Animated Actors / Western Animation

Examples of Animated Actors in Western Animation.

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Cartoon Network

• Cartoon Network used to play a meta version of this trope in their commercials, suggesting that all the toons actually worked in their offices.
• Sealab 2021 had four episodes of this type. The last one actually had a person asking "Are you supposed to be the actual characters, or the actors playing them?" to which the answer was "Absolutely."
• I Am Weasel: The director was the devilish antagonist.
• Sheep in the Big City did this constantly. They would often cut to the narrator as he commented on a particularly ridiculous aspect of the storyline. The series finale "Baa-hind the Scenes" revolved around General Specific attempting a Hostile Show Takeover behind the scenes, only to be forced to leave Sheep alone when the show's head writer threatens to replace him with a new character.
• The Total Drama series, although they're more Animated Reality Show contestants (other shows in the universe, including Celebrity Manhunt, suggest that it is an animated world where the contestants are in a regular reality show).
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: In "Let's Watch The Pilot", the main characters are depicted as being actors who provide commentary over the show's pilot short Lakewood Plaza Turbo and provide some behind-the-scenes gossip and drama.

Disney

• House of Mouse, its basic premise is "The cast of every film in the Disney Animated Canon goes to a night club run by Mickey Mouse and Co. to watch shorts starring... Mickey and Co." In one episode, Mickey thought his position as host was being threatened, which sent him into a panic because "Showbusiness was the only thing he could do."
  • In the pilot, Donald Duck is forced to stall for time on stage (including changing the name and trying to impress the audience) while Mickey, Goofy and Minnie go film a cartoon, on account of the one they intended to show getting lost (or stolen-an occasionally recurring element was the "Show Must Go On" clause in the lease, which says that landlord Pete, who wants to bulldoze the place to put up some other venture, can't do a thing as long as there's an audience and a show, so he tries varied and sundry plots to remove one or the other, including stealing all the cartoons).
  • The guests are also hinted at being Animated Actors. In one episode, Cruella de Vil says "One movie and you're labeled for life", and no villain acts as evil in the House as they do in their movies. They do silly things based on Flanderization, instead (i.e. Jafar is obsessed with lamps.) Though they do occasionally exhibit villainous behavior, such as in Mickey's House of Villains.
  • More generally, much like the Mario example detailed in the Video Game page, Mickey and the gang are implicitly treated as Animated Actors by Disney. For example, Mickey and Minnie are married "in real life", unlike the cartoons, where they're just dating unless a plot calls for it, and Mickey, Donald and Goofy will have different jobs as a cartoon requires them to, much like with The Three Stooges.
• The Proud Family: "The Legend of Johnny Lovely" ends with a blooper reel showing the animated characters as actors playing the parts. Penny even has a dressing room drawn for her on the spot.
• Walt Disney Presents: "The Goofy Success Story" is presented as a documentary about Goofy's career in cartoons.
• In this Kim Possible promo, Drakken flubs his lines, Shego mocks him pretty much the same way she does "in-character", and Kim tries to get everybody back on track.
• Many of the characters in Bonkers are actors who work in cartoons. The title character, a Toon bobcat, is a former actor turned law enforcement officer when his show was cancelled.
• Two episodes of Darkwing Duck are based on this. One episode has Darkwing driving to the studio to prevent a Corrupt Corporate Executive from retooling the show (using Green Thumb Anti-Villain Bushroot as the new hero) and another episode deals with Darkwing writing up a comic book of his exploits and trying to sell it to a studio (it's rejected, but then Darkwing decides to send it to Disney) Everyone in the first episode is clearly an actor, but the second episode still has everyone in character.

Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies

• Tex Avery likely codified this trope, as one of its first appearances was in the Red Hot Riding Hood short, where the actors complained that the story had been done to death by every animator in Hollywood.
• Looney Tunes:
  • A variant is the oft-copied short Duck Amuck, in which Daffy Duck has a running argument with a malevolent animator who repaints the scenery and Daffy himself to twist the reality of the story. Warner Brothers even did this again, to Bugs Bunny, in the short Rabbit Rampage. This was further repeated when the latter short was remade into a Super Nintendo game which gleefully referenced the original short plus several other Bugs Bunny cartoons, with the final boss being against Daffy Duck in some of his appearances (including Duck Dodgers, Robin Hood Daffy, and Drip-Along Daffy). And again when the original cartoon was remade into a Nintendo DS game. In a Twist Ending, the player abusing Daffy is Daffy himself.
  • The Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production episode "One Carroter in Search of an Artist" has this happen to Bugs again, but this time using a Microsoft Surface Studio-style computer and a stylus instead of paper and a paintbrush.
  • Other Looney Tunes cartoons played with the idea that the film was actually a stage show, allowing Bugs to turn and address the audience (who in some cases talked back, an effect that was lost on youngsters watching them on television), and treating the screen as nothing more than a backdrop on that notional stage. Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and several other Looney Tunes characters have either threatened to resign from or torn up their acting contracts during a cartoon if things begin to go badly for them. Taz has done this at least once in Taz-Mania.
  • The Scarlet Pumpernickel has Daffy Duck complaining to an unseen producer about being typecast in comedy and pitching his script for a swashbuckler starring himself.
  • Duck Dodgers: The opening credits treat Dodgers, the Cadet, and Commander X-2 as characters played by Daffy, Porky, and Marvin.
  • A Ham in a Role: Opens with a dog taking a Pie in the Face, and a "That's all, folks!" ending. The dog turns out to be an actor with ambitions to do Shakespeare. He quits in disgust and walks off the set.
  • Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension sees Daffy as an actor at the WB studio, jealous of Bugs getting a sci-fi movie role over him, being abducted by Marvin, and believes the whole thing is said movie's set.
  • What's Up, Doc? is supposedly Bugs's life story, and has him hired by the "famous vaudevillian" Elmer Fudd, and accidentally inventing the "Elmer points a gun at Bugs, Bugs reacts casually" routine when he goes off script.
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • The first episode begins with this trope, as the artist draws Buster, Babs and the rest of the Toons for the first time.
  • Another episode reverses the typical "big character is actually a guy in a suit" gag by having Sweetie, a tiny pink bird who is probably the smallest regular cast member, turn out to actually be Richard Nixon, who is three times bigger than the costume he's wearing. After zipping the costume back up, Nixon (in Sweetie's voice) complains that he's only getting paid scale.
  • Another episode comes back from commercial to find Babs, Buster and Hamton standing around the kraft services table comparing contracts before being called back to the set.
• "This is the End", the final episode of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, depicted Granny, Hector, Sylvester the Cat, and Tweety Bird as actors with the entire series being a show they starred in.
• Crops up occassionally in Taz-Mania. The most prolonged example occurs in "But Is It Taz?", where Taz gets fed up, rips up his contract and storms off the set. The Platypus Brothers spend some time auditioning replacements while Taz gets a job at the local Burger Fool.

