Big Damn Movie / Western Animation

---

Big Damn Movie in Western Animation.

---

A-M

• Adventure Time planned but averted in the development of the TV episode "Something Big". As its title suggests, the episode was based around an attempt by a villain, which had been previously foreshadowed, to completely destroy the Candy Kingdom in some of the biggest and most serious battle scenes ever attempted in the show, which was originally intended as part of the plot for a 45 minute special. However, when the planned TV movie didn't work out, the opening of it was reused for a TV episode, to avoid leaving the plot threads hanging. Other plot elements from the cancelled TV movie were also used in the latter half of season 5, and season 6 (particularly in the episode "Orgalorg").
• The '80s Alvin and the Chipmunks has The Chipmunk Adventure. The Chipmunks and Chipettes compete in a Around the World in Eighty Days-style race, only to stumble into a diamond smuggling scheme.
• The Amazing World of Gumball is set to have one tentatively called The Amazing World of Gumball The Movie! Normal show? The satirical and wacky misadventures of a 12 year old cat and his best friend goldfish as they explore their messed up world. The Movie? One of the show's biggest fans discovers the lost final episode to the series and upon watching it accidentally opens a gateway to Elmore. Gumball Darwin Anais Nicole and Richard must team up with the fan to prevent The Void from erasing Elmore while unintentionally unleashing another threat that seeks to end all of existence.
• Animaniacs has Wakko's Wish. The movie itself isn't as "epic" as most Big Damn Movies, but it definitely qualifies for this trope by the standards of Animaniacs. It's a sort of Elseworlds set in an indefinite vaguely European time period, where the Warners are poor young orphans in a small village called Acme Falls; it's the only time all the show's normally segregated segments come together. Wakko accidentally wishes on the one star in the sky that grants wishes and it falls to Earth, leading to a massive race between the characters to reach the Wishing Star first.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters has the main characters trying to save their city from an evil exercise machine. They fail get sidetracked.
• Double subverted in Beavis And Butthead Do America. It starts off with a Godzilla-esque giant monster fight between the boys that turns out to be All Just a Dream. The two then set out to try and find their stolen TV... and end up getting massively sidetracked into a plot involving a biological weapon that takes them all over America.
• Ben 10: While the series is all about the Tennyson's adventures on Earth, Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix is all on a galactic scale. Much like the Transformers example, saving the galaxy became a regular thing as well.
• The aptly-named Clifford the Big Red Dog movie Clifford's Really Big Movie. Set within the continuity of the PBS Kids TV show, the movie involves Clifford, T-Bone, and Cleo running away to join a traveling animal act after Clifford feels unappreciated by Emily Elizabeth and her parents. Things get serious when Clifford ends up being tricked into being signed into the ownership of a Corrupt Corporate Executive, leading the animals, as well as Emily Elizabeth, to set out to rescue Clifford and bring him back home.
• Dexter's Laboratory had "Ego Trip", where Dexter attempts to save the world from a Bad Future where Mandark takes over, teaming up with his various future selves along the way. The absence of Dee Dee for most of the plot and Mandark taking a level in evil (including traumatizing Dexter through whipping and mentally abusing him) adds a darker tone to the movie than the series. It was also originally intended to be the Grand Finale.
• Downplayed by DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Uncle Scrooge and the kids find a magic lamp with a genie in it, but that's barely impressive by the already outlandish standards of the TV show — which, in addition to its famous "racecars, lasers, [and] aeroplanes", also treated viewers to battles with powerful witches and such. In fact, the show itself already had an episode revolving around a magic lamp and his genie. The movie did, however, feature a quest to save the Money Bin from a villain who stole it using the genie's powers.
