YMMV / Regular Show

A-E

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • In "Skips Strikes":
    Benson: Who would've thought that a mandatory team building activity would get us to the championship?
    Mordecai: Thanks to my power hook!
    Rigby: No way! Thanks to my atomic fireball!
    Benson: And because of my *chuckles* backup balls!
  • In "Cruisin"
    "Carmenita's special parts should only be manipulated by a professional."
• Accidental Aesop: "Think Positive" gives the aesop of "It's OK to let it all out, anger is a positive as much as negative emotion". However, some people saw the equally valid aesop "You need to restrain your anger to avoid hurting people physically". But the actual episode didn't have a moral at all, according to Word of Saint Paul.
• Adorkable: Pops. His childlike demeanor, Antiquated Linguistics and kind personality make him very endearing.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Some of the earlier episodes can be interpreted as having the message "Do not ever, ever put an iota of faith in Rigby." Of course, this is less so in later seasons due to his Character Development.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In "House Rules" Mordecai learns that Rigby may die young or just leave Mordecai. Have episodes like "Think Positive", "Best Burgers in the World" and "Replaced" made him more lazy in order to hang out more with Rigby?
  • "Lift With Your Back" and "Eileen Flat Screen" both imply that Rigby is more mature than the show usually gives him credit for; it's just that we normally see him through Mordecai's perspective, as his idiot friend. It's also just showing his Brilliant, but Lazy tendencies, and that Rigby could probably improve so much about his life if he ever gave a real damn about anything.
    • Was Mordecai, at least on some level, sticking by Rigby because at least until later on in the show, Rigby made him look better by comparison? Both Mordecai and Rigby were lazy and irresponsible man children, who never finished school and wound up working dead end jobs at the local park, that they can barely even hold down. But at the same time, few would argue that Rigby wasn't the worst of the two for much of the series. And Mordecai does seem rather reluctant to give Rigby credit when he actually was being a good worker and friend in "Lift with Your Back" and when Rigby does make genuine strides in bettering himself late into the series, Mordecai is too wrapped up in his own personal issues to be happy for him. Some may even think he's envious that his "loser" friends actually improving his life.
  • The events of "Rigby Goes to the Prom" has had fans questioning just how much of Rigby's attitude and personality throughout the show is his own fault or if this behavior is just the natural result developed from years of his dad's poor treatment of him as The Unfavorite combined with the years of being overshadowed by his younger brother.
  • Is Benson just a Mean Boss with a Hair-Trigger Temper (albeit with a heart of gold underneath), or is he a friendly enough Reasonable Authority Figure who has just been pushed to his wits end by Mordecai and Rigby's antics. While he can be harsh and he does have a few legitimate Kick the Dog moments throughout the series, often his frustration with the two is understandable given what they put him through and their general laziness, and it's shown that he is willing to treat his employees when they actually do their work. Not to mention, despite threatening to fire the main duo enough for "Or you're fired!" to be considered his Character Catchphrase, he rarely attempts to act on it, even when they give him more than enough reason to.
    • Why does Benson occasionally entrust Mordecai and Rigby with important tasks, despite knowing very well what screwups they are, to the point where other times he's reluctant to give them a chance? Is it just him occasionally grabbing the Idiot Ball, or is there a part of him that sincerely thinks they can do better and wants to give them the opportunity to show it?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • In the episode of the same name, Tants◊ are a bizarre gift Pops gives to Mordecai and Rigby, pants that double as a table. Turns out, someone had actually already made a similar product in real life called Pic Nic Pants...and they look even more ridiculous than Tants.
  • In "Every Meat Burritos", when listing some of the meat in the burrito during the commercial, while there are some familiar names, the names of the animals that sound made-up are in fact real animals, except "long pig" which is human flesh:
    Gila monster, pigeon, marmot, dik-dik, baboon, bushpig, long pig, aardwolf, manatee, bat-eared fox, red bat, spotted bat, dog-faced bat, opossum, emu, hairy long-nosed armadillo, big hairy armadillo, screaming hairy armadillo, colocolo, spectacled bear, lowland tapir, red deer, shy albatross, komondor dog, hagfish, sonoran sidewinder, snorkel viper, oak-leaf rattler, bacon, narwhal, kookaburra, aha ha, blobfish, bulldog stargazer, tufted titmouse, screaming cowbird, green jay, lady amhersts pheasant, polish chicken, quetzal, Surinam toad, tomato frog, turtle frog, Christmas tree worm, vampire squid, coelacanth, mugger crocodile, aya-aye, dumbo octopus, and platypus.
• Angst? What Angst?: In the finale, Mordecai asks Rigby if he felt any remorse of the people that were killed, with Rigby stating that they're probably fine. Granted, we do later find out that the people Anti-Pops killed came back after he died, and Chance Sureshot reveals that his clone was the one who was killed, but there's other characters they met that were killed in the past, even before they went into space.
• Anti-Climax Boss: In "The Night Owl", The Night Owl is defeated fairly quickly in his owl mech.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The development of Mordecai and Margaret's relationship was considered agonizingly slow. After four seasons of Mordecai making minimal effort to take their relationship beyond friendship, Margaret finally gives him a kiss when he sees her off at the airport. However, the next episode involving them says that Mordecai is still considered to be in the "friend zone". At the end, they share a mutual kiss, and the next episode has Margaret introducing him to the rest of her family. But the plot of "Steak Me Amadeus" revolves around Mordecai asking Margaret to be his girlfriend and getting heartbroken when Margaret shoots him down due to getting accepted into her dream college out of town. Given everything that had happened prior, it was pretty easy to think that she already was.
