Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny / Western Animation

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Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! in Western Animation.

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• Jake from Adventure Time. It's especially evident in "Power Animal" when Finn has gone missing and Jake, though genuinely worried about him and determined to track him down, keeps getting distracted by random fun things going on along the way.
  Jake: Take my sandwich, BMO! I'm gonna go find Fi—(gasp) A dancing bug!
• In the Angry Birds Toons episode, "Chuck Time", Chuck gets sidetracked by a butterfly when he's supposed to save Red from falling off a cliff.
• In Arthur, Buster isn't usually this way, but:
  Buster: We're patient, attentive, and — Ooh! Look at the monkey!
  • George is diagnosed with Dyslexia, but the episode in question sees George get caught up in his imagination several times. It's even entitled "The Boy with his Head in the Clouds."
• Beware the Batman villain Magpie is a kleptomaniac who steals pretty shiny things without concern for whether or not they're valuable. This is not Played for Laughs; instead, it underscores her downright terrifying insanity.
• Bob's Burgers: Gene Belcher is notorious for being easily distracted, to the point where "Best Burger" reveals that his family members refer to goofing up due to losing focus as "Gene-ing out".
• Bojack Horseman: Mr. Peanutbutter, being a dog, gets easily distracted, especially whenever he spots his friend Erica.
• Clone High:
  • Gandhi:
    Gandhi: Did you hear? Did you hear? Don't tell Paul Revere. Gandhi is contagious. Totally outrageous. A disease with initials. That's the worst kind. ADD. Has warped. His mind.
  • And Special Guest Tom Green:
    Tom Green: Hi, I'm Ottawa's Tom Green. I live in Hollywood, thank you. So some of you may have been mean to a kid with ADD. That's not cool. Coffee? Anyone for -- coffee anyone? All right, sorry. I like cotton candy. Check out my muscle. Potato chips. It's a Ferris wheel! So I guess what I'm trying to say is — [a plastic grocery bag blows by] Plastic bag! Plastic bag! Plastic bag! Plastic bag! Plastic bag! Plastic bag!
• Chowder of Chowder, although in his case, food is usually involved.
• On Clifford's Puppy Days, it is typically possible for one of the puppies to end a conversation they don't want to have by simply asking "Are we going to talk about X all day, or are we going to play?", which prompts an excited response of "Play, play, play!" At least for a little while.
• Webwolf, Darkwing Duck's ancestor from the episode "Inherit the Whimp" is a barbarian warrior who is easily distracted by round things, every time he spots one he stops what he's doing and says "Ooh a roundy, roundy, roundski!" and goes off to play with it.
• Detentionaire: The skater clique, much to Lee's frustration.
  Lee: Yeah, sort of in the middle of something here! It happened two seconds ago... you probably forgot.
• The Dragon Prince: In the very first episode, Claudia enters in her very first scene absorbed in a book and almost bumping into a tree. Technically, this was a sign of hyperfocus and is a giveaway for ADD. Next to that she has impulsive and chaotic responses, including "ooh shiny" moments for an elf's braid. She is quirky and often misses social cues, which is a symptom as the disorder causes distractions (to ones own thoughts or anything else) in the middle of conversations.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • In "Tiny Timmy", Timmy's short attention span keeps him from focusing on his school report on the human body. When he talks to Princess Protozoa, he gives her this line:
    Timmy: Well, I'm Timmy Turner. I'm ten years old and I have a short attention span. Also... (pauses for a moment, then walks off)
  • Cosmo lampshades his own attention problems in "Apartnership":
    Cosmo: I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. I have the attention span of a rodent!
  • In "Inspection Detection", Timmy is accused of being a shoplifter on the day of his fairy godparents' inspection, and as he sets out to clear his name, Cosmo poses as a security camera. Wanda asks him to keep an eye on Timmy, but he gets distracted by a sale on lard. However, this turns out to be a good thing, as he films Francis stealing a tub of lard, and Timmy shows Cosmo's security tape to everyone to prove to them that Francis is the real shoplifter.
  • In "Genie Meanie Minie Mo", when Cosmo and Wanda couldn't grant Timmy's wish for a cheese and ham omelet because it was 10:31 AM and it was against Da Rules to grant breakfast wishes after 10:30 AM, Timmy said nothing would take his mind off it until... he noticed a garage sale. Though to be fair, he did still remember his desire for an omelet and checking out that garage sale did coincidentally lead to him getting one.
• Family Guy:
  • Cleveland Jr., before his departure to The Cleveland Show, was a very hyperactive boy who often found lost interest in something he was good at then turned to something else. In the only episode where he had a major appearance, he becomes a very talented golfer but by the end of the episode, he loses interest and starts kicking the golf ball around like a soccer ball.
