Webcomic / Litterbox Comics

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Litterbox Comics👁 Image
is a Gag-Per-Day Webcomic created by Francesca "Chesca" Hause and her husband Jeremiah Hause. Chesca was inspired when she watched Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood with her two young sons, and posted the first comic in May of 2018.

The comic follows a family of cats, headed by the geeky harried Fran and her husband, Joel, as they raise two quirky kitten-sons, Vincent (oldest) and Cooper (youngest). Much of its humor relies on relatable parenting mishaps inspired by the authors' own kids, with some other jokes based on the World of Funny Animals setup.

The first book collection Parenting Is Weird was published in 2023 by Andrews McMeel Publishing. On February 12, 2024, Chesca announced on her Patreon that there will be a Kickstarter to fund a 10-minuted animated pilot known as ''Litterbox: The Animated Pilot''👁 Image
.

Compare Bluey for another animal family of four dealing with parent-child relationships, albeit slightly more stable than the Litterbox household.

Tropes in the comic include:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • One comic has Fran meeting up with her oldest son's preschool teacher, Miss Hoots (who's an owl), to talk about Vincent making an inappropriate comment about another student's (accidentally phallic) sculpture. But just as Fran starts apologizing for her son's antics, Miss Hoots comes to his defense by admitting that it wasn't really Vincent's fault, admitting that pretty much everyone had been thinking the same thing, making Fran and Vincent start giggling.
  • Miss Hoots does it again in the bonus panel of "Dictionary"👁 Image
    , where she turns away to giggle to herself after being shocked at Vincent saying only his father can say the word "dick" on "bad guys".
• Animal Gender-Bender: Downplayed—Fran's a female ginger cat while her oldest son, Vincent, is a male calico—there are female ginger cats and there are also male calicos, but they're super rare^note Only about 20% of ginger cats are girls while only about 1-in-3,000 calico (or tortoiseshell) cats are boys. One comic plays this straight👁 Image
  , having Fran become a calico cat and Vincent become a ginger cat, but also points out that cats can't talk or wear clothes, and thus Fran and Vincent transform into normal housecats.
• All for Nothing: In "The Halloween Costume"👁 Image
  , Fran spends the whole night Vincent's requested Halloween costume because she encouraged him to go as one of his Original Characters, but the bonus panel reveals that Vincent's changed his mind about his costume, just when Fran's finally finished his old one.
• All Periods Are PMS: In "Warpath👁 Image
  ", Fran gets unusually angry, and Joel suggests she check her calendar. Fran lashes out about Joel brushing off her problems, swinging through three different moods in three panels... then checks her calendar and realizes he's right. Good thing he already has chocolate and tea for her.
• April Fools' Day:
  • The April Fool's 2020 strip is "Sloof"👁 Image
    , where Fran advertises a "Sloof-brand" Cone of Shame that supposedly protects her from small talk and doubles as a popcorn bowl. The strip also has a link to the company's Instagram page, which turns out to be a joke account.
  • "Calico👁 Image
    ", which turns Fran into a calico and Vincent into an orange cat (then turns them both into realistic non-anthropomorphic cats) to appease those complaining about the Animal Gender-Bender issue, came out on April 1, 2021.
  • The April 1, 2022 strip is repeat of "Serenade"👁 Image
    from (almost) a year previously, except with the family drawn as dogs instead of cats👁 Image
    .
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In "Superstitious"👁 Image
  , Fran dismisses Joel's concerns that the Monkey's Paw's curse might be real as superstitious, despite them being talking cats. Cue Cooper's wish to turn everyone into the cast of Bluey coming true.
• Are We There Yet?: In "Are We There Yet?"👁 Image
  , Vincent repeatedly pesters Fran with this question during their road trip, but this trope gets flipped when he's the one who tells her to shut up from repeatedly saying, "Not yet, sweetie." In the bonus panel, the family finally makes it to their destination, only for Vincent to find it boring and asks if they're going home yet.
• Art Evolution: Later comics are more dynamic with more complex shading compared to the flatter style of the earliest comics. Chesca has even redrawn some of the older comics in the newer style.
• Art Shift:
  • In "Aladdin"👁 Image
    , Vincent briefly shifts to Aladdin (1992, Disney)'s art style when he states his plan on how he can loophole the Genie's rules to wish for more wishes.
  • In "Multiplayer"👁 Image
    , Fran and Vincent cycle between the art styles of Terraria, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft as she tries to participate in his rapidly changing gaming interests. Even their dialogue boxes change accordingly.
• Author Avatar: Fran represents the author Chesca (short for Franchesca); the other cats are based on her family.
• Baby Talk: Cooper alternates between a babyish style of talking (such as pronouncing "yellow banana" as "lellow manana") and meowing in place of babbling.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: The bonus panel of "World of Parentcraft"👁 Image
  implies that Vincent's not going to treat his babysitter kindly.
  Vincent: You dare enter my realm? You are not prepared...
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  • In "Candy Stash"👁 Image
    , Fran isn't mad that her kids hid their candy under the sofa, she's disappointed... that they're amateurs in stashing them where they shouldn't, as she does by hiding a bag of candies in the toilet's cistern.
  • In "Moral of the Story"👁 Image
    , Fran sees her kids fighting and asks if Friendship Brothers taught them nothing. Vincent stops fighting and says, "You're RIGHT, mommy!... Friendship Brothers has taught us NOTHING," before resuming. However, the bonus panel reveals that after Fran leaves, Vincent offers his friendship to Cooper for real.
• Beat Without a "But": In "Opinions",👁 Image
  a cow calls out Fran for feeding her baby milk formula, accusing her of not wanting him to do well in school. Fran responds with "You, know, when I first met you, I didn't really like you". The cow smiles, expecting the sentence to have a second half, before Fran confirms that nope, there is no second half.
