
Lamput is a Cartoon Network India animated series created by Vaibhav Kumaresh. It began as a series of 15-second micro-shorts before it was expanded into longer episodes, those episodes being two, five, seven, or eleven minutes depending on the episode.
When the orange blobby creature Lamput escapes from a lab, Skinny Doc and Specs Doc try to catch him. Thanks to Lamput's trickery and Voluntary Shapeshifting, the doctors always fail in the end, and Lamput always escapes.
The show deliberately makes itself as accessible to everyone as possible by not featuring spoken dialogue for the most part and making references to cultures that aren't Indian culture (for example, there are many cultural cross references to America like an appearance from TIME Magazine, and one episode takes place on a festival for the Thai holiday Loy Krathong
), allowing it to be exported to other countries with few problems.
The series premiered in 2017 in India, starting with its early episodes getting a web release on YouTube before the show made it to the Cartoon Network channel; numerous international premieres have occurred at different points in time afterward. Many of Cartoon Network's international YouTube channels have uploads of the episodes, particularly Cartoon Network Asia's channel which uploads them as part of a series called Lamput Presents. Lamput is available in the United States via Max as of 2022, with airings on the United States Cartoon Network broadcast station following not long after.
Tropes featured in Lamput include:
- 6 Is 9: In "Theatre Night", the docs take their seats in the theater and have a ticket for seat number 61. They think they're supposed to be in seat 19, but they had the ticket upside-down and don't realize it until Mr. Moustache gives them that information and forces them to seat 61.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The docs go into a noticeably roomy sewer in one episode to locate Lamput. They think they've caught him in their net, only to realize they've caught a sewer rat instead and have angered it and the other rats.
- Accidental Art: In the episode "Musical", the docs rhythmically bang trash cans as they chase Lamput, creating a drum solo in the process without meaning to. Some other people cheer for them at the end of the episode, carrying them in their arms.
- Accidental Astronaut: A variant in that it isn't in a rocket. In "Boss on the Moon", the Boss enters a cannon when he is looking for a quiet place to write his book. Specs accidentally makes the cannon launch when he and Skinny are on cleaning duty, sending the Boss to the moon. The Boss spends the rest of the episode waiting for the other docs to rescue him while he continues to write his book.
- Accidental Hand-Hold:
- One episode has Specs Doc mistake Skinny Doc for a woman when Lamput shapeshifts into a long hairdo on his head, and Specs Doc falls in love with "her". The two accidentally hold hands as they walk around a tree, and they roll onto the ground looking at each other romantically until Lamput leaves.
- In "Date Night", Lamput purposefully makes Specs Doc and his date hold hands while they're not paying attention.
- Accidental Hero: In "The Docs Express", the docs, in chasing Lamput in the dark, accidentally capture the thief who has been on the loose since the beginning of the episode without meaning to, and they're congratulated for it after the lights are turned back on.
- Accidental Pervert: In "Bus Stop", Specs Doc thinks Lamput is on Ms. Lipstick's clothes and searches for him with a magnifying glass. Mr. Moustache, who is Ms. Lipstick's significant other, misinterprets what Specs is doing and beats him up.
- Accidental Proposal: In "Date Night", Specs Doc's date is about to be ruined when he hurts Lamput and his date gets angry. Lamput morphs into a wedding ring at the last moment to make it look like Specs Doc is proposing to her. It works, much to Specs Doc's joy.
- Adhesive Bow Tie:
- In "Date Night", Specs Doc wears a black bow tie on his shirt and his girlfriend wears a white ribbon in her hair, both without straps, when they are out on a date.
- In "Skinny's Dance Night", Skinny wears a black bow tie without a strap as part of his outfit when he goes to the dance club.
- Ageless Birthday Episode: "Boss' Birthday" has the Boss wondering when the other docs will be there to celebrate his birthday, but doesn't mention anything about how old he is.
- Air-Vent Passageway:
- In "Lamput Meets Tuzki", Lamput and Tuzki travel through a ventilation passage in the laboratory as they try to escape from the docs. The docs use a hose to spray water through the vent to get them out.
- In "Rival's Revenge", Lamput, Specs Doc, and Skinny Doc go through an air vent to get out of their prison cell and prove the docs are innocent of a crime.
- Alien Among Us: In "Alien Again", Skinny Doc and an alien who looks a lot like him inadvertently switch places. The alien, after realizing he can mimic Skinny's appearance easily, does a good enough job at blending in with the other docs that nobody notices he's an alien by the time he and the actual Skinny return to their proper places.
- Alien Episode:
- The episode "Alien" has Lamput and the docs accidentally find their way into a spaceship that an alien was trying to repair.
- "Alien Again" has Skinny Doc being mistaken for an alien, while an actual alien fills in for him after discovering they look similar enough.
- "Abduction" has Specs and Lamput being abducted by aliens who intend to experiment on Specs. Lamput sets up distractions to help him and Specs get out of their flying saucer.
- "Docs on the Moon" has Lamput, while on the moon, discover aliens who seem to be intent on destroying the Earth and warning the docs.
- Alien Geometries: The staircase room in "Art Gallery" has weird geometry like the M.C. Escher work "Relativity", with Lamput and the docs defying gravity as they walk around it. In one scene, there are two staircases next to each other, one appearing to go up and one going down; Specs Doc and Lamput walk on different staircases and the latter ends up larger after reaching the other side while Specs Doc somehow shrinks. They return to their normal sizes when they walk the other way.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Lamput determines the aliens in "Docs on the Moon" want to use a ray to destroy the Earth and goes to warn the docs before it's too late. Subverted later when it turns out the ray is used to steal a cake for their king's birthday; other than that, the aliens are quite friendly, with Lamput and the docs joining in on the king's birthday.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: In "Abduction", the aliens need a bull as part of their experiments and end up abducting one that Lamput is camouflaged on.
- All Deserts Have Cacti: In "The Desert Years", in a part of the desert that is otherwise devoid of cacti, Lamput turns into a cactus himself to distract the docs via hurting them. He does bring cacti to the docs later for them to eat.
- All Balloons Have Helium: In "Orange Balloon", all Lamput has to do to send Skinny Doc floating is to inflate himself large enough when he is in the form of a balloon.
- All Part of the Show:
- In "Magic Show", Specs Doc captures Lamput in front of an audience for a magic show, and Lamput morphs into different things to make him and Specs Doc look like they're part of the act. A confused Specs Doc doesn't do much apart from bow to roll with it, until he fails the ever-known "pulling a rabbit out of his hat" trick with Lamput.
- In "Theatre Night", the docs chasing Lamput disrupts a play and leads to them being part of the play, with only the director being aware of the story's mistaken trajectory and everyone else watching with no knowledge of it. At the end of the episode, the director changes sides and decides not to condemn the docs' actions when he sees that everyone enjoyed the new version of his play.
- All There in the Script: As no intelligible dialogue is spoken in this show for the most part, for a while names like "Specs Doc", "Skinny Doc", and "Mr. Moustache" were only known through supporting materials such as the various international Cartoon Network websites. There are episodes starting in late Season 3 where characters' names are clearly said.
- Alliterative Title: The episodes "Diet Doc", "Doc Dog", "Magic Marker", "Rival's Revenge", "Tall Tales", and "Arctic Adventure".
- Almost Kiss: In "Wrong Date", the docs end up being kicked into the hole of a tree. Inside, there is a squirrel couple, and the female squirrel is about to kiss the male squirrel when they notice the docs and, being mad at them for ruining the moment, attack them.
- Ambulance Cut: In "Gym", Lamput makes the docs trip by setting up the treadmills they're on to go faster than they can run. The docs are sent flying to the other side of the room, and the scene cuts to an ambulance that is just arriving at the gym. The docs are brought into the gym in wheelchairs and with an impressive display of muscles from all that running.
- Angry Fist-Shake: In "Bubbles" and "Bridge", Specs Doc yells at Lamput for getting away from him and Skinny and shakes his fist at him as he does so.
- Animals Not to Scale: "Lamput & the Elephant" has a gargantuan lion that can swallow a baby elephant whole.
- Animate Inanimate Object: There are two rogue science experiments in "Break Out" who fit this description. The first one Specs and Skinny catch is a dark pink pillow who travels by hopping, and the second looks like a plank of wood who attempts to camouflage itself on a brick wall to hide from the docs and fails.
- Animesque: The show normally averts this, having the characters have distinctly Western-looking appearances, usually with often overlapping Sphere Eyes (assuming they're not obscured by glasses). There are cases where it lifts from anime:
- In "Sleepwalking", Specs Doc makes an angry face with his eyes obscured by red lines.
- In "Some Kind of Magic", the magician's assistant performs a magic trick where she enters a box on the left of the screen and comes out another box on the right, but she hits her hand on the door of the first box and emerges from the second one with a clearly animesque facial expression consisting of pure white eyes, with a small tear drop drawn on her right eye in a way that makes it look like it and the eye are melded into each other.
- Animorphism: At the end of "Invisible Necklace", the magician whom the docs stole the invisibility necklace from finds them, takes the necklace back from them, and uses it to transform them and Lamput into bunnies. This, of course, does not stop the docs from going to chase Lamput when he hops off, as per usual.
- Anti-Gravity Clothing: The eponymous character of "The Little Ghost Prince" wears a crown that floats slightly above his head.
- Art Shift: The docs' story in "Tall Tales" is animated with paper drawing puppets, in contrast to the 2D animation used in most of the rest of the show.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- In "Cat", Lamput is the mane on a cat he makes to look like a lion, and it scares Skinny Doc. A lion cub as small as a house cat wouldn't have a mane, so Skinny doesn't have any reason to worry.
- The mosquitoes in "Lamput and the Spider" have their proboscises placed on their faces as if they were noses. In real life, they're actually their mouths.
- Artistic License – Physics: In the premiere episode "Hair Bun", Skinny Doc is hit by an elderly woman who whacks him with her cane and is launched onto a street light as a result. A whack like that wouldn't be anywhere near enough to send someone literally flying in real life.
- Aside Glance:
- In "Glasses", Specs Doc gives the camera a look after Lamput throws his glasses off of him, as if to say he has no idea how to react.
- In "Guilt", Specs Doc gives a brief sad glance to the camera after he realizes he just killed Lamput (or, rather, destroyed his decoy).
- In "Octopus", after seeing Lamput as an octopus transform into a fish and swim off-screen, the giant octopus gives a confused look to the camera.
- Aspect Ratio Switch: The show's original aspect ratio is 16:9 widescreen. The flashback to the Boss's childhood in "Boss'sstache" has a border on the sides of the screen meant to mimic 4:3 fullscreen. One difference it has compared to other examples is that the border shifts a bit to the right once.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In "Giant Lamput", Lamput is accidentally exposed to a potion that causes him to grow much larger than he usually is. The docs build a doc robot to catch him, with both them and Lamput ultimately being the cause of a city's destruction without meaning it.
- Attractive Bent Species: The episode "Doc Dog" has Lamput transforming himself into a cute female dog to get the Docs' attack dog off his back. This causes the dog to go after the Docs instead, and also brings the attraction of other dogs in the park as well.
- Audible Gleam: In "Rival Doc", Rival Doc's glasses and headset gleam with an audible effect, the former twice - once when he enters the laboratory for the first time, and again when he's looking for Lamput in a bunch of orange objects.
- Baby Morph Episode: "Memory Loss" is a mental variation. An accidental injury causes Specs Doc to think he's a baby, so Skinny Doc and Lamput take it upon themselves to be his caretakers.
- Bag of Kidnapping: In "Houdini", this one of the methods the docs use to catch Lamput. Lamput morphs into a pair of scissors and cuts his way out of the bag.
