Ascended Fridge Horror / Western Animation

• In the backstory of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, there used to be hundreds of Gummis living in Gummi Glen, whose numbers have dwindled to seven. There's always been the subtle implication that Cubbi might end up alone someday, and this was addressed in the episode, where we meet another Gummi by the name of Chummi. Chummi was the youngest of his clan, and now the last, and it's outright stated that if something isn't done, all Cubbi has to look forward to is eventually being alone.
• Adventure Time:
  • The Ice King's Aesop Amnesia and rampant sociopathy led to the idea that he is physically incapable of learning his lesson or changing in any way, and that he will be forever doomed to repeat the same behavior no matter how many times it fails. Cue the reveal of his backstory, which among other things shows that this is exactly what happens.
  • The post-apocalyptic setting of the entire show sort of counts. Originally it was just sort of vaguely implied, but as the series progressed it gradually became more explicit until it became fully explicit, with Whole Episode Flashbacks and other front-and-center undeniable things dealing with it.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The series is built on the premise that about 1/10th of the population can telekinetically manipulate, or "bend", one of the four classical elements. It's also demonstrated several times that benders can affect things that are partially of their element (for example, waterbenders bending mud or plants, earthbenders bending metal, firebenders bending lightning). Well, the human body is 70% water, isn't it? So what would happen if a waterbender were to bend that? We find out in the original series episode "The Puppetmaster" that this is indeed a thing. Its inventor Hama calls it bloodbending, and uses it to create People Puppets, and the results are exactly as horrifying as fans had imagined.
  • The Legend of Korra has many of its major and minor plot points based on the Fridge Horror of what if the special talents exhibited by the main characters became widely used. Ty Lee's chi-blocking is the main combat form of anti-bender terrorists, two major villains can Bloodbend, and Amon plans to rid the world of benders via a combination of the two.
  • The anti-bender movement of Korra Season 1 in itself points out the downsides of being a normal guy in a world full of people who can tear steel and shoot lightning.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise confirmed several fan theories that ending a hundred-years war did not suddenly fix all problems created because of that war — in particular, colonized Earth Kingdom territories.
  • Season 3 of The Legend of Korra has new Airbenders popping up after Harmonic Convergence. Now, while the original Air Nomads were pacifistic, developing their bending into a primarily defensive art, Fridge Horror has long abounded among the fans since discovering Monk Gyatso's body and those of the soldiers who tried to kill him regarding what an airbender could do if the airbender had lethal intent, especially since there isn't much that can easily stop an airbender. These fears have now been realized, as the apparent Big Bad of the season is one of the new benders, and he is not holding back with his new powers. In the episode "Long Live the Queen", he even uses his powers to suffocate someone by bending the air out of their lungs. In the Season 3 finale, Jinora leads a small group of relatively untrained airbenders into making a tornado to help Korra defeat the Arc Villain. A small tornado, granted, but the fact they were able to create something like with minimal training really drives home how powerful and dangerous an airbender could be if they weren't pacifists.
• The Bojack Horseman episode "Chickens" actually addresses the issue of where meat comes from in a world where humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist. Certain species of animals are set aside to be bred as unintelligent livestock, and everyone accepts this as normal.
• The Fairly OddParents! has Foop, who, from the start of his introduction episode, has a There Can Only Be One mindset with regards to Poof. However, it has been hinted that fairies and their anti-fairy counterparts are connected and anti-fairies rely on their counterparts to exist, leaving many to wonder what would happen to Foop if he ever succeeded in eliminating Poof. The answer comes around in "Timmy's Secret Wish!" when Foop manages to get Timmy branded as the worst Godkid to exist and have all his wishes erased, including Poof. In the middle of celebrating his success, Jorgen tells Foop that as Poof's Anti-Fairy, his existence is erased as well. Following being restored, Foop went from seeking Poof's destruction to being The Rival, since he realized that killing Poof would kill himself.