• Big Eater: Fran likes to gorge on food, usually sweet things such as cake, cookies or chocolate. In "So Quiet"👁 Image
  , her inner monologue persuades her to eat a whole sleeve of Oreos and in "A Woman's Place"👁 Image
  , she can be seen eating everything in the kitchen while Joel is cooking.
• Bland-Name Product: The kids eat "Froot Hoops" for breakfast. Dad eats Papa Don's Pizza, Cheesos, and drinks "ZZ" beer (a parody of Dos Equis, aka "XX").
• Brain Food: Zombie kids prefer them with ketchup.👁 Image
  
• Brand X:
  • They do their online shopping on "Amazing.com"
  • Fran takes the kids to "Mouseworld"👁 Image
    on vacation.
• Carnivore Confusion: In one comic, Vincent is uncomfortable that his chicken classmate enjoys eating chicken nuggets, which his classmate thinks are nuggets for chicken. He almost has a horrified realization... then relaxes when he sees these are dino nuggets.
• Buffy Speak: In "Whatchamathingie"👁 Image
  , Fran forgets the thing she's trying to look for and is reduced to calling it a "whatchamathingie". Joel tries asking what it is, but Frans ends up completely forgetting and has a new "thing" ordered instead.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: Vincent has six lives left,👁 Image
  as the Grim Reaper helpfully shows him via punch card.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: In this strip👁 Image
  Fran wants some fish, but doesn't want to interact with a sheep lady, so she pretends to look at some bananas until she moves. Then we see a baboon man looking at some salad waiting for Fran to move... And then turns out the sheep lady is waiting for the baboon to move.
• Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: Fran won't let her sons have candy for breakfast, but will give them Frosted Candy-O's, which is basically candy.
  Fran: It's fine, look...only 10g of sugar per serving!
  Joel: Serving size...1 piece.
• Christmas Cat-astrophe: The strip "O Christmas Tree👁 Image
  " depicts Fran checking off decorating the tree for Christmas from her to do list whilst a racket goes on in the background behind her. The next panel reveals that Joel, Vincent, and Cooper have succumbed to their feline instincts to be play with the baubles and have nearly torn the tree down already. And the strip's bonus panel👁 Image
  reveals that Fran can't overcome her own feline instincts either.
• Christmas Creep: It ultimately results in Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving being rolled into one holiday👁 Image
  .
• Companion Cube: Vincent befriends a shoe with a tennis ball in it, named "Bally".👁 Image
  Joel becomes enamored with Bally when he realizes he can use Bally to make Vincent behave.
• The Compliance Game: In "Gamify"👁 Image
  , Fran tries turning Vincent's bedtime routine into a game, but he puts a video game twist to it. Fran is confused at first, but she quickly adapts and plays along with him.
• Constantly Curious: Vincent asks so many strange questions that even the boogeyman gets annoyed with him👁 Image
  .
• Continuity Nod: The Parent Quantine Bingo👁 Image
  has one of the spaces labeled "Kid Threatens to Become a YouTuber When They Grow Up", referencing the time when Vincent refused to go to school because he wants to be a social media influencer when he grows up.👁 Image
  
• Cloudcuckoolander: Fran's oldest son, Vincent, is prone to some of the most wildly imaginative ideas and unpredictable behavior ever—but he is just a preschooler, so it's perfectly justifiable.
• Crossover:
  • For Halloween 2021, the comic did a crossover with The Doodle Demon in "Possessed"👁 Image
    , where Cooper accidentally summons the Doodle Demon when he draws a pentagram. They make drawings together, including a demonic goat head, but Fran mistakes it for a happy creature giving out hugs because Cooper gave the drawing upside-down to her.
  • For Halloween 2022, the comic did a crossover with the author's husband's comic, Greetings From Grisley, in "Portals"👁 Image
    .
  • With Ben Hed's Pixie and Brutus in "Worlds Collide👁 Image
    ", in which Vincent and a more anthropomorphic Pixie become buddies. Hed and Chesca alternate drawings each panel. This is done again in "Worlds Collide AGAIN!"👁 Image
    
• Crossover Cameo: Fran appears in Poison Ivy Gulch for a high noon showdown👁 Image
  where she draws her gun before protagonist Lotta Doler.
• Damned by Faint Praise: In "Year in Review"👁 Image
  , Vincent asks Fran if he's been a good boy that year. Fran struggles to praise him by just calling him a "boy", but he sees through it and admits he doesn't want to be a "good" boy anymore so that Santa can give him coal to start a fire.
• Delivery Stork: In "Discharged"👁 Image
  , a stork is the one who helps Fran deliver Vincent at the hospital.
• Double Meaning Gag: In "Hoe"👁 Image
  , Vincent says, "Never waste diamonds on a hoe!" Fran flinches at first, thinking he was talking about prostitutes, but is relieved to find out he was talking about shovels in Minecraft. However, in the bonus panel, Vincent asks her what she thought he said, but she quickly dodges it.
• Do Wrong, Right:
  • In "I Got This"👁 Image
    , Joel assures Fran that he's "got this" as he goes off to warn the boys about peeing in the same toilet bowl. Fran gets horrified when he tells them instead that it's called a "sword fight".
  • In "Don't Know Sh--"👁 Image
    , Fran catches Vincent calling Cooper "the shit", not because it's wrong to swear, but because he's using the term wrong. She then teaches Vincent the different ways "shit" is used as a suffix, but she soon realizes what she's doing when Cooper swears as well.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Vincent sings a mean song about Cooper to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus", making him cry.👁 Image
  Fran scolds him for it and warns him that he wouldn't want to hear herself or Joel sing mean songs about him.
• Ear Worm: In "Earworm"👁 Image
  , Fran and Joel discover a catchy but "dumb" song that their kids would like. Joel immediately calls them over, only for Fran to shush him because she knows they'll listen to it over and over and ruin the song for them. The kids do exactly that in the bonus panel.
