Created by Tony Barnes and airing in the UK, Spain and France (where it was known as Dr Globule) from 1994 to 1998, this revolved around an undead Mad Scientist living in Transylvania called Dr Zitbag, who, after getting fired from a pet shop for low sales, opened up his own in a Haunted Castle, where he is aided by skeletal talking dog Horrifido. The series followed him as he concocted money-making schemes, tried to avoid the long arm of malicious policeman Officer Deadbeat and attempted to impress the attractive vampiric Exorsisters.
Dr Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop contains examples of:
- 65-Episode Cartoon: The cartoon lasted 65 episodes.
- All Just a Dream: "Word of Horror" ends with Dr. Zitbag waking up to see that he dreamed being put on trial for being nice.
- Art Evolution: Starting with the episode "Pinball Wizard", the animation becomes crisper and features more shading.
- Artistic License – Geography: The series' portrayal of Transylvania is definitely not accurate to real life, especially since "Bungle in the Jungle" establishes that there's a jungle in that region.
- Babysitting Episode: Dr. Zitbag is forced to look after Officer Deadbeat's infant son Damian in the episode "Horrybaby".
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: There are several occasions hinting that the monsters in this setting regard good things as bad and vice versa.
- In "Food Glorious Pet Food", Officer Deadbeat wants to arrest Zitbag for health code violations after an incorrectly prepared batch of Zitbag's pet food pollutes Transylvania with a sweet-smelling scent.
- As part of a ploy to woo the Exorsisters in "Double Trouble", Dr. Zitbag has harmless plants infest the Exorsisters' weed garden.
- "Transylvania Excess" has everyone being terrorized by a bunch of cute and saccharine animals.
- Bait-and-Switch Comparison: In "Orang-utans & Lemmings", the Exorsisters at one point apply this gag to Dr. Zitbag and Zombunny, stating that one of them is a moron who spends all his time in a zombified trance...and the other is Zombunny.
- Bald of Evil: The show featured occasional appearances by a bald criminal named Fingers Malone.
- Bankruptcy Barrel: In "Moby Duck Billed Platypus", the Mayor of Transylvania is seen wearing a barrel because his clothes were stolen by a criminal named Claude the Fraud.
- Bedlah Babe: Natalie dressed up as a harem girl near the end of the episode, "From Transylvania with Love".
- Birthday Episode: "End of Season", where it's the Exorsisters' birthday and Dr. Zitbag and his rival Professor Sherman Vermin try to compete in getting the Exorsisters a better birthday present.
- Captured by Cannibals: Dr. Zitbag, Horrifido, and Zombunny at one point get captured and cooked by a cannibalistic tribe in "Bungle in the Jungle".
- Cat Fight: The Exorsisters engage in a couple fights with each other in "Horrorlection Fever".
- Character Catchphrase:
- Dr. Zitbag frequently exclaims "Great Galloping Globules!"
- A common exchange between Zitbag and Horrifido has Zitbag state "Trap door, Horrifido!" and Horrifido reply "I thought you'd never ask!"
- Christmas Episode: 'Happy Mishmash'
- Circus Episode: "The Show Mustn't Go On" has Zitbag start a circus to entertain the Exorsisters and their nieces Listeria and Salmonella.
- Clip Show:
- "Word of Horror" has Dr. Zitbag put on trial for doing good deeds and uses clips from older episodes.
- Clips from previous episodes are used in Zitbag and Vermin's slanderous films of each other in the episode "The Seventh Art".
- Comic-Book Adaptation: British comic The Buster featured a comic strip adapting episodes of the show that ran from 1994 to 1996.
- Continuity Cavalcade: When Dr. Zitbag is put on trial in "Word of Horror", several one-shot characters from previous episodes can be seen among the jury.
- Cutting the Electronic Leash: In "Horrorlection Fever" when the Exorsisters both attempt to answer their phone after cutting it in half, only Bimbella is able to hear the caller because she has the listening part of the receiver.
- Dartboard of Hate: The episode "Moby Duck Billed Platypus" begins with Officer Deadbeat throwing darts at a picture of Dr. Zitbag.
- Decided by One Vote: In "Horrorlection Fever" Zitbag loses to the current mayor by just one because he voted for him out of arrogance.
- Delivery Stork: "Pinball Wizard" features a stork trying to deliver a baby yeti to his parents, only for Zombunny to end up trading places with the baby yeti.
- Dem Bones: Horrifido, and a few other skeletons in Transylvania
- Demonic Possession: Parodied in "Terror in Transylvania" when Zitbag is possessed by Satin and forced to do good deeds around town.
- Dirty Cop: Officer Deadbeat is definitely not a nice law enforcer. He'll do any underhanded trick to put Zitbag behind bars.
