Achievements In Ignorance / Western Animation

• In a mainstream Animaniacs episode, Stinkbomb B. Basset Hound pursues Slappy, and when she climbs a tree to get away from him, he scales the tree after her. When he reaches her, however, she tells him that dogs can't climb trees, at which point he plummets to the ground. (He gets a good idea in the next scene and tries to use climbing gear to do it, but doesn't fare much better.)
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
  • Meatwad develops some rather astonishing abilities (telekinesis, teleportation, etc...) when he is told he has a new brain and loses them when he finds it is his toy rubber brain with cosmetic alterations.
  • The Season 11 mock finale (before the actual finale,) reveals that both Shake and Meatwad have the same gem attached to them that Frylock does, and need it to live. Well, Shake and Frylock need them to live. Meatwad sold his a long time ago, and is still alive simply because he didn't know he was supposed to die.
• In an opening of Arthur, Francine flaps her arms and flies. Arthur shouts out that kids can't fly, right when she's floating 10 feet above him. Once Francine's bubble is burst, she plummets to the ground.
• Horribly subverted in The Batman. The Joker had no idea what his Joker Putty formula would do to human flesh, but when he found out it had turned Ethan Bennet into Clayface, his sick mind actually considered that a great accomplishment.
  • In an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Aquaman uses his ability to control aquatic creatures to take command of... silverfish. The Atom points out that silverfish are insects, but ends up shrugging it off with a Sure, Let's Go with That after Aquaman cheerfully responds that "a fish is a fish." This is itself a Call-Back to their first meeting, in which Aquaman used his powers in a "Fantastic Voyage" Plot to command a lymphocyte. This gave Ryan a Twitchy Eye.
• In the Bump in the Night episode "Cold Turkey", the defrosted turkey turns out to be capable of flight even though it's impossible for turkeys to fly. This leads to Squishington irately reading aloud from an encyclopedia that the defrosted turkey logically shouldn't be able to fly.
• One episode of Camp Lazlo had Lazlo, Raj, and Clam build a boat. Out of brick and concrete. Somehow it's the only ship that manages to float and even takes off like a motorboat, likely because they didn't build it to Lumpus's specifications, as all the other teams did that and their boats sank immediately.
• The Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "Good Times, Bat Times" features the quite popular one-shot bat Foxglove who manages to carry Dale while flying. She actually cannot carry him, but she does until Dale expresses his amazement about it. At this point, she remembers that she can't carry him, and they plummet. At other points in the episode, we see her trying (and almost succeeding) to keep the Ranger Wing from crashing and carrying a brick in mid-air, probably because nobody tells her that all this is too heavy for her.
• In the first season episode of Code Lyoko "Cruel Dilemma", after Jeremie again fails to make Aelita's virtualization program work, Odd snoops around in Jeremie's room, takes some of Jeremie's candy, and when Jeremie surprises him, drops the candy on the keyboard of the computer...accidentally rebooting the virtualization program and completely by accident, inputting an unknown command that makes it work. (Unfortunately, because Jeremie didn't see what Odd did and can't save the program for some reason, he can only use it once, and when Yumi falls into the Digital Sea at the end, he has to use it to save her from a Fate Worse than Death, meaning Aelita has to wait.)
• The Cuphead Show!: Brineybeard gets Cuphead and Mugman to help him deliver sweets to the dreaded Cala Maria, who he's hopelessly in love with after their date, in the hopes she'd be his girlfriend. When he does get to her, she explains that she planned to eat him instead, only to fill up on tiramisu. He had no idea she wasn't interested in him, his life was in danger, or that dessert he treated her to at dinner saved his life.
• Danger Mouse and Penfold accidentally get themselves and their flying car whisked back in time to Robin Hood days. Penfold points out that they didn't have cars in the middle ages. D.M. sighs and says he had hoped Penfold wouldn't say that until they'd landed. Penfold asks why. The flying car disappears and they plummet.
