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Jacob Two-Two is a Canadian animated TV series that aired on YTV. It was produced by Nelvana and is one of the studio's earliest experiments with Adobe Flash, alongside Max and Ruby (and among the first-produced Flash-animated TV cartoons more generally). It is loosely based on a series of children's books created by the late Jewish-Canadian author Mordecai Richler.

The central character of the show is the eponymous Jacob Two-Two, an elementary-aged boy from Montreal, Quebec whose nickname "Two-Two" derives from how he often says things twice because nobody ever hears him the first time. The reason for this is that Jacob is the youngest in his family, with four older siblings (obnoxious twins Noah and Emma, bratty teenage sister Marfa, and aloof eldest brother Daniel) who frequently push him around. Meanwhile, Jacob's father Morty is an accomplished author while his mother Florence looks after the household.

While Jacob can always count on his parents (and his next-door neighbor and secret international spy X. Barnaby Dinglebat) when he needs help, things are different at school. There, Jacob deals with the antagonistic school staff, including the cruel and gluttonous headmaster Principal I.M. Greedyguts, his bitter-hearted teacher Miss Sour Pickle, and the unscrupulous janitor Leo Louse. Fortunately, Jacob also has his friends by his side, local oddball Buford Pugh and snooty Quebecer Renée Ratelle.

And given how vivid and chaotic his everyday life is, Jacob always finds some form of adventure to be had around Montreal, from meeting famous wrestlers and getting back confiscated items from the school's vault to playing in hockey games and investigating neighborhood conspiracies. And while Jacob might be the runt of his family and rarely taken seriously by most, his big heart and determined attitude means that this little underdog can always find ways for things to work out for him - even if they're not always as he hoped for!

The series debuted in 2003 and ended in 2006 after running for 62 episodes over 5 seasons. In the United States, the show was a staple of Qubo (one of the series the channel launched with) until 2017. Nowadays, Nelvana has all the episodes up at their Keep It Weird channel on YouTube. You can check them out here. The show is among several Nelvana cartoons that are available on Tubi and Pluto TV for free.

Jacob Two-Two provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Marfa has one in her nerdy classmate Sheldon. She isn't pleased when she gets partnered with him for a science project in "Jacob Two-Two and the Robot Rescue".
• Accidental Hand-Hold: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Colossal Candy Challenge", Jacob and Renée hide behind a wall and their hands accidentally brush. They look at their hands, then yank them apart in disgust.
• Adaptational Nationality: Jacob and his family were British in the books; here, they are Canadian.
• Adaptation Title Change: The first episode is based on the book Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, but is called "Jacob Two-Two vs. the Hooded Fang".
• Adapted Out: In the books, Jacob had friends named Mickey, Robby, and Chris. They were replaced by Buford and Renée.
• Adults Are Useless: Zigzagged. Most of the friendly adults in the series, such as Master Spy X, Barnaby Dinglebat, Jacob's parents, and Superintendent Fussbudget, are pretty good people and sharp enough to help Jacob through his problems. Others, such as Leo Louse, Principal Greedyguts, and any other antagonistic adult is useless.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: There is no mention of I.M. Greedyguts' age in "Jacob Two-Two and the Pirated Pastry", which is about Jacob having to do a paper about Greedyguts to celebrate the latter's birthday.
• Alpha Bitch: Phoebe, who insulted and shoved Daniel after he accidentally knocked her into the lake despite apologizing.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Italian dub uses a completely different theme song just like most series that aired on Italia 1 at the time.
• Ambiguously Jewish: The main character fits a few Jewish characteristics, such as having brown hair and a big nose and his first name is of Hebrew origin, which said the same as his siblings' names such as Noah, Daniel, and Emma, etc. Also, the author, Mordecai Richler was Jewish in real life.
• The Ahnold: One-time Terminator parody Mr. D. Fender has Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice and the buff build of 1980's action heroes, and Jacob and his friends suspect he may be from the future to defend Jacob, whom they believe is The Chosen One.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: The Qubo edit adds a segment (in only 13 out of the 62 episodes) where Jacob summarizes the episode's moral, then signs off with "...just like me, Jacob Two-Two."
• Arc Number: 22 is Jacob's lucky number.
• Apes in Space: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Simian Switcheroo", a mix-up on a trip to a space camp leads to Buford going to the space camp when Jacob should be going to it, and a monkey astronaut named Bobo taking Buford's place at Dreary Meadows. There are two other monkey astronauts with Buford.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Jacob himself grows into a somewhat round, red-skinned humanoid giant in the episode "Jacob Two-Two and the Too Big Tomato".