- Balloonacy: In one episode, Skinny Doc attempts to trade a big balloon for a smaller one a kid is holding, which is actually Lamput in disguise. Lamput inflates himself bigger, making the kid decline the offer and causing Skinny Doc to return with a balloon that's so big that it makes him float into the air.
- Banana Peel:
- In "The Chase", Lamput morphs into a banana peel and makes Specs Doc and Skinny Doc slip into some trash cans.
- In "The Docs Express", while inspecting a toaster to figure out where the toast in it went, someone working on the train slips on a banana peel left by Skinny Doc earlier. The toaster ends up hitting the electrician, causing him to hit the train's power switch and leaving everything dark.
- Beach Episode: "Evolution" takes place on the beach, where Lamput tries to mold his body to look more appealing when a boy makes fun of his normal self's walking.
- Beanstalk Parody: "Lamput and the Beanstalk" has the docs accidentally growing a flower into a beanstalk when trying to use a shrink/growth ray on Lamput. The beanstalk leads them to Mr. Giant, a giant suspiciously resembling the docs' enemy Mr. Moustache, who, after discovering Skinny Doc is in his house, attempts to keep him as a dinner guest.
- Bears Are Bad News:
- In "Skinny Monster", Specs Doc tries to get the attention of a creature he thinks is Skinny Doc as a monster. Skinny Doc comes back a few seconds later and demonstrates his monster potion has worn off; the creature Specs Doc poked turns out to be a bear and chases the two for having pestered it.
- Subverted in "Arctic Adventure". While the docs are scared by a polar bear they find in the Arctic and its cub's life is threatened by the docs near the end of the episode, never once does the parent bear attack them.
- Beat: In "Fracture", Lamput goes off free and the docs chase him about a beat later.
- Behind a Stick: In "A Case of Mistaken Identity", as Specs Doc, Skinny Doc, Lamput, and the thief sneak around to find the blue guy without being getting caught by Mr. Moustache, the thief keeps hiding behind signposts when he logically shouldn't be able to. The docs only manage it once.
- Bewitched Amphibians: "Witch" ends with the witch turning the docs and Lamput into frogs. That doesn't stop the docs from chasing after Lamput as usual when the latter starts to run off.
- Big Ball of Violence:
- The episode "Carrot" has Specs Doc scour a patch of carrots on a farm to find Lamput. The farm's owner attacks Specs Doc for picking his carrots without permission, producing a cloud of smoke that obscures the two from sight.
- In the episode "The Split", after too many issues catching Lamput cause the Docs to break their friendship, the two of them attack each other in a cloud of violence. Lamput finds it funny at first, but slowly grows concerned the longer it goes on.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- One of Specs Doc's lines of gibberish in "Martial Art" is accompanied by Chinese subtitles ("我們在胡說八道"). The line means, "We're talking nonsense."
- A sign on the bank Specs Doc and Skinny Doc rob in the Season 3 episode "Reward" reads "Pecunia emere non beatitudo", which means "Money cannot buy happiness" in Latin.
- Bindle Stick:
- In "Dr. Lamput", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc grab bindle sticks and carry them with them when they leave the lab after reporting they still don't have Lamput.
- At the end of "Lamput Meets Tuzki", Lamput is seen carrying a bindle stick as he walks away from the school bus and the docs' van.
- Binocular Shot: A brief one appears in "The Chase" when the docs see Lamput through their binoculars. In general, the docs looking through binoculars is accompanied by a first-person shot of what they see through the binoculars.
- Binomium ridiculus: In "Fish Tank", Lamput hides in a tank for a species of animal called "Ganeshikus Kotalus", a reference to one of the show's background artists, Ganesh Kotale.
- Bit-by-Bit Transformation: At the end of "Back to School", the docs' transformation from children back into adults is slow, with different body parts on them being affected one by one. Skinny Doc's eye grows, then his left arm, then his right leg; Specs Doc's belly grows, then his head; Skinny Doc's eyes shrink, Specs Doc's eyes grow, and after a few more painful changes, they're back to normal.
- Black Bead Eyes: The members of the tribe who worship Lamput in "The Tribe" all have black dot eyes.
- Bland-Name Product: In "Diet Doc", Specs Doc gets fit and tries to avoid fried chicken since it'll ruin his diet, but Lamput manages to distract him into visiting a fried chicken restaurant anyway. The restaurant he visits is called "MFC", a reference to the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) chain of fast food restaurants.
- Blank White Eyes: In "Some Kind of Magic", the woman, still in pain after hurting her hand in a magic trick, has purely white eyes with a tear on one of them.
- Blowing a Raspberry: In "Lamput Meets Tuzki", Lamput and Tuzki give raspberries to the docs after they fail to catch them before they hide in a laboratory beaker.
- Body Horror: At the end of "Animal X", Lamput teases the docs, who he has trapped inside the creature-merging machine alongside a gorilla and a banana, by bait-and-switching them into believing he's going to press the button on the machine to merge them all together. Then the docs' winged cat falls on the button by accident, creating a doc monkey wearing a banana peel skirt. The docs and gorilla are not pleased with it at all.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Tuzki invokes this without meaning to in "Lamput Meets Tuzki"; his eyes just happen to be so similar to Specs Docs that he is able to get into a forbidden room with the biometric lock thinking his eyes are Specs Doc's with no problem.
- Box-and-Stick Trap:
- In "Break Out", one of the other science experiments the docs capture is a dark blue snail, whom they trap by propping up a box with a stick and pulling on the stick with a string attached to it when the snail is under the box.
- In "Lamput & the Ducklings", the docs lure the ducklings to a trap consisting of a box being held up by a stick, with a bowl of popcorn - the only food the ducklings are shown to eat - under it. Lamput finds the ducklings and saves them from the box, but he gets captured himself.
- The Boxing Episode: In the episode "Boxing", the docs chase Lamput into a boxing arena. Lamput morphs into a pair of boxing gloves around Skinny Doc's hands, dragging him into a boxing match with a much stronger boxer.
- Bullet Seed: In "Witch", as the docs ride the flying broomstick, Specs Doc scoops up some grapes from a bowl, eats them, and spits their seeds at Lamput.
- Bully Turned Buddy: "Origins" reveals that Specs Doc and Skinny Doc originally had a rocky relationship when they first met in lab school, with the latter constantly tormenting the former for amusement. It isn't until both end up involved in an accident in the teacher's science experiment that they finally become friends.
- Burning Rubber: In "Arm Wrestling", the docs' boss arrives at the sight arm wrestling matches on his motorcycle, which he rides fast enough that it leaves a trail of flames behind it.
- Business of Generic Importance: The laboratory where the docs work doesn't seem to have a name at all, with its exterior sign simply saying "LAB" (or "LABS" in some episodes) and all mentions of it in official materials calling it "the lab/laboratory". Likewise, the lab school in "Origins" has a sign on the outside that reads "LAB SCHOOL".
- By the Lights of Their Eyes:
- In "Cast Away", Lamput's and Specs Doc's eyeballs can be seen bouncing around the interior of the dark cargo crate as it floats away.
- In "The Docs Express", a portion of the docs' chasing Lamput takes place in the dark, as the person operating the electricity hits the power switch by accident due to an injury. Later, it gets dark in the train again due to the train being in a tunnel. The only things that can be seen at all in both instances, for the most part. is Lamput's and the docs' eyes.
- Call-Back: Several quick clips from earlier episodes showing the docs catching Lamput play in quick succession at the beginning of "Fracture". All the times they caught him ultimately culminated in him fracturing a bone in his skeleton.
- Cane Fu: In "Hair Bun", the lady gets mad at Skinny Doc for taking off her fake hair by accident and wallops him with her walking cane.
- Cartoon Bomb: Writing on the wall of Lamput's prison cell in "Prison Cell" features his escape plan #534, which involves him turning into a spherical bomb with a fuse to destroy the cell and get out of there.
- Cartoon Juggling:
- In Season 3's "Reward", during the montage where the docs find different ways to earn money, Specs Doc is seen juggling balls in the "shower" fashion (in a full circle) while riding a unicycle.
- The circular "shower" version is seen with every instance of a character juggling in "Clowning Around".
- Cartoon Penguin: The penguins seen throughout "Arctic Adventure" have black-and-white plumage, yellow, pointed beaks, and yellow feet. There is one difference they have from the typical depiction, that being the yellow accents on their sides directly below their heads.
- Cassandra Truth: At the end of "Orange Street", after Skinny Doc has failed to find Lamput camouflaged in orange things too many times, he points behind Specs Doc to tell him that Lamput is right behind them in plain sight, having just ordered a drink. Specs Doc doesn't believe Skinny Doc the few times he points behind him, threatens to use his ray gun on him the third time, and actually does attempt to shoot him the fourth time.
- Cast of Expies: Lamput, the docs, and Mr. Moustache serve similar purposes to Jerry, Tom, and Spike respectively from Tom and Jerry. Specifically:
- Lamput and Jerry are both in the crosshairs of a chase after them, and are both friendly but often invasive.
- Specs Doc and Skinny Doc (and, to some extent, the other scientists) share a role as being similar to Tom; they both want to capture Lamput or Jerry for their own purposes and often do mean things to them.
- Mr. Moustache is similar to Spike in that they both have a grudge against the docs and Tom respectively and will often beat them up.
- Catapult Nightmare: In "Meet the Shrink", the docs have a dream where they're struggling to keep up with Lamput and jolt into an upright position when they wake up.
- Catapult to Glory: In "Dragon Bros", the docs' last attempt to get to Lamput on the other side of a chasm involves them using a makeshift catapult to launch themselves to him. It looks like it's about to work, but the docs fall into the chasm before they reach Lamput.
- Catching Some Z's: In a couple of the Season 3 episodes, sleeping characters have a trail of Z's near them.
- Cats Love Laser Pointers: In "Break Out", the docs catch a living science experiment who looks like Lamput, but is light blue and has cat ears. It has the same love of laser pointers real cats have, and thus the docs use a laser pointer to lead it to a point where they can catch it with a net.
- Celebratory Body Tossing: In "Boss'stache", the Boss finally being able to have a mustache is celebrated by his family, who toss him into the air a few times with joy.
- Character Action Title: "Lamput Checks In", referring to how that episode has Lamput hide from the docs in a hotel, which one typically has to check into.
- Character in the Logo: Lamput is in the show's logo. Specifically, he's the "T" in the word "Lamput".
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Not for the show itself, but there are three episodes that use this naming scheme: "Lamput and the Spider", "Lamput & the Elephant", and "Lamput and the Beanstalk".
- The Chase: Besides the overall plot of Lamput being chased by a pair of docs, the episode "Alien" has an alien take over the docs' car when the the three main characters enter its spaceship uninvited. The docs keep triggering buttons in the ship by accident, causing the UFO to shoot at the alien as it's driving.
- Chased Off into the Sunset: The episode "Fracture" ends with the docs chasing Lamput.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: In "Basketball", to make a basketball game against Mr. Moustache and his friend easier, Lamput helps the docs by pretending to be a basketball and making it look like the docs are good at basketball when in reality Lamput is forcing himself into the hoop to gain the victory. It works until Lamput accidentally reveals himself, leading to the docs being thrown into one of the basketball hoops by the other team.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- In "Tuzki the Intern", Lamput asks if Tuzki wants to go on a roller coaster, but he declines for the moment. They do get to ride it later, in a plot-critical moment where the docs end up taking their van onto the roller coaster to chase Lamput.
- In "The Docs Express", Skinny Doc eats a banana meant for one of the other train passengers and throws the banana peel on the ground. This becomes important later because a train employee slips on it, accidentally throws the toaster he was holding at the train electrician, and causes him to accidentally turn the train's electricity off, making the docs' pursuit of Lamput harder as they now have to do it in the dark.
