History AccidentallyCorrectWriting / WesternAnimation

** In the episode "Wormy", every time a character looks at Wormy the butterfly from up close, a film clip of a real horsefly is used [[PlayedForLaughs for comedic effect]], causing them to run away screaming. However, their fears would be totally justified, since unlike their smaller relative the housefly, horseflies can bite.

** One episode has a CutawayGag at a concentration camp where a prisoner jokingly says to a guard, "I don't suppose it would help to say I have a note from my doctor," in the Holocaust memoir "Man's Search for Meaning" the author, Viktor Frankl, mentions that some prisoners actually did try to use that very same joke with the guards, and it actually did ease the tension sometimes. GallowsHumor is a powerful survival tool.

** One episode has a CutawayGag at a concentration camp where a prisoner jokingly says to a guard, "I don't suppose it would help to say I have a note from my doctor," in the Holocaust memoir "Man's Search for Meaning" the author, Viktor Frankl, mentions that some prisoners actually did try to use that very same joke with the guards, and it actually did ease the tension sometimes. GallowHumor is a powerful survival tool.

** One episode has a CutawayGag at a concentration camp where a prisoner jokingly says to a guard, "I don't suppose it would help to say I have a note from my doctor," in the Holocaust memoir "Man's Search for Meaning" the author, Viktor Frankl, mentions that some prisoners actually did try to use that very same joke with the guards, and it actually did ease the tension sometimes.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': In "The Money", [[BumblingDad Richard]] rations that Swiss cheese is healthier than regular cheese [[InsaneTrollLogic because it has holes in it]]. Swiss is indeed one of the healthiest types of cheese due to its relatively low fat and sodium contents.

** At the beginning of “Pickles,” a customer asks Squidward for some extra salt, to which he responds with a BluntNo. The customer then angrily storms off. “Salt” is actually an Internet slang term meaning “anger.” This means that, in a way, Squidward ''did'' give the man some extra salt.

* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': In one episode, the Brain tries to tell a 'scary' campfire story to a group of camp kids, the joke being that he ends up boring them instead with a bunch of scientific and mathematical jargon that they don't understand. However, the punchline of his story, which involved a scientist inadvertently discovering a way to quickly calculate extremely large prime numbers, would actually have pretty terrifying implications in real life, as such an algorithm could be used to break most modern data encryption methods, making hacking, identity theft, and other cyber crimes incredibly easy, as there would be no effective way to protect your data.

** At the beginning of “Pickles,” a customer asks Squidward with some extra salt, to which he responds with a BluntNo. The customer then angrily storms off. “Salt” is actually an Internet slang term meaning “anger.” This means that, in a way, Squidward ''did'' give the man some extra salt.

** At the beginning of “Pickles,” a customer asks Squidward with some extra salt, to which he responds with a BluntNo. The customer then angrily storms off. “Salt” is actually in Internet slang term meaning “anger.” This means that, in a way, Squidward ''did'' give the man some extra salt.

** The episode "Smug Alert!" equated the self-righteous "smell your own farts" type of behavior of hybrid car owners and environmentalists in general as producing its own type of pollution and creating an ecological disaster. The thing is, hybrid cars ''do'' pollute-- not in the same way as gasoline-powered cars, but the mining for rare-earth metals for their batteries is an industry that produces dangerous chemical runoff.

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* An offhand joke in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' has Plastic Man claim to be "as patriotic as Benedict Arnold!" While it's obviously a joke on how the guy has really crappy historical knowledge, Benedict Arnold actually was an incredibly patriotic sort for much of his life, and most historians agree that him turning was a MistreatmentInducedBetrayal. Part of the reason his betrayal was so shocking was that the guy ''had'' accomplished a lot in his career and risked his life on many occasions for the rebellion.
* In the third season premiere of ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', Optimus Primal declares "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings!" while carrying Optimus Prime's spark. According to Bob Forward, who wrote the episode, he didn't know the line's original context, but had picked it up while browsing Usenet's ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' boards, which threw it around pretty regularly, and assumed it was important. As it turned out, it was the motto on Optimus Prime's original bio, meaning it made perfect sense for Primal to quote it in that moment.

