Brainwashed And Crazy / Western Animation

---

• In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius's "One of Us", an alien disguised as a kindly old lady uses televised mass hypnotism to turn all the citizens, including Jimmy's parents, into happy, mindless meat puppets forcing others to join the fold.
• The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: In the episode "Oh Brother", Mario is kidnapped by King Koopa via a fishing rod whilst having an argument with his brother, Luigi. He is then brainwashed with a helmet to do the guy's plumbing, since his pipe burst that was being used in a device to slowly flood the Mushroom Kingdom through rain. When Luigi goes to save him, Mario is prompted to destroy Luigi, and he listens willingly, trying to whack Luigi with a wrench. Luigi tries to bring him back to reality by yelling about their childhood, but it doesn't work. He finally un-brainwashes him by pulling the helmet over his eyes, jerking on his suspenders, and tugging on his moustache to mess it up. Mario screams, "Oh, I hate when you do that!" and the helmet pops off, forcing him back to reality.
• In one Adventure Time episode, the Fight King brainwashes Finn and commands him to kill Jake. It's later revealed that Finn was faking it as part of a plan.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "Lake Laogai", Jet is brainwashed by Long Feng into attacking Aang.
• In the three-part pilot movie of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Zurg uses this to send all of Star Command after Team Lightyear, the variation is that he actually uses a Hive Mind technology to actually become everyone he possessed all at once.
• In one episode of Captain N: The Game Master, Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo brainwash Simon Belmont with a literal brainwashing machine (complete with detergent), changing him from Vampire Hunter to N-Team Hunter.
• Carmen Sandiego:
  • In the interactive event "To Steal or Not to Steal", V.I.L.E. kidnap Zack and Ivy and threaten to brainwash them into becoming V.I.L.E. operatives if Carmen doesn't do what they want. In the bad endings, they end up doing so as well as to Carmen herself if you get the worst ending.
  • In the final episodes of Season 4, V.I.L.E. do this to Carmen herself in order to create their ultimate agent. Fortunately, ACME is able to restore her, and she leads them right to V.I.L.E.'s headquarters.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers:
  • In "Chocolate Chips", a mad chocolatier uses Mind Control drugs to turn the rest of the Rangers against Dale, reversing the previous scenario, although Chip ends up snapping out of it earlier then the others.
  • Nimnul's plot in "Does Pavlov Ring a Bell?" sees him brainwashing his lab animals, Sparky and Buzz, into robbing banks for him.
• Code Lyoko: Happens almost every time someone is xanafied. Special mention to Aelita, William and Jeremie.
• One of the last episodes of Codename: Kids Next Door reveals that the Delightful Children from Down the Lane are actually the missing Sector Z of the Kids Next Door, abducted by Father and run through a process known as "delightfulization" that made them the creepy, adult-loving sycophants they are. Because the process was unstable, the condition is permanent; any attempt to revert them to their former selves will ultimately wear off.
• In the Danny Phantom episode "Control Freaks", Danny gets brainwashed by an evil circus ringmaster, requiring Tucker and Sam to help him break free from his control.
• In Dragamonz, Dax's best friend Boaragon is forcibly enslaved and transformed into a Grimwrath by Grimserver. When Dax refuses to fight his friend, Boaragon trashes him and takes the crystal to Grimserver.
• In The Fairly OddParents! episode "Moooving Day", Timmy wishes for his mother to sell whatever house she touches. It works, although she ends up selling her own house as well, forcing Timmy to move into a neighborhood where everyone, including his friends and family, act the same. It's revealed that the milk that comes with the new homes turns anyone who drinks it into a Stepford Smiler obsessed with milk, including his parents and godparents, who try to persuade Timmy into becoming like them. All orchestrated by wealthy businessman Doug Dimmadome to earn more cash.
• One episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) features Eldritch Abomination Sh'Gora, who turns the Sorceress into a cackling harpy-like creature and sics her on the other heroes.
• Inspector Gadget: Gadget was once hypnotized by Claw's lackeys into robbing a bank, once again forcing Penny and Brain to clean up his mess.
• Ivanhoe: The King's Knight: Rowena is given a potion by Prince John and sent to kill Ivanhoe in "The Assassin and the Potion." When she fails, Prince John attempts to make her marry him.
• In the Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures episode "Thoughtscape", Jessie is brainwashed by Jeremiah Surd via Questworld, so that she will destroy her family, or at least be the bait to bring Race Bannon to Questworld so Surd can kill him directly. It almost worked, too: She destroyed half the Quest Compound!
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Scarlemagne uses pheromones to render humans into docile servants for his entertainment (and occasionally Mooks).
• Mega Man (Ruby-Spears): In "Mega-Pinocchio", Mega Man was controlled by Wily thanks to a mind-control chip. Under Wily's influence Mega Man destroyed a skyscraper, reprogrammed his father's robots, tried to kill his own family by crushing them in a dumpster, attacked Washington DC, and tried to kill his sister again.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • This is Hawk Moth's modus operandi; he finds normal people who are feeling negative emotions and turns them into supervillains under his command.
