OOC Is Serious Business / Western Animation

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A-L

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
  • In "I Dream of Jimmy", Jimmy goes into Carl's dream and tries to wake him up. All his attempts to convince him he's in a dream fail... until Jimmy kisses his rival Cindy.
    Carl: Jimmy kissing Cindy? Oh, that couldn't happen in a million years! I must be dreaming....
  • A heartwarming example is in the episode "El Magnifico" where Sheen admits that he loves his father much more than he does Ultra Lord. When one considers how obsessed Sheen is towards Ultra Lord, that is something.
  • The episode "One of Us" has Jimmy being surprised at Libby turning a radio off...not knowing that she's been entranced by a hypnotic TV show.
• In Adventure Time, Lady Rainicorn has only ever spoken one sentence in English. And what a sentence it is:
  Lady Rainicorn: I AM PREGNANT!
• In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Job", Richard getting a job causes the universe to fall apart.
• American Dad!: In "The Vacation Goo", Francine realizes that all the family's vacations are fake memories from being inside CIA goo chambers, and she demands that Stan take them on a real vacation. However, when she sees things like Stan and Hayley actually getting along and Steve on a date with a hot woman, she believes that she's in the goo again and goes on a rampage.
• In Archer:
  • When constant-drinker Sterling falls in love with the beautiful Soviet KGB defector Katya, nearly everyone at ISIS thinks it's romantic, with fellow agent Ray wondering if this whole "double agent" suspicion Malory has is just her overreacting — until Lana points out that Katya has even gotten Archer to stop drinking. Which causes Ray to draw his guns and ask "What's the plan?".
  • Archer is uncharacteristically morose when he meets Ivy, the bully who put him in the hospital when they were in prep school. Lana, who doesn't know the whole story, strongarms Archer into cooperating with him so they can get A.J. into a private school.
    Lana: That wasn't so hard, was it? She said. Phrasing, boom! Huh? [Archer doesn't react] Hey, what's happening? Are you okay?
    Archer: No! [leaves]
  • In "No Good Deed", the Season 8 premiere, the normally Jerkass Malory acts completely stone-cold when Archer is in a coma.
  • Throughout "Stage Two", Archer being uncharacteristically nice to his coworkers is used to show how shocked he is after being diagnosed with cancer.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
  • In "Party All the Time", Frylock is diagnosed with cancer, and Shake, who is normally a jerkass, is actually concerned for Frylock and acts nice to Meatwad.
  • In "The Dressing", Happy Time Harry's constant self-loathing and manic depression is so severe, it puts the normally sadistic Shake out of the mood to destroy him, instead commenting that he needs "to go pray." Later, he's still not shaken out of it, even telling Frylock to stay away from Harry in an uncharacteristic moment of concern for someone other than himself.
  • In The Last One Forever and Ever, you can see how upset Frylock is about possibly dying soon when he punches Shake in the face; throughout the series, no matter how bad things got, Frylock never actually hit Shake before.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Subverted in "Bitter Work" when Sokka decides to give up meat and sarcasm if the universe will only get him out of the hole he's stuck in. When Aang shows up, Sokka is back to his old self and asks for meat.
    • But Played Straight later in the episode where Iroh admits Azula needs to go down. This coming from the man who is the epitome of kindness and patience.
    • The eponymous Avatar is usually a very happy-go-lucky kid. He's very peaceful and spiritual, and has stated repeatedly that he doesn't eat meat. Then in "The Desert", his best friend and pet since he was a kid, Appa, is stolen by Sandbenders. The normally cheerful Aang spends the entire episode being cranky, aggressive, and angry. He even kills a wasp-buzzard that tried to take one of his other friends even after the threat it posed was gone. When they run into the Sandbenders who stole Appa, you know they're in for a world of hurt.
    • In "Lake Laogai", Longshot speaks just once as Jet is dying... and it stuns everyone who hears him because it's so rare. It stunned the fandom just as much; up until that point, nearly everyone thought he was a mute!
    • Iroh truly loses his cool for the first time in the series in "Lake Laogai" when he demands of Zuko And Then What? after learning Zuko intends to kidnap Appa. Iroh goes on to demand Zuko start asking himself the big questions: "Who are you and what do you want?"
    • Katara absolutely despised the fact that she learned bloodbending, even breaking down when it sinks in that she learned it and used it. When she uses it again in "The Southern Raiders", it shows that she is letting her rage drive her more than her morality and how serious she is about possibly killing in cold blood the man who killed her mother.
    • To give it some more context, the first time she used bloodbending, the time that it horrified her and drove her to tears, she was forced into a situation where the only choices were "bloodbend" or "let Aang die", and used it to save Aang's life. When she uses it again, not only is it completely unnecessary for her to do so, she's using it to torture someone. It really rams home how far she's slipping in her pursuit of vengeance.
    • Another Katara moment comes when Zuko joins the Gaang. She coldly threatens to kill Zuko if he ever looks like he's about to regress to his old self and harm Aang. Katara abhors extreme violence and has never brought up the concept of killing before. So it goes to show just how strongly she feels about Zuko and Aang if she's willing to cross that line.
    • Azula never loses her cool, so seeing her shouting in anger at Mai and Ty Lee's Heel–Face Turn in "The Boiling Rock" heralds her impending Villainous Breakdown. Come "Southern Raiders", her next appearance, she's not only more bombastic and loud; but she's also firebending with her fists as opposed to using two fingers to concentrate the blasts, and she's also a fair bit sloppier in the fight against Zuko.
    • Ty Lee's usually all smiles even when she's chi blocking people. Atop the Gondola in "The Boiling Rock" is one of the few times Ty Lee looks outright angry; glowering as Suki keeps deflecting her blows.
    • Heartwarming example: Zuko for most of Season 2 was at best an Anti-Hero with a Hair-Trigger Temper. Though he was on the path to becoming a better person throughout the season, he was still verbally abusive to his kind and patient Uncle Iroh and had a major Kick the Dog moment when he took advantage of a family's hospitality by stealing their ostrich-horse. In turn, he too was on the receiving end of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished when he helped train a boy in swordfighting and defended a town from rogue Earth Kingdom soldiers, only to be rejected because he exposed that he was a firebender (not helping his case was his need to brag about how he was the heir to the Fire Nation throne). So when he goes on a date with an ordinary Ba Sing Se girl and finds out that the fountain lights she wanted to show him are out, what does he do? He tells her to close her eyes, looks around quickly, then firebends the lights himself. He risked everything just to make a girl happy for that one fleeting moment, throwing both caution and pride to the wind, and showing he was more compassionate than he previously let on or dared to show people.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • Tenzin is very surprised by Korra's refusal to join the anti-Amon task force. While he was glad she didn't, he recognized that her unwillingness to charge her enemy head-on was very uncharacteristic, and (correctly) guessed that Korra was truly afraid for the first time in her life.
    • Speaking of Tenzin, he normally is a very calm, levelheaded individual, whose patience is sometimes tested by Korra's impulsiveness or his children's hyperactive nature. However, he becomes aggressive after Jinora is captured by Unalaq and is more than willing to use violence to save Jinora. Kya even lampshades it.
    • Varrick is an eccentric, amoral businessman who is perfectly happy to start a war with False Flag Operations if he thinks it'll make him a profit, and who loves experimentation and invention For Science!. In Book Four, however, he immediately attempts to shut down his spirit vine energy project when he witnesses the true destructive power stored within those vines, considering it too dangerous.
• Batman usually is The Stoic and a Deadpan Snarker in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. "Chill of the Night!", which sees him finally confront the man who killed his parents, is one of the few times this version of Bruce Wayne is legitimately (and understandably) angry — and not just angry, but pissed off. To a lesser extent, when The Phantom Stranger gives him a chance to go back in time, he hugs his mother one last time.
• Beavis And Butthead: During one particularly fiery video that Beavis and Butthead are watching, Beavis, who enjoys things burning a little too much, enters a tranquil, focused state, overcome at the amount of fire in the video, to the point Butthead becomes concerned with Beavis' lack of response to Butthead's interjections, and says he is going to change the channel. Beavis, in a calm, collected, monotone voice, far removed from his usual high-pitched hyperactive state says "Butthead, I am serious about this. I have never been more serious about anything in my life. If you change the channel right now, I will kill you." Butthead wisely allows him to finish watching he video.
  • In an episode of the 2022 reboot, Beavis and Butthead are genuinely appalled by a guy complaining about his ex-girlfriend being a sex addict in a segment from "Ghosted: Love Gone Missing", to the point where not only does Beavis get up and thoroughly destroy the TV in a fit of pure volcanic rage, but Butthead eggs him on and outright says that for once, he's not going to tell Beavis to settle down like he usually does, since he completely agrees with Beavis.
• Beetlejuice:
  • The usually sweet and demure Lydia has two instances, though one is born out of necessity and other out of her control. In "Quit While You're A Head," she goes to an underwater Neitherworld tavern to find where B.J.'s head is, so under house rules she gets ornery and demands the bartender spills his guts "before I spills 'em for ye!!" Then in "Dr. Beetle and Mr. Juice," B.J.'s perfume "New U" turns Lydia into a troublemaking biker girl (this after it turns Beetlejuice polite and fastidious).
  • In "Snugglejuice", when Lydia first sees Beetlejuice after he's been "rehabilitated" in Neither-Neither-Land, the Neitherworld's prison system, she initially thinks that it's just another one of his scams or pranks... but when he refuses to eat a beetle, that's when she knows that something is seriously wrong.
    Lydia: You turned down a beetle? YOU!?
  • "Moby Richard" has Lydia observe how crazy Beetlejuice has gotten when he's playing the role of Captain Ahab in a Neitherworld television adaptation of Moby-Dick and has become a bit too into character, to the point that the normally greedy ghost is offering a bounty to whoever helps him find the whale.
    Beetlejuice: I'd give anything to get me hands on Moby Richard. Money isn't important!
    Lydia: He is sick!
