Action Pack (cartoon)

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The Action Pack cartoon is a preschool television series developed by Shea Fontana and created by William Harper for Netflix. It made its debut on the fourth of January, 2022.

Throughout the series, four kids who make up the titular team work together to protect their home city of Hope Springs as Mr. Ernesto and his robot dog Plunky hone the kids' skills.

Tropes used in Action Pack (cartoon) include:

• Action Girl: Treena and Wren are the titular group's female members.
  • Dark Action Girl:
    • Dinah Rex is a downplayed variant, tending to make her dinosaur minions do things, but finally taking charge in turning the persons of Hope Springs into dinosaurs for her tea party.
    • The Gamer Girl is a woman who has video game powers. Oh, and if she wins, she takes your power and dumps your soul in a jail cell. Clay manages to free those who got trapped.
• Actually, I Am Him: During the episode Heroism Is A Piece of Cake, Phil suggests cleaning up the bakery that Pepper was working at before the latter comes back and sees her shop a mess with the cooking supplies she was buying and (presumably) freaks out over what happened with her gone. The Baker Bandit then reveals her true identity as Pepper.
• Adaptational Badass: Santa Claus is portrayed as a superhero this time, with his main weapon being his staff.
• Adorable Evil Minions: The Splats, despite their role as villains during the episode Gaming the System, look rather cute. The Killer Teddy Bears from the Von Taker house count as well, as they are thieves.
• Aerith and Bob:
• All Take and No Give: As you can tell from his name, Teddy von Taker loves taking things. And he hates giving them away, too. He even tries to make his repossessions stand with "No takebacks" (which blows up in his face when a brainwashed Plunky nabs him against his will).
• An Aesop: The episode All That Llama Drama starts this way. Mr. Ernesto tells a tale where four superheroes charged at a villain who wielded a laser that can transform you, and they got turned into chickens. His message is that rushing can lead to problems.
• And I Must Scream: Whenever she kills someone in the games that she traps them in, the Gamer Girl traps the poor sucker's soul in a dungeon-esque cage. Fortunately, Clay finds an escape route.
• Animal Mecha: Robot Killer Teddy Bears form Teddy von Taker's army, although it's downplayed as these things look cuter than the average bear and their design is actually based on teddy bears, not the actual animal. The Robo Raven is another of Teddy's minions, being themed after a raven. Dinah Rex is aided by robot dinosaurs. Plunky is a robot dog who helps the titular heroic team.
• An Ice Person: Cold Snap can freeze things, hence his name.
• Animal Lover: Wren loves animals. Quite appropriately, her superpower is Animorphism.
• Animorphism: Wren can take on animalistic forms, like turning her limbs into cheetah limbs to run fast or perform a long jump, or growing butterfly wings when she needs to fly.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Sky and her elder brother Clay do love each other genuinely, but the former can sometimes act bratty when she does not get what she wants, which turned her into the villain of Sky's The Limit.
• Armless Biped: This trope gets inverted when Watts turns his flight power on and his legs disintegrate into a lightning tail until he deactivates it.
• Artistic License: Real professional paleontologists would not allow kids to work in a real digsite.
• Art Shift:
  • When Mr. Ernesto gives his mission briefings, the characters are animated in a pixelated style reminiscent of classic video games such as the first Super Mario Bros. game.
  • During the episode The Rakhi Rundown, Clay and his family explain what Rakhi is through a cuter-looking two-dimensional visualisation.
  • The Gamer Girl's game world is rendered with cel-shaded graphics.
• Ascended Extra: Nellie is a minor recurring character, but she gets a bigger role during the episode Once In A Blue Moon, where Treena talks with her to deal with her insecurities regarding being a hero.
• Asshole Victim: Sometimes, villains will suffer problems during/due to their villainous acts. During the episode Dog Daze, Plunky becomes Brainwashed and Crazy when Teddy von Taker messes with her programming. During his fight with the Action Pack, Teddy introduces them to his family lifestyle, and Plunky grabs him, much to his chagrin. In Power Nap, Tella-Portanya gets a stomachache from her doughnut feast.
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: During the episode Sky's The Limit, Sky turns into a giant when she is told that she is too small.
