Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane / Western Animation

• There is evidence for either interpretation, but the possibility that the adventures Jason and Michelle have in 3-2-1 Penguins! with their four penguin buddies Zidgel, Midgel, Fidgel, and Kevin could either be real adventures or just in their imagination was lampshaded from day one:
  Jason: (to the penguins) I can't believe you guys are alive!
  Midgel: Either that or you're daydreaming.
• In the All Grown Up! episode "It's Cupid, Stupid" it was left ambiguous whether Lil' Q was really Cupid or it was just a coincidence that people were falling in love after getting hit by his hackysack. The last person to be hit by the hackysack, right at the end, didn't seem affected by it. Though Lil' Q had passed it on to Dil at that point, so it might not have been magic anymore, if it ever was.
• Arthur: In the episode "Prunella Gets It Twice", Prunella gets two of the same type of doll for her ninth birthday and so acts ungrateful when she receives the second from her school friend Francine who acts sad for the rest of the party. That night, Prunella dreams that two wacky ghosts visit her: the Ghost of Presents Past who tells her about how Prunella should apologize because Francine did chores she disliked just to save up for the doll and the Ghost of Lunch Tomorrow who's just a joke character who predicts the next day's lunches. It serves as an Opinion-Changing Dream because Prunella does apologize; however, despite this averting Or Was It a Dream? (we know for sure it was a dream), it is never explained if it was a regular dream that happened to reflect reality or if the ghosts actually existed and manipulated Prunella's dream.
  • The Ghost of Lunch Tomorrow appears again in the episode "Arthur Changes Gear", this time as the Ghost of Bicycles Never Ridden to show Arthur why he shouldn't delay using his newly bought bicycle, starting with visiting people who do the same with their own possessions. One of those people is Prunella, who remembers her encounter with the ghost as well as the job he had before. The ghost quickly takes himself and Arthur away before more questions could be asked.
• A few episodes in Avatar: The Last Airbender end this way, particularly "The Fortune Teller" and "The Swamp". Avatar uses basically every combination of mundane or magical explanation at some point. "The Fortune Teller" plays with this the heaviest, as Sokka is convinced the fortune telling is a scam, as the Fortune Teller's predictions put people in danger (particularly the one that the Volcano would not destroy the village, which only comes true because Sokka, Aang, and Katara fake a prediction that the town would be destroyed.) However, all of the Fortune Teller's predictions come true, even if they are in a round about way.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In the episode "Zatanna", it's clear, even to the point of being outright stated, that Zatanna's tricks are just stage magic. If you read the comics however, you know that Zatanna is capable of real magic, and it's later confirmed on Justice League. There are a couple of incidents^note the Joker card predicting young Bruce's future and Zatanna's final disappearance that raise the question of whether or not real magic was involved.
  • The episode "Read My Lips" has Batman analyzing the Ventriloquist and Scarface's voices in the Batcomputer. The result shows that those voices belong to two different persons. Batman also says to Alfred that he studied with the world greatest ventriloquist, Zatara (Zatanna's father) and that the Ventriloquist could give him lessons. So, In-Universe, they aren't sure if the Ventriloquist is just a way better artist than the world's greatest magician, or if Scarface is truly a Demonic Dummy. For what it's worth, the two actually were voiced by the same actor, so maybe the Batcomputer just wasn't up to snuff.
  • In The New Batman Adventures, The Scarecrow went through a major design overhaul because the crew felt that he didn't look scary enough. The redesign is far more undead, featuring the character looking more like a priest in a wide-brimmed hat with a noose around his neck, long hair, and the face looks along the lines of a skeleton. The creators indicated that they weren't even sure if the character was human anymore, and whether or not it's just a costume.
  • Also Mask of the Phantasm, wherein it's left ambiguous as to whether the Phantasm has supernatural abilities or simply uses smoke grenades and other tricks.
