Secret Squirrel

"Secret Squirrel?!" "In the flesh!"

Secret Squirrel is a series of Spy Fiction parody cartoon shorts made by Hanna-Barbera in 1965. It was later revived in the 1990s as Super Secret Secret Squirrel, in a Three Shorts format headlined by Two Stupid Dogs. Secret Squirrel is a Funny Animal spy. Along with his sidekick, Morocco Mole, He Fights Crime.

Tropes used in Secret Squirrel include:

Secret Squirrel contains examples of:

Super Secret Secret Squirrel adds:

  • Action Girl: Agent Penny shows that the Chief's PA is a capable Emma Peel-alike.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Greg's motivation for villainy is that he's a gingerbread man whose leg was bitten off by the girl who baked him.
  • Anti-Villain: Platypus only wanted to fire his body scrambler at himself. If only he'd hooked up his extension cord to somewhere other than the Secret Service Solar Energy Station.
  • The Cameo: Snooper and Blabber, as well as a bunch of other HB detective/mystery solving characters appeared in one segment.
  • Cool Car
  • A Day in the Limelight: Penny certainly gets one of her own in "Agent Penny".
  • Deadly Dodging: Used against One Ton, a rampaging panda whom Secret must stop but isn't allowed to attack. He then puts him under protective custody for endangering an endangered species.
  • Everything's Better with Platypi
  • Evil Twin: Morocco has one, named Scirocco.
  • Expy: Goldflipper is one of Yellow Pinky, with a similar voice, wardrobe, & the same obsession with gold. Since Yellow Pinky is an Expy of Goldfinger, this makes him an Expy of an Expy.
  • Flash Back: Goes recursive in Scirocco Mole. Secret stops it before we reach evil sperm.
  • Freaky Friday Flip: Done in the episode Platypus. Minds stay with heads, but heads get shuffled onto the wrong bodies.
  • Funny Animal: Now for everyone. This leads to...
  • Furry Confusion: ...played with. Nobody seems to have pets, but there is a Super Secret Zoo. The exhibits are in prison uniforms, making it more of a Super Secret Prison cunningly disguised as a Super Secret Zoo.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: In "Scirocco Mole", when Morocco, dressed as Scirocco, is walking through a bazaar, he bumps into a guy selling walnuts, causing his stand to fall down in front of him, spiling the nuts everywhere. The seller has his hands together on the spot of the stand next to his crotch and says, "My nuts".
    • Not to mention to the mole twins' origin story which go far back into the womb.
    • In "Platypus," a change ray switches the body parts of Secret Squirrel, Morocco and the Chief, with Secret getting Morocco's torso. In reaching in for what he thinks is one of his weapons, he instead takes out a magazine centerfold of a female mole.
    • "Chameleon" has the chief at an art museum exhibition heading up security (for what is presumed to be the last unstolen painting) and he asks a female patron if she'd be interested in "undercover work".
    • After being assaulted by One Ton with his own "Psychology in a can" spray, a dazed Secret Squirrel asks Morocco if his Freudian Slip is showing.
    • Then there was all the blatant seduction innuendo and the Cat Fight in Penny's Day in The Limelight episode.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Hardly anybody wears pants, as Secret quite often demonstrates when pulling open his coat to deploy gadgetry. Being temporarily naked doesn't seem to be much of an issue, either.
    • Though Chief did seem to be quite embarrassed when it was revealed the bison wore bikini briefs.
    • And, oddly enough, Secret removes a pair of shorts when changing behind a screen in Agent Penny.

Quark: Hey, Secret Squirrel! What's your secret? You're not wearing pants?

  • Hey, It's That Voice!: This show seems to deserve a sub-trope to this, as it's loaded with recognizable voices. With Jess Harnell, Jim Cummings, Tony Jay and others, you're bound to think "Secret Squirrel sounds like Wakko Warner!" or "Goldflipper sounds exactly the same as Robotnik!"
    • Not THE Robotnik, though!
    • Let's not forget Roddy McDowell as the Chameleon.
  • Hollywood Voodoo: The Crowning Moment of Funny
  • Improbable Species Compatibility: Queen Bea, a queen bee, is infatuated with Secret Squirrel, a squirrel. Even with anthropomorphism, the latter is several times the size of the former.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Dialed up to 11 with Secret, and not only in his coat, but in his hat, à la Inspector Gadget.
  • Idea Bulb: The method by which SS defeats Dr. O. (It Makes Sense in Context, okay?)
  • Inspector Oblivious: Averted. The Spy Fiction genre is instead parodied by making Secret competent and prepared to Marty Stu levels.
  • Look Behind You!: "...it's Fred Flintstone!"
  • Love Potion: Deployed by Queen Bea. Works slightly better than usual, although Secret falls for, amongst other things, his own tail, before countering the effects with the power of hate.
  • Mask Power / Nice Hat: Secret's hat fulfills this role, coming down below his eyes yet still showing them.
    • In episode "Agent Penny", he trades it for a variety of likewise indigo low-slung headgear.
    • In "Doctor O", he actually discards a smashed and broken hat...to reveal an identical replacement underneath.
    • When Morocco ends up wearing it in "Platypus", it's his nose which pokes through.
  • Non Sequitur Thud: In "One Ton", after the villain of the same name drops a desk on Secret using his Psychology in a Can against him, Morocco opens one of the drawers and Secret comes out, all bent out of shape, and he says, "Is my Freudian Slip showing?"
  • Portal Picture: The Chameleon loves to become one with great art. Secret causes him to have a breakdown by exposing him to modern, abstract works.
  • Puff of Logic: In Quark, Secret uses a dictionary to point out that quarks are a "hypothetical" subatomic particle, and makes the titular microscopic villain disappear.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Greg.
  • Spot the Impostor: Played straight with Morocco and Scirocco Mole, each attempting to demonstrate that he's the bungling one.
  • The Cameo: Two Stupid Dogs are two of the anthropomorphic guard dogs for the museum in Chameleon. They also appear as their usual selves in Scirocco Mole, along with Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. Agent Penny has an "Undercover Pub" peppered with portraits of Hanna-Barbera crimefighters as well as a cameo by Snooper and Blabber.
    • Reversing the situation, Secret and Morocco star in a dog biscuit ad featured in a Two Stupid Dogs segment.
  • The Sixties
  • The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Secret gives this choice to One Ton, the rogue panda.
  • Thick Line Animation
  • Villain of the Week: Aside from "Agent Penny", each episode had a different villain and was named after said villain.
    • And even "Agent Penny" wasn't a subversion of the trope.
  • Wacky Racing: Hot Rodney, although with only two characters. Subverted: Secret cheats as much as the "bad guy" does, and ends up losing.
    • Then again, Secret only "cheated" in response to the bad guy's previous cheating and Hot Rodney crossed a line when he had a thug kidnap Morocco Mole just to force Secret to abandon a race.
  • Wingding Eyes: The reflections on Morocco's shades often do this; the usual squiggle turning into an exclamation mark is a common one.
    • The standard squiggles are S-shaped. S.S. standing for Secret Squirrel, of coruse.
  • A Worldwide Punomenon: Secret is a constant stream of them, and he's not alone.
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