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Radda radda radda!note 
Mung: You take the moon, and you take the sun!
Chowder: You take everything that seems like fun!
Truffles: You stir it all up and when you're done,
Schnitzel: Radda radda radda radda radda radda!note 
All: So come on in, feel free to do some lookin'!
Stay a while, 'cuz something's always cookin'!
Come on in, feel free to do some lookin'!
Stay a while, 'cuz something's always cookin'!
Yeah!

From C.H. Greenblatt, formerly a writer and storyboard artist on both SpongeBob SquarePants and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, comes this kooky little series inspired by food and Dr. Seuss.

Set in Marzipan City, an odd place full of weird and wonderful creatures, and even weirder and more wonderful foods, the show tells the story of Chowder (Nicky Jones), a fat little lavender bear-cat-rabbit boy who is the apprentice of Mung Daal (Dwight Schultz), chef and owner of his namesake catering company. Along with Mung's wife, Truffles (Tara Strong), and his gigantic rock monster assistant, Shnitzel (John DiMaggio), they spend many crazy and wacky adventures together in the realm of cooking, while Chowder dreams of one day becoming a chef himself, though his eating habits might prove a problem...

The series was cancelled in August 2009 as the network felt that the show didn't fit their new target demographic of older boys; a demographic the network hoped to interest with the then-new live-action CN Real block. The series finale aired a year later on August 7, 2010.

The series returned through Cartoon Planet in 2012 as a part of Cartoon Network's 20th anniversary. You can also find it on HBO Max. As of June 2, 2014, you can catch reruns on Boomerang.

Now with a recap and Shout-Out page!


Stay a while, 'cuz somethin's always tropin'!

    open/close all folders 
    Tropes #-C 
  • 11th-Hour Ranger: The final episode has Chowder's apprentice, Scraps.
  • 30 Minutes, or It's Free!: In "The Thousand Pound Cake", Schnitzel and Chowder have to deliver the cake to a guy named Capellini. There are two problems. First, they have to deliver the cake before sunset, otherwise the cake is free. Second, Capellini's house is on the head of a giant, which makes Schnitzel and Chowder's journey more difficult. They arrive on top just when the sun is about to set, but Capellini deliberately refuses to open the door to avoid paying the fees. The giant walks to the other side of the Earth to teach him a lesson.
  • The '80s: The party in "Sheboodles!", complete with everyone dressing up as famous stars of that time. (e.g., Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson, Boy George, etc)
  • Abhorrent Admirer:
    • Panini's affections for Chowder is less than respectable to Chowder's opposing feelings.
    • Endive to Shnitzel at times.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • It's usually implied and/or outright stated that Gazpacho is emotionally and socially abused by his mother.
    • Such is also true with Gorgonzola. His mentor Stilton is known to emotionally abuse him.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Sort of - in "Paint the Town", Chowder's giving Pepperjack the fingerpaints results in Pepperjack using them to make MORE Pepperjacks, who go insane. Pepperjack is voiced by Jeff Bennett, who previously voiced Daffy Duck in the 2004 short "Attack of the Drones", who too had a problem when HE cloned himself.
    • The alligator in "My Big Fat Stinky Wedding" speaks with a Cajun accent. Jim Cummings (1952) certainly has experience in that regard, having voiced Leatherhead on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987).
  • Affectionate Nickname:
    • Panini calls Chowder "Num-nums".
    • Mung and Truffles do this in "Shnitzel Quits":
      Mung: Ready to descend, my sweet potato?
      Truffles: I'm on it, honeybuns.
  • The Alleged Car: Escargot in "The Snail Car". But in the other episodes, she seems to run fine.
  • All Elections Are Serious Business: Best seen in "Panini for President", when Gorgonzola pulls out all the stops to ensure Chowder, who he's backing after his own bid is rejected, will be elected over Panini as the new president of the apprentices' council. Eventually it's all for naught, as the actual president takes back his position at the end of the episode.
  • All Just a Dream: The finale, "Chowder Grows Up", according to Chowder during the ending puppet segment.
  • All There in the Manual: Chowder is actually a cat-bear-rabbit composite animal.
  • Almost Kiss:
  • Alternative Calendar: Shnitzel apparently gets his check on Fivesday.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: A lot of the Marzipanian humans (assuming they are human) have skin colors such as blue, purple, green, and orange.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Reuben, the pig that evaluates Mung and Endive for their "Certifrycate" re-certification, seems interested in Endive. In another episode, when he meets Shnitzel, he goes "You're tall." Not to mention all the swimsuit clad men on his boat.
    • Mung Daal, who occasionally has Ho Yay moments with Shnitzel and crossdresses on multiple occasions.
      Truffles: Why am I always catching you in tights?
  • Ambiguously Gay:
    • Jeff the Tapeworm, who seems awfully attached to Chowder. No pun intended.
    • There was also the police officer Snow Leopard. Rawr.
  • Angrish: It is heavily implied that Shnitzel's entire language is this.
    • Sorta confirmed, when Truffles got her voice changed, everyone was stress free and Shnitzel could talk. No one liked it, so he started speaking "Radda" again after about five seconds.
  • Anthropomorphic Food: About half of what they cook comes to life, and a lot of the ingredients are mobile fruit.
  • Anticipatory Lipstick: Happens at the beginning of the episode "A Faire to Remember" when Panini chases Chowder to have him "try out her new lipstick" and puts some on in attempt to kiss him, but he runs away before she can succeed.
  • Anuscape Plan: Chowder, Gazpacho and Mung are all eaten by Scary in "The Belgian Waffle Slobber-Barker" as a plan to get rid of the Crazy Fruit Chowder previously tossed in while the recipe for the dog was cooking. When Chowder asks about escaping, Gazpacho tells him that they need to wait until nature calls. This being Chowder, the title character then answers an offscreen phone before the scene cuts to Scary walking out of the bathroom with the three right behind.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: No matter how many horrible freak accidents he gets into, Mung refuses to believe that there's a real curse on the Chain Letter recipe he received.
  • Aroused by Their Voice: Truffles receives a very seductive voice in one episode when using a voice manipulator, causing all the customers to melt instead of getting scared of her, having the same effect on Mung, Chowder and Shnitzel who become so calm over her soothing voice that they feel free to do whatever they want now that no one can scream at them. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Artistic License – Biology: Played for laughs in one episode. After Shnitzel gets his backside run over by a giant cheese grater he appears to be about to let out a piercing wail when he successfully holds it back. It promptly escapes through his bowels.
  • Art Shift: Occurs during the climax of "Burple Nurples" where we see Chowder's face (still animated) with slightly greater detail, including being able to discern his fur (which otherwise appears undefined and uniformly solid over his body).
  • Artifact Title: In-Universe. Chowder now owns Mung Daal's Catering Company. Mung himself retired.
  • As You Know: Lampshaded. After Chowder asks Mung several questions pertaining to the plot of the episode, Chowder asks him why he asks so many questions. Mung replies that it's the easiest way for their loyal fanbase to learn what's happening.
    Chowder: (waving to the screen) Hi, loyal fanbase!
  • Ascended Extra: Gazpacho, who started out on the same level with Gorgonzola and Endive to appearing in virtually every episode, even for just a minute.
  • Author Avatar: Greenblatt appears in puppet form in "Shnitzel Quits" and "Endive's Dirty Secret".
    • Not to mention "Old Man Thyme", where he's dogpiled by a Wave of Babies.
  • Ax-Crazy: Gazpacho has shown this multiple times. Think about it; we never actually see Gazpacho's mother despite her being mentioned all the time, which "Spookiest House In Marzipan" points out, implying that she is made up and Gazpacho might be schizophrenic. It was Played for Laughs.
    • In that episode he gives an offhand comment that he is going to kill Chowder, Gorgonzola and Panini after coffee. That's right, he's going to stab three children, featuring his best friend.
    • In "Dinner Theatre", he enjoys his villainous role a little too much, pretending to be this character outside practicing and at the end this line occurs with literal axe craziness:
      Chowder: Well, at least no one got killed.
      Gazpacho: At least...(takes an axe) NOT YET!
    • "Banned From The Stand" has Gazpacho going paranoid that Mung and Chowder are going to buy berries off of him by help from other people, which is at the beginning Properly Paranoid, but then he goes overboard and thinks everyone is trying to help Mung and Chowder, speaking to himself in a crazy manner and banning everyone, including from every other stand and the bathroom, and his overly paranoid behaviour ends with him banning himself from his own stand. This all happened because Mung and Gazpacho had a disagreement on the berry's color.