• Downplayed in Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show: The trio don't become heroes, but it played like a standard episode on a grand scale—in a relative sense, as the show basically never left the usual neighborhood or expanded past its Minimalist Cast. Again, one of the Eds' scams fails miserably. We never learn what the scam was, but we see that it injured the other kids greatly. This leads to the Eds having to escape the cul-de-sac via a car chase. Eventually, every character in the series is trekking the countryside, all with the destination of Eddy's Brother's house. And the fact that we actually see his brother, who has been The Ghost all this time, makes the movie even bigger. This is lampshaded with a "In Case of Movie, Break Glass" case, containing a single peanut with a car key inside.
• Most of the The Fairly Oddparents movies, in particular, Channel Chasers and Wishology. Abra-Catastrophe! is this too, but only in the final act when things actually start going to hell.
• Felix the Cat: The Movie has Felix traveling to Another Dimension called Oriana. There he must help a Princess reclaim her kingdom, escape a Circus of Fear and defeat an Evil Overlord with help from his friends and his Magic Bag Of Tricks.
• The Flintstones:
  • The first live-action Flintstones film has ambition, loyalty, betrayal, corporate intrigue, and a climactic battle upon an elaborate makeshift Death Trap. An average episode of the TV series is basically just Wacky Hijinks.
  • The Man Called Flintstone: The animated movie had Fred turn out to be the exact look-alike of a secret agent who was hung up in the hospital and thus couldn't go back to work. Fred is immediately made into a secret agent himself, and must stop the Big Bad and two Moles from blowing up an entire city — oh, and fix his relationship with Wilma. And it was a musical.
• While a few Futurama episodes threaten to destroy the universe (For instance, "The Farnsworth Parabox" and "Time Keeps on Slippin'") the movies usually have more at stake.
• Hey Arnold! used to be the Trope Namer, with this trope being called "Why is Arnold Saving Something?" The show itself is an urban slice-of-life comedy with most episodes usually dealing with problems faced by individual characters. Hey Arnold! The Movie, on the other hand, would feature Arnold saving his neighborhood by using spy gadgets and infiltrating corporate buildings, while also dealing with runaway buses, explosions, and a bulldozer army. Several years later, the show got a Grand Finale in the form of The Jungle Movie, which saw the characters get lost in a South American jungle and get caught up in a pirate crew's schemes to find a lost city held in an eternal slumber that Arnold's missing parents also fell victim to.
• Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus features Zim going from Villain Protagonist to straight-up Big Bad, enacting his greatest Evil Plan ever to conquer Earth and briefly succeeding. In response, Dib becomes an actual Hero, taking levels in badass to face off with Zim in a truly massive action sequence.
• The Jetsons:
  • Jetsons: The Movie repurposes Mr. Spacely into a Corrupt Corporate Executive trying to mine an asteroid inhabited by cute aliens. He's given a mild redemption at the end, at least. There are also some '80s musical numbers.
  • An earlier (made for TV) movie, Rocking with Judy Jetson, had the family (primarily Judy, who is given musical aspirations) caught up in a scheme by an alien overlord to remove all music from the universe.
• Jungle Beat is a series of humorous short vignettes focused on animals that live in jungles and savannas. Jungle Beat: The Movie features several of those animals in a genuine adventure story, as they are greeted by a friendly alien that they must team up with in order to prevent his emperor father from conquering Earth.
• Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama, the original Grand Finale of Kim Possible could count as this as not only did the world come second closest to ending (this was overtaken by the events of the second finale), but it ended with a Relationship Upgrade that a lot of fans had been wanting to see.
• Parodied by King of the Hill in a PSA for the Will Rogers Institute. The movie has an alien invasion, Bobby becoming a giant, Dale becoming invisible, the destruction of Washington DC, a genie, and Bill being played by Ned Beatty. The cast watching the movie overall thinks that the only good thing to result of this was the Will Rogers combo packs they got at the concession stand.
• The Loud House Movie deals with the louds discovering that their Scotland royalty with the movie ending with the louds fighting their family's castle's caretaker who is descendant of the evil sorceress who killed their ancestors and the FRICKING DRAGON that she summoned using a magic amulet with help from their dead ancestors ghosts.
