Todd and the Book of Pure Evil

Destiny sucks.

Todd and the Book of Pure Evil is a Canadian horror/comedy series created by Craig David Wallace, Charles Picco and Anthony Leo. The series is based on a short film of the same name, and is perhaps best described as Kevin Smith meets the Evil Dead. Appropriately, one of the series' regulars is Jason Mewes.

Todd is a metalhead and underachiever attending Crowley High who discovers an Artifact of Doom known as the Book of Pure Evil. Soon, he is pulled into a struggle against the forces of evil, which include the creatures spawned by the book, the local guidance counselor and a secret cabal of Satanists. Todd is joined by his friends: an amputee stoner named Curtis, a science geek named Hannah and Jenny, the object of Todd's desire.

The series is not one for the squeamish, as it combines copious amounts of Gorn, Toilet Humor and Dead Baby Comedy. It's also a loving tribute to heavy metal music, and numerous references to various metal bands can be found throughout the series.

Sadly, it has not been renewed for a third season.

Tropes used in Todd and the Book of Pure Evil include:
  • Action Girl: Jenny, by Season 2. Notably, she even beat Todd to death in Loser Generated Content before a magical Reset Button was hit.
  • Actor Allusion: Jimmy the janitor mentions having slept with chicks with dicks in the past.
  • A Date with Rosie Palms
  • Adults Are Useless: That, or they're utterly evil. Jimmy the janitor is something of an exception. He's not extremely helpful, but he's at least moderately helpful.
    • Lampshaded by Curtis in one episode where he comments that the staff at Crowley High don't seem to care about what goes on in the school.
  • Aesop Ju Jitsu: At the end of "Simply the Beast":

Hannah: I think we learned a valuable lesson about teamwork: Not listening—
Todd: That my leadership clinched our victory! Thank you, Hannah!
Hannah: That's not what I was going to say...
Jenny: But I was the one who talked them into killing each other.
Todd: Yeah, because I told you to do it.
Jenny: But it was Jimmy's idea.
Todd: Yeah, but I implemented it.
Jenny: But I was undercover.
Todd: Yeah, but we were also undercover...
(Beat)
Curtis: We killed that pep rally!
All four: YEAH! (Group high-five)

  • All There In The Credits: In case anyone was wondering, the three metal dudes (left to right, based on how they usually stand in front of the car in the parking lot) are named Brody, Eddie and Rob.
  • A Man Is Always Eager: Averted. Both Todd or Curtis were nervous about the prospect of having sex with their respective girlfriends.
  • Almighty Janitor: Jimmy, who frequently dispenses helpful advice to the main character.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Although he is interested in girls, Curtis seems to have a crush on his best friend, Todd.

Todd: What the shit? My finger smells like ass!
Curtis: *takes a long sniff of it with a big smile* …That's not the smell of your ass, dude...

Jenny: This is what you get for being a Satanist kidnapper.
Atticus: I don't kidnap Satanists!

Jenny: Hey guys, you know that cheerleader? The thin, beautiful one?
Todd: As opposed to all the fat, ugly cheerleaders?

Atticus: (To himself) Focus, focus! You have the Book! Ultimate power is in your hands! All you have to... (Somebody walks past the camera) Hey, is that poutine? (Drops the book and follows)

  • Bad Future: "The Toddyssey" covers one where Hannah has become evil and rules the school alongside Atticus.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: The series basically combines this with a Monster of the Week premise.
  • Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Hannah tries to seduce Todd this way, but it doesn't actually work.
  • Big No: Uttered by Hannah after Todd becomes an idiot in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers."
    • And Todd, when he thinks Jenny was eaten by a beast. She walks into the hall in the middle of the scream.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Wolf rape, to be specific.
  • The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: And beheads one of the zombies in "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best." It gets luckier when you consider Hannah was actually trying to just throw the hatchet to Todd.
  • Broken Pedestal: Jenny's father is revealed to be a total douchebag obsessed with the Book of Pure Evil. He later uses the book to become a skin-stealing shapeshifter.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: In the second season finale, Hannah died in Curtis' arms when Todd expelled the Book of Pure Evil from the school. In essence, saving the world ended Todd's friendship with Curtis.
  • Bury Your Gays: Inverted in the fourth episode, since the wish made by the Victim of the Week, who wanted the straight guys in school to understand what he was going through, ended up switching the sexualities of every guy in Crowley High... making him the only straight male when an angry mob of students killed him.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Todd experiences this in the first season finale, when he imagines slaughtering his friends.
  • Catgirl: Hannah gets turned into one during Fisting Fantasy. Well, except for the giant cock.
  • Catch Phrase:

Atticus: ...Which is what I am.
Stoner #2: Loser! (With Todd and later, Atticus as the typical Phrase Catcher)

Hannah: This could be a huge problem. (Beat) I mean... a huge problem, not a huge problem. (Beat) Like, it could be like a massive problem.
Jenny: You done?
Hannah: Like a massive problem, not a massive person.
(Jenny starts walking away)
Hannah: Which you're not! A problem, I mean, or a person— oh, I- uh, of course you're a person!

  • Disability Immunity: Todd's ADHD renders him immune to one villain's mind-control powers.
  • Disability Superpower: While not a superpower per se, Curtis puts his prosthetic arm to good use.
  • Damsel in Distress: Jenny frequently played this role in Season 1, but develops into an Action Girl in Season 2.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The chemistry teacher gets impaled through his groin by a baking soda volcano. It, uh, erupts.
    • When a student is "impregnated" by the Book of Pure Evil, she moans rather suggestively before falling off her swing.
    • A girl named Gina (who insists on pronouncing it like the end of "vagina") is turned into Mother Nature and tries to drag Hannah into her.

Gina: Come back to Mother, Hannah! COME BACK INSIDE MOTHER!!

  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Wanda Winterbanks is this misplaced in a cheerleader's body.
  • Dumb Is Good: Averted in one episode, where the villain of the week is borderline retarded and intent on making everyone dumber than him.
  • Easy Evangelism: It proves laughably easy for Atticus to convert the students of Crowley High to Satanism. Notably, the illustrated pamphlet his minions distribute to their fellow students resembles the infamous Jack Chick tracts.
  • Empty Piles of Clothing: The first clue to what happened in "Simply the Beast."
  • Erotic Eating: Played for Laughs in a Nightmare Sequence Todd has in "Monster Fat." He's freaked out by an insanely-fattened Jenny coming onto him, especially when she seems to be moving in for a blowjob... only to chomp down on an unpeeled banana standing up on top of his crotch. It's easy to blink and miss, since he wakes up right then and there.
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned: One student tries to use the book to become the smartest kid in school. He ends up with the ability to emit smoke that turns people into morons and ends up infecting the entire school (except Hannah). Todd and Curtis initially assume that everyone is high.
  • Evil Mentor: The three metal dudes who perpetually hang around outside the school. At first they appear to be helping Todd, but their actual goal is to bring about the apocalypse.
  • Evil Old Folks: Virtually all of the residents of the Crowley Heights retirement home.
    • In the second season premiere, the Book of Pure Evil turns the retirement home residents into cannibal zombies.
  • Exposition Fairy: "Fisting Fantasy" gives the gang one: a Muppet-like critter named "Mischievio," who quickly degrades into The Load and is actually the guy who used the Book to create the video game world.
  • Fake-Out Make-Out: Hannah and Curtis invoke this in one episode to avoid detection by Atticus.
  • Fusion Dance: The three metal dudes can fuse and create an apparently new person complete with her own personality ("Never know what she saw in you").
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Todd says this to Curtis, word for word.
  • Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: One episode revolved around Jenny hooking up with an aggressive lesbian classmate.
    • Todd also imagines Jenny getting felt up by her hot (and undead) friend.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Todd has these when he becomes the Pure Evil One.
  • Gonna Need More Trope: In "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers," when Hannah vacuums up the smoke Jenny inhaled only for her to be reinfected.

Hannah: I'm gonna need a bigger vacuum.

