Western Animation / Green Eggs and Ham (2019)

aka: Green Eggs And Ham

Sam-I-Am: You don't like green eggs and ham?
Guy-Am-I: No, I do not like them, Sam-I-Am! I do not like green eggs and ham.
Sam-I-Am: Understood. Question asked and answered. No further queries necessary. (clicks tongue thoughtfully) Have you ever tried them before?
Guy-Am-I: No.
Sam-I-Am: Weeeelllll, how can you be so sure you don't like 'em if you've never actually eaten them?
Guy-Am-I: Well, I've never eaten walvark droppings, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't enjoy those, either.

Green Eggs and Ham is an animated series for Netflix loosely based on the Dr. Seuss book of the same name. It was created by Jared Stern for Warner Bros. Animation and produced by Ellen DeGeneres. It is the third TV series based on Dr. Seuss's work and the first to be based solely on a particular book.^note The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss adapted characters and settings from his entire body of work for new stories, while The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! stars the characters from The Cat in the Hat, but isn't an adaptation of the book itself.

The series follows friendly, optimistic Sam-I-Am (voiced by Adam Devine) and dour failed inventor Guy-Am-I (a.k.a. the unnamed second character from the book, voiced by Michael Douglas) as they journey to the city of Meepville to return a rare Chickeraffe to its natural habitat before it's sold to wealthy animal collector Snerz (voiced by Eddie Izzard). Along the way, they're occasionally joined by their distaff counterparts, safety-obsessed Michellee (voiced by Diane Keaton) and her adventurous daughter E.B. (voiced by Ilana Glazer), and followed by two dangerous-looking characters called The B.A.D.G.U.Y.S., veteran animal hunter McWinkle and his rookie sidekick Gluntz (voiced by Jeffrey Wright and Jillian Bell, respectively), attempting to capture the animal themselves.

Their adventure takes them to many different places, including in a car, on a train, on a boat, in the rain, with a fox, in a box, in a house, with a mouse... all the while, Sam is trying to get Guy to try new things, including his Trademark Favorite Food.

The first season at 13 episodes premiered November 8, 2019. A ten-episode second season, with the subtitle The Second Serving, premiered April 8, 2022. The Second Serving takes the form of a spy thriller amidst the backdrop of The Butter Battle Book.

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Green Eggs and Ham provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: CGI is used for the panning background shots and many of the vehicles.
• Actionized Adaptation:
  • The series features the characters in greater peril than in their home book, complete with a dangerous climactic battle between the heroes and villains.
  • The second season, loosely based on The Butter Battle Book, ups the action by turning the story into a spy thriller, with a climax where the heroes have to stop a pair of weapons of mass destruction.
• Actionized Sequel: Season 1 was already an Actionized Adaptation, but it was ultimately more of a roadtrip buddy comedy with some peril here and there. Season 2, while still absolutely lighthearted and comedic in its tone, is more or less a kid-friendly spy thriller with multiple action scenes and a plot about two warring countries that end up launching nuclear warheads at each other.
• Actor Allusion: Broadway star Daveed Diggs, best known for playing Marquis de La Fayette in Hamilton, plays another character who's a revolutionary with a French accent who sings a song which parodies a Broadway show about French revolution in "Mouse."
  • In "Rain", the mudslide scene is a nod to Romancing the Stone, which starred Guy's voice actor, Michael Douglas.
  • This isn't the first time Eddie Izzard's voiced a rich guy who wants to add a rare animal to his collection.
• Adapted Out:
  • The two animals Sam rides in the beginning of the book and TV special are absent in this series.
  • Season 2 does not include any of the characters from The Butter Battle Book despite being an adaption of it. The young Yook, his grandfather, and the Chief Yookaroo don't appear, and neither does Van Itch.
  • Despite being the ultimate weapon in The Butter Battle Book and its substance the Moo-Lacka-Moo playing a crucial role, the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo doesn't make an appearance in The Second Serving. Instead, the Moo-Lacka-Moo is used as a component for explosive rockets.
• Adaptational Alternate Ending: Season 2 is this to The Butter Battle Book. Said book famously and poignantly has No Ending, with the heavy implication that what amounts to nuclear annihilation will wipe out both sides. Here, the weapons are in fact fired, but they are contained and the two nations resolve their differences.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • The fox from the book is given both a name (Michael) and a potent cocktail of neuroses as he attempts to woo an aloof hen at the farm he works at who looks down on him for eating eggs. His efforts to deprive himself of his favorite food have caused him to become unstable and violent. Mentioning eggs or even the name of his would-be girlfriend is enough to cause him to go on a rampage.
  • Sam as well. It turns out that he's a Sad Clown underneath his beaming smile and his love of Green Eggs and Ham is the one thing that connects him to his long-lost mother.
  • Even the mouse is also given an angsty backstory, where he was jailed for stealing cheese to feed his family.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Guy-Am-I has orange fur and a brown hat, as opposed to in the book where he had beige fur and a purple hat.
• Adaptation Expansion: From a book about learning to eat new things only using 50 words to a "postmodern Planes, Trains and Automobiles" about two mismatched heroes taking a road trip to return a rare creature to its natural habitat. The Second Serving turns it into a spy thriller revolving around a cold war.
• Adaptation Species Change: In The Butter Battle Book, the Yooks and Zooks were ambiguously Bird People. In The Second Serving, they are furry humanoids like the majority of the cast.
• Adaptational Badass: Sam breaks into a zoo and liberates the chickeraffe Mission: Impossible style.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Guy is shown to be quite the mechanic in the series.
• Adaptational Villainy
  • Downplayed with Sam-I-Am. In the book, he's, at worst, a friendly-if-pesky little guy trying to get his nameless companion to try new things. Here, he's even friendlier and only slightly less of a pest... and also an animal-smuggling scam artist with a long rap sheet who steals a rare animal from the zoo not to return it to its natural habitat but to sell it to a wealthy collector. Thankfully, his adventures and friendship with Jenkins and Guy turn him around in the end and convince him to actually get Mr. Jenkins to the wild.
  • The goat in the book is hardly a character at all, just one of the many things Sam wants the other character to eat Green Eggs and Ham with. Here, he's a literal bounty hunter.
• Aerith and Bob: Contrast Sam and Guy's fairly normal names to the typically outlandish ones of the other cast members. Michellee (not Michelle) and EB (short for Elanabeth) exist somewhere in the wide gulf between those extremes.
• Affably Evil: "Evil" may be a stretch, but even though this version of Sam-I-Am is a scam artist and an animal smuggler, his friendly attitude towards Guy and everyone is genuine and clearly doesn't want to do what he's doing. He later pulls a Heel–Face Turn, becoming a Nice Guy.
• Ambiguously Gay: Sometimes, it appears that Sam shows some signs of having a small crush on Guy, as he's constantly complimenting him and calling him by sweet nicknames, being comfortable of touching and being touched by him and even having a miniature doll of Guy in his backpack which he quickly kisses in the cheek before hiding it away from Guy himself. This was motivated even further by Netflix itself as an ad for the series compare them both to Ross and Rachel, from Friends, and then adds a subtitle besides Sam during the scene where Guy motivates Sam to keep looking for his mother saying "kiss me u fool". In Season 2, Sam is shown to find Looka attractive.
• Ambiguous Time Period: See Retraux.