• The Batman: The Halloween Episode "Grundy's Night" centers around Solomon Grundy rising from Gotham Swamp and taking his revenge on the descendants of Gotham's founding fathers. During the episode, Batman remains unconvinced that something like a reanimated zombie could actually exist, and concludes that it's merely an imposter using the legend to target the supposedly rich descendants. He's ultimately proven right about an imposter (Clayface) using the legend, but the end of the episode shows something rising out of Gotham Swamp.
• Ben 10: In the episode "Benwolf", Gwen and Kai are searching a sacred grove, where the spirits of Kai's people go to after death, for a specific cactus that they believe will help cure Ben's supposed Lycanthropy. Just as Gwen is about to give up, she sarcastically asks the spirits for help, and then accidentally sits on the cactus they were looking for. Genuine coincidence? Or the spirits helping out as Kai believes? Considering Ben was just gaining a new alien form, thus rendering the cactus useless, it was probably a coincidence.
  Kai: I guess the spirits work in strange ways.
• Bluey:
  • In "Feather Wand", it's unknown if the eponymous wand really can make things heavy, or if it's just a game the Heelers are playing (as they're wont to do).
  • In "Fairies", Bandit accidentally hurts the feelings of his little daughter Bingo, and then strange things happen (like circles of stones that allegedly cause an Involuntary Dance, the Heelers' tails being braided, and Bingo freezing with her fingers up her nose) which the Heelers blame on fairies. When Bandit atones, everything goes back to normal, and it's left unclear if the fairies were indeed real, or if Bingo came up with a plan to get Bandit to apologise and Chilli and Bluey are in on it. On the one hand, a fairy is shown at the end, and some of the feats seem implausible, but on the other hand, the fairy was only seen by Bingo so it may be her imagination, and the implausibility may just be Artistic License. The drawing the fairies allegedly did of Bandit looks like it was drawn by a child which could mean Bluey or Bingo actually drew it, but it may just mean the fairies can't draw well.
• The Casagrandes: In "Monster Cash", Rosa threatens Carl with tales of a Boogeyman-esque monster called "El Cucuy". He apparently gets terrorised by El Cucuy, but it turns out to be Rosa in disguise. There was no evidence of a real Cucuy anywhere in the show, but a later episode, "The Curse of the Candy Goblin", showed that another monster, the Candy Goblin, is real, so it's unsure if the Cucuy is real.
• Craig of the Creek:
  • Deltron, the titular boy from "The Kid from 3030", claims to be a time-traveling cyborg who needs audio cassette tapes to help win a war from his era. Given how he has a tape player, and later a CD player, strapped to his chest and appears to be wearing a costume, he's likely just a kid playing pretend. He also has a deep, adult-like voice despite apparently being the same age as Craig and friends (something they themselves comment on), but that could just be a meta gag. Less explainable is that after the kids look way for a moment when he says his mission is finished, Deltron completely vanishes, with scorch marks and electric sparks on the ground where he was standing.
  • Tabitha and Courtney, the "Witches" of the Creek, pretend to be witches to humor (and sometimes mess with) Craig and his friends. Despite only pretending to have magical powers, their play magic is often followed by the thing they were playing at actually happening. One episode even has Courtney question whether they might actually be magical.
  • The finale of the Heart of the Forest arc climaxes with Craig finally finding the titular heart. Which seems to just be a big heart shaped hole in an abandoned soda factory. Craig uses his one wish to bring back his friends, even sacrificing his beloved map to do so. As soon as the map falls in, a flood of soda from the rusty pipes engulfs the room and washes up Kelsey and J.P. for a heartfelt reunion with Craig. But it’s unclear whether a magic wish granting entity was really at play, or if it was just some old soda that happened to appear at the right time.
• Used in a few episodes of Doug:
  • In "Doug's Lucky Hat", the title object lands at Doug's feet on a windy day, and when he puts it on, he becomes a good luck magnet. He wonders aloud to Porkchop if the hat really is lucky, as Skeeter believes, or if it just seems to be lucky because he thinks it is, but he is evidently slightly embarrassed by his belief in the hat's power, as he tries to avoid admitting the truth to Patti when she asks him why he never removes the hat. When Roger "borrows" the hat to improve his chances of passing his biology test (which he does), leaving Doug feeling lost, Patti convinces him he is a winner with or without the hat. Whether or not the hat really brings its wearer luck is left to the viewer to decide.
