"'Cause when things go so wrong, our heroes are strong!"
Heroes of the City is a Swedish animated children's cartoon produced by Your Family Entertainment and Ruta Ett DVD AB, which revolves around a duo of first responder vehicles named Fiona Fire Engine and Paulie Police Car, and their adventures in the city, helping those in emergencies.
The show was originally released in 2012 in Sweden, and became a popular hit on the video streaming website YouTube, with episodes garnering as much as millions of views. The show ended its original run in 2014, but eventually made its proper sendoff in Heroes of the City: The Movie, which revolves around the old mayor of the city retiring which leads to Calamity Crow taking his place, erecting a series of nonsensical laws.
It's troping time!:
- Alliterative Name: Most of the character's names begin with the first letter of what kind of vehicle/machine they are, such as Paulie Police Car, Robbie Robot, Harry Hotrod, and Tilly Train among others.
- Born Unlucky: Poor, poor Calamity Crow.
- Buddy Cop Show: A variant which involves a police car and fire truck duo.
- Catchphrase: "It's... ACTION TIME!", for whenever Alice informs Paulie and Fiona in an emergency.
- Clever Crows: Inverted; While Calamity Crow isn't "dumb" dumb, he constantly gets himself and most of the time, others into danger.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: In "One Hundred Cats", after Fiona rescues her 99th cat from a tree, the mayor tells her that once she rescues her 100th cat, a party will be held on her behalf, along with a trophy. This leads to Fiona getting so worked up about the party and trophy to the point where she nearly rescues a cat over Hotdog Herbie, whose apartment is on fire.
- Four-Leaf Clover: Calamity Crow bears one in "Luck Be a Crow", and when he starts to notice he's protected from bad luck, he deliberately puts himself into danger because he has his four-leaf clover.
- Funny Animal: Among the sentient vehicles, a race of anthropomorphic birds exist such as Calamity Crow, Hotdog Herbie, and MC Squawk.
- Furry Confusion: While sapient avians do exist in the show, non-sapient ducks, geese, and crows exist in the show. Take into account that Calamity is a crow.
- It gets even weirder in an episode where Hotdog Herbie is seen chasing a flock of geese.
- Identical Twin Mistake: In "Walking the Prank", Harry Hotrod gets framed by the whole town for pranks he didn't commit, which were actually pulled by his cousin Wayne, who almost bears a striking resemblance to him.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: MC Squawk is a parody of MC Hammer.
- Palette Swap: Any One-Shot Character will simply be a recolor of a main character with an added or removed accessory:
- All of the background cars who serve little importance are simply recolors of Paulie Police Car and Harry Hotrod.
- Roberta Robot is a recolor of Robby Robot, only with hair and glasses.
- Larry Locomotive is a multicolored Tilly Train with a moustache and tophat.
- Plot Allergy: After Alice eats a "shushberry" cake in "Alice's Alarm", she quickly develops a reaction to the cake, which leads to Calamity Crow translating her muffled dialogue over to Paulie and Fiona, albeit very off.
- Sentient Vehicle: Every. Single. Vehicle (although other objects who aren't vehicles apply, such as a pair of fixed binoculars named Lookout Luke, and Alice Alarm, a loudspeaker).
- Steam Never Dies: Despite being set in a time with fully functional robots and computers, Tilly Train and Larry Locomotive are both steam trains.
- Talent Show: One episode involves Calamity Crow trying out for a talent show, but during his performance he accidentally sets the stage on fire.
