The Unreveal / Western Animation

Unreveals in Western Animation.

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General examples:

• Archer:
  • Archer finds out who his real father was during a Near-Death Experience in "Once Bitten", but the audience only sees his clothing. After waking up, Archer forgets before he can tell anybody.
  • Whatever Luke Troy did to Archer when he was passed out is never revealed, although the looks on the faces of Archer, Lana, and Cyril in the closing scene speak volumes. Considering Luke's infatuation with Archer, it's more than likely that he raped him.
  • Surprisingly Played for Drama in "Crossing Over" when Nikolai Jakov attempts to get a DNA test to determine whether he is in fact Archer's father. This is ruined by Barry blowing up the ISIS safe house with Jakov inside, not even leaving behind anything to get a DNA sample from.
  • The skeleton in the wall in "The Anglerfish Stratagem" is never identified, nor is it revealed how it ended up in the wall.
• An in-universe example; in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy", a villain named Wormwood uses various deathtraps to force Batman to relinquish his cape and cowl. Finally, Batman does so... only to reveal that he was wearing a smaller cowl under his main cowl. Wormwood didn't care; his client hired him to retrieve Batman's cape and cowl, not to reveal his secret identity. The client turned out to be Batman himself, who "hired" Wormwood in order to goad him into a confession for a previous crime.
• In Batman Beyond, Curaré's face is always obscured by a piece of cloth. When it is knocked aside in her fight Batman, he gasps in shock, but the audience never sees what he sees.
• The short lived Big Guy and Rusty program from Fox Kids in the late 90's featured a monkey that rode around on the boss' shoulders who could talk, think, and reason better than he could. None of the characters in the show seemed to think it was unusual, except for one monster of the week villain who questioned her on the origins of her abilities. As she began to explain ("Well, it all started when I was a wee, little monkey...") the titular robots burst in, and she ended the discussion ("Ah, some other time.").
• Codename: Kids Next Door
  • "Operation: F.L.A.V.O.R.": Numbuh Five is describing the supposedly mythical fourth flavor of ice cream, but only gets as far as "It tastes just like..." before she's talking to the other KNDs on her phone for the rest of the story. This one would later be revealed in a subtle way in Operation: Z.E.R.O.. "I have a hankering for some blurpleberry ice-cream — it's the closest thing to the fourth flavor I've ever tasted!"
  • "Operation: R.A.I.N.B.O.W.S.": Numbuh Three freaks like heck over Mr. Mogul's whispered big plan for the Rainbow Monkeys he's just captured. Later, Mr. Mogul is along with =his assistant Simon, but come time to discuss the big plan, he still whispers it anyway.
  • Numbuh Three and Numbuh Four's relationship is obvious to the viewers and the characters, and even themselves, but whenever they confess their feelings, they're blocked off. For example, Numbuh Three is playing Truth-or-Dare at a slumber party and two girls ask her if she likes-likes Numbuh Four, and before she can answer, they're interrupted.
    • However, this one was finally resolved in the far future depicted in Operation I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S: Numbuh Three and Numbuh Four not only confessed, but got married! (Though they pull a fast one at first to make you think Numbuh Three ended up with Numbuh Two instead, but it turns out Numbuh Two mistook Numbuh Three for Numbuh Five.)
• Code Lyoko: What Jérémie would look like once virtualized on Lyoko is the source of much fan speculation. There are two close calls in Season 1: in episode "Frontier", but the virtualization is botched and he ends in the limbo between Lyoko and Earth; and in episode "Ghost Channel", but he virtualizes inside a virtual bubble mimicking the real world and hence looks like his normal self. He finally is fully virtualized in Season 2 episode "Mister Pück"... but this happens off-screen, and the only comment the viewers get about his avatar form is: "He looked ridiculous."
• In one episode of Dave the Barbarian, Dave quickly makes an improvised megaphone, using only a squirrel, some twine, and a megaphone. The Stinger features Dave looking at the camera and saying "Some of you may be wondering why I tied a squirrel to a megaphone. Well... Goodnight."
• The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special: When David sings his origin story, he only tells the kids things like "Back when I was born, I was a baby." and "I come from the place where I'm from."
• In one of the Justice Friends segments in Dexter's Laboratory the Infraggable Krunk accidentally pulls off Major Glory's mask only for an identical mask to be underneath it. Confused, he pulls off that one, only for another mask to be under that as well, and another, and another...
  Major Glory: When I say "Secret Identity", I mean "Secret Identity".
• One episode of Dilbert featured the nameless boss signing a package delivery form. The package delivery guy looks at the signature and remarks incredulously "THAT's your name?"
