Discussion Main / BizarroEpisode

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by Ghilz on Aug 9th 2012 at 4:56:08 PM

It strike me that the stuff about Wham Episode not being related that was recently deleted by Narbon plus the stuff about Musicals that was commented out in 2015, while not being fit for the page proper, would be useful on an Analysis page. And, even so, putting summations of those entries would be fit for the main page.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has several episodes that seem disconnected from the rest of the story ("The Great Divide," "The Fortuneteller," "The Painted Lady"), but a few really stand out as Bizarro Episodes by virtue of being...well...bizarre. It should be noted, though, that all these episodes stay true to the characters and to the Avatar universe, though.
  • "Avatar Day" has the heroes visiting a really weird village whose inhabitants hate the Avatar because a previous Avatar (Kyoshi) allegedly killed their leader Chin the Great several centuries ago. They arrest Aang for his predecessor's supposed crime, but Aang refuses to escape because he wants to clear the Avatar's name. Katara and Sokka gather evidence that could prove Kyoshi's innocence, but Aang botches his testimony and subsequently tries to give a last-ditch testimony while disguised unconvincingly as Kyoshi. This somehow summons the spirit of Avatar Kyoshi herself, who admits that she did kill Chin (but merely by refusing to save him after he shot first, so to speak). This cements the Avatar's guilt, and the villagers choose Aang's punishment by spinning a carnival wheel of various Cruel and Unusual Deaths (and "whipping post" and "community service" randomly thrown in). The Wheel of Punishment lands on "boiled in oil," but at that moment a gang of Fire Nation goons randomly shows up, and Aang forces the villagers to commute his sentence to "community service" (read: saving their sorry asses from the Fire Nation). After Aang and company defeat the Fire Nation goons, the villagers change their Avatar Day tradition from burning giant effigies of the Avatar to eating raw dough replicas of Aang.
  Unfried dough! May we eat it and be reminded of how on this day the Avatar was not boiled in oil!
  • "Nightmares and Daydreams" has Aang undergoing a Mushroom Samba due to sleep deprivation. And that's the least weird way to put it. The only normal parts of this episode are the unrelated scenes of Zuko preparing for his coronation.
  • "The Ember Island Players" has the main characters watching a Show Within a Show detailing their adventures up until that point. Again, that's the least weird way of putting it.

I don't think that any of those episodes fit. "Avatar Day" provides a backstory for Kyoshi, foreshadows Suki's return and Kyoshi killing Chin is discussed in the grand finale.

"Nightmares and Daydreams" is justified by being All Just a Dream and "The Ember Island Players" provides some Character Devellopment for Aang. The entry itself says they stay true to characters and to the Avatar universe.

Would the "Slice of Life" episode of Friendship is Magic qualify? It has most of the fanon background pony personalities becoming canon, revelation that Bon Bon is a secret agent, THOUSANDS of meme references, and Gummy's strange inner monologue.

Does "Lesson Zero" from MLP really count? Because ponies turning crazy already happened before and the episode does have one turn in the series (The other mane 6 start writing letters for Celestia and not just Twilight).

Uh...whoops. I think I accidentally deleted half of the page. Um...can you guys fix this?

There's something wrong with the page title and I have no idea how to fix it. The actual page name in the URL is B Izarro, not Bizarro, and the page title is "B Izarro" - does anyone know how to sort that out?

EDIT: Guess it autoformatted the first one to a link. But the URL is one word, not broken into two. Whatever, it still needs a fix.

Really nice to see how far this page has come along. When I made it a few years ago it was pretty rough, but it looks like you guys have refined it a lot.

I don't think that this image quite fits this page. It's just a picture of a red-headed bird child.

Regarding the quote, Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series bleeps out its strong language, right?

Okay, took out a bunch of things (mostly from the movie section) that seem to fit better in What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs? or Widget Series (leaving them here in case I made a mistake, since I'm not familiar with all of them):

