Line #46 Anvilicious/WesternAnimation


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7	->'''Poindexter''': You can't use our planet as a junkyard!
8	->'''Captain''': Why not? ''You'' do.
9	->'''Audience''': Oooooh...
10	->'''Captain''': Your rivers, your beaches, your canyons, your frankfurters, all filled with the filth you so frivolously fling!
11	->'''Felix''': Poindexter, this is horrible. We're prisoners in a cartoon with a moral to it!
12	-->--WesternAnimation/TheTwistedTalesOfFelixTheCat, "Star Trash"
13
14	Animated cartoons are not known for subtlety [[{{Anvilicious}} when it comes to delivering a message.]]
15
16	----
17
18	!Examples:
19	[[index]]
20	* ''Anvilicious/BigMouth''
21	* ''Anvilicious/BojackHorseman''
22	* ''Anvilicious/RickAndMorty''
23	[[/index]]
24	----
25	* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' ended occasional episodes with a "Sonic Says" section which gave kids good advice.
26	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': The episode "The Candidate" comes to mind, as it bludgeons viewers to death with metaphors representing [[AuthorTract the writers' opinions]] on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump and his supporters, the environment, the economy, and so on.
27	* Parodied on the ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' cartoon, where the final sequence to many episodes was the "Wheel of Morality", a Big 6 style wheel the characters would spin to randomly determine the moral of the episode in a parody of AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle. ("Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn, tell us the lesson that we should learn!") One short played up the randomness and gameshow / gambling aspect by having the result be a prize in the form of a free vacation. What makes this especially amusing is that the creative team on the show was pressured to include lessons in the format. The above was only one response, while another, vastly more scathing one has Slappy Squirrel go through plastic surgery to start her career over, so she can make cartoons more violent, just like they used to be.
28	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' gets somewhat of a reputation for having episodes that deliver unsubtle messaging; even the theme song is anvilicious.
29	** "Having fun isn't hard/when you've got a library card!" [[Series/ParksAndRecreation Just more vicious pro-library propaganda]].
30	** "Arthur's Big Hit": Never hit your younger sibling, even if they damage something you worked on for weeks. Otherwise you'll find yourself hated by all of your friends while said sibling [[KarmaHoudini probably gets away with no punishment]].
31	** "Bleep": When you curse, you are saying "I want to hurt your feelings". Due to the bad handling of their respective Aesops, this and "Arthur's Big Hit" are often seen as the show's lowest points.
32	* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' plays with this in Episode 14 "The Fortuneteller". We have Sokka, the advocater of science and reason, and the villagers mocking him for his logical ways. No, seriously, they call him "Mr. Logic and Reason," or some variation of that. One of the Fortuneteller's predictions is that a volcano will ''not'' destroy the entire village. Three guesses as to what happens, the first two don't count. [[spoiler: The end of the episode, in which a SelfFulfillingProphecy is played with -- the Fortuneteller's incorrect prophecy validated itself by forcing the Gaang to stop the volcano -- loosens up on this, and the main ScrewDestiny moral is delivered with much more subtlety.]]
33	** It's not so much ScrewDestiny as 'shape your own destiny'. Aang may be TheChosenOne but he has to work at it.
34	** Let's not forget "The Painted Lady," where the GreenAesop was dialed up. It's a testament to the writers' skill that they managed to work in such a heavy-handed message that was most likely [[ExecutiveMeddling mandated by the network]] while still keeping the characters in-character. Although Katara's dialogue could have used some more work. Though it's worth noting that another message of the episode was "Don't wait for someone else to help you; help yourselves."
35	* The ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'' episode “The Widening Gyre” was basically a half-hour story about Ben, Gwen, and Kevin fighting...the newly-sentient [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch Pacific Trash Vortex]]. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking With assistance from]] [[{{Expy}} expies]] of [[Series/TheXFiles Mulder and Scully.]] Yeah. Kevin even lampshades this, referencing (but not naming) the above-mentioned ''Captain Planet''.
