Shoo Out The Clowns / Western Animation

• Adventure Time: In the Season 6 opening two-parter, Shelby the worm briefly appears at the beginning of "Wake Up" to provide a bit of comedy, retreats under Jake's ear flap and doesn't come out until the very end of "Escape from the Citadel", where he curls up on Finn's leg and silently cries for him.
• Animaniacs featured Rita and Runt. Their shorts may have had some humor here and there, but still had a comparatively serious tone to the others. As such, Yakko, Wakko and Dot either made their cameos very early on into the plot, or didn’t appear at all.
• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Momo is often a mood indicator, and he has a tendency to disappear when things are getting serious.
  • Lampshaded in the Grand Finale: before Aang fights Ozai, he says, "Momo, time for you to go." Momo coming back is a sign that it's all over.
  • Subverted for the Momo segment of "Tales of Ba Sing Se". While his story is the most lighthearted next to Sokka's, it also ends up being the only one with any relevance to the overarching story, as it ends with him discovering the place where the missing Appa was held.
• Averted in The Legend of Korra with the Previously on… segments at the start of each episode, which are done in a Retraux-style complete with hammy voiceover done by an in-universe sports announcer. His comical recaps grace even the most dour of episodes... except for a single one in the first season, where he's replaced by a more serious character due to the prior episode's events leaving him unavailable.
• In Justice League, The Flash is notably absent in several serious scenes such as in the league's first confrontation with Darkseid. Though the series itself, much like examples mentioned under the Batman entry, argues against this. The whole idea of the "Justice Lords" universe is that the League itself gets too dark when the clown isn't around, to the detriment of the entire world.
• Transformers:
  • Unintentionally executed in Transformers: Animated by means of Executive Meddling. The first two seasons used human supervillains with various gimmicks to spread out the Decepticon appearances. Hasbro asked the staff to drop them for the third season, which was somewhat Darker and Edgier; the only one to appear is the Headmaster, who was beaten and arrested in the premiere after escaping in both his previous appearances. Even Meltdown, who had actually been a threat and was still on the loose the last time we saw him, was never heard from again.
  • This also happens on and off with the humans in Transformers: Prime, and by and large the humans are back shortly afterwards. So far, they've been absent from the episodes "Partners", "Loose Cannons" with the exception of Agent Fowler (who was in serious overdrive), and "Crossfire".
  • Starting in season 2, the children appear very sparingly, and end up in more danger when they do appear. In the season two finale, they have one appearance to lampshade their lack of appearances of late. And then they get kidnapped and held hostage.
• Done in Wakfu for the climactic three final episodes of season 1. Grufon the Map Shushu is unaccounted for after episode 18. Az the Tofu is entrusted to Canar's care in episode 24 before Yugo joins back with his friends for the finale battle. The same could be argued for Sadlygrove's death in episode 25, though things were already quite serious by then. Possibly the case for Ruel as well, considering that he was separated from and hardly even mentioned by the other heroes for several episodes, only to have a bit part in the finale.
  • Az and Grufon are both completely absent in season 3, which is much darker than the first two seasons and the OVA episodes. Sadlygrove also misses a few episodes after he stays behind to fight Dark Vlad, resulting in the room collapsing and him taking a while to recover.
• ReBoot: In the first two seasons, despite being The Hero and the most capable member of the main cast when it comes to fighting off threats, Bob was also the goofiest in terms of personality. Cue the second season's last 4 episodes, which take a darker turn and conclude with his removal from the main cast, resulting in his absence in the even darker Season 3. Of course, he was eventually brought back mid-Season 3, but by that point, he had undergone Character Development that rendered him more serious and less of a goofball. This gets played with in Season 4, when the return of classic Bob as a separate character midway coincides with the show adopting a lighter and more comical tone reminiscent of the first seasons. Then classic Bob is revealed to be Megabyte in disguise, and the shows undergoes a darker Tone Shift again.