- Diseased Name: The Exorsisters' nieces are named Listeria and Salmonella. Both are illnesses commonly contracted by consuming contaminated food.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The theme song is sung by Dr. Zitbag, Horrifido, and the Exorsisters.
- Drunk on Milk: In "Bride of Horrifido" Zitbag and Horrifido get drunk on lemonade and Horrifido is shown waking up with a hangover.
- Dub Name Change: In the French version, Sidney Zitbag is Sidoney Globule, Officer Deadbeat is Brigadier Sanglote, Sinista is Sinistra and Professor Vermin is Professor Vermine. Horrifido, Zombunny and Bimbella's names are the same as in English.
- Empty Shell: Zombunny is a zombie rabbit who does nothing but stand there silently.
- Enemy Mine: Dr. Zitbag and Officer Deadbeat reluctantly work together to drive out the American tourists the Cheeseburgers in "Do You Believe in Humans?"
- Expository Theme Tune: More like an Advertising Theme Tune really. The theme song could very well be an in-universe jingle for the titular pet shop.
- Fake-Out Opening: "Double Trouble" starts with Zitbag about to marry the Exorsisters when the minister makes him choose one of them, at which point he wakes up from his daydream.
- Fan Disservice: In "From Transylvania with Love", Zitbag performing a striptease to seduce Natasha (which works).
- Flashback: Zitbag has a flashback machine, which he uses to reveal his past with Professor Sherman Vermin in "Ants in Your Pants".
- Fountain of Youth: Dr. Zitbag de-ages himself into adolescence in "I Was a Teenage Zitbag" to try and prove he's cool to Officer Deadbeat's son Damian and the Exorsisters' nieces Listeria and Salmonella.
- Glad I Thought of It: In "Food Glorious Pet Food", Horrifido comes up with the idea that they can solve the problem of Zitbag's pet food being confiscated by Officer Deadbeat by buying pet food at the grocery store. Zitbag claims the idea as his own after Horrifido tells it to him.
- Godiva Hair: "Pirate Parrots" has a scene where Zitbag encounters two topless sirens who have their breasts covered up by their hair.
- Halloween Town / Überwald: Transylvania is portrayed as this.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": "Double Trouble" reveals Sinista and Bimbella's last name is actually Exorsister.
- Hollywood Mirage: In "Dances the Hula", Zitbag and Horrifido end up stranded in the desert. Zitbag ends up hallucinating that the Exorsisters are there and dancing with while wearing leis.
- Hope Spot: At the end of "Time is Big Money" Zitbag successfully frames Professor Vermin for stealing the money, but is then suddenly arrested by time police for his messing with time throughout the episode.
- Hulk Speak: In "A Giant Problem", the giant Bobo refers to himself in third person and doesn't use complete sentences.
- Human Popsicle: In "For Better or For Curse", Dr. Zitbag thaws out a frozen ancestor of his who was a knight errant.
- Humiliation Conga: Zitbag usually faces one in the end of each episode.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Horrifido and surprisingly, Zombunny.
- Hypocritical Humor: In the first episode, "Welcome to the Transylvania Pet Shop", Dr. Zitbag claims that he can't be crazy because crazy people talk to themselves. Thing is he was talking to himself when he made that statement.
- Identical Grandson: The episode "Medieval Dread" has Zitbag sent back in time to medieval times, where he finds medieval ancestors of himself, Horrifido, Officer Deadbeat, the Exorsisters, Professor Sherman Vermin, and Fingers Malone.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: The Exorsisters Sinista and Bimbella are told apart by having the streaks in their hair colored purple and white respectively.
- Jackass Genie: "Halloween Horse Race" has Dr. Zitbag earn the ire of a genie after accidentally breaking his magic lamp. The genie causes Zitbag's rival Professor Sherman Vermin to gain Zitbag's horse Nightmare after Zitbag remarks that he bets his rival wished he had a horse like Nightmare as his first act of payback. After imprisoning the genie in a teapot for a while, the episode ends with Zitbag being screwed over by the genie a second time when he's turned into part of a roundabout.
- Jerkass: Zitbag can be one. For example, he offered customers a half-price voucher after doubling the prices first.
- Lame Rhyme Dodge: Occurs in "Son of Zitbag" when Horrifido hopes that Zitbag's concoction prepared to make him a son will work without puppy dog tails. When Zitbag overhears his comment, Horrifido claims that he said he hoped the concoction worked with the nicely done snails.
- Large Ham: Zitbag, definitely.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Officer Deadbeat often gets his just deserts for trying to humiliate Zitbag or use underhanded methods to put his pet shop out of business.
- In the first episode "Welcome to the Transylvania Pet Shop", he tries to get the pet shop shut down by exploiting a rule saying that Zitbag will have to close the place down if he can't make a scary pet by midnight, confident that Zitbag can't do anything to make Zombunny scary. In the end, Zitbag manages to make Zombunny cute and cuddly, which Deadbeat actually finds scary, and the episode ends with the cuddlified Zombunny chasing the horrified Deadbeat.
