No-Dialogue Episode

"This chapter is brought to you in near silence."

— Chachazero in Chapter 166 of Negima! Magister Negi Magi

A single episode of a show where characters are usually very talkative is done with everyone being silent, or at least "silent" in the sense that you wouldn't be able to understand them if you couldn't see them.

Emotion and narration is done with overdone gesticulations, punctuated music, literal Sign Language, figurative sign language or rebuses. This makes it more likely to show up in an animated series, since attempting it seriously with live action is difficult without making it feel "cartoony" anyway, desired or not.

There tends to be more Mickey Mousing than usual, because going completely without sound is boring and creepy.

Contrast to Filling the Silence and Speech-Centric Work. Subtrope of Silence Is Golden. Often overlaps with Mime and Music-Only Cartoon.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Ah! My Goddess spin-off The Adventures of Mini-Goddess has an episode with Urd going out on a rainy day.
• Chapter 166 in Negima! Magister Negi Magi, focusing on Okochi Akira, an unusually quiet student, is done entirely without dialogue. Even when characters speak to each other, only pictures or one or two words are shown in the speech bubbles. Lampshaded by Chachazero holding a sign reading "This chapter is brought to you in near silence."
• Lampshaded in Bakuman。 when Eiji Niizuma writes a chapter of his manga with no words, only pictures and sound effects. The editors remark at how dangerous doing something like that is for ratings, but it ends up successful.
• The first episode of Texhnolyze comes close, but it does have a few lines of dialogue towards the end.
• Episode 9 of Mitsudomoe dedicates one of its segments to this trope. Other than a few lines of Angrish from Mitsuba, everything else is conveyed non-verbally.
• The third short of Squid Girl's fifth episode is done almost entirely without dialogue. A few "geso"s from Ika, a single line of narration and a brief exchange between Eiko and Sanae are all the speaking parts it has. Happens again in Episode 6.3 of Season 2.
• The Ramen Fighter Miki manga has a chapter nearly devoid of dialogue. It also features one of the greatest rage faces in history after a blackbird steals a bit of Miki's lunch, after which, Hilarity Ensues.
• Nichijou has one of these, in a sequence involving the exceptionally stressful final moments in the completion and subsequent destruction of a card tower.
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: The "Chuck to the Future" trilogy, other than replaying some of Garterbelt's lines from the point where things branch off, contains no dialogue (beyond Chuck and Fastener's Pokémon Speak).
• Chapter 89 of the original Lupin III manga series went entirely without dialogue until the final page (possibly as a homage to cartoons like Tom and Jerry, which the author admits to being a fan of). The sequel series also did it, but in a much more serious way.
• Fairy Tail:
  • Chapter 299 is a dialogue-less chapter showing Gildarts on one leg of one of his many long trips of Walking the Earth while the main cast are in the middle of a Tournament Arc. Finding a village endangered by a monster, saving it, then accidentally destroying it—all with no words.
  • Done once again in Chapter 417, also featuring Gildarts though with Natsu tagging along for a bit before moving on. Oh, Happy was also there.
• Chapter 599 of the Naruto manga is almost entirely a silent flashback to the early life of "Tobi", after we finally learn who he really is. There's one line of dialogue at the very end, spoken by a thunderstruck Kakashi in the present day.
• The entirety of Interstella 5555. Considering the movie is a feature-length Animated Music Video, talking would get in the way of the music.
• Several chapters of the Gag Manga Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku dedicate to Jin and Fuguo's adventures having no speech bubbles.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers features an especially infamously tearjerking one called Davie.
• This happens in The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. with Chapter 226 which is another New Year's Day-themed chapter along with its adaptation from the final short of Episode 20 from Season 2.
• Chapter 92 of YuruYuri, focusing on the practically mute Risa Matsumoto, is one of these to the extreme of not even having a chapter title; speech bubbles only show pictures of objects.