36	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bravestarr}}'' drops all subtlety and kid-friendliness and flat out says how far the dangers of drug abuse can go in "[[Recap/BraveStarrS1E26ThePrice The Price]]". On the flip side, kids who see others doing drugs need to inform their parents or other responsible adults before the worst can happen.
37	* It could be said that the ''premise'' of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'' was anvilicious. A group of eco superheroes who command the powers of nature to fight evil polluters. Yup, [[ForTheEvulz bad guys who don't produce anything; just pollute]]. Though in its defense, if they had written it as a cyberpunk story about a bunch of eco-terrorists fighting against the overwhelming power of the corporate menace, it wouldn't exactly have been able to appeal to children now would it? That's the lesson here: if it's U.S. children's television, it must make use of anvilicious aesops, removing them makes the show no longer acceptable for children.
38	** One episode had Dr. Blight producing beef -- via mutated, drugged-up, oversized cattle. To hammer the point home, the African village chief who was helping Blight -- and eating many many burgers made from the freak cattle -- went on a crazy rampage and had to be restrained. Apparently, mass-produced beef is bad. Ibex and other meat produced via older, pre-industrial methods is better. [[note]]If you don't mind the parasites and diseases that cut down on how much meat is produced, or getting ill after eating meat with said bugs.[[/note]]
39	** One episode of ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'' is a crossover with ''Captain Planet'' and is basically an extended mockery of its anvil-dropping. Amongst other things, Lord Boxman lampshades that Dr. Blight polluting the world ForTheEvulz is [[StupidEvil idiotic]] ("Why would we want to destroy the world exactly? We do ''live'' on the world...") and the ending points out that beating little kids over the head with messages about climate change probably isn't going to change much; after all, [[FridgeLogic what are kids watching Saturday morning cartoons supposed to do about worldwide issues like global warming and pollution]]?
40	* ''WesternAnimation/CartoonAllStarsToTheRescue'' uses healthy doses of {{Narm}} and horror to create a special so {{Anvilicious}} that it may very well be a form of brainwashing. The show put the drug addict kid through what can only be described as a Cartoon Carnival of Souls as part of their DrugsAreBad argument.
41	* The ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Dead Duck", where Darkwing has a dream that he died in a motorcycle crash due to not wearing a helmet. However, the anvilicious message of "wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle" is somewhat odd when considering that Launchpad never wears a helmet when riding/driving the Ratcatcher. [[BrokenAesop Plus it doesn't connect with the extreme but short-term consequences of every other violent situation in that show]], where Darkwing is frequently flattened, burnt, electrocuted, turned into a balloon animal, etc., but fine after the next cutaway.
42	* The ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' episode "WesternAnimation/DerFuehrersFace": "Boy, am I glad to be a citizen of the [[{{Eagleland}} United States of America]]!"
43	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' did this a few times. Unlike most other cartoons, though, it stayed funny while it did it; ''Duckman'' was really one of the first primetime animated shows that could be good ''and'' dramatic. A good example was the episode "America the Beautiful", where Duckman and Cornfed chase down a missing model named (of course) America, going through her ex-lovers, which represented the repressed '50s, the radically liberal '60s, the hedonistic, shallow '70s, and the greed-crazed '80s. Unable to find her, Duckman wallows in despair, represented by the cynical detachment of the '90s, before finding America in a dump, having given up all hope for a better tomorrow. Duckman finally convinces her that, although survival is difficult, they had to keep trying to make the world a better place, for the sake of their children.
44	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
45	** BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor. Also, "It's A Wishful Life" states: "Do nice things to be nice, not to get rewarded" after showing Timmy how much better things were [[ItsAWonderfulPlot without him]] after he wanted some acknowledgement.
46	** "The Masked Magician" also played it for laughs: When Timmy says what he learned through the episode, a flashing frame reading "Moral of the Story" appears for about two seconds, complete with sound effect.