• And the Adventure Continues: By way of The End... Or Is It?. It looks like Sam and Guy are finally ready to put their whole crazy adventure behind them and enjoy some Green Eggs and Ham together... but wait! Sam recognizes the particular eggs he's eating as the kind his estranged mother used to make for him, and the two head off to the farm in East Flubria where they were bought to find answers.
• Animal Stampede: In "The Second Serving", Pam makes Sam, Guy and E.B. ride a herd of stampeding camel-antelope creatures to cross a desert.
• Animal Talk: Only the viewer can hear the mouse, who Sam names Squeaky, talking, while other characters can hear him squeaking.
• Animation Bump: While the character animation is largely consistent, 13 episodes is an awful lot to keep up a certain level of fluidity and detail. As such, certain scenes are noticeably more fluid or limited than others.
• Anti-Climactic Parent: Even after starting to warm up to Sam, Guy is adamant about not staying with his parents (even when they have nowhere else to go), giving the impression that they're hyper-critical. When they do turn up, the whole family is welcoming and supportive of both Guy and Sam. It turns out that Guy is projecting his own insecurities onto his parents' view of him (they're all highly successful, whereas literally everything he invents blows up).
• Arc Number: The number 17 shows up or is mentioned many times during Season 1, usually as abnormal departure times for transport schedules. The Mouse is finally ready to execute his escape plan "after 17 years of careful preparation", Guy's hotel room number is 17, Mr. Jenkins breaks 17 rare and priceless vases and there are 17 Chickeraffes left in the world. The digits get flipped in "Anywhere" for Platform 71.
• Bait-and-Switch: One of the most important lessons of the series is that people and things are not what they appear to be.
  • BAD GUYS are here to chase after Sam and Guy... because Sam is the actual villain, not them. It turns out they're wildlife conservationists (with BAD GUYS being an elaborate acronym) who were hired to track down Sam, a serial scam artist and animal smuggler.
  • The penultimate episode ends with E.B. seeing Sam selling Mr. Jenkins to Snerz...the next episode reveals that it's actually a Girooster painted to look like Mr. Jenkins.
  • The way Guy talks about his family and how they'll react to his failure makes them sound like they put too much pressure on him and are emotionally abusive. It turns out that they have nothing but love and support for him, but he feels inferior compared to how much they've all achieved.
  • The end of the season has Sam tasting the eggs in his Green Eggs and Ham and realizes they taste like his mom's...cue him entering the kitchen to find a male chef. However, the chef reveals that the eggs are from "Ma's Farmhouse' in East Flubria so that gives Sam hope that his mom is still out there.
• Balloon Belly: Gluntz attempts to take on the Hamageddon, a massive meal comprised of a tower of green eggs, ham and toast, at a diner. She's later seen nursing a bloated stomach after only completing half of it.
• Becoming the Mask: Sam was the true villain the entire time, wanting to turn Mr. Jenkins in as he's actually an animal-smuggling scam artist. But his time on the run with Guy made him switch sides in the end.
• Big Bad: Snerz, whose desire for the Chickeraffe kick-starts the entire plot of Season 1.
• Big Damn Kiss: Between Guy and Michellee at the end of the season.
• Big Eater: Sam. While his book counterpart was peddling the same Green Eggs & Ham meal for the whole book, this Sam gobbles down entire platters in seconds and would do so three or more times a day if given the opportunity. This actually bites him later, because McWinkle noticing his consumption of the meal is what makes him try to figure out which places serve this dish so he can figure out where Sam's heading up to next.
• Book Ends: Sam and Guy meet over Green Eggs and Ham and the season ends with them about to eat some together.
• Brains and Brawn: Guy's the mechanic and Sam seems to be the upfront socializer. Or as Sam states, "You're the brains. I'm the other brains."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: When McWinkle shows photos of Sam eating the Hamaggeddon in "House", Gluntz simply states that it's Sam eating his favorite food, listing three specific instances, and says that she figured that out "three episodes ago".
• Broken Pedestal: Guy is shocked to learn that Sam's boss Snerz - Guy's wannabe boss from the beginning - put him up to kidnapping the Chickeraffe to deliver directly to him.
• Bungling Inventor: Guy has inventions that always explode no matter what he does.
• Canon Foreigner: Only Sam, Guy, the mouse, the goat and the fox appeared in the book. Every other character was invented for the show.
  • Although, Michellee and E.B. could have been based on the mother and her child who were seen riding the train in the book.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Parodied. The BAD GUYS's business card is literally just the words "BAD GUYS"... on the front, but it turns out to be a Nonindicative Name once one actually flips the card around. It's actually an acronym for Bureau of Animal Defense, Glurfsberg, Upper Yipville Section. They're Good All Along.
• Cartoon Creature: The majority of the cast are humanoids covered in fuzzy fur that are a Dr. Seuss staple. Some of them have floppy, dog-like ears while others lack any visible earlobes, and some of them go around naked while others wear at least one of two pieces of clothing, though they're occasionally referred to as humans.
• Central Theme: Do not take things at face-value, ranging from Michellee and her thinking that Mr. Jenkins the Chickeraffe is dangerous to the audience knowing the truth about Sam and BAD GUYS. The extended lyrics to the show's opening "Backflip" adds onto it: "But take any advice with a grain of salt" which reflects that you shouldn't 100% believe everything you see/hear.
  • Mothers and good motherhood also feature as a theme in the show, from Michellee's overprotectiveness keeping her from being "fun", to Karen Am-I's genuine love and encouragement of her son Guy, to Sam's Missing Mom leaving him in an orphanage, to Snerz's mother letting his pet Flemur go and putting the blame on herself to protect his feelings.
  • The original's story central theme of "don't diss food until you try it" is notably brought into their adaptation of The Butter Battle Book, where the conflict between the two nations is solved by making the leaders try a full butter sandwich, their reactions even parallel to Guy's.
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • Guy's grouchiness is shown to be justified in every scene he's in. He's first introduced when he steps in a puddle and somehow sinks up to his waist. He's been trying to get his inventions onto the market for who-knows-how-long and on his most recent pitch, the device blows up in his face. Then his hat gets bent.
  • Sam's love of Green Eggs and Ham? It's his only memory of his mother, who made it for him once before putting him in an orphanage, and he's been eating it nonstop everywhere he goes in the hopes that he'll recognize the way she made it and reunite with her.
• Chained Heat: In preparation for their trip, Michellee gets EB and herself "friendship bracelets." These accessories are more like handcuffs that magnetically latch on to each other with a press of the button so her daughter can't get too far away from her. In Season 2 Michellee and Guy's wedding rings do the same thing.
• Cheerful Child: E.B. is a sweet and innocent girl with a huge imagination.
• Chekhov's Gun: Over half-a-dozen.
  • Sam and Guy's matching briefcases. They accidentally take one another's briefcases near the end of Episode 1. It actually saves Sam's skin as the BAD GUYS were hot on his trail.
  • Sam's Wildlife Protection Agent badge. It's to signify his role as such is a complete lie.
  • Guy's failed flight pack. He uses its side-effect of exploding to defeat the Goat in the final episode.
  • The Stovepipe newspaper Sam reads during his origin story.
  • Michellee's jar of beans. She spills them on the ground so that the Girooster can distract Snerz and the BAD GUYS while she, Guy, and E.B. run off to catch up to Sam.
  • Michellee and EB's "friendship bracelets." They attach one of them to Snerz's wrist, and throw the other to the top of the hot air balloon airport tower to incapacitate him.
  • The BAD GUYS calling card. It's to signify that BAD GUYS is actually an acronym for "Bureau of Animal Defense — Glurfsburg Upper Yipville Section.
