Captain Obvious Reveals in Western Animation.
- Played for Laughs in-universe in American Dad!, when "Roy Rogers McFreely" reveals himself to be Roger in disguise. He apparently thought that Stan would be surprised by this.
- Avengers Assemble:
- The Thunderbolts turning out to be the Masters of Evil. Not only was it a nearly 20-year-old spoiler at that point, but it actually suffered from Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole as the team gets accepted by the people despite the Avengers not being missing (the result of the battle with Onslaught sending them and the Fantastic Four into a pocket universe), the Masters of Evil only recently being introduced, the Avengers having fought them in the episode prior to the Thunderbolts' debut, and the Masters of Evil line-up not changing as the comics' line-up had done many times well before that point.
- The mastermind of the Civil War arc in Season 3 being Ultron, as both the season was subtitled "Ultron Revolutions" and Season 2 had its own adaptation of Civil War that ended with Ultron being the main villain.
- Black Panther's Quest has a way obvious twist with Princess Zanda pretending to be Black Widow and framing Black Panther.
- Batman: The Animated Series: In the "Shadow of the Bat" two-parter that introduces Batgirl, the mastermind behind the plot to frame Commissioner Gordon for corruption remains hidden in the shadows until near the end of Part 1, when he's revealed to be Two-Face. Except that between his hideout possessing the half-pristine, half-rundown nature you'd expect from a Two-Face lair and the show not bothering to hide Richard Moll's distinctive rasp, it's pretty obvious it's him from the get-go.
- Beast Wars: The planet the Maximals and Predacons landed on is prehistoric Earth, something that stuns the Maximals. It was obvious given the planet's wildlife and ecosystem, as well as the alien monuments that resembled Stonehenge.
- Futurama:
- This is Played for Laughs in the episode "The Sting". When Fry is killed, anyone who's not completely Genre Blind knows they're going to bring him back to life. The writers knew this from the beginning, so they keep on having Fry come back to life, but it's one of Leela's delusions. In the end, it's played straight.
- A couple of fans predicted that Leela was a mutant, and many deduced that Nibbler pushed Fry into the cryogenic tube. However, in both cases the producers left obvious clues in early episodes as Easter Eggs; in the pilot episode one may spot Nibbler's eye and shadow around the table Fry was sitting on, while Leela's one-eyed parents may be spotted among the sewer mutants in a background shot.
- Lampshaded in "The Lesser of Two Evils", where the plot revolves around Bender's seemingly Evil Twin stealing a MacGuffin. In the end, it's revealed that Bender stole it and was the evil twin all along.Fry: You mean Bender is the evil Bender? I am shocked, shocked! ...Well, not that shocked.
- Gargoyles: A new gargoyle character, Angela, is eventually added into the cast, explicitly born from an egg belonging to Goliath's clan in medieval Scotland which survived the massacre at the beginning of the series. Elisa points out that she resembles Demona, but also clearly has some of Goliath's features, namely his skin tone and his hair. Unsurprisingly, she turns out to be Goliath and Demona's biological daughter.
- Gravity Falls: Grunkle Stan has a twin brother. Given that the show deliberately includes all sorts of details and clues for fans to analyze, it didn't take them long to piece it together. Alex Hirsch even admitted to creating some Red Herrings (both in the show and secretly as a supposed "leaker") because fans had even figured out the role Stan's brother plays in the show (he wrote the journals that Dipper has been following for the whole series) before the first season was even halfway over. After The Reveal happens in the middle of the second season, the show lampshades this by having the characters watch an episode of Ducktective and dismiss that show's similar revelation as something they figured out over a year ago.
- Kim Possible: The episode "Tick-Tick-Tick" clearly depicts the heroes' first run-in with Dr. Drakken. He is initially seen by flickering firelight, obscuring his blue skin color for a later reveal to anyone who didn't already see it in the previously broadcast episode "Crush".
- The 1944 Looney Tunes Wartime Cartoon Plane Daffy has Daffy trying to guard a military secret from Nazi spy Hata Mari. In the end, she reveals the secret to her superiors: "Hitler is a stinker!"Hitler: That's no military secret!
