one episode that focuses on plastic surgery, and how it's damaging for peoples' self-esteem and that people should appreciate their natural beauty. Chita, who has been preaching about this throughout the episode, eats her words when she falls head-over-heels for Jack after he becomes muscular through surgery. She then goes on to admit that she herself got plastic surgery for her breasts and nose in the past. The episode ends when everyone else's modifications bust out and ruin their bodies. When Chita tries to take the high ground again and deliver the aesop, Phil calls her a "phony-ass bitch."
• Camp Gay: Rainbow Scout, a recurring character who gives Jack a cavity check in the pilot. It's evident by the way he dresses and how much he enjoys his job.
  Rainbow Scout: I love this job! (sniffs his index finger) They don't even pay me!
• Child Soldiers: Tito Dick's plan in "TT Boy and Kid Utot" involves using an army of babies that resemble him.
• Comedic Sociopathy: People get beat up really badly with their injuries visible to the audience. All for the sake of getting some laughs out of people.
• Content Warnings: Once per Episode, before the title sequence. We should add that it's suspiciously similar to South Park's. (i.e. it's the same thing but rearranged and less tongue-in-cheek.)
• Continuity Cavalcade: The last episode, "Battle of the Bay", showcases every major character and some of the transformations featured throughout the series.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the theme song, the rapper mentions at one point states "I got grapes, what you watchin', son?" The rapper is voiced by NUMP, who had a minor Filipino hit with the song "I Gott Grapes".
  • Occasionally referenced in the show—in the style of Aqua Teen Hunger Force there is continuity even in episodes that should logically change everything.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Nobody really has a filter in their heads, especially Phil and Horat.
• Crush Filter: When Jack is introduced to Chita in the pilot, he has an Imagine Spot where she is put under the filter.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Horat's reaction to everything.
• Dirty Old Man: Sanjee, the exclusive porno dealer for Daly City (Yet they somehow also live in the Tenderloin district).
• Drop-In Landlord: Dwayne is Tito and Phil's landlord who desperately attempts to connect with his tenants, but is constantly humiliated by Tito and Phil, and none of the others seem to like him all that much.
• Drugs Are Good: To say the least, drugs and alcohol are glamorized to death in this show.
• Establishing Series Moment: The show's first episode opens with Phil and Tito Dick playing an off-brand Star Wars fighting game which Dick wins by zapping Phil's character in the crotch with lightning in a move he dubs the "Viagra-powered dong snatcher." Shortly after this, there's a shot of Dick walking in on Phil rubbing one out, and it only gets more obscene from there.
• Evil Twin: Used in a demented way in the Halloween episode, "Slasher." See Luke, You Are My Father below.
• Excrement Statement: Jack's talking half-robot, half-tarsier pet Horat flings his poop at people who annoy him (which doesn't exactly take very much effort to do). In the first episode, he does it on an airplane, causing chaos and panic.
• Funny Afro: Dwayne gets one in "Got Surgery?", and the other characters milk it for all its worth.
  Phil: Is that fucking Bob Ross?!
• Fun T-Shirt: Phil's "Got Nutz" shirt.
• Gag Penis: A chihuahua with a gratuitously large member appears in one episode.
• Gonk: Most of the characters' designs can cross into this.
• Grossout Show: Three minutes into the pilot, you see Phil masturbating. Two minutes after that? Horat throwing poop everywhere in an airplane. It's that kind of show.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: Just try explaining to people what The Nutshack is without absolutely killing the conversation.
• Leitmotif: Dwayne has one (which you might recognize as the theme to You Know Whats Bullshit) which plays every single time he's on the screen.
• Limited Animation: A very painfully obvious example.
• Luke, You Are My Father: In "Slasher," it's revealed that Jack gave birth after taking a bunch of super-fertility pills, and raised the resulting evil version of himself because, as he admits, it looked like him, and he couldn't help but raise it like his own.
• Ms. Fanservice: Chita is deliberately designed for this trope, particularly her rack that seems to bounce with every sway. The directors admit they designed her with every trait they like in a woman.
• Nipple and Dimed: Played with in "Got Surgery?" when Chita sees Jack post-op. Her nipples are visibly erect, and the only thing keeping the scene from being too explicit it the fact that she's wearing a shirt.
  Horat: [...] Jiminy Crickets! Cover up those pencil erasers, woman!