  • In the Halloween episode, Doug and Skeeter are helped by a mysterious cloaked figure who seems to just be a costumed amusement park employee. However, at the end of the episode he claims to be "Baron Von Hecklehonker", a character in the framing story about Bloodstone Manor, right before disappearing into thin air.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • Plank is either a board with a face drawn on it that Johnny goes through extreme lengths to support his imaginary friend, or an actual separate entity that really can talk only to Johnny. For most of the series, this was ambiguous. Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show shows him driving a bus, suggesting far more that Plank might actually be his own entity after all.
  • One episode has Ed concocting off a very bizarre scam, which turns out to be a curse from one of his comic books. Edd tells him curses aren't real...then an awful amount of crows appear. When they swoop in on the Eds, Ed merrily cries out: "EVIL TIM HAS BECKONED THEM!" This statement is never proven true or false as the episode ends there.
• The Enchanted Square is a short starring Raggedy Ann, who shows a blind girl named Billie how to see the world through her imagination. Unlike most media depictions of her, there is no clarification if Raggedy Ann is alive or just a doll when Billie is given her as a gift. While most of the story can be explained as how Billie is perceiving the world, even doings that shouldn't be physically possible in the town square, Raggedy Ann herself is the one who encouraged her to do so and is able to react to things around her on her own. In fact, Billie herself is surprised when she first hears Raggedy Ann speak.
• Franklin:
  • Was Granny saved by the power of the Turtle Talisman in Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure, or simply by the return of her old keepsake? Perhaps not so mundane, though, as Franklin feels that maybe what healed her was "something stronger than magic."
  • In Franklin and the Green Knight, did Franklin and Snail really bring spring to Woodland Valley with the magic cherry blossoms? It was already about time for spring anyway and it appeared as though the signs of early growth were already there. On the other hand, if there was no magic, then how was there a cherry tree in full blossom so close to Woodland Valley?
• The Futurama episode "Godfellas" has Bender encounter some kind of being that might be God—the most description it gives of itself, when Bender guessed it was "the remains of a space probe that collided with God", was that this idea "seems probable". Said being lives by such ambiguity, saying that a benevolent superbeing must obscure the origin of its own influence, lest the people who benefit from it become dependent.
  When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
• Gravity Falls has Robbie convince Wendy to give him a second chance by giving her a CD of a song he wrote for her and having her listen to it. In truth, it has a subliminal message on it. When confronted with this fact, Robbie admits he didn't write the song, trying to get out of the blame. Wendy says she doesn't care about the message, she's upset he lied to her about writing a song for her. It's never addressed where he even found the mysterious-looking CD, much less if the subliminal message actually affected Wendy or if she was just flattered that Robbie supposedly wrote her a song. While the show deals with supernatural beings and other oddities all the time, it is not confirmed nor denied if subliminal brainwashing in this way exists in its world.
• In Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, the episode "It's in Nana's Room" features a clumsy dinosaur and supposedly saying her species name (nanosaurus) is bad luck since whenever someone says it, a flying creature poops on them. However, that could've been a coincidence.
• Very common in the episodes of Hey Arnold! where the kids investigate the city's urban legends; usually, the episode will end with them discovering what seems to be a logical explanation for the myth (for example, the mysterious train that supposedly delivers people to the Underworld was actually just going to a steel mill), only for... something... to happen in the last few seconds, visible only to the viewer and not to any characters in-universe, that casts doubt on a purely mundane interpretation.
• Justice League Unlimited:
  • After coming in contact with a piece of alien tech, Carter starts remembering the life of an ancient Thanagarian warrior. Carter believes that he is a reincarnation of that Thanagarian. Shayera thinks that the device, which was used for data storage, simply malfunctioned and transferred the information it contained into his brain.