• Ed, Edd n Eddy does this a lot:
  • In "Stop and Ed", Edd's hat comes off for the first time, but only Eddy and Ed (and not the audience) see what's under it. Their reactions are "Geez Louise" and "Cool", respectively, and Edd swears them to silence as he hastily dons his hat again.
  • In Ed's nightmare in "Rock-A-Bye Ed", Ed's mother is shown as a 50's housewife... with Jonny's face and voice because it was a dream.
  • In the episode "Ed, Pass It On", Eddy's brother turns up, but we only see his body, and it turns out it's just Jimmy and Sarah on stilts dressed up like him. Eddy's brother eventually shows up for real in The Movie.
  • In the episode "Mission Ed-Possible", Eddy's dad and Ed's mother show up, but only their arms appear to drag them home for a talking-to about their bad report cards.
  • The audience at the Spelling Bee in "Too Smart For His Own Ed" consists of just silhouettes.
  • When the kids play football against a rival school in "Tight End Ed", the opposing team members and the crowd are seen only as silhouettes.
  • The episode "The Eds are Coming" also shows Rolf's family as just silhouettes.
  • Edd's hat issue comes up again in the movie, when Ed pops up and ends up knocking Edd's hat off. As Edd retrieves it from Ed, disinfects it, and puts it back on, anything above his eyebrows is cleverly blocked off from the camera by other objects in the scene. What makes this especially insulting is that creator Danny Antonucci claimed in an interview the movie would actually be the big reveal.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Used frequently so as not to reveal Timmy's parents' names.
  • In "Crock Talk", when giving his name and address, Timmy's dad says "My name is Timmy Turner's Dad and I live in Timmy Turner's House!"
  • "Dimmsdale Tales" has another fake-out. When Timmy tells two stories about characters named Cosmo and Wanda, his dad criticizes him for using the same name twice. Timmy renames them to Carlsbad and Wandalin, and Timmy's dad says they're stupid names.
    Timmy: What's your first name?
    Timmy's Dad: Ooh, I see your point!
• In Family Guy, in "And Then There Were Fewer", as the serial murders occur in James Woods' mansion, Derek goes up to a balcony to get reception for his phone to call the police. It was around then he managed to see the murderer creeping up from behind... but instead of specifying the gender, he says, "man or woman".
• Futurama:
  • In "I, Roommate", everyone misses Calculon's major reveal on "All My Circuits" twice because of interference from Bender.
  • In "the Day the Earth Stood Stupid", Nibbler also tells Leela the origin of the universe and the meaning of existence, which apparently means that every religion is wrong, but does so while telepathically translating his speech into her brain. All the audience hears is squeaks.
  • In "The Thief of Baghead" we never see Landon Cobb's face.
  • In "Overclockwise" Bender achieves near-omnipotence, but won't answer when Fry asks how his relationship with Leela will go. At the end of the episode, after Bender is returned to normal, he reveals that he did indeed plot what would happen in Fry and Leela's relationship and wrote it down. The two read it together, and we get to see their emotional responses (basically every emotion a couple can experience), but obviously we don't hear a word of it. However, the last parts Leela and Fry read may be referring to events in the final episode "Meanwhile". Fry wears a look of disgust while Leela looks at him in horror, probably referring to Fry constantly dying in a bloody splatter after plummeting from the Vampire State Building. When Bender turns the page, they read about them spending a lifetime being married.
  • Parodied in each of the three segments in the episode "Reincarnation".
    • In the segment "Child Labor Syndicate Presents: 'Colorama: In Glorious Black and White'" Fry places the bomb on the crystal asteroid, which blows up and creates a brand new color of the rainbow, unlike anything ever seen before. Since it's in black and white, we don't see what the color is.
    • The segment "Future Challenge 3000" is in the style of an 8-bit video game. Professor Farnsworth creates a lens capable of showing the smallest unit of matter. Due to the low resolution, this is portrayed as a solitary black pixel.
    • The third segment, "Action Delivery Force", is styled as an anime. Doctor Zoidberg needs to communicate a message of peace to some aliens through the medium of dance. Due to the low frames of animation the dance is shown only as various poses.
• Sheldon in Garfield and Friends never completely hatched and is just a walking egg. In one episode, he finally hatches — to reveal another eggshell beneath.
• The Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe had several Unreveals about his appearance without his mask. His blank faceplate electrocutes a mook who's about to unmask him in one episode. In another, Destro walks in on the commander eating a meal and implores him to put his mask on, which he does before we get a glimpse. He would finally be unmasked in the full-length movie, but by then, he's been mutated to the point that he no longer resembles himself anyway. A later comic-book revealed him to be horrifically scarred.