  • It's surprisingly common for these brainwashed villains to have mind control powers of their own, and it's practically a Running Gag at this point that Chat Noir will fall victim to them.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic example: Word of God re: Nightmare Moon is that Princess Luna was jealous of how all the ponies pranced and played in her sister's bright daytime but slept her beautiful night away, but she kind of kept it to herself and tried to carry on as usual. But a dark force saw that jealousy and used it to invade her consciousness and wreak havoc as Nightmare Moon; when the mane six hit her with the Elements of Harmony it was driven out and all that was left was a remorseful Princess Luna. This dark force hasn't been seen or mentioned since. (Or ever; onscreen, Luna repeatedly references it as her greatest regret, with nary a hint of it being anything but a mistake she made because of jealousy and is now ashamed of.)
  • Actually, Word of God simply states that Princess Luna had given up on the harmony and magic of friendship the show is set in, and turned to envy and spite towards her sister, Princess Celestia. And in a setting where emotion is magic, an ensuing Psychosomatic Superpowered Evil Side can be the only logical outcome.
  • The "Nightmare Forces" do appear in the Expanded Universe comic, where they exploit Rarity's fears to turn her into the next Nightmare. Luna and the rest of the mane cast help her to defeat the Nightmare Forces on the Moon.
• Ned's Newt: Newton becomes brainwashed by a group of sirens in "The Man Who Would Be Flemking" into rowing his and Ned's boat to the point of crashing into a rock.
  "We just gotta learn a number that makes people applaud instead of rowing to their death."
• Regular Show: In "Exit 9B" after getting brainwashed by GBF Jr., Skips tries to choke Mordecai and Rigby while brainwashed, and Benson attacks the duo with an excavator. Thankfully, the former comes to his senses after the duo remind him of the only woman he ever loved, and the latter comes to his senses after the duo start turning donuts with the cart, Rigby saying "hamboning", saying "Not setting up the chairs next time!" And "hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm", and finally, their "Woooooooaaaaaaahhhhh" catchphrase.
• Samurai Jack: As Jack passes through a town, he discovers that all the children of the town are going to a rave party and have been hypnotized by Aku's music played by an evil DJ, which is being played on the outskirts of town, turning the children violent and keeping them away from their parents. In addition, with or without the brainwashing, the children are dressed in what seems to be a "candy raver" style.
• Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons:
  • In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode, "Road Hog", a skunk named Colonel Stench breeds flowers and has tried unsuccessfully for years to make a perfume that would get rid of his stench. What he ended up developing instead was flower pollen that causes anyone who gets sprayed with it to become mind-controlled. He has also developed an antidote that neutralizes its effects. Robotnik steals the pollen and uses it to hypnotize the law into arresting Sonic and Colonel Stench, then later uses it to hypnotize Sonic into being an ordinary slow-mo and the rest of Mobius to worship him. Sonic is later found by a gang of motorcycle-riding pigs called the Road Hogs and hypnotized into thinking he's their leader. When the Road Hogs get sprayed by the pollen, Sonic hypnotizes them into being his allies and helping him stop Robotnik.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), anyone roboticized by Dr. Robotnik is compelled to follow his orders no matter what. To make it even worse, Uncle Chuck reveals that all roboticization victims are fully aware of what's going on and everything they're doing, but they can't do anything about it.
• Space Ghost episode "The Sandman". Jan and Jace are Brainwashed into capturing Space Ghost.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • "Altar of Mortis": After Ahsoka is captured by the Son, Anthropomorphic Personification of The Dark Side, he corrupts her and puts her under his control. Fixing it involves, among other things, Ahsoka's Disney Death.
  • Season 6's Order 66 arc reveals that all the clone troopers have biological control chips implanted into their brains which, when activated, force them to carry out The Purge and kill the Jedi without question. The plot is nearly uncovered when clone trooper Tup's chip becomes damaged and activates prematurely, forcing him to suddenly execute Jedi General Tiplar mid-battle. In his moments of lucidity afterwards, he can't remember what he did or understand why he did it.
  • Following up on this, the pilot episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch reveals that the genetically-augmented members of Clone Force 99, plus the cybernetically-enhanced Echo, are immune to the effects of the inhibitor chips — except Crosshair, who is affected, albeit to a lesser degree than the other clones; when Admiral Tarkin finds out, he has Crosshair's chip intensified until he becomes fully compliant with the Empire. Wrecker's chip also begins to gradually activate and turn him into a killing machine who attacks his own brothers until he's subdued and the chip removed. The other bad Batchers get their chips removed before they can go crazy.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: During the final episodes of the series, Sprx is corrupted by the Fire of Hate, which causes him to have a Face–Heel Turn and join the villains. Eventually, however, Nova's love for him snaps him out of it long enough for the rest of the team to use their Power Primate to purify him completely.
• The shtick of more than one villain on Totally Spies!, with Sam almost invariably being the victim.
• Transformers: Beast Wars saw Megatron inflict this trope on Rhinox, who became so evil Megatron was forced to change him back. Apparently learning his lesson, in Beast Machines he completely changes the personalities of Silverbolt and Rhinox when he puts them in Vehicon bodies. So much so, in fact, that the Maximals don't recognize them until Rattrap hacks into Rhinox's memory banks. This time, unfortunately, Rhinox does not become good again once his memories resurface.

---