- Chekhov's Gunman: In "Dragon Bros", a frog shows up croaking in the dragon's cave when the dragon is resting. This becomes important later when the frog reappears and Lamput finds out that its ribbitting is making the dragon drowsy; he uses that to his advantage by summoning other animals to make it fall asleep.
- Cherry Blossoms: A cherry blossom tree is the setting of the Season 1 episode "Wig". This works well for the episode's premise; Specs Doc mistakes Skinny Doc for a woman and falls in love with him after Lamput turns into a wig of long, flowing hair on his head, and cherry blossoms are often thought to signify romance.
- Circling Birdies:
- In "Orange Door", small Lamputs circle Specs Doc's head when he runs into Lamput, who is in the shape of a door.
- In "Alien", when the alien accidentally destroys the control panel of his ship, it goes flying right up into space and bounces off of several planets. All of the planets except for Saturn get a visible ring of circling stars around them upon being hit, the joke being that Saturn already had a ring.
- City with No Name: The city where the laboratory is located, and thus where many episodes take place, has never been given a name.
- Coincidental Accidental Disguise: In "Dr. Lamput", Lamput is covered in gray paint and is dragged to the docs' laboratory, being mistaken for one of the docs himself. This works out quite well for Lamput, who pretends to be one of them and even becomes the #1 doc in the lab.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: In "Diet Doc", as Specs Doc is driving, he tries not to let nearby fast food restaurants ruin his diet. Lamput, in a move that only he would have seen coming, abuses this to his advantage by shapeshifting into a chicken drumstick. Sure enough, Specs Doc finds himself unable to resist some fried chicken seconds later.
- Color-Coded Characters: Lamput is associated with orange both in-universe and out-of-universe (the show's logo is orange, and the docs check orange objects to see if Lamput is there). Nearly every doc in the lab has a blue-gray color to contrast with Lamput.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: In one episode taking place at a dance club, Lamput pretends to be an outfit on Specs Doc and the clothes grab the attention of women who think it looks cool. The episode ends with Lamput escaping while Specs Doc is in the middle of dancing, revealing his underwear.
- Companion Cube: Mr. Giant from "Lamput and the Beanstalk" has a plank of wood with a face drawn on it, whom he introduces to Skinny Doc as though it were a friend. This is because he doesn't have any real friends; at the end of the episode, he's excited when some kids invite him to play with them.
- Company Cross-References:
- In "Super Docs", Skinny Doc mixes up his bag of clothes with someone else's at the laundromat. When he gets home, he and Specs Doc use the superhero outfits they find in the bag Skinny Doc did bring with him to go after Lamput; Skinny Doc wears a blue outfit with a red cape and triangle-shaped Chest Insignia clearly meant to be Superman's costume, and Specs Doc dons a black costume with little pointy ears at the top and a yellow belt, meant to be iconic getup of Batman (both franchises are owned by DC Comics, itself owned by Warner Bros. Discovery who also owns Lamput's broadcast channel Cartoon Network India).
- In "Lamput Checks In", Skinny Doc turns on the TV in the hotel room and watches a cartoon where a brown mouse is chased by a gray cat. This is a nod to Tom & Jerry, another Warner Bros. Discovery property.
- In "Origins", Specs' locker contains a photo of Albert Einstein above what looks like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory. The photo reappears twice afterward in "Arm Wrestling" and "Super Docs".
- Concealing Canvas:
- In "Boss'stache", the Boss keeps the recipe for his mustache-growing formula in a safe hidden behind a painting in his office at the lab.
- In "Jamput", Specs Doc keeps his decoy of Lamput in a safe hidden behind a Lamput dartboard in his house.
- Concert Episode: "Rock Concert", as you'd probably expect from the title, is about Lamput and the docs happening upon a rock concert. The docs accidentally play the instruments and manage to entertain the audience enough that nobody can tell the difference between them and the actual band that was supposed to play there.
- Conjoined Eyes:
- Mr. Giant's wood plank "friend" in "Lamput and the Beanstalk" has his eyeballs joined together in most shots that show it.
- The title card for "Clowning Around" shows Lamput with conjoined eyes, which is unusual since he normally doesn't have them.
- Convenient Photograph: "Tuzki the Intern" goes south when a photo telling Tuzki to find Lamput (specifically of a crosshair target overlapping Lamput) falls out of an envelope Tuzki is holding, as it's important for Lamput finding out Tuzki works for the docs after it falls.
- Copycat Mockery: In "Boss'stache", after the Boss captures Lamput and keeps him in a jar in his room, Lamput hears him laugh and derisively copies the laugh.
- Cranial Eruption:
- In the episode "Flicker", Specs Doc hits Skinny Doc on the head with the gun containing the color-changing serum when the latter accidentally squirts the former's eyes with it. The resulting bump on Skinny Doc's head constantly changes color due to being hit with the serum.
- Skinny Doc gets a cranial bump again in "Alien Again". The bump looks like the aliens' antennae; that, combined with the rest of Skinny's similar appearance, gets him mistaken for one of them.
- Crossover: The Season 3 finale "Lamput Meets Tuzki" is about Lamput making friends with Tuzki
, a Chinese character featured in emoticons, when he shows up during a field trip to the lab. Season 4 followed it up with "Tuzki the Intern", where Tuzki ironically now works at the lab and is after Lamput. - Cross-Popping Veins:
- In "Martial Art", Lamput briefly gets a cross-popping vein on his face as he gets angry at the docs for destroying his popcorn.
- In "Boss's Mom", the Boss has a vein when he yells at the docs for bringing the wrong women to the lab.
- Crush Blush: Specs Doc blushes in one episode as he is admiring a woman he sees who is actually Skinny Doc with Lamput on his head morphed into the shape of long hair.
- Crying Critters:
- In "Age Remote", Lamput and the docs are fighting over a remote the latter duo invented that can increase or decrease the age of any living thing. They keep firing it off in different directions, and one of the shots hits an egg in a bird's nest. The egg turns into a full-grown bird that flies away, and the bird's parent can be seen shedding a tear as it witnesses its child leaving.
- In "Lamput & the Elephant", the baby elephant is constantly shedding tears because of how much it misses its mother.
- Cucumber Facial: When we first see the witch in "Witch", she is soaking up the moon's rays and has cucumber slices covering her eyes.
- Cultural Cross-Reference:
- A lot of the show's shout-outs are directed at American culture.
- The episode "Fracture" features a song which sounds extremely similar to "Eye of the Tiger" during the montage where the docs help get the fractured Lamput back into good condition.
- That's clearly the logo of the Motion Picture Association on the end card of the film in "Martial Art".
- In "Origins", if you look behind Specs Doc when he is reading a book in one scene, there is a book whose spine reads "G. HERRIMAN'S KRAZY KAT" ("G. HERRIMAN" being George Herriman, the author of the comic strip).
- In the Season 3 episode "Reward", there is a sign on a building that says "T. AVERY'S", referring to Tex Avery.
- The rock concert in "Rock Concert" is for a musical group named AB/CD.
- "Alien Again" features the Boss on a cover for TIME Magazine.
- Season 3's "Wig" features a musical cue that sounds exactly like the beginning of Marvin Gaye's song "Let's Get It On". The cue plays three times, first when Specs Doc initially sees Skinny Doc with a woman's hair, again when Skinny Doc grabs Specs Doc's hand as they prepare to go get some ice cream, and once more after Lamput repositions himself to look like Skinny Doc's hair.
- There are some from other cultures:
- M.C. Escher (from the Netherlands) is referenced in "Art Gallery", where Specs Doc and Skinny Doc chase Lamput into a room of the museum with gravity-defying and logic-bending staircases resembling the artist's famous "Relativity" work.
- The martial arts fight sequence making up "Martial Art" is based on real-life movies starring Hong Kong martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, according to a Lamput production member's official Instagram post. At one point in the episode, Specs Doc and Skinny Doc make poses that are compared to an eagle and a snake respectively, which references a specific Jackie Chan movie, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow.
- An official YouTube upload featuring the episode "Doc Dog" (which features a dog chasing after Lamput, who himself turns into a dog to distract him) has "Who Let the Docs Out" in its title, referencing the Baha Men (from the Bahamas) song "Who Let the Dogs Out?".
- A lot of the show's shout-outs are directed at American culture.
- Danger — Thin Ice: In "Snow", the combined weight of Specs Doc and half of Lamput causes the ice below them to start to crack. Lamput taunts Specs Doc by nearly letting the ice crack, but he goes away and a single leaf is what makes Specs Doc fall into the cold water below instead.
- The Darkness Gazes Back: When Lamput goes into the dragon's cave to go save the docs in "Dragon Bros", the first things to greet him in there are the yellow eyes of creatures in an especially dark part of the cave.
- Dartboard of Hate:
- In "The Split", after the docs get in a fight, Specs Doc has used pictures of Skinny Doc as dartboards, and the darts are there when the inside of his house is shown.
- In "Dr. Lamput", the docs' laboratory has a dartboard of Lamput that the workers shoot darts at with toy guns.
- Decoy Getaway: In "Guilt", Lamput sets up a balloon that looks like himself and runs away. Specs Doc grabs the balloon thinking it's Lamput, but the actual Lamput comes back to provide comfort when it pops and Specs thinks he killed him.
- Delayed Reaction: In "Fracture", it takes a few seconds before the docs realize that they let Lamput get away.
- Delicious Distraction:
- In "Dr. Lamput", Lamput is posing as one of the many docs at the lab and, when he sees the others are coming up with a plan to catch him, proposes his own plan - just set up a trail of candy for Lamput to follow that leads to a jar to imprison him in.
- In "Lamput & the Ducklings", the docs' plan to capture Lamput involves them getting the ducklings Lamput is taking care of to a box rigged like a trap by creating a trail of popcorn. They eat the popcorn and find a bowl of it under the box.
- Depending on the Writer: The living situations of the Docs varies per episode, depending on what works for the episode proper. Some episodes have them living in separate houses, which also becomes inconsistent if the two of them are neighbors or not. Other times they're roommates living in the same house, which then becomes inconsistent if they have their own rooms or share one.
- Detectives Follow Footprints: In "The House Guest", Specs briefly takes up being a detective to follow the footprints Lamput left in the docs' house, using a magnifying glass to look at the footprints.
- Didn't Think This Through: The episode "Houdini" has the docs come up with various plans to catch Lamput and putting them to good use, only for all of them to fall flat. First, they place a cage over Lamput, who, being a little blob and all, can easily slide through the gaps and escape. Then they lock him in a chest, but he shapeshifts into a key to free himself. After that, they throw him into a sack, and he gets out by morphing into a pair of scissors and cutting through the sack. It's only after they trap him in a jar that they finally have him... but even then the jar doesn't have air holes, so Lamput seemingly dies of suffocation, thus getting the docs arrested for hurting someone. Though Lamput turns out perfectly fine seconds later after he's out of the jar, thankfully.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Lamput tends to whistle what little there is of a theme song on occasion. For one example, in "Origins", after Mr. Moustache gets the docs into his car to be arrested, Lamput walks away and whistles the theme song as if nothing happened.
- Diet Episode: "Diet Doc" is about Specs Doc getting fit and going on a diet.
- Dinner Deformation: In "Lamput & the Elephant", the baby elephant thinks a snake is its mother and gets eaten by the reptile, which has a large, bulging bump in its stomach afterwards. Lamput morphs into a cookie dough roller to push the elephant out of the snake.
- Disembodied Eyebrows: The characters' eyebrows sometimes appear partially, if not fully detached from their bodies. In "Sunday Holiday", Specs Doc looks through a pair of binoculars and not only has partially detached eyebrows himself, but an extra set of eyebrows on the binoculars that are fully detached from it.
