History for Sandbox/MorganWick - TV Tropes (2024)

MorganWick

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* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII:''
** Hargon, the High Priest, is trying to destroy the world and buying time to summon the God of Descruition Malroth. Hargon's castle, the Hall of Hargon, is atop the Rendarak plateau, surrounded by mountains on all sides. There is only one way in and that's by using a specific item, the False Idol, as a key. That item is being held by Hargon's minions.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to order his minions to ''destroy the only key that grants access to the plateau''. It is impossible to get there any other way!\\
'''Instead''': The item is found and it's guardians defeated. The Cave of Rendarak is opened and the heroes make their way to the final area of the game.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII:''
** Marcello has managed to fight off possession by [[spoiler:Rhapthorne, the BigBad of the game, who's spirit is housed in the Godbird sceptre]]. Said item has immeasurable power thanks to the being within, which very much appeals to him, ambitious as he is. However... said being has managed to take over every ''other'' being it has come across.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Marcello would lock it away for now, and immediately dispatch men to Trodain to learn how to properly seal it's power. At that point, he could use it only when absolutely necessary.\\
'''Instead''': He decides to keep it with him at all times, confident he'll be able to resist possession indefinitely.(Oh, and disregarding trivial things like sleep) In the end, simply being confronted is enough for him to be influenced and his defeat allows him to be taken over completely.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX:''
** Serena and Corvus have been hidden away from the Gittish Empire while her father gives her a potion that he claims will restore Corvus's injuries, but actually puts him to sleep. A few minutes later, it's revealed he sold out their town so the Empire's soldiers would take its guardian in exchange for leaving Wormwood Creak alone and Serena giftwrapped Corvus for them. Serena is understandably pissed off at her father for a move like that and tries to tell Corvus the truth.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Serena to fully explain to Corvus that her father used her to drug him and apologize.\\
'''Instead:''' She pleads for him to wake up, which, as anyone can tell you, is not a good idea since [[ShownTheirWork it takes time for the victim to fully wake up from their drugged state]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Gittish Soldiers thank Serena's father and take Corvus away, then [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kill him after he's served his purpose]] and mortally wound Serena.\\
'''Even Worse:''' This misunderstanding makes Corvus think Serena betrayed him, [[FaceHeelTurn causing him to become evil]] and vows to destroy the mortals and Celestains alike.\\
** The Gittish Empire captures the Hero after Barbarus defeats Greygnarl with his new, improved power and imprisons them at the Gortress on Hootingham-Gore's orders. However, Goreham-Hogg believes that Hootingham made a mistake and [[MetaphoricallyTrue the Hero is not a Celestrain]]. The Gittish Soldier pipes up to try and [[CassandraTruth tell the truth]], but Goreham blows him off and orders the soldier to put the Hero to work with the other prisoners.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Hootingham-Gore to personally come down to the Gortress and tell Goreham-Hogg that his report is accurate and even if the Hero is not a Celestrain due to [[spoiler: Corvus's attack on the Observatory]], they still have the powers of one and should be imprisoned with the other Celestrains.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't visit the Gortress and [[OrcusOnHisThrone just chills out at Gittingham Palace]], allowing the Hero to meet Sterling and [[FromBadToWorse when it's shown that Goreham's Gittish Symbol that Greygnarl gave them can bypass the electric barriers, they organize a prison riot]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Hero and their allies defeat Goreham-Hogg while Sterling reclaims his whistle for the Starflight Express, allowing the Hero to storm Gittingham Palace. [[LampshadeHanging Hootingham even mentions it was a bad idea to dismiss the Hero as a threat when he confronts them at the entrance to the palace]].\\
--->'''Hootingham-Gore:''' Your actions proved me hasty in dismissing you so readily, to wit your liberation of the hoodlums hoo inhabited the Gortress. [[NeverMyFault Although it is that careless toowit Goreham-Hogg hoo is most to blame]]. It was he hoo caused King Godwyn to scold us so.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII:''
** Hargon, the High Priest, is trying to destroy the world and buying time to summon the God of Descruition Malroth. Hargon's castle, the Hall of Hargon, is atop the Rendarak plateau, surrounded by mountains on all sides. There is only one way in and that's by using a specific item, the False Idol, as a key. That item is being held by Hargon's minions.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to order his minions to ''destroy the only key that grants access to the plateau''. It is impossible to get there any other way!\\
'''Instead''': The item is found and it's guardians defeated. The Cave of Rendarak is opened and the heroes make their way to the final area of the game.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII:''
** Marcello has managed to fight off possession by [[spoiler:Rhapthorne, the BigBad of the game, who's spirit is housed in the Godbird sceptre]]. Said item has immeasurable power thanks to the being within, which very much appeals to him, ambitious as he is. However... said being has managed to take over every ''other'' being it has come across.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Marcello would lock it away for now, and immediately dispatch men to Trodain to learn how to properly seal it's power. At that point, he could use it only when absolutely necessary.\\
'''Instead''': He decides to keep it with him at all times, confident he'll be able to resist possession indefinitely.(Oh, and disregarding trivial things like sleep) In the end, simply being confronted is enough for him to be influenced and his defeat allows him to be taken over completely.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX:''
** Serena and Corvus have been hidden away from the Gittish Empire while her father gives her a potion that he claims will restore Corvus's injuries, but actually puts him to sleep. A few minutes later, it's revealed he sold out their town so the Empire's soldiers would take its guardian in exchange for leaving Wormwood Creak alone and Serena giftwrapped Corvus for them. Serena is understandably pissed off at her father for a move like that and tries to tell Corvus the truth.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Serena to fully explain to Corvus that her father used her to drug him and apologize.\\
'''Instead:''' She pleads for him to wake up, which, as anyone can tell you, is not a good idea since [[ShownTheirWork it takes time for the victim to fully wake up from their drugged state]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Gittish Soldiers thank Serena's father and take Corvus away, then [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kill him after he's served his purpose]] and mortally wound Serena.\\
'''Even Worse:''' This misunderstanding makes Corvus think Serena betrayed him, [[FaceHeelTurn causing him to become evil]] and vows to destroy the mortals and Celestains alike.\\
** The Gittish Empire captures the Hero after Barbarus defeats Greygnarl with his new, improved power and imprisons them at the Gortress on Hootingham-Gore's orders. However, Goreham-Hogg believes that Hootingham made a mistake and [[MetaphoricallyTrue the Hero is not a Celestrain]]. The Gittish Soldier pipes up to try and [[CassandraTruth tell the truth]], but Goreham blows him off and orders the soldier to put the Hero to work with the other prisoners.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Hootingham-Gore to personally come down to the Gortress and tell Goreham-Hogg that his report is accurate and even if the Hero is not a Celestrain due to [[spoiler: Corvus's attack on the Observatory]], they still have the powers of one and should be imprisoned with the other Celestrains.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't visit the Gortress and [[OrcusOnHisThrone just chills out at Gittingham Palace]], allowing the Hero to meet Sterling and [[FromBadToWorse when it's shown that Goreham's Gittish Symbol that Greygnarl gave them can bypass the electric barriers, they organize a prison riot]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Hero and their allies defeat Goreham-Hogg while Sterling reclaims his whistle for the Starflight Express, allowing the Hero to storm Gittingham Palace. [[LampshadeHanging Hootingham even mentions it was a bad idea to dismiss the Hero as a threat when he confronts them at the entrance to the palace]].\\
--->'''Hootingham-Gore:''' Your actions proved me hasty in dismissing you so readily, to wit your liberation of the hoodlums hoo inhabited the Gortress. [[NeverMyFault Although it is that careless toowit Goreham-Hogg hoo is most to blame]]. It was he hoo caused King Godwyn to scold us so.

MorganWick

Changed: 5602

Removed: 9304

Aug 2nd 2022 at 10:05:52 PM

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Changed line(s) 1,64 (click to see context) from:

* ''WhatAnIdiot/AceAttorney''
====
* ''VisualNovel/ACourtesanOfRome'': Arin plans to kill Tribune Gnaeus Rufus at night, by posing as one of his escorts.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She would come up with a plan that would look like Rufus died in an accident, without her being spotted in the crime scene.\\
'''Instead''': She either poisons him or stabs him, and doesn't even think about where to go after the deed is done.\\
'''Result''': Security finds her next to Rufus' corpse (if she chooses to stab him, he has visible stab wounds in his chest) and Syphax is forced to take the blame to save her.
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiBlueSkies'':
** In Yuri's route, [[spoiler:MC visits Yuri in a graveyard, where she has flower petals near her shoe and talks about what her parents did and were in the past]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to ask if someone close to Yuri died]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He doesn't put two and two together until he first catches Yuri cutting herself.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Yuri has significantly less time to be willing to get help with her grief]].
** On Valentine's Day in Natsuki's route, [[spoiler:Sayori barges into her best friend MC's house while Natsuki is gone, despite the day being meant to be special for MC and Natsuki.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to gently tell Sayori off and say she can visit tomorrow.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He can't bring himself to do anything about it.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Natsuki finds them and feels cheated out of her quality time with her boyfriend]].
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'': The main character has just found out that [[spoiler:Sayori suffers from depression]] on the day right before the festival, and has either [[spoiler:confessed his love to her or told her that she was his dearest friend]]. On Monday morning, the main character notices that [[spoiler:Sayori]] isn't awake, [[spoiler:despite the fact that she has always walked to school with him]]. This can be quite a red flag right there. \\
'''You'd Expect:''' The main character to head to her house and [[spoiler:see why she isn't awake and responding]].\\
'''Instead:''' The main character heads straight to school and sees Monika in the classroom. He even calls [[spoiler:Sayori]] a "dummy" for sleeping in too much as well. Only after some [[spoiler:ominous hinting from Monika and and a suicide note in the form of a poem]], the main character decides to rush to [[spoiler:Sayori's house]] to see what's wrong.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Sayori succeeds in killing herself because of Monika, and even worse, during a later scene with Monika, she says that Sayori was struggling (or her survival instincts were kicking in) and had second thoughts about killing herself (she hung herself, but there's blood on her hands, indicating that she tried to free herself), meaning that if the player decided to go there much earlier, he could've tried to save her himself]].
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'':
** During the Heaven's Feel route, Sakura has had her internal mana eating parasite activated, causing a race against time to kill Zouken before he can screw with her head and turn him to his side. The plan is highly contingent on Sakura's state of mind staying intact.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Shirou and Rider would go out of their way to clear up Sakura's very obvious doubts and insecurities and pay more attention to what she says. Tohsaka could emphasize their family bonds. Or something. But not be a total {{jerkass}}.\\
'''Instead''' Rider hides from Shirou and Tohsaka and doesn't explain how Sakura is feeling. Shirou tunes out when Sakura tries to tell him important things, and doesn't really mention that he loves her and his reaction to Tohsaka does not mean he likes her more than Sakura. Tohsaka goes out of her way to belittle her and deride Sakura's worthlessness and willpower after the game explicitly stated her will cannot be broken by people she distrusts. Well, it had to go downhill somehow, and an IdiotPlot is better than mass DiabolusExMachina.
** In the backstory the Einzbern family got sick of being unable to win the Grail.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They would look for a really strong Servant to fight for them or look for someone really good to fight for them, both of which were things they would eventually try much later.\\
'''Instead''': In the Third War they decided to summon what they ''thought'' was [[spoiler:an actual mythological god of evil]]. Not only does it turn out that [[spoiler:he's actually an incredibly weak Servant closer to an average human]] it also means that [[spoiler:when he's killed and absorbed into the Grail his wish to actually be that god results in the corruption of the Grail]] and ultimately causes many of the later tragedies in the Fourth and Fifth wars as well as [[spoiler:almost ending humanity in one route]]. How the Einzberns ever thought it could go well, let alone better than their later plans, is a mystery.
* ''VisualNovel/HighwayBlossoms'': In Las Vegas, Marina encounters the Trio by chance, and Mariah challenges her to a card game, with the treasure at stake.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Marina to realize that 1)she's no good at poker, 2)Mariah is obviously up to something, and 3)that the Trio don't have anything equivalent in value to the treasure.\\
'''Instead''': She takes the bait.\\
'''The Result''': Marina ends up losing her half of the treasure, and Amber has to win it back.
* In the RaisingSim ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'', at times entrepreneurs come to your castle to ask you to fund their new great ideas, such as a printing press or field hospital. The money they are asking for is minimal compared to the state budget.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' the protagonist princess gladly to fund such obvious benefits, pushing her kingdom into the Age of Enlightenment.\\
'''Instead:''' she doesn't get what the fuss is about (sample quote: "wouldn't putting sick people together just make them die faster?") and send the innovator away empty-handed. (Granted, you can avoid this by investing heavily in economics or health training, but these have far from obvious benefits early on in the game before the choice comes up.)
** Elodie, as Crown Princess, is fourteen years old and has spent her time at a boarding school until her mother's death, which means she is immediately the ruler of Nova and has one year before she comes of age to have her official coronation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Elodie to be allowed to consult advisers or her father for important decisions, because she can't possibly learn everything she needs to know in a year, especially so soon after the sudden death of her mother.\\
'''Instead:''' She is forced to decide everything herself with only a basic education under her belt, with no input from [[AdultsAreUseless her father]] or anyone else, while the rest of the nobility is openly trying to sabotage her rule if she doesn't perform perfectly.
* ''VisualNovel/MyHaremHeavenIsYandereHell'':
** [[spoiler:Kudou]]'s sister-figure, Sayuri's mental illness has escalated to the point where she kidnaps an innocent boy and restrains him for days on the basis of her delusions about "demons".\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Kudou would expose Sayuri's crimes and get her professional help. Her family has more than enough money to pay for it, to say nothing of the hoard of evidence that [[spoiler:Kudou]] has free access to- especially given [[spoiler:Kudou's authority in the police force]].\\
'''Instead''': He does nothing. Because he thinks that rehabilitating Sayuri would mean he didn't ''believe'' in her enough and/or that he doubted her ability to ever regain sanity. So he plays along with her delusions entirely.
* ''VisualNovel/MyCandyLove'':
** In "Chemical Reactions", Ms. Delanay is about to have the class begin a science experiment when she gets interrupted by Mr. Faraize. Faraize states that the Principal would like to speak to her about her transfer papers.\\
'''You would expect:''' Ms. Delanay to instruct the class to not touch the chemicals and equipment while she's gone, maybe even get Mr. Faraize to oversee her students while she's away.\\
'''Instead:''' She puts two students in charge and tells the class to continue on with the experiment before leaving the group of teenagers unattended.\\
'''As a result:''' The students immediately begin talking with one another, and while some of them do try to follow the instructions, most don't. Amber in particular heats up a chemical so much it explodes, releasing toxic fumes. Even though Ms. Delanay is back by then, it's too little too late and the firefighting department has to be called in.
* ''VisualNovel/RootLetter'': In the "Cursed Letter" route, Yukari Ishigami believes that killing Max will dispel the titular curse, and attempts to stab him, only to nearly fall off a cliff and be saved by [[SaveTheVillain Max grabbing her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Her to wait until Max pulls her up on safe ground, ''then'' stab him.\\
'''Instead:''' She tries to stab Max as he is pulling her up, predictably causing him to let go and her to [[DisneyVillainDeath plunge to her doom]]. Even if she managed to hit him, it would have only killed them both.
* ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'': At the end of the game, it's revealed that Hiro tried to ask Kamen out while he was already in a relationship with Momoko.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That even if Hiro didn't know that Kamen [[spoiler:is a lesbian]], he'd realize that she'd have more than a few issues with him A)being willing to cheat on his girlfriend, and B)callously hurting her best friend.\\
'''Instead''': He asks her out and continues pursuing her despite her obvious disgust. He was only saved by the fact that Momoko refused to believe Kamen, but he pushed his luck too far when he sent messages to Kamen's cell phone, [[spoiler:and when Momoko read them, it was the last straw that drove her to murder him]].
* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'': A lot of the first half of the series is Okabe being stupid and not properly communicating anything:
** Okabe has just done a D-Mail experiment and nobody remembers it happened.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to realize that the D-Mail worked and the past has changed, and inform everyone about it like he did after Moeka's D-Mail.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't tell anyone and continues to question everything strange, not thinking that it might have something to do with a D-Mail that was sent, nor does he ever bother to ask anyone if the D-Mail worked, even though the intended purpose of sending them is to test it.
** Okabe has been acting strange, rambling about something not being right, and not like his other chuunibyou rants. It's very similar to when he told them that Moeka had sent a D-Mail.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Someone to realize that maybe Okabe has sent a D-Mail and to ask him about it.\\
'''Instead:''' Nobody thinks to do this, and instead blame it on the heat or his usual chuuni rants.
** Okabe has been going on a little rant about how Lukako [[spoiler:is a guy]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to figure out that [[spoiler:Lukako's D-mail to change his gender worked, and that's the reason everyone is acting strange, especially when one considers that both Mayuri, who's a close friend of Lukako, and Lukako herself are saying that she is a girl]].\\
'''Instead:''' He gets the bright idea to [[spoiler:confirm that Lukako is a male by [[CrotchGrabSexCheck grabbing her genitalia]]]]. Needless to say, this isn't the best decision.
** Okabe goes to [[spoiler:Moeka's apartment]] to [[spoiler:undo the D-mails and retrieve the IBN 500 back using her phone]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe should plan carefully about going inside her apartment, since he already knows that [[spoiler:Moeka]] is well-trained in combat and would be armed with a gun in advance or able to kick his ass with martial arts as [[spoiler:she's a Rounder]].\\
'''Instead:''' Okabe goes straight into [[spoiler:her apartment]] without thinking. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Moeka is sitting in the corner on her phone messaging to FB desperately, not even bothering to spot him coming in, and remains submissive as he's able to snatch the phone from her hand. She couldn't brandish her gun to threaten him and just couldn't fight back.]]

* ''WhatAnIdiot/AceAttorney''
====
* ''VisualNovel/ACourtesanOfRome'': Arin plans to kill Tribune Gnaeus Rufus at night, by posing as one of his escorts.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She would come up with a plan that would look like Rufus died in an accident, without her being spotted in the crime scene.\\
'''Instead''': She either poisons him or stabs him, and doesn't even think about where to go after the deed is done.\\
'''Result''': Security finds her next to Rufus' corpse (if she chooses to stab him, he has visible stab wounds in his chest) and Syphax is forced to take the blame to save her.
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiBlueSkies'':
** In Yuri's route, [[spoiler:MC visits Yuri in a graveyard, where she has flower petals near her shoe and talks about what her parents did and were in the past]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to ask if someone close to Yuri died]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He doesn't put two and two together until he first catches Yuri cutting herself.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Yuri has significantly less time to be willing to get help with her grief]].
** On Valentine's Day in Natsuki's route, [[spoiler:Sayori barges into her best friend MC's house while Natsuki is gone, despite the day being meant to be special for MC and Natsuki.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to gently tell Sayori off and say she can visit tomorrow.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He can't bring himself to do anything about it.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Natsuki finds them and feels cheated out of her quality time with her boyfriend]].
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'': The main character has just found out that [[spoiler:Sayori suffers from depression]] on the day right before the festival, and has either [[spoiler:confessed his love to her or told her that she was his dearest friend]]. On Monday morning, the main character notices that [[spoiler:Sayori]] isn't awake, [[spoiler:despite the fact that she has always walked to school with him]]. This can be quite a red flag right there. \\
'''You'd Expect:''' The main character to head to her house and [[spoiler:see why she isn't awake and responding]].\\
'''Instead:''' The main character heads straight to school and sees Monika in the classroom. He even calls [[spoiler:Sayori]] a "dummy" for sleeping in too much as well. Only after some [[spoiler:ominous hinting from Monika and and a suicide note in the form of a poem]], the main character decides to rush to [[spoiler:Sayori's house]] to see what's wrong.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Sayori succeeds in killing herself because of Monika, and even worse, during a later scene with Monika, she says that Sayori was struggling (or her survival instincts were kicking in) and had second thoughts about killing herself (she hung herself, but there's blood on her hands, indicating that she tried to free herself), meaning that if the player decided to go there much earlier, he could've tried to save her himself]].
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'':
** During the Heaven's Feel route, Sakura has had her internal mana eating parasite activated, causing a race against time to kill Zouken before he can screw with her head and turn him to his side. The plan is highly contingent on Sakura's state of mind staying intact.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Shirou and Rider would go out of their way to clear up Sakura's very obvious doubts and insecurities and pay more attention to what she says. Tohsaka could emphasize their family bonds. Or something. But not be a total {{jerkass}}.\\
'''Instead''' Rider hides from Shirou and Tohsaka and doesn't explain how Sakura is feeling. Shirou tunes out when Sakura tries to tell him important things, and doesn't really mention that he loves her and his reaction to Tohsaka does not mean he likes her more than Sakura. Tohsaka goes out of her way to belittle her and deride Sakura's worthlessness and willpower after the game explicitly stated her will cannot be broken by people she distrusts. Well, it had to go downhill somehow, and an IdiotPlot is better than mass DiabolusExMachina.
** In the backstory the Einzbern family got sick of being unable to win the Grail.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They would look for a really strong Servant to fight for them or look for someone really good to fight for them, both of which were things they would eventually try much later.\\
'''Instead''': In the Third War they decided to summon what they ''thought'' was [[spoiler:an actual mythological god of evil]]. Not only does it turn out that [[spoiler:he's actually an incredibly weak Servant closer to an average human]] it also means that [[spoiler:when he's killed and absorbed into the Grail his wish to actually be that god results in the corruption of the Grail]] and ultimately causes many of the later tragedies in the Fourth and Fifth wars as well as [[spoiler:almost ending humanity in one route]]. How the Einzberns ever thought it could go well, let alone better than their later plans, is a mystery.
* ''VisualNovel/HighwayBlossoms'': In Las Vegas, Marina encounters the Trio by chance, and Mariah challenges her to a card game, with the treasure at stake.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Marina to realize that 1)she's no good at poker, 2)Mariah is obviously up to something, and 3)that the Trio don't have anything equivalent in value to the treasure.\\
'''Instead''': She takes the bait.\\
'''The Result''': Marina ends up losing her half of the treasure, and Amber has to win it back.
* In the RaisingSim ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'', at times entrepreneurs come to your castle to ask you to fund their new great ideas, such as a printing press or field hospital. The money they are asking for is minimal compared to the state budget.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' the protagonist princess gladly to fund such obvious benefits, pushing her kingdom into the Age of Enlightenment.\\
'''Instead:''' she doesn't get what the fuss is about (sample quote: "wouldn't putting sick people together just make them die faster?") and send the innovator away empty-handed. (Granted, you can avoid this by investing heavily in economics or health training, but these have far from obvious benefits early on in the game before the choice comes up.)
** Elodie, as Crown Princess, is fourteen years old and has spent her time at a boarding school until her mother's death, which means she is immediately the ruler of Nova and has one year before she comes of age to have her official coronation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Elodie to be allowed to consult advisers or her father for important decisions, because she can't possibly learn everything she needs to know in a year, especially so soon after the sudden death of her mother.\\
'''Instead:''' She is forced to decide everything herself with only a basic education under her belt, with no input from [[AdultsAreUseless her father]] or anyone else, while the rest of the nobility is openly trying to sabotage her rule if she doesn't perform perfectly.
* ''VisualNovel/MyHaremHeavenIsYandereHell'':
** [[spoiler:Kudou]]'s sister-figure, Sayuri's mental illness has escalated to the point where she kidnaps an innocent boy and restrains him for days on the basis of her delusions about "demons".\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Kudou would expose Sayuri's crimes and get her professional help. Her family has more than enough money to pay for it, to say nothing of the hoard of evidence that [[spoiler:Kudou]] has free access to- especially given [[spoiler:Kudou's authority in the police force]].\\
'''Instead''': He does nothing. Because he thinks that rehabilitating Sayuri would mean he didn't ''believe'' in her enough and/or that he doubted her ability to ever regain sanity. So he plays along with her delusions entirely.
* ''VisualNovel/MyCandyLove'':
** In "Chemical Reactions", Ms. Delanay is about to have the class begin a science experiment when she gets interrupted by Mr. Faraize. Faraize states that the Principal would like to speak to her about her transfer papers.\\
'''You would expect:''' Ms. Delanay to instruct the class to not touch the chemicals and equipment while she's gone, maybe even get Mr. Faraize to oversee her students while she's away.\\
'''Instead:''' She puts two students in charge and tells the class to continue on with the experiment before leaving the group of teenagers unattended.\\
'''As a result:''' The students immediately begin talking with one another, and while some of them do try to follow the instructions, most don't. Amber in particular heats up a chemical so much it explodes, releasing toxic fumes. Even though Ms. Delanay is back by then, it's too little too late and the firefighting department has to be called in.
* ''VisualNovel/RootLetter'': In the "Cursed Letter" route, Yukari Ishigami believes that killing Max will dispel the titular curse, and attempts to stab him, only to nearly fall off a cliff and be saved by [[SaveTheVillain Max grabbing her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Her to wait until Max pulls her up on safe ground, ''then'' stab him.\\
'''Instead:''' She tries to stab Max as he is pulling her up, predictably causing him to let go and her to [[DisneyVillainDeath plunge to her doom]]. Even if she managed to hit him, it would have only killed them both.
* ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'': At the end of the game, it's revealed that Hiro tried to ask Kamen out while he was already in a relationship with Momoko.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That even if Hiro didn't know that Kamen [[spoiler:is a lesbian]], he'd realize that she'd have more than a few issues with him A)being willing to cheat on his girlfriend, and B)callously hurting her best friend.\\
'''Instead''': He asks her out and continues pursuing her despite her obvious disgust. He was only saved by the fact that Momoko refused to believe Kamen, but he pushed his luck too far when he sent messages to Kamen's cell phone, [[spoiler:and when Momoko read them, it was the last straw that drove her to murder him]].
* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'': A lot of the first half of the series is Okabe being stupid and not properly communicating anything:
** Okabe has just done a D-Mail experiment and nobody remembers it happened.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to realize that the D-Mail worked and the past has changed, and inform everyone about it like he did after Moeka's D-Mail.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't tell anyone and continues to question everything strange, not thinking that it might have something to do with a D-Mail that was sent, nor does he ever bother to ask anyone if the D-Mail worked, even though the intended purpose of sending them is to test it.
** Okabe has been acting strange, rambling about something not being right, and not like his other chuunibyou rants. It's very similar to when he told them that Moeka had sent a D-Mail.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Someone to realize that maybe Okabe has sent a D-Mail and to ask him about it.\\
'''Instead:''' Nobody thinks to do this, and instead blame it on the heat or his usual chuuni rants.
** Okabe has been going on a little rant about how Lukako [[spoiler:is a guy]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to figure out that [[spoiler:Lukako's D-mail to change his gender worked, and that's the reason everyone is acting strange, especially when one considers that both Mayuri, who's a close friend of Lukako, and Lukako herself are saying that she is a girl]].\\
'''Instead:''' He gets the bright idea to [[spoiler:confirm that Lukako is a male by [[CrotchGrabSexCheck grabbing her genitalia]]]]. Needless to say, this isn't the best decision.
** Okabe goes to [[spoiler:Moeka's apartment]] to [[spoiler:undo the D-mails and retrieve the IBN 500 back using her phone]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe should plan carefully about going inside her apartment, since he already knows that [[spoiler:Moeka]] is well-trained in combat and would be armed with a gun in advance or able to kick his ass with martial arts as [[spoiler:she's a Rounder]].\\
'''Instead:''' Okabe goes straight into [[spoiler:her apartment]] without thinking. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Moeka is sitting in the corner on her phone messaging to FB desperately, not even bothering to spot him coming in, and remains submissive as he's able to snatch the phone from her hand. She couldn't brandish her gun to threaten him and just couldn't fight back.]]

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** In the very beginning, Frank West confronts a number of survivors in the mall. One of them is an old lady who's looking for her lost dog. A few moments later, it finally shows up - on the other side of the barricaded doors, barking, clearly zombified.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The lady to forget about it and keep back. The dog had been affected!\\
'''Instead:''' The lady breaks through, throws open the barricade and runs into the zombie hoard to grab her dog. The old lady is murdered and the zombies break in, killing most of the other survivors.
** [[spoiler:After being defeated by Frank]], Isabela is told to bring Carlito in for interrogation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he would refuse the request or come in calmly, having his plan already in motion.\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He shoots her in anger, leaving her with an obvious wound when she next sees Frank. She stops working for Carlito after this.]] [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Way to go, Carlito]].
** Before that, Frank meets her again in the supermarket after having saved her from Steven Chapman, a psychopath, and asks her to cooperate with him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Isabela would gladly accept this since that they first met in the entrance of Willamette Mall, and he saved her life.\\
'''Instead''': She started to yell about how it's his fault that the hometown she and Carlito lived was destroyed by the zombies. Frank doesn't even call out or ask her what the hell is she talking about, so this is a double dumb moment.
** At the Hunting Shack; a survivor named James Ramsey is trying to convince Cletus to share his stockpile of guns. Cletus is rightfully paranoid about the situation and distrustful about sharing guns with complete strangers. Cletus fires a warning shot at the ceiling and both him and Frank tell James to walk away.\\
'''You'd Expect''': James would immediately understand that Cletus is not messing around and he will leave the store with Frank to find other weapons.\\
'''Instead''': He calls Cletus' bluff by silently walking towards him, [[SarcasmMode surprisingly]], Cletus shoots him square in the chest and sends him flying out of the store. If a violent drunk is threatening you at gunpoint, the last thing you want to do is challenge them or call their bluff.
** While trying to turn off the space rider machine, Frank encounters Adam the Clown and ends up in a fight with him when the latter attacks him for trying to turn off the roller coaster. Adam explains that the machine keeps the zombies away and if Frank turns it off then the zombies will return.\\
'''You'd expect''': Frank would notice the lack of zombies around and immediately comply to Adam's demands. If Frank did have to fight Adam then he would immediately turn the roller coaster back on again so the zombies stay away\\
'''Instead''': Frank is too shocked to speak and Adam takes his silence as a rejection of his demands. After defeating Adam and rescuing Greg, he leaves it off and the zombies flood the area again.

** In the very beginning, Frank West confronts a number of survivors in the mall. One of them is an old lady who's looking for her lost dog. A few moments later, it finally shows up - on the other side of the barricaded doors, barking, clearly zombified.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The lady to forget about it and keep back. The dog had been affected!\\
'''Instead:''' The lady breaks through, throws open the barricade and runs into the zombie hoard to grab her dog. The old lady is murdered and the zombies break in, killing most of the other survivors.
** [[spoiler:After being defeated by Frank]], Isabela is told to bring Carlito in for interrogation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he would refuse the request or come in calmly, having his plan already in motion.\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He shoots her in anger, leaving her with an obvious wound when she next sees Frank. She stops working for Carlito after this.]] [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Way to go, Carlito]].
** Before that, Frank meets her again in the supermarket after having saved her from Steven Chapman, a psychopath, and asks her to cooperate with him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Isabela would gladly accept this since that they first met in the entrance of Willamette Mall, and he saved her life.\\
'''Instead''': She started to yell about how it's his fault that the hometown she and Carlito lived was destroyed by the zombies. Frank doesn't even call out or ask her what the hell is she talking about, so this is a double dumb moment.
** At the Hunting Shack; a survivor named James Ramsey is trying to convince Cletus to share his stockpile of guns. Cletus is rightfully paranoid about the situation and distrustful about sharing guns with complete strangers. Cletus fires a warning shot at the ceiling and both him and Frank tell James to walk away.\\
'''You'd Expect''': James would immediately understand that Cletus is not messing around and he will leave the store with Frank to find other weapons.\\
'''Instead''': He calls Cletus' bluff by silently walking towards him, [[SarcasmMode surprisingly]], Cletus shoots him square in the chest and sends him flying out of the store. If a violent drunk is threatening you at gunpoint, the last thing you want to do is challenge them or call their bluff.
** While trying to turn off the space rider machine, Frank encounters Adam the Clown and ends up in a fight with him when the latter attacks him for trying to turn off the roller coaster. Adam explains that the machine keeps the zombies away and if Frank turns it off then the zombies will return.\\
'''You'd expect''': Frank would notice the lack of zombies around and immediately comply to Adam's demands. If Frank did have to fight Adam then he would immediately turn the roller coaster back on again so the zombies stay away\\
'''Instead''': Frank is too shocked to speak and Adam takes his silence as a rejection of his demands. After defeating Adam and rescuing Greg, he leaves it off and the zombies flood the area again.

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** [[LightIsGood Aurora]] wakes up in the strange MagicalLand of Lemuria, that has been conquered and had its light stolen by [[DarkIsEvil Umbra]], [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]], [[CoDragons her daughters]] and their army, and is asked to restore the light. Throughout the whole of Lemuria, Aurora can find wishes hanging from bushes that each restore a small amount of HP/MP. These bushes grow back their wishes after a short period of time. They can even be found mid-battle (but take much longer to grow wishes back). In short, these wish bushes are helpful to anyone trying to stand up to the Queen of the Night's reign.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Umbra and co. to find as many wish bushes as possible, uproot and burn them.\\
'''Instead:''' [[FailedASpotCheck They do nothing]] about the wish bushes. You can see where this is going.
** [[spoiler:Norah joins Aurora's party with the promise that a MagicMirror up in the sky will transport them [[TheHomewardJourney back home to Aurora's dying father]]. When they eventually reach the magic mirror, it is revealed that it was tampered with to transport them to a prison tower. [[FromBadToWorse Worse]], Norah had been lying to Aurora the entire time and was [[LuredIntoATrap luring her into a trap]] so she and her [[TyrantTakesTheHelm tyrannical]] mother can murder her, and her friendly, caring demeanour gives way to a manipulative, cruel and [[{{Narcissist}} narcissistic]] [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who savours emotionally breaking her [[WouldHurtAChild little stepsister]] (she even lied about her name; she confirms her real name as Nox). She was able to hide her real nature extremely well with only a few subtle hints of her eventual betrayal, to the extent that this not only comes as a shock to Aurora, but can also be [[PlayerPunch a legitimate shock to the player]]. What she does ''next'', however, is not nearly so well-executed. After she and her mother fail to murder Aurora due to her crown containing magical protection, albeit knocking her unconscious and therefore are able to order Óengus to lock her up in the tower until she starves to death, Nox succeeds in capturing all of Aurora's friends and imprisoning them in cages in a separate cell for starvation, if only to spread fear to the masses who might be thinking of opposing her and her mother's rule of Lemuria.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Nox would lock the door and/or place a guard in front of it, especially since (1) the lever mechanism that unlocks the cages is ''right there in the room in plain view'', out of the prisoners' reach but easily accessed by anybody else who enters, (2) locked doors are a thing in ''Child of Light'', and they can never be unlocked at any point as there are no keys to be found in the game, and (3) there ''are'' guards elsewhere in the prison tower.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Nox decides that the cages are sufficient and leaves the door to the cell unlocked, with no guard.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:Aurora, accompanied by Óengus (who had only pledged to serve Umbra and her daughters in exchange for the lives of his comrades), are later able to walk in with little difficulty and set them all free. Granted, Nox displays narcissism after revealing her real nature, boasting about her [[RagsToRoyalty acquiring royalty status]] through her mother's marriage to Aurora's father and later calling Aurora's friends "insects", and narcissists and sociopaths are known for being impulsive and [[DidntThinkThisThrough not thinking things through]], but she's given Aurora and co. a very good incentive to hunt her down and make her pay for what she's done to them (and later Genovefa by being heavily implied to be responsible for the Ogre that eats the rest of her kind, leaving Gen the [[LastOfHerKind sole survivor]]) with her life. Congratulations, moron.]]
*** [[spoiler:In [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Cynbel Sea]], it is shown that [[TheDragon Nox]] has the power to [[{{Flight}} fly]] without wings and [[OneWingedAngel turn into a giant]] [[ScaledUp sea serpent]] at will.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:She would have turned into her OneWingedAngel form earlier--preferably when she and [[BigBad her mother]] first heard about Aurora's soul living on in Lemuria after her mother killed her physical body in Austria--and [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim ambushed Aurora and co. while they were at much lower levels]]. If she has the power of wingless flight, then lack of water should not be a problem. That way, she could kill her little stepsister without the latter ever finding out about her true identity.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Being a sad*stic sociopath (and because fighting a giant serpentine monster 20+ levels higher than you isn't much fun from a gameplay perspective), she approaches Aurora in her human form and spins a relatively complicated (and much more despicable) manipulation plot that ends up being far more effective at [[BreakTheCutie Breaking the Cutie]] than actually [[KillTheCutie killing]] her, as it turns out [[BadassAdorable Aurora]]'s crown is empowered with magical protection against the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]]'s OneHitKill magic.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:[[GoodIsNotSoft Aurora]] [[BeyondRedemption comes to hate Nox]] for her psychological abuse, and by the time the two fight to the death Aurora and her friends have become much stronger and can slay her.]]

** [[LightIsGood Aurora]] wakes up in the strange MagicalLand of Lemuria, that has been conquered and had its light stolen by [[DarkIsEvil Umbra]], [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]], [[CoDragons her daughters]] and their army, and is asked to restore the light. Throughout the whole of Lemuria, Aurora can find wishes hanging from bushes that each restore a small amount of HP/MP. These bushes grow back their wishes after a short period of time. They can even be found mid-battle (but take much longer to grow wishes back). In short, these wish bushes are helpful to anyone trying to stand up to the Queen of the Night's reign.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Umbra and co. to find as many wish bushes as possible, uproot and burn them.\\
'''Instead:''' [[FailedASpotCheck They do nothing]] about the wish bushes. You can see where this is going.
** [[spoiler:Norah joins Aurora's party with the promise that a MagicMirror up in the sky will transport them [[TheHomewardJourney back home to Aurora's dying father]]. When they eventually reach the magic mirror, it is revealed that it was tampered with to transport them to a prison tower. [[FromBadToWorse Worse]], Norah had been lying to Aurora the entire time and was [[LuredIntoATrap luring her into a trap]] so she and her [[TyrantTakesTheHelm tyrannical]] mother can murder her, and her friendly, caring demeanour gives way to a manipulative, cruel and [[{{Narcissist}} narcissistic]] [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who savours emotionally breaking her [[WouldHurtAChild little stepsister]] (she even lied about her name; she confirms her real name as Nox). She was able to hide her real nature extremely well with only a few subtle hints of her eventual betrayal, to the extent that this not only comes as a shock to Aurora, but can also be [[PlayerPunch a legitimate shock to the player]]. What she does ''next'', however, is not nearly so well-executed. After she and her mother fail to murder Aurora due to her crown containing magical protection, albeit knocking her unconscious and therefore are able to order Óengus to lock her up in the tower until she starves to death, Nox succeeds in capturing all of Aurora's friends and imprisoning them in cages in a separate cell for starvation, if only to spread fear to the masses who might be thinking of opposing her and her mother's rule of Lemuria.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Nox would lock the door and/or place a guard in front of it, especially since (1) the lever mechanism that unlocks the cages is ''right there in the room in plain view'', out of the prisoners' reach but easily accessed by anybody else who enters, (2) locked doors are a thing in ''Child of Light'', and they can never be unlocked at any point as there are no keys to be found in the game, and (3) there ''are'' guards elsewhere in the prison tower.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Nox decides that the cages are sufficient and leaves the door to the cell unlocked, with no guard.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:Aurora, accompanied by Óengus (who had only pledged to serve Umbra and her daughters in exchange for the lives of his comrades), are later able to walk in with little difficulty and set them all free. Granted, Nox displays narcissism after revealing her real nature, boasting about her [[RagsToRoyalty acquiring royalty status]] through her mother's marriage to Aurora's father and later calling Aurora's friends "insects", and narcissists and sociopaths are known for being impulsive and [[DidntThinkThisThrough not thinking things through]], but she's given Aurora and co. a very good incentive to hunt her down and make her pay for what she's done to them (and later Genovefa by being heavily implied to be responsible for the Ogre that eats the rest of her kind, leaving Gen the [[LastOfHerKind sole survivor]]) with her life. Congratulations, moron.]]
*** [[spoiler:In [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Cynbel Sea]], it is shown that [[TheDragon Nox]] has the power to [[{{Flight}} fly]] without wings and [[OneWingedAngel turn into a giant]] [[ScaledUp sea serpent]] at will.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:She would have turned into her OneWingedAngel form earlier--preferably when she and [[BigBad her mother]] first heard about Aurora's soul living on in Lemuria after her mother killed her physical body in Austria--and [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim ambushed Aurora and co. while they were at much lower levels]]. If she has the power of wingless flight, then lack of water should not be a problem. That way, she could kill her little stepsister without the latter ever finding out about her true identity.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Being a sad*stic sociopath (and because fighting a giant serpentine monster 20+ levels higher than you isn't much fun from a gameplay perspective), she approaches Aurora in her human form and spins a relatively complicated (and much more despicable) manipulation plot that ends up being far more effective at [[BreakTheCutie Breaking the Cutie]] than actually [[KillTheCutie killing]] her, as it turns out [[BadassAdorable Aurora]]'s crown is empowered with magical protection against the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]]'s OneHitKill magic.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:[[GoodIsNotSoft Aurora]] [[BeyondRedemption comes to hate Nox]] for her psychological abuse, and by the time the two fight to the death Aurora and her friends have become much stronger and can slay her.]]

MorganWick

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* There are instances in the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series where you really have to question the intellect of the protagonists.
** In the ''Desperation'' story of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', Noel and Tsubaki have their little tiff due to Tsubaki being thoroughly {{mindraped}} by Terumi. Noel accidentally extracts a memory of Terumi from Tsubaki's mind afterwards and comes to the conclusion that he did something to her good friend.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Noel would at least fall back and get some reinforcements. She was there at the end of ''Calamity Trigger'', and knows Terumi is bad news. Other characters have gone out of their way to advise her to give the bastard a wide berth - Makoto, her other good friend, explicitly asked her to try to stay away from him. Even if Noel and the help can't take Terumi down, they'd have an escape plan.\\
'''Instead:''' She charges on in and fights Terumi alone. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just the way he wanted it.]]
---> "I have arrived, reborn as Kusanagi. The destroyer of all living things. I am death..."
** During Chapter 6 of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueChronophantasma'', Kagura finishes his evaluation of Tsubaki and returns to Kokonoe to report what he knows (coupled with a tip that Hazama knows she's with him).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For them to invite Noel and Makoto in for the discussion, even if they had to wait. Not only is Tsubaki their closest friend, and someone they'd be willing to forsake orders to save, but Makoto, as a former Intelligence officer, could eavesdrop upon them with both of them being none the wiser.\\
'''Instead:''' They start the meeting right away. Before it ends, Makoto barges in and demands an explanation as Kokonoe laments the fact that she was eavesdropping.\\
'''You'd also expect:''' Them to have Makoto verify what she overheard and fill in the gaps as thoroughly as possible, even if she had to have Tager do so for her. An educated spy is an efficient spy, and Makoto has proven to be somewhat responsible.\\
'''Instead:''' Kokonoe berates Makoto on the responsibilities of her role while Kagura blankly assures that everything will be alright. Then when Makoto's out of the room, Kokonoe has Tager try to restrain them both (never mind that Makoto would beat the sh*t out of Tager [[BerserkButton if he tried to make a move on Noel]]). [[WithFriendsLikeThese If this is how you treat your allies, professor...]]\\
'''Even worse:''' Kokonoe berates Kagura on not noticing Makoto's intent this whole time, knowing full well she would act to save Tsubaki anyway. This forces the two of them to plan around the girls in situ thanks to not sharing the information, which almost gets Makoto 86'd by [[spoiler:Izanami acting through]] Tsubaki. Further still, Makoto does a thorough job warning Noel that Tsubaki would attempt to kill her, and none of the villains catch up to Noel in Story Mode before Kagura finds her. Do practice what you preach, Kokonoe, alright?
** During the climax of ''Chronophantasma'', [[spoiler:Nu forcibly attempts to merge with Noel, bringing the latter into a mindscape with a mirror, the reflection of which has white hair compared to Noel's blonde.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Noel to recognize the white-haired girl as Nu and refuse to comply. The last time she got close to Nu, things went pear-shaped, and she should at least remember that much.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:She recognizes the reflection as herself, which once again [[AllAccordingToPlan goes along with what Relius was planning]]. Rachel tries to tell her to stop, but by then the damage was done.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Relius sends Nu back to Hazama with her newly shared permissions, whereupon she summons ''[[PhysicalGod the Master Unit]]'' and things become two orders of magnitude worse for the heroes. [[SarcasmMode Way to go, girlfriend.]]]]
** In the closing act, [[spoiler:Ragna has just finished incapacitating the aforementioned Nu and dragged her out of Take-Mikazuchi alongside Celica and Minerva. Ragna, out of his desire to save Nu, asks Celica to heal her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Ragna to belay his request until he can get a binding array on Nu, considering she just tried to kill him moments before. Even if he has genuine feelings for Nu outside of pity over her predicament, some things just shouldn't be left to chance, and there's no guarantee she won't give him [[DeadlyHug hug.exe]] once she's healthy again.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:They both go right ahead and heal her unbound. Izanami shows up, banishes Hakumen (who was trying to kill Nu despite Celica's pleas), sics Nine (formerly Phantom) on Jubei, and commands the beast to awaken. Cue hug.exe as predicted, Noel getting hurt, and Jin beaten to an inch of his life. Kokonoe was right when she said being naive would lead to someone's downfall.]]
** The heroes aren't the only ones who can f*ck things up. Back in one of the bad endings of ''Continuum Shift'', Terumi was able to stay Hakumen's wrath by using Tsubaki as a human shield. Remember this for later. In ''Chronophantasma'', he is dispatched to the Coliseum, currently holding a tournament over the bounty for Ragna the Bloodedge, to investigate an anomaly within the area. This is split into two parts, since he had enough time to do both.\\
'''You'd First Expect:''' Terumi to check up on Tsubaki. Not only would he be able to use the opportunity to check up on his anti-Hakumen shield, but there are three people who want to save her from her BrainwashedAndCrazy state, all of whom are some form of threat to him; eliminating one member of this group before they could put their plan into action could make their job of saving Tsubaki that much harder. Even if he was too late to stop them, he could have a backup plan ready to go.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' That he focus on tracking the anomaly as a primary objective. Identifying what this entity is and what they're capable of would take priority in an actual fight if they are proven capable of obscuring the presence of more dangerous threats.\\
'''Instead:''' You guessed it - neither of these thought proceses came into play.\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:The instant Ragna is exposed, Terumi (still in Hazama's body) hunts him down and tortures him for shiggles; the anomaly (Celica Ayatsuki Mercury) returns to Ragna's side with Tager at her side, leaving Terumi crippled and in need of an immediate evac. In the long term, Makoto, Jin and Noel saved Tsubaki from her brainwashing, leaving Terumi without his anti-Hakumen shield and open to Time Killer. He can't pursue or punish these individuals immediately in ''Centralfiction'' because of his [[YourDaysAreNumbered broken hourglass]], something he could have salvaged if he took his little scheme a bit more seriously.]]

* There are instances in the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series where you really have to question the intellect of the protagonists.
** In the ''Desperation'' story of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', Noel and Tsubaki have their little tiff due to Tsubaki being thoroughly {{mindraped}} by Terumi. Noel accidentally extracts a memory of Terumi from Tsubaki's mind afterwards and comes to the conclusion that he did something to her good friend.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Noel would at least fall back and get some reinforcements. She was there at the end of ''Calamity Trigger'', and knows Terumi is bad news. Other characters have gone out of their way to advise her to give the bastard a wide berth - Makoto, her other good friend, explicitly asked her to try to stay away from him. Even if Noel and the help can't take Terumi down, they'd have an escape plan.\\
'''Instead:''' She charges on in and fights Terumi alone. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just the way he wanted it.]]
---> "I have arrived, reborn as Kusanagi. The destroyer of all living things. I am death..."
** During Chapter 6 of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueChronophantasma'', Kagura finishes his evaluation of Tsubaki and returns to Kokonoe to report what he knows (coupled with a tip that Hazama knows she's with him).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For them to invite Noel and Makoto in for the discussion, even if they had to wait. Not only is Tsubaki their closest friend, and someone they'd be willing to forsake orders to save, but Makoto, as a former Intelligence officer, could eavesdrop upon them with both of them being none the wiser.\\
'''Instead:''' They start the meeting right away. Before it ends, Makoto barges in and demands an explanation as Kokonoe laments the fact that she was eavesdropping.\\
'''You'd also expect:''' Them to have Makoto verify what she overheard and fill in the gaps as thoroughly as possible, even if she had to have Tager do so for her. An educated spy is an efficient spy, and Makoto has proven to be somewhat responsible.\\
'''Instead:''' Kokonoe berates Makoto on the responsibilities of her role while Kagura blankly assures that everything will be alright. Then when Makoto's out of the room, Kokonoe has Tager try to restrain them both (never mind that Makoto would beat the sh*t out of Tager [[BerserkButton if he tried to make a move on Noel]]). [[WithFriendsLikeThese If this is how you treat your allies, professor...]]\\
'''Even worse:''' Kokonoe berates Kagura on not noticing Makoto's intent this whole time, knowing full well she would act to save Tsubaki anyway. This forces the two of them to plan around the girls in situ thanks to not sharing the information, which almost gets Makoto 86'd by [[spoiler:Izanami acting through]] Tsubaki. Further still, Makoto does a thorough job warning Noel that Tsubaki would attempt to kill her, and none of the villains catch up to Noel in Story Mode before Kagura finds her. Do practice what you preach, Kokonoe, alright?
** During the climax of ''Chronophantasma'', [[spoiler:Nu forcibly attempts to merge with Noel, bringing the latter into a mindscape with a mirror, the reflection of which has white hair compared to Noel's blonde.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Noel to recognize the white-haired girl as Nu and refuse to comply. The last time she got close to Nu, things went pear-shaped, and she should at least remember that much.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:She recognizes the reflection as herself, which once again [[AllAccordingToPlan goes along with what Relius was planning]]. Rachel tries to tell her to stop, but by then the damage was done.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Relius sends Nu back to Hazama with her newly shared permissions, whereupon she summons ''[[PhysicalGod the Master Unit]]'' and things become two orders of magnitude worse for the heroes. [[SarcasmMode Way to go, girlfriend.]]]]
** In the closing act, [[spoiler:Ragna has just finished incapacitating the aforementioned Nu and dragged her out of Take-Mikazuchi alongside Celica and Minerva. Ragna, out of his desire to save Nu, asks Celica to heal her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Ragna to belay his request until he can get a binding array on Nu, considering she just tried to kill him moments before. Even if he has genuine feelings for Nu outside of pity over her predicament, some things just shouldn't be left to chance, and there's no guarantee she won't give him [[DeadlyHug hug.exe]] once she's healthy again.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:They both go right ahead and heal her unbound. Izanami shows up, banishes Hakumen (who was trying to kill Nu despite Celica's pleas), sics Nine (formerly Phantom) on Jubei, and commands the beast to awaken. Cue hug.exe as predicted, Noel getting hurt, and Jin beaten to an inch of his life. Kokonoe was right when she said being naive would lead to someone's downfall.]]
** The heroes aren't the only ones who can f*ck things up. Back in one of the bad endings of ''Continuum Shift'', Terumi was able to stay Hakumen's wrath by using Tsubaki as a human shield. Remember this for later. In ''Chronophantasma'', he is dispatched to the Coliseum, currently holding a tournament over the bounty for Ragna the Bloodedge, to investigate an anomaly within the area. This is split into two parts, since he had enough time to do both.\\
'''You'd First Expect:''' Terumi to check up on Tsubaki. Not only would he be able to use the opportunity to check up on his anti-Hakumen shield, but there are three people who want to save her from her BrainwashedAndCrazy state, all of whom are some form of threat to him; eliminating one member of this group before they could put their plan into action could make their job of saving Tsubaki that much harder. Even if he was too late to stop them, he could have a backup plan ready to go.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' That he focus on tracking the anomaly as a primary objective. Identifying what this entity is and what they're capable of would take priority in an actual fight if they are proven capable of obscuring the presence of more dangerous threats.\\
'''Instead:''' You guessed it - neither of these thought proceses came into play.\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:The instant Ragna is exposed, Terumi (still in Hazama's body) hunts him down and tortures him for shiggles; the anomaly (Celica Ayatsuki Mercury) returns to Ragna's side with Tager at her side, leaving Terumi crippled and in need of an immediate evac. In the long term, Makoto, Jin and Noel saved Tsubaki from her brainwashing, leaving Terumi without his anti-Hakumen shield and open to Time Killer. He can't pursue or punish these individuals immediately in ''Centralfiction'' because of his [[YourDaysAreNumbered broken hourglass]], something he could have salvaged if he took his little scheme a bit more seriously.]]

MorganWick

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* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'': Deuteragonist Dimitri Mayakovsky and his Spetsnaz team have traced a known terrorist to Paris who has a stolen nuclear device and plans to detonate it and intend to do whatever is necessary to stop him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd warn the French authorities that terrorists are on their soil and have a nuclear weapon primed and to request their assistance in stopping the detonation. [[spoiler:Or warn the US Government that they have a double agent in their ranks.]]\\
'''Instead:''' They don't say a word, and decide that they have no choice but to storm in guns a'blazin and waste precious time and effort having to murder any innocent French police officer who gets in their way.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Vladimir dies in the crossfire, [[NukeEm the nuke goes off without a hitch taking over a million civies with it]], Russia ends up in the middle of a major international sh*tstorm, and Dimitri ends up with life-threatening radiation poisoning for his trouble. An EpicFail for his squad on virtually every front.]]
** From the other side, Sgt. Henry Blackburn's Marine detachment under the leadership of [[TooDumbToLive Captain Cole]] are sent in to capture a Russian arms-dealer working with the terrorists who have taken over Iran. But when they get close to compound they find it's already being seized by Russian paratroopers who are being sent in to capture the dealer themselves.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Cole to wait and ask command to advise them on the situation or try to get in contact with the Russian forces to clarify things.\\
'''Instead:''' [[InsaneTrollLogic He takes this as proof that the Russian Army is in league with the terrorists and are covering up their mess]] and orders his under-armed and outnumbered troops to attack them completely unprovoked.\\
'''Result:''' It ends with nearly '''all''' of the Marines under Cole's command dead and as [[OnlySaneMan Montes]] points out, the assault probably triggered the biggest international incident since Pearl Harbor. All because he wanted a promotion so damn bad that he thought setting off World War III, without thinking of the possible repercussions for ''five seconds'', was the best way to get it. [[spoiler:[[IdiotPlot And it's implied it would've WORKED if Blackburn hadn't done the smart thing and wasted him.]]]]
*** Or, hell, the whole ''framing device.'' To elaborate, Sgt. Blackburn is in custody and suspected of treason to which two CIA analysts have been tasked with investigating the matter. Throughout the entire interrogation Blackburn keeps warning them that Solomon is the mastermind behind a suspected terror plot and that he plans on attacking that very day with details about how he plans to do it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd go over every last nook and cranny as thoroughly as possible and advise their superiors to take precautions in case of a possible terror attack. [[spoiler:Or look for evidence of a possible security leak or rogue agent.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Simply because Solomon is a CIA informant, they believe that ''everything'' Blackburn says, without question, is a lie. Despite Blackburn having a witness in the form of Montes, they never ask for his testimony - they only bring him in long enough to ask one incredibly loaded question just to bury Blackburn further, instead of anything that would either confirm ''or'' contradict Blackburn's claims - and despite having ''video evidence'' of Solomon murdering Sergeant Miller in cold blood, they never so much as have him undergo a psych evaluation.]] Instead, one of the interrogators contributes nothing and only says "Ha ha f*ck you, you're lying" every chance he gets and all but confesses to Black that the interrogation is a KangarooCourt and that he's already guilty. Plus, they both ignore Cole blatantly giving the middle finger to Rules Of Engagement and every bit of evidence Black has in favor of simply blaming the Russians for everything. [[SarcasmMode Because, you know, they're Russian. They can't possibly NOT be evil.]]\\
'''Result:''' Solomon's plan ''almost'' succeeds and is only thwarted because Montes and Blackburn [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get sick of their bullsh*t and escape.]] [[TooDumbToLive And if multiplayer and the sequel are any indication, they still decide to wage a completely pointless war that will cost millions of dollars and lives anyway.]]\\
'''Even Worse:''' One of the details Blackburn gives to them about Solomon's attack is that he's using public transportation to move his nuke. Late into the interrogation, one of the interrogators receives word that Solomon has indeed arrived in the city. Right as it's winding down, [[InstantlyProvenWrong the exact instant he claims they "have it under control"]], he also receives word that ''a public train has gone missing, '''and he doesn't put two and two together from that.''''' The CIA couldn't have been less effective at stopping Solomon's attack if they were actively trying to help him go through with it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'': Deuteragonist Dimitri Mayakovsky and his Spetsnaz team have traced a known terrorist to Paris who has a stolen nuclear device and plans to detonate it and intend to do whatever is necessary to stop him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd warn the French authorities that terrorists are on their soil and have a nuclear weapon primed and to request their assistance in stopping the detonation. [[spoiler:Or warn the US Government that they have a double agent in their ranks.]]\\
'''Instead:''' They don't say a word, and decide that they have no choice but to storm in guns a'blazin and waste precious time and effort having to murder any innocent French police officer who gets in their way.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Vladimir dies in the crossfire, [[NukeEm the nuke goes off without a hitch taking over a million civies with it]], Russia ends up in the middle of a major international sh*tstorm, and Dimitri ends up with life-threatening radiation poisoning for his trouble. An EpicFail for his squad on virtually every front.]]
** From the other side, Sgt. Henry Blackburn's Marine detachment under the leadership of [[TooDumbToLive Captain Cole]] are sent in to capture a Russian arms-dealer working with the terrorists who have taken over Iran. But when they get close to compound they find it's already being seized by Russian paratroopers who are being sent in to capture the dealer themselves.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Cole to wait and ask command to advise them on the situation or try to get in contact with the Russian forces to clarify things.\\
'''Instead:''' [[InsaneTrollLogic He takes this as proof that the Russian Army is in league with the terrorists and are covering up their mess]] and orders his under-armed and outnumbered troops to attack them completely unprovoked.\\
'''Result:''' It ends with nearly '''all''' of the Marines under Cole's command dead and as [[OnlySaneMan Montes]] points out, the assault probably triggered the biggest international incident since Pearl Harbor. All because he wanted a promotion so damn bad that he thought setting off World War III, without thinking of the possible repercussions for ''five seconds'', was the best way to get it. [[spoiler:[[IdiotPlot And it's implied it would've WORKED if Blackburn hadn't done the smart thing and wasted him.]]]]
*** Or, hell, the whole ''framing device.'' To elaborate, Sgt. Blackburn is in custody and suspected of treason to which two CIA analysts have been tasked with investigating the matter. Throughout the entire interrogation Blackburn keeps warning them that Solomon is the mastermind behind a suspected terror plot and that he plans on attacking that very day with details about how he plans to do it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd go over every last nook and cranny as thoroughly as possible and advise their superiors to take precautions in case of a possible terror attack. [[spoiler:Or look for evidence of a possible security leak or rogue agent.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Simply because Solomon is a CIA informant, they believe that ''everything'' Blackburn says, without question, is a lie. Despite Blackburn having a witness in the form of Montes, they never ask for his testimony - they only bring him in long enough to ask one incredibly loaded question just to bury Blackburn further, instead of anything that would either confirm ''or'' contradict Blackburn's claims - and despite having ''video evidence'' of Solomon murdering Sergeant Miller in cold blood, they never so much as have him undergo a psych evaluation.]] Instead, one of the interrogators contributes nothing and only says "Ha ha f*ck you, you're lying" every chance he gets and all but confesses to Black that the interrogation is a KangarooCourt and that he's already guilty. Plus, they both ignore Cole blatantly giving the middle finger to Rules Of Engagement and every bit of evidence Black has in favor of simply blaming the Russians for everything. [[SarcasmMode Because, you know, they're Russian. They can't possibly NOT be evil.]]\\
'''Result:''' Solomon's plan ''almost'' succeeds and is only thwarted because Montes and Blackburn [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get sick of their bullsh*t and escape.]] [[TooDumbToLive And if multiplayer and the sequel are any indication, they still decide to wage a completely pointless war that will cost millions of dollars and lives anyway.]]\\
'''Even Worse:''' One of the details Blackburn gives to them about Solomon's attack is that he's using public transportation to move his nuke. Late into the interrogation, one of the interrogators receives word that Solomon has indeed arrived in the city. Right as it's winding down, [[InstantlyProvenWrong the exact instant he claims they "have it under control"]], he also receives word that ''a public train has gone missing, '''and he doesn't put two and two together from that.''''' The CIA couldn't have been less effective at stopping Solomon's attack if they were actively trying to help him go through with it.

MorganWick

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* According to the GameOver [[TheBadGuyWins Cutscene]] in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'', Gruntilda could just tell her [[TheIgor lackey]] to turn up the power and complete the transformation from [[EvilMakesYouUgly Hag]] into [[EvilIsSexy Hot]] anytime she wanted.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She tells her lackey to turn up the power immediately, or anytime during the several hours she taunts the heroes while they [[GottaCatchThemAll collect the collectibles]] of the game.\\
'''Instead''': She does the aforementioned later, either doing nothing but taunting the heroes as they get closer and closer to her, or work on her PopQuiz LethalLavaLand.\\
'''In Addition''': After heroes beat her in (again) aforementioned PopQuiz LethalLavaLand she willingly [[EvenEvilHasStandards gives up her hostage]] and runs away, even though she was under no real obligation to do so.\\
'''But Then''': Despite Gruntilda uncharacteristically abandoning her plot and fleeing, Tootie insists that you have to properly defeat her before you can celebrate your victory. It can't be said with certainty that she would have been any nicer if they'd left her alone, but the outcome of this battle leaves her severely injured and vowing revenge, which leads to all of her villainous plots during the next three games.\\
'''And To Top It All Off''': The victim of the first game's plot and catalyst for the rest of the franchise's problems vanishes from the series entirely afterward. So what have our heroes gained?
** At the beginning of the game, Gruntilda kidnaps Tooty.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That after locking Tooty up, Gruntilda would immediately either; A: Lock up her lair against any intruders, specifically Banjo and Kazooie, B: Given her vast magical power, she would nuke Banjo and Kazooie's house with them inside it before they could leave, (Something she later flat out does in ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie), right after grabbing Tooty'' or C. Simply confront the duo prior to them completing the training courses Spiral Mountain, where they lack the experience and several critical moves that would be needed for them to even begin to be considered a threat to her. Doing any one of these would allow her plans to go off unimpeded.\\
'''Instead''': She plays OrcusOnHisThrone for the entirety of the game, never directly dealing with them. This allows them to not only rescue Tooty, but gain the abilities and experience needed to defeat her.
** Following her defeat after the final battle, Gruntilda is left crushed under a large boulder, still alive but unable to escape herself.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Since said boulder is located literally ''right up from Banjo's house,'' that he and Kazooie would find some way to permanently keep said boulder in place and seal that witch away forever. Also that they would dissuade, or fight off Klungo to prevent him from aiding Grunty's escape.\\
'''Instead''': They leave the boulder and Klungo alone. For two years. During this time Grunty nearly escapes once, (which ''should'' have prompted the heroes to take some kind of action) and finally, her sisters are able to enable her escape, setting up the entire plot for the sequel.
** In order to restore Gruntilda's body, her sisters have built a BFG that sucks the life force out whatever it targets. It is revealed that despite the gun's power, it has a massive drawback in charging time between firings.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For her sisters to immediately target Banjo and Kazooie first back in their home in Spiral Mountain, while the two have no knowledge of their plan, (given that the gun has enough range to restore Bottles later on, this is possible). Alternatively, that the sisters would immediately gather the energy needed to restore Gruntilda first, so that when they do rescue her, Grunty can gain her body right away.\\
'''Instead''': They release Grunty first, (which alerts the heroes to their plan), their subsequent firings of the gun and recharge time delay Grunt's restoration long enough for BK to catch up and defeat them.

* According to the GameOver [[TheBadGuyWins Cutscene]] in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'', Gruntilda could just tell her [[TheIgor lackey]] to turn up the power and complete the transformation from [[EvilMakesYouUgly Hag]] into [[EvilIsSexy Hot]] anytime she wanted.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She tells her lackey to turn up the power immediately, or anytime during the several hours she taunts the heroes while they [[GottaCatchThemAll collect the collectibles]] of the game.\\
'''Instead''': She does the aforementioned later, either doing nothing but taunting the heroes as they get closer and closer to her, or work on her PopQuiz LethalLavaLand.\\
'''In Addition''': After heroes beat her in (again) aforementioned PopQuiz LethalLavaLand she willingly [[EvenEvilHasStandards gives up her hostage]] and runs away, even though she was under no real obligation to do so.\\
'''But Then''': Despite Gruntilda uncharacteristically abandoning her plot and fleeing, Tootie insists that you have to properly defeat her before you can celebrate your victory. It can't be said with certainty that she would have been any nicer if they'd left her alone, but the outcome of this battle leaves her severely injured and vowing revenge, which leads to all of her villainous plots during the next three games.\\
'''And To Top It All Off''': The victim of the first game's plot and catalyst for the rest of the franchise's problems vanishes from the series entirely afterward. So what have our heroes gained?
** At the beginning of the game, Gruntilda kidnaps Tooty.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That after locking Tooty up, Gruntilda would immediately either; A: Lock up her lair against any intruders, specifically Banjo and Kazooie, B: Given her vast magical power, she would nuke Banjo and Kazooie's house with them inside it before they could leave, (Something she later flat out does in ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie), right after grabbing Tooty'' or C. Simply confront the duo prior to them completing the training courses Spiral Mountain, where they lack the experience and several critical moves that would be needed for them to even begin to be considered a threat to her. Doing any one of these would allow her plans to go off unimpeded.\\
'''Instead''': She plays OrcusOnHisThrone for the entirety of the game, never directly dealing with them. This allows them to not only rescue Tooty, but gain the abilities and experience needed to defeat her.
** Following her defeat after the final battle, Gruntilda is left crushed under a large boulder, still alive but unable to escape herself.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Since said boulder is located literally ''right up from Banjo's house,'' that he and Kazooie would find some way to permanently keep said boulder in place and seal that witch away forever. Also that they would dissuade, or fight off Klungo to prevent him from aiding Grunty's escape.\\
'''Instead''': They leave the boulder and Klungo alone. For two years. During this time Grunty nearly escapes once, (which ''should'' have prompted the heroes to take some kind of action) and finally, her sisters are able to enable her escape, setting up the entire plot for the sequel.
** In order to restore Gruntilda's body, her sisters have built a BFG that sucks the life force out whatever it targets. It is revealed that despite the gun's power, it has a massive drawback in charging time between firings.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For her sisters to immediately target Banjo and Kazooie first back in their home in Spiral Mountain, while the two have no knowledge of their plan, (given that the gun has enough range to restore Bottles later on, this is possible). Alternatively, that the sisters would immediately gather the energy needed to restore Gruntilda first, so that when they do rescue her, Grunty can gain her body right away.\\
'''Instead''': They release Grunty first, (which alerts the heroes to their plan), their subsequent firings of the gun and recharge time delay Grunt's restoration long enough for BK to catch up and defeat them.

MorganWick

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* ISurrenderSuckers: Brighteye gets the better of Tyr-reet, a rival bluetail trying to kill Whitecrown, by pretending to submit before taking the opportunity to stab them [[EyeScream through the eye]] with a knife and fleeing with his brother while Tyr-reet's brothers are stuck watching in horror as he does his death throes.
* InbredAndEvil:
** The warmongers, an extremist subset of the whaler daydreamers, purposely inbred themselves over thousands of years to give themselves [[DarkIsEvil darker coatings]] and eliminate their yellow pigmentation, and wish to genocide all other daydreamers.
** The is completely inverted by the reapers, a sapient offshoot of the aukvultures with a culture that values empathy and understanding. They are also highly inbred due to their entire species being only a few hundred years old and descended from two siblings and compounded by their refusal to mate with their non-sapient relatives. Their low genetic diversity results in most of their babies dying in the pupal sack and makes them cherish the ones that do survive even more.
* IncompatibleOrientation: The hom*osexual Bachelor morph of the Polymorph bird is attracted to male plumage and so will sometimes attempt unsuccessfully to court Keepers (alpha males that mate with a harem of females) due to the Keepers being naturally aggressive towards other males.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation:
** The first daydreamers arose from seastrikers who by a genetic fluke were every so often born with the capacity for sapience and the ability to see past their immediate survival, but for most of their existence the so-called "seers", while not shunned by the non-sapient seastriker population, lived mostly lonely lives due to their intelligence making them unable to fully relate to their brethren or vice versa. Since sapience was a recessive trait for most of their history, seastrikers only rarely birthed new seers, with only one appearing every few centuries for hundreds of millennia on average.
** Brighteye, a bluetail (one of the descendants of the chatterer sparrowgulls), is sapient while every other bluetail, including his albino brother, is near-sapient at best. As a result, he's a pariah amongst his fellow bluetails, especially after he and his brother are forced to leave their home after a rival bluetail group murders their parents and he kills one of their leaders in return to save his brother before fleeing to avoid reprisal. Even beforehand, he refused to take a mate because the intelligence gap meant in his eyes that he'd be mating with a child. The narration detailing the bluetailed chatteravens makes a point of describing him as both the first ''and'' last bluetail person.
** This is explicitly averted with the woolly wumpo. Most are highly uncreative despite their intelligence, but some are born with a much higher level of innovation. Unlike the seers or Brighteye these individuals don't feel isolated from their kin thanks to the high emotional maturity the species possess. In fact, they are celebrated by their kind due to their creativity often greatly benefiting them as a collective.
* InterspeciesAdoption:
** In rare cases, a carnivorous circuagodont will misfire its parenting instincts onto a herbivorous circuagodont species and adopt what normally would be its prey. This usually doesn't end well for the youngster, as it ends up imprinting and associating with the carnivorous species, and thus loses its natural fear of its main predator, which has disastrous consequences when it approaches other packs of carnivorous circuagodonts that don't recognize its scent and simply see it as prey and devour it.
** Sometimes trunkos will adopt snow snoots that have been separated from their herds as detailed in "Little Moments". It usually turns out better than the above example due to both species having similar behaviors.
** As shown in [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/stronger-together Stronger Together]], [[spoiler: a young gravedigger is adopted by the regretful woodcrafters after they killed his mother. At first many of them feared him but he eventually becomes a beloved member of the village and is given the name Bridge for being a link between their two people. They taught him their language and made him more social while he kept the number of smerps down and introduced the concept of drawing to them. He briefly left when he reached adulthood due to his instincts but eventually came back and he drew in more curious young gravediggers which led to the two species to become more integrated with even the art Bridge taught the woodcrafters becoming the foundation for their first written language]]. It also shows a rarely considered consequence of such an event. [[spoiler: Due to being raised by antlears at such a young age Bridge imprints on them, but not other gravediggers, and doesn't have any interest in breeding with them as a result. He never has offspring of his own. However, he does become the adoptive father of Lucky, and thanks to her being raised by another gravedigger, she does have children to which Bridge becomes their HonoraryUncle]].
* InterspeciesFriendship:
** The tundra gravedigger has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the jackal carnackle, the carnackles will distract large prey animals that they wouldn't be able to take down themselves and drive them towards the gravedigger's traps while the gravedigger digs out molodonts that the carnackles wouldn't be able to reach but are able to catch them once above ground while the gravedigger is too slow and they all share in the meals. They are also said to enjoy each other's company and while even play and do tricks for one another.
** The fisher daydreamers form friendships with the luddy porplets and other intelligent dolfinches, although they do tend to take a [[CondescendingCompassion paternalistic role in these relationships]].
** Brighteye and Whitecrown, bluetail chatterravens, begin accompanying Blaze, a woolly wumpo several hundred times their size with Brighteye in particular developing a strong relationship with her.
** Viridvescent sawjaws will hang around wumpo and snoot trunkos of various species, as the sawjaws are so specialized for thorngrazer hunting that they don't recognize any other animal as food. As a result, both groups work together to combine their abilities in order to defend themselves from their mutual predators.
** Pickbirds will befriend just about any species as long as they perceive them as being capable of reciprocating social interactions. While the relatively basal moonbreasted pickbird isn't picky on which species they befriend, there are numerous specialized species that only befriend certain groups. The exception to this rule are thorngrazers because they're too unintelligent to be able to form social bonds with a different species, and so while pickbirds will hang around them, they're just as likely to let their predators eat them. This is a stark contrast to their bluetail ancestors, who while willing to assist predators for portions of their kills, had a strictly buisiness-based relationship with them based on mutual interest alone.
* InterspeciesRomance: The last of the fork-tailed babbling jays take on mates from other species in a lonely search for company. However, while the babbling jays are intelligent, their impromptu mates are non-sapient.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A nonhuman example. After the exile of the warmonger matriarch, the surviving warmongers begin to interact more with the fishers and the pastoralists who would also communicate more often with each other thanks to the gravediggers. Over time, the relationships between the different daydreamer cultures shrink until none remain. Five million years later, the only group of daydreamer is the novan daydreamers, who have traits of all three cultures, which is most noticeable with their coloring and beak shape.
* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity:
** When the Kyran Islands connected to the mainland, the carnivorous tribbetheres living there were able to cross over and follow the Kyran snuffles into their burrows and eventually hunt them into extinction.
** A variation occurs in the woodcrafter villages. The smerps and molodonts there are native to the region, but after the woodcrafters removed the small predators keeping them in check, they exploded in number and began to do severe damage to the antlears' trees and crops, making them functionally similar to an outbreak of an invasive species.
* InvadingRefugees: The warmongers were driven to the shallows after a failed attempt to conquer and destroy the pelagans resulted in the latter driving them out of both the open oceans and their original southern territories. They see the shallows as a chance to both heal their wounded pride and build up their numbers by devouring the smaller, less organized daydreamers living there.
* IronicName: Eve in the Bible is the first woman, whereas Eve the reaper is the last of the reapers.
* {{Irony}}:
** In a world with little violence in the Hypostecene, the wombler dies out... because of intraspecies violence. Never having learned how to flee from conflict, the womblers fought each other to the death, and recklessly faced the first few predators that did evolve.
** The page of the ninth-year canary talks about how it's the {{last|OfTheirKind}} of the changeling birds and how it will likely go extinct, but when a mass-extinction rivaling the Great Dying occurs at the end of the Thermocene, it ends up being among the relatively few creatures that survive and its descendants become one of the dominant groups of the Ultimocene.
** The efts are a group of aquatic metamorph birds that remain in their gilled larval stage their whole lives and come to be identical to fish, while the tribbets are fish that evolve to become land animals, with a flying group, the tribbats, eventually becoming colorful bird-like forms.
** It's stated that the merwals and aquatic molodonts are a bit of an irony, given that they're technically still fish, but ones that had specialized to live on land... and then returned to the water yet again.
** The circuagodogs rose to prominence by being smarter than their predator competition, and go extinct because they themselves are outcompeted by smarter predator competitors like the sawjaws.
** The seaborne thalassic gravediggers and the terrestrial woolly wumpos both fear one another and refer to each other's domains as the realm of demons.
* ItsAllAboutMe: What little we see of thorngrazer thoughts paints them as very selfish and callous towards anything not themselves, including other thorngrazers. For instance, their herding together is only because it lessens the chance of any individual thorngrazer alone getting eaten, and they don't form any social bonds past mothers and their children, and even then if they're injured the mother will leave them without remorse.
* ItCanThink:
** The vibropteran tribbats are surprisingly intelligent, figuring out tool use and problem-solving tactics. They are known to gnaw through flowers to access nectar instead of specializing in only one type of flower that matches its mouth, allowing it to feed on a wider range of food sources.
** Snarks are also said to be very intelligent, especially considering they're descended from snails.
** Gigadons are extremely intelligent for fish, with high domed skulls to accommodate large brains. While not fully social, they organize into packs to bring down large prey and communicate by flashing their brilliant patterns.
** While nonsapient, the savage gravediggers are still smart enough to probe for weaknesses in the fortresses of their thalassic gravedigger kin.
** The hookjaw carnackle uses traps and bait for hunting fish and other aquatic prey, specifically designing them to be easy to enter but difficult to leave. Since they learn how to make traps from their fathers rather than through instinct, this means that different cultural groups use different kinds of traps depending on their local animals and environments.
* IveComeTooFar: The warmonger matriarch continues her genocidal actions despite her own internal doubts because it would mean the end of everything she's worked for.
* TheJuggernaut: Once fully grown, a sea rex is virtually invincible, its armor allowing it to shrug off even the bites of pelagic daydreamers while crushing their skulls in a single bite. It's for this reason that the pelagans target the young burdles instead of the adults when they decide to eliminate them, as they're only daydreamer-sized when they start to leave the inaccessible to daydreamer shallows, and as such are helpless against them in a pack.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: The drakevulture has a tendency to snatch thorngrazer calves and sealump chicks right from the center of their herds as their protective circles are useless against an airborne predator.
* KillerRabbit:
** The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast aptly named]] butcherraptor is the size of a chicken yet they're capable of bringing down the bison sized snuffalo through the use of numbers and ruthless tactics.
** The spitfire sniffler looks cute but carries the potent batrachotoxin created by the fireslime lumpus in its quills, which makes it not only painful to the touch, but deadly to any predator that attacks it. As a result, they've been known to boldly walk up to predators and take bites out of their kills with impunity due to their confidence in their poisonous defense.
** The scorplear of the Late Ocean Age (Coincidentally also happening to look like a rabbit) is about the size of a small dog but can use its jaws and hindlimb claws to horrifically maim anything that threatens it. It's not unusual to see predators with a missing or severely damaged eye from when a scorplear [[EyeScream drove their claws through its socket]].
* KillItWithFire: The end of the Late Ocean Age is heralded by Whitecrown's flock managing to spark a massive coal fire that burns throughout Serinarcta, killing the flock and basically everything else unable to escape the flames. Among the notable casualities are the woolly wumpos and the razorback thorngrazers.
* KillItWithIce: The inevitable fate of Serina by the end of the Ultimocene, losing heat and volcanic activity which will throw the world into a permanent ice age. A few adaptive lineages will continue to soldier on for a few million years, but ultimately all life on Serina becomes extinct.
* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The warmongers believe that they are only descendants of their god, so, when they learn of the gravediggers whose very existence threatens this notion, their leaders decide to wipe them out to preserve this belief among their kind. Sure enough, after soldiers sent to battle the daydreamer-gravedigger coalition return and tell of what they have seen, this causes some of them to start questioning their beliefs.
* KnowWhenToFoldThem: When a glacier raven meets a glacial foxtrotter for the first time while the latter is attempting to steal the former's carcass, the glacier raven decides to let them have it despite the fact that it's bigger and stronger because it 1) has no knowledge of the unknown animal's capabilities and 2) there's still plenty of young to go around, so there's no reason to get into a potentially lethal fight over it.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** As a result of the loss of their higher intellect and of all social habits, the savage gravediggers have almost no capacity for empathy. Females will raise their own offspring for up to two years, but in all other cases their response to meeting another living thing is violence -- even mating is a vicious and violent affair, and they're quite happy to cannibalize each other if the opportunity presents itself.
** The thorngrazers are intensely selfish as a species, having no issue leaving the weak to be picked off by predators without remorse.
** Zigzagged with the bluetailed chatteravens, who ''are'' capable of feeling empathy, but only for those they consider part of their immediate family group. Anything or anyone else they'll treat brutally if they anger them in any way.
* LandSeaSky: The centerpiece of daydreamer religion is their creator deity splitting themselves into aquatic, terrestrial, and airborne essences. The daydreamers believe they are the aquatic, the gravediggers represent the land, and are still waiting for the sky.
* LanguageBarrier:
** The first attempts by the fisher daydreamers to communicate with the gravediggers were unsuccessful due to them not being able to understand each other's languages, with the gravedigger language being slow and guttural, and the daydreamer's language being so rapid and high-pitched that the gravediggers couldn't even recognize it as a language. Some fishers dedicated years of their lives to studying the Gravedigger language but it wasn't these individuals who made the first successful contact with them, but teenagers who had been listening to the gravediggers from a young age when it was still easier for them to learn new languages.
** The warmonger tongue is much slower and [[EvilSoundsDeep deeper]] than that of the other daydreamers, making them even harder to understand than gravediggers.
** Brighteye and Blaze have difficulty communicating at first as the chatteraven language is very different from the wumpo infrasonic language, leaving them physically incapable of understanding one another and having to make do with touching and simple gestures. They eventually get around this when they discover that they can both understand drawings and use pictures to communicate with each other, eventually streamlining the process until they create a hieroglyphic-like written language.
** The wumpos can't communicate with the gravediggers because the latter simply cannot hear the former's infrasonic language, until Brighteye talks to them and some of the gravediggers manage to learn his and Blaze's glyph-based language over the years.
* LastOfHisKind: This turns up several times in the setting, as the dwindling and extinction of species and lineages is a recurring theme, particularly in the swan song of Serina's habitable stage that is the Ultimocene:
** One of the entries detailing the beginning of the closing stages of the Ultimocene describes [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-stormsonor the last stormsonor]], the last living specimen of a species of immense birds that slowly went extinct as the growing ice age covered their feeding grounds in ice and caused their egg-like pupal sacs to freeze to death before they could hatch. The last one was born in a freak warm year, from a clutch deposited by an ancient hen who died after laying and was the only one to hatch successfully. She never met another member of her kind, and instead imprinted on a flock of a much smaller related species with which she spent the rest of her long life.
** One entry aptly titled [[spoiler:[[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-woodcrafter-dawn-of-a-new-era The Last Woodcrafter]] goes over the extinction of the woodcrafter people. When the moon becomes too cold for the trees the woodcrafters depended on to survive, they become malnourished and are unable to reproduce as a result. The socialized gravediggers they lived with are eventually forced to migrate to the coast to stay alive while some woodcrafters chose to stay and die in their old forest home while others chose to leave with the gravediggers, these ones discover that they can feed on the coastal seaweed and return to health but there were far too few of them at that point and they were all past their reproductive age so they decide to spend their last days helping and guiding the gravediggers. The last woodcrafter is an elderly female named [[MeaningfulName Ember]] who peacefully passes on surrounded by the gravediggers her kind came to view as their children]].
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/rivals Rivals]] ends with a description of the last living sea rex, a massive marine predator, after his species was gradually whittled down by the collapse of the open-ocean food chains and a bitter conflict with the pelagan daydreamers over what little prey remained in the shrinking ice age seas. Ultimately, the last great leviathan is left to wander the oceans for nearly a century after the death of the last female specimen and for forty years after the death of the second-last male, his mind just complex enough to be puzzled at why his mating calls are never answered, but not enough to understand his species' fate.
** The pelagic daydreamers are gradually done in when the shrinking oceans kill off all the animals that could sustain them. The last members of their species were too old to reproduce and believed themselves to be the very last of the daydreamers until the mixed gravedigger-daydreamer civilization from the shallows find them, allowing their people to symbolically live on the stories and histories they tell them.
** The burrowing burdle is the last of the burdles during the Late Ocean Age into the early Late Ultimocene, as their aquatic relatives were killed off by the daydreamers.
** The scorplear is the last of the antlear lineage by the Late Ocean Age, with the ice age having killed off the trees their more specialist relatives needed to survive. It's survived by becoming omnivorous but is far less intelligent than the antlears that came before it.
** The scissortooth is the last of the circuagodogs in the Late Ocean Age, the others having been outcompeted by other, smarter predators such as the sawjaws who are better adapted to prey on the thorngrazers that have become Serina's most common terrestrial herbivore, and their prey either going extinct or becoming too smart to hunt. The solitary nature of most circuagodog species also serves to work against them. Eventually, the woolly wumpos, a sapient trunko species, get the idea to start systematically exterminating their predators, with the circuagodogs being too unintelligent to mount an effective enough defense, and the remainder either starve to death or meet their end at the clubs of the wumpos. [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/scissortooth-circuagodog Circuagodog Gone]] describes the last moments of the very last circuagodog, half-dead from starvation, as it calmly accepts its death at the hands -- well, trunk -- of a creature its kind once hunted.
** Blaze is the last of the widemind woolly wumpos when she's introduced, and when she dies no others are born because the species is among the first casualties of the coal seam fire soon afterwards, either burning to death or dying from smoke inhalation or toxic fumes.
** The Late Ultimocene has several families reduced to a single surviving species. The nimicorns are the only thorngrazers to survive into the era after their razorback cousins perish in the coal fire. Afterwards the savage gravediggers are the only remaining gravediggers after their thalassic cousins are transported away and the icefishers die when the sea ice they depended on melts. Finally, the duckbilled sealumps are the only members of the sealumps to survive since they were the only species that could still walk on land and escape the dying oceans, eventually settling on Serinaustra.
** The hiddenwood is the last species of ant tree left by the early Late Ultimocene after the ice age due to most of the plant growing underground. With the increased warmth and wetness of the Late Ultimocene and the extinction of the more destructive razorback thorngrazer, it has seen a major resurgence. It's also the last of the sunflower tree lineage, with its cactaiga cousin being among the victims of the increased temperatures.
** The rambleroot is the last survivor of a lineage of smaller understory trees descended from clovers in the early Late Ultimocene, having survived by mostly growing underground like the hiddenwood has. Following the warming caused by the coal seam fire and the disappearance of the cold winds that would blow smaller plants down, they start growing to knee height, flower and fruit, and spread to Serinaustra via bird droppings.
** "As Worlds Break Apart and Join Together" details the story of the last steppestalker, the direct descendant of the shadowstalker (differentiated only by its lighter coloration compared to its ancestor), and the largest of the tribbats on Serina 1,500 years post-coal seam fire. Having made it to a small island when the rampant global warming and subsequent glacier melting during the aftermath of the Serinarctan coal seam fire caused most of the Meridian Islands to sink beneath the waves, he manages to adapt to hunting fish in the shallows and serves as apex predator over the other species marooned there with him for over twenty-one years. However, eventually the refuge shrinks down to just some rocks as the remaining prey either rafts away or dies, until finally, weakened by drinking seawater as the waves batter him, one manages to knock him into the sea and he drowns.
** Eve is the last of the reapers, a subspecies of the aukvulture that managed to achieve sapience, but went extinct due to inbreeding.
** The pgymy pretenguin is the only pretenguin species to survive the Great Thaw, having moved to Serinarcta with the sinking of the Meridian Islands.
** The surf scooter survives the Great Thaw that extincts the other dolfinches by being a semi-aquatic species that can access the Serinarctan marshes where the larger species cannot go as the ocean food chain collapses.
* LeanAndMean: [[http://i.imgur.com/qlaakml.jpg Lanks]] are twenty-foot-tall apex predators with very long slender necks, beaks, and legs.
* {{Lightworlder}}: Serina has a much lower gravity than Earth, allowing for much bigger fliers such as the archangels. Even the insects become BigCreepyCrawlies due to the lesser gravity, with some cricket species growing to the size of rabbits.
* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Whitecrown is basically the final boss of the Late Ocean Age, an albino bluetail leading a huge flock burning everything indiscriminately.]]
* LegendFadesToMyth: The teachings of [[spoiler:the last woodcrafter]] over the next three million years turns into a myth shared amongst the numerous marine social gravedigger religions, the exact details being lost to time but being subject to numerous but not contradictory interpretations.
* LifeWillKillYou: Blaze eventually dies from old age, surrounded by her family, save for Brighteye who happened to be away and only comes back once she's already been buried.
* LogicalWeakness:
** The circuagodonts, being tripedal, have only a single hind leg, making it an obvious target for predators to easily cripple them.
** The canitheres are significantly less intelligent than the predator wheeljaws, having disorganized packs attacking with only ZergRush tactics and prone to infighting once the prey is downed. This proves to be a disadvantage against the smarter wheeljaws, who share food amicably and hunt with coordination, with the canitheres quickly being pushed aside to scavenger and small-game hunter niches.
* LongLived:
** Stormsonors, the largest of the archangels, can live up to 135 years.
** Daydreamers have a maximum lifespan between 130 and 140 years.
** Reapers have an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years.
* LongNeck: Watchtower wumpos have incredibly long necks which is highly noticeable on their bipedal frame. One thing of note is that they don't use these necks for browsing as trees are very rare on the soglands they inhabit, they actually use it to scan the horizon for predators so as to alert the thorngrazer herds they live with, it also makes them very vulnerable to lightning during storms which forces them to lie down when they occur.
* LoopholeAbuse: The woodcrafters have a major taboo regarding killing other herbivores, even if they happen to be pests to the trees they need to eat. Once enough socialized gravediggers are around, however, they have them take care of their pest problem to keep their own hands clean.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The sea rexes have a mating call so powerful that it vibrates the water around them and can injure or even kill smaller animals that get too close.
* MeaningfulName:
** Tribbets are tripodal and froglike. Their descendants include reptile-analogues called tribtiles and mammal-analogues called tribbetheres.
** Vivas are viviparous. Their descendants the ornitheres ("bird-beasts") are even more mammal-like.
** The mitten and its descendant the glove. Guess what the soft tissue on their faces looks like and is used for.
** Babbling jays have a true language, and their name brings the Tower of Babel to mind.
** Snarks (snail-sharks) are active marine predators descended from gastropods.
** The antlears have evolved their ears into limbs that resemble antlers.
** Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was given that name by his adoptive antlear family to serve as a bridge between both species.
** Ember, the last woodcrafter, passes on phrases of her language to the descendants of the babbling jays, which persist as the flame of sapience reignites in them.
** The thalassic gravediggers are adapted to near-completely seaborne existence and have even evolved the ability to drink saltwater.
** The daydreamers can dream even while awake by only using one hemisphere of their brain at a time.
** Greenskeepers help maintain the plant life of the Ultimocene ocean.
** Brighteye, the only bluetail capable of higher understanding, gave himself his purposely symbolic name.
** While at first it's an IronicName since she's just as afraid of fire as every other woolly wumpo, thanks to Brighteye Blaze takes to the use of fire very well.
* MeaningfulRename: Brighteye gave himself and his flockmates symbolic names instead of random sounds that hold no meaning, even if he is the only one capable of understanding them.
* MedievalStasis: The gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization is so productive and stable that it does not progress beyond a stone-age level of technology for over a million years while also having a written language and innate understanding of ecosystem dynamics. A lack of mineral resources and a lack of ecological or cultural pressure to innovate contributes to this.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Male nimicorns live on the margins of their social groups so they're disproportinately preyed upon, but this serves to protect the more reproductively important females and juveniles.
* MercyKill:
** The pastoralist daydreamers will kill their nops before eating them rather than just eating them alive like their seastriker ancestors would've, despite the fact that they barely feel pain.
** Blaze, a woolly wumpo, chooses to put the last scissortooth out of its misery quickly rather than just leave it to starve to death over hours due to developing empathy for "biters" through all her years hunting them, and despite the fact that it was her idea to systematically exterminate "biters" for the sake of the family in the first place.
** The reapers are culturally opposed to killing for survival; the main exception to this is killing the already dying to ease suffering.
* MetaphoricallyTrue: The daydreamer religion positing that daydreamers and gravediggers have an origin in common is actually sort of true, because dolfinches and bumblebadgers both descend from the bumblet.
* MightyGlacier:
** Razorback thorngrazers are strong and durable thanks to being covered in tooth-like armor, but very slow as they have very short legs and are incapable of running, simply hunkering down when threatened to protect their soft underbellies. This works against them when dealing with fire since they can easily be overtaken by the flames, leaving the nimicorns as the only surviving thorngrazer species following the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The monstrocorns, a clade of thorngrazers from the hothouse age, responded to the sudden rise in food and living space by growing to immense sizes. They became very slow, plodding and awkward beasts as a result, but make up for this with their immense strength, the ability to absorb otherwise crippling injuries with their huge bulks, and a powerful set of horns and tusks that can gore most potential predators with ease. Adult monstrocorns have no natural predators, being simply too powerful and well-defended for even the most aggressive hunters to tackle.
* MirroringFactions:
** The gravediggers and antlear people may be natural enemies, but they both have an artistic streak that they express using trees. It's this similarity that [[spoiler: causes some of the woodcrafters to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that they were murdering sapient beings]]]].
** The fishers and the pastoralists have the same fundamental creation story despite their cultural differences which led to some fishers becoming more introspective and questioning if their way of life is truly more moral than theirs.
** Despite the disdain fishers have for daydreamers who feed on dolfinches, their lifestyle is more similar to the whalers than it is to the farming pastoralists they share their terrioties with, as both of them hunt for their food which leaves them more downtime. The differences being what they chose to hunt. This comes to a head in the aftermath of the war with the warmongers, the warmonger children searching for food display the exact same curiosity as the fishers did towards the gravediggers and learn to speak their language, allowing them to cut a mutually beneficial deal with them.
* MixAndMatchCritters:
** Falconaries, the first hypercarnivorous birds to arise on Serina.
** The tundra-dwelling, herd-forming, pseudo-viviparous canaribou and its omnivorous relative the boarbird.
** ''Cervanser cervanser'', the "deer-goose" viva.
** Florgusts are descendants of crickets that greatly resemble butterflies through convergent evolution.
** The water snuffle is essentially an avian platypus.
** Archangels look and eat like swans with the quadrupedal posture and [[GiantFlyer size]] of ''Quetzalcoatlus''.
** The king trawler is a giant sea slug with traits of baleen whales and manta rays.
** Burdles and birdwhales strongly converge upon, well... sea turtles and baleen whales.
** Serestriders are moa-like birds big enough, and with long enough necks, to hold the niche of sauropods.
** The serezelles resemble a cross between an ostrich and a gazelle, and the boomsingers, giant serezelles that evolved to avoid competing with circuagodonts, are in essence beaked, tailless sauropods.
** The Lumberbeest is essential a mix between a large tortoise and a sauropod.
** The porporant family as a whole resemble seabirds formed into cetaceans and seals, and includes the dolfinch, croconary, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liopleurodon penguipleurodon]].
** Repandors resemble Tasmanian tigers crossed with cheetahs, but with jaws like a goblin shark.
** Moonbeasts resemble a cross between a bat and an owl. Its descendant the snowspirit lessens the bat aspect but adds a cat aspect while increasing the owl similarities.
** The night biter is essentially a mix of vampire bat and cookiecutter shark.
** Vibropterans can be described as "fish-hummingbird-bats."
** Aquatic molodonts in the Ultimocene fill a fair amount of marine mammal niches, such as the walrus-like Clamcracker and the manatee-like Rakewhale.
** The bloons look like beaked plesiosaurs but are herbivorous like manatees.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters The skuorc]] resembles a cross between an otter and a lizard with a bird's head.
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/life-of-the-meridian-islands-the-flagbearer-tribbat candescent flagbearer]] resembles a cross between a bat, a rabbit, and a bird of paradise.
** The great crested drakevulture has the size of an azhdarchid pterosaur but hunts from the air like a colossal eagle.
* MookHorrorShow: The second battle between the shallow water daydreamers and the warmongers starts off from the warmonger's perspective as it describes the armor of the daydreamers making them look like skeletons that had come back from the dead as they emerge from the shadows and then attacking them with weapons that they can't comprehend and have no way of countering.
* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily:
** The repandors are a group of canitheres with a mouthful of sharp fangs (as well as a set of slicing teeth in the back of their mouths) and jaws than extend outwards like that of a goblin shark. The bushbounders have a similar set of teeth but theirs don't extend outwards so that they have a stronger bite.
** The muckodiles' inner mouth and throat is full of tooth-like spines that make it harder for prey to escape their grasp, [[RealityIsUnrealistic much like real-world penguins]].
* MouthyBird: The Vivas are a group of live-bearing birds whose herbivorous members have developed fleshy lips and snouts over [[https://i.imgur.com/REiFDKn.png their]] [[https://i.imgur.com/cILOmh8.png beaks]]. Though entirely unrelated[[note]] tentacle birds descend from the water snuffle of the Kyran Islands, whose evolutionary separation from the vivas dates all the way back to the ancestral canary[[/note]], the tentacle birds are even more so.
* MulticulturalAlienPlanet: By the middle and late Ultimocene, a general trend towards increasing intelligence means that multiple sophont species arise, often sharing the moon with each other, and most also tend to fragment into various subspecies and cultures.
** Three sapient species evolve on the moon during the middle Ultimocene, two of which possess a number of distinct internal groups:
*** The social, herbivorous woodcrafters are natives of the southern coastal forests and build complex villages out of trees. Due to their small range, their culture is very hom*ogeneous.
*** The gravediggers are a solitary, carnivorous species who communicate with art carved on trees on territorial boundaries and hunt by making elaborate traps. Gravediggers are divided into two subspecies, the primary forest-dwelling one and the tundra gravedigger, which is even more solitary, aggressive, and nomadic than their southern cousins. One population of southern gravediggers is later taken in by the woodcrafters and grows more social as a result, becoming its own distinct species after the woodcrafters die out. Eventually, as Serina's glaciation grows more severe, the social gravediggers adopt a marine culture while the tundra and southern gravediggers are pushed into a small strip of habitable land and cease to exist as two distinct populations.
*** Daydreamers are sapient marine predators who have been living alongside the other two groups for about three million years, over time splitting into different cultures that are even reflected by their phenotypes: a small-beaked ecotype that hunts fish, and a large-beaked ecotype that preys on other dolfinches.
*** The large-beaked predators, the ancestral group, eventually split further into the pastoralists, who live in reclusive communities in shallow waters and herd dim-witted domesticated dolfinches, and the large, heavily built whalers, who live in the deep ocean and prey on larger animals. The whalers further diversify into many clades and cultures, but the dieoff of large deep-ocean wildlife caused by shrinking seas eventually causes most to die off and only leaves two, the widespread and highly collectivist pelagans and the heavily-built, xenophobic warmongers.
*** There are also bands of daydreamers comprised of mixed ecotypes who live on the periphery of the other groups' territories and raid them for food, as it's often difficult to find a suitable food source for a group containing so many disparate beak shapes.
** During the Late Ocean Age:
*** After a first-contact war between the shallow-water daydreamers and the warmongers, the shallow-water populations, warmongers, and eventually the last survivors of the collapsing pelagan society merge into a single population, which joins with the social gravediggers to form a single society. Over a period of five million years, they eventually evolve into new species, the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers, while the luddies gradually reach sapience, becoming a new species known as the greenskeepers, and join them into a single multi-species marine civilization known as the sea stewards. They have a deal with the sea shoggoths, who are implied to have achieved sapience or are on the very cusp of it, in which they don't hunt the sea stewards or anything else in return for regular deliveries of food waste and dead bodies, who would clog up the ocean otherwise as their populations grow.
*** Within the thalassic gravediggers, the inhabitants of the meadows are contrasted with the central islanders of the Meridians, who live the most terrestrial lifestyle of the three main groups, and the highly independent coastians that live near Serinarcta's shores but only go on land to collect peat and coal due to the hostility of the local wildlife, in particular their conflicts with the woolly wumpos.
*** Two other gravedigger societies exist during this time, descended from the continental gravediggers; the savage gravediggers, a FormerlySapientSpecies descended mainly from the tundra subspecies with some hybridization with the southern, and the icefishers, descended from southern gravediggers with some savage admixture displaced by the savage northern kind and adapted to life on the sea ice.
*** The descendants of the mammoth trunkos and desert wumps have also achieved sapience in the form of the woolly wumpos, although most remain fairly unimaginative, live in family groups, and even have a rudimentary religion based around the dusk and dawn.
*** There are also the bluetailed chatteravens, a near-sapient descendant of the babbling jays with a rudimentary language and culture who accidentally produce a single individual with full sapience.
** During the Hothouse Age, the still near-sophont descendants of the bluetails, the pickbirds, befriend such a wide group of animals that they can form cultural groups based on which animals they choose to befriend. This can turn pickbird groups antagonistic if their chosen animals have a predator-prey relationship, such as a pickbird group that befriends wumpos having issues with another that befriends their predators. Given only centuries at mininum, it's possible for pickbird groups to reproductively isolate and eventually speciate from one another based on which animals their ancestor most often befriended, and while the moonbreasted pickbird focused on is a generalist, there are numerous species that are more specialized in who they choose to befriendf.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are the hands of their creator thanks to their ability to make and use tools like nets, fishing lines and boats. Something the daydreamers themselves are incapable of. The warmongers even go so far as to attribute the deaths of their soldiers by gravedigger weapons as an act of divine retribution.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** After Retally managed to get nearly his entire herd killed due to his lack of mastery over fire, he was so ashamed that he decided to go north and was never heard from again, effectively committing suicide.
** In the early days of the Late Ultimocene, an aukvulture, normally a gentle scavenger, kills a sea raven out of starvation-induced annoyance and feels shame before hunger makes it forget.
* MyInstinctsAreShowing:
** The original gravediggers felt no hatred but also no remorse for gruesomely killing animals in their traps, while their social descendants have become much more empathetic towards other lifeforms thanks to the influence of the woodcrafters. However, the warmongers attacking and killing them unprovoked causes this old callousness to resurface, and they feel no guilt for using poison to subject them to a slow, horrid death.
** When Seeker, a greenskeeper descended from the ring-necked porplet, meets Whirl, a novan daydreamer descended from the seastrikers who used to be their primary predator, he briefly feels a primal fear when she opens her mouth to show him her teeth.
** The sawjaws are wolf-sized but evolved from much smaller predators in a relatively short amount of time, so they still have the instincts and behaviors of much smaller animals despite the fact that they have no predators that hunt them.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Brighteye dislikes the other, nonsapient bluetails for their violent ways, and near the end of his life thinks of himself as more one of the woolly wumpos than his own species.
* MythologyGag: When Seeker is shown what happens if sea steward society collapses due to the coal seam fire, he sees that the gravediggers have survived but turned feral, a similar fate to what Sheather had planned for them when the woodcrafters went extinct in the original draft of the Ultimocene.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast:
** Tyrant serins, swordwhales, billion-stinger ants, razortooth circuagodogs, gravediggers, and sea shoggoths.
** The apex predators of the Kyran Islands during the Thermocene are the taakarewera, whose name is Maori for "demon storks."
** Subverted with the moonbeast, which despite its powerful-sounding name is no larger or more dangerous than an owl.
** The warmonger is a daydreamer subtype that has no issue eating other sapients due to perceiving them as lesser and plans on taking over the ocean by ridding themselves of the competition.
** Apart from the dire bumblebear's name already having "dire" in it, in the tongue of the woolly wumpos they're known as "slayers".
* NatureVersusNurture: While the gravediggers are inherently introverted as a rule, their tendencies for killing off all but the strongest newborns, and particularly amongst males, self-serving tendencies and [[ImAHumanitarian opportunistic cannibalism]] are more the result of culture. Due to Bridge, Lucky, and her descendants spreading the better parts of woodcrafter culture amongst southern gravedigger-kind, over the centuries these issues were eliminated.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The militaristic warmongers wish to genocide all other daydreamers due to considering them all inferior to themselves and turn their genocidal attention upon the gravediggers as well because their sapience serves as a threat to their beliefs.
* NearlyNormalAnimal: A variety of creatures are smart enough to develop culture in the Ultimocene, but none of them go on to invent agriculture or build cities. Sapience, the author says, is a spectrum:
** The one bird that farms a species of snail for food, the farmerjay, does so instinctively, and is described as a clever animal with a strong ability to plan for the future, but not self-aware.
** The porplets and seastrikers are at the very cusp of true sapience as opposed to just being very smart animals, being highly intelligent with rich inner lives. Eventually, the seastrikers make it, and after the daydreamer factions make peace with one another, the luddy, a descendant of the porplet, starts becoming even smarter as well and eventually becomes a sapient being, the greenskeeper.
** The bluetailed chatteravens are near-sophonts partially descended from a sapient species who have a complex language and the ability to create tools, but apart from the truly sapient Brighteye are no more intelligent than a chimp.
* NestedMouths:
** Some of the pseudornithopods evolve teeth on their tongues, which become a functional jaw to chew with teeth on their palate.
** The softbilled birds have developed a muscular covering around their beaks, and the trunkos take it further as they have essentially developed a set of soft lips that conceal their beaks.
* NiceDayDeadlyNight: The coastian thalassic gravediggers fear night because it's when the predatory savage gravediggers come out, who are smart enough to constantly probe their camp walls for weaknesses, alongside a whole host of other predators.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The sea stewards managed to turn the oceans into a peaceful and bountiful paradise, but in doing so they made the entire marine ecosystem extremely fragile and utterly dependent on them. Once they disappear alongside the proliferation of greenhouse gases, the entire ocean biosphere collapses, leaving only a handful of surviving organisms.
* NoMouth: The dayflight bird, which [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin lives in its adult form for only one day]], never even eating, much like a mayfly.
* NonHumanNonBinary: There are juvenile woodcrafters that choose not to fully mature in the absence of familiar males for aesthetic purposes, with some choosing to identify as female or nonbinary, with a similar phenomenon happening with the woodcrafter equivalent of transmen and transmasc humans taking on more masculine traits in the absence of cis male woodcrafters.
* NormalFishInATinyPond:
** The duckbilled sealumps are the smallest of the sealumps at only 500 pounds in weight, and aren't even that large for trunkos in general, but when they start colonizing the newly thawed Serinaustra whose only terrestrial fauna beforehand was the fox-sized snowscrounger and the slightly newer foxtrotter arrivals, they're the largest animal around and nothing there can threaten them initially until the snowscroungers start figuring out how to hunt them.
** The aukvultures are the largest flying creatures in the early end Ultimocene with some reaching wingspans of 23 feet or more, but this is still barely half the size of the large archangels of the early Ultimocene such as the stormsonors who had wingspans of up to 50 feet.
* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The ornimorph birds go through a complex metamorphosis from aquatic fish-like larva to terrestrial reptile-like juvenile to feathered airborne adult. Some of the Ornimorphs, called squaves, became neotenic and reached maturity at the "reptile" stage. Still others, the efts, ceased to metamorphose at all and spend their entire adult life in an aquatic fish-like form.
* OceanPunk: The Ocean Age of the middle Ultimocene, informally marked by the death of the last woodcrafter, has most of Serina's surviving lifeforms turning more aquatic due to the glaciers rapidly decreasing the amount of habitable land left on the moon, with the social gravediggers taking to the sea and forming a fully marine society, though their terrestrial cousins, the southern gravediggers they branched off from and the tundra gravediggers of the far north, still hold on and evolve into new species, the icefisher and savage gravedigger respectively. In the ocean, the seastrikers have evolved into the sapient daydreamers who have numerous cultures.
* OffingTheOffspring:
** Alpha female brushbounders are known to kill off the young of lower-ranking females to assert dominance and reduce competition for her own young. Though rare, the alpha is also known to eat her own cubs when food is scarce.
** Female tiger varpikes are also prone to this, to such a degree that they have evolved to give birth off of tree branches so that the mothers never see and thus try to eat their offspring.
** It's mentioned that mother gravediggers had a custom of killing all but the strongest of their offspring. However, [[spoiler:Lucky didn't do this with her children thanks to her upbringing and they in turn cared for all their children, leading to the population of socialized gravediggers to grow more quickly]].
** In whaler daydreamer society, if a baby is born and there's no space in the pod for it, it will be killed within three days after birth. Warmongers also practice infanticide weed out "undesirable" traits such as the yellow markings other daydreamers have, as was the case for a daughter of the warmonger matriarch who was killed by the matriarch's own mother.
* OlderIsBetter:
** Downplayed. Small perching birds similar to the original founding canaries [[TheConstant remain present]] throughout Serina's history even as all these new exotic species rise and fall due to their highly unspecialized bodies and lifestyles, much like modern lizards and opossums being very similar to early reptiles and mammals respectively. Subverted eventually when the molodont tribbetheres evolve: being specialized for eating seeds, they quickly outcompete the perching birds, which decline sharply in the Ultimocene, although they still manage to hold out till near the end.
** Zigzagged with the canitheres: primitive tribbetheres resembling larger versions of their earliest forms, they enjoy a fair amount of success early on during the Pangaeacene but are quickly outcompeted by carnivorous circuagodonts with higher intelligence and more specialized jaws, losing their apex predator status and being relegated to a few mesopredator niches akin to foxes and jackals. However, they end up having the last laugh over the circauagodogs when they go extinct due to competition with the even smarter sawjaw molodonts, but they survive into the Late Ultimocene.
** The nimicorn is closer to the ancestral thorngrazer than the highly derived razorback, but its ability to run means that it's able to escape the fires that claim the lives of their fellow thorngrazer species during the Mid-Ultimocene mass extinction event.
* OneBadMother: Daydreamer society is matriarchal when it comes to leadership, and the expansionist and supremacist warmongers are no different, as their leader is a matriarch blinded in one eye.
* OutWithABang:
** Male firetail changelings and [[MeaningfulName sacrificial bumblets]] are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semelparity_and_iteroparity#Semelparity semelparous]], dying after a single intense mating season.
** Brighteye kills Tyr-reet while the latter is victory mounting him.
* OutsideContextProblem:
** The warmongers trying to kill the gravediggers come across the issue that, while they're larger and better adapted to an aquatic environment, allowing them to easily dispatch the gravediggers upon capsizing their boats, the social gravediggers are not obligate aquatics, and can return to land and send warnings down the coast to other villages faster than a warmonger can swim. As a result, the warmongers soon find that there are no more gravediggers at sea for them to kill. They also weren't very aware of the gravedigger's ability to use tools, so when they give their daydreamer allies armor and weapons, the warmongers have no way of countering this and are soundly defeated. Said weapons are tipped with the poison of the fireslime lumpus, a toxic terrestrial species whose poison nothing in the sea has adapted to, so the warmongers die in droves.
** Sea shoggoths aren't native to the open seas that warmongers hail from, so even if the blinded matriarch could've seen the sea shoggoth approaching her, she would not have known to flee before the ants could eat her alive.
** During the Late Ocean Age, the encroachment of the glaciers creates a land bridge between the southernmost islands of Serinarcta and northern Serinaustra, allowing species from the former to move over to the latter, which gives the snowscrounger and glacier raven new terrestrial rivals. For instance, the glacial foxtrotter can easily hunt the young of clamcrackers, whose white coloration normally keeps the glacier ravens from picking them out from the air, by sniffing them out.
** The sinking of the Meridian Islands brings rafts containing burrowing burdles and gupgops to the shores of Serinaustra, where the sea ravens, snowscroungers, and foxtrotters are naïve to them. Some of them try eating the latter, only to find them unpalatable due to their toxins.
** The Visitor storyline has a probe from an alien planet 23.8 light years away arrive on Serina.
* PaintingTheMedium: A [[TheWatcher timeless observer]] speaks directly to Ember, Brighteye, and Seeker in a floaty, cursive font.
* PairTheSmartOnes: The daydreamers were born when two seers, one from a herding community and another from a nomadic hunting community, chose to mate despite both communities despising one another. Their loneliness borne from their higher intelligence makes them break the social taboos that had kept their communities separate for around 140,000 years. As a result, their children were mostly seers, and those who weren't often had children who were. After 200,000 years of the seers mostly breeding amongst one another, the seers fully diverged from the other seastrikers and became the daydreamers.
* {{Panspermia}}: Of the "Alientelligent Design" form. The moon was seeded with select species by "mysterious creators", who then left them to evolve without intervention.
* PartiallyCivilizedAnimal:
** 240 million years post-establishment, a desert-dwelling corvid-like bird called [[https://i.imgur.com/yAkjpf4.png the fork-tailed babbling jay]] develops sapience, a birdsong-based language, tool creation, art, and using fire to cook meat when they find it. [[spoiler:Sadly, they only exist for about four millennia, never advancing past hunter-gatherers or learning to keep fire for themselves, until changing climates cause their habitat to fragment and shrink. They cannot adapt to wetter environments before diseases, rare in deserts, wipe them out.]]
** The Middle Ultimocene also has the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-advent-of-agriculture-the-farmerjay?authuser=0 farmerjay]], which has effectively domesticated a species of snail it eats by keeping them in larders of food, freeing itself from the need to forage, and lives in large cooperative "villages"... but is not truly sapient since their behaviors are mostly instinctual.
** In the Late Ocean Age, the distant descendants of the babbling jays, the blue-tailed chatteravens, develop high intelligence, complex social behaviors and a rudimentary language, but never develop true sapience or personhood, save for Brighteye, an atavistic throwback to the sapient fork-tailed babbling jay in terms of intelligence.
** The aukvultures of the Late Ocean Age, a descendant of the skydiver seraphs, are scavengers that have co-evolved alongside the sea stewards to the point that they're semi-domesticated, and have developed intelligence akin to the nonsapient sparrowgulls, living in tribes and teaching their children from a young age to be polite towards the sea stewards, as nicer scavengers get more scraps. It's clear that this behavior is learned instead of simply instinctual, because orphaned aukvultures not adopted by other aukvultures often grow up to be unusually rude and aggressive, and are treated as pariahs by other aukvultures due to their behavior reflecting badly on their whole species. 10,000 years post-coal seam fire, some of the aukvultures have become a sapient subspecies known as the reapers, diverging so recently that their ascension to sapience is still remembered in the form of dance.
* PeopleFarms: The near-sapient seastrikers develop the habit of harvesting the near-sapient ring-necked porplets by only eating the young ones so that the adults will breed and provide more food in the future. Their descendants, the pastoralist daydreamer cultures, continue to do this, although by their time a long process of artificial selection has turned the porplets into the passive, barely intelligent nops.
* PiecesOfGod: The fisher daydreamers believe that the world was shaped by a single creator deity who then splintered itself into three essences -- a flying creature, a terrestrial one and an aquatic one, each of which then split apart into myriad smaller copies of itself -- to better experience all the realms of the world. They believe themselves to be the far-scattered fragments of the marine essence, and that one day they will find and reunite with the fragments of the other two and, having learned all that the world has to offer, reform into the creator. In comparison, the warmongers believe that only ''they'' descend from the pieces of a dead god and view themselves as [[AGodAmI above]] all other life, including other daydreamers.
* PoisonedWeapons: In their second battle against the warmongers, the gravediggers give their daydreamer allies spears tipped with paralytic poison derived from the fireslime lumpus, a terrestrial tribbet, which means the sea-dwelling warmongers have no resistance to it. This also leads to a CruelAndUnusualDeath for these warmongers, as their large size and ability to hold their breath for extended periods means that they sink to the bottom and slowly drown while [[AndIMustScream remaining fully cognizant the entire time]], something that traumatizes the daydreamers doing the stabbing.
* PoisonousPerson: The spitfire sniffler of the Ocean Age cactaiga is a trunko species that has developed an immunity to the poison of the fireslime lumpus, and spreads its deadly poison on its quills to defend itself from predators and deal with competitors, leaving it the sole snifffler species in the area.
* {{Polyamory}}: Skystrike flocks as a rule don't pair bond like most other sparrowgulls, with the flock members all breeding amongst one another and raising all their chicks as their own.
* PopulationControl: Due to lack of food, whalers strictly control their population by strongly encouraging hom*osexual relationships, having sex only for procreation, and culling their children out of necessity if one is born before an older member dies. This can have the downside of entire clans dying out because the adults all turned infertile before being able to have children.
* {{Portmanteau}}: Some of the names, such as the gmu (gnu + emu), the burdle (bird + turtle), the dolfinch (dolphin + finch) and the squork (squid + stork). Naturally, they resemble [[MixAndMatchCritter their two namesake animals combined.]]
* PrecisionFStrike: As Brighteye lays dying from smoke inhalation and becomes aware of Serina's MysteriousWatcher, his last words in response to its apology for its manipulations is a pointed "f*ck you", for setting up the death of everything he ever loved.
* PredatorTurnedProtector: The fisher daydreamers have long since stopped hunting other dolfinches and have come to believe that it is their moral duty to protect the smaller species that can't protect themselves, strongly paralleling the herbivorous woodcrafters. The luddy porplets have even learned to tell the difference between the fishers and the pastoral daydreamers and will stick by them for protection. Upon becoming the fully sapient greenskeeper, or grazer in the shared tongue of the multispecies civilization, they continue to view both the novan daydreamer (Known as "hunters") and thalassic gravedigger ("Walkers") as protectors of not only themselves but the whole ecosystem.
* PredatorPreyFriendship: Pickbirds may at times befriend smaller sparrowgulls that the former would otherwise hunt through getting food bribes.
* PredatorsAreMean:
** Zigzagged with the sapient gravediggers. While they can be quite aggressive with each other when it's not breeding season, otherwise they lack malice and will even hang out with prey species when not hungry. It's noted that while they don't feel guilt while hunting, they have no malice towards their prey either, only seeing death as necessary for their own survival. This is played for a darker tone later when the gravediggers are noted to feel little in the way of guilt when reports come back about their warmonger enemies drowning slowly [[AndIMustScream and fully aware]] as a result of the poison they supplied their daydreamer allies.
** A version of this is a central part of the fisher daydreamers' belief system. In their view, hunting intelligent beings for food is morally unacceptable, and one should only subsist on simple-minded creatures such as fish. Consequently, they view the large-prey ecotype cultures, such as pastoralists and whalers who feed on other large marine birds, as being monsters and murderers.
** Seemingly played straight with the crested kittyhawk as it has a tendency to play with its prey rather than going in for the kill. However, there actually is a point to this as their preferred prey are molodonts with large teeth that can wound the kittyhawk so this "playtime" actually serves to tire out and injure the molodont so the small gravedigger can go in for the finishing bite.
* PregnantReptile: The vivas are a successful clade of birds that develop a form of vivipary from retaining their huge eggs until they're ready to hatch. True placental avians eventually evolve in the Pangaeacene. The predatory burdles evolve ovoviviparity after developing leathery eggs and retaining them internally until they hatch, which allows them to become fully aquatic.
* PrehensileTail:
** The clongers are a group of snake-like tribtiles that have lost their front legs and whose single rear foot has evolved into a functional hand. Most just use it for burrowing but some have found other uses for it: the sparrowsnatcher uses it to dangle from tree branches and catch birds out of the air, the diamond clonger clicks its claws together to warn predators of its venomous bite like a rattlesnake, and the cloa is a larger species that grabs the necks of its prey to either strangle it to death or puncture its jugular.
** Young viridescent sawjaws will use their tails (which are a highly modified leg) to climb to their parent's bodies.
* ProfaneLastWords: As Brighteye lays dying, his last words to the observer are "f*ck you." [[RejectedApology in response to its apology for using him as a pawn]] since it was responsible for both his death and the deaths of the wumpos.
* ProportionalAging:
** While it's not mentioned how long gravediggers live relative to humans or woodcrafters (although it's later noted that woodcrafters rarely live past fifty), they do grow more quickly than humans, with a four-month-old gravedigger being roughly equivalent to a human seven or eight year old, and become functionally adults at about twelve months, though they don't gain their adult plumage until later.
** [[spoiler: The last woodcrafter dies at around fifty-eight, when most of her kind doesn't make it to fifty, making her roughly equivalent to a human centenarian.]]
** Daydreamers age more slowly than humans, reaching sexual maturity in their late 20s, entering menopause in their 70s, and live for around 130 to 140 years, making them the longest lived of Serina's sophonts.
** In the Late Ocean Age, thalassic gravediggers and greenskeepers are said to live roughly half as long as the novan daydreamers. In a group of friends consisting of a greenskeeper, two thalassic gravedigger sisters, and a novan daydreamer, the latter takes so long to mature that she ends up serving as a babysitter for one of her gravedigger friend's grandchildren while still the equivalent of a human teenager. By comparison, gravediggers and greenskeepers age at roughly similar rates.
* PyrrhicVictory: Retally, a woolly wumpo widemind of the Tidelands Herd, managed to drive the thalassic gravediggers who hunted his kind away from the shoreline until the time of Blaze's great-great grandparents using the power of fire, but his lack of control over it led to the deaths of most of his herd. While Retally was among the survivors, he was so changed from the experience that he headed north and was never heard from again.
* RaisedByWolves: Deconstructed by the carnivorous circuagodonts, who sometimes adopt and raise young of their herbivorous prey. As awesome as this may sound, it hardly ends well for the adopted youngster, as it identifies with the carnivorous species, loses its fear of them, and ends up getting eaten by ''other'' packs of carnivores unfamiliar with its scent.
* RaptorAttack:
** The banshees are essentially re-evolved velociraptors, with sickle claws on their feet, long balancing tails, and wings modified into claws for grabbing prey. They resemble accurate dromaeosaurs save for having a serrated beak and barbed tongue instead of a toothed snout.
** The viridescent sawjaw has convergently evolved to resemble a ''Velociraptor'' save for their sawing jaws and rabbit-like ears.
* RealityIsUnrealistic:
** The handfish tribbets modifying their individual fin spines into separate multiple spider-like legs seems completely absurd, but it's actually very similar to [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=qU7hmwzuQ1k the real-life sea robin]], a bottom-dwelling fish that "walks" around on the sea floor on three pairs of modified fin spines that act as six separate somewhat insect-like legs.
** On a similar note, ray-finned fish developing tetrapod-like legs sounds seemingly implausible, but then there's [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=P83BX56qLqs the Frogfish]], a group of ray-finned fish that walk across the seafloor using fins that greatly resemble stubby legs. One species in particular, the Sargassum Frogfish, even has prehensile fingers that let it climb through seaweed.
** The tufted frogjar, a metamorph bird whose newt-like larva is ''bigger than the adult'', sounds downright improbable... until you learn about the real-life paradoxical frog, which metamorphoses from a truly immense giant tadpole... to a tiny adult barely half its size.
* TheRemnant: The reapers are described as the last people of the Ocean Age, having descended from the aukvultures that co-evolved with the sea stewards.
* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The warmongers started out as a clan of the highly communistic pelagans who wanted to abandon this way of life in favor of a [[TheSocialDarwinist every family for itself]] system. They were exiled to the southern oceans after they started raiding other pelagan clans and became the large, brutish cannibals they are now.
* {{Retcon}}: When first introduced, the seagoing gravediggers were referred to as the thalassic gravediggers, existed three million years after the extinction of the woodcrafters, and had diverged enough from their ancestors, such as by developing salt-filtering glands in their nostrils, to be defined as a distinct species. Sheather eventually changed this to their simply being a seaborne culture of social gravediggers, and to exist around five thousand years after the last woodcrafters but later gained enough adaptations to aquatic and social life to be considered a new species after three million years.
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter:
** Most of the founding species of Serina are cute animals like canaries, guppies, and ladybugs.
** Certain tribbets, particularly tribbetheres, [[MostWritersAreHuman being mammal analogues]] with many of the same features such as big eyes and expressive rounded ears. Dogbeast cubs are specifically noted to be as cute to human eyes as any Earth puppy but are not as playful due to lower intelligence.
** Viva chicks are fuzzy and yellow with BlackBeadEyes like baby chickens, only with stumpy tails and disproportionately long legs. Even some adult vivas remain fairly cute in a [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart deer-like]] way.
** Hoppers, early tribbets that resemble [[http://i.imgur.com/OgLPSA4.png a cross between a rodent and a frog]].
** The baby armox as well, despite its mighty hulking adult form.
** The fluffy gigaduck chicks on their parent's back. Some of them are even sleeping.
** [[IntellectualAnimal Fork-tailed babbling jays]], on the other hand, consider baby birds with feeding gapes resembling those of their own chicks to be cute. They'll even capture the chicks of other bird species to keep as pets for this reason.
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: The molodont tribbetheres evolve to be rodent-like, and one group, the circuagodonts, become the dominant herbivore group and become deer-sized herbivores resembling long-legged tripodal rabbits.
** Omniphages are a group of molodonts that can weight up to 1,500 pounds, making them the largest land dwelling tribbetheres.
** The rakewhales are marine molodonts around 30 feet long.
* RunningOnAllFours: Certain bird species become quadrupedal, notably the deer-like serezelles and their descendants, the sauropod-like boomsingers, as well as the bumblets and their predatory descendants the bumblebadgers.
* SandWorm: The Serinian bullworm, a giant earthworm in the early Hypostecene that can reach lengths of over thirty feet.
* SapientEatSapient:
** One bumblebadger species, the gravedigger, becomes highly intelligent and learns to construct elaborate traps to catch its prey, the herbivorous antlears. Pressured by the gravediggers' increasingly elaborate traps, one species of antlears becomes more and more intelligent as well in an arms race to avoid their clever predators, culminating in both gravediggers and antlears, now the woodcrafters becoming truly sapient, and waging war on each other. The conflict finally stops when the two species make peace as a result of two of the latter getting adopted by the former.
** Downplayed with the porplets and seastrikers, which haven't achieved full sapience yet, but are intelligent enough to have complex thoughts and emotions, all while the latter regularly hunts the former. Eventually a fully sapient species called the daydreamers emerges from the seastrikers who still feed on the porplets, but some come to view eating such intelligent creatures as morally reprehensible and choose to eat fish instead.
** Later on, the warmonger daydreamers, a subgroup of whalers, a cultural group adapted for hunting large prey, comes to be sufficiently physically and behaviorally distinct enough from the shallow-water daydreamer cultures that they no longer view them as fellow people -- to them, they're just meat on the fin. When the warmonger leadership finds out about the gravediggers and their sapience being a threat to their beliefs, because it would prove the fisher and pastoralist creation tale correct, they decide to attempt genociding them too to prevent their soldiers from finding out and turning against them.
** The woolly wumpos consider the thalassic gravediggers demons due to the latter hunting them for generations after making first contact, seemingly unaware of their sapience since outwardly they appeared no different from the nonsapient sealump trunkos, before a widemind named Retally managed to drive them off by using their own fire tactics against them, but at the cost of most of his herd when he couldn't control the flames.
* ScavengersAreScum:
** Zigzagged. This is played somewhat straight by the sea ravens, a scavenging sea bird known for its belligerent temperament that will aggressively steal food from other animals, including the sea stewards, whose children they'll sometimes attack. However, this is completely averted with the aukvulture, these birds are very gentle as they have learned that the sea stewards will give them their leftovers if they are polite about it, especially since they keep the sea ravens away.
** This is completely inverted with the reapers, a sapient population of aukvultures, who are just as much of scavengers but they have a very strong code of ethics that forbids killing outside of mercy and espouses empathy to other lifeforms. Their nature as scavengers also gives them a very spiritual outlook on life with concepts similar to an afterlife and souls but for all living things.
* SceneryGorn: The shores of Serinaustra 1,500 years after the great coal fire are described as being covered in piles of the rotting corpses of dead sea animals that are, in turn, coated by swarms of insects. However, to the scavenging snowscroungers, foxtrotters, and burrowing burdles, it's a veritable buffet.
* SeaMonster: Swordwhale fish such as the gulpy and gigadon, birdwhales, bloons, king trawlers, predator burdles, and giant filter-feeding dolfinches like the banded maw, the last of which are said to be the largest birds Serina has ever seen. Special mention goes to the sea rex of the ocean age. They're huge 50ft apex predators with crushing jaws and armored skin that makes them virtually unbeatable as adults, even to the pelagic daydreamers who are large powerful predators in their own right. This forces them to target the beasts when they are young and small when dwindling food supplies causes the fully grown sea rexes to start hunting the pelagans instead.
* SerialEscalation:
** In the first few million years, the evolved canaries develop into forms similar to modern and prehistoric bird species like hawks, moas, and penguins. As time goes on, they derive even further; some species take on saurian, reptilian, and even mammalian characteristics. By the time of the Ultimocene, many species such as boras, lumberbeests, trunkos, and neotenic metamorphs have ceased to resemble birds at all.
** The tribbets as well. Descending from the mudskipper-like Mudwickets, they came to first resemble a bizarre three-legged fusion of fish and frog. However, as they became more and more derived, they developed jointed forearms, flexible necks and erect limbs, and their descendants the tribbetheres came as far as to evolve fur, external ears and erect limbs, looking every bit like a three-legged mammal with only their extensible jaws betraying their true heritage as fish. Then things get even stranger when some evolve into flying bat-like forms and secondarily-aquatic whale-like forms...
* ShoutOut:
** A type of small, rabbit-like circuagodont often preyed upon by repandors is called [[CallARabbitASmeerp a smeerp]].
** One million years post-establishment, the largest invertebrate on the moon is a giant earthworm known as the [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants Serinan bullworm]].
** The antlear and gravedigger saga is an homage to [[https://www.deviantart.com/doeprince doeprince]]'s ''Golden Shrike'', which is a story about deer and shrikes (gravediggers essentially behaving like giant, flightless shrikes). Dylan Bajda and "doeprince" follow each other and communicate.
** Fellstar, an alien probe that visits Serina after the disappearance of the Sea Stewards, bears a striking resemblence to the probes in ''[[{{Literature/Expedition}} Alien Planet]]''. It's brightly coloured, has large, childlike eyes and a simple artificial intelligence; likewise, it appears to have been made to study life on the moon.
* ShownTheirWork: Compared to the wild-type luddy, who look more or less the same as do most wild animals, the domesticated nops show clear signs of neoteny in the form of a very chick-like head and come in numerous colors.
* SimpleYetAwesome: The surfscoter secondarily evolved to be semi-aquatic in order to avoid its aquatic predators, which is implied to be what allowed it to survive the Great Thaw that killed off the other dolfinches, as it was able to access food sources in places that the other species couldn't, such as Serinarcta's marches.
* SingleBiomePlanet:
** Serina is initially terraformed into one of these. The entire winding supercontinent of Cirrus is covered in tropical grassland engineered to support canaries. However, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome this is not sustainable without long-term artificial maintenance and the organisms evolve rapidly to balance the ecosystem, a process that takes millions of years of flux]].
** Averted with the Hothouse Age, despite the fact that the whole globe experiences warm temperatures and abundant precipitations year round. There are at least 16 biomes shown on the map page, accounting for both abiotic factors like the proximity to the polar circles[[note]]Which creates one season of constant daylight and another one of constant darkness[[/note]] and biotic factors like the presence of thorngrazers.[[note]]Which prevents the growth of most trees due to [[ExtremeOmnivore their extremely aggressive feeding]][[/note]]
* SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset: The gravediggers outfit the daydreamers with armor made from animal bones and shells in the second fight with the warmongers.
* SlashedThroat: Sawjaws attack their thorngrazer prey by jumping on their backs and using their jaws to slice their unprotected necks.
* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism:
** In the Pangaeacene, there are the bludgebirds and the babbling jays. The bludgebirds are quite intelligent creatures and can use tools and weapons, but ultimately are no more advanced than an ape. Babbling-jays, on the other hand, have a true language, a sense of aesthetic art, cultural traditions, and even oral tradition. [[spoiler: Tragically, both species become extinct at the end of the Thermocene due to changing climates before they could advance further.]]
** Animal intellectual complexity peaks the Ultimocene, with the majority of land vertebrates having primate-level intelligence. However, it's stated that sapience is a spectrum: some animals, such as the snail-farming bird, have complex behaviors, but do them instinctively, while others are capable of higher learning capabilities but are not self-aware. A few animals are offhandedly mentioned to have developed self-awareness: however, it's stated that unless specific conditions are met, it's highly unlikely for them to build a civilization.
** The mid-Ultimocene produces several near-sapients such as the childlike porplets, the spear-crafting bone-bower bird, and the skystrikes, which use a well-developed vocal language to coordinate their hunts.
** Vibropteran tribbats are also noted for their intelligence, displaying problem-solving tactics as well as tool use. They were [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally planned to produce a sapient species]], but were ultimately left like this.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Surprisingly, the Ultimocene saga leans heavily on the idealism side, despite many, ''many'' interactions that more easily could have gone down a more dreadful route, like the war between gravediggers and woodcrafters, the woodcrafters' genocidal crusade on innocent carnivores, the seastrikers domesticating their own relatives the porplets for food, or the coming of the cannibalistic, nigh-fascist warmongers. All of these incidents are resolved in an unexpectedly wholesome way, with the gravediggers and woodcrafters forging a genuine friendship, the daydreamers finding unity and even befriending the sapient descendant of their former prey, and even the warmongers have shown to be redeemable without the influence of the matriarch. Overall, despite the impending extinction of all life, the saga of the Ultimocene sophonts has the general feel of being ''worth it'', in the sense that it was the journey, and not the destination, that truly mattered.
* SmallRoleBigImpact:
** The water snuffle, a duck-sized platypus-like bird from the isolated Kyran Islands, is one of the few avians to survive the Thermocene-Pangaeacene mass extinction. As a result, its descendants the tentacle birds end up taking over many megafaunal land niches by the Ultimocene.
** Strackbirds are given a few paragraphs of description as Cryocene songbirds that assist large predators by flushing out prey and then share their kills in return. Due to this lifestyle making it difficult to tie oneself down to a nest for a prolonged period of time, their chicks evolved to hatch at less developed yet more independent states so the parents could just drop meat into the nest and leave again, and then simply fill their nests with larders and abandon them. This formed the basis of the changelings' [[BizarreAlienReproduction insect-like reproductive cycle]], which granted the lineage incredible adaptability into a huge variety of niches in the coming Thermocene and Pangaeacene.
** The mudwickets, small mudskipper-like descendants of guppies, arise twenty-five million years post-establishment, seemingly just as a random fluke of evolution. However, they later give rise to the froglike tribbets in the Thermocene and later the tribbetheres in the Pangaeacene and Ultimocene, becoming a dominant clade of life that eventually comes to rival the birds.
* SoulEating: In the religious beliefs of the woolly wumpos, those killed by predators have their souls completely devoured, barring them from their afterlife. As a result, it obligates them to kill their predators on sight so that as much of the family can survive death as possible.
* SpeaksFluentAnimal:
** The fork-tailed babbling jays can speak the much simpler languages of the non-sapient birds they share the desert with.
** Daydreamers can communicate with most of their non-sapient dolfinch cousins, who the small-prey ecotype perceives as akin to their own children in terms of intelligence.
* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: This comes up in descriptions of sapient species' cultures:
** It's briefly mentioned that same-sex pair bonds are rare but not unheard of among fork-tailed babbling jays.
** While the woodcrafter antlears do have gender roles, due to an evolutionary holdover regarding hormonal development and group dominance composition it's possible for their males to mature without developing full adult male traits and for their females to become masculinized and more attracted to females. The former are most often considered a third gender while the latter are considered and identify as male. Sexual preferences are highly variable among individual woodcrafters and they do not pair-bond, but male-male mating is more common than female-female.
** Amongst the whaler daydreamers, obligate hom*osexuality is enforced in order to ensure population control. As a result hom*osexual pairings are about as common as heterosexual ones in their society. There is also a significant asexual population, who are referred to as clearwaters due to being considered undistracted by sexual matters, and often become sages and shamans sought out for their wisdom.
** Of the four childhood friends who act as viewpoint characters for the Sea Steward civilization, the thalassic gravedigger Pebble and the greenskeeper Seeker never have offspring, the former because "she didn't really like males", the latter because "he didn't have much of an interest in settling with anybody".
** When Blaze and her daughter are arguing over what to do with Brighteye and Whitecrown, the latter alludes to a same-gender partner who was killed by "biters".
* StarfishLanguage:
** The language of the fork-tailed babbling jays is highly complex birdsong spoken too quickly to be understood by the human ear. This is presumably also the case for their descendants the blue-tailed chatteravens, although theirs is [[YouNoTakeCandle considerably simpler]].
** It's mentioned that the woodcrafter language sounds similar to elk calls.
** Gravedigger languages consist of gravelly, croaking, and hissing sounds that are very difficult for woodcrafters and later daydreamers to understand. In the case of the latter, it takes their equivalent of teenagers who still have the plasticity to learn in order to communicate with them.
** The language of the whalers has diverged so much from other daydreamers that the fishers find it even less comprehendible than gravedigger speech due to it being deep and slow.
** Sea shoggoths communicate through the rhythmic clicking of their mandibles.
** Woolly wumpos communicate primarily through infrasound that most other species can't hear.
** The reapers are only capable of making simple sounds like guttural honking so they mostly communicate using [[HandSignals gestures and elaborate dances.]]
* StarfishRobots: Fellstar, the alien probe Eve befriends, has a rather unusual appearance. It somewhat resembles some kind of animal but not any earthly one, having a pod-shaped body with six spindly legs, two cable-like tendrils for arms and a long neck with a large pair of camera eyes.
* StarsAreSouls: In the religious beliefs of the woolly wumpos, their loved ones watch over them as stars.
* StoneWall: The lumphead grumpus, a very strange Thermocene fish, actually won its arms race of defense from gigadon attacks by specializing into this. It is large and very slow-swimming, but its long defensive spines ensure that few predators will take one on.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: WordOfGod reveals that this is what the observer actually is, rather than a literal deity. It's a being with such advanced technology that it seems [[ClarkesThirdLaw like a supernatural entity to the less technologically advanced sophonts]].
* SugarBowl:
** Serina at establishment is as much this as a biosphere can be. It begins as a SingleBiomePlanet of warm sunny grassland punctuated by blooming clovers and cheery sunflowers. There are no predators larger than an insectivorous canary, and even the fish and insects are cute as such creatures go. It doesn't last long, however.
** The oceans become this during the Late Ocean Age, in contrast to the comparatively harsh and barren land. The plant life is abundant and supports a healthy and diverse ecosystem, the animals are all tame and even the most dangerous creatures are kept placid through regular feeding. However, the only reason it can even be this nice is because it was being artificially maintained by the sea stewards and the moment they disappear it immediately starts to breakdown.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Thorngrazers are noted to be very poor swimmers, preventing them from colonizing islands in the same way they have the Serinarctan mainland.
* SwansASwimming: While not aquatic, the swan-like archangels certainly fit the trope, being peaceful elegant grazing giants with long graceful necks and snowy white plumage.
* TheSwarm: This happens twice in Serina's natural history. The first happens in the first few million years with the empire ants who live in enormous supercolonies. However, they are arguably a {{Deconstruction}} of this trope as they quickly consume all the creatures that can sustain them and eventually die out. The second time are the billon stingers, which are like army ants on steroids. They don't live in supercolonies, so their numbers are sustainable, but they can still skeletonize larger animals in minutes. By the mid-Ultimocene, the billion-stingers have given rise to the sea shoggoth, [[TheWormThatWalks colonies of which function like individual animals]], using linked groups of specialized ant castes to move the colony and catch prey.
* TheSymbiote: The ant-trees that have been present throughout Serina's history are of the mutualistic variety, with the ants providing protection and a means to spread the tree's seed, while the tree provides shelter. However, two ant-trees of the Late Ultimocene take it to a far higher level, as the two are now utterly incapable of surviving without one another:
** The raptorial rambleroot grows in vertical cracks atop sogland boulders above the thorngrazers that have little in the way of organic nutrients, in particular nitrogen, so it has its technically herbivorous ants hunt for prey to bring back to the plant to be broken down in return for sacrificial buds that the ants can eat.
** The cementree has its ants create the clay outer coating that prevents thorngrazers from eating them before they have the chance to grow large, while the trees supply most of the ant's food in the form of sap and sacrificial buds in addition to a place to live.
* SympatheticPOV:
** We are first introduced to the gravediggers by hearing about how they hunted the sapient antlears before eventually being driven out, and there's even a picture of one standing over a trap with a dead, skewered antlear inside it which might cause our sympathies to lie with the antlears. Later on however, [[spoiler: we get to learn more about how they operate and that they even have an artistic side that has allowed them to develop a kind of culture despite being solitary by nature, complete with a picture of a mother gravedigger showing her young chick how to draw. Later still we also see that the antlear's descendants, the woodcrafters [[HeWhoFightsMonsters have developed a bit of a cruel streak that they express by indiscriminately killing any predator that they can find, including the gravediggers that don't even hunt them anymore]].]]
** The warmongers are first introduced as fascist genociders, and from the view of the gravediggers and other daydreamers are perceived as AlwaysChaoticEvil, but are later shown to not be inherently evil, but are instead merely the product of their environment and shielded from most outside influences.
** Even the warmonger matriarch is given this when she is blinded and exiled: despite the misery she caused, despite the deaths borne by her own doing, we get a brief look into her mind, and see all her regrets, all her past mistakes she cannot undo, and ultimately, how in the end, her goal was only to ensure that her people survive -- despite her questionable means of doing so.
* TailfinWalking: A variant of this. The mudwickets use their tail and pectoral fins as three walking legs to move on land. Their descendants the tribbets turn the tail into a proper leg with the foot derived from the tailfin, and by the time of the tribbetheres their hind leg is virtually identical to a mammal's as an erect limb with knee and ankle joints.
* TakeThatCritics: After many users [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks complained]] about [[https://i.imgur.com/Nofvion.jpg the header image of the site being redesigned]], Bajda responded by replacing the second version with [[https://i.imgur.com/v9uPW9u.png a more crude and cartoony drawing]]. He then replaced ''that'' version with an [[https://i.imgur.com/FBsCETq.png even lower-quality stick drawing]] after Reddit users noticed the joke.
* TerrestrialSeaLife:
** The tribbets are land-dwelling fish descended from the amphibious mudwickets, with many of the more primitive forms filling the niches of lizards and frogs, while the furry, warm-blooded tribbetheres become analogues of mammals.
** There are also many species of terrestrial crabs, many of which fill the niches of spiders.
** The colossal quadclaw is a giant terrestrial hermit crab that no longer needs to even go to water to breed like most terrestrial crabs do, instead hatching as juvenile crabs from eggs hidden under their mother's abdomen.
** Inverted with sea bamboo and planktants, which are formally terrestrial lifeforms adapted to the sea.
* TimeAbyss:
** Daydreamer civilization goes back more than three million years, with accurate historical accounts going back to more than 500,000 years ago. For comparison, ''hom*o sapiens'' has only existed as a species for about 200,000-300,000 years. TheAlliance of the daydreamers, thalassic gravediggers, and greenskeepers then exists for a further five million years, allowing them to radically alter the ocean ecosystem and the biology of the animals that live within it despite being stuck in MedievalStasis.
** Some hiddenwood clonal colonies are millions of years old.
* TookALevelInJerkass: The non-sapient aukvultures 10,000 years post-coal seam fire have fallen prey to their more aggressive instincts in the absence of the sea stewards, fighting amongst one another and even being willing to kill young aukvultures if they won't get out of their way, something the sapient reapers find horrifying due to how much they value the few children they're able to have. By the Hothouse Age, they've evolved into the apex predator drakevultures that actively hunt their prey.
* TookALevelInKindness:
** Compared to their southern gravedigger ancestors, due to aggressive territoriality not being a useful survival trait in their arctic environment, while still relatively asocial icefishers prefer avoiding conflict rather than partaking in it. They also no longer regularly commit infanticide.
** After the Great Thaw, the sea ravens become much less aggressive due to the more hospitable conditions and abundance of shore carrion for them to feed on.
** 10,000 years after the coal seam fire, the nimicorns have started tolerating the presence of island wumpos as sentries, even protecting them and smaller trunkos like the snoots when under attack by allowing them inside their herd huddles with their young, and have a more symbiotic rather than destructive relationship with the environment. As Eve and Fellstar travel across Serinarcta, both observe nimicorns and island wumpos just placidly hanging around one another without the former trying to eat or otherwise attack the latter. They've become less aggressive and territorial five million years into the Hothouse Age, with the female social thorngrazers even being able to form social bonds, but they can still be somewhat callous in the way they treat their sick and injured.
** The pickbirds, descendants of the blue-tailed chatteraven, are far less aggressive than their ancestors, being willing to act as cleaners and friends for other species instead of just manipulating them into doing their bidding, and lack the bluetail's vicious, dominance-based hierarchy, instead living in democratic societies that solve disputes with social grooming, food bribes, and non-reproductive sex.
** The savage gravedigggers were highly territorial and lacked any real empathy but their kittyhawk descendants are more tolerant of each other and can form attachments to their family members even when they reach adulthood.
* ToothyBird:
** Aardgeese and their descendants the vivas develop teeth on their tongue and upper jaw, allowing them to grind tougher plant material.
** While they don't have teeth, the mittens might be considered a {{downplayed|Trope}} example. They can chew their food by grinding it in their beaks thanks to their tentacles granting them greater facial-muscle kinesis.
* TranslationConvention: As reapers lack a throat structure that would allow them to use a spoken language, limiting their vocal language to mostly horse honking sounds, it's safe to assume Eve's story is being interpreted from her dancing and other movements.
* TranslatorBuddy: Since the gravediggers can't hear the low-frequency infrasound the woolly wumpos use to communicate, and only one third of the sea stewards are capable of writing, Brighteye serves as a translator due to his ability to copy the gravedigger tongue.
* TrapMaster: The gravediggers hunt by making various kinds of traps for their prey, and they are very good at it thanks to their tendency to closely observe the behavior of the creatures they hunt so they can learn to take advantage of it. It's also something that they are taught at a young age since Bridge already knew how to make snares and pit-traps for small animals at only four months of age, which is his species equivalent to a human eight-year-old.
* TraumaCongaLine: At the end of his life, Brighteye loses his best friend Blaze from old age and only finds out after she's already been buried, meets Whitecrown again only to lose him when he and his flock are vaporized by the flames caused by the coal seam fire they started, loses his wumpo family when they're overtaken by the same flames setting most of Serinarcta ablaze, and in his very last moments learns that he's been a pawn of Serina's watcher the whole time.
* TRexpy: On a number of occasions, some of the descendants of the canaries become adapted for life as large, flightless predators of megafauna. In the earlier periods of Serina's history, where the original avian form is still relatively unmodified, this results in forms reminiscent of the tyrannosaurs.
** The tyrant serins are enormous flightless apex predators with powerful bone-crushing beaks, wings reduced to vestigial appendages, and tail-like extensions of their pygostyles to balance their immense heads. They are mostly adapted for preying on the similarly flightless, elephant-sized serestriders, which they kill with guillotine-like bites to the neck.
** Coronas arise around forty million years later, and belong to a group that evolved a number of mammal-like traits such as fur-like feathers, liplike fleshy coverings over their beaks, and teeth. They're also huge, flightless bipeds -- one ton in weight and ten feet tall -- with tail-like hindquarters like the earlier tyrant serins. Unlike the serins, their arms are large and muscular, and end in a single strong, hooked claw each.
** Sea rexes are an unusual case, as they're four-flippered, orca-like descendants of scaled seagoing birds adapted to prey on marine megafauna. The resulting creature resembles a heavily-built, shell-less sea turtle, with an avian head whose beak is filled with serrated keratinous teeth and built to crush the skulls and spines of other large marine animals. Sea rexes can grow to be sixty tons in weight and reach two centuries of life, and while their juveniles are vulnerable the adults are functionally impossible for other creatures to harm. Ultimately, however, they died out as a result of collapsing marine food chains killing off the large marine birds they eat, combined with a desperate effort by the sapient daydreamers to kill off their young in an effort to stave off their own extinction.
* TrueBreedingHybrid:
** The woolly wumpos of the Late Ocean Age arose through hybrid speciation of two closely related species that existed at the onset of the ice age, the desert wump and the mammoth trunko, as they were forced together by shrinking habitats. By joining in this manner, the two species' descendants ended up being better-suited for the new environment than either ancestor by itself, as they possessed both the wumps' physical adaptations for life in harsh, cold environments with scarce food and the trunkos' social habits and preference for living in multi-generational herds led by the most experienced members.
** The island wumpos are cousins of the woolly wumpo that are also the result of hybridization between the desert wump and mammoth trunko, born when as few as 10 early wump/trunko hybrids swam the 25 mile distance to two small isolated islands off the coast of Serinarcta's western refugial peninsula in a desperate search for food during a cold spell, splitting with the woolly wumpos roughly 500,000 years prior. Unlike their cousins, they are only near-sophonts due to having higher wump than trunko admixture, are much smaller by being on average only man-sized, and exhibit island tameness due to not evolving alongside any predators. Due to their lack of cold adaptations, they prefer to stay near the coast.
** Five million years later, most of the wumpo species are still genetically close enough to produce fertile hybrid offspring and interbreeding is very common, leading to what is described as a "veritable taxonomic nightmare" in regards to the genus. One of the major exceptions to this is the swamp wumpo, which won't mate with other wumpos that lack their large red dewlap, but sometimes inexperienced males will reproduce with females of other species, leaving the species as a whole genetically pure but having their genes be transferred to outsiders.
* TrueCompanions: Packs of [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/death-from-above-the-skystrike skystrikes]] are made up of unrelated individuals who come together as adolescents, rather than family members as in wolves or harems as in lions, described as "a group of compatible friends."
* TurtlePower: The mucks are a family of ectothermic avians that resemble shell-less, bipedal turtles with a single large claw on their front limbs. Their evolutionary history is a little complex, however: they started out as slow-moving arboreal herbivores similar to tree sloths, but a group of them rafted to the Kyran islands and evolved into the Maritime Muck, which was more similar to the marine iguana. After the mass extinction at the end of the Thermocene they evolved into more distinctly turtle-like forms, including the sea-turtle-like burdles and giant-tortoise-like lumberbeests.
* UncannyValley:
** The sapient woodcrafter antlears greatly dislike their non-sapient bestial relatives due to their more animalistic appearance, in the same way some humans may find apes unnerving. They also find it unnerving that beings that look so much like them lack much in the way of rational thought.
** The nop is described as fitting into the luddy's uncanny valley due to how different they are despite having a shared ancestor.
** Woolly wumpos are implied to find carnackles and other obligate carnivore trunko species creepy just because they can can see the physical similarities despite their differences in diet.
** The savage gravediggers or wildwalkers, the descendants of the tundra gravedigger, are considered unnerving by the thalassic gravediggers due to their physical similarity but inability to speak and lack of sapience.
* UndergroundMonkey: The only real difference between the steppestalker and the shadowstalker it evolved from is that the former has lighter coloration.
* UnevenHybrid:
** As the tundra gravediggers were forced south by the growing ice age, they entered the territory of the southern gravediggers and for the most part forcibly displaced them, driving them extinct except for a smaller group that retreated onto marine ice shelves. Before this happened, some tundra gravediggers forcefully mated with southern gravediggers, creating hybrids that afterwards bred back with both surviving populations. Eventually, the resulting descendant species were both primarily descended from one ancestor group, with a small contribution from the other -- the savage gravediggers descend primarily from tundra gravediggers with a small southern contribution, while the icefishers descend chiefly from southern gravediggers and a few southern-tundra hybrids.
** The woolly wumpos are descended from hybridization between the closely-related desert wump and mammoth trunko species, but as the trunkos were more common they also contributed more of their genome -- about eighty percent of the final total. Further, natural selection favored the persistence of different traits from each parent species, so that the trunkos' genetic legacy mostly came in the form of their larger size, higher intelligence, and social behavior, while the wumps' mainly passed down physical traits for more efficient digestion and resource use, physical endurance, and a stronger sense of smell. Their closest cousins, the island wumpos, were also born from a mix between the wumps and trunkos, but the wumps contributed a higher amount of genes to their genome, and so between that and their island environment they're smaller and while intelligent are still near-sophonts at most.
** During the Hothouse Age, the various wumpo species are despite being physically distinct still genetically close enough to breed, to the point that the genus is rife with clines and species complexes that exist as complexes of different species similar to the mallard species complex on Earth. In the case of the swamp wumpo, they normally don't breed with other species who lack their large red dewlap, but immature males in areas where they coexist with other wumpos will in lieu of others of their species mate with females of other wumpo species. Swamp wumpos generally don't accept hybrids amongst themselves, so crosses end up contributing to the genepool of other species instead.
* UnfortunateNames: The neckbeard is a species of tentacle bird that broods its eggs in a fluffy throat pouch... named for stereotypical ungroomed nerds often associated with friendzones, whiteknighting, and incel culture.
* UnseenPenPal: The gravediggers communicate with one another using images that they draw into the trees and rocks that border their territories. This allows them to form relationships with each other without ever physically meeting. In fact, doing so is necessary as they are naturally solitary despite their sapience and if they were to ever meet outside of mating season then their territorial instincts would kick in and they'd get into a violent fight.
* UnwittingPawn: It's revealed to Brighteye in his last moments that he has served as a pawn of the watcher to keep the experiment going longer than it otherwise would've. Brighteye is understandably angry about this revelation because while he may have helped save the world, his actions damned him, his family, and a large portion of Serinarcta's terrestrial life to a fiery end.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: The gravediggers teach Brighteye how to make fire, he and the wumpos inadvertently teach the nonsapient but still intelligent Whitecrown how to make fire, and he ends up using it to become lord amongst the bluetails despite being an otherwise hated albino, but their indiscriminate burning heralds the end of the Late Ocean Age, and their entire world with it.
* VegetarianCarnivore:
** Averted with Bridge. The woodcrafter who adopted him knew that he wouldn't be able to subsist off the same tree-based diet as himself. At first, he fed him with fish he caught from nearby rivers, but it didn't take Bridge long to start hunting the small molodonts and smeerps infesting the village of his own volition.
** Played straight with the marine social gravediggers. When they started living on the ocean, they would sometimes eat small amounts of seaweed to supplement their diets. Their discovery of fire made it easier for them to digest when cooked, so they would start regularly consuming more and more until the seaweed made up around a quarter of their natural diet.
** A variation occurs with some of the daydreamers. They are physically designed to feed on larger prey animals like porplets and other dolfinches, but after some of them come to believe that feeding on these intelligent, closely related animals is immoral, they stop eating them all together and start eating things like fish and other smaller sea creatures exclusively. Much like how some humans give up meat like beef and chicken but will still eat fish for protein.
* VertebrateWithExtraLimbs:
** Inverted with the amphibian-analogue tribbets and their descendants, the tribtiles and tribbetheres. All of them have two forelegs and one hind leg derived from their mudskipper-like ancestor's tail, with the foot derived from the tailfin.
** Spiderfrogs are a true example, ironically descended from tribbets. Two fin-ray-derived digits on each hand have grown so large that they function as limbs and have their own digits, making these arboreal creatures hexapedal.
* VoiceChangeling: Bluetails can mimick the calls of other animals. Brighteye uses this to save Blaze from a dire bumblebear by imitating the cries of a distressed cub to draw it away. This also gives them the RequiredSecondaryPowers that allow them to easily memorize and learn new languages when bluetails with different dialects form new clans. In the case of Brighteye, [[spoiler:it allows him to learn some of the gravedigger language after spying on them for several months]].
* TheWatcher: In the late Ultimocene, a timeless, unseen observer that seeded life on Serina has been increasingly making its presence known to various sophonts and gets concerned that the sea steward's discovery of fossil fuels will end up unravelling its natural experiment.
* WhamLine:
** An InUniverse example occurs for the thalassic gravediggers when [[spoiler:the bluetail Brighteye reveals his sapience to them when he asks them how to make fire]].
** Part 1 of "The Visitor" ends with Eve revealing that Serina was visited by an alien being.
---> '''Eve''': ...when the visitor came down from the stars.
* WarArc: The Daydreamer Saga tells the story of how the daydreamers came to be and their wars against one another, most prominently the war between the warmongers of the open sea and the fishers and pastoralists of the coastal areas assisted by the social gravediggers, which ends with the daydreamers and gravediggers all becoming one diverse but united civilization.
* WeakButSkilled:
** Sparrowgulls as a group make up for their lack of size or exotic features with their high intelligence, allowing them to succeed in harsh environments with such skills as weapon-crafting and cooperative pack hunting.
** The social gravediggers are small and poor swimmers compared to the warmongers, but their skill at making weapons and knowledge of poisons allows the fishers and pastoralists to turn the war completely against them.
* WeakToFire:
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-sea-shoggoth The sea shoggoths]] can be warded off by fire thanks to an ancestral fear of it due to evolving from terrestrial ancestors that had to evade brush fires.
** The thorngrazers have a strong hatred of fire, and it's the only thing that keeps them from overrunning the gravedigger fortresses. It ends up meaning the end for the razorbacks in particular during the Mid-Ultimocene coal seam fire, as they're 1) too slow to outrun the flames and 2) have huddling down as their instinctual response to fear, allowing the fire to consume them.
* WeHardlyKnewYe:
** The merwals, aquatic canitheres resembling dolphins that descended from the seal-like mertribs, tragically are a short-lived clade, as they were less efficient at hunting fish than the porporants and turned to feeding on shellfish to avoid competition... but then came the aquatic molodonts, and unable to [[CripplingOverspecialization adapt to a different diet]], the merwals quickly declined after just having recently evolved.
** The reapers, sapient aukvultures, last only around 500 years before dying out due to inbreeding depression.
* WeHaveReserves: Porplets survive against predators by sacrificing other members of their group to them, in particular the seastrikers. Such is their self-preservation instinct that they only rarely defend other members of the group from predators, as having a certain percentage of the young, sick, and old die is considered safer than risking the whole group. They can afford this strategy because they're also capable of reproducing very quickly.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: The giant mole crickets of the early Tempuscene start out as having a symbiotic relationship with the burrowing molebirds: the cricket digs the burrows and tolerates the birds moving in, as they serve as its alarm against predators. However, as both further specialize, the birds become more independent of the cricket and capable of digging on their own, while the cricket evolved to burrow even deeper and avoid predators entirely. Not needing each other's partnership anymore, the mole crickets soon evolve to be predatory and start hunting their former avian partners.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman:
** Or rather, What Measure Is a Non-Woodcrafter? The woodcrafters, a species of sapient antlear, view other, non-sapient species of antlear with great disdain, finding it [[UncannyValley very uncomfortable]] to see creatures so alike to themselves yet devoid of rational thought. They also view their former predators, the gravediggers, with disdain and culled them from their forest refugia millennia ago, only to [[spoiler:change their views once they find out their old enemy's sapience and gravediggers end up being raised amongst them, though some woodcrafters attempted to keep the gravedigger's sapience secret at first out of a fear of losing the glory gained from predator hunting]].
** The seagoing gravediggers would avert this. Due to the woodcrafters becoming almost godlike figures in their religions despite looking nothing like them, the avians developed a culture of valuing all life and not viewing themselves as inherently superior to the animals they live with.
** When Blaze the woolly wumpo asks her daughter Thistle what the difference is between the bluetails hunting and them eating "mice"[[note]]their term for small, seedeating molodonts akin to rodents[[/note]] in order to survive when the latter objects to having Brighteye and Whitecrown around due to being "biters", the latter responds that they don't have souls like the wumpos do.
* WhiteAndRedAndEerieAllOver: [[spoiler: [[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/7TfY11-bz-S3wXtAazL2tJQO_NDdxh_60qRYvrH7Q8FWGGwQqbmatGZgUDuGhwt3mTiE1lITrz7fImsgGBnAl2-3TaHoJvmmzYdTbKUWPsyunfP3NGJPkjSAEoZEsxk93w=w1280 Whitecrown causing devastation with fire]] is portrayed as white rimmed with a demonic red.]]
* AWolfInSheepsClothing:
** The early carnivorous circuagodonts of the Pangaeacene would sometimes use their resemblance to their herbivorous cousins to their advantage by pretending to be herbivores themselves which would cause the plant-eaters to lower their guard and allow their clanmates to flank and ambush the herd and score multiple kills. However, this was only something that would work for a short time as after the first deception the herbivorous circuagodonts would become wise to this trick. There's also the fact that, as the carnivores become better adapted to a predatory lifestyle, their appearance will diverge further from the herbivores.
** Early gravediggers often traveled alongside their intended prey for long periods of time, letting them become used to them; because they didn't act aggressively towards them, the animals they stalked simply never associated the slow, small, plodding creatures with danger and barely even acknowledged their presence. This allowed the gravediggers to memorize their habitual routes, and thus to dig their traps in locations where they knew they would pass over soon.
* TheWormThatWalks: Or rather, swims. The seas of the Ultimocene are home to the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-sea-shoggoth sea shoggoth]], colonies of billion-stinger [[AntAssault ants]] that live entirely independent from the land in floating nests made entirely out of their own bodies. Certain [[HiveCasteSystem castes]] link themselves into paddles to propel and steer, masses of ants contracting like muscles. Food is caught via long, [[CombatTentacles tentacle-like]] chains of ants extended from the main body, then cut up and distributed by another caste to individuals throughout. A colony acts much like an individual animal, even "mating" with other colonies by exchanging drones. By the time of the Late Ocean Age, they've entered an arrangement with the sea stewards in which they eat their refuse, such as the leftovers of bloat carcasses and the bodies of their dead, and in return the ants leave everyone else alone. However, it's noted that everyone involved is aware that this is a business arrangement, ''not'' friendship, and if their food payments aren't timely, everything else is back on the menu. Following the end of the sea steward civilization, the shoggoths start doing exactly that, hunting down the floating bloats.
* ThroughHisStomach: Male hookjaw carnackles charm mates by being good at catching fish and snarks for them to eat.
* WouldHurtAChild:
** The seastrikers will deliberately kill the young of the porplet herds they attack so the adults will make more. It's even mentioned that they have a tendency to pass the calves around one another [[EatenAlive while they're still alive and writhing]].
** The warmonger daydreamers are introduced by one killing a baby fisher daydreamer, and both they and their pelagan cousins will cull their own children if born when there isn't any space for them.
** The pelagans decide to protect themselves from extinction by killing off the young of the sea rex, their only rival in the open ocean, before they can grow big enough to threaten them. As a result, between the loss of their prey to the changing environment and their babies to the jaws of the daydreamers, they eventually go extinct.
* WouldntHurtAChild:
** Babbling jays have a taboo against killing the chicks and fledglings of any altricial bird, intelligent or not. This however doesn't extend to the adult non-sapient birds they prey upon (somewhat like humans who recoil at the killing of veal calves but have no problem eating meat from adult cows).
** The adult gravediggers become instinctively hostile towards any other adults of their species who trespass in their territories outside of breeding season, but they will tolerate the orange-coated adolescents who pass through as long as they don't stick around for too long.
** The shallow-water daydreamers and the gravediggers have a naturally strong instinct to protect and nurture their offspring, as such, when warmonger children wander innocently into their territories to look for food, they do not harm them despite the initial animosity they had for their parents. The adult warmongers use this to their advantage by having their kids beg for food to feed their families.
* XenophobicHerbivore: [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-antlear-people The woodcrafters]] have a culture where casting off oppression is a large facet of their philosophy, including the oppression of their original place on the food chain, causing them to systemically kill or drive off their predators, first out of survival but later out of a sense of cruel arrogance. They also drive away any browsing herbivores that might damage the trees they rely on for food and shelter, with the main exception being the mammoth trunko, which they view with spiritual reverence. This ends up being deconstructed as their elimination of all predators, even those who didn't hunt woodcrafters, leads to a mass population boom for the pests of the woodcrafters' trees, and starvation for the woodcrafters as a result.
* YouKillItYouBuyIt: The daydreamers manage to eliminate their old foes, the predator burdles, but this means that they have to take over their role in balancing the ecosystem.
* YouNoTakeCandle: While Brighteye speaks in complex sentences, his nonsapient bluetail brethren speak in a far more simplistic way.
* ZergRush:
** Lacking higher cooperative intelligence, this is how packs of dogbeast tribbetheres take down their prey, subjecting it to a DeathOfAThousandCuts.
** Ants take their Earth ancestors' abilities to do this UpToEleven, especially the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast billion-stingers]] and their descendants the [[TheWormThatWalks sea shoggoths]].
** Viridescent sawjaws are only two feet tall at most, but attack in packs of up to 100+ animals to take down prey ten times their size or more.