• Badass Adorable: The kids who form the titular team are cute and endearing kids who are also great at being heroes.
• Baleful Polymorph: Dinah Rex is a girl who loves dinosaurs. Her goal is to turn every person into a dinosaur.
  • During the episode All That Llama Drama, the four superheroes who rushed the villain with the transforming laser ended up turning into chickens due to their lack of judgement.
• Barrier Warrior: Clay can create spherical forcefields that he calls "invinci-balls."
• Berserk Button: Before the Baker Bandit reveals her true identity in Heroism Is a Piece of Cake, Phil implies that Pepper considers seeing her bakery a mess to be one by requesting that the mess be clean up.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Clay is a cute young boy that wears glasses.
• Big Brother Bully: Inverted. Clay supports his younger sister Sky, though she takes his safety advice as a straight example in Sky's The Limit, resulting in her transformation into the Monster of the Week.
• Big No: The Gamer Girl utters this when the heroes escape their game.
• Black Dude Dies First: Downplayed as nobody dies, but Treena, the black member of the current generation, is the first member to be taken out by the bad guys, getting frozen.
• Bottomless Pits: This appears as a hazard within the video game that the Gamer Girl traps her victims in. Treena almost falls into one, but gets saved by Wren.
• Braids of Action: Treena, the most headstrong of the titular team, wears her hair in braids.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Plunky turns against the Action Pack when Teddy Von Taker messes with her programming during his debut appearance in Dog Daze.
• Calling Your Attacks: Several times, characters have stated the names of their weaponry.
• Canine Companion: Plunky is this for the heroes. Her role is usually a support member, but she sometimes helps out directly. Teddy Von Taker turns her against the heroes when he first appears. Wren brings her back with a robotic dog biscuit.
• Chase Scene: During the episode Power Nap, Tella-Portanya robs a bakery for doughnuts, prompting a chase from the Action Pack.
• Cheerful Child: Wren is the group's most upbeat member, but even she has sad moments.
• Color-Coded Characters: The titular Action Pack. Treena wears green, Wren wears yellow, Clay wears red, and Watts wears blue.
• Color Motif: Wren conveys "Yellow is Cheerful," being tied to the colour yellow and being the most cheerful.
• Competition Freak/Conflict Ball: During the episode Trophy Trouble, Treena is so focused on the trophy that she does not focus enough on trying to work with the other Action Pack members or help others.
• Cool Teacher: Mr. Ernesto is an encouraging teacher who prefers morals and good values to trophies.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Watts ends up the Gamer Girl's first victim from the Action Pack in Gaming the System, crashing into a Splat that suddenly shows up in his way. Quite ironically, Treena does this to one of the Splats by grabbing him with a vine and throwing him away.
• Cuteness Proximity: During the episode Gaming the System, Wren gets distracted by the cute looks of a tiny Splat. She ends up regretting it when she gets poked in the foot by him. Clay almost falls victim to this, but traps the creature in his invinci-ball.
• De-Power: Upon getting his soul trapped in the Gamer Girl's cage, Watts tries to escape with his flight power, but finds his powers drained.
• Diabolus Ex Machina: Watts probably would have had a better time getting his hands on the first key hadn't that Splat showed up. Then there is the tiny Splat who killed Wren just before the second key. Fortunately, upon meeting this tiny Splat, Clay gets around him by trapping him.
• Downer Ending/The Bad Guy Wins: Mr. Ernesto's tale where four Superheroes got turned into chickens by their adversary. Downplayed and inverted at worst for the episodes themselves; for example, during the episode Trophy Trouble, Treena is denied the trophy as she decided to help the monster instead of capturing her, but Treena ends up learning that cooperation is key.
• Dude, She's Like, in a Coma: During the episode Power Nap, Plunky forces the victims of the Fizzles virus to sleep by playing a hypnotic song.
• Dumb Muscle: During the episode Sky's The Limit, Sky grows huge and does some damage as a result without knowing it.
• Entry Point: The entry point of the Gamer Girl's video game world seems to be a structure.
• Everything's Worse with Bears: Teddy Von Taker has sentient teddy bears forming his army. Mistaking them for harmless things could be a grave mistake, especially to your wallet.