  • The Mordecai-Margaret-CJ love triangle is even worse:
    • It started with CJ becoming upset over Mordecai kissing Margaret on "Merry Christmas, Mordecai".
    • The following episode, "Sad Sax," has Mordecai try to reconcile with CJ, but she either ignores his attempts or the two times she started coming around to him. Margaret ends up calling him, or she sees the two of them talking, and both times she assumes the worst and storms off. They do reconcile after Mordecai assures her that, while he still cares a lot about Margaret, she’s the only person he wants to be with. 
    • CJ's trust issues, unfortunately, continue when she freaks out seeing Mordecai and Margaret together in the Chopper 5 in "1000th Chopper Flight Party" and again assumes the worst, this time nearly getting the two of them and Margaret’s parents killed, although she is remorseful when she finds out Margaret has a boyfriend.
    • In "Not Great Double Date," Margaret ends up revealing she lied because she was sick of things being awkward around her own friends and that she still has feelings for Mordecai.
    • It ends in "Dumped at the Altar," with Mordecai hijacking Muscle Man's wedding reception to make a speech on how he doesn’t know if he has a soulmate, and before he seemingly is about to presumably dump CJ, she cuts him off again, upset at Mordecai thinking he doesn’t have a soulmate and that he didn’t point in her direction when asking the audience if one of them is his soulmate, and the two deciding to break up.
    • This is continued on "Dumptown, USA," with Mordecai running away to be alone with his grief, Rigby rescuing him, and Rigby telling Mordecai that he should forget about dating and enjoy the single life.
    • In "Just Friends," Mordecai and Margaret admit that, while they do like each other, the two of them are content to just be friends and not rush into a relationship.
    • It finally ended with the series finale, with Mordecai getting together with neither Margaret nor CJ and marrying a bat girl he met during his time as a famous artist. However, according to the Word of God, Mordecai still has a platonic friendship with Margaret, while his friendship and romantic relationship with CJ are pretty much done.
• Archive Panic: 8 seasons, 261 episodes, a collection of minisodes, and a movie.
• Ass Pull:
  • This pretty much happens Once per Episode. From "Fortune Cookie", for example: "I just lost the park to the guy in the fanny pack." "He's a WARLOCK!"
  • It's obvious they weren't planning on Thomas turning out to be a Russian spy when he first appeared, as the retconning in the flashbacks seems rather forced and it's used more or less as an excuse to write Thomas out of the show. However, some of the scenes that don't feel like forced foreshadowing do explain a lot about Thomas and why he didn't seem to be featured a lot after being introduced in "Exit 9B."
  • In the finale, Sureshot reveals that he didn't really die, his clone did. We then pan over to a case of multiple clones of Sureshot that have apparently been in the back of his ship this whole time.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Many fans believe that the series entered one of these in Season 5 when writers began to give more focus to a Love Triangle between Mordecai, Margaret, and CJ that took up large portions of Seasons 5 and 6. Things were toned down after the TV movie, and as of Season 7 the show got back on track with the love triangle subplot being minimized if not completely absent.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Benson is the biggest one. Either he's a strict boss who has to put up with Mordecai and Rigby's antics and laziness, yet still cares for them and only wishes to teach them the meaning of being people that like to do their job, or he's an insufferable Jerkass who threatens to fire them for the stupidest reasons. Or he's both.
  • Muscle Man is either a hilarious character or an Overused Running Gag with an annoying voice. Later seasons picked up on the latter point and managed to bring it down a few pegs, though it still tends to zig-zag from episode to episode.
  • Even Mordecai and Rigby themselves tend to fall under this; either they're Brilliant, but Lazy characters who are treated poorly by Benson, or they're annoyingly lazy jerks who get away with their antics at least 90% of the time.
    • For Rigby in particular, he's either a funny Jerk with a Heart of Gold or an obnoxious douchebag that Mordecai should just get rid of.
    • In Mordecai's case, he is either a relatable Only Sane Man who makes believable mistakes for someone his age or he is Unintentionally Unsympathetic due to how terribly he deals with his love life, whether with Margaret or CJ. A third group agrees he's unbearable when it comes to his love life but argue he's a likable character outside of that.
  • Margaret is either a likable, well written supporting character with good romantic chemistry with Mordecai or an annoying, bland plot device for Mordecai. After Season 5, this sentiment managed to die down a bit, only to come back on later seasons, especially once the love triangle between her, Mordecai, and CJ started, as some blame her for ruining their relationship and admitting later she still had feelings for Mordecai, when she broke up with and didn’t even keep in touch with him after she left nor considered having a long distance relationship.
  • CJ is also considerably divisive, depending on one's stance in the love triangle. Many prefer her as Mordecai's love interest over Margaret and an overall character due to her laid back, witty, and tomboyish personality, and having a lot in common with Mordecai (the Seer of the Universe even admitted she preferred CJ), although some dislike her for her anger and trust issues with Margaret and her overreacting in "Sad Sax" and "1000th Chopper Flight Party" from seeing her and Mordecai together and immediately assuming the worst, in the latter episode she even went full hurricane again and almost killed Mordecai, Margaret, and Margaret's parents, which some defend by the fact Mordecai has previously technically (unintentionally) cheated on her twice with Margaret, so she has some right to be worried/untrusting, and ultimately view her as the victim of the love triangle and feel sorry for how badly Mordecai treated her.
  • Thomas, the new employee is either an okay addition to the cast or he's The Generic Guy with no mention whatsoever how he got the job or why the park needs an intern (though in "Exit 9B," it is implied that he is there for college credit). The reveal in "The Real Thomas" that he's not who he claims to be further intensified this, with some liking the new direction for his character while others disliked how it came out of nowhere and believe he was much more interested when he was The Everyman.
