The musical number in an animated musical in which the animation stops pretending to depict things that are actually happening in the world of the movie and becomes a more abstract illustration of the music. The Disney Acid Sequence may be taken as occurring in the imagination of the characters involved, or may be a Mushroom Samba set to a musical number, but generally there is little, if any, effort to explain how the sequence fits in with the rest of the events of the movie, and the audience is left to assume that the random Art Shifts, sight gags, and other suspensions of the laws of physics otherwise in effect within the movie's setting did not actually happen.
The Disney Acid Sequence can be used to good comedic effect in movies which break the Fourth Wall. In general though, if the switch is too pronounced, be prepared for some genuine Accidental Nightmare Fuel.
Named for the most prolific offender and trend setter, although the phenomenon is not limited to the Disney Animated Canon. It's not even necessarily limited to animated musicals; live-action musicals can also contain a Disney Acid Sequence if a musical number goes more surreal than just a random song and dance routine.
Some examples here are likely to be inspired by Busby Berkeley Numbers. All examples here are prone to contain Deranged Animation. If this scene comes out of nowhere, is never mentioned again, and could very easily be removed from the rest of the feature without any impact on the overarching plot, it may also qualify as a Big Lipped Alligator Moment. See also Dream Ballet and Gainax Ending.
Subtrope of What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?. When substances are actually involved, see Mushroom Samba. For trippy music videos which are not part of a larger and less surreal work, see Surreal Music Video.
Examples
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Disney Examples, in rough chronological order
The Hallucinogenic Scene in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs seems mostly fueled by fear (as she's running through the scary, dark woods). But it's certainly trippy. Being the first animated full length movie, it sets up a great precedent for Disney movies to contain a whole realm of further trippy scenes, even if all we're seeing is the main character's perspective when something gets overwhelming—positive or negative.
Somewhere in the movie's early stages, Snow White was actually supposed to have a dream sequence of her future with Prince Charming. Judging by the remaining concept art, they were going to be floating in midair against a starry technicolor rainbow sky. It got scrapped, but was evetually used to end Sleeping Beauty.
Fantasia is not actually an example, as each musical number is its own separate and self-contained animated sequence and not an insert in a larger plot. Nevertheless, it deserves mention for containing many of the usual elements of the Disney Acid Sequence, since each of its segments is to greater or lesser extent an abstract illustration of the music being played.
Some segments are more abstract than others. The opening number, "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", is easily the strongest example. Compare the very straight forward animation for Beehtovens "6th Symphony".
"Pink Elephants on Parade" in Dumbo is a classic example of the "Mushroom Samba set to music" variety. Though this scene is generally associated with LSD culture, pink elephants are actually a reference to hallucinations, often called Pink Elephants, suffered by alcoholics during withdrawal, a condition called Delirium Tremens or "The DT's". A particularly delicious Belgian ale is called Delirium Tremens and features pink elephants on the bottle.
The wartime cartoon "Der Fuehrers Face" has one, set to the title song going faster and faster while, among other things, ammunition flies around and Donald has to make himself into a swastika shape by dancing. Luckily, it was All Just a Dream.
The Three Caballeros: pretty much the last two thirds. See above for an example.
"After You've Gone" from Make Mine Music, featuring lots of crazy dancing musical instruments.
The "Too Good to Be True" segment from Fun and Fancy Free somewhat counts.
"Bumble Boogie" from Melody Time is a nightmarish journey through the music world from the POV of a poor bug.
Pretty much the entire dream sequence in the latter-day Pluto cartoon "Plutopia".
The Disney Theme Parks have quite a few, some borrowed from the movies, others original to the parks such as the "Tomorrow's Child" sequence from the Walter Cronkite version of Spaceship Earth or almost the entirety of the original Journey Into Imagination (which was part of why it was so beloved).
Some of the ones based on movies include: Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin, and Winnie the Pooh.
