Penny Crayon was a British cartoon that ran from 1989 to 1990, about the adventures of a schoolgirl (voiced by Su Pollard) who has a set of magic crayons. Whatever she draws comes to life, in a manner similar to Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings (1974) and later ChalkZone. Penny and her friend Dennis have adventures, get into scrapes, and use her powers to foil bullies and bank robbers alike.

Penny Crayon provides examples of:

• Achilles' Heel: Water washes out the objects Penny creates.
• All There in the Manual: Years after the show ended production, a prequel explaining how Penny got her magic crayons was made in a digital prose story released alongside a literary adaptation of the episode "Dickens of a Mess", where it was explained that Penny's crayons were a present from her art teacher Miss Pickle that were given to her when she lacked the patience to create artwork with ordinary art supplies and kept breaking them.
• Art Initiates Life: The show's premise is that Penny has a set of magic crayons with which she can bring anything into existence just by drawing it.
• Artsy Beret: Penny, whose magical art skills define her character, always wears a beret.
• As You Know: The nasty twins talking to each other in "Treasure Hunt":
  Twin 1: Waste of time that'll be, because they'll never find any treasure!
  Twin 2: No they won't! We've set lots of rotten clues, all leading to nothing!
• Beanstalk Parody: "Pantomime" at one point has Penny plant a magic bean so she and Dennis can climb the beanstalk into the giant's castle, only to enrage the giant when she eats his dinner of sausages and mash.
• British Brevity: It only lasted for 12 episodes.
• Catchphrase: Dennis. "Owh, Penny, you are clever!"
• Coconut Meets Cranium: The camp counselor gets hit in the head with a coconut at the end of "Camping Holiday".
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Every episode ends with Penny and Dennis laughing, usually at a pun one of them made.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: In "Dog Show", the judge protests that she is a judge, not an art critic, in response to Penny coming clean that the dogs she entered were drawings come to life rather than real dogs.
• Instantly Defeathered Bird: The title sequence shows a crow losing its feathers after being frightened by the scarecrow it is perched on the shoulder of.
• Jackass Genie: "Pantomime" has the genie from Aladdin offer three wishes in exchange for his freedom, but instead of granting any wishes leaves Penny and Dennis high and dry under the reasoning that saying "three wishes" would set him free.
• Kill It with Water: Unless she uses a waterproof crayon, Penny's creations disappear the instant they get wet.
• Living Drawing: Anything that Penny draws with her crayons comes to life.
• Magical Girl: Penny, in a fashion - the delivery is very different but she basically has the same power set as Magical Idol Pastel Yumi.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Penny can be really full of herself at times.
• Theatre Phantom: The Phantom of the Opera serves as the antagonist of "Waxworks Museum", having been drawn by Penny to replace the Phantom statue that Dennis accidentally destroyed when they sneaked off to see the wax museum's chamber of horrors against the headmaster's wishes. Penny intended for her Phantom to stay still in the exhibit where the statue was, but he instead leaves the chamber of horrors due to being frightened by the other wax statues and becomes a problem when he ends up kidnapping television icon Gloria Divine.
• Title Drop: "A Dickens of a Mess" ends with Penny stating the episode's title when she and Dennis reflect on their recent misadventure at the end of the episode.