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Due to the nature of this trope, expect spoilers.

Daydream Surprises in Western Animation.


  • Adventure Time: In "Power Animal", a band of gnomes capture Finn and try to use his boundless energy and enthusiasm to power their doomsday device. The last device is powered by Finn's thoughts and imagination, but Finn manages to break out and escape with Jake... then it cuts to Finn, still trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • American Dad!:
    • An episode revolves around Stan's opposition to gay couples raising children. So, when Francine tells him she's agreed to become a surrogate mother for their gay neighbors, he comes at her with (in order) a broken bottle, a chainsaw, a leopard, and a leopard holding a chainsaw. It's then revealed she was just trying to imagine his response, but it moves her to put off telling him for nine months.
    • Another episode had Stan finding out his boss and daughter are sleeping together. He then suddenly shoots his boss, chloroforms Hayley but notices the mailman and chases him down before killing him. He then sees a blind man who quickly points out he's blind and didn't see anything, getting Stan to back off. We then suddenly cut back to the moment where Stan found about his boss' and daughter's affair, the whole sequence being a daydream... though Stan realizes the bystander in his daydream was lying about being blind.
    • In the 100th episode, when Stan reads a note saying that Hayley and Jeff had eloped, he gets so mad that the note burns up in his hand and he proceeds to fly around the world to reverse time. It turns out he merely fainted and hit his head on the table, though Stan is still convinced he went back in time and thinks Francine is her grandmother.
    • In another episode, though it's night time, Francine imagines killing her family. (Stabbing Roger's neck with a knife, chopping off Stan's head with a butcher hatchet and snapping Steve's neck)
  • Arcane: Marcus, a corrupt Enforcer in the pay of Silco, is given one of Jinx's grenades to present as "evidence" to frame another party for the murder of several Enforcers by Jinx. Marcus supposedly pulls the pin, killing both himself and Silco. Immediately after, we see that it was all in Marcus's head. Silco immediately lampshades it.
    Silco: [mockingly] Hmm? Imagining yourself the hero?
  • In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "Nightmares and Daydreams", a sleep-deprived Aang finally breaks down and confesses his love for Katara, only for it to turn out to be a daydream/hallucination.
  • In the Big City Greens episode "Swimming Fool", Cricket attempts to dive off the high dive at the community swimming pool. Cricket gets to the top of the high dive, dives off, and hits the pool like a meteorite. When the water clears, Cricket discovers that he has shattered to pieces upon hitting the water and belts out a Big "NO!". Smash Cut back to Cricket still standing at the top of the high dive and deciding against diving off.
  • In the Central Park episode "Dog Spray Afternoon", when Helen is going to kill Shampagne, she throws a stick into a busy street for him to fetch as he breaks free from his leash. The camera zooms in on Helen's face as we hear Shampagne panicking in the steet, but then the camera zooms out to reveal she was just imagining it before she does it for real. But she's unable to do it for real after remembering how Cole took care of Shampagne.
  • In Danny Phantom, Danny and his father fail to change the filters on the ecto-filtrator as recommended, with disastrous consequences... that turn out to be a computer simulation of what happens to the ecto-filtrator if you don't change the filters on it as recommended. When Danny asks why his father has this computer simulation, Jack replies that it's to remind Danny how important it is to change the filters on the ecto-filtrator.
  • Family Guy:
    • Scrubs' fondness of the trope is parodied with Peter appearing to shoot himself in the head after hearing something he didn't want to do. Flash back to Peter, who then lampshades this with, "Oh, I was just having one of those Scrubs fantasy moments."
    • Lampshaded in the episodes "Stewie Kills Lois/Lois Kills Stewie". When Peter and Lois go on a cruise without Stewie, Stewie then uses a virtual reality program to see what it would have been like if he had killed Lois in revenge.
  • In one episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo offends a huge friend and is challenged to a fight. After exhausting every possible method of getting out of it, Mac frantically tells him to run far away. Cue montage of Bloo running away, being driven in a taxi, driving a boat, riding a motorcycle and getting on a plane which flies away... which occurs in a thought bubble that Bloo looks into saying "Yeah, that's what I should do."
  • From A To Z-Z-Z-Z: The cartoon opens with Ralph Phillips flying around like a bird... then a hummingbird speaking with his teacher's voice tells him to pay attention.
  • In the Futurama episode "Obsoletely Fabulous", most of the episode is Bender's Opinion-Changing Dream, which was given to him by an upgrade.
  • Justice League:
  • The Loud House: In the episode "Butterfly Effect", a vast majority of the episode turns out to be one caused by the chemicals from Lisa's experiment.
  • The Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) episode "Electric Nightmare" opens with Wily attacking a power plant, Mega Man coming to stop him, and Wily seemingly destroying Mega. It turns out that this is just a "game" Wily and his bots are playing to prepare for the real attack.
  • Miraculous Ladybug:
    • "The Evillustrator" starts with two previous akumatized villains chasing after Marinette and successfully capturing her... only for her to be saved by a superhero version of her classmate Nathaniel, with her confessing her love for him right after. Naturally, this is quickly revealed to be Nathaniel's daydream (which he's also drawing as a comic).