  • All throughout Season 3 Lex Luthor is talking to Brainiac, while an outsider point of view shows that he's talking to thin air. Is there some part of Brainiac remaining within him after their Fusion Dance or is Lex just insane and hallucinating?
• King of the Hill:
  • Peggy seemingly used a TV remote to fake Divine Intervention so Hank would help with Luane's Manger Babies show instead of watching the Super Bowl. Afterward, Bobby tells Peggy he took the batteries out of the remote, and she declares it a real miracle. Then Bobby backpedals and says he might have taken the batteries out of the remote, or gotten them from somewhere else.
  • "Wings of the Dope" is about Luanne seeing Buckley's Angel. It's never explained if he really returned as an angel or if he was a hallucination from Luanne being sleep-deprived and stressed over a beauty academy exam.
  • "Won't You Pimai Neighbor" had monks believe that Bobby was the reincarnation of a lama after he accidentally passed a test that wasn't even meant for him. The test was to choose the one item the lama had owned out of several items laid out on a rug, and Bobby randomly picked up a cane to do a funny dance routine with, which was the correct item. At the end of the episode, he's given the same test again with different items to rule out the possibility of it being a fluke. Bobby, after learning earlier that being a lama requires a Vow of Celibacy and he would therefore have to break up with Connie should he pass, asks the head monk to confirm that he can choose anything he sees on the rug. After getting his confirmation, he chooses Connie, whose reflection he can see in a mirror, deliberately failing the test. As the two lovebirds walk away hand in hand, one of the monks reveals that the correct item was, in fact, the mirror itself. The head monk's reply implies that he personally believes Bobby passed the test, but let him "fail" because it was clearly what he wanted.
    Monk: But that was Sanglug's mirror!
    Head Monk: I know, but he didn't pick it.
    Monk: But he used it!
    Head Monk: Hmm... tough call. But it's mine, and I made it.
• In Book 4 of The Legend of Korra, after Zaheer and the Red Lotus nearly killed her at the end of Book 3, Korra starts having hallucinations of herself as she was during her fight with Zaheer in the Avatar state. At first it seems that Dark Avatar Korra is only a symptom of Korra's trauma, with one fight seen through both Korra's POV, where the vision is attacking her and a normal POV, which shows that Korra's opponent is actually a female earthbender. But Korra later comes across a small spirit (in the form of a dog at the time), which reacts to Dark Avatar Korra and apparently scares her off, while Korra is sent flying by her attacks during their battle in the swamp. In the end Dark Avatar Korra's nature is Left Hanging, though one could possibly assume she was a manifestation of Korra's confidence issues that she needed to overcome.
• There's an episode of Little Bear called "How to Scare Ghosts". In it, Little Bear goes into his living room at night to look for ghosts. He finds three music-playing raccoons who claim to be ghosts, but when his parents arrive, they've disappeared, though Mother Bear seemed to have heard a laugh echoing (which in itself could have been either the raccoons, the wind, or a separate character laughing). It could have gone three ways: either it was a dream, he really did meet some raccoons but they weren't ghosts, or the raccoons did exist and they were ghosts.
• Early episodes of The Loud House made it ambiguous whether magic exists:
  • Lucy, the goth sister, attempts to cast magic in "Spell it Out", and the spells she casts seemingly work (Lori's phone shutting down, Lana suddenly developing an itch, all of Lucy's siblings losing their voices). However, while Lucy's siblings claim that their incidents stemmed from mundane reasons (Lori's phone ran out of power, Lana played in poison ivy again, the siblings all screamed themselves hoarse while cheering for their Pop-Pop), the painting of Great Grandma Harriet smiles despite having been shown frowning, so it's unknown what really went on.
  • Luan's dummy Mr. Coconuts and her boyfriend Benny's dummy (and Mr. Coconuts's crush) Mrs. Appleblossom have both sometimes appeared to move on their own. It's unknown whether this is magic or just very, very elaborate ventriloquism.
