Smiling Friends

"Let's go out there and make people smile!"'

• 555: The number for viewers to vote whether or not Smormu will join the Smiling Friends is listed as 555-0100.
• Accidental Hero: The Smiling Friends do usually manage to help their clients, just not on purpose.
• Actor Allusion: The guy ordering at the cafe in the third episode is voiced by Chills, a Youtuber known for doing Top 15 videos in a monotone voice, and was often a target of playful ribbing and impressions on OneyPlays. At the cafe, he is ordering a number fifteen, referencing the "number 15: Burger King foot lettuce" meme birthed by one of his videos.
• Advertised Extra: Parodied in "Shrimp's Oddyssey" with Smormu, who was promoted and later added as the fifth Smiling Friend, only to mysteriously die during the credits and never appear again.
• Aerith and Bob: There are people named Charlie, Pim, and Glep living in the same universe.
• All for Nothing: All of Pim and Charlie's efforts to help President Jimble win the election against Mr. Frog in "Mr President" would ultimately amount to nothing at the end of the episode, as a single vote from Glep causes Mr. Frog to win the election anyway.
• All There in the Manual: Glep's language is called "Wingon," but you wouldn't know this unless you saw the OneyPlays episode where Zach first speaks in what would eventually become Glep's voice years later.
• Alternate History: Pim mentions that "President Ross Perot won re-election in 1996" — that was Bill Clinton in real life, and Perot was never even president. And apparently, Shrimpo Jones won the 1980 election instead of Ronald Reagan.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Zig-zagged. Some characters have vibrant colors and cartoony physiology, while the ostensibly human characters possess more realistic skin tones. According to Word of God, the former characters are supposed to be considered "critters", rather than actual people, regardless of how Ambiguously Human they are.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent:
  • Jason is raised solo by Mr. Boss, with no hint of who (or where) the mother is.
  • Desmond has a single mother without a father present, though given the ages of the two of them it's likely that his father has died of old age by this point.
• Arc Words: "Meep", a nonsensical made-up word is said several times throughout the series.
  • The city the characters live in has a street called "Meep Blvd." where two cafes are located as well as Allan's apartment.
  • Mr. Frog donates money to a charity called "The Meep Foundation".
  • There's a restaurant named "The Flying Meepling".
  • There's a food delivery service called "Meep Eats".
  • A soft drink called "Diet Dr. Meep" appears in a few episodes.
  • Pim and Charlie see a movie at a theater called "Meep Cinema".
• Artistic License – Chemistry: The claim made in "Frowning Friends" that all of Earth's helium will run out within 30 years is only half true; it's not the helium itself which is running out, but its reserves; helium is still being mined (yes, mined, more on that below) and produced at a low rate, but the lions' share of that which is on the market is taken from reserve storage, since the mining process is an expensive and arduous endeavour (which pretty much boils down to waiting for certain radioactive elements in the Earth's crust to decay naturally into Helium, which can take billions of years), meaning most just prefer to take it out of storage than try to fund making more of it. As a result, the current production is vastly outnumbered by the demand, and by the 2050's at earliest we will start to proverbially scrape at the bottom of those helium tanks at the current production rate, which will in turn affect helium prices worldwide. So, while, yes, there will be a point in a few decades in which helium may no longer be as easily obtained as it is now, 3d Squelton can rest easy knowing that we are by no means about to see Earth completely depleted of the gas.
• Artistic License – Economics: Played for laughs. None of the monetary figures thrown at in the series make any sense.
  • The Mr. Frog Show has been running for 47 seasons and has made its star one of the richest men in the world. Its producer expects Glep's first episode on it to get 200 million viewers, giving it twice the viewership of Super Bowl XLIX (the most viewed TV event of all time), let alone the M*A*S*H finale that the producer himself mentions. Ignoring the nonexistent quality of the show and how such a one-note production could possibly last so many decades, no actor in the real world even makes the world's top one thousand wealthiest people.^note 
  • Rex claims that the new Mr. Frog Show premiere starring Glep cost $250 million to produce. It consists, more or less, of Glep in a shoddy costume and the Bug.
  • In "Frowning Friends", the Boss states that his company of half a dozen people has lost $2.4 billion in the span of a few days—this is also despite the fact that Smiling Friends doesn't even demand payment from its clients—at least not on screen.
• Artistic License – History: Lampshaded by Pim in-universe as one of his many frustrations with the Renaissance Men in "Frowning Friends" is that they look more like they're from the High Medieval period than the Renaissance.
• Art Shift: While the series already has an eclectic and varied set of art styles between characters, sometimes they switch art style for the sake of a gag.
  • The pilot ends with Pim stuck in Gross-Up Close-Up style, even in wide shot.
  • When Charlie punches Jeremy in the gut for shrieking in his face a second time, Jeremy goes from jittery two frame animation to a smooth and seemingly rotoscoped collapse as he wheezes.
  • "Mr. Frog", "A Shrimp's Odyssey" and "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" were re-aired on April Fools Day 2024 in various different styles of live action puppetry.
    • "Mr. Frog" uses puppets reminiscent of Jim Henson Muppets.
    • "A Shrimp's Odyssey" uses sock puppets.
    • "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" uses marionettes.
  • When the titular Gwimbly from "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)" films a Cameo request, Gwimbly goes from a low poly 3D sprite to photo realistic CG, as does the background behind him.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Charlie and Pim meet with their boss, he says they caught him in the middle of something while glancing at a baby on his desk, then asks if they have a problem watching someone eat. When they say "no" he picks up the baby... and starts breastfeeding it.
• Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe, Smormu is considered to be this, with "viewers" in the United States either loving or hating him. This doesn't stop him from becoming the fifth Smiling Friend at the end of his debut episode and dying immediately after the credits though.
