Gaslighting / Western Animation

Gaslighting in Western Animation.

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• 50/50 Heroes: To get Mo out of detention, he and Sam use the power of phasing through walls to go back and forth between the detention room and Mr. Brick's office. Believing that Mo was serving his detention at the time convinces Mr. Brick that he was hallucinating the constant break-ins and therefore probably hallucinated the thing he put Mo in detention for.
• Tried on Bruce Wayne in the Batman Beyond episode "Shriek". It doesn't work because the "voices" call him Bruce, and his identity as the original Batman is so ingrained that he doesn't even think of himself as Bruce Wayne anymore. (Although it does work in that it gets him committed for a while, until the transmitter that's creating the "voices" is discovered.)
• In Batman: The Animated Series, a pair of Mooks try to drive the recuperating Ventriloquist insane so Scarface will emerge again. When Scarface finally surfaces, he starts a job and betrays them, telling them he was laying low and they forced him out early.
• In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, a Chinese emperor unknowingly suffers this thanks to his scheming sister. So what do the Rangers do? They gaslight her back.
• Done by Rallo in The Cleveland Show, along with the help of Cleveland Jr., to get back at his senior friend's Gold Digger newlywed wife. It eventually culminates with them placing several cats around her home and having her being wheeled away to a mental hospital.
• In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation M.O.O.N.", the KND learn that NASA is planning on sending a family to live on the moon as the first phase of a colonization plan, which causes the KND to panic because it might lead to the discovery of their Moon Base. The KND plot to trick both NASA and the family chosen for that mission, the Beatles family, into thinking they made a successful landing, when they were actually taken to an elaborate movie-like set (it was even on Hollywood). Numbuh 4 a.k.a. Wally Beatles, who joined his family on the trip, was Locked Out of the Loop because he Cannot Keep a Secret.
• The Dan Vs. episode "The Telemarketer" has Dan's Identical Stranger from an earlier episode trying to drive him insane in retaliation for Dan getting him arrested for something the former did.
• The Dragon Prince features villain Lord Viren indirectly ordering his son Soren to kill a pair of princes in order to seize control of the throne they're in line to occupy in the first season. Much later, towards the beginning of season 3, when Soren brings up these orders in front of his father and sister, the former vehemently denies them, claims that his son is easily confused and not very bright, and trusts in him even less from that point on.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Done in the episode "The 87 Cent Solution!", with Scrooge as the victim. The perpetrator, Glomgold, was using a time-stopping watch to remove the titular 87 cents, stretch Scrooge's clothes out, steal his spats, and lick all of his possessions, among other things to drive Scrooge mad and drive everyone away from him. It very nearly worked.
  • "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!" also has this trope in play, this time with Lena as the victim, albeit with a twist as the gaslighting taking place in the dream world. This time, the culprit is Magica who is trying to get Lena to give her magic back. Yet again, it nearly worked.
• In the Family Guy episode "Brian's Play", Brian replaces Peter's I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! with real butter, driving him insane.
  Lois Griffin: I don't know, doctor. Looking back, I think it might have been real butter.
  Doctor: Your husband murdered three children.
• This unintentionally happens in the Futurama episode "Insane in the Mainframe" when Fry is sent to a robot insane asylum by a careless judge. A combination of the robots there constantly insisting that he must be a robot if he was sent to a robot asylum and the stressful, horrific living conditions (no food, robot therapy being dangerous and painful to a human, being attacked) drives him to be "cured" and released, now thoroughly convinced he's a machine.
• Offscreen, Scratch performed this in The Ghost and Molly McGee, having hidden a man's keys for a week and kept moving them to make the man cry and feel like he was losing his mind. Scratch mentions this casually, much to the horror of Libby and Molly.
• An unintentional version happens in Jem: when a wealthy Jem fan puts out a notice saying he is willing to pay large sums of money for Jem's secret identity, Pizzazz and the other Misfits approach him and hatch a plan to bring Jem into a copy of her mansion and have her interact with actors playing her friends and family so she'll reveal her secret. Not knowing she's really Jerrica, they fabricate pictures and movies of Jem as a little girl, and the impostors pretend to have known her as Jem since childhood. The ridiculousness of seeing an alternate past that her friends and family seem to believe is what really happened leads Jem to a mental breakdown.