Babes in Toyland has the song "I Can't do the Sum", during which Mary Contrary (played by Annette Funicello) sings mostly on a black background, with duplicates who flip upside down and sideways while changing colors.
And Pooh dances around the rim of a giant honey pot with honey clones of himself as backup dancers. He takes a bite out of one's head for the fun of it, essentially snacking on his own head.
The Aristocats, when Scat Cat and the others sing "Ev'rybody wants to be a cat".
The Brave Little Toaster features a song called "Cutting Edge" (aka, "More, More, More"), which involves, among other things, a singing table lamp somersaulting through outer space. Of course, this is a movie where every character is an inanimate object. (We're not sure whether that makes it better or worse.)
Given that every other musical number happens within the confines of the world around them DESPITE being a shop backroom full of hacked together 'mutant' appliances and the cars in a junkyard being sent to the crusher, Cutting Edge definitely counts as the Acid Sequence.
'The Lion King 1/2 also has Timon's song, "That's All I Need". The sequence of the 'props' sliding out back to the Savannah and the sarcastic applause of the hyenas makes it very clear that, far from a bunch of animals suddenly displaying amazing choreography skills, this is genuine daydreaming/acid consumption territory.
Pocahontas: "Colors of the Wind". It's difficult to say whether the sequence is actually happening (if so, it happened over the course of several days, considering the changes in daylight), or if it's simply an interpretation of the spirit of nature surrounding them.
The original had "Out on the Open Road" which included a bunch of girls popping out of a piano, while it's played in the back of a pick up truck and a corpse dancing on a hearse.
The Incredibleswas to have aDream Sequence set to jazz music where Helen Parr dreamt about her husband cheating on her with hundreds of silhouetted, beautiful women in order to highlight her suspicions about her husband's behavior, but it was cut due to length and the fact that they would never get away with so blatantly stating what Helen's fears were in a Disney movie.
Home on the Range: The cattle-rustling sequence. Dancing cows, shifting colors, and Randy Quaid yodeling.
Just about every song in High School Musical 3, to some extent. They could have planted an Aesop about not doing drugs into the movie without too much trouble.
The Movie has one as well, maybe more than one, considering how you view them. The song 'Brand New Reality' quickly degenerates into this trope as the song reaches the end and the alternate realities Phineas and the gang pass through get more and more surreal.
Other Animated Examples
Almost the entire 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon "The Big Snooze" (the last one to be directed by Bob Clampett) consists of a crazy dream sequence of Elmer Fudd's that he has when Bugs Bunny invades this dream and turns it into a nightmare in order to make him return to working with Warner Bros. and with Bugs.
Elmer: *bombarded by various weird designs of rabbits* Biwwions and twiwwions of wabbits! Where are they all coming fwom?!
Bugs: From me, doc! *playing with an adding machine that releases the rabbits* I'm multiplying, see? I'm multiplying!
Somehow, when Hannah-Barbera cartoons go weird, they go reallyweird. The best single example would be the fever dream-esque musical sequences in the already very strange Galaxy Goof-Ups (the adventures of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound and a couple of wacky new characters... but they're in space!) Every so often, the plot would stall for a minute or two and this would happen. Brace yourselves, for that video contains The Seventies. ALL of the Seventies.
The Simpsons Movie has a particularly trippy scene where Homer's head blows up like a balloon and explodes, he talks to trees (and they talk back), he's taken apart piece-by-piece by said trees, he melts like a stick of butter in a microwave, and then is put back together by the aforementioned trees, all set to creepy Inuit music.
Most of Fleischer Studio's early cartoons are made of this, so much so that this trope should be named after them. Don't believe me? Look up "Minnie The Moocher", "Swing You Sinners" and the Betty Boop version of "Snow White". Go on. We'll wait.
Don't forget "Bimbo's Initiation". You have to wonder if the many burning (hemp) ropes we see in Fleischer films really are a now-obscure reference to weed.