• Badass Longcoat: Parodied in "Shrimp's Odyssey." Charlie tries to make Shrimp looker cooler by getting him one. Instead, it makes him look creepy.
  • Gnarly from the Frowning Friends wears one.
• Bathos: A major hook of the show consists of this, with the cast of silly characters often getting embroiled in viscerally realistic situations. Several moments are played both for sincere pathos and (often very dark) comedy at the same time.
  • Charlie’s funeral in the first season finale is attended by all his co-workers, who are clearly devastated… while the Boss eulogizes him through terrible slam poetry.
  • In "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director's Cut)", Gwimbly's impromptu eulogy for his Dead Sidekick Mr. Millipede is both legitimately sad because of his sincere grief, and funny for the dark absurdity of such an innocently cartoonish character dying of a fentanyl overdose.
• Benevolent Boss: The boss of Smiling Friends is a bit odd, but his company's mission to make people smile appears to be sincere and he's shown to be perfectly nice to his employees.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Charlie and Pim. There’s also Allan and Glep, the lanky red thing with a tie and the small green character that speaks gibberish.
• Black Comedy: For starters, the A-Plot of the pilot consists of two guys trying to persuade a man not to kill himself. And he keeps the gun to his head the whole time.
• Book Ends: The end of season one has The Smiling Friends trying to go on a beach trip together. Season 2 ends with them finally getting that trip.
• Boom, Headshot!: Desmond turns his gun on the paperclip-wielding bliblie when it charges towards him, reducing its head into a red streak.
• Bottle Episode: "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil", which basically involves the guys being stuck at the airport when Pim fails to book them into a hotel.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Neither Charlie nor Pim is exactly wrong during their argument at the start of "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back". Charlie's general cynicism and laziness does bring down the mood that Pim attempts to establish quite often and can be exhausting to deal with, but Pim's constant attempts to be positive and optimistic can be similarly grating and occasionally self-centered in how they don't always take what everyone is going through into account. Charlie's complaints over being sent on a last-minute job on Christmas Eve moments before he was to leave is also rather reasonable.
• Blunt "Yes": Recognizing that Desmond's bleak outlook is way beyond their ability to treat, Charlie settles for pointing out an ant on the sidewalk. When Desmond asks if this is really his attempt to cheer him up, Charlie gives a flat "Yeah".
• Break the Cutie: Pim's cheerful optimism is slowly broken down over the course of the pilot, culminating in him going catatonic after Desmond's unintentional Breaking Speech when they leave Daveland.
• Brick Joke: A running theme.
  • In the pilot, Pim and Charlie are watching a video of an alien dancing. Pim loves it, but Charlie is annoyed. At the end of the episode the alien smashes through the television screen, horrifying everyone.
  • At the beginning of "Frowning Friends", Charlie mentions to Pim that a group called the Renaissance Men are supposed to arrive in town soon, but doesn't know anything about them. They abruptly show up at the very end of the episode solely to kill Grim and Gnarly with arrows before just as quickly leaving. Charlie lampshades their arrival afterward.
  • In "Shrimp's Odyssey", a fake poll for a new character named "Smormu" appears at the very beginning. At the end, Smormu appears and it's announced he won the poll. Of course, he immediately dies, so it doesn't matter.
  • In "A Silly Halloween Special!" Charlie says he doesn't wear Halloween costumes because he doesn't want to get in trouble for wearing something offensive. In the last scene, the monster stalking Pim is torn limb from limb, has his entrails ripped out and eaten, and is finally set on fire by an angry mob who assumed he was wearing an offensive costume.
  • Pim and Charlie have a conversation at the start of "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?" about a Chinese delicacy called a "Century Egg." The egg later turns out to be an actual, living character who helps resolve the plot. In the end, the characters travel all the way to China to bury him, only to dig him up again when Pim wants to try a taste.
  • At the beginning of "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)", Pim tells Charlie about a strange run-in with Mr. Boss where he cornered Pim in the office and started speaking incoherent gibberish and then had a screaming fit. At the end of the episode, Mr. Boss approaches his employees and explains that he sold his likeness to appear in Gwimbly and Troglor's new game and had just been away all week doing motion capturing work for them, asserting that he was never crazy to begin with. He then immediately proceeds to start screaming gibberish and violently thrashing around, just like Pim had described earlier.
  • At the start of "Brother's Egg", after pranking Charlie and Pim with telling they have to help Jared Fogle restore his smile, Mr. Boss convinces Charlie and Pim that he's not lying about their real new assignment by turning his face into a dog's, complete with Puppy-Dog Eyes. In The Stinger, Mr. Boss is seen crying because he's been unable to turn his face back to normal and is now stuck with a dog's muzzle.
• But Thou Must!: The option to add Smormu as one of the characters was seen as an option at the beginning of the episode only for it to reveal later that the "votes" were really just displayed on the same episode and Smormu would be one of the characters regardless. To add insult to injury, a Freeze-Frame Bonus shows Smormu technically lost the vote by several points, but he's still added on. Then he dies.
• The Cameo:
  • Chills (best known for the "Number 15: Burger King foot lettuce" meme) voices a café patron in "Shrimp's Odyssey" ordering exactly what you'd expect.
  • During the montage of quick-cuts after Charlie dies in "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back," two live-action people are seen screaming. The first one happens to be Mike Stoklasa (who played Desmond in the pilot), and the second is James Rolfe.
  • Gilbert Gottfried makes an unexpected appearance in "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" playing the role of Smiling Friends' version of God.