Comic Books

• The January 2011 issue of the Malaysian comic Gemeilia - Kokko & May (Chinese: 哥妹俩) has one chapter, "2011", (a shout-out, or a reference, to 2012), which is completely devoid of dialogue.
• The G.I. Joe comic book actually had entirely silent issues, where stories were told without dialogue, captions or even sound effects. They tended to feature Snake-Eyes and/or Storm Shadow.
  • The G.I. Joe example is also the Trope Codifier - the issue, #21 of the Marvel run "The Silent Interlude" was done as a gimmick Larry Hama wanted to do for some time.
  • Issue #85, "SFX", had no dialogue but included the appropriate onomatopoeia.
  • Issue #21 of the Devil's Due series repeated the silent theme.
  • G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (IDW):
    • The concept of an entire issue having no dialogue at all was used once again in issue 214, which was rather fitting, given that the story involved Snake-Eyes' funeral.
    • Issue 248 is yet another issue free of dialogue, focusing on Dawn Moreno silently wiping out the Red Ninjas.
    • The comic did yet another dialogue-free issue in issue 275, where the ten-part "Snake Hunt" arc ended with the Joes storming a Cobra base to rescue Sean Collins after he ended up in Cobra's clutches.
• Before the below "'Nuff Said Month", Deadpool had a (mostly) silent issue where Deadpool is rendered deaf because of a sonic weapon by Humbug. Constrictor fixed the problem in the end.
• Marvel Comics used this gimmick in every single comic they published cover-dated February 2002, calling it "'Nuff Said Month".
  • The Uncanny X-Men issue of that month contains a silent depiction of Banshee's scream destroying the Blob. New X-Men featured Jean Grey and Emma Frost entering Charles Xavier's mind for a "psychic rescue." And Wolverine's issue featured an extended silent three-way fight between himself, Sabretooth and the Villain of the Week.
  • Peter Parker: Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #38 had a most appropriate plot for this trope: Spider-Man fighting a gang of criminal mimes.
  • The Incredible Hulk: Issue #35 was a completely dialogue-free one-shot about Bruce Banner being spotted in a diner by federal agents.
  • Issue 49 of The Avengers (Kurt Busiek) run, part of his Grand Finale, "The Kang Dynasty", focuses on Kang's taking over the planet.
• Fantastic Four #588 by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta demonstrated the grief and fallout of the death of Johnny Storm by having the issue be entirely silent. Notable sequences include Ben Grimm taking out his rage on Donald Blake and the Hulk (who dutifully take it), Sue silently grieving, Reed formulating a plan to retrieve the body, and a truly heartbreaking funeral.
  • The same writer/artist team did East Of West #22 which was also silent but portrayed a single extended action sequence for its duration.
• One Sin City short story titled, appropriately enough, "Silent Night". There's just one line spoken at the end.
• Partly in Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) Annual (2020), the only dialogue spoken in "Reflections" is by Starline, telling Metal Sonic to Get Out! of the Metal Virus processing room after he finds him in there.
• Ultimate Spider-Man #133 has lots of action, including a short battle between Spider-Woman and the Hulk, but no dialogue or sound effects.
• Several Batman writers have experimented with this kind of story, from the '80s until today.
  • The quarterly anthology The Batman Chronicles would run a dialogue-free story every issue when it first came out, though this was dropped about three issues in.
    • An issue of Batman in which Batman is believed to be dead contains only two words near the end.
• The 2000 AD series Bob Byrne's Twisted Tales is a series of one-off strips, all of which have no dialogue at all. Byrne, the artist, came up with the idea when he got annoyed by letterers sticking speech bubbles all over his art.
• From the same artist, Mister Amperduke is an entire Graphic Novel in which the closest thing we get to dialogue is the odd semiquaver to indicate a character whistling.
• Issue #28 of The Powerpuff Girls (DC Comics) had a story—"Princess For A Day" (involving their school adversary Princess Morbucks) which had no dialogue, save for a two-word balloon just before the climax of the story.
• The Doctor Who Magazine strip "Onomatopoeia" has no dialogue until the final two pages, relying instead on sound effects alone.
• Alpha Flight had a dialogue-less section after James Hudson's death. Proved to be a nightmare of his widow.
• Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson were working on a one-shot follow-up to their classic Manhunter run; when Goodwin died, Simonson reworked the idea into a silent story rather than write dialogue in Goodwin's place.
• New 52: Issue #18 of Batman and Robin is entirely silent because it deals with the aftermath of Damian Wayne's death.
• One standalone issue of ElfQuest involved Strongbow attempting to rescue his injured wolf. Since he never normally speaks aloud anyway, there's virtually no dialogue in the issue.
• A Moment of Silence was a Marvel one-shot comprising four silent stories commemorating 9/11.
• Wonder Woman: Black and Gold: Aside from two words near the end, the "Homecoming" story is entirely dialogue free.
• Hawkeye (2012) has two of these, told in very different ways for different reasons:
  • Issue #11 is a Day in the Life of Lucky the Pizza Dog, following how he sees the world. All dialogue spoken by the humans around him are illegible sans a familiar keyword here and there, and Lucky's thought process is told exclusively through interconnected pictograms. Given the actual plot has to do with him discovering a dead body and piecing together a murder mystery, it gets surprisingly complex.
  • Issue #19 sees Clint's deafness come to a peak after a recent injury, and all speech bubbles around him are empty. He ends up communicating back and forth using sign language, again represented through individual pictograms, but they're never outright translated for the reader — anyone unfamiliar with ASL will need to piece together the plot through gesture and visual storytelling alone.
• One Judge Dredd story had a variation on this. Dredd responds to a hostage situation in museum. Dredd makes his way through the exhibits, taking out the perps one by one. Even when the last one tries to call out Dredd in a panic. Once Dredd has taken out the perps and rescues the hostage, the child's mother tries to thank him, only for Dredd to take off on his Lawmaster without saying a word. Another judge explains that Dredd is already late for a medical appointment to treat a case of laryngitis.
• The 31st issue of Young Justice, aptly titled "Quiet" consists of Impulse bugging Superboy while he's trying to watch TV before wandering off into his own adventures, the sole line of dialogue being Superboy exclaiming "D'oh" at the end after seeing Impulse get kissed by multiple cheerleaders at the sports match he is watching.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes frequently had strips with no dialogue, relying on the characters' gestures and shown emotions to convey the story.
• Peanuts occasionally had these as well, usually on Sundays.