47	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' delivers its many, many messages with all the subtlety of a ten-pound sledgehammer, much of them being present in the post-[[{{Uncanceled}} un-cancelation]] episodes.
48	** Brian has changed from being the straight man and witty intellectual to becoming basically a vehicle for the current writer to deliver his/her agenda. One of the least subtle examples is the pre-2008 election episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS7E3RoadToGermany Road To Germany]]", in which [[GodwinsLaw Stewie steals a Nazi's uniform after traveling back in time, and a [=McCain=]-Palin campaign button is attached to the uniform.]]
49	** The episode where the abstinence-only agenda of schools is bashed by Lois. The message is that while it's true that you shouldn't have sex before you're ready, that time is different for everyone. And you should know what the dangers of sex are and how to protect yourself from them; lying to kids about it, trying to force them to remain virgins, or just trying to frighten them into staying away from sex is not going to make them any less curious about it.
50	** Also, the episode for legalizing marijuana, where the cops who pull over Peter and Brian don't mind that they have a bloody trash bag in their backseat, but go ballistic when they find out Brian has some pot.
51	** Smoking pot somehow turned Quahog into a utopia overnight. Moral of the story: drugs are the key to perfect happiness apparently. ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' was right. Especially considering this was stated immediately after a news report that the anchors stumbled through due to being stoned out of their minds. This makes the 'utopian Quahog' seem more like an InformedAbility with the reason crime is down is because everyone is too stoned to do it and that the real situation should be the exact opposite of what Brian claims it to be.
52	** Let's not forget the earlier anti-pot episode where Peter and Lois thought smoking pot made them into talented folk singers when, in reality, it turned them into drooling babbling idiots who only thought they were singing well. Chris admonishes them with a lecture at the end of the episode, which was only in the episode because Fox ordered them to put it in.
53	** They have taken some rather unsubtle shots at religion. "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" is essentially one long screed against organized religion, and the Utopian society seen briefly in "Road To The Multiverse" is as perfect as it is due to a complete lack of Christianity.
54	** More recently we have "Thanksgiving", in which Joe's son Kevin [[TheBusCameBack comes back]] and reveals that he deserted the army. Kevin is the only one who gets to debate his point with any modicum of intelligence, while [[StrawmanBall everyone who disagrees with him]] just shouts angrily and makes nonsensical emotional arguments. The sole exception is Quagmire's mother, a Navy veteran, who says that soldiers know what they're getting into when they enlist. The episode ends up siding with Kevin by pointing out an incident when his father let a robber get away because he stole food to feed his starving family.
55	** And when ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' wants to discuss factory farming, their approach is as follows: Compare it to the Holocaust. No explanation, no exploration of the cruelties and abuses of factory farms -- just compare it to the Holocaust with a pun. "Da-cow".
56	** 2007 episode "Boys Do Cry" (where the Griffins go to Texas) takes quite a few jabs at conservatives and Texans.
57	** "Screams of Silence"'s plot repeatedly says "Domestic Abuse is Bad".
58	** "Coma Guy" is about Peter going into a coma after a car accident and his family deciding to pull the plug on him. Peter comes back to life after Lois pulls the plug on his life support. His guilt-ridden family try to atone by doing embarrassing and gruelling things for his forgiveness but give up as Peter was never going to forgive them. The lesson is that some relationships aren't worth saving because people would rather exploit your guilt for all it's worth than forgive you.
59	* Quite a few cartoons from the mid-70s onward were very, very Anvilicious. For example, there was ''WesternAnimation/{{Fat Albert\|AndTheCosbyKids}}'' and the animated version of ''Series/GilligansIsland''. ''Every'' single episode of those ended with the characters having learned a lesson, and usually drove it home about as hard as they could short of grabbing the audience and screaming it into their faces.
60	* ''WesternAnimation/FerngullyTheLastRainforest'': Humans suck, pollution is the devil and cutting down trees is pure evil because as any fairy will tell you they feel pain. Becomes a bit [[{{Irony}} ironic]] when you realize that the [[Creator/TimCurry spirit of pollution]] is the [[JustHereForGodzilla main reason most people watch the movie in the first place.]]
