Noodle Implements / Western Animation

Noodle Implements in western animation.

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• Towards the end of episodes of The Addams Family (1992) cartoon (Albeit Half-Hour episodes), the Addamses would decide to do one of their "family dances". Fester would make a suggestion, only to be turned down due to a problem that falls into this category. IE:
  Fester: I got it! How about "Oopsy-Addams Diaper Fling"?
  Gomez: But Fester, you haven't built a picnic table in years!
• Referenced in The Amazing World of Gumball: Jamie makes a lot of threats "involving you, me, [one random object], and [second random object]". She eventually admits she doesn't have anything in mind for them.
  Jamie: I know people imagine way scarier stuff than anything I could think of. So I just took any two words together. You, me, a jug of gravy, and an umbrella. A flame and a French horn. A feather duster and a pack of mini pizzas.
• American Dad!:
  • "You did the Tennessee Logjammer? Where are the other two guys? And did you at least put my ladder back?"
  • Another episode has Steve completely getting what Toshi said wrong (as usual): "Gross, Toshi, she'd never agree to that. And besides, where would we find that many ping-pong balls?"
• One episode of Batman: The Animated Series showed a clip from a fictional wacky sitcom, in which Baby Doll had managed to cause a huge mess. Somehow, it involved the dog, a zebra, a giraffe and a pair of Scotsmen on rollerskates.
• A Beavis and Butt-Head episode has Beavis in the hospital emergency room, whimpering in pain as the seat of his pants are burned through and something is smoking in his butt - at one point open flames propel him several yards while on a gurney. It's never explained just what led up to all this.
• One episode of Blazing Dragons shows Count Geoffery setting up another evil scheme to conquer Camelhot. One of his henchmen is carrying a large horn, and nearby we see a trampoline, a bucket of lobsters, a cow, and an anvil tied to a tree.
• Referenced in a Show Within a Show in Bluey episode "Bumpy and the Wise Old Wolfhound". Bluey's character in the play, Barnacus, begs the Wolfhound to cure Bumpy, her sick puppy, with magic. The Wolfhound requests "a pair of purple underpants from someone who's never been sick". It turns out she had no plan to do anything with said underpants, as Barnacus can't find anyone who's never been sick; it was all to teach her a lesson about how getting sick is normal and not specially unfair.
• In the Bob's Burgers episode "Presto Tina-O", Tina is trying to sabotage Jimmy Jr.'s magic act in revenge for replacing her as his assistant. She has an entire book of ideas. Louise points one out and notes, "This one would be great, if we had eight weeks, twenty-five rabbits and a fireman's hose."
• In the second episode of Clone High, Joan of Arc comes to JFK's house with a plan on how to win the school presidential election. She whispers her plan to him and he responds with, "Well, how about (whispers), dental dam, (whispers)?". Joan slaps him for this, to which he responds, "Okay, no dental dam."
• In The Critic Jay's father comments in one episode that he is working on the "fish-ma-baby-whilimagig… it'll be bigger than the badger-blaster."
• From Dan Vs., when Dan tries to work out a revenge plan on Chris:
  Dan: My plan involves two Bengal tigers, an albino child and five-no...six gallons of hummus. I haven't really worked out all the details.
• Spoofed in Dave the Barbarian. As Dave works feverishly, the narrator informs us, "Thinking quickly, Dave fashioned a megaphone using only a squirrel, some string, and... a megaphone." Cue Dave turning around holding a megaphone with a squirrel tied to it.
  • The episode ends with Dave appearing to the audience behind-the-scenes-style. He says, "I bet a lot of you are wondering why I tied a squirrel to a megaphone." (Beat) "Well, bye!"
  • Also,
    Twinkle the Marvel Horse: I had that dream again. The one where I do terrible things to penguins with a croquet mallet!
  • In another episode, Dave loudly plays an instrument that he knows Candy hates. His ‘music’ drowns out most of her threats and complaints, so all we get to hear is “-with a fondue fork!”
• DuckTales (2017): During the climax of "Day of the Only Child!", Doofus Drake plans on doing something to a captive Louie that involves a bag of walnuts and an umbrella. It's probably for the best that we never find out.
• One episode of the Earthworm Jim cartoon had Jim talking to Santa's elves (in typical fashion of the series, Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-Filled, Malformed Slug-for-a-Butt had kidnapped Santa Claus with the intent of brainwashing him to conquer earth. In even more typical fashion, Santa revealed that the "Jolly St. Nick" gig was a retirement job, and in his youth he was a Horny Viking God of Justice, promptly pulling out the old sword and helmet and whaling on the Queen once Jim set him free) and accusing them of being involved when they claim to not know who took Santa. They promptly reply that they keep their eyes on their work, as Santa has a hideous punishment for those who slack. We're told that it involves figgy pudding and nothing else.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • The episode "It Came From Outer Ed", featured Ed devising a scam. The process involved Eddy wearing a top hat and death's head facepaint, Edd moving boulders onto an "X" painted on the ground that was actually a Q, painting a cement mixer drum like an Aztec temple, Ed biting out the belly of Jimmy's stuffed bunny, and Edd handing Eddy a stack of pancakes while wearing a parka and a space helmet, all in an attempt to call down "The Curse of Evil Tim". It was actually quite disturbing. Although, what was really disturbing was the fact that it really worked, summoning a flock of angry crows.
  • In The Movie, the only evidence of a Noodle Incident the Eds pulled to get everyone trying to lynch them is seen in short scenes of the remains of the aforementioned scam gone horribly awry. Among the carnage is a paint splatter on a wall with the clean silhouette of someone screaming in horror. Somewhat spooky. Jonny also had a bear trap stuck on his head.
  • "If only we had a sack of potatoes!" Lampshaded by Edd: "potatoes wouldn't aid us in any way, Ed..."
• The Fairly OddParents!: "I'll get the monkey and the trampoline!"
• Family Guy:
  • Peter discusses Lois' prowess in bed while a representative from the FCC blows an air horn to censor him.
    Peter: You know what I'm talking about, when you [horn] a lubed up [horn] of toothpaste in my [horn] while you [horn] on a cherry [horn] Episcopalian [horn] extension cord [horn] wetness [horn] with a parking ticket. That is the best.
  • Quagmire answers the door in a baby bonnet and diaper, while a naked couple on a mule and a tractor drive through his living room behind him. His explanation?
    Quagmire: Well, as you can see, my family's here. It's game night. We're playing, uh...sex.
  • On another occasion, this trope is played solely through Quagmire's reenactment, as Peter has covered Stewie's ears. According to Quagmire's hand gestures, whatever he did to the two homeless twins who lived under the overpass involved spanking his butt, making fish faces, putting his legs behind his head and spinning on his butt, and humping a plunger that he got out of nowhere.
    Quagmire: And this is the hand that caused all the trouble.
  • And another time, also involving Quagmire, had him handing Lois and Peter Stewie's pacifier and telling them that it should never, ever be used again.
  • Quagmire's cavity search, in which the items recovered included a cellphone, a doorknob, a wedge of Swiss cheese, a DVD copy of the Nickelodeon movie Good Burger (though this could be a Stealth Pun on how "crappy" the movie is), a xylophone, a toy car, and a live fish.
  • In the episode "Dial Meg for Murder", Herbert purchases popsicles, roofies, and a mallet from Goldman's Pharmacy (though, knowing what kind of character Herbert is, it's fairly obvious that he's using that to capture his latest underage target).
• Futurama:
  • In the episode "Proposition Infinity", when Bender is getting released from jail and is receiving the objects that were confiscated from him upon arrest, he receives a hat with a large feather on it, a roast turkey, and an accordion.
  • In "Cold Warriors", Zapp Brannigan brings up the penultimate-resort plan for dealing with a common cold epidemic in Manhattan, called Protocol 62. President Nixon shoots it down, saying "Impossible, we don't have nearly enough piranhas!"
  • Almost everything Bender pulls from his "compartment of mystery" qualifies. A short list includes: Charlemagne's skeleton, a human infant, Lucy Liu's head in a jar, the stuff he stole at a municipal pool^note water, a boogie board, a bikini top, and a kid, the severed arm of the Prime Minister of Norway (changed to a "chainsaw juggler" in most reruns following Norway's 2011 terrorist attack), and John Larroquette's spine.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "Tricycle of Terror", Billy refuses to accept that his recently-acquired haunted tricycle has been mauling people that have wronged Billy until he sees Sperg after receiving an "irreversible super mega wedgie". He concedes that the tricycle must have did it because such a wedgie can only be performed using a pair of handlebars.
• Invader Zim:
  • Zim had a "final test" to determine who his new best friend would be in the episode "Bestest Friend". It involved him walking menacingly towards the contenders with a beaver and a toy taxi, followed by a lot of horrified screaming.
  • "Hello my Tallest! I'm in a bear suit."
  • Also another example in the episode "Zim Eats Waffles," the escaped evil flesh-eating demon squid comes out of nowhere with an army of "cyborg" soldiers, and Zim is shown as a shadow holding a strange device, yelling, "Don't make me use this! I'll do it!" As Nick asks, "What's that thing Zim's got?" a shockwave blows everything offscreen in a burst of light.
  • In "Megadoomer", as Zim walks down the street— talking to a kid who not only does he not know, but doesn't even go to his school— he talks about how Dib will pay... but we never get to know what he will pay for, or if there even is a reason, but it's implied he just wanted someone to talk to.
  • Thanks to a ton of cut scenes from the show, a great amount of these appear on the show. The sandwich Zim receives in the first episode, the little cupcake creatures Red and Purple have covering their faces, the room filled with chickens in "Dib's Horrible Life of Doom"... and the list just goes on.
• Justice League:
  • The Trickster's second revenge plot in the episode "Flash and Substance" called for '50,000 rotten eggs and a chainsaw.'
  • In "Fearful Symmetry", the Question manages to employ the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique using synthpop. Exactly how he went about it is left to the imagination.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Many of Commander Bumi's exploits involve these. They sound like tall tales, but from what we actually see him do, it's quite likely he's making nothing up.
  • One time Bumi said: “I remember when I was surrounded by pirates in the Hurricane Straights. We managed to capture them all with a feather, two eggs, and a barrel of molasses!"
  • In another incident, Bumi managed to save Korra and her friends, and destroyed the whole campsite that they were held captive on, as the result of a chain of dubious events. When they asked how in the world Bumi managed to pull that off, he (correctly) replied: "I did it all with my trusty flute and ... Ah, never mind, you wouldn't believe it anyway. Let's get moving."
• The short Looney Tunes "Scaredy Cat" features this. The premise of the episode is Sylvester and Porky Pig are spending the night in an eerie hotel that's overrun with evil mice that lurk in the shadows. In one scene Sylvester falls asleep on a platform that lowers him down into an unspecified location. About three hours later the platform raises up. It's never specified what occurred, but Sylvester shambles off, complete with stark white fur and a thousand yard stare.
• In The Mr. Men Show, Mr. Scatterbrained planned to milk a cow using a cuttlefish, a bowl of steam, and a hubcap; justified in that he's, well, scatterbrained.
• On one episode of Muppet Babies, the kids have fun with an activity book that Nanny has given them on a rainy day. As they each excitedly inform her of what they plan to do based on the book's suggestions, Gonzo offers this gem:
  Gonzo: And I'm going to make my own nuclear reactor! All I need is some plutonium, a cement mixer, and a paper plate. [beat] Do we have a paper plate, Nanny?
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Episode 3, "Ticket Master": Right after Twilight yells at everyone to stop arguing over who should get the ticket, everyone does so except Pinkie, who seems to be finishing up a story. "-And then I said, 'Oatmeal?! are you CRAZY?!'"
  • Subversion in "Swarm of the Century": Pinkie runs around gathering musical instruments, and throughout the episode it just seems like her being weird. She ends up resolving the plot by leading the parasprites out of town with a one-pony band.
  • Also subverted with "Somepony to Watch Over Me". Applejack asks Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo if Apple Bloom brought a lion tamer's chair, flame proof boots, a snake charmer's flute and some ricotta with her to get through the swamps. When Applejack shows up to rescue Applebloom we see exactly how each implement is used.
  • In "Viva Las Pegasus", when the Flim-Flam Brothers discover Gladmane has been playing them against each other, they decide to get even. Flim suggests giving him "the Canterlot Two-Step", but Flam points out "We don't have the chickens".
• This was a recurring gag in the later episodes of Ned's Newt where Newton would always be on the verge of solving the problem of the episode with some sort of comedy number involving a bicycle pump and a rubber duck. He never got the chance to show us.
• In an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar, Kowalski needs to fix the transmission on a toy car. Skipper has Rico cough up a screwdriver, rubber mallet, crowbar, fan blades, a snow globe, anchor, ukulele, toilet plunger, pay phone, and 10,000 ball bearings.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • The extended version of the theme song, Bowling For Soup's "Today is Gonna Be a Great Day", has the following list during the bridge:
    We've got our mission and suppliers
    Yogurt, gumballs, and desire
    And a pocketful of rubber bands
    With a manual on handstands
    Unicycle, compass
    And a camera that won't focus
    And a canteen full of soda
    Grab a beach towel, here we go!
  • In "Buford Confidential", Doofenshmirtz's latest inator is for the purpose of straightening pretzels. He hadn't figured out how this will lead to him taking over the Tri-State Area. After some offscreen brainstorming we have him saying:
    Doofenshmirtz: And when the chickens hatch, that's when the marshmallows kick in.
• Pinky and the Brain:
  • Whatever it was that Pinky was pondering often includes random items.
    "I think so Brain, but how will we fit two flamingos into one pair of capri pants?"
    "I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a duck and a hose at this hour?"
    "I think so, Brain, but this time, you wear the tutu."
  • One take-over-the-world plan involved Brain posing as a human, getting an office job, and suing his workplace for damages after being "turned into a mouse" in an accident involving a microwave oven and non-dairy powdered creamer. The logic behind this was that nobody could disprove it because nobody knew how either of those things worked. When Brain takes the case to court, the company's lawyer does know how a microwave works and thus proves that it couldn't have caused the "accident"...only to go "oh" at the mention of the non-dairy powdered creamer.
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, "Wrestle Maniacs": The Mystery Inc. kids get thrown out of the office of the manager of a cut-rate wrestling stable by "The World's Strongest Accountant". All we see is the gang getting thrown out the door in a heap, upon which Shaggy remarks "Like, I've never seen someone do that with a calculator before!"
• In The Ren & Stimpy Show episode "Stimpy's Invention", two of the tools used to build the Happy Helmet are a beaver and a duck.
• Then there's the Murder in Smurf Town X sketch on Robot Chicken.
  Brainy Smurf: Th-the comb is in his- Oooooooh... A-and the lipstick is... Aaaauuugh...!
• In The Simpsons: Lionel Hutz uses people as Noodle Implements in "The Day the Violence Died" when Bart tells him to stall a trial while Bart retrieves a piece of key evidence. Hutz brings in all of his surprise witnesses again, including Ralph Wiggum, a guy with a ventriloquists' dummy, a Santa Claus with a broken leg, and those two obese twins who rode around on mopeds. How all of these characters were "surprise witnesses" in a cartoon plagiarism lawsuit is best left to the viewer's imagination.
  • "The Summer of 4 Ft. 2" plays around with this one by giving the audience context but not one of the characters. Homer goes to a store to buy 4th of July fireworks (which are illegal in that state) and tries to cover it up by slipping it into the middle of a bunch of random purchases, including a porn magazine, liquor, panty shields, and disposable enemas. Later, Marge is going through his shopping bag and remarks "I don't know what you've got planned for tonight Homer, but count me out!"
• South Park:
  • In the episode "The List" the boys ponder over how to extract an important list from the girls. The first plan (ambush the list-carrying girl in the mess hall and kick her in the balls) fails, so Cartman concocts an even more intricate and faultless plan. We only get to hear the beginning before Butters interrupts: "When Nelly leaves the cafeteria for recess, Kenny will jump in front of her and spit on the ground-". It works.
  • The episode "Insheeption" begins with Cartman finishing a story: "And then, the guy hits the ping-pong ball with his dick, and it goes right in the other guy's mouth."
  • The episode "T.M.I" has Cartman seeing a therapist to deal with his anger problems, when the therapist tries to provoke Cartman with whatever insults set him off the most, eventually leading him to make fun of his fat body. Cartman responds by using his iPhone to text a falsified police report which implicates the psychiatrist of having a criminal record involving a teenage girl online, which was texted to the police by someone named Mitch Connor. The psychiatrist's wife calls her husband and begins asking him about the police report. Apparently she's so distraught, she ends up killing herself over the phone. After all is said and done, Cartman glares at the therapist and tells him off with a Dark Reprise of his old Catchphrase "I'm not fat. I'm big-boned."
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "No Small Parts", Mariner keeps a tribble around for personal use. What kind of personal use isn't elaborated upon.
• Invoked in one Sushi Pack episode when Wasabi proposes a plan that somehow involves him wearing mukluks.
• Before the premiere of the MTV animated series Undergrads, there was a special "hosted" by one of that show's characters showing a number of animated short films, and after each one plugging Undergrads. At the end of it, he signs off by telling people to watch the show when it aired, and if they don't... "Well, I can't legally say what I'm going to do to you, but it involves a truckload of peanut butter, your social security number, and evil clowns."
• Wander over Yonder
  • In "The Nice Guy", a panicky customer barges into a gas-station convenience store and announces that he desperately needs some purple jelly, a length of hose, and two chili-pepper refrigerator magnets to solve some dire emergency.
  • At the end of "The Brainstorm", Wander somehow manages to defeat Lord Hater's minions with his banjo.
• The Canadian series What's with Andy? (which revolved around the titular character's pranking adventures) had a Running Gag built around the phrase "forty-nine unopened cans of whipped cream".
• An interesting example from Wishfart. In The Caper episode "We're a Ragtag Team", Dez, Puffin, and Akiko find themselves with some items they used in their heist but have no memory of how they were used - a zip line, construction helmets, a fake toucan beak, fake mustaches, a spritzer of pixie sweat, a kaleidoscope, bus tickets, a dry cleaning receipt, ghost dynamite, walkie-talkies, and a dryer sheet. When they have to return all the gold they stole from their heist, they slowly deduce how every items was used as they reverse engineer the heist.

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