Occasionally, a live-action show will decide to have an animated episode for whatever reason, often to make a special episode stand out more. Sometimes, there is an In-Universe reason for this, such as a character being in a dream or drug trip, or the characters falling into another world where everything is animated. Animated segments used for those purposes will sometimes be made into direct-to-DVD anthology "episodes", depending on the popularity (an example being the revival of obscure show Challenge: Anneka being entirely animated as retellings of some older episodes, which was originally supposed to be cashed in by 2point4 Children), though this tends to be significantly more common in Commonwealth countries due to them usually skipping a storyboard approach.
If it's a Christmas Episode, expect it to be stop motion, as a parody of the Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials. Expect this to be mocked In-Universe from time to time, or at least in the episodes' commentaries.
Examples:
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Live-Action TV
- Amazing Stories: "Family Dog", which was later spun-off into an animated series. Along with being animated, it stood apart from the other episodes in that it had no fantasy or horror elements. Marked the directorial debut of Brad Bird.
- The season seven finale of The Blacklist was animated, in part due to COVID restrictions at the time, though the producers had expressed interest in imitating the style of the tie-in graphic novels.
- Broad City episode "Mushrooms" is a trippy animation for the first half of the episode, as Abi and Ilana go on a walk while on a mushroom trip, only to be interrupted by a phone call from Ilana's boss.
- Community has the Christmas Episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas," animated in stop-motion, "Digital Estate Planning" featuring the characters as 8-bit characters, and as "G.I. Jeff," a crossover with G.I. Joe.
- Several old Doctor Who episodes that are missing have been reconstructed as animations, using the surviving scripts and sound recordings as a basis.
- The Eureka Christmas Episode "Do You See What I See?" has the town transformed into multiple animation styles, handwaved as being due to a malfunctioning hologram generator.
- Farscape: "Revenging Angel" has Crichton get hit in the head by D'Argo during an argument, causing him to spend the bulk of the episode hallucinating himself and D'Argo in a Road Runner vs. Coyote-style cartoon.
- Legends of Tomorrow: A significant portion of Season 6's episode "The Satanists Apprentice" is animated like a 90's Disney movie, as it's one big Homage to Disney and their numerous animated features. The fact Astra turns the Legends into Animate Inanimate Objects homages Beauty and the Beast, with their animated appearance referencing the original film, while their looks in live action referencing the live-action remake.
- The Nanny: The episode "Oy to the World", in which Fran tells Grace a Christmas story, is animated in the same style as the opening credits.
- The Sandman (2022): The first half of the special "A Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope" is animated.
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: "Those Old Scientists" is a crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the prologue and epilogue both take place in the cartoon USS Cerritos, over a century in SNW's future. Then we cut back to the present-day Enterprise, where the crew tries the Orion version of a Gargle Blaster and turn into a Lower Decks-style cartoon themselves.
- Supernatural has "Scoobynatural", a crossover with Scooby-Doo.
- Tales from the Crypt: The very last episode, "The Third Pig", is a violent Fractured Fairy Tale retelling of The Three Little Pigs. It's the only animated episode in the entire series, and was produced by Nelvana, which also animated the Lighter and Softer cartoon spin-off, Tales from the Cryptkeeper.
Web Video
- Adam Ruins Everything: When debating with a science student about the validity of test data obtained from lab mice, Adam transforms himself and the student into animated mice, a la Pinky and the Brain.
- In another episode about Christmas, Adam turns himself and his guest into characters from Peanuts to talk about the history of Christmas.
- DEATH BATTLE!: Inverted with "Nightwing vs. Daredevil" and "Winter Soldier vs. Red Hood", which are the only live-action episodes.
- Epic Rap Battles of History:
- The series' first foray into fully-animated battles was "Zeus vs. Thor", which displays the characters as LEGO figures.
- "Harry Potter vs. Luke Skywalker" was also a LEGO-animated battle.
- "Godzilla vs. King Kong" was fully animated via Motion Capture.
- Game Grumps: Due to a glitch with the video capture, episode 36 and part of episode 37 of the Pokémon FireRed playthrough consist of new animation by guest Linzb0t rather than game footage.
- Sanders Sides:
- Downplayed in "Becoming a Cartoon", where Butch Hartman animated a segment of Thomas with the Sides.
- "Flirting with Social Anxiety" became this by necessity due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, done in an animatic style for all but the beginning and end.