61	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'': In one episode the story is interrupted by a member of the censor board. At the end she is hit with an anvil [[DontExplainTheJoke because censors are bad,.]]
62	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'''s "Into the Wild Green Yonder": As the movie progresses the anvils get bigger and at the end they are banging hammers on them.
63	** The "[[BrandX eyePhone]]" episode ("Attack of the Killer App") drops the anvil pretty hard. Especially the portion about E-waste ending up making the third planet in the Antares system a living hell. "Proposition Infinity" was a not-even-thinly-disguised anvilicious "shame on you" to anyone who isn't backing gay marriage.
64	*** This was made even worse by the fact that an earlier episode condemned robosexuality. Fry's Lucy Liu-bot died in vain.
65	** "Decision 3012" is even less subtle than "Proposition Infinity", essentially being a twenty-minute lecture from Katey Segal (Leela's voice actress) about how UsefulNotes/BarackObama is the Messiah and the only reason anyone wouldn't support him is because they're a bigot. The episode is almost universally reviled (particularly among actual Obama supporters) because of how ham-fisted it is and because it just isn't funny, almost completely sacrificing humor (aside from [[ConfirmationBias "Ha ha, everyone who disagrees with me is a drunken Redneck!" jokes]]) just to make its point.
66	** Parodied in the episode where the Brains come to Earth. After using books to defeat the Big Brain, Fry holds up a book and [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall looks at the screen]], saying "All thanks to the books at my local library!"
67	* Spoofed mercilessly in a "U.S. Acres" short from ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends''. Roy got a job on "The Buddy Bears", an [[SickeninglySweet obnoxiously cheerful]] kids' ShowWithinAShow, where part of his role as "Big Bad Buddy Bird" was to have [[AnvilOnHead sixteen-ton safes]] dropped on his head for not agreeing with the singing, dancing ursines. The quite literally {{anvilicious}} moral, according to the Buddy Bears: "[[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong Always go along with the group]], or someone may drop a sixteen-ton safe on you." At the end of the episode, Roy finally snaps and says this to the camera:
68	-->'''Roy''': Kids, don't listen to any of this. These bears are dangerous. You should have opinions of your own! You should think and decide and not do what everyone else does! ''(the bears grab him)'' Use your own mind! Don't do what your friends do just because they're doing it, HAVE A BRAIN OF YOUR OWN! LET GO OF ME! THE GROUP ISN'T ALWAYS RIGHT!
69	* ''WesternAnimation/GIJoe'' taught us all that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjcDW7zIY8 knowing is half the battle]]. So now you know. The other half? Blowing shit up.
70	* ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983'' had 'What moral did we learn in this episode?' segments at the end of each episode.
71	** Including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5gNSqJyzn8 this]]. It's a great lesson, but the delivery, as with ''any'' kids show that tries the same thing, means it almost always comes off sounding like [[SpoofAesop they're just trying to make you laugh more.]]
72	*** That one is made a BrokenAesop by the people He-Man says to go to in case you're being molested; your parent, teacher, minister or rabbi. Chances are one of those people is more likely to be the molester themselves than some stranger off the street.
73	*** Lou Scheimer related in a recent DVD extra for the cartoon how he received a letter from a parent of a child who came forward about their own abuse after having seen He-Man and She-Ra talk about it. Scheimer said that it was probably [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome the most significant accomplishment of his career]].
74	** There's the ''She-Ra'' episode "The Price of Freedom". [[spoiler:A village enslaved to the Horde give up everything but the clothes on their backs to escape to freedom, while He-Man comes probably the closest ever, in that particular declared kids' show, to ''dying'' when he helps them escape after She-Ra's gone for reinforcements. It's hammered in again and again about how freedom is worth any price.]] Yet the 'what did we learn this episode?' was about the dangers of ''fire'', based on the village being burnt.
