History BizarroEpisode / Animorphs

* Cassie has a book that's one, ''The Hidden''. A random buffalo and ant somehow acquire morphing powers and take human form as the Yeerks cause trouble with Helmacron technology. It's as weird as it sounds.
* Book 41, ''The Familiar'', is this as it is really weird and often makes no sense, and at the end is revealed to be [[spoiler:some kind of dream or illusion caused by some sort of being or beings who are confirmed by WordOfGod not to appear anywhere else in the series]], making it unnecessary to the overall plot.
* ''Megamorphs 2: In The Time of The Dinosaurs'': A nuclear sub explodes, tearing a hole in space-time that sends all the Animorphs to the time of the dinosaurs. They meet [[AncientAstronauts the Nesk and the Mercora species]], getting caught in the war between the two. For reasons never explained, morphing won't heal Tobias's broken wing in this adventure.[[note]]Applegate later admitted that she wrote "Tobias breaks his wing" in her summary to her ghostwriter after forgetting that morphing can heal injuries. The ghostwriter thus wrote a scene of Tobias trying to heal it but finding he can't.[[/note]] The K-T extinction comet arrives and kills all the dinos and aliens, as well as rocketing the Animorphs back to their own time. After this adventure, [[StatusQuoIsGod the Animorphs find they can not morph into their acquired dinosaur forms]].
* The third and fourth Megamorphs books. Time travel involving a time machine which may be a piece of the [[BigGood Ellimist]], with Nazis who aren't technically Nazis and Hitler as a random jeep driver, and the ItsAWonderfulPlot episode in which the Animorphs never got their powers because Jake accepted [[DealWithTheDevil the Drode's deal]] to have never been part of the war (and don't know what's going on until the end).
* ''The Forgotten'' also counts, for similar reasons. In short, the Animorphs and the Yeerks get stranded in the Amazon after a BeamOWar goes wrong, they're a few hours in the past because of what Ax calls a ''[[NegativeSpaceWedgie Sario Rip]]'' effect caused by the collision of two Dracon beams, and somehow Jake is the only one who is actually there, and the rest of the team and the Yeerks are just temporal projections. Jake then gets killed, snaps back to his past body, and the entire adventure gets {{Ret Gone}}d. Thus, any book written with the ''Sario Rip'' effect is an instant candidate for a BizarroEpisode.
* ''The Attack'': The Ellimist transports the six of them plus Erek to a far-off planet to battle a group of Howlers as part of a game against Crayak, and meet the Iskoort, who have WeirdTradeUnion as their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]. It ends when Jake manages to morph a Howler and upload his memories to their racial memory, destroying their [[ChildrenAreInnocent Crayak-enforced innocence]] and ensuring that the next time they're sent to destroy a race, they'll instead try to kiss everything in sight rather than killing it. Though this one is rather more fondly remembered than the others here, thanks to acting as Applegate's big final story before turning the series over to ghostwriters, plus Jake and Cassie's RelationshipUpgrade.
* For a non-Sario Rip example, there's ''The Prophecy''. A sequel to ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' where a recording of Aldrea's personality is put into Cassie, which would be fine, except the process comes off as pure voodoo that sticks out strongly in this mostly hard sci-fi series, and Aldrea is inexplicably considered to have ''chosen'' to become a Hork-Bajir nothlit rather than being knocked out. Plus, there's a glaring editing mistake that makes the Animorphs look like idiots when they're all shocked and appalled that Aldrea doesn't know where the book's MacGuffin is, ''after'' she already told them. Even setting all that aside, the book features what may be the Animorphs' biggest victory until the final arc, with them retaking the Hork-Bajir home planet from the Yeerks...only for it to never be brought up again.

--->'''Jake:''' You know, from the point where Edelman said "maple and ginger oatmeal," I should have known this was going to end stupidly.
--->'''Cassie:''' Instant maple and ginger oatmeal.
--->'''Jake:''' Battles that involve oatmeal are just never going to end up being historic, you know? Gettysburg? No major oatmeal involvement. The Battle of Midway? Neither side used oatmeal. Desert Storm? No oatmeal.
* ''The Mutation'', in which the Animorphs find an {{Expy}} of Atlantis, then escape, and it's never brought up again, with the whole thing being an excuse for an {{Anvilicious}} "War is bad" message. It also doesn't help that the book's ghostwriter was a comedy writer way out of her depth.