• Danny Phantom: Along with building machines that combat ghosts despite having not seen one until the last few moments of the first episode, Jack Fenton didn't just build a portal into the Ghost Zone, he built a machine that can grant humans (namely his teenage son and his best friend who secretly hates him) ghostly superpowers. The Irony being he and his wife dismissed the idea of humans having ghost powers as nonsense.
• In the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) cartoon, Presto rarely managed to pull what he needed out of his hat, but somehow, he and the other heroes often managed to solve the crisis with what he did conjure up. For example, in one episode, the heroes were up against a group of giant iron statues, and he managed to produce a cannon - but when he tried to come up with ammunition for it, all he managed were ball bearings. Fortunately, all but one of the statues slipped on them and fell, while Bobby managed to use his club to catapult the cannon itself into the last one, smashing it to pieces.
• This is how Ed of Ed, Edd n Eddy is able to warp reality and do things no normal kid should do; such as lifting a house. Actually lampshaded once: Edd and Eddy come to a screeching halt at the edge of a cliff, Ed slams into them and knocks them off. Eddy starts yelling at him before Double D looks down and announces: "Uh, gentlemen? IMPROBABLE ALERT!" While Ed contemplates that he can "jump it" (jump to the other side of the ravine while already standing on air) the others scramble back to safety.
• The Fairly OddParents! episode "A Mile In My Shoes" had Cosmo trying to light candles underwater as part of dinner (reasoning that "somebody's gotta dry up all this wet food"), which Wanda exclaims should be impossible. However:
  *Timmy walks in the room*
  Timmy: Hey, guys, what's new?
  Wanda: (the candles light) Um... the laws of physics?
• Futurama has a two-for-one deal of this in the episode "The Deep South". Dr. Zoidberg's house burns down... underwater.
  Zoidberg: How did this happen?!
  Hermes: [utterly dumbfounded] That's a good question.
  Bender: [walks over to the burned rubble] Oh, that's where I left my cigar! [picks it up and smokes it (again, this is all happening underwater)]
  Hermes: That just raises further questions!
  • In "Leela and the Genestalk", Bender is able to bend a wooden door in part because of this trope.
    Fry: Bender! You can't bend a wooden door!
    Bender: [Hushed] You know that, and I know that, but this door looks pretty stupid.
• Goofy refers to this phenomenon on an episode of Goof Troop. Pete wants to steal Goofy's cat, Waffles, as part of some scheme. So he convinces Goofy that Waffles is allergic to the color of Goofy's house. When Max's encyclopedia declares that cats are colorblind, Goofy shrugs it off: "Maybe Waffles hasn't read that book."
• In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Billy's Dad is in the audience of a Battle of the Bands with Billy, having mistaken it for an actual battle and waiting for an opportunity to crash the stage. When the time arrives:
  Harold: To the stage, Billy! (starts flapping his arms and cackling madly, flying into the air)
  Billy: Dad! Daaaaad!
  Harold: For the last time, Billy, I'm Mogar!
  Billy: I didn't know you could fly!
  Harold: (surprised expression) Fly? (crashes into the stage)
• Hazbin Hotel:
  • As it turns out, Carmilla Carmine had no idea that holy steel could kill Exorcists when she used her Armed Legs of the stuff to rip one's head off. She was merely trying to buy time for her daughters to get away, not kill it.
  • Sir Pentious attempts a Heroic Sacrifice against Adam; and while it fails, he manages to become an Ascended Demon in the process, with no one being more surprised than himself.
• In the I Am Weasel episode "Law of Gravity", I.R. Baboon was actually able to defy gravity up until the point that he actually gets to read the actual Law of Gravity. Later on, Baboon destroys the Law... and every lawyer on Earth starts floating helplessly in mid-air. Weasel explains it only affects lawyers because they're the only ones who understand the law.
• An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had Jimmy in an animal jail. When Jimmy begs that he's not an animal, the other animals join in. When Molotov reminds them that they don't know how to speak, they go back to making animal noises.
