"Pugs and kisses!"
Chip and Potato is a Canadian Slice of Life animated series produced by DHX Media and created by Darrall Macqueen. The series originally aired on Family Jr. on October 15, 2018, before making its international debut on Netflix seven months later on May 17, 2019.
The show follows a young pug named Chip, and her secret best friend, Potato. However, Potato is actually a real mouse who must be kept a secret from everyone else. The series is notable for being one of the first animated shows aimed at preschoolers to feature a Story Arc, as Chip goes to kindergarten for the first time and overcomes her problems. The show is mildly serialized, as whatever is happening in the next story will be briefly alluded to in the previous one.
Chip & Potato provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: Chip's parents sometimes refer to her as "Chippy Dip." Little Poppa also sometimes calls her "Chiplet." Spud sometimes calls her "Chipsqueak" and also "Chipolata."
- Alliterative Name: Howie Hyena, Gigglish Grand, Barry Bear, Hop Hippo, the Razzles, and the entire Diggerty family.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Nico doesn't wear shoes, but most of his classmates do.
- Baths Are Fun: In "Chip's First Sleepover," Chip has a bath with her panda friend Nico before they go to bed. They have the bath in a panda pool and use the bubbles to make a soapy beard and bubble hair. Chip tells Nico that baths are fun at his house and that she wishes there was a panda pool at her house.
- Birthday Episode: Chip has her fifth birthday in "Chip's Birthday."
- A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: Chip and Spud's baby sister is born a little more than halfway through the first season of the series; Little Momma is shown pregnant with her beforehand. Chip is just starting kindergarten and Spud is maybe a year or two older.
- Chickenpox Episode: In "Puggy Butterfly", Chip gets "puggy spots" (which is the same thing as chicken pox, but for pugs) on the day the class butterfly is supposed to come out of its cocoon. As the episode goes on, Chip gets more red spots. At the end of the episode, Momma takes her home. The next episode, "Itchy Chip," is about Chip having puggy spots and trying to ignore her itchiness.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: During gym class, Howie's gym shorts fall down because they're too big for him. Revealing his yellow and red polka-dot boxers.
- Crying at Your Birthday Party: In "Chip's Birthday", Nico comes to Chip's birthday party and tearfully admits that Potato has disappeared, causing Chip to cry, too. Fortunately, Potato comes by just then.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Chip's family uses the music of the show's theme tune as the tune for their own intro song for their home movies.
- Edible Theme Naming: In the pug family, we have Chip, Potato, Spud and Totnote . Averted with Little Momma and Little Poppa.
- Eek, a Mouse!!:
- It's implied that Chip keeps Potato a secret because the other characters would react this way if they believed her to be a real live mouse.
- Sure enough, this happens in "Chip's School Trip" after Chip is forced to leave behind Potato in a dollhouse in a museum. To the point that there's a scream and a man comes on a loudspeaker telling everyone to make their way to the exit. Then, when Howie opens up Chip's lunch bag, he spots Potato in her mouse form, screams, and tosses the bag and sends everyone else into a panic.
- When Chip first reveals the truth to Nico in "Hospital Trip Chip," he tells her to call the nurse, but after realizing what's going on calms down.
- Embarrassing First Name: In Chip's Thanksgiving, Chip and Nico are amused when they find out that Mr. Diggerty's name is Desmond.
- Expressive Ears: Chip's ears will droop when sad.
- Failed a Spot Check: In "Flying Chip," Potato triggers the X-ray machine at the airport. The attendant, who appears to be a German Shepherd, sniffs Chip's bag, empties the contents, sniffs Potato in her snuggly form, shrugs, and puts the contents back in the bag, handing it to Chip.
- First Day of School Episode: Chip starts kindergarten in "Chip Starts Kindergarten".
- Fun Size: Potato.
- Furry Reminder: Chip (and the other pugs) occasionally bark and sometimes even run on all fours.
- Heinous Hyena: Howie Hyena is a troublemaker.
- Last-Minute Baby Naming: Chip's newborn little sister doesn't have a name when she's born and is named in "Chip's Baby Sister" when Chip calls her "Tot."
- A Lizard Named "Liz": In "Flying Chip," Chip and her family meet an armadillo named Armando and his mother, Dilla.
- Name and Name: Chip & Potato.
- New Baby Episode: The episode "Chip's Baby Sister" revolves around the birth of Chip's baby sister.
- Precious Puppy: Chip is a very cute little pug.
- Secret Identity: To everyone other than Chip, Potato is Chip's snuggly toy Potato, a cute little stuffed toy she totes with her everywhere. Nobody but Chip knows that she's actually a real live mouse, at least at first.
- Secret-Keeper:
- In "Bye Bye Dazzles," when the Dazzles move away, Chip reveals to them that Potato is a mouse. They agree to keep the secret.
- Chip flirts with the idea of revealing the secret to her best friend Nico in "Chip's School Trip" and does tell him in "Hospital Trip Chip," allowing Potato to stay overnight with him because he's in the hospital, having broken his arm, and she wants to cheer him up.
- Species Surname: Zig-zagged. Played straight with the Panda, Pug, and Hyena families.
- Sudden Anatomy: Most of the pawed characters are usually drawn without thumbs, but they may have a thumb when pointing a finger
. - Talking in Your Sleep: In "Spud's Homework", Chip mutters "Mmm, watermelon custard. Mmm, pumpkin pudding, my favorite" in her sleep just before going to bed, agitating her mouse Potato, whom she neglected to share her cookie with earlier.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Chip and her family all love anything made with pumpkin.
- Unconventional Food Usage: In "Itchy Chip", Chip is given a popsicle. She rubs her popsicle on her "puggy spots" and uses it as a substitute cream to lessen the itching.
- The Unintelligible: Potato can't speak, only making mouse sounds, yet Chip can understand her perfectly fine.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Nico and Bodi's father works as an architect and travels a lot, which is why he has very little time to spend with his sons.
- World of Funny Animals: Everyone are anthropomorphic animals.
- You Must Be This Tall to Ride: In "Fairground Chip," Chip and Nico encounter this with the rollercoaster at the fairground. This is a problem because Nico is approved to go on it, but Chip gets denied after Nico has already boarded and Nico is scared to ride without Chip. So she lets Nico borrow Potato in order to help calm him down.