• In Family Guy, Meg is quite a dark example of a Butt-Monkey, being horribly abused by her parents, yet it's always played for Black Comedy. The episode "Seahorse Seashell Party" deconstructs the abuse as a serious issue, turning her into The Woobie. Even Meg mentions that if people on the outside ever saw how Peter treats her, he would've been put in jail a long time ago. One would think Meg finally catches a break as her family breaks down in tears from the revelation, but Meg later realizes that the reason her family treats her like shit is because they need someone to expel all their negative energy into and without Meg for that, they would turn on each other. Meg decides to apologize for what she said and lets her family abuse her again for the sake of keeping everyone slightly sane. Ironically, the episode after that one involves Domestic Abuse, and it's definitely not played for laughs!
• Gravity Falls has Journal 3 to provide further and often darker details about several parts of the show:
  • It shows that Bill was planning to kill Dipper by throwing his body off the water tower when done with him after the events of "Sock Opera", and staging it as a suicide.
  • It also confirms fan theories that McGucket had multiple bad experiences working with Ford even before the portal incident.
  • Also revealed where all the bodies that became zombies in "Scary-oke" came from: the lumberjacks who drowned in the flood described in "Northwest Mansion Mystery".
  • One early entry confirms that some of the anomalies in the series have actually killed people.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law likes to play around with some of the implications of various Hanna-Barbera cartoons:
  • The one most following this trope is that The Jetsons really do live above a post-apocalyptic wasteland (as well as that commuting everywhere on moving sidewalks instead of walking means that even moving across a room under their own power is a monumental feat).
  • Furry Confusion in Hanna-Barbera cartoons (and in the show itself) is somewhat addressed in an episode in which Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy appear. It turns out that sentient anthropomorphic dogs have no more rights than regular ones; Doggie Daddy is arrested for not having a license, sentenced to obedience training, neutered (try not to think of the many people in Real Life who have been sterilized against their will), and winds up so brainwashed from his ordeal that he is basically lobotomized... all Played for Laughs, of course.
• The Lion Guard: In the original film, Mufasa speaks about how the kings of the past lived on in the stars, which is confirmed by his later appearance in the sky, and how in the sequel, he still speaks to Rafiki through the winds. Kovu also wonders if Scar is in the stars as well. While Kovu's question is a tragic display of the brainwashing Zira had put him through since childhood, he still has a valid question. As the cobra Ushari realizes early into Season 2, if Kion and Rafiki can speak to the lions of the past, surely there's a way to speak to Scar. "The Rise of Scar" ends with Ushari and Janja's hyenas successfully raising Scar from the dead as a fiery spirit from the franchise's equivalent of hell, and Scar becomes the main antagonist of the season.
• Monsters at Work: Many fans have pointed out over the years that Monsters Inc. switching from Scream to Laugh Energy would be a very messy transition for the Scarers. They would either have to adjust to the new system, abandoning the skills they've spent most of their lives developing, or be put out of work.^note Compounded by the prequel Monsters University, which shows just how hard they worked to get there. Tylor's role in the series revolves around this fear, as he arrives at Monsters Inc. fresh off graduating at the top of his scaring class, only to learn that they don't need Scarers anymore.
• Moral Orel begins as Black Comedy Satire of fundamentalist Christianity/Leave It to Beaver-type innocence with the basic formula of Orel taking flawed advice from his authority figures and turning them on their heads, causing much more problems than intended — that is, until the episode "Nature", which completely turns the show from a dark comedy to essentially a drama. Now, all the characters who had previously been seen as caricatures of fundamentalist types are shown to have several mental scars and dark psyches which make them more three-dimensional than they were shown in their debuts. A perfect example is Orel's father, who was introduced as a parody of a Standard '50s Father, but is eventually shown to be an alcoholic, abusive, narcissistic and unapologetic Depraved Bisexual who resents his family. If anything, the show still displays the dangers of hypocrisy in faith, just no longer through the lens of comedy, and shows the more dark, seedy, and unfortunately realistic side effects of it.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • The episode "Secret of My Excess" applies Ascended Fridge Horror to the implications of a dragon living in a pony community, even though most other episodes before it stepped around it. Later, though the issue isn't explicitly dwelt on for very long, "Dragon Quest" addresses the fact that Spike is an orphaned child and neither he nor Twilight knows where his egg came from or who/where his real parents even are.