• Banana Peel: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Simian Switcheroo", Bobo sees a banana peel on the floor of the school hall and rescues Jacob from slipping on it. He does not save the bullies from slipping on it afterward.
• Basement Dweller: Leo Louse lives in the school's basement with his mother.
• Bathtub Scene: In "...and the Big Bagel Bungle", Florence relaxes in the bath while Morty, Zaidie, and the twins make brunch. Oddly enough, she still wears her pearl necklace.
• Big Brother Bully: Noah and Emma are this to Jacob whenever they are around him.
• Big "NO!": In "Jacob Two-Two and the Crumbling Cookie Catastrophe", I.M. Greedyguts is about to consume one of Auntie Goodforyou's cookies when Nurse Bunyan shows up and tells him that he must go on a diet. Greedyguts shouts "No!" so loudly that, outside the school, a car crashes and a plane hits a tree, causing all the leaves on it to fall off.
• The Big Race: "Jacob Two-Two and the Souped Up Soapbox" has Jacob preparing for the annual soapbox derby, where he will face off against one of the school bullies, who intends to cheat. Jacob considers cheating himself, thinking about if cheating against a cheater makes it fair.
• Blatant Lies: I.M. Greedyguts' achievements in "Jacob Two-Two and the Pirated Pastry" - discovering the North Pole and the ice cube, building the pyramids of Egypt, defeating the Loch Ness Monster (which, in the slides he shows his students, is obviously just an inflatable pool toy), and inventing the jelly donut - could not possibly be true. When Jacob explains what his schoolwork is to his dad, the father does not buy it for a second and states Greedyguts has "what [he'd call] an active imagination".
• Bring My Brown Pants: Implied in "Jacob Two-Two and the Furry Felon", where Jacob and Buford are in a police car that has been hijacked. The car starts rolling, and Buford casually mentions that this is "one of those times that my mom says you should have clean underwear".
• Brother–Sister Team: The Fearless O'Toole and the Intrepid Shapiro (twins Noah and Emma) of "Kid Power".
• Canon Foreigner: Buford and Renée were both created for the cartoon.
• Character Development: In the first few episodes, Jacob and Renee had a mutual disliking for each other, but they became friends over time.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Most episodes are titled "Jacob Two-Two and the [something]".
• Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: Triple-Sweetened Sugar-Frosted Honey Crumbs is a cereal so unhealthy that it is banned in the household, so Noah and Emma sneak it by hiding it inside an empty box of bran cereal. Their mother turns out to be in on it and turning a blind eye.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Colossal Candy Challenge" Principal Greedyguts's pants fall down while he is stuck in the ceiling, leaving him in heart-printed boxer shorts.
• Comical Overreacting: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", Jacob gets rid of the remaining coffee to distract the school faculty while he looks for the vault with the shirt that got confiscated from him. When one of them finds the coffee pot empty, all of the school faculty scream and run out of the room, when they were relaxed seconds ago.
• Commercial Break Cliffhanger: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", Jacob and Buford are hidden within the ceiling of the school, and Jacob looks at what's going on on the floor below him and says "It's horrible!" before the episode cuts to a commercial break. After the break, the third act begins with the revelation of what Jacob is seeing: the school faculty, all drinking coffee at the same time like zombies (as Buford puts it).
• Cool Old Lady: Miss Darling Sweetiepie. She's a sweet, yet talkative old lady who bakes cookies... and she's also a secret agent.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Doubtful Double Agent", Diego, one of the prisoners in the school's maximum detention facility, uses a spoon to dig a hole and make his escape.
• Digging to China: For some unexplained reason, there is a tunnel on the floor in the school's staff room that is shown to reach all the way to China, as shown early on in the series.
• Door-to-Door Episode: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Colossal Candy Challenge", the students sell candy bars to raise money to renovate the school's gymnasium.
• "Double, Double" Title: The show is called Jacob Jacob or an equivalent in certain regions, including France, Israel (which uses קובי קובי or Kobe Kobe), Quebec, and Poland (where it's called Jakub Jakub).
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first episode is the only one where the opening credits appear during the first scene. Subsequent episodes have the credits appear over a black screen.
  • In the first few episodes, Jacob and Renée were rivals, and they only begrudgingly worked together; this was quickly dropped, and they became best friends.
  • The first season had the characters address the audience at the end of each episode. This was dropped in the second season.
