Drawn Together / YMMV

Alas, Poor Scrappy: Even though Clara became very Flanderized in the later episodes, it was still surprisingly sad when her arms were chopped off and she was killed in the movie.
Alternative Character Interpretation: In "Breakfast Food Killer," Spanky starts to go into a surprisingly knowledgeable lecture about the origin of UPC codes. Captain Hero Dope Slaps him, and Spanky flatly states he "likes to pee on things". Was Spanky just having a "get the hint" moment and understood why Hero smacked him, thus going back to his crass "normal"? Or was his moment of trivia expertise an Out-of-Character Alert, and Hero "fixed" him like one might fix a staticy television?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: One episode centers around Xandir coming out to his parents. The other housemates help him prepare for it by staging a scenario. In the scenario, Clara's character of Xandir's old girlfriend is given the surname "Slutsky." To most, it would probably be assumed that it's just a Punny Name. However, "Slutsky" is actually a real surname, of Russian-Jewish origin.
Anvilicious: The movie tries really hard to argue the point that there can be a Grossout Show without it having to deliver a heavy-handed Aesop at the end just to justify the Vulgar Humor. Ironically, for trying to put down Toilet Humor shows that try to be too preachy, they are really preachy about this particular message... and it's really hard to tell if they were trying to be ironic on purpose about it.
Awesome Music: "Black Chick's Tongue", a parody of your typical Disney love ballad which manages to sound legitimately lovely. Thanks to Tara Strong, Cree Summer and Jess Harnell's vocals. In the series finale, Wooldoor sings a heavy metal version.
Bile Fascination: Some watch the Drawn Together movie to see how bad it really is, even after listening to Caustic Critics like The Mysterious Mr. Enter, PhantomStrider, and Emer Prevost.
Broken Base:
- The show itself is either hilarious or relies way too much on shock humor and doesn't take advantage of its premise.
- While pretty much everyone and everything is a target, the abundance of Jewish jokes in particular tend to divide viewers: some think it's just a straight example of N-Word Privileges, while others feel it's outright anti-Semitism. The character I.S.R.A.E.L. in The Movie has been criticized as going beyond "knocking your own" and just ending up as one long anti-Semitic joke.
Cliché Storm: Apart from the excessive use of shock humor common in adult cartoons at the time, this show goes for the easiest jokes the viewer could think of for the characters that got spoofed. Captain Hero, the Superman parody, is a violent Destructive Savior. Xandir, the adventure game / JRPG protagonist, is an androgynous homosexual. Ling-Ling, the anime character, displays almost every Japanese stereotype known to man. Clara, the Disney Princess parody, has incredibly politically incorrect views. In fairness, this was likely intentional, as the show (at least in its first season) was created to also parody reality shows of the time, and they used various archetypes of cartoons to display these kinds of characters, as many reality shows had the "jock", the "crass asshole", the "sheltered girl" having a tiff with the "black woman", the "fish-out-of-water foreigner", etc.
Creator's Pet: Even fans of the character admit that Captain Hero is used way too much, especially in season 3. Apparently the reason the creators used him so much was because they realized Captain Hero had no morals, no sense of restraint and was a complete idiot, meaning they could literally make him do anything they wanted, and it would never be out of character for him.
Crosses the Line Twice: The entire series is this in spades. Hell, one promo described the show as "not just crossing the line, but throwing up all over it".
Cult Classic: This show has a very large cult following, especially on internet forums. Fans will often have entire conversations with each other using nothing but quotes from the show.
Fanon Discontinuity:
- Most fans really don't like The Movie and try to pretend that it didn't exist.
- Season 3 also gets this to a lesser extent, due to the shock value and gross-out humor going too far, and to some extent, the Flanderization of the main characters.
Franchise Original Sin: From the very start, the show was always one of the most unashamedly trashy Animated Shock Comedies on all of television, and thus never had any hope of truly being to everyone's tastes. However, even with the show's openly acknowledged 'take nothing seriously' attitude present throughout, the first two seasons also combined said attitude with a small number of surprisingly heartfelt moments that allowed the show to have an unexpected sense of sincerity hidden underneath its crass exterior. Unfortunately, this same sense of sincerity was eventually removed in Season 3, which started placing an ill received inordinately strong amount of additional focus on its already present Vulgar Humor as well as on just how repugnantly unsympathetic the cast could be. And this same problem eventually reached its nadir in the Grand Finale Movie, which not only cranked all the raunchiness to such a staggeringly high level that it came across as mean-spirited, but also incredibly clumsily tried to justify it.
Friendly Fandoms: It has one with Ratchet & Clank for sharing some of the same voice actors.
Genius Bonus:
- A subplot involves Toot yearning for the arrival of the Wienermobile. The climax of this plot mimics the Ray Bradbury story "All Summer in a Day" when Toot is locked in the closet and misses her opportunity.