• Justice League: In "Hereafter", Superman is seemingly killed by Toyman's disintegrator beam at the world is left in mourning. The episode ends with the reveal he's not dead, but unconscious. After journeying through a world with a red sun, rendering him powerless, he soon discovers he was on Earth All Along. Vandal Savage appears and calls Toyman a simpleton for not being able to comprehend he didn't build a disintegration weapon, but a weaponized time machine that fired an energized tachyon stream that sent Superman 30,000 years into the future.
• Looney Tunes:
  • The reason Wile E. Coyote and other characters in the shorts can do things like run off a cliff and not fall until they look down.
  • An early Daffy Duck cartoon had Daffy riding an invisible bicycle, with the remark "I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible!"
  • Another one had Wile E. and Road Runner run off the cliff. Wile E. looks down and falls to the ground, while the Road Runner still floats on a fragment of rock. Peeved by the latter part, Wile E. says via a sign, "I wouldn't mind - except that he defies the law of gravity!" Road Runner, in response, holds up a sign that says "Sure - but I never studied law!"
  • Bugs Bunny accomplished a similar feat in "High-Diving Hare". After Yosemite Sam tries to saw through a high-diving platform and the rest of the platform collapses, Bugs quips "I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law!"
  • There is at least one instance of a character running off of the cliff, realizing it without looking down, and try to continue without looking down. Obviously, they look down (usually getting lured by their enemy).
  • There is a variation with Elmer and Bugs as children, where Elmer says they didn't study gravity yet. Then Bugs slipped him a book...
  • There was a Tiny Toon Adventures episode which explained the phenomenon. Elmer, teaching the young toons, said that as long as the toon didn't look down it wouldn't fall.
  • Similar to the Tom & Jerry example below, in "Harebreadth Hurry" (where Bugs is filling in for the Road Runner), Wile E. uses a carrot as bait on a fishing line and reels in a giant fish which all but devours him.
    • Which in itself is a shout out to an earlier Disney work where Walt himself explained this as the Plausible Impossible effect.
  • In the iconic Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, Dodgers prepares to launch into space, throws the lever… and causes his rocket to bury itself nosecone deep into the ground. Dodgers can only sheepishly reply “Whoops! Heh… Had the Silly Thing in Reverse!”
• Megas XLR: Coop lives by this trope; he even lampshades it in "S-Force SOS"
  Zerak: Impossible! No one can escape the force of the Infinity Zone!
  Coop: Hey, good thing no one ever told me that.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The episode "Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1": "I don't think it works that way, Pinkie." While interrogating an inanimate rubber chicken won't get the Key of Laughter, throwing it at the Harmony Box actually does transform Boneless the rubber chicken into the Key of Laughter.
  • This is one explanation for how Pinkie Pie manages to constantly violate the realistic, Magic A Is Magic A setting with her unusual abilities. Something that other characters lampshade frequently. A later episode reveals, albeit very subtly, that she actually does have unique magic powers unlike any other known earth pony when one of the orbs of stolen magic returning to all the unicorns and alicorns goes into her nose.
  • In the episode "Inspiration Manifestation", Spike is able to easily recover a booby-trapped cursed book, largely because he was too distracted checking it out to realize he was in-danger and panic like he would have likely done otherwise.
• Miraculous Ladybug: The primary joke of "Oblivio"; when the titular villain erases the memories of Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Cat Noir, the two-and-a-half seasons long love square gets resolved in a matter of hours. To wit:
  • It turns out that Marinette is far, far more willing to be with Cat Noir when he doesn't try to force the issue. When the status quo is restored, he takes some comfort in the fact that there is a way she can requite his feelings... even if he doesn't know what it is.
  • Marinette doesn't remember having a massive crush on Adrien "Perfection" Agreste, so she doesn't turn into a nervous wreck around him and is able to talk to him normally for a change. The result? Adrien is near-instantly smitten with her.
• In one episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Pooh is searching for a lost hammer and at one point in the episode, he tries to find it by setting a "hammer trap" baited with nails. It doesn't catch the lost hammer, but it does catch a saw, somehow.