  • Then there's the existence of ghosts. The Show Within a Show ARGGH! claims that they exist, but is revealed to be fraud. Lucy frequently tries to do seances and claims ghosts are her friends, but she's never seen successfully contacting a ghost. Lincoln has also tried to look for ghosts a few times, but has never found any. However, it's later revealed that ghosts do exist. "Ghosted!" shows that Lori's college, Fairway University, is haunted by the ghost of alumnus Shanks Bogey, who serves as its good-luck charm. The spinoff series The Casagrandes also shows the spirits of Ronnie Anne's great-grandfather Lazaro and Adelaide's pet frog Froggy and the ghost of Sergio's former chicken roommate Alfredo.
  • However, The Loud House Movie explicitly shows that magic does exist, as a Plot Device involves a magical scepter and gemstone that can "turn any dragon evil" (which, incidentally, the episode also shows dragons also exist). However, just because magic exists doesn't prove that Mr. Coconuts is sentient or that "Spell it Out" involved actual magic; it just means that it's explicitly an option.
• Madeline's Christmas never outright states, but very strongly implies that kindly old Madame Marie is a disguised angel, who uses her powers to clean the kitchen, cure the girls and Miss Clavel of their colds with her special homemade porridge, and bring the girls' families to visit them on Christmas Day despite the heavy snow that should have kept them away. Even if she is not an angel, she might still have used magic somehow. This is a change from the original book, where the character is a (male) Middle Eastern magician who sends the girls home to their families on flying carpets!
• Martha Speaks:
  • In the episode "The Puppy Tooth Fairy", Martha and Skits the dogs try to be "puppy tooth fairies" (giving rewards to puppies who lost teeth) but they give it up when it starts to interfere with their sleep schedules. Martha falls asleep and wakes up with a dog treat next to her and thinks this means that a real puppy tooth fairy has shown up. However, Martha hasn't lost any teeth and we never see a fairy or other evidence of a fairy, so maybe it's just that one of Martha and Skits's owners gave the treat to Martha. Some animals did get treats delivered to them, but it could just be that the Lorraines delivered them upon noticing the dogs were tired.
  • The main plot of "Martha Gets Spooked" is about Mrs. Parkington mistaking Martha for the ghost of her great-aunt who has the same name. At the end of the episode, a mysterious shape is seen on a photograph. The most likely explanation is that it was just a painting that was seen earlier, but it could have also been a real ghost, or a weird lens flare. It's never proven either way.
• Max and Ruby: One episode featured the Easter Bunny, but since everyone in Max & Ruby is an anthropomorphic rabbit, it's unknown if the Easter Bunny is genuinely magic, or more like an ice cream man.
• Milo Murphy's Law: Milo's teacher Mr. Drako looks like a vampire, speaks in Vampire Vords, and never goes into sunlight without covering. Chad is convinced that he's a vampire, but everyone else is skeptical.
• The end of every episode of Mona the Vampire would end with both a logical explanation for what happened, but also hinting that something magical did occur. For example, an episode where a T-Rex came to life ended with Mona revealing a fresh dinosaur footprint in the soil.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Hearth's Warming Eve" features creatures known as Windigos — horses that spread ice and wind and snow wherever there's hatred. At the very end, the Mane Six get in a brief argument while a snowstorm rages on outside. They stop upon hearing the sound of wind, which is eerily similar to the sound of the Windigos. Considering the state of the universe the show is set in, the Magic part is very well an option, but a straight answer is never given.
  • The Windigos make a second appearance in "A Hearth's Warming Tail" but only in the show's equivalent to A Christmas Carol, a story that very well might just be fiction, which still leaves them open to debate. Even though the Windigos turn out to be real, it's still uncertain as to whether the story itself is fact or fiction.
  • The Series Finale finally answers the question and reveals that the Windigos are very real and truly are a cough and a sneeze away from returning and plunging the world into never-ending winter should The Power of Friendship waiver.
  • "Magic Duel": Zecora refills a mug of tea by waving her hoof over it. Was it sleight of hand (er, hoof) and a subtle foreshadowing of Twilight's use of stage-magic to take down Trixie, or was it genuine magic which, according to the show's Magic A Is Magic A principle, shouldn't be possible?
