Nicktoons Unite!

File:NicktoonsUnite.jpg

Notice how it's SpongeBob who's mugging for the camera?

A series combining multiple cartoons featured on the children's TV network Nickelodeon. Actually, only the first game in this series goes by the title Nicktoons Unite!, but considering all the games are about Nicktoons characters joining forces, we might as well consider it the name of the series as well.

Nicktoons Unite!: Professor Calamitous joins forces with Plankton, Mr. Crocker, and Vlad Plasmius to form an Evil Syndicate. They start stealing energy from their respective worlds in order to power a Doomsday Device to blow up the multiverse. To counter this, Jimmy Neutron recruits SpongeBob SquarePants, Timmy Turner (who is of course accompanied by Cosmo and Wanda), and Danny Phantom to help him venture into their worlds to stop the villains.

Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island: Spongebob, Timmy, and Danny reunite, accompanied by co-stars Patrick, Sandy, and Sam Manson, having been picked by a Wise Old Crab to save Volcano Island from a new villain named the Mawgu. Jimmy notably sits this one out and communicates with the heroes behind the scenes.

Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots: Professor Calamitous returns, this time planning to take over the multiverse with his army of Toybots, fueled by Ghost energy combined with the fart gas of fairies having been fed Krabby Patties. Spongebob, Patrick, Jimmy, Timmy, Danny, Sam, and newcomer Tak team up to collect master models (collectibles said to hold data that Calamitous scanned from character around the multiverse that he kidnapped and then dumped (most of them) back to keep his plan secret) for the Chadbot, a robot servant of Calamitous' who claims he will help them. Along the way, they rescue starring characters from other Nicktoons, including Stimpy and Rocko in the console versions, Invader Zim, Mr. Blik, and El Tigre in the Nintendo DS version, and Jenny Wakeman and GIR in both.

Spongebob Squarepants featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom: A slimy cyclops alien race known as the Morphoids and their strange orange goo envelops over the Nicktoons' worlds, enslaving all innocent bystanders, so the heroes (Jimmy, Spongebob, Patrick, Danny, and Tak) join forces with the Evil Syndicate (now made up of Technus, Beautiful Gorgeous, and Traloc, with Plankton the only "veteran" member) to get to the bottom of it. In addition, Invader Zim lies his way onto the heroes' side (claiming he's "just curious"), prompting his nemesis Dib to join the Evil Syndicate. They eventually find out the cause of it all as a result of the Big Bad, an alien named Globulous, continually body snatching Spongebob because he's sick of his life. In spite of having a new main character to accompany them, the Fairly Oddparents characters are oddly absent from this one. It killed the series.

This series has been "succeeded" in 2011 by Nicktoons MLB.

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Tropes used in Nicktoons Unite! include:

• Adaptational Badass:
  • The cast of SpongeBob SquarePants is scaled up to human size instead of being able to fit in one human hand. The title character can now fight in close quarters combat when his televised self is physically weaker than a tube of toothpaste.
  • Rocko goes from a timid everyman to a fighter.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • In his home series, Danny Phantom is an Intangible Man who can fly and shoot powerful energy blasts and that's the tip of the iceberg. In the games, that translates to a Story-Breaker Power so he's mainly just got his Ecto-Blasts.
  • Cosmo and Wanda are full on Reality Warpers, with Timmy lampshading more than once that one wave of their wands would end the story. As a result, they've been too drained to do anything useful.
  • Despite his madness, Invader Zim is a Person of Mass Destruction and a Gadgeteer Genius. In the games, he's armed merely with a Plunger (OF DOOM!). His televised counterpart could likely bring everything crashing down unwittingly.
• Be Yourself: How SpongeBob got Globulous to do a Heel Face Turn. And then he shapeshifted into a giant, slimy cyclops SpongeBob. Uh huh.
• Blow You Away: Jimmy's main weapon in Nicktoons Unite is a tornado blaster, which shoots bursts of air.
• Continuity Nod: When Timmy flirts with her in the first game, Cindy replies, "Hi Timmy. I didn't know you were back in Retroville." She's of course referring to their encounters in the three Jimmy Timmy Power Hours (Judging from her reaction, one could presume that Nicktoons Unite takes place after the third one.).
  • Additionally, Globs of Doom features a boss fight with Bubble Bass, a SpongeBob character not seen since the first season.
    • And that game's hub is a gigantic nod to Battle for Volcano Island.
• Crisis Crossover
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Since Cosmo and Wanda could easily poof away the problem, the games always think up something to take them out of the action.
  • In Nicktoons Unite!, Crocker has drained power from Fairy World, depriving the two of power. When they get their power back, Wanda states that fairies' power stops at the borders of their universe, preventing them from just poofing everything back to normal.
  • In Volcano Island, Timmy is Demoted to Extra, having to use Cosmo and Wanda's magic to keep the crabs at bay. Since they're in another universe, the above rule may also apply.
  • In Toybots, both Cosmo and Wanda are nauseous and too drained of magic to do anything more than ensure that Death Is a Slap on The Wrist.
  • In Globs of Doom, Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda straight up don't appear.
• Dual Boss: The DS version of Globs of Doom has the infected Almighty Tallest as the penultimate bosses.
• Dueling Games: Compare the plot of Globs of Doom to that of rival Cartoon Network's MMORPG Fusion Fall (which was released three months later).
• Enemy Mine: Globs of Doom.
• Eternal Engine: The near-entirety of Attack of the Toybots, Plankton's Jellyfish Factory in Nicktoons Unite.
• Everything's Better with Spinning: Rocko attacks by spinning.
• Fantastic Voyage: The final level of Nicktoons Unite is outright called "Fantyastic Voyage of Goddard"; there, the party shrink themselves to hunt down a giant fleabot inside Goddard that spies for and holds the coordinates to Calamitous' secret hideout.
  • Also, the battle against the Girl-Eating Plant in Globs of Doom has you trying find a way to get swallowed by it so that you can beat up its innards.
• Five-Bad Band:
  • Professor Calamitous as the Big Bad
  • Vlad Plasmius as The Dragon
  • Evil Genius is between the four
  • Plankton as The Brute
  • Mr. Crocker as the Dark Chick.
  • Globs of Doom
    • Plankton as the Big Bad
    • Traloc as The Dragon
    • Dib as Hero Antagonist
    • Evil Genius, Technus as The Brute
  • Beautiful Gorgeous as the Dark Chick.
• Five-Man Band:
  • SpongeBob SquarePants as The Hero
  • Jimmy Neutron as The Lancer and The Smart Guy
  • Danny Phantom as The Big Guy
  • Timmy Turner as The Chick
  • Fifth Ranger privileges vary: from Patrick Star, Sam Manson, and Sandy Cheeks in Volcano Island, to GIR and Jenny Wakeman in Attack of the Toybots, and (finally) ZIM (himself) in Globs of Doom.
• Flunky Boss: Everyone in Nicktoons Unite, and everyone but the final boss in Globs of Doom. Crocker even shouts out for mooks to appear.
• Fridge Brilliance: "Why in the hell is Zim siding with the heroes? And why is Dib willing to team up with the villains, and no one cares when he rambles about not being a bad guy?" Then you remember that Zim sees himself as the only one worthy of taking over the world and that Dib is the Butt Monkey.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Plankton's mecha in Nicktoons Unite.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Knock off the skirtlike casing of one particular type of robotic enemy in Atack of The Toybots, and they'll be revealed to be wearing what looks like polka-dot underwear.
• Improbable Weapon User: A bunch in Globs of Doom.
• King Mook: The giant fleabot in Nicktoons Unite, which led the flea robots populating the stage you find it in.
• Large Ham: Globulous.