    • Gazpacho is not the only one who's unstable. Endive has these traits as well; particularly in "The Babysitter" and "Shnitzel Quits", when Shnitzel refuses to marry her.
    • Chowder in the beginning of "The Poltergeist".
  • Babies Ever After: Chowder and Panini have 50 babies. Yes, 50.
    • Even better: Panini has 20 babies in one day. Which makes sense considering they're (sort of) rabbits.
    • Panini at least once tells Chowder how they're going to have "thousands and thousands of babies" and has an Imagine Spot in which they are married by Endive: "I now pronounce you Mommy and Daddy of all the babies in the Kingdom of Babies!"
  • Balloon Belly: A few occasions have Chowder gulping down a lot of food and gaining a bloated gut as a result. Sometimes Mung, Schnitzel, and even Truffles follow suit.
  • Banana Peel: Shnitzel slips on one while trying to carry the lead farfel.
  • Battle Against the Sunset: Humorously played with (and taken literary) when a group of knights attempt to fight a literal rising sun.
  • Bears Are Bad News: In 'Grubble Gum', Mung's suggestion for removing gum is to ''poke a sleeping bear with a stick and having it slash the gum off''.
  • Beautiful All Along: Subverted with Todd from "Sheboodles!". Everyone (sans Endive) likes him and say that he's beautiful the way he is. Then Endive sticks him under a heat lamp to finish cooking and transforms him into a stud, which is his true form.
  • Bedouin Rescue Service: Gazpacho acts as one for Chowder and Scraps in "Chowder Grows Up".
  • Bedsheet Ghost: In "The Meach Harvest", Shnitzel and Chowder dress up like ghosts in order to get to the Meaches' queen.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Shnitzel.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Mung and Truffles. All the freaking time.
  • The Benchwarmer: In "Big Ball", Mung Dahl, after taking over as coach for one of the teams, invokes this with Chowder, due to the kid's lack of athleticism, and claims that warming the bench is an important job. Chowder takes this literally, trying to warm the bench with radiators and hairdryers, then finally setting it on fire.
  • Better than a Bare Bulb: Has lots and lots of Lampshade Hanging.
  • Big Eater: Chowder, who is obviously an exemption to the 'anything but fat' rule.
    • And Mr. Fugu.
  • Big "NO!": From Chowder, more than once:
    • When he is banned from Gazpacho's fruit stand.
    • When Kevin the fuzz ball is thrown in the trash on "Chowder's Catering Company."
    • A Slow Motion one in "Burple Nurples" when Mung throws the nurples into Mount Fondoom.
  • Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Apparently, Chowder and Panini are the same species of cat, bear, rabbit... things. Even though Chowder's greyish-blue with no obvious rabbit features, while Panini's pink with prominent rabbit ears which might make you think she's a rabbit at a glance. Though they do have similar looking tails, Cute Little Fangs, and very large builds as adults.
  • Black Comedy: "Dinner Theatre" and the Halloween episode "The Spookiest House in Marzipan" played entirely on this trope; making several implications that Gazpacho might be Ax-Crazy and is not at all subtle with that he even tries to kill people with a knife! Didn't expect that to happen on an unusually innocent Cartoon Network show, did you?
  • Blackmail: One episode featured everyone in town ((including Gazpacho's Mother) blackmailing Miss Endive with an embarrassing picture of her eating toe jam with a fork which is disgusting because everyone else uses a spoon.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah: Mung does this quite a bit.
  • Blind Driving: One episode had a Mr. Magoo-esque character driving across the city, with police giving chase, and crashing into Mung Daal's kitchen, mistaking it for his home.
  • The Blind Leading the Blind: In the episode "Taste Buds" Mung Daal damages his tongue which leads to him losing his ability to taste. Unable to cook properly without being able to taste, he decides to let Chowder act as his taster because of his love of eating. Unfortunately, Chowder is also an Extreme Omnivore which means he always says whatever Mung whips up is fine, even when he deliberately serves an expired dish as a test.
  • Book Ends: Grumble Gum begins with Chowder eating a sample of grumble gum, hearing screams as he did so. The episode ends with Chowder eating another grumble gum like he did in the beginning... the difference that it's a Mind Screw of him eating everyone, including himself, after the Katamari scene.
  • Brand X: Floss-Berries
  • Breakingthe Fourth Wall: The show shattered it.
  • Brick Joke: In "The Puckerberry Overlords" episode, Chowder ends up being sucked into his own mouth. After "Frank" captures him and takes him to Souron, Chowder eats a cherry and comments on how sour it is. A few moments later, it falls on Frank's head and knocks him to the floor.
  • Butt-Monkey: Shnitzel. He regularly gets hit with slapstick, is often left to do the grunt work with little appreciation, and Chowder's idiocy often causes him a lot of unneeded frustration.
    • And that glasses-wearing pig guy.
  • Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": They actually do this with food, strangely enough. Basically everyone is named after food, and everything else is a food/cooking pun, but actual food is given made-up names that are either somewhat similar to a real-life food or completely dissimilar. They seem to enjoy zig-zagging this trope...
    Chowder: "What are we making today?"
    Mung: "Oh, just some bread."
    Chowder: "But that doesn't sound like a fantastically whimsical Marzapanian dish at all!"
    Mung: "Good point. Let me find something made-up to put in it."(Gets something from beneath the kitchen counter) "Here."
    Chowder: "Oooh, what is it?!"
    Mung: "It's a Tootin' Fruit. They are full of gas and when they expand they make the bread rise, just like Yeast!"
    Chowder: "Oh. Why don't we just use yeast?"
    Mung: "Because this is "Chowder"!
    Chowder: "But I'm Chowder."
    Mung: "Right."
  • Calvinball: Apparently, if the rules in Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball made sense, the whole game would literally be trashed.
  • The Cameo: Ms. Bellum again, who even lampshades her own show by mentioning a large monster attacking the city.
    • When Mung tastes a sugar sapphire, his head changes into Bubbles for a moment. Also helped that Tara Strong is in both shows.
  • Camp Gay: Snow Leopard Cop. Rawr.
  • Camp Straight: Ceviche.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Gazpacho is NOT his own mother, they denied that in the same episode they revealed it.
  • The Caper: Parodied in "The Heist", in which Mung and Co. work to steal sugar sapphires from beneath Endive's house.
  • Caper Crew: The regulars become a Caper Crew (with limited success) in "The Heist". The roles are:
    • Mung — The Mastermind
    • Shnitzel — The Muscle
    • Gazpacho — The Driver
    • Truffles — The Burglar (operates the jackhammer they use to break in)
    • Chowder — The New Kid (acts as lookout)
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Florentine: "Now bear witness to me doing evil! And.. stuff. Time for evil! Pchoo! Whoosh!"
  • Car Meets House: In "Gazpacho!", Lemon drives a snail bus through the wall of an arboretum.
  • Casting Gag:
  • Catchphrase:
    • "A great chef needs a great mustache!" Also, there's an entire half-episode titled "The Catch Phrase", where Chowder adopts the slogan "WAZAM!" from the "Aluminum Chef".
    • Radda, radda!
    • "Hi, Chowder..." "I'm not your boyfriend!" " I wanna go home! "
    • "Laaaadies~"
    • "Deekaloo, deekalee..."
    • Parodied during "The Catch Phrase" when Gazpacho's is said to be "Come, sit, BUY MY BEANS!", something he has never said before.
    • Mung has the tendency to shout "My kitchen! My beautiful kitchen!" whenever said kitchen is damaged and/or destroyed.
  • Caught Up in a Robbery: In "Schnitzel Makes a Deposit", Chowder and Schnitzel are in line to make a bank deposit when a rat suddenly bursts in and stages a holdup. Schnitzel, who had been unfairly kicked out of the line several times throughout the episode, snaps and beats up the robber.
  • Chain of Deals: Chowder starts one in an effort to get his hat back. It doesn't work.
  • Character Tic: Kiwi (the pink monster that acts as the Greek Chorus) usually punctuates a sentence by flapping his arms.
  • Chaste Hero: Chowder shows little to no comprehension to Panini's advances. Averted in the finale, where he marries her.
  • Cheerful Child: Chowder and Panini are both usually pretty upbeat and friendly kids who are eager to help and learn, unlike Gorgonzola.
  • Children Raise You: Chowder's new apprentice in "Chowder Grows Up" plays a big role in Chowder finally growing up.
  • Christmas Episode: "Hey, Hey It's Knishmas!": Complete with schmingerbread houses and Knish Krinkle as the Marzipan equivalent of Santa Claus.
