Western Animation / Stripperella

Stripper by night. Superhero later at night.

"Look out crime! I'm gonna take a bite out of you. But... not in a way you're gonna find... pleasurable."

— Stripperella

Stripperella (2003-2004) was an adult-oriented, animated television series created by Stan Lee as a parody of the superhero and Spy Fiction genres. It aired on the newly-created Spike TV network in a short-lived animation line-up that also included Gary the Rat, and Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon". The show was produced by Spike, The Firm, and Nick Digital.

The main character (voiced by and based on Pamela Anderson) is a stripper named Erotica Jones, who secretly works as crimefighting superheroine/secret agent Stripperella. Despite having respectable ratings for its time slot, the show was canceled at the end of the first season due to Creative Differences and a lawsuit filed by a stripper who said it was all her idea.

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Tropes in this series include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Dirk McMahon (voiced by WWE owner Vince McMahon), the owner of SiliCones (the main competitor to TenderLoins), is enamoured with Erotica and wants her to come work at his club. Erotica, however, is clearly repulsed by the idea.
• Action Girl: Stripperella is a secret agent, so she gets multiple fight scenes.
• All Men Are Perverts: The series seemed to delight in situations that would lampshade this. One example was in the episode "The Wrath of Klinko", where the villian was hypnotizing people to commit crimes with an enhanced copy machine. When the first victim is in jail, Agent 69 orders him to grab her tits, which can act as lie detectors. She learns that he's telling the truth, but has some difficulty making him release her boobs.
• Alpha Bitch: Kat, who initially presents herself as an innocent girl, turns out to be anything but.
• Ambiguously Brown: For the first six episodes Persephone is a white girl with auburn hair. But after the Art Shift her ethnicity is uncertain, with brown skin and dark hair.
• Art Evolution: After episode 6, Stripperella and a few other characters look different. Her Batman-esque blank-eye mask was replaced by one that showed her eyes. And her assets were made even more...exceptional. Kat originally stars with brown skin and blonde hair, but after the Art Shift she becomes white with brownish red hair.
• As Himself: In one episode, Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson both play themselves.
• Bat Signal: The vibrating belly-button ring.
• Beehive Hairdo: Pushy Galore, until her hair was pulled down after her multiple arms.
• The Big Board: Spoofed when the wall behind the Chief retracts to reveal a small cheap TV set. He then admits they spent all their money on that fancy moving wall.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Kat initially presents herself as a humble, polite, virgin Amish girl. But she is quickly revealed to be mean-spirited and devious.
• Bittersweet Ending: "The Bridesmaid": The Bridesmaid is stopped but Erotica's boyfriend breaks up with her because he's fallen in love with Stripperella.
  • "Cheapo by the Dozen": Cheapo is defeated but Erotica learns that her new Love Interest is a lousy musician.
• Black Widow: Pushy Galore murders her husbands and makes knockoff designer handbags from their hides.
• Breast Expansion:
  • After being shrunk, Stripperella is returned to her regular size by being hit with an enlargement beam. But due to a malfunction, it causes her breasts to become incredibly huge.
  • In another episode, Stripperella saves a drowning man by inflating her own boobs so they can be used as flotation devices.
  • After the mid-season Art Shift, Stripperella's bodily proportions become even more exaggerated, with a smaller waist, longer legs, and even bigger boobs.
• Butt-Monkey: Kevin tends to get hurt... a lot. Or sent to jail. Or lose all of his money. Or be robbed of the money he just won. Or being threatened by a rival strip club owner. Poor guy has it rough.
• Butter Face: Queen Clitoris has a very nice body, but her face is horribly ugly.
• Casting Gag: Pretty much the whole point of having Pamela Anderson as the main character, what with her small animal rights speeches that pop in here and there.
• Catchphrase:
  • The Chief; "Thank God I'm not [noun, verb or adjective relative to situation here]!"
  • Stripperella saying that she is impervious to all temperatures and weather conditions.
• Censor Suds: In one scene Erotica takes a bath, but all of her "naughty bits" are covered by soap suds.
• Clark Kenting: Lampshaded many times, such as she isn't around when Stripperella appear.
