Line #24 WesternAnimation/OffTheAir


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0336_4.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"We'd like to thank you for watching. And please... Don't... Die... Tonight."[[note]]Said in the opening short of the first episode "Animals"... [[NightmareFuel/OffTheAir and is immediately followed by a jumpscare.]][[/note]]]]
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4	''Off the Air'' is an American anthology series of {{Quarter Hour Short}}s that's been airing on Creator/AdultSwim since 2011.
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6	The show was created by Creator/DaveHughes, who was known for editing shows like ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'', and various Creator/AdultSwim shows.
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8	It comprises [[MediumBlending animated (and sometimes live-action)]] shorts centered on a particular theme and released on a rather infrequent basis. Following a psychedelic nature, these shorts tend to be [[MindScrew very bizarre]] and/or [[NightmareFuel disturbing]].
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10	If you're looking for the SMPTE color bars (which this wiki doesn't have a page for...yet), please consult [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPTE_color_bars the other wiki.]]
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12	!!Tropes \| [[TitleDrop Off the Air]] \| [[Creator/AdultSwim Adult Swim]] :
13	* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: A few of the animated shorts have people with odd skin colors, like lavender, blue, red, green, etc.
14	* BleepDammit: "Sound" censored out a URL for a site called 'friendzone.fun' (Despite it not being a real URL)... then left the URL uncensored in the next shot.
15	** In "Clowns", A man on a bike's face is blurred out. The motion tracking of the blur is very poor, though, and goes off the person's face multiple times. The blur also tries (and fails) to follow the person even after the datamosh rather than simply being put onto the image beforehand, implying that it was a last minute change.
16	* BloodFromTheMouth: In "You Ruined It" from "Nightmares", a girl has blood dripping from her mouth.
17	* BookEnds: Every episode usually has footage from an earlier segment (often the first) appear at the end.
18	* TheCameo
19	** WesternAnimation/SpaceGhost has appeared in every episode, usually as a FunnyBackgroundEvent. Zorak also appears in several episodes starting with "Falling", Moltar joins in starting with "Robots", and Brak joins in starting with "Trash". All three at once appear during the credits of "Nightmares".
20	*** Some of said cameos can be REALLY hard to find. It took 6 years for Moltar's cameo to be spotted in "Death".
21	** [[WesternAnimation/PerfectHairForever Gerald]] appears in, fittingly enough, "Hair".
22	** WebVideo/TheSlowMoGuys show up in "Falling", specifically their first giant water balloon video.
23	* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship: Averted. One of the shorts in "Patterns" blatantly features a sound effect from ''VideoGame/SuperMario64''.
24	* DerangedAnimation: Pretty much the main staple of the series.
25	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The opening segment of the episode "Body" features a close-up view of the human nasal passages and throat. To say it looks like a certain part of female anatomy would be an understatement.
26	* DoNotTryThisAtHome: "Food" opens up with a rather unsettling one of these proclaiming "DO NOT try anything you see in this show... EVER. You might die." The video in question is of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKzh9Ct9QSE a man lighting fuse-tipped bananas glued to his face on fire, causing the bananas to pop.]]
27	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: And for a show like ''Off the Air'', that's saying something. The first few episodes always opened up on old stock-footage from the 60s, accompanied by a mysterious voice whispering something ominous. By "Body" the stock footage was replaced with a regular clip and the voice spoke much less, and by "Death" the voice disappeared completely.
28	* EpilepticFlashingLights: And ''how''. A great example of this is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R8UwvWNKb0 this short from "Robots".]]
29	** "Patterns" got so bad during [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wEvzqdDZg the last video]] it actually aired with an epilepsy disclaimer during it's premiere, and was the first ever Adult Swim show to do so outside of Toonami.
30	** The version of "Animals" on Adult Swim's website is notably darker then the version on [=YouTube=]. It was likely made darker sometime after the episode was uploaded onto [=YouTube=] to prevent seizures for the flashing lights during the title card.
31	* FreezeFrameBonus: During the disclaimer for "Food", text reading "DON'T TRY" flashes on the screen for a frame at a time. One of the flashes reads "DON'T DIE" instead.
32	** Some of the space ghost cameos have him appear in the background for just a few frames.
33	%%Zero context* {{Gorn}}: Many shorts have this.
34	* JumpScare: There's one at the ''very'' end of "Nightmares" (as in, right before the credits). It's startling, to say the least.
35	** "Animals", "Sound", and arguably "Falling" also contain one each, Animals in particular having one at the ''very beginning of the episode.''
36	* LawyerFriendlyCameo: The episode "Color" features the music video for "Datamosh" by Yung Jake, which includes footage from a Music/JustinBieber music video. The edit shown in the episode replaces Bieber's image with a stock photo of a Bieber-ish teen.
37	** "Thom Cruise" and "Emmy Rawsome" in "Work".
38	* MediumBlending: This show uses 2D, 3D, Stop Motion and Live Action.
39	* MindScrew: The series in general. A few shorts have something of a cohesive plot, though.
40	* OnceAnEpisode: Pretty much every episode contains at least one "Datamosh" transition, or where the image of the first clip is applied to the movement of the next clip, similar to getting a low signal on broadcast TV.
41	* RecycledAnimation: The #disrupt short from "Trash" was originally a short for Adult Swim's "Smalls" series [[labelnote:Note]](1 to 2 minute shorts that play during commercial breaks and in-between streaming shows)[[/labelnote]], later reused here. Unlike the other shorts, however, it wasn't uploaded to their [=YouTube=].
42	* ReverseCerebusSyndrome: The episode “Fashion” originally started off more serious and cynical, but later bent towards being more humorous, with only the opening keeping the more darker, serious tone. The change also caused [[https://vimeo.com/35386558 this disturbing short]] [[labelnote:Note]](a fur pelt with mechanicals inside causing the pelt to roll around, all while it’s head and legs lay there dead as somebody in the background laughs manically)[[/labelnote]], intended for the credits, to be cut from the episode as it would have clashed with the humorous tone.
43	* ShoutOut: "Shoutout to David O Reily", word for word in "Colors"
44	** "Coping" had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3uQYMIwWE0 this homage]] to Film/FreddyGotFingered
45	* StockFootage: A good number of shorts is pretty much old footage from documentaries and TV shows.
46	** Or from WebOriginal shorts.
47	* SurrealHumor / SurrealHorror: A good number of shorts switch between the humor part and the horror part.
48	* TakeThat: In "Coping", a news ticker on a TV reads "America First in deaths, President Tweets Nonsense."
49	** In general, a lot of the shorts in Off The Air seem to have anti-consumerism messages in them. A good example being [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs55cCRjFA0 this short]] in "Earth".
50	* ThemeNaming: Season 13's first three episodes are titled Sex, Drugs and Music - in other words, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. (The fourth episode? Farts.)
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Context WesternAnimation / OffTheAir