• Ben 10:
  • Ben Tennyson
    • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: Near the end of Season 1, Kevin absorbs Ben's Ultimatrix energy in a last-ditch effort to stop Aggregor, and promptly goes Ax-Crazy again. After failing to stop him several times, Ben, known for his Chronic Hero Syndrome and being a Wide-Eyed Idealist, decides outright that Kevin is too far gone to be saved and must be put down. While Grandpa Max remarks he'd do the same, he still notes that things must be really bad if Ben's willing to go that far and not try to reason with him first.
    • Ben 10: Omniverse: Ben is flanderized into an impulsive, clumsy and ego-driven Butt-Monkey who barely takes situations seriously anymore. However, when it came to Malware and, to a lesser extent, Vilgax, Ben's flanderization is non-existent. With Vilgax, he's mostly back to being his Alien Force-Ultimate Alien Era personality of taking things serious when needed. With Malware, Ben is outright terrified and it is not Played for Laughs.
• Bob's Burgers: In "House of 1000 Bounces" the normally calm and docile Rudy loses his temper at Louise; after her scheme to steal the bounce house from another kid's birthday party backfires, and ends up getting all the young guests at Rudy's birthday party in big trouble with a park ranger. Rudy practically explodes with fury at his friend ranting about how he never wanted to go through with the plan in the first place but nobody would listen;all he wanted to do was his spoon puppet play that he proudly worked so hard on, but since Louise wasn't paying close attention at first thought that her friend actually wanted the bounce house.
• BoJack Horseman: In early seasons, BoJack can't stand Todd, but he also has trouble with the prospect of dealing with Todd suddenly becoming an artistic success when he writes a space opera.
• The Boondocks:
  • In "The Color Ruckus", Uncle Ruckus, a Boomerang Bigot who is under the delusion he's genetically Caucasian and constantly taunts and harasses the show's main protagonists, is uncharacteristically friendly and civil to them, even offering to do extra repair work for them. This is because he doesn't want to go home and face his abusive grandmother, who forced her way into his home and refuses to leave. Later in the episode Ruckus is meek and subdued when facing his equally abusive father when he usually maintains his sneering contempt of black people even when being physically threatened by them.
  • In "The Block is Hot", Jazmine, the show's resident Moe and Shrinking Violet who is usually Huey's (the main protagonist) staunchest supporter and is implied to have a crush on him, snaps at him and is generally dismissive of him throughout most of the episode. Jazmine was operating a lemonade stand to raise money for a pony she desperately wanted and refused to acknowledge she was being ruthlessly exploited by Corrupt Corporate Executive Ed Wuncler. Double Points that Huey, who is usually The Stoic, seems genuinely hurt when Jazmine snaps at him.
  • In "Return of the King", Martin Luther King ends in a coma after being shot, only waking up in the 21st century. He finds a world that has largely forgotten his message, and ignores his demands for peace. He organizes a peace rally, only for it degenerate into a violent party. In frustration, he drops an N-Bomb, which leaves everybody in Stunned Silence as he begins a fiery rant against modern black culture.
    King: WILL YOU IGNORANT NIGGAS PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP?!
    Guy: Did he say what I think he said?
    King: Is this it? This is what I got all those ass-whoopings for?
• The Brothers Flub: Guapo is normally loud and obnoxious all the time but in "Double Feature" he becomes soft spoken and sad after he falls out with Fraz.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • The Captain seems to have a permanently jocular demeanor and talk only in public service announcements and wisecracks...until a villain sinks to a level that even he has to take seriously, or poses a threat that he cannot easily deal with. He'll be all business then, which is a sure sign that the stakes have been raised amazingly high.
  • If Wheeler is unusually quiet and not in mood for even Linka's sarcasm, you know he's seriously worried.
  • Ma-Ti likes just about everyone on sight; he's even the only member of the team Wheeler has not managed to accidentally drive crazy. If he ever dislikes or even distrusts someone, it's a sure sign that person is pretty horrible, especially because his ring makes it impossible to lie to him. The first time he ever did this, it was with the team's Arch-Enemy, Zarm, Gaia's Evil Counterpart who is outright sociopathic.
• Celebrity Deathmatch: Johnny and Nick will allow all kinds of violence and torture for the sake of a Deathmatch, but even they thought Ozzy Osbourne was excessively cruel in his match with Rob Zombie.
• Central Park:
  • In Season 1 "Skater's Circle", Birdie points out Owen usually never leaves the park unless it's for official business reasons, but when he needs Glorious Gary to come back to Skater's Circle, we leaves and doesn't change out of his park uniform.
  • In Season 1 "Dog Spray Afternoon", Shart tagging a tree causes Owen, who usually never raises his voice, to yell out in anger. He also leaves the park, something he tries not to do, to buy equipment for a stakeout to catch the tagger.
• Charlie and Lola: "I'm Really Ever So Not Well" establishes that the only time Lola isn't "very funny" is when she's sick.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • In "Operation: G.R.O.W-U.P.", Father threatening the Delightful Children with his wrath frightens them enough to make them stop speaking in sync.
  • During the episode "Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E.", Numbuh 86, a known boy hater who is really dedicated to her job of hunting down all KND operatives who have turned thirteen and decommissioning them, is polite and nice at Maurice's decommissioning. Justified, because a flashback implies that Numbuh 86 was friends with or at least admired Maurice. Also, Maurice, unlike the other operatives she hunted down, did not betray the Kids Next Door and accepted his fate.
• In the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Remembrance of Courage Past", Courage is drinking a glass of milk when he sees pictures of missing dogs on the carton, and he instantly remembers how an evil vet had sent his parents to the moon. He's so traumatized by it that he stays in the same spot all night, not moving an inch. Eustace tries scaring him with his usual "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!" mask, but this time, Courage does not react. Muriel's so worried about that that she decides to take him to the vet.
• Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: In "Daniel Gets a Cold", Katerina remembers once having a stomachache that was so bad, she couldn't dance. Considering Katerina dances all the time, this establishes that it was a very severe stomachache.
• In Danny Phantom, the only time Sam acts really cheerful is around Christmas, even though she's Jewish. One of the kids at her school was so freaked he thought it was a sign of the apocalypse!
• Darkwing Duck: The title character is very hammy and bombastic whether in his civilian life or in his superhero costume. If he begins acting subdued, something's gone seriously wrong.
• In Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines, the Vulture Squadron's card-carrying coward Zilly becomes brave to gung-ho levels in "Zilly's A Dilly", thanks to hypnotism. However, his devil-may-care bravery becomes more of a hindrance to the squadron than when he was a coward.
• Dinosaur Train: Everyone is shocked when Buddy doesn't want to go on the train in "Surprise Party", since he usually loves riding the train.
• In one episode of Dragons: Riders of Berk, Tuffnut volunteers to do a shift of patrolling around the island. Snotlout snarkingly replies "who are you and what have you done to Tuffnut?" Turns out, Snotlout is right as Tuffnut's identical-looking cousin has taken his place and tied Tuff up in a cave
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • In "The Clock King", Temple Fugate announces to his secretary, Ms. Perkins, that he would take his coffee break out of office. Ms. Perkins' shocked gesture shows us that this is something Fugate just doesn't do.
    • In "Heart of Ice", Batman discovers what happened to Victor and Nora Fries, and how Ferris Boyle was responsible for it escalating to its modern extreme. When captured by Mr. Freeze, Batman does something he rarely ever does—he apologizes. This is one of the few times where he says "I'm sorry" in the series, serving to underline how even Batman, poster boy for the Dark and Troubled Past in comic books, finds Fries' Start of Darkness to be unquestionably tragic.
    • In "Mad Love", when Harley Quinn talks about how she wants to settle down with the Joker, Batman in response laughs hysterically, so much so that it visibly frightens Harley.
      Harley Quinn: I've never seen you laugh before... I don't think I like it... Cut it out! You're giving me the creeps!
    • In "The Man Who Killed Batman", it seems as though Sid "The Squid", a small-time mobster, has inadvertently murdered the Dark Knight. The Joker breaks into a jewelry store to draw Batman out, but when he doesn't show up, the Clown Prince of Crime starts frowning, which he almost never does. He even tells Harley Quinn to put back the gems she's stolen, declaring that "without Batman, crime has no punchline."
    • Bonus points: Joker later cries at Batman's "funeral".
  • Batman Beyond:
    • In the very first scene of the series, Batman collapses with an apparent heart attack in the middle of a fight. He resorts to brandishing one of the guns he'd knocked out of the mooks' hands. His horror at doing so convinces Bruce to hang up the mask.
    • At the end of the first part of "The Call", when it appears that Superman is trying to kill the Justice League, Bruce shows Terry his secret weapon against this threat should it ever have arisen again: kryptonite. Technical Pacifist Bruce Wayne then tells Terry to do whatever it takes to stop him.
    • The flashback to the Joker's end in Return of the Joker shows us one of the very few times Batman looks willing to kill someone. When the Joker and Harley Quinn show off what they did to Tim Drake, now a junior Joker, Batman — just a moment before wrapped up and requiring a hidden knife to cut himself loose — breaks free through sheer force of will and then throws that knife directly at the Joker's head.
    • Also in Return of the Joker, after Joker reveals himself, Bruce specifically tells Terry not to respond to the clown's gloating, as it's just what he wants. This is the proviso Batman used whenever he fought Joker, but it only made the clown even more determined to make Batsy laugh. Terry instead realizes he likes to talk too, demoralizing Joker to devastating effect by insultingly mocking his fixation with Batman. Joker does not take this lightly. For a comedian like Joker, the only thing worse than a silent audience is The Heckler.
