The Replacements (animation)

The Replacements (2006-2009) was a Disney Channel animated TV series. The opening sequence explains that siblings Todd and Riley lived in an orphanage, with no explanation of what happened to their parents. Stumbling across a Fleemco comic book, they mail-ordered a Fleemco phone (which allows them to replace any person or animal they desire) and in the process they got new parents: a female British secret agent named K (along with her sarcastic talking car) and a none-too-bright professional daredevil named Dick Daring.

Whenever Todd and Riley want to replace someone, they push a special button on their Fleemco phones, connecting them with Conrad Fleem. Fleemco immediately replaces the person with someone more to the liking of Todd and Riley. The series follows their chaotic misadventures as they use Fleemco to attempt to better their lives in nearly every problematic situation they encounter. (Although as the series progressed they managed to get into trouble with Fleemco replacements barely figuring into the episode.)

No relation to a football movie starring Keanu Reeves. Or the Minnesotan punk band.

Tropes used in The Replacements (animation) include:

• Aborted Arc: Sierra spends the rest of season 1 and most of 2 trying to break Riley and Johnny up. Yet after Johnny broke up with Riley, Sierra seems to have lost interest in him.
• Acme Products: It seems everything in the world is made or run by Fleemco.
• Action Mom: Agent K.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Riley.
• The Alleged Steed: Prince Cinnamon Boots, the pet mule of the Daring family.
• An Aesop: Most every episode. Sometimes subverted.
• Alpha Bitch: Sierra McCool.
• Animated Series
• Art Evolution: Season 2. Notice the noses on the Todd and Riley look different and that the body proportions looks (especially on the female characters) more slimming.
  • Also note that the characters went from having Four-Fingered Hands in the early seasons to having normal five fingered ones in later seasons.
• Automated Automobiles: C.A.R.
• Awesome McCoolname: Dick Daring, Ace Palmero, Travis Bodie, and in what might be the straightest possible example of this trope, Sierra McCool.
• Beautiful All Along: Variation: Until season two, nobody had any idea what Tasumi really looked like.
  • Lampshaded with Shelton in season one.
• Because I Said So
• Big Man on Campus: Johnny Hitswell.
• Black Best Friend: Abbey.
• Book Dumb: Todd Daring.
• Brainless Beauty: Tasumi and Riley both realize that the boys in school will do anything for them as long as they act stupid and helpless.
• Bumbling Dad: Dick Daring.
• Butt Monkey: Shelton Klutzberry.
• Celebrity Star: Celebrity Starr, played by Miley Cyrus.
• Cool Car: C.A.R.
• Couch Gag: The Fleemco public service announcements.
• Credit Card Plot
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Todd is voiced by Nancy Cartwright.
• Deadpan Snarker: C.A.R.
• Deep-Fried Whatever: Including roadkill and a football in Carnie Dearest.
• Disobey This Message: Subverted, as Riley learns everyone else is allowed to be whoever they want even if that means they act like everyone else.
• Duct Tape for Everything
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Agent K's middle name is Mildred.
• Engrish: Tasumi speaks like that, since she's a Japanese Japanese.
• Expository Theme Tune
• Extreme Omnivore: Dick eats 50 pinecones in an episode. He was only dared to eat one, but found them so tasty he couldn't help himself.
  • There's also Dick easily defeating The Human Garbage Can in a contest of who could stomach the most rancid food while on a spinning carnival ride in "Carnie Dearest"
• The Faceless: Conrad Fleem.
• Fake Brit: Agent K is voiced by Kath Soucie, not Moira "Brit" Quirk. Remember that.
• Freaky Friday Flip: Happens to Dick and K in ""A Buzzwork Orange" (where Freaky Friday is even lampshaded.)
  • Voices Are Mental, however, is averted (which is a rare event in cartoons). Instead, the viewers rely on the different accents to tell them apart.
• Five-Man Band / Five-Token Band:
  • The Hero - Riley
  • The Lancer - Todd
  • The Smart Guy - Jacobo (Hispanic)
  • The Big Guy - Tasumi (Asian)
  • The Chick - Abbey (Black)
  • Tagalong Kid - Shelton (Jewish, & he would be the Smart Guy if only he appeared more)
    • Actually, the episode "Crushing Riley" specifically states that Shelton isn't really that smart, even. The poor guy just can't win...
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Many examples. One of the more obvious examples was in the episode where Fleemco turned out to be developing an anatomically-correct robotic duplicate of underage Riley. Part of her assembly was shown, with scientists gawking at the double's naked leg in a scene which strongly implies that the rest of the robot was also naked.
  • Then there's the episode where Abby's sister basically treated Todd like a gigolo, showering him with gifts in return for dating her
• Genre Savvy: Garth the janitor is downright obnoxious about this in one episode. He refuses to help Riley because "every time i slightly inconvenience you or your funny-looking brother, some guys in jumpsuits show up and send me somewhere nice for a few weeks." When said jumpsuits turn up, he's waiting impatiently for them with his suitcase already packed.
• Girl Posse: Sierra leads one of these.
• Grappling Hook Pistol: Agent K wields one frequently.
• Happily Adopted: The very premise of the show.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: And how! Riley is Sam and Vicky, Dick Daring is Cosmo and Gordy, Agent K is Kath Soucie, Tasumi is Numbuh 3, Shelton is Jeff Bennett, Jacobo is Candi Milo, Johnny is Dee Bradley Baker, Sierra is Tara Strong, and Todd is Bart. C.A.R. is Ducky. Also, Ginny Weasley takes part-time classes at a spy school when not studying magic.
• Hippie Teacher: Riley replaces the cheerleading coach with one in "Cheer Pressure".
• Hot Shounen Mom: Agent K. Every one of Todd's friends has a crush on her.
  • Shelton's mom
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Riley's sugar addiction.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: "I left a pie in the washing machine."
• Invisible Streaker: Todd becomes one in the episode Todd Busters.
• Imagine the Audience Naked
• Irony: Riley uses a cute lifeguard to make an unnoticed Johnny jealous, much to her frustration. Then Riley unintentionally broke the lifeguard's heart because he developed feelings for her. As a result, the pool was closed, which causes everyone to hate her, including Johnny who was about to ask her out.
• It Came From the Fridge
• It Tastes Like Feet
• Jerkass: Todd, a lot of times.
• Jerk Jock: Buzz.
• Jet Pack: Agent K.
• Kent Brockman News: Ace Palmero.
• Kissing in a Tree: The episode where Riley tries to find a girlfriend for Shelton has Sierra not only tease her with this song, but Todd actually visualizes it. Also, Jacobo and Tasumi state that they were actually doing this in the last episode.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Jacobo and Tasumi are revealed to be a couple in the last episode.
  • Though, it was revealed in "The Truth Hurts" that Tasumi has a crush on Jacobo.
• Lethal Chef: Agent K.
• Limited Wardrobe: All the characters. With Dick at least, it is specifically shown that he owns countless red-white-and-blue jumpsuits.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Todd takes evil robot to school to threaten the teachers into accepting anything he says as correct, says the first president of the United States is "George Stapler"
  • But then even more impressively, since its named for said president, all of the school's signs were immediately changed to say "George Stapler Middle School", and the name remained for the rest of the series
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Conrad is Todd and Riley's uncle.
• Manipulative Bastard: Todd, in a mild form.
  • It's most evident with Sierra.
• My Friends and Zoidberg: Shelton, twice in one episode:

