Mom Can't Cook! - TV Tropes (2024)

Mom Can't Cook! has developed dozens of Running Gags, and this is without even getting into ones that only appear in a single episode.

Guessing when the protagonist of the movie died and "dreamed a wonderful adventure", as they put it, involving the events of the movie.
DCOMs being made on No Budget and having a rushed production. The latter is often accompanied by a description of Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney at the time, telling the creators to hurry up (or, in the case of Hounded, Mickey telling Eisner to hurry up, as a way to explain how a shot of a possibly-dead dog got past the radar).
On a related note, the scriptwriters realising that the part of the movie they've written so far takes up all but 5 minutes of its allotted time, leading to a very rushed conclusion. Or, conversely, describing a moment that has no impact on the plot as "contributing valuable runtime". Or half-arsing the plot so they can be finished by the afternoon as "the golf links stretch away invitingly".
DCOM fathers are generally awful people.
Coming up with better plot ideas than what the writers could.
Any character looking out a top floor window is probably going to be compared to a "Victorian ghost".
Side characters having horrible (and/or more interesting) home lives which just get glossed over.
The Running Gag that named the podcast, that the protagonists' mothers can never cook^note. In the episode on The Luck of the Irish, Luke and Andy hypothesise that there was a healthy-eating fad in the late 90s and early 00s, leading to the scriptwriters putting exaggerated versions of the food they were getting served in their films.
The duo repeatedly jokes about the possibility of being hit by a cease-and-desist from Disney for covering the movies.
The props department just not being bothered to make anything that looks particularly convincing. Or, when they do, mixing it with props of the usual quality, referred to as props "of varying levels of attention to detail".
Describing the movie reviewed as "one of the movies that happened".
Trying to work out what the lower face of the neighbour from Home Improvement looks like.
Whenever a character is frozen, Andy and Luke describe the people freezing them as using "an evil [insert mechanism here] that freezes them", quoting Halloweentown.
In films that get overly patriotic, expect the phrase "America's enemies" to be brought up. They will likely be described as "becoming emboldened".
Voiceovers are always assumed to be the result of the crew realising that the film, as it stood without it, didn't make any sense. In the episode on Jump In!, they instead assume that the voiceover was the result of the crew thinking the plot makes no sense, but Luke and Andy understood the plot fine without it, finding it condescending.
In Horse Sense, Jumping Ship, and Ready to Run, a main character's father is dead and used to work with horses. In all 3 episodes, Luke and Andy joke they must have been "kicked to death by a thousand horses".
Bad CGI being referred to by the hypothetical name of its file, indicating that it's not ready to be shown yet. For instance, "fly_notfinal.png" from Halloweentown II. In the episode on The Scream Team (and some subsequent ones), this is replaced with talk about "Windows screensavers", and in Zenon: Z3, with " cutscenes".
If a main character does something shady that isn't condemned by the film, they'll describe them as the "lovable protagonist".
The idea that the writers were Writing by the Seats of Their Pants so much, that the films were written in real-time, with hastily-typewritten pages being passed to the actors after the previous scenes (potentially with a mention of them not having working backspace keys). This is invoked as an explanation for the barely-strung-together plots typical of these movies. In the episode for Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board, they're shocked to discover that this is somewhat true: namely, there was generally so little time for filming that if someone couldn't make it to a shoot the plot would just be rewritten around their absence, and inclement weather would just have to be dealt with.
Characters who suffer extremely nasty fates in the hosts' imaginations are described as being in "crunched-up bone heaps"
Both the episodes on Right on Track and Miracle in Lane 2 feature declarations from Luke that the drivers in their respective sports (drag racing and soapbox derby) are "essentially ballast".
Mentioning a plot point which "seems like it will be resolved", and then noting that it never gets brought up again.
Describing boys who are meant to be attractive as "hunks".
Featured prominently in "Pixel Perfect" and continued in following episodes, when a male character says something rude, creepy, or generally anti-social to another character (particularly a woman), Luke or Andy will describe the delivery as "he hissed" to denote how unpleasant the character is being.
Ridiculous plot points being Lampshaded by one host or the other writing "what is this plot?" in their notes.
In the episode on The Even Stevens Movie, a Running Gag in the episode is the hosts speculating that everything that happens in the movie (such as Louis making a weird sex chair, Beans' parents seemingly abandoning him, and Tawny getting amnesia) might be a Running Gag from the show. The same thing applies to Jett Jackson: The Movie, such as with Deputy Booker spilling coffee over his crotch.
Characters will be described as "Smiling/looking as if to say, [Concept or scene far too complex to be conveyed in a single expression]."
Luke, describing a scene in "The Jennie Project": Jennie sort of grins at the mom as if to say, "I'm more his child than your human children could ever be."
See Also
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Later in the movie:
Luke: The dad smiles in a way that seems to say, "I won't lobotomize that ape no matter what it does to my marriage."
Andy: "I won't let her get drilled with 16 drills."
Luke: "Even if it kills my wife."
Characters will also have wide-eyed or otherwise indecipherable expressions noted as them "Looking like somebody walked over their grave."
If they go on particularly long tangents, they'll often note this must mean they're very reluctant to discuss the actual film the episode is about.
Luke complains in all three Zenon films that there are almost no sci-fi elements in the setting of these supposedly sci-fi films, such as the fact that in the third film, they haven't been back to the Moon since the 70s.
After Pixel Perfect, overly English-sounding characters will be portrayed as identical to Moxley from that film — specifically, with the line "Let me see your moves."
After Going to the Mat, bringing up egg creams every time New York or hip kids appear in a film.
If a protagonist wants to keep anything on the down-low (often a second, disapproved-of hobby), it will be described as a "dark secret".
Describing people who do a sport for fun as "soul [athletes]", after Brink!'s "soul skaters".
Across all the Halloweentown films, both hosts complain about how Debbie Reynolds is treated by the films, given how ridiculous her role is.
Describing anyone doing any eavesdropping or appearing unexpectedly as "lurking in/appearing out of a side-hatch."
If something based on Christianity appears, the hosts will probably emphasise that it's "the Christian X" (God in Miracle in Lane 2, Hell in H-E Double Hockey Sticks, etc.)
Characters moving around oddly will be described as "jigging".
Assuming that any clip that goes on for an awkwardly long time was due to the filmmakers having to pad the runtime and just leaving the camera running while frantically gesturing to the completely unprepared cast that they should improvise.