  • Justice League:
    • A season finale sees Lex Luthor divide the League, make the public hate and fear them, and he tops it off by merging with Brainiac to be a limitless technological god-being who defeats the primary League members singlehandedly, leaving only the Flash left to kill. The normally happy-go-lucky Flash runs away... and returns having circumnavigated the globe in seconds to build up the speed to hit Luthor/Brainiac hard enough to hurt him. Appearing deadly serious, Flash does this nearly a dozen times before vibrating Brainiac into dust, leaving just Luthor. Until this episode, nobody realized that the most powerful member of the team was not Superman. The only catch is that going that fast nearly makes him warp himself out of existence, and after defeating Luthor and barely being saved from that fate, he states that he doesn't think he'll survive going that fast again.
    • "Hereafter" has Superman sent 30,000 years into the future to where the world has been completely and utterly destroyed, and meets the sole survivor Vandal Savage, who finally got to rule the Earth like he wanted but at a brutal cost and has actually come to regret his choices and change for the better. One of the things that makes Superman actually believe that he's changed is discovering that he spends his spare time reading self-help books:
    Superman: (in a disbelieving tone) Self-help books? You don't seem the type.
    Vandal Savage: I read whatever I can find. Anyway, I've got issues. What with my destroying the Earth and all.
    • Superman wants to kill Darkseid. It's not a "I Did What I Had to Do" situation, if left alone Clark will go so far as to sacrifice his own life to ensure that Darkseid dies. It's not a case of Superman being dark, it's a case of Darkseid being just that evil.
    • Multiple examples in "Only a Dream". Trapped in their worst nightmares by Dr. Destiny, Hawkgirl breaks down and cries in fear, begging for anyone to help, Flash gets depressed enough to curl into a Troubled Fetal Position, and Determinators Superman and Green Lantern give up.
    • In "A Better World", the Justice League have been abducted and replaced by the Justice Lords, totalitarian versions of themselves from an alternate universe. In spite of their different uniforms, the group is similar enough to pass in public... until Superman casually uses his heat-vision to perform brain surgery on a rampaging alien. Lex Luthor, watching the event on television, knowingly remarks "It's not them."
      Lois Lane: You... You lobotomized him....
      Superman: [completely chipper] What's your question, Lois?
      Lois Lane: It's... just so out of character...
    • "The Doomsday Sanction" has two of these and both with Batman. Batman attempts to threaten Amanda Waller in her home to dissuade her from carrying out action against the Justice League with her Cadmus task force. She's able to defend her side well enough to the point that Batman leaves without his usual Stealth Hi/Bye schtick. The end of the episode has the normally stoic Batman, in the infirmary as the rest of the main Leaguers elect to send Doomsday into the Phantom Zone, bitterly muse over how a Watchtower full of superpowered beings would make anyone suspicious. When Superman jokes about the kryptonite Batman keeps with him, Batman snaps at him, rebutting that he was the one who put his life on the line to stop Eiling's plot to nuke both the Leaguers and Doomsday at the possible expense of an island full of innocents.
• Doc McStuffins: Sometimes, the first sign something is wrong is when someone acts unusually:
  • In one episode, Ricardo, who is usually a very fast toy racecar, can't drive. Downplayed though, as he's not broken; he just needs to recharge.
  • In "Doctoring the Doc", the toys become worried when Doc isn't being energetic like usual, and makes a mistake (asking for the tweezers instead of the otoscope) despite usually not making mistakes. It turns out that she's behaving that way because she has the flu.
  • Downplayed in "Tea Party Tantrum", where the usually-cheerful Susie being cranky is a sign that something is wrong, but it's only Sleep Deprivation; not anything serious.
• The Dragon Prince: Callum is a sweet, kind boy who doesn't tend to hold grudges and harbors no ill-will toward anybody. However, when he sees Avizandum's petrified body, he admits he hates the dragon for killing his mother. Rayla is understanding, but even she looks surprised for a moment.
• In the Dragon Tales episode "Hide and Can't Seek", Ord has so much fun playing hide and seek he asks if he could eat later, much to his friends' shock.
• DuckTales (1987)
  • Scrooge got his name for a reason; he seriously loves money. If he reaches the point of not caring if he loses his cash (or a treasure he's been chasing)^note examples include "The Golden Fleecing", "A DuckTales Valentine" and the video game, it's a sign things have gone pretty seriously downhill.
  • Launchpad McQuack and Fenton Crackshell often serve as the Plucky Comic Relief. But if matters get serious enough to require that they take a hand in it, watch out. The Kronks, the Beagle Boys, and the Master Electronic Leader found this out the hard way.
• DuckTales (2017): Continuing from two bullet points before, Scrooge nearly completely emptied out his entire Money Bin to find his niece Della Duck. He only stopped when his board of directors physically dragged him away and made him stop.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • In "Little Ed Blue", Ed, who is normally the resident Perpetual Smiler, spends the episode angry, bitter, and has a huge need for isolation from everyone else, including his own friends Edd and Eddy. Edd is concerned, and Eddy is too impatient to deal with it, and because of Eddy's impatience, Ed goes on a rampage, until Jonny and Plank show up and everyone finds out that Ed has a pebble in his shoe. It's very telling and satisfying that Sarah, who would willingly jump on and beat the crap out of all the kids in the Cul-De-Sac on a whim if she wanted to, saw how angry Ed was and was the first to back off with everyone else following suit the instant she realized Ed actually stood up to her and wasn't backing down. Even Kevin wasn't safe from Ed's inexplicable moodiness, which was also just as deserved and just as satisfying.
  • In "3 Squares and an Ed", Edd and Eddy try to help Ed escape from being grounded and put up a fake dummy to fool Sarah; later, she checks up on "Ed" and sees him reading a book, which is unusual given that he's The Ditz. There's also the possibility that the book was a red flag because Ed was literally grounded from everything — Sarah outright asks the dummy "where'd you get that book?" in an accusatory tone, and that's not to mention that "everything" included the stairs into and out of his room.

    Sarah: Look at him there, reading his little book. (beat) Book!?

• Family Guy:
  • Spoofed in "And Then There Were Fewer":
    Lois: (thinking) Peter, we've been married twenty years, please recognize when I'm acting out of the ordinary because I'm in danger! (out loud, grabs car keys) All right, here you go, Pete!
    Peter: (thinking) Why's she calling me "Pete"? We've been married fourteen years, she's never called me Pete. Why am I even thinking about this when I could be listening to my tapes? (out loud) Bye! (leaves immediately)
  • Played straight in "Brian and Stewie": While Stewie and Brian are trapped in the bank vault, Stewie asks Brian why he has a gun in his safety deposit box, despite being an anti-gun liberal. Brian is forced to admit that he keeps the gun in case he is ever Driven to Suicide.
• Final Space: A big one with Gary during Season 3, after Fox's death. HUE offers Gary, the same guy whose biggest dream back in Season 1 was pretty much getting to eat as many of the ship's cookies as he wanted, a cookie in consolation, and Gary responds by smashing the cookie machine in anger.
• The Flintstones: In "High School Fred", Fred is sent to high school for two weeks to get his diploma, telling Wilma and the Rubbles that he's in an "executive school", and he gets so pooped after his first day that the normally Big Eater decides he's not hungry and goes straight to bed.
  Barney: Oh, I wish we had a tape recorder. Nobody'll believe me.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
  • In the Pilot Movie House of Bloo's, Mac realizes that Terrence must be working with someone to get rid of Bloo because he was far too stupid to come up with a plan that complex.
  • In "The Big Lablooski", the normally nice and sweet Madame Foster becomes very fierce with a zero tolerance for failure disposition in a game of bowling to the point that she begins calling 8-year-old Mac worthless for his lack of bowling skills. Yeah, she really gets into the game.
  • In "Bloo Done It", Duchess of all people (who is known for hating everyone in the house) actuallys gives Uncle Pockets a compliment when interviewed about him by Bloo (who was looking for anyone to slander him). Granted, it's not much of one—"Eh, tolerable"—but considering that she actively hates anyone and everyone who isn't herself, it's a sign of just how beloved and friendly Uncle Pockets is to the whole of Foster's.
  • Wilt is normally kind and helpful to everyone he meets. But in the episode, "Room With a Feud", when a basketball-themed room with high ceilings and a ten-feet long bed becomes available to anyone who wants it, he becomes cocky and selfish and competes against Eduardo, Coco, and Bloo for it. ^note It is also revealed in that episode, that in all the years he's lived at Foster's, he's never had his own room.
• The Fox and the Crow: In the short Robin Hoodlum, the reason why merry men realize that Robin Hood (as Fauntleroy) has been captured is because he would never miss tea time.
• In the Futurama special "The Beast With a Billion Backs", there's Professor Farnsworth's uncharacteristically serious warning about the anomaly, which he even lampshades while delivering it:
  Farnsworth: Now, I've often said "good news" when sending you on a mission of extreme danger. So when I say this anomaly is dangerous, you can imagine how dangerous I really think it is.
  Hermes: Not dangerous at all?
  Farnsworth: Actually, quite dangerous indeed.
  Hermes: [suddenly nervous] That is quite dangerous!
  Farnsworth: Indeed!
• Wade Duck of the U.S. Acres portion of Garfield and Friends, while not literally afraid of everything, is afraid of so many things that most people wouldn't even consider (e.g., he is canonically afraid of caraway seeds) that the other farm inhabitants seem to think it the case. So when Wade, having his cowardice suppressed via hypnosis, passes by performing a stunt on a bicycle...
  Booker: It looked like Wade, but it didn't tremble like Wade...
  • An even more impressive version of this happened later in the same episode, Wade's hypnosis was broken, he saw his friends in danger and forced himself to grab a red cape and distract the bull. He was visibly terrified out of his mind and the other farm animals were impressed, admitting that they were too scared to even try to distract the bull.
  • Garfield is usually selfish, lazy, and sarcastic, but cares about his family, usually helping them out after his conscience nags him to do so. But one episode where Odie was scammed out of money saw Garfield immediately jump into action to get Odie the money back. Sure he teased him a bit first for getting scammed, but as soon as Odie told him what happened, he sprung into action.