• Magic Adventures of Mumfie has "Mumfie's Quest", where the characters try to save The Queen Of Night's island. Even though it first aired as separate episodes, the other episodes try to pretend it didn't happen at all.
• The Magic Roundabout the series: Five minutes of funny and mildly surreal dialogue. The Magic Roundabout (2005)^note released in North America under the more confusing title Doogal: Zebadee's Evil Twin is released from his prison under the Roundabout, and the characters must prevent him from creating a new Ice Age.
• In the movie ¡Mucha Lucha!: The Return Of El Malefico, Rikochet, Buena Girl and The Flea who are The Chosen One must prevent El Malefico from taking over the world.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Strangely enough, it was inverted by My Little Pony: Equestria Girls. In a series that already regularly jumps between Slice of Life hijinks and more high-stakes adventure episodes, having the first movie based on the series be chasing a jealous former student of Princess Celestia's into a High School AU ultimately came across to fans as an extended version of one of the show's more relaxed episodes. Even if said jealous former student transforms into a demon for the climax and brainwashes the school. Is a bit of a moot point now that Equestria Girls is a self-contained Spin-Off series in its own right, with very entry more-or-less carrying this tone.
  • Played straight by My Little Pony: The Movie. After an Attack of the Town Festival, Twilight Sparkle and the crew are forced to leave show's setting of Equestria and go on a world-spanning friendship adventure to different nations in order to defeat the Big Bad, while his right-hand unicorn is consistently hunting them down. Right off the bat a much different and bigger scale of adventure and stakes compared to the usual stuff. What's more, Twilight's obsession to save Equestria conflicts with all she learned about friendship and nearly breaks her bond with her friends.

N-Z

• 1993’s The Ottifants were Germany’s failed attempt at creating their own animated sitcom à la The Simpsons. Most episodes of its only season had fairly mundane Random Events Plots that were adapted from the newspaper comic it was based on. Then, in 2001, eight years after the show aired, a just as obscure movie was released, in which Paul, Grampa, and Baby Bruno go on an epic quest to find Störtebeker's treasure to replace the donations Paul accidentally lost betting on pigs in order to save his job and the hospital the donations were for, all the while being hunted by gangsters who want to find the treasure first.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension: Phineas and Ferb finally find out that Perry is a secret agent, and go into an Alternate Universe where a more evil version of Dr. Doofenshmirtz rules. And there are lots of killer robots. All the characters have alternate selves who (except for the title characters) are part of La Résistance. In the TV show, they're usually enjoying the summer making cool contraptions in their backyard. However, this was definitely an example of Tropes Are Not Bad, as the fandom rejoiced both before and after the film premiered.
  • Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe sees Phineas and Ferb lead their friends, along with Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Agent P, on a rescue mission IN SPACE! to save Candace from a group of aliens who believe her to be The Chosen One, culminating in the gang fending off both an alien invasion and an alien plant kaiju from wreaking havoc in Danville.
  • The various hour-long specials fit this trope to various extents as their plots usually raise the stakes massively from usual episodes, from the Earth being pulled out of orbit to a zombie pharmacist apocalypse.
• Pingu: The Wedding Episode, where Pingu and his family attend a best friend's wedding. There is a lot of mischief and havoc in this, but at least the ending is happy.
• The 2014 Postman Pat movie involves Pat retiring to pursue a singing career and having his duties carried out by robot copies of himself. No bonus points for guessing where this is going.
• The Pound Puppies (1980s) movie Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw had villains that wanted to take over the world rather than just control a pound of puppies.
• The Powerpuff Girls Movie was first conceived to have all the main villains on the show battle over who would take over Townsville, but creator Craig McCracken found it left little screentime for the girls. He eventually pitched the movie as an origin story for the girls, with the main plot of them having them unwittingly helping Mojo Jojo set the table in creating a race of supermonkeys. (The aforementioned "battle between villains" plot ironically ended up being reworked into the much shorter 10th Anniversary special.)
