Characters / Bonus Stage

Main Characters

Joel Dawson

Resident mad scientist of the show, Joel spends most of his time inventing insane things and making Phil's life unmanageable.

• Anti-Gravity Clothing: In his final art design, his hat floated above his head.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: His final art design used these. Before then he had no eyebrows except to emote.

• Charlie Brown Baldness: His design for the first two seasons had only four long hairs coming out of his hat, even though his High Score design had thick blond hair. His altered form in "Project 2" and "2 Fast" and his later design from season 3 on revealed that his hair was supposed to be blond.
• Chick Magnet: In High Score (before Bonus Stage), Joel was presumably June's boyfriend (she's much less acknowledged in Bonus Stage), but even in Bonus Stage, Joel's the object of Elly's affection, he starts dating Jessica, and then it's later revealed he has an ex-wife.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Many of his "inventions" were pretty out there, even for being a mad scientist.
  Phil: What does it do?
  Joel: Your Mom.
  Phil: That's... actually pretty impressive.
  Joel: Yes. I call it the Up Yours.

• Genius Ditz: He's a damn good inventor/scientist when he wants to be, but he often lacks common sense, doing things like purchasing and wearing shoes of death.
• Jerkass: While the vast majority of the cast qualifies, Joel is one of the biggest offenders.
  Joel: I made Elly cry...awesome!
  Blakken White: Congratulations! {Beat} You're an asshole!
• Killed Off for Real: Subverted in "Morbid", which was the first of many temporary deaths.
• Long Pants: Most of the time his feet were the same shade of blue as his pants.
• Mad Scientist: Often makes inventions for his own amusement.
  Jessica: Well, what can you do with it?
  Joel: Well, on some scale, collar crooks, find the terrorists, improve the economy... but mostly I just intend to mess with peoples' lives, which is far more fun.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being a huge jerk, he really values his friendship with Phil in his own, weird way.
• Pirate: He claims to be, and in two episodes, he acts like one.

Phil Argus

Joel's roommate and straight man.

• The Alcoholic: More of an Informed Attribute, as his alcoholism is brought up a lot more than he's ever shown actually drinking. But it is brought up quite a bit.
• Butt-Monkey: While other characters are killed mercifully or quickly, Phil is more often killed slowly and painfully, screaming the whole time.
• Dogged Nice Guy: If he's trying to be nice to someone, expect it to backfire.
• Informed Deformity: Phil is treated as horrifically ugly, especially by women, despite not looking appreciably different from any other character. As with many character traits in the show, this is increasingly forgotten later on.
• Jerkass: Moreso to Joel than anyone else.
  Joel: What, do you still hate me?
  Phil: Yes.
  Joel: Awesome.
• Shipper on Deck: Made a Fan Fiction shipping himself and Elly.
• Straight Man: A relatively level-headed foil to Joel.

Elly Strife

Joel and Phil's neighbor, and the target of Phil's affection, but she only has eyes for Joel.

• Eye Glasses: Throughout the series. In "Fickle Nickel", she has normal eyes without glasses. Her sixth-season redesign includes brown pupils in the white within the lenses.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: For the fourth and fifth seasons, she wore an orange undershirt under a blue shirt; afterwards, the outer shirt switched to white.
• Stalker with a Crush: Starts off as one to Joel but mellows out as the series goes on.
  (From one of Phil's flashbacks) "I love Joel even though he doesn't love me."

Rya Botkins

A Deadpan Snarker Robot Girl, built by Joel to be Phil's girlfriend.

• Become a Real Boy: Later on, she expresses a desire to be a real human in the real world. Eventually fulfilled, but she dies soon after.
• Deadpan Snarker: Even moreso than the rest of the cast.
  Keen: And what were you doing during that time?
  Phil: Lifting weights... looking handsome.
  Rya: Objection, your honor. Phil is not handsome.
• Deceptively Human Robots:
  • In her first episode, the characters don't realize she's a robot until she speaks.
  • Apparently, Craig didn't realize she was a robot, even after their (clearly robotic) son was born.
• Fiery Redhead: Mostly just snarky in the second through fourth seasons, but she gets aggressive towards Evil before being shut off in "Evil's New Groove", and she goes through a killing spree in "Joel vs. the Monobrow".
• Jerkass: Hates pretty much everyone, and it shows. Later in the series, she arguably delves into Jerkass Woobie territory, what with her desire to become human and all.
• Killed Off for Real: In "Ryaconning", she dies due to being in real human form when she is stabbed by the Cloaked Figure.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Had one after she and Craig broke up and again after Jessica deactivates her.
• Robotic Psychopath: Hates most of the cast.
• Sexbot: Played with. While she was built to be Phil's girlfriend, and is capable of sex (and, for whatever reason, pregnancy), Craig learned the hard way that sex with Rya can be downright dangerous.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: Was voiced by a Macintosh text-to-speech synthesizer for her earlier appearances. Later went on to being a Computer Voice.
• Tsundere: Type A, to Phil, as a result of Joel trying to hard to make her "hard to get".

Jessica Argus

Phil's de-aged mother.

• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: By the time the team lands on Hydrox, she's more of one than Joel, mouthing off non-sequitur sentences and phrases.
• The Fundamentalist: Prior to her exposure to the Sitcom Reactor, Jessica was an extremely overzealous Catholic.
• Granola Girl: She is a vegan, though ironically enough loves ultraviolent video games.
• Old Maid: In a sense. Jessica is chronologically middle-aged, but is physically and mentally in her mid-20s; however, it's implied that Joel was attracted to her even before she was de-aged.
• Sanity Slippage: She slowly becomes insane throughout the series. Joel figures this is either due to her de-aging or being shot by Rya in the season 5 premiere.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Looks and acts 25 years old, due to Evil activating Joel's Sitcom Reactor.

Cassidy

A former classmate of Joel, Phil, and Elly. Was known as Hat Boy in grade school.

• Early-Bird Cameo: Appeared as "hat boy" in a flashback in episode 61, "Fist World", before her first appearance as a non-extra in episode 71, "Joel Goes to College".
• Love Makes You Evil: According to Word of God, Cassidy was the cloaked figure from episode 79—her motivation behind killing Rya (and, had the series continued, attempting to kill Elly) was that she viewed the other girls as threats to her potential relationship with Phil.
• Murder the Hypotenuse Her attempts to do this caused the events of "Ryaconning" and would have driven season eight.
• Only One Name: While all the other major characters have at least had their surnames alluded to in some way (such as Rya's being shown as Botkins in the credits to one episode, and June's being shown as Crane in High Score), Cassidy's is never mentioned, not even as a joke.
• She Is All Grown Up: She was known as "Hat boy" in grade school because no one bothered to ask her gender.
• Stalker with a Crush: Attracted to Phil enough to try, and in one case, succeed in, killing others she views as a threat to their relationship.
• Yandere: She initially seems sweet and level-headed, but her apparent Stalker with a Crush feelings towards Phil and the fact that she killed Rya as a result could definitely place her under the Yandere heading.

June Crane

A former (and possibly current) girlfriend of Joel's. May or may not be a robot.

• Ambiguously Human/Ambiguous Robots: Never clearly revealed whether she is a robot in Bonus Stage. High Score June was less ambiguously a robot.