  • One time when Garfield played an especially harsh prank on Nermal, leading him to leave, Odie was worried about Nermal's safety and pretty much gave him a nonverbal What the Hell, Hero? and shamed Garfield into helping him search for Nermal. Garfield reluctantly agreed but eventually found him safe with a new cat friend.
  • The episode where Garfield lost his memory had tons of these. Jon realized he lost his memory when he kept asking why they kept calling him Garfield, refused to kick Odie off the table, said he wasn't hungry, and ate raisins (his least favorite food). Liz and Jon were visibly shocked when Garfield asked if he was due for his shot. This came in handy later in the episode, he lost his memory after getting a Tap on the Head from the dog (or perhaps wolf or coyote) that stole his lasagna tossing it aside and it hitting him on the head. The lasagna thief was visibly freaked out when Garfield seemed a little too eager to hand over his lasagna. The dog assumed it was poisoned and when he was cornered began to beg Garfield not to make him eat his lasagna and apologized. He handed it to him, walked away, and then the same accidental Tap on the Head happened, leading to Garfield's memory restoration.
• So anyone who's seen Gargoyles knows that, in battle, Goliath is a force to be reckoned with. Off the battlefield, he's thoughtful, considerate, even downright philosophical at times. He's not afraid to pull out all the stops in the heat of combat, yet repeatedly chastises others for going overboard when it's unnecessary. But push him too far and he will get pissed. In "Hunter's Moon", the second season finale, his daughter Angela is beaten almost to death by the Hunters... at which point the noble, level-headed clan leader growls, his eyes glowing, and in a scene that's drawn like he's looking out from the very gates of Hell intones the following:
  Goliath: On my daughter's life, I swear I will hunt them down. And I will kill them.
  • Xanatos is an excellent example of Affably Evil — even though the clan defeats him multiple times, he's always civil with them and is completely uninterested in revenge. In "Double Jeopardy", however, he thinks that his associate, Anton Sevarius, has betrayed him, he confronts him in a Tranquil Fury and probably would have seriously harmed him, had he not figured out that something else was going on.
    Xanatos: You know, Anton, I'm not by nature a vengeful man...but your behavior has forced me to make an exception.
  • Despite his insistence that "Nothing terrifies me, because nothing is beyond my ability to change," when Hudson notes that "Growing old terrifies you, doesn't it?", Xanatos then proceeds to throw out a few petty insults at the old gargoyle, something that would normally be beneath him, a sign of just how close to the mark Hudson had truly hit.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Stan Pines has always been conservative and obsessed with money. Yet in "Not What He Seems", when Stan breaks out of the police station, he's so determined to get back to the Mystery Shack that he gives a taxi driver a hundred bucks to drive far away from the Shack to distract the police.
  • The laid-back, cheerful, and psychotic Bill Cipher goes completely insane at the very end of the Weirdmageddon arc and starts begging Stanley to spare his life when he realizes that he's about to destroyed for good. (Note: Though it is possible that, if his last words played backwards is any indication, he may come back eventually.)
  • Soos is normally devoted to his job. In "Soos and the Real Girl," one of the big red flags with the video game he got to try to practice getting a date is that he missed work to keep playing it. It's the first time he has ever missed coming to work according to Stan.
• In Green Lantern: The Animated Series, the perpetually (and obnoxiously) chipper LANOS drops his annoying attitude when he's about to warp out with the now destructively insane Aya.
• In the The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "My Fair Mandy", a Reality-Breaking Paradox is caused by Mandy smiling. Another episode had something similar caused by Billy getting an A on a test, though it's worth noting that Grim had magically altered Billy's mark, so maybe the scythe had something to do with that one.
  • Big Boogey Adventure featured the Boogeyman apparently destroying Grim, which shook Billy and Mandy so badly that Billy worriedly told Mandy "This isn't fun anymore" and Mandy agreed. It later turned out Grim faked being destroyed, but it's the first time the two have ever been truly been scared with an understanding shit was beyond their control.
• Grojband: Corey Riffin is usually a calm person who never lets anything put him in a bad mood, so the few times he expresses actual rage are always of concern for his bandmates.
  • After listening to nothing but elevator music for a long period of time in "Love in a Nethervator", Corey returns to the garage in a foul mood due to his intense hatred for it.
  • He has an even bigger instance in "Dueling Buttons", where he completely snaps when Trina manages to defeat him in a Guitar Hero-like video game and consequently steals his dreams of becoming the best guitarist ever. It gets to the point where it actually seems at one point he's going to go into one of Trina's trademark emotional explosions that get the band their lyrics.
    Laney (slowly): Breathe.
    Corey: I've been breathing my whole life, and it's got me nothing! And now TRINA HAS A HIT SONG! SHE HAS MY DREAM! AND I CAN'T EVEN MASTER A FAKE GUITAR!!!!
• Hey Arnold!: In "Heat", a powerful Heat Wave strikes Arnold's neighborhood, and one effect it has is causing his eccentric grandmother to act like a mild-mannered old lady.
  Arnold: (to himself) The heat's so crazy, it's got Grandma acting normal...
  • She gets another, more subtle one in "Parents Day," when she quietly tells Grandpa to go talk to a visibly depressed Arnold.
  • Arnold himself, any time he gets legitimately angry at someone. For one example, in "Oskar Gets a Job", Oskar takes to tricking Arnold into doing his new paper route for him while he lazes around like usual, making excuses for why he can't do said job. This lasts until a tired and irritable Arnold finally gets fed up with Oskar and gives him an angry "Reason You Suck" Speech that ends up being the impetus for Oskar to take his job more seriously.
    Arnold: That's it! I'm tired of all your excuses....I only helped you because you said you were desperate and you said you wanted to change. I guess I was wrong. Mr. Kokoshka, I'm sorry, but you are a huge loser.
    (Oskar stands in the hallway with a shocked expression as Arnold storms upstairs.)
• The Hollow: When the game starts to tear itself apart, The Weird Guy stops with his usual antics to warn Mira and Kai that they're in (potentially) mortal danger.
• I ♡ Arlo: In "Moody Tuesday", Bertie develops a bad mood which soon spreads to the rest of Seaside; Arlo suffers the worst out of anyone, as Bertie refusing to hear the song he wrote causes him to become so upset and outraged at her that he even refuses to sing.
• Threaten Inspector Gadget's niece Penny, and you'll instantly find out just how competent the normally bumbling Gadget can be.
• Invader Zim:
  • In "Rise Of The Zitboy", Zim realizes that something's off with the titular zit when he tells Gir to stop touching it....and he actually does.
  • Miss Bitters often tells her class horrible stuff like how the universe will eventually implode on itself or how they'll amount to nothing. When asked why people started giving out meat on Valentine's Day instead of cards and candy? She simply responds "You don't want to know." Which also puts her "moral outrage" against celebrating the holiday in a different light.
  • The Almighty Tallest consist of Red and Purple, the former of whom is a Brilliant, but Lazy Jerkass who is very open about how much he and Purple despise Zim, while the latter is a Cloudcuckoolander Ditz who doesn't take most things seriously. So, after the vicious Humiliation Conga both suffer through in "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" thanks in large part to Zim's antics, it really says something about how legitimately furious they are with him now when Red faux-cheerily asks The Massive's technicians to "give our friend Zim a call," while Purple just quietly growls in a voice that would make Liam Neeson proud that he wants to "make [Zim] hurt." Unfortunately (or fortunately?) when the call comes through, they find out that Zim is already being terrorized by a massive head-parasite and currently too busy running around his lab screaming to answer for his transgressions, as Gir looks on eating mashed potatoes. Rather than be satisfied or pleased at Zim's suffering, they're horrified at the carnage, which causes Purple to vomit offscreen.
  • Gaz also has one such moment in the Big Damn Movie Enter the Florpus. Throughout the show, Gaz never took seriously the supposed threat Zim may have to Earth due to her awareness of his stupefying incompetence. But upon realizing that Zim finally did do something that could destroy the Earth, she sheepishly notes "Look at me being wrong."
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Jade epitomizes the Tagalong Kid trope — Jackie constantly tells her to "Wait Here," but she inevitably gets involved in the adventure of the week regardless, to the point where Jackie once outright admits that he knows it's pointless: "I feel I have to say it." There are, however, a few instances where Jade willingly stays behind or listens to Jackie's advice; these are rightfully treated as genuinely dangerous situations where she fears for her own life and safety. It's usually lampshaded by Jade herself with comments such as "For once, I agree with you."
• Done comically in "Johnny's Inferno", an episode of Johnny Bravo. After inadvertently summoning an annoying demon named Derek and being possessed by him, Johnny heads off to Pops's diner for lunch. It only takes a minute for Pops to realize exactly what's going on. How did he know? Johnny tried to pay for his food! Granted, Johnny did try to pay with a "Masters of the Abyss" credit card, so that could've been what gave it away as well.
• Played for Laughs in Justice League Action, when Superman and Batman interrogate Deadshot, Good Cop/Bad Cop style. However, before they start, Superman complains that Batman always gets to be the Bad Cop and that he'd like a turn at it for a change. Superman attempting to be mean and intimidating is so pathetic that Deadshot is just annoyed more than anything, but Batman attempting to be nice is so unnerving that Deadshot is more scared of him that way than he is normally, and says he'll talk just to get Batman to stop.
• Kaeloo:
  • Whenever Mr. Cat comes across Kaeloo crying by herself, he makes an attempt to cheer her up because he realizes how bad the problem must be if Kaeloo is crying.
  • In Episode 197, Quack Quack angrily tells off the rest of the main four for goofing around instead of helping him get to the Big Book of Destiny, which shows how much he wants to get to the book.
• In Kim Possible Episode 53, "Emotion Sickness", both Kim and Shego are victim of "Moodulator" chips and are subject to drastic mood swings, scaring Ron and Draken, respectively. It should be noted that both men are way more unsettled when Kim and Shego are acting very amorous toward them, as opposed to angry.