  • Overlapping with Characterization Marches On, in his first appearance, Carl Fester King really lived up to his last name, acting like an ersatz king, and his plan revolved around that. All his other appearances have him as just a regular Con Man.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Principal Greedyguts may be a cruel child-hating Jerkass principal, but he can't stand his own identical twin brother Y.B. Greedyguts who is more cruel and sadistic than he is.
    • Even Miss Sour Pickle is also horrified of the latter upon learning the truth to a point that she escaped to tell Jacob, Buford, and Renée.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Several episodes end with Jacob, Renée, and Buford sharing a good laugh, usually at Principal Greedyguts's expense.
• Extremely Overdue Library Book: "Jacob Two-Two and the Bookworm Brouhaha" is about Jacob, who is working for the library ninjas, tracking down a figure called "the Bookworm" to put him to justice. The Bookworm has a library book that is 30 years overdue.
• Face Doodling: In "Jacob Two-Two Times Two", Noah and Emma pull a practical joke on Jacob that involves doodling a moustache on his face with a marker and putting shaving cream in his slippers. Daniel makes a comment that he should use the shaving cream on his face. When Jacob goes to the bathroom and sees the moustache, he screams.
• Family-Friendly "Mature" Content: "Jacob Two-Two and the After School Abattoir" is about Jacob being worried about being made to watch a horror movie called After School Abattoir. We hear about the movie from other characters, who describe it being scary enough to where the opening credits are enough to make you vomit. When Jacob, Buford, and Jacob's siblings watch it, we don't see any of the show on-screen to avoid problems with mature content in a kids series like this; the closest thing we get to that is that the DVD cover of the film has blood on it.
• Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: Jacob and Renée are responsible enough to wear helmets whenever they skateboard.
• Fat Bastard: Principal I.M. Greedyguts and his identical twin brother Y.B. Greedyguts. They can barely squeeze themselves through doorways, and they (especially the latter) are not pleasant men.
• Feud Episode: "Jacob Two-Two and the Quibbling Siblings" has Noah and Emma disband their imaginary Kid Power team when one of them eats more of their secret cereal than they should have, and refuse to trust each other afterwards. It's up to Jacob and their dad to do something about it.
• Four-Fingered Hands: The animation used does this with all of the characters.
• Finger-Licking Poison: While it isn't poison, one episode does have a plot based around this trope with newspapers that have brainwashing ink that convince you to buy the products it advertises after you lick your fingers while turning the pages. Jacob and his friends are immune because they don't lick their fingers.
• Fortune Teller: Jacob invents a shoebox fortune teller called the Predicto-Magic Machine, intended for his booth at a fun fair, in "Jacob Two-Two and the Fun Fair Fiasco". To the surprise of everybody, including Jacob, everything the shoebox predicts comes true, including some unlikely ones such as it snowing two weeks into spring, and Miss Sour Pickle smiling.
• Fountain of Youth: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Fantastic Fountain", Ms. Sweetiepie has a fountain that she drinks from that she considers the secret to how she can be very athletic for an elderly lady. She refers to it as a "fountain of youth", leading to Jacob wanting to show it to Zaidie so he can stop cracking different parts of his body.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Big Brain Exchange", Jacob accidentally switches brains with Principal Greedyguts. He uses his new position to try and make life better at Dreary Meadows School. And yes, their voices switch bodies too.
• Freudian Slip: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Monster Mix-Up", Jacob, worried that Old Man Leduc will do something bad to him, sees his scary-looking butler and tells him "Hello! Hello! I'm doomed! I mean, Jacob!"
• Game Show Appearance: In "Jacob Two-Two and Scholars for Dollars", Jacob is roped into joining the school's quiz bowl team right as they make it into the finals, which are being televised. A big cash prize is on the line, which Greedyguts intends to spend on a doughnut machine.
• "Getting My Own Room" Plot: The first episode, "Jacob Two Two vs. the Hooded Fang", has this as a subplot; the family has just moved to their house in Montreal, and Jacob has to share a room here with his annoying brother Noah. He convinces his parents to give him the attic as his room, if he can prove he's able to spend a night there without getting scared. By the end of the episode, he succeeds, and the attic thus becomes his room for the remainder of the series.
• Gonk: Principal Greedyguts and Miss Sour Pickle. The former resembles a caricature from a turn-of-the-century political cartoon; the latter looks like she can cut things with her nose.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Jacob often wears polka dot boxers.
• Gratuitous French: As you'd expect, Renée does this all the time.
