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  • By the sixth season, newcomers to Adventure Time were probably aware of the series taking place in a post-apocalyptic environment note , that the Ice King is really a man that lived through the apocalypse and driven insane by the magic crown that protected him from the nuclear fallout, and a number of other things.
  • The Image Entertainment DVD of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin has "Adventuring We Go" play on one of the menu screens. This may seem okay at first, but this spoils the very last scene of the series, as this song is one of the last things that occurs in the final episode.
  • The Adventures of Tintin (1991): By the time the Ellipse-Nelvana adaptation of "Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaoh" was made, everybody knew Rastapopoulos was the recurring Big Bad, so this version makes little secret that he's the one sending the written orders to the criminals. He even gets a Traitor Shot!
  • The Amazing World of Gumball: After "The Shell", it's hard to discuss some of what happens after without bringing up Penny, her true form, and she and Gumball becoming an Official Couple.
  • The title sequence for Amphibia's third and final season completely spoils the events of the season two finale "True Colors", showcasing its aftermath in great detail: from Anne returning to Earth with the Plantar family in tow, to the incoming invasion of King Andrias' forces, to Anne's Super Mode.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Considering how often it is praised as one of the best character redemption arcs in Western animation, very few cartoon fans enter this show without the foreknowledge that Zuko will eventually undergo a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Bonus features on the DVDs containing the first 13 episodes of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes consist of interviews revealing events from the second season, such as Skrulls replacing allies. In the process, the interviewees spoil events from the second half of season 1, such as Janet's friend Carol getting superpowers and Ultron attempting to destroy humanity.
  • A viewer of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm would have to be clever to figure out the main villain's secret identity, but the toy division screwed up by releasing the Phantasm action figure, with removable hood, unmasked.
  • The CatDog episode "Vexed of Kin" spoils the events of "The Great Parent Mystery". Anyone who's seen the former before the latter would likely be confused by CatDog's adoptive parents being a frog and a Sasquatch-like monster.
  • The opening credits for the Chilly Willy short "Chilly Chums" credit Grace Stafford as "Woody's voice", sort of spoiling the gag about Woody Woodpecker making a suprise cameo.
  • The third and final season of Danny Phantom was aired in Latin American countries six months before they were supposed to be aired in the US. Impatient fans wasted no time snatching up the episodes, translating them, and posting them everywhere. Even if you didn't know via the internet that half of the ghosts had become more monster-like (Nocturne, Vortex, Undergrowth), Danny gets ice powers, and that Vlad becomes the mayor of Amity Park, said "surprises" were spoiled anyway through commercials and the episodes airing out of order.
  • On Detentionaire it was VP Victoria & Lynch Webber who did the prank that Lee was framed for, which is a big mystery until the tail end of Season 2. Pretty much every Previously on… recap for the next season has Lee outright mention this and other characters bring it up on occasion as well. note 
  • Futurama: Leela's origins were originally a big twist for the series, since early episodes refer to her as an orphaned alien, but some later episodes prominently feature her mutant parents. The Leela-centric promotional video for the Hulu revival even includes the scene that reveals her parents. Knowing that twist also makes it easier to figure out the twist of "A Bicyclops Built For Two," where Leela believes she's found her planet of origin; if you know that she's actually an Earth-borne mutant, you know that it's not really her planet.
  • If you've heard of Gravity Falls, then you probably already know the Author's identity, thanks to various tie-in books and comics mentioning him by name or even showing him on the cover. Plus, most of the fans guessed it anyway.
  • Infinity Train:
    • The purpose of the titular train, which is treated as a mystery for the duration of the first season. It turns out that it is an Epiphanic Prison, and the glowing, green number that passengers get measure the extent of their emotional distress or trauma; the number drops the more they've come to understand and address their issues, and rises the more they continue to ignore or actively refuse to do so. Once your number zeroes out, you can return home. This is explicitly explained in all future seasons. Most fans, reviews, articles, and even The Other Wiki (and this wiki for that matter, depending on where you end up on your next Wiki Walk) have no qualms with spoiling this reveal either, so the only way a new viewer can guarantee avoiding this information is if they stumbled upon the show on their own and just jumped straight in.
