The movies are about Golden Retriever Air Bud's five puppies: Budderball, B-Dawg, Buddha, Mudbud and Rosebud, who all go out together on a crazy adventure. Unlike the original Air Bud series, however, in this movie series, the animals talk.
The films in the Air Buddies franchise are as follows:
- Air Buddies (2006)
- Snow Buddies (2008)
- Space Buddies (2009)
- Santa Buddies (2009 Christmas Special)
- The Search For Santa Paws (2010 Spin-Off)
- Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups (2012)
- Spooky Buddies (2011 Halloween Special)
- Treasure Buddies (2012)
- Super Buddies (2013)
These movies provide examples of these tropes:
- The Ace: Pretty much every guest dog in each movie.
- A Day in the Limelight / Rotating Protagonist: While the protagonists are all five of the Buddies, each of the films after Snow Buddies focuses mostly on one puppy and their owner.
- Buddha and Sam in Space Buddies, as the movie starts and ends with Sam talking to Buddha about space, and Buddha is the one who invites the other four on the field trip.
- Budderball and Bartleby in Santa Buddies and Super Buddies. In Santa Buddies, Budderball is the first to meet Santa Paws and the latter stays at Bartleby's home. In Super Buddies, the main characters are all visiting a farm run by Bartleby's grandfather.
- B-Dawg and Billy in Spooky Buddies, as B-Dawg leads the other puppies into the haunted house, and Billy finds and uses the magical staff.
- Mudbud and Pete in Treasure Buddies, as it's Pete's archaeologist grandfather who tells Pete about the treasure and brings him along to find it.
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: Averted. The biker gang looks rough, but they're just sitting down enjoying a screening of 101 Dalmatians when the Buddies come in and they go complete Cuteness Proximity over them.
- Animal Talk: The Buddies can communicate with other animals besides other dogs, including pigs, birds, horses and mice.
- Artistic License – Space: In Space Buddies, a meteor shower is what happens when debris enters and burns up in Earth's atmosphere and is not in fact a cluster of free-floating space rocks/meteoroids.
- A True Story in My Universe: In Super Buddies, the main characters have read comics about "Kid Courageous and Captain Canine", which they assume to be fictional. It turns out that their author, Jack Schaeffer, was just writing about his own adventures with Captain Canine. He says as much at the end of the film:"You think I could make this stuff up?"
- Battle Couple: Buddy and Molly.
- Beware the Nice Ones: The Buddies sometimes get vicious when they fight.
- Big Eater: Budderball, obviously.
- Big "NO!": Budderball says this in Super Buddies when Captain Canine dies.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sometimes Rosebud.
- Catchphrase:
- Budderball's catchphrase is "Oh, sweet mama!"
- B-Dawg has several catchphrases, but his most common is "Yo, dawgs"
- Rosebud's catchphrase is "Girl Power!"
- Chase Scene: Almost every scene in the films gas the Buddies running to rescue someone, running from the bad guys or running away from their adoptive parents due to a misunderstanding.
- Christmas Episode: Santa Buddies.
- Cool Old Guy: Deputy Sniffer.
- Also Bartelby's grandpa in Super Buddies.
- Covers Always Lie: On the Air Buddies posters, B-Dawg is seen wearing sunglasses. However, he does not wear them at all in the movies.
- Cute Bruiser: Rosebud is this and a Girly Bruiser.
- Darker and Edgier: The Search For Santa Paws opens up with Santa Claus mourning the loss of a friend, one of the characters saying how they're sterile, and the obligatory Orphanage of Fear. And that's just the beginning of the movie!
- Demoted to Extra: Buddy, the star of Air Bud, was demoted to a smaller role in these movies. While he and Molly did have good-sized roles in Air Buddies and Snow Buddies, they are more AWOL in the other films.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Unlike Stan Cruge, Ms. Stout is given no Freudian Excuse for why she hates Christmas. She just does.
- Disney Dog Fight: A standard in these movies.
- Dogs Are Dumb: Deputy Sniffer is somewhat like this.
- The Dog Bites Back: From ''Snow Buddies' 'Jean George' (The villain) almost constantly verbally abusing his huskies and everybody else and he also has self righteous attitude that gave him the impression that he can get away with anything not to mention the fact that he left his huskies for dead twice, once in the snow storm on day two of the race and then he left them to drown when the ice on the lake gave out under them so they turned on him in retaliation in the end mainly because they've had enough of him.