• King of the Hill:
  • Peggy Hill is normally the self-proclaimed smartest woman in the state, completely unaware of her own flaws, and a genuinely good housekeeper. So, in the episode "Death and Taxes", wherein a prison convict manages to dupe Peggy into smuggling him cocaine by playing to her ego (threatening to turn her in if she refuses to continue the supply... or whenever he feels like it), Hank realizes something is seriously wrong when she manages to screw up creating a rather simple dinner, and responds by asking aloud, "How could I be so freaking stupid?!"
  • "Husky Bobby": Preventing his son Bobby from participating in a fashion show at the mall has the normally safety-conscious driver Hank driving like an utter madman — speeding through traffic, cutting off other cars, running red lights (presumably), cutting across a roundabout lane, and filling up on 89 octane gasoline, stunts he would never pull in any other situation.
  • In "Pretty, Pretty Dresses", Bill is so depressed about his wife Lenore leaving him that he starts believing he's Lenore himself, and starts wearing dresses. Typically, Hank is uncomfortable with things that aren't traditionally "manly", but when Bill is being picked on at his party, Hank dons a dress himself as a way to ease tensions.
• Let's Go Luna!: In "Aren't We a Pair?", Andy and Leo are shocked when Carmen doesn't want to check out Cairo because she thinks it's old and boring.
• Little Princess: In "I Didn't Do It", the Princess takes it as a bad sign when she tries to cheer her dog Scruff up with some chicken but he refuses it.
  Princes: "Oh dear! You must be really sad if you won't eat chicken!"
• In an episode of Littlest Pet Shop (2012), Mrs. Twombly (normally a very kind and sweet woman) was so enraged at Fisher Biskit for outbidding her on a doorknob that even the mention of his name angered her. After she hears about the open house he's having where he will be showing off his art collection, she slams her fist into the counter, causing Blythe to scream and shout "So out of character!"
• The Loud House:
  • In "No Laughing Matter", Luan's siblings can tell that she's very sad when she isn't making jokes or pranking anyone.
  • In "Butterfly Effect", Lincoln can tell things are going south when Luan (normally very cheerful) starts acting cynical and Lana (who's normally, as he puts it, the "Queen of Risks") starts being very safety-conscious and walking around in a hamster ball.
  • In "Appetite for Destruction", Rita and Lynn Sr. are worried when their normally-sweet daughter Lily starts becoming destructive and growly. It turns out to be because she is constipated.
  • In "ARGGH! You for Real?", Clyde's dads freak out and believe their son is having an "episode" when he gives up his belief in superstition.
  • In "One Flu Over the Loud House", Lincoln is scared when it's already ten o'clock in the morning and his sisters aren't being noisy. The reason is because Lori, Lynn, and the twins have the flu and the rest are hiding in Lisa and Lily's room.

M-Z

• In The Magic School Bus, the one pun Carlos makes that nobody reacts to is spoken in indignation from having been scammed on a can of cocoa beans. Everybody feels the same way, and for once nobody calls him out.
  Carlos: We've bean had!
• Milly, Molly: In the cartoon adaptation of "Grandpa's Oak Tree", Molly is instantly worried when Grandpa, who was normally spry, is lethargic and doesn't laugh at her joke. He turns out to be dying.
• In the Moral Orel episode "Sundays", Reverend Putty has to do a sermon on "Hope." The morning after a terrible night for him and Florence (which affects her roommate, her ex-husband and their daughter by extension), none of them are in the best mood. He looks around and sees many of the townspeople (Doughy, Bloberta, Censordoll, etc) also disheartened by similar tragic situations in their lives, until he remembers Orel Puppington! The Cheerful Child Keet protagonist! But no, Orel's just as upset as everyone else. The next episode opens with the Reverend managing to spin a sermon about how things can turn up just when they look hopeless, partially because Orel looked so depressed. While Putty typically can get very burnt-out and bitter about his job, and certainly had good reason to be that week, seeing Orel broken was heartbreaking enough that he pulled out all the stops in cheering the kid up.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a lot of these moments:
  • "Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome" shows up for each character in the mane cast, with that character's personality changing dramatically in response to outside stress, especially stress related to that character's talent. Seeing the showoff Rainbow Dash suffering from stage fright in "Sonic Rainboom" or the usually steadfast and honest Applejack lying to her friends in "The Last Roundup" is mindboggling. The issue goes to outright terrifying with Pinkie Pie's lapse into depression in "Party of One", Fluttershy's lapse into Yandere at the climax of "The Best Night Ever", and Twilight Sparkle's complete psychotic break in "Lesson Zero".
  • On a much more serious note, Princess Celestia acting nervous and grave when Discord escapes his prison — in contrast to her normal calm and collected, even playful personality — is a big warning sign that Discord is much more dangerous than he looks.
    • In "Lesson Zero", Princess Celestia flies over to Ponyville right after she fulfills her sun-related duties, fixes Twilight's mess, and sternly reprimands her. This is the first time in the series that Princess Celestia has shown any disappointment in Twilight, let alone the outright anger she expresses upon first realizing what has happened.
      Celestia: TWILIGHT SPARKLE!
      Applejack: Whoa, nelly...
    • And come the Season 2 finale, we see the normally calm Princess get truly pissed. Near the end of Part 1, her disappointment in Twilight for confronting the fake Cadence is such that it again moves straight into actual anger. But then her wrath goes to a higher peak in Part 2 where she goes straight-up Lady of War on the revealed Queen Chrysalis and tries to fry her with Projectile Spells...right before getting worfed.
    • Years later in "A Royal Problem", we see the Royal Sisters have an actual argument over whose duty is the hardest, to the point where Celestia becomes so angry and annoyed that when Luna starts shouting at her, she shouts back. And later, when Starlight switches their cutie marks in impulse, Celestia is clearly as outraged about it as Luna is, albeit still slightly more cool-headed than her sister.
  • Fluttershy does this all the time. She is normally extremely fearful, but when her friends are in trouble, she'll stand up to a manticore, a cockatrice, or a giant firebreathing dragon. And if there isn't a threat around, it means trouble for her friends (see "Putting Your Hoof Down" for an example). And in "Buckball Season", Fluttershy is the one to tell off Rainbow Dash and Applejack for putting too much pressure on her and Pinkie Pie to win the big game against Appleloosa.
  • Big Macintosh, who is normally calm, collected, and quiet, chews out the Cutie Mark Crusaders for printing embarrassing details about him and Applejack in "Ponyville Confidential". You know you really screwed up when you get him mad enough to say more than a few words. Even more, when Big Mac is talking, Applejack, who is just as mad, becomes The Quiet One, resorting to the same "eyup"s and "nope"s Big Mac is famous for. He also drops his quiet act if he becomes ashamed of himself, most notably in "Brotherhooves Social" where he makes a heartfelt speech to Apple Bloom to explain his actions at the Sisterhooves Social which ended up with the both of them disqualified.
  • Zecora the zebra always Rhymes on a Dime. Always. Which is why this trope is enforced in "A Health of Information", as she was too sick to come up with a rhyme, making Fluttershy lampshade the seriousness of the trope.
  • In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", when Celestia brings Discord to Ponyville in an attempt to reform him, the Mane Six are furious that she would bring the worst villain they've ever faced anywhere near them, even Twilight — who is usually intensely reverent of Celestia and terrified of disappointing her — outright yelling at her.
    Twilight Sparkle: With all due respect, princess... HOW COULD YOU BRING DISCORD HERE?! ...Your majesty."
  • In "Twilight's Kingdom -- Part 2", when Discord starts acting solemn and serious, you know this time he truly is sorry for what he's done. In the finale for Season 6, he becomes absolutely furious when he finds out the Changelings have kidnapped Fluttershy and spends no time immediately transporting him and the others to the Changeling Hive. The only reason why Discord couldn't go there directly is because of said Hive sucking all other outside magic.
  • A minor example, but in "Just for Sidekicks" is the only time we see Gummy, Pinkie's pet alligator, with an expression other than his Fish Eyes. Specifically, frowning, showing that even him is tired of Angel Bunny's crap.
  • In "The Cutie Re-Mark -- Part 2", smirking, raging lunatic Starlight Glimmer becomes calm and solemn, accepts responsibility for her actions, and smiles for the first time on screen. It's so out of character for her (at the time), you just know something special is about to happen.
  • In "Parental Glideance", Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash's biggest fan and honorary little sister, tells her off for ranting to her parents about how she feels embarrassed by them, and announces she's going to do her school project on somepony else. This makes Rainbow Dash realize she messed up big time.
  • Pinkie Pie, despite being a Cloudcuckoolander, is known to have her limits. In the infamous "The Mean 6" when she sees Fluttershy breaking down in the Everfree Forest, she drops all goofball tenancies and attains to her, and sticks up in defense of Mean Twilight that they must make sure Fluttershy is okay. Even The Movie shows her dropping her goofball status when she finds out Twilight only wanted her friends to give Skystar a good time to distract her and Novo so she can steal their Pearl of Transformation, resulting in them booted out. The season 9 opener even has her say that she can't find a funny or happy thing to say or do during a Darkest Hour moment, despite the rest of her friends expecting her to.
• The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In "Sham Pooh", when Pooh loses his appetite and doesn't feel like eating honey, everyone concludes that Pooh's identity had been stolen.
• PAW Patrol: Cap'n Turbot notices Wally hasn't been eating his fishy snacks and is concerned, since Wally is normally a Big Eater. This turns out to be because Wally's mate Walinda is expecting a pup, and he's been giving his snacks to her.
• The Peanuts specials have two examples of this, both involving Linus:
  • A Charlie Brown Christmas: While Linus normally cannot go anywhere without his Security Blanket, when he delivers Bible verses to show Charlie Brown the True Meaning of Christmas, he drops the blanket when he gets to "Fear not!", and is comfortable with it. He's also fine with using the blanket as a skirt for the little tree he picked out.