• Easter Bunny: In the bonus panel of "Egg Hunt"👁 Image
  , Cooper mistakes a rabbit dad for the Easter Bunny and tells him to poop more eggs.
• Exact Words: In "Beautiful Day👁 Image
  ", Fran tries to get Vincent to go outside, telling him "No gaming inside on a beautiful day!" He opts to move his computer setup outside to keep playing video games.
• Expressive Shirt: The words on Joel's shirt change every strip. Lampshaded in "New T-Shirt"👁 Image
  , where he keeps a closet full of statement shirts.
• Expressive Squiggle Mouth:
  • In "Moments",👁 Image
    Fran's mouth forms a squiggly smile while reading her social media comments gushing over latest post of her then-newborn son Vincent. She makes a similar expression in "Food Art"👁 Image
    , when she reads comments about how good of a mom she is for coming up with creative ways to get Vincent to eat healthy snacks whilst throwing said snack in the the trash.
  • In "Next Einstein",👁 Image
    Fran has a squiggly smile with hearts surrounding her while gushing about what thoughts then-baby Vincent will have as he gets older. Next panel reveals present-day Vincent singing about poop, farts, and butts.
• Fake Interactivity: Cooper doesn't seem to understand the concept👁 Image
  .
• Faking the Dead: A possum mom👁 Image
  , naturally, regularly pretends she died so her kids will go bother Fran instead.
• Faux Horrific:
  • In "Back Up"👁 Image
    , Joel scares the kids into leaving Fran alone by dramatically telling them that where she's headed for her break is "boring".
  • In "Urban Legend"👁 Image
    , Vincent pokes a hole in Joel's ghost story by asking if the mysterious caller was friends with the protagonist on Snapchat. Fran fixes this by saying that the internet went down and the main character's provider couldn't fix it until next week, scaring her family. In the bonus panel, Vincent scares Fran back by saying that the characters discovered that Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is over 30 years old at the time of the comic's release.
  • In "Boggart"👁 Image
    , Vincent's Boggart transforms into a Switch without batteries, making him scream and run. Fran calmly tells him that he could just plug it in, only to freak out when the Boggart turns into her worst fear — a spilled mug of coffee, in the bonus panel.
• Firehouse Dalmatian: The bonus panel of "Claw Machine"👁 Image
  reveals that Fran called a firefighter Dalmatian to help rescue Vincent from a claw machine. However, the firefighter took a selfie with him instead.
• Five Stages of Grief: Parodied in "5 Stages"👁 Image
  , where Fran goes through all the phases as she struggles to get Vincent to try grilled cheese sandwiches. In the end, she gives up and takes him out to the pizzeria, only for him to complain about his pizza having too much cheese in the bonus panel.
• Forced into Their Sunday Best: In "Embarrassing"👁 Image
  , Vincent does embarrassing things such as shaking his butt, making fart jokes, and wearing his shirt on his head to cover his nipples and tell people to look at them. However, when Fran makes him wear a new jacket for their visit to Grandma's, he refuses because it's "embarrassing". The bonus panel reveals that Fran managed to make him wear it, but he still put it over his head for the nipple pose.
• Foreign Cuss Word: The waiter at the Chinese restaurant says something in hanzi👁 Image
  in response to the cats playing Harry Potter with their chopsticks. If you can't read Chinese, you're not going to have a clue how to even pronounce it, making it overlap with Symbol Swearing.^note It's 神经病 (shénjīngbìng), meaning "neuropathy", meaning he's calling them neurotic nerds.
• Formerly Fit: Some of the flashback comics show that Joel wasn't quite as overweight as he is now.
• Four-Point Scale: In "Bad Reviews"👁 Image
  , Fran freaks out at one bad review ruining what she thought was the perfect car seat to buy. Joel points her to another one with all rave reviews, but she finds it suspicious if there aren't any bad ones.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: In "Dr. Tickles"👁 Image
  , Joel tickles his children to calm them down, but when he tries tickling Fran when she's upset, she calls him out for it because it's "different" for her.
• From the Mouths of Babes:
  • Preschool-aged Vincent has a tendency to repeat unsavory words, such as curse words he overheard from his parents, or shouting "Cars don't have penises — except Lightning McQueen!" at his mother while she has company. Even better, the latter is his Establishing Character Moment.
  • In one comic, Fran's shocked when Cooper asks her if she "ate all the penis". Luckily for her, it turns out that he was just trying to say "peanuts".
• Fun T-Shirt: The dad's otherwise-identical raglans have a variety of sayings. Among them: "DAD BOD", "DATED POP CULTURE REFERENCE", "GUITAR BAND", "INDOOR CAT", and "Hi Hungry, I'm Dad". He also has an apron that says "Will cook for food".
• The "Fun" in "Funeral": In the bonus panel of "The Call"👁 Image
  , Vincent attends the funeral of Joel's grandma, only to complain about there being no party bags.
• Furry Confusion: The existence of real-world Funny Animal cartoons in their universe adds a layer of confusion👁 Image
  to the fact that some of them are Half Dressed Cartoon Animals. And in "Funny Feeling"👁 Image
  , Mufasa and Simba are given clothes for some reason, despite still being non-anthropomorphic Talking Animals in the comic's universe.
• Furry Reminder: A lot of the jokes stem from applying parenting mishaps to a World of Funny Animals —
  • One comic has Vincent and Cooper get in trouble for burying poop in the neighbors' bushes. Their dad gets them out of it by accusing the neighbor of Fantastic Racism.
  • One comic👁 Image
    has a gecko classmate of Vincent's lose his tail during class.
  • In one comic, Fran loses Vincent in a grocery store and gets him back by whispering "pspspspsp" over the loudspeaker. He finds her...as do several other cats.