  • Peter is no different either in later seasons. Chris even lampshaded one episode after Peter's stint as a pirate in which he quickly loses interest after losing his parrot and found a piano. Most of Peter's antics is due to his "It Amused Me" attitude. If something is not amusing him, he will quickly find something else that will, which makes his focus waver all over. Peter also has a nasty habit going completely off topic when he speaks to someone without missing a beat at all. Brian lampshades this when he asks Peter if he is asking for his help or if he is going to ask another pointless question again.
  • One episode has Peter display an extreme case of being easily distracted. When Peter screws up the timeline in the past by going with Cleveland to a club instead of going out with Lois, it causes him to be married to another woman in the present instead of Lois. Death gives Peter another chance to fix his screw-ups, but Peter winds up screwing up several times (pissing off Lois and then going to the club with Cleveland every time Death gives Peter another shot). Death finally gets pissed off at Peter and tells him he is on his own. Of course, Peter manages to fix everything in the last minute.
  • James Woods, whose animated likeness served as a murderous antagonist for the Griffin family, would often contemplate his revenge against the Griffin family before being distracted by a trail of Reeses Pieces ("Ooh, a piece of candy!" "Ooh, a piece of candy!" "Ooh, a piece of candy!" ... ), before falling victim to a trap box, where he would be restrained until his ultimate arrest — or as the show made it out, to await examination by scientists.
• Reed from Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes is this from the very first episode, "Doomsday".
  Reed: These creatures come from an alternate dimension... A Negative Zone, if you will. It's actually really amazing that—
  Susan: Reed! Big alien monster about to eat us?
  Reed: Oh. Sorry.
• Fish Hooks:
  • Clamantha; her band is even named "Clamantha and the Shiny Objects".
  • Milo is shown to have this in "Fail Fish".
• Freakazoid! frequently dropped whatever he was doing to go on some mundane activity with Cosgrove.
  Freakazoid: Nothing will stand in my way!
  Cosgrove: Hey, Freakazoid, wanna go out for a mint?
  Freakazoid: Okay.
• Glitch Techs: Miko tends to be very hyper and not able to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes. In the third episode, she discusses it with her parents, without ever quite mentioning "ADHD".
• Gravity Falls:
  • Soos veers into this at times. For example, Soos was distracted by a laser pointer in "Double Dipper".
    Soos: I am so glad I turned my head. That dot did not disappoint.
  • Also Mabel; there's this moment from "The Time Traveler's Pig":
    Mabel: Don't worry, brother. Whatever happens, I'll be right here, supporting you every step of the OH MY GOSH, A PIG!!!
• Hip-Hip and Hurra:
  • Hurra on occasion.
  • One episode features a Magpie. As you can imagine, this is her main character flaw...
  • The Coco bird acts this way whenever she sees an occasion to drop other birds her egg.
• Gir from Invader Zim. Where do we even start?

• Kaeloo:
  • Stumpy has a very short attention span and is easily distracted.
  • In one episode Mr. Cat is magically de-aged into a little kitten and frequently gets distracted by things like butterflies in the middle of serious monologues.
  • Stumpy's sister Violasse is prone to getting distracted because of her curious nature. This is best exemplified in one episode where she falls through an interdimensional portal and Stumpy follows her to get her back, only for Violasse to enter a new portal each time Stumpy is close to reaching her (despite Stumpy instructing her to stay right where she is) because she wants to see what's on the other side.
• Mikey from Kappa Mikey has a really short attention span, which even he himself has lampshaded.
• Kim Possible's boyfriend is the poster child of this trope. Lampshaded, of all places, in the episode where Ron is tested whether or not he is actually the hero.
• On King of the Hill, Bobby Hill is mistakenly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed drugs to combat it. The effects on his behavior are fairly realistic, causing him (among other things) to count the ridges on checkers instead of playing the game and claim to pinpoint by smell the exact moment when a carton of milk in a closed refrigerator has spoiled. (In reality, Bobby had been on a sugar high caused by eating overly sweetened cereal that morning.)
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012) has Minka Mark, the excitable female monkey who fits this trope to a tee.
• The Looney Tunes Show:
  • Daffy Duck has a severe case of this. One such example is when he realizes that Bugs' new dog is a dangerous Tasmanian devil... then he gets distracted by an ad for guitar lessons. Later he tries to warn him again but stops to buy a hooded sweatshirt.
  • Also Lola's new version in the show, to the point she starts rambling in the middle of a short answer about random things and, most of the time, about Bugs.
• Metalocalypse: The members of Dethklok are constantly fiddling with items such as laser pointers and cell phones, even while Ofdensen is trying to convey important matters to them
  Ofdensen: You have a very short attention span!