* ISurrenderSuckers: Brighteye gets the better of Tyr-reet, a rival bluetail trying to kill Whitecrown, by pretending to submit before taking the opportunity to stab them [[EyeScream through the eye]] with a knife and fleeing with his brother while Tyr-reet's brothers are stuck watching in horror as he does his death throes.
* InbredAndEvil:
** The warmongers, an extremist subset of the whaler daydreamers, purposely inbred themselves over thousands of years to give themselves [[DarkIsEvil darker coatings]] and eliminate their yellow pigmentation, and wish to genocide all other daydreamers.
** The is completely inverted by the reapers, a sapient offshoot of the aukvultures with a culture that values empathy and understanding. They are also highly inbred due to their entire species being only a few hundred years old and descended from two siblings and compounded by their refusal to mate with their non-sapient relatives. Their low genetic diversity results in most of their babies dying in the pupal sack and makes them cherish the ones that do survive even more.
* IncompatibleOrientation: The hom*osexual Bachelor morph of the Polymorph bird is attracted to male plumage and so will sometimes attempt unsuccessfully to court Keepers (alpha males that mate with a harem of females) due to the Keepers being naturally aggressive towards other males.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation:
** The first daydreamers arose from seastrikers who by a genetic fluke were every so often born with the capacity for sapience and the ability to see past their immediate survival, but for most of their existence the so-called "seers", while not shunned by the non-sapient seastriker population, lived mostly lonely lives due to their intelligence making them unable to fully relate to their brethren or vice versa. Since sapience was a recessive trait for most of their history, seastrikers only rarely birthed new seers, with only one appearing every few centuries for hundreds of millennia on average.
** Brighteye, a bluetail (one of the descendants of the chatterer sparrowgulls), is sapient while every other bluetail, including his albino brother, is near-sapient at best. As a result, he's a pariah amongst his fellow bluetails, especially after he and his brother are forced to leave their home after a rival bluetail group murders their parents and he kills one of their leaders in return to save his brother before fleeing to avoid reprisal. Even beforehand, he refused to take a mate because the intelligence gap meant in his eyes that he'd be mating with a child. The narration detailing the bluetailed chatteravens makes a point of describing him as both the first ''and'' last bluetail person.
** This is explicitly averted with the woolly wumpo. Most are highly uncreative despite their intelligence, but some are born with a much higher level of innovation. Unlike the seers or Brighteye these individuals don't feel isolated from their kin thanks to the high emotional maturity the species possess. In fact, they are celebrated by their kind due to their creativity often greatly benefiting them as a collective.
* InterspeciesAdoption:
** In rare cases, a carnivorous circuagodont will misfire its parenting instincts onto a herbivorous circuagodont species and adopt what normally would be its prey. This usually doesn't end well for the youngster, as it ends up imprinting and associating with the carnivorous species, and thus loses its natural fear of its main predator, which has disastrous consequences when it approaches other packs of carnivorous circuagodonts that don't recognize its scent and simply see it as prey and devour it.
** Sometimes trunkos will adopt snow snoots that have been separated from their herds as detailed in "Little Moments". It usually turns out better than the above example due to both species having similar behaviors.
** As shown in [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/stronger-together Stronger Together]], [[spoiler: a young gravedigger is adopted by the regretful woodcrafters after they killed his mother. At first many of them feared him but he eventually becomes a beloved member of the village and is given the name Bridge for being a link between their two people. They taught him their language and made him more social while he kept the number of smerps down and introduced the concept of drawing to them. He briefly left when he reached adulthood due to his instincts but eventually came back and he drew in more curious young gravediggers which led to the two species to become more integrated with even the art Bridge taught the woodcrafters becoming the foundation for their first written language]]. It also shows a rarely considered consequence of such an event. [[spoiler: Due to being raised by antlears at such a young age Bridge imprints on them, but not other gravediggers, and doesn't have any interest in breeding with them as a result. He never has offspring of his own. However, he does become the adoptive father of Lucky, and thanks to her being raised by another gravedigger, she does have children to which Bridge becomes their HonoraryUncle]].
* InterspeciesFriendship:
** The tundra gravedigger has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the jackal carnackle, the carnackles will distract large prey animals that they wouldn't be able to take down themselves and drive them towards the gravedigger's traps while the gravedigger digs out molodonts that the carnackles wouldn't be able to reach but are able to catch them once above ground while the gravedigger is too slow and they all share in the meals. They are also said to enjoy each other's company and while even play and do tricks for one another.
** The fisher daydreamers form friendships with the luddy porplets and other intelligent dolfinches, although they do tend to take a [[CondescendingCompassion paternalistic role in these relationships]].
** Brighteye and Whitecrown, bluetail chatterravens, begin accompanying Blaze, a woolly wumpo several hundred times their size with Brighteye in particular developing a strong relationship with her.
** Viridvescent sawjaws will hang around wumpo and snoot trunkos of various species, as the sawjaws are so specialized for thorngrazer hunting that they don't recognize any other animal as food. As a result, both groups work together to combine their abilities in order to defend themselves from their mutual predators.
** Pickbirds will befriend just about any species as long as they perceive them as being capable of reciprocating social interactions. While the relatively basal moonbreasted pickbird isn't picky on which species they befriend, there are numerous specialized species that only befriend certain groups. The exception to this rule are thorngrazers because they're too unintelligent to be able to form social bonds with a different species, and so while pickbirds will hang around them, they're just as likely to let their predators eat them. This is a stark contrast to their bluetail ancestors, who while willing to assist predators for portions of their kills, had a strictly buisiness-based relationship with them based on mutual interest alone.
* InterspeciesRomance: The last of the fork-tailed babbling jays take on mates from other species in a lonely search for company. However, while the babbling jays are intelligent, their impromptu mates are non-sapient.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A nonhuman example. After the exile of the warmonger matriarch, the surviving warmongers begin to interact more with the fishers and the pastoralists who would also communicate more often with each other thanks to the gravediggers. Over time, the relationships between the different daydreamer cultures shrink until none remain. Five million years later, the only group of daydreamer is the novan daydreamers, who have traits of all three cultures, which is most noticeable with their coloring and beak shape.
* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity:
** When the Kyran Islands connected to the mainland, the carnivorous tribbetheres living there were able to cross over and follow the Kyran snuffles into their burrows and eventually hunt them into extinction.
** A variation occurs in the woodcrafter villages. The smerps and molodonts there are native to the region, but after the woodcrafters removed the small predators keeping them in check, they exploded in number and began to do severe damage to the antlears' trees and crops, making them functionally similar to an outbreak of an invasive species.
* InvadingRefugees: The warmongers were driven to the shallows after a failed attempt to conquer and destroy the pelagans resulted in the latter driving them out of both the open oceans and their original southern territories. They see the shallows as a chance to both heal their wounded pride and build up their numbers by devouring the smaller, less organized daydreamers living there.
* IronicName: Eve in the Bible is the first woman, whereas Eve the reaper is the last of the reapers.
* {{Irony}}:
** In a world with little violence in the Hypostecene, the wombler dies out... because of intraspecies violence. Never having learned how to flee from conflict, the womblers fought each other to the death, and recklessly faced the first few predators that did evolve.
** The page of the ninth-year canary talks about how it's the {{last|OfTheirKind}} of the changeling birds and how it will likely go extinct, but when a mass-extinction rivaling the Great Dying occurs at the end of the Thermocene, it ends up being among the relatively few creatures that survive and its descendants become one of the dominant groups of the Ultimocene.
** The efts are a group of aquatic metamorph birds that remain in their gilled larval stage their whole lives and come to be identical to fish, while the tribbets are fish that evolve to become land animals, with a flying group, the tribbats, eventually becoming colorful bird-like forms.
** It's stated that the merwals and aquatic molodonts are a bit of an irony, given that they're technically still fish, but ones that had specialized to live on land... and then returned to the water yet again.
** The circuagodogs rose to prominence by being smarter than their predator competition, and go extinct because they themselves are outcompeted by smarter predator competitors like the sawjaws.
** The seaborne thalassic gravediggers and the terrestrial woolly wumpos both fear one another and refer to each other's domains as the realm of demons.
* ItsAllAboutMe: What little we see of thorngrazer thoughts paints them as very selfish and callous towards anything not themselves, including other thorngrazers. For instance, their herding together is only because it lessens the chance of any individual thorngrazer alone getting eaten, and they don't form any social bonds past mothers and their children, and even then if they're injured the mother will leave them without remorse.
* ItCanThink:
** The vibropteran tribbats are surprisingly intelligent, figuring out tool use and problem-solving tactics. They are known to gnaw through flowers to access nectar instead of specializing in only one type of flower that matches its mouth, allowing it to feed on a wider range of food sources.
** Snarks are also said to be very intelligent, especially considering they're descended from snails.
** Gigadons are extremely intelligent for fish, with high domed skulls to accommodate large brains. While not fully social, they organize into packs to bring down large prey and communicate by flashing their brilliant patterns.
** While nonsapient, the savage gravediggers are still smart enough to probe for weaknesses in the fortresses of their thalassic gravedigger kin.
** The hookjaw carnackle uses traps and bait for hunting fish and other aquatic prey, specifically designing them to be easy to enter but difficult to leave. Since they learn how to make traps from their fathers rather than through instinct, this means that different cultural groups use different kinds of traps depending on their local animals and environments.
* IveComeTooFar: The warmonger matriarch continues her genocidal actions despite her own internal doubts because it would mean the end of everything she's worked for.
* TheJuggernaut: Once fully grown, a sea rex is virtually invincible, its armor allowing it to shrug off even the bites of pelagic daydreamers while crushing their skulls in a single bite. It's for this reason that the pelagans target the young burdles instead of the adults when they decide to eliminate them, as they're only daydreamer-sized when they start to leave the inaccessible to daydreamer shallows, and as such are helpless against them in a pack.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: The drakevulture has a tendency to snatch thorngrazer calves and sealump chicks right from the center of their herds as their protective circles are useless against an airborne predator.
* KillerRabbit:
** The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast aptly named]] butcherraptor is the size of a chicken yet they're capable of bringing down the bison sized snuffalo through the use of numbers and ruthless tactics.
** The spitfire sniffler looks cute but carries the potent batrachotoxin created by the fireslime lumpus in its quills, which makes it not only painful to the touch, but deadly to any predator that attacks it. As a result, they've been known to boldly walk up to predators and take bites out of their kills with impunity due to their confidence in their poisonous defense.
** The scorplear of the Late Ocean Age (Coincidentally also happening to look like a rabbit) is about the size of a small dog but can use its jaws and hindlimb claws to horrifically maim anything that threatens it. It's not unusual to see predators with a missing or severely damaged eye from when a scorplear [[EyeScream drove their claws through its socket]].
* KillItWithFire: The end of the Late Ocean Age is heralded by Whitecrown's flock managing to spark a massive coal fire that burns throughout Serinarcta, killing the flock and basically everything else unable to escape the flames. Among the notable casualities are the woolly wumpos and the razorback thorngrazers.
* KillItWithIce: The inevitable fate of Serina by the end of the Ultimocene, losing heat and volcanic activity which will throw the world into a permanent ice age. A few adaptive lineages will continue to soldier on for a few million years, but ultimately all life on Serina becomes extinct.
* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The warmongers believe that they are only descendants of their god, so, when they learn of the gravediggers whose very existence threatens this notion, their leaders decide to wipe them out to preserve this belief among their kind. Sure enough, after soldiers sent to battle the daydreamer-gravedigger coalition return and tell of what they have seen, this causes some of them to start questioning their beliefs.
* KnowWhenToFoldThem: When a glacier raven meets a glacial foxtrotter for the first time while the latter is attempting to steal the former's carcass, the glacier raven decides to let them have it despite the fact that it's bigger and stronger because it 1) has no knowledge of the unknown animal's capabilities and 2) there's still plenty of young to go around, so there's no reason to get into a potentially lethal fight over it.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** As a result of the loss of their higher intellect and of all social habits, the savage gravediggers have almost no capacity for empathy. Females will raise their own offspring for up to two years, but in all other cases their response to meeting another living thing is violence -- even mating is a vicious and violent affair, and they're quite happy to cannibalize each other if the opportunity presents itself.
** The thorngrazers are intensely selfish as a species, having no issue leaving the weak to be picked off by predators without remorse.
** Zigzagged with the bluetailed chatteravens, who ''are'' capable of feeling empathy, but only for those they consider part of their immediate family group. Anything or anyone else they'll treat brutally if they anger them in any way.
* LandSeaSky: The centerpiece of daydreamer religion is their creator deity splitting themselves into aquatic, terrestrial, and airborne essences. The daydreamers believe they are the aquatic, the gravediggers represent the land, and are still waiting for the sky.
* LanguageBarrier:
** The first attempts by the fisher daydreamers to communicate with the gravediggers were unsuccessful due to them not being able to understand each other's languages, with the gravedigger language being slow and guttural, and the daydreamer's language being so rapid and high-pitched that the gravediggers couldn't even recognize it as a language. Some fishers dedicated years of their lives to studying the Gravedigger language but it wasn't these individuals who made the first successful contact with them, but teenagers who had been listening to the gravediggers from a young age when it was still easier for them to learn new languages.
** The warmonger tongue is much slower and [[EvilSoundsDeep deeper]] than that of the other daydreamers, making them even harder to understand than gravediggers.
** Brighteye and Blaze have difficulty communicating at first as the chatteraven language is very different from the wumpo infrasonic language, leaving them physically incapable of understanding one another and having to make do with touching and simple gestures. They eventually get around this when they discover that they can both understand drawings and use pictures to communicate with each other, eventually streamlining the process until they create a hieroglyphic-like written language.
** The wumpos can't communicate with the gravediggers because the latter simply cannot hear the former's infrasonic language, until Brighteye talks to them and some of the gravediggers manage to learn his and Blaze's glyph-based language over the years.
* LastOfHisKind: This turns up several times in the setting, as the dwindling and extinction of species and lineages is a recurring theme, particularly in the swan song of Serina's habitable stage that is the Ultimocene:
** One of the entries detailing the beginning of the closing stages of the Ultimocene describes [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-stormsonor the last stormsonor]], the last living specimen of a species of immense birds that slowly went extinct as the growing ice age covered their feeding grounds in ice and caused their egg-like pupal sacs to freeze to death before they could hatch. The last one was born in a freak warm year, from a clutch deposited by an ancient hen who died after laying and was the only one to hatch successfully. She never met another member of her kind, and instead imprinted on a flock of a much smaller related species with which she spent the rest of her long life.
** One entry aptly titled [[spoiler:[[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-woodcrafter-dawn-of-a-new-era The Last Woodcrafter]] goes over the extinction of the woodcrafter people. When the moon becomes too cold for the trees the woodcrafters depended on to survive, they become malnourished and are unable to reproduce as a result. The socialized gravediggers they lived with are eventually forced to migrate to the coast to stay alive while some woodcrafters chose to stay and die in their old forest home while others chose to leave with the gravediggers, these ones discover that they can feed on the coastal seaweed and return to health but there were far too few of them at that point and they were all past their reproductive age so they decide to spend their last days helping and guiding the gravediggers. The last woodcrafter is an elderly female named [[MeaningfulName Ember]] who peacefully passes on surrounded by the gravediggers her kind came to view as their children]].
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/rivals Rivals]] ends with a description of the last living sea rex, a massive marine predator, after his species was gradually whittled down by the collapse of the open-ocean food chains and a bitter conflict with the pelagan daydreamers over what little prey remained in the shrinking ice age seas. Ultimately, the last great leviathan is left to wander the oceans for nearly a century after the death of the last female specimen and for forty years after the death of the second-last male, his mind just complex enough to be puzzled at why his mating calls are never answered, but not enough to understand his species' fate.
** The pelagic daydreamers are gradually done in when the shrinking oceans kill off all the animals that could sustain them. The last members of their species were too old to reproduce and believed themselves to be the very last of the daydreamers until the mixed gravedigger-daydreamer civilization from the shallows find them, allowing their people to symbolically live on the stories and histories they tell them.
** The burrowing burdle is the last of the burdles during the Late Ocean Age into the early Late Ultimocene, as their aquatic relatives were killed off by the daydreamers.
** The scorplear is the last of the antlear lineage by the Late Ocean Age, with the ice age having killed off the trees their more specialist relatives needed to survive. It's survived by becoming omnivorous but is far less intelligent than the antlears that came before it.
** The scissortooth is the last of the circuagodogs in the Late Ocean Age, the others having been outcompeted by other, smarter predators such as the sawjaws who are better adapted to prey on the thorngrazers that have become Serina's most common terrestrial herbivore, and their prey either going extinct or becoming too smart to hunt. The solitary nature of most circuagodog species also serves to work against them. Eventually, the woolly wumpos, a sapient trunko species, get the idea to start systematically exterminating their predators, with the circuagodogs being too unintelligent to mount an effective enough defense, and the remainder either starve to death or meet their end at the clubs of the wumpos. [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/scissortooth-circuagodog Circuagodog Gone]] describes the last moments of the very last circuagodog, half-dead from starvation, as it calmly accepts its death at the hands -- well, trunk -- of a creature its kind once hunted.
** Blaze is the last of the widemind woolly wumpos when she's introduced, and when she dies no others are born because the species is among the first casualties of the coal seam fire soon afterwards, either burning to death or dying from smoke inhalation or toxic fumes.
** The Late Ultimocene has several families reduced to a single surviving species. The nimicorns are the only thorngrazers to survive into the era after their razorback cousins perish in the coal fire. Afterwards the savage gravediggers are the only remaining gravediggers after their thalassic cousins are transported away and the icefishers die when the sea ice they depended on melts. Finally, the duckbilled sealumps are the only members of the sealumps to survive since they were the only species that could still walk on land and escape the dying oceans, eventually settling on Serinaustra.
** The hiddenwood is the last species of ant tree left by the early Late Ultimocene after the ice age due to most of the plant growing underground. With the increased warmth and wetness of the Late Ultimocene and the extinction of the more destructive razorback thorngrazer, it has seen a major resurgence. It's also the last of the sunflower tree lineage, with its cactaiga cousin being among the victims of the increased temperatures.
** The rambleroot is the last survivor of a lineage of smaller understory trees descended from clovers in the early Late Ultimocene, having survived by mostly growing underground like the hiddenwood has. Following the warming caused by the coal seam fire and the disappearance of the cold winds that would blow smaller plants down, they start growing to knee height, flower and fruit, and spread to Serinaustra via bird droppings.
** "As Worlds Break Apart and Join Together" details the story of the last steppestalker, the direct descendant of the shadowstalker (differentiated only by its lighter coloration compared to its ancestor), and the largest of the tribbats on Serina 1,500 years post-coal seam fire. Having made it to a small island when the rampant global warming and subsequent glacier melting during the aftermath of the Serinarctan coal seam fire caused most of the Meridian Islands to sink beneath the waves, he manages to adapt to hunting fish in the shallows and serves as apex predator over the other species marooned there with him for over twenty-one years. However, eventually the refuge shrinks down to just some rocks as the remaining prey either rafts away or dies, until finally, weakened by drinking seawater as the waves batter him, one manages to knock him into the sea and he drowns.
** Eve is the last of the reapers, a subspecies of the aukvulture that managed to achieve sapience, but went extinct due to inbreeding.
** The pgymy pretenguin is the only pretenguin species to survive the Great Thaw, having moved to Serinarcta with the sinking of the Meridian Islands.
** The surf scooter survives the Great Thaw that extincts the other dolfinches by being a semi-aquatic species that can access the Serinarctan marshes where the larger species cannot go as the ocean food chain collapses.
* LeanAndMean: [[http://i.imgur.com/qlaakml.jpg Lanks]] are twenty-foot-tall apex predators with very long slender necks, beaks, and legs.
* {{Lightworlder}}: Serina has a much lower gravity than Earth, allowing for much bigger fliers such as the archangels. Even the insects become BigCreepyCrawlies due to the lesser gravity, with some cricket species growing to the size of rabbits.
* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Whitecrown is basically the final boss of the Late Ocean Age, an albino bluetail leading a huge flock burning everything indiscriminately.]]
* LegendFadesToMyth: The teachings of [[spoiler:the last woodcrafter]] over the next three million years turns into a myth shared amongst the numerous marine social gravedigger religions, the exact details being lost to time but being subject to numerous but not contradictory interpretations.
* LifeWillKillYou: Blaze eventually dies from old age, surrounded by her family, save for Brighteye who happened to be away and only comes back once she's already been buried.
* LogicalWeakness:
** The circuagodonts, being tripedal, have only a single hind leg, making it an obvious target for predators to easily cripple them.
** The canitheres are significantly less intelligent than the predator wheeljaws, having disorganized packs attacking with only ZergRush tactics and prone to infighting once the prey is downed. This proves to be a disadvantage against the smarter wheeljaws, who share food amicably and hunt with coordination, with the canitheres quickly being pushed aside to scavenger and small-game hunter niches.
* LongLived:
** Stormsonors, the largest of the archangels, can live up to 135 years.
** Daydreamers have a maximum lifespan between 130 and 140 years.
** Reapers have an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years.
* LongNeck: Watchtower wumpos have incredibly long necks which is highly noticeable on their bipedal frame. One thing of note is that they don't use these necks for browsing as trees are very rare on the soglands they inhabit, they actually use it to scan the horizon for predators so as to alert the thorngrazer herds they live with, it also makes them very vulnerable to lightning during storms which forces them to lie down when they occur.
* LoopholeAbuse: The woodcrafters have a major taboo regarding killing other herbivores, even if they happen to be pests to the trees they need to eat. Once enough socialized gravediggers are around, however, they have them take care of their pest problem to keep their own hands clean.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The sea rexes have a mating call so powerful that it vibrates the water around them and can injure or even kill smaller animals that get too close.
* MeaningfulName:
** Tribbets are tripodal and froglike. Their descendants include reptile-analogues called tribtiles and mammal-analogues called tribbetheres.
** Vivas are viviparous. Their descendants the ornitheres ("bird-beasts") are even more mammal-like.
** The mitten and its descendant the glove. Guess what the soft tissue on their faces looks like and is used for.
** Babbling jays have a true language, and their name brings the Tower of Babel to mind.
** Snarks (snail-sharks) are active marine predators descended from gastropods.
** The antlears have evolved their ears into limbs that resemble antlers.
** Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was given that name by his adoptive antlear family to serve as a bridge between both species.
** Ember, the last woodcrafter, passes on phrases of her language to the descendants of the babbling jays, which persist as the flame of sapience reignites in them.
** The thalassic gravediggers are adapted to near-completely seaborne existence and have even evolved the ability to drink saltwater.
** The daydreamers can dream even while awake by only using one hemisphere of their brain at a time.
** Greenskeepers help maintain the plant life of the Ultimocene ocean.
** Brighteye, the only bluetail capable of higher understanding, gave himself his purposely symbolic name.
** While at first it's an IronicName since she's just as afraid of fire as every other woolly wumpo, thanks to Brighteye Blaze takes to the use of fire very well.
* MeaningfulRename: Brighteye gave himself and his flockmates symbolic names instead of random sounds that hold no meaning, even if he is the only one capable of understanding them.
* MedievalStasis: The gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization is so productive and stable that it does not progress beyond a stone-age level of technology for over a million years while also having a written language and innate understanding of ecosystem dynamics. A lack of mineral resources and a lack of ecological or cultural pressure to innovate contributes to this.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Male nimicorns live on the margins of their social groups so they're disproportinately preyed upon, but this serves to protect the more reproductively important females and juveniles.
* MercyKill:
** The pastoralist daydreamers will kill their nops before eating them rather than just eating them alive like their seastriker ancestors would've, despite the fact that they barely feel pain.
** Blaze, a woolly wumpo, chooses to put the last scissortooth out of its misery quickly rather than just leave it to starve to death over hours due to developing empathy for "biters" through all her years hunting them, and despite the fact that it was her idea to systematically exterminate "biters" for the sake of the family in the first place.
** The reapers are culturally opposed to killing for survival; the main exception to this is killing the already dying to ease suffering.
* MetaphoricallyTrue: The daydreamer religion positing that daydreamers and gravediggers have an origin in common is actually sort of true, because dolfinches and bumblebadgers both descend from the bumblet.
* MightyGlacier:
** Razorback thorngrazers are strong and durable thanks to being covered in tooth-like armor, but very slow as they have very short legs and are incapable of running, simply hunkering down when threatened to protect their soft underbellies. This works against them when dealing with fire since they can easily be overtaken by the flames, leaving the nimicorns as the only surviving thorngrazer species following the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The monstrocorns, a clade of thorngrazers from the hothouse age, responded to the sudden rise in food and living space by growing to immense sizes. They became very slow, plodding and awkward beasts as a result, but make up for this with their immense strength, the ability to absorb otherwise crippling injuries with their huge bulks, and a powerful set of horns and tusks that can gore most potential predators with ease. Adult monstrocorns have no natural predators, being simply too powerful and well-defended for even the most aggressive hunters to tackle.
* MirroringFactions:
** The gravediggers and antlear people may be natural enemies, but they both have an artistic streak that they express using trees. It's this similarity that [[spoiler: causes some of the woodcrafters to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that they were murdering sapient beings]]]].
** The fishers and the pastoralists have the same fundamental creation story despite their cultural differences which led to some fishers becoming more introspective and questioning if their way of life is truly more moral than theirs.
** Despite the disdain fishers have for daydreamers who feed on dolfinches, their lifestyle is more similar to the whalers than it is to the farming pastoralists they share their terrioties with, as both of them hunt for their food which leaves them more downtime. The differences being what they chose to hunt. This comes to a head in the aftermath of the war with the warmongers, the warmonger children searching for food display the exact same curiosity as the fishers did towards the gravediggers and learn to speak their language, allowing them to cut a mutually beneficial deal with them.
* MixAndMatchCritters:
** Falconaries, the first hypercarnivorous birds to arise on Serina.
** The tundra-dwelling, herd-forming, pseudo-viviparous canaribou and its omnivorous relative the boarbird.
** ''Cervanser cervanser'', the "deer-goose" viva.
** Florgusts are descendants of crickets that greatly resemble butterflies through convergent evolution.
** The water snuffle is essentially an avian platypus.
** Archangels look and eat like swans with the quadrupedal posture and [[GiantFlyer size]] of ''Quetzalcoatlus''.
** The king trawler is a giant sea slug with traits of baleen whales and manta rays.
** Burdles and birdwhales strongly converge upon, well... sea turtles and baleen whales.
** Serestriders are moa-like birds big enough, and with long enough necks, to hold the niche of sauropods.
** The serezelles resemble a cross between an ostrich and a gazelle, and the boomsingers, giant serezelles that evolved to avoid competing with circuagodonts, are in essence beaked, tailless sauropods.
** The Lumberbeest is essential a mix between a large tortoise and a sauropod.
** The porporant family as a whole resemble seabirds formed into cetaceans and seals, and includes the dolfinch, croconary, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liopleurodon penguipleurodon]].
** Repandors resemble Tasmanian tigers crossed with cheetahs, but with jaws like a goblin shark.
** Moonbeasts resemble a cross between a bat and an owl. Its descendant the snowspirit lessens the bat aspect but adds a cat aspect while increasing the owl similarities.
** The night biter is essentially a mix of vampire bat and cookiecutter shark.
** Vibropterans can be described as "fish-hummingbird-bats."
** Aquatic molodonts in the Ultimocene fill a fair amount of marine mammal niches, such as the walrus-like Clamcracker and the manatee-like Rakewhale.
** The bloons look like beaked plesiosaurs but are herbivorous like manatees.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters The skuorc]] resembles a cross between an otter and a lizard with a bird's head.
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/life-of-the-meridian-islands-the-flagbearer-tribbat candescent flagbearer]] resembles a cross between a bat, a rabbit, and a bird of paradise.
** The great crested drakevulture has the size of an azhdarchid pterosaur but hunts from the air like a colossal eagle.
* MookHorrorShow: The second battle between the shallow water daydreamers and the warmongers starts off from the warmonger's perspective as it describes the armor of the daydreamers making them look like skeletons that had come back from the dead as they emerge from the shadows and then attacking them with weapons that they can't comprehend and have no way of countering.
* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily:
** The repandors are a group of canitheres with a mouthful of sharp fangs (as well as a set of slicing teeth in the back of their mouths) and jaws than extend outwards like that of a goblin shark. The bushbounders have a similar set of teeth but theirs don't extend outwards so that they have a stronger bite.
** The muckodiles' inner mouth and throat is full of tooth-like spines that make it harder for prey to escape their grasp, [[RealityIsUnrealistic much like real-world penguins]].
* MouthyBird: The Vivas are a group of live-bearing birds whose herbivorous members have developed fleshy lips and snouts over [[https://i.imgur.com/REiFDKn.png their]] [[https://i.imgur.com/cILOmh8.png beaks]]. Though entirely unrelated[[note]] tentacle birds descend from the water snuffle of the Kyran Islands, whose evolutionary separation from the vivas dates all the way back to the ancestral canary[[/note]], the tentacle birds are even more so.
* MulticulturalAlienPlanet: By the middle and late Ultimocene, a general trend towards increasing intelligence means that multiple sophont species arise, often sharing the moon with each other, and most also tend to fragment into various subspecies and cultures.
** Three sapient species evolve on the moon during the middle Ultimocene, two of which possess a number of distinct internal groups:
*** The social, herbivorous woodcrafters are natives of the southern coastal forests and build complex villages out of trees. Due to their small range, their culture is very hom*ogeneous.
*** The gravediggers are a solitary, carnivorous species who communicate with art carved on trees on territorial boundaries and hunt by making elaborate traps. Gravediggers are divided into two subspecies, the primary forest-dwelling one and the tundra gravedigger, which is even more solitary, aggressive, and nomadic than their southern cousins. One population of southern gravediggers is later taken in by the woodcrafters and grows more social as a result, becoming its own distinct species after the woodcrafters die out. Eventually, as Serina's glaciation grows more severe, the social gravediggers adopt a marine culture while the tundra and southern gravediggers are pushed into a small strip of habitable land and cease to exist as two distinct populations.
*** Daydreamers are sapient marine predators who have been living alongside the other two groups for about three million years, over time splitting into different cultures that are even reflected by their phenotypes: a small-beaked ecotype that hunts fish, and a large-beaked ecotype that preys on other dolfinches.
*** The large-beaked predators, the ancestral group, eventually split further into the pastoralists, who live in reclusive communities in shallow waters and herd dim-witted domesticated dolfinches, and the large, heavily built whalers, who live in the deep ocean and prey on larger animals. The whalers further diversify into many clades and cultures, but the dieoff of large deep-ocean wildlife caused by shrinking seas eventually causes most to die off and only leaves two, the widespread and highly collectivist pelagans and the heavily-built, xenophobic warmongers.
*** There are also bands of daydreamers comprised of mixed ecotypes who live on the periphery of the other groups' territories and raid them for food, as it's often difficult to find a suitable food source for a group containing so many disparate beak shapes.
** During the Late Ocean Age:
*** After a first-contact war between the shallow-water daydreamers and the warmongers, the shallow-water populations, warmongers, and eventually the last survivors of the collapsing pelagan society merge into a single population, which joins with the social gravediggers to form a single society. Over a period of five million years, they eventually evolve into new species, the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers, while the luddies gradually reach sapience, becoming a new species known as the greenskeepers, and join them into a single multi-species marine civilization known as the sea stewards. They have a deal with the sea shoggoths, who are implied to have achieved sapience or are on the very cusp of it, in which they don't hunt the sea stewards or anything else in return for regular deliveries of food waste and dead bodies, who would clog up the ocean otherwise as their populations grow.
*** Within the thalassic gravediggers, the inhabitants of the meadows are contrasted with the central islanders of the Meridians, who live the most terrestrial lifestyle of the three main groups, and the highly independent coastians that live near Serinarcta's shores but only go on land to collect peat and coal due to the hostility of the local wildlife, in particular their conflicts with the woolly wumpos.
*** Two other gravedigger societies exist during this time, descended from the continental gravediggers; the savage gravediggers, a FormerlySapientSpecies descended mainly from the tundra subspecies with some hybridization with the southern, and the icefishers, descended from southern gravediggers with some savage admixture displaced by the savage northern kind and adapted to life on the sea ice.
*** The descendants of the mammoth trunkos and desert wumps have also achieved sapience in the form of the woolly wumpos, although most remain fairly unimaginative, live in family groups, and even have a rudimentary religion based around the dusk and dawn.
*** There are also the bluetailed chatteravens, a near-sapient descendant of the babbling jays with a rudimentary language and culture who accidentally produce a single individual with full sapience.
** During the Hothouse Age, the still near-sophont descendants of the bluetails, the pickbirds, befriend such a wide group of animals that they can form cultural groups based on which animals they choose to befriend. This can turn pickbird groups antagonistic if their chosen animals have a predator-prey relationship, such as a pickbird group that befriends wumpos having issues with another that befriends their predators. Given only centuries at mininum, it's possible for pickbird groups to reproductively isolate and eventually speciate from one another based on which animals their ancestor most often befriended, and while the moonbreasted pickbird focused on is a generalist, there are numerous species that are more specialized in who they choose to befriendf.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are the hands of their creator thanks to their ability to make and use tools like nets, fishing lines and boats. Something the daydreamers themselves are incapable of. The warmongers even go so far as to attribute the deaths of their soldiers by gravedigger weapons as an act of divine retribution.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** After Retally managed to get nearly his entire herd killed due to his lack of mastery over fire, he was so ashamed that he decided to go north and was never heard from again, effectively committing suicide.
** In the early days of the Late Ultimocene, an aukvulture, normally a gentle scavenger, kills a sea raven out of starvation-induced annoyance and feels shame before hunger makes it forget.
* MyInstinctsAreShowing:
** The original gravediggers felt no hatred but also no remorse for gruesomely killing animals in their traps, while their social descendants have become much more empathetic towards other lifeforms thanks to the influence of the woodcrafters. However, the warmongers attacking and killing them unprovoked causes this old callousness to resurface, and they feel no guilt for using poison to subject them to a slow, horrid death.
** When Seeker, a greenskeeper descended from the ring-necked porplet, meets Whirl, a novan daydreamer descended from the seastrikers who used to be their primary predator, he briefly feels a primal fear when she opens her mouth to show him her teeth.
** The sawjaws are wolf-sized but evolved from much smaller predators in a relatively short amount of time, so they still have the instincts and behaviors of much smaller animals despite the fact that they have no predators that hunt them.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Brighteye dislikes the other, nonsapient bluetails for their violent ways, and near the end of his life thinks of himself as more one of the woolly wumpos than his own species.
* MythologyGag: When Seeker is shown what happens if sea steward society collapses due to the coal seam fire, he sees that the gravediggers have survived but turned feral, a similar fate to what Sheather had planned for them when the woodcrafters went extinct in the original draft of the Ultimocene.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast:
** Tyrant serins, swordwhales, billion-stinger ants, razortooth circuagodogs, gravediggers, and sea shoggoths.
** The apex predators of the Kyran Islands during the Thermocene are the taakarewera, whose name is Maori for "demon storks."
** Subverted with the moonbeast, which despite its powerful-sounding name is no larger or more dangerous than an owl.
** The warmonger is a daydreamer subtype that has no issue eating other sapients due to perceiving them as lesser and plans on taking over the ocean by ridding themselves of the competition.
** Apart from the dire bumblebear's name already having "dire" in it, in the tongue of the woolly wumpos they're known as "slayers".
* NatureVersusNurture: While the gravediggers are inherently introverted as a rule, their tendencies for killing off all but the strongest newborns, and particularly amongst males, self-serving tendencies and [[ImAHumanitarian opportunistic cannibalism]] are more the result of culture. Due to Bridge, Lucky, and her descendants spreading the better parts of woodcrafter culture amongst southern gravedigger-kind, over the centuries these issues were eliminated.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The militaristic warmongers wish to genocide all other daydreamers due to considering them all inferior to themselves and turn their genocidal attention upon the gravediggers as well because their sapience serves as a threat to their beliefs.
* NearlyNormalAnimal: A variety of creatures are smart enough to develop culture in the Ultimocene, but none of them go on to invent agriculture or build cities. Sapience, the author says, is a spectrum:
** The one bird that farms a species of snail for food, the farmerjay, does so instinctively, and is described as a clever animal with a strong ability to plan for the future, but not self-aware.
** The porplets and seastrikers are at the very cusp of true sapience as opposed to just being very smart animals, being highly intelligent with rich inner lives. Eventually, the seastrikers make it, and after the daydreamer factions make peace with one another, the luddy, a descendant of the porplet, starts becoming even smarter as well and eventually becomes a sapient being, the greenskeeper.
** The bluetailed chatteravens are near-sophonts partially descended from a sapient species who have a complex language and the ability to create tools, but apart from the truly sapient Brighteye are no more intelligent than a chimp.
* NestedMouths:
** Some of the pseudornithopods evolve teeth on their tongues, which become a functional jaw to chew with teeth on their palate.
** The softbilled birds have developed a muscular covering around their beaks, and the trunkos take it further as they have essentially developed a set of soft lips that conceal their beaks.
* NiceDayDeadlyNight: The coastian thalassic gravediggers fear night because it's when the predatory savage gravediggers come out, who are smart enough to constantly probe their camp walls for weaknesses, alongside a whole host of other predators.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The sea stewards managed to turn the oceans into a peaceful and bountiful paradise, but in doing so they made the entire marine ecosystem extremely fragile and utterly dependent on them. Once they disappear alongside the proliferation of greenhouse gases, the entire ocean biosphere collapses, leaving only a handful of surviving organisms.
* NoMouth: The dayflight bird, which [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin lives in its adult form for only one day]], never even eating, much like a mayfly.
* NonHumanNonBinary: There are juvenile woodcrafters that choose not to fully mature in the absence of familiar males for aesthetic purposes, with some choosing to identify as female or nonbinary, with a similar phenomenon happening with the woodcrafter equivalent of transmen and transmasc humans taking on more masculine traits in the absence of cis male woodcrafters.
* NormalFishInATinyPond:
** The duckbilled sealumps are the smallest of the sealumps at only 500 pounds in weight, and aren't even that large for trunkos in general, but when they start colonizing the newly thawed Serinaustra whose only terrestrial fauna beforehand was the fox-sized snowscrounger and the slightly newer foxtrotter arrivals, they're the largest animal around and nothing there can threaten them initially until the snowscroungers start figuring out how to hunt them.
** The aukvultures are the largest flying creatures in the early end Ultimocene with some reaching wingspans of 23 feet or more, but this is still barely half the size of the large archangels of the early Ultimocene such as the stormsonors who had wingspans of up to 50 feet.
* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The ornimorph birds go through a complex metamorphosis from aquatic fish-like larva to terrestrial reptile-like juvenile to feathered airborne adult. Some of the Ornimorphs, called squaves, became neotenic and reached maturity at the "reptile" stage. Still others, the efts, ceased to metamorphose at all and spend their entire adult life in an aquatic fish-like form.
* OceanPunk: The Ocean Age of the middle Ultimocene, informally marked by the death of the last woodcrafter, has most of Serina's surviving lifeforms turning more aquatic due to the glaciers rapidly decreasing the amount of habitable land left on the moon, with the social gravediggers taking to the sea and forming a fully marine society, though their terrestrial cousins, the southern gravediggers they branched off from and the tundra gravediggers of the far north, still hold on and evolve into new species, the icefisher and savage gravedigger respectively. In the ocean, the seastrikers have evolved into the sapient daydreamers who have numerous cultures.
* OffingTheOffspring:
** Alpha female brushbounders are known to kill off the young of lower-ranking females to assert dominance and reduce competition for her own young. Though rare, the alpha is also known to eat her own cubs when food is scarce.
** Female tiger varpikes are also prone to this, to such a degree that they have evolved to give birth off of tree branches so that the mothers never see and thus try to eat their offspring.
** It's mentioned that mother gravediggers had a custom of killing all but the strongest of their offspring. However, [[spoiler:Lucky didn't do this with her children thanks to her upbringing and they in turn cared for all their children, leading to the population of socialized gravediggers to grow more quickly]].
** In whaler daydreamer society, if a baby is born and there's no space in the pod for it, it will be killed within three days after birth. Warmongers also practice infanticide weed out "undesirable" traits such as the yellow markings other daydreamers have, as was the case for a daughter of the warmonger matriarch who was killed by the matriarch's own mother.
* OlderIsBetter:
** Downplayed. Small perching birds similar to the original founding canaries [[TheConstant remain present]] throughout Serina's history even as all these new exotic species rise and fall due to their highly unspecialized bodies and lifestyles, much like modern lizards and opossums being very similar to early reptiles and mammals respectively. Subverted eventually when the molodont tribbetheres evolve: being specialized for eating seeds, they quickly outcompete the perching birds, which decline sharply in the Ultimocene, although they still manage to hold out till near the end.
** Zigzagged with the canitheres: primitive tribbetheres resembling larger versions of their earliest forms, they enjoy a fair amount of success early on during the Pangaeacene but are quickly outcompeted by carnivorous circuagodonts with higher intelligence and more specialized jaws, losing their apex predator status and being relegated to a few mesopredator niches akin to foxes and jackals. However, they end up having the last laugh over the circauagodogs when they go extinct due to competition with the even smarter sawjaw molodonts, but they survive into the Late Ultimocene.
** The nimicorn is closer to the ancestral thorngrazer than the highly derived razorback, but its ability to run means that it's able to escape the fires that claim the lives of their fellow thorngrazer species during the Mid-Ultimocene mass extinction event.
* OneBadMother: Daydreamer society is matriarchal when it comes to leadership, and the expansionist and supremacist warmongers are no different, as their leader is a matriarch blinded in one eye.
* OutWithABang:
** Male firetail changelings and [[MeaningfulName sacrificial bumblets]] are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semelparity_and_iteroparity#Semelparity semelparous]], dying after a single intense mating season.
** Brighteye kills Tyr-reet while the latter is victory mounting him.
* OutsideContextProblem:
** The warmongers trying to kill the gravediggers come across the issue that, while they're larger and better adapted to an aquatic environment, allowing them to easily dispatch the gravediggers upon capsizing their boats, the social gravediggers are not obligate aquatics, and can return to land and send warnings down the coast to other villages faster than a warmonger can swim. As a result, the warmongers soon find that there are no more gravediggers at sea for them to kill. They also weren't very aware of the gravedigger's ability to use tools, so when they give their daydreamer allies armor and weapons, the warmongers have no way of countering this and are soundly defeated. Said weapons are tipped with the poison of the fireslime lumpus, a toxic terrestrial species whose poison nothing in the sea has adapted to, so the warmongers die in droves.
** Sea shoggoths aren't native to the open seas that warmongers hail from, so even if the blinded matriarch could've seen the sea shoggoth approaching her, she would not have known to flee before the ants could eat her alive.
** During the Late Ocean Age, the encroachment of the glaciers creates a land bridge between the southernmost islands of Serinarcta and northern Serinaustra, allowing species from the former to move over to the latter, which gives the snowscrounger and glacier raven new terrestrial rivals. For instance, the glacial foxtrotter can easily hunt the young of clamcrackers, whose white coloration normally keeps the glacier ravens from picking them out from the air, by sniffing them out.
** The sinking of the Meridian Islands brings rafts containing burrowing burdles and gupgops to the shores of Serinaustra, where the sea ravens, snowscroungers, and foxtrotters are naïve to them. Some of them try eating the latter, only to find them unpalatable due to their toxins.
** The Visitor storyline has a probe from an alien planet 23.8 light years away arrive on Serina.
* PaintingTheMedium: A [[TheWatcher timeless observer]] speaks directly to Ember, Brighteye, and Seeker in a floaty, cursive font.
* PairTheSmartOnes: The daydreamers were born when two seers, one from a herding community and another from a nomadic hunting community, chose to mate despite both communities despising one another. Their loneliness borne from their higher intelligence makes them break the social taboos that had kept their communities separate for around 140,000 years. As a result, their children were mostly seers, and those who weren't often had children who were. After 200,000 years of the seers mostly breeding amongst one another, the seers fully diverged from the other seastrikers and became the daydreamers.
* {{Panspermia}}: Of the "Alientelligent Design" form. The moon was seeded with select species by "mysterious creators", who then left them to evolve without intervention.
* PartiallyCivilizedAnimal:
** 240 million years post-establishment, a desert-dwelling corvid-like bird called [[https://i.imgur.com/yAkjpf4.png the fork-tailed babbling jay]] develops sapience, a birdsong-based language, tool creation, art, and using fire to cook meat when they find it. [[spoiler:Sadly, they only exist for about four millennia, never advancing past hunter-gatherers or learning to keep fire for themselves, until changing climates cause their habitat to fragment and shrink. They cannot adapt to wetter environments before diseases, rare in deserts, wipe them out.]]
** The Middle Ultimocene also has the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-advent-of-agriculture-the-farmerjay?authuser=0 farmerjay]], which has effectively domesticated a species of snail it eats by keeping them in larders of food, freeing itself from the need to forage, and lives in large cooperative "villages"... but is not truly sapient since their behaviors are mostly instinctual.
** In the Late Ocean Age, the distant descendants of the babbling jays, the blue-tailed chatteravens, develop high intelligence, complex social behaviors and a rudimentary language, but never develop true sapience or personhood, save for Brighteye, an atavistic throwback to the sapient fork-tailed babbling jay in terms of intelligence.
** The aukvultures of the Late Ocean Age, a descendant of the skydiver seraphs, are scavengers that have co-evolved alongside the sea stewards to the point that they're semi-domesticated, and have developed intelligence akin to the nonsapient sparrowgulls, living in tribes and teaching their children from a young age to be polite towards the sea stewards, as nicer scavengers get more scraps. It's clear that this behavior is learned instead of simply instinctual, because orphaned aukvultures not adopted by other aukvultures often grow up to be unusually rude and aggressive, and are treated as pariahs by other aukvultures due to their behavior reflecting badly on their whole species. 10,000 years post-coal seam fire, some of the aukvultures have become a sapient subspecies known as the reapers, diverging so recently that their ascension to sapience is still remembered in the form of dance.
* PeopleFarms: The near-sapient seastrikers develop the habit of harvesting the near-sapient ring-necked porplets by only eating the young ones so that the adults will breed and provide more food in the future. Their descendants, the pastoralist daydreamer cultures, continue to do this, although by their time a long process of artificial selection has turned the porplets into the passive, barely intelligent nops.
* PiecesOfGod: The fisher daydreamers believe that the world was shaped by a single creator deity who then splintered itself into three essences -- a flying creature, a terrestrial one and an aquatic one, each of which then split apart into myriad smaller copies of itself -- to better experience all the realms of the world. They believe themselves to be the far-scattered fragments of the marine essence, and that one day they will find and reunite with the fragments of the other two and, having learned all that the world has to offer, reform into the creator. In comparison, the warmongers believe that only ''they'' descend from the pieces of a dead god and view themselves as [[AGodAmI above]] all other life, including other daydreamers.
* PoisonedWeapons: In their second battle against the warmongers, the gravediggers give their daydreamer allies spears tipped with paralytic poison derived from the fireslime lumpus, a terrestrial tribbet, which means the sea-dwelling warmongers have no resistance to it. This also leads to a CruelAndUnusualDeath for these warmongers, as their large size and ability to hold their breath for extended periods means that they sink to the bottom and slowly drown while [[AndIMustScream remaining fully cognizant the entire time]], something that traumatizes the daydreamers doing the stabbing.
* PoisonousPerson: The spitfire sniffler of the Ocean Age cactaiga is a trunko species that has developed an immunity to the poison of the fireslime lumpus, and spreads its deadly poison on its quills to defend itself from predators and deal with competitors, leaving it the sole snifffler species in the area.
* {{Polyamory}}: Skystrike flocks as a rule don't pair bond like most other sparrowgulls, with the flock members all breeding amongst one another and raising all their chicks as their own.
* PopulationControl: Due to lack of food, whalers strictly control their population by strongly encouraging hom*osexual relationships, having sex only for procreation, and culling their children out of necessity if one is born before an older member dies. This can have the downside of entire clans dying out because the adults all turned infertile before being able to have children.
* {{Portmanteau}}: Some of the names, such as the gmu (gnu + emu), the burdle (bird + turtle), the dolfinch (dolphin + finch) and the squork (squid + stork). Naturally, they resemble [[MixAndMatchCritter their two namesake animals combined.]]
* PrecisionFStrike: As Brighteye lays dying from smoke inhalation and becomes aware of Serina's MysteriousWatcher, his last words in response to its apology for its manipulations is a pointed "f*ck you", for setting up the death of everything he ever loved.
* PredatorTurnedProtector: The fisher daydreamers have long since stopped hunting other dolfinches and have come to believe that it is their moral duty to protect the smaller species that can't protect themselves, strongly paralleling the herbivorous woodcrafters. The luddy porplets have even learned to tell the difference between the fishers and the pastoral daydreamers and will stick by them for protection. Upon becoming the fully sapient greenskeeper, or grazer in the shared tongue of the multispecies civilization, they continue to view both the novan daydreamer (Known as "hunters") and thalassic gravedigger ("Walkers") as protectors of not only themselves but the whole ecosystem.
* PredatorPreyFriendship: Pickbirds may at times befriend smaller sparrowgulls that the former would otherwise hunt through getting food bribes.
* PredatorsAreMean:
** Zigzagged with the sapient gravediggers. While they can be quite aggressive with each other when it's not breeding season, otherwise they lack malice and will even hang out with prey species when not hungry. It's noted that while they don't feel guilt while hunting, they have no malice towards their prey either, only seeing death as necessary for their own survival. This is played for a darker tone later when the gravediggers are noted to feel little in the way of guilt when reports come back about their warmonger enemies drowning slowly [[AndIMustScream and fully aware]] as a result of the poison they supplied their daydreamer allies.
** A version of this is a central part of the fisher daydreamers' belief system. In their view, hunting intelligent beings for food is morally unacceptable, and one should only subsist on simple-minded creatures such as fish. Consequently, they view the large-prey ecotype cultures, such as pastoralists and whalers who feed on other large marine birds, as being monsters and murderers.
** Seemingly played straight with the crested kittyhawk as it has a tendency to play with its prey rather than going in for the kill. However, there actually is a point to this as their preferred prey are molodonts with large teeth that can wound the kittyhawk so this "playtime" actually serves to tire out and injure the molodont so the small gravedigger can go in for the finishing bite.
* PregnantReptile: The vivas are a successful clade of birds that develop a form of vivipary from retaining their huge eggs until they're ready to hatch. True placental avians eventually evolve in the Pangaeacene. The predatory burdles evolve ovoviviparity after developing leathery eggs and retaining them internally until they hatch, which allows them to become fully aquatic.
* PrehensileTail:
** The clongers are a group of snake-like tribtiles that have lost their front legs and whose single rear foot has evolved into a functional hand. Most just use it for burrowing but some have found other uses for it: the sparrowsnatcher uses it to dangle from tree branches and catch birds out of the air, the diamond clonger clicks its claws together to warn predators of its venomous bite like a rattlesnake, and the cloa is a larger species that grabs the necks of its prey to either strangle it to death or puncture its jugular.
** Young viridescent sawjaws will use their tails (which are a highly modified leg) to climb to their parent's bodies.
* ProfaneLastWords: As Brighteye lays dying, his last words to the observer are "f*ck you." [[RejectedApology in response to its apology for using him as a pawn]] since it was responsible for both his death and the deaths of the wumpos.
* ProportionalAging:
** While it's not mentioned how long gravediggers live relative to humans or woodcrafters (although it's later noted that woodcrafters rarely live past fifty), they do grow more quickly than humans, with a four-month-old gravedigger being roughly equivalent to a human seven or eight year old, and become functionally adults at about twelve months, though they don't gain their adult plumage until later.
** [[spoiler: The last woodcrafter dies at around fifty-eight, when most of her kind doesn't make it to fifty, making her roughly equivalent to a human centenarian.]]
** Daydreamers age more slowly than humans, reaching sexual maturity in their late 20s, entering menopause in their 70s, and live for around 130 to 140 years, making them the longest lived of Serina's sophonts.
** In the Late Ocean Age, thalassic gravediggers and greenskeepers are said to live roughly half as long as the novan daydreamers. In a group of friends consisting of a greenskeeper, two thalassic gravedigger sisters, and a novan daydreamer, the latter takes so long to mature that she ends up serving as a babysitter for one of her gravedigger friend's grandchildren while still the equivalent of a human teenager. By comparison, gravediggers and greenskeepers age at roughly similar rates.
* PyrrhicVictory: Retally, a woolly wumpo widemind of the Tidelands Herd, managed to drive the thalassic gravediggers who hunted his kind away from the shoreline until the time of Blaze's great-great grandparents using the power of fire, but his lack of control over it led to the deaths of most of his herd. While Retally was among the survivors, he was so changed from the experience that he headed north and was never heard from again.
* RaisedByWolves: Deconstructed by the carnivorous circuagodonts, who sometimes adopt and raise young of their herbivorous prey. As awesome as this may sound, it hardly ends well for the adopted youngster, as it identifies with the carnivorous species, loses its fear of them, and ends up getting eaten by ''other'' packs of carnivores unfamiliar with its scent.
* RaptorAttack:
** The banshees are essentially re-evolved velociraptors, with sickle claws on their feet, long balancing tails, and wings modified into claws for grabbing prey. They resemble accurate dromaeosaurs save for having a serrated beak and barbed tongue instead of a toothed snout.
** The viridescent sawjaw has convergently evolved to resemble a ''Velociraptor'' save for their sawing jaws and rabbit-like ears.
* RealityIsUnrealistic:
** The handfish tribbets modifying their individual fin spines into separate multiple spider-like legs seems completely absurd, but it's actually very similar to [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=qU7hmwzuQ1k the real-life sea robin]], a bottom-dwelling fish that "walks" around on the sea floor on three pairs of modified fin spines that act as six separate somewhat insect-like legs.
** On a similar note, ray-finned fish developing tetrapod-like legs sounds seemingly implausible, but then there's [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=P83BX56qLqs the Frogfish]], a group of ray-finned fish that walk across the seafloor using fins that greatly resemble stubby legs. One species in particular, the Sargassum Frogfish, even has prehensile fingers that let it climb through seaweed.
** The tufted frogjar, a metamorph bird whose newt-like larva is ''bigger than the adult'', sounds downright improbable... until you learn about the real-life paradoxical frog, which metamorphoses from a truly immense giant tadpole... to a tiny adult barely half its size.
* TheRemnant: The reapers are described as the last people of the Ocean Age, having descended from the aukvultures that co-evolved with the sea stewards.
* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The warmongers started out as a clan of the highly communistic pelagans who wanted to abandon this way of life in favor of a [[TheSocialDarwinist every family for itself]] system. They were exiled to the southern oceans after they started raiding other pelagan clans and became the large, brutish cannibals they are now.
* {{Retcon}}: When first introduced, the seagoing gravediggers were referred to as the thalassic gravediggers, existed three million years after the extinction of the woodcrafters, and had diverged enough from their ancestors, such as by developing salt-filtering glands in their nostrils, to be defined as a distinct species. Sheather eventually changed this to their simply being a seaborne culture of social gravediggers, and to exist around five thousand years after the last woodcrafters but later gained enough adaptations to aquatic and social life to be considered a new species after three million years.
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter:
** Most of the founding species of Serina are cute animals like canaries, guppies, and ladybugs.
** Certain tribbets, particularly tribbetheres, [[MostWritersAreHuman being mammal analogues]] with many of the same features such as big eyes and expressive rounded ears. Dogbeast cubs are specifically noted to be as cute to human eyes as any Earth puppy but are not as playful due to lower intelligence.
** Viva chicks are fuzzy and yellow with BlackBeadEyes like baby chickens, only with stumpy tails and disproportionately long legs. Even some adult vivas remain fairly cute in a [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart deer-like]] way.
** Hoppers, early tribbets that resemble [[http://i.imgur.com/OgLPSA4.png a cross between a rodent and a frog]].
** The baby armox as well, despite its mighty hulking adult form.
** The fluffy gigaduck chicks on their parent's back. Some of them are even sleeping.
** [[IntellectualAnimal Fork-tailed babbling jays]], on the other hand, consider baby birds with feeding gapes resembling those of their own chicks to be cute. They'll even capture the chicks of other bird species to keep as pets for this reason.
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: The molodont tribbetheres evolve to be rodent-like, and one group, the circuagodonts, become the dominant herbivore group and become deer-sized herbivores resembling long-legged tripodal rabbits.
** Omniphages are a group of molodonts that can weight up to 1,500 pounds, making them the largest land dwelling tribbetheres.
** The rakewhales are marine molodonts around 30 feet long.
* RunningOnAllFours: Certain bird species become quadrupedal, notably the deer-like serezelles and their descendants, the sauropod-like boomsingers, as well as the bumblets and their predatory descendants the bumblebadgers.
* SandWorm: The Serinian bullworm, a giant earthworm in the early Hypostecene that can reach lengths of over thirty feet.
* SapientEatSapient:
** One bumblebadger species, the gravedigger, becomes highly intelligent and learns to construct elaborate traps to catch its prey, the herbivorous antlears. Pressured by the gravediggers' increasingly elaborate traps, one species of antlears becomes more and more intelligent as well in an arms race to avoid their clever predators, culminating in both gravediggers and antlears, now the woodcrafters becoming truly sapient, and waging war on each other. The conflict finally stops when the two species make peace as a result of two of the latter getting adopted by the former.
** Downplayed with the porplets and seastrikers, which haven't achieved full sapience yet, but are intelligent enough to have complex thoughts and emotions, all while the latter regularly hunts the former. Eventually a fully sapient species called the daydreamers emerges from the seastrikers who still feed on the porplets, but some come to view eating such intelligent creatures as morally reprehensible and choose to eat fish instead.
** Later on, the warmonger daydreamers, a subgroup of whalers, a cultural group adapted for hunting large prey, comes to be sufficiently physically and behaviorally distinct enough from the shallow-water daydreamer cultures that they no longer view them as fellow people -- to them, they're just meat on the fin. When the warmonger leadership finds out about the gravediggers and their sapience being a threat to their beliefs, because it would prove the fisher and pastoralist creation tale correct, they decide to attempt genociding them too to prevent their soldiers from finding out and turning against them.
** The woolly wumpos consider the thalassic gravediggers demons due to the latter hunting them for generations after making first contact, seemingly unaware of their sapience since outwardly they appeared no different from the nonsapient sealump trunkos, before a widemind named Retally managed to drive them off by using their own fire tactics against them, but at the cost of most of his herd when he couldn't control the flames.
* ScavengersAreScum:
** Zigzagged. This is played somewhat straight by the sea ravens, a scavenging sea bird known for its belligerent temperament that will aggressively steal food from other animals, including the sea stewards, whose children they'll sometimes attack. However, this is completely averted with the aukvulture, these birds are very gentle as they have learned that the sea stewards will give them their leftovers if they are polite about it, especially since they keep the sea ravens away.
** This is completely inverted with the reapers, a sapient population of aukvultures, who are just as much of scavengers but they have a very strong code of ethics that forbids killing outside of mercy and espouses empathy to other lifeforms. Their nature as scavengers also gives them a very spiritual outlook on life with concepts similar to an afterlife and souls but for all living things.
* SceneryGorn: The shores of Serinaustra 1,500 years after the great coal fire are described as being covered in piles of the rotting corpses of dead sea animals that are, in turn, coated by swarms of insects. However, to the scavenging snowscroungers, foxtrotters, and burrowing burdles, it's a veritable buffet.
* SeaMonster: Swordwhale fish such as the gulpy and gigadon, birdwhales, bloons, king trawlers, predator burdles, and giant filter-feeding dolfinches like the banded maw, the last of which are said to be the largest birds Serina has ever seen. Special mention goes to the sea rex of the ocean age. They're huge 50ft apex predators with crushing jaws and armored skin that makes them virtually unbeatable as adults, even to the pelagic daydreamers who are large powerful predators in their own right. This forces them to target the beasts when they are young and small when dwindling food supplies causes the fully grown sea rexes to start hunting the pelagans instead.
* SerialEscalation:
** In the first few million years, the evolved canaries develop into forms similar to modern and prehistoric bird species like hawks, moas, and penguins. As time goes on, they derive even further; some species take on saurian, reptilian, and even mammalian characteristics. By the time of the Ultimocene, many species such as boras, lumberbeests, trunkos, and neotenic metamorphs have ceased to resemble birds at all.
** The tribbets as well. Descending from the mudskipper-like Mudwickets, they came to first resemble a bizarre three-legged fusion of fish and frog. However, as they became more and more derived, they developed jointed forearms, flexible necks and erect limbs, and their descendants the tribbetheres came as far as to evolve fur, external ears and erect limbs, looking every bit like a three-legged mammal with only their extensible jaws betraying their true heritage as fish. Then things get even stranger when some evolve into flying bat-like forms and secondarily-aquatic whale-like forms...
* ShoutOut:
** A type of small, rabbit-like circuagodont often preyed upon by repandors is called [[CallARabbitASmeerp a smeerp]].
** One million years post-establishment, the largest invertebrate on the moon is a giant earthworm known as the [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants Serinan bullworm]].
** The antlear and gravedigger saga is an homage to [[https://www.deviantart.com/doeprince doeprince]]'s ''Golden Shrike'', which is a story about deer and shrikes (gravediggers essentially behaving like giant, flightless shrikes). Dylan Bajda and "doeprince" follow each other and communicate.
** Fellstar, an alien probe that visits Serina after the disappearance of the Sea Stewards, bears a striking resemblence to the probes in ''[[{{Literature/Expedition}} Alien Planet]]''. It's brightly coloured, has large, childlike eyes and a simple artificial intelligence; likewise, it appears to have been made to study life on the moon.
* ShownTheirWork: Compared to the wild-type luddy, who look more or less the same as do most wild animals, the domesticated nops show clear signs of neoteny in the form of a very chick-like head and come in numerous colors.
* SimpleYetAwesome: The surfscoter secondarily evolved to be semi-aquatic in order to avoid its aquatic predators, which is implied to be what allowed it to survive the Great Thaw that killed off the other dolfinches, as it was able to access food sources in places that the other species couldn't, such as Serinarcta's marches.
* SingleBiomePlanet:
** Serina is initially terraformed into one of these. The entire winding supercontinent of Cirrus is covered in tropical grassland engineered to support canaries. However, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome this is not sustainable without long-term artificial maintenance and the organisms evolve rapidly to balance the ecosystem, a process that takes millions of years of flux]].
** Averted with the Hothouse Age, despite the fact that the whole globe experiences warm temperatures and abundant precipitations year round. There are at least 16 biomes shown on the map page, accounting for both abiotic factors like the proximity to the polar circles[[note]]Which creates one season of constant daylight and another one of constant darkness[[/note]] and biotic factors like the presence of thorngrazers.[[note]]Which prevents the growth of most trees due to [[ExtremeOmnivore their extremely aggressive feeding]][[/note]]
* SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset: The gravediggers outfit the daydreamers with armor made from animal bones and shells in the second fight with the warmongers.
* SlashedThroat: Sawjaws attack their thorngrazer prey by jumping on their backs and using their jaws to slice their unprotected necks.
* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism:
** In the Pangaeacene, there are the bludgebirds and the babbling jays. The bludgebirds are quite intelligent creatures and can use tools and weapons, but ultimately are no more advanced than an ape. Babbling-jays, on the other hand, have a true language, a sense of aesthetic art, cultural traditions, and even oral tradition. [[spoiler: Tragically, both species become extinct at the end of the Thermocene due to changing climates before they could advance further.]]
** Animal intellectual complexity peaks the Ultimocene, with the majority of land vertebrates having primate-level intelligence. However, it's stated that sapience is a spectrum: some animals, such as the snail-farming bird, have complex behaviors, but do them instinctively, while others are capable of higher learning capabilities but are not self-aware. A few animals are offhandedly mentioned to have developed self-awareness: however, it's stated that unless specific conditions are met, it's highly unlikely for them to build a civilization.
** The mid-Ultimocene produces several near-sapients such as the childlike porplets, the spear-crafting bone-bower bird, and the skystrikes, which use a well-developed vocal language to coordinate their hunts.
** Vibropteran tribbats are also noted for their intelligence, displaying problem-solving tactics as well as tool use. They were [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally planned to produce a sapient species]], but were ultimately left like this.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Surprisingly, the Ultimocene saga leans heavily on the idealism side, despite many, ''many'' interactions that more easily could have gone down a more dreadful route, like the war between gravediggers and woodcrafters, the woodcrafters' genocidal crusade on innocent carnivores, the seastrikers domesticating their own relatives the porplets for food, or the coming of the cannibalistic, nigh-fascist warmongers. All of these incidents are resolved in an unexpectedly wholesome way, with the gravediggers and woodcrafters forging a genuine friendship, the daydreamers finding unity and even befriending the sapient descendant of their former prey, and even the warmongers have shown to be redeemable without the influence of the matriarch. Overall, despite the impending extinction of all life, the saga of the Ultimocene sophonts has the general feel of being ''worth it'', in the sense that it was the journey, and not the destination, that truly mattered.
* SmallRoleBigImpact:
** The water snuffle, a duck-sized platypus-like bird from the isolated Kyran Islands, is one of the few avians to survive the Thermocene-Pangaeacene mass extinction. As a result, its descendants the tentacle birds end up taking over many megafaunal land niches by the Ultimocene.
** Strackbirds are given a few paragraphs of description as Cryocene songbirds that assist large predators by flushing out prey and then share their kills in return. Due to this lifestyle making it difficult to tie oneself down to a nest for a prolonged period of time, their chicks evolved to hatch at less developed yet more independent states so the parents could just drop meat into the nest and leave again, and then simply fill their nests with larders and abandon them. This formed the basis of the changelings' [[BizarreAlienReproduction insect-like reproductive cycle]], which granted the lineage incredible adaptability into a huge variety of niches in the coming Thermocene and Pangaeacene.
** The mudwickets, small mudskipper-like descendants of guppies, arise twenty-five million years post-establishment, seemingly just as a random fluke of evolution. However, they later give rise to the froglike tribbets in the Thermocene and later the tribbetheres in the Pangaeacene and Ultimocene, becoming a dominant clade of life that eventually comes to rival the birds.
* SoulEating: In the religious beliefs of the woolly wumpos, those killed by predators have their souls completely devoured, barring them from their afterlife. As a result, it obligates them to kill their predators on sight so that as much of the family can survive death as possible.
* SpeaksFluentAnimal:
** The fork-tailed babbling jays can speak the much simpler languages of the non-sapient birds they share the desert with.
** Daydreamers can communicate with most of their non-sapient dolfinch cousins, who the small-prey ecotype perceives as akin to their own children in terms of intelligence.
* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: This comes up in descriptions of sapient species' cultures:
** It's briefly mentioned that same-sex pair bonds are rare but not unheard of among fork-tailed babbling jays.
** While the woodcrafter antlears do have gender roles, due to an evolutionary holdover regarding hormonal development and group dominance composition it's possible for their males to mature without developing full adult male traits and for their females to become masculinized and more attracted to females. The former are most often considered a third gender while the latter are considered and identify as male. Sexual preferences are highly variable among individual woodcrafters and they do not pair-bond, but male-male mating is more common than female-female.
** Amongst the whaler daydreamers, obligate hom*osexuality is enforced in order to ensure population control. As a result hom*osexual pairings are about as common as heterosexual ones in their society. There is also a significant asexual population, who are referred to as clearwaters due to being considered undistracted by sexual matters, and often become sages and shamans sought out for their wisdom.
** Of the four childhood friends who act as viewpoint characters for the Sea Steward civilization, the thalassic gravedigger Pebble and the greenskeeper Seeker never have offspring, the former because "she didn't really like males", the latter because "he didn't have much of an interest in settling with anybody".
** When Blaze and her daughter are arguing over what to do with Brighteye and Whitecrown, the latter alludes to a same-gender partner who was killed by "biters".
* StarfishLanguage:
** The language of the fork-tailed babbling jays is highly complex birdsong spoken too quickly to be understood by the human ear. This is presumably also the case for their descendants the blue-tailed chatteravens, although theirs is [[YouNoTakeCandle considerably simpler]].
** It's mentioned that the woodcrafter language sounds similar to elk calls.
** Gravedigger languages consist of gravelly, croaking, and hissing sounds that are very difficult for woodcrafters and later daydreamers to understand. In the case of the latter, it takes their equivalent of teenagers who still have the plasticity to learn in order to communicate with them.
** The language of the whalers has diverged so much from other daydreamers that the fishers find it even less comprehendible than gravedigger speech due to it being deep and slow.
** Sea shoggoths communicate through the rhythmic clicking of their mandibles.
** Woolly wumpos communicate primarily through infrasound that most other species can't hear.
** The reapers are only capable of making simple sounds like guttural honking so they mostly communicate using [[HandSignals gestures and elaborate dances.]]
* StarfishRobots: Fellstar, the alien probe Eve befriends, has a rather unusual appearance. It somewhat resembles some kind of animal but not any earthly one, having a pod-shaped body with six spindly legs, two cable-like tendrils for arms and a long neck with a large pair of camera eyes.
* StarsAreSouls: In the religious beliefs of the woolly wumpos, their loved ones watch over them as stars.
* StoneWall: The lumphead grumpus, a very strange Thermocene fish, actually won its arms race of defense from gigadon attacks by specializing into this. It is large and very slow-swimming, but its long defensive spines ensure that few predators will take one on.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: WordOfGod reveals that this is what the observer actually is, rather than a literal deity. It's a being with such advanced technology that it seems [[ClarkesThirdLaw like a supernatural entity to the less technologically advanced sophonts]].
* SugarBowl:
** Serina at establishment is as much this as a biosphere can be. It begins as a SingleBiomePlanet of warm sunny grassland punctuated by blooming clovers and cheery sunflowers. There are no predators larger than an insectivorous canary, and even the fish and insects are cute as such creatures go. It doesn't last long, however.
** The oceans become this during the Late Ocean Age, in contrast to the comparatively harsh and barren land. The plant life is abundant and supports a healthy and diverse ecosystem, the animals are all tame and even the most dangerous creatures are kept placid through regular feeding. However, the only reason it can even be this nice is because it was being artificially maintained by the sea stewards and the moment they disappear it immediately starts to breakdown.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Thorngrazers are noted to be very poor swimmers, preventing them from colonizing islands in the same way they have the Serinarctan mainland.
* SwansASwimming: While not aquatic, the swan-like archangels certainly fit the trope, being peaceful elegant grazing giants with long graceful necks and snowy white plumage.
* TheSwarm: This happens twice in Serina's natural history. The first happens in the first few million years with the empire ants who live in enormous supercolonies. However, they are arguably a {{Deconstruction}} of this trope as they quickly consume all the creatures that can sustain them and eventually die out. The second time are the billon stingers, which are like army ants on steroids. They don't live in supercolonies, so their numbers are sustainable, but they can still skeletonize larger animals in minutes. By the mid-Ultimocene, the billion-stingers have given rise to the sea shoggoth, [[TheWormThatWalks colonies of which function like individual animals]], using linked groups of specialized ant castes to move the colony and catch prey.
* TheSymbiote: The ant-trees that have been present throughout Serina's history are of the mutualistic variety, with the ants providing protection and a means to spread the tree's seed, while the tree provides shelter. However, two ant-trees of the Late Ultimocene take it to a far higher level, as the two are now utterly incapable of surviving without one another:
** The raptorial rambleroot grows in vertical cracks atop sogland boulders above the thorngrazers that have little in the way of organic nutrients, in particular nitrogen, so it has its technically herbivorous ants hunt for prey to bring back to the plant to be broken down in return for sacrificial buds that the ants can eat.
** The cementree has its ants create the clay outer coating that prevents thorngrazers from eating them before they have the chance to grow large, while the trees supply most of the ant's food in the form of sap and sacrificial buds in addition to a place to live.
* SympatheticPOV:
** We are first introduced to the gravediggers by hearing about how they hunted the sapient antlears before eventually being driven out, and there's even a picture of one standing over a trap with a dead, skewered antlear inside it which might cause our sympathies to lie with the antlears. Later on however, [[spoiler: we get to learn more about how they operate and that they even have an artistic side that has allowed them to develop a kind of culture despite being solitary by nature, complete with a picture of a mother gravedigger showing her young chick how to draw. Later still we also see that the antlear's descendants, the woodcrafters [[HeWhoFightsMonsters have developed a bit of a cruel streak that they express by indiscriminately killing any predator that they can find, including the gravediggers that don't even hunt them anymore]].]]
** The warmongers are first introduced as fascist genociders, and from the view of the gravediggers and other daydreamers are perceived as AlwaysChaoticEvil, but are later shown to not be inherently evil, but are instead merely the product of their environment and shielded from most outside influences.
** Even the warmonger matriarch is given this when she is blinded and exiled: despite the misery she caused, despite the deaths borne by her own doing, we get a brief look into her mind, and see all her regrets, all her past mistakes she cannot undo, and ultimately, how in the end, her goal was only to ensure that her people survive -- despite her questionable means of doing so.
* TailfinWalking: A variant of this. The mudwickets use their tail and pectoral fins as three walking legs to move on land. Their descendants the tribbets turn the tail into a proper leg with the foot derived from the tailfin, and by the time of the tribbetheres their hind leg is virtually identical to a mammal's as an erect limb with knee and ankle joints.
* TakeThatCritics: After many users [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks complained]] about [[https://i.imgur.com/Nofvion.jpg the header image of the site being redesigned]], Bajda responded by replacing the second version with [[https://i.imgur.com/v9uPW9u.png a more crude and cartoony drawing]]. He then replaced ''that'' version with an [[https://i.imgur.com/FBsCETq.png even lower-quality stick drawing]] after Reddit users noticed the joke.
* TerrestrialSeaLife:
** The tribbets are land-dwelling fish descended from the amphibious mudwickets, with many of the more primitive forms filling the niches of lizards and frogs, while the furry, warm-blooded tribbetheres become analogues of mammals.
** There are also many species of terrestrial crabs, many of which fill the niches of spiders.
** The colossal quadclaw is a giant terrestrial hermit crab that no longer needs to even go to water to breed like most terrestrial crabs do, instead hatching as juvenile crabs from eggs hidden under their mother's abdomen.
** Inverted with sea bamboo and planktants, which are formally terrestrial lifeforms adapted to the sea.
* TimeAbyss:
** Daydreamer civilization goes back more than three million years, with accurate historical accounts going back to more than 500,000 years ago. For comparison, ''hom*o sapiens'' has only existed as a species for about 200,000-300,000 years. TheAlliance of the daydreamers, thalassic gravediggers, and greenskeepers then exists for a further five million years, allowing them to radically alter the ocean ecosystem and the biology of the animals that live within it despite being stuck in MedievalStasis.
** Some hiddenwood clonal colonies are millions of years old.
* TookALevelInJerkass: The non-sapient aukvultures 10,000 years post-coal seam fire have fallen prey to their more aggressive instincts in the absence of the sea stewards, fighting amongst one another and even being willing to kill young aukvultures if they won't get out of their way, something the sapient reapers find horrifying due to how much they value the few children they're able to have. By the Hothouse Age, they've evolved into the apex predator drakevultures that actively hunt their prey.
* TookALevelInKindness:
** Compared to their southern gravedigger ancestors, due to aggressive territoriality not being a useful survival trait in their arctic environment, while still relatively asocial icefishers prefer avoiding conflict rather than partaking in it. They also no longer regularly commit infanticide.
** After the Great Thaw, the sea ravens become much less aggressive due to the more hospitable conditions and abundance of shore carrion for them to feed on.
** 10,000 years after the coal seam fire, the nimicorns have started tolerating the presence of island wumpos as sentries, even protecting them and smaller trunkos like the snoots when under attack by allowing them inside their herd huddles with their young, and have a more symbiotic rather than destructive relationship with the environment. As Eve and Fellstar travel across Serinarcta, both observe nimicorns and island wumpos just placidly hanging around one another without the former trying to eat or otherwise attack the latter. They've become less aggressive and territorial five million years into the Hothouse Age, with the female social thorngrazers even being able to form social bonds, but they can still be somewhat callous in the way they treat their sick and injured.
** The pickbirds, descendants of the blue-tailed chatteraven, are far less aggressive than their ancestors, being willing to act as cleaners and friends for other species instead of just manipulating them into doing their bidding, and lack the bluetail's vicious, dominance-based hierarchy, instead living in democratic societies that solve disputes with social grooming, food bribes, and non-reproductive sex.
** The savage gravedigggers were highly territorial and lacked any real empathy but their kittyhawk descendants are more tolerant of each other and can form attachments to their family members even when they reach adulthood.
* ToothyBird:
** Aardgeese and their descendants the vivas develop teeth on their tongue and upper jaw, allowing them to grind tougher plant material.
** While they don't have teeth, the mittens might be considered a {{downplayed|Trope}} example. They can chew their food by grinding it in their beaks thanks to their tentacles granting them greater facial-muscle kinesis.
* TranslationConvention: As reapers lack a throat structure that would allow them to use a spoken language, limiting their vocal language to mostly horse honking sounds, it's safe to assume Eve's story is being interpreted from her dancing and other movements.
* TranslatorBuddy: Since the gravediggers can't hear the low-frequency infrasound the woolly wumpos use to communicate, and only one third of the sea stewards are capable of writing, Brighteye serves as a translator due to his ability to copy the gravedigger tongue.
* TrapMaster: The gravediggers hunt by making various kinds of traps for their prey, and they are very good at it thanks to their tendency to closely observe the behavior of the creatures they hunt so they can learn to take advantage of it. It's also something that they are taught at a young age since Bridge already knew how to make snares and pit-traps for small animals at only four months of age, which is his species equivalent to a human eight-year-old.
* TraumaCongaLine: At the end of his life, Brighteye loses his best friend Blaze from old age and only finds out after she's already been buried, meets Whitecrown again only to lose him when he and his flock are vaporized by the flames caused by the coal seam fire they started, loses his wumpo family when they're overtaken by the same flames setting most of Serinarcta ablaze, and in his very last moments learns that he's been a pawn of Serina's watcher the whole time.
* TRexpy: On a number of occasions, some of the descendants of the canaries become adapted for life as large, flightless predators of megafauna. In the earlier periods of Serina's history, where the original avian form is still relatively unmodified, this results in forms reminiscent of the tyrannosaurs.
** The tyrant serins are enormous flightless apex predators with powerful bone-crushing beaks, wings reduced to vestigial appendages, and tail-like extensions of their pygostyles to balance their immense heads. They are mostly adapted for preying on the similarly flightless, elephant-sized serestriders, which they kill with guillotine-like bites to the neck.
** Coronas arise around forty million years later, and belong to a group that evolved a number of mammal-like traits such as fur-like feathers, liplike fleshy coverings over their beaks, and teeth. They're also huge, flightless bipeds -- one ton in weight and ten feet tall -- with tail-like hindquarters like the earlier tyrant serins. Unlike the serins, their arms are large and muscular, and end in a single strong, hooked claw each.
** Sea rexes are an unusual case, as they're four-flippered, orca-like descendants of scaled seagoing birds adapted to prey on marine megafauna. The resulting creature resembles a heavily-built, shell-less sea turtle, with an avian head whose beak is filled with serrated keratinous teeth and built to crush the skulls and spines of other large marine animals. Sea rexes can grow to be sixty tons in weight and reach two centuries of life, and while their juveniles are vulnerable the adults are functionally impossible for other creatures to harm. Ultimately, however, they died out as a result of collapsing marine food chains killing off the large marine birds they eat, combined with a desperate effort by the sapient daydreamers to kill off their young in an effort to stave off their own extinction.
* TrueBreedingHybrid:
** The woolly wumpos of the Late Ocean Age arose through hybrid speciation of two closely related species that existed at the onset of the ice age, the desert wump and the mammoth trunko, as they were forced together by shrinking habitats. By joining in this manner, the two species' descendants ended up being better-suited for the new environment than either ancestor by itself, as they possessed both the wumps' physical adaptations for life in harsh, cold environments with scarce food and the trunkos' social habits and preference for living in multi-generational herds led by the most experienced members.
** The island wumpos are cousins of the woolly wumpo that are also the result of hybridization between the desert wump and mammoth trunko, born when as few as 10 early wump/trunko hybrids swam the 25 mile distance to two small isolated islands off the coast of Serinarcta's western refugial peninsula in a desperate search for food during a cold spell, splitting with the woolly wumpos roughly 500,000 years prior. Unlike their cousins, they are only near-sophonts due to having higher wump than trunko admixture, are much smaller by being on average only man-sized, and exhibit island tameness due to not evolving alongside any predators. Due to their lack of cold adaptations, they prefer to stay near the coast.
** Five million years later, most of the wumpo species are still genetically close enough to produce fertile hybrid offspring and interbreeding is very common, leading to what is described as a "veritable taxonomic nightmare" in regards to the genus. One of the major exceptions to this is the swamp wumpo, which won't mate with other wumpos that lack their large red dewlap, but sometimes inexperienced males will reproduce with females of other species, leaving the species as a whole genetically pure but having their genes be transferred to outsiders.
* TrueCompanions: Packs of [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/death-from-above-the-skystrike skystrikes]] are made up of unrelated individuals who come together as adolescents, rather than family members as in wolves or harems as in lions, described as "a group of compatible friends."
* TurtlePower: The mucks are a family of ectothermic avians that resemble shell-less, bipedal turtles with a single large claw on their front limbs. Their evolutionary history is a little complex, however: they started out as slow-moving arboreal herbivores similar to tree sloths, but a group of them rafted to the Kyran islands and evolved into the Maritime Muck, which was more similar to the marine iguana. After the mass extinction at the end of the Thermocene they evolved into more distinctly turtle-like forms, including the sea-turtle-like burdles and giant-tortoise-like lumberbeests.
* UncannyValley:
** The sapient woodcrafter antlears greatly dislike their non-sapient bestial relatives due to their more animalistic appearance, in the same way some humans may find apes unnerving. They also find it unnerving that beings that look so much like them lack much in the way of rational thought.
** The nop is described as fitting into the luddy's uncanny valley due to how different they are despite having a shared ancestor.
** Woolly wumpos are implied to find carnackles and other obligate carnivore trunko species creepy just because they can can see the physical similarities despite their differences in diet.
** The savage gravediggers or wildwalkers, the descendants of the tundra gravedigger, are considered unnerving by the thalassic gravediggers due to their physical similarity but inability to speak and lack of sapience.
* UndergroundMonkey: The only real difference between the steppestalker and the shadowstalker it evolved from is that the former has lighter coloration.
* UnevenHybrid:
** As the tundra gravediggers were forced south by the growing ice age, they entered the territory of the southern gravediggers and for the most part forcibly displaced them, driving them extinct except for a smaller group that retreated onto marine ice shelves. Before this happened, some tundra gravediggers forcefully mated with southern gravediggers, creating hybrids that afterwards bred back with both surviving populations. Eventually, the resulting descendant species were both primarily descended from one ancestor group, with a small contribution from the other -- the savage gravediggers descend primarily from tundra gravediggers with a small southern contribution, while the icefishers descend chiefly from southern gravediggers and a few southern-tundra hybrids.
** The woolly wumpos are descended from hybridization between the closely-related desert wump and mammoth trunko species, but as the trunkos were more common they also contributed more of their genome -- about eighty percent of the final total. Further, natural selection favored the persistence of different traits from each parent species, so that the trunkos' genetic legacy mostly came in the form of their larger size, higher intelligence, and social behavior, while the wumps' mainly passed down physical traits for more efficient digestion and resource use, physical endurance, and a stronger sense of smell. Their closest cousins, the island wumpos, were also born from a mix between the wumps and trunkos, but the wumps contributed a higher amount of genes to their genome, and so between that and their island environment they're smaller and while intelligent are still near-sophonts at most.
** During the Hothouse Age, the various wumpo species are despite being physically distinct still genetically close enough to breed, to the point that the genus is rife with clines and species complexes that exist as complexes of different species similar to the mallard species complex on Earth. In the case of the swamp wumpo, they normally don't breed with other species who lack their large red dewlap, but immature males in areas where they coexist with other wumpos will in lieu of others of their species mate with females of other wumpo species. Swamp wumpos generally don't accept hybrids amongst themselves, so crosses end up contributing to the genepool of other species instead.
* UnfortunateNames: The neckbeard is a species of tentacle bird that broods its eggs in a fluffy throat pouch... named for stereotypical ungroomed nerds often associated with friendzones, whiteknighting, and incel culture.
* UnseenPenPal: The gravediggers communicate with one another using images that they draw into the trees and rocks that border their territories. This allows them to form relationships with each other without ever physically meeting. In fact, doing so is necessary as they are naturally solitary despite their sapience and if they were to ever meet outside of mating season then their territorial instincts would kick in and they'd get into a violent fight.
* UnwittingPawn: It's revealed to Brighteye in his last moments that he has served as a pawn of the watcher to keep the experiment going longer than it otherwise would've. Brighteye is understandably angry about this revelation because while he may have helped save the world, his actions damned him, his family, and a large portion of Serinarcta's terrestrial life to a fiery end.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: The gravediggers teach Brighteye how to make fire, he and the wumpos inadvertently teach the nonsapient but still intelligent Whitecrown how to make fire, and he ends up using it to become lord amongst the bluetails despite being an otherwise hated albino, but their indiscriminate burning heralds the end of the Late Ocean Age, and their entire world with it.
* VegetarianCarnivore:
** Averted with Bridge. The woodcrafter who adopted him knew that he wouldn't be able to subsist off the same tree-based diet as himself. At first, he fed him with fish he caught from nearby rivers, but it didn't take Bridge long to start hunting the small molodonts and smeerps infesting the village of his own volition.
** Played straight with the marine social gravediggers. When they started living on the ocean, they would sometimes eat small amounts of seaweed to supplement their diets. Their discovery of fire made it easier for them to digest when cooked, so they would start regularly consuming more and more until the seaweed made up around a quarter of their natural diet.
** A variation occurs with some of the daydreamers. They are physically designed to feed on larger prey animals like porplets and other dolfinches, but after some of them come to believe that feeding on these intelligent, closely related animals is immoral, they stop eating them all together and start eating things like fish and other smaller sea creatures exclusively. Much like how some humans give up meat like beef and chicken but will still eat fish for protein.
* VertebrateWithExtraLimbs:
** Inverted with the amphibian-analogue tribbets and their descendants, the tribtiles and tribbetheres. All of them have two forelegs and one hind leg derived from their mudskipper-like ancestor's tail, with the foot derived from the tailfin.
** Spiderfrogs are a true example, ironically descended from tribbets. Two fin-ray-derived digits on each hand have grown so large that they function as limbs and have their own digits, making these arboreal creatures hexapedal.
* VoiceChangeling: Bluetails can mimick the calls of other animals. Brighteye uses this to save Blaze from a dire bumblebear by imitating the cries of a distressed cub to draw it away. This also gives them the RequiredSecondaryPowers that allow them to easily memorize and learn new languages when bluetails with different dialects form new clans. In the case of Brighteye, [[spoiler:it allows him to learn some of the gravedigger language after spying on them for several months]].
* TheWatcher: In the late Ultimocene, a timeless, unseen observer that seeded life on Serina has been increasingly making its presence known to various sophonts and gets concerned that the sea steward's discovery of fossil fuels will end up unravelling its natural experiment.
* WhamLine:
** An InUniverse example occurs for the thalassic gravediggers when [[spoiler:the bluetail Brighteye reveals his sapience to them when he asks them how to make fire]].
** Part 1 of "The Visitor" ends with Eve revealing that Serina was visited by an alien being.
---> '''Eve''': ...when the visitor came down from the stars.
* WarArc: The Daydreamer Saga tells the story of how the daydreamers came to be and their wars against one another, most prominently the war between the warmongers of the open sea and the fishers and pastoralists of the coastal areas assisted by the social gravediggers, which ends with the daydreamers and gravediggers all becoming one diverse but united civilization.
* WeakButSkilled:
** Sparrowgulls as a group make up for their lack of size or exotic features with their high intelligence, allowing them to succeed in harsh environments with such skills as weapon-crafting and cooperative pack hunting.
** The social gravediggers are small and poor swimmers compared to the warmongers, but their skill at making weapons and knowledge of poisons allows the fishers and pastoralists to turn the war completely against them.
* WeakToFire:
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-sea-shoggoth The sea shoggoths]] can be warded off by fire thanks to an ancestral fear of it due to evolving from terrestrial ancestors that had to evade brush fires.
** The thorngrazers have a strong hatred of fire, and it's the only thing that keeps them from overrunning the gravedigger fortresses. It ends up meaning the end for the razorbacks in particular during the Mid-Ultimocene coal seam fire, as they're 1) too slow to outrun the flames and 2) have huddling down as their instinctual response to fear, allowing the fire to consume them.
* WeHardlyKnewYe:
** The merwals, aquatic canitheres resembling dolphins that descended from the seal-like mertribs, tragically are a short-lived clade, as they were less efficient at hunting fish than the porporants and turned to feeding on shellfish to avoid competition... but then came the aquatic molodonts, and unable to [[CripplingOverspecialization adapt to a different diet]], the merwals quickly declined after just having recently evolved.
** The reapers, sapient aukvultures, last only around 500 years before dying out due to inbreeding depression.
* WeHaveReserves: Porplets survive against predators by sacrificing other members of their group to them, in particular the seastrikers. Such is their self-preservation instinct that they only rarely defend other members of the group from predators, as having a certain percentage of the young, sick, and old die is considered safer than risking the whole group. They can afford this strategy because they're also capable of reproducing very quickly.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: The giant mole crickets of the early Tempuscene start out as having a symbiotic relationship with the burrowing molebirds: the cricket digs the burrows and tolerates the birds moving in, as they serve as its alarm against predators. However, as both further specialize, the birds become more independent of the cricket and capable of digging on their own, while the cricket evolved to burrow even deeper and avoid predators entirely. Not needing each other's partnership anymore, the mole crickets soon evolve to be predatory and start hunting their former avian partners.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman:
** Or rather, What Measure Is a Non-Woodcrafter? The woodcrafters, a species of sapient antlear, view other, non-sapient species of antlear with great disdain, finding it [[UncannyValley very uncomfortable]] to see creatures so alike to themselves yet devoid of rational thought. They also view their former predators, the gravediggers, with disdain and culled them from their forest refugia millennia ago, only to [[spoiler:change their views once they find out their old enemy's sapience and gravediggers end up being raised amongst them, though some woodcrafters attempted to keep the gravedigger's sapience secret at first out of a fear of losing the glory gained from predator hunting]].
** The seagoing gravediggers would avert this. Due to the woodcrafters becoming almost godlike figures in their religions despite looking nothing like them, the avians developed a culture of valuing all life and not viewing themselves as inherently superior to the animals they live with.
** When Blaze the woolly wumpo asks her daughter Thistle what the difference is between the bluetails hunting and them eating "mice"[[note]]their term for small, seedeating molodonts akin to rodents[[/note]] in order to survive when the latter objects to having Brighteye and Whitecrown around due to being "biters", the latter responds that they don't have souls like the wumpos do.
* WhiteAndRedAndEerieAllOver: [[spoiler: [[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/7TfY11-bz-S3wXtAazL2tJQO_NDdxh_60qRYvrH7Q8FWGGwQqbmatGZgUDuGhwt3mTiE1lITrz7fImsgGBnAl2-3TaHoJvmmzYdTbKUWPsyunfP3NGJPkjSAEoZEsxk93w=w1280 Whitecrown causing devastation with fire]] is portrayed as white rimmed with a demonic red.]]
* AWolfInSheepsClothing:
** The early carnivorous circuagodonts of the Pangaeacene would sometimes use their resemblance to their herbivorous cousins to their advantage by pretending to be herbivores themselves which would cause the plant-eaters to lower their guard and allow their clanmates to flank and ambush the herd and score multiple kills. However, this was only something that would work for a short time as after the first deception the herbivorous circuagodonts would become wise to this trick. There's also the fact that, as the carnivores become better adapted to a predatory lifestyle, their appearance will diverge further from the herbivores.
** Early gravediggers often traveled alongside their intended prey for long periods of time, letting them become used to them; because they didn't act aggressively towards them, the animals they stalked simply never associated the slow, small, plodding creatures with danger and barely even acknowledged their presence. This allowed the gravediggers to memorize their habitual routes, and thus to dig their traps in locations where they knew they would pass over soon.
* TheWormThatWalks: Or rather, swims. The seas of the Ultimocene are home to the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-sea-shoggoth sea shoggoth]], colonies of billion-stinger [[AntAssault ants]] that live entirely independent from the land in floating nests made entirely out of their own bodies. Certain [[HiveCasteSystem castes]] link themselves into paddles to propel and steer, masses of ants contracting like muscles. Food is caught via long, [[CombatTentacles tentacle-like]] chains of ants extended from the main body, then cut up and distributed by another caste to individuals throughout. A colony acts much like an individual animal, even "mating" with other colonies by exchanging drones. By the time of the Late Ocean Age, they've entered an arrangement with the sea stewards in which they eat their refuse, such as the leftovers of bloat carcasses and the bodies of their dead, and in return the ants leave everyone else alone. However, it's noted that everyone involved is aware that this is a business arrangement, ''not'' friendship, and if their food payments aren't timely, everything else is back on the menu. Following the end of the sea steward civilization, the shoggoths start doing exactly that, hunting down the floating bloats.
* ThroughHisStomach: Male hookjaw carnackles charm mates by being good at catching fish and snarks for them to eat.
* WouldHurtAChild:
** The seastrikers will deliberately kill the young of the porplet herds they attack so the adults will make more. It's even mentioned that they have a tendency to pass the calves around one another [[EatenAlive while they're still alive and writhing]].
** The warmonger daydreamers are introduced by one killing a baby fisher daydreamer, and both they and their pelagan cousins will cull their own children if born when there isn't any space for them.
** The pelagans decide to protect themselves from extinction by killing off the young of the sea rex, their only rival in the open ocean, before they can grow big enough to threaten them. As a result, between the loss of their prey to the changing environment and their babies to the jaws of the daydreamers, they eventually go extinct.
* WouldntHurtAChild:
** Babbling jays have a taboo against killing the chicks and fledglings of any altricial bird, intelligent or not. This however doesn't extend to the adult non-sapient birds they prey upon (somewhat like humans who recoil at the killing of veal calves but have no problem eating meat from adult cows).
** The adult gravediggers become instinctively hostile towards any other adults of their species who trespass in their territories outside of breeding season, but they will tolerate the orange-coated adolescents who pass through as long as they don't stick around for too long.
** The shallow-water daydreamers and the gravediggers have a naturally strong instinct to protect and nurture their offspring, as such, when warmonger children wander innocently into their territories to look for food, they do not harm them despite the initial animosity they had for their parents. The adult warmongers use this to their advantage by having their kids beg for food to feed their families.
* XenophobicHerbivore: [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-antlear-people The woodcrafters]] have a culture where casting off oppression is a large facet of their philosophy, including the oppression of their original place on the food chain, causing them to systemically kill or drive off their predators, first out of survival but later out of a sense of cruel arrogance. They also drive away any browsing herbivores that might damage the trees they rely on for food and shelter, with the main exception being the mammoth trunko, which they view with spiritual reverence. This ends up being deconstructed as their elimination of all predators, even those who didn't hunt woodcrafters, leads to a mass population boom for the pests of the woodcrafters' trees, and starvation for the woodcrafters as a result.
* YouKillItYouBuyIt: The daydreamers manage to eliminate their old foes, the predator burdles, but this means that they have to take over their role in balancing the ecosystem.
* YouNoTakeCandle: While Brighteye speaks in complex sentences, his nonsapient bluetail brethren speak in a far more simplistic way.
* ZergRush:
** Lacking higher cooperative intelligence, this is how packs of dogbeast tribbetheres take down their prey, subjecting it to a DeathOfAThousandCuts.
** Ants take their Earth ancestors' abilities to do this UpToEleven, especially the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast billion-stingers]] and their descendants the [[TheWormThatWalks sea shoggoths]].
** Viridescent sawjaws are only two feet tall at most, but attack in packs of up to 100+ animals to take down prey ten times their size or more.