  • Sometimes qualifies as Poirot Speak, when she uses simple phrases like "oui?" in the place of "right?"
  • Additionally, other French-Canadian characters such as Leduc and the coureur des bois ghosts also use the occasional French phrases in their speech as well.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: "Jacob Two-Two's Time Trials", with the twist that Jacob himself uses a time machine to actively reset time in an attempt to stop himself from breaking his brother's Beatles record, and causing other disasters in the process.
• Hand Gagging:
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Spellbound Sibling", Jacob places his own hands over his mouth and doesn't finish what he is saying when he tells Marfa that he put her hairbrush in exactly the same place she had left it, realizing that suggests he moved it to begin with when she told him not to touch any of her stuff.
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Puzzling Portable", Jacob and Renée repeatedly put their hands over Buford's mouth so that he will not be too loud while Renée looks up info about Daniel Fender. It gets out of hand enough that Jacob tapes Buford's mouth shut.
• Homeschooled Kids: In "Jacob Two-Two and Renée's Rival", Buford mentions having a cousin named Billy who was homeschooled. Billy acted like a goat to the point of getting along better with goat kids.
• Hulking Out: While no actual Hulk parody has been featured in the show, the series of growth spurts Jacob goes through in "Jacob Two-Two and the Too Big Tomato" do borrow a few aspects to this trope, which include the following:
  • Although Jacob's skin turns more red as he grew, his hair does become sort of a blackish green.
  • By his final form, all of Jacob's clothes completely tear apart, including his pants. He has to use two window covers as clothes (one acting as a pair of pants, and another acting as a shirt).
• Hypno Pendulum: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Monster Mix-Up", we are shown that Old Man Leduc runs experiments that involve hypnotizing animals with a pocket watch. He attempts to hypnotize a dog into being a good watch dog instead of scared, but it hypnotizes Old Man Leduc's butler instead, and he acts like a dog.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Most of the episodes are titled "Jacob Two-Two and the [something]", and the episodes that don't follow this scheme still have Jacob Two-Two's name in the beginning (for example, "Jacob Two-Two Times Two"). This is a Mythology Gag connecting this show to the books, which, outside of only one of them having a "Jacob Two-Two and the [something]" title (Jacob Two-Two and the Dinosaur from 1987), have titles like this.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Crumbling Cookie Catastrophe", Aunty Good for You bakes a bunch of her "100% good for you" cookies, made of things like dried seaweed, fish oil, and bean curd, for the bake sale at Jacob's school. The cookies are understood to taste so awful that Jacob works to add less healthy ingredients - things like chocolate chips and potato chips - to it to make it taste better, and it works too well, leading to Jacob becoming guilty for tricking her.
• Ignoring by Singing: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Crumbling Cookie Catastrophe", I.M. Greedyguts plugs his ears and sings a bunch of "la la la la las" to drown out Nurse Bunyan before she can say that he has to go on a diet. She shouts "A DIET!" so loudly that that does not matter.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Jacob is friends with Gary/The Hooded Fang and X. Barnaby Dinglebat, both of which are adults.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jacob's siblings may treat Jacob as a nuisance (with the twins going as far as to bully Jacob and get him blamed for things he didn't do), but they truly and genuinely love him and wouldn't truly get him in serious trouble. And heaven help you if you try to hurt the kid.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: All the villains are completely irredeemable and unlikable.
• Judgment of Solomon: In the episode where Noah and Emma were fighting, they fought over a decoder that came in the mail. Jacob's father decided to disassemble the decoder and give them a piece, in hopes they'll co-operate and put it back together. This backfired as they were content with their pieces.
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Played with. In "Jacob Two-Two and the After School Abattoir", Jacob and Buford are expected to watch a horror film called After School Abattoir with Jacob's siblings. Jacob keeps hearing about different things happening to the children who watched the movie, including things like wetting pants and vomiting before the opening credits finish. After having an awful afterschool day of their own, Jacob and Buford are able to watch the movie without being affected, while Noah, Emma, and Daniel are visibly scared.
• K-I-S-S-I-N-G in a Tree: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Valentine's Day Disaster", Jacob tells Buford and Renée to promise him not to tell anybody else about the date he is being made to go on with Melissa against his will. Cue a bunch of other students surrounding Jacob and his friends and singing "Jacob and Melissa, sitting in a tree/K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" and the rest, immediately proving he didn't need to say anything about not mentioning the date.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Big Brain Exchange", lightning striking the Principal Greedyguts statue while the actual Greedyguts and Jacob are in it causes them to switch bodies.