Most of Yellow Submarine is pretty trippy to begin with, but especially "Only a Northern Song", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "It's All Too Much".
A rare example that the Disney Acid Sequence in question inspired its own series, which contained its own examples, which makes it the Russian dolls of animated puppets.
The Great Muppet Caper has Miss Piggy fantasize about being the center of an underwater ballet, in which the film's villain sings-except after returning to reality and learning said villain's True Colors, she scornfully tells him, "You know what? You can't even sing! Your voice was dubbed!" Then again, the movie had No Fourth Wallwhatsoever, and she was under considerably emotional duress at the time.
The Prince of Egypt: the instrumental part of "All I Ever Wanted" in which hieroglyphs come to life; and "The Plagues", which is the song which goes with most of the plagues, and so days are compressed into minutes - and that split-screen shot at the end of Pharaoh and Moses is done for artistry.
A few of the musical numbers in FernGully, including comic relief character Batty's introduction, and the villain Hexxus's song (both of which have the potential to traumatize children).
One could claim the game Audiosurf is just an interactive Disney Acid Sequence.
"Pleasure Island" in The Twelve Tasks of Astérix. The Big Fight has a bard song rendered as a trippy rock number, but the viewpoint character is really hallucinating.
The Road to El Dorado: "It's Tough to Be a God". This one is probably at least partly a Mushroom Samba—the characters drink something mysterious from large bowls, the horse begins acting drunk, and they all wake up the next morning with hangover symptoms.
The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue has its Villain Song "Just Say Yes", which moves (both in terms of animation and lyrics) so fast that it ends up being a huge Mind Screw.
Justified, in that the character singing/dreaming it actually IS on acid (and most likely several other drugs as well, the first thing he does when he wakes up is snort something!)
Live action examples: The first half of "I Want You", "I Am The Walrus", "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", and "Strawberry Fields Forever" in Across The Universe.
"I Am The Walrus" and "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" can be somewhat justified given the substances they were undoubtedly on at that point. Eddie Izzard's performance in the latter definitely turns the notch up to 11, though.
Likewise, the number "Happiness is a Warm Gun" is a justified Acid Sequence, as Max is in a VR hosptial, and probably high on morphine.
A Man Called Flintstone had trippy sequences for the songs A Spy-Type Guy, Teammates, Tickle, Toddle, and Someday, we'll do great things
The Capulet Party sequence in Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet is a literal acid trip. We're left uncertain of whether Mercutio's song and dance number actually happened, or if it was just a byproduct of Romeo being off his face. "Thy drugs are quick" indeed...
The movie "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" has several crazy musical sequences. The first is a straightforward "Star-Spangled Banner" stars and stripes montage, the second is a crazy nightmare scene with Snoopy fighting the Red Baron, the third is an extended musical number where Linus and Charlie Brown study for a spelling bee with giant letters everywhere, the fourth is a Fantasia-style scene where Schroder plays the piano, the fifth is a nightmarish bus ride to the city (with a hallucinating Linus, who has been deprived of his blanket) and the sixth is a fantasy skating scene with Snoopy.
The infamous TV special "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown" (featuring Heather, aka the non-canonical Little Red Haired Girl), has Charlie Brown experience one of these after the titular first kiss. Unfortunately, because of it, Charlie Brown doesn't remember anything else that happened after, despite Linus explaining in detail just how damn cool it was.
Between Jessica's song and Chris's song when he first starts giving out gifts ("If you sit in my lap today/ a kiss a toy is the price you'll pay"), both Santa and Mrs. Claus can both be seen to be fairly unwholesome.
Another live action example is the Red Shoes Ballet from the film The Red Shoes: at first it makes sense as a literal ballet and reflection of the protagonist's inner turmoil, and then she grand jetés into surreal land.
the 1972 Depatie-Freleng special version of The Cat In The Hat had two sequences in it, one for the song "I'm a Punk", and another for "A Cat in a Hat"
The 1971 animated feature "The Point", about the round-headed boy Oblio and his dog Arrow, has several. It helps that, according to the Other Wiki composer Harry Nilsson was on acid when the original idea came to him.