  • It's been suggested by some that Fluttershy's Shrinking Violet characteristics are at least partially the result of childhood trauma. "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" establishes that she was bullied, but Rainbow Dash seemed to get it about as badly as her (at the hooves of the same bullies, no less), and look how she turned out. But then "Hurricane Fluttershy" shows us just how pervasive the problem really was, and how it affected her to the point that its resurgence is enough to provoke emotional flashbacks well into her adulthood. This is to say nothing of how crappy a lot of the townsfolk treat her in Putting Your Hoof Down, preying on her quiet tendencies to push her around and take advantage of her, implying that unlike Rainbow Dash who would fight back Fluttershy is still regularly bullied.
  • "Keep Calm and Flutter On" confirms the popular theory that Discord was still aware of everything while in his stone prison, although it doesn't seem to have do much other than mildly annoy him.
  • "Princess Twilight Sparkle" revolves around how Discord, a massively vindictive Reality Warping Manipulative Bastard, left a few nasty surprises around for his captors even after he was defeated the first time, an idea that fanfiction writers used constantly ever since his debut.
  • Despite the show itself glossing over it, fans quite reasonably speculated that Celestia being forced to banish her sister to the moon for a thousand years, to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, would have been devastating to her. Cue Twilight's vision of the past in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", which shows Celestia desperately pleading with Luna to stop, tried to stop her by herself, only using the Elements of Harmony when it was clear Nightmare Moon was too powerful, and when she makes that decision, she starts crying.
  • When "It's About Time" introduced the realm of Tartarus, where various monsters and villains were sealed away, many people feared that someone may have been able to escape it while Cerberus was away from his post in that episode. In Season 4's finale, it turned out Tirek had.
    • The same episode also addresses the fan-theory that Discord may not have been completely sincere in his turn to good.
  • Princess Celestia largely serves as the Big Good of the series, often treated as a Physical God with power over the Sun itself. As such, fans became confused at how quickly and easily she was defeated in several episodes, ranging from the pilot to "A Canterlot Wedding," when Queen Chrysalis overcomes her in a Beam-O-War. The most commonly accepted explanation was that Celestia is terrified of her own power and deliberately holds herself back to keep from hurting others. This became canon in "A Royal Problem", when it's revealed that Celestia has a Superpowered Evil Side called "Daybreaker" whom she constantly has to ward off in her own head. She struggles endlessly with the temptation to tap into her full potential and become an untouchable, unconquerable warlord, and thus puts on a brave face to her subjects (to the point of being a Stepford Smiler) while deliberately only using a fraction of her powers.
    • The same episode also explores another common fan-fic theme: namely, that despite Celestia and Luna making up at the end of the pilot, there might still be some resentment between them. While it's clear that Luna has forgiven Celestia and views her exile as a necessary evil, "A Royal Problem" shows that, like any siblings, the two engage in petty squabbles and struggle to communicate with each other, especially after a thousand years apart. They're even remarkably passive-aggressive to one another and come across as grouchy teenagers rather than godlike rulers.
  • The 2017 feature film confirmed lots of the fandom's speculation:
    • Many speculated that the rest of the world wasn't as peaceful or idealistic as Equestria. Turns out there are nation-conquering warlords with the might to subjugate Equestria, and Wretched Hives where sapient trafficking (slavery and body parts) are the rule of law.
    • Tempest Shadow confirms fanon that losing their horn would rob a unicorn of their magic/make it dangerously uncontrollable, nor would it grow back or get better. Her Freudian Excuse also confirms the detrimental social effect it could have on them.
