History WesternAnimation / MightyMax

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially tries to avert his eyes, but reluctantly gazes into the mirror and reacts with utmost horror. Through the perspective of the glass, Max's pupils begin to swirl into spirals as his nose grows large with warts, his arms become wrinkled and his hands elongate into claws as he's inevitably transformed into the hideous, hunchbacked creature reflecting back at him. Max cries out to Virgil and Norman for help, but Freako states "there is nothing you can do, but become a freak" before cackling maniacally.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially averts his eyes, but he eventually gazes into the mirror and reacts with utmost horror. Through the perspective of the mirror, Max's pupils swirl into spirals as his nose grows large with warts, his arms become wrinkled and his hands elongate into claws. Within a matter of seconds, he's inevitably transformed into the hideous, hunchbacked creature reflecting back at him as the clown cackles maniacally. Max cries out to Virgil and Norman for help, but Freako mocks the boy by saying "there is nothing you can do, but become a freak."

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially averts his eyes, but he eventually gazes into the mirror and reacts with utmost horror. His pupils swirl into spirals as his arms become wrinkled, his hands elongate into claws, his nose grows large with warts and he is eventually transformed into the hideous, hunchbacked creature reflecting back at him. Max cries out to Virgil and Norman for help, but Freako mocks the boy by saying "there is nothing you can do, but become a freak" before laughing maniacally.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially averts his eyes, but he eventually gazes into the mirror and reacts with utmost horror. His pupils swirl into spirals as his arms become wrinkled, his hands elongate into claws, his nose grows large with warts and he is eventually transformed into the hideous, hunchbacked creature reflecting back at him. After Max cries out to Virgil and Norman for help, Freako mocks the boy by saying "there's nothing you can do, but become a freak" while laughing maniacally.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. The boy initially averts his eyes, but eventually gazes into the mirror and is horrified by what he sees. His pupils swirl into spirals as his arms become wrinkled, his hands grow into claws, his nose grows large with warts and he is eventually transformed into the hideous, hunchbacked creature reflecting back at him. After Max cries out to Virgil and Norman for help, Freako mocks the boy by saying "there's nothing you can do, but become a freak" while laughing maniacally. Luckily, Norman left Max with his sword before being captured again, and once Max uses it to shatter the various mirrors, it reverts him, and everyone else, back to normal.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially averts his eyes, but eventually gazes into the mirror and is horrified by what he sees. Max screams out "NO!" but inevitably transforms into the hideous creature that's reflected back at him.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." In addition to several children who have gone "missing," the sinister clown kidnaps Virgil and Norman after drugging them with cotton candy and turns them into freaks early on in the episode. During the climactic set-piece, Freako traps Max in his funhouse and drops a mirror directly in front of him. Max initially averts his eyes, but eventually gazes into the mirror and is horrified by what he sees. Max screams out "NO!" but inevitably transforms into the hideous creature that's reflected back at him. Freako mocks Max's cries for help, but he ultimately uses Norman's sword to shatter the mirrors reverting himself, and everyone else, to their human form.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform anyone who looks at them into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." Virgil and Norman are turned into freaks early on after being drugged by Freako's cotton candy, and the sinister clown even transforms Max into a grotesque creature towards the end of the episode after dropping a mirror directly in front of him.

* BalefulPolymorph: Freako the Clown uses magical funhouse mirrors that transform children into monsters in "Clown Without Pity." Virgil and Norman are turned into freaks early on after being drugged by Freako's cotton candy, and the sinister clown even transforms Max into a grotesque creature towards the end of the episode after dropping a mirror directly in front of him.

* BatmanGambit: Skullmaster pulls off one in "I, Warmunger" based on him knowing that his Dragon (as in TheDragon, not the giant lizard Skullmaster rides) will betray and kill him in order to seize ultimate power and release such powerful evil that Virgil will be forced to use the only weapon Skullmaster fears on that problem, instead of him.