  • The Giroosters' uncanny resemblance to Mr. Jenkins. Sam uses this to trick Snerz when it looks like he really was selling Mr. Jenkins to the latter.
  • Snerz's living wig. It's Snerz's dirty secret, and once exposed, it turns him into a bald laughingstock, and it's later revealed that the wig, named a Flerz, takes over Snerz's entire corporation.
  • In the climax of "The Second Serving", the Goo-Lacka-Goo is used to contain the explosion from the Moo-Lacka-Moo rocket.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Yooks tend to have cold colours (green, blue, purple) in their fur and clothing, whereas Zooks typically have warm colours (red, orange, yellow). However this is not universal; Philip Trouser, for example, works for Zookia but is almost entirely blue.
• Cool Train: Sam and Guy ride on one of these on their journey. Perplexingly, it has a "Model Train Car" which contains a scaled down model of the actual train that reflects exactly what's happening on and inside of it, which creeps Guy out when he takes a look at it.
• Crapsaccharine World: It's the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss full of quirkily bloodthirsty beasts, dangerously whimsical architecture, charmingly stupid or mischievous citizenry, warring nations on the brink of nuclear holocaust, and an almost Kafka-esque fixation on inane trivium.
• Cut Apart: Scene cutting tricks are used to connect the BAD GUYS to Snerz. Every time they mention the "Big Man", the scene cuts to Snerz, acting as if in response to their progress. In fact, there is no connection and their boss's name is literally "Captain Walter Bigman".
  • Done again in the second season: it looks like Pam is infiltrating the Yookia castle to stop Sam from stealing the Moo-Lacka-Moo, especially since she was hired specifically to eliminate Sam, but she actually went to the Zookia castle to stop their weapons. A spy does show up to attempt to stop Sam, but it's actually Pam's rival, Philip Trousers.
• Da Chief: Captain Walter Bigman.
• Darker and Edgier: From a book where the main conflict was an annoying little guy trying to get a bigger guy to eat an unappetizing-looking dish to a sprawling chase story full of bonafide danger and mortal peril where one of the main characters is a Villain Protagonist.
• Did Not See That Coming: Exactly what the Narrator says the moment it's revealed that Sam is actually the one working for Snerz and bringing Mr. Jenkins to him.
• Disappeared Dad: Michellee is a widow which presumably is why she's so worried about her daughter's safety. Confirmed in "There" when Michellee mentioned how her husband died when E.B. was little. Snerz's father isn't mentioned at all, let alone featured, and Sam's father is barely mentioned. In fact, Guy is the only character who is shown to have a father.
• Distaff Counterpart: E.B. and Michellee are this to Sam and Guy, respectively, in terms of both personality and size.
• The Ditz: Gluntz. If there is any way she can Comically Miss The Point, she will.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Parodied. At the end of the second season, Gluntz claims that the war between the Yooks and the Zooks over toast-buttering was started by a herd of cows who expected butter prices to rise due to the conflict. The show keeps it ambiguous whether she's right or wrong.
• Dolled-Up Installment: The second season is an adaptation of an unrelated Seuss book titled The Butter Battle Book.
• The Dragon:
  • Gluntz for McWinkle. Except they're actually the good guys.
  • Goat for Snerz.
  • Sam I Am for Snerz as well; he wasn't trying to return the Chickeraffe home, he was trying to sell it to Snerz!
• Dragon Their Feet: After Snerz is defeated and Mr. Jenkins is on the cold-air balloon on his way home, the balloon's pilot is revealed to be the Goat who makes one last attempt to kidnap Mr. Jenkins.
• Dramatic Drop: Just as Guy and Sam dine on Green Eggs and Ham at the end of the season, Sam drops his fork in alarm because the eggs taste similar to ones his mother made.
• The Dreaded: The Goat. He’s so notorious that even Sam-I-Am shows fear of him!
• Droste Image: The Model Train Car on the train has a model of the train itself that replicates everything that happens on it. At one point, Guy looks through one of the train car's windows to see the backside of himself looking at a model train. The little Guy even mimics everything the big Guy is doing.
• Dub Name Change: In the Brazilian dub, Sam-I-Am is renamed "Romeu-Sou-Eu" (Romeo-Am-I )and Guy-Am-I is renamed "João-Sei-Não" (John-I-Don't-Know). Also, Dominic from "Box" is renamed "Álvaro".
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The end of season 2. The butter battle is stopped and Yookia and Zookia reunite as Ookia, Guy gets to settle back down with his family, E.B. and Looka continue their relationship long distance, and Sam and his mother get to cook green eggs and ham for each other all the time. And Pam even finds a way with some Goo-Lacka-Goo to finally stop Guy's inventions from exploding.
• Easily Forgiven: Averted. Finding out late in the game that the person trying to be best friends with you is a scam artist would break anyone's trust, and Guy is not ready to forget it when Sam comes to break him out of the police precinct. Sam is also genuinely offended by Guy implying that Sam's mother abandoning him is proof that he doesn't belong anywhere and is not at all excited to see him when they reunite before the climax.
• The End... Or Is It?: The narrator says this word-per-word just before Sam finally recognizes the taste of his mother's Green Eggs and Ham.
• Epic Fail:
  • Pretty much all of Guy's inventions violently explode. Even very simple ones like a device made from two chopsticks, an eggbeater, and a pair of gloves.
  • Gluntz tries to conquer a Green Eggs and Ham Mega Meal Challenge , but fails to even skim its topmost layer.
• Establishing Character Moment: Guy heading off to Snerzco in order to make his dreams come true...then he sinks half-way into a puddle. After that, he says "no" to pretty much everyone who interacts with him. Sam, in the meantime, befriends the exact same people Guy dismisses.
• Establishing Series Moment: The narrator stating — "This is Dr. Seuss, I didn’t expect a n... WHY WOULD YOU CUT THE LINE?" in the first episode which reveals how off-kilter this series will be.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas
  • Sam-I-Am. He's a con-artist and a smuggler... and on a life-long journey be reunited with the mother who abandoned him as a child.
  • Inverted with Snerz, who refuses to forgive his mother for letting his pet Flemur run away when he was six years old and hasn't spoken to her since, save a scant prank call on Mother's Day.
• Even the Dog Is Ashamed: To show that Guy had gone too far in saying that Sam isn't a fit for even his own mother, Mr. Jenkins also becomes saddened and leaves him.
• Evil All Along: "Evil" may be a stretch, but it turns out that Samuel-I-Amuel isn't as innocent as he lets on and broke Mr. Jenkins out of the zoo not to return him to his habitat, but to sell him to an evil animal collector.
• Evil Brit:
  • Snerz is voiced by British actor Eddie Izzard, and thus is portrayed with a British accent.
  • Downplayed with the Zookian spies Philip Trousers and Marilyn Blouse who aren't evil as much as they are simply fighting for the opposite side (that said, Philip was willing to let Pam die, so...), but they are still antagonists and they both have British accents, with Marilyn's being English and Philip's being Welsh.
• Evil Counterpart: McWinkle and Gluntz are basically bounty hunter versions of Guy and Sam in terms of temperament and size, but McWinkle is genuinely successful at his profession and Gluntz mostly listens to what he has to say. Subverted when they’re revealed to be Good All Along.
• Evil Duo:
  • The BAD GUYS: Grizzled, on-the-edge-of-retirement McWinkle and exuberant, rookie Gluntz, are supposedly evil. Then it’s revealed that they’re not bad guys at all, just B.A.D.G.U.Y.S.^*Bureau of Animal Defence, Glurfsburg, Upper Yipsville Section.
