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Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series / Tropes A to H

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    A 
  • Accidental Misnaming:
    • The Flame Swordsman
      Flame Swordsman: My name is Frank.
      Joey: Flame Swordsman everybody.
      Flame Swordsman: *ugh*
    • Hank Ishtar almost always refers to Marik as Billy. In this video, he tries to call him Sally.
    • Marik at one point forgets "Mega Ultra Chicken's" name and instead refers to it as the "Winged Dragon of Rawr". Until Yugi reminds him.
  • Accidental Pervert:
    Yami: Watch out, Kaiba! There's a naked man behind you!
    Kaiba: Don'tlookathispenisdon'tlookathispenisdon'tlookathispenis—agh! I looked.
  • Accidental Rhyme: Occurs when the gang encounters the Paradox Brothers.
    Yami: Joey it's time for our surprise attack!
    Joey: No worries, Yug', I got ya back.
    Yami: Hang on a second, are we rhyming too?
    Joey: Don't ask me, I ain't got a clue.
    Yami: This is like something out of Dr. Seuss!
    Téa: I can't stop staring at Yugi's caboose!
    Bakura: Everyone seems to have gone all rhymey!
    Tristan: Shut the hell up, you stupid limey!
  • Adaptational Jerkass: Seto Kaiba is even more of a jerk than in Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially in mistreating his little brother.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: While the series made Kaiba more of a jerk, the Season 0 adaptation goes the other way, making Kaiba a creepy-looking but otherwise friendly Nice Guy, to contrast Season 0 Yami.
  • Adaptational Villainy: While he was certainly psychopathic and dangerous before, Goro Majima never did anything like burning down a church because he was slighted and then mocking a child about it.
  • Adaptation Induced Plothole: The duel with Mako is entirely skipped over, so Mokuba stole more Star Chips from Yugi than Yugi should've had. Not that anybody cares.
    • In episode 16, Bandit Keith steals the card that Joey Wheeler needs to participate in the Duelist Kingdom semi-finals. It is never explained how Joey was able to participate in his duel with Keith in the next episode.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: In episode 15, during Téa's duel with Mai, Téa says "I'm gonna beat your bleach blond butt back to boobieland!"
  • Admiring the Poster: Yugi's Grandpa remarks to a poster of the Blackluster Soldier that "No one must know of our forbidden love" while rubbing his hands all over the poster.
  • Adults Are Useless: As Tristan says, "Don't our parents even care that we're missing?"
  • Aerith and Bob: Exemplified with the Ishtar family. On one hand, you have Marik, Ishizu, and Odion Ishtar. On the other you have Hank, Veronica, and Melvin Ishtar.
  • Affably Evil:
    • Marik. For an evil villain, he's awfully funny and polite. Melvin, however, is a bastard, although some might say he is evilly affable.
    • Also Pegasus. He's extremely polite, if flamboyant, and provides first-class accommodations to his guests.
    • Zorc is probably one of the most adorable and friendly characters in the entire series. The only problem is that he likes to destroy the world. Repeatedly.
  • Affectionate Parody:
    • As much as he makes fun of the show, Little Kuriboh repeatedly demonstrates in the material and sometimes says outright that he really does love the franchise. The many jokes about the franchise that make direct reference to the canon, including all the spin-offs, also show that he's still keeping up with it today.
    • Episode 50 has Joey directly address this, saying that The Abridged Series may constantly be battling copyright infringement, but the staff behind the show have do their best to support the canon franchise, and the Abridged Series has probably helped contribute to its longevity.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Invoked at the end of the Virtual World arc, following Team 4Kids' defeat.
    Yugi: It's weird. I'm actually kind of sad to see them go.
    Kaiba: Yeah, after all, they did provide us with hours of entertainment. So what if they censored a few things? They were just doing their job.
    Yugi: And without them, we wouldn't have Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. So from now on, let's remember them as the guys who gave us fond childhood memories—and unfortunately, the One Piece theme song.
  • All Girls Like Ponies:
    • Serenity's contribution to Duke and Nesbitt's Theme Music battle is the Friendship Is Magic theme to My Little Pony, though for a time before the edit, it was the theme from the '80s.
    • And the demonic door leading to Nesbitt gets her to open it with the promise of ponies. *Twice*
  • All Just a Dream:
    • Most of the fourth Evil Council episode turns out to be this.
    • The opening proper (i.e. after the originally-animated musical segment) to the Bonds Beyond Time movie where Jack and Crow have no idea what motorcycles are and are about to play a card game standing completely still on the ground is this. It doubles as foreshadowing, although by the time it comes up Yusei seems to have gotten over his fear of card games that aren't played on motorcycles.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Due to Rule of Funny, the romantic feelings between Yugi and Téa are never mutual. Whatever crush exists in their relationship is always one-sided, no matter who has it at the time. At any given moment, it could be Yugi who’s Oblivious to Love and not picking up on Téa’s advances, or it could be Téa being far more interested in the Pharaoh and considering Yugi an Abhorrent Admirer by comparison.
  • All Take and No Give: Marik and Bakura's relationship. Marik, the Taker, constantly demands Bakura's attention and tolerance; Bakura, for all his snarking, seemed unable to actually refuse Marik's demands until recently. Marik finally has to confront this problem in the fifth Evil Council video, where Bakura finally leaves him. Pegasus flat out tells him that he shouldn't try to get Bakura back, because even though he may be worse off, Bakura definitely isn't.
  • All There in the Manual: To understand why LittleKuriboh made this re-upload you have to read a post on his LiveJournal, which has since been deleted and purged.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: In-universe and Played For Laughs.
  • Ambiguously Gay:
    • Almost everyone, though Spice Girls fan Maximillion Pegasus is the worst. When some of the characters find out he's actually straight, he tries to kill them. Billany has admitted in his reuploading of episode 17 that Pegasus is indeed straight (the gaydar was aiming at Croquet, his raspy voiced servant/butler), so he probably just has questionable, effeminate tastes ("Let's celebrate by watching the Spice Girls Movie!") Of course, he gets to lampshade this a good bit. Furthermore, Pegasus was married to Cecelia before she apparently died at the altar (she's even thought to be his wife by Bakura). In fact he appears to be the only character in the series with an actual spouse, ironically.
      Pegasus: Ohh, I'm so ambiguously camp!
    • In fact, for the brief time Bakura is regularly accompanying the main characters, his Millennium Ring is said to have had Gaydar installed in it; this serves as a Magnetic Plot Device as it leads the group to Ambiguously Gay villains.
      • Which becomes funnier when you see the one scene where it looks like the ring is pointing at Bakura himself.
    • Bakura is not gay (his father installed his gaydar to protect him from gay people), but Florence is.
      Bakura: I'm not gay, I'm just British.
      Florence: I'm not British, I'm just gay.
    • Marik: "And we're not gay, by the way. Least, I don't think I am." Marik has ascended from ambiguity to the Transparent Closet even though he sometimes forgets he is there himself.
      Marik: What, just because a guy likes to dress effeminately, and hang around with another extremely attractive man, and read yaoi, and flaunt his gorgeous abs, and stroke a phallic symbol suggestively in every other scene, that automatically makes him gay?
      Florence: Kinda.
      Zorc: Yeah, kinda.
      • Given Marik and Florence's moving duet of "Stand By Me" just before Melvin defeats them both, we can probably consider him just out in general.
        Young Marik: Somebody dropped a perfectly good comic book! Hey, this isn't like my scriptures. What is that one guy doing to that other guy? I don't know but it gives me cravings...
        (later)
        Young Marik: Can I keep the comic book? It is relevant to my interests!
        Young Ishizu: Marik, please don't flaunt your yaoi in public!
      • From the same episode as the above, young!Marik lists one of the things he wants to do on the surface as 'maybe fall in love with a handsome prince?' Apparently he hadn't yet gotten the memo that he was supposed to be straight?
      • Just watch the Leather Pants video. Marik is now officially a Camp Gay.
      • Episode 53- "To be honest, I'm not really used to being inside women. Don't think I like it very much." Yeah, he was talking about possessing Téa, but still..
      • In Marik Plays Bloodlines episode 6, Marik finally admitted he was gay, though he tried to take it back immediately after. Just in case there was previously any doubt that he is in a Transparent Closet...
    • And Bakura's gaydar points to Yami's (fabulous) puzzle. However, Yami has implied at various points in the series either homosexuality or bi-sexuality and seems to be driven toward the latter as the series goes on.
      Yami: If you're a ghost, then I'm straight. (It's not a ghost—just a gay clown.)
      • Or one of his transformation sequences:
        Yami and Yugi in unison: Wonder Twin powers: activate. Form of: an Egyptian homosexual.
      • Yet later on:
        Yami: That's what she said. Or he. I could go either way really.
      • And in the Bonds Beyond Time Abridged Movie (after a long Running Gag about the Double Entendre-filled exchanges between Yusei and Yami).
        Yusei: You can be my wingman anytime, Yugi.
        Yami: No, Yusei, you can be mine.
        [[Sexy music]]
        Yusei: No homo, right?
        Yami: ALL OF THE HOMO!
    • Ishizu is also possibly gay, going by what happened with Bakura's gaydar before its batteries ran out. It was her or the Giant Rock that truly understood her. Hey, maybe that's why it lied to her.
  • Anachronism Stew: Several times the show lampshades how a game imbued with the supernatural lore of Ancient Egypt involves lasers and holograms.
  • Anal Probing: This bit of dialogue between Tristan and Duke:
    Tristan: Dude, do you want the aliens to probe your anus?
    ([Beat])
    Duke: ...maybe.
  • And Then What?: Yami, to Anubis in the Abridged Movie. Anubis doesn't seem to have an answer. At least, one he's willing to share.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Well, Anguished Declaration of Hate
  • Appeal to Obscurity: Episode 6
    Kaiba: I mean, look at Bakura.
    Mokuba: Who the hell is Bakura?
    Kaiba: Precisely.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: In Episode 69, the Pharaoh mentions that he doesn't believe that souls exist. This is despite the proven existence of magic (which he's even used a couple of times), on top of the fact that he's only still alive because his soul is bound to the Millennium Puzzle.