Films — Animation

• DJ Pon-3's My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks animated short, "Music to My Ears," has exactly one line, "What can I getcha?", spoken by Mrs. Cake.
• In Turning Red, the scene of the ride home from Tyler's house is devoid of dialogue. According to the DVD Commentary that scene used to have dialogue between Mei and her mother in an earlier draft but when they tried a version without it, "it just completely landed in terms of the intensity between the two of them" according to Mahyar Abousaeedi, the director of photography, camera.
• The Pixar film WALL•E has basically no dialogue for the first third or so of the film, with the characters consisting solely of WALL•E and Eve, who say nothing more than their names and "directive". This is no longer the case when they arrive on the Axiom, though, since the humans (and some robots) there do a lot of talking.

Film — Live-Action

• 1952 spy thriller The Thief, starring Ray Milland, does not have any spoken dialogue.
• Silent Movie: Made in 1976, with one word of spoken dialogue in the whole movie spoken by world-famous mime Marcel Marceau!. It is especially notable because it is a Mel Brooks film, who likes to add song and dance numbers to his movies.
• The cliff-face sword fight in G.I. Joe: Retaliation specifically lacks dialogue, sound effects and music to homage the silent issue.
• The first 20 minutes of the Charles Bronson film about a professional hit man, The Mechanic (1972), has no dialog at all, as we watch the killer setting up the victim's room to make his assassination look like an accident.
• The 2018 Canadian figure skating short film Attainment contains absolutely no dialogue. As this article elaborates:
  A better example of the importance of trusting in the audience is Michael Boroda's Attainment. Very little is explained in the film, there is not even an ounce of dialogue, but the film manages to pack an emotional punch. The story focuses on a figure skater who dreams of being the best, but his reality tells a different story. Juxtaposing the skater's recollections of preparing for a competition with his declining physical condition, Boroda paints an intriguing portrait of a man not willing to mentally give up on his dreams even when his body makes those aspirations seemingly unattainable.
• The Silent Alarm is mostly without dialogue, as whenever there are characters seen talking, it is mostly from a distance, and the main character barely has any lines and the only time there is clear dialogue is when the Man threatens to kill the boy when the kid catches him looking through jewelry and when the boy tells his mother that the man is the thief not him (boy).
• Tyranno's Claw, a film set in Prehistoric times, has no dialogue whatsoever, just grunts and yelling.