  • When Vincent gets his pug friend a stuffed toy for his birthday, the pug chews it to bits. The bonus panel also shows the pug is terrified of balloons.
  • Joel sprays Fran with a water bottle to prevent her from getting into social media fights.
  • Fran sometimes uses a laser pointer to distract her sons.
  • Fran's pug friend calls Fran freaking out because someone left the house for two minutes. Fran snarks to herself, "I need more cat friends". (The bonus panel reveals that her pug friend's partner had left to chase the mailman).
  • Fran has to take a teething Cooper to the dentist in a cat carrier👁 Image
    .
  • Vincent, Cooper, and Fran wake up at three in the morning with the "zoomies" and run around meowing👁 Image
    . The next day, Fran's pug friend says she can relate — "I took a bath and then could not stop."
  • One time Cooper drops a stunned baby mouse on the doorstep. From Fran's apologetic call to the mouse's parents, it's apparently not the first time he's done it.
  • A subtle one when the kids have been decked out in assorted science fiction gear: Vincent is wearing a Red Lantern ring on his tail, just like the feline Red Lantern Dex-Starr does.
  • Vincent and Cooper are always on the wrong side of the door👁 Image
    .
  • A number of one-off characters exist solely to be walking animal jokes:
    • In one comic👁 Image
      , Fran's with a group of mom-friends and asks if any of them have any good birth stories—she asks the hyena in their group what her childbirth was like, but Fran's pug friend warns her not to ask their hyena-friend about it, and implores Fran not to Google it.^note To put it as simply as possible without going into too much detail, hyenas have a rather...strange and painful birthing process compared to most other mammals.
    • Baby crocodiles hatch as fully-formed miniature adults. Litterbox Comics takes that to its logical conclusion👁 Image
      .
    • Then there's the antelope mother👁 Image
      whose child took her first steps within minutes after being born.
    • The shark father in "Tooth Fairy"👁 Image
      is distraught about his kids asking about her because not only do sharks regrow their teeth for life, but they lose their teeth frequently due to lacking roots.
    • There's also a bird-mom whose huge eggs have been the subject of multiple👁 Image
      misadventures👁 Image
      .
    • One of Fran's friends is a lioness whose new boyfriend is good-looking but useless👁 Image
      .
    • The mother who chides Fran for not breastfeeding is a cow👁 Image
      .
    • Then there's the time another kid bites Vincent at school. That kid happened to be an alligator👁 Image
      .
    • A group of baby possums tell Fran that they have to live with her because their mother died👁 Image
      . Fran is briefly distraught before she realizes the act.
    • And multiple bird moms who feed their kids by vomiting into their mouths.
  • The whole family going crazy👁 Image
    after spotting a fly in the house, which finally ends when Cooper eats it.
  • The pug-mom that Fran frequently hangs out with wears a dog collar with a heart tag.
  • Apparently, the cat family uses literal litterboxes👁 Image
    instead of toilet training potties.
• Geek: Fran and her husband are huge pop culture nerds, especially when it comes to things related to videogames, comic books, sci-fi and superheroes, and try getting their sons into that sort of thing as well.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel:
  • An interesting variation of this trope has Fran about to scold Vincent for preparing to do something dangerous, only to be told by her angel to chill and "let him be a kid", while her devil is against it among the lines of "Do you want to spend the day at ER?!" eventually...
  CRASH!
  Fran's Angel: -she's got a point.
  • Another comic👁 Image
    has Joel consult his sons on whether he should confront an annoying woman taking too much time in the checkout lane. Vincent thinks he should beat her up, but Cooper is worried she'll die. Joel then picks them up and remarks, "You guys are the angel and devil on my shoulders". The bonus panel shows Cooper as the angel and Vincent as the devil, but they both agree on their dad getting them some candy.
• Go to Your Room!: In "Go To Your Room"👁 Image
  , Fran and Vincent have a shouting match with this common parenting phrase. Somehow, it ends with her and Joel locked in their room.
  Fran: He's got this parenting thing DOWN.
• Grammar Correction Gag: In "Poopy"👁 Image
  , Joel smells Cooper's dirty diapers and asks if he's "poopy". Cooper corrects him, saying he's pooping.
• Groin Attack:
  • In "Safe at Home"👁 Image
    , one of Joel's flashbacks has him clutching his crotch after Cooper hit him with a bat.
  • In the promo poster👁 Image
    for the Kickstarter, Cooper jumps off Joel's lap, causing the latter to clutch his groin in pain.
• Heel–Face Turn: Parodied in one of the superhero comics, when Joel decides to do a heel-turn because "all the cool superheroes are doing it" and becomes the Dad Joker, taking the boys along the way. Fran ("Mommy-Brain") doesn't bother saving the day from them.
• Homage: The comic did one for My Dad Is Dracula in "My Mom is Dracula (and a cat)"👁 Image
  , copying its four-panel black-and-white format where the titular parent is Dracula and the punchline is something that parent does.
• Homage Derailment: In "Green Eggs and Fran"👁 Image
  , the entire comic is an homage to Green Eggs and Ham, complete with its art style and writing copying Dr. Seuss's. However, the last panel snaps back to the comic's usual style when Vincent refuses to try green eggs and ham.
• Hulking Out: Cooper's superhero identity, Tantrum, turns into a muscled rampaging cat whenever he's upset.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Since humans don't exist in the comic's universe, they're depicted in-universe as boogeymen. For example, In one comic, Fran invites her mom friends to horror movie night without realizing one of them's traumatized by the human on the DVD cover. In another comic, Fran herself and her family (except for Cooper) get scared by a "Hooman" animatronic at the store.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In "I Wish"👁 Image
    , Fran tries telling Vincent that Growing Up Sucks because he wouldn't get loads of toys, only to eat her words when Vincent side-eyes her fandom figurine collection. In the bonus panel, Joel tells him that being an adult isn't all fun and games, while playing a video game on the computer.