Goering and Goebbels: Ja, everyone knows that.
(Hitler gives them a Death Glare, causing them to shoot themselves)
Daffy: I lose more darn Nutzies that way. - Miraculous Ladybug: The Big Bad Hawk Moth is Adrien Agreste/Cat Noir's father Gabriel. Both Gabriel and Hawk Moth have similar facial structures and builds, they have the same voice actor in most languages (and Keith Silverstein doesn't even bother to make his voice sound different outside of making Hawk Moth deeper), Hawk Moth's Miraculous has a picture of Gabriel's wife in it, and Gabriel was shown to have a book about the Miraculouses as well as the Peacock Miraculous inside of a secret safe. Prior to The Reveal, the fandom was basically split between "it's obviously Gabriel" and "it's too obviously Gabriel so it must be a Red Herring." Even the main characters suspect this by the end of the first season, and only abandon the idea when Gabriel makes a gamble and akumitizes himself to convince them otherwise.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Rarity Investigates" has the "twist" that Wind Rider is the bad guy...and it's about as obvious as an F5 tornado. Show staff admitted as such
, but pointed out that the episode was less about actually fooling the audience and more about doing a cool Film Noir parody. - OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Fans figured out pretty early on that Professor Venomous, Laserblast, and Shadowy Figure are all the same person, since they have the same voice and distinctive facial stubble. However, this one’s interesting in that each episode which reveals part of it also reveals something else that the fans hadn’t predicted. The aptly-named "Big Reveal" not only confirms that Venomous and Laserblast are the same, but that he is K.O.’s father. Three episodes later in "Let’s Get Shadowy", it’s revealed that Shadowy Figure is Venomous’ Superpowered Evil Side, one he didn’t know he had.
- The Owl House:
- Hunter being an Artificial Human created by Belos in the image of his dead brother was pretty widely assumed long before it was officially confirmed. He looks near-identical to a statue that was widely assumed to be said brother, he has no magical abilities (which adds up if he's human rather than a part of a Mage Species), and Belos is repeatedly shown alongside notes and experiments that suggest he's working or has worked to create a human. That said, this is a case where the actual reveal ends up being in the details. Most assumed that Belos's brother died through some tragic circumstance and Hunter is the first attempt to recreate him—as it turns out, Belos killed his brother, Hunter is just the most recent attempt of many, and Belos has killed the others as well for rebelling against him.
- As an extension of this, Belos and Philip being the same person. The idea developed when it became clear that his use of magic was technology-based, and was all but cemented as a given within the fanbase as soon as it was confirmed the following season that Luz wasn't the first human to wander into the Demon Realm, with that previous human also doing heavy research into portals and dimensional travel just like Belos.
- The Simpsons:
- Played for laughs in the Treehouse of Horror segment "The Thing and I", where Doctor Hibbert realizes, a decade too late, that he made a mix-up and rather than Hugo being the evil twin, it's actually been Bart, who's totally nonchalant about this.Bart: Oh, don't look so shocked.
- Also played for laughs in the segment "Hell Toupee". Lisa realizes what's happening during the climax and starts to Info Dump, only for Marge to interrupt and chide her that "Everyone's already figured that out."
- Played for laughs in the Treehouse of Horror segment "The Thing and I", where Doctor Hibbert realizes, a decade too late, that he made a mix-up and rather than Hugo being the evil twin, it's actually been Bart, who's totally nonchalant about this.