• Long List: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", Principal Greedyguts reads off a list of school rules long enough that the paper with the list rolls well beyond the podium where Greedyguts is reading it, and also long enough that multiple students, including Jacob, fall asleep while he's reading it.
• Luminescent Blush: Jacob repeatedly gets red, partially blurry, circle-shaped blushes in "Jacob Two-Two and the Vintage Voice Vortex" when his topic for a school report is brought up. The teacher made reproduction one of the topics, Jacob got that one, and he knows very well how embarrassing it is to have to bring it up.
• Mad Scientist: "Old Man Leduc" looks the part (complete with Battle Butler), but he's really a veterinarian.
• Magic Feather: Gummer Gormley's hockey card. Jacob thinks the card helped turn his team's luck around, but he actually got better by practicing.
• Malicious Misnaming: Wilson, Quigley, and DuShane, the local school bullies, have a tendency to call Jacob mean nicknames like "Jacob Two-Four", Jacob Poo-Poo", and "Jacob Doo-Doo".
• Mass Hypnosis: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Daily Crown", Jacob suspects the newspaper The Daily Crown may have a hypnotic effect on the many throughout Montreal who are reading it, as they're so distracted by it that they don't pay attention to anything else for a long time. He's right; it's specifically the ink being used that's hypnotizing them, and it works by way of the reader licking their finger to help them turn the page, thereby ingesting the ink.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Jacob is the youngest of five.
• McNinja: The library ninjas hunt those who fail to return books on time.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Gary is a gentle soul, and a bit of a chicken. His wrestling persona, The Hooded Fang, is scary and intimidating.
• Meaningful Name: Lots of the adult supporting characters: I.M. Greedyguts, Miss Sour Pickle, Miss Darling Sweetiepie, Auntie Goodforyou, Sergeant Law and Corporal Order, and Miss Bella Bountiful.
• Moose and Maple Syrup: The series takes place in Montreal, Quebec. The Maple Leaf is everywhere (including on Jacob's skateboarding helmet), the (fictional) Prime Minister is a recurring character, and everyone reveres ice hockey. To make this series more Canadian than it already is, you'd have to dress up the entire cast in RCMP uniforms.
• Mystery of the Missing Socks: The episode “Jacob Two-Two and the Sock Dimension” has Jacob being electrocuted by a dryer while looking for his lost sock, and ending up in a dimension where socks are used as currency.
• Needlework Is for Old People: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Notorious Knit-Knapper", the elderly Ms. Darling Sweetiepie mentions wanting the two balls of yarn Jacob has for a sweater she's knitting, but Jacob refuses because it's evidence for whoever stole people's knitted clothes the previous night. To Jacob's surprise, it goes way deeper than that; it turns out Darling Sweetiepie helped steal those clothes and is in cahoots with a group called the W.R.I.N.K.L.E.S.^note "Wily, Retired, Ingenious, Nefarious Knitters, Looters, and Excellent Sneaks", who are knitting a giant tea cozy to keep all of Montreal warm during the winter, using the stolen clothes as the source for the tea cozy's material.
• Never Heard That One Before: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Ghost", troublemakers Noah and Emma are made to move everything back to where it was in Jacob's room, with Jacob and their father believing Noah and Emma moved it all around (it was a ghost, but Jacob doesn't learn that until later). When the twins insist they didn't do it, the father says "I haven't heard that one before." in a sarcastic, deadpan voice.
• New Transfer Student:
  • Jacob attends Dreary Meadows for the first time in the second episode, "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom". Jacob borrows one of Daniel's T-shirts to look cool, but the shirt gets confiscated thanks to the school's draconian dress code. Along the way, Jacob meets Buford and Renée.
  • An awkward girl named Ann transfers to Dreary Meadows in "Jacob Two-Two and Renée's Rival", and she quickly takes Renée's place as the school's best student. She turns out to be an android. Greedyguts and Sour Pickle ordered her so they can claim a large cash prize that is being offered to their best student. At the end of the episode, Jacob and his friends send Ann to another school where she could be safe.
• Not Hyperbole: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Doubtful Double Agent", Jacob hears that he's going to Dreary Meadows' "maximum detention facility", where he'll have a lifetime detention. Jacob doubts this is anything other than an exaggeration until he meets another detentionee named Diego del Fuego, who was put there when he was a kid, has grown into an adult, and still hasn't gotten out - then Jacob realizes to his horror that they weren't kidding.
