The Angry Beavers

This is a show about two beavers, Norbert and Daggett, who are brothers and share a home. Norb is actually relatively easy-going (or was early on), and Daggett is the angry one.

This is a Two Shorts Animated Show which aired on Nickelodeon. Hilarity Ensues there regularly, often in a highly absurd way crammed full of dialogue both fantastically witty and ridiculously dim.

The show first began airing in 1997 on Nickelodeon and ran for four seasons. In 2001, it was canceled for good when the last episode to be produced had the characters aware of the fact that they were in a cartoon which was about to end. This apparently broke several in-house rules, namely not breaking the fourth wall or announcing the end of a series (due to Nickelodeon's habit of profiting off re-runs). It also apparently got the executives angry by referring to an earlier incident where the line "Shut up" was censored for a re-run using the Sound Effect Bleep and then changed altogether when that generated even more controversy.

However, the show was able to be released through iTunes, featuring the best of Seasons 1 and 2. Seasons 1, 2 and the first half of 3 have been placed on DVD, with more to come. We hope.

Perhaps the only cartoon in the universe in which a clock on the wall visible in most episodes updates in real time.

Recaps of the show can be found here.

Now has a growing Character Sheet.

Tropes used in The Angry Beavers include:
  • Aerith and Bob: Norbert, Daggett, Trucky, Stump, Treeflower, and Bing. And Barry.
  • Aloof Big Brother: Norbert at the start of the series.
  • Amazon Brigade: The Raccoon Girls.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Daggett.
  • Art Shift: Everyone's addition to the campfire story in Pass It On. Norb's version is a Bond-esque spy thriller. Barry does the story over as a '70s exploitation movie. Bing's is just a series of doodles running around frantically. Stump's version is a letterboxed black-and-white drama with Scottish accents. Treeflower's is a Magical Girl anime. And Dag's is just all the different styles floating in a white void.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: a common theme in the Beavers' favorite B-movies.
  • Bad Bad Acting: Oxnard Montalvo and all his co-stars. Also Daggett, Barry, and Bing when the beavers complete a 'lost film' of his.
  • Berserk Button: Norbert doesn't like having his hair messed with.
    • Both beavers get annoyed whenever they are mistakenly identified as weasels.
  • Bigger Than Jesus: In Beaver Fever, the beavers become One Hit Wonders. Their manager tells them that they're "bigger than sliced bread" and shows them a graph chart that proves this. When Daggett repeats this to the press, people start burning their albums, leading to Daggett explaining that he meant that they're physically larger than sliced bread. Upon hearing this explanation, people burning their albums are seen putting their hands into the fire to retrieve them.
  • Bland-Name Product: Yahoo for Yoo-hoo. Also Ho-Humms snack cakes.
  • Buffy-Speak: Both beavers used the word "thingy" repeatedly. One of the episodes is actually titled "Big Round Sticky Fish Thingy".
    • Scientist #1 is especially prone to this.
    • Really, 80% the cast is prone to doing this.
  • Butt Monkey: Dagget tends to suffer a lot throughout episodes. Eventually it catches up to Norb as well.
  • Cain and Abel: Norbert and his brother Daggett are always arguing, bickering, fighting with each other.
  • The Cameo: The Beavers obtain a box of movie masks, one of them is Helga Pataki
  • Canada, Eh?: Canucks Amuck
  • Cassandra Truth: Daggett claims Big Byoo-tox is teaching him how to hide; Norbert, of course, doesn't believe a word of it. Norbert turns out to be correct, since it wasn't Big Byoo-tox, just a big, hairy, naked Canadian.
  • Catch Phrase: Daggett: That was nuts!, Norbert: BIIIG Hug!
    • And the Unusual Euphemism "spoot," which is something of a joint catchphrase for the two.
  • Celebrity Paradox: In "Tree of Hearts," the brothers receive an announcement in the mail about the birth of Richard Steven Horvitz's son, Jack:

Daggett: Wow! That's great!
Norbert: I think so.
Daggett: Who's Richard Horvitz?
Norbert: Nobody.