  • Gorn: Very common. The teens who use the Book often meet incredibly grisly ends.
  • Harmful to Minors: Todd once watched a home-made sex tape starring Curtis' grossly obese parents. The experience scarred him for life, giving him a crippling fear of fat people.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Curtis seems to have one of these. He mentions in one episode that his parents are constantly trying to get rid of him. In another episode, when his friend Hannah questions how he learned to pick locks, he mentions that his parents lock him out of the house a lot.
  • Hulking Out: A cheerleader who just wanted to be stronger to keep her position on the team.
  • Hypocritical Humor: When arguing against Jenny's father joining the team, Curtis comments that they don't want a cripple in the club.
  • I Call It "Vera": Todd names his sword "Sanddragon".
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: A lonely girl seeking friendship uses the Book of Pure Evil and gains the ability to instantly befriend anyone through touch.
  • Imagine Spot: Used frequently.
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: An incredibly dumb student who used the book to turn everyone into idiots asks Hannah if being smart has made her any happier.
  • Jackass Genie: The book itself. Just as an example, a bullied gay kid wished that the straight guys in Crowley High understood what he was going through, and the book flipped the sexualities of every boy in the school... including the one that made the wish, who was left as a straight male minority.
  • Language of Magic: The Book of Pure Evil provides a Latin translation (although some don't seem to be grammatically correct) of what the person using it wants, and actives the wish once this is read out loud.
  • Limited Wardrobe: The three metal dudes that hang out in the parking lot don't even swap out their band shirts. Possibly justified because they're not normal people, but it should probably make them stand out more than it does.
  • Made of Plasticine: As part of the generally gory tone of the series.
  • Mauve Shirt: Wanda Winterbanks, the head cheerleader, and Ms. Dempsey, the gym teacher.
  • Metafictional Device: Weaponized by the two-person AV Club in "Loser Generated Content." This included warping a victim around the school using editing and later slicing him clean in half with a split-screen.
  • Musical Episode: The Phantom of Crowley High.
    • 2 Girls 1 Tongue is a sequel of sorts to the above and is also a musical predictably.
  • My Eyes Are Up Here: Curtis has to say this to Todd in "Fisting Fantasy," when the gang gets transported into an MMO and Curtis becomes his female avatar.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The show makes no effort to hide that the book is an Artifact of Doom. Snarkily lampshaded by Jenny in "Monster Fat."
  • Neck Snap: Occurs when a horny clone is rejected by her creator.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Curtis. Severed tongue. Make-out session. Ewwwww.
  • No Ontological Inertia: A spell that turned all the male students gay ends with the death of the student who cast it. Similarily, when the characters are transported into a fantasy RPG, they are returned to the real world by defeating the student who brought them there.
    • Ontological Inertia: A lot of other cases such as "Monster Fat" and "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best" aren't stopped when the students who made the wishes die. It seems to depend on the nature of the wish, with the ones that create a physical monster of some kind most likely to have Ontological Inertia.
  • No Periods, Period: Averted as of "Simply the Beast," where Todd speculates that an empty cheerleader uniform appeared with no traces of blood because the girl it belonged to wished to stop her period from occurring and had all her blood drained.
  • Nobody Poops: Indiscreetly averted as of "See You Later, Masturbator." When Atticus's back is turned, the kid that made himself invisible using the Book craps on his desk, with the Gang noticeably grossed out as they see it happen.
  • Noodle Incident: "The Incident" from "The Toddyssey." All we know for sure is it's not the threesome Curtis, Hannah, and Jenny had.
    • Atticus has a few that the show plays with. Each leads into an Imagine Spot, but it's always the same memory of him as a teenager, being intimidated by a snarling wolf in a forest. Doesn't matter what he said about it before the Imagine Spot.
  • Not So Different: Said to Todd by a giant talking penis.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Type 1 and Type 2 are both used in "Invasion of the Stupid Snatchers," with some faint disembodied voices as the only sounds.
  • Occam's Razor: Todd and Curtis first think a cheerleader was eaten alive by something they name "the Beast," leaving just her cheerleading outfit. When Jenny points out there was no blood left at the scene, Todd decides the cheerleader wished for no more periods and suffered total blood loss... and then got eaten by this creature called "the Beast," leaving just her cheerleading outfit. That implies two separate wishes, when the cheerleader actually just wished to be stronger to stay on the team and ended up becoming "the Beast" itself.
  • Off with His Head: In "Rock N' Roll Zombies Know Best," although with a hatchet instead of a sword.
    • And in the Season 1 finale, Atticus does this to his own father.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: When Atticus is pursued by a man-sized monster baby spawned by the Book. Although the Big Bad Baby is only capable of shambling slowly, it somehow manages to get in front of Atticus as he sprints down a school corridor.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Well, omnidisciplinary science geek, anyway.
  • Our Homunculi Are Different: Hannah creates one in the second episode as a Science Fair project. It kills the science teacher.
  • Overly Long Name: A screenname, to be exact: "Triple-X-Assassin-23-X-X-X," as it's pronounced.
  • Placebo Effect: One of the metal dudes in front of the school ends up smoking oregano when the whole town is out of weed.