• Exact Words:
  • The Gamer Girl abuses this trope during the climax of Gaming the System, where after she is defeated and surrenders the third out of four keys, she refuses to release Clay's friends, which the latter finds to his consternation. He gets a fourth key that the Gamer Girl is holding and then commits suicide, his soul getting sent to the cell where his friends are held, whereupon they escape by using the keys on the locks at the same time.
  • Teddy von Taker introduces his family's lifestyle during the Action Pack's assault on his house, only for the Brainwashed and Crazy Plunky to mistake his words for a command and grab HIM, much to his dismay.
• Expressive Accessory: Wren's hoodie has ears that droop when she becomes sad.
• Feathered Fiend: Well, he is a robot, but Teddy Von Taker's Robo Raven is a bird. His mission is to steal on Teddy Von Taker's behalf.
• Feud Episode: A variant not between the protagonists, but two other characters. During the episode Pterodactyl Troubles, Dinah Rex and Terrance the pterodactyl suffer Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure when they disagree on what to do. She turns to the Action Pack for help in mending their friendship, and the Action Pack tells her off for not listening to what Terrance had on his mind. Dinah and Terrance make up by the end when they get trapped and carried off.
• Finger-Poke of Doom: Touching a Splat causes instant death.
• Flight: Watts can fly with his lightning powers. Wren can also grow butterfly wings to fly.
• Fog Feet: In his flying form, Watts seems to lack legs, which get replaced with a tail of lightning.
• Forbidden Zone: Whoever gets infected with the Fizzles should be given a wide berth, which Mr. Ernesto and Plunky explain when Wren tries to cheer an infected Watts up with a hug in Power Nap and Plunky does not allow that.
• From Bad to Worse: Some episodes have things get worse when someone makes a mistake. The episode Power Nap exemplifies this when Watts violates his curfew and goes out to help the other kids, getting them infected.
• Get Out!: During the episode Power Nap, Watts contracts the Fizzles virus, so Wren tries to lift his spirits with a hug, only to get this from Plunky regarding the area around him when she is only four feet away.
• Girlish Pigtails: Wren has pigtails.
• Green Thumb: Treena's main power is tied to plants, controlled with a wand known as the Awesomer Blossomer.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The Gamer Girl is defeated by Splat to the stomach.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Dinah Rex is part dinosaur.
• Half the Man He Used To Be: When Watts uses his flight powers, Watts' legs disintegrate into lightning.
• Heel Face Turn: Most villains reform after their defeats, but there are exceptions.
  • Cold Snap presents this trope being subjected to double subversion, only purposefully causing damage during his debut appearance in Catching Cold, but reforming upon defeat. When he appears again in Frozen Fiasco, the gang thinks he turned back to the bad side, but it turns out he was suffering Power Incontinence.
• Heel Realisation: Dinah Rex realises that she was being mean turning others into dinosaurs in A Good Day to Dino after she explains that she looked weird with the reptilian features the Action Pack tells her that they are not normal either (and Wren thought that Dinah was just wearing a fake tail). This leads to Dinah's redemption; while she can still be a jerk, Dinah at least has learned how to humanely treat others.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During the climax of Gaming the System, the Gamer Girl is defeated when Clay knocks a Splat into her stomach with his Invinci-Ball.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: When she copies a mouse, Wren shrinks to a small size.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Despite being a Competition Freak, Treena genuinely has a good heart.
  • Even after her redemption, Dinah Rex can still be a jerk somewhat. The conflict of Pterodactyl Troubles starts with her and her pterodactyl Terrance arguing about what to do, prompting him to abandon her, and she has to join forces with the team to make amends with him.
• Jingle: An exciting leitmotif of the main theme is featured during the transformation sequence.
• Kaizo Trap: Wren falls victim to this thanks to a tiny Splat at the second key.
• Killer Rabbit: Despite being cute, the Splats can kill you just by poking you.
• Killer Teddy Bear: Teddy von Taker has an army made of these. Downplayed since they rob you rather than kill you.
• Lazy Bum: Inverted during the episode Power Nap. Watts hates flaking on the mission while his friends head out.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Watts uses his flight ability to pass the Gamer Girl's first challenge in Gaming the System, but gets killed by the first Splat to appear just before he can get the first key.