  • Circus Episode: The team of Mung's Catering is tasked with baking a circus tent out of bread (a pun on the phrase "Bread and Circuses") for a group of performers called the Flying Flinger Lingons. Chowder loves the FFLs' act so much that he runs away to join them. Because he is Too Dumb to Live, Mung is worried that Chowder will destroy the circus, so he, Truffles, and Shnitzel sneak in to try and get him back.
  • City of Adventure: Marzipan City is a very wacky town, full of colorful characters, up to and including giants as big as mountains, a living sun, and giant snails for cars. Which provides a good backdrop for Chowder's misadventures.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Land: Oh, big time.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Chowder, and various minor characters.
    • Chestnut has a very weird idea of what various things are. Among other things, he thinks sleeping people are dining room tables, stop signs are living room sofas, hats are vacation homes, briefcases are hydrofoils, pencils are refrigerators, and doors are chandeliers.
    • Marmalade is also one. No wonder she and Chowder got along so well.
      Marmalade: Before I met Chowder all I thought about was makeup! Now I think about giraffes and makeup!
      Panini: Why giraffes?
      (Marmalade shrugs)
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Not actually used, but if Shnitzel's swear jar is any indication, he drops these a lot!
  • Comic-Book Adaptation: DC Comics managed to put out three Chowder comics in Cartoon Network Block Party before it was discontinued in 2009.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Often, but one moment to remember is in "Shopping Spree" by Chowder, in which where Mung, Chowder and Shnitzel tries to come up with an excuse to spend all the money in her moneybox (since Truffles is sick and has no control over it at the moment), by smashing a cooking machine to pieces. This dialogue afterwards:
    Mung: I wonder how that happened... (winks at Chowder)
    Chowder: We smashed it!
    Mung: No, we didn't... (winks again)
    Chowder: Yes, we did!
    Mung: No, that didn't happen... (winks again)
    Chowder: Mung, when we smashed the machine, I think you got something in your eye!
    • Gazpacho thinks topical comedy is about things you rub topical ointment on.
  • Company Cameo: In "Gazpacho Stands Up", Cartoon Network's channel logo is acknowledged in-universe when Gazpacho wipes Chowder's handwriting off the screen. Chowder asks if he can get the logo off of the screen too, only for Gazpacho to point at it and say that it doesn't come off; the channel's at-the-time logo was actually drawn into the scene for this joke.
  • Company Cross References: There are two references to fellow Cartoon Network series The Powerpuff Girls:
    • Near the end of "The Hot Date", Miss Bellum finds her blind date, and it's not Sargeant Hoagie.
    • In "The Heist", Mung tastes a Sweet Sapphire crystal that's so sweet, his head briefly changes into Bubbles.
  • Continuity Nod: When being interrogated by the police, Chowder breaks down and starts confessing to everything. After a brief time skip, he continues "-and the time my brain got big and I changed the show-"
    • In another episode in which Shnitzel dresses as Chowder, the latter demonstrates what kind of things he says by referring lines he had said in previous episodes when the former doesn't cope.
      Chowder: I say things like "AWESOME!" and "Pleeeaaaaseee!" and "Talk to the hand, girlfriend!" and "Pbblth!" and "Well, shoo!" Now, you try!
  • Cooking Duel: Sometimes literally.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: When someone filled Endive's pool with chocolate pudding, she demanded the culprits be "tickled mercilessly." In front of their children. Or burned at the stake. As long as it's in front of their children.
  • Couch Gag: There is always a different food in the oven during the theme song.
  • Covert Pervert: Surprisingly, Ceviche at some points.
    Ceviche: On a scale of 1 to 10, how desperate would you say you are right now?
    Panini: (crying) Eleven!
    Ceviche: (sprays breath spray in his mouth) Oh yeah...
    • According to Chowder's imagination, Gazpacho.
      Chowder: Gazpacho, what're you doing here at Make-out Point?
      (camera pan to reveal Imaginary-Gazpacho has binoculars; Imaginary Gazpacho casually knocks them over)
  • Creator Cameo: In the episode "Shnitzel Quits", a puppet version of C.H. Greenblatt appears as Shnitzel's "creator".
    • His puppet self also appears in "Endive's Dirty Secret".
  • Cryptid Episode: In one episode, Chowder searches for Bigfood.
  • Cute Little Fangs: Chowder and Panini.

    Tropes D-K 
  • A Day in the Limelight: Gazpacho got his own episode. Both Chowder and Mung only appear briefly in the beginning.
  • Deadly Prank: After pulling a prank that ruined Mung's business, Endive pulled another that seemingly killed him. Turns out it was all one big prank by Mung to get even with Endive. Even Panini was in on it.
  • Death Glare: Shnitzel in Shnitzel Makes a Deposit. After enduring an episode loaded with Humiliation Conga, he was quite PISSED with the bank robber, and put him in his place... with his own plunger, too! And There Was Much Rejoicing.
  • Demonic Possession: In "The Poltergeist", Chowder gets possessed by a chicken demon.
  • Demoted to Extra: Kimchi, Chowder's pet fart cloud swamp gas. Last had a major role in "My Big Fat Stinky Wedding." After that, he was only seen in his cage in Chowder's room.
  • Despite the Plan: Panini succeeds in manipulating Chowder into giving her the photo in "Endive's Dirty Secret" because she was making him lose his appetite, not because she was trying to woo him.
  • Detachable Doorknob: In the episode "The Vacation", Chowder gets stuck in the bathroom because the door wouldn't open. When Schnitzel comes to check on him, he also gets stuck, made worse by Schnitzel breaking the doorknob with his raw strength when he tries to open the door. And then Mung gets stuck inside after the doorknob has already been detached.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: In "Chowder Loses His Hat", Chestnut gives Chowder a moment to say his last goodbyes to his hat (which Chestnut took to be his vacation home). As Chowder's goodbyes become increasingly sentimental, Chestnut stops him, saying that his heart is not made out of stone.
  • Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: One episode had Shnitzel being forced to confront his mysterious past. As punishment, he (literally) faced the music by having them sing the show's theme song. Chowder hummed along while Shnitzel begged them to stop.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Gumbo, Mung's old apprentice, wanted revenge on him for saying his first ever dish was fine, but needed a pinch more kooky-whacky lan spice. Seriously.
    • Also, in Banned From The Stand, Gazpacho bans Mung from his stand because he didn't agree that the berries he offered were emerald green.
    • The Meaches terrorized Mung all day every day after he made a pie out of their queen, and according to him, they didn't stop until twenty five years had passed.
    Mung: Meaches hold one heck of a grudge! They broke my spirit and all my bones. They even ate my hair!
  • The Ditz: Chowder. Especially in the later seasons.
  • Does Not Like Men: Endive, whose hatred stems from being left behind at the altar by her then-boyfriend. (Though this doesn't stop her from smooching Shnitzel or forming a crush on him later ...)
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: A large part of "The Thrice Cream Man". "Scoop-in-mouth time!"
    • Gazpacho's lollistop patch in The Lollistops.
    • "They beat each other mercilessly with their bologna swords".
    • "Flibber Flabber Diet" will leave you feeling... quite unclean... once you take a while to realize what the Flibbius Flabbius plant looks like.
  • Doomy Dooms of Doom: Chowder's Wisdom Tooth, in The Puckerberry Overlords:
    And so Chowder and the taste buds were led to what they believed to be certain doom. Well, maybe not certain doom; more like, doom with a strong possibility. Possibilidoom.
  • Dub Name Change:
    • The Japanese dub changes Kimchi's name to Natto, a Japanese bean dish known for its foul smell.
    • In the European Spanish dub, Mung was renamed Garbanzo, Truffles was renamed Trufas, and Shnitzel was renamed Escalope.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Ceviche has long purple hair and wears a pink leotard, but he's still a boy.
  • Dull Surprise: Played for laughs with Ceviche.
  • Ear Worm:
    • After Paté performs "I'm Not Your Boyfriend" (a song written by Chowder to Panini), everybody is singing it to themselves. Sort of like a Diegetic Soundtrack Usage, except "I'm Not Your Boyfriend" isn't the theme song.
    • When the citizens start hearing The Sing Beans' song, its contagious melody makes them sing it.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The pilot episode had noticeably different designs for the characters, Shnitzel in particular. Mung's voice was different, and Shnitzel was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson instead.
  • Eat the Evidence: Chowder does this is "The Prank".
  • Eldritch Abomination: Endive. She spontaneously changes size quite often. It makes sense, because she doesn't make sense.
  • Embarrassing Slide: In "The Heist", a puppet gives a lecture on how sugar sapphires are formed accompanied by a series of slides. The last one is a shot of a sexy Farmer's Daughter, and he excitedly tells them to stay on that slide.