  • In "Healthy Snacktime"👁 Image
    , Fran bribes her kids into playing with their devices if they can eat her carrot sticks as healthy snacks, only to immediately eat dessert right after.
  • In "That Word"👁 Image
    , Joel catches Cooper swearing, but the latter and Vincent are quick to point out that Joel himself swears a lot.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: In "Can't Break It"👁 Image
  , Vincent proudly tells Joel that the former can't break his handmade mug for him, only to accidentally pull the handle apart.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Fran tries to weasel out of a friend's one-woman show by claiming, "Gotta stay home, otherwise I'll catch on fire".👁 Image
  She clarifies that she's gotten bad at lying due to all the outlandish lies she tells her kids.
• Innocent Innuendo:
  • In "In the Mood"👁 Image
    , after Fran tucks the kids in, she and Joel give each other bedroom eyes as they "set the mood" for something they've been "looking forward to" the whole day... watching Joel play Resident Evil.
  • Fran gets furious hearing Vincent say "Never waste diamonds on a hoe!" He's talking about farming in Minecraft. Although he's almost definitely quoting a common saying in the Minecraft community with a very deliberate double meaning.
• Innocent Swearing: "Clock👁 Image
  " has Cooper pronouncing "clock" as "cock", which makes Fran worry when she takes him to an appointment in a room full of clocks.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In "Modern Problems"👁 Image
  , Fran and Joel get Vincent a robot for Christmas in hopes he'd play with it instead of staring at the screen, only for Vincent to immediately declare he'll let his new toy watch him play Minecraft.
• Intentional Mess Making: The kids naturally like making messes for fun, to Fran's frustration. This is taken up a notch in "The Discovery"👁 Image
  , where Fran goes Oh, Crap! from finding a Sharpie cap. The bonus panel reveals that Vincent even went outside the comic's boundaries to doodle all over it.
• The Internet Is for Cats: In the bonus panel of "Should They...?"👁 Image
  , Fran tries exploiting this trope by posting a "funny" picture of her sons playing on a tree branch. She thinks she can get away with the hate comments because she believes more people will be amused by their cat antics instead, but Joel doesn't think otherwise.
• Ironic Echo: In "Skill Issue", Vincent complains about his LEGO set missing a piece, which Fran says is a "skill issue" and that he can "always trust LEGO and IKEA" that every piece is accounted for. But in the very next panel, Fran complains about the same thing with her IKEA project, prompting Vincent to reflect what she advised him back to her.
• It's Okay to Cry: Invoked for the wrong reasons in "Big Feelings"👁 Image
  , where Fran is proud of Vincent teaching Cooper this lesson, but then Vincent admits that he hit him and made him cry.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Kids in the other room screaming? They're just having fun. Everything goes quiet? That's a bad sign.👁 Image
  
• I Want My Jet Pack: As a kid,👁 Image
  Joel was excited for flying cars, jet packs, and robot butlers in the future. Now he's frustrated that he needs to verify his email to check the temperature of a ham.
• Just the Introduction to the Opposites: This comic👁 Image
  shows a happy anthropomorphic wolf couple interrupted by the man's full-moon-induced transformation into a vicious human.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: Or rather, Cats Prefer Boxes.
  • In "My Mom is Dracula (and a cat)"👁 Image
    , Fran goes on a shopping spree to buy many cardboard boxes for Vincent.
  • In "Get Baby to Sleep!1"👁 Image
    , Fran orders a baby seat to try calming the baby Vincent to sleep, but instead of using the chair, she tosses it out of the box and sleeps with Vincent inside.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Clean Up Time"👁 Image
  , Vincent gets mad at Fran for telling him to clean up his room, only to trip over one of his toys. Fran then taunts him that he got his karma for it.
• Lies to Children: Fran and Joel often tell their kids white lies to distract them from harsh truths, but "The Lies"👁 Image
  reveals that Joel's father did this to him when Joel himself was a kitten. Joel promptly calls out his father for it.
• Lightmare Fuel: In "Nightmare Fuel"👁 Image
  , Fran has a nightmare where she's surrounded by grotesque monsters, yet she's feeling calm as she tries making a phone call. She then gets jolted awake, not because of the monsters, but because of trying to make the phone call. Joel comforts her either way... only for the phone to ring and freak both of them out in the bonus panel.
• Limited Wardrobe: Downplayed with Joel's shirts, which are all red-and-white raglans with slogans in Cooper Black but have a variety of different slogans.
• Literal Genie: In "Three Wishes",👁 Image
  Vincent pretends to be a genie granting wishes. Fran wishes he'd put on his shoes, so he puts them on his head. She wishes he'd put them on his feet, so he puts them on top of his feet. Finally, she gives a very specific request, but Vincent's too bored to keep playing by that point.
• Literal Metaphor: In "Dark Secrets"👁 Image
  , Joel says that he and Fran shall take their secret to their graves — that they got ice cream without letting the kids know — by burying it.
• Literal-Minded: Vincent and Cooper are young kids, so naturally, they don't understand idioms.
  • In "Be Cool"👁 Image
    , Fran tells her kids to be "cool" in order to stop fighting, but they wear "hip n' cool" clothes instead and continue fighting. In the bonus panel, she tells them to "chill", only for one of them to open the fridge offscreen.
  • Joel tells Vincent not to fight with his fists, but with his mind. Vincent then gets in trouble for headbutting other kids.
• Logging onto the Fourth Wall: In the bonus panel of "Wishlist"👁 Image
  , the websites listed on Vincent's Christmas wishlist lead to actual products. While the first one expired, the second and third ones lead to a commercial waterpark👁 Image
  and a life-sized Danny DeVito cardboard cutout👁 Image
  , respectively.