• Cleavage Window: Stripperella's outfit exposes her chest
• Cloudcuckoolander: Chief Stroganoff's dead serious demeanor is contrasted by his very bizarre and outlandish behavior.
• Comic Sutra: A sex act called a "Silver Strainer" is mentioned in one episode. We never find out exactly what it entails, but Kevin and Erotica both act very disturbed after having it explained to them.
• Creator Cameo: Jerry, an elderly F.U.G.G. scientist, is voiced by Stan Lee and also looks just like him.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Spoofed with El Cheapo, who plans elaborate crimes designed to get him the world's largest fake diamond, or a stash of copper bars worth $16.
• Despair Event Horizon: In one episode, Giselle nearly quits her job as a stripper after a customer dies of a heart attack while she's giving him a lap dance. But it turns out he was murdered by his wife; she was so angry with him for always going to strip clubs that she gave him a drug that would cause a heart attack if he became sexually aroused.
• Disguised in Drag: After Giselle quits and TenderLoins begins auditioning new dancers, one of the people auditioning is a rather hairy man who does a very poor job of passing himself off as a woman.
• The Ditz: While Giselle is good-natured and sweet, she's also quite naive.
• Double Entendre: Loads of 'em. What? Does this come as a SHOCK?
• Easy Amnesia: In one episode, rival stripper Kat repeatedly discovers Erotica's Secret Identity, but constantly loses her memory of the event because she [Kat] keeps getting hit in the head.
• Even the Girls Want Her:
  • In one episode, Stripperella was a guest in a talk show, where the hostess, Sally Rose, goes off-topic and talks about how sexy Stripperella is, describing her attractive features, and hints on wanting to have sex with her while holding her hand. The camera gets a closer shot at them, hoping for some girl-on-girl action.
  • Later in the same episode, two women are at the strip club, fighting with a man when Erotica throws a piece of her clothing at them.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Erotica/Stripperella herself.
• Evil Laugh: Mad Doctor Cesarean gives one of these, but stops when he realizes he's in a waiting room full of gaping onlookers.
• Exposed to the Elements: In one episode, Erotica is seen wearing only a bikini at a ski resort in the middle of winter. Of course, since she's immune to cold temperatures she's not uncomfortable at all.
• Fanservice:
  • Though topless nudity shots were blurred out on Spike TV. They are on the DVD, though.
  • Aside from the nudity, Erotica almost always wears outfits that are skimpy and revealing. Even the wedding dress she wears in "The Bridesmaid" is designed to show off her body.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Queen Clitoris is rather, well, unattractive. Not that you would know that from her name and silhouette.
  • Chief Stroganoff isn't good-looking either. Once Stripperella is visibly squicked when he briefs her in a bathrobe, and does a "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody while complaining about El Cheapo and "those two hairy nuts of his".
• For the Evulz: Professor Cranium is not motivated by revenge or greed. He wants to destroy the city simply because it's something he's always wanted to do.
• Fun with Acronyms: Stripperella's favourite charity Animals Need Universal Support, which she plugs at every opportunity. And the secret agency F.U.G.G.
• Gay Best Friend: The gay bartender at the Tender Loins, Erotica's workplace.
• Girlish Pigtails: Giselle, making her look child-like and innocent-looking.
• Girls Like Musicians: Much like Pamela Anderson herself, Erotica/Stripperella is attracted to musicians.
• Government Agency of Fiction: Stripperella is an agent of F.U.G.G., a top-secret government agency devoted to fighting crime.
• Hair-Trigger Temper:
  • Small Fry is annoyed by the mere suggestion of a short joke, whether it's intended or not.
  • You don't want to rub Queen Clitoris the wrong way. She's very sensitive.
• Hair Wings: Stripperella's hair is so thick and luxuriant that it can be used as a parachute.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Whenever Erotica/Stripperella dances at TenderLoins, the men in attendence go wild with lust. At one point, her sheer hotness causes a man to burst into flames (only to be quickly extinguished by Kevin, implying that this sort of thing happens often).
• Hero of Another Story: Stripperella's brother, fellow superhero Chipperella.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Kevin doesn't realize Kat isn't a nice girl.