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* AerithAndBob: Some names are fairly simple and descriptive, such as "boarbirds", "hoppers" or "eelsnakes", but some are completely bizarre, such as mucks, shimmersnoots, poultrypuses or tweezles.
* AlienKudzu:
** Spikeleaf waterweed, a Tempuscene freshwater grass, evolves rapid growth and sharp silica-edged leaves to deter herbivorous fish and becomes an aquatic equivalent. If not regularly fed on by the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-tempuscene-11---50-million-years/the-grandest-guppy-meet-the-gemnus giant gemnus]], it can reduce entire waterways to choked marshes.
** Assassin grass is similarly tough and fast-growing, with the additional aid of carrying poisons in its leaf edges to kill neighboring plants. Unsurprisingly, this makes it unpalatable to grazing animals, enabling it to comprise 99% of plant biomass in some places until the gluetrap tree evolves resistance to the grass and shades it out.
* AlienSea: Downplayed. The moon's oceans are largely similar to Earth's, but a vast amount of phytoplankton in the water gives it a greenish tint. Compared to Earth, more of Serina's oceans consist of shallow seas, which allows a greater abundance of aquatic plant life and by extension, a more diverse array of animal life.
* AlienSky: Being a moon as opposed to a planet, Serina orbits a large blue gas giant that illuminates its night sky more than Earth's moon does, so Serinan night is no darker than Earth twilight unless clouds obscure the planet. The intelligent babbling-jays come to regard it in their oral tradition as the source of all rain.
* AllAnimalsAreDogs: Inverted with the canitheres: despite their dog-like appearance, their behavior is scarcely canine, instead being more behaviorally akin to more primitive mammals like opossums due to their less-developed brains.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Brighteye and his brother Whitecrown are pariahs amongst their fellow bluetails, Brighteye because of his sapience and Whitecrown because of his albinism.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife:
** While most of the mammal-analogue tribbetheres are of subdued shades of brown, black and gray, similar to actual mammals, some species have taken more unusual colorations, such as the green moose-like antlears, or the vibropterans, hummingbird-like tribbats that come in vivid neon shades. There are also aquatic molodonts who take on parrotfish-like colors.
** Compared to its drab nimicorn ancestors, the male rumbling helmethead of the Hothouse Age has a brightly colored nasal crest.
** The viridescent sawjaw can be outright neon green in color due to high amounts of biliverdin in their skin and fur, which they use as camouflage while hiding in the grass to thwart the strong color vision of their thorngrazer prey.
* AnimalEyes: Even highly derived members of the tribbet lineage tend to have eyes with horizontal or cross-shaped pupils, like a frog's. The main exception are the woodcrafters who've evolved round pupils for better vision.
* AnimalJingoism:
** The gravediggers and the woodcrafters end up in an evolutionary arms race toward intelligence due to the gravediggers learning to construct increasingly complex traps to catch their prey, and the woodcrafters learning to better escape and avoid their traps. This culminates in the two species becoming true sapients and waging war, with the woodcrafters emerging the victors and driving the gravediggers out of their forests. Ultimately subverted when an adolescent woodcrafter takes pity upon an orphaned gravedigger and raises him among them, causing him to imprint upon the antlears and mostly lack the asociality associated with their species. After [[spoiler:another orphaned gravedigger is taken in by the antlears and is taught their language, her descendants end up changing gravedigger society by making them more amenable to sociality, and they enter a mutualistic relationship with their former antlear foes in which they kill off pests, and, with permission, eat the woodcrafter dead. The gravedigger art even ends up becoming the basis for the written language of the antlears.]]
** Another example is between [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-seastriker-and-the-porplet an herbivorous and a carnivorous species of dolfinch]], which ends with the fisher daydreamers making friends with the semi-sapient luddies, and the pastoralist daydreamers breeding the sapience out of the porplets to turn them into the living meat packages known as nops.
** The pelagan daydreamers and tortorncas (in particular the sea rex) have a rivalry going back to even before the seastrikers achieved sapience, as the latter specifically evolved to hunt dolfinches. It's settled by the former driving the latter extinct by targeting their more vulnerable young, and by the Late Ocean Age the daydreamers have managed to drive the large predator burdles completely extinct.
** The snowscrougers and glacier ravens are highly intelligent vicious rivals native to Serina's south pole, with the latter raiding the former's larders for food, which they need to survive the sixth month winter. The snowscrounger can plan for days and weeks to kill the latter, while the glacier raven has the assistance of larger numbers. It's for this reason that one has not managed to extinct the other.
** The wooly wumpo has a strong dislike of predators (or biters as they call them) for hunting them and they are also suspicious of chatteravens (or harbingers) due to the latter sometimes deliberately leading predators to them. However, its stated that all wumpos have a very strong hatred for thorngrazers (razers) thanks to them allowing the spread of cactaigas, which between that and their constant feeding has greatly diminished the wumpo's feeding grounds and has been killing them off in a way that the biters never came close to.
* AnimalReligion:
** Downplayed in the [[PartiallyCivilizedAnimal fork-tailed babbling jays]]' culture. They have a simple CreationMyth that the world was nothing but barren desert until all life was born from an intense rainstorm. The closest thing they have to a deity is the "Sky Sea", the planet that Serina orbits, which they believe to be the source of all rain. However, they have no concept of an afterlife.
** The bluetailed chatteravens are highly superstitious, and do rituals such as spinning in place and making talismans from the tailfeathers of slain rivals that they carry while foraging or fighting for good luck and protection from death. The narration posits that these may be the beginnings of a rudimentary religion, and attributes it to their pattern-seeking brains.
** The daydreamers believe that they were once part of a singular creator deity, that made the sky, earth and sea. This god grew curious so split apart into three: the "wings", the legs and the swimmers (the daydreamers themselves). Notably, the practical aspect of real world religious is emphasised: different daydreamer populations have different variations and use their beliefs to justify things, with the warmongers seeing themselves as the sole inherittors of this divinity and justifying their genocidal ways.
** While reapers lack an organized religion, they do have a belief in life after death and a pantheistic belief in a shared life essence between all beings.
* AnimalWrongsGroup: Pastoralist daydreamers view their fisher cousins as terrorists for sabotaging the nop farms they use to survive, which the second group views as immoral due to almost all porplets being nearly as intelligent as they are. However, it's mentioned that the original founding fishers didn't have much of a problem with the eating of nops since they recognized that they lacked the intelligence of their wild counterparts, what they took issue with was the hunting of wild dolfinches which were intelligent. Modern fishers would end up scapegoating the nops due to the information becoming distorted over time as modern pastoralists feed almost exclusively on their livestock, they also conflated the pastoralists with the whalers who do hunt intelligent dolfinches but lost contact with them several thousand years ago due to the similarities between the two. However, after the war with the warmongers, the fishers come to the conclusion that the pastoralists actually have the most ethical way of feeding out of all the daydreamers as they are only eating creatures that lack the ability to physically or mentally suffer thanks to generations of domestication while leaving the intelligent wild ones untouched. They even insist that they teach the warmongers how to farm the nops.
* AntAssault: Ants were among the handful of Earth creatures placed on the titular moon. Most of the species are fairly harmless but a few manage to become very dangerous.
** The first are the empire ants, which evolve in the early days of Serina's history to be large in both individual size and numbers in the absence of competition and predators. They devour the giant snails and flightless birds present at the time but become reliant on these animals for food; [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard when they eat them all]], they began to starve and eventually die off when a species of labybird with parasitic larvae starts eating their colonies from the inside out.
** The next arrive over two hundred million years later in the form of the billion-stingers. They have much smaller colonies than the empire ants, but can still overwhelm and skeletonize large animals in minutes.
** The descendants of the billion-stingers, the sea shoggoths, are one of the most dangerous predators of the Late Ultimocene oceans, capable of killing even warmongers by eating them from the inside out. The sea stewards manage to placate them by allowing them to feed on their refuses, but this has only made them ''smarter'', and when the contract is inadvertently broken by their departure, they revert back to their wild instincts within three months and thrive in the post-Ocean Age seas.
* AnthropomorphicShift: Downplayed with thalassic gravediggers, which have adopted more towards bipedal locomotion than their ancestors. This makes them the most humanoid of Serina's sapients simply by virtue of having two arms and two legs.
* AntlionMonster: [[BizarreSexualDimorphism The females]] of some metamorph species are neotenic and mature as sessile predators who remain buried for most of their live, catching prey with wings modified into jaw-like traps.
* ApeShallNeverKillApe: The SPS (small-prey) subtype of the daydreamers diverged from the Large-prey subtype about 300,000 years before their article's present because they considered eating other dolfinches, their ancestral prey from the time of the seastrikers, to be immoral. Over hundreds of millennia this change in ideology was even reflected in their biology, as their beaks became smaller and their bodies more agile in order to catch fish. However, despite changes in outward appearance, they're still genetically close enough to their cousins to not count as a different subspecies, let alone their own species.
* ApocalypseHow:
** The Thermocene-Pangeacene mass extinction is a strong ApocalypseHow/Class4, wiping out ''99% of all life on Serina'' via runaway global warming and ocean deoxygenation. Only a small sampling of the moon's biodiversity survives near the south pole. For comparison, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event the worst mass extinction in Earth's history]] wiped out 83% of genera.
** The Late Ocean Age ends with a massive coal seam fire sparked by Whitecrown that kills off most life on Serinarcta, save for those who managed to reach wetter spots where the fires couldn't spread, and acidifies the oceans, leading to the end of the sea steward's civilization, though the sophonts themselves are taken by the watcher to a new home and are spared the fate of actual death. By the end of the thawing period, 95% of Serina's endemic ocean life goes extinct.
** The final extinction, a ApocalypseHow/Class6 at the end of the Ultimocene, is much more gradual, simply being an ice age that eventually grows too severe for any life to survive as Serina's core cools and tectonics stop.
* ArcWords: "I love you, Bird."
* ArmlessBiped:
** All members of the tentacle bird family lack wings of any kind due to their common ancestor losing their wings to become better swimmers, which is part of the reason they developed prehensile facial appendages.
** Hothouse Age sawjaws have only two running limbs while their third limb has convergently evolved to be akin to a tail.
* ArtEvolution: Noticeable, as the project has been going since 2015. Specifically, a greater tendency toward brighter colors and less prominent outlines.
* ArtifactName: The ancestral gravedigger species is so named because of its distinctive habit of killing prey through spiked pit traps. None of its three descendant species alive during the Ocean Age retains this habit -- thalassic gravediggers and icefishers both hunt sealife using implements such as fishing lines, nets and harpoons, while savage gravediggers lack both the resources and intelligence for any kind of tool use -- but retain the collective moniker used for their ancestors.
* ArtifactTitle: Serina is no longer only the "World of Birds" past the Pangaeacene, when tribbetheres attain large-scale success and even displace avians from some niches.
* ArtisticLicenceBiology: The author takes pains to be as accurate as possible, but given the sheer scale of the project, [[ArtisticLicenseBiology/{{Serina}} instances of this were inevitable]]. Most of them, however, have at least some sort of in-universe explanation and are things only a seasoned biologist would catch.
* ArtisticLicenceSpace: Serina is described as the tidally-locked moon of a gas giant, but behaves more like a regular planet and does not have to deal with long days and nights, passing through radiation belts, and having tectonics driven by tidal forces. These, however, are minutae beyond the biological focus of the project with [[AWizardDidIt conditions set by Serina's creator]]. The gas giant at least does reflect light unto the moon, at times even creating twilight conditions, and the tectonics of Serina are not elaborated upon but seem to be prone to extensive volcanism.
* AscendedToCarnivorism:
** Only 10,000 years after establishment, some canaries have begun to eat insects and the eggs of other birds, and they're just the beginning...
** The falconary is the first true megafaunal apex predator of Serina, and quickly drives to extinction many species who had evolved without fear of predators.
** While most serezelles are antelope-like grazers, one group, the spearrunners, while retaining their running quadrupedal deer-like build, become predators that hunt insects, tribbets and small molodonts in a manner similar to a heron.
** An independent example are the carnivorous circuagodonts. Their unique slicing jaw parts prove to be just as good at cutting through flesh and bone as they are through grass, which allows some species to become predators with few modifications. Thanks to this, their higher intelligence and social hunting, they completely displace the more traditionally predatory dogbeasts by the time of the Ultimocene, with the added bonus of looking enough like their prey that they can sneak into herds of herbivores and ambush them from within.
** Many of the grazing tentacle birds secondarily become carnivorous in the Ultimocene, such as the grisly carnackle.
** Downplayed in that the scorplears are omnivores that feed on carrion rather than obligate carnivores, but they are the last descendants of the otherwise obligate herbivore antlear lineage, using the jaws that their ancestor the burrowing antlear used for woody plants to easily slice through bones. They still have the fermenting stomach of their herbivore ancestors, however.
** The woolly wumpos, descended from the herbivorous mammoth trunko and desert wump, downplay this by being opportunistically omnivorous, though they refrain from eating the corpses of predators or "biters" due to the belief that consuming the meat of a biter will make a wumpo ''become'' a biter. This narrative posits that this belief may be derived from the garbled cultural memory of wumpos eating the meat of the omnivorous and cannibalistic thorngrazers and getting infected by a prion disease that managed to jump species, causing them to go mad and attack other members of their species. Their opportunistic omnivory is shared by their island wumpo cousins.
*** A descendant species of the island wumpo, the watchtower wumpo, has graduatuated to full-on omnivory, as while they're still browsers, they require more protein than their ancestors did due to their larger size, but lack the adaptations their carnackle cousins have for hunting large prey, They instead get it by every so often turning a blind eye to viridescent sawjaw attacks on the social thorngrazer herds they watch and eating any baby thorngrazers killed in the chaos.
** A downplayed variation occurs with the great crested drakevulture. Their aukvulture ancestors were carnivorous, but were scavengers that feed on things that werealready dead, while the drakevultures have graduated to active predation.
* AttackItsWeakPoint: Razorbacks are noted to have soft underbellies, which are protected by the fact that their stubby limbs make them hard to flip over.
* BadOlBadger: Bumblebadgers are an avian version of this trope and certainly live up to the ferocity and tenacity of their namesakes. One species, the gravedigger, eventually becomes sapient, and learns how to kill much larger prey using pitfall traps lined with spears.
* BaitAndSwitch: We are told that a sapient species has evolved on the savannas of the late Pangaeacene. The bizarre [[https://img00.deviantart.net/e448/i/2017/306/0/1/mitten2_by_sheather888-dbsh1m6.png bludgebird (right)]] is set up as such: it [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} certainly looks like an alien]], yet also [[MostWritersAreHuman has certain similarities to early humans]]: it walks upright, stands about five feet tall, has a mostly naked body, is an endurance-pursuit predator, and kills its prey with a club. However, they are only as intelligent as apes. After a pair of bludgebirds makes its kill, they are attacked and driven off the carcass by a flock of the small colorful birds who were watching them, [[WhamLine now wielding tiny stone knives]].
* BatOutOfHell:
** The nightbiters are parasitic tribbats that are basically flying cookiecutter sharks, gnawing chunks of flesh off from giant herbivores. They are in turn preyed upon by the even more horrific-looking flapsnapper, who in a bit of a subversion is actually beneficial to the nightbiters' victims as it keeps the pest populations down.
** The aeracuda is a large, diurnal forest predator that uses its extensible mouth to snap up prey both on the ground and the air and can also take on much larger quarry.
* BearsAreBadNews: The largest of the bumblebadgers are called bumblebears and are dangerous and bad-tempered ground predators found on Serina's plains. Special mention however goes to two particular species of the Middle Ultimocene:
** A relatively small species, the bramblebreaker, is described as "an animal nobody wants to meet". They're highly muscular, dangerous predators and extremely foul-tempered even by bumblebear standards, but provide a useful service for other animals through their ability to open paths through the dense cactaiga by simply chewing their way through the dense growths of spiny plants.
** The truculent bumblebear, at eight feet in height and nine hundred pounds in weight, is one of the largest bumblebear species and the apex predator of its era. They're extremely powerful and dangerous predators, equally happy killing and eating literally any creature they encounter as they are chasing off other predators from their kills. They have no natural enemies, and their most common cause of death is being killed by a conspecific in a conflict over territory. This species eventually gives rise to the dire bumblebear of the Late Ocean Age, which is even bigger and even more vicious due to having adapted to hunt the hulking, ill-tempered, hyperomnivorous thorngrazers.
* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: The woodcrafters started out as prey who eventually became powerful enough to drive away the gravediggers and had grown to view predators as monsters. Once they did drove them out, however, they started to [[spoiler: become bolder and began venturing out of their territories in order to kill predators that were no threat to them for sport and took sick amusem*nt in their suffering, [[HeWhoFightsMonsters becoming even more monstrous]] than their perception of the gravediggers, who only kill for survival and had long since avoided hunting the woodcrafters]].
* BeneathNotice:
** Gravediggers will hang around their prey for quite some time, learning how they think and therefore how best to trap them as they don't associate the gravedigger with their traps. They got good enough at it over the millennia that the ancestral gravedigger drove at least one non-sapient antlear species to extinction.
** According to Blaze's telling of the first encounters between the coastian thalassic gravediggers and woolly wumpos, the latter didn't pay the former much mind since they were seemingly too small to pose a threat to them, until they started using fire and their intelligence to hunt them.
** Brighteye is able to spy on thalassic gravedigger camps without anyone noticing something different about him because of the fact that outwardly he seems no different from any other bluetail despite his intelligence. As such, it comes as a huge shock to them when he [[spoiler: starts speaking to them in a way that goes beyond simple mimicry]].
* bestial*tyIsDepraved:
** Inverted in the case of some of the nonsapient savage gravediggers who forcibly mated with female southern gravediggers instead of just killing and eating them as was the norm. It's stated that this has mainly affected the resultant icefisher population more in terms of size and coloration than cognition or behavior as they've kept their sapience and are far less violent than either of their ancestors.
** The sapient woolly wumpos have a taboo against mating with their closely related but only near-sophont island wumpo cousins, though some have done so anyway[[note]]Primarily male islander and female woolly crosses[[/note]], with the sapient hybrids being passed off as regular woolies by the herd leaders until their differences become obvious.
** Reaper aukvultures refuse to breed with their nonsapient relatives, who they refer to as "the untamed", which prevents their sapience from being subsumed by the greater aukvulture population, but also leaves them susceptible to inbreeding depression, making it so that 500 years later only one, Eve, is left.
* BewareTheNiceOnes:
** The social gravediggers are known for their empathy and connection to the living things in their ecosystem, but, when the second battle against the warmongers occurs, they arm their daydreamer allies with armor and poisoned spears that quickly turns the tide in their favor. Unlike the daydreamers who are horrified by the gruesome deaths suffered by the paralyzed warmongers, the gravediggers prove themselves to be quite ruthless and pragmatic when the chips are down, feeling very little sympathy for their hated enemies, and even celebrating the news of their victory.
** The aukvultures are known for their gentle temperaments despite their formidable appearance, but they are still a fairly large animal with a beak designed to crush bone. When they are forced to start raiding the sea stewards abandoned food supplies when they don’t return, some greedy sea ravens keep attempting to steal their food until a combination of starvation and [[RageBreakingPoint anger]] causes one aukvulture to snap and break the neck of one of them and force the rest to back off. The aukvulture itself is briefly horrified at what it had just done until its hunger forces it to forget and focus on finding food.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: There are many examples, throughout the ages:
** As early as ten million years PE, crickets have reached the size of rabbits thanks to the lack of predators early on and lower gravity.
** The Serinian bullworm is a giant earthworm living one million years post-establishment and can grow to lengths of up to thirty feet as the largest invertebrate of its time. Around the same time are sea slugs the size of cars.
** In an inversion, some of the Verminfans and Osteopulma clades of metamorph birds, such as the varicolored bumblebird and the zebra tweezle, become very tiny, being possibly the tiniest a vertebrate could be at about insect-size.
* BittersweetEnding: The Ocean Age/Middle Ultimocene ends this way. The release of the trapped carbon thanks to the underground coal fire warms the moon and prolongs the end of its habitable stage, allowing life to last longer than it would have, but it also causes a mass extinction that kills many of the more specialized creatures currently living. In addition, the sea stewards are whisked away to a copy of their old world that will steadily improve to save them from this extinction, but not before the woolly wumpos are all burned to death and Brighteye dies alone knowing his role in their demise. Also, the disappearance of the sea stewards will make the subsequent mass extinction worse as the ecosystem had become dependent on them to function.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Thorngrazers not only have three stomachs, but as an adaptation for their {{Extreme Omnivor|e}}y have built-in bypasses so that food that needs less digesting like meat will go straight to the intestines instead of their fermenting stomach. Uniquely for a vertebrate, through horizontal gene transfer with long extinct stomach bacteria, they have acquired the gene for producing the enzyme cellulase, which allows them to easily break down wood and leaves and gain nutrients without having to share. This is what allows them to live like both obligate herbivores and carnivores depending on what's around.
* BizarreAlienLimbs:
** The tribbets are tripedal terrestrial descendants of guppies that modified their tails and pectoral fins into three walking limbs. Beyond that, the various tribbet lineages develop a number of very unusual limb arrangements:
*** One lineage, the mammal-like tribbetheres, develop erect forearms with seven digits on each forepaw. One canithere species, the thylacine-like painted repandor, develops its single hind leg into having a backwards-bending knee joint and a downward-curved back that turn the hind leg into a spring to help launch the creature forward when running. Merwals, a type of aquatic canithere, have a tail fluke derived from its single hind leg, and thus still possesses an ankle and knee joint, almost resembling a person wearing a mermaid tail.
*** The antlears are a group of circuagodonts that have developed mobile, jointed antler-like limbs on their ears that they use to pull branches down to their mouths. The explanation for this is that the ears of tribbetheres have a bony matrix in them due to being derived from the gill plates of their fish ancestors, unlike the cartilaginous ears of Earth mammals. This gave them much better mobility and the ability to grip. Burrowing antlears and their scorplear descendants take this to an entirely new level, having adapted to use their ears as an additional set of legs.
*** Another group of tribbets, the handfishes, shorten their forearms but lengthen their fingers instead, eventually turning their individual fingers into separate limbs themselves (becoming hexapedal with the former wrist becoming a double-shoulder joint).
*** The siphontooth is a species of gliding molodont which becomes the first-ever quadrupedal tribbet, despite the basic tribbet body plan having only three legs, by hypertrophying the fingers of its hindleg until the two lateral ones become grasshopper-like legs, while the middle one remains as a balancing organ.
** The snuffalo is a large grazing relative of the softbill birds that uses its huge thick beak as a third limb due to its short legs and massive heavy head.
** The bumblets use their clawed wings as spades for burrowing, which resulted in them becoming extremely rigid by having their wrist bones hypertrophy all the way to their socket. This means that they, and their descendants like the bumblebears and gravediggers, have no elbows. This becomes a challenge for the marine social gravedigger due to their reliance on tool use but they get around their lack of dexterity by working cooperatively.
* BizarreAlienLocomotion:
** The varicolored bumblebird, as a larva, modifies its front limbs into grabbing "jaws". While most metamorph bird larvae use their forelimbs to crawl about, the bumblebird larva's forelimbs are too specialized to aid in locomotion and it instead moves by wiggling along using its abdominal muscles. This extends to the flighted adult bumblebird: having retained the stiff forelimbs it had as a larva, it can't flap its wings like a normal bird would and instead uses its specialized abdominal muscles to fly more like an insect.
** Snuffalos walk tripedally, using their huge bills as a third leg, and their neck provides much of their propulsion. They rest its blunt tip on the ground when at rest in order to support their massive heads, and when walking they press it down in front of themselves and then use their huge neck muscles to pull themselves towards the spot where it's planted.
** The antlears' most distinctive traits are their pronged, keratinized ears, first used to grasp tree branches. These become jointed and enlarged in later species, and the burrowing antlears eventually develop them into a full set of walking limbs. These ear legs start out mainly as a supplementary support in the first burrowing antlear species, but become much more well-developed in their scorplear descendants.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-cartwheel Cartwheels]] are a species of simiagibs -- tribbets adapted for monkey-like arboreal lifestyles -- that use their clade's distinctive "fractal" limbs and tail, formed by fingers fused into two sub-limbs each before separating again at the tips, to move through the trees by rolling underneath branches. They do this by grasping a branch with their right pair of hands, swinging their tail hands up to grasp it as well, let go of their hands' hold and allow themselves to hang upside down, and swing their left hands up to grasp back at the branch before righting themselves and repeating the cycle. They can move extremely quickly in this manner, using gravity to speed up further when fleeing from predators, and on the ground use a variant of their arboreal gait where they essentially roll along like living wheels.
* BizarreAlienPsychology:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-solitary-sophont-the-boundary-tree gravediggers are subject to this given they are solitary sophont species]]. Since they aren't social, they don't need to interact with others of their own kind for emotional fulfillment unlike humans and don't seem to experience boredom when it comes to performing long menial tasks like digging trenches and develop [[CreatureOfHabit strict, almost ritualistic daily routines]]. They use art scratched on the trees located on their territorial boundaries as a [[PenPals form of long-distance communication]] and may even experience sorrow if another gravedigger they shared art with for years dies [[BlueAndOrangeMorality but will become violently aggressive if they were to ever meet in person]].
** The daydreamers have evolved to be able to remain conscious with only half their brain active so that they can rest it while still also preventing drowning and this results in the being able to see their dreams while awake, which they interpret as visions.
** The woolly wumpo are fully sapient by most standards as they have a language, religious beliefs and even an understanding of abstract concepts like art but most of them suffer from CreativeSterility that makes it very difficult for them to innovate and which leaves them stagnant. However, a rare few members of their species are born with a form of neurodivergence known as wide-mindedness that gives them at same innovation as the other sophontic species and these individuals typically become figures of great importance in their species' society.
* BizarreAlienReproduction:
** Changelings evolve a reproductive cycle more like that of a fly than a bird. The mother lays tiny, delicate eggs within a carcass or a larder of meat and promptly abandons them. These hatch into tiny, near-embryonic offspring like newborn marsupials. The "larvae" eat and grow continuously until they secrete a mucous chrysalis, emerging as a normal fledgling. Their descendants, the ornimorphs, take this UpToEleven, [[https://img04.deviantart.net/c9a5/i/2017/220/b/3/birds123_by_sheather888-dbjdal7.png passing through]] all the stock EvolutionaryLevels of vertebrate evolution as part of ''one'' individual's life cycle. Another lineage of changelings develop placental live birth like mammals by retaining their larvae within their bodies instead.
** Bloons and birdwhales are fully marine birds descended from pelican-like seabirds that have adapted to carry their eggs in their throat pouch. After millions of years of evolution this pouch has fully separated from the digestive system and become highly vascularized in order to provide heat and oxygen for the egg, effectively becoming a pseudo uterus.
** The bumblets evolve the ability to give live birth by retaining their egg internally and oxygenating it by... flatulence.
** The neckbeards developed a patch of highly vascularized skin on their neck which allow then to carry their eggs with them. The trunkos, their decendents, have expanded on this and have developed muscules in this pouch that hold the egg in place which makes them the closet thing a bird has gotten to a marsupial.
* BizarreSeasons: In the hothouse age, the climate is warm and wet all year round around the whole globe regardless of latitude, meaning that there are barely any seasons. The main exceptions are the Polar basin and the Longdark swap. Both of these biomes are situatedin the polar circles and so have to deal with one season of constant daylight and another one of constant darkness...while still being warm in both.
* BizarreSexualDimorphism:
** The polymorph birds are a species of softbill bird that have different morphs of male similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruff ruff bird]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard side-blotched lizard]], each with their own distinct appearances and behaviors.
*** The Ardor is only slightly larger than the female and is a monogamous breeder who will assist his mate in rearing their offspring.
*** The Keeper is [[HugeGuyTinyGirl twice the size of the female]], is very aggressively territorial, and keeps harems of females.
*** The Tramp is [[DudeLooksLikeALady very similar to the female in size and appearance]] and will use this to sneak into the territories of Keepers, mate with their harems, and take off.
*** The rarest morph is the Bachelor, which is nearly as large as the Keeper and much less aggressive. Their most unusual trait is that they form mostly hom*osexual pair bonds with either other Bachelors or Ardors and will either steal or adopt the eggs of other Polymorph Birds to raise as their own.
** Male firetail changelings need lots of easily processed energy for finding and mating with as many females as possible, and so have long thin bills for consuming nectar. Females need more protein in their diets to produce eggs and therefore have shorter beaks for catching small prey. [[GeniusBonus This arrangement was likely based on mosquitoes, the sexes of which have similar dietary differences for the same reason]].
* BladeBelowTheShoulder:
** The gigantic serestriders keep foldable hand-derived blades folded against their bodies to defend themselves from tyrant serins.
** The mucks have a single large claw at the ends of their wings. The original arboreal species simply used them to climb through tree branches while the later terrestrial species would use them to fight off predators.
* BloodKnight: The grisly carnackle is said to relish fighting against strong opponents, be they members of its own kind over food and territory or predators that try to make a meal of it, and are even willing to fight to the death.
* BodyHorror: The nops have been getting farmed for so long that their bodies are now grotesquely bloated with a disproportionately tiny head and flippers.
* BookEnds:
** The woodcrafters first developed sapience due to being killed by the gravedigger's pit-traps. After Ember, the last woodcrafter, dies her body is placed in a pit made by the gravediggers, but this time, as an actual grave.
** The story of Brighteye, which begins with him comforting his albino brother with "I love you, bird", concludes with a (non-sapient) chatterraven uttering the phrase to an albino gravedigger.
** At the start of Serina, snails were the dominant megafauna. At the late Ultimocene, their descendants, the snarks, become dominant animals once more.
* BoringButPractical:
** Egg-eating, rodent-like molodonts have diminished bird populations by the time of the Ultimocene. While several groups of birds managed to avoid this thanks to more exotic ways of breeding such as live-birth or laying their eggs in water, what do the sparrowgulls and mittens do? Carry their eggs to a safer place, and they're arguably some of the more successful birds of this era for it, to the point that the tentacle birds are the only remaining avian megafauna that still lay hard-shelled eggs.
** Small perching birds very similar to the original canary stock persist all the way to the late Ultimocene, while more exotic clades rise and fall throughout the ages. It's compared by the author to the success and adaptability of lizards, closely akin to the earliest reptiles, and opossums, which are nearly identical to the ancestor of all mammals.
** The thorngrazers aren't very numerous in terms of species because their {{Extreme Omnivor|e}}y means that they don't really suffer any pressures to speciate and as such have singular lines of descent, with the nimicorn directly descending from the crabheaded thorngrazer and the razorback from the sextacorn thorngrazer. It takes the pressures of the Late Ultimocene for this to change, and even then the nimicorn descendants aren't that dissimilar from one another or their ancestor, as they fall into either "big and bulky" or "fast and agile" categories.
** The trunkos all possess a highly generalized, omnivorous diet rather than specializing into a particular one, this has allowed them to survive and thrive in the middle Ultimocene while many other species have diminished or died out entirely.
** The duckbilled sealumps are far less fantastic than their more massive fully aquatic relatives, but they survive the end of the Ocean Age by virtue of being able to step on land and graze on food there, which their water-restricted relatives, stuck in the dying oceans, cannot do.
** The main floral survivors 1,000 years post-Late Ocean Age include the relatively evolutionarily conservative descendants of clovers and dandelions.
** From the Late Ocean Age into the early Hothouse Age, some species are so successful that the only noticeable physical change between them and their ancestors is one of coloration, with the steppestalker being just a lighter-colored PaletteSwap of its shadowstalker ancestor, and the Late Ocean Age surfscoters being darker than their starkly black and white Early Ocean Age ancestors.
** The early Late Ultimocene sea's fish population is mostly comprised of mollyminnows, evolutionarily conservative guppy descendants who spread out as the Meridians sunk with the rising sea levels.
* BornUnderTheSail: [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-gravedigger-goes-out-to-sea The social gravediggers of the oceanic age]] have become a [[WanderingCulture nomadic]] seafaring people that use things like plant fibers to make canoes and nets as well as animal parts to make their tools. It's also stated that they typically don't destroy the island ecosystems they come across like ancient humans due to them not settling on the islands and actually living on the ocean itself. [[spoiler:After making peace with the daydreamers, they strike out with them from the Icebox Seaway to explore the open ocean, and find so much success there that they last for a million years and evolve into a genetically distinct species.]]
* BrainsVersusBrawn: The thorngrazers, being strong but unintelligent prey, are contrasted with their individually weaker but highly intelligent predators who have effectively allied themselves against them.
* BrotherSisterIncest: A female mitten will sometimes take two mates. All three birds in the triad will mate with each other. The two males in these cases are almost always brothers.
* CatsHateWater: Described to be the case with a primitive cat-like predatory tribbethere who falls into a shallow stream while retreating from an attempt to hunt a muck. The author points out the irony that being a guppy descendant, the tribbethere is technically still a fish[[note]] then again, so are mammals and all other tetrapods, who descend from a species most similar to a lungfish[[/note]]... that hates water.
* CallASmeerpARabbit:
** Many of Serina's birds are named after other types of Earth birds, such as porporants, squorks, and sparrowgulls. They aren't cormorants, storks, or gulls, of course, being canary descendants that through convergent evolution came to resemble these birds.
** A notable example are the "waterfowl", which as with everything refer to aquatic canaries. At least two such lineages exist (one derived from the dougals and resembling ducks and the others from the galliwats and resembling rails) and the text often doesn't make it clear which one is being alluded to.
** Some of the smaller, hare-like circuagodonts are literally called smeerps.
** The woolly wumpos refer to the tiny seed-eating molodonts they eat to supplement their diets as "mice".
* CannibalClan: The warmonger daydreamers are a distinct cultural group that hunt and eat other daydreamers even though they are all still the same species despite their physical differences. They started first with other whalers not part of their group as their normal prey dwindled due to climate change, and after the pelagans banded together to kick them out of their open sea territory roughly 20 years before the fishers made contact with the gravediggers, they started preying upon the fishers and pastoralists instead.
* CarnivoreConfusion: This is basically the warmongers' schtick, since they will happily prey on closely related species or even their own kind, and despite being sapient they have no moral qualms whatsoever about doing so.
* CarryABigStick: The bludgebirds wield clubs using their beak tentacles, swinging them at small prey such as circuagodonts to break their vulnerable hind leg.
* CaughtUpInTheRapture: As Serinarcta burns due to the observer's meddling, it feels guilty for dooming the sea stewards to extinction and places them all in a copy of Serina where the fire never happened and the observer never revealed itself. To the sophonts, it was as if a CosmicRetcon occurred. To the rest of Serina, the sea stewards just vanished.
* CelibateHero: Seeker the greenskeeper is noted to have no interest in mating with anyone regardless of gender, compared to his gravedigger friend Pebble who is implied to be a lesbian.
* CessationOfExistence: While little of the various sophonts' beliefs in the afterlife is revealed and there is a fleeting moment where the dying dream that they are restored to health in a vision of a better world, descriptions state that there is nothing to experience and no one to experience after their brain shuts down.
* ChangelingTale: Referenced not with the birds actually called changelings, but a primitive tribbet called the nest goblin. It has evolved to observe and mimic the appearance, calls, and movements of baby birds to a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus superstimulating]] degree to get free meals from their parents. The birds put all their time and energy into feeding the goblin while their chicks either learn to feed themselves or starve.
* CharacterDevelopment: WordOfGod states that the observer has undergone this. It started out as an unfeeling entity that simply charted down the life on the world as it went on, which is reflected in how the entries are regularly spaced out by millions of years and focused on species and environments as a whole. By the Mid-Ultimocene, however, it has been around long enough to develop more of a personality as well as develop attachments, which is shown by more of the entries from this period being closer together and focusing on individuals. It has also changed enough to actively interfere with the project to prolong its life as well as save the sea stewards after experiencing guilt for Brighteye's death due to its meddling.
* ChekhovsGunman: The fireslime lumpus, a tribbet with a potent batrachotoxin, is first mentioned in the Cactaiga entry as almost an aside. Said toxin is used by the gravediggers to help the fisher and pastoralist daydreamers turn the tide against their warmonger foes by gifting them with poisoned spears. The lumpus was also seen even earlier being bitten by a spiny sniffler.
* ChildEater:
** The seastriker hunts baby porplets in particular, as the adults will just breed more.
** Watchtower wumpos opportunisticly eat baby thorngrazers killed by viridescent sawjaws, as they taste better than the adults.
* AChildShallLeadThem:
** Since seers are that much smarter than the other seastrikers, even adolescent seers hold a place of leadership over seasoned adults.
** Wideminds are seen as more flexible in thought by the woolly wumpos, and so young ones are venerated by elders due to their ability to change how things are done in ways that only they can.
* CombatPragmatist: The social gravediggers are smaller, weaker, and less adapted to an aquatic environment than the warmongers, so they armor the fishers and pastoralists with shells and bone and give them poisoned weapons to fight in their stead.
* CommonalityConnection: Apart from her intelligence, Brighteye feels kinship with Blaze because her heterochromia marks her as unique in the same way as Brighteye's intelligence and Whitecrown's albinism.
* ContinuityCreep: The South Serinarctan Forest Refugia and Daydreamer Saga arcs are much more of a coherent narrative than previous eras, which obviously followed the evolution of life on Serina, but in an episodic manner of describing one species or group, habitat, etc.
* ContinuityNod: In "The Domain of Demons", taking place during the Late Ocean Age as the gravediggers start mining in order to collect enough coal to stop the ocean from freezing over, one thing they find is the fossilized skull of a tyrant serin, a group that went extinct hundreds of millions of years before.
* CraftedFromAnimals: Gravediggers normally use animal sinews to create snares, while their later seagoing descendants use fish teeth and bones to create fishhooks and their tendons for fishing lines, and the sea-living social gravediggers before them make boats and sails from animal skins and bone, along with bone oars. Since they primarily use animal fats as fuel for fire, the peat and coal mined with bone shovels are referred to as "earthfats".
* CrapsaccharineWorld: The world five million years into the Hothouse Age is incredibly ecologically productive and biologically diverse thanks to the abundance of heat and moisture in the atmosphere but these things also result in huge, powerful storms and hurricanes forming frequently at levels never seen on Earth due to the global ocean. Additionally, the warm, humid conditions allow for the proliferation of diseases and parasites to the point where thorngrazers are generally only able to live for a few years before their parasite loads kill them outright or weaken them enough to be picked off by predators, a fate that occurs to 1 out of 4 thorngrazers every year. The heat and humidity itself can also be very oppressive at both day and night as the water in the air makes it difficult to cool off.
* CreativeSterility:
** The woolly wumpos are, as a species, uninnovative and neophobic -- while they're very emotionally well-developed and have a strong understanding of abstract concepts, they're not good at learning new things, inventing new solutions or tools or improving on old ones, or facing unfamiliar problems, and for the most part rely on well-established traditions. The exception to this are very rare, neurodivergent individuals called wideminds, who are more innovative, less fearful, and better at coming up with new things. Wideminds are highly respected in wumpo society, and historically have been responsible for creating most new tools, solutions or practices, which afterwards spread through the species and became established as part of tradition.
** The chatteravens are capable of innovation to a degree and learn fast but they have little in the way of abstract thought which hampers their creativity and their skills at making new tools or behaviors. Brighteye, being the only fully sapient chatteraven, is the exception as his strong grasp of abstract concepts and natural learning ability allows him to outperform wumpo wideminds when it comes to making new tools and discoveries.
* CreepyCrows: Woolly wumpos refer to the raven-like bluetailed chatteravens as "harbingers" due to their tendency to signify the presence of the predators that they can summon.
* CripplingOverspecialization: Plenty of cases:
** The serezelles die out due to being unable to graze on the unpalatable razorgrass, the merwals become specialized to eating shellfish and could not adapt to a different diet when the marine molodonts become more efficient clam eaters, and the specialized burrowing birds of the Kyran Islands had no defense against an influx of predatory tribbetheres when the islands collided with the mainland. This is TruthInTelevision -- many animals respond to selective pressures by specializing, but specialist niches are far more fragile than generalists.
** This is what spells the end of [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]]. They became so specialized for feeding from a specific type of broadleaf tree that was already on the decline when they evolved that, when it becomes too cold for those trees to survive, they begin to die out from malnutrition, while [[spoiler:the carnivorous gravediggers can subsist on any source of meat, on top of being more flexible in mindset in general. It's eventually discovered that seaweed can actually sustain the woodcrafters, though its softness means their jaws grow longer, but by then it was already too late as the surviving woodcrafters were all well past child-bearing age (only males keep their fertility past their thirties, and woodcrafters as a whole rarely live past fifty years), on top of their population being too small to prevent a genetic bottleneck even if they weren't too old to have children]].
** The colossal quadclaw, a fully terrestrial crustacean descended from hermit crabs endemic to the Meridian Islands, goes extinct due to being outcompeted by the newly arrived, warm-blooded grazing birds that can eat grass at any time of day, as opposed to the quadclaws only being able to forage during the day due to being susceptible to the nighttime chill.
** There was once a larger species of skystrike (sparrowgulls that attack their prey in groups) roughly the size of a golden eagle that was adapted to hunt the gigantic archangels of the Early and Early Middle Ultimocene such as the stormsonor, but went extinct once its prey died out and the other archangels were too small to sustain it.
** The whaler subtype of daydreamer, specialized to hunt open-ocean prey, is on the decline due to the warming ocean lowering the numbers of their filter-feeding prey, most notably the banded maw, the largest animal on Serina during the Ultimocene. By the time of the Ocean Age, only the pelagans and warmongers are left, and millennia after the latter's war with the other daydreamers, the last of the former die out, but not before reuniting with their fellow daydreamers and passing on their history as the woodcrafters did before them.
** The circuagodogs, who once outcompeted their avian and fellow tribbethere competition, die out not only when their fellow circuagodonts start going extinct themselves, but the trunkos who served as their other prey source grow smart enough to start preemptively targeting their predators by killing their babies and breaking apart their packs. The last circuagodog, a scissortooth, dies starving to death before getting beaten to death by one of the very trunkos its kind used to hunt as a MercyKill.
** The icefishers go extinct when the thawing of the ice they need to survive puts them in the crosshairs of their savage gravedigger relatives, who outcompete them into extinction.
** Save for the duckbilled sealump, the rest of the group dies out during the Great Thaw because unlike their cousins who can go on land when necessary, they're trapped in the dying oceans.
** The cactaiga plant was very prolific during the Mid-Ultimocene as it was adapted for cold and arid conditions, but is unable to handle the increased rainfall of the Late Ultimocene and goes extinct.
** Thorngrazers lack much in the way of intelligence, so their only choices are getting meaner, gaining more armor, or getting faster. This leaves them at a permanent disadvantage against their much smarter predators who have ways of getting around all of those traits.
** The viridescent sawjaws are an interesting case. They feed on absolutely nothing but thorngrazers, but unlike many specialized predators, this is due to imprinting rather than physical limitations, as they are fully capable of tackling different prey but will pass them simply because they don't see them as food. This narrow-mindedness when it comes to food isn't really a problem though since thorngrazers are so abundant that they don't need to hunt anything else.
** The social thorngrazers and sealumps evolved to bunch up when dealing with terrestrial predators such as sawjaws, carnackles, scroungers, and the like in order to protect their young, but this doesn't work as well against aerial predators such as drakevultures that can simply pluck their young from their circles with impunity.
* CrusadingWidow: The warmonger matriarch is completely blinded when the grieving mate of one of the soldiers she sent into battle stalks her after she fled the angry mob and stabs her [[EyeScream in her remaining good eye]] with a broken shaft from one of the gravedigger's spears.
* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: An avian variant. The various "softbill" birds sport facial tentacles derived from soft tissue that covered their ancestors' beaks and have unusually upright stances for birds, making them a rare example of a Cthulavian.
* CutenessProximity: The luddy porplets have this effect on the fisher daydreamers due to their chubby appearance and [[CuteCrittersActChildlike child-like behavior]]. It doesn't work on the pastoral daydreamers, who are taught from childhood to only view porplets as food. The luddy's descendant, the greengrazer, are also considered cute by novan daydreamers.
* DeathByIrony:
** Merwals are marine canitheres that used their tail derived hind leg to swim, much like how their fish ancestors used their tails to swim. However, because it has long since been used for walking, its joints and rigidity now made it very poorly suited for aquatic locomotion, so, when the aquatic molodonts arrive who use their front legs for swimming, the merwals are swiftly outcompeted and go extinct.
** The wombler is the first megafaunal canary in Serina's history, evolving ten million years post-establishment in a predator-free SugarBowl, into a seven-foot, slow-moving flightless herbivore. Due to this peaceful environment, however, the womblers evolved to be ''less than'' peaceful: never having learned how to fear for their own survival, they become very fearless and aggressive, often killing each other in fights over territory and mates, because they never learned to back down and flee. This eventually proves to be their undoing when the first true predators, the falconaries, begin evolving; the womblers quickly go extinct and leave no descendants.
** The fork-tailed babbling jays have a quasi-religious reverence for rainfall, believing that plants and animals are created by it, and that the gas giant Serina orbits is a "sky sea" that blesses them with it. Ultimately, it's rain that leads to their extinction, as it eventually causes the fork-tails' desert habitat to turn into a humid forest ridden with diseases they have no resistance to.
** The warmonger matriarch was the ruler of some of the most deadly apex predators to swim Serina's oceans, but is eaten by a sea shoggoth, which is made of the [[AntAssault tiniest carnivores in the sea]].
** The circauagodogs outcompete the canitheres by being smarter than them, only to reach an intelligence bottleneck that does them in when both their prey and predator competition gets smarter than them.
** Cactaiga plants are able to thrive in harsh, barren conditions that most other flora can't survive but are done in by warm temperatures and increased rainfall, something typically beneficial for plant life.
* DeusExMachina: Near literally how the Late Ocean Age is resolved. [[spoiler:The god-like intelligence observing Serina takes pity on the sea stewards for inadvertently destroying their world due to interfering to keep the project running, so it clones them and puts them in a copy of Serina, saving them while the original keeps burning.]]
* DisasterDominoes: The Thermocene/Pangaeacene mass extinction. A gradual increase in volcanism sets these off that leads to the entire moon becoming an irradiated HailfirePeaks and the extinction of 99% of all life.
* TheDiscoveryOfFire: The gravediggers discovered how to create fire at the beginning of the Ocean Age, but learning to control it only becomes relevant as Brighteye seeks to learn their secret in order to help the wumpos hold back the thorngrazers and the cactaiga.
* DistractedByTheSexy: In [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-gmu?authuser=0 this story]], a young male gmu enters his first mating season and becomes obsessed with pursuing the scent and calls of a receptive female to a fatal degree, as he fails to detect the greater grappler stalking him until it swiftly and brutally kills him.
* ADogNamedDog: Ember's pet bird is named, well, Bird.
* DoubleAgent: The watchtower wumpo will guard their thorngrazer herds against common foes such as large sawjaws, aerial predators like drakevultures, and their carnackle cousins, but when it comes to the thorngrazer specialist viridescent sawjaws, they will every so often turn a blind eye to a sawjaw attack so that they can opportunisticly scavenge any felled baby thorngrazers in the process. They get away with this due to their charge's lesser intelligence, and not doing it twice in a row, which would allow even beings as dumb as thorngrazers to realize their treachery. The sawjaws understand the arrangement enough to even leave freshly butchered baby thorngrazers for them to eat.
* TheDreaded:
** In an ironic twist, the woodcrafters became this to their former predators the gravediggers. Their tendency to retaliate if one of them was killed or injured caused the gravediggers to view them as a jinx and their systematic hunting at their hands made them a danger to be steered clear of. The gravediggers that lived in the refugia would not create any tree art for fear of drawing their attention and when the woodcrafters began hunting the ones outside their territory, they start depicting them as deadly monsters in their artwork.
** The savage gravedigggers, or "wildwalkers" in the tongue of the thalassic gravediggers, are feared by them due to their not quite sapient level but still high intelligence combined with their viciousness.
** The woolly wumpos fear the thalassic gravediggers for being smart enough to hunt them, referring to them as "demons" for driving them to the far north where it was much tougher for them to survive. For their part, the coastian thalassic gravedigger seem to fear the wumpos back as ever since Retally drove them off, they never made any permanent settlements along the shoreline, only come to shore to mine peat and coal, and both species try to give each other a wide berth whenever possible.
* DrivenToSuicide: Implied with Retally the woolly wumpo. After his lack of mastery over fire creates a blaze that kills nearly all of his clan, Retally is consumed with grief and regret. He heads to the inhospitable north and is never seen again.
* DumbMuscle:
** Savage gravediggers are the largest and strongest of the three gravedigger species of the Late Ocean Age, but are only about as smart as a chimp compared to their sophont cousins due to losing the higher intelligence exhibited by their tundra gravedigger ancestors.
** The thorngrazers of the middle Ultimocene are among the strongest of the remaining land animals but have greatly lost their intelligence, and are not only stupid by Serinian standards, but even by the standards of Earth mammals. They survive due to a combination of their strength, sheer aggression, and ability to eat [[ExtremeOmnivore practically anything.]] However, this means that they are also covered in parasites that gradually weaken them since their stupidity means that they can't form real social attachment and engage in social grooming to get rid of them. The social thorngrazers of the Late Ultimocene have gotten ''just'' smart enough to form social bonds amongst females, but are still utterly unintelligent otherwise. The monstrocorns on the other hand have become bigger, stronger, and meaner than ever while remaining unintelligent.
* DyingAlone: Brighteye dies of smoke inhalation on the beach with only the watcher as company.
* DyingDream:
** As the last woodcrafter dies, she receives a dream from ''something'' restoring her health and people, reassuring her that she did well and pulling back the curtain to show the world from its perspective, millions of lifetimes and species far beyond her comprehension, all starting from a little fish and a little bird.
** The warmonger matriarch receives a vision of her people prosperous and at peace as she is eaten alive by a sea shoggoth. No matter how hard she swims towards them, they only get further away until she can only feel the indifferent presence of ''something'' beside her, and then nothing at all.
** Brighteye gets a vision of the watcher in his last moments where it reveals to him its part in bringing he and Blaze together in the first place, which eventually leads to the death of the family thanks to the massive coal fire sparked by Whitecrown and his clan's carelessness with fire. Brighteye's last words in response to their apology and statement that this was not the end of the world, but merely another chapter in its history, are a DyingCurse towards them for their interference before expiring.
* DyingRace: Quite a few, as Serina's biodiversity continues to decline over the Middle and Late Ultimocene:
** The mourners-in-the-mist are the last relic population of boomsingers, having survived the loss of their environment and competition from better-adapted grazers by holding out on a single island devoid of competitors or predators. However, they're still ultimately doomed -- in addition to being poorly adapted to its niche and only enduring because there's nothing to contest it from them, their small island can only support a hundred and fifty or so of them at any given time, making them very vulnerable to sudden disastrous events. Inbreeding is also taking a heavy toll of them, and most of their calves are stillborn; those that survive usually have significant problems with their immune systems, digestion, and organs. While they'll still endure for thousands of years, they're slowly but surely going extinct, and have by the Late Ocean Age.
** The woolly wumpos have been on a slow decline thanks to the shrinking of habitable land and competition with thorngrazers and now only number around a few hundred individuals compared to around 300,000 beforehand. Conflict with the thalassic gravediggers forcing them further north to more inhospitable territory has also caused their numbers to dwindle. As a result, aberrant traits such as heterochromia and albinism are very common. The Late Ocean Age ends with them dying in the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The dire bumblebears were already a fairly rare species due to their high food requirements, but after the great Serinarctan coal seam fire their population is reduced to a below sustainable number.
** Due to the sea stewards' disappearance, the defenseless floating bloats' numbers are drastically cut by the sea shoggoths and other predators predating them due to lack of food, with the last dying of starvation around 250 years after the coal seam fire and falling to rest at the bottom of the ocean away from most creatures capable of eating it completely.
** Due to inbreeding amongst themselves from their very inception 10,000 years post-coal seam fire, the reapers have poor reproductive success, with nineteen out of twenty pupal sacs failing to mature, and even fewer managing to reach their first year. As a result, from an initial population of less than 2,000 scattered across the world they continue to dwindle until only a single female, Eve, is left 500 years later.
* EatenAlive:
** After the blinded, weakened warmonger matriarch gets caught in thick vegetation her struggles catch the attention of a sea shoggoth, which swarms over her and takes her apart while she's powerless to resist.
** Blaze considers getting killed by a dire bumblebear preferable to getting killed by thorngrazers, because at least the former would kill her quickly, instead of the latter's inefficiency at predation meaning that they'd just start taking bites out of her slowly long before she actually died.
** Once the sea stewards are no longer around to feed them and there's no more carrion to consume, the sea shoggoths start eating the floating bloats while they’re helpless to do anything about it. A lucky few die quickly when the attacking ants end up suffocating them, but the others die slowly from being eaten from the outside in over the course of days or even weeks.
* EldritchOceanAbyss: From the perspective of the woolly wumpos, the ocean is the realm of demons, as it's where the thalassic gravediggers who hunted them came from. Before first contact between the two peoples, however, the ocean was revered as a source of highly nutritious seaweed. Even after Retally managed to drive the gravediggers from the shoreline by turning fire against them, the wumpos still have a major taboo against making their homes along the shoreline.
* TheEmpire: The warmonger daydreamers have a supremacist culture and believe it is their right to conquer the ocean and destroy the other daydreamers. Unlike the fishers and pastoralists who have fairly loose clan structures, the warmongers have a large, united society with central leadership determined by monarchy which gives them an edge over both.
* EndOfAnAge:
** [[spoiler:The death of the last woodcrafter]] informally marks the end of the early Middle Ultimocene, and the beginning of the Ocean Age.
** The end of the Ocean Age and the Middle Ultimocene with it is marked by the Serinarctan coal seam fire, the death of Brighteye and the woolly wumpos, and the sea stewards being transported to a new world. The sea steward's departure, combined with the extinction of the icefishers due to their ice refuge melting, also marks the end of the age of sapient life on Serina, with most surviving lifeforms focusing more on being tough than on their intelligence.
** Following the Serinarctan coal seam fire, anoxic events and lack of food due to rising sea levels kills off most vertebrate life in the oceans, leaving the molluscs and sea shoggoths to take over the seas.
* EnemyMine: The fisher and pastoralist daydreamers have been in a cold war for centuries, but with the gravediggers serving as the bridge, they unite in order to face off against the warmongers who wish to kill them all.
* EveryoneHasStandards:
** The pastoralist daydreamers farm the non-sapient descendants of their close relatives, the nops, for food but they draw the line at [[EatenAlive eating them alive]] and will MercyKill them first, even though the nops aren't able to feel pain anymore due to millions of years of domestication.
** The social gravediggers are noted to be highly empathetic to other species, but even they come to see the warmongers as evil before officially fighting them due to the fact that they are willingly eating other people (daydreamers) despite the current abundance of alternative food in the shallows they are currently invading.
** The shallow water daydreamers may view the warmongers as evil monsters for their actions, but they're still horrified when they see the poisoned warmongers drown in their second battle.
** While Brighteye detests the thorngrazers just as much as everyone else who happens to be aware of them, even he thinks them getting burned to death is too horrible a fate to suffer.
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Aside from the ''Velociraptor''-like banshee, you have [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin pseudornithopods]], [[TRexpy tyrant serins]] (which even live 65 million years hence), and the blue-throated boomsinger, which is essentially a tailless sauropod. There are also birds that resemble other non-dinosaur Mesozoic reptiles, such as the marine predatory penguipleurodon that resembles an avian mosasaur, and the quadrupedal GiantFlyer archangels that bring to mind ''Quetzalcoatlus''. And, of course, all birds are technically dinosaurs, so this trope really applies to ''every'' bird on Serina.
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: Pretenguins are a group of flightless, mostly aquatic sparrowgulls that have convergently evolved with penguins. They are noted as being playful, docile, and intelligent creatures, and one species, the penpal, has been domesticated by the gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization. Unfortunately, they end up being among the casualties of the Great Thaw when the oceans become too toxic for them to survive. However, "The Visitor: Part 3" reveals that the freshwater pygmy pretenguin managed to survive and is now living in the marshes of Serinarcta.
* EvilIsBigger: Warmongers are on average about 20% larger than their fisher and pastoral cousins, and they believe in whaler supremacy over other dolfinches.
* EvilOldFolks: The warmongers are led by an elderly matriarch, and it's her idea to try genociding the gravediggers in order to preserve warmonger beliefs.
* ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin: Many creatures are named very descriptively after their primary physical features or habits -- for example, falconaries are falcon-like canary descendants, boomsingers communicate through loud, echoing calls, gravediggers dig spiked pits to kill their prey, thorngrazers eat spiky plants, and so on.
* ExoticEquipment: Not mentioned within the story proper, but tribbetheres, much like the guppies they're descended from, have prehensile penises.
* {{Expy}}: Some creatures may have been inspired by other works of SpeculativeBiology.
** Molebirds and bumblets are similar to [[Series/TheFutureIsWild spinks]].
** The archangels are also similar to the great blue windrunner (being large crane-like birds with additional wing feathers on their legs), and the banshees are reminiscent of the carakiller (predatory flightless birds whose wings sport dinosaur-like claws). Vibropterans bear some resemblance to the forest flish, and boomsingers are rather reminiscent of toratons, being beaked, tailless sauropod analogues, despite being of avian origin while the latter is [[TurtlePower a tortoise]]. The lumberbeest fills the same niche in deep forests and looks less like a sauropod but more like an actual giant tortoise.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-thermocene-75/porporats Porporants]] are flightless, predatory seabirds that fill the niches of dolphins and seals, much like the [[Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture porpin]] and [[Series/TheFutureIsWild gannetwhale]]. The former has an analogue to baleen whales as a relative, and Serina also has [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-cryocene-50---75-million-years/birdwhales birdwhales]].
** The simiagibs, brightly-colored monkey-like tree-dwellers with two pairs of partly-joined arms, bear an uncanny resemblance to the Prolemuris from ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.
* ExtraDigits: Tribbets have seven digits on each forelimb. The more derived spiderfrogs have only four, but their fingers are long enough to function as arms in their own right and have developed tiny fingers of their own. While most advanced tribbetheres have seven digits per forepaw, the primitive Nest Goblin has more than eight.
* ExtremeOmnivore: The [[MeaningfulName omniphages]] are a group of large molodonts that are adapted to eat pretty much anything they come across, including rotten wood, thorns, and bones. They can even [[EatDirtCheap extract nutrients from dirt]] by digesting organic bits in it. One desert-dwelling species, the thorngrazer, adapted to feed on spine-covered cactus analogs, and its ice age descendants fill a unique niche as their environment's primary grazers and scavengers alike. This has a noticeable effect on their evolution. Unlike most other grazers who have populations separate into different species when they specialize into feeding of different plants, the thorngrazers' ability to eat pretty much anything means they don't have to specialize. There are only two species of throrngrazer during the Late Ocean Age as a result, the longer legged nimicorns who are somewhat better suited for browsing and active hunting, and the squat, armored razorbacks who are better built for grazing and scavenging.
* EyeballPluckingBirds:
** Many snuffalo are missing their eyes thanks to attacks from butcherraptors but this is not much of a hindrance to them since they rely more on touch and vibration to navigate.
** Pickbirds will sometimes assist sawjaws in their thorngrazer hunts by pecking at the thorngrazer's eyes to distract them.
* FaceDeathWithDignity:
** The woodcrafter culture typically doesn't become worried about things that can't be resolved. [[spoiler: As such, when it becomes clear that their species is going to die out, they simply decide to use their remaining time to help the gravediggers and impart their final lessons on them]].
** This is attempted by the exiled warmonger matriarch after she's rendered blind as she tries to swim back out to the open ocean where she likely would have been put to death by the pelagans, which she saw as a more dignified way to go out. However, she ends up getting turned around and went back into the shallows, where [[UndignifiedDeath she gets tangled up in seaweed and devoured by a sea shoggoth]].
* FantasticArousal: Female snarks have certain spots on their bodies that the males pierce with their [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_dart love darts]] when they mate. This gives the females a rush of endorphins rather than pain. Even touching the spots is pleasurable to them; they're said to [[ADateWithRosiePalms rub against objects in their environment for self-stimulation]].
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: For the most part averted, since the sophonts are genuinely inhuman. However, the sea steward society combines elements of Inuit and other Arctic peoples (reliance on the sea, use of bones and pelts to make boats) and Aboriginal Australian cultures (maintaining a sustained, garden-like environment). Surreal/symbolic art draws heavy inspiration from Pacific Northwest cultures.
* FantasticFaunaCounterpart: As the colonists diversify to occupy various niches, they take on many forms resembling Earth life:
** Mucks are avian iguanas, serezelles are bird antelopes, and the canaribou is the canary version of reindeer and elk.
** Primitive serestriders are giant ostrich-like birds that fill a niche similar to sauropods, while some later strains develop dermal armor and stouter bodies similar to ankylosaurs. These birds are all preyed upon by the immense, flightless and heavy-beaked tyrant serins, which resemble tyrannosaurs. As a result, the plains of the later Thermocene end up decidedly resembling those of the Mesozoic.
** The tribbetheres, which arise later in the Ultimocene also become convergent with mammals, with canitheres being like hyenas, circuagodonts becoming like deer and hares, or the molodonts coming to resemble rodents.
** Water snuffles are basically platypuses if they were actually birds.
** Some of the grazing circuagodonts evolve into predatory forms, somewhat evoking the mesonychids and entelodonts, prehistoric ungulates that became hoofed meat-eaters.
** The canitheres of the Ultimocene have occupied some new niches to avoid competition with the predator wheeljaws. The brushbounder is similar to a honey badger or wolverine, the big-eared foxtrotter is blatantly similar to a fennec fox, and the repandors are speedy grassland hunters similar to jackals and dingos.
** Snarks are the Serinan equivalents to octopi and squids as surprisingly intelligent, free-swimming predatory mollusks. Later, sea mittens converge upon larger, cold-water cephalopods.
** The tribbats also take on some unusual niches, such as the owl-like moonbeast and its descendant the snowspirit that more particularly takes after a snowy owl, the vibropterans, colorful nectar-eaters similar to hummingbirds, or the night biter, basically a flying cookiecutter shark.
** Some of the handfish tribbets take on hexapedal, arboreal monkey-like forms, such as the tarsier-like gibbets, which later give rise to the ape-like simiagibs.
** Many of the larger molodonts in the Ultimocene take on aquatic niches, becoming analogues of walruses, manatees, and cetaceans.
** The saber-toothed circuagodog and the mammoth neckbeard are Serina's expies of, well, machairodontine cats and mammoths as the shaggy, trunked, social, ice-age megafauna and its pack-hunting, sabertoothed predator.
** The jackal carnackle acts similarly to an arctic fox, following around large predators such as bumblebears to share their kills.
** Seastrikers are very similar to orcas due to being large, [[ItCanthink highly intelligent]] aquatic predators that live in matrilineal social groups and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick play with their prey before killing it]]. Their descendants, the daydreamers, take this resemblance further by living in cultural groups distinguished by choice of diet, with the fishers, pastoralists, and whalers roughly corresponding to the resident, transient, and offshore orca populations of western North America respectively, while the warmonger whalers' habit of tipping ice floes to prey on molodonts resting on them is based on a common hunting tactic used by polar orcas. The fishers learning to speak the gravedigger language may also be based on some orcas [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqB1jRVw7Bw attempting to mimic human speech]].
** Archangels and lanks are essentially Serina's azhdarchid pterosaurs, though the former are more herbivorous.
** The snowscrounger comes off as a flightless equivalent of the snowy sheathbill, Antarctica's sole terrestrial bird species that also acts as a scavenger and opportunistic predator of young animals. Their rivals, the glacier ravens, are also roughly equivalent to skuas.
** The gupgops of the Meridian Islands are slugs that have taken the niche of toads.
** Predatory burdles, such as the sea rexes, are the Serinan answer to a pliosaur.
** The bluetails are extremely similar to chimpanzees despite being raven-like in shape: they are highly-intelligent semi-sophonts who are aggressive and violent, are prone to gang wars and hostile takeovers of territories, and reject albinos and often harass and kill them, as chimpanzees are known to do.
** Pretenguins are mostly analogous to penguins as per their name, but the ptarmenguin takes mostly after a giant flightless goose crossed with a moose, the pygmy pretenguin a duck, and the penpals are very similar to flightless cormorants in both body plan and niche, while being the thalassic gravediggers' rough equivalent of a hunting dog.
** Savage gravediggers are a combination of honey badger and polar bear. They can also be seen as analogous to chimpanzees as they are nonsapient but intelligent and vicious relatives to a species of sapient, bipedal tool users.
** The pickbirds are close to oxpeckers and contrast the chimp aspects of their bluetail ancestors by being akin to bonobos in terms of being less violent and solving disputes through sex, while the Hothouse Age viridescent sawjaws they ally with now resemble dromaeosaurs whose formerly mostly useless third limbs have effectively become tails once again like their guppy ancestors.
** The monstrocorn, a nimicorn descendant, is akin to a rhino or ceratopsian.
** The crested kittyhawk's hunting technique of dancing around prey to tire it out before killing it brings to mind a stoat hunting rabbits, especially when it's the smallest species of kittyhawk.
** The platyporp acts like a platypus in terms of shape and feeding habits, but their tendency to build nests upon the water brings to mind grebes.
* FantasticLivestock:
** The farmerjays are a species of songbird that feed and raise fattened, domesticated snails in tree hollows. Notably, the farmerjays themselves are intelligent but aren't actually sapient as they farm their snail livestock through a combination of instinct and behaviors passed down from the adults.
** The social gravediggers end up domesticating a species of smeerp (A rabbit-like tribbethere) for food, which allows their population to no longer be tied to the amount of wild prey in their environment. As a result, the population skyrockets in virtually no time.
** The daydreamers are sapient, orca-like marine birds that farm a herbivorous marine bird known as a ring-necked porplet as livestock, over millions of years these porplets become fatter and dumber, eventually developing into the bloated, barely intelligent nops. One thing of note is that the porplets and their nop descendants are actually related to the daydreamers (making it somewhat analogous to humans farming monkeys for meat) and this relation causes some daydreamers to view the eating of nops as morally repugnant and they start feeding exclusively on creatures like fish.
** Five million years later, the novan daydreamers and their terrestrial gravedigger allies have replaced the nops with the floating bloat, a massive sauropod-like animal that can reach lengths of 140 feet and feeds on the plants growing on the ocean floor. The only reason these birds can even grow so large is because the daydreamers, gravediggers, and greenskeepers (sapient descendants of the nops' still-wild relatives) have been actively maintaining the shallow seas for millions of years and have made them more biologically productive.
* FantasticRacism:
** Some fisher daydreamers will discriminate against pastoralists who choose to join their communities, while pastoralist insularity can give way to plain xenophobia.
** Warmongers view all other beings as lesser, including the other daydreamers, making no distinction between either the fishers, or the pastoralists who happen to be their closest cousins. As far as they're concerned, their cousins are both little more than meat.
* FantasticSlurs: Warmongers refer to daydreamers born with the species' typical yellow markings as "bile-bathers", as to them they look like they're covered in vomit.
* FatIdiot: Nops are bred to be much fatter and dumber than their thinner luddy cousins.
* FearlessFool: Womblers, the very first megafaunal canaries to evolve, inhabit a serene grassland world virtually without predators or indeed any creature larger than themselves. As a result, they are [[DumbMuscle not the brightest of birds]] and have virtually no sense of fear. However, this actually makes them very dangerous animals because they don't know any better than to fight to the death over territorial and mating disputes.
* FeatherFingers: In an unusual take on this trope, the farmerjay evolves a crude grasping mechanism from the alula and a fleshy pad on the wrist of its wing, allowing it to handle its offspring and the snails it instinctively farms for food. This is a trait common to all sparrowgulls.
* FeatheredFiend: Every avian apex predator, naturally. Also, some of the herbivores can be quite deadly in self-defense, such as the blade-winged serestriders, or the Mammoth Neckbeard (even shown impaling a carnivorous circuagodont through the head with its toe claw.)
* FeelNoPain: Nops have had the ability to feel pain almost entirely bred out of them, so it's possible for one to get EatenAlive by predators (save for their daydreamer shepherds, who opt for a MercyKill when it comes time to harvest them) and just keep grazing until their bodies are too broken to graze anymore.
* {{Foil}}:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-seastriker-and-the-porplet porplets and the seastrikers]] are being set up as this to the woodcrafters and gravediggers:
*** The porplets and woodcrafters are both highly social intelligent herbivores being hunted by an intelligent predator, but the woodcrafters are highly empathetic to their herdmates and will try to help or avenge them when one is attacked, while the porplets will leave their herdmates to die if it means the survival of the whole group.
*** The gravediggers and seastrikers are likewise both highly intelligent hunters, but the gravediggers are solitary predators that mostly rely on traps to dispatch their prey but take no pleasure in the act of killing, while the seastrikers are very social and hunt their food directly and also have a tendency to play with their food.
*** There's also the relationships the predators have with their prey species. The gravediggers would kill their woodcrafter prey as much as they could with no regard to long-term consequences, which led to them becoming more intelligent and becoming a threat to the gravediggers before they eventually made peace. The porplets are completely at the mercy of the seastrikers, who now only kill them in a way that benefits themselves in the long run.
** Later on, the daydreamers become a foil to the marine social gravediggers: they are both the sapient, carnivorous, ocean living descendants of bumblets with fully realized cultures but differ in some key ways. The gravediggers are united in their empathy to one another and the creatures in their environment and rely heavily on tool use to live on and feed from the ocean, but have no desire to advance beyond that point. The daydreamers on the other hand, are divided by ideological differences that lead to violent conflicts with each other and are perfectly designed to live in their aquatic habitat, which leaves them unable to make or use tools, yet they think very deeply about the future and how they can affect it despite that.
** The luddy and nop, the two descendants of the ring-necked porplet. Luddies are relatively thin, semi-sapient, look more or less the same, are highly communicative, and are treated as pets by the fisher daydreamers. Nops are fat, incredibly unintelligent, have numerous color variations due to domestication, are completely incapable of speech, and are protected by the pastoralist daydreamers as food. Their ultimate fates are also different. The luddy evolves into the fully sapient greenskeeper, while the nops go extinct due to the floating bloat serving as a better food source.
** The pelagan daydreamers and the sea rex, the two apex predators of the open seas. While both are aardgeese, the pelgans descend from the bumblet vivas, while the sea rexes are burdles descended from the muck serestriders. The pelagans are sapient, social, and live in a collectivist society, whereas the sea rex is nonsapient, solitary, and only come together to mate. Both end up going extinct, but while the last surviving pelagans make contact with the daydreamer-gravedigger civilization and survive through their lore, the last sea rex dies alone and unmourned as solely a feast for scavengers.
** In the southernmost ice-free peninsula of Serinarcta, the thorngrazers and their main predator, the sawjaws. Thorngrazers are incredibly unintelligent, by both Ultimocene Serina and Earth standards, rely mainly on their bulk and sheer aggression to survive, and only live in groups because it lessens their own chances of getting eaten. The sawjaws are very intelligent and work together to survive out of altruism. While thorngrazers are {{Social Darwinist}}s who leave the injured to die at the beaks of the sawjaws, sawjaws will take care of even those who can't take care of themselves.
** The woolly wumpos have quite a few foils:
*** The woolly wumpos and the bluetailed chatteravens. The wumpos are descendants of a near-sapient species that became sapient, whereas the bluetails are the (Mostly) non-sapient descendants of a sapient species. Wumpos treat their entire species as one big family, while the bluetails are highly territorial and think nothing of harming those outside of their family. Wumpos are very emotionally mature even if they tend to be neophobic, bluetails are quick learners but possess a species wide HairTriggerTemper. The wumpos revere the neurodivergent wideminders and have no issue with physical differences, whereas the bluetails have treated Brighteye as a pariah his whole life for his intelligence and despise albinos like Whitecrown for his physical aberration.
*** In "Allies", the woolly wumpos and thorngrazer groups are contrasted with each other. The thorngrazers are only together to avoid predation, and even trample their own while retreating from Brighteye and the wumpo family coming to assist the injured Blaze. The wumpos by contrast are altruistic enough to help one another no matter how dangerous the foe is.
*** The woolly wumpos and their closest cousins, the island wumpos who they've begun to interact with as the encroachment of the glaciers has created a land bridge between the latter's home islands and the Serinarcta mainland. Woolly wumpos are very large and cold adapted, whereas island wumpos are about a quarter of their size on average and live in a temperate environment. While both are highly social species, woollies stick closely with their families whenever possible, taking after the mammoth trunko who serves as their primary ancestors, whereas islanders take after their desert wump primary ancestors by having no issue only being in pairs or completely alone for days at a time. The woollies are true sophonts and highly rational but neophobic, whereas the islanders are near-sophonts who tend to be more emotional and are very curious as a result of their island tameness. Woolies tend to be virtually plain-colored, whereas islanders have brightly colored faces that make them closely resemble the ancestral trunko species they descend from. While both have tiny populations, the woollies have many aberrant traits such as albinism and piebaldness, whereas the gauntlet the island wumpo's ancestors had to beat to reach their islands has left them highly resistant to inbreeding depression despite the fact that their population is 95% hom*ogenous, if more prone to erythrism and feathers growing on their feet. While the woollies have been driven to the brink of extinction due to their thorngrazers eating their food, the islanders are small and quick enough that the thorngrazers don't pay them much mind, allowing them to eat the plants of the cactaiga that the woolies aren't able to access due to their size, and hunt the small animals the thorngrazers inadvertently flush out and even form a mutually beneficial relationship with them after the great coal fire. Ultimately, the woolly wumpos are among the casualties of the Late Ocean Age catastrophe and leave no descendants, while the island wumpos survive into the Late Ultimocene and diversify into numerous different species.
** The pretenguins contrast the other extant sparrowgulls of the Late Ocean Age, in particular the sea- and chatteravens, by being openly friendly towards strangers, while their cousins are highly aggressive towards anything that isn't one of them.
** The rumbling helmethead and the thorny monstrocorn, the two primary thorngrazer species of the Hothouse Age:
*** The rumbling helmethead is social but has a short lifespan of less than a decade at best, whereas the thorny monstrocorn is mostly solitary but can live up to thirty years if they're lucky.
*** The helmethead is the primary prey species of Serinarcta, whereas monstrocorns have no real predators once they reach adulthood.
** The swamp and crested kittyhawks, the largest and smallest species respectively. Swamp kittyhawks hunt relatively large prey, kill their prey via a quick bite after ambushing them, and tend to be heliocopter parents who'll feed their children even long after they can feed themselves. Crested kittyhawks on the other hand hunt fairly small prey, only kill their prey after spending ages tiring them out, and will just stop feeding their children after a certain point to have them either learn how to hunt or strave.
* ForWantOfANail: [[https://www.deviantart.com/sheather888/art/AU-Thalassic-Woodcrafter-917439085 Thalassic Woodcrafter]] shows a scenario in which the woodcrafters decided to leave for warmer pastures with the gravediggers much earlier instead of staying behind, eventually becoming smaller and more adapted to an aquatic environment as they and the gravediggers [[InSpiteOfANail also join with the daydreamers and greenskeepers to become the Sea Steward civilization.]]
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: The watcher appears to Seeker as the overlayed outlines of a daydreamer, greenskeeper, gravedigger, and Brighteye sharing a single glowing eye in the way that visions appear to daydreamers.
* FormerlySapientSpecies:
** Downplayed in that the ring-necked porplets were more accurately semi-sapient, but millions of years of farming by the seastrikers and later Large-Prey Ecotype daydreamers turned the ones farmed by the pastoralists into the far less intelligent nop. Fatter than their porplet ancestors, millennia of selective breeding for docility and edibility have made them so dumb that they're utterly defenseless without their daydreamer shepherds to protect them.
** When the folk-tailed babbling jays went extinct, the last surviving member of their species took a mate with a closely related but non-sapient bird and had hybrid offspring that lacked his intelligence (save for a grandchild who was killed by a predatory bird when they got distracted due to their high intellect before they got the chance to breed). By the time of the middle Ultimocene, these hybrids still live on in their descendants the chatterers, who aren't sapient themselves but are still highly intelligent and able to mimic spoken language. By the time of the Late Ocean Age, one bluetail chatteraven known as Brighteye is fully sapient, but the rest are merely about as intelligent as a chimp.
** Savage gravediggers are descendants of the tundra gravediggers forced towards the southern coast during the Ultimocene glaciation. The extremely harsh environments where they evolved and now live produced a strong selection against higher intelligence, as the lack of useful building materials following the extinction of forest environments provided little benefit for tool use and the scarcity of food made big, energy-hungry brains a liability. As a result, they're only about as bright as a chimp and have lost all forms of tool use and culture.
** In the vision the watcher gives Seeker of what will happen if the sea stewards choose to die with their world, he sees that the generalist thalassic gravediggers have managed to survive, being less attached to the ocean than the others, but at the cost of their sapience, and they feast upon the corpses of their former brethren, the daydreamers and greenskeepers.
* FromNobodyToNightmare:
** The tribbetheres certainly count, at least from the birds' perspective. Starting out as small, rat-sized hoppers in the Thermocene, the Thermocene-Pangaeacene extinction changes the climate to better suit the early tribbetheres, especially in the isolated Kyran islands that have now collided with the mainland. The defenseless island natives quickly fall to an onslaught of tribbethere predators, which grow up to thirty times their original size as they fill new apex-predator niches. The bigger tribbetheres then spread outward from the Kyran peninsula back into the mainland, having now evolved into new forms that are capable of preying on or competing with birds, in ways that their original tiny ancestors could not. The tribbetheres then spread around the globe, with new herbivorous species outcompeting the grazing avians to extinction, and egg-eating rodent-like molodonts leading to the decline or extinction of many ground-nesting birds that lay hard-shelled eggs.
** The thorngrazers evolved from small molodonts closely related to the seedsnatcher, but become {{Extreme Omnivore}}s so efficient at their jobs that between them and the cold they've shrunken non-cactaiga environments immensely, and are the most numerous large terrestrial species on Serina by the Late Ocean Age. It takes the Serinarctan coal seam fire to extinct the razorbacks, who are too slow to escape the flames, but the faster nimicorns manage to survive into the Late Ultimocene and diversify.
* GenreShift: ''Serina'' starts off as a speculative evolution project, but the Middle to Late Ultimocene section shifts into pure {{Xenofiction}} with a LowFantasy vibe, due to the increasing focus on individuals within sapient species and their perspectives [[spoiler:and later into MagicalRealism with the fulfillment of a prophecy and the intervention of something that could effectively be called god]].
* GentleGiant:
** Averted with the wombler, a seven-foot moa-like canary that evolves early on, 10 million years post-establishment. The first of the large avian megafauna to evolve, they adapted in a world without predators and thus, like the dodo, evolved to have no sense of fear. Ironically, this caused them to be unnaturally aggressive, compared by the author to domestic dogs without bite inhibition, and are very prone to fighting and killing their own species, especially the males. Unsurprisingly, the Womblers become extinct very quickly once the Falconaries, Serina's first birds of prey, evolve.
** Played straight with the aquatic bloon, growing up to thirty feet in length and being a peaceful herbivore.
** Chubbirds are a group of flightless canaries native to the Kyran Islands that are mostly friendly, due to their sheer size preventing other animals from preying on them once they're fully grown. The exception is if you're a crab trying to attack their chicks, which will make them stomp you to death.
** Boomsingers are giant sauropod-like herbivores descended from the serezelles, and spend most of their time browsing placidly in the treetops.
** The mammoth trunko is a large elephantine tentacle bird that are very peaceful animals with a strong sense of empathy. They'll even adopt the orphan chicks of other mammoth trunko and their snow snoot relatives. [[spoiler: It's for this reason that the Woodcrafters revere them as a kind of spiritual teacher that is worthy of emulation]].
** The archangels are {{Giant Flyer}}s resembling swans that grow to the size of ''Quetzalcoatlus'', but are peaceful grazers.
** The floating bloat is a descendant of the sea-sweeper that is more than 140 feet long and just over 210 tons, making them the largest animal ever known on both Serina and on Earth. As a result of being selectively bred for millions of years and their sheer size, they are completely docile, making them an excellent food source. It's also noted that large oceanic animals in general are tame during the Late Ocean Age due to the gravediggers and daydreamers preventing the evolution of anything big enough to hunt them.
** The aukvultures stand nearly as tall as a man (making them significantly larger than the diminutive thalassic gravediggers) and possess a 20ft wingspan yet they are known for their quiet and docile personalities when waiting for scavenging scraps, something that they actually enforce as a form of culture. In fact, the sea stewards will deliberately keep them around as their size serves as a deterrent for the smaller but much more aggressive sea ravens who will even sometimes attack their children. Their scientific name even means "learning gentle-giant". By the early Late Ultimocene it's played with, as, while the reapers descended from the aukvultures remain about as gentle as ever, the rest of the species has reverted to its aggressive instincts.
* GiantFlyer:
** Ornimorphs and the four-winged [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-pangeacene-188---250-million-years/archangels-flying-giants archangels]] reach wingspans of 25 to ''50''[[note]] the stormsonor, making it larger than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus the largest flying animal in Earth's history]] [[/note]] feet.
** Even before then, there were falconaries with wingspans of 20 feet thanks to the moon's lower gravity.
** The aukvultures have a 20ft wingspan, making them the largest living seraph of the Ocean Age. In the early Late Ultimocene, they've gotten slightly larger with a more than 23 ft wingspan in order to fend off terrestrial scavengers, and remain the largest fliers on Serina.
*** Their drakevulture descendants have a wingspan of 29 feet which makes them the largest predators of their time and are capable of flying from one continent to another in a single day.
* GiganticAdultsTinyBabies:
** The changeling birds are the same size as most typical songbirds, but lay tiny, soft-shelled eggs the size of grains of rice, which hatch into larval offspring barely a few millimeters long at birth.
** Shadowskimmers, a type of ornimorph, hatch as fish-like larvae a few inches long, metamorphose into a flying juvenile about the size of a pigeon, and eventually reach an adult size of up to a twenty-foot wingspan.
** The giant gemnus is a thirty-foot-long freshwater fish[[note]] Earth's largest is the twenty-foot beluga sturgeon[[/note]] that gives birth to over 100,000 centimeter-long fry at a time.
** Inverted with the Tufted Frogjar, whose newt-like juvenile form is actually ''bigger'' than the adult and shrinks considerably upon metamorphosis, akin to the real-life Paradoxical Frog.
** A fully grown sea rex is a 50ft predator that is virtually unbeatable but they don't take care of their young. Instead, a female will journey to the edge of the shallows to give birth to a litter of small, fast-swimming fish eaters who spend their earliest days in these waters and filling different niches depending on age before reaching daydreamer size and returning to the open ocean. The pelagians use this to their advantage by hunting down these smaller, more vulnerable juveniles to slowly wipe them out.
* GlacialApocalypse: The last geologic period in Serina's history, the Ultimocene, is marked by drastic global cooling caused by the halting of volcanic activity (and thus of the main means by which carbon in the deep crust is released into the atmosphere) and by the locking of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the soil by earlier eras' flourishing plant life. This loss of natural greenhouse gases leads to the onset of runaway ice age conditions, as glaciers creep down from the poles and winters grow harsher and harsher. The tropical biomes are the first to collapse under the strain of cooling weather and refugee species fleeing from the temperate areas, the southern continent becomes entirely encased in ice, and a catastrophic loss of biodiversity generally ensues. Life manages to survive and thrive despite these conditions, for a time -- a holdout of the temperate forests endures for a long time on the northern continent's southern coast, and numerous plant and animal species adapt to thrive in the bitter tundra further north -- but as the glaciation continues, the temperate refugium is eventually snuffed out and even the cold-adapted species slowly go extinct, as the world slowly becomes too cold and barren for any kind of life to survive.
* GoalOrientedEvolution:
** The series offers an interesting take on this trope. It argues that animal life has a tendency to evolve greater intelligence as they become more complex. By the time of the Ultimocene, biodiversity has reached a point where high intelligence has become the norm rather than the exception.
** Averted with some notable cases of evolution seemingly going back and forth with no definite direction, such as metamorph birds evolving to become r-strategists and producing lots of larval young, only for some metamorphs to re-evolve parental care. There are also the tribbetheres, whose first early forms were dog-like carnivores, which gave rise to rodent-like seed eaters, which in turn gave rise to ungulate-like grazers, some of which in turn became predatory again.
** Also, the merwals and marine molodonts, being fish that evolved to live on land, gained many terrestrial adaptations, and then returned to the water to become fully-aquatic once again.
** Ultimately averted with the babbling jays and [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]], who are as subjected to the forces of natural selection as any non-sapient animal, and ultimately each last only a few thousand years.
* GodGuise: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are one of the missing [[PiecesOfGod fragments of their creator deity]], while the gravediggers themselves were completely oblivious to the daydreamers' sapience until some of them began speaking to them. While by the time of the Late Ocean Age most of the sea stewards consider it just a story, Brighteye the sapient bluetail manages to rekindle the belief amongst large sections of the community.
* GodzillaThreshold: The watcher's job on Serina is simply to observe, even if the moon becomes an iceball, because that's simply the natural way of things. However, the gravediggers managing to discover coal, and the subsequent continent-wide coal fire caused by Whitecrown and his clan of bluetails, forces them to directly interfere to stop the project's destruction, revealing themselves to and removing the sea stewards to save them from their otherwise inevitable extinction, and creating a clone Serina for them to live on as a new project.
* GoldenAge:
** The Early Ultimocene, 250 million years PE, is this for life on Serina. Biodiversity is at its absolute peak, and the complexity of life has advanced to the point that the ''average'' animal is as smart as a corvid or a monkey. However, it is brought to an end by the onset of the final ice age that will gradually grow harsher and harsher until no life can remain.
** After the conclusion of the war, the daydreamers and their allies the gravediggers enter one for their joined civilization, exploring the open ocean together for over a million years. By the Late Ocean Age they alongside the greenskeepers, the fully sapient descendants of the luddy, have turned their ocean home into a garden paradise. This age is ultimately brought to an end by Whitecrown and his flock managing to cause a coal seam fire that heralds Serina's penultimate mass extinction event.
** For the animals who manage to survive the Great Thaw, their numbers increase by thousands due to the abundance in food caused by the melting of the glaciers. On Serinaustra in particular, the local predators and new arrivals gorge themselves on the corpses of animals washed up from the toxic seas to the point that they're nonaggressive towards one another simply because there's so much to eat, a state that remains for centuries.
* GrayAndGreyMorality: This the crux of the conflict between the fishers and the pastoralists. The fishers refuse to eat other intelligent creatures, and are very welcoming and outgoing to others, but they can also be overbearing, judgmental, and will sometimes sabotage pastoralist farms despite the nops not even being able to fend for themselves. The pastoralists on the other hand, eat the mentally degraded descendants of their close relatives, are highly xenophobic, and are generally distrustful of change, but they also prefer to keep to themselves and feed only on their livestock while leaving the wild dolfinches alone. Some fishers have started to become more introspective on this conflict and question if they are truly superior to their rivals.
* GrayscaleOfEvil: The warmongers are black and white in color and attempt genocide on the gravediggers and their fellow daydreamers.
* GreenHillZone: The Hypostecene Era, the first five million years after establishment, serves as this for life on Serina. All land on the moon is warm sunny grassland, and the complexity and danger levels are quite low compared to what is to come.
* GrimUpNorth:
** The Great Tundra Ring of the Ultimocene is a harsh environment stretching from its borders with the steppes and towertree taiga to the south, to the southernmost extent of the ice sheets to the north, with winters that last for eight months and generally poor conditions. The tundra gravediggers, a subspecies of the gravedigger adapted to the harsher conditions, are far more aggressive and much more willing to personally dispatch their prey instead of relying on traps. The harshness of their environment also means they generally live only half as long as their southern cousins.
** By the Late Ocean Age Serinarcta as a whole has become this for the thalassic gravediggers, due to its cold and dangerous predators such as the savage gravedigger, which they refer to as wildwalkers.
* HadToBeSharp:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-tundra-gravedigger tundra gravedigger]] are larger, more aggressive, and more willing to personally kill their prey when compared to the southern gravediggers thanks to the extremely harsh and barren lands they live in. It's also mentioned that they aren't less intelligent than their southern relatives, but they rarely create tree art, and their thinking is generally geared more towards animalistic survival. However, they are also expert trappers and problem-solvers due to the more unpredictable nature of the animals migrating through the tundra.
** The Late Ocean Age sea shoggoths are much smarter than their predecessors, as the overly aggressive and indiscriminate colonies were eliminated by the gravediggers taking advantage of their weaknesses to water and fire to burn and drown them.
* HandyMouth: The social gravediggers are able to use their mouth in crafting and using tools as a way of compensating for their stiff arms. Later on, they are able to teach the daydreamers how to craft tools of their own using their mouths and group coordination.
* HasTwoDaddies: The bachelor males of the polymorph bird form pair bonds with other male Bachelors and are known to steal and adopt the eggs of other polymorphs and raise them. Curiously, this is actually ''beneficial'' to the species, as the pairs whose eggs were "stolen" by bachelors lay replacement eggs, thus increasing the fecundity of the population. Also, since bachelor males are larger than tramps or ardors, a pair of bachelors has greater success protecting their young than an ardor and a female.
* HailfirePeaks: During the three-million-year mass extinction event between the Thermocene and Pangeacene, the entire moon of Serina is divided between completely frozen temperate and polar regions and a scalding hot equatorial region with extreme volcanism. Both temperature zones are too extreme to support life, except for a small region on the south shore of the new supercontinent. Even there, seasonal temperatures fluctuate between 110 F summers and subzero winters.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:The woodcrafters become far crueler than their predators, which only kill to survive, when they start going out of their way to exterminate them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies]].
* TheHedgeOfThorns: The cactaiga consists of a dense growth of cactus-like sunflower descendants that covers a good quarter or so of Serinarcta in the Ultimocene glaciation. They endure the powerful winds of their environment, which can snap trees like toothpicks, by growing in an interlocking mass of plants all mutually supporting each other. This makes the cactaiga very difficult to live in, as the whole thing consists of a solid mass of spines and thorns with virtually no open space between individual plants. Most of the area's megafauna goes extinct once the cactaiga forms, as it literally squeezes out both edible plants and animal populations; this only changes with the arrival of the thorngrazers, who can chew their way through the plants using their massive tooth plates and keratinized spikes that defend their faces from the thorns, and which literally eat their way through the mass to create open spaces and paths that allow other plants and animals to find shelter from the ice age storms within the resulting maze of thorn-walled pocket environments.
* HellIsThatNoise:
** The calling of a pair of [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-thermocene-75/lanks-and-bonebeaks lanks]] (which are scary enough, being twenty-foot-tall, predatory "demon storks") is a haunting, rising and falling like a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cutovCzEu8k broken tornado siren mixed with slowed canary song]].
** The Blue-throated Boomsinger has a [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=O6R5knrV-ms very deep, reverberating call]] that carries for miles.
** Downplayed with the [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=DTp7P5K1pk4 song of the stormsonor]] which can be described as a mix of eerie yet strangely melancholy.
** The cry of the dire bumblebear, the even more dangerous descendant of the truculent bumblebear, is described as sounding like neither a squawk or a roar, but somehow sounding worse than both.
** The ants of the sea shoggoth colonies communicate with each other in what are described as metallic clicking.
* HerbivoresAreFriendly:
** The woodcrafters have this view and certainly [[MoralMyopia see themselves as such]] due to starting out as a prey species and thus generally try to avoid harming other prey animals. However, they end up becoming {{Hypocrite}}s when they both drive off browsing herbivores that might damage their trees and especially [[spoiler:when they start going out to [[HeWhoFightsMonsters cruelly slaughter carnivores outside their territory that weren't a threat to them]]]].
** Zig-zagged with the porplets. These marine herbivores are described as highly social and playful thanks to the abundance of food, but they will abandon their own kind (including their own babies) when being attacked by predators without a second thought.
** The floating bloat, a gigantic descendant of the sea-sweeper dolfinches, is completely docile due to a combination of sheer size and lack of natural predators apart from the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers that farm them.
** Averted with the symbiotic ants of the raptorial rockroot, who are herbivorous, but kill anything that lands on the plant so that it can break the carcasses down into nutrients.
* HeritageDisconnect: [[spoiler:Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was taken in by the woodcrafters at such a young age that when Lucky, the second, appears in Bridge's village, he can't understand a word of the gravedigger tongue and she only knows just enough woodcrafter to introduce herself. It's not until she achieves fluency in the woodcrafter language that they can hold a conversation. Years before, he leaves the village and tries living "amongst" his fellow gravediggers, but his lack of territoriality thanks to being raised amongst the woodcrafters and inability to speak the gravedigger tongue leads to problems, and beaten and bruised he returns to his village and stays for the rest of his days.]]
* HistoryRepeats:
** The banshee greatly resembles its distant ancestors, the raptors, in appearance and hunting style; it leaps onto its prey and flaps its wings for balance.
** The rise of the tribbetheres mirrors the rise of mammals on earth. Originally evolving from fish which evolve into amphibian- and later reptile-like creatures, they become furry warm-blooded animals which end up forcing many of the bird species off of the ground. Then, similarly to cetaceans, the merwals and certain molodonts return to the sea and become fully aquatic animals once again.
** Later on, during the peak of the glaciation, [[spoiler:the marine social gravediggers have developed into a keystone species that actively maintain the health and balance of the oceans and islands they call home, much like how the woodcrafters would care for the well-being of the forests they once lived in]].
** By the Middle Ultimocene, squaves -- ornimorphs that reach adulthood in the "reptile" phase of their life cycle -- have evolved into [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters squotters]], which have traits of primitive ''mammals'', such as live birth and fur-like plumage.
** The gravediggers of the Ocean Age are once again met by another sapient species who wishes to genocide them, although, unlike the woodcrafters they evolved alongside, warmonger culture outright encourages such behavior. Also, while the woodcrafters attempted to kill off the gravediggers out of the belief that they were rebelling against the tyranny of predators, the warmongers only see them as a threat to their superiority.
** The last pelagans are met by the combined gravedigger-daydreamer civilization when they're all long past childbearing age, dooming their group to extinction, but do all they can to impart pelagan lore onto them before dying comfortably much like [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]] millennia before. This is not lost on the gravediggers.
** The daydreamers first became sapient when some individuals were born fully sapient from near-sapient families. Millions of years later, one bluetail (a descendant of the babbling jays no less) is born fully sapient amongst an otherwise near-sapient species.
** The woolly wumpos, descendants of the mammoth trunkos that the woodcrafters revered, end up also exterminating their main predators from their territories by being smarter than them.
** The coastian thalassic gravediggers, much like their southern gravedigger ancestors with the woodcrafters, end up being driven from their hunting areas due to a war with their sapient prey, in this case the woolly wumpos.
** Retally killed off nearly his entire clan due to his inability to control fire. Whitecrown's inability to control fire causes a blaze that spreads throughout Serinarcta and kills off his clan, his brother, the wumpos who adopted them, and countless other creatures.
** The dominant lifeforms of Serina's early days were the snails and ants before they eventually were relegated to small, background organisms. By the late Ultimocene, snails and ants manage to rise to the status of dominant animal again through the snarks and sea shoggoths, albeit in the oceans rather than on land.
** The muck survived the mass extinction event that killed off the other serestriders by living on islands. Its descendant, the burrowing burdle, ends up surviving both the daydreamers purposely eliminating their aquatic relatives and the Great Thaw making the oceans anoxic by being a terrestrial island dweller.
** About 10,000 years after the great coal seam fire, the oceans have become mostly devoid of large life aside from things like small fish and water snails, much like the oceans at the beginning of Serina's habitable stage and the early Thermocene.
** Tribbets and their descendants have long since modified their tail into a hindleg, but the viridescent sawjaw has gone full circle and now uses their hindleg as a tail once more.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** The empire ants from Serina's early years suffer this twofold. They grow massive in both size and numbers by devouring the giant snails and first wave of flightless birds but they eventually wipe them out and by then they are too big to climb after the smaller snails and flying birds. At this point their immense supercolonies quickly begin to starve, forcing them to start raiding the other ant species, but this would end up spelling their doom. As it turns out, these other ants colonies were being parasitized by the larvae of ladybird beetles that mimicked their pheromones and allowed them to eat the ant's larvae. When the empire ants began to raid the nests these beetle larvae quickly adapted and started feeding on the starving empire's offspring, this becomes so severe that the supercolonies collapse and the empire ants are driven to extinction.
** The aquatic molodonts, whose powerful crushing jaws were used to eat shellfish, were victims of their own success. Being incredibly efficient at eating clams and snails, they outcompeted the merwals into extinction... but themselves eventually almost died out when they wiped out their mollusk prey and starved en masse. Fortunately, a few species that fed on smaller, faster-breeding snails were able to survive, while the ones that relied on slower-growing molluscs died out.
** The gravediggers became highly successful predators of antlears due to their complex trapmaking skills, but in doing this, they would usually end up killing the more naïve antlears while the more observant and intelligent members of the species would live to pass on their skills at avoiding and sabotaging the traps. This would end up starting an evolutionary LensmanArmsRace of increasingly more elaborate traps and more savvy antlears that would ultimately result in both species becoming sapient and elevate the antlears from prey to mortal enemies.
** When the warmongers learn of the gravediggers, their matriarch realizes what their existence could mean for their cultural beliefs, and impulsively orders their extermination before they have the chance to understand their targets. This leads to both the gravediggers avoiding the warmonger's attacks thanks to their ability to move on land, and the general population learning about the gravediggers when the soldiers carrying out her orders tell about what they have seen. In addition, it causes the gravediggers to pull out the stops in their next fight, leading many of the soldiers to a horrible demise, including her most fanatical supporters, and leads their grieving families to chase the matriarch out of the pod.
** The thalassic gravediggers used fire to scare the woolly wumpos into either their traps on land or off seaside cliffs where they could be then butchered en masse. Retally, a widemind of the Tidelands Herd, managed to drive them from the shoreline for generations by figuring out how to make fire himself from observing them, but due to his lack of control over it also managed to be an example of the trope himself, as he ended up killing most of his own herd by accident as well.
** Whitecrown and his clan die when one of the trunkos they're hunting is set alight and runs into one of the gravediggers' old coal mines, setting off an explosion that kills them instantly.
* HollywoodEvolution: Played with by the ornimorphs, who essentially reenact the evolutionary history of vertebrate life and its EvolutionaryLevels ''within the life cycle of a single individual'', starting out as a small fish-like larva, growing legs and becoming an amphibian-like stage, becoming fully terrestrial and coming to resemble a reptile, then climbing into the treetops to become an arboreal glider resembling a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansoriopterygidae scansoriopterygid]] dinosaur, and finally sprouting feathers upon maturity and becoming a fully-flighted, adult bird.
* HomefieldAdvantage: During the war against the warmongers:
** The warmongers initially think the destruction of the gravediggers will be easy due to how helpless they are in the water once knocked out of their boats, but in their haste to wipe them out fail to realize that the gravediggers can simply retreat to the shore, a place where a daydreamer is utterly incapable of following them.
** The fishers and the pastoralists are also able to use their greater knowledge of the shallow regions in their first battle against the warmongers to help make up for their lack of experience in actual combat.
* HomeworldEvacuation: To save the sea stewards from the extinction caused by the coal fires, the observer moves them off of Serina and to a planet that's been terraformed to resemble their old home but not before [[LaserGuidedAmnesia altering their memories]] so that they believe they always lived there. Notably, this only extends to the sea stewards -- the moon's other sapient natives, the woolly wumpos and the icefishers, are left behind.
* HoneyTrap: Female truculent bumblebears will sometimes pretend that they're receptive to mating, only to kill the male once they're in a compromising position. This is believed to be either in order to protect their children from infanticide, as this is most often observed in bumblebears that are close to giving birth, or simply to rid themselves of a competitor and get a free meal in the process.
* HonorBeforeReason: The woodcrafters won't harm other prey creatures, but even when the smerps and molodonts living in their territory reach plague numbers and start devastating their food supply due to a lack of predators, they still refuse to kill them.
* HonorableElephant: The mammoth trunko of the Middle Ultimocene is, as its name implies, [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart as close as a bird can get to a mammoth]], and like the elephant is a peaceful, near-sapient beast with lifelong close family bonds [[InterspeciesAdoption that will even adopt chicks of other trunko species]]. Woodcrafters revere them as a spiritual ideal, and the two species will aid each other, as humans have been known to do with elephants.
* HufflepuffHouse:
** It's mentioned that there are three major social groups of thalassic gravedigger, the meadow dwellers of the open seas, the central islanders of the Meridian Islands who live the most terrestrial lifestyle, and the coastians who live close to the shores of Serinarcta. The viewpoint thalassic gravediggers Patch and Pebble come from the meadow population, the coastians play a major role in the leadup to the Great Thaw through their knowledge of coal, but the islanders of the Meridians aren't really gone over in detail.
** Of all the sophonts of the Late Ocean Age, the icefishers have little in the way of characterization compared to the sea stewards, Brighteye, and the woolly wumpos, by virtue of being the most isolated of all of them, living on the north edge of the Seaway far from the Refugial Peninsula where Brighteye's story takes place, and compared to the other sophonts whose ultimate fate is gone into in detail, their extinction due to the Great Thaw and competition with the savage gravediggers is treated as a footnote.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Or civilized sapient beings are, anyway, since humans are surely long gone 260 million years into the future. [[spoiler:The woodcrafter, a sapient antlear descended from the standing antlear, actively hunts and kills the carnivorous, and equally sapient, gravediggers, seeing them as nothing more than vicious monsters, even though the gravediggers have already decided to leave them alone, having realized their own sapience ages ago, and even achieving sapience first. That changes when an antlear discovers evidence of gravedigger art... and realizes the creatures they were killing were also sapient beings.]]
* HumansAreSurvivors: According to the author, trying to render tool-making, innovative sophonts extinct naturally would require killing all terrestrial life along with them. As a small, adaptable generalist despite its seagoing habits, the thalassic gravedigger would have the best chance of surviving the apocalyptic events that would have killed off the other components of the sea stewards, but at the cost of losing the culture that kept their worst instincts at bay. However, assuming that they don't lose their sapience, the surviving gravediggers would have a high chance of managing to kill off Serina anyway through either stripping it of its natural resources via industrialization, or killing everything though a nuclear holocaust like how the bluetails managed to destroy their world with the coal seam fire.
* HopeSpot: The sea stewards manage to stave off their icy fate by breaking the glacier threatening to stop the currents using the power of coal... but leaving their mines unattended leads to the end of the Late Ocean Age anyway when Whitecrown and his clan create a coal seam fire that sets Serinarcta ablaze.
* HumanoidAliens: The gravediggers are effectively this to the daydreamers as they basically look like a tiny daydreamer with hands and feet instead of flippers.
* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: During the Late Ocean Age the circuagadogs, already on the brink due to loss of prey and failure to adapt, are finally brought to extinction by the trunkos they once hunted deciding to start hunting them in turn by killing their young and breaking up their packs.
* HulkSpeak: The gravediggers' language is said to be [[LanguageEqualsThought very simple, as could be expected of a solitary species]], and is entirely lacking in pronouns. They prefer to communicate through art scratched into tree trunks.
* ISurrenderSuckers: Brighteye gets the better of Tyr-reet, a rival bluetail trying to kill Whitecrown, by pretending to submit before taking the opportunity to stab them [[EyeScream through the eye]] with a knife and fleeing with his brother while Tyr-reet's brothers are stuck watching in horror as he does his death throes.
* InbredAndEvil:
** The warmongers, an extremist subset of the whaler daydreamers, purposely inbred themselves over thousands of years to give themselves [[DarkIsEvil darker coatings]] and eliminate their yellow pigmentation, and wish to genocide all other daydreamers.
** The is completely inverted by the reapers, a sapient offshoot of the aukvultures with a culture that values empathy and understanding. They are also highly inbred due to their entire species being only a few hundred years old and descended from two siblings and compounded by their refusal to mate with their non-sapient relatives. Their low genetic diversity results in most of their babies dying in the pupal sack and makes them cherish the ones that do survive even more.
* IncompatibleOrientation: The hom*osexual Bachelor morph of the Polymorph bird is attracted to male plumage and so will sometimes attempt unsuccessfully to court Keepers (alpha males that mate with a harem of females) due to the Keepers being naturally aggressive towards other males.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation:
** The first daydreamers arose from seastrikers who by a genetic fluke were every so often born with the capacity for sapience and the ability to see past their immediate survival, but for most of their existence the so-called "seers", while not shunned by the non-sapient seastriker population, lived mostly lonely lives due to their intelligence making them unable to fully relate to their brethren or vice versa. Since sapience was a recessive trait for most of their history, seastrikers only rarely birthed new seers, with only one appearing every few centuries for hundreds of millennia on average.
** Brighteye, a bluetail (one of the descendants of the chatterer sparrowgulls), is sapient while every other bluetail, including his albino brother, is near-sapient at best. As a result, he's a pariah amongst his fellow bluetails, especially after he and his brother are forced to leave their home after a rival bluetail group murders their parents and he kills one of their leaders in return to save his brother before fleeing to avoid reprisal. Even beforehand, he refused to take a mate because the intelligence gap meant in his eyes that he'd be mating with a child. The narration detailing the bluetailed chatteravens makes a point of describing him as both the first ''and'' last bluetail person.
** This is explicitly averted with the woolly wumpo. Most are highly uncreative despite their intelligence, but some are born with a much higher level of innovation. Unlike the seers or Brighteye these individuals don't feel isolated from their kin thanks to the high emotional maturity the species possess. In fact, they are celebrated by their kind due to their creativity often greatly benefiting them as a collective.
* InterspeciesAdoption:
** In rare cases, a carnivorous circuagodont will misfire its parenting instincts onto a herbivorous circuagodont species and adopt what normally would be its prey. This usually doesn't end well for the youngster, as it ends up imprinting and associating with the carnivorous species, and thus loses its natural fear of its main predator, which has disastrous consequences when it approaches other packs of carnivorous circuagodonts that don't recognize its scent and simply see it as prey and devour it.
** Sometimes trunkos will adopt snow snoots that have been separated from their herds as detailed in "Little Moments". It usually turns out better than the above example due to both species having similar behaviors.
** As shown in [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/stronger-together Stronger Together]], [[spoiler: a young gravedigger is adopted by the regretful woodcrafters after they killed his mother. At first many of them feared him but he eventually becomes a beloved member of the village and is given the name Bridge for being a link between their two people. They taught him their language and made him more social while he kept the number of smerps down and introduced the concept of drawing to them. He briefly left when he reached adulthood due to his instincts but eventually came back and he drew in more curious young gravediggers which led to the two species to become more integrated with even the art Bridge taught the woodcrafters becoming the foundation for their first written language]]. It also shows a rarely considered consequence of such an event. [[spoiler: Due to being raised by antlears at such a young age Bridge imprints on them, but not other gravediggers, and doesn't have any interest in breeding with them as a result. He never has offspring of his own. However, he does become the adoptive father of Lucky, and thanks to her being raised by another gravedigger, she does have children to which Bridge becomes their HonoraryUncle]].
* InterspeciesFriendship:
** The tundra gravedigger has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the jackal carnackle, the carnackles will distract large prey animals that they wouldn't be able to take down themselves and drive them towards the gravedigger's traps while the gravedigger digs out molodonts that the carnackles wouldn't be able to reach but are able to catch them once above ground while the gravedigger is too slow and they all share in the meals. They are also said to enjoy each other's company and while even play and do tricks for one another.
** The fisher daydreamers form friendships with the luddy porplets and other intelligent dolfinches, although they do tend to take a [[CondescendingCompassion paternalistic role in these relationships]].
** Brighteye and Whitecrown, bluetail chatterravens, begin accompanying Blaze, a woolly wumpo several hundred times their size with Brighteye in particular developing a strong relationship with her.
** Viridvescent sawjaws will hang around wumpo and snoot trunkos of various species, as the sawjaws are so specialized for thorngrazer hunting that they don't recognize any other animal as food. As a result, both groups work together to combine their abilities in order to defend themselves from their mutual predators.
** Pickbirds will befriend just about any species as long as they perceive them as being capable of reciprocating social interactions. While the relatively basal moonbreasted pickbird isn't picky on which species they befriend, there are numerous specialized species that only befriend certain groups. The exception to this rule are thorngrazers because they're too unintelligent to be able to form social bonds with a different species, and so while pickbirds will hang around them, they're just as likely to let their predators eat them. This is a stark contrast to their bluetail ancestors, who while willing to assist predators for portions of their kills, had a strictly buisiness-based relationship with them based on mutual interest alone.
* InterspeciesRomance: The last of the fork-tailed babbling jays take on mates from other species in a lonely search for company. However, while the babbling jays are intelligent, their impromptu mates are non-sapient.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A nonhuman example. After the exile of the warmonger matriarch, the surviving warmongers begin to interact more with the fishers and the pastoralists who would also communicate more often with each other thanks to the gravediggers. Over time, the relationships between the different daydreamer cultures shrink until none remain. Five million years later, the only group of daydreamer is the novan daydreamers, who have traits of all three cultures, which is most noticeable with their coloring and beak shape.
* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity:
** When the Kyran Islands connected to the mainland, the carnivorous tribbetheres living there were able to cross over and follow the Kyran snuffles into their burrows and eventually hunt them into extinction.
** A variation occurs in the woodcrafter villages. The smerps and molodonts there are native to the region, but after the woodcrafters removed the small predators keeping them in check, they exploded in number and began to do severe damage to the antlears' trees and crops, making them functionally similar to an outbreak of an invasive species.
* InvadingRefugees: The warmongers were driven to the shallows after a failed attempt to conquer and destroy the pelagans resulted in the latter driving them out of both the open oceans and their original southern territories. They see the shallows as a chance to both heal their wounded pride and build up their numbers by devouring the smaller, less organized daydreamers living there.
* IronicName: Eve in the Bible is the first woman, whereas Eve the reaper is the last of the reapers.
* {{Irony}}:
** In a world with little violence in the Hypostecene, the wombler dies out... because of intraspecies violence. Never having learned how to flee from conflict, the womblers fought each other to the death, and recklessly faced the first few predators that did evolve.
** The page of the ninth-year canary talks about how it's the {{last|OfTheirKind}} of the changeling birds and how it will likely go extinct, but when a mass-extinction rivaling the Great Dying occurs at the end of the Thermocene, it ends up being among the relatively few creatures that survive and its descendants become one of the dominant groups of the Ultimocene.
** The efts are a group of aquatic metamorph birds that remain in their gilled larval stage their whole lives and come to be identical to fish, while the tribbets are fish that evolve to become land animals, with a flying group, the tribbats, eventually becoming colorful bird-like forms.
** It's stated that the merwals and aquatic molodonts are a bit of an irony, given that they're technically still fish, but ones that had specialized to live on land... and then returned to the water yet again.
** The circuagodogs rose to prominence by being smarter than their predator competition, and go extinct because they themselves are outcompeted by smarter predator competitors like the sawjaws.
** The seaborne thalassic gravediggers and the terrestrial woolly wumpos both fear one another and refer to each other's domains as the realm of demons.
* ItsAllAboutMe: What little we see of thorngrazer thoughts paints them as very selfish and callous towards anything not themselves, including other thorngrazers. For instance, their herding together is only because it lessens the chance of any individual thorngrazer alone getting eaten, and they don't form any social bonds past mothers and their children, and even then if they're injured the mother will leave them without remorse.
* ItCanThink:
** The vibropteran tribbats are surprisingly intelligent, figuring out tool use and problem-solving tactics. They are known to gnaw through flowers to access nectar instead of specializing in only one type of flower that matches its mouth, allowing it to feed on a wider range of food sources.
** Snarks are also said to be very intelligent, especially considering they're descended from snails.
** Gigadons are extremely intelligent for fish, with high domed skulls to accommodate large brains. While not fully social, they organize into packs to bring down large prey and communicate by flashing their brilliant patterns.
** While nonsapient, the savage gravediggers are still smart enough to probe for weaknesses in the fortresses of their thalassic gravedigger kin.
** The hookjaw carnackle uses traps and bait for hunting fish and other aquatic prey, specifically designing them to be easy to enter but difficult to leave. Since they learn how to make traps from their fathers rather than through instinct, this means that different cultural groups use different kinds of traps depending on their local animals and environments.
* IveComeTooFar: The warmonger matriarch continues her genocidal actions despite her own internal doubts because it would mean the end of everything she's worked for.
* TheJuggernaut: Once fully grown, a sea rex is virtually invincible, its armor allowing it to shrug off even the bites of pelagic daydreamers while crushing their skulls in a single bite. It's for this reason that the pelagans target the young burdles instead of the adults when they decide to eliminate them, as they're only daydreamer-sized when they start to leave the inaccessible to daydreamer shallows, and as such are helpless against them in a pack.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: The drakevulture has a tendency to snatch thorngrazer calves and sealump chicks right from the center of their herds as their protective circles are useless against an airborne predator.
* KillerRabbit:
** The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast aptly named]] butcherraptor is the size of a chicken yet they're capable of bringing down the bison sized snuffalo through the use of numbers and ruthless tactics.
** The spitfire sniffler looks cute but carries the potent batrachotoxin created by the fireslime lumpus in its quills, which makes it not only painful to the touch, but deadly to any predator that attacks it. As a result, they've been known to boldly walk up to predators and take bites out of their kills with impunity due to their confidence in their poisonous defense.
** The scorplear of the Late Ocean Age (Coincidentally also happening to look like a rabbit) is about the size of a small dog but can use its jaws and hindlimb claws to horrifically maim anything that threatens it. It's not unusual to see predators with a missing or severely damaged eye from when a scorplear [[EyeScream drove their claws through its socket]].
* KillItWithFire: The end of the Late Ocean Age is heralded by Whitecrown's flock managing to spark a massive coal fire that burns throughout Serinarcta, killing the flock and basically everything else unable to escape the flames. Among the notable casualities are the woolly wumpos and the razorback thorngrazers.
* KillItWithIce: The inevitable fate of Serina by the end of the Ultimocene, losing heat and volcanic activity which will throw the world into a permanent ice age. A few adaptive lineages will continue to soldier on for a few million years, but ultimately all life on Serina becomes extinct.
* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The warmongers believe that they are only descendants of their god, so, when they learn of the gravediggers whose very existence threatens this notion, their leaders decide to wipe them out to preserve this belief among their kind. Sure enough, after soldiers sent to battle the daydreamer-gravedigger coalition return and tell of what they have seen, this causes some of them to start questioning their beliefs.
* KnowWhenToFoldThem: When a glacier raven meets a glacial foxtrotter for the first time while the latter is attempting to steal the former's carcass, the glacier raven decides to let them have it despite the fact that it's bigger and stronger because it 1) has no knowledge of the unknown animal's capabilities and 2) there's still plenty of young to go around, so there's no reason to get into a potentially lethal fight over it.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** As a result of the loss of their higher intellect and of all social habits, the savage gravediggers have almost no capacity for empathy. Females will raise their own offspring for up to two years, but in all other cases their response to meeting another living thing is violence -- even mating is a vicious and violent affair, and they're quite happy to cannibalize each other if the opportunity presents itself.
** The thorngrazers are intensely selfish as a species, having no issue leaving the weak to be picked off by predators without remorse.
** Zigzagged with the bluetailed chatteravens, who ''are'' capable of feeling empathy, but only for those they consider part of their immediate family group. Anything or anyone else they'll treat brutally if they anger them in any way.
* LandSeaSky: The centerpiece of daydreamer religion is their creator deity splitting themselves into aquatic, terrestrial, and airborne essences. The daydreamers believe they are the aquatic, the gravediggers represent the land, and are still waiting for the sky.
* LanguageBarrier:
** The first attempts by the fisher daydreamers to communicate with the gravediggers were unsuccessful due to them not being able to understand each other's languages, with the gravedigger language being slow and guttural, and the daydreamer's language being so rapid and high-pitched that the gravediggers couldn't even recognize it as a language. Some fishers dedicated years of their lives to studying the Gravedigger language but it wasn't these individuals who made the first successful contact with them, but teenagers who had been listening to the gravediggers from a young age when it was still easier for them to learn new languages.
** The warmonger tongue is much slower and [[EvilSoundsDeep deeper]] than that of the other daydreamers, making them even harder to understand than gravediggers.
** Brighteye and Blaze have difficulty communicating at first as the chatteraven language is very different from the wumpo infrasonic language, leaving them physically incapable of understanding one another and having to make do with touching and simple gestures. They eventually get around this when they discover that they can both understand drawings and use pictures to communicate with each other, eventually streamlining the process until they create a hieroglyphic-like written language.
** The wumpos can't communicate with the gravediggers because the latter simply cannot hear the former's infrasonic language, until Brighteye talks to them and some of the gravediggers manage to learn his and Blaze's glyph-based language over the years.
* LastOfHisKind: This turns up several times in the setting, as the dwindling and extinction of species and lineages is a recurring theme, particularly in the swan song of Serina's habitable stage that is the Ultimocene:
** One of the entries detailing the beginning of the closing stages of the Ultimocene describes [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-stormsonor the last stormsonor]], the last living specimen of a species of immense birds that slowly went extinct as the growing ice age covered their feeding grounds in ice and caused their egg-like pupal sacs to freeze to death before they could hatch. The last one was born in a freak warm year, from a clutch deposited by an ancient hen who died after laying and was the only one to hatch successfully. She never met another member of her kind, and instead imprinted on a flock of a much smaller related species with which she spent the rest of her long life.
** One entry aptly titled [[spoiler:[[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-woodcrafter-dawn-of-a-new-era The Last Woodcrafter]] goes over the extinction of the woodcrafter people. When the moon becomes too cold for the trees the woodcrafters depended on to survive, they become malnourished and are unable to reproduce as a result. The socialized gravediggers they lived with are eventually forced to migrate to the coast to stay alive while some woodcrafters chose to stay and die in their old forest home while others chose to leave with the gravediggers, these ones discover that they can feed on the coastal seaweed and return to health but there were far too few of them at that point and they were all past their reproductive age so they decide to spend their last days helping and guiding the gravediggers. The last woodcrafter is an elderly female named [[MeaningfulName Ember]] who peacefully passes on surrounded by the gravediggers her kind came to view as their children]].
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/rivals Rivals]] ends with a description of the last living sea rex, a massive marine predator, after his species was gradually whittled down by the collapse of the open-ocean food chains and a bitter conflict with the pelagan daydreamers over what little prey remained in the shrinking ice age seas. Ultimately, the last great leviathan is left to wander the oceans for nearly a century after the death of the last female specimen and for forty years after the death of the second-last male, his mind just complex enough to be puzzled at why his mating calls are never answered, but not enough to understand his species' fate.
** The pelagic daydreamers are gradually done in when the shrinking oceans kill off all the animals that could sustain them. The last members of their species were too old to reproduce and believed themselves to be the very last of the daydreamers until the mixed gravedigger-daydreamer civilization from the shallows find them, allowing their people to symbolically live on the stories and histories they tell them.
** The burrowing burdle is the last of the burdles during the Late Ocean Age into the early Late Ultimocene, as their aquatic relatives were killed off by the daydreamers.
** The scorplear is the last of the antlear lineage by the Late Ocean Age, with the ice age having killed off the trees their more specialist relatives needed to survive. It's survived by becoming omnivorous but is far less intelligent than the antlears that came before it.
** The scissortooth is the last of the circuagodogs in the Late Ocean Age, the others having been outcompeted by other, smarter predators such as the sawjaws who are better adapted to prey on the thorngrazers that have become Serina's most common terrestrial herbivore, and their prey either going extinct or becoming too smart to hunt. The solitary nature of most circuagodog species also serves to work against them. Eventually, the woolly wumpos, a sapient trunko species, get the idea to start systematically exterminating their predators, with the circuagodogs being too unintelligent to mount an effective enough defense, and the remainder either starve to death or meet their end at the clubs of the wumpos. [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/scissortooth-circuagodog Circuagodog Gone]] describes the last moments of the very last circuagodog, half-dead from starvation, as it calmly accepts its death at the hands -- well, trunk -- of a creature its kind once hunted.
** Blaze is the last of the widemind woolly wumpos when she's introduced, and when she dies no others are born because the species is among the first casualties of the coal seam fire soon afterwards, either burning to death or dying from smoke inhalation or toxic fumes.
** The Late Ultimocene has several families reduced to a single surviving species. The nimicorns are the only thorngrazers to survive into the era after their razorback cousins perish in the coal fire. Afterwards the savage gravediggers are the only remaining gravediggers after their thalassic cousins are transported away and the icefishers die when the sea ice they depended on melts. Finally, the duckbilled sealumps are the only members of the sealumps to survive since they were the only species that could still walk on land and escape the dying oceans, eventually settling on Serinaustra.
** The hiddenwood is the last species of ant tree left by the early Late Ultimocene after the ice age due to most of the plant growing underground. With the increased warmth and wetness of the Late Ultimocene and the extinction of the more destructive razorback thorngrazer, it has seen a major resurgence. It's also the last of the sunflower tree lineage, with its cactaiga cousin being among the victims of the increased temperatures.
** The rambleroot is the last survivor of a lineage of smaller understory trees descended from clovers in the early Late Ultimocene, having survived by mostly growing underground like the hiddenwood has. Following the warming caused by the coal seam fire and the disappearance of the cold winds that would blow smaller plants down, they start growing to knee height, flower and fruit, and spread to Serinaustra via bird droppings.
** "As Worlds Break Apart and Join Together" details the story of the last steppestalker, the direct descendant of the shadowstalker (differentiated only by its lighter coloration compared to its ancestor), and the largest of the tribbats on Serina 1,500 years post-coal seam fire. Having made it to a small island when the rampant global warming and subsequent glacier melting during the aftermath of the Serinarctan coal seam fire caused most of the Meridian Islands to sink beneath the waves, he manages to adapt to hunting fish in the shallows and serves as apex predator over the other species marooned there with him for over twenty-one years. However, eventually the refuge shrinks down to just some rocks as the remaining prey either rafts away or dies, until finally, weakened by drinking seawater as the waves batter him, one manages to knock him into the sea and he drowns.
** Eve is the last of the reapers, a subspecies of the aukvulture that managed to achieve sapience, but went extinct due to inbreeding.
** The pgymy pretenguin is the only pretenguin species to survive the Great Thaw, having moved to Serinarcta with the sinking of the Meridian Islands.
** The surf scooter survives the Great Thaw that extincts the other dolfinches by being a semi-aquatic species that can access the Serinarctan marshes where the larger species cannot go as the ocean food chain collapses.
* LeanAndMean: [[http://i.imgur.com/qlaakml.jpg Lanks]] are twenty-foot-tall apex predators with very long slender necks, beaks, and legs.
* {{Lightworlder}}: Serina has a much lower gravity than Earth, allowing for much bigger fliers such as the archangels. Even the insects become BigCreepyCrawlies due to the lesser gravity, with some cricket species growing to the size of rabbits.
* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Whitecrown is basically the final boss of the Late Ocean Age, an albino bluetail leading a huge flock burning everything indiscriminately.]]
* LegendFadesToMyth: The teachings of [[spoiler:the last woodcrafter]] over the next three million years turns into a myth shared amongst the numerous marine social gravedigger religions, the exact details being lost to time but being subject to numerous but not contradictory interpretations.
* LifeWillKillYou: Blaze eventually dies from old age, surrounded by her family, save for Brighteye who happened to be away and only comes back once she's already been buried.
* LogicalWeakness:
** The circuagodonts, being tripedal, have only a single hind leg, making it an obvious target for predators to easily cripple them.
** The canitheres are significantly less intelligent than the predator wheeljaws, having disorganized packs attacking with only ZergRush tactics and prone to infighting once the prey is downed. This proves to be a disadvantage against the smarter wheeljaws, who share food amicably and hunt with coordination, with the canitheres quickly being pushed aside to scavenger and small-game hunter niches.
* LongLived:
** Stormsonors, the largest of the archangels, can live up to 135 years.
** Daydreamers have a maximum lifespan between 130 and 140 years.
** Reapers have an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years.
* LongNeck: Watchtower wumpos have incredibly long necks which is highly noticeable on their bipedal frame. One thing of note is that they don't use these necks for browsing as trees are very rare on the soglands they inhabit, they actually use it to scan the horizon for predators so as to alert the thorngrazer herds they live with, it also makes them very vulnerable to lightning during storms which forces them to lie down when they occur.
* LoopholeAbuse: The woodcrafters have a major taboo regarding killing other herbivores, even if they happen to be pests to the trees they need to eat. Once enough socialized gravediggers are around, however, they have them take care of their pest problem to keep their own hands clean.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The sea rexes have a mating call so powerful that it vibrates the water around them and can injure or even kill smaller animals that get too close.
* MeaningfulName:
** Tribbets are tripodal and froglike. Their descendants include reptile-analogues called tribtiles and mammal-analogues called tribbetheres.
** Vivas are viviparous. Their descendants the ornitheres ("bird-beasts") are even more mammal-like.
** The mitten and its descendant the glove. Guess what the soft tissue on their faces looks like and is used for.
** Babbling jays have a true language, and their name brings the Tower of Babel to mind.
** Snarks (snail-sharks) are active marine predators descended from gastropods.
** The antlears have evolved their ears into limbs that resemble antlers.
** Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was given that name by his adoptive antlear family to serve as a bridge between both species.
** Ember, the last woodcrafter, passes on phrases of her language to the descendants of the babbling jays, which persist as the flame of sapience reignites in them.
** The thalassic gravediggers are adapted to near-completely seaborne existence and have even evolved the ability to drink saltwater.
** The daydreamers can dream even while awake by only using one hemisphere of their brain at a time.
** Greenskeepers help maintain the plant life of the Ultimocene ocean.
** Brighteye, the only bluetail capable of higher understanding, gave himself his purposely symbolic name.
** While at first it's an IronicName since she's just as afraid of fire as every other woolly wumpo, thanks to Brighteye Blaze takes to the use of fire very well.
* MeaningfulRename: Brighteye gave himself and his flockmates symbolic names instead of random sounds that hold no meaning, even if he is the only one capable of understanding them.
* MedievalStasis: The gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization is so productive and stable that it does not progress beyond a stone-age level of technology for over a million years while also having a written language and innate understanding of ecosystem dynamics. A lack of mineral resources and a lack of ecological or cultural pressure to innovate contributes to this.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Male nimicorns live on the margins of their social groups so they're disproportinately preyed upon, but this serves to protect the more reproductively important females and juveniles.
* MercyKill:
** The pastoralist daydreamers will kill their nops before eating them rather than just eating them alive like their seastriker ancestors would've, despite the fact that they barely feel pain.
** Blaze, a woolly wumpo, chooses to put the last scissortooth out of its misery quickly rather than just leave it to starve to death over hours due to developing empathy for "biters" through all her years hunting them, and despite the fact that it was her idea to systematically exterminate "biters" for the sake of the family in the first place.
** The reapers are culturally opposed to killing for survival; the main exception to this is killing the already dying to ease suffering.
* MetaphoricallyTrue: The daydreamer religion positing that daydreamers and gravediggers have an origin in common is actually sort of true, because dolfinches and bumblebadgers both descend from the bumblet.
* MightyGlacier:
** Razorback thorngrazers are strong and durable thanks to being covered in tooth-like armor, but very slow as they have very short legs and are incapable of running, simply hunkering down when threatened to protect their soft underbellies. This works against them when dealing with fire since they can easily be overtaken by the flames, leaving the nimicorns as the only surviving thorngrazer species following the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The monstrocorns, a clade of thorngrazers from the hothouse age, responded to the sudden rise in food and living space by growing to immense sizes. They became very slow, plodding and awkward beasts as a result, but make up for this with their immense strength, the ability to absorb otherwise crippling injuries with their huge bulks, and a powerful set of horns and tusks that can gore most potential predators with ease. Adult monstrocorns have no natural predators, being simply too powerful and well-defended for even the most aggressive hunters to tackle.
* MirroringFactions:
** The gravediggers and antlear people may be natural enemies, but they both have an artistic streak that they express using trees. It's this similarity that [[spoiler: causes some of the woodcrafters to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that they were murdering sapient beings]]]].
** The fishers and the pastoralists have the same fundamental creation story despite their cultural differences which led to some fishers becoming more introspective and questioning if their way of life is truly more moral than theirs.
** Despite the disdain fishers have for daydreamers who feed on dolfinches, their lifestyle is more similar to the whalers than it is to the farming pastoralists they share their terrioties with, as both of them hunt for their food which leaves them more downtime. The differences being what they chose to hunt. This comes to a head in the aftermath of the war with the warmongers, the warmonger children searching for food display the exact same curiosity as the fishers did towards the gravediggers and learn to speak their language, allowing them to cut a mutually beneficial deal with them.
* MixAndMatchCritters:
** Falconaries, the first hypercarnivorous birds to arise on Serina.
** The tundra-dwelling, herd-forming, pseudo-viviparous canaribou and its omnivorous relative the boarbird.
** ''Cervanser cervanser'', the "deer-goose" viva.
** Florgusts are descendants of crickets that greatly resemble butterflies through convergent evolution.
** The water snuffle is essentially an avian platypus.
** Archangels look and eat like swans with the quadrupedal posture and [[GiantFlyer size]] of ''Quetzalcoatlus''.
** The king trawler is a giant sea slug with traits of baleen whales and manta rays.
** Burdles and birdwhales strongly converge upon, well... sea turtles and baleen whales.
** Serestriders are moa-like birds big enough, and with long enough necks, to hold the niche of sauropods.
** The serezelles resemble a cross between an ostrich and a gazelle, and the boomsingers, giant serezelles that evolved to avoid competing with circuagodonts, are in essence beaked, tailless sauropods.
** The Lumberbeest is essential a mix between a large tortoise and a sauropod.
** The porporant family as a whole resemble seabirds formed into cetaceans and seals, and includes the dolfinch, croconary, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liopleurodon penguipleurodon]].
** Repandors resemble Tasmanian tigers crossed with cheetahs, but with jaws like a goblin shark.
** Moonbeasts resemble a cross between a bat and an owl. Its descendant the snowspirit lessens the bat aspect but adds a cat aspect while increasing the owl similarities.
** The night biter is essentially a mix of vampire bat and cookiecutter shark.
** Vibropterans can be described as "fish-hummingbird-bats."
** Aquatic molodonts in the Ultimocene fill a fair amount of marine mammal niches, such as the walrus-like Clamcracker and the manatee-like Rakewhale.
** The bloons look like beaked plesiosaurs but are herbivorous like manatees.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters The skuorc]] resembles a cross between an otter and a lizard with a bird's head.
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/life-of-the-meridian-islands-the-flagbearer-tribbat candescent flagbearer]] resembles a cross between a bat, a rabbit, and a bird of paradise.
** The great crested drakevulture has the size of an azhdarchid pterosaur but hunts from the air like a colossal eagle.
* MookHorrorShow: The second battle between the shallow water daydreamers and the warmongers starts off from the warmonger's perspective as it describes the armor of the daydreamers making them look like skeletons that had come back from the dead as they emerge from the shadows and then attacking them with weapons that they can't comprehend and have no way of countering.
* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily:
** The repandors are a group of canitheres with a mouthful of sharp fangs (as well as a set of slicing teeth in the back of their mouths) and jaws than extend outwards like that of a goblin shark. The bushbounders have a similar set of teeth but theirs don't extend outwards so that they have a stronger bite.
** The muckodiles' inner mouth and throat is full of tooth-like spines that make it harder for prey to escape their grasp, [[RealityIsUnrealistic much like real-world penguins]].
* MouthyBird: The Vivas are a group of live-bearing birds whose herbivorous members have developed fleshy lips and snouts over [[https://i.imgur.com/REiFDKn.png their]] [[https://i.imgur.com/cILOmh8.png beaks]]. Though entirely unrelated[[note]] tentacle birds descend from the water snuffle of the Kyran Islands, whose evolutionary separation from the vivas dates all the way back to the ancestral canary[[/note]], the tentacle birds are even more so.
* MulticulturalAlienPlanet: By the middle and late Ultimocene, a general trend towards increasing intelligence means that multiple sophont species arise, often sharing the moon with each other, and most also tend to fragment into various subspecies and cultures.
** Three sapient species evolve on the moon during the middle Ultimocene, two of which possess a number of distinct internal groups:
*** The social, herbivorous woodcrafters are natives of the southern coastal forests and build complex villages out of trees. Due to their small range, their culture is very hom*ogeneous.
*** The gravediggers are a solitary, carnivorous species who communicate with art carved on trees on territorial boundaries and hunt by making elaborate traps. Gravediggers are divided into two subspecies, the primary forest-dwelling one and the tundra gravedigger, which is even more solitary, aggressive, and nomadic than their southern cousins. One population of southern gravediggers is later taken in by the woodcrafters and grows more social as a result, becoming its own distinct species after the woodcrafters die out. Eventually, as Serina's glaciation grows more severe, the social gravediggers adopt a marine culture while the tundra and southern gravediggers are pushed into a small strip of habitable land and cease to exist as two distinct populations.
*** Daydreamers are sapient marine predators who have been living alongside the other two groups for about three million years, over time splitting into different cultures that are even reflected by their phenotypes: a small-beaked ecotype that hunts fish, and a large-beaked ecotype that preys on other dolfinches.
*** The large-beaked predators, the ancestral group, eventually split further into the pastoralists, who live in reclusive communities in shallow waters and herd dim-witted domesticated dolfinches, and the large, heavily built whalers, who live in the deep ocean and prey on larger animals. The whalers further diversify into many clades and cultures, but the dieoff of large deep-ocean wildlife caused by shrinking seas eventually causes most to die off and only leaves two, the widespread and highly collectivist pelagans and the heavily-built, xenophobic warmongers.
*** There are also bands of daydreamers comprised of mixed ecotypes who live on the periphery of the other groups' territories and raid them for food, as it's often difficult to find a suitable food source for a group containing so many disparate beak shapes.
** During the Late Ocean Age:
*** After a first-contact war between the shallow-water daydreamers and the warmongers, the shallow-water populations, warmongers, and eventually the last survivors of the collapsing pelagan society merge into a single population, which joins with the social gravediggers to form a single society. Over a period of five million years, they eventually evolve into new species, the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers, while the luddies gradually reach sapience, becoming a new species known as the greenskeepers, and join them into a single multi-species marine civilization known as the sea stewards. They have a deal with the sea shoggoths, who are implied to have achieved sapience or are on the very cusp of it, in which they don't hunt the sea stewards or anything else in return for regular deliveries of food waste and dead bodies, who would clog up the ocean otherwise as their populations grow.
*** Within the thalassic gravediggers, the inhabitants of the meadows are contrasted with the central islanders of the Meridians, who live the most terrestrial lifestyle of the three main groups, and the highly independent coastians that live near Serinarcta's shores but only go on land to collect peat and coal due to the hostility of the local wildlife, in particular their conflicts with the woolly wumpos.
*** Two other gravedigger societies exist during this time, descended from the continental gravediggers; the savage gravediggers, a FormerlySapientSpecies descended mainly from the tundra subspecies with some hybridization with the southern, and the icefishers, descended from southern gravediggers with some savage admixture displaced by the savage northern kind and adapted to life on the sea ice.
*** The descendants of the mammoth trunkos and desert wumps have also achieved sapience in the form of the woolly wumpos, although most remain fairly unimaginative, live in family groups, and even have a rudimentary religion based around the dusk and dawn.
*** There are also the bluetailed chatteravens, a near-sapient descendant of the babbling jays with a rudimentary language and culture who accidentally produce a single individual with full sapience.
** During the Hothouse Age, the still near-sophont descendants of the bluetails, the pickbirds, befriend such a wide group of animals that they can form cultural groups based on which animals they choose to befriend. This can turn pickbird groups antagonistic if their chosen animals have a predator-prey relationship, such as a pickbird group that befriends wumpos having issues with another that befriends their predators. Given only centuries at mininum, it's possible for pickbird groups to reproductively isolate and eventually speciate from one another based on which animals their ancestor most often befriended, and while the moonbreasted pickbird focused on is a generalist, there are numerous species that are more specialized in who they choose to befriendf.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are the hands of their creator thanks to their ability to make and use tools like nets, fishing lines and boats. Something the daydreamers themselves are incapable of. The warmongers even go so far as to attribute the deaths of their soldiers by gravedigger weapons as an act of divine retribution.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** After Retally managed to get nearly his entire herd killed due to his lack of mastery over fire, he was so ashamed that he decided to go north and was never heard from again, effectively committing suicide.
** In the early days of the Late Ultimocene, an aukvulture, normally a gentle scavenger, kills a sea raven out of starvation-induced annoyance and feels shame before hunger makes it forget.
* MyInstinctsAreShowing:
** The original gravediggers felt no hatred but also no remorse for gruesomely killing animals in their traps, while their social descendants have become much more empathetic towards other lifeforms thanks to the influence of the woodcrafters. However, the warmongers attacking and killing them unprovoked causes this old callousness to resurface, and they feel no guilt for using poison to subject them to a slow, horrid death.
** When Seeker, a greenskeeper descended from the ring-necked porplet, meets Whirl, a novan daydreamer descended from the seastrikers who used to be their primary predator, he briefly feels a primal fear when she opens her mouth to show him her teeth.
** The sawjaws are wolf-sized but evolved from much smaller predators in a relatively short amount of time, so they still have the instincts and behaviors of much smaller animals despite the fact that they have no predators that hunt them.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Brighteye dislikes the other, nonsapient bluetails for their violent ways, and near the end of his life thinks of himself as more one of the woolly wumpos than his own species.
* MythologyGag: When Seeker is shown what happens if sea steward society collapses due to the coal seam fire, he sees that the gravediggers have survived but turned feral, a similar fate to what Sheather had planned for them when the woodcrafters went extinct in the original draft of the Ultimocene.

