As You Know / Western Animation

• Lampshaded in Adventure Time, when Finn and Jake are disguised as Fire Kingdom actors:
  Finn: What's going on with the costumes?
  Actor: This is a theater troupe! We're getting ready to perform for the King! Everyone in the Kingdom shall be in attendance! Of course, you know all this, being fellow actors of the exact same troupe.
• The Adventures of Puss in Boots has Toby kidnapped by his brothers who then introduce themselves to us. Even the slow-witted Toby is quick to question the fact that they are introducing themselves when he is their brother; he knows who they are already.
• American Dad!:
  • Parodied in the episode "Meter Made", when Stan is eavesdropping while Francine is on the phone:
    Francine: I didn't know what to do, sis! ... What? I've never called you "sis" before? ... You're right, it is oddly clunky and expositional. I mean, I know you're my sister, so who am I saying it for? Weird.
    (later)
    Stan: She thinks she married a nobody! ... I appreciate you saying that, bro. ... I've called you "bro" before. That's what we are, we're half-brothers. ... Well, I don't care how they say it in New Glarus, Wisconsin, where you live on a lake and have nothing in common with me!
  • In another episode, "Stan's Night Out", CIA agent Dick discovers that his car is on Fernando Jaramillo's property.
    Everyone: (gasps)
    Stan: Oh, good, we all know who Fernando Jaramillo is, so we don't have to waste time explaining it to each other!
    Janitor: (appearing from nowhere) I don't know who he is.
    Stan: Oh, well let me explain it to you.
  • In a different episode, we have this exchange:
    Hayley: They think you're Kevin Bacon!
    Roger: Yes, Hayley, I understand things that happen around me.
  • In yet another episode ("You Debt Your Life"):
    Hayley: You saved Roger's life? I guess you guys are even now.
    Stan: "Even"?
    Hayley: Yeah, you know; the life debt.
    (everyone remembers)
    Francine: I understand too, Hayley, but would you explain it anyway? I love to hear things summarized.
  • Stan fires a shot at Randy the sex offender at point-blank range. But then we cut to Randy being loaded into the back of a police car and a wounded Larry lying on a stretcher.
    Roger: I can't believe you fired a shot that completely missed Randy and went through the waterfall hitting Bad Larry who was on the other side! [Stan and Ray glare at him] What? I'm just tryna make sure we're all clear.
• Animalia: In the episode "Tunnel Vision", a character introduces himself as TC, an acronym which he lengthily explains at the end of the episode when no-one else but him is listening.
  TC: …but the letters TC are just my initials. My full name is The Creeper.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • An incident features Sokka bumbling through an explanation of his battle plan, finally getting so nervous that he just starts recapping the entire series, getting to the sixth episode before his father steps in.
  • The show featured some elegantly natural subversions or Lampshade Hanging, as well: in the very first episode, Katara irately tries to exposit at Sokka, who cuts her off with an "I know, I know..." before delivering the exposition himself. Similarly, Zuko asks Azula a question almost anyone in-universe would know the answer to, prompting her to ask "Didn't you pay attention in school?" while giving the exposition anyway.
  • At the end of the episode, Zuko, having been told by Iroh to find the secret history of how his great-grandfather died, angrily complains about having been told to look for something everyone in the Fire Nation knows, but it turns out Iroh was talking about his other great-grandfather, Avatar Roku.
  • Another good example occurred on "The Day of Black Sun," when Zuko is finishing up in the throne room confronting his father, and about to leave. Fire Lord Ozai tries to keep Zuko around long enough for the sun to come back with a mention of his Missing Mom. The story starts with: "My father, Fire Lord Azulon..." Did Ozai not expect Zuko (much like the vast majority of the audience at home) not to know who has been his grandfather, and Fire Lord, for the vast majority of his life? They were likely trying to rope in new viewers at the time, and were probably trying to explain things to them, but the words still sounded weird.
  • Exploited by the villains. While disguised as Kyoshi Warriors, Ty Lee and Mai gave some quite clunky exposition to each other. After a spy scurried off to give this information to his boss, it was revealed they knew he was listening, and wanted to leak their identities.
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes establishes the reason for the animosity between Tony Stark and Hank Pym by having Hank remind Tony that five years before the Avengers' founding, the two of them worked on creating a robot controlled by the human mind, but Tony tried to sell it as a weapon without Hank's consent. It seems apparent that Tony didn't need Hank's help remembering this, especially since he brings up the robot first.
• On The Boondocks, Huey sets up a Noodle Incident as to how "because of [Ed Wuncler Sr.], [Huey] gave a girl a 'permanent and severe limp'". Grandad even says "Look, nobody needs to be reminded of that tragic day you gave that girl a 'permanent severe limp'" right before telling the story.