    • Seems to be averted lately, as he fully acknowledges and is devastated that Yugi's soul has been claimed by the Orichalcos.
  • Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: When Téa describes her card "Shining Friendship" as having qualities from all her friends, she leaves Bakura out, and he tries to point this out to her, unsuccessfully. The really funny part of that is Little Kuriboh didn't make up her forgetting. She doesn't mention him in the actual episode.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: While Yami duels Yugi:
    Yami: Alright, I admit it, I'm the worst. I've done terrible things in the past. I've cheated at card games. I've allowed my partner to lose his soul to the orichalcos. I've even cameoed in Naruto: The Abridged Series.
    • Yami to Dartz in Episode 82:
    Yami: You took my god cards, you separated me from my partner, and you made me use public transportation.
  • Art Shift:
    • One flashback to the first episode is done in the style of Toei's Yu Gi Oh anime, in which (among other things) Kaiba had green hair.
      Young Kaiba: Screw the rules, I have green hair!
      [quick cut to the present day]
      Modern Day Kaiba: Huh. Now that was just weird. I should probably cut down on the drugs.
    • And another is done as a black and white silent film, with Kaiba having a twirly mustache and the dialogue much more formal and flowery than before.
    • Episode 46 has two different scenes done as original Flash-style animations. One is a lightsaber duel between Florence and Melvin (done by trainerBAM), and the other is a parody of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, co-starring Zorc (done by Kirbopher, who voices Noah).
    • Episode 49 has the Boobometer, to measure the boobs on screen. One would think it would be for an episode about Mai. No, it revolves around Téa, whose boobs got an upgrade.
    • Concrete Giraffes is also done as original Flash animation, courtesy of Rocketgal.
    • Episode 50 has an original flash animation done in the style of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Atourney video games (also done by Kirb). It was pretty much inevitable given that the name of the episode itself was "Joey Wheeler: Ace Attourney".
    • Another flash animation appears as a stinger for episode 59 animated by Crikey Dave.
  • The Artifact: The infamous "Did you just summon a bunch of Monsters in one turn?" as de
  • Ascended Meme:
    • The English dubbed voice actors have recognized and used their respective abridged characters' catchphrases at Cons. Wayne Grayson is especially fond of using Joey's phrases like "nyeh" and "Brooklyn Rage" in his dub voice.
    • 4Kids put up a vote on Facebook on what fans would like the new slogan for Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds to be. Guess what they chose? CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES
  • As Himself: Almost everybody from the first Abridged Movie.
  • Ass Pull: As Melvin aptly points out "Mega Ultra Chicken's Secret ability which I just this second made up."
  • Ass Shove: Referenced.
    Melvin: Now I'm going to use my Millennium Rod, which I keep clenched between my buttocks, to send this duel to the Shadow Realm!
  • Atomic F-Bomb: Kaiba delivers a spectacular one in episode 44 that stretches across three scenes. It's interrupted, but not bleeped out.
  • Attention Whore:
    • The filming of Marik's "magnum opus" is gatecrashed by a strange man with no face who just demands to be in every shot.
      Hey guuuuys. Can I be in the movie? I would like to be in the movie.
    • Dude shows up again in the third Christmas special.
  • Author Filibuster: In the Bonds Beyond Time movie, when Paradox turns Stardust Dragon into "a cwappy thwee-dee effect", the movie pauses for a moment and a voiceover quickly states "We at Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged would like to apologise for the lack of 3D content in this movie. However, we'd like to think this is totally justified since 3D is bulls**t and adds absolutely nothing to the cinema experience. So please, enjoy your 2D movie. Because it's cheaper and much less obnoxious."

    B 
  • Badass Boast: In Episode 47, Kaiba threatens the Big Five by saying "Fool me once (Big Five teaming up with Pegasus), shame on you. Fool me twice (Virtual World), shame on me. Fool me three times, you're gonna get curbstomped by Seto Kaiba."
  • Badass Long Coat: Mentioned in Episode 44 when Joey and Tristan talk about how they didn't think Kaiba's coat could get any more badass than it already was.
  • Badass Creed: In Episode 47, the Big Five parody the infamous Team Rocket motto, complete with the background music.
    Prepare for trouble!
    And make it double!
    To protect the world from Japanimation!
    To overthrow the Kaiba Corporation!
    To denounce the meaning of the original dub!
    To extend our reach to the world above!
    Team 4Kids blast off at the speed of light!
    Surrender now or prepare to fight!
    Meowth. That's right!
  • The Bad Guy Wins:
    • At the end of season two, Florence and Marik fail to defeat Melvin, who promptly cancels the show upon killing the duo.
    • In a surprise deviation from the source material's plot, Téa is defeated in her duel against Crump, who claims her body for the following episodes, until being exorcised by Marik.
  • Bad Liar: In Episode 62, Kaiba is pissed off that he lost his own tournament and threatens to do something horrible to the rest of the cast. When Yami asks if he is talking about blowing up the island with everyone else still on it, Kaiba starts stuttering.
    Kaiba: Come oooon, are you kiddiiing, come oooon, who do you take me foooor? Come oooon. [quietly] Mokuba, ready the thermal charges.
  • Beam-O-War: During the "Ancient Egyptian Laser Beams" sequence, Florence and Pegasus shoot energy beams from their Millennium Items at each other, which clash and distort the fabric of reality. Exhausted from his previous battle against Yugi, Pegasus is quickly overwhelmed.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: When Kaiba threatens to shut down his research lab, Nesbit begs him to reconsider. Kaiba complies... by blowing it up instead.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Ishizu convinces Kaiba that it's his destiny to play card games with Yugi for all eternity. He is overjoyed by it.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Made into a Running Gag in Episode 60, where Tristan shouts "Just f*ck already!" during almost every argument.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Mai throws a tantrum whenever someone accuses her of having fake breasts.
    • Mako is infuriated whenever someone calls him a "freaky fish guy".
    • Eventually, Mokuba snaps when Grandpa Muto tells him to shut up and yells at the old man.
    • Téa responds with extreme rage if someone as much as implies that "Friendship sucks."
    • Don't Call Yugi Wack.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Despite being considerably nicer than his main anime counterpart, Mokuba sometimes is prone to sinister threats: "My brother is Seto Kaiba. I can decide who lives and who dies."
  • Big Bad:
    • Mokuba is this for Season Zero, as he takes the place of his brother as the more malicious of the two.
    • Pegasus in Season One, as he steals Grandpa Muto's soul in a gambit to acquire the Millennium Puzzle.
    • Marik, and eventually Melvin, in Season Two, as he repeatedly sends his goons to kill the Pharaoh.
    • Team 4Kids and Noah scheme to cancel the Abridged series for the first half of Season Three. In the second half, which adheres to the original plotline, Melvin becomes the sole antagonist as he psychotically plans to murder the other characters.
    • Dartz and his motorcycle riding henchmen in Season Four conspire to steal the souls of the heroes to revive an ancient Eldritch Abomination.
  • Big "NO!":
    • Joey: "I just realized—now that the tournament's over, we have to go back to school." Tristan: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO—" *cut to credits*
    • Tristan gets another one much later when he discovers his conversion into a robot monkey.
    • Moments before THAT, Serenity gives one over Tristan's apparent "death".
    • Marik lets out a particularly long one when he realizes that he no longer has a tan in Marik plays Bloodlines 2.
  • Big "YES!":
    • Kaiba in Episode 77 when his plane is saved by three legendary dragons.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • Most likely unintended, but during the "Leather Pants" song, Marik starts attempting to sing in French. However it sounds like he's saying "spoon" in a manner reminiscent of the Burgund king...
    • Even more so with "C'est une série abrégée!", a remake of the entire first episode in French.
    • The beginning of Episode 8 uses the audio from the Latin American dub of the anime.
  • Bishie Sparkle: Marik and Bakura get them during the line "we're really Just Friends" in "Leather Pants".
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Season Zero Episode 2 subverts the hell out of this with Seto. Most of the episode is one set-up after another for the Seto we all know and love to hate to come out from behind the nice (albeit still protective of his fortune) guy facade, but he never does.
  • Bizarro Episode: Invoked: Yugi is the only one who wonders why Episode 38 (Or as he put it, a "redundant sh** fest of an episode") ever happened.
  • Bizarro Universe: Season Zero, according to Word of God. As if the obviously different characterizations for Yami, Seto and Mokuba, and the warping of just about every catchphrase in the regular abridgement, weren't enough of a giveaway.
  • Blade Enthusiast: Florence has a collection of over 20 knives, each of which he has given an affectionate name to.
    Marik: Don't you have enough knives already?
    Florence: I'm going to assume that was a trick question.
  • Black Comedy Rape: In episode 16, Bakura claims that his alter ego molests people in their sleep... and that it happens a lot.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah:
    Yugi: Blah Blah, Card Games, Blah.
    Pegasus: Blah Blah Blah, Attack Mode, Blah.
    Yugi: Blah Blah Blah?!?
    Pegasus: Blaaaaaaaaaah.
    • In episode 55:
      Kaiba: He said, uh, 'blah blah blah I'm a crappy duelist!'
      Joey: Blah blah blah I am not!
  • Blasphemous Boast:
    • Kaiba on learning that the baby Jesus doesn't have a jet shaped like a Blue-Eyes.
      Kaiba: Ha! Kaiba 1, Jesus 0.
    • Another one in episode 55—when remarking on the biblical nature of Noah's Deck Master, he is called a hypocrite by Yugi and reminded of his Halloween costume.
      Kaiba: Can you guess who I am?
      Witty Phantom: Uh...
      Kaiba: I'M JESUS!
  • Blood Sport: According to Steve Luna, card games on the moon. The losers die of asphyxiation, the winners also die.
  • Bodysnatcher: At the end of episode 49, Crump beats Téa in a duel and takes control of her body, remaining inside of her until episode 53.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: The effect of Joey using the Copycat card. Through sheer irritation value he uses it to eliminate Bandit Keith from the tournament.
  • Bow Chicka Wow Wow: Téa does it once.