** One episode has a CutawayGag at a concentration camp where a prisoner jokingly says to a guard "I don't suppose it would help to say I have a note from my doctor" in the Holocaust memoir "Man's Search for Meaning" the author, Viktor Frankl, mentions that some prisoners actually did try to use that very same joke with the guards, and it actually did ease the tension sometimes.

** The running joke of Hermes saying a rhythm with the format "Sweet X of Y!" whenever he is surprised ("Sweet Guinea pig of Winnipeg!", "Sweet gorilla of Manila!", etc) once came as "Sweet squid of Madrid!" Well, despite Madrid being nowhere near the sea there is, in fact, a recipe for Madrid-style calamari, and calamari sandwhich is a traditional street food in Madrid.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel'' episode "Time Weasel, I.R. Baboon refers to dinosaurs as "big chickens". It is now scientific consensus that birds are not just descended from dinosaurs but dinosaurs themselves.

* A similar joke to the ''Jimmy Neutron'' example occurs in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'': a thief is trying to steal the world's largest cubic zircon, but when she tries to cut the glass case with a small buzzaw the blade dulls since the case is actually made out of diamond. She then smashes Johnny's head into the case and it breaks. Not only is this exactly what would happen in real life (diamond is extremely hard, and therefore resistant to cutting, but is also brittle and will shatter if hit hard enough), the way the case shatters is pretty accurate too (it doesn't break into shards like glass, but seems to crumble to dust: when diamond shatters it breaks along crystal planes into multiple tiny diamonds rather than shattering like glass).
* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Peggy once claims that "Swiss cheese is not Mexican, it is American." The kind of Swiss cheese she's most likely talking about, which is sold in American stores labeled simply "Swiss cheese," ''is'' an American recipe that's just based (and quite loosely) on a Swiss one--Emmentaler, to be specific.

** Near the end of ''WesternAnimation/FallingHare'', as the plane is rapidly plummeting to the ground, Bugs makes loud, rapid screams of panic. That apparently originated as a studio in-joke, but real-life rabbits really ''do'' scream rapidly when they're distressed. And it's not so much "goofy shouting" as "blood-curdling shrieking."

** Perry the platypus is [[AmazingTechnicolorWildlife teal green with a yellow bill]], rather than [[RealIsBrown brown]], because the character designer thought it looked cool. Turns out, platypi are bioflourescent, and their fur glows green under ultraviolet light.

** A running gag is that whenever the boys would have to [[KidsDrivingCars drive motor vehicles,]] they drive by remote control, reasoning that RC cars don't need a driver's license. In real life, there are full-size RC cars, trucks, and other vehicles, mainly used for theme parks, showcasing, and other purposes--children using them legally is a whole 'nother story.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': In "Moon Circus," when Mindy suggests that Edmonton, Alberta would have lower gravity, she is technically right. Boxwood Terrace is located in the state of Washington, which has a mean elevation of 520 meters, while Edmonton has an elevation of 671 meters. These extra meters put Earth further away from the Earth's center of mass, meaning you would experience less gravity there. Obviously not as reduced as the moon (since it has an elevation of 384,402,000 meters), but still technically correct.

** The episode "Arrgh!" has the famous scene where Patrick says "East? I thought you said weast!". Circa the 13th century 'east' and 'west' would actually be pronounced a lot closer to each other (specifically, while 'west' was largely identical to the current-day pronunciation 'east' would've been pronounced something like ''est'').