• Hurricane of Puns: Happens whenever Stripperella battles anyone with a suggestive name, such as Queen Clitoris or a giant beaver.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Vertically-challenged villain Small Fry intends to shrink everyone else so he'll be the biggest person on Earth.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Not all of Stripperella's powers are technology-based. She has strength and agility far beyond that of a normal human, she is impervious to all temperatures and weather conditions, and her breasts have the ability to detect when somebody is lying. The source of her super powers is never explained.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Erotica/Stripperella looks exactly like Pamela Anderson, even possessing her tattoos. This is lampshaded a few times. Most notably when Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson get a cameo in one episode, when Erotica asks Kid Rock if he thinks she looks like Pamela Anderson. He says he doesn't see a resemblance, then states that Pamela looks like Stripperella, and that if they make a Stripperella TV show that Pamela should play the part.
• Innocent Innuendo: Some of the more graphic double entendres can invoke this, such as a psychiatrist showing his new stress relief squeeze balls to Erotica and asking her to "squeeze my testys from my ball sack".
• It's Been Done: A Mad Scientist has spent years in the basement of headquarters inventing devices like the cordless phone, but no-one is willing to tell him they're already widespread.
• Ladyella: Erotica Jones goes by the name of Stripperella when in her secret agent persona. Also, her brother goes by the name of Chipperella.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The series did this more than few times.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: Agent 69 occasionally used this to come up with aliases.
  Stripperella: "My last name? (sees lamp) Lamp... (sees chair) chair... (sees apartment wall) wall... ner... stien."
• Living Lie Detector: Stripperella has lie detector breasts. If somebody is holding them while telling her something, she can tell if the person is telling the truth or not.
  Stripperella: You are telling the truth! ...You can let go now.
• Makeup Weapon: A laser lipstick is one of the least ludicrous gadgets carried by Stripperella.
• Married to the Job: Early in the show, Erotica laments the fact that she doesn't have a boyfriend because between being a stripper and fighting crime, she has no time for a social life.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Stripperella claims to be invincible to all extreme temperatures and weather conditions, but this has only been casually tested on screen.
• Moment Killer: After Stripperella and Armando escape from Queen Clitoris's island, they share a romantic moment and appear as though they're about to have sex... but they are suddenly interrupted by Special Agent 14.
• Most Common Super Power: Her name is Stripperella and her design is based on Pamela Anderson, so of course she's going to have big boobs.
• Ms. Fanservice: Erotica/Stripperella is portrayed in-universe as being unbelievably beautiful and sexy. During a news interview, the reporter openly fawns over her lips, breasts, and legs. When Erotica is inspected by a modeling agent while working undercover (he even goes as far as to measure the distance between her toes), the agent comes to the conclusion that she has a literal perfect body and hires her on the spot.
• Multiarmed And Dangerous: In "Everybody Loves Pushy", it's revealed that model turned supervillainess Pushy Galore has grafted two extra sets of arms onto her sides. Pushy even jokingly calls herself "Octo-Pushy" upon revealing this.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Stripperella can't get a boyfriend because most men won't accept her as a stripper.
• The Napoleon: Small Fry's bitterness over his short stature is the reason why he wants to shrink everybody in the world.
• Nerds Are Virgins: At least the members of her tech crew not voiced by Stan Lee are suspected to be this, because they are ridiculously geeky and always trying to find ways of making prosthetics of 69's butt.
  • Special Agent 14 could be considered a subversion of this trope, because he has a hot wife and a picture of them having sex was accidentally inserted into the slide projector that was being used to give Stripperella mission intel. He could be, but he's more developmentally disabled than nerdy.
  • In one episode, the two nerdy technicians named Hal and Bernard are arguing. Hal calls Bernard a virgin, and an embarrassed Bernard responds "I told you that in confidence!"
  • In another episode, Hal and Bernard create a robotic doppelganger of Stripperella. Although Stripperella assumes that they created it to help her fight crime, it's heavily implied that Hal and Bernard created it to be an elaborate sex toy for their own use.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The series was full of this.