Todd: Why am I the loser if you're the one smoking oregano?

Curtis: I did NOT see that coming.
Todd: I did.

  • Shirtless Scene: During one movement of the rock opera that is the 10th episode of the second season, Todd rips of his shirt and dances on a picnic table.
  • Shout-Out: "Fisting Fantasy," although it seems to share some aspects with MMOs like World of Warcraft as well. But even within the episode, there's a subtler Shout-Out to another game:

Curtis: Wait a minute. Jenny, you play Boogie Woogie Uprising, don't you?
Jenny: No comment.

Marcy: Jenny, I'm really sorry about all this.
Jenny: Hey, you're not the only kid who doesn't get along with their parents. I mean, how could you have known it'd lead to cannibalism and murder?

Audience Member: "Posse Fresh," bitch!
(Audience snickers)
Atticus: Posse Fresh. Whatever... bitch.

  • Toilet Humor: So much of this. One episode literally features an invisible pervert shitting on Atticus' desk.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Book of Pure Evil mostly functions as this, but can change its shape. It's become a guitar, a baby blanket, a basketball and shoelaces.
  • Town with a Dark Secret: Crowley Heights was founded by Satanists to escape persecution for their beliefs (and carry out the Dark Lord's bidding).
  • Twincest: The Girl-On-Girl Is Hot episode focused on a pair of incestuous identical twin sisters. When one sister chases after Jenny, the other sister ends up using the Book of Pure Evil to produce a clone as a replacement.
  • Two Girls to a Team: A rare example of this in a team of four.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Todd and Jenny.
  • The Vamp: Nikki Kane, who sleeps with Todd so he may fulfill his destiny as the Pure Evil One.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Projectile vomiting during "Big Bad Baby."
  • Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Not including Atticus, the four main cast members are high school students.
  • Weak-Willed: Curtis, when Atticus attempts to hypnotize him.
  • Welcome to Corneria: When Crowley High gets trapped inside a video game, most of the characters outside the gang— including Jimmy, who becomes a blacksmith NPC— fall victim to this.

Todd: Hey, Jimmy!
Jimmy: Hey, gang! What can I get you from the Secret Chamber of Stuff?
Hannah: Doesn't he recognize us?
Todd: Hey, Jimmy...
Jimmy: Hey, gang! What can I get you from the Secret Chamber of Stuff?

    • He also ends up repeating "Titty-Wizard just spent all your gold, dude" several times when Todd tries to make another purchase at the shop.
  • Wham! Episode: Arguably, the first season finale, in which the three stoners reveal Todd's true destiny as the Pure Evil One, Jenny finds her father, Hannah and Curtis finally kiss and Atticus recovers the Book of Pure Evil and then usurps his father as the leader of the Satanists.
    • The second season finale is even, uh, whammier. Atticus becomes trapped inside the book during his showdown with Todd, who in turn rejects the Book of Pure Evil. As a result, Hannah dies because of her secret connection to the book.
  • Wham! Line: "Gee … I wonder what happens next?"
  • Why Did It Have To Be Fat People?: Todd, scarred as a kid by a sex tape made by Curtis's obese parents.
  • Wrecked Weapon: Sanddragon gets broken in half by Atticus after his transformation into a goat-man.
  • Your Head Asplode: What happens to a student who tries to use mind control on Todd, because of his ADHD.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Usually whoever uses the Book of Pure Evil ends up with a dose of karma near the end of the episode. In "The Phantom of Crowley High," Charlotte wishes for an angelic voice to score the lead in the musical and then gets her tongue sliced off in only 4½ minutes. She goes on to spend the rest of the episode trying to eliminate the competition, and even fails to die by the end of the episode.
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