- A dub-only example. In the Latin American Spanish dub, Toot Braunstein, the obvious Betty Boop Expy, had her name changed to Lulú d'Cartón (literally "Lulu d'Cardboard"). The reason for the name change becomes clear upon one knowing that in Mexico (where the dub was made), there was a soft drink brand named Lulú whose logo was a pretty obvious (and trademark-infringing) carbon-copy of Betty Boop, before it was changed just enough to be lawyer-friendly.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- The show is very popular in Latin America, to the point that reruns are still shown on their Comedy Central feed to this very day. The amazingly done dub is one of the main reasons of this.
  - Captain Hero in particular, while tending to be a divisive character in the English-speaking fandom, is pretty much universally loved in the Latin American fandom and is often considered there as the funniest character of the series, mostly due the perfomance of Gerardo Reyero.
- True to the trope's name, the show also had a small but loyal German fanbase.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- One episode has a Black Rhinoceros make an impassioned plea for people to change their ways before it becomes extinct. In 2011, the western black rhinoceros would be declared extinct by the IUCN.
- The show's portrayal of Bill Cosby became much less funny after the accusations of sexual assault against him were brought into light. However, the show did make many jokes about his sexual improprieties, showing how much of an open secret it was.
  - The episode "Unrestrainable Trainable" has Captain Hero investigate the city under attack from a giant midget (which later turns out to be his inbred son), with one of the evidence of destruction being a giant reservoir of banana pudding being drained. Bill Cosby is seen standing over it, saying that he's just another unemployed sexual predator without it.
  - Then there's the episode "Foxxy and the Gang Bang/Toot Goes Bollywood", where Toot challenges Foxxy to stop having sex and viceversa. In Foxxy's plot, she tries to find out the reason for her heavy sexual appetite, and tracks it back to memories of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids expies sexually assaulting her when she was young, later turning out that the memories were fake and implemented by Wooldoor.
- Spanky's crude and perverted behavior becomes quite creepy for Latin American viewers after his voice actor Luis Daniel Ramírez was accused of sexual harassment by other voice actresses, resulting in him getting banned from several dubbing studios.
- Princess Clara's politically-incorrect antics throughout the series are this in light of Tara Strong's November 2018 video of her yelling at an Uber driver (which were seen as racist as the driver was an immigrant), to the tweets in late 2023 about the Israel-Hamas war, which were perceived as Islamophobic.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Presumably, Clara wears purple because no other Disney princess at the time was known for wearing purple. As of Tangled (2010), Rapunzel takes that spot.
- The parody of The Empire Strikes Back, with M----- Mouse and Clara dressing up as Queen Amidala in "Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle-Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!" became much funnier after Disney bought Lucasfilm.
- In a couple of episodes, including the first one, Ling-Ling prepares to battle by transforming into a more powerful and edgier version of himself, before turning back to normal. This concept would later be adopted by the franchise he is a parody of, in the form of Mega Evolutions, although the Pikachu line doesn't get one.
- One episode featured Ling-Ling in a detective suit.
- One episode has Captain Hero snapping necks as his answer to all his problems. After Man of Steel, where Superman infamously kills the Big Bad with a Neck Snap, this is just hilarious.
Hollywood Pudgy: Toot does not look nearly as fat as the show claims her to be, at least when she isn't receiving a Gross-Up Close-Up. Lampshaded in one episode where after yet another ruthless fat joke she screams "I'm not even that fat! I'm slightly overweight!"
It Was His Sled: We all know that the Finale Movie ends with the last eraser bomb wiping out the main cast.
Jerkass Woobie: Toot deliberately sets out to be "the bitch", after believing she can't be the sex symbol anymore as a result of Foxxy, but tends to suffer the most of the entire cast. She becomes more sympathetic as the series goes along.
LGBT Fanbase: Because Everyone Is Bi and the surprisingly good portrayal of Xandir.
Memetic Mutation:
- It became quite common in certain circles to joke about Twilight Sparkle spouting Princess Clara's lines, due to their similar voices and the sheer absurdity of a cartoon pony saying things like, for instance: "I'm sorry for buying child slaves from third-world countries".
- Fans from Latin America often refer Captain Hero as Frieza, since they share the same voice actor in Spanish. And since Xandir (Who is constantly abused by Captain Hero) has the same voice actor of Krillin, jokes about "Frieza killing Krillin even in another series" are often made.
- The scene where a pink bullet train tries forcing itself into a small tunnel is viral for its Visual Innuendo.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Despite a lot of jokes that would otherwise come off as homo/biphobic, the show has a large LGBT Fanbase since it generally treats homo/bisexuality in a normalized manner. Add to that is Xandir usually being the Only Sane Man of the main cast and, despite being a massive Butt-Monkey, often has things go well for him in the end.
