History MindScrew / WesternAnimation

* [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender Aang's]] stress-related hallucinations in Nightmares and Daydreams get so over the top that you might just forget that he's nervous about the invasion and start to think that the creators are on something.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where an advertising company produces a TV advert for Homer's plowing service, featuring a opera-singing woman screaming at a snow-globe before smashing it on the pavement. In black and white. The family's response sums it up well.

-->'''Homer:''' ... I don't know.

** Obviously, anything made by [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible the Incoherent Movement]] was this, and specifically, the animations by Émile Cohl. Some examples are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyTYNZUd3hQ Fantasmagorie (1908)]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZhe73_ueEE Puppet Nightmare (1908)]].

** Obviously, anything made by the Incoherent Movement was this, and specifically, the animations by Émile Cohl. Some examples are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyTYNZUd3hQ Fantasmagorie (1908)]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZhe73_ueEE Puppet Nightmare (1908)]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Grounded Vindaloop", going from Cartman to being in a virtual reality to the other characters being convinced they're the ones trapped in virtuality, a customer service man calling himself, and ending with the events taking place in real life.

* ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' had an episode that only makes sense when you realize it is a {{homage}} to ''Series/ThePrisoner'', oddly enough. The end of the episode revealed it was AllJustADream, but the Mind Screw elements make more sense because of that, and Matrix received some CharacterDevelopment bordering on a WorldOfCardboardSpeech.
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': in "One Plus One Equals Ed", the titular trio try and know everything so they can become super-smart and famous. In their quest for knowledge, however, all of reality breaks down- trees are flat as cardboard, Eddy eats the sun, Nazz turns into a dinosaur, and on and on. The madness only ends when the Eds are flying on a balloon that gets popped by the animator's giant pencil. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment And they never speak of it again.]]

-->'''Brian:''' I am not folowing the story here.

* The Canadian short ''[[http://www.nfb.ca/film/La_Salla La Salla]]''. 15 seconds in, the main character is shooting replica cows at paintings for no obvious reason.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. Notable in that the early parts of the show are more of the "wacky SurrealHumor" kind seen on most of the rest of this page, but later on, it drifts into the more philosphical style of mind screw, with more and more frequent mental sequences, metaphors and things like that. This goes hand in hand with it [[CerebusSyndrome developing a complex plot]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', the first episode where you see Pearl does not seem weird... FridgeLogic ensues, as you ask yourself, "How can a crab father a whale?!"
** And if you're thinking, "Well duh, she's adopted", Mr. Krabs has previously called Pearl "his own flesh and blood." And the show never notices.
*** Maybe he says it figuratively?

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m78gYyTrG7Y This Couch Gag]], created by none other than Creator/{{DonHertzfeldt}} doing what he does best.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThirtyOneMinutos'' episode "Japones" is about the news channel getting buyed by a new japanese owner, the culture shock leaves Tulio's brain pretty much fried.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZiY6Q4Lgus& "This is crap in any language" - Tulio]]

--> '''NC:''' I think my favorite episode is the one called “Future Tense,” where Goliath arrives in the future and all hell broke loose as Xanatos has apparently taken over. [[spoiler:Trying to set things right, all the gargoyles get killed and slaughtered by Xanatos’ army.]] But then it turns out Xanatos is really a computer with all the memories of the original person. But THEN it turns out it wasn’t Xanatos at all; it was Lexington, who’s become overtaken by madness. BUT THEN it turns out it was all an illusion by Puck to try and get a mythical emblem from Goliath. AND THEN it turns out it may or may not have been a dream. AND THEN it turns out that Goliath is a woman! (A Photoshopped image of Goliath in drag appears with a dramatic music sting) Okay, that didn’t happen, but you get the idea.

** The ''{{Rashomon}}'' style episode where they each explain how they got stuck in Johnny's wall. When Ed tells his version of the story, it comes off looking like a surreal 1950s sci-fi film. [[LampshadeHanging Eddy lampshades the strange tale Ed weaves.]]