• Done in a way in Total Drama World Tour. Every single elimination in the first half of the season, barring Izzy, was from Team Victory, made of lighthearted and easygoing Nice Guys/Girls like Bridgette, DJ, Lindsay, and Harold (and almost all were eliminated at the hands of Alejandro too). Once they were gone, all that remained to get rid of was Noah. With every funny character gone (except Owen and Tyler), that made room for drama with the love triangle that took up the next few episodes. Things lightened up a little after Gwen, Courtney, and Duncan were voted off though.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob is mostly absent during the infamous "One Coarse Meal" (as well as Patrick being absent completely), which is considered one of the darkest (and most hated) episodes of the series given Plankton being scared to the point of attempting suicide.
  • Other episodes that have SpongeBob disappearing before the more dramatic parts include "New Leaf" and "I Heart Dancing", as Mr. Krabs and Squidward respectively are the main focus.
  • SpongeBob disappears for about 95% of "Plankton's Army", as Plankton is the main focus of the episode.
  • In "Rock Bottom", the comically stupid Patrick escapes Rock Bottom early in the episode to make SpongeBob's experience there more unsettling and foreboding.
  • Another episode where SpongeBob does not appear that much would be Season 4's "Enemy in Law", which focuses on Plankton's relationship with Mama Krabs. At one point, Mr. Krabs shoos SpongeBob away from the table during Plankton and Mama Krabs' first date.
• The quirky Channel 6 staff (Burne, Irma, and Vernon), as well as the Neutrinos, were Put on a Bus sometime during the Darker and Edgier "Red Sky" seasons of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • In the episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", both Perry the Platypus and Dr. Doofenshmirtz are completely absent... until they show up at the climax for a Deus ex Machina, where Perry shows up fighting Doof while at the same time saving the boys and Candace from the Sergeant, where it was later revealed to all be Candace's dream, which was inside of Perry's dream out of fear of having his cover blown.
  • Some episodes have Phineas and Ferb become completely absent for the entire second half of the episode, such as "Run, Candace, Run", "Perry the Actorpus" and "The Mom Attractor", as those episodes are mostly either focused on Candace and Agent P.
• King of the Hill:
  • Bobby is completely silent in "The Exterminator", one of the series' darker episodes.
  • And during the climax of "Pigmalion" when Luanne is aggressively pursued by an insane Trip Larsen, Hank and Bobby aren't present, also Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer are completely absent.
• In American Dad! episode "Jack's Back", both Roger and Klaus are absent when Stan argues with his father Jack and his son Steve. This is lampshaded by Francine.
• Amphibia:
  • In both season finales, Bessie is nowhere to be seen. In the Season 2 finale "True Colors", only a few select Wartwood characters make brief appearances, and Mayor Toadstool and Toadie are the only ones to speak.
  • On the subject of Season 2, the comedic supporting toads of Percy and Braddock leave after the events of "Barrel's Warhammer," setting the stage for the reunion of Anne, Marcy and Sasha that takes up much of the conflict for the remainder of the season.
  • Joe Sparrow is absent for most of Season 3 to build up for Marcy becoming a human host for the Core.
  • Anne's parents, and virtually all of their allies on Earth, are completely absent for the Grand Finale, to build up for the intensity and seriousness of the Core's final gambit and Anne experiencing a tearjerking Disney Death.
• The infamous Family Guy episode "Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q", Peter and Joe get knocked unconscious by the episode's Big Bad before the climax with Quagmire. Not to mention Stewie and Brian barely getting any screentime (they each get one line).
• This is done to Sgt. Blob's team in pilot episode of The Dreamstone, who are defeated and disappear from the conflict shortly before Pildit's Disney Death and Rufus' showdown with Zordrak, not appearing until the conflict is over (though other similarly clownish Urpneys appear during the climax). This is something of Early-Installment Weirdness, since the Urpneys would act as Villain Protagonists for the rest of the series onwards (though it is repeated in a couple of rare instances Zordrak once again takes part in a scheme).
• Beware the Batman has Deathstroke shut down the comic relief Batcomputer right before the climatic battle in the season finale.
• The Narrator from The Powerpuff Girls is largely exiled from the Darker and Edgier 2002 movie, only speaking at the beginning and the end.
• Happens often in Big City Greens during the more serious moments.
  • All of the Greens are absent for the final scene of "Reckoning Ball" to build up for Chip Whistler's Fake Defector reveal.
  • In "Quiet Please", Tilly and Gramma are absent between the time Bill sees Cricket about to get caught by the librarian without knowing and the time he gets kicked out.