  • The Nostalgia Critic appears in "Erm, the Boss Finds Love?" as Daniel the Demon Slayer, a YouTuber who makes videos on how to kill demons.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Not only does each character have a unique design, but many are drawn in radically different art styles: Charlie, Allan, Glep, and Pim are all simplistic cartoon creatures, the boss and Desmond are drawn with overly-detailed anatomy, Desmond's mother and the guy living in the wall are sparsely animated doodles and one character is even rotoscoped. The only "normal"-looking character is Dave. Rather humorously, Desmond has 4 fingers on his right hand and 5 fingers on the hand holding the gun. When he ditches the gun, he has 4 fingers on each hand and his art style becomes less detailed in general.
• Cerebus Retcon: At the end of the pilot episode, Allan playfully "nom"s Charlie's nose as the two share a laugh. In the season two episode "The Magical Red Jewel (aka Tyler Gets Fired)", Charlie reveals that it actually made him deeply uncomfortable and that he's been reluctant to be around Allan since then, but the reason he's bringing it up is because he still considers Allan a friend and wants to get over the awkwardness so they can start hanging out again.
• Cheated Angle: The main cast almost always have their noses parallel to the viewer, but they are occasionally shown from the front, such as when Charlie locks the Salty's mascots in the restaurant in "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?".
  • Most of the cast, but especially Charlie, are only shown from the side in the puppet versions of "Mr. Frog", "A Shrimp's Odyssey" and "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back". In the puppet version of "Mr. Frog", Charlie's puppet actually has four eyes, (two on each side of his head) that can all be seen at once whenever he flips positions.
• Chekhov's Gun: Parodied in "Frowning Friends". Charlie reads on his phone that "the renaissance men are coming to town", but can't elaborate or offer any more context than that, leaving Pim confused; at the very end, a group of Crusaders arrive on horseback, shoot Gnarly and Grim full of arrows, and ride away. Pim gets very upset that it wasn't properly telegraphed despite Charlie's insistence otherwise, and also that they clearly weren't from the Renaissance.
• Christmas Episode: The finale of each season acts as one.
• Closet Sublet: Allan finds a hole behind the fridge that leads to an entire walled-up section of the building. Turns out some guy is living there, and gets hyper-defensive about both his residency and whatever he was looking at on his computer.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: When Mr. Frog goes on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to explain his recent misconduct, he says something so offensive (and presumably racist) it's covered by one long bleep that lasts several seconds; we never get any context as to who it was pointed at, but seeing even Charlie was left in gawking, silent shock, it was definitely pretty awful.
• Continuity Nod: In the Christmas special, Pim brings up their helping Desmond in the pilot as an example of Charlie's negative attitude during their argument. Later in the episode, Dave the creator of Daveland can be seen at Charlie's funeral.
• Continuity Snarl: When God throws Charlie back to Earth in "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back", the Earth is shown to be a globe, while in "Charlie Pim and Bill Vs. The Alien", when Pim and Charlie return to Earth, it's a flat disk with a dome above it. Granted, this may be a shared hallucination, as the pair had previously taken a variety of alien drugs.
• Creator Cameo: Michael Cusack appears as his live-action Lucas the Magnificent character on Glep's tablet.
• Creator Thumbprint: Certain characters will gain red eyes when they scream, either out of fear or anger, such as Rex, the producer of the Mr. Frog show. It should be noted that this is a distinctive and iconic quirk of Zach Hadel's animation style that he's had ever since he started animation.
  • Several cameos from internet personalities and animators are often given visuals, dialogue or animation styles evocative of their own work, such as Joel Haver's AI-assisted rotoscoping or Doug Walker giving a spin on The Nostalgia Critic's introduction catchphrase.
• Crucified Hero Shot: The Bliblies in "Desmond's Day Out" actually crucify Allan, even spearing him in the side.
• Dark Parody: Of We Help the Helpless cartoons like Care Bears, where instead of cheering up a moody kid or solving a friendship problem, the characters have to deal with serious, real-life issues that a lot of people have, such as trying to prevent a depressed man from committing suicide in the pilot for starters, and the theme continues there. Ironically, the closest client to coming close to the "moody kid" staple is Satan himself, and even then, his issues are still realistic, given that he's lost all motivation in ruling hell and has gotten himself addicted to short-lived dopamine hits through eating junk food, vaping, and gaming. That being said, the Black Comedy is often balanced out by genuine optimism, and the fact that the main characters always solve the problems they set out to fix one way or another.
• Deal with the Devil: Charlie makes a deal with Satan where if he makes Satan smile, Satan will then revive him and put him back on Earth. Charlie succeeds but Satan goes back on his word and tries to keep Charlie to torture for all eternity, until God himself comes down to fulfill Satan's half of the deal.
• Decided by One Vote: "Mr. President" ends with Mr. Frog becoming president by a single vote; courtesy of the Smiling Friends' own Glep. While the people in the room are initially angry at Glep, Glep quickly explains his reasons (though the audience doesn't get to understand them), and the rest admit that Glep made a great point.
• Despite the Plan: Rather frequently, the Smiling Friends' attempts to cheer up their clients end up failing and/or go horribly wrong, but they nonetheless succeed in making them smile due to various comedic circumstances. For example, in "Shrimp's Odyssey", Pim and Charlie's plan to get Shrimp and Shrimpina back together fails due to Pim mistaking a random woman named Jenifer for Shrimpina, but it still works out because it turns out Shrimp is exactly Jenifer's type.
• Diabolus ex Machina: A late one during the climax of "Frowning Friends", despite the conflict already being resolved by Mr. Boss the "Renaissance Men" appear and murder Grim and Gnarly and then disappear as quickly as they appeared, re-resolving the conflict by having the Frowning Friends needlessly killed out of nowhere.
• Drives Like Crazy: Charlie apparently has an uncle that's been in at least two incidents with mass vehicular manslaughter, one of which took out an entire family while he was drunk.

