Line #8 WesternAnimation/Tutenstein


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tutenstein_tvtropes_7220.jpg]]
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8	''Tutenstein'' is an Emmy Award-winning animated television series, produced by Porchlight Entertainment (best known for ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresFromTheBookOfVirtues'') for [[Creator/DiscoveryFamily Discovery Kids]]. The series is based on the comic book character of the same name by Jay Stephens (''WesternAnimation/TheSecretSaturdays''), who would serve as a creative consultant. The series ran for 39 episodes from November 1, 2003 to October 11, 2008, concluding with the television movie ''Clash of the Pharaohs''.
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10	The show follows the adventures of the child pharaoh Tutankhensetamun, based loosely on the real-life UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}}, who is awoken three thousand years after his untimely death by a 12-year-old aspiring Egyptologist named Cleo Carter after she fixed some mistakes made to his exhibit by the museum curator. Together with Cleo's pet cat Luxor, who has been given the gift of speech and a position as Tut's servant/advisor, the trio spends their nights after the museum closes helping Tut (affectionally called Tutenstein) adjust to the modern world, solving the myriad of problems caused by Tut's inexperience as a pharaoh and inflated ego, and fighting back the threat of various Ancient Egyptian figures; the most dangerous being the Egyptian god Set, who seeks Tut's all-powerful Staff of Was, which would give him the might to rule the world.
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12	In October 2022, [[https://www.animationmagazine.net/2022/10/pre-mip-round-up-new-titles-fave-toons-from-mondo-guru-futurumkids-winsing-tag-toonz/ it was announced that a reboot is in development]].
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15	!!This show contains examples of:
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17	%%* AdventurerArchaeologist: Cleo's father, (and Cleo at heart, if her dreams are any indication). The trope shows up a few other times during the show's run in minuscule ways.
18	* AesopAmnesia: Most episodes involve Tut learning that he should treat his friends well and/or not use magic for selfish reasons. It never sticks.
19	* AMythologyIsTrue: While Egyptian myths are portrayed as true, all other mythologies are treated as fictitious; a few of the Egyptian deities notably expressed no prior awareness of the Greco-Roman deities prior to stumbling onto their museum exhibit in "Spells and Sleepovers".
20	* AmbiguouslyBrown: Natasha, Cleo's best friend might be of Asian descent given her olive skin and dark hair. There's evidence that she might be of mixed race, as in "There's Something About Natasha," we see that her mother is light skin and her father is tanned skin.
21	* AmbiguouslyGay: Luxor fits the bill, when you see the episode where he and Chloe have a Freaky Friday Moment.
22	-->"Perhaps I could wear that powder blue mini with a matching nehru jacket. I think Jake would find me quite fetching in it!"
23	%%* BadBoss: Set isn't just an evil god, he treats his minions rather horribly.
24	%%* BigBad: Set, the Egyptian God of Chaos. He plains to claim the Scepter of Was in order to become the ruler of both the Underworld and the Overworld.
25	* BlackAndNerdy: Cleo, at least when it comes to Egyptology.
26	* BlessedWithSuck: Arguably, Luxor. The scepter's magic made him intelligent and able to speak, but also forced him to become Tut's ExtremeDoormat BeleagueredAssistant. Luxor also counts as a ButtMonkey and a {{Woobie}}.
27	* BrainFood: Discussed early in the series, when Cleo and Luxor watch a mummy movie together. [[note]]Ironically, the Ancient Egyptians believed the center of one's personality and knowledge was the heart, not the brain.[[/note]]
28	-->'''Cleo:''' Luxor, this movie is so cheesy it's great! What are you so scared about?\
29	'''Luxor:''' That mummy eats brains!\
30	'''Cleo:''' Luxor, get real! Tutenstein's a mummy, he doesn't eat brains!\
31	'''Luxor:''' ''So far.''
32	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Did you just trap [[EldritchAbomination Apep]] with a fishing net?
33	* DisappearedDad: Cleo's father. It's never clear exactly what happened to him.
34	* DisproportionateRetribution: It's hard to blame the gods for being annoyed with [[{{Jerkass}} Tuten]][[RoyalBrat stein]], but threatening a ten-year-old child with eternal damnation for crimes like vandalizing a wall or cheating at a board game seems a ''little'' harsh. Cleo even points this out, mentioning that in spite of his position, he is just a kid.
35	** In "Walter The Brain" Tut makes Walter's forklift go out of control and nearly costs him his job all because he was making too much noise and Tut couldn't sleep.
36	* DownerEnding: "The Comeback Kid". [[spoiler:Not only does Tut turn back into a mummy, ''he will never get the chance to become flesh and blood again''.]] FridgeLogic makes the whole series kind of a downer from then on.