Zim: HEY! You will not imitate ME!

• Legion of Doom
• Lethal Joke Character: The unlockable Mr. Huggles in Attack of the Toyboys; he can kill all enemies in one hit.
• Living Toys: Attack of the Toybots, duh.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover
• Market-Based Title: The first three games were named in Europe as SpongeBob SquarePants and Friends rather than Nicktoons.
• Original Generation: Every NPC except Tucker, Squidward and Jimmy in Battle for Volcano Island, and Globulous.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Not only does Danny get screwed big time by this trope but Calamitous, mostly an ineffectual Jimmy Neutron villain, gets bumped on the Sorting Algorithm of Villain Threat to a Multiuniversal Threat (At first with his Evil Syndicate, and then by himself, with an army of living toys. Really.)
• Puzzle Boss: Calamitous and his pseudo-Boss Rush in Nicktoons Unite, Cujo the Ghost Dog and the mutated Girl-Eating Plant in Globs of Doom.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Lampshaded in Globs of Doom by the character you're controlling when you do such things.
• Roof Hopping: The second Amity Park stage in Globs of Doom is set entirely atop roofs.
• Spotlight-Stealing Title: The series is titled SpongeBob SquarePants and Friends in Europe.
  • Additionally, Spongebob gets top billing for the fourth game, which is justified by him being a focal point of the game's story rather than a part of an ensemble cast.
• Shout-Out:
  • Attack of the Toybots contains "off-screen" cameo appearances by characters from almost all Nicktoons, including those that no longer air regularly (with the exception of Doug (due to legal issues with Disney), KaBlam! (which will always get the short end of the stick with Nick)), Pelswick (incredibly obscure), and The Brothers Flub (Probably considered far poorly made, and also some rights issues with Sunbow), and any and Nicktoons made after the game was released, in the form of Master Models (in layman's terms, collectible items. In-universe, they're the data Calamitous has gathered from his multiversal scannings.).
    • Patrick being the character necessary to claim the Aang master model might be a nod to the famous "sea sponge" line in the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Siege of the North, Part 1".
    • Kablam! may actually be hidden in there somewhere, this troper just played the GBA version of the game and saw Kablam listed in the copyright messages. I also saw a character resembling Loopy's older brother Larry. (I may be wrong, though.)
  • GIR: "All your data are belong to MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"
  • Rocko: "A wallaby's gotta do what a wallaby's gotta do... Whatever that is."
  • Timmy compares Volcano Island to Lost at one point.
  • Zim: "Welcome to your doom!"
• Spiritual Successor: To Nicktoons: Freeze Frame Frenzy (plot-wise, at least).
  • And Nickelodeon Party Blast, which was released in 2003, with Eliza Thornberry, Tommy and Angelica Pickles, Otto and Reggie Rocket, Jimmy Neutron, Spongebob (duh), and ZIM as playable characters. CatDog are also in the game, but as non-playable characters.
• Take Your Time: The Evil Syndicate starts up their Doomsday Machine in the pre-boss cutscene of Unite!, but no timer is ever present during the fight that follows.
• Teamwork Puzzle Game: Each version of Unite is one in its own different way. Also, the GBA version of Battle for Volcano Island and the DS version of Globs of Doom.
• Token Evil Teammate: Zim in Globs of Doom. And inverted with Dib on the evil team.
  • An interesting variation of this occurs in Attack of the Toybots. An unlockable feature allows you to play as Dark Danny (Dan Phantom). Yes, that Dark Danny instead of Danny Phantom. It's presented as an alternate costume. But, still, why would Dan be helping... Oh, never mind...
• Under the Sea: All levels set in Bikini Bottom.
• Voices Are Mental: In the case of Globulous!SpongeBob, first averted and then played straight after Zim's Town.