Mole Miner/Tropes

One day a high schooler wrote a series of Edutainment comics about a mole miner. And then Norman Lear and some anime producers got their hands on them.

**Mole Miner** (2001-2007) is a International Coproduction between the United States, Canada and Japan that aired on PBS Kids for 7 seasons of 200 episodes. The series starred Darren, a mole miner employed in a huge mine smack-dab in the middle of a mineral-rich region in Montana. Darren works alongside other moles and animals, including his mentally unstable cousin Vernon and "whiz kid" beaver Roddy. As he works, he gets into various shenanigans and along the way he teaches the audience middle-school-level knowledge about geology, engineering, the history of mining, and industrial uses of different minerals.

## These Are Tropes, And That's Just Great

* **555**:
	+ The phone number for the Phelworth Mining Co. as stated in the first version of "Agony, Agony, Agony!!!" was originally "1-75-PHELWORH". The producers had assumed that no one would actually try to call it. They changed the episode shortly after a pizza parlor in Hampton, Virginia complained that people were calling trying to reach the mining company. The new phone number is 1-555-MINING.
	+ Towards the beginning of the show's 2003 PBS Pledge Drive: "If you are in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and would like to get tickets to *Barney & Friends*, please call 1-555-215-5555"
	+ Similarly to "Agony, Agony, Agony!!!", the direct-to-video special "Come On Over to Darren's House" had to be re-edited for it's TV broadcast and later issues to change Darren's cell phone number after a pharmacy in Hamilton, Bermuda complained to PBS that members of the show's Periphery Demographic were calling trying to reach Darren.
* **Breaking the Fourth Wall**:
	+ "Guilherme, Your Oar-Man" has this exchange:

**Guilherme**: You're always the "Star of the Show", and thus I don't like you for that, that and your kitschy attitude!

**Darren**: Star of the show? We're in a PBS Kids show! The show that leads into ours' is a purple dinosaur singing about ABC's and 123's and stuff! What's with you?

**Guilherme**: Nothing. Just that it's better than leading into Charlie Rose.

* **Flash Step:** Thom.
* **Hate Sink:** Thom occasionally displays a grump attitude.
* **Logging onto the Fourth Wall**:
	+ Both uniteddemolitionexperts.com and uniteddemolitionexperts.sucks were registered by the producers. They currently redirect to the PBS Kids website, but prior to 2012 they actually resembled the sites seen in the show.
	+ The website for KMT 11 News (the local Kent Brockman News station) was registered by somebody who used it to spread tons of fake news, calling it "a fantasy news website".
	+ shopalicious.com. The domain is currently for sale as of March 2020, but a reproduction of it's content is available on Phelan Morkel's NeoCities site.
	+ The producers actually registered Darren's personal GeoCities site in real-life. Since the shutdown of GeoCities, it currently redirects to the PBS Kids website, but like Phelan Morkel also has reproduced it's content on his NeoCities site.
	+ In "Lizzy", Vernon is attacked by an enraged Clarissa. Vernon then blurts out "I should have visited whenskunksattack.com!". Said website's domain currently redirects to the PBS Kids website, but prior to 2012 it was a parody website on what to do when skunks attack.
* '**Mole Miner:** Several characters. Mole Miners are the show's purpose.
* **Strike Episode**:
	+ "3 Strikes, You're Out!" was a Very Special Episode crossed with this trope. 90% of the regular cast (barring Darren and Phillipe, who act as middle men between the strikers and the mine company) go on strike due to Guilherme cutting corners (both figuratively and literally). While Vernon revels in the strike because he finally got to avoid being the punchline of all the jokes and gags, Roddy is forced to deal with being away from the computer systems of the mine and the mining company hires members of Darren and Phillipe's respective families as scab employees.
	+ "'Cause The Rock Miners Said So!" has Garbage Wrestlers Local 301, which supplies wrestlers to Extreme Death Wrestling (Darren's favorite pro-wrestling promotion), going on strike. They gain support from Pro Wrestling Referees Local 899 and The Association of Pro Wrestling Jobbers (the latter of which are beaten up by members of nWo Knockoffs Local 533).
* **Weird Trade Union**:
	+ While Darren comes from United Mine Workers Local 1922 (a in-joke to the year producer Norman Lear was born), a fictional chapter of a real union (of whom the fictional Darren is a "honorary member" of in real-life), his cousin and fellow miner Vernon comes from United Demolition Experts Local 111.
	+ Roddy is a member of the Global Brotherhood of Computer System Programmers, Deep Sea Divers, and Communist Dictators.
	+ Much like *The Simpsons*, there are a lot of absurdly specific unions - for example: The International Brotherhood of Media Critics, Doomsday Cult Leaders Local 925, Garbage Wrestlers Local 301, the Union of Halloween Haunted House Performers, Union of Store and Shop Owners Local 332, and United Tabloid Journalists Local 34.

### Trivia

* **Screwed By the Lawyers**:
	+ "Retitled Episode About A Bad Movie" was originally titled "Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy" when it first aired, with the name being taken from a category in the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. However, the Hastings Bad Cinema Society (the organizers of the Stinkers) then threatened Act III with legal action over the title, so the episode had it's title changed for later airings.