The MGM sequel All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 features a darker Disney Acid Sequence, as Carface's new ally turns out to be the Devil. During the big Villain Song "It Feels So Good to Be Bad", Red (the Devil character) makes the scenery change several times through each verse. One moment, it's a bizarre hellish barber shop, then a nightmarish roller coaster, and finally something resembling Fire and Brimstone Hell.
Another Don Bluth film, Anastasia, has the half-remembered, half-imagined dancing sequence in the royal palace, complete with imaginary Pimped Out Dress.
Don't forget the Villain Song, complete with the singing and dancing bugs.
The Donkey Kong Country TV series' musical numbers tend to vary between these, Big-Lipped Alligator Moments and normal musical numbers. A bit of a variation, since they usually refer to the plot (or current scene) within the episodes.
The "Bunyip" song sequence from the 1970s Australian "Animated characters on live action backgrounds" film Dot And The Kangaroo.
One episode of Ren and Stimpy involves Stimpy getting sucked inside his belly-bottom and accompanyed by a sequence with trippy images and an acid rock influenced song.
In Beavis And Butthead Do America, Beavis eats a peyote cactus while in the desert and experiences a surreal animated music video for White Zombie's "Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks and Cannibal Girls".
Mike Judge didn't want to have this scene in the movie in the first place. MTV wanted a music video somewhere in the movie similar to the TV series, but Judge thought that would stop the plot dead and compromised with the hallucination sequence. It was still awesome though.
Templeton the Rat's song about the fair in the animated musical adaptation of Charlotte's Web was rather trippy.
More notably, the title song after Charlotte's lullabye to Wilbur is a more trippy moment.
Literally true in the stoned space-travel portion of "So Beautiful And So Dangerous", a segment of Heavy Metal.
How is the Floor Show from the Rocky Horror Picture Show not up here yet? Or the whole damn movie, for that matter. Toss in the audience-participation element, and it's a live performanceDisney Acid Sequence.
In "Troll", the Villain Song performed by Torok's minions borders on this.
In Mind Game, after Nishi dies the whole movie is like this.
The ending (and closing credits) of The Simpsons episode D'oh-in in the Wind.
The Elm-Chanted Forest has "Truffle Shuffle"- actually, any of the songs in The Elm-Chanted Forest with the exception of "Let Your Fur Down".
No-no, "Let Your Fur Down" can count too, it is rather strange and alot of the animals are not only odd colours but there are several that are unidentifiable species. And of course let's not Thistle hallucinating during the song and fainting afterwards, because of alchohol of all things (even though I used this joke in an unrelated drawing I'll just drop it here too and say that in his case even light beer isn't light enough)
El Cubo Mágico, the sequel to Dragon Hill, features one of these. Made in flash (in contrast to the otherwise traditionally animated movie, as well as Conspicuous CGI), this scene easily combines Deranged Animation with horrible music and very confusing imagery, mostly focusing on the boy Kevin trying to beat up a wood viking (and losing teeth in the process), and later the wood viking starts walking and dancing even though it was pretty much beaten up by the protagonists. Yeah...
Family Guy has the episode where Brian takes care of a cranky old lady who has not been out of her house for 30 years and sings a song about all the things she still has to see that has happened in the world - the scenery changes constantly through the song, though it isn't all that "trippy" really.
"What's not to Love" from the New York episode of Total Drama World Tour definitely counts.
"The fun is funner, the bagles are bagler, the bums are bummer..."
Any of the songs from the "Rupert and the Frog Song" VHS. Especially "Oriental Night fish" which has also been a source of nightmare fuel for many viewers.