- Officer Deadbeat finds Dr. Zitbag fearing for his life against a hungry Frankenkitty in "Bungle in the Jungle", which makes him come to the conclusion that Zitbag is terrified of cats and starts telling his discovery to everyone. Zitbag manages to disprove the claim of him being afraid of cats after befriending a Transylvanian tiger he encountered on a journey to find a Transylvanian tiger tooth he needed to fix the Exorsisters' family heirloom can opener, and Deadbeat ends up frightened and chased away by Frankenkitty and the Transylvanian tiger.
- "Ants in Your Pants" has Dr. Zitbag's business put in jeopardy when his rival Professor Sherman Vermin sets up shop. Zitbag later finds out that Deadbeat put Vermin up to this so that he'd have the castle once Zitbag closed his pet shop, so he gets even with Deadbeat and Vermin by leaving them at the mercy of a bunch of vampire rats.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Very few of the later episodes have anything to do with pets or running a pet shop.
- Line-of-Sight Alias: In "Grime Doesn't Pay", the criminal Fingers Malone is phoned by Dr. Zitbag and mistaken for a cleaning service. After hearing that Zitbag has many valuables at his place, Fingers Malone gets the idea to impersonate a cleaning lady to rob Zitbag. Zitbag asks which cleaning lady will be sent to his place and Fingers Malone replies by looking at the ground and saying "Mrs. Turfhead" before removing a piece of the turf to wear on his head as a disguise.
- Long John Shout-Out: One of the villains was a pirate named Short John Silver, whose name is a clear reference to Long John Silver from Treasure Island.
- Look Behind You: In "Where Mouse", Officer Deadbeat cuts in line by lying to the yeti in front of him that there's a lady yeti waving at him, remarking how stupid the yeti was for falling for the old "look behind you" trick. His action ends up coming back to bite him in the ass when Zitbag asks Deadbeat if his wife is waving behind him and Deadbeat finds himself about to get beat up by the yeti for calling him stupid.
- Losing Your Head: Deadbeat has no neck, so his head is always floating above his shoulders.
- Meat-O-Vision: In "Dances the Hula", Dr. Zitbag hallucinates that Horrifido is a pumpkin while starving in the desert.
- Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: Sometimes the Exorsisters will drop Zitbag for pretty fickle reasons. In "Horrorlection Fever" Bimbella dumps him because he lost the election by only one vote.
- Mistaken for Murderer: In "Bride of Horrifido" when Zitbag accidentally blows up the castle and Horrifido disappears, Zitbag is suspected of killing him.
- Monster Mash: All the characters are monsters, with the main characters Dr. Zitbag, Horrifido, Officer Deadbeat, and the Exorsisters being a Mad Scientist, a skeleton dog, a demon with a disembodied head, and a pair of vampire twins.
- Multiple Head Case: In "Easter Funny", Officer Deadbeat works with a two-headed rookie cop. One head is peaceful and mellow, the other is aggressive and angry, and neither of them get along very well.
- Mundane Utility: In "Double Trouble" the Exorsisters make Zitbag choose between them, so he clones himself just so he won't have to.
- My Beloved Smother: As shown in "Double Trouble", Dr. Zitbag's mother is a bit overprotective and demanding.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "Ants in Your Pants", Dr. Zitbag unleashes a swarm of termite ants to scare his rival Professor Sherman Vermin, only for those ants to then start destroying Transylvania.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Despite the fact that barely any of the characters are technically human, Horrifido and Zombunny fill this role.
- Noodle Incident: In "Happy Mishmash" Officer Deadbeat introduces his new son, Damian 2. Whatever happened to Damian 1 is never explained.
- Number of the Beast:
- In the episode "Grime Doesn't Pay", the criminal Fingers Malone is at one point referred to as Prisoner 666.
- In "Kangaroo Caught", Dr. Zitbag finds that he has the winning lottery ticket as Number 666. Unfortunately, it wasn't a cash prize.
- Only Sane Man: Horrifido tends to have more common sense than Zitbag.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Horrifido starts out as a ghost (a pair of floating eyes) before Zitbag finds his bones. There are ghosts around Transylvania, which are almost all floating bedsheets.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Exorsisters are vampires, but can go out in sunlight and seem to have tentacles for feet.
- Outlaw Couple: "Happy Mishmash" features married criminals Babyface and Lily Vavaoom trying to ruin Mishmash by stealing all the presents Zitbag has to deliver.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": In "Time is Big Money" the combination to the Exorsisters' safe is 1 right, 2 right and 3 right.
- Pirate: Recurring characters Short John Sliver and his parrot.
- Polar Opposite Twins: The Exorsisters: Bimbella is sweet, while Sinista is grumpy.