  Pim: Your uncle seems to get into lots of car accidents...
  Charlie: Yeah he loves his cars! He loves his cars...

• Dysfunctional Family: Pim's revealed to have one when he takes Desmond to meet them. His mom gets into shouting matches with his dad, who's bitter from working in the mines all day. His sister Amy is obsessed with her boyfriend and quite blunt about not liking Pim, and his littlest siblings mess around the house. The only one who seems relatively normal is his cousin, who at best is good at playing with tabletop skateboards. Pim admits to Charlie that he didn't remember his home life was like this because he hasn't visited since Christmas.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending:
  • Played with in the pilot. Charlie and Allan are contently sharing a laugh together until the alien bursts from the TV screen to thank the audience for watching, much to their horror.
  • Happens again at the end of "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?", where Pim and Charlie are left laughing uncomfortably having let very unstable fast food mascots loose in the streets after they'd been acquitted of murder charges.
  • Played with again in "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)". This time Pim, Allan, and Glep are sharing a hearty laugh until they see Mr. Boss inside of Gwimbly and Troglor's new Platform Fighter game. He then appears in the break room and explains why he disappeared for a week before having a psychotic meltdown, scaring everyone else.
• Expy:
  • The green creature who takes a bite out of Shrimp's head after he gets a tan seems to be a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Homer Simpson, right down to mimicking Homer's physical mannerisms and Catchphrase: "Mmmm...cooked shrimp."
  • The Salty's mascots are a parody of the McDonaldland Gang, and the Salty's intro shows them in a similar style to what McDonald's characters have been drawn in.
  • Gwimbly from "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)", is a parody of '90s platformer protagonists like Banjo, showing up as a pixellated 3D model. If you listen to the music when they show the "Gameplay" from one of the Gwimbly games it even sounds very reminiscent of a Grant Kirkhope Banjo-Kazooie soundtrack.
• Extremely Short Intro Sequence: A Title-Only Opening that consists only of colored block letters on a black background, accompanied by a hyper carnival jingle that abruptly degrades before suddenly cutting to the episode after only three seconds.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Any fantastical creature or concept can show up for the sake of a joke. One episode reveals that just across the street from the Smiling Friends' mundane office building is a forest full of demons, witches, shapeshifters, medusas, centaurs, giant spiders, dragons, goblins, and apparently an entire civilization of Tolkien-esque elves. Also The Greys.

  Charlie: That one's not even fantasy, that's just an alien, Pim!

• Fictional Earth: "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" shows that the planet the series takes place on is Earth (geographically at least; North and South America are clearly visible), and real-world references sometimes come up, but the world is quite divergent from ours in many ways. In addition to being the host of a Fantasy Kitchen Sink which none of the "normal" human characters blink an eye at, several episodes show that a ringed gas giant is visible in the sky (even in daytime), making its solar system completely fictional. Many of its sapient inhabitants are also of a species called "Critters", which by Word of God is the species that the main characters belong to (a few characters also call them such). Also, as revealed in season 2, it's a Flat Earth.
• Fingore: Allan finds his seventy-fourth paperclip when the bliblie stabs his finger with its bent point. And then the Bliblies crucify him.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Inverted in "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back", as Hell has actually frozen over after Satan ends up losing his motivation to torture souls.
• Former Child Star: Gwimbly from "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)" is this in all but name. Gwimbly was the star of a popular 3D platformer in the 90's, but when industry trends changed, his franchise was discontinued and he became homeless.
• Four Fingered Hand: Most characters have four or fewer fingers, with a fifth digit only being added for select instances where a human's hand is in focus. One example is Desmond holding his revolver.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Charlie is the Phlegmatic, Pim is the Sanguine, Allan is the Melancholic, and Glep is the Choleric.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: There are many things that are moving so fast or seen so briefly you'd have to pause to see them. Including:
  • A variety of dirty Punny Names in the credits of The Mr. Frog Show in "Mr. Frog".
  • The results of the poll for Smormu to become the fifth Smiling Friend in "Shrimp's Odyssey", showing that Smormu very narrowly won the popular vote.
  • Grandfather Glep having a picture of himself in the Oval Office on the wall of his cabin in "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back".