Assorted series

• The Aardman stop-motion animated short Pib and Pog ends with the revelation that the two violent lead characters are merely actors playing roles.
• American Dad!:
  • The episode "Bullocks to Stan" featured the character Klaus commenting on scenes, explaining that he was pretending his life was a TV show and he was doing the commentary. This even happened in one scene that Klaus did not appear on, and explained that the extra playing a chef was the same man who had played somebody else in a previous scene, saying that the man who had been intended to play the chef ("Jimmy Ng") had died during filming. The credits for the episode played over an animated scene of the various "actors" from the show in a behind-the-scenes moment, hugging an unseen character, with the caption "Dedicated to the memory of Jimmy Ng".
  • "Widowmaker" had the action stop and pull out to reveal a set and a crowd of people gave Roger an award for American Dad's '1000th vagina joke'.
  • "Bar Mitzvah Hustle" had Stan getting fed up with the uninteresting B story he was in and walking off the set while complaining about the writing. While walking out, he passes by a giant Klaus standing in front of a greenscreen, implying that he's always being green-screened into being a normal-sized fish. Earlier in the same episode, Steve fell out of a window and had to say his line while in casts.
  • At the end of "She Swill Survive", we meet Stan and Hayley's actors Nicholas Vanderbilt and Kate Fagan, who inform the audience just how unrealistic the events of the episode were and that you shouldn't try this at home.
• The planned Grand Finale of The Angry Beavers, "Bye Bye Beavers", demolished the fourth wall by having the characters openly discuss their impending cancellation and complaining about how the network would continue to make money off them while they lost their jobs. Naturally, the network wouldn't allow this to air and production was halted before animation started. (There is, however, a recording of the voice work done for this episode floating around the internet.)
• Animaniacs is all about this trope, as is stated in the theme song ("We have pay-or-play contracts..."). The Warners and Slappy Squirrel will remind us of this in nearly every episode. The trope is invoked to the point that it's not always clear where "reality" ends and the show begins. (The premise would appear to be that the scenes at the Warner Studio lot are taking place in the "real world", while the "show" constitutes the skits; yet if Scratchnsniff, Ralph, etc. are also actors in the title sequence, that suggests even those scenes are scripted. What gives?)
• Frequently happens in the teasers on Arthur. Some examples:
  • The Cold Open of "Slink's Special Talent" has the Tough Customers recording the scene, including Binky predicting that "This show opener is going great, and by golly, people are going to love it! Or else."
  • "Sue Ellen and the Brainasaurous" has Arthur and Brain recording the Cold Open, while Arthur lets D.W. do it in "What's Cooking?"
  • In "Falafelosophy," D.W. rates Arthur's performance during the opening.
  D.W.: I'm giving you half a star for the opening of this show. One star is usually the lowest you can get, but I made an exception.
  Arthur: You're wrong! This opening was great, but the show will be even better. I promise.
  D.W.: Oh, just start it already. [clicks a remote control towards the camera, leading to the Episode Title Card]
  • "Invasion of the Soccer Fans" has Kate setting up the story to "the TV audience," being interrupted by Pal.
  • In the opening to "The Frensky Family Fiasco," Francine appears in place of Arthur during the theme song. She argues that someone else should get to do it since he always does.
  • Mei Lin is the host of the opening for "Mei Lin Takes a Stand," where she complains about the show's lack of baby-related episodes.
  • In "Adventures in Budylon", D.W. greets the "TV audience" with the things they should have before they watch the episode (snacks, a place to sit, etc.). She and Bud bring up that the viewer may be watching them on not only a TV, but a computer or a phone.
  • In "The Last of Mary Moo Cow," Arthur doesn't want to hear D.W. sing along to a Mary Moo Cow song.
  Arthur: What are you waiting for?! QUICK, GO TO THE TITLE CARD!
  • Fern and her mother are featured in the opening to "Fern's Slumber Party." Fern is advised to look into the camera, like when Arthur does it. She leaves by asking to go to the title card, "maybe that swimming one." Cut to the title card, featuring an animation of Arthur swimming with Pal and some fish.
• This was technically always the case in the Barbie movies, but was only made official with Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale.^note Which officially "retcons" the previous movies as having always existed in the Barbie universe, something that had always been implied. Until then, it had just part of the toyline's theme of Barbie having many careers, acting being one of them.