• Gravity Falls: The big Zodiac wheel and prophecy in the Grand Finale. After a whole series of learning the symbols can generate a force to destroy Bill and The Chosen Many associated with them, it suddenly becomes a huge waste (and a Red Herring to boot) thanks to Stan and Ford's bickering over the former's grammar, disrupting them long enough for Bill to arrive and ruin it. We also don't know the force it generates, and how it defeats Bill.
• Phil Ken Sebben loses his eyepatch in a card game in an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. In the scenes that follow, the show plays Scenery Censor with the right side of his face as weirdness ensues and other characters react with varying degrees of revulsion. (There is a very brief moment where his entire face is visible in a wide shot. Doesn't seem too bad.)
  • Then there's the matter of how he got the eyepatch. His biography in the "Sebben & Sebben Employee Orientation Video" episode shows pictures of baby Phil holding pointed sticks next to his face, leaning in close to industrial equipment as sparks fly into his eye, having a bomb go off in his face and not losing his eye, pulling a truck by a rope looped around his eyeball... Then the video switches to a dramatic re-enactment of his "life-changing accident" in which a broken folder clip sent plastic shrapnel into his face, which leaves the actor playing him lying on the floor with blood leaking from his face. "Afterward, Phil grew a mustache to cover the scar."
  • X the Eliminator makes us think that he will reveal his face when he decides to get plastic surgery. In the next Scene, he still has his mask on, and there's little, if any difference.
• Hey Arnold!, "Fighting Families": Arnold has just been drawn out by random to participate in a gameshow "Fighting Families", but the person doing the draw adds: "There seems to be a smudge over the last name..." A similar sequence happens in "Eugene, Eugene!": Arnold has been cast in a school play, and the casting person adds "I can't read my own handwriting..." An interview with the show creator made years after the show ended heavily implies his name is Shortman (he said his grandpa called him it regularly and it apparently wasn't just a nickname), which was then confirmed in The Jungle Movie.
• Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, another Faceless Villain, has an Unreveal at the end of the title sequence when Gadget places handcuffs on his gauntleted hand, only to turn the chair and find nothing but a bomb waiting. His true face was revealed on the action figure... and is horribly disappointing.◊
• The Legend of Korra: Played purely for laughs in the first episode. After telling her grandmother Katara about how she recently read an account detailing the events of the previous series, Jinora asks what happened to Zuko's mother (one of that show's biggest lingering questions). Katara slowly tells her granddaughter that that's a fascinating story, and it involves... and then her other granddaughter Ikki interrupts with a slew of her own random questions, and it never gets brought up again. Any fans hopping to finally getting an answer would have to wait another year for the comics to reveal it.
• In the Little Bear episode "Little Bear's Sweet Tooth", Cat and Emily win the sack race, Tutu wins the Musical Chairs game, and Duck wins the Bobbing for Apples game. Towards the end, Grandmother Bear announces the hardest game of Harvest Day: a pie eating contest but just before it begins, the titular character groans and sits on the ground, ending up sick with a stomachache after eating too much desserts (and is unable to eat pie). As Mother and Father Bear take him to rest and the scene fades to Little Bear's house later that night, it is never revealed who won the pie eating contest.
• Mighty Max, "The Missing Linked": The villain tries on multiple occasions to go on a Motive Rant about how the world will know his name, but every single time he tries, someone interrupts him just before the name is said and calls him something else, which he briefly works into the rant, then realizes that's wrong, gets flustered, and aborts the whole rant. As in, "And then the world will know my name, and that name is—" (Off-screen guard, calling for him) "Prisoner #21376?" "—Prisoner #21376!! ... What? No! That's not right!! Oh, never mind."
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • In the penultimate episode of Season 1, we finally get to see Hawk Moth in his un-transformed state... except his face and most of his body is in silhouette the entire time; we only hear his voice talking to his kwami, Nooroo and see his gloved hand. Granted, fans had had already deduced that he is Adrien's father, which would be properly revealed early the following season.
  • Every time Master Fu tries to transform into his superhero form, something always happens that prevents him from doing so, typically his back giving out. He finally successfully transforms in the Season 3 finale, though this is soon followed by him relinquishing his position as a Guardian, causing him to forget everything from his time as one, so it's highly unlikely we'll ever get to see him do it again.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Dragon Quest" has Spike deciding to go on a quest to learn about his origins and who he actually is. The episode has him learn absolutely nothing in regards to this, instead having him interact with a group of teenage dragons before deciding he's happier living among ponies.
  • In the episode "Pinkie Apple Pie", Pinkie and the Apples make a road trip to Goldie Delicious to find out Pinkie's genealogical connection to the Apple Family, but the page in her family history book is smudged.