- Disrespectful Feet on Furniture: In the episode "Origins", Slim Doc, the bad boy of the lab school class he and Fat Doc are in, goes to the back of the classroom after being introduced to the other students and sits with his feet on the desk.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: In "Strength Potion", the strength potion gives Lamput more super strength than he expected; he inadvertently destroys the welcome mat at his apartment door by brushing his feet, and pulls out the entire wall when he opens the door. Later, he unknowingly sends Specs Doc flying to the top of the apartment by pressing the pedal that opens the lid on the trash can outside his apartment room.
- The Dog Bites Back: Literally. In "Doc Dog", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc train a big dog to go after Lamput, which gets distracted when Lamput disguises himself as a female dog. Then the docs try to get his attention by grabbing his love interest, causing Lamput the "dog" to pretend to cry. The big dog gets angry at the docs for messing with his crush and chases after them for it.
- Dogs Love Fire Hydrants: In "Flicker", the docs keep finding Lamput trying to camouflage as different orange objects since their flicker serum is making him flash all sorts of colors besides his usual orange. Right before the docs find Lamput morphed into a fire hydrant, a dog is seen about to pee on him but gets scared by his color changing and runs away.
- The Door Slams You: In "Strength Potion", as a side-effect of his strength potion, Lamput hits Skinny Doc by slamming the door on him before he can hit Lamput himself.
- Double Take: In "Zoom Oil", the docs find Lamput snacking. He opens his eyes, sees the docs, closes his eyes, then gasps a second later and runs.
- Dramatic Irony:
- In Season 3's "Wig", the audience is shown that Specs Doc's "crush" is just Skinny Doc with Lamput for hair, while Specs Doc himself doesn't know and is legitimately frustrated when his love is seemingly nowhere to be seen.
- For much of "Rival's Revenge", the audience is aware that Rival Doc is the one who knocked out the elderly doc and kidnapped Lamput as it's shown near the beginning of the episode, but Specs Doc and Skinny Doc are suspected and imprisoned instead. Lamput, who is in the prison cell with the docs, helps them to prove they are innocent.
- Dream Intro: "Meet the Shrink" begins with the docs having a dream where they're chasing after Lamput. The two have trouble catching up with him as usual and are distressed enough when they wake up to jolt themselves upright.
- Dressing as the Enemy: In "Dr. Lamput", this happens accidentally when Lamput gets drenched in gray paint, making him look like one of the scientists going after him. Surely enough, Skinny Doc mistakes him for one of the scientists and drags him to the lab, where he runs with the accidental disguise and soon becomes the most popular doc in the lab.
- Drowning Pit: In "Water", enough water gets into the docs' van that it turns the vehicle into a drowning hazard, with Lamput and the docs drinking the water to keep it from filling up entirely. Lamput frees himself and the docs by drilling a hole into the back wall of the van's rear compartment.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The emoticon character Tuzki has three cameos before officially showing up in "Lamput Meets Tuzki" - in "Boss's Mom" on a book and on a train, and in "Jamput" on a poster that reads "COMING SOON!".
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Season 1 only has episodes that are about 15 seconds long, and is the only season with episodes whose approximate length is less than a minute long. Season 2 expands the episodes to two minutes; Season 3 introduces episodes that are five minutes long and seven minutes long, and Season 4 introduces episodes that are eleven minutes long.
- The docs' van isn't shown with its signature vanity license plate, "ROTJ", in Season 1; its first appearance was in the Season 2 episode "Signs".
- The amount of focus the laboratory gets from Season 3 onwards is a stark contrast to the first two seasons, which almost don't show it at all.
- The Season 1 episode "Bank Robbery" shows Hindi written on the walls of the prison Specs Doc is kept in. The show largely favors English writing.
- In the Season 1 episode "Orange Balloon", Mr. Moustache is shown to have a kid. Later episodes don't show him with children.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: In "Zoom Oil", when Lamput steps aside to dodge the docs, the latter characters end up realizing too late that they've got too much of their speed potions on them and start running so fast that they reach different countries entirely. The most prominent features in each country as the docs completely lose control is the countries' most famous landmarks; they find their way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, the Eiffel Tower in France, the Statue of Liberty in the United States, the pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt, and the Taj Mahal in India before finally landing face first in a rice field in Japan.
- Electric Jellyfish: In "Cast Away", Skinny Doc grabs hold of a jellyfish, which quickly electrocutes him and results in X-Ray Sparks.
- Empathic Environment: In "The Split", it starts to rain after Specs Doc and Skinny Doc decide to leave each other as a result of their feud, still angry after they make it home again. There's also sad music playing in the background as this is happening.
- Episode Title Card: Episodes starting from Season 3 have title cards on their television broadcasts at least. They depict the characters in a more paint-like style, have the episode name somewhere in orange font, and have the episode directors and executive producers mentioned in the bottom right corner.
- Everyone Went to School Together: The episode "Origins" reveals that Specs Doc and Skinny Doc first met during their childhood at school, where their teacher would eventually become their current boss. Mr. Mustache also went to school with them, as the bully victim of the Docs, while the Docs were also responsible for accidentally creating Lamput.
- Everything Has Rhythm: In "Skinny's Dance Night", Skinny Doc practices for a dance with his girlfriend by grooving to some music with a surrogate partner, a hat hanging pole with a picture of his crush placed on top.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: "Skinny Monster" ends with a bear getting angry at the docs for bothering him and chasing them into the distance.
- Expository Theme Tune: The opening, as short as it is, still visually conveys the most important information about the show. You see an orange blob who shapeshifts to avoid being captured by two scientists.
- Extremely Short Intro Sequence: The intro lasts about 3 seconds before the episode begins.
- Eye Am Watching You: In "Skinny at the Pool", Skinny Doc points his fingers to his eyes, and then to Lamput, to tell him that he'll be paying attention to him as he tries to win him as the prize for the swimming competition (Lamput is in the shape of a trophy). He does it again at the end of the episode as a way of telling him "this isn't over yet".
- Eye Pop:
- In "Opera", the docs' eyes pop when they realize Lamput is in a balcony seat below them.
- In "Lamput Meets Tuzki", the Boss's eyes pop through the lenses of his glasses when he sees the damage that has been done to a laboratory room.
- Eyes Out of Sight: One of the soccer players in "Soccer Punch" has hair that goes over his eyes, preventing him from seeing and making it hard for him to play soccer. Eventually, Lamput pulls back his hair, and he can see again.
- Face Palm: In "Opera", the docs both do a face palm when Specs Doc spills his chloroform all over the opera's audience, sending them to sleep. Skinny Doc has a tissue in his hand when he face palms, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that the tissue had some of the liquid on it.
- Faceless Eye:
- In "Shape Shift", after the docs gain a shapeshifting ability, they take on the form of flowers to track Lamput. Both have no mouth visible when they are transformed, and Specs Doc takes on the form of a one-eyed flower.
- The aliens in "Abduction" have one eye on their faces, but no mouths.
- Failed a Spot Check: "Guilt" has Specs Doc pop a balloon decoy set up by Lamput, which leads him to believe he's accidentally killed him. Lamput himself appears to give the crying Specs Doc a handkerchief, but Specs Doc fails to notice who gives it to him.
- Failure Is the Only Option: The docs can never capture Lamput without him escaping. The one instance where they do have a lasting victory, in "Break Out", turns around on them because they don't have another goal to pursue and enjoyed chasing him, leading them to free Lamput.
- Faint in Shock:
- Skinny Doc faints upon seeing a muscular Specs Doc in "Diet Doc".
- At the end of "Sleepwalking", Skinny Doc and Lamput both faint after seeing a fainted Specs Doc with a drink resembling blood spilled all over him.
- Fairy Tale Episode: "Robinput" has Lamput tell the docs the story of Robin Hood, casting him, Specs Doc, and Skinny Doc as Robin Hood and his merry men and explaining how they stole treasure from an evil king.
- Fake-Hair Drama: In the episode "Hair Bun", Skinny Doc uses scissors to cut the hair off an elderly woman, thinking that Lamput is hiding in it. The hair sticks to the scissors and is revealed to be fake, and the woman, mad at Skinny Doc, whacks him.
- False Camera Effects:
- The montage in the beginning of "Fracture" uses film grain.
- The parts of "Tall Tales" with Specs Doc and Skinny Doc telling the Boss their lie have fake film grain on them.
- Fantastic Fireworks: "Wrong Date" features the docs setting off a firework that explodes into a heart shape, followed by several other heart-shaped fireworks going off in the ensuing fireworks show.
- Fashion Show: Naturally, this is the setting of "Fashion Show", where the docs chase Lamput into a fashion show and are forced into participating.
- Fast as Lightning: In "Zoom Oil", the docs creating lightning bolts around themselves as they move extremely fast after applying their zoom oil.
- Feather Fingers: The duck parents in "Lamput & the Ducklings" use their wings like arms and hands to hold their kids, while the ducklings themselves use their wings to hold popcorn they are eating.
- Feud Episode: "The Split" is about Specs Doc and Skinny Doc getting into a tiff after they unintentionally hurt each other trying to catch Lamput, with the two going their separate ways and ignoring each other as Lamput tries to get them to make up. When Lamput annoys them too much, they unite once more to go after him.
- Fishbowl Helmet: The astronaut helmets worn by Lamput and the docs in "Boss on the Moon" are bubble-like shapes that are glass all around.
- Fishing for Sole: In "Everyone Needs Friends", a fisherman is seen fishing a boot out of the water. Lamput tries to cheer him up by having his monster friend give him a bunch of fishes.
- Flaming Meteor: A flaming meteor falls toward the city near the end of "Giant Lamput", forcing Lamput and the docs to call a truce on their chase to send it away.
- Flowers of Romance:
- In one episode, Lamput morphs into a flower while he is held by Skinny Doc, who is standing right next to a pretty woman. The woman thinks Skinny Doc is offering the flower out of an affection for her and accepts the gift.
- In "Date Night", Lamput morphs into a bouquet of flowers to help Specs Doc impress a woman he's gone out for a romantic dinner with.
- In "Wrong Date", one of the first things Mr. Moustache does when his date arrives is to give her a bouquet of flowers.
- Flying Broomstick: The docs find one in the castle in "Witch" and fly around on it to aid in their pursuit of Lamput.
- Flying Car: In "Abduction", the docs' van is revealed to be souped up with jets that allow it to fly into space; Skinny Doc and the Boss use the jets to get them to the flying saucer where Specs Doc and Lamput are trapped.
- Flying Saucer:
- Lamput and the scientists find themselves in one in "Alien".
- Skinny Doc is trapped in another saucer in "Alien Again".
- Forced Perspective: Exploited by Lamput in "Sunset", where he tricks Specs and Skinny Doc into thinking that he's the sun by appearing in front of the sky while in the water. Due to Lamput's orange color, it works until Specs Doc realizes he's swimming in front of them.
- Formerly Fat: "Origins" reveals that the round boy that the Docs constantly tormented in their childhood eventually grew up to be the tall and muscular Mr. Mustache.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: "Toy Car" doesn't make any reference to the docs chasing Lamput for the most part, focusing on Lamput helping a kid whose toy car has broken.
- Fortune Teller: A palm-reading fortune teller is important to the plot of "Future Tense". Skinny Doc has him tell his fortune before Lamput passes by, and the doc chases after him, with the fortune teller predicting various misfortunes aimed at Skinny by reading his palm-prints (such as an imprint of his hand in cement and a print of his hand in a foggy window) and coming to rescue him.
- Fountain of Youth: "Back to School" shows the docs using a de-aging ray to turn themselves into children and get into a school. A girl in that school is unknowingly carrying Lamput on her, as he turns into a book to get away from the docs and hitches a ride with her.