** This Couch Gag:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m78gYyTrG7Y, created by none other than Creator/{{DonHertzfeldt}} doing what he does best.

* Among the LooneyTunes directors, Bob Clampett loved this sort of thing, often justifying it with AllJustADream. He directed "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" and "WesternAnimation/TheBigSnooze".

** Pictured above is the Itchy and Scratchy replacement "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7m-4Vc3MU Worker and Parasite]]" from "Krusty Gets Kancelled". Krusty's reaction [[LampshadeHanging ("What the hell was that?!")]] [[AudienceSurrogate is dead on.]]

** "The Void" reveals that the ''universe'' is sentient, and has created a black-and-white dimension where it sucks in anything and anyone it considers a mistake, as well as sloppily erasing any evidence of their existence. This can include characters from other works of fiction (such as Clippy and the Crazy Frog mascot) and [[BreakingTheFourthWall early sketches of the show]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Grounded Vindaloop" is the biggest mind screw ever seen in television history, going from Cartman to being in a virtual reality to the other characters being convinced they're the ones trapped in virtuality, a customer service man calling himself, and ending with the events taking place in real life.

* All of ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. Good luck trying to understand any of it! To sum up - there's a ''reason'' a popular Fan Theory is [[spoiler: that the entire show takes place AfterTheEnd]].
** At this point, the AfterTheEnd status of the setting has been definitively confirmed.
** Especially in "King Worm". It involves a dream sequence where there is a giant monster made of penguins, the setting randomly changing into physically impossible landscapes, and just about everything Finn thinks happens. Heck, even the title card looks surreal.
** "Too Old". Mother-fucking "Too Old". The Lemon Kingdom plain does not make ''sense''. [[spoiler:When it ends with the Earl ''eating his brother'', who crawls back out of his mouth one final time to free the subjects and urge the last normal Lemon to come back and dethrone the Earl]], you're left wondering who slipped you the mescaline.
** "A Glitch is a Glitch"? Well, it's also an inexplicable shift into 3D animation, where Finn and Jake defeat the glitch [[spoiler:by copying a shock vid to make it throw up]].
** "Food Chain" starts simply enough. Then it proceeds to shift into weirdness as Magic Man turns the duo into birds, who then ''sing electronic version of "Queen of the Night" aria''. Yes, it's as weird as it sounds. [[{{Widget}} Though considering guest animator's nationality...]]

* The episode Dreamscapers of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. It features: a mind demon, a deer's teeth being pulled out of its mouth (and getting put back in), Dipper getting a gaping hole in the place of his stomach, some...interesting memories of Stan's (including him playing with his stomach and calling it Mr. Tummy), two technicolor anime boys, a giant rock in Stan's likeness, a very British English bulldog, Mabel getting her cuteness sucked away, kittens for fists, a question-mark-shaped beam coming from Soos's stomach, and the ending of the episode was Gideon breaking into the Mystery Shack, but instead of using a plan, he simply explodes a wall with dynamite.

* "WesternAnimation/SouthPark" episode "Grounded Vindaloop" is the biggest mind screw ever seen in television history, going from Cartman to being in a virtual reality to the other characters being convinced they're the ones trapped in virtuality and ending with the events taken place in real life.

* Among the LooneyTunes directors, Bob Clampett loved this sort of thing, often justifying it with AllJustADream. He directed "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" and "The Big Snooze."

*** It becomes less (or possibly more) of a mind screw when you learn that underwater lakes and rivers ''do'' exist (Long story short, they're basically bodies of water that have a higher level of salinity than the surrounding ocean). It's a case of something with a logical explanation being a mind screw just because of how bizarre it is.

** None of this is helped by the fact that each episode is a self-contained story that is clearly already in progress, with no recap and zero exposition. That or a Yungian nightmare, take your pick, either one is both valid and complete bullshit.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superjail}}''.