Live-Action TV

• The 77 Sunset Strip episode "The Silent Caper" (one of several episodes written by series co-star Roger Smith) is not only an hour show with no dialogue, but predates all of the below. (Yes, including "The Invaders".)
• One aspect of Buffy the Vampire Slayer people always seemed to single out for praise was the dialogue. In response to this, Joss Whedon decided to write an episode called "Hush", which was nominated for an Emmy Award. Demons called "the Gentlemen" render everyone in the town mute, because a real human voice is the only thing that can kill them. More than half of the episode has no dialogue, yet the characters still engage in Buffy Speak during the silent part.
• Community has an episode where the study group members glance around at each other awkwardly for the entire opening scene. The background music builds up to make it seem like there's about to be a punchline, only to have it immediately cut to the show's opening sequence. Apparently, the silence has been in progress for a long time before the Dean breaks it.
  Dean: This awkward silence has been going on for days! Granted, Jeffrey looks amazing when he broods, but this has got to stop!
• CSI: NY: "Unspoken," as its name implies, goes for half the episode with no dialogue, just Green Day music.
• Evil (2019): "S is For Silence" has Kristen, David and Ben investigating miracles at a monastery where the vow of silence is strictly enforced to the point where monks sleep with mouth gags to avoid talking in their sleep. As it turns out, there's a cabinet where demon is imprisonned and would escape should anyone utter a word. The episode itself only has three scenes with spoken dialogues when the trio reunites outside the perimeter.
• The Frasier episode "Three Valentines" features an act made up entirely of Niles preparing for a date, with his obsessing over fixing a loose thread on his pants ultimately wrecking the apartment, all while saying nothing besides gasps and grunts after a brief phone conversation at the start.
• "The Incredible Jewel Robbery", an episode of General Electric Theater in 1959, only has one line of dialogue. After Chico & Harpo Marx get caught trying to pull off the eponymous robbery, they get put in a Police Lineup and are not identified as the thieves. Instead, their uncredited ^note  due to his contract with You Bet Your Life on another network brother Groucho is fingered, who then utters the only line in the teleplay: "We won't talk until we see our lawyer." It was the last time the three brothers appeared together professionally.
• The Inside No. 9 episode "A Quiet Night In" contains no dialogue apart from one line spoken at the episode's conclusion.
• In Lost, the first season's final episode, "Exodus, Part 2" features no dialogue in its entire final act, bringing the musical score to the foreground instead. The last word spoken by any character in this episode is Michael screaming "Walt!" immediately before the last act break. This creates a book end of sorts, as this was also the first line of dialogue heard a few minutes into the pilot episode.
• The Mr. Robot episode "405 Method Not Allowed" contains only two lines of dialogue, at the beginning and the end, both punny. First Darlene picks up Elliot at the burning van and says, "That's cool, we don't have to talk." Then Vera approaches Krista and says, "It's time we talked." For added self-consciousness the second is scored to "Silent Night".
• Only Murders in the Building gave us "The Boy from 6B" which is told almost completely from the point of view of Theo Dimas, a tenant of the apartment building who is deaf. Whenever he is on camera, we don't hear any sounds and all dialogue is conveyed through American Sign Language and/or subtitles. Even in scenes where Theo isn't present, there are sounds but no audible dialogue (with the exception of the Previously on… and the very end.)
• Nearly the first half of The Prisoner (1967) episode "Many Happy Returns" plays out without a single line of intelligible dialogue. A couple of lines are spoken in an unknown foreign language, but more in the background of a scene.
• Room 104 had "Voyeurs" in which actually there is a few dialogue. Besides the woman who introduces herself for cleaning the room and the man at the phone, the episode is silent and we hear only music.
• Saturday Night Live had a sketch in their 1994 season finale which was almost dialogue free. ^note  The only spoken dialogue was when Norm MacDonald protested being kissed. The sketch has Kevin Nealon flirting with host Heather Locklear until she tricks him into killing himself and steals his wallet.
• Space: Above and Beyond. The episode "Who Monitors the Birds?" sees Hawkes alone in enemy territory when a mission to assassinate a Chig officer goes wrong. As he's by himself he has no-one to talk to, and the flashbacks to his training as a InVitro shows them being conditioned rather than trained, with the instructors interacting with them as little as possible.
• A variation in "Uprising", a second season episode of Switched at Birth: All of the episode's dialogue is in Sign Language. The episode eases the audience into it: The first scene's dialogue is signed and spoken. The second scene is only signed, but keeps the ambient noise of the actors' movement and breathing. After that, the soundtrack goes entirely silent except for incidental music, until the final line of dialogue in the very last scene:
  Bay (to Daphne): The cops are here. (Daphne can't hear the police sirens.)
  From the second scene:
  Melody Bledsoe: Until hearing people walk a day in our shoes, they will never understand. Never.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): "The Invaders" has only one line of dialogue apart from Rod Serling's opening/closing narration and it's not spoken by the show's only human cast member Agnes Moorehead - who on reading the script asked where her part was - but by episode director Douglas Heyes as the voice of the Earth astronaut whose ship is being destroyed by the giant played by Miss Moorehead.
• Two Guys and a Girl had "The One Without Dialogue" where we track the characters dealing with physical tasks that don't require any dialogue (except for a dream sequence dance scene): Johnny needs to fix a toilet, Sharon needs to rescue her wedding ring, Pete chases after a woman on the subway, etc. All the jokes come from their struggles with physical objects rather than dialogue.
• In one episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, Justin and Harper become good friends due to their shared appreciation of silent movies (which Alex hates). After Alex messes up their friendship, they get back at her by turning the world into a silent movie, treating the audience to a few minutes of Deliberately Monochrome and Silence Is Golden.