  Nathan: No, we're not!
• Molly of Denali: In "Lights, Camera, Patak," when attempting to film a video, Mr. Patak is showing viewers how to select wood for a walking stick, but gets distracted by a red-tailed hawk.
• The animals on My Gym Partner's a Monkey go into a hypnotic trance if presented with a shiny object. For that reason, they're banned from school grounds. Jake uses a faceted glass doorknob from Adam's house to put the entire school under his power. They spend the whole day talking about "monkey butt". Pretty pretty, shiny shiny...
• In episode 7 of the second season of Miraculous Ladybug, Gigantitan, the Villain of the week gets very easily distracted by anything that looks like a lollipop. Justified, since he is a baby who accidentally got akumatized after throwing a tantrum over some lollipop.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Pinkie Pie from is sometimes prone to this. She interrupted her friends' Shut Up, Hannibal! moment against The Spirit of Chaos for one last swig of chocolate milk rain.
  • The Pinkie Pie clones created in the episode "Too Many Pinkie Pies" are an exaggeration of this. So much so that the ultimate test to determine the real Pinkie is A Good, Old-Fashioned Paint Watching, which only the real Pinkie is determined enough to pass.
• Ninjago: Sensei Wu:
  Sensei Wu: Iron sharpens iron, perhaps— [licks cotton candy] —this Samurai will encourage you to find your true potentia... *GASP* FERRIS WHEEL! [runs towards Ferris wheel]
• Several different characters display this in The Owl House, most prominently Hooty and Alador. Ironically, Luz (the one character in the show who actually has ADHD) doesn't display this characteristic, as while she does clearly struggle focusing on things that don't interest her, it's never to an exaggerated degree.
• In Peter Rabbit, the kitten Mittens is "always alert and always on guard."
  Mittens: Ooh, a feather! (bats feather) Mew, mew, mew, mew! (falls asleep)
• Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz of Phineas and Ferb has a bad case of this. He'll be explaining his latest evil scheme, then digress midway-through to ramble about how a particular word sounds weird to him, or pause mid-defeat to exclaim over a band.
  Doofenshmirtz: (strapped to a giant rocket) CURSE YOU, PERRY THE PLAT—Wait, is that Love Handel?
• Pinky in Pinky and the Brain has a severely limited attention span, which is made even worse by the fact that he barely understands Brain's monologues about world domination anyway. It's lampshaded several times.
  • There's also Precious the evil cat when she announces her plans for world domination she'll get distracted by round shiny things or feel the urge to run around the house for no particular reason.
• In The Problem Solverz, it doesn't take much to distract Alfe. "Did somebody say ninjas?!"
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: Kaz, all the way. Most of the runtime of the episode she appears in consists of the Jazzberries attempting to find a way to hold her attention long enough to teach her how to read music.
• The kindergarteners from Recess. Justified - they are all five years old.
• Scooby-Doo
  • Downplayed with Scrappy for the most part in Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, but-Did somebody say monster?! Lemme at it!
  • Fred from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated not only obsesses over traps, anything remotely shiny derails his train of thought.
• Entrapta from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has this, particularly in regards to anything technological.
  • Scorpia has a bit of this too. In the middle of realising Seahawk is with La Résistance, she gets distracted by the prospect of seeing a duck and looks away from him.
• The Sheep in the Big City episode "Beauty and the Bleats" has Sheep encounter a genie who gives him three wishes. After using them up and being trapped in a humanoid form, Sheep gets his chance to trick the genie into giving him three more wishes when he discovers that the genie is distracted by luminous objects and uses a giant torch to lure him into being trapped inside a lamp again before freeing him from the lamp once more so that he'll have to grant him three wishes again.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Brother's Little Helper", Bart, after pulling a few too many pranks in one day, was diagnosed with ADD and put on "Focusyn". The episode was more focused on the side-effects of the drug, which wound up making him insane and paranoid. Although... he turned out to be right about major league baseball spying on people with satellites. In fact, his reaction to the medication is Truth in Television. ADHD medications like Ritalin and Adderall have increased anxiety as one of the nastier side effects. Psychiatrists sometimes prescribe anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds with the stimulants to balance that out and symptoms of depression are official contraindications against usage of the drugs.
  • There's another one, in which he's committed to writing a school essay:
    Bart: Gotta focus, gotta focus, gotta look at that bird...
  • Even in the early episodes before the characters became very exaggerated Bart showed signs of having concentration issues. In "Bart Gets an F", a season 2 episode, he promises to do better on the next history test, as the teachers were saying he might have to repeat his grade, and when he really sits down at his desk (which he put in the basement so he would not get distracted by the fun snow day everyone else was having), he finds he cannot remember anything and cannot concentrate. Even after studying hard he still fails the test, and only scrapes a D by remembering a bit of information that was historical and a fact but was not really relevant.