  • Breakout Character: The one and only Marik Ishtar, rapidly rose to become YGOTAS's most popular character, to the point where he more or less became LittleKuriboh's most frequently used character in random non-episode videos.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • There is no fourth wall! Joey and Tristan complain that Little Kuriboh takes so long to post new videos, Bakura's Running Gag is that he's a minor character and nobody remembers him, and characters in general know fully they're characters in an internet spoof of the original anime.
    • In fact, according to Episode 41, Shadi's job is to protect the fourth wall because, if it was broken, bad things would happen. Shadi himself acknowledges how much he sucks at it by sarcastically commenting "Great success!"
    • As of Season 3, the fourth wall has officially been "destroyed"—the show is cancelled and retitled "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Cancelled Series" and centers on operatives of 4Kids trying to dispose of Yugi and his friends since they have no further use for them.
    • At the end of the virtual world arc when Noah performs a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy Team 4kids and Gozaburo Kaiba the series gets retitled to "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Renewed Series".
    • At the end of the Battle City Tournament the series get retitled to "Yu-Gi-Oh: The Ruined Series"
    • Ishizu's Millenium Necklace, aside from giving her power to see the future, also gives her power to do this, as demonstrated right after her explanation.
      Ishizu: In about five seconds you'll be interrupted by the opening credits.
      Man In Black Suit: What the hell are you talking ab- *scene cuts to opening credits*
  • Break the Haughty:
    • Kaiba gets a brutal one in episode 44. After effectively crippling Ishizu's deck he goes on a Hannibal Lecture to her about not caring about the 4th wall and is about to play Obelisk the Tormentor. Then Ishizu plays a card that allows her to get her and Kaiba to swap all the cards in their deck for the ones in their card graveyards. Kaiba basically defeated all her cards and ONLY LOST SIX. This means that Kaiba is down to only six turns before his deck runs out and he forced to concede the game whilst Ishizu gets the majority of her deck back from the graveyard. He takes a good minute just saying one long "fuck".
    • The Pharaoh is on the receiving of this from Yugi during their duel in the Valley of Lost Souls. Yugi uses the seal on himself to become the main character and chastises him for using the Seal of Orichalcos in the duel against Rafael and losing thereby splitting himself and Yugi. He brings the Pharaoh to the edge of losing to teach him humility and then forces him to reflect Yugi's attack back at him. This makes the Pharaoh win the duel separating them both again. Although according to Yugi himself before fading away it was a Secret Test of Character to show him that he could defeat the seal.
  • Brick Joke:
    • When Yami goes to save Téa from a mugger, he mentioned he looks damn good in a tutu. Thirty-nine episodes later, a picture of Yugi in a tutu turns up on his person—Kaiba even admitted that.
    • During Episode 6, Kaiba complains about how he's become increasingly irrelevant in the show ever since losing to Yami, likening his current role to barely better than Bakura, whom Mokuba is unfamiliar with. This winds up popping up later in the episode when Mokuba has an encounter with the character in question.
      Mokuba: I'll return all the star chips. Just as long as you let my brother back on the show.
      Yami: That's fine by me.
      Mokuba: And maybe you could give Bakura a bigger role too.
      Yami: Don't push your luck, kid!
    • In episode 31, a bird landed on Marik's shoulder (Well, Marik's mind slave, Steve the mime). He names it Mr. Tweetums. In episode 43, Melvin and Mai play a shadow game in which any time a monster is killed, the player loses memories of their loved ones. Melvin announces that he doesn't have any loved ones to worry about forgetting, but then he loses his memories of Mr. Tweetums, and takes it badly.
    • When Tristan and Duke are hanging from the blimp, one of Tristan's imaginary shoulder Zack/Cody heads falls off the blimp and the other is unsure which it was. After watching The Suite Life of Zorc and Cody in episode 46, it can be inferred that it was Zack who fell to his death.
      • Shortly after that scene we get a callback all the way back to around episode three:
        Tristan: In another few hours the sun will rise.
        Devlin: What the f*** does that even mean!?
        Tristan: [distraught] I don't know, but it's true!
    • One Brick Joke turned into a Running Gag: In episode 19, Yugi responds to the sight of Kaiba smiling at Mokuba with "Every time Kaiba smiles, a puppy dies." The next time he smiles (in episode 30), a caption of "+ 1 Dead Puppies" appears. The number would upgrade every time Kaiba smiled again.
      • In episode 55, Kaiba gets turned into a stone statue, whilst smiling. Joey promptly remarks that it's the puppy apocalypse.
    • In episode 14, during a flashback to "the 4Kids version" of how Yugi and Téa met, Téa explains that she wants to save up money to become a table dancer in New York. During the credits to The Movie, while explaining what happens to each character after the movie ends, it's explained that Téa does in fact become a table dancer.
    • Also, during his date with Téa, Yami is attacking his milkshake for no apparent reason. When Kaiba and Ishizu are dueling he wonders what happened to that milkshake.
    • "Oh, I get it! He was implying that you wanted me to sleep with you!"
    • The very existence of Kaiba's Real Father - Conclusion is one. There are also several near the end of the video, the most obvious of which is lampshaded and relates to the conclusion and a Plot Hole it causes.
    • Episode 48 opens with Yugi remarking on LittleKuriboh's British accent slipping in during Episode 6, then cuts to a flashback of said episode with comically exaggerated British slang and accent. Later still, Everyone Loves Mako does the same.
    • Episode 47 makes a reference all the way back to episode 8, referencing when Tristan (temporarily) got a new voice.
      Gansley: 4Kids took pity on us, they gave us new voices!
      Tristan: Your voices changed!? That's impossible!
    • In episode 48, Duke tells Tristan that he has a disease where if he doesn't "have half naked girls applied to his body at regular intervals", he'll die. In episode 49, he grabs Serenity's hand and asks her is she doesn't mind him taking her top off for a moment. Moments later Serenity is heard telling Duke, "I'm glad I could help cure you."
    • In the Deleted Scenes episode, Yugi warns Tristan that quoting any abridged series not made by Little Kuriboh will get his legs broken by a wrench. Near the end of the episode, Tristan changes Duke's theme song to Ghost Nappa's theme song, resulting in Yugi breaking his kneecaps
      Yugi: Gee, I wonder who could have broken Tristan's kneecaps. With a wrench. Specifically this one.
    • In the episode when Téa dueled Mai one of her cards was the penguin from Happy Feet, and now in episode 49 she asked a penguin to meet him.
    • "After all, in space no one can hear you scream."
    • "Zach and Cody are my imaginary friends."
    • "Snot him!"
    • In episode 51, Joey worries that he, Yugi, and Téa will be attacked by gay vampires. As revealed in episode 13, gay people and bats are the same thing.
    • Then in episode 52, we get Joey yelling at Tristan to put down the stick, because "Remember what happened with da scissors?"
    • And then from Episode 53, "Apply the handbrake you moron!"
    • In episode 54, Evil Tristan seems to have forgotten who Team Four Star was. This was already explained in episode 43:
      Yami: "Melvin has blocked Joey from Mai's brain! It's just like what he did to Team Four Star."
    • In episode 61, there's another Brick Joke that capitalizes on a running gag—this time involving Melvin's hugs when he gets pwned by the Ragnarok spell that involves all Yugi/Pharaoh's monsters giving him "the biggest bear hug of his life."
      Melvin: I know I said I wanted a hug, but I didn't mean it like this!
    • In episode 54, Kaiba was so frustrated at having to climb an Absurdly Long Stairway he made an exhausted rant about how he wished he could find whoever invented stairs and kick him down the stairs. In episode 72, Kaiba was demanding his employees build him a Space Elevator. He told Mokuba he wanted it because he "had a really bad experience with stairs one time."
    • In episode 25, Yugi forcibly changes places with Yami so he's stuck dating Téa, and Yami proceeds to launch into a Cluster F-Bomb rant at him. Fifty-eight episodes later, Yami gets back at him by trading places with Yugi and leaving him to face Joey's wrath. Yugi proceeds to launch into the exact same Cluster F-Bomb rant at Yami.
  • Broken Record:
    • KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY. KILL YOUR FAMILY.
      Merchant: What's the matter [Marik], ya never seen the "Kill Your Family Show" before?
    • Dartz's mooks:
      Bikers: We're bikers. We're bikers. We're bikers. We're bikers. We're bikers. Who sometimes occasionally fly helicopters.
  • Broken Aesop: Done frequently and Played for Laughs:
    Yami: Bullying is just wrong, destroying peoples' brains with magical powers is a-okay!
    Yami: Maybe next time you'll think twice before forcing someone to part with their valuables. Now hand over your Star Chips and kiss my feet.
    Pegasus: Remember kids, gambling is good for you!
  • Burn the Witch!: Tristan, after observing some of Duke Devlin's dice tricks and leaping to the obvious (for him) conclusion.
  • …But He Sounds Handsome: Inverted by Odion. When he stands in for Marik, he owns up to all the insults hurled at him and even adds a few of his own. "Malik", meanwhile, plays it completely straight.
  • But Not Too Bi
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Joey and Tristan
    • Bakura as well.
      Téa: Oh no! It's the other Bakura! The one we don't like!
      Joey: You're gonna have to be way more specific, Téa.
    • Jaden Yuki, especially from Yami Yugi and surprisingly Yusei (and sometimes Jack Atlas).
    • Mokuba
    • Serenity in the first season and the first half of the second season.
    • Yugi's Grandpa.
    • [Insert Adjective Here] Celtic Guardian.
      "I am so frustrated!"
      "I am so bamboozled!"
      "I'm not sure what I believe in!"
    • Robot Monkey Tristian.
    • Yugi in Season Zero.
    • Kaiba for much of Season Three.
    • Naruto The Abridged Series. Mainly due to the fact that Naruto Abridged uses a lot of LittleKuriboh's jokes.

    C 
  • Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Kaiba hires a pair of Nazis to work as security guards.
  • Calculator Spelling: Season 0 Episode 3: According to Yugi, Tristan learned how to type "BOOBIE" in a calculator and later "BOOB".
    Tristan: "I am a sorcerer!"