  • Erotic Eating: Inverted in the episode "The Heist", Endive eats a leg of lobster dipped in butter in a manner that is clearly meant to be this but instead proves so horrific that poor Schnitzel, who is stuck as her date, sheds a Single Tear as he's forced to watch.
  • Escort Distraction:
    • In "The Flibber Flabber Diet", Mung Daal has Chowder take Truffles around town so that he and Shnitzel can remodel the kitchen, in a ploy to trick her into thinking she has lost weight.
    • In "The Heist" Schnitzel has to take Endive out on a dinner date so the rest of the gang can safely raid the vein of sugar sapphires beneath her house.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Chowder, after being possessed by the poultry-geist Florentine. Strangely, the voice of Florentine by himself was not deep, nor was his voice after he possessed the newly cooked flurkey.
  • Explosive Breeder: Whatever Chowder and Panini are, as they resemble rabbits. In the flash-forward finale, Panini has had fifty babies, twenty of which she had popped out the previous day.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Chowder. One episode is started off because as soon as Mung handed him a map to a customer's house, Chowder ate it without even realizing what it was.
  • Eye Scream: Chowder gently tosses a spoon at Gorgonzola's forehead, which for some reason causes him to clutch his eye, screaming "MY EYE! MY EYE!"
  • Face Your Fears: Mung Daal is forced to confront his fear of Meaches, giant ravenous fruit that attacks anything that gets too close and will maul anyone who eats a pie made with their queen all day, every day for decades. Chowder eventually gets Mung to face it... only to realize that his fear of being mauled by vicious animals is entirely justified.
  • Fade Around the Eyes: A very brief example, but in one episode, the Cinnamini Monster does this in the scene when he first meets Chowder. The monster moves forward, groaning, while the screen fades to black around his eyes, and when he reaches Chowder, he hugs him. While the Monster is more of a Jerkass Yandere than actually evil, Chowder does not know this yet, and thinks that the Monster means to hurt him. This trope is used to make the Monster seem scary because that is how Chowder sees the Monster.
  • Fake Crossover: Ms. Bellum shows up near the end of "The Hot Date".
  • Faked Food Contaminant: In "The Rat Sandwich," Reuben hides his pet rat in a sandwich he gets from Mung Daal so he can get the sandwich for free, and blackmails Mung and his employees to give Reuben anything he wants. By the end of the episode, the rat and his comrades rebel against Reuben due to never getting his share of the food. At the end of the episode, the rat plays the same trick as Reuben, claiming there's a "dead" roach in his food.
  • Fan Disservice: Endive. She appears in bathing suits and skimpy outfits frequently, many with detailed shots.
  • Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables
  • Fireworks of Love: Inverted in "Chowder's Girlfriend". Chowder takes Panini to a stage show with a song called "I'm Not Your Boyfriend!" that ends with a fireworks display of those words, which hit the King of the Sky who blows up the stage. Unfortunately for the hero, she only becomes more impressed with him.
  • Flanderization:
    • Panini, as her crush on Chowder goes from being simply clingy in earlier episodes to downright obsessed with him in later ones.
    • Chowder himself doesn't fare much better either. In earlier episodes, he was simply a very eager yet rather naive child who hoped to someday become a great chef. Now, he's a hyperactive and highly incompetent idiot who is a danger to everyone around him. This is especially evident when in one episode, he's so incompetent he's considered a "scatterbrain" and is so dim-witted he thinks a SPOON belongs in an electrical socket. Compare this to an earlier episode, in which Chowder's main flaw is a moderate case of ADD and is simply very naive.
    • Truffles has gone from being rather stern and more down-to-earth as well as talking pleasantly and quietly to the customers to being ridiculously bossy and having No Indoor Voice at all.
    • Remember in the earlier episodes when Mung Daal was simply known for his professional cooking skills and for being a good role model for Chowder? Fast forward to more recent episodes where any mention of Mung Daal's cooking skills is almost non-existent (except for when his failures are pointed out) and he's near-constantly portrayed as something of a Small Name, Big Ego-esque pervert.
    • Endive went from simply being Mung's rival to deliberately tormenting Mung over the course of the series.
    • Shnitzel has gone from being the Straight Man (in contrast with the more wacky characters such as Chowder...) to being either the Chew Toy or the Butt-Monkey depending on the episode.
  • Forbidden Fruit: In "Shopping Spree", Mung, Chowder, and Shnitzel are ordered not to touch Truffles' moneybox while she's in a sickbed. Guess what they do.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: The episode "A Little Bit of Pizzazz!" has the titular ingredient accidentally causing the crew to switch bodies. Chowder is in Shnitzel's body, Mung is in Chowder's, Truffles is in Mung's, and Shnitzel is in Truffle's. By the end of the episode, Mung and Endive end up on each other's bodies.
  • Funny Background Event: In Shnitzel Quits, when Endive is trying to marry Shnitzel, you can see Panini dressed as the priest in the background in one shot.
    • The line closest to "The Lead Farfel" is Mung's.
  • Fur Bikini: Worn by Panini, to compliment her Impossible Hourglass Figure during the "Fireheart" montage, in a pose straight out of the finest works of Frank Frazetta.
  • Future Me Scares Me: In the series finale, Chowder is shown to be terrified at the sight of his future self with Panini.
  • Games of the Elderly: One episode has Truffles host a mahjong night with some other old ladies.
  • Gasshole:
  • Chowder's been a Gasshole ever since the show began airing. He belches loudly in almost every episode. In "The Toots," after eating a particular fruit, he can't stop farting. Oddly enough, it makes a lovely song, and he becomes famous for it.
  • Kimchi is an animated cloud of gas that communicates entirely in fart noises.
  • Genius Bruiser: Shnitzel is the most competent and the strongest of the main crew.
  • The Ghost: Gazpacho often talks about his mother, but she has yet to make an appearance.
    • She...kind of appeared in Gazpacho's Day in the Limelight episode. She appeared as a puppet once, and then a portion of her (that looked nothing like the puppet) was shown.
    • There was also that one episode where Endive was continuously blackmailed by EVERYONE; in the near-end of the episode Gazpacho's mother is also TECHNICALLY in the pool (He talks to his mother after getting thrown by a beach ball or something offscreen).
  • Gigantic Gulp: In "The Vacation," Chowder is seen drinking a literal "bottomless soda."
  • Grand Finale: "Chowder Grows Up" ends with Chowder becoming an adult and taking over the business, giving closure to every character.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Shnitzel has one in "Weekend at Shnitzel's" that he uses when he abducts Senorita Mesquite.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: 'Grubble Gum'. The episode starts with Chowder taking a pink bubble gum from a store and when he puts it in his mouth, he hears some faded screams. He buys all the gums and accidentally eats all of them, including the one he bought for Truffles. Due to fearing Truffles, Chowder swallows all the gum he has been chewing, which leads to a very messy situation where everybody gets stuck in the gum, until it becomes a huge pink ball that seemingly swallows the whole planet. When the camera zooms out, it's revealed the ball of gum arrived at the exact spot from which Chowder bought the gum at the beginning of the episode and he hears the same screams when he puts it in his mouth, seemingly relieving the same events.
  • Grub Tub: Chowder has an Imagine Spot of himself diving into chocolate pudding.
  • Hammerspace: Chowder himself, especially considering the amount of food and other random objects that he's able stuff down his gullet... and sometimes pull back out...
  • The Hand Is God: In multiple episodes, giant hands represent godly beings, whether the show's creator C.H. Grenblatt or the unnamed god character.
  • Heist Episode: "The Heist". Mung puts together a Caper Crew that he calls "Mung's Five" to steal sugar sapphires from Endive's house.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Chowder is full of these, mostly based on foods. It's even lampshaded in this exchange:
    Chowder: It's even hotter in here! Why doesn't someone turn on the air-conditioner?
    Truffles: Because we don't have air-conditioner, we have air-cornditioner! Cockamamie food puns!
  • Hypocrite: Reuben in his first appearance. He states that following a recipe is what makes you NOT a recipe pirate, yet he penalises Mung and brands him a recipe pirate regardless of whether he follows the recipe.
  • I Am Not Weasel: The alligator in "My Big Fat Stinky Wedding" is constantly mistaken for a crocodile, much to his irritation. It gets to the point where he kicks everyone out of his stomach, all the while whimpering that he doesn't have to put up with this disrespect.
  • Idiosyncratic Wipes: Scene transitios are done with live-action stop-motion footage of food.
  • I Have a Family: Played with in "The Wrong Customer" where a group of police officers try to decide who will enter building with a criminal in it first. Sgt. Hoagie asks one who says he has kids, then asks the one next to him (who happens to be a baby) who states he has parents.