• Lampshaded in the pilot movie of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: one of Zurg's not-particularly-bright scientists is called on to tell Zurg how things are going. He then explains in some detail how they believe that since the Unimind allows the LGMs to share a Hive Mind, they should be able to alter it to give Zurg mental control over other people. Zurg replies:
  Zurg: You're telling me my plan. I already know my plan. I made up the plan. It's MY plan. What I DON'T KNOW, is how close you are to ACCOMPLISHING MY PLAN!
• Carmen Sandiego: When Carmen's recounting her backstory to Gray in the pilot, he comments that she can skip over a chunk, since he was there for it. She replies that he doesn't necessarily know her perspective of the events in question and keeps going.
• Occasionally justified in Chaotic since Tom started out as a newbie, so he shouldn't have known about some of the things in Chaotic and Perm. But everytime a piece of battle gear more complex than a torwig (jetpack) or a creature special ability is used someone has to explain it. The forehead slapping begins however, in that in order to make it to Chaotic, one must become highly ranked in the online card competitions.
• Played for Laughs and abused to hell and back in an episode of China, IL, where advice on picking up women (gaining her trust with the phrase "I know. And if you want, you can talk to me.") leads Frank into a Soap Opera-esque Love Triangle between a Southern Belle and her scarred sister. The two feud endlessly while spouting exposition to each other, but it's directed at Frank as they repeatedly use the phrase "As You Know." Frank, however, (and by extension the audience) doesn't know anything, so the feud becomes very confusing and unsettling.
• Chowder: Lampshaded in "The Belgian Waffle Slobber-Barker". After Chowder asks Mung several questions pertaining to the plot, Chowder asks him why he asks so many questions. Mung replies that it's the easiest way for their loyal fanbase to learn about the episode's plot.
  Chowder: (waving to the screen) Hi, loyal fanbase!
• This comes up rather often in Code Lyoko Season 1, since the series starts In Medias Res. Jérémie is usually the one stuck with frequently reminding his friends about information that they would already know — like the basic properties of the world of Lyoko, the monsters' stats, the fact that they couldn't let anyone die before a Return to the Past or that their main goal is to materialize Aelita.
• Played for Laughs on Daria, when the characters are signing each other's yearbooks:
  Brittany: Just make it out to me — Brittany!
  Jodie: Gee, thanks for clearing that up.
• Duckman:
  • One episode lampshades this practice. A character from an earlier episode returns, and Charles/Mambo (siamese twins who have one body with two heads) tell Duckman it's that woman he used to date, who used to be hideous but became gorgeous through plastic surgery and left him. Duckman responds to the effect of "Don't you think I know that?", to which the twins respond with "That wasn't for you. That was exposition for the 99.9 percent of the audience who are usually out having a life on Saturday night instead of staying home and flipping through obscure cable channels hoping to catch a little softcore pornography"
  • Another example: To suggest how ordinary his life is, Duckman describes the ironically ridiculous premise of the show to Cornfed in one sentence: "I'm just another duck detective, who works with a pig and lives with the twin sister of his dead wife, has three sons on two bodies, and a comatose mother-in-law whose got so much gas she's fire hazard."
  • Bernice: "As I explained to you before and will repeat now, not as clunky exposition but just because it feels so damn good..."
  • Then there's this sequence from "The Road to Dendron":
    Expositor: (yelling to everyone in earshot) Make way for the Princess of Dendron! Make way for the Princess of Dendron!
    Duckman: Thanks for the exposition. Who's tall, dark and creepy?
    Expositor: Beware! Beware! That is the Sultan's Fahaer Achmed Amazher. An evil man full of tricks and tourchers and torments. It is said when the moon is full he...
    Duckman: All right. Thank you. We'll be in touch. (dismissing the character who has completed his purpose and will not appear again)
• Spoofed in an episode of Freakazoid!, during a conversation that came with captions indicating which of the statements were "IMPORTANT" or "NOT IMPORTANT". The As You Know conversation eventually degraded into spewing frivolous things like "I'm wearing blue socks" (captioned with "NOT IMPORTANT") and "You know, if you mix baking soda and vinegar together, you can make a little volcano." ("NOT IMPORTANT... BUT INTERESTING")
• The Fairly OddParents! makes fun of this trope whenever a character comes back and some exposition is needed for any viewers who aren't up to date. Rather than simply say the character's name, Mr. or Ms. Exposition also has to spout out a long-winded explanation of who they are. The most blatant example is when they explained to the audience that Mark was an alien and now living on Earth disguised as a human, even going so far as to have Timmy place a device in front of the fourth wall that lets the viewer see Mark under his disguise.
