Unbuilt Trope / Western Animation

• Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoons, which popularized the "cute animals in cute situations" trope that launched a thousand imitators in the 1930s, actually play out like a parody of those types of shorts: characters end up in bizarre locations, there's a fair amount of fast-paced slapstick, there are fourth wall jokes that point out the ridiculousness of the situation... really, any of the shorts that aren't like this are usually experimental cartoons that are Played for Drama, like The Old Mill. Like any Follow the Leader scenario, the imitators copied only the base aesthetics of the shorts, and not the reasons why they were so popular in the first place. By the time the 1940s rolled around, and Silly Symphonies parodies became popular, all they were really doing was parodying the tropes that the imitators themselves used, and not necessarily the tropes of the series itself.
  • Silly Symphonies, along with Looney Tunes, would end up popularizing the use of Funny Animals as protagonists that would dominate Western Animation even decades later. What people often don't realize is that it wasn't just a style choice; it was a deliberate, comedic decision to help highlight the absurdity of many of the situations that would play out. These days, with World of Funny Animals being a common aesthetic choice for western animated shows, even non-comedic focused ones^note and not to mention having an entire fandom based around the concept, it can be hard for many to understand how the concept of talking/anthropomorphic animals is supposed to be inherently funny at all.
  • Likewise, many Silly Symphonies shorts have a reason for animals like Ducks and Mice to work - they're about animals on a farm putting on a show.
• The Flintstones, the first animated sitcom and still early among sitcoms in general, breaks down some conventions of later animated and live-action sitcoms. The series diverts from the contemporary setting, and recycles it in the Stone Age. They were one of the first primetime TV series where a couple shares a bed.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Despite being the trope namer for Scooby-Dooby Doors, nearly every time that any iteration of Scooby-Doo uses this gag—including the original—it subverts it or pokes fun at it. The most common ways it does so are having the characters bump into the villain who's supposed to be chasing them, or having some other character pop out of nowhere, with the Scooby Gang wondering who they are.
  • The original show has several episodes that subvert, play with, or deconstruct the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax and other such clichés associated with the show. For example, "Spooky Space Kook" has the creepy Old Man Jenkins-type character not only turn out to be innocent of the hauntings, but aid the Gang in catching the villain by calling the police when he fears for their safety. "Haunted House Hang-up" has the Gang investigating a house with two ghosts; in the end, it turns out that the ghosts are two separate people not associated with each other, both using the same trick but completely unaware of the other's presence. Whereas one of said men is a typical crook, the other turns out to simply be a friendly man who was trying to keep thieves and vandals off his property until he could recover the fortune his great-great-grandfather left behind. "Nowhere to Hyde" also plays with the convenient clue-finding formula, with the real culprit planting obvious clues to frame a more suspicious-looking character.
  • Introducing a "real monster" has been a go-to deconstruction of the "Scooby-Doo" Hoax since Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. But you don't have to look further for the franchise's first real monster than "Foul Play in Funland" in the original show, where what appears to be a dangerous malfunctioning robot turns out to be... a dangerous malfunctioning robot. The robot's creator isn't guilty of anything besides, perhaps, creating an attractive nuisance (the unguarded empty fun park). The second series has the first genuine supernatural goings-on, in both "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family" and (more spectacularly) "Scooby-Doo Meets Jeannie."
  • Your stereotypical Scooby-Doo bad guy is a criminal, but one who doesn't pose any real bodily harm. They don't have much problem with screwing other people over or stealing from them, but in terms of physically harming people, they generally won't do any worse than scare them. While this is often the case for many iterations of the show, as well as many of its imitators, bad guys in the original Scooby-Doo show are often legitimately dangerous people who are perfectly willing to hurt or even kill. The Snow Ghost tries to saw Velma in half, and later sends dynamite after her and Scooby; the Ghost Clown tries to feed Shaggy to a lion and send Scooby plummeting to his death; the Ghost of Captain Cutler locks Fred, Velma, and Daphne in an underwater room to suffocate; and Redbeard gives the Gang an Implied Death Threat; just for a few examples. Much like The Hound of the Baskervilles, it shows that the perpetrator of a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax shouldn't automatically be brushed off as "harmless". In this regard, Darker and Edgier installments of the franchise with their serious and menacing villains (Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated come to mind) are something of a return to form.
• Fleischer Studios Superman, possibly the first major animated production of a superhero and made just a few years after Superman's comic debut, feature drama, citywide destruction, the use of actual firearms, social commentary, and excellent animations—decades before Batman: The Animated Series, the show most often credited with bringing superhero cartoons out of the Animation Age Ghetto.
• My Little Pony was just a sugar bowl of cutesy ponies until Lauren Faust got her hands on the franchise and created My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, right? Try the original My Little Pony TV Specials, where the ponies have to be brave and resourceful to deal with a monster centaur who transforms captured ponies into winged beasts to bring eternal night using the dark rainbow, and later a monstrous cat junkie who wants to turn them into slaves to make her Fantastic Drug. Or the first movie, in which a coven of witches unleash an ever-expanding slime across the entire world with the explicit goal of covering everything. Or even the series that followed, which included such plots as an evil ram capturing everyone so he can conquer the world, and a demon made out of magma stealing magic simply for power. Indeed, it's rather telling that when they brought back Dark Lord Tirek into the Friendship is Magic Season 4 finale, he was actually toned down from the original.