• The Penguins of Madagascar:
  • The penguins have trouble removing a hornet nest. They discover that Mort isn't hurt by the hornets because he is protected by a "halo of ignorance", so Kowalski uses a machine to drain their minds of bad thoughts so that they could then deal with the hornets.
  • In the episode "It's About Time", a time machine creates a hole in the space-time continuum that threatens to destroy the universe. Rico then tosses the machine into the hole, and it closes. When Kowalski states the impossibility of it, Skipper responds, "That's why Rico's a maverick. He makes his own rules."
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • Professor Utonium kind of is this Trope. Every time he invents something useful, he does so by accident. (This includes the Girls, by the way, as described in the show's opening sequence.) He can't seem to do anything useful on purpose, however. (It's probably not a good idea to mention the Dynamo, something he did invent on purpose. It was a disaster, to say the least.)
  • Bubbles managed to get 1075 on the SAT in "Him Diddle Riddle" by drawing a flower on it.^note Though it is implied that Bubbles actually figured out the trick by listening to Him's Exact Words. Him said that the test was based on their current educational level (and thus only required 100 points total); the girls are in kindergarten, so putting down random answers rather than attempting to figure too difficult questions would be a viable strategy.
• In one episode of Rocket Power, Sam's skateboarding simulation program comes across a move that it has deemed physically impossible, but Otto doesn't believe it. He spends the episode practicing the move and eventually pulls it off...with a little help from a tennis ball shot out of the Stimpletons' lawnmower. Convinced that he can do it, Otto tries it at a competition and wipes out.
• One episode of Sealab 2021 ends with Marco singing a duet in Portuguese...while thinking he's singing in Spanish.
• The Simpsons: Homer's intelligence varies depending on the writer and, as a result, achieves great feats that require a drop in his IQ (for better or worse). For example, in "Homer Goes to College" Homer achieved an Epic Fail so massive that he managed to cause an actual nuclear meltdown in a nuclear plant simulation truck with no fissionable materials.
  • In "Homer The Smithers", Homer managed to light a bowl of cereal on fire by pouring milk on it.
  • In the "Treehouse of Horror V" story "Time And Punishment", he managed to build a Time Machine by failing to repair his toaster.
  • In "Bart the Lover", he manages to solve two problems simultaneously, each one solving the other! When trying to build a doghouse, he hurts and injures himself, causing him to cuss a lot. Marge suggests a swear jar. After several days of trying to build the doghouse using the swear jar, he eventually stops cussing and gains enough change this way for Marge to buy a doghouse. (And a six-pack of Duff.) In other words, the doghouse project helps him stop swearing and the swearing helps gain a new doghouse!
  • In "The Front", Grandpa Simpson managed to take off his underpants without taking off his pants first. When asked how he did that, he is as confused as everyone else.
  • In "Homer Defined", in the realm of “possible but exceedingly unlikely”, Homer also manages to prevent a catastrophic meltdown two separate times by pressing a single button on his console at random.
  • In "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily", Homer attempts to figure out Flanders's whereabouts by trying to think like Flanders. His internal monologue goes "I'm a big four-eyed lame-o and I wear the same stupid sweater everyday and..." Seconds later, he concludes from his introspection that Flanders is at the Springfield River. He's right.
  • In "Bart's Comet", Principal Skinner has spent years meticulously searching the night sky for something to name after himself. He makes calculated and precise adjustments to his telescope, carefully logging each movement, but hasn't found anything. Bart screws around with the telescope for a few seconds, spinning it completely at random, and finds a comet that gets named after him. Cue a Big "NO!" from Skinner.
  • In "The Cartridge Family" Homer attempts to engage the safety on his revolver and accidentally sets the firearm off, shooting a picture of Marge. Realizing he accidentally disengaged it he attempts to re-engage it... and it shoots the same photo of Marge. Then he sheepishly lays the firearm down, it fires itself which ricochets off a pot, strikes the handle of a knife, and sends it flying to embed into the same photo of Marge. The fact that revolvers don't have safeties in the first place (save for deliberate aftermarket conversions) only makes it even more amazing.
