El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera
Created by	Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua
Number of Episodes	26 (50 if Halves are counted)

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (El Tigre: Las Aventuras de Manny Rivera in Spanish) is an action comedy show showing the antics of it's main character Manny Rivera alongside his best friend Frida Suárez, his superhero father Rodolfo Rivera and his Super Villain grandfather Grandpapi.

Origin

El Tigre was created by a husband-and-wife team named Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua along with others who were employed to make the show. The couple made the project from experiences they had when they were younger. Manny Rivera is based on Jorge's young self and Frida Suárez is based on Sandra's. Many things known of the show were based on actual events or parts in Jorge's life. His father was an artist (which was viewed as good) and his grandfather was a general in the military (which was viewed as evil). That idea was exaggerated to the idea of superheroes and villains. The city Miracle City is based on Mexico City, where Jorge grew up.

Intro

When an episode starts, a green fire spreads from the middle and a look at Miracle City is seen. We see a bird with a sombrero fly up from the words on the volcano saying Miracle City and is burned by lava while a Narrator says "Miracle City! A spicy cesspool of crime and villainy!". It then zooms onto Manny and Frida walking on the sidewalk. The narrator speaks again as it zooms on Manny "This is the story of Manny Rivera!". Manny then changes into his El Tigre form while the narrator says "Better known as..." where Manny says "El Tigre!". Then it shows White Pantera running and make a Large jump while the narrator says "Son of the legendary hero..." where Rodolfo says "White Pantera!". Then it shows a laughing Grandpapi on treasure while the narrator says "Grandson of the Super Villain..." where Granpapi says "Puma Loco!". Then parts of Frida form together on the front of a card with the number 13 on the top-right corner and she plays her guitar. The theme of the show then plays while Manny and Rodolfo are chasing criminals and then it shows Manny and Grandpapi running from cops. Manny and Frida are shown throwing food to the other school students starting food fights. But they are in trouble for it and get sent to detention from the principal. Then Manny and Frida are shown on the top of the Miracle City Volcano riding it down with a shopping cart while wearing helmets. But crashing into a cactus and landing into a monster's legs. Manny gets into a challenge position towards it, but Frida waves and runs off while Manny is squashed by the monster. Then it shows Manny, Rodolfo, and Grandpapi as they transform into their alter egos. And the title shows after El Tigre roars.

Episodes

1. Night of the Living Guacamole/Sole of a Hero
2. Enter the Cuervo/Fistful of Collars
3. Fool's Goal/El Tigre, El Jefe
4. Zebra Donkey/Adios Amigos
5. Mother of all Tigres/Old Money
6. The Late Manny Rivera/Party Monsters
7. Mustache Kid/Puma Licito
8. Miracle City Worker/Dia De Los Malos
9. Yellow Pantera/Rising Son
10. La Tigressa/Curse of the Albino Burrito
11. The Ballad of Frida Suárez/Fool Speed Ahead
12. Miracle City Undercover/The Bride of Puma Loco
13. Clash of the Titan/Eye Caramba!
14. The Grave Escape
15. Burrito's Little Helper/Crouching Tigre, Hidden Dragon
16. The Cactus Kid/A Mother's Glove
17. The Good, The Bad, The El Tigre
18. A Fistful of Nickels/Animals
19. Tigre + Cuervo Forever/The Thing That Ate Frida's Brain
20. Stinking Badges/Mech Daddy
21. The Return of Plata Peligrosa/Chupacabros
22. Love and War/Wrong and Dance
23. Oso Sole Mio/Silver Wolf
24. The Cuervo Project/The Golden Eagle Twins
25. Dia De Los Padres/Mustashe Love
26. Back to Escuela/No Boots, No Belt, No Brero