Agent K: Todd, it's your friends. And Shelton.
Riley: This time it was Shelton, next time it might be someone we actually care about!

• • In another episode, Todd even uses the exact words "my friends - and Shelton -".
• Nerd Glasses: Sheldon.
• Nervous Wreck: In "The Truth Hurts", the head of the school newspaper who is replaced is a Nervous Wreck who is constantly jittery and gets extremely nervous about the idea of anything being published in the school newspaper that would make things like fruit on the bottom yogurt as opposed to being like plain yogurt, as he likes it.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Sheldon again; he has Jerry Lewis' voice and mannerisms. Also, a sleezy salesman does a fairly good Phil Hartman.
• Office Golf: Used in one episode with a bear rug.
• One of the Boys: In "Glee By the Sea", Todd falls for a girl who is this.
• One We Prepared Earlier
• Opening Shout-Out: In the final episode
• Orphanage of Fear
• Paper-Thin Disguise
• Parental Bonus
• Positive Discrimination: Averted in the episode where a blind kid uses his disability to bully Todd.
• Power of Love: Made fun of in 'German Squirmin': Sheldon: "Princess Cuddlepuff wields the power of love... which apparently wasn't powerful enough to defeat his doom ray...
• Sapient Steed
• Scary Librarian: "Quiet Riot".
• Shout-Out: Dick tries to put Prince Cinnamon Boots out for the night, but Prince Cinnamon Boots locks him out instead.
  • And in the episode A Tale of Two Rileys the robot Riley looks a lot like the one from Terminator 2
  • "...I spotted a sparkly guy and clumsily fell in love?"
  • Riley and Todd doing the Charlie Brown Christmas dance in the intro.
• Sibling Yin-Yang
• Slumber Party: "Late Night with Todd and Riley."
• Something We Forgot: A running gag with Prince Cinnamon Boots.
  • Inverted in "The Revenge of Prince Cinnamon Boots"...an episode which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Jacobo's name is constantly being spelled as "Hakobo", even by the close-captions.
• Spy Catsuit: Agent K.
• Stacy's Mom: Agent K.
• Strapped to An Operating Table: Corletta the lovely magician's assistant who taken K's place in "Abra K Dabra".
• Token Trio: Riley, Abbey and Tasumi
• Ugly Guys Hot Daughter: Inverted with Shelton´s mother and her two offspring.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Agent K and Dick Daring.
  • Shelton´s mom and dad, too.
• Weaponized Car: C.A.R.
• Where the hell is Pleasant Hills? - We're not sure, but it's probably not a suburb of Pittsburgh.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl: Agent K.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Agent K suffers from crippling stage fright.
• Will They or Won't They?: Riley and Johnny, as of season 2. Riley still has feelings for her and tries to get him back, but her Yandere-ish nature ruins it. At the end of one episode, Johnny may want her back, but Riley wasn't interested.
• Yandere: Riley to Johnny Hitswell, seriously, she has puppets, a balloon Johnny... just watch season 2, 18: Heartbreak in the City.
• Xanatos Gambit: Todd justifies helping his sister with the following statement: "Either we save the day or I get to see her blow up when everything goes horribly wrong! Its win-win."
• Yeah! Shot: At the end of "The Majestic Horse".