• One King of the Hill episode has Hank noticing that someone is subtly rearranging furniture and drinking his grapefruit juice while he's gone. Bobby and Peggy initially think he's going crazy until Cotton and Dale discover that Kahn and Minh have been breaking into their house to have sex.
• The Looney Tunes short "Mouse Wreckers" has mice Hubie and Bertie driving Claude Cat up the wall and out of the house in this fashion. It got remade 10 years later as "Gopher Broke", featuring the Goofy Gophers Mac and Tosh gaslighting Barnyard Dawg.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Before his Heel–Face Turn, Discord has gaslighted Twilight into losing faith in The Power of Friendship by hypnotizing her friends into behaving like unsavory jerks.
  • Queen Chrysalis seems to have a knack for this as well in the season 2 finale where she manages to gaslight Twilight into believing that her former foalsitter Princess Cadance has gone bad and also gaslights her friends, big brother, and even Princess Celestia herself into believing Twilight has gone crazy.
  • One-shot antagonist Wind Rider caused a more unintentional example where he frames Rainbow Dash for sending Spitfire away and Rainbow at one point believes that she really is guilty.
  • Another one-shot villain, Gladmane, uses this tactic on the acts in his resort to get them to turn against each other and see him as their only friend.
  • Cozy Glow is a young artist when it comes to gaslighting others. Her victims include but are not limited to:
    • The CMC for making them question their skills at teaching friendship when she intentionally fails a test they've been helping her study for.
    • The Young Six for making them question if they're capable of friendship.
    • Every other student in the school by making them turn on Chancellor Neighsay (not to say he didn't have it coming).
• The Pink Panther: The Pink Panther does this to the Little Man or another character in several episodes, whether intentionally or not, by changing things when they aren't looking. The best example is probably the episode "Pink Campaign", where Pink Panther gets revenge on a lumberjack Little Man who cut down his treehouse, by stealing the Little Man's entire house piece by piece, taking the front door, the back porch steps, couch, TV set, chimney and fireplace, the outside walls, bathroom sink and medicine chest, and the roof, with only the foundation remaining. By this point, the Little Man has gone through complete Sanity Slippage and gets taken away in an ambulance, and unsuccessfully trying to escape the ambulance after seeing his house in the woods, which Pink re-assembled, only for Pink to walk away after it crumbles to debris. Pink also does this in the episode "Pink Posies" by replacing the yellow flowers Little Man plants with pink ones immediately after he plants them and replanting them again as soon as Little Man removes them, with Little Man at first thinking there is something wrong with his eyes, then getting more and more enraged as Pink makes the pink flowers reappear instantly even when Little Man tries mowing them down.
• Rick and Morty:
  • How Rick Sanchez keeps exerting control over his family, and especially Morty. He undermines their self-esteem and confidence in their selves and abilities, while never fully being honest to them about how much he needs them. "Morty's Mind Blowers" makes this clear when it's revealed that he chooses to delete the memories of Morty, as well as Jerry, as and when he sees fit. Notably, the memory vials that are red in colour, are memories where Morty pointed out Rick's mistakes, which he chooses to delete solely to maintain his authority over him. This finally bites him in the ass in the Season 3 finale where his gaslighting leads to Beth doubting whether or not she's a clone and ends up going back to Jerry and talking things out, leading to their remarriage.
  • Parodied in the Season 4 premiere:
    Anchorman: [to Anchorwoman] Gaslighting doesn't exist; you made it up because you're fucking crazy.
• Two episodes of The Scooby-Doo Show has this as the villain's plot:
  • "Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats" has Uncle Leon/Gramps the Vamp trying to convince Lisa that she is going to turn into a vampire.
  • "Make A Beeline From The Feline" has Dr. Bell/The Cat Creature making Daphne's aunt believe she is turning into the cat creature.
• In an early episode of Sealab 2021, Sparks had the orphans pee in Captain Murphy's bed every night to make him think he was wetting himself, as part of a larger plot to drive him insane.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Marge in Chains", Lionel Hutz uses this as a dirty tactic against Apu while defending Marge against shoplifting charges. Hutz asks Apu what kind of tie he's wearing and Apu describes it and even how he's wearing it. Hutz then turns his back to Apu, removes his tie, and claims he was never wearing one. No one is any the wiser (despite the tie in question visibly hanging out of his shirt cuff) and Apu starts to wonder if he can trust his eyes. It was all for naught, as Marge was declared guilty.