  • Stef acts as one purely for her role in being Mordecai's ultimate love interest despite only being introduced in the last episode and having no speaking lines. Some fans were upset that Mordecai didn’t end up with either Margaret or CJ, considering the fact an entire arc and love triangle was dedicated to both of his relationships with them. Others are fine that everyone moved on with their lives, as it shows the audience it’s realistic to not end up with some of the first people you date, and especially because of Mordecai's actions during the love triangle, with even the writers agreeing with the former sentiment and saying he was "too wishy washy" with Margaret and CJ and they’re doing great in the future.
  • Finally, Pops is either cute due to his naive personality, or annoying for the same reason.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Mordecai straight up punching Benson in the face in "Eggscellent" is very satisfying to his haters, especially since he just made a very insensitive remark towards a comatose Rigby.
    • Five seasons later, Rigby punches Benson in "One Space Day at a Time" after the latter blames him for the Park Dome getting launched into space and then gets pushed by him in frustration. Opinions on both characters aside, it can be seen as satisfying for Rigby to dole out some measure of retribution after being yelled at for so long.^note Though not without reason considering his past actions.
    • Conversely, there's Benson snapping and giving Mordecai and Rigby the yelling of a lifetime in "Think Positive".
  • The Baby Ducks' mother scolding Benson at the end of "A Bunch of Full Grown Geese" can be seen both awesome and satisfying for the times he's been an Ungrateful Bastard.
  • Anyone who's ever been humiliated on a game show will feel glad to see Rigby beat Bert Coleman, an obnoxious game show host, at his own game.
  • In "White Elephant Gift Exchange", Muscle Man finally getting comeuppance for all the terrible pranks he's played over the years is as hilarious as it is satisfying.
  • For those who do not support Mordecai beating up on the much smaller and weaker Rigby, Rigby punching him back and it actually hurting in "1000th Chopper Flight Party" is this.
    • Alternatively, Rigby finally beating Mordecai at Punchies in "Mordeby and Rigbecai" using the latter's own arms (long story)^note The duo were screwing around with a teleporter and found themselves switching body parts, and thus had to switch back before it was permanent. However, their first re-entry caused their mutations to worsen — Mordecai shrunk to Rigby's size with his arms, Rigby grew to Mordecai's size with his arms., giving him a A Taste Of His Own Medicine after eight seasons.
  • The montage of the main characters finally achieving happiness might make you feel good.
• Character Perception Evolution:
  • Mordecai was originally well-liked by fans for being the Only Sane Man within the park, and far less prone to making dumb decisions compared to Rigby. Over time however, many people began to notice flaws with Mordecai that made him seem worse over time, particularly his desperation for being with Margaret and/or CJ despite his flagrant irresponsibility and inability to go steady with anyone, and his self-pitying attitude whenever he screws up his own chances. It's not helped by the fact that he tends to sideline Rigby in favor of trying to get with Margaret or CJ, making him come across as Unintentionally Unsympathetic at times. These factors, along with Mordecai's static character development in contrast to the other main characters, made him a much more polarizing character, with many fans viewing him as a Memetic Loser who cares more about trying to get a girlfriend than he does trying to help his friends.
  • Benson was originally disliked by many viewers during the show's heyday due to his frequent Mean Boss attitude towards the main protagonists, with his Disproportionate Retribution towards their frequent screwups making him particularly irritating. As time passed and said viewers got older though, they began to notice that Benson was actually more of a Reasonable Authority Figure whose irate behavior towards Mordecai and Rigby was actually quite justified due to their lazy, self-indulgent behavior, in contrast to how he and the other park employees work their asses off to get their jobs done. Furthermore, Benson's more positive traits such as his love of music and his treatment of the other park workers made people realize that Benson wasn't as bad as they thought.
  • Muscle Man was also detested by many fans, due to his tendency to make Toilet Humour jokes and for being a very gross and overweight person that tended to antagonize other characters for mean-spirited fun. Later on though, many people began to notice how incredibly loyal and competent Muscle Man actually is to his friends and co-workers, and how most of his pranks were relatively harmless and pretty creative overall. His Fun Personified behavior also got some legitimate laughs out of people, making Muscle Man a more rounded-out character that people tend to enjoy now.
• Common Knowledge: Mordecai killed Rigby by pushing him off a microwave, solely because Rigby tried to make him jealous of his relationship with Margaret. In actuality, Rigby attempts to push Mordecai off the microwave first in the scene in question, making his reaction a little more understandable than Love Makes You Crazy.
• Contested Sequel: Season 3 has just as many fans as it does detractors. While the season is host to some of the most beloved episodes of the show, including "Stick Hockey", "Terror Tales of the Park", "Weekend at Benson's", "Eggscellent", and "Busted Cart", there are also just as many episodes that fans take umbrage with, including "Cruisin'", "The Best Burger in the World", "Replaced", "Trash Boat", and "Muscle Mentor". The fact that the show's Romantic Plot Tumor got its roots planted in Season 3 with "Yes Dude Yes" only adds to how overall contested the season is amongst the fanbase, with people struggling to agree on whether it's overall good or bad.
• Crossover Ship: Mordecai and Twilight Sparkle, complete with fan club.
• Delusion Conclusion:
  • Since J.G. Quintel created and voiced the main character in both Regular Show (as Mordecai) and Close Enough (as Josh), a common joke is that Regular Show was just a long drug trip Josh had in which he imagined himself as a blue jay.
