Exactly What It Says On The Tin / Western Animation

Exactly What It Says on the Tin in western animation TV shows.

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Titles:

• One episode of Batman Beyond is called "Terry's Friend Dates a Robot". Guess what it's about?
• Biker Mice from Mars: The protagonists are Mice that came from the planet Mars who ride motorcycles.
• Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese. If you're wondering who the main characters are, all six of them are mushed together right in the title. Yes, even the two human kids are just called Boy and Girl instead of having actual names.
• Cartoon Network is, in fact, a network that shows cartoons. Usually, anyway.
• Clerks: The Animated Series loves doing this. Every episode title describes what happens and gets progressively longer with each title until episode 6, "The Last Episode Ever." It was meant to be a subversion and an in-joke, but the series was cancelled shortly after its completion.
• Dan Vs. is about a guy named Dan taking on whatever's in the episode title.
• The Dexter's Laboratory episode "Gooey Aliens that Control Your Mind" has Dexter's family possessed by, well, gooey aliens that control your mind.
• Fish Police: The main characters are fish. Crime-fighting fish.
• The Frog Show. It doesn't take very long to figure out that it's a show about a frog.
• Love, Death & Robots is an anthology series with short films vastly different except they all feature romance, demise or high technology. There are a few that feature all three.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has little ponies learning lessons about The Power of Friendship and using it as a powerful weapon against evil.
• In Niko and the Sword of Light, Niko, the hero, is in possession of the Sword of Light.
• The OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Big Reveal" definitely lives up to the title.
• There is an episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show called "Rubber Nipple Salesmen". Guess what they do the majority of the episode?
• South Park has a lot of episode titles that qualify, including, but not limited to, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe", "Cartman joins NAMBLA", "Kenny Dies", "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers", "All About Mormons", "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" and "Fantastic Easter Special".
• SpongeBob SquarePants has a scene in "Gary Takes a Bath" where SpongeBob gives Gary a "Boomerang Pet Toy" that really works, and SpongeBob threw the box, which came to back to hit him.
  • The Camping Episode was titled..."The Camping Episode".
  • The episode where Plankton debuts is titled "Plankton!"
• Super Giant Robot Brothers! is about two giant robots who discover that they are brothers.
• Teen Titans Go! has a two-part episode whose two parts are respectively titled "Two Parter: Part One" and "Two Parter: Part Two".
• Every episode of The Tick is titled "The Tick vs. [whatever he fights in that particular episode]".
• Tiny Square Critters: Well, they are tiny. And square. And... y'know... critters.
• Transformers:
  • Beast Wars: Transformers revolves around two factions of robots who turn into animals, and the combat between them.
  • Likewise, Transformers: Rescue Bots is about a team of transforming emergency-response robots.
    • And its Sequel Series, Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy, focuses on a new team of Rescue Bots being trained.
• 2 Stupid Dogs: The show is about two dogs, both of whom are very stupid and idiotic.
• VeggieTales:
  • "And now it's time for Silly Songs With Larry, the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song."
  • One particular episode has a short segment entitled "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down With All the Bananas."
• War Planets is about planets that have been at war for a very long time. Its alternate Canadian title Shadow Raiders, conversely, has nothing to do with the premise, but children's shows in Canada were not allowed to use the word "War" in their titles.
• Episode 5 of What If…? (2021) is titled "What If... Zombies?!". Guess what happens in this alternate reality.

In-Universe:

• The Museum of Dangerous Books and Papers from The Amazing Screw-On Head.
• The Angry Beavers: In "Gift Hoarse" and "Muscular Beaver 4", we see ToeBot. You'll only need two guesses.
• In Beetlejuice, the monster who lives across the street from the protagonist is named... the Monster Across the Street.
• Season 2 of BoJack Horseman introduces a game show entitled Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!. True to the name, the viewers/audience finds out how much trivia Hollywoo's stars and celebrities know.
• Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix has a popular soft drink called Cobra Juice. It turns out to be actual venom milked from cobra hybrids, who appear to have been genetically engineered specifically for that purpose.
• Dragon Tales:
  • There's the "lost forever hole." If something falls into this hole, it really is lost forever. Gone, finito, no hope of recovery, as Ord learns to great sadness when he accidentally drops his favorite blanket into it.
  • The Forest of Darkness is a deep forest and it is, well, very dark. Somehow, the latter part comes as a shock to Ord, even though he's told that he's going into the Forest of Darkness.
• Family Guy:
  • "Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa". She's Japanese to be exact, but seriously, do they care about that?
    Tom Tucker: Diane, is she Chinese or Japanese?
    Diane Simmons: She's Japanese, Tom.
    Tom: Wow! I know a Japanese woman!
  • Greased-Up Deaf Guy.
  • Many shows the family watch like Old People Agree with Arnold Palmer, Cutting in Line in Front of Italians, and Harrison Ford Telling Random People He Wants His Family Back.
• In Gargoyles, a powerful magical artifact is known as the Eye of Odin. Later in the series Odin shows up, reclaims the eye, and promptly puts it back in its socket.
• Gravity Falls:
  • "Fight Fighters" features a machine at the arcade that on the outside merely reads "Insert Token!" where you'd expect the name of the game. Turns out, "Insert Token!" is an accurate description of the entire game.
  • In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Probabilitor summons an "Ogrenado". He gleefully informs the cast that "It is what it sounds like!"
• Kim Possible: "Dr. D's Brainwashing Shampoo and Cranium Rinse", and its slogan, "Lather, Rinse, and OBEY!"
• Looney Tunes:
  • "Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century":
    • Dodgers smugly says that Marvin the Martian can't shoot him with a disintegrator since he's wearing a disintegration-proof vest. The vest does not disintegrate. Duck Dodgers does. He gets better, though.
    • Immediately afterwards, Dodgers retaliates with his own disintegrating pistol. He pulls the trigger, and the gun crumbles into powder. "Well, what do you know... it disintegrated."
  • The Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner short "Stop! Look! And Hasten!" has Wile follow the instructions from a book titled "How to Build a Burmese Tiger Trap". One guess what he catches in the resulting pit instead of the Road Runner. Likewise, a Giant Mouse Trap will catch a giant mouse. Who is none too pleased with the coyote.
• Minoriteam:
  • A villain is named "Racist Frankenstein". He dresses like a WASP but is in all other ways exactly what you'd expect.
  • Also features Dirty Cop, a living pile of grime on the police force.
  • And Loophole, a scurrilous rope tied into a loop, the Corporate Ladder, a business-minded ladder, and White Rapper, a white rapper.
• The entire cast of The Mr. Men Show can be defined by their names: Mr. Happy, Mr. Strong, Miss Helpful, etc.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3", we learn from Twilight's lecture that Celestia's royal guard, which includes Earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, is officially known as "the Earth-Unicorn-Pegasus Guard".
  • In an earlier episode "Bridle Gossip", Twilight dismisses a book Spike found that is called Supernaturals. When Twilight reads the title from Zecora's copy, it reads Super Natural Cures, as in "natural cures that are super", not "otherworldly" like she assumed.
• Some examples from Phineas and Ferb:
  • ALL of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "-inators" minus his first, which was simply called the "Inator". Lampshaded in one episode when he mentions that he hasn't quite figured out the name for his new machine and goes through various obvious names (The "Who's-laughing-now-inator"!) and mentions it'll be something with the "inator" suffix.
  • "The Wrapped-Up-In-a-Nice-Little-Bow-inator! I bet you're wondering what it does?"
  • The song "Platypus Fight". Three guesses as to what it's about.
  • Or the Helicopter Fight song.
  • Agent P is a member of O.W.C.A. ("Organization Without a Cool Acronym").
  • Candace's song about the boys is called "Little Brothers" and features the line "'Cause you're younger, we're related, and you're boys."
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars took pain to show that the All Terrain Tactical Enforcer can really go on all types on terrain, with such things as a vertical assault, fighting on asteroids, and boarding an enemy ship from outside.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998) irregularly featured a talking dog named Talking Dog.
• In Quack Pack, when Huey, Dewey and Louis become superheroes known as the T-Squad, while Dewey and Louie term themselves "Brainboy" and "Captain Muscle" for their telepathic/telekinetic abilities and superhuman strength respectively, Huey's codename is "The Really Incredibly Fast Guy" to go with his superspeed, and while Huey claims the name is just until he thinks of something better, he never actually does.
• Guess what the plot of the Ready Jet Go! episode "Sean Has a Cold" is?
• Recess: Lawson always names things this way, such as renaming Fort Tender to Fort Fort, naming a submarine "Sub", and naming his soccer team "The Winning Guys" (who did, in fact, win the tournament at the end of the episode).
• Some examples from The Simpsons:
  • "Hans Moleman Productions Presents: Man Getting Hit By Football".
  • Show Within a Show Knightboat: The Crime Solving Boat is about a boat named Knightboat that solves crimes.
  • "Bin Laden in a Blender." It delivers what it promises.
  • At a drive-in, Bart and Homer watch The Monster that Ate Everybody.
  • Krusty once introduced a Show Within a Show titled Trans-Clown-o-Morphs that was about, as the theme song described, "transforming clowns that morph".
  • Naturally parodied.
    Karl: Hey, I heard we're goin' to Ape Island.
    Lenny: Yeah, to capture a giant ape.
    Carl: I wish we were going to Candy Apple Island.
    Charlie: Candy Apple Island? What do they got there?
    Carl: Apes. But they're not so big.
  • Averted with Monster Island. It's really a peninsula.
  • Almost every "operation" is named this way:
    • Operation Strike Make Go Longer
    • Operation X-Mas Remind of How Good Is
    • Operation Judge Get Back At
    • Exception: Operation Hoyven-Mayven
  • Played with when Sideshow Bob explains to a parole board that the prison book club to which he belongs actually consists of prisoners who club him with books.
  • Show Within a Show "Touch the Stove". Get the ointment ready.
  • "All Singing, All Dancing" reinterpreted Paint Your Wagon as a musical about painting a wagon.
• The Smurfs are a good example of this. Each smurf's name reflects their personality. Grouchy Smurf is grouchy, Handy Smurf is handy, Papa Smurf is their, well, papa.
• In South Park, some of the news reporters are people like "a Hispanic Man with Some Gravy Stains on his Lapel", or "Midget Wearing Bikini". There was also a reporter who was introduced by the anchor as "a normal-looking guy with a funny name" (his name is shown as "Creamy Goodness").
• Supa Strikas: The defender Blok, who, well, blocks the ball. In one episode it was revealed he has a brother called Attak, who is a forward.
• The Tick: The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight. Guess what he does and when?
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • In one episode, a troll challenges Buster to face three trials. In the second trial, the troll says he must fight the "Three Guys who Charge at You With Spears and Fall Off a Cliff". Guess what happens next.
  • In the episode where the kids draw their own animated cartoons, Dizzy Devil's is called "Dizzy Eat World", and, well, he eats the Earth. The other kids' reactions are priceless.
• An episode of Yin Yang Yo! features toy glasses with toothed metallic "jaws" called "Eyebiters". They bite the wearer's eyes.
• Many things in Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!. The kickity-kick ball, for example, is a rubber ball that characters kick.

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