75	* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' never even bothered to make their anvil messages into part of the plot. They were merely tacked on as filler.
76	* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''
77	** "October 31st" fixates so much on how lying is wrong that any momentum from the show's first holiday episode is pretty much ruined by how heavy-handed the moral is...
78	** The episode "Grande Size Me" [[ExecutiveMeddling focused]] on how it's better eating healthy food than fast food. Cue a ''Film/SuperSizeMe'' parody, ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk transformation and BreakingTheFourthWall. Lampshaded and played for laughs at the end of the episode where Ron gives a speech to the viewer about [[FantasticAesop how mutating your DNA is bad, and you should never do it]]. Bonus points for ignoring the concept of portion control.
79	* Very unusual for ''WesternAnimation/LittleBear'', but the episode “Little Bear’s Sweet Tooth” borderlines on brutal in how it delivers its message against overindulgence.
80	* The "Noodles the Rabbit" segments of British dark animated comedy show ''WesternAnimation/MonkeyDust'' combine a scientist describing horrific animal experimentation to an uncaring executive over sad piano music and the experimental rabbit acting like Bugs Bunny. Naturally, the final segment shown ends with the scientist being killed by a [[AnvilOnHead falling anvil]].
81	* ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' makes it hard to miss the show's attitudes about religious fundamentalism and [=1950s=]-brand conservatism. The entire town of Moralton is a DysfunctionJunction where people use their faith to be EgocentricallyReligious, the main character has AbusiveParents who are [[DrowningMySorrows downing liquor like water in the desert]] or barely hiding sick sexual fetishes that they try not to talk about, and the OnlySaneMan of the bunch is consistently ignored. And in spite of all of that, the Christian faith is used more as an excuse to be a {{Jerkass}} rather than a criticism of the faith itself; the aforesaid Only Sane Man is the GoodShepherd who runs the local church, albeit as a KnightInSourArmor for how often [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint the townspeople miss the point of what he's trying to say]]. Throughout it all, the show repeatedly hammers into the viewers head that trying to keep up with the Joneses or not properly raising your children is going to cause nightmares.
82	* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'':
83	** How about the gun control story of "Let's Not Be Skeletons"? With such moments as a "Respect my rights!" line and K.O and Mr. Gar having a stand-off with their skeleton remotes, it is hardly subtle in its representation of the opposing side, to say nothing of how awkwardly it makes its own argument in both an in-universe and meta level. It's hard to see how being turned into a talking skeleton is a big deal when one of the supporting characters is a talking skeleton, and those who are transformed aren't much more than mildly annoyed by the act instead of, you know, dead or anything that truly has stakes. More distressing, though, is how opposing arguments are brought up in any real, non-caricature fashion ''once'' -- only to be outright ignored and never addressed ever again.
84	** "No More POW Cards" had a not-very-subtle racism metaphor, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools but that's not necessarily a bad thing in this episode's case]].
85	** "The Power is Yours" is a CrossOver with ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', so it's pretty much obligated to include [[GreenAesop a very prominent and blunt moral about protecting the environment]].
86	* ''WesternAnimation/PepperAnn'''s episode called "Dances with Ignorance" wherein Pepper Ann learns how ''offensive'' and inaccurate stereotypes are. It pulls zero punches about not basing ones' knowledge about any people (Especially indigenous Americans) off of Hollywood Stereotypes, and for this it was actually released on VHS specifically for educational purposes in TheNineties and the TurnOfTheMillennium
87	* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' has had 3 episodes so far ("Phineas and Ferb get Busted", "Quantum Boogaloo", "The Wizard of Odd") dispensing the wisdom that creativity and imagination are important; so important, in fact, that if these were to be stripped away, the results would be catastrophic.
