Line #38 Series/KirbyBuckets


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kirby_buckets.jpg]]
2
3	->''"That's me, [[PowerTrio Kirby, and those are my friends: Eli, and Fish]]. That's a gang of [[MonsterClown angry clowns]], and that's their [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking angry pig]]. I'd like to say this sort of thing doesn't usually happen to us. But it totally does."''
4	-->-- The OpeningNarration in the {{Pilot episode}}
5
6	''Kirby Buckets'' is a KidCom that airs on Creator/DisneyXD.
7
8	The series follows Kirby Buckets (Creator/JacobBertrand), an aspiring animator with an [[MrImagination overactive imagination]]. Kirby and his friends, Fish and Eli, often find themselves involved in [[WeirdnessMagnet unpredictable escapades at school]], while [[RogerRabbitEffect Kirby's drawings]] provide a sort of commentary on the various events. The show follows a basic formula each episode, usually with Kirby causing or encountering some kind of problem that [[StatusQuoIsGod usually gets resolved by the end of episode]].
9
10	Also notable is the mixed-media format of the show with animated characters based on Kirby's creations often coming into the scene. In this way it can be seen as similar to ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead'' (except more successful) or a SpearCounterpart to Disney's own ''Series/LizzieMcGuire''.
11
12	Confirmed to be part of the Franchise/DisneyChannelLiveActionUniverse through a [[RedSkiesCrossOver Red Skies]] CrossThrough event.
13
14	The show premiered on October 20th, 2014 and was renewed for a second season in January of 2015. The series was confirmed for a third season over the summer of 2016, and premiered in early 2017 under the title ''Kirby Buckets: Warped''.
15
16	----
17	!! Tropes
18	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Big Ricky to Dawn.
19	* AbortedArc: After the pilot, Mac Mcallister is only seen for one episode, and it's not even an episode to expand on Kirby's dream to be an animator.
20	* AccidentalHero: One episode opens with TheBully stealing Kirby's skateboard, only to lose balance and knock himself out. A crowd of kids sees Kirby standing over the unconscious bully and instantly declare him a hero.
21	-->'''Ricky:''' Kirby Buckets knocked out Pearly Todd!\
22	'''Kirby:''' No, no, that's not what -\
23	'''Ricky:''' Kirby Buckets is a hero!
24	* AlphaBitch: Dawn has the "Bitch" attitude, but she isn't very popular. She's also rivals with one who has the "Alpha" (Mandy). Mandy swings between a LovableAlphaBitch ("Killer Puppies") and just a plain-old AlphaBitch ("Kirby to the Max")
25	* AllElectionsAreSeriousBusiness: Simply mentioning an election in Fish's presence risks turning him into, in his own words, "a political werewolf" - an entire split personality who acts like a stereotypical gladhanding politician.
26	* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Kirby to Dawn, but Dawn herself isn't very nice either.
27	* AuthorAvatar: Averted. Kirby doesn't really have a "himself" character.
28	* BigBad: Lord Mitchell in Season 3. Otherwise, the episodes have MonsterOfTheWeek big bads.
29	** Mr. Jenkins in "Bad Seed"
30	** The giant spider in "Queen for a Dawn"
31	** Eli and Jean-Luc in "Forest Hills Blues"
32	** "Cool Chad" from his titular episode
33	** Prank Williams, Jr. in "The Unpranked"
34	* BigBadEnsemble: Dawn and Principal Mitchell are the primary antagonists who hate Kirby and often try to ruin his fun. This is downplayed in Season 3, where they both are almost always good guys.
35	* BigDamnHeroes
36	* BigSisterBully: Dawn is this to Kirby.
37	* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Dawn.
38	* BrokenAesop: In "The Hurt Box", Kirby makes a comic book containing insulting cartoons about his teachers, which Fish accidentally enters into the school's submission box. When the gang sneaks into the school to try and stop the teachers from reading the comic book, they discover that the teachers only look the students' suggestions to laugh at them, prompting the two sides to agree to stop making fun of each other. Now if only Kirby would stop drawing "Dawnzilla"...
39	* BumblingDad: Kirby's father is well-meaning but a massive dork, and should not be allowed near computers.
40	%%* CloudcuckooLander: Wild Gil (needs elaboration)
41	* ComedicUnderwearExposure: Kirby gets one after a toilet explodes while he is using it.