  • In "Chipocalypse Now" after Remy pretends to be a lost boy in need of his daddy to distract Chip's goons so Cricket can escape, he is completely absent for the rest of the episode, to build up for what Chip does next.
• While not quite clowns, in Star Wars Rebels, Harmless Villains Aresko and Grint are rather gruesomely killed by the Inquisitor and Tarkin for their failures, making clear to the audience that things have gotten serious.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • The recurring background character Derpy is absent from some of the more serious episodes; "Family Appreciation Day", for example, is one of few S2 eps where she does not show up in the background.
  • "Ponyville Confidential" and "A Hearth's Warming Tail"'s third acts being more dramatic and as such, Pinkie Pie disappears before the third acts begin.
  • Pinkie Pie unsurprisingly has very few lines throughout "A Canterlot Wedding" and "Twilight's Kingdom", especially the second parts, given the more serious nature of those episodes.
  • Similarly, Pinkie only has two whole lines in "Magic Duel" before Trixie removes her mouth, rendering her speechless for the majority of the episode.
  • Pinkie also has no dialogue throughout "Boast Busters", only making sporadic brief appearances in the crowd. Same goes with "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls".
  • In the Season 6 finale, "To Where and Back Again", Pinkie along with the rest of the Mane 6, Spike, the Princesses and Shining Armor get kidnapped by Queen Chrysalis and replaced with Changeling duplicates. After Starlight Glimmer, Thorax, Trixie and Discord rescue them from the evil ruler, things get more lighthearted. Pinkie Pie, in particular, does not have any lines in Part 2.
  • Spike is completely absent from Season 8's infamous "The Mean 6", which generally focuses on the ex-queen Chrysalis creating fake duplicates of the mane ponies minus Starlight, and they end up intertwining with their camping trip which results in a disagreement. Spike is also the only mane character Chrysalis does not take a picture of. Interestingly, Spike was going to appear at the beginning and end of the episode with Zecora to deliver "some imbiac pentimeter", but his appearances were cut for time. We also get no appearance of Derpy nor any supporting or background character.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • In "Storm the Castle", Ludo gets eaten by a monster just before Star confronts Toffee and has to destroy her wand in exchange for him sparing Marco's life. He hatches out of an egg that the monster laid once the encounter ends.
  • A literal example in season two's midseason finale, "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown", where Star Butterfly accidentally sucks the ghost of the titular clown into a black hole during the episode's climax. Star herself almost gets sucked in herself, but Marco, Janna, and Jackie rescue her, with unfortunately allows Ludo to escape with the Magic Book of Spells, laying the most important groundwork for the remainder of the season and the third season's "Battle for Mewni" story arc.
  • The "Battle for Mewni" arc itself has Star's goofy father, King River. Just before Star returns to the castle to confront Ludo, he sends River up into the sky, and he doesn't come back down again until after the final fight with Toffee.
  • "Skooled" has Miss Heinous return to St. Olga's school with her comedic henchmen, Gemini and a fully-healed Rasticore, in order to learn the truth about her past. After finding out that she is the rightful Queen of Mewni, Rasticore is reluctant to join her on her new quest, and she removes Gemini's robotic heart (which kills him), and uses it as a bomb to reduce Rasticore back to an arm, removing both minions from the plot as it takes a darker turn.
  • Zigzagged in the season three finale, Star has Eclipsa locked away for inadvertently causing Moon to lose half her soul and flee to the Realm of Magic. However, she still shows up during the climax, having somehow escaped, and takes the wand from Star, using it to defeat Meteora easily without a hint of her usual lackadaisical behavior.
• Horseland: Zoey and Chloe Stilton are completely absent throughout the "Mosey" episode to make the buildup for Sarah's grief about her old cat unsettling and foreboding. Shep, Teeny and Angora also disappear during the scene where Sarah tries to find Mosey in the snowstorm after he left the barn while she was sleeping so she doesn't see the dead body.
• Hulk Vs.: Deadpool disappears from the climax after the Hulk knocks him unconscious. A post-credits scene has him revealed to be alive and well after the base explodes earlier.
• Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" has Stimpy mostly absent from "Ren Seeks Help", considered the darkest episode of the entire series (not just Adult Party Cartoon, but Ren and Stimpy overall). He only appears in the opening scene, and seeing as Ren apparently did something completely irredeemable to him, he's clearly not in the mood to be funny. The rest of the episode goes on without him, and it's not pretty...
• The Simpsons tends to either remove Homer or downplay his goofy personality during particularly serious scenes:
  • "Ned 'N Edna's Blend" has the play about the crucifixion of Jesus (with Homer playing the role). Rather than botching it up with his usual shenanigans, Homer's performance as Jesus during the crucifixion is actually dead serious, with even Ned Flanders being impressed with it.
  • In "Marge Be Not Proud", Homer doesn't appear in the scene where Marge chases Bart around the house, thinking he stole something from the mall again.
  • Homer's role in "A Fish Called Selma" is relatively minor, as most of the episode consists of a somber, grounded love story between Selma and Troy McClure.
• The Lion Guard does this in the second season, as the more comedic characters in the Pride Lands make less appearances, Reirei's pups vanish from the script, and the villains lose their humorous and harmless qualities to become a serious danger. Timon and Pumbaa, in particular, are completely absent from "The Rise of Scar" given the buildup to Scar's arrival as the Arc Villain for the season.
• Infinity Train:
  • Book 2 had Jesse escape the train in the seventh episode. MT is left behind, to their mutual horror, and the remaining episodes see her forced to wander the desolate wasteland outside of the train, kill one of her pursuers, and traverse the disturbing inner mechanisms of the train itself in desperation for her own exit. The character does come back in the final episode, though this only lightens the mood briefly until it ramps up again for the final act.
  • Book 3 was already being a much darker season, but still saw this occur when its final two episodes began with a jaded Hazel ditching Grace and Simon to leave with Amelia. As soon as she leaves, Simon attempts to murder Grace repeatedly. First, by trapping her in her memories to die comatose and alone, then by forcibly kicking her off the train to be run over by the wheels once she escapes that. Then he ends up dying himself, getting his soul eaten and his body reduced to bones and ash while Grace and several children helplessly watch.
• The Owl House:
  • Due to breaking her leg during "Wing It Like Witches", Amity is stuck at home during the intense final two episodes of season one, so she (and her flustered behavior around Luz) is absent from the very serious proceedings.
  • Hooty is completely absent from "Young Blood, Old Souls", the season one finale wherein Luz attempts to rescue Eda from Emperor Belos, and in the process, is forced to destroy the portal back to the human world.
  • Similarly, Hooty barely shows up at all during the third season due to getting turned into a puppet by the Collector. He has a grand total of five lines across the three hour-long specials, and only one of which is more than two words long.
• Garfield and Friends:
  • Wisecracking, self-described "prankster gangster" Roy is notably absent from the entirety of the S01E13 US Acres segment, "I Like Having You Around!", which is about how Bo thinks that his twin sister, Lanolin, wants him off the farm and thus leaves right before a huge windstorm hits the area.
• Let's Go Luna!: In "Gaja's Birthday", Hockbar, Maria, Wolfgang, and Sam all have a skin rash so they can't take the kids to the party, so the plot can have an excuse to feature Señor Fabuloso and touch upon his trauma surrounding children's birthday parties.
• Star Trek: Prodigy:
  • "Time Amok" removes Jankom Pog from the scene very early on. This is both to maintain the serious tone of the episode and to prevent him from easily fixing the problem (which he normally could).
• Gravity Falls:
  • Neither Stan nor Soos appear in "Northwest Mansion Mystery"—a notably dark episode.
  • Mabel, Soos and Stan (and their normally lighhearted antics, and tendency to provide comedic relief) are virtually absent from "Weirdmageddon Part 1", though Soos does appear at the end of the episode when he, Dipper and wendy enter the bubble that Mabel is imprisoned in.
• The Venture Brothers: Henchman 21 and Henchman 24 are Mauve Shirts whose banter is one of the show's many sources of humor, but they're mostly hapless in the face of any real danger. In the Season 3 finale, Henchman 24 dies, kicking off not only 21's Character Development, but also permanent shifts to the show's status quo.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Dylan and Brenda, a pair of young sweethearts who often comically suffer from the Monster of the Week attacks, are absent from the vast majority of Season 2 as the overall plot gradually becomes more serious.

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