88	** The first showcases the main characters getting [[MindRape mind raped at the hands of a reform school]] resulting in all of their beloved qualities getting stripped away, [[Literature/AClockworkOrange Clockwork Orange]] style. The second presents a dystopian society resulting from MoralGuardians banning creativity and imagination and [[AndIMustScream locking up kids at a young age until they reach adulthood]]. The third claims that the "straight and narrow" is the worst way to live life.
89	** There's also "Attack of the 50 foot Sister", which claims that girls shouldn't be obsessed with having a perfect look.
90	** On the DVDCommentary for that episode, co-writer Jon Colton Barry says the moral (or "takeaway" as they call them) is basically 'no one's perfect, everyone has insecurities and it's okay to try to fix them, but be aware that there are some people out there who will manipulate those insecurities for their own gain.' Or something like that.
91	** "The Chronicles of Meap: More Than Meaps The Eye" is so comically unsubtle in its moral of "don't judge a book by its cover" you have to wonder if they were doing it on purpose. In fact, one of the first scenes in the episode is Candace ''literally'' judging books by their covers.
92	** Played for laughs in the lyrics of the song in "Sidetracked".
93	---> '''Agent Lyla''': It's a heavy-handed metaphor for how we work together!
94	* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' is very {{Anvilicious}} in the way it portrays conflict between the two conflicting peoples, particularly during the final scene when Pocahontas makes her speech about what the evils of hatred have brought them to.
95	** And the "Savages" [[CrowdSong song]] just hammers the anvil further down.
96	--->'''Ratcliffe:''' ''They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil!''
97	** It's particularly effective because it avoids portraying the white people and their mission as totally evil and [[MagicalNativeAmerican the natives as totally good]]. Pocahontas and John Smith are good, and Governor Ratcliffe is bad, but everyone else is varying shades of grey, and although Ratcliffe was on an exploitative mission, the natives reacted with hostility and violence instead of any attempt at understanding, and each side absolutely dehumanized the other and saw them as animals unworthy of life. Even though the English miners committed the original wrong, the natives were far from innocent {{noble savage}}s.
98	** "Colors of the Wind" is extremely anvilicious though. Being in touch with nature does not mean that Indians won't shoot bears for sport, for example.
99	** This is carried over into the sequel, via the depiction of the English. While Pocahontas is horrified to see what "bear baiting" is, she spends most of the first half of her trip there gushing over how amazing England and everyone and everything in it is.
100	* ''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress'' makes sure that no one misses its religious message. The plot revolves around a boy who is tortured by doubts of Santa Claus, who is shown to be like a god to everyone at the North Pole. The boy is a stereotypical {{woobie}} just because "Christmas doesn't work for him." Everyone who doesn't believe in Santa is annoying, scary, or both and the most spiritual of the kids apparently is the best leader... yes, we got the message.
101	* In later years, ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' cartoons were sometimes used as a way to get kids to eat their vegetables, particularly spinach, as the title character uses it as a SuperSerum. Sometimes, it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL3WNqs5ZzA worked]].
102	* ''[[WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies1980s Pound Puppies]]'': At one point, the adult puppies tell one of the [[DepartmentofRedundancyDepartment child puppies]] a story about how a kid lying about breaking a vase causes the death of everyone they know and the destruction of their whole fantasy world.
103	* Practically every episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily'', with its suburban upper-middle-class Black-American family learning some lesson, often concerning race relations.
104	** The show drops the anvil especially hard in the episode "EZ Jackster". The scriptwriters manage to slam ''Film/TheMatrix'' movies (the "bad kid" is black and dressed like Morpheus did in the movies) '''and''' hit the audience over the head with a story about how [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil illegally downloading music]] is bad and nice kids don't do it. Not to mention that it [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything visually equates illicit filesharing to drug abuse]].
105	* ''WesternAnimation/APupNamedScoobyDoo'':
106	** In one episode, the villain was using dolphins in his drug smuggling operation. When Velma mentioned drugs, she said it after a pause to give it more emphasis. Scooby then responded in disgust. This happens twice in nearly the exact same wording. The fact that it's a Scooby-Doo spinoff makes it even funnier.