- Skull Island (2023): Were you even remotely surprised when Irene revealed that she's been pursuing and capturing Annie because she's Annie's long-lost mother? They both have similar complexions and a Family Eye Resemblance, Annie is a Wild Child whose father is seen in flashback but not her mother, Irene makes a point of wanting Annie captured with as little harm done to her as possible, Irene acts very mother-like towards Annie when the latter's unconscious. You probably worked it out a whole episode before Cap had his interrupted "Eureka!" Moment.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "We Heart Hoops", SpongeBob and Patrick are fans of a show where the protagonists have grown up into established characters: Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, GrandPat, and Granny Tentacles. But there's one, Hoops, who they can't figure out. Not only is it pretty obvious through Hoops' design (being a relatively short kid who wears glasses), the episode this is a sequel to outright revealed Old Man Walker to be Hoops when GrandPat meets back up with his friends in the present day. The episode also extensively hints at it (Walker lives in Hoops' address, has pictures of the characters on the walls, has the same gimmick and catchphrase) before SpongeBob and Patrick finally realize who he is; and it's not played as a joke. It confirms Hoops' identity for the viewers by showing a split screen of Hoops and Walker.
- In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil Season 2 finale, "The Hard Way", it's revealed that Toffee (thought to be dead following the Season 1 finale) lives on inside a fragment of Star's wand. Many had predicted that he became a part of the wand as early as the ending to Season 1, owing to his smirk at the wand's destruction even when he was about to be blown up, as well as his demonstrated Healing Factor. The beginning of Season 2 only made it more obvious, with Star's wand established to be corrupted, his missing finger being inside the wand, his skeletal arm clutching the wand fragment (which wasn't seen at the end of season one) forming Ludo's wand, which talks to him, and the build-up of Toffee as a character with importance to Star's family and the universe at large.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In the Season 5 finale, Ahsoka is framed for bombing the Jedi Temple, and committing several murders during her escape, by someone who's suspected to be a Jedi themselves. Most of the viewers correctly guessed that this traitor would turn out to be Barriss Offee, Ahsoka's friend, who had barely appeared for three seasons prior to this arc, where she suddenly got considerable screentime, and most of her scenes were very clearly pointing at her guiltiness.
- In the first episode of spinoff Star Wars: The Bad Batch new character Omega is so clearly telegraphed to be an Opposite-Sex Clone from the same template as the Clone Troopers that they don't bother to stretch the "mystery" past halfway through the first episode. Even then the character that confirms it explicitly says that he only waited so long because he thought it was so blindingly obvious that he didn't realize the others hadn't figured it out.
- Steven Universe:
- Garnet is a fusion. Ever since the concept debuted with Opal, it became pretty obvious that it was going to happen with Garnet- she has two gems with distinct cuts, she has several physical traits common to fusions (she's large and has an extra body part in her third eye), she's absolutely overjoyed by Steven's accidental fusion with Connie, and in "Fusion Cuisine", you can actually get a quick glimpse of her component gems in silhouette when Alexandrite de-fuses. The only people who were actually surprised by the reveal in "Jail Break" were the people who thought that it was just too obvious. That said, what was surprising was the reasoning for it: many had speculated it might be Shapeshifter Mode Lock or the result of some kind of injury forcing her components to stay together. Turns out they're just in love.
- The big reveal that Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond was an incredibly popular fan theory long before Pink Diamond was confirmed to even be a character. The insane amount of foreshadowing pointing in that direction actually convinced most fans that it was a Red Herring when the official story (that Rose killed Pink Diamond) was presented, which turned out to be the actual Red Herring.
- Played for Laughs at times. When Pearl first figures out that Lion is somehow connected to Rose, Amethyst is only mildly surprised while Garnet comments "It's a little obvious." She says the same thing in Steven Universe: Future when Steven reveals that Bluebird is a fusion of Eyeball and Aquamarine; later in the same episode, Bluebird unfuses and the pair clearly expect people to be shocked by their identities, only for Steven to snap that literally everyone figured it out as soon as they saw her.
- In the season one finale of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), it's finally revealed that Oroku Karai is really Hamato Miwa, Splinter/Hamato Yoshi's biological daughter who he thought died in the fire that killed his wife and Karai's mother Tang Shen. However, the large amounts of foreshadowing (for example, the use of the alias Harmony, as "Miwa" literally means "beautiful harmony"), along with the fact that several adaptations of the TMNT that use Karai explicitly state her to be the Shredder's adoptive daughter, made this blatantly obvious from the get-go.