Professional Wrestling

• A segment on the February 21th 2011 episode of Raw, was done without a word of dialogue. The Undertaker made a return after a long absence. His music played. The crowd cheered loudly. Before he could do or say anything, Triple H made a surprise return after an even longer absence. The crowd went nuts. The two of them stared each other down, and then turned to look at the WrestleMania logo. The crowd exploded. More staredown, dueling chants, dueling taunts, not a word spoken.
• On the September 10th 2012 episode of Monday Night RAW, following Jerry Lawler's heart attack, segments that followed, including the matches, had no commentary, out of respect for Lawler. The only commentary was Michael Cole giving updates on Lawler's condition.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: The entirety of Dr. Alan Doyle's backstory flashbacks are entirely without written or spoken dialog, told primarily through environmental storytelling, facial expressions, and sound effects.
• Alien Hominid manages to tell a somewhat simple, but funny story with absolutely no dialogue. (Unless screaming counts)

• Machinarium has the characters communicating primarily with thought bubbles showing what they mean. Nobody ever actually says anything, and the only text you ever see in the game are the game menus and the few tutorial tips at the very beginning.

• Journey, not counting the chirping noises that you or the strangers you meet can make.
• The Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros. Brawl has little to no dialogue, even talkative folks like Snake and Sonic don't utter a word of line.
• Star Fox 64: None of the Star Fox team has any dialogue in the secret warp zones, though they'll still let out a Big "NO!" if Fox dies.
• Fire is a no-text, no-dialogue puzzle/adventure game. Considering the main character is a caveman, this is hardly surprising.
• Journey of a Roach depicts the adventures of two cockroaches in a people-less apocalyptic future. As such, picture balloons are the closest thing to dialogue.
• TurnOn involves a computer geek who communicates in picture balloons and an electric spark which doesn't communicate at all.
• The Overwatch short "The Last Bastion" stars the titular robot, who is only capable of communicating in mechanical beeps, and Ganymede, a small bird that it befriends.
• My Brother Rabbit uses picture balloons and cutscenes which consist of a series of drawings set to music.
• The Gardens Between is another no-text, no-dialogue puzzle game.
• Lara Croft GO: In contrast to the main series games, Lara doesn't speak at all (or encounter anyone to speak with, for that matter).
• Lona: Realm Of Colors, being a game that focuses on "art and music narration", features no dialogue whatsoever as you guide your titular heroine through what appears to be a surreal Dream Land with the soundtrack conveying emotions. But what AMAZING soundtrack that is...

Web Comics

• In EarthBound: The Chosen Four, one full page has Ness and the others waiting out three minutes behind a waterfall without any dialogue until they acknowledge this isn't the most eventful page.
• Freefall had A Walk in the Park with Polly, almost an entire month of strips without any spoken dialogue.
• The "Zim Grim" extra comic from Gunnerkrigg Court has no dialogue whatsoever.
• The Distant Sequel continuation webcomic The Legacy of Dominic Deegan as a whole is a variant on this, as the events are shown from the perspective of its deaf protagonist. He (and the reader) see conversations, arguments, etc happening, but there are no word balloons. He communicates with others via writing instead.

• The Training Montage chapter before the Submerged Fish Hunt in Tower of God.

• Used sparingly but effectively in these issues of The Word Weary.
• Kevin & Kell had an entire multi-week arc without dialogue, though it did contain sound effects, a few vocal noises, and just enough narration to avoid confusion. This wasn't too hard to arrange, considering that it was about a preverbal (but rather self-sufficient) baby getting lost.
  • And these two strips when Bruno and Corrie found out they can't have kids because it would result in Death by Childbirth.
• In Leftover Soup, the first four pages of this storyline have no dialogue boxes.
• Subverted for laughs in Com'c here. The subversion is also a lampshade on itself.
• The notorious "Loss" strip and the final strip before the Continuity Reboot are the only comics in Ctrl+Alt+Del with no dialogue at all. Both were intended to highlight the cast's reactions to a traumatic event, though the "Loss" strip became memetic for its Narm.
• Lotus Cobra Is Evil: "Witch's Oven"◊, which is a play on Hansel and Gretel, where instead of putting the eponymous children in her oven, the titular witch bakes what is presumably a Cauldron Familiar to feed the children with, instead.