Trivia

• All of the villains in this series have red eyes except Grandpapi because he wears a pair of spectacles.
• The villain Sartana of the Dead is an homage to Carlos Santana, with a visual resemblance of La Catrina, by mexican engraver Jose Guadalupe Posada.
• Zoe's last name Aves, is a reference for another name for birds of the same name. "Aves" means "birds" in Spanish.
• Black Cuervo's costume looks like the uniform of the main characters from the anime series Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman
• El Tigre means The Tiger, White Pantera means the White Panther, and Puma Loco means Crazy Puma. The Rivera family's ancestors are named alter-egos of the Feline family.
• Frida's tracksuit in Fool's Goal is the same as the one worn by the Bride (Uma Thurman's character) in Kill Bill and Bruce Lee in "Game of Death".
• Running gags in Mother of all Tigres: 1:When they show the flashback in "Mother of all Tigres" it shows Maria kissing Manny the age he is now with his scar, but after Maria leaves and Grandpapi moves in, it shows Manny at a younger age,1. Manny interrupting Maria to show her a new place in the city. 2: Maria randomly speaking of facts, pulls out a book, then says "Its a fact", 3: Whenever Manny says something good about the evil place, Granpapi says "I'll say!" . 4: On the cover of one of Maria's albums it shows Maria, Manny, and a goat walking across the road, similar to The Beatles hit album Abbey Road. And 5: The two plumbers are dressed similarly to Mario and Luigi.
• When Manny is working in the office in Mustache Kid,on his calendar it has a picture of an orange cat that says "No me gusta Mondays" which translated means "I don't like Mondays" which is an allusion of the popular cartoon cat "Garfield".
• In Dia de Los Malos, Papi yells at Rodolfo for reading off the invitation to the Celebration of Heroes. Then Rodolfo comes out of the bathroom with a comb in his hand and obviously combing something as he mockingly says "You can't ruin my mood." But White Pantera already has his mask on, so what is he combing? His mask?
• In The Ballad of Frida Suarez marks the second appearance of Zebra Donkey.
• When Don Baffi said "I'll get you, El Tigre, and your little 'stache, too!". This is a play on the Wicked Witch of the West's "I'll get you, and your little dog, too" line from The Wizard of Oz.
• In Eye Caramba, when the Flock of Fury is spying on Rodolfo, in some shots they see basically what he is seeing. But in other shots they actually see Rodolfo and the glass eye as if something else was spying on him.
• In Sole of a Hero when Manny says, "You're Super Macho!" to his Dad, it is a reference, to Jorge Guiterrez', one of the creators of the show nickname, "Super Macho". As known on his website, which is named after the show's company, Mexopolis.
• There has been a running gag in the title cards, with one character standing closer to the image, showing only its feet and legs, while the other stands far in the background. So far, this is seen in Sole of a Hero, Fistful of Collars, and The Mother Of All Tigres. A similar gag is used in Clash of the Titan, with the Titanium Titan in the form and El Tigre in the background, but the difference is that the Titan is shown entirely instead of feet and legs.
• There are a few references to Spaghetti Westerns within the show, Sartana and Django are both the names of heroes in a series of Italian Westerns. Both Leone middle school and Sergio are named after director Sergio Leone the latter being an Italian kid who dresses up like a cowboy. Furthermore the episodes Fistful of Collars, and a A Fistful of Nickels takes its title from Fistful of Dollars, and A Fistful of Dynamite. Also it is noted that the Boktai series has a protagonist named Django and a brother named Sabata also named after spaghetti western film protagonists.
• Manny's name may be based on the name of Tony Montana's best friend Manny Rivera from the Brian de Palma movie, Scarface.
• In El Tigre, El Jefe, toward the end of the episode, Remy from Street Fighter III can be seen in the crowd. Plus, Chun-Li and Ryu can be seen in a few scenes of several episodes.
• When El Mal Verde falls into El Oso after fighting Manny in the first round, if you look closely Black Cuervo can be seen in the crowd but she never competes or is seen throughout the rest of the episode. Later in the episode, Black Cuervo is seen hanging in the volcano on the background.
• Running Gag of Sartana mentioning villains then White Pantera followed by him yelling "Black Pantera" as his cover name.
• White Pantera's "Power Punch Pick" was originally written as a punch, not a kick. After the storyboard pitch, it became obvious that our boot themed hero should have a kick as his big move.
• The full name of Manny Rivera (Manuel Pablo Gutierrez O'Brien Equihua Rivera) is related to the surnames of the creators of the series, for example: the last name of Gutierrez in the name of the character belongs to Jorge R. Gutiérrez and while Equihua belongs to Sandra Equihua.
• In The Return of Plata Peligrosa, when White Pantera paints Plata Peligrosa, it was the title card picture of A Mother's Glove.
• Manny lives on a house on the top of a big building in Miracle City. The building name is Casa Del Macho. Manny's mom's former mansion was named Casa Del Mariachi.
• Some of the villains have secret identities and they make sure no one else finds out about it.
• In Dia De Los Padres, Frida was doing a puppet show with puppets that look like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd also in Animales, it was the same thing like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry.
• In Golden Eagle Twins, when the old woman from the orphanage talks, in the background an orphan is seen playing with an El Tigre plushie.
• In production order Love and War/Wrong and Dance is episode 17, instead of The Good, The Bad and the Tigre.
• In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, all the known characters make cameos.
• In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, several villains can be seen cheering after the Riveras have defeated all their enemies, but a second later those same villains can be seen lying in the heap of defeated enemies.
• In No Boots, No Belt, No Brero, it is revealed the Suarez family has a cat.
• In Mech Daddy, when El Tigre is electrocuted and his skeleton is visible, you can see his tail has bones.
• During the battle against the Titanium Titan, Frida discovers that a giant robot's controller is an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) controller with the crosspad and the A and B buttons.
• In one episode it is revealed that Frida's goggles are "perscription".
• Frida appears to spend more time with the Rivera family than with her own family.
• Whenever someone (usually Manny) is about to do something they will say, "This I swear!".
• The animation of this show is also used on Cartoon Network's Mad, though the characters themselves don't appear in some sketches