History Main / SurrealHumor

[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/TheMagicSchoolBus'' would go into elements of this, but it's most notable with the first two games. How's that for some EarlyInstallmentWeirdness?

Something that's so bizarre and inexplicable that it's funny. This is a strange version of CrossingTheLineTwice: It takes talent (or luck) to make something so {{mind screw}}y and WTF-inducing that it makes you laugh.

* Anonymous cartoonist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_(Simpsons_artist) Chris (Simpsons artist)]] has built an entire career on drawing the most unabashedly nonsensical cartoons that the human mind can produce, all while commenting on them with [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} bizarre stream-of-consciousness asides to his audience]]. Everything about his work, from his [[StylisticSuck inept attempts at drawing human figures]] to his [[SpoofAesop clueless self-help advice]], contributes to its general surrealism. Case in point: he still insists on being credited as "Chris ([[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]] artist)", and his [[https://www.facebook.com/TheSimpsonsArt/ official Facebook page]] is still called "Simpsons pictures that I gone and done"...even though he stopped drawing characters from ''The Simpsons'' around 2011.

* ''Franchise/SamAndMax'': A wise-cracking anthropomorphic dog and sociopathic "hyperkinetic rabbity-thing" going to fight crimes is weird on its own, but what really does it is the dialogue, characters and world-building. For instance, there's the "Rubber Pants Commando", a bunch of babies with machine guns (or [[FamilyFriendlyFirearms baby bottles]] in the cartoon) lead by a talking ape, Mack Salmon, a fish mobster who blames Sam and Max for his current form (even thought [[NoodleIncident it's never explained why]]), a man [[SpontaneousHumanCombustion randomly bursting into flame]], and the utter nonchalance of the two main characters to all these strange goings-on.

-->Kolobok hanged self.[[labelnote:?]]([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolobok Kolobok]] is a fairy tale character, a round bakery product which has no neck. Variations of joke: "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buratino Buratino]] (read: Pinocchio) drowned self", "A mermaid drowned self", "A giraffe drowned".)[[/labelnote]]

* ''Series/TheYoungOnes''. All that needs to be said is, "Elephant Head".

* When Music/TheLonelyIsland aren't parodying music and hip-hop cliches, they're doing this. Prime examples include "Jack Sparrow", "Punch You In The Jeans", "Meet the Crew", "Space Olympics", and "I Fucked My Aunt". Another common staple of theirs is a premise that starts innocuously but then slowly descends into insanity, as seen in "Like a Boss", "Dreamgirl", and "I Run New York" among others.

* Music/{{Queen}}'s [[https://youtu.be/Od6hY_50Dh0 video]] for "[[SanitySlippageSong I'm Going Slightly Mad]]" straddles the line between this and SurrealHorror.

** Just to recap on what videos they've done. [[WebAnimation/TheCloak A sentient cloak who fights communism with his disembodied head sidekick Robert Mitchum]], A mad scientist who is in love with a swiffer mop and sends an elephant to hell [[ForScience in the name of science]], [[WebAnimation/LlamasWithHats two hat-wearing llamas who argue about ethics]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice (one of which is a cannibal)]], [[AnimateInanimateObject and a civilization of spatulas at war with evil spoons]] and the closest thing said spatulas have to an afterlife is [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys "new France"]]. [[SerialEscalation And that's just scratching the surface.]]

*** Marshmallow People 2 is even weirder: it ends with [[spoiler: Triangle Man dying and turning into a tree and both marshmallow people transforming into inanimate marshmallows. And so [[AndZoidberg Triangle Girl]] wins!]]

* Creator/JitteryDragon's videos all fall into this, the exact opposite of WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime sequels it mocks. [[spoiler: The WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain parody verges on SurrealHorror as well.]]

* ''robotfindskitten'', while allegedly being "zen", is arguably all about the bizarre, meta-referencing "non-kitten objects" you can find. Some are just plain Pythonesque. Samples include: "A livery stable! Get your livery!", "It's the horizon. Now THAT's weird.", and "Look, it's Fanny the Irishman!".

* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' features an ExcusePlot involving a CarnivalOfKillers and injects it with some downright bizarre humor. Your opponents in the first game alone include a mad scientist with an earthquake machine operated by a BrainInAJar who [[spoiler: gets taken out by your rival [[CutSceneBoss in the middle of a cut-scene]]]], an old bag lady whose shopping cart turns into a WaveMotionGun, and [[PsychopathicManChild a creepy woman-child]] who attacks with sports equipment and an army of gimps.