    • The Walking Spoiler character Amelia Hughes, aka the false Conductor, who is one of the show's few Recurring Characters. She was picked up by the supernatural locomotive when attempting suicide in the 1980s following the death of her husband Alrick, and after learning about the inner workings of the train, displaced the true Conductor and spent the next thirty years trying to bring her husband back to life. Talking about Amelia not only spoils the ending of Book 1 — where it's revealed that One-One is the true Conductor, which itself is an example of this trope — but also spoils the remainder of the series, despite it being a Genre Anthology. Book 2 supporting characters and Book 3 villain protagonists Grace and Simon only created the Apex cult in their youth in part because of the misunderstandings she caused, and Book 3 tritagonist Hazel turns out to technically be Amelia's daughter by way of a failed attempt to clone Alrick. She also becomes actively involved in the plot during the second half of that season. And though one could still adequately describe the events of Book 4 while obfuscating her involvement there, said season is still a Stealth Prequel with some pivotal scenes alluding to her rise to power offscreen.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • The opening minutes of the entire show spoil the ending of predecessor series Avatar: The Last Airbender, revealing that Aang successfully ended the Hundred Year War, defeating Ozai and paving the way for Zuko to become Fire Lord, with Zuko having undergone a Heel–Face Turn to join Team Avatar.
    • Since it lays the groundwork for the entire second half of the series, it is of little surprise that the finale of Season 2 (wherein Korra decides to leave the spirit portals open in hopes of allowing humans and spirits to coexist peacefully) isn't even spoiler tagged in her character sheet or the main page for the show.
    • The final scene of the series itself, wherein after a truck load of Ship Tease over the course of the last two seasons Korra and Asami become the true, and final, Official Couple of the series. This quickly become one of the most talked about and well-known elements in the show amongst fans, critics, and even those who have never seen the show before (to the point that it has arguably reached It Was His Sled levels).
  • In the later Looney Tunes short Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24 1/2 th Century, Marvin the Martian asks Duck Dodgers to see Gossammer, who Dodgers assumes is a beautiful woman, but ends up being a big red monster from two previous shorts. This is the first time that character would be referred to by that name (previously being a nameless monster in Hair-Raising Hare and named Rudolph in Water, Water, Every Hare, but afterwards, Gossammer would come to be the character's official name.
  • For a show aimed at a preschool/elementary school demographic, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has quite a few of these:
    • Twilight Sparkle becomes an alicorn princess at the end of the third season. With the show going on to have six more seasons after this change, this no longer matters whatsoever. But at the time, not only was this featured in merchandise, but the Spin-Off movie for the show and its promotional material, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, takes place just after her ascension and openly shows her pony form portrayed with wings. Fans did little to hide this plot development from new viewers, too, but there was also advance publicity in mainstream media outlets such as Entertainment Weekly. This is without delving into foreign territories, where Equestria Girls was released before season three (such as in Germany, Portugal, and Japan).
    • The reformations of Discord and Starlight Glimmer in "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and "The Cutie Remark Part 2" respectively, given the number of episodes that have come out since showing them being friends with the Mane 6.
    • The Cutie Mark Crusaders finally getting their cutie marks in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", as every appearance of the CMCs afterwards obviously shows them having their cutie marks.
    • Due to her being the protagonist of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks (and all later entries within the spinoff franchise, for that matter), the promotional materials for the movie (well, those that acknowledge her existence, anyway) casually spoil that Sunset Shimmer, the Big Bad of Equestria Girls, pulled a Heel–Face Turn at the end of that movie. Later entries in the series are even more cavalier about the revelation, with Friendship Games having her front and center.
  • Ninjago:
    • In the first season, the identity of the Green Ninja is a mystery that the characters are trying to solve between their battles with the Serpentine. Given that the show has had over a dozen seasons since, the fact that it's Lloyd Garmadon isn't remotely a secret anymore.
    • Zane finds out he's a robot halfway through the first season. While this isn't particularly apparent for the first season and a half following the reveal, the fact has become increasingly unavoidable to newcomers; season three's Nindroid army is explicitly based on a scan of Zane's schematics, and Zane himself sports a more obviously robotic "titanium" design from season four onward.
    • Nya gains water elemental powers in the fifth season. Promotional material for later seasons often shows her using said powers, and the fifteenth season has another major villain that can only be destroyed by someone with water powers.