- Four-Legged Insect: The spider in "Lamput & The Spider" has six legs instead of the eight that real-life arachnids have.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: In "Transfer Gun", the Boss invents a ray gun with this effect. The Boss and Lamput get hit by shots from the gun by accident, and the Boss in Lamput's body initially has trouble getting the docs to believe he's not actually Lamput.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Lamput meets one in "Lamput and the Spider". It has trouble making its own web and Lamput helps by improvising one himself, and the spider later defends Lamput (who has gone to sleep) from a swarm of mosquitos who want to suck his blood.
- Full Moon Silhouette: In "Sleepwalking", Skinny Doc's silhouette is seen in front of the moon for a second after Lamput flings him back onto the balcony of the house.
- Funny Phone Misunderstanding: In "Love Chat", Specs Doc is talking to his girlfriend on the phone, with Lamput being grabbed by him by accident. Specs Doc shouts at Lamput, but his girlfriend thinks he's shouting at her, creating unnecessary, comedic drama between them as Specs Doc struggles to convince her that yelling wasn't directed at her.
- Fuzzball Spider: The spider in "Lamput and the Spider" is a simple sphere shape with six legs.
- Gasp!: In "Fracture", the docs gasp after they realize they let Lamput go off free.
- Getting Eaten Is Harmless: In "In the Gut", Lamput is accidentally swallowed by Specs Doc and remains in his stomach for the rest of the episode. Never once does the idea of Lamput being digested come up.
- Getting the Boot:
- In "Rival Doc", Rival Doc is kicked out of the laboratory at the end of the episode when the docs "capture" Lamput so that they can get their jobs back.
- At the end of "Fashion Show", a security guard catches up with the docs, who ignored a "no entry" sign on the door, and proceeds to kick them out the way they came.
- Giant Spider: Among Lamput's transformations in "Shape Shift" is a giant spider. The docs turn into a fly swatter afterwards to squash him.
- Glass Smack and Slide: In "Break Out", the sentient pillow only has to hit the front glass window of the docs' van, which it then slides down on, for them to catch it.
- Glasses of Aging: In the episode "Age Remote", when Lamput is changed to a senior citizen by the age remote, he spontaneously gains glasses.
- Good-Times Montage: The episode "Tuzki the Intern" features a brief montage of Lamput and Tuzki having fun at a fair, starting after Tuzki wins at a dart-throwing game. In order, Lamput and Tuzki ride a merry-go-round and watch a man make a balloon animal (which is one-upped by Tuzki morphing Lamput into a unicorn); the montage ends with them eating ice cream.
- Goofy Print Underwear: In "Airport", one of the items in the docs' suitcase is a pair of underwear with a heart-pattern print on them.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: One of Specs Doc's lines of gibberish in "Martial Art" is accompanied by Chinese subtitles.
- Green Around the Gills: In "Alien Again", Skinny Doc's reaction to the taste of alien food is nausea, green face included.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: In "Robinput", the evil king uses his assistant, who happens to have the right shape, as a boomerang as a way to attack Robin Hood Lamput's merry men while defending from a barrage of arrows. It hits them both, and they fall off the platfornm where Robin Hood Lamput's execution is taking place.
- Grocery Store Episode: The episode "Superstore" takes place in a supermarket and is about Specs Doc trying to purchase a bottle of fuel, which is Lamput in disguise. Lamput keeps making himself bigger to amp up his price and eventually cause Specs Doc to not have enough money to buy him.
- Hammerspace: In "Hair Bun", Skinny Doc pulls scissors from behind his back to cut the woman's hair, believing Lamput is hiding in it.
- Handsplay in Theater: Type B - the "character X wraps their arm around character Y" variant - appears in Season 3's "Wig", where Specs Doc is at a movie theater and tries to wrap his arm around Skinny Doc, whom he thinks is a woman. Skinny sees him moving, and the two stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds before Skinny happily grabs Specs in his own arm (out of platonic friendship, in his case).
- Haunted House: The docs go to a haunted house on their search for Lamput in the appropriately-titled episode "Haunted House". Lamput creeps out the docs by making several ominous distractions to keep with the theme of the location, such as making fake walking sounds to make it sound like someone else is in the house with them.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: In "Lamput Checks In", the docs see a Hawaiian-shirted tourist entering a fancy hotel they've been denied entry to. This gives Specs Doc the idea to pretend to be a tourist himself - complete with Hawaiian flower short - and carry Skinny Doc in his bag, which works.
- Heart Beats out of Chest: In Season 3's "Wig", at one point Specs Doc's heart reaches all the way to Skinny Doc (whom he thinks is a woman) and the rest of his body is brought to that spot.
- Hidden Eyes: In "Sleepwalking", Specs Doc gets angry at Skinny Doc for making noise while he's trying to watch a movie. Specs Doc's mad face is tinted red and does not have his eyes visible.
- Hold Up Your Score: In "Wrong Date", the docs ride on the festival's krathong floating on the river, doing an ice skating-like dance routine with them that holds the attention of a man, a woman, and a dog in the background. They all hold up signs giving their performance a 10, with the exception of the dog who gives them a 9.5 instead.
- Holiday Episode: "Wrong Date" takes place during Loy Krathong, a Thai Buddhist holiday where people make krathong, or leaf containers, to float in water.
- Human Snowman: At the end of "Snow", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc are each on the top of a snowy hill, with their hills right next to each other. The two decide to roll to the bottom of the hills as snowballs to catch up with Lamput, but when they collide they end up forming a snowman instead. Lamput comes back and places a carrot nose on the snowman's head.
- Humanoid Aliens: In "Alien Again", the blue-gray-skinned aliens in white clothing look remarkably like the scientists after Lamput, leading to one assuming Skinny Doc should be with them. However, the extraterrestrials also have only one eye, as well as an antenna on their heads.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Despite being a Blob Monster, Lamput doesn't cause trouble and goes out of his way to help others. This makes the human scientists seem like jerks trying to capture him, even when they're only capturing him as part of their job.
- Humongous-Headed Hammer: In "Boxing", a large blow to Mr. Moustache is delivered by Lamput, who is morphed into the shape of boxing gloves on Skinny Doc and transforms into a hammer with a huge head to deliver the hit.
- Hypno Pendulum:
- In the episode "Hypnosis", Specs Doc sees a hypnotist use a swinging pocket watch to hypnotize someone in a TV show, and he and Skinny Doc use this idea to hypnotize Lamput into doing their bidding.
- In "Meet the Shrink", the shrink resorts to hypnotizing Lamput, Specs Doc, and Skinny Doc via a pocketwatch to deal with the latter two's nightmares about chasing Lamput.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: The sea monster in "Everyone Needs Friends" can't make many friends besides Lamput due to everyone else being scared by him. It isn't until the end of the episode, when the sea monster saves the townspeople from sinking on a boat, that he proves his worth as an ally.
- Idea Bulb:
- In "Houdini", a light bulb appears next to Skinny Doc when he comes up with an idea on how to capture Lamput.
- Lamput briefly morphs into a light bulb in "The Chase" when he gets an idea while being chased by the docs.
- In "Dr. Lamput", Lamput gets a normal idea bulb when he has an idea on what to draw on the chalkboard the scientists are using to map out a plan to capture him.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Downplayed. Most of the episodes have no significant naming scheme, but there's a recurring theme of Lamput helping an animal in a few episodes, and those episodes are named "Lamput and the [animal name]" ("Lamput and the Spider", "Lamput & the Elephant", and "Lamput & the Ducklings").
- Imagine Spotting: In "Boss'stache", the Boss remembers he made a secret formula to grow his mustache and that it's at the laboratory. Lamput sees the lab in the Boss's thought bubble and confirms if that's where he wants to go.
- Impact Silhouette: In "Strength Potion", the hole Specs Doc makes when he goes through the building's ceiling is shaped like him.
- Impossibly Awesome Magic Trick: There are numerous reality-defying magic tricks in "Some Kind of Magic", some seen outside of the magic show proper. Among them are standalone doors where you walk into one and end up coming out of another, and a bunch of boxes that split up your body parts inside them without harming you.
- Inconsistent Episode Lengths: The first and second seasons avert this, having episodes that are 15 seconds and two minutes long respectively. Season 3 started to play with the episode lengths more; they can be two minutes, five minutes, or seven minutes. Season 4 introduces 11-minute-long episodes.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: In "Shrunk Doc", the docs use a shrink ray to make Lamput tiny. A bump during the drive back to the lab causes the ray to shrink their vehicle; Lamput is still inside the car and drives it to evade his pursuers.
- Infernal Background: In "Martial Art", Lamput gets angry at Specs Doc and Skinny Doc after his bag of popcorn is destroyed. As he gives a yell at them, both the hero from the martial arts movie the theater room is playing and a bunch of flames appear in the background.
- Injury Bookend: The plot of "Memory Loss" starts with Specs Doc accidentally getting himself whacked with his net, giving him amnesia and making him act like a baby. The problem is reversed when baby Specs Doc causes a book to fall on himself.
- Instant Sedation: In any episodes where a character uses a rag with chloroform on it ("Chloroform" and "Opera" for example), the affected person(s) go unconscious immediately after coming into contact with the substance.
- Instant Wristwatch:
- In "Airport", Specs Doc looks at his watch along with Skinny Doc while both are on the airplane. The watch appears out of nowhere since Specs Doc typically has nothing around his arms.
- In "Lamput & the Elephant", while the docs are waiting for Lamput to fall into their pitfall, a watch once again spontaneously appears on Specs Doc's arm so he can check the time.
- In "Animal X", a wristwatch appears on Specs Doc's arm out of nowhere as he waits for Skinny Doc to stop struggling to lure the gorilla out of the cage.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: The short theme song has no vocals.
- Interspecies Friendship: Lamput, a blob monster, becomes friends with a sea monster in "Everyone Needs Friends" and helps the sea monster to make more friends when he figures out that he doesn't have any other friends due to being scary to others.
- Iris Out: A lot of episodes end on an iris out, with Lamput often being the focus of the circle comprising the iris out.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: Lamput and the docs find the eponymous location of "Haunted House" on a dark and stormy night, and it remains dark for the rest of the episode to keep with the horror theme.
- Jaw Drop: In "Rival Doc", this is Specs Doc and Skinny Doc's reaction to the rival doc actually managing to capture Lamput by getting him to climb into his suitcase with minimal effort. The stunned scientists promptly push each other's jaws back into place.
- Lampshade Hanging: One of Specs Doc's lines of gibberish in "Martial Art" is accompanied by Chinese subtitles. The line means, "We're talking nonsense." This lampshades how all of their dialogue is Speaking Simlish.
- Land, Sea, Sky: The vehicles the docs are ordered to use to chase Lamput in "The Chase" have a connection to one of the three. They start with their van (land), then they chase Lamput on a boat (sea), then they use an airplane (sky).
- Laser Hallway: Lamput's prison room in "Break Out" already has him in a glass container, but has criss-crossing lasers all over the room for extra protection. This becomes an obstacle for the docs as they go to break him out.
- The Last Straw: In "Snow", Specs Doc lands on a patch of thin ice while holding one half of Lamput. The added weight of Lamput causes the ice to start cracking, and Specs Doc throw him to the side and tries to convince him against pressing on the cracking ice. After Lamput leaves, a leaf falls onto the ice patch and makes it break completely, causing Specs Doc to fall into the water below.
- Leitmotif:
- The melody of the show's short theme song (A#-C-A#-G#-G-G#-G-F-D#-A#-D#) plays a lot in connection to Lamput. He often whistles it, and in "Super Docs" it plays when Skinny Doc spots him for the first time in that episode.
- There is a short jingle with a capella elements that plays in three scenes in "Lamput Meets Tuzki" where Tuzki is the focus, one of them being when he first gets out of the school bus.
- Library Episode: "Library", as implied by its title. In that episode, the docs chase Lamput into a library and keep getting in trouble with Mr. Moustache for not keeping quiet when they're trying to find and catch Lamput.