* AerithAndBob: Some names are fairly simple and descriptive, such as "boarbirds", "hoppers" or "eelsnakes", but some are completely bizarre, such as mucks, shimmersnoots, poultrypuses or tweezles.
* AlienKudzu:
** Spikeleaf waterweed, a Tempuscene freshwater grass, evolves rapid growth and sharp silica-edged leaves to deter herbivorous fish and becomes an aquatic equivalent. If not regularly fed on by the [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-tempuscene-11---50-million-years/the-grandest-guppy-meet-the-gemnus giant gemnus]], it can reduce entire waterways to choked marshes.
** Assassin grass is similarly tough and fast-growing, with the additional aid of carrying poisons in its leaf edges to kill neighboring plants. Unsurprisingly, this makes it unpalatable to grazing animals, enabling it to comprise 99% of plant biomass in some places until the gluetrap tree evolves resistance to the grass and shades it out.
* AlienSea: Downplayed. The moon's oceans are largely similar to Earth's, but a vast amount of phytoplankton in the water gives it a greenish tint. Compared to Earth, more of Serina's oceans consist of shallow seas, which allows a greater abundance of aquatic plant life and by extension, a more diverse array of animal life.
* AlienSky: Being a moon as opposed to a planet, Serina orbits a large blue gas giant that illuminates its night sky more than Earth's moon does, so Serinan night is no darker than Earth twilight unless clouds obscure the planet. The intelligent babbling-jays come to regard it in their oral tradition as the source of all rain.
* AllAnimalsAreDogs: Inverted with the canitheres: despite their dog-like appearance, their behavior is scarcely canine, instead being more behaviorally akin to more primitive mammals like opossums due to their less-developed brains.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Brighteye and his brother Whitecrown are pariahs amongst their fellow bluetails, Brighteye because of his sapience and Whitecrown because of his albinism.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife:
** While most of the mammal-analogue tribbetheres are of subdued shades of brown, black and gray, similar to actual mammals, some species have taken more unusual colorations, such as the green moose-like antlears, or the vibropterans, hummingbird-like tribbats that come in vivid neon shades. There are also aquatic molodonts who take on parrotfish-like colors.
** Compared to its drab nimicorn ancestors, the male rumbling helmethead of the Hothouse Age has a brightly colored nasal crest.
** The viridescent sawjaw can be outright neon green in color due to high amounts of biliverdin in their skin and fur, which they use as camouflage while hiding in the grass to thwart the strong color vision of their thorngrazer prey.
* AnimalEyes: Even highly derived members of the tribbet lineage tend to have eyes with horizontal or cross-shaped pupils, like a frog's. The main exception are the woodcrafters who've evolved round pupils for better vision.
* AnimalJingoism:
** The gravediggers and the woodcrafters end up in an evolutionary arms race toward intelligence due to the gravediggers learning to construct increasingly complex traps to catch their prey, and the woodcrafters learning to better escape and avoid their traps. This culminates in the two species becoming true sapients and waging war, with the woodcrafters emerging the victors and driving the gravediggers out of their forests. Ultimately subverted when an adolescent woodcrafter takes pity upon an orphaned gravedigger and raises him among them, causing him to imprint upon the antlears and mostly lack the asociality associated with their species. After [[spoiler:another orphaned gravedigger is taken in by the antlears and is taught their language, her descendants end up changing gravedigger society by making them more amenable to sociality, and they enter a mutualistic relationship with their former antlear foes in which they kill off pests, and, with permission, eat the woodcrafter dead. The gravedigger art even ends up becoming the basis for the written language of the antlears.]]
** Another example is between [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-seastriker-and-the-porplet an herbivorous and a carnivorous species of dolfinch]], which ends with the fisher daydreamers making friends with the semi-sapient luddies, and the pastoralist daydreamers breeding the sapience out of the porplets to turn them into the living meat packages known as nops.
** The pelagan daydreamers and tortorncas (in particular the sea rex) have a rivalry going back to even before the seastrikers achieved sapience, as the latter specifically evolved to hunt dolfinches. It's settled by the former driving the latter extinct by targeting their more vulnerable young, and by the Late Ocean Age the daydreamers have managed to drive the large predator burdles completely extinct.
** The snowscrougers and glacier ravens are highly intelligent vicious rivals native to Serina's south pole, with the latter raiding the former's larders for food, which they need to survive the sixth month winter. The snowscrounger can plan for days and weeks to kill the latter, while the glacier raven has the assistance of larger numbers. It's for this reason that one has not managed to extinct the other.
** The wooly wumpo has a strong dislike of predators (or biters as they call them) for hunting them and they are also suspicious of chatteravens (or harbingers) due to the latter sometimes deliberately leading predators to them. However, its stated that all wumpos have a very strong hatred for thorngrazers (razers) thanks to them allowing the spread of cactaigas, which between that and their constant feeding has greatly diminished the wumpo's feeding grounds and has been killing them off in a way that the biters never came close to.
* AnimalReligion:
** Downplayed in the [[PartiallyCivilizedAnimal fork-tailed babbling jays]]' culture. They have a simple CreationMyth that the world was nothing but barren desert until all life was born from an intense rainstorm. The closest thing they have to a deity is the "Sky Sea", the planet that Serina orbits, which they believe to be the source of all rain. However, they have no concept of an afterlife.
** The bluetailed chatteravens are highly superstitious, and do rituals such as spinning in place and making talismans from the tailfeathers of slain rivals that they carry while foraging or fighting for good luck and protection from death. The narration posits that these may be the beginnings of a rudimentary religion, and attributes it to their pattern-seeking brains.
** The daydreamers believe that they were once part of a singular creator deity, that made the sky, earth and sea. This god grew curious so split apart into three: the "wings", the legs and the swimmers (the daydreamers themselves). Notably, the practical aspect of real world religious is emphasised: different daydreamer populations have different variations and use their beliefs to justify things, with the warmongers seeing themselves as the sole inherittors of this divinity and justifying their genocidal ways.
** While reapers lack an organized religion, they do have a belief in life after death and a pantheistic belief in a shared life essence between all beings.
* AnimalWrongsGroup: Pastoralist daydreamers view their fisher cousins as terrorists for sabotaging the nop farms they use to survive, which the second group views as immoral due to almost all porplets being nearly as intelligent as they are. However, it's mentioned that the original founding fishers didn't have much of a problem with the eating of nops since they recognized that they lacked the intelligence of their wild counterparts, what they took issue with was the hunting of wild dolfinches which were intelligent. Modern fishers would end up scapegoating the nops due to the information becoming distorted over time as modern pastoralists feed almost exclusively on their livestock, they also conflated the pastoralists with the whalers who do hunt intelligent dolfinches but lost contact with them several thousand years ago due to the similarities between the two. However, after the war with the warmongers, the fishers come to the conclusion that the pastoralists actually have the most ethical way of feeding out of all the daydreamers as they are only eating creatures that lack the ability to physically or mentally suffer thanks to generations of domestication while leaving the intelligent wild ones untouched. They even insist that they teach the warmongers how to farm the nops.
* AntAssault: Ants were among the handful of Earth creatures placed on the titular moon. Most of the species are fairly harmless but a few manage to become very dangerous.
** The first are the empire ants, which evolve in the early days of Serina's history to be large in both individual size and numbers in the absence of competition and predators. They devour the giant snails and flightless birds present at the time but become reliant on these animals for food; [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard when they eat them all]], they began to starve and eventually die off when a species of labybird with parasitic larvae starts eating their colonies from the inside out.
** The next arrive over two hundred million years later in the form of the billion-stingers. They have much smaller colonies than the empire ants, but can still overwhelm and skeletonize large animals in minutes.
** The descendants of the billion-stingers, the sea shoggoths, are one of the most dangerous predators of the Late Ultimocene oceans, capable of killing even warmongers by eating them from the inside out. The sea stewards manage to placate them by allowing them to feed on their refuses, but this has only made them ''smarter'', and when the contract is inadvertently broken by their departure, they revert back to their wild instincts within three months and thrive in the post-Ocean Age seas.
* AnthropomorphicShift: Downplayed with thalassic gravediggers, which have adopted more towards bipedal locomotion than their ancestors. This makes them the most humanoid of Serina's sapients simply by virtue of having two arms and two legs.
* AntlionMonster: [[BizarreSexualDimorphism The females]] of some metamorph species are neotenic and mature as sessile predators who remain buried for most of their live, catching prey with wings modified into jaw-like traps.
* ApeShallNeverKillApe: The SPS (small-prey) subtype of the daydreamers diverged from the Large-prey subtype about 300,000 years before their article's present because they considered eating other dolfinches, their ancestral prey from the time of the seastrikers, to be immoral. Over hundreds of millennia this change in ideology was even reflected in their biology, as their beaks became smaller and their bodies more agile in order to catch fish. However, despite changes in outward appearance, they're still genetically close enough to their cousins to not count as a different subspecies, let alone their own species.
* ApocalypseHow:
** The Thermocene-Pangeacene mass extinction is a strong ApocalypseHow/Class4, wiping out ''99% of all life on Serina'' via runaway global warming and ocean deoxygenation. Only a small sampling of the moon's biodiversity survives near the south pole. For comparison, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event the worst mass extinction in Earth's history]] wiped out 83% of genera.
** The Late Ocean Age ends with a massive coal seam fire sparked by Whitecrown that kills off most life on Serinarcta, save for those who managed to reach wetter spots where the fires couldn't spread, and acidifies the oceans, leading to the end of the sea steward's civilization, though the sophonts themselves are taken by the watcher to a new home and are spared the fate of actual death. By the end of the thawing period, 95% of Serina's endemic ocean life goes extinct.
** The final extinction, a ApocalypseHow/Class6 at the end of the Ultimocene, is much more gradual, simply being an ice age that eventually grows too severe for any life to survive as Serina's core cools and tectonics stop.
* ArcWords: "I love you, Bird."
* ArmlessBiped:
** All members of the tentacle bird family lack wings of any kind due to their common ancestor losing their wings to become better swimmers, which is part of the reason they developed prehensile facial appendages.
** Hothouse Age sawjaws have only two running limbs while their third limb has convergently evolved to be akin to a tail.
* ArtEvolution: Noticeable, as the project has been going since 2015. Specifically, a greater tendency toward brighter colors and less prominent outlines.
* ArtifactName: The ancestral gravedigger species is so named because of its distinctive habit of killing prey through spiked pit traps. None of its three descendant species alive during the Ocean Age retains this habit -- thalassic gravediggers and icefishers both hunt sealife using implements such as fishing lines, nets and harpoons, while savage gravediggers lack both the resources and intelligence for any kind of tool use -- but retain the collective moniker used for their ancestors.
* ArtifactTitle: Serina is no longer only the "World of Birds" past the Pangaeacene, when tribbetheres attain large-scale success and even displace avians from some niches.
* ArtisticLicenceBiology: The author takes pains to be as accurate as possible, but given the sheer scale of the project, [[ArtisticLicenseBiology/{{Serina}} instances of this were inevitable]]. Most of them, however, have at least some sort of in-universe explanation and are things only a seasoned biologist would catch.
* ArtisticLicenceSpace: Serina is described as the tidally-locked moon of a gas giant, but behaves more like a regular planet and does not have to deal with long days and nights, passing through radiation belts, and having tectonics driven by tidal forces. These, however, are minutae beyond the biological focus of the project with [[AWizardDidIt conditions set by Serina's creator]]. The gas giant at least does reflect light unto the moon, at times even creating twilight conditions, and the tectonics of Serina are not elaborated upon but seem to be prone to extensive volcanism.
* AscendedToCarnivorism:
** Only 10,000 years after establishment, some canaries have begun to eat insects and the eggs of other birds, and they're just the beginning...
** The falconary is the first true megafaunal apex predator of Serina, and quickly drives to extinction many species who had evolved without fear of predators.
** While most serezelles are antelope-like grazers, one group, the spearrunners, while retaining their running quadrupedal deer-like build, become predators that hunt insects, tribbets and small molodonts in a manner similar to a heron.
** An independent example are the carnivorous circuagodonts. Their unique slicing jaw parts prove to be just as good at cutting through flesh and bone as they are through grass, which allows some species to become predators with few modifications. Thanks to this, their higher intelligence and social hunting, they completely displace the more traditionally predatory dogbeasts by the time of the Ultimocene, with the added bonus of looking enough like their prey that they can sneak into herds of herbivores and ambush them from within.
** Many of the grazing tentacle birds secondarily become carnivorous in the Ultimocene, such as the grisly carnackle.
** Downplayed in that the scorplears are omnivores that feed on carrion rather than obligate carnivores, but they are the last descendants of the otherwise obligate herbivore antlear lineage, using the jaws that their ancestor the burrowing antlear used for woody plants to easily slice through bones. They still have the fermenting stomach of their herbivore ancestors, however.
** The woolly wumpos, descended from the herbivorous mammoth trunko and desert wump, downplay this by being opportunistically omnivorous, though they refrain from eating the corpses of predators or "biters" due to the belief that consuming the meat of a biter will make a wumpo ''become'' a biter. This narrative posits that this belief may be derived from the garbled cultural memory of wumpos eating the meat of the omnivorous and cannibalistic thorngrazers and getting infected by a prion disease that managed to jump species, causing them to go mad and attack other members of their species. Their opportunistic omnivory is shared by their island wumpo cousins.
*** A descendant species of the island wumpo, the watchtower wumpo, has graduatuated to full-on omnivory, as while they're still browsers, they require more protein than their ancestors did due to their larger size, but lack the adaptations their carnackle cousins have for hunting large prey, They instead get it by every so often turning a blind eye to viridescent sawjaw attacks on the social thorngrazer herds they watch and eating any baby thorngrazers killed in the chaos.
** A downplayed variation occurs with the great crested drakevulture. Their aukvulture ancestors were carnivorous, but were scavengers that feed on things that werealready dead, while the drakevultures have graduated to active predation.
* AttackItsWeakPoint: Razorbacks are noted to have soft underbellies, which are protected by the fact that their stubby limbs make them hard to flip over.
* BadOlBadger: Bumblebadgers are an avian version of this trope and certainly live up to the ferocity and tenacity of their namesakes. One species, the gravedigger, eventually becomes sapient, and learns how to kill much larger prey using pitfall traps lined with spears.
* BaitAndSwitch: We are told that a sapient species has evolved on the savannas of the late Pangaeacene. The bizarre [[https://img00.deviantart.net/e448/i/2017/306/0/1/mitten2_by_sheather888-dbsh1m6.png bludgebird (right)]] is set up as such: it [[{{Cthulhumanoid}} certainly looks like an alien]], yet also [[MostWritersAreHuman has certain similarities to early humans]]: it walks upright, stands about five feet tall, has a mostly naked body, is an endurance-pursuit predator, and kills its prey with a club. However, they are only as intelligent as apes. After a pair of bludgebirds makes its kill, they are attacked and driven off the carcass by a flock of the small colorful birds who were watching them, [[WhamLine now wielding tiny stone knives]].
* BatOutOfHell:
** The nightbiters are parasitic tribbats that are basically flying cookiecutter sharks, gnawing chunks of flesh off from giant herbivores. They are in turn preyed upon by the even more horrific-looking flapsnapper, who in a bit of a subversion is actually beneficial to the nightbiters' victims as it keeps the pest populations down.
** The aeracuda is a large, diurnal forest predator that uses its extensible mouth to snap up prey both on the ground and the air and can also take on much larger quarry.
* BearsAreBadNews: The largest of the bumblebadgers are called bumblebears and are dangerous and bad-tempered ground predators found on Serina's plains. Special mention however goes to two particular species of the Middle Ultimocene:
** A relatively small species, the bramblebreaker, is described as "an animal nobody wants to meet". They're highly muscular, dangerous predators and extremely foul-tempered even by bumblebear standards, but provide a useful service for other animals through their ability to open paths through the dense cactaiga by simply chewing their way through the dense growths of spiny plants.
** The truculent bumblebear, at eight feet in height and nine hundred pounds in weight, is one of the largest bumblebear species and the apex predator of its era. They're extremely powerful and dangerous predators, equally happy killing and eating literally any creature they encounter as they are chasing off other predators from their kills. They have no natural enemies, and their most common cause of death is being killed by a conspecific in a conflict over territory. This species eventually gives rise to the dire bumblebear of the Late Ocean Age, which is even bigger and even more vicious due to having adapted to hunt the hulking, ill-tempered, hyperomnivorous thorngrazers.
* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: The woodcrafters started out as prey who eventually became powerful enough to drive away the gravediggers and had grown to view predators as monsters. Once they did drove them out, however, they started to [[spoiler: become bolder and began venturing out of their territories in order to kill predators that were no threat to them for sport and took sick amusem*nt in their suffering, [[HeWhoFightsMonsters becoming even more monstrous]] than their perception of the gravediggers, who only kill for survival and had long since avoided hunting the woodcrafters]].
* BeneathNotice:
** Gravediggers will hang around their prey for quite some time, learning how they think and therefore how best to trap them as they don't associate the gravedigger with their traps. They got good enough at it over the millennia that the ancestral gravedigger drove at least one non-sapient antlear species to extinction.
** According to Blaze's telling of the first encounters between the coastian thalassic gravediggers and woolly wumpos, the latter didn't pay the former much mind since they were seemingly too small to pose a threat to them, until they started using fire and their intelligence to hunt them.
** Brighteye is able to spy on thalassic gravedigger camps without anyone noticing something different about him because of the fact that outwardly he seems no different from any other bluetail despite his intelligence. As such, it comes as a huge shock to them when he [[spoiler: starts speaking to them in a way that goes beyond simple mimicry]].
* bestial*tyIsDepraved:
** Inverted in the case of some of the nonsapient savage gravediggers who forcibly mated with female southern gravediggers instead of just killing and eating them as was the norm. It's stated that this has mainly affected the resultant icefisher population more in terms of size and coloration than cognition or behavior as they've kept their sapience and are far less violent than either of their ancestors.
** The sapient woolly wumpos have a taboo against mating with their closely related but only near-sophont island wumpo cousins, though some have done so anyway[[note]]Primarily male islander and female woolly crosses[[/note]], with the sapient hybrids being passed off as regular woolies by the herd leaders until their differences become obvious.
** Reaper aukvultures refuse to breed with their nonsapient relatives, who they refer to as "the untamed", which prevents their sapience from being subsumed by the greater aukvulture population, but also leaves them susceptible to inbreeding depression, making it so that 500 years later only one, Eve, is left.
* BewareTheNiceOnes:
** The social gravediggers are known for their empathy and connection to the living things in their ecosystem, but, when the second battle against the warmongers occurs, they arm their daydreamer allies with armor and poisoned spears that quickly turns the tide in their favor. Unlike the daydreamers who are horrified by the gruesome deaths suffered by the paralyzed warmongers, the gravediggers prove themselves to be quite ruthless and pragmatic when the chips are down, feeling very little sympathy for their hated enemies, and even celebrating the news of their victory.
** The aukvultures are known for their gentle temperaments despite their formidable appearance, but they are still a fairly large animal with a beak designed to crush bone. When they are forced to start raiding the sea stewards abandoned food supplies when they don’t return, some greedy sea ravens keep attempting to steal their food until a combination of starvation and [[RageBreakingPoint anger]] causes one aukvulture to snap and break the neck of one of them and force the rest to back off. The aukvulture itself is briefly horrified at what it had just done until its hunger forces it to forget and focus on finding food.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: There are many examples, throughout the ages:
** As early as ten million years PE, crickets have reached the size of rabbits thanks to the lack of predators early on and lower gravity.
** The Serinian bullworm is a giant earthworm living one million years post-establishment and can grow to lengths of up to thirty feet as the largest invertebrate of its time. Around the same time are sea slugs the size of cars.
** In an inversion, some of the Verminfans and Osteopulma clades of metamorph birds, such as the varicolored bumblebird and the zebra tweezle, become very tiny, being possibly the tiniest a vertebrate could be at about insect-size.
* BittersweetEnding: The Ocean Age/Middle Ultimocene ends this way. The release of the trapped carbon thanks to the underground coal fire warms the moon and prolongs the end of its habitable stage, allowing life to last longer than it would have, but it also causes a mass extinction that kills many of the more specialized creatures currently living. In addition, the sea stewards are whisked away to a copy of their old world that will steadily improve to save them from this extinction, but not before the woolly wumpos are all burned to death and Brighteye dies alone knowing his role in their demise. Also, the disappearance of the sea stewards will make the subsequent mass extinction worse as the ecosystem had become dependent on them to function.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Thorngrazers not only have three stomachs, but as an adaptation for their {{Extreme Omnivor|e}}y have built-in bypasses so that food that needs less digesting like meat will go straight to the intestines instead of their fermenting stomach. Uniquely for a vertebrate, through horizontal gene transfer with long extinct stomach bacteria, they have acquired the gene for producing the enzyme cellulase, which allows them to easily break down wood and leaves and gain nutrients without having to share. This is what allows them to live like both obligate herbivores and carnivores depending on what's around.
* BizarreAlienLimbs:
** The tribbets are tripedal terrestrial descendants of guppies that modified their tails and pectoral fins into three walking limbs. Beyond that, the various tribbet lineages develop a number of very unusual limb arrangements:
*** One lineage, the mammal-like tribbetheres, develop erect forearms with seven digits on each forepaw. One canithere species, the thylacine-like painted repandor, develops its single hind leg into having a backwards-bending knee joint and a downward-curved back that turn the hind leg into a spring to help launch the creature forward when running. Merwals, a type of aquatic canithere, have a tail fluke derived from its single hind leg, and thus still possesses an ankle and knee joint, almost resembling a person wearing a mermaid tail.
*** The antlears are a group of circuagodonts that have developed mobile, jointed antler-like limbs on their ears that they use to pull branches down to their mouths. The explanation for this is that the ears of tribbetheres have a bony matrix in them due to being derived from the gill plates of their fish ancestors, unlike the cartilaginous ears of Earth mammals. This gave them much better mobility and the ability to grip. Burrowing antlears and their scorplear descendants take this to an entirely new level, having adapted to use their ears as an additional set of legs.
*** Another group of tribbets, the handfishes, shorten their forearms but lengthen their fingers instead, eventually turning their individual fingers into separate limbs themselves (becoming hexapedal with the former wrist becoming a double-shoulder joint).
*** The siphontooth is a species of gliding molodont which becomes the first-ever quadrupedal tribbet, despite the basic tribbet body plan having only three legs, by hypertrophying the fingers of its hindleg until the two lateral ones become grasshopper-like legs, while the middle one remains as a balancing organ.
** The snuffalo is a large grazing relative of the softbill birds that uses its huge thick beak as a third limb due to its short legs and massive heavy head.
** The bumblets use their clawed wings as spades for burrowing, which resulted in them becoming extremely rigid by having their wrist bones hypertrophy all the way to their socket. This means that they, and their descendants like the bumblebears and gravediggers, have no elbows. This becomes a challenge for the marine social gravedigger due to their reliance on tool use but they get around their lack of dexterity by working cooperatively.
* BizarreAlienLocomotion:
** The varicolored bumblebird, as a larva, modifies its front limbs into grabbing "jaws". While most metamorph bird larvae use their forelimbs to crawl about, the bumblebird larva's forelimbs are too specialized to aid in locomotion and it instead moves by wiggling along using its abdominal muscles. This extends to the flighted adult bumblebird: having retained the stiff forelimbs it had as a larva, it can't flap its wings like a normal bird would and instead uses its specialized abdominal muscles to fly more like an insect.
** Snuffalos walk tripedally, using their huge bills as a third leg, and their neck provides much of their propulsion. They rest its blunt tip on the ground when at rest in order to support their massive heads, and when walking they press it down in front of themselves and then use their huge neck muscles to pull themselves towards the spot where it's planted.
** The antlears' most distinctive traits are their pronged, keratinized ears, first used to grasp tree branches. These become jointed and enlarged in later species, and the burrowing antlears eventually develop them into a full set of walking limbs. These ear legs start out mainly as a supplementary support in the first burrowing antlear species, but become much more well-developed in their scorplear descendants.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-cartwheel Cartwheels]] are a species of simiagibs -- tribbets adapted for monkey-like arboreal lifestyles -- that use their clade's distinctive "fractal" limbs and tail, formed by fingers fused into two sub-limbs each before separating again at the tips, to move through the trees by rolling underneath branches. They do this by grasping a branch with their right pair of hands, swinging their tail hands up to grasp it as well, let go of their hands' hold and allow themselves to hang upside down, and swing their left hands up to grasp back at the branch before righting themselves and repeating the cycle. They can move extremely quickly in this manner, using gravity to speed up further when fleeing from predators, and on the ground use a variant of their arboreal gait where they essentially roll along like living wheels.
* BizarreAlienPsychology:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-solitary-sophont-the-boundary-tree gravediggers are subject to this given they are solitary sophont species]]. Since they aren't social, they don't need to interact with others of their own kind for emotional fulfillment unlike humans and don't seem to experience boredom when it comes to performing long menial tasks like digging trenches and develop [[CreatureOfHabit strict, almost ritualistic daily routines]]. They use art scratched on the trees located on their territorial boundaries as a [[PenPals form of long-distance communication]] and may even experience sorrow if another gravedigger they shared art with for years dies [[BlueAndOrangeMorality but will become violently aggressive if they were to ever meet in person]].
** The daydreamers have evolved to be able to remain conscious with only half their brain active so that they can rest it while still also preventing drowning and this results in the being able to see their dreams while awake, which they interpret as visions.
** The woolly wumpo are fully sapient by most standards as they have a language, religious beliefs and even an understanding of abstract concepts like art but most of them suffer from CreativeSterility that makes it very difficult for them to innovate and which leaves them stagnant. However, a rare few members of their species are born with a form of neurodivergence known as wide-mindedness that gives them at same innovation as the other sophontic species and these individuals typically become figures of great importance in their species' society.
* BizarreAlienReproduction:
** Changelings evolve a reproductive cycle more like that of a fly than a bird. The mother lays tiny, delicate eggs within a carcass or a larder of meat and promptly abandons them. These hatch into tiny, near-embryonic offspring like newborn marsupials. The "larvae" eat and grow continuously until they secrete a mucous chrysalis, emerging as a normal fledgling. Their descendants, the ornimorphs, take this UpToEleven, [[https://img04.deviantart.net/c9a5/i/2017/220/b/3/birds123_by_sheather888-dbjdal7.png passing through]] all the stock EvolutionaryLevels of vertebrate evolution as part of ''one'' individual's life cycle. Another lineage of changelings develop placental live birth like mammals by retaining their larvae within their bodies instead.
** Bloons and birdwhales are fully marine birds descended from pelican-like seabirds that have adapted to carry their eggs in their throat pouch. After millions of years of evolution this pouch has fully separated from the digestive system and become highly vascularized in order to provide heat and oxygen for the egg, effectively becoming a pseudo uterus.
** The bumblets evolve the ability to give live birth by retaining their egg internally and oxygenating it by... flatulence.
** The neckbeards developed a patch of highly vascularized skin on their neck which allow then to carry their eggs with them. The trunkos, their decendents, have expanded on this and have developed muscules in this pouch that hold the egg in place which makes them the closet thing a bird has gotten to a marsupial.
* BizarreSeasons: In the hothouse age, the climate is warm and wet all year round around the whole globe regardless of latitude, meaning that there are barely any seasons. The main exceptions are the Polar basin and the Longdark swap. Both of these biomes are situatedin the polar circles and so have to deal with one season of constant daylight and another one of constant darkness...while still being warm in both.
* BizarreSexualDimorphism:
** The polymorph birds are a species of softbill bird that have different morphs of male similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruff ruff bird]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard side-blotched lizard]], each with their own distinct appearances and behaviors.
*** The Ardor is only slightly larger than the female and is a monogamous breeder who will assist his mate in rearing their offspring.
*** The Keeper is [[HugeGuyTinyGirl twice the size of the female]], is very aggressively territorial, and keeps harems of females.
*** The Tramp is [[DudeLooksLikeALady very similar to the female in size and appearance]] and will use this to sneak into the territories of Keepers, mate with their harems, and take off.
*** The rarest morph is the Bachelor, which is nearly as large as the Keeper and much less aggressive. Their most unusual trait is that they form mostly hom*osexual pair bonds with either other Bachelors or Ardors and will either steal or adopt the eggs of other Polymorph Birds to raise as their own.
** Male firetail changelings need lots of easily processed energy for finding and mating with as many females as possible, and so have long thin bills for consuming nectar. Females need more protein in their diets to produce eggs and therefore have shorter beaks for catching small prey. [[GeniusBonus This arrangement was likely based on mosquitoes, the sexes of which have similar dietary differences for the same reason]].
* BladeBelowTheShoulder:
** The gigantic serestriders keep foldable hand-derived blades folded against their bodies to defend themselves from tyrant serins.
** The mucks have a single large claw at the ends of their wings. The original arboreal species simply used them to climb through tree branches while the later terrestrial species would use them to fight off predators.
* BloodKnight: The grisly carnackle is said to relish fighting against strong opponents, be they members of its own kind over food and territory or predators that try to make a meal of it, and are even willing to fight to the death.
* BodyHorror: The nops have been getting farmed for so long that their bodies are now grotesquely bloated with a disproportionately tiny head and flippers.
* BookEnds:
** The woodcrafters first developed sapience due to being killed by the gravedigger's pit-traps. After Ember, the last woodcrafter, dies her body is placed in a pit made by the gravediggers, but this time, as an actual grave.
** The story of Brighteye, which begins with him comforting his albino brother with "I love you, bird", concludes with a (non-sapient) chatterraven uttering the phrase to an albino gravedigger.
** At the start of Serina, snails were the dominant megafauna. At the late Ultimocene, their descendants, the snarks, become dominant animals once more.
* BoringButPractical:
** Egg-eating, rodent-like molodonts have diminished bird populations by the time of the Ultimocene. While several groups of birds managed to avoid this thanks to more exotic ways of breeding such as live-birth or laying their eggs in water, what do the sparrowgulls and mittens do? Carry their eggs to a safer place, and they're arguably some of the more successful birds of this era for it, to the point that the tentacle birds are the only remaining avian megafauna that still lay hard-shelled eggs.
** Small perching birds very similar to the original canary stock persist all the way to the late Ultimocene, while more exotic clades rise and fall throughout the ages. It's compared by the author to the success and adaptability of lizards, closely akin to the earliest reptiles, and opossums, which are nearly identical to the ancestor of all mammals.
** The thorngrazers aren't very numerous in terms of species because their {{Extreme Omnivor|e}}y means that they don't really suffer any pressures to speciate and as such have singular lines of descent, with the nimicorn directly descending from the crabheaded thorngrazer and the razorback from the sextacorn thorngrazer. It takes the pressures of the Late Ultimocene for this to change, and even then the nimicorn descendants aren't that dissimilar from one another or their ancestor, as they fall into either "big and bulky" or "fast and agile" categories.
** The trunkos all possess a highly generalized, omnivorous diet rather than specializing into a particular one, this has allowed them to survive and thrive in the middle Ultimocene while many other species have diminished or died out entirely.
** The duckbilled sealumps are far less fantastic than their more massive fully aquatic relatives, but they survive the end of the Ocean Age by virtue of being able to step on land and graze on food there, which their water-restricted relatives, stuck in the dying oceans, cannot do.
** The main floral survivors 1,000 years post-Late Ocean Age include the relatively evolutionarily conservative descendants of clovers and dandelions.
** From the Late Ocean Age into the early Hothouse Age, some species are so successful that the only noticeable physical change between them and their ancestors is one of coloration, with the steppestalker being just a lighter-colored PaletteSwap of its shadowstalker ancestor, and the Late Ocean Age surfscoters being darker than their starkly black and white Early Ocean Age ancestors.
** The early Late Ultimocene sea's fish population is mostly comprised of mollyminnows, evolutionarily conservative guppy descendants who spread out as the Meridians sunk with the rising sea levels.
* BornUnderTheSail: [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-gravedigger-goes-out-to-sea The social gravediggers of the oceanic age]] have become a [[WanderingCulture nomadic]] seafaring people that use things like plant fibers to make canoes and nets as well as animal parts to make their tools. It's also stated that they typically don't destroy the island ecosystems they come across like ancient humans due to them not settling on the islands and actually living on the ocean itself. [[spoiler:After making peace with the daydreamers, they strike out with them from the Icebox Seaway to explore the open ocean, and find so much success there that they last for a million years and evolve into a genetically distinct species.]]
* BrainsVersusBrawn: The thorngrazers, being strong but unintelligent prey, are contrasted with their individually weaker but highly intelligent predators who have effectively allied themselves against them.
* BrotherSisterIncest: A female mitten will sometimes take two mates. All three birds in the triad will mate with each other. The two males in these cases are almost always brothers.
* CatsHateWater: Described to be the case with a primitive cat-like predatory tribbethere who falls into a shallow stream while retreating from an attempt to hunt a muck. The author points out the irony that being a guppy descendant, the tribbethere is technically still a fish[[note]] then again, so are mammals and all other tetrapods, who descend from a species most similar to a lungfish[[/note]]... that hates water.
* CallASmeerpARabbit:
** Many of Serina's birds are named after other types of Earth birds, such as porporants, squorks, and sparrowgulls. They aren't cormorants, storks, or gulls, of course, being canary descendants that through convergent evolution came to resemble these birds.
** A notable example are the "waterfowl", which as with everything refer to aquatic canaries. At least two such lineages exist (one derived from the dougals and resembling ducks and the others from the galliwats and resembling rails) and the text often doesn't make it clear which one is being alluded to.
** Some of the smaller, hare-like circuagodonts are literally called smeerps.
** The woolly wumpos refer to the tiny seed-eating molodonts they eat to supplement their diets as "mice".
* CannibalClan: The warmonger daydreamers are a distinct cultural group that hunt and eat other daydreamers even though they are all still the same species despite their physical differences. They started first with other whalers not part of their group as their normal prey dwindled due to climate change, and after the pelagans banded together to kick them out of their open sea territory roughly 20 years before the fishers made contact with the gravediggers, they started preying upon the fishers and pastoralists instead.
* CarnivoreConfusion: This is basically the warmongers' schtick, since they will happily prey on closely related species or even their own kind, and despite being sapient they have no moral qualms whatsoever about doing so.
* CarryABigStick: The bludgebirds wield clubs using their beak tentacles, swinging them at small prey such as circuagodonts to break their vulnerable hind leg.
* CaughtUpInTheRapture: As Serinarcta burns due to the observer's meddling, it feels guilty for dooming the sea stewards to extinction and places them all in a copy of Serina where the fire never happened and the observer never revealed itself. To the sophonts, it was as if a CosmicRetcon occurred. To the rest of Serina, the sea stewards just vanished.
* CelibateHero: Seeker the greenskeeper is noted to have no interest in mating with anyone regardless of gender, compared to his gravedigger friend Pebble who is implied to be a lesbian.
* CessationOfExistence: While little of the various sophonts' beliefs in the afterlife is revealed and there is a fleeting moment where the dying dream that they are restored to health in a vision of a better world, descriptions state that there is nothing to experience and no one to experience after their brain shuts down.
* ChangelingTale: Referenced not with the birds actually called changelings, but a primitive tribbet called the nest goblin. It has evolved to observe and mimic the appearance, calls, and movements of baby birds to a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus superstimulating]] degree to get free meals from their parents. The birds put all their time and energy into feeding the goblin while their chicks either learn to feed themselves or starve.
* CharacterDevelopment: WordOfGod states that the observer has undergone this. It started out as an unfeeling entity that simply charted down the life on the world as it went on, which is reflected in how the entries are regularly spaced out by millions of years and focused on species and environments as a whole. By the Mid-Ultimocene, however, it has been around long enough to develop more of a personality as well as develop attachments, which is shown by more of the entries from this period being closer together and focusing on individuals. It has also changed enough to actively interfere with the project to prolong its life as well as save the sea stewards after experiencing guilt for Brighteye's death due to its meddling.
* ChekhovsGunman: The fireslime lumpus, a tribbet with a potent batrachotoxin, is first mentioned in the Cactaiga entry as almost an aside. Said toxin is used by the gravediggers to help the fisher and pastoralist daydreamers turn the tide against their warmonger foes by gifting them with poisoned spears. The lumpus was also seen even earlier being bitten by a spiny sniffler.
* ChildEater:
** The seastriker hunts baby porplets in particular, as the adults will just breed more.
** Watchtower wumpos opportunisticly eat baby thorngrazers killed by viridescent sawjaws, as they taste better than the adults.
* AChildShallLeadThem:
** Since seers are that much smarter than the other seastrikers, even adolescent seers hold a place of leadership over seasoned adults.
** Wideminds are seen as more flexible in thought by the woolly wumpos, and so young ones are venerated by elders due to their ability to change how things are done in ways that only they can.
* CombatPragmatist: The social gravediggers are smaller, weaker, and less adapted to an aquatic environment than the warmongers, so they armor the fishers and pastoralists with shells and bone and give them poisoned weapons to fight in their stead.
* CommonalityConnection: Apart from her intelligence, Brighteye feels kinship with Blaze because her heterochromia marks her as unique in the same way as Brighteye's intelligence and Whitecrown's albinism.
* ContinuityCreep: The South Serinarctan Forest Refugia and Daydreamer Saga arcs are much more of a coherent narrative than previous eras, which obviously followed the evolution of life on Serina, but in an episodic manner of describing one species or group, habitat, etc.
* ContinuityNod: In "The Domain of Demons", taking place during the Late Ocean Age as the gravediggers start mining in order to collect enough coal to stop the ocean from freezing over, one thing they find is the fossilized skull of a tyrant serin, a group that went extinct hundreds of millions of years before.
* CraftedFromAnimals: Gravediggers normally use animal sinews to create snares, while their later seagoing descendants use fish teeth and bones to create fishhooks and their tendons for fishing lines, and the sea-living social gravediggers before them make boats and sails from animal skins and bone, along with bone oars. Since they primarily use animal fats as fuel for fire, the peat and coal mined with bone shovels are referred to as "earthfats".
* CrapsaccharineWorld: The world five million years into the Hothouse Age is incredibly ecologically productive and biologically diverse thanks to the abundance of heat and moisture in the atmosphere but these things also result in huge, powerful storms and hurricanes forming frequently at levels never seen on Earth due to the global ocean. Additionally, the warm, humid conditions allow for the proliferation of diseases and parasites to the point where thorngrazers are generally only able to live for a few years before their parasite loads kill them outright or weaken them enough to be picked off by predators, a fate that occurs to 1 out of 4 thorngrazers every year. The heat and humidity itself can also be very oppressive at both day and night as the water in the air makes it difficult to cool off.
* CreativeSterility:
** The woolly wumpos are, as a species, uninnovative and neophobic -- while they're very emotionally well-developed and have a strong understanding of abstract concepts, they're not good at learning new things, inventing new solutions or tools or improving on old ones, or facing unfamiliar problems, and for the most part rely on well-established traditions. The exception to this are very rare, neurodivergent individuals called wideminds, who are more innovative, less fearful, and better at coming up with new things. Wideminds are highly respected in wumpo society, and historically have been responsible for creating most new tools, solutions or practices, which afterwards spread through the species and became established as part of tradition.
** The chatteravens are capable of innovation to a degree and learn fast but they have little in the way of abstract thought which hampers their creativity and their skills at making new tools or behaviors. Brighteye, being the only fully sapient chatteraven, is the exception as his strong grasp of abstract concepts and natural learning ability allows him to outperform wumpo wideminds when it comes to making new tools and discoveries.
* CreepyCrows: Woolly wumpos refer to the raven-like bluetailed chatteravens as "harbingers" due to their tendency to signify the presence of the predators that they can summon.
* CripplingOverspecialization: Plenty of cases:
** The serezelles die out due to being unable to graze on the unpalatable razorgrass, the merwals become specialized to eating shellfish and could not adapt to a different diet when the marine molodonts become more efficient clam eaters, and the specialized burrowing birds of the Kyran Islands had no defense against an influx of predatory tribbetheres when the islands collided with the mainland. This is TruthInTelevision -- many animals respond to selective pressures by specializing, but specialist niches are far more fragile than generalists.
** This is what spells the end of [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]]. They became so specialized for feeding from a specific type of broadleaf tree that was already on the decline when they evolved that, when it becomes too cold for those trees to survive, they begin to die out from malnutrition, while [[spoiler:the carnivorous gravediggers can subsist on any source of meat, on top of being more flexible in mindset in general. It's eventually discovered that seaweed can actually sustain the woodcrafters, though its softness means their jaws grow longer, but by then it was already too late as the surviving woodcrafters were all well past child-bearing age (only males keep their fertility past their thirties, and woodcrafters as a whole rarely live past fifty years), on top of their population being too small to prevent a genetic bottleneck even if they weren't too old to have children]].
** The colossal quadclaw, a fully terrestrial crustacean descended from hermit crabs endemic to the Meridian Islands, goes extinct due to being outcompeted by the newly arrived, warm-blooded grazing birds that can eat grass at any time of day, as opposed to the quadclaws only being able to forage during the day due to being susceptible to the nighttime chill.
** There was once a larger species of skystrike (sparrowgulls that attack their prey in groups) roughly the size of a golden eagle that was adapted to hunt the gigantic archangels of the Early and Early Middle Ultimocene such as the stormsonor, but went extinct once its prey died out and the other archangels were too small to sustain it.
** The whaler subtype of daydreamer, specialized to hunt open-ocean prey, is on the decline due to the warming ocean lowering the numbers of their filter-feeding prey, most notably the banded maw, the largest animal on Serina during the Ultimocene. By the time of the Ocean Age, only the pelagans and warmongers are left, and millennia after the latter's war with the other daydreamers, the last of the former die out, but not before reuniting with their fellow daydreamers and passing on their history as the woodcrafters did before them.
** The circuagodogs, who once outcompeted their avian and fellow tribbethere competition, die out not only when their fellow circuagodonts start going extinct themselves, but the trunkos who served as their other prey source grow smart enough to start preemptively targeting their predators by killing their babies and breaking apart their packs. The last circuagodog, a scissortooth, dies starving to death before getting beaten to death by one of the very trunkos its kind used to hunt as a MercyKill.
** The icefishers go extinct when the thawing of the ice they need to survive puts them in the crosshairs of their savage gravedigger relatives, who outcompete them into extinction.
** Save for the duckbilled sealump, the rest of the group dies out during the Great Thaw because unlike their cousins who can go on land when necessary, they're trapped in the dying oceans.
** The cactaiga plant was very prolific during the Mid-Ultimocene as it was adapted for cold and arid conditions, but is unable to handle the increased rainfall of the Late Ultimocene and goes extinct.
** Thorngrazers lack much in the way of intelligence, so their only choices are getting meaner, gaining more armor, or getting faster. This leaves them at a permanent disadvantage against their much smarter predators who have ways of getting around all of those traits.
** The viridescent sawjaws are an interesting case. They feed on absolutely nothing but thorngrazers, but unlike many specialized predators, this is due to imprinting rather than physical limitations, as they are fully capable of tackling different prey but will pass them simply because they don't see them as food. This narrow-mindedness when it comes to food isn't really a problem though since thorngrazers are so abundant that they don't need to hunt anything else.
** The social thorngrazers and sealumps evolved to bunch up when dealing with terrestrial predators such as sawjaws, carnackles, scroungers, and the like in order to protect their young, but this doesn't work as well against aerial predators such as drakevultures that can simply pluck their young from their circles with impunity.
* CrusadingWidow: The warmonger matriarch is completely blinded when the grieving mate of one of the soldiers she sent into battle stalks her after she fled the angry mob and stabs her [[EyeScream in her remaining good eye]] with a broken shaft from one of the gravedigger's spears.
* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: An avian variant. The various "softbill" birds sport facial tentacles derived from soft tissue that covered their ancestors' beaks and have unusually upright stances for birds, making them a rare example of a Cthulavian.
* CutenessProximity: The luddy porplets have this effect on the fisher daydreamers due to their chubby appearance and [[CuteCrittersActChildlike child-like behavior]]. It doesn't work on the pastoral daydreamers, who are taught from childhood to only view porplets as food. The luddy's descendant, the greengrazer, are also considered cute by novan daydreamers.
* DeathByIrony:
** Merwals are marine canitheres that used their tail derived hind leg to swim, much like how their fish ancestors used their tails to swim. However, because it has long since been used for walking, its joints and rigidity now made it very poorly suited for aquatic locomotion, so, when the aquatic molodonts arrive who use their front legs for swimming, the merwals are swiftly outcompeted and go extinct.
** The wombler is the first megafaunal canary in Serina's history, evolving ten million years post-establishment in a predator-free SugarBowl, into a seven-foot, slow-moving flightless herbivore. Due to this peaceful environment, however, the womblers evolved to be ''less than'' peaceful: never having learned how to fear for their own survival, they become very fearless and aggressive, often killing each other in fights over territory and mates, because they never learned to back down and flee. This eventually proves to be their undoing when the first true predators, the falconaries, begin evolving; the womblers quickly go extinct and leave no descendants.
** The fork-tailed babbling jays have a quasi-religious reverence for rainfall, believing that plants and animals are created by it, and that the gas giant Serina orbits is a "sky sea" that blesses them with it. Ultimately, it's rain that leads to their extinction, as it eventually causes the fork-tails' desert habitat to turn into a humid forest ridden with diseases they have no resistance to.
** The warmonger matriarch was the ruler of some of the most deadly apex predators to swim Serina's oceans, but is eaten by a sea shoggoth, which is made of the [[AntAssault tiniest carnivores in the sea]].
** The circauagodogs outcompete the canitheres by being smarter than them, only to reach an intelligence bottleneck that does them in when both their prey and predator competition gets smarter than them.
** Cactaiga plants are able to thrive in harsh, barren conditions that most other flora can't survive but are done in by warm temperatures and increased rainfall, something typically beneficial for plant life.
* DeusExMachina: Near literally how the Late Ocean Age is resolved. [[spoiler:The god-like intelligence observing Serina takes pity on the sea stewards for inadvertently destroying their world due to interfering to keep the project running, so it clones them and puts them in a copy of Serina, saving them while the original keeps burning.]]
* DisasterDominoes: The Thermocene/Pangaeacene mass extinction. A gradual increase in volcanism sets these off that leads to the entire moon becoming an irradiated HailfirePeaks and the extinction of 99% of all life.
* TheDiscoveryOfFire: The gravediggers discovered how to create fire at the beginning of the Ocean Age, but learning to control it only becomes relevant as Brighteye seeks to learn their secret in order to help the wumpos hold back the thorngrazers and the cactaiga.
* DistractedByTheSexy: In [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-gmu?authuser=0 this story]], a young male gmu enters his first mating season and becomes obsessed with pursuing the scent and calls of a receptive female to a fatal degree, as he fails to detect the greater grappler stalking him until it swiftly and brutally kills him.
* ADogNamedDog: Ember's pet bird is named, well, Bird.
* DoubleAgent: The watchtower wumpo will guard their thorngrazer herds against common foes such as large sawjaws, aerial predators like drakevultures, and their carnackle cousins, but when it comes to the thorngrazer specialist viridescent sawjaws, they will every so often turn a blind eye to a sawjaw attack so that they can opportunisticly scavenge any felled baby thorngrazers in the process. They get away with this due to their charge's lesser intelligence, and not doing it twice in a row, which would allow even beings as dumb as thorngrazers to realize their treachery. The sawjaws understand the arrangement enough to even leave freshly butchered baby thorngrazers for them to eat.
* TheDreaded:
** In an ironic twist, the woodcrafters became this to their former predators the gravediggers. Their tendency to retaliate if one of them was killed or injured caused the gravediggers to view them as a jinx and their systematic hunting at their hands made them a danger to be steered clear of. The gravediggers that lived in the refugia would not create any tree art for fear of drawing their attention and when the woodcrafters began hunting the ones outside their territory, they start depicting them as deadly monsters in their artwork.
** The savage gravedigggers, or "wildwalkers" in the tongue of the thalassic gravediggers, are feared by them due to their not quite sapient level but still high intelligence combined with their viciousness.
** The woolly wumpos fear the thalassic gravediggers for being smart enough to hunt them, referring to them as "demons" for driving them to the far north where it was much tougher for them to survive. For their part, the coastian thalassic gravedigger seem to fear the wumpos back as ever since Retally drove them off, they never made any permanent settlements along the shoreline, only come to shore to mine peat and coal, and both species try to give each other a wide berth whenever possible.
* DrivenToSuicide: Implied with Retally the woolly wumpo. After his lack of mastery over fire creates a blaze that kills nearly all of his clan, Retally is consumed with grief and regret. He heads to the inhospitable north and is never seen again.
* DumbMuscle:
** Savage gravediggers are the largest and strongest of the three gravedigger species of the Late Ocean Age, but are only about as smart as a chimp compared to their sophont cousins due to losing the higher intelligence exhibited by their tundra gravedigger ancestors.
** The thorngrazers of the middle Ultimocene are among the strongest of the remaining land animals but have greatly lost their intelligence, and are not only stupid by Serinian standards, but even by the standards of Earth mammals. They survive due to a combination of their strength, sheer aggression, and ability to eat [[ExtremeOmnivore practically anything.]] However, this means that they are also covered in parasites that gradually weaken them since their stupidity means that they can't form real social attachment and engage in social grooming to get rid of them. The social thorngrazers of the Late Ultimocene have gotten ''just'' smart enough to form social bonds amongst females, but are still utterly unintelligent otherwise. The monstrocorns on the other hand have become bigger, stronger, and meaner than ever while remaining unintelligent.
* DyingAlone: Brighteye dies of smoke inhalation on the beach with only the watcher as company.
* DyingDream:
** As the last woodcrafter dies, she receives a dream from ''something'' restoring her health and people, reassuring her that she did well and pulling back the curtain to show the world from its perspective, millions of lifetimes and species far beyond her comprehension, all starting from a little fish and a little bird.
** The warmonger matriarch receives a vision of her people prosperous and at peace as she is eaten alive by a sea shoggoth. No matter how hard she swims towards them, they only get further away until she can only feel the indifferent presence of ''something'' beside her, and then nothing at all.
** Brighteye gets a vision of the watcher in his last moments where it reveals to him its part in bringing he and Blaze together in the first place, which eventually leads to the death of the family thanks to the massive coal fire sparked by Whitecrown and his clan's carelessness with fire. Brighteye's last words in response to their apology and statement that this was not the end of the world, but merely another chapter in its history, are a DyingCurse towards them for their interference before expiring.
* DyingRace: Quite a few, as Serina's biodiversity continues to decline over the Middle and Late Ultimocene:
** The mourners-in-the-mist are the last relic population of boomsingers, having survived the loss of their environment and competition from better-adapted grazers by holding out on a single island devoid of competitors or predators. However, they're still ultimately doomed -- in addition to being poorly adapted to its niche and only enduring because there's nothing to contest it from them, their small island can only support a hundred and fifty or so of them at any given time, making them very vulnerable to sudden disastrous events. Inbreeding is also taking a heavy toll of them, and most of their calves are stillborn; those that survive usually have significant problems with their immune systems, digestion, and organs. While they'll still endure for thousands of years, they're slowly but surely going extinct, and have by the Late Ocean Age.
** The woolly wumpos have been on a slow decline thanks to the shrinking of habitable land and competition with thorngrazers and now only number around a few hundred individuals compared to around 300,000 beforehand. Conflict with the thalassic gravediggers forcing them further north to more inhospitable territory has also caused their numbers to dwindle. As a result, aberrant traits such as heterochromia and albinism are very common. The Late Ocean Age ends with them dying in the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The dire bumblebears were already a fairly rare species due to their high food requirements, but after the great Serinarctan coal seam fire their population is reduced to a below sustainable number.
** Due to the sea stewards' disappearance, the defenseless floating bloats' numbers are drastically cut by the sea shoggoths and other predators predating them due to lack of food, with the last dying of starvation around 250 years after the coal seam fire and falling to rest at the bottom of the ocean away from most creatures capable of eating it completely.
** Due to inbreeding amongst themselves from their very inception 10,000 years post-coal seam fire, the reapers have poor reproductive success, with nineteen out of twenty pupal sacs failing to mature, and even fewer managing to reach their first year. As a result, from an initial population of less than 2,000 scattered across the world they continue to dwindle until only a single female, Eve, is left 500 years later.
* EatenAlive:
** After the blinded, weakened warmonger matriarch gets caught in thick vegetation her struggles catch the attention of a sea shoggoth, which swarms over her and takes her apart while she's powerless to resist.
** Blaze considers getting killed by a dire bumblebear preferable to getting killed by thorngrazers, because at least the former would kill her quickly, instead of the latter's inefficiency at predation meaning that they'd just start taking bites out of her slowly long before she actually died.
** Once the sea stewards are no longer around to feed them and there's no more carrion to consume, the sea shoggoths start eating the floating bloats while they’re helpless to do anything about it. A lucky few die quickly when the attacking ants end up suffocating them, but the others die slowly from being eaten from the outside in over the course of days or even weeks.
* EldritchOceanAbyss: From the perspective of the woolly wumpos, the ocean is the realm of demons, as it's where the thalassic gravediggers who hunted them came from. Before first contact between the two peoples, however, the ocean was revered as a source of highly nutritious seaweed. Even after Retally managed to drive the gravediggers from the shoreline by turning fire against them, the wumpos still have a major taboo against making their homes along the shoreline.
* TheEmpire: The warmonger daydreamers have a supremacist culture and believe it is their right to conquer the ocean and destroy the other daydreamers. Unlike the fishers and pastoralists who have fairly loose clan structures, the warmongers have a large, united society with central leadership determined by monarchy which gives them an edge over both.
* EndOfAnAge:
** [[spoiler:The death of the last woodcrafter]] informally marks the end of the early Middle Ultimocene, and the beginning of the Ocean Age.
** The end of the Ocean Age and the Middle Ultimocene with it is marked by the Serinarctan coal seam fire, the death of Brighteye and the woolly wumpos, and the sea stewards being transported to a new world. The sea steward's departure, combined with the extinction of the icefishers due to their ice refuge melting, also marks the end of the age of sapient life on Serina, with most surviving lifeforms focusing more on being tough than on their intelligence.
** Following the Serinarctan coal seam fire, anoxic events and lack of food due to rising sea levels kills off most vertebrate life in the oceans, leaving the molluscs and sea shoggoths to take over the seas.
* EnemyMine: The fisher and pastoralist daydreamers have been in a cold war for centuries, but with the gravediggers serving as the bridge, they unite in order to face off against the warmongers who wish to kill them all.
* EveryoneHasStandards:
** The pastoralist daydreamers farm the non-sapient descendants of their close relatives, the nops, for food but they draw the line at [[EatenAlive eating them alive]] and will MercyKill them first, even though the nops aren't able to feel pain anymore due to millions of years of domestication.
** The social gravediggers are noted to be highly empathetic to other species, but even they come to see the warmongers as evil before officially fighting them due to the fact that they are willingly eating other people (daydreamers) despite the current abundance of alternative food in the shallows they are currently invading.
** The shallow water daydreamers may view the warmongers as evil monsters for their actions, but they're still horrified when they see the poisoned warmongers drown in their second battle.
** While Brighteye detests the thorngrazers just as much as everyone else who happens to be aware of them, even he thinks them getting burned to death is too horrible a fate to suffer.
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Aside from the ''Velociraptor''-like banshee, you have [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin pseudornithopods]], [[TRexpy tyrant serins]] (which even live 65 million years hence), and the blue-throated boomsinger, which is essentially a tailless sauropod. There are also birds that resemble other non-dinosaur Mesozoic reptiles, such as the marine predatory penguipleurodon that resembles an avian mosasaur, and the quadrupedal GiantFlyer archangels that bring to mind ''Quetzalcoatlus''. And, of course, all birds are technically dinosaurs, so this trope really applies to ''every'' bird on Serina.
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: Pretenguins are a group of flightless, mostly aquatic sparrowgulls that have convergently evolved with penguins. They are noted as being playful, docile, and intelligent creatures, and one species, the penpal, has been domesticated by the gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization. Unfortunately, they end up being among the casualties of the Great Thaw when the oceans become too toxic for them to survive. However, "The Visitor: Part 3" reveals that the freshwater pygmy pretenguin managed to survive and is now living in the marshes of Serinarcta.
* EvilIsBigger: Warmongers are on average about 20% larger than their fisher and pastoral cousins, and they believe in whaler supremacy over other dolfinches.
* EvilOldFolks: The warmongers are led by an elderly matriarch, and it's her idea to try genociding the gravediggers in order to preserve warmonger beliefs.
* ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin: Many creatures are named very descriptively after their primary physical features or habits -- for example, falconaries are falcon-like canary descendants, boomsingers communicate through loud, echoing calls, gravediggers dig spiked pits to kill their prey, thorngrazers eat spiky plants, and so on.
* ExoticEquipment: Not mentioned within the story proper, but tribbetheres, much like the guppies they're descended from, have prehensile penises.
* {{Expy}}: Some creatures may have been inspired by other works of SpeculativeBiology.
** Molebirds and bumblets are similar to [[Series/TheFutureIsWild spinks]].
** The archangels are also similar to the great blue windrunner (being large crane-like birds with additional wing feathers on their legs), and the banshees are reminiscent of the carakiller (predatory flightless birds whose wings sport dinosaur-like claws). Vibropterans bear some resemblance to the forest flish, and boomsingers are rather reminiscent of toratons, being beaked, tailless sauropod analogues, despite being of avian origin while the latter is [[TurtlePower a tortoise]]. The lumberbeest fills the same niche in deep forests and looks less like a sauropod but more like an actual giant tortoise.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-thermocene-75/porporats Porporants]] are flightless, predatory seabirds that fill the niches of dolphins and seals, much like the [[Literature/AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture porpin]] and [[Series/TheFutureIsWild gannetwhale]]. The former has an analogue to baleen whales as a relative, and Serina also has [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-cryocene-50---75-million-years/birdwhales birdwhales]].
** The simiagibs, brightly-colored monkey-like tree-dwellers with two pairs of partly-joined arms, bear an uncanny resemblance to the Prolemuris from ''Film/{{Avatar}}''.
* ExtraDigits: Tribbets have seven digits on each forelimb. The more derived spiderfrogs have only four, but their fingers are long enough to function as arms in their own right and have developed tiny fingers of their own. While most advanced tribbetheres have seven digits per forepaw, the primitive Nest Goblin has more than eight.
* ExtremeOmnivore: The [[MeaningfulName omniphages]] are a group of large molodonts that are adapted to eat pretty much anything they come across, including rotten wood, thorns, and bones. They can even [[EatDirtCheap extract nutrients from dirt]] by digesting organic bits in it. One desert-dwelling species, the thorngrazer, adapted to feed on spine-covered cactus analogs, and its ice age descendants fill a unique niche as their environment's primary grazers and scavengers alike. This has a noticeable effect on their evolution. Unlike most other grazers who have populations separate into different species when they specialize into feeding of different plants, the thorngrazers' ability to eat pretty much anything means they don't have to specialize. There are only two species of throrngrazer during the Late Ocean Age as a result, the longer legged nimicorns who are somewhat better suited for browsing and active hunting, and the squat, armored razorbacks who are better built for grazing and scavenging.
* EyeballPluckingBirds:
** Many snuffalo are missing their eyes thanks to attacks from butcherraptors but this is not much of a hindrance to them since they rely more on touch and vibration to navigate.
** Pickbirds will sometimes assist sawjaws in their thorngrazer hunts by pecking at the thorngrazer's eyes to distract them.
* FaceDeathWithDignity:
** The woodcrafter culture typically doesn't become worried about things that can't be resolved. [[spoiler: As such, when it becomes clear that their species is going to die out, they simply decide to use their remaining time to help the gravediggers and impart their final lessons on them]].
** This is attempted by the exiled warmonger matriarch after she's rendered blind as she tries to swim back out to the open ocean where she likely would have been put to death by the pelagans, which she saw as a more dignified way to go out. However, she ends up getting turned around and went back into the shallows, where [[UndignifiedDeath she gets tangled up in seaweed and devoured by a sea shoggoth]].
* FantasticArousal: Female snarks have certain spots on their bodies that the males pierce with their [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_dart love darts]] when they mate. This gives the females a rush of endorphins rather than pain. Even touching the spots is pleasurable to them; they're said to [[ADateWithRosiePalms rub against objects in their environment for self-stimulation]].
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: For the most part averted, since the sophonts are genuinely inhuman. However, the sea steward society combines elements of Inuit and other Arctic peoples (reliance on the sea, use of bones and pelts to make boats) and Aboriginal Australian cultures (maintaining a sustained, garden-like environment). Surreal/symbolic art draws heavy inspiration from Pacific Northwest cultures.
* FantasticFaunaCounterpart: As the colonists diversify to occupy various niches, they take on many forms resembling Earth life:
** Mucks are avian iguanas, serezelles are bird antelopes, and the canaribou is the canary version of reindeer and elk.
** Primitive serestriders are giant ostrich-like birds that fill a niche similar to sauropods, while some later strains develop dermal armor and stouter bodies similar to ankylosaurs. These birds are all preyed upon by the immense, flightless and heavy-beaked tyrant serins, which resemble tyrannosaurs. As a result, the plains of the later Thermocene end up decidedly resembling those of the Mesozoic.
** The tribbetheres, which arise later in the Ultimocene also become convergent with mammals, with canitheres being like hyenas, circuagodonts becoming like deer and hares, or the molodonts coming to resemble rodents.
** Water snuffles are basically platypuses if they were actually birds.
** Some of the grazing circuagodonts evolve into predatory forms, somewhat evoking the mesonychids and entelodonts, prehistoric ungulates that became hoofed meat-eaters.
** The canitheres of the Ultimocene have occupied some new niches to avoid competition with the predator wheeljaws. The brushbounder is similar to a honey badger or wolverine, the big-eared foxtrotter is blatantly similar to a fennec fox, and the repandors are speedy grassland hunters similar to jackals and dingos.
** Snarks are the Serinan equivalents to octopi and squids as surprisingly intelligent, free-swimming predatory mollusks. Later, sea mittens converge upon larger, cold-water cephalopods.
** The tribbats also take on some unusual niches, such as the owl-like moonbeast and its descendant the snowspirit that more particularly takes after a snowy owl, the vibropterans, colorful nectar-eaters similar to hummingbirds, or the night biter, basically a flying cookiecutter shark.
** Some of the handfish tribbets take on hexapedal, arboreal monkey-like forms, such as the tarsier-like gibbets, which later give rise to the ape-like simiagibs.
** Many of the larger molodonts in the Ultimocene take on aquatic niches, becoming analogues of walruses, manatees, and cetaceans.
** The saber-toothed circuagodog and the mammoth neckbeard are Serina's expies of, well, machairodontine cats and mammoths as the shaggy, trunked, social, ice-age megafauna and its pack-hunting, sabertoothed predator.
** The jackal carnackle acts similarly to an arctic fox, following around large predators such as bumblebears to share their kills.
** Seastrikers are very similar to orcas due to being large, [[ItCanthink highly intelligent]] aquatic predators that live in matrilineal social groups and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick play with their prey before killing it]]. Their descendants, the daydreamers, take this resemblance further by living in cultural groups distinguished by choice of diet, with the fishers, pastoralists, and whalers roughly corresponding to the resident, transient, and offshore orca populations of western North America respectively, while the warmonger whalers' habit of tipping ice floes to prey on molodonts resting on them is based on a common hunting tactic used by polar orcas. The fishers learning to speak the gravedigger language may also be based on some orcas [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqB1jRVw7Bw attempting to mimic human speech]].
** Archangels and lanks are essentially Serina's azhdarchid pterosaurs, though the former are more herbivorous.
** The snowscrounger comes off as a flightless equivalent of the snowy sheathbill, Antarctica's sole terrestrial bird species that also acts as a scavenger and opportunistic predator of young animals. Their rivals, the glacier ravens, are also roughly equivalent to skuas.
** The gupgops of the Meridian Islands are slugs that have taken the niche of toads.
** Predatory burdles, such as the sea rexes, are the Serinan answer to a pliosaur.
** The bluetails are extremely similar to chimpanzees despite being raven-like in shape: they are highly-intelligent semi-sophonts who are aggressive and violent, are prone to gang wars and hostile takeovers of territories, and reject albinos and often harass and kill them, as chimpanzees are known to do.
** Pretenguins are mostly analogous to penguins as per their name, but the ptarmenguin takes mostly after a giant flightless goose crossed with a moose, the pygmy pretenguin a duck, and the penpals are very similar to flightless cormorants in both body plan and niche, while being the thalassic gravediggers' rough equivalent of a hunting dog.
** Savage gravediggers are a combination of honey badger and polar bear. They can also be seen as analogous to chimpanzees as they are nonsapient but intelligent and vicious relatives to a species of sapient, bipedal tool users.
** The pickbirds are close to oxpeckers and contrast the chimp aspects of their bluetail ancestors by being akin to bonobos in terms of being less violent and solving disputes through sex, while the Hothouse Age viridescent sawjaws they ally with now resemble dromaeosaurs whose formerly mostly useless third limbs have effectively become tails once again like their guppy ancestors.
** The monstrocorn, a nimicorn descendant, is akin to a rhino or ceratopsian.
** The crested kittyhawk's hunting technique of dancing around prey to tire it out before killing it brings to mind a stoat hunting rabbits, especially when it's the smallest species of kittyhawk.
** The platyporp acts like a platypus in terms of shape and feeding habits, but their tendency to build nests upon the water brings to mind grebes.
* FantasticLivestock:
** The farmerjays are a species of songbird that feed and raise fattened, domesticated snails in tree hollows. Notably, the farmerjays themselves are intelligent but aren't actually sapient as they farm their snail livestock through a combination of instinct and behaviors passed down from the adults.
** The social gravediggers end up domesticating a species of smeerp (A rabbit-like tribbethere) for food, which allows their population to no longer be tied to the amount of wild prey in their environment. As a result, the population skyrockets in virtually no time.
** The daydreamers are sapient, orca-like marine birds that farm a herbivorous marine bird known as a ring-necked porplet as livestock, over millions of years these porplets become fatter and dumber, eventually developing into the bloated, barely intelligent nops. One thing of note is that the porplets and their nop descendants are actually related to the daydreamers (making it somewhat analogous to humans farming monkeys for meat) and this relation causes some daydreamers to view the eating of nops as morally repugnant and they start feeding exclusively on creatures like fish.
** Five million years later, the novan daydreamers and their terrestrial gravedigger allies have replaced the nops with the floating bloat, a massive sauropod-like animal that can reach lengths of 140 feet and feeds on the plants growing on the ocean floor. The only reason these birds can even grow so large is because the daydreamers, gravediggers, and greenskeepers (sapient descendants of the nops' still-wild relatives) have been actively maintaining the shallow seas for millions of years and have made them more biologically productive.
* FantasticRacism:
** Some fisher daydreamers will discriminate against pastoralists who choose to join their communities, while pastoralist insularity can give way to plain xenophobia.
** Warmongers view all other beings as lesser, including the other daydreamers, making no distinction between either the fishers, or the pastoralists who happen to be their closest cousins. As far as they're concerned, their cousins are both little more than meat.
* FantasticSlurs: Warmongers refer to daydreamers born with the species' typical yellow markings as "bile-bathers", as to them they look like they're covered in vomit.
* FatIdiot: Nops are bred to be much fatter and dumber than their thinner luddy cousins.
* FearlessFool: Womblers, the very first megafaunal canaries to evolve, inhabit a serene grassland world virtually without predators or indeed any creature larger than themselves. As a result, they are [[DumbMuscle not the brightest of birds]] and have virtually no sense of fear. However, this actually makes them very dangerous animals because they don't know any better than to fight to the death over territorial and mating disputes.
* FeatherFingers: In an unusual take on this trope, the farmerjay evolves a crude grasping mechanism from the alula and a fleshy pad on the wrist of its wing, allowing it to handle its offspring and the snails it instinctively farms for food. This is a trait common to all sparrowgulls.
* FeatheredFiend: Every avian apex predator, naturally. Also, some of the herbivores can be quite deadly in self-defense, such as the blade-winged serestriders, or the Mammoth Neckbeard (even shown impaling a carnivorous circuagodont through the head with its toe claw.)
* FeelNoPain: Nops have had the ability to feel pain almost entirely bred out of them, so it's possible for one to get EatenAlive by predators (save for their daydreamer shepherds, who opt for a MercyKill when it comes time to harvest them) and just keep grazing until their bodies are too broken to graze anymore.
* {{Foil}}:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-seastriker-and-the-porplet porplets and the seastrikers]] are being set up as this to the woodcrafters and gravediggers:
*** The porplets and woodcrafters are both highly social intelligent herbivores being hunted by an intelligent predator, but the woodcrafters are highly empathetic to their herdmates and will try to help or avenge them when one is attacked, while the porplets will leave their herdmates to die if it means the survival of the whole group.
*** The gravediggers and seastrikers are likewise both highly intelligent hunters, but the gravediggers are solitary predators that mostly rely on traps to dispatch their prey but take no pleasure in the act of killing, while the seastrikers are very social and hunt their food directly and also have a tendency to play with their food.
*** There's also the relationships the predators have with their prey species. The gravediggers would kill their woodcrafter prey as much as they could with no regard to long-term consequences, which led to them becoming more intelligent and becoming a threat to the gravediggers before they eventually made peace. The porplets are completely at the mercy of the seastrikers, who now only kill them in a way that benefits themselves in the long run.
** Later on, the daydreamers become a foil to the marine social gravediggers: they are both the sapient, carnivorous, ocean living descendants of bumblets with fully realized cultures but differ in some key ways. The gravediggers are united in their empathy to one another and the creatures in their environment and rely heavily on tool use to live on and feed from the ocean, but have no desire to advance beyond that point. The daydreamers on the other hand, are divided by ideological differences that lead to violent conflicts with each other and are perfectly designed to live in their aquatic habitat, which leaves them unable to make or use tools, yet they think very deeply about the future and how they can affect it despite that.
** The luddy and nop, the two descendants of the ring-necked porplet. Luddies are relatively thin, semi-sapient, look more or less the same, are highly communicative, and are treated as pets by the fisher daydreamers. Nops are fat, incredibly unintelligent, have numerous color variations due to domestication, are completely incapable of speech, and are protected by the pastoralist daydreamers as food. Their ultimate fates are also different. The luddy evolves into the fully sapient greenskeeper, while the nops go extinct due to the floating bloat serving as a better food source.
** The pelagan daydreamers and the sea rex, the two apex predators of the open seas. While both are aardgeese, the pelgans descend from the bumblet vivas, while the sea rexes are burdles descended from the muck serestriders. The pelagans are sapient, social, and live in a collectivist society, whereas the sea rex is nonsapient, solitary, and only come together to mate. Both end up going extinct, but while the last surviving pelagans make contact with the daydreamer-gravedigger civilization and survive through their lore, the last sea rex dies alone and unmourned as solely a feast for scavengers.
** In the southernmost ice-free peninsula of Serinarcta, the thorngrazers and their main predator, the sawjaws. Thorngrazers are incredibly unintelligent, by both Ultimocene Serina and Earth standards, rely mainly on their bulk and sheer aggression to survive, and only live in groups because it lessens their own chances of getting eaten. The sawjaws are very intelligent and work together to survive out of altruism. While thorngrazers are {{Social Darwinist}}s who leave the injured to die at the beaks of the sawjaws, sawjaws will take care of even those who can't take care of themselves.
** The woolly wumpos have quite a few foils:
*** The woolly wumpos and the bluetailed chatteravens. The wumpos are descendants of a near-sapient species that became sapient, whereas the bluetails are the (Mostly) non-sapient descendants of a sapient species. Wumpos treat their entire species as one big family, while the bluetails are highly territorial and think nothing of harming those outside of their family. Wumpos are very emotionally mature even if they tend to be neophobic, bluetails are quick learners but possess a species wide HairTriggerTemper. The wumpos revere the neurodivergent wideminders and have no issue with physical differences, whereas the bluetails have treated Brighteye as a pariah his whole life for his intelligence and despise albinos like Whitecrown for his physical aberration.
*** In "Allies", the woolly wumpos and thorngrazer groups are contrasted with each other. The thorngrazers are only together to avoid predation, and even trample their own while retreating from Brighteye and the wumpo family coming to assist the injured Blaze. The wumpos by contrast are altruistic enough to help one another no matter how dangerous the foe is.
*** The woolly wumpos and their closest cousins, the island wumpos who they've begun to interact with as the encroachment of the glaciers has created a land bridge between the latter's home islands and the Serinarcta mainland. Woolly wumpos are very large and cold adapted, whereas island wumpos are about a quarter of their size on average and live in a temperate environment. While both are highly social species, woollies stick closely with their families whenever possible, taking after the mammoth trunko who serves as their primary ancestors, whereas islanders take after their desert wump primary ancestors by having no issue only being in pairs or completely alone for days at a time. The woollies are true sophonts and highly rational but neophobic, whereas the islanders are near-sophonts who tend to be more emotional and are very curious as a result of their island tameness. Woolies tend to be virtually plain-colored, whereas islanders have brightly colored faces that make them closely resemble the ancestral trunko species they descend from. While both have tiny populations, the woollies have many aberrant traits such as albinism and piebaldness, whereas the gauntlet the island wumpo's ancestors had to beat to reach their islands has left them highly resistant to inbreeding depression despite the fact that their population is 95% hom*ogenous, if more prone to erythrism and feathers growing on their feet. While the woollies have been driven to the brink of extinction due to their thorngrazers eating their food, the islanders are small and quick enough that the thorngrazers don't pay them much mind, allowing them to eat the plants of the cactaiga that the woolies aren't able to access due to their size, and hunt the small animals the thorngrazers inadvertently flush out and even form a mutually beneficial relationship with them after the great coal fire. Ultimately, the woolly wumpos are among the casualties of the Late Ocean Age catastrophe and leave no descendants, while the island wumpos survive into the Late Ultimocene and diversify into numerous different species.
** The pretenguins contrast the other extant sparrowgulls of the Late Ocean Age, in particular the sea- and chatteravens, by being openly friendly towards strangers, while their cousins are highly aggressive towards anything that isn't one of them.
** The rumbling helmethead and the thorny monstrocorn, the two primary thorngrazer species of the Hothouse Age:
*** The rumbling helmethead is social but has a short lifespan of less than a decade at best, whereas the thorny monstrocorn is mostly solitary but can live up to thirty years if they're lucky.
*** The helmethead is the primary prey species of Serinarcta, whereas monstrocorns have no real predators once they reach adulthood.
** The swamp and crested kittyhawks, the largest and smallest species respectively. Swamp kittyhawks hunt relatively large prey, kill their prey via a quick bite after ambushing them, and tend to be heliocopter parents who'll feed their children even long after they can feed themselves. Crested kittyhawks on the other hand hunt fairly small prey, only kill their prey after spending ages tiring them out, and will just stop feeding their children after a certain point to have them either learn how to hunt or strave.
* ForWantOfANail: [[https://www.deviantart.com/sheather888/art/AU-Thalassic-Woodcrafter-917439085 Thalassic Woodcrafter]] shows a scenario in which the woodcrafters decided to leave for warmer pastures with the gravediggers much earlier instead of staying behind, eventually becoming smaller and more adapted to an aquatic environment as they and the gravediggers [[InSpiteOfANail also join with the daydreamers and greenskeepers to become the Sea Steward civilization.]]
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: The watcher appears to Seeker as the overlayed outlines of a daydreamer, greenskeeper, gravedigger, and Brighteye sharing a single glowing eye in the way that visions appear to daydreamers.
* FormerlySapientSpecies:
** Downplayed in that the ring-necked porplets were more accurately semi-sapient, but millions of years of farming by the seastrikers and later Large-Prey Ecotype daydreamers turned the ones farmed by the pastoralists into the far less intelligent nop. Fatter than their porplet ancestors, millennia of selective breeding for docility and edibility have made them so dumb that they're utterly defenseless without their daydreamer shepherds to protect them.
** When the folk-tailed babbling jays went extinct, the last surviving member of their species took a mate with a closely related but non-sapient bird and had hybrid offspring that lacked his intelligence (save for a grandchild who was killed by a predatory bird when they got distracted due to their high intellect before they got the chance to breed). By the time of the middle Ultimocene, these hybrids still live on in their descendants the chatterers, who aren't sapient themselves but are still highly intelligent and able to mimic spoken language. By the time of the Late Ocean Age, one bluetail chatteraven known as Brighteye is fully sapient, but the rest are merely about as intelligent as a chimp.
** Savage gravediggers are descendants of the tundra gravediggers forced towards the southern coast during the Ultimocene glaciation. The extremely harsh environments where they evolved and now live produced a strong selection against higher intelligence, as the lack of useful building materials following the extinction of forest environments provided little benefit for tool use and the scarcity of food made big, energy-hungry brains a liability. As a result, they're only about as bright as a chimp and have lost all forms of tool use and culture.
** In the vision the watcher gives Seeker of what will happen if the sea stewards choose to die with their world, he sees that the generalist thalassic gravediggers have managed to survive, being less attached to the ocean than the others, but at the cost of their sapience, and they feast upon the corpses of their former brethren, the daydreamers and greenskeepers.
* FromNobodyToNightmare:
** The tribbetheres certainly count, at least from the birds' perspective. Starting out as small, rat-sized hoppers in the Thermocene, the Thermocene-Pangaeacene extinction changes the climate to better suit the early tribbetheres, especially in the isolated Kyran islands that have now collided with the mainland. The defenseless island natives quickly fall to an onslaught of tribbethere predators, which grow up to thirty times their original size as they fill new apex-predator niches. The bigger tribbetheres then spread outward from the Kyran peninsula back into the mainland, having now evolved into new forms that are capable of preying on or competing with birds, in ways that their original tiny ancestors could not. The tribbetheres then spread around the globe, with new herbivorous species outcompeting the grazing avians to extinction, and egg-eating rodent-like molodonts leading to the decline or extinction of many ground-nesting birds that lay hard-shelled eggs.
** The thorngrazers evolved from small molodonts closely related to the seedsnatcher, but become {{Extreme Omnivore}}s so efficient at their jobs that between them and the cold they've shrunken non-cactaiga environments immensely, and are the most numerous large terrestrial species on Serina by the Late Ocean Age. It takes the Serinarctan coal seam fire to extinct the razorbacks, who are too slow to escape the flames, but the faster nimicorns manage to survive into the Late Ultimocene and diversify.
* GenreShift: ''Serina'' starts off as a speculative evolution project, but the Middle to Late Ultimocene section shifts into pure {{Xenofiction}} with a LowFantasy vibe, due to the increasing focus on individuals within sapient species and their perspectives [[spoiler:and later into MagicalRealism with the fulfillment of a prophecy and the intervention of something that could effectively be called god]].
* GentleGiant:
** Averted with the wombler, a seven-foot moa-like canary that evolves early on, 10 million years post-establishment. The first of the large avian megafauna to evolve, they adapted in a world without predators and thus, like the dodo, evolved to have no sense of fear. Ironically, this caused them to be unnaturally aggressive, compared by the author to domestic dogs without bite inhibition, and are very prone to fighting and killing their own species, especially the males. Unsurprisingly, the Womblers become extinct very quickly once the Falconaries, Serina's first birds of prey, evolve.
** Played straight with the aquatic bloon, growing up to thirty feet in length and being a peaceful herbivore.
** Chubbirds are a group of flightless canaries native to the Kyran Islands that are mostly friendly, due to their sheer size preventing other animals from preying on them once they're fully grown. The exception is if you're a crab trying to attack their chicks, which will make them stomp you to death.
** Boomsingers are giant sauropod-like herbivores descended from the serezelles, and spend most of their time browsing placidly in the treetops.
** The mammoth trunko is a large elephantine tentacle bird that are very peaceful animals with a strong sense of empathy. They'll even adopt the orphan chicks of other mammoth trunko and their snow snoot relatives. [[spoiler: It's for this reason that the Woodcrafters revere them as a kind of spiritual teacher that is worthy of emulation]].
** The archangels are {{Giant Flyer}}s resembling swans that grow to the size of ''Quetzalcoatlus'', but are peaceful grazers.
** The floating bloat is a descendant of the sea-sweeper that is more than 140 feet long and just over 210 tons, making them the largest animal ever known on both Serina and on Earth. As a result of being selectively bred for millions of years and their sheer size, they are completely docile, making them an excellent food source. It's also noted that large oceanic animals in general are tame during the Late Ocean Age due to the gravediggers and daydreamers preventing the evolution of anything big enough to hunt them.
** The aukvultures stand nearly as tall as a man (making them significantly larger than the diminutive thalassic gravediggers) and possess a 20ft wingspan yet they are known for their quiet and docile personalities when waiting for scavenging scraps, something that they actually enforce as a form of culture. In fact, the sea stewards will deliberately keep them around as their size serves as a deterrent for the smaller but much more aggressive sea ravens who will even sometimes attack their children. Their scientific name even means "learning gentle-giant". By the early Late Ultimocene it's played with, as, while the reapers descended from the aukvultures remain about as gentle as ever, the rest of the species has reverted to its aggressive instincts.
* GiantFlyer:
** Ornimorphs and the four-winged [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-pangeacene-188---250-million-years/archangels-flying-giants archangels]] reach wingspans of 25 to ''50''[[note]] the stormsonor, making it larger than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus the largest flying animal in Earth's history]] [[/note]] feet.
** Even before then, there were falconaries with wingspans of 20 feet thanks to the moon's lower gravity.
** The aukvultures have a 20ft wingspan, making them the largest living seraph of the Ocean Age. In the early Late Ultimocene, they've gotten slightly larger with a more than 23 ft wingspan in order to fend off terrestrial scavengers, and remain the largest fliers on Serina.
*** Their drakevulture descendants have a wingspan of 29 feet which makes them the largest predators of their time and are capable of flying from one continent to another in a single day.
* GiganticAdultsTinyBabies:
** The changeling birds are the same size as most typical songbirds, but lay tiny, soft-shelled eggs the size of grains of rice, which hatch into larval offspring barely a few millimeters long at birth.
** Shadowskimmers, a type of ornimorph, hatch as fish-like larvae a few inches long, metamorphose into a flying juvenile about the size of a pigeon, and eventually reach an adult size of up to a twenty-foot wingspan.
** The giant gemnus is a thirty-foot-long freshwater fish[[note]] Earth's largest is the twenty-foot beluga sturgeon[[/note]] that gives birth to over 100,000 centimeter-long fry at a time.
** Inverted with the Tufted Frogjar, whose newt-like juvenile form is actually ''bigger'' than the adult and shrinks considerably upon metamorphosis, akin to the real-life Paradoxical Frog.
** A fully grown sea rex is a 50ft predator that is virtually unbeatable but they don't take care of their young. Instead, a female will journey to the edge of the shallows to give birth to a litter of small, fast-swimming fish eaters who spend their earliest days in these waters and filling different niches depending on age before reaching daydreamer size and returning to the open ocean. The pelagians use this to their advantage by hunting down these smaller, more vulnerable juveniles to slowly wipe them out.
* GlacialApocalypse: The last geologic period in Serina's history, the Ultimocene, is marked by drastic global cooling caused by the halting of volcanic activity (and thus of the main means by which carbon in the deep crust is released into the atmosphere) and by the locking of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the soil by earlier eras' flourishing plant life. This loss of natural greenhouse gases leads to the onset of runaway ice age conditions, as glaciers creep down from the poles and winters grow harsher and harsher. The tropical biomes are the first to collapse under the strain of cooling weather and refugee species fleeing from the temperate areas, the southern continent becomes entirely encased in ice, and a catastrophic loss of biodiversity generally ensues. Life manages to survive and thrive despite these conditions, for a time -- a holdout of the temperate forests endures for a long time on the northern continent's southern coast, and numerous plant and animal species adapt to thrive in the bitter tundra further north -- but as the glaciation continues, the temperate refugium is eventually snuffed out and even the cold-adapted species slowly go extinct, as the world slowly becomes too cold and barren for any kind of life to survive.
* GoalOrientedEvolution:
** The series offers an interesting take on this trope. It argues that animal life has a tendency to evolve greater intelligence as they become more complex. By the time of the Ultimocene, biodiversity has reached a point where high intelligence has become the norm rather than the exception.
** Averted with some notable cases of evolution seemingly going back and forth with no definite direction, such as metamorph birds evolving to become r-strategists and producing lots of larval young, only for some metamorphs to re-evolve parental care. There are also the tribbetheres, whose first early forms were dog-like carnivores, which gave rise to rodent-like seed eaters, which in turn gave rise to ungulate-like grazers, some of which in turn became predatory again.
** Also, the merwals and marine molodonts, being fish that evolved to live on land, gained many terrestrial adaptations, and then returned to the water to become fully-aquatic once again.
** Ultimately averted with the babbling jays and [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]], who are as subjected to the forces of natural selection as any non-sapient animal, and ultimately each last only a few thousand years.
* GodGuise: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are one of the missing [[PiecesOfGod fragments of their creator deity]], while the gravediggers themselves were completely oblivious to the daydreamers' sapience until some of them began speaking to them. While by the time of the Late Ocean Age most of the sea stewards consider it just a story, Brighteye the sapient bluetail manages to rekindle the belief amongst large sections of the community.
* GodzillaThreshold: The watcher's job on Serina is simply to observe, even if the moon becomes an iceball, because that's simply the natural way of things. However, the gravediggers managing to discover coal, and the subsequent continent-wide coal fire caused by Whitecrown and his clan of bluetails, forces them to directly interfere to stop the project's destruction, revealing themselves to and removing the sea stewards to save them from their otherwise inevitable extinction, and creating a clone Serina for them to live on as a new project.
* GoldenAge:
** The Early Ultimocene, 250 million years PE, is this for life on Serina. Biodiversity is at its absolute peak, and the complexity of life has advanced to the point that the ''average'' animal is as smart as a corvid or a monkey. However, it is brought to an end by the onset of the final ice age that will gradually grow harsher and harsher until no life can remain.
** After the conclusion of the war, the daydreamers and their allies the gravediggers enter one for their joined civilization, exploring the open ocean together for over a million years. By the Late Ocean Age they alongside the greenskeepers, the fully sapient descendants of the luddy, have turned their ocean home into a garden paradise. This age is ultimately brought to an end by Whitecrown and his flock managing to cause a coal seam fire that heralds Serina's penultimate mass extinction event.
** For the animals who manage to survive the Great Thaw, their numbers increase by thousands due to the abundance in food caused by the melting of the glaciers. On Serinaustra in particular, the local predators and new arrivals gorge themselves on the corpses of animals washed up from the toxic seas to the point that they're nonaggressive towards one another simply because there's so much to eat, a state that remains for centuries.
* GrayAndGreyMorality: This the crux of the conflict between the fishers and the pastoralists. The fishers refuse to eat other intelligent creatures, and are very welcoming and outgoing to others, but they can also be overbearing, judgmental, and will sometimes sabotage pastoralist farms despite the nops not even being able to fend for themselves. The pastoralists on the other hand, eat the mentally degraded descendants of their close relatives, are highly xenophobic, and are generally distrustful of change, but they also prefer to keep to themselves and feed only on their livestock while leaving the wild dolfinches alone. Some fishers have started to become more introspective on this conflict and question if they are truly superior to their rivals.
* GrayscaleOfEvil: The warmongers are black and white in color and attempt genocide on the gravediggers and their fellow daydreamers.
* GreenHillZone: The Hypostecene Era, the first five million years after establishment, serves as this for life on Serina. All land on the moon is warm sunny grassland, and the complexity and danger levels are quite low compared to what is to come.
* GrimUpNorth:
** The Great Tundra Ring of the Ultimocene is a harsh environment stretching from its borders with the steppes and towertree taiga to the south, to the southernmost extent of the ice sheets to the north, with winters that last for eight months and generally poor conditions. The tundra gravediggers, a subspecies of the gravedigger adapted to the harsher conditions, are far more aggressive and much more willing to personally dispatch their prey instead of relying on traps. The harshness of their environment also means they generally live only half as long as their southern cousins.
** By the Late Ocean Age Serinarcta as a whole has become this for the thalassic gravediggers, due to its cold and dangerous predators such as the savage gravedigger, which they refer to as wildwalkers.
* HadToBeSharp:
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-tundra-gravedigger tundra gravedigger]] are larger, more aggressive, and more willing to personally kill their prey when compared to the southern gravediggers thanks to the extremely harsh and barren lands they live in. It's also mentioned that they aren't less intelligent than their southern relatives, but they rarely create tree art, and their thinking is generally geared more towards animalistic survival. However, they are also expert trappers and problem-solvers due to the more unpredictable nature of the animals migrating through the tundra.
** The Late Ocean Age sea shoggoths are much smarter than their predecessors, as the overly aggressive and indiscriminate colonies were eliminated by the gravediggers taking advantage of their weaknesses to water and fire to burn and drown them.
* HandyMouth: The social gravediggers are able to use their mouth in crafting and using tools as a way of compensating for their stiff arms. Later on, they are able to teach the daydreamers how to craft tools of their own using their mouths and group coordination.
* HasTwoDaddies: The bachelor males of the polymorph bird form pair bonds with other male Bachelors and are known to steal and adopt the eggs of other polymorphs and raise them. Curiously, this is actually ''beneficial'' to the species, as the pairs whose eggs were "stolen" by bachelors lay replacement eggs, thus increasing the fecundity of the population. Also, since bachelor males are larger than tramps or ardors, a pair of bachelors has greater success protecting their young than an ardor and a female.
* HailfirePeaks: During the three-million-year mass extinction event between the Thermocene and Pangeacene, the entire moon of Serina is divided between completely frozen temperate and polar regions and a scalding hot equatorial region with extreme volcanism. Both temperature zones are too extreme to support life, except for a small region on the south shore of the new supercontinent. Even there, seasonal temperatures fluctuate between 110 F summers and subzero winters.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:The woodcrafters become far crueler than their predators, which only kill to survive, when they start going out of their way to exterminate them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies]].
* TheHedgeOfThorns: The cactaiga consists of a dense growth of cactus-like sunflower descendants that covers a good quarter or so of Serinarcta in the Ultimocene glaciation. They endure the powerful winds of their environment, which can snap trees like toothpicks, by growing in an interlocking mass of plants all mutually supporting each other. This makes the cactaiga very difficult to live in, as the whole thing consists of a solid mass of spines and thorns with virtually no open space between individual plants. Most of the area's megafauna goes extinct once the cactaiga forms, as it literally squeezes out both edible plants and animal populations; this only changes with the arrival of the thorngrazers, who can chew their way through the plants using their massive tooth plates and keratinized spikes that defend their faces from the thorns, and which literally eat their way through the mass to create open spaces and paths that allow other plants and animals to find shelter from the ice age storms within the resulting maze of thorn-walled pocket environments.
* HellIsThatNoise:
** The calling of a pair of [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-thermocene-75/lanks-and-bonebeaks lanks]] (which are scary enough, being twenty-foot-tall, predatory "demon storks") is a haunting, rising and falling like a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cutovCzEu8k broken tornado siren mixed with slowed canary song]].
** The Blue-throated Boomsinger has a [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=O6R5knrV-ms very deep, reverberating call]] that carries for miles.
** Downplayed with the [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=DTp7P5K1pk4 song of the stormsonor]] which can be described as a mix of eerie yet strangely melancholy.
** The cry of the dire bumblebear, the even more dangerous descendant of the truculent bumblebear, is described as sounding like neither a squawk or a roar, but somehow sounding worse than both.
** The ants of the sea shoggoth colonies communicate with each other in what are described as metallic clicking.
* HerbivoresAreFriendly:
** The woodcrafters have this view and certainly [[MoralMyopia see themselves as such]] due to starting out as a prey species and thus generally try to avoid harming other prey animals. However, they end up becoming {{Hypocrite}}s when they both drive off browsing herbivores that might damage their trees and especially [[spoiler:when they start going out to [[HeWhoFightsMonsters cruelly slaughter carnivores outside their territory that weren't a threat to them]]]].
** Zig-zagged with the porplets. These marine herbivores are described as highly social and playful thanks to the abundance of food, but they will abandon their own kind (including their own babies) when being attacked by predators without a second thought.
** The floating bloat, a gigantic descendant of the sea-sweeper dolfinches, is completely docile due to a combination of sheer size and lack of natural predators apart from the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers that farm them.
** Averted with the symbiotic ants of the raptorial rockroot, who are herbivorous, but kill anything that lands on the plant so that it can break the carcasses down into nutrients.
* HeritageDisconnect: [[spoiler:Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was taken in by the woodcrafters at such a young age that when Lucky, the second, appears in Bridge's village, he can't understand a word of the gravedigger tongue and she only knows just enough woodcrafter to introduce herself. It's not until she achieves fluency in the woodcrafter language that they can hold a conversation. Years before, he leaves the village and tries living "amongst" his fellow gravediggers, but his lack of territoriality thanks to being raised amongst the woodcrafters and inability to speak the gravedigger tongue leads to problems, and beaten and bruised he returns to his village and stays for the rest of his days.]]
* HistoryRepeats:
** The banshee greatly resembles its distant ancestors, the raptors, in appearance and hunting style; it leaps onto its prey and flaps its wings for balance.
** The rise of the tribbetheres mirrors the rise of mammals on earth. Originally evolving from fish which evolve into amphibian- and later reptile-like creatures, they become furry warm-blooded animals which end up forcing many of the bird species off of the ground. Then, similarly to cetaceans, the merwals and certain molodonts return to the sea and become fully aquatic animals once again.
** Later on, during the peak of the glaciation, [[spoiler:the marine social gravediggers have developed into a keystone species that actively maintain the health and balance of the oceans and islands they call home, much like how the woodcrafters would care for the well-being of the forests they once lived in]].
** By the Middle Ultimocene, squaves -- ornimorphs that reach adulthood in the "reptile" phase of their life cycle -- have evolved into [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters squotters]], which have traits of primitive ''mammals'', such as live birth and fur-like plumage.
** The gravediggers of the Ocean Age are once again met by another sapient species who wishes to genocide them, although, unlike the woodcrafters they evolved alongside, warmonger culture outright encourages such behavior. Also, while the woodcrafters attempted to kill off the gravediggers out of the belief that they were rebelling against the tyranny of predators, the warmongers only see them as a threat to their superiority.
** The last pelagans are met by the combined gravedigger-daydreamer civilization when they're all long past childbearing age, dooming their group to extinction, but do all they can to impart pelagan lore onto them before dying comfortably much like [[spoiler:the woodcrafters]] millennia before. This is not lost on the gravediggers.
** The daydreamers first became sapient when some individuals were born fully sapient from near-sapient families. Millions of years later, one bluetail (a descendant of the babbling jays no less) is born fully sapient amongst an otherwise near-sapient species.
** The woolly wumpos, descendants of the mammoth trunkos that the woodcrafters revered, end up also exterminating their main predators from their territories by being smarter than them.
** The coastian thalassic gravediggers, much like their southern gravedigger ancestors with the woodcrafters, end up being driven from their hunting areas due to a war with their sapient prey, in this case the woolly wumpos.
** Retally killed off nearly his entire clan due to his inability to control fire. Whitecrown's inability to control fire causes a blaze that spreads throughout Serinarcta and kills off his clan, his brother, the wumpos who adopted them, and countless other creatures.
** The dominant lifeforms of Serina's early days were the snails and ants before they eventually were relegated to small, background organisms. By the late Ultimocene, snails and ants manage to rise to the status of dominant animal again through the snarks and sea shoggoths, albeit in the oceans rather than on land.
** The muck survived the mass extinction event that killed off the other serestriders by living on islands. Its descendant, the burrowing burdle, ends up surviving both the daydreamers purposely eliminating their aquatic relatives and the Great Thaw making the oceans anoxic by being a terrestrial island dweller.
** About 10,000 years after the great coal seam fire, the oceans have become mostly devoid of large life aside from things like small fish and water snails, much like the oceans at the beginning of Serina's habitable stage and the early Thermocene.
** Tribbets and their descendants have long since modified their tail into a hindleg, but the viridescent sawjaw has gone full circle and now uses their hindleg as a tail once more.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** The empire ants from Serina's early years suffer this twofold. They grow massive in both size and numbers by devouring the giant snails and first wave of flightless birds but they eventually wipe them out and by then they are too big to climb after the smaller snails and flying birds. At this point their immense supercolonies quickly begin to starve, forcing them to start raiding the other ant species, but this would end up spelling their doom. As it turns out, these other ants colonies were being parasitized by the larvae of ladybird beetles that mimicked their pheromones and allowed them to eat the ant's larvae. When the empire ants began to raid the nests these beetle larvae quickly adapted and started feeding on the starving empire's offspring, this becomes so severe that the supercolonies collapse and the empire ants are driven to extinction.
** The aquatic molodonts, whose powerful crushing jaws were used to eat shellfish, were victims of their own success. Being incredibly efficient at eating clams and snails, they outcompeted the merwals into extinction... but themselves eventually almost died out when they wiped out their mollusk prey and starved en masse. Fortunately, a few species that fed on smaller, faster-breeding snails were able to survive, while the ones that relied on slower-growing molluscs died out.
** The gravediggers became highly successful predators of antlears due to their complex trapmaking skills, but in doing this, they would usually end up killing the more naïve antlears while the more observant and intelligent members of the species would live to pass on their skills at avoiding and sabotaging the traps. This would end up starting an evolutionary LensmanArmsRace of increasingly more elaborate traps and more savvy antlears that would ultimately result in both species becoming sapient and elevate the antlears from prey to mortal enemies.
** When the warmongers learn of the gravediggers, their matriarch realizes what their existence could mean for their cultural beliefs, and impulsively orders their extermination before they have the chance to understand their targets. This leads to both the gravediggers avoiding the warmonger's attacks thanks to their ability to move on land, and the general population learning about the gravediggers when the soldiers carrying out her orders tell about what they have seen. In addition, it causes the gravediggers to pull out the stops in their next fight, leading many of the soldiers to a horrible demise, including her most fanatical supporters, and leads their grieving families to chase the matriarch out of the pod.
** The thalassic gravediggers used fire to scare the woolly wumpos into either their traps on land or off seaside cliffs where they could be then butchered en masse. Retally, a widemind of the Tidelands Herd, managed to drive them from the shoreline for generations by figuring out how to make fire himself from observing them, but due to his lack of control over it also managed to be an example of the trope himself, as he ended up killing most of his own herd by accident as well.
** Whitecrown and his clan die when one of the trunkos they're hunting is set alight and runs into one of the gravediggers' old coal mines, setting off an explosion that kills them instantly.
* HollywoodEvolution: Played with by the ornimorphs, who essentially reenact the evolutionary history of vertebrate life and its EvolutionaryLevels ''within the life cycle of a single individual'', starting out as a small fish-like larva, growing legs and becoming an amphibian-like stage, becoming fully terrestrial and coming to resemble a reptile, then climbing into the treetops to become an arboreal glider resembling a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scansoriopterygidae scansoriopterygid]] dinosaur, and finally sprouting feathers upon maturity and becoming a fully-flighted, adult bird.
* HomefieldAdvantage: During the war against the warmongers:
** The warmongers initially think the destruction of the gravediggers will be easy due to how helpless they are in the water once knocked out of their boats, but in their haste to wipe them out fail to realize that the gravediggers can simply retreat to the shore, a place where a daydreamer is utterly incapable of following them.
** The fishers and the pastoralists are also able to use their greater knowledge of the shallow regions in their first battle against the warmongers to help make up for their lack of experience in actual combat.
* HomeworldEvacuation: To save the sea stewards from the extinction caused by the coal fires, the observer moves them off of Serina and to a planet that's been terraformed to resemble their old home but not before [[LaserGuidedAmnesia altering their memories]] so that they believe they always lived there. Notably, this only extends to the sea stewards -- the moon's other sapient natives, the woolly wumpos and the icefishers, are left behind.
* HoneyTrap: Female truculent bumblebears will sometimes pretend that they're receptive to mating, only to kill the male once they're in a compromising position. This is believed to be either in order to protect their children from infanticide, as this is most often observed in bumblebears that are close to giving birth, or simply to rid themselves of a competitor and get a free meal in the process.
* HonorBeforeReason: The woodcrafters won't harm other prey creatures, but even when the smerps and molodonts living in their territory reach plague numbers and start devastating their food supply due to a lack of predators, they still refuse to kill them.
* HonorableElephant: The mammoth trunko of the Middle Ultimocene is, as its name implies, [[FantasticFaunaCounterpart as close as a bird can get to a mammoth]], and like the elephant is a peaceful, near-sapient beast with lifelong close family bonds [[InterspeciesAdoption that will even adopt chicks of other trunko species]]. Woodcrafters revere them as a spiritual ideal, and the two species will aid each other, as humans have been known to do with elephants.
* HufflepuffHouse:
** It's mentioned that there are three major social groups of thalassic gravedigger, the meadow dwellers of the open seas, the central islanders of the Meridian Islands who live the most terrestrial lifestyle, and the coastians who live close to the shores of Serinarcta. The viewpoint thalassic gravediggers Patch and Pebble come from the meadow population, the coastians play a major role in the leadup to the Great Thaw through their knowledge of coal, but the islanders of the Meridians aren't really gone over in detail.
** Of all the sophonts of the Late Ocean Age, the icefishers have little in the way of characterization compared to the sea stewards, Brighteye, and the woolly wumpos, by virtue of being the most isolated of all of them, living on the north edge of the Seaway far from the Refugial Peninsula where Brighteye's story takes place, and compared to the other sophonts whose ultimate fate is gone into in detail, their extinction due to the Great Thaw and competition with the savage gravediggers is treated as a footnote.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Or civilized sapient beings are, anyway, since humans are surely long gone 260 million years into the future. [[spoiler:The woodcrafter, a sapient antlear descended from the standing antlear, actively hunts and kills the carnivorous, and equally sapient, gravediggers, seeing them as nothing more than vicious monsters, even though the gravediggers have already decided to leave them alone, having realized their own sapience ages ago, and even achieving sapience first. That changes when an antlear discovers evidence of gravedigger art... and realizes the creatures they were killing were also sapient beings.]]
* HumansAreSurvivors: According to the author, trying to render tool-making, innovative sophonts extinct naturally would require killing all terrestrial life along with them. As a small, adaptable generalist despite its seagoing habits, the thalassic gravedigger would have the best chance of surviving the apocalyptic events that would have killed off the other components of the sea stewards, but at the cost of losing the culture that kept their worst instincts at bay. However, assuming that they don't lose their sapience, the surviving gravediggers would have a high chance of managing to kill off Serina anyway through either stripping it of its natural resources via industrialization, or killing everything though a nuclear holocaust like how the bluetails managed to destroy their world with the coal seam fire.
* HopeSpot: The sea stewards manage to stave off their icy fate by breaking the glacier threatening to stop the currents using the power of coal... but leaving their mines unattended leads to the end of the Late Ocean Age anyway when Whitecrown and his clan create a coal seam fire that sets Serinarcta ablaze.
* HumanoidAliens: The gravediggers are effectively this to the daydreamers as they basically look like a tiny daydreamer with hands and feet instead of flippers.
* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: During the Late Ocean Age the circuagadogs, already on the brink due to loss of prey and failure to adapt, are finally brought to extinction by the trunkos they once hunted deciding to start hunting them in turn by killing their young and breaking up their packs.
* HulkSpeak: The gravediggers' language is said to be [[LanguageEqualsThought very simple, as could be expected of a solitary species]], and is entirely lacking in pronouns. They prefer to communicate through art scratched into tree trunks.
* ISurrenderSuckers: Brighteye gets the better of Tyr-reet, a rival bluetail trying to kill Whitecrown, by pretending to submit before taking the opportunity to stab them [[EyeScream through the eye]] with a knife and fleeing with his brother while Tyr-reet's brothers are stuck watching in horror as he does his death throes.
* InbredAndEvil:
** The warmongers, an extremist subset of the whaler daydreamers, purposely inbred themselves over thousands of years to give themselves [[DarkIsEvil darker coatings]] and eliminate their yellow pigmentation, and wish to genocide all other daydreamers.
** The is completely inverted by the reapers, a sapient offshoot of the aukvultures with a culture that values empathy and understanding. They are also highly inbred due to their entire species being only a few hundred years old and descended from two siblings and compounded by their refusal to mate with their non-sapient relatives. Their low genetic diversity results in most of their babies dying in the pupal sack and makes them cherish the ones that do survive even more.
* IncompatibleOrientation: The hom*osexual Bachelor morph of the Polymorph bird is attracted to male plumage and so will sometimes attempt unsuccessfully to court Keepers (alpha males that mate with a harem of females) due to the Keepers being naturally aggressive towards other males.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation:
** The first daydreamers arose from seastrikers who by a genetic fluke were every so often born with the capacity for sapience and the ability to see past their immediate survival, but for most of their existence the so-called "seers", while not shunned by the non-sapient seastriker population, lived mostly lonely lives due to their intelligence making them unable to fully relate to their brethren or vice versa. Since sapience was a recessive trait for most of their history, seastrikers only rarely birthed new seers, with only one appearing every few centuries for hundreds of millennia on average.
** Brighteye, a bluetail (one of the descendants of the chatterer sparrowgulls), is sapient while every other bluetail, including his albino brother, is near-sapient at best. As a result, he's a pariah amongst his fellow bluetails, especially after he and his brother are forced to leave their home after a rival bluetail group murders their parents and he kills one of their leaders in return to save his brother before fleeing to avoid reprisal. Even beforehand, he refused to take a mate because the intelligence gap meant in his eyes that he'd be mating with a child. The narration detailing the bluetailed chatteravens makes a point of describing him as both the first ''and'' last bluetail person.
** This is explicitly averted with the woolly wumpo. Most are highly uncreative despite their intelligence, but some are born with a much higher level of innovation. Unlike the seers or Brighteye these individuals don't feel isolated from their kin thanks to the high emotional maturity the species possess. In fact, they are celebrated by their kind due to their creativity often greatly benefiting them as a collective.
* InterspeciesAdoption:
** In rare cases, a carnivorous circuagodont will misfire its parenting instincts onto a herbivorous circuagodont species and adopt what normally would be its prey. This usually doesn't end well for the youngster, as it ends up imprinting and associating with the carnivorous species, and thus loses its natural fear of its main predator, which has disastrous consequences when it approaches other packs of carnivorous circuagodonts that don't recognize its scent and simply see it as prey and devour it.
** Sometimes trunkos will adopt snow snoots that have been separated from their herds as detailed in "Little Moments". It usually turns out better than the above example due to both species having similar behaviors.
** As shown in [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/stronger-together Stronger Together]], [[spoiler: a young gravedigger is adopted by the regretful woodcrafters after they killed his mother. At first many of them feared him but he eventually becomes a beloved member of the village and is given the name Bridge for being a link between their two people. They taught him their language and made him more social while he kept the number of smerps down and introduced the concept of drawing to them. He briefly left when he reached adulthood due to his instincts but eventually came back and he drew in more curious young gravediggers which led to the two species to become more integrated with even the art Bridge taught the woodcrafters becoming the foundation for their first written language]]. It also shows a rarely considered consequence of such an event. [[spoiler: Due to being raised by antlears at such a young age Bridge imprints on them, but not other gravediggers, and doesn't have any interest in breeding with them as a result. He never has offspring of his own. However, he does become the adoptive father of Lucky, and thanks to her being raised by another gravedigger, she does have children to which Bridge becomes their HonoraryUncle]].
* InterspeciesFriendship:
** The tundra gravedigger has developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the jackal carnackle, the carnackles will distract large prey animals that they wouldn't be able to take down themselves and drive them towards the gravedigger's traps while the gravedigger digs out molodonts that the carnackles wouldn't be able to reach but are able to catch them once above ground while the gravedigger is too slow and they all share in the meals. They are also said to enjoy each other's company and while even play and do tricks for one another.
** The fisher daydreamers form friendships with the luddy porplets and other intelligent dolfinches, although they do tend to take a [[CondescendingCompassion paternalistic role in these relationships]].
** Brighteye and Whitecrown, bluetail chatterravens, begin accompanying Blaze, a woolly wumpo several hundred times their size with Brighteye in particular developing a strong relationship with her.
** Viridvescent sawjaws will hang around wumpo and snoot trunkos of various species, as the sawjaws are so specialized for thorngrazer hunting that they don't recognize any other animal as food. As a result, both groups work together to combine their abilities in order to defend themselves from their mutual predators.
** Pickbirds will befriend just about any species as long as they perceive them as being capable of reciprocating social interactions. While the relatively basal moonbreasted pickbird isn't picky on which species they befriend, there are numerous specialized species that only befriend certain groups. The exception to this rule are thorngrazers because they're too unintelligent to be able to form social bonds with a different species, and so while pickbirds will hang around them, they're just as likely to let their predators eat them. This is a stark contrast to their bluetail ancestors, who while willing to assist predators for portions of their kills, had a strictly buisiness-based relationship with them based on mutual interest alone.
* InterspeciesRomance: The last of the fork-tailed babbling jays take on mates from other species in a lonely search for company. However, while the babbling jays are intelligent, their impromptu mates are non-sapient.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: A nonhuman example. After the exile of the warmonger matriarch, the surviving warmongers begin to interact more with the fishers and the pastoralists who would also communicate more often with each other thanks to the gravediggers. Over time, the relationships between the different daydreamer cultures shrink until none remain. Five million years later, the only group of daydreamer is the novan daydreamers, who have traits of all three cultures, which is most noticeable with their coloring and beak shape.
* IntroducedSpeciesCalamity:
** When the Kyran Islands connected to the mainland, the carnivorous tribbetheres living there were able to cross over and follow the Kyran snuffles into their burrows and eventually hunt them into extinction.
** A variation occurs in the woodcrafter villages. The smerps and molodonts there are native to the region, but after the woodcrafters removed the small predators keeping them in check, they exploded in number and began to do severe damage to the antlears' trees and crops, making them functionally similar to an outbreak of an invasive species.
* InvadingRefugees: The warmongers were driven to the shallows after a failed attempt to conquer and destroy the pelagans resulted in the latter driving them out of both the open oceans and their original southern territories. They see the shallows as a chance to both heal their wounded pride and build up their numbers by devouring the smaller, less organized daydreamers living there.
* IronicName: Eve in the Bible is the first woman, whereas Eve the reaper is the last of the reapers.
* {{Irony}}:
** In a world with little violence in the Hypostecene, the wombler dies out... because of intraspecies violence. Never having learned how to flee from conflict, the womblers fought each other to the death, and recklessly faced the first few predators that did evolve.
** The page of the ninth-year canary talks about how it's the {{last|OfTheirKind}} of the changeling birds and how it will likely go extinct, but when a mass-extinction rivaling the Great Dying occurs at the end of the Thermocene, it ends up being among the relatively few creatures that survive and its descendants become one of the dominant groups of the Ultimocene.
** The efts are a group of aquatic metamorph birds that remain in their gilled larval stage their whole lives and come to be identical to fish, while the tribbets are fish that evolve to become land animals, with a flying group, the tribbats, eventually becoming colorful bird-like forms.
** It's stated that the merwals and aquatic molodonts are a bit of an irony, given that they're technically still fish, but ones that had specialized to live on land... and then returned to the water yet again.
** The circuagodogs rose to prominence by being smarter than their predator competition, and go extinct because they themselves are outcompeted by smarter predator competitors like the sawjaws.
** The seaborne thalassic gravediggers and the terrestrial woolly wumpos both fear one another and refer to each other's domains as the realm of demons.
* ItsAllAboutMe: What little we see of thorngrazer thoughts paints them as very selfish and callous towards anything not themselves, including other thorngrazers. For instance, their herding together is only because it lessens the chance of any individual thorngrazer alone getting eaten, and they don't form any social bonds past mothers and their children, and even then if they're injured the mother will leave them without remorse.
* ItCanThink:
** The vibropteran tribbats are surprisingly intelligent, figuring out tool use and problem-solving tactics. They are known to gnaw through flowers to access nectar instead of specializing in only one type of flower that matches its mouth, allowing it to feed on a wider range of food sources.
** Snarks are also said to be very intelligent, especially considering they're descended from snails.
** Gigadons are extremely intelligent for fish, with high domed skulls to accommodate large brains. While not fully social, they organize into packs to bring down large prey and communicate by flashing their brilliant patterns.
** While nonsapient, the savage gravediggers are still smart enough to probe for weaknesses in the fortresses of their thalassic gravedigger kin.
** The hookjaw carnackle uses traps and bait for hunting fish and other aquatic prey, specifically designing them to be easy to enter but difficult to leave. Since they learn how to make traps from their fathers rather than through instinct, this means that different cultural groups use different kinds of traps depending on their local animals and environments.
* IveComeTooFar: The warmonger matriarch continues her genocidal actions despite her own internal doubts because it would mean the end of everything she's worked for.
* TheJuggernaut: Once fully grown, a sea rex is virtually invincible, its armor allowing it to shrug off even the bites of pelagic daydreamers while crushing their skulls in a single bite. It's for this reason that the pelagans target the young burdles instead of the adults when they decide to eliminate them, as they're only daydreamer-sized when they start to leave the inaccessible to daydreamer shallows, and as such are helpless against them in a pack.
* KidnappingBirdOfPrey: The drakevulture has a tendency to snatch thorngrazer calves and sealump chicks right from the center of their herds as their protective circles are useless against an airborne predator.
* KillerRabbit:
** The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast aptly named]] butcherraptor is the size of a chicken yet they're capable of bringing down the bison sized snuffalo through the use of numbers and ruthless tactics.
** The spitfire sniffler looks cute but carries the potent batrachotoxin created by the fireslime lumpus in its quills, which makes it not only painful to the touch, but deadly to any predator that attacks it. As a result, they've been known to boldly walk up to predators and take bites out of their kills with impunity due to their confidence in their poisonous defense.
** The scorplear of the Late Ocean Age (Coincidentally also happening to look like a rabbit) is about the size of a small dog but can use its jaws and hindlimb claws to horrifically maim anything that threatens it. It's not unusual to see predators with a missing or severely damaged eye from when a scorplear [[EyeScream drove their claws through its socket]].
* KillItWithFire: The end of the Late Ocean Age is heralded by Whitecrown's flock managing to spark a massive coal fire that burns throughout Serinarcta, killing the flock and basically everything else unable to escape the flames. Among the notable casualities are the woolly wumpos and the razorback thorngrazers.
* KillItWithIce: The inevitable fate of Serina by the end of the Ultimocene, losing heat and volcanic activity which will throw the world into a permanent ice age. A few adaptive lineages will continue to soldier on for a few million years, but ultimately all life on Serina becomes extinct.
* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The warmongers believe that they are only descendants of their god, so, when they learn of the gravediggers whose very existence threatens this notion, their leaders decide to wipe them out to preserve this belief among their kind. Sure enough, after soldiers sent to battle the daydreamer-gravedigger coalition return and tell of what they have seen, this causes some of them to start questioning their beliefs.
* KnowWhenToFoldThem: When a glacier raven meets a glacial foxtrotter for the first time while the latter is attempting to steal the former's carcass, the glacier raven decides to let them have it despite the fact that it's bigger and stronger because it 1) has no knowledge of the unknown animal's capabilities and 2) there's still plenty of young to go around, so there's no reason to get into a potentially lethal fight over it.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** As a result of the loss of their higher intellect and of all social habits, the savage gravediggers have almost no capacity for empathy. Females will raise their own offspring for up to two years, but in all other cases their response to meeting another living thing is violence -- even mating is a vicious and violent affair, and they're quite happy to cannibalize each other if the opportunity presents itself.
** The thorngrazers are intensely selfish as a species, having no issue leaving the weak to be picked off by predators without remorse.
** Zigzagged with the bluetailed chatteravens, who ''are'' capable of feeling empathy, but only for those they consider part of their immediate family group. Anything or anyone else they'll treat brutally if they anger them in any way.
* LandSeaSky: The centerpiece of daydreamer religion is their creator deity splitting themselves into aquatic, terrestrial, and airborne essences. The daydreamers believe they are the aquatic, the gravediggers represent the land, and are still waiting for the sky.
* LanguageBarrier:
** The first attempts by the fisher daydreamers to communicate with the gravediggers were unsuccessful due to them not being able to understand each other's languages, with the gravedigger language being slow and guttural, and the daydreamer's language being so rapid and high-pitched that the gravediggers couldn't even recognize it as a language. Some fishers dedicated years of their lives to studying the Gravedigger language but it wasn't these individuals who made the first successful contact with them, but teenagers who had been listening to the gravediggers from a young age when it was still easier for them to learn new languages.
** The warmonger tongue is much slower and [[EvilSoundsDeep deeper]] than that of the other daydreamers, making them even harder to understand than gravediggers.
** Brighteye and Blaze have difficulty communicating at first as the chatteraven language is very different from the wumpo infrasonic language, leaving them physically incapable of understanding one another and having to make do with touching and simple gestures. They eventually get around this when they discover that they can both understand drawings and use pictures to communicate with each other, eventually streamlining the process until they create a hieroglyphic-like written language.
** The wumpos can't communicate with the gravediggers because the latter simply cannot hear the former's infrasonic language, until Brighteye talks to them and some of the gravediggers manage to learn his and Blaze's glyph-based language over the years.
* LastOfHisKind: This turns up several times in the setting, as the dwindling and extinction of species and lineages is a recurring theme, particularly in the swan song of Serina's habitable stage that is the Ultimocene:
** One of the entries detailing the beginning of the closing stages of the Ultimocene describes [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-stormsonor the last stormsonor]], the last living specimen of a species of immense birds that slowly went extinct as the growing ice age covered their feeding grounds in ice and caused their egg-like pupal sacs to freeze to death before they could hatch. The last one was born in a freak warm year, from a clutch deposited by an ancient hen who died after laying and was the only one to hatch successfully. She never met another member of her kind, and instead imprinted on a flock of a much smaller related species with which she spent the rest of her long life.
** One entry aptly titled [[spoiler:[[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/the-last-woodcrafter-dawn-of-a-new-era The Last Woodcrafter]] goes over the extinction of the woodcrafter people. When the moon becomes too cold for the trees the woodcrafters depended on to survive, they become malnourished and are unable to reproduce as a result. The socialized gravediggers they lived with are eventually forced to migrate to the coast to stay alive while some woodcrafters chose to stay and die in their old forest home while others chose to leave with the gravediggers, these ones discover that they can feed on the coastal seaweed and return to health but there were far too few of them at that point and they were all past their reproductive age so they decide to spend their last days helping and guiding the gravediggers. The last woodcrafter is an elderly female named [[MeaningfulName Ember]] who peacefully passes on surrounded by the gravediggers her kind came to view as their children]].
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/rivals Rivals]] ends with a description of the last living sea rex, a massive marine predator, after his species was gradually whittled down by the collapse of the open-ocean food chains and a bitter conflict with the pelagan daydreamers over what little prey remained in the shrinking ice age seas. Ultimately, the last great leviathan is left to wander the oceans for nearly a century after the death of the last female specimen and for forty years after the death of the second-last male, his mind just complex enough to be puzzled at why his mating calls are never answered, but not enough to understand his species' fate.
** The pelagic daydreamers are gradually done in when the shrinking oceans kill off all the animals that could sustain them. The last members of their species were too old to reproduce and believed themselves to be the very last of the daydreamers until the mixed gravedigger-daydreamer civilization from the shallows find them, allowing their people to symbolically live on the stories and histories they tell them.
** The burrowing burdle is the last of the burdles during the Late Ocean Age into the early Late Ultimocene, as their aquatic relatives were killed off by the daydreamers.
** The scorplear is the last of the antlear lineage by the Late Ocean Age, with the ice age having killed off the trees their more specialist relatives needed to survive. It's survived by becoming omnivorous but is far less intelligent than the antlears that came before it.
** The scissortooth is the last of the circuagodogs in the Late Ocean Age, the others having been outcompeted by other, smarter predators such as the sawjaws who are better adapted to prey on the thorngrazers that have become Serina's most common terrestrial herbivore, and their prey either going extinct or becoming too smart to hunt. The solitary nature of most circuagodog species also serves to work against them. Eventually, the woolly wumpos, a sapient trunko species, get the idea to start systematically exterminating their predators, with the circuagodogs being too unintelligent to mount an effective enough defense, and the remainder either starve to death or meet their end at the clubs of the wumpos. [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/scissortooth-circuagodog Circuagodog Gone]] describes the last moments of the very last circuagodog, half-dead from starvation, as it calmly accepts its death at the hands -- well, trunk -- of a creature its kind once hunted.
** Blaze is the last of the widemind woolly wumpos when she's introduced, and when she dies no others are born because the species is among the first casualties of the coal seam fire soon afterwards, either burning to death or dying from smoke inhalation or toxic fumes.
** The Late Ultimocene has several families reduced to a single surviving species. The nimicorns are the only thorngrazers to survive into the era after their razorback cousins perish in the coal fire. Afterwards the savage gravediggers are the only remaining gravediggers after their thalassic cousins are transported away and the icefishers die when the sea ice they depended on melts. Finally, the duckbilled sealumps are the only members of the sealumps to survive since they were the only species that could still walk on land and escape the dying oceans, eventually settling on Serinaustra.
** The hiddenwood is the last species of ant tree left by the early Late Ultimocene after the ice age due to most of the plant growing underground. With the increased warmth and wetness of the Late Ultimocene and the extinction of the more destructive razorback thorngrazer, it has seen a major resurgence. It's also the last of the sunflower tree lineage, with its cactaiga cousin being among the victims of the increased temperatures.
** The rambleroot is the last survivor of a lineage of smaller understory trees descended from clovers in the early Late Ultimocene, having survived by mostly growing underground like the hiddenwood has. Following the warming caused by the coal seam fire and the disappearance of the cold winds that would blow smaller plants down, they start growing to knee height, flower and fruit, and spread to Serinaustra via bird droppings.
** "As Worlds Break Apart and Join Together" details the story of the last steppestalker, the direct descendant of the shadowstalker (differentiated only by its lighter coloration compared to its ancestor), and the largest of the tribbats on Serina 1,500 years post-coal seam fire. Having made it to a small island when the rampant global warming and subsequent glacier melting during the aftermath of the Serinarctan coal seam fire caused most of the Meridian Islands to sink beneath the waves, he manages to adapt to hunting fish in the shallows and serves as apex predator over the other species marooned there with him for over twenty-one years. However, eventually the refuge shrinks down to just some rocks as the remaining prey either rafts away or dies, until finally, weakened by drinking seawater as the waves batter him, one manages to knock him into the sea and he drowns.
** Eve is the last of the reapers, a subspecies of the aukvulture that managed to achieve sapience, but went extinct due to inbreeding.
** The pgymy pretenguin is the only pretenguin species to survive the Great Thaw, having moved to Serinarcta with the sinking of the Meridian Islands.
** The surf scooter survives the Great Thaw that extincts the other dolfinches by being a semi-aquatic species that can access the Serinarctan marshes where the larger species cannot go as the ocean food chain collapses.
* LeanAndMean: [[http://i.imgur.com/qlaakml.jpg Lanks]] are twenty-foot-tall apex predators with very long slender necks, beaks, and legs.
* {{Lightworlder}}: Serina has a much lower gravity than Earth, allowing for much bigger fliers such as the archangels. Even the insects become BigCreepyCrawlies due to the lesser gravity, with some cricket species growing to the size of rabbits.
* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Whitecrown is basically the final boss of the Late Ocean Age, an albino bluetail leading a huge flock burning everything indiscriminately.]]
* LegendFadesToMyth: The teachings of [[spoiler:the last woodcrafter]] over the next three million years turns into a myth shared amongst the numerous marine social gravedigger religions, the exact details being lost to time but being subject to numerous but not contradictory interpretations.
* LifeWillKillYou: Blaze eventually dies from old age, surrounded by her family, save for Brighteye who happened to be away and only comes back once she's already been buried.
* LogicalWeakness:
** The circuagodonts, being tripedal, have only a single hind leg, making it an obvious target for predators to easily cripple them.
** The canitheres are significantly less intelligent than the predator wheeljaws, having disorganized packs attacking with only ZergRush tactics and prone to infighting once the prey is downed. This proves to be a disadvantage against the smarter wheeljaws, who share food amicably and hunt with coordination, with the canitheres quickly being pushed aside to scavenger and small-game hunter niches.
* LongLived:
** Stormsonors, the largest of the archangels, can live up to 135 years.
** Daydreamers have a maximum lifespan between 130 and 140 years.
** Reapers have an average lifespan of 80 to 90 years.
* LongNeck: Watchtower wumpos have incredibly long necks which is highly noticeable on their bipedal frame. One thing of note is that they don't use these necks for browsing as trees are very rare on the soglands they inhabit, they actually use it to scan the horizon for predators so as to alert the thorngrazer herds they live with, it also makes them very vulnerable to lightning during storms which forces them to lie down when they occur.
* LoopholeAbuse: The woodcrafters have a major taboo regarding killing other herbivores, even if they happen to be pests to the trees they need to eat. Once enough socialized gravediggers are around, however, they have them take care of their pest problem to keep their own hands clean.
* MakeMeWannaShout: The sea rexes have a mating call so powerful that it vibrates the water around them and can injure or even kill smaller animals that get too close.
* MeaningfulName:
** Tribbets are tripodal and froglike. Their descendants include reptile-analogues called tribtiles and mammal-analogues called tribbetheres.
** Vivas are viviparous. Their descendants the ornitheres ("bird-beasts") are even more mammal-like.
** The mitten and its descendant the glove. Guess what the soft tissue on their faces looks like and is used for.
** Babbling jays have a true language, and their name brings the Tower of Babel to mind.
** Snarks (snail-sharks) are active marine predators descended from gastropods.
** The antlears have evolved their ears into limbs that resemble antlers.
** Bridge, the first socialized gravedigger, was given that name by his adoptive antlear family to serve as a bridge between both species.
** Ember, the last woodcrafter, passes on phrases of her language to the descendants of the babbling jays, which persist as the flame of sapience reignites in them.
** The thalassic gravediggers are adapted to near-completely seaborne existence and have even evolved the ability to drink saltwater.
** The daydreamers can dream even while awake by only using one hemisphere of their brain at a time.
** Greenskeepers help maintain the plant life of the Ultimocene ocean.
** Brighteye, the only bluetail capable of higher understanding, gave himself his purposely symbolic name.
** While at first it's an IronicName since she's just as afraid of fire as every other woolly wumpo, thanks to Brighteye Blaze takes to the use of fire very well.
* MeaningfulRename: Brighteye gave himself and his flockmates symbolic names instead of random sounds that hold no meaning, even if he is the only one capable of understanding them.
* MedievalStasis: The gravedigger-daydreamer-greenskeeper civilization is so productive and stable that it does not progress beyond a stone-age level of technology for over a million years while also having a written language and innate understanding of ecosystem dynamics. A lack of mineral resources and a lack of ecological or cultural pressure to innovate contributes to this.
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Male nimicorns live on the margins of their social groups so they're disproportinately preyed upon, but this serves to protect the more reproductively important females and juveniles.
* MercyKill:
** The pastoralist daydreamers will kill their nops before eating them rather than just eating them alive like their seastriker ancestors would've, despite the fact that they barely feel pain.
** Blaze, a woolly wumpo, chooses to put the last scissortooth out of its misery quickly rather than just leave it to starve to death over hours due to developing empathy for "biters" through all her years hunting them, and despite the fact that it was her idea to systematically exterminate "biters" for the sake of the family in the first place.
** The reapers are culturally opposed to killing for survival; the main exception to this is killing the already dying to ease suffering.
* MetaphoricallyTrue: The daydreamer religion positing that daydreamers and gravediggers have an origin in common is actually sort of true, because dolfinches and bumblebadgers both descend from the bumblet.
* MightyGlacier:
** Razorback thorngrazers are strong and durable thanks to being covered in tooth-like armor, but very slow as they have very short legs and are incapable of running, simply hunkering down when threatened to protect their soft underbellies. This works against them when dealing with fire since they can easily be overtaken by the flames, leaving the nimicorns as the only surviving thorngrazer species following the Serinarctan coal seam fire.
** The monstrocorns, a clade of thorngrazers from the hothouse age, responded to the sudden rise in food and living space by growing to immense sizes. They became very slow, plodding and awkward beasts as a result, but make up for this with their immense strength, the ability to absorb otherwise crippling injuries with their huge bulks, and a powerful set of horns and tusks that can gore most potential predators with ease. Adult monstrocorns have no natural predators, being simply too powerful and well-defended for even the most aggressive hunters to tackle.
* MirroringFactions:
** The gravediggers and antlear people may be natural enemies, but they both have an artistic streak that they express using trees. It's this similarity that [[spoiler: causes some of the woodcrafters to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realize that they were murdering sapient beings]]]].
** The fishers and the pastoralists have the same fundamental creation story despite their cultural differences which led to some fishers becoming more introspective and questioning if their way of life is truly more moral than theirs.
** Despite the disdain fishers have for daydreamers who feed on dolfinches, their lifestyle is more similar to the whalers than it is to the farming pastoralists they share their terrioties with, as both of them hunt for their food which leaves them more downtime. The differences being what they chose to hunt. This comes to a head in the aftermath of the war with the warmongers, the warmonger children searching for food display the exact same curiosity as the fishers did towards the gravediggers and learn to speak their language, allowing them to cut a mutually beneficial deal with them.
* MixAndMatchCritters:
** Falconaries, the first hypercarnivorous birds to arise on Serina.
** The tundra-dwelling, herd-forming, pseudo-viviparous canaribou and its omnivorous relative the boarbird.
** ''Cervanser cervanser'', the "deer-goose" viva.
** Florgusts are descendants of crickets that greatly resemble butterflies through convergent evolution.
** The water snuffle is essentially an avian platypus.
** Archangels look and eat like swans with the quadrupedal posture and [[GiantFlyer size]] of ''Quetzalcoatlus''.
** The king trawler is a giant sea slug with traits of baleen whales and manta rays.
** Burdles and birdwhales strongly converge upon, well... sea turtles and baleen whales.
** Serestriders are moa-like birds big enough, and with long enough necks, to hold the niche of sauropods.
** The serezelles resemble a cross between an ostrich and a gazelle, and the boomsingers, giant serezelles that evolved to avoid competing with circuagodonts, are in essence beaked, tailless sauropods.
** The Lumberbeest is essential a mix between a large tortoise and a sauropod.
** The porporant family as a whole resemble seabirds formed into cetaceans and seals, and includes the dolfinch, croconary, and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liopleurodon penguipleurodon]].
** Repandors resemble Tasmanian tigers crossed with cheetahs, but with jaws like a goblin shark.
** Moonbeasts resemble a cross between a bat and an owl. Its descendant the snowspirit lessens the bat aspect but adds a cat aspect while increasing the owl similarities.
** The night biter is essentially a mix of vampire bat and cookiecutter shark.
** Vibropterans can be described as "fish-hummingbird-bats."
** Aquatic molodonts in the Ultimocene fill a fair amount of marine mammal niches, such as the walrus-like Clamcracker and the manatee-like Rakewhale.
** The bloons look like beaked plesiosaurs but are herbivorous like manatees.
** [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/squotters The skuorc]] resembles a cross between an otter and a lizard with a bird's head.
** The [[https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/the-ultimocene-250-million-years/life-of-the-meridian-islands-the-flagbearer-tribbat candescent flagbearer]] resembles a cross between a bat, a rabbit, and a bird of paradise.
** The great crested drakevulture has the size of an azhdarchid pterosaur but hunts from the air like a colossal eagle.
* MookHorrorShow: The second battle between the shallow water daydreamers and the warmongers starts off from the warmonger's perspective as it describes the armor of the daydreamers making them look like skeletons that had come back from the dead as they emerge from the shadows and then attacking them with weapons that they can't comprehend and have no way of countering.
* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily:
** The repandors are a group of canitheres with a mouthful of sharp fangs (as well as a set of slicing teeth in the back of their mouths) and jaws than extend outwards like that of a goblin shark. The bushbounders have a similar set of teeth but theirs don't extend outwards so that they have a stronger bite.
** The muckodiles' inner mouth and throat is full of tooth-like spines that make it harder for prey to escape their grasp, [[RealityIsUnrealistic much like real-world penguins]].
* MouthyBird: The Vivas are a group of live-bearing birds whose herbivorous members have developed fleshy lips and snouts over [[https://i.imgur.com/REiFDKn.png their]] [[https://i.imgur.com/cILOmh8.png beaks]]. Though entirely unrelated[[note]] tentacle birds descend from the water snuffle of the Kyran Islands, whose evolutionary separation from the vivas dates all the way back to the ancestral canary[[/note]], the tentacle birds are even more so.
* MulticulturalAlienPlanet: By the middle and late Ultimocene, a general trend towards increasing intelligence means that multiple sophont species arise, often sharing the moon with each other, and most also tend to fragment into various subspecies and cultures.
** Three sapient species evolve on the moon during the middle Ultimocene, two of which possess a number of distinct internal groups:
*** The social, herbivorous woodcrafters are natives of the southern coastal forests and build complex villages out of trees. Due to their small range, their culture is very hom*ogeneous.
*** The gravediggers are a solitary, carnivorous species who communicate with art carved on trees on territorial boundaries and hunt by making elaborate traps. Gravediggers are divided into two subspecies, the primary forest-dwelling one and the tundra gravedigger, which is even more solitary, aggressive, and nomadic than their southern cousins. One population of southern gravediggers is later taken in by the woodcrafters and grows more social as a result, becoming its own distinct species after the woodcrafters die out. Eventually, as Serina's glaciation grows more severe, the social gravediggers adopt a marine culture while the tundra and southern gravediggers are pushed into a small strip of habitable land and cease to exist as two distinct populations.
*** Daydreamers are sapient marine predators who have been living alongside the other two groups for about three million years, over time splitting into different cultures that are even reflected by their phenotypes: a small-beaked ecotype that hunts fish, and a large-beaked ecotype that preys on other dolfinches.
*** The large-beaked predators, the ancestral group, eventually split further into the pastoralists, who live in reclusive communities in shallow waters and herd dim-witted domesticated dolfinches, and the large, heavily built whalers, who live in the deep ocean and prey on larger animals. The whalers further diversify into many clades and cultures, but the dieoff of large deep-ocean wildlife caused by shrinking seas eventually causes most to die off and only leaves two, the widespread and highly collectivist pelagans and the heavily-built, xenophobic warmongers.
*** There are also bands of daydreamers comprised of mixed ecotypes who live on the periphery of the other groups' territories and raid them for food, as it's often difficult to find a suitable food source for a group containing so many disparate beak shapes.
** During the Late Ocean Age:
*** After a first-contact war between the shallow-water daydreamers and the warmongers, the shallow-water populations, warmongers, and eventually the last survivors of the collapsing pelagan society merge into a single population, which joins with the social gravediggers to form a single society. Over a period of five million years, they eventually evolve into new species, the novan daydreamers and thalassic gravediggers, while the luddies gradually reach sapience, becoming a new species known as the greenskeepers, and join them into a single multi-species marine civilization known as the sea stewards. They have a deal with the sea shoggoths, who are implied to have achieved sapience or are on the very cusp of it, in which they don't hunt the sea stewards or anything else in return for regular deliveries of food waste and dead bodies, who would clog up the ocean otherwise as their populations grow.
*** Within the thalassic gravediggers, the inhabitants of the meadows are contrasted with the central islanders of the Meridians, who live the most terrestrial lifestyle of the three main groups, and the highly independent coastians that live near Serinarcta's shores but only go on land to collect peat and coal due to the hostility of the local wildlife, in particular their conflicts with the woolly wumpos.
*** Two other gravedigger societies exist during this time, descended from the continental gravediggers; the savage gravediggers, a FormerlySapientSpecies descended mainly from the tundra subspecies with some hybridization with the southern, and the icefishers, descended from southern gravediggers with some savage admixture displaced by the savage northern kind and adapted to life on the sea ice.
*** The descendants of the mammoth trunkos and desert wumps have also achieved sapience in the form of the woolly wumpos, although most remain fairly unimaginative, live in family groups, and even have a rudimentary religion based around the dusk and dawn.
*** There are also the bluetailed chatteravens, a near-sapient descendant of the babbling jays with a rudimentary language and culture who accidentally produce a single individual with full sapience.
** During the Hothouse Age, the still near-sophont descendants of the bluetails, the pickbirds, befriend such a wide group of animals that they can form cultural groups based on which animals they choose to befriend. This can turn pickbird groups antagonistic if their chosen animals have a predator-prey relationship, such as a pickbird group that befriends wumpos having issues with another that befriends their predators. Given only centuries at mininum, it's possible for pickbird groups to reproductively isolate and eventually speciate from one another based on which animals their ancestor most often befriended, and while the moonbreasted pickbird focused on is a generalist, there are numerous species that are more specialized in who they choose to befriendf.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: The fisher daydreamers come to believe that the gravediggers are the hands of their creator thanks to their ability to make and use tools like nets, fishing lines and boats. Something the daydreamers themselves are incapable of. The warmongers even go so far as to attribute the deaths of their soldiers by gravedigger weapons as an act of divine retribution.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
** After Retally managed to get nearly his entire herd killed due to his lack of mastery over fire, he was so ashamed that he decided to go north and was never heard from again, effectively committing suicide.
** In the early days of the Late Ultimocene, an aukvulture, normally a gentle scavenger, kills a sea raven out of starvation-induced annoyance and feels shame before hunger makes it forget.
* MyInstinctsAreShowing:
** The original gravediggers felt no hatred but also no remorse for gruesomely killing animals in their traps, while their social descendants have become much more empathetic towards other lifeforms thanks to the influence of the woodcrafters. However, the warmongers attacking and killing them unprovoked causes this old callousness to resurface, and they feel no guilt for using poison to subject them to a slow, horrid death.
** When Seeker, a greenskeeper descended from the ring-necked porplet, meets Whirl, a novan daydreamer descended from the seastrikers who used to be their primary predator, he briefly feels a primal fear when she opens her mouth to show him her teeth.
** The sawjaws are wolf-sized but evolved from much smaller predators in a relatively short amount of time, so they still have the instincts and behaviors of much smaller animals despite the fact that they have no predators that hunt them.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Brighteye dislikes the other, nonsapient bluetails for their violent ways, and near the end of his life thinks of himself as more one of the woolly wumpos than his own species.
* MythologyGag: When Seeker is shown what happens if sea steward society collapses due to the coal seam fire, he sees that the gravediggers have survived but turned feral, a similar fate to what Sheather had planned for them when the woodcrafters went extinct in the original draft of the Ultimocene.