A number of extended musical dream sequences from The Simpsons definitely qualify, for instance Homer in the Land of Chocolate in "Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk", Lisa's laughing gas-induced Yellow Submarine Purple Submersible hallucination in "Last Exit to Springfield" and the hauntingly poetic "Little Nemo" hommage an overworked Homer drops into when he falls asleep at the wheel in "Lisa's Pony". Speaking of the latter, Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend would also easily qualify if they were set to music.
Any time that Toki Wartooth decides to sing a solo, this is guaranteed to happen. So far we have:
"Underwater Friends", an Octopus' Garden-esque sequence where he sings to the fishes surrounding him in his immersion tank.
"I Am Toki", an autotuned song sung as Toki goes to meet his Internet lifemate. The dream sequence includes Toki transforming into a knight to rescue a hot princess in a castle from a giant green dragon who bleeds Lucky Charms marshmallows. And then there's a wedding where the minister and all the guests are rabbits. This does nothappen.
Similarly, a Littlest Cancer Patient fan who wants to meet Toki sends him a DVD of her singing a sweet song about wanting to be brutal - it segues into her and Toki singing and flying together, backed up by a chorus of candy-colored Eldritch Abominations.
The Phantom Tollbooth contains a scene where Milo tries to conduct the sunrise but winds up making the whole sky go crazy.
There is an acid sequence towards the end of The Grinch Grinches The Cat In The Hat, courtesy of the Grinch. This acid trip was played on the Cat while some very unfitting and wild Dixieland music played.
There is also the Paraphernalia Wagon sequence from "Halloween is Grinch Night". [1]
The weird, not so great crossover movie 'Porky and Daffy Meet The Groovie Goolies' has a very trippy sequence called 'Mad Mirror Land' wherein the three lead Goolies pursue the Big Bad into the real world, at least in some respects. Things actually become MORE cartoon-like when in the real world.
The Nightmare Before Christmas gives us "This Is Halloween". Every second some creepy monster is jumping in front of the screen. "Oogie Boogie's Song" may also quallify with all of it's trippy colours.
The entire episode of "Note-Ablly Pink" in Pink Panther and Pals
"La Seine" from the upcoming film Un Monstre a Paris/A Monster In Paris turns into one partway through, whereupon Francoeur and Lucille go from dancing on a stage, to dancing on a pier, in the air, and finally on top of the Eiffel Tower.
The iconic "Walking in the Air" sequence from The Snowman.
Hair (the film and the musical) has a literal acid sequence in it.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Percy, Annabeth, and Grover experience one of these set to the song Poker Face by Lady Gaga after ingesting lotus flowers at the Lotus Casino.
Ma Vie En Rose has one; it involves a popular dress-up doll.
The musical Singin' in the Rain includes a rare example of a live-action Disney Acid Sequence with the "Broadway Melody" segment, which apparently takes place entirely in Don Lockwood's imagination.
After the sequence ends his producer says "It sounds good, but I'd need to see it on film."
In a similar vein, most of the big production numbers in the musical version of "Kiss of the Spider Woman" take place in Louis Molina's head. Indeed, any time the title character character appears on stage she's probably a figment of his imagination.
Every musical number in the film version of Chicago except for those which are already explicitly set on a stage, happens inside Roxy Hart's head.
Likewise the musical numbers in Pennies from Heaven which are almost all in Steve Martin's head.
Unless it's the original BBC TV series, in which case they're all in Bob Hoskins' head.
Moulin Rouge! is full of this. Even the numbers explicitly set onstage would be impossible to perform live with such lavish effects.
Also, the duet that begins with "Your Song" was actually cut to make it less Acid Sequence; besides the singing moon, there were twirling soprano stars. Imagine a scene so Acidic that Baz Luhrmann thought it needed toning down!
Possibly justified seeing how the main characters (and a few part goers) drunk absinthe shorty before the number Can-can/Lady Marmalade.
Any of the animated sequences in Pink FloydThe Wall, where most of the second act takes place inside the protagonist's mind anyway.