  • Chased by Angry Natives: The brothers are chased after pissing off a tribe of Raccoons amazonesses.
  • Chaste Toons: Averted. In the first episode, we see Norbert and Daggett's pregnant mother. Not even a minute after her introduction, she goes off-screen to give birth to their little sisters.
    • Averted in "Big Round Sticky Fish Thingy", where the brothers witness a rare sticky sturgeon lay an egg. Towards the end of the episode, a fully formed baby sturgeon comes out. Well, it's not like they could show a male fertilizing the undeveloped egg...
  • Christmas Episode: Parodied with "Gift Hoarse", an Arbor Day episode (the justification being that Arbor Day is beaver Christmas).
  • Companion Cube: Stump.
  • Competition Coupon Madness: In "Box Top Beavers".
  • Contrived Coincidence: The beaver brothers' dam is the end result of an out of control pickup truck knocking over some trees, falling over a cliff, and the trees landing in a perfect arrangement in the body of water below.
  • Crappy Carnival: Smelly Jim's Carnival of Mirthiness in Dag Con-Carny.
  • Credits Gag: Many of the staff got goofy nicknames.
  • Cryptid Episode: Daggett meets "Big Byoo-tocks".
  • Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Daggett.
  • Different As Night and Day: The brothers each have their own special traits, this eventually passed down to their younger sisters.
  • Disney Acid Sequence: Norbert and Treeflower's duet in Bummer of Love.
  • Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune: Daggett does this often.
  • Ending Theme: An organ theme, still upbeat but noticeably different in tone from the brassy opening theme.
  • Episode Title Card: Each card is accompanied by the recurring theme and an illustration. A few episodes lack the title card sequence.
  • Expy: Their father looks like...Drew Carey
  • Fantastic Voyage Plot: Van-tastic Voyage. The scientists enlarge Daggett to immense proportions in order to explore him.
  • Flanderization: Mostly of Norbert, whose kaaahn-vuh-looh-uh-tuhd speech patterns got more exaggerated as the series went on. The characters' personalities remained mostly stable, though.
  • The Fool: Norbert often manages to avoid a lot of painful consequences his brother suffers, sometimes in rather contrived circumstances. This was Lampshaded in an instance the two switch places, and Daggett (supposedly) avoids an Amusing Injury as a result. Granted on many other occasions Norb is an even bigger Butt Monkey than Dag is.
  • Fountain of Youth: The bark of an ancient tree causes Norbert and Daggett to turn into children, complete with having no memory of their grown-up lives.
  • Freudian Slip: In "The Posei-Dam Adventure" when they're singing the Auld Lang Syne parody, Norb says, "left in a dam to die.", reflecting his brother's current situation trapped in the upside down dam, life in danger.
  • Fridge Logic: Invoked Trope in "The Day the Earth Got Really Screwed Up" when the narrator Rage Quits at the end and descends into ranting about how the plot of the episode didn't make sense.
  • Funny Afro: Daggett has one in Beaver Fever after he and Norb become disco stars. It's later confiscated when they fail to fulfill their recording contract.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar

Norbert: I am a beaver of self-control!
Norbert's Dad: Ease up, Norb, I heard you slapping before you left home! You used to do it in the bathtub all the time!
Norbert: I was just washing my tail, I swear!

    • The name of the series itself.
    • Forgot to mention the entire chorus of 'Beaver Fever'.
    • Daggett substituting "Eureka!" with "Urethra!"
    • The title episodes "Specs Appeal" and "Damnesia".
    • They're beavers that live in a dam. The possibilities were practically endless.
    • The incidental musical bits accompanying Barry Bear are reminiscent of Barry White's music, which are very, very sensuous (particularly "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe").
    • Daggett calls Norbert "weasel weenie" on the first episode.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Norbert's helmet in "Muscular Beaver 2" either falls off him before sustaining a head injury or just fails to protect his head at all.