  • I've Got an X, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!: "Back off, woman! I've got a fish and I'm not afraid to use it!"
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: The Cinnamini Monster kidnaps Chowder and forces him to stay and play games with him because he's lonely.
  • Incoming Ham: In Paté's first appearance, he sings "I'm Not Your Boyfriend" loudly and dramatically. With fireworks for added effect.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: There is no "C" in Shnitzel, and "radda" has two D's in it. The closed captioning alone manages to get both of these wrong quite often, but it was most egregious when Cartoon Network made a "Rada-pendence day" [sic] special of Chowder episodes for Independence Day.
  • Ingesting Knowledge:
    • Attempted by Mung Daal on Chowder. He tries to cram a stack of books in his head instead of getting him to study!
  • Inner Monologue:
    Mung: "It's been months since I've seen my wife and kids."
    Truffles: "What are you talking about, we don't have any kids."
    Mung: "I hate it when that woman reads my thoughts."
    Truffles: "THEN STOP THINKING OUT LOUD!"
  • Insufferable Genius: Chowder in "Brain Grub". He was smart for only about 5 minutes though.
  • Intelligible Unintelligible: Radda Radda. I mean, Shnitzel.
    • Subverted in "Gazpacho Stands Up", during his (extremely short) comedy routine he clearly says, "Okay", albeit with a Scoobydooish lisp.
    • Subverted in The Trouble With Truffles when he gets so calm he starts speaking normally.
    • Also subverted in a Puppet Segment where Shnitzel is seen petting a cat and saying "Yes you radda! Yes you radda!"
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: "Chowder Grows Up" features a variation, when Mung Daal shows Chowder what happened to the rest of the cast thanks to his refusal to grow up.
    • Mung and Truffles are still working at their catering company, despite the fact that they should have retired and handed over the business to Chowder.
    • Schnitzel married Endive because she was willing to put up with his complaints about Chowder.
    • Panini is still waiting to marry Chowder and raise a family together. As a result, she vents her longing on her apprentice, Ambrosia, by dressing and treating her like a baby.
    • Gorgonzola, now the CEO of a candle company, sees his accomplishment as a hollow victory because he lacks an adversary (particularly Chowder) to gloat about it to. Like Panini, he forces his apprentice, Kabob, to dress up as Chowder and venting his frustrations to him.
    • Gazpacho has permanently shut down his fruit stand, left a recorded message about his successful future (which is a lie), and fled to the Shmahara desert.
  • I Was Told There Would Be Cake: In "My Big Fat Stinky Wedding", Chowder is excited to get cake at Kimchi's wedding. However, The Cake Is a Lie.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Flashbacks reveal Truffles to be a real cutie when she and Mung first met.
  • Jerkass: Reuben and Gorgonzola. In fairness, Gorgonzola's hostility stems from the fact that he's stuck being an apprentice for a job he hates. It's also hinted that his master emotionally abuses him.
    • Endive. Especially in "The Prank".
    • The Lead Farfel and the Teanie Meanie Cream Cake are both rude to everyone around.
    • The pepper spray saleswoman in "The Wrong Address". While her spraying Mung because she thought he was a carjacker was slightly justified, she then sprays Chowder, who's oblivious to the concept of carjacking, and then the Roast Most, who doesn't have any ill intentions. She then continuously sprays Mung and Chowder, once in Mung's ear and once in Chowder's mouth, complete with a smug smile on her face. She later gives Mung one last spray after she took the money they got from the rat that chased after them (since he is the one who ordered the Roast Most) due to them using her wares without paying her.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Being able to cook a tasty nutritious meal is a skill any chef worth their salt possess. Since diet has major impact on overall health, Truffles is right to blame Mung Daal for her overweight.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • "Just Joking" Justification: Mung Daal in the comics when he realized the health inspector he describes as a moron is right behind him.
    Mung Daal: I was just joking before. You aren't really a moron. In fact, I bet you are really quite smart and handsome. Did I say that? You bet I did. Say, I love your hat.
  • Keet: Chowder
  • Kissing Discretion Shot: Between Mung and Truffles in "Mung On The Rocks", where they ride on a boat and enters a tunnel before you can see them kissing.

    Tropes L-Q 
  • Lame Pun Reaction: In the following exchange from "The Deadly Maze".
    Chowder: That's ah... maze-ing!
    Gumbo: ... Very funny.
    Chowder: That was funny?
  • Lampshade Hanging: In "The Toots", Mung and Chowder lampshade the formula of the show...and then proceed to go about it anyway.
  • Large Ham:
    • Jokes about food aside, Paté is pretty hammy.
    • Chowder and Mung too.
    • None of them hold a candle to Gazpacho. Especially when he gets Ax-Crazy.
  • Last Episode, New Character: Chowder's apprentice, Scraps.
  • Laugh of Love:
    • Panini tends to giggle or laugh on occasion when she's with Chowder, who doesn't return her feelings until the series finale.
    • Two examples in "A Faire to Remember":
      • Chowder and Marmalade tend to laugh as they hang out together, leading a jealous Panini to think that Chowder and Marmalade are together. However, it turns out that they're just friends who happen to share similar interests.
      • Invoked by Panini, who pretends to laugh as she hangs out with Ceviché in an attempt to make Chowder jealous. It doesn't work.
  • Lethal Chef: Literally. In an early episode, Chowder accidentally adds rat poison to his Burple Nurple recipe. Since Mung doesn't want to crush his dreams, he's forced to try and get the Nurples away from Chowder by any means necessary. Including theft.
  • Let's Meet the Meat: Some of the dishes that Mung creates (like the giant roast), have eyes and mouths, appearing to be alive. Also, the Thrice Cream Man.
    • Played with in one episode had a "Queen Meach" surrounded by a squad of very aggressive soldier Meaches guarding her. Once the team explained they wanted to make her into a delicious pie, they were let through. The Meach Queen was still alive even after being made into a pie and eaten.
  • Lions and Tigers Snow Leopards and Humans, Oh my: And How! Also, it's never been verified what Mung is, but he does seem to be just a blue human.
    • He had a tail in one episode, though.
    • He might be a type of fey, his wife's a mushroom pixie, after all.
  • Literal Metaphor: When Mung said that scoring would ruin note Big Ball, he meant literally, as in a giant Bowser-like monster would dump the arena in the trash. It was even lampshaded when Truffles says she thought he was talking figuratively.
    • In "Apprentice Appreciation Day," Mung says "let's jet on over to the farmer's market"... cue the catering company literally flying there via jet propulsion. From the same episode, Gazpacho gives Chowder a literal babe magnet, which he claims he no longer needs as he "sees plenty of action"... as in, he watches a lot of action movies.
  • Living Drawing: In one episode, Chowder creates a world using special crayons in an endless blank space behind his bedroom. The citizens are all living beings.
  • Love Triangle: Marmalade loves Ceviché who loves Panini, who loves Chowder.
    • One episode implied that Endive might have a crush on Mung...
  • Man in a Kilt: Mung Daal.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Happened to Shnitzel in "Kid Shnitzel".
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy:
    • Married couple, Truffles and Mung, seem to have shades of this dynamic. Truffles has shown to be the most dominant person at the Catering Company, she's very aggressive, short-tempered, brash and incredibly strong despite her size. Mung on the other hand is far more sensitive, caring, soft-spoken, has cross dressed several times in the series and has shown signs of being Ambiguously Bi and In Touch with His Feminine Side.
    • There is also Panini, who is a Clingy Jealous Girl with a fiery aggressive side when it comes time trying to get close to Chowder and Ceviche, who is so sweet and sensitive that even his appearance is feminine.
  • Medium Awareness: "Chowder, why does the music sound like it's gonna get all excited?" ...Then again, this show does have No Fourth Wall.
  • Medium Blending:
    • The end credits feature puppet versions of the characters, which for some reason Cartoon Network doesn't use. You can see what they look like Here and here. The show has also gone into puppet, claymation, and paper cutout mode, used animated sand in "The Lead Farfel", and had a CGI character in "The Deadly Maze". Not to mention stop motion food in the Idiosyncratic Wipes.
      • Cartoon Network in Scandinavia uses the end credit puppets, although not consistently.
      • Cartoon Network UK on the other hand used them as they were supposed to be.
    • When both Ms. Bellum appear in "The Hot Date" and Bubbles' head popped out of Mung Daal's body in "The Heist" , they were animated using Adobe while the show is animated digital ink.
  • Mentor Archetype: Mung is this to Chowder.
  • Merit Badges for Everything: This seems to be Gazpacho's leadership style in "The Apprentice Scouts".