42	* DiabolicalMastermind: Principal Mitchell has all the traits of one--scheming and conniving from behind the scenes, finds creative ways to either get rid of Kirby or make his life miserable, sometimes has minions with him, and has a RightHandCat.
43	** That's nothing compared to '''Lord''' Mitchell, his actually evil counterpart introduced in Season 3.
44	* EvilAllAlong[=/=]TheMole: Man-D in "Commander Kirbo" is revealed to be this -- hardly surprising as she is the alternate universe counterpart of an AlphaBitch.
45	** In "The Kirbinator", the Future Kirby was actually an actor hired by Dawn to trick Kirby. When Kirby attempts his final prank on Dawn, he turns on him.
46	* FakeCharity: Kirby fakes a disease and ends up causing the entire school to hold a fundraiser to try and help cause a cure for it. He ''narrowly'' got away with it.
47	* FreudianExcuse:
48	** Dawn may be malicious and easy to hate, but there is a sympathetic angle to her--she was always picked on and made fun of in school, and her brother contributed to it. As the show went on, she became much more likable, and often tended to at times be more sympathetic than Kirby himself, though she still always held a grudge on her brother.
49	** Her parents also favor Kirby and his life. Often ignoring or belittling Dawn, praising Kirby as their 'greatest accomplishment' right in front of a young Dawn.
50	** Part of Principal Mitchell's problems comes from trying not to get on the Superintendent's side--and the superintendent is ''[[AbusiveParents his father]]''.
51	* {{Gasshole}}: Dawn loudly (and proudly) burps in her brother's face in 'All Hands on Dexter' (Season One, Episode 17).
52	* InnocentBetaBitch: Belinda isn't as malicious as Dawn is, and in fact is rarely unlikeable.
53	* InstrumentalThemeTune: The theme song is mostly instrumental, aside from shouts of "Hi, hi" and the occasional sound effects.
54	* ItsAWonderfulPlot: "It's A Kirbyful Life!" has a variation - Kirby was still born and exists, but never learned to draw.
55	* {{Jerkass}}: Dawn and Mandy, Dawn's rival. The two are almost comically mean-spirited and selfish, though Dawn does have rare moments where she becomes more sympathetic. Whenever they go at each other's throats, Dawn is usually the more likeable one.
56	* LovableAlphaBitch: Mandy is this towards Kirby and his friends when she's not being a straight-up AlphaBitch towards Dawn and Belinda.
57	* MagicRealism: Though the show is goofy, it is otherwise a substantially mundane school centric setting. However, plenty of episodes bring strangely supernatural elements to the series, such as a magic pen that brings Kirby's drawings to life among others. Season 3, subtitled ''Warped'' pretty much throws the whole mundane aspect of the show right out the window, introducing a strange orb that allows Kirby and his friends to teleport to alternate universes, among other strange quirks. Of course, [[MundaneFantastic the show never treats any of this as anything other than an everyday occurrence.]]
58	* MediumBlending: Live action, with occasional pop-ups of Kirby's drawings in animation.
59	* MonsterClown: The episode "Send In The Clown". Even that is nothing compared to the clowns we see in "Yep, This Is Happening".
60	* MoralityPet: Dawn usually acts like a nice teenage girl, although still quite selfish, instead of a bossy one whenever she's around her friend Belinda.
61	* MundaneFantastic: None of the goofy supernatural stuff that occurs in the show is treated like anything other than an everyday problem. Even when past strangeness is referenced, people tend to shrug it off as if it was nothing.
62	* MyBelovedSmother: There is an episode where Fish and Eli's mothers forbids their sons' friendships with Kirby. Kirby as well tries to make friends with his animated character...until his animated character's mother forbids his friendship with Kirby. [[spoiler:This lasts until the end of the episode, where Kirby saves Fish and Eli, and their respective mothers allow their sons to resume their friendships with Kirby.]]
63	* NewSeasonNewName: The show became ''Kirby Buckets: Warped'' for its third season.
64	* NeverTrustATrailer: Some of the ads promoting the show before it premiered made the entire premise appear to be about Kirby obtaining a special drawing pen that caused his drawings to come to life and [[HilarityEnsues dealing with the shenanigans this caused]]. This turned out to be a plot for ''one'' episode, but not one for the entire show, and the drawings are for the most part Kirby's imagination.
