Four Eyes! (known as Quat' Zieux in French) is a 2005 animated series created by Darryl Kluskowski. It is a co-production between Porchlight Entertainment, Inc. Los Angeles, CA and Pictor Media, SA, France. It is known to have aired on Nickelodeon in Southeast Asia and CITV in the UK. While the show never broadcast on TV in the states, it was hosted on the now-defunct KidMango site.
The series centers around an alien girl called Emma, who is sent to Earth by her parents to repeat the fifth grade. The name of the show is also taken from the fact that the true alien form of the protagonist is literally having four eyes and coincidentally, the glasses she uses in order to morph herself into the shape of a human being is through a pair of glasses and the notorious twin antagonists call her by that name. Thinking of herself as a far superior life form, she has to bear the hard days of her life on Earth and try as hard as she can to assimilate into the masses, lest she is revealed and, well, you know.
The following tropes include:
- Abusive Alien Parents: Emma's parents. They did send her to Earth but that's only their genuinely evil act. They mean well, it seems but they poke fun of her situation every now and then.
- Alien Among Us: The show is about an 11-year alien girl from the planet Albacore 7 who is sent to a boarding school on Earth by her parents for flunking the fifth grade. She keeps her true identity secret from the humans using a device shaped like glasses to turn herself into a human girl.
- Alien Animals: Emma states that frogs are originally from Albacore 7 and because of this, she can communicate with them.
- An Alien Named "Bob": The main protagonist of the series is an alien named Emma.
- Aliens Speaking English: Emma and even Emma's alien parents have no issue speaking with the Earthling characters.
- Arc Words: "I hate this planet(!)", as uttered a few times by Emma.
- Comic Trio: Emma, Skyler and Pete could count as a mild example. Whenever Emma gets herself into some sort of jam (usually, that might expose her alien identity), chances are her two friends have to intervene and/or help her, which results to rather unneeded complications if things should go wrong.
- Dean Bitterman: Averted with Headmaster Payne, who is an easy-going, good-natured man and he prefers not to punish his students unless necessary, and often tries to "connect" with his young charges.
- Disproportionate Retribution: It can be safely assumed that she must have done something very stupid to get her to repeat the fifth grade, but what's with the sending her to another planet?
- Double-Meaning Title: The title refers to both the fact that Emma has four eyes as an alien and the fact that she wears glasses to maintain her human disguise.
- Dropped Glasses: Because the glasses maintains her human disguise, Emma has to work extra hard to avert this trope in case she's forcibly outed as an alien.
- Fallen Princess: The premise implies that Emma is actually quite popular and attractive back in her planet. On Earth however, it's the complete opposite as her human disguise makes her look like a total geek.
- Free-Range Children: Fifth graders who may not be older than 10 or 12. Justified since the setting is in a boarding school and the students can go wherever they please. Particularly for the three characters who get into rather dangerous situations at times.
- Full-Body Disguise: Emma's glasses can turn her into a human in a blink of an eye.
- The Glasses Come Off: In one episode when her human disguise malfunctioned and can't go back to her original form. Because of this, she is seen for the first time without glasses. She eventually goes back to normal after overdosing on dairy products and is wearing glasses once again.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Literally for Emma, except for the green-eyed part. In one episode, Redgar (her crush from an opposing school) showed interest in a girl from his own school, causing Emma to become extremely jealous which caused her to turn into a demonic monster, far from her alien appearance.
- Idol Singer: Mindy, a purple-haired pop princess whom Emma takes a shine to after hearing a song on the radio that specifically talks about hating milkshake and being "alone on Earth," which resonated with the extraterrestrial Emma. Due to not knowing the concept of industry-backed singers, Emma takes the song literally, and obsesses over her to the point that she nearly blows her cover just to prove they are supposedly cut from the same cloth.
- Jerkass:
- The Billingsford twins, Alexis and Roland, are petty bullies to Emma and sometimes her friends.
- Emma at her worst, especially when she ignores her friends' advice.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Emma can be rather snarky, but is mostly good.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: In the episode "Mother's Day," Emma's mother reveals that Emma has a new 278th little brother, and that's only counting the younger brothers instead of a general number of siblings, be it elder or female.
- Nerd Glasses: Emma and her friends all wear glasses, and are considered geeks among the class.
- Secret-Keeper: Keepers plural. Skyler and Pete are the only human friends she's ever trusted her alien identity to.
- Shaped Like Itself: Emma having four eyes, as an alien.
- Ship Tease: One episode have Skyler turned into a frog and Emma turns him back to normal a la The Frog Prince. Pete quietly fawns over the potential of the couple.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: The Billingsford twins, Alexis and Roland.
- Skyward Scream: At the end of the show's intro when she screamed the arc words into the sky as the Earth zooms out. It happens to be in an episode as well.
- Surrounded by Idiots: In Emma's opinion, at least. She thinks humans are an underdeveloped species.
- They Would Cut You Up: Emma has this specific fear if she is ever revealed as an alien among humans.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cheeseless pizza for Emma.
- Two Guys and a Girl: The starring trio, Emma (girl), Pete and Skyler (two boys), though in this case, the girl is the main character.
- Two-Teacher School: The staff seen so far have been the headmaster, Emma's teacher Miss Dowager, and Coach Stebbins.
- Weaksauce Weakness:
- Emma can be dubbed as "lactose intolerant" but her reaction to everything dairy would put her hidden alien status at stake as this shorts out her disguise.
- Then there's her not having to take off her glasses or else. Though it's shown she doesn't really mind them that much, she fears having someone bump her so hard, it flies off.