  • Mind Screw: Don't even bother trying to make sense of how the glasses work in their world, as shown in "My Big Fat Stinky Wedding".
  • Mistaken for Undead: In "Chowder's Babysitter", a series of events leads to Gazpacho (who was babysitting Chowder at the time) to think that Chowder accidentally landed in Mung Daal's extra-large meat-grinder and that the real Chowder who shows up before him, safe and sound, is actually the kid's restless spirit. They decide that the only way that he could pass on is for him to be flushed down the toilet like a goldfish, Endive's super toilet the only toilet big enough for him to be flushed into.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Subverted by Endive. Said subversion is lampshaded frequently.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Chowder and Panini are cat/rabbit/bear mashups.
    • Similarly, Gorgonzola is actually a cross between a rat and a hamster.
    • Marmalade is a mix between a frog and a pig.
  • Momma's Boy: Gazpacho. One episode really pointed out the obvious. Though he's also a slightly different version of the trope, in that he still runs a successful business.
  • Motive Decay: Chowder was Mung's apprentice because he wanted to be a great chef but in "Chowder Grows Up", he wanted to stay young and be Mung's apprentice forever.
  • Moving the Goalposts: In the episode where Mung has to spend a day in cooking school to renew his cooking license, one of the assignments is to prepare a sandwich. Mung follows the recipe perfectly, but the instructor still fails him because he happens to be allergic to mayonnaise, even though mayonnaise is explicitly stated in the recipe.
  • Multiple-Choice Past: Inverted in the finale. After Adult Chowder marries Panini, Young Chowder suddenly shows up and, in utter rage and disgust, informs his future self that he rejects this future before being chased off by young Panini. True to this show's grasp of reality, the only reaction the adult versions of Chowder and Panini have toward this is to look longingly after their younger selves and remark how cute the two of them were as kids.
  • My Beloved Smother: Gazpacho is very dependent of his mother.
  • My Brain Is Big: Chowder in "Brain Grub".
    • Gorgonzola's head shape implies that he has a huge brain. He's also portrayed as much more intelligent. Kinda...
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Chowder in aforementioned "Brain Grub". Chowder, after gaining Medium Awareness, turns the show into something smarter via sheer brainpower. Unfortunately, it also turns the show boring, prompting one of these reactions.
    • Endive also has a moment of her own, when during an episode where Mung Daal and Chowder are forced to work for her to obtain a Mood Fruit, she forces them into a room to peel Growtatoes, which will keep growing until completely peeled, in an attempt to break Mung's spirit. After hearing an unsettling squelch, though, she comes to the realization she may have crushed both of them instead, and says this nearly word for word. Fortunately, they're alright, and she breifly shows relief before masking it under disappointment.
  • Nervous Wreck: Gazpacho, to the point where his armpit sweat comes out in jet squirts.
  • Nitro Express: In "The Blast Raz", the gang have to deliver a crate of highly explosive and unstable blast raz fruit. Their route takes them over a pothole-filled road, across a storm-tossed lake and up the side of an active volcano.
  • No Accounting for Taste: Mung Daal and Truffles seems to pretty much hate each other.
    • And then there's Endive and Shnitzel in the finale.
  • No Fourth Wall: It couldn't be more blatantly obvious. One egregious example of Medium Awareness is when Chowder scribbles on the screen and then Gazpacho erases it. Chowder points to the Cartoon Network logo at the bottom of the screen, asking if it will come off, to which Gazpacho says, "That doesn't come off, I've tried." Sadly, the third season seems to have rebuilt the fourth wall for the most part.
    • One even MORE egregious example is when the gang spends all of Truffles' money. Mung says now that they've run out, they aren't scared that Truffles will find out, they're scared because now there's isn't enough money for the animation. The scene then cuts to the voice actors (still voice acting) hosting a car wash to raise enough money to get the animation budget back.
    • When Chowder accidentally lights the kitchen on fire, Mung scolds him "Now the animators have to draw all this fire!"
    • "I'm going as fast as I can, woman! These things take time!" "We've only got 11 minutes..."
    • While in the Deadly Maze, Chowder flees a giant chicken and runs into a physical representation of his conscience.
      Conscience: You have to go back and save Gumbo!
      Chowder: Are you sure? 'Cause Gumbo said he wants to hurt Mung.
      Conscience: Trust me, he'll never pull it off. The episode's not long enough.
    • Mung: "Worst of all, YOU MADE THE VIEWERS CRY!!!"
    • In "The Heist" after Endive demands money for all of the gems (under her estate) that was destroyed, Mung exclaims, "There won't be enough money left in the budget for the third season!" Followed by Chowder stating that he "had so many more jokes to tell".
      • If you don't get the joke, the third season isn't only the final season, but is also only 7 episodes compared to the 20 of the previous two.
    • In "The Trouble with Truffles", Shnitzel suddenly becomes able to speak when calmed down and remarks "Now the audience can finally understand me!" He proceeds to literally lean against the Fourth Wall, then immediately loses his grip when Chowder says they don't like it and reverts to saying "radda" again.
    • In "The Garden" the very first lines spoken was Mung telling Chowder, "So anyway this is going to be the best episode ever, because I'm gonna show you where food comes from!"
    • "What's Chowder's favorite cartoon!? I bet it's Chowder!"
    • Chowder's stated reason for not wanting to grow up and stop being Mung's apprentice in the Series Finale is that the show is about him being an apprentice.
  • No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Panini's crush on Chowder plays this trope straight.
  • No Indoor Voice: Truffles, full throttle.
  • Noodle Incident: "That was the craziest episode we've ever had!"
    • What about what happened when Mung made "Tooty Pooty Beans" and it resulted in him, Chowder, Truffles, and Shnitzel being chased by an angry mob.
    • Or whatever happened at "that really crazy birthday party" Shnitzel went to?
  • "No Peeking!" Request: In "The Vacation", Chowder is Locked in the Bathroom with Mung and Shnitzel and he remembers that he has to pee. He has them look away while covering their ears, but thanks to his Shy Bladder, he finds himself unable to go.
  • Nose Nuggets: Many of Chowder's Gross Up Close Ups feature strings of snot hanging out of his nose.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: In "Endive's Dirty Secret", Panini dresses up to look really pretty to manipulate him into giving her the photograph which Mung captured of Endive caught in the act of her secret. Chowder's response? He simply doesn't understand what she's trying to accomplish due to his stupidity.
    Panini: It's so hot today...you know what I'm saying?
    Chowder: What.
  • The Nudifier: In "The Birthday Suits", Mung's dish causes people's clothes to shrink till they burst (although it leaves their underwear intact).
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: (after being offscreen for eleven minutes) "MAN! That must have been the CRAZIEST episode we've ever had!"
  • Older Than They Look: Mung and Truffles have been married for several hundred years.
  • Only One Name: None of the characters seem to have last name at all (except perhaps Mung Daal).
    • And judging by how other characters address her, Miss Endive's first name is never revealed.
  • Only the Author Can Save Them Now: Done In-Universe and played for laughs in one episode where the cartoonist literally picks Shnitzel up and saves him from a deadly fall. Then he sets him down on a cloud and talks to him.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "Apprentice Appreciation Day", Endive's party, which is more about one-upping Mung than anything nice, that she bans Chowder from causes Panini to be so depressed that, when she sees Chowder, she has a conversation with him without once claiming to be his girlfriend or come onto him.
  • Organ Autonomy: Chowder's tongue in "Taste Buds".
  • Orifice Invasion: While attempting to confront the titular beast of "The Sleep Eater", Mung and Shnitzel wind up on the receiving end of a tongue threaded through both their heads simultaneously. note 
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Chowder goes to live with them in an episode after he gains fire breath from eating a bunch of impossibly spicy "Dancing Diablo" peppers.
  • Overly Long Gag: And often.
    • Even the name of an episode: "Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Flabble Babble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka To Tun Rerun Free For All Big Ball".
    • More notable in "The Cinnamini Monster", where Chowder and said monster sit in an awkward silence for several minutes, doing absolutely nothing but avert their eyes sideways now and then.
  • Overly Long Name: *deep breath* Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball.
  • Pair the Spares: In the series finale, Shnitzel and Endive get married. Although Endive did show interest in him in 'Shnitzel Quits'.
  • Parental Abandonment: The whereabouts of Chowder's, Panini's, and Gorgonzola's parents are never discussed or referred.
    • Chowder lives with Mung Daal and Truffles. His parents actually may have abandoned him, or they're dead, or they lost Chowder. Whatever the reason for his lack of parents, Mung Daal has basically stepped in to serve as both Chowder's father and mentor.