  • Back in the show's early days, it was a common joke that entire show was just Mordecai and Benson's drug trip, and that they were the two clerks in 2 in the AM PM.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • There exists a number of fans who have interpreted Benson as being an autistic person who's a bit overly reactionary. Signs that these fans have picked up on include him being unable to stand up for himself when he's not in a position of power, being somewhat distracted by minor discrepancies, having a constant need for validation, getting easily sidetracked when he's not given something major to do, having extremely specific talents that he's gifted at, and having a hard time showing empathy for others without having to explain it upfront.
  • During the episode "The Button", Benson seems to have explicit signs of PTSD from the previous dome experiment beforehand where he developed trust issues towards everyone at the Park and including Skips, who is his most trustworthy friend/employee and subjected himself into isolation. Especially after finding out Maellard lied to him and threatened Benson to press the button, but being reminded of his trauma from his trust issues beforehand with his employees which triggered his emotional break down when he was close to pushing the button.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • C.J. for Mordecai/Margaret.
  • Margaret herself was this for Mordecai/Rigby in the early seasons, now currently is this for Mordecai/CJ, as of "Merry Christmas Mordecai" and "Sad Sax".
• Draco in Leather Pants: Some fans paint Benson as a Woobie who constantly has to deal with Mordecai and Rigby's ineptitude, but there are times when Benson can be unreasonable (like making them re-mow the lawn because it was a centimetre too long in "Temp Check"), ungrateful (the many times where he explodes on them even after they save his life), blame them for things that he's at equal fault for, or even be a straight-up bully towards them ("Muscle Mentor", "Best Burger in the World", "Lunch Break").
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Eileen quickly became popular due to her adorable chemistry with Rigby, and playing a major role in his Character Development, as well as her nerdiness being seen as funny and endearing. She was so popular, even with the show's staff, that she became an Ascended Extra in the final season.
  • The baby ducks became quite popular over the course of their two appearances.
  • Techmo for his cool design and the one-and-only Steve Blum providing his voice.
  • Klorgbane only appeared in two episodes, but he's well-remembered for being a threatening Knight of Cerebus as well as killing the love of Skips' life.
  • Stef from the finale ^note The woman Mordecai met and later got married to. became popular after her name was revealed.

F-R

• Fandom Rivalry:
  • They have an intense one with Teen Titans Go!, not unlike several other shows aired on Cartoon Network. This is mainly due to the fact that this show rarely got reruns, while TTG reruns played ad nauseam. Not helped by the fact that Cartoon Network aired a TTG marathon to celebrate the end of RS.
  • A one-sided rivalry with the Steven Universe fandom. There is a certain vocal minority of Regular Show fans who make memes for the express purpose of punching down on SU while praising RS. However, SU fans don't hold any ill will towards Regular Show.
• Fanon Discontinuity: It's safe to say that some fans (particularly the Thomas fans) just prefer to ignore "The Real Thomas" episode, where it was revealed all this time, that he was a Russian spy and then went on the run.
• Fountain of Memes: Muscle Man. Fans love to make memes of his "My mom!" jokes while also mimicking his incoherent screams and just his voice in general.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Total Drama due to both shows having similar animation styles, humor and characters.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The Dudetime Cologne attracts unicorns. In medieval times, it was believed that a virgin's purity would attract unicorns. Therefore, guys who use Dudetime are virgins (and so is Mordecai).
  • The baby ducks in "A Bunch of Baby Ducks" caught onto Rigby's behavior very quickly and began imitating him as fast as they clung to him. Real-life ducks do imprint on the first animal they see, but it's a bit stretched in this case, given that the ducklings weren't freshly hatched.
  • The series excels in satire about retro-gaming. A notable example is a whole parody of The Wizard ending in a jab on the PowerGlove, just to prove the writers know their source material.
  • In "The Christmas Special", Mordecai and Rigby don't believe that an injured Santa Claus is who he says he is because, aside from his white hair and beard, he doesn't really resemble classic Santa. Santa says that "all that other stuff is made up by advertising companies," and he's right—the typical modern image of Santa Claus really was invented by modern (in relative terms) corporations, specifically attributed to Coca-Cola, hence why Santa wears the red and white of that company's flagship soda.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Muscle Man, while a Base-Breaking Character in the show's home country, is a fan-favorite and an even greater Fountain of Memes in Spanish-speaking countries.
• Growing the Beard: Season two improved on season one by using improved and consistent writing, in addition to better animation.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Has its own page.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • In "Muscle Woman", Mordecai and Rigby are seen to have a lot of trouble at keeping up with Muscle Man's park chores, with Mordecai citing he didn't know Muscle Man was responsible for so much stuff. Come one season later in "Fists of Justice", and they have to do Skips' jobs, which are implied to be even more in quantity and more tiring compared to Muscle Man; however, neither of the two take as long, nor they complain while doing so. While both Mordecai and Rigby are still slackers, it's happy to see them growing out of it to help their friend by doing their labor.
  • In the finale, the park workers erect a statue of Mr. Maellard in his honor, near that of his son's statue. Considering his voice actor, David Ogden Stiers, passed away over a year later, this is a very fitting send off to him.
• He Really Can Act: Sam Marin was always great as Benson, but it's moments like Benson's brutal outrage at Mordecai and Rigby in "Think Positive" and also his rather saddening outburst about losing his job in "Busted Cart" that really make you love him as Benson.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The skinned Muscle Man in the first "Terror Tales of the Park"◊ looks exactly like the Colossal Titan on Attack on Titan.
  • The evil animatronic band from "Fuzzy Dice" bear similarities to the evil animatronic characters in the video game Five Nights at Freddy's, which was released two years after "Fuzzy Dice" originally aired.