• The Simpsons was conceived of as a vicious swipe at the cookie-cutter sitcom family, with many episodes often being a subversion of sitcom plots and characters. But unlike later shows like Family Guy, the subversion doesn't come from shock value or pop culture references alone, but serious drama and character examination as well.
  • The very first Simpsons episode aired, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", features a typical sitcom problem, Homer not having enough money to pay for Christmas gifts. However, Homer's attempts at getting money for gifts fall flat: Homer tries playing a Mall Santa, only to be shafted on his promised salary. Him making a bet at the dog races also fails when he makes a bet out of sheer coincidence. Homer only salvages his family's Christmas by accident, when he takes in the dog that scored dead last, and his family assumes Santa's Little Helper was the gift all along.
  • In "A Milhouse Divided", Milhouse's parents divorce one another. Kirk tries to salvage his marriage by singing a love song to Luanne... but she still insists on divorcing him, since a song won't solve their problems.
  • The show is one of the Trope Codifiers for the Dysfunctional Family. But many of the early episodes of the Simpsons don't play the family's dysfunction for laughs.
    • Watching the episode "Bart Gets an F" can be a bit of a shock for casual viewers that know Bart Simpson as a carefree hooligan with an authority problem. In that episode, Bart's poor academic performance drives him to tears when he's faced with the prospect of repeating the fourth grade, and it's suggested that his troublemaking ways are a façade that helps him cope with his massive insecurity (an idea that is further explored in many later episodes). The most shocking part? It was only the first episode of the show's second season, and it came out long before Bart's name became synonymous with "lovable troublemaker" in popular culture. (Of course, Bart's angst in this episode comes not so much from within himself as it does from the society around him; if his parents and teachers are disappointed in him, he will start to care.)
    • Homer is considered one of the quintessential Bumbling Dads. However, in early seasons, Homer is incredibly self-conscious about it, as well as frustrated by his own failures in life. In "There's No Disgrace Like Home", the fourth episode of the series, Homer of all people becomes so ashamed of his family's boorishness that he drags them to a therapist. Homer's failures also often came with consequences. "Homer's Odyssey", the third episode of the series, marks the first time Homer is fired from his job at the plant. But instead of making it a one off gag, it shows Homer going through the depression of unemployment. He even nearly throws himself off a bridge. And Burns only lets Homer work in the plant after the latter spearheads a grassroots campaign against the plant's numerous safety violations. In "Bart the Daredevil", Homer's ill-advised means of getting Bart to stop doing dangerous stunts leads him to accidentally skateboard off Springfield Gorge. Homer looks like he'll make it... only to tumble down the gorge and end up in traction.
    • Lisa has been criticized for becoming a Soapbox Sadie, but many early episodes depict Lisa's activist tendencies as the result of her being a conscientious and sympathetic person who tries (and often fails) to redeem the corrupt society around her. "Lisa the Vegetarian", for example, shows her conversion to vegetarianism as the result of genuinely not wanting to hurt animals. But she is called out by the other characters, even by those who are also vegetarians and animal-rights activists, for forcing her beliefs on others who don't share them, despite her good intentions.
    • Marge is often considered an archetypical demure traditional housewife, but early episodes show that, as loving as she is, she does have limits with how loving she could be. She often boots Homer out of the house for his stupid stunts, nearly cheats on him out of spite, fantasizes about attacking him with a broken bottle, and sometimes gets jealous when he hangs out with more conventionally attractive women.
  • One of the most criticized aspects of the later seasons is the many gratuitous celebrity guest stars that seem to just be there to mooch off the celebrity's fame without giving them anything funny to do. Earlier seasons have plenty of random celebrity cameos, but they are always done in mocking/deconstructive ways that make heavy use of Adam Westing. Compare and contrast Lady Gaga's guest appearance (plays herself and does nothing but act cool and popular) to Michael Jackson's decades earlier (plays a mentally ill man who only thinks he's Jackson).
  • Kang and Kodos have gone to be the archetype for blatantly hostile alien invaders, with wishes to either enslave or eat humans. However, their very first appearance in fact subverted their To Serve Man and Alien Invaders characteristics, as they simply wanted to spoil the Simpsons. It's just that every of their appearances since had them be actual villains.
  • The Itchy & Scratchy Show is the Trope Codifier for bloody slapstick violence in adult animation, which went on to form the backbone of many an Animated Shock Comedy. What people often forget is that the point of the shorts, at least in earlier seasons, is to satirize the level of violence in children's cartoons that many parents let their kids watch without a second thought. It's also not treated as normal; multiple episodes show that anyone who actually sits down and pays attention to your average episode of Itchy & Scratchy, instead of turning their brain off and laughing at the funny cat and mouse, is horrified by it.
  • It's often claimed that Homer and Marge started the trend of depicting marriage as a horrible slog in adult animation, and that the two of them are a bad match for each other. However, when you watch the Golden Age episodes, you will realize that, while they do have their arguments, Homer and Marge love each other very, very much and often do romantic things together. The depiction of their relationship as toxic only started to happen during the show's Audience-Alienating Era (which lasted from the late '90s to the mid-2000s, which started in the Scully era, when Homer Took a Level in Jerkass, and got worse in the early Jean era, with them having several marriage crisis episodes, culminating with him framing his wife just so he couldn't get a DUI), and since the HD era, their relationship went right back to being wholesome and loving. The misconception that their relationship was toxic may have been due to conflation with its live-action contemporary on the FOX network, Married... with Children (which actually did depict an extremely toxic and unhappy married couple).
  • Sideshow Bob is widely known for his intense drive to kill Bart for foiling his plan to frame Krusty. However, his second appearance instead saw him try to kill Aunt Selma for her money rather than target Bart, it wasn't until his third appearance he actually tried to murder the boy in revenge and his fourth appearance, whilst also having the benefit of being able to get back at the Simpsons for his defeats, mainly focused on him attempting to become Mayor of Springfield. In other words, Sideshow Bob wasn't just defined by his enmity with Bart, especially since he had targeted other members of the family at times; he'd possessed other goals before it became his driving trait in practically every modern episode or appearance.
• Donald Duck's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, are one of the most famous cases of a cartoon character having nephews instead of children. However, unusually for this trope, which is usually used to give the protagonist children to interact with without tying them down to parenthood, Donald is explicitly their legal guardian, having been so since the 1940s.
• In A Charlie Brown Christmas, a lot of tropes common to Christmas specials are done differently, even though this is the special that made most of them.
  • Christmas as a time of gift-giving: This special focuses on how the message of Christmas has been lost by its commercialization and promise of presents. Instead, the special says the purpose of Christmas is kindness for everyone, and Conspicuous Consumption around the holidays cheapens that purpose.
  • A character learns the True Meaning of Christmas: it's not the protagonist who learns it, but everyone else. Also, rather than a secular message about kindness using Santa Claus, the aesop delivered explicitly uses Biblical and Christian themes.
  • The Christmas tree as a symbol of Christmas: There is one, but it's tiny. So tiny it can't even support the weight of one bulb. The message is that True Beauty Is on the Inside.
  • Holiday depression: The title character isn't sad because it's Christmas; he's sad because nothing ever seems to go right for him.
• South Park is almost single-handedly responsible for creating the extremely vulgar, audacious and line-crossing brand of humor that's become almost synonymous with adult animation. But unlike many of its imitators, the show's humor relies heavily on satire; while sexual and scatological humor is frequently featured, it's not the sole type of comedy in the show, or even the primary one.
• The Justice League episode "A Better World" laid a lot of the ground work for the idea of Superman leading an authoritarian regime and Batman standing against him that would be further explored in works like Injustice and the Knightmare Bad Future from the DC Extended Universe. However...
  • While both the Justice Lords and the Regime undergo an Evil Costume Switch, the Lords opt to dress in bright colors for their new roles instead of the usual Evil Overlord fare of High Chancellor Superman and his ilk.
  • Additionally, unlike the Injustice and Knightmare Batmen, who are against their respective Superman's Face–Heel Turn from the start, Lord Batman (prior to his Heel Realization and subsequent Heel–Face Turn) is initially on-board with the Lords' actions, even going as far as saying Lord Superman's murder of President Luthor "needed to be done". During the Mirror Match between League and Lord Batman, Lord Batman manages to come up with a very stirring defense of their actions that actually leaves League Batman speechless.
  • Likewise, their actions are mostly to try to make it a better-off world, including having an Arkham Asylum that actually looks like a hospital that genuinely wants to help heal its patients instead of the gothic Bedlam House of other versions. And Gotham itself is an incredibly clean and calm city. However, this has come at the cost of a lot of civil liberties, including the lack of fair elections, the lobotomization of the mentally ill, and that simply complaining about an unfair check can get you taken away by the State Sec. But unlike in most such stories, the oppression is hidden very well by clean streets and a pretty efficient state.
  • The normal DCAU Batman does rightfully point out that a straight Mirror Match with enemies less reluctant to use lethal force won't end well for the side that refuses to kill and states they need an outside edge. Granted, in this case, the DCAU League turns to asking their Lex Luthor for help, but it does make him more reasonable than the Injustice Batman, who is in a war and can be quite stubborn in regards to certain things, including an initial refusal to recruit the main Superman to stop his High Chancellor counterpart.
  • The fallout of all this is that Amanda Waller and other government officials are so horrified by the prospect of the Justice League going rogue they develop Cadmus to counter any threat Superman and others pose. While Cadmus does cross a lot of lines, Batman and Green Arrow realize they have every right to create some self-defense against superpowered beings, and Superman spends a few episodes coming to terms with his flaws. At the end of the arc, the Justice League realizes that they have been acting above the law and reform themselves to be more in touch with the public.

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