      • It's actually a common feature of the classic 'apprentice' system that the apprentice came to live with the master.
      • In the episode "The Deadly Maze", during Gumbo's flashback of when he quit being Mung's apprentice, Mung says "Well, we lost another one. Shintzel, get the apprentice catalog!"
  • Parental Bonus: So much. "But...where did you get the mayonnaise?"
    • Or this tidbit from when Panini ran for president of the student council.
      Mung: Fireworks? She's using fireworks.
      Truffles: I'd completely forgotten fireworks even existed! * under breath* In my marriage. Whoa, who said that?
    • It's doubtful that many young kids would recognize the Psycho or The Exorcist Shout Outs.
    • And then there's the sheer family-unfriendly bleakness of Gazpacho's one-liners...
      Gazpacho: (explaining why Chowder can't stay up past his bedtime) If there's one thing mother's taught me, it's to sleep as much as you can. That way you don't have to face the horrible reality of what your life's become.
  • Perspective Magic: Endive looks around the same size at all times, but whenever any character climbs on her they're suddenly tiny as a joke on her size.
  • Phrase Catcher: "ENDIVE!"
  • Planet of Steves: The Arborians.
  • Played for Laughs: Why can't anybody accept the fact that Gazpacho isn't really his own mother?
  • Player Elimination: In-universe. In "Hands on a Big Mixer", Mung enters his crew into a contest where whomever keeps their hand on the mixer longest gets to keep it.
  • Politicians Kiss Babies: Gazpacho advises the titular character to do this when he runs for the president of the apprentices' club. They attempt this by sneaking into a hospital, and accidentally inciting the babies to riot.
  • Post-Treatment Lollipop: There's a variant with Chowder going to a bank. He's offered a lollipop, but responds in such a way that he could either be saying yes, or asking the employee to repeat herself. She interprets it as 'repeat herself' and they go back and forth using the same phrasing.
  • Potty Emergency: Nearly the whole of "The Vacation".
  • Powers That Be: Appear as a Running Gag through the series, usually in the form of a Jerkass God.
  • Product Delivery Ordeal: The Season 3 episode “The Blast Razz” has the gang trying to transport fruit for Gazpacho across a treacherously rough road. Also, the fruit is explosive.
  • Pseudo-Santa: "Hey, Hey, It's Knishmas!" has Knish Krinkle, a large, caterpillar-like creature in a festive-print body stocking with a humanoid face and blue beard. He gives gifts to people based on how much he likes the "schmingerbread" house they built for him, but, if he doesn't like it, he'll fly into a rage and smash it.
  • Qurac: Marzipan City has this aesthetic to it, with Persian-style domes, doorways, towers and windows being prominent.

    Tropes R-Z 
  • Recursive Reality: "Grubble Gum" opens with Chowder eating a gumball with muffled screaming being heard as he chews it. At the end of the episode, when Chowder has gummed everyone and everything on the planet together, the planet gets eaten by another Chowder and similar screaming is heard.
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: Truffles manages to do this to herself in the pilot episode regarding the customer ordering a Froggy Apple Crumple Thumpkin.
    Truffles: Hey, now, who's the chef here; me or you?! (beat) Noooo, I'm the chef's wife.
  • Right Behind Me: In the comics, Mung Daal falls into this as he needs to clean up his kitchen before the health inspector enters.
    Mung Daal: Now to clean up this place before that health inspector moron figures out what happened here.
    Someone offscreen: Ahem!
    Mung Daal: He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"
    Truffles: Yep!
  • Right on Queue: One of the first episodes involved Shnitzel and Chowder spending nearly the entire episode waiting on line at the bank. Not only did poor Shnitzel have to deal with long, slow-moving lines and customers who were depositing huge amounts of change, he also had to put up with Chowder's shenanigans.
  • The Rival: Endive to Mung Daal, Gorgonzola to Chowder.
    • Or at least, Gorgonzola tries to be this to Chowder, but Chowder's overly positive attitude kind of throws him off.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: The giant rat chasing Mung and Chowder the entirety of "The Wrong Address" turns out to be the one who ordered the dish of the week.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Chestnut.
    Chestnut: Dinga-loo, dinga-lee. Chestnut gets this thing for free.
  • Rule of Funny: The show would not exist without it.
  • Rule of Scary: Foie Gras isn't exactly Nightmare Fuel but he's pretty unnerving to the characters in the show to say the least.
    • He may remind you of Chiyo-chichi, particularly his English voice.
  • Running Gag: Chowder's and Panini's bickering.
    Panini: Hi, Chowder.
    Chowder: I'M NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND!
    • Also, Shnitzel saying something intentionally comprehensible in-universe only.
  • Sealed Evil In a Jar: The mold creature.
  • Sanity Slippage: Mung has a brief one in The Party Cruise when Chowder causes him to lose a fish he'd almost caught.
    • Endive gets even crazier in "Shnitzel Quits".
    • Gazpacho goes from a Nervous Wreck to Ax-Crazy in episodes like "The Scariest House In Marzipan" and "Banned from the Stand".
  • Santabomination: Knish Kringle is a caterpillar-esque. creature that travels around the world Knishmas night. He comes down the chimney and if the Shminger Bread House (a life size ginger-bread house) left for him tastes good, he'll regurgitate gifts for the owners. If he doesn't like it, he'll go into an unstoppable rage and destroy the house.
  • Sarcasm-Blind: Chowder, due to his childlike naivety.
  • Sarcastic Clapping: Ms. Endive performs this in "A Taste of Marzipan".
  • Save the Jerk: In "The Apprentice Games," despite Gorgonzola insulting and fighting with Chowder for most of the episode, Chowder still saves Gorgonzola from drowning, even when the latter refuses to let Chowder touch him. This sets them on the path to being better teammates (even if they're still not at all talented).
  • Scenery Porn: The pan shots of Marzipan City look like they came straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
  • Scout-Out: The Apprentice Scouts.
  • Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The Cinnamini Monster's rule 87, stating that Mung and Chowder cannot leave until beating him, and he cheats constantly in all but the first game.
    • And of course, he then refuses to let them leave even when Truffles actually manages to win.
      Mung: This is home now, Chowder. This is home.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Happens twice in "Brain Grub", combined with Exact Words. When Chowder eats too much brain grub and his brain grows huge, Mung tells Shnitzel to think of something. He promptly runs to the door, puts on his hat and coat, waves good-bye, and drives off. Later on, when Chowder is using his brainpower to change the show, Mung tells Shnitzel to do something. Again Shnitzel puts on his hat and coat, waves goodbye and drives off.
  • Sequential Symptom Syndrome: Chowder experiences the effects of eating a raw Puckerberry as Mung lists them.
  • Serious Business:
  • Seven Deadly Sins: Seven of the show's core cast are representative of each sin:
    • Mung Daal, whose swollen ego often hampers his abilities as a chef, represents Pride.
    • Chowder, who has an uncontrollable appetite, represents Gluttony.
    • Truffles, who has an abrasive temperament, represents Wrath.
    • Panini, who is deeply infatuated with Chowder, represents Lust.
    • Miss Endive, who is obsessed with triumphing over Mung, represents Greed.
    • Gorgonzola, who holds a one-sided rivalry against Chowder, represents Envy.
    • Gazpacho, who is controlled by his mother but does very little to improve himself, represents Sloth.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: "I'm not your boyfriend!" is Chowder's way of saying hello to Panini.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Mung goes into flashbacks when commissioned to bake a pie. See Crosses the Line Twice, in the YMMV tab.
  • Shopping Montage: Causes Mung to go bankrupt in The Shopping Spree.
  • Shout-Out: See here.
  • Show Some Leg: In "The Dinner Theater", Truffles uses this method to get customers to buy tickets for the episode's titular play.
  • Showing Off the New Body: Florentine with Chowder.
  • Spit Take: A 30-second one in "Chowder's Girlfriend".
    • That appears to span over six hours!
  • Spoof Aesop:
    Mung: Well, Chowder, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it, too!
    (everyone laughs)
    Chowder: HAHAHAHA— Wait, what's so funny?
  • Stalker with a Crush: Panini.
    • Lampshaded in "A Little Bit of Pizzazz" where Panini goes after Chowder- really Daal in his apprentice's chubby body after the "Freaky Friday" Flip cooking accident- and gets brushed off by "him" wanting to enjoy his youth. She makes a comment to the effect of "I gotta get a new obsession."
  • Status Quo Is God: Parodied in "The Toots" when Gorgonzola's wealth vanishes instantly once Chowder retires from music.