* {{Nerd}}: Max's classmate Ernie wears a bowtie, calls Max "Maxie-Waxie", and is an extreme stereotype of what a nerd is. Nobody in real life dresses or acts like him. Also applies to Cyberskull before his transformation, as well as to J. C. Mega, the CEO of Mega Corp.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The final episode has all of the supporting cast die and Skullmaster nearly achieving his goal, but then Max interrupts Skullmaster’s ritual and resets the timeline to where the series began. Max is now at square-one again, but Max is undaunted and ready to fight evil again with greater success alongside his revived friends.]]

* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler: The series arguably takes place in such a universe. Although over the course of the series we find Max beating his fair share of enemies, ultimately the great BigBad is shown to be unstoppably powerful, and our hero's only hope to even TIE with him is to let all his friends die and restart the timeline with his own death in the hopes it goes better the second time. Unfortunately, given the prophecies frequently referenced, [[ViciousCycle this cycle has happened at least several dozen times]].]]

* LovecraftLite: Taken to a great extent in "Less Than 20,000 Squid Heads Under The Sea", where Max and company encounter a civilization of squid-headed beings who look like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft story. However, they're all quite friendly and in fact very timid, afraid of the giant squid that's ''really'' responsible for all the problems in the area.

* AbsenteeActor: Virgil and Norman do not appear in "Snakes and Laddies" (although both are still mentioned). To an extent, "Werewolves of Dunneglen," too. They do show up, but they've been arrested as murder suspects and spend the whole episode in jail while Max deals with the MonsterOfTheWeek on his own. They are also completely absent from the first half of "The Mother of All Adventures."

* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler: The series arguably takes place in such a universe. Although over the course of the series we find Max beating his fair share of enemies, ultimately the great BigBad is shown to be unstoppably powerful, and our hero's only hope to even TIE with him is to let all his friends die and restart the timeline with his own death in the hopes it goes better the second time.]]

* AbsenteeActor: Virgil and Norman do not appear in "Snakes and Laddies" (although both are still mentioned). To an extent, "Werewolves of Dunneglen," too. They do show up, but they've been arrested as murder suspects and spend the whole episode in jail while Max deals with the MonsterOfTheWeek on his own.

* ActionSurvivor: Max

* MadScientist: Many examples.

* DevolutionDevice: In one episode, a mad scientist named Dr. Zygote develops a ray that devolves anything to their prehistoric state. A bunch of human tourists become apes, Max's pet lizard becomes a dinosaur, and Virgil (a lemurian who is supposed to be the next step in human evolution) gets turned into a pterodactyl (?!) Later it's used by Dr. Zygote to turn a bunch of devolved mutated monsters into primordial ooze. He surmises that the ray "reversed their evolutionary path to the final quagmire, an evolutionary dead-end"--[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZqBj0vLXU&feature=related which really makes no sense at all.]]
** Then in another episode, Dr. Zygote uses the ray again to further evolve himself into a more advanced form, from a big brained alien, to a lemurian, to a floating giant brain, and finally into a flash of light. At the end, he [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence "evolved beyond good and evil" and left]]. There was a subversion along the way, as he became a [[strike:chicken]] fowl-like humanoid similar to Max's mentor Virgil, who mentioned humanity will find the form enjoyable, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmB5NDeziMk much to Max's surprise.]]

** In "Zygote’s Rhythm," an elderly tourist couple is hit by a devolution ray and turned into apes. They are never turned back.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Conqueror, after being defeated by Norman, has been set free of his neverending cycle of fighting, and wishes to join humanity (humans flee from him out of fear, though, which rather irritates him). He's never seen, heard of or mentioned again after that. Apparently, eight foot tall humanoid talking lions just wandering about is [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight no cause for attention]].

** In the episode "I, Warmonger", Skullmaster orders his dragon to leave after it takes him and Warmonger to Zero Island. This is the third and final time said dragon is seen in the series, (The first two times being the very end of "Pandora's Box Part 2" and most of "Blood of the Dragon" respectively.) and it doesn't reappear in the series finale, nor is it even acknowledged.