• Out-of-Character Alert: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Socks Dimension", it takes a while for Jacob to figure out he's in a parallel universe, but he figures out something went wrong when he was shocked by the washing machine very quickly based on how everybody else acts. The first thing he sees after he's sent to the other universe is his dad doing the laundry, something he never does in the main world. It gets more weird from there, with Buford being worried about being late, the local bullies being his and Jacob's best friends, and Marfa wearing a feminine, princess-like dress.
• Overly Long Name: Buford's full name is Buford Orville Gaylord Pugh.
  Buford: Hi! I'm Buford Orville Gaylord Pugh, which my dad says is a lot of names for a little guy!
• Paranormal Episode: "Jacob Two-Two vs. the Ghost", as implied by the name, is about Jacob discovering a ghost has decided to stay at his house. The ghost, named Claude LaToque, becomes quick friends with Jacob and helps him with a history assignment.
• Performance Anxiety: Jacob Two-Two shows signs of this. So of course he gets stuck with the task of selling chocolate bars to fix the school gymnasium and having to explain The Talk for a school project, twice.
• Phantom-Zone Picture: In "Jacob Two-Two Times Two", X. Barnaby Dinglebat takes a picture of a bunch of evil Jacob doppelgangers with a special camera, trapping them in the picture.
• Picture Day: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Unlickable Cowlick", Jacob wakes up with a cowlick the day before Picture Day, and his attempts to fix it end up turning his hair green.
• Plot Allergy: Jacob's mother has an allergy to cats, which comes in handy in the episode "Jacob Two-Two and the Pet Peeve" to complicate things when Jacob has no choice but to keep a stray cat on him temporarily. The mom agrees that he will have to keep it in the garage, for a day only.
• Police Are Useless: Most of the time, Jacob doesn't try to call the cops on all the villains he's faced. There were two exceptions:
  • "Jacob Two-Two and the Fantastic Fountain" featured Carl Fester King getting arrested at the end for drilling underneath Miss Darling Sweetiepie's backyard after her Fountain of Eternal Youth.
  • "Jacob Two-Two and the Pirated Pastry" completely averts this trope when Jacob calls the cops on Greedyguts upon learning that he stole Lloyd Sugarloaf's jelly doughnut recipe.
• Product Placement: In-Universe; in "Jacob Two-Two and the Hockey Seat Hoopla", after the Montreal Marvels are bought out by Carl Fester King, their hockey moves are interrupted by different product placements for things like food and glue. This gets rid of any hope Jacob's dad has for the Marvels winning a game.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: "Ode to Joy" frequently plays throughout the series. It appears to be Jacob's personal theme song, as he hums it to himself in a couple of episodes.
• Punny Name: I.M. Greedyguts and his twin brother, Y.B. Greedyguts; meant to sound like "I am greedy" and "why be greedy" respectively.
• Putting the "Pal" in Principal: Principal I.M. Greedyguts' twin brother Y.B. Greedyguts looks this way, giving out hot chocolate to students, having heated rooms, and just being an all round nice guy. It's totally subverted when it turns out he's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and is actually worse than his brother, and the nice facade is to trick students and teachers into applying for his school, which is not a school at all, but actually a place where people are forced to run on hamster wheels to generate energy.
• Rake Take: In "Jacob Two-Two's Broadcast Bungle", there's a variation where a spy after Jacob's gang steps on a hoe and gets whacked by the stick end of it.
• Reflective Eyes:
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", Jacob's eyes reflect the skull from Daniel's shirt when he finds the outfit.
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Monster Mix-Up", the butler's eyes reflect Old Man Leduc's pocket watch as he works on hypnotizing a dog with it, to show that the hypnosis is working on the butler rather than the dog.
• Repeat Cut: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", the shot of I.M. Greedyguts' car being destroyed by a giant rubber ball is replayed a few times from different angles.
• Right Behind Me: In " Jacob Two-Two and the Halloween Hullabaloo", Ms. Sour Pickle approaches Jacob from behind when he, rebelling against doing all his Halloween homework, calls her a "mean old witch." Most of the other kids run away, which gets Jacob wondering out loud "She's right behind me, isn't she?" before looking behind him.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Surprise Disguise", the policeman's twins play a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to find who will stay with Jacob in the police car. This wastes time they could be using bringing attention to the truck of stolen books, which they believe Jacob is partially responsible for.
• Running Gag: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Puzzling Portable", whenever the idea of Jacob saving mankind is brought up, Renée insists it should be "personkind". Near the end of the episode, the gag is reversed, with Jacob and Buford telling Renée the same thing when she says "mankind."