  • Billy Mitchell suing over the character of GBF, who shared his likeness (because he was portrayed as a cheater), becomes this when he was busted for cheating in 2018. (For extra bonus points, the linked article uses a screenshot of GBF’s debut.)
  • "Dumptown, USA" has Rigby (a raccoon) going to a faraway place to break his best friend out of a deep depression, which is reflected in his disheveled appearance, looking similar to The Dude. Come Avengers: Endgame, an important part of the story has Rocket Raccoon going to New Asgard to break Thor out of his depression- and he too is dressed like The Dude! This has led to jokes about the moment of the episode being a "spoiler without context" of the Marvel film.
  • In "Death Punchies" Mordecai offhandedly mentions a butt transplant while mocking Rigby's busted ass cheek. Three years later, a similar show would premiere and have the first episode revolve around just that.
  • "I've always wanted to date a girl named 'The Power'."
  • The season 1 episode “Grilled Cheese Deluxe” has Mordecai and Rigby lie about being astronauts. Cut to season 8, where the park crew gets launched into space, essentially turning the two into astronauts.
• I Knew It!: Many fans had already guessed that Margaret was lying about having a boyfriend in "1000th Chopper Flight Party", well before "Not Great Double Date" debuted and confirmed it.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Benson really had a moment of this in "Busted Cart" when he lets Mordecai and Rigby really have it when they once again screw up — and it's not the usual "Do this or you're fired!" order. It's a sincerely frustrated rant about how Mordecai and Rigby don't take anything seriously and that it tears him up inside.
  • Rigby. He's an annoying jerk, but he's not a bad guy by any means, and when something really bad happens to him, you can't help but really feel for him. If one had any doubts, The Movie cements it entirely. Mordecai has quite literally been Rigby's only friend his entire life, to the point where he's absolutely terrified of the idea of them not going to college together. Add this to the fact that Rigby is constantly being told that he's too stupid and lazy for his own good (he didn't get into a supposedly all-accepting college because even they thought he was too stupid) and he's really just The Woobie.
  • Maellard was a very callous Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the majority of his appearances, with a couple Pet the Dog moments towards Benson and Pops here and there. But the finale pushed him into straight-up woobie territory, after he finds out that his son Pops has died, and he begins to cry.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Thomas is a seemingly average intern revealed to be a skilled Russian spy named Nikolai. Ingratiating himself into the gang's favor by helping fight off a hostile takeover by an army of past foes, Nikolai thwarts any attempt to sabotage his cover while playing the part of an unassuming Nice Guy, all the while covertly setting up machinery to transport the entire park landmass to Russia. Eventually subduing the entire crew, Nikolai discovers his Russian masters' true warmongering intentions and betrays them for his new friends, fighting off fellow spy Natalia and returning the Park to America, before going into hiding as a fugitive traitor.
  • "Temp Check": Doug "The Doppelganger" Shablowski is a shapeshifting Con Artist known for stealing the identities of people all across the country. Hired as a temp by Rigby, Doug wins over the other workers at the park with a friendly, hardworking attitude. While doing Rigby's work for him, Doug slowly mimics Rigby's appearance right in front of the others' eyes, eventually tricking the other workers into thinking he is Rigby and taking his paycheck for himself. When confronted, Doug proves to be an expert in mimicking Rigby when put through a series of tests to determine who's the imposter. After being exposed and arrested, Doug accepts defeat with dignity, and gives Rigby advice about being grateful for what he has.
  • "Benson's Pig": Apple Sauce appears as a cute and friendly pig Benson had adopted, only to be revealed to be something much more devious. Real name Leroy, Apple Sauce was the brains of a criminal duo, where he and his best friend, Harry Roughouser, successfully robbed banks before the two split up when Apple Sauce wanted to retire. When Harry got arrested, Apple Sauce decided to break him out, using his cutesy appearance to be Beneath Suspicion. Getting himself arrested he successfully breaks Harry out of prison and gets Mordecai and Rigby to hide them in Benson's apartment, Apple Sauce parts ways with Harry amicably as he refuses to go back to crime, and manages to avoid getting arrested as he lives a new life with Benson.
• Memetic Loser: Following the end of the series, Mordecai's relationship issues with both CJ and especially Margaret became the source of mockery with a lot of fans. The fact that this arc for Mordecai corresponded around the same time Rigby was finally having his long-awaited character development had the unfortunate side-effect of making Mordecai come off looking worse by comparison. As detailed in this show's Memetic Mutation page, Mordecai would later be coined as a "simp" by fans years after the end of the show.
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Mis-blamed: Cartoon Network got a slew of hate (especially from theorist Youtubers) when Regular Show was announced to be ending by its eight season, coming off as them cancelling the show due to their focus on the PPG 2016 Reboot and Teen Titans Go! (which in itself is a controversial topic). This is not the case, as J.G. Quintel always intended for the series to have a finite story that he would end on his own terms, similar to what Alex Hirsch did.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • What Night Owl did in his debut simply so he could be famous forever was harsh.
  • The reveal that the Network CEO of "That's My Television" trapped RGB2 in his suit for years, enslaving a man and stealing his life just to make more money might qualify him as the most deplorable villain on the whole series.
  • Klorgbane crossed it when he destroyed Skips' high school prom, knocked out the principal, and got Mona killed in the crossfire just so he could fight Skips. He also killed Archibald in present time.
  • Anti-Pops crosses it when he begins erasing reality, starting with murdering Muscle Man and High Five Ghost just to piss off Pops.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Anytime Mordecai, Rigby or anyone else goes "OOOOHHHHH!!!" can put a smile on anyone's face.