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Santa's Little Helper is a two-fold case of this. One is he's a somewhat lazy ex-racer Greyhound. Rather than go with the normal "always energetic and fast" DogStereotype attributed to the breed, he's a "normal" laidback dog. This is actually accurate to Greyhounds, and especially former racing dogs. Aside from when they're on walks, they tend to be very relaxed. Greyhounds were bred for short spurts of running, not being energetic constantly. Two is his introduction in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]" where he's abandoned by his owner after a long string of losses. Much to the surprise of the writers, this actually ''is'' a common plight of racing dogs, and they were praised by animal rights groups for bringing mainstream attention to it: Creator/MattGroening later explained in an interview that he had no idea this was an issue but was happy they were able to raise awareness of it.
** In the commentary for "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E11TheCrepesOfWrath The Crepes of Wrath]]", the writers note that the bit about adding antifreeze to wine was a parody of an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_diethylene_glycol_wine_scandal incident]] where some wine was found contaminated with antifreeze, but that, obviously, the contamination wasn't deliberate. Except that the contamination was discovered when a winery started listing antifreeze as a business expense, and it was very deliberately added to make the wine sweeter. The Austrian wine industry nearly went belly-up when a large scale scandal involving antifreeze shook the business.[[note]]This is definitely dangerous, though not as dangerous as it sounds. Ethylene glycol is indeed poisonous, but when mixed with sufficient quantities of ethanol, it passes harmlessly into urine. It's still more expensive than sugar or corn syrup, though.[[/note]]
** Played with in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E1BartGetsAnF Bart Gets an 'F']]". Bart, after trying to bluff his way through a book report on ''Literature/TreasureIsland'', is challenged by Mrs. Krabappel to name the pirate in the story. A number of possibilities audibly run through his mind -- including the correct one, Long John Silver -- but he gets caught out by guessing "Bluebeard" instead. (Literature/{{Bluebeard}}, for the record, isn't even a ''fictional'' pirate; [[TheBluebeard he's a serial killer]].)
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E6DeadPuttingSociety Dead Putting Society]]" Lisa asks Bart, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", to which Bart immediately holds up a hand and smacks his fingers against the palm, to Lisa's frustration. Though it was meant to be a RhetoricalQuestionBlunder, this is actually very close to an ''actual'' answer to the koan: simply holding up one's hand with the fingers out.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E17HomerAtTheBat Homer at the Bat]]" features a gag where the Springfield P.D. arrests Steve Sax. Sax attempts to ask for his OnePhoneCall, which is brushed off with "you watch too many movies." While the joke is obviously that the police are needlessly brutal and corrupt (demonstrated by the fact that they charge Sax with ''every unsolved murder in New York City'', based solely on the fact that he claims to be from there), they're right that the old "one phone call" isn't a thing.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E13TwoBadNeighbors Two Bad Neighbors]]", Homer attempts to prank UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush with cardboard cut-outs he identifies as "your sons, George Bush Jr. and Jeb Bush". In the audio commentary for that episode, it's said that the writers had no idea that there really ''is'' a "[[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush George Bush Jr.]]" and the line was supposed to be an example of Homer being stupid. Stupider like a fox, it seems.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E16LisaTheIconoclast Lisa The Iconoclast]]" famously features the term "embiggen" as a nonsensical word (or a PerfectlyCromulentWord) that became popular thanks to pop culture, but the writers later learned that the word "embiggen" had been used by writer C.A. Ward in 1884.
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E18TheDayTheViolenceDied The Day The Violence Died]]":
*** It has a bit where Lionel Hutz asks the ''Itchy & Scratchy'' legal team if they have a copy of the film that forms the basis for his client's copyright claim, since the only copy his client had was destroyed by accident. This is played as Hutz being his usual desperately incompetent self and asking his opponent to help him out, but he's more right than he seems. The rules of civil discovery do indeed allow one side to request evidence from the opposition if they think they have it, and ignoring these requests can result in fines and sanctions. Hutz's only problem is that he's requesting it in the middle of the trial rather than in the pre-trial phase, which is when evidence is usually gathered; other than that, he would have been entirely within his rights to ask that Roger Meyers go poking around in his studio archives for a copy of the missing film.
*** Not long after, when the judge asks him if he has any actual evidence, Hutz nervously answers that he has plenty of hearsay and conjecture which "are kinds of evidence." As noted on ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWkH1CzLDU4 Real Lawyer Reacts To The Simpsons]]'', he's actually right.
----> '''WebVideo/LegalEagle:''' That's actually true! Hearsay and conjecture are kinds of evidence. They're not ''good'' forms of evidence, but technically they are types of evidence. Many of the lawyers I know use that line all the time. [[MisaimedFandom It's a staple among lawyers]]. It's fantastic.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E13SimpsoncalifragilisticexpialaAnnoyedGruntcious Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious]]", Principal Skinner attempts to sell Jimbo on the side of the road. When Jimbo asks if this is legal, Skinner replies "only [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield here]] and in Mississippi". Mississippi only made child selling illegal in 2009 after a 2008 incident where a woman was arrested for selling her granddaughter only for the police to find there was no law against it.