    Lisa: (Beat) No offense Mom, but that was pretty cool.
• In "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", as Moe throws out the tavern's usual patrons, Barney somehow keeps getting back inside in a matter of seconds. When Moe eventually asks how he's doing this, Barney replies, "I'm a drunk! I dunno nothin' about how I do anything!" Moe throws him out again, dusts off his hands... and Barney appears right back him, back in the tavern.
• South Park:
  • In "The Wacky Molestation Adventure", Kyle's parents tell him he can go to a Raging Pussies concert if he brings democracy to Cuba. Unaware that his parents thought this task impossible, he sends a heartfelt letter to Fidel Castro that moves him so much he goes ahead and establishes democracy. They still don't let him go, which kickstarts the plot of the episode.
  • In "Cartmanland", Cartman manages to turn a failing theme park into a wildly successful one without even trying (or wanting to) through his use of outright banning people from even coming, then letting them trickle through in gradually growing numbers. Unfortunately, he fails to appreciate this and ends up selling the park back to its original owner for the same price he bought it for, just in time for the IRS to come in and collect the money he owes in taxes for the income Cartman only recently had, plus an additional amount after Kenny's family files a wrongful death lawsuit against him following Kenny's death in one of the rides.
  • "Red Hot Catholic Love" has Cartman insisting, based on nothing more than Insane Troll Logic, that since eating makes you poop out of your butt that naturally putting food up your butt will make you poop from the mouth. He's so desperate to prove Kyle wrong that he actually tries it... and it actually works. Kyle sums it up the best:
    ...Get the fuck out of here!
  • In "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" kids are appalled when the supposedly "risque" and "mature" book The Catcher in the Rye doesn't live up to their expectations, and, for shits and giggles, decide to write their own banned book, making it as disgusting as possible. They succeed, and their creation is praised worldwide as a literary masterpiece because people keep ludicrously interpreting elements of the book as brilliant metaphors.
  • In "Krazy Kripples", after expressing a desire to join the Crips, which they believe is an organization for people who have been disabled from birth, Jimmy and Timmy manage to "pop some punk-ass Bloods", despite assuming that this means buying marshmallows and ginger ale. They cross the road on the way to the store, causing a truck driver to swerve and kill the rival gang members. The Crips are ecstatic that they both popped some Bloods and brought back marshmallows and ginger ale.
  • In "Wing" the boys not only set free countless people indentured in slavery to the Chinese Mafia, but actually convince the criminal organization to abandon human trafficking for good, without ever once even realizing they're dealing with criminals in the first place. They simply think the Mafia is a talent agency and have stolen their client.
• The Spirit Rangers have always entered the spirit realm by using their amulets to transform into animals. In the season 2 finale, their amulets are stolen while they're doing so...and they land in the spirit realm anyway, as humans. Humans are part of nature, so it makes sense. They just never thought of it that way.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob and Patrick set up a bonfire while they believe themselves to be wanted men, and the instant Patrick wonders on how they could possibly light a fire while underwater, it fizzles out.
  • In another episode, land-dwelling fanboy Patchy the Pirate sent him an invitation to a party, but when SpongeBob received it underwater, the writings on it have been turned into indecipherable smudges. SpongeBob then proceeds to make a smug comment.
    SpongeBob: Whoever sent this obviously has no idea about the physical limitations of life underwater. Well, might as well throw these in the fire.
  • In "Snowball Effect", SpongeBob tries to teach Patrick how to make a snowball. Patrick fails... but in the process, ends up creating a snow cube, a snow pyramid, and a snow double helix.
  • The building montage of "Home Sweet Pineapple," full stop. The two, attempting to rebuild SpongeBob's house after it was eaten, manage to completely defy the laws of physics without even noticing.