  • Particularly with Pushy Galore, who is heavily based on the Gabor sisters, Zsa Zsa and Eva. The former was still alive when the show aired.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon: Stripperella can't get a boyfriend because men either won't accept her as a stripper, or won't accept her as a secret crimefighting superheroine.
  • One episode has her going out with a musician and trying to hide she's a stripper. The episode ends with him turning out to be a terrible singer, and when he asked her what she thought about his performance. She tells him she's a stripper.
• No Pregger Sex: Zigzagged in "Everybody Loves Pushy"; one of the auditioners for the vacant stripper position is heavily pregnant. She's not bothered in the slightest by dancing erotically in her condition, but it's blatant that her pregnancy is why she gets turned down.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Varies according to the situation.
• Oh, Crap!: Professor Cranium's reaction when Stripperella knocks the rotor off his escape helicopter, and again when he realizes that he'll be killed in the volcanic eruption along with the rest of the city.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Persephone tends to adopt a new accent from episode to episode.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: "Curse of the Were-Beaver"
• Paper-Thin Disguise: While Striperella's costume can be considered to reasonably hide her identity, her utter carelessness in preserving her double identity and switching between both certainly counts. An extreme case is her asking people to turn around, then changing into her Stripperella outfit, while all of them are locked inside a very tight space. Usually lampshaded by character wondering where Erotica went.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Lampshaded and subverted. When given a Penny Disintegrator, Stripperella comments how all the gadgets end up strangely useful. Later, while being drowned in a glass bottle filled with pennies, she tries the disintegrater, only to find out that it can only disintegrate one penny every ten minutes. The thing that does save her life? The 15-pound "cordless phone" that the elderly scientist spent the last 15 years perfecting.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  • "Look out crime. I'm gonna to take a bite out of you. But...not in a way you're gonna find...pleasurable."
  • "Evil-Doers, prepare to become Evil-Don'ters!"
  • Said inside a museum of the worlds biggest objects:
  "Time to deliver the world's biggest ass kicking."
  • Said to a villain looking at a fashion award ceremony on TV:
  Stripperella: "And the award for best dressed kick goes to... ME."
  Villain: "Best dressed kick?"
  Stripperella: "Well, I wanted to say something really clever and relevant to the whole fashion awards thing, and that's all I could think of on such short notice."
• Punny Name: The series is full of this, such as when Stripperella is working undercover as an Ordinary High-School Student ("Kathy Teria"), a criminal ("Robin Stuff"), Intrepid Reporter ("April Mayjune") and a nun ("Sister Mary Hadalamb"). Not to mention her boss, Chief Stroganoff.
• Revenge:
  • Dr. Cesarean's motive for making supermodels fat is because beautiful women have spurned him all his life. And because his mother was a model who ran off when he was 5. And because his promising career as a model was ruined when he became horribly disfigured in a modelling accident. Oh, and his grandparents were killed by models. He hates heights too, but you can't harm heights.
  • Averted with Professor Cranium, who wants to build the giant model volcano that will destroy the city because hey, it's just something he's always wanted to do.
• Really Gets Around: Persephone isn't picky at all when it comes to the men she has sex with. Just about the only standard she has is that she refuses to date coworkers.
• Replaced the Theme Tune: The original television airings of Stripperella had a theme song performed by Kid Rock. But for the DVD release of Stripperella the theme song was replaced, likely due to licensing issues (several other licensed songs that appeared in the television broadcast also didn't make it on the DVD release).
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: The first episode featured a stereotypical satanic heavy metal band.
• Running Gag:
  • Erotica constantly blurts out blatant clues that she is Stripperella and then covers by making it seem like a slip of the tongue.
  • The Chief usually ends up in extremely weird scenarios where, after explaining the reason to Stripperella, ends up having her correct him on his information which leads to exchanges like this;
  The Chief is posing for nude pictures for his wife on Valentine's Day.
  Stripperella: "Uh, Chief. Valentine's Day was two months ago."
  Chief: "Ah right. Thank God I'm not married."
  • Throughout the entire series Persephone never holds a constant accent. She switches it every episode she's in, and sometimes twice in the same episode. It's even lampshaded a couple of times.