  • The episode "Father Knows Beast" has Spike encountering a dragon named Sludge who passes himself off as Spike's dad. Even though he learns the truth and accepts Twilight as a family, we still have yet to learn how his egg ended up in Canterlot for Twilight's entrance exam.
• The Owl House: At the end of "Eclipse Lake", the bond between Hunter and the red cardinal Palisman has gotten strong enough for Hunter to understand the bird's chirps as actual speech, demonstrated with him learning its name. However, its chirping is never translated for the audience, so it isn't until Hollow Mind that the audience is to learn that its name is Flapjack^note  although prior to that episode, the name was revealed and explained in an audio-short released during an art charity stream on March 13th, 2022.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • In the episode "Vanessasary Roughness", Vanessa is surprised to learn Ferb's name, and he's about to tell her what it's short for, before getting sidetracked by finding the pizzazium infinite capsule she needed and giving it to her. Later, in "Phineas & Ferb Summer Belongs to You!" while they're guarding the plane in the Himalayas, Vanessa decides to ask Candace... who doesn't know.
  • In another episode, Doofenshmirtz created an inator that forced people to tell the truth. At a baseball game, he used that inator on a hot dog vendor, hoping he'd reveal what hot dogs were made of. Instead, he revealed he had no hot dogs to sell and simply wanted to watch the game for free. Doofenshmirtz did not expect that.
  • In Phineas & Ferb Star Wars, Candace is the boys' Long-Lost Relative. She asks what happened to her and Phineas' biological father, but his answer is cut off by the Death Star exploding (seemingly with them still on it).
  • Whatever was the grand finale the boys put together for Isabella's birthday in "Happy Birthday Isabella", though we do get some comments on it from Phineas.
• Miss Sara Bellum from The Powerpuff Girls. Her face is usually just offscreen, but it's been hidden by numerous things including clipboards, bandages, shadows, flying debris, even pickles. Heck, in one of the books, the thing obstructing her face was Bubbles! Her face was revealed for one frame in the 10-year-anniversary episode.
• In an episode of Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, Stimpy is crying because of the horrible thing Ren did to him. Ren repeatedly tries to apologize to Stimpy, but he won't listen and tells him to get professional help. Near the end of the episode, he reveals the awful thing he did to Stimpy to Mr. Horse, who is portraying a psychologist. We never hear what it was because he loudly whispers something unintelligible in his ear.
• Rocko from Rocko's Modern Life. His last name never gets revealed.
  Announcer: And our last contestant is Rocko... no last name given.
  • However, a layout of Rocko's character, reprinted in the book Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons!, reveals that his last name is in fact Rama.
  • The episode where Rocko's life in America is being videotaped for his parents. He wanted to show them Spunky's trick but the camera ran out of batteries just as it was shown.
• Just like the original series that it spawned from, Salem's human form in Sabrina: The Animated Series is almost never shown. In one of his flashbacks, all but his head can be seen. However, in ANOTHER separate series, Sabrina's Secret Life, Sabrina uses a potion to turn Salem into a human for her prom dance. Whether this is his true face or not is never revealed. Another character from Sabrina: The Animated Series is Pi, whose eyes are always obscured by his porkpie hat.
• Samurai Jack: We never got to learn what Jack's real name was.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: When the show ends, a number of minor questions remain unanswered, including Catra's species (not a single other cat girl or boy appears), why Entrapta's hair is prehensile, where Adora's biological family is ^* if Shrug of God is to be believed Butt-Monkey Kyle might be secretly be Adam aka He-Man therefore Adora’s brother, it helps they do look remarkably similar , what became of the First Ones, what happens to Horde Prime's clone army after his death, or whether Angella will ever escape from being trapped between dimensions. It also leaves a lot of Horde Prime's backstory vague, though judging from some of his dialogue it must have been awful.
• Done so much on The Simpsons about its location that it could become a drinking game; each time they Unreveal the precise location of Springfield, take a shot. Some examples include:
  • "Lisa Gets An A":
    Superintendent Chalmers: Good lord, what a dump. It's not surprising this school was once classified the most dilapidated in all of Missouri.
    Lisa: Huh?
    Chalmers: .... that's why it was shut down and moved here, brick by brick.
  • "Much Apu About Nothing":
    Homer: They may ask you to locate your town on a map of the US, so lets do that. (walks up to a large map) Uh, Springfield... Springfiiield... Uhmmm... Right here! (points to Chicago)
    Lisa: Dad, you're not pointing anywhere near Springfield! It's over here, Apu. (moves hand to point at the map)
    (Bart suddenly enters the frame, obscuring the entire map)
    Bart: Hey, what're you doing? Studying?
  • In one mockumentary episode, a narrator calls the Simpsons a "Northern Kentucky family". In reruns, he may call them a "Southern Missouri family" depending on the area, adding to the confusion. This was non-canon as it was in the context of the family being Animated Actors.
  • In The Simpsons Movie, Ned Flanders explains that Springfield is bordered on each side by Kentucky, Maine, Nevada and Ohio — a geographic impossibility. Also, one of the Credits Gag states "Filmed on location in Springfield,____________".
  • Marge: That's 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, Oh-hiya-Maude!
  • Just to add fuel to the fire, in one episode Lisa assures a character that while Springfield's location is a bit of a mystery, "if you follow the clues, you can figure it out." This is, of course, just the writers messing with the viewer, as the "clues" were never meant as such and all contradict each other in countless ways.
  • And just to make things absurdly annoying, we DO see Homer's driver's license in one Freeze-Frame Bonus. A "North Tacoma" driver's license.
• South Park:
  • In the episode "The Coon" revolves around the search to discover the true identity of vigilante crime fighter Mysterion. Mysterion is finally persuaded to remove his mask and reveal himself at the end. All of the characters are either surprised or say something along the lines of "I knew it!", but because of the show's art style (in which faces are only distinguishable by the character's hair and/or trademark clothing, neither of which are visible here), the viewer is still unable to recognize his identity.
  • We are given a hint in that Cartman says "I knew it was you! I even said it before." Of course, that still hardly narrows it down. "The Coon 2: Hindsight" later narrowed it down further to Clyde or Kenny but didn't confirm which one it is.
    • And in "Mysterion Rises", the trope is subverted when Kyle, in an oddly nonchalant tone, tells Mysterion, "Dude, Kenny, calm down." That was the first line where he's referred to as his secret identity.
  • In The Movie, Kenny's face was repeatedly Unrevealed before finally switching over to a true Reveal.
  • Also in South Park, two whole episodes are spent on searching for the identity of Cartman's father as a parody of cliffhanger episode endings. In the second episode, it is finally revealed that Cartman's mother is in fact a hermaphrodite and that she/he could not give birth. A new question arises of which woman in South Park is Cartman's mother, but Cartman himself gets sick of the mystery and walks off. In an inversion of this trope, his other parent's identity is eventually revealed, to the surprise of all the fans who thought it never would be, in the episode "201": the test given was a lie. Cartman's apparent mother really was his mother and his father was Mr. Tenorman (who was in the 1991 Denver Broncos, all of whom were stated as potential fathers in the original episode)..
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • SpongeBob spends an entire episode trying to get a peek inside his best friend Patrick's Secret Box. Among his speculations are things like an albino jellyfish, diamonds, severed heads, and an embarrassing photo of him at a Christmas party. He fails, but Patrick lets him take a look in the box anyway. It contains a piece of string. But after a bemused SpongeBob leaves, Patrick narrates that the string is pulled to open a secret compartment inside the box, which contains an embarrassing photo of SpongeBob at the Christmas party. The audience never sees what the photo is. The embarrassing incident is shown or hinted at in a separate Nickelodeon ad, although exactly what the photo is of is still unknown.
  • In "Krabby Road", as Plankton makes off with the formula, SpongeBob shatters the bottle it's in. While the formula is made visible, the ingredients shown onscreen are in gibberish.
  • At the end of "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout", Patrick asks SpongeBob how old he is, but the screen turns to static before he can answer (though if we go by the date on his driver's license, he's 33).
  • In "A Pal For Gary", it is not made clear what species Puffy Fluffy is; although, most sources say he is a breed of nudibranch.
  • In "Tea at the Treedome", we never find out how or why Sandy is living at the bottom of the ocean^note  Word of God simply states that it's For Science! , because SpongeBob runs off to get some water from the bird bath just as she starts to explain.
  • In "I Was A Teenage Gary", we never actually get to see the jellyfish convention nor Ukulele Bottom, though one could argue that the former is the same location as "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic".
  • In "Goodbye Krabby Patty?" when SpongeBob takes out the secret formula to make a real krabby patty, he keeps the back of the paper facing the fourth wall until the scene changes.
  • In "Krusty Krab Training Video", the episode abruptly ends just as the narrator is about to reveal the Krabby Patty secret formula.
  • In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Plankton finally gets his hands on the secret recipe of the Krabby Patties, but we're never told what it is, we just see him selling them at the Chum Bucket.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Lair of Grievous", Grievous' mask has to be replaced by a new one. As the medical droid starts to remove it, it seems that his real face will be revealed, but the scene cuts to the Jedi, and when we next see the General, he already has a new mask on.
• Star Wars Rebels: In "The Siege of Lothal", Imperial Minister Tua, wanting to defect, promises to tell the rebels the real reason for the Empire's interest in Lothal — something she says is known only to a few and was ordered by the Emperor himself. She is subsequently killed before she gets the opportunity to tell them anything, and the secret she hints at isn't revealed until late in Season 4.
• Star Wars Resistance:
  • "Fuel for the Fire": Yeager's racing ship is talked up as being really impressive, enough so that Rucklin persuades Kaz to sneak him into Yeager's private hanger to see it. However, the door is locked, so Kaz says they'll have to try again another time, and Rucklin's not interested as he just stole Yeager's hyperfuel. The racer isn't revealed until "The Platform Classic".
  • "The Core Problem" begins with Poe Dameron sneaking onto the occupied Colossus via unexplained means. At the end, when Kaz has to return to the Colossus, Poe tells him that CB-23 knows the method he used to sneak onto the platform, but when Kaz does get back to the Colossus, it's still not shown how he snuck back in.
• Halfway through the serial Superman vs. Atom Man, Atom Man — whose true identity has been a secret throughout the story so far — begins to take off his mask, only for the scene to suddenly fade somewhere else. (His secret identity was actually pretty obvious, but it was still the perfect time in the story for the big reveal; why they played it like this is a bit mystifying.)
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • An episode has the Titans and just about every bad guy they've ever fought racing for a briefcase with something special that was stolen from Robin in it. Robin acquires the briefcase at the end and reveals to the other Titans what's in the briefcase, but the audience is never shown what is in there.
  • Slade's face is also subject to this trope. In the Season 1 finale, Robin knocks off half of Slade's mask. Slade, obscured in shadows, covers his face with one hand as he escapes. In the Season 4 finale, his whole mask gets knocked off, only to reveal a skeleton. This is because he sold his soul to the Big Bad after his death in the Season 2 finale, and he presumably goes back to normal after Trigon's death. In the last episode of Season 5, Beast Boy knocks off his mask again, but it was just another Sladebot.
  • Another example of this is Robin's eyes. In Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, Robin removes his sunglasses (which he is wearing as a disguise), but is interrupted and the only thing the audience sees is his cartoon circle eyes.
    • A similar thing happens in the comic Teen Titans Go!. In issue 47, he takes off his mask to cry about his family. He's either being comforted by Starfire or the panel is too low, so we don't see his eyes. We see his eyes when he was little, and before he was a superhero, though.
    • Finally averted in the series Teen Titans Go!. Though not quite in the way you might think.◊
  • Even Robin's true identity qualifies for this trope, as the show never outright states which of the many characters that have taken the name Robin is the one featured, though it's heavily implied to be Dick Grayson, with Word of God later confirming this.
  • Also, the identity of Red X. His entire introductory episode revolves around the team trying to figure out his identity ("Who is Red X?"), and in the end they never find out and he just escapes. He reappears in a later episode and we STILL don't find out who he is.
• In one episode of Total Drama Island the campers agree to confess their sins, and in what may be one of the laziest Unreveals, they simply cut to right after the confessions are done.
  • The joke isn't so much that we don't find why Duncan was sent to juvie but that unexpectedly Heather did something worse than Duncan, only to be topped by the revelation that worst Noodle Incident of all was done by Gwen (if that's even her real name).
  • And in another episode, someone tries to shed some light on what really happened to Izzy after her elimination in Up the Creek. However, before the beans can be spilled, the accused cuts off the accuser and denies everything.
  • Chef Hatchet's first name.
• In the show Transformers: Animated it's never shown or explained what Blackarachnia actually turned into before she became an organic spider (Wasp before becoming organic was a palette-swapped Bumblebee.)
  • Also, all of the Decepticons' besides Megatron's (a Cybertronian VTOL jet, which briefly appeared for only a few seconds in the first episode) Cybertron modes, judging by their kibble. All of the Autobots' Cybertron modes, however, are completely revealed over the course of the show.
  • We never find the relationship between Sari's Key, the Allspark, and Sari being half-Cybertronian. Mostly because the series ended before we got a chance.
• In VeggieTales, Larry's bearded Aunt Ruth was mentioned a few times. When he finally shows a picture of her, in "The Song of the Cebu", half of the film was over-exposed and Ruth's face is almost completely obscured.
• The Venture Bros.:
  • In the second season, a large chunk of episode was devoted to three theories on the origins of character The Phantom Limb, while also explaining how Master Billy Quizboy's hand was removed and replaced with a robotic substitute. Though both answers would not be revealed until the third season, at the end of the episode Dr. Venture absent-mindedly enquires how Quizboy got his robotic arm, to which he replies: "Interesting question!... I have no idea." To be precise, Monarch's story was the closest; he got most of the salient facts right (which makes sense, as he's part of the same organization as Phantom Limb and has met him many times), although he wasn't there so it played out differently than he imagined.
  • When the shapely-figured cosmonaut Anna takes her spacesuit helmet off, she is never facing the camera. Judging by the reactions of the other characters, her face is apparently quite hideous. Brock Samson was still happy to sleep with her, though he asked her to keep her helmet on.
  • This is played rather tragically in the case of the Sovereign's true identity in "All This and Gargantua-2." An earlier episode revealed that, despite assuming David Bowie's appearance and mannerisms, he wasn't actually David Bowie. Then, when he appears in the episode, he assumes the form of the apparently long-dead Jonas Venture, which would be a suitably dramatic reveal... but Dr. Mrs. The Monarch immediately realizes he's just messing with her, and demands to know who he really is. He takes a few seconds to respond, and then says "Just some bloke who wanted to be anyone but himself." Shortly afterward, he is killed by a misfiring gun while attempting a Villain: Exit, Stage Left.
  • Occurs again regarding The Monarch's motive for terrorizing the Ventures for years, as he spent the entirety of the series refusing to elaborate why. As it turns out, there was never any one reason he hated Rusty; it was just a series of petty reasons for disliking him that were amplified by the baboon DNA Jonas Venture used to create him making him hyper-aggressive.

Sound-Effect Bleep:

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, "The Junkman Cometh": Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen travel into space via an open-cockpit rocket (as has been the case in many episodes, and even the original movie). When Sheen wonders how they can survive without spacesuits, Jimmy responds as if nothing could be more elementary, but his explanation is conveniently drowned out by Carl suddenly breaking into song in the background, and done later in the episode when Sheen asks how they get to the moon so fast rather than taking several days.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • "Father Time": Timmy is talking to a kid whose nickname is Dad (naturally, his future father; Timmy's here because of Time Travel). When he's mentioning his real name, a truck is whizzing by blowing its horn. "Dad" is pointing to a girl he says has a beautiful name. We don't get to hear since yet another truck is whizzing by. But guess what everyone calls her: Mom (of course, Timmy's mom in the future). It's not until the episode "Polter-Geeks" that we finally learn Dad and Mom's names were back then—Mom and Barnaby. Their current first names, however, still have this trope apply.
  • In another episode, Timmy has been traveling through his summer reading list (instead of reading the books) and Sherlock Holmes gets pulled into reality at one point and quickly forgotten. At the end of the episode, he's at the Turner home, impressing the parents with his deduction skills. "And I have deduced your real names are-" then a book slams shut on the scene, muffling the rest of his sentence, cut to black, end title card, then Timmy's dad announces "That's amazing!" or something to that effect.
• In God, the Devil and Bob, in the middle of a critical situation, a frustrated Bob asks God about why does he allow evil to happen in the world. God replies "Look, you're not supposed to find this out until after you die, but..." at which point a train goes by and drowns out God's voice. The audience only gets to see the hand gestures God makes during his explanation and the only thing we hear at the very end is "like a cork trapped in a whirlpool". Bob seems amazed and says it makes perfect sense when explained that way.
• The location of the "Secret Spot" on Rocket Power is mentioned several times. Yet when it's mentioned, its drowned out by an ice cream truck, an ambulance, and jets. When they are ready to go to the area, they explain they left out one crucial detail as a cow walks by with the bell ringing. They then go to the proper place which looks exactly like any other beach.
• "The Word of the Day", an episode of Rugrats, sees Angelica auditioning for a spot on Miss Carol's Happy House, a kiddie show; the key part of the audition is stating the "Fun Phrase" of the week live on air. While snooping around backstage, she inadvertently eavesdrops on Miss Carol (who turns out to be a nasty, cruel woman who hates the children she entertains) offering her opinion on what the Fun Phrase should be: "Miss Carol thinks her kids are all little—"...something obscene. As a three-year-old, Angelica naturally thinks that Miss Carol will be thrilled that she knows the "real" Fun Phrase, and starts repeating it. Every time the curse word in the statement comes up, something noisy occurs, including a cart of props going by, a construction worker doing repairs with a jackhammer, or Charlotte, Angelica's mother, screaming at the idea of her little girl swearing like a sailor. We never do find out what Miss Carol thinks of her kids. This one is totally justified, as it is a family show.
• One episode of The Secret Show had several noises preventing the audience from hearing whenever Changed Daily's original name was mentioned.

End of Episode Cutoff:

• Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation: DIAPER, The KND after "rescuing" and returning babies from a hospital ask Numbuh 5 where babies come from, because earlier she said her older brother had a few. She starts to say "Babies come from..." then 'END TRANSMISSION'. In the credits scene, it shows Numbuhs 2 through 4 freaking out over it, when suddenly Numbuh 1 steps up and says "Wait a second, that's preposterous! Babies don't come from Detroit, they come from Philadelphia!"