• The final episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold ends with the various characters from the show attending a wrap party as the props and stage dressings of the Batcave are carted off. The show concludes with Batman delivering a farewell to the audience promising that his fight for justice will continue.
• We discover in one episode of Beetlejuice that the cartoon is actually a (reality??) show on the Neitherworld Network, where Mr. Monitor works. After Mr. Monitor cancels BJ's show, BJ goes to work in the mailroom. He quickly takes the opportunity to steal some show ideas from a colleague and is rapidly promoted to Mr. Monitor's supervisor. He eventually gets demoted after running out of ideas, and ultimately gets his old "show" back. Subsequent episodes sometimes came back to this idea and featured BJ hosting shows on the Neitherworld Network like MonsterPiece Theatre.
• Clerks: The Animated Series played with this a lot in the opening sequences, for instance having characters answering fan mail (well, mostly hate mail) and attending a convention.
  • "Clerks is drawn before a live studio audience"
• The Cleveland Show shoots "Cleveland Live!", the first episode of the second season as if it were a real-life sitcom. The episode begins breaking down halfway through when Roberta gets drunk on the set because her role got cut from the episode, Cleveland falls off the set and hurts himself during a skit, Holts gets stage fright and at the end there are two Rallos, implying that like the Olsens on Full House they were Making Use of the Twin.
• Daria has done this on occasion; for example, the TV movie "Is It Fall Yet?" features fake outtakes at the end, including scenes like a character reading a script for the movie. The "Sarcastathon" marathon that aired before season five also includes introductory segments (included on the DVDs) where Daria and Jane know they're in a show and even quip about the segments' limited animation.
• Dave the Barbarian would occasionally conclude a show with several of the characters sitting off-set in a typical film studio to address the audience about some issue they may have had with the episode. Of course there was never any serious talk given.
  Dave: Some of you are wondering why I tied a squirrel to a megaphone. (Beat) Well, bye!
• In The Critic, Jay Sherman addresses the audience a few times. One episode he does this is "A Little Deb Will Do Ya", in which he tells the audience not to reveal said episode's twist to those who haven't seen it.
• The basic premise of Drawn Together - every character is an expy of a famous animated character, and they're all cooped up together in a "reality" show.
• Utilized in an episode of Eek! The Cat, wherein Eek discovers that the voice actor of his girlfriend is a large burly man, and that he himself is voiced by an old lady.
• Family Guy:
  • One episode had the musical number at the start of every show become completely messed up, with several of the cast suffering what should have been broken bones at the least, and one apparent death after Peter falls down the stairs. Stewie jumps up in front of the camera and tells the camera guy to stop rolling, cut to the show.
  • Another episode had Stewie make an obvious Cutaway Gag set up and when nothing happened he asked if they had a clip to show. Yet another had Brian and Stewie discussing whether a person would be able to understand Stewie fully, which generally only applies to one-off characters and those less connected with the main cast, and a off-screen voice told them they were still filming, and then they got back on with the scene.
  • The episode "Business Guy" had Peter briefly looking at the camera and realizing they were filming before giving the episode's first line.
  • At least one episode ends with the cast stepping to the front of what is suddenly revealed to be a studio set of their living room, joined by the other characters, and doing a spiel to the audience.
  • One episode showed what happens during a cutaway:
    Peter: Lois, I'm not goin' back to work tomorrow! That new boss has it in for me! He's meaner than a shifty salesman.
    [after Peter sets up this gag, Brian takes out a flask, Peter smokes a cigarette, Lois applies makeup, and Stewie, Chris and Meg start texting]
    Lois: You sure you got time to smoke?
    Peter: Oh, yeah, it's an Al Harrington, it goes on for a while.
  • One episode is dedicated entirely to the concept; it’s a “documentary” about a week on the set of the show, including a subplot where Peter leaves the show and is temporarily replaced by David Spade. Another features a fake DVD Commentary track, by the family themselves. By the end of the commentary the animated actors are joined by the voice actors that play those same characters.
• In the Father of the Pride universe, Donkey is a celebrity and the star of the Shrek films.