• Sadist Teacher: Principal Greedyguts and Miss Sour Pickle, both of whom look and act like they're on loan from a Roald Dahl book. Their science teacher Mr. Moleculus averts this, as he is a pretty decent guy.
• Sadistic Choice: Jacob is faced with this in one episode, either expose the evidence and risk a sea monster out of its home or delete the evidence and let people think he's a liar and his grandfather's crazy. He chooses the latter.
• Sailor Fuku: "Jacob Two-Two and Renee's Rival" features a transfer student named Ann who wears a sailor fuku. It consists of a white dress with a blue skirt and a red ribbon on the front.
• School Play: "Jacob Two-Two and the Dangerous Debut" has the school's drama club revived, with Jacob as one of the star roles in a play where he is a deaf-mute character who is murdered at the end by his step-brother, played by DuShane. DuShane worries Jacob when he goes too far with his method acting and is about to genuinely hurt Jacob; meanwhile, word gets out about this play being cursed.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: There's a sequence in "Jacob Two-Two and the Daily Crown" that, while it doesn't involve doors, is set up similarly; Jacob and Buford are chased by a golf kart-driving Carl King in a room full of boxes, with the characters repeatedly showing up from behind one of the stacks of boxes and disappearing behind another, reaching the point where they start going inhumanly fast across the different paths. The sequence ends with Carl King left far from the camera and in-between the box stacks, wondering where Jacob and Buford went.
• The Scream: In "Jacob Two-Two Times Two", Jacob sees the moustache one of the twins drew on him, and it cuts to the outside of the house when he screams.
• Sea Monster: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Boggy Beastie", Zaidie sees a sea serpent called Boggy, and he and Jacob have many problems getting anybody else to believe them (with the exception of Buford). Meanwhile, I.M. Greedyguts learns about the monster and decides to look for it so that he can become rich off it. While the sea serpent itself is seen moving around in the water, its head only appears as a silhouette.
• Second Episode Introduction: The second episode, "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", is about Jacob's first day of school in Montreal. Thus, it introduces Jacob's friends and the school staff.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In "Jacob Two-Two's Time Trials", Jacob gets some lessons from Daniel about being cool, which goes wrong when Jacob accidentally destroys a valuable record Daniel lets him hold. Jacob uses a time machine being built by X. Barnaby Dinglebat to keep the record from breaking, but each time, something else happens to destroy the record anyway, forcing Jacob to go back in time again.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Beatles are mentioned in "Jacob Two-Two's Time Trials", which is about Jacob going back in time to prevent the destruction of a record of their song "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".
  • In "Jacob Two-Two Times Two", Jacob, unsuccessfully pranking Noah and Emma, wonders if Zaidie is right about him needing a golem, like the ones in Jewish mythology. Buford thinks he's referring to the "creepy guy from Fjord of the Rings", spoofing on Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Buford quotes one the Fjord of the Rings character's lines, "My danish!", a parody of Gollum's line "My precious!"
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Socks Dimension", Dinglebat mentions that in the alternate universe, socks are more valuable than (among other things) early Elvis recordings.
  • In "Jacob Two-Two and the Simian Switcheroo", Superintendent Fussbudget throws a party for Dreary Meadows, including a performance from the Totally Clothed Ladies, a parody of the Barenaked Ladies.
• Silent Whisper: Twice in "Jacob Two-Two and the Vintage Voice Vortex", when nothing can be heard when Renee whispers something into Buford's ear and when Jacob whispers something into Ms. Sweetiepie's ear. They're whispering about Jacob's speech at school, where he is supposed to explain how reproduction works.
• Stronger Sibling: In a way. Principal Greedyguts' identical twin Y. B. Greedyguts, who, despite his goody-two-shoes introduction, turns out to be even more evil.
• Subliminal Seduction: During her stint as a substitute teacher, Miss Darling Sweetiepie modifies video games to contain subliminal messaging to "obey your elders." It works, turning all the students into obedient zombies.
• Super-Sargasso Sea: Jacob discovers an Alternate Dimension that is a limited version of this; all the missing socks end up there. The inhabitants use socks as currency, and there's a black market for them.
• Super-Speed Reading: In "Jacob Two-Two and Renee's Rival", Ann demonstrates the ability to read a big book about everything starting with Z in seconds.
