Chekhovs Skill / Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "With Friends Like Steve's", Steve expresses utter boredom with all of Stan's CIA tricks like speaking Dolphin and stealing uniforms. After he gets shipped off to a prison camp on an oil rig, Steve uses all these skills to escape.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • After his initial Earthbending training, the third season reveals that Toph has trained Aang to sense movement through Earthbending like she does, which he uses later on.
  • In "The Puppetmaster", Katara learns a particular nasty technique called Bloodbending that allows her to control someone when empowered by the full moon. The episode makes it very clear she does not like the technique. She does use it later, but her willingness to use this technique to torture someone does a good job of showing her vicious side.
  • Iroh's original technique of redirecting lightning was first demonstrated in the first season with little fanfare. In the early second season Azula demonstrates the ability to actually generate lightning, where Iroh reused that technique against her. This prompts Zuko to request to be trained in the art of lightning bending. After failing to use the regular lightning strike, Iroh teaches him the redirect technique, but refuses to help him practice with actual lightning. Zuko does have to put that training to use over a season later, though not against Azula. Zuko also passes the technique on to Aang, who uses it to avoid a fatal blow from Fire Lord Ozai in the finale.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • In "A Leaf in the Wind", the young Airbender Jinora demonstrates the spiral dodging movements and footwork that form the base tactics of her Supernatural Martial Art, which teenaged Avatar Korra struggles to master, until a Die or Fly moment in a pro-bending match causes her to relate the movements in the abstract to dodging the attacks of her opponents.
    • Asami's defense training, which allows her to quickly subdue her father and the Lieutenant.
• Batman: Under the Red Hood: This is done in reverse with Red Hood cutting the line before it goes taut, and Jason Todd as Robin doing the same thing in a flashback.
• Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation: Christy's marble skills are used to save the Care Bears from their Crystal Prison.
• Centaurworld: Glendale's kleptomania is established early and referenced throughout the first season. In the season finale, this becomes handy when she reflexively steals the dimensional key back from the mysterious woman, allowing the herd to save Horse.
• A unique version occurs in Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Big Ball Of Revenge", where Eustace had assembled most of Courage's Rogues Gallery to take him out of the picture for good. How does Courage save the day? By screaming for forty seconds straight, with enough force to split the ground beneath them.
• In any episode of Cyber Six if Julian shows off a trick of any kind, he will use it to help save the day later on.
• In an episode of Dan Vs., when Dan and Chris are attacked by Hiram at the latter's hangout, he tosses an axe at Dan, which hits the wall. When asked by Dan how he was able to throw with such precision, Hiram informs him that the technique is to flick the wrist. Dan would later use this technique to destroy the mind control device on Elise's head.
• The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special: David's ability to move jack-o-lanterns via telekinesis is a joke a first, but it turn out to be very useful when the heroes need to distribute candy to all the kids in town.
• Evil Con Carne: In the pilot, Hector orders Doctor Ghasty to create a mechanical body so he'll no longer need to use Boskov. Ghasty tries to convince Hector to give Boskov another chance by showing him the skills Boskov developed during his time as a circus bear. Hector sees no use for them but they later become what enables Boskov to save Hector's life.
• Part Two of The Fairly Oddparents TV movie trilogy "Wishology", Baby Poof is seen watching a ninja film based very loosely on what happened in Part One. Wanda proceeds to turn it off, as it is "too violent for him." During the next few minutes, Poof kicks, punches, and generally bounces around the room. Later, Timmy's friends, family and godparents have all been captured by the Eliminators, who came back from the Darkness, which apparently was only slowed down after Part One. Poof is the only one who can go through the bars of their cell, and when threatened by the Eliminators, he dons a blanket around his head and body, smears eyeliner on his face for a shadow, and proceeds to kick ass big time.
  • "Pipe Down!" establishes that Timmy's dad is extremely skilled at Charades, and Timmy... isn't. At the episode's climax, with a meteor hurtling towards Dimmsdale and the world's sound erased by an earlier wish of his, Timmy has to use Charades to bring the world's sound back so he can wish the meteor away. This example comes with a bit of Fridge Logic, though - it would have been faster and easier for him to just write the wishes down.
• In the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed", the keys to the Planet Express ship accidentally end up in an arcade claw machine and Amy must retrieve them. Later in the episode she is able to rescue Fry, Leela, and Bender by operating the ship's winch with her newly developed joystick skills.