- Little Green Men: The alien in the episode "Alien" is a light green, one-eyed alien who owns a Flying Saucer.
- The Lonely Door: Lamput pretends to be a lonely door in "Orange Door" and successfully tricks Specs Doc into thinking he's in a mysterious room, despite there being nothing else around Lamput that tells you that there's a room in the door.
- Long Pants: Thanks to the lineless style of the show, the uniform that all the scientists wear appear as a full white jumpsuit. However, multiple episodes show that they're actually a separate top and bottom.
- Loud Gulp:
- Tuzki makes an audible gulping noise twice over the course of "Tuzki the Intern": once when Specs Doc and Skinny Doc get angry at him for ruining another scientist's experiment and beckoning him to come to them, and again before he approaches the lab after having messed up in the eyes of Specs and Skinny.
- In "Some Kind of Magic", an audible gulp is Skinny Doc's reaction to realizing how dangerous him being in a "saw him in half" magic trick is.
- Man-Eating Plant: In "Magic Marker", one of the magic powers Skinny Doc gets from the magic marker is to summon a vine plant, with one of the vines having a ravenous set of jaws on it that makes a lunge for Lamput when Skinny uses it.
- Meadow Run: "Boss's Mom" has a scene in the laboratory where the Boss and his mother happily run towards each other to share a hug. The scene cuts to a flashback of a baby Boss and his younger mother approaching each other in the same way, but in a field of flowers.
- Medium Awareness: In "The Split", Lamput's attempts to get the docs to get together again involve him going back and forth to each of them on a split-screen shot. He resorts to getting rid of the line splitting the screen so that the docs are right next to one another.
- Medium Blending: The horror film Specs Doc watches in "Sleepwalking" is live-action footage of animated puppets interacting with each other, in contrast to the rest of the show being 2D animation.
- Mickey Mousing: There is a tendency for the music to match up with characters' actions, especially in the earlier episodes. One example shows up right in the intro; an ascending piano jingle accompanies Lamput running. As for episode-specific examples, one example is the first episode, "Hair Bun", which also has the music match up to Lamput's steps.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: For the most part, there is no actual dialogue besides Speaking Simlish.
- Mind-Control Eyes: In "Hypnosis", when the docs hypnotize Lamput, he has spirals in place of pupils.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: The recurring elderly lady is shown to be shorter than Skinny Doc in "Hair Bun" despite being older.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Skinny Doc falls from an open air vent in "Break Out" with a rope attached to him to enter the room where the laboratory keeps Lamput.
- Mistaken for Aliens: In "Alien Again", Skinny Doc is blue-gray and wears white clothes just like the extraterrestrial visitors. One of those visitors immediately thinks Skinny is one of their group, leading to him being trapped in their spaceship.
- Mistaken for Dog: The plot of "Pup Mix" revolves around Lamput and the docs winding up in an old lady's house, where the lady keeps mistaking all three of them for her dog and treats them as if they were her dog.
- Mistaken for Exhibit:
- In "Art Gallery", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc, while at an art gallery, are compressed into each other and land in a room full of visitors in this state. The visitors immediately take a liking to their abstract shape and snap pictures of them.
- In "Thief in the Museum", after being kicked out too many times from an ancient Egyptian museum while trying to catch Lamput, the docs eventually disguise themselves as mummies to get in. Once they catch Lamput, he disguises himself as a piece of jewelry, causing the three of them to be mistaken for an exhibit, being put under a glass case until the museum closes.
- Mistaken for Thief:
- Invoked by Lamput in "Bank Robbery". He changes into a gun when Specs Doc has him in his hands, and everyone immediately thinks Specs Doc is robbing the bank. Mr. Moustache comes in to arrest him afterward.
- At the beginning of "Origins", Lamput shapeshifts into a crown and hides behind the window of a jewelry store. The docs go into the store and grab him, only for the window glass to break and make the docs look like they just tried to rob that shop. Cue police car.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: In "Animal X", the docs invoke this trope by testing their creature-merging machine using a cat and a bird, creating a winged feline. Specs Doc then uses the machine to merge himself with a multitude of animals that he captures, so that he can get past certain obstacles preventing him from catching Lamput.
- Mobile Shrubbery: In "Break Out", the docs grab nearby plants and are briefly shown moving while hidden under them to remain safe from potential witnesses as they search for a captive Lamput.
- Monochrome Past: The episode "Origins" is a Whole Episode Flashback where the flashback parts are presented in a much more muted color scheme than usual.
- Monster Menagerie: The laboratory is implied to be one in "Break Out"; besides Lamput, there are other living creatures that are the result of science experiments gone wrong, and the docs are made to capture and imprison them. The only one who is shown in a prison cell is Lamput himself.
- Motivation on a Stick: In "Tall Tales", during the story they make up to explain to the Boss why they aren't on time, Specs Doc and Skinny Doc chase Lamput by riding a whale with a fish as what makes the whale swim, with a fishing rod being what's holding the fish up.
- Mouthy Bird: The ducklings and their parents in "Lamput & the Ducklings" move their beaks like mouths and have smiles and frowns drawn on them.
- Movie-Theater Episode:
- The episode "Martial Art" is about Skinny Doc and Specs Doc encountering Lamput in a theater while he's watching a martial arts film. He ends up fighting the two docs in the same style as the film.
- An earlier 15-second episode features the docs watching a film at a movie theater. Lamput surprises them by mimicking the spooky sounds made in the film, causing Specs Doc to scream and get shushed by the other theatergoers.
- Mummy: In "Thief in the Museum", the docs disguise as mummies to get back into the ancient Egyptian museum after they are thrown out due to being mistaken for thieves. When the two catch Lamput, he turns into a piece of jewelry, and the museum official assumes they are part of the exhibit and puts them on display.
- Mundane Utility: In "Super Docs", the first things the docs do after they find superhero costumes is to use their respective abilities to do household things like use the one outfit's magnet shoes to collect and throw away some pieces of paper and use the other costume's laser vision to toast a piece of bread.
- Musical Episode: One early 15-second episode is a non-dialogue variant where the docs (unintentionally) create a drum solo with some trash cans in their endeavor to catch Lamput. The episode ends with the docs being carried by some people who heard the drumming and loved it.
- Mustache Vandalism: In "The Split", Skinny Doc has scribbled a mustache on Specs Doc in a picture of both of them he has in his house.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In "Guilt", Specs Doc pops a decoy balloon of Lamput and, thinking it's the real Lamput, feels remorseful for what he's done and genuinely mourns his "death."
- Mysterious Purple: In "Library", the library has a forbidden book containing a ghost who is purple. The "mysterious" part comes from absolutely no other context being provided for why there's a ghost in a book in the library aside from them wanting to keep it from creating mischief.
- Near-Villain Victory: One episode has Specs Doc in the laboratory, storing the newly-captured Lamput away in a room that's mostly empty save for the presence of a cardboard box. Lamput hides himself by sticking to Specs Doc's bottom as he walks away, thus narrowly escaping from losing to the docs.
- Needlework Is for Old People: In "Boss' Mom 2", it's shown that the Boss's elderly mom, who has the white hair to prove it, likes to knit. She has Specs Doc and Skinny Doc buy her a heckton of yarn from a yarn store and is shown knitting a shirt for Lamput at the end of the episode.
- Niche Network: In "Hypnosis", Specs Doc watches a program depicting someone hypnotizing someone else. The channel he's watching it on has a screen bug in the top right corner that reads "HYPNOTV".
- No-Neck Chump: None of the scientists at the lab have visible necks, with their heads seemingly melded with their bodies.
- No Ontological Inertia: In "Transfer Gun", the body-swapping gun being destroyed is what reverses its effect, returning everyone to their original bodies.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: In "Art Gallery", Lamput, masquerading as one of the small sculptures at a museum, points Skinny Doc to where he can find him to distract him. Specs Doc notices Lamput and grabs him, only to be told by a museum employee unaware of it not being a statue to put it back.
- Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: Played with. In one episode, Lamput creates a decoy of himself using a balloon that Specs Doc accidentally pops, and he thinks he accidentally killed Lamput and starts crying. Lamput himself shows up to give him a handkerchief to use; Specs Doc is too busy mourning his "death" to notice who gave him the handkerchief.
- Numbered Sequels:
- "Glasses" has a follow-up called "Glasses 2" which has a similar setup - Lamput takes off Specs Doc's glasses, but this time he puts them on Skinny Doc to distract him, whereas he simply took them on and off of Specs Doc multiple times in the previous episode (Skinny Doc doesn't appear in "Glasses").
- Season 4's "Boss' Mom 2" is a follow-up to "Boss' Mom" from Season 3, both featuring Lamput being friendly to the Boss's mom.
- Offscreen Teleportation: In "Boxing", after the boxing match, Skinny Doc waves to the arena spectators and the frame cuts to a closer shot of him, causing his hand to go off-screen. When his hand is on-screen again, Lamput, who was shaped as boxing gloves on his hands, has already disappeared; he's at the arena's exit.
- One-Word Title: Lamput is only one word.
- The Oner:
- Many of the Season 1 episodes have no shifts in camera whatsoever, being that their 15-second-long length doesn't make room for many camera changes. The very first episode is one such instance, assuming the Hit Flash briefly concealing the sidewalk doesn't count towards anything.
- Most of "Water" takes place in one shot, most of it being in the docs' van.
- The Season 3 episode "Opera" takes place entirely in the same stage, the camera never once shifting anywhere else.
- Opaque Lenses: The thief from the episode "Thief" wears glasses with lenses that completely obscure his eyes.
- Opening Shout-Out: One of the Season 1 episodes takes place within the series intro, where Lamput blends in with the series logo to avoid the docs. Specs Doc reappears and double-checks the "t" that Lamput morphs into, only to destroy the rest of the logo in the process.
- Origins Episode: The Season 3 episode "Origins" has the docs reminisce about how they met when they find a picture of themselves when they were younger in Skinny Doc's shirt while stuck in a police car. The flashback reveals several important details about their past and those of others they knew:
- Skinny Doc was quite a bully to Specs Doc when he arrived at the school Specs Doc went to, only making friends with him after an incident where they accidentally ruined a science experiment their teacher was working on. That experiment being ruined is what caused Lamput to form.
- That round kid Specs Doc and Skinny Doc bullied upon making friends with each other? He grew up to be Mr. Moustache, the policeman who makes recurring appearances throughout the series and often tries to arrest or beat up the docs. He's held a grudge on the docs ever since they bullied him as a kid.
- "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression: Music
noticeably resembling the Trope Namer can be heard in "Boss's Mom" during the scene where a young Boss and his mom run towards each other. - Paper People: In "Shape Shift", Lamput gets the docs to transform into a flat sheet resembling a crosswalk, getting them walked on by multiple people crossing the street at once. A few seconds later, it skips to nighttime where they shapeshift out of that form, revealing those people left them flattened.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Arctic Adventure", the docs dress up as penguins, and later seals, to not be discovered among actual penguins and seals while finding Lamput. The disguises don't cover their faces enough, but the animals don't place any attention on it.
- Parasol Parachute: In "Opera", Specs Doc tries to scoop up Lamput from below him using an umbrella. He accidentally drops the umbrella, which opens while Lamput is clinging to it and floats slowly towards the audience below until Mr. Moustache grabs it.
- Pass the Popcorn: In "Animal X", as the docs have trouble getting their captured gorilla to calm down, Lamput sits back and watches the chaos, eating some popcorn with the winged feline the docs created earlier.
- Pec Flex: In "Boxing", Mr. Moustache flexes his pecs while showing off before attacking Skinny Doc.
- Pedal-to-the-Metal Shot: In "Hilltop", the docs go after Lamput in their van after he turns into a parachute to avoid them. As they get the van ready, there is a shot of Specs Doc hitting the pedal hard before he drives.