Norbert: This... this... HELMUUUUT!!! has been completely, absolutely, positively and rightfully USELESS!
Norbert throws the helmet which in turn hits the giant splinter monster and knocks it down a deep abandoned mine shaft.

  • Gonk: The vast majority of the human cast looks downright hideous.
  • A Good Name for a Rock Band: The wacky word combo sort appears in Bummer of Love with Treeflower's band, The Friendly Chartreuse Bubblegum Machine.
  • Got Me Doing It: In My Bunnyguard, both Daggett and Norbert end up copying Big Rabbit's Brooklyn accent.
  • Gratuitous Spanish: El Grapadura, with Norb translating. The episode Norberto y Daggetto en El Grapadura y el Castor Malo is entirely in Spanish, with English subtitles.
  • Gross-Out Show
  • Gross Up Close-Up
  • Halloween Episode: The Day the World Got Really Screwed Up!
  • Heel Face Revolving Door: Parodied with Baron Once-Bad-Then-Good-Then-Bad-Again-Then Good-And-Now-Something-That's-Neither Beaver, Norb's reluctant nemesis/sidekick to Dag's Muscular Beaver.
  • Hollywood Science: Anything those two scientists cook up.

"Don't ask us to explain, it's haha, science!"

  • Hot Amazon: The Girl Raccoons from "The Mighty Knothead"
  • I Am Not Weasel
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: In Chocolate Up To Experience, Norb gets addicted to the chocolate bars he's been making Dag sell in order to raise money. He's making Dag sell what appears to be the last remaining bar for two hundred dollars, while he gorges on a warehouse full of the bars. Norb eventually bloats to the point that he needs to be carried around in a wheelbarrow, but Dag does make the money... by selling their entire house. Because "no one wanted to buy a spooty old candy bar for $200."
  • Idiot Ball: Stupidity Potion #237.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: In the end of Season 2, Episode 19, Part 1 – The Mighty Knothead.
  • Insane Troll Logic: In-universe: Stinky Thing + Stinky Thing = NOT SMELLY!
  • Instrumental Theme Tune
  • Insult Misfire: When their sisters are spending the day, Dag and Norb start arguing about how to look after them, Dag with planning and a chart, Norb with a "let them run free" attitude. Dag eventually does this:

Dag: Structure THIS, chart boy! (Blows a raspberry at Norb) Oh wait I'm chart boy.

  • It's Always Spring: Most episodes seem to be set in early spring, with little patches of snow strewn about.
  • Kissing Cousins: Stump has a crush on his cousin Vanity, who was carved into a, well, vanity. At a family reunion, they overcome the objections of her brother Butch (a butcher's table) and get together.
    • To be more specific, Vanity is a distant cousin.
  • Large Ham: Both brothers. And many other characters. Pretty much everyone actually.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia

Norbert: I can't remember anything! I must have damnesia, the rare beaver brain trauma that makes you forget everything but what damnesia is!

Daggett: AAAHH! 4,023 BUGS!