  • Season 5 has the Friendship Map, which has a knack for calling just the right members of the Mane 6 for each friendship crisis it detects...which is all well and good, but when it calls Rarity and Applejack to handle a crisis in Manehattan, it sets up an unusual opportunity for Big Macintosh to bond with Apple Bloom at the Sisterhooves Social. Whether this was just convenient timing or carefully orchestrated by the Tree of Harmony (which is connected to the map) is anypony's guess.
  • "Going to Seed" is about Apple Bloom, Goldie Delicious, and later Applejack, looking for a mythical beast called the Great Seedling who apparently makes patterns with crops and if you catch him, he brings good luck. He's thought to be just a story told to foals, and most of the patterns turn out to be due to a sleepwalking Big Mac harvesting in his sleep, but the patterns of carrots seen at the end of the episode are left unexplained, so it's still unknown if there is a Great Seedling.
• The Owl House:
  • Emperor Belos insists that he is The Chosen One selected by the massive, dead Titan whose body makes up the Boiling Isles to unite the Isles and teach the proper ways to handle magic. He further claims that the Titan is alive and speaks to him, giving him decrees that form the basis of the Coven-based legal system the Isles operate under. The show is very vague on whether this is true and Belos really is on a Mission from God, or if its all just propaganda used to maintain and justify Belos's power over the populace. On one hand, the Titan's heart inexplicably continues to beat in the Imperial Palace and Belos employs an awful lot of Wrong Context Magic... but on the other hand, there is at least one incident where we know he lied about the Titan (he says he let Eda go free because it told him to and that it took her magic as recompense for her crimes, none of which is true) and while there's nothing proving he's making it up, there's no way to prove he's telling the truth either. It's eventually revealed that while Titan is alive to a certain degree, Belos was just making up being able to speak to them in order to legitimize his rule. In fact, the Titan has actually been doing everything they can to stop his plans.
  • Another example with Belos comes up in the penultimate episode when he finds himself haunted by visions of his older brother Caleb and the previous Golden Guards. It's never made clear if it's actually their ghosts or if his decaying sanity is causing him to hallucinate.
• Peg + Cat: Heavily downplayed in "The Highlight Zone Problem". Peg apparently enters a dimension where everything is Deliberately Monochrome, but it was almost certainly All Just a Dream. Ramone does ask, "But was it a dream?" and Cat does appear in grayscale at the end, but ending gags are often deliberately nonsensical on Peg + Cat.
• Primal (2019): What exactly was the titular creature of the episode "The Night Feeder"? Was it really just a dinosaur that was exceptionally skilled at killing, or was it something more supernatural? The implication in the episode is that it is a member of the smaller insect-eating dinosaur that Spear and Fang encountered earlier, grown larger at night. The fact that it was able to kill an entire herd of full grown Ceratopsians with no effot hints that it may not have been something natural.
• The exact nature of ghosts and paranormal happenings in The Real Ghostbusters is left up to the audience to decide. Being scientists the busters often propose entirely valid (at least within the realms of fiction) scientific reasoning for the nature of ghosts (such as suggesting a Headless Horseman can't cross a bridge because of the ionization of the water molecules), but none of this is ever actually confirmed and they also accept the possibility of genuine magic every step of the way. One episode even suggests it's entirely possible for a "good fridge to go bad" (that is, one that's not affected by the paranormal in any way). In "Beneath These Streets", Egon doesn't know whether the huge gyroscope was built by Atlantis or deities, or just a normal civilisation.
• In the Rugrats episode "Chuckie's Wonderful Life", Chuckie's guardian angel appears to show him what life would be like without his birth. It appears to be a dream, but then a boy who looks just like the guardian angel rides by on a motorbike. So either the guardian angel really exists or it was a freaky coincidence.
