The Movie / Western Animation

• Although it seemed to be stuck in Development Hell for a while, Cartoon Network finally confirmed The Amazing World of Gumball was getting a movie to wrap up the story, albeit years after the show itself ended.
• Animaniacs had a direct-to-video movie entitled Wakko's Wish, which acted as a Grand Finale to the show's original run.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, which is essentially the same as the show, except longer. Notable for its opening number performed by Mastodon about theater etiquette and the horrible things that will happen to you if you fail to follow it and the Viral Marketing campaign that caused the Boston Bomb Scare and resulted in Cartoon Network undergoing managerial changes that led to some serious Network Decay.
• Batman: The Animated Series had Batman: Mask of the Phantasm in theaters in 1993.
  • Followed by Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero and Mystery of the Batwoman, the latter of which was released years after the series had already been cancelled. Both films were released straight-to-video.
  • Batman Beyond had a direct-to-video movie, Return of the Joker, which brought back the Joker in addition to providing details on what happened to him between the events of The Animated Series and Beyond.
• Beavis and Butt-Head had Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, in which the titular duo get their TV stolen, try to find a new one, and end up going on a quest that takes them all across the USA. A sequel, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, was released in 2022 for Paramount+.
• Ben 10 has had at least four over it's run. The live action Ben 10: Race Against Time, the regularly animated Secret of the Omnitrix, another live action one based on Alien Force; Ben 10: Alien Swarm, and the All-CGI Cartoon movie, Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens.
• Bob's Burgers had The Bob's Burgers Movie, which was originally scheduled for a summer 2020 release, but was delayed for April 2021, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was then delayed again, and eventually released in May 2022.
• According to Word of God, Butch Hartman wouldn't have any trouble giving this treatment to Danny Phantom (the four hour-long specials don't really count). However, due to the Executive Meddling that ended the series while it was still in its prime, it is unknown at the moment if they will greenlight the project.
• Daria had two: Is it Fall Yet?, which bridged the fourth and fifth seasons, and Is It College Yet?, which was the Grand Finale of Daria's class graduating high school and getting ready for college.
• Dexter's Laboratory has the Made-for-TV Movie "Ego Trip", where Dexter travels to a Bad Future where Mandark rules. It was originally intended to be the series finale.
• After Doug got a Channel Hop to ABC, their owner Disney brought it to theaters as Doug's 1st Movie, which was also Doug's Last Movie.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, which, as you can tell from the page quote, was the Grand Finale and had the eponymous trio finally become respected by the other kids.
• The Fairly OddParents! has several TV Specials, like Abra-Catastrophe!, Channel Chasers, School's Out! The Musical, Fairly OddBaby (where Poof made his first appearance), the Wishology trilogy, and Timmy's Secret Wish!, but the actual movie is the live-action film A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner! that takes place 13 years in the future. The film then had two sequels: A Fairly Odd Christmas and A Fairly Odd Summer.
• Family Guy had the direct-to-video movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, which was subsequently edited into three episodes aired at the end of the show's fourth season.
  • Show creator Seth MacFarlane has also hinted at a possible theatrical feature for years, although the project has evidently been mired in Development Hell.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has three TV Movies: "House of Bloo's" (which serves as the Pilot Movie to the series), "Good Wilt Hunting" and "Destination: Imagination" (which in production order serves as the series finale).
• Futurama had four Direct to Video Movies post its initial cancellation after Season 4: Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and Into the Wild Green Yonder. In the fullness of time, they were picked up by the network, each movie was split into four episodes of approximately appropriate length, and they aired as the 16-episode run of Season 5.
• Gargoyles is arguably the series of the movie, the pilot having limited theatrical release as a full length animated movie.
• G.I. Joe: The Movie was supposed to get a theatrical release, but due to the box-office failures of the Transformers and My Little Pony movies, it ended up being a straight-to-video release instead. The Movie was suppose to kill off Duke in order to set the tone apart from the first two seasons of TV series (where the Nobody Can Die rule was played straight). But due to the fan backlash of Optimus Prime's death in The Transformers: The Movie (which was actually inspired by the decision to kill off Duke), Duke's death was quickly revised thanks to some last-minute dubbing (he ended up "falling into a coma" and recovering off-screen).
• GoldenFilms created an unofficial sequel to The Tale of Peter Rabbit which shows Peter and his sisters a bit older then they were in the books.
• Hanna-Barbera produced several movies based on their popular series:
  • Tom and Jerry: A theatrical film and several Direct to Video movies.
  • The Huckleberry Hound Show: The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
  • Yogi Bear: The theatrical Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, a televised Christmas movie, and three additional television films.
  • The Flintstones: The theatrical The Man Called Flintstone, and a few television movies during the 1990's. Not to mention the infamous Crossover with The Jetsons.
  • The Jetsons: In addition to the aforementioned Crossover movie, there was a theatrical film, as well as the televised Rockin' with Judy Jetson.
  • Top Cat: Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, the first full-length film to feature the cast, released as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series.
  • Scooby-Doo: Several Direct to Video films since the 1990s, as well as three television movies during the late 1980s.