MorganWick

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* JadedProfessional: Mrs. Carney in the 1952 "Christmas Show". Mrs. Carney is in charge of the gift exchange office at Sherry's Department Store. However, it is clear from the start that she is anything but cheerful about her duties. In fact, she is extremely frustrated by people exchanging their Christmas gifts (especially exchanging their gifts before Christmas). Outside her job, she is actually a charitable person, being part of Mrs. Conklins "Helping Hand Committee".
* {{Jingle}}: The show's sponsors had some pretty catchy ones:
** "Brush your teeth with Colgate/Colgate dental cream/It cleans your breath (what a toothpaste)/While it cleans your teeth."
** "Dream girl, dream girl/Beautiful Luster Cream girl/You owe your crowning glory to/A Luster Cream shampoo." (This one was set to the tune of "Toyland" from ''Theatre/BabesInToyland''.)
* JailedOneAfterAnother:
** Happens in "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis is tricked into selling counterfeit tickets to the Policeman's Ball and jailed overnight. When released she goes to stay with her sister Angela, too embarrassed to tell how she had been tricked. Mrs. Davis really should have said something; Miss Brooks decides to sell the tickets to help the charity drive. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone end up jailed in quick succession.
** In the radio episode "Student Government Day". The Madison High School students were supposed to be elected to city positions for the day, but the police didn't get the memo. "Police Chief Denton" and "Mayor Harriet Conklin" try to order a raid on the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company", but are foiled by a patrolman. Walter Denton threatens to have the cop "pounding a beat in a swamp". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, the "mayor" and "chief of police" and a number of other student government officials are jailed.
* JingletheCoins: In "Old Marblehead", a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". Mr. Conklin jingles the coins in the tin with which he to collects the fines he levies under his "carelessness code". More notable in the radio original, for obvious reasons.
* JiveTurkey: Orville Mason, a dance instructor who hangs out at Elmer's Malt Shop, in "The Mambo". Walter Denton chooses to describe Mason as a "jive hound" instead of as a turkey.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe:
** In "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin explains to Miss Brooks his plan to get All-American football player and high school coach Biff Mooney to work for Madison High School. Rather than first going about his plan and bragging later.
** In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Stone threatens to fire Mr. Conklin once Stone's elected to the new post of "Coordinator of Education". This sets up the subplot where Mr. Conklin runs against Mr. Stone to head the school board.
* KarmicJackpot: Happens several times:
** One example is "The Festival", where, by loaning their money and exchanging outfits with the hardworking cleaning women and custodian (so they'll have something nice to wear to the festival) - Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton win the prize for best costume. True to form, they proceed to split the proceeds with the cleaning woman and custodian.
** Also happens in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Miss Brooks organizes a food drive for Mr. Whipple, who she mistakenly believes is impoverished. This so affects the misery millionaire, that he donates the money to build the new gymnasium Madison High School needs.
** Miss Brooks wins the Karmic Jackpot grand prize in TheMovie GrandFinale. Miss Brooks' good deeds are finally awarded, when she achieves her SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Connie Brooks is often unwillingly made privy to Walter Denton's latest prank. Miss Brooks has to keep quiet or risk having Walter suspended or expelled, sometimes making her an almost ''de facto'' confederate to his schemes.
** i.e. "Cure That Habit" forces Miss Brooks to stay quiet about Walter's having sent a postcard to the titular alcoholism support group in Mr. Conklin's name.
** "Wild Goose Chase" has Miss Brooks be forced to keep quiet about Walter pretending to be a quiz show host, and having tricked Mr. Conklin in believing he won a free T.V. set.
** "The Cafeteria Strike" sees Miss Brooks have to cover up an impending protest by the students, led by Walter Denton.
** "Dress Code Protest" sees Miss Brooks try to dodge Mr. Conklin's discovering Walter's idiotic scheme to protest the principal's new dress code.
** "The Sweater" has Walter Denton put Miss Brook's name to an expensive present purchased by Miss Enright and gifted to Mr. Boynton. Miss Brooks is quite unwittingly pulled into the deception, but is loathe to reveal it as it results in an atypically amorous Mr. Boynton.
** "Stretch Has A Problem" sees a different kind of secret kept by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks must keep secret Stretch's crush on Harriet Conklin, while keeping the lovesick DumbJock ready, willing and able to play in the state basketball tournament.
** "The Grudge Match" again deals with the Stretch-Harriet-Walter love triangle, as Miss Brooks must cover up the fact that Stretch Snodgrass went to the movies with Harriet Conklin, Walter's designated [[LoveInterest squeeze.]]
** Miss Brooks is quite the unwitting secret keeper. In "New School Bus", she has to hide the fact that Mr. Boynton bought an old paddy wagon to serve as a bus for Madison's sports teams.
* KidSidekick: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. He often sees her at lunch in the cafeteria, and will play a major part or even instigate the ZanyScheme of the week.
* KindheartedCatLover: Mrs. Davis.
* KissDiss: At the end of "Capistrano's Revenge", Miss Brooks kisses Mr. Conklin, Bones Snodgrass, and Walter Denton on the cheek in appreciation for helping her save a swallow's life. When she goes to kiss her LoveInterest, the shy Mr. Boynton, he blushes and runs out the door!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The big one always gets away!
* KnittingPregnancyAnnouncement: Misread by Miss Brooks in "Little Visitor". The fact that Mrs. Conklin hasn't been seen at school for months, and is known to be knitting many of tiny outfits leads Miss Brooks to jump to the conclusion In fact, the only thing the Mrs. Conklin is expecting is to take care of her sister's pet monkey for a couple weeks.
* LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine: Mr. Boynton typically wears a labcoat whenever he's seen in his classroom, the Biology room, at school. In "Madison Country Club", Mr. Conklin dismissively refers to the coat as a "burlap smock".
* LabPet: Mr. Boynton has a habit of naming many of his lab animals. However, that doesn't prevent him from doing fatal tests on them. In "New Girl in Town", it's revealed that he has been burying his mouse martyrs to science in the athletic field. Moreover, Miss Brooks has been (reluctantly) helping him.
** The trope is averted in the case of Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. Although Mac is usually kept in the lab, he's a personal pet and not used for lab tests. Usually Mac's kept in a separate cage. However in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Boynton seems to have temporarily placed Mcdougall with a number of other frogs.
* LadyInWaiting: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks' dream sequence features several ladies in waiting serving her.
* LargeHam: Mr. Conklin
* LargeHamAnnouncer: In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks plays this trope to the hilt, sardonically giving a play-by-play of the boxing match between Stretch and Walter. Complete with faked commercials:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam patch on it first.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin is Honored" begins with Mrs. Davis relating her sister Angela's recent brush with laser-guided amnesia. Later, Mr. Conklin ''fakes'' a case of his own.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** A good example is ''The Festival''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton lend their clothes and cash to the hardworking cleaning woman and custodian, so they can attend a costume party. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton wear the clothes of the cleaning woman and custodian. They win a large cash prize - and of course split it with the custodian and the cleaning woman.]]
** In TheMovie, [[spoiler: Miss Brooks spends the movie tutoring Gary Nolan and helping him reconcile with his father. This, with a little subterfuge by Mrs. Davis thrown in, makes Mr. Boynton jealous enough to finally get serious. Later, Mr. Boynton's invitation for his lonely, recently widowed mother, to move to Madison, has him buy a house. Again, Mrs. Davis steps in and arranges to have the elder Mrs. Boynton as her new boarder. The upshot: Miss Brooks finally gets to marry Boynton, the two have their HappyEnding.]]
* LastMinuteHookup: After eight years on the radio, and four years (concurrently) on television, Connie Brooks finally gets Phillip Boynton to propose marriage in the last ten minutes of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. Even then, the proposal is ''de facto'' delivered by [[TheMatchmaker Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother.]]
* LastNameBasis: Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin always address each other formally, even outside of school.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Used from time to time. This example comes from "Hawkins Travel Agency". Miss Brooks is trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to France . . . .
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with a French accent): Oh, there is nothing like [[GayParee Paree]] in the summer. The Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre Palais, the Place de Concorde . . . and Piccadilly Circus.
--> '''Mr. Stone''' Miss Brooks, Piccadilly Circus happens to be in London.
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with an co*ckney accent) : Right-O governor, but if you were so nearby, you wouldn't want to miss that now, would you?
* LateToThePunchline: Miss Brooks remarks to Mr. Boynton that stealing a kiss is "petting larceny". A couple minutes later, Mr. Boynton gets the joke and starts to laugh.
* LateForSchool: Miss Brooks is late for school a couple of times. It's SeriousBusiness, because she's a teacher!
** In "The Party Line", Miss Brooks is too late to catch the city bus to school. Walter Denton tried to warn her that his car was in the shop, but her [[GossipyHens chatty]] party line neighbor had the phone tied up.
** In "Wake-Up Plan", Miss Brooks sleeps in and misses half a day of school. Mrs. Davis had accidentally given Miss Brooks a sleeping pill instead of an aspirin.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale Walter Denton is late for English class. He nearly barrels over Mr. Conklin running through the hall. He arrives just in time to tell Harriet the drive shaft from his car fell out . . . then the bell rings and the class ends.
* LaughingAtYourOwnJokes: Mr. Boynton did this on a regular basis, both on radio and on television. His jokes are rarely that funny.
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Boynton gives Miss Brooks a joke-book and cracks himself up trying to tell the joke.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Now, when I first pick "My Dog Has Fleas" on the banjo like that, Miss Brooks, we spring our first humorous anecdote. You can read it right from the book. Here we are.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thanks. What's that you played on the banjo, Mr. Interlocutor?
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': "My Dog Has Fleas".
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Funny kind of a dog. My dog has pups. OH NO!
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': (laughs)
-->'''Walter Denton''': (laughs) How corny can you get!
** In "The Auction", Mr. Boynton breaks himself up over the idea of leading his frogs on a leash downtown and telling the public to [[IncrediblyLamePun "get hopping"]] to Madison High.
** At the start of "Non-Fraternization Policy", Mr. Boynton tells a long, involved joke involving three turn-of-the-century Irish policemen and a horse. Mr. Boynton finds the joke funny. Nobody else does.
* LaughingMad: "Hobby Show" ends with Miss Brooks laughing hysterically, and smearing finger paints over her face.
* LaughOfLove: "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Bones, Son of Cyrano" (the TV remake)]], Mr. Boynton writes down a poem from ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Boynton lends it to Walter Denton so the teen could use it to woo "the fair Harriet" [[ItMakesSenseInContext by anonymously hiding the poem in Harriet's lunch]]. Unfortunately, Harriet recognizes Mr. Boynton's handwriting and immediately becomes a SmittenTeenageGirl. Harriet returns Mr. Boynton's poem as a gesture of her love, madly giggling.
* LaymansTerms: In "Life Can Be Bones", Mr. Boynton explains the concept of the "missing link" to Miss Brooks and Walter Denton. He uses layman's terms to describe what exactly the "missing link" between ancient man and the primates would be and how it's fossilized skull would look. Mr. Boynton doesn't realize that Miss Brooks had just read his definition in a introductory book on paleontology; in fact, Mr. Boynton plagerized the book's description word-for-word.
* LayoutOfASeason: The fourth season of the television series began with the aptly named "Transition Show". Madison High School is torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin find new work at Miss Nester's Private School.
** The concurrent radio show and subsequent [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale finale]] [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored this move]] and continued at Madison High as per usual.
* LazyBum: The hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria" in "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* LeadIn: Often, an episode begins with Miss Brooks conversing with Mrs. Davis over breakfast. While the conversation is usually relevant to the plot of the episode, occasionally it will just be a wacky interlude before the main story comes into play.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: An interesting example is found in the radio episode "Reckless Driving".
** Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Harriet and Walter are on Mrs. Davis' porch listening to the radio.
** Creator/SteveAllen suddenly drives up asking for the way to Hollywood - turns out he's going to host the summer replacement for ''Our Miss Brooks''.
** The radio is tuned to ''Our Miss Brooks'' Miss Brooks calling it the show "with the school teacher with my name".
** Miss Brooks, incidentally, thinks Eve Arden is "a doll". Mr. Conklin hates the pompous principal, while Walter Denton likes "one character in particular."
** Eve Arden announces her summer replacement, saying she would be listening to Steve Allen's show that summer. Everybody on the porch commending her nice speech. Allen, however, wonders if she'll really be listening. Cue Eve Arden saying of course she would, he has her job!
*** This scene wasn't duplicated in the television remake, "Trial by Jury". [[spoiler: There, the program ended with Miss Brooks pleading her innocence in court before a jury with Mr. Conklin as a member.]]
* LetsYouAndHimFight: In "Stretch Is Accused of Professionalism", teenaged DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass enters a circus wrestling contest and wins a prize. Unfortunately, this came to the attention of rival Clay City High School principal Jason Brille. By a technical reading of school board rules, this makes Stretch a "professional athlete" and ineligible for school sports. Miss Brooks tries to get the wrestler, visiting Madison High School to deliver Stretch the prize money, to attack school board head Mr. Stone. In that way, she hopes proof of the wrestler's violent nature would lead to Mr. Stone waiving any penalty against Stretch.
* LetXBeTheUnknown: "Project X" has Mr. Conklin develop the eponymous secret project as a way of impressing school board president Mr. Stone.
* LickedByTheDog: Mr. Conklin softens on several occasions. One such example is the episode "The Miserable Caballero", where Mr. Conklin softens toward Benny Romero, a runaway Mexican boy.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: At work with the adults characters. Miss Brooks, from near the start, is after the position of Madison High School Head of the English Department. She never gets it; obstructions include blabbermouths sharing the "Party Line" and a nervous nerve-specialist claiming she's overwrought "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". At least once, Mr. Boynton suffers from this trope; his attempt to be hired as a college professor ends in HilarityEnsues with Miss Brooks trying to masquerade as his mother ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton). Even Mr. Conklin can't get a promotion; he's the subject of a false scandal in "The Little Visitor", and otherwise embarrassed in "Project X". In the penultimate television episode, "Principal For A Day", Miss Brooks' leadership of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School is short-lived.
[[spoiler: Miss Brooks does achieve her actual SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton, in TheMovie GrandFinale]].
* ListOfTransgressions: In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin is tricked into believing he's about to be fired for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his [[DeanBitterman administration of Madison High School]]. As a result, he requests Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass provide him with a list of his transgressions:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Now, if you will read me your bill of particulars considering my various infamies . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': We're all going to read some of it, Mr. Conklin. Will you begin Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thank you, Mr. Boynton. Whereas I, Osgood Conklin, Principal of Madison High School, desiring to improve relations between myself, the faculty, and the student body . . . your turn, Walter.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Ahem. Do promise to keep the following ever before me as a reminder of past sins of which I am heartily ashamed.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Which I ain't never gonna repeat no more.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Splendid. Splendid. Please continue.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Wait until you hear this! I readily admit on many occasions I have acted like a pompous, puffed up, ill tempered, addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Forgive me, but it seems to me you have omitted maladjusted.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please don't interrupt, that's in the next paragraph. Now, where was I?
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh yes. Addlepated blowhard. And on other occasions, I have bellowed like a bull . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Screamed like an elephant . . .
-->'''Walter Denton''': Hissed like a viper . . .
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Snorted like a buffalo . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': And otherwise exhibited the behavior of a maladjusted nincompoop.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Oh, oh, oh, there it is!
* LiteralMinded: Mr. Jensen, the school custodian, makes a few radio appearances. He insists on interpreting figures of speech and phrases literally. Thus, to Miss Brooks' consternation (i.e. "School Safety Advisor") any attempt at conversation with him quickly turns into a chore.
* TheLittleDetecto: Walter and Miss Brooks use a Geiger counter in "Rare Black Orchid" to search for uranium. Walter had discovered some on his shoe and concluded he had unknowingly stepped in uranium recently.
* LivingLegend: Two, at least:
** In "The Big Game", there's former high school football star "Snakehips", whose high score in the big game won him a job as a vice-president.
** In "Safari O'Tool", there's Mrs. Davis's beau, a famous jungle explorer. [[spoiler: He's a fraud.]]
* LivingStatue:
** In "Living Statues", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton are accidently glued into place.
** In "Hobbies", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin pretend to be wax figures in order to dodge Mr. Stone. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* LocalHangout: Marty's Malt Shop, located across the street from Madison High School, is popular with students and faculty alike.
* LockedInAFreezer: Happens twice:
** In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin is locked in the cafeteria freezer.
** In "Male Superiority", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are trapped in a meat locker. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks is the only one who doesn't panic.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Gary Nolan in the movie.
* LongList: Usually when Mrs. Davis describes recipe ingredients.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** In "Wakeup Plan", [[spoiler: after accidently ingesting Mrs. Davis' sleeping pills, Mr. Conklin is caught sleeping in his office by the head of the board, Mr. Stone, and his assistant, Mr. Gleason. Miss Brooks successfully argues that Mr. Conklin was only seen sleeping during the lunch hour and after school - that is, on his own time.]]
** "Department Store Contest" [[spoiler: features an unusual case of ''accidental'' loophole abuse. Miss Brooks wins a prize when a childhood letter to Santa Claus is accidently entered in a children's contest at Sherry's Department. As she wrote the letter ''when she was a child'', she was able to walk away with the prize and avoid trouble.]]
* LostFoodGrievance:
** In "The Honest Burglar", and "The Burglar, [[SoundToScreenAdaptation the television remake]], Mr. Conklin is furious at a food thief who stole the fried chicken his wife left for him.
** In the radio episode "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to impress Mr. Boynton by framing Mr. Boynton for eating Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner and then taking the blame for him. ItMakesSenseInContext. The plan goes south when teenager [[BigEater Walter Denton]] eats Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner before it can be delivered to Mr. Boynton.
* LostVoicePlot: Mr. Conklin loses his voice in "Public Speaker's Nightmare", just before he's about to greet important officials from the national board of educations. Unusually for the trope, the cause is psychosomatic.
* LovableJock: Stretch Snodgrass, Madison High's star athlete. He's [[DumbJock dimwitted]], but good natured to the point where he's willing to transfer schools if it'll get his best friend Walter Denton on the Madison football team ("Two Way Stretch Snodgrass). Stretch is apparently very popular, when he [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally vandalizes the school]] in "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks and Walter gets a crew of students to fix the damage and cover for him.
* LoveAtFirstSight: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks falls in love with Mr. Boynton the first time they meet.
* LoveHurts: Miss Brooks is deeply in love with largely ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. Because FailureIsTheOnlyOption, Miss Brooks' schemes to get Mr. Boynton to marry her inevitably fail [[spoiler: until TheMovie GrandFinale when Miss Brooks finally marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* LoveLetter / LoveLetterLunacy: The plot of the episode "Bones, Son of Cyrano". A love letter gets misdirected and misinterpreted multiple times. HilarityEnsues. [[spoiler: Especially, when Mr. Conklin believes Miss Brooks is in love with him!]] This is a remake of the radio episode "Poetry Mixup". The only difference is Stretch Snodgrass is replaced by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother]].
* TheMagazineRule: In "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo", Miss Brooks seeks out a hobo to write an article about "The Vanishing Hobo" to submit to a schoolteacher's magazine. It so turns out the titular hobo is also writing a magazine article. The hobo's article is entitled "The Vanishing Schoolteacher" and he is paid handsomely by a ''hobo magazine'' for its publication.
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Part of Principal Osgood Conklin's modus operandi at Madison High School. There is, after all, a reason Miss Brooks considers Conklin to be Madison's dictator:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Having expected a one way trip to Devil's Island, I thought the punishment Mr. Conklin meted out was comparatively just. However, it was just after 7:00 that evening when I got home.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Why Connie, I was getting to get worried about you! Where in the world have you been all afternoon?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': I was doing a little writing, Mrs. Davis.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Writing? What were you writing?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Oh, I don't think you'd be interested, it's not your type of stuff.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': I'm interested in everything you do, Connie. Please, tell me all about it.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Well, if you insist, Mrs. Davis. But you'd better sit down, this may take quite a while.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Alright. ''(sits down)'' There. Now, what did you write?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[WritingLines I wrote "Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had. Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had. Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had . . ."]]
* MakeOutPoint:
** On radio and television, the EverytownAmerica setting of Madison had Outpost Road, a scenic sight in the country outside of town. It's the focus of the radio episode "Outpost Road". Walter Denton and Harriot Conklin had been caught necking out on Outpost Road, but to avoid being identified after their narrow escape, they claimed to have loaned his jalopy to Miss Brooks and Mr Boynton. An interesting prospect for Connie, but she doesn’t want to be dragged into the mess. Connie only agrees to play along if Mr Boynton does. Amazingly, he does, and the two teachers plan to return to the scene of the crime for their own necking session.
** Due to ExecutiveMeddling, the fourth season of the television program was set in the Los Angeles area with little explanation. On a couple occasions, gym instructor Gene Talbot attempts to take Miss Brooks out to Mulholland Drive. Miss Brooks resists.
* MalevolentMugshot:
** Mr. Conklin has an extremely large portrait of himself over his living room fireplace, as first seen in the television premier "Trying to Pick A Fight". It's PlayedForLaughs, as it indicative of his pomposity and his self-regard. It's worth noting, although Mr. Conklin has a wife and teenage daughter, ''their'' portraits are nowhere to be seen.
** The episode "Old Marblehead" sees Mr. Conklin scheming to get a bust of his head to replace that of Julius Caesar's in the school library. He makes the students and teachers pay for it by levying arbitrary fines via his "Carelesslessness code."
** In "Friday the Thirteenth", Mr. Conklin posts a photo of himself on the school bulletin board. He is regaled complete in black suit, black hat and midnight-blue tie. His photograph is there to suggest to students and faculty the value of proper dress and deportment. Walter Denton nails a picture of Miss Brooks' body in a French bathing suit beneath Mr. Conklin's head.
** In "Mr. Conklin's Wax Effigies," Mr. Conklin makes a wax statue of himself. Miss Brooks believes it to Mr. Conklin himself.
** "Space, Who Needs It?" sees Mr. Conklin, again pranked by Walter Denton, firm in the belief he's discovered a new planet. Conklin names it "Conklin Junior."
** In "Fargo Whiskers", Mr. Conklin has a small portrait of himself upon his desk. State school-board official Mr. Fargo can't stand sitting there, looking at the photgraph. So, Fargo pushes the portrait face-down.
* MaliciousSlander: In "April Fools' Day", Miss Enright writes to a romance columnist using Miss Brooks' initials. She plans to use it to humiliate Miss Brooks in front of Mr. Conklin and his dinner guests.
* MaltShop: Marty's Malt Shop, found across the street from Madison High it's practically an institution amongst students and faculty alike.
* ManInAKilt: Mr. Conklin dresses as a Scotsman in "The Festival", complete with kilt. He's also carrying about bagpipes for good measure.
* ManipulativeEditing: In "Public Speakers Nightmare" and "The Tape Recorder", innocuous recordings are accidentally misplayed to produce Miss Brooks saying scandalous things about Mr. Conklin, and Mr. Conklin insulting Mr. Stone, Head of the Board of Education. These recordings, incidentally, are played in front of Mr. Stone . . . .
* MarriageOfConvenience:
** In "King and Brooks", a Indian maharajah proposes marriage to Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks refuses to marry for convenience, it's only a marriage for love that appeals to Connie. However, the fact that Miss Brooks would be the polygamous maharajah's ''fourth'' wife had something to do with her reluctance!
** Refused in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale, Miss Brooks refuses a heartfelt marriage proposal from Lawrence Nolan because she likes, but doesn't love him. Miss Brooks again refuses to marry for anything but love, although Nolan is very wealthy. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Miss Brooks married Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]]
* MarriedAnimals: In the episode "Minerva's Kittens", Mrs. Davis and Miss Brooks wait at the veterinary hospital for Minerva to give birth. They share this exchange:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please, Mrs. Davis, calm down. Even Timothy isn't as jumpy as you are. You're as nervous as a cat.
-->'''Timothy''': [[NearlyNormalAnimal ''Meow'']].
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': What is ''he'' doing here?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Why shouldn't he be here? He's Minerva's husband. It's very nice of him to take such an interest.
* MarriedInTheFuture:
** In "The Dream", not only does Mr. Boynton marry Miss Brooks, but teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin also get married. Mr. and Mrs. Conklin also have a son. Time flash-forwards many years, where it turns out that Mr. Boynton's and Miss Brooks' daughter is going steady with Mr. Conklin's son Osgood Junior.
** In TheMovie [[GrandFinale Series Finale]], Miss Brooks fantasizes about her future married life with Mr. Boynton.
* MarriedToTheJob:
** Mr. Conklin is devoted to his job at Madison High School. Although he doesn't really need the money, he acts as principal during the summer school months. In the radio episode "Carelessness Code", Mr. Conklin gives his reasons:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': It doesn't matter what time of year it is, Madison High is my baby!
** In the episode "The Hobby Show" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "The Work Horse"), Miss Brooks' friends fear she's overworking herself. They throw her a hobby afternoon. HilarityEnsues.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Lawrence Nolan is so focussed on running his newspaper that he neglects his son Gary, most nights leaving him to eat with the servants. Gary becomes moody and resentful, deliberately failing English and becoming disliked by his peers. Connie does a good job diagnoising the problem, and helping set father and son to right. [[spoiler: Lawrence is so taken with Connie he proposes marriage; Connie likes but does not love him, so she declines. Ultimately Connie marries longtime LoveInterest, shy biology teacher Phillip Boynton at film's end.]]
* MasqueradeBall: Not one, but two:
** In "The Festival", a masquerade festival is being held in a park near Madison High School.
** The masquerade in "Cinderella for a Day" is a swankier event, a dance held at the local country club.
* TheMatchmaker:
** In "Weekend At Crystal Lake", Mrs. Conklin tries to play matchmaker for Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: It backfires horribly.]]
** Many times throughout the series, teenager Walter Denton lends his "skills", usually with little positive effect. [[spoiler: "Trying to Pick A Fight" and "Life Can Be Bones" are just two of his more flatfooted attempts.]]
** It is, however, Mrs. Davis who eventually emerges as the champ. [[spoiler: Mrs. Davis' advice in "Tears for Mr. Boynton", nearly gets Miss Brooks a proposal of marriage. However, in the TheMovie GrandFinale, it is Mrs. Davis' matchmaking that finally gets Miss Brooks married to Mr. Boynton and achieving her HappilyEverAfter.]]
* MatteShot: Used often. A good example is the final scene of "The Big Jump", where the action takes place on the Madison High rooftop with a matte background in behind.
* MayDecemberRomance: Miss Brooks is the subject of two unwanted aged geriatric suitors. ** In "The Telegram", she's the object of affection for Mrs. Davis' nonegenarian Uncle Corky.
** Meanwhile, the younger, but still senior citizen, Mr. Barlow falls for Miss Brooks in "Puppy Love and Mr. Barlow".
* MayorPain:
** Mayor Rimson in "Student Government Day" is a mix of the evil and incompetent. Rimson is so corrupt, he's even getting a kickback from the gangsters running the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company". The company puts rigged slot machines in candy stores, getting children and teens to gamble away their money on machines that don't pay out. Rimson is reluctantly forced to turn on the crooks; he only does so because his campaign advisor "Honest John" tells him the situation is too hot. In a glaring example of incompetence, Rimson's police force had arrested the Mayor-for-a-day Harriet Conklin, the Police-Chief-for-a-day Walter Denton, and Miss Brooks for good measure.
** Averted in "Faculty Band" and "Public Property on Parade". Mayor Rimsom had been replaced by an honest, and, based on his appearance in "Public Property on Parade", a competent mayor.
* MauriceChevalierAccent: French teacher Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]. Likewise with any French character that appears on the show (or was heard in the radio version).
* TheMcCoy: Miss Brooks routinely made her life difficult bending to the rules to help students avoid trouble or otherwise help friends in need. Or, particularly in "The Birthday Bag" and "The Festival", she'd contribute more to charity than she could afford.
* MeanBoss: Mr. Conklin.
* MeasuringtheMarigolds: Mr. Boynton is prone to this behavior. In "The Magic Tree", when Miss Brooks points out mistletoe, Mr. Boynton takes it as a cue to begin a lecture on the characteristics of the plant.
* MedalsForEveryone: In "Mr. Whipple", the eponymous Mr. Whipple, a curmudgeonly millionaire, is impressed by the Madison High crew's kindness. Mr. Whipple drives them to a department store in his limousine, buys them new formal clothes, pays for a band for the school dance, and agrees to browbeat the school board into building a new Madison High School gymnasium.
* MeddlesomePatrolman
** In "Four Leaf Clover", Miss Brooks is plagued by a far less courteous cop. When she accidentally knocks over Mr. Morelli's barber pole, the policeman forces her to go to Morelli's house right away - making Miss Brooks (and Mr. Boynton, who she was supposed to drive to school) very late for school. To add insult to injury, no one is at home and Miss Brooks is required to return later in the day. Hours later, the policeman comes by Madison High and makes Miss Brooks settle with the man whose yard from whom she picked the four-leaf clover. It turns out Miss Brooks caused $50 worth of damage to very expesive golf sod. Finally, when Miss Brooks finally finds Mr. Morelli at home, the meddlesome policeman comes by and quarantines Miss Brooks (and Mr. Conklin, whose airplane tickets Miss Brooks had accidentally pocketed) at Mr. Morelli's house. It seems as if Morelli has the measles, and someone stole his quarantine sign!
* MenCantKeepHouse: Averted. Mr. Boynton's apartment is seen in "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton". All Miss Brooks has to criticize is the abundance of wildlife specimens and an abundance of doors.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Not bad. If you like wildlife . . . and doors.
* TheMentallyDisturbed: Mrs. Davis' reference to increasing "absentmindedness" (as well as that of her sister Angela's and brother Victor) isn't funny if you view it as the first signs of dementia. Most of the time Mrs. Davis' absentmindedness is plain forgetfulness. However, there are exceptions. Especially notable is "Phone Book Follies", where Mrs. Davis' is inadvertently and absentmindedly pocketing people's phone books when she visits.
* MessOnAPlate: Some of Mrs. Davis' CordonBleughChef dishes fall into this category.
* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Miss Brooks' [[CoolOldLady elderly landlady]], Mrs. Davis, is shorter than the other characters - including the teenagers. Mrs. Davis' sister, Angela, is also short.
* MirthlessLaughter: An overstressed Miss Brooks laughs nervously in "Hobby Show".
* MisplacedWildlife: In "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks reads a newspaper article about the lost burial ground of a Arapaho war party that used gold spears decorated with ''peaco*ck'' feathers. This raises the question where an Indian tribe would have obtained a supply of peaco*ck feathers in the 19th century United States.
* MissedHimByThatMuch: Miss Brooks keeps missing Mr. Boynton in "Mr. Boynton's Return". She finally catches him at the airport as he's about to leave town to visit his parents. Mr. Boynton decides to skip his flight, and spend the weekend in town so he can spend time with Miss Brooks.
* MissingMom: In The Movie Grand Finale, Gary Nolan's mother succumbed to Death by Childbirth, leaving his father Lawrence a widower. [[spoiler: Lawrence proposes to Connie Brooks, but Connie ultimately marries longtime Love Interest Mr. Boynton.]]
* MistakenAge:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Mr. Boynton's parents]] mistake a housecleaning Miss Brooks for old Mrs. Davis.
** In "Former Student Visits", Miss Brooks is desperate to appear young. She tries to hide the fact that she's already been teaching high school for several years. Unfortunately for her, the "former student" visiting had been in her very first class. He's since graduated from medical school and become a doctor!
* MistakenForDying: The episode "Have Bed - Will Travel" sees Mrs Davis' medical records mixed with an ill nonagenarian friend, making Miss Brooks believe her landlady is mortally ill.
* MistakenForFakeHair: In the episode "Mister Fargo Whiskers", Miss Brooks has reason to believe that [[TeachersPet Walter]] will be impersonating a state school board official by the name of Fargo. Especially when it turns out that Mr. Fargo's first name is Walter! When Miss Brooks meets Fargo, she insulting mimics his twang (thinking it's a fake accent of Walter Denton). Then she tries to pull of Mr. Fargo's titular whiskers. Miss Brooks makes a hasty retreat when Walter Denton walks into the room . . . asking for help putting on his fake beard!
* MistakenForServant: In "Marriage Madness", Mrs. Davis pretends to be Miss Brooks' maid. Mrs. Davis wants to test her fiancé to see if he wants to marry her for the Davis money. [[spoiler: The man's a con artist. He does only want to marry Mrs. Davis for her money.]]
* MistakenIdentity: Several times, naturally HilarityEnsues:
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Conklin, Harriet, Walter, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton confuse state board official Mr. Jones with Deacon Jones, the "Hillbilly Heifetz" and leader of a square dance troupe.
** In "Fargo Whiskers", Mr. Conklin believes school official Fargo is a disguised Walter Denton.
** In "Head of the State Board of Education", thanks to Stretch Snodgrass' bungling, Miss Brooks and company accuse the man with the eponymous title of being an unemployed park bench loafer.
* MistakenMessage: Figures prominently in "Bones, Son of Cyrano".
* MockMillionaire: Occasional episodes have Miss Brooks play this trope, either to impress a snooty dowager ("Madison Country Club"), protect Mrs. Davis' feelings ("The Return of Red Smith"), or even to derail Mrs. Davis' engagement to a confidence man ("Marriage Madness").
* ModestRoyalty: The titular king in "King and Brooks". He wears an ordinary suit. Subverted in Miss Brooks' dream, where ErmineCapeEffect applies.
* ModelingPoses: In "Acting Director", Miss Brooks makes several quick poses for the camera as a ''Creator/WarnerBros'' photographer takes snapshots.
* MonkeyMoralityPose: Two examples:
** In "The Loaded Custodian", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton mime the three wise monkeys when caught looking for hidden treasure in Mr. Barlow's office.
** In "Wild Goose", again Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton mime the three wise monkeys when asked by Mr. Conklin who had tricked him into thinking he had won a free television set.
* MorallyBankruptBanker: The titular Mr. Travers in "Mr. Travers' Three Acre Lot".
* MoralMyopia: In "Clay City English Teacher", Mr. Conklin views it as perfectly acceptable to use incentives to lure teachers away from other schools to Madison High. However, he is disgusted by any effort to lure his teachers away to other schools; in this case, a plan by his SitcomArchNemesis Jason Brille of Clay City High School to steal Miss Brooks.
* MotorMouth: Walter Denton sometimes talks rapidly when nervous, or when trying to polish the apple. In the episode "Cafeteria Strike", he motors through a student's petition:
--> '''Walter Denton:''' [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Whereas and to wit...]]\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[RedScare That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side.]]\\
'''Harriet Conklin:''' Listen, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Walter Denton:''' When in the course of student's events, it becomes necessary to turn one's back on one's stomach, we the undersigned, exercising our constitutional right to peaceably assemble, and to form a committee to seek the redress of grievances, do hereby announce our firm intention of the Madison High School Cafeteria only to use the tables, chairs, water, napkins and toothpicks provided therein. Until such a time that the duly appointed party or parties, namely Mr. Osgood Conklin, principal, or the Board of Education, responsible for the operational bog-down that has befallen this installation, do take such action that will improve the food, lower the prices and better the service in said cafeteria. It is also recommended the person, or persons, in whom this authority is vested, immediately see that the present chef in charge of preparing the food, and without any further frippery or fanfare, [[GoshDarnItToHeck chuck him the heck off the premises.]] Well Miss Brooks, what do you think of it?\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker How much do you want for the picture rights?]]
* MountainOfFood: Walter Denton gets a large breakfast at Mrs. Davis, whenever he arrives to take Miss Brooks to school. [[BigEater This is usually after he has eaten breakfast at home.]]
* TheMovie: In 1956. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* TheMunchausen: [[spoiler: Safari O'Toole, Mrs. Davis's friend in the episode of the same name, pretends to be a gentleman explorer. In spite of his tall tales, he's a likeable character who only mades up his stories so he could impress Mrs. Davis.]]
* MustHaveLotsOfFreeTime: Sixteen-year-old Walter Denton is almost always driving Miss Brooks to school, and often sees her during the day. This in spite of the fact that he is usually portrayed as relatively popular, and likewise has a steady girlfriend.
* MyBelovedSmother: Mr. Boynton hangs on his mother's every word:
** A few episodes suggest Mr. Boynton is still receiving money from home.
** In "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", Mr. Boynton gets into trouble for using Mr. Conklin's telephone to make the long distance call his mother told him to make.
** The radio episodes "Mr. Boynton's Parents" and "Former Student Visits", suggest Mrs. Boynton has very definite ideas as to the type of woman M. Boynton should marry . . . .
** In the series' [[TheMovie the cinematic]] GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton ends up buying a house to take care of his ailing mother. However, the elder Mrs. Boynton is ultimately a kind woman, and eventually conspires with Mrs. Davis to ensure Miss Brooks is able to marry her son and live HappilyEverAfter.
--> '''Mrs. Boynton''': Believe me, my dear, I wouldn't stand in the way of your happiness for all the world!
* MyCarHatesMe: Miss Brooks' car, when she has one. It's almost always in the shop. In fact, the number of episodes (on either radio and television) where she gets to drive her car can be counted on one hand; namely "Game At Clay City", "Who's Going Where", "Four Leaf Clover", "Brooks' New Car" and "Head of the State Board of Education".
* MyCard: The shyster lawyer in "Hospital Capers" gives his card to Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton.
* MyNaymeIs: In "Suzie Prentiss", Suzie spells her surnmame "Prentisss". A SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Stretch Is In Love".
* MysteryEpisode: At least three:
** "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective": Someone sneaks into Mr. Conklin's office one Friday afternoon, steals his typewriter and makes a long-distance call to Rockaway, Minnesota. [[spoiler: It's Mr. Boynton. But he left the money for the call, along with an explanation. He oiled the typewriter and put it away in Mr. Conklin's closet]]
** "Postage Due": Miss Brooks wants to return the ten cents postage due the friendly old neighborhood postman. When a postman delivers a letter with postage due, he's deducted the money from his salary. Unfortunately, the postman has retired and apparently disappeared. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are worried about his well-being and try to find him. [[spoiler: the postman is a crook about to board a ship to South America. Miss Brooks' honesty and concern actually prompted the US post office to investigate his whereabouts to help their former employee. To everybody's surprise, he's been embezzling cheques and cash placed in his trust]]
** "The Jewel Robbery": Miss Brooks mistakenly believes Mr. Boynton robbed a jewelry store [[spoiler: It's actually a dishwasher in the school cafeteria. The dishwasher was also stealing cafeteria funds]]
* TheNapoleon: Invoked in the first season radio episode "Easter Outfit". In a prime example of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, Walter Denton mentions that Principal Conklin's nickname amongst the students is "Napoleon", due to his pompousness, irascibility and bad temper. A few months later, that nickname was [[RetGone RetGoned]], the radio version of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code" [[SoundToScreenAdaptation (later remade for television)]] forever established Conklin's nickname amongst the students and faculty as being "Old Marblehead".
* NarratingTheObvious: Lampshaded by Miss Brooks in "School Mascot":
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, as they used to say before television, let's go in.
* {{Narrator}}: On the radio, a narrator introduces the show and gives a brief introduction. Often enough, the introduction passes to Miss Brooks who gives comments of her own on her role and reaction to the upcoming events. Sometimes, the narrator or Miss Brooks give another short narration after the message from the the sponsor.
* NearlyNormalAnimal : Type three, Almost Normal Animals.
** Mrs. Davis' cat Minera and Mr. Boynton's frog Mcdougall are, on occasion, much smarter than your average cat or frog.
** In the radio episode "The Frog" Miss Brooks receives a call from a tom cat meowing for Minerva.
** When Minerva has kittens ("Minerva's Kittens"), her "husband" Tim is with Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis in the vet's waiting room. Tim faints when he's told he's the father of six.
* NeedleworkIsForOldPeople: Mrs. Davis' hobby is knitting ("Hobby Show"). However, she is also adept at sewing and dressmaking ("Madison Country Club"). A few episodes reference the fact Mrs. Davis is a member of a sewing circle ("The Stolen Wardrobe" and "Mr. Casey's Will").
* {{Nepotism}}:
** In the episode "Cafeteria Strike", Mr. Conklin hires Mr. Turnbull, his unemployed brother-in-law, as the school chef. His cooking is so bad the students at Madison High School boycott the cafeteria.
** In the final television season, the vice principal of Mrs. Nestor's private elementary school is Oliver Munsee, brother to Winona and [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Ruth Nestor.]]
** In "New Gym Instructor", Miss Brooks is given the opportunity to choose the new gym instructor. Mr. Conklin tries to get Miss Brooks to choose his brother, Sam Conklin.
** In "Twins at School", Mr. Conklin tries to get Miss Brooks fired so he can hire his sister in her place.
* NeverForgottenSkill:
** "Mr. Whipple" sees Mrs. Davis fill in as a nurse for the titular miserly millionaire . . . in spite of having left the nursing profession many years before.
** Subverted in the episode "The First Aid Course", [[spoiler: where Miss Brooks pretends to have forgotten first aid in order to avoid teaching a night course. This backfires when romantic rival and fellow teacher Miss Enright ends up continuing the course - and Mr. Boynton signs up.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis beats up a hulking gym teacher when he [[DisproportionateRetribution criticizes the deviled eggs she prepared.]]
* NeverRecycleABuilding: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] the house across the street from Mrs. Davis' remains vacant and "For Sale" from the time Miss Brooks moves in. [[JustifiedTrope Explained in story]] by Mr. Webster, the realtor, as being due to the fact the owner is asking too much money. [[spoiler: From the start, Miss Brooks sees this as her future dream house where she will live in wedded bliss. At the end of the film, Mr. Boynton buys the house, and marries Miss Brooks.]]
* NeverWinTheLottery: Miss Brooks falls victim to this trope in "The $350,000 Question".
* NewJobEpisode: "Vitamin E-12" and "Le Chien Chaud Et Le Mouton Noir" see Miss Brooks get positions outside school.
* NewTransferStudent: The titular "New Girl in Town". Harriet Conklin is jealous because the new girl is after Walter Denton. Things don't become serious, until Miss Brooks finds out that the girl's mother has eyes for LoveInterest Mr. Boynton.
* NewYearSameClass: Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are always in Miss Brooks' English class and Mr. Boynton's Biology class. Subverted once in "Faculty Cheerleader", where Mr. Conklin places Walter, Harriet and Stretch in separate English classes to punish Walter Denton; however the status quo is restored by the end.
* NiceGuy:
** Miss Brooks is a nice girl example, who is always trying to help others (and marry Mr. Boynton). Mr. Boynton is also a nice guy, unfortunately for Miss Brooks, he's [[ObliviousToLove oblivious to love]].
** Harriet Conklin also counts as a nice girl example. Her father, scheming and domineering Mr. Conklin, is definitely not a nice guy. Walter Denton is likely too much of a prank player and troublemaker to qualify.
** Stretch Snodgrass (and [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother Bones]]) also qualify.
* NiceHat: Mr. Conklin's often seen wearing a fedora out of doors. Mr. Boynton and Mr. Stone also wear fedoras on occasion. Subverted in "Bargain Hats for Mother's Day", when Mrs. Davis produces homemade women's hats that Miss Brooks finds hard to sell.
* NiceKitty: Happens with "Peanuts, the Great Dane" in the episode of the same name.
* NightmareSequence: Miss Brooks suffers through nightmare sequences on at least three different occasions:
** In "Connie's New Job Offer," Miss Brooks dreams she leaves Madison and becomes the mayor of a city in New Jersey. However, the dreams ends with Councilman Conklin impeaching her for her tyrannical rule over the city.
** In "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton," Miss Brooks' efforts to forget about Mr. Boynton leads her to see his face on everyone: the American ambassador to India, a society matron, a fourteen-year-old boy, even a baby. Fortunately, it was just a dream.
** In "Friendship," Miss Brooks suffers a recurring dream where a man chases her with a knife.
* NobleProfession: Miss Brooks is a teacher, of course.
* NobodyHereButUsStatues: In "Hobbies", Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton masquerade as wax figures to hide from Board Superintendent Mr. Stone.
* NoIndoorVoice: Mr. Conklin
* NoirEpisode: "Postage Due" sees Miss Brooks search for a vanished postman wearing a trench coat and narrating the action with a PrivateEyeMonologue.
* NonFatalExplosions: In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin lights a match in a kitchen that has filled with natural gas. Mr. Conklin only ends up slightly blackened, although the roast turkey that had been sitting in the oven ends up mushed all over Mr. Conklin.
* NoSnackForYou: In "The Weighing Machine", the eponymous machine takes a penny from Miss Brooks but doesn't give her weight. Egged on by her friends, Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to get the penny returned on principle.
* NoSuchThingAsHR: For all intents and purposes, Miss Brooks only has two superiors.
** Mr. Conklin, the principal of Madison High School, is Connie Brooks' immediate superior. He can order Connie around at school; and even assign her to type his speeches or paperwork at night. The one power Mr. Conklin doesn't seem to have is the power to fire Miss Brooks.
** Mr. Conklin's superior, Mr. Stone, the Head of the Board of Education, ''does''. Stone also has a veto over all staffing decisions at the various schools; including the appointment of department heads. Stone is usually able to dismiss or retire principals and teachers at will, something he does with several over-the-hill principals in "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". However, in "Foreign Teachers" and TheMovie GrandFinale, Stone needs to get permission from the rest of the school board to actually dismiss a principal. [[spoiler: at the end of TheMovie, Miss Brooks' marries Mr. Boynton]]
* NosyNeighbor: A variation on the trope appears in the episode "The Party Line". Here, Miss Brooks (and landlady Mrs. Davis) are plagued by "Grace". Grace is a woman on their party line who ties up the line constantly talking to her best friend Bertha. However, she doesn't stop there. Grace and her husband consistently listen in on Miss Brooks' conversation. At the end of episode, Miss Brooks succeeds in having the party line changed, only to end up sharing a phone with ''Bertha'' who is always talking to Grace. The episode ends with Bertha interrupting Miss Brooks' conversation with Mr. Boynton, and trying to get his phone number!
* NotablyQuickDeliberation: In "Trial by Jury" (and its radio equivalent, "Reckless Driving"), Miss Brooks notes the jury made a quick decision, punishing her with "a rather stiff fine". Mr. Conklin, [[HollywoodLaw who was on the jury]], wanted to hurry out of court and go fishing.
* NotAfraidOfYouAnymore:
** In "Spare That Rod!", a temporarily humbled Mr. Conklin tries to curry favor with his students and faculty - after being tricked into thinking his job was hanging by a thread for being "flagrantly dictatorial". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass take advantage of this to present him with a petition. Mr. Conklin, again assured that his job is safe, shouts them out of his office.
** In "Marinated Hearing", Miss Brooks decides to tell off a temporarily deaf Mr. Conklin. Unfortunately for Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin had ''just'' recovered his hearing . . . .
* NotAMorningPerson: Miss Brooks sometimes finds it hard to get up in the morning.
* TheNounWhoVerbed: ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' had a few episodes named in this format. For example, on television there was "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective". On the radio, the episode "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton" followed this trope.
* ObliviousToHints: Mr. Boynton
* ObliviousToLove: Mr. Boynton
* ObstacleSkiCourse: In "Skis In The Classroom", Miss Brooks ends up skiing downhill without knowing how to ski. Miss Brooks ends her ski with a very ill advised maneuver; she skis toward a tree, grabs onto the branches and tumbles into the snow!
* ObstructiveBureaucrat:
** Miss Brooks runs into an obstructive clerk (played by Frank Nelson) in "Custodian of Students Funds". Mrs. Davis accidently uses school money to buy Miss Brooks a present from Sherry's Department Store. Miss Brooks tries to return the dress to Sherry's, a store that promises if the customer isn't satisfied their money will be [[BlatantLies "cheerfully refunded"]]. After being given the third degree on the reason for the return, Miss Brooks is turned down because the dress was sold on sale. The scene is ommitted in the SoundToScreenAdaptation "The Embezzled Dress"
** Another obstructive clerk from Sherry's appears on the television episode "Christmas Show". This time it Sherry's promises to [[BlatantLies "cheerfully exchange"]] goods. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin each face the ill-tempered Mrs. Carney as they try to exchange their presents before Christmas.
* OddballInTheSeries: The last season of the television series, the product of ExecutiveMeddling. Madison High School turns out to have been in Los Angeles. Not the City of Madison - as had been the case before. What's more, it's immediately being torn down for a new freeway. Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin start working at Mrs. Nestor's private school.
** These changes were [[CanonDiscontinuity completely ignored]] by the radio series. Our Miss Brooks ended with a [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] that followed the radio continuity and ignored the final TV season entirely.
* OdeToIntoxication: In "Old Clothes for Party" Miss Brooks is annoyed by a drunk who interrupts her call on the telephone party line. After finally managing to get rid of him, she sings a parody of "Comin' Through the Rye":
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' When a buddy meets a buddy, he's had too much rye!
* OfficeSports: In "Trial By Jury", Mr. Conklin practices his casting in his office.
* OfficialCouple: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton don't formally get together until TheMovie, but everyone sees it coming (even, eventually, Mr. Boynton). Teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin are boyfriend and girlfriend as well.
* OfficialKiss: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton finally get one in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* {{Oktoberfest}}: Discussed by Miss Brooks in "Hawkins Travel Agency", when trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to Switzerland:
-->'''Miss Brooks''' (''speaking in a German accent''): And then we go to the Bavarian Alps. Immediately you notice there is a big difference.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': A big difference?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Ja. There with the women and the song, you get beer. Achtung what beer! Two bottles and you ski down the whole mountain without your skis.
* OffscreenCrash: In "Brooks' New Car", Mr. Conklin buys a car and goes roaring into his driveway. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks had left a small wagon in the driveway. Miss Brooks and Mrs. Conklin wince as they hear a terrible crashing sound. Following the car crash, Mr. Conklin is himself crashed through the wall of his house, riding the hand wagon gripping the cars' steering wheel. According to Mr. Conklin, the rest of the car had ''flown'' over the garage.
* OldNewBorrowedAndBlue: Miss Brooks prepares for her role as proxy in "June Bride" as if she were really getting married.
* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Miss Brooks goes on a couple with Mr. Boynton:
** In the radio episode "An American Tragedy", the date is marred when Miss Brooks jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Boynton is going to try to kill her so he can date a rich society girl. Matters get worse when Mr. Conklin jumps to the same conclusion, and hides aboard. Things get even worse when the rowboat starts to sink . . . .
** The television episode "Blind Date" ends far more romantically. Their spat ended, Mr. Boynton invites Miss Brooks to spend the evening out on the lake as he serenades her with his ukulele. As Mr. Boynton gets his ukulele, Miss Brooks goes to the wishing well to make a wish. Instead of tossing in one coin, she decides to throw in every coin in her purse!
* OldTimeyBathingSuit: In "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks notices Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are wearing bathing suits beneath their regular clothes. They're quite evidently in the old timey style, given the fact Miss Brooks sees the suits sticking out of their collars.
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Mr. Boynton is supposed to be a biology teacher. However, he's also an expert in chemistry ("Living Statues") and paleontology ("Life Can Be Bones"). Besides that, he was once chosen to grade the final English exams ("Head of the English Department").
* OnePhoneCall: In "Bobbsey Twins In Stir", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are all locked up in gaol for [[ItMakesSenseInContext selling forged tickets to the policeman's ball]]. They pool their change, so they can use their one phone call to contact the head of the board of education, Mr. Stone (Mr. Stone lives in the country, thus it's a toll call). Lo and behold, before they're finished counting their change Mr. Stone is brought to gaol, having also been caught selling fraudulent tickets!
* OneSteveLimit: Scrupulously observed.
* OnionTears: In the episode "Tears for Mr. Boynton", Mrs. Davis advises Miss Brooks that she has to appear more vulnerable to attract Mr. Boynton. Mrs. Davis hides onions in Miss Brooks' purse.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Stretch (Fabian) Snodgrass, and his brother Bones (Winston).
* OnlySaneEmployee: Miss Brooks is oftentimes the only reliable person at Madison High School. Surprisingly often she is called upon to get Principal Osgood Conklin out of trouble or alternatively to stand up to his dictatorial edicts, i.e. "Blue Goldfish", "Public Property on Parade", "School on Saturday", "Wakeup Plan". Other times, she's just around to save the day for a student, i.e. "Stuffed Gopher" and "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass".
* OnlySaneMan: Miss Brooks often serves this role, as she is constantly dealing with the eccentricities of the people around her.
* OnTheMoney: Miss Brooks often finds herself short of cash, as in "Easter Outfit", "Fischer's Pawn Shop", "The Festival", and "School T.V. Set".
* OpeningNarration: On the radio, each episode began with a short narration by a male narrator. He would introduce Miss Brooks as an English teacher at Madison High School. Often, he would go on to provide more information relevant to the current episode. This, in turn, would prompt a wry remark or two by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks' narration led into the episode proper.
* OperationJealousy: Used by Connie a few times on [[ObliviousToLove Phillip Boynton]], to varying effect, i.e. "Hello Mr. Chips". [[spoiler: Proves highly potent in the [[TheMovie movie]], enough for Connie to [[SeriesGoal finally get her man]].]]
* OpposingSportsTeam: Madison High's rival Clay City High.
* OppositeDay: "Turnabout Day" at Madison High School, the brainchild of Walter Denton. Teachers were students and students were teachers, and Walter Denton was principal, regaled in a Osgood-Conklin style three-piece-suit. Miss Brooks wore a pair of tight jeans to school. [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] taught English while wearing a dress (and carrying a football). Mr. Conklin wore a three-propeller beanie and a Mickey Mouse shirt. Mr. Conklin had wanted nothing to do with the notion; but the head of the board of education, Mr. Stone, had "ordered" it. That is to say that Walter Denton forged Mr. Stone's signature on a letter to Mr. Conklin . . . .
* OrderVersusChaos: At Madison High School, there was order represented by Osgood Conklin, the DeanBitterman who ran the school in a orderly manner (in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks has a nightmare of Mr. Conklin telling her to "stay on the ball", "hold the line" and "run the school in an orderly manner"). He goes so far as to hang signs such as "Respect through Power" ("Spare That Rod!) and "No Goldbricking" (TheMovie GrandFinale) through the school. Opposed to Mr. Conklin was chaos in the form of HighSchoolHustler Walter Denton, who played pranks like making Conklin look like a drunk ("Cure That Habit"), blasting an ancient cannon ("Marinated Hearing"), and writing a fraudulent letter forcing Mr. Conklin to let the students act as teachers for the day ("Turnabout Day"). In between these two extremes was Miss Brooks, who disapproved of Mr. Conklin's strict and overbearing manner in running the school - once even calling Conklin the most "unprincipled principal in the country" ("The Novelist"). However, she indeed wanted to teach while shielding TeachersPet Walter Denton from the consequences of his more outrageous pranks. The conservative and shy Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest, was between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks' in outlook, although a NiceGuy without Conklin's faults.
* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin meet the bill, although Harriet's somewhat atypical in the fact her father is the high school ''principal''. Neither are the program's protagonist, that honor goes to English teacher [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Miss Brooks]].
* OriginStory:
** The first radio episode, appropriately titled "First Day", relates Mr. Conklin's arrival as newly appointed principal.
** In "Borrowing Money To Fly", it's Miss Brooks' arrival in Madison that's explained. Mr. Conklin has already long been comfortably ensconced as principal of Madison High School.
** The first ten minutes of [[TheMovie the cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] again relates Miss Brooks' initial arrival in Madison.
* OurFounder: Mr. Conklin keeps a bust of Yodar Kritch, the estemeed founder of Madison High School, upon a pedestal in his office. It stands prominently beside the door through the first season. Yodar Kritch, whenever he's mentioned at Madison High School, is refererred to in an almost reverential air.
* OutOfGenreExperience: "Postage Due" is a mystery, turning into a NoirEpisode by the end.
* OverallsAndGingham: In "Red River Valley", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter try to get jobs with Deacon Jones' hillbilly dance troupe. Miss Brooks dresses in Gingham, while Mr. Boynton dresses in overalls. Mr. Conklin and Walter don't follow the trope; Conklin wears a dirty shirt and suspenders while Walter wears a ragged hat and vest.
* OverlordJr: In "Babysitting New Years Eve", Miss Brooks babysits Mr. Conklin's bratty nephew, who's constantly yelling "I want a drink of water!". Averted with Mr. Conklin's daughter, Harriet, a series regular who is very much a friend of Miss Brooks'.
* OverlyLongName: One episode featured an attempt by Mr. Conklin to borrow Mrs. Davis's house trailer from Miss Brooks. He wanted to go fishing on an isolated lake, deep in the wilderness. The name of the lake, and the title of the episode? "[[InTheLocalTongue Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo]]." It's the local Indians' word for "[[TranslationYes blue]]."
* OverprotectiveDad: Mr. Conklin has this attitude toward his daughter Harriet, sometimes kicking off the plot of the week:
** In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mr. Conklin unaccountably thinks that Miss Brooks is a "modern day dubarry" and carrying on with Mr. Boynton. This leads to him ordering Miss Brooks to have a talk with Harriet and ultimately leading to Mr. Conklin and Harriet spying on Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks, and landlady Mrs. Davis from a hiding place in Mrs. Davis' living room.
** Again, in "Parlor Game", Mr. Conklin believes that Harriet is growing up "far too fast". He's disgusted with her relationship with Walter Denton. To fix this, he plans Harriet, Walter, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to spend a quiet evening at the Conklin house.
** In "Cat Burglars", Harriet is mortified that her father forces her to have a babysitter after a series of cat burglaries in town.
* OvertheShoulderCarry: When Mr. Boynton joins the "Volunteer Fire Laddies", Miss Brooks offers to help him practice his over-the-shoulder carry. They do this at the two-storey Conklin house with Walter Denton's help in setting-up the ladder. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, when he comes home Mr. Conklin jumps to the conclusion that Walter is eloping with his daughter Harriet.]]
* PairTheSmartOnes: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton.
* ParallelParking: In "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks "helps" Mr. Boynton parallel park his car. [[WomenDrivers She advises him to back up just a little more . . . resulting in him destroying Mr. Conklin's bumper.]]r
* ParanormalEpisode: "Music Box Revue" sees Miss Brooks purchase a magic music box that can only be heard by people in the proper Christmas spirit.
* ParasolOfPain: In "Plaque for Mr. Conklin", Mrs. Davis belts Mr. Conklin with a mahogany handled umbrella. She thinks Mr. Conklin has [[EasyAmnesia amnesia]]. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* ParkingProblems: While Miss Brooks has had trouble parking off and on through the series, "Trial by Jury" features a truly EpicFail. She leaves her car parked on a hill, another driver bumps her car forward. The parking brake is released, and her car rushes downhill and crashes into a fruit stand. Miss Brooks returns just in time to get the blame.
* ParlorGames: In "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a complicated parlor version of {{Calvinball}}, in order to push Mr. Conklin into taking his family out for the evening as a more palatable alternative.
* ParodyEpisode: The second-half of "Postage Due" is a parody of ''Series/{{Dragnet}}''.
* PassingNotesInClass: In "Bones, Son of Cyrano", Mr. Boynton confiscates a love poem Walter was writing for Harriet.
* PassiveAggressiveKombat: This descibes Miss Brooks' relationship to her SitcomArchNemesis Miss Enright. Whenever the two meet, prepare for a cavalcade of catty remarks. Miss Enright takes the matter further, often dropping a StealthInsult or two about Miss Brooks in front of her students.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Miss Enright's always saying nice things about you, Miss Brooks."
-->'''Miss Brooks''': She is? Miss Enright?
-->'''Walter Denton''': Yes, just the other day Miss Enright said you have the most natural blonde hair she's ever seen on a brunette.
* ThePatriarch: Mr. Conklin. In addition to being the dictatorial principal at Madison High School, he views himself as head of his family in the traditional sense. He is very pompous, having a large photo of himself above the fireplace. He is unmovable when he makes a decision, as his daughter Harriet well knows. He shouts out orders. In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud" (he orders the visiting Miss Brooks to answer the door). In the "Yodar Kritch Award", Walter Denton relates how Mr. Conklin couldn't find a sock and shouted orders at everyone in the house. However, Mr. Conklin's authority isn't absolute. Episodes like "The Embezzled Dress" and "Connie and Frankie" show that Mrs. Conklin can also put her foot down.
%%%* Robert Crawley, Lord of Grantham, in ''Series/DowntonAbbey''.
* PeacePipe: In the episode "Bartering with Chief Thundercloud", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin smoke a peace pipe with the eponymous chief.
* PerformanceAnxiety: "Public Speaker's Nightmare".
* PerplexingPlurals: How do you refer to two men with the same surname? In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", nervousness sees Miss Brooks momentarily confused as to the correct manner in referencing Mr. Boynton and his father:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Where's Mr. Boynton? Or should I say where are Mr. Boyntons . . . or Misters Boynton . . . where's everybody?
* PetBabyWildAnimal': Miss Brooks and the Madison High crowd adopt an injured swallow in "Capistrano's Revenge".
* ThePeteBest: Joe Forte played Mr. Conklin in the first few radio episodes of the series, before being replaced by the legendary Gale Gordon.
* PhoneyCall: Used in "Connie and Frankie". Mr. Conklin pretends to call his wife Martha over his disconnected office phone, to ''order'' her to let the (female) Frankie stay as their house guest. The scheme fails as Martha shows up to visit Mr. Conklin at school.
* PickyEater: In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque" this is part of the plot. Osgood Conklin hates Cdfish Balls. Yet, once a week Martha Conklin makes them for dinner. Mr. Conklin goes so far as to "accidentally" vaccuum the fishy dinner up, and get himself invited to the eponymous barbeque to avoid them.
* PicnicEpisode: "Our Miss Brooks" has three picnic episodes, each of them ending with picnic basket mishaps:
** The fourth season television episode "Burnt Picnic Basket" sees the picnic baskets thrown into the incinerator by mistake. ''And'' it rains!
** The radio episode "Head of the Board", has Miss Brooks and company take Mr. Boynton's car to their before-school-year picnic. Unfortunately, the picnic basket had been left in Miss Brooks' car!
** Finally, in "Winter Outing", Madison High School is set to enjoy the annual mid-winter picnic started by Madison High's esteemed founder, Yodar Kritch. Unfortunately, this time the food for the picnic is send to the laundry. Meanwhile, the faculty and students of Madison have a unappetizing lunch of dirty football uniforms.
* PictureDay: In the episode "Friday the 13th", a tasteless prank by Walter Denton, combined with Stretch Snodgrass's bungling, result in yearbook proofs being printed with Miss Brooks' head atop Mr. Conklin's body.
* PieInTheFace: Mr. Conklin finds himself the victim of this trope a couple times.
* PimpedOutCar: Walter Denton's jalopy. Although usually a wreck, sometimes he amps up the engine, other times he simply adds seat covers.
* PinkElephants: Referenced in "Cure That Habit", when Mr. Stone wrongly suspects Mr. Conklin of being drunk and having hallucinations.
* PinkIsFeminine: In the penultimate episode of the television series, "Principal for a Day", Miss Brooks is principal for a day of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School. Miss Brooks' decides to make the school more attractive to mothers visiting the school and thinking of enrolling their children; she decorates the school with a lot of chintz. Including the animal cages of the science room. She goes so far as to paint Vice Principal Mr. Munsee's desk and office a "shocking pink".
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: We almost never see (or in the radio version, hear) Miss Brooks actually teaching English, although [[InformedAttribute she's said to be quite good at it]]. The rare glimpses seen of Miss Brooks ''actually'' teaching are usually played for laughs, such as her tutoring of Stretch Snodgrass in "The Yodar Kritch Award". The same goes for Mr. Boynton, whose canonical biology lectures consist of one about the skeletal structure of frogs in "Mr. Conklin's Wake Up Plan".
* PlankGag: In "Going Skiing", Miss Brooks knocks off a pair of Mr. Conklin's glasses with one of her skis.
* PlatonicValentine At play in Valentine's Day episodes such as "The Frog" and "Valentine's Day Date". Miss Brooks gets platonic valentines from students like Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass. She also receives valentines from various tradespeople, including an advertisem*nt from a scissors-sharpener. In "Valentine's Day Date" she does receive the one valentine she wants . . . from Mr. Boynton, albeit not as romantic as she hoped.
* PlayingCyrano: ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'' is behind much of the [[HilarityEnsues mayhem]] in the radio episode "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation its television remake]] "Bones, Son of Cyrano". Mr. Boynton provides Walter Denton with a poem from Cyrano to gives to Harriet Conklin. Harriet thinks that Mr. Boynton intended the letter for her. Harriet puts the letter in an old enevelope and hands it back to Mr. Boynton. Mr. Boynton hands it to Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks gives Stretch Snodgrass ([[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones in the remake]]) the poem as something with which to woo Harriet. Through yet another mixup, Stretch delivers the love poem to Principal Osgood Conklin instead of Miss Brooks' requisition for flowerpots.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': (reading) "Your name hangs in my heart like a bell's tongue." Now ''really!''
* PlayingSick:
** In "Babysitting for Three", an early radio episode, Miss Brooks phones Mr. Conklin to say she won't be in today as she's sick. In reality, she was roped into babysitting for three children while their mother is in the hospital.
** In "Blue Goldfish", Walter Denton and Miss Brooks play sick in order to convince Mr. Conklin to raise the temperature in the school. They are convinced that if Mr. Conklin thinks he's causing an epidemic, he'll spend more money on coal for the furnace. A SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Not Enough Coal At Madison High".
** In "Trial by Jury", Miss Brooks has to appear in traffic court and does not want Mr. Conklin to hear about it. She decides to play sick. Unfortunately, Walter Denton, Bones Snodgrass and Mr. Boynton each try to help. They each play sick and ask for Mr. Conklin to have Miss Brooks escort them home. Mr. Conklin is less than convinced; the four of had come to his office feigning illness at almost the exact same time. A SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode "Traffic Court".
* PlotCoupon:
** In the episode "Phonebook Follies", Miss Brooks must find Mrs. Davis' copy of last year's phonebook. Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis are ineligible to receive a new phonebook otherwise.
** In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", Miss Brooks needs to get Mrs. Davis' old lamp in order to barter for a new coat.
* PlotImmunity: Plot immunity guarantees Miss Brooks' position at Madison High School. Even [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], where Miss Brooks resolves to leave in a moment of despair, WithThisRing intervenes.
* PointyHairedBoss: Mr. Conklin, the Principal of Madison High School, is a competent administrator, albeit in the RepressiveButEfficient mold. He is also very pompous, for example being known to answer his phone "Principal's Office, Osgood Conklin himself speaking!". He also likes to take credit for his teacher's good ideas ("Public Property on Parade"), force them to type his reports ("Aunt Mattie Boynton"), and of course blame his teachers when something goes wrong ("The Dancer"). He also abuses his position for petty gains; in "Carelessness Code" he fines students and uses the money to place a bust of himself in the library in place of the bust of Julius Caesar. In "Home Cooked Meal" he simply breaks school rules to secretly store his family's meat in the cafeteria freezer. Still, on occasion he shows himself to have a HiddenHeartOfGold. In "Hobby Show", for example, his hobby is shown to be fixing broken toys to donate to underpriviledged children. Therefore, other than a outright villian, he's more of a {{Frenemy}} to Miss Brooks.
* PoliceLineup: In "Reunion," Miss Brooks imagines Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee and Mr. Talbot in a police lineup.
* PowderKegCrowd: In "School on Saturday", Madison High's students are in an angry protesting mob outside the school. They're angry because, you guessed it, they're being forced to go to school on Saturday. They even have plans to burn Mr. Conklin in effigy. Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks outside to make a speech to calm them down.
* PracticalEffects: Seen in several episodes, including:
** "Life Can Be Bones": A prop-cat subs for Minerva when she jumps over the fence after tasting Mrs. Davis's spicy soup.
** "Public Property on Parade" Similar to the preceding example, prop-birds flee Mrs. Davis' Limburger omelette.
** "Here is Your Past": The effects from Mr. Conklin's big sneezes.
** "Brooks' New Car": Mr. Conklin going through the wall when he drives his car atop a wagon left in the driveway.
** "Do It Yourself": The garage Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton built falls apart.
** "Pet Shop": The rainstorm.
* PrankCall: The events of "Wild Goose" are set off when Walter Denton makes a prank call, disguising his voice in so doing. Denton tells Mr. Conklin he's won a television set from Sherry's Department Store. HilarityEnsues.
* ThePrankster: Walter Denton. [[CoolOldLady Occasionally, Mrs. Davis as well.]]
* ThePratfall: Mr. Conklin is the occasion victim of pratfalls. He's an easy target given his pompous nature:
** In "Connie and Bonnie", Mr. Conklin has multiple tumbles in the hallway trying to rush from his office to the Vice Principal's office next door.
** In the episode "School on Saturday", Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass loosen the doorknob to Mr. Conklin's office so when he next pulled the knob he's fall to the floor.
* ThePreciousPreciousCar: Mr. Conklin is very protective of his vehicle in "Brooks' New Car" and "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton".
* PreciousPuppy: Miss Brooks finds an abandoned puppy in "Here is Your Past".
* PrehistoricMonster: In "Madison Mascot", a torn note has Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton mistakenly believe that the new name for the Madison High football team will be the "Madison Mammoths".
-->'''Walter Denton''': What do you think of the new setup Mrs. Davis? The Madison Mammoths! That's what the team will be called of course.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The Madison Mammoths?
-->'''Walter Denton''': Sure. Because of the elephant mascot. You remember those prehistoric hairy old elephants, don't you Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Not personally.]]
* PrepositionsAreNotToEndSentencesWith: Miss Brooks more than once corrects herself after ending a sentence with a preposition. Or others. One example is found in the episode "Heat Wave", when Stretch Snodgrass pretended to faint on a hot day. Miss Brooks unbuttons his collar, which had concealed the OldTimeyBathingSuit. The students were trying to trick Miss Brooks into releasing class so they can go to the swimming hole at Phillip's Farm.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': Nice to hear from you Stretch. Let me open your shirt collar.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': No, don't open it.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': I don't know why you button it on a day like today anyhow.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Oh, please Miss Brooks, don't open my shirt.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': You just be quiet. There. No wonder you didn't want your shirt opened. Embroidered undies. [[SarcasmMode And what a lovely sentiment on your undershirt.]] "Crystal Beach Bath House. If not returned by 6 pm, another day will be charged for. Charged for? Oh Stretch, this is awful.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': What is, Miss Brooks?
--->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Ending a bathing suit with a preposition.]]
* PreppyName: Osgood Conklin isn't rich, but he is as pompous as his first name would suggest.
* PresentPeeking: In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin leaves his Mother's Day present with Miss Brooks, as his wife and daughter are inveterate snoopers. When Mr. Boynton's parents stay with Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Boynton finds the present in her room. Mrs. Boynton's a present peeker as well, she can't wait for Mother's Day, so she opens it.
--> '''Mrs. Boynton''': A black sheer negligee!
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': Well Happy Mother's Day!
* PrivateEyeMonologue: "Postage Due" sees Miss Brooks search for a vanished postman wearing a trench coat while narrating the action in [[NoirEpisode film noir style]].
* PrivateTutor:
** Miss Brooks tutors Stretch Snodgrass to keep him eligible for athletics . . . not to mention, to keep him from flunking outright.
** The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] sees Miss Brooks tutor Gary Nolan, who's struggling in English.
* TheProfessor: Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest and Madison's Biology teacher. His knowledge of his subject is prodigious, but his favorite topic of study ''has'' to be frogs.
* ProjectileToast: Mrs. Davis' toaster was a repeat offender.
* ProperLady: Mrs. Conklin. She's the kindly, intelligent and dignified wife of bombastic Mr. Conklin.
* ProtagonistTitle
* ProudBeauty: Women like this appear once in awhile, and are always at least a nuisance to Miss Brooks or Harriet Conklin:
** In "The Model Teacher", an obnoxious but attractive reporter competes with Miss Brooks for Mr. Boynton's affections.
** "New Girl" sees the titular new girl go after Harriet's boyfriend Walter Denton. The girl's mother has eyes for Mr. Boynton.
** "The Dancer" sees a burlesque dancer audition for a job at a bachelor party being arranged by Mr. Conklin. The usually shy Mr. Boynton is very interested in seeing her do her work.
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], the ''Madison Express's'' new lonely hearts columnist walks this way whenever she goes through the newsroom. But fortunately, this proud beauty stays out of the way of Miss Brooks.
* PulledFromYourDayOff:
** In "School on Saturday", Mr. Conklin pulls ''everybody'' from their day off.
** "Head of the Board": Mr. Conklin again plots to do the same.
** In "Who's Going Where", it's just Miss Brooks whom Mr. Conklin intends to send to work on her vacation.
** In "Trouble Paying Taxi Fare", Mr. Conklin gets a taste of his own medicine at the hands of school board superintendent Mr. Stone.
* PungeonMaster: Mr. Jensen, the custodian on several radio episodes. He insists on taking things literally and out-of-context. When Miss Brooks asks about his new son, she asks "How is the little dear?" Mr. Jensen replies they didn't have a "deer." One exchange with Miss Brooks ends with Miss Brooks ''thinking'' she finally has him in his own trap.
--> '''Mr. Jensen''': While I'll be running off.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Now I've got you Mr. Jensen. You won't really be running off!"
--> '''Mr. Jensen''': Oh, yes I will. (is heard running away)
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.]]
* PurpleProse: As befits his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, Walter Denton often packs his newspaper editorials and other compositions with purple prose.
* PutOnABus: Mr. Boynton, Walter, Harriet, and Stretch in the fourth season when the high school was torn down and the setting moved to a private elementary school.
** Mr. Allbright, who was intended to be the new love interest, left after only a few episodes and was replaced by SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Gene Talbot as the athletic director.
** Finally, Talbot himself, who was on long enough to actually date Miss Brooks, was written off when TheBusCameBack with Mr. Boynton returning and looking for work at the elementary school.
* QuestioningTitle: The episode "Space, Who Needs It?"
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: A quintessential British public school principal visits in the episode "Hello Mr. Chips." Miss Brooks uses him to make [[OperationJealousy Mr. Boynton jealous]].
* QuirkyUkulele: In "Blind Date" one of the items Miss Brooks returns to Mr. Boynton is his ukulele, that he serenades her with on her back porch. Ukulele playing is featured by Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin in a few episodes of the series, notably "Special Party", "Hawkins Travel Agency" and "School Band". In TheMovie GrandFinale, Walter Denton enjoys a brief ukuele solo accompanied by his "singing". Walter sings "It's Magic" to his girlfriend Harriet Conklin on the family's front porch; his breaking voice and off-key notes gets Mr. Conklin to stick his head through the window and threaten to throw Walter down the porch steps!
* QuotingMyself: Walter Denton uses fake quotes from time to time.
-->'''Walter Denton:''' It's as the saying goes, "When love enters the heart, appetite flees the stomach."\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' Who said that?\\
'''Walter Denton:''' I don't know. I guess it's anonymous.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker It deserves to be.]]
* RadioContest: In "Wild Goose", Walter Denton, pretending to be a radio quiz host, tricks Mr. Conklin into believing he's won a television set from Sherry's Department Store.
* RadioDrama: Our Miss Brooks ran on CBS Radio starting in 1948. It was joined by a television adaptation in 1952. The series [[GrandFinale concluded]] with a [[TheMovie feature film]] in 1956.
* RageBreakingPoint: Mr. Conklin lives this trope, flying off into fits of rage that makes him purple in the face.
* RambunctiousItalian: Mr. Morelli, a OneSceneWonder appearing at the end of "Four Leaf Clover". Miss Brooks ends up going to his house to pay for the barber pole she accidentally broke; Mr. Conklin goes after Miss Brooks to get the airplane ticket she accidentally pocketed. The very animated Mr. Morelli literally tries to shoo them both away.
* RapidFireTyping: A time-pressed Miss Brooks is at it in "Public Property on Parade".
* ReactionShot: Many throughout the television series. Perhaps the most notable ones, however, occur in the[[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. We see Miss Brooks reaction to the wackiness of the characters around her, especially in the first fifteen minutes as we see her arrival in Madison retold in cinematic form.
* ReadingIsCoolAesop: As an English teacher, Miss Brooks is normally all in favour of reading. However, the trope is subverted in "Bones, Son of Cyrano", where Mr. Boynton breaks a date with Miss Brooks to read the rest of ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Miss Brooks had advised Mr. Boynton to read it in the first place in the hope it would make him less ObliviousToLove!
* ReadingTeaLeaves: Mrs. Davis considers tea leaves to be an effective method of telling the future. In [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves"]], Mrs. Davis predicts that Mr. Boynton propose to Miss Brooks. The pair would settle down at honeymoon cottage, and the two would be surrounded by children. Unfortunately, Mrs. Davis misinterprets the tea leaves. Mr. Boynton isn't proposing marriage, but proposing starting a summer camp with Miss Brooks and boarding anywhere from five to fifty kids!
* ReadTheFinePrint: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to [[ReadTheFinePrint read the contract's fine print]].
* ReallyRoyaltyReveal: One of Miss Brooks' students in "King and Brooks".
* RealMenTakeItBlack: Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks ''both'' take their coffee black in "Space, Who Needs It?"
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
** In "Board of Education Day" [[SoundToScreenAdaptation , a radio episode remade for television as "Marinated Hearing"]], Miss Brooks tells-off a temporarily-deaf Mr. Conklin.
** In "Spare That Rod!", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snograss produce a paper documenting Mr. Conklin's "various infamies".
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, with a ContinuityNod to "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Stone tells Mr. Conklin he would fire him if he could. Mr. Stone considers Mr. Conklin's severe manner of running Madision High School to be "tantamout to malfeasance".
-->'''Mr. Stone''': It's zero hour, Osgood!
* RecurringDreams: In "Friendship", Miss Brooks suffers from a recurring dream where she's being chased by a man with a knife. [[spoiler: It turns out a broken bedspring poking through her mattress is the cause of her nightmares.]]
* RedScare: A few times it was PlayedForLaughs by DeadpanSnarker Miss Brooks.
** In "Walter's Radio", after Mr. Boynton makes a non-committal statement about the weather, Miss Brooks snarks:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': There's a statement you won't be investigated for."
** In "The Cafeteria Strike", Walter Denton starts a student petition against the terrible food in the school cafeteria:
-->'''Walter Denton''' (reading the petition): Whereas and to wit . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side . . . .
* RefugeInAudacity: In the episode "Bobbsey Twins In Stir", a con-artist tricks Mrs. Davis into selling phony tickets to the ''policeman's ball''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone are all unwitting drawn into the scheme, and all end up in gaol as a result.]]
* RegalRuff: Walter Denton and Mr. Boynton have each worn ruffs when dressed in costume:
** Walter wears a ruff when dressed as Romeo in "The Festival".
** Mr. Boynton's Prince Charming costume in "Oh Dem Gold Shoes" features a regal ruff.
* RelativelyFlimsyExcuse: In "Connie and Bonnie", Miss Brooks impersonates her non-existent twin sister so as to earn extra money moonlighting as a waitress.
* RememberedTooLate: In "Wishing Well Dance", Miss Brooks get in trouble with Mr. Conklin after [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] gives her a message to see him ''immediately''. The problem? Stretch Snodgrass forgot about the message, only remembering to give her the message hours later.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Bones Snodgrass is introduced in the episode "The Yodar Kritch Award". He was never before seen or mentioned, in spite of being the [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute brother]] of recurring character Stretch Snodgrass.
* RemovableSteeringWheel: In "The Oakhurst Music Festival", while giving driving lessons to [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]], Miss Brooks asks him to give her the wheel. Snodgrass [[LiteralMinded literally]] gives Miss Brooks the steering wheel.
* RemovingTheRival: On several occasions, Miss Enright schemes to put Miss Brooks out of the running for Mr. Boynton's affections:
** In "First Aid Course", Miss Enright threatens to move away to nurse her sick sister . . . in order to convince Mr. Conklin to tie up Miss Brooks during the evenings teaching the eponymous course.
** In "Four Fiances" Miss Enright corresponds with four men, and proposes marriage to each of them . . . in Miss Brooks' name.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque", Miss Enright transfers a sick student to Miss Brooks' class so Miss Brooks would catch a cold. That left Miss Enright a clear field with Mr. Boynton.
** In "Teacher's Convention", Miss Enight relays a message to Walter Denton that Mr. Boynton was "laid up" and wouldn't be attending the convention with Miss Brooks. Walter tells Miss Brooks, leading her to cancel. Mr. Boynton wasn't the least bit sick.
* RenaissanceMan:
** Mr. Boynton. He teaches Biology, but also was a Chemistry teacher in the past. In one episode, he almost receives a job as a College Professor ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton"). In another episode, Mr. Conklin has Mr. Boynton mark the school's English tests ("Head of the English Department"). He also acts as Mr. Conklin's typist on occasion ("Who's Going Where?). On top of all that, Mr. Boynton has, in various episodes, coached the school basketball, football, and baseball teams.
** Miss Brooks is also an example, in addition to teaching English, teaching French and Spanish as well on one occasion ("Saving the School Newspaper"). Miss Brooks is also a great typist, and once worked as a secretary ("Connie's New Job Offer"). "First Aid Course" suggests Miss Brooks is also a trained nurse. Miss Brooks has also taught civics ("Student Government Day") and physical education, even receiving an offer to play on a women's baseball team ("Baseball Slide").
* RepressiveButEfficient: Miss Brooks is justified in calling Mr. Conklin "dictator" of Madison High School. However, the school seems to operate well nonetheless.
* ResistanceIsFutile: Mr. Conklin once uses a variation, when Miss Brooks tries to avoid having him assign some unpaid overtime work.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The GrandFinale appeared on neither radio nor television, but instead took the form of a [[TheMovie feature film]].
* {{Retool}}: In the fourth season of the TV series, Madison High was razed to make room for a freeway, Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin went to work for a private school, Walter and Harriet disappeared from the show along with Mr. Boynton (although the latter would [[TheBusCameBack eventually return]]), and Miss Brooks was given a new love interest in phys ed instructor Gene Talbot (Creator/GeneBarry).
** CanonDiscontinuity was the result. The radio program continued at Madison High as per usual. TheMovie also ignored the fourth season of the TV series.
* ReverseWhodunnit: The episode "Jewel Robbery" see a criminal break into a jewelry store and flee when the alarm sounds. Miss Brooks, standing around the corner, sees Mr. Boynton look into the broken window. The episode then follows Miss Brooks as she suspects Mr. Boynton, and then catches the actual villain.
* RevolvingDoorCasting: The radio series and the first three seasons of the television series largely shared the same cast and characters(the major exception being Jeff Chandler's replacement by Robert Rockwell in the role of Mr. Boynton). The same applies to TheMovie GrandFinale. The final television season, however, saw several casting changes through its run:
** "Transition Show" sees high school students Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Mr. Boynton PutOnABus. This also marks the end of appearances by recurring characters Miss Enright and Stretch Snodgrass. Enter Mrs. (Winona) Nestor, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Albright.
** ''Who's Who" sees Miss Brooks take leave of longtime landlady Mrs. Davis to be a tenant of her sister Angela. Elementary school student Benny Romero becomes a RecurringCharacter.
** "Big Ears": Mrs. Ruth Nestor replaces her sister, last appearance by Mr. Albright.
** "Have Bed, Will Travel" Mrs. Davis moves in with her sister (and Miss Brooks) and begins to share landlady duties with Angela.
** In "Gym Instructor", Mr. Talbot is appointed to the faculty as the new phys-ed teacher.
** "Land Purchase" Exit Angela, who sells her sister her house. Angela has built a motel and leaves to run her new business (never mentioned before).
** "Library Quiz" sees Mr. Talbot's last appearance.
** Finally, in "Connie and Frankie", TheBusCameBack and LoveInterest Mr. Boynton returns to teach at Mrs. Nestor's Elementary School for the final seven episodes.
* {{Rewrite}}: There are two versions of Miss Brooks' arrival in Madison. The first episode ("First Day") and the later episode "Spare That Rod!" have Miss Brooks already teaching at Madison when Mr. Conklin is appointed principal. However, "Borrow Money To Fly", features a major rewrite. Miss Brooks arrives to teach at Madison High School, and is greeted by longtime principal Mr. Conklin. The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] follows the new continuity, albeit having Miss Brooks meet Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton in a slightly different manner.
* RhymingWithItself: The radio episodes "Clay City English Teacher" and "Mr. Laythrop returns to School" feature the Madison anthem, "O Madison". The offical version rhymes "Madison" with "Madison". Miss Brooks makes the song longer in "Clay City English Teacher by adding the paranthetical lyrics in parody:
-->O '''Madison!'''\\
Thou '''Madison!'''\\
(As old as Thomas Addison!)\\
O hallowed halls!\\
(O basketballs!)\\
How short the day!\\
(how short the pay!)\\
When we gray hair at '''Madison!'''\\
We'll still be there at '''Madison!'''\\
(Hello, Clay City!)
* RichSuitorPoorSuitor: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale to the series, wealthy Lawrence Nolan proposes to Miss Brooks. Although Miss Brooks likes Nolan as a friend, and he's overall a good person, she can't see herself in love with him. Miss Brooks prefers longtime LoveInterest, shy biology teacher Phillip Boynton. At the end of the film, they finally marry and live HappilyEverAfter.
* RightBehindMe: In the "Yodar Kritch Award", Walter Denton comes into Mrs. Davis' house complaining about Mr. Conklin, oblivious to the fact Mr. Conklin is seated at the dining room table.
* TheRival: Miss Brooks has Miss Enright, her rival for [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton's]] affections and the position of head of the English Department.
* RoadTripPlot: "Game at Clay City".
* RousingSpeech: Several, played for laughs, in "School on Saturday". Miss Brooks persuades the angry students to go to school, or to go home, as Mr. Conklin repeatedly changes his mind.
* RoyalBlood: In "King and Brooks," Miss Brooks discovers one of her students in an Indian prince. The boy's father, the maharajah, proposes marriage to Miss Brooks.
* RoyalHarem: In the episode "King and Brooks", the king mentions having a harem.
* RunningGag: Many, including Mr. Conklin's [[SneezeOfDoom huge sneezes]] and the 'glug' greeting of Boynton's pet frog [=McDougal=]. Miss Brooks' car was always in the shop (see WomenDrivers for the reason of the week).
* RussianRoulette: At the crisis point of TheMovie GrandFinale, a depressed Miss Brooks jokingly suggests to Mrs. Davis that they play Russian Roulette when she returns home from school. [[spoiler: Fortunately, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother repair the misunderstanding that caused Mr. Boynton to invite his mother to live with him, and Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* SabotageToDiscredit: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks sabotages what she believes is Mr. Conklins attempt to mock the teachers' relative poverty in front of a snobbish rich women. [[spoiler: It really was an attempt to play poor and convince a GrandDame to fund a renovation of his office.]]
* SafetyInIndifference: In the episode "Trying to Forget Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin tries be indifferent and forget about love interest Mr. Boynton]].
* {{Sampling}}: At least four examples:
** "April Fools": "As Time Goes By", from ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', plays as Miss Brooks stalls for time.
** "Wild Goose": "I Must Go Where The Wild Goose Goes" plays as Miss Brooks is sent on the wild goose chase Walter Denton had intended for Mr. Conklin.
** "Weekend at Crystal Lake": A stanza of the "Anniversary Song" plays after Miss Brook parodies it.
** "Friendship": The song "Friendship" is played as an ironic chorus whenever Miss Brooks loses a friend.
* SarcasmBlind: Miss Brooks' [[DeadpanSnarker snark]] occasionally backfires when she aims it as Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton or Stretch and Bones Snodgrass. Mr. Boynton's so ObliviousToLove that sarcasm has a habit of sliding right off him. Walter Denton occasionally mistakes the sarcastic for the serious. As for the Snodgrasses, it's unlikely [[DumbJock they even know what sarcasm is]].
* SavageSouth: In "Safari O'Toole", the eponymous adventurer spends much of his time here. [[spoiler: He's a fake, but a nice one, who's only trying to impress Mrs. Davis.]]
* SayingTooMuch:
** In "The Model Teacher", Miss Brooks is desperate to avoid having glamorous but ImmoralJournalist Stephanie Forester learn about [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]]. When Mrs. Davis mentions Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks goes so far as to claim that Boynton is the school mascot, a schnauser. Unfortunately, Walter Denton arrives to drive Miss Brooks to school and ends up describing Boynton for Miss Forester. Miss Forester almost immediately decides to romantically pursue Boynton.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Judy Brille, the daughter of Clay City High School principal Jason Brille, was assigned by her father to keep [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] busy on dates long into the evening. As a result, he's so tired he's useless playing football; once he even ran the wrong way. Madison High looks to have an embarassing defeat to its principal rival. And nobody at Madison knows what's going on. Stretch is sworn to secrecy by his double-agent girlfriend. So, Miss Brooks, assigned to discover what's going on, interrogates Stretch.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Who is this new girlfriend, Stretch?
-->'''Stretch''': Oh, no you don't!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': No I don't what?
-->'''Stretch''': You don't get Judy's name out of me! ''(audience laughs)'' I promised to keep it a secret.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, that's your privilege. [[BlatantLies If you don't want me to know Judy's name, I'm not going to know Judy's name. That's all there is to that.]] Judy ''what''?
-->'''Stretch''': Gosh, I didn't even want that part of her name to get out. It just slipped. Look, Miss Brooks. You wouldn't want me to break a promise, would you?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Fervently. Listen, Stretch. Even if you enjoy all this "rumbering", don't your girl's parents object to these late hours every night?
-->'''Stretch''': Oh, I'm sure they don't.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': How can you be so sure?
-->'''Stretch''': Her old man gives me the money to take her out.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': What!
-->'''Stretch''': Sure! He's not like our principal. Mr. Brille's a good sport.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Stretch, you're telling me you're taking out Judy Brille?
-->'''Stretch''': [[WhatAnIdiot How did you know?]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker A little birdbrain told me.]]
* TheScapegoat: Mr. Conklin is constantly scapegoating Miss Brooks for one thing or another. Fortunately, Miss Brooks is always able to escape the consequences by episode's end.
* SceneOfWonder: In "Le chien chaud et le mouton noir" Miss Brooks is dismayed when she enters the "Salon de Chien Chaud". She had taken an evening position as a receptionist to augment her income, only to find out it was really a job as working as a waitress at a rundown roadside diner. Miss Brooks looks about the "Salon de Chien Chaud" with dismay.
* SchoolFestival: "The Festival". It's a [[MasqueradeBall costume]] festival held in the park across from the school.
* SchoolNewspaperNewshound:
** Walter Denton is editor of the school paper, the "Madison Monitor". From time to time he gets himself into trouble by writing editorials critical of Mr. Conklin or Madison High School in general, i.e. "Cafeteria Strike" and "Threat to Abolish the School Paper". "Marinated Hearing" revolves around Miss Brooks' attempt to keep Walter Denton from publishing an editorial insulting the Board of Education in revenge for only giving students 2 1/2 instead of 3 weeks of Christmas Vacation.
** Walter also plays the gossip columnist in a couple episodes, with a column entitled "Campus Dirt: Shoveled by Walter Denton". This is to Miss Brooks' dismay, as he uses the column to blab about her being disappointed that Mr. Boynton is away at a Biologist's Convention.
** Like any good high school reporter, he also on the prowl for news. We see him at it in the episode "Kritch Cave".
* SchoolOfHardKnocks: In "The Grudge Match", Walter Denton challenges star athlete Stretch Snodgrass to a fight when he discovers that Harriet Conklin had sat next to Stretch at the movie theatre. Much to Miss Brooks' consternation, Mr. Boynton decides that it would be best to have the fight in the gymnasium in front of the whole school. Principal Conklin not only goes along with it, but referees the fight, as he wants to see Walter Denton "clobbered."
* SchoolPlay: A few episodes (i.e. "Madison Country Club" and "Hawkins Travel Agency") have Miss Brooks and company wear school costume. In "The School Board Psychologist", an upcoming school play (where the students would dress as animals) is a major plot point.
* ScienceHero: Mr. Boynton ends up saving the day in "Living Statues". Walter Denton had invented a new type of paint to remove scratches. Unfortunately, at the last minute he mistakenly adds liquid cement to the concoction. After using the paint in Mr. Conklin's office, Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, and Walter Denton get stuck to the wall or the furniture. Mr. Boynton managed to free himself and go off to his laboratory to mix up a dissolvent to free everyone else. As for Walter Denton; he goes to help, limping off still stuck to the pedestral that usually held the bust of the school founder, Yodar Kritch.
* ScoobyDooHoax: In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter Denton fakes an invasion by miniature space aliens to prank Mr. Conklin.
* TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks and Lawrence Nolan play a game of Scrabble aboard the ''Paradise'', Nolan's yacht. Not surprising, the board is plainly the deluxe edition, with built-in turntable.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Mr. Conklin ''lives'' this trope. One example, out of many, is his using the high school cafeteria freezer to store his meat in "Home Cooked Meal".
* ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful: Connie Brooks is free to pursue ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton in way that would be questionable if she weren't an attractive English teacher. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Mr. Conklin, when he wryly comments on how he was sure to always find in in Mr. Boynton's biology lab. Party [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that Mr. Boynton likes Miss Brooks, and Miss Brooks' extraordinary pursuit doesn't violate any laws. This bit of dialogue from "Student Government Day" describes Miss Brooks' pursuit of Mr. Boynton in a nutshell:
-->'''Mr. Boynton:''' Fate seems always to be pitching us together\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Compared to me, fate's only a sandlot pitcher]].
* ScriptSwap: In "Poetry Mix-up", a love poem intended for Harriet Conklin is given to Mr. Conklin by mistake.
* SecretWeapon: In "Project X", the eponymous project is Mr. Conklin's secret weapon to get a promotion. [[spoiler: It's a device that allows Mr. Conklin to listen in on and communicate with every room in the school.]]
* SelfDeprecation: Miss Brooks sometimes aims her [[DeadpanSnarker deadly sarcasm]] at herself, usually when she finds herself dragged into a preposterous situation or scheme.
* SentimentalDrunk: "Old Clothes for Party" sees a sentimental (and exceptionally annoying) drunk invades Miss Brooks' conversation when she tries to use the party line telephone. The drunk falsely thinks Miss Brooks is married to his best friend, and starts wailing as she's making a date with Mr. Boynton. Later, the drunk starts crying about how he doesn't know where his father is.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: An English schoolmaster visits in "Hello Mr. Chips". HilarityEnsues.
* SeriesGoal: From day one, Miss Brooks wants to marry oblivious Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: They finally marry in TheMovie GrandFinale]]
* SeriousBusiness: HilarityEnsues at Madison High School, whether the problem of the day happens to be Mr. Conklin's latest edict, Walter Denton's latest prank, or keeping the Madison High School (football, basketball or baseball) team contenders in the big game:
** "Blue Goldfish" revolves around Mr. Conklin not heating the school to a sufficient temperature, and making everyone cold.
** "Madison Country Club" sees Mr. Conklin try to raise money to renovate his office.
** "Carelessness Code" is another episode where Mr. Conklin runs his staff and students ragged. This time he nickle-and-dimes teachers and students for violations of the carelessness code, violations that he makes up on the fly. This is all to pay for a bust of his head to grace the school library in place of that of Julius Caesar.
** "Letter From the Education Board" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its television remake, "Spare That Rod!"]]) sees Walter Denton alter an old letter to make Mr. Conklin think he's in danger of losing his job for being "dictatorial in his method".
** "Board of Education Day" (and its remake "Marinated Hearing"), "Free TV From Sherry's (and its remake, "Wild Goose"), "Cure That Habit", "Turnabout Day", "Sneaky Peekers" and "Friday The Thirteenth" all deal with the aftermath of Walter Denton's pranks.
** "Mr. Whipple" sees Madison High School trying to get a new, larger gymnasium. Similarly, "Mr. Travis' Three Acre Lot" sees Madison High School try to acquire property next door to get a proper regulation size football field.
** The crisis in "Baseball Uniforms" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its television remake, "Fischer's Pawnshop"]]) is that the opening baseball game of the season may be cancelled because of lack of funds to buy uniforms.
** Several episodes deal with the necessity of keeping [[DumbJock Stretch or Bones Snodgrass]] eligible to play for the Madison High School football, baseball, or basketball teams. "Stretch Has A Problem", "Stretch to Transfer ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its remake, "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass"]], "Stretch is in Love" (and its remake "Suzy Prentiss"), "Stretch is in Love Again", and "Stretch is Accused of Professionalism" all fall under this heading.
* SeriesOfThe1950s
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Walter, which makes him sound much more intelligent than he really is.
* {{Sexophone}}: A RunningGag in TheMovie is a sexophone riff that plays everytime [[HeadTurningBeauty Miss Lonelyhearts]] gets up from her desk and walks through the newspaper office.
* ShaggyFrogStory: In "Friday the Thirtteenth", Mrs. Davis assures Miss Brooks her troubles with Mr. Conklin are merely psychological. Mrs. Davis relates how her brother Victor was afraid to enter a yard because of a dog that was always barking. Victor went to a psychiatrist who told him that the only reason the dog was barking was because the dog was afraid Victor would kick him . . . .
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': After a couple months with the psychiatrist, my brother went right into that dog's yard and they stayed there together for over an hour.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Really, what did they do?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': They just stood around, biting and kicking each other. Luckily, a policeman came by and stopped it.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Yes, that was fortunate. Your brother couldn't have taken much more of that kicking.]]
* ShamedByAMob: Mr. Conklin rigs an election so the Madison High School students will election him the episode's titular "Faculty Cheerleader". Faced with a assembly of grumbling students, he relies on Miss Brooks to get his "election" through.
* ShamelessSelfPromoter: Mr. Conklin, to some extent. He even has a huge photograph of himself hanging above his living room mantelpiece.
* SharedFamilyQuirks:
** Brothers Stretch Snodgrass and Bones Snodgrass are [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname only known by their nicknames]] (their real names are [[EmbarrassingFirstName Fabian]] and Winston respectively). [[DumbJock dumb]] but [[LovableJock friendly]] high school athletes. They speak with [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker an eccentric grammar (or lack therof)]]. They are also extremely LiteralMinded.
** Osgood, Martha and Harriet Conklins are all snoops and eavesdroppers ("Mr. Boynton's Parents", "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton")
* SharpDressedMan: Mr. Conklin almost always wears a WaistcoatOfStyle. If he's going outside, he's sure to don a fedora hat.
* ShaveAndAHaircut: Walter Denton usually rings the bell at Mrs. Davis', but a few times he knocks to the tune of Shave and a Haircut. Once or twice, he even honked the horn on his jalopy to the same tune.
* ShesGotLegs: Notably in "Friday the Thirteenth", where Miss Brooks produces a photo of herself in a "French-model bathing suit" for the school yearbook. Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass and Mr. Boynton notice her legs.
* ShockinglyExpensiveBill: In [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Tape Recorder"]], Walter Denton purchases an expensive reel-to-reel tape recorder, and bills it to Madison High. TruthInTelevision, as tape recorders cost hundreds of dollars at the time.
* ShoeShineMister: In "The Birthday Bag", Harriet Conklin solicits money from Miss Brooks by pretending it's for an impoverished shoeshine boy.
* ShooOutTheNewGuy: Miss Brooks' two successive gym teacher [[LoveInterest love interests]] in the controversial final television season. Clint Albright and Gene Talbot, respectively. They both end up quitting their jobs and leaving with little explanation. They're replaced by Miss Brooks' longtime beau, Mr. Boynton.
* ShortCutsMakeLongDelays: The RoadTrip episode, "Game At Clay City". Mr. Conklin, [[BavarianFireDrill appointing himself navigator of Miss Brooks' car]], determines they should take a shortcut. After the car breaking down going up a steep hill, getting lost, giving a ride to a hitchhiker who misdirects them to a neighboring town, the gang finally arrive at Clay City . . . only to find that the football game is over and that the Madison High team had been clobbered.
* ShowWithinAShow: In "Here Is Your Past", Miss Brooks is unwittingly made a contestant of the titular show.
* TheShrink: In the episode "The School Board Psychologist". A dangerously incompetent psychologist tries to have Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin dismissed.
* SickeningSweethearts: Mr. and Mrs. Conklin can be like that:
** In "Trying to Pick a Fight", it's revealed that one of Mrs. Conklin's pet names for her husband is "Sugar Cookie".
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin buys Mrs. Conklin a black sheer negligee. "To Baby, From Goodie" reads the card.
* SignatureTeamTransport: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school in his jalopy.
* SillySimian:
** In "The Little Visitor", the Conklins are expecting to play guest to Mrs. Conklin's sister's pet monkey. Harriet and Mrs. Conklin are excstatic, Mr. Conklin is miserable. Miss Brooks jumps to the conlusion the Conklins are expecting a new baby. HilarityEnsues.
** Miss Brooks often mentions Mr. Boynton taking her to the monkeyhouse at the zoo, both on radio and on televison. It's said to be one of his favourite places. In "The Frog", Miss Brooks mentions her intent to change this because "as a schoolteacher, I can't afford to buy Taboo by the quart".
** At the end of The Movie Grand Finale, Miss Brooks having just finally recieved Mr. Boynton's proposal of marriage, finds Mr. Boynton feeding the monkeys at the zoo. Mr. Boynton finds an engagement ring in a box of cracker jacks. WithThisRing is interrupted by Chiquita, a female money who chooses this moment to steal the ring. No matter, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks walk away arm-in-arm to their future home.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': (winking to Chickita) I hope it doesn't take as long for you as it did for me.
-->'''Chiquita''': (winks back)
* SimpleYetOpulent: Miss Brooks, in the few episodes where she wears an evening gown - most notably, the strapless evening gown she wears in "Suzy Prentiss".
* SingingInTheShower: In "Stretch Has A Problem", Miss Brooks' "feet were ready to come off" after participating in a snake dance. The rally was held in honor of the Madison High School basketball team's departure to the state tournament. The sore and tired Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to take a bath. And singing! Alas, she's continually interrupted by somebody coming to the door before she can get into the tub:
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''[singing, while filling the bathtub with water]'' Singing in the bathtub, nothing can go wrong. Singing in the bathtub....
-->''[doorbell rings]''
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''[singing]'' [[DeadpanSnarker Oh, I should live so long!]]
* SingleEpisodeHandicap: In "Marinated Hearing", Walter Denton sets off an old cannon from the Spanish-American War. Mr. Conklin's standing too close, and suffers from temporary deafness as a result.
* SingleTaskRobot: In "Transition Show", Vice Principal Oliver Munsey shows Miss Brooks the robot he built. Its purpose is to be an automatic pencil sharpener.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Miss Brooks' [[SeriesGoal goal]] throughout the radio, television series and [[GrandFinale film]] [[TheMovie adaptation]]. Her heart is clearly set on the very decent and attractively biology teacher Mr. Boynton. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton is very shy and almost altogether ObliviousToLove.
* SitcomArchNemesis: Miss Brooks has Miss Enright, a fellow English teacher and rival for Mr. Boynton's affections.
* SittingOnTheRoof: Two episodes end with Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton sitting on a roof.
** In "Elopement with Walter, Miss Brooks lures Mr. Boynton atop Mrs. Davis' house to practice volunteer fire fighting maneuvers. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** "Threat to Abolish Football" ends with Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton drafted into fixing the roof of Mr. Conklin's house. Again, ItMakesSenseInContext.
* SketchySuccessor: In the first radio episode, "First Day", Madison High School's Principal Darwell is replaced by Principal Osgood Conklin. Partially averted in that Mr. Conklin is generally competent with a HiddenHeartOfGold. However, he is also pompous, arrogant, bad-tempered and dictatorial.
** The later radio episode "Borrowing Money to Fly", and the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] changed the continuity so as to reflect the fact Mr. Conklin was Madison's longtime principal who had been long ensconced in his position upon Miss Brooks' arrival at Madison.
* TheSlacker: Walter Denton is an early example, although intelligent about ''some'' things, he's BookDumb, constantly taking shortcuts in his studies, once mentions he keeps his room a mess, and tries to minimize the time he spends in school or actually doing school work.
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Miss Brooks is sometimes the victim of slapstick gags. For example, in "Business Course" where she gets covered in oil and "Vitamin E-12" where she gets covered in goop. Miss Enright also suffers an oily fate in "Business Course." In "Secondhand First Aid" Miss Brooks wraps Miss Enright in bandages and rips her dress.
* SlaveToPR: Mr. Conklin is desperate to maintain a good ''public'' image on a number of occasions. For example, in "Madison Country Club", he's desperate to one up his rival Jason Brill. In "The Cafeteria Strike", Mr. Conklin's desperate to prevent the school's board food being exposed in the newspaper. Yes, Mr. Conklin is desperate to maintain a good front for the public. However, he never seems to care about the reputation he has amongst Madison's students and faculty.
* SleazyPolitician: The mayor in the radio episode "Student Government Day" is in league with the mobsters running the Jackpot Amusem*nt Company. Averted with the new mayor, who eventually appears in the television episode "Public Property On Parade".
* SlidingScaleofRobotIntelligence: In "Transition Show", Vice Principal Oliver Munsey shows Miss Brooks the robot he built. Definately a type 1, its main purpose is as an automatic pencil sharpener.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: One of biology teacher Mr. Boynton's hobbies is chess. In the "Hobby Show", he tries to teach the game to Miss Brooks.
* SmittenTeenageGirl: Although Harriet Conklin is usually Walter Denton's squeeze, and ordinarily quite levelheaded, she's been known to act this way on occasion.
** In "Hello, Mr. Chips," Harriet has a crush on a visiting English headmaster.
** In "Bones, Son of Cyrano" Harriet is enthused when she thinks Mr. Boynton has written her a love letter.
** Similarly, in the radio episodes "Stretch has a Problem" and "The Grudge Match" Harriet is overjoyed to find out that DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass is in love with her.
* SnakeOilSalesman: In the episode "Vitamin E-4", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are tricked by a phony professor into helping him manufacture the eponymous "vitamin". In reality, it's a bunch of gloop whose main ingredient is chicken fat. The "professor" uses teachers to make his presentations more realitic. The head of the school board, Mr. Stone, is incredulous that normally clever people can fall for such a scam. The snake oil saleman is never actually seen, but was voiced by Frank Nelson on the record he left in his "laboratory" to instruct his employees on how to manufacture the "vitamin".
* SnarkToSnarkCombat: Whenever Miss Brooks and Miss Enright meet, snarking is sure to follow. Usually, Miss Enright gives the first blow, with Miss Brooks giving as good as she gets.
* SneezeOfDoom: Mr. Conklin has some whoppers. The TV version of the sneezes had powerful fans blow objects all over the set, i.e. "Here is Your Past" and "The Magic Tree".
* SocialSemicircle: Sometimes readily apparent. ''Our Miss Brooks'' was filmed in front of a live studio audience at Creator/DesiluStudios, using the same camera equipment as ''Series/ILoveLucy''.
** One example is found in the episode "Spare That Rod!". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are crowded along three sides of a cafeteria table.
** Another example is in the episode "Madison Mascot", where Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Harriet Conklin Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are meeting in Mr. Conklin's to discuss the a mascot for the Madison football team. Mr. Conklin sat at the head of the table, with everybody else either placed at the foot or along one side.
** Averted in "Hobby Show" and "Thanksgiving Show" in scenes taking place at Mrs. Davis' dining room table. Mrs. Davis, one supposes, had little tolerance for Social Semi Circle Seating!
* SoProudOfYou: Lawrence Nolan, praising his son Gary's reporting work, in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* SoundToScreenAdaptation: An interesting example, in that the radio series actually outlasted the TV version.
* SouthernBelle: In "Blind Date", Mr. Conklin is afraid of meeting his old college girlfriend, Lulubelle Calhoun of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had told his wife Martha that she was the only woman he ever loved. Mr. Conklin, being a vain and pompous individual, convinces himself that Lulubelle was visiting to try and breakup the Conklin's marriage and win him back. In truth, Lulubelle was visiting for unrelated reasons and left the night before. In truth, Lulubelle had told Mrs. Davis that she didn't even know what she had seen in Osgood!
* SpellingSong: In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks is pleased to hear that LoveInterest Mr. Boynton's parents find her so youthful. That is, until [[TeachersPet teachers' pets]] Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin arrive. To Miss Brooks' chagrin, the teenagers name her the Madison High School student's choice for "Mother away from Mother". After presenting her with a shawl the students bought for her, Walter Denton sings the song they wrote for her:
-->'''Walter Denton''':\\
'''B''' is for the books she helps us study.\\
'''R''' is she is righteous and so pure.\\
'''O''' is for the fact that she's our buddy.\\
The other '''O''' is likewise I am sure.\\
'''K''' is for okay she rates about.\\
'''S''' is for her sadly wrinkled brow.\\
She's motherly just like ''Elsie the Cow''.\\
Miss Brooks we love you dearly!
-->'''Miss Brooks''':\\
Miss Brooks\\
That's me.\\
''(sob)'' I'll always be,\\
Miss Brooks!
* SpitTake:
** The very first television episode, "Trying to Pick a Fight", sees Miss Brooks do a spit take with coffee. Still, Miss Brooks demonstrates good manners by immediately using a linen napkin to wipe her face!
** Mr. Boynton does one ''with chili'' in "Weekend at Crystal Lake".
* SplitScreenPhoneCall: "Blind Date".
* SpringtimeForHitler: In "School on Saturday", Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks to quell a mass student protest that arises when he opens Madison High School on Saturday, and demands everybody attend . . . .
*** Mr. Conklin hears from head of the board, Mr. Stone, that Conklin would be in trouble if he dared open the school Saturday. Stone was going to investigate, personally . . . .
*** Too bad for Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks' speech to the angry teenagers convinced them to come in and attend class.
*** Mr. Conklin has Miss Brooks make another speech, to send the students home . . . .
*** Mr. Stone calls up, saying he's not going to inspect the school after all . . . .
*** Miss Brooks is sent to make ''yet another speech'', and the students attend classes for the day. And stay in detention until 4:00 p.m.
*** Mr. Stone comes by late in the afternoon . . . more HilarityEnsues.
* {{Squee}}: Harriet Conklin, occasionally. One example is in "Hello, Mr. Chips", where she makes a sound of delight upon seeing the visiting English school master.
* SquirrelsInMyPants: In "Cure That Habit", Stretch Snodgrass carries two kittens, a frog and a snake in his jacket. The animals get loose in Mr. Conklin's office and HilarityEnsues.
* StaircaseTumble: Walter Denton's dates with Harriet Conklin often end with him being kicked down the porch steps by her father.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: The episode "Here is Your Past" sees Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis being stalked by a mysterious man with a black moustache. [[spoiler: The stranger forces Connie to a TV studio where she's guest of honor on the ''Here is Your Past'' TV program.]]
* StandAloneEpisode: Every radio and television episode of Our Miss Brooks reintroduces the characters, and (except in the fourth TV season) there's no continuity that needs to be followed from one episode to the next.
* StandardizedSitcomHousing: Mostly averted.
** Miss Brooks rents a room from Mrs. Davis, whose home is stereotypically decorated in "old lady style" i.e. old fashioned wallpaper and lots of doilies. The house is a one-story home, although the front windows seen in establishing shots don't appear in the house. The front door opens directly into the living room, but is actually stage right. The house actually has a dining room stage left to the living room. Stage left to the dining room is the kitchen, with a back door leading stage left to the back porch and back yard (which was rarely shown). Depending on the requirement of the plot, the house is described as having either two or three bedrooms. (In TheMovie, Mrs. Davis describes the third bedroom as a "spare room", perhaps reconciling the difference.) There's an easily accessible attic used for storage, mentioned by never shown. On the rare occasions when Miss Brooks' bedroom is shown, it's unclear where it is inside the house.
** In the [[GrandFinale cinematic series finale]], the layout is much the same. However, while the living room was square on television, here it's elongated along the front of the house. The windows outside actually line up. The location of Miss Brooks' room is also shown. It's off a small hallway leading from the living room (and thus not appearing on stage on television.
* TheStateroomSketch: In the episode "Oo-Oo-Me-Me-Tocoludi-Gucci-Moo-Moo". Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis had spent their summer vacation in a tiny house-trailer Miss Brooks nicknamed "mousie". While waiting for a perspective buyer to show up, Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis clean the trailer. Unfortunately, Walter Denon, Harriet Conklin and Mr. Conklin all come to visit. HilarityEnsues.
* StealingTheCredit: Mr. Conklin likes to steal the credit from Miss Brooks, on occasion. For example, there was his attempt to claim authorship of a speech written by Miss Brooks in "Public Property on Parade".
* StealthInsult: In the series' [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks is Mr. Conklin's campaign manager for his crack at the new post of Coordinator of Education (essentially, School Board Superintendent). Collecting donations from students and teachers, Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin that many of them were behind him. They were willing to give him a ''push'' out of Madison if necessary. Mr. Conklin's change of expression from glowing pride to a perplexed frown suggests he quickly realized the import of Miss Brooks' comment.
* SteamNeverDies: In the film, when Miss Brooks arrives in [[EverytownAmerica Madison]], she's seen disembarking from a passenger train drawn by a steam locomotive. Very much [[TruthInTelevision truth in film]], as the fifties were the twilight of the steam age in North America.
* StereoFibbing: Happens a few times in the radio version:
** In the episode "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton fib in stereo to the Dean Faraday of State College.
** In "Trial By Jury", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Bones Snodgrass play possum with multiple fake illnesses.
* SternTeacher: At Madison High School, Miss Enright, [[SitcomArchNemesis Miss Brooks' personal and professional rival]], is ''always'' described by Miss Brooks and others as a very competent teacher. However, she appears to be much stricter than Miss Brooks. In "Stretch the Basketball Star", the episode introducing DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass, Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin plot to have the student athlete moved to Miss Brooks' class. They view "old lady Enright" as being unsympathetic.
* StickFigureAnimation: Used in a few episodes at the start of the fourth television season. For example, in "Who's Who", Miss Brooks narrates her efforts to beg a favor from Mrs. Nestor. The backdrop to Miss Brooks' narration is a stick figure picture of Miss Brooks pleading with Mrs. Nestor.
* StickyFingers: Somebody is stealing phonebooks in the episode "Phonebook Follies".
* StickySituation: In the episode "Living Statues", Mr. Conklin orders Miss Brooks to fix the cracks and scratches on his office walls. Joined by Walter and Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' redoes his office using a clear paint invented by Walter in the school lab. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, Walter unknowingly added liquid cement to his concoction . . . .]]
* StockAnimalDiet: Minerva, Mrs. Davis' pet cat, shows an affinity to several stock cat foods.
** Minerva likes milk, but prefers cream. One episode has Miss Brooks telling Minerva there's no cream left, so she'll have to take milk. Minerva meows angrily in protest.
** In "Taxidermists", Minerva gobbles up a large fish Mr. Conklin intends to enter in a fishing contest.
** Minerva shows excitement anytime someone mentions mice in her presence.
* StockYuck: The episode "Public Property on Parade", sees CordonBleughChef Mrs. Davis cook a limburger omelet for Miss Brooks. Brooks wisely declines, so Davis leaves it in the front yard for the birds. Cue a flock of birds flying a frantic retreat.
* StolenCreditBackfire: In "Public Property On Parade", Mr. Conklin takes credit for a speech Miss Brooks wrote about respecting public property and condemning theft and vandalism. Conklin initially dislikes the speech, but when the Mayor praises the document he takes full credit. Later, Conklin tells Miss Brooks that the Mayor would never find out that she wrote the speech; he's immediately embarassed to find the mayor is standing just outside the room and has heard everything.
* StrangeSyntaxSpeaker: [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass's]] grammar is atrocious. It's a toxic combination of current slang, malapropisms and double negatives.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Stretch, it is incorrect to use a double negative in a sentence. You've just used four of them.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Oh! So what I said was alright then?
** Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]] is the same way.
* StrictlyProfessionalRelationship: Sometimes invoked by Mr. Boynton. In fact, according to TheMovie, when Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks first met, it is Mr. Boynton's insistence that has the two on a strictly LastNameBasis.
** It is noteworthy that Miss Brooks '''never''' sees her relationship with Mr. Boynton as strictly professional.
* StrikeEpisode:
** The episode "The Cafeteria Strike" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation a remake of the radio episode "The Madison High Cafeteria Boycott]]). The students, dismayed by the awful food in the cafeteria, plan a strike with placards and all the other paraphernalia.
** In "School on Saturday", the Madison High students initially [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin refuse to go to class when Principal Conklin orders them in on Saturday.]] They even have plans to burn Mr. Conklin in effigy.
* StronglyWordedLetter: In "Stuffed Gopher", Mr. Conklin thinks he's going to be fired as principal from Madison High School. He writes a strongly-worded letter of resignation to Mr. Stone, the head of the school board.
* StudentCouncilPresident: Harriet Conklin is Student Council President at Madison High School. As such, and especially as she is the daughter of Principal Conklin, she has . . . absolutely no power whatsoever.
* StudentsPlayingMatchmaker: High School Students Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin often try to further Miss Brooks' romance with ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. One such example is the episode "Blind Date", where Walter and Harriet work together to reunite Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton after a quarrel.
* StunnedSilence: A horrorstruck Miss Brooks is [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin stunned into silence]] in the episode "Home Cooked Meal". [[spoiler: Miss Brooks realizes that Mr. Conklin has gone into a dark kitchen that has filled with natural gas. When Mr. Conklin announces he's going to light a match, horror stricken, she can only ''mouth'' a warning. Fortunately, Mr. Conklin's alright, although a little worse for wear.]]
* SuddenHumility:
** In "Spare That Rod!", when Mr. Conklin believes Mr. Stone has threatened to fire him for being "flagrantly dictatorial." Mr. Conklin humbly helps out his teachers and is even obsequious toward his students.
** In "Turnabout Day", by the authority of a forged letter Walter Denton becomes the principal on the titular "Turnabout Day". Cue Mr. Conklin pretending to be a student. He arrives on bicycle, wearing a propeller beanie and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
** Again, in the penultimate television episode "Principal For A Day". Miss Brooks [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin is briefly promoted to principal]], and Mr. Conklin takes a position as history teacher.
** Finally, in TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Conklin ''is'' actually threatened with dismissal by Mr. Stone; in a ContinuityNod, Mr. Stone considering Conklin's strict rule of Madison High School "to be tantamount to malfeasance." Mr. Conklin tries acting humble. When that doesn't work, Conklin decides to run against Mr. Stone for the newly created post of "Coordinator of Education" (aka school board president/superintendent) to save his position.
* SuddenIntelligence: The episode "Dress Code Protest" has [[DumbJock student athlete]] Stretch Snodgrass volunteer some good advice to Miss Brooks.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': I've got an idea, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Not so loud, it'll get away.]]
* SuddenNameChange:
** Marty's Malt Shop, the restaurant across the street from Madison High School, goes by a different name in its first radio appearance ("The Model School Teacher"). Subsequent appearances have the local hangout go by the name "Marty's Malt Shop". This includes the television remake of "The Model School Teacher", simply entitled "The Model Teacher."
** Sherry's Department store has a similar backstory. In the store's first appearance, "Surprise Party", Madison's department store goes by a different name. In subsequent episodes, "Sherry's" prevails, including the television remake of "Surprise Party", "The Birthday Bag."
** In the third season, Madison High School's principal rival, "Clay City High School", is suddenly redubbed "Henry Clay High."
* SuperStoicShopkeeper: Mr. Fisher in "Mr. Fisher's Pawn Shop," played by the indomitable Frank Nelson. He doesn't get upset in spite of the wacky hijinks going on all around him.
* SurpriseParty: "The Birthday Bag" and "The Surprise Party". Miss Brooks' friends plan a surprise party at the Conklin's house. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks turns up an hour too early. HilarityEnsues.
* SweaterGirl:
** Harriet Conklin often favors a tight sweater.
** The ''Madison Express" lonely hearts columnist, in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. She wears a tight sweater as she walks around the office, to the accompaniment of [[{{Sexophone}} saxophone]] music. [[spoiler: She is a minor a character, the movie ends with DisposableLoveInterest Mr. Nolan asking her for a date on his yacht. Meanwhile, in the main plot, Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* SweetBaker: Mrs. Davis.
* SwivelChairAntics: In "Cure That Habit", Stretch Snodgrass swivels Principal Conklin around quickly, [[InsaneTrollLogic in an attempt to cure his hiccups]]. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Tableau}}: When Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Stone, visits Mr. Conklin, he finds Conklin, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, and Walter Denton motionless. They're stuck to the furniture. Walter Denton had unknowingly mixed his touch-up paint with liquid cement:
-->'''Mr. Stone''': I must be having hallucinations! What is the meaning of this '''grotesque tableau!'''
* TakeAThirdOption: Happens in "The Big Game". After Assistant Coach "Snakehips" Geary fails his makeup test to get his high school diploma, Miss Brooks must either flunk the old high school football hero from the "Big Game of 1912" or give him a fake pass. However, she uses Loophole Abuse and TakesAThirdOption. Earlier Mr. Conklin told Miss Brooks, when marking the test, to give him full credit for his contribution to Madison, his winnning the big game forty years before. Miss Brooks adds the points Snakehips scored to his test results as extra credit. Snakehips gets his High School Diploma and remains the Assistant Coach.
* TakingTheFightOutside: Attempted by Mr. Boynton and new gym teacher Mr. Greeley in "Angela's Wedding". They had been invited to a small party to welcome Angela's fiance. Greeley, who had been mocking Boynton in the episode, is on the verge of provoking a fight - much to Miss Brooks' disdain. Boynton and Greeley are about to step outside, when, to Greeley's amusem*nt, Mr. Boynton is drafted by Mrs. Davis to help her toss a salad.
* TalkingHeads: The radio programs adapted to television are often "talky" episodes. However, visual gags are often thrown into the script (indeed, many are carried over from the radio where they are described, but not shown). The show, humorous on the radio, definitely '''does not''' suffer in the adaptation to television.
* TalkingInYourSleep: In a couple episodes, Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks are heard talking in their sleep. "Mr. Conklin's Wakeup Plan" is one such example.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Mr. Boynton [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton in TheMovie GrandFinale]]
* TagalongKid: Benny Romero in the last season. In "Geraldine", he stowsaway aboard the trailer Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Munsee are taking to Arizona.
* TapOnTheHead:
** In "Mr. Conklin is Honored", Mr. Conklin receives several hits on the head with Mrs. Davis' mahogany handled umbrella. ItMakesSenseInContext. Mr. Conklin falls to the ground each time, but suffers no effect more severe than the loss of a couple teeth.
** The trope is used in the episode "The Skeleton in the Closet". Miss Brooks' desperately tries to prevent a blackmailer, "Charlie", from revealing an embarassing incident in her life to Mr. Conklin. Gym teacher Gene Talbot knocks out Charlie using a gym bag holding a barbell. Later, Mr. Waddley, the school publicist, and Mr. Conklin himself get knocked out with a tap on the head.
* TaxDeductions: Happens to Miss Brooks in "Easter Outfit". Miss Brooks finds the $50.00 she earned working at the board of education during spring break to be considerably eroded by tax deductions.
* TaxidermyTerror: The Snodgrass brothers' not only live behind a pet shop, but their father's a both former veterinarian ''and'' taxidermist, DependingOnTheWriter. Miss Brooks briefly (and squeamishly) forays into the business of taxidermy herself on the radio, in the episode "Taxidermists" - accompanied by Harriet Conklin, Walter Denotn and Stretch Snodgrass. However, where TaxidermyTerror really comes into play is in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Stuffed Gopher"]]. Stretch Snodgrass wrecks Mr. Conklin's office, Mr. Boynton's lab, and the school Cafeteria in his attempt to catch the rodent. Snodgrass then has the rodent stuffed and brings it to school in a large suitcase to show Miss Brooks, Walter and Mr. Conklin. All three are suitably, and [[HilarityEnsues comically]] repulsed.
* TeachersPet:
** Walter Denton, who likes Miss Brooks so much he's usually driving her to school.
** Also applies to Harriet Conklin, who is Miss Brooks' best student. She's also the daughter of the principal to boot.
* TeamChef: Mrs. Davis is the only main character typically seen cooking. In one episode, Miss Brooks goes so far as to describe her own specialty as Campbell's Soup. Subverted in episodes where Miss Brooks assists Mrs. Davis with her cooking, and in episodes where Mrs. Conklin appears. Most notably subverted in "The Cafeteria Strike" when Mr. Boynton uses his mother's meatball recipe to get Miss Brooks out of trouble.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: This happens whenever Mr. Conklin forces Miss Brooks to go along with a scheme of which she does not approve.
* TeethFlying: Mr. Conklin loses several teeth in "Plaque for Mr. Conklin" as he's hit several times in an attempt to cure his faked case of [[EasyAmnesia amnesia]]. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* TemporarySubstitute:
** Stretch Snodgrass was substituted with his brother Bones in several first and second season episodes of the TV Series. The actor who played Stretch, Leonard Smith, wasn't available.
** Mrs. Winona Nestor was replaced by her sister, Mrs. Ruth Nestor, in the fourth season of the TV series. Sadly, the actress playing Winona, Nana Bryant, was forced to leave the show due to illness after making only a couple of appearances.
** The temporary replacement of Mrs. Davis, with her sister Angela, for a few episodes in the third season of the TV series and contemporaneous radio program. Jane Morgan, the actress who played Mrs. Davis, had suffered a stroke (fortunately, she made a quick and full recovery). This counts as a subversion as the character of Angela had often been mentioned on the radio program, and was eventually portrayed by Jesselyn Fax on both radio and television. The two sisters appeared side-by-side in several episodes.
** In the fourth season of the TV series, Mr. Boynton was replaced as Miss Brooks' love interest by phys-ed instructor Clint Allbright (William Ching). Then Allbright himself was replaced with Gene Talbot (Gene Barry) before Boynton finally returned to the series.
* ThanksgivingTurkey: ''Our Miss Brooks'' had two Thanksgiving episodes; both times Miss Brooks finds it difficult to procure a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.
** In the television episode "Thanksgiving Show" (a remake of the radio episode "Thanksgiving Weekend"), Mrs. Davis only buys a tiny squab for thanksgiving dinner. Miss Brooks attempts to get herself invited to a more substantial dinner results in Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass and the entire Conklin family invited over to dine on Thanksgiving squab at Mrs. Davis' house.
** In the radio episode "Thanksgiving Turkey", facing buying a turkey with only $5 to spend, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton, with the assistance of Walter Denton, buy a live turkey from a farmer. Only thing is the turkey was a pet, and answers to the name Bernice (and falls in love with Mr. Boynton's pet frog [=McDougall=] to boot). HilarityEnsues.
* ThatsAllFolks: At the end of the episode "Buddy", Ricky Velasco states that although it would be "corny", it would be great if "The End" should appear above the cape he's holding. And "The End" appears.
* ThatsAnOrder: Mr. Conklin uses this phrase from time to time.
* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt: In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mrs. Davis dons a Theodore Roosevelt costume for a party.
* TheyDo: At the end of TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton.
* ThemeMusicAbandonment: The movie dispenses with the usual series theme, opening with a fanfare and a cheery new tune.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: Happens often on Miss Brooks. Many episodes begin with Miss Brooks having breakfast with Mrs. Davis. Often enough Walter Denton joins them, proclaiming himself willing to eat another breakfast. However, you rarely see anybody eat more than a few bites or Miss Brooks take a few sips of coffee. The trope is carried over to scenes in the Madison High School cafeteria, where teachers and students talk far more than they ever eat.
* ThiefBag: The thief in "The Jewel Robbery" carries away the loot from the burgled store in a bag. However, the crook later stores it in a suitcase.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck:
** Walter Denton's expression at the end of "Cure That Habit". Walter had mailed an application for an alcoholism cure in Mr. Conklin's name. For the second time in the episode, he brags to Miss Brooks about his prank. Unfortunately for Walter, this time Mr. Conklin's standing right behind him.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': [[SarcasmMode I bet he'll be positively purple.]]
-->'''Walter Denton''': [[DelayedReaction Purple? I'll bet he turns all the colors of the rain-bow-oh-oh-oh-oh!]]
** Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, and Stretch Snodgrass cower at the end of "Spare That Rod!" Miss Brooks, in fact, flees the principal's office! Mr. Conklin had, all day, been meek and courteous in response to a letter threatening his dismissal for running the school in a "dictatorial manner". Only at the end of show does he discover the letter was addressed to his predecessor Mr. Darwell, and was postmarked 1944. His name was only that day typed on the envelope by Walter Denton.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Run for the hills, the dam has broke!
** At the end of "Transition Show", Miss Brooks realizes she's working for, and at the mercy of, Mrs. Nestor and Mr. Conklin. Her near-sobbing expression says it all.
* ThoughtAversionFailure: The episode "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton" is based on this trope. The concept is explained by Mrs. Davis near the start of the episode:
->'''Mrs. Davis''': Remember, the one thing most difficult to forget is what you're trying to forget. If you'll cooperate with me, Connie, I'll show you just what I mean with a simple little experiment. Just try to forget an object on this table. Anything at all. Well, the coffee pot for example.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': This coffee pot?\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Any coffee pot. Now, close your eyes and clear your mind. Close them tightly. Mm. That's it. Now, Connie Brooks, I command you not to think of a coffee pot. There's no such thing as a coffee pot. No coffee pot at all. Just keep telling yourself you must not think of a coffee pot.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': No coffee pot. I must not think of a coffee pot.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': That's right. No coffee pot. No coffee pot. Now, quickly Connie, what are you thinking of?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': A coffee pot.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': I can't understand it. Something must have gone wrong. Try again now. Are you still thinking of a coffee pot?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Yes, but it looks like Mr. Boynton.\\
-- ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' '''"Connie Tries to Forget Mr. Boynton"'''
* ThreeAmigos: Walter Denton, his girlfriend Harriet Conklin, and his best friend Stretch Snodgrass.
* ThreeWallSet
* TimePassesMontage: in TheMovie GrandFinale, time passes as Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks visit a mother and baby elephant at the zoo. The baby elephant grows to be nearly as big as his mother:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Remember when he was just a baby?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker As if he were my very own.]]
* TimeShiftedActor: "The Dream" features older versions of Mr. Conklin, Walter Denton, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Boynton and Mrs. Boynton nee Brooks played by series regulars Gale Gordon, Richard Crenna, Jane Morgan, Robert Rockwell and Eve Arden respectively.
* TitleDrop: Every so often, Miss Brooks would be introduced as "Our Miss Brooks" just for the fun of dropping the title of the program. Mr. Conklin usually gets to do the honors, as the principal of Madison High School, the "our" refers to Miss Brooks belonging to or being associated with Madison High School.
** In "First Day", outgoing principal Mr. Darwell has the pleasure of introducing "Our Miss Brooks" to incoming principal Mr. Conklin.
** In "The Grudge Match", Mr. Conklin names "Our Miss Brooks" to the students as their ringside commentator. It's a little redundant as they already know who she is.
** In "Hello Mr. Chips", Mr. Conklin introduces "Our Miss Brooks" to visiting British Schoolmaster Heatherington Philpott.
* TitleSequenceReplacement: ''Our Miss Brooks'' adopted the short "blackboard" opening for syndication.
* TodayXTomorrowTheWorld: In "Letter From the Board of Education", Miss Brooks' criticizes Mr. Conklin's choice of adages decorating the walls of his office by asking what happened to the one that read "Today Madison, tomorrow the world!". Mr. Conklin states that the janitor ripped it cleaning. In the [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] "Spare That Rod!" the joke is dropped. The janitor ripped the adage reading "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick".
* TonightSomeoneKisses: As seen in the trailer for TheMovie.
* TontoTalk: Chief and Mrs. Thundercloud in the episode "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud".
* TookALevelInCynic: Miss Brooks becomes extremely depressed at the crisis point of the [[GrandFinale series-concluding]] [[TheMovie film]].
* TheToothHurts: In "Mr. Conklin is Honored", Conklin loses several teeth when repeatedly hit on the head. The hits on the head weren't maliciously intended, but meant to cure a case of EasyAmnesia he had foolishly faked earlier in the episode.
* TranslationYes: "The House Trailer" featured an attempt by Mr. Conklin to borrow Mrs. Davis's house trailer and go fishing on an isolated lake, deep in the wilderness. The name of the lake, and the ''alternate title'' of the episode? "Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo." Mr. Conklin explains that ''Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo'' is the local Indians' word for "blue."
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I hate to hear their word for purple.]]
* TrapDoor: In "Sneeky Peepers", a copy of Rodin's "The Kiss" is ordered by mistake. Mr. Conklin orders the offending statue to be covered by a tarpaulin until it can be returned. Walter Denton even installs a trap door to catch anyone [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin sneaking up to the statue to take a peep]]. It turns out, by the end of the day, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Stone [[WhatAnIdiot and Walter Denton himself]] have fallen through the trap door and are trapped in a vacant (and locked) storage room in the basem*nt.
* TravelingSalesman: In the episode "Spring Cleaning", Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Conklin fall prey to the salespeople of the "Jiffy Vacuum Cleaner" company.
* TriggerHappy: In "New School Bus", Mr. Boynton buys an old paddy wagon for use as a school bus. Mrs. Davis uses the opportunity to drive around in the wagon, pretending to be a trigger happy cop. Fortunately, she's using a toy gun and shooting blanks!
* TheTriple: Several times. Here, Miss Brooks is having a rapid-fire breakfast "conversation" with Mrs. Davis:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Toast?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Toast.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Cereal?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Cereal.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Hat-coat-and-bicarbonate?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': ...
* TrrrillingRrrs: Osgood Conklin, just to be all the more pompous.
* TrueCompanions: Miss Brooks is not only is pushed (or pushes herself) close to Mr. Boynton, but is frequently involved in the ups and downs of Mr. and Mrs. Conklin's lives, as well as those of her landlady Mrs. Davis.
* TruthTellingSession: Miss Brooks and Boynton argue in the film.
* TurtlePower: In "Madison Mascot", Stretch Snodgrass offers his pet turtle as Madison's mascot:
--> '''Stretch Snodgrass''': I know, maybe I can bring my turtle over as a mascot.
--> '''Walter Denton''': The Madison Mudturtles! [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal That's sort of alliterative]]. How big a turtle have you got, Stretch?
--> '''Stretch Snodgrass''': [[DumbJock He's exactly three inches square!]]
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': [[SarcasmMode Now there's a brilliant suggestion.]] How could the crowd in a football stadium possibly see a three inch turtle?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I know. We can paint Madison in huge red letters on his back.]]
* TVTeen:
** Features HighSchoolHustler and TeachersPet Walter Denton, who carried a very squeaky voice over from the radio. ** In the main cast is Harriet Conklin, the principal's daughter.
** Showing up from time-to-time, the [[DumbJock dumb]] but [[LovableJock good-natured]] Stretch Snodgrass.
** Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]].
* TwoTeacherSchool: Brooks and Boynton; there was also Brooks' rival Miss Enright and occasional visits from other teachers.
* TheUglyGuysHotDaughter: Principal Osgood Conklin's daughter Harriet.
* UnableToSupportAWife: [[spoiler: At the start of the film. Mr. Boynton's saving money and hoping for a promotion so he can propose to (and support) Miss Brooks]].
* UncannyFamilyResemblance: In the episode "The Dream", Miss Brooks has a daughter that looks just like her, while Mr. Conklin has a grandson that looks just like him. A JustifiedTrope, as it is AllJustADream.
* UnconventionalLearningExperience: This is unavoidable, given that the program is set in a HighSchool and stars an English teacher. For example, in "The English Test", Miss Brooks tutors Harriet Conlin, Walter Denton and "Jerky" Mcguirk for an upcoming examination. Connie Brooks covers such topics as "Concord and Governance", "Gerundial Phrases" and "Sentence Structure". Humour is provided by Walter and McGuirk trying to crib off Harriet. Similarly, the episode "Yodar Kritch Award" features Connie attempting to tutor Bones Snodgrass. Here, she covers the subjunctive mood, using the phrase "If I were John the Fisherman." This is a SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode, only [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute substituting]] Bones for his brother Stretch. ''Our Miss Brooks'' similarly covers scientific topics, due to the fact biology teacher Mr. Boynton is Miss Brooks' LoveInterest. The episode "Life Can Be Bones" relies heavily on a discussion of paleontology. A good deal of time is also spent relating the idea of a "Missing Link".
* UnconventionalSmoothie: Some of the health drinks Mrs. Davis prepares for Miss Brooks at breakfast fall into this category.
* UndesirablePrize: In "Peanuts the Great Dane", [[spoiler: Miss Brooks wins the titular dog after spending the episode trying to get rid of him.]]
* UnplannedCrossdressing: In "Dress Code Protest", a series of mix-ups results in Miss Brooks wearing Mr. Conklin's pants after tearing her skirt and being unwilling to go about in a borrowed pair of Harriet's gym bloomers. Mr. Conklin had pushed his pair of pants through the transom, telling Stretch Snodgrass to get them cleaned. However, Stretch had left leading Walter to find them and take them to Miss Brooks. This leaves Mr. Conklin is stranded in his office with no pants, and only Miss Brooks' torn skirt.
* UnreliableNarrator: Sometimes done for laughs in the introductory narration on the radio. This would always prompt a quick correction by [[DeadpanSnarker deadpan snarker]] Miss Brooks.
* UnwantedGiftPlot: "Christmas Gift Returns" and "Exchanging Gifts".
* UnwantedGlassesPlot: In "The Dancer", Miss Brooks goes to an optometrist after Mr. Conklin accuses her of needing glasses. She borrows a pair of glasses to see their effect on Mr. Boynton. He compliments her on how ''mature'' she looks. So much for any chance of Miss Brooks wearing glasses!
* UptownGirl: In "An American Tragedy", Miss Brooks relates that LoveInterest Mr. Boynton had been dating a society girl. On Miss Brooks giving him an ultimatum to choose the society girl or Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton chooses Miss Brooks.
* ValentinesDayEpisodes: There are two Valentine's Day Episodes:
** "The Frog" sees Miss Brooks adopt a pet frog, in an effort to set up a "double date" with Mr. Boynton somewhere outside the zoo. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** "Valentine's Day Date" see Miss Brooks again try to keep Mr. Boynton away from the zoo. This time, she uses a gift certificate provided by Stretch Snodgrass to lure Mr. Boynton to Turk's Turkey Heaven. HilarityEnsues.
* VolleyingInsults: Miss Brooks and Miss Enright will unavoidably start throwing catty remarks at one another, should they engage in anything but the briefest of conversations.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Mr. Conklin's often seen wearing three piece suits (i.e. "Living Statues").
* WackyMarriageProposal: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], the marriage proposal manages to be heartfelt, in character and very much atypical. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks finds out she's been ''de facto'' engaged to Mr. Boynton when Mrs. Davis introduces Mr. Boynton's mother as her new boarder in Miss Brooks' place (so Mrs. Boynton can be close to her son without having to live with Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks). Miss Brooks then goes to the zoo to meet up with Mr. Boynton. WithThisRing comes into play as Miss Brooks finds a ring in a box of Cracker Jack, which is promptly stolen by a female monkey. Nonetheless, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton leave arm in arm and see how the wallpaper Miss Brooks' selected will look in their future home.]]
* WakeupMakeup: Memorably averted in the episode "The Model Teacher". The catty female reporter is pleased to see Miss Brooks unmade up, so she could portray her as poorly as possible.
* WalkingSwimsuitScene: Three examples:
** "Friday the Thirteenth": A key factor in the plot is a photograph of Miss Brooks by the lake in a French bathing suit.
** "Heat Wave" has everybody but Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin scheming to get out of school and pay a trip to the swimming hole. Turns out Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass, and even Mr. Boynton have swimming suits under their regular clothes. [[spoiler: At the end of episode, it's revealed Miss Brooks is wearing one too.]]
** In the episode "The Dancer", an exotic dancer wanting Mr. Conklin to hire her for his brother-in-law's bachelor party, strips down to a French bathing suit when left alone in his office.
* WatchOutForThatTree: "Skis in the Classroom" see Miss Brooks' runaway skiing stopped in this fashion:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Look out, you're heading right for that big tree! Look out for that tree!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': It's the only way I can stop! Oh, if I can just grab one of the branches! Here goes!
-->'''Crash!'''
* WavingSignsAround: The radio episode "Cafeteria Boycott" and its [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] "The Cafeteria Strike". Walter Denton and the other students make signs protesting the food in the cafeteria, such as "Remember PTO-MAINE" and, in the radio version, "Remember the saying what goes up must come down? In our cafeteria, what goes down must come up!"
* WealthyYachtOwner: Lawrence Nolan, in the film. He owns a luxurious motor yacht, the ''Paradise''.
* WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain: "Exchanging Gifts" involves the re-gifting and exchanging of a tie and a handkerchief with the loud design of "a big yellow tree on a cliff by the ocean with a purple owl on top of it playing a bugle. Both presents are for Mr. Boynton, who had just returned to Madison from a biologists' convention. The confusion is sorted out by the end [[DeadpanSnarker (Miss Brooks never missing an opportunity to snark over the ridiculousness of the design) ]], only for Mrs. Davis to ask Miss Brooks an important favor at episode's end:
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Just a minute, Connie. I have a little favor to ask of you. You know, everyone gave Mr. Boynton a welcome home gift today except me. Unfortunately, I'm a little short of funds so I can't buy him anything. But if you don't mind, I'd like to iron that muffler you gave me last Christmas, and give it to him in the morning.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please, Mrs. Davis. I've just had . . . .
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': You know the one I mean, Connie. The one with the yellow tree on the cliff by the ocean with the purple owl . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[HypocriticalHumor You're a little late, so Goodnight Mrs. Davis!]]
* WeatherReportOpening: "Radio Bombay" begins with a conversation about the weather.
* WeddingFinale: [[spoiler: TheMovie GrandFinale ends with Connie Brooks and Phil Boynton leaving to get married.]]
* WellDoneSonGuy: Gary Nolan resents his father's inattention.
* WeReallyDoCare: The plot of "Friendship".
* WeWait: Miss Brooks stakes out a burglar in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Burglar"]]
* WhatIsThisFeeling: In the episode "Marriage Madness", Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are shocked to see Mr. Conklin smiling and in such a good mood. Mr. Conklin himself reflects that he doesn't remember being so happy!
* WhatTheHellHero: In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Miss Brooks colludes with Mrs. Conklin to trick Mr. Conklin in believing that she had went home to her mother. Mr. Boynton calls out Miss Brooks. HilarityEnsues, as Miss Brooks gets the fight she desires with LoveInterest Mr. Boynton.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': So, what are you gonna do about it, Frog Boy?
* WhenEldersAttack: Mrs. Davis beats up a gym teacher in "Angela's Wedding". [[SeriousBusiness He insulted the deviled eggs she prepared.]]
* WhenIWasYourAge: In "Blue Goldfish", Miss Brooks is delegated to ask Mr. Conklin to raise the heat in the school. Mr. Conklin subjects Miss Brooks to a lecture about how soft people have gotten, unable to stand a little "fresh air." Mr. Conklin laments that Americans are no longer able to live up to the example set by George Washington at Valley Forge. [[spoiler: An example of HypocriticalHumor, the only reason ''Mr. Conklin'' is able to stand the cold is that he's sitting on a heating pad.]]
* WhiteCollarCrime:
** In "The Embezzled Dress", Miss Brooks fears going to prison for embezzlement after Mrs. Davis buys Miss Brooks a dress with the $25 Miss Brooks had been keeping in her room. Mrs. Davis thought the money was Miss Brook's rent money; in fact, it was the student banking funds.
** Five of Walter's Denton's practical jokes see the actual fraud:
*** Using Mr. Conklin's name to request a cure for alcoholism in "Cure That Habit"
*** Putting Mr. Conklin's name on a ''draft notice'' in "Mr. Conklin's Induction Notice"
*** "Spare That Rod!": Altering the address on a war-time letter to previous Madison principal Mr. Darwell, to read as a current letter to Mr. Conklin. The letter is a threat from Mr. Stone to fire Mr. Conklin (actually Mr. Darwell) if he doesn't cease running the school in a "dictatorial manner".
*** "Turnabout Day" has Walter Denton (with Stretch Snodgrass's help) forge a letter from Mr. Stone ordering Mr. Conklin to put the wacky school holiday into effect.
*** "Wild Goose Chase" sees Walter trick Mr. Conklin over the telephone: he pretends to be a radio quiz host and claims Mr. Conklin has won a free T.V. from Sherry's Department Store.
* WhiteCollarWorker: Miss Brooks is a white collar worker. The same applies for Mr. Boynton, Miss Enright, and Principal Osgood Conklin.
* WhoWillBellTheCat: If a favor or a request for additional funds is to be made at Madison High School . . . it is Miss Brooks who is inevitably nominated to convey the demand to Principal Conklin. The episodes "Blue Goldfish" and "Stretch is in Love Again" are cases in point.
* WhyAreYouLookingAtMeLikeThat: Walter Denton says this in the episode "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass". He walks into Mr. Conklin's office, after Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin discuss a plan to have someone imitate Stretch.
* WhyWasteAWedding: In the episode "June Bride". Mr. [=LeBlanc=]'s proxy wedding gets cancelled. Mr. Boynton suggest they don't waste the arrangements, nor the judge. Does he finally propose to, and marry, Miss Brooks? No. [[FacePalm It's a great opportunity for a square dance!]]
* WigDressAccent: Miss Brooks impersonates her non-existent identical twin sister in "Connie and Bonnie" and "Twins At School". At the end of "Twins At School", Mr. Conklin tries to get even with Miss Brooks by inventing and impersonating a cowboy relative.
* WildWilderness: Lake Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo, in the episode of the same name.
* WithDueRespect: Occasionally said by Walter Denton to Miss Brooks. Also occasionally used by Miss Brooks with Principal Osgood Conklin.
* WithThisRing: The movie ends with Boynton finally proposing to Brooks.
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: Mr. Conklin's given Miss Brooks this ultimatum a couple times, in order to force her compliance with a dubious scheme of his. Usually, however, Mr. Conklin chooses to warn Miss Brooks that it's in his power to make her time at teaching at Madison High "either very pleasant or very ''miserable''."
* WolfWhistle: At the end of "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Boynton falls asleep on a chair in the hall. Miss Brooks doesn't wake him up, but sits beside him. Mr. Boynton wolf-whistles in his sleep!
* WomenDrivers: Miss Brooks' car is always broken down or damaged in some way, forcing her to take lifts in [[TheAllegedCar Walter's jalopy]]. She is portrayed as someone who doesn't pay the best attention on the road, sometimes barely missing pedestrians by swerving and hitting something on the side of the road.
* WordAssociationTest: In "The School Board Psychologist", the psychologist gives Miss Brooks a word association test to determine her "appropriate" career. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Workaholic}}: In "Hobby Show" (and "The Workhorse", its radio predecessor), Miss Brooks is working so hard her friends fear her workaholic behavior will make her old before her time. HilarityEnsues when Miss Brooks' friends try to teach her to relax with a hobby. Miss Brooks knits (with Mrs. Davis), finger-paints (with Harriet Conklin), plays with model trains (with Walter Denton), plays chess (with [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]]) and fixes toys for charity (with Mr. and Mrs. Conklin) . . . '''all at the same time'''.
* WorkCom
* WorstAid: In the episode "First Aid Course", Miss Brooks purposely inflicts WorstAid on Miss Enright and Mr. Conklin. Miss Brooks was trying to avoid being forced to teach the eponymous course.
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: It happens to Miss Brooks ''twice'':
** In "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks and Walter Denton believe they've discovered a missing Arapaho Indian burial ground on Mr. Conklin's vacant lot. It turned out Harriet Conklin used the area to bury broken toys donated to Mrs. Davis' charity drive.
** In "Rare Black Orchid" Walter Denton enlists Miss Brooks to borrow the school Geiger counter. Walter discovered his shoe was radioactive from uranium. Walter's uranium hunt ends when he discovers he had stepped in the school's uranium sample. He tries to make Miss Brooks split with him the $10 cost of replacing it.
* WritingLines: Happens at the end of "Letter from the Education Board". Mr. Conklin has Walter, Stretch, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks stay after school writing "Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had."
* WrongTurnAtAlbuquerque: ''Two'' of the several mishaps that befall Miss Brooks and company in "Game at Clay City". Mr. Conklin gives Miss Brooks' the wrong directions to Clay City. Later, a pedestrian (voiced by Frank Nelson) intentionally gives Miss Brooks' wrong directions so he could get a free ride home.
* XMakesAnythingCool: "Project X" in the episode of the same name.
* YouAreInCommandNow: In "Radio Bombay", Mr. Conklin places Miss Brooks in charge of Madison High School when he's away for the morning. HilarityEnsues.
* YouMeddlingKids: Happens in a first season radio episode, titled "Student Government Day". Taking over their duly elected roles as mayor and police chief for a day, Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton raid "The Jackpot Amusem*nt Company," a gambling ring placing crooked slot machines in the backrooms of candy stores.
** This is actually a subversion. Harriet and Walter's insults toward an uncooperative real policeman get them, several other students, Miss Brooks, and eventually Mr. Boynton locked in jail. The only reason the gangsters are run out of town, is that the crooked mayor is terrified of bad publicity from the fiasco. His equally crooked campaign manager convinces him to forgo his cut, and let the kids bust the gambling ring.
** Fortunately, for Madison, it seems this was that mayor's last hurrah. By the following season's "School Band", Miss Brooks notes a new (much better) mayor had been elected and would be visiting Madison High School. When it the time came for the Mayor of Madison to appear on television in "Public Property on Parade", he showed himself to be the very model of a dedicated public servant.
* YouNoTakeCandle: The episode "Bartering with Chief Thundercloud" has the eponymous chief and his wife speak in this matter. Miss Brooks is flattered by Mrs. Thudercloud's compliment, however.
---> '''Mrs. Thundercloud''': Miss Brooks, she very pretty!
* YourWorstNightmare: In "Friendship", Miss Brooks suffers from a referring dream where she's being attacked with a knife.
* YouSayTomato: Notable in "Hello Mr. Chips", where an English headmaster, a QuintessentialBritishGentleman, visits Madison High School. His pronounciation varies greatly from that of the regular characters. So much so, that it's a RunningGag throughout the episode.
* ZanyScheme: There must be a course in zany schemes over at Madison High School. Everybody has had one in the works, one time or another. These are just a few examples. [[ItMakesSenseInContext They all make sense in context.]]
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass," Miss Brooks hatches a scheme to waylay Strech's transfer by having Mr. Conklin and her masquerade as the [[DumbJock dim athlete's]] equally dim parents.
** One of Walter Denton's schemes is a monstrous April Fool's Day joke, in "Wild Goose." He imitates a radio quizmaster, tricking Mr. Conklin into thinking he's won a TV from Sherry's Department Store. Cue Miss Brooks chasing down the stream of notes Walter left, in vain pursuit of the elusive television set.
** Mr. Conklin, pompous though he may be, isn't above the general zaniness either. In "The Big Jump," he plans to jump off the roof (onto a firemen's parachute) as part of a civil defense drill. He chickens out, and volunteers Miss Brooks to act as his stunt double.
** Mrs. Conklin gets into the act in "Non-Fraternization Policy." She's working to derail Mr. Conklin's newly imposed Islamic-style separation of the sexes at Madison.
** Even Mr. Boynton take part. "Clay City English Teacher" sees him try to imitate Sam Spade in an effort to lure Miss Brooks away from the eponymous teacher.
** Goody-two-shoes Harriet Conklin has a zany scheme now and again. In "New Girl", she tricks the titular girl's mother into believing Mr. Boynton is a serial killer.
** To Mrs. Davis, zany schemes are old hat. At least as far as zany schemes go, occurs in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. Mrs. Davis brings about Miss Brooks' HappilyEverAfter through some clever manipulation of Mr. Boynton and his mother.

