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3%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!
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7[[quoteright:350: [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MindScrewWesternAnimation02_7383.JPG]]]]
8[[caption-width-right:350: [[LampshadeHanging "What the hell was that?",]] ''[[AudienceSurrogate indeed.]]'']]
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12%%* Earliest works of animation were this. Justified, as they were clearly experimenting.
13%%** Obviously, anything made by [[MeaningfulName 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)]].
14* ''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 philosophical style of mind screw, with more and more frequent dream sequences, metaphors and things like that. This goes hand in hand with it [[CerebusSyndrome developing a complex plot]].
15* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
16** "The World" takes the show's typical weirdness up to eleven, consisting of various skits which show that ''everything in the world'' (if not ''the universe'') is sentient and talks.
17** "The Job" is about reality falling apart due to Richard getting a job, and is just as weird as it sounds.
18** "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 drafts of the show]].
19** The weirdest episode in the series so far is probably "The Countdown". Gumball and Darwin [[CameraAbuse break the screen]] and [[NinjaProp the countdown that was on the screen]], causing time to stop. They then make several attempts to restart time, causing a number of bizarre timelines including one where everyone is a quadruped, one where everyone looks like them, one where they're worshipped as gods, and one where [[GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel everyone looks pissed off and yells everything they say in German]]. None of these are ever given any kind of explanation.
20* Every episode of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce''.
21* 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.
22* Even though Creator/RalphBakshi's animated films are more known for their adult material, some of his films, especially ''WesternAnimation/HeavyTraffic'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Coonskin}}'', have trippy sequences that could be considered mind screw.
23* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'' pretty much is this for all the episodes, but in particular is the weird nightmare sequence of the episode "Perfect" where there's a weird blue humanoid with a clothes clip for one arm and another arm connected to it's head. WordOfGod says it's a broken bugle from earlier in the episode, but most people call it a fetus or a "perfect trumpet thingy".
24* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' is a show where characters die and ''come back in the same episode with no explanation''. It's set up as a show where ''cameras are watching them''. [[QuirkyWork Really think about how completely insane that is.]] Xandir claims to have died 4 million times to save his girlfriend...and he's gay. Everyone makes fun of Xandir for being gay even though EveryoneIsBi. They never care that Captain Hero has had sex with women, men, children, animals, dead bodies, robots, and family members. "A Very Special Drawn Together After School Special" is insane even by the standards of their show, as it features the characters doing roleplaying within roleplaying for Xandir to come out to his parents, [[ShaggyDogStory which is completely pointless anyway.]]
25* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': In "One + One = 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.]]
26** The RashomonStyle 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.]]
27-->'''Eddy:''' (After three giant Kanker Sisters merge into a giant pair of lips) Ed, your story's getting weird.
28* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "The Sting", in which Leela's perception of reality becomes more and more deranged, with events that turn out to be dreams, a hallucination of a morbidly cheerful musical number, a ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' parody, and descent into obsessive insanity. It turns out [[spoiler: everything in the episode since the bee attack was her nightmare.]]
29* One in the Time Travel episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'', to quote WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic:
30--> '''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.
31* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. The episode Dreamscaperers, particularly, as it takes place mostly [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind within Stan's mind.]] Moreover, it introduces the character of Bill Cipher, dream demon who's been teased throughout the entire season, who's brought to the show with a demon summoning ritual. He also stops time, and after he vanishes everyone feels like they've been dreaming. He loves summoning [[SurrealHorror terrifying things]] and [[SurrealHumor joking about them nonsensically]], and is implied to basically know most everything about the overarching mysteries of Gravity Falls.
32** [[spoiler:The Society of the Blindeye]]'s reveal calls into question the validity of everyone in the town's perception of events thus far.
33* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' is more or less constructed from this trope. The various episodes follow vague premises with more Mind Screw moments and {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s than virtually any other show. A particularly memorable one though, is at the end of an episode where they unmask a villain (he's adult-sized) to reveal... an earthworm.