• Family Guy:
  • Quagmire's "That one was also sexual" line. Initially it looks like Don't Explain the Joke, but according to the DVD commentary, it was a spoof of characters saying things that no-one would really say to explain the plot, like "I can't wait for the bake sale this afternoon!"
  • Another parody of the trope comes in the episode "Prick Up Your Ears", when in a sketch by the "Opal Ring Crusaders" the school brought in to teach sex ed, a joking reference is made to a Jefferson High. Everyone laughs, then one student turns to the one next to them and explains "they're our rivals!". Not two minutes later, at the end of the sketch, another joke is made at Jefferson High's expense, everyone laughs, and then the same student turns to the same one next to him and says the same thing again.
  • In-Universe example: Brian writes a play, which begins with the main character coming on-scene and saying "Donna, it's Brent, your new husband!"
• In the Felix the Cat (Joe Oriolo) cartoons, the second half of each episode has a quick recap of what happened just moments ago in the first part of the episode. The reason for this is because the shows episodes were originally aired in two parts, so a quick recap was warranted since the second part of the episode wouldn't always follow up the first part right away. The syndicated reairings and DVD rerelease of the cartoons edit both parts of the episodes together into single episodes, making the recaps come off as very superfluous.
• Futurama:
  • Lampshaded by having Bender defeating Elzar on an episode of Iron Chef, then pulling back to show him turning off the TV as his win is being broadcast.
    Bender: And that's how I defeated Elzar!
    Leela: We know. We were there. And we just got done watching it again on TV.
  • Played for Laughs in "Bender's Game":
    Farnsworth: I'm sure I don't need to explain that all dark matter in the universe is linked in the form of a single non-local meta-particle.
    Amy: Guh! Stop patronizing us!
  • Subverted by Cubert: "As you probably already DON'T know..."
• In the episode "High Noon" of Gargoyles, when the Weird Sisters show up at the end they spend the entire scene explaining to each other why they orchestrated everything they did in that episode.
• The Gravity Falls episode "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality" begins this way, with Dipper telling Soos and Wendy what happened in Part 1 and that they're currently trying to save Mabel, despite the two of them already knowing this.
• In the pilot of Infinity Train, Tulip outlines her predicament to One-One, even though they've been on the train for a week and would surely have discussed this before. Averted in the series proper, as it starts from the beginning, so the audience already knows everything from the start.
• Subverted in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, where Flash, in Lex's body, asks for an As You Know recap from Dr. Polaris over the "Big Plan". Polaris, on the other hand, is angry that "Luthor" couldn't remember the plan he announced to them that morning.
• In Kim Possible, Drakken is very fond of this trope. It is lampshaded by Shego in the episode "Clean Slate".
  Drakken: Shego, at last! Pure nanotronium is mine! The smallest, most powerful energy source known to m—
  Shego: Are you for real? I was with you. I know what it is, Dr. Exposition.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: This happens fairly often on the show; generally, whenever an episode relies on the events of a previous one they get a brief re-iteration ("It's great we got invited to the [plot device]!" "I know! Thanks for inviting us, [character]". This is due to Word of God stating they wanted the episodes to be watchable in any order.
  • In "Equestria Games", Twilight mentions how Spike helped save the Crystal Empire, something he should be fully aware of for obvious reasons. Probably justified because Spike isn't used to being treated like a national hero (he's usually a No-Respect Guy), and Twilight and Cadance had to explain to him how much the Crystal Ponies adore him.
  • "Twilight's Kingdom - Part 1": "I can't believe we had to give up the Elements of Harmony."
  • "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies":
    Fluttershy: Okay, everypony. As you know, the adorable fairy creatures known as Breezies are about to come through Ponyville.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • In "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel," Doofenshmirtz lampshades this by telling Perry the Platypus that his brother is the mayor, and then completing: "I know I may have touched upon the subject from time to time, but, you know, I figured, why not mention it again just for clarity?"
  • Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension has Major Monogram say "No need to remind you, but I'll do it anyway..."
• Sometimes Played for Laughs in Over the Garden Wall, such as Miss Langtree constantly reminding us about her missing fiancé; it highlights how denizens of the Unknown act more like fairytale characters than normal people. Conversations between the Woodsman and the Beast are a straighter example, as the two have years of backstory to hint at.
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja: Randy and the viewers learned about Terry McFist (Hannibal's big brother) being the real heir to McFist Industries and yearly signing over the company to Hannibal when he overheard Viceroy reminding Hannibal of that fact.
• Many Scooby-Doo episodes and movies have the gang expositing why they're in or on their way to some place.