- Drives Like Crazy: Denning.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Obviously, Grim points some of these out in Air Buddies.
- Evil Brit: Spinkel, the main villain of Air Buddies.
- Evil Sorcerer: Warwick, the main antagonist of Spooky Buddies.
- Foreshadowing: In Santa Buddies, when Puppy Paws wishes Christmas would go away, Santa Paws tells him that's a terrible thing to say. This is a foreshadowing to its spin-off prequel, Santa Paws 2, when that wish is actually granted, then Hilarity Ensues.
- French Jerk: Jean Georges, the French Canadian racer of Snow Buddies.
- For the Evulz: Ms. Stout from The Search for Santa Paws hates Christmas, toys and anything the children love for no apparent reason and she isn’t even given a Freudian Excuse.
- Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult: Ms. Stout from The Search for Santa Paws. She not only confiscates any toys or Christmas decorations she finds, she also incinerates them in the furnace. Including Paws when he turns back into a doll. He survives though.
- Gasshole: Budderball has a habit of passing gas every time someone pulls his paw.
- Quite bizarrely in Spooky Buddies Budderball farts back the Halloween Hound's howl at him, killing him. Yeah, you heard that right.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Rosebud is a fashion freak who loves all things pink but gets into occasional mischief with her brothers, is feisty and outspoken, and plays soccer a traditionally masculine sport.
- The Grinch: Stan Cruge from Santa Buddies and Ms. Stout from The Search for Santa Paws. Only Cruge gets better.
- Halloween Episode: Spooky Buddies.
- Hates Baths: Mudbud.
- Heel–Face Turn: Jean Georges' huskies, after Adam, Shasta and the Buddies save them from the ice.
- Homage / Mythology Gag:
- In Air Buddies, the five balls the Buddies are carrying in their mouths
◊ when they're left alone with the babysitter, are references to the five different sports Buddy played in the Air Bud movies. It also shows what sport each pup is interested in. - In the first film, Buddy's picture in the newspaper is the one from the Air Bud movie poster.
- In Air Buddies, the five balls the Buddies are carrying in their mouths
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: In Santa Buddies, Santa Paws' dog helpers fall into this category.
- Sheriff Dan's bloodhound Deputy Sniffer is far more competent than he is.
- I Don't Think That's Such a Good Idea: In Space Buddies when the Buddies and Sputnik debate over who should fix the rocket. The Buddies argue that Sp
- Let Him Choose: At the end of the first movie, Budderball chose to live with Spinkel's kid.
- Missed Him by That Much: Happens several times in Air Buddies when the buddies and their parents are separated.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: Averted in the Air Bud series, but played straight in the Air Buddies series.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Santa Buddies spawns its own set of sequels.
- Odd Name Out: B-Dawg is the only one of the Buddies that doesn't have "Bud" in his name. (Although it could be argued that the "B" stands for "Bud" or "Buddy".)
- The Buddies' owners names are Sam, Alice, Pete, Billy, and... Bartleby?
- The Pig-Pen: Mudbud, who, as his name implies, hates being clean and loves getting dirty.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: In some movies, Rosebud is wearing something pink in contrast to her brothers just to indicate where she is amongst the group.
- Pink Means Feminine: Rosebud wears pink in every film and she is very feminine.
- Plucky Girl: Rosebud does not let her status as the only female in the group hinder her any incapable to her older brothers.
- Police Are Useless: Sheriff Dan is completely incompetent in every film.
- Pseudo-Santa: Santa Buddies features an actual Santa Claus, but also Santa Paws, a talking dog who delivers presents to puppies.
- Punny Name: All five of the Buddies have a name that relates to their personality and is a pun on the word "Bud" from their father Buddy.
- Rich Bitch: Spinkel and his kid in Air Buddies.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: Happens in Air Buddies.
- Shout-Out: In Air Buddies, when the Buddies are at the drive-in movie, 101 Dalmatians is playing.
- Sixth Ranger: Each Buddies movie has one guest dog joining the five Buddies.
- Sled Dogs Through the Snow: Snow Buddies is about the Buddies helping a Siberian Husky puppy win a sled dog race.
- Spin-Offspring: Air Bud is the father of the Buddies, whereas the Buddies are the stars of these movies.
- Tongue on the Flagpole: Budderball's tongue gets stuck to an icicle in Snow Buddies.
- The Unfettered: Ms. Stout from Santa Paws has absolutely no moral compass and has very few pragmatic compunctions as to what she will do.