- Politicians Kiss Babies: "Horrlection Fever" has one of Zitbag's clones kiss a baby to try and convince the denizens of Transylvania to vote for him in the mayoral election. Comically, the baby starts beating up the Zitbag clone afterwards.
- Punny Name: The Exorsisters, Horrifido... there are a lot of characters with names that are puns.
- Rhymes on a Dime: In "Bluebald", the witch's nephew Prince Alarming has a habit of speaking in rhyme.
- Robotic Reveal: In "Word of Horror", Zitbag's lawyer Pustule is revealed to be a robot when he's reduced to pieces after the Exorsisters beat him up.
- The Rival: Professor Sherman Vermin is the biggest rival to Zitbag, both in science and for the Exorsisters' affections.
- Series Continuity Error: In the first episode, Zitbag meets the Exorsisters and Officer Deadbeat for the first time when he moves in, but according to "Forever Fiends" he went to school with them and he and Deadbeat had known each other since they were infants.
- Sexophone: The Exorsisters' Leitmotif is a saxophone piece.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In "Bungle in the Jungle", Dr. Zitbag goes on a quest to replace the Transylvanian tiger tooth that was used to make the Exorsisters' family heirloom can opener after accidentally breaking it. After he manages to get the replacement tooth and fix the can opener, he ends up breaking it again right when he's about to return it to the Exorsisters.
- Shout-Out:
- In "Every Dog Has His Show", Dr. Zitbag says "Here's Sidney" in the exact same tone Jack Torrance said "Here's Johnny" in The Shining when he prepares to cut the hair of Deadbeat's dog Dreadlock.
- In "Computer Bugged", the pirated game Zitbag wants to play is called Chronic the Warthog.
- In "Do You Believe in Humans?", Dr. Zitbag tries to make a lot of money in merchandise by creating a quartet of green-skinned beings called the Adolescent Aardvarks from Jupiter. They're clear pastiches of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, plus the name might be a partial reference to Biker Mice from Mars.
- "Tele-Zitportation" has Zombunny get fused with a fly because of a teleportation experiment, a clear reference to The Fly (1958).
- Sinister Schnoz: Both Zitbag and Deadbeat are unpleasant people with long pointed noses.
- Smug Snake: Deadbeat. Zitbag is hardly any better.
- Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Officer Deadbeat's son Damian went from an infant to a prepubescent between "Happy Horridays" and "Son of Zitbag". Both he and the Exorsisters' nieces Listeria and Salmonella appear as adolescents in "I Was a Teenage Zitbag" in spite of being children in their earlier appearances.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: In "Slime Suspect", the Reservoir Frogs croak during parts of their sentences where a swear word would most likely go.
- Temporary Bulk Change: In "Terror in Transylvania" Zombunny and the Exorsisters become hugely muscular after Zitbag's slimming formula goes wrong.
- The Antichrist: Parodied with Satin in "Terror in Transylvania", who is an embodiment of good whose benign ways terrify the monster citizens of Transylvania.
- The Talk: In "Son of Zitbag", it turns out Dr. Sidney Zitbag doesn't know where babies come from, so he consults Zombunny and his wife Mrs. Zombunny on the basis that they have a lot of children of their own and would therefore know where babies come from. All they do when asked by Zitbag where babies come from is stand there silently while more undead rabbit babies appear out of nowhere.
- They Called Me Mad!: Zitbag often says this during his experiments.
- This Is My Side: In "Horrorlection Fever" the Exorsisters cut their house and all their belongings, including their phone, in half because they're divided over who should win the mayoral election.
- Trapped in TV Land: "Telenightmare" had one of Zitbag's inventions beam Zitbag, Horrifido, and Officer Deadbeat into television, resulting in the three chasing each other through different television shows.
- Twin Threesome Fantasy: Dr. Zitbag wishes to court both of the Exorsisters.
- Tyop on the Cover: "Cranksgiving Chaos" is spelled "Cranskgiving Chaos" on the title card.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Zitbag, so very much.
- Vegetarian Vampire: The Exorsisters, usually. They state in "For Better or For Curse" that they are vegetarians because they don't like feeding on blood, but they were shown eating cooked meat in "Terror in Transylvania".
- Verbal Tic: The Exorsisters pronounce Zitbag's first name as "Sid-a-ney".
- Visual Pun: Dr. Zitbag's mother is wrapped in bandages, a play on "mummy" both referring to a preserved Egyptian corpse wrapped in gauze and a colloquial term British people use to refer to their mothers.
- Would Hit a Girl: In "Zlotys Galore" Zitbag bonks a siren hard on the head after she insults him.
- You Mean "Xmas": They celebrate "Mishmash" instead of Christmas.
- Your Size May Vary: The Exorsisters' breast size is inconsistent.