Web Original

• Justified in an episode of Alantutorial, where Alan doesn't want to be caught making a tutorial. Though his phone's audio is working due to the noise in the background, Alan stays silent and tries to convince his audience his mic is broken.
• Backwards Songs With Luke's "I Need Your Help To Find The Illuminati" features no talking, with Luke silently making hand-gestures and writing to the audience instead.
• hololive's "Holo no Graffiti" shorts are usually packed with very rapid dialogue (in part because they are showcasing the voice actors as much as the digital personas), but Episode 125: Danger: Do Not Wake has only one line at the end, with all the gags being expressed through careful animation.
• The Music Video Show has this in an episode where the host turns off the music at the beginning of the video and gives the music video the finger for 7 minutes without saying a word.
• The Nostalgia Critic's review of The Good Son is a variant where all of the Critic's lines are done through cue cards and subtitles accentuated by music and stock noise (including a stock Evil Laugh) because Doug lost his voice he spent too much time yelling at it before reviewing it proper. The film clips do keep their dialogue, though.
• RWBY: Ruby's Red trailer consists of her fighting monsters in a forest. The only sounds are the snarls of the Beowolves, the sound effects and the music score.
• SCP-2521 of the SCP Foundation is this out of necessity, as it is a weird Humanoid Abomination that steals anything written about it and kidnaps anyone who talks about it. However, drawing pictures that describe it is just fine, as it apparently can't comprehend pictorial representations of information.
• SuperMarioLogan uses the partial variation in the episode "Bowser Junior's Nerf War!", where most of the first half (mainly when the Nerf guns are shot) is this^note We are treated to ominous music as a replacement for the dialogue. The rest of the episode has dialogue, though.
• Vietnamese web animation Wolfoo accidentally has uploads of an episode which is silent. Most of the official uploads of the series have voices, whereas the silent version was probably meant for dubbing in other languages.

Western Animation

• 2 Stupid Dogs had an episode that was not only silent but was drawn in a style similar to old silent cartoons and was in black and white.
• 9: The 2005 short has no dialogue for the entirety of it, unlike the 2009 film.
• The Adventure Time episode Thank You... sort of. There's some exchanges between Finn, Jake and the Ice King happening in the background, but none of the characters who are the central focus of the episode speak.
• The Angry Beavers episode "Silent But Deadly" has the beavers stuck in their house surrounded by sleeping wolverines. The entire episode is largely silent (except with music) due to the brothers attempting to escape without waking the predators up. A pseudovariation occurred in a later episode in which the brothers had a competition to not talk. (They solved this by carting around giant tape players with tapes that had words on them so they could communicate. Yes, it's that kind of show.)
• The Animaniacs episode "Ragamuffins" features the Warner siblings getting jobs as chefs in a bakery. The episode is in black and white and done in the style of a 1920s cartoon.
  • "Toy Shop Terror" and "Babblin' Bijou" both contain no dialogue except for one line from Yakko at the end and one from Dot in the former.
  • There were a few one-off shorts such as "Wings Take Heart" and "No Time for Love" that had no dialogue and relied only on the music of either Richard Stone or Steve Bernstein.
  • "White Gloves" is another example of this, with Wakko speaking only twice in the short: once at the beginning and once at the end.
  • "Potty Emergency" is a partial example. Half of the cartoon contains no spoken dialogue, except for several noises, but half of it does have dialogue.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Both "Appa's Lost Days" and "The Tale of Momo" segment of "Tales of Ba Sing Se". However there is some spoken dialogue, although they are few and far between, and most of the vocal sounds are coming from the animal stars of the episode.
• The Big City Greens episode "Quiet Please" (which is a parody of A Quiet Place) seems to play with this. After being warned by the Scary Librarian to not even make a slight sound otherwise they'll be banned, the Greens rely on the use of American Sign Language and charades whenever they need to say something out loud (usually Bill and Tilly), with almost all their dialogue told through their thoughts. They go back to speaking whenever they want once they leave the library in the end.
• Big Hero 6: The Series: "Love Letter" is a No-Dialogue Episode where Karmi pursues Hiro determined to give him a love letter.
• The Bluey episode "Rain" has no dialogue outside of a brief moment at the very beginning when Bandit and Bingo leave to go someplace.
• The Season 3 Bojack Horseman episode "Fish Out Of Water" has all of the dialogue for around 90% of the episode muted as bubbles and gurgles as an effect of the diving helmet worn by BoJack, the random gurgles of the natives and the fact that it takes place underwater. The episode ends with Bojack realizing that his diving helmet does allow for him to be heard, meaning that he could have spoken and explained himself this entire time, pissing him off immensely.
• In The Boys: Diabolical, "Laser Baby's Day Out" has no dialogue at all, save for Laser Baby calling Simon "dada".
• The Bugs Bunny short Baton Bunny in which he plays a conductor is his only cartoon with no dialogue. (With the exception of one point where he shushes the orchestra.) The early short "Rhapsody Rabbit'' was mostly silent; Bugs had only three lines:
  "Eh, what's up, doc? Who? Franz Liszt? Never heard of him. Wrong number."
  "Fi-ga-ro! Fi-ga-ro!"
  "Look, one hand! No hands!"
• The CatDog episode "Silents Please!" is styled as a black-and-white silent movie, due to simultaneous epidemics of color-blindness and laryngitis.
• "Blastoff Buzzard" was a Road Runner-esque segment of CB Bears. It was the only no-dialogue entry in the entire Hanna-Barbera catalog.
• City Island (2022): "Celebration" has no dialogue until the end of the episode, when everyone shouts "Happy New Year!"
• Classic Disney Shorts:
  • The Mickey Mouse short The Little Whirlwind is mostly dialogue-free, save for talk between Mickey and Minnie at the beginning and end.
  • An earlier short, Mickey's Garden is also pretty much void of dialogue except for Pluto's barking and Mickey having one speaking line in the end. There are a handful of shorts where Mickey has nothing to say, mainly because Walt Disney was too busy running the studio to voice the mouse.
  • As mentioned above, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a dialogueless part of Fantasia, known for it's use of classical music.
  • 'The Goofy short Baggage Buster, while there are a few sparse lines, is mostly silent.
• Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: T.H.E.-F.LY.". In this case, characters are shown to still be talking, but all of their voices and sound effects are muted, leaving the soundtrack as the only thing the audience hears (though one can still read the characters' lips).