  • Professor Psychotic has a box labeled "CAT" with both "LIVE" and "DEAD" crossed out.
• Gainax Ending: Almost every episode has one:
  • The first episode ends with the dancing creature from the TV breaking out of the screen, rapidly saying "Hello, thank you for watching!", with Charlie and Allan panicking about it and arguing about who should grab it.
  • The second episode ends with a news reporter announcing Mr. Frog's rise in wealth and popularity, right before Mr. Frog attacks her with a hammer.
  • The third episode ends with Smormu showing up out of nowhere and dancing a funny jig while an announcer reveals the gag poll's results. An unfazed Charlie walks off.
• Gag Nose: Charlie has a very large, distinctive nose. James, his client in "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)", wrenches it off his face in a fit of rage, leaving him with a red stump until the end of the episode.
• Gentle Giant: Amy's boyfriend is a stone-faced muscleman who doesn't react to anything throughout his scene, until he suddenly stress-hurls on the table and starts apologizing profusely for ruining dinner.
• Gorn: Make no mistake; while it hasn't reached Metalocalypse or Superjail! levels yet, Smiling Friends is still VERY violent. Bloody Hilarious jokes, gruesome deaths and graphic injuries are extremely common throughout, to the point where even the main characters aren't always safe.
• Grossout Show: Not severely so, especially for an Adult Swim show, but just know that detailed wrinkles and veins are another staple of Hadel's characters.
• Grossup Closeup:
  • By the end of the pilot, one is given of a slouched, emotionally-drained Pim (drawn by Dan "PencilMoose" Peacock).
  • There is another one of Shrimp wearing a leather jacket.
• Halloween Episode: The fourth episode of every season acts as one.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: When Desmond cheers up, all of his hair grows back, his skin becomes clearer, with no wrinkles or veins, and he puts on a nice suit.
• Horror Comedy: While the show is primarily trying to make you laugh, it's also clear there is something definitively "off" about the world of Smiling Friends, with unsettling aspects of society (like a group of party goers killing and eating the Forest Demon after they assume he's wearing blackface) and unnatural creatures like the Forest Demon and the Bliblies.
• Horror Host: The Halloween Episode "A Silly Halloween Special" has a live-action framing device where a nameless gray-haired man in a suit presents the episode. The closing portion has police forcing him to leave for loitering.
• Hypocritical Humor: Pim gets mocked at a party he and Charlie take Desmond to, for apparently looking "like an old man"... by a man who appears to be much older than him and better fits the description.
• Immune to Jump Scares: When Charlie ends up in Hell, his only form of entertainment is Jeremy, a noodly demon that jumps in his face and screams. Charlie says if he does that again, he's gonna punch him. When Jeremy pops out of nowhere later on, Charlie's only reaction is punching him in the stomach.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Pops up so often that it borders on being a Running Gag, such as the dancing alien show from the Desmond's Big Day Out, the Mr. Frog show (which consists of the titular star running onto screen, giving an explanation of the show, and the actions he preforms, which consists of him eating a bug, then telling the viewer he loves them before the show ends) and Glep spitting, from Mr. Frog, and Jeremy, a demon who "entertains" Charlie by rapidly flailing his hands in his face while making rapid, high-pitched babbling sounds.
• Infomercial: The newly-reinvigorated Desmond stars in one for his new bliblie extermination business at the end of "Desmond's Big Day Out".
• In Memoriam: Spoofed. All end credits have one of these, the first including a slightly distorted picture of animator Adam Paloian, accompanied by the captions "In Loving Memory, Johnathan Q. Shrimpling (2004 - 2017)". None of the names are of real people, and only a few involve anyone actually involved in the episode, namely those from "Shrimp's Oddysey" (Smormu, not 30 seconds after he was announced as the fifth Smiling Friend), "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?" (Simon S. Salty, naturally) and "Charlie, Pim and Bill vs. the Alien" (Xenore, the alien whose name Charlie and Pim use to convince the alien dudebros to help them get back home, who lived to be well over 5,000 years old!).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Allan is set up as an obnoxious, Obsessively Organized snob, but is shown to also be genuinely affectionate with Charlie at the end. Before that, he comforts the Bliblie who stole his cheese when he sees how frightened it is... unfortunately leaving him vulnerable to what turns out to be a violent pest.
• Kick the Dog: A Blingostani soldier literally kicks a dog for no good reason while the rest of the military steamrolls and carpet bombs the area.
• Lactating Male: Mr. Boss breastfeeds his son in one scene.
• Lampshade Hanging: The pilot shows that the Smiling Friends building has an alarm which causes the building's eyes to flash red. It wasn't seen again for the rest of Season 1, which is pointed out by Charlie when it goes off again in "Brother's Egg".

