Web Original / Cartoonival OCT

"Come one, come all! See the amazing Cartoonival! We have games, rides, snacks…attractions galore! And this time, we’re adding a new attraction…you!"

— In-universe commercial

Cartoonival is an Original Character Tournament hosted by TomQuoVadis that takes place in Toon Town. The local carnival thrives on the zany individuals and baffling physics that it uses as its attractions. Due to recent financial troubles, The Ringleader is looking for new recruits; some fresh new acts to keep the cash rolling in. He's not interested in just any toon, though. He wants the silliest, the most daring, the most exotic. Will he find the perfect act among the cast of...interesting individuals?

The OCT was created in 2014 and concluded in 2017. The winner was Casadiller with M-Kitty .

A second season was announced in 2019 but subsequently cancelled the following year due to a lack of auditions.

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Cartoonival Tropes

Tropes that pertain to the main story of Cartoonival are right here.

NOTE: Only tropes found in the canon (winning) entries, plot entries, and spectator entries will be included. For tropes found in losing entries, please see the Non-Canon section below.

General

• Amusement Park of Doom: Downplayed, but if it were a real amusement park it would have been shut down long ago for safety violations.
• Art Shift: The Ringleader extended invitations to places beyond Toon Town on the premise of the more exotic, the better. This justifies the varying art styles between contestants.
• Bigger on the Inside: Since Cartoonival operates on Toon Physics many tents will operate on this trope.
• Cloud Cuckoo Land
• Cooking Duel: Cartoonival is not like most conventional OCTs. Rather than actual fights, each round revolves around carnival-related tasks. Judging is primarily based on Rule of Funny.
• Crappy Carnival: The Ringleader is quite the cheapskate. Although the financial issues haven't helped, either.
• Crapsaccharine World: Cartoons can't die! This is both a blessing and a curse. Just because injuries can be shrugged off with ease, doesn't mean they don't still hurt.
• Event Title
• Fisher Kingdom
• Fish out of Water: Nearly every contestant is from a world other than Toon Town, and are forced to adapt to its laws of physics and eccentric residents.
• Furry Confusion: In a place where the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism reigns supreme, this was bound to happen. The most notable example is two of the contestants having a pet rabbit while they themselves are foxes, while there's a rabbit spectator and a rabbit-like contestant. At least in Claire's case she was once a human.
• Hammerspace: This being Toon Town, many characters utilize this trope.
• No Budget: In-universe, the entirety of Cartoonival runs on a razor-thin budget.
• Nobody Can Die
• No OSHA Compliance: The rides are generally in disrepair. Betsy tries but the Ringleader is perpetually too cheap to spring for new parts, or they're so outdated they're impossible to come by.
• Only Sane Man: There's surprisingly a handful of them, but they're still hopelessly outnumbered.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Not everyone who works in Cartoonival is a cartoon. The lure of the animated circus draws in people from the "real world".
• Rule of Funny
• Slapstick: Comes with the territory.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The OCT takes place in Toon Town, so it's no surprise that there's hardly any human characters. Most of them are either Funny Animals, but it goes a step further by adding shapeshifters and Animate Inanimate Objects into the mix.
• Squashed Flat: It's in the cartoon world so this trope is invoked many times throughout.
• They Walk Among Us: Being that many of the cartoons here come from different types of cartoons, the customers can range from animate teddy bears to wizards to blobs of sentient protoplasmic matter.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Although nobody can die in the toon world, contestants are disqualified for attempting to kill their opponent.
• Toon: The majority of the staff and residents at Cartoonival, though not all.
• Toon Physics: Given the nature of the OCT, this trope is to be expected.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Cartoonival is bright and cheery on the surface, but there's something not entirely kosher about the Ringleader.
• Trapped in TV Land: Some characters found their way to Cartoonival by being pulled through their televisions.
• World of Ham: Cartoonival features a lot of hammy characters, from the contestants to the carnies, all the way up to the big man himself!

Auditions

• Elongating Arm Gag: M-Kitty takes off running for Cartoonival while Erin is still clinging to his tail. Her arm gets going right away but it takes the rest of her a moment to catch up.
• Fix It in Post: Subverted. The Jesters mess up a TV advertisement for Cartoonival, but they don't have enough film to fix it or edit it in any way so it runs as is.
• Human Knot: Immediately after finishing filming, the Ringleader ties the Jesters into a knot.
• Open the Iris: M-Kitty's reaction to seeing Cartoonival for the first time.
• Toon Transformation: A good number of the contestants essentially became a toon upon entering Cartoonival, therefore their very being now operating by Toon Town's special rules. As expected, most of them were puzzled by this discovery.
• Your Television Hates You: Claire is lamenting how no one takes her seriously because she's been turned into a bat-eared fox. Just as she stops to watch a TV that happens to be on Mayhem peeks through the screen and starts gushing over how cute she is.

Round 1

• Be the Ball: Claire is used as part of her opponent's juggling act.
• Blind Shoulder Toss: Bruce chucks his massive training weight away without a second thought.
• Exact Words: G-Fox's downfall.
  G-Fox: Grr...You win this round.
  The Ringleader: Well, you heard the lady! Round Over! Winner, Barnaby Bat!
  G-Fox: WHAT! I didn't mean it like that!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Alucard's programmed height adjustment is used against him in his round against Lent.
• Illogical Safe: Foxy Foxy Foxy drops one on Dollar Hat.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Lady presents a jacket she made to the Ringleader. He's less than thrilled when he gets a look at it.
• Magic Misfire: The entirety of Claire's act consists of this, to the point it very nearly becomes a Humiliation Conga but for her quick thinking.
• Precision F-Strike: Seeing Tom Phoney get crushed by an oven (he gets better) causes Erin to curse in alarm. Upon realizing M-Kitty is still with her, she harshly tells him to never repeat that word.
• Trash of the Titans: Ringleader never bothers to clean his trailer.
• Tightrope Walking: Barnaby and G-Fox battle on one.
• Twitchy Eye: In Nothing Up My Sleeve!, Betsy's eye twitches a bit when she talks about Toon Physics.
• Visual Pun: Havoc and Mayhem are quick to respond to the tent burning down by bringing a fire hose...that shoots fire.
• What Have We Ear?: Lent performs this trick on M-Kitty upon their first meeting.
• Wild Take: M-Kitty when he sees his tail has been lit on fire.
• Wizard Duel: Lent and Alucard.

Round 2

• Bathtub Scene: Ringleader walks in on Lady and Bruce enjoying one another's company.
• Big "NO!": The Ringleader quickly shuts down a Bruce train of thought before it gets rolling.
  Bruce: What if we sold a calendar? I get dibs on August!
  The Ringleader: NO!
• Bully Bulldog: The FDA official who tries to shake down Penny's concession stand for a bribe is a bulldog.
• Cartoonland Time: Betsy gets the entire Carnival repaired in just a short amount of time.
• Death by Irony: Nobody dies in cartoons, but Betsy did fall victim to irony shortly after mentioning her steel-toe boots were there to protect her feet. A falling I-beam loosened by Havoc crushes everything BUT her toes.
• Funny Background Event: Barney gets stuck in one corner of a comic frame for no apparent reason. It's never brought up again.
• Meanwhile, Back at the…: Pulled three times in a row to set up various problems the Cartoonival is simultaneously experiencing.
• Riches to Rags: Round 2 is titled "Riches to Rags to Riches".
• Wallet Moths: While Cartoonival is suffering from severe financial problems, the moth actually comes out of an empty bag of "Snek Fewd".
  Moth: Free at last

Ask Blog Tropes

The Jesters have their own Ask Blog! Any tropes found only on the blog will be posted here.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the blog, none of these entries are regarded as canon unless stated otherwise by the host.

• Art Shift: Havoc and Mayhem are frequently requested in different styles.
• Back from the Dead: During an April Fool's day prank, Havoc and Mayhem were dead. They got better.
• The Cameo: Cookie Monster made an appearance once!
• Dramatic Spotlight: Solemn is framed in a dramatic spotlight while the jesters' AuthorAvatar laments creating them in the first place.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The fourth wall gets thin when they begin messing with the anons and people's avatars.
• Gender Bender: One ask had Havoc and Mayhem do a gender swap. Given their nature of blowing things way out of proportion, Mayhem turned into a masculine lumberjack looking fellow while Havoc became a slim, fashionable woman.
• LEGO Body Parts: As a prank, the jesters swapped Solemn and Lent's heads seeing as their extremities are the most easily separated of all the contestants.
• Palette Swap: When asked to do one, Havoc and Mayhem whacked the anon on the noggin with a wooden pallet. SWAP!
• Reality-Breaking Paradox: One anon asked how to ask a question.
  Havoc: Doesn't that question answer itself?
  VOIP!
  Mayhem: ASK ANOTHER QUESTION! ASK ANOTHER QUESTIOOOOON!
• Sexy Jester: See Gender Bender above.
• Sibling Seniority Squabble: Mayhem's convinced she's the older one, but neither actually knows.
• Sweeping Ashes: The result of a backfiring (literally!) prank.
• Squashed Flat: Frequently the fate of the jesters, but also happens to some visitors on the blog.

Non-Canon and Other Shenanigans

These are tropes that are found in entries that lost, in RP sessions among participants, or can be found while browsing the OCT's Miscellaneous folder. They may be considered non-canon, but they're no less entertaining!

• Finger Framing: The Ringleader once fantasized about an attraction with Solemn and the Hunger after framing them together.
  The Ringleader: A girl and her dog...kids like creepy stuff, right? Shame I've only got one slot available.
• Noodle Incident: No one knows the exact details, but it involved Lent, M-Kitty, and Sira spending a weekend in Las Vegas together. Good luck trying to get either of them to talk about it, though.
• Homemade Sweater from Hell: Contestants spread some holiday cheer by drawing their OCs in ugly Christmas sweaters.