• DC Animated Universe:
  • The DVD for Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman included "Chase Me", a no-dialogue short featuring Batman pursuing Catwoman.
  • A couple of Batman Beyond episodes have Batman fighting Shriek, a sound based villain with the ability to nullify sounds and interfere with people's ability to comprehend spoken language.
• Dexter's Laboratory:
  • The episode "Dim" has Dexter replacing a burnt out light bulb in his lab, with no dialogue until the last 3 seconds.
    Dee Dee: You know, they are going to burn out eventually.
    Dexter: I know.
  • Several shorts are dialogue-less, such as "A Third Dad Cartoon", where Dad goes golfing... or tries to.
• The Disney Channel Chibi Tiny Tales shorts are this.
• Apart from Elena's giggle and yelp at the end, the Elena of Avalor short "Marisa and the Mirror" has no dialogue from Elena, Marisa, and the shark that almost eats them.
• The Fairly OddParents!, "Pipe Down": A few minutes in, Timmy wishes for silence, thus pushing the episode into this category until the end, where he has to wish for sound to return so that he can make a wish to stop a meteor in collision course with the Earth.
• Fantasia: None of the shorts feature any dialogue, or even sound effects for that matter, it's just music and animation. The only ones talking are the narrators introducing the shorts.
• Garfield Originals is a series devoid of dialogue, with the characters only making vocal sounds such as laughter, screaming and grunts.
• The Harvey Beaks Christmas Episode is completely dialogue-free with music only, making it Fantasia-esque. Only the opening and ending avert this.
• The Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi episode "Ikkakujuu" has no dialogue or SFX.
• The Kick Buttowski episode "Kyle E. Coyote" is dialogue-free, being a Whole-Plot Reference to Road Runner cartoons.
• Looney Tunes: Famously, the Chuck Jones Road Runner shorts were silent with the exception of the Road Runner's "Beep beep". If either the Coyote or the Road Runner had something to say, they would say it with signs.
  • There were also a few one-off Looney Tunes shorts, such as Jones' No Barking, which had no dialogue save for two lines from a cameo appearance of Tweety Bird, both of which consist of his catchphrase, "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!", "I did! I did taw a puddy tat!" (Sidenote, this was Tweety's only appearance in a Chuck Jones cartoon, since he mainly appeared in Bob Clampett or Friz Freleng shorts.)
  • Not even Bugs is immune to these; Rhapsody Rabbit downplays it (Bugs only has three brief lines and the closest there is to dialogue otherwise is a man coughing) and Baton Bunny plays it straight (the closest there is to dialogue is Bugs shushing the brass).
• Maggie and the Ferocious Beast: The episode "Morning in Nowhere Land" shows the morning routines of Maggie, Hamilton and Beast with little to no dialogue at all.
• Another partial example from Moral Orel: the episode "Alone" is focused on three separate characters (Nurse Bendy, Miss Censordoll and Miss Sculptham). The latter does not speak words (although still grunts, sighs, etc.) during her scenes, but has the radio playing. The fact this episode reveals some new info about her adds to its shock value. Specifically, through the radio, newspaper headlines, and context clues, we find out that Miss Sculptham lured a rapist to her apartment to rape her, got pregnant by it, and performed a wire-hanger abortion.
• Phineas and Ferb: No one speaks throughout the "Tri Stone Area" episode, except through a simplistic caveman language that the audience doesn't understand.
• Pinky and the Brain:
  • "The Brain's Apprentice", in a parody of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, features Brain building a robot but Pinky shuts it down. When he activates it, he accidentally creates thousands of clones that almost do succeed in taking over the world, but Brain interferes and only at the last minute does he realize What Could Have Been. The cartoon contains no dialogue except for the garbled gibberish spoken by a news reporter.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • A partial example is "Powerprof": Aside from the opening narration, the rest of the opening segment is dialog-free. The other segments have dialog as normal.
  • "Silent Treatment" (which has the girls plopped into a silent movie) effects this, even if dialogue cards are used.
  • "Buttercrush" is also a partial example; the episode focuses on Buttercup having a massive crush on Ace from the Gangreen Gang. While all the other characters speak, the main focus of the episode, Buttercup, never says a word. Until the end, that is, at which point she apologizes to her sisters for letting her crush go to her head.
• Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal (2019) is a No Dialogue Series, building off techniques he perfected in the below-mentioned Samurai Jack. In this case, the lack of dialogue is justified by the show taking place in a Hollywood Prehistory setting, with the cast being made up of either animals or apelike cavemen who have no concept of language.
• Two Private Snafu shorts contained almost no dialogue, in "Pay Day" we follow Snafu deciding what to do with his money once he gets paid with two demons tempting him to spend it foolishly, the cartoon ends with him broke and homeless and the only spoken dialogue occurs when a mouse tells his landlord "Snafu doesn't live here anymore". And "Operation Snafu" in which Snafu infiltrates a Japanese military base to steal some important documents, the only spoken dialogue is the gibberish the officers yell when they chase him.
• The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Fatal Contraption", in which Rocko buys a living food processor, features no dialogue except for an announcer saying "Buy this! Food-O-Matic 2000!"
• Samurai Jack was famous for doing this (and doing it very well) for dramatic effect in most action sequences. The cartoon is almost a no dialogue series considering how many times it happened. Jack himself has no dialogue in a few episodes. Particularly notable is "The Four Seasons of Death", where only one character in one segment has any lines at all.
• The Simpsons shorts Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" and Playdate With Destiny have no dialogue from any of the characters. This is justified due to the main characters being babies.
• SpongeBob SquarePants mini-episode "Reef Blower" contains no dialogue at all, except "You!" which was not heard, only appearing in subtitle on the bottom of the screen.
  • Although not an entire episode, there's a short segment at the end of "House Worming" called "Clam Up" that details what caused Prickles the Worm to decide to live inside SpongeBob at the beginning of the episode. The only dialogue in this short is some gibberish yelled out by Prickles.
  • Save for a couple of lines at the very beginning, "Dream Hoppers" falls into this category as well, with the actions on screen being timed to the music.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars had several of these, but it comes easier as each episode is only about 4 minutes.
• Steven Universe: "Escapism" only has intelligible dialogue in the first and last scenes, as the majority of the episode involves Steven controlling the body of a Watermelon Steven as he tries to send a Distress Call about the trouble he, Connie and the other Crystal Gems are in on Homeworld.
• A couple episodes of Taz-Mania such as "Taz and the Pterodactyl" and the first half of "The Dog The Turtle Story" contain no dialogue except for Taz's gibbering.
• The Leonardo segment of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) episode "The Shredder Strikes Back, Pt. 1" is done in this manner; it's not immediately noticeable, however, since the characters do continue to grunt and do battle noises. The comic book issue this episode was based on, Leonardo #1, also used the technique.
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • An episode parodies the Fantasia short "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", with Buster as the "apprentice" and Bugs as the "sorcerer". The only line of dialog occurs at the very end.
    Buster: I suppose this means I don't get an "A" in the course?
  • A silent short called "Sound Off" in black-and-white 1920s style animation, complete with screen-filling cards containing text of any dialogue that would have been spoken had it been done normally. The story is framed as a history class at Acme Looniversity.
  • The short "The Kite", one of the most atypical segments of the show, is also dialogue-free, save for a line from Buster at the end.
  • In the episode "C Flat or B Sharp", the only dialogue is near the beginning, when Yosemite Sam gives Buster, Plucky, and Hamton instructions on moving the piano.
• Tom and Jerry may as well be called "No Dialogue Series" since neither of the main characters have any speaking lines during many shorts, and the only spoken dialogue are by other characters involved in a handful of shorts. While Tom (and, to a far lesser extent, Jerry) does speak in certain shorts, they're usually either one-liners or sung lyrics, and even then, they only come up on occasions.
• The Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production episode "Snow Wabbit" in which Bugs builds a snowman who comes to life and wants his carrot for his nose, contains no dialogue.
• Wat's Pig, for the most part. The characters make noises (such as growls, screams, and sighs) but the only spoken words in the short are "Me?" repeated twice as an Ironic Echo.
• While there are occasionally some screams and growls, Zig & Sharko is a no dialogue series due to none of the characters speaking.

---