• Sealab 2021 has a Double Subversion:
  Captain: You know what that means Stormy? (Stormy nods)
  Someone else: But I don't know, Captain, what does it mean?
• The Simpsons:
  • Lampshaded in the episode "24 Minutes" (which was a 24 parody), where Lisa begins some exposition...
    Lisa: Principal Skinner, as we both know but you might need reminding, the annual Bake Sale provides 90% of the school's funding...
  • Spoofed outright in "No Loan Again, Naturally" in which Homer needlessly recounts step-by-step his purchase of an ice cream cone with no plot significance whatsoever, to his family, who were there, a few minutes ago. And when he's called out for it by Bart, he starts narrating this very same dialogue that just happened, before being interrupted by the plot.
  • In a Show Within a Show from "Homer Goes to College": "I hope nothing unsavory happens during my visit. As you know, I am the president of the United States."
  • A Movie Within a Show, from "Beyond Blunderdome", has a slightly more subtle example, as, after Mr. Smith kills all of the other congressmen, a man burst into the room and says "I'm the President of the United States and I demand to know what's going on here!"
  • Another obvious spoof, from "Bart's Inner Child":
    Homer: Well, here we are at the Brad Goodman lecture.
    Lisa: We know, Dad.
    Homer: I just thought I'd remind everybody. After all, we did agree to attend this self-help seminar.
    Bart: What an odd thing to say.
  • In "The Wife Aquatic":
    Marge: How exciting! Watching a movie outside with the whole town!
    Comic Book Guy: Yes, thank you for talking to all of us like we just tuned in.
  • In the episode, "Lisa the Simpson", Lisa imagines a bad future where she's an obese white trash mother who's married to Ralph Wiggum. When Ralph walks in he says, "Hi Lisa. It's me Ralph, your husband" as if she didn't already know. This gets spoofed later in the episode, when present day Homer goes, "Hi Lisa. It's me, your father, Daddy."
  • Parodied rather sweetly in "Love Is in the N₂-O₂-Ar-CO₂-Ne-He-CH₄", which has a scene with Marge explaining to Homer where they are currently driving to and for what purpose. When Homer asks her why she is telling him this when he already knows, Marge replies that she just likes talking to him. The scene ends with them wordlessly smiling at each other.
• South Park:
  • The commentator of the Canadian Royal Wedding in "Royal Pudding" will frequently add some variant of "As is tradition." after commentating on the In-Universe "traditions" (the prince dipping his arms into butterscotch pudding and the princess gracefully scraping it off, thus symbolizing their union, is one of the less weird ones).
  • In the Post-COVID special, set 40 years in the future, characters keep reminding Stan and Kyle that "because it's the future, and in the future, we..."
• Steven Universe: Zig-zagged. The Crystal Gems spend much of the series adamantly refusing to explain anything about the setting's backstory to Steven. Since the series is largely from his point of view, Steven typically only gets the finer details explained when the audience would be completely lost otherwise. Recaps of in-series events are still given to him in the more pivotal episodes, however.
• 1973/74 Superfriends episode "Too Hot to Handle". Professor Von Knowalot explains basic solar system astronomy to the Superfriends.
  Professor: As you know, all the planets revolve around the Sun, staying in their precise orbits because of a delicate balance — a balance between the Sun's gravitational pull on the planets and the centrifugal force trying to pull the planets away as they speed around the Sun. If this delicate balance between the Earth and the Sun was upset, we might fly away from our own solar system.
• Spoofed on the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. In the episode "Super Rocksteady and Mighty Be-Bop", Shredder explains that he had to entrust the job of setting up a mind-control device to his bungling mutant lackeys Rocksteady and Bebop because they're immune to the device, while Shredder would fall under its sway if he set it off himself.
  Krang: You don't have to explain it to me! I invented it, remember?
  Shredder: I wasn't explaining it to you... (he points to the audience) I was explaining it to them.
• Transformers: Prime:
  • The recap episode "Grill" gives a decent justification. Agent Fowler is being interrogated for what happened with Nemesis Prime, and he's giving a report not only to his direct superior, but is also being recorded for the sake of those higher up the chain of command. The guy he's speaking to knows what's going on, but the people who would be watching the video wouldn't necessarily.
  • It also happens when Megatron is using the Forge of Solus Prime to craft the Dark Star Saber, and the onlooking Knock Out and Dreadwing explain the Forge's abilities to no one in particular by Finishing Each Other's Sentences.
• In the Tuca & Bertie episode "Yeast Week", Bertie gives detailed explanations of the attendees at Yeast Week and the following Bread Bowl dinner party. Pastry Pete points out that he already knows all of it, but enjoys hearing about it from a newcomer's perspective.

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