  • Played a bit more straight with Philip Trousers and Marilyn Blouse from The Second Serving (though Philip is often seen alone and is part of most of the conflict with the good guys). Philip is a vain and cocky but rather unintelligent and dull man who cares more about his looks and straight up admits that he often doesn't understand anything while Marilyn is more intelligent, down-to-earth and focused on their mission.
• Evil Poacher
  • McWinkle and Gluntz are following Sam to capture the Chickeraffe. Subverted. They aren't evil and they aren't poachers. They're actually wildlife protectors trying to retrieve the Chickeraffe and return it to the zoo..
  • Poaching isn't beneath a person among the likes of... The Goat.
• Exact Words:
  • When McWinkle asks one of the citizens of South Shvizelton to tell them where Guy, Sam, and the Chickeraffe went, the citizen responds by telling him that nobody in South Shvizelton gossips. Gluntz decides to drag him into North Shvizelton, a seedy neighborhood, right behind her, and he gladly tells her that one of them got locked up in prison (and that his neighbor Phyllis is lying about their fruit loaf being homemade when it's actually bought from the store).
  • Better yet, the BAD GUYS are not bad guys. BAD GUYS is just a shortened way of saying the acronym of them being animal defenders.
    • McWinkle and Glunz mention having to call someone called "the Big Man". Turns out, their boss's name is Bigman.
• Express Delivery: In season 2, Michellee reveals she's pregnant, and later gives birth over the course of three weeks.
• Expy: As the series is loosely inspired by Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Sam and Guy themselves are loosely based on Del Griffith and Neil Page, respectively. Guy, like Neil, is a standoffish businessman who lives with his loving family in a Big Fancy House and just wants to get from one place to another with no trouble. Sam, like Del, is a well meaning but somewhat annoying drifter who treats everyone he meets like his best friend and has a special connection with a woman who's no longer in his life. Humorously, their physical dynamic inverts that film's Fat and Skinny duo, with the Neil expy being the bigger of the two and the Del expy being petite.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entire journey of Guy and Sam in the first season happens over the course of less than a week.
• Fake Guest Star: Jeffrey Wright is credited as "special guest star" for every episode.
• Feathered Fiend: Giroosters, the chickeraffes' more hostile cousins. They don't eat people - but they like to chew them up and blow bubbles of them.
• Final Boss: The final obstacle standing in between the heroes' way between them and returning Mr. Jenkins home isn't Snerz himself, but the Goat.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sam and Guy slowly become friends over the course of the season, with Guy even stating that Sam is his friend in the final episode.
• Flanderization: Sam in the first season, although he could be lonely and clingy, was dangerously slick and competent. Come season two, he's an overgrown child who's seemingly incapable of reading a room, and whose antics sabotage his mother's extremely important international spy mission. Guy even calls him a kid at several points, something he never did in season one.
• Foil:
  • Guy and Sam's quest is paralleled by a cross-country trip undertaken by Michellee and EB, a mother-daughter pair whose dynamic is an inversion of the protagonists' with the former being quirkily cautious and the latter being sensibly adventurous.
  • The backgrounds for Guy and Sam are also a contrast to one another as revealed in Episode 10: Guy is a grouch but has a loving family who supports him being an inventor, while Sam is optimistic yet he was abandoned by his mother at a young age.
• Food End: "Anywhere" ends with Sam and Guy sharing the titular meal after Snerz was defeated and all is well, and Sam finally recognizes the taste of his mother's cooking in one of the eggs.
  • Season 2 ends with Sam finally getting to enjoy green eggs and ham with his mother just like before she put him in the orphanage.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The opening theme song for the series, "Backflip", pretty much hints the developments that're going to happen with Guy and Sam and nearly all the main characters.
  • The group called BAD GUYS actually get along so well compared to our main characters and never use violence on Guy and Sam. It's a possible hint that they're the good guys this entire time.
    • Speaking of, when the closed captions are turned on, you notice it's always in all caps when they're mentioned? It's a possible clue that it's an acronym that names them as anything but bad guys.
  • McWinkle and Gluntz always refer to their boss as "the Big Man". Turns out that it's not a nickname for Snerz; it's someone actually named Bigman, although he's actually really small.
  • Sam stating that Guy is "the brains" and he's the "other brains". Because Sam is a smooth-talking scam artist with people skills in comparison to Guy's technical genius.
  • Also, even though Sam is determined to get the Chickeraffe home, why is it that he doesn't seem to have any knowledge about it at all? Because he's lying; he's an animal smuggler scam artist.
    • He usually uses Guy's money in order to pay for everything, and also acquires the Goat's credit card. Again, part and parcel of being a scam artist.
  • Michellee is able to draw an accurate description of the Chickeraffe, and later on draws a spot-on portrait of her daughter in crayon. She was actually an artist before her husband passed away.
  • The fact that Guy initially mistakes the Giroosters for Chickeraffes foreshadows Sam using a Girooster to fool Snerz.
  • In "Car", after Sam discovers the Chickeraffe is missing, the episode cuts to Snerz learning that the person he hired to capture the Chickeraffe has lost it, heavily hinting that he hired Sam. In this instance, the series tries to throw the viewers off by showing the BAD GUYS getting a call from their boss right after, suggesting that they're working for Snerz.
  • In the first episode of season 2, just before Guy departs, she tells him to “be careful with her baby”, seemingly referring to E.B. As the season progresses, it turns out that she’s pregnant.
• Fountain of Youth: In "You Only Mom Twice", Sam, Pam and Philip land on an island where the deeper you go into the jungle, the younger you get, causing them to relive various phases of their life. Its only inhabitant is 267 years old but looks like a young adult because he's been living there for so long and doesn't want to leave the island because he would most likely die right away.
• French Jerk: Squeaky speaks with a French accent and he's a jaded and cynical jailbird. Turns out he's turned cynical because he was arrested for stealing cheese for his family.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: If someone in this show is reading something, especially a newspaper, chances are you can pause to read the page. Most of them are full of little jokes and Dr. Seuss references.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed with Sam. He's a popular customer at his local diner and makes friends easily with everyone he meets, but his overly-chipper (and occasionally annoying) attitude make it difficult for anyone to want to spend time with him by choice.
• Funny Photo Phrase: In "Here," a grumpy Guy walks past a cheerful family who ask him to take their photo. He angrily tells them to say, "I'm ruining your life!", which they all say back with big smiles.
• Fun with Acronyms: BAD GUYS stands for “Bureau of Animal Defense, Glurfsburg, Upper Yipville Section". The Meepville headquarters is the Bureau of Animal Defense, Meepville Environmental Network, or BADMEN.
• Furry Confusion: The fox, mouse and goat are fully sapient beings, with the former two wearing clothes. Meanwhile, the various Mix-and-Match Critters are Nearly Normal Animals who are kept in zoos and cannot talk, although at least Chickeraffes and Giroosters understand speech. Furthermore, the green eggs laid by fully sapient hens are popular food, and the green ham also has to come from somewhere...
• Good All Along: The BAD GUYS, whose name is actually an acronym for “Bureau of Animal Defense, Glurfsberg, Upper Yipville Section, and were chasing after Sam and Guy to stop Sam from selling Jenkins to Snerz. The narrator even uses this trope word-for-word to describe them. In fact, they decide to let Sam go after learning his true quest!