  • Stealth Pun: The woman who is Gazpacho's mother Gazpacho in "The Spookiest House In Marzipan" says "I could just eat you up!" to Gorgonzola when she answers the door and sees him. All the characters, including Gorgonzola, are named after food, which you're supposed to eat.
    • In "Sheboodles", the cast holds an 1980s-themed costume party. Gazpacho (voiced by Dana Snyder) dresses as Dee Snyder.
    • At first it may seem like just a minor joke that the days of the week are named after numbers (ie: Threesday, Foursday, Fivesday), but it's actually a joke based on how many people pronounce "Tuesday" as "Twosday."
  • The Stinger: With puppets, no less.
  • Stock Footage: Whenever a scene begins at Mung's kitchen, a shot of the camera zooming into the house is reused from "The Thrice Cream Man".
  • The Stoic: Ceviche?
  • Stomach of Holding: Chowder
  • Storybook Opening: Every episode features a Cookbook Opening. It's Chowder's version of the Episode Title Card.
  • Suck E. Cheese's: Carlito Con Queso's.
  • Supreme Chef: Of course, Mung Daal.
    • His former mentor and Endive qualifies as well.
    • And, believe it or not, Chowder becomes one in the series finale.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Oh hello, Panini. I have a message for you from Chowder, who I am not."
  • Synchronous Episodes: "The Wrong Address" and "The Wrong Customer". During "The Wrong Address" Chowder and Mung see a seemingly insignificant police chase and go about their business. At the end they return home to find it destroyed and Truffles being arrested. In "The Wrong Customer" we find out that the police were chasing an old, blind, and (apparently) dangerous owl, who causes Mung's place to be destroyed. Truffles being arrested is a separate but somewhat related matter.
  • Take That!: "Gazpacho? Why are you dressed like a big nerd?"
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Gazpacho's recording in "Chowder Grows Up". It even says "Wait! I'm still talking!" when Mung closes the shutter while it is still playing.
  • Technician Versus Performer: Endive is the Baker/Technician and Mung Daal is the Cook/Performer. Many episodes, however, show that they're both equally competent, just different in their style and temperaments. This causes Mung a lot of trouble when he needs to renew his cooking "Certifrycate", as the instructor Reuben leans purely to the technician side and keeps knocking points against Mung for not "cooking by the book". His struggle to figure out the "right" way of cooking eventually leads to him failing when he has a breakdown.
  • Temporary Bulk Change: As might be expected on a show about cooking, plenty of episodes have one or more cast members temporarily getting bigger and fatter due to overindulging in food. Chowder is the most common culprit, to the point where he has an "emergency big boy shirt" on hand at all times.
  • Theme Naming: Most of the characters and things in the show are named after food.
    • Similarly, all the members of the Marzipan police are named after sandwiches.
  • Third-Person Person: Chestnut.
    • "Mr. Tummy needs food or he gets cranky!"
  • Those Two Guys: The police squad gets pretty close to this. They even get a Lower-Deck Episode.
  • Throw the Book at Them: In "The Poultry Geist", Mung attempts to drive out the spirit possessing Chowder by using a copy of the Snackronomicon. He does this by whacking Chowder with the book. Also done in "The Prank", where the Marzipan Police officers throw an author's own book at him.
  • Time Skip: It's done during the finale's musical number. As in Chowder holds a note for twenty years.
  • Token Minority: Chestnut... and his dining room table, living room sofa, and vacation home, just to name a few.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The two adult female characters of this show, Truffles and Endive. Truffles is short-tempered, aggressive, occasionally sarcastic and can overpower her husband in a fight where as Endive is more classy with a big fancy house and the personality reminiscent of a Rich Bitch.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Snackronomicon.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Chowder. We're talking about a guy who thought spoons belong in electrical outlets.
    • Also Mr. Fugu, who tried to eat a vine covered in spikes. Eating anything covered in spikes is normally bad, but it's especially bad for an anthropomorphized balloon like Mr. Fugu.
  • Too Many Babies: shows up in the series finale.
  • Torches and Pitchforks: Chowder, Mung, Truffles and Shnitzel are chased by a torches and pitchforks wielding mob in "Birthday Suits".
  • Tsundere: Both parodied and deconstructed with Rosemary at the end of Gazpacho Fights Back, where it's revealed that Rosemary's been harassing Gazpacho because she thought he was attractive (mainly for his lips, since she doesn't have any). However, this behavior not only scares Gazpacho and drives him to fight back against her, it's revealed that she's also been single for quite some time. But given the absurdity of the show, this is naturally all Played for Laughs.
  • Twist Ending: Lampshaded, naturally.
  • Unexpected Character: "The Hot Date" features a cameo from Miss Bellum of all people.
  • Unmoving Plaid: Deliberately used for artistic purposes.
  • The Unreveal: "And that's why I married Truffles. Now let's never, ever speak of this again. Ever. Wink."
  • Unwanted Assistance: Chowder's help often does more harm then good.
  • Visual Pun: While scaling a giant to deliver a cake, Shnitzel and Chowder get attacked by a horde of literal barking spiders near his butt. note 
  • Voices Are Mental: The body-swapping episode, obviously.
  • Vocal Evolution: An entire episode is devoted to Truffles' voice changing, to the point that nobody takes her seriously anymore because her voice is too sweet and gentle.
    • Chowder and Panini sound noticeably older in the later episodes, as their voice actors were respectively 11 and 13 when the series started.
    • Mung's voice became deeper around the end of the first season.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: All over Shnitzel, no less.
  • Weird World, Weird Food: Every episode has the characters cook or eat some wacky food to go along with their wacky, comedically-surreal world. Some are very similar to real world foods, but with slightly different names and appearances, such as "thrice cream," "grubble gum," and "bluenanas." Others are more whimsical, such as "burple nurples," tiny burping treats. Ironically, all the characters and locations are named after real-life foods. In one episode, Chowder lampshades this by asking why they can't just use yeast to help bread rise instead of a whimsical "toot fruit," and Mung responds, "Because this is Chowder!"
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Ceviche is excluded from the finale without explanation.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: "Chowder Grows Up" includes one.
    • Mung and Truffles are contentedly retired.
    • Schnitzel begins to like being married to Endive.
    • Gazpacho begins doing stand-up at his new job.
    • Gorgonzola gets to show Chowder how successful he is in an attempt to make him envious, but this fails.
    • Chowder takes over the Catering company, while Scraps serves as his apprentice. Chowder and Panini finally marry, and they have 50 children together.
    • Although Ceviche is not present in the finale, he is confirmed to have become a dancing master like Pâté, found an apprentice named Tartar (who is mute and can only communicate through body movements), and married Marmalade, though he still pines for Panini.
  • With Catlike Tread: "Mung will never hear us sneaking about over the noise of all these smashing plates!"
  • World of Pun: Tons of puns. They're occasionally recognized as bad.
    Spooky trees: (to Gorgonzola) Leave this place! See? We're holding leaves!
    Gorgonzola: AAAAH!!! BAD JOKES!
  • Written-In Absence:
    • Mung and Truffles's absence is lampshaded in "A Faire to Remember", then subverted as they appear just before the episode ends.
    • Parodied in "The Sleep Eater" when Truffles pops up out of nowhere asking if she can help solve a problem, Chowder's response below causes her disappear into a poof:
      Chowder: No. You're not in this episode.
  • Wutai: Tofu Town.
  • Yandere: Panini is crazy for Chowder. Really crazy.
    Panini: And I just wanted to pass laws so I can make you my property!
    • Endive to Shnitzel in "Shnitzel Quits". Oh, so much.
  • You Mean "Xmas": Or rather, Knishmas.
  • Your Size May Vary: Endive, who changes size from episode to episode and sometimes even within the same episode.
    • At one point Chowder has to climb up her back to get something and she's the size of a mountain. When she realizes Chowder is there she freaks out and begins jumping around in an attempt to get him off, at which point she's a bit taller than Shnitzel. Her size is dependent on what the story needs.


 
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"NO MONEY MEANS NO ANIMATION!"

Perhaps the most infamous instance of the fourth wall breaking happens after Mung, Chowder, and Schnitzel run out of money in "Shopping Spree". Mung points out that they don't have any money left for the animation budget...at which point the show cuts to the live-action voice actors of the four main characters—Dwight Schultz, Nicky Jones, Tara Strong, and John DiMaggio—sitting in the recording studio lamenting the lack of cash. They then decide to hold a car wash to raise the funds they need, and after a minute of live-action footage of the quartet spraying down various vehicles, Schultz/Mung announces that they've made enough to get the animation back; the show becomes a cartoon again.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (17 votes)

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