- Persona Non Grata: In "Library", after Mr. Moustache thinks the docs have been loud in the library one too many times, Skinny and Specs are banned from re-entering and forced to wear costumes to trick Mr. Moustache into thinking it's not them.
- Pinball Gag: In "Alien", the alien spacecraft launches into space and ricochets off the planets of the solar system, with pinball sounds as it does so. All the planets it hits end up with rings of stars circling around them (except for Saturn, the one planet it doesn't hit - it had a ring already).
- Polar Bears and Penguins: In "Arctic Adventure", Lamput and the docs find a polar bear and its cub in the Arctic, as well as penguins. The docs disguise themselves as penguins so that Lamput doesn't notice them easily, and later the docs endanger the life of the polar bear's cub and must help it back on land.
- Portmantitle:
- S1E7, "Vegetrouble" = "vegetable" and "trouble". The episode is about Specs Doc thinking Lamput is hidden in some pumpkins, a kind of vegetable.
- S3E37, "Jamput" = "Lamput" and "jam". The episode is about Specs Doc taking a jar of orange jam, sticking fake eyeballs into it, and claiming it's Lamput.
- Price on Their Head: Lamput invokes this on himself for a trick in the Season 1 episode "Reward", writing "REWARD $$$" on one of the wanted posters of him to get the docs to fight over who gets the reward.
- Primal Chest-Pound:
- Specs Doc and Skinny Doc pound their chest while morphed into a gorilla in "Shape Shift".
- In "Animal X", the gorilla in the cage Specs Doc brings to the lab pounds his chest at one point.
- Prison Episode: "Doc & The Thief" has Specs Doc mistaken for a thief and arrested.
- Prisoner's Work: In "Doc & The Thief", an arrested Specs Doc is made to chip big rocks with several other prisoners. Specs Doc misses Skinny Doc and Lamput so much that he shapes his rock to look like them.
- Protagonist Title: The show's title refers to the main character, Lamput.
- Public Domain Soundtrack:
- Throughout the episode "Opera", the piano player plays "Nocturne Op.9 No.2" by Frédéric Chopin.
- "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II plays during the climatic scene in "Boss on the Moon" where Lamput and the other scientists come to get the Boss off the Moon and back to Earth.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: In "Some Kind of Magic", the magician is shown pulling a rabbit out of his hat. The rabbit then pulls out a hat of its own, from which it pulls out a carrot.
- Pun-Based Title:
- The episode title "Future Tense" is a reference to the future tense of verbs, but has a double meaning in that the episode is about a fortune teller being tense about Skinny Doc's future after a palm reading.
- The episode title "Soccer Punch" is a pun on "sucker punch". The episode itself is about Lamput messing up a game of soccer that the docs are playing in.
- The word "case" in the episode title "A Case of Mistaken Identity" can be interpreted as referring to either a case as in an instance of something or a case as in a suitcase, as the episode has Specs Doc and Skinny Doc get Lamput, who is pretending to be a suitcase, mixed up with the real suitcases of a thief and a normal guy.
- Purple Is Powerful: Played with in "Magic Marker"; any magic casted with the magic marker's symbols drawn on the user emits purple auras, but the magic spells by themselves aren't particularly powerful. It's not until Specs and Skinny find secret pages in the book with especially powerful symbols and draw those on them that they become near unstoppable, reaching the point where they appear in a flash of lightning and create a large water leak in the city as they use their powers to go catch Lamput.
- Quarter Hour Short: Season 4 introduces episodes that go for about 11 minutes, a first for the series. The episodes are "Lamput and the Beanstalk", "Boss on the Moon", "Strength Potion", and "Rival's Revenge".
- Rain, Rain, Go Away: The central conflict of "The House Guest" is caused by it raining during a chase after Lamput, leading to the docs hanging out in their home. The docs argue with each other over different things, a problem exacerbated by Lamput making mischief around them.
- Rake Take: In "Sleepwalking", a sleepwalking Skinny Doc steps towards a rake on the ground. Lamput shapeshifts into a helmet to protect Skinny Doc, leading to Lamput getting hurt by the rake when it's stepped on.
- Recycled Title: Seasons 1 and 3 both have episodes called "Reward" and "Wig".
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: In "Signs", when Mr. Moustache has finally had enough of Specs Doc and Skinny Doc disregarding the "no [whatever]" signs they come across one too many times, his eyes turn red.
- Rhyming Title: One of the Lamput Presents uploads on Cartoon Network Asia's YouTube channel is titled "Time To Morph, Small Orange Dwarf".
- Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: In "Diet Doc", when the alarm clock rings the morning Specs Doc goes to exercise and get fit, he crushes the clock with his fist.
- Road Runner vs. Coyote: The docs constantly chase after and attempt to catch Lamput, only to fail every time.
- Robinsonade: In "Cast Away", Specs Doc and Lamput accidentally end up in a cargo crate that floats away from the boat that was carrying it during a storm, while Skinny Doc remains where they all were. Specs Doc is stranded on an island with Lamput and works with him to survive as Skinny Doc realizes what's going on and looks for the two.
- Romantic Spoonfeeding: In "Wrong Date", Mr. Moustache and his girlfriend Ms. Lipstick buy heart-shaped cotton candy. As a romantic gesture, Ms. Lipstick rips out a small part of the cotton candy and puts it into Mr. Moustache's mouth, then Mr. Moustache does the same with Ms. Lipstick.
- Rope Bridge: In "Dragon Bros", to get to Lamput on the other side of a chasm, Specs Doc and Skinny Doc try to use a rope bridge they find. No sooner than Skinny sets foot on the bridge, one of the logs comprising its floor falls off, followed by the entire bridge collapsing.
- Sailor Fuku: In "Giant Lamput", a poster on one of the buildings that giant Lamput and the doc bot accidentally destroy depicts an animesque girl in a sailor fuku.
- Saw a Woman in Half: In "Some Kind of Magic", Skinny Doc is put into a large box by the magician as part of his magic show, and the magician places saws into the box. Skinny Doc seems okay at first, but then part of the box, which is on wheels, rolls away - and suddenly, Specs Doc is chasing Skinny Doc's lower half.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors:
- "Some Kind of Magic" features an extended sequence where Lamput and the docs take their chase to three doors that happen to be behind the stage where the magic show is being performed, with Lamput and the docs going through all the doors multiple times with no rules as to which door they come out of regardless of which door they enter. The sequence ends with Lamput getting the docs to hit each other after they come out of two of the doors, with the docs realizing Lamput is still there and running to locate him elsewhere.
- "The Little Ghost Prince" features a scene where a frankenstein and a yeti chase the docs in a hall in the mansion with six doorways, each character coming out of different doorways than would be realistic. It's framed to look a lot more like the scenes as they would happen in the Trope Namer.
- "The Scream" Parody: In the episode "Art Gallery", Lamput sees The Scream in an art gallery and morphs into the shape of the person on the art. The docs appear behind him, and when Lamput turns around, he morphs back to his normal blob form and actually screams.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: In "Diet Doc", Skinny Doc's reaction to seeing a muscular Specs Doc is to let out a high-pitched girl shriek and faint.
- Sea Monster: In "Everyone Needs Friends", Lamput helps a four-eyed, vaguely octopus-like sea monster to make friends, but everything he does backfires since the monster only scares everybody he tries to be friends with.
- Seal the Breach: In "Water", Lamput and the docs are trapped in the rear compartment of the docs' van as it's being flooded with water. Water spouts from the driver's room, and the docs seal that with their hands; another flow of water bursts in from the back, and Skinny Doc goes to seal that up. This doesn't stop the water from seemingly appearing from the ground and threatening to drown all three of them.
- Season Fluidity: It scores right on the Fluid level. Episodes are self-contained, and any significant changes to the status quo are reversed by the end of the episode (for example, a character death in one episode is reversed as soon as it happens, with no fanfare whatsoever).
- Second-Person Attack: In "Superstore", a lady gets mad at Specs Doc for almost stealing her groceries and hits him with a bag of chips she has in her hand. The attack is shown from Specs Doc's view.
- Sequel Escalation: The expanded element is the length, in this case. Season 1 has 15-second microshorts, Season 2 introduces two-minute episodes, Season 3 introduces five-minute and seven-minute episodes, and Season 4 introduces 11-minute episodes, the first example of the show's episodes exceeding 10 minutes.
- Series Goal: The docs' goal is to capture Lamput and return him to the lab.
- Serious Business: In "Boss'stache", the Boss is genuinely sad over his mustache being shaved, and it's shown why: the Boss's family gave undue attention to having mustaches when he was younger, with his dad giving him less positive attention than his siblings simply because he didn't have one.
- Shadow Discretion Shot: In "Power of Moustache", Lamput gets an idea to outdo the docs, and when he morphs into his desired shape - specifically growing a larger mustache than the docs' mustaches - only his shadow is shown.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: In "Shape Shift", the docs give themselves the ability to shapeshift and do their best to outmatch Lamput in his transformations. A downplayed example as no physical combat is involved.
- Shapeshifting Failure:
- The episode "Flicker" has Lamput doused in a chemical that causes him to flip through every color except his trademark orange, thus leaving his transformations utterly worthless since the docs can spot him attempting to blend in with the environment. He eventually finds himself in a city street loaded with neon signs and flashy street performers, letting him blend in until the serum wears off.
- The episode "Evolution" has Lamput growing ashamed of his pudgy body after being mocked for it while at the beach. Seeing others with different body styles causes him to piece-by-piece morph his body to conform to others. Eventually, giving himself a muscular form wears himself out too much, leaving him immobile.
- Sharing a Body: In "Abduction", thanks to a teleportation failure, Specs Doc ends up merging with Lamput by accident. They scream at each other when they notice, making it obvious they don't enjoy it for a second.
- Shrink Ray: The docs invent one in "Shrunk Doc" and use it to shrink Lamput, whom they stick into a vial to prevent him from escaping.
- Sirens Are Mermaids: The sirens in "The Siren's Song" play music on instruments to hypnotize people and have mermaid tails.
- Sleepwalking: "Sleepwalking" is actually the name of a Season 3 episode. Fittingly, it's about Lamput watching over a sleepwalking Skinny Doc while Specs Doc, who watched a scary film earlier, worries about the sounds his friend is making.
- Sliding Scale of Visuals Versus Dialogue: Far on the "visuals" side. The show purposefully does not have the characters speaking coherently and focuses its attention on their actions.
- Slipping a Mickey: In "Shrunk Doc", the docs find their shrunken van in their boss's mustache. To keep the boss from scolding them for not catching Lamput (who is in the tiny car), Specs Doc laces the boss's drink with a sleeping serum.
- Slow-Motion Drop: In "Boss'stache", the Boss accidentally shaves off his mustache, leading to a slow-motion scene where he and Lamput react in shock and the Boss drops his razor, which falls slowly to the floor.
- Space Episode: In "Boss on the Moon", the Boss is accidentally launched to the moon while looking for a quiet place to write his book, leaving Lamput and the other scientists to build a rocket to go retrieve him.
- Storefront Television Display: In "Power of Moustache", the Boss congratulating the hard work of Specs Doc and Skinny Doc - who have mustaches that have the civilians' attention - is broadcasted on televisions in a storefront display, where some of those civilians are watching it. They then see the docs walking down the sidewalk and chase after them.
- Speaking Simlish:
- The characters speak gibberish instead of any actual language. Some words can clearly be made out in some episodes (such as the names Lamput and Tuzki), but no dialogue of actual substance shows up for the most part, and even when it does, it's plot-irrelevant enough to not matter.
- Averted in "Superstore", where the lady on the intercom can plainly be heard saying that stuff is for sale in English.
- Averted in "Boss on the Moon", where the voice counting down to the cannon shooting is in plain English.