* The ''WebAnimation/AlfredsPlayhouse'' have quite bit of this with "SurrealHorror", including singing about alfred's sexual abuse and his escape from it into into fantasy to the tune of the ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'' theme song, Dictator Alfred is friends with cheerful inagined versions of Hitler and Stalin, and Alfred cross-dresses from time to time.

* [[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/avocado The Fifth Avocado]], a nonsensical Flash cartoon in which an oddly-accented narrator tells rambling stories about spontaneously-combusting baby ducks, monkey tea parties, and the ghosts of fish drowning. Then the whole thing ends with [[spoiler: a parody of the ending of the ''Film/FightClub'' movie]].

** The ''WebAnimation/ColinMochrieVsJesusHChrist'' trilogy spins a wild story of Colin Mochrie being temporarily turned into a Scotsman, training with underpants-wearing space leprechauns to fight in a martial arts tournament, and then getting into an epic showdown with Jesus, who has taken over the world (and is really [[spoiler: Mike Brady]] in disguise).

** Most Creator/AdultSwim original programs exhibit this in varying degrees, from "wacky" to "WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs".

* ''WesternAnimation/TwelveOunceMouse'' chronicles the [[StylisticSuck badly-drawn]] misadventures of an alcoholic, amnesiac mouse named Fitz whose best friend is a photorealistic chinchilla. Fitz runs (very) odd jobs for a talking shark while living in a town populated by such strange people and creatures as a match who runs a liquor store, a gender-shifting "Man-Woman", and a talking square who claims to be fabulously wealthy.

* ''WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa'' is about an eccentric, InexplicablyAwesome old man who is "everyone in the world's grandpa and uncle", and who travels the Earth in an RV that's BiggerOnTheInside, getting young people into (and out of) crazy misadventures. Helping him in his quest are his LizardFolk bodyguard Mr. Gus, an egotistical [[AnthropomorphicFood talking pizza slice]] named Pizza Steve, and the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly-named]] Giant Realistic Flying Tiger.

* One tagline for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' is "[[SarcasticTitle It's anything but]]", and is that ever an accurate description. The main characters are an anthropomorphic blue jay and raccoon who work in a city park for a gumball machine, and their antics tend to involve stuff like accidentally bringing video game villains to life, summoning an EldritchAbomination after tying in rock-paper-scissors too many times in a row, or [[GRatedDrug tripping on]] [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce hot sauce]].

* Played with in a few episodes of ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', whenever Mister Mxyzptlk shows up. An exasperated Superman insists that real humour has rules, and that Mxy's pranks are "just random idiocy".

* WebVideo/SadPandaQAndA, although anything he does tends to be as strange as a Wiki/TVTropes entry on WebVideo/SadPandaQAndA.

-->"NiceHat."\\

* Franchise/SamAndMax is this with every iteration. A wise-cracking anthropomorphic dog and sociopathic "hyperkinetic rabbity-thing" going to fight crimes is weird on its own, but what turns it UpToEleven is the dialogue, characters and world-building. For instance, there's the "Rubber Pants Commando", a bunch of babies with machine guns (or [[FamilyFriendlyFirearms baby bottles]] in the cartoon) lead by a talking ape, Mack Salmon, a fish mobster who blames Sam and Max for his current form (even thought [[NoodleIncident it's never explained why]]), a man [[SpontaneousHumanCombustion randomly bursting into flame]], and the utter nonchalance of the two main characters to all these strange goings-on.

* ''WebAnimation/BravestWarriors'', which takes all the weirdness of shows like ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' and raises it UpToEleven. One episode involves the crew being pestered by an Emotion Lord, a crazy old RealityWarper who does things like conjure a swarm of chocolate puppies. Another episode stakes the future of a race of buttless aliens on whether Beth and Chris can patch things up between a pair of energy beings that possess people's backsides and make them swell to enormous size.
* ''Literature/HowToSurviveAZombieApocalypse'' takes this UpToEleven.

* ''VideoGame/MagicSchoolBus'' would go into elements of this, but it's most notable with the first two games. How's that for some EarlyInstallmentWeirdness?

* LetsPlay/{{cicabeot1}} is another [=LPer=] who often does this.