* ''The Experiment'', where the Yeerks try to use fast food to remove humanity's free will, only for it to turn out that it never had a hope of working because free will doesn't work that way. The whole book exists entirely for an {{Anvilicious}} message about how everyone who eats meat is evil, which pissed off Applegate so much that she rewrote the final chapter into a TakeThat to the ghostwriter, with the team happily chowing down on hamburgers.

* ''The Experiment'', where the Yeerks try to use fast food to remove humanity's free will, only for it to turn out that it never had a hope of working. The whole book exists entirely for an {{Anvilicious}} message about how everyone who eats meat is evil, which pissed off Applegate so much that she rewrote the final chapter into a TakeThat to the ghostwriter, with the team happily chowing down on hamburgers.

* The third and fourth Megamorphs books. Time-Travel involving a time machine which may be a piece of the [[BigGood Ellimist]], with Nazis who aren't Nazis and Hitler as a random jeep driver, and the ItsAWonderfulPlot episode in which the Animorphs never got their powers because Jake accepted [[DealWithTheDevil the Drode's deal]] to have never been part of the war (and don't know what's going on until the end).
* ''The Forgotten'' also counts, for similar reasons. In short, the Animorphs and the Yeerks get stranded in the Amazon after a BeamOWar goes wrong, they're a few hours in the past because of a ''[[NegativeSpaceWedgie Sario Rip]]'' effect caused by the collision of two Dracon beams, and somehow Jake is the only one who is actually there, and the rest of the team and the Yeerks are just temporal projections. Jake then gets killed, snaps back to his past body, and the entire adventure gets {{Ret Gone}}d. Thus, any book written with the ''Sario Rip'' effect is an instant candidate for a BizarroEpisode.

* ''The Separation'', in which Rachel gets split in half while in starfish morph and the halves regenerate into two Rachels that are both {{Flanderization}}s of certain character traits of hers.

* Book 41: The Familiar is this as it is really weird and often makes no sense, and at the end is revealed to be [[spoiler: some kind of dream or illusion caused by some sort of being or beings who are confirmed by WordOfGod not to appear anywhere else in the series]], making it unnecessary to the overall plot.

* Cassie has a book that's one, ''The Hidden''. A random buffalo and an ant somehow acquire morphing powers as the Yeerks cause trouble with Helmacron technology. It's as weird as it sounds.

* ''Megamorphs 2: In The Time of The Dinosaurs'': [[ILoveNuclearPower A nuclear sub explodes, tearing a hole in space-time]] that sends all the Animorphs to the time of the dinosaurs. They meet [[AncientAstronauts the Nesk and the Mercora species]], getting caught in the war between the two. For reasons never explained, morphing won't heal Tobias's broken wing in this adventure.[[note]]Applegate later admitted that she wrote "Tobias breaks his wing" in her summary to her ghostwriter after forgetting that morphing can heal injuries. The ghostwriter thus wrote a scene of Tobias trying to heal it but finding he can't.[[/note]] The K-T extinction comet arrives and kills all the dinos and aliens, as well as rocketing the Animorphs back to their own time. After this adventure, [[StatusQuoIsGod the Animorphs find they can not morph into their acquired dinosaur forms]].

* ''The Forgotten'' also counts, for similar reasons. In fact, any book written with the ''Sario Rip'' effect is an instant candidate for a BizarroEpisode.

* For a non-Sario Rip example, there's ''The Prophecy''. A sequel to ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' where a recording of Aldrea's personality is put into Cassie, which would be fine, except the process comes off as pure voodoo that sticks out strongly in this mostly hard sci-fi series, and Aldrea is inexplicably considered to have ''chosen'' to become a Hork-Bajir nothlit rather than being knocked out. Plus, there's a glaring editing mistake that makes the Animorphs look like idiots when they're all shocked and appalled that Aldrea doesn't known where the book's MacGuffin is, ''after'' she already told them. Even setting all that aside, the book features what may be the Animorphs' biggest victory until the final arc, with them retaking the Hork-Bajir home planet from the Yeerks...only for it to never be brought up again.