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts has Kipo's half-Mute reveal, which occurs halfway through the first season. While the discovery is a major part of the character's development going forward, it remains secondary to the main goal of Kipo trying to reunite with her father... until the second season, wherein her learning how to control her abilities becomes the new objective and the character's jaguar arms are present in all advertising. Even their ability to outright become an actual jaguar, which they're unable to do until halfway through the season, was spoiled in images and thumbnails on Netflix itself.
  • In the Disney Jr cartoon PB&J Otter if you start with Season 3 you'll know Flick overcomes his fears and learns how to fly in Season 2's holiday episode.
  • In ReBoot, Megabyte and Hexadecimal being siblings came as a surprise in the late second season. Nowadays, it's common knowledge, is constantly referenced in subsequent episodes, and any biography of them will list this fact fairly early on.
  • In The Simpsons, anything related to Sideshow Bob (one of the most merchandised characters outside of Our Favorite Family) will point out that he wants to kill Bart, or at least that he is a recurring villain. In his premiere episode, however, Sideshow Bob being evil was actually The Reveal, coming off as Krusty the Klown's bumbling sidekick up to that point. Most of Sideshow Bob's return appearances mention this fact (along with other crimes he attempted).
    • The DVD box art for season six reveals that Maggie shot Mr. Burns, even though the commentators for the first part of the episode in question are tight-lipped in the hopes that we'll buy season seven.
    • An In-Universe example happens in the episode "The Bob Next Door". Sideshow Bob takes Bart to the Five Corners to explain how he's gonna kill him, and this exchange ensues:
    Sideshow Bob: No single act is against any law, but their sum total is the greatest murder since Snape killed Dumbledore!
    Bart: Oh, I haven't gotten to that part yet!
    Sideshow Bob: It's a four year old book.
    Bart: I'm a slow reader.
  • Every South Park media featuring Mysterion after "The Coon And Friends Trilogy" like the episode "The Poor Kid" or the videogame South Park: The Fractured but Whole will immediately point out that the identity of the real Mysterion is Kenny, even thought this was The Reveal in said Story Arc. Unsurprisingly, this has already It Was His Sled status between everyone, regardless of whether they have watched "The Coon And Friends Trilogy" or not.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
    • Darth Maul still being alive is not much of a secret anymore after the Season 4 finale, and it was a big surprise back in Season 3's "Witches of the Mist". The advertisements for the Season 4 finale heavily promoted Maul's return, he's on the box art for the season's DVD/Blu-Ray case, and he was featured in the Season 5 trailers and the 100-episodes milestone video.
    • The trailers for the show's revival season reveals a lot of major spoilers from the past seasons; the SDCC '18 trailer gives away Bo-Katan's Heel–Face Turn, and the Celebration Chicago trailer spoils Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order and the deaths of Fives, Echo and Hevy.
  • In Star Wars Rebels:
    • Mysterious informant "Fulcrum" is revealed in the first season finale to be Ahsoka Tano. She becomes a recurring character in the second season.
    • The second season finale "Twilight of the Apprentice" added a huge amount of this. To wit:
      • Ahsoka has gone MIA, presumed dead.
      • Darth Maul is back, and he blinded Kanan. Any picture of him from Season 3 onward spoils this, even if it's just "Why is he wearing a mask?"
    • Season 3:
      • For the whole season, it's that Agent Kallus had a Heel–Face Turn, became a mole (namely, Fulcrum II), and in the season finale was exposed and arrested before managing to escape and join the rebels. In particular, the first season 4 trailer has a brief shot of him in a rebel officer's uniform, which is going to be hard to explain to anyone who hasn't watched the show up to "The Honourable Ones" at least.
      • Chopper Base, established by Phoenix Squadron on the planet Atollon near the end of season 2, was attacked and destroyed by the Empire, resulting in the deaths of many of its members, including Commander Sato, who goes out in a Heroic Sacrifice killing recurring Imperial Admiral Konstantine via Ramming Always Works.
    • Season 4's midseason premiere, "Jedi Night", features the death of a major character: Kanan. Disney XD's YouTube Channel spoiled it in the title and thumbnail of a video the DAY the episode aired. When it had not yet aired in the U.K. and Canada among other places. The thumbnail also spoiled Kanan shaving his beard.