  • In "Gradeschool Confidential", Bart walks in on Mrs. Krabapple and Principal Skinner making out in a supply closet. In response, the two adults take him aside and tell him what he saw was a figment of his imagination. Bart not only doesn't buy it, but he also scolds them for not making up a better lie.
  • Played for Laughs in "The Canine Mutiny" when Milhouse recalls how Santa's Little Helper ate his goldfish, and Bart tried to convince Milhouse he never had a fish at all.
    Milhouse: Remember the time he ate my goldfish, and you lied to me and said I never had any goldfish? Then why'd I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?
• In one episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man, during an episode-long encounter with Sandman, Spidey occasionally sees Eddie Brock (who he didn't know had returned to town), and Venom from a distance. This prompts him to check the cemented area at a construction site where he had dumped the symbiote, and was relieved to see it was undisturbed. Turns out that Brock had deliberately made Spider-Man paranoid enough to think he was back as Venom so he'd double-check where he had hid the symbiote, and lead Eddie right to it.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Pickles", Bubble Bass ends up gaslighting SpongeBob by complaining that SpongeBob forgot the pickles on his order while hiding them under his tongue the entire time. This briefly drives SpongeBob into insanity, and not only is he convinced that he can't remember how to make a Krabby Patty, but he also forgets basic tasks such as how to dress, arrange his house, go to bed, and even put words together properly.
  • "One Coarse Meal" has Mr. Krabs pretend to be Pearl in order to frighten Plankton, who is terrified of whales, and eventually drives him to attempt suicide. When Plankton learns Mr. Krabs was behind it all and is about to take his revenge, SpongeBob joins in on the gaslighting to scare Plankton away. This is a rare case where the ones doing the gaslighting are portrayed as the heroes.
• Supa Strikas: In "Hot Property", FC Cognito coach Inyo takes advantage of Shakes's need for a bigger place to live, and provides him, in a convincing disguise, with a luxurious, futuristic mansion, complete with its own soccer pitch. After Shakes 'deduces' the FC Cognito Goalie's weakness (he deliberately avoids the top right corner of the goal mouth while saving shots), Shakes intensely practises for his match against FC Cognito, shooting into the one same top-right corner spot over and over again until he cannot get it wrong. On match day, Shakes is slowly driven to insanity with every goal he misses, but cannot figure out why he's off his game...until Spenza analyses the entire pitch at his futuristic mansion...and finds out the goal mouth is slightly bigger than 24 feet x 8 feet (a typical Super League goal mouth size).
• TaleSpin:
  • "Balooest of Blues" has a variation; Baloo inherited a gigantic mansion, including a butler and cook. He stays the night with his friends, only to constantly feel like statues suddenly turned his way, images looking the other way, and sometimes signs of assassination attempts such as axes or arrows being dangerously close to his head once he turns around. He switches rooms with the others multiple times to ensure he is just imagining things which doesn't help. Nobody believes him until he actually ends up injured. The butler and cook try to murder him since he is the last inheritor before the mansion goes to them.
  • "The Idol Rich" plays it straighter. Baloo and Kit find a rare idol worth millions. However, it is soon stolen from them by Colonel Spigot and the Vembrians. Unable to overwhelm Spigot's goons, Baloo and Kit trick him into thinking the idol is driving him crazy with evergrowing absurd pranks, resulting in Spigot throwing it out of his plane and allowing the pair to reclaim it.
• The Tom and Jerry short "Year of the Mouse" revolves around Jerry and a mouse friend trying to make Tom think he was attempting to kill himself while he slept, then laughing at his increasingly frantic reactions. The plot was pretty much a remake of the Hubie and Bertie short, but it ends with Tom catching the mice in the act.
• In one Top Cat episode, Top Cat faked an illness so he could be waited on by a Hospital Hottie, but once she went away to get married and he was left with a much less pleasant nurse he got out of her care by making her think the Christmas decorations around his room (in Summer) are only in her head.
• An episode of What's New, Scooby-Doo? had the villain manipulate Shaggy in a plot to fool him into believing he turned into a Kaiju every night after he ate a "cursed" pizza.

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