• Freakazoid!:
  • In the episode "Candle Jack", Freakazoid uncases himself from a rope he's been tied up with to get up and thank the director and his co-stars. There is a slight difference in that, for instance, he refers to the fact that Cosgrove is voiced by Ed Asner. At the end of the Grand Finale, Freakazoid again thanks the cast and crew, bringing them out for a curtain call and leading them in a stirring rendition of "We'll Meet Again".
  • In another episode a large number of bit characters who had not been seen in some time show up, demanding to know why. Freakazoid tells them that, due to financial problems, the network can't keep them all in any position above washing his Freak-Mobile.
• Garfield and Friends:
  • Once in "Flat Tired" Garfield is sleeping and the director tells him to wake up and start the cartoon. He says he's tired and the director picks Odie to replace him in the episode. Garfield watches the cartoon on tv as it happens and makes comments. When Odie gets in trouble the director asks Garfield if he's going to do anything. Garfield agrees to help, but insists he get guest star money
  • This occurs at the beginning of the U.S. Acres episode "Kiddie Korner", after Aloysius learns they are doing Dr Zhivago, and says they can't do it because U.S. Acres isn't Masterpiece Theatre.
  • Garfield's friend Floyd the mouse keeps insisting on more appearances on the show.
• Done multiple times in The Garfield Show. Including an episode that is forced to stop because Nermal didn't come back from Abu Dhabi after last episode, one where a new writer turns the show into a dramatic series, and one where Garfield fires the entire cast from the show and does an entire episode playing every single character by himself.
• Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater portrays Kitty and her friends in-character, but the actual plots feature them as theater actors playing out fairy tales (and on some occasions, feature films). This leads to such amusing sights as Tuxedo Sam the penguin wearing a blatantly obvious swan costume with its bill above his forehead.
• Occasionally done on Jimmy Two-Shoes. One short had Jimmy and Lucius host a blooper reel.
• Henry and June of KaBlam!.
• Part of the basic premise of Kappa Mikey, which is about actors on a TV series.
• King of the Hill:
  • One episode had Hank Hill end the episode by addressing the audience about the nudity of the preceding episode (a shot of Hank's bare ass). He claims as an actor he would only agree to a small amount of nudity if it was required for the story (but the FOX executives were pushing for a lot more). He then apologizes to anyone who was offended by his nude body.
  • One clip specially animated for a blooper show featured a "blooper" wherein Luanne's top accidentally falls off during "filming" of a scene. Everyone chuckles and Hank teases that Luanne "already got the job."
  • There was a storyline that played during promos between the end of the second season and the beginning of the third involving a network plan to move the series to Los Angeles (Mayor Guiliani pitched for New York). After it was resolved that the show would stay in Arlen, the season-ending cliffhanger was discussed (Hank promised that the death of a main character would happen over his dead body).
  • This sort of thing was surprisingly somewhat common, where one of the main characters would show up during the credits to talk about a certain subject, usually what the episode was centered around. For example, in "Keeping Up With the Jonses", a smoking related episode, Boomhauer talks about the dangers of smoking. "The Perils of Polling" likewise had Hank talking about the importance of voting.
• The Magic School Bus, when originally shown on PBS, included an ending segment where the show's "producer" (an animated character voiced by Malcolm-Jamal Warner) answered questions supposedly phoned in by kids who had just watched the episode. Some episodes even featured characters from the show picking up the phone themselves or complaining to the producer about how they had been portrayed. The kids calling in were usually just disembodied voices on the producer's speakerphone, but a caller did appear in one episode and was shown to be animated as well. This segment is usually cut in syndication.
  • On an interesting side-note, these segments usually consisted of the producer apologizing for the creative liberties taken with reality (such as explaining that, yes, the heat given off by the lava should've fried the kids by itself), but pointing out that, had they been completely realistic, there would be no story. It was, from an educational stand-point, a refreshing break from most cartoons.
    • The only true Animated Actor in these segments is Liz, Ms. Frizzle's class lizard, as opposed to the producer, which is only seen in these segments.
    • Phoebe also did the Q&A session once for the desert episode ("All Dried Up").
• Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol is presented as a stage play, beginning with Mr Magoo heading to the theater in time for the show and using shots of the audience watching the play as transitions between acts. This setup was also used in the 1964-65 series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, with Mr. Magoo portraying various characters from classic stories.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic hints at this a couple times in some out-of-show shorts. Particularly Twilight expressing relief at no longer being filmed 24/7 as she had been for the past nine years.
• A closing bumper on Quick Draw McGraw had Quick Draw on the set of his show auditioning new routines, with kleig lights and cameras in the background.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show episodes "Who's Stupid Now?" and "Stupid Sidekick Union" portray the duo as just actors.
• Scooby-Doo: The prime-time special Scooby Goes Hollywood has Scooby-Doo and Shaggy shooting a fictional episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! in which the two face "The Crabby Creature of Creepy Crag". After shooting a particularly dangerous stunt, Shaggy decides he's had enough of being the comedy relief in a Saturday-morning cartoon and convinces Scooby to join him in seeking out a more serious role.
• The Simpsons:
  • Subverted in "Mom and Pop Art" where Homer goes to an art gallery which is displaying Matt Groening's work. He says something like "Matt Groening! He doesn't belong in a museum! He can barely even draw!" Then a giant pencil eraser appears and seems to "erase" Homer. We then zoom out to see that the giant pencil is being carried by two museum workers and is part of the scene.
  • "Behind the Laughter" is a mock "behind-the-scenes" episode, featuring the supposed "actors" that portray the characters, with (for example) the actor playing Lisa complaining that they made her take anti-growth hormones to keep her as a child throughout the show's run. The On the Next-segment show that the next episode will be about Huckleberry Hound. He's gay.
  • Troy McClure is often an actor/host in several in-universe movies/shows/infomercials/educational filmstrips/etc, but in "The Simpsons' 138th Episode Spectacular", he hosts an out-of-universe look at the show "filmed" on the Simpsons' living room "set." In "The Simpsons Spinoff Showcase", he hosts a series of mock spinoff pilots, the last of which (a parody of the Brady Variety Hour) has the Simpson family as actors playing characters in a stage show (or in Lisa's case, refusing and being replaced with a completely different character and actor they pretend is still Lisa).
• Spongebob Squarepants hints at this on occasion in the show:
  • In "Missing Identity", Patrick keeps messing up his line (just saying hi to Spongebob), and at one point he says "I'll do it again, sorry people" to the camera.
  • In "Drive Thru", Squidward gets his ear damaged after Pearl's friends shout through a megaphone at the drive-through. He then looks at the camera and says "I'm not faking it, you know. That really hurt."
• Tear Along the Dotted Line has the beginning of episode four, where the characters get ready to film the scene and an assistant draws Zero's Big Ol' Eyebrows with a marker. The ending of the final episode also implies this, which sort of makes sense when you understand that the whole show is being filtered through Zero's perspective, and the characters are how he represents the real life people he knows.
• The unsuccessful Curbside pilot, an Animated Anthology consisting of revamped versions of Terrytoons cartoons with the framing device consisting of a talk show hosted by Heckle and Jeckle, had the main plot of Heckle and Jeckle molting and becoming decrepit because of a cursed scarecrow left on their doorstep. At the end of the episode, they remove their featherless bodies like costumes and invite the other Terrytoons characters to throw a party in celebration of filming their show's first episode. The cursed scarecrow also appears in its monster form as a guest.
• When Gene Deitch took the helm at the stodgy Terrytoons studio, one of his first cartoons had regular Dinky Duck quit in mid-cartoon, walk off the screen and out of the theater for the greener pastures of television work. By story's end he's had enough of it and returns to where he started.
• Happened a lot in The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat. For instance, in one episode Felix washes up on a beach and has an argument with a clam about whether or not he should get up and explore the island. The clam pulls a script out of its shell and declares that Felix has to explore the island, since it's in the script. Felix sighs and gets up to instigate the rest of the episode.
• VeggieTales uses this trope in just about every video/episode. There are the kitchen countertop scenes with Bob, Larry and maybe another character like Junior, and then they break away for the story. The same "Veggie Tales" characters will play multiple roles in all stories and silly songs. For example, Archibald Asparagus is voiced by Phil Vischer, but Archibald plays the part of Jonah in The Movie.

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