• Jonny Quest
  • In the TOS episode "The Mystery of the Lizard Men", Jonny learns a judo throw from Race Bannon that he later uses on one of the title opponents.
  • In the series premiere of Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures, "The Darkest Fathoms", Jonny is seen to be practicing how to escape from being tied up. Later in the episode, he is captured by pirates and uses this skill to get free (and save Jessie and his dad while he's at it).
• Kaeloo: In "Art Class", we see that Quack Quack has figured out how to make exact replicas of people's heads out of stone. When Stumpy decapitates himself near the end of the episode, Quack Quack carves him a new head and somehow uses magic to attach it to Stumpy's body and bring it back to life.
• In Metalocalypse, Dethklok frontman, Nathan Explosion, has a tendency to punch people who piss him off. This comes in handy in Season 3's "Renovationklok", when he punches Damien Cornickelson's lights out to prevent the guy from going after Charles Offdensen.
• Molly of Denali: In the episode "Snowboarding Qyah Style," Trini's new dance comes in handy for completing Molly's snowboarding video.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Turns out Fluttershy has a surprising knowledge of sewing, as evidenced when she was forced to tell Rarity what was "wrong" with her dress in "Suited For Success". This skill allowed Fluttershy and the others to finish Rarity's dress at the end of the episode.
  • Twilight Sparkle is shown as very organized in "Winter Wrap Up". It comes in handy when she's not allowed to use her unicorn magic to help clean up the winter weather in preparation for spring, but eventually learns the clean-up efforts of her friends and neighbors are horribly disorganized.
  • Applejack's herding skills in "Applebuck Season" resurface five eps later in "Swarm of the Century".
  • In "Dragonshy", Rainbow Dash is shown playing with a ball and skillfully bouncing it off her head. Later, during the Iron Pony competition in "Fall Weather Friends", she uses her skill to easily win the ball-bouncing challenge.
  • Twilight spent the entire first season writing reports back to Celestia with what she's learned about friendship. In "The Return of Harmony, Part 2", Celestia snaps Twilight out of Discord's spell... by sending back copies of all her reports, so that reading them will remind Twilight that friendship is worth fighting for.
  • In "The Crystal Empire Part 1", Twilight is shown to have studied intensely for Princess Celestia's "test", only to find out that instead of an exam, the princess has a mission for her. Later, it turns out that the gravity spell she studied was actually incredibly useful.
  • In "Bridle Gossip", the Mane Six walk through Poison Joke plants despite Zecora's warning. The effect they have on Fluttershy is causing her to have a deep, manly voice, but it is eventually cured along with the others' ailments. Three seasons later in "Filli Vanilli", Big Macintosh loses his voice the day before he is supposed to perform with the Ponytones singing group. To save the show (and the group's subsequent appearances), Fluttershy drinks a Poison Joke potion from Zecora so she can sing in Big Macintosh's place behind the scenes while he lip-syncs.
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom - Part 2", Celestia's reason for sending Discord after Tirek is that he can sense the magical disruption caused by Tirek's Mana Drain. When the Princesses transfer their magic to Twilight, Discord is able to sense it, but doesn't tell Tirek. And once Tirek drains Discord of magic, he can pinpoint Twilight's location without trouble.
  • Princess Luna's abilities as a Dream Walker were already established by a few earlier episodes. In "Bloom & Gloom", she also demonstrates the power to make ponies share dreams by reuniting the Cutie Mark Crusaders in the dreamworld. This comes very much in handy in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" where she has to create a massive shared dream for the whole of Ponyville to chase the Tantabus.
• The Owl House: In "Them's The Breaks, Kid", during a flashback to their childhood, Raine whistles over Eda's gross drink to turn it into something that actually tastes good, and explains that Bard magic allows them to alter the molecular structure of liquids. At the end of the episode, when Terra hands them their mind control tea, they whistle over it while pretending to just be blowing on it, revealing that they were Pretending to be Brainwashed all along.
• Regular Show:
  • Taken to its usual ridiculous extremes in "The Power", Rigby claims "Hamboning will save your life someday!", and is proven correct when he uses hamboning to distract a giant monster.
  • In "Busted Cart", Mordecai and Rigby use their extreme cartin'" skills to get Benson through Highway 13 to the cart dealership.