• Mass "Oh, Crap!": All of the Bliblies that overran the Smiling Friends office promptly stop their rioting and gasp in horror as Desmond blows the head off of the first Bliblie with his gun.
• Medium Blending: The show is primarily in digital 2D, but frequently throws in live-action, stop-motion, Rotoscoping, and CGI into the mix.
• Milking the Giant Cow: A recurring visual gag is characters talking while gesticulating fast and pointing fingers.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Brought up by Charlie when they arrive at Desmond's mother's house.

  Pim: This is gonna be great, Charlie! I love helping kids! I love kids, Charlie! I LOVE KIDS!
  Charlie: (Looks around nervously while the guy watering his lawn in the background looks up at them) Pim, I really would not be, uh, screaming that at the top of your lungs.

• Mistaken for Insane: When Charlie is dumped out of a trap door after walking in on a meeting of the worm secret society, he emerges in the middle of the National Mall, with bleary eyes and his jacket sleeves wrapped around his body, looking like an escaped asylum patient. It doesn't help that he immediately starts screaming about what he saw to a nearby mother and her child.

  Charlie: Worms control the planet!"

• Mistaken for Racist: The Forest Demon is assumed to be someone wearing blackface for a costume. The partygoers tear him apart, eat him, and burn his remains for this.
• Mister Seahorse: Implied with The Boss. We don’t see him pregnant or hear him discuss it, but he has lactating breasts he uses to feed his child, making it very likely that he was the one to carry and birth his son Jason.
• Mood Whiplash: A good chunk of "A Silly Halloween Special" is genuinely scary, with Pim getting lost in the woods and later being hunted by a forest demon. Then at the end, the episode goes right back to the series' usual over-the-top Black Comedy when a group of partygoers gruesomely kill the demon because he looked like he was in blackface.
• Mundane Solution: Charlie and Pim's first quest in the Enchanted Forest is to help a tree spirit with a thorn in its side, who is complaining of immense pain. Pim tries to think of it like a riddle or metaphor, while Charlie just says that the thorn should be removed. Sure enough, Mip removes the thorn and the tree's pain is cured.
• Namedworld and Namedland: Daveland, an amusement park themed entirely around its founder: some guy named Dave.
• Narrator All Along: The ending of "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back" reveals that the narrator from the beginning is a much older Glep, telling the story to his grandchild and revealing that Hell is indeed real, and Christianity was right all along.
• Never Trust a Title: This show has something of a fondness for this, often mixing it with episode descriptions that are completely made up.
  • "Charlie Dies and Doesn't Come Back": He comes back.
  • "Smiling Friends Go To Brazil": The characters are stuck in the Brazilian airport the whole episode becuase Pim didn’t book a hotel. So they hardly get to experience Brazil at all, and just fly back home.
  • "Charlie, Pim, and Bill vs. The Alien": There are actually multiple aliens, and Bill isn't as prominent as the title implies given he is dissected as soon as the three are abducted.
  • "Pim Finally Turns Green": Pim's skin is not green.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The Brazil vacation episode was hyped up to seem like the gang would finally get some relaxation. In the episode, they do nothing but sit inside the airport talking about nothing. They never actually went to the beach. The episode description was deceptive as well; Pim does not, in fact, work on his novel.
• Nice Guy: Pim and Charlie have their faults, but they are very well-meaning, polite, and kind to almost everyone they encounter.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Renaissance Men are clearly themed after The High Middle Ages. Pim is confused and frustrated by this.
• Noodle Incident: Charlie's uncle is something of a noodle person, as whenever Charlie brings him up it's over something completely insane, be it massively deadly car accidents and the (lack of) consequences thereof, or how he needed to leave an Uncanny Valley android he had for some reason with Charlie while stuck in the hospital.
• Older Than They Look: Jason (the baby that The Boss breastfeeds in the pilot) is 18 according to The Boss, but has the appearance of a newborn.
• Once an Episode:
  • There is at least one Character Death in each episode. The death is usually abrupt and often resolves whatever dilemmas the other characters are facing.
  • Near the end of almost every episode, the person the Smiling Friends were tasked to help smile successfully smiles, with a happy sound effect playing in the process.
• The Oner: "The Smiling Friends Go to Brazil!" is (apart from the intro) shot in one continuous take.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know Spamtopia is a messed up place when people in the constantly zany world of Smiling Friends find the place to be unnerving and disgusting.
• Peace & Love Incorporated: Smiling Friends itself is a subversion. At first, it sounds like a shallow business destined to capitalize on people's misery or even trick them into thinking they need to pay someone to cheer them up. However, the company seemingly operates entirely on charity donations and its mission to just cheer people up is shown to be completely sincere, especially once you see how much the world around them need it.
• Police Are Useless: In "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?", Pim calls 911 upon discovering the titular character's corpse. The guy on the other line just lazily tells him that the police no longer conduct murder investigations due to budget cuts, having outsourced that duty to the Smiling Friends of all people.
• Political Overcorrectness: The Forest Demon is brutally beaten, dismembered, and partially eaten all because the partygoers thought he was wearing blackface. Oddly enough, the people getting mad about this attacked the forest demon just because of the color of his skin.
• Push-Polling: At the end of "Shrimp's Odyssey", a poll is held to see if the new Smiling Friend, Smormu, will be a permanent addition to the cast. Voting means texting a phrase to a phone number—those who wanted Smormu in can just type in his name, but those who don't need to put in "NO I REALLY REALLY REALLY DON'T WANT SMORMU." While the requirement for voting against him getting in the show is far more complex than voting for him, the votes for and against him were apparently equal, but the votes from the "electoral college" cemented his debut for real. He's in the show for a brief moment, then is dead by the time the credits are finished.
• Rage Against the Reflection: The Boss does this in "Frowning Friends" after being driven mad from the titular company stealing his business, even having a conversation with his reflection over what to do about it.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: As is to be expected in anything created by web-based writers, the comic timing is breakneck fast, with some gags lasting mere frames.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Notably averted by Pim and Charlie, who regularly stutter, talk over or interrupt each other, and take time to find their words in a fairly realistic manner.
• Reality Is Out to Lunch: Spamtopia is a wild and chaotic place even by the standards of the show's usual World of Weirdness setting. It is full of garish oversaturated colors and is populated by critters even stranger than the ones we see normally, who look like MS Paint doodles. And looking into someone's eyes is considered so offensive that it is punishable by death. And after Oscar abolishes all rules it immediately descends into violent anarchy before everything starts to glitch out and reality begins to collapse.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: This happens In-Universe to Mr. Frog, as he gets fired from his own show after he attempts to eat a TMZ reporter. Pim and Charlie try to fix his reputation so he can get his career back. In the end, Mr. Frog somehow gets back on the show after doing something even worse: eating the director on live TV.
• Rotoscoping: The partygoer who yells at Pim for touching him is animated this way. He comes back in the Halloween episode to tell off the Forest Demon for (what he assumes) wearing blackface.
• Sapient Eat Sapient:
  • TV celebrity Mr. Frog gets cancelled after attempting to eat a TMZ reporter, and later successfully eats his show's producer, Rex.
  • The Show Within a Show The Mr. Frog Show has Mr. Frog eat an apparently sapient bug in every episode. This seems to be just an act, however, since the bug is a credited cast member, and appears on the set after Mr. Frog has been fired while looking none the worse for wear.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Shrimp does this in "Shrimp's Odyssey" when telling the Smiling Friends why he needed them.

  Shrimp: Sigh. My girlfriend just broke up with me. I am 'artbroken.