  • Call-Back:
    • "I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'Gay clown'."
    • Another example:
      Kaiba: Wait a minute, did you just summon a bunch of monsters in one turn?
      Computer: Affirmative. So?
    • "It's funny because 'wang' means 'penis.'"
    • In a flashback in episode 50, Kemo ("The Hair Guy") mentions that he's considering taking child-grabbing classes.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie, after suffering an attack by Kaiba's Blue Eyes Shining Dragon, Yugi falls on his keys. Then, in episode 43, after being struck by Mega Ultra Chicken's blast, he falls "once again, right on my keys." Doubly hilarious, because in the the un-Abridged Yu-Gi-Oh canon, the movie comes after that episode.
    • "What a digital dummy."
    • In an early episode, the gang is surprised that Bakura's Gaydar works inside of a seemingly random cave. Joey claims that gay people live in caves, and Téa claims that he means bats. Joey replies, "Bats. Gay people. Same thing." In Episode 51, they're in another cave and Joey is afraid of running into gay vampires. Yugi claims that he means vampire bats. Joey replies, "I know what I said."
    • Episode 52: "Tristan, put down the stick! Remember what happened with the scissors?"
    • Also, in Episode 41, Tristan and Duke Devlin end up hanging on the blimp, dangerously close to falling to their deaths... when Tristan starts singing "99 Duel Monster cards". Fast-forward to Episode 52, Joey and Yugi start singing the same song, and Duke promptly replies "Guys, I hate this song!"
    • Episode 53 has Joey losing control of a truck, with his sister screaming "Apply the hand brake, you moron!" In an early flashback, Joey was teaching Serenity to drive and yelled as she lost control, "Apply the hand brake, you dumb broad!"
    • In Episode 11, Yami states that he "looks damn good in a tutu." A picture in episode 53 has Seto concur.
    • Episode 55 after Noah turns Serenity to stone Joey references the Duelist Kingdom story arc saying "Oh great! Now I gotta win another tournament to fix this!"
    • Remember Serenity trying to drive a car? Turns out that she ran over Noah.
    • In Episode 33, Bakura ends up repeating Yugi's L'oreal advertisement from one of the earliest episodes.
    • The climax of Episode 36 is reminiscent of the "Must...risk...life...for cards!" sequence in Episode 3 including the romantic pop music in the background, except this time it was mostly serious. "Must...risk...life...for best friend!" This phrase gets used again in Episode 43 as "Must...risk...life...for breasts!"
    • In Episode 56, Marik destroys the missile controls, preventing Noah from aborting the missile launch threatening the cast's location. He also leaves the "Kill Your Family" show from Episode 45 running on the screen.
      Noah: But I don't want to kill my family anymore!
    • Also from the movie, Kaiba ruins a dramatic moment by reusing the line: "You don't stand a ghost of a chance".
      • Tristan also repeats the phrase "My voice gives me super-strength!" in the movie.
    • The Big Five's reveal that 4Kids gave them new voices is met with disbelief from Tristan of all people.
    • In episode 68, after Yugi's Grandpa's attempt to go cruise for chicks goes awry, he says this,
      Yugi's Grandpa: For some reason, cruising for chicks has caused me to become severely injured.
    • "Quick! Check his pulse!"
    • Episode 71 reveals that, while Raphael was stranded on an island, he eventually forgot how to speak properly, only being able to say "ZUG ZUG".
  • Camp Straight: Pegasus. He'll kill anyone who finds out.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Kaiba to Mokuba until Episode 55.
  • Captain Ersatz:
    • Kaiba's duel robot is GlaDOS, the Exodia Rare Hunter is Marvin The Martian, virtual Kuriboh is Action Hot Dog, and Weevil and Rex are Beavis And Butthead.
    • Umbra and Lumis have become the Mooninites. And it is HILARIOUS.
    • In the Bonds Beyond Time movie, Paradox is Mandark. And it is ALSO HILARIOUS.
    • In Episode 20 Rebecca Hawkins Bear is Pazuzu from the Exorcist and quotes many of the famous lines from the movie
  • Captain Obvious:
    • Yugi in Episode 42:
    Yugi: Be very careful, Joey!
    Subtitle: Actual 4Kids dialogue.
    Téa: Yeah. Great advice, Pharaoh.
    Later that duel:
    Yugi: Joey, be very VERY careful!
    After Joey gets hit by lightning:
    Yugi: If only he had been careful!
    When Joey runs to Mai's aid during her duel against Melvin:
    Yugi:(climbing up to save Joey) Joey, what did I tell you about being careful?
    • And in a few hours, the sun will rise!
    • LITERAL PANTS takes this to the extreme.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Well, Marik tries. He can't open his mouth without reminding us how EVIL his EVIL PLAN is.
    • Yami Bakura\Florence does a much better job of being a straight version. And both of them get bonus points for being literal Card-Carrying Villains.
  • Card Games: The series like to constantly remind us that we're watching people playing children's card games. The original series, on the other hand, seems to forget it a lot of the time...
  • Cargo Ship: Several cases In-universe,
    • "What's that Dark Magician Girl? You want to make out?"
    • "It's only a matter of time before Yugi plays his god card. Until that time, I'll just stand here and pretend I don't have a boner."
      Mai: Guess again! I use Amazon Chain Master's special effect to take one card from your deck. And the card I choose is Mega Ultra Chicken!
      Melvin: What?!
      Kaiba: Summonitsummonitsummonitsummonitsummonitsummonitsummonit!
      Mai: And now I'm going to summon it!
      Kaiba (offscreen): Finally, jeez!
    • "Oh Black Luster Soldier. No-one must ever know of our forbidden love."
    • Possibly Ishizu with the giant rock.
    • Yusei and his D-Wheel, which he refers to as his girlfriend.
    • And of course, Mako and the Ocean... then the Aquarium... then back to the Ocean.
    • Kaiba has seriously looked into marrying the Blue Eyes White Dragon.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Bonds Beyond Time. Apparently, Yusei's nightmares involve Jack finding the idea of card games on motorcycles stupid and then playing a card game with Crow while standing completely still. On. The. Ground.
  • Cerebus Retcon: You know that gag back in Season 1 where Joey was teaching Serenity how to drive?note  Yeah, well, in "They Saved Tristan's Brain," we find out that she hit and critically wounded Noah.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Although it's not really any more serious in tone than it was when it started, but as of Season Three, it's begun to have more of an overarching plot besides being "just" a parody series. One that strays almost completely from the original series' plot, no less. Not that anyone is complaining.
  • Character Catchphrase: Ishizu brings attention to characters constantly using catchphrases as part of the Fourth Wall plot. Then Yugi asks why she doesn't have a catch phrase.
    Because shut up.
  • Character Exaggeration: Everybody, and it's just funnier that way.
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • Yami seemed annoyed whenever people assumed he was gay. Later episodes established him as a bisexual and would be more open about it.
    • Joey's iconic Brooklyn Rage wouldn't really become prominent until Season 2.
  • Chekhov's Gag: Dartz's inpenetrable accent nets him a lot of laughs. Turns out that he knows the secret of the series: the Pharaoh's real name. He's even willing to give it to him. The problem is, he can't pronounce it.
  • Chew Bubblegum:
    • "I'm here to kick ass and play card games, and I'm all out of cards." Yugi immediately gives Kaiba his deck back however. A couple of other variations on the line are used.
    • Bakura: I'm here to kick ass and drink cups of tea. And I'm all out of tea.
    • Yami: I'm here to kick ass and play card games, and I'm all out of ass.
  • Christmas Special: Three of them. One is a Christmas Carol spoof starring Kaiba. The second is... something else. Let's put it this way: half of it tells the tale of "Slavemas" by means of an Affectionate Parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The third is the story of the birth of Jesus, as told by Hank Ishtar.
  • Circle of Friendship: Parodied. "Téa, not for nothing, but, is this permanent marker?"
  • Clip Show: Episodes 35 and 63. "Did I just abridge my own series?"
  • Cluster F-Bomb:
    • Yami does this in episode 25 after Yugi forcibly switches places with him to make him take Téa on a date:
    Yami: Huh? Yugi, you little (BLEEP)! You son of a (BLEEP)ing (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP)! (Téa overhears) I'm going to tear off your (BLEEP) and shove them right up your (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) and then (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) on your (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) with (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) in the (BLEEP) (BLEEP) and (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) your (BLEEP) (BLEEP) (BLEEP) so then you'll have to (BLEEP) sideways! (Beat) (BLEEP)! Hmm? (looks up and sees Téa) Hi there.
    • Yami gets his revenge on Yugi in episode 83 making him launch into the exact same expletive filled rant.
    • Marik in "Marik's Council of Doom" often slips into multiple F Bombs while berating his associates, using his own Sound-Effect Bleep. One particularly hilarious moment was when he received a prank call during the 2nd council meeting:
      Marik: "Yes, what the (EFF) is it?"
      Dartz: "Hello! Is your refrigerator running?"
      Marik: "I don't have a (EFF)ing refrigerator! I'm an evil mastermind who lives underground in (EFF)ing Egypt, for (EFF)'s sake! Why would I need a refrigerator?"
      Dartz: "Then you'd better go and catch it!" * hangs up*
      Marik: "What? What the (EFF) does that supposed to mean?"
    • When subverted by Marik:
      "Frig the frigging friggers to frigging hell!"
    • Britishly subverted by Florence:
      "How the bloody hell am I supposed to bloody summon a card I don't bloody have?!"
  • Cock Fight: Tristan Taylor vs Duke Devlin. FIGHT!
    "You just brought sexy back for the last time!"
  • Comedy Through Superior Firepower:
    • The whole series, but the clip show of episode 35 is the best example.
    • Perhaps an even better example is the remastered first episode. Even after incorporating the theme song and stinger that all current episodes feature, it's still shorter than the original.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Gozaburo Kaiba, when asked what's going to happen to the children at the orphanage he's about to tear down.
    Orphanage Owner: The children are so excited to meet you, Mr. Kaiba.
    Gozaburo: They'll be even more excited when they hear I'm tearing this place down to build my very own theme park: Kaiba Land.