    • Spike being able to breathe fire is used offensively for the first time in Generation 4, and it's just as effective as a Breath Weapon as any other form of fire.
    • The first season of the series often featured dangerous creatures from the Everfree Forest, which is located right next to Ponyville. Fan speculated on how dangerous of a place Equestria is to live in, especially in locations where the Mane Six aren't around to save the day. Sure enough, the movie depicts via flashback an Ursa Minor attacking a unicorn filly and breaking off her horn.
• Many Scooby-Doo fans have pointed out the disturbing implications of the show's premise — specifically, that it's a rather odd coincidence that the Scooby-Doo universe is filled with adults who all decide to dress up like monsters to pull off weirdly complex criminal schemes for their own unrelated reasons.^note Cracked somewhat famously theorized that the series took place in the aftermath of a disastrous economic collapse, explaining why none of the crooks ever use their considerable talents to get real jobs. Well, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated finally explained it. It turns out that it isn't a coincidence, and the crimes aren't unrelated: there's an imprisoned Eldritch Abomination under the kids' hometown that's been exerting its psychic influence over people for centuries, inspiring them to take the form of monsters and commit evil acts. Also, at least some of them base their appearances on real monsters that inhabit an alternate dimension that can be glimpsed through dreams.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) does this with the concept of Robotnik turning innocent creatures into evil robots. The prior video games did not explore the process of roboticization in much depth, other than implying that the animals inside robots worked like organic batteries while Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog sidesteps the issue by having Robotnik build the robots from scratch. SatAM, on the other hand, thoroughly explores the Body Horror and loss of identity implicit in the robotic transformations; Uncle Chuck states that roboticized people actually know what they are doing, but cannot do anything about it. Granted, Bunnie eventually gets her original organs back in the comics, but the process must have been painfully gruesome. In Sonic Underground, Sonia's friend Rafi has the entire lower half of his body roboticized. He claims that they "did him a favor"; take from that what you will.
• In the early seasons of South Park, Kenny dies in every episode, and no one ever comments (beyond a few jokes here and there) about him simply showing up in the next episode completely fine. Some fans began to wonder if Kenny himself could remember all of those deaths and theorized about how he came back so easily. Sure enough, the "Coon and Friends" saga reveals that Kenny is the literal spawn of Cthulhu, and with every death (which he feels and remembers in agonizing detail), his mother becomes pregnant with and gives birth to him as a baby who wakes up fully-grown the next morning. To make matters worse, Cthulhu's curse means that people can't remember the deaths — only Kenny (and possibly his parents) do, meaning that he has to watch his friends treat him like nothing's wrong despite his constant brutal fates (itself a bit of a Retcon, since they sometimes remember about his deaths, as mentioned earlier). As such, it's made him a Death Seeker to the extreme. When Kyle (thinking Kenny was just playing superhero) comments that immortality sounded "pretty cool", Kenny quickly corrects him:
  Kenny: PRETTY COOL? Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed? To be shot? Decapitated? Torn apart? Burned? Run over? It's not "pretty cool," Kyle; it fucking HURTS! And it won't go away, and NO ONE WILL BELIEVE ME! [taking out a gun] Remember this time! Try and FUCKING REMEMBER! [shoots himself]
• The Venture Bros. explores the dark idea of how messed up a boy adventurer would grow up to be and verbally expresses it through Rusty's despair of the gloomy future that awaits his boys only because they were born with the Venture name. In this, the series as a whole can be considered Ascended Fridge Horror following on from Jonny Quest, since the format and characters were originally conceived as loose parodies of that show. Rusty is of course the grown-up Jonny. However, later on, the producers discovered that they didn't have to rely on parody, since the rights to Jonny Quest were owned by Cartoon Network — so in the second season, they re-ascended the fridge horror far more directly by introducing Jonny Quest himself as the recurring character of "Action Jonny". Jonny's characterization is dominated by two features: substance abuse, and deep mental scarring from his father — basically, the same traits Rusty has, but dialed up so high that Rusty looks normal by comparison.

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