YMMV / Code Monkeys

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: In the episode Trouble in the Middle East, a Middle Eastern king steals all the Impalavision consoles in America in order to drive up demand of them for Christmas and "Jew Christmas", then resell them in discount stores. U.S. intelligence (and Dave, initially) mistakenly believes that he wants to link them together to build a military super computer. This is a reference to a real-world urban legend that Saddam Hussein imported a bunch of PlayStation 2s to do the same thing, which was why there was a shortage of them. There's really no proof that it happened (even the importing of them can't be corroborated), but there WAS a massive shortage of the consoles right after launch...
• Base-Breaking Character: Dave. Some think he's the funniest character on the show, while others see him as a sociopathic Creator's Pet who rarely gets karma for his behavior.
• Creator's Pet: Todd, especially in Season 2, where if the episode didn't center on him, then the B-Plot did, except the episodes and plots that center on him are not flattering in the slightest.

• Diagnosed by the Audience: There's a running gag of people wondering if Dean's brain damaged or mentally challenged. Or, in his dad's words, "R-E-tarded". Or "half a one", according to Dave.

• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In-Universe example: In the episode "The Story of 420", First Lady Nancy Reagan forces Game-A-Vision to put warning labels on all of their games stating "Playing this game increases the likelihood that you will engage in drug use and deviant sex". While Larrity objects at first, he's then extremely happy as the labels cause their game sales to skyrocket to the point where Reagan then has to ban them from having the labels on their games.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Black Steve.
• Harsher in Hindsight: One episode had Larrity rejecting Lorne Lanning's pitch as part of a It Will Never Catch On running gag. After the poor sales of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, the Oddworld franchise pretty much fell into obscurity, with its only hope as a franchise being HD remakes of the original games with the help of an indie studio, Just Add Water.
• Jerkass Woobie: Despite Todd's big ego, there are times when you can't help but feel sorry for him when Dave picks on him (even when he didn't do anything to provoke him). There's also the heavy implications that his mother psychologically damaged him.
  • There's also Dean: his dad's a crazed wife-murdering businessman who uses him on a regular basis to help him cover up their illegal activities, and whose retarded state is from years of constant head trauma. That said, he's done plenty of jerky stuff on his own, most notably when he took command of the company (after shooting his dad in the face) and brought in his equally dumb and cruel fratbros to help him run the place (though Clare was the real brains behind that).
• Take That, Scrappy!: The fact that Todd is the show's Butt-Monkey is enough.
• Tear Jerker: The episode with Todd's brother. Seeing how much he cares about Todd is both this and a Heartwarming Moment. The biggest Tear Jerker moment in the episode is when Todd's brother talks about how twisted their mother has made Todd and tells the Game A Vision staff to be kind to Todd. It's an even bigger Tear Jerker in that you know it will only get worse, as Dave admits.

---