History Main / EverybodyDoTheEndlessLoop

And so, when the story calls for our {{Toon}}s to show off their stuff on the dance floor, you'll see that Music/MichaelJackson had not a thing to worry about. Their movements are stiff, twitchy, and repetitive; often, no two characters will dance to the same beat, and none of them will pay any mind to the kind of music that's actually playing. If a series features more than one dance scene, for example, you'll notice that all the characters waltz the same way they tango. Finally, there are one or two distinct moves per character, which they will repeat over and over and over again. One really must wonder whether this is a dance at all; for all we know, the characters have just finished watching that one episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' that gave a bunch of people [[EpilepticFlashingLights epileptic fits]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/GrandmaGotRunOverByAReindeer'', the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS00z3YprYQ Grandma's Gonna Sue the Pants Off of Santa]]" sequence is a few loops of Cousin Mel and her lawyer I.M. Slime waving their arms and wiggling their hips (with some close ups occasionally) until they turn around and walk off into their dream scape background (which is a low-grade "palm tree" pattern wallpaper apparently).

* ''WesternAnimation/GrandmaGotRunOverByAReindeer'' the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS00z3YprYQ Grandpa's Gonna Sue The Pants Off Santa]]" sequence is a few loops of Cousin Mel and her lawyer I.M. Slime waving their arms and wiggling their hips (with some close ups occasionally) until they turn around and walk off into their dream scape background (which is a low grade "palm tree" pattern wallpaper apparently).

* Several dance sequences in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' where everyone is "dancing" between one or two positions. Everyone ''except'' Roger, who does these extremely complex, fluid dances while everyone around him is just doing the same thing over and over. It practically dips into the UncannyValley.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' has a dancing scene where one Smurf can’t keep up with the others. Despite this being plot-relevant, and despite the fact that all other dancing scenes should have every Smurf on beat, this sequence continues to be used every time the Smurfs dance, with the inclusion of that off-beat Smurf making it glaringly obvious.

** Spoofed in a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch crossing ''Film/{{Footloose}}'' with ''Peanuts'', where Kevin Bacon's character [[LampshadeHanging remarks]] on the terrible dancing. He singles out the kid in the blue shirt, who seems to be doing some kind of zombie walk; the kid responds "I couldn't think of a dance! I panicked!"

Animation is hard work. The advent of computers in the hands of professionals have given cartoon characters more lifelike movements and mannerisms than we had ever seen before, but that's not the way they had it in the good old days, when each individual twitch on [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Mickey's]] eyelid had to be put in motion one frame at a time. Besides, animation is ''expensive'', meaning that if you've completed this one sequence, and it looks good enough, you're going to see the characters behave in ''exactly'' the same way whenever the story demands that particular action, [[GoingThroughTheMotions to the point that it looks jarringly obvious]].

* In the film ''Lovelines'' about a inter-high school BattleOfTheBands, crowd reaction shots show the audience dancing or air-guitaring or otherwise reacting to the music but not in a way that at all reflects the beat or instrumentation of the music being played (such as doing air guitar during a drum solo).

* Not even Disney is immune to this. Animators on ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' turned to CGI to achieve the massive crowd scenes, with hundreds of moving figures visible. However, their actions are all drawn from a relatively limited pool of looping sequences, which are reused in multiple scenes and are hard to un-notice once you've noticed a few. Still an impressive achievement for the time though.

* ''WebAnimation/SpookyMonth'': The series' signature "Spooky Dance" is a simple three frame animation of the character rapidly shifting from left to center right. Even as the episodes increase in animation quality, the animation for the Spooky Dance continues to just be three frames, [[RuleOfFunny because it's funny]].

* Both Party Hat and Present do this during the dancing challenge of the ''WebAnimation/BrawlOfTheObjects'' episode "Meet Your Match."
* Every ''JustForFun/CaramelldansenVid'' ever. Click on the trope page to see a list of examples.
* Done in ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/onetwo.html here.]]
* ''[[http://www.videogamedc.com/Pixeled_Parodies/Mack_Daddy_Mario_3/mack_daddy_mario_3.html Mack Daddy Mario]]'' is made of this trope.
* This is the basic idea behind the late-nineties fad of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hampster_Dance dance pages.]]
* GIF file animations can be set to run repeated loops. The best ones have the beginning and end synced.

* ''WesternAnimation/GrandmanGotRunOverByAReindeer'' the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS00z3YprYQ Grandpa's Gonna Sue The Pants Off Santa]]" sequence is a few loops of Cousin Mel and her lawyer I.M. Slime waving their arms and wiggling their hips (with some close ups occasionally) until they turn around and walk off into their dream scape background (which is a low grade "palm tree" pattern wallpaper apparently).

*
''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' has a dancing scene where one Smurf can’t keep up with the others. Despite this being plot-relevant, and despite the fact that all other dancing scenes should have every Smurf on beat, this sequence continues to be used every time the Smurfs dance, with the inclusion of that off-beat Smurf making it glaringly obvious.

* CGI doesn't mean the end of the Endless Loop -- witness the Hot Dog Dance at the end of every episode of ''WesternAnimation/MickeyMouseClubhouse''.

Animation is bit of hard work. The advent of computers in the hands of professionals have given cartoon characters more lifelike movements and mannerisms than we had ever seen before, but that's not the way they had it in the good old days, when each individual twitch on [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Mickey's]] eyelid had to be put in motion one frame at a time (well it's easy though). Besides, animation is ''expensive'', meaning that if you've completed this one sequence, and it looks good enough, you're going to see the characters behave in ''exactly'' the same way whenever the story demands that particular action, [[GoingThroughTheMotions to the point that it looks jarringly obvious]].

* Actually averted in the little-known animated film ''The Scarecrow'' about a dancing... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a scarecrow]]. The movie isn't great but the dance sequences are crisp, smooth and imaginative. In the final dance near the end there's even a well-animated swing dance number.

* The first ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' ED is a prime example of this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kn2_euTNrU&ab_channel=AtaruLum Just see for yourself.]]

* The first ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' ED is a prime example of this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtlfnNg3-TY Just see for yourself.]]

* ''Anime/TwinkleNoraRockMe'' is already infamous for its '''incredibly''' LimitedAnimation, but the [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=v2R7t2SUo3w&list=PLW6YJl_JmgM3XsWbYjTTS_3iBkU9qG_Q3&index=9&t=0s cave dance scene]] truly takes the cake. It only gets worse when the OVA forgets about the concept of in-between frames.

* ''JourneyThroughTheJungleOfWords'' does this, from Groucho, Olivia, and Zebra's HappyDance, to Groucho and Olivia's [[WalkLikeAnEgyptian Egyptian walk]], to Dualot, Seealot, King Tut, and Zebra's [[DancePartyEnding ending dance]].