  • In "The Way of the Sponge", Fuzzy Acorns attempts to take on SpongeBob at the Krusty Krab, but SpongeBob is too busy with his job that he doesn't notice Fuzzy (nor is he aware he was fighting him), so his duties end up severely beating Fuzzy that he wins a black belt without knowing it.
  • In "Ink Lemonade", Patrick is running a lemonade stand using one lemon that Squidward gave him. When the lemon is used up, he tries to get more juice from a toy fire engine, and despite Squidward telling him that he can't, he manages to extract a few drops of a red liquid from it.
  • In "Call the Cops", Patrick also somehow manages to make ice cream in a jail cell toilet using toilet paper, his own underwear, toothpaste (including the empty tube), and a cinder block.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks:
  • In "Much Ado About Boimler", Tendi genetically engineers what she thinks is a completely ordinary terrestrial dog from scratch. But the "dog" can speak intelligently, shape-shift, and levitate, and that's just for starters. It's not until the end of the episode that Tendi, who is an Orion and has never met a normal dog, learns that they can't do any of these things.
  • In "Kayshon, His Eyes Open", Boimler and the other Titan Away Team members lock themselves inside a room when they're being chased by Pakleds. The Pakleds discover a chainsaw and realize they can use it to open the door... by using it as a battering ram. It works.
  • In "Mugato, Gumato", Mariner is completely confused at how the game she's playing with Boimler and Rutherford works. The boys agree with her to hide the fact that, somehow, she's winning.
• Star Trek: Prodigy: In "Kobayashi", Dal finds the titular training simulation in the holodeck and decides to win it so he can prove he's a good captain - completely unaware that it's designed to be unwinnable. After countless tries, he very nearly succeeds through a combination of insane, out-of-the-box gambits (such as broadcasting loud music to incapacitate the opponents) and some dumb luck (accidentally transporting to the enemy ship with Spock, who takes everyone out). Sadly, he then sits down in the enemy captain's chair for a post-victory swagger, and happens to press the torpedo-launch button with his foot, blowing up his own ship by mistake.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Ironically, since Star Butterfly has a poor understanding of magic's rules and limitations, she occasionally ends up overcoming those limits without even realizing it. Special mention goes to reaching through the All-Seeing Eye spell without causing it to explode and reviving the Realm of Magic after Glossaryck said it was impossible. Even her "normal" spells qualify, as Glossaryck points out that they aren't in the spellbook yet somehow function anyway.
• Star Wars Rebels: Holocrons are generally thought to be Mutually Exclusive Magic (someone on the Light Side of the Force can't use a Dark Side aligned holocron, and vice versa) until Ezra demonstrates the ability to use both. The truth is a bit more complicated, as someone has to know how to think like a Jedi or Sith to use the holocrons, not necessarily be one, and since many Jedi and Sith are trained from a very young age they're either incapable of understanding each other's mindsets or refuse to try out of (rightful) fear of corruption.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In "Battle for New York, Part 1," Mikey's attempt to make retro-mutagen for the Kraang's victims not only succeeds but the batch he creates can even turn mutagen into retro-mutagen. Donnie is in absolute disbelief when Mikey admits he has no idea how he did it.
  Donnie: Are you kidding me? You do one awesome thing, and you can't even remember how you did it?!
• In a Tom and Jerry cartoon, Tom tries to catch Jerry by casting a fishing line — with cheese as bait — into the mouse hole. He doesn't catch Jerry, but he does land an actual fish, to his utter surprise.
• During an episode of The Venture Bros., The Monarch's Henchmen wake from a wild night of partying to find they actually managed to capture Brock and the Venture family. Blind stinking drunk.
  24: Oh shit! I thought we dreamed that part!
• Xiaolin Showdown: An early episode has three of the four heroes trapped in an invisible box by an evil mime. Raimundo is able to make noise sliding the Mantis Flip Coin against the "invisible" bars, while it was previously established that the walls were solid, and there were no bars. They use this to escape when they realize the box acts like whatever they think it does.

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