• Samurai Jack: During Season 5, 50 years have passed and Jack has not aged. Being a victim of what appears to be PTSD, Jack would frequently suffer what appears to be hallucinations. These include the angered and pained spirits of his father and people, victims of a village that was attacked, a rider on a horseback and a suicidal version of himself. The rider would turn out to be a real figure, while the hallucination of himself turned out to be Mad Jack trying to coax him into suicide. While it is doubtful a spec of dust and a frog were actually talking to him even in the world the series takes place in, the images of his father decreeing he had forsaken them and the villagers he failed to save are another matter. The fact that Scaramouche, who killed those villagers, and Ashi, during his talk with Inner Jack and the dustmite, couldn't see anything but Jack apparently talking to himself suggests a good chunk of it was indeed in his head. However, in the penultimate episode where Jack is reasonably of better mental health has him talking to a purified Inner Jack who represented his former world-weariness. Whether Inner Jack is real, a product of his mind, or him imagining to have someone to talk to is not established.
• On The Simpsons:
  • After a Coincidental Broadcast:
    Homer: Good thing you turned on that TV, Lisa.
    Lisa: I didn't turn it on, I thought you turned it on.
    Homer: Oh, well, turn it off anyway.
    Lisa: ...It is off.
  • The existence of God is a recurring mystery on The Simpsons. In "Hom-R", when Homer temporarily becomes smarter, he does an equation that supposedly disproves the existence of God, but in another episode, a hand is seen giving a "thumbs up" in the sky after Ned Flanders's prayer comes true. God has also been seen onscreen several times, but only in dreams.
  • In "Bart Sells His Soul", Bart sells his soul to Milhouse in an attempt to prove that souls don't actually exist. Afterwards, things start becoming a bit odd for soulless Bart, such as not laughing at "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoons, not being able to open automatic doors or fog up glass with his breath, and his pets hissing wildly at him. But it's never firmly established if he really did lose his soul.
  • While "The Springfield Files" does ends up giving an answer to what was the alien Homer found on the woods (namely, it was Monty Burns, who glows in the dark from all of his years working for the nuclear power plant), the original script was going to leave it unresolved and imply that maybe Homer did encountered an actual alien.
• South Park:
  • In the episode "Cartman's Incredible Gift" the police believe Cartman is a psychic. Kyle points out at the end that no one is psychic and there is a logical explanation for everything that is supposedly supernatural. However, when Cartman and a group of other psychics engage in a psychic battle, with a lot of wild hand gestures and odd vocalizations, Kyle gets extremely fed up and screams at them to stop. As he yells, the lightbulbs shatter and the shelf above his bed breaks. After a Beat, Kyle says there is a logical explanation for that, too.
  • Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo is this. He initially looks like an ordinary piece of poo to most people, which gets the boys in a lot of trouble at first, but he moves and talks to the boys in private. The ending confirmed him as definitely magic when he showed up in front of everyone for a speech.
  • Is Mr. Hat a living and sentient being or is he just a mere hand puppet? There is evidence for both in different episodes. In one, he blinks when not attached to Garrison, in another he apparently drives a truck to break Garrison out of prison (“How did he reach the pedals?” says a confused Chef).
  • Mitch Conner, formerly “Jennifer Lopez,” which speaks through Cartman’s hand. Is he a separate sentient entity, or just Cartman screwing around? Whenever they give a straight answer it either never sticks, or the "straight answer" somehow proves the opposite is true. Whew.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: Did Tombstone's fall into a vat of chemicals turn him into a monstrously strong and durable human mutate whose apparent lack of the need to breathe can be explained as part of his mutation, or did he die and reanimate as an undead fiend powered by his hatred for Robbie Robertson? The show does lean heavily towards the latter, but an unambiguous official confirmation is never made.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: In episode 12, Peter almost succumbs to the symbiote, but Uncle Ben appears and helps him. Was this just Peter's conscience helping him in the form of someone he cared for, or did Uncle Ben really come from beyond the grave to help him? The fact that Uncle Ben was able to interact with not only Peter but the symbiote itself suggests he may have been more complex than a simple product of Peter's mind.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Idiot Box", SpongeBob and Patrick get a box and play pretend in it, but Squidward hears loud noises related to their games. However, his neighbours deny hearing anything but their own voices and laughter, and when Squidward actually gets into the box with them, he can't hear any noises. Squidward goes to find a tape recorder, yet there isn't one, and he tries playing pretend himself to see if noises would happen and it seems like they do, but then it turns out to be a garbage truck. So either SpongeBob and Patrick really were using a tape recorder but they took it away and lied about it, Squidward is hallucinating (though that leaves the question of why he would hallucinate), or the box really does have some sort of power.