• Throughout Kim Possible, no explanation was ever given about why Dr. Drakken's skin is blue. Flashbacks show that it wasn't always that way, and when all of Drakken's evilness got transferred into Ron, Ron gradually turned blue while the now-good Drakken gradually went back to his original skin colour. In The Tag at the end of the Grand Finale, Professor Dementor asks him how his skin turned blue. He starts to tell the story, only for the entire show to end before we hear any real details.
  Drakken: Glad you asked! Funny story — not funny "ha ha" — but, it was a Tuesday...
• The episode "the Great Indoors" on Phineas and Ferb ends the episode like this by having the episode be cut off by an in-universe TV broadcast of a soccer game (which was also the reason behind Doof’s daily scheme), right at the moment where the audience was going to find out the reason Jeremy likes Candace (something she's been trying to find out the entire episode).
  Candace: Tell me why you like me.
  Jeremy: You bet, the reason I like you is- [gets cut off by a soccer game coming on]
  Sport Announcer: Viene, le pega! GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL
• The Secret Show: "The secret thing is—" (end episode). Among many others.
• The Simpsons:
  • At the end of the Season 18 finale, Homer is about to reveal a dark secret about Fox, but gets dubbed over by Maurice Lamarche before the 20th Century Fox Television Logo cuts him off, signaling the end of the episode. And then before the credits, He came back to tell the audience what the secret is, but is cut off by the Gracie Films logo.
  • Homer convinces God to tell him the meaning of life. God says: "Well...okay." as though he's about to tell him. Cut to credits.
• South Park, "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride": Stan phones into a cable-access talk show hosted by Jesus and asks him for his opinions on homosexuality. They're cut off by the next program, however.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • It cuts to the end credits (or the pre-credits commercial break on Nick's broadcasts) at the end of the Krusty Krab training video when the narrator is about to reveal the Krabby Patty secret formula. "Okay, the secret formula i—" It’s often speculated by fans that the in-universe reason for this is that this is a fail safe in the event that Plankton tries to use the video to learn the formula.
  • In the episode "Plankton's Army", Plankton gets his hands on the recipe, only to find that plankton was the secret ingredient; however, after Plankton and his family had run off in fear, Mr. Krabs revealed that the recipe Plankton had found was just a decoy.
  • The Movie has Plankton actually succeed in stealing the formula. But the very next scene with him is of him selling Krabby Patties at the Chum Bucket, meaning that the scene of him actually reading the formula is something we don't get to see.
  • In "Mooncation", when Patrick is watching a soap, he is about to find out who Carol's real father is, but the program is interrupted when SpongeBob bounces off the satellite.
    Patrick: Hey! Who's Carol's real father?
• Taz-Mania: "Road to Tazmania" ends with Hugh and Taz opening up the carton of orange juice to find out what is inside. As they do so, the episode Iris Outs. Lampshaded when Hugh iris ins long enough to say "Don't you just hate it when that happens?"

You Know the Rest...

• In Futurama, Bender is coveting a gigantic cigar, which the cigar shop owner says was made from a piece of the U.S. Constitution and hand-rolled by Queen Elizabeth II during her "wild years", until grave-robbing mushrooms...you know the rest.
  • In a late-series episode, Bender achieves near-omnipotence, but won't answer when Fry asks how his relationship with Leela will go. At the end of the episode, after Bender is returned to normal, he reveals that he did indeed plot what would happen in Fry and Leela's relationship and wrote it down. The two read it together, and we get to see their emotional responses (basically every emotion a couple can experience), but obviously we don't hear a word of it.
• In an episode of G.I. Joe: Renegades, Snake Eyes is captured by Zartan and the Dreadnocks. While Snake's back is turned Zartan explains why he likes to take trophies and snatches the mask off. He and the Dreadnocks react with an unnerved expression, and then Zartan promptly replaces the mask.
• At the end of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "No Second Prances", Cranky Doodle Dandy asks Princess Celestia how she keeps her mane flowing. She just lets out a sigh before the credits show up.
• In The Simpsons, Mr. Burns rolls up his sleeves to single-handedly take down the Loch Ness Monster. Cut to the monster already captured, and Burns saying "I was a little worried when he swallowed me, but, well, you know the rest."
  • Burns seems to be a fan of this trope. In another episode, Bart and Lisa try to escape Mr. Burns' clutches by sliding down a vent into the basement of his mansion. When they arrive, they find that Burns is already there, even though he'd been with them on the ground floor three seconds earlier. "That's impossible!" says Bart, "how did you get there before we did?" "Oh, I'll explain later," Burns replies. He doesn't.

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