• Secret Test: Parodied with God who plays it off as if Charlie's stay at Hell has been one of these the entire time.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: The entirety of "The Smiling Friends Go To Brazil" revolves around the Friends sitting in the airport and talking about nothing.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: In "The Smiling Friends Go To Brazil" they ultimately don't leave the airport due to the unlikeliness of booking a hotel room that late, and instead take the next flight back home.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The show lies somewhere in the middle, which is actually very idealistic for an [adult swim] cartoon. The Smiling Friends organization is genuinely interested in making people happy at the end of the day, but they tend to run into difficulties due to the bizarre and occasionally horrifying nature of the world they live in. The protagonist Pim and Charlie represent two opposing sides, with Pim often being too idealistic for his own good while Charlie is often cynical in a defeatist fashion. Despite the challenges they regularly face, the main four Smiling Friends representatives always manage to reach their assigned goal; whether on purpose, in a strange, darkly humorous fashion, or purely on accident. "Frowning Friends" best displays the show's status in the center by having the Aesop that extreme cynicism is just as silly and useless as extreme idealism.
• Smiting Evil Feels Good: Having blown the head off of a Bliblie with his revolver, Desmond says killing it felt good and finally cracks a smile, turning his life around right after. What keeps it from veering into the territory of Bad People Abuse Animals is that the Bliblies are massive infestations of dangerous and violent pricks to deal with.
• Standard Office Setting: Downplayed. Most of the scenes in the Smiling Friends building take place in the staff break room. The only office shown is that of their boss, which is dimly colored and barren aside from the door and the desk.
• The Stinger:
  • "Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?" ends with the Smiling Friends burying the Century Egg in China, only to dig him back up once Pim decides he wants a taste.
  • "Enchanted Forest" ends with Charlie suffering the after effects of Mip's headache potion.
  • "Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4K (Anniversary Director’s Cut)" ends with James in his dingy apartment lamenting that he pushed away Charlie for trying to help him.
  • "Mr. President" ends with President Jimble or rather, just Jimble after his failed re-election finally managing to relax at a beach during the sunset.
  • "A Allan Adventure" ends with Allan's landlord suddenly coming back to life and vowing that Allan will hang out with him again.
  • "Erm, the Boss Finds Love?" ends with Mr. Boss arguing with Satan over property rights in Hell now that he owns a fourth of it.
  • "Brother's Egg" ends with Allan, Glep, and Mr. Boss watching the movie from earlier in the episode while Mr. Boss states he's unable to change his dog face back to normal.
  • "Charlie, Pim, and Bill vs. the Alien" ends with Fillmore and Duncan in prison for presumably killing Pim, Bill, and Charlie, but Fillmore insists that they were abducted by aliens.
  • "The Magical Red Jewel (Also, Tyler Gets Fired)" ends with Charlie hanging out with Tyler, the previously unseen fifth Smiling Friend who was fired at the episode's beginning, at a bar and trying to convince Tyler to rejoin the gang.
  • "Pim Finally Turns Green" has Pim and Charlie wonder whether Rotten is now the entire ocean before Rotten suddenly eats an entire cruise ship and attacks the beach.
• Straw Nihilist: Given that the sun's eventually going to explode and kill everyone left on the planet no matter what, Desmond figures that life's fleeting moments of happiness are more or less pointless timewasters.
  • The Frowning Friends try to force this philosophy on everyone else in town, but they (or at least Grim) quickly fold once they're faced with their own imminent deaths.
• Strictly Formula: The In-Universe Mr. Frog Show has the same premise for every episode: Mr. Frog appears, introduces himself, eats a bug, explains that he just ate a bug and restates his name, and then the credits roll. Such comforting familiarity has won over audiences the world over, leading to it becoming one of the most popular and critically acclaimed TV shows of all time, with 47 seasons on air as of the present day (though in Charlie's opinion only seasons 4 through 17 are worth watching).
• Stunned Silence: When Mr. Frog appears on the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Mr. Frog ends up worsening his situation by saying something extremely racist, which has Jimmy, Charlie, and Pim in silent shock.
• Stylistic Suck: The show often intentionally does away with every last in-between frame to animate ludicrous events at near-epileptic speeds. All in the name of humor, of course (and sometimes horror, when it comes to Mr. Frog and his unnervingly fast shenanigans).
• Suddenly Shouting: The characters sometimes abruptly shout at the top of their lungs, as typical of Hadel's works. For example, there's this moment leading up to Desmond's introduction.

  Desmond's Mom: I'm so glad you boys came! Now he's just right in here, I hope he's not sleeping. (inhales, then knocks on her son's door at superhuman speed for one second) DESMOND!!!! The Smiling Friends are here! (leads Charlie and Pim in)

  • Pim usually does this whenever he's excited about doing a task, such as going to the enchanted forest and making a client smile. This sometimes startles Charlie.
  • Gwimbly shouts at the Insane Groundbreaking Games' CEO in rage after being mocked by him. Gwimbly's voice compression manages to peak his audio halfway through his threat.

