Santo Bugito is a 1995 Saturday-Morning Cartoon produced by Klasky-Csupo (creators of Rugrats) that aired on CBS for only 13 episodes. It is about an insect community living in a town on the Texas-Mexico border and their many problems that come with being insects. Mind you, this show's concept was done a few years before Antz and A Bug's Life, two animated insect movies.
The show was Arlene Klasky's only solo creator credit.
This show contains examples of:
- All Webbed Up: Lolita Larachnid from "A Widow Goes a Long Way" ends up trapping all the bugs at Carmen's in her webbing.
- Amoral Attorney: Emma Squito, a mosquito. She's literally and metaphorically a bloodsucker, manipulating everyone in town to file frivolous lawsuits to each other and asking for their blood as payment. She later fakes injuries to sue the whole town herself. She's defeated when Carmen lies that a serious accident has happened outside, and Emma can't resist flying outside, which reveals her injuries to be fake.
- Artistic License – Biology: Plenty. Mostly just to make the characters seem a bit more "human". For example, the ants have four limbs instead of six. Carmen is an ant with ears, just so that she can wear earrings. Many female characters sport clevage, etc.
- Be Yourself: Dick Jr.'s parents want him to hunt and eat bugs, even though he'd rather eat vegetables. The reisdents of Santo Bugito eventually convince him that he's free to make his own choices, and shouldn't have to do something that he doesn't want to.
- Bee Afraid: The first episode features a pair of killer bees that Santo Bugito's residents believe would orchestrate a full-scale attack. It turns out that they and the rest of their hive are just stopping there for a break as they move to the White House, since their town is much too small to be of importance.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Professor will routinely interrupt whatever's going on and take a moment to explain to the viewers some factoid related to a certain type of bug.
- Carnivore Confusion: Ralph the ladybug is an insectivore, but he chooses not to eat the others at Santo Bugito. In the episode "How to Eat People and Make New Friends", an aphid falsely accuses Ralph of eating his friend and devouring one of his legs.
- Likewise Emma Squito the mosquito-lawyer has no problem feeding off other bugs.
- Credits Gag: The credits at the beginning and end of each episode would have some of the cast members' names altered to be insect-themed, such as Mark Mothersbug (Mark Mothersbaugh), Gabor "Big Bug" Csupo, and Arlene "Honey Bee" Klasky.
- Creepy Cockroach: The episode "Buenos, Roaches" deals with a family of three unpleasant cockroaches who move to Santo Bugito and dupe the residents into working for them.
- Embarrassing First Name: Ralph's actual name is Randolph, but he isn't exactly fond of it.
- Explosive Breeder: Carmen and Paco have lots of children. Justified, on account of them being ants.
- False Friend: Darnold Dragonfly from "How to Eat People and Make New Friends". He acts like a friend to Amelia, just so that he can get close to the other residents of Santo Bugito and attempt to eat them.
- Foreign-Language Tirade: Again, from Carmen, when something goes terribly wrong.
- Giant Spider: The Wolfenspiders from "The Carnivore Kid" are just nomal-sized wolf spiders. However, they're enormous compared to the residents of Santo Bugito and tower over them.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Mostly from Carmen de la Antchez, the ant restaurateur.
- Greek Chorus: The trio of mariachi ants.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Burt and Clem.
- Humanlike Animal Aging: The bugs seem to age at the same rate that humans would.
- Idea Bulb: Carmen has a variation of one with a firefly in "The Carnivore Kid".
- Inconsistent Spelling: Emma Squito's name is mispelled as "Emma Skeeter" in the credits of "Sue City".
- Misplaced Vegetation: In "My Name is Revenge", a patch of Venus fly traps is shown to be within walking distance of Santo Bugito. In actuality, Venus fly traps are native North and South Carolina, and would not thrive in a Texan desert.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Whenever Burt and Clem, The Texan flies, try and speak Spanish."Mi caspa es su caspa." (My dandruff is your dandruff.)
- "New Neighbors" Plot: "Buenos, Roaches" deal with a family of annoying roaches who move in across the way from Carmen's.
- Only Sane Man: Carmen, and to an extent, Paco.
- Talent Contest: "How to Eat People and Make New Friends" is centered around one.
- This Is My Side: In "Splitsville", Burt and Clem's rivalry leads to them painting a line across the town, deeming each side of said line to be theirs.
- Poirot Speak: Once again, with Carmen.
- Punny Name:
- Eaton Woode is a termite, whose name sounds very close to "eatin' wood".
- Emma Squito is, well, a mosquito.
- Rigged Prize Game: The Roachmuller family in "Buenos, Roaches" run a spin-the-wheel type game for the other bugs with a number of desirable prizes. However, they eventually rig the wheel so that it lands on a bad space, namely one that requires the player to be a slave to the Roachmullers for a week.
- Save the Villain: In "My Name is Revenger", Ralph saves Greenbeard from a Venus fly trap, despite the fact that Greenbeard initially tried to get the Venus fly trap to eat Ralph.
- Short-Runner
- Species Surname: Amelia Damselfly is one. Darnold Dragonfly is another.
- The Unintelligible: Due to being a cocoon, Miguel can't really do or say much but mumble. Rosa can understand him, at least.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Dick Jr. is a wolf spider who doesn't want to eat bugs. He manages eat to vegetables instead.
- Verbal Tic: Ralph the ladybug likes to throw in "you know" in each of his sentences, you know.