    Orphanage Owner: Uh, but what about the orphans?
    Gozaburo: They don't get a theme park. Think man, who would want to go to a place called "Orphan Land"?
  • Compelling Voice: Marik, though it only works on people called "Steve". Melvin claims to be able to do it to anyone, but it doesn't seem to work.
    Melvin: I am in control of your mind!
    Yugi: No you're not.
    Melvin: That is exactly what I wanted you to say, mind slave!
    Yugi: Look, we're not intimidated by your silly behavio-
    Melvin: I am the king!
    Yugi: ...You're a loony.
    Melvin: Binky-boy.
  • Compensating for Something:
  • Consolation Backfire: After Yugi and the others leave Mako Tsunami (and call him a "freaky fishguy"), Mako comments, "At least the ocean will never leave me. Right, Ocean?"
  • Continuity Nod: Like Tristan and Marik before him, Kaiba also sings a theme-song while riding his motorcycle.
  • Conveniently Empty City: Jaden points this out as he is being attacked by the main villain of the Bonds Beyond Time Abridged movie.
    Jaden: It's a good thing Venice is apparently empty! Or that might've been kind of dangerous.
  • Cooking Duel: In Episode 51, Duke and Nesbitt have a Theme Music Battle.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: In Episode 46, the members of the 4Kids board all have different ideas about what to do with the cast now that the show has been canceled. Death by drowning! Death by robots! Death by justice! Death by bad publicity! Death by penguins! Also Foreshadowing if you notice what Deck Masters the five use in the Virtual World arc. Yes, one of them uses a penguin monster.
    • In Episode 22, Téa seems to think of Joey's slavery under Duke Devlin as the equivalent to this.
    Téa: Lucky Bastard.
  • Couch Gag: Yami's opening line is often a quick one-liner, and as of Episode 35 the cards flying across the screen bear different pictures.
  • Crack is Cheaper : "Trading cards: they're cheap and legal. And you can't get arrested for selling them to kids." invoked
  • Crack Pairing: In-Universe. "Téa ships Harry/Hedwig, by the way."
  • Crossover: This video, with The Slender Man Mythos. Just as ludicrous as it sounds.
  • Crossover Punchline: With Dragon Ball Abridged a few times.
  • Crossover Ship: In-Universe. Pyramid Head / Nemesis. Funniest. Shipping. Ever.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Tristan, especially in the Battle City episodes.
  • Crunchtastic: The opening to Episode 5. ("Yugi-licious? Are they supposed to taste like Yugi or something?")
  • Cue the Flying Pigs: In episode 55, an irritated Kaiba snaps that the day he lets Yugi use his deck is the day he admits he loves his brother. Naturally both those things happen in that episode.
  • Curse Cut Short: Several examples.
    • This:
    • Of course, the Paradox brothers get these by the truckload. It even happened to them in the clip show episode.
    • Averted (kind of) in one episode after Ishizu effectively cripples Kaiba's deck in one turn.
      Kaiba: Fuuuuu-
      [cut to a different scene, then back to Kaiba]
      Kaiba: -uuuuck!

    D 
  • Damned By a Fool's Praise: Tristan is rife with this being a fan of Naruto: The Abridged Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
  • Darker and Edgier: Played With; though the series does get darker as it goes along, it still provides its usual comedy throughout.
    • The second half of Season 2 is when the series started getting darker, since that's when Melvin gets introduced and we're shown how Marik became evil.
    • Season 3. The villains, though still very comedic to a degree, are more threatening and the plot becomes much deeper. Even the humor itself starting dipping more into Black Comedy than usual (though most of it comes from Melvin).
    • Season 4 qualifies, partly due to the source material itself getting Darker and Edgier at this point, resulting in the abridged series taking itself seriously more frequently, and partly due to the Affectionate Parody nature of the series feeling less affectionate and more mean-spirited in this season. This applies to both the original series (plenty of jokes are variants on "Season 4 sucks and is dumb") and YGOTAS itself (numerous old jokes and characterizations, many going all the way back to Season 1, are Running Gagged, while the show acts as if none of them were ever funny in the first place.) Maybe LK is under the effects of the Seal of Orichalcos?note 
  • A Day in the Limelight:
    • A few of the episodes revolve around Joey, Bakura and others wanting to kill Yugi (or at least get him out of the way) so that they can become the main characters.
    • Episode 33 is Mako's day in the limelight. He spends it harpooning people. That freaky fish guy.
    • And episode 37 revolves entirely around Bakura. "It's the, Bakura Show. He is, EVIL." So it was his Day In The Limeylight?
    • Very much mocked in episode five.
      Yugi: [About Joey] He's just excited because this is the first episode that actually revolves around his character.
      Tristan: I can't wait until I get my own episode!
      [Chirping Crickets]
      Tristan: It's never going to happen, is it?
      Téa: Do the words "robot monkey" mean anything to you?
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • In Season Zero, Ushio is eaten by giant worms, whereas in Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series), it was a Mind Rape Penalty Game set by Dark Yugi because Ushio cheated.
    • An interesting case with the burger restaurant manager (also known as Prisoner 777 in the manga). In the anime, Dark Yugi puts him in a Penalty Game where he thinks he's on fire. In the series proper, he gets burned alive, just like in the original manga. However, this is caused by him setting off his gun whereas in the manga, he dropped his cigarette into the vodka.
  • Death by Irony: CardGamesFTW had its videos taken down and was banned altogether (not by 4Kids, though) after the fiftieth episode, in which Joey justifies his reasons for having the Abridged Series stay up. Then subverted, when LittleKuriboh's account became un-banned. Then re-straightened when the account was banned yet again by the same bot. It's gotten to the point where someone really needs to get YouTube to put some CAPTCHA on the copyright claimers.
  • Death by Origin Story: This trope claims Cecelia Pegasus and Hank Ishtar, and nearly gets Pegasus himself too before he got better.
  • Deconstruction: Season 4 has the series doing this to itself. Highlights include Mai turning evil because she got pissed at being treated like a one-note breast joke and constantly being insulted as a terrible duelist despite her off-screen dueling record, Rafael being a No-Nonsense Nemesis who actually plays the card game as intended despite Yami Yugi's insistence that it's only an excuse to make jokes, and Rex and Weevil getting beat up because people no longer found reference jokes funny (before the Orichalcos retconned their personalities, they were essentially Beavis And Butthead). But the ultimate example is the Abridged take on the Dartz's Breaking Speech. At first, he taunts Yami Yugi with memories of his time as Pharaoh like his canon counterpart, but he then reveals he doesn't even need to bring up his past, because his present life as an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who treats his friends like dirt is enough evidence of humanity's wickedness. It's a reminder to the fans that all this time, they've laughed off his actions or even cheered him on for saying things that would be repulsive in real life, with the implicit excuse that this was supposed to be a Gag Series where nothing had any real consequences anyway.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: From Season Zero Abridged Episode 2: "Nyeh, this creepy Kaiba creep gives me the creeps"
    • "FOOLISH FOOL!" anyone? Marik outdoes himself in "Leather Pants": "FOOLISH FOOL! You are a fool to think that!"
  • Depraved Bisexual: "What would Yugi do?" gives us this dialogue:
    Yami: That's what she said. Or he. I could go either way really. And that's also what she said.
    Yugi: You are so depraved.
    Yami: At least I'm not deprived. Of sex. Like you will be if you don't pipe down, little man!
  • Depraved Homosexual: Melvin and Florence for sure, possibly Marik too.
  • Destination Defenestration: ESPECIALLY Chad from accounting.
  • Destructive Romance: Implied throughout all the various Ship Tease. Téa only wants Yami and Yami definitely isn't interested. Pegasus would do ANYTHING for his dead wife and Grandpa moons over the Black Luster Soldier. Marik and Bakura's kinda sorta romance hardly seems healthy either. Then there's Tristan's interest in Serenity and their mutual interactions with Duke. Joey's relationship with Mai, while unconventional due to the age difference is the only one that doesn't have glaring problems. At least until Season Four...
  • Devil in Plain Sight:
    • Played With regarding Bakura's introduction. Bakura doesn't look evil or threatening in the slightest, but he does come out of nowhere and is followed by Ominous Latin Chanting.
      Bakura: "Here's my favorite card." (Holds up a card with a picture of Sephiroth to Ave Satani.) "Oops, wrong one!"
    • Marik tries to keep a low profile, but completely screws it one up. Fortunately for him, Yugi and his friends are so oblivious they don't even notice it.
  • Dictionary Opening: The Pyramid of Light movie starts with giving the definition of "abridged", then of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?. Marik, when under his Malik alias, had a lot of trouble keeping his evil plans to himself. Also combined with Most Definitely Not a Villain:
    Marik: (In front of Joey and Téa) "Those fools have no idea that it is really I, the evil Marik Ishtar, who plans to turn them against their best friend, Yugi Moto, so that I can rule the world! "
    Joey: "Malik, we can kinda hear everything you're saying."
    Marik: "Oh, (EFF) it. Minions! (three Steves appear) Beat their collective asses!"
  • Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Subverted. Florence uses words like "bloody" quite a bit (including one Cluster Bloody Bomb in a later episode), but his writer, LittleKuriboh, is himself British. Hence the ridiculous amount of British slang used.
  • Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: In episode 33, the "L'Oreal, because I'm worth it!" joke is reused, prompting Bakura to immediately say "I think we did that joke already."
  • Die, Chair, Die!: During The Stinger to Episode 25, Yami has an inner monologue regarding his disdain for milkshakes.
    Yami: Die, Milkshake, DIE!
  • Dissimile:
    • "Wow, an entire island all to ourselves. It's sorta like that book, "Lord of the Flies," only with a lot less subtext and a lot more card games."
    • Also, playing a children's card game is like making love. Somehow. "Because you do it on a table and feel deeply ashamed afterwards"
    • Kaiba: (Referring to the 10th Anniversary Movie In 3D) Just like James Cameron's Avatar, only instead of intergalactic smurfs fighting giant robots...it's a children's card game.
    • Wow, this is just like Tron, except with less motorcycles and more card games.