** Abe Simpson in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E23MuchApuAboutNothing Much Apu About Nothing]]" recalls his father talking about America being the greatest thing since sliced bread. He then says that sliced bread had been invented the previous winter. It was just meant as an "old fart" joke, but given that he served in WWII and the first commercial bread-slicing machine was invented in 1928, the writers were surprisingly accurate with this one.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E10TheSpringfieldFiles The Springfield Files]]," Milhouse plays an arcade game adaptation of ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'', in which he only gets to move the PlayerCharacter a few steps before he get a GameOver out of nowhere and Milhouse is forced to insert ''40'' quarters in order to keep playing, which he grudgingly accepts. This joke was meant to parody the TroubledProduction for ''Waterworld'', namely the ballooning expenses needed to make the film, but it also accidentally parodies a real feature arcade games had at the time: Arcade games could be made deliberately UnwinnableByDesign via operator settings. The feature, when activated, would put the player in a no-win situation that could only be overcome by using another credit. It's not as extreme as Milhouse's situation, no sane operator would've charged $10 per credit, and these games tried to stay subtle that the player doesn't notice they cannot win without inserting more coins, but the principle is identical.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E10MiracleOnEvergreenTerrace Miracle On Evergreen Terrace]]" (1997), [[GameShowAppearance Marge goes on]] ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' to pay back Springfield, [[EpicFail but she ends up with a score of -$5200]], which is so terrible that Creator/AlexTrebek actually asks Marge to pay the show back. It is possible to end up with a negative score in the real show, and some contestants even managed scores as low as Marge, but they obviously are not required to write a check to the producers for the difference.
** While the writers may have known that a torus is one of the contenders for the shape of the universe, Homer certainly doesn't know that when he tells Creator/StephenHawking about his theory of a doughnut-shaped universe in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E22TheySavedLisasBrain They Saved Lisa's Brain]]".
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E1BeyondBlunderdome Beyond Blunderdome]]" (1999), Homer misleads Creator/MelGibson into doing a hyper-violent, InNameOnly remake of ''Film/MrSmithGoesToWashington'' that includes a scene where Smith impales a rival with an American flag. The sequence is presented as being completely over-the-top ridiculous and the movie is implied to ruin Gibson's career irreparably. One year later, the real Gibson released ''Film/ThePatriot'', where his main character (an [[HistoricalBadassUpgrade actionized counterpart]] of a real historical figure) uses an American flag as a pike to bring the [[FoeTossingCharge main villain's horse]] down during the final battle before killing him. And it's supposed to be taken seriously.
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E17BartToTheFuture Bart to the Future]]" (airdate March 19, 2000), future President Lisa makes a reference to President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump--who, 16 years later, would indeed be elected the 45th [[UsefulNotes/ThePresidentsOfTheUnitedStates President of the United States of America]]. At the time of the episode's airing, he had just ended an attempt to win a nomination of a third party, so the idea of his going from failed third-party candidate to elected president was perfect as a humorously far-fetched throwaway joke. The timeline of the episode implied that it'd take him over 20 years to make that transition, but in fact it only took him 17.
** In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E1TreehouseOfHorrorXIII Treehouse Of Horror XIII]]" story "The Island Of Dr. Hibbert", where Ned Flanders takes pleasure and relief in getting milked when his lower half got transformed into the body of a cow, which actually is a valid reaction. [[AnimalGenderBender As for why that half of his body is female, though...]]
** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E21TheMonkeySuit The Monkey Suit]]", Bart stars in a stage adaptation of ''Film/Grease2''. Eight years later ''Grease 2'' was adapted into the stage musical, ''Cool Rider''.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' had an episode that revealed that George Washington Carver didn't invent peanut butter and that the US government had credited him with the discovery in order to help ease race relations after the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. In reality, George Washington Carver actually ''did not'' invent peanut butter. Peanut butter actually dates back to the Aztecs and Incas, and the first patent was issued to Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884. (Carver did invent a lot of peanut products, but his main accomplishment was his environmentalist efforts and creating various techniques to prevent soil depletion.)