  • Homer also shows signs of this one. For example, this exchange in "The Joy of Sect" between him and a recruiter for the Movementarian cult:
    Homer: Wait, I'm confused. So the cops knew that internal affairs were setting them up?
    Recruiter: What are you talking about? There was nothing like that in the movie...
    Homer: I know, you see when I get bored I make up my own movie, I have a very short attention span... look a bird!
    [runs outside and chases it]
  • In "Fear of Flying", upon discovering a man identical to himself lying knocked out in front of Moe's:
    Homer: [gasp] Oh, my god, this man is my exact double! [GASP] That dog has a puffy tail! [chases dog] Here puff, here puff! [giggles]
  • In "Homer Goes to College", he left the classroom to chase a dog, running merrily around a tree.
  • When Marge wrote a novel and Homer promised to read it:
    Homer: No, gotta read Marge's book. Can't get distracted. Distracted, that's a funny word. Does anyone ever get "tracted"? I'm gonna call the suicide hotline and ask them.
  • More a case of I Resemble That Remark! but it qualifies for this as well:
    Homer: ...and I'm not easily impressed! WOW, a blue car!
  • Played for Drama in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" where Homer taunts girls at a racetrack into firing their T-shirt cannons at him. They do, but Homer gets distracted when he sees a bobby pin on the ground. He bends down to pick it up, and the T-shirts hit Maude as she returns to her seat with food for her family. Maude is knocked over the grandstand and falls to her death.
• The South Park episode "Timmy 2000" has the entire elementary school diagnosed with ADHD, and every single kid in town was prescribed Ritalin; the teachers then complained that the school was now calm to the point of dullness (and how did they illustrate this dullness? Everyone suddenly had a yearning to go and see Phil Collins in concert), and everyone was prescribed a Ritalin antidote, Ritalout.
• Superman: The Animated Series:
  • Lobo just might have this problem, if this line when he shoots up a police station to draw Supes is any indication...
    Lobo: Man, this is getting lame, I thought he'd be here by now... WHOA!! MOSQUITO!!! (opens fire on bug)
  • Lois Lane gives her dockside informant Bibbo Bibbowski some coins with instructions to call the Daily Planet if she doesn't return from her investigation of a suspicious ship. He gets distracted and buys himself a soda instead. Fortunately, Superman shows up anyway.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) portrays Michelangelo as easily distracted. Best exemplified in this quote from "The Pulverizer".
  Michelangelo: You guys always underestimate me— Ooh, gum!
• The Tick, of course. In a Journey to the Center of the Mind episode, his own brain explains "I'm easily distracted by shiny objects." Later on, Tick sees something shiny in the distance and runs off to check it out.
• Rusty Venture from The Venture Bros. demonstrates a serious case of this in "Escape To The House Of Mummies Part II", getting distracted from trying to rescue his sons and bodyguard to having a Magic Versus Science shrinking contest with Dr Orpheus, getting distracted from that to filling out a celebrity crush questionnaire with White and Billy, and then they all go eat rice pudding (while Rusty wonders if he forgot something). It shows up in other episodes too. Maybe his early-seasons amphetamine habit was a form of self-medication.
  • Rusty's son Hank sure seems to have inherited whatever it is, but a lot more of a goofy "lookit the shiny" version. In one episode, while asking his twin brother Dean if his Mr. Imagination tendencies might point to something more serious being wrong with him, Dean tells him he probably just has an overactive mind... but Hank has already gotten distracted.
    Hank: Hey, is that the museum where everything comes to life at night?
    Dean: Definitely have ADD, though.
  • Pete White has a repeated tendency to get distracted by shiny objects belonging to his and Billy's Arch-Enemy St Cloud, which usually gets on Billy's nerves. Billy isn't totally above the shiny object fascination, though, getting swatted by White in one episode for trying to grab an OSI agent's shiny, shiny gun.
• The Mask:
  • The Mask declares that he is going to save the day and stop the villains but first he's going to goof around or get distracted by trivial things which does tend to let the villains get away but he does get himself back on track to stop them eventually.
  • Masked Milo gets distracted by other things as well but does get himself back on track as well.
  • Eve also suffers from this as she tends to focus more on kissing Stanley while there's something happening but she does get herself back on track.
• In Episode 11 of Wild Kratts, Martin is in a bass suit and sees a fish lure, causing him to say "Shiny... Flashy... YUMMY!" as he then darts at the lure, trying to eat it.
• Violet from WordGirl is easily distracted by anything remotely cute or pretty. Puppies, butterflies, paintings, cats...

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