34--> Billy: "Wait what?"
35--> Mandy: "Billy, if you had been [[InsaneTrollLogic paying attention the whole time you would have figured out he was obviously an earthworm]]."
36* Among the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes directors, Bob Clampett loved this sort of thing, often justifying it with AllJustADream. He directed "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" and "WesternAnimation/TheBigSnooze".
37** In one WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn short, he plays hide-and-seek with [[AwesomenessByAnalysis Egghead]], taking a circuitous route to hide in a dumpster before proclaiming that Egghead will need a slide-rule to find him. True to form, Egghead busts out a slide-rule... only to dig a small hole nearby and pull a ''very'' confused Foghorn out of it. He returns to the dumpster but decides against opening, because "I just ''might'' be in there."
38** The Fats Waller cat in Clampett's ''Tin Pan Alley Cats'' lampshades things when he lands in a color retooling of the Wackyland scenes of ''Porky in Wackyland'': "What's de mattah heah??!"
39** The 1968 short "WesternAnimation/{{Norman Normal|1968}}" is a series of surreal vignettes depicting a day in the life of a nebbishy white-collar worker, depicted by him walking in and out of a series of doors. It starts with Norman's boss trying to pressure him into tricking a potential client into signing a contract by getting him drunk, during which Norman's boss and then Norman himself regress into children. Next, Norman has a conversation with his father, during which Norman's dad just rambles about WhenIWasYourAge, floats around the room, then gives the vague advice of "Don't make waves" before literally fading into the wallpaper. The final sequence has Norman at a cocktail party, where one of Norman's friends Leo [[LampshadeWearing wears a lampshade on his head]] [[BlahBlahBlah while saying "Approval" over and over again]], he tunes out another friend who tries to tell a racist dirty joke, and he finally gets fed up and leaves the party when the barman [[CantHoldHisLiquor calls him a lightweight]]. Then the cartoon zooms out to reveal the whole thing was literally happening inside Norman's head, through another door.
40* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony: Newborn Cuties'': Over Two Rainbows is the insane story of Rainbow Dash (before she had a rainbow mane) spending ten minutes whining about her scarf while Sweetie Belle is born (wearing a nappy)... via the crossing of two rainbows. As all this happens the ponies' mouths never move once. "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iknAEHexFJI What is this?!]]" is the standard reaction of everybody that tries to watch it.
41* [[MadGod Discord]] in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' is fond of dulling out these. In his debut two-parter, he makes a glass to catch some of the chocolate milk he's making it rain, filling it from the top down, then proceeds to drink the ''glass'', leaving the solidified chocolate milk behind. He then throws it over his shoulders, causing an off-screen explosion that makes the screen darker instead of lighter.
42* ''WesternAnimation/TheNineLivesOfFritzTheCat'' is probably one of the most {{Mind Screw}}iest western animation films ever. And unlike [[WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat the film it's a sequel to]], Creator/RalphBakshi had absolutely nothing to do with it. Justified in that the movie simply has Fritz being high, with us seeing his daydreams.
43* A lot of shorts in ''WesternAnimation/OffTheAir'' tend to be this.
44* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/PerfectHairForever'': "I wish these hot dogs and cats were not symbolic of anything, and this was all just a dumb anime mindf***!"
45* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
46** The episode "Monster from the Id" features the boys traveling [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind inside the mindscape]] of their big sister in order to retrieve a lost memory, leading to them visiting various bizarre areas that represent Candace's neuroses and fears.
47** Invoked in the episode "The Remains of the Platypus", which opens with many purposely off-the-wall things going on, such as Perry powering Doof's latest -Inator while dressed like a butler, breakdancing British guards, Carl in a cage while wearing a squirrel costume, and people running screaming out of Phineas and Ferb's backyard from a bloated Major Monogram. The episode spends the rest of its runtime [[BackToFront giving an explanation for all of the bizarre things going on]].
48* ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'': The episode "Number 7" only makes sense when you realize it is a {{homage}} to ''Series/{{The Prisoner|1967}}''. 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.
49* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' has this built into its plot structure. Act I starts out with a fairly simple, straightforward, and every-day situation (learning to play guitar, getting tickets to a concert, throwing a friend a surprise birthday party, etc.), but by Act III, the characters' normal actions will usually have broken reality, woke up some kind of EldritchAbomination, caused them to travel through time, or any other bizarre circumstance. And as soon as that dilemma is solved, the characters more-or-less brush it off in order to return their focus to whatever the mundane inciting incident was. Case in point: the pilot episode has Mordecai and Rigby play RockPaperScissors over a chair, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext them tying 100 times in a row ends up summoning a black hole]], and once they solve that by intentionally breaking the tie, the duo starts playing the game ''again'' to decide who gets to drive the golf cart while cleaning up the aftermath.
50* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where an advertising company produces a TV advert for Homer's plowing service, featuring [[WhatWereTheySellingAgain an opera-singing woman holding a high note while staring at a snow-globe before a topless man comes in and smashes the snow globe on the floor]]. [[LeFilmArtistique In black and white]]. The family's response sums it up well.
51-->'''Lisa:''' Dad, was that your commercial?
52-->'''Homer:''' ...I don't know.
53** Pictured above is the Itchy and Scratchy replacement "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubckx7X2Nd4 Worker and Parasite]]" from "Krusty Gets Kancelled". Krusty's reaction [[LampshadeHanging ("What the hell was that?!")]] [[AudienceSurrogate is dead on.]]
54*** WordOfGod states it's Matt Groening's [[{{Homage}} love letter]] to Eastern European animation.
55** The "Mr. Sparkle" commercial from "In Marge We Trust", where a Japanese detergent mascot that looks like Homer Simpson's head shatters a two-headed cow like glass (among other things).
56** Similar to the ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' example above, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" only makes sense if you know it's a parody of ''Series/{{The Prisoner|1967}}''.
57** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m78gYyTrG7Y The Couch Gag]] from "Clown in the Dumps", created by none other than Creator/DonHertzfeldt doing what he does best. It riffs on the show's LongRunner status by showing the Simpsons still on the air in the 106th century, where they're a bunch of gibberish-spouting mutants known as "The Sampsans".
58** A throwaway gag in a Season 18 episode has Homer casually implying that he was the real shooter of Mr. Burns in the infamous 2-parter, probably in reference to ongoing EpilepticTrees around the subject. [[HilariousInHindsight Funnily enough]], this was over a decade before a specific "Homer did it" theory blew up online to the degree that the creators had to debunk it.
59* The ''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.
60* 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 elaborates.
61** The show has plenty of other Mind Screw episodes as well. "[[Main/LampshadeHanging What's a gorilla doing underwater in the first place?]]"
62** "If we're underwater, how is there fire?" ''[[PuffOfLogic Fire goes out immediately]]''
63** "Squidward in Clarinetland". Trippiest. [=SpongeBob=]. Episode. Ever.
64** Many times during the show, they show people drinking and swimming in water, crying tears, and taking showers. '''While underwater.'''
65** The ending of "The Chaperone" confused a lot of viewers, making them wonder if it was [=SpongeBob=] who took Pearl to the dance or it was his supposedly inanimate decoy. It was the decoy.
66** The ending of "Back to the Past" with so many [=SpongeBobs=] and Patricks arriving from different timelines and universes; it's so strange that even Man Ray had to sit down to comprehend what the heck is going on.
67* At the end of the ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld'' episode "The Yoshi Shuffle", Luigi's brain is apparently melted following this exchange:
68-->'''Luigi:''' Uh, did I catch the ball?\
69'''Mario:''' Whaddaya mean, ''catch'' the ball? [[ForcedTransformation You were the ball!]]
