- Adorkable: Surprisingly, when he was young, Janus Valker – the Big Bad of the first part of the saga – was quite the Nerd. At parties he was literally a wallflower: he always used a shirt with the same pattern of the wallpaper to better blend into the background (apparently he also subscribed a newsletter that informed which pattern to use). His attempts to court Kalissa are just hilarious.
- Bizarro Episode:
- One issue of the comic, "La Mummia" (The Mummy), had nothing to do with Rat-Man. It was a parody of the Mummy series of films starring ancestors of Aldo and Giuda, characters from Ortolani's comic series "Venerdì 12".
- The last episode of the animated series, Saving and Imagination. Basically, only 199 dollars have been left for the last episode, so the staff haves to cut short on stuff. At first it kinda works (a Wraparound Background during driving scenes, backgrounds from older episodes are reused and so on), but then the Monster of the Week Lightning Man appears and wastes most of the budget by showcasing his powers and starting an impromptu dance sequence, meaning that the second half of the episode haves to be done even cheaper: scenes are played twice in a row, backgrounds are replaced with cruder versions and Lightning Man's powers are reduced to vanishing lasers that look like an effect from an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Then Rat-Man pulls out a giant tank that wastes even more budget, meaning that the cartoon goes even cheaper, with only two characters, no backgrounds, no colors, the soundtrack is replaced with 15-second midi loops and the battles are done with Batman (1966)-styled Written Sound Effects. At that point, the villain snaps and uses his powers anyway, cancelling the whole budget. The episode ends with Rat-Man, now a static picture with a Synchro-Vox mouth, whistling the theme song over the credits.
- Shocking Moments:
- Aptly, very high towards the end of "The Last Secret": The Buffoon is in fact Noctule?! Wolf is Spectre's father?! SPECTRE IS KIMMY?!
- Then topped during the "I Vendicatopi" story arc (initially a Shallow Parody of The Avengers), when Rat-Man discovers that his hero Mr. Mouse created not just the superheroes but also the supervillains, and all in the name of profit.
- What do you mean Rat-Man is Walker's biological son? What do you mean he'll be the next incarnation of the Shadow?!
- The terrible, terrible truth about Thea: Rat-Man didn't fall in love with her, but with Aima, Denam's real daughter. Denam and Kalissa, plus Topin, wiped their memories and set up things so Thea would die in Rat-Man's arms to create a weapon against the Shadow... But the love story and the memory wipe brought out Ik, the incarnation of Rat-Man's love for Aima who broke out of his cryo cell and rampaged through the city searching for Aima until Rat-Man himself got him to return to his cryo cell, and the brief time Rat-Man and Aima had together was enough for him to father a daughter named Thea.
- Shallow Parody: Rat-Man began as a Batman parody, but the more the stories went on, the more Ortolani removed elements of it, such as Rat-Man being a millionaire, his Rat-Mobile, his sidekick Tòpin, and so on. Justified since Ortolani wanted his hero to be more like a metropolitan vigilante a la Spiderman.
- Leo himself even admitted he never even saw Tim Burton's Batman in its entirety.
- Venerdì 12 (Friday the 12th), another series by Leo published on the Rat-Man magazine, has nothing to do with Jason Voorhees besides the title and the fact that the protagonist is a hideous man turned into a monster who lives alone and hides his face under a blank mask.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: It's what happens when your series takes the innuendos in Animaniacs... And runs with them. Obviously, this gets a Lampshade Hanging whenever a Family Unfriendly Character such as Cinzia Otherside shows up:Rat-Man: "Cinzia, there are kids out there."(beat)
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