107	** The same episode had a surfer whose career apparently ended after he began using steroids. Cue shocked look from ''Shaggy'': "DRUGS?! Drugs can mess you up!" Well, he ''would'' know.
108	* The ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'' episode "Who Messed Up The Treehouse?" makes it very obvious that the treehouse being untidy is a metaphor for trash filling Planet Earth, and that we should take care of the place where we live. Then again, Administrivia/TropesAreTools, and this is a very important message in this day and age.
109	* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'': The moral of one episode is that, if you want women to like you, you should listen to what they have to say. The villain is portrayed as immensely attractive for being a LovableRogue and treating the woman with disturbingly close smothering. The moral about listening repeated vigorously, much to the annoyance of Sheriff Stone. Subverted when the only thing Shaggy and Fred learn from this is that they can get earplugs and only pretend to listen to their female friends.
110	* ''{{WesternAnimation/Superfriends}}''. Almost every episode of the 1973/74 series had environmentalism as a major theme, with preaching against air and water pollution, encouraging energy conservation, etc.
111	* The first seven seasons of ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' had subtle morals, but starting on Season 8, it had the anvil hit very hard. As of Season 17, however, the series seem to have pulled back from this, having more subtle Aesops or odd stories which lack them altogether.
112	* The ''WesternAnimation/Thundercats2011'' episode "Ramlak Rising" is a WholePlotReference to ''Literature/MobyDick'' crammed into a 22-minute runtime, which results in its Ahab-{{homage}} and its message of HeWhoFightsMonsters and RevengeBeforeReason being very blatant and broadly drawn. When we meet Captain Tunar, he isn't JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope, he's already mid-leap.
113	* Original ''WesternAnimation/{{ThunderCats\|1985}}'' was ''extremely'' anvil-heavy in most of its first episodes. Fortunately, they let up after a while and managed to make the show mostly fun.
114	-->'''Tigra:''' "Rules only work if everyone agrees to follow them. Otherwise, they're just words." Leaning on the Fourth Wall, yet.
115	* "One Beer", a [[ThreeShorts mini-episode]] of ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'', does a send-up of heavy-handed CantGetAwayWithNuthin cartoons about the dangers of underage drinking. They have a bottle of beer. Hamton notes they usually wouldn't touch such a thing, but Buster [[LampshadeHanging replies]] that they have to [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption act out of character]] [[IdiotBall for the plot to work]]. The single bottle of beer (split between Buster, Hamton, and Plucky, which means each got about four ounces) puts them into a foggy dreamland, in which they eventually drive a car off a cliff and die. Not surprisingly, the executives eventually refused to re-air the episode, because they felt it was so heavy-handed that it came off as sarcastic. (Which was, in fact, the series writers' intent all along; in response to some attempted ExecutiveMeddling by some figures at Warner Bros. Television, who thought ''Tiny Toons'' needed to be more "educational", all three segments of that particular episode ("''Elephant Issues''") were deliberately written to come across as moral sledgehammers delivered as un-subtly as possible, in hopes that it would discourage the censors and network execs from asking them to do it again. It worked.)
116	* ''Tommy Zoom'', a cartoon/live action kids' show, has Tommy the hero battle the evil Polluto. His schemes are all about him conquering Earth by pollution.
117	* ''WesternAnimation/PlanBee'' has a heavy handed GreenAesop that includes plenty of political subtext against George W. Bush. It also repeatedly makes references to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution, saying that a good queen should care for her subjects, as George III didn't.
118	* ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'' goes ahead and mocks this with a [[AntiHero "he]][[WellIntentionedExtremist ro"]] called 'The Lesson', who tries to literally [[CarryABigStick hammer home]] various messages into peoples' heads (usually [[ThisLoserIsYou Yang]]). Even Yin, who agrees with him on principle, thinks he's a jerk and helps foil him.
119

Context Anvilicious / WesternAnimation