• Star Wars Resistance: "Kaz's Curse" is a Superstition Episode about Kaz apparently getting cursed by a pirate and subsequently dealing with a string of bad luck. Kaz initially dismisses the incidents as coincidences, and Mika Grey tells him that it's mainly a psychological effect, much like how real-life superstitions work. However, while all of the incidents caused by the curse have a plausible mundane explanation, and Leoz, the pirate who set the curse, does not appear to be a Force-user, the fact that the Star Wars 'verse does have a Sentient Cosmic Force about combines with some elements of the story to make it entirely possible that there was a genuine supernatural aspect to events.
• Tangled: The Series: Rapunzel has been having visions and nightmares about Mother Gothel for a while since the night with the spikes. It's not explained why, but it's either a consequence of her touching the spikes...or a likely sign she has PTSD from being kidnapped as a baby and then abused for 18 years.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In the episode "Darkest Plight", a wounded Splinter is confronted by the Rat King, who seemingly survived his Disney Villain Death in "Of Rats and Men". After fighting him off, Splinter discovers the Rat King's decayed corpse, proving that he didn't survive. While Splinter believes that he merely hallucinated the Rat King, there are hints that it was actually his ghost, especially since the Rat King was able to stomp on Splinter's injured foot.
• Total Drama:
  • In "Up the Creek", Beth steals a Tiki doll from Boney Island which is believed to curse anyone who takes things from it. As her team loses in three consecutive episodes, it's unclear whether the Tiki doll is really cursed or if it was just a Contrived Coincidence.
  • Likewise, DJ's animal-hurting curse in Total Drama World Tour can be considered this. DJ believes the curse is real as he keeps accidentally hurting animals after breaking a mummified dog in Egypt, but as Leshawna point out, the "curse" can just be DJ's own clumsiness and paranoia. The latter seems to be the case, as DJ stopped hurting animals after thinking his curse was lifted until he "found out" it wasn't.
• What's New, Scooby-Doo?: The episode "Big Appetite in Little Tokyo" starts with a man called the Ancient One warning the owner of a technology factory to move someplace else unless he wishes to be cursed. When the owner, Akira Onodera, refused to believe he is real, the Ancient One visits him again, vowing to curse him. Shaggy ends up taking the curse by accident, seemingly turning into a giant monster when he falls asleep. Although the giant monster attacks prove to be another "Scooby-Doo" Hoax perpetrated by another person, who or what the Ancient One was, namely whether someone was pulling a hoax on Onodera or he really was a spirit, never gets resolved.
• Used in Young Justice with Holling Longshadow. When talking with Jaime about his grandson Tye's disappearance, he gives Jaime some advice that sounds like nonsense at first. As the show unfolds, however, it turns out to be Foreshadowing. Here's the conversation, with the double meanings in asterisks.
  Longshadow: He won't be back for a few weeks^note he is eventually returned safe and sound a few weeks later. He's begun a quest of awakening^note his metagene gets activated by the Reach that will link him to his heritage ^note the gene and show him the path to his destiny ^note he gets superpowers. Maurice is just a distraction ^note  Tye's mother's boyfriend, hinted to be abusive towards Tye, and who Jaime thinks is responsible. He has nothing to do with it. He plays no part in Tye's vision quest, or in yours.
  Jaime: Mine?
  Longshadow: You search for answers, but the answers you seek will find you ^note Impulse arrives the next episode looking for Blue Beetle in order to tell him about the Scarab. Only then will you make peace with the one inside you ^note the Scarab, the A.I. in Jaime's spine he has trouble controlling.