• Lethal Chef: The Baker Bandit tends to botch baking because she does not try hard. Treena helps her put effort into baking.
• Letting the Air Out of the Band: This occurs during the episode Power Nap when Wren and Tella-Portanya get into a chase and an upbeat arrangement of the main theme of the show plays. However, the music warps and becomes downbeat when Wren crashes into a tree.
• Logical Weakness: Treena's powers are weakened by the cold, which causes her to lose against Cold Snap in Catching Cold until the other heroes show up.
• Monster of the Week: The standard formula is a character causing problems.
• Name's the Same: Not to be mistaken for the programming block that aired Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Vanishing Son, TekWar, Jack of All Trades, and Cleopatra 2525.
• Negative Continuity: Averted. The Action Pack cartoon, despite targeting pre-schoolers, has tightly-knit stories and Character Development that actually sticks, such as Cold Snap's redemption.
• Nice Guy: Phil Donut is a pretty nice fellow. He dotes over fellow baker Pepper like she is part of his family, and the fact that she kidnapped him while she was the Baker Bandit does not bother him that much considering she did apologise for her crimes after learning how to bake properly.
• Noble Demon: Though she is a sadistic being who traps those who play the games she gives out as a consequence for them losing, the Gamer Girl at least has the courtesy to explain how to win.
• No Body Left Behind: The characters who get killed by the Splats disintegrate as their souls enter a cage.
• Oh Crap:
  • During the episode Power Nap, Phil Donut reacts in horror when Tella-Portanya warps back into his shop.
  • There is an episode where Teddy Von Taker brings Plunky under his control, and then she snatches him with her arms, much to his horror.
• One-Hit Kill: During the episode Gaming The System, Splats are able to kill the heroes just by touching them.
• Out of Focus: During the episode Cookie Caper, Wren has the largest role, while Treena, Clay, and Watts do not show up until the second half. Mr. Ernesto also gets hit with this in Once In A Blue Noon.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Pterodactyl Troubles starts when Dinah looks for Terrance the pterodactyl, but cannot find him. As it turns out, they were arguing about what to do.
• Power Incontinence: During one episode, Cold Snap loses control over his powers.
• Power Nullifier: During the episode Gaming the System, Wren and Treena come across a trial where they have to cross a large void to get the first key. Wren grows butterfly wings so she can fly the duo to the other side, but the Gamer Girl causes her and treena to fall by clipping them. Fortunately, Wren manages to reach a platform before she and the Gamer Girl fall into the abyss.
• Pungeon Master: Some characters have a knack for making puns. Treena says "fantastic" as "plantastic," while the paleontologist calls a mess "Tyrannosaurus wreck."
• Punny Name: Several characters have pun-based names:
  • Treena's name is a pun on "tree" and "Christina."
  • Watts takes his name from the watt, a measurement unit used for measuring the strength of an electric current.
  • Dinah Rex is named after the first two syllables of "dinosaur." Her surname, Rex, comes from Tyrannosaurī Regēs, also known as "T. Rexes."
  • Cold Snap derives his name from cold snaps (another term for cold waves, which involve the air getting cold).
  • Tella-Portanya is named after teleportation, since she can teleport.
  • Rom is named after read-only memory, reflecting his technology powers.
• Quirky Town: Hope Springs has many superpowered beings with the muggles apparently having gotten used to them.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Dinah Rex and her dinosaur minions start this way, but mellow out when they are defeated in A Good Day to Dino.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Treena's weapon, the Awesomer Blossomer.
• Riddle for the Ages: Is the Gamer Girl a sentient computer program, robot, or superpowered flesh-and-blood being.
• Rolling Attack: Mason can become a boulder, with his main attack being to crash into an enemy while rolling.
• Running on All Fours: Wren usually walks in a bipedal stance, but her cheetah form involves her running on all fours.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Upon losing his friends to Clay's Invinci-Ball, the last Splat guard guarding the second key flees.
• Secret Identity: Averted. The supers do not seem to mind having their true identities revealed to the muggles.
• Shock and Awe: Watts bases his powers on electricity.