• Scenery Censor: Although Persephone, Giselle, and Kat are shown topless several times, Erotica herself is not. Whenever Erotica is topless, there's always some kind of object preventing the viewer from seeing her bare breasts.
• Sex God: Armando, the world's most passionate Latin lover (voiced by and based on Italian male model Fabio).
• Shoe Phone: Stripperella's extravagant blond hair can serve as a parachute. She also has laser lipstick, a tongue-stud camera, nipples that can cut glass and pumps that enable her to climb up walls. In a parody of Q gadgets, Stripperella is inevitably given a device that turns out to be just what she needs to get herself out of a trap, but turns out to be not quite so useful in practice. An example is when the tech group gives Stripperella a Penny Disintegrator, and she is later trapped in a jar being filled with pennies. Unfortunately, it takes a full minute to disintegrate a single penny, so she ends up having to just break the jar.
• Shout-Out: In the episode "The Bridesmaid", Erotica's wedding dress resembles the dress worn by Stephanie Seymour in the music video for "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses.
• She-Fu: Stripperella's martial arts technique uses moves from her erotic dance routine.
• Single Mom Stripper: Persephone has an illegitimate son who was fathered by Kid Rock.
• Spiritual Successor: This show is basically a sexed-up, animated version of the 1960s Batman television show. Both shows have intentionally absurd writing, campy villains, and heroes with gadgets for literally any situation.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Is it any wonder she'll end up a stripper when her birth name is Erotica?
• Stocking Filler: Pushy Galore wears garters.
• Stripperiffic: Obviously. Being impervious to all temperatures and weather conditions helps a lot.
• Super Sex Organs: Stripperella's breasts act as lie detectors and her nipples can cut through glass.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: "I'm Stripperella, and I'm here! Not... that... I was here already... because I wasn't."
• Technical Pacifist: Parodied in "Curse of the Were-Beaver". Stripperella has no problem with beating up people, but loves furry animals. This causes problems when she has to stop a man who keeps mutating into a giant rampaging beaver.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: A brief one in episode 2, when the club is hiring new strippers.
• Terrible Trio: El Cheapo and his two hoods who, due to the stinginess of their boss, have to share the same gun. Which has only three bullets.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: After Pushy Galore expended all of her ammunition, she proceeded to throw all SIX of her pistols (she's a genetic physicist with six arms) at Stripperella at once to deter her, but to no avail.
• Transforming Vehicle: Stripperella has a Cool Bike which can be disguised as a more mundane scooter.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: While in a Las Vegas casino, Kevin asks a cocktail waitress "How much for a date?" referring to the date palm fruit. His question is overheard by a nearby woman who happens to be an undercover police officer, and she promptly arrests Kevin because she believes he's attempting to solicit prostitution.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Two kids because their bikes were destroyed despite Stripperella saving them.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Played for laughs. Stripperella is always hiding objects in her bra, even things that shouldn't logically be able to fit in there. It can also be assumed that the Stripperella costume itself is stored in Erotica's bra when it's not in use.
• Villainous Crush: When Stripperella tells Hans Klinko that she hopes he has an iron-clad crotch protector, he thinks she is referring to a condom. He then becomes excited by the mistaken belief that she wants to have sex with him.
• "Well Done, Daughter" Gal: Giselle's relationship with her father.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Curse of the Were-Beaver", Stripperella jostles Shaw the beaver hunter to stop him from killing the were-beaver, and he falls off the roller-coaster scaffolding, landing (off-camera) with a splat and several disgusted-looking onlookers. And... we never see what happened to him, so either he landed in something, or the heroine killed a man for doing his job.
• What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Probably intentional: while Stripperella regularly mentions animal rights and refuses to harm them, she does not hesitate to stomp a giant crab and freeze another (implied to be the mother) into little ice cubes.
  Stripperella: I hate crabs.
• Why Am I Ticking?: In "Beauty of the Obese, Part 2", Stripperella has to save Enorma Ray, a supermodel that has been booby-trapped. Literally. As in, her large breasts are ticking time bombs.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: As mentioned above, Stripperella really hates crabs.
• Youthful Freckles: Giselle has these, and she's definitely the most childlike and innocent of the girls who work at TenderLoins.

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