• LOL, 69: In "6-7"👁 Image
  , Vincent learns about the titular number and repeats it. Fran suspects it has a sexual meaning like 69 and looks it up, only to find it means "nothing". Vincent then asks what 69 means, making Fran panic and repeat 6-7 to distract him.
• Lost Food Grievance: Vincent gets upset over someone👁 Image
  eating the last cupcake, which turned out to be him! Fran learns this and also flips out.
• Mathematician's Answer: Vincent uses one to, ironically, dodge a math question. When his mom asks, "What's 2+2?" he simply says "Math".
• Mexican Standoff: In "Move"👁 Image
  , Fran needs to buy fish but doesn't want to ask the sheep directly to move aside, so instead, Fran pretends to look at some bananas until the sheep moves. However, it turns out that a mandrill and the same sheep are also using the same tactics to try getting the bananas and salad, respectively, leaving all three at a standstill until the store closes in the bonus panel.
• Missing Steps Plan: While potty-training her youngest son, Cooper, Fran promises to give him a piece of candy every time he uses the litterbox.👁 Image
  Cooper knows that he'll get candy if he poops, but he's (unfortunately) ignoring the "litter box" part of the deal.
• My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: In the bonus panel of "Worlds Collide"👁 Image
  , Vincent tells Pixie that his dad Joel can beat up her adoptive father/brother Brutus. Joel, an overweight cat, overhears this and stops drinking his coffee, for he's just realized he'd be up against a muscled dog who's a former veteran.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: In "Very Creative"👁 Image
  , Vincent cheerfully tells Fran about his drawing in school and how his teacher said it was "very creative". However, it contains a killing chamber and a room where babies are free to poop their pants, making Fran wince and agree that it's "very creative". In the bonus panel, Vincent happily tells her that the PTA meeting will be very soon, unaware that the teacher will be having a talk with Fran about his drawing.
• No Cartoon Fish: Zigzagged. Fran is seen wanting to buy some non-anthro fish a sheep is checking out at the grocery store, while in another comic, there's an anthro shark family. Unlike in the chicken nuggets strip, where Vincent initially gets shocked by his chicken classmate eating nuggets before he clarifies they're "dino" nuggets, this inconsistency with fish hasn't been addressed.
• No Full Name Given: Fran's family name is only revealed to start with L, according to Vincent's tardy slip in the bonus panel of "I Suck!"👁 Image
  . Presumably, it stands for "Litterbox", as shown in her fake obituary👁 Image
  ◊ posted on the comic's official Discord server on April Fool's 2026.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The first half of the trope name is referenced in "No Good Deed"👁 Image
  , where Fran helps Cooper's shoes on to stop him from crying, only for him to slap her on the face as "thanks".
• Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Whenever male characters are shirtless, their nipples aren't shown, like in "New T-Shirt"👁 Image
  , where Joel isn't drawn with nipples when Fran steals his shirt.
• Nostalgia Filter: Fran often has to battle her children regarding the generation gap, especially new technology. For example, in "I'm Bored!"👁 Image
  , she remarks about wanting to "back in my day" at Vincent "so hard" for complaining about having nothing to watch on TV despite having four streaming services. She then goes on that rant in the bonus panel, scaring Vincent and Cooper by "being old". However, in "Next Gen"👁 Image
  , Fran silently admits that she and the younger generation are not so different regarding their gaming frustrations.
• Not Me This Time: Both of Fran's sons are troublemakers, but especially Vincent—his parents are often getting calls from his preschool for his school-related antics. In one comic, Fran gets a call from the principal at her oldest son's school and she immediately starts apologizing for whatever she thinks her son did—but the principal informs her that Vincent didn't do anything and that he got bit by another child...who turns out to be an alligator.
• Painting the Medium:
  • When Fran turns into a Yoda parody, her dialog👁 Image
    is in the Star Wars logo font.
  • Fran tries to get Vincent to eat Green Eggs and Ham and the strip is even drawn👁 Image
    mimicking the Dr. Seuss style.
• Parents as People: The central premise. Fran and Joel are good parents and all, but they aren't perfect, they don't always know what they're doing, and while they love their kids, they sometimes love them a great deal more than other times.
• Parody Displacement: In-Universe, Vincent thinks his dad's Meowie album is just "bad covers of Kidz Bop songs".
• Picky Eater: Even for a kid his age, Vincent's a ridiculously picky eater and has got some Bizarre Taste in Food.
  • For example, instead of having lasagna or a turkey dinner (both of which were made by his dad), he'd rather have mashed up Lucky Charms mixed with ketchup.
  • In "Don't Blink"👁 Image
    , Vincent gives Fran a stink-eye for not making his nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. She tries saving face by claiming they're dinosaur eggs, which takes some convincing before he finally eats them. He likes them so much that in the bonus panel, he gets upset when Fran makes him "regular" dinosaur nuggets.
• Playing House: Done in "Playing House"👁 Image
  , where Vincent pretends to be the daddy while Fran pretends to be the baby. It doesn't take long for her to act exactly how a baby would, to Vincent's frustration.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: In "Trick or Treat"👁 Image
  , Vincent chides the hippo mom for mistaking his Yami Yugi costume for a "Pokeyman Monster". Fran tries apologizing to the hippo for it, but Joel, who's just as much of a nerd as Vincent, finds this unacceptable.
• Pooping Where You Shouldn't: One comic👁 Image
  has Cooper doing "zoomies" at the playground, with Fran speeding home when she realizes he's acting the same way he does after using the litter box...
  Offscreen kid: Papa! Look what I just made with the sandbox Play-Doh!
• Pungeon Master: In "Heel-Turn"👁 Image
  , the Dad Joker cracks punny dad jokes every time he and his sons commit petty crimes.
  Dad Joker: It's called dough because we KNEAD it!