• Good Parents: Guy's entire extended family are nothing but encouraging in his mechanical interests and never stop encouraging his creativity in inventing. It takes Guy a while to realize that they're not just pitying him.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Neither the Yooks nor the Zooks or their leaders are evil per se, they are just both extremely bigoted toward the other and got stuck in an escalating conflict.
• Growling Gut: Two scenes in "Dark."
  • After Mr. Jenkins swallows the absurdly long tie Guy and Sam got for him, his stomach lurches wildly, followed by a bulge traveling up his throat. At first, it looks like he's going to throw up or let out a large belch in Guy's face... but it turns out to be a little "pop" sound.
  • Later, when they're stuck in the landfill pit, Sam asks a standoffish Guy if he's hungry. Guy angrily tells him no, but then his hungry, growling stomach says otherwise.
• Hash House Lingo: The waitress at Donna's Diner calls Guy's order of dry oat mush the "Sad Man's Special."
• Heel–Face Turn: Sam decides against giving Mr. Jenkins to Snerz after the adventures he had with Guy, and encouraging words from E.B.
• Here We Go Again!: Guy gives a knowing smirk as he watches Sam run out of the restaurant shouting that they're off to East Flubria on another adventure at the end of the last episode.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: At his best, Sam is a Blithe Spirit. At his worst, he's an insensitive and witless gadabout who has no respect for the feelings or wishes of others. And really, it's not exactly right to call him "heroic", given his true background.
• Hidden Depths: As part of the "don't take things at face value" theme, this is especially prominent with the characters in the first season. With the possible exception of E.B, pretty much nobody is exactly who or what they seem to be at first glance.
• Hope Spot: The end of the season has Sam thinking he's found his mother after tasting the eggs from a dish of Green Eggs and Ham...but when he enters the kitchen, we see a male chef. However, the chef reveals that he gets the eggs shipped from Ma's Farmhouse in East Flubria, giving Sam some hope that his mother is still out there.
• Humanoid Female Animal: They're all Seussian Cartoon Creatures, but their clothing, proportions and skin-tone fur make Michellee and EB look considerably more human than Sam and Guy.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: True to the book, which is the piece of media that gave name to this trope itself, Guy finally relents and eats the dish in "Anywhere", only this time it's to win back Sam's trust. Of course, he winds up enjoying it.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Every episode in the first season is only one word, and is named after an element where the meal would be eaten in the original book which otherwise refers to whatever is the subject of the plot.
  • The second season instead goes with Pun-Based Titles, with the episode titles all being plays on various different pieces of Spy Fiction, mostly but not exclusively James Bond films.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Sam shows shades of this before he goes with Guy on the road. The second episode has him give people the address to his house to hang out, but he's always met with polite "no's".
• Interactive Narrator: He can be muted, confused, and when he briefly talks to Guy in the second episode, the Narrator tells him that he's gone insane.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Sam and E.B.; in fact it's this friendship that makes Sam decide to not go sell Mr. Jenkins to Snerz.
• Ironic Name:
  • Captain Bigman is an incredibly small person. He is notably smaller than the phone he calls McWinkle and Gluntz on.
    • Speaking of which, BAD GUYS are actually the good guys. Their acronym reveals that they're from an organization that rescues animals.
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: When Michellee tells Sam she's vegan, he thinks it's an illness, complete with sympathetically asking "How long have you known?"
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In the first episode, the BAD GUYS interrogate the zookeeper by dangling him over the slapping turtle habitat. Once the zookeeper makes a confession and McWinkle tells Gluntz to drop him, she drops him into the habitat where he gets beaten up by the turtles.
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Squeaky was arrested for stealing a small crumb of cheese on the floor for his family.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Despite claiming to be an expert on wildlife, the "facts" that Sam-I-Am states over the course of the journey are blatantly inaccurate, such as how "biology isn't a science" and that goats cannot climb mountains. After the latter, Guy outright asks Sam if he really knows what he's talking about. This, of course, ends up being a hint to Sam's true nature, and these moments are even flash backed to when Guy learns the truth about him.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Gluntz is one of the few characters in any Seuss-related production who has a bonafide, solid chin.
• Last-Name Basis: McWinkle (presumably) and Gluntz go by and call each other by their last names exclusively. Same goes for their boss, Chief Bigman.
  • With the exception of his mother, everyone also calls Snerz by his last name exclusively.
• Lighter and Softer: "The Second Serving" is a loose adaptation of The Butter Battle Book, but unlike the source material, ends with the Yooks and Zooks making peace with each other after narrowly averting Mutually Assured Destruction.
• Line Boil: Occasionally happens with the animation, albeit very slightly.
• Literal Metaphor: All over the place. Michellee is a bean-counter, who worked her way up from number-cruncher and works alongside pencil-pushers. Guy's parents are a breadwinner and a homemaker, his brothers are movers and shakers, and his grandfather used to move mountains. And all of these terms are exactly what they do.
• Living MacGuffin: The Chickeraffe. Sam and Guy are constantly trying to protect him, while Snerz, the BAD GUYS, and the Goat are trying to capture him.
• Lovable Rogue: Deconstructed with the precocious Sam whose harebrained whims and reckless spending of Guy's money leave the pair broke midway through the show. Especially true when he’s revealed to be an animal-smuggling scam artist.
• Love Confession:
  • In "Anywhere", it's briefly played for comedy when E.B. tells her mother to "spill the beans" before Agent Gluntz stops singing the criminal charges the gang racked up.
    Michellee: I... do like you... a lot.
    E.B.: I meant, [points at the bean jar] spill the beans.
    Michellee: Oh! Oh, I thought you were using it as an expression. Oh, great. Yeah. Now that I said that, I don't even—
    Guy: I'm glad you did.
    [cue Longing Look]
  • And then at the very end... it's played for real.
    Michellee: Guy-Am-I, you are a reckless, dangerous man... [plants a Big Damn Kiss on him] ...and I love it!
• MacGuffin: For the bulk of "The Second Serving", the Moo-lacka-moo serves as this, as it's not mentioned until the very end what it does, only that getting it to Yookia is essential. It's apparently an extremerly dangerous explosive.
• Maternity Crisis: Averted, in "On Her Dookess' Secret Service" it seems like Michellee's started to go into labor in the middle of the Zookia inventor's lab...but she's actually faking it to stall Guy some time to sabotage his invention.
  • Played straight in "The Mom Who Loved Me" when Michellee goes into labor for real right as the bombs are about to go off on both sides.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Gluntz. Except she’s not evil, far from it.
• Missing Mom: Sam comes up with all sorts of lies about his mom, and how much of a wonderful mom she was. Truth is, she left him at an orphanage at a young age, without any clue why. The one thing he remembers is that she always made him breakfast: Green Eggs and Ham. He's on a journey to find her, by tasting every Green Eggs and Ham, hoping to find the ones that taste like hers.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: A large chunk of this world's fauna seem to be combinations of real-life animals. Most prominently featured are the Chickeraffes, which, as their name suggests, are part chicken and part giraffe, and look very similar to the closely-related Giroosters. The various episodes also feature the Moostrich, the Walvark, the Llama-gnu, the Pandog and the Flemur, and there's also a reference to Orangutoads. In "The Second Serving", Camelopes, Dolphacudas, Crocopotamuses, El-Llamas, Skunakes, Squails, and Kangarangutans join the mix.