37	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: "The King Of Memphis" is the only episode that does NOT involve the museum in any way. Instead the focus is on the characters visiting an Elvis-themed amusement park. Subsequent episodes have all taken place at the museum at least at some point in the episode.
38	* EatingContest: Tut wins a peanut butter and banana sandwich eating contest in "The King Of Memphis." He can pack away a lot of food for an undead mummy.
39	* ElvisImpersonator: The characters visited a convention of them in "The King of Memphis".
40	* EternalEnglish: Tutenstein and the Egyptian gods all speak modern English, though Tut has JustAStupidAccent.[[note]]Not that anyone knows what a Classical Egyptian accent ''should'' sound like, we have even less idea of how it was spoken than we do Latin, but it probably wouldn't have anything in common with a modern Egyptian one.[[/note]] Presumably [[AWizardDidIt the Scepter of Was did it]].
41	%%* FishOutOfTemporalWater
42	* ForHalloweenIAmGoingAsMyself: In "Day of the Undead", Tut walks among mortals on Halloween, impressing trick-or-treaters with how much his costume looks and smells like a long-dead Egyptian mummy.
43	* FreakyFridayFlip: "Cleo's Catastrophe" has Cleo and Luxor switch bodies thanks to Tut reading the wrong scroll.
44	* GenericDoomsdayVillain: The show did not delve into Apep's mythology at all, and characterized him as just a simple brute whose existence revolved entirely around fighting Ra. While Ra being defeated would cause time on Earth to freeze, it was not even vaguely implied that Apep cared about this, his one and only goal in life was simply to beat Ra.
45	* IdiotBall: Cleo falls under this in "Tut Jr." when she trusts Tut to be responsible for her little cousin Thomas, even after all the trouble he's caused in every episode. It goes as well as you'd expect, with Thomas taking the Sceptar of Was and ending up in the Underworld.
46	* IResembleThatRemark: In "Keep Your Wandering Eye To Yourself" Tut uses the Eye Of Ra to spy on Cleo, and overhears her talking to a friend about how Tut throws tantrums. He denies that he does this, all while jumping up and down angrily and then throwing the Scepter of Was.
47	* JerkassGods: Most of the Egyptian Gods are shown to be as temperamental, arrogant, and dangerously and randomly vindictive as Tut and often are the cause of many problems in different episodes (e.g. the Goddess of Love Hathor becoming offended that an obnoxious Tut wasn't getting respect and having a pyramid built for him so she turns into Sekhmet to kill some construction workers, the God Ra being furious at those who deny his authority, the Goddess Isis trying to eternally damn Tut for vandalizing a wall and cheating at a board game, etc.) Set happens to be the worst of the bunch.
48	** Though they aren't shown to be unreasonable. Isis primarily just wanted to scare Tut into learning a lesson, and Anubis and Thoth were willing to change their stance on his punishment when reminded that he's still just a child.
49	* JerkassHasAPoint: While the gods may seem overly harsh at lashing out at Tut for his shenanigans, it's not difficult to understand why they would be so upset with him. While Tut is ultimately well-meaning, he's still selfish, bratty, and a rather inept ruler who frequently abuses magic for his own ends. You can't blame Ra for being angry at him for obstructing his job over a really petty reason in "The Boat of Millions of Years" or Isis for wanting to punish him for being a cheater/bully in "Ghostbusted".
50	* KidsLoveDinosaurs: Cleo's little cousin Thomas in "Tut Jr." His reaction to seeing Egyptian gods in the underworld is to ask if they're dinosaurs.
51	%%* LargeHam: Tut
52	%%* LosingYourHead
53	* MagicSkirt: In this case it's Tut's shendyt.
54	%%* MagicWand: The Scepter of Was functions as one.
55	* MeanBoss: You probably wouldn't want to work for Horace Bedhety, but he's mostly just vain and petty.
56	* MeaningfulName: Cleo's full name is Cleopatra Carter. The first part is obvious, while "Carter" alludes to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Carter Howard Carter]], the archaeologist who found the original Tutankhamun's tomb.
57	* NephariousPharaoh: Tut is not and never has been a merciful person.
58	%%* NotAMask: "I wear no mask. This is the face of royalty, of authority, of magnificence." %% Provide context as to who says this.
59	* NotGrowingUpSucks: An occasional source of angst for Tut. It comes to a head in "Old Man Tut", when he uses magic to grow into a teenager so he can cut off his [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_side_lock sidelock of youth]], but then has to deal with RapidAging.
60	* PaperThinDisguise: Cleo's pink hoodie and a pair of sunglasses are the only precautions Tut ever takes.