* JadedProfessional: Mrs. Carney in the 1952 "Christmas Show". Mrs. Carney is in charge of the gift exchange office at Sherry's Department Store. However, it is clear from the start that she is anything but cheerful about her duties. In fact, she is extremely frustrated by people exchanging their Christmas gifts (especially exchanging their gifts before Christmas). Outside her job, she is actually a charitable person, being part of Mrs. Conklins "Helping Hand Committee".
* {{Jingle}}: The show's sponsors had some pretty catchy ones:
** "Brush your teeth with Colgate/Colgate dental cream/It cleans your breath (what a toothpaste)/While it cleans your teeth."
** "Dream girl, dream girl/Beautiful Luster Cream girl/You owe your crowning glory to/A Luster Cream shampoo." (This one was set to the tune of "Toyland" from ''Theatre/BabesInToyland''.)
* JailedOneAfterAnother:
** Happens in "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis is tricked into selling counterfeit tickets to the Policeman's Ball and jailed overnight. When released she goes to stay with her sister Angela, too embarrassed to tell how she had been tricked. Mrs. Davis really should have said something; Miss Brooks decides to sell the tickets to help the charity drive. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone end up jailed in quick succession.
** In the radio episode "Student Government Day". The Madison High School students were supposed to be elected to city positions for the day, but the police didn't get the memo. "Police Chief Denton" and "Mayor Harriet Conklin" try to order a raid on the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company", but are foiled by a patrolman. Walter Denton threatens to have the cop "pounding a beat in a swamp". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, the "mayor" and "chief of police" and a number of other student government officials are jailed.
* JingletheCoins: In "Old Marblehead", a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". Mr. Conklin jingles the coins in the tin with which he to collects the fines he levies under his "carelessness code". More notable in the radio original, for obvious reasons.
* JiveTurkey: Orville Mason, a dance instructor who hangs out at Elmer's Malt Shop, in "The Mambo". Walter Denton chooses to describe Mason as a "jive hound" instead of as a turkey.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe:
** In "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin explains to Miss Brooks his plan to get All-American football player and high school coach Biff Mooney to work for Madison High School. Rather than first going about his plan and bragging later.
** In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Stone threatens to fire Mr. Conklin once Stone's elected to the new post of "Coordinator of Education". This sets up the subplot where Mr. Conklin runs against Mr. Stone to head the school board.
* KarmicJackpot: Happens several times:
** One example is "The Festival", where, by loaning their money and exchanging outfits with the hardworking cleaning women and custodian (so they'll have something nice to wear to the festival) - Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton win the prize for best costume. True to form, they proceed to split the proceeds with the cleaning woman and custodian.
** Also happens in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Miss Brooks organizes a food drive for Mr. Whipple, who she mistakenly believes is impoverished. This so affects the misery millionaire, that he donates the money to build the new gymnasium Madison High School needs.
** Miss Brooks wins the Karmic Jackpot grand prize in TheMovie GrandFinale. Miss Brooks' good deeds are finally awarded, when she achieves her SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Connie Brooks is often unwillingly made privy to Walter Denton's latest prank. Miss Brooks has to keep quiet or risk having Walter suspended or expelled, sometimes making her an almost ''de facto'' confederate to his schemes.
** i.e. "Cure That Habit" forces Miss Brooks to stay quiet about Walter's having sent a postcard to the titular alcoholism support group in Mr. Conklin's name.
** "Wild Goose Chase" has Miss Brooks be forced to keep quiet about Walter pretending to be a quiz show host, and having tricked Mr. Conklin in believing he won a free T.V. set.
** "The Cafeteria Strike" sees Miss Brooks have to cover up an impending protest by the students, led by Walter Denton.
** "Dress Code Protest" sees Miss Brooks try to dodge Mr. Conklin's discovering Walter's idiotic scheme to protest the principal's new dress code.
** "The Sweater" has Walter Denton put Miss Brook's name to an expensive present purchased by Miss Enright and gifted to Mr. Boynton. Miss Brooks is quite unwittingly pulled into the deception, but is loathe to reveal it as it results in an atypically amorous Mr. Boynton.
** "Stretch Has A Problem" sees a different kind of secret kept by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks must keep secret Stretch's crush on Harriet Conklin, while keeping the lovesick DumbJock ready, willing and able to play in the state basketball tournament.
** "The Grudge Match" again deals with the Stretch-Harriet-Walter love triangle, as Miss Brooks must cover up the fact that Stretch Snodgrass went to the movies with Harriet Conklin, Walter's designated [[LoveInterest squeeze.]]
** Miss Brooks is quite the unwitting secret keeper. In "New School Bus", she has to hide the fact that Mr. Boynton bought an old paddy wagon to serve as a bus for Madison's sports teams.
* KidSidekick: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. He often sees her at lunch in the cafeteria, and will play a major part or even instigate the ZanyScheme of the week.
* KindheartedCatLover: Mrs. Davis.
* KissDiss: At the end of "Capistrano's Revenge", Miss Brooks kisses Mr. Conklin, Bones Snodgrass, and Walter Denton on the cheek in appreciation for helping her save a swallow's life. When she goes to kiss her LoveInterest, the shy Mr. Boynton, he blushes and runs out the door!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The big one always gets away!
* KnittingPregnancyAnnouncement: Misread by Miss Brooks in "Little Visitor". The fact that Mrs. Conklin hasn't been seen at school for months, and is known to be knitting many of tiny outfits leads Miss Brooks to jump to the conclusion In fact, the only thing the Mrs. Conklin is expecting is to take care of her sister's pet monkey for a couple weeks.
* LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine: Mr. Boynton typically wears a labcoat whenever he's seen in his classroom, the Biology room, at school. In "Madison Country Club", Mr. Conklin dismissively refers to the coat as a "burlap smock".
* LabPet: Mr. Boynton has a habit of naming many of his lab animals. However, that doesn't prevent him from doing fatal tests on them. In "New Girl in Town", it's revealed that he has been burying his mouse martyrs to science in the athletic field. Moreover, Miss Brooks has been (reluctantly) helping him.
** The trope is averted in the case of Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. Although Mac is usually kept in the lab, he's a personal pet and not used for lab tests. Usually Mac's kept in a separate cage. However in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Boynton seems to have temporarily placed Mcdougall with a number of other frogs.
* LadyInWaiting: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks' dream sequence features several ladies in waiting serving her.
* LargeHam: Mr. Conklin
* LargeHamAnnouncer: In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks plays this trope to the hilt, sardonically giving a play-by-play of the boxing match between Stretch and Walter. Complete with faked commercials:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam patch on it first.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin is Honored" begins with Mrs. Davis relating her sister Angela's recent brush with laser-guided amnesia. Later, Mr. Conklin ''fakes'' a case of his own.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** A good example is ''The Festival''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton lend their clothes and cash to the hardworking cleaning woman and custodian, so they can attend a costume party. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton wear the clothes of the cleaning woman and custodian. They win a large cash prize - and of course split it with the custodian and the cleaning woman.]]
** In TheMovie, [[spoiler: Miss Brooks spends the movie tutoring Gary Nolan and helping him reconcile with his father. This, with a little subterfuge by Mrs. Davis thrown in, makes Mr. Boynton jealous enough to finally get serious. Later, Mr. Boynton's invitation for his lonely, recently widowed mother, to move to Madison, has him buy a house. Again, Mrs. Davis steps in and arranges to have the elder Mrs. Boynton as her new boarder. The upshot: Miss Brooks finally gets to marry Boynton, the two have their HappyEnding.]]
* LastMinuteHookup: After eight years on the radio, and four years (concurrently) on television, Connie Brooks finally gets Phillip Boynton to propose marriage in the last ten minutes of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. Even then, the proposal is ''de facto'' delivered by [[TheMatchmaker Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother.]]
* LastNameBasis: Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin always address each other formally, even outside of school.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Used from time to time. This example comes from "Hawkins Travel Agency". Miss Brooks is trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to France . . . .
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with a French accent): Oh, there is nothing like [[GayParee Paree]] in the summer. The Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre Palais, the Place de Concorde . . . and Piccadilly Circus.
--> '''Mr. Stone''' Miss Brooks, Piccadilly Circus happens to be in London.
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with an co*ckney accent) : Right-O governor, but if you were so nearby, you wouldn't want to miss that now, would you?
* LateToThePunchline: Miss Brooks remarks to Mr. Boynton that stealing a kiss is "petting larceny". A couple minutes later, Mr. Boynton gets the joke and starts to laugh.
* LateForSchool: Miss Brooks is late for school a couple of times. It's SeriousBusiness, because she's a teacher!
** In "The Party Line", Miss Brooks is too late to catch the city bus to school. Walter Denton tried to warn her that his car was in the shop, but her [[GossipyHens chatty]] party line neighbor had the phone tied up.
** In "Wake-Up Plan", Miss Brooks sleeps in and misses half a day of school. Mrs. Davis had accidentally given Miss Brooks a sleeping pill instead of an aspirin.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale Walter Denton is late for English class. He nearly barrels over Mr. Conklin running through the hall. He arrives just in time to tell Harriet the drive shaft from his car fell out . . . then the bell rings and the class ends.
* LaughingAtYourOwnJokes: Mr. Boynton did this on a regular basis, both on radio and on television. His jokes are rarely that funny.
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Boynton gives Miss Brooks a joke-book and cracks himself up trying to tell the joke.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Now, when I first pick "My Dog Has Fleas" on the banjo like that, Miss Brooks, we spring our first humorous anecdote. You can read it right from the book. Here we are.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thanks. What's that you played on the banjo, Mr. Interlocutor?
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': "My Dog Has Fleas".
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Funny kind of a dog. My dog has pups. OH NO!
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': (laughs)
-->'''Walter Denton''': (laughs) How corny can you get!
** In "The Auction", Mr. Boynton breaks himself up over the idea of leading his frogs on a leash downtown and telling the public to [[IncrediblyLamePun "get hopping"]] to Madison High.
** At the start of "Non-Fraternization Policy", Mr. Boynton tells a long, involved joke involving three turn-of-the-century Irish policemen and a horse. Mr. Boynton finds the joke funny. Nobody else does.
* LaughingMad: "Hobby Show" ends with Miss Brooks laughing hysterically, and smearing finger paints over her face.
* LaughOfLove: "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Bones, Son of Cyrano" (the TV remake)]], Mr. Boynton writes down a poem from ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Boynton lends it to Walter Denton so the teen could use it to woo "the fair Harriet" [[ItMakesSenseInContext by anonymously hiding the poem in Harriet's lunch]]. Unfortunately, Harriet recognizes Mr. Boynton's handwriting and immediately becomes a SmittenTeenageGirl. Harriet returns Mr. Boynton's poem as a gesture of her love, madly giggling.
* LaymansTerms: In "Life Can Be Bones", Mr. Boynton explains the concept of the "missing link" to Miss Brooks and Walter Denton. He uses layman's terms to describe what exactly the "missing link" between ancient man and the primates would be and how it's fossilized skull would look. Mr. Boynton doesn't realize that Miss Brooks had just read his definition in a introductory book on paleontology; in fact, Mr. Boynton plagerized the book's description word-for-word.
* LayoutOfASeason: The fourth season of the television series began with the aptly named "Transition Show". Madison High School is torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin find new work at Miss Nester's Private School.
** The concurrent radio show and subsequent [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale finale]] [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored this move]] and continued at Madison High as per usual.
* LazyBum: The hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria" in "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* LeadIn: Often, an episode begins with Miss Brooks conversing with Mrs. Davis over breakfast. While the conversation is usually relevant to the plot of the episode, occasionally it will just be a wacky interlude before the main story comes into play.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: An interesting example is found in the radio episode "Reckless Driving".
** Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Harriet and Walter are on Mrs. Davis' porch listening to the radio.
** Creator/SteveAllen suddenly drives up asking for the way to Hollywood - turns out he's going to host the summer replacement for ''Our Miss Brooks''.
** The radio is tuned to ''Our Miss Brooks'' Miss Brooks calling it the show "with the school teacher with my name".
** Miss Brooks, incidentally, thinks Eve Arden is "a doll". Mr. Conklin hates the pompous principal, while Walter Denton likes "one character in particular."
** Eve Arden announces her summer replacement, saying she would be listening to Steve Allen's show that summer. Everybody on the porch commending her nice speech. Allen, however, wonders if she'll really be listening. Cue Eve Arden saying of course she would, he has her job!
*** This scene wasn't duplicated in the television remake, "Trial by Jury". [[spoiler: There, the program ended with Miss Brooks pleading her innocence in court before a jury with Mr. Conklin as a member.]]
* LetsYouAndHimFight: In "Stretch Is Accused of Professionalism", teenaged DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass enters a circus wrestling contest and wins a prize. Unfortunately, this came to the attention of rival Clay City High School principal Jason Brille. By a technical reading of school board rules, this makes Stretch a "professional athlete" and ineligible for school sports. Miss Brooks tries to get the wrestler, visiting Madison High School to deliver Stretch the prize money, to attack school board head Mr. Stone. In that way, she hopes proof of the wrestler's violent nature would lead to Mr. Stone waiving any penalty against Stretch.
* LetXBeTheUnknown: "Project X" has Mr. Conklin develop the eponymous secret project as a way of impressing school board president Mr. Stone.
* LickedByTheDog: Mr. Conklin softens on several occasions. One such example is the episode "The Miserable Caballero", where Mr. Conklin softens toward Benny Romero, a runaway Mexican boy.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: At work with the adults characters. Miss Brooks, from near the start, is after the position of Madison High School Head of the English Department. She never gets it; obstructions include blabbermouths sharing the "Party Line" and a nervous nerve-specialist claiming she's overwrought "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". At least once, Mr. Boynton suffers from this trope; his attempt to be hired as a college professor ends in HilarityEnsues with Miss Brooks trying to masquerade as his mother ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton). Even Mr. Conklin can't get a promotion; he's the subject of a false scandal in "The Little Visitor", and otherwise embarrassed in "Project X". In the penultimate television episode, "Principal For A Day", Miss Brooks' leadership of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School is short-lived.
[[spoiler: Miss Brooks does achieve her actual SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton, in TheMovie GrandFinale]].
* ListOfTransgressions: In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin is tricked into believing he's about to be fired for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his [[DeanBitterman administration of Madison High School]]. As a result, he requests Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass provide him with a list of his transgressions:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Now, if you will read me your bill of particulars considering my various infamies . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': We're all going to read some of it, Mr. Conklin. Will you begin Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thank you, Mr. Boynton. Whereas I, Osgood Conklin, Principal of Madison High School, desiring to improve relations between myself, the faculty, and the student body . . . your turn, Walter.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Ahem. Do promise to keep the following ever before me as a reminder of past sins of which I am heartily ashamed.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Which I ain't never gonna repeat no more.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Splendid. Splendid. Please continue.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Wait until you hear this! I readily admit on many occasions I have acted like a pompous, puffed up, ill tempered, addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Forgive me, but it seems to me you have omitted maladjusted.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please don't interrupt, that's in the next paragraph. Now, where was I?
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh yes. Addlepated blowhard. And on other occasions, I have bellowed like a bull . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Screamed like an elephant . . .
-->'''Walter Denton''': Hissed like a viper . . .
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Snorted like a buffalo . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': And otherwise exhibited the behavior of a maladjusted nincompoop.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Oh, oh, oh, there it is!
* LiteralMinded: Mr. Jensen, the school custodian, makes a few radio appearances. He insists on interpreting figures of speech and phrases literally. Thus, to Miss Brooks' consternation (i.e. "School Safety Advisor") any attempt at conversation with him quickly turns into a chore.
* TheLittleDetecto: Walter and Miss Brooks use a Geiger counter in "Rare Black Orchid" to search for uranium. Walter had discovered some on his shoe and concluded he had unknowingly stepped in uranium recently.
* LivingLegend: Two, at least:
** In "The Big Game", there's former high school football star "Snakehips", whose high score in the big game won him a job as a vice-president.
** In "Safari O'Tool", there's Mrs. Davis's beau, a famous jungle explorer. [[spoiler: He's a fraud.]]
* LivingStatue:
** In "Living Statues", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton are accidently glued into place.
** In "Hobbies", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin pretend to be wax figures in order to dodge Mr. Stone. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* LocalHangout: Marty's Malt Shop, located across the street from Madison High School, is popular with students and faculty alike.
* LockedInAFreezer: Happens twice:
** In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin is locked in the cafeteria freezer.
** In "Male Superiority", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are trapped in a meat locker. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks is the only one who doesn't panic.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Gary Nolan in the movie.
* LongList: Usually when Mrs. Davis describes recipe ingredients.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** In "Wakeup Plan", [[spoiler: after accidently ingesting Mrs. Davis' sleeping pills, Mr. Conklin is caught sleeping in his office by the head of the board, Mr. Stone, and his assistant, Mr. Gleason. Miss Brooks successfully argues that Mr. Conklin was only seen sleeping during the lunch hour and after school - that is, on his own time.]]
** "Department Store Contest" [[spoiler: features an unusual case of ''accidental'' loophole abuse. Miss Brooks wins a prize when a childhood letter to Santa Claus is accidently entered in a children's contest at Sherry's Department. As she wrote the letter ''when she was a child'', she was able to walk away with the prize and avoid trouble.]]
* LostFoodGrievance:
** In "The Honest Burglar", and "The Burglar, [[SoundToScreenAdaptation the television remake]], Mr. Conklin is furious at a food thief who stole the fried chicken his wife left for him.
** In the radio episode "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to impress Mr. Boynton by framing Mr. Boynton for eating Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner and then taking the blame for him. ItMakesSenseInContext. The plan goes south when teenager [[BigEater Walter Denton]] eats Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner before it can be delivered to Mr. Boynton.
* LostVoicePlot: Mr. Conklin loses his voice in "Public Speaker's Nightmare", just before he's about to greet important officials from the national board of educations. Unusually for the trope, the cause is psychosomatic.
* LovableJock: Stretch Snodgrass, Madison High's star athlete. He's [[DumbJock dimwitted]], but good natured to the point where he's willing to transfer schools if it'll get his best friend Walter Denton on the Madison football team ("Two Way Stretch Snodgrass). Stretch is apparently very popular, when he [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally vandalizes the school]] in "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks and Walter gets a crew of students to fix the damage and cover for him.
* LoveAtFirstSight: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks falls in love with Mr. Boynton the first time they meet.
* LoveHurts: Miss Brooks is deeply in love with largely ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. Because FailureIsTheOnlyOption, Miss Brooks' schemes to get Mr. Boynton to marry her inevitably fail [[spoiler: until TheMovie GrandFinale when Miss Brooks finally marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* LoveLetter / LoveLetterLunacy: The plot of the episode "Bones, Son of Cyrano". A love letter gets misdirected and misinterpreted multiple times. HilarityEnsues. [[spoiler: Especially, when Mr. Conklin believes Miss Brooks is in love with him!]] This is a remake of the radio episode "Poetry Mixup". The only difference is Stretch Snodgrass is replaced by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother]].
* TheMagazineRule: In "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo", Miss Brooks seeks out a hobo to write an article about "The Vanishing Hobo" to submit to a schoolteacher's magazine. It so turns out the titular hobo is also writing a magazine article. The hobo's article is entitled "The Vanishing Schoolteacher" and he is paid handsomely by a ''hobo magazine'' for its publication.
* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Part of Principal Osgood Conklin's modus operandi at Madison High School. There is, after all, a reason Miss Brooks considers Conklin to be Madison's dictator:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Having expected a one way trip to Devil's Island, I thought the punishment Mr. Conklin meted out was comparatively just. However, it was just after 7:00 that evening when I got home.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Why Connie, I was getting to get worried about you! Where in the world have you been all afternoon?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': I was doing a little writing, Mrs. Davis.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Writing? What were you writing?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Oh, I don't think you'd be interested, it's not your type of stuff.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': I'm interested in everything you do, Connie. Please, tell me all about it.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Well, if you insist, Mrs. Davis. But you'd better sit down, this may take quite a while.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Alright. ''(sits down)'' There. Now, what did you write?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[WritingLines I wrote "Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had. Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had. Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had . . ."]]
* MakeOutPoint:
** On radio and television, the EverytownAmerica setting of Madison had Outpost Road, a scenic sight in the country outside of town. It's the focus of the radio episode "Outpost Road". Walter Denton and Harriot Conklin had been caught necking out on Outpost Road, but to avoid being identified after their narrow escape, they claimed to have loaned his jalopy to Miss Brooks and Mr Boynton. An interesting prospect for Connie, but she doesn’t want to be dragged into the mess. Connie only agrees to play along if Mr Boynton does. Amazingly, he does, and the two teachers plan to return to the scene of the crime for their own necking session.
** Due to ExecutiveMeddling, the fourth season of the television program was set in the Los Angeles area with little explanation. On a couple occasions, gym instructor Gene Talbot attempts to take Miss Brooks out to Mulholland Drive. Miss Brooks resists.
* MalevolentMugshot:
** Mr. Conklin has an extremely large portrait of himself over his living room fireplace, as first seen in the television premier "Trying to Pick A Fight". It's PlayedForLaughs, as it indicative of his pomposity and his self-regard. It's worth noting, although Mr. Conklin has a wife and teenage daughter, ''their'' portraits are nowhere to be seen.
** The episode "Old Marblehead" sees Mr. Conklin scheming to get a bust of his head to replace that of Julius Caesar's in the school library. He makes the students and teachers pay for it by levying arbitrary fines via his "Carelesslessness code."
** In "Friday the Thirteenth", Mr. Conklin posts a photo of himself on the school bulletin board. He is regaled complete in black suit, black hat and midnight-blue tie. His photograph is there to suggest to students and faculty the value of proper dress and deportment. Walter Denton nails a picture of Miss Brooks' body in a French bathing suit beneath Mr. Conklin's head.
** In "Mr. Conklin's Wax Effigies," Mr. Conklin makes a wax statue of himself. Miss Brooks believes it to Mr. Conklin himself.
** "Space, Who Needs It?" sees Mr. Conklin, again pranked by Walter Denton, firm in the belief he's discovered a new planet. Conklin names it "Conklin Junior."
** In "Fargo Whiskers", Mr. Conklin has a small portrait of himself upon his desk. State school-board official Mr. Fargo can't stand sitting there, looking at the photgraph. So, Fargo pushes the portrait face-down.
* MaliciousSlander: In "April Fools' Day", Miss Enright writes to a romance columnist using Miss Brooks' initials. She plans to use it to humiliate Miss Brooks in front of Mr. Conklin and his dinner guests.
* MaltShop: Marty's Malt Shop, found across the street from Madison High it's practically an institution amongst students and faculty alike.
* ManInAKilt: Mr. Conklin dresses as a Scotsman in "The Festival", complete with kilt. He's also carrying about bagpipes for good measure.
* ManipulativeEditing: In "Public Speakers Nightmare" and "The Tape Recorder", innocuous recordings are accidentally misplayed to produce Miss Brooks saying scandalous things about Mr. Conklin, and Mr. Conklin insulting Mr. Stone, Head of the Board of Education. These recordings, incidentally, are played in front of Mr. Stone . . . .
* MarriageOfConvenience:
** In "King and Brooks", a Indian maharajah proposes marriage to Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks refuses to marry for convenience, it's only a marriage for love that appeals to Connie. However, the fact that Miss Brooks would be the polygamous maharajah's ''fourth'' wife had something to do with her reluctance!
** Refused in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale, Miss Brooks refuses a heartfelt marriage proposal from Lawrence Nolan because she likes, but doesn't love him. Miss Brooks again refuses to marry for anything but love, although Nolan is very wealthy. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Miss Brooks married Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]]
* MarriedAnimals: In the episode "Minerva's Kittens", Mrs. Davis and Miss Brooks wait at the veterinary hospital for Minerva to give birth. They share this exchange:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please, Mrs. Davis, calm down. Even Timothy isn't as jumpy as you are. You're as nervous as a cat.
-->'''Timothy''': [[NearlyNormalAnimal ''Meow'']].
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': What is ''he'' doing here?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Why shouldn't he be here? He's Minerva's husband. It's very nice of him to take such an interest.
* MarriedInTheFuture:
** In "The Dream", not only does Mr. Boynton marry Miss Brooks, but teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin also get married. Mr. and Mrs. Conklin also have a son. Time flash-forwards many years, where it turns out that Mr. Boynton's and Miss Brooks' daughter is going steady with Mr. Conklin's son Osgood Junior.
** In TheMovie [[GrandFinale Series Finale]], Miss Brooks fantasizes about her future married life with Mr. Boynton.
* MarriedToTheJob:
** Mr. Conklin is devoted to his job at Madison High School. Although he doesn't really need the money, he acts as principal during the summer school months. In the radio episode "Carelessness Code", Mr. Conklin gives his reasons:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': It doesn't matter what time of year it is, Madison High is my baby!
** In the episode "The Hobby Show" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "The Work Horse"), Miss Brooks' friends fear she's overworking herself. They throw her a hobby afternoon. HilarityEnsues.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Lawrence Nolan is so focussed on running his newspaper that he neglects his son Gary, most nights leaving him to eat with the servants. Gary becomes moody and resentful, deliberately failing English and becoming disliked by his peers. Connie does a good job diagnoising the problem, and helping set father and son to right. [[spoiler: Lawrence is so taken with Connie he proposes marriage; Connie likes but does not love him, so she declines. Ultimately Connie marries longtime LoveInterest, shy biology teacher Phillip Boynton at film's end.]]
* MasqueradeBall: Not one, but two:
** In "The Festival", a masquerade festival is being held in a park near Madison High School.
** The masquerade in "Cinderella for a Day" is a swankier event, a dance held at the local country club.
* TheMatchmaker:
** In "Weekend At Crystal Lake", Mrs. Conklin tries to play matchmaker for Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: It backfires horribly.]]
** Many times throughout the series, teenager Walter Denton lends his "skills", usually with little positive effect. [[spoiler: "Trying to Pick A Fight" and "Life Can Be Bones" are just two of his more flatfooted attempts.]]
** It is, however, Mrs. Davis who eventually emerges as the champ. [[spoiler: Mrs. Davis' advice in "Tears for Mr. Boynton", nearly gets Miss Brooks a proposal of marriage. However, in the TheMovie GrandFinale, it is Mrs. Davis' matchmaking that finally gets Miss Brooks married to Mr. Boynton and achieving her HappilyEverAfter.]]
* MatteShot: Used often. A good example is the final scene of "The Big Jump", where the action takes place on the Madison High rooftop with a matte background in behind.
* MayDecemberRomance: Miss Brooks is the subject of two unwanted aged geriatric suitors. ** In "The Telegram", she's the object of affection for Mrs. Davis' nonegenarian Uncle Corky.
** Meanwhile, the younger, but still senior citizen, Mr. Barlow falls for Miss Brooks in "Puppy Love and Mr. Barlow".
* MayorPain:
** Mayor Rimson in "Student Government Day" is a mix of the evil and incompetent. Rimson is so corrupt, he's even getting a kickback from the gangsters running the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company". The company puts rigged slot machines in candy stores, getting children and teens to gamble away their money on machines that don't pay out. Rimson is reluctantly forced to turn on the crooks; he only does so because his campaign advisor "Honest John" tells him the situation is too hot. In a glaring example of incompetence, Rimson's police force had arrested the Mayor-for-a-day Harriet Conklin, the Police-Chief-for-a-day Walter Denton, and Miss Brooks for good measure.
** Averted in "Faculty Band" and "Public Property on Parade". Mayor Rimsom had been replaced by an honest, and, based on his appearance in "Public Property on Parade", a competent mayor.
* MauriceChevalierAccent: French teacher Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]. Likewise with any French character that appears on the show (or was heard in the radio version).
* TheMcCoy: Miss Brooks routinely made her life difficult bending to the rules to help students avoid trouble or otherwise help friends in need. Or, particularly in "The Birthday Bag" and "The Festival", she'd contribute more to charity than she could afford.
* MeanBoss: Mr. Conklin.
* MeasuringtheMarigolds: Mr. Boynton is prone to this behavior. In "The Magic Tree", when Miss Brooks points out mistletoe, Mr. Boynton takes it as a cue to begin a lecture on the characteristics of the plant.
* MedalsForEveryone: In "Mr. Whipple", the eponymous Mr. Whipple, a curmudgeonly millionaire, is impressed by the Madison High crew's kindness. Mr. Whipple drives them to a department store in his limousine, buys them new formal clothes, pays for a band for the school dance, and agrees to browbeat the school board into building a new Madison High School gymnasium.
* MeddlesomePatrolman
** In "Four Leaf Clover", Miss Brooks is plagued by a far less courteous cop. When she accidentally knocks over Mr. Morelli's barber pole, the policeman forces her to go to Morelli's house right away - making Miss Brooks (and Mr. Boynton, who she was supposed to drive to school) very late for school. To add insult to injury, no one is at home and Miss Brooks is required to return later in the day. Hours later, the policeman comes by Madison High and makes Miss Brooks settle with the man whose yard from whom she picked the four-leaf clover. It turns out Miss Brooks caused $50 worth of damage to very expesive golf sod. Finally, when Miss Brooks finally finds Mr. Morelli at home, the meddlesome policeman comes by and quarantines Miss Brooks (and Mr. Conklin, whose airplane tickets Miss Brooks had accidentally pocketed) at Mr. Morelli's house. It seems as if Morelli has the measles, and someone stole his quarantine sign!
* MenCantKeepHouse: Averted. Mr. Boynton's apartment is seen in "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton". All Miss Brooks has to criticize is the abundance of wildlife specimens and an abundance of doors.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Not bad. If you like wildlife . . . and doors.
* TheMentallyDisturbed: Mrs. Davis' reference to increasing "absentmindedness" (as well as that of her sister Angela's and brother Victor) isn't funny if you view it as the first signs of dementia. Most of the time Mrs. Davis' absentmindedness is plain forgetfulness. However, there are exceptions. Especially notable is "Phone Book Follies", where Mrs. Davis' is inadvertently and absentmindedly pocketing people's phone books when she visits.
* MessOnAPlate: Some of Mrs. Davis' CordonBleughChef dishes fall into this category.
* MiniatureSeniorCitizens: Miss Brooks' [[CoolOldLady elderly landlady]], Mrs. Davis, is shorter than the other characters - including the teenagers. Mrs. Davis' sister, Angela, is also short.
* MirthlessLaughter: An overstressed Miss Brooks laughs nervously in "Hobby Show".
* MisplacedWildlife: In "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks reads a newspaper article about the lost burial ground of a Arapaho war party that used gold spears decorated with ''peaco*ck'' feathers. This raises the question where an Indian tribe would have obtained a supply of peaco*ck feathers in the 19th century United States.
* MissedHimByThatMuch: Miss Brooks keeps missing Mr. Boynton in "Mr. Boynton's Return". She finally catches him at the airport as he's about to leave town to visit his parents. Mr. Boynton decides to skip his flight, and spend the weekend in town so he can spend time with Miss Brooks.
* MissingMom: In The Movie Grand Finale, Gary Nolan's mother succumbed to Death by Childbirth, leaving his father Lawrence a widower. [[spoiler: Lawrence proposes to Connie Brooks, but Connie ultimately marries longtime Love Interest Mr. Boynton.]]
* MistakenAge:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Mr. Boynton's parents]] mistake a housecleaning Miss Brooks for old Mrs. Davis.
** In "Former Student Visits", Miss Brooks is desperate to appear young. She tries to hide the fact that she's already been teaching high school for several years. Unfortunately for her, the "former student" visiting had been in her very first class. He's since graduated from medical school and become a doctor!
* MistakenForDying: The episode "Have Bed - Will Travel" sees Mrs Davis' medical records mixed with an ill nonagenarian friend, making Miss Brooks believe her landlady is mortally ill.
* MistakenForFakeHair: In the episode "Mister Fargo Whiskers", Miss Brooks has reason to believe that [[TeachersPet Walter]] will be impersonating a state school board official by the name of Fargo. Especially when it turns out that Mr. Fargo's first name is Walter! When Miss Brooks meets Fargo, she insulting mimics his twang (thinking it's a fake accent of Walter Denton). Then she tries to pull of Mr. Fargo's titular whiskers. Miss Brooks makes a hasty retreat when Walter Denton walks into the room . . . asking for help putting on his fake beard!
* MistakenForServant: In "Marriage Madness", Mrs. Davis pretends to be Miss Brooks' maid. Mrs. Davis wants to test her fiancé to see if he wants to marry her for the Davis money. [[spoiler: The man's a con artist. He does only want to marry Mrs. Davis for her money.]]
* MistakenIdentity: Several times, naturally HilarityEnsues:
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Conklin, Harriet, Walter, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton confuse state board official Mr. Jones with Deacon Jones, the "Hillbilly Heifetz" and leader of a square dance troupe.
** In "Fargo Whiskers", Mr. Conklin believes school official Fargo is a disguised Walter Denton.
** In "Head of the State Board of Education", thanks to Stretch Snodgrass' bungling, Miss Brooks and company accuse the man with the eponymous title of being an unemployed park bench loafer.
* MistakenMessage: Figures prominently in "Bones, Son of Cyrano".
* MockMillionaire: Occasional episodes have Miss Brooks play this trope, either to impress a snooty dowager ("Madison Country Club"), protect Mrs. Davis' feelings ("The Return of Red Smith"), or even to derail Mrs. Davis' engagement to a confidence man ("Marriage Madness").
* ModestRoyalty: The titular king in "King and Brooks". He wears an ordinary suit. Subverted in Miss Brooks' dream, where ErmineCapeEffect applies.
* ModelingPoses: In "Acting Director", Miss Brooks makes several quick poses for the camera as a ''Creator/WarnerBros'' photographer takes snapshots.
* MonkeyMoralityPose: Two examples:
** In "The Loaded Custodian", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton mime the three wise monkeys when caught looking for hidden treasure in Mr. Barlow's office.
** In "Wild Goose", again Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton mime the three wise monkeys when asked by Mr. Conklin who had tricked him into thinking he had won a free television set.
* MorallyBankruptBanker: The titular Mr. Travers in "Mr. Travers' Three Acre Lot".
* MoralMyopia: In "Clay City English Teacher", Mr. Conklin views it as perfectly acceptable to use incentives to lure teachers away from other schools to Madison High. However, he is disgusted by any effort to lure his teachers away to other schools; in this case, a plan by his SitcomArchNemesis Jason Brille of Clay City High School to steal Miss Brooks.
* MotorMouth: Walter Denton sometimes talks rapidly when nervous, or when trying to polish the apple. In the episode "Cafeteria Strike", he motors through a student's petition:
--> '''Walter Denton:''' [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Whereas and to wit...]]\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[RedScare That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side.]]\\
'''Harriet Conklin:''' Listen, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Walter Denton:''' When in the course of student's events, it becomes necessary to turn one's back on one's stomach, we the undersigned, exercising our constitutional right to peaceably assemble, and to form a committee to seek the redress of grievances, do hereby announce our firm intention of the Madison High School Cafeteria only to use the tables, chairs, water, napkins and toothpicks provided therein. Until such a time that the duly appointed party or parties, namely Mr. Osgood Conklin, principal, or the Board of Education, responsible for the operational bog-down that has befallen this installation, do take such action that will improve the food, lower the prices and better the service in said cafeteria. It is also recommended the person, or persons, in whom this authority is vested, immediately see that the present chef in charge of preparing the food, and without any further frippery or fanfare, [[GoshDarnItToHeck chuck him the heck off the premises.]] Well Miss Brooks, what do you think of it?\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker How much do you want for the picture rights?]]
* MountainOfFood: Walter Denton gets a large breakfast at Mrs. Davis, whenever he arrives to take Miss Brooks to school. [[BigEater This is usually after he has eaten breakfast at home.]]
* TheMovie: In 1956. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* TheMunchausen: [[spoiler: Safari O'Toole, Mrs. Davis's friend in the episode of the same name, pretends to be a gentleman explorer. In spite of his tall tales, he's a likeable character who only mades up his stories so he could impress Mrs. Davis.]]
* MustHaveLotsOfFreeTime: Sixteen-year-old Walter Denton is almost always driving Miss Brooks to school, and often sees her during the day. This in spite of the fact that he is usually portrayed as relatively popular, and likewise has a steady girlfriend.
* MyBelovedSmother: Mr. Boynton hangs on his mother's every word:
** A few episodes suggest Mr. Boynton is still receiving money from home.
** In "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", Mr. Boynton gets into trouble for using Mr. Conklin's telephone to make the long distance call his mother told him to make.
** The radio episodes "Mr. Boynton's Parents" and "Former Student Visits", suggest Mrs. Boynton has very definite ideas as to the type of woman M. Boynton should marry . . . .
** In the series' [[TheMovie the cinematic]] GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton ends up buying a house to take care of his ailing mother. However, the elder Mrs. Boynton is ultimately a kind woman, and eventually conspires with Mrs. Davis to ensure Miss Brooks is able to marry her son and live HappilyEverAfter.
--> '''Mrs. Boynton''': Believe me, my dear, I wouldn't stand in the way of your happiness for all the world!
* MyCarHatesMe: Miss Brooks' car, when she has one. It's almost always in the shop. In fact, the number of episodes (on either radio and television) where she gets to drive her car can be counted on one hand; namely "Game At Clay City", "Who's Going Where", "Four Leaf Clover", "Brooks' New Car" and "Head of the State Board of Education".
* MyCard: The shyster lawyer in "Hospital Capers" gives his card to Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton.
* MyNaymeIs: In "Suzie Prentiss", Suzie spells her surnmame "Prentisss". A SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Stretch Is In Love".
* MysteryEpisode: At least three:
** "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective": Someone sneaks into Mr. Conklin's office one Friday afternoon, steals his typewriter and makes a long-distance call to Rockaway, Minnesota. [[spoiler: It's Mr. Boynton. But he left the money for the call, along with an explanation. He oiled the typewriter and put it away in Mr. Conklin's closet]]
** "Postage Due": Miss Brooks wants to return the ten cents postage due the friendly old neighborhood postman. When a postman delivers a letter with postage due, he's deducted the money from his salary. Unfortunately, the postman has retired and apparently disappeared. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are worried about his well-being and try to find him. [[spoiler: the postman is a crook about to board a ship to South America. Miss Brooks' honesty and concern actually prompted the US post office to investigate his whereabouts to help their former employee. To everybody's surprise, he's been embezzling cheques and cash placed in his trust]]
** "The Jewel Robbery": Miss Brooks mistakenly believes Mr. Boynton robbed a jewelry store [[spoiler: It's actually a dishwasher in the school cafeteria. The dishwasher was also stealing cafeteria funds]]
* TheNapoleon: Invoked in the first season radio episode "Easter Outfit". In a prime example of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, Walter Denton mentions that Principal Conklin's nickname amongst the students is "Napoleon", due to his pompousness, irascibility and bad temper. A few months later, that nickname was [[RetGone RetGoned]], the radio version of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code" [[SoundToScreenAdaptation (later remade for television)]] forever established Conklin's nickname amongst the students and faculty as being "Old Marblehead".
* NarratingTheObvious: Lampshaded by Miss Brooks in "School Mascot":
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, as they used to say before television, let's go in.
* {{Narrator}}: On the radio, a narrator introduces the show and gives a brief introduction. Often enough, the introduction passes to Miss Brooks who gives comments of her own on her role and reaction to the upcoming events. Sometimes, the narrator or Miss Brooks give another short narration after the message from the the sponsor.
* NearlyNormalAnimal : Type three, Almost Normal Animals.
** Mrs. Davis' cat Minera and Mr. Boynton's frog Mcdougall are, on occasion, much smarter than your average cat or frog.
** In the radio episode "The Frog" Miss Brooks receives a call from a tom cat meowing for Minerva.
** When Minerva has kittens ("Minerva's Kittens"), her "husband" Tim is with Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis in the vet's waiting room. Tim faints when he's told he's the father of six.
* NeedleworkIsForOldPeople: Mrs. Davis' hobby is knitting ("Hobby Show"). However, she is also adept at sewing and dressmaking ("Madison Country Club"). A few episodes reference the fact Mrs. Davis is a member of a sewing circle ("The Stolen Wardrobe" and "Mr. Casey's Will").
* {{Nepotism}}:
** In the episode "Cafeteria Strike", Mr. Conklin hires Mr. Turnbull, his unemployed brother-in-law, as the school chef. His cooking is so bad the students at Madison High School boycott the cafeteria.
** In the final television season, the vice principal of Mrs. Nestor's private elementary school is Oliver Munsee, brother to Winona and [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Ruth Nestor.]]
** In "New Gym Instructor", Miss Brooks is given the opportunity to choose the new gym instructor. Mr. Conklin tries to get Miss Brooks to choose his brother, Sam Conklin.
** In "Twins at School", Mr. Conklin tries to get Miss Brooks fired so he can hire his sister in her place.
* NeverForgottenSkill:
** "Mr. Whipple" sees Mrs. Davis fill in as a nurse for the titular miserly millionaire . . . in spite of having left the nursing profession many years before.
** Subverted in the episode "The First Aid Course", [[spoiler: where Miss Brooks pretends to have forgotten first aid in order to avoid teaching a night course. This backfires when romantic rival and fellow teacher Miss Enright ends up continuing the course - and Mr. Boynton signs up.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis beats up a hulking gym teacher when he [[DisproportionateRetribution criticizes the deviled eggs she prepared.]]
* NeverRecycleABuilding: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] the house across the street from Mrs. Davis' remains vacant and "For Sale" from the time Miss Brooks moves in. [[JustifiedTrope Explained in story]] by Mr. Webster, the realtor, as being due to the fact the owner is asking too much money. [[spoiler: From the start, Miss Brooks sees this as her future dream house where she will live in wedded bliss. At the end of the film, Mr. Boynton buys the house, and marries Miss Brooks.]]
* NeverWinTheLottery: Miss Brooks falls victim to this trope in "The $350,000 Question".
* NewJobEpisode: "Vitamin E-12" and "Le Chien Chaud Et Le Mouton Noir" see Miss Brooks get positions outside school.
* NewTransferStudent: The titular "New Girl in Town". Harriet Conklin is jealous because the new girl is after Walter Denton. Things don't become serious, until Miss Brooks finds out that the girl's mother has eyes for LoveInterest Mr. Boynton.
* NewYearSameClass: Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are always in Miss Brooks' English class and Mr. Boynton's Biology class. Subverted once in "Faculty Cheerleader", where Mr. Conklin places Walter, Harriet and Stretch in separate English classes to punish Walter Denton; however the status quo is restored by the end.
* NiceGuy:
** Miss Brooks is a nice girl example, who is always trying to help others (and marry Mr. Boynton). Mr. Boynton is also a nice guy, unfortunately for Miss Brooks, he's [[ObliviousToLove oblivious to love]].
** Harriet Conklin also counts as a nice girl example. Her father, scheming and domineering Mr. Conklin, is definitely not a nice guy. Walter Denton is likely too much of a prank player and troublemaker to qualify.
** Stretch Snodgrass (and [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother Bones]]) also qualify.
* NiceHat: Mr. Conklin's often seen wearing a fedora out of doors. Mr. Boynton and Mr. Stone also wear fedoras on occasion. Subverted in "Bargain Hats for Mother's Day", when Mrs. Davis produces homemade women's hats that Miss Brooks finds hard to sell.
* NiceKitty: Happens with "Peanuts, the Great Dane" in the episode of the same name.
* NightmareSequence: Miss Brooks suffers through nightmare sequences on at least three different occasions:
** In "Connie's New Job Offer," Miss Brooks dreams she leaves Madison and becomes the mayor of a city in New Jersey. However, the dreams ends with Councilman Conklin impeaching her for her tyrannical rule over the city.
** In "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton," Miss Brooks' efforts to forget about Mr. Boynton leads her to see his face on everyone: the American ambassador to India, a society matron, a fourteen-year-old boy, even a baby. Fortunately, it was just a dream.
** In "Friendship," Miss Brooks suffers a recurring dream where a man chases her with a knife.
* NobleProfession: Miss Brooks is a teacher, of course.
* NobodyHereButUsStatues: In "Hobbies", Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton masquerade as wax figures to hide from Board Superintendent Mr. Stone.
* NoIndoorVoice: Mr. Conklin
* NoirEpisode: "Postage Due" sees Miss Brooks search for a vanished postman wearing a trench coat and narrating the action with a PrivateEyeMonologue.
* NonFatalExplosions: In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin lights a match in a kitchen that has filled with natural gas. Mr. Conklin only ends up slightly blackened, although the roast turkey that had been sitting in the oven ends up mushed all over Mr. Conklin.
* NoSnackForYou: In "The Weighing Machine", the eponymous machine takes a penny from Miss Brooks but doesn't give her weight. Egged on by her friends, Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to get the penny returned on principle.
* NoSuchThingAsHR: For all intents and purposes, Miss Brooks only has two superiors.
** Mr. Conklin, the principal of Madison High School, is Connie Brooks' immediate superior. He can order Connie around at school; and even assign her to type his speeches or paperwork at night. The one power Mr. Conklin doesn't seem to have is the power to fire Miss Brooks.
** Mr. Conklin's superior, Mr. Stone, the Head of the Board of Education, ''does''. Stone also has a veto over all staffing decisions at the various schools; including the appointment of department heads. Stone is usually able to dismiss or retire principals and teachers at will, something he does with several over-the-hill principals in "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". However, in "Foreign Teachers" and TheMovie GrandFinale, Stone needs to get permission from the rest of the school board to actually dismiss a principal. [[spoiler: at the end of TheMovie, Miss Brooks' marries Mr. Boynton]]
* NosyNeighbor: A variation on the trope appears in the episode "The Party Line". Here, Miss Brooks (and landlady Mrs. Davis) are plagued by "Grace". Grace is a woman on their party line who ties up the line constantly talking to her best friend Bertha. However, she doesn't stop there. Grace and her husband consistently listen in on Miss Brooks' conversation. At the end of episode, Miss Brooks succeeds in having the party line changed, only to end up sharing a phone with ''Bertha'' who is always talking to Grace. The episode ends with Bertha interrupting Miss Brooks' conversation with Mr. Boynton, and trying to get his phone number!
* NotablyQuickDeliberation: In "Trial by Jury" (and its radio equivalent, "Reckless Driving"), Miss Brooks notes the jury made a quick decision, punishing her with "a rather stiff fine". Mr. Conklin, [[HollywoodLaw who was on the jury]], wanted to hurry out of court and go fishing.
* NotAfraidOfYouAnymore:
** In "Spare That Rod!", a temporarily humbled Mr. Conklin tries to curry favor with his students and faculty - after being tricked into thinking his job was hanging by a thread for being "flagrantly dictatorial". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass take advantage of this to present him with a petition. Mr. Conklin, again assured that his job is safe, shouts them out of his office.
** In "Marinated Hearing", Miss Brooks decides to tell off a temporarily deaf Mr. Conklin. Unfortunately for Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin had ''just'' recovered his hearing . . . .
* NotAMorningPerson: Miss Brooks sometimes finds it hard to get up in the morning.
* TheNounWhoVerbed: ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' had a few episodes named in this format. For example, on television there was "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective". On the radio, the episode "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton" followed this trope.
* ObliviousToHints: Mr. Boynton
* ObliviousToLove: Mr. Boynton
* ObstacleSkiCourse: In "Skis In The Classroom", Miss Brooks ends up skiing downhill without knowing how to ski. Miss Brooks ends her ski with a very ill advised maneuver; she skis toward a tree, grabs onto the branches and tumbles into the snow!
* ObstructiveBureaucrat:
** Miss Brooks runs into an obstructive clerk (played by Frank Nelson) in "Custodian of Students Funds". Mrs. Davis accidently uses school money to buy Miss Brooks a present from Sherry's Department Store. Miss Brooks tries to return the dress to Sherry's, a store that promises if the customer isn't satisfied their money will be [[BlatantLies "cheerfully refunded"]]. After being given the third degree on the reason for the return, Miss Brooks is turned down because the dress was sold on sale. The scene is ommitted in the SoundToScreenAdaptation "The Embezzled Dress"
** Another obstructive clerk from Sherry's appears on the television episode "Christmas Show". This time it Sherry's promises to [[BlatantLies "cheerfully exchange"]] goods. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin each face the ill-tempered Mrs. Carney as they try to exchange their presents before Christmas.
* OddballInTheSeries: The last season of the television series, the product of ExecutiveMeddling. Madison High School turns out to have been in Los Angeles. Not the City of Madison - as had been the case before. What's more, it's immediately being torn down for a new freeway. Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin start working at Mrs. Nestor's private school.
** These changes were [[CanonDiscontinuity completely ignored]] by the radio series. Our Miss Brooks ended with a [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] that followed the radio continuity and ignored the final TV season entirely.
* OdeToIntoxication: In "Old Clothes for Party" Miss Brooks is annoyed by a drunk who interrupts her call on the telephone party line. After finally managing to get rid of him, she sings a parody of "Comin' Through the Rye":
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' When a buddy meets a buddy, he's had too much rye!
* OfficeSports: In "Trial By Jury", Mr. Conklin practices his casting in his office.
* OfficialCouple: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton don't formally get together until TheMovie, but everyone sees it coming (even, eventually, Mr. Boynton). Teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin are boyfriend and girlfriend as well.
* OfficialKiss: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton finally get one in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* {{Oktoberfest}}: Discussed by Miss Brooks in "Hawkins Travel Agency", when trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to Switzerland:
-->'''Miss Brooks''' (''speaking in a German accent''): And then we go to the Bavarian Alps. Immediately you notice there is a big difference.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': A big difference?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Ja. There with the women and the song, you get beer. Achtung what beer! Two bottles and you ski down the whole mountain without your skis.
* OffscreenCrash: In "Brooks' New Car", Mr. Conklin buys a car and goes roaring into his driveway. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks had left a small wagon in the driveway. Miss Brooks and Mrs. Conklin wince as they hear a terrible crashing sound. Following the car crash, Mr. Conklin is himself crashed through the wall of his house, riding the hand wagon gripping the cars' steering wheel. According to Mr. Conklin, the rest of the car had ''flown'' over the garage.
* OldNewBorrowedAndBlue: Miss Brooks prepares for her role as proxy in "June Bride" as if she were really getting married.
* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Miss Brooks goes on a couple with Mr. Boynton:
** In the radio episode "An American Tragedy", the date is marred when Miss Brooks jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Boynton is going to try to kill her so he can date a rich society girl. Matters get worse when Mr. Conklin jumps to the same conclusion, and hides aboard. Things get even worse when the rowboat starts to sink . . . .
** The television episode "Blind Date" ends far more romantically. Their spat ended, Mr. Boynton invites Miss Brooks to spend the evening out on the lake as he serenades her with his ukulele. As Mr. Boynton gets his ukulele, Miss Brooks goes to the wishing well to make a wish. Instead of tossing in one coin, she decides to throw in every coin in her purse!
* OldTimeyBathingSuit: In "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks notices Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are wearing bathing suits beneath their regular clothes. They're quite evidently in the old timey style, given the fact Miss Brooks sees the suits sticking out of their collars.
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Mr. Boynton is supposed to be a biology teacher. However, he's also an expert in chemistry ("Living Statues") and paleontology ("Life Can Be Bones"). Besides that, he was once chosen to grade the final English exams ("Head of the English Department").
* OnePhoneCall: In "Bobbsey Twins In Stir", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are all locked up in gaol for [[ItMakesSenseInContext selling forged tickets to the policeman's ball]]. They pool their change, so they can use their one phone call to contact the head of the board of education, Mr. Stone (Mr. Stone lives in the country, thus it's a toll call). Lo and behold, before they're finished counting their change Mr. Stone is brought to gaol, having also been caught selling fraudulent tickets!
* OneSteveLimit: Scrupulously observed.
* OnionTears: In the episode "Tears for Mr. Boynton", Mrs. Davis advises Miss Brooks that she has to appear more vulnerable to attract Mr. Boynton. Mrs. Davis hides onions in Miss Brooks' purse.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Stretch (Fabian) Snodgrass, and his brother Bones (Winston).
* OnlySaneEmployee: Miss Brooks is oftentimes the only reliable person at Madison High School. Surprisingly often she is called upon to get Principal Osgood Conklin out of trouble or alternatively to stand up to his dictatorial edicts, i.e. "Blue Goldfish", "Public Property on Parade", "School on Saturday", "Wakeup Plan". Other times, she's just around to save the day for a student, i.e. "Stuffed Gopher" and "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass".
* OnlySaneMan: Miss Brooks often serves this role, as she is constantly dealing with the eccentricities of the people around her.
* OnTheMoney: Miss Brooks often finds herself short of cash, as in "Easter Outfit", "Fischer's Pawn Shop", "The Festival", and "School T.V. Set".
* OpeningNarration: On the radio, each episode began with a short narration by a male narrator. He would introduce Miss Brooks as an English teacher at Madison High School. Often, he would go on to provide more information relevant to the current episode. This, in turn, would prompt a wry remark or two by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks' narration led into the episode proper.
* OperationJealousy: Used by Connie a few times on [[ObliviousToLove Phillip Boynton]], to varying effect, i.e. "Hello Mr. Chips". [[spoiler: Proves highly potent in the [[TheMovie movie]], enough for Connie to [[SeriesGoal finally get her man]].]]
* OpposingSportsTeam: Madison High's rival Clay City High.
* OppositeDay: "Turnabout Day" at Madison High School, the brainchild of Walter Denton. Teachers were students and students were teachers, and Walter Denton was principal, regaled in a Osgood-Conklin style three-piece-suit. Miss Brooks wore a pair of tight jeans to school. [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] taught English while wearing a dress (and carrying a football). Mr. Conklin wore a three-propeller beanie and a Mickey Mouse shirt. Mr. Conklin had wanted nothing to do with the notion; but the head of the board of education, Mr. Stone, had "ordered" it. That is to say that Walter Denton forged Mr. Stone's signature on a letter to Mr. Conklin . . . .
* OrderVersusChaos: At Madison High School, there was order represented by Osgood Conklin, the DeanBitterman who ran the school in a orderly manner (in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks has a nightmare of Mr. Conklin telling her to "stay on the ball", "hold the line" and "run the school in an orderly manner"). He goes so far as to hang signs such as "Respect through Power" ("Spare That Rod!) and "No Goldbricking" (TheMovie GrandFinale) through the school. Opposed to Mr. Conklin was chaos in the form of HighSchoolHustler Walter Denton, who played pranks like making Conklin look like a drunk ("Cure That Habit"), blasting an ancient cannon ("Marinated Hearing"), and writing a fraudulent letter forcing Mr. Conklin to let the students act as teachers for the day ("Turnabout Day"). In between these two extremes was Miss Brooks, who disapproved of Mr. Conklin's strict and overbearing manner in running the school - once even calling Conklin the most "unprincipled principal in the country" ("The Novelist"). However, she indeed wanted to teach while shielding TeachersPet Walter Denton from the consequences of his more outrageous pranks. The conservative and shy Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest, was between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks' in outlook, although a NiceGuy without Conklin's faults.
* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin meet the bill, although Harriet's somewhat atypical in the fact her father is the high school ''principal''. Neither are the program's protagonist, that honor goes to English teacher [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Miss Brooks]].
* OriginStory:
** The first radio episode, appropriately titled "First Day", relates Mr. Conklin's arrival as newly appointed principal.
** In "Borrowing Money To Fly", it's Miss Brooks' arrival in Madison that's explained. Mr. Conklin has already long been comfortably ensconced as principal of Madison High School.
** The first ten minutes of [[TheMovie the cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] again relates Miss Brooks' initial arrival in Madison.
* OurFounder: Mr. Conklin keeps a bust of Yodar Kritch, the estemeed founder of Madison High School, upon a pedestal in his office. It stands prominently beside the door through the first season. Yodar Kritch, whenever he's mentioned at Madison High School, is refererred to in an almost reverential air.
* OutOfGenreExperience: "Postage Due" is a mystery, turning into a NoirEpisode by the end.
* OverallsAndGingham: In "Red River Valley", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter try to get jobs with Deacon Jones' hillbilly dance troupe. Miss Brooks dresses in Gingham, while Mr. Boynton dresses in overalls. Mr. Conklin and Walter don't follow the trope; Conklin wears a dirty shirt and suspenders while Walter wears a ragged hat and vest.
* OverlordJr: In "Babysitting New Years Eve", Miss Brooks babysits Mr. Conklin's bratty nephew, who's constantly yelling "I want a drink of water!". Averted with Mr. Conklin's daughter, Harriet, a series regular who is very much a friend of Miss Brooks'.
* OverlyLongName: One episode featured an attempt by Mr. Conklin to borrow Mrs. Davis's house trailer from Miss Brooks. He wanted to go fishing on an isolated lake, deep in the wilderness. The name of the lake, and the title of the episode? "[[InTheLocalTongue Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo]]." It's the local Indians' word for "[[TranslationYes blue]]."
* OverprotectiveDad: Mr. Conklin has this attitude toward his daughter Harriet, sometimes kicking off the plot of the week:
** In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mr. Conklin unaccountably thinks that Miss Brooks is a "modern day dubarry" and carrying on with Mr. Boynton. This leads to him ordering Miss Brooks to have a talk with Harriet and ultimately leading to Mr. Conklin and Harriet spying on Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks, and landlady Mrs. Davis from a hiding place in Mrs. Davis' living room.
** Again, in "Parlor Game", Mr. Conklin believes that Harriet is growing up "far too fast". He's disgusted with her relationship with Walter Denton. To fix this, he plans Harriet, Walter, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to spend a quiet evening at the Conklin house.
** In "Cat Burglars", Harriet is mortified that her father forces her to have a babysitter after a series of cat burglaries in town.
* OvertheShoulderCarry: When Mr. Boynton joins the "Volunteer Fire Laddies", Miss Brooks offers to help him practice his over-the-shoulder carry. They do this at the two-storey Conklin house with Walter Denton's help in setting-up the ladder. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, when he comes home Mr. Conklin jumps to the conclusion that Walter is eloping with his daughter Harriet.]]
* PairTheSmartOnes: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton.
* ParallelParking: In "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks "helps" Mr. Boynton parallel park his car. [[WomenDrivers She advises him to back up just a little more . . . resulting in him destroying Mr. Conklin's bumper.]]r
* ParanormalEpisode: "Music Box Revue" sees Miss Brooks purchase a magic music box that can only be heard by people in the proper Christmas spirit.
* ParasolOfPain: In "Plaque for Mr. Conklin", Mrs. Davis belts Mr. Conklin with a mahogany handled umbrella. She thinks Mr. Conklin has [[EasyAmnesia amnesia]]. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* ParkingProblems: While Miss Brooks has had trouble parking off and on through the series, "Trial by Jury" features a truly EpicFail. She leaves her car parked on a hill, another driver bumps her car forward. The parking brake is released, and her car rushes downhill and crashes into a fruit stand. Miss Brooks returns just in time to get the blame.
* ParlorGames: In "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a complicated parlor version of {{Calvinball}}, in order to push Mr. Conklin into taking his family out for the evening as a more palatable alternative.
* ParodyEpisode: The second-half of "Postage Due" is a parody of ''Series/{{Dragnet}}''.
* PassingNotesInClass: In "Bones, Son of Cyrano", Mr. Boynton confiscates a love poem Walter was writing for Harriet.
* PassiveAggressiveKombat: This descibes Miss Brooks' relationship to her SitcomArchNemesis Miss Enright. Whenever the two meet, prepare for a cavalcade of catty remarks. Miss Enright takes the matter further, often dropping a StealthInsult or two about Miss Brooks in front of her students.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Miss Enright's always saying nice things about you, Miss Brooks."
-->'''Miss Brooks''': She is? Miss Enright?
-->'''Walter Denton''': Yes, just the other day Miss Enright said you have the most natural blonde hair she's ever seen on a brunette.
* ThePatriarch: Mr. Conklin. In addition to being the dictatorial principal at Madison High School, he views himself as head of his family in the traditional sense. He is very pompous, having a large photo of himself above the fireplace. He is unmovable when he makes a decision, as his daughter Harriet well knows. He shouts out orders. In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud" (he orders the visiting Miss Brooks to answer the door). In the "Yodar Kritch Award", Walter Denton relates how Mr. Conklin couldn't find a sock and shouted orders at everyone in the house. However, Mr. Conklin's authority isn't absolute. Episodes like "The Embezzled Dress" and "Connie and Frankie" show that Mrs. Conklin can also put her foot down.
%%%* Robert Crawley, Lord of Grantham, in ''Series/DowntonAbbey''.
* PeacePipe: In the episode "Bartering with Chief Thundercloud", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin smoke a peace pipe with the eponymous chief.
* PerformanceAnxiety: "Public Speaker's Nightmare".
* PerplexingPlurals: How do you refer to two men with the same surname? In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", nervousness sees Miss Brooks momentarily confused as to the correct manner in referencing Mr. Boynton and his father:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Where's Mr. Boynton? Or should I say where are Mr. Boyntons . . . or Misters Boynton . . . where's everybody?
* PetBabyWildAnimal': Miss Brooks and the Madison High crowd adopt an injured swallow in "Capistrano's Revenge".
* ThePeteBest: Joe Forte played Mr. Conklin in the first few radio episodes of the series, before being replaced by the legendary Gale Gordon.
* PhoneyCall: Used in "Connie and Frankie". Mr. Conklin pretends to call his wife Martha over his disconnected office phone, to ''order'' her to let the (female) Frankie stay as their house guest. The scheme fails as Martha shows up to visit Mr. Conklin at school.
* PickyEater: In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque" this is part of the plot. Osgood Conklin hates Cdfish Balls. Yet, once a week Martha Conklin makes them for dinner. Mr. Conklin goes so far as to "accidentally" vaccuum the fishy dinner up, and get himself invited to the eponymous barbeque to avoid them.
* PicnicEpisode: "Our Miss Brooks" has three picnic episodes, each of them ending with picnic basket mishaps:
** The fourth season television episode "Burnt Picnic Basket" sees the picnic baskets thrown into the incinerator by mistake. ''And'' it rains!
** The radio episode "Head of the Board", has Miss Brooks and company take Mr. Boynton's car to their before-school-year picnic. Unfortunately, the picnic basket had been left in Miss Brooks' car!
** Finally, in "Winter Outing", Madison High School is set to enjoy the annual mid-winter picnic started by Madison High's esteemed founder, Yodar Kritch. Unfortunately, this time the food for the picnic is send to the laundry. Meanwhile, the faculty and students of Madison have a unappetizing lunch of dirty football uniforms.
* PictureDay: In the episode "Friday the 13th", a tasteless prank by Walter Denton, combined with Stretch Snodgrass's bungling, result in yearbook proofs being printed with Miss Brooks' head atop Mr. Conklin's body.
* PieInTheFace: Mr. Conklin finds himself the victim of this trope a couple times.
* PimpedOutCar: Walter Denton's jalopy. Although usually a wreck, sometimes he amps up the engine, other times he simply adds seat covers.
* PinkElephants: Referenced in "Cure That Habit", when Mr. Stone wrongly suspects Mr. Conklin of being drunk and having hallucinations.
* PinkIsFeminine: In the penultimate episode of the television series, "Principal for a Day", Miss Brooks is principal for a day of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School. Miss Brooks' decides to make the school more attractive to mothers visiting the school and thinking of enrolling their children; she decorates the school with a lot of chintz. Including the animal cages of the science room. She goes so far as to paint Vice Principal Mr. Munsee's desk and office a "shocking pink".
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: We almost never see (or in the radio version, hear) Miss Brooks actually teaching English, although [[InformedAttribute she's said to be quite good at it]]. The rare glimpses seen of Miss Brooks ''actually'' teaching are usually played for laughs, such as her tutoring of Stretch Snodgrass in "The Yodar Kritch Award". The same goes for Mr. Boynton, whose canonical biology lectures consist of one about the skeletal structure of frogs in "Mr. Conklin's Wake Up Plan".
* PlankGag: In "Going Skiing", Miss Brooks knocks off a pair of Mr. Conklin's glasses with one of her skis.
* PlatonicValentine At play in Valentine's Day episodes such as "The Frog" and "Valentine's Day Date". Miss Brooks gets platonic valentines from students like Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass. She also receives valentines from various tradespeople, including an advertisem*nt from a scissors-sharpener. In "Valentine's Day Date" she does receive the one valentine she wants . . . from Mr. Boynton, albeit not as romantic as she hoped.
* PlayingCyrano: ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'' is behind much of the [[HilarityEnsues mayhem]] in the radio episode "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation its television remake]] "Bones, Son of Cyrano". Mr. Boynton provides Walter Denton with a poem from Cyrano to gives to Harriet Conklin. Harriet thinks that Mr. Boynton intended the letter for her. Harriet puts the letter in an old enevelope and hands it back to Mr. Boynton. Mr. Boynton hands it to Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks gives Stretch Snodgrass ([[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones in the remake]]) the poem as something with which to woo Harriet. Through yet another mixup, Stretch delivers the love poem to Principal Osgood Conklin instead of Miss Brooks' requisition for flowerpots.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': (reading) "Your name hangs in my heart like a bell's tongue." Now ''really!''
* PlayingSick:
** In "Babysitting for Three", an early radio episode, Miss Brooks phones Mr. Conklin to say she won't be in today as she's sick. In reality, she was roped into babysitting for three children while their mother is in the hospital.
** In "Blue Goldfish", Walter Denton and Miss Brooks play sick in order to convince Mr. Conklin to raise the temperature in the school. They are convinced that if Mr. Conklin thinks he's causing an epidemic, he'll spend more money on coal for the furnace. A SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Not Enough Coal At Madison High".
** In "Trial by Jury", Miss Brooks has to appear in traffic court and does not want Mr. Conklin to hear about it. She decides to play sick. Unfortunately, Walter Denton, Bones Snodgrass and Mr. Boynton each try to help. They each play sick and ask for Mr. Conklin to have Miss Brooks escort them home. Mr. Conklin is less than convinced; the four of had come to his office feigning illness at almost the exact same time. A SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode "Traffic Court".
* PlotCoupon:
** In the episode "Phonebook Follies", Miss Brooks must find Mrs. Davis' copy of last year's phonebook. Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis are ineligible to receive a new phonebook otherwise.
** In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", Miss Brooks needs to get Mrs. Davis' old lamp in order to barter for a new coat.
* PlotImmunity: Plot immunity guarantees Miss Brooks' position at Madison High School. Even [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], where Miss Brooks resolves to leave in a moment of despair, WithThisRing intervenes.
* PointyHairedBoss: Mr. Conklin, the Principal of Madison High School, is a competent administrator, albeit in the RepressiveButEfficient mold. He is also very pompous, for example being known to answer his phone "Principal's Office, Osgood Conklin himself speaking!". He also likes to take credit for his teacher's good ideas ("Public Property on Parade"), force them to type his reports ("Aunt Mattie Boynton"), and of course blame his teachers when something goes wrong ("The Dancer"). He also abuses his position for petty gains; in "Carelessness Code" he fines students and uses the money to place a bust of himself in the library in place of the bust of Julius Caesar. In "Home Cooked Meal" he simply breaks school rules to secretly store his family's meat in the cafeteria freezer. Still, on occasion he shows himself to have a HiddenHeartOfGold. In "Hobby Show", for example, his hobby is shown to be fixing broken toys to donate to underpriviledged children. Therefore, other than a outright villian, he's more of a {{Frenemy}} to Miss Brooks.
* PoliceLineup: In "Reunion," Miss Brooks imagines Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee and Mr. Talbot in a police lineup.
* PowderKegCrowd: In "School on Saturday", Madison High's students are in an angry protesting mob outside the school. They're angry because, you guessed it, they're being forced to go to school on Saturday. They even have plans to burn Mr. Conklin in effigy. Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks outside to make a speech to calm them down.
* PracticalEffects: Seen in several episodes, including:
** "Life Can Be Bones": A prop-cat subs for Minerva when she jumps over the fence after tasting Mrs. Davis's spicy soup.
** "Public Property on Parade" Similar to the preceding example, prop-birds flee Mrs. Davis' Limburger omelette.
** "Here is Your Past": The effects from Mr. Conklin's big sneezes.
** "Brooks' New Car": Mr. Conklin going through the wall when he drives his car atop a wagon left in the driveway.
** "Do It Yourself": The garage Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton built falls apart.
** "Pet Shop": The rainstorm.
* PrankCall: The events of "Wild Goose" are set off when Walter Denton makes a prank call, disguising his voice in so doing. Denton tells Mr. Conklin he's won a television set from Sherry's Department Store. HilarityEnsues.
* ThePrankster: Walter Denton. [[CoolOldLady Occasionally, Mrs. Davis as well.]]
* ThePratfall: Mr. Conklin is the occasion victim of pratfalls. He's an easy target given his pompous nature:
** In "Connie and Bonnie", Mr. Conklin has multiple tumbles in the hallway trying to rush from his office to the Vice Principal's office next door.
** In the episode "School on Saturday", Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass loosen the doorknob to Mr. Conklin's office so when he next pulled the knob he's fall to the floor.
* ThePreciousPreciousCar: Mr. Conklin is very protective of his vehicle in "Brooks' New Car" and "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton".
* PreciousPuppy: Miss Brooks finds an abandoned puppy in "Here is Your Past".
* PrehistoricMonster: In "Madison Mascot", a torn note has Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton mistakenly believe that the new name for the Madison High football team will be the "Madison Mammoths".
-->'''Walter Denton''': What do you think of the new setup Mrs. Davis? The Madison Mammoths! That's what the team will be called of course.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The Madison Mammoths?
-->'''Walter Denton''': Sure. Because of the elephant mascot. You remember those prehistoric hairy old elephants, don't you Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Not personally.]]
* PrepositionsAreNotToEndSentencesWith: Miss Brooks more than once corrects herself after ending a sentence with a preposition. Or others. One example is found in the episode "Heat Wave", when Stretch Snodgrass pretended to faint on a hot day. Miss Brooks unbuttons his collar, which had concealed the OldTimeyBathingSuit. The students were trying to trick Miss Brooks into releasing class so they can go to the swimming hole at Phillip's Farm.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': Nice to hear from you Stretch. Let me open your shirt collar.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': No, don't open it.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': I don't know why you button it on a day like today anyhow.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Oh, please Miss Brooks, don't open my shirt.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': You just be quiet. There. No wonder you didn't want your shirt opened. Embroidered undies. [[SarcasmMode And what a lovely sentiment on your undershirt.]] "Crystal Beach Bath House. If not returned by 6 pm, another day will be charged for. Charged for? Oh Stretch, this is awful.
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': What is, Miss Brooks?
--->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Ending a bathing suit with a preposition.]]
* PreppyName: Osgood Conklin isn't rich, but he is as pompous as his first name would suggest.
* PresentPeeking: In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin leaves his Mother's Day present with Miss Brooks, as his wife and daughter are inveterate snoopers. When Mr. Boynton's parents stay with Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Boynton finds the present in her room. Mrs. Boynton's a present peeker as well, she can't wait for Mother's Day, so she opens it.
--> '''Mrs. Boynton''': A black sheer negligee!
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': Well Happy Mother's Day!
* PrivateEyeMonologue: "Postage Due" sees Miss Brooks search for a vanished postman wearing a trench coat while narrating the action in [[NoirEpisode film noir style]].
* PrivateTutor:
** Miss Brooks tutors Stretch Snodgrass to keep him eligible for athletics . . . not to mention, to keep him from flunking outright.
** The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] sees Miss Brooks tutor Gary Nolan, who's struggling in English.
* TheProfessor: Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest and Madison's Biology teacher. His knowledge of his subject is prodigious, but his favorite topic of study ''has'' to be frogs.
* ProjectileToast: Mrs. Davis' toaster was a repeat offender.
* ProperLady: Mrs. Conklin. She's the kindly, intelligent and dignified wife of bombastic Mr. Conklin.
* ProtagonistTitle
* ProudBeauty: Women like this appear once in awhile, and are always at least a nuisance to Miss Brooks or Harriet Conklin:
** In "The Model Teacher", an obnoxious but attractive reporter competes with Miss Brooks for Mr. Boynton's affections.
** "New Girl" sees the titular new girl go after Harriet's boyfriend Walter Denton. The girl's mother has eyes for Mr. Boynton.
** "The Dancer" sees a burlesque dancer audition for a job at a bachelor party being arranged by Mr. Conklin. The usually shy Mr. Boynton is very interested in seeing her do her work.
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], the ''Madison Express's'' new lonely hearts columnist walks this way whenever she goes through the newsroom. But fortunately, this proud beauty stays out of the way of Miss Brooks.
* PulledFromYourDayOff:
** In "School on Saturday", Mr. Conklin pulls ''everybody'' from their day off.
** "Head of the Board": Mr. Conklin again plots to do the same.
** In "Who's Going Where", it's just Miss Brooks whom Mr. Conklin intends to send to work on her vacation.
** In "Trouble Paying Taxi Fare", Mr. Conklin gets a taste of his own medicine at the hands of school board superintendent Mr. Stone.
* PungeonMaster: Mr. Jensen, the custodian on several radio episodes. He insists on taking things literally and out-of-context. When Miss Brooks asks about his new son, she asks "How is the little dear?" Mr. Jensen replies they didn't have a "deer." One exchange with Miss Brooks ends with Miss Brooks ''thinking'' she finally has him in his own trap.
--> '''Mr. Jensen''': While I'll be running off.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Now I've got you Mr. Jensen. You won't really be running off!"
--> '''Mr. Jensen''': Oh, yes I will. (is heard running away)
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.]]
* PurpleProse: As befits his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, Walter Denton often packs his newspaper editorials and other compositions with purple prose.
* PutOnABus: Mr. Boynton, Walter, Harriet, and Stretch in the fourth season when the high school was torn down and the setting moved to a private elementary school.
** Mr. Allbright, who was intended to be the new love interest, left after only a few episodes and was replaced by SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Gene Talbot as the athletic director.
** Finally, Talbot himself, who was on long enough to actually date Miss Brooks, was written off when TheBusCameBack with Mr. Boynton returning and looking for work at the elementary school.
* QuestioningTitle: The episode "Space, Who Needs It?"
* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: A quintessential British public school principal visits in the episode "Hello Mr. Chips." Miss Brooks uses him to make [[OperationJealousy Mr. Boynton jealous]].
* QuirkyUkulele: In "Blind Date" one of the items Miss Brooks returns to Mr. Boynton is his ukulele, that he serenades her with on her back porch. Ukulele playing is featured by Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin in a few episodes of the series, notably "Special Party", "Hawkins Travel Agency" and "School Band". In TheMovie GrandFinale, Walter Denton enjoys a brief ukuele solo accompanied by his "singing". Walter sings "It's Magic" to his girlfriend Harriet Conklin on the family's front porch; his breaking voice and off-key notes gets Mr. Conklin to stick his head through the window and threaten to throw Walter down the porch steps!
* QuotingMyself: Walter Denton uses fake quotes from time to time.
-->'''Walter Denton:''' It's as the saying goes, "When love enters the heart, appetite flees the stomach."\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' Who said that?\\
'''Walter Denton:''' I don't know. I guess it's anonymous.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker It deserves to be.]]
* RadioContest: In "Wild Goose", Walter Denton, pretending to be a radio quiz host, tricks Mr. Conklin into believing he's won a television set from Sherry's Department Store.
* RadioDrama: Our Miss Brooks ran on CBS Radio starting in 1948. It was joined by a television adaptation in 1952. The series [[GrandFinale concluded]] with a [[TheMovie feature film]] in 1956.
* RageBreakingPoint: Mr. Conklin lives this trope, flying off into fits of rage that makes him purple in the face.
* RambunctiousItalian: Mr. Morelli, a OneSceneWonder appearing at the end of "Four Leaf Clover". Miss Brooks ends up going to his house to pay for the barber pole she accidentally broke; Mr. Conklin goes after Miss Brooks to get the airplane ticket she accidentally pocketed. The very animated Mr. Morelli literally tries to shoo them both away.
* RapidFireTyping: A time-pressed Miss Brooks is at it in "Public Property on Parade".
* ReactionShot: Many throughout the television series. Perhaps the most notable ones, however, occur in the[[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. We see Miss Brooks reaction to the wackiness of the characters around her, especially in the first fifteen minutes as we see her arrival in Madison retold in cinematic form.
* ReadingIsCoolAesop: As an English teacher, Miss Brooks is normally all in favour of reading. However, the trope is subverted in "Bones, Son of Cyrano", where Mr. Boynton breaks a date with Miss Brooks to read the rest of ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Miss Brooks had advised Mr. Boynton to read it in the first place in the hope it would make him less ObliviousToLove!
* ReadingTeaLeaves: Mrs. Davis considers tea leaves to be an effective method of telling the future. In [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves"]], Mrs. Davis predicts that Mr. Boynton propose to Miss Brooks. The pair would settle down at honeymoon cottage, and the two would be surrounded by children. Unfortunately, Mrs. Davis misinterprets the tea leaves. Mr. Boynton isn't proposing marriage, but proposing starting a summer camp with Miss Brooks and boarding anywhere from five to fifty kids!
* ReadTheFinePrint: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to [[ReadTheFinePrint read the contract's fine print]].
* ReallyRoyaltyReveal: One of Miss Brooks' students in "King and Brooks".
* RealMenTakeItBlack: Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks ''both'' take their coffee black in "Space, Who Needs It?"
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
** In "Board of Education Day" [[SoundToScreenAdaptation , a radio episode remade for television as "Marinated Hearing"]], Miss Brooks tells-off a temporarily-deaf Mr. Conklin.
** In "Spare That Rod!", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snograss produce a paper documenting Mr. Conklin's "various infamies".
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, with a ContinuityNod to "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Stone tells Mr. Conklin he would fire him if he could. Mr. Stone considers Mr. Conklin's severe manner of running Madision High School to be "tantamout to malfeasance".
-->'''Mr. Stone''': It's zero hour, Osgood!
* RecurringDreams: In "Friendship", Miss Brooks suffers from a recurring dream where she's being chased by a man with a knife. [[spoiler: It turns out a broken bedspring poking through her mattress is the cause of her nightmares.]]
* RedScare: A few times it was PlayedForLaughs by DeadpanSnarker Miss Brooks.
** In "Walter's Radio", after Mr. Boynton makes a non-committal statement about the weather, Miss Brooks snarks:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': There's a statement you won't be investigated for."
** In "The Cafeteria Strike", Walter Denton starts a student petition against the terrible food in the school cafeteria:
-->'''Walter Denton''' (reading the petition): Whereas and to wit . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side . . . .
* RefugeInAudacity: In the episode "Bobbsey Twins In Stir", a con-artist tricks Mrs. Davis into selling phony tickets to the ''policeman's ball''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone are all unwitting drawn into the scheme, and all end up in gaol as a result.]]
* RegalRuff: Walter Denton and Mr. Boynton have each worn ruffs when dressed in costume:
** Walter wears a ruff when dressed as Romeo in "The Festival".
** Mr. Boynton's Prince Charming costume in "Oh Dem Gold Shoes" features a regal ruff.
* RelativelyFlimsyExcuse: In "Connie and Bonnie", Miss Brooks impersonates her non-existent twin sister so as to earn extra money moonlighting as a waitress.
* RememberedTooLate: In "Wishing Well Dance", Miss Brooks get in trouble with Mr. Conklin after [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] gives her a message to see him ''immediately''. The problem? Stretch Snodgrass forgot about the message, only remembering to give her the message hours later.
* RememberTheNewGuy: Bones Snodgrass is introduced in the episode "The Yodar Kritch Award". He was never before seen or mentioned, in spite of being the [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute brother]] of recurring character Stretch Snodgrass.
* RemovableSteeringWheel: In "The Oakhurst Music Festival", while giving driving lessons to [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]], Miss Brooks asks him to give her the wheel. Snodgrass [[LiteralMinded literally]] gives Miss Brooks the steering wheel.
* RemovingTheRival: On several occasions, Miss Enright schemes to put Miss Brooks out of the running for Mr. Boynton's affections:
** In "First Aid Course", Miss Enright threatens to move away to nurse her sick sister . . . in order to convince Mr. Conklin to tie up Miss Brooks during the evenings teaching the eponymous course.
** In "Four Fiances" Miss Enright corresponds with four men, and proposes marriage to each of them . . . in Miss Brooks' name.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque", Miss Enright transfers a sick student to Miss Brooks' class so Miss Brooks would catch a cold. That left Miss Enright a clear field with Mr. Boynton.
** In "Teacher's Convention", Miss Enight relays a message to Walter Denton that Mr. Boynton was "laid up" and wouldn't be attending the convention with Miss Brooks. Walter tells Miss Brooks, leading her to cancel. Mr. Boynton wasn't the least bit sick.
* RenaissanceMan:
** Mr. Boynton. He teaches Biology, but also was a Chemistry teacher in the past. In one episode, he almost receives a job as a College Professor ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton"). In another episode, Mr. Conklin has Mr. Boynton mark the school's English tests ("Head of the English Department"). He also acts as Mr. Conklin's typist on occasion ("Who's Going Where?). On top of all that, Mr. Boynton has, in various episodes, coached the school basketball, football, and baseball teams.
** Miss Brooks is also an example, in addition to teaching English, teaching French and Spanish as well on one occasion ("Saving the School Newspaper"). Miss Brooks is also a great typist, and once worked as a secretary ("Connie's New Job Offer"). "First Aid Course" suggests Miss Brooks is also a trained nurse. Miss Brooks has also taught civics ("Student Government Day") and physical education, even receiving an offer to play on a women's baseball team ("Baseball Slide").
* RepressiveButEfficient: Miss Brooks is justified in calling Mr. Conklin "dictator" of Madison High School. However, the school seems to operate well nonetheless.
* ResistanceIsFutile: Mr. Conklin once uses a variation, when Miss Brooks tries to avoid having him assign some unpaid overtime work.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The GrandFinale appeared on neither radio nor television, but instead took the form of a [[TheMovie feature film]].
* {{Retool}}: In the fourth season of the TV series, Madison High was razed to make room for a freeway, Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin went to work for a private school, Walter and Harriet disappeared from the show along with Mr. Boynton (although the latter would [[TheBusCameBack eventually return]]), and Miss Brooks was given a new love interest in phys ed instructor Gene Talbot (Creator/GeneBarry).
** CanonDiscontinuity was the result. The radio program continued at Madison High as per usual. TheMovie also ignored the fourth season of the TV series.
* ReverseWhodunnit: The episode "Jewel Robbery" see a criminal break into a jewelry store and flee when the alarm sounds. Miss Brooks, standing around the corner, sees Mr. Boynton look into the broken window. The episode then follows Miss Brooks as she suspects Mr. Boynton, and then catches the actual villain.
* RevolvingDoorCasting: The radio series and the first three seasons of the television series largely shared the same cast and characters(the major exception being Jeff Chandler's replacement by Robert Rockwell in the role of Mr. Boynton). The same applies to TheMovie GrandFinale. The final television season, however, saw several casting changes through its run:
** "Transition Show" sees high school students Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Mr. Boynton PutOnABus. This also marks the end of appearances by recurring characters Miss Enright and Stretch Snodgrass. Enter Mrs. (Winona) Nestor, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Albright.
** ''Who's Who" sees Miss Brooks take leave of longtime landlady Mrs. Davis to be a tenant of her sister Angela. Elementary school student Benny Romero becomes a RecurringCharacter.
** "Big Ears": Mrs. Ruth Nestor replaces her sister, last appearance by Mr. Albright.
** "Have Bed, Will Travel" Mrs. Davis moves in with her sister (and Miss Brooks) and begins to share landlady duties with Angela.
** In "Gym Instructor", Mr. Talbot is appointed to the faculty as the new phys-ed teacher.
** "Land Purchase" Exit Angela, who sells her sister her house. Angela has built a motel and leaves to run her new business (never mentioned before).
** "Library Quiz" sees Mr. Talbot's last appearance.
** Finally, in "Connie and Frankie", TheBusCameBack and LoveInterest Mr. Boynton returns to teach at Mrs. Nestor's Elementary School for the final seven episodes.
* {{Rewrite}}: There are two versions of Miss Brooks' arrival in Madison. The first episode ("First Day") and the later episode "Spare That Rod!" have Miss Brooks already teaching at Madison when Mr. Conklin is appointed principal. However, "Borrow Money To Fly", features a major rewrite. Miss Brooks arrives to teach at Madison High School, and is greeted by longtime principal Mr. Conklin. The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] follows the new continuity, albeit having Miss Brooks meet Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton in a slightly different manner.
* RhymingWithItself: The radio episodes "Clay City English Teacher" and "Mr. Laythrop returns to School" feature the Madison anthem, "O Madison". The offical version rhymes "Madison" with "Madison". Miss Brooks makes the song longer in "Clay City English Teacher by adding the paranthetical lyrics in parody:
-->O '''Madison!'''\\
Thou '''Madison!'''\\
(As old as Thomas Addison!)\\
O hallowed halls!\\
(O basketballs!)\\
How short the day!\\
(how short the pay!)\\
When we gray hair at '''Madison!'''\\
We'll still be there at '''Madison!'''\\
(Hello, Clay City!)
* RichSuitorPoorSuitor: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale to the series, wealthy Lawrence Nolan proposes to Miss Brooks. Although Miss Brooks likes Nolan as a friend, and he's overall a good person, she can't see herself in love with him. Miss Brooks prefers longtime LoveInterest, shy biology teacher Phillip Boynton. At the end of the film, they finally marry and live HappilyEverAfter.
* RightBehindMe: In the "Yodar Kritch Award", Walter Denton comes into Mrs. Davis' house complaining about Mr. Conklin, oblivious to the fact Mr. Conklin is seated at the dining room table.
* TheRival: Miss Brooks has Miss Enright, her rival for [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton's]] affections and the position of head of the English Department.
* RoadTripPlot: "Game at Clay City".
* RousingSpeech: Several, played for laughs, in "School on Saturday". Miss Brooks persuades the angry students to go to school, or to go home, as Mr. Conklin repeatedly changes his mind.
* RoyalBlood: In "King and Brooks," Miss Brooks discovers one of her students in an Indian prince. The boy's father, the maharajah, proposes marriage to Miss Brooks.
* RoyalHarem: In the episode "King and Brooks", the king mentions having a harem.
* RunningGag: Many, including Mr. Conklin's [[SneezeOfDoom huge sneezes]] and the 'glug' greeting of Boynton's pet frog [=McDougal=]. Miss Brooks' car was always in the shop (see WomenDrivers for the reason of the week).
* RussianRoulette: At the crisis point of TheMovie GrandFinale, a depressed Miss Brooks jokingly suggests to Mrs. Davis that they play Russian Roulette when she returns home from school. [[spoiler: Fortunately, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother repair the misunderstanding that caused Mr. Boynton to invite his mother to live with him, and Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* SabotageToDiscredit: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks sabotages what she believes is Mr. Conklins attempt to mock the teachers' relative poverty in front of a snobbish rich women. [[spoiler: It really was an attempt to play poor and convince a GrandDame to fund a renovation of his office.]]
* SafetyInIndifference: In the episode "Trying to Forget Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin tries be indifferent and forget about love interest Mr. Boynton]].
* {{Sampling}}: At least four examples:
** "April Fools": "As Time Goes By", from ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', plays as Miss Brooks stalls for time.
** "Wild Goose": "I Must Go Where The Wild Goose Goes" plays as Miss Brooks is sent on the wild goose chase Walter Denton had intended for Mr. Conklin.
** "Weekend at Crystal Lake": A stanza of the "Anniversary Song" plays after Miss Brook parodies it.
** "Friendship": The song "Friendship" is played as an ironic chorus whenever Miss Brooks loses a friend.
* SarcasmBlind: Miss Brooks' [[DeadpanSnarker snark]] occasionally backfires when she aims it as Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton or Stretch and Bones Snodgrass. Mr. Boynton's so ObliviousToLove that sarcasm has a habit of sliding right off him. Walter Denton occasionally mistakes the sarcastic for the serious. As for the Snodgrasses, it's unlikely [[DumbJock they even know what sarcasm is]].
* SavageSouth: In "Safari O'Toole", the eponymous adventurer spends much of his time here. [[spoiler: He's a fake, but a nice one, who's only trying to impress Mrs. Davis.]]
* SayingTooMuch:
** In "The Model Teacher", Miss Brooks is desperate to avoid having glamorous but ImmoralJournalist Stephanie Forester learn about [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]]. When Mrs. Davis mentions Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks goes so far as to claim that Boynton is the school mascot, a schnauser. Unfortunately, Walter Denton arrives to drive Miss Brooks to school and ends up describing Boynton for Miss Forester. Miss Forester almost immediately decides to romantically pursue Boynton.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Judy Brille, the daughter of Clay City High School principal Jason Brille, was assigned by her father to keep [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] busy on dates long into the evening. As a result, he's so tired he's useless playing football; once he even ran the wrong way. Madison High looks to have an embarassing defeat to its principal rival. And nobody at Madison knows what's going on. Stretch is sworn to secrecy by his double-agent girlfriend. So, Miss Brooks, assigned to discover what's going on, interrogates Stretch.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Who is this new girlfriend, Stretch?
-->'''Stretch''': Oh, no you don't!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': No I don't what?
-->'''Stretch''': You don't get Judy's name out of me! ''(audience laughs)'' I promised to keep it a secret.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, that's your privilege. [[BlatantLies If you don't want me to know Judy's name, I'm not going to know Judy's name. That's all there is to that.]] Judy ''what''?
-->'''Stretch''': Gosh, I didn't even want that part of her name to get out. It just slipped. Look, Miss Brooks. You wouldn't want me to break a promise, would you?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Fervently. Listen, Stretch. Even if you enjoy all this "rumbering", don't your girl's parents object to these late hours every night?
-->'''Stretch''': Oh, I'm sure they don't.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': How can you be so sure?
-->'''Stretch''': Her old man gives me the money to take her out.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': What!
-->'''Stretch''': Sure! He's not like our principal. Mr. Brille's a good sport.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Stretch, you're telling me you're taking out Judy Brille?
-->'''Stretch''': [[WhatAnIdiot How did you know?]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker A little birdbrain told me.]]
* TheScapegoat: Mr. Conklin is constantly scapegoating Miss Brooks for one thing or another. Fortunately, Miss Brooks is always able to escape the consequences by episode's end.
* SceneOfWonder: In "Le chien chaud et le mouton noir" Miss Brooks is dismayed when she enters the "Salon de Chien Chaud". She had taken an evening position as a receptionist to augment her income, only to find out it was really a job as working as a waitress at a rundown roadside diner. Miss Brooks looks about the "Salon de Chien Chaud" with dismay.
* SchoolFestival: "The Festival". It's a [[MasqueradeBall costume]] festival held in the park across from the school.
* SchoolNewspaperNewshound:
** Walter Denton is editor of the school paper, the "Madison Monitor". From time to time he gets himself into trouble by writing editorials critical of Mr. Conklin or Madison High School in general, i.e. "Cafeteria Strike" and "Threat to Abolish the School Paper". "Marinated Hearing" revolves around Miss Brooks' attempt to keep Walter Denton from publishing an editorial insulting the Board of Education in revenge for only giving students 2 1/2 instead of 3 weeks of Christmas Vacation.
** Walter also plays the gossip columnist in a couple episodes, with a column entitled "Campus Dirt: Shoveled by Walter Denton". This is to Miss Brooks' dismay, as he uses the column to blab about her being disappointed that Mr. Boynton is away at a Biologist's Convention.
** Like any good high school reporter, he also on the prowl for news. We see him at it in the episode "Kritch Cave".
* SchoolOfHardKnocks: In "The Grudge Match", Walter Denton challenges star athlete Stretch Snodgrass to a fight when he discovers that Harriet Conklin had sat next to Stretch at the movie theatre. Much to Miss Brooks' consternation, Mr. Boynton decides that it would be best to have the fight in the gymnasium in front of the whole school. Principal Conklin not only goes along with it, but referees the fight, as he wants to see Walter Denton "clobbered."
* SchoolPlay: A few episodes (i.e. "Madison Country Club" and "Hawkins Travel Agency") have Miss Brooks and company wear school costume. In "The School Board Psychologist", an upcoming school play (where the students would dress as animals) is a major plot point.
* ScienceHero: Mr. Boynton ends up saving the day in "Living Statues". Walter Denton had invented a new type of paint to remove scratches. Unfortunately, at the last minute he mistakenly adds liquid cement to the concoction. After using the paint in Mr. Conklin's office, Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, and Walter Denton get stuck to the wall or the furniture. Mr. Boynton managed to free himself and go off to his laboratory to mix up a dissolvent to free everyone else. As for Walter Denton; he goes to help, limping off still stuck to the pedestral that usually held the bust of the school founder, Yodar Kritch.
* ScoobyDooHoax: In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter Denton fakes an invasion by miniature space aliens to prank Mr. Conklin.
* TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks and Lawrence Nolan play a game of Scrabble aboard the ''Paradise'', Nolan's yacht. Not surprising, the board is plainly the deluxe edition, with built-in turntable.
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: Mr. Conklin ''lives'' this trope. One example, out of many, is his using the high school cafeteria freezer to store his meat in "Home Cooked Meal".
* ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful: Connie Brooks is free to pursue ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton in way that would be questionable if she weren't an attractive English teacher. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Mr. Conklin, when he wryly comments on how he was sure to always find in in Mr. Boynton's biology lab. Party [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that Mr. Boynton likes Miss Brooks, and Miss Brooks' extraordinary pursuit doesn't violate any laws. This bit of dialogue from "Student Government Day" describes Miss Brooks' pursuit of Mr. Boynton in a nutshell:
-->'''Mr. Boynton:''' Fate seems always to be pitching us together\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Compared to me, fate's only a sandlot pitcher]].
* ScriptSwap: In "Poetry Mix-up", a love poem intended for Harriet Conklin is given to Mr. Conklin by mistake.
* SecretWeapon: In "Project X", the eponymous project is Mr. Conklin's secret weapon to get a promotion. [[spoiler: It's a device that allows Mr. Conklin to listen in on and communicate with every room in the school.]]
* SelfDeprecation: Miss Brooks sometimes aims her [[DeadpanSnarker deadly sarcasm]] at herself, usually when she finds herself dragged into a preposterous situation or scheme.
* SentimentalDrunk: "Old Clothes for Party" sees a sentimental (and exceptionally annoying) drunk invades Miss Brooks' conversation when she tries to use the party line telephone. The drunk falsely thinks Miss Brooks is married to his best friend, and starts wailing as she's making a date with Mr. Boynton. Later, the drunk starts crying about how he doesn't know where his father is.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: An English schoolmaster visits in "Hello Mr. Chips". HilarityEnsues.
* SeriesGoal: From day one, Miss Brooks wants to marry oblivious Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: They finally marry in TheMovie GrandFinale]]
* SeriousBusiness: HilarityEnsues at Madison High School, whether the problem of the day happens to be Mr. Conklin's latest edict, Walter Denton's latest prank, or keeping the Madison High School (football, basketball or baseball) team contenders in the big game:
** "Blue Goldfish" revolves around Mr. Conklin not heating the school to a sufficient temperature, and making everyone cold.
** "Madison Country Club" sees Mr. Conklin try to raise money to renovate his office.
** "Carelessness Code" is another episode where Mr. Conklin runs his staff and students ragged. This time he nickle-and-dimes teachers and students for violations of the carelessness code, violations that he makes up on the fly. This is all to pay for a bust of his head to grace the school library in place of that of Julius Caesar.
** "Letter From the Education Board" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its television remake, "Spare That Rod!"]]) sees Walter Denton alter an old letter to make Mr. Conklin think he's in danger of losing his job for being "dictatorial in his method".
** "Board of Education Day" (and its remake "Marinated Hearing"), "Free TV From Sherry's (and its remake, "Wild Goose"), "Cure That Habit", "Turnabout Day", "Sneaky Peekers" and "Friday The Thirteenth" all deal with the aftermath of Walter Denton's pranks.
** "Mr. Whipple" sees Madison High School trying to get a new, larger gymnasium. Similarly, "Mr. Travis' Three Acre Lot" sees Madison High School try to acquire property next door to get a proper regulation size football field.
** The crisis in "Baseball Uniforms" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its television remake, "Fischer's Pawnshop"]]) is that the opening baseball game of the season may be cancelled because of lack of funds to buy uniforms.
** Several episodes deal with the necessity of keeping [[DumbJock Stretch or Bones Snodgrass]] eligible to play for the Madison High School football, baseball, or basketball teams. "Stretch Has A Problem", "Stretch to Transfer ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation and its remake, "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass"]], "Stretch is in Love" (and its remake "Suzy Prentiss"), "Stretch is in Love Again", and "Stretch is Accused of Professionalism" all fall under this heading.
* SeriesOfThe1950s
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Walter, which makes him sound much more intelligent than he really is.
* {{Sexophone}}: A RunningGag in TheMovie is a sexophone riff that plays everytime [[HeadTurningBeauty Miss Lonelyhearts]] gets up from her desk and walks through the newspaper office.
* ShaggyFrogStory: In "Friday the Thirtteenth", Mrs. Davis assures Miss Brooks her troubles with Mr. Conklin are merely psychological. Mrs. Davis relates how her brother Victor was afraid to enter a yard because of a dog that was always barking. Victor went to a psychiatrist who told him that the only reason the dog was barking was because the dog was afraid Victor would kick him . . . .
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': After a couple months with the psychiatrist, my brother went right into that dog's yard and they stayed there together for over an hour.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Really, what did they do?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': They just stood around, biting and kicking each other. Luckily, a policeman came by and stopped it.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Yes, that was fortunate. Your brother couldn't have taken much more of that kicking.]]
* ShamedByAMob: Mr. Conklin rigs an election so the Madison High School students will election him the episode's titular "Faculty Cheerleader". Faced with a assembly of grumbling students, he relies on Miss Brooks to get his "election" through.
* ShamelessSelfPromoter: Mr. Conklin, to some extent. He even has a huge photograph of himself hanging above his living room mantelpiece.
* SharedFamilyQuirks:
** Brothers Stretch Snodgrass and Bones Snodgrass are [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname only known by their nicknames]] (their real names are [[EmbarrassingFirstName Fabian]] and Winston respectively). [[DumbJock dumb]] but [[LovableJock friendly]] high school athletes. They speak with [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker an eccentric grammar (or lack therof)]]. They are also extremely LiteralMinded.
** Osgood, Martha and Harriet Conklins are all snoops and eavesdroppers ("Mr. Boynton's Parents", "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton")
* SharpDressedMan: Mr. Conklin almost always wears a WaistcoatOfStyle. If he's going outside, he's sure to don a fedora hat.
* ShaveAndAHaircut: Walter Denton usually rings the bell at Mrs. Davis', but a few times he knocks to the tune of Shave and a Haircut. Once or twice, he even honked the horn on his jalopy to the same tune.
* ShesGotLegs: Notably in "Friday the Thirteenth", where Miss Brooks produces a photo of herself in a "French-model bathing suit" for the school yearbook. Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass and Mr. Boynton notice her legs.
* ShockinglyExpensiveBill: In [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Tape Recorder"]], Walter Denton purchases an expensive reel-to-reel tape recorder, and bills it to Madison High. TruthInTelevision, as tape recorders cost hundreds of dollars at the time.
* ShoeShineMister: In "The Birthday Bag", Harriet Conklin solicits money from Miss Brooks by pretending it's for an impoverished shoeshine boy.
* ShooOutTheNewGuy: Miss Brooks' two successive gym teacher [[LoveInterest love interests]] in the controversial final television season. Clint Albright and Gene Talbot, respectively. They both end up quitting their jobs and leaving with little explanation. They're replaced by Miss Brooks' longtime beau, Mr. Boynton.
* ShortCutsMakeLongDelays: The RoadTrip episode, "Game At Clay City". Mr. Conklin, [[BavarianFireDrill appointing himself navigator of Miss Brooks' car]], determines they should take a shortcut. After the car breaking down going up a steep hill, getting lost, giving a ride to a hitchhiker who misdirects them to a neighboring town, the gang finally arrive at Clay City . . . only to find that the football game is over and that the Madison High team had been clobbered.
* ShowWithinAShow: In "Here Is Your Past", Miss Brooks is unwittingly made a contestant of the titular show.
* TheShrink: In the episode "The School Board Psychologist". A dangerously incompetent psychologist tries to have Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin dismissed.
* SickeningSweethearts: Mr. and Mrs. Conklin can be like that:
** In "Trying to Pick a Fight", it's revealed that one of Mrs. Conklin's pet names for her husband is "Sugar Cookie".
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin buys Mrs. Conklin a black sheer negligee. "To Baby, From Goodie" reads the card.
* SignatureTeamTransport: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school in his jalopy.
* SillySimian:
** In "The Little Visitor", the Conklins are expecting to play guest to Mrs. Conklin's sister's pet monkey. Harriet and Mrs. Conklin are excstatic, Mr. Conklin is miserable. Miss Brooks jumps to the conlusion the Conklins are expecting a new baby. HilarityEnsues.
** Miss Brooks often mentions Mr. Boynton taking her to the monkeyhouse at the zoo, both on radio and on televison. It's said to be one of his favourite places. In "The Frog", Miss Brooks mentions her intent to change this because "as a schoolteacher, I can't afford to buy Taboo by the quart".
** At the end of The Movie Grand Finale, Miss Brooks having just finally recieved Mr. Boynton's proposal of marriage, finds Mr. Boynton feeding the monkeys at the zoo. Mr. Boynton finds an engagement ring in a box of cracker jacks. WithThisRing is interrupted by Chiquita, a female money who chooses this moment to steal the ring. No matter, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks walk away arm-in-arm to their future home.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': (winking to Chickita) I hope it doesn't take as long for you as it did for me.
-->'''Chiquita''': (winks back)
* SimpleYetOpulent: Miss Brooks, in the few episodes where she wears an evening gown - most notably, the strapless evening gown she wears in "Suzy Prentiss".
* SingingInTheShower: In "Stretch Has A Problem", Miss Brooks' "feet were ready to come off" after participating in a snake dance. The rally was held in honor of the Madison High School basketball team's departure to the state tournament. The sore and tired Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to take a bath. And singing! Alas, she's continually interrupted by somebody coming to the door before she can get into the tub:
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''[singing, while filling the bathtub with water]'' Singing in the bathtub, nothing can go wrong. Singing in the bathtub....
-->''[doorbell rings]''
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''[singing]'' [[DeadpanSnarker Oh, I should live so long!]]
* SingleEpisodeHandicap: In "Marinated Hearing", Walter Denton sets off an old cannon from the Spanish-American War. Mr. Conklin's standing too close, and suffers from temporary deafness as a result.
* SingleTaskRobot: In "Transition Show", Vice Principal Oliver Munsey shows Miss Brooks the robot he built. Its purpose is to be an automatic pencil sharpener.
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Miss Brooks' [[SeriesGoal goal]] throughout the radio, television series and [[GrandFinale film]] [[TheMovie adaptation]]. Her heart is clearly set on the very decent and attractively biology teacher Mr. Boynton. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton is very shy and almost altogether ObliviousToLove.
* SitcomArchNemesis: Miss Brooks has Miss Enright, a fellow English teacher and rival for Mr. Boynton's affections.
* SittingOnTheRoof: Two episodes end with Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton sitting on a roof.
** In "Elopement with Walter, Miss Brooks lures Mr. Boynton atop Mrs. Davis' house to practice volunteer fire fighting maneuvers. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** "Threat to Abolish Football" ends with Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton drafted into fixing the roof of Mr. Conklin's house. Again, ItMakesSenseInContext.
* SketchySuccessor: In the first radio episode, "First Day", Madison High School's Principal Darwell is replaced by Principal Osgood Conklin. Partially averted in that Mr. Conklin is generally competent with a HiddenHeartOfGold. However, he is also pompous, arrogant, bad-tempered and dictatorial.
** The later radio episode "Borrowing Money to Fly", and the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] changed the continuity so as to reflect the fact Mr. Conklin was Madison's longtime principal who had been long ensconced in his position upon Miss Brooks' arrival at Madison.
* TheSlacker: Walter Denton is an early example, although intelligent about ''some'' things, he's BookDumb, constantly taking shortcuts in his studies, once mentions he keeps his room a mess, and tries to minimize the time he spends in school or actually doing school work.
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Miss Brooks is sometimes the victim of slapstick gags. For example, in "Business Course" where she gets covered in oil and "Vitamin E-12" where she gets covered in goop. Miss Enright also suffers an oily fate in "Business Course." In "Secondhand First Aid" Miss Brooks wraps Miss Enright in bandages and rips her dress.
* SlaveToPR: Mr. Conklin is desperate to maintain a good ''public'' image on a number of occasions. For example, in "Madison Country Club", he's desperate to one up his rival Jason Brill. In "The Cafeteria Strike", Mr. Conklin's desperate to prevent the school's board food being exposed in the newspaper. Yes, Mr. Conklin is desperate to maintain a good front for the public. However, he never seems to care about the reputation he has amongst Madison's students and faculty.
* SleazyPolitician: The mayor in the radio episode "Student Government Day" is in league with the mobsters running the Jackpot Amusem*nt Company. Averted with the new mayor, who eventually appears in the television episode "Public Property On Parade".
* SlidingScaleofRobotIntelligence: In "Transition Show", Vice Principal Oliver Munsey shows Miss Brooks the robot he built. Definately a type 1, its main purpose is as an automatic pencil sharpener.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: One of biology teacher Mr. Boynton's hobbies is chess. In the "Hobby Show", he tries to teach the game to Miss Brooks.
* SmittenTeenageGirl: Although Harriet Conklin is usually Walter Denton's squeeze, and ordinarily quite levelheaded, she's been known to act this way on occasion.
** In "Hello, Mr. Chips," Harriet has a crush on a visiting English headmaster.
** In "Bones, Son of Cyrano" Harriet is enthused when she thinks Mr. Boynton has written her a love letter.
** Similarly, in the radio episodes "Stretch has a Problem" and "The Grudge Match" Harriet is overjoyed to find out that DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass is in love with her.
* SnakeOilSalesman: In the episode "Vitamin E-4", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are tricked by a phony professor into helping him manufacture the eponymous "vitamin". In reality, it's a bunch of gloop whose main ingredient is chicken fat. The "professor" uses teachers to make his presentations more realitic. The head of the school board, Mr. Stone, is incredulous that normally clever people can fall for such a scam. The snake oil saleman is never actually seen, but was voiced by Frank Nelson on the record he left in his "laboratory" to instruct his employees on how to manufacture the "vitamin".
* SnarkToSnarkCombat: Whenever Miss Brooks and Miss Enright meet, snarking is sure to follow. Usually, Miss Enright gives the first blow, with Miss Brooks giving as good as she gets.
* SneezeOfDoom: Mr. Conklin has some whoppers. The TV version of the sneezes had powerful fans blow objects all over the set, i.e. "Here is Your Past" and "The Magic Tree".
* SocialSemicircle: Sometimes readily apparent. ''Our Miss Brooks'' was filmed in front of a live studio audience at Creator/DesiluStudios, using the same camera equipment as ''Series/ILoveLucy''.
** One example is found in the episode "Spare That Rod!". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are crowded along three sides of a cafeteria table.
** Another example is in the episode "Madison Mascot", where Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Harriet Conklin Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are meeting in Mr. Conklin's to discuss the a mascot for the Madison football team. Mr. Conklin sat at the head of the table, with everybody else either placed at the foot or along one side.
** Averted in "Hobby Show" and "Thanksgiving Show" in scenes taking place at Mrs. Davis' dining room table. Mrs. Davis, one supposes, had little tolerance for Social Semi Circle Seating!
* SoProudOfYou: Lawrence Nolan, praising his son Gary's reporting work, in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* SoundToScreenAdaptation: An interesting example, in that the radio series actually outlasted the TV version.
* SouthernBelle: In "Blind Date", Mr. Conklin is afraid of meeting his old college girlfriend, Lulubelle Calhoun of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had told his wife Martha that she was the only woman he ever loved. Mr. Conklin, being a vain and pompous individual, convinces himself that Lulubelle was visiting to try and breakup the Conklin's marriage and win him back. In truth, Lulubelle was visiting for unrelated reasons and left the night before. In truth, Lulubelle had told Mrs. Davis that she didn't even know what she had seen in Osgood!
* SpellingSong: In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks is pleased to hear that LoveInterest Mr. Boynton's parents find her so youthful. That is, until [[TeachersPet teachers' pets]] Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin arrive. To Miss Brooks' chagrin, the teenagers name her the Madison High School student's choice for "Mother away from Mother". After presenting her with a shawl the students bought for her, Walter Denton sings the song they wrote for her:
-->'''Walter Denton''':\\
'''B''' is for the books she helps us study.\\
'''R''' is she is righteous and so pure.\\
'''O''' is for the fact that she's our buddy.\\
The other '''O''' is likewise I am sure.\\
'''K''' is for okay she rates about.\\
'''S''' is for her sadly wrinkled brow.\\
She's motherly just like ''Elsie the Cow''.\\
Miss Brooks we love you dearly!
-->'''Miss Brooks''':\\
Miss Brooks\\
That's me.\\
''(sob)'' I'll always be,\\
Miss Brooks!
* SpitTake:
** The very first television episode, "Trying to Pick a Fight", sees Miss Brooks do a spit take with coffee. Still, Miss Brooks demonstrates good manners by immediately using a linen napkin to wipe her face!
** Mr. Boynton does one ''with chili'' in "Weekend at Crystal Lake".
* SplitScreenPhoneCall: "Blind Date".
* SpringtimeForHitler: In "School on Saturday", Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks to quell a mass student protest that arises when he opens Madison High School on Saturday, and demands everybody attend . . . .
*** Mr. Conklin hears from head of the board, Mr. Stone, that Conklin would be in trouble if he dared open the school Saturday. Stone was going to investigate, personally . . . .
*** Too bad for Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks' speech to the angry teenagers convinced them to come in and attend class.
*** Mr. Conklin has Miss Brooks make another speech, to send the students home . . . .
*** Mr. Stone calls up, saying he's not going to inspect the school after all . . . .
*** Miss Brooks is sent to make ''yet another speech'', and the students attend classes for the day. And stay in detention until 4:00 p.m.
*** Mr. Stone comes by late in the afternoon . . . more HilarityEnsues.
* {{Squee}}: Harriet Conklin, occasionally. One example is in "Hello, Mr. Chips", where she makes a sound of delight upon seeing the visiting English school master.
* SquirrelsInMyPants: In "Cure That Habit", Stretch Snodgrass carries two kittens, a frog and a snake in his jacket. The animals get loose in Mr. Conklin's office and HilarityEnsues.
* StaircaseTumble: Walter Denton's dates with Harriet Conklin often end with him being kicked down the porch steps by her father.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: The episode "Here is Your Past" sees Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis being stalked by a mysterious man with a black moustache. [[spoiler: The stranger forces Connie to a TV studio where she's guest of honor on the ''Here is Your Past'' TV program.]]
* StandAloneEpisode: Every radio and television episode of Our Miss Brooks reintroduces the characters, and (except in the fourth TV season) there's no continuity that needs to be followed from one episode to the next.
* StandardizedSitcomHousing: Mostly averted.
** Miss Brooks rents a room from Mrs. Davis, whose home is stereotypically decorated in "old lady style" i.e. old fashioned wallpaper and lots of doilies. The house is a one-story home, although the front windows seen in establishing shots don't appear in the house. The front door opens directly into the living room, but is actually stage right. The house actually has a dining room stage left to the living room. Stage left to the dining room is the kitchen, with a back door leading stage left to the back porch and back yard (which was rarely shown). Depending on the requirement of the plot, the house is described as having either two or three bedrooms. (In TheMovie, Mrs. Davis describes the third bedroom as a "spare room", perhaps reconciling the difference.) There's an easily accessible attic used for storage, mentioned by never shown. On the rare occasions when Miss Brooks' bedroom is shown, it's unclear where it is inside the house.
** In the [[GrandFinale cinematic series finale]], the layout is much the same. However, while the living room was square on television, here it's elongated along the front of the house. The windows outside actually line up. The location of Miss Brooks' room is also shown. It's off a small hallway leading from the living room (and thus not appearing on stage on television.
* TheStateroomSketch: In the episode "Oo-Oo-Me-Me-Tocoludi-Gucci-Moo-Moo". Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis had spent their summer vacation in a tiny house-trailer Miss Brooks nicknamed "mousie". While waiting for a perspective buyer to show up, Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis clean the trailer. Unfortunately, Walter Denon, Harriet Conklin and Mr. Conklin all come to visit. HilarityEnsues.
* StealingTheCredit: Mr. Conklin likes to steal the credit from Miss Brooks, on occasion. For example, there was his attempt to claim authorship of a speech written by Miss Brooks in "Public Property on Parade".
* StealthInsult: In the series' [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks is Mr. Conklin's campaign manager for his crack at the new post of Coordinator of Education (essentially, School Board Superintendent). Collecting donations from students and teachers, Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin that many of them were behind him. They were willing to give him a ''push'' out of Madison if necessary. Mr. Conklin's change of expression from glowing pride to a perplexed frown suggests he quickly realized the import of Miss Brooks' comment.
* SteamNeverDies: In the film, when Miss Brooks arrives in [[EverytownAmerica Madison]], she's seen disembarking from a passenger train drawn by a steam locomotive. Very much [[TruthInTelevision truth in film]], as the fifties were the twilight of the steam age in North America.
* StereoFibbing: Happens a few times in the radio version:
** In the episode "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton fib in stereo to the Dean Faraday of State College.
** In "Trial By Jury", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Bones Snodgrass play possum with multiple fake illnesses.
* SternTeacher: At Madison High School, Miss Enright, [[SitcomArchNemesis Miss Brooks' personal and professional rival]], is ''always'' described by Miss Brooks and others as a very competent teacher. However, she appears to be much stricter than Miss Brooks. In "Stretch the Basketball Star", the episode introducing DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass, Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin plot to have the student athlete moved to Miss Brooks' class. They view "old lady Enright" as being unsympathetic.
* StickFigureAnimation: Used in a few episodes at the start of the fourth television season. For example, in "Who's Who", Miss Brooks narrates her efforts to beg a favor from Mrs. Nestor. The backdrop to Miss Brooks' narration is a stick figure picture of Miss Brooks pleading with Mrs. Nestor.
* StickyFingers: Somebody is stealing phonebooks in the episode "Phonebook Follies".
* StickySituation: In the episode "Living Statues", Mr. Conklin orders Miss Brooks to fix the cracks and scratches on his office walls. Joined by Walter and Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' redoes his office using a clear paint invented by Walter in the school lab. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, Walter unknowingly added liquid cement to his concoction . . . .]]
* StockAnimalDiet: Minerva, Mrs. Davis' pet cat, shows an affinity to several stock cat foods.
** Minerva likes milk, but prefers cream. One episode has Miss Brooks telling Minerva there's no cream left, so she'll have to take milk. Minerva meows angrily in protest.
** In "Taxidermists", Minerva gobbles up a large fish Mr. Conklin intends to enter in a fishing contest.
** Minerva shows excitement anytime someone mentions mice in her presence.
* StockYuck: The episode "Public Property on Parade", sees CordonBleughChef Mrs. Davis cook a limburger omelet for Miss Brooks. Brooks wisely declines, so Davis leaves it in the front yard for the birds. Cue a flock of birds flying a frantic retreat.
* StolenCreditBackfire: In "Public Property On Parade", Mr. Conklin takes credit for a speech Miss Brooks wrote about respecting public property and condemning theft and vandalism. Conklin initially dislikes the speech, but when the Mayor praises the document he takes full credit. Later, Conklin tells Miss Brooks that the Mayor would never find out that she wrote the speech; he's immediately embarassed to find the mayor is standing just outside the room and has heard everything.
* StrangeSyntaxSpeaker: [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass's]] grammar is atrocious. It's a toxic combination of current slang, malapropisms and double negatives.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Stretch, it is incorrect to use a double negative in a sentence. You've just used four of them.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Oh! So what I said was alright then?
** Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]] is the same way.
* StrictlyProfessionalRelationship: Sometimes invoked by Mr. Boynton. In fact, according to TheMovie, when Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks first met, it is Mr. Boynton's insistence that has the two on a strictly LastNameBasis.
** It is noteworthy that Miss Brooks '''never''' sees her relationship with Mr. Boynton as strictly professional.
* StrikeEpisode:
** The episode "The Cafeteria Strike" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation a remake of the radio episode "The Madison High Cafeteria Boycott]]). The students, dismayed by the awful food in the cafeteria, plan a strike with placards and all the other paraphernalia.
** In "School on Saturday", the Madison High students initially [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin refuse to go to class when Principal Conklin orders them in on Saturday.]] They even have plans to burn Mr. Conklin in effigy.
* StronglyWordedLetter: In "Stuffed Gopher", Mr. Conklin thinks he's going to be fired as principal from Madison High School. He writes a strongly-worded letter of resignation to Mr. Stone, the head of the school board.
* StudentCouncilPresident: Harriet Conklin is Student Council President at Madison High School. As such, and especially as she is the daughter of Principal Conklin, she has . . . absolutely no power whatsoever.
* StudentsPlayingMatchmaker: High School Students Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin often try to further Miss Brooks' romance with ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. One such example is the episode "Blind Date", where Walter and Harriet work together to reunite Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton after a quarrel.
* StunnedSilence: A horrorstruck Miss Brooks is [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin stunned into silence]] in the episode "Home Cooked Meal". [[spoiler: Miss Brooks realizes that Mr. Conklin has gone into a dark kitchen that has filled with natural gas. When Mr. Conklin announces he's going to light a match, horror stricken, she can only ''mouth'' a warning. Fortunately, Mr. Conklin's alright, although a little worse for wear.]]
* SuddenHumility:
** In "Spare That Rod!", when Mr. Conklin believes Mr. Stone has threatened to fire him for being "flagrantly dictatorial." Mr. Conklin humbly helps out his teachers and is even obsequious toward his students.
** In "Turnabout Day", by the authority of a forged letter Walter Denton becomes the principal on the titular "Turnabout Day". Cue Mr. Conklin pretending to be a student. He arrives on bicycle, wearing a propeller beanie and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
** Again, in the penultimate television episode "Principal For A Day". Miss Brooks [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin is briefly promoted to principal]], and Mr. Conklin takes a position as history teacher.
** Finally, in TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Conklin ''is'' actually threatened with dismissal by Mr. Stone; in a ContinuityNod, Mr. Stone considering Conklin's strict rule of Madison High School "to be tantamount to malfeasance." Mr. Conklin tries acting humble. When that doesn't work, Conklin decides to run against Mr. Stone for the newly created post of "Coordinator of Education" (aka school board president/superintendent) to save his position.
* SuddenIntelligence: The episode "Dress Code Protest" has [[DumbJock student athlete]] Stretch Snodgrass volunteer some good advice to Miss Brooks.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': I've got an idea, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Not so loud, it'll get away.]]
* SuddenNameChange:
** Marty's Malt Shop, the restaurant across the street from Madison High School, goes by a different name in its first radio appearance ("The Model School Teacher"). Subsequent appearances have the local hangout go by the name "Marty's Malt Shop". This includes the television remake of "The Model School Teacher", simply entitled "The Model Teacher."
** Sherry's Department store has a similar backstory. In the store's first appearance, "Surprise Party", Madison's department store goes by a different name. In subsequent episodes, "Sherry's" prevails, including the television remake of "Surprise Party", "The Birthday Bag."
** In the third season, Madison High School's principal rival, "Clay City High School", is suddenly redubbed "Henry Clay High."
* SuperStoicShopkeeper: Mr. Fisher in "Mr. Fisher's Pawn Shop," played by the indomitable Frank Nelson. He doesn't get upset in spite of the wacky hijinks going on all around him.
* SurpriseParty: "The Birthday Bag" and "The Surprise Party". Miss Brooks' friends plan a surprise party at the Conklin's house. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks turns up an hour too early. HilarityEnsues.
* SweaterGirl:
** Harriet Conklin often favors a tight sweater.
** The ''Madison Express" lonely hearts columnist, in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. She wears a tight sweater as she walks around the office, to the accompaniment of [[{{Sexophone}} saxophone]] music. [[spoiler: She is a minor a character, the movie ends with DisposableLoveInterest Mr. Nolan asking her for a date on his yacht. Meanwhile, in the main plot, Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter.]]
* SweetBaker: Mrs. Davis.
* SwivelChairAntics: In "Cure That Habit", Stretch Snodgrass swivels Principal Conklin around quickly, [[InsaneTrollLogic in an attempt to cure his hiccups]]. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Tableau}}: When Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Stone, visits Mr. Conklin, he finds Conklin, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, and Walter Denton motionless. They're stuck to the furniture. Walter Denton had unknowingly mixed his touch-up paint with liquid cement:
-->'''Mr. Stone''': I must be having hallucinations! What is the meaning of this '''grotesque tableau!'''
* TakeAThirdOption: Happens in "The Big Game". After Assistant Coach "Snakehips" Geary fails his makeup test to get his high school diploma, Miss Brooks must either flunk the old high school football hero from the "Big Game of 1912" or give him a fake pass. However, she uses Loophole Abuse and TakesAThirdOption. Earlier Mr. Conklin told Miss Brooks, when marking the test, to give him full credit for his contribution to Madison, his winnning the big game forty years before. Miss Brooks adds the points Snakehips scored to his test results as extra credit. Snakehips gets his High School Diploma and remains the Assistant Coach.
* TakingTheFightOutside: Attempted by Mr. Boynton and new gym teacher Mr. Greeley in "Angela's Wedding". They had been invited to a small party to welcome Angela's fiance. Greeley, who had been mocking Boynton in the episode, is on the verge of provoking a fight - much to Miss Brooks' disdain. Boynton and Greeley are about to step outside, when, to Greeley's amusem*nt, Mr. Boynton is drafted by Mrs. Davis to help her toss a salad.
* TalkingHeads: The radio programs adapted to television are often "talky" episodes. However, visual gags are often thrown into the script (indeed, many are carried over from the radio where they are described, but not shown). The show, humorous on the radio, definitely '''does not''' suffer in the adaptation to television.
* TalkingInYourSleep: In a couple episodes, Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks are heard talking in their sleep. "Mr. Conklin's Wakeup Plan" is one such example.
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Mr. Boynton [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton in TheMovie GrandFinale]]
* TagalongKid: Benny Romero in the last season. In "Geraldine", he stowsaway aboard the trailer Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Munsee are taking to Arizona.
* TapOnTheHead:
** In "Mr. Conklin is Honored", Mr. Conklin receives several hits on the head with Mrs. Davis' mahogany handled umbrella. ItMakesSenseInContext. Mr. Conklin falls to the ground each time, but suffers no effect more severe than the loss of a couple teeth.
** The trope is used in the episode "The Skeleton in the Closet". Miss Brooks' desperately tries to prevent a blackmailer, "Charlie", from revealing an embarassing incident in her life to Mr. Conklin. Gym teacher Gene Talbot knocks out Charlie using a gym bag holding a barbell. Later, Mr. Waddley, the school publicist, and Mr. Conklin himself get knocked out with a tap on the head.
* TaxDeductions: Happens to Miss Brooks in "Easter Outfit". Miss Brooks finds the $50.00 she earned working at the board of education during spring break to be considerably eroded by tax deductions.
* TaxidermyTerror: The Snodgrass brothers' not only live behind a pet shop, but their father's a both former veterinarian ''and'' taxidermist, DependingOnTheWriter. Miss Brooks briefly (and squeamishly) forays into the business of taxidermy herself on the radio, in the episode "Taxidermists" - accompanied by Harriet Conklin, Walter Denotn and Stretch Snodgrass. However, where TaxidermyTerror really comes into play is in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Stuffed Gopher"]]. Stretch Snodgrass wrecks Mr. Conklin's office, Mr. Boynton's lab, and the school Cafeteria in his attempt to catch the rodent. Snodgrass then has the rodent stuffed and brings it to school in a large suitcase to show Miss Brooks, Walter and Mr. Conklin. All three are suitably, and [[HilarityEnsues comically]] repulsed.
* TeachersPet:
** Walter Denton, who likes Miss Brooks so much he's usually driving her to school.
** Also applies to Harriet Conklin, who is Miss Brooks' best student. She's also the daughter of the principal to boot.
* TeamChef: Mrs. Davis is the only main character typically seen cooking. In one episode, Miss Brooks goes so far as to describe her own specialty as Campbell's Soup. Subverted in episodes where Miss Brooks assists Mrs. Davis with her cooking, and in episodes where Mrs. Conklin appears. Most notably subverted in "The Cafeteria Strike" when Mr. Boynton uses his mother's meatball recipe to get Miss Brooks out of trouble.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: This happens whenever Mr. Conklin forces Miss Brooks to go along with a scheme of which she does not approve.
* TeethFlying: Mr. Conklin loses several teeth in "Plaque for Mr. Conklin" as he's hit several times in an attempt to cure his faked case of [[EasyAmnesia amnesia]]. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* TemporarySubstitute:
** Stretch Snodgrass was substituted with his brother Bones in several first and second season episodes of the TV Series. The actor who played Stretch, Leonard Smith, wasn't available.
** Mrs. Winona Nestor was replaced by her sister, Mrs. Ruth Nestor, in the fourth season of the TV series. Sadly, the actress playing Winona, Nana Bryant, was forced to leave the show due to illness after making only a couple of appearances.
** The temporary replacement of Mrs. Davis, with her sister Angela, for a few episodes in the third season of the TV series and contemporaneous radio program. Jane Morgan, the actress who played Mrs. Davis, had suffered a stroke (fortunately, she made a quick and full recovery). This counts as a subversion as the character of Angela had often been mentioned on the radio program, and was eventually portrayed by Jesselyn Fax on both radio and television. The two sisters appeared side-by-side in several episodes.
** In the fourth season of the TV series, Mr. Boynton was replaced as Miss Brooks' love interest by phys-ed instructor Clint Allbright (William Ching). Then Allbright himself was replaced with Gene Talbot (Gene Barry) before Boynton finally returned to the series.
* ThanksgivingTurkey: ''Our Miss Brooks'' had two Thanksgiving episodes; both times Miss Brooks finds it difficult to procure a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.
** In the television episode "Thanksgiving Show" (a remake of the radio episode "Thanksgiving Weekend"), Mrs. Davis only buys a tiny squab for thanksgiving dinner. Miss Brooks attempts to get herself invited to a more substantial dinner results in Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Stretch Snodgrass and the entire Conklin family invited over to dine on Thanksgiving squab at Mrs. Davis' house.
** In the radio episode "Thanksgiving Turkey", facing buying a turkey with only $5 to spend, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton, with the assistance of Walter Denton, buy a live turkey from a farmer. Only thing is the turkey was a pet, and answers to the name Bernice (and falls in love with Mr. Boynton's pet frog [=McDougall=] to boot). HilarityEnsues.
* ThatsAllFolks: At the end of the episode "Buddy", Ricky Velasco states that although it would be "corny", it would be great if "The End" should appear above the cape he's holding. And "The End" appears.
* ThatsAnOrder: Mr. Conklin uses this phrase from time to time.
* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt: In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mrs. Davis dons a Theodore Roosevelt costume for a party.
* TheyDo: At the end of TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton.
* ThemeMusicAbandonment: The movie dispenses with the usual series theme, opening with a fanfare and a cheery new tune.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: Happens often on Miss Brooks. Many episodes begin with Miss Brooks having breakfast with Mrs. Davis. Often enough Walter Denton joins them, proclaiming himself willing to eat another breakfast. However, you rarely see anybody eat more than a few bites or Miss Brooks take a few sips of coffee. The trope is carried over to scenes in the Madison High School cafeteria, where teachers and students talk far more than they ever eat.
* ThiefBag: The thief in "The Jewel Robbery" carries away the loot from the burgled store in a bag. However, the crook later stores it in a suitcase.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck:
** Walter Denton's expression at the end of "Cure That Habit". Walter had mailed an application for an alcoholism cure in Mr. Conklin's name. For the second time in the episode, he brags to Miss Brooks about his prank. Unfortunately for Walter, this time Mr. Conklin's standing right behind him.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': [[SarcasmMode I bet he'll be positively purple.]]
-->'''Walter Denton''': [[DelayedReaction Purple? I'll bet he turns all the colors of the rain-bow-oh-oh-oh-oh!]]
** Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, and Stretch Snodgrass cower at the end of "Spare That Rod!" Miss Brooks, in fact, flees the principal's office! Mr. Conklin had, all day, been meek and courteous in response to a letter threatening his dismissal for running the school in a "dictatorial manner". Only at the end of show does he discover the letter was addressed to his predecessor Mr. Darwell, and was postmarked 1944. His name was only that day typed on the envelope by Walter Denton.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Run for the hills, the dam has broke!
** At the end of "Transition Show", Miss Brooks realizes she's working for, and at the mercy of, Mrs. Nestor and Mr. Conklin. Her near-sobbing expression says it all.
* ThoughtAversionFailure: The episode "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton" is based on this trope. The concept is explained by Mrs. Davis near the start of the episode:
->'''Mrs. Davis''': Remember, the one thing most difficult to forget is what you're trying to forget. If you'll cooperate with me, Connie, I'll show you just what I mean with a simple little experiment. Just try to forget an object on this table. Anything at all. Well, the coffee pot for example.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': This coffee pot?\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': Any coffee pot. Now, close your eyes and clear your mind. Close them tightly. Mm. That's it. Now, Connie Brooks, I command you not to think of a coffee pot. There's no such thing as a coffee pot. No coffee pot at all. Just keep telling yourself you must not think of a coffee pot.\\
'''Miss Brooks''': No coffee pot. I must not think of a coffee pot.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': That's right. No coffee pot. No coffee pot. Now, quickly Connie, what are you thinking of?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': A coffee pot.\\
'''Mrs. Davis''': I can't understand it. Something must have gone wrong. Try again now. Are you still thinking of a coffee pot?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': Yes, but it looks like Mr. Boynton.\\
-- ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' '''"Connie Tries to Forget Mr. Boynton"'''
* ThreeAmigos: Walter Denton, his girlfriend Harriet Conklin, and his best friend Stretch Snodgrass.
* ThreeWallSet
* TimePassesMontage: in TheMovie GrandFinale, time passes as Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks visit a mother and baby elephant at the zoo. The baby elephant grows to be nearly as big as his mother:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Remember when he was just a baby?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker As if he were my very own.]]
* TimeShiftedActor: "The Dream" features older versions of Mr. Conklin, Walter Denton, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Boynton and Mrs. Boynton nee Brooks played by series regulars Gale Gordon, Richard Crenna, Jane Morgan, Robert Rockwell and Eve Arden respectively.
* TitleDrop: Every so often, Miss Brooks would be introduced as "Our Miss Brooks" just for the fun of dropping the title of the program. Mr. Conklin usually gets to do the honors, as the principal of Madison High School, the "our" refers to Miss Brooks belonging to or being associated with Madison High School.
** In "First Day", outgoing principal Mr. Darwell has the pleasure of introducing "Our Miss Brooks" to incoming principal Mr. Conklin.
** In "The Grudge Match", Mr. Conklin names "Our Miss Brooks" to the students as their ringside commentator. It's a little redundant as they already know who she is.
** In "Hello Mr. Chips", Mr. Conklin introduces "Our Miss Brooks" to visiting British Schoolmaster Heatherington Philpott.
* TitleSequenceReplacement: ''Our Miss Brooks'' adopted the short "blackboard" opening for syndication.
* TodayXTomorrowTheWorld: In "Letter From the Board of Education", Miss Brooks' criticizes Mr. Conklin's choice of adages decorating the walls of his office by asking what happened to the one that read "Today Madison, tomorrow the world!". Mr. Conklin states that the janitor ripped it cleaning. In the [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] "Spare That Rod!" the joke is dropped. The janitor ripped the adage reading "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick".
* TonightSomeoneKisses: As seen in the trailer for TheMovie.
* TontoTalk: Chief and Mrs. Thundercloud in the episode "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud".
* TookALevelInCynic: Miss Brooks becomes extremely depressed at the crisis point of the [[GrandFinale series-concluding]] [[TheMovie film]].
* TheToothHurts: In "Mr. Conklin is Honored", Conklin loses several teeth when repeatedly hit on the head. The hits on the head weren't maliciously intended, but meant to cure a case of EasyAmnesia he had foolishly faked earlier in the episode.
* TranslationYes: "The House Trailer" featured an attempt by Mr. Conklin to borrow Mrs. Davis's house trailer and go fishing on an isolated lake, deep in the wilderness. The name of the lake, and the ''alternate title'' of the episode? "Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo." Mr. Conklin explains that ''Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo'' is the local Indians' word for "blue."
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I hate to hear their word for purple.]]
* TrapDoor: In "Sneeky Peepers", a copy of Rodin's "The Kiss" is ordered by mistake. Mr. Conklin orders the offending statue to be covered by a tarpaulin until it can be returned. Walter Denton even installs a trap door to catch anyone [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin sneaking up to the statue to take a peep]]. It turns out, by the end of the day, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Stone [[WhatAnIdiot and Walter Denton himself]] have fallen through the trap door and are trapped in a vacant (and locked) storage room in the basem*nt.
* TravelingSalesman: In the episode "Spring Cleaning", Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Conklin fall prey to the salespeople of the "Jiffy Vacuum Cleaner" company.
* TriggerHappy: In "New School Bus", Mr. Boynton buys an old paddy wagon for use as a school bus. Mrs. Davis uses the opportunity to drive around in the wagon, pretending to be a trigger happy cop. Fortunately, she's using a toy gun and shooting blanks!
* TheTriple: Several times. Here, Miss Brooks is having a rapid-fire breakfast "conversation" with Mrs. Davis:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Toast?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Toast.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Cereal?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Cereal.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Hat-coat-and-bicarbonate?
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': ...
* TrrrillingRrrs: Osgood Conklin, just to be all the more pompous.
* TrueCompanions: Miss Brooks is not only is pushed (or pushes herself) close to Mr. Boynton, but is frequently involved in the ups and downs of Mr. and Mrs. Conklin's lives, as well as those of her landlady Mrs. Davis.
* TruthTellingSession: Miss Brooks and Boynton argue in the film.
* TurtlePower: In "Madison Mascot", Stretch Snodgrass offers his pet turtle as Madison's mascot:
--> '''Stretch Snodgrass''': I know, maybe I can bring my turtle over as a mascot.
--> '''Walter Denton''': The Madison Mudturtles! [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal That's sort of alliterative]]. How big a turtle have you got, Stretch?
--> '''Stretch Snodgrass''': [[DumbJock He's exactly three inches square!]]
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': [[SarcasmMode Now there's a brilliant suggestion.]] How could the crowd in a football stadium possibly see a three inch turtle?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I know. We can paint Madison in huge red letters on his back.]]
* TVTeen:
** Features HighSchoolHustler and TeachersPet Walter Denton, who carried a very squeaky voice over from the radio. ** In the main cast is Harriet Conklin, the principal's daughter.
** Showing up from time-to-time, the [[DumbJock dumb]] but [[LovableJock good-natured]] Stretch Snodgrass.
** Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]].
* TwoTeacherSchool: Brooks and Boynton; there was also Brooks' rival Miss Enright and occasional visits from other teachers.
* TheUglyGuysHotDaughter: Principal Osgood Conklin's daughter Harriet.
* UnableToSupportAWife: [[spoiler: At the start of the film. Mr. Boynton's saving money and hoping for a promotion so he can propose to (and support) Miss Brooks]].
* UncannyFamilyResemblance: In the episode "The Dream", Miss Brooks has a daughter that looks just like her, while Mr. Conklin has a grandson that looks just like him. A JustifiedTrope, as it is AllJustADream.
* UnconventionalLearningExperience: This is unavoidable, given that the program is set in a HighSchool and stars an English teacher. For example, in "The English Test", Miss Brooks tutors Harriet Conlin, Walter Denton and "Jerky" Mcguirk for an upcoming examination. Connie Brooks covers such topics as "Concord and Governance", "Gerundial Phrases" and "Sentence Structure". Humour is provided by Walter and McGuirk trying to crib off Harriet. Similarly, the episode "Yodar Kritch Award" features Connie attempting to tutor Bones Snodgrass. Here, she covers the subjunctive mood, using the phrase "If I were John the Fisherman." This is a SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode, only [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute substituting]] Bones for his brother Stretch. ''Our Miss Brooks'' similarly covers scientific topics, due to the fact biology teacher Mr. Boynton is Miss Brooks' LoveInterest. The episode "Life Can Be Bones" relies heavily on a discussion of paleontology. A good deal of time is also spent relating the idea of a "Missing Link".
* UnconventionalSmoothie: Some of the health drinks Mrs. Davis prepares for Miss Brooks at breakfast fall into this category.
* UndesirablePrize: In "Peanuts the Great Dane", [[spoiler: Miss Brooks wins the titular dog after spending the episode trying to get rid of him.]]
* UnplannedCrossdressing: In "Dress Code Protest", a series of mix-ups results in Miss Brooks wearing Mr. Conklin's pants after tearing her skirt and being unwilling to go about in a borrowed pair of Harriet's gym bloomers. Mr. Conklin had pushed his pair of pants through the transom, telling Stretch Snodgrass to get them cleaned. However, Stretch had left leading Walter to find them and take them to Miss Brooks. This leaves Mr. Conklin is stranded in his office with no pants, and only Miss Brooks' torn skirt.
* UnreliableNarrator: Sometimes done for laughs in the introductory narration on the radio. This would always prompt a quick correction by [[DeadpanSnarker deadpan snarker]] Miss Brooks.
* UnwantedGiftPlot: "Christmas Gift Returns" and "Exchanging Gifts".
* UnwantedGlassesPlot: In "The Dancer", Miss Brooks goes to an optometrist after Mr. Conklin accuses her of needing glasses. She borrows a pair of glasses to see their effect on Mr. Boynton. He compliments her on how ''mature'' she looks. So much for any chance of Miss Brooks wearing glasses!
* UptownGirl: In "An American Tragedy", Miss Brooks relates that LoveInterest Mr. Boynton had been dating a society girl. On Miss Brooks giving him an ultimatum to choose the society girl or Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton chooses Miss Brooks.
* ValentinesDayEpisodes: There are two Valentine's Day Episodes:
** "The Frog" sees Miss Brooks adopt a pet frog, in an effort to set up a "double date" with Mr. Boynton somewhere outside the zoo. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** "Valentine's Day Date" see Miss Brooks again try to keep Mr. Boynton away from the zoo. This time, she uses a gift certificate provided by Stretch Snodgrass to lure Mr. Boynton to Turk's Turkey Heaven. HilarityEnsues.
* VolleyingInsults: Miss Brooks and Miss Enright will unavoidably start throwing catty remarks at one another, should they engage in anything but the briefest of conversations.
* WaistcoatOfStyle: Mr. Conklin's often seen wearing three piece suits (i.e. "Living Statues").
* WackyMarriageProposal: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], the marriage proposal manages to be heartfelt, in character and very much atypical. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks finds out she's been ''de facto'' engaged to Mr. Boynton when Mrs. Davis introduces Mr. Boynton's mother as her new boarder in Miss Brooks' place (so Mrs. Boynton can be close to her son without having to live with Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks). Miss Brooks then goes to the zoo to meet up with Mr. Boynton. WithThisRing comes into play as Miss Brooks finds a ring in a box of Cracker Jack, which is promptly stolen by a female monkey. Nonetheless, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton leave arm in arm and see how the wallpaper Miss Brooks' selected will look in their future home.]]
* WakeupMakeup: Memorably averted in the episode "The Model Teacher". The catty female reporter is pleased to see Miss Brooks unmade up, so she could portray her as poorly as possible.
* WalkingSwimsuitScene: Three examples:
** "Friday the Thirteenth": A key factor in the plot is a photograph of Miss Brooks by the lake in a French bathing suit.
** "Heat Wave" has everybody but Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin scheming to get out of school and pay a trip to the swimming hole. Turns out Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass, and even Mr. Boynton have swimming suits under their regular clothes. [[spoiler: At the end of episode, it's revealed Miss Brooks is wearing one too.]]
** In the episode "The Dancer", an exotic dancer wanting Mr. Conklin to hire her for his brother-in-law's bachelor party, strips down to a French bathing suit when left alone in his office.
* WatchOutForThatTree: "Skis in the Classroom" see Miss Brooks' runaway skiing stopped in this fashion:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Look out, you're heading right for that big tree! Look out for that tree!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': It's the only way I can stop! Oh, if I can just grab one of the branches! Here goes!
-->'''Crash!'''
* WavingSignsAround: The radio episode "Cafeteria Boycott" and its [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] "The Cafeteria Strike". Walter Denton and the other students make signs protesting the food in the cafeteria, such as "Remember PTO-MAINE" and, in the radio version, "Remember the saying what goes up must come down? In our cafeteria, what goes down must come up!"
* WealthyYachtOwner: Lawrence Nolan, in the film. He owns a luxurious motor yacht, the ''Paradise''.
* WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain: "Exchanging Gifts" involves the re-gifting and exchanging of a tie and a handkerchief with the loud design of "a big yellow tree on a cliff by the ocean with a purple owl on top of it playing a bugle. Both presents are for Mr. Boynton, who had just returned to Madison from a biologists' convention. The confusion is sorted out by the end [[DeadpanSnarker (Miss Brooks never missing an opportunity to snark over the ridiculousness of the design) ]], only for Mrs. Davis to ask Miss Brooks an important favor at episode's end:
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': Just a minute, Connie. I have a little favor to ask of you. You know, everyone gave Mr. Boynton a welcome home gift today except me. Unfortunately, I'm a little short of funds so I can't buy him anything. But if you don't mind, I'd like to iron that muffler you gave me last Christmas, and give it to him in the morning.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please, Mrs. Davis. I've just had . . . .
-->'''Mrs. Davis''': You know the one I mean, Connie. The one with the yellow tree on the cliff by the ocean with the purple owl . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[HypocriticalHumor You're a little late, so Goodnight Mrs. Davis!]]
* WeatherReportOpening: "Radio Bombay" begins with a conversation about the weather.
* WeddingFinale: [[spoiler: TheMovie GrandFinale ends with Connie Brooks and Phil Boynton leaving to get married.]]
* WellDoneSonGuy: Gary Nolan resents his father's inattention.
* WeReallyDoCare: The plot of "Friendship".
* WeWait: Miss Brooks stakes out a burglar in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Burglar"]]
* WhatIsThisFeeling: In the episode "Marriage Madness", Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are shocked to see Mr. Conklin smiling and in such a good mood. Mr. Conklin himself reflects that he doesn't remember being so happy!
* WhatTheHellHero: In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Miss Brooks colludes with Mrs. Conklin to trick Mr. Conklin in believing that she had went home to her mother. Mr. Boynton calls out Miss Brooks. HilarityEnsues, as Miss Brooks gets the fight she desires with LoveInterest Mr. Boynton.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': So, what are you gonna do about it, Frog Boy?
* WhenEldersAttack: Mrs. Davis beats up a gym teacher in "Angela's Wedding". [[SeriousBusiness He insulted the deviled eggs she prepared.]]
* WhenIWasYourAge: In "Blue Goldfish", Miss Brooks is delegated to ask Mr. Conklin to raise the heat in the school. Mr. Conklin subjects Miss Brooks to a lecture about how soft people have gotten, unable to stand a little "fresh air." Mr. Conklin laments that Americans are no longer able to live up to the example set by George Washington at Valley Forge. [[spoiler: An example of HypocriticalHumor, the only reason ''Mr. Conklin'' is able to stand the cold is that he's sitting on a heating pad.]]
* WhiteCollarCrime:
** In "The Embezzled Dress", Miss Brooks fears going to prison for embezzlement after Mrs. Davis buys Miss Brooks a dress with the $25 Miss Brooks had been keeping in her room. Mrs. Davis thought the money was Miss Brook's rent money; in fact, it was the student banking funds.
** Five of Walter's Denton's practical jokes see the actual fraud:
*** Using Mr. Conklin's name to request a cure for alcoholism in "Cure That Habit"
*** Putting Mr. Conklin's name on a ''draft notice'' in "Mr. Conklin's Induction Notice"
*** "Spare That Rod!": Altering the address on a war-time letter to previous Madison principal Mr. Darwell, to read as a current letter to Mr. Conklin. The letter is a threat from Mr. Stone to fire Mr. Conklin (actually Mr. Darwell) if he doesn't cease running the school in a "dictatorial manner".
*** "Turnabout Day" has Walter Denton (with Stretch Snodgrass's help) forge a letter from Mr. Stone ordering Mr. Conklin to put the wacky school holiday into effect.
*** "Wild Goose Chase" sees Walter trick Mr. Conklin over the telephone: he pretends to be a radio quiz host and claims Mr. Conklin has won a free T.V. from Sherry's Department Store.
* WhiteCollarWorker: Miss Brooks is a white collar worker. The same applies for Mr. Boynton, Miss Enright, and Principal Osgood Conklin.
* WhoWillBellTheCat: If a favor or a request for additional funds is to be made at Madison High School . . . it is Miss Brooks who is inevitably nominated to convey the demand to Principal Conklin. The episodes "Blue Goldfish" and "Stretch is in Love Again" are cases in point.
* WhyAreYouLookingAtMeLikeThat: Walter Denton says this in the episode "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass". He walks into Mr. Conklin's office, after Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin discuss a plan to have someone imitate Stretch.
* WhyWasteAWedding: In the episode "June Bride". Mr. [=LeBlanc=]'s proxy wedding gets cancelled. Mr. Boynton suggest they don't waste the arrangements, nor the judge. Does he finally propose to, and marry, Miss Brooks? No. [[FacePalm It's a great opportunity for a square dance!]]
* WigDressAccent: Miss Brooks impersonates her non-existent identical twin sister in "Connie and Bonnie" and "Twins At School". At the end of "Twins At School", Mr. Conklin tries to get even with Miss Brooks by inventing and impersonating a cowboy relative.
* WildWilderness: Lake Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo, in the episode of the same name.
* WithDueRespect: Occasionally said by Walter Denton to Miss Brooks. Also occasionally used by Miss Brooks with Principal Osgood Conklin.
* WithThisRing: The movie ends with Boynton finally proposing to Brooks.
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: Mr. Conklin's given Miss Brooks this ultimatum a couple times, in order to force her compliance with a dubious scheme of his. Usually, however, Mr. Conklin chooses to warn Miss Brooks that it's in his power to make her time at teaching at Madison High "either very pleasant or very ''miserable''."
* WolfWhistle: At the end of "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Boynton falls asleep on a chair in the hall. Miss Brooks doesn't wake him up, but sits beside him. Mr. Boynton wolf-whistles in his sleep!
* WomenDrivers: Miss Brooks' car is always broken down or damaged in some way, forcing her to take lifts in [[TheAllegedCar Walter's jalopy]]. She is portrayed as someone who doesn't pay the best attention on the road, sometimes barely missing pedestrians by swerving and hitting something on the side of the road.
* WordAssociationTest: In "The School Board Psychologist", the psychologist gives Miss Brooks a word association test to determine her "appropriate" career. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Workaholic}}: In "Hobby Show" (and "The Workhorse", its radio predecessor), Miss Brooks is working so hard her friends fear her workaholic behavior will make her old before her time. HilarityEnsues when Miss Brooks' friends try to teach her to relax with a hobby. Miss Brooks knits (with Mrs. Davis), finger-paints (with Harriet Conklin), plays with model trains (with Walter Denton), plays chess (with [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]]) and fixes toys for charity (with Mr. and Mrs. Conklin) . . . '''all at the same time'''.
* WorkCom
* WorstAid: In the episode "First Aid Course", Miss Brooks purposely inflicts WorstAid on Miss Enright and Mr. Conklin. Miss Brooks was trying to avoid being forced to teach the eponymous course.
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: It happens to Miss Brooks ''twice'':
** In "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks and Walter Denton believe they've discovered a missing Arapaho Indian burial ground on Mr. Conklin's vacant lot. It turned out Harriet Conklin used the area to bury broken toys donated to Mrs. Davis' charity drive.
** In "Rare Black Orchid" Walter Denton enlists Miss Brooks to borrow the school Geiger counter. Walter discovered his shoe was radioactive from uranium. Walter's uranium hunt ends when he discovers he had stepped in the school's uranium sample. He tries to make Miss Brooks split with him the $10 cost of replacing it.
* WritingLines: Happens at the end of "Letter from the Education Board". Mr. Conklin has Walter, Stretch, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks stay after school writing "Our principal is the best principal that any school ever had."
* WrongTurnAtAlbuquerque: ''Two'' of the several mishaps that befall Miss Brooks and company in "Game at Clay City". Mr. Conklin gives Miss Brooks' the wrong directions to Clay City. Later, a pedestrian (voiced by Frank Nelson) intentionally gives Miss Brooks' wrong directions so he could get a free ride home.
* XMakesAnythingCool: "Project X" in the episode of the same name.
* YouAreInCommandNow: In "Radio Bombay", Mr. Conklin places Miss Brooks in charge of Madison High School when he's away for the morning. HilarityEnsues.
* YouMeddlingKids: Happens in a first season radio episode, titled "Student Government Day". Taking over their duly elected roles as mayor and police chief for a day, Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton raid "The Jackpot Amusem*nt Company," a gambling ring placing crooked slot machines in the backrooms of candy stores.
** This is actually a subversion. Harriet and Walter's insults toward an uncooperative real policeman get them, several other students, Miss Brooks, and eventually Mr. Boynton locked in jail. The only reason the gangsters are run out of town, is that the crooked mayor is terrified of bad publicity from the fiasco. His equally crooked campaign manager convinces him to forgo his cut, and let the kids bust the gambling ring.
** Fortunately, for Madison, it seems this was that mayor's last hurrah. By the following season's "School Band", Miss Brooks notes a new (much better) mayor had been elected and would be visiting Madison High School. When it the time came for the Mayor of Madison to appear on television in "Public Property on Parade", he showed himself to be the very model of a dedicated public servant.
* YouNoTakeCandle: The episode "Bartering with Chief Thundercloud" has the eponymous chief and his wife speak in this matter. Miss Brooks is flattered by Mrs. Thudercloud's compliment, however.
---> '''Mrs. Thundercloud''': Miss Brooks, she very pretty!
* YourWorstNightmare: In "Friendship", Miss Brooks suffers from a referring dream where she's being attacked with a knife.
* YouSayTomato: Notable in "Hello Mr. Chips", where an English headmaster, a QuintessentialBritishGentleman, visits Madison High School. His pronounciation varies greatly from that of the regular characters. So much so, that it's a RunningGag throughout the episode.
* ZanyScheme: There must be a course in zany schemes over at Madison High School. Everybody has had one in the works, one time or another. These are just a few examples. [[ItMakesSenseInContext They all make sense in context.]]
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass," Miss Brooks hatches a scheme to waylay Strech's transfer by having Mr. Conklin and her masquerade as the [[DumbJock dim athlete's]] equally dim parents.
** One of Walter Denton's schemes is a monstrous April Fool's Day joke, in "Wild Goose." He imitates a radio quizmaster, tricking Mr. Conklin into thinking he's won a TV from Sherry's Department Store. Cue Miss Brooks chasing down the stream of notes Walter left, in vain pursuit of the elusive television set.
** Mr. Conklin, pompous though he may be, isn't above the general zaniness either. In "The Big Jump," he plans to jump off the roof (onto a firemen's parachute) as part of a civil defense drill. He chickens out, and volunteers Miss Brooks to act as his stunt double.
** Mrs. Conklin gets into the act in "Non-Fraternization Policy." She's working to derail Mr. Conklin's newly imposed Islamic-style separation of the sexes at Madison.
** Even Mr. Boynton take part. "Clay City English Teacher" sees him try to imitate Sam Spade in an effort to lure Miss Brooks away from the eponymous teacher.
** Goody-two-shoes Harriet Conklin has a zany scheme now and again. In "New Girl", she tricks the titular girl's mother into believing Mr. Boynton is a serial killer.
** To Mrs. Davis, zany schemes are old hat. At least as far as zany schemes go, occurs in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. Mrs. Davis brings about Miss Brooks' HappilyEverAfter through some clever manipulation of Mr. Boynton and his mother.

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* AbandonedWarehouse: Miss Brooks and Walter Denton visit the now-abandoned warehouse of the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company" at the end of "Student Government Day". Miss Brooks pulls the arm of a rigged one-arm bandit machines that had been left behind by the racketeers, winning the jackpot.
* AbandonShip: In "An American Tragedy", Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are stranded on a sinking rowboat. Subverted as they are unable to abandon ship, as none of them are wearing lifejackets and only Mr. Boynton can swim.
* AbsentMindedProfessor: Mr. Boynton
* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Averted. Harriet Conklin is Student Council president, and she seems to have no power whatsoever. Her father, Mr. Conklin, [[RepressiveButEfficient runs Madison with an iron fist]]. Similarly, Walter Denton is on the student council, editor of the school paper, and manager of half the school's varsity teams. He has, if possible, even less power. In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Walter calls an extra skull practice. Mr. Boynton chews him out for exceeding his authority.
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: In "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks unwittingly offers to masquerade as Mr. Boynton's mother. This is in spite of the fact she is actually a couple of years younger than her LoveInterest. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* AccidentalBargainingSkills: In "Mr. [=LeBlanc=] needs $50", when Mr. Conklin offers Miss Brooks $25 to discourage Mr. [=LeBlanc=] from buying his Stutz - Miss Brooks demurs. Mr. Conklin immediately raises his offer to $50.
* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to grow a mustache. She compliments him on his new appearance, and arranges for other female teachers to do the same. Lo, and behold, Miss Brooks finds she provoked a case of AcquiredSituationalNarcissism in her LoveInterest.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Mr. Conklin was nothing more than a nuisance and a blowhard during the radio show and first three seasons of the TV show. However, when the show was retooled for the fourth season he was turned into a full-on villain who vowed to make Miss Brooks' life miserable and would even try to get her fired. The two went from being frenemies to just plain enemies.
* AdoptTheFood: In "Thanksgiving Turkey", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton save money by buying a live turkey. Miss Brooks quickly grows fond of the turkey, and refuses to help Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton kill her.
* AdultsDressedAsChildren:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Return", Miss Brooks dresses as a small child to get on an airplane free. Given how tall Eve Arden is, it needs to be seen to be believed . . . .
** Or maybe not. "Borrowing Money to Fly", a radio episode, has Miss Brooks try the same trick, and her dialogue and "little girl voice" are funny in and of itself.
** "Turnabout Day" sees the Madison High School faculty dress as children. Miss Brooks dresses in the then-current style for teenage girls, while Mr. Conklin wears a propeller beanie and a WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse shirt.
* AerithAndBob: Everybody has fairly standard names, with the exception of Mr. ''Osgood'' Conklin. Not to mention [[EmbarrassingFirstName Fabian]] Snodgrass.
* AFoolForAClient: In "Trial By Jury" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation a remake of the radio episode "Traffic Court Reckless Driving"]]), Miss Brooks' defends herself in court after being given a ticket for "speeding, going through a red light, reckless driving, driving on the sidewalk, and hitting a [[FruitCart fruit stand]]. Miss Brooks' expertise as an English teacher instead of a lawyer is evident here, at one point she recites Portia's speech from ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks' defense is doomed from the start as [[DeanBitterman Madison High School's principal Mr. Conklin]] is on the jury. And he's furious at having to abandon plans for a fishing trip "just because some stubborn female insists on a jury trial for a traffic ticket!" Still Mr. Conklin is at least ''partially'' impressed by Miss Brooks' recitation:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Bravo. Bravo. AND GUILTY AS CHARGED!
* AfterSchoolCleaningDuty: Alluded to occasionally on ''Radio/OurMissBrooks''. In "Spare That Rod!", while cleaning Mr. Conklin's office, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass find an old letter to Mr. Darwell, Mr. Conklin's predecessor as principal. They type Mr. Conklin's name on the ten-year-old envelope . . . HilarityEnsues.
* AgeAppropriateAngst: The dating concerns of teenagers Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are usually played for laughs. Miss Brooks' problems in her pursuit of Mr. Boynton are often played for laughs, but she elicits considerably more sympathy as well.
* AgelessBirthdayEpisode: "The Birthday Bag" on television, "The Surprise Party" on the radio.
* {{Ahem}}: Sometimes done by Mr. Conklin. For example, when Miss Brooks accidentally telephones him in "Wake Up Plan".
* TheAlcoholic: Two examples, one real, one fake.
** "The Loaded Custodians": the former custodian Mr. Jensen was said to have been dismissed for drunkenness. Curiously, in his few radio appearances (i.e. "Key to the School", "School Safety Adviser"), Mr. Jensen isn't a drunk. His main idiosyncrasy is that he's extremely [[LiteralMinded literal minded]].
** "Cure That Habit": Walter Denton plays a prank, sending a postcard in Mr. Conklin's name to the titular agency. The Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Stone, hears of it and comes to see his supposedly drunken principal. [[spoiler: HilarityEnsues as Mr. Conklin is suffering from an unfortunate case of the hiccups, having pets mistakenly placed in his office, and being spun around in a chair.]]
* ALessonLearnedTooWell: It happens a couple of times when Miss Brooks tries to make Mr. Boynton less ObliviousToLove:
** In "Poetry Mix-up", Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to read ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'' to make him more romantically-inclined. It backfires when Mr. Boynton postpones a date so he could finish reading the book.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache'' Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to grow a mustache; she also encourages her female colleagues to compliment his appearance. This was an effort to make Mr. Boynton less shy. It works too well. Mr. Boynton starts dating three other women.
* AlienInvasion: In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter Denton tricks Mr. Conklin into believing he's being attacked by aliens from a planet he thinks he's just discovered with his new telescope.
* AllClothUnravels: In "Friday the Thirteenth", Miss Brooks ends up tearing off a lapel on Mr. Conklin's new suit by merely pulling on a loose thread.
* AllegedCar:
** Miss Brooks' car, when she has one. It's almost always in the shop. In fact, the number of episodes (on either radio and television) where she gets to drive her car can be counted on one hand; namely "Game At Clay City", "Who's Going Where", "Four Leaf Clover", "Brooks' New Car" and "Head of the State Board of Education".
** Walter Denton's junky jalopy also definitely qualifies;, although it, at least, is usually in working order. However, Walter often drives it ''sans'' top or even sides.
** A one-time offender was Mr. Conklin's second automobile, ''mostly'' a Stutz. He tries to unload the lemon on the unsuspecting Mr. [=LeBlanc=] in "Mr. [=LeBlanc=] Needs $50".
* TheAllegedSteed: In "Geraldine", Benny Romero talks Miss Brooks into buying a sixteen-year-old swayback mare for the Miss Nestor's school's riding academy. "Geraldine" does prove to be a horse of unique value: it turns out she's expecting and by episode's end gives birth to triplets. In RealLife, the chances of a mare giving birth to live triplets is 1 in 300,000.
* AlliterativeName: [[DumbJock Student athlete]] "Stretch" Snodgrass. Ironically, in "Madison Mascot", it turns out that not only does he not know what alliterative means, [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker he can't even pronounce the word]].
* AlliterativeTitle: "Madison Mascot".
* AllJustADream: [[spoiler: "The Dream", "Magic Christmas Tree" and "Trying to Forget Mr. Boynton".]]
* AllLoveIsUnrequited:
** Averted with Miss Brooks and her LoveInterest Mr. Boynton. There, her main problem is that Mr. Boynton is too shy or awkward to make a move; or sometimes just wary of a relationship that would end in marriage. For example, in "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Mr. Boynton all but tells Dean Faraday of State University that he would like to someday propose marriage to Connie Brooks. [[spoiler: Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale]]
** Played straight with DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass and his unrequited love for Harriet Conklin. Harriet just happens to be the girlfriend of his Walter Denton, his best friend. His resultant depression is a problem in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Stretch Has A Problem"]]. Stretch's sitting with Harriet at the movie theater helps set off a fight with a jealous Walter in "Stretch v. Walter Grudge Match". Finally, Stretch's attempt to "worship [Harriet] from afar" by sending her anonymous love letters, sets off the events of "Poetry Mixup".
** [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Poetry Mixup" was remade for television]] as "Bones, Son of Cyrano". Only instead of Stretch falling for Harriet, [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute it was his brother Bones.]]
* AllLovingHero: Connie Brooks is a kind and caring person, who frequently goes out of her way to help her friends, pupils and even perfect strangers. An example of the latter occurs in "The Burglar". Here, Connie catches a man breaking into the house and raiding the refridgerator. Instead of turning him in, Connie and Mrs. Davis share breakfast with the man and get him a job filling in for the school custodian.
* AllThatGlitters: In the episode "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton believe broken toys buried in Mr. Conklin's vacant lot to be valuable Indian artifacts.
* AllWitchesHaveCats: In "Halloween Party", Mr. Boynton observes that the two figures most associated with Halloween are witches and black cats. Miss Brooks is offended when Mr. Boynton, Stretch Snodgrass and Walter Denton all think that she'd be perfect dressed as a witch for the party. Miss Brooks eventually gives in . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Connie Brooks rides tonight!
* AlmaMaterSong: The radio episodes "Clay City English Teacher" and "Mr. Laythrop returns to School" feature the Madison anthem, "O Madison". Miss Brooks adds her own lyrics in parody:
-->O Madison!\\
Thou Madison!\\

* AbandonedWarehouse: Miss Brooks and Walter Denton visit the now-abandoned warehouse of the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company" at the end of "Student Government Day". Miss Brooks pulls the arm of a rigged one-arm bandit machines that had been left behind by the racketeers, winning the jackpot.
* AbandonShip: In "An American Tragedy", Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are stranded on a sinking rowboat. Subverted as they are unable to abandon ship, as none of them are wearing lifejackets and only Mr. Boynton can swim.
* AbsentMindedProfessor: Mr. Boynton
* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Averted. Harriet Conklin is Student Council president, and she seems to have no power whatsoever. Her father, Mr. Conklin, [[RepressiveButEfficient runs Madison with an iron fist]]. Similarly, Walter Denton is on the student council, editor of the school paper, and manager of half the school's varsity teams. He has, if possible, even less power. In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Walter calls an extra skull practice. Mr. Boynton chews him out for exceeding his authority.
* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: In "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks unwittingly offers to masquerade as Mr. Boynton's mother. This is in spite of the fact she is actually a couple of years younger than her LoveInterest. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* AccidentalBargainingSkills: In "Mr. [=LeBlanc=] needs $50", when Mr. Conklin offers Miss Brooks $25 to discourage Mr. [=LeBlanc=] from buying his Stutz - Miss Brooks demurs. Mr. Conklin immediately raises his offer to $50.
* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to grow a mustache. She compliments him on his new appearance, and arranges for other female teachers to do the same. Lo, and behold, Miss Brooks finds she provoked a case of AcquiredSituationalNarcissism in her LoveInterest.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Mr. Conklin was nothing more than a nuisance and a blowhard during the radio show and first three seasons of the TV show. However, when the show was retooled for the fourth season he was turned into a full-on villain who vowed to make Miss Brooks' life miserable and would even try to get her fired. The two went from being frenemies to just plain enemies.
* AdoptTheFood: In "Thanksgiving Turkey", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton save money by buying a live turkey. Miss Brooks quickly grows fond of the turkey, and refuses to help Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton kill her.
* AdultsDressedAsChildren:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Return", Miss Brooks dresses as a small child to get on an airplane free. Given how tall Eve Arden is, it needs to be seen to be believed . . . .
** Or maybe not. "Borrowing Money to Fly", a radio episode, has Miss Brooks try the same trick, and her dialogue and "little girl voice" are funny in and of itself.
** "Turnabout Day" sees the Madison High School faculty dress as children. Miss Brooks dresses in the then-current style for teenage girls, while Mr. Conklin wears a propeller beanie and a WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse shirt.
* AerithAndBob: Everybody has fairly standard names, with the exception of Mr. ''Osgood'' Conklin. Not to mention [[EmbarrassingFirstName Fabian]] Snodgrass.
* AFoolForAClient: In "Trial By Jury" ([[SoundToScreenAdaptation a remake of the radio episode "Traffic Court Reckless Driving"]]), Miss Brooks' defends herself in court after being given a ticket for "speeding, going through a red light, reckless driving, driving on the sidewalk, and hitting a [[FruitCart fruit stand]]. Miss Brooks' expertise as an English teacher instead of a lawyer is evident here, at one point she recites Portia's speech from ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks' defense is doomed from the start as [[DeanBitterman Madison High School's principal Mr. Conklin]] is on the jury. And he's furious at having to abandon plans for a fishing trip "just because some stubborn female insists on a jury trial for a traffic ticket!" Still Mr. Conklin is at least ''partially'' impressed by Miss Brooks' recitation:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Bravo. Bravo. AND GUILTY AS CHARGED!
* AfterSchoolCleaningDuty: Alluded to occasionally on ''Radio/OurMissBrooks''. In "Spare That Rod!", while cleaning Mr. Conklin's office, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass find an old letter to Mr. Darwell, Mr. Conklin's predecessor as principal. They type Mr. Conklin's name on the ten-year-old envelope . . . HilarityEnsues.
* AgeAppropriateAngst: The dating concerns of teenagers Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are usually played for laughs. Miss Brooks' problems in her pursuit of Mr. Boynton are often played for laughs, but she elicits considerably more sympathy as well.
* AgelessBirthdayEpisode: "The Birthday Bag" on television, "The Surprise Party" on the radio.
* {{Ahem}}: Sometimes done by Mr. Conklin. For example, when Miss Brooks accidentally telephones him in "Wake Up Plan".
* TheAlcoholic: Two examples, one real, one fake.
** "The Loaded Custodians": the former custodian Mr. Jensen was said to have been dismissed for drunkenness. Curiously, in his few radio appearances (i.e. "Key to the School", "School Safety Adviser"), Mr. Jensen isn't a drunk. His main idiosyncrasy is that he's extremely [[LiteralMinded literal minded]].
** "Cure That Habit": Walter Denton plays a prank, sending a postcard in Mr. Conklin's name to the titular agency. The Head of the Board of Education, Mr. Stone, hears of it and comes to see his supposedly drunken principal. [[spoiler: HilarityEnsues as Mr. Conklin is suffering from an unfortunate case of the hiccups, having pets mistakenly placed in his office, and being spun around in a chair.]]
* ALessonLearnedTooWell: It happens a couple of times when Miss Brooks tries to make Mr. Boynton less ObliviousToLove:
** In "Poetry Mix-up", Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to read ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac'' to make him more romantically-inclined. It backfires when Mr. Boynton postpones a date so he could finish reading the book.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache'' Miss Brooks encourages Mr. Boynton to grow a mustache; she also encourages her female colleagues to compliment his appearance. This was an effort to make Mr. Boynton less shy. It works too well. Mr. Boynton starts dating three other women.
* AlienInvasion: In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter Denton tricks Mr. Conklin into believing he's being attacked by aliens from a planet he thinks he's just discovered with his new telescope.
* AllClothUnravels: In "Friday the Thirteenth", Miss Brooks ends up tearing off a lapel on Mr. Conklin's new suit by merely pulling on a loose thread.
* AllegedCar:
** Miss Brooks' car, when she has one. It's almost always in the shop. In fact, the number of episodes (on either radio and television) where she gets to drive her car can be counted on one hand; namely "Game At Clay City", "Who's Going Where", "Four Leaf Clover", "Brooks' New Car" and "Head of the State Board of Education".
** Walter Denton's junky jalopy also definitely qualifies;, although it, at least, is usually in working order. However, Walter often drives it ''sans'' top or even sides.
** A one-time offender was Mr. Conklin's second automobile, ''mostly'' a Stutz. He tries to unload the lemon on the unsuspecting Mr. [=LeBlanc=] in "Mr. [=LeBlanc=] Needs $50".
* TheAllegedSteed: In "Geraldine", Benny Romero talks Miss Brooks into buying a sixteen-year-old swayback mare for the Miss Nestor's school's riding academy. "Geraldine" does prove to be a horse of unique value: it turns out she's expecting and by episode's end gives birth to triplets. In RealLife, the chances of a mare giving birth to live triplets is 1 in 300,000.
* AlliterativeName: [[DumbJock Student athlete]] "Stretch" Snodgrass. Ironically, in "Madison Mascot", it turns out that not only does he not know what alliterative means, [[StrangeSyntaxSpeaker he can't even pronounce the word]].
* AlliterativeTitle: "Madison Mascot".
* AllJustADream: [[spoiler: "The Dream", "Magic Christmas Tree" and "Trying to Forget Mr. Boynton".]]
* AllLoveIsUnrequited:
** Averted with Miss Brooks and her LoveInterest Mr. Boynton. There, her main problem is that Mr. Boynton is too shy or awkward to make a move; or sometimes just wary of a relationship that would end in marriage. For example, in "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Mr. Boynton all but tells Dean Faraday of State University that he would like to someday propose marriage to Connie Brooks. [[spoiler: Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale]]
** Played straight with DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass and his unrequited love for Harriet Conklin. Harriet just happens to be the girlfriend of his Walter Denton, his best friend. His resultant depression is a problem in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Stretch Has A Problem"]]. Stretch's sitting with Harriet at the movie theater helps set off a fight with a jealous Walter in "Stretch v. Walter Grudge Match". Finally, Stretch's attempt to "worship [Harriet] from afar" by sending her anonymous love letters, sets off the events of "Poetry Mixup".
** [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Poetry Mixup" was remade for television]] as "Bones, Son of Cyrano". Only instead of Stretch falling for Harriet, [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute it was his brother Bones.]]
* AllLovingHero: Connie Brooks is a kind and caring person, who frequently goes out of her way to help her friends, pupils and even perfect strangers. An example of the latter occurs in "The Burglar". Here, Connie catches a man breaking into the house and raiding the refridgerator. Instead of turning him in, Connie and Mrs. Davis share breakfast with the man and get him a job filling in for the school custodian.
* AllThatGlitters: In the episode "Indian Burial Ground", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton believe broken toys buried in Mr. Conklin's vacant lot to be valuable Indian artifacts.
* AllWitchesHaveCats: In "Halloween Party", Mr. Boynton observes that the two figures most associated with Halloween are witches and black cats. Miss Brooks is offended when Mr. Boynton, Stretch Snodgrass and Walter Denton all think that she'd be perfect dressed as a witch for the party. Miss Brooks eventually gives in . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Connie Brooks rides tonight!
* AlmaMaterSong: The radio episodes "Clay City English Teacher" and "Mr. Laythrop returns to School" feature the Madison anthem, "O Madison". Miss Brooks adds her own lyrics in parody:
-->O Madison!\\
Thou Madison!\\

Changed line(s) 53,54 (click to see context) from:

When we gray hair at Madison!\\
We'll still be there at Madison!\\

When we gray hair at Madison!\\
We'll still be there at Madison!\\

Changed line(s) 56,953 (click to see context) from:

* AlmostKiss: In "Magic Christmas Tree", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton almost kiss under the mistletoe. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton [[SneezeOfDoom sneezes]] as he's allergic to mistletoe. Later, Mr. Boynton kisses Miss Brooks under the influence of [[ItMakesSenseInContext the magic christmas tree]]. [[spoiler: However, it turns out both the AlmostKiss and the kiss were AllJustADream. The actual TheBigDamnKiss doesn't take place under midway through TheMovie GrandFinale, although Miss Brooks would steal a few minor kisses over the course of the series]].
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: Subverted in "Connie and Bonnie" when Miss Brooks impersonates her nonexistent twin. Played straight in "Orphan Twins" with Mike and Danny.
* AlwaysInClassOne: As Miss Brooks is the protagonist, and her actual teaching is rarely in focus, it should be largely irrelevant who's in what class. Nevertheless, student characters Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are almost always stated to be in the same class of Miss Brooks'. This, in a school, with multiple English teachers. Notably subverted in the episode "Faculty Cheerleader", when Mr. Conklin assigns the three to different classes to punish Walter.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: In "Blue Goldfish", the titular fish in the aquarium in Mr. Boynton's lab. Miss Brooks initially mistakes it for a tropical fish. The reason it's blue? [[FridgeLogic The fish is cold, because Principal Conklin won't heat the school to a proper temperature.]]
* AmbulanceChaser: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to read the contract's fine print. Lampshaded when the lawyer admits to Miss Brooks that he's been disbarred in several states.
* AmusingInjuries: Sometimes Miss Brooks suffers from klutziness around Osgood Conklin, leaving the choleric Mr. Conklin the victim of a variety of slapstick indignities. "Living Statues" involves her opening the door of the Principal's office and slamming it into his face. A variation occurred in "Here Is Your Past" where Miss Brooks accidentally gets Mr. Conklin to sneeze so badly he dislocates his shoulders and cracks his ribs! In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks does one better, dropping a barbell on his foot!
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': It's alright Miss Brooks. I have another one!
* {{Angrish}}: Mr. Conklin, on occasion. The following except is from the episode "Clay City English Teacher":
-->'''Mr. Conklin:''' Now, see here Brill. I won't have it. You can't do this. I'll have you...\\
'''Mr. Brill:''' Oh, stop puffing Osgood. You've come to a station.
* AndThatsTerrible: In "The Egg", Mr. Conklin is the DesignatedVillain for wanting to take a photograph of a hatching chick. Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are worried the chick will be harmed by the flashbulbs.
* AnimalReactionShot: Mrs. Davis' pet cat Minerva and Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall occasionally take an interest in people's conversations. For example, in "The Magic Tree", Mrs. Davis' cat Minerva reacts furiously to Miss Brooks' recital of "A Visit From St. Nicholas"
--> '''Miss Brooks''': T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse . . . .
--> '''Minerva''': MEOW!
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, Minerva.
* AnimalTesting: Part of Mr. Boynton's job as a Biology Teacher is to experiment on animals. ForScience of course. Miss Brooks seems slightly squeamish about the whole thing. It's played for laughs, if anything. One episode, "New Girl In Town", has Miss Brooks assist Mr. Boynton bury mice killed for the cause in the school athletic field. Harriet Conklin, jealous of and attempting to scare off said new girl, implies to the girl's mother that Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are burying ''human'' victims.
* AnimatedCreditsOpening: In the program's original primetime run, the last (1955-1956) season featured the animated opening [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiULeQTwaJQ seen here]]
* AnnoyingLaugh:
** Mrs. Davis' sister Angela has a high pitched laugh, like a schoolgirl. The annoyance comes from the fact that she's a short, middle-aged woman. It's especially notable in the episode "Angela's Wedding".
** Walter Denton has a high, discordant laugh to go along with his squeaky teenage voice. In "Mr. Leblanc Needs $50" his girlfriend Harriet Conklin walks up to him while he's laughing:
-->'''Harriet''': How long have you been standing there, cackling to yourself?
* AnticlimacticParent:
** In "Former Student Visits", Miss Brooks is worried that a visiting former student (who's now a doctor) will reveal her true age (her early thirties) to Mr. Boynton's mother. Mr. Boynton's mother was advising her son to marry a young woman. The cat gets out of the bag; fortunately Miss Brooks' former student's ''father'' was a student of Mr. Boynton's mother in elementary school. The elder Mrs. Boynton then suggests her son marry a woman his age.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, the elder Mrs. Boynton appears near the end of the picture. Agreeing to board with Mrs. Davis, she frees Phillip Boynton to marry Connie Brooks and give Connie [[KarmicJackpot a much deserved]] and [[SeriesGoal long desired]] HappilyEverAfter.
* AntiSchoolUniformsPlot: A variation in the 1949 episode, "Dress Code Protest". Madison High's students proclaim a "Spirit Week". This festival is described by Miss Brooks as a "malevolent Mardi-Gras" where the kids wear outlandish clothes each day of the week. One such day was "Girls wear slacks, boys wear one shoe only. In response to the weeks' "festivities", Principal Conklin institutes a strict dress clothes - among other things, banning girls from wearing pants to school. Walter Denton decides to protest the dress code by wearing clothes banned to the distaff side of Madison High - so he shows up wearing a dress.
* {{Anvilicious}}: ''Mr. Whipple" sees Miss Brooks and her friends try to help an old man whom they believe is destitute and starving. It turns out he's a [[TheScrooge rich tycoon]] on a diet. However, the generosity of Miss Brooks and her friends so affects Mr. Whipple that he takes them out for dinner, and decides to lobby for a new school gymnasium. It's an entertaining episode nonetheless.
* TheArtifact:
** Walter Denton driving Miss Brooks to school was an artifact from the first audition show with actress Shirley Booth. There, Mrs. Davis has a teenaged daughter whom Walter Denton was dating. Mrs. Davis' daughter dumped Walter, leaving him to reluctantly take Miss Brooks to school. Mrs. Davis' daughter was adapted out by the time Eve Arden auditioned for the role, leaving it unexplained how it came about that Walter drives Miss Brooks to school almost every morning. One supposes it's just because Walter's a TeachersPet.
** "Stretch" Snograss' nickname was an artifact from the radio episode where he was first introduced, "Stretch the Basketball Star." His nickname is said to come about from the fact he's six foot five inches tall. When the program went to television, its readily apparent Leonard Smith, the actor who played Snodgrass, was nowhere near that height (and is, about the height of Eve Arden). Its never again explained how he became known as "Stretch." The fact is lampshaded in the episode "Baseball Slide."
-->'''Miss Brooks''' (in greeting): Why, Stretch.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': [[LiteralMinded I don't know. That's what everybody calls me.]]
* ArtisticTitle: In syndication, Our Miss Brooks has the title and opening credits appearing on a blackboard. One of the openings used during the show's run had the opening credits also appearing on a blackboard, with Miss Brooks herself erasing them - only for the next set of credits to appear to the consternation of a confused Miss Brooks!
* AsideComment: Miss Brooks makes aside comments sometimes, under the guise of talking to herself. This is more prevalent on the radio than on television.
* AsideGlance: Miss Brooks does this a few times in the [[TheMovie the theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], i.e. her confused expression upon meeting Mrs. Davis. However, her expressions were very much testament of her feelings rather than an attempt to break the fourth wall.
* ASimplePlan: "The Birthday Bag" sees Miss Brooks' friends try to throw her a surprise birthday party and buy her an alligator skin purse as a gift. HilarityEnsues.
* AskAStupidQuestion: Miss Brooks sometimes resorts to giving a stupid answer in response.
* AsleepInClass:
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", [[DumbJock star athlete]] Stretch Snodgrass' late nights [[ItMakesSenseInContext "rumbering"]] cause him to fall asleep in school. In this case, it's not the dimwitted student's marks that are at stake, but Madison's winning the big football game with Clay City High.
** Another episode has Walter Denton accidently blurt to Miss Brooks that he sometimes takes "forty winks" in his class, because his teacher would have to be a "co*ckeyed wonder" to see him napping in his seat behind Stretch. To Walter's horror, he realizes Miss Brooks is the "co*ckeyed wonder" to whom he was referring.
* AssemblyLineFastForward: In "Vitamin E-4", Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton make a mess when manufacturing the eponymous "vitamin".
* {{Auction}}: In "The Auction", [[SoundToScreenAdaptation a radio episode remade for television]], Madison High School holds an auction to raise funds for children's playground equipment. A local philanthropist even donates an entire house full of furniture. HilarityEnsues when DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass mixes up addresses, and Miss Brooks inadvertently auctions off Mr. Conklin's furniture instead:
--->'''Miss Brooks''': [[OhCrap Mr. Conklin . . . it was your house!]] . . . Well, there's only one way to settle this. Gather round, folks, gather round. What am I bid for me and Stretch Snodgrass?
* BackseatDriver: In "Game At Clay City", Mr. Conklin appoints himself navigator and gives a steady stream of orders to Miss Brooks.
* BackToSchool: The episode "Mr. Lathrop Returns to School". Mr. Lathrop (voiced by Jim Backus) is a successful entrepreneur and self-made man, [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin choosing to return to school to complete his high school diploma.]] Unfortunately, Mr. Lathrop insists on rearranging school clubs and school management in the manner of a corporation, and being a friend of the Head of the Board, is able to do this unopposed. Miss Brooks resorts to a ZanyScheme; she invites her landlady Mrs. Davis and one of Mrs. Davis' elderly friends to go in a new class with Mr. Lathrop. Mr. Lathrop flees Madison High School when he finds himself in a combination sewing circle and day nursery for Mrs. Davis' friends' grandchild.
* BadBadActing: In "Acting Director", the school faculty tries to impress a visiting talent scout from Creator/WarnerBrothers. Features over-the-top bad acting from Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Talbot. The episode ends when Miss Brooks herself tries to impress with an overemotional (and dressed) portrayal of Lady Godiva!
* BadLiar: Mr. Boynton is a terrible liar. In "Trial by Jury", it's revealed the very act of lying gives him a psychosomatic case of the hiccouphs.
* BadLuckCharm: "Four Leaf Clover" has Miss Brooks find the unlucky charm. Lo and behold, all four tires of Miss Brooks' car blow, she's forced to pay a large fine for stepping on a lawn, she knocks over a table of trinkets in front of the store, is threatened with arrest by a policeman, and is finally quarantined in the same building as Mr. Conklin. Miss Brooks gives the unlucky clover to a dishonest car mechanic.
* BadlyBatteredBabysitter: Miss Brooks falls victim to this trope in "Babysitting for Three", "Babysitting New Year's Eve" and "Measles".
* BadToTheLastDrop: Mrs. Davis' coffee was usually fine (the time she made "Bulgarian Coffee" notwithstanding). However, being a CordonBleughChef, Mrs. Davis sometimes makes horrid liquid (albeit non-alcoholic) drinks that are truly BadToTheLastDrop.
* BarbershopEpisode:
** In the radio episode, "The Hair-Do", Miss Brooks goes to the beauty salon. SitcomArchNemesis Daisy Enright tells Antoine to give Miss Brooks an inappropriate hairdo.
** To a lesser degree, "Fargo Whiskers". Harriet advises Miss Brooks that she can get more interest from Mr. Boynton by changing her hairstyle. Miss Brooks goes to the hairdresser and gets a hairstyle with three buns on the side and the back. Later, Miss Brooks tries a series of wigs. Unfortunately, some misinformation from Miss Brooks' landlady Mr. Davis makes Mr. Boynton think that Miss Brooks is only getting new hairstyles is because Brooks' suffering from overwork.
* BarelyThereSwimwear: In the episode "Friday the Thirteenth"; while looking through a photo album with Mrs. Davis, Connie finds a photo of herself in a "French model bathing suit". The picture's described as unsuitable for the yearbook, although Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are very impressed with the revealing photo nonetheless.
* TheBartender: In "Babysitting New Year's Eve", Mrs. Davis has a friend who's a bartender. She invites him over to prepare the punch for her New Year's party. Mrs. Davis' bartender friend is allowed New Year's off as a condition of his employment. The reason? [[FridgeLogic The bartender hates drunks.]]
* BathsAreFun: In "Stretch Has A Problem", Miss Brooks' "feet were ready to come off" participating in a snake dance. The rally was held in honor of the Madison High School basketball team's departure to the state tournament. The sore and tired Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to take a bath. Alas, she's continually interrupted by somebody coming to the door before she can get into the tub:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': ''(singing, while filling the bathtub with water)'' Singing in the bathtub, nothing can go wrong. Singing in the bathtub . . . .
-->''Doorbell rings''
--> '''Miss Brooks''': ''(singing)'' [[DeadpanSnarker Oh, I should live so long!]]
* BatmanInMyBasem*nt: In "The Jockey", Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis hide a jockey ''and his racehorse'' in their garage until he can win a big race and pay his debts.
* BatmanParody: In the episode "New School TV Set" (aired 1951), Miss Brooks and Mrs. David criticize the television set at school as scholastically and culturally useless. All the students were watching were westerns, murder mysteries and horror stories. Miss Brooks remarks that there was one semi-educational program on the day before, "The Batman Eat Up The Dean of Harvard" - suggesting Miss Brooks is joking, but doesn't realize who or what Batman is.
* BavarianFireDrill: Mr. Conklin places himself in charge practically ''everywhere'' he goes. This is in spite of the fact that his authority as principal is really only good at Madison High School. The "Thanksgiving Show" is a good example. Mr. Conklin arrives at Mrs. Davis' house and quickly puts himself in command, ordering about the others in the setup of the dining room table.
* BeautifulDreamer: At the end of "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Boynton falls asleep on a chair in the hall. Miss Brooks doesn't wake him up, but sits beside him. Mr. Boynton whistles in his sleep!
* BedsheetGhost: Walter Denton dresses as one in "Halloween Party".
* BeleagueredAssistant: In "The Dancer", Miss Brooks discusses with Mrs. Davis the fact that Mr. Conklin can never hold onto a secretary. Fed up with being yelled at by the hotheaded principal, they inevitably quit. The newest secretary quit before she started, she heard Mr. Conklin yelling at her predecessor. The result? Miss Brooks is forced to play the role of Mr. Conklin's beleaguered assistant when he finds himself without a secretary . . . Hilarity Ensues.
* BellyDancer: Belly dancers appear in Miss Brooks' India themed dream in the episode "King and Brooks".
* BetaCouple: The alpha couple was Miss Brooks' '''slow''' romance with ObliviousToLove Phillip Boynton. In the background, was the often goofy teenaged romance of beta couple Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin.
* BettyAndVeronica: Miss Enright was another, more glamorous English teacher who competed with Miss Brooks for Boynton's affection.
* BewareOfViciousDog: Mr. Whipple's guard dogs in the episode "Mr. Whipple".
* BigBrotherIsWatching: The point of Mr. Conklin's "Project X" in the episode of the same name. Mr. Conklin's system allows him to listen in to what's going on in every room in the school, including the female faculty room, the boiler room, and the roof.
* TheBigDamnKiss: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton is jealous of Miss Brooks spending time with millionaire Lawrence Nolan. Wondering how he can compete with a millionaire, Miss Brooks suggests that "a good offense is the best defense." Mr. Boynton is initially [[ObliviousToLove clueless as per normal]]. Suddenly, he has a EurekaMoment, his eyes lights up, goes back to the Mrs. Davis' door and passionately kisses Miss Brooks. [[WhamShot Something he hadn't had nerve to do for the previous eight years of radio or eight years of television.]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Like, wow.
[[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry and live HappilyEverAfter.]]
* TheBigEasy: In one episode, Mr. Boynton falsely claims to have learnt some French serving in the army [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII during the war]]. A skeptical Miss Brooks counters that Mr. Boynton was stationed in the United States, and he knew it. Mr. Boynton insists that he was stationed in New Orleans, and spent a lot of time in the French Quarter.
* BigEater: Walter Denton. It comes with being a teenaged boy.
* BigFancyHouse:
** Mr. Whipple, in the episode of the same name, lives in mansion guarded by vicious dogs.
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] the Nolans live in a large mansion, complete with a butler and additional servants.
* BigFriendlyDog: The eponymous dog in "Peanuts, The Great Dane".
* BigSecret:
** In "Stolen Aerial," Miss Brooks is able to get a discount from a wolfish television repairman who wants to go out with her. Miss Brooks is advised to keep her discount a secret so as not to get many more freeloaders wanting the same deal. Too late, Mrs. Davis and Walter Denton had already let the cat out of the bag. Miss Brooks gets deluged with broken aerials and even television sets needing repair. However, Miss Brooks keeps her promise; she hides the real reason for her sudden television-equipment windfall from Mr. Conklin. Unfortunately, the television repairman had accidentally lent Miss Brooks Mr. Conklin's checkered television aerial. Mr. Conklin concludes Miss Brooks is a [[Literature/OliverTwist "female fa*gin"]], using Mr. Boynton and several high school students to run a television-equipment theft ring.
** The BigSecret trope again appears in "The Jewel Robbery." Mr. Conklin accidentally breaks a jewelry store window when carrying a bad a laundry to the cleaners. Conklin believes the police want him for the inadvertent vandalism. In reality, they're looking for a thief who had robbed the jewelry store a short time before.
* BigShutUp: Mr. Conklin, to MotorMouth Walter Denton.
* BigStormEpisode: In the episode "Radio Bombay", Miss Brooks and the Madison High gang are convinced that a fierce hurricane is on the way. The only problem is that the broadcast they're listening to originates from Bombay, India . . . .
* BigWordShout: "Now GO!", Mr. Conklin's favored expression when ordering someone out of his office. He make extensive use of this trope on other occasions as well!
* BindleStick: In "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo", the "Earl of Peoria" is mentioned as carrying a bindle stick. Later, when Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Mr. Conklin, and Mrs. Davis [[ItMakesSenseInContext masquerade as hobos in order to apprehend the titular hobo]], they also have bindle sticks in their gear.
* BirthdayEpisode / BirthdayPartyGoesWrong: A mild example is the episode "The Birthday Bag" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode "The Surprise Party"). The Conklins are throwing Miss Brooks a surprise birthday party at six o'clock, however, she visits the Conklins to try and buy a purse from Harriet at five o'clock. As a result, when Miss Brooks' friends arrive at the house to help setup the party, they each exclaim "MISS BROOKS!"
--> '''Miss Brooks''': If anyone says Miss Brooks once more, I'm going to change my name to Elsie Pumpernickel!
** While the surprise was partially ruined, the party eventually goes off well with everyone giving Miss Brooks her present, and singing Happy Birthday!
* BlackComedyBurst: At the crisis point in [[TheMovie the theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], a depressed Miss Brooks jokes about playing Russian Roulette.
* {{Blackmail}}: In "Threat to Abolish Football", Miss Brooks, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass derail Mr. Conklin's [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin threat to abolish football]] through blackmail. Mr. Conklin had been using the school shop class to fix his roof, an act that could get him fired. Mr. Conklin relents and allows football to continue at Madison High School. However, Mr. Conklin gets the last laugh. He arm-twists Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton into shingling his roof.
* BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce: In the episode "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque", Mr. Boynton prepares a "mild" hot sauce for his cookout as he believes his usual sauce would be too much for his guests. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Walter Denton cook up a blazing mixture of tabasco and horseradish to spring on Miss Brooks' rival Miss Enright. However, a mix-up results in Miss Brooks receiving her own doctored dish. No matter, Miss Brooks can hold her hot sauce. She eats calmly and remains a DeadpanSnarker throughout. The same can't be said of Miss Enright and Mr. Conklin. They eat Mr. Boynton's supposedly minor sauce and run away practically screaming for water!]]
* BlindingCameraFlash: The obnoxious reporter in "The Model Teacher" subjects Miss Brooks to several.
* BlindWithoutEm: Mr. Conklin and Mrs. Davis. Mr. Conklin suffers this trope with a vengeance in "Living Statues" and "Cure That Habit".
* {{Blipvert}}: In "The Auction", Miss Brooks suggests a blipvert to cheaply advertize a charity auction at Madison High School:
-->'''Mr. Conlin''': Miss Brooks, do you have any idea how much a thirty second spot announcement costs?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, we don't have to buy thirty seconds. We can buy about five, and say something quick, like "Today. Auction. Madison High School."
-->'''Harriet Conklin''': But Miss Brooks. That sounds like we're auctioning off the school.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Is that bad?]]. I mean, if the object is just to lure people over . . . .
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Any '''feasible''' suggestions?
* BluffWorkedTooWell: In "Do-It-Yourself". Miss Brooks wants to borrow Mr. Conklin's tools to build herself a night-table . . . unfortunately, Mr. Conklin won't lend his tools to amateurs. Walter Denton "helps" Miss Brooks by describing her as an expert carpenter, who even built her landlady, Mrs. Davis, a gazebo in the backyard. Mr. Conklin, instead of lending Miss Brooks his tools, decides to have Miss Brooks build him a new garage.
* BookDumb: Walter
* BookSmart: Harriet Conklin, usually scoring marks in the 90% range. In the episode "The English Test", a whole row of students tries to copy off her! In contrast, her LoveInterest Walter Denton is a shrewd HighSchoolHustler but very much in the BookDumb category.
* {{Bookworm}}: Mr. Boynton. In "Bones, Son of Cyrano", Mr. Boynton goes so far as to break a date with Miss Brooks so he can finish ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''.
* BornInTheSaddle: Tex Barton, a teenaged cowboy who makes a few radio appearances.
* TheBoxingEpisode: [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Walter vs. Stretch Grudge Match" concludes with a boxing match between Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass.]]. Miss Brooks is the ringside announcer, and Mr. Conklin is the referee.
* BrainsAndBrawn: Generally describes the friendship between HighSchoolHustler Walter Denton and his best friend, DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass. Sometimes applies to Stretch's [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute brother]] Bones as well. In the two different radio episodes titled "The Moving Van", the two teenage pals go into the moving business. Walter outright states that he's the brains of the operation. In one version, "Stretch" is the brawn. In the other, "Bones.
* BrattyHalfPint: The bank president's son in "Magic Christmas Tree".
* BriefAccentImitation: In "The Miserable Cabelleros", Miss Brooks briefly imitates her eleven-year-old friend Benny Romero's accent. Once as a light joke, and the second time to test Mr. Conklin's resolve in sending the boy home to his uncle.
* BritishStuffiness: The very British public school headmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips." While quintessentially British, he's a youngish man who gets around fairly well with everyone at Madison. Mr. Conklin, interesting enough, was expecting a much stricter man and had even dictated that Miss Brooks (and the rest of the faculty) wear funereal black so as not to hurt his sensibilities.
* BrokenGlassPenalty: Completely subverted in the episode "Two Way Stretch". Mr. Conklin begins to reprimand [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] for kicking a football through the window of his inner office:
-->'''Mr. Conklin:''' I thought I told you to confine your practicing to the other end of the field.\\
'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' But I did Mr. Conklin. That's where I kicked it from.\\
'''Mr. Conklin:''' Well, there's actually no excuse in the world for you to... nice kick boy!
* BuffySpeak: Teenage Walter Denton, although a great one for SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, sometimes mixes advanced vocabulary, current slang and awkward phrasing. The following example is a petition he writes for the episode "Cafeteria Boycott". Note the oddball combination of 50's slang, extensive "borrowing" from the Declaration of Independence, and assorted legalese:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Whereas and to wit--\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[RedScare That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side.]]\\
'''Harriet Conklin''': Listen, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Walter Denton''': When in the course of student's events, it becomes necessary to turn one's back on one's stomach, we the undersigned, exercising our constitutional right to peaceably assemble, and to form a committee to seek the redress of grievances, do hereby announce our firm intention of the Madison High School Cafeteria only to use the tables, chairs, water, napkins and toothpicks provided therein. Until such a time that the duly appointed party or parties, namely Mr. Osgood Conklin, principal, or the Board of Education, responsible for the operational bog-down that has befallen this installation, do take such action that will improve the food, lower the prices and better the service in said cafeteria. It is also recommended the person, or persons, in whom this authority is vested, immediately see that the present chef in charge of preparing the food, and without any further frippery or fanfare, chuck him the heck off the premises. Well, Miss Brooks, what do you think of it?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker How much do you want for the picture rights]]?
* BuriedTreasure: The promise of a large reward sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton search for a lost Indian Burial Ground in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Indian Burial Ground"]].
* BusmansVocabulary: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Miss Enright are erudite on and off the job.
* CallOfTheWildBlueYonder: At the beginning of "Surprise Party", Miss Brooks dreams about literally flying away with Mr. Boynton:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': [[PurpleProse Ah, my darling Constance! You're so lovely! So desirable! I feel I could fly on the wings of our love! Won't you join me Constance, on a flight to paradise?]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Contact!]]
* {{Calvinball}}: In the episode "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a convoluted parlor game in order to annoy Mr. Conklin and, in so doing, convince him to allow his family to go out for the evening.
* TheCameo: Desi Arnaz makes a brief appearance in "King and Brooks".
* CaptiveAudience: Anytime there's a school event or assembly, Mr. Conklin makes it mandatory for students and teachers to attend. The fact the event is happening outside school hours is rarely an excuse, especially for Miss Brooks.
* CannotTellAJoke: Mr. Boynton is rarely if ever able to tell a joke in a way that would be funny. The humor comes from the lameness of his attempt, and Miss Brooks' [[DeadpanSnarker response]] - [[OfficialCouple although, Miss Brooks once mentions she loves this corniness.]]
* CanonDiscontinuity: Due to ExecutiveMeddling, the final season of the TV series had Madison High torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks sent off to teach at a L.A. private elementary school. The radio series ignored this development, and continued at Madison High as per usual. When [[TheMovie the cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]] was released the following winter, it also ignored the final TV season. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton marry and live HappilyEverAfter.]]
* CanonForeigner: LonelyRichKid Gary Nolan and his neglectful father, Lawrence Nolan, only appear in TheMovie GrandFinale. The resentful and neglected Gary provides Miss Brooks with a student to tutor to show just how good a teacher she is. Lawrence Nolan becomes a DisposableLoveInterest, he provides a good dose of jealousy that shakes Miss Brooks' longtime LoveInterest Mr. Boynton into action. He finally gives Miss Brooks a BigDamnKiss, they move onto FirstNameBasis, and (through some last minute scheming by Miss Brooks' landlady Mrs. Davis) Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks at last get married.
* CaretakerReversal: A CaretakerReversal ''revolving door'', in "Old Age Plan."
** The story begins with Mrs. Davis having cared for her sister Angela, and falling ill from Angela's complaining. By the end of the episode, Mrs. Davis has recovered and Angela has again become ill from Mrs. Davis' complaining.
** ''Meanwhile'', Miss Brooks had spent the episode shilling Mrs. Davis and Angela's club's old age plan to Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin. The two men end up suffering psychosomatic symptoms of old age.
** Miss Brooks decides to invite them over to Mrs. Davis' house, and fake the symptoms of old age to distract Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin from their symptoms. The climax of the episode has Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin rapidly experiencing illness and being placed on the sofa with a blanket and ice pack in turn.
* CarryingACake: Several episodes see Miss Brooks accidentally collide with Mr. Conklin, lunch in hand.
* CatchPhrase: Walter's "Hiya, Miss Brooks!", Conklin's "...now GO" when trying to get rid of someone.
* CatchYourDeathOfCold: The trope appears in any episode where Mr. Conklin is being particularly stingy in maintaining the school's heat; most notably "Blue Goldfish".
* CatsAreLazy: Minerva, Mrs. Davis' pet cat, has her moments:
** In "The Frog", Minerva spends all day sleeping inside the piano.
** In "The Magic Tree", Minerva gets drunk sipping on pine needles. She then spends hours sleeping in Miss Brooks' lap as they rock in a chair:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Jingle Bells!
--> Jingle Bells!
--> Merry stuff like that!
--> Oh what fun it is to rock!
--> With a big fat drunken cat!
* ChainOfDeals: In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", Miss Brooks sets up a chain of deals to get a new coat. Unfortunately, Chief Thundercloud cuts in and ruins her scheme . . . that is, until it turns out the patient and longsuffering Mrs. Thundercloud demands the chief get her a housecoat from Miss Brooks.
-->'''Chief Thundercloud:''' Squaw, be quiet!
* ChaosArchitecture: In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], most of the Warner Brother's sets are ''similar'' to those previously used on the Desilu produced television episodes. The sets are, however, more elaborate as befitting the concluding film's theatrical release. The one major difference is Mr. Boynton's biology lab. Shown previously as essentially a small office with some cages and posters, it is seen as an enormous darkened classroom with ''many'' cages and aquariums.
* CharacterNarrator: After a brief introduction by the announcer, Miss Brooks provides her own brief introduction and a few lines of narration after sponsor breaks or sets up the scene for the episode. This is mostly confined to the radio, however Miss Brooks occasionally provides narration on television as well. Most notably "Who's Who" in the fourth season.
* CharacterTitle
* ChattyHairdresser: Antoine, who runs a beauty saloon in the episode ''The Hair-do''. He admits to Miss Brooks that he doesn't like Miss Enright, though she sends him many customers. Later, Miss Enright leans on him to give Miss Brooks a funny hair treatment. The character is played by character actor Frank Nelson, in much the same way as Frank Nelson played opposite Jack Benny.
* CheapCostume: "Halloween Party" sees Walter Denton dress up as a BedsheetGhost. Meanwhile, Mr. Boynton puts together a skeleton costume, Stretch Snodgrass disguises himself as Hopalong Cassidy, and Miss Brooks announces her intention to masquerade as a witch.
* ChekhovsGun: Phone booths play a key role in a couple episodes:
** In "Key to the School", Mr. Conkin and Miss Brooks use the phone booth at Marty's Malt Shop to place a call to board superintendent Mr. Stone, after everybody is locked out of Madison High.
** In "Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]", Walter Denton calls Mrs. Davis' house from a phone booth pretending to be a Spaniard interested in purchasing Mr. Conklin's car.
* ChewingTheScenery: Principal Osgood Conklin is a very pompous man. Played by the great Gale Gordon, Mr. Conklin's especially over-the-top when he's angry or excited.
* ChineseLaborer: In "Two Way Stretch", in order to save a FawltyTowersPlot from going off the rails, Miss Brooks pretends to be secretly married to Mr. Conklin. She claims the reason the marriage was secret was that she entered the country illegally in company with "Oriental labourers". It MakesSenseInContext.
* ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs: Mrs. Davis refers to the noisy crackling of most cereals in one episode, when she makes Miss Brooks a bowl of sugar coated pine needles as a "quiet" alternative.
* ChristmasCarolers: "The Magic Christmas Tree": When the Conklins, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton pay Miss Brooks a visit on Christmas Eve, they regale her with a rendition of "Deck The Halls". [[spoiler: Miss Brooks places her hand over Walter's mouth midway through, to stop his off-key adolescent squeaking.]]
* ChristmasEpisode: Several; i.e. "Christmas Gift Mix-up", "Christmas Show", "Department Store Contest", "The Magic Tree".
* ChristmasInJuly
** In the episode "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None", Mrs. Davis' hypochondriac sister Angela pretends to be dying. Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton throw her an early Christmas, Angela's favorite holiday.
** In the radio episode "The Telegram", Mrs. Davis' Uncle Corky sends a telegram giving notice that he'll be visiting for a week. A series of missteps leads to the telegram being partially burned, and interpreted as Uncle Corky saying he has a week to live. Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, the Conklins and Walter Denton throw Uncle Corky a Christmas party in July.
* ChronicallyCrashedCar: In early radio episodes, Miss Brooks' is frequently getting into car accidents. By the time the show began broadcasting on television, this becomes far more rare. However, in "Trial by Jury" and "Miss Brooks' New Car", HilarityEnsues after collisions with a fruit stand.
* ClassTrip: In the episode "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton each try to win permission to take their respective classes to Fisher's Farm. Fisher's Farm just happens to be the location of "the ol' swimming hole" (everyone's wearing their bathing suit under their regular clothing). Mr. Boynton gets ultimately permission to take his biology class down; Miss Brooks needs to rely on LoopholeAbuse to join the others.
* ClassyCane:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Mr. Boynton tells Miss Brooks he's considering buying a cane to invoke this trope.
** In "Blind Date", Mr. Boynton carries a classy cane so his blind date will recognize him; he had broken up with Miss Brooks after an argument. Unbeknownst to Boynton (and Miss Brooks), the blind date was scheme to get the two back together, and Boynton's date ''is'' Miss Brooks. Mr. Conklin, in a case of ExactEavesdropping, overhears Boynton's blind date calling on the phone (actually his daughter, Harriet, speaking with a Southern accent). Conklin and mistakes it for an old college flame, Lula May Calhoun, whom Conklins wants out of town and away from his wife. Mr. Conklin shows up with cane in hand to beg her to leave; again, it's ''actually'' Miss Brooks, carrying a parasol.
* CleanPrettyChildbirth: In "The Egg", when the chick hatches it hatches completely dry. In reality, the newly-hatched chicken would have been wet and taken some time to dry off.
* ClothingSwitch: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks spills breakfast on her dress. She borrows a dress belonging to her elderly landlady Mrs. Davis. A kind gesture by Mrs. Davis, but Miss Brooks ends up going to school looking absurd. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Mrs. Davis. She sometimes forgets what she's saying in the middle of a sentence.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Miss Brooks performs this role for Mrs. Davis on occasion.
* ClownCarBase: The episode "Oo-Me-Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo" has the gang squeeze into a tiny trailer.
* CluckingFunny: Walter Denton brings a hen to school in "The Egg".
* CluelessChickMagnet: Mr. Boynton, by way of a combination of ObliviousToLove and bashfulness. He's the object of Miss Brooks' affection. And Miss Enright's. And an obnoxious reporter for SNAP magazine in the "Model Teacher". And the newly hired biology teacher in "Life Can Be Bones". And a Phys. Ed. teacher in "Connie and Frankie" . . . . Miss Brooks finally gets her man in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale.
* ColdSnap: A few episodes of ''Our Miss Brooks depend on winter weather for their humor.
** "Blue Goldfish" sees Mr. Conklin very miserly with the furnaces' coal supply, thus keeping Madison High School cold ''inside'' during the winter weather. This was a [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] of the radio episode "Lack of Coal at Madison".
** "Going Skiing", a radio episode, sees Miss Brooks go skiing with Mr. Boynton. HilarityEnsues when Miss Brooks uses Walter Denton's new ski-fasteners.
** "Winter Outing", another radio episode, sees Madison High's faculty and students continue a tradition started by school founder, Yodar Kritch. A winter picnic in frosty Kritch Canyon .
* ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere: In "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin when Connie tries to forget Mr. Boynton]], every stranger she meets looks and sounds like Mr. Boynton. The "Misters Boynton" Miss Brooks meet include, but aren't limited to, the American Ambassador to India, an elderly postman, a matron, a fourteen year old boy and a newborn baby. [[spoiler: Fortunately, it's AllJustADream.]]
* ComedicSpanking: Mike and Danny's fate in "Orphan Twins". Let's say they had it coming.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oh, isn't that cute? They stopped on the front lawn, and Sergeant Gillis just lifted Danny up and put him across his knees.
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': Across his knees?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Yes. Now the sergeant's raising his hand, now the hand's coming down. Well, what do you know?
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': What is it Miss Brooks?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': At last those big tears are for real!
* ComicallyIneptHealing: In "First Air Course", Miss Brooks purposely invokes this trope to avoid teaching the eponymous program.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: This happens quite often:
** Almost any time Miss Brooks suggests anything romance-related to ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton:
--->'''Miss Brooks:''' In these boyhood fights, Mr. Boynton, was there any girls involved?\\
'''Mr. Boynton:''' Gosh, no, Miss Brooks. I wouldn't hit a girl.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, bravo for you]].
** Any time Miss Brooks tries to correct Stretch or Bones Snodgrass' grammar:
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' Miss Brooks, you done it again.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' Please Stretch, I did it again.\\
'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' I don't blame you for bragging.
** Many other occasions as well. For example, this exchange with Walter Denton:
--->'''Miss Brooks:''' Walter, George Eliot was not a gentleman.\\
'''Walter Denton:''' He may have not been a gentleman, but he was a darned good writer.
* ComicalOverreacting: Mr. Conklin, portrayed by Gale Gordon, will start yelling at the drop of a hat.
** In "Radio Bombay", Miss Brooks mistakenly thinks a hurricane is heading to Madison and dismisses school in Mr. Conklin's absence. When Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton go to his house, it is his daughter Harriet goes to tell him the news. Walter listens at the door in an adjoining room, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton listen from further away. His yelling causes Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to try and make an exit, while Walter Denton falls on the floor.
** Humorously subverted in the radio episode "Friday The Thirteenth". Mr. Conklin, the repeated victim of Miss Brooks' episode-specific klutziness, remarks that losing one's temper "displays ill breeding". He goes to his closet and shouts privately, but loudly enough to be easily overheard by Miss Brooks.
* ComicBookAdaptation: Dell adapted the movie into comic book form.
* CommitmentIssues: Part of Miss Brooks' troubles [[WithThisRing in getting Mr. Boynton to propose arise from commitment issues]], coupled with his innate shyness.
** This was made especially clear in the episodes "Hello, Mr. Chips" and "24 Hours". Specifically, in "Hello Mr. Chips" Miss Brooks hears that Mr. Boynton has been saying a man should only get married when he's too old to do anything else. Miss Brooks punishes him by treating him as an old man that evening when he comes to dinner.
** When Miss Brooks gets Mr. Boynton to take her to a friends' wedding in "Old Age Plan", Mr. Boynton tries to back out of the date (finally) anticipating that Miss Brooks will want to get married herself.
** Part of this may be hereditary influence, as in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Boynton remarks that his father and mother went together for eight years until they were married.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton himself is finally getting ready for commitment. He, up to now, ObliviousToLove, discusses with Miss Brooks the "good, old biological feeling" of being ready to marry and start a family. Miss Brooks, who decided [[LoveAtFirstSight she wanted to marry Mr. Boynton on their first meeting]], remarks that's [[DeadpanSnarker she's way ahead of him.]]. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton get married at the end of the movie.]]
* CompeteForTheMaidensHand: In "The Grudge Match", Walter Denton challenges Stretch Snodgrass to a fight for Harriet Conklin's love. The two end up boxing in a temporary ring setup in the Madison High School gymnasium.
* ConflictingLoyalties:
** In "The Big Game", Miss Brooks wants to maintain academic standards . . . but give long-ago Madison football hero Gus Geary his diploma so he can remain Assistant Coach. Miss Brooks [[LoopholeAbuse relies on a loophole]] to [[TakeAThirdOption evade the tricky ethical dilemma]].
** Again, in "The Yodar Kritch Award", Miss Brooks relies upon LoopholeAbuse to give [[DumbJock Bones Snodgrass]] the eponymous award.
* ConspicuousConsumption: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks brags about how much she spends on travel, food, champagne and clothes to society matron Mrs. Grabar. Miss Brooks thinks that Mr. Conklin is poking fun of the faculty; in reality Conklin was soliciting a donation from the wealthy philanthropist.
* ConspicuousTrenchcoat: When Miss Brooks attempts to track down a missing postman in ''Postage Due'', she wears a trenchcoat like any proper amateur detective.
* ContinuityReboot: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] fell in with the regular continuity of both the radio and television versions of the series. However, it was a partial reboot as it erased the events of the final television season (which featured Miss Brooks working at a private elementary school in California, a plot development '''not''' occurring in the concurrent radio series). The movie began by retelling Miss Brooks' initial arrival in Madison. On the other hand, the characters (and actors!) were the same as on the radio and television series and there were many continuity nods throughout the film. [[spoiler: The movie ends with Miss Brooks achieving her SeriesGoal, marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* ContrivedCoincidence:
** Many of the show's plots and misunderstandings heavily relied upon this trope. For example, several plots involved Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin conveniently becoming involved in the exact same scheme and not realizing the others are involved too . . . that is until the end of the episode. Other episodes would have Miss Brooks learning some piece of misinformation from Mrs. Davis that would conveniently affect Mr. Conklin's plans later that exact same day.
** In "Poison Ivy", Miss Brooks tells off an obnoxious man who is tying up Mrs. Davis' party line. Later, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton nearly run over an obnoxious jaywalking woman on their drive to school. Unhappily, Mr. Conklin soon informs Miss Brooks that said obnoxious man and woman are important state officials who have the power to fire Mr. Conklin or Miss Brooks on the spot!
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: In the fourth television season of the series, Miss Brooks receives two successive love interests; Clint Albright and Gene Talbot. For a few episodes, Miss Brooks is pursued by Clint Albright; for about half a season, it's Gene Talbot. Miss Brooks' love interest on the radio and TV up to this point had been Mr. Boynton [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale]] ; notable for being shy and oblivious. In direct contrast, the gym teachers Clint Albright and Gene Talbot are much more aggressive. Albright flirts with Miss Brooks immediately on seeing her, soon catching Miss Brooks under mistletoe and forcing a kiss on her. Talbot calls Miss Brooks honey, and by the end of his tenure Connie's furious at him for taking her up to the Hollywood Hills on dates . . . late into the night. As to the gym teachers' reception by fans, by the end of the season, TheBusCameBack with Mr. Boynton aboard.
* ControlFreak: Mr. Conklin.
* ConvectionSchmonvection: In "Public Property on Parade", nobody so much as breaks a sweat when standing next to Madison High School's coal fired boiler.
* ConvenientlyInterruptedDocument:
** "Madison Mascot": Mr. Conklin's letter telling Miss Brooks to get him an elephant bookend is torn. Miss Brooks is forced into the conclusion that Mr. Conklin wants her to get him an elephant. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** In "The Telegram", the eponymous telegram catches fire. As a result, half the message from Mrs. Davis' Uncle Corky gets destroyed. What little's left causes everybody believes that Mrs. Davis' uncle only has a week left to live. Again, ItMakesSenseInContext.
* ConvenientlySeated: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] has possibly the only scene of the series where Miss Brooks is '''shown''' teaching a full class (as compared to being heard teaching a class on the radio, or tutoring a student or students). Miss Brooks is in front, teaching the class. Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin have seats in the back; all the better for Walter can tell Harriet about his car troubles and invite her to lunch. [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] is right in the middle, so he can stand up to answer a question on double-negatives spectacularly wrong. Finally, Gary Nolan is in front, so after class Miss Brooks can upbraid him for his failing the English test.
* CookingDuel: In "Miss Enright's Dinner", Miss Brooks duels with Miss Enright for Mr. Boynton's affections by preparing recipes pinned up by the school's home economics teacher. Unfortunately, unknown to Miss Brooks, the recipe for Irish Stew on the board is a prank one Walter Denton pinned up to trick Miss Enright.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: When Miss Brooks accidentally derails Mr. Conklin's promotion in "Rumors", Mr. Conklin punishes Miss Brooks by forcing her to do his family's laundry.
* CoolKey: In "Key to the School", Miss Brooks is given the key to the school by the custodian. HilarityEnsues when Mrs. Davis takes the key with her on a visit to her brother Victor, leaving students and faculty alike locked out of Madison High School.
* CoolOldGuy: In "The Big Game", Gus "Snakehips" Geary, who's still admired as Madison High School's greatest football star decades after he graduated.
* CoolOldLady: Mrs. Davis. [[spoiler: She's even responsible for Miss Brooks finally marrying Mr. Boynton in TheMovie GrandFinale.]]
* CoolTeacher: Miss Brooks, of course.
* CoordinatedClothes:
** In "The Festival", Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin attend the titular festival as Romeo and Juliet.
** "Red River Valley" sees Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin dress as hillbillies to audition for Deacon Jones' Square Dance troop.
** In "Amalgamation", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee and Mr. Talbot dress as ''Dutch Vaudeville comedians'' to annoy Mrs. Pryor. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* CopycatMockery: Miss Brooks has learned to expect Mr. Conklin's typical DelayedReaction when he is surprised by anything angering or distasteful. A couple of times, she mimics his exclamation ''and expression'' when it finally comes along. A good example is in the episode "Cure That Habit". On radio episodes, being an audio medium, Miss Brooks sometimes just copies the inevitable shout.
* CordonBleughChef: Mrs. Davis is creative with her recipes.
* CosmopolitanCouncil: In the episode "Foreign Teachers", educational officials from France, Ireland and Sweden visit Madison High School. They turn out to be so insulting that Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin throw them out. Unfortunately, this gets Miss Brooks and company in trouble with the head of the National Board of Education . . . .
* TheCouch: Mrs. Davis' living room has a couch, under a window and to the left of the fireplace. It's always facing the fourth wall, as the show was shot using the three camera configuration. It's none too prominent, as Mrs. Davis (and therefore Miss Brooks) doesn't have a television set. Much of the talking and action usually takes place in front of it. However, there are exceptions, notably "Old Age Plan".
* CounterZany: Happens occasionally. In "Twins at School", after discovering Connie has been impersonating her non-existent identical twin Bonnie, Mr. Conklin invents a non-existent identical twin of his own. Complete with cowboy accent.
* {{Courier}}: The bicycle-riding telegram delivery boy, in "Telegram for Mrs. Davis". HilarityEnsues when Mrs. Davis is too superstitious to open the telegram, or allow Miss Brooks to open the telegram on her behalf. The boy won't leave until he gets the requested reply . . . .
* CourtroomEpisode: "Trial by Jury" sees Miss Brooks defend herself in court for "speeding, going through a red light, reckless driving, driving on the sidewalk and hitting a fruit stand." The episode was a remake of "Reckless Driving" which played on the radio.
* CoveredInGunge: In "Vitamin E-4", a conman named Professor Anderson tricks Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin into working for in the manufacture and promotion of the titular "vitamin". Unbenowngst to the three, Professor Anderson is really a conman who ''modus operandi'' includes tricking well-educated teachers to win over the general public. The episode ends with Brooks, Boynton and Conklin manufacturing the vitamin according to the recorded directions of Anderson. It doesn't go so well; Mr. Conklin ends up having the ingredients of the titular "vitamin" thrown, poured or falling over him. Incidentally, the main ingredient of Vitamin E-4 is ''chicken fat''!
* CovertGroup: Miss Brooks becomes involved in secret activity a few times through the course of the series. One of the most memorable was in "Red River Valley", where Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton meet secretly to rehearse for a job with the hillbilly troupe led by Deacon Jones.
* {{Cowboy}}: Tex Barton, a stereotypical teenaged cowboy, is a Madison High School student in a few episodes i.e. "School T.V. Set", "Bargain Hats for Mother's Day," "Tex Barton Basketball Star."
* CramSchool: In "The Yodar Kritch Award", a time-pressed Miss Brooks tries this approach with Bones Snodgrass. [[spoiler: It fails miserably.]]
* CrankyNeighbor: In "Mr. Travis' Three Acre Lot", Mr. Travis, a [[TheScrooge cheap, hostile businessman]], consistently refuses to sell his lot and finally let Madison High School have a regulation-size gridiron.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Mr. Boynton is usually even-headed, but on occasion can be crazy jealous when provoked. In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks spending time with millionaire Gary Nolan sees him turn crazy jealous (with a little prodding from Mrs. Davis).
* CrustyCaretaker: In "The Loaded Custodians", Mr. Barlow is portrayed as a rather crusty old man. Averted with the previous custodian, the [[LiteralMinded literal- minded]] Mr. Jensen.
* CryLaughing: It happens to Miss Brooks at the end of "Hobby Show", where she's about to suffer a nervous breakdown. Afraid that she is overworking herself, Miss Brooks' friends visit encouraging her to start a hobby. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks is expected to knit (Mrs. Davis' hobby), play chess (Mr. Boynton's hobby), run model trains (Walter Denton's), finger-paint (Harriet Conklin) and fix broken toys to give to underprivileged children (Mr. and Mrs. Conklin) . . . ''all at the same time''. The [[SoundToScreenAdaptation radio original]] featured the same gag, although there Walter and Harriet's hobbies were the less-visually interesting [[PragmaticAdaptation stamp-collecting and crossword puzzle solving, respectively]].
* CuckoolanderCommentator: In "Walter vs. Stretch Grudge Match", Miss Brooks deliberately invokes the trope when she's assigned to do the play-by-play commentary for the titular boxing match between the teenage combatants:
--->'''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go to the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton, you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam Pat on it first? And now let's listen to the referees' instructions . . .
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': Marquis of Queensberry rules. I am here for one reason and one reason only. To see that fair play is strictly observed. You will at all times be honestly and impartially judged. Now, then, Stretch?
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Yes, Mr. Conklin?
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': I want you to be sure to go a neutral corner every time Denton is on the floor. You Denton?
--->'''Walter Denton''': Yes, sir?
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': Where do you want your body . . . oh, well, I . . . Now then you two, I want a good clean fight and may the better man win. And win quickly, Stretch. Go to your corners, come out fighting.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': There goes the bell, folks. Oh, Walter's down, fell over his shoelace. Now it's tied, and the two men meet in the centre of the ring. They're cautious at first, Walter is dancing lightly around, left arm extended. Stretch is dancing around. Now they're dancing around together. Mr. Conklin breaks them, and once again they circle around carefully. Now here it is, the first exchange . . . .
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Miss Brooks' wacky landlady, Mrs. Davis, often gives good advice. [[spoiler: In TheMovie GrandFinale she plays a critical role in Miss Brooks' finally marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: Curiosity is definitely bad in the episode "Sneaky Peepers". When Miss Brooks accidentally orders a copy of Rodin's "The Kiss" instead of "The Thinker" for Madison High School. Mr. Conklin orders the offending statue covered up until it can be returned. After Mr. Conklin falsely accuses Walter Denton of looking at the statue, Denton decides to setup a trapdoor to catch the actual culprit. Lo and behold, Walter Denton, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conlin and Head of the School Board Mr. Stone end up falling through the trapdoor and locked in a storage room in the basem*nt.
* CurseCutShort: One episode features this exchange between Miss Brooks and Walter Denton:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Mr. Conklin's making my usual tranquil life a veritable . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': WALTER!
-->'''Walter Denton''': . . . (''meekly'') inferno?
* CurtainCamouflage: Twice, behind the same set of curtains no less:
** In "First Day", Walter Denton tries to avoid Mr. Conklin by hiding behind the curtains in Mrs. Davis' living room.
** In "Madame Brooks Du Barry" Mr. Conklin and Harriet hide behind the curtains and spy on Miss Brooks.
* CuteClumsyGirl: Miss Brooks sometimes finds herself playing to this trope, usually around Mr. Conklin.
** Occasionally, Miss Brooks finds herself breaking his glasses, i.e. "Living Statues".
** Her clumsiness might have reached its nadir in the episode "Home Cooked Meal". There, she unwittingly causes Mr. Conklin to be locked in a freezer before accidentally contributing to his attending a ''minor'' gas explosion.
** Miss Brooks' clumsiness again strikes Mr. Conklin in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale.]] Miss Brooks' arrival at Madison is portrayed at the beginning of the movie, when she makes a unique first impression on Mr. Conklin by accidentally dropping a dumbbell on his foot.
* CuttingCorners: Mr. Conklin periodically subjects Madison High School to economy drives. One such drive occurs in the episode "Blue Goldfish", where Conklin's miserly apportionment of coal causes the school to feel like a refrigerator.
* DaddysGirl: Harriet Conklin is close to her father. She can often be seen in his office helping him out.
* DaEditor:
** In "Cafeteria Boycott", Miss Brooks describes the school food as putrid. Unfortunately, she unknowingly does so in front of the local newspaper editor. Neither particularly gruff or authoritarian (except when confronting Mr. Conklin), the editor becomes a problem for Miss Brooks notwithstanding.
** Lawrence Nolan, in TheMovie GrandFinale. He's authoritarian, but being something of the local plutocrat, he's more of a stuffed shirt rather than stereotypically gruff.
* [[DamnedByFaintPraise Darned By Faint Praise]]: A ''Snap'' magazine reporter "compliments" Miss Brooks' clothes: "That's a very nice suit...One can tell at a glance that it's worn you for years."
* [[DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster Darn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster]]: In "Sunnydale Finishing School", Miss Brooks receives a letter offering her a position at the eponymous school. Walter Denton, utilizing a ZanyScheme, ''pretends'' to fall victim to this trope and begins acting like a mobster while speaking in a blizzard of hard-boiled slang.
* DamselOutOfDistress
** Miss Brooks, when trapped in an industrial freezer with Walter Denton, Philip Boynton and Osgood Conklin in "Male Superiority". The three males panic while Miss Brooks stays calm. An example of LaserGuidedKarma and HypocriticalHumor, as all three had lectured Miss Brooks on a man's ability to stay calm during an emergency.
** In its SpiritualSuccessor, "The Big Jump", Boynton and Conklin similarly panic when a prank by Walter makes it appear the school is on fire. Again, Mr. Boynton had been claiming men were calmer in the event of an emergency.
* DanceOfRomance: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Connie's fantasy includes her dancing with Phillip in their future home.
* DancesAndBalls: Dances drive the plot of a few episodes, as befitting a program whose main setting is Madison High School. Notable examples include "The Yodar Kritch Award" and "Cinderella for a Day".
* TheDandy: Briefly and infuriatingly, Mr. Boynton falls victim to this trop in "Mr. Boynton's Mustache". Miss Brooks had decided to get Mr. Boynton to pay more attention to his appearance, so suggests he grow a mustache and then has the female faculty members compliment him. Thankfully, Mr. Boynton is cured when Miss Brooks gets the Home Economics Class to reward him with their class project . . . a suit made out of an old horse blanket.
* DarkestAfrica:
** In "Safari O'Toole", the eponymous adventurer spends much of his time in the SavageSouth, Africa in particular. [[spoiler: He's a fake, but a nice one, who's only trying to impress Mrs. Davis.]]
** In "The Hawkins Travel Agency", Mr. Stone proposes Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks all accompany him on an African walking tour. He doesn't find any takers.
* DatePeepers:
** In "Madame Brooks Du Barry", Mr. Conklin and his daughter Harriet hide in the back of Mrs. Davis' living room, and spy on Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton as they have a date.
** In "Mrs. Nestor's Boyfriend", Miss Brooks, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Talbot and Mr. Conklin use binoculars to spy on (widowed) Mrs. Nestor's date with her new boyfriend.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Mr. Conklin loathes his daughter's boyfriend, Walter Denton. It isn't uncommon for him to kick Walter down his porch steps. Why? Walter is something of a nuisance to Mr. Conklin, as the episodes "Cure that Habit", "Wild Goose", "Cafeteria Boycott" and "Space, Who Needs It?" attest. However, there are other reasons as well. In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin complained that the worst thing about Walter was his squeaky voice.
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' I expect it's his age. His voice is probably changing.\\
'''Mr. Conklin:''' Well, I wish it would hurry up. He sounds like a canary with a mouthful of rancid birdseed.
* DavidVsGoliath: In "The Grudge Match", the eponymous boxing match between 5'6'' Walter Denton and 6'5'' three-letter DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass. A different take on the trope, as the teenagers were best friends fighting over a girl. Walter Denton challenged Stretch to the fight, and it was common belief at Madison that he'd be clobbered. [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin, refereeing the match, is struck by mistake.]]
* ADayInTheLimelight: Although Miss Brooks is always the star of her shore, some episodes give lesser characters a major role:
** "Brooks' New Car" features a major role for Mrs. Conklin. Likewise, "Weekend at Crystal Lake".
** "Madison Mascot" and "Stretch to Transfer" are two of several episodes that feature the [[DumbJock student athlete]] in something akin to a starring role.
** "Angela's Wedding", "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None", and "Mr. Casey's Will" feature Mrs. Davis' sister Angela as the episodes mover and shaker.
** "The Egg" has an appearance by Mrs. Davis' usually unseen, only mentioned, brother Victor.
* DeadpanSnarker: Miss Brooks is one of the queens of this trope, as are many of Eve Arden's characters in other works.
* DeanBitterman: Mr. Conklin
* DeathByChildbirth: Lawrence Nolan's wife died giving birth to Gary.
* DeathGlare: When truly angry, Mr. Conklin is known to give a withering stare. Usually, he yells to great effect; but occasionally he has a glare that tends to frighten both faculty, students, and his own daughter. Noteworthy examples occur in "The Novelist", "Spare That Rod!", and "Space, Who Needs It?".
* DecemberDecemberRomance: In "Puppy Love, Mr. Barlow and Mrs. Davis", Mrs. Davis falls in love with the aged school custodian. It leads to FacePalm worthy descriptions of love in old age by callow teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin.
** Walter described the old folks' romance as follows:
--> '''Walter''': Oh, by the way, how's Mrs. Davis' romance with Mr. Barlow coming along?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oh, have you noticed that, too? I think it's the cutest thing in the world. Mrs. Davis actually has a bad case of puppy love.
--> '''Walter''': It is cute ... considering she's in her second puppyhood. No disrespect intended, you understand. After all, what can be more romantic than two lonely old people encountering the grand passion in the sear and yellow leaf of life.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Why, that's absolutely poetic, Walter.
-->'''Walter''': The burning desires of youth long past, they look now for the subdued glow of companionship. The warm and simple pleasures that two elderly people in love can share together.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I can see them now - soaking their feet in the same pan of Epsom salts.]]
** Later, Harriet ups the ante:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Hello, Harriet. I've got to deliver a message to the custodian. Have you seen him?
-->'''Harriet''': Oh, yes. Mr. Barlow just went into his office. (''dreamily'') Isn't it wonderful, Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': I don't know. I've never been in his office.
-->'''Harriet''': I mean about Mr. Barlow and Mrs. Davis. They're crazy about each other. Of course, it's a big secret.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker It couldn't be a bigger secret if they took out an ad.]]
-->'''Harriet''': Is there anything more romantic than the mellow romance of old age?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Now please, Harriet.
-->'''Harriet''': To think of two people finding love at a time of life when others are preparing to pass on. Two people walking hand in hand in the twilight of life.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Yes, there's nothing like a brisk walk before passing on.]]
* DeclarativeFinger: The gesture is occasionally used by the pompous Mr. Conklin.
* TheDefroster: Miss Brooks sees it as part of her job to try and defrost troubled students. She's also a generous, kindhearted and [[DeadpanSnarker quick-witted]] individual. Notably, Miss Brooks defrosts Mr. Whipple, TheScrooge in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Later, in TheMovie GrandFinale, she defrosts one of her students, Gary Nolan. For good measure, she defrosts his father, Lawrence Nolan, as well.
* DelayedReaction: Mr. Conklin does this often for comedic effect.
* DerailedTrainOfThought: Absent-minded Mrs. Davis often suffers from thought derailment.
* DespairEventHorizon / DespairSpeech: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]]. After overhearing a conversation at the relator's, Miss Brooks discovers that Mr. Boynton has bought the cottage across the street from Mrs. Davis' house. The conversation suggests that he finally intends to propose. Alas, he bought the house so his widowed mother could move in with him. This comes as a shock to Connie, who had even brought wallpaper over to the cottage to decorate. She's lost in daydreams, when Mr. Boynton comes in relates his plans to live with his mother.
-->'''Connie:''' ''(sobbing)'' Fine schnook I've been! ''(She hands the wall paper to Mr. Boynton)'' Wear it in good health! ''(Connie leaves the cottage, slamming the door behind her.)''
** Miss Brooks goes into a deep depression, offers her resignation and prepares to leave Madison. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the matter is fixed by the good offices of Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother. Mrs. Davis tells Mrs. Boynton the situation, and invites her to be her new boarder. Mr. Boynton proposes to Miss Brooks, and everybody lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* DetectiveDrama: The episode "Postage Due".
* DevotedToYou: Miss Brooks is devoted to Mr. Boynton, with Miss Enright often appearing as her rival for his affections. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks wins, finally marrying Mr. Boynton in the cinematic grand finale.]]
* DidntSeeThatComing: This happens several times in ''Our Miss Brooks'', and causes a ZanyScheme or a well-intentioned plan to help someone go awry. A few notable examples:
** In "Head of the Board", Miss Brooks sends Stretch Snodgrass to get an old man from the park to impersonate Mr. Hewitt, the Head of the State Board of Education. Mr. Conklin has ordered Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to help him clean the school the week before the start of term. By a ContrivedCoincidence, Mr. Hewitt happens to be visiting in town, sitting in the park, and chosen by Stretch Snodgrass to impersonate himself. HilarityEnsues, as well as a FawltyTowersPlot.
** In "Red River Valley", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Mr. Conklin practice a hillbilly routine to get a $500 a month summer job working with Deacon Jones' square dance troupe. It so happens that Matthew ''Jones'', Inspector from the State Board, chooses that day to visit Madison High School.
** "Fargo Whiskers" sees Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton think Miss Brooks have taken leave of her senses. They wish her to take a week off before another school official; when Miss Brooks refuses, Conklin and Boynton have Walter Denton impersonate the official. Unfortunately, Mr. Fargo arrives a few days early and HilarityEnsues.
* DisastrousDemonstration: Madison High School's attempts to use new technology backfires terribly - usually in front of the head of the school board, Mr. Stone.
** In "The Tape Recorder", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Walter Denton buys a reel-to-reel tape recorder for the school.]] Unfortunately, when playing back the machine to Head-of the-Board Mr. Stone, the machine garbles its messages. The machine suggesting everyone is insulting or threatening Principal Conklin or Mr. Stone. Also, that Mr. Conklin jumps into Miss Brooks' lap!
** In "Movies at School", Miss Brooks tries to use film as an educational aid. Unfortunately, a disgruntled worker at the film company has switched the films around within their canisters. Miss Brooks, leaving a film of the poem "Lady of the Lake" with her class, instead leaves a poem of "Sirens of the Screen, Past and Present". Mrs. Davis intends to show her Ladies Aid Club "Shearing Sheep at Big Billabong, Australia. The ladies club sees a film with showgirls in their dressing room. When Mr. Stone investigates, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin intend to show the probity of the school by playing a film about the "Board of Education". Instead, they end up playing a film about gambling in Las Vegas.
* DiscountCard: The episode "Christmas Gift Mixup" features a RunningGag where Mrs. Davis, Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin give Miss Brooks "hints" as to what they'd like for Christmas. They helpfully relay the costs of their gifts, and lend Miss Brooks their "exclusive" savings card that gives sale prices at a local store.
* DisguisedInDrag: In "The Stolen Wardrobe", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton are falsely accused of robbing Sherry's Department Store. They end up (reluctantly) disguising themselves as women to evade the police.
* DisposingOfABody: In the penultimate radio episode, "New Girl in Town," Harriet Conklin tricks the eponymous "new girl's" mother into believing Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are burying Mr. Boynton's old girlfriends in the athletic field. In reality, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are only burying the bodies of Mr. Boynton's dead lab mice.
* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Spare That Rod!'', it's mentioned that disproportionate retribution is Mr. Conklin's modus operandi as principal of Madison High School. When Conklin discovers that some students had wrote "Old Man Conklin is a Pinhead" on Miss Brooks' blackboard ''after'' school, he orders ''Miss Brooks'' to inspect and clean ''all'' the blackboards at Madison High School.
* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: Dell's comic book adaptation of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] has Mr. Boynton carrying and smoking a pipe.
* TheDitz: Stretch Snodgrass and his brother Bones. Stretch also has an even more clueless girlfriend, Suzie Prentiss.
* DomesticApplianceDisaster: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Brooks tries to prepare a roast turkey for Mr. Boynton. Actually, Miss Brooks' friendly elderly landlady Mrs. Davis brings over the cooked turkey so Miss Brooks can pretend to have cooked it herself. All Miss Brooks has to do is place it in the gas oven to warm up. Unfortunately, the oven's automatic gas jets hadn't been connected, so Miss Brooks fills the kitchen with gas. While Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are frantically trying to call the fire department, Principal Osgood Conklin visits Mr. Boynton's house to return his tools. Conklin can't see in the darkened kitchen, and lights a match . . . he's ultimately unharmed, just covered in soot and the remains of the roast turkey.
* DontExplainTheJoke: Mr. Boynton tells terrible jokes, sometimes he has to do this to find the humor to begin with.
* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: The program features a couple examples:
** "The Twin Orphans" ends with Miss Brooks looking out Mrs. Davis' front window, and observing the titular pair being taken over their knee and spanked by their father. The "orphans", Mike and Danny, had tricked the Madison High crowd into believing they had escaped from an OrphanageOfFear. By the dialogue, Miss Brooks obviously believes the spanking to be well earned.
** Averted in "Amalgamation". Mrs. Nestor's school is nearly merged with Mrs. Pryor's school next year. Upon visiting, Mr. Conklin almost swats one of the bratty child actors with his hand, but is stopped by Mrs. Pryor. As a believer in the "progressive method", students at Mrs. Pryor are allowed uninhibited self-expression. No discipline, corporal punishment or otherwise.
* DontYouLikeIt:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks is dismayed when Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin are representing a student delegation naming her their "Mother away from Mother". To make matters worse, they present her with a shawl as a gift for Mother's Day.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Miss Brooks, Miss Enright, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone frantically try to avoid being presented with the Home Economics students' class projects. The girls sewed up a suit and a dress out of an old horse blanket.
** In "24 Hours", Mrs. Conklin is furious with her husband for gifting her with a pair of expensive andirons for her birthday.
* DoomedNewClothes:
** In "Easter Outfit", Miss Brooks' wears a new dress for the Easter Parade. Unfortunately, Connie was forced to go to the parade in her old dress. She had worn the new dress to Easter Breakfast and landlady Mrs. Davis's Easter Egg Hunt. However, Mrs. Davis' Easter Egg hunt goes wrong when Mrs. Davis forgot she hid two eggs under the chesterfield . . . and didn't hard-boil them!
** "Friday The Thirteenth" sees Mr. Conklin proud of his new black suit, black hat, black vest, black shoes and midnight blue tie. During the course of the day it gets torn and dirtied.
* DoomItYourself: In "Do It Yourself", Mr. Conklin starts the plot in motion when he burns down his garage after a misguided attempt at fixing the electrical wiring.
* DoorSlamOfRage: In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin that some couples pick fights so they can make up later. Sometime later, Mr. Conklin calls Miss Brooks to his office. It seems in trying to pick a fight with his wife, Mr. Conklin only managed to provoke his wife into threatening to go home to her mother. Mr. Conklin leaves to head to the railroad station to try to prevent his wife's departure, angrily slamming his office door behind him.
* TheDoorSlamsYou: Miss Brooks does this to Mr. Conklin a few times, by accident of course. It usually results in Miss Brooks breaking Mr. Conklin's glasses.
* DoorToDoorEpisode:
** In "Kritch Cave", Miss Brooks sells lots in Kritch Canyon at the behest of Mr. Conklin. Only it happens that, through a mixup, she sells Madison High School by error.
** In "Bargain Hats For Mother's Day", Miss Brooks sells three hats Mrs. Davis whipped up in return for Mrs. Davis forgiving several weeks back rent.
* DoTheyKnowItsChristmasTime: Our Miss Brooks had several Christmas episodes, although religion was rarely mentioned at other times (the program also had two Easter episodes and two Thanksgiving episodes):
** "The Magic Christmas Tree" sees Miss Brooks prepared to spend Christmas Eve alone with Mrs. Davis' pet cat Minerva. HilarityEnsues.
** "Christmas Show" features the frantic exchanging of Christmas gifts . . . before Christmas.
** "Department Store Contest" sees Miss Brooks' childhood letter to Santa Claus inadvertently entered into the titular contest.
** "Christmas Gift Returns" sees more trouble from the exchanging of Christmas gifts.
** "Music Box Revue" sees Miss Brooks buy a magic music box that she'll only hear play if she's in the proper Christmas spirit.
** "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None" and "The Telegram" see Miss Brooks and company throw ChristmasInJuly parties for Mrs. Davis' sister Angela and Uncle Corky respectively.
* DoubleDate: A variation on the trope in "The Frog". Miss Brooks is tired of Mr. Boynton taking her to the zoo on the dates. In an desperate effort to move their dates, Miss Brooks gets a pet female frog to date Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. The idea is for Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to double date with their pet frogs. It turns into a very noisy triple date, when Mr. Boynton brings a tomcat to date Mrs. Davis' lovelorn female cat Minerva.
* DoubleEntendre: Miss Brooks' letter to Mr. Conklin requesting flower pots for her windowsill gets mixed up with a love letter in ''Bones, Son of Cyrano''. Cue a flurry of double entendres when Mr. Conklin questions Miss Brooks.
* DoubleStandardViolenceChildOnAdult: In "Amalgamation", one of Mrs. Pryor's bratty child actors bites Mr. Conklin and rips his hat and jacket. Mrs. Pryor believes in the "progressive method", where it's forbidden to discipline or criticize a child in any way.
* DoYouWantToHaggle: Several episodes:
** In "Game At Clay City", Miss Brooks haggles with a mechanic.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Miss Brooks haggles with Mr. Conklin.
** "Fischer's Pawn Shop" sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton haggle with Fischer to raise money for baseball uniforms.
** "Indian Burial Ground" has Mr. Conklin haggle with a prospective buyer for his vacant lot.
** "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud" features a bartering session with the eponymous chief.
* TheDragAlong: Miss Brooks often finds herself made an unwitting accomplice to Walter Denton's various schemes, i.e. "Cure That Habit", "The Cafeteria Strike", as exposing Walter would lead to his being suspended or expelled. Other occasions see her being ''ordered'' to go along with a scheme of Mr. Conklin's, as he's her principal and has the power to force her - or leastways make her life very miserable if she refuses, i.e. "The Big Jump". Yet that's not the whole story. Occasionally she even gets cajoled by her landlady Mrs. Davis, or her sister Angela, into aiding into some other wacky scheme from which Miss Brooks would prefer to keep her distance, i.e. "Mr. Casey's Will".
* DramaQueen: Harriet Conklin is overemotional in early episodes.
** In "Game at Clay City" she emotionally describes her relationship with Walter Denton thusly:
-->'''Harriet''': Walter isn't a real happy heartthrob, but he's good for a heartache or two!
** In "Student Government Day," Harriet Conklin is elected "Mayor for a Day." At the assembly, in front of the [[CorruptPolitician mayor]], she emotionally rails against municipal corruption. Later on, she berates a policeman by reciting the Constitution.
** In "Stretch Has A Problem" she's fit-to-burst when she thinks Walter needs her at his side during the State Basketball Championship. She doesn't miss a beat when she finds out its actually Stretch Snodgrass.
** In "Walter v. Stretch Grudge Match," Harriet instigates the said grudge match and then panics before the fight begins.
** In "Poetry Mixup" and "Bones, Son of Cyrano," Harriet is ecstatic thinking she received a love note from Mr. Boynton.
* DreamEpisode: The third-season episode "The Dream". After reading a book called "Maternity Ward", Miss Brooks dreams that she marries Mr. Boynton and has a baby girl named Cleo. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Conklin has a second child, a boy named Osgood Conklin Junior. Harriet Conklin marries Walter Denton and they have at least five children in three year. By the end of the dream, Osgood Conklin Junior and Cleo are secretly married and secretly have a baby girl of their own.
-->'''Osgood Conklin Junior''': Yes, sir, that's my baby
--> No, sir, I don't mean maybe
--> Yes, sir, that's my baby now!
* DreamSequence: Usually with Brooks dreaming about Boynton sweeping her off her feet or in some magical fairy tale, then the alarm clock ruins it all. A notable exception is "Connie's Job Offer", where Miss Brooks dreams of becoming mayor of a town in New Jersey.
* DressCode: In "Dress Code Protest", Mr. Conklin imposes a dress code after the students celebrate "Spirit Week" by wearing outrageous and mismatched clothing. Miss Brooks refers to the "celebration" as a "Malevolent Mardi Gras."
* DressedInLayers: In "Heat Wave", Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are wearing bathing suits underneath their regular clothes, covertly plotting an escape from school and a trip to the swimming hole. [[spoiler: It so happens Miss Brooks is wearing a bathing suit underneath her regular clothes too.]]
* DressedToHeal: Played straight in the episodes "Hospital Capers" and "Second Hand First Aid".
* DrinkingOnDuty: On T.V., in the episode "The Loaded Custodian", Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis discuss how the previous custodian, Mr. Jensen, was fired for his drinking. Actually averted the few times Mr. Jensen appears on the radio (i.e. "Key to the School", "School Safety Advisor"), where his personality quirk is his insistence on interpreting common idioms [[LiteralMinded literally]].
* DrivenToMadness: "The School Board Psychologist" sees [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin the Head of the Board, Mr. Stone, appoint a psychologist to examine the faculty of Madison High School.]] He's given the broad authority to fire any faculty who he believes is unfit for the teaching profession. The psychologist is already overworked, and is provably unfit to make recommendations (he suggests, for example, Mr. Boynton should be an exterminator). Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, and eventually Mr. Conklin himself gaslight the psychologist until he withdraws his recommendations and takes his much needed rest.
* DriverFacesPassenger: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. As a reckless sixteen year old driver, he, of course, looks at Miss Brooks instead of looking at the road. On one occasion, Miss Brooks had to grab the wheel and steer in order to prevent an accident.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Teenagers Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are chronic offenders of this trip. More surprisingly, Miss Brooks usually is as well. A running gag has her telling Mrs. Davis why she can't drive her car. Often enough it's in the shop. However, there are ''many'' occasions where Miss Brooks is to blame after having proved herself a stereotypical [[WomenDrivers woman driver]]. In "Trial By Jury", Miss Brooks goes to court to fight a charge of reckless driving after her car crashes into a fruit stand.
* DrivingStick: In "Who's Going Where", Mr. Conklin insists on going to Crystal Lake and having Miss Brooks accompany him (and type out his reports while being a "guest" at his family cottage). Miss Brooks offers Mr. Conklin the use of his car. However, Mr. Conklin claims that he can't drive Miss Brooks' pre-World War II car, because of an unfamiliar gear shift system.
* DroppedGlasses: Mr. Conklin fell victim to this trope on more than one occasion; i.e. "Cure That Habit", "Living Statues", and "Skis in the Classroom".
* {{Dumb Jock}}/DumbMuscle: Stretch Snodgrass.
* DunceCap: Unsurprisingly, Stretch Snodgrass is forced to wear a dunce cap in "The Mambo".
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** It's rather interesting to listen to the first "Audition Show" with Shirley Booth trying out for the role of Miss Brooks. Mr. Conklin is the head of the Board of Education, not the incoming principal (that role belongs to Mr. Darwell). Miss Brooks' landlady Mrs. Davis is younger, and has a teenaged daughter who Walter Denton intends to drive to school (Denton only drives Miss Brooks when his girlfriend breaks the date). Walter Denton is characterized somewhat in the vein of a DumbJock, and has a much different voice. In fact, Denton's character is more akin to the later Stretch Snodgrass than the Denton who would be a mainstay of the program from Day 1.
** An eyebrow-raising moments in early radio episodes is Walter Denton's contention that he's a great English student. Later, despite his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, it's firmly established Denton is BookDumb.
** The animosity between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks vanishes after "First Day" and remains subdued for most of the first season. Similarly, Mr. Conklin's hatred for Walter Denton is similarly absent. It emerges only after Walter's prank in the original radio version of "Cure That Habit". Mr. Conklin's nickname, "Old Marblehead", doesn't make its first appearance until the radio episode "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". In one first season episode, "Easter Outfit", Walter tells Miss Brooks that Mr. Conklin's nickname amongst the students is "Napoleon".
* EasilyOverheardConversation: Happens from time to time. Usually, the eavesdropper misunderstands and hilarity ensues.
* EasterBunny: The Easter Bunny is [[DiscussedTrope mentioned]] in the two Easter episodes; "Easter Outfit" and "Dying Easter Eggs".
* EasyAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin's Plaque" begins with Mrs. Davis telling Miss Brooks how her sister Angela received amnesia after a blow on the head. Angela recovered after received a second blow.
* EasyComeEasyGo: Happens to Miss Brooks in "Principal for a Day" where she becomes [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin principal for a day]]. [[spoiler: Happily averted in TheMovie GrandFinale where Miss Brooks finally achieves her SeriesGoal and marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* EatingPetFood: In "Poison Ivy", Mrs. Davis sets out dog biscuits in place of cereal for breakfast. Miss Brooks and Walter Denton both fall victim.
* EekAMouse: In [[IronicEpisodeTitle "A Demonstration of Male Superiority,"]] a house mouse scares Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis onto the dining room table. Walter Denton scares it away. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks later proves "male superiority" in an emergency to be a myth, when she is trapped in a meat freezer with Walter Denton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton.]]
* EggMacGuffin: episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Egg"]], Mrs. Davis gets a chicken egg from her brother's farm. Mistakenly, he had given her an egg soon to hatch. Miss Brooks and friends try to safely hatch the egg, and keep Mr. Conklin from frightening the chick by flashing a photo as it emerges from its shell.
* ElaborateUniversityHigh:
** Usually averted on radio and television in ''Radio/OurMissBrooks''. Madison High School's facilities seem to par for the course. Miss Brooks frequently criticizes her low pay, and episodes focus on various austerity measures (i.e. "Blue Goldfish"). The most tony aspects of the school are the ivy-covered walls and the bust of the founder, Yodar Kritch. Once or twice, the gymnasium is said to be in a separate building than the main school.
** Elaborate University High goes into play in TheMovie GrandFinale. Madison High School is a very large building with substantial grounds. It even has tennis courts!
* ElectionDayEpisode: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] to the ''Our Miss Brooks'' series sees Mr. Conklin compete with school board head Mr. Stone for the newly created post of "Coordinator of Education". [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin withdraws when Mr. Stone, who is independently wealthy, gets the board to set the salary for the position at a mere $500 per year. Meanwhile, in the main plot, Miss Brooks finally manages to achieve her SeriesGoal, marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* ElegantClassicalMusician: In "Faculty Band", Mr. Boynton mentions that Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' [[SitcomArchNemesis great rival]], plays the harp.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Well, look at our new harp.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[FluffyCloudHeaven But we're so young!]]
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': It's for the band. Miss Enright lent it to us. I understand she plays like an angel.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': [[DeadpanSnarker I can hardly wait.]]
* ElevatorFailure:
** In "Project X", Miss Brooks begins the episode by nearly falling to her death down an open elevator shaft at Clay City High School.
** In "School Safety Advisor", a mix-up involves [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin and a member of the school board falling six feet down the empty freight elevator shaft.]]
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Stretch Snodgrass' real name is "Fabian."
* EmbarrassingRelativeTeacher: Harriet Conklin's father is the ''school principal''; to make it worse he's particularly unliked by the student body. Harriet's embarassed by the more ''unprincipled'' facets of Mr. Conklin's tenure. For example, in "Home Cooked Meal" she's mortified that instead of buying a home freezer, Mr. Conklin is secretly hiding the family's meat supply in the school cafeteria freezer.
* EmergencyImpersonation:
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", Walter Denton is drafted to impersonate Stretch Snodgrass, while Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks impersonate his parents.
** In "Head of the State Board of Education", Miss Brooks asks a bum to impersonate the head of the state board (unaware that said bum is the head of the state board), Mr. Boynton impersonates Mr. Conklin, Mr. Conklin imitates Walter Denton, and Walter Denton claims to be Stretch Snodgrass. It all MakesSenseInContext.
* EntertaininglyWrong: Happens several times. From Miss Brooks' perspective, the events of "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton" and "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves" are particularly infamous!
* Creator/EveArden: The starring role, one of many in a long career, for which Eve Arden is most remembered.
* EtTuBrute: In "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", Principal Osgood Conklin is shocked to discover that Mr. Boynton seems to be the one that stole his typewriter and made a long-distance call to Rockaway, Minnesota on his office phone. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a misunderstanding. Mr. Boynton oiled the typewriter and put it in the office closet. Boynton left the money for the long distance call in an envelope on Mr. Conklin's desk]].
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Et-tu, Boynton?
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Walter has at least once said Mr. Boynton is "tall, dark, handsome..." as well as "Boy, is he good looking!"
* EveryProperLadyShouldCurtsy: Mrs. Davis curtsies on a few occasions, usually when the situation doesn't warrant it. In one episode, she even does a curtsy for a hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria".
* EverythingMakesAMushroom: In "Writing Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks [[ItMakesSenseInContext tells the editor of "True Family Romance" that her entirely-made-up quiz kid son]] made a mushroom with his home chemistry set the other day.
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: In "Life Can Be Bones", Miss Brooks interests LoveInterest Mr. Boynton in a fossil dig in her backyard, by describing to him a bone of what might be a prehistoric "missing link". For some reason, on said dig Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin forget about the "missing link" and dig up presumed dinosaur fossils. It turns out the fossils were planted by Walter Denton, in place of the entirely unconvincing soup bones Miss Brooks herself had buried for the "archeological expedition."
* EverytownAmerica: Madison.
* EvilGloating: Mr. Conklin likes to gloat.
** In "Faculty Cheerleader", Mr. Conklin gloats to his daughter over his morning coffee. He considers the sight of Miss Brooks, appointed faculty cheerleader, tossing a baton up in the air and it hitting her on the head. [[spoiler: When Mr. Conklin decides to make himself faculty cheerleader, he's a victim of LaserGuidedKarma.]]
** Mr. Conklin gloats to Miss Brooks in "Two Way Stretch Snodrgass" about his plans for the school football team, see EvilLaugh below.
* EvilLaugh: Mr. Conklin laughs ''evilly'' on a couple occasions. This example is from the episode "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass'':
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': I just learned that Biff Mooney, one of the greatest college football players, is interested in a high school coaching job in this part of the country. I've already opened negotiations by mail, and it's a foregone conclusion that he'll accept my offer. Ah-ha-ha-ha (''evil laugh''), ah, I can't wait to see the expression on Brill's face when I tell him about it. Heh, heh, heh (''evil laugh'').
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker In some states, that laugh would be banned.]]
* EvilSoundsRaspy: The titular convict in "Convict Threatens To Kill Mr. Conklin".
* ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin: The series naturally stars Miss Brooks. Additionally, episode titles often describe what the episode is about, i.e "Angela's Wedding" or "Birthday Bag".
* ExactWords:
** In "The Big Game", Miss Brooks takes Mr. Conklin's exact words at their literal value to pass former football star Gus "Snakehips" Geary and give him his high school diploma.
** Similarly, in "The Yodar Kritch Award", Miss Brooks gives [[DumbJock Bones Snodgrass]] (or Stretch Snodgrass, in the radio version of the episode) the Yodar Kritch Award for Unique Achievement in English. The unique achievement? Not answering a single question right.
* ExcitedShowTitle: "Spare That Rod!"
* TheExitIsThatWay: In "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", [[ItMakesSenseInContext Miss Brooks accidentally offers to masquerade as Mr. Boynton's mother]] in front of Dean Faraday of State University. Playing the "wrong" Mrs. Boynton requires her to go to Mr. Boynton's apartment and entertain the dean. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton's apartment features mainly wildlife specimens . . . ''and doors''. Miss Brooks, at various times, mistakenly goes into the bathroom, closet, kitchen, bedroom, and once even locks herself outside the backdoor and has to be let in the front by the dean.
* ExtendedGreetings: Walter Denton likes to carry on. This exchange with Miss Brooks is in the episode "Wild Goose Chase":
-->'''Walter Denton:''' And to you, fair flower of the faculty, a thousand salaams!\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Thank you, Walter Denton, and I've had my share, thanks.]]
* ExtremelyShortIntroSequence: The syndicated opening sequence for Our Miss Brooks [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rr1i9hp-3w is only 13-seconds long]]. Notable in that the syndicated version dates back to the 1950's. The theme itself dates to the 1948 radio premier, when it was played briefly at the start and end of the radio episodes. A much longer version of the tune plays over the closing credits.
* ExtracurricularEnthusiast: Walter Denton. He's been manager of the football, baseball and basketball team. He's been on the debating team, editor of the school paper "The Madison Monitor" and Vice-President of the Student Council. Walters also helps Miss Brooks' with the Spring Garden, and joins Madison High School's (short-lived) student Traffic Police. He's also tried out (unsuccessfully) for the baseball, basketball and water polo, before finally (and barely) making it onto the school football team.
* EyeTake: Miss Brooks bugs out her eyes from time to time. One example is early in [[GrandFinale the film]], after Mrs. Davis greets her with an apparent non sequitur.
* FacialDialogue: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Brooks' facial expressions as Mr. Conklin is about to light a match in a gas-filled room....
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Miss Brooks can't get Mr. Boynton to propose marriage . . . that is until the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]] where, with the help of Mrs. Davis, she succeeds in marrying Mr. Boynton and living [[HappilyEverAfter happily ever after]].
* FailuresOnIce: In "Swap Week", school board head Mr. Stone is forced to recuperate at his vacation cabin. Stone had injured his ankle using the pair of ice skates Mr. Conklin bought him.
* FaintInShock: In the concluding film, Mr. Conklin faints when he learns that [[spoiler:the position he's been campaigning for pays only a nominal amount.]]
* FairWeatherFriend: Sometimes, when the going gets tough, Walter Denton gets going, i.e. "Trial By Jury".
* FairyTaleEpisode: "Cinderella for a Day". A mysterious shoe salesman lends Miss Brooks a custom-made gold slipper until midnight. Miss Brooks is treated to several Cinderella-style presents, from the same mysterious donor, that allow her to attend the masquerade ball at the country club in style. [[spoiler: It turns out the shoe salesman was a millionaire gambler who had placed a bet with a expert shoemaker that he could find a pair of feet that would perfectly fit the custom made slippers. The gifts were partly his reward to Miss Brooks, and partly for laughs.]]
* FairyTaleWeddingDress:
** "Angela's Wedding" begins with Mrs. Davis' sister Angela trying on her wedding dress while carrying her bouquet. It is an elaborate white dress with a veil and a train, with humour coming from the fact Angela is in her latter middle-aged and is quite plump.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale to the series, Miss Brooks pictures herself in one as she fantasizes about marriage to Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks finally gets her man at the end of the film]]
* FakeCharity: In the episode "Bobbsey Twins in Stir", a conman is tricking people into [[RefugeInAudacity selling fake tickets to the policemen's ball.]] The proceeds are supposedly going to "widows and orphans".
* FallingInLoveMontage: PlayedForLaughs. Mr. Boynton takes Miss Brooks to the zoo, where they feed an elephant mother and her baby. Then Miss Brooks lures Mr. Boynton away from the zoo, to a sale on furniture in the ''Sherry's Department Store'' window, as a way of suggesting matrimony. Mr. Boynton again starts taking Miss Brooks again to the zoo, where a camera fade shows how much the baby elephant had grown in a couple years.
--> '''Miss Brooks (narrating)''': Ours was not the fastest romance in history, but it took no time to develop into one of the slowest.
* FamilyBusiness:
** Mrs. Nestor's private elementary school in the last television season. Mrs. Nestor is principal, [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute her sister (also named Mrs. Nestor) become the new principal,]] her brother Munsee is vice principal.
** ''The Madison Express'', the Madison daily newspaper owned by Lawrence Nolan. He expects his son Gary to run the paper after he retires.
* FamilyVersusCareer: Several episodes (i.e. "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton) suggest that upon achieving her series goal of marriage to Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks intends to resign her position as Madison English teacher. In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] this is also the case. Family first for Miss Brooks, as her HappilyEverAfter is to become a wife and mother.
* FancyDinner:
** The School Board Banquet in "Stretch is in Love" (radio) and "Suzy Prentisss" (television). It's a black tie event, tuxedos for men and evening gowns for women.
** To a lesser degree, Miss Brooks' dinner at an expensive [[FrenchCuisineIsHaughty French restaurant]] in "French Sadie Hawkins Day".
* {{Fanfare}}: The movie dispenses with the usual series theme, and opens with a fanfare heavy composition.
* TheFashionista: Wealthy Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' rival, is always impeccably dressed.
* FashionMagazine: In the episode "Cosmopolitan Magazine", a photographer arrives from the real-life ''Magazine/{{Cosmopolitan}} Magazine'' to do an article and photo-spread about an average American high school. The trope is somewhat averted, as at the time (1953) Cosmopolitan was an esteemed literary and general interest periodical, and not the sex and fashion magazine it is today. The radio episode was broadcast to coincide with Cosmopolitan's publication of an article on Eve Arden and ''Our Miss Brooks''. [[OlderThanTheyThink An example of the application of media "synergies", at least fifty years before the modern word was coined.]]
* FatalFireworks: In the episode "School Safety Advisor", DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass brings an enormous firecracker to school, preparatory to setting it off for the Fourth of July. Stretch accidentally gets the fuse wet, so he ''attempts to dry it off with a match''. This lights the fuse; fortunately a quick-thinking Miss Brooks throws the firecracker into an empty supply room. Alas, the room wasn't so empty after all! Fortuantely, Mr. Conklin emerged relatively unharmed from that minor explosion!
* FavorsForTheSexy: This happened most notably in the episodes "The Model Schoolteacher" (the radio original) and "The Model Teacher" (the television remake). Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin trip over themselves helping a glamorous ImmoralJournalist from "Snap Magazine". She is at Madison High to do a profile on the day in the life of a schoolteacher, but really views her role as that of doing a hatchet job on Miss Brooks.
* FawltyTowersPlot:
** "Head of the Board": The trouble begins when Walter Denton makes a prank call to Mr. Conklin, claiming to be Wallace T. Hewitt, head of the State Board of Education. Miss Brooks is forced to find an impersonator to play the role and avert Mr. Conklin's wrath. HilarityEnsues.
** "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass": Happens when Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin have Walter Denton masquerade as student athlete Stretch Snodgrass.
* FBIAgent: They appear at the end of "Postage Due."
* FeelingTheirAge: In "Old Age Plan" the power of suggestion turns Boynton and Conklin into shambling wrecks with one foot in the grave. Miss Brooks is trying to sell an old age savings plan to the two men and, after reading the signs of old age to them, they come down with all the symptoms.
* FeigningIntelligence: In "Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks enlists Walter Denton to masquerade as her nonexistent fourteen year old quiz kid son. Miss Brooks had written an fictional article for "True Family Romance" magazine about her quiz kid son, and needed to prove the story was true in order to collect her payment. HilarityEnsues, especially as Mr. Conklin gets involved . . . .
* FellAsleepStandingUp: Stretch Snodgrass in "Stretch Is In Love Again" falls asleep standing in the school hallway. Judy Brille, daughter of rival high school principal Jason Brille, was colluding with her father to keep Stretch out dating her and dancing to the wee hours of the morning. In that way, they hoped to keep him useless in the big game.
* FileMixup: The episode "Have Bed - Will Travel" sees Mrs Davis' medical records mixed with an ill nonagenarian friend, making Miss Brooks believe her landlady is mortally ill.
* FillItWithFlowers: In "Poetry Mix-Up", Mr. Boynton advises Miss Brooks to request some flowers from the school nursery, in order to brighten up her dreary classroom.
* FilmNoir: The latter part of "Postage Due" is very much film noir influenced, with Miss Brooks providing a PrivateEyeMonologue.
* FinalSeasonCasting: The chaotic and controversial last season of the television series. ExecutiveMeddling saw Miss Brooks take a new job as a teacher at a private elementary school in California (versus the EverytownAmerica setting of Madison). The last season initially sees the departure of everybody but Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin. Mrs. Davis was briefly replaced by her sister Angela, before returning to the picture a couple episodes later. Mrs. Nestor is introduced as Miss Brooks' new boss, only to be replaced by her sister, [[FridgeLogic also named Mrs. Nestor]]. Mr. Boynton is replaced as Miss Brooks' love interest by two gym teachers in quick succession, until finally returning at the end of the program. Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton disappear entirely from Miss Brooks' life, although Mrs. Conklin again made a few appearances toward the end.
** This was averted on the radio, as the program continued at Madison High School in the [[EverytownAmerica City of Madison]] as per usual. The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] followed the radio continuity, ignoring the final television season completely.
* FireOfComfort: In the episode "Magic Tree", Miss Brooks spends Christmas Eve in a rocking chair in front Mrs. Davis' fireplace
* FirstNameBasis: [[spoiler: Significantly, making up after an argument midway through the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]], Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton finally move to a first name bais, "Connie" and "Phillip" respectively.]]
* FiveFingerDiscount: In "The Bicycle Thief", Stevie, a poor but otherwise honest honor student just can't help himself; he borrows Mr. Conklin's bicycle for his birthday. Miss Brooks tries to prevent Mr. Conklin from discovering the identity of the borrower.
* {{Flashback}}: In "Borrowing Money to Fly".
* FlashbackEffects: Visual effects and music were used to signify dream sequences in "Magic Christmas Tree", "The Dream", "King and Miss Brooks" and "Mr. Boynton's Return". Just the music was used for the radio in "Connie's New Job Offer" and the radio version of "Magic Christmas Tree".
* FloorboardFailure: In the GrandFinale, when campaigning for the position of Coordinator of Education, Mr. Conklin falls through the floor of the temporary stage Walter Denton constructed. Walter didn't use enough nails.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect:
** In the episode "Pensacola Popovers", Miss Brooks tries to work the Florence Nightengale Effect to her benefit by buying Mr. Boynton snacks throughout the morning. Including the titular cookies, which made everyone ''aside from Mr. Boynton'' sick. Mr. Boynton eventually telephones Miss Brooks, asking for her nursing aid. However, it turns out that Mr. Boynton wants Miss Brooks to nurse his pet frog (who had also eaten a Pensacola Popover).
** In "Reunion", one of Miss Brooks' friends had met her husband while she working in a doctor's office. He had visited the doctor due to a slipped disk.
* FollowInMyFootsteps: What Lawrence Nolan expects of his son Gary in the film.
* TheFoodPoisoningIncident: Mrs. Davis is often a CordonBleughChef (try her Limburger omelet), but once she goes straight into LethalChef territory. "Pensacola Popovers", in the episode of the same name, are guaranteed to give man or beast gastric distress. Walter Denton tries one and is sick as a dog. Principal Osgood Conklin tries one, and goes home sick within a half an hour. Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall licks one, and is reduced to hopping around on his head in a frenzy.
** [[spoiler: Miss Brooks gives a few to LoveInterest Mr. Boynton, in a plot to make him sick so she can nurse him back to health. Alas, Mr. Boynton's cast-iron stomach makes him immune. For awhile, at least. Mr. Boynton calls Miss Brooks as he needs someone to nurse . . . his pet frog Mcdougall. Eventually, the popovers have their effect, and Mr. Boynton faints away at the Biology Club luncheon and is taken to the hospital.]]
--> '''Miss Brooks''' Well, what do you know? A delayed popover!
* Foodp*rn:
** In "Carelessness Code", a SoundToScreenAdaptation, Miss Brooks has no money for lunch due to Mr. Conklin's arbitrary "carelessness code" fines. A lot of time is spent with Miss Brooks looking hungrily upon Harriet's cafeteria lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes.
** In the "Thanksgiving Show", Walter Denton describes his typical thanksgiving dinner to Miss Brooks:
--->'''Walter Denton''': Well, usually Mom cooks a big turkey. And we have dinner at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Oh gosh, I'll never forget last year's meal. First we had a fresh fruit cup and then some delicious vegetable soup. And then this golden brown turkey was served with a special dressing of raisons and chestnuts. And then we had some candied yams with a baked marshmallow covering and . . . .
* ForeignQueasine: A staple of early radio episodes, was landlady Mrs. Davis' reliance on outlandish foreign recipes for Miss Brooks' breakfast. One such dish were Armenian Pancakes, which relied on sour goat's milk. Another was an Eskimo recipe for "blubber burgers", whale meat fried in seal fat. Mrs. Davis become more staid as time goes on, and the show moved to television. However, Miss Brooks complains of eating Hungarian Goulash in a later episode. Miss Brooks outright refuses to touch a plate of Veal Scallopini and Garlic Bread Mrs. Davis presents her with one morning.
* ForgottenAnniversary: In "24 Hours", Miss Brooks talks to an irate Martha Conklin; she's furious that Osgood Conklin hadn't bought a present or even mentioned their anniversary. Miss Brooks tries to patch things up by buying a pair of andirons and sending it as a gift in Osgood Conklin's name. Later, Miss Brooks is surprised to find Martha Conklin is angry at Osgood Conklin for buying an expensive pair of andirons. It's made worse when she receives the pair of andirons ''Osgood'' bought for her. He hadn't forgotten after all.
* ForgottenBirthday: In "The Birthday Bag". Miss Brooks forgets her own birthday, while everybody else remembers.
* ForgotToMindTheirHead: Occasionally happens to Mr. Conklin. For example, in one episode he's looking for something under his desk and bumps his head when he gets up.
* ForgotToPayTheBill: In "Public Property on Parade", the electricity is disconnected when Mrs. Davis fails to pay the bill. Miss Brooks is forced to type out a speech by the light of a streetlamp.
* FortuneTeller:
** Mrs. Davis believes tea leaves to be a reliable method of telling the future. Most notably, in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves"]], Mrs. Davis' dresses up as gypsy to read Miss Brooks' tea leaves. Her predictions appear to come true . . . until HilarityEnsues.
** Mrs. Davis also reads tea leaves in the radio episodes "The Weighing Machine" and "Friendship" to varying results. In "Weighing Machine", Mrs. Davis' reading is prompted by the need to double check a fortune Miss Brooks' receives from a penny weighing machine. Here, the readings turn out to be correct . . . but not in the way Mrs. Davis or Miss Brooks expects.
** Mrs. Davis switches to playing cards in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. However, Mrs. Davis simply uses the cards as a device to reveal Mr. Boynton's intention to Miss Brooks, in spite of having previously been pledged to secrecy.
* ForYourOwnGood: In "Spare That Rod!", Principal Conklin's rationale for his severe discipline policy. It's for the benefit of the students, the faculty and Madison High School alike.
* FourLeafClover: In "Four Leaf Clover", Miss Brooks picks a four leaf clover that brings her nothing but ''bad'' luck. She eventually pawns it off to a crooked auto mechanic.
* FreePrizeAtTheBottom: [[spoiler: The fateful box of Cracker Jacks, at the end of the film.]]
* FreeRangeChildren: Teenagers Walter Denton, Stretch and Bones Snodgrass tend to be able to go where they please and when. Averted with Harriet Conklin, who Mr. Conklin is (sometimes) seen to keep an eye on.
* FrenchCuisineIsHaughty: In the episode "French Sadie Hawkins Day", Miss Brooks accidentally orders "Parking in Rear" from the snobby maître d'hôtel. She then proceeds to order expensive meals for everybody, ignorant of the fact that she has agreed to pay for the entire dinner.
* FreudianSlip: Miss Brooks sometimes slips something marriage or romance related when talking to Mr. Boynton.
* AFriendInNeed: Miss Brooks can always be counted on to stand by her friends; even Mr. Conklin, her FriendlyEnemy.
** On multiple occasions, she protects Walter Denton from having one of his practical jokes exposed and backfiring on him. "Cure That Habit" and "Mr. Conklin is Honored" are cases in point.
** Miss Brooks is eager to protect [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]], naturally enough. "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", where Miss Brooks believes Mr. Boynton used Mr. Conklin's phone to make a long distance call, is a case in point. Likewise, "The Jewel Robbery", where Miss Brooks wrongly believes Mr. Boynton robbed a store.
** Miss Brooks saves Mr. Conklin's job in "Wake Up Plan" and "Saving the School Newspaper". When Miss Brooks wrongly concludes Mr. Conklin has been fired in "Rumors", she sets up a laundry to raise money.
** Miss Brooks saves Mrs. Davis from a hurried marriage in "Marriage Madness".
* FriendlyEnemies: Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin often kvetch about being the bane of one other's existence. However, depending on their goals, they'll either be working together on friendly terms ("Citizen's League", "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", "Postage Due"), helping one another ("Cure That Habit", "The Hobby Show"), socializing with one another ("Parlor Game" and "The Birthday Bag") . . . or at loggerheads as if they were sworn enemies ("Old Marblehead", "Business Course", "Secondhand First Aid").
* FriendshipSong: In the episode "Friendship", "Friendship" (''from Theatre/AnythingGoes'') is played between scenes, ever more manically as Miss Brooks' loses friends. Unusually, the two buddies singing the song don't have a role outside the song. In the song's last appearance, about midway through the episode, one friend decides to murder the other:
-->'''The Two Friends''': Friendship\\
Friendship\\
Just a perfect friendship\\
When other friendships be forgot\\
'''Gunshot'''\\
'''Surviving Friend''': '''I''' will still be hot.
* FrivolousLawsuit: In the episode "Mr. Travers' Three Acre Lot". Mr. Conklin ''literally'' sets Miss Brooks up for a fall so he can sue Mr. Travers and force the sale of the eponymous lot.
* FruitCart: Memorably, in "Trial by Jury", Miss Brooks finds herself charged with speeding, reckless driving, driving the wrong way, and crashing into a fruit stand. The unfortunate fruit stand owner again suffers at the hands of Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin's automobile mishaps in "Miss Brooks' New Car". At the end of the episode, Miss Brooks takes a wagon load of fruit to the Conklins as a peace offering. The fruit stand owner had decided to give Miss Brooks his stock and start again in another city.
* FryingPanOfDoom: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis uses a frying pan to great effect on the noggin of a gym teacher who [[BerserkButton insults her deviled eggs.]]
* FunWithForeignLanguages: Guaranteed whenever French teacher Mr. [=LeBlanc=] appears.
* FurAndLoathing: Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' snooty, catty [[SitcomArchNemesis rival]], brags about her furs as well as other expensive clothes.
* GagEcho: A notable example occurs in the episode "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo." The titular hobo calls himself "The Earl of Peoria." Miss Brooks responds by asking "How is the Princess Margaret-Rose?" The hobo introduces himself to Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis inquires "How is the Princess Margaret Rose?" Walter Denton appears, again asking "Then how's the Princess Margaret Rose?" Finally, Mr. Conklin is introduced to the hobo. He asks "Then how's the Duke of Edinburgh?" Mr. Conklin laughs at his own joke.
* GagHaircut: In "The Hairdo". Miss Enright instructs the hairdresser to sabotage Miss Brook’s hairdo.
* GambitPileup: In "Writing Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin each write fictional articles for "True Family Romance" magazine, neither knowing of the other's "indiscretion". Both are forced to prove the veracity of their fake tale in order to collect their fee. Both enlist Walter Denton to play the part of their respective fake fourteen year old sons . . . in the same place, at the same time. HilarityEnsues.
* GamesOfTheElderly: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mrs. Davis mentions how Mrs. Boynton (Mr. Boynton's mother) "beat my brains out" in canasta. [[spoiler: At movie's end, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Boynton finally get Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton married]]
* GenderEqualEnsemble: The six major characters are equally balanced by gender. Three girls: Constance (Connie) Brooks, Margaret Davis and Harriet Conklin. Three boys: Phillip Boynton, Osgood Conklin, and Walter Denton.
* GenreRefugee: Tex Barton, a teenaged cowboy.
* GentlemanAdventurer: Safari O'Toole, in the episode of the same name. He is Mrs. Davis' faithful pen pal, and is noted for his travels through the wilds of DarkestAfrica. [[spoiler: He's also a fake.]]
* GettingTheBoot: Walter Denton complains about his dates with Harriet ending with Mr. Conklin kicking him down the porch steps.ca.
* TheGhost:
** Mrs. Davis' eccentric sister Angela is frequently discussed by Mrs. Davis at the breakfast table. Angela, however, remains unheard (on the radio) and unseen (on television) for quite awhile. Eventually, Jessica makes several appearances on the television series (sometimes as her sister's SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute, at a time when actress Jane Morgan suffered a stroke). The role was played by Canadian actress Jesselyn Fax. Fax also performed the role at least twice on the radio.
** Similarly, Mrs. Davis' much discussed brother Victor goes several years without being seen. He finally makes one appearance in the second television season, the episode "The Egg."
* GiftOfTheMagiPlot: In "Easter Parade", Miss Brooks works during her Spring Break in order in earn money so she can accompany Mr. Boynton to the Easter Parade in a new dress. Meanwhile, Mr. Boynton's working to earn money for a new suit to wear when he takes Miss Brooks to the Easter Parade. Due to TaxDeductions, Miss Brooks doesn't earn enough for the new dress. Mrs. Davis lends her the extra money, Miss Brooks doesn't learn the money is actually coming from Mr. Boynton. Mr. Boynton no longer has enough money for the new suit. Miss Brooks' new dress is messed up when she accidently sits on a couple of Easter Eggs Mrs. Davis hid under the sofa cushions. So she too goes to the parade in her old dress of which she's positively ashamed. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton both enjoy a heartwarming moment as a result.
* GirlOfTheWeek:
** "New Girl In Town" is ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin. Walter Denton dates the new girl, while Miss Brooks' LoveInterest Mr. Boynton is attracted to the girl's widowed mother.
** "Life Can Be Bones" sees Miss Brooks romantically threatened by Mr. Boynton's temporary laboratory assistant.
** In "Hello, Mr. Chips", Miss Brooks tries to date an English schoolmaster to make Mr. Boynton jealous.
** In "Clay City English Teacher", scheming Clay City High School principal Jason Brille tries to lure Miss Brooks to his school with the eponymous male teacher. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks won't go unless there's a job for Mr. Boynton too.]]
* GirlShowGhetto: The show managed to be popular, in spite of starring love-lorn English teacher Connie Brooks. At the start of its run on radio, Colgate-Palmolive used the half-hour slot to sell articles to women, i.e. Luster-Cream Shampoo, "men folks love it too". Later, they made a 180, switching to promoting Colgate Toothpaste and (men's) Shaving Cream. Anason was a later radio sponsor, while the Armed Forces Radio Network played the program in reruns. On television, the program eventually was used to showcase products aimed for kids, like breakfast cereal and a new type of chocolate milk mix!
* GirlsBehindBars:
** In "The Embezzled Dress" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Student Banking"), Miss Brooks fears being sent to prison. Landlady Mrs. Davis had unknowingly spent the students' bank money left in Miss Brooks' care, thinking it was Miss Brooks' back rent. Walter Denton, trying to teach Miss Brooks up, tells her about the conditions at the State Prison for Women. It involves mopping the floors all day; as there are not enough mops to go around, many of the inmates have to clean the floors on their hands and knees.
** In "Bobbsey Twins in Stir", Mrs. Davis, and later Miss Brooks, are briefly in jail after they're tricked into selling phony tickets to the policeman's ball.
* GirlsWithMustaches: In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mrs. Davis wears a fake mustache when she dons a UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt costume for a party.
* GirlySkirtTwirl: Miss Brooks does one in her fantasy sequence in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. She's dreaming about her life married to Mr. Boynton.
* GiveMeBackMyWallet: In "The Burglar", Mr. Conklin wakes up from his nap discovering a burglar in the process of absconding with the basket of fried chicken his wife cooked for him.
* GladIThoughtOfIt: Mr. Conklin uses this trope from time-to-time, usually at Connie's expense. However, being a DeadpanSnarker, Connie doesn't let this go without remark.
* TheGlassesGotToGo: Said by Miss Brooks in "The Dancer." She had tried on a pair of glasses to see if Mr. Boynton will find her attractive in them. Mr. Boynton complimented Miss Brooks on how "mature" she looks.
* GoGetterGirl: Harriet Conklin is a straight A student, Student Council President, and member of a number of clubs. Next to her boyfriend, Walter Denton, she's probably Miss Brooks' biggest TeachersPet. She's also seen as the only student who likes the principal, likely because she's his daughter.
* GoingDownWithTheShip: In "An American Tragedy", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are stranded on a rowboat in the middle of Crystal Lake. Mr. Conklin proclaims himself captain, however it turns out the rowboat is leaking and starts to sink. Neither Mr. Conklin nor Miss Brooks can swim . . . .
-->'''Mr. Conklin''' (panicking): [[HypocriticalHumor Well keep your head, Boynton!]] Don't get panicky! Don't get panicky, boy! You need all your strength, every ounce of it to tow '''me''' ashore!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Tow you ashore? What about me, sir? I can't swim either, and you know the tradition of the sea, the captain goes down with his ship!
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Not in this ship!
** [[spoiler: Fortunately, they had unknowingly drifted near the shore and the water under the boat was only three feet deep]]
* GoldDigger: In "Marriage Madness", the butcher's new business partner tries to marry Mrs. Davis for her money. It seems as if he's been often married, starting with the time in school he ran off with his French teacher.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': If he had said English teacher, I would have screamed!
* GoodGuyBar: Marty's Malt Shop is the usual hangout for teachers and students alike, outside school.
* GoodOlBoy: In "Four Fiances", the Texan to whom Miss Brooks finds herself unwittingly engaged. The gentleman is portrayed sympathetically.
* GoodParents: Martha Conklin, mother of HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Harriet Conklin. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to Harriet's father, Osgood Conklin. Although Harriet and her father are close, Osgood Conklin is pompous and [[OverprotectiveDad overprotective.]]
* GoshDangItToHeck: Used from time to time, often making the avoidance humorous in itself:
** Sometimes, swear words are referred to obliquely. For example, in "Stretch is Accused Of Professionalism, there's this exchange between Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Stretch has as much chance of passing that test as, well, . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Maybe one of them didn't melt down there.
** Miss Brooks censors Walter Denton at breakfast when he's complaining about Mr. Conklin:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin is making my otherwise placid existence a living . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Walter!
-->'''Walter Denton''': Inferno?
** Words like "dang" and "heck" are often treated seriously. When Mr. Boynton uses it in the cafeteria HilarityEnsues:
--> '''Walter Denton''': Language!
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': Oh, sorry Miss Brooks.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': That's all right, Mr. Boynton. In such times, even I resort to a mild profanity. ''Whoa Nelly''!
** On a more serious note, Mr. Conklin's favourite exclamation is the mild"Gad!"; likely to avoid blasphemy and breaking The Third Commandment.
** In a RealLife Moment of Heartwarming, Creator/EveArden asked the radio and later the television crew not to swear on set as there were kids working on the show.
* GossipyHens:
** In "The Party Line", the two woman who share Miss Brooks' party telephone line hold up the phone gossiping all day. The women also listen in on Miss Brooks' conversations and gossip about Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton.
** Mrs. Davis and her sister Angela, on occasion. Of course, they'll deny being gossips . . . .
* GoToSleepEnding: The episode "Wake-Up Plan" ends with Miss Brooks finding Mr. Boynton sleeping on a bench in the hallway, just outside Mr. Conklin's office. Miss Brooks sits on his lap.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh well, might as well make it unanimous. Good night all.
--->'''Mr. Boynton''': (whistles in his sleep)
* GotVolunteered: Miss Brooks often finds herself volunteered by Mr. Conklin to do his secretarial, typing or speechwriting work; i.e. Aunt Mattie Boynton, Public Property on Parade.
* GrammarNazi: Miss Brooks herself is a mild example, as an English teacher she's often heard correcting Walter Denton or Stretch Snodgrass' grammar. Here, it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]].
* GrandeDame: Mrs. Grabar in "Madison Country Club". Mr. Conklin intends to squeeze money out of the rich dowager so he can redecorate his office. When she arrives, he plans on staging quite a show of poverty, complete with the staff dressed like hobos. Miss Brooks and company have other plans. HilarityEnsues.
* GrandFinale: TheMovie in 1956.
* GrandRomanticGesture: In the episode "Clay City English Teacher", Mr. Boynton tries to impress Miss Brooks by imitating Literature/SamSpade. [[ItMakesSenseInContext It makes sense in context.]]
* GrannyClassic: Mrs. Davis is often portrayed this way; she's kind, loves to cook, sews and knits, and has a pet cat named Minerva. [[spoiler: In TheMovie GrandFinale she's responsible the marriage of Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton]]
* GratuitousSpanish: Mexican boy Ricky Velasco in "The Miserable Caballero" and "Buddy", in the last television season Mexican student Benny Romero. Both parts were played by child actor Ricky Vera.
* GrayRainOfDepression: In "The Pet Shop", a misunderstanding means that Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are likely to stand one another up for their date. At the last moment, Miss Brooks decides to go wait for Mr. Boynton outside the pet shop as promised. Miss Brooks waits, likely in vain, as a grey rain of depression falls. [[spoiler:Mr. Boynton also cannot stay away, and the misunderstanding is cleared. The rain likewise clears, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton go out on their date.]]
* GreasySpoon: Miss Brooks moonlights in one, taking the identity of her nonexistent identical twin, in the episode "Connie and Bonnie".
* GretzkyHasTheBall: Miss Brooks' knowledge of sports ranges from the excellent to the ridiculously inadequate.
** In "Bronco Dismissed" the trope is averted, as Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton substitute coach for the football team without any difficulty. Likewise in other episodes such as "Baseball Slide" and "The Big Game". In some episodes, however, Miss Brooks is very much in the dark . . . .
** In "Game At Clay City", Miss Brooks' football knowledge isn't lacking, but Mr. Boynton admits to being clueless as to most if not all sports. He even asks who's pitching for the football team.
** In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks confuses the baseball term "bullpen" with "pigpen". She also mistakenly calls pitchers "chuckers". She later redeems herself, by serving as the announcer for the titular boxing match.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Miss Brooks cheers on a dead tired Stretch Snodgrass when he runs the wrong way and scores on Madison.
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", when Mr. Conklin calls Stretch one of the most promising high school tailbacks in the country, Miss Brooks look behind Stretch to see if he had a tail.
* GreyscaleOfEvil: Osgood Conklin prefers to dress in black three-piece suits, or at least dark colors. Although the program appeared on television and film in black and white, and didn't "appear" at all on the radio, this tendency is mentioned several times:
** "First Day": Mr. Conklin not only dressed in black, but drove a large black sedan that Walter Denton compares to a hearse.
** "Friday The Thirteenth": Mr. Conklin brags about his respectable black suit and hat to his daughter. He worries that his "midnight blue" tie might be loud.
* GrinOfAudacity:
** Sported by Walter Denton, whenever conniving to pull an especially severe prank on Mr. Conklin. Being told off sometimes serves to encourage the grin (except by Mr. Conklin himself, of whom Denton is somewhat afraid). Noticeable in "Wild Goose", "Space, Who Needs It?", "Cure That Habit", "Marinated Hearing" and "Spare That Rod!".
** Walter is also proud of having a "dark secret". In "Citizen's League", Miss Brooks suffers from guilt for having [[spoiler: accidentally stuck a pin in the seat of the church organist Mrs. Dunfy when fitting her dress for the governor's wedding]]. Miss Brooks asks Walter if he himself has a dark secret. Walter [[AnnoyingLaugh smirks, laughs, and says he does.]] [[spoiler: However, after being chewed out by Miss Brooks, Walter admits it's far from terrible, and again in the nature of a teenage prank.]]
** In "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Conklin laughs at his having sent a letter to the board of education, reporting Miss Brooks for missing her morning classes. This is in spite of admitted to himself, out loud, that it was a terrible thing to do.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mrs. Davis suggests to Mr. Boynton that Lawrence Nolan had induced Miss Brooks to take a trip on his yacht so he might seduce her. Mr. Boynton is outraged, and begins frantically checking his address book. Meanwhile, Mrs. Davis smiles and stifles a giggles, overjoyed that her use of OperationJealousy was off to a fine start!
* GuysAreSlobs: Walter Denton in "Mr. Boynton's Parents". Walter mentions that one of the reasons he wants to honour his mother on Mother's Day is she picks up after him; a typical teen boy, he leaves his room a mess and his clothes all over the floor.
* HalloweenEpisode: The first season of the radio series has an episode where Walter and Stretch convince Miss Brooks to throw a Halloween party with the promise of inviting Mr. Boynton.
* {{Hallucinations}}: In "Halloween Party", Mr. Conklin is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He starts seeing things, such as a large dog in the doctor's waiting room.
* HamToHamCombat: Any episode where Madison High Principal Osgood Conklin faces his archrival, Clay City High School Principal Jason Brill.
* HandGagging: In "Magic Christmas Tree", Miss Brooks puts her hand over Walter Denton's mouth to stop his painfully off-key rendition of "Deck The Halls".
* {{Handgun}}: In "The Stolen Wardrobe", thieves valuable clothes stolen Sherry's with Miss Brooks, tricking her into believing it's a prize for being best dressed teacher at Madison High School. Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton attempt to return the clothes, but are shot at by (in Mr. Conklin's words) "a trigger-happy flat-floot" and flee the store. Later, the police-officer, handgun holdstered, shows up at Mrs. Davis' house.
* HappilyEverAfter: After eight years on the radio, and four on television, Miss Connie Brooks finally gets her happily ever after at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale. Or, to be more accurate, '''Mrs. Connie Boynton''' gets her happily ever after!
* HappilyMarried:
** Osgood and Martha Conklin are very much in love. In the episode "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin even buys his wife a black sheer negligee for Mother's Day!
** At the end of The Movie Grand Finale, the same applies to Phil Boynton and Connie Boynton nee Brooks. The last few moments of the film sees them leave the zoo arm and arm, and their future home with "The End" superimposed over the shot.
* HappyBirthdayToYou: Miss Brooks' friends gave her a surprise party on the radio, in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Suprise Party"]]. The episode was later remade for television under the title "The Birthday Bag". Miss Brooks starts the rendition to dodge Mr. Conklin's question, ''How old are you?"
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''Happy Birthday to me\\
Happy Birthday to me\\
'''Everybody''': Happy Birthday dear [[LastNameBasis Our Miss Brooks]]\\
Happy Birthday tooo you!''
* HardboiledDetective:
** In "Postage Due", Miss Brooks plays the hard boiled detective as she searches for the missing postman.
** "Clay City English Teacher" has Mr. Boynton consciously imitates Sam Spade in an attempt to lure Miss Brooks away from the eponymous teacher.
* HarmlessVillain: Mr. Conklin, when he serves as the antagonist on the series. His schemes usually involve some petty mischief serving his self-aggrandizement or his greed.
** For example, in "Old Marblehead", he shakes down students and faculty by creating a "Carelessness Code" and fining them mercilessly. His goal is to pay for a bust of his head in the school library - and he intends to destroy the existing bust of Julius Caesar to ensure he takes his rightful place. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks simply tricks him into busting the wrong bust.]]
** Another episode, "Home Cooked Meal", sees Mr. Conklin use the cafeteria freezer to freely store his own food. [[spoiler: He buys a freezer of his own, after Miss Brooks and Walter Denton accidently lock him inside]].
** In "The Big Jump", Mr. Conklin plots to force Miss Brooks to jump off the roof of the school as a publicity stunt for a civil defense drill. [[spoiler: Walter Denton lights some smudge pots on the stairs to the roof, leading to Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton jumping off in a panic]]
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Conklin plots to be elected the new Coordinator of Education. [[spoiler: Mr. Stone, the existing board superintendent (or equivalent), forces Mr. Conklin to withdraw by setting the new post's salary as a measly honorarium of %500.00.]]
* HatOfAuthority: In "Public Property on Parade", the Mayor of Madison is seen either wearing his top hat or carrying it about.
* HeadTurningBeauty:
** In "New Girl", all the boys at Madison immediately fall for the titular girl. Worse, from Miss Brooks' perspective, Mr. Boynton starts to fall for her mother.
** The ''Madison Express's'' new lonely hearts columnist. Every man (and boy) in the newsroom literally turns their head to look at her as she walks by.
* HeatWave: In the episode titled "Heat Wave", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin naturally enough]].
* HeelFaceTurn: In "Mr. Whipple", Miss Brooks, Walter Denton and Mr. Conklin are so affected by the story of the eponymous Mr. Whipple, a man who hasn't has a bite of solid food for a week. It turns out Mr. Whipple is a bad tempered miser who's on a liquid diet. No matter, the show of kindness melts Mr. Whipple to the point where he undergoes a heel-face turn and donates the money for Madison's new gymnasium.
* HeldGaze:
** In ''The Magic Tree", before Mr. Boynton kisses Miss Brooks. [[spoiler: It's AllJustADream]].
** Just before, and after, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton share a kiss in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* HeroicBystander: Clay City High School Principal Jason Brill plays the part when he saves Miss Brooks from falling down an open elevator shaft. Madison High School Principal Osgood Conklin tries to match this feat with a "fake" heroic bystander rescue. [[spoiler: Conklin stages a real rescue when the superintendent, Mr. Stone, himself falls into an open elevator shaft.]]
* HerosClassicCar: Through the series, Walter Denton drives a 1930's style jalopy; also qualified as TheAllegedCar. In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton borrows the car to drive to Crystal Bay and "rescue" Miss Brooks from Lawrence Nolan.
* HiccupHijinks:
** In "Cure That Habit", Mr. Conklin has a bad case of the hiccups and suffers through two hiccup remedies. One is a revolting and ineffective mixture cooked up by Mrs. Davis. The second is student athlete Stretch Snodgrass' attempt to cure Mr. Conklin's hiccups by spinning him around in a chair.
** In "Trial by Jury" and "Mr. Conklin's Love Nest", Mr. Boynton suffers psychosomatic cases of the hiccups from either lying or acute embarrassment.
* HiddenHeartOfGold: Mr. Conklin, a.k.a. "Old Marblehead", may be a pompous, dictatorial, underhanded dictator of a principal, but from time to time he shows his good side:
** In "The Hobby Show" he helps fix broken toys to give to needy children.
** He's a member of the "Citizen's League."
** He helps throw a Christmas Party when he believes Mrs. Davis' sister Angela is dying in "A Dry Scalp is Better Then None."
** He helps Miss Brooks and co. find a missing postman in "Postage Due."
** Offers to adopt orphans in "The Twin Orphans" and "The Miserable Caballero."
** He helps Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis out of problematic situations in "Four Fiances" and "Marriage Madness," among others.
** In "Weekend at Crystal Lake" he is worried that Mr. Boynton is going to repeat ''Literature/AnAmericanTragedy'' and hides under the boat tarpaulin to try and save Miss Brooks.
* HighSchool
* HighSchoolDance: A school dance drives the plot in several episodes. "Wishing Well Dance" sees Miss Brooks' hair clipped throughout the day as a gift for Mr. Boynton (to make a pillow for his pet frog). "Mr. Whipple" features Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton as Queen and King of the last dance to be held in the old gymnasium. The costumed dance in "Oh, Dem Gold Slippers" is shown, where Miss Brooks is dressed in a gown.
* HighSchoolHustler: Walter Denton, who was the bane of Principal Osgood Conklin's existence. Not least, because Walter was dating Mr. Conklin's Harriet. On several occasions, Mr. Conklin was the victim of Walter's pranks. For example:
** In "Cure That Habit", Walter applies to an alcoholism treatment program in Mr. Conklin's name; HilarityEnsues when the president of the company warns the head of the board of education that Mr. Conklin is a hopeless drunk.
** "Wild Goose" has Walter trick Mr. Conklin into thinking that he's won a free t.v. from Sherry's Department Store. HilarityEnsues as Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks to pick up his "prize".
** In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter hides a shotgun pellet and buckshot in Mr. Conklin's homemade telescope. Mr. Conklin thinks he's discovered a new planet and her three moons, which he immediately christens "Conklin Junior". Walter then uses a toy flying saucer and wind-up space men to make Mr. Conklin think Madison is being invaded by space aliens.
* HilarityInZoos: It's a running gag that Mr. Boynton usually takes Miss Brooks to the zoo on their dates.
* TheHilarityOfHats: In "Bargain Hats For Mother's Day," Mrs. Davis asks Miss Brooks to sell the homemade hats she made. They feature an imitation sparrow perched upon imitation fruit. Mr. Conklin buys one for his wife Martha, Mr. Boynton buys one for his mother, Walter Denton gets one to use as a table centerpiece, while GenreRefugee Tex Barton buys one for his horse Lucy. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, the recipients, even Lucy, are fanatics about having individualized wearing apparel . . . .]]
* HintDropping: Miss Brooks drops plenty of hints for Mr. Boynton. He rarely catches on.
* HiredForTheirLooks: In TheMovie GrandFinale, it's implied that the city editor hired the new "Miss Lonely Hearts" entirely on her looks. When she walks to the water cooler, she's the subject of the MaleGaze of every reporter in the room. Including the boss's son (Gary Nolan) and later the boss, Lawrence Nolan.
* HobbesWasRight: This is Mr. Conklin's belief, leastways when it comes to running a high school. Conklin essentially says as much to Miss Brooks in "Spare That Rod!". Conklin's military strictness would later put him under the opprobrium of the school board president, Mr. Stone, in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale.]]
* {{Hobos}}: Miss Brooks deals with hobos in the episodes "Hobo Jungle" and "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* HollywoodDarkness: Night scenes were usually shot uncommonly well. "The Burglar" and "Public Property on Parade" have nighttime scenes that are about as dark as you'd expect. However, the trope arises in "Wake-Up Plan", where the Conklin's hallway is suspiciously bright.
* HollywoodGenetics: Brown-haired Mr. and Mrs. Conklin have a blonde daughter, Harriet.
* HollywoodKiss: Miss Brooks [[spoiler: dreams she gets one from Mr. Boynton]] in "Magic Christmas Tree". Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks finally share a Hollywood kiss midway through the film.
* HollywoodLaw: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to [[ReadTheFinePrint read the contract's fine print]]. {{Lampshaded}} when the lawyer admits to Miss Brooks that he's been disbarred in several states.
* HollywoodNatives: In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", the eponymous chief and his wife.
* HollywoodPudgy: Mr. Conklin is referred to as fat on several occasions throughout the series, although he wouldn't be noticeable in a crowd.
* HollywoodSpelling: Averted in the episode "Suzie Prentisss", where the eponymous Suzie misspells her last name by giving it an extra "s".
* HomemadeSweaterFromHell: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Enright knits one for Mr. Boynton. One arm is terribly short, tight, and cuts off his circulation. The other is far too long.
* HomeSweetHome: [[spoiler: At the end of the film, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry and move into the house across the street from Mrs. Davis'.]]
* HotSauceDrinking:
** Mr. Boynton likes hot food. In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque" he treats Mr. Conklin and Miss Enright to his [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce "mild" barbecue sauce]]. The two run for water.
** In the episode, "The Miserable Caballeros", Mexican boy Ricky Velasco proceeds to put an extraordinary amount of pepper and spices on his lunch. He tells Miss Brooks that he finds American food too bland.
* HotScientist: Biology teacher Philip Boynton.
* {{Housewife}}:
** Martha Conklin is a housewife
** Miss Brooks' SeriesGoal is to marry Mr. Boynton. In several episodes (i.e. "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton") it is made explicit that Miss Brooks wants to become a fulltime housewife and mother.
* HourglassPlot: The penultimate episode of the television series, "Principal For A Day", has Miss Brooks appointed principal and Mr. Conklin become a History (not English) teacher. Because StatusQuoIsGod, their respective positions are restored at the end. Neither seem to learn much from the episode. Miss Brooks enjoys herself thoroughly, and other than adding feminine touches to her office and spending some quality time with [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]] doesn't abuse her power. Mr. Conklin's temporary humility, and appreciativeness to Miss Brooks' giving him the teaching position, is cast off as soon as he becomes principal again. It helps that Mr. Conklin is a pompous JerkWithAHeartOfGold and not an outright villain.
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Said by Stretch Snodgrass ([[DumbJock of all people]]) of Mr. Conklin, in the episode "Letter From The Board of Education. Walter Denton speaks the line in the [[SoundtoScreenAdaptation television remake]], "Spare That Rod". [[spoiler: Walter Denton had forged a letter threatening Mr. Conklin with dismissal for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his disciplinary methods. Mr. Conklin was forcing himself to be meek and humble as a result.]]
* IAmVeryBritish: The visiting English headmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips".
* IdenticalGrandson: In "The Dream", Miss Brooks' daughter Cleo Boynton is her mirror-image. Similarly, Osgood Conklin Junior looks just like his father.
* IdiotBall:
** Whenever Stretch Snodgrass appears he has idiot ball firmly in hand. i.e. "The Auction", "Stuffed Gopher".
** The same applies to Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]], i.e. "Marinated Hearing".
** The idiot ball also passes into Walter Denton's clutches on occasion, i.e. "Living Statues", "Cure That Habit".
* IdioticPartnerConfession: The episode "Blue Goldfish" sees Harriet Conklin reveal the truth about Mr. Conklin's much vaunted tolerance to the cold.
* IfIWereARichMan: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks dreams about what life would be like married to a maharajah.
* TheIllegal: In the episode "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks, [[ItMakesSenseInContext pretending to be Stretch Snodgrass' parents]], spin [[BlatantLies a story of illegal immigration and a secret marriage to preserve their masquerade]]. Mr. Conklin's daughter Harriet walked in the room, threatening to blow up the scheme when she identifies Mr. Conklin as her father and claimed her mother (Martha Conklin) was nowhere in sight.
--> '''Miss Brooks'''; Your father and I, your father and me, we've been secretly married for sixteen years.
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': But I'm almost seventeen.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': I'm over seventeen. I was hoping you wouldn't notice it.
--> '''Biff Mooney'''': What is this all about? Mrs. Snodgrass, I demand to know the truth!
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': Mrs. Snodgrass!
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': You might as well know the whole story Harriet. As a poor but honest immigrant, I entered this country illegally. Your mother and I started out from the old country together.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': But I, your mother, couldn't make it. They shot me at the border. Of course, years later I was smuggled into the country.
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': With a group of Oriental laborers.
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': Oriental laborers?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Don't look down your nose at me, girl. I helped build Boulder Dam!
* TheIllegible: In the radio episode "Letter to the Education Board", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton struggle to read Stretch Snodgrass' essay. It was remade on television as "Marinated Hearing", where the sloppy essay was written by Stretch's brother Bones.
* ImmoralJournalist: Stephanie Forest in the episodes "The Model Schoolteacher" (the radio original) and "The Model Teacher" (the television remake). Forester is at Madison High School to do a profile on the day in the life of a schoolteacher, but really views her role as that of doing a hatchet job on Miss Brooks - taking as many insulting and unrepresentative photographs as possible. Miss Brooks covertly removes the unflattering photos, and, in the television version, disposes of Miss Forest by noon; Miss Forest receives a telegram stating her editor wants her in Florida, ''immediatley''.
--> '''Stephanie Forest''': Now, as I was saying my dear. I don't want you to do a thing for this picture. Realism is what our readers want. The eyelids practically stuck together, the little straggly clumps of hair flopping over the ears, and those little tired lines around the mouth that look as if you just tasted a raw lambchop. We want you just the way you are!
* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: Used in the episode "Suzi Prentiss". Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin, "I'm a teacher, not a psychiatrist."
* ImplausibleDeniability: In "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to frame Mr. Boynton by drawing a cartoon with Mr. Conklin as a mouse in with Mr. Boynton's reports. Mr. Boynton catches her redhanded, and Miss Brooks tries to deny it.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Eek, a mouse.]]
* ImprobablyCoolCar: Walter Denton's car is stated to be a jalopy. On the radio, one can leave it up to one's imagination or various uncomplimentary descriptions of the vehicle. However, on television, it was different. On the rare occasion when it's seen up close, or being driven on the street, it appears to be a vintage 1930's or 1940's roadster. If one looks closely, in an early episode Walter placed a custom badge naming his car the "Denton Special". Somewhat averted in TheMovie GrandFinale however, when Mr. Boynton borrows the car four inner tubes go flat. The car is also visibly smoking when Mr. Boynton drives Miss Brooks home from Crystal Bay ([[CanonDiscontinuity Crystal Lake in the rest of the series]]).
* ImprovisedSail: In "An American Tragedy", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are stranded on a rowboat in the middle of Crystal Lake. Mr. Conklin suggests using Mr. Boynton's shirt as a sail. Miss Brooks ups the ante:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Let's try to get organized, shall we? Clear thinking is the ticket. Lacking an oar, we shall need to improvise a sail immediately. I shall need a large, white garment. Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': You won't get a stitch from me.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Well, then, Boynton. I suggest we use your shirt as a sail.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[LoveInterest Second the motion. And let's throw in his undershirt, too, sir. Ha. His shirt ought to do nicely.]]
* InadvertentEntranceCue: In the episode "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks asks Walter Denton the fatal question "Who could be so stupid?". Into the cafeteria walks [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]].
* IncomingHam: Mr. Conklin.
* IncorruptiblePurePureness:
** Harriet Conklin. Her motives are always displayed as unselfish or honest, in spite of her father Mr. Conklin being oft unprincipled and her boyfriend Walter Denton being an inveterate schemer and practical joker.
** Phillip Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest. He's considered by everybody to be the "soul of honesty". In "Trial by Jury", it's revealed that trying to lie makes Mr. Boynton break into the hiccups.
* IndianBurialGround: The promise of a large reward sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton searching for one in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Indian Burial Ground"]]. The trope is partially subverted as the supernatural plays no role in the program. This is fortunate for Miss Brooks and company, as they end up digging up an empty lot in search of artifacts!
* IndubitablyUninterestingIndividual: Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' {{Adorkable}} LoveInterest lives this trope. He likes to play chess. He hangs out at the Biologists Club. His other hobbies include leading a Boy Scout troop and taking care of his pet frog [=McDougall=]. He likes to take Miss Brooks to the zoo on their dates. His bedtime is usually ten o'clock, but is known to stay up until eleven on New Year's Eve. In "Hello Mr. Chips", Mrs. Davis remarks his habits are like those of a much older man.
* IndyPloy: In the episode "April Fool's Day", Miss Brooks attends an "Everybody Must Do Something Party". [[spoiler: She stalls for time to avoid Miss Enright embarrassing her with an April Fool's Day joke. Miss Brooks plays the ukulele, sings, recites poetry, finally resorting to reading the phonebook aloud.]]
* INeedToGoIronMyDog: In "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass all get excused from school and find themselves at a farmer's swimming pond through a variety of lame excuses. Miss Brooks, in fact, runs off telling Mr. Conklin that she has to go to the pond to get water [[ItMakesSenseInContext to put out the fire she accidentally started in his office.]]
* InformedAbility: Miss Brooks is said to be a wonderful English teacher. But given that an episode that was actually showed Miss Brooks teaching high school would be rather dull, one has to take it on trust. The few times she is shown tutoring English, it's played for laughs i.e. The radio episode "English Test" sees her give a crash course to DumbJock Stretch Snograss. This was remade into the television episode, "The Yodar Kritch Award", with [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Stretch's brother Bones]].
* InformedAttractiveness: Apparently, the visiting English schoolmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips" is attractive. You can tell by the reaction of Miss Brooks, Harriet Conklin, and even Mrs. Davis.
* TheIngenue: Harriet Conklin is kind, sweet and optimistic, suprisingly given her father Mr. Conklin is a MrViceGuy. While Miss Brooks is a nice person, she's somewhat too much a DeadpanSnarker to meet this trope.
* InstantIllness: In "Measles", Miss Brooks catches the measles within twelve hours of being exposed to them.
* InstantWakingSkills: Miss Brooks when waken by her alarm clock. Also happens when she's waken by a reporter in "Model Teacher". Sometimes, however, Miss Brooks is simply NotAMorningPerson.
* InstructionalFilm: In "Audio-Visual Experiment", Miss Brooks rents a filmed version of the poem "Lady of the Lake" to show her class after she's left early for the day. Unfortunately, a disgruntled employee of the educational film company had mixed up films and canisters in revenge. The boys in the class stay late to repeatedly watch "Sirens of the Screen, Past and Present". Later on, Mrs. Davis' lady's aid meeting rents "Shearing Sheep in Big Billibong, Australia" only to have a film with scenes backstage in a women's dressing room. The company tries to rectify the mistake by giving Miss Brooks a film about the workings of the board of education, but end up giving her one all about Las Vegas and gambling.
* {{Instrumentals}}/InstrumentalThemeTune: The opening and closing themes, composed by Wilbur Hatch.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Miss Brooks is friends with sixteen-year-old Walter Denton, and, to a lesser extent, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass. However, Miss Brooks herself would surely object to the label!
* InternalReveal: Many times. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity always ensues]]. Here are a few examples:
** In the "Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks offers to pretend to be Mrs. Boynton - that is, to say Mr. Boynton's ''wife'' - in order to impress the dean of the local college. What Miss Brooks doesn't know, but the audience does, is that she had unwittingly agreed to play the part of Mr. Boynton's ''mother''.
** In "Mrs. Davis reads Tea Leaves", Miss Brooks overhears a conversation between Mr. Boynton and Harriet, and jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Boynton is finally going to marry her and move with her to honeymoon cottage on the edge of town. [[spoiler: The audience hears the entire conversation. It turns out that Mr. Boynton wants to open a summer camp. Cue Miss Brooks stunned reaction when he proposes they have twenty kids (that is to say, campers). Not to mention the fact that Mr. Conklin also attempts to "propose".]]
** Similarly, in "June Bride", Walter Denton and the Conklins assume that Mr. Boynton has finally proposed to Miss Brooks, and the two are to be married that same day. In actuality, Miss Brooks had agreed to be the proxy for Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]'s French bride.
** In "Radio Bombay", a newscast on Walter's homemade radio forecasts the imminent arrival of a strong hurricane. Unfortunately, nobody is around to hear that the newscast originates from Bombay, India.
** In "Spare That Rod", Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass alter a ten year old letter they find addressed to a previous principal. The letter was from the head of the board, accusing the principal of being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his management of the school. They use a typewriter to readdress the letter to Principal Conklin.
** In "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis had been arrested after having unwittingly sold forged tickets to the [[RefugeInAudacity policeman's ball]]. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone soon end up being drawn into the scheme - and arrested - as well.]]
** Most significantly, in TheMovie. [[spoiler: Mr. Boynton tells Mrs. Davis that he finally intends to propose to Miss Brooks. Mrs. Davis soon reveals all to Miss Brooks, while pretending to tell her fortune.]]
* InTheLocalTongue: "Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo", in the episode of the same name. It's the name of an isolated lake deep in the wilderness. It's the local Indians' word for blue.
* IntimidatingRevenueService: In "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves", Miss Brooks is aghast to discover she's recieved a letter from the IRS:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Collector of Internal Revenue! Not what's the matter with him! I paid my taxes in January!
* IResembleThatRemark: In one episode, Miss Brooks suggests Mr. Conklin never had any friends. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Mr. Conklin replies that as a boy he was very good friends with his mother.]]
* IronicNickname: In "Wild Goose", Miss Brooks refers to DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass as "the brain."
* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: In the episode "Miss Brooks Writes About A Hobo," Miss Brooks seeks out a hobo to write an article entitled "The Vanishing Hobo." At the end of the episode, the hobo relates he had bought a set of new clothes with the money he earned from writing about "The Vanishing Schoolteacher."
* IsThisThingOn: Miss Brooks tests the microphone before beginning announcing duties at the titular "Walter v. Stretch Grudge Match".
* ItaliansTalkWithHands: Mr. Morelli, an Italian barber in "Four Leaf Clover", lives this trope. He never speaks without gesticulating.
* ItsALongStory: Sometimes, an episode will end with Miss Brooks returning home in the evening to discuss the events of the day with Mrs. Davis.
* ItsThePrincipleOfTheThing: In "Spare That Rod!" Mr. Conklin berates Miss Brooks for not having her blackboard cleared at the end of the day. He had gone into her classroom after school and found that a student had written "Old man Conklin is a birdbrain." When Miss Brooks protests her punishment, Mr. Conklin tells her it's the principle of the thing.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: In "Wild Goose Chase", Miss Brooks jokes about T.V. being a temporary fad. This had been a common prediction just a few years before the episode aired on television. It ''was'' still a common view when the radio version had played a couple years before.
* IWasHavingSuchANiceDream:
** The earliest radio episodes, including the premier "First Day", would often begin with Miss Brooks dreaming of some romantic/comedic adventure with Mr. Boynton. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness The format was very quickly dropped]], in favor of a brief introductory narration with Miss Brooks before the main action, and/or a typically offbeat breakfast conversation with landlady Mrs. Davis and student Walter Denton.
-->'''Narrator''': Yes, Connie Brooks can dream . . . .
** Occasionally, later television and radio episodes would feature dreams and abrupt ending thereof.
*** "The Magic Tree" sees Miss Brooks wake up after kissing a [[ItMakesSenseInContext magic-Christmas-tree-influenced]] Mr. Boynton.
*** "King and Brooks" sees Miss Brooks abruptly waken from a dream where she marries a maharajah.
*** [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Dream"]] sees Miss Brooks waken from a dream where she finally marries Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton for real in TheMovie GrandFinale.]]
* IWasQuiteALooker: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis' sister Angela claims to be a bathing beauty and provides her future husband, Gregory Farnsworth, with a photo of her from over thirty-years-before. Miss Brooks is asked to break the news that Angela is now a plump, middle-aged woman. Miss Brooks brings along smelling-salts to help break the news. Fortunately, Angela's fiance finds her to be still very attractive.
-->'''Gregory Farnsworth''': Oh, what a doll baby!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': ''(sniffs smelling salts'')
* JadedProfessional: Mrs. Carney in the 1952 "Christmas Show". Mrs. Carney is in charge of the gift exchange office at Sherry's Department Store. However, it is clear from the start that she is anything but cheerful about her duties. In fact, she is extremely frustrated by people exchanging their Christmas gifts (especially exchanging their gifts before Christmas). Outside her job, she is actually a charitable person, being part of Mrs. Conklins "Helping Hand Committee".
* {{Jingle}}: The show's sponsors had some pretty catchy ones:
** "Brush your teeth with Colgate/Colgate dental cream/It cleans your breath (what a toothpaste)/While it cleans your teeth."
** "Dream girl, dream girl/Beautiful Luster Cream girl/You owe your crowning glory to/A Luster Cream shampoo." (This one was set to the tune of "Toyland" from ''Theatre/BabesInToyland''.)
* JailedOneAfterAnother:
** Happens in "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis is tricked into selling counterfeit tickets to the Policeman's Ball and jailed overnight. When released she goes to stay with her sister Angela, too embarrassed to tell how she had been tricked. Mrs. Davis really should have said something; Miss Brooks decides to sell the tickets to help the charity drive. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone end up jailed in quick succession.
** In the radio episode "Student Government Day". The Madison High School students were supposed to be elected to city positions for the day, but the police didn't get the memo. "Police Chief Denton" and "Mayor Harriet Conklin" try to order a raid on the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company", but are foiled by a patrolman. Walter Denton threatens to have the cop "pounding a beat in a swamp". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, the "mayor" and "chief of police" and a number of other student government officials are jailed.
* JingletheCoins: In "Old Marblehead", a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". Mr. Conklin jingles the coins in the tin with which he to collects the fines he levies under his "carelessness code". More notable in the radio original, for obvious reasons.
* JiveTurkey: Orville Mason, a dance instructor who hangs out at Elmer's Malt Shop, in "The Mambo". Walter Denton chooses to describe Mason as a "jive hound" instead of as a turkey.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe:
** In "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin explains to Miss Brooks his plan to get All-American football player and high school coach Biff Mooney to work for Madison High School. Rather than first going about his plan and bragging later.
** In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Stone threatens to fire Mr. Conklin once Stone's elected to the new post of "Coordinator of Education". This sets up the subplot where Mr. Conklin runs against Mr. Stone to head the school board.
* KarmicJackpot: Happens several times:
** One example is "The Festival", where, by loaning their money and exchanging outfits with the hardworking cleaning women and custodian (so they'll have something nice to wear to the festival) - Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton win the prize for best costume. True to form, they proceed to split the proceeds with the cleaning woman and custodian.
** Also happens in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Miss Brooks organizes a food drive for Mr. Whipple, who she mistakenly believes is impoverished. This so affects the misery millionaire, that he donates the money to build the new gymnasium Madison High School needs.
** Miss Brooks wins the Karmic Jackpot grand prize in TheMovie GrandFinale. Miss Brooks' good deeds are finally awarded, when she achieves her SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Connie Brooks is often unwillingly made privy to Walter Denton's latest prank. Miss Brooks has to keep quiet or risk having Walter suspended or expelled, sometimes making her an almost ''de facto'' confederate to his schemes.
** i.e. "Cure That Habit" forces Miss Brooks to stay quiet about Walter's having sent a postcard to the titular alcoholism support group in Mr. Conklin's name.
** "Wild Goose Chase" has Miss Brooks be forced to keep quiet about Walter pretending to be a quiz show host, and having tricked Mr. Conklin in believing he won a free T.V. set.
** "The Cafeteria Strike" sees Miss Brooks have to cover up an impending protest by the students, led by Walter Denton.
** "Dress Code Protest" sees Miss Brooks try to dodge Mr. Conklin's discovering Walter's idiotic scheme to protest the principal's new dress code.
** "The Sweater" has Walter Denton put Miss Brook's name to an expensive present purchased by Miss Enright and gifted to Mr. Boynton. Miss Brooks is quite unwittingly pulled into the deception, but is loathe to reveal it as it results in an atypically amorous Mr. Boynton.
** "Stretch Has A Problem" sees a different kind of secret kept by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks must keep secret Stretch's crush on Harriet Conklin, while keeping the lovesick DumbJock ready, willing and able to play in the state basketball tournament.
** "The Grudge Match" again deals with the Stretch-Harriet-Walter love triangle, as Miss Brooks must cover up the fact that Stretch Snodgrass went to the movies with Harriet Conklin, Walter's designated [[LoveInterest squeeze.]]
** Miss Brooks is quite the unwitting secret keeper. In "New School Bus", she has to hide the fact that Mr. Boynton bought an old paddy wagon to serve as a bus for Madison's sports teams.
* KidSidekick: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. He often sees her at lunch in the cafeteria, and will play a major part or even instigate the ZanyScheme of the week.
* KindheartedCatLover: Mrs. Davis.
* KissDiss: At the end of "Capistrano's Revenge", Miss Brooks kisses Mr. Conklin, Bones Snodgrass, and Walter Denton on the cheek in appreciation for helping her save a swallow's life. When she goes to kiss her LoveInterest, the shy Mr. Boynton, he blushes and runs out the door!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The big one always gets away!
* KnittingPregnancyAnnouncement: Misread by Miss Brooks in "Little Visitor". The fact that Mrs. Conklin hasn't been seen at school for months, and is known to be knitting many of tiny outfits leads Miss Brooks to jump to the conclusion In fact, the only thing the Mrs. Conklin is expecting is to take care of her sister's pet monkey for a couple weeks.
* LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine: Mr. Boynton typically wears a labcoat whenever he's seen in his classroom, the Biology room, at school. In "Madison Country Club", Mr. Conklin dismissively refers to the coat as a "burlap smock".
* LabPet: Mr. Boynton has a habit of naming many of his lab animals. However, that doesn't prevent him from doing fatal tests on them. In "New Girl in Town", it's revealed that he has been burying his mouse martyrs to science in the athletic field. Moreover, Miss Brooks has been (reluctantly) helping him.
** The trope is averted in the case of Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. Although Mac is usually kept in the lab, he's a personal pet and not used for lab tests. Usually Mac's kept in a separate cage. However in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Boynton seems to have temporarily placed Mcdougall with a number of other frogs.
* LadyInWaiting: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks' dream sequence features several ladies in waiting serving her.
* LargeHam: Mr. Conklin
* LargeHamAnnouncer: In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks plays this trope to the hilt, sardonically giving a play-by-play of the boxing match between Stretch and Walter. Complete with faked commercials:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam patch on it first.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin is Honored" begins with Mrs. Davis relating her sister Angela's recent brush with laser-guided amnesia. Later, Mr. Conklin ''fakes'' a case of his own.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** A good example is ''The Festival''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton lend their clothes and cash to the hardworking cleaning woman and custodian, so they can attend a costume party. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton wear the clothes of the cleaning woman and custodian. They win a large cash prize - and of course split it with the custodian and the cleaning woman.]]
** In TheMovie, [[spoiler: Miss Brooks spends the movie tutoring Gary Nolan and helping him reconcile with his father. This, with a little subterfuge by Mrs. Davis thrown in, makes Mr. Boynton jealous enough to finally get serious. Later, Mr. Boynton's invitation for his lonely, recently widowed mother, to move to Madison, has him buy a house. Again, Mrs. Davis steps in and arranges to have the elder Mrs. Boynton as her new boarder. The upshot: Miss Brooks finally gets to marry Boynton, the two have their HappyEnding.]]
* LastMinuteHookup: After eight years on the radio, and four years (concurrently) on television, Connie Brooks finally gets Phillip Boynton to propose marriage in the last ten minutes of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. Even then, the proposal is ''de facto'' delivered by [[TheMatchmaker Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother.]]
* LastNameBasis: Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin always address each other formally, even outside of school.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Used from time to time. This example comes from "Hawkins Travel Agency". Miss Brooks is trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to France . . . .
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with a French accent): Oh, there is nothing like [[GayParee Paree]] in the summer. The Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre Palais, the Place de Concorde . . . and Piccadilly Circus.
--> '''Mr. Stone''' Miss Brooks, Piccadilly Circus happens to be in London.
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with an co*ckney accent) : Right-O governor, but if you were so nearby, you wouldn't want to miss that now, would you?
* LateToThePunchline: Miss Brooks remarks to Mr. Boynton that stealing a kiss is "petting larceny". A couple minutes later, Mr. Boynton gets the joke and starts to laugh.
* LateForSchool: Miss Brooks is late for school a couple of times. It's SeriousBusiness, because she's a teacher!
** In "The Party Line", Miss Brooks is too late to catch the city bus to school. Walter Denton tried to warn her that his car was in the shop, but her [[GossipyHens chatty]] party line neighbor had the phone tied up.
** In "Wake-Up Plan", Miss Brooks sleeps in and misses half a day of school. Mrs. Davis had accidentally given Miss Brooks a sleeping pill instead of an aspirin.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale Walter Denton is late for English class. He nearly barrels over Mr. Conklin running through the hall. He arrives just in time to tell Harriet the drive shaft from his car fell out . . . then the bell rings and the class ends.
* LaughingAtYourOwnJokes: Mr. Boynton did this on a regular basis, both on radio and on television. His jokes are rarely that funny.
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Boynton gives Miss Brooks a joke-book and cracks himself up trying to tell the joke.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Now, when I first pick "My Dog Has Fleas" on the banjo like that, Miss Brooks, we spring our first humorous anecdote. You can read it right from the book. Here we are.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thanks. What's that you played on the banjo, Mr. Interlocutor?
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': "My Dog Has Fleas".
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Funny kind of a dog. My dog has pups. OH NO!
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': (laughs)
-->'''Walter Denton''': (laughs) How corny can you get!
** In "The Auction", Mr. Boynton breaks himself up over the idea of leading his frogs on a leash downtown and telling the public to [[IncrediblyLamePun "get hopping"]] to Madison High.
** At the start of "Non-Fraternization Policy", Mr. Boynton tells a long, involved joke involving three turn-of-the-century Irish policemen and a horse. Mr. Boynton finds the joke funny. Nobody else does.
* LaughingMad: "Hobby Show" ends with Miss Brooks laughing hysterically, and smearing finger paints over her face.
* LaughOfLove: "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Bones, Son of Cyrano" (the TV remake)]], Mr. Boynton writes down a poem from ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Boynton lends it to Walter Denton so the teen could use it to woo "the fair Harriet" [[ItMakesSenseInContext by anonymously hiding the poem in Harriet's lunch]]. Unfortunately, Harriet recognizes Mr. Boynton's handwriting and immediately becomes a SmittenTeenageGirl. Harriet returns Mr. Boynton's poem as a gesture of her love, madly giggling.
* LaymansTerms: In "Life Can Be Bones", Mr. Boynton explains the concept of the "missing link" to Miss Brooks and Walter Denton. He uses layman's terms to describe what exactly the "missing link" between ancient man and the primates would be and how it's fossilized skull would look. Mr. Boynton doesn't realize that Miss Brooks had just read his definition in a introductory book on paleontology; in fact, Mr. Boynton plagerized the book's description word-for-word.
* LayoutOfASeason: The fourth season of the television series began with the aptly named "Transition Show". Madison High School is torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin find new work at Miss Nester's Private School.
** The concurrent radio show and subsequent [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale finale]] [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored this move]] and continued at Madison High as per usual.
* LazyBum: The hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria" in "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* LeadIn: Often, an episode begins with Miss Brooks conversing with Mrs. Davis over breakfast. While the conversation is usually relevant to the plot of the episode, occasionally it will just be a wacky interlude before the main story comes into play.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: An interesting example is found in the radio episode "Reckless Driving".
** Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Harriet and Walter are on Mrs. Davis' porch listening to the radio.
** Creator/SteveAllen suddenly drives up asking for the way to Hollywood - turns out he's going to host the summer replacement for ''Our Miss Brooks''.
** The radio is tuned to ''Our Miss Brooks'' Miss Brooks calling it the show "with the school teacher with my name".
** Miss Brooks, incidentally, thinks Eve Arden is "a doll". Mr. Conklin hates the pompous principal, while Walter Denton likes "one character in particular."
** Eve Arden announces her summer replacement, saying she would be listening to Steve Allen's show that summer. Everybody on the porch commending her nice speech. Allen, however, wonders if she'll really be listening. Cue Eve Arden saying of course she would, he has her job!
*** This scene wasn't duplicated in the television remake, "Trial by Jury". [[spoiler: There, the program ended with Miss Brooks pleading her innocence in court before a jury with Mr. Conklin as a member.]]
* LetsYouAndHimFight: In "Stretch Is Accused of Professionalism", teenaged DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass enters a circus wrestling contest and wins a prize. Unfortunately, this came to the attention of rival Clay City High School principal Jason Brille. By a technical reading of school board rules, this makes Stretch a "professional athlete" and ineligible for school sports. Miss Brooks tries to get the wrestler, visiting Madison High School to deliver Stretch the prize money, to attack school board head Mr. Stone. In that way, she hopes proof of the wrestler's violent nature would lead to Mr. Stone waiving any penalty against Stretch.
* LetXBeTheUnknown: "Project X" has Mr. Conklin develop the eponymous secret project as a way of impressing school board president Mr. Stone.
* LickedByTheDog: Mr. Conklin softens on several occasions. One such example is the episode "The Miserable Caballero", where Mr. Conklin softens toward Benny Romero, a runaway Mexican boy.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: At work with the adults characters. Miss Brooks, from near the start, is after the position of Madison High School Head of the English Department. She never gets it; obstructions include blabbermouths sharing the "Party Line" and a nervous nerve-specialist claiming she's overwrought "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". At least once, Mr. Boynton suffers from this trope; his attempt to be hired as a college professor ends in HilarityEnsues with Miss Brooks trying to masquerade as his mother ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton). Even Mr. Conklin can't get a promotion; he's the subject of a false scandal in "The Little Visitor", and otherwise embarrassed in "Project X". In the penultimate television episode, "Principal For A Day", Miss Brooks' leadership of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School is short-lived.
[[spoiler: Miss Brooks does achieve her actual SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton, in TheMovie GrandFinale]].
* ListOfTransgressions: In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin is tricked into believing he's about to be fired for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his [[DeanBitterman administration of Madison High School]]. As a result, he requests Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass provide him with a list of his transgressions:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Now, if you will read me your bill of particulars considering my various infamies . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': We're all going to read some of it, Mr. Conklin. Will you begin Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thank you, Mr. Boynton. Whereas I, Osgood Conklin, Principal of Madison High School, desiring to improve relations between myself, the faculty, and the student body . . . your turn, Walter.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Ahem. Do promise to keep the following ever before me as a reminder of past sins of which I am heartily ashamed.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Which I ain't never gonna repeat no more.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Splendid. Splendid. Please continue.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Wait until you hear this! I readily admit on many occasions I have acted like a pompous, puffed up, ill tempered, addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Forgive me, but it seems to me you have omitted maladjusted.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please don't interrupt, that's in the next paragraph. Now, where was I?
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh yes. Addlepated blowhard. And on other occasions, I have bellowed like a bull . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Screamed like an elephant . . .
-->'''Walter Denton''': Hissed like a viper . . .
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Snorted like a buffalo . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': And otherwise exhibited the behavior of a maladjusted nincompoop.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Oh, oh, oh, there it is!
* LiteralMinded: Mr. Jensen, the school custodian, makes a few radio appearances. He insists on interpreting figures of speech and phrases literally. Thus, to Miss Brooks' consternation (i.e. "School Safety Advisor") any attempt at conversation with him quickly turns into a chore.
* TheLittleDetecto: Walter and Miss Brooks use a Geiger counter in "Rare Black Orchid" to search for uranium. Walter had discovered some on his shoe and concluded he had unknowingly stepped in uranium recently.
* LivingLegend: Two, at least:
** In "The Big Game", there's former high school football star "Snakehips", whose high score in the big game won him a job as a vice-president.
** In "Safari O'Tool", there's Mrs. Davis's beau, a famous jungle explorer. [[spoiler: He's a fraud.]]
* LivingStatue:
** In "Living Statues", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton are accidently glued into place.
** In "Hobbies", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin pretend to be wax figures in order to dodge Mr. Stone. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* LocalHangout: Marty's Malt Shop, located across the street from Madison High School, is popular with students and faculty alike.
* LockedInAFreezer: Happens twice:
** In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin is locked in the cafeteria freezer.
** In "Male Superiority", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are trapped in a meat locker. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks is the only one who doesn't panic.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Gary Nolan in the movie.
* LongList: Usually when Mrs. Davis describes recipe ingredients.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** In "Wakeup Plan", [[spoiler: after accidently ingesting Mrs. Davis' sleeping pills, Mr. Conklin is caught sleeping in his office by the head of the board, Mr. Stone, and his assistant, Mr. Gleason. Miss Brooks successfully argues that Mr. Conklin was only seen sleeping during the lunch hour and after school - that is, on his own time.]]
** "Department Store Contest" [[spoiler: features an unusual case of ''accidental'' loophole abuse. Miss Brooks wins a prize when a childhood letter to Santa Claus is accidently entered in a children's contest at Sherry's Department. As she wrote the letter ''when she was a child'', she was able to walk away with the prize and avoid trouble.]]
* LostFoodGrievance:
** In "The Honest Burglar", and "The Burglar, [[SoundToScreenAdaptation the television remake]], Mr. Conklin is furious at a food thief who stole the fried chicken his wife left for him.
** In the radio episode "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to impress Mr. Boynton by framing Mr. Boynton for eating Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner and then taking the blame for him. ItMakesSenseInContext. The plan goes south when teenager [[BigEater Walter Denton]] eats Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner before it can be delivered to Mr. Boynton.
* LostVoicePlot: Mr. Conklin loses his voice in "Public Speaker's Nightmare", just before he's about to greet important officials from the national board of educations. Unusually for the trope, the cause is psychosomatic.
* LovableJock: Stretch Snodgrass, Madison High's star athlete. He's [[DumbJock dimwitted]], but good natured to the point where he's willing to transfer schools if it'll get his best friend Walter Denton on the Madison football team ("Two Way Stretch Snodgrass). Stretch is apparently very popular, when he [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally vandalizes the school]] in "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks and Walter gets a crew of students to fix the damage and cover for him.
* LoveAtFirstSight: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks falls in love with Mr. Boynton the first time they meet.
* LoveHurts: Miss Brooks is deeply in love with largely ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. Because FailureIsTheOnlyOption, Miss Brooks' schemes to get Mr. Boynton to marry her inevitably fail [[spoiler: until TheMovie GrandFinale when Miss Brooks finally marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* LoveLetter / LoveLetterLunacy: The plot of the episode "Bones, Son of Cyrano". A love letter gets misdirected and misinterpreted multiple times. HilarityEnsues. [[spoiler: Especially, when Mr. Conklin believes Miss Brooks is in love with him!]] This is a remake of the radio episode "Poetry Mixup". The only difference is Stretch Snodgrass is replaced by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother]].