• Mommy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Sam doesn't seem to dwell too much on his mother's reasons for leaving him at an orphanage, but he implicitly assumes this trope since he expects their reunion to be easy and heartwarming; Guy is more skeptical. Late in The Second Serving, it's revealed that Pam left Sam because her life as a spy meant she was constantly in danger and risked Sam getting hurt in the crossfire.
• Mood Whiplash: The happy tune, "Backflip" by Rivers Cuomo immediately plays in the credits following a cliffhanger. Every. SINGLE. TIME. Does it sound familiar to you?
• Mouth Cam: The camera shows the inside of Pam's mouth when she eats Sam's green eggs and ham for the first time.
• Museum of Boredom:
  • After giving up on his invention, Guy's fallback plan is to go to Meepville and get a job as a paint-watcher. Even the perpetually-enthusiastic Sam has to force himself to sound excited about that choice of career.
  • Most of the attractions Michellee wants to take E.B. to, in keeping with her initial distrust of excitement. Subverted with the Hall of Walls, which is actually a gallery of vivid artworks that EB loves.
  • E.B. first seems very disappointed when Looka takes her to Yookia's National Museum. She not only starts to like it, but finds an important closed-down exhibit explaining the history of Yookia and Zookia.
• My Beloved Smother: Michellee is safety-obsessed and incredibly overprotective of E.B., refusing to tolerate any possible source of whimsy for her.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The trailer has the narrator mention "Whoville" and "The Places You'll Go" the former is the setting of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Horton Hears a Who! and the latter referencing Oh the Places You'll Go!
  • There is also a family of fish whose house is accidentally destroyed by the car Sam & Guy hijack. And when the goat sinks the boat.
    • Also from said book, a walrus-like creature not unlike Clark is among Snerz's menagerie.
  • Blink and you'll miss it, but Snerz takes out a passport to the Nation of Zookia. ^note This would turn out to foreshadow the major set piece of Season 2, which took influence from The Butter Battle Book .
  • Each of the one-word episode titles are based on what Guy said in the books that he doesn't want to get Green Eggs and Ham. (e.g. I will not eat with them in a house, I will not with a fox) Guy actually recites his lines from the book at least once an episode.
  • In the last episode, Guy's newspaper is called Who.S.A. Today, as another reference to Whoville.
  • Sam and Guy's police sketches are drawn in the traditional Seussian cross-hatched style, as is Michellee's illustration of Mr. Jenkins.
  • The Living Books adaptation of the book had a mini game featuring other technicolor foods, including purple pancakes. At the end of "Anywhere", Sam mentions purple pancakes while reading through the diner menu.
  • Despite the odd offhand use of the word "human" once or twice, the population is certainly Seussical in design.
    • The Am-I's are a family of Knoxes, with Gluntz and miscellaneous bystanders sharing the same Goofy-eared trait.
    • Snerz seems to be a Zode, an indecisive being Seuss illustrated for his 1956 poem Did I Ever Tell You...?.
    • McWinkle appears to be a Bumble (a people well-known for their Bumble-Tub Club) with blue fur instead of yellow.
  • When Sam crashes a graduation, he starts to give a speech that begins "Oh, The Places You'll Go", a Dr. Seuss book that happens to be a very popular gift for graduates.
  • Katroo is mentioned in an episode of The Second Serving.
  • When E. B. visits a Zookia cafe, a Freeze-Frame Bonus shows the menu of toast flavours includes Roast Beast and Truffula.
  • There was also a Pam-I-Am on The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.
  • When Sam was dropped off at the orphanage in Pam's flashback, he came bundled with the sign that introduced him in the book.
• Named by the Adaptation: The unnamed second character from the book is named Guy-Am-I, while the fox is named Michael. In-Universe, Sam gives the mouse a name which the mouse hates.
• New Season, New Name: Season 2 is given the subtitle "The Second Serving".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sam's lack of caution causes him to make most situations he and Guy find themselves in worse. Such as deciding to drive a car off a cliff into a lake without bothering to wake up Guy (who was still inside it), or opening up a drainage pipe without reading what it was being used for and causing corrosive toxic sludge to flood the area. Then again, calling Sam a "hero" is a bit of a stretch...
• Ninja: One appears in the first episode (Sam). This gets lampshaded by the narrator. Sam the Ninja appears again when he's trying to bust Guy out of the BAD GUYS interrogation room
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Snerz has bouffant yellow hair (actually a fluffy animal he forces to cover his baldness), runs a conglomerate, is prone to firing his employees, and collects a series of gold-plated objects. Ring any bells? At one point he actually says he has "all the best words". In another scene, he does a double victory "V" with his hands.
• No Indoor Voice: Captain Bigman yells nearly every line in his sole scene. Of course, this is possibly due to him being mad at McWinkle and Gluntz for failing their mission.
• Non-Lethal Warfare: Even though "The Second Serving" is a spy thriller with the amount of violence expected from the genre, most weapons are comically harmless, with explosives that just cover the opponents in goo and guns that fire "tickle darts" making the victims laugh uncontrollably. When Sam and Pam knock out a group of security guards, they put them to sleep by feeding them chamomille tea and give them pillows to sleep on. Averted with the explosive rockets in the climax, which are strongly implied to be actually deadly.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In "On Her Dookess' Secret Service", Pam gets an order to terminate Sam. However, not only does she obviously not go through with it, it also never comes up again and it's never revealed who exactly sent her the order or why.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Following the reveal to the audience that Sam is working for Snerz, multiple characters tell him how heroic he is for returning the Chickeraffe to its home.
• Obviously Evil: Sam and Guy are chased by, gasp, the BAD GUYS! Subverted, the acronym for B.A.D.G.U.Y.S. is the opposite of what we're expected to believe. Lampshaded when Guy's mom states that the name is a little misleading...(and you know what they say, "Seeing is believing!")
• Odd Couple: Sam's an upbeat guy with a love of green eggs and ham. Guy is a grump dragged along for the ride with a keen mind of machinery. There's also the familial Michellee and EB (worrying, overprotective mother and adventurous daughter), and the coworker pair McWinkle and Gluntz (gruff, stoic veteran animal-catcher and enthusiastic, energetic rookie).
• Official Couple: Michellee and Guy as the show progresses.
• Once an Episode: Guy being told to try the titular dish in one of the conditions from the book and refusing. Until the last one.
• One Phone Call: The officer that arrests Sam in "Mouse" says this, but is quite sincere about it.
• One-Word Title: Crossed with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming above.
• Only Sane Man: Guy and McWinkle, who are often frustrated at how weird and lackadaisical the world and people around them are.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The one thing that Sam would show absolute terror of is the Old Goat. He's an infamous competitor with an impeccable record that has been sent after his quarry.
  • In the episode "Boat", Sam is too consumed with guilt about his plans to sell Mr. Jenkins to Snerz to even eat Green Eggs and Ham.
  • In one of the more depressing scenes of the first season, he is shown in shock after Guy chews him out for hiding his past and Guy stating that Sam doesn't "fit" anyone; not even his mother.
  • How does Guy express guilt for telling Sam doesn't fit anyone, particularly his own mother (and by that token, suggesting that Sam's mother abandoned him because she also got sick of him)? By eating Green Eggs and Ham.
• Palette Swap: Giroosters look very similar to Chickeraffes, just with a darker color palette and a love of beans compared to the Chickeraffes' love of ties. Their resemblance ends up a plot point in "Anywhere"; Sam dyed a Girooster to look like a Chickeraffe, and Snerz didn't notice the difference until it was doused with punch.
• Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: Female characters tend to wear more clothing than males in the show. Sam, Guy and McWinkle wear only hats and, in the latter's case, sunglasses, whereas E.B., Michellee and Gluntz wear a dress, a shawl and a vest respectively. Inverted with Philip Trouser in the second season, who wears a full suit, including pants, as part of being a James Bond pastiche.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Sam and Guy disguise themselves in "Box" just by switching their hats. And yet, it perfectly fools the cops.
  • When Guy comes to get Sam out of jail, all he wears is a small fake mustache. Sam does not recognize him at all, even when he takes the mustache off, until he forces his face into his trademark frown.
  • "AKA The Furry-Foot Bandit, AKA Flim-Flam-I-Am, AKA Sham Shamford, AKA Dr. Linda Schwartz."
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
  • In "Train" E.B. tries to guess the password to unattach her safety bracelet from the roof of the train car. She fails, but ends up getting freed by saying the word "Password" afterwards.
  • In "Three Days of Mom-dor", Marilyn Blouse, one of Pam-I-Am's spy rivals, is asked to enter a code to open a hangar door. The code is labeled as "Code Trousers won't forget", "Trousers" referring to Philip Trousers, her work partner, who has been repeatedly shown to not be very bright. The code? Just the number "1".
• Person of Mass Destruction: Goat is capable of destroying a ski lift and a large ferry all on his lonesome.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy:
  • Guy's parents follow this color scheme, as Mr. Am-I's fur is dark blue whereas Mrs. Am-I's is bright pink.
  • The two antagonistic spies from The Second Serving also have this going on, with the male Philip Trousers having blue fur and the female Marilyn Blouse having pink fur.
• Police Are Useless: Unfortunately, the only cop who isn't an inept dunce in one form or another is the very brutal and corrupt officer that arrested Squeaky.
• Politeness Judo: The cop who manages to catch Sam is very polite (lampshaded by the narrator), so Sam's able to distract him by simply saying "No, after you" as he's being put into the car, allowing him to escape.
• The Pollyanna: Sam; not even getting stuck in jail dampens his mood. However, in "House", we learn he's actually a Stepford Smiler with a tragic backstory.
• Power-Up Food: FLANNEL CANDY.
• Prison Episode: "Mouse" has Guy trying to get to the jail where Sam was taken prisoner.
• Properly Paranoid: Chickeraffe's can be as deadly as the public fears, but only if they're sufficiently provoked as they're a mostly friendly species.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Even though Sam-I-Am has done a lot of scams, specifically selling the Chickeraffe to Snerz while passing himself of as a wildlife protector, he isn't inherently malign, he's just doing his job.
• Punny Name: Michael the Fox.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Oh dear does Guy rage at Sam when he's revealed to be a liar and a scam artist. But he stops himself after he says that Sam doesn't "fit" anyone. Not even his own mother.
  • In Episode 8, Guy lets loose criticizing a group of wild Giroosters attacking E.B., causing them to back down and thus saving her.
• Recycled In Space: It's Planes, Trains and Automobiles as retold by Dr. Seuss! Alternatively it's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Dr. Seuss!
• Red Herring: It's strongly implied that Ma's Farmhouse is run by Sam's mother and the "Ma" refers to her. Then it's revealed that the farm is actually run by a flock of chickens who lay green eggs, and "Ma" is their family name.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sam is the jovial upbeat Red to Guy's grumpy blue. Fittingly, Sam's hat is bright red (although Guy's hat is a dull brown rather than blue^*(except for when it's turned inside-out for a nightcap in "Train")).
• Reimagining the Artifact: The titular dish is present and Sam does try to get his friend to eat it Once an Episode, but it's not the main thrust of the story. Instead, it's symbolic of Guy's character development, and he finally relents to eat them as a big gesture of friendship to Sam to make up for hurting his feelings. Sam's own love for the dish is also given greater context as being a missing link between him and the mother who abandoned him. As a result, the book's original, more simple message of "Don't be afraid to try new things" is broadened into "Don't take things at face value."
• Replaced the Theme Tune: Season 1's theme song is "Backflip". Season 2 replaces it with "Come With Me", reflecting the spy thriller plot of the season, rather than getting Guy to try green eggs and ham.
• Retraux: The show seems to be set in a sort of Seussian version of the mid-20th century (the 1960s specifically, when the book was first published): character still regularly read newspapers and technology doesn't seem to have progressed since the early '70s, the most advanced devices being credit card readers and a handheld 16mm camera used by one of Snerz's cronies, without a cell phone, flat screen or even a personal computer in sight. Also, aside from Rivers Cuomo's theme song, most of the pop music is from either the '60s, slightly earlier (Bobby Darin's "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" from 1958) or slightly later (The O'Jays' "For The Love Of Money" from 1973). Season 2 is also clearly set in a Cold War, and takes inspiration from the James Bond movies (which began in 1962).
• The Reveal: Episodes 10 and 11 shows us that Sam's mother abandoned him as a child, she made him Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast, and that Sam and BAD GUYS are actually the opposite of what we're expected to believe: Sam is the villain and BAD GUYS are trying to stop him from selling Mr. Jenkins to Snerz.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • Once the viewer knows the true colors of Sam and the BAD GUYS, they'll start to notice the hints sprinkled throughout the entire season upon a rewatch. Such as the fact that Mr. Snerz never refers to the smuggler by name. So it misleads us to think that the BAD GUYS are working for him, when really, it’s Sam-I-Am.
  • Sam loving green eggs and ham becomes harsher when we learn why he loves eating it so much.
• Road Trip Plot: The story is about Sam and Guy traveling the world to return a rare creature to its home.
• Running Gag: Besides Sam trying to offer Guy Green Eggs and Ham, there are several.
  • Guy's inventions exploding.
  • McWinkle's fur getting greyer and greyer with each setback he and Gluntz experience in their investigation.
  • Mr. Jenkins' appetite for ties.
  • Goat loudly announcing how he is performing the action that a character in a different scene said he would.
  • Cantaloupe hatred.
  • Gluntz Comically Missing the Point.
  • Green Eggs and Ham coming in different variations.
• Sad Clown: Sam, underneath his jovial exterior and love of Green Eggs and Ham is someone who is very lonely and that titular dish is his way to hopefully find his mother.
• Samus Is a Girl: In a deleted scene from "There", Guy is taken to the BADMEN headquarters and comments on how sinister everyone looks. He points to who he thinks is a tough looking guy, but who is actually a sensitive woman named Crystal.
• Satchel Switcheroo: The premise of the plot involved Sam and Guy accidentally swapping their (very identical) briefcases (the former smuggling a rare creature the latter with his failed invention).
• Scarily Competent Tracker: In a bizarre world, McWinkle gets by with sensible logic and ruthlessness. For example, when the protagonists would theoretically have an entire town to hide in, McWinkle is able to determine just from visiting a restaurant they were at, that the pair is short on cash (they only ordered partial portions) and to make money fast, they'd likely find work at the local carnival (which they are at). The Goat is a more typical example of the trope as he manages to get on Sam and Guy's trail with some rather off-kilter methods.
  • McWinkle takes the cake upon using Sam's love of Green Eggs and Ham as a guide, figuring out which places serve the titular dish to figure out where Sam and Guy head next.
• Scenery Porn: The scenery looks just like someone took landscapes from a Dr. Seuss book and gave them a splash of color.
• Self-Made Man: After falling out with his mother, Snerz left his country home and built himself an immense financial empire to fund his passion for collecting/imprisoning the world's rarest animals.