Live action example: Grease, specifically the song "Beauty School Dropout", which is the climax of the movie's C-plot. Features Frankie Avalon and white-clad dancers out of nowhere - interacting with the subject of the song personally - along with an abrupt setting change.
Similarly, the "Turn Back the Hands of Time" number in Grease 2, which takes place when Stephanie apparently spaces out in the middle of the talent show and imagines singing a duet with the spirit of her Mysterious Protector in what we can only take to be Biker Heaven. Except that when Stephanie returns to reality at the end of the number, the audience is applauding and she's won the talent show, leaving us to wonder if they all somehow experienced the whole sequence with her. And, if not, then who was really singing the male part of the duet while she was tripping out?
Another live-action example: The Villain Recruitment Song"That's Motivation" in Absolute Beginners (1986) is presented in this manner. The villain in question (played by David Bowie, who also wrote the song) is an advertising executive who sees his work as selling dreams, and he's encouraging the idealistic photographer hero to become part of his all-style, no-substance world.
The tour in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has one of these for the characters: while most of the tour involves going around a wacky candy factory (like one would in a tour), the tunnel sequence is something else entirely.
Wonka: There's no earthly way of knowing...Which direction we are going...There's no knowing where we're rowing...Or which way the river's flowing...Is it raining? Is it snowing?...Is a hurricane a-blowing?...Not a speck of light is showing so the danger must be growing...Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?...Is the grisly Reaper mowing?...YES! THE DANGER MUST BE GROWING FOR THE ROWERS KEEP ON ROWING!! AND THEY CERTAINLY AREN'T SHOWING ANY SIGNS THAT THEY ARE SLOWING!!! RRRRUUUUUUUUGGHHH!!!!
Lampshaded by Violet Beauregard who asks if the whole tunnel sequence is a "freak out".
In Ken Russell's film adaptation of the stage musical The Boy Friend, daydreaming by members of the cast and crew often causes the fairly mundane production numbers — accurately representing what you'd see if you actually went and saw the play in a theater — to warp into elaborate and surreal fantasies.
In the Flight of the Conchords tv series this was done a couple of times with some of the more surreal songs in the duo's repertoire. Most notably Pretty Prince Of Parties, which was a literal acid trip.
Many early episodes of Sesame Street have a series of sketches on numbers (1 through 10) that involved a baker who holds in his arms that number of desserts but falls down a flight of stairs, ruining the desserts in question. The sketches started with a very flashy animated intro in which the voices of kids are heard counting up from 1 to 10, then back to 1, and finally up to the featured number in the sketch, in choral voice over, while that number, in animated form, zoomed around the screen.
The Who's Tommy, pretty much the entire musical. Special mention for the song "The Acid Queen". The movie also does this, as does the stage adaptation sometimes, depending on who's directing.
Appropriately enough, the Disneyland night show Fantasmic! includes one of these, in the form of an updated rendition of the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence from Dumbo. Although, the entire show could be considered an acid sequence, as it is Mickey's dreams.
Jerome Robbins' comic ballet The Concert is All Just a Dream anyway (more precisely, people daydreaming to music), but the end features all of the characters morphing into butterflies and being chased off the stage by the increasingly irritated pianist.
The Arceus event in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver treats you to a rather trippy montage of the creation of the universe, set to Arceus's very bizarre and dissonant theme music. This supposedly happens all over again every time anything ever is born.Or something.
Video Game example (that still fits better here than in Amazing Technicolor Battlefield): the warp zones in Meteo and Sector X in Star Fox 64. You go through the gates (in the case of Meteo, while spinning out of control), you end up in a hallucinogenic landscape (spacescape?), and suddenly you're halfway across the Lylat System. Talk about a "wild trip"...
Likewise for Out of This Dimension in the original.
The Nostalgia Critic does one of these in his review for Junior. In the middle of the review he falls asleep and has a bizarre dream sequence while singing a song about how boring the movie is.