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Vincent and Cooper give their dad big sad eyes when asking if he came home with ice cream👁 Image
  .
• Putting the Pee in Pool: Double Subverted in "Yellow"👁 Image
  . Vincent and Cooper put a yellow-colored tablet in their bath to make it look like they peed in it...but then the boys realize that they really did pee in the tub.
• Red Shirt: Fran's familiar with this trope but gets it confused👁 Image
  with the academic term of the same name👁 Image
  when her pug-friend questions if she and Joel are planning to wait a year before enrolling Vincent in Kindergarten.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: In "Total Party Kitten"👁 Image
  , Fran, Joel, and Cooper's TTRPG characters are epically introduced as they embark on their first adventure, only for the GM, Vincent, to instantly kill them off with a dragon.
• Santa Claus: He's portrayed as a polar bear in the comic's universe, even the poor Mall Santa who has to hold the kids still while their parents do silly poses just to get the perfect shot of them.👁 Image
  
• Santa's Existence Clause: Vincent is skeptical of Santa's existence, so more often than not, his parents have to try covering it up to maintain the "magic" for their son. However, the bonus panel of "Year in Review"👁 Image
  reveals that Santa is real.
• Scary Shadow Fakeout: In "Shadow"👁 Image
  , Fran gets scared by what seems to be the shadow of a scary monster approaching her, only to turn out to be Vincent randomly telling her that M&M's are all different species.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In "Recursive"👁 Image
  , the robot versions of the cat family speak like this, with Gen 2.1 and 2.2 (Vincent's and Cooper's counterparts, respectively), singing "Baby Shark" as "Juvenile Selachimorpha, doo doo doo doo doo doo!".
• Shout-Out:
  • "Toy Review"👁 Image
    has Vincent starting his own unboxing channel patterned after Ryan ToysReview.
  • The bonus panel of "Connoiseur"👁 Image
    is a parody of the "Woman Yelling at a Cat"👁 Image
    meme.
  • In the bonus panel of "Homeschool"👁 Image
    , Fran's economics lesson for Vincent would be taught by Mr. Nook, hmm? Yes yes!
  • One comic👁 Image
    replicates the style of Webcomic Name.
  • In "Noise Downstairs"👁 Image
    , the alarm clock in the parents' room shows 4:13AM.
  • In the bonus panel of "New Year's Resolution"👁 Image
    , Fran feels tempted to break her New Year's resolution just to post about Joel mimicking the Keyboard Cat.👁 Image
    
  • The bonus panel👁 Image
    of "Litter Training" has Cooper reenact the "Phase 3: Profit" meme from South Park.
  • Fran makes the Grinch face when she uses an Elf on the Shelf to make Vincent go to school👁 Image
    , complete with narration. Returns when she comes up with a lie👁 Image
    to cover for her failure to move it every day.
• Significant First Steps: In "First Steps", Cooper (Vincent in the remastered version) is shown attempting and failing his first steps. Fran expresses her anxiety about how long it's taking him to achieve this milestone. A mother antelope comments about how she had the same worries during the minutes after giving birth before her baby started walking.
• Smelly Skunk: In "Left Out👁 Image
  ", Joel gets concerned when Fran invites their skunk friend Flora to a scary movie night, as it's implied she doesn't react well to fear — and their friends are sitting right behind her tail.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen: In "World of Parentcraft"👁 Image
  , Fran and Joel give instructions on caring for their kids to their babysitter in gaming lingo, leaving her hopelessly searching their meanings in the bonus panel.
• Spit Take: In the very first comic, Fran's friend spit out her tea when Vincent burst in to talk about Lightning McQueen having a penis.
• Stealth Pun: In "New Kid"👁 Image
  , Vincent calls the new kid in his class "Trash Can" because he looks like one and Vincent forgot his real name. The bonus panel reveals that the kid's name is Oscar, as in Oscar the Grouch, who lives in a trash can.
• The Stinger: Some comics have bonus panels that add extra punchlines, with later comics locking them behind a Patreon subscription. "Timeout" exaggerates this by having not one👁 Image
  , but two👁 Image
  bonus panels.
• Stock Animal Diet: Used to subtle effect when Fran, a sheep, and a mandrill are shopping for groceries👁 Image
  . Each of them want the other to move because they want to check out the nearby food — fish, salad, and bananas, respectively.
• String Theory: In the bonus panel of "Bad Reviews"👁 Image
  , Fran parodies the memetic scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as she investigates all the reviews for the car seat she wants to buy.
• Super Gullible: Fran and Joel's sons, Vincent and Cooper, will believe pretty much anything you tell them, no matter how outlandish it sounds. But with how young the boys are ^note Vincent's a preschooler while Cooper's still basically just a baby it's a justified trope.
• Super Hero Episode: "Supercats"👁 Image
  reimagines the family as superheroes.
• Sweet Tooth: Fran is not above sneaking off to have some dessert in some strips, especially chocolate chip cookies.
• Tailfin Walking: Several animal characters are sea creatures such as sharks and dolphins, and they can walk on land just fine by using their tails.
• Take That!:
  • The comic sometimes takes shots at "Baby Shark" for being an annoyingly catchy kid's song, but "Baby Shark"👁 Image
    has Fran eating her words when she accidentally insults a shark family by singing it. However, the daddy shark admits that he also hates the song even more than she does.
  • In the bonus panel of "Fan Service"👁 Image
    , Joel cries out in anguish when Vincent puts on a Jar Jar Binks shirt.
• The Talk: Parodied in the bonus panel of "Squirrel Away"👁 Image
  , where according to Joel, apparently, the squirrel mom hoarding her Christmas shopping haul underground and forgetting where she buried them is how Christmas trees are born. Vincent is skeptical about this.