  • The Smurfs (1981): Smurfquest, which was originally released as a two-hour television movie. It was later split up into four half hour episodes.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had The Secret of the Sword, which doubled as the Pilot Movie for She-Ra: Princess of Power.
• Hey Arnold! had two movies planned while the show was still running. One was a three-part television movie entitled "Arnold Saves the Neighborhood", and the other was a theatrical one, The Jungle Movie, which would have resolved the cliffhanger left by the two-part episode, "The Journal". Paramount and Nickelodeon wanted an Arnold movie in theaters soon, so they had the production team rework "Arnold Saves the Neighborhood" for a theatrical release as Hey Arnold! The Movie, while The Jungle Movie got put on the back-burner for a number of years before Nick greenlit production on it as a two-part (44 minutes each) TV movie as part of their mission to revive their '90s programming.
• Hilda and the Mountain King follows the events of its parent series' second season, wrapping up the overzealous Safety Patrol arc and concluding the finale's cliffhanger.
• According to The Other Wiki, Invader Zim was supposed to have a TV movie to end its second season, and possibly serve as a Grand Finale. This, along with several un-broadcast episodes, was cancelled by Nickelodeon. However, years later a different movie, Enter the Florpus was created, airing on Netflix.
• Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths was conceived as a movie, titled Justice League: Worlds Collide, that would form a bridge between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. The project ended up being put on hold and was finally released long after Unlimited had ended, with an entirely different art style and no continuity ties. There are however little traces of the continuity links from the earlier drafts, such as the League only having six members (Hawkgirl quit the team in the series finale of Justice League) and the members of the League debating whether or not they should expand their roster.
• Kim Possible has two movies. First it's A Sitch in Time where they discovered that The Dragon Shego became a Evil Overlord in a Bad Future. The second movie, So the Drama, is about the Harmless Villain Dr. Drakken becoming a Not-So-Harmless Villain, and being created as a Grand Finale (until it was Un-Canceled) it ended with a kiss.
• Apart from being itself spun off from a feature film, Lilo & Stitch: The Series had two bookends; Stitch! The Movie (so named because marketing couldn't agree on what to call the series until it was too late), and Leroy & Stitch.
• The Loud House has The Loud House Movie, which was released midway through the airing of the show's fifth season in 2021 (although it's stated to take place between Seasons 4 and 5).
• Miraculous Ladybug received a theatrical retelling in 2023 of the events of the series in the form of Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie.
• ¡Mucha Lucha! The Return of El Malefico, featuring none other than Tim Curry as the titular villain and Penn Jillette in a bunch of incidental roles.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and its sequels Rainbow Rocks, Friendship Games, and Legend of Everfree, initially marketed as Direct to Video/cable features but the first two were granted limited theatrical runs beforehand. An actual wide-release theatrical film was released in October of 2017. Season 8 of the series carries on after the movie, and makes references back to it.
• Oggy and the Cockroaches had Oggy and the Cockroaches: The Movie. Unlike the series, the movie takes place over four different time periods (13,327 BC, 1,350 AD, 1,899-1,900 AD and 27 BBY), showcasing different incarnations of the titular characters and their Herculean battles.
• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: The final three episodes of the series were also released as a direct-to-video movie, Dalmatian Vacation (but only in foreign countries), bringing the total number of 101 Dalmatian-themed Disney movies up to five.
• Preschool kids show PAW Patrol had PAW Patrol: The Movie, released in August 2021. Because of the COVID Pandemic, the recording sessions (and presumably the animation) were done via telecommuting. It later got a sequel in 2023, called PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.
• Penguins of Madagascar is an unusual example, as even though it is not canon with the television series The Penguins of Madagascar, it still draws more inspiration from the show than it does the film series it is based on, even though it takes place after the third film.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Across the 2nd Dimension is a Made-for-TV Movie which was slightly Darker and Edgier and featured, among other things, the boys finding out that Perry is a secret agent and Phineas finally being kissed by his love-struck friend Isabella (but all memories of these events are erased).
  • There was another movie in the works for 2013 that was to be released in theaters and was a mix of live-action and animation, but it never got produced.
  • The show also had a one-hour TV special called Summer Belongs to You, and the subsequent hour-long specials Save Summer and the Grand Finale Last Day Of Summer. It also had two hour-long crossovers, one with the Marvel Universe and one with Star Wars.
  • In 2019, a midquel film set before the Grand Finale, titled Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe was announced, released as a Disney+ exclusive in August 2020.
• The Powerpuff Girls Movie, an Origins Episode for the series The Powerpuff Girls (1998). Its working titles were First Flight and Maiden Voyage. Notable for being the only movie based on a Cartoon Network original. It bombed at the box office due to poor marketing on the part of Warner Bros., which led to a Samurai Jack movie to cease production. As of this time, the closest thing to a second theatrical Cartoon Network movie is the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, based on a show that airs on the late-night [adult swim] block, which performed slightly better, since it actually got some marketing.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • In August of 2017, the show premiered its own TV Movie entitled "Ready Jet Go!: Back to Bortron 7", as part of the PBS Kids "Summer Adventure" initiative in order to bridge the summer learning gap. The special focuses on the Propulsions needing to go back to their home planet in order to do a presentation of everything that they've learned. Sean and Sydney's parents are out of town, so Sean and Sydney get to stay with the Propulsions, and of course, go to Bortron 7 with them.
