Lorraine's efforts to manipulate Everett aren't that dissimilar from her Alpha Bitch friend Biana's efforts to manipulate her. This raises the question of whether Biana is acting that way to lash out in grief over Everett threatening their friendship or if she always acts that way and has been influencing Lorraine to act the same way, and that has been what is driving Lorraine away from her and making her hate her old life even as Lorraine still hasn't learned to stop following Biana's example.
While Everett's obsession with his virtual pet Duappy is unhealthy to an Unintentionally Unsympathetic degree, it's possible to view this as his way of coping with having been an unpopular loner before getting Duappy, who was desperate to get and give affection to something, even something artificial and then got too attached. This gets some support from his mother, commenting that "for the first time in his life, he has a friend," after Lorraine comes over.
In "Foes Don't Forgive," Kip, the ventriloquist, claims that he never wanted to win the talent show due to his shyness and his motive for framing his magician rival Santiago of theft (stealing Dewey, the magic show's volunteer's toy dog so his mom won't get a real one from Kip's dog's litter) is seemingly unrelated to the talent show itself. But could it have been a two-birds-with-one-stone gambit? Kip goes to a lot of trouble to specifically frame Santiago, and regardless of how uncomfortable he feels about the attention from winning the talent show, it did come with a large money prize. It's notable that after his Heel Realization, he strives to make amends to both Santiago and Dewey.
In "The Shreds Fell Like Snowflakes", was Francine always planning to trap Vallejo in her snow fort, or was it just a panicked reaction to being found out when she originally just meant to delay him through more passive means?
In "A Dark Score Evened" the safety patrol is investigating attacks on bullies. When known bully, Rochelle, identifies more bullies in exchange for protection, Fillmore assigns O’Farrell as her bodyguard despite his ineptitude in almost everything except photography. It’s clear that Fillmore has no sympathy for bullies, judging by the way he and Ingrid intervene when Rochelle is tormenting a classmate. The question is: Did Fillmore assign O’Farrell to bodyguard Rochelle because he honestly thought she was low risk (given the number of potential targets) or was he secretly hoping that Rochelle would be the next victim and get a taste of her own medicine?
In "Field Trip of the Just," Eric's behavior toward Alexandra in the final scenes could indicate that he returns her crush or mean that he feels responsible for what she did on his behalf and understands that he's the best person to talk to her.
The bullying episode "A Dark Score Evened" lacks the more casual writing of the show.
"Test of the Tested" can be seen similarly, especially as standardized tests come under more fire in Real Life. Having tons of the school's kids in total panic mode at the mere thought of a retake combined with the stifling creativity of students and lesser impact on their ability to apply them to real life didn't quite help.
Some of the other episodes also have some good morals. "Codename: Electric Haircut" for example shows that you don't have to abide to what a social group is supposed to be and that you can have interests outside of that, and you can be friends with people that don't fit that mold.
Audience-Alienating Premise: Since most of the ABC Kids audience was too young to be familiar with the cop shows the series parodies, it never caught on with them.
Cult Classic: Due to its smart premise, seamlessly diverse cast, and Affectionate Parody take on cop shows, the show has an extremely passionate fanbase despite its short run-time.
TQ from the episode "The Unseen Reflection" garnered many fangirls (and even some fanboys) due to his character design unflappability, and code of honor .
Wayne Liggett, Fillmore's former partner, has a sizable following in fanfic, and Emily, Wayne's partner who was bullied off the force and only had one scene on-screen, has a similar following due to the show leaving how she was bullied and why it was so bad she transferred schools largely unexplained.
Despite only having a major role in one episode and being nothing more than a background character in the others, Alistair Greystone has gained an admittedly small fanbase of people who find his 'supposed psychic powers' and general quirkiness endearing.
Linus Santiago and Rita from "Foes Don't Forgive" are quite popular due to their cute romantic chemistry and impressive Stage Magician skills.
Mr. Delancey takes until the series finale to show up and only has about a minute of screen time, but he is a big favorite among the teachers for being a Deadpan SnarkerReasonable Authority Figure voiced by Steve Carell.
"Test of the Tested" once you realize how Real Life standardized tests can affect kids quite similarly and have lately come under the same kind of fire the S.A.T.T.Y.9 did in the episode for their pressure on kids for a single test.
Orlando Brown's whole role as Fillmore becomes this when considering the criminal activity and arrests he was later involved in.
In "Ingrid Third, Public Enemy #1", Fillmore comments that Wayne's school has one of the best safety patrols in the country. Come "South of Friendship, North of Honor"... Good lord, what happened between those two episodes?
That same episode also features Ingrid being disturbed by unicorns. Ingrid is played by Tara Strong. Do the math.