• Terrible Artist: Naturally for a 6-year-old kid, Vincent's drawings are just stick figures, as shown in "Thankful"👁 Image
  , for example.
• Thermometer Gag: In "Temperature"👁 Image
  , Fran gives Joel a thermometer to put in his mouth, only to realize after that she accidentally used the baby's rectal thermometer instead of the oral one.
• Thousand-Yard Stare:
  • In "Familiar"👁 Image
    , Vincent and Cooper find some old, noisy toys in the cupboard. As they play with them, Fran stops and stares as she gets flashbacks to those toys.
  • In "Safe at Home"👁 Image
    , the seal doctor asks Joel if he feels safe at home. He just stares blankly at the wall as traumatic memories of his kids messing with him come back to him.
  • In the bonus panel of "Clever Hacks"👁 Image
    , Fran just stares listlessly as she gets traumatic childhood flashbacks to the Duck Hunt Dog laughing at her every time she missed a duck.
• Toilet Humor:
  • Being a preschool-aged kid, Vincent really likes jokes about butts, farts, and poop. And being a baby, Cooper's the primary source for the various poop-related gags.
  • One comic👁 Image
    shows the cat family expressing their love by calling each other "poop-face", "you butt", and "fart-pants".
• Toilet Training Plot: In "Litter Training"👁 Image
  , Fran tries teaching Cooper how to use the litterbox, bribing him with candy if he succeeds in it. However, Cooper thinks he has to get candy in order to use it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: While Fran will always go for dessert when she has the chance, she'll do anything to get her paws on some choco chip cookies, even if they're raw cookie dough.👁 Image
  
• Trick Dialogue: In "Mommy's Little Helper"👁 Image
  , Fran seems to be praising Vincent when he obeys her and criticizing him when he doesn't, but it turns out she's talking to her new Roomba instead.
• The Twelve Spoofs of Christmas: "The Twelve Days of Momsmas" plugs a limited-edition Fran plush toy by placing her in a "Twelve Days of Christmas" parody showcasing the weird stuff her sons give her.
• Ugly Baby: In "Baby Pics"👁 Image
  , Vincent asks his mother Fran if he was a cute baby. Fran says that he was "the cutest" and shows Vincent a picture of him as a newborn. The two of them scream in horror and Fran later says, "Hormones and Facebook lied to me".
• Unfortunate Character Design: In-Universe; Fran and Joel are weirded out at Vincent's Creeper toy because it looks like "a badly censored dick". It's even creepier when he wants a cup shaped like one.
• Unnamed Parent: Unlike Fran, Joel was simply referred to as "Dad Cat" up until June of 2021, where he was finally given an official name.
• The Un-Smile: During a grocery run, Fran wants to show empathy to a woman with a restless baby, buuuut her attempt makes the woman silently accuse her of being obnoxious👁 Image
  .
• Valentine's Day Vitriol: In "Stupid Holiday"👁 Image
  , Vincent hates Valentine's Day, so when the holiday rolls over, he desperately tries to reframe it as "Pink Halloween" because he still gets candies for it. The bonus panel reveals that Fran only likes "Pink Halloween" for the post-holiday sales.
• Verbal Backpedaling: In "Evening Plans"👁 Image
  , Joel offers to watch a movie with Fran after putting the "a-holes" to bed, only to immediately append it with "that I love!" upon realizing their kids just heard that.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: In-Universe in "To the Rescue!"👁 Image
  . Vincent calls Fran over just to tell her that killing an enemy in the game he's playing has it say "Player was killed by [weapon name]", so he decided to name it "My Balls".
• Vomit Discretion Shot:
  • In "Fed Is Best" Fran throws up in a vase (later changed to a bucket) after she sees how her bird friends "Feed" their children.
  Vincent: I'm not eating that.
  • In "Mommy! Quick!"👁 Image
    Vincent warns that he will be sick, so Fran rushes in with a bucket, only for him to run past her and puke on the carpet off-panel.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Bird characters realistically feed their chicks by regurgitating in their mouths, to everyone's disgust.
• Webcomic Print Collection: Parenting Is Weird: Tails from the Litterbox, the first collection book, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in 2023.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Inverted in "What's in a Name?"👁 Image
  , where Fran excitedly drags Vincent to his school's Valentine's playdate upon learning he has two classmates named Legolas and Leia.
• Wiki Walk:
  • In "One More Thing"👁 Image
    , Vincent asks Fran if atoms have colors, just as she's leaving his bedroom after tucking him in. She quickly goes back to search it for him... but the bonus panel reveals they've spent the whole night reading one science article after the other, and Fran hasn't yet found the answer to the meaning of life.
  • In the bonus panel of "I Suck!"👁 Image
    , Fran sends Ms. Hoots a tardy slip, saying that Vincent was late for "tricking [Fran] down an internet rabbit hole AGAIN!".
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Subverted with Vincent, who only pretends to share wisdom for his young age just to mess with Fran. For example, in "Big Feelings"👁 Image
  , he admits to hitting Cooper just to teach him It's Okay to Cry. Then in "Childhood Wisdom"👁 Image
  , he advises Fran that Perfection Is Impossible and that she should embrace that "variety is the spice of life", only to say she's glad she's accepted it because he and Cooper just got stuck together with "grown-up" glue.
• Wishing for More Wishes: In "Aladdin"👁 Image
  , Vincent says that if he were to make a wish to the Genie, he'd wish for him to disregard all the rules he laid out to him, so Vincent can wish for a million wishes. Fran is a little skeptical of that idea.
• World of Funny Animals:
  • Everybody in the universe is an anthropomorphic animal. Even pop culture icons have animal equivalents (for example, Dora's a sloth).
  • Strangely averted for the pups in PAW Patrol. Whenever the show is referenced in the webcomic, the pups are portrayed as their non-anthropomorphic selves. And Daniel Tiger is still a Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal.