This trope is commonly invoked when it's an educational book/TV series targeting little kids and is well loved among children book writers and children show producers alike. For example, take Jumbo Pictures'/Cartoon Pizza's show lineup:
All of them follow the Slice of Life format almost to a T (and may make use of gratuitous amounts of Imagination Sequence scenes).
Other educational book/TV series that use this format:
- Adventures from the Book of Virtues
- Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps
- The Berenstain Bears
- Baymax! — A spin-off of Big Hero 6 that forgoes the action for more personal issues.
- Bluey
- Arthur
- Martha Speaks — A talking dog notwithstanding
- Spot the Dog — Excluding Spot's Magical Christmas.
- Caillou
- The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, since the Cat takes the kids to different places to solve their everyday problems.
- Charlie and Lola
- Chip and Potato
- Clifford the Big Red Dog and its Clifford's Puppy Days prequel series — Yes, there's a breakage in that there's a big red dog and Amazing Technicolor Wildlife, but even the dogs face human problems.
- Corduroy
- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
- Doc McStuffins - toys brought to life by a magic stethoscope notwithstanding.
- Dragon Tales — Dragons and magic notwithstanding.
- Elliot Moose — The puppet segments are meant to be about a child’s everyday lives.
- Elinor Wonders Why
- Franklin — Again excluding the Christmas Special, Franklin's Magic Christmas. And oh, the Very Special Episode, or Special Movie in this case, Franklin and The Turtle Lake Treasure.
- George and Martha
- George Shrinks
- Holly Hobbie and Friends
- Humf
- Julius Jr., fantastic elements notwithstanding, is a slice of life show whose main conflict stems from disputes between the group of friends.
- Katie and Orbie- A little girl befriends an alien who left his planet due to pollution and is adopted by her family. Think of it as a Lighter and Softer version of Lilo & Stitch, which it actually precedes.
- Little Bill
- Lalaloopsy (The Animated Adaptation.)
- Madeline — Well, there are a dozen or so episodes excluded.
- Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse
- My Little Pony Tales
- My Little Pony (G3)
- Most pre-season 2 episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Season 2 started slipping in more adventure elements, and Slice of Life have taken a backseat to Adventure starting with Season 3. Still, Slice of Life is the show's main formula, considering the program's main focus are its characters and how they grow with each new experience. This includes the eponymous episode.
- Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat — The fact that they are cats in the 18th century notwithstanding.
- Pocoyo — Most of the time.
- Sarah & Duck
- Strawberry Shortcake — The 2003 and 2009 series, with certain episodes excluded. Anthropomorphic insects in the 2009 version notwithstanding.
- Care Bears — Although friendly magical bears aren't withstanding, most of the Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot episodes fits this trope and it's often true of the followup Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot, Care Bears & Cousins and Care Bears: Unlock the Magic also apply as well.
- Bobby's World
- Molly of Denali
- Little Bear — Talking animals notwithstanding.
- Go! Go! Cory Carson! — Talking cars notwithstanding.
- Thomas & Friends — Anthropomorphic trains notwithstanding, although there are occasional antagonists.
- Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go: A slice-of-life spin-off about the daily lives of the Thomas and Friends characters as young children, with some new friends and Toon Physics.
- The Centsables: As an episodic Edutainment Show focusing on banking taking the time to explore the Animal Superheroes day to day jobs as clerks, financial advisors, guards, et cetera is much more important than establishing a central conflict.
- Timothy Goes to School — Based on Rosemary Wells' "Timothy Goes to School" and "Yoko & Friends". The show follows the life of a raccoon named Timothy and sometimes his other school friends.
- Max and Ruby: The second animated series based on Rosemary Wells' Max and Ruby series.
- Seven Little Monsters: Giant furry creatures non withstanding and the second animated series based on Maurice Sendak’s books.
- PAW Patrol — Talking puppies rescuing their town notwithstanding.
- Pinkalicious & Peterrific — Fairies, plants that grow by singing, and assorted fantasy elements notwithstanding.
- Sunny Day — A talking puppy notwithstanding.
- Toot & Puddle is about as slice of life as it gets, talking pigs notwithstanding. Basic conflicts includes deciding on which costume to wear on Halloween, how to prevent animals from destroying your crops, and geographical facts on the world presented in a child-friendly manner.