• Space Thunder Kids is a bunch of cheap South Korean animation cobbled together with the biggest effort towards cohesion being the summary on the back of the box. It's impossible to tell who are supposed to be the eponymous Space Thunder Kids as the film constantly shifts between different looking who may or may not are supposed to be the same people who never really do anything important, interspersed with blatant plagiarism that never goes anywhere either, all padded as long as possible(like a spaceship exploding for twenty seconds) leaving the film an incoherent mess where things, even the ending, happen for no adequately explained reason if any reason is given at all.
• The entirety of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The premise sounds straightforward enough - MJ uses The Power of Pop to save a little girl from drug dealers - but it... really... just... isn't. Even his biggest fans were left scratching their heads, wondering if he'd written the script by dictating the results of an acid trip. Seriously, if we tried to describe it here, you would not believe us. Just go to YouTube and search for some clips, and bear in mind, every single one of them Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail consists of a string of odd (and hilarious) happenings, most of which are never mentioned again.
  • And Now For Something Completely Different is just that.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The opening sequence involves a pair of singing disembodied lips...and it just gets weirder from there.
• The "horror" movie Skinned Deep (horror used very loosely) is a pure example of this. Some notable examples include a kid getting cut in half, a headless muscleman with boxer briefs that read DYNO-MITE!!! on them (which hides real dynamite), streaking after a motorcycle ride, and: "I brought you some soup and money". The movie is broken up into 5 or 6 distinct parts (none of which have actual transitions), each of which having little to no connection to the others.
• Most of The 5000 Fingers Of Dr T is a dream sequence conjured by Bart Collins who believes his piano tutor Mr. Terwilliger to be his archenemy who plans on using five-hundred boys to play a giant piano and marrying Bart's hypnotized mother.
  • It doesn't help that the film was conceived by Dr. Seuss.
• Alice In Wonderland- Good GOD, Alice In Wonderland. An almost nonsensical plot synced together by right-the-fuck-outta nowhere and equally nonsensical musical numbers that grind the "plot" to a halt, coupled with absolutely bizarre, yet memorable animation. Isn't it any wonder that Uncle Walt disowned this movie, calling it perfect for hippies?
• Were Back A Dinosaurs Story... where to begin?
  • First up, the entire movie is a flashback being told to a random bird. Why? It's never mentioned except at the beginning and at the end.
  • The time traveler says he wants to save the world by giving dinosaurs to all of Earth's children. Ignoring for the moment exactly how taking animals out of their native environment (never mind geological era) and bringing them to New York City is supposed to save the world, he drops them in the ocean, whereupon, after some time, they coincidentally discover a small boy. Okay then.
    • Furthermore, if this guy is a time traveler, why does he show up at the end, rather than earlier to prevent the dark climax from ever occurring at all?
  • The Aesop of the film is supposedly that "family is good"; however, none of the action corresponds with this, and the two main characters' lack of parents is somehow resolved at the end without explanation.
  • The tedious scene in which we watch a hat fall onto a young girl's head would appear to drive the plot somewhere... but it's never mentioned again.
  • Likewise, the children's romance doesn't go anywhere either.
  • The inexplicable musical number.
  • The Big Bad's unneeded and horrifying death scene... right after seemingly learning his lesson about scaring people. This scene would have actually made sense if a previous one had made it into the final product. It's kinda scary though.
  • Said horrifying villain death is all the worse because it is immediately preceded by a scene where the dinosaurs go from angry and wild to cuddly and cartoony through the Power of Hugs. Basically, this movie has balls to do this with the picture book it is supposedly based upon.
• The film Xanadu, despite being a musical, is incoherent and ridiculously nonsensical. Regardless of whatever tenuous links to some form of plot the film possesses, the fact remains that most viewers fail to understand this given the sheer oddness of the story, pacing and premise.
  • In her review of the film, The Nostalgia Chick had to name this trope because no scene made sense in context of the others.
• The Hangover could be considered a Bizarro Episode. By the end of the movie, you have sort of a vague idea as to what could have happened last night. But you're still left wondering as to how one situation led to another.
• The Room is one big old pile of BLAM. So many characters come in and out and give new information without any real sense of cohesion.
• The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother. Gene Wilder's directorial debut. Since he did not share the writing duties with Mel Brooks this time, it seems that while Wilder has many funny ideas, he doesn't quite have the skill for bringing it all together.
• Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter Ok, so there's a vampire fight scene followed by a pointless musical number, followed by a transformation... then it stops making sense.
  • Or earlier.
• Hausu is so unbelievably surreal that it's difficult to even describe. So many moments come out of nowhere that it makes the concept of a BLAM irrelevant.
• Crank High Voltage is one gigantic series of BLAMs, starting right from the very opening sequence.
  • Done on purpose by Neveldine and Taylor, who wanted to start work on Gamer so urgently but they couldn't due to studio pressure for another sequel. So they threw in lots of BLAMs, hoping the sheer awfulness of the script would get the film dropped so they could work on Gamer.
• Salvador Dalí once made a surrealist film. The first shot is a pierced eyeball.
• The Little Rascals: In 1935, Hal Roach decided to break away from the Slice of Life stuff and instead experiment with forays into fantasy, which resulted in entries like "Mama's Little Pirate" and "Shrimps For A Day".
• My Immortal sort of has a plot, but it's a Random Events Plot at best and seems to run on Chandler's Law.
• Creepypasta Example: Candle Cove.

My friends and I coined the term "Elephant Episode" to refer to this trope at least a decade back when Utena first came out on DVD. We saw the Curry Episode and were just... "Huh?" Since then, any episode wildly out of continuity or character has been refered to as an Elphant Episode.

How can a movie be a BLAM Episode? I guess if it's a long-running series of movies? (For example, I could see calling Moonraker a BLAM Episode for James Bond movies? But it's not listed currently.)

But most of the movies listed are just one-offs. It seems to be the entire Film section, with very few exceptions (maaaybe the Star Wars Holiday Special) should be either moved somewhere, or deleted from this trope.

Is it just me, or is the "Love & Monsters" example just railing against the episode rather than an example of the trope?

Is "The Naked Now" REALLY a BLAM episode? It's a TNG callback to the TOS episode "The Naked Time."

I think it doesn't qualify.

"Big Lipped Alligator Moment Episode?"

..."Moment Episode?"