Super Troopers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Farva: "License and registration... chicken fucker!"

Broken Lizard's Super Troopers is a 2001 comedy film about highway troopers in the state of Vermont. They're trying to avoid getting shut down and are engaged in a turf war with the local Spurbury Police. Over the course of the movie they discover a marijuana shipping operation, and tracking down the culprits may be the key to proving their worth to the district.

The squad of troopers play a lot of pranks on each other, and a lot of the comedy comes from their wacky on the job hijinks and laid back attitude.

Tropes used in Super Troopers include:
  • Ambiguously Brown: A Running Gag about Ramathorn.
  • Asian Animation: The term (and an example of) "Afghanistanimation" is used the same way the term "Japanimation" is was used.
  • Badass Mustache: Having one is standard operating procedure, apparently. The others pick at Rabbit for being unable to grow one, and in the epilogue scene, the wispy mustache he's got on is actually fake, which he rips off when it's time to get serious.
    • They actually pick on Foster to "grow a goddammned mustache" and Foster responds that he hasn't shaven in two weeks.
  • Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop: You don't want either group of these cops protecting and serving in your area but at least the troopers aren't drug traffickers.
  • Berserk Button: Farva has many, not the least of which is messing around with his fast food order.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Ursula uses a voice modulator to make Foster think he's about to be raped.

Foster: Oh, god, please don't shoot me. I'm naked.
Cop: Drop your coat and grab your toes.
Foster: What?
Cop: I'm gonna show you where the wild goose goes.

  • Black Sheep: Farva is this to the highway troopers.
  • Bittersweet Ending: After all they'd done, the station still gets shut down. In the epilogue, when they appear to be delivery men delivering a keg of beer, but they actually took over the Spurbury Police who had been left with one person, Ursula.
  • Butt Monkey: Toyed with. Farva tries to make Rabbit (the squad Rookie) the Butt Monkey, but Farva himself is the real one and doesn't realize it.
  • California Doubling: Although set in Vermont, certain scenes were shot on roads in Westchester County, NY.
  • Capulet Counterpart: Ursula. Becomes the Reverse Mole eventually.
  • Car Chase: Obligatory.
  • Casting Gag: Daniel von Bargen (Grady) played a prison guard in The Silence of the Lambs, while Brian Cox (O'Hagan) played Hannibal Lector himself in Manhunter.
    • Kevin Heffernan's parents kept asking for a cameo, so he finally gave them one...where he calls them "chicken fuckers."
  • Communications Officer: Farva is given this job at the highway department as punishment after the school bus incident.
  • Da Chief: O'Hagan.
  • A Date with Rosie Palms: Mac. And while on duty, no less.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Everybody gets their moments.
  • Defictionalization: The Bulletproof Jockstrap. Body armor designed to protect the groin area is now being fielded in Iraq and Afghanistan, nicknamed "Bulletproof Boxers" or "Blast Boxers". Along with painful puns about the military protecting their Privates.
  • Development Hell: The sequel has been here for several years.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Remember that scene where Mac polished his pistol to a woman on a billboard advertisement? Turns out the state of Vermont banned billboards in 1968. Whoops.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Uttered by Mac after the highway cops get shut down.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Rod Farva lives and breathes this trope. He assaults a cashier at Dippits Burger because of a prank played on him (which he totally deserved), and there was an incident before the film involving a bus of grade school kids which is shown during the credits.
    • Also played for laughs as Ramathorn and Rabbit are about to punish a trio of stoners.

Thorny: We're gonna watch you smoke the whole bag.
Stoner: Please no.[1]

  • Do I Really Sound Like That?: Farva quotes O'Hagan's favorite expression using the same fake Irish accent. The very drunk O'Hagan turns to the other cops and asks them if he sounds this stupid. The other drunk cops make it clear with their expressions that he does.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Foster. Pranking your crush by flashing her works in Real Life, right?
  • Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Ursula tazes Foster at one point (and threatens to rape him at another) and it's Played for Laughs. He was being a bit of a jerk, but it would have been less amusing the other way around.
  • Drunken Master: All the troopers are wasted in the final brawl when they fight the Corrupt Cops, especially O'Hagen. It helps that, drunk or not, they are far better fighters than the local cops, as shown earlier in the film.

Grady: What are you, drunk?!
O'Hagen: Drunk enough to kick your ass!

  • Enhance Button: Parodied by Ramathorn while photoshopping security camera footage.

Ramathorn: [types random keys] Enhance... [types random keys] enhance... [types random keys] enhance...
O'Hagan: Just print the damn thing!

And stop calling me Dispatch!

"GOOD ENOUGH TO FUCK YOUR MOTHER!"

    • Made all the more eyebrow-raising when O'Hagan says: "In my day, the rookie got naked."
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Interservice Rivalry: Between the troopers and the local police.
  • Jerkass: Farva, along with most of the Spurbury police officers.
  • Jurisdiction Friction: Over the drug-related cases. The police have good reason to keep the troopers out of it, though.
  • Let's Get Dangerous:
    • In the epilogue.
    • Also an Oh Crap from two of the stoner kids from the beginning, when they see Rabbit and Ramathorn are the St. Anky delivery guys.
  • Mind Screw: An unusual case of most of the characters being fans of this trope. Starting right at the beginning of the film, they mess with the heads of stoners by pulling them over a second time after having already pulled them over. They're still pulled over from the last time and desperately exclaim that they can't pull over any further.
  • Ms. Fanservice: The German guy's wife, who we get to see quite a lot of.
  • Never Heard That One Before: Ursula being called "Charlie's Angel" by Foster.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Played with; Farva's run-in with the school bus is actually shown during the ending credits.
    • Also;

Mac: "And that was the second time I got crabs.

Thorny: All right Arlo, why don't you hop up on Uncle Rabbit's lap?
Rabbit': I don't think that's such a good idea, Thorny!

  • Show Some Leg: Taken to the extreme with the German couple; the husband is totally willing to let his wife screw the highway cops to get out of a ticket. Justified, of course, since the car is stolen, and the couple is later shown to be swingers.
  • Smug Snake: Chief Grady.
  • Sorry, Ociffer...: The troopers pull over some kids. The kids had to get rid of their drugs, so one of them eats all their weed before they throw out what was left. The troopers notice this, and play mind games to screw with the stoners before the arrest. (And after.)

Littering and... littering aaaaand...
...smokin' the reefer.

Farva: *opens his burger* "That look like spit to you?"
Ramathorn: Yeah.
Farva: Fuck it. *eats burger*

Rabbit: "I don't wanna get transfered... Have to be a rookie again with some random dudes."
Foster: "Don't worry about it bro. If it happens, we'll, uh, we'll all just... Stay here. Open up a... Roller disco."

  1. ↑ He'd already eaten a bag of pot and a bag of shrooms and was tripping balls.
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