    • "Frozer" begins with Adrien (as Cat Noir) presenting a rose to Ladybug and professing his love. He then reveals his secret identity to her and suggests that the two run away to an island together and adopt a hamster... then it cuts back to reality, with Cat Noir still presenting the rose to Ladybug, who rejects it. Interestingly, the same episode ends with Marinette (a.k.a. Ladybug) confessing her love for Adrien. He admits he feels the same way, and she starts talking about getting married and adopting a hamster... and then she snaps back, and it turns out she didn't say any of that.
  • Moominvalley: In one episode, after an argument with Mrs. Fillyjonk over her cleaning habits, Moominmamma goes over to Fillyjonk's house and dumps a pan of dust over her head. Then it cuts back to Moominmamma, still standing outside her own house.
    Moominmamma: Hmm, perhaps I'd better not do that. I won't be able to apologize... because I'm right!
  • Phineas and Ferb:
    • In the opening of "Out to Launch", Candace works up the nerve to ask Jeremy out to a dance. In an uncharacteristically sneering tone, he turns her down and then starts laughing at her. Everyone in the food court, and eventually all of Danville, starts laughing at her, too. Then the Earth explodes, and we cut to Candace telling her friend Stacy that that's why she can't ask Jeremy to the dance.
      Stacy: You realize that's kind of a worst-case scenario, right?
    • In "Isabella and the Temple of Sap", when Isabella asks Phineas "What'cha doin'?", he sudden confesses his love for Isabella. Then he turns into a centaur (for some reason — a play on All Girls Like Ponies, perhaps?), Isabella jumps on his back, and they ride away together. Turns out she was just daydreaming, and she didn't even hear his real response. Apparently, she and her fellow Fireside Girls refer to this as her going to "Phineas-Land".
    • In "Summer Belongs to You!", Phineas frustrates Isabella so much with his Oblivious to Love behavior that her head explodes. He reacts with a horrified "Isabella!" Of course, she's just so frustrated that she's imagining her head exploding, and Phineas's shout was just him trying to get her attention.
  • Midway through the Recess episode "Mama's Girl", Spinelli has become the laughingstock of the school after accidentally calling the kids' teacher Ms. Grotke "Mama" and announces that she is going to run away from school/home. When T.J. asks her where she could go, Spinelli says "somewhere far far away" where no one will ever call her a "mama's girl" again. We then cut to Spinelli alone in a tower somewhere in the Alaskan tundra with no one for miles. Just as she's getting used to her new surroundings a voice suddenly calls: "Is mama's little girl ready for school?" Cut to Spinelli waking up in bed to the sound of her mother telling to get up.
  • Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby give Muscle Man a fake lottery ticket and try to tell him and he shoves them into a lottery machine, throws it over the wall and explodes, but it turns out it was just a daydream the two were having. In Season 8, Benson leaves the Space Tree to return to Earth where he gets locked out of his apartment. After a long time passes, he watches the tape his employees gave him and then regrets leaving space and he makes a run for the nearest exit, and he finds out that his miserable life on Earth was a simulation and decides to stay in space.
  • In the Rocket Power episode "Twister's Cuz", Sam is nervous about the new "Sky Torpedo" thrill ride at the Ocean Shores amusement park. A while after the characters arrive at the park, Sam is shown hesitating to get in a mini-rocket vehicle, but Otto and Reggie keep pushing him to do it, and the demented ride operator locks him into the car, laughs at him, and starts the ride. Sam buckles up, and then the ride elevates the carousel far over the ocean and begins spinning the vehicles faster and faster. It then tilts to the side as it goes even faster, and then the screw nut holding Sam's vehicle in place pops out and sends his vehicle flying, to which it leaves a path of destruction as it careens through the park, flinging Sam to his impending doom. Otto then starts crying out Sam's name, only for it to ripple back to reality as Otto snaps Sam out of his fantasy.
  • The Rocko's Modern Life episode "The Lounge Singer" did this. Filburt gets all nervous after his singer idol Buddy Gecko accidentally breaks his Walkman and motivational tapes that have been helping him with his stage fright. Buddy assures him the tapes were all a sham and to go out there, as "what's the worst that could happen?" Filburt goes out on stage and nervously says "Ahem..." but the audience immediately starts booing and Produce Pelting him, and then chase him with Torches and Pitchforks to a windmill, and then a Spinning Paper announces the U.N. declares "Filb" is a menace to society, and they bomb him to death. His gravestone reads "Here Lies FILB, He was a lousy singer." Buddy Gecko then knocks over his gravestone, which is then blown up by lightning. It then ripples back to reality, showing Filburt is alive and well, and had only imagined the whole ordeal, and hasn't gone on stage yet.
  • Sometimes comes up in The Simpsons
    • In "Burns, Baby Burns", the police have Homer trapped in a building, believing that he kidnapped Mr. Burns' long-lost son. The rest of the family watches the siege on TV when suddenly Homer bursts out of the building and is cut down by a hail of gunfire. The Simpsons scream in horror... and it turns out to be Channel 6's computer simulation of the event.
      Kent Brockman: Now here's what it would look like if they killed him with baseballs... [bonking sounds and Homer's grunts of pain can be heard in the background]
    • At the end of "Funeral for a Fiend", the Simpsons are about to celebrate foiling Sideshow Bob's latest scheme with a cake, only for him to jump out of it and kill them all. Then it cuts to Bob in prison imagining the whole thing while laughing maniacally to himself.
  • The Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? episode "Jealousy" has a scene where Robot appears to punch Finkman's head off, but it subsequently turns out that Robot was only fantasizing about beating up Finkman.


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