  • In Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, he manages to stand up to his Big Sister Bully Lucy, who he's usually intimidated by, after she thinks that him interacting with Janice got him contaminated with her cancer and calls him out on it, and he's not afraid to chew out a bully for mocking Janice's baldness after chemotherapy. In fact, he doesn't have his blanket once in this special, which was a deliberate choice by Schulz to emphasize the seriousness of the subject matter.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • In your average episode, Phineas is almost spookily optimistic and cheerful. It makes sense that a few of the specials ("Summer Belongs to You" and "Christmas Vacation") and the movie have moments in which he's sad or angry just to let the audience know that these aren't normal episodes. One line in particular from "Summer Belongs to You" became a Memetic Mutation, even though it would have been no big deal if someone else had said it:

    Phineas: GET ON THE TRIKE!

    • In "Mission Marvel", he's under a lot of stress and takes it out on Candace.
    • In "The Klimpaloon Ultimatum", Phineas never gets genuinely enraged, but he does act more irritable than usual. This appears to have three causes: 1). Candace and Love Händel's performance and integrity were at stake. 2). Mr. Random wanted to perform inhumane experiments on Klimpaloon. 3). Mr. Random was a rather irritating character.
    • By "Phineas and Ferb Save Summer", this had been done so often that Buford lampshades it:
      Buford: This must be a special episode. He's yelling at his sister again.
    • In "Night of the Living Pharmacists", Phineas flat-out panics when he realizes Isabella is missing. Another moment occurs when Isabella ignores Phineas to give info on how to stop the invasion. Considering the lengths she'll go to gain his affections, this shows how focused she's gotten.
  • "The Lizard Whisperer": Ferb must really love Steve the chameleon, because when Steve goes missing and Phineas and Isabella are on the verge of giving up the search, he delivers a long and epic speech to urge them on.
    • "Split Personality": After hearing Busting Candace let out the scream from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Phineas and Ferb resolve to destroy the Molecular Separator if it doesn't disappear.
    • In Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars, Ferb becomes noticeably more talkative after he turns to The Dark Side.
  • In "Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror", Linda becomes very concerned when she doesn't receive a call from Candace about the boys' latest activity. And when she calls her, Candace is currently in a romantic state since she's spending time with Jeremy, saying that everything is fine. This convinces Linda to come home immediately.
• Primal (2019): the main protagonists of this series are caveman Spear and tyrannosaur Fang, companions living in a world where every day is a brutal fight for survival, but even in the face of overwhelming odds and insanely powerful enemies, they never back down, never give up, and never stop fighting unless they've outright been knocked unconscious. And then "Plague of Madness" of happened, where the antagonist of the episode is an Argentinosaurus — e.g., possibly the largest dinosaur in the entire fossil record — which has been infected with the eponymous disease. Spear and Fang don't even try to fight it and spend the entire episode running away from the colossal zombie dinosaur, that is how dangerous and insurmountable this thing is. They only survive this encounter because the sauropod falls into lava and is burned to ash by it.
• In Ready Jet Go!, Sean is usually apprehensive about going to space. There are a few occasions where does want to go (like in "Not a Sound"), which shocks everyone.
• In Rick and Morty "Auto Erotic Assimilation", after Unity breaks up with Rick because he's a bad influence on it Beth confronts him and demands that he stop keeping dangerous otherworldly beings in her garage. The entire family is shocked when Rick agrees to follow her wishes without any fuss, realizing that Rick is not in a good place emotionally.
• Rugrats:
  • Subverted in "Miss Manners", when the babies think Angelica is sick when she starts acting polite, but it turns out that she was just practicing etiquette lessons she was taught.
  • In "Who's Taffy?", when the normally friendly babysitter Taffy calls the babies dumb over the phone, they believe she's swapped bodies with Angelica. (She's actually just in a bad mood).
• During the run of the Chuck Jones Road Runner cartoons, perpetual smiler the Road Runner didn't smile only once — in "Hook, Line and Stinker," when the cannonball plummets from the Coyote's contraption. He looks concerned only for the cannonball to hammer the Coyote into the ground.
  • A different era had another moment for the Road Runner in the "Solid Tin Coyote". He's genuinely spooked by the titular machine, twice. It even manages to catch him at one point!
• Samurai Jack:
  • Jack will go out of his way to save civilians, even if it would slow his mission down further. One of the best indicators that Jack as of Season 5 has something seriously wrong with him? He spots a village being attacked by Aku's minions, and refuses to go help (it takes his guilt and a few hallucinations to get him to go back).
  • Aku is normally a Large Ham with a Kabuki-like way of speaking, and when things go wrong for him he's known for pretty epic tantrums. But when Jack finally goes through a time portal to the past, all Aku can utter is a quiet "Oh no." He knows Jack is about to kill him in the past and there's nothing he can do about it.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • In Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders , Scooby and Shaggy each fall in love. When asked what they want to eat, the normally bottomless pits say they aren't hungry. Cue Ironic Echo and the rest of the gang looking at each other in shock.
  • On Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Velma goes through this as the series concludes. She usually counts on rationale, logic and facts to guide her and the gang through their mysteries, but when the Curse of Crystal Cove sends them through a nightmare realm where those that have been associated with the search for the cursed treasure remain, Velma feels that logic and reason have failed her. As a result, she breaks down crying.
    Velma: (sobbing) I want it to make sense...I need it to make sense...
  • A lesser example with Scooby Doo's Satellite Love Interest Nova. She usually acts just like a normal dog, but she speaks only 2 human lines: Nibiru. Nibiru is coming.
• On Sid the Science Kid, Gerald is known for making a Dynamic Entry into the classroom doing something related to the plot. In "How Did My Dog Do That?", when Gerald doesn't do this, everyone is confused and Teacher Susie points out that he didn't do anything special. So he leaves the room and comes back in to make his special entrance.
• The Simpsons:
  • If there is ever a moment where Bart is studying or behaving, expect a reaction from everybody.
  • The few times that Marge has proven to be greedy, the other members of the family are incredulous about it.
  • Homer is well-known for his very short temper, but if he enters into Tranquil Fury, run like hell.
  • When Homer shows intelligent or profound thoughts, the reaction of others is astonishment.
  • Played for Laughs in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly":
    Dr. Hibbert: Hmm. A Ford urinating on a Chevrolet.
    Mrs. Hibbert: Don't you usually laugh at everything?
    Dr. Hibbert: Yes. Yes, I do.
  • "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One":
    • The fact that Smithers, the quintessential Yes-Man, can't bring himself to toe the line is a good indicator of how far over the edge Burns has gone.
    • When Homer gets a card from Mr. Burns thanking every member of the Simpson family except him, he calmly and furiously asks the kids to step outside for a second, which they both do without hesitating. As one YouTube commenter said, "When he calmly orders his children and they obey without questioning, even Bart, you know the shit hit the fan."
  • In "Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"", Grandpa knows something is fishy when he hears his family comes to visit him, when they always try to avoid him. He barely avoids a knife to the head by an assassin.
  • In the third segment of "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII", Homer becomes obsessed with eating himself and when Ned Flanders invites him over for dinner, he is surprised to that Homer is uninterested in eating things like steak.
  • When pre-Flanderization Ned Flanders snaps in "Hurricane Neddy", it very much has this effect, since the usually mild-mannered and nice-to-a-fault Ned absolutely rips into everyone in Springfield, and all he says to Homer is that he's the worst person he's ever met. It's not especially surprising when Ned checks himself into a mental hospital immediately after.
    • Subverted in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddly". After Maude's death, Ned tells his sons he won't attend church, saying "I'm going to sit right here and miss church. You just watch.". Cut to Ned hurriedly driving, saying "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!".
  • "Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me" has this for a premise. Todd Flanders, the older of Ned's God-loving boys, has a crisis of faith and renounces God for taking his mommy away.
    • Another example from the same episode, the whole situation with Todd drives Ned Flanders, who went to Alcoholics Anonymous for 4,000 days (that's about 11 years) over a single blackberry schnapps, to Moe's in need of booze, and lots of it.
  • In "Marge Be Not Proud", Bart is caught shoplifting a video game and Marge is contacted to come pick him up from the store. Instead of Marge punishing Bart or downplaying his behavior, she simply cuts him out of all family activities and ignores him, realizing that her constant smothering of him might have caused him to steal as a way of acting out and wanting to be an adult. Bart takes Marge's silence as a My God, What Have I Done? moment and does his best to make amends. Additionally, Homer is genuinely outraged and yells at Bart for doing this.
  • In "Bart's New Friend", Homer is hypnotized into thinking he is ten years old. When he is given a little bit of beer and hates it, the family realizes just how serious the hypnotism is.
  • In "Cue Detective", Homer is so utterly distraught by the loss of his smoker that when Bart suggests getting drunk like he always does, Homer says he doesn't want to. Bart realizes just how much that smoker meant to him.
• Sofia the First: In the special "The Curse of Princess Ivy", after learning that Sofia's amulet is magical, Amber steals it and tries to use it to summon Rapunzel only for the amulet to curse her by summoning Princess Ivy, who happens to be evil and intent on taking over Enchancia. Sofia, who is normally a total sweetheart, is outright furious that Amber stole her amulet and betrayed her trust and snaps at her every time she complains about having to fix the mess herself. Sofia's anger is enough to scare Amber a little.
• Sonic Boom: Sticks is a Conspiracy Theorist who refuses to indulge in current stuff since she's worried about the government. So when she gets hooked on a pop singer's album after one track, Sonic's convinced that something's up.^note It's later revealed that the song was commissioned by the singer's producer to hypnotize girls into buying more merchandising.
• South Park:
  • "Going Native" has Butters become hostile towards the other characters.
  • In "Cartoon Wars Part 1", Cartman seemed to be genuinely concerned about Family Guy offending Muslims with their portrayal of The Prophet Muhammad. It isn't until long after Kyle joined his cause that Cartman reveals he just wanted to take Family Guy off the air entirely.
  • In "Fat Camp", this is what tips Stan and Kyle off that the "slim" Cartman is an imposter when he actually is nice and doesn't insult the two. They probably knew that Cartman's rude behavior stemmed from his glorification of antisemitic ideas and not his weight.