  • Star Wars Resistance: The season 1 finale includes The Reveal that the Colossus is actually a mobile Space Station, and Tam's Face–Heel Turn and departure with the First Order. Season 2 promotional material, starting with the first poster, makes no effort to hide these plot points. And the season premiere, descriptions of which became available on the Internet after its screening at Celebration Chicago months before its TV debut, centres around the Colossus' Artificial Gravity being broken.
  • Steven Universe:
    • The show starts out jumping between Slice of Life and Monster of the Week, with no overarching plot and just hints of a deeper lore… then comes the first season's Mid-Season Twist, where we learn that the Crystal Gems are actually aliens, the monsters they fight used to be sentient, and they're not the Last of Their Kind. The plot reveals and character development only pile on and become denser from then on out, making it impossible to discuss the series without spoiling those first major twists. That said, this twist is considered both by fans and the show's staff to be when the show begins in earnest.
    • Garnet being a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire was a big reveal in the season one finale, making it difficult to discuss her without bringing this up. This tends to be the first thing new viewers learn about her character now.
    • Peridot is introduced in the first season as a villain. Her Heel–Face Turn in the second season, and her true short stature as the result of limb enhancers that are broken upon her capture by the Crystal Gems, became extremely well known after the episodes involving these points aired, to the point that, as with the above-mentioned surprises, people just getting into the show are likely to already be familiar with them.
    • That Rose Quartz was really Pink Diamond was revealed halfway into the final season and quickly became one of the most discussed aspects of the show. This wasn't helped by Cartoon Network themselves releasing a 17-minute video a few weeks after the reveal that highlighted only a fraction of the foreshadowing that built up to the moment. The movie and Future also have no qualms about revealing this information, with it being openly discussed in the Storybook Opening of the former, and factoring into the plot of both works to varying degrees.
  • Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters
    • The promos stopped hiding Blindstrike's true identity after the Flex Fighters discovered it (in episode #12, "Endgame"), as well as Blindstrike and the Flex Fighters teaming up against Stretch Monster afterwards. Additionally, Blindstrike's figurenote  has a removable faceplate, but the instructions don't show how to remove it, or how Blindstrike looks without it.
    • Any story from the Gamebooks special "The Breakout" onwards would spoil twists of the first season finale, "The Age of Flexarium" (such as the true identity of Stretch Monster, and Dr. C's reasons for scheming against Rook), and their changes to the status quo.
  • Tangled: The Series takes place right after the original movie and as such many character aspects and plot elements which were spoilers for the film are present as established facts in the series. For example: "Flynn Rider"'s real name being Eugene Fitzherbert, which is the name used for him in the series; Rapunzel losing her magical long hair at the end of the movie; the fact that Mother Gothel dies at the end of the movie; and, perhaps most blatantly, the fact that Rapunzel is, indeed, the Lost Princess of Corona.
  • Teen Titans Go! had a very interesting case of this. One episode set after the events of the movie deals with the aftermath of the destruction of Titans Tower by Slade after he tricked Robin, spoiling the climax of the film. In some countries (notably Japan, which got the film a year later), this episode was released before the movie.
  • The true nature of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) version of Shredder became this, particularly after it became necessary to qualify him as such in order to distinguish him from the other versions of the character.
    • This is also immediately spoiled (and lampshaded) in Turtles Forever if one hasn't seen the 2003 series at all. The 80's Shredder's reaction to the 2003 Shredder's true nature is likely to mimic that of viewers unfamiliar with the 2003 series. Likewise, it probably worked vice-versa (fans of the 00s series would be surprised by the 80s version's incompetence).
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
    • The reveal that Irma was secretly a Kraang spy, Kraang Sub-Prime, set the events of the Season 2 finale and first half of Season 3 in motion. Any newcomers who first see "her" in later episodes will likely be confused as to why she is being so friendly with Casey and April in earlier ones.
    • Fans who came in after the first season are going to have the bombshell dropped on them that Karai is actually Splinter's biological daughter Miwa spoiled almost immediately. Heaven help those who end up watching episodes from Season 3 or after before the first two as they take place after Karai ends up becoming a mutant herself late in the second season.