  • In June of 2019, the show premiered another TV Movie entitled "One Small Step". Jet builds a super saucer and takes the kids to the Moon for a slumber party celebrating the Apollo 11 mission. However, the saucer has a rough landing, and Jet and Sunspot go missing. Sydney and Jet 2 stay behind to work on the saucer, and Sean and Mindy look for Jet and Sunspot, while Sean teaches Mindy all about the Apollo 11 mission.
  • In July of 2023, a proper feature film called Ready Jet Go! Space Camp was released, and also serves as the Finale Movie for the series, wherein a mock spaceship built at space camp launches Jet and the others into space, where they must go to Mascarpone to retrieve the cure to Sunspot's illness.
• Disney's Recess and Teacher's Pet also got the full-length theatrical treatment, with Teacher's Pet meant to be the Grand Finale to that series.
• Rocket Power has four TV movies, including Race Across New Zealand, Reggie's Big Beach Break, Island of the Menehune (which answers the question of what happened to Reggie and Otto's Missing Mom), and The Big Day (a sequel to Island of the Menehune which serves as the Grand Finale).
• Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling, produced 22 years after the original series ended, is a television film that revolves around Rocko and his friends returning from outer space to O-Town, where Rocko struggles to affiliate with the metamorphosis of the city during his life in the 21st century.
• Inverted with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the much classic Rankin/Bass TV specials, yet the sequel is more or less a sequel to those specials.
• Rugrats had three: The Rugrats Movie, Rugrats in Paris, and Rugrats Go Wild!, a crossover with The Wild Thornberrys. The latter series also has three movies - a Made-for-TV Movie explaining the origins of Donnie, the theatrical The Wild Thornberrys Movie, and the aforementioned Rugrats Go Wild!. One thing that's interesting to note is that unlike most examples of these, the first two Thornberrys movies are considered to be within that show's canon, with the later seasons of Thornberrys having multiple call backs to the movie.
• The Simpsons:
  • The show's producers were thinking of a movie at least as early as Season 4, when the "Camp Krusty" episode was pitched for possible expansion to feature length by James L. Brooks (an idea that was rejected after the writers told him they'd already had trouble padding out the episode as it was). In the fullness of time, The Simpsons Movie came to be, reversed some of the worst horrors of Flanderization, and inflicted Spider-Pig upon the world. And of course, sparked much debate on whether it sucked or ruled.
    • The Simpsons Movie also Lampshades this trope, when Homer criticizes the audience for paying money to watch something they could get for free on TV.
  • Spoofed in-universe with "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie".
  • Another in-universe example: "Angry Dad: The Movie".
• South Park had South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which is in canon with the rest of the series. The back of the DVD case claims that "unlike most other movies that got their start on the silver screen, [this one] doesn't suck." (Stephen Sondheim is known to have sent the shows creators a letter congratulating them on the film's musical score and calling it the best musical he'd seen in over a decade.)
  • To be specific, the reference is in the form of a two-part episode, resolving the question of what happens to the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Satan. Satan has started to date another guy, but by the end, he decides to stay single. There is also mention of the US-Canada war and Terrance and Philip's near execution in "Terrance & Phillip: Behind the Blow."
  • The three-part Emmy winning story arc South Park: Imaginationland has been edited into a full-length film. (Indeed, it was originally intended to be a second film before being split into episodes instead.)
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie was meant to serve as a Grand Finale to the series. However, those meddling guys at Nickelodeon decided to continue with the series anyway.
    • Word of God says that no matter what happens in the show or how long it goes on, that the movie is the series finale.
  • A second movie titled The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water was released on February 6, 2015.
  • Another movie The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run was originally set for release on May 22, 2020 before the COVID-19 Pandemic happened; it was pushed to 2021 (but Canada got a theatrical release on August 14, 2020). And this time, unlike the previous movies, it's Shifted to CGI.
• Steven Universe: The Movie is the Made-for-TV Movie based on Steven Universe, which takes place two years after the events of the series finale. The movie would be followed by Steven Universe: Future, a miniseries taking place shortly after the film and which serves as the epilogue for the franchise.
• Teen Titans got a TV movie, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, while its spin-off series Teen Titans Go! got a theatrical movie, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation.
• The Transformers was given its own movie called The Transformers: The Movie, which was released in 1986. It took place between the second and third seasons of the animated series and skipped the plot forward by 20 years, to the far future date of 2005. It also skipped violence in cartoons forward by about 20 years, since the TV show traditionally never had anybody die, whilst most of the movie was restrained mecha manga. It was also meant to kill off the old characters and replace them with new toys/characters.
• In an episode of The Weekenders, in which the title characters adore a punk rock band called "Chum Bucket", Tino mourns that he must spend time with his geeky cousin and cannot go on opening day with the rest of the gang to see "Chum Bucket: The Movie". Lampshaded even further when he's talking to them on the phone and hears them in an arcade playing "Chum Bucket: The Movie: The Game."

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