• No-Respect Guy: Dwayne is both Daly City's landlord and the show's resident Token White, making him an easy target for the other characters. He is constantly humiliated by Tito and Phil, and none of the others seem to like him all that much either. Even the show's Theme Tune Rap (in the full version) takes a shot at him!
  Dwayne is a hater! Later, alligator!
• Non-Human Sidekick: Jack's extremely obnoxious talking pet Horat, who is half-robot and half-tarsier.
• Pun-Based Title: The show's title itself is this combined with Double Entendre.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The theme song abuses this trope in spades. "IT'S. THE. NUTSHACK. IT'S. THE. NUTSHACK."
• Shout-Out: The episode "Slasher" is a Halloween Episode, with the characters dressed as various characters from other works. Jack is dressed as Silent Bob, Chita as Chun-Li, Horat as Venom, Sanjee as Aladdin, Angel as Cheech Marin, and Ed as Tommy Chong.
  • "Blind Dick" references Mortal Kombat in Blind Dick's fight against Rainbow Scout and El Pinyot Loco. Street Fighter is referenced as well, with Loco using Blanka's rolling attack and "headbite" and Dick later using the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.
• Simpleton Voice: Jack. His accent doesn't help his case.
• Something Something Leonard Bernstein: The Theme Tune Rap is very hard to understand for most people, barring infamously the line "Tito Dick 'Dickman', baby!"
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Airings on Myx TV sometimes used DJ scratches and/or sounds related to the episode to censor strong profanity.
• Speech-Impaired Animal: Horat's voice is high pitched like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and his robotic enhancements further mess with his voice, making him very hard to understand to the point that later episodes give his lines subtitles by default.
• Status Quo Is God: Technically, only the samurai episode is out of continuity. Even the episode where Tito Dick "Dickman" is a supervillain counts. Things just sort of snap back to normal and the heroes routinely ignore their powers unless it's for a gag.
• Stock Footage: When the show isn't re-using audio clips or animation from different episodes, it'll sometimes reuse entire scenes from within the same episode.
  • Exaggerated with the intro; which has the characters interacting in a CG animated version of their city, yet all of them are still animated using stock footage from the show.
• Stock Sound Effects: Some episodes use Apple's stock iMovie sound effects — the same sound effects that can be heard in many amateur YouTube videos.
• Superhero Episode: Two with actual superheroes, three if you count a Tokusatsu tribute in Bomb China pt. 2, four if you count the samurai movie episode, five if you count the Highlander parody, six if you count the protagonists coming back from the dead with unique skills as their Inner Mexican. That's not even counting a cutaway gag with Jack and Phil as Rambo-alikes. That's over a third of the series—almost enough to qualify as a superhero show!
• Take That!: Random celebrities are often dissed for no reason and without context.
  Horat: Man, just say the words, honey, and I'll make this door look like Wilmer Valderrama's talent: nonexistent!
• Theme Tune Rap: A pretty infamous example too.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: The theme tune describes all of the characters.
• Thick-Line Animation: A rather ugly-looking example of this trope.
• Those Two Guys: Tuquack and Snoop Duck are never seen apart and exist only to make a couple of bird poop jokes.
• Title Theme Tune: The line "It's the Nutshack!" shows up in the show's full theme tune a total of 28 times, no less.
• Toilet Humour: Very often, especially with Horat due to his habit of flinging feces everywhere.
• Voice of the Legion: Jesus speaks in this way.
• Vulgar Humor: Constantly in every single episode.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: They're in San Francisco, but the characters (and the show's creators) constantly switch between calling the place they live in Daly City and the Tenderloin, which are two different locations.
  • "Got Surgery?" shows an in-joke of a show called "DC" (Daly City) with the cast being the plastic surgery-riddled characters, possibly alluring slightly towards Daly City.
  • The "Slasher" episode also has Chita mention the Tenderloin as the location, and that the Castro District is nearby the Tenderloin (which is accurate enough in real life), suggesting that the show takes place in mid-town San Francisco.
• World of Jerkass: Most of the characters are pretty unpleasant people, with the only characters that could be construed as "nice" being Jack and Chita, and even they have their moments of being just as bad as everyone else (although in Jack's defense, his jerkass moments come moreso from Phil's poor influence on him).

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