  • Commercials for the first season DVD of Total Drama blatantly showed that the final three would be Owen, Gwen, and Heather, and a press release for Total Drama World Tour revealed the final two of Action when the season was still underway with six contestants left. They eventually caught this mistake and changed it to two other contestants, but the damage had been done.
    • World Tour itself has been plagued by this, first because Cartoon Network's commercials made it possible to figure the vote-off order, and then because Australia got the episodes and aired them in quick succession. Bizarrely, Canada (TD's home land) is getting the show after just about everybody else; even before Australia, most Canadian fans were YouTubing episodes after America aired them rather than waiting months for them to come out there.
    • Revenge of the Island was being aired in French long before it aired in English. The language barrier, of course, did nothing to hide the elimination order, apart from the alternate ending.
    • Pahkitew Island started airing in Italian before it was aired in English. Given that new episodes air in Italy every day, by the time the show premieres in the US, a winner is already declared.
    • The official Facebook page for Pahkitew Island has been posting who was eliminated a day after each episodes airs. Like the Italian version, a new episode aired every day.
  • The true identity of Longarm is one of the most shocking reveals of Transformers: Animated... so naturally, it was all over the Internet in a pretty big hurry. Then the toy came out. At this point, it's probably not likely to surprise many people any more.
    • It was over the Internet before anyone who talked about it saw the episode. It aired in Dubai and this was about all the blurry screencaps could tell us.
    • Considering that he's a major player in the third season, if you're still not aware you're either blind or not up to date yet.
  • By at least halfway through the first Season of Transformers: Prime, you should be aware that Cliffjumper is dead. It happened in the first five minutes of the show and it frequently gets brought up. The initial announcement of its sequel series, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, does this to the events of the final episodes of Prime, including Bumblebee regaining his voice box (part of the announcement was Will Friedle reprising the role of Bumblebee), the restoration of Cybertron, and that Bumblebee taking over the reins of leadership following Optimus Prime's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Season 3 of The Transformers, taking place after The Movie, spoils a lot of what happens in it, such as Unicron being reduced to a head orbiting Cybertron, Hot Rod becoming Rodimus Prime and leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime kicking the bucket, a few other Transformers following Prime along for the ride and Starscream getting killed by Galvatron, who is an upgraded Megatron. While the movie came out in the US in August 1986 and season 3 debuted in American syndication in September of that year, other countries didn't get the movie until later, with Japan in particular not getting the movie until 1989, by which time they were on their third sequel series to the third season!
  • Looking at the promotional images from Trollhunters spoils that the Staff of Shadows Angor Rot wields eventually ends up in Claire's hands, as well as that Toby eventually acquires a warhammer at some point.
  • In the VeggieTales episode "Lessons From The Sock Drawer", we learn that Lutfi is performed by Khalil from Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. The outfit he wears is the one he wears at the end of said movie, during the scene that reveals he exists in the world the story was being told in as a tow truck driver. He also wears the same costume in the "Bubble Rap" song that premiered in "If I Sang A Silly Song...", but to avoid this trope, the hat and jacket now has a patch with the text "K-LIL" instead of an image of a truck.
  • The Venture Brothers creators have a habit of giving large spoilers during episode commentary on the DVD. Played straight when one commentator points out that spoilers have been given and the collective response is "No one watches the commentary before they watch the actual show!". Later subverted during a convention when the shows creators are confronted by a fan whose friend saw the commentary before the episodes being spoiled.
    Doc Hammer: If you juggle fire I'm not gonna run around screaming, "Ahh you're gonna burn yourself!"(...)If you can't get out of the kitchen, don't cook a...baking good, I dunno; there's no platitude for a guy who watches the commentary before he finishes the season.
  • In Winx Club, Bloom's status as the long lost princess of Domino is never kept a secret, despite it being a major plot twist in the first season. In addition, there is Sky and Brandon's identity switch. The actual prince Sky is Bloom's boyfriend, while Stella is actually dating Brandon, Sky's squire. All promotional material refers to them as their real names.
  • The plot of Young Justice (2010)'s second season, Young Justice Invasion, is set in motion as result of the events of the finale. This also includes a character who is Walking Spoiler as they give a MASSIVE twist in the first season's finale.

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