  • Naked People Are Funny: An entire episode revolves around this trope after the brothers lose all their fur (minus their head fur) after Dag's misshap with an extremely complicated magical spell book.
  • Negative Continuity
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lumberjack's Delight, where after exhausting every other option, Norb decides the only way to save the forest and get rid of the Lumberjacks is via a competition. A tree felling competition. Norb wins, but realizes that in the process, they've felled the entire forest, which the Lumberjacks gladly take with them.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Barry the bear talks an awful lot like Barry White. He sings like him too.
  • No Dialogue Episode: Silent But Deadly, justified in that the beavers have woken up with their bedroom infested with sleeping beaver-eating wolverines. The only real line of dialogue in the episode is thought, as they don't want to risk waking them up by talking.
  • No Fourth Wall: Bye Bye Beavers tears it to pieces.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: The Beavers' cousin from Kreature Komforts, who is just a live-action beaver, and behaves as one.
  • Noodle Incident: In the episode "Slap Happy", the Beavers' father claims that the story of Slap Johnson was made up by their mother because she never forgave him for the bachelor party that was thrown. Slap merely says, "It's okay, it was worth it."
  • One-Hit Wonder: Norbert and Daggett never do produce another hit beyond "Beaver Fever" in the episode of that name, and eventually their spotlight is taken by Barry.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: In Spookyspoots, the dam is inexplicably haunted by good, friendly ghosts who cater to the brothers' every whim and let them use portals to teleport around the house. Dag and Norb are quite fond of the ghosts, until the two annoying scientists show up to exorcise the ghosts against Dag and Norb's wishes. They then team up with the ghosts to get rid of the scientists.
  • Out-Gambitted: In The Big Round Sticky Fish Thingy, Norb tricks Dag into going to Delaware, "a place nobody knows". As Norb's getting away, he didn't expect Dag to construct a "big, wooden, treadmill, thingamabob", which is "the specialty of the proud people of DELAWARE!"
  • Paranoia Gambit: Norbert uses this in Gonna Getcha. of course, as soon as Norbert explains he was using this, he then proceeds to actually get Daggett back anyways.
  • Parental Favoritism: Both of the brothers' parents apparently favor Daggett. Norbert is far from The Unfavourite, but he visibly loses his cool whenever Dag's getting pampered.
  • Potty Emergency: Dag's part of Too Loose Latrine.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Daggett and Norbert.
  • The Renaissance Age of Animation
  • Running Gag: Human characters don't often get the Beavers' species right (either weasels or "pointy bird things"), causing the beavers to correct them every single time.
  • Sdrawkcab Name: "Dog", whenever it is used in contexts where one would expect "God" instead.
  • The Seventies: Tends to pop up occasionally, whether through the music, fashion, or Barry Bear. And it's so well done, it doesn't seem at all out of place. In fact, it adds to the show's charm.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: "Pass It On"
  • Shout-Out: The camera panning up dramatically as an epic score plays revealing Dagget (in his superhero alter-ego) overlooking the forest from the top of a cliff is taken from the ending of Tim Burton's Batman.
    • Barry the Bear's doorbell is James Brown's famous "HEY!" from his hit-song, I Got You (I Feel Good).
      • And Treeflower's doorbell is "In A Gadda Da Vida".
    • Norb also does the Captain Kirk voice. Quite a few times.
    • Any number of B movies, especially in the episode The Day the Earth Got Really Screwed Up, which parodies the heck out of those things, yet manages to be really cool.
    • To 2001: A Space Odessey when the beavers find the monolith while in space...and promptly use it to build their gravity dam.
    • "Oh, what a fool I was!" which is to Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rebecca'.
    • Norb carves a statue of Treeflower looking like Princess Leah in one episode.
    • The "cyclops" in "Friends, Romans, Beavers!" is one big shout-out to Ray Harryhausen, between being a Roman monster and his unusually abrupt manner of moving to mimic stop-motion animation.
  • Shown Their Work: Every once in a while something that is in fact true about real-life beavers is thrown at you, like the already mentioned Tail-Slapping.
    • The third eyelids mentioned in the Staring Contest and the "Slave-for-a-day" episodes on the other hand do exist: they're the "nictating membrane" and the primary function in beavers is to protect the eyes while they are diving underwater.
    • The fact that a beaver's front teeth do indeed continue growing throughout their lives is true. And, yes, beavers do need to constantly chew on things to wear the teeth down, or else their teeth really will grow through their skulls and kill them.
  • Sibling Rivalry: Norb and Dag vacillate between this and "BIIIIG HUG!!"; their sisters, in contrast, get along very well.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: No matter what the subject, the two brothers usually wind up on opposite ends of it.
  • Space Is an Ocean: In Mission to the Big Hot Thingy, the Beavers watch a video comparing their imminent doom of being pulled into the sun by gravity with a boat being pulled by a swift river current. They take this analogy literally and do what beavers would do in the river scenario. The build a giant dam to cut off the Sun's gravity!
  • Sphere Eyes: Norbert.
  • Status Quo Is God: For the most part. A few elements, such as the Muscular Beaver mini-arcs, were revisited from time to time.
  • Stupid Scientist: Two of em!
  • Stylistic Self Parody: A throwaway line in Slap Happy:

Norbert: Daggett Beaver, I do not believe my ears that look like fins on my back!