* AlmostKiss: In "Magic Christmas Tree", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton almost kiss under the mistletoe. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton [[SneezeOfDoom sneezes]] as he's allergic to mistletoe. Later, Mr. Boynton kisses Miss Brooks under the influence of [[ItMakesSenseInContext the magic christmas tree]]. [[spoiler: However, it turns out both the AlmostKiss and the kiss were AllJustADream. The actual TheBigDamnKiss doesn't take place under midway through TheMovie GrandFinale, although Miss Brooks would steal a few minor kisses over the course of the series]].
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: Subverted in "Connie and Bonnie" when Miss Brooks impersonates her nonexistent twin. Played straight in "Orphan Twins" with Mike and Danny.
* AlwaysInClassOne: As Miss Brooks is the protagonist, and her actual teaching is rarely in focus, it should be largely irrelevant who's in what class. Nevertheless, student characters Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass are almost always stated to be in the same class of Miss Brooks'. This, in a school, with multiple English teachers. Notably subverted in the episode "Faculty Cheerleader", when Mr. Conklin assigns the three to different classes to punish Walter.
* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: In "Blue Goldfish", the titular fish in the aquarium in Mr. Boynton's lab. Miss Brooks initially mistakes it for a tropical fish. The reason it's blue? [[FridgeLogic The fish is cold, because Principal Conklin won't heat the school to a proper temperature.]]
* AmbulanceChaser: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to read the contract's fine print. Lampshaded when the lawyer admits to Miss Brooks that he's been disbarred in several states.
* AmusingInjuries: Sometimes Miss Brooks suffers from klutziness around Osgood Conklin, leaving the choleric Mr. Conklin the victim of a variety of slapstick indignities. "Living Statues" involves her opening the door of the Principal's office and slamming it into his face. A variation occurred in "Here Is Your Past" where Miss Brooks accidentally gets Mr. Conklin to sneeze so badly he dislocates his shoulders and cracks his ribs! In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks does one better, dropping a barbell on his foot!
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': It's alright Miss Brooks. I have another one!
* {{Angrish}}: Mr. Conklin, on occasion. The following except is from the episode "Clay City English Teacher":
-->'''Mr. Conklin:''' Now, see here Brill. I won't have it. You can't do this. I'll have you...\\
'''Mr. Brill:''' Oh, stop puffing Osgood. You've come to a station.
* AndThatsTerrible: In "The Egg", Mr. Conklin is the DesignatedVillain for wanting to take a photograph of a hatching chick. Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are worried the chick will be harmed by the flashbulbs.
* AnimalReactionShot: Mrs. Davis' pet cat Minerva and Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall occasionally take an interest in people's conversations. For example, in "The Magic Tree", Mrs. Davis' cat Minerva reacts furiously to Miss Brooks' recital of "A Visit From St. Nicholas"
--> '''Miss Brooks''': T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse . . . .
--> '''Minerva''': MEOW!
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, Minerva.
* AnimalTesting: Part of Mr. Boynton's job as a Biology Teacher is to experiment on animals. ForScience of course. Miss Brooks seems slightly squeamish about the whole thing. It's played for laughs, if anything. One episode, "New Girl In Town", has Miss Brooks assist Mr. Boynton bury mice killed for the cause in the school athletic field. Harriet Conklin, jealous of and attempting to scare off said new girl, implies to the girl's mother that Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are burying ''human'' victims.
* AnimatedCreditsOpening: In the program's original primetime run, the last (1955-1956) season featured the animated opening [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiULeQTwaJQ seen here]]
* AnnoyingLaugh:
** Mrs. Davis' sister Angela has a high pitched laugh, like a schoolgirl. The annoyance comes from the fact that she's a short, middle-aged woman. It's especially notable in the episode "Angela's Wedding".
** Walter Denton has a high, discordant laugh to go along with his squeaky teenage voice. In "Mr. Leblanc Needs $50" his girlfriend Harriet Conklin walks up to him while he's laughing:
-->'''Harriet''': How long have you been standing there, cackling to yourself?
* AnticlimacticParent:
** In "Former Student Visits", Miss Brooks is worried that a visiting former student (who's now a doctor) will reveal her true age (her early thirties) to Mr. Boynton's mother. Mr. Boynton's mother was advising her son to marry a young woman. The cat gets out of the bag; fortunately Miss Brooks' former student's ''father'' was a student of Mr. Boynton's mother in elementary school. The elder Mrs. Boynton then suggests her son marry a woman his age.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, the elder Mrs. Boynton appears near the end of the picture. Agreeing to board with Mrs. Davis, she frees Phillip Boynton to marry Connie Brooks and give Connie [[KarmicJackpot a much deserved]] and [[SeriesGoal long desired]] HappilyEverAfter.
* AntiSchoolUniformsPlot: A variation in the 1949 episode, "Dress Code Protest". Madison High's students proclaim a "Spirit Week". This festival is described by Miss Brooks as a "malevolent Mardi-Gras" where the kids wear outlandish clothes each day of the week. One such day was "Girls wear slacks, boys wear one shoe only. In response to the weeks' "festivities", Principal Conklin institutes a strict dress clothes - among other things, banning girls from wearing pants to school. Walter Denton decides to protest the dress code by wearing clothes banned to the distaff side of Madison High - so he shows up wearing a dress.
* {{Anvilicious}}: ''Mr. Whipple" sees Miss Brooks and her friends try to help an old man whom they believe is destitute and starving. It turns out he's a [[TheScrooge rich tycoon]] on a diet. However, the generosity of Miss Brooks and her friends so affects Mr. Whipple that he takes them out for dinner, and decides to lobby for a new school gymnasium. It's an entertaining episode nonetheless.
* TheArtifact:
** Walter Denton driving Miss Brooks to school was an artifact from the first audition show with actress Shirley Booth. There, Mrs. Davis has a teenaged daughter whom Walter Denton was dating. Mrs. Davis' daughter dumped Walter, leaving him to reluctantly take Miss Brooks to school. Mrs. Davis' daughter was adapted out by the time Eve Arden auditioned for the role, leaving it unexplained how it came about that Walter drives Miss Brooks to school almost every morning. One supposes it's just because Walter's a TeachersPet.
** "Stretch" Snograss' nickname was an artifact from the radio episode where he was first introduced, "Stretch the Basketball Star." His nickname is said to come about from the fact he's six foot five inches tall. When the program went to television, its readily apparent Leonard Smith, the actor who played Snodgrass, was nowhere near that height (and is, about the height of Eve Arden). Its never again explained how he became known as "Stretch." The fact is lampshaded in the episode "Baseball Slide."
-->'''Miss Brooks''' (in greeting): Why, Stretch.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': [[LiteralMinded I don't know. That's what everybody calls me.]]
* ArtisticTitle: In syndication, Our Miss Brooks has the title and opening credits appearing on a blackboard. One of the openings used during the show's run had the opening credits also appearing on a blackboard, with Miss Brooks herself erasing them - only for the next set of credits to appear to the consternation of a confused Miss Brooks!
* AsideComment: Miss Brooks makes aside comments sometimes, under the guise of talking to herself. This is more prevalent on the radio than on television.
* AsideGlance: Miss Brooks does this a few times in the [[TheMovie the theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], i.e. her confused expression upon meeting Mrs. Davis. However, her expressions were very much testament of her feelings rather than an attempt to break the fourth wall.
* ASimplePlan: "The Birthday Bag" sees Miss Brooks' friends try to throw her a surprise birthday party and buy her an alligator skin purse as a gift. HilarityEnsues.
* AskAStupidQuestion: Miss Brooks sometimes resorts to giving a stupid answer in response.
* AsleepInClass:
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", [[DumbJock star athlete]] Stretch Snodgrass' late nights [[ItMakesSenseInContext "rumbering"]] cause him to fall asleep in school. In this case, it's not the dimwitted student's marks that are at stake, but Madison's winning the big football game with Clay City High.
** Another episode has Walter Denton accidently blurt to Miss Brooks that he sometimes takes "forty winks" in his class, because his teacher would have to be a "co*ckeyed wonder" to see him napping in his seat behind Stretch. To Walter's horror, he realizes Miss Brooks is the "co*ckeyed wonder" to whom he was referring.
* AssemblyLineFastForward: In "Vitamin E-4", Mr. Conklin, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton make a mess when manufacturing the eponymous "vitamin".
* {{Auction}}: In "The Auction", [[SoundToScreenAdaptation a radio episode remade for television]], Madison High School holds an auction to raise funds for children's playground equipment. A local philanthropist even donates an entire house full of furniture. HilarityEnsues when DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass mixes up addresses, and Miss Brooks inadvertently auctions off Mr. Conklin's furniture instead:
--->'''Miss Brooks''': [[OhCrap Mr. Conklin . . . it was your house!]] . . . Well, there's only one way to settle this. Gather round, folks, gather round. What am I bid for me and Stretch Snodgrass?
* BackseatDriver: In "Game At Clay City", Mr. Conklin appoints himself navigator and gives a steady stream of orders to Miss Brooks.
* BackToSchool: The episode "Mr. Lathrop Returns to School". Mr. Lathrop (voiced by Jim Backus) is a successful entrepreneur and self-made man, [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin choosing to return to school to complete his high school diploma.]] Unfortunately, Mr. Lathrop insists on rearranging school clubs and school management in the manner of a corporation, and being a friend of the Head of the Board, is able to do this unopposed. Miss Brooks resorts to a ZanyScheme; she invites her landlady Mrs. Davis and one of Mrs. Davis' elderly friends to go in a new class with Mr. Lathrop. Mr. Lathrop flees Madison High School when he finds himself in a combination sewing circle and day nursery for Mrs. Davis' friends' grandchild.
* BadBadActing: In "Acting Director", the school faculty tries to impress a visiting talent scout from Creator/WarnerBrothers. Features over-the-top bad acting from Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Talbot. The episode ends when Miss Brooks herself tries to impress with an overemotional (and dressed) portrayal of Lady Godiva!
* BadLiar: Mr. Boynton is a terrible liar. In "Trial by Jury", it's revealed the very act of lying gives him a psychosomatic case of the hiccouphs.
* BadLuckCharm: "Four Leaf Clover" has Miss Brooks find the unlucky charm. Lo and behold, all four tires of Miss Brooks' car blow, she's forced to pay a large fine for stepping on a lawn, she knocks over a table of trinkets in front of the store, is threatened with arrest by a policeman, and is finally quarantined in the same building as Mr. Conklin. Miss Brooks gives the unlucky clover to a dishonest car mechanic.
* BadlyBatteredBabysitter: Miss Brooks falls victim to this trope in "Babysitting for Three", "Babysitting New Year's Eve" and "Measles".
* BadToTheLastDrop: Mrs. Davis' coffee was usually fine (the time she made "Bulgarian Coffee" notwithstanding). However, being a CordonBleughChef, Mrs. Davis sometimes makes horrid liquid (albeit non-alcoholic) drinks that are truly BadToTheLastDrop.
* BarbershopEpisode:
** In the radio episode, "The Hair-Do", Miss Brooks goes to the beauty salon. SitcomArchNemesis Daisy Enright tells Antoine to give Miss Brooks an inappropriate hairdo.
** To a lesser degree, "Fargo Whiskers". Harriet advises Miss Brooks that she can get more interest from Mr. Boynton by changing her hairstyle. Miss Brooks goes to the hairdresser and gets a hairstyle with three buns on the side and the back. Later, Miss Brooks tries a series of wigs. Unfortunately, some misinformation from Miss Brooks' landlady Mr. Davis makes Mr. Boynton think that Miss Brooks is only getting new hairstyles is because Brooks' suffering from overwork.
* BarelyThereSwimwear: In the episode "Friday the Thirteenth"; while looking through a photo album with Mrs. Davis, Connie finds a photo of herself in a "French model bathing suit". The picture's described as unsuitable for the yearbook, although Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are very impressed with the revealing photo nonetheless.
* TheBartender: In "Babysitting New Year's Eve", Mrs. Davis has a friend who's a bartender. She invites him over to prepare the punch for her New Year's party. Mrs. Davis' bartender friend is allowed New Year's off as a condition of his employment. The reason? [[FridgeLogic The bartender hates drunks.]]
* BathsAreFun: In "Stretch Has A Problem", Miss Brooks' "feet were ready to come off" participating in a snake dance. The rally was held in honor of the Madison High School basketball team's departure to the state tournament. The sore and tired Miss Brooks spends the rest of the episode trying to take a bath. Alas, she's continually interrupted by somebody coming to the door before she can get into the tub:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': ''(singing, while filling the bathtub with water)'' Singing in the bathtub, nothing can go wrong. Singing in the bathtub . . . .
-->''Doorbell rings''
--> '''Miss Brooks''': ''(singing)'' [[DeadpanSnarker Oh, I should live so long!]]
* BatmanInMyBasem*nt: In "The Jockey", Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis hide a jockey ''and his racehorse'' in their garage until he can win a big race and pay his debts.
* BatmanParody: In the episode "New School TV Set" (aired 1951), Miss Brooks and Mrs. David criticize the television set at school as scholastically and culturally useless. All the students were watching were westerns, murder mysteries and horror stories. Miss Brooks remarks that there was one semi-educational program on the day before, "The Batman Eat Up The Dean of Harvard" - suggesting Miss Brooks is joking, but doesn't realize who or what Batman is.
* BavarianFireDrill: Mr. Conklin places himself in charge practically ''everywhere'' he goes. This is in spite of the fact that his authority as principal is really only good at Madison High School. The "Thanksgiving Show" is a good example. Mr. Conklin arrives at Mrs. Davis' house and quickly puts himself in command, ordering about the others in the setup of the dining room table.
* BeautifulDreamer: At the end of "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Boynton falls asleep on a chair in the hall. Miss Brooks doesn't wake him up, but sits beside him. Mr. Boynton whistles in his sleep!
* BedsheetGhost: Walter Denton dresses as one in "Halloween Party".
* BeleagueredAssistant: In "The Dancer", Miss Brooks discusses with Mrs. Davis the fact that Mr. Conklin can never hold onto a secretary. Fed up with being yelled at by the hotheaded principal, they inevitably quit. The newest secretary quit before she started, she heard Mr. Conklin yelling at her predecessor. The result? Miss Brooks is forced to play the role of Mr. Conklin's beleaguered assistant when he finds himself without a secretary . . . Hilarity Ensues.
* BellyDancer: Belly dancers appear in Miss Brooks' India themed dream in the episode "King and Brooks".
* BetaCouple: The alpha couple was Miss Brooks' '''slow''' romance with ObliviousToLove Phillip Boynton. In the background, was the often goofy teenaged romance of beta couple Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin.
* BettyAndVeronica: Miss Enright was another, more glamorous English teacher who competed with Miss Brooks for Boynton's affection.
* BewareOfViciousDog: Mr. Whipple's guard dogs in the episode "Mr. Whipple".
* BigBrotherIsWatching: The point of Mr. Conklin's "Project X" in the episode of the same name. Mr. Conklin's system allows him to listen in to what's going on in every room in the school, including the female faculty room, the boiler room, and the roof.
* TheBigDamnKiss: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton is jealous of Miss Brooks spending time with millionaire Lawrence Nolan. Wondering how he can compete with a millionaire, Miss Brooks suggests that "a good offense is the best defense." Mr. Boynton is initially [[ObliviousToLove clueless as per normal]]. Suddenly, he has a EurekaMoment, his eyes lights up, goes back to the Mrs. Davis' door and passionately kisses Miss Brooks. [[WhamShot Something he hadn't had nerve to do for the previous eight years of radio or eight years of television.]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Like, wow.
[[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry and live HappilyEverAfter.]]
* TheBigEasy: In one episode, Mr. Boynton falsely claims to have learnt some French serving in the army [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII during the war]]. A skeptical Miss Brooks counters that Mr. Boynton was stationed in the United States, and he knew it. Mr. Boynton insists that he was stationed in New Orleans, and spent a lot of time in the French Quarter.
* BigEater: Walter Denton. It comes with being a teenaged boy.
* BigFancyHouse:
** Mr. Whipple, in the episode of the same name, lives in mansion guarded by vicious dogs.
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] the Nolans live in a large mansion, complete with a butler and additional servants.
* BigFriendlyDog: The eponymous dog in "Peanuts, The Great Dane".
* BigSecret:
** In "Stolen Aerial," Miss Brooks is able to get a discount from a wolfish television repairman who wants to go out with her. Miss Brooks is advised to keep her discount a secret so as not to get many more freeloaders wanting the same deal. Too late, Mrs. Davis and Walter Denton had already let the cat out of the bag. Miss Brooks gets deluged with broken aerials and even television sets needing repair. However, Miss Brooks keeps her promise; she hides the real reason for her sudden television-equipment windfall from Mr. Conklin. Unfortunately, the television repairman had accidentally lent Miss Brooks Mr. Conklin's checkered television aerial. Mr. Conklin concludes Miss Brooks is a [[Literature/OliverTwist "female fa*gin"]], using Mr. Boynton and several high school students to run a television-equipment theft ring.
** The BigSecret trope again appears in "The Jewel Robbery." Mr. Conklin accidentally breaks a jewelry store window when carrying a bad a laundry to the cleaners. Conklin believes the police want him for the inadvertent vandalism. In reality, they're looking for a thief who had robbed the jewelry store a short time before.
* BigShutUp: Mr. Conklin, to MotorMouth Walter Denton.
* BigStormEpisode: In the episode "Radio Bombay", Miss Brooks and the Madison High gang are convinced that a fierce hurricane is on the way. The only problem is that the broadcast they're listening to originates from Bombay, India . . . .
* BigWordShout: "Now GO!", Mr. Conklin's favored expression when ordering someone out of his office. He make extensive use of this trope on other occasions as well!
* BindleStick: In "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo", the "Earl of Peoria" is mentioned as carrying a bindle stick. Later, when Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Mr. Conklin, and Mrs. Davis [[ItMakesSenseInContext masquerade as hobos in order to apprehend the titular hobo]], they also have bindle sticks in their gear.
* BirthdayEpisode / BirthdayPartyGoesWrong: A mild example is the episode "The Birthday Bag" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of the radio episode "The Surprise Party"). The Conklins are throwing Miss Brooks a surprise birthday party at six o'clock, however, she visits the Conklins to try and buy a purse from Harriet at five o'clock. As a result, when Miss Brooks' friends arrive at the house to help setup the party, they each exclaim "MISS BROOKS!"
--> '''Miss Brooks''': If anyone says Miss Brooks once more, I'm going to change my name to Elsie Pumpernickel!
** While the surprise was partially ruined, the party eventually goes off well with everyone giving Miss Brooks her present, and singing Happy Birthday!
* BlackComedyBurst: At the crisis point in [[TheMovie the theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], a depressed Miss Brooks jokes about playing Russian Roulette.
* {{Blackmail}}: In "Threat to Abolish Football", Miss Brooks, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass derail Mr. Conklin's [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin threat to abolish football]] through blackmail. Mr. Conklin had been using the school shop class to fix his roof, an act that could get him fired. Mr. Conklin relents and allows football to continue at Madison High School. However, Mr. Conklin gets the last laugh. He arm-twists Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton into shingling his roof.
* BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce: In the episode "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque", Mr. Boynton prepares a "mild" hot sauce for his cookout as he believes his usual sauce would be too much for his guests. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Walter Denton cook up a blazing mixture of tabasco and horseradish to spring on Miss Brooks' rival Miss Enright. However, a mix-up results in Miss Brooks receiving her own doctored dish. No matter, Miss Brooks can hold her hot sauce. She eats calmly and remains a DeadpanSnarker throughout. The same can't be said of Miss Enright and Mr. Conklin. They eat Mr. Boynton's supposedly minor sauce and run away practically screaming for water!]]
* BlindingCameraFlash: The obnoxious reporter in "The Model Teacher" subjects Miss Brooks to several.
* BlindWithoutEm: Mr. Conklin and Mrs. Davis. Mr. Conklin suffers this trope with a vengeance in "Living Statues" and "Cure That Habit".
* {{Blipvert}}: In "The Auction", Miss Brooks suggests a blipvert to cheaply advertize a charity auction at Madison High School:
-->'''Mr. Conlin''': Miss Brooks, do you have any idea how much a thirty second spot announcement costs?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Well, we don't have to buy thirty seconds. We can buy about five, and say something quick, like "Today. Auction. Madison High School."
-->'''Harriet Conklin''': But Miss Brooks. That sounds like we're auctioning off the school.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Is that bad?]]. I mean, if the object is just to lure people over . . . .
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Any '''feasible''' suggestions?
* BluffWorkedTooWell: In "Do-It-Yourself". Miss Brooks wants to borrow Mr. Conklin's tools to build herself a night-table . . . unfortunately, Mr. Conklin won't lend his tools to amateurs. Walter Denton "helps" Miss Brooks by describing her as an expert carpenter, who even built her landlady, Mrs. Davis, a gazebo in the backyard. Mr. Conklin, instead of lending Miss Brooks his tools, decides to have Miss Brooks build him a new garage.
* BookDumb: Walter
* BookSmart: Harriet Conklin, usually scoring marks in the 90% range. In the episode "The English Test", a whole row of students tries to copy off her! In contrast, her LoveInterest Walter Denton is a shrewd HighSchoolHustler but very much in the BookDumb category.
* {{Bookworm}}: Mr. Boynton. In "Bones, Son of Cyrano", Mr. Boynton goes so far as to break a date with Miss Brooks so he can finish ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''.
* BornInTheSaddle: Tex Barton, a teenaged cowboy who makes a few radio appearances.
* TheBoxingEpisode: [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Walter vs. Stretch Grudge Match" concludes with a boxing match between Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass.]]. Miss Brooks is the ringside announcer, and Mr. Conklin is the referee.
* BrainsAndBrawn: Generally describes the friendship between HighSchoolHustler Walter Denton and his best friend, DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass. Sometimes applies to Stretch's [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute brother]] Bones as well. In the two different radio episodes titled "The Moving Van", the two teenage pals go into the moving business. Walter outright states that he's the brains of the operation. In one version, "Stretch" is the brawn. In the other, "Bones.
* BrattyHalfPint: The bank president's son in "Magic Christmas Tree".
* BriefAccentImitation: In "The Miserable Cabelleros", Miss Brooks briefly imitates her eleven-year-old friend Benny Romero's accent. Once as a light joke, and the second time to test Mr. Conklin's resolve in sending the boy home to his uncle.
* BritishStuffiness: The very British public school headmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips." While quintessentially British, he's a youngish man who gets around fairly well with everyone at Madison. Mr. Conklin, interesting enough, was expecting a much stricter man and had even dictated that Miss Brooks (and the rest of the faculty) wear funereal black so as not to hurt his sensibilities.
* BrokenGlassPenalty: Completely subverted in the episode "Two Way Stretch". Mr. Conklin begins to reprimand [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] for kicking a football through the window of his inner office:
-->'''Mr. Conklin:''' I thought I told you to confine your practicing to the other end of the field.\\
'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' But I did Mr. Conklin. That's where I kicked it from.\\
'''Mr. Conklin:''' Well, there's actually no excuse in the world for you to... nice kick boy!
* BuffySpeak: Teenage Walter Denton, although a great one for SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, sometimes mixes advanced vocabulary, current slang and awkward phrasing. The following example is a petition he writes for the episode "Cafeteria Boycott". Note the oddball combination of 50's slang, extensive "borrowing" from the Declaration of Independence, and assorted legalese:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Whereas and to wit--\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[RedScare That's pretty strong language, isn't it? A little on the pink side.]]\\
'''Harriet Conklin''': Listen, Miss Brooks.\\
'''Walter Denton''': When in the course of student's events, it becomes necessary to turn one's back on one's stomach, we the undersigned, exercising our constitutional right to peaceably assemble, and to form a committee to seek the redress of grievances, do hereby announce our firm intention of the Madison High School Cafeteria only to use the tables, chairs, water, napkins and toothpicks provided therein. Until such a time that the duly appointed party or parties, namely Mr. Osgood Conklin, principal, or the Board of Education, responsible for the operational bog-down that has befallen this installation, do take such action that will improve the food, lower the prices and better the service in said cafeteria. It is also recommended the person, or persons, in whom this authority is vested, immediately see that the present chef in charge of preparing the food, and without any further frippery or fanfare, chuck him the heck off the premises. Well, Miss Brooks, what do you think of it?\\
'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker How much do you want for the picture rights]]?
* BuriedTreasure: The promise of a large reward sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton search for a lost Indian Burial Ground in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Indian Burial Ground"]].
* BusmansVocabulary: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Miss Enright are erudite on and off the job.
* CallOfTheWildBlueYonder: At the beginning of "Surprise Party", Miss Brooks dreams about literally flying away with Mr. Boynton:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': [[PurpleProse Ah, my darling Constance! You're so lovely! So desirable! I feel I could fly on the wings of our love! Won't you join me Constance, on a flight to paradise?]]
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker Contact!]]
* {{Calvinball}}: In the episode "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a convoluted parlor game in order to annoy Mr. Conklin and, in so doing, convince him to allow his family to go out for the evening.
* TheCameo: Desi Arnaz makes a brief appearance in "King and Brooks".
* CaptiveAudience: Anytime there's a school event or assembly, Mr. Conklin makes it mandatory for students and teachers to attend. The fact the event is happening outside school hours is rarely an excuse, especially for Miss Brooks.
* CannotTellAJoke: Mr. Boynton is rarely if ever able to tell a joke in a way that would be funny. The humor comes from the lameness of his attempt, and Miss Brooks' [[DeadpanSnarker response]] - [[OfficialCouple although, Miss Brooks once mentions she loves this corniness.]]
* CanonDiscontinuity: Due to ExecutiveMeddling, the final season of the TV series had Madison High torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks sent off to teach at a L.A. private elementary school. The radio series ignored this development, and continued at Madison High as per usual. When [[TheMovie the cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]] was released the following winter, it also ignored the final TV season. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton marry and live HappilyEverAfter.]]
* CanonForeigner: LonelyRichKid Gary Nolan and his neglectful father, Lawrence Nolan, only appear in TheMovie GrandFinale. The resentful and neglected Gary provides Miss Brooks with a student to tutor to show just how good a teacher she is. Lawrence Nolan becomes a DisposableLoveInterest, he provides a good dose of jealousy that shakes Miss Brooks' longtime LoveInterest Mr. Boynton into action. He finally gives Miss Brooks a BigDamnKiss, they move onto FirstNameBasis, and (through some last minute scheming by Miss Brooks' landlady Mrs. Davis) Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks at last get married.
* CaretakerReversal: A CaretakerReversal ''revolving door'', in "Old Age Plan."
** The story begins with Mrs. Davis having cared for her sister Angela, and falling ill from Angela's complaining. By the end of the episode, Mrs. Davis has recovered and Angela has again become ill from Mrs. Davis' complaining.
** ''Meanwhile'', Miss Brooks had spent the episode shilling Mrs. Davis and Angela's club's old age plan to Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin. The two men end up suffering psychosomatic symptoms of old age.
** Miss Brooks decides to invite them over to Mrs. Davis' house, and fake the symptoms of old age to distract Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin from their symptoms. The climax of the episode has Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin rapidly experiencing illness and being placed on the sofa with a blanket and ice pack in turn.
* CarryingACake: Several episodes see Miss Brooks accidentally collide with Mr. Conklin, lunch in hand.
* CatchPhrase: Walter's "Hiya, Miss Brooks!", Conklin's "...now GO" when trying to get rid of someone.
* CatchYourDeathOfCold: The trope appears in any episode where Mr. Conklin is being particularly stingy in maintaining the school's heat; most notably "Blue Goldfish".
* CatsAreLazy: Minerva, Mrs. Davis' pet cat, has her moments:
** In "The Frog", Minerva spends all day sleeping inside the piano.
** In "The Magic Tree", Minerva gets drunk sipping on pine needles. She then spends hours sleeping in Miss Brooks' lap as they rock in a chair:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Jingle Bells!
--> Jingle Bells!
--> Merry stuff like that!
--> Oh what fun it is to rock!
--> With a big fat drunken cat!
* ChainOfDeals: In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", Miss Brooks sets up a chain of deals to get a new coat. Unfortunately, Chief Thundercloud cuts in and ruins her scheme . . . that is, until it turns out the patient and longsuffering Mrs. Thundercloud demands the chief get her a housecoat from Miss Brooks.
-->'''Chief Thundercloud:''' Squaw, be quiet!
* ChaosArchitecture: In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], most of the Warner Brother's sets are ''similar'' to those previously used on the Desilu produced television episodes. The sets are, however, more elaborate as befitting the concluding film's theatrical release. The one major difference is Mr. Boynton's biology lab. Shown previously as essentially a small office with some cages and posters, it is seen as an enormous darkened classroom with ''many'' cages and aquariums.
* CharacterNarrator: After a brief introduction by the announcer, Miss Brooks provides her own brief introduction and a few lines of narration after sponsor breaks or sets up the scene for the episode. This is mostly confined to the radio, however Miss Brooks occasionally provides narration on television as well. Most notably "Who's Who" in the fourth season.
* CharacterTitle
* ChattyHairdresser: Antoine, who runs a beauty saloon in the episode ''The Hair-do''. He admits to Miss Brooks that he doesn't like Miss Enright, though she sends him many customers. Later, Miss Enright leans on him to give Miss Brooks a funny hair treatment. The character is played by character actor Frank Nelson, in much the same way as Frank Nelson played opposite Jack Benny.
* CheapCostume: "Halloween Party" sees Walter Denton dress up as a BedsheetGhost. Meanwhile, Mr. Boynton puts together a skeleton costume, Stretch Snodgrass disguises himself as Hopalong Cassidy, and Miss Brooks announces her intention to masquerade as a witch.
* ChekhovsGun: Phone booths play a key role in a couple episodes:
** In "Key to the School", Mr. Conkin and Miss Brooks use the phone booth at Marty's Malt Shop to place a call to board superintendent Mr. Stone, after everybody is locked out of Madison High.
** In "Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]", Walter Denton calls Mrs. Davis' house from a phone booth pretending to be a Spaniard interested in purchasing Mr. Conklin's car.
* ChewingTheScenery: Principal Osgood Conklin is a very pompous man. Played by the great Gale Gordon, Mr. Conklin's especially over-the-top when he's angry or excited.
* ChineseLaborer: In "Two Way Stretch", in order to save a FawltyTowersPlot from going off the rails, Miss Brooks pretends to be secretly married to Mr. Conklin. She claims the reason the marriage was secret was that she entered the country illegally in company with "Oriental labourers". It MakesSenseInContext.
* ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs: Mrs. Davis refers to the noisy crackling of most cereals in one episode, when she makes Miss Brooks a bowl of sugar coated pine needles as a "quiet" alternative.
* ChristmasCarolers: "The Magic Christmas Tree": When the Conklins, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton pay Miss Brooks a visit on Christmas Eve, they regale her with a rendition of "Deck The Halls". [[spoiler: Miss Brooks places her hand over Walter's mouth midway through, to stop his off-key adolescent squeaking.]]
* ChristmasEpisode: Several; i.e. "Christmas Gift Mix-up", "Christmas Show", "Department Store Contest", "The Magic Tree".
* ChristmasInJuly
** In the episode "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None", Mrs. Davis' hypochondriac sister Angela pretends to be dying. Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton throw her an early Christmas, Angela's favorite holiday.
** In the radio episode "The Telegram", Mrs. Davis' Uncle Corky sends a telegram giving notice that he'll be visiting for a week. A series of missteps leads to the telegram being partially burned, and interpreted as Uncle Corky saying he has a week to live. Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, the Conklins and Walter Denton throw Uncle Corky a Christmas party in July.
* ChronicallyCrashedCar: In early radio episodes, Miss Brooks' is frequently getting into car accidents. By the time the show began broadcasting on television, this becomes far more rare. However, in "Trial by Jury" and "Miss Brooks' New Car", HilarityEnsues after collisions with a fruit stand.
* ClassTrip: In the episode "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton each try to win permission to take their respective classes to Fisher's Farm. Fisher's Farm just happens to be the location of "the ol' swimming hole" (everyone's wearing their bathing suit under their regular clothing). Mr. Boynton gets ultimately permission to take his biology class down; Miss Brooks needs to rely on LoopholeAbuse to join the others.
* ClassyCane:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Mr. Boynton tells Miss Brooks he's considering buying a cane to invoke this trope.
** In "Blind Date", Mr. Boynton carries a classy cane so his blind date will recognize him; he had broken up with Miss Brooks after an argument. Unbeknownst to Boynton (and Miss Brooks), the blind date was scheme to get the two back together, and Boynton's date ''is'' Miss Brooks. Mr. Conklin, in a case of ExactEavesdropping, overhears Boynton's blind date calling on the phone (actually his daughter, Harriet, speaking with a Southern accent). Conklin and mistakes it for an old college flame, Lula May Calhoun, whom Conklins wants out of town and away from his wife. Mr. Conklin shows up with cane in hand to beg her to leave; again, it's ''actually'' Miss Brooks, carrying a parasol.
* CleanPrettyChildbirth: In "The Egg", when the chick hatches it hatches completely dry. In reality, the newly-hatched chicken would have been wet and taken some time to dry off.
* ClothingSwitch: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks spills breakfast on her dress. She borrows a dress belonging to her elderly landlady Mrs. Davis. A kind gesture by Mrs. Davis, but Miss Brooks ends up going to school looking absurd. HilarityEnsues.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Mrs. Davis. She sometimes forgets what she's saying in the middle of a sentence.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Miss Brooks performs this role for Mrs. Davis on occasion.
* ClownCarBase: The episode "Oo-Me-Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo" has the gang squeeze into a tiny trailer.
* CluckingFunny: Walter Denton brings a hen to school in "The Egg".
* CluelessChickMagnet: Mr. Boynton, by way of a combination of ObliviousToLove and bashfulness. He's the object of Miss Brooks' affection. And Miss Enright's. And an obnoxious reporter for SNAP magazine in the "Model Teacher". And the newly hired biology teacher in "Life Can Be Bones". And a Phys. Ed. teacher in "Connie and Frankie" . . . . Miss Brooks finally gets her man in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale.
* ColdSnap: A few episodes of ''Our Miss Brooks depend on winter weather for their humor.
** "Blue Goldfish" sees Mr. Conklin very miserly with the furnaces' coal supply, thus keeping Madison High School cold ''inside'' during the winter weather. This was a [[SoundToScreenAdaptation television remake]] of the radio episode "Lack of Coal at Madison".
** "Going Skiing", a radio episode, sees Miss Brooks go skiing with Mr. Boynton. HilarityEnsues when Miss Brooks uses Walter Denton's new ski-fasteners.
** "Winter Outing", another radio episode, sees Madison High's faculty and students continue a tradition started by school founder, Yodar Kritch. A winter picnic in frosty Kritch Canyon .
* ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere: In "Connie Tries To Forget Mr. Boynton", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin when Connie tries to forget Mr. Boynton]], every stranger she meets looks and sounds like Mr. Boynton. The "Misters Boynton" Miss Brooks meet include, but aren't limited to, the American Ambassador to India, an elderly postman, a matron, a fourteen year old boy and a newborn baby. [[spoiler: Fortunately, it's AllJustADream.]]
* ComedicSpanking: Mike and Danny's fate in "Orphan Twins". Let's say they had it coming.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oh, isn't that cute? They stopped on the front lawn, and Sergeant Gillis just lifted Danny up and put him across his knees.
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': Across his knees?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Yes. Now the sergeant's raising his hand, now the hand's coming down. Well, what do you know?
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': What is it Miss Brooks?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': At last those big tears are for real!
* ComicallyIneptHealing: In "First Air Course", Miss Brooks purposely invokes this trope to avoid teaching the eponymous program.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: This happens quite often:
** Almost any time Miss Brooks suggests anything romance-related to ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton:
--->'''Miss Brooks:''' In these boyhood fights, Mr. Boynton, was there any girls involved?\\
'''Mr. Boynton:''' Gosh, no, Miss Brooks. I wouldn't hit a girl.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, bravo for you]].
** Any time Miss Brooks tries to correct Stretch or Bones Snodgrass' grammar:
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' Miss Brooks, you done it again.\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' Please Stretch, I did it again.\\
'''Stretch Snodgrass:''' I don't blame you for bragging.
** Many other occasions as well. For example, this exchange with Walter Denton:
--->'''Miss Brooks:''' Walter, George Eliot was not a gentleman.\\
'''Walter Denton:''' He may have not been a gentleman, but he was a darned good writer.
* ComicalOverreacting: Mr. Conklin, portrayed by Gale Gordon, will start yelling at the drop of a hat.
** In "Radio Bombay", Miss Brooks mistakenly thinks a hurricane is heading to Madison and dismisses school in Mr. Conklin's absence. When Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton go to his house, it is his daughter Harriet goes to tell him the news. Walter listens at the door in an adjoining room, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton listen from further away. His yelling causes Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to try and make an exit, while Walter Denton falls on the floor.
** Humorously subverted in the radio episode "Friday The Thirteenth". Mr. Conklin, the repeated victim of Miss Brooks' episode-specific klutziness, remarks that losing one's temper "displays ill breeding". He goes to his closet and shouts privately, but loudly enough to be easily overheard by Miss Brooks.
* ComicBookAdaptation: Dell adapted the movie into comic book form.
* CommitmentIssues: Part of Miss Brooks' troubles [[WithThisRing in getting Mr. Boynton to propose arise from commitment issues]], coupled with his innate shyness.
** This was made especially clear in the episodes "Hello, Mr. Chips" and "24 Hours". Specifically, in "Hello Mr. Chips" Miss Brooks hears that Mr. Boynton has been saying a man should only get married when he's too old to do anything else. Miss Brooks punishes him by treating him as an old man that evening when he comes to dinner.
** When Miss Brooks gets Mr. Boynton to take her to a friends' wedding in "Old Age Plan", Mr. Boynton tries to back out of the date (finally) anticipating that Miss Brooks will want to get married herself.
** Part of this may be hereditary influence, as in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Boynton remarks that his father and mother went together for eight years until they were married.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton himself is finally getting ready for commitment. He, up to now, ObliviousToLove, discusses with Miss Brooks the "good, old biological feeling" of being ready to marry and start a family. Miss Brooks, who decided [[LoveAtFirstSight she wanted to marry Mr. Boynton on their first meeting]], remarks that's [[DeadpanSnarker she's way ahead of him.]]. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton get married at the end of the movie.]]
* CompeteForTheMaidensHand: In "The Grudge Match", Walter Denton challenges Stretch Snodgrass to a fight for Harriet Conklin's love. The two end up boxing in a temporary ring setup in the Madison High School gymnasium.
* ConflictingLoyalties:
** In "The Big Game", Miss Brooks wants to maintain academic standards . . . but give long-ago Madison football hero Gus Geary his diploma so he can remain Assistant Coach. Miss Brooks [[LoopholeAbuse relies on a loophole]] to [[TakeAThirdOption evade the tricky ethical dilemma]].
** Again, in "The Yodar Kritch Award", Miss Brooks relies upon LoopholeAbuse to give [[DumbJock Bones Snodgrass]] the eponymous award.
* ConspicuousConsumption: In "Madison Country Club", Miss Brooks brags about how much she spends on travel, food, champagne and clothes to society matron Mrs. Grabar. Miss Brooks thinks that Mr. Conklin is poking fun of the faculty; in reality Conklin was soliciting a donation from the wealthy philanthropist.
* ConspicuousTrenchcoat: When Miss Brooks attempts to track down a missing postman in ''Postage Due'', she wears a trenchcoat like any proper amateur detective.
* ContinuityReboot: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] fell in with the regular continuity of both the radio and television versions of the series. However, it was a partial reboot as it erased the events of the final television season (which featured Miss Brooks working at a private elementary school in California, a plot development '''not''' occurring in the concurrent radio series). The movie began by retelling Miss Brooks' initial arrival in Madison. On the other hand, the characters (and actors!) were the same as on the radio and television series and there were many continuity nods throughout the film. [[spoiler: The movie ends with Miss Brooks achieving her SeriesGoal, marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* ContrivedCoincidence:
** Many of the show's plots and misunderstandings heavily relied upon this trope. For example, several plots involved Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin conveniently becoming involved in the exact same scheme and not realizing the others are involved too . . . that is until the end of the episode. Other episodes would have Miss Brooks learning some piece of misinformation from Mrs. Davis that would conveniently affect Mr. Conklin's plans later that exact same day.
** In "Poison Ivy", Miss Brooks tells off an obnoxious man who is tying up Mrs. Davis' party line. Later, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton nearly run over an obnoxious jaywalking woman on their drive to school. Unhappily, Mr. Conklin soon informs Miss Brooks that said obnoxious man and woman are important state officials who have the power to fire Mr. Conklin or Miss Brooks on the spot!
* ContrastingReplacementCharacter: In the fourth television season of the series, Miss Brooks receives two successive love interests; Clint Albright and Gene Talbot. For a few episodes, Miss Brooks is pursued by Clint Albright; for about half a season, it's Gene Talbot. Miss Brooks' love interest on the radio and TV up to this point had been Mr. Boynton [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale]] ; notable for being shy and oblivious. In direct contrast, the gym teachers Clint Albright and Gene Talbot are much more aggressive. Albright flirts with Miss Brooks immediately on seeing her, soon catching Miss Brooks under mistletoe and forcing a kiss on her. Talbot calls Miss Brooks honey, and by the end of his tenure Connie's furious at him for taking her up to the Hollywood Hills on dates . . . late into the night. As to the gym teachers' reception by fans, by the end of the season, TheBusCameBack with Mr. Boynton aboard.
* ControlFreak: Mr. Conklin.
* ConvectionSchmonvection: In "Public Property on Parade", nobody so much as breaks a sweat when standing next to Madison High School's coal fired boiler.
* ConvenientlyInterruptedDocument:
** "Madison Mascot": Mr. Conklin's letter telling Miss Brooks to get him an elephant bookend is torn. Miss Brooks is forced into the conclusion that Mr. Conklin wants her to get him an elephant. ItMakesSenseInContext.
** In "The Telegram", the eponymous telegram catches fire. As a result, half the message from Mrs. Davis' Uncle Corky gets destroyed. What little's left causes everybody believes that Mrs. Davis' uncle only has a week left to live. Again, ItMakesSenseInContext.
* ConvenientlySeated: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] has possibly the only scene of the series where Miss Brooks is '''shown''' teaching a full class (as compared to being heard teaching a class on the radio, or tutoring a student or students). Miss Brooks is in front, teaching the class. Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin have seats in the back; all the better for Walter can tell Harriet about his car troubles and invite her to lunch. [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]] is right in the middle, so he can stand up to answer a question on double-negatives spectacularly wrong. Finally, Gary Nolan is in front, so after class Miss Brooks can upbraid him for his failing the English test.
* CookingDuel: In "Miss Enright's Dinner", Miss Brooks duels with Miss Enright for Mr. Boynton's affections by preparing recipes pinned up by the school's home economics teacher. Unfortunately, unknown to Miss Brooks, the recipe for Irish Stew on the board is a prank one Walter Denton pinned up to trick Miss Enright.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: When Miss Brooks accidentally derails Mr. Conklin's promotion in "Rumors", Mr. Conklin punishes Miss Brooks by forcing her to do his family's laundry.
* CoolKey: In "Key to the School", Miss Brooks is given the key to the school by the custodian. HilarityEnsues when Mrs. Davis takes the key with her on a visit to her brother Victor, leaving students and faculty alike locked out of Madison High School.
* CoolOldGuy: In "The Big Game", Gus "Snakehips" Geary, who's still admired as Madison High School's greatest football star decades after he graduated.
* CoolOldLady: Mrs. Davis. [[spoiler: She's even responsible for Miss Brooks finally marrying Mr. Boynton in TheMovie GrandFinale.]]
* CoolTeacher: Miss Brooks, of course.
* CoordinatedClothes:
** In "The Festival", Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin attend the titular festival as Romeo and Juliet.
** "Red River Valley" sees Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin dress as hillbillies to audition for Deacon Jones' Square Dance troop.
** In "Amalgamation", Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Munsee and Mr. Talbot dress as ''Dutch Vaudeville comedians'' to annoy Mrs. Pryor. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* CopycatMockery: Miss Brooks has learned to expect Mr. Conklin's typical DelayedReaction when he is surprised by anything angering or distasteful. A couple of times, she mimics his exclamation ''and expression'' when it finally comes along. A good example is in the episode "Cure That Habit". On radio episodes, being an audio medium, Miss Brooks sometimes just copies the inevitable shout.
* CordonBleughChef: Mrs. Davis is creative with her recipes.
* CosmopolitanCouncil: In the episode "Foreign Teachers", educational officials from France, Ireland and Sweden visit Madison High School. They turn out to be so insulting that Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin throw them out. Unfortunately, this gets Miss Brooks and company in trouble with the head of the National Board of Education . . . .
* TheCouch: Mrs. Davis' living room has a couch, under a window and to the left of the fireplace. It's always facing the fourth wall, as the show was shot using the three camera configuration. It's none too prominent, as Mrs. Davis (and therefore Miss Brooks) doesn't have a television set. Much of the talking and action usually takes place in front of it. However, there are exceptions, notably "Old Age Plan".
* CounterZany: Happens occasionally. In "Twins at School", after discovering Connie has been impersonating her non-existent identical twin Bonnie, Mr. Conklin invents a non-existent identical twin of his own. Complete with cowboy accent.
* {{Courier}}: The bicycle-riding telegram delivery boy, in "Telegram for Mrs. Davis". HilarityEnsues when Mrs. Davis is too superstitious to open the telegram, or allow Miss Brooks to open the telegram on her behalf. The boy won't leave until he gets the requested reply . . . .
* CourtroomEpisode: "Trial by Jury" sees Miss Brooks defend herself in court for "speeding, going through a red light, reckless driving, driving on the sidewalk and hitting a fruit stand." The episode was a remake of "Reckless Driving" which played on the radio.
* CoveredInGunge: In "Vitamin E-4", a conman named Professor Anderson tricks Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin into working for in the manufacture and promotion of the titular "vitamin". Unbenowngst to the three, Professor Anderson is really a conman who ''modus operandi'' includes tricking well-educated teachers to win over the general public. The episode ends with Brooks, Boynton and Conklin manufacturing the vitamin according to the recorded directions of Anderson. It doesn't go so well; Mr. Conklin ends up having the ingredients of the titular "vitamin" thrown, poured or falling over him. Incidentally, the main ingredient of Vitamin E-4 is ''chicken fat''!
* CovertGroup: Miss Brooks becomes involved in secret activity a few times through the course of the series. One of the most memorable was in "Red River Valley", where Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton meet secretly to rehearse for a job with the hillbilly troupe led by Deacon Jones.
* {{Cowboy}}: Tex Barton, a stereotypical teenaged cowboy, is a Madison High School student in a few episodes i.e. "School T.V. Set", "Bargain Hats for Mother's Day," "Tex Barton Basketball Star."
* CramSchool: In "The Yodar Kritch Award", a time-pressed Miss Brooks tries this approach with Bones Snodgrass. [[spoiler: It fails miserably.]]
* CrankyNeighbor: In "Mr. Travis' Three Acre Lot", Mr. Travis, a [[TheScrooge cheap, hostile businessman]], consistently refuses to sell his lot and finally let Madison High School have a regulation-size gridiron.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Mr. Boynton is usually even-headed, but on occasion can be crazy jealous when provoked. In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Miss Brooks spending time with millionaire Gary Nolan sees him turn crazy jealous (with a little prodding from Mrs. Davis).
* CrustyCaretaker: In "The Loaded Custodians", Mr. Barlow is portrayed as a rather crusty old man. Averted with the previous custodian, the [[LiteralMinded literal- minded]] Mr. Jensen.
* CryLaughing: It happens to Miss Brooks at the end of "Hobby Show", where she's about to suffer a nervous breakdown. Afraid that she is overworking herself, Miss Brooks' friends visit encouraging her to start a hobby. Unfortunately, Miss Brooks is expected to knit (Mrs. Davis' hobby), play chess (Mr. Boynton's hobby), run model trains (Walter Denton's), finger-paint (Harriet Conklin) and fix broken toys to give to underprivileged children (Mr. and Mrs. Conklin) . . . ''all at the same time''. The [[SoundToScreenAdaptation radio original]] featured the same gag, although there Walter and Harriet's hobbies were the less-visually interesting [[PragmaticAdaptation stamp-collecting and crossword puzzle solving, respectively]].
* CuckoolanderCommentator: In "Walter vs. Stretch Grudge Match", Miss Brooks deliberately invokes the trope when she's assigned to do the play-by-play commentary for the titular boxing match between the teenage combatants:
--->'''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go to the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton, you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam Pat on it first? And now let's listen to the referees' instructions . . .
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': Marquis of Queensberry rules. I am here for one reason and one reason only. To see that fair play is strictly observed. You will at all times be honestly and impartially judged. Now, then, Stretch?
--->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Yes, Mr. Conklin?
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': I want you to be sure to go a neutral corner every time Denton is on the floor. You Denton?
--->'''Walter Denton''': Yes, sir?
--->'''Mr. Conklin''': Where do you want your body . . . oh, well, I . . . Now then you two, I want a good clean fight and may the better man win. And win quickly, Stretch. Go to your corners, come out fighting.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': There goes the bell, folks. Oh, Walter's down, fell over his shoelace. Now it's tied, and the two men meet in the centre of the ring. They're cautious at first, Walter is dancing lightly around, left arm extended. Stretch is dancing around. Now they're dancing around together. Mr. Conklin breaks them, and once again they circle around carefully. Now here it is, the first exchange . . . .
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Miss Brooks' wacky landlady, Mrs. Davis, often gives good advice. [[spoiler: In TheMovie GrandFinale she plays a critical role in Miss Brooks' finally marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: Curiosity is definitely bad in the episode "Sneaky Peepers". When Miss Brooks accidentally orders a copy of Rodin's "The Kiss" instead of "The Thinker" for Madison High School. Mr. Conklin orders the offending statue covered up until it can be returned. After Mr. Conklin falsely accuses Walter Denton of looking at the statue, Denton decides to setup a trapdoor to catch the actual culprit. Lo and behold, Walter Denton, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conlin and Head of the School Board Mr. Stone end up falling through the trapdoor and locked in a storage room in the basem*nt.
* CurseCutShort: One episode features this exchange between Miss Brooks and Walter Denton:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Mr. Conklin's making my usual tranquil life a veritable . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': WALTER!
-->'''Walter Denton''': . . . (''meekly'') inferno?
* CurtainCamouflage: Twice, behind the same set of curtains no less:
** In "First Day", Walter Denton tries to avoid Mr. Conklin by hiding behind the curtains in Mrs. Davis' living room.
** In "Madame Brooks Du Barry" Mr. Conklin and Harriet hide behind the curtains and spy on Miss Brooks.
* CuteClumsyGirl: Miss Brooks sometimes finds herself playing to this trope, usually around Mr. Conklin.
** Occasionally, Miss Brooks finds herself breaking his glasses, i.e. "Living Statues".
** Her clumsiness might have reached its nadir in the episode "Home Cooked Meal". There, she unwittingly causes Mr. Conklin to be locked in a freezer before accidentally contributing to his attending a ''minor'' gas explosion.
** Miss Brooks' clumsiness again strikes Mr. Conklin in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale.]] Miss Brooks' arrival at Madison is portrayed at the beginning of the movie, when she makes a unique first impression on Mr. Conklin by accidentally dropping a dumbbell on his foot.
* CuttingCorners: Mr. Conklin periodically subjects Madison High School to economy drives. One such drive occurs in the episode "Blue Goldfish", where Conklin's miserly apportionment of coal causes the school to feel like a refrigerator.
* DaddysGirl: Harriet Conklin is close to her father. She can often be seen in his office helping him out.
* DaEditor:
** In "Cafeteria Boycott", Miss Brooks describes the school food as putrid. Unfortunately, she unknowingly does so in front of the local newspaper editor. Neither particularly gruff or authoritarian (except when confronting Mr. Conklin), the editor becomes a problem for Miss Brooks notwithstanding.
** Lawrence Nolan, in TheMovie GrandFinale. He's authoritarian, but being something of the local plutocrat, he's more of a stuffed shirt rather than stereotypically gruff.
* [[DamnedByFaintPraise Darned By Faint Praise]]: A ''Snap'' magazine reporter "compliments" Miss Brooks' clothes: "That's a very nice suit...One can tell at a glance that it's worn you for years."
* [[DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster Darn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster]]: In "Sunnydale Finishing School", Miss Brooks receives a letter offering her a position at the eponymous school. Walter Denton, utilizing a ZanyScheme, ''pretends'' to fall victim to this trope and begins acting like a mobster while speaking in a blizzard of hard-boiled slang.
* DamselOutOfDistress
** Miss Brooks, when trapped in an industrial freezer with Walter Denton, Philip Boynton and Osgood Conklin in "Male Superiority". The three males panic while Miss Brooks stays calm. An example of LaserGuidedKarma and HypocriticalHumor, as all three had lectured Miss Brooks on a man's ability to stay calm during an emergency.
** In its SpiritualSuccessor, "The Big Jump", Boynton and Conklin similarly panic when a prank by Walter makes it appear the school is on fire. Again, Mr. Boynton had been claiming men were calmer in the event of an emergency.
* DanceOfRomance: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Connie's fantasy includes her dancing with Phillip in their future home.
* DancesAndBalls: Dances drive the plot of a few episodes, as befitting a program whose main setting is Madison High School. Notable examples include "The Yodar Kritch Award" and "Cinderella for a Day".
* TheDandy: Briefly and infuriatingly, Mr. Boynton falls victim to this trop in "Mr. Boynton's Mustache". Miss Brooks had decided to get Mr. Boynton to pay more attention to his appearance, so suggests he grow a mustache and then has the female faculty members compliment him. Thankfully, Mr. Boynton is cured when Miss Brooks gets the Home Economics Class to reward him with their class project . . . a suit made out of an old horse blanket.
* DarkestAfrica:
** In "Safari O'Toole", the eponymous adventurer spends much of his time in the SavageSouth, Africa in particular. [[spoiler: He's a fake, but a nice one, who's only trying to impress Mrs. Davis.]]
** In "The Hawkins Travel Agency", Mr. Stone proposes Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks all accompany him on an African walking tour. He doesn't find any takers.
* DatePeepers:
** In "Madame Brooks Du Barry", Mr. Conklin and his daughter Harriet hide in the back of Mrs. Davis' living room, and spy on Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton as they have a date.
** In "Mrs. Nestor's Boyfriend", Miss Brooks, Mr. Munsee, Mr. Talbot and Mr. Conklin use binoculars to spy on (widowed) Mrs. Nestor's date with her new boyfriend.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Mr. Conklin loathes his daughter's boyfriend, Walter Denton. It isn't uncommon for him to kick Walter down his porch steps. Why? Walter is something of a nuisance to Mr. Conklin, as the episodes "Cure that Habit", "Wild Goose", "Cafeteria Boycott" and "Space, Who Needs It?" attest. However, there are other reasons as well. In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin complained that the worst thing about Walter was his squeaky voice.
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' I expect it's his age. His voice is probably changing.\\
'''Mr. Conklin:''' Well, I wish it would hurry up. He sounds like a canary with a mouthful of rancid birdseed.
* DavidVsGoliath: In "The Grudge Match", the eponymous boxing match between 5'6'' Walter Denton and 6'5'' three-letter DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass. A different take on the trope, as the teenagers were best friends fighting over a girl. Walter Denton challenged Stretch to the fight, and it was common belief at Madison that he'd be clobbered. [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin, refereeing the match, is struck by mistake.]]
* ADayInTheLimelight: Although Miss Brooks is always the star of her shore, some episodes give lesser characters a major role:
** "Brooks' New Car" features a major role for Mrs. Conklin. Likewise, "Weekend at Crystal Lake".
** "Madison Mascot" and "Stretch to Transfer" are two of several episodes that feature the [[DumbJock student athlete]] in something akin to a starring role.
** "Angela's Wedding", "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None", and "Mr. Casey's Will" feature Mrs. Davis' sister Angela as the episodes mover and shaker.
** "The Egg" has an appearance by Mrs. Davis' usually unseen, only mentioned, brother Victor.
* DeadpanSnarker: Miss Brooks is one of the queens of this trope, as are many of Eve Arden's characters in other works.
* DeanBitterman: Mr. Conklin
* DeathByChildbirth: Lawrence Nolan's wife died giving birth to Gary.
* DeathGlare: When truly angry, Mr. Conklin is known to give a withering stare. Usually, he yells to great effect; but occasionally he has a glare that tends to frighten both faculty, students, and his own daughter. Noteworthy examples occur in "The Novelist", "Spare That Rod!", and "Space, Who Needs It?".
* DecemberDecemberRomance: In "Puppy Love, Mr. Barlow and Mrs. Davis", Mrs. Davis falls in love with the aged school custodian. It leads to FacePalm worthy descriptions of love in old age by callow teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin.
** Walter described the old folks' romance as follows:
--> '''Walter''': Oh, by the way, how's Mrs. Davis' romance with Mr. Barlow coming along?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Oh, have you noticed that, too? I think it's the cutest thing in the world. Mrs. Davis actually has a bad case of puppy love.
--> '''Walter''': It is cute ... considering she's in her second puppyhood. No disrespect intended, you understand. After all, what can be more romantic than two lonely old people encountering the grand passion in the sear and yellow leaf of life.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Why, that's absolutely poetic, Walter.
-->'''Walter''': The burning desires of youth long past, they look now for the subdued glow of companionship. The warm and simple pleasures that two elderly people in love can share together.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker I can see them now - soaking their feet in the same pan of Epsom salts.]]
** Later, Harriet ups the ante:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Hello, Harriet. I've got to deliver a message to the custodian. Have you seen him?
-->'''Harriet''': Oh, yes. Mr. Barlow just went into his office. (''dreamily'') Isn't it wonderful, Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': I don't know. I've never been in his office.
-->'''Harriet''': I mean about Mr. Barlow and Mrs. Davis. They're crazy about each other. Of course, it's a big secret.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker It couldn't be a bigger secret if they took out an ad.]]
-->'''Harriet''': Is there anything more romantic than the mellow romance of old age?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Now please, Harriet.
-->'''Harriet''': To think of two people finding love at a time of life when others are preparing to pass on. Two people walking hand in hand in the twilight of life.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Yes, there's nothing like a brisk walk before passing on.]]
* DeclarativeFinger: The gesture is occasionally used by the pompous Mr. Conklin.
* TheDefroster: Miss Brooks sees it as part of her job to try and defrost troubled students. She's also a generous, kindhearted and [[DeadpanSnarker quick-witted]] individual. Notably, Miss Brooks defrosts Mr. Whipple, TheScrooge in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Later, in TheMovie GrandFinale, she defrosts one of her students, Gary Nolan. For good measure, she defrosts his father, Lawrence Nolan, as well.
* DelayedReaction: Mr. Conklin does this often for comedic effect.
* DerailedTrainOfThought: Absent-minded Mrs. Davis often suffers from thought derailment.
* DespairEventHorizon / DespairSpeech: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]]. After overhearing a conversation at the relator's, Miss Brooks discovers that Mr. Boynton has bought the cottage across the street from Mrs. Davis' house. The conversation suggests that he finally intends to propose. Alas, he bought the house so his widowed mother could move in with him. This comes as a shock to Connie, who had even brought wallpaper over to the cottage to decorate. She's lost in daydreams, when Mr. Boynton comes in relates his plans to live with his mother.
-->'''Connie:''' ''(sobbing)'' Fine schnook I've been! ''(She hands the wall paper to Mr. Boynton)'' Wear it in good health! ''(Connie leaves the cottage, slamming the door behind her.)''
** Miss Brooks goes into a deep depression, offers her resignation and prepares to leave Madison. [[spoiler:Fortunately, the matter is fixed by the good offices of Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother. Mrs. Davis tells Mrs. Boynton the situation, and invites her to be her new boarder. Mr. Boynton proposes to Miss Brooks, and everybody lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* DetectiveDrama: The episode "Postage Due".
* DevotedToYou: Miss Brooks is devoted to Mr. Boynton, with Miss Enright often appearing as her rival for his affections. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks wins, finally marrying Mr. Boynton in the cinematic grand finale.]]
* DidntSeeThatComing: This happens several times in ''Our Miss Brooks'', and causes a ZanyScheme or a well-intentioned plan to help someone go awry. A few notable examples:
** In "Head of the Board", Miss Brooks sends Stretch Snodgrass to get an old man from the park to impersonate Mr. Hewitt, the Head of the State Board of Education. Mr. Conklin has ordered Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to help him clean the school the week before the start of term. By a ContrivedCoincidence, Mr. Hewitt happens to be visiting in town, sitting in the park, and chosen by Stretch Snodgrass to impersonate himself. HilarityEnsues, as well as a FawltyTowersPlot.
** In "Red River Valley", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Mr. Conklin practice a hillbilly routine to get a $500 a month summer job working with Deacon Jones' square dance troupe. It so happens that Matthew ''Jones'', Inspector from the State Board, chooses that day to visit Madison High School.
** "Fargo Whiskers" sees Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton think Miss Brooks have taken leave of her senses. They wish her to take a week off before another school official; when Miss Brooks refuses, Conklin and Boynton have Walter Denton impersonate the official. Unfortunately, Mr. Fargo arrives a few days early and HilarityEnsues.
* DisastrousDemonstration: Madison High School's attempts to use new technology backfires terribly - usually in front of the head of the school board, Mr. Stone.
** In "The Tape Recorder", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin Walter Denton buys a reel-to-reel tape recorder for the school.]] Unfortunately, when playing back the machine to Head-of the-Board Mr. Stone, the machine garbles its messages. The machine suggesting everyone is insulting or threatening Principal Conklin or Mr. Stone. Also, that Mr. Conklin jumps into Miss Brooks' lap!
** In "Movies at School", Miss Brooks tries to use film as an educational aid. Unfortunately, a disgruntled worker at the film company has switched the films around within their canisters. Miss Brooks, leaving a film of the poem "Lady of the Lake" with her class, instead leaves a poem of "Sirens of the Screen, Past and Present". Mrs. Davis intends to show her Ladies Aid Club "Shearing Sheep at Big Billabong, Australia. The ladies club sees a film with showgirls in their dressing room. When Mr. Stone investigates, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin intend to show the probity of the school by playing a film about the "Board of Education". Instead, they end up playing a film about gambling in Las Vegas.
* DiscountCard: The episode "Christmas Gift Mixup" features a RunningGag where Mrs. Davis, Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin give Miss Brooks "hints" as to what they'd like for Christmas. They helpfully relay the costs of their gifts, and lend Miss Brooks their "exclusive" savings card that gives sale prices at a local store.
* DisguisedInDrag: In "The Stolen Wardrobe", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton are falsely accused of robbing Sherry's Department Store. They end up (reluctantly) disguising themselves as women to evade the police.
* DisposingOfABody: In the penultimate radio episode, "New Girl in Town," Harriet Conklin tricks the eponymous "new girl's" mother into believing Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are burying Mr. Boynton's old girlfriends in the athletic field. In reality, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are only burying the bodies of Mr. Boynton's dead lab mice.
* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Spare That Rod!'', it's mentioned that disproportionate retribution is Mr. Conklin's modus operandi as principal of Madison High School. When Conklin discovers that some students had wrote "Old Man Conklin is a Pinhead" on Miss Brooks' blackboard ''after'' school, he orders ''Miss Brooks'' to inspect and clean ''all'' the blackboards at Madison High School.
* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: Dell's comic book adaptation of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] has Mr. Boynton carrying and smoking a pipe.
* TheDitz: Stretch Snodgrass and his brother Bones. Stretch also has an even more clueless girlfriend, Suzie Prentiss.
* DomesticApplianceDisaster: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Brooks tries to prepare a roast turkey for Mr. Boynton. Actually, Miss Brooks' friendly elderly landlady Mrs. Davis brings over the cooked turkey so Miss Brooks can pretend to have cooked it herself. All Miss Brooks has to do is place it in the gas oven to warm up. Unfortunately, the oven's automatic gas jets hadn't been connected, so Miss Brooks fills the kitchen with gas. While Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are frantically trying to call the fire department, Principal Osgood Conklin visits Mr. Boynton's house to return his tools. Conklin can't see in the darkened kitchen, and lights a match . . . he's ultimately unharmed, just covered in soot and the remains of the roast turkey.
* DontExplainTheJoke: Mr. Boynton tells terrible jokes, sometimes he has to do this to find the humor to begin with.
* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: The program features a couple examples:
** "The Twin Orphans" ends with Miss Brooks looking out Mrs. Davis' front window, and observing the titular pair being taken over their knee and spanked by their father. The "orphans", Mike and Danny, had tricked the Madison High crowd into believing they had escaped from an OrphanageOfFear. By the dialogue, Miss Brooks obviously believes the spanking to be well earned.
** Averted in "Amalgamation". Mrs. Nestor's school is nearly merged with Mrs. Pryor's school next year. Upon visiting, Mr. Conklin almost swats one of the bratty child actors with his hand, but is stopped by Mrs. Pryor. As a believer in the "progressive method", students at Mrs. Pryor are allowed uninhibited self-expression. No discipline, corporal punishment or otherwise.
* DontYouLikeIt:
** In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks is dismayed when Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin are representing a student delegation naming her their "Mother away from Mother". To make matters worse, they present her with a shawl as a gift for Mother's Day.
** In "Mr. Boynton's Mustache", Miss Brooks, Miss Enright, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone frantically try to avoid being presented with the Home Economics students' class projects. The girls sewed up a suit and a dress out of an old horse blanket.
** In "24 Hours", Mrs. Conklin is furious with her husband for gifting her with a pair of expensive andirons for her birthday.
* DoomedNewClothes:
** In "Easter Outfit", Miss Brooks' wears a new dress for the Easter Parade. Unfortunately, Connie was forced to go to the parade in her old dress. She had worn the new dress to Easter Breakfast and landlady Mrs. Davis's Easter Egg Hunt. However, Mrs. Davis' Easter Egg hunt goes wrong when Mrs. Davis forgot she hid two eggs under the chesterfield . . . and didn't hard-boil them!
** "Friday The Thirteenth" sees Mr. Conklin proud of his new black suit, black hat, black vest, black shoes and midnight blue tie. During the course of the day it gets torn and dirtied.
* DoomItYourself: In "Do It Yourself", Mr. Conklin starts the plot in motion when he burns down his garage after a misguided attempt at fixing the electrical wiring.
* DoorSlamOfRage: In "Trying to Pick a Fight", Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin that some couples pick fights so they can make up later. Sometime later, Mr. Conklin calls Miss Brooks to his office. It seems in trying to pick a fight with his wife, Mr. Conklin only managed to provoke his wife into threatening to go home to her mother. Mr. Conklin leaves to head to the railroad station to try to prevent his wife's departure, angrily slamming his office door behind him.
* TheDoorSlamsYou: Miss Brooks does this to Mr. Conklin a few times, by accident of course. It usually results in Miss Brooks breaking Mr. Conklin's glasses.
* DoorToDoorEpisode:
** In "Kritch Cave", Miss Brooks sells lots in Kritch Canyon at the behest of Mr. Conklin. Only it happens that, through a mixup, she sells Madison High School by error.
** In "Bargain Hats For Mother's Day", Miss Brooks sells three hats Mrs. Davis whipped up in return for Mrs. Davis forgiving several weeks back rent.
* DoTheyKnowItsChristmasTime: Our Miss Brooks had several Christmas episodes, although religion was rarely mentioned at other times (the program also had two Easter episodes and two Thanksgiving episodes):
** "The Magic Christmas Tree" sees Miss Brooks prepared to spend Christmas Eve alone with Mrs. Davis' pet cat Minerva. HilarityEnsues.
** "Christmas Show" features the frantic exchanging of Christmas gifts . . . before Christmas.
** "Department Store Contest" sees Miss Brooks' childhood letter to Santa Claus inadvertently entered into the titular contest.
** "Christmas Gift Returns" sees more trouble from the exchanging of Christmas gifts.
** "Music Box Revue" sees Miss Brooks buy a magic music box that she'll only hear play if she's in the proper Christmas spirit.
** "A Dry Scalp is Better Than None" and "The Telegram" see Miss Brooks and company throw ChristmasInJuly parties for Mrs. Davis' sister Angela and Uncle Corky respectively.
* DoubleDate: A variation on the trope in "The Frog". Miss Brooks is tired of Mr. Boynton taking her to the zoo on the dates. In an desperate effort to move their dates, Miss Brooks gets a pet female frog to date Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. The idea is for Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton to double date with their pet frogs. It turns into a very noisy triple date, when Mr. Boynton brings a tomcat to date Mrs. Davis' lovelorn female cat Minerva.
* DoubleEntendre: Miss Brooks' letter to Mr. Conklin requesting flower pots for her windowsill gets mixed up with a love letter in ''Bones, Son of Cyrano''. Cue a flurry of double entendres when Mr. Conklin questions Miss Brooks.
* DoubleStandardViolenceChildOnAdult: In "Amalgamation", one of Mrs. Pryor's bratty child actors bites Mr. Conklin and rips his hat and jacket. Mrs. Pryor believes in the "progressive method", where it's forbidden to discipline or criticize a child in any way.
* DoYouWantToHaggle: Several episodes:
** In "Game At Clay City", Miss Brooks haggles with a mechanic.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Miss Brooks haggles with Mr. Conklin.
** "Fischer's Pawn Shop" sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton haggle with Fischer to raise money for baseball uniforms.
** "Indian Burial Ground" has Mr. Conklin haggle with a prospective buyer for his vacant lot.
** "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud" features a bartering session with the eponymous chief.
* TheDragAlong: Miss Brooks often finds herself made an unwitting accomplice to Walter Denton's various schemes, i.e. "Cure That Habit", "The Cafeteria Strike", as exposing Walter would lead to his being suspended or expelled. Other occasions see her being ''ordered'' to go along with a scheme of Mr. Conklin's, as he's her principal and has the power to force her - or leastways make her life very miserable if she refuses, i.e. "The Big Jump". Yet that's not the whole story. Occasionally she even gets cajoled by her landlady Mrs. Davis, or her sister Angela, into aiding into some other wacky scheme from which Miss Brooks would prefer to keep her distance, i.e. "Mr. Casey's Will".
* DramaQueen: Harriet Conklin is overemotional in early episodes.
** In "Game at Clay City" she emotionally describes her relationship with Walter Denton thusly:
-->'''Harriet''': Walter isn't a real happy heartthrob, but he's good for a heartache or two!
** In "Student Government Day," Harriet Conklin is elected "Mayor for a Day." At the assembly, in front of the [[CorruptPolitician mayor]], she emotionally rails against municipal corruption. Later on, she berates a policeman by reciting the Constitution.
** In "Stretch Has A Problem" she's fit-to-burst when she thinks Walter needs her at his side during the State Basketball Championship. She doesn't miss a beat when she finds out its actually Stretch Snodgrass.
** In "Walter v. Stretch Grudge Match," Harriet instigates the said grudge match and then panics before the fight begins.
** In "Poetry Mixup" and "Bones, Son of Cyrano," Harriet is ecstatic thinking she received a love note from Mr. Boynton.
* DreamEpisode: The third-season episode "The Dream". After reading a book called "Maternity Ward", Miss Brooks dreams that she marries Mr. Boynton and has a baby girl named Cleo. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Conklin has a second child, a boy named Osgood Conklin Junior. Harriet Conklin marries Walter Denton and they have at least five children in three year. By the end of the dream, Osgood Conklin Junior and Cleo are secretly married and secretly have a baby girl of their own.
-->'''Osgood Conklin Junior''': Yes, sir, that's my baby
--> No, sir, I don't mean maybe
--> Yes, sir, that's my baby now!
* DreamSequence: Usually with Brooks dreaming about Boynton sweeping her off her feet or in some magical fairy tale, then the alarm clock ruins it all. A notable exception is "Connie's Job Offer", where Miss Brooks dreams of becoming mayor of a town in New Jersey.
* DressCode: In "Dress Code Protest", Mr. Conklin imposes a dress code after the students celebrate "Spirit Week" by wearing outrageous and mismatched clothing. Miss Brooks refers to the "celebration" as a "Malevolent Mardi Gras."
* DressedInLayers: In "Heat Wave", Mr. Boynton, Harriet Conklin, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are wearing bathing suits underneath their regular clothes, covertly plotting an escape from school and a trip to the swimming hole. [[spoiler: It so happens Miss Brooks is wearing a bathing suit underneath her regular clothes too.]]
* DressedToHeal: Played straight in the episodes "Hospital Capers" and "Second Hand First Aid".
* DrinkingOnDuty: On T.V., in the episode "The Loaded Custodian", Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis discuss how the previous custodian, Mr. Jensen, was fired for his drinking. Actually averted the few times Mr. Jensen appears on the radio (i.e. "Key to the School", "School Safety Advisor"), where his personality quirk is his insistence on interpreting common idioms [[LiteralMinded literally]].
* DrivenToMadness: "The School Board Psychologist" sees [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin the Head of the Board, Mr. Stone, appoint a psychologist to examine the faculty of Madison High School.]] He's given the broad authority to fire any faculty who he believes is unfit for the teaching profession. The psychologist is already overworked, and is provably unfit to make recommendations (he suggests, for example, Mr. Boynton should be an exterminator). Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, and eventually Mr. Conklin himself gaslight the psychologist until he withdraws his recommendations and takes his much needed rest.
* DriverFacesPassenger: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. As a reckless sixteen year old driver, he, of course, looks at Miss Brooks instead of looking at the road. On one occasion, Miss Brooks had to grab the wheel and steer in order to prevent an accident.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Teenagers Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass are chronic offenders of this trip. More surprisingly, Miss Brooks usually is as well. A running gag has her telling Mrs. Davis why she can't drive her car. Often enough it's in the shop. However, there are ''many'' occasions where Miss Brooks is to blame after having proved herself a stereotypical [[WomenDrivers woman driver]]. In "Trial By Jury", Miss Brooks goes to court to fight a charge of reckless driving after her car crashes into a fruit stand.
* DrivingStick: In "Who's Going Where", Mr. Conklin insists on going to Crystal Lake and having Miss Brooks accompany him (and type out his reports while being a "guest" at his family cottage). Miss Brooks offers Mr. Conklin the use of his car. However, Mr. Conklin claims that he can't drive Miss Brooks' pre-World War II car, because of an unfamiliar gear shift system.
* DroppedGlasses: Mr. Conklin fell victim to this trope on more than one occasion; i.e. "Cure That Habit", "Living Statues", and "Skis in the Classroom".
* {{Dumb Jock}}/DumbMuscle: Stretch Snodgrass.
* DunceCap: Unsurprisingly, Stretch Snodgrass is forced to wear a dunce cap in "The Mambo".
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** It's rather interesting to listen to the first "Audition Show" with Shirley Booth trying out for the role of Miss Brooks. Mr. Conklin is the head of the Board of Education, not the incoming principal (that role belongs to Mr. Darwell). Miss Brooks' landlady Mrs. Davis is younger, and has a teenaged daughter who Walter Denton intends to drive to school (Denton only drives Miss Brooks when his girlfriend breaks the date). Walter Denton is characterized somewhat in the vein of a DumbJock, and has a much different voice. In fact, Denton's character is more akin to the later Stretch Snodgrass than the Denton who would be a mainstay of the program from Day 1.
** An eyebrow-raising moments in early radio episodes is Walter Denton's contention that he's a great English student. Later, despite his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, it's firmly established Denton is BookDumb.
** The animosity between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks vanishes after "First Day" and remains subdued for most of the first season. Similarly, Mr. Conklin's hatred for Walter Denton is similarly absent. It emerges only after Walter's prank in the original radio version of "Cure That Habit". Mr. Conklin's nickname, "Old Marblehead", doesn't make its first appearance until the radio episode "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". In one first season episode, "Easter Outfit", Walter tells Miss Brooks that Mr. Conklin's nickname amongst the students is "Napoleon".
* EasilyOverheardConversation: Happens from time to time. Usually, the eavesdropper misunderstands and hilarity ensues.
* EasterBunny: The Easter Bunny is [[DiscussedTrope mentioned]] in the two Easter episodes; "Easter Outfit" and "Dying Easter Eggs".
* EasyAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin's Plaque" begins with Mrs. Davis telling Miss Brooks how her sister Angela received amnesia after a blow on the head. Angela recovered after received a second blow.
* EasyComeEasyGo: Happens to Miss Brooks in "Principal for a Day" where she becomes [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin principal for a day]]. [[spoiler: Happily averted in TheMovie GrandFinale where Miss Brooks finally achieves her SeriesGoal and marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* EatingPetFood: In "Poison Ivy", Mrs. Davis sets out dog biscuits in place of cereal for breakfast. Miss Brooks and Walter Denton both fall victim.
* EekAMouse: In [[IronicEpisodeTitle "A Demonstration of Male Superiority,"]] a house mouse scares Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis onto the dining room table. Walter Denton scares it away. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks later proves "male superiority" in an emergency to be a myth, when she is trapped in a meat freezer with Walter Denton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton.]]
* EggMacGuffin: episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Egg"]], Mrs. Davis gets a chicken egg from her brother's farm. Mistakenly, he had given her an egg soon to hatch. Miss Brooks and friends try to safely hatch the egg, and keep Mr. Conklin from frightening the chick by flashing a photo as it emerges from its shell.
* ElaborateUniversityHigh:
** Usually averted on radio and television in ''Radio/OurMissBrooks''. Madison High School's facilities seem to par for the course. Miss Brooks frequently criticizes her low pay, and episodes focus on various austerity measures (i.e. "Blue Goldfish"). The most tony aspects of the school are the ivy-covered walls and the bust of the founder, Yodar Kritch. Once or twice, the gymnasium is said to be in a separate building than the main school.
** Elaborate University High goes into play in TheMovie GrandFinale. Madison High School is a very large building with substantial grounds. It even has tennis courts!
* ElectionDayEpisode: The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] to the ''Our Miss Brooks'' series sees Mr. Conklin compete with school board head Mr. Stone for the newly created post of "Coordinator of Education". [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin withdraws when Mr. Stone, who is independently wealthy, gets the board to set the salary for the position at a mere $500 per year. Meanwhile, in the main plot, Miss Brooks finally manages to achieve her SeriesGoal, marrying Mr. Boynton and living HappilyEverAfter.]]
* ElegantClassicalMusician: In "Faculty Band", Mr. Boynton mentions that Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' [[SitcomArchNemesis great rival]], plays the harp.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Well, look at our new harp.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[FluffyCloudHeaven But we're so young!]]
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': It's for the band. Miss Enright lent it to us. I understand she plays like an angel.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': [[DeadpanSnarker I can hardly wait.]]
* ElevatorFailure:
** In "Project X", Miss Brooks begins the episode by nearly falling to her death down an open elevator shaft at Clay City High School.
** In "School Safety Advisor", a mix-up involves [[spoiler: Mr. Conklin and a member of the school board falling six feet down the empty freight elevator shaft.]]
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Stretch Snodgrass' real name is "Fabian."
* EmbarrassingRelativeTeacher: Harriet Conklin's father is the ''school principal''; to make it worse he's particularly unliked by the student body. Harriet's embarassed by the more ''unprincipled'' facets of Mr. Conklin's tenure. For example, in "Home Cooked Meal" she's mortified that instead of buying a home freezer, Mr. Conklin is secretly hiding the family's meat supply in the school cafeteria freezer.
* EmergencyImpersonation:
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", Walter Denton is drafted to impersonate Stretch Snodgrass, while Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks impersonate his parents.
** In "Head of the State Board of Education", Miss Brooks asks a bum to impersonate the head of the state board (unaware that said bum is the head of the state board), Mr. Boynton impersonates Mr. Conklin, Mr. Conklin imitates Walter Denton, and Walter Denton claims to be Stretch Snodgrass. It all MakesSenseInContext.
* EntertaininglyWrong: Happens several times. From Miss Brooks' perspective, the events of "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton" and "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves" are particularly infamous!
* Creator/EveArden: The starring role, one of many in a long career, for which Eve Arden is most remembered.
* EtTuBrute: In "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", Principal Osgood Conklin is shocked to discover that Mr. Boynton seems to be the one that stole his typewriter and made a long-distance call to Rockaway, Minnesota on his office phone. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a misunderstanding. Mr. Boynton oiled the typewriter and put it in the office closet. Boynton left the money for the long distance call in an envelope on Mr. Conklin's desk]].
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Et-tu, Boynton?
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Walter has at least once said Mr. Boynton is "tall, dark, handsome..." as well as "Boy, is he good looking!"
* EveryProperLadyShouldCurtsy: Mrs. Davis curtsies on a few occasions, usually when the situation doesn't warrant it. In one episode, she even does a curtsy for a hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria".
* EverythingMakesAMushroom: In "Writing Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks [[ItMakesSenseInContext tells the editor of "True Family Romance" that her entirely-made-up quiz kid son]] made a mushroom with his home chemistry set the other day.
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: In "Life Can Be Bones", Miss Brooks interests LoveInterest Mr. Boynton in a fossil dig in her backyard, by describing to him a bone of what might be a prehistoric "missing link". For some reason, on said dig Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin forget about the "missing link" and dig up presumed dinosaur fossils. It turns out the fossils were planted by Walter Denton, in place of the entirely unconvincing soup bones Miss Brooks herself had buried for the "archeological expedition."
* EverytownAmerica: Madison.
* EvilGloating: Mr. Conklin likes to gloat.
** In "Faculty Cheerleader", Mr. Conklin gloats to his daughter over his morning coffee. He considers the sight of Miss Brooks, appointed faculty cheerleader, tossing a baton up in the air and it hitting her on the head. [[spoiler: When Mr. Conklin decides to make himself faculty cheerleader, he's a victim of LaserGuidedKarma.]]
** Mr. Conklin gloats to Miss Brooks in "Two Way Stretch Snodrgass" about his plans for the school football team, see EvilLaugh below.
* EvilLaugh: Mr. Conklin laughs ''evilly'' on a couple occasions. This example is from the episode "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass'':
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': I just learned that Biff Mooney, one of the greatest college football players, is interested in a high school coaching job in this part of the country. I've already opened negotiations by mail, and it's a foregone conclusion that he'll accept my offer. Ah-ha-ha-ha (''evil laugh''), ah, I can't wait to see the expression on Brill's face when I tell him about it. Heh, heh, heh (''evil laugh'').
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[DeadpanSnarker In some states, that laugh would be banned.]]
* EvilSoundsRaspy: The titular convict in "Convict Threatens To Kill Mr. Conklin".
* ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin: The series naturally stars Miss Brooks. Additionally, episode titles often describe what the episode is about, i.e "Angela's Wedding" or "Birthday Bag".
* ExactWords:
** In "The Big Game", Miss Brooks takes Mr. Conklin's exact words at their literal value to pass former football star Gus "Snakehips" Geary and give him his high school diploma.
** Similarly, in "The Yodar Kritch Award", Miss Brooks gives [[DumbJock Bones Snodgrass]] (or Stretch Snodgrass, in the radio version of the episode) the Yodar Kritch Award for Unique Achievement in English. The unique achievement? Not answering a single question right.
* ExcitedShowTitle: "Spare That Rod!"
* TheExitIsThatWay: In "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton", [[ItMakesSenseInContext Miss Brooks accidentally offers to masquerade as Mr. Boynton's mother]] in front of Dean Faraday of State University. Playing the "wrong" Mrs. Boynton requires her to go to Mr. Boynton's apartment and entertain the dean. Unfortunately, Mr. Boynton's apartment features mainly wildlife specimens . . . ''and doors''. Miss Brooks, at various times, mistakenly goes into the bathroom, closet, kitchen, bedroom, and once even locks herself outside the backdoor and has to be let in the front by the dean.
* ExtendedGreetings: Walter Denton likes to carry on. This exchange with Miss Brooks is in the episode "Wild Goose Chase":
-->'''Walter Denton:''' And to you, fair flower of the faculty, a thousand salaams!\\
'''Miss Brooks:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Thank you, Walter Denton, and I've had my share, thanks.]]
* ExtremelyShortIntroSequence: The syndicated opening sequence for Our Miss Brooks [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rr1i9hp-3w is only 13-seconds long]]. Notable in that the syndicated version dates back to the 1950's. The theme itself dates to the 1948 radio premier, when it was played briefly at the start and end of the radio episodes. A much longer version of the tune plays over the closing credits.
* ExtracurricularEnthusiast: Walter Denton. He's been manager of the football, baseball and basketball team. He's been on the debating team, editor of the school paper "The Madison Monitor" and Vice-President of the Student Council. Walters also helps Miss Brooks' with the Spring Garden, and joins Madison High School's (short-lived) student Traffic Police. He's also tried out (unsuccessfully) for the baseball, basketball and water polo, before finally (and barely) making it onto the school football team.
* EyeTake: Miss Brooks bugs out her eyes from time to time. One example is early in [[GrandFinale the film]], after Mrs. Davis greets her with an apparent non sequitur.
* FacialDialogue: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Brooks' facial expressions as Mr. Conklin is about to light a match in a gas-filled room....
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Miss Brooks can't get Mr. Boynton to propose marriage . . . that is until the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]] where, with the help of Mrs. Davis, she succeeds in marrying Mr. Boynton and living [[HappilyEverAfter happily ever after]].
* FailuresOnIce: In "Swap Week", school board head Mr. Stone is forced to recuperate at his vacation cabin. Stone had injured his ankle using the pair of ice skates Mr. Conklin bought him.
* FaintInShock: In the concluding film, Mr. Conklin faints when he learns that [[spoiler:the position he's been campaigning for pays only a nominal amount.]]
* FairWeatherFriend: Sometimes, when the going gets tough, Walter Denton gets going, i.e. "Trial By Jury".
* FairyTaleEpisode: "Cinderella for a Day". A mysterious shoe salesman lends Miss Brooks a custom-made gold slipper until midnight. Miss Brooks is treated to several Cinderella-style presents, from the same mysterious donor, that allow her to attend the masquerade ball at the country club in style. [[spoiler: It turns out the shoe salesman was a millionaire gambler who had placed a bet with a expert shoemaker that he could find a pair of feet that would perfectly fit the custom made slippers. The gifts were partly his reward to Miss Brooks, and partly for laughs.]]
* FairyTaleWeddingDress:
** "Angela's Wedding" begins with Mrs. Davis' sister Angela trying on her wedding dress while carrying her bouquet. It is an elaborate white dress with a veil and a train, with humour coming from the fact Angela is in her latter middle-aged and is quite plump.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale to the series, Miss Brooks pictures herself in one as she fantasizes about marriage to Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks finally gets her man at the end of the film]]
* FakeCharity: In the episode "Bobbsey Twins in Stir", a conman is tricking people into [[RefugeInAudacity selling fake tickets to the policemen's ball.]] The proceeds are supposedly going to "widows and orphans".
* FallingInLoveMontage: PlayedForLaughs. Mr. Boynton takes Miss Brooks to the zoo, where they feed an elephant mother and her baby. Then Miss Brooks lures Mr. Boynton away from the zoo, to a sale on furniture in the ''Sherry's Department Store'' window, as a way of suggesting matrimony. Mr. Boynton again starts taking Miss Brooks again to the zoo, where a camera fade shows how much the baby elephant had grown in a couple years.
--> '''Miss Brooks (narrating)''': Ours was not the fastest romance in history, but it took no time to develop into one of the slowest.
* FamilyBusiness:
** Mrs. Nestor's private elementary school in the last television season. Mrs. Nestor is principal, [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute her sister (also named Mrs. Nestor) become the new principal,]] her brother Munsee is vice principal.
** ''The Madison Express'', the Madison daily newspaper owned by Lawrence Nolan. He expects his son Gary to run the paper after he retires.
* FamilyVersusCareer: Several episodes (i.e. "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton) suggest that upon achieving her series goal of marriage to Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks intends to resign her position as Madison English teacher. In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] this is also the case. Family first for Miss Brooks, as her HappilyEverAfter is to become a wife and mother.
* FancyDinner:
** The School Board Banquet in "Stretch is in Love" (radio) and "Suzy Prentisss" (television). It's a black tie event, tuxedos for men and evening gowns for women.
** To a lesser degree, Miss Brooks' dinner at an expensive [[FrenchCuisineIsHaughty French restaurant]] in "French Sadie Hawkins Day".
* {{Fanfare}}: The movie dispenses with the usual series theme, and opens with a fanfare heavy composition.
* TheFashionista: Wealthy Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' rival, is always impeccably dressed.
* FashionMagazine: In the episode "Cosmopolitan Magazine", a photographer arrives from the real-life ''Magazine/{{Cosmopolitan}} Magazine'' to do an article and photo-spread about an average American high school. The trope is somewhat averted, as at the time (1953) Cosmopolitan was an esteemed literary and general interest periodical, and not the sex and fashion magazine it is today. The radio episode was broadcast to coincide with Cosmopolitan's publication of an article on Eve Arden and ''Our Miss Brooks''. [[OlderThanTheyThink An example of the application of media "synergies", at least fifty years before the modern word was coined.]]
* FatalFireworks: In the episode "School Safety Advisor", DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass brings an enormous firecracker to school, preparatory to setting it off for the Fourth of July. Stretch accidentally gets the fuse wet, so he ''attempts to dry it off with a match''. This lights the fuse; fortunately a quick-thinking Miss Brooks throws the firecracker into an empty supply room. Alas, the room wasn't so empty after all! Fortuantely, Mr. Conklin emerged relatively unharmed from that minor explosion!
* FavorsForTheSexy: This happened most notably in the episodes "The Model Schoolteacher" (the radio original) and "The Model Teacher" (the television remake). Walter Denton, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin trip over themselves helping a glamorous ImmoralJournalist from "Snap Magazine". She is at Madison High to do a profile on the day in the life of a schoolteacher, but really views her role as that of doing a hatchet job on Miss Brooks.
* FawltyTowersPlot:
** "Head of the Board": The trouble begins when Walter Denton makes a prank call to Mr. Conklin, claiming to be Wallace T. Hewitt, head of the State Board of Education. Miss Brooks is forced to find an impersonator to play the role and avert Mr. Conklin's wrath. HilarityEnsues.
** "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass": Happens when Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin have Walter Denton masquerade as student athlete Stretch Snodgrass.
* FBIAgent: They appear at the end of "Postage Due."
* FeelingTheirAge: In "Old Age Plan" the power of suggestion turns Boynton and Conklin into shambling wrecks with one foot in the grave. Miss Brooks is trying to sell an old age savings plan to the two men and, after reading the signs of old age to them, they come down with all the symptoms.
* FeigningIntelligence: In "Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks enlists Walter Denton to masquerade as her nonexistent fourteen year old quiz kid son. Miss Brooks had written an fictional article for "True Family Romance" magazine about her quiz kid son, and needed to prove the story was true in order to collect her payment. HilarityEnsues, especially as Mr. Conklin gets involved . . . .
* FellAsleepStandingUp: Stretch Snodgrass in "Stretch Is In Love Again" falls asleep standing in the school hallway. Judy Brille, daughter of rival high school principal Jason Brille, was colluding with her father to keep Stretch out dating her and dancing to the wee hours of the morning. In that way, they hoped to keep him useless in the big game.
* FileMixup: The episode "Have Bed - Will Travel" sees Mrs Davis' medical records mixed with an ill nonagenarian friend, making Miss Brooks believe her landlady is mortally ill.
* FillItWithFlowers: In "Poetry Mix-Up", Mr. Boynton advises Miss Brooks to request some flowers from the school nursery, in order to brighten up her dreary classroom.
* FilmNoir: The latter part of "Postage Due" is very much film noir influenced, with Miss Brooks providing a PrivateEyeMonologue.
* FinalSeasonCasting: The chaotic and controversial last season of the television series. ExecutiveMeddling saw Miss Brooks take a new job as a teacher at a private elementary school in California (versus the EverytownAmerica setting of Madison). The last season initially sees the departure of everybody but Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin. Mrs. Davis was briefly replaced by her sister Angela, before returning to the picture a couple episodes later. Mrs. Nestor is introduced as Miss Brooks' new boss, only to be replaced by her sister, [[FridgeLogic also named Mrs. Nestor]]. Mr. Boynton is replaced as Miss Brooks' love interest by two gym teachers in quick succession, until finally returning at the end of the program. Harriet Conklin and Walter Denton disappear entirely from Miss Brooks' life, although Mrs. Conklin again made a few appearances toward the end.
** This was averted on the radio, as the program continued at Madison High School in the [[EverytownAmerica City of Madison]] as per usual. The [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]] followed the radio continuity, ignoring the final television season completely.
* FireOfComfort: In the episode "Magic Tree", Miss Brooks spends Christmas Eve in a rocking chair in front Mrs. Davis' fireplace
* FirstNameBasis: [[spoiler: Significantly, making up after an argument midway through the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale grand finale]], Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton finally move to a first name bais, "Connie" and "Phillip" respectively.]]
* FiveFingerDiscount: In "The Bicycle Thief", Stevie, a poor but otherwise honest honor student just can't help himself; he borrows Mr. Conklin's bicycle for his birthday. Miss Brooks tries to prevent Mr. Conklin from discovering the identity of the borrower.
* {{Flashback}}: In "Borrowing Money to Fly".
* FlashbackEffects: Visual effects and music were used to signify dream sequences in "Magic Christmas Tree", "The Dream", "King and Miss Brooks" and "Mr. Boynton's Return". Just the music was used for the radio in "Connie's New Job Offer" and the radio version of "Magic Christmas Tree".
* FloorboardFailure: In the GrandFinale, when campaigning for the position of Coordinator of Education, Mr. Conklin falls through the floor of the temporary stage Walter Denton constructed. Walter didn't use enough nails.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect:
** In the episode "Pensacola Popovers", Miss Brooks tries to work the Florence Nightengale Effect to her benefit by buying Mr. Boynton snacks throughout the morning. Including the titular cookies, which made everyone ''aside from Mr. Boynton'' sick. Mr. Boynton eventually telephones Miss Brooks, asking for her nursing aid. However, it turns out that Mr. Boynton wants Miss Brooks to nurse his pet frog (who had also eaten a Pensacola Popover).
** In "Reunion", one of Miss Brooks' friends had met her husband while she working in a doctor's office. He had visited the doctor due to a slipped disk.
* FollowInMyFootsteps: What Lawrence Nolan expects of his son Gary in the film.
* TheFoodPoisoningIncident: Mrs. Davis is often a CordonBleughChef (try her Limburger omelet), but once she goes straight into LethalChef territory. "Pensacola Popovers", in the episode of the same name, are guaranteed to give man or beast gastric distress. Walter Denton tries one and is sick as a dog. Principal Osgood Conklin tries one, and goes home sick within a half an hour. Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall licks one, and is reduced to hopping around on his head in a frenzy.
** [[spoiler: Miss Brooks gives a few to LoveInterest Mr. Boynton, in a plot to make him sick so she can nurse him back to health. Alas, Mr. Boynton's cast-iron stomach makes him immune. For awhile, at least. Mr. Boynton calls Miss Brooks as he needs someone to nurse . . . his pet frog Mcdougall. Eventually, the popovers have their effect, and Mr. Boynton faints away at the Biology Club luncheon and is taken to the hospital.]]
--> '''Miss Brooks''' Well, what do you know? A delayed popover!
* Foodp*rn:
** In "Carelessness Code", a SoundToScreenAdaptation, Miss Brooks has no money for lunch due to Mr. Conklin's arbitrary "carelessness code" fines. A lot of time is spent with Miss Brooks looking hungrily upon Harriet's cafeteria lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes.
** In the "Thanksgiving Show", Walter Denton describes his typical thanksgiving dinner to Miss Brooks:
--->'''Walter Denton''': Well, usually Mom cooks a big turkey. And we have dinner at about four o'clock in the afternoon. Oh gosh, I'll never forget last year's meal. First we had a fresh fruit cup and then some delicious vegetable soup. And then this golden brown turkey was served with a special dressing of raisons and chestnuts. And then we had some candied yams with a baked marshmallow covering and . . . .
* ForeignQueasine: A staple of early radio episodes, was landlady Mrs. Davis' reliance on outlandish foreign recipes for Miss Brooks' breakfast. One such dish were Armenian Pancakes, which relied on sour goat's milk. Another was an Eskimo recipe for "blubber burgers", whale meat fried in seal fat. Mrs. Davis become more staid as time goes on, and the show moved to television. However, Miss Brooks complains of eating Hungarian Goulash in a later episode. Miss Brooks outright refuses to touch a plate of Veal Scallopini and Garlic Bread Mrs. Davis presents her with one morning.
* ForgottenAnniversary: In "24 Hours", Miss Brooks talks to an irate Martha Conklin; she's furious that Osgood Conklin hadn't bought a present or even mentioned their anniversary. Miss Brooks tries to patch things up by buying a pair of andirons and sending it as a gift in Osgood Conklin's name. Later, Miss Brooks is surprised to find Martha Conklin is angry at Osgood Conklin for buying an expensive pair of andirons. It's made worse when she receives the pair of andirons ''Osgood'' bought for her. He hadn't forgotten after all.
* ForgottenBirthday: In "The Birthday Bag". Miss Brooks forgets her own birthday, while everybody else remembers.
* ForgotToMindTheirHead: Occasionally happens to Mr. Conklin. For example, in one episode he's looking for something under his desk and bumps his head when he gets up.
* ForgotToPayTheBill: In "Public Property on Parade", the electricity is disconnected when Mrs. Davis fails to pay the bill. Miss Brooks is forced to type out a speech by the light of a streetlamp.
* FortuneTeller:
** Mrs. Davis believes tea leaves to be a reliable method of telling the future. Most notably, in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves"]], Mrs. Davis' dresses up as gypsy to read Miss Brooks' tea leaves. Her predictions appear to come true . . . until HilarityEnsues.
** Mrs. Davis also reads tea leaves in the radio episodes "The Weighing Machine" and "Friendship" to varying results. In "Weighing Machine", Mrs. Davis' reading is prompted by the need to double check a fortune Miss Brooks' receives from a penny weighing machine. Here, the readings turn out to be correct . . . but not in the way Mrs. Davis or Miss Brooks expects.
** Mrs. Davis switches to playing cards in the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. However, Mrs. Davis simply uses the cards as a device to reveal Mr. Boynton's intention to Miss Brooks, in spite of having previously been pledged to secrecy.
* ForYourOwnGood: In "Spare That Rod!", Principal Conklin's rationale for his severe discipline policy. It's for the benefit of the students, the faculty and Madison High School alike.
* FourLeafClover: In "Four Leaf Clover", Miss Brooks picks a four leaf clover that brings her nothing but ''bad'' luck. She eventually pawns it off to a crooked auto mechanic.
* FreePrizeAtTheBottom: [[spoiler: The fateful box of Cracker Jacks, at the end of the film.]]
* FreeRangeChildren: Teenagers Walter Denton, Stretch and Bones Snodgrass tend to be able to go where they please and when. Averted with Harriet Conklin, who Mr. Conklin is (sometimes) seen to keep an eye on.
* FrenchCuisineIsHaughty: In the episode "French Sadie Hawkins Day", Miss Brooks accidentally orders "Parking in Rear" from the snobby maître d'hôtel. She then proceeds to order expensive meals for everybody, ignorant of the fact that she has agreed to pay for the entire dinner.
* FreudianSlip: Miss Brooks sometimes slips something marriage or romance related when talking to Mr. Boynton.
* AFriendInNeed: Miss Brooks can always be counted on to stand by her friends; even Mr. Conklin, her FriendlyEnemy.
** On multiple occasions, she protects Walter Denton from having one of his practical jokes exposed and backfiring on him. "Cure That Habit" and "Mr. Conklin is Honored" are cases in point.
** Miss Brooks is eager to protect [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]], naturally enough. "Mr. Conklin Plays Detective", where Miss Brooks believes Mr. Boynton used Mr. Conklin's phone to make a long distance call, is a case in point. Likewise, "The Jewel Robbery", where Miss Brooks wrongly believes Mr. Boynton robbed a store.
** Miss Brooks saves Mr. Conklin's job in "Wake Up Plan" and "Saving the School Newspaper". When Miss Brooks wrongly concludes Mr. Conklin has been fired in "Rumors", she sets up a laundry to raise money.
** Miss Brooks saves Mrs. Davis from a hurried marriage in "Marriage Madness".
* FriendlyEnemies: Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin often kvetch about being the bane of one other's existence. However, depending on their goals, they'll either be working together on friendly terms ("Citizen's League", "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", "Postage Due"), helping one another ("Cure That Habit", "The Hobby Show"), socializing with one another ("Parlor Game" and "The Birthday Bag") . . . or at loggerheads as if they were sworn enemies ("Old Marblehead", "Business Course", "Secondhand First Aid").
* FriendshipSong: In the episode "Friendship", "Friendship" (''from Theatre/AnythingGoes'') is played between scenes, ever more manically as Miss Brooks' loses friends. Unusually, the two buddies singing the song don't have a role outside the song. In the song's last appearance, about midway through the episode, one friend decides to murder the other:
-->'''The Two Friends''': Friendship\\
Friendship\\
Just a perfect friendship\\
When other friendships be forgot\\
'''Gunshot'''\\
'''Surviving Friend''': '''I''' will still be hot.
* FrivolousLawsuit: In the episode "Mr. Travers' Three Acre Lot". Mr. Conklin ''literally'' sets Miss Brooks up for a fall so he can sue Mr. Travers and force the sale of the eponymous lot.
* FruitCart: Memorably, in "Trial by Jury", Miss Brooks finds herself charged with speeding, reckless driving, driving the wrong way, and crashing into a fruit stand. The unfortunate fruit stand owner again suffers at the hands of Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin's automobile mishaps in "Miss Brooks' New Car". At the end of the episode, Miss Brooks takes a wagon load of fruit to the Conklins as a peace offering. The fruit stand owner had decided to give Miss Brooks his stock and start again in another city.
* FryingPanOfDoom: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis uses a frying pan to great effect on the noggin of a gym teacher who [[BerserkButton insults her deviled eggs.]]
* FunWithForeignLanguages: Guaranteed whenever French teacher Mr. [=LeBlanc=] appears.
* FurAndLoathing: Miss Enright, Miss Brooks' snooty, catty [[SitcomArchNemesis rival]], brags about her furs as well as other expensive clothes.
* GagEcho: A notable example occurs in the episode "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo." The titular hobo calls himself "The Earl of Peoria." Miss Brooks responds by asking "How is the Princess Margaret-Rose?" The hobo introduces himself to Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis inquires "How is the Princess Margaret Rose?" Walter Denton appears, again asking "Then how's the Princess Margaret Rose?" Finally, Mr. Conklin is introduced to the hobo. He asks "Then how's the Duke of Edinburgh?" Mr. Conklin laughs at his own joke.
* GagHaircut: In "The Hairdo". Miss Enright instructs the hairdresser to sabotage Miss Brook’s hairdo.
* GambitPileup: In "Writing Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin each write fictional articles for "True Family Romance" magazine, neither knowing of the other's "indiscretion". Both are forced to prove the veracity of their fake tale in order to collect their fee. Both enlist Walter Denton to play the part of their respective fake fourteen year old sons . . . in the same place, at the same time. HilarityEnsues.
* GamesOfTheElderly: In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mrs. Davis mentions how Mrs. Boynton (Mr. Boynton's mother) "beat my brains out" in canasta. [[spoiler: At movie's end, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Boynton finally get Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton married]]
* GenderEqualEnsemble: The six major characters are equally balanced by gender. Three girls: Constance (Connie) Brooks, Margaret Davis and Harriet Conklin. Three boys: Phillip Boynton, Osgood Conklin, and Walter Denton.
* GenreRefugee: Tex Barton, a teenaged cowboy.
* GentlemanAdventurer: Safari O'Toole, in the episode of the same name. He is Mrs. Davis' faithful pen pal, and is noted for his travels through the wilds of DarkestAfrica. [[spoiler: He's also a fake.]]
* GettingTheBoot: Walter Denton complains about his dates with Harriet ending with Mr. Conklin kicking him down the porch steps.ca.
* TheGhost:
** Mrs. Davis' eccentric sister Angela is frequently discussed by Mrs. Davis at the breakfast table. Angela, however, remains unheard (on the radio) and unseen (on television) for quite awhile. Eventually, Jessica makes several appearances on the television series (sometimes as her sister's SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute, at a time when actress Jane Morgan suffered a stroke). The role was played by Canadian actress Jesselyn Fax. Fax also performed the role at least twice on the radio.
** Similarly, Mrs. Davis' much discussed brother Victor goes several years without being seen. He finally makes one appearance in the second television season, the episode "The Egg."
* GiftOfTheMagiPlot: In "Easter Parade", Miss Brooks works during her Spring Break in order in earn money so she can accompany Mr. Boynton to the Easter Parade in a new dress. Meanwhile, Mr. Boynton's working to earn money for a new suit to wear when he takes Miss Brooks to the Easter Parade. Due to TaxDeductions, Miss Brooks doesn't earn enough for the new dress. Mrs. Davis lends her the extra money, Miss Brooks doesn't learn the money is actually coming from Mr. Boynton. Mr. Boynton no longer has enough money for the new suit. Miss Brooks' new dress is messed up when she accidently sits on a couple of Easter Eggs Mrs. Davis hid under the sofa cushions. So she too goes to the parade in her old dress of which she's positively ashamed. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton both enjoy a heartwarming moment as a result.
* GirlOfTheWeek:
** "New Girl In Town" is ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin. Walter Denton dates the new girl, while Miss Brooks' LoveInterest Mr. Boynton is attracted to the girl's widowed mother.
** "Life Can Be Bones" sees Miss Brooks romantically threatened by Mr. Boynton's temporary laboratory assistant.
** In "Hello, Mr. Chips", Miss Brooks tries to date an English schoolmaster to make Mr. Boynton jealous.
** In "Clay City English Teacher", scheming Clay City High School principal Jason Brille tries to lure Miss Brooks to his school with the eponymous male teacher. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks won't go unless there's a job for Mr. Boynton too.]]
* GirlShowGhetto: The show managed to be popular, in spite of starring love-lorn English teacher Connie Brooks. At the start of its run on radio, Colgate-Palmolive used the half-hour slot to sell articles to women, i.e. Luster-Cream Shampoo, "men folks love it too". Later, they made a 180, switching to promoting Colgate Toothpaste and (men's) Shaving Cream. Anason was a later radio sponsor, while the Armed Forces Radio Network played the program in reruns. On television, the program eventually was used to showcase products aimed for kids, like breakfast cereal and a new type of chocolate milk mix!
* GirlsBehindBars:
** In "The Embezzled Dress" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Student Banking"), Miss Brooks fears being sent to prison. Landlady Mrs. Davis had unknowingly spent the students' bank money left in Miss Brooks' care, thinking it was Miss Brooks' back rent. Walter Denton, trying to teach Miss Brooks up, tells her about the conditions at the State Prison for Women. It involves mopping the floors all day; as there are not enough mops to go around, many of the inmates have to clean the floors on their hands and knees.
** In "Bobbsey Twins in Stir", Mrs. Davis, and later Miss Brooks, are briefly in jail after they're tricked into selling phony tickets to the policeman's ball.
* GirlsWithMustaches: In "Madame Brooks Dubarry", Mrs. Davis wears a fake mustache when she dons a UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt costume for a party.
* GirlySkirtTwirl: Miss Brooks does one in her fantasy sequence in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]]. She's dreaming about her life married to Mr. Boynton.
* GiveMeBackMyWallet: In "The Burglar", Mr. Conklin wakes up from his nap discovering a burglar in the process of absconding with the basket of fried chicken his wife cooked for him.
* GladIThoughtOfIt: Mr. Conklin uses this trope from time-to-time, usually at Connie's expense. However, being a DeadpanSnarker, Connie doesn't let this go without remark.
* TheGlassesGotToGo: Said by Miss Brooks in "The Dancer." She had tried on a pair of glasses to see if Mr. Boynton will find her attractive in them. Mr. Boynton complimented Miss Brooks on how "mature" she looks.
* GoGetterGirl: Harriet Conklin is a straight A student, Student Council President, and member of a number of clubs. Next to her boyfriend, Walter Denton, she's probably Miss Brooks' biggest TeachersPet. She's also seen as the only student who likes the principal, likely because she's his daughter.
* GoingDownWithTheShip: In "An American Tragedy", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are stranded on a rowboat in the middle of Crystal Lake. Mr. Conklin proclaims himself captain, however it turns out the rowboat is leaking and starts to sink. Neither Mr. Conklin nor Miss Brooks can swim . . . .
-->'''Mr. Conklin''' (panicking): [[HypocriticalHumor Well keep your head, Boynton!]] Don't get panicky! Don't get panicky, boy! You need all your strength, every ounce of it to tow '''me''' ashore!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Tow you ashore? What about me, sir? I can't swim either, and you know the tradition of the sea, the captain goes down with his ship!
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Not in this ship!
** [[spoiler: Fortunately, they had unknowingly drifted near the shore and the water under the boat was only three feet deep]]
* GoldDigger: In "Marriage Madness", the butcher's new business partner tries to marry Mrs. Davis for her money. It seems as if he's been often married, starting with the time in school he ran off with his French teacher.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': If he had said English teacher, I would have screamed!
* GoodGuyBar: Marty's Malt Shop is the usual hangout for teachers and students alike, outside school.
* GoodOlBoy: In "Four Fiances", the Texan to whom Miss Brooks finds herself unwittingly engaged. The gentleman is portrayed sympathetically.
* GoodParents: Martha Conklin, mother of HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Harriet Conklin. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to Harriet's father, Osgood Conklin. Although Harriet and her father are close, Osgood Conklin is pompous and [[OverprotectiveDad overprotective.]]
* GoshDangItToHeck: Used from time to time, often making the avoidance humorous in itself:
** Sometimes, swear words are referred to obliquely. For example, in "Stretch is Accused Of Professionalism, there's this exchange between Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks:
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Stretch has as much chance of passing that test as, well, . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Maybe one of them didn't melt down there.
** Miss Brooks censors Walter Denton at breakfast when he's complaining about Mr. Conklin:
-->'''Walter Denton''': Miss Brooks, Mr. Conklin is making my otherwise placid existence a living . . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Walter!
-->'''Walter Denton''': Inferno?
** Words like "dang" and "heck" are often treated seriously. When Mr. Boynton uses it in the cafeteria HilarityEnsues:
--> '''Walter Denton''': Language!
--> '''Mr. Boynton''': Oh, sorry Miss Brooks.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': That's all right, Mr. Boynton. In such times, even I resort to a mild profanity. ''Whoa Nelly''!
** On a more serious note, Mr. Conklin's favourite exclamation is the mild"Gad!"; likely to avoid blasphemy and breaking The Third Commandment.
** In a RealLife Moment of Heartwarming, Creator/EveArden asked the radio and later the television crew not to swear on set as there were kids working on the show.
* GossipyHens:
** In "The Party Line", the two woman who share Miss Brooks' party telephone line hold up the phone gossiping all day. The women also listen in on Miss Brooks' conversations and gossip about Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton.
** Mrs. Davis and her sister Angela, on occasion. Of course, they'll deny being gossips . . . .
* GoToSleepEnding: The episode "Wake-Up Plan" ends with Miss Brooks finding Mr. Boynton sleeping on a bench in the hallway, just outside Mr. Conklin's office. Miss Brooks sits on his lap.
--->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh well, might as well make it unanimous. Good night all.
--->'''Mr. Boynton''': (whistles in his sleep)
* GotVolunteered: Miss Brooks often finds herself volunteered by Mr. Conklin to do his secretarial, typing or speechwriting work; i.e. Aunt Mattie Boynton, Public Property on Parade.
* GrammarNazi: Miss Brooks herself is a mild example, as an English teacher she's often heard correcting Walter Denton or Stretch Snodgrass' grammar. Here, it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]].
* GrandeDame: Mrs. Grabar in "Madison Country Club". Mr. Conklin intends to squeeze money out of the rich dowager so he can redecorate his office. When she arrives, he plans on staging quite a show of poverty, complete with the staff dressed like hobos. Miss Brooks and company have other plans. HilarityEnsues.
* GrandFinale: TheMovie in 1956.
* GrandRomanticGesture: In the episode "Clay City English Teacher", Mr. Boynton tries to impress Miss Brooks by imitating Literature/SamSpade. [[ItMakesSenseInContext It makes sense in context.]]
* GrannyClassic: Mrs. Davis is often portrayed this way; she's kind, loves to cook, sews and knits, and has a pet cat named Minerva. [[spoiler: In TheMovie GrandFinale she's responsible the marriage of Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton]]
* GratuitousSpanish: Mexican boy Ricky Velasco in "The Miserable Caballero" and "Buddy", in the last television season Mexican student Benny Romero. Both parts were played by child actor Ricky Vera.
* GrayRainOfDepression: In "The Pet Shop", a misunderstanding means that Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton are likely to stand one another up for their date. At the last moment, Miss Brooks decides to go wait for Mr. Boynton outside the pet shop as promised. Miss Brooks waits, likely in vain, as a grey rain of depression falls. [[spoiler:Mr. Boynton also cannot stay away, and the misunderstanding is cleared. The rain likewise clears, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton go out on their date.]]
* GreasySpoon: Miss Brooks moonlights in one, taking the identity of her nonexistent identical twin, in the episode "Connie and Bonnie".
* GretzkyHasTheBall: Miss Brooks' knowledge of sports ranges from the excellent to the ridiculously inadequate.
** In "Bronco Dismissed" the trope is averted, as Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton substitute coach for the football team without any difficulty. Likewise in other episodes such as "Baseball Slide" and "The Big Game". In some episodes, however, Miss Brooks is very much in the dark . . . .
** In "Game At Clay City", Miss Brooks' football knowledge isn't lacking, but Mr. Boynton admits to being clueless as to most if not all sports. He even asks who's pitching for the football team.
** In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks confuses the baseball term "bullpen" with "pigpen". She also mistakenly calls pitchers "chuckers". She later redeems herself, by serving as the announcer for the titular boxing match.
** In "Stretch Is In Love Again", Miss Brooks cheers on a dead tired Stretch Snodgrass when he runs the wrong way and scores on Madison.
** In "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", when Mr. Conklin calls Stretch one of the most promising high school tailbacks in the country, Miss Brooks look behind Stretch to see if he had a tail.
* GreyscaleOfEvil: Osgood Conklin prefers to dress in black three-piece suits, or at least dark colors. Although the program appeared on television and film in black and white, and didn't "appear" at all on the radio, this tendency is mentioned several times:
** "First Day": Mr. Conklin not only dressed in black, but drove a large black sedan that Walter Denton compares to a hearse.
** "Friday The Thirteenth": Mr. Conklin brags about his respectable black suit and hat to his daughter. He worries that his "midnight blue" tie might be loud.
* GrinOfAudacity:
** Sported by Walter Denton, whenever conniving to pull an especially severe prank on Mr. Conklin. Being told off sometimes serves to encourage the grin (except by Mr. Conklin himself, of whom Denton is somewhat afraid). Noticeable in "Wild Goose", "Space, Who Needs It?", "Cure That Habit", "Marinated Hearing" and "Spare That Rod!".
** Walter is also proud of having a "dark secret". In "Citizen's League", Miss Brooks suffers from guilt for having [[spoiler: accidentally stuck a pin in the seat of the church organist Mrs. Dunfy when fitting her dress for the governor's wedding]]. Miss Brooks asks Walter if he himself has a dark secret. Walter [[AnnoyingLaugh smirks, laughs, and says he does.]] [[spoiler: However, after being chewed out by Miss Brooks, Walter admits it's far from terrible, and again in the nature of a teenage prank.]]
** In "Wake Up Plan", Mr. Conklin laughs at his having sent a letter to the board of education, reporting Miss Brooks for missing her morning classes. This is in spite of admitted to himself, out loud, that it was a terrible thing to do.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mrs. Davis suggests to Mr. Boynton that Lawrence Nolan had induced Miss Brooks to take a trip on his yacht so he might seduce her. Mr. Boynton is outraged, and begins frantically checking his address book. Meanwhile, Mrs. Davis smiles and stifles a giggles, overjoyed that her use of OperationJealousy was off to a fine start!
* GuysAreSlobs: Walter Denton in "Mr. Boynton's Parents". Walter mentions that one of the reasons he wants to honour his mother on Mother's Day is she picks up after him; a typical teen boy, he leaves his room a mess and his clothes all over the floor.
* HalloweenEpisode: The first season of the radio series has an episode where Walter and Stretch convince Miss Brooks to throw a Halloween party with the promise of inviting Mr. Boynton.
* {{Hallucinations}}: In "Halloween Party", Mr. Conklin is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He starts seeing things, such as a large dog in the doctor's waiting room.
* HamToHamCombat: Any episode where Madison High Principal Osgood Conklin faces his archrival, Clay City High School Principal Jason Brill.
* HandGagging: In "Magic Christmas Tree", Miss Brooks puts her hand over Walter Denton's mouth to stop his painfully off-key rendition of "Deck The Halls".
* {{Handgun}}: In "The Stolen Wardrobe", thieves valuable clothes stolen Sherry's with Miss Brooks, tricking her into believing it's a prize for being best dressed teacher at Madison High School. Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton attempt to return the clothes, but are shot at by (in Mr. Conklin's words) "a trigger-happy flat-floot" and flee the store. Later, the police-officer, handgun holdstered, shows up at Mrs. Davis' house.
* HappilyEverAfter: After eight years on the radio, and four on television, Miss Connie Brooks finally gets her happily ever after at the end of TheMovie GrandFinale. Or, to be more accurate, '''Mrs. Connie Boynton''' gets her happily ever after!
* HappilyMarried:
** Osgood and Martha Conklin are very much in love. In the episode "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Mr. Conklin even buys his wife a black sheer negligee for Mother's Day!
** At the end of The Movie Grand Finale, the same applies to Phil Boynton and Connie Boynton nee Brooks. The last few moments of the film sees them leave the zoo arm and arm, and their future home with "The End" superimposed over the shot.
* HappyBirthdayToYou: Miss Brooks' friends gave her a surprise party on the radio, in [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Suprise Party"]]. The episode was later remade for television under the title "The Birthday Bag". Miss Brooks starts the rendition to dodge Mr. Conklin's question, ''How old are you?"
-->'''Miss Brooks:''' ''Happy Birthday to me\\
Happy Birthday to me\\
'''Everybody''': Happy Birthday dear [[LastNameBasis Our Miss Brooks]]\\
Happy Birthday tooo you!''
* HardboiledDetective:
** In "Postage Due", Miss Brooks plays the hard boiled detective as she searches for the missing postman.
** "Clay City English Teacher" has Mr. Boynton consciously imitates Sam Spade in an attempt to lure Miss Brooks away from the eponymous teacher.
* HarmlessVillain: Mr. Conklin, when he serves as the antagonist on the series. His schemes usually involve some petty mischief serving his self-aggrandizement or his greed.
** For example, in "Old Marblehead", he shakes down students and faculty by creating a "Carelessness Code" and fining them mercilessly. His goal is to pay for a bust of his head in the school library - and he intends to destroy the existing bust of Julius Caesar to ensure he takes his rightful place. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks simply tricks him into busting the wrong bust.]]
** Another episode, "Home Cooked Meal", sees Mr. Conklin use the cafeteria freezer to freely store his own food. [[spoiler: He buys a freezer of his own, after Miss Brooks and Walter Denton accidently lock him inside]].
** In "The Big Jump", Mr. Conklin plots to force Miss Brooks to jump off the roof of the school as a publicity stunt for a civil defense drill. [[spoiler: Walter Denton lights some smudge pots on the stairs to the roof, leading to Mr. Conklin and Mr. Boynton jumping off in a panic]]
** In the [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Conklin plots to be elected the new Coordinator of Education. [[spoiler: Mr. Stone, the existing board superintendent (or equivalent), forces Mr. Conklin to withdraw by setting the new post's salary as a measly honorarium of %500.00.]]
* HatOfAuthority: In "Public Property on Parade", the Mayor of Madison is seen either wearing his top hat or carrying it about.
* HeadTurningBeauty:
** In "New Girl", all the boys at Madison immediately fall for the titular girl. Worse, from Miss Brooks' perspective, Mr. Boynton starts to fall for her mother.
** The ''Madison Express's'' new lonely hearts columnist. Every man (and boy) in the newsroom literally turns their head to look at her as she walks by.
* HeatWave: In the episode titled "Heat Wave", [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin naturally enough]].
* HeelFaceTurn: In "Mr. Whipple", Miss Brooks, Walter Denton and Mr. Conklin are so affected by the story of the eponymous Mr. Whipple, a man who hasn't has a bite of solid food for a week. It turns out Mr. Whipple is a bad tempered miser who's on a liquid diet. No matter, the show of kindness melts Mr. Whipple to the point where he undergoes a heel-face turn and donates the money for Madison's new gymnasium.
* HeldGaze:
** In ''The Magic Tree", before Mr. Boynton kisses Miss Brooks. [[spoiler: It's AllJustADream]].
** Just before, and after, Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton share a kiss in the series' [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale series finale]].
* HeroicBystander: Clay City High School Principal Jason Brill plays the part when he saves Miss Brooks from falling down an open elevator shaft. Madison High School Principal Osgood Conklin tries to match this feat with a "fake" heroic bystander rescue. [[spoiler: Conklin stages a real rescue when the superintendent, Mr. Stone, himself falls into an open elevator shaft.]]
* HerosClassicCar: Through the series, Walter Denton drives a 1930's style jalopy; also qualified as TheAllegedCar. In TheMovie GrandFinale, Mr. Boynton borrows the car to drive to Crystal Bay and "rescue" Miss Brooks from Lawrence Nolan.
* HiccupHijinks:
** In "Cure That Habit", Mr. Conklin has a bad case of the hiccups and suffers through two hiccup remedies. One is a revolting and ineffective mixture cooked up by Mrs. Davis. The second is student athlete Stretch Snodgrass' attempt to cure Mr. Conklin's hiccups by spinning him around in a chair.
** In "Trial by Jury" and "Mr. Conklin's Love Nest", Mr. Boynton suffers psychosomatic cases of the hiccups from either lying or acute embarrassment.
* HiddenHeartOfGold: Mr. Conklin, a.k.a. "Old Marblehead", may be a pompous, dictatorial, underhanded dictator of a principal, but from time to time he shows his good side:
** In "The Hobby Show" he helps fix broken toys to give to needy children.
** He's a member of the "Citizen's League."
** He helps throw a Christmas Party when he believes Mrs. Davis' sister Angela is dying in "A Dry Scalp is Better Then None."
** He helps Miss Brooks and co. find a missing postman in "Postage Due."
** Offers to adopt orphans in "The Twin Orphans" and "The Miserable Caballero."
** He helps Miss Brooks and Mrs. Davis out of problematic situations in "Four Fiances" and "Marriage Madness," among others.
** In "Weekend at Crystal Lake" he is worried that Mr. Boynton is going to repeat ''Literature/AnAmericanTragedy'' and hides under the boat tarpaulin to try and save Miss Brooks.
* HighSchool
* HighSchoolDance: A school dance drives the plot in several episodes. "Wishing Well Dance" sees Miss Brooks' hair clipped throughout the day as a gift for Mr. Boynton (to make a pillow for his pet frog). "Mr. Whipple" features Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton as Queen and King of the last dance to be held in the old gymnasium. The costumed dance in "Oh, Dem Gold Slippers" is shown, where Miss Brooks is dressed in a gown.
* HighSchoolHustler: Walter Denton, who was the bane of Principal Osgood Conklin's existence. Not least, because Walter was dating Mr. Conklin's Harriet. On several occasions, Mr. Conklin was the victim of Walter's pranks. For example:
** In "Cure That Habit", Walter applies to an alcoholism treatment program in Mr. Conklin's name; HilarityEnsues when the president of the company warns the head of the board of education that Mr. Conklin is a hopeless drunk.
** "Wild Goose" has Walter trick Mr. Conklin into thinking that he's won a free t.v. from Sherry's Department Store. HilarityEnsues as Mr. Conklin sends Miss Brooks to pick up his "prize".
** In "Space, Who Needs It?", Walter hides a shotgun pellet and buckshot in Mr. Conklin's homemade telescope. Mr. Conklin thinks he's discovered a new planet and her three moons, which he immediately christens "Conklin Junior". Walter then uses a toy flying saucer and wind-up space men to make Mr. Conklin think Madison is being invaded by space aliens.
* HilarityInZoos: It's a running gag that Mr. Boynton usually takes Miss Brooks to the zoo on their dates.
* TheHilarityOfHats: In "Bargain Hats For Mother's Day," Mrs. Davis asks Miss Brooks to sell the homemade hats she made. They feature an imitation sparrow perched upon imitation fruit. Mr. Conklin buys one for his wife Martha, Mr. Boynton buys one for his mother, Walter Denton gets one to use as a table centerpiece, while GenreRefugee Tex Barton buys one for his horse Lucy. [[HilarityEnsues Unfortunately, the recipients, even Lucy, are fanatics about having individualized wearing apparel . . . .]]
* HintDropping: Miss Brooks drops plenty of hints for Mr. Boynton. He rarely catches on.
* HiredForTheirLooks: In TheMovie GrandFinale, it's implied that the city editor hired the new "Miss Lonely Hearts" entirely on her looks. When she walks to the water cooler, she's the subject of the MaleGaze of every reporter in the room. Including the boss's son (Gary Nolan) and later the boss, Lawrence Nolan.
* HobbesWasRight: This is Mr. Conklin's belief, leastways when it comes to running a high school. Conklin essentially says as much to Miss Brooks in "Spare That Rod!". Conklin's military strictness would later put him under the opprobrium of the school board president, Mr. Stone, in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale.]]
* {{Hobos}}: Miss Brooks deals with hobos in the episodes "Hobo Jungle" and "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* HollywoodDarkness: Night scenes were usually shot uncommonly well. "The Burglar" and "Public Property on Parade" have nighttime scenes that are about as dark as you'd expect. However, the trope arises in "Wake-Up Plan", where the Conklin's hallway is suspiciously bright.
* HollywoodGenetics: Brown-haired Mr. and Mrs. Conklin have a blonde daughter, Harriet.
* HollywoodKiss: Miss Brooks [[spoiler: dreams she gets one from Mr. Boynton]] in "Magic Christmas Tree". Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks finally share a Hollywood kiss midway through the film.
* HollywoodLaw: In the episode "Hospital Capers". A lawyer (a literal ambulance chaser) gets Mr. Boynton to sign a contract hiring him a counsel; the contract features a hefty penalty if Mr. Boynton chooses to terminate his representation. When Miss Brooks visits the lawyer, he hands her ever larger magnifying glasses to [[ReadTheFinePrint read the contract's fine print]]. {{Lampshaded}} when the lawyer admits to Miss Brooks that he's been disbarred in several states.
* HollywoodNatives: In "Bartering With Chief Thundercloud", the eponymous chief and his wife.
* HollywoodPudgy: Mr. Conklin is referred to as fat on several occasions throughout the series, although he wouldn't be noticeable in a crowd.
* HollywoodSpelling: Averted in the episode "Suzie Prentisss", where the eponymous Suzie misspells her last name by giving it an extra "s".
* HomemadeSweaterFromHell: In "Home Cooked Meal", Miss Enright knits one for Mr. Boynton. One arm is terribly short, tight, and cuts off his circulation. The other is far too long.
* HomeSweetHome: [[spoiler: At the end of the film, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks marry and move into the house across the street from Mrs. Davis'.]]
* HotSauceDrinking:
** Mr. Boynton likes hot food. In "Mr. Boynton's Barbeque" he treats Mr. Conklin and Miss Enright to his [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce "mild" barbecue sauce]]. The two run for water.
** In the episode, "The Miserable Caballeros", Mexican boy Ricky Velasco proceeds to put an extraordinary amount of pepper and spices on his lunch. He tells Miss Brooks that he finds American food too bland.
* HotScientist: Biology teacher Philip Boynton.
* {{Housewife}}:
** Martha Conklin is a housewife
** Miss Brooks' SeriesGoal is to marry Mr. Boynton. In several episodes (i.e. "The Wrong Mrs. Boynton") it is made explicit that Miss Brooks wants to become a fulltime housewife and mother.
* HourglassPlot: The penultimate episode of the television series, "Principal For A Day", has Miss Brooks appointed principal and Mr. Conklin become a History (not English) teacher. Because StatusQuoIsGod, their respective positions are restored at the end. Neither seem to learn much from the episode. Miss Brooks enjoys herself thoroughly, and other than adding feminine touches to her office and spending some quality time with [[LoveInterest Mr. Boynton]] doesn't abuse her power. Mr. Conklin's temporary humility, and appreciativeness to Miss Brooks' giving him the teaching position, is cast off as soon as he becomes principal again. It helps that Mr. Conklin is a pompous JerkWithAHeartOfGold and not an outright villain.
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Said by Stretch Snodgrass ([[DumbJock of all people]]) of Mr. Conklin, in the episode "Letter From The Board of Education. Walter Denton speaks the line in the [[SoundtoScreenAdaptation television remake]], "Spare That Rod". [[spoiler: Walter Denton had forged a letter threatening Mr. Conklin with dismissal for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his disciplinary methods. Mr. Conklin was forcing himself to be meek and humble as a result.]]
* IAmVeryBritish: The visiting English headmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips".
* IdenticalGrandson: In "The Dream", Miss Brooks' daughter Cleo Boynton is her mirror-image. Similarly, Osgood Conklin Junior looks just like his father.
* IdiotBall:
** Whenever Stretch Snodgrass appears he has idiot ball firmly in hand. i.e. "The Auction", "Stuffed Gopher".
** The same applies to Stretch's brother [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Bones]], i.e. "Marinated Hearing".
** The idiot ball also passes into Walter Denton's clutches on occasion, i.e. "Living Statues", "Cure That Habit".
* IdioticPartnerConfession: The episode "Blue Goldfish" sees Harriet Conklin reveal the truth about Mr. Conklin's much vaunted tolerance to the cold.
* IfIWereARichMan: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks dreams about what life would be like married to a maharajah.
* TheIllegal: In the episode "Two Way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks, [[ItMakesSenseInContext pretending to be Stretch Snodgrass' parents]], spin [[BlatantLies a story of illegal immigration and a secret marriage to preserve their masquerade]]. Mr. Conklin's daughter Harriet walked in the room, threatening to blow up the scheme when she identifies Mr. Conklin as her father and claimed her mother (Martha Conklin) was nowhere in sight.
--> '''Miss Brooks'''; Your father and I, your father and me, we've been secretly married for sixteen years.
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': But I'm almost seventeen.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': I'm over seventeen. I was hoping you wouldn't notice it.
--> '''Biff Mooney'''': What is this all about? Mrs. Snodgrass, I demand to know the truth!
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': Mrs. Snodgrass!
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': You might as well know the whole story Harriet. As a poor but honest immigrant, I entered this country illegally. Your mother and I started out from the old country together.
--> '''Miss Brooks''': But I, your mother, couldn't make it. They shot me at the border. Of course, years later I was smuggled into the country.
--> '''Mr. Conklin''': With a group of Oriental laborers.
--> '''Harriet Conklin''': Oriental laborers?
--> '''Miss Brooks''': Don't look down your nose at me, girl. I helped build Boulder Dam!
* TheIllegible: In the radio episode "Letter to the Education Board", Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton struggle to read Stretch Snodgrass' essay. It was remade on television as "Marinated Hearing", where the sloppy essay was written by Stretch's brother Bones.
* ImmoralJournalist: Stephanie Forest in the episodes "The Model Schoolteacher" (the radio original) and "The Model Teacher" (the television remake). Forester is at Madison High School to do a profile on the day in the life of a schoolteacher, but really views her role as that of doing a hatchet job on Miss Brooks - taking as many insulting and unrepresentative photographs as possible. Miss Brooks covertly removes the unflattering photos, and, in the television version, disposes of Miss Forest by noon; Miss Forest receives a telegram stating her editor wants her in Florida, ''immediatley''.
--> '''Stephanie Forest''': Now, as I was saying my dear. I don't want you to do a thing for this picture. Realism is what our readers want. The eyelids practically stuck together, the little straggly clumps of hair flopping over the ears, and those little tired lines around the mouth that look as if you just tasted a raw lambchop. We want you just the way you are!
* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: Used in the episode "Suzi Prentiss". Miss Brooks tells Mr. Conklin, "I'm a teacher, not a psychiatrist."
* ImplausibleDeniability: In "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to frame Mr. Boynton by drawing a cartoon with Mr. Conklin as a mouse in with Mr. Boynton's reports. Mr. Boynton catches her redhanded, and Miss Brooks tries to deny it.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[SarcasmMode Eek, a mouse.]]
* ImprobablyCoolCar: Walter Denton's car is stated to be a jalopy. On the radio, one can leave it up to one's imagination or various uncomplimentary descriptions of the vehicle. However, on television, it was different. On the rare occasion when it's seen up close, or being driven on the street, it appears to be a vintage 1930's or 1940's roadster. If one looks closely, in an early episode Walter placed a custom badge naming his car the "Denton Special". Somewhat averted in TheMovie GrandFinale however, when Mr. Boynton borrows the car four inner tubes go flat. The car is also visibly smoking when Mr. Boynton drives Miss Brooks home from Crystal Bay ([[CanonDiscontinuity Crystal Lake in the rest of the series]]).
* ImprovisedSail: In "An American Tragedy", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin are stranded on a rowboat in the middle of Crystal Lake. Mr. Conklin suggests using Mr. Boynton's shirt as a sail. Miss Brooks ups the ante:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Let's try to get organized, shall we? Clear thinking is the ticket. Lacking an oar, we shall need to improvise a sail immediately. I shall need a large, white garment. Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': You won't get a stitch from me.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Well, then, Boynton. I suggest we use your shirt as a sail.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': [[LoveInterest Second the motion. And let's throw in his undershirt, too, sir. Ha. His shirt ought to do nicely.]]
* InadvertentEntranceCue: In the episode "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks asks Walter Denton the fatal question "Who could be so stupid?". Into the cafeteria walks [[DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass]].
* IncomingHam: Mr. Conklin.
* IncorruptiblePurePureness:
** Harriet Conklin. Her motives are always displayed as unselfish or honest, in spite of her father Mr. Conklin being oft unprincipled and her boyfriend Walter Denton being an inveterate schemer and practical joker.
** Phillip Boynton, Miss Brooks' LoveInterest. He's considered by everybody to be the "soul of honesty". In "Trial by Jury", it's revealed that trying to lie makes Mr. Boynton break into the hiccups.
* IndianBurialGround: The promise of a large reward sees Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton and Walter Denton searching for one in the episode [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "Indian Burial Ground"]]. The trope is partially subverted as the supernatural plays no role in the program. This is fortunate for Miss Brooks and company, as they end up digging up an empty lot in search of artifacts!
* IndubitablyUninterestingIndividual: Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' {{Adorkable}} LoveInterest lives this trope. He likes to play chess. He hangs out at the Biologists Club. His other hobbies include leading a Boy Scout troop and taking care of his pet frog [=McDougall=]. He likes to take Miss Brooks to the zoo on their dates. His bedtime is usually ten o'clock, but is known to stay up until eleven on New Year's Eve. In "Hello Mr. Chips", Mrs. Davis remarks his habits are like those of a much older man.
* IndyPloy: In the episode "April Fool's Day", Miss Brooks attends an "Everybody Must Do Something Party". [[spoiler: She stalls for time to avoid Miss Enright embarrassing her with an April Fool's Day joke. Miss Brooks plays the ukulele, sings, recites poetry, finally resorting to reading the phonebook aloud.]]
* INeedToGoIronMyDog: In "Heat Wave", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass all get excused from school and find themselves at a farmer's swimming pond through a variety of lame excuses. Miss Brooks, in fact, runs off telling Mr. Conklin that she has to go to the pond to get water [[ItMakesSenseInContext to put out the fire she accidentally started in his office.]]
* InformedAbility: Miss Brooks is said to be a wonderful English teacher. But given that an episode that was actually showed Miss Brooks teaching high school would be rather dull, one has to take it on trust. The few times she is shown tutoring English, it's played for laughs i.e. The radio episode "English Test" sees her give a crash course to DumbJock Stretch Snograss. This was remade into the television episode, "The Yodar Kritch Award", with [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Stretch's brother Bones]].
* InformedAttractiveness: Apparently, the visiting English schoolmaster in "Hello, Mr. Chips" is attractive. You can tell by the reaction of Miss Brooks, Harriet Conklin, and even Mrs. Davis.
* TheIngenue: Harriet Conklin is kind, sweet and optimistic, suprisingly given her father Mr. Conklin is a MrViceGuy. While Miss Brooks is a nice person, she's somewhat too much a DeadpanSnarker to meet this trope.
* InstantIllness: In "Measles", Miss Brooks catches the measles within twelve hours of being exposed to them.
* InstantWakingSkills: Miss Brooks when waken by her alarm clock. Also happens when she's waken by a reporter in "Model Teacher". Sometimes, however, Miss Brooks is simply NotAMorningPerson.
* InstructionalFilm: In "Audio-Visual Experiment", Miss Brooks rents a filmed version of the poem "Lady of the Lake" to show her class after she's left early for the day. Unfortunately, a disgruntled employee of the educational film company had mixed up films and canisters in revenge. The boys in the class stay late to repeatedly watch "Sirens of the Screen, Past and Present". Later on, Mrs. Davis' lady's aid meeting rents "Shearing Sheep in Big Billibong, Australia" only to have a film with scenes backstage in a women's dressing room. The company tries to rectify the mistake by giving Miss Brooks a film about the workings of the board of education, but end up giving her one all about Las Vegas and gambling.
* {{Instrumentals}}/InstrumentalThemeTune: The opening and closing themes, composed by Wilbur Hatch.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Miss Brooks is friends with sixteen-year-old Walter Denton, and, to a lesser extent, Harriet Conklin and Stretch Snodgrass. However, Miss Brooks herself would surely object to the label!
* InternalReveal: Many times. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity always ensues]]. Here are a few examples:
** In the "Wrong Mrs. Boynton", Miss Brooks offers to pretend to be Mrs. Boynton - that is, to say Mr. Boynton's ''wife'' - in order to impress the dean of the local college. What Miss Brooks doesn't know, but the audience does, is that she had unwittingly agreed to play the part of Mr. Boynton's ''mother''.
** In "Mrs. Davis reads Tea Leaves", Miss Brooks overhears a conversation between Mr. Boynton and Harriet, and jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Boynton is finally going to marry her and move with her to honeymoon cottage on the edge of town. [[spoiler: The audience hears the entire conversation. It turns out that Mr. Boynton wants to open a summer camp. Cue Miss Brooks stunned reaction when he proposes they have twenty kids (that is to say, campers). Not to mention the fact that Mr. Conklin also attempts to "propose".]]
** Similarly, in "June Bride", Walter Denton and the Conklins assume that Mr. Boynton has finally proposed to Miss Brooks, and the two are to be married that same day. In actuality, Miss Brooks had agreed to be the proxy for Monsieur [=LeBlanc=]'s French bride.
** In "Radio Bombay", a newscast on Walter's homemade radio forecasts the imminent arrival of a strong hurricane. Unfortunately, nobody is around to hear that the newscast originates from Bombay, India.
** In "Spare That Rod", Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass alter a ten year old letter they find addressed to a previous principal. The letter was from the head of the board, accusing the principal of being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his management of the school. They use a typewriter to readdress the letter to Principal Conklin.
** In "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis had been arrested after having unwittingly sold forged tickets to the [[RefugeInAudacity policeman's ball]]. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone soon end up being drawn into the scheme - and arrested - as well.]]
** Most significantly, in TheMovie. [[spoiler: Mr. Boynton tells Mrs. Davis that he finally intends to propose to Miss Brooks. Mrs. Davis soon reveals all to Miss Brooks, while pretending to tell her fortune.]]
* InTheLocalTongue: "Oo Oo Me Me Tocoludi Gucci Moo Moo", in the episode of the same name. It's the name of an isolated lake deep in the wilderness. It's the local Indians' word for blue.
* IntimidatingRevenueService: In "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves", Miss Brooks is aghast to discover she's recieved a letter from the IRS:
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Collector of Internal Revenue! Not what's the matter with him! I paid my taxes in January!
* IResembleThatRemark: In one episode, Miss Brooks suggests Mr. Conklin never had any friends. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Mr. Conklin replies that as a boy he was very good friends with his mother.]]
* IronicNickname: In "Wild Goose", Miss Brooks refers to DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass as "the brain."
* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: In the episode "Miss Brooks Writes About A Hobo," Miss Brooks seeks out a hobo to write an article entitled "The Vanishing Hobo." At the end of the episode, the hobo relates he had bought a set of new clothes with the money he earned from writing about "The Vanishing Schoolteacher."
* IsThisThingOn: Miss Brooks tests the microphone before beginning announcing duties at the titular "Walter v. Stretch Grudge Match".
* ItaliansTalkWithHands: Mr. Morelli, an Italian barber in "Four Leaf Clover", lives this trope. He never speaks without gesticulating.
* ItsALongStory: Sometimes, an episode will end with Miss Brooks returning home in the evening to discuss the events of the day with Mrs. Davis.
* ItsThePrincipleOfTheThing: In "Spare That Rod!" Mr. Conklin berates Miss Brooks for not having her blackboard cleared at the end of the day. He had gone into her classroom after school and found that a student had written "Old man Conklin is a birdbrain." When Miss Brooks protests her punishment, Mr. Conklin tells her it's the principle of the thing.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: In "Wild Goose Chase", Miss Brooks jokes about T.V. being a temporary fad. This had been a common prediction just a few years before the episode aired on television. It ''was'' still a common view when the radio version had played a couple years before.
* IWasHavingSuchANiceDream:
** The earliest radio episodes, including the premier "First Day", would often begin with Miss Brooks dreaming of some romantic/comedic adventure with Mr. Boynton. [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness The format was very quickly dropped]], in favor of a brief introductory narration with Miss Brooks before the main action, and/or a typically offbeat breakfast conversation with landlady Mrs. Davis and student Walter Denton.
-->'''Narrator''': Yes, Connie Brooks can dream . . . .
** Occasionally, later television and radio episodes would feature dreams and abrupt ending thereof.
*** "The Magic Tree" sees Miss Brooks wake up after kissing a [[ItMakesSenseInContext magic-Christmas-tree-influenced]] Mr. Boynton.
*** "King and Brooks" sees Miss Brooks abruptly waken from a dream where she marries a maharajah.
*** [[ExactlyWhatit*aysOnTheTin "The Dream"]] sees Miss Brooks waken from a dream where she finally marries Mr. Boynton. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks marries Mr. Boynton for real in TheMovie GrandFinale.]]
* IWasQuiteALooker: In "Angela's Wedding", Mrs. Davis' sister Angela claims to be a bathing beauty and provides her future husband, Gregory Farnsworth, with a photo of her from over thirty-years-before. Miss Brooks is asked to break the news that Angela is now a plump, middle-aged woman. Miss Brooks brings along smelling-salts to help break the news. Fortunately, Angela's fiance finds her to be still very attractive.
-->'''Gregory Farnsworth''': Oh, what a doll baby!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': ''(sniffs smelling salts'')
* JadedProfessional: Mrs. Carney in the 1952 "Christmas Show". Mrs. Carney is in charge of the gift exchange office at Sherry's Department Store. However, it is clear from the start that she is anything but cheerful about her duties. In fact, she is extremely frustrated by people exchanging their Christmas gifts (especially exchanging their gifts before Christmas). Outside her job, she is actually a charitable person, being part of Mrs. Conklins "Helping Hand Committee".
* {{Jingle}}: The show's sponsors had some pretty catchy ones:
** "Brush your teeth with Colgate/Colgate dental cream/It cleans your breath (what a toothpaste)/While it cleans your teeth."
** "Dream girl, dream girl/Beautiful Luster Cream girl/You owe your crowning glory to/A Luster Cream shampoo." (This one was set to the tune of "Toyland" from ''Theatre/BabesInToyland''.)
* JailedOneAfterAnother:
** Happens in "Bobbsey Twins In Stir". Mrs. Davis is tricked into selling counterfeit tickets to the Policeman's Ball and jailed overnight. When released she goes to stay with her sister Angela, too embarrassed to tell how she had been tricked. Mrs. Davis really should have said something; Miss Brooks decides to sell the tickets to help the charity drive. Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone end up jailed in quick succession.
** In the radio episode "Student Government Day". The Madison High School students were supposed to be elected to city positions for the day, but the police didn't get the memo. "Police Chief Denton" and "Mayor Harriet Conklin" try to order a raid on the "Jackpot Amusem*nt Company", but are foiled by a patrolman. Walter Denton threatens to have the cop "pounding a beat in a swamp". Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, the "mayor" and "chief of police" and a number of other student government officials are jailed.
* JingletheCoins: In "Old Marblehead", a SoundToScreenAdaptation of "Mr. Conklin's Carelessness Code". Mr. Conklin jingles the coins in the tin with which he to collects the fines he levies under his "carelessness code". More notable in the radio original, for obvious reasons.
* JiveTurkey: Orville Mason, a dance instructor who hangs out at Elmer's Malt Shop, in "The Mambo". Walter Denton chooses to describe Mason as a "jive hound" instead of as a turkey.
* JustBetweenYouAndMe:
** In "Two-way Stretch Snodgrass", Mr. Conklin explains to Miss Brooks his plan to get All-American football player and high school coach Biff Mooney to work for Madison High School. Rather than first going about his plan and bragging later.
** In the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Stone threatens to fire Mr. Conklin once Stone's elected to the new post of "Coordinator of Education". This sets up the subplot where Mr. Conklin runs against Mr. Stone to head the school board.
* KarmicJackpot: Happens several times:
** One example is "The Festival", where, by loaning their money and exchanging outfits with the hardworking cleaning women and custodian (so they'll have something nice to wear to the festival) - Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton win the prize for best costume. True to form, they proceed to split the proceeds with the cleaning woman and custodian.
** Also happens in the episode "Mr. Whipple". Miss Brooks organizes a food drive for Mr. Whipple, who she mistakenly believes is impoverished. This so affects the misery millionaire, that he donates the money to build the new gymnasium Madison High School needs.
** Miss Brooks wins the Karmic Jackpot grand prize in TheMovie GrandFinale. Miss Brooks' good deeds are finally awarded, when she achieves her SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton.
* KeepingSecretsSucks: Connie Brooks is often unwillingly made privy to Walter Denton's latest prank. Miss Brooks has to keep quiet or risk having Walter suspended or expelled, sometimes making her an almost ''de facto'' confederate to his schemes.
** i.e. "Cure That Habit" forces Miss Brooks to stay quiet about Walter's having sent a postcard to the titular alcoholism support group in Mr. Conklin's name.
** "Wild Goose Chase" has Miss Brooks be forced to keep quiet about Walter pretending to be a quiz show host, and having tricked Mr. Conklin in believing he won a free T.V. set.
** "The Cafeteria Strike" sees Miss Brooks have to cover up an impending protest by the students, led by Walter Denton.
** "Dress Code Protest" sees Miss Brooks try to dodge Mr. Conklin's discovering Walter's idiotic scheme to protest the principal's new dress code.
** "The Sweater" has Walter Denton put Miss Brook's name to an expensive present purchased by Miss Enright and gifted to Mr. Boynton. Miss Brooks is quite unwittingly pulled into the deception, but is loathe to reveal it as it results in an atypically amorous Mr. Boynton.
** "Stretch Has A Problem" sees a different kind of secret kept by Miss Brooks. Miss Brooks must keep secret Stretch's crush on Harriet Conklin, while keeping the lovesick DumbJock ready, willing and able to play in the state basketball tournament.
** "The Grudge Match" again deals with the Stretch-Harriet-Walter love triangle, as Miss Brooks must cover up the fact that Stretch Snodgrass went to the movies with Harriet Conklin, Walter's designated [[LoveInterest squeeze.]]
** Miss Brooks is quite the unwitting secret keeper. In "New School Bus", she has to hide the fact that Mr. Boynton bought an old paddy wagon to serve as a bus for Madison's sports teams.
* KidSidekick: Walter Denton usually drives Miss Brooks to school. He often sees her at lunch in the cafeteria, and will play a major part or even instigate the ZanyScheme of the week.
* KindheartedCatLover: Mrs. Davis.
* KissDiss: At the end of "Capistrano's Revenge", Miss Brooks kisses Mr. Conklin, Bones Snodgrass, and Walter Denton on the cheek in appreciation for helping her save a swallow's life. When she goes to kiss her LoveInterest, the shy Mr. Boynton, he blushes and runs out the door!
-->'''Miss Brooks''': The big one always gets away!
* KnittingPregnancyAnnouncement: Misread by Miss Brooks in "Little Visitor". The fact that Mrs. Conklin hasn't been seen at school for months, and is known to be knitting many of tiny outfits leads Miss Brooks to jump to the conclusion In fact, the only thing the Mrs. Conklin is expecting is to take care of her sister's pet monkey for a couple weeks.
* LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine: Mr. Boynton typically wears a labcoat whenever he's seen in his classroom, the Biology room, at school. In "Madison Country Club", Mr. Conklin dismissively refers to the coat as a "burlap smock".
* LabPet: Mr. Boynton has a habit of naming many of his lab animals. However, that doesn't prevent him from doing fatal tests on them. In "New Girl in Town", it's revealed that he has been burying his mouse martyrs to science in the athletic field. Moreover, Miss Brooks has been (reluctantly) helping him.
** The trope is averted in the case of Mr. Boynton's pet frog Mcdougall. Although Mac is usually kept in the lab, he's a personal pet and not used for lab tests. Usually Mac's kept in a separate cage. However in the [[TheMovie theatrical]] [[GrandFinale series finale]], Mr. Boynton seems to have temporarily placed Mcdougall with a number of other frogs.
* LadyInWaiting: In "King and Brooks", Miss Brooks' dream sequence features several ladies in waiting serving her.
* LargeHam: Mr. Conklin
* LargeHamAnnouncer: In "The Grudge Match", Miss Brooks plays this trope to the hilt, sardonically giving a play-by-play of the boxing match between Stretch and Walter. Complete with faked commercials:
--> '''Miss Brooks''': As the fighters go the center of the ring, just a word of reminder. Boys, if like Walter Denton you're about to get your head knocked off, why not put an Adam patch on it first.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: "Mr. Conklin is Honored" begins with Mrs. Davis relating her sister Angela's recent brush with laser-guided amnesia. Later, Mr. Conklin ''fakes'' a case of his own.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** A good example is ''The Festival''. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton lend their clothes and cash to the hardworking cleaning woman and custodian, so they can attend a costume party. Miss Brooks and Mr. Boynton wear the clothes of the cleaning woman and custodian. They win a large cash prize - and of course split it with the custodian and the cleaning woman.]]
** In TheMovie, [[spoiler: Miss Brooks spends the movie tutoring Gary Nolan and helping him reconcile with his father. This, with a little subterfuge by Mrs. Davis thrown in, makes Mr. Boynton jealous enough to finally get serious. Later, Mr. Boynton's invitation for his lonely, recently widowed mother, to move to Madison, has him buy a house. Again, Mrs. Davis steps in and arranges to have the elder Mrs. Boynton as her new boarder. The upshot: Miss Brooks finally gets to marry Boynton, the two have their HappyEnding.]]
* LastMinuteHookup: After eight years on the radio, and four years (concurrently) on television, Connie Brooks finally gets Phillip Boynton to propose marriage in the last ten minutes of the [[TheMovie cinematic]] GrandFinale. Even then, the proposal is ''de facto'' delivered by [[TheMatchmaker Mrs. Davis and Mr. Boynton's mother.]]
* LastNameBasis: Brooks, Boynton, and Conklin always address each other formally, even outside of school.
* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Used from time to time. This example comes from "Hawkins Travel Agency". Miss Brooks is trying to sell Mr. Stone on a trip to France . . . .
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with a French accent): Oh, there is nothing like [[GayParee Paree]] in the summer. The Arc De Triomphe, the Louvre Palais, the Place de Concorde . . . and Piccadilly Circus.
--> '''Mr. Stone''' Miss Brooks, Piccadilly Circus happens to be in London.
--> '''Miss Brooks''' (speaking with an co*ckney accent) : Right-O governor, but if you were so nearby, you wouldn't want to miss that now, would you?
* LateToThePunchline: Miss Brooks remarks to Mr. Boynton that stealing a kiss is "petting larceny". A couple minutes later, Mr. Boynton gets the joke and starts to laugh.
* LateForSchool: Miss Brooks is late for school a couple of times. It's SeriousBusiness, because she's a teacher!
** In "The Party Line", Miss Brooks is too late to catch the city bus to school. Walter Denton tried to warn her that his car was in the shop, but her [[GossipyHens chatty]] party line neighbor had the phone tied up.
** In "Wake-Up Plan", Miss Brooks sleeps in and misses half a day of school. Mrs. Davis had accidentally given Miss Brooks a sleeping pill instead of an aspirin.
** In TheMovie GrandFinale Walter Denton is late for English class. He nearly barrels over Mr. Conklin running through the hall. He arrives just in time to tell Harriet the drive shaft from his car fell out . . . then the bell rings and the class ends.
* LaughingAtYourOwnJokes: Mr. Boynton did this on a regular basis, both on radio and on television. His jokes are rarely that funny.
** In "Red River Valley", Mr. Boynton gives Miss Brooks a joke-book and cracks himself up trying to tell the joke.
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Now, when I first pick "My Dog Has Fleas" on the banjo like that, Miss Brooks, we spring our first humorous anecdote. You can read it right from the book. Here we are.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thanks. What's that you played on the banjo, Mr. Interlocutor?
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': "My Dog Has Fleas".
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Funny kind of a dog. My dog has pups. OH NO!
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': (laughs)
-->'''Walter Denton''': (laughs) How corny can you get!
** In "The Auction", Mr. Boynton breaks himself up over the idea of leading his frogs on a leash downtown and telling the public to [[IncrediblyLamePun "get hopping"]] to Madison High.
** At the start of "Non-Fraternization Policy", Mr. Boynton tells a long, involved joke involving three turn-of-the-century Irish policemen and a horse. Mr. Boynton finds the joke funny. Nobody else does.
* LaughingMad: "Hobby Show" ends with Miss Brooks laughing hysterically, and smearing finger paints over her face.
* LaughOfLove: "Poetry Mixup" and [[SoundToScreenAdaptation "Bones, Son of Cyrano" (the TV remake)]], Mr. Boynton writes down a poem from ''Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac''. Boynton lends it to Walter Denton so the teen could use it to woo "the fair Harriet" [[ItMakesSenseInContext by anonymously hiding the poem in Harriet's lunch]]. Unfortunately, Harriet recognizes Mr. Boynton's handwriting and immediately becomes a SmittenTeenageGirl. Harriet returns Mr. Boynton's poem as a gesture of her love, madly giggling.
* LaymansTerms: In "Life Can Be Bones", Mr. Boynton explains the concept of the "missing link" to Miss Brooks and Walter Denton. He uses layman's terms to describe what exactly the "missing link" between ancient man and the primates would be and how it's fossilized skull would look. Mr. Boynton doesn't realize that Miss Brooks had just read his definition in a introductory book on paleontology; in fact, Mr. Boynton plagerized the book's description word-for-word.
* LayoutOfASeason: The fourth season of the television series began with the aptly named "Transition Show". Madison High School is torn down for a freeway, and Miss Brooks and Mr. Conklin find new work at Miss Nester's Private School.
** The concurrent radio show and subsequent [[TheMovie cinematic]] [[GrandFinale finale]] [[CanonDiscontinuity ignored this move]] and continued at Madison High as per usual.
* LazyBum: The hobo calling himself "The Earl of Peoria" in "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
* LeadIn: Often, an episode begins with Miss Brooks conversing with Mrs. Davis over breakfast. While the conversation is usually relevant to the plot of the episode, occasionally it will just be a wacky interlude before the main story comes into play.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: An interesting example is found in the radio episode "Reckless Driving".
** Miss Brooks, Mrs. Davis, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Harriet and Walter are on Mrs. Davis' porch listening to the radio.
** Creator/SteveAllen suddenly drives up asking for the way to Hollywood - turns out he's going to host the summer replacement for ''Our Miss Brooks''.
** The radio is tuned to ''Our Miss Brooks'' Miss Brooks calling it the show "with the school teacher with my name".
** Miss Brooks, incidentally, thinks Eve Arden is "a doll". Mr. Conklin hates the pompous principal, while Walter Denton likes "one character in particular."
** Eve Arden announces her summer replacement, saying she would be listening to Steve Allen's show that summer. Everybody on the porch commending her nice speech. Allen, however, wonders if she'll really be listening. Cue Eve Arden saying of course she would, he has her job!
*** This scene wasn't duplicated in the television remake, "Trial by Jury". [[spoiler: There, the program ended with Miss Brooks pleading her innocence in court before a jury with Mr. Conklin as a member.]]
* LetsYouAndHimFight: In "Stretch Is Accused of Professionalism", teenaged DumbJock Stretch Snodgrass enters a circus wrestling contest and wins a prize. Unfortunately, this came to the attention of rival Clay City High School principal Jason Brille. By a technical reading of school board rules, this makes Stretch a "professional athlete" and ineligible for school sports. Miss Brooks tries to get the wrestler, visiting Madison High School to deliver Stretch the prize money, to attack school board head Mr. Stone. In that way, she hopes proof of the wrestler's violent nature would lead to Mr. Stone waiving any penalty against Stretch.
* LetXBeTheUnknown: "Project X" has Mr. Conklin develop the eponymous secret project as a way of impressing school board president Mr. Stone.
* LickedByTheDog: Mr. Conklin softens on several occasions. One such example is the episode "The Miserable Caballero", where Mr. Conklin softens toward Benny Romero, a runaway Mexican boy.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: At work with the adults characters. Miss Brooks, from near the start, is after the position of Madison High School Head of the English Department. She never gets it; obstructions include blabbermouths sharing the "Party Line" and a nervous nerve-specialist claiming she's overwrought "Noodnick, Daughter of Medic". At least once, Mr. Boynton suffers from this trope; his attempt to be hired as a college professor ends in HilarityEnsues with Miss Brooks trying to masquerade as his mother ("The Wrong Mrs. Boynton). Even Mr. Conklin can't get a promotion; he's the subject of a false scandal in "The Little Visitor", and otherwise embarrassed in "Project X". In the penultimate television episode, "Principal For A Day", Miss Brooks' leadership of Mrs. Nestor's Private Elementary School is short-lived.
[[spoiler: Miss Brooks does achieve her actual SeriesGoal, marriage to Mr. Boynton, in TheMovie GrandFinale]].
* ListOfTransgressions: In "Spare That Rod!", Mr. Conklin is tricked into believing he's about to be fired for being "flagrantly dictatorial" in his [[DeanBitterman administration of Madison High School]]. As a result, he requests Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Walter Denton and Stretch Snodgrass provide him with a list of his transgressions:
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Now, if you will read me your bill of particulars considering my various infamies . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': We're all going to read some of it, Mr. Conklin. Will you begin Miss Brooks?
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Thank you, Mr. Boynton. Whereas I, Osgood Conklin, Principal of Madison High School, desiring to improve relations between myself, the faculty, and the student body . . . your turn, Walter.
-->'''Walter Denton''': Ahem. Do promise to keep the following ever before me as a reminder of past sins of which I am heartily ashamed.
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Which I ain't never gonna repeat no more.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Splendid. Splendid. Please continue.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Wait until you hear this! I readily admit on many occasions I have acted like a pompous, puffed up, ill tempered, addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Forgive me, but it seems to me you have omitted maladjusted.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Please don't interrupt, that's in the next paragraph. Now, where was I?
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Addlepated blowhard.
-->'''Miss Brooks''': Oh yes. Addlepated blowhard. And on other occasions, I have bellowed like a bull . . .
-->'''Mr. Boynton''': Screamed like an elephant . . .
-->'''Walter Denton''': Hissed like a viper . . .
-->'''Stretch Snodgrass''': Snorted like a buffalo . . .
-->'''Miss Brooks''': And otherwise exhibited the behavior of a maladjusted nincompoop.
-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Oh, oh, oh, there it is!
* LiteralMinded: Mr. Jensen, the school custodian, makes a few radio appearances. He insists on interpreting figures of speech and phrases literally. Thus, to Miss Brooks' consternation (i.e. "School Safety Advisor") any attempt at conversation with him quickly turns into a chore.
* TheLittleDetecto: Walter and Miss Brooks use a Geiger counter in "Rare Black Orchid" to search for uranium. Walter had discovered some on his shoe and concluded he had unknowingly stepped in uranium recently.
* LivingLegend: Two, at least:
** In "The Big Game", there's former high school football star "Snakehips", whose high score in the big game won him a job as a vice-president.
** In "Safari O'Tool", there's Mrs. Davis's beau, a famous jungle explorer. [[spoiler: He's a fraud.]]
* LivingStatue:
** In "Living Statues", Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Walter Denton are accidently glued into place.
** In "Hobbies", Mr. Boynton and Mr. Conklin pretend to be wax figures in order to dodge Mr. Stone. ItMakesSenseInContext.
* LocalHangout: Marty's Malt Shop, located across the street from Madison High School, is popular with students and faculty alike.
* LockedInAFreezer: Happens twice:
** In "Home Cooked Meal", Mr. Conklin is locked in the cafeteria freezer.
** In "Male Superiority", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks and Walter Denton are trapped in a meat locker. [[spoiler: Miss Brooks is the only one who doesn't panic.]]
* LonelyRichKid: Gary Nolan in the movie.
* LongList: Usually when Mrs. Davis describes recipe ingredients.
* LoopholeAbuse:
** In "Wakeup Plan", [[spoiler: after accidently ingesting Mrs. Davis' sleeping pills, Mr. Conklin is caught sleeping in his office by the head of the board, Mr. Stone, and his assistant, Mr. Gleason. Miss Brooks successfully argues that Mr. Conklin was only seen sleeping during the lunch hour and after school - that is, on his own time.]]
** "Department Store Contest" [[spoiler: features an unusual case of ''accidental'' loophole abuse. Miss Brooks wins a prize when a childhood letter to Santa Claus is accidently entered in a children's contest at Sherry's Department. As she wrote the letter ''when she was a child'', she was able to walk away with the prize and avoid trouble.]]
* LostFoodGrievance:
** In "The Honest Burglar", and "The Burglar, [[SoundToScreenAdaptation the television remake]], Mr. Conklin is furious at a food thief who stole the fried chicken his wife left for him.
** In the radio episode "Taking the Rap for Mr. Boynton", Miss Brooks tries to impress Mr. Boynton by framing Mr. Boynton for eating Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner and then taking the blame for him. ItMakesSenseInContext. The plan goes south when teenager [[BigEater Walter Denton]] eats Mr. Conklin's chicken dinner before it can be delivered to Mr. Boynton.
* LostVoicePlot: Mr. Conklin loses his voice in "Public Speaker's Nightmare", just before he's about to greet important officials from the national board of educations. Unusually for the trope, the cause is psychosomatic.
* LovableJock: Stretch Snodgrass, Madison High's star athlete. He's [[DumbJock dimwitted]], but good natured to the point where he's willing to transfer schools if it'll get his best friend Walter Denton on the Madison football team ("Two Way Stretch Snodgrass). Stretch is apparently very popular, when he [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally vandalizes the school]] in "Stuffed Gopher", Miss Brooks and Walter gets a crew of students to fix the damage and cover for him.
* LoveAtFirstSight: In TheMovie GrandFinale, Miss Brooks falls in love with Mr. Boynton the first time they meet.
* LoveHurts: Miss Brooks is deeply in love with largely ObliviousToLove Mr. Boynton. Because FailureIsTheOnlyOption, Miss Brooks' schemes to get Mr. Boynton to marry her inevitably fail [[spoiler: until TheMovie GrandFinale when Miss Brooks finally marries Mr. Boynton and lives HappilyEverAfter]].
* LoveLetter / LoveLetterLunacy: The plot of the episode "Bones, Son of Cyrano". A love letter gets misdirected and misinterpreted multiple times. HilarityEnsues. [[spoiler: Especially, when Mr. Conklin believes Miss Brooks is in love with him!]] This is a remake of the radio episode "Poetry Mixup". The only difference is Stretch Snodgrass is replaced by [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute his brother]].