- Vampirina — a family of vampires living at a bed-and-breakfast in Pennsylvania notwithstanding.
- Willa's Wild Life, loads and loads of (talking) zoo animals as pets owned by a 9-year-old girl notwithstanding.
- Word Party, fantastic robots notwithstanding, is also slice of life and whose conflicts stem from the character not knowing the word to something.
- Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum, the fact that the kids travel to different time periods to meet historical figures notwithstanding, since the reason why they travel through time is to solve their day-to-day problems in the first place.
- Stillwater (Apple TV+), the show may have a talking panda, but it's about the titular character helping 3 kids with their day to day problems.
- Esme & Roy - The show may have friendly talking monsters, but each episode has Esme and Roy helping young monsters with their day to day problems.
- Fancy Nancy episodes are relatively low key, with episodes focusing on things like Nancy spending time with her family at home, or playing with her best friend Bree.
- Henry Hugglemonster, talking monsters non withstanding, episodes are generally about day to day problems like Henry and his family hanging at the park or trying to put together a party.
- Alma's Way
- Rosie's Rules
- Work It Out Wombats!
- Ready Jet Go!: Heavy science fiction elements notwithstanding. The episodes that don't have the kids going into space have them hanging around their small suburban neighborhood facing everyday problems.
- The Chocolix has the day-to-day lives of chocolate humanoids.
And hundreds of other examples.
Shows that neither target preschool children nor are educational include:
- Early Funny Animal cartoons like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Flip the Frog and Mickey Mouse often featured the characters in everyday situations.
- Beavis And Butthead, most of the time. An entire episode revolved around them waiting for a TV show to come on.
- The Weekenders
- ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks
- As Told by Ginger is notably rather plot-lite, where most of the episodes just show Ginger and friends dealing with a certain aspect of preteen life. Even more impressive for the cartoon was the characters being subtly aged and continuity being kept.
- Harvey Street Kids
- Home Movies, especially the early episodes which contained lots of improvisation.
- Hey Arnold!
- Teacher's Pet aside from the talking animals
- Dan Vs.
- Pepper Ann
- Life with Louie
- Doug
- Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, one of the first ones ever made.
- Pelswick
- Rugrats initially in its first season, where the focus of one episode would usually be the babies getting taken somewhere and exploring the place. Later seasons would introduce adventures coming from the babies' imaginations but there would still be a few slice of life episodes.
- Goof Troop reimagines Goofy and Pete as sitcom neighbors and struggling to raise families of their own, but not without a little slapstick along the way.
- Daria, save The Musical and its Bizarro Episode.
- King of the Hill
- Ed, Edd n Eddy
- Napoleon Dynamite
- We Bare Bears — Bear siblings living in San Francisco—and a koala—notwithstanding.
- Big City Greens — Fish out of Water Country Mouse family adjusts to life in the big city.
- 6teen
- Friday Animated spin-off of the 1995 Ice Cube stoner comedy.
- Baby Blues
- Sammy
- Bob and Margaret
- Harvey Beaks
- Ruby Gloom
- Stickin' Around — The series itself is built around the Imagine Spot.
- Maya & Miguel, the fact that Maya's hair bobbles light up when she gets an idea notwithstanding.
- Clone High, though rather on and off in its depiction of teen life. It could show an earnest depictions of teenage struggles one minute, and be the zany, surrealistic parody it's known as the next.
- Regular Show zig-zags the hell out of this trope, as it alternates between the ordinary and surreal at the drop of a hat.
- Teen Titans Go!
- While Steven Universe is really plot-heavy, it also spends a lot of its episodes exploring the family-dynamic between Steven and the Crystal Gems, the relationships Steven has with the residents of Beach City (and the relationships they have with each other), and the relationship between Steven and Connie.
- Out There is like a slightly more risque and vulgar Regular Show without the fantasy elements.
- Birdz is a pretty straight example of a five-member bird family, focusing mainly on the middle child (a 10-year-old bird named Eddie) and his adventures both in school and out.
- Angry Birds Toons usually has this plot, even if it involves the Bad Piggies trying to steal the birds' eggs as usual.
- The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants — A superhero fighting crime in his underwear notwithstanding.
- The Proud Family for the most part, especially prominent in the earlier episodes. This also extends to the revival "Louder and Prouder".
- Family Guy during its first three seasons (1999-2002).
- American Dad! qualifies as this, despite a few surreal elements, as does The Cleveland Show.
- Phineas and Ferb was this mostly in its first season. By the second season, it became this mixed with surreal concepts, and by the third season, became even less of this and more comedy focused.
- Clarence Most plots deal with trivial things like going to the supermarket, school or hanging out with friends, although surreal episodes in the style of other Cartoon Network series are also common, and most surreal moments come from the title character's overactive imagination.
- Uncle Grandpa has a recurring segment called "Slice of Life with Pizza Steve", which involves the titular Pizza Steve in his everyday...which consists of annoying Mr. Gus and making himself look good, such as saying he has "thick, luxurious hair", which is really his pet rabbit.
- The Loud House, about the simple adventures and misadventures of a boy and his large family of ten sisters. One mini-comic, adapted to an animated short, is actually titled as the trope, as it involves the siblings getting into a fight for the last slice of pizza.
- The spinoff series The Casagrandes also follows suit.
- The Amazing World of Gumball in its first season originally focused on the day-to-day life of a family in a surreal, Everything Talks world. Season 2 onwards pretty much went bonkers, moving it away from this. (It has episodes that still qualify as this, however.)
- Braceface in the early seasons.
- Several MTV shows like Downtown, Good Vibes and the animated series based on the "Friday" movies.
- Mission Hill
- Three South
- Sammy
- Bob's Burgers is usually pretty low-key, with the occasional more fantastic adventure like Bob and his family getting shanghaied by a cruise ship captain, or Gene befriending a high-tech talking toilet as part of a pastiche of ET The Extraterrestrial. Most of the conflicts are about more mundane things, like Tina's love life, Bob trying to drum up business for the restaurant, or Linda trying to get closer to her kids.
- FOX's Animation Domination seems to be leaning more in this direction with it's three new shows Bless the Harts, Duncanville and The Great North all being more down to earth shows in the vein of Bob's.
- Total DramaRama- We went from life threatening reality shows to playing with blocks in daycare.
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On!
- Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own, talking animals entering a magical portal notwithstanding.
- The ZhuZhus, talking animals notwithstanding, is about the adventures of a young girl and her hamsters in their town with plots ranging from planning an anniversary to staying up for the New Years to treasure hunts.
- The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show
- Craig of the Creek is primarily concerned with the day-to-day misadventures of some kids who hang out in the woods every day after school.
- Oswaldo. Talking penguin protagonist aside, none of its episodes go anywhere overtly fantastical or supernatural, instead deriving its wacky misadventures out of grounded situations.
- Fatherhood
- Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
- While Rick and Morty itself isn't an example, one of the video games showcased at the alien arcade in Mortynight Run is called Roy: a Life Well-Lived which is about a middle-aged, human, boring-as-dishwater family man who sells carpets (although it's considered a bad run if you choose to go back to selling carpets after beating cancer and going Off-the-Grid is cause for drawing a crowd).
- Both DC Superhero Girls shows , despite the action scenes, follow this, with relatively mundane plots like taking care of a pet or investigating when something goes missing. More dramatic plots are usually saved for special events.
- Recess
- Rocko's Modern Life, despite its more surreal tone, generally follows this format, with plots like Rocko getting his laundry done, getting glasses, or fixing a toilet clog.
- The Snoopy Show
- SpongeBob SquarePants despite going into pretty weird territory at times has several episodes that are more down-to-earth (mostly in the first three seasons), focusing on plots like Spongebob putting off a school assignment, dealing with a bully, becoming a comedian, putting on a talent show, trying to get Gary to take a bath, Squidward quitting his job and moving in with Spongebob, etc. This is also supported by the late creator Stephen Hillenburg's liking of more grounded and relatable plots.
- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is unusual among franchise entries for some of its episodes having no involvement with the show's overall plot, no one-off enemies or even the Turtles' regular rogues gallery. Such situations within their daily lives include trying not to catch a cold, organizing a yearly sporting event and (in the shorts) racing to April's apartment.
- Harriet the Spy, despite its source material which it does take inspiration from, is primarily a Slice of Life story in the vein of Hey Arnold!, even when it starts to follow the original book's plot more closely.
- Summer Memories: In spite of the surrealist elements and overarching storyline, the show is grounded in Jason's everyday life as he remembers it. The show's plot develops through ordinary events and happenings over the course of a single summer.