Misaimed Fandom: The episode "Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree" revolved around Hero creating an alternate identity named Tim, and in that character, having an affair with Xandir. Xandir/Hero shippers took the episode to mean that Captain Hero was secretly in love with Xandir, even though the episode's writer stated in an online forum that the point of Hero's masquerade was merely to get sex from Xandir without having to face any consequences.
Nausea Fuel:
- A particular example happens in the episode "Dirty Pranking No. 2", which focused on a habit Spanky has of defecating on pizza and showing it to the deliveryman. What's even worse is that they still eat it afterwards.
- The many Gross-Up Close-Up shots of Toot in several episodes.
- Toot's habit of cutting herself, often to bizarre and fatal extents.
- Dumpy the Wasteman is a parody of Frosty the Snowman made of disembodied limbs, guts, used syringes and feces.
- The Movie includes (among other things), a close-up of Wooldoor's Gag Penis, Captain Hero stealing a corpse and carrying it around with him for the whole movie, and a giant who shits in his own mouth.
- In "A Tale of Two Cows", while Toot was getting a devastating wedgie, her underwear had some gray skidmarks on them right before they were ripped out of her butt.
Offending the Creator's Own: As the creators and Tara Strong were Jewish, there are a ton of Jewish jokes, and a movie character whose sole purpose is Israel jokes.
Padding: The Movie is really short and has lots of filler. More specifically, repeated clips from the show that don't serve any point, scenes that drag on nightmarishly long, and repeating the same scene from the beginning at the start of the third act.
Retroactive Recognition:
- Erik Sommers went on to be a writer for Community, and went on to write for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
- Writer/co-developer Jordan Young and writer Elijah Aron went on to produce Raising Hope and write for Bojack Horseman.
- Executive producer Bill Freiberger went on to showrun and produce Sonic Boom.
- Voice actress Kaitlyn Robrock got her start in voice acting in her cameo as Smurfette in The Movie long before she was Tommy Goodman and Minnie Mouse.
Seasonal Rot: While the show was always extremely divisive due to its humor and shock value, even its fanbase admitted the show took a huge dip in quality at Season 3. The degree of decline is debated, however: some say the show was still enjoyable albeit not as good, and some say it made the show as bad as its detractors claimed. Even the creators claim this, as they claim they dropped the ball because they got Xbox at the office and played way too much Halo instead of working. The complaints about the season were variations of:
- Massive Flanderization of the main cast:
  - Clara went from being a naive, sheltered religious girl (and despite that, still had character development and learned to see her roommates as friends) to an explicitly bigoted, mean-spirited, violent religious zealot with no regard for anyone else.
  - Foxxy Love went from being a Team Mom who had a good head on her shoulders and was often the voice of reason to defuse tough situations, to a one-dimensional character all about sex, promiscuity, and daddy issues.
  - Xandir went from being the optimistic Only Sane Man (at least when Foxxy wasn't around) and someone who went through a character arc of struggling with his homosexuality...to just being loud and gay and perverted.
  - Toot was already slowly becoming a one-dimensional fat joke and sad sack in Season 2, but by Season 3, the transition was complete and had essentially no traits other than being Hollywood Pudgy, ugly, and bitter.
  - Captain Hero started as a jock alpha male stereotype combined with superhero tropes in Season 1. By season 2, a lot of this was dropped in favor of him being a selfish, unpredictable idiot disliked by the superhero community. But while he was never portrayed as intelligent and often did cruel, ridiculous things, he still had a moral compass and there was always a logic to the stupidity (e.g. assuming Supernanny was a superhero). By season 3, however, he is just a randomly cruel Jerkass Karma Houdini who sometimes borders on Too Dumb to Live and openly talks about having sex with corpses.
  - There was also the issue that he basically became a plot hog and the de-facto main character of an ensemble cast. All but 2 episodes (out of 14) of Season 3 gave him a main role in either the A-story or the B-story; there were 4 episodes that season that were ensemble pieces, but Hero has a huge role in those episodes as well. Even fans of the character felt he was extremely overused to the show's detriment. The creators admit this, saying that Hero was so reckless, disgusting, and sociopathic that almost no plot or joke would be out of character for him...which is Flanderization in a nutshell.
- Massive shift in tone:
  - The show was always raunchy and offensive, but it still had multiple types of humor, parodying both reality TV and cartoon tropes, and gave its characters more depth than anyone expected. While almost every episode had absurd, raunchy jokes and moments, there was always a sense of homage and heart to it. It was clear that despite the show being a raunchy comedy, it was always trying to be more than that.
  - That feeling is almost entirely gone by Season 3. The reality show aspect of the show, already slowly being phased out, is gone ENTIRELY except for the final episode. Jokes about cartoon characters from other series went from twisted homages to outright hatred and scorn.