* TimeAbyss: Virgil, Norman, and Skullmaster are all about 10,000 years old. The cause of Norman's longevity is explained in one episode (he battled a magical creature from dawn to dusk, thereby earning the right to live for 10,000 years) but Virgil and Skullmaster... we can only assume magic has something to do with it.

* BewareTheSkullBase: 5000 years ago, Main villain Skullmaster was banished to Skull Mountain, located deep deep underground. Now it is where he hatches his lots to escape his imprisonment and conquer the planet.

* TimeAbyss: Virgil, Norman, and Skullmaster are all at LEAST 10,000 years old. The cause of Norman's longevity is explained in one episode (he battled a magical creature from dawn to dusk, thereby earning the right to live for 10,000 years) but Virgil and Skullmaster...we can only assume magic has something to do with it.

* FantasyKitchenSink: Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Asian, Indian, Native American, African, Arthurian, original and even Biblical mythical elements are all shown to exist in the show's setting. The astral plane is real, Atlantis and Lemuria existed there, and the guys also tangle with werewolves, vampires ([[OurVampiresAreDifferent of a sort]]), talking ape warriors, yetis, dragons and more. That's not even getting into the episodes with sci-fi elements instead.

* NightOfTheLivingMooks: Skullmaster's soulless Atlantean zombies, [[ImplacableMan unstoppable monsters]] that track down Max wherever he may be once Skullmaster sics them on him, forcing him to either be constantly on the run or try something drastic.

** In "Mighty Max Liquidates the Ice Alien", the titular ice alien was Cryogenoid, a [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Mr. Freeze]] [[{{Expy}} look-alike]] creature in a robotic armor suit. In the episode based on that playset, "Out in the Cold", Gryogenoid does not appear at all, with the "ice aliens" from that episode being based on the "alien heads", two [[AscendedExtra glorified decorations that only had a minor role in the toy's mini-comic]].

** In "Mighty Max Liquidates the Ice Alien", the titular ice alien was Cryogenoid, a [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Mr. Freeze]] [[{{Expy}} look-alike]] creature in a robotic armor suit. In the episode based on that playset, "Out in the Cold", Gryogenoid does not appear at all, with the "ice aliens" from that episode being based on the "alien heads", two [[AscendedExtra glorified decorations that didn't appear in the toy's mini-comic at all]].
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Played with from episode to episode. Most often it's played straight, such as when the group finds a civilization of intelligent gorillas who somehow speak perfect english despite living in an isolated valley with no access to the outside world. Often it's justified, as with the case of Kalamarus and the squid people, who learned to speak english from the labels on trash that was dumped in the ocean. On one memorable occasion it's actually inverted when we learn that Virgil can speak the Neanderthal language, even though he was born 20,000 years after that subspecies of human went extinct.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The first season finale [[spoiler: end with Max allowing Skullmaster to leave his kingdom and finally return to the surface world due to not wanting Virgil to die in a TakingYouWithMe gambit. To say the least, he finds Skullmaster much more dangerous when allowed to roam free. The irony too was that they were trying to take him out when he was at his weakest without the Crystal of Souls.]]

* InsistentTerminology: Virgil is a ''fowl'', not a chicken. Inverted when Max calls a delivery man in a chicken suit a fowl, and the delivery man takes offense and insists on being called a chicken. Justified because 'chicken' used to only mean baby fowl. Perhaps Virgil doesn't like being essentially called a 'baby.'

The show centers around a smartaleck boy, Max, who is sent an artifact by his archeologist mother, only to find an enchanted baseball cap signifying him as a [[TheChosenOne chosen hero]], the "cap bearer" or "mighty one." He comes across two individuals who are also destined to protect and train him, the immortal viking [[TheBigGuy Big Guy]] Norman provided the muscle and protection while MrExposition Virgil was to be his [[MentorArchetype mentor]], who happened to be a humanoid fowl (but ''[[InsistentTerminology certainly not]]'' a chicken). Oh... and that baseball cap is a legendary key to open a [[PortalNetwork series of ancient portals]] to transport them around the world and even beneath it.