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Back at the Barnyard

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  • Adorkable: Freddy's shy and neurotic nature just makes it hard not to love him.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In "Chez Pig", when Otis announces that the restaurant got a call from the owner of T.G.B. Fripplehoot's, Freddy tries to sing their theme song, but the "Birthday Song" he sang to customers comes out instead, which makes him go nuts. However, considering at that point, we'd only seen him sing the song once with Peck, did it really get so much in Freddy's head he couldn't remember any other song, or did Otis and the gang actually steal the song from Fripplehoot's and not tell Freddy, who only subconsciously remembered it? Especially considering T.G.B. Fripplehoot's is a spoof of a restaurant known for having a birthday song.
  • Alternative Joke Interpretation: As Otis runs toward the farmer in "Hypno-A-Go-Go", the latter utters an Oh, No... Not Again!. Is this a reference to the Running Gag of Abby pushing the farmer out of harm's way when a hypnotized Otis tries to kill him throughout the episode, or a Call-Back to Otis running into him in "Escape from the Barnyard"?
  • Awesome Music:
    • "You Broke My Heart So I Blew Up Your Farm". Black Comedy has never sounded so fun in musical form.
    • "Bionic Janitor" and its later two variants sound great for what little they were used in "RoboPeck".
    • "No Fear Bigfoot". Bigfoot may not be the most fluent communicator, but man, can he sing.
    • The Ominous Latin Chanting in "Hypno-A-Go-Go" is bound to send chills down your spine.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Bronco Betsy has gain quite a fan following, though mainly for obvious reasons.
  • Fridge Brilliance: In "Paging Dr. Filly", Dr. Filly makes a lot of sayings that don’t make any sense. It’s subtle foreshadowing that he’s not an actual psychologist and is just pretending to be one.
  • Genius Bonus: Yes. Even a ridiculous show like this can have one. In "Four Leaf Otis", Pig says that to make a rainbow, you need to close your eyes, wish really hard, and fill your heart with love...and seed a raincloud with Silver Iodide. A chemical than causes clouds to start raining early.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show has a strong following in Israel, to the point that it not only continues to air to this day, but also had an entire marathon dedicated to it.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Otis and the other actions in "Dummy and Dummier", where they accused Freddy of Mr. Jinx's misdeeds and nearly banning him from the barnyard because of this were seen as a lot worser than Mr. Jinx himself, whose deeds were actually the result of termites living in the wood he was made out of and wanted revenge because of it.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • The "Viewer Mail" and "Ask Dr. Pig" segments have become memes with the clips replacing various suspenseful moments from popular culture.
    • Dr. Pig has become very popular on 4chan, with entire threads dedicated to discussing it as if it were an anime (referring to a series of very bizarre videos, from this channel).
    • While not immediate following the show's end, the scene where Otis gets milked by the milking machine quickly gained attention online due to some newly-realized sexual context behind it.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • In "Hypno-A-Go-Go", Otis accidentally hypnotizes himself with a recording from a movie, instructing him to kill the farmer when he hears a bell. And Hypnotized!Otis is pretty chilling with his gruffer monotone voice, his swirly-eyed stare, his half open jaw along with the scary music played when his trance is triggered. His attempts to assassinate the farmer, the worst of which, range from electrocuting him with his fence to running him down with a tractor at full speed.
    • One "Ask Dr. Pig" scene has a worm-like creature burst out of Pig's chest in the style of a Chestburster.
  • Shipping: Otis and Abby, since Abby is basically a replacement for Daisy, the love interest from the film. Though other fans prefer shipping Otis with Daisy.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:
    • The title card theme for Hypno-A-Go-Go (which also plays throughout the episode) sounds rather similar to The Graveyard(o)_(o).
    • In "Dummy and Dummier", after hearing the word "dummy", a scene showing Otis's Thinking Wheels is accompanied with a song similar to that of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse".
    • The background music in "Wild Mike's Dance Party" sounds fairly similar to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
  • Tear Jerker:
    • "Otis' Mom" features Bessy depressed because she lost her son when he was very young. It is also dedicated to Lee Paulsen, Rob Paulsen's mother, who died during production.
    • The moment is "Dead Cow Walking" where Otis thinks he's dying and Pip gets real depressed over it.
    • The scene in "Pig Amok", where Otis seems to have died. To add salt in the wound, Brunhilda even laughs at it.
    • In "Tale of Two Snottys", where Nathan starts crying his eyes out and revealing his true feelings is just heartbreaking.
    • In "Dummy and Dummier", The others blame Freddy for all of Mr. Jinks' wrongdoings and plan on banning him from the barnyard after Mr. Jinks puts cement in Pig's mud jacuzzi. While they did find out Freddy was innocent after Mr. Jinks reveals the truth, it was still upsetting.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Bingo said he was going to come back, but he ultimately only showed up in the last episode as a cameo.
    • After his one episode, Geraldo never tried to expose the animals again.
    • Farmer Clem only returned in an episode towards the end of the series.
  • Trans Audience Interpretation: Some audience members have noted Otis having udders, despite being male, indicates that logically he must be a trans man (or rather, bull). This scene is also often cited.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The animation of the TV series is rather... odd, especially when compared to the much more fluid animation of the film it was based on. The animals are bit too human in how they move and act, while the human characters look more like moving wax models.
  • Vindicated by History: The show wasn't very popular on the internet when it was on, much like other Nickelodeon shows at the time (with the exception of Avatar: The Last Airbender). However, the show now has a half-ironic, half-genuine fanbase that enjoys it for its absurd nature and nearly every episode having memes in them somewhere.

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