• Narm Charm: The entire show runs on this. It's a World of Ham populated by odd, silly characters, to a soundtrack of deliberately cheesy 80's synth-pop. That doesn't make it any less charming.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Rigby's attitude towards Mordecai in "It's Time", "Do Me a Solid", and "Wall Buddy", even if his future Character Development is taken into account.
  • Similarly, Benson's harassment towards the duo in episodes such as "Best Burgers in the World" and "Lunch Break", with the former having him laugh at M&R.
  • By far the most egregious case has to be Mordecai killing Rigby in "It's Time". Fans tend to hold Mordecai to this action even to present day, usually glossing over the fact that not only was it an accident and not only did Mordecai immediately regret his actions, but he actively prevented such an occurrence from happening again in "Diary", on top of Skips killing Rigby in "Over the Top" to similar regret as Mordecai.
    • However, the one episode that is widely agreed to be Mordecai's worst moment since "It's Time" is the Season 6 finale "Dumped at the Altar". While opinions on his romance arc being the prominent focus in later seasons have been divisive, the very moment where he hijacks Muscle Man and Starla's wedding to make an incredibly awkward speech about himself and his love life, and attempting to dump CJ in front of everyone in attendance, have unanimously soured fans on his character. He's even been called out on it in-universe by his own friends.
• Nightmare Retardant: The Wham Shot of Muscle Man having been skinned in "Terror Tales of the Park" is supposed to be Nightmare Fuel, but it's since become desensitized due to the memes joking that it just makes him look like the Colossal Titan from Attack on Titan, the anime having come out a couple of years after the episode was released.
• Periphery Demographic: This show has lots of adult fans.
• Popular with Furries: Considering the main cast include an anthropomorphic raccoon and blue jay, the series inevitably gained a fair amount of furry fans.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Opinions on "Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land" vary. Some find the gameplay great, with a fun variation between the two characters as well as being an old-school side-scrolling platformer. Others find the game too short and not having enough to do with the show (for example, Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson are the only main characters to appear).
• Quirky Work: A certified Weird Humorous American Thing. The cast is an assortment of animals, humans (sometimes realistic, sometimes cartoonish like Muscle Man), mythical creatures, and inanimate objects. And the plots, no matter how Slice of Life they begin, will devolve into the surreal.
  • In-universe there's two Show Within a Show cases of Weird Japanese Thing, Planet Chaser Starlight Excellent and Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice, I Punch Your Face!
• Realism-Induced Horror: Regular Show is usually steeped in a lot of surreal conflicts. But the episode "That's My Television" tells the tale of RGB2, an actor bullied into a contract by corrupt executives that view him more as a cash cow and not a living being or his own person. His life is so terrible he actually begs Mordecai and Rigby to help him escape the studio. From the perspective of TV fans, it's terrifying to discover behind the scenes cruelty; especially from the entertainment industry which is DEFINITELY no stranger to this sort of abusive treatment. The reveal that RGB2 is a withered old man trapped in a costume, while surreal and outlandish, makes this all the more horrifying.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Seasons 6 and 7 have done this for Rigby, one of the more pronounced Base Breaking Characters of the show. Throughout the course of the season, he underwent a convincing case of Character Development, taking a level in kindness, and officially started a relationship with Eileen.
  • While Muscle Man continues to be a Base-Breaking Character, later seasons gave him a significant amount of character depth (such as exploring his family, high school years, and relationship with Starla) and toned down a lot of his more negative traits, winning over a lot of fans who initially detested him.
  • In her first appearance, Starla was not a well-liked character due to essentially being a grosser version of Muscle Man who's Not Good with Rejection. However, subsequent appearances of Starla showed that she Took a Level in Kindness and has a relatively healthy relationship with Muscle Man, causing most of her detractors to think of her better.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The general consensus of the Mordecai/CJ/Margaret romance arc in Season 6 is that it should've been much shorter. It didn't help that there were quite a few episodes ("I See Turtles", "1000th Chopper Flight Party", etc.) where the arc could've ended, only for the next episode to add more drama to stretch it out.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • CJ is a perfectly nice girl who has a lot in common with Mordecai and only gets angry when she either fears for Mordecai or has had her heart broken by him inadvertently. Unfortunately people tend to dislike her due to her fiery temper even if she did nothing to deserve what's been done to her/paint her as a controlling girlfriend with anger issues, when while she did overreact in some scenarios (including an instance where she nearly killed Margaret's parents) Mordecai did kiss his ex in front of her. It wasn't helped when Word of God years later after the show's end would confirm that CJ cut ties with everyone, putting it more as if she did that due to her anger towards Mordecai, when it’s more likely aside from their relationship ending badly everyone naturally moved on with their lives.
  • On the flip side of the shipping coin, Margaret gets demonized as a siren who dares threaten CJ and Mordecai's relationship by kissing him and later admitting she still had feelings for him when she didn’t even keep in touch with him after leaving for college, and due to fans claiming she played with Mordecai's emotions and in the earlier episodes constantly went on dates with other guys when it was obvious Mordecai was into her. This ignores the fact Mordecai kept being the Master of the Mixed Message around her (something she calls him out for) and it’s not her fault he couldn’t make a move when he had the chance, and while Mordecai kissing her in front of CJ wasn’t great and CJ has every right to be mad and untrusting, the two of them had unresolved issues that came flooding back after they reunited, making the situation more complicated, and Margaret tried her best to not make things awkward after the fact, which once again was caused by Mordecai and his wishy-washyness with the both of them.