  • And in "Good Times With Weapons" when the boys have accidentally given Butters a pretty serious injury with a shuriken, you know shit has hit the fan for Kyle when he agrees with Cartman.
    Cartman: All right you guys, we need to stay calm and just do the right thing. We have to kill Butters and bury him in Kyle's backyard.
    Stan: Dude, shut up.
    Kyle: I agree with Cartman!
    Stan: WHAT?!
    Kyle: You don't understand what my mom will do to me if she finds out I was playing with weapons!
  • In "Tonsil Trouble", Cartman is actually so upset about getting HIV that he turns down free ice cream.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man:
  • In episode "The Uncertainty Principle", Jameson spends the first half of the episode being very quiet and subdued as his son, an astronaut, encounters problems that could get him and his crew killed. Once he's safely back on the ground, though, Jameson only takes a moment of serene thankfulness before instantly reverting to his usual No Indoor Voice/Motor Mouth bossiness as he orders everybody to throw together an issue praising his son's success.
  • In "Group Therapy", he hears that a bystander had a heart attack during a Spider-Man battle, and of course he's eager to put it on the front page — until he realizes it was Peter's Aunt May. He quietly says that he's going to call and break the news personally, but ironically Peter, wanting to avoid his usual blustery rants, isn't answering his phone.
  • Another example from "Group Therapy" comes in the form of Spider-Man's second fight with the Sinister Six, wherein he remains eerily quiet the entire time while battling them. Doc Ock even notes that he noticed Spider-Man was taking them seriously given his lack of jokes. Somewhat Played With in that while Peter was asleep and unaware of the fighting, while the Symbiote was very much serious and even nearly killed Doc Ock at the end of its rampage.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Mr. Krabs is a Corrupt Corporate Executive with a serious Money Fetish, which makes it all the more shocking in the episode "Nasty Patty", when he claims to a couple of cops that it is "open cash register night" at the Krusty Krab, so they get all the money in the cash register. It just shows how paranoid he is that the cops suspect him of killing the health inspector.
  • SpongeBob normally is very friendly to anybody he meets and oftentimes oblivious to how others feel about him, so whenever the cute yellow sponge gets genuinely angry at someone (such as when he chokes Mr. Krabs in a fit of rage at the end of "Can You Spare a Dime?"), it lets the audience know just how badly things have gone for him.
  • Squidward is known to hate SpongeBob far more than any other character on the show, and expresses great disappointment upon being forced to join him on his shenanigans. However, when SpongeBob either has his life threatened^note "Dying For Pie", "Born Again Krabs", "Graveyard Shift" or is pushed too far^note "Pizza Delivery", "Fools in April", "Christmas Who?", Squidward will sometimes show sympathy towards him, especially if his misfortune was caused by Squidward in the first place.
  • Squidward dislikes anything he deems "childish", namely SpongeBob and Patrick's antics. So whenever he does something silly, even SpongeBob becomes concerned for his health. A particular example would be "Squidville" where he becomes so bored with a place he originally deemed paradise, to the point that he doesn't want to play his clarinet anymore, that he ends up gleefully playing with a reef-blower (the reason he decided to move away in the first place). Another good example occurs in "Opposite Day" when Squidward acts cheerful and energetic; SpongeBob's immediate reaction is to insist that he needs bed rest.
  • To SpongeBob, his job at the Krusty Krab is his life, to the point where he has a mental breakdown just for being a minute late and he's forced to take a vacation. However in "Have You Seen This Snail?", he becomes so depressed over losing Gary that he not only shows up fifteen minutes late to work, but leaves in the middle of his shift to try to look for Gary again.
  • Both SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs are against Plankton and ensure to protect the krabby patty formula from him at all costs. But the one time Mr. Krabs took this too far when he discovers Plankton's fear of whales which he uses against him to torment him into attempting suicide, SpongeBob is not happy about this and calls out his boss which he refuses to listen, and vows to make it right.
  • SpongeBob and Patrick become hit with this hard in "Good Neighbors", as their attempt to prove to Squidward they're good neighbors only resulted in them ruining his relaxing Sunday and stealing his scheduled pedicure without warning. After Squidward (violently) calls them out afterwards, both Sponge and Pat immediately drop every single trace of Cloudcuckoolander and The Pollyanna and realize they only made things worse, reducing them almost to tears as they leave Squidward alone and do nothing but attempt to apologize to him, emphasis on try.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Envoys", Mariner knows something is very wrong with Boimler when he loses the will to carry out their mission.
  Boimler: I don't even care anymore.
  Mariner: What? Oh man, how much blood did you lose?
  • In "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie," Dr. T'Ana is unusually gentle and sad when she tells Tendi about Rutherford's apparent death.
  • In "Reflections", we see a lot of this:
    • When Rutherford starts acting violent and like a Jerkass, Tendi is terrified and both T'Ana and Shaxs take the situation seriously, the latter even calmly trying to get him to stand down before having to stun him.
    • After spending the entire episode trying to keep Mariner from going off on one of her episodes, the Nice Guy Boimler completely flips his lid when a group of scientists mock the Starfleet uniform, take away and toss his rank pip and someone steps on it.
    • At the same time, it's Mariner who ends up taking advantage of Boimler's rampage, recruiting people into Starfleet.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • Duchess Satine of Mandalore is an Actual Pacifist who couldn't bring herself to shoot a man who was threatening to blow up a starship full of innocent people, herself among them. Yet when, in "Corruption", children get food poisoning from toxic tea bought by corrupt officals on the black market, she goes into such a rage she completely abandons her pacifist views. She even threatens a suspect with physical violence if he doesn't start talking!
  • Darth Maul is a cool, collected man who hardly ever shows a trace of fear, even when things are turning badly against him. However, when Darth Sidious comes for him personally in "The Lawless", he has an Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes who he's about to face, and when he loses the subsequent Curb-Stomp Battle he begs for mercy in a voice that sounds like he's about to cry.
    • Later, in the final season, he outright panics as his plan to try and stop Sidious from creating the Empire and completely taking over falls apart around him: "The Galaxy will burn! We're all going to die!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!"
  • Anakin Skywalker's inevitable turn to the Dark Side is foreshadowed throughout the series, regularly dipping into using Sith powers well before he's pushed to the breaking point during the events of Revenge of the Sith and becomes Darth Vader, but throughout most of the Clone Wars doesn't treat anything he's up against with as much seriousness as he should partly out of genuine confidence in his abilities and partly out of plain arrogance, sometimes toying with his opponents. Do not try to hurt someone he cares about, though — he'll make absolutely sure that you live to regret it, as "Rako Hardeen," (ironically, it was actually Obi-Wan undercover, the very man who's supposed death Anakin was furious over) Asajj Ventress, and Rush Clovis all learned the hard way. And if you're an agent of the slave industry that operates in some parts of the galaxy, he'll make sure you regret that, too, having spent his childhood as a slave on Tatooine.
• Star Wars Resistance: In "Bibo", Jace Rucklin is visibly concerned about the platform being in danger from a sea monster and joins the crowd demanding Neeku give up his new pet to the monster so it will leave.
• Steven Universe:
  • Steven is a cheerful optimistic boy who rarely gets angry at anyone and tries to see the best in those he meets. So, if he drops any of the above, it's a sign that something has gone very wrong. And if he outright states that he hates someone, which has only happened twice in the entire series? You'd better watch out. ^note  If you need context, the people in question were Kevin and Holo-Pearl, and the episodes were "Beach City Drift" and "Steven the Sword Fighter". His hatred towards the former was so jarring In-Universe that Greg even treats Steven saying the word "hate" as if he said a swear.
  • Amethyst is the more reckless and funloving of the Gems, which was more apparent in the first seasons. However, there were moments that have shown that she is still Steven's guardian, particularly when she takes part in grounding Steven in "Ocean Gem" and "Fusion Cuisine".
  • Garnet isn't quite The Stoic, but she's calm and collected even in the heat of battle or during intensely stressful moments, so her showing any kind of strong emotion means something vitally important is happening. This can be a positive thing, like her supreme delight in "Alone Together" at Steven and Connie fusing (foreshadowing for The Reveal she's a fusion herself), or a negative thing, like her utter paralyzing terror in "Keeping It Together" when faced with the forcibly fused gem shards or the amount of utter anger she displayed when she found out Pearl kept repairing Peridot's communication center so she'd have an excuse to fuse with Garnet.
  • Pearl is a Lady of War who is more of The Smart Guy of the Crystal Gems, as well as the resident Wrench Wench. However, when Peridot insults Pearl by saying she is beneath her and is nothing more than a servant, shutting down the idea of her being her own Gem, Pearl gives her quite the Shut Up, Hannibal! moment and punches her in the face.
    • In "Rose's Scabbard", Pearl, upon finding out that Rose kept secrets from her, ends up arguing with Garnet and Amethyst that Rose trusted her more than them, and finally yells at Steven that he couldn't have known what Rose was like because he's never even known her. It only takes her a moment to realize just what she said and she wordlessly leaves the temple.
  • The first time we see Ruby and Sapphire unfused, their first priority was re-fusing as quickly as possible. They almost unfused out of fear during "Keeping It Together". However, when they're so upset with each other that they unfuse and can't bring themselves to re-fuse for over 12 hours, something is seriously wrong.
    • During the argument in "Keystone Motel", Ruby spends the episode yelling and seething while Sapphire sits and waits for her to calm down. However, when they unfuse again during "Now We're Only Falling Apart", it's Sapphire who flies completely off the handle.
  • On Peridot's Twitter, every post is in ALL-CAPS unless something really big just went down.
  • Played for laughs in "Say Uncle" episode, where the Crystal Gems are all freaked out by Uncle Grandpa's Reality Warper powers, deciding that he's a threat not only to Steven but also to the stability of the universe. Their immediate solution? Kill him.