In "The Shreds Fell Like Snowflakes", O'Farrel has done a sketch of a suspect. The crew's reaction?
Tehama: Ok, what the heck is that? Filmore: Uh, no offence, Danny, but that kinda looks like Tiger Woods on a very bad morning. Ingrid: Oh yeah! And that's his elbow. (Leans in to look closer) At least I hope that's his elbow.
Stingray's audio-enhanced voice from "Two Wheels, Full Throttle, No Breaks" sounds a lot like Bane's.
When the show first aired "The Currency of Doubt", egg shaped cheese wasn’t a thing in England or anywhere else for that matter. A U.K. based supermarket has since changed that
* Wendie Malick here voices Principal S. Folsom. Years later she went on to voice Eda in The Owl House who herself hates school.
Ho Yay: It's not uncommon for fans to read Frank's bitterness towards Vallejo in combination with his protectiveness when he realizes the culprit of the episode as someone who felt betrayed by a lover yet retained their protective streak, with said streak flaring into full life when a true threat arose.
"To Mar a Stall": Randall Julian was a renowned Art champion until he started placing lower than first in competitions and then decided to become the tagger "Flava Sava" as a result of his disillusionment. Tagging almost every bathroom in X Middle School except the one in the Teachers' Lounge, Julian is caught by Cornelius Fillmore and becomes known instead as "Randall the Vandal". Serving indefinite detention for the rest of middle school, Julian is not allowed writing materials because on one occasion he vandalized the room in an extreme manner. When offered a reduced sentence, Julian gives Fillmore and Ingrid Third info on a new tagger named "Stainless" and when he eventually finds out who "Stainless" is, Julian leaves them their photo before he escapes and vandalizes the room yet again. He's only stopped from following through with his original plan when Julian realizes he can't destroy his previous good legacy.
"Test of the Tested": Elliot Funston is the performer of the mascot Lobstee the Lobster who uses the costume to steal the reviled SATTY-9 standardized tests after they’ve been completed. He does so to impress Enid Quintara who’s a very vocal protester of the test and has been secretly leaving her flowers often before that. To avoid suspicion, Elliot stages a scene that makes it look like he was mugged for the costume and plays up his goofy demeanour in order to divert attention too. When discovered, he impedes, tricks and outruns both Fillmore and Ingrid and nearly escapes in the process. Even after Elliot's caught and is facing huge karma for what he's done though, he's ultimately won Enid's admiration.
Natasha is a ballroom dancer whose partnership with Larry Wolfe ends after he drops her and hurts her leg, with Natasha retaining a psychosomatic limp. Natasha trains two other dancers, Toby and Tina, to win the trophy she and Larry won't compete for, only to view them as unbeatable rivals after she and Larry reconcile and her limp heals, causing them to try for the trophy after all. Natasha robs Toby and Tina and hides her reconciliation with Larry to make it appear that she has no possible motive and that Toby is the culprit, out to pay his gambling debts. She succeeds in breaking the dancers up and interferes with the ensuing investigation in an acrobatic way that would have further removed her from suspicion if not for Fillmore learning through other means that her limp was psychosomatic. After being exposed, she nearly escapes with the stolen loot as a Consolation Prize before her capture. A superb athlete and actress who is Nice to the Waiter offscreen, Natasha only fails to remain undercover until after the contest due to a series of lucky discoveries on the detectives' part.
Paulie is a shady character and collector of smoit tickets that come with candy bar wrappers and can be redeemed for prizes. He demonstrates a suspicious, knowledgable, and guardedly affable demeanor when interviewed over the theft of Toby's smoit stash. He gives the heroes useful information for their investigation while advising them not to trust anyone around smoits and secretly planning to follow them and steal the smoits himself once the heroes recover them. Paulie suceeds in getting his smoits, only to lose them to their original owner moments later. He shows disappointment over the loss of his fortune, but is largely accepting of this outcome. Alone among the show's villains, Paulie has a simple yet foolproof plan to escape the safety patrol after publicly revealing his criminal nature: his family is about to move across the country, so if he does get the smoits, he will depart from the safety patrol's jurisdiction before they can do anything to punish him or seek the return of the smoits.
"Play on Maestro, Play on'': Arthur Stanley is an expert gamer who designs special Rube Goldberg-type devices in order to commit thefts and uses the first two to steal a black wig and then a supply of bubble gum from a stand, leaving clues as he goes for the thrill of it. Arthur then sets off a third set of things to shut down the lights at the Ultrabox expo and nearly succeeds in stealing the Ultrabox game console while using his stolen items as a disguise. Caught, but still wanting to game, Arthur breaks out of Detention and sets off another set of devices at the expo and successfully steals the Ultrabox while making it look like a copycat. Arthur is asked to consult on the case and misdirects Fillmore and Ingrid, eventually trapping them in a net with another device when they follow his clues once again. He then willingly surrenders when Fillmore convinces him he's too obsessed.