Shallow Parody:
- Toot has no resemblance to Betty Boop besides appearance, and seems to be more a general parody of celebrity idols who are past their prime. Alternatively, she seems to more resemble an archetype of Marilyn Monroe before her death.
- Xandir is supposedly a cross-parody of Link and Cloud Strife, but is really just a gay stereotype dressed like a video game character.^note
- An episode includes Daria as a victim of torture in Hot Topic's basement; as the characters pass by, she drawls "This is men's fault." Many Daria fans took exception with this, since Daria isn't a Straw Feminist in her own show, but rather is annoyed by everyone equally. (Daria has a Straw Feminist character, Ms. Barch, but she was created to be a contrast to less feminist characters like Daria.)
- The Movie, which even fans of the show will hesitate to defend, features a shallow parody of South Park to mock the idea that adult animation needs to have a moral point to justify all the gruesome and offensive humour. Drawn Together creator Matt Silverstein infamously despised Trey Parker and his work and once said in an interview that he'd stab Parker if he ever saw him again. Really, the Movie is an abject lesson to other creators about the dangers of parodying works that you dislike.
Shock Fatigue: The third season saw a decline in ratings and critical reception due to this. The show had become increasingly reliant on its offensive and outrageous nature, to the point where it lost the ability to be funny. This led to a decrease in viewers, as well as a more negative reception from those who did watch.
Tear Jerker:
- Popeye's death in "The Lemon-AIDS Walk".
- Spanky finding Boba Fett's body in "Charlotte’s Web of Lies", and tearfully promises to avenge him.
- Clara and Wooldoor's deaths in the movie.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: With the exception of Captain Hero and the superhero genre, pretty much every character after the first season rarely had any reference to their original cartoon genres, in favor of making them a caricature of stereotypical reality show personalities. Toot got it the worst as they pretty much dropped the idea that she's a former sex symbol who can't understand why people aren't attracted to her by episode four and basically made her nothing more than a one-dimensional fat joke. We never got to meet the other people in her world as we did for every other character, and a later episode revealed she went to fat camp,^note implying that the whole "former sex symbol" thing was thrown out in the show's already loose continuity.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The idea of a Big Brother-style reality show that features family-unfriendly parodies of popular cartoon characters from across various media opens up a lot of potential to both de- and reconstruct not only of those characters' common tropes, but those of reality television. Unfortunately, the stigma that animation is either for children or childish by design reared its ugly head, so rather than familiar types of characters playing off one another for comedy, we instead got your typical, Family Guy-esque Animated Shock Comedy that tries way too hard to be deliberately offensive.
Ugly Cute: Wooldoor Sockbat. He's also the most cheerful and friendly guy on the show, which helps.
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The premise of the series is a parody of "trashy" reality shows, dating the series to a time when such shows were dominating the television landscape. The characters are also caricatures of reality show stereotypes of that era and (i.e., "the jock", "the bitch", etc.)
- The jabs at popular culture also root the series in the 2000s. "Alzheimers That Ends Well" is largely revolved around a parody of Extreme Makover with "Extreme Vaginal Makeover"; the DVD version of the episode has a scene where Clara ends up on Wisteria Lane and a parody of Mary Alice's narrations, "Super Nanny" parodies Supernanny, "Lost in Parking Space" has a Take That! to King of the Hill, one episode took shots at Tori Spelling, and the last episode was a parody of American Idol.
Unpopular Popular Character: Xandir isn't much liked by the other characters, but he is a popular character amongst fans.
Viewer Gender Confusion: It was several episodes before Ling-Ling was identified as male; many viewers assumed he was female. It doesn’t help that he’s voiced by a female.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Even though it's a cartoon that parodies different types of cartoon characters with an art-style reminiscent of something that would air on Saturday mornings and/or Nickelodeon, it actually has tons of Gorn, Fanservice (and Fan Disservice), Black Comedy, otherwise highly offensive and politically incorrect humor, Squick, and Body Horror. But kids still watched it anyway when it came out.
The Woobie:
- Excludie, the ninth housemate who is excluded from everything. Fanfiction often casts Xandir in this role.
- In the movie, Ling-Ling pines for Xandir but can't have him.
Woolseyism: The Latin American Spanish dub brings funny new names for the characters (Capitanazo, Puerquísimo Chancho, Morocha Amorocha, Mueble O'Algo, etc.) and a more over-the-top dub and general feeling which enhances the series. The dub was so successful over in South America that the show surprisingly doesn't get considered to have suffered Seasonal Rot with its third season over there, given most of the fanbase over there still considers the episodes just as fondly remembered as those in the first seasons. The amount of screentime of Captain Hero wasn't quite as noticeable from the fandom over there either, given how much Gerardo Reyero stole the show with his deliveries.

YMMV / Drawn Together

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