Times where someone insists "The Show Must Go On!" regardless of setbacks in Western Animation.
- This trope is prevalent in the Classic Disney Shorts "The Band Concert" and "Symphony Hour". No matter what's going on, Mickey Mouse does his gosh-darn best to keep the music playing, even pulling a gun on Donald Duck when he tries to bail out of the latter short when things keep going wrong.
- In an episode of Dr. Dimensionpants, the director of a school play a Kyle's school has this attitude. Not even the fact that the whole stage gets transported to a slimy dimension and the actors get eaten by giant snails will stop him from continuing the show. He even forces both Kyle and his enemy Glass Skull to step in as understudies for the lead roles after the main actors are taken out.
- Played for laughs in the King of the Hill episode where Bobby inherits a famous ventriloquist's dummy that was modeled after a stereotypical football-playing high school A-student... only to become dismayed when his father likes the dummy's "antics" more than Bobby's own. Bobby grows to hate this new attention, but mutters "the show must go on" when he realizes that being at the edge of the spotlight is better than not having attention at all. (Happily, things work out in the end: after the dummy is destroyed, Hank gets a What the Hell, Hero? speech from his wife and realizes what he'd been doing, making amends by building a new dummy that looks like Bobby.)
- In the Animated Adaptation of Madeline and the Gypsies, this is the reason the Gypsy Mama gives for putting Madeline and Pepito in a lion costume (as the real lion is sick). There's even a song using the trope name!The Show Must Go On,
The show must go on,
We can't desert the ship
When the lion gets the grip! - In the Milo Murphy's Law episode "Smooth Opera-tor," Milo says this early on, and then spends most of the episode trying to keep his curse from ruining the opera, especially since his crush really wants to see it. Naturally this leads to him taking the place of one of the performers.Opera Singer: I believe we've gone off-book, now/I believe this scene we're botching!
Milo: But I feel we should go on/Because there's all these people watching! (motions to audience with forced smile) - Part of the core conceit to The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show, as it's a variety show that the duo are recording live from their apartment, things almost never go as planned but the duo press on, even through things like a black hole opening on set or a flu outbreak causing the set to be quarantined.
- Happens a few times in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In the episode "The Show Stoppers", even though the show is falling apart, the CMC continue the show.
- During the episode "Filli Vanilli", Big Mac loses his voice, and Fluttershy, whos' terrified of singing publically, decides to down a potion made from poison joke to make her have a deep baritone, and sing his lines backstage while he lip-synchs, just so the Ponytones will sing at her fundraiser.
- Coloratura says this word-for-word after her manager quits in "The Mane Attraction". The next shot is her pacing and panicking while Rarity tries to get her dressed for the show.
- A 1962 Paramount cartoon called "The Shoe Must Go On" dealt with a symphony orchestra rehearsal being disrupted by a blacksmith next door hammering a horseshoe on an anvil. After numerous attempts to stop the blacksmith, the orchestra manager simply has the blacksmith and his hammering in the show as part of the orchestra.
- In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", Sean gets Performance Anxiety right before he sings his big finale song, but Mitchell takes over for him and the pageant continues.
- The Simpsons: In "Million Dollar Maybe", Marge and Homer are supposed to perform a singing toast at her cousin's wedding. When Homer doesn't show at the wedding reception because he is buying a lottery ticket, Marge attempts to perform the toast on her own, despite the fact that it is a duet.
- The Work It Out Wombats! episode "Talent Turmoil" is about a talent show in the Treeborhood. Even though everyone's props got mixed up, they still perform in the talent show anyway. In their words, "the show must go on."
- Quoted by Robin in Young Justice (2010), while the team is infiltrating a circus where everyone is coming down with a particularly debilitating flu and he's the latest victim. He insists on performing a difficult trapeze routine that involves dodging hazards in mid-air, all without a safety net. What he doesn't tell his friends is that he grew up performing in the same circus.