70* The final episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' was really more of a NoEnding, but it was such an over-the-top and inexplicable No Ending that it has to be mentioned here. It has been stated in interviews that the show's staff wasn't too keen on explaining things in the story; what transpired here can be best described as that policy's logical conclusion. Though, the sort of question Glen Murakami wasn't keen on answering were things about the characters' non-suited lives, and the "how did villain X get out of the CardboardPrison last time?" These sort of things he considered unimportant, a distraction from the main plot. This was the only episode in which ''nothing'' was made sense of. (Well, Beast Boy does move on after the Terra incident - which we'd thought him over three seasons ago. The rest is pure randomness.)
71** This is after the episodes which feature the Titans' normal days of getting TrappedInTVLand, accidentally [[YourMindMakesItReal making monsters]] spawn in the Tower, an endless hall of {{Sight Gag}}s, [[BizarreAlienBiology Tamaranian]] culture, [[BigCreepyCrawlies giant moths]], [[ArtInitiatesLife ink people]], tofu [[AlienInvasion aliens]], ''[[RealityWarper breaking reality]]'', and [[BizarroEpisode the sky getting turned into a British flag whilst the Titans are squished by a giant shoe]].
72* The episode of ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'', "Deja Cruise". To make a long story short, it was like the girls' dreams were having dreams. The WOOHP contract may as well have this clause on it: "CAUTION: Prolonged employment at this occupation may cause you to lose the ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality."
73* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'' was more of a Heavy Mind Petting, but it was still pretty clouded with symbolism, and the fact that it could be deciphered tended to raise another problem when the message didn't go over well.
74* Although it's a bit lighter than some of the other examples, the ''WesternAnimation/TronUprising'' episode, "The Stranger". It mainly takes place in somewhere not-quite on the Grid, with a weird computer-like texture all over it, strange (for the show) colours, a villain constantly defying physics in an unsettling way [[spoiler:even on the Grid]], a bizarro doomsday device, and [[spoiler: Beck nearly being boiled to death]] and seeing... [[HoldYourHippogriffs Flynn]]-knows-what before he manages to break free. And to top it all off, it has an '[[TheEndOrIsIt Or Is It?]]' ending.
75* In ''WesternAnimation/UglyAmericans'', the entire episode of "G. I. Twayne" is practically a giant Mind Screw episode towards both the main character Mark Lily as well as the viewers. As it turns out the entire thing is just a pre-enactment. This screws Mark so much he shows clear paranoia at the end of the episode.
76** To summarize, the denizens of Hell hold a yearly "pre-enactment" of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the End of Days]] -- that year, however, it looks like a BatmanGambit where they'd use the pre-enactment to start the ''actual'' End of Days. HilarityEnsues.
77* ''WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa'' is about a guy who is both the uncle and grandfather of everyone, and that's just the beginning of the weirdness.
78* Some ''WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker'' shorts can get very nonsensical, even by cartoon standards.
79* ''WesternAnimation/XavierRenegadeAngel'' is one massive, nonsensical mind screw after another, until the whole thing resembles a 3D-animated acid trip GoneHorriblyWrong.
80* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B64mI-FfT7w&feature=related Oceans Three and a half]]
81-->'''Brian:''' I am not following the story here.\
82'''Stewie:''' Shut up.
83* ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux''. The TV show. Some episodes are worse than others, but the complete lack of continuity, bizarre dystopian setting, overtly philosophical conversations (or complete silence depending which season you're watching), and unusual symbolism that is indistinguishable from the RuleOfCool events. It's weird. It is, however, absolutely awesome. The fact that the creator Peter Chung seems to actually know what's going on, but deliberately stops himself when he starts explaining it is either very annoying or very liberating depending on how you look at it.
84** 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 Jungian nightmare, take your pick, either one is both valid and complete bullshit.
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