• Shockwave Stomp:
  • During the episode Mason Impossible, Mason goes on a rampage upon being denied his prize in a digging for eggs challenge, with his stomps tearing up the dig site. Clay puts a stop to it.
  • Gaming the System has a Shockwave POUND. Wren deals with the Splats that guard the second key by smashing the platform with them with her polar bear arms, creating a shockwave that throws the Splats off.
• Show Within a Show: Well, Game Within a Show, but Gaming the System has the video game Hero's Collector. However, the being who made it, the Gamer Girl, uses it as a larder where her victims are kept while she absorbs their powers.
  • There is also a more harmless video game that the characters play, but we rarely see what is going on on the screen.
• Siblings Wanted: During the episode Rahki Rundown, Wren is revealed to be the only one without siblings, and wants to know what that feeling is like. She later views her friends as siblings.
• Sticky Fingers: Teddy von Taker steals things.
• Sudden Anatomy: Wren can grow animal parts as part of her Animorphism power.
• Super Speed: Watts is able to move very fast.
• Super Toughness: Wren's crocodile form allows her to power through things that would normally hurt a lot.
• Supreme Chef: Phil is an expert baker.
• Teleportation: The main antagonist of Power Nap, Tella-Portanya, can teleport, hence her name. The Gamer Girl is also able to teleport.
• The Assimilator: Whoever loses to the Gamer Girl's games will be consumed, their soul going to a dungeon-like cage while she takes their powers. During the events of Gaming the System, the Action Pack, the Crimson Cape, Mr. Ernesto, and Plunky manage to escape when Clay gets all four keys into the dungeon, getting their bodies and powers back.
• The Virus: One of the main villains of the episode Power Nap is a virus called "The Fizzles," which infects persons and causes them to move spastically, spreading itself through small thunderbolts. Tella-Portanya ends up infected as well while she is trying to evade capture after robbing Phil's bakery.
• Took a Level in Badass: During the episode Once in a Blue Moon, Treena loses her Awesomer Blossomer, and believes that Badass Decay got to her. She discovers that she had special powers all along without the wand when she gets a pep-talk from Nellie and powers up to save everyone else from the broken wand's energy going haywire.
• Tunnel King: Mason can burrow into the ground.
• Unusual Euphemism: Phil Donut's "curse words" include "sweet and salted caramel" (when the Baker Bandit attacks him and/or his shop) and "sweet sprinkles" (when he spots Tella-Portanya).
• Vague Age: Pepper's age is hard to discern. She is old enough to own her own business, and her voice actress was in her early 20's. Despite this, Pepper also has the immaturity of a rebellious teenager, given that she just expects that Phil Donut bakes when he gets captured while she plays a video game.
• Verbal Tic: Treena, Wren, and Watts tend to put various words that are linked to their powers in their dialogue.
• Vocal Dissonance: When she and Clay square off during the climax of Gaming the System, the Gamer Girl turns into a large Crimson Cape, but still has a female voice.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Clay can stretch and deform his body to his whim.
  • The Gamer Girl turns into a large version of the Crimson Cape... with her normal voice, when she and Clay go head-to-head.
• Watch Out for That Tree: Wren smashes her skull on a tree attempting to catch Tella-Portanya in Power Nap.
• Wingding Eyes: Plunky's eyes have taken different shapes. Justified as she has a digital screen for eyes. One example is a clock that Plunky and her master use to time the Action Pack in the first episode when the gang is building a llama statue (which falls apart afterwards).
• Winged Humanoid: Wren can grow wings to fly.
• Wrecked Weapon: During the episode Once in a Blue Moon, Treena breaks her Awesomer Blossomer and begins to suffer self-doubt.
• X-Ray Vision: Clay can see through objects with his "plasma-vision" power.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Treena is told this by Nellie when her wand breaks.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Clay and Sky have dark blue hair.
• Zero Effort Boss: Downplayed with the Splat guard at the first key. Watts only falls to him because he was not paying attention to his surroundings, but the other Action Pack members get past him easily. Then there were the Splats guarding the second key, who got knocked down in one hit when Wren used her Polar Bear form's arm slam, and later when Clay used his Invinci-Ball.