* The ''WebAnimation/AlfredsPlayhouse'' videos have quite a bit of this, including singing about Alfred's sexual abuse and his escape from it into fantasy to the tune of the Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse theme song, Dictator Alfred is friends with cheerful imagined versions of Hitler and Stalin, and Alfred cross-dresses from time to time.

* ''Webcomic/TheBirdFeeder'' has a character called Exotic, who is an exotic bird of indeterminate species, who claims to be from an unknown island off the coast of Brazil called Combrobway. Generally, any strip involving Exotic or any of its strange stories of its homeland is fairly surreal.

-->A hedgehog walked down the forest, forgot how to breath, choked and died. Then remembered and walked on.

* ''Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily'': "Expecting a normal webcomic? TOO BAD! WALUIGI TIME!"

%% * ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'' especially in it's SecondSeasonDownfall.

* ''WesternAnimation/NeoYokio'': The show will frequently make off-beat jokes with weird comedic timing and the show treats the incredibly strange premise as realistically as possible. It's easy to compare it to more comedic versions of MagicalRealism.

* ''WebAnimation/TheDementedCartoonMovie'' [[ExactyWhatItSaysOnTheTin lives up to its name]], featuring a solid half-hour of a RandomEventsPlot involving badly-animated stickmen, a mad scientist, a superhero, WordSaladHumor ("zeeky doogy boog!"), and [[StuffBlowingUp way too many explosions]].

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' has this kinda stuff all over the place. The WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html virus]] notably, begins with Strong Bad getting an email comprised of demented code, which mocks him when he tries to delete it, and things get weirder throughout the toon.

* ''WebAnimation/TheDementedCartoonMovie'' in its entirety is nonsensical and is played for laughs.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' is about the everyday life of a young boy and his family. Did we mention the boy and his mother are blue anthropomorphic cats, his sister and father are pink rabbits, his brother is a goldfish that spontaneously sprouted legs one day and was adopted by the family, and his love interest is a peanut with antlers who turns out to be a shapeshifting fairy after she literally comes out of her shell?
* One tagline for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' is "[[NonIndicativeName It's anything but]]", and is that ever an accurate description. The main characters are an anthropomorphic blue jay and raccoon who work in a city park for a gumball machine, and their antics tend to involve stuff like accidentally bringing video game villains to life, summoning an EldritchAbomination after tying in rock-paper-scissors too many times in a row, or [[GRatedDrug tripping on]] [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce hot sauce]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' thrives on this trope thanks to the theme of entering the minds of the mentally unstable leading to some pretty surreal scenarios, like travelling an Escher-esque suburban neighborhood infested with thinly-disguised secret agents.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', a show about a teenage boy and his best friend who is also a dog with elasticity powers fighting multiple threats to their kingdom, comprised almost entirely of talking candy, at the behest of a princess made of bubblegum, makes a living off of this kind of humor.

%% * ''WesternAnimation/TwelveOunceMouse''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' is about the everyday life of a young boy and his family. Did we mention the boy and his mother are blue anthropomorphic cats, his sister and father are pink rabbits, his brother is a goldfish that spontaneously sprouted legs one day and was adopted by the family, and his love interest is a shapeshifter fairy who was previously hiding under a peanut-like shell with fake limbs?
* One tagline for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' is "[[NonIndicativeName It's anything but]]", and is that ever an accurate description. The antics of the two slacker main characters tend to involve stuff like accidentally bringing video game villains to life, summoning an EldritchAbomination after tying in rock-paper-scissors too many times in a row, or [[GRatedDrug tripping on]] [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce hot sauce]].

* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' is a show largely dedicated to spoofing tropes of reality shows, various animated genres and media, and [[ReferenceOverdosed everything else imaginable]]. Some of the plots are just plain weird, though, especially in later seasons that treat the FramingDevice of cartoon characters on a reality show as [[TheArtifact just an excuse to get all these crazy characters in one place]]. One episode involves one of the house guests taking in [[MediumBlending a live-action cow]] as a pet, and in another token black housemate Foxxy Brown degenerates into increasingly offensive black stereotypes due to brain damage from a tumor. The creators have stated that literally nothing happens for any reason [[RuleOfFunny other than to be funny]].

* WebAnimation/[[ENA]] uses this and SurrealHorror interchangeably, leaning more towards the latter as the series goes on.

* [[WebAnimation/ENA ENA]] uses this and SurrealHorror interchangeably, leaning more towards the latter as the series goes on.