• Happens a few times in Teen Titans (2003), such as when Perpetual Frowner Raven acts cheerful for whatever reason, like in "The End Part I" (when this was just an act) and "The End Part III" (when it was genuine). Also when the Hot-Blooded Robin doesn't yell at his team to insist that he's fine after he breaks his arm and instead decides to give up and watch television in the episode "Fractured", much to the shock of his friends.
  • "Haunted" is an entire episode of this for Robin. He's normally very collected and determined, but the beatings he keeps receiving from the supposedly-dead Slade throughout the episode are so brutal they leave him genuinely terrified of Slade and begging him to stop, and the fact that none of the other Titans ever actually witness Slade being there leaves him angry to the point of nearly getting violent with them. The fact that Slade really wasn't there and his Gaslighting hallucinogen was forcing Robin to beat himself down makes it even more disturbing.
  • Beast Boy has a decent number of these, all of them ending with him taking down threats that the entire team wouldn't be able to take down normally. Of note is in "The End", when he uses his "wet willy" technique to make an Eldritch Abomination that has transformed the planet into a hellish landscape cry and tear up in pain.
• Owan the Oil Rig from Theodore Tugboat is normally very loud and easily excited. However, in the episode, "Theodore and the Boat Bully", Owan becomes very quiet and unenthusiastic when he finds out that Oliver the Vast, a visiting Jerk Jock tug, is coming to the Big Harbor to take him to the ocean to work.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Sir Topham Hatt is very fond of his Top Hat. However, in the special, "Misty Island Rescue", when Thomas gets lost on Misty Island, he is so overjoyed at having found Thomas, he throws his hat into the air, not caring the least when it disappears into the mist.
    Sir Topham Hatt: I can always find another hat, but I can never find another Thomas.
  • The Troublesome Trucks take delight in causing mischief to the other engines on Sodor. However, in the episode, "Missing Gator", when they roll down the hill into an Abandoned Mine, they are glad when Percy finds them, and even ask him to help them out of the mine, as they don't like being left there alone.
  • Toad the Brake Van is normally very polite and doesn't get mad at anything the engine pulling him (most commonly Oliver) is doing. However, in the episode, "Toad's Bright Idea", while he still retains his polite speech, he gets angry with Gator when the latter refuses to relight his faulty lamp in the dark.
  • Den is not usually one to finish his sentences, often having other engines figure out what he's trying to say (most commonly his best friend, Dart). In the episode, "Den and Dart", when Den has to work at the Ffarquhar quarry while Mavis is being repaired at the Dieselworks, at one point, he saves Toby from a runaway truck. Afterwards, he is so angry at the Troublesome Trucks, he scolds the trucks in a full sentence.
  • In "James the Second Best", James is so desperate to get on a poster he gets himself covered in coal dust, ruining his beloved red paint job so he can prove he's willing to get "down and dirty" like Edward.
• Transformers:
  • The Transformers:
    • Soundwave is usually a stoic type who talks in Robo Speak. The rare times he's Not So Stoic, his Evil Laugh is very unsettling and creepy.
    • Starscream shows compassion in one and only one episode, "Fire in the Sky", when the Decepticons discover the frozen form of Skyfire, his best friend in the days before his Face–Heel Turn. He's at first thrilled to be back with his buddy, but when he realizes Skyfire holds Starscream's new life of wickedness in contempt, Starscream is furious, and never says or does a kind thing for anyone for the remainder of the series.
  • Transformers: Prime:
    • In the last story arc of the first season, Megatron almost kills Rafael when he attacks Bumblebee with a blast of Dark Energon. Optimus Prime declares, in no uncertain terms, that he intends to KILL Megatron for what he's done. Few characters in fiction adhere as strictly as Optimus does to Technical Pacifism, and seeing him actually show a vengeful streak shocked even his fellow Autobots. He actually sticks to this policy later — while he and Megatron are forced to ally against Unicron, Optimus shows he is still going to terminate Megatron if he gets the chance now — fortunately Dreadwing intervenes.
    • Another example, and once again with Optimus: when Starscream uses his Red Energon speed serum to steal all the Omega Keys at once Optimus actually loses his cool and shouts in impotent frustration. Ratchet and Bulkhead are actually visually distressed at watching Optimus break like that.
    • The series Big Bad Megatron has a rather poignant moment when he vehemently refuses to resume leadership of the Decepticons at the end of "Predacons Rising" film, this comes as such a shock that even Starscream is weirded out.
    • Similarly, Shockwave almost never freaks out over anything at all, with Tranquil Fury being the most emotive he usually gets. However, when Unicron arrives and begins resurrecting several Predacon skeletons to use as his undead army during "Predacons Rising", Shockwave has a clearly horrified, if relatively subdued, reaction.
      Shockwave: It is... not logical.
  • Beast Wars:
    • Whenever Waspinator stops speaking in the third-person, you know something's serious or amiss. Most notably in the finale "Nemesis", when he renounces his loyalty to the Predacons.
      Waspinator: I said NO!
    • In "Coming of the Fuzors", Dinobot tries to take leadership of the Maximals after Optimus Prime's destruction, but instead, Rhinox takes Dinobot by the throat and lifts him into the air, softly saying "I'm in a bad mood. Understand?", forcing him to stand down.
• The Transporters: In one episode, Jenny realises that she's never been late and boasts about how she's never late. However, when she is late for the first time, she fears being laughed at, so she doesn't return to work. Her coworkers worry that she has had an accident since she had never been late before.
• In TRON: Uprising, Tron is generally The Stoic. However, in the "Scars" storyline, Tron acts unusually agressive when he learns that Dyson is in town, and tries to have Beck drag him back to base to extract information, despite Beck's protests that this isn't usually how they operate, and if it was info they wanted, it would be much easier to just secure Dyson's Disc instead. This, combined with Tron's refusal to back down, gives Beck an Out-of-Character Alert.
• The Uncle Grandpa episode "Bad Morning" shows that the usually friendly and upbeat Uncle Grandpa becomes a grouchy, violent old man that constantly shouts 'bad morning' whenever he gets up on the wrong side of the bed, caused by Pizza Steve joyriding in his racecar bed and parking it in the wrong spot.
• You can tell when Underdog thinks a situation is serious when he isn’t speaking in rhyming couplets.
• The Venture Bros.: Kano, a member of the old Team Venture, took a vow of silence and is essentially mute in almost all of his appearances. When the Blue Morpho shows up in "Arrears in Science", he utters in complete disbelief, "No. It cannot be."^explanationThe character in question was an affiliate of Team Venture and has been thought dead for decades, and Kano was the one who had killed him; they were long-time friends and he'd been forced to do it to protect another, which is why he took his vow of silence in the first place.
• In the Wacky Races (2017) episode "Peter Imperfect," race financier P.T. Barnstorm uses I.Q. Ickly's duplicating machine to make a copy of Peter so one copy can make public appearances while the other can race. Dastardly enters one of the machine's chambers as Peter enters the other. The result: Peter becomes a mooching slob while Dastardly becomes polite and bent on doing good deeds.
• Wander over Yonder:
  • Sylvia spends most of "The Wanders" trying to send Wander's Literal Split Personalities (Genius Wander, Overly Dramatic Wander, Easily Impressed Wander, etc.) back from whence they came in order to restore the original. At the end, the seemingly-complete Wander immediately tries to ride off to "stop the diabolical Lord Hater" (when Befriending the Enemy has been his modus operandi for the entire series), which leads Sylvia to double back and realize that they're still missing a piece: Helpless Wander, the main source of his compassion.
  • In "The Matchmaker" as Wander begins to suspect Sylvia is derailing him from delivering a love letter to Lord Dominator, he immediately drops every single trace of Cloudcuckoolander and The Pollyanna and goes to complete fury.
  • In "The Family Reunion", after another argument breaks out between Sylvia's family members, Wander loses his temper for one of the few times in the show and shouts "Frabdrazzit, that's enough!" The next scene has Wander angrily dragging Sylvia, her mother, her granny, and her brothers into an impromptu family counselling session.
  • Wander's is friendly, cheerful and compassionate by default, and always believes an enemy is just a friend you haven't made yet. "The Boy Wander" shows that Wander really dislikes Dr. Screwball Jones, believing him to be one of the deadliest villains and doesn't make any attempts to befriend him. What this amounts to is Wander acting like the 1966 Batman in an attempt to take down Screwball, who in reality is just a goofy clown-themed villain (albeit a Not-So-Harmless Villain). Wander's heavy dislike of Dr. Screwball comes from the fact that Screwball forces people to be happy, which is a serious subject to Wander.
• We Bare Bears: Ice Bear is usually The Comically Serious, his expression usually never changing from the same neutal face, and when he does change it, it's usually a small scowl or a small smile, with no change in his tone of voice. Then in "Icy Nights" we get to see him fly into an actual rage after his robotic vacuum cleaner is destroyed. He proceeds to wreck all the fighting robots around him completely unarmed. Robots that were armed with things like hammers, claws and buzzsaws. The people controlling the robots proceed to turn tail and get out of the building.. It is at this point that we are reminded that, despite being such a quiet individual, he's still a polar bear.
• What If…? (2021): In "What If... Ultron Won?", the normally utterly calm and stoic Uatu freaks out upon realizing that Infinity Ultron can sense him and will destroy the multiverse if he can figure out how. He's so freaked out that he's extremely tempted to intervene for once so Black Window and Hawkeye will find the secret to defeating him. When Ultron actually breaks into his realm, Uatu fights him and is ultimately forced to start recruiting allies to stop him, starting with giving Strange Supreme the chance of redeeming himself.
  Uatu: (after Ultron sees and attacks him) I have seen everything that has ever happened. Ever will happen. Ever could happen. And yet... What the hell is this?!
• In the second season of Young Justice (2010), Beast Boy's Shapeshifter Default Form is noticeably monkey-like, including a tail. When he gets a flashback to his mother's death in "Earthlings", he reverts entirely to a green version of his original human form.

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