    Gwimbly: Oh I swear to God, if I had my GWIMBLY GUN ON ME RIGHT NOW I'D-

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A huge component of the shows humor is the contrast between the cutesy, insane and cracked-out world of Smiling Friends and the realistic consequences that befall the main characters for their actions. To wit:
  • Pim's attempt to make Mr. Frog go cold turkey on drugs causes him to suffer from withdrawal symptoms that send his violent tendencies into overdrive.
  • Early in "Shrimp's Odyssey", Charlie comments on Pim's terrible eyesight, which Pim blows off. Much later in the episode, it's revealed that Pim got the address of Shrimpina mixed up with the address of a random café worker named Jennifer. The former works at 153 Meep Boulevard, while the latter works at 158 Meep Boulevard, meaning Pim's poor eyesight caused him to confuse the two. As well, Charlie's attempts to toughen Shrimp up by forcing him to squat "100 pounds" (it looks like much more, as there are three pairs of sizeable weights on the bar) goes horribly wrong when the latter can barely lift the barbell and shatters his shoulder.
  • Charlie kills a dragon by dumping a huge pile of the creature's own treasure hoard onto its head. As it turns out, gold is extremely heavy and a sufficient pile of it can crush anything, even a dragon covered in impenetrable scales.
  • Both times that DJ Spit pulls a gun on the Smiling Friends, Charlie makes a clumsy attempt to disarm him that reflects how difficult and dangerous it can be for an untrained person to try and grab a gun from someone.
  • When Charlie dies in the season finale, he meets a demon called Jeremy who shrieks and violently flails his hands in front of Charlie's face. After pushing him away, Charlie says that if Jeremy does that again, he'll punch him. Sure enough, when Jeremy pops up later in the episode and does that exact thing, Charlie throws a punch to his solar plexus. Instead of merely falling over, Jeremy hunches down to his knees and begins wheezing and drooling, much the same way someone would react to having the wind punched out of them.
• Surreal Humor: Considering who's writing the show, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. This all comes to a head at the end of almost every episode.
• The Swarm: The Bliblies, an infestation of tiny, high-pitched purple beings.
• Tear-Stained Stationery: One episode has a violent thug named James demand Charlie do all sorts of demeaning tasks for him to make him smile, all the while insulting him and even tearing off his nose. After he finally does smile (after stabbing someone to death) and leaves, The Stinger shows James lamenting that he pushed Charlie away while caressing a framed photograph of him. He starts sobbing as tears land on the photo.
• Television Portal: Not so much a portal as a shattered barrier, but the alien on TV goes through it nonetheless.
• Tempting Fate: "Mr. President" has Charlie telling Pim that he doesn't like getting involved in politics. Not even a full second later, Mr. Boss proudly announces that the Smiling Friends are being called to help the President smile. Cue a pained Skyward Scream from Charlie.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: After Desmond's nihilism finally breaks him, Pim spends the rest of the episode staring blankly at the ground, mouth agape, in horror then despair.
• Title-Only Opening: Each episode begins with only the logo, flashing in many colors, and a few second long synth loop.
• Torn Apart by the Mob: In the Halloween Episode, after spending half the episode chasing Pim, a forest demon gets ripped apart and burnt in a pyre by partygoers because they thought he was wearing blackface.
• Trauma Conga Line:
  • Desmond's wife left him, she took the kids, and his dog died of a broken heart last Fall. Is it any wonder he's considering suicide now?
  • Pim goes through his own throughout the pilot, where his attempt to show the joys of family only reminds him why he hasn't visited, his attempt to make friends only gets him laughed at and introspective about his age, and his attempt to cheer up at Daveland is called out by Desmond as a meaningless distraction. By the end of the pilot, Desmond's turned his life around since he's got a new purpose, while Pim's become as grey and depressed as Desmond once was.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: In Brother's Egg, Allan is stuck watching a TV show about two obese CGi men fighting over a ham in a king size bed floating in space. At first, Allan absolutely hates it and is only watching because he lost the remote. At the end of the episode, the two men make up, which moves Allan to tears.
• The Unintelligible: Several characters. Glep, the alien on TV, and all of the Bliblies.
• Uncanny Valley: A staple of Michael Cusack's works.
  • The TV Alien looks creepily realistic compared to everyone else. Charlie's panic and freakout at it in the end is understandable.
  • Invoked with Desmond's overly-detailed, exaggerated features, such as his neck folds, flabby gut, baggy eyes, clammy skin and visible chest scar. The creators pull no punches making him look gross.
  • The guy at the party that Pim tries to make friends with is animated in deliberately bad rotoscope. Pair that with his callous nature and the fish eye angle that he's shot from and he does a very good job of making the audience feel as unsettled and nauseated as intended.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Downplayed in "Brother's Egg". The series's surreal and dark comedy is still present, but for once the client's (or in this case clients') issues are genuinely serious and played rather somberly.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Pim and Charlie take no notice of a man getting his head stomped into a pulp in the hallway outside Shrimpy's apartment.
• Vacation Episode: Subverted with "The Smiling Friends Go To Brazil", where thanks to Pim forgetting to book hotel rooms, he, Charlie, Allan and Glep decide to cut their losses and catch the next flight home, with the implication that the plane crashing at the end is stranding them at the airport even longer.
• Verbal Tic: Nearly all of Mr. Frog's sentences start or end with "hello," regardless if he's already greeted the person he's talking to.
• Visual Pun: The TV alien literally breaks the fourth wall between him and the Friends before he directly addresses the audience.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • Amy's boyfriend abruptly tosses his cookies in the middle of dinner.

  "Babe": Sorry! I- I'm sorry. I ruined it. I'm sorry.

  • Pim vomits out of nervousness in front of “Shrimpina” in Shrimp’s Odyssey.
  • An intoxicated Gwimbly does this after Pim volunteers to help him. He repeatedly insists Allan and Pim don't look at it.
  • All of Duncan's "lines" are interrupted by him vomiting the immense amount of snack food he eats.
• Wham Line: The reason the Princess of the Enchanted Forest hired the Smiling Friends is revealed once she realizes the gift's from from Mip.

  Princess: Did you just say Mip?
  Pim: Yep.
  Charlie: Yeah, Mip, yeah.
  Princess: Oh my god!
  Pim: Did you know him?
  Princess: He was the entire reason I wasn't able to smile for my portrait. He's my stalker!

• Wham Shot: The reveal of Desmond, pistol to his temple.
  • Shortly after the Wham Line above, Mip's package to the princess is revealed to be a pipe bomb.
  • When Charlie and Pim return to Earth after being abducted by aliens they find out that the Earth is actually flat.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Unlike Charlie and Pim (who are field agents) and Allan (who is the office administrator), Glep seems to mostly just hang around the offices without doing anything helpful. Charlie admits in the Gwimbly episode that he has no idea what he actually does.
• When She Smiles: The purpose of the Smiling Friends is to make their clients smile; a camera shot of them doing so is a plot point in most of the episodes, and generally indicates when their client has finally moved past whatever they needed help with.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The Smiling Friends' city is never named or located in anything beyond the United States in the first season.
• A World Half Full: There are lots of unpleasant and hostile people in the world of Smiling Friends, plus maniacs like Mr. Frog are able to roam around freely instead of inside a maximum security prison and even be insanely popular TV stars, but there are just as many nice characters as there are jerks and bullies and the eponymous charity organization itself is more or less competent at doing their own job.
• World of Jerkass: Every character we see who doesn't work for the titular service is, appropriately enough, either unpleasant, miserable, or a bully. It seems logical that Smiling Friends would be necessary.
• World of Weirdness: The world of Smiling Friends is one where one week a frog can eat his producer and a later week the devil's daughter can get married and barely anyone bats an eye. This is even discussed at the end of "Brother's Egg" where Charlie admits that the world they live in stresses him out.
• Yellow Is Cheerful: Invoked. The headquarters of the Smiling Friends charity is a yellow smiley face with eyes that flash yellow and pink when they receive a call from a client, whom they have to help smile as soon as they arrive on the scene. Ironically Charlie, a yellow critter, is very cynical and the first to give up when the job appears too hard for him.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: Done with the main duo - Pim is purple and an enthusiastic Wide-Eyed Idealist, while Charlie is yellow and more weary and down to earth.
• Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Looking into someones eyes is considered highly offensive in Spamtopia to the point that it is considedred a crime punishable by death.