    • Just remember: you treat a duel disk just like a woman. You fasten it to your arm and place trading cards inside it at regular intervals.
  • Dirty Old Man:
    • Crump is easily the most depraved character on the show, what with his sexual attraction towards penguins and implied ephebophila.
    • Also Grampa, who sometimes makes lewd comments about high school girls and commits X-rated acts to a poster of the Black Luster Soldier (which Yugi had the misfortunate of walking in on).
  • Discredited Meme: LittleKuriboh has been trying to do this to the "card games on motorcycles" meme he created himself. In "Seto Kaiba VS The World", Lecter demonstrates Jinzo's anti-meme powers by destroying it, and adds that he's been waiting a whole year for the chance. invoked
  • Distress Ball: Mokuba, as in the original, but naturally the abridged series lampshades the hell out of it.
  • The Ditz: Tristan. Sometimes Joey... but mostly Tristan. And his voice.
  • Do I Really Sound Like That?:
    • Sort of. In Kaiba's opinion, his voice sounds "just like Solid Snake from Metal Gear." In Yami's opinion, well...
    Yami: Hey, everybody, look at me! I'm Seto Kaiba! I have a dragon fetish and I sound like Brock from Pokemon!
  • Don't Explain the Joke:
    • Episode 16:
      Mokuba: By the way, this is a 2001 parody.
    • Episode 30:
      Arkana: You'll regret those words once you realize that this duel is about more than cards; it's also about survival! Because, in case you hadn't already guessed, this episode is a parody of the Saw franchise!
    • The Running Gag of "It is funny because 'wang' means penis!"
    • In the conclusion to Kaiba's Real Father:
      Kaiba: Oh, I'm sure you're keeping a lot of secrets, Pegasus. A lot of secrets.
      Mokuba: Like the fact that he's gay!
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: This exchange from Episode 47:
    Kaiba: Are you sympathizing with me?
    Yugi: Well, yeah, I mean—
    Kaiba: Well stop doing that! I hate it.
  • Double Entendre: "Leather Pants" has plenty of these.
  • Double Standard: As Marik said in Episode 32: "Oh, right, because when I take control of somebody to make them play a card game, that's pure evil, but when [Yami does] it, it's like [he's] Mother friggin' Teresa!"
  • Downer Ending:
    • The first half of the Battle City story arc ends with Melvin defeating Bakura and causing the whole series' cancellation.
    • Hilarious versions can be found on occasion. Notably, episode 49 where Crump defeats Téa and claims her body, which is the exact opposite of what happened in the actual anime.
    • Played for Laughs in the Bonds Beyond Time movie. The protagonists defeat Paradox, only for Jaden to spoil the end of the original series for the Pharaoh. Shattering the time line and leaving them in subspace with Yuma from Zexal.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • In-Universe. "Now do you understand why so many people love me even though I'm the biggest dick in this entire show? It's because I'm Seto-freaking-Kaiba. Accept no substitutes!"
    • Later on, Florence ends up wearing Yami's Leather Pants.
    • In fact, the show lampshades this trope on many occasions, such as with Marik and Yami Yugi with their respective fanbases.
  • Dr. Feelgood: Joey's doctor after he's struck by lightning in the face.
  • Drinking Game:
    • In-universe, Episode 36, which tells the viewers to take a drink everytime the word "friendship" or "friend" is said, while a counter on the lower right corner keeps track. By the end of the episode, it's at 20.
    • In the third anniversary video, Marik keeps trying to create one for him and Florence, but without any luck.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: A Running Gag throughout the series is people mistaking Marik and sometimes Bakura for women.
    • In episode 37:
      Florence: Oh, great. Now the fangirls have started invading my dreams, too.
      Marik: WHAT!? It's me, you fool! Do I look like a (EFF)ing fangirl?
      Florence: You really don't want me to answer that.
    • Episode 53 has this:
      Marik: (after he evicts Crump from Téa's mind) Oh yeah! I'm still the man... who just looks like a woman.
    • Episode 54 then reveals that Yami thought Marik was a woman the entire time, when he cites Marik's repeated attempts to kill him as the reason he hates women:
      Joey: Yug I don't know to tell you this but Marik's a guy.
      Yami: What? That's crazy!
      Joey: I know.
      Yami: But look at the way she dresses.
      Joey: Totally a guy.
      Yami: That's crazy! What about Bakura is she a-
      Joey: Bakura's a guy.
      Yami: That's crazy!
  • Dude, She's Like in a Coma:
    • Duke Devlin on the comatose Mai:
      Duke: Wanna know the best thing about unconscious chicks? They can't say "no".
      [Everyone stares at Duke]
      Duke: What? Oh ya, like I'm the only one thinking it!
    • A non-sexual variant comes up when Yami and Joey are dueling the Big Five possessed Tristan.
      Yami: Huh, five men in one body, eh? Sounds like a typical day for Mai Valentine. Am I right?
      Yami: Am I right?
      Joey: It's just very inappropriate, is all.
      Yami: But am I right?
      Joey: Yugi!
      Yami: Joey! [Beat] Am. I. Right?

    E 
  • Eagleland: Bandit Keith, of course.note 
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Zorc makes a brief appearance in episode 9, who appeared a whole two hundred episodes before he actually does.
    • In the Abridged Movie, Noah Kaiba is "Best Boy" in the credits.
    • Dartz and his gang of Evil Motorcycle Riding Henchmen appear in the Evil Council videos, long before they would appear in the series proper.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The ending credits during the first five episodes were drastically different, as they didn't feature the [adult swim]-esque text and lacked any music.
    • For that matter, the show also didn't have any opening credits (unless you count the Beavis And Butthead parody at the beginning of episode four) until the fifth episode.
    • Post-credit scenes were far less common in earlier episodes.
  • Ear Worm: Marik is shown clutching his forehead in pain as Melvin takes over... all while the theme to Beverly Hills Chihuahua plays in his skull.
  • Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Marik loudly proclaims himself the most effeminate guy around, and generally disdains women. Of course, given the women's characterization...
  • Eldritch Abomination: Toon Summoned Skull.
    Yami: "It's like something out of H.P. Lovecraft...only gay!"
  • Elmuh Fudd Syndwome:
    • Paradox, villain from Bonds Beyond Time, on top of being a Mandark expy.
    • Dartz from Evil Council 3 onwards (Voiced by takahata101) has suffered this and creates hilariously awkward situations and many memorable lines.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Yami Bakura reveals that his parents wanted to call him "Florence", which becomes his canonical name later on for a lot of fans. Only Melvin calls him this in the actual series, however, and since he calls Joey "Susan" and Atem "Nancy," it's not clear if this constitutes a proper name change.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Marik varies from calling Yami Bakura "Florence," "Fluffy," and one time even "Kitty." Technically "Florence" isn't a nickname, as it was retconned to being Yami Bakura's actual name (as mentioned above), but before the retcon it would've been this.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Threatened almost every second episode, usually by either Shadi, Ishizu, or Marik.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: In-universe. Yami's story, "How the Thief King Stole Slavemas," ends with the Pharaoh making every day into Slavemas.
    Yugi: Huh, I was expecting a happy ending.
    Yami: What are you talking about? That was a happy ending.
    Yugi: Yeah, but only for the Pharaoh. Everybody else was miserable.
    Yami: What's your point?
  • Especially Zoidberg:
    • This:
      Melvin: I have doomed you to exist in your own worst nightmare: a world where everyone's breasts are bigger than yours!
      Mai Valentine: Even Tristan's?
      Melvin: Especially Tristan's.
    • And two episodes before:
      Croquet: Yeah...Everyone involved with the Egyptian God Cards is now dead.
      Pegasus: What? Even Chad from accounting?
      [Cut to clip of Chad from accounting being thrown out a window]
      Croquet: Especially Chad from accounting.
  • Euphemism Buster:
    Joey: Shut up, Tristan! You just wanna get into [my sister]'s pants!
    Tristan: No I don't. I want to have sex with her!
    Tristan: Oooooooh, that's what you meant...!
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Duke comments on Mai...
    Duke Devlin: I know how she feels. Guys are proposing to me all the time.
  • "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Episode 7, even after Yami killed a gay clown.
  • Everyone Hates Mimes: When facing a duelist who is being mind-controlled by the villain:
    Yami: He's still a human being!
    Marik: He's also a mime.
    Yugi: Oh. In that case, yeah, I'll kick his ass!
  • Everyone Is Bi: All of the male characters hit on everyone of both genders, with the exception of Pegasus, who is Armored Closet Straight.
  • Evil Is Cool: In-universe. Kaiba has "the best outfits", "all the cool gadgets," and is "the only reason people watch this show" (as he claims in The Movie, while going wildly off-script).
  • Evil Is Hammy: almost every villain follow this, with a few exceptions.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Pegasus realizes this only after he makes and markets toys out of an ancient evil... and continues using it to make boatloads of money anyway.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Yami, Melvin, and Florence all have significantly deeper voices than Yugi, Marik, and Bakura.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Kaiba vs. Pegasus in season 1; Florence and Marik vs Melvin and Team Four Kids in seasons 2 & 3
  • Exact Words: In Episode 55:
    Kaiba: Why did the annoying green-haired punk cross the road?
    Noah: What?
    Kaiba: To show he had guts. And man, did he have guts.
    Noah: That's not funny.
    Kaiba: I guess you had to be there.
    Noah: I was!
    Kaiba: And that's why it's so funny.
  • Explaining Your Power to the Enemy:
    • Of course, the original does it all the time with the cards, and in true fashion the Abridged Series subverts this habit gloriously. First in episode 14.
      Yami: I shall fuse my Mammoth Graveyard with your dragon, causing it to decay from the inside.
      Kaiba: How the hell did you do that?
      Yami: It's called cheating! Deal with it!
    • Then again in episode 59.
      Yami: I activate De-Fusion! Oh, where are my manners, would you like me to tell you what it does?
      Kaiba: I know what it does.
      Yami: Are you sure? Because you might need a reminder.
      Kaiba: No, I've- I've played this game for a very long time, I know what all the cards do.
      Yami: Okay. But only if you're certain.