65	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: According to voice actor Dean Julien, many of is characters are impressions of celebrities: Macho-Taco is Wrestling/RandySavage, Dr. Gut-Punch is a male Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Zip-Zap is [[Characters/StarWarsEmperorPalpatine Emperor Palpatine]].
66	* NotSoImaginaryFriend: The subplot in "Balloonacy!" is Dawn asking her parents for a raise in her allowance, which she says she needs to pay for dates with her new boyfriend. Between her stammered reveal of the name ("Demarco") and her insistence that he is attractive and smart like she is, the folks are incredulous and (when pressed) try to call her bluff by saying they want to meet this supposed boy. Demarco looks like Dawn poorly disguised as a boy and with a voice to match, so the folks are incredulous and later openly ridicule these points. Then they see Dawn and Demarco at the same time, and he is so insulted by the folks' behavior that he dumps Dawn and moves on to a new girl (who, incidentally, looks like Kirby in drag).
67	* OutGambitted: "The Kirbinator" is this in spades. Kirby is approached by his supposed BadFuture self that verifies his identity with assorted details, including a DarkSecret about consistently wearing the same pair of underwear for years. Dawn set the whole thing up as a prank to humiliate Kirby in front of the whole school, saying she learned about the secret when he was recovering from surgery and got a local actor to pretend to be Kirby's future self. However, Kirby reveals there is no such DarkSecret; he made the whole thing up to provide advanced warning of a prank and pretended to go along with everything in order to successfully prank her in front of the whole school. Then, Belinda reveals to the audience that she manipulated everyone at school into exactly everything they did that day, thus declaring herself the real top prankster.
68	* PainfulAdhesiveRemoval: In one episode, Kirby gets his face covered in Dawn's leg hair so it looks like a mustache. He uses tape to remove it and screams in pain during the process.
69	* {{Parody}}: "Commander Kirbo" is an obvious parody of/tribute to ''Franchise/StarTrek'' and ''Franchise/StarWars''.
70	* PlayingSick: Kirby pretends to have a disease called [[FunWithAcronyms Puppies]]
71	%%* PowerTrio: Kirby, Fish, and Eli (needs elaboration)
72	* PutOnABus: The cartoons were killed off at the beginning of Season 3 after Kirby's lawsuit ends his cartoonist career.
73	** TheBusCameBack: They are once again seen during the last scene of the final episode -- in fact, they are ''literally'' on a school bus.
74	* {{Retool}}: The third season, ''Kirby Buckets: Warped''
75	* RightHandCat: Principal Mitchell's cat, Laughy Cat, who is a [[VillainWithGoodPublicity well-known internet celebrity]] (so much so that even ''Series/MightyMed'' and ''Series/LabRats'' characters watch his online show).
76	* RogerRabbitEffect: Kirby's drawings, which is one of the main gimmicks of the show.
77	* RewritingReality: In one episode, Kirby finds a magic pen that makes his drawings come to life. [[spoiler:Turns out it may just be coincidence, and there are tons of pens like it]].
78	* SiblingRivalry: Kirby and Dawn, quite possibly the worst
79	* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead''. Don't worry though, this one's much more tolerable.
80	** Also one for ''Series/ZekeAndLuther'', Disney XD's previous single-camera sitcom show. Many of the characters are obvious {{Expies}} of those from ''Z&L'' (i.e. Kirby and Zeke, Eli and Luther, Fish and {{Face}} Kojo, Dawn and Ginger, Belinda and Poochie, Gil and Don, Mitchell and Dingle, Ricky and Ozzie, the Babcocks and the Plunks) and some very similar episode plots ("All Hands on Dexter" is an obvious rehash of "Not My Sister's Keeper")
81	* SternTeacher: Principal Mitchell shows signs of this.
82	* SuperficialSuggestionBox: In one episode, Kirby, Fish, and Ellie are about to snatch the suggestion box; it contained a comic that made fun of the teachers at school. The trio learned that the teachers are making fun at the students' suggestions during a party.
83	* ToiletHumor: The show relies heavily on this with one of Kirby's character's even being named Tri-Butt.
84	-->"I have a special toilet!"
85	-->- Tri-Butt
86	* TwoLinesNoWaiting: One of the few Disney shows with a specific character formula for this trope, as the plots are pretty much always going to be Kirby/Fish/Eli and Dawn/Belinda.
87	* TheVoiceless: Jean-Luc.
88	* VoicesAreMental: Kirby and Dr. Mac & Cheese when they switch bodies.

Context Series / KirbyBuckets