  • Stylistic Suck: The beavers love terrible B-movies. They even make one.
    • And yet Animation Bump. The movies in question are drawn much more realistically than the rest of the show.
  • Sudden Anatomy: The beavers only have webbed toes when swimming.
  • Superhero Episode: Dag deludes himself into thinking he's a superhero, with awesome tools like the Cloak of Near-Invisibility("it's just nearly visible!")
    • Also, the dramatic score playing as the camera pans up to reveal Dag standing atop a cliff overlooking the forest seems oddly familiar...
    • Everyone gets in on it in one episode. And Bing shows up a few times as "Most Potent Bug".
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The show's soundtrack is practically a "Best of". One example is an instrumental that sounds like the beginning of Andy Williams' song, "Can't Get Used to Losing You".
  • The Talk: "The salmon are spawning?!"
  • Taxonomic Term Confusion: One episode incorrectly refers to rabbits as rodents, when in reality they are of the lagomorph, not rodent, order.
    • Of course, in that same episode ("Long in the Teeth"), it shows all sorts of animals growing giant teeth, including, IIRC, a frog and a deer. So perhaps their grasp of taxonomy should be taken with a good heapin' pinch of salt.
  • Tempting Fate: The episode "Beaver Master". A warrior keeps re-appearing everytime Dag and Norb utter, "That's the last we'll see of him!" Norb eventually lampshades this. They both start using it to their advantage.
  • There's No B in Movie: Oxnard Montalvo's filmography. One of the season finales is one big Homage where the beavers visit him, and an alien even turns everything black and white. (and the plot makes no sense whatsoever).
  • Theme Tune Cameo: Frequently.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: In "I Dare You", Norbert turns blue after sipping on a jalapeño slushie on a dare by Daggett and this causes the reaction of his head swelling up as the result of brain freeze and burn.
  • Toilet Humor: One episode even has Dagget begging and screaming for Norb to let him use the second bathroom after clogging their toilet, Dag ends up urinating in the lake their house was formerly afloat on.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Dag on MANY occasions, this bad behavior slowly infects Norbert as the series goes on.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Usually wood, with a special mention to "Lickety Splits". Also jalapeños. They also like a drink called "Yahoo."
  • Two Shorts
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Norb & Dag's parents.
  • The Unintelligible: Scientist #1's sidekick Pete is somewhere between this and The Speechless.
  • Unintentional Innuendo: Well, the stars are beavers. And that term gets repeated often. Cue lots of immature teenage giggling.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Dag had a pretty nasty temper.
  • Unusual Euphemism: "Spoot", usually uttered by Daggett.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Daggett seems to love it when the parents visit and doesn't at all mind the fact that his mom is a secret agent or that his dad likes to hang out around him and Norbert a little too much, while Norbert tends to be a little paranoid or skeptical. Could be part of the reason Dag's the favorite.
  • Verbal Tic: Norbert's odd habit of adding extra syllables, especially with diphthongs and silent Es: "The beäver gargle of achë!" Daggett likes to "Eeeh" and say "dot dot dot" out loud. Sometimes they'll use each other's tics, too.
    • Norbert especially loves to deliberately mispronounce words, which gets Daggett doing it too.
      • This is eventually lampshaded when Norb pronouces movie as "MOW-vee" throughout an episode. Then when he finally pronounces it right, Dag calls him out on it.
  • Visible Boom Mic: In the episode "The Loogie Hawk"
  • Wacky Wayside Tribe
  • Will They or Won't They?: Norb and Treeflower, though considering the Status Quo Is God nature of the series, they probably would have remained Just Friends.
  • You Say Tomato: See Verbal Tic above.
  • Your Mom: After chased by dogs in "Born to Be Beavers", Daggett tells them "And your cousin is a three legged toadstool!"
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