• Sequel Hook: As Sam and Guy both dine on Green Eggs and Ham, Sam notices that the eggs taste similar to that of what his mom makes. Thus the two head off for East Flubria in the chance to find her, leading to the events of season two.
• Series Continuity Error: In "Here", a Freeze-Frame Bonus shows Guy's bus ticket is dated Wednesday, March 1. Not only does that go against the idea of the fictional weekdays (SnerzDay being a major plot device), and other episodes stating that the series takes place during Snerzuary (the equivalent of January, not March).
• Series Goal: For Sam: find his missing mother.
• Shipper on Deck: Sam and E.B. for Michellee and Guy.
• Shoo the Dog: Once Goat shows up, Guy (who'd just patched up his relationship with Michellee), realizes that if the four of them traveled together as planned, she and E.B. would be targets and tells them to travel alone instead. Michellee, not knowing about Goat due to Guy not wanting to tell her, is offended.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Sibling Rivalry: The entire butter battle intitally started as a conflict between siblings Dookia of Yookia and Dookess of Zookia.
• Signs of Disrepair: When Guy is shown entering Justin's Diner on a rainy night, some of the letters black out to leave only "Just Die".
• Silly Reason for War: "The Second Serving" is loosely based on The Butter Battle Book, and just like in that book, the conflict between the nations of Yookia and Zookia is based around which side of the toast should be buttered.
• Sistine Steal: Guy’s parents painted a picture in this style with Sam, Jenkins and him as the subject.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: E.B. (who’s staying in Zookia) and her new love interest, Looka (who’s the equivalent of the prince of Yookia) are a pair of these. Luckily for them, it wasn’t their deaths that brought the war to an end.
• Story Arc:
  • Season 1: Protecting Mr. Jenkins the Chickeraffe from a mean secret agent.
  • Season 2: Preventing a war between the nations of Yookia and Zookia.
• Synchro-Vox: In the second episode Guy hallucinates green eggs and ham singing to him, with the hams having actual mouths super imposed on them.
• Take That!: Cantaloupe—the garbage fruit!
• Terms of Endangerment: Goat and McWinkle both do this.
  Goat: We can do this the easy way or the hard way, amigo.
  McWinkle: I ain't your amigo, friend.
• Those Two Guys: Sam and Guy.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Guy's invention works in capturing Goat and he even gets a kiss from Michellee.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Sam loves Green Eggs and Ham. Surprisingly, this is a deconstruction: His love for it stems from his mother making it for breakfast and he's trying to find the one who tastes exactly like hers. Though he does genuinely like them, calling out how they're good under various conditions and inviting Guy to try them. Also Exploited when his constant consumption of it is noticed by McWinkle and he uses said fact to figure out where Sam and Guy are heading next.
  • Chickeraffes have a love of ties (which grow on trees). Giroosters, on the other hand, like beans. This comes into play in the finale.
• Tropical Island Adventure: In "You Only Mom Twice", Agent Trouser, Pam and Sam all crash-land on a tropical island, where the Moo-Lacka-Moo gets snatched by a kangarangutan, and a chase ensues where the characters have to face both hostile wildlife and the island's unusual time flow.
• Trumplica: Snerz, the super-rich creature with the extremely suspicious hair.
• Uncanny Valley: When the Goat is especially angry, his eyes change from round human ones to anatomically correct oval-shaped ones that give him a zombie-like gaze as a sign that he's turning into from a calculating villain into a literal violent beast.
• Unhand Them, Villain!: When the BAD GUYS are shaking down the security guard at the zoo, Gluntz is holding the guard over a pit of nasty looking turtles, threatening to drop him. When McWinkle is convinced the guard isn't lying to them, he tells Gluntz to let him go, so she does.
  McWinkle: I meant "let him go free".
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
  • Subverted with Snerz. He goes into detail telling a story of how he was much happier as a child and affectionately played with his pet Flemur, but his mother accidentally let it out one night and he never recovered from the incident, becoming a cold-hearted business tycoon as an adult. Mama Snerz reveals later that it was a Self-Serving Memory — the Flemur was terrified of Snerz because he handled it much too roughly, suggesting that he was always greedy and emotionally domineering to some extent.
  • Played straight with Guy. As a child, he used to be much more enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky, and confident. However, after experiencing one failure after another as an adult, he turned into the surly man we see on the show.
    Guy: I was happier as a child.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: The BAD GUYS are like this through and through, with the Serious Business McWinkle and his partner the optimistic Cloud Cuckoolander Gluntz. Subverted in that they're not evil, they're actually the good guys.
• Wacky Cravings: Michellee buys pickles and ice cream when she is pregnant.
• Walking Spoiler: Sam and the BAD GUYS have the most spoilers out of any of the characters.
  • Sam isn't actually a Wildlife Protection Agent. He's a scam artist who captured the Chickeraffe not to send it back to it's home, but to sell it to Snerz for his animal collection. He also dons various personas to scam other people.
  • McWinkle and Gluntz, the BAD GUYS, aren't actually "bad guys." They're actually on the good side, as their goal throughout the season is to apprehend Sam-I-Am before he sells off the Chickeraffe to Snerz. The "bad guys" is actually an acronym.
• Was It All a Lie?: Guy is pissed off to no end when he learns about Sam's true nature.
• Wham Episode: Episode 10 is the episode to reveal that Sam I Am's story was not 100% real.
• Wham Line: Episode 10 has plenty of these that will put many audience viewers in a state of unease.
  • Sam telling Guy that he's lucky to have such a supportive family.
    Sam: I know exactly how lucky you are. 'Cause... I never had a family.[...] When I was very little, my mom... left me at an orphanage.
  • When Sam calls in to Snerz to deliver Mr. Jenkins.
  • The end of The Second Serving's first episode gives us this:
    The Narrator: Heads up! Plot twist! Let me jump in while I can! Before that guy spoils it—
    Philip Trousers: Not today, Pam I-Am!
    [...]
    The Narrator: Dang! I was dying to drop that major truth bomb! That lady's not just a spy, she's also Sam's...
    Sam: Mom...
• Wham Shot:
  • The end of the first episode: Guy tossing his suitcase into the fireplace...and something starts moving before the shadow reveals The Chickeraffe.
  • The first episode of the second season ends with revealing that a spy Sam, Guy and E.B encountered looks a lot like Sam.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Mouse" is essentially Les Miserables by Dr. Seuss, complete with song!
• Winning Over the Kids: As soon as Sam learns that Guy has fallen for Michellee, he advises him to make nice with Michellee's daughter E.B., pointing out that E.B. is "the gatekeeper," and no relationship will survive without E.B.'s approval. E.B. quickly figures out his scheme and makes the same point.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Whenever Guy looks to be on the cusp of becoming more optimistic or tolerant of Sam, a new crisis (sometimes caused by Sam) immediately punishes him for letting his guard down. Something similar happens to Michellee whenever she admits how she feels about Guy or trusts E.B. to be on her own.
• Younger Than They Look: Stress and depression have caused Guy to look vaguely middle-aged with prominent scowl lines. If his high school classmates are of any indication, he's roughly in his late twenties or early thirties. Lampshaded by Sam in the second season when he points out he has no idea how old Guy is.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Subverted. Sam turns in the supposed Chickeraffe to Snerz, with Snerz complimenting how coldly he acts about Jenkins and his friends. Sam clearly looks uncomfortable with these implications. But it turns out he faked the transaction with a Girooster painted to look like Mr. Jenkins. So his shame was an act.

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