- Speedy Snail: Invoked by the docs in "Zoom Oil"; a snail is the test subject for their speed potion, and it works, causing the snail to zoom into the distance and hit a radio tower.
- Speed Stripes: In "Prints", Lamput and the docs are shown with shifting lines in the background to indicate they're running.
- Sphere Eyes: The show depicts many of its more important characters, including the main characters Lamput, Specs Doc, and Skinny Doc, with purely white eyes with black sclerae. The eyes don't always overlap with each other, but are often shown doing that.
- Splash of Color: The clips from earlier episodes shown at the beginning of "Fracture" are all presented in black and white, save for Lamput who is still orange as well as all other objects that were originally orange in those episodes.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: In "Arm Wrestling", Specs Doc calls the boss of the laboratory on the phone about Lamput posing as a trophy for a arm wrestling competition, with the doc and the boss being on a split screen.
- Spontaneous Choreography: In "Lamput Meets Tuzki", the docs keep hitting on a laboratory beaker that Lamput and Tuzki are hiding in, accidentally creating a musical rhythm as they do it. When Specs is out of the picture and only Skinny Doc is hitting on the beaker, Lamput and Tuzki do a snappy dance from within the beaker to the rhythm of the drumming with no practice.
- Status Quo Is God: "Fracture" has the docs outright help Lamput when he gets a fracture and can't shapeshift properly. Any compassion the docs have for Lamput is gone by the end of the episode and they go back to chasing him.
- Stock Femur Bone: Lamput morphs into the shape of a stock femur bone in one episode while he is being held by Specs Doc right next to a dog. Predictably, the dog starts to chase after Specs Doc thinking Lamput is a real bone.
- Stocking Mask: In Season 3's "Reward", the docs resort to robbing bank to earn money to give to the lady asking for a reward for capturing Lamput. The docs wear black socks as masks with holes cut in them and find another crook wearing the same kind of mask.
- Super-Speed: In "Zoom Oil", the docs concoct a liquid that lets them run super fast.
- Super Rug-Pull: In "Magic Marker", Specs Doc gains super strength from the magic marker and at one point uses his strength to pull out the road and whip it like a rug, sending Lamput flying into the air.
- Super-Strength: The drink Lamput obtains in "Strength Potion" gives him immense strength, enough to accidentally destroy a lot of things around him. It also gives him super strong breath, which proves useful when he cleans his bathroom since he can use it to move his bucket and get it done faster.
- Superhero Episode: "Super Docs" is about Specs Doc and Skinny Doc discovering the latter inadvertently brought superhero clothes home from the laundromat by mistake and using their abilities to aid in their chase after Lamput.
- Sweetie Graffiti: In "Cat", the building in the background has a heart symbol containing the text "T + M" etched into it. The people it refers to are unknown.
- Tally Marks on the Prison Wall:
- In the Season 1 episode "Bank Robbery", Specs Doc is thrown into a prison cell whose back wall has tally marks scrawled onto it.
- Two episodes later in "Prison Cell", the cell Lamput is put in has various writings from him on the wall, including two sets of tally marks - one labeled "escapes" and one labeled "near-escapes."
- Tearing Through the Movie Screen: In "Giant Lamput", the doc bot crashes through a movie theater screen while chasing Lamput, and the filmgoers think it's part of the film and cheer. The bot falls over while attempting to get back out, after which the filmgoers cheer again.
- Technicolor Science: The various potions and serums that are created and used by the docs and their fellow lab workers come in vivid colors.
- That Cloud Looks Like...: In Season 3's "Wig", the docs watch clouds together. Skinny Doc thinks one cloud looks like Lamput, while Specs Doc thinks it looks like a heart.
- Thief Bag: The robber the docs find in the Season 3 episode "Reward" stashes a big bag of cash into his van (actually the docs' van; the docs reluctantly let him have the vehicle in exchange for some money earlier).
- Third-Party Peacekeeper: In the episode "The Split", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc become irritated over how many times they've failed to catch Lamput and officially end their friendship, leaving Lamput himself to find a way to bring them back together. He tries to remind the docs how much they love each other, to no avail until they're stranded on an island by Lamput's antics.
- Three-Point Landing:
- In "Martial Art", Lamput lands on both of his legs and an arm after he jumps behind the movie theater screen from the ceiling fan to grab his popcorn.
- In "Diet Doc", Specs Doc lands this way when he puts his stronger muscles to good use chasing Lamput.
- Throat-Slitting Gesture: In "Basketball", Specs Doc makes this gesture at Mr. Moustache and his friend to say "you're going down" when Mr. Moustache challenges them to a basketball match.
- Tickle Torture: In "Martial Art", Lamput tickles Skinny Doc's armpit to fend him off as the former is fighting the latter and Specs Doc martial arts-style.
- Time-Passage Beard:
- In "Cast Away", Skinny Doc grows a beard as he spends time looking for the island where Specs Doc and Lamput are stranded.
- In "The Desert Years", the docs are stuck in the desert for so long that, for part of the episode, they have white, bushy beards and mustaches. They disappear when the docs bathe in a fountain of youth.
- Title, Please!: The episodes prior to a point in Season 3 don't give their names, so the only way you can find their names is in outside sources, such as official TV guides, for example. Season 3 introduced episode title cards, so later episodes avert it.
- Title Theme Drop: The melody of what little there is of a theme song shows up as background music in a few episodes, usually at the end of the episode.
- Trademark Favorite Food: It's implied that fried chicken is Specs Doc's favorite food. In "Diet Doc", he resists the temptation to eat fried chicken to avoid ruining his diet before caving in; in "Cast Away", one of the photos he carries with him shows him with a big bucket of fried chicken; and in "The Desert Years", Lamput has to snap him out of chasing a Hollywood Mirage of a bucket of fried chicken.
- Training Montage: Much of "Fracture" is built around the docs training Lamput back into health when he gets a fracture, which is presented as a montage complete with a song that sounds like "Eye of the Tiger" playing in the background.
- Trapped in a Sinking Car: The episode "Water", which mostly takes place in the docs' car with Lamput in the back, eventually has the car fall into the ocean. The docs are stuck with Lamput as the back of their vehicle fills with water, which a thirsty Lamput is quick to consume; the docs follow suit and the car soon surfaces to the top of the sea, where Lamput and the scientists continue their chase swimming.
- Trash-Can Band: One episode consists almost entirely of the docs banging on trash cans in a music-like rhythm trying to catch Lamput.
- Treadmill Trauma: In "Gym", Lamput is grabbed by the docs, who are both standing on treadmills. When Lamput turns the treadmills on and then amps up their speed, the docs can't keep up and are flung to the other side of the room.
- Trip Trap:
- In one episode, Lamput stretches himself into a shape similar to a rope or tripwire to make Specs Doc trip.
- In "Zoom Oil", Lamput uses his tripwire shape to stop the docs from catching him, causing them to roll as they lose control of themselves while their speed potions are at work.
- Twinkle Smile: One of the 15-second episodes has Specs Doc's mouth twinkling when he smiles as he is walking across a dance floor with some ladies who are impressed by his clothing (which is actually Lamput in disguise).
- Twitchy Eye: In "Stuck", Lamput's snoring bothers Specs Doc - whom Lamput is stuck to - so much that Specs Doc is unable to sleep, with his eye being shown to be twitchy.
- Underwear Swimsuit: The episode "Skinny at the Pool" features an accidental version of this trope. Skinny Doc, yet again attempting to catch Lamput, leaps over the wall of a barbed-wire topped pool wall, accidentally ripping off his uniform. This causes him to look like he's wearing a speedo, thus getting him mistaken for a contestant at a swimming race.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Lamput encounters a monster hiding in a coffin in "Haunted House". He's scared of it, but the docs are too busy searching for him to even notice and be scared as well.
- Unwanted False Faith: The episode "The Tribe" is built around Lamput being worshipped without his permission by a tribe underground, who have tablets showing different parts of a prophecy that a god will come to visit that suspiciously resemble what happens to Lamput throughout the episode. The docs learn about the tribe and make an effort to get Lamput out of there.
- Vacuum Mouth: One of the magic powers Specs gives himself with the magic marker in "Magic Marker" is to be able to suck things close to him with his mouth, which he uses to bring Lamput to him and Skinny.
- Vanity License Plate: The docs' van's license plate says "ROTJ", short for Return of the Jungle which is the title of a film that Lamput production company Vaibhav Studios had been working on when the license plate was first shown.
- Victory Is Boring: This is the driving force behind the episode "Break Out". The docs are finally able to get Lamput imprisoned in the laboratory in a way that he wouldn't be able to escape from easily, but it takes boring breaks and several significantly easier attempts to capture other laboratory experiments who are sort of like Lamput for them to realize that they miss the thrill of the chase. Their solution is to break Lamput out of his prison.
- Villainous Gold Tooth: The recurring glasses-wearing thief, in his first appearance in "Rifle", has a gold tooth. He doesn't have one later on.
- Visible Invisibility: Zigzagged. In "Invisible Necklace", the docs steal a special necklace from a magician to turn themselves invisible. As they each take a turn wearing the necklace, they alternate between being visible as white dotted lines and being just plain invisible. When Lamput winds up with the magic item himself, though, he stays more consistently portrayed with white dotted lines.
- Voices Are Mental: In "Transfer Gun", the Boss and Lamput get their bodies swapped, and Lamput gains the Boss's deep-pitched gibberish speech while the Boss gets Lamput's higher-pitched voice.
- Volumetric Mouth:
- In "Orange Overdose", Specs Doc, who is frustrated at not being able to find Lamput in a bunch of orange things, screams with a face-covering mouth.
- At the beginning of "Thief", when the thief steals Ms. Lipstick's purse, she screams and her mouth covers her entire face.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting:
- Lamput can change the shape of his body to escape from the scientists.
- The scientists themselves create and use a liquid that gives them this same shapeshifting ability in the episode "Shape Shift".
- Walk Like an Egyptian: In "Zoom Oil", the docs end up going so fast with their super speed that they start moving to different countries entirely. When they pass by the Sphinx and some pyramids in Egypt, they're seen striking the Egyptian pose.
- Walk on Water: In "Zoom Oil", the docs pass by the Statue of Liberty in the United States so fast that they're able to skim on the water below them.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Several episodes feature Lamput on a wanted poster. In one episode, Lamput writes "REWARD $$$" on the bottom of one of these posters and causes Specs Doc and Skinny Doc to fight over who should get the money for turning him in.
- Weird Moon: The moon in real life only sometimes looks like a crescent from Earth because part of it isn't visible due to no light reflecting off it; it's a globe-like shape otherwise. In "Boss on the Moon", the moon is just naturally a crescent shape, and appears to be much flatter than it is in real life.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The episode "Origins" consists primarily of a flashback showing how the docs met when they were young.
- Wingding Eyes:
- In one episode, Specs Doc's eyes become X's when Skinny Doc hits him with a bat, mistaking him for Lamput since he accidentally covered himself in orange paint.
- There are several episodes that have "heart eyes = in love". In "Orange Rose", Lamput admires a woman on the bus and has heart-shaped eyes; in "Doc Dog", the docs' dog has heart-shaped eyes after he sees Lamput, who has transformed into a feminine dog; and in both episodes called "Wig", Specs Doc has heart-shaped eyes around Skinny Doc when he mistakes him for a female due to Lamput masquerading as a feminine wig on his head.
- Work Off the Debt: At the end of "Lamput Checks In", Lamput escapes from the docs once more, but the docs themselves, who are in a hotel diner, are held off by hotel officials who notice they had ordered a chicken and ask them to pay. The docs don't have any money, so they're forced to wash dishes to pay off the debt.
- X-Ray Sparks: In "Cast Away", Skinny Doc grabs a jellyfish and is electrocuted by it, making his skeleton visible.