* The second half of the final book ''The Beginning'' counts. While the first half mainly deals with the end of the war and the aftermath, there a couple time skips till it's 3 years in the future (2004) and the kids are asked to investigate something going on in "Kelbrid space" as apparently the kelbrids don't get along with the andalites (though we have never heard of them until this book) and them going might start a war. The kids agree [[spoiler: except for Cassie]] and spend several months traveling there at FasterThanLight speeds until [[spoiler: in the last couple of pages, they encounter the Blade Ship now controlled by an EldritchAbomination named The One who has somehow absorbed Ax (who vanished on a previous mission) and who attacks them. Jake gives the order to fight back, and the [[LeftHanging book ends right there]]]]

* The third and fourth Megamorphs books. Time-Travel involving a time machine which may be a piece of the [[BigGood Ellimist]], with Nazi who aren't Nazis and Hitler as a random jeep driver, and the ItsAWonderfulPlot episode in which the Animorphs never got their powers because Jake accepted [[DealWithTheDevil the Drode's deal]] to have never been part of the war (and don't know what's going on until the end).

* ''Megamorphs 2: In The Time of The Dinosaurs'': [[ILoveNuclearPower A nuclear sub explodes, tearing a hole in space-time]] that sends all the Animorphs to the time of the dinosaurs. They meet [[AncientAstronauts the Nesk and the Mercora species]], getting caught in the war between the two. For reasons never explained, morphing won't heal Tobias's broken wing in this adventure.[[note]]Applegate later admitted that she wrote "Tobias breaks his wing" in her summary to her ghostwriter after forgetting that morphing can heal injuries. The ghostwriter thus wrote a scene of Tobias trying to heal it but finding it can't.[[/note]] The K-T extinction comet arrives and kills all the dinos and aliens, as well as rocketing the Animorphs back to their own time. After this adventure, [[StatusQuoIsGod the Animorphs find they can not morph into their acquired dinosaur forms]].

* For a non-Sario Rip example, there's ''The Prophecy''. A sequel to ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'' where a recording of Aldrea's personality is put into Cassie, which would be fine, except the process comes off as pure voodoo that sticks out strongly in this mostly hard sci-fi series, and Aldrea is inexplicably considered to have ''chosen'' to become a Hork-Bajir nothlit rather than being knocked out. Plus, there's a glaring editing mistake that makes the Animorphs look like idiots when they're all shocked and appalled that Aldrea doesn't known where the book's MacGuffin is, ''after'' she already told them.

* ''The Attack'' isn't a Sario Rip book, but it nevertheless doesn't allow the Animorphs to keep the morphs they acquire. The Ellimist transports the six of them plus Erek to a far-off planet to battle a group of Howlers as part of a game against Crayak, and meet the Iskoort, who have WeirdTradeUnion as their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]. It ends when Jake manages to morph a Howler and upload his memories to their racial memory, destroying their [[ChildrenAreInnocent Crayak-enforced innocence]] and ensuring that the next time they're sent to destroy a race, they'll instead try to kiss everything in sight rather than killing it. Though this one is rather more fondly remembered than the others here, thanks to acting as Applegate's big final story before turning the series over to ghostwriters, plus Jake and Cassie's RelationshipUpgrade.

* Cassie has a book that's one, ''The Hidden''. A random buffalo and an ant somehow acquire morphing powers as the Yeerks cause trouble with Helmacron technology. It's as bad as it sounds.

* Book 41: The Familiar is this as it is really weird and often makes no sense, and at the end is revealed to be [[spoiler: some kind of dream or illusion]], making it unnecessary to the overall plot.

* Cassie has a book that's one, ''The Hidden''. A random buffalo somehow acquires morphing powers as the Yeerks cause trouble with Helmacron technology. It's as bad as it sounds.
* Book 41: The Familiar is this as it is really weird and often makes no sense, and at the end is revealed to be [[spoiler: some kind of dream or illusion]] making it unnecessary to the overall plot.

* For a non-Sario Rip example, there's ''The Prophecy''. A sequel to The Hork-Bajir Chronicles where a recording of Aldrea's personality is put into Cassie. Except the process comes off as pure voodoo that sticks out strongly in this mostly hard sci-fi series, and Aldrea is inexplicably considered to have ''chosen'' to become a Hork-Bajir nothlit rather than being knocked out. Plus, there's a glaring editing mistake that makes the Animorphs look like idiots when they're all shocked and appalled that Aldrea doesn't known where the book's MacGuffin is, ''after'' she already told them.
* ''The Underground''. Near the end, Jake comes right out and ''[[LampshadeHanging says]]'' that this whole plot is stupid and this battle [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain will be forgotten by history.]]

* ''The Mutation'', in which the Animorphs find an {{Expy}} of Atlantis, then escape, and it's never brought up again, with the whole thing being an excuse for an {{Anvilicious}} "war is bad" message. It also doesn't help that the book's ghostwriter was a comedy writer way out of her depth.