• Rick and Morty: Deconstructed and subverted. Morty and Summer assume their interests in playing video games and getting high respectively will help them navigate the controls of an abandoned spaceship. However, they are instantly proven wrong the moment they turn the spaceship's engine on and lose control of the ship. It is shown that neither of their skills was actually effective in getting an advanced alien ship to work.
• In Samurai Jack, Aku's ability to smell a person's blood is first referenced in his very first encounter with Jack where he recognizes him as the son of the Emperor who first defeated him and referenced again in "Jack vs the Zombies" where he managed to find Jack when he was hiding. It's one of his least used abilities, but it's also the most useful as shown in the penultimate "Episode C" where he correctly deduces that Ashi is his biological daughter.
• In The Simpsons Movie, Homer has to do a stunt with a motorcycle inside of a spherical cage in order to win a new car. He then uses this same stunt at the end of the movie with the glass sphere surrounding Springfield in order to save the city from a bomb.
• In The Smurfs, the skill of learning sign language that the Smurfs picked up from Laconia the woodelf in Season 3 becomes useful in the Season 5 episode "Unsound Smurfs" when most of the Smurfs are trapped inside a soundproof dome and they need to communicate with the Smurflings outside the dome on how to remove it.
• Sofia the First: Early in "Dad's and Daughter's Day", Sofia and Roland are playing catch. That skill becomes useful during the climax when they need to climb their way up and return a pelicant egg and find out it's impossible to climb while carrying the egg.
• South Park
  • Subverted (hilariously, by the way), where Stan goes through the Training Montage, only to win his climactic ski race with the same two skills he learned near the beginning: pizza, french fries. The actual difference is made when the Bespectacled Cutie flashes the Jerk Jock and stuns him for more than enough time for Stan to cross the finish line first.
  • Played straight in a later episode where Randy becomes obsessed with Food Network and Sharon ends up getting a Shake Weight. Her use of it culminates with her giving a handjob to Randy at the end of the episode, curing him of his Food Network fixation.
  • Parodied in the episode "You Have 0 Friends" with Stan's ability to... roll Yahtzee?
• Special Agent Oso: Once per Episode, Oso screws up his agent training exercise, and is called away for a special assignment to help a child. During the assignment, the skills Oso uses to help the child are similar to what he needs to do during the training exercise; after returning from the assignment, Oso remembers what he did and uses what he learned, and finishes the training exercise without a hitch.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob's dancing in "Squidtastic Voyage" allows him to free Squidward's reed in the climax.
  • Patrick's iron bun workout in "Krusty Krushers" is what causes SpongeBob and Patrick to win the wrestling match.
  • SpongeBob's bad driving is put to a very good usage in "Demolition Doofus", as it protects him from getting killed, maimed, or otherwise injured from the other contestants (even Mrs. Puff), as he's such a horrible driver, this makes him a highly unpredictable target.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Mugato, Gumato", early on, Boimler and Rutherford are playing an economics board game called Diplomath. During the climax, they use the principles of the board game to negotiate with the Ferengi.
• Star Wars Rebels: In "Trials of the Darksaber", Sabine gets sword-fighting lessons from Kanan and Ezra so she can use the titular weapon. In the next episode, "Legacy of Mandalore", when duelling Gar Saxon, who's gotten his hands on the Darksaber, while she's using Ezra's lightsaber, Sabine uses moves Kanan and Ezra used against her to win.
• In the Superman: The Animated Series episode "A Little Piece Of Home", Lois Lane throws scrunched up paper balls into a wastepaper basket early in the episode and claims it helps her think. Later on, she has to throw a chunk of Kryptonite into a lead goblet so that Superman can fight a mechanical T-Rex.
• ThunderCats (2011): The Hero, young Lion-O, is introduced as a hobbyist Collector of the Strange, acquiring and tinkering with Black Market Lost Technology. Though rudimentary, his familiarity with it helps him figure the user interface of a Black Box that he uses to blow up Walking Tanks invading his city, and, as time goes on, gives him a leg up on his companions when they encounter Schizo Tech.
• In Wild Kratts any discussed animal ability gets used to achieve that episode's goal, whether it's to free the animals from Zach Varmitech or just getting their gear back.
• Once per Episode in Wonder Pets!, the strategy the pets use in the classroom to build their Flyboat becomes important later on as they use the same skill to save the animal in trouble.

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