      Kaiba: I'm one hundred percent—
      Yami: De-Fusion allows me to defuse your Ultimate Dragon into the three monsters that created it, making my Dark Paladin stronger than any of the monsters on your side of the field!
      Kaiba: (shouting over Yami's explanation) SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE (BLEEP) UP!
    • And again in episode 64.
      "Bro": I activate my Magic Card, The Warrior Returning Alive! This card allows me to—
      Yami: Instead of telling me what the card does, would you mind explaining anything about yourself, or why you're trying to kill me?
      "Bro": But... that would waste valuable time, that could be spent explaining trading card functions!
      Yami: I think it's pretty obvious what a card called "The Warrior Returning Alive" does!
      "Bro": Oh yeah? Then what does it do, Mr. Smarty-Pharaoh?
      Yami: Gee, I don't know, brings one of your monsters back from the Graveyard?
      "Bro": Lucky guess.
    • In episode 67 Kaiba joins in on the fun during his rematch with Pegasus but is cut off before he gets too far. Even more hilariously unnecessary considering Pegasus invented the game.
      Kaiba: I activate Negate Attack! Negate Attack is a card that, when activated, prevents your monster from being able to-
      Pegasus: Are you... Explaining Negate Attack to me?
      Kaiba: Well yeah, do you even know what it does?
      Pegasus: Everyone does! It's right there in the name. It negates an attack.
  • Eye-Dentity Giveaway: in contrast to how their duel went in the anime, Tea loses her duel to Crump in the Virtual World arc. As such, when Crump takes over her body, LK edits Tea's eyes to always be empty Mind-Control Eyes to show that Crump's the one in control. Despite this, no one notices the change. This lasts until Crump and Marik meet in her head and Marik kicks him out.

    F 
  • Face Death with Dignity:
    • Marik acts more dignified while awaiting his own death than he has in the entire series thus far (probably because O.O.C. Is Serious Business).
    • In a very satisfying and karmic switch of their usual roles, Melvin averts this trope.
    • Noah also faces his death as best that he can by sacrificing himself for the others, even if he wasn't forgiven by the group for all the harm he caused.
  • "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: Marik, at the end of the 3rd Anniversary video:
    Naruto: The presents have arrived! (brandishing a ticking time bomb) This one's from Team Four Star! I don't know how yet, but I'm going to smoke it!
    Marik: Ooo! New Drinking Game! Every time we all explode and die, we take a—
    (BOOOOOOOOOM!!!)
  • Failed a Spot Check: Yugi never knows what time it is! He should try looking up and to his left.
  • Fake Orgasm: Parodied when Kaiba learns Yugi was beaten in a card game, and he's so furious, as he believes he is the only one allowed to defeat Yugi, that he calls Yugi to chew him out. The whole scene plays out as one angry lover calling another and chewing him out for cheating on him, including a line about admitting to "faking" in order to hurt him.
    Kaiba: I thought we had something special, Yugi! What, is our rivalry just one big joke to you?! I committed to beating you in a card game! And I thought I could rely on you to be true to me as your most hated enemy! But I guess I was wrong!
    Yugi: Kaiba, it's not what it looks like—
    Kaiba: I bet you say that to all the duelists! If I had had parents, I bet they would have told me that you were no good for me! And let me tell you one last thing. All those times I got angry and declared that I would have my vengeance on you?! I WAS FAKING! [Hangs up the phone angrily]
  • Family-Friendly Firearms:
    • "Don't move a muscle or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns!"
    Larry: Bang! Bang! Puh-toww, puh-toww, puh-toww. Bang!
    Kaiba: (mocking) Oh no, you got me.
    Agent 1: Hey, stop mocking our invisible guns.
    Larry: Bang!
    Agent 1: Larry, stop it.
    • Double-Subverted in episode 37. When attacked in a graveyard by Bandit Keith's former gang dressed up as zombies Florence isn't fazed in the slightest. During the duel he headshots Bonz (zombie-boy) mid-rant with a bullet fired from his invisible gun.
    • Subverted in episode 47. When Noah tells the cast to start walking and threatens them with rows of automated guns, they don't believe the guns are real at first:
      Kaiba: Get real! What are those? Guns that shoot magical bullets that send us to the Shadow Realm?
      Joey: Yeah, knowing 4Kids they probably just shoot harmless rubber bullets that don't even...
      [Guns spray the area with very real bullets]
    • Defied Trope in episode 55, when Ishizu turns up with some very realistically-armed guards, and remarks about how expensive they were to obtain.
    • In episode 17 Bandit Keith does this when he threatens Pegasus. He doesn't mention invisible guns specifically but in the regular series he does threaten Pegasus by pointing a gun at his head, and the gun was edited out of the international releases in favor of just pointing menacingly at him. Averted briefly in episode 59 when Kaiba shows off clips of Pegasus acting Ambiguously Gay. It shows the unedited version of the episode.
  • Fan Boy: One appears in Episode 31 and runs off with Joey's duel disk, though he gives it back. He did sneak a card into his deck in the end, as well as being revealed to work for Weevil.
  • Fanfic: LK's actually written some, such as a slash fic with the abridged versions of Marik and Bakura.
  • Fanservice:
    • The boys lose all focus whenever Mai Valentine shows up. Also, episode 16 is actually titled "Fanservice", and interrupts the story with Mai sitting by herself and saying, "Fan-service!" every few minutes (and then we get Bandit Keith's profoundly disturbing "fanservice... in America!").
    • "I agree with Mai's boobs."
    • "And now it's time for some Bakura fanservice- oh, bugger. It's the credits. Oh well, maybe next time."
    • Invoked when Kaiba gets kidnapped. "It gives the fangirls a chance to see you in chains."
  • Fate Worse than Death: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
  • Fetish:
    • When Téa is mind controlled by Marik, Yami exclaims that it's horrible, "yet strangely erotic."
    • Yugi has a big fetish toward Dark Magician Girl.
    • Yugi's Grandfather has a "forbidden love" for the Black Luster Soldier.
    • Bakura likes knives. And severed fingers. They make him feel all tingly.
    • Marik: Icecube fetish, hahahaha! Also, his YouTube account lists him as disliking being whipped, but only most of the time.
    • Kaiba's turn-ons apparently include: dragons, acts of indiscriminate evil, technology, and extremely overpowered cards from a children's card game.
    • Joey's secret furry fetish.
    • Crump really, really, really likes penguins.
  • Final Hate Duet: The ending of Season 2.
  • Fission Mailed: Episode 46. It looks like the show has actually been canceled, complete with casting credits, but then you notice that the last 6 roles are all question marks. Cue The Tag, with Noah and the Big Five deciding that now that the show has been canceled, they have to figure out what to do with the characters—which will be seen in Season Three.
  • Flag Drop: Zombie Boy has an American flag materialize behind him during an inspirational speech about how zombies need to fight against being replaced by "the infected", at least until he is given a Surprisingly Sudden Death in the middle of it.
  • Flat "What":
    • Rafael's perfectly understandable reaction to Dartz, aka Rainbow Head's newest idea for defeating Yu-gay Mo-toe. They're gonna take his d?ck.
    • A staple of most segments containing Jack and Yusei.
      Yusei: There's something you should know.
      Jack: What is it Yusei?
      Yusei: I came—
      Jack: WHAT?
      Yusei: —To this city.
      Jack: Oh.
    • And from the Bonds Beyond Time movie we have...
      Jack: Yusei! Show him your Junk!
      Yusei: What?
      Jack: Warrior! Your Junk Warrior!
      Yusei: I have a better idea... C'MON OUT, STARDUST DRAGON!
      Yusei: What!?
      Jack: Warrior!
    • A hilarious example from Nezbit due to his robotic monotone at the time in episode 51.
      Nezbit: You humans and your mating rituals, it's disgusting!
      Téa (Crump): I'm not a human, I'm a penguin! ....hmmmm
      Nezbit: What?
  • Flaw Exploitation: Crump knows exactly what to say to goad Téa into dueling him.
  • Forced Meme:
    • KROOOOOOZE. Though this is outside of the actual episodes, being in unrelated videos.
    • CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES!!!
    • Another example, "Brooklyn Rage", is a Double Subversion. In episode 28, Joey introduced the phrase and tried to make it a meme in-universe. Yami shot it down hard, and it was rarely mentioned again afterwards in the main series. Out-of-universe, however, it rapidly became a meme. (It's been suggested that this happened because LittleKuriboh didn't try to force it as a meme; people don't like Forced Memes very much.) Not to mention that the few times he did mention it, it was always a variation. YMMV, but this makes it even funnier, because it's unexpected.
      Joey: "He said fury. As in Brooklyn Fury."
      Joey: "You know, it's enough to make a guy angry. So angry that you might call it rage. Rage that is specifically located in the westernmost county of Long Island, New York. Also known as BROOKLYN!"
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Though you probably didn't take it seriously since it fits in perfectly with the humor of the show. The later episodes of Season 2 include talk of a "prophecy" that 4Kids will try and destroy the show and Bakura, Ishizu and Marik have to stop them, Ishizu and Shadi warning the destruction of the "fourth wall" will be a disaster, and scenes of the Big Five are redubbed as 4Kids operatives watching the cast and waiting for the right moment to enact an Evil Plan.
    • In the fifth Evil Council video, Bakura leaves to join Dartz's council, due to finally getting tired of everyone being idiots. Evil Council 4 was a dream sequence (well, mostly), where Bakura dreamed that Melvin would take over and run things intelligently.
    • In Season Zero Episode 3, a criminal (Jirou the Yellow Spider) forces Téa to sing at gunpoint for kicks and she (badly) sings Katy Perry's "Firework". Yami later kills the guy by tricking him into setting himself on fire.
    • After meeting Bakura for the first time and deciding to team up with him, Marik briefly slips into an (at the time) inexplicably low-pitched and distorted voice, which would later become recognizable as Melvin's voice.
    Bakura: What the devil was that?
  • Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Tristan is such a The Ditz in this series it's jarring when he acts like the badass he really sort of is on the real show.
  • Fun with Acronyms
    Kaiba: You see, Yugi, BFFs doesn't stand for Best Friends Forever. It actually stands for Big Fucking Freaks.