Memetic Mutation: "And one last thing, baby. That chicken was dry. Real dry."
Parody Displacement: One of the reasons the show was cancelled — the execs at Disney believed that kids weren't getting what the show was set up like (1970s cop shows, particularly anything produced by Quinn Martin).
Writer/producer Eddie Guzelian would later go on to produce other shows for Disney, namely American Dragon: Jake Long and Power Rangers RPM (although he was fired from the latter halfway through when Disney gave up the rights to the franchise).
Rooting for the Empire: About half of the villains have sympathetic (or at least understandable) motives and engaging personalities and face serious punishments if they are caught (as best shown in "Next Stop Armageddon" and "Field Trip of the Just"), which can sometimes make it tempting to root for the Safety Patrol to fail their investigation.
In the episode "A Dark Score Evened", concerning a group of vigilantes targeting bullies, the head of the fashion department, Fiona, was given her "I'm a jerk" characterization by tearing up her assistant, Becca’s, fashion design and yelling at her. Here's the thing: while she could've been nicer about it, that design really WAS an abomination. Pay attention: the outfit was Capri pants and a halter top... FOR MEN. Becca was completely insane for thinking that was a good idea.
Similarly, Folsom was right to call out Stella’s protests for being too disruptive, especially when her protest (that time) was demanding the entire cafeteria go vegetarian at a public middle school. Folsom also agreed that while Stella had a right to free speech, she did not have the right when it disrupted the rest of the school (Stella was yelling very loudly and marching in a crowded hallway).
"The Unseen Reflection" had one of the aforementioned fangirls calling out an apathetic author for not even trying to deliver a quality story in regards to her latest book, which was awful both in terms of the plot and the grammar, and the author herself stated she wrote the entire thing on a plane trip to Milan and that she felt the girls were "taking it too seriously". The girls then point out that she should have more respect for her fans.
In "To Mar a Stall" Robin points out that if Folsom had just listened to her and ordered stainless steel, this tagging wouldn't even be possible. It's undermined when we find out she's the tagger in the first place.
When it's pointed out to Horace by the Bully Payback Squad that being a geek in no way stops him from being a bully, since he still used his authority over others to make them feel small... which they are called out on for doing the exact same thing a second later.
Anza and Tehama is also picked up speed... much slower.
Fillmore and Penny, for an episode.
Possibly Wayne Liggett and his old partner, Emily Kinsey from his middle school in Tennessee. Watch Wayne's reactions when he's talking about Emily or staring at her empty desk.
For a No Hugging, No Kissing series there were quite a lot of cases involving young couples.
B.A.G.A.S.T (Boys And Girls Against Scooter Theft) in "Two Wheels, Full Throttle, No Breaks" have some Butt-Monkey moments and were already meant as the Hero Antagonist of the episode, but it was unknown if any of them actually knew their leader, Derek Minna was Running Both Sides as Stingray so he could have them apprehend the metal shop kids to avoid paying up for the stolen scooters, use the publicity to run as student council president, where he would at least have them replace the safety patrol. An interesting thing to note is that none of them even help Derek escape from Fillmore and Ingrid in the climax.
The Vampirita novelist in "The Unseen Reflection" clearly doesn't give a shit about her book series or her fans, and only goes along with the contest because of her contract. However, the episode never clarifies if the author was always like this, or if the constant demand for new material eventually burned her out to the point she only finished her latest book while on a plane to Milan and apparently did not care that she was tanking the main character's motivation to make her date her arch enemy. While she didn't have the right to call Terri "a nutso fan" since Terri explicitly never said anything bad about her, just the book, the lack of focus on the author's motivation can make Tori's calling out seem a bit entitled.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Both Everett and Lorraine in "Nappers Never Sleep". Everett's obsessive emotional attachment to his virtual pet, at the cost of relationships with real people, does not paint him in an endearing light, and Lorraine abandoned her best friend in favor of getting close to a boy she had a crush on, whose virtual pet she proceeds to steal. And yet it's Lorraine's aforementioned best friend who is supposed to be the true villain of the episode.
Jamie in "Red Robins Don't Fly" and "This Savior a Snitch"...Or so he seems...
Wayne in the episode where Fillmore visits his new school. He's pretty much broken by the time he and Fillmore reunite and was ready to give up entirely after he got kicked off of the force. Only Fillmore getting into real trouble snapped him out of it. Also, Emily Kinsey is an off-camera version since we don't know what the rest of the Safety Patrol did to her, but it was bad enough to make her transfer out and devastate Wayne.
, of course. The music is composed by Walter Murphy, the musical composer for Seth MacFarlane's shows. This is no surprise.