• Tempting Fate: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Staff Room of Doom", Jacob is told that the class will be watching a film and thinks to himself that that should deflect attention from him; the last thing he needs is for anyone to notice the skull shirt he's wearing, as it's against school rules and he doesn't have a spare on him. Jacob is then called on to close the shades, which directly leads to his shirt being noticed - Jacob's brother, whom he borrowed the shirt from, never had a reason to explain it glows in the dark.
• Three Wishes: The magic backscratcher in "Jacob Two-Two and the Perfect Present" can grant wishes, and Buford correctly determines that everyone who uses it gets a total of three wishes.
• Time Travel Episode: "Jacob Two-Two's Time Trials" has Jacob using a time machine to keep himself from breaking a valuable record owned by his brother Daniel.
• Toothbrush Floor Scrubbing: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Rose Coloured Calamity", the students of Dreary Meadows are forced to scrub the floors with toothbrushes as a punishment for not signing a letter that would let Principal Greedyguts attend a Principal Appreciation Week dinner.
• Trumplica: There's ample evidence that I.M Greedyguts is modelled on Donald Trump, namely his obesity, his dictatorial style and love of fast food, and stealing fundraiser items (much like the real one was accused of), and defrauding the school. Lighter and Softer than many Trump portrayals, but he's close enough to be their version of him, except as a school principal.
• TV Telephone Etiquette: In "Jacob Two-Two and the Furry Felon", Jacob's father calls the Vermin Avenger to inform him that the raccoon that's been eating their trash is captured. Then Jacob enters the room saying the "Mangler", as they call the raccoon, got away. The dad tells the Vermin Avenger "False alarm. The Mangler is a raccoon Houdini." and immediately hangs up without saying "good-bye".
• Ultimate Job Security: I.M. Greedyguts has been caught faking an injury to defraud the school, stealing school funds for his own personal luxury, stealing fundraiser items, ripping off a guys donut recipe, and just generally being a Sadist Teacher yet somehow keeps his job.
• Unholy Matrimony: Fish and Fowl, a pair of crooks wanting to get rich.
• Vague Age: The only characters with confirmed ages are Daniel and Marfa, who are 16 and 15, respectively. Jacob was 6 in the first book and 8 in later books; here, he and his friends are around 10-11. Noah and Emma are middle school-aged.
• Valentine's Day Episode: "Jacob Two-Two and the Valentine's Day Disaster" takes place around Valentine's Day, as suggested by the title, and is about Jacob having to figure out how to reverse the effects of a love bug that keeps biting everyone, turning them into romantics, hopeless or otherwise.
• Valentine's Day Vitriol: Jacob, Renée, Noah, and Emma all demonstrate a dislike of Valentine's Day in "Jacob Two-Two and the Valentine's Day Disaster", with Jacob mentioning he believes it's silly, Renée not liking the idea of all the mushy poetry related to it or a guy in a diaper shooting arrows at people, and Noah and Emma fainting when they see the Valentine's Day boxes their mother made for them.
• Versus Title: The first episode, "Jacob Two-Two vs. the Hooded Fang".
• Villain Team-Up: "Jacob Two-Two and the Wooden Nickel Knuckleheads" had Greedyguts, Leo, Carl, Fish and Fowl teaming up to try to steal Jacob's wooden nickel that's valued around $100,000. The alliance doesn't last long, because Greedyguts cares only for the nickel and doesn't want Carl, Fish, or Fowl in on it.
• Villainous Gold Tooth: Carl Fester King, who comes up with different scams such as creating a mind-controlling newspaper and stinking up Montreal so that people will buy his air fresheners, has a gold tooth.
• Vocal Evolution: By the end of the fifth season, Buford's voice actor has aged so much that his voice is pitched up to make him sound younger.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Downplayed. In the episode "Jacob Two-Two and the Pet Peeve", while we don't see Pukey Peterson throw up, the puke is clearly visible as it flows out of the bus like a waterfall.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Jacob is admitted into Library Ninjas after he starts doing mundane volunteer work there, partially because he's the only kid left who takes reading seriously.
• Witch with a Capital "B": In "Jacob Two-Two and the Halloween Hullabaloo", Jacob insultingly refers to Ms. Sour Pickle as a "mean old witch" when he says that she's gone too far with forcing homework on everybody.
• Would Hurt a Child: The majority of the villains would go so far to harm Jacob, as well as other children, to accomplish their schemes.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: At the end of "...and the Pirated Pastry", Principal Greedyguts gets his comeuppance by having all his jelly donuts taken away. He stops crying just long enough to realize that there's still one more donut, in his hand, and tries to take a bite—only to have that one taken away from him too.