S-W

• Seasonal Rot:
  • Seasons 4 and 6 are considered this, with the former using Muscle Man too much and generally repeating things, and the latter devoting itself to more dramatic episodes about Mordecai's love life that succumbed to Arc Fatigue.
  • Some fans would even extend this to season 8, which was where many accused the show of running out of steam. Said fans felt bringing the cast into space ultimately added little to the show, instead simply turning it into a cleaner Futurama or Rick and Morty. That said, the show's Grand Finale was met with widespread acclaim as a suitably epic and emotional send-off.
• Signature Scene:
  • Mordecai shoving Rigby off the microwave to his death in "It's Time", marking the first rather dark turn in the series.
  • Benson's tear-filled "The Reason You Suck" Speech he gives Mordecai and Rigby in the episode "Busted Cart" is often sighted as either the best moment of the show or when it truly gets good.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Can be considered as a cartoon made by either Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen or Evan Goldberg as the concept of the episodes are similar to their works such as Pineapple Express, This Is the End, Neighbors (2014) and The Interview, except this body of work is made for kids unlike the R-rated nature of the films. Plus, the show's stars Mordecai and Rigby looked like characters that can be played by Rogen and James Franco, who both have played the everyman buddy and amiable doofus much like Mordecai and Rigby in Pineapple Express and The Interview. Also, the character of Muscle Man can be considered an expy of comic actor Danny McBride (who appeared in Pineapple Express and This Is the End). It's even further helped that some of the actors who voice-acted on the show had actually worked with the aforementioned filmmakers ranging from Linda Cardellini, the voice of C.J., who appeared opposite Rogen in Apatow's Freaks and Geeks to Ed Begley, Jr., the voice of Mordecai's dad, who had acted in Pineapple Express to even David Koechner, the voice of Principal Dean, who acted opposite Rogen in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Drillbit Taylor, an episode of Freaks and Geeks and Paul and worked for Apatow on the former four projects, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.
• Squick:
  • "Muscle Woman" is FULL of this. Lampshaded by Rigby.
    Rigby: This was the most disturbing day of my life.
  • And then there's the time where Muscle Man spends half an episode flexing his moobs (man boobs).
  • "Last Meal" features Muscle Man and Starla's very intimate kissing. Even Death, who takes the souls of people, was disgusted by it.
  • Pretty much anytime Muscle Man and Starla kiss together, even In-Universe.
  • In "Karaoke Video", we see Muscle Man with a sack of gravy strapped to his stomach that he takes from through a straw. That's not really the nauseating part — the real gross factor comes in during the episode's big fight, where Muscle Man gets punched in the stomach, and streams of gravy sauce come out through his nostrils and mouth.
    • From the same episode, this line from Pops:
      Pops: I can feel the excitement in my bladder!
  • A great deal of "Brain Eraser" counts as this, especially the close-ups of Pops' hairy ass/legs, and Mordecai's overly-detailed descriptions of Pops' "junk mail."
  • From the episode "White Elephant Gift Exchange", some of Muscle Man's gifts qualify. Gloves made from his old underwear for Benson, and a bottle of liquified, black, 20-year-old expired ranch dressing for Pops. Near the end of the episode, one component of the prank gift given to Muscle Man was expired clam chowder, which splattered all over Muscle Man.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Mordecai in some of his dealings with Rigby is presented as this. Rigby has been an outright Jerkass to Mordecai just because he won't immediately indulge in Rigby's selfish whims such as in "Do Me a Solid" and "Wall Buddy", and even situations where Rigby should be sympathetic are ruined by being so petty and spiteful that his suffering is admittedly deserved. Yet in these situations, Mordecai has to wind up to apologizing to Rigby despite being Innocently Insensitive at worst. The same can be said of anytime when he tries to point Rigby's own flaws such as in "Lift With Your Back" where Mordecai sheepishly agrees with the other workers about Rigby's ability as a worker. Despite saying without any malice whatsoever, Rigby still treats it as a betrayal of the highest caliber.
  • Benson can be a meaner boss than necessary sometimes, but it's not like Mordecai and Rigby are employees of the month. They're constantly showing up late for work, they either ditch work or do it entirely incorrectly, and they trash the park consistently. It's not only putting their jobs at risk, it's also putting Benson in danger of being fired. But practically every episode treats him as an overreacting Bad Boss. One episode had Mordecai and Rigby try to water plants with soda, and instead of being reprimanded, Benson gets in trouble for yelling at them.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: They get the actual music surprisingly often, but still resort to these quite a lot as well.
  • In "Free Cake" of the theme from The Big O. Which in and of itself is suspiciously similar to the theme from Flash Gordon...
  • During the montage in the first episode, there's a similar song to "Tom Sawyer" by Rush.
  • One of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in "Benson Be Gone".
  • One of Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" is used in "Muscle Woman".
  • One of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" in "See You There".
  • One of "I Won't Do What You Tell Me" ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin's most popular theme song) is used as background music in "Really Real Wrestling".
  • One of Holst's "Mars, the Bringer of War" in "More Smarter".
  • One of the Halloween theme in "Creepy Doll".
  • One of Scorpions' "Winds of Change" in "Death Metal Crash Pit" during Muscle Man's suicide and the burning of the audience.
  • One of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" in "Camping Can Be Cool".
  • One of Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats (not kidding) in "This Is My Jam."
  • "Video Game Wizard" features a knockoff of Rush's "Subdivisions" on the car-ride to the tournament.
  • "Steak Me Amadeus" has one for Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone" after Mordecai gets dumped.
  • One of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" plays over a montage in "Skips' Story".