61	%%* PowerTrio:
62	%%** Id: Tut
63	%%** Ego: Chloe
64	%%** Superego: Luxor
65	%%* PrincessInRags: With a dash of denial.
66	%%* PullingThemselvesTogether
67	* ReusedCharacterDesign: The mall security guard in "Friends" looks exactly like Walter but with brown hair and a goatee.
68	* RidiculouslyAliveUndead: In "The Awakening", Tut (the titular mummy) [[RipVanTinkle makes a mad dash for the bathroom after he's brought back from the dead.]]
69	* RipVanTinkle: Tut's first act after being brought back from the dead is to run to the bathroom.
70	* RoyalBrat: Tut acts like a spoiled little {{Jerkass}} most of the time.
71	* ScalesOfJustice: The episode ''Curse Of The Pharaoh'' has Tutenstein go through the weighing of his heart[[note]]For obvious reasons he couldn't use his original heart so he used a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_scarab Heart Scarab]], which is described as some sort of spare heart.[[/note]] again in order to get rid of Ammut.
72	%%* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Well, he is the Pharaoh...
73	%%* ServileSnarker: Luxor, so very much.
74	* SignatureHeadgear: Tut's gigantic nemes headdress, traditionally worn by pharaohs. He only takes it off a few times in the entire series.
75	* SkewedPriorities: In "Tut Jr." Cleo's little cousin Thomas is left unsupervised with the Scepter of Was and ends up in the Underworld. Tut is just happy he didn't break it.
76	%%* SlapSlapKiss: Cleo and Tutenstein's relationship is full of this.
77	* SlidingScaleOfUndeadRegeneration: Strangely, Tut has been referred to as "rotting" many, many times during the series, and it's a running gag. But the definition of mummy is a dead body that in fact does ''not'' rot. It's never revealed whether or not Tut can heal (though the evidence points to: no).
78	* SophisticatedAsHell: Tut has quite an extensive vocabulary, excellent manners, and an affinity for modern youth slang.
79	* SpottingTheThread: In the episode "Keep You’re Wandering Eye To Yourself", Kara says Cleo is doing the right thing to keep Tut away. Cleo concurs until she realizes she never told her his name.
80	* SoupIsMedicine: Twice in the episode "Near Dead Experience" with a sick Cleo, one being homemade soup from her mother and later she's given it when she's transported to the underworld
81	* StagesOfMonsterGrief: Initially averted. Tut accepts his undead-ness as part of his identity almost immediately. Later, when he begins to realize he'll be this way forever, it's played with. He mourns his flesh-and-blood body, and the fact that he'll never "grow up".
82	%%* StatusQuoIsGod
83	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: In "Green-Eyed Mummy" Tut wants to get rid of the wooly mammoth exhibit by moving it to the underworld, because it's taking Cleo's attention away from him. He and Luxor try to move it, but they're unsuccessful because it's a 6-ton mammoth and they're an undead 10 year old and a cat. He settles on using the Scepter of Was to move it.
84	%%* TalkingAnimal: Luxor.
85	* Tantrum Throwing: Tut does this with the Scepter of Was in "Keep Your Wandering Eye To Yourself".
86	* TheyWouldCutYouUp: Presumably the reason Tut keeps himself hidden. It's never stated directly, but it's frequently said that for Tut being out in the open is not "safe", and it's hard to imagine anything else that would convince him to stay quiet.
87	* TimeFreezeTrollingSpree: "The Boat of Millions of Years" has Tut wishing a movie night would last longer. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor This causes Ra the Sun God to get captured on his journey through the underworld and time stops altogether]]. Later when Cleo and Luxor wake up they first get everyone frozen on the street out of harm's way. However when they find Walter in the museum they decide to prank him. They replace the burgers he is about to eat with skulls and a sword, puts a wig on his head and a skirt on him. When time unfreezes, Walter bites the skull and thinks he's [[AlienAbduction being messed with by aliens]].
88	* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Tut and Cleo, due to the latter being physically two years older than Tut, who hadn't even hit puberty before dying.
89	%%* UndeadChild
90	* UndeathlyPallor: Afroasiatic Tut, in death, is somehow a pale green color (the dark color of his exposed hands and feet make this kind of confusing.)
91	* UndeathAlwaysEnds: Averted -- by the end of the series, Tutenstein is still a living mummy.
92	%%* VitriolicBestBuds: Tut and Cleo.
93	%%* WalkLikeAnEgyptian: Naturally.
94	* ZombieGait: Tut pulls this in the show's opening, and every once in a while in the show as well.
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Context WesternAnimation / Tutenstein