• The Proud Family movie (which also served as the Grand Finale) involved the titular family getting lured to an island by a Mad Scientist trying to steal Oscar's Proud Snacks recipe, peanut-shaped clones, and a concert at the end featuring Penny and her friends. The TV series did have some bizarre episodes, but nothing as extreme as saving the world from evil clones.
• Recess: School's Out: Regular show? The adventures of a High-School Hustler (ok, elementary school hustler) and his group of friends when dealing with the weird societal "ecology" of their school's playground. The movie? The same hustler and his friends (and some of the school's adults) trying to stop a plan to create Endless Winter (the plan's leader truly believes that this will help American kids become better students, you see -- and will make people elect him President) and the apocalyptic ecological devastation that will ensue.
• Regular Show: The Movie is about the park workers saving the whole universe in a somewhat literal Race Against the Clock, as Earth's history in time is seemingly being picked away at bit by bit. Granted, such a thing is par for the course for these characters, so the stakes are additionally raised by having Mordecai and Rigby's friendship put at risk.
• Rolie Polie Olie had the DTV movie The Great Defender of Fun. The movie's plot revolves around Olie and his family and friends teaming up with superhero Space Boy to stop villainous space pirate Gloomius Maximus from first ruining Zowie's birthday, then from trying to pull Olie's whole planet into a misery-filled galaxy, never to be seen again. While remaining pretty silly in tone for the most part (in fact, literal weaponized silliness is what resolves the plot), it's a pretty far cry from the whimsical Slice of Life plots the preschooler-aimed show is known for.
• Rugrats is about a bunch of babies and everyday life through their perspective. The Rugrats Movie is about the same babies being stranded in the forest with a robot dinosaur car and their ringleader's new baby brother. Then they did it again with Rugrats in Paris, which involves the babies hijacking a Humongous Mecha to stop one kid's dad from marrying a manipulative Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, and again with Rugrats Go Wild!, a Crossover with The Wild Thornberrys that sees the kids and their families stranded on an island.
• Several of the Scooby-Doo movies come to mind, with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island being the first and most notable example. Overall, while episodes of the various TV shows will generally stick to the enemies being bad guys in masks (with some exceptions), the movies have the Mystery Inc. crew more likely to encounter actual supernatural threats.
• The Shaun the Sheep Movie. A typical episode of the TV show involved Shaun and the flock getting up to mild hijinks, and Blitzer trying to put a stop to it before the Farmer notices. In the movie, Shaun's hijinks lead to the Farmer ending up in the Big City with Easy Amnesia, and Blitzer and the flock have to go on a quest to retrieve him, falling afoul of a Diabolical Dogcatcher in the process.
  • The sequel Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie, while Lighter and Softer in some respects, still features Shaun trying to help a stranded alien evade government agents while trying to fix her ship and get home.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, where the main characters have to save Terrance and Phillip and, eventually, the world...with musical numbers! This is lampshaded in the trailer: "Damn, dude. I'm huge."
• The Simpsons Movie involves the family attempting to save Springfield from destruction, by the E.P.A. While many episodes have featured the characters saving something (greyhound puppies, Krusty, the Leftorium) and a few have involved even larger threats ("You Only Move Twice" has Hank Scorpio threatening the UN with a doomsday device, for example), the one in the movie is definitely above average.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was much more epic than the show. While most episodes of the show were (and still are) basically about anything and didn't take themselves very seriously at all, the movie involves SpongeBob and Patrick going on an adventure to retrieve King Neptune's stolen crown and, while generally lighthearted, still has some very dramatic moments and unconventional moments. Plankton finally stole the Krabby Patty recipe and the consequences of it were worse than merely driving the Krusty Krab out of business. It's justified because it was intended to be the Grand Finale, with all episodes produced afterwards chronologically occurring before the movie.
  • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water also counts. Bikini Bottom is turned into a hellish apunkalypse, the Big Bad is able to rewrite reality at his will, and the entire thing is generally played more seriously than a regular episode (though it's a lot more lighthearted than the first movie).
  • The SpongeBob Musical has SpongeBob having to save Bikini Bottom from being destroyed by a volcano.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks parodies the franchise’s use of these when Mariner makes a holodeck movie of the crew in lieu of therapy.
• Steven Universe: The Movie follows up on the season five finale (itself a major Wham Episode) by introducing a massive status quo change, a Time Skip, and a Knight of Cerebus who’s far more dangerous than most of the show’s previous villains. The plot is also significantly more high-stakes than usual, with the Crystal Gems in a Race Against the Clock to save Earth from total destruction.
• Teacher's Pet was about a talking, thinking dog who disguised himself as a boy so he could go to school. The movie was about said dog and his owner having a summer adventure in Florida where Spot (the dog) sees about becoming a human permanently, though he ultimately decides he'd rather be a dog.
• Thomas & Friends is a TV series about a group of talking steam engines. The Movie, Thomas and the Magic Railroad, features a truly villanious diesel engine, who made a magical steam engine crash For the Evulz, and a Save Both Worlds plot. It was originally supposed to be even more epic, but Executive Meddling changed all that.
• The Continuity Reboot, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go is even Lighter and Softer than its predecessor, with engines constantly defying the laws of physics much to the chagrin of fans of the original. However, the Race For The Sodor Cup movie undoes that by having Kenji chase after a nearly-derailing Kana (and derailing due to anything seemed impossible in this show) and damaging his fender doing so... and Kana still derails in her practice run going around Cannonball Curve. The movie itself still heavily defies logic the way the TV show does, but these were steps towards this not being your ordinary episode.
• The Transformers: The Movie took a show where the villains would mostly steal energy sources in order to Take Over the World into a galaxy-spanning epic involving the deaths of virtually the entire main cast of the previous series and the protagonists facing a powerful entity intent on wiping them out entirely. This has since rolled back into the franchise, and now "save the universe and everything in it" is a rather common Transformers series plot.
• We Bare Bears wraps up the series as a whole, with the Bears being shunned by the community and getting chased by a nature-restoring agent, while also touching on how the Bears first established the brotherhood.
• The Wild Thornberrys Movie ups the ante by having Eliza have to rescue a Cheetah cub from poachers. She is also sent away to boarding school when her grandmother disapproves of her talking with animals. That being said, Eliza had plenty of high scale adventures of her own in the main show — so it's not too drastic a difference.
• Winnie the Pooh:
  • Pooh's Grand Adventure is the darkest and most mature Winnie the Pooh story ever made, which is helped by the fact that it is a lot more scary and intense than any movie of this particular franchise released before or since, and certainly darker than anything from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The stakes haven't really been matched by subsequent media and the characters go through a pretty powerful journey of self discovery. Could also be seen as justified if one gives credence to the idea that this was the Grand Finale of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh As it stands, it has become a Series Fauxnale.
  • The two Disney Animated Canon Pooh films count avert it however, being consistently light hearted Slice of Life antics with Pooh and co, and lacking even the bigger adventures or emotional development of some episodes of New Adventures. Interestingly it is only the B Team Sequels by Disneytoon Studios that amp up the stakes and Character Development, even if none get quite as intense as Pooh's Grand Adventure or The Tigger Movie.
• Yogi Bear: Hey There It's Yogi Bear! sees Yogi and Boo-Boo moved to the San Diego Zoo and Cindy getting kidnapped by the circus. The film reaches its climax at a construction site. The live-action Yogi Bear adaptation also falls into this, as Yogi and Boo Boo will have to team up with Ranger Smith to prevent Jellystone Park from being closed for good.