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Muscle Man's failed attempt at standup in "Under The Hood": he makes a 'my mom' joke. No one in the crowd laughs and some even get hostile towards him, to the point where he has to leave the stage. This is exactly the reaction a lot of viewers have to him and his jokes.
  • Also "Rage Against the TV" in which he gets knocked out by The Hammer.
  • For those who still hate him, Benson getting intense food poisoning from eating Mordecai and Rigby's sandwich in "Sandwich of Death" gives him a rather karmatic punishment for the ending of "Best Burgers in the World" where he eats both Mordecai and Rigby's burgers (that comes once every 100 years) for not finishing cleaning the garage.
    • He gets another one from Mother Duck who points out Mordecai and Rigby saved the park AND the world despite the damage. That Benson yelling at babies is just plain wrong. AND that he was the person who ordered Mordecai and Rigby to stop the Geese in the first place.
    • He gets yet another one in Gold Watch when the test pilots call him out for blaming Mordecai and Rigby for getting stranded in the desert when he ate the hotwings on his own accord.
  • Muscle Man gets a rather hilarious one in "The White Elephant Gift Exchange". Fed up with being prank gifts being given to them each year, the gang decides to get back at him with their own gifts.
  • A similar occurence is in "Big Winner", where Mordecai and Rigby prank Muscle Man with a fake lottery ticket as payback for him pranking them too much.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The Spanish fandom's answer to the change of Muscle Man's voice actor, who was a big part of the character's popularity there, as he was also Kurogane, Gintoki Sakata and Optimus Prime.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Since his introduction, Thomas has rarely been used and even then he's more a Butt-Monkey, even though there's plenty of interesting potential plots regarding his status as an intern that could have been had. Some episodes show signs of him being the Straight Man or Only Sane Man, but never go further with it. Although the writers finally put him to good use in "Thomas Fights Back" and The Real Thomas, after he's revealed to be a Russian spy he effectively becomes a different character and any potential he had before is rendered moot.
  • Same for Eileen in season 8. She goes into space and joins the main cast, yet she practically has no purpose in the plot, which gets lampshaded in "Meet the Seer". Word of God revealed that she originally wasn't going to go to space at first, but they adore her so much that they added her and wanted to see where her relationship with Rigby would go.
  • The antagonist of season 8, Anti-Pops, who was built up as the True Final Boss of the series' final story arc ends up getting Out of Focus for a huge portion of his own story arc. What's worse is that The Dreaded villain was finally gaining some comedic moments in the last 3 episodes before switching into a Generic Doomsday Villain with not much backstory.
  • Klorgbane. He is established as a powerful and callous villain with a personal connection to one of the heroes, as in killing Skips' girlfriend Mona. Unfortunately he only ever appears in two episodes, the later of which is a flashback, and Skips never gets a rematch with him when Mordecai and Rigby knock him back into space. He probably would've been a much more suitable secondary antagonist in season 8 than Internet/Streaming, who is a very generic destroyer character with no relation to the heroes.
• Too Cool to Live: Pops, a Cool Old Guy who spreads joy and helps others out of the goodness of his heart ends up dying in the final season.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Mordecai's Love Triangle with CJ and Margaret and his failed attempts to be together with any of them is supposed to come across as something tragic, and make viewers empathize with him. However, Mordecai’s inability to choose between the two, on top of being Master of the Mixed Message, and hijacking his friend’s wedding to make a speech about soulmates and attempts to dump CJ in front of everyone, just makes him come across as a shallow, pathetic, and irresponsible person who is ignorant to how his erratic actions hurt others.
  • Hilary, Mordecai's mother. While the episode is meant to center around how being embarrassed by one's parents is normal and you look like a bigger idiot if you lash out at your mom for trying to help, a lot of Hilary's behavior crosses the line. She seems to be in complete denial about Mordecai's boundaries, oversteps despite Mordecai making it clear how uncomfortable he is, and has even compiled a video of the worst things that have ever happened to him that she shows at family events. Tellingly, the tape doesn't feature any happy memories of Mordecai's childhood, only humiliating ones, and she insists on showing every member of the family so they can laugh at him in pain. While it's normal to have embarrassing parents that go a bit too far to impress their son's love interest, having made a cake out of CJ's face (despite having never met, meaning she likely stalked her online for a reference) is more than just embarrassing.
• Wangst: Muscle Man crying over Starla in "Muscle Woman".
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: More sex jokes, frequent lethal use of weapons and mild profanities ("crap", "sucks", "blows," even "pissed"^note though "pissed" would be retired after season one) than you can shake a yardstick at. Justified, as Regular Show is based on two short films J.G. Quintel made in animation school called "2 in the AM-PM" and "The Naive Man from Lolliland." While "The Naive Man from Lolliland" is safe for family viewing (the one use of the word "hell" wouldn't faze most viewers), "2 in the AM-PM" isn't — at least by Cartoon Network's already selective standards.
• The Woobie:
  • Pops. Easily the most sensitive and vulnerable character in the show, and the one who is the most easily provoked to tears. He's also kind of a Butt-Monkey, and a lot of episodes that feature him as a main character ("Prankless," "Marvolo the Wizard," "Dizzy," etc,) show something bad happening to him. This is amped up to 11 after the finale, in which he dies to save all of his friends.
  • RGB2 from "That's My Television." A sweet, friendly guy who was held hostage in his own TV suit for years so his fame could be exploited by an evil TV executive, and forced to subside on canned air. All he wants is to be free of stardom so he could see the Pines Mountains, which we later learn was just a billboard at a gas station. And he isn't upset at all, which says a lot of how isolating his life has been.

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