  • Fun with Subtitles: See Gag Sub below.

    G 
  • Gag Dub: The series itself, but in the teaser for one episode Little Kuriboh dubbed part of Star Trek: The Next Generation, specifically the Previously on… for one episode. The funny part, he used his various voices but the dialogue was exactly the same.
  • Gag Sub: Three times so far: episode 9 has the official Spanish dub for the beginning portion (with completely inaccurate/irreverent subtitles), while in episode 10 it suddenly gains an opening theme (to the NGE opening music, with the subtitles twisted into Yu-Gi-Oh references). Neither of those, however, can match "The Other Abridged Movie" subtitling—both the opening and ending theme songs are a long string of mondegreens.
  • Gagging on Your Words: Kaiba does this when he tries to tell Mokuba that he loves him in episode 55; he eventually has to cross his fingers to get it out at all.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Florence, who is a guy.
    Yami: That's crazy!
  • Gender Incompetence: In"My Funny Skankentine", it's made very clear that Mai lost her duel with Joey because she's a woman. Well, that and the fact that 4Kids censored most of her cards.
  • Gentle Giant:
    • Odion, given that he likes the Gummi Bears.
    • Also Zorc, his tendency to destroy the world notwithstanding.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A demonic one.
  • Glamour Failure: Yugi gets the wrong idea in episode 32.
    Yugi: I only just realized, Pharaoh, that you haven't got a reflection! Is there something you're not telling me?
    Yami: Yugi, I'm an ancient spirit living inside your body. Of course I don't have—
    Yugi: Don't lie to me! You're a vampire, aren't you?
    Yami: It's the middle of the day!
    Yugi: That proves nothing!
    Yami: I never should have let you read Twilight!
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: WHY AM I SPEAKING FRENCH?!
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: Well...not exactly. Tristan's consciences are Zack and Cody. And they're both as Chaotic Stupid as he is. The floating heads also can't remember which is Zack and which is Cody. Those are some stupid "angels". It's hard to be sure, but this is probably a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's similar problem which would make sense given the works' shared postmodernist bent.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Any victim of Melvin.
    Melvin: Hi, there. Could I get a hug?
    Doctor: I don't see why not...
    • Melvin subverts and mocks the idea entirely in Episode 56
    Melvin: Well howdy ho! Robots! You know what that means? I can be as hardcore as I want and it will still be PG-13! Mmm! Delicious ultra-violence!
  • Grand Theft Me:
    • Marik is able to do this to Téa and Joey after legally changing their names to Steve.
    • Happens in episode 49, where Crump the Tuxedo-Wearing Penguin hijacks Téa's body. Later on he discovers that Marik has already done this to Téa himself and gets kicked out.
    • Tristan when his body gets hijacked by the Big Five
  • Gratuitous French: Used and Lampshaded in Leather Pants: ''Je voudrais son/Pantalon cuir/Son pantalonTranslation /Why am I speaking French?/Why am I speaking French?/I don't wanna be French
  • Gratuitous Japanese:
    • Joey apparently has a fanboy, who calls him "Jonouchi-chan", and calls Tristan "Honda-kun". The dude doesn't like watching the dub. Gomen nasai!
    • Also, Marik calls Florence "aibō" at one point, and when Florence presses him on it, Marik explains that he thinks it means "gay". It actually means "partner", but not necessarily in a sexual way, so he wasn't far off the mark. The real humor is in the fact Yami (in the original Japanese and far too many fanfics) refers to Yugi as this.
  • Gratuitous Rap: At the end of Episode 40, Noah's dog uses dialogue from Fritz the Rapping Dog, from Titanic: The Legend Goes On
  • Groin Attack: Mokuba suggests this to Kaiba when Ishisu turns his strategy against him.
    Mokuba: "Kick her in the nads!"
    Kaiba: "She doesn't have those things!"

    H 
  • Hammerspace: "And now to use the Millennium Rod, which I keep clenched between my buttocks."
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: A subtle bit in Episode 33, where Bakura mentions that Marik is the source of the "Gaysignal" he'd been following, to which a flustered Marik replies that he likes women. Bakura's response?
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: From episode 53 ("Mokuba, Where Art Thou?"):
    Kaiba Program: Hello, insert name of sibling.
    Mokuba: He remembers my name!
  • He-Man Woman Hater: Played for laughs and combined with Dude Looks Like a Lady. Yami feels perfectly justified in his disdain for women, what with those Marik and Bakura chicks always trying to kill him.
  • Heroic BSoD: Losing a children's card game has caused both Yugi and Kaiba (in separate instances) to have an existential crises.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Noah sacrifices his life and his only chance to get back to the real world to destroy Gozaburo and Team 4kids... Using the missile he launched himself meant to kill everyone literally seconds before.
  • Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure:
    • Time is usually measured in episodes.
    • The intensity of Kaiba's smile is measured in (additional) dead puppies.
    • Téa measures men's attractiveness in haminas.
  • Homage:
    Seto Kaiba: Let's duel on the roof as an homage to Clerks.
    • "By the way, this is a 2001 parody."
    • Subverted lampshading in episode 15, which featured, among other things, Pegasus' castle as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, Kemo not needing to see the characters' identification, and Kaiba once being the learner, but now the master...
      Tristan: "What's with all the Star Trek quotes?"
    • "Because, in case you hadn't noticed, this episode is a parody of the Saw franchise!"
    • He featured footage taken from the famous Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Best of Both Worlds." When the Enterprise fired at the Borg ship, it featured the subtitle "Ancient Egyptian Phaser Beams."
    • Shadi's voice is made to sound like Borat.
      Yugi: "It could have been worse. They could have modelled him on Brüno (2009)."
    • Marik is slowly sounding more and more like the Monarch of The Venture Bros. and two of his henchmen sound suspiciously similar to Henchmen 21 and 24. Given the other Adult Swim references it's likely this is intentional.
    • Joey's mother has the voice of Doctor Girlfriend.
    • In one episode, Marik shouts "Ignore me!" several times, the catchphrase of the Galactic Inquisitor from "Twenty Years To Midnight"
    • The scenes featuring The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past... From the Future resemble the episodes he appears in.
    • Also Tristan as Samuel L. Jackson, reciting the famous interrogation and execution scene from Pulp Fiction.
    • And Bakura's classic moment in episode 37, about why he's become evil.
    • The scene in episode 41 with Pegasus in the convoy in the desert is a homage to Iron Man, complete with "Back in Black" playing in the background.
    • In episode 23, Joey remarks, "That game was more disappointing than Fable."
    • Episode 50 "Joey Wheeler: Ace Attourney" almost averts this. There is a Phoenix Wright joke in the form of an original animated segment but it comes in after the regular episode is over.
    • Episode 52 is named after Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
      Seto Kaiba: Let me guess, you're one of Noah's 7 Evil Ex-Boyfriends?
    • Episode 68 is one to Mad Max.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Kaiba Corp executive Lector—the head of localization at 4Kids—uses Jinzo as his Deck Master. In the Abridged Universe, Jinzo has the power of destroying internet meme-related cards, which puts Kaiba at a disadvantage. So how does Kaiba beat him? He distracts Lector long enough to create an internet meme based on localizing Japanese cartoons. This causes Lector to become a meme, thus causing his own Deck Master power to affect and destroy him.
  • Horrible Judge of Character:
    • Everyone involving Malik. Yugi, upon meeting him and noting that his story seems a little off, still accepts him and calls himself a "gullible idiot-in-training".
    Joey, thinking: "I still think there's something fishy about that guy..."
    Marik: "Wahahaha! Destroy you all!"
    Joey, thinking: "Man, if I could only put my finger on it..."
    • Not to mention all the people who think that it couldn't hurt to let Melvin give them a hug.
  • How the Character Stole Christmas: "How the Thief King Stole Slavemas"
  • Hurricane of Euphemisms: Grandpa uses one of these in the season zero episode.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • Makes fun of the Jim Jarmusch movie Broken Flowers saying that their parodic search "will have an actual conclusion." Then it ends on a cliffhanger. Blatant enough to probably be purposeful. Later, however, it did get a conclusion.
    • When Mokuba tells Grandpa to shut up, the old man blurts out, "Where the hell are your manners!?" Made even funnier by the fact that everyone had been telling Mokuba to shut up until that point (including Grandpa just a few seconds ago).
    • Téa also berates Mokuba for telling an old man to shut up. Then tells Grandpa to shut up in the very next episode.
    • Joey asks about Bakura's "inappropriate accent" (Joey himself has an inappropriate accent).
    • "Bullying is just wrong! Destroying people's brains with magical powers is A-OK!"
    • Seto Kaiba to Mokuba, while they're both flying on Seto's two-passenger jet plane: "Mokuba, you're making us look ridiculous. Now please! Let me concentrate on flying my giant dragon-shaped jet plane."
    • Joey when he kicks Tristan through a wall: "I warned him, using a stick is just asking for trouble." "Joey, you just shoved him through a building." "So?"
    • In the Bonds Beyond Time movie, Yusei asked every other Yu-gi-oh protagonist what is wrong with their hair.
    • Yami makes fun of Kaiba for having a Watapon card in his deck, in the actual series, Watapon is a card Yugi uses in his own deck regularly. It appears in said deck in Episode 71. Yami even defends his using it in his rap battle against Jaden.
    • In Evil Council 5, Steve Luna and Steve Umbris claim references to be the laziest form of comedy... despite both being walking references to the Mooninites. And in a previous Evil Council video, they kept spouting references to Lost. And then there's this bit from The Stinger:
      Steve Luna: References might as well be stealing! On the Moon, we have evolved beyond stealing! That's why I illegally downloaded Skyrim: I wanted to see if it was worth paying full price. 60 hours later, I decided that it wasn't.
    • Tristan doesn't believe that people's voices can change. Looks like he really doesn't remember what happened with the scissors.
    • In Season 0, Hayao Miyazaki is seen in a diner and declares animators who use CGI to be the real villains. Miyazaki has used CGI in several of his films, such as Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle (though he hasn't used any since Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea).

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