Yet another animated series from Disney, premiering on April 19, 1997. Ned Needlemeyer is a nervous young boy with several intense fears, which play themselves out in exaggerated fashions in his dreams. Each episode is basically one long Nightmare Sequence of Ned facing a different fear. The show lasted for 12 episodes, each of which contained 2 segments except for the last which had 3, making a total of 25 stories.
This TV show contained examples of the following tropes:
- Animal Talk: In Neds Life as a Dog, in which Ned is turned into a dog, he tries to tell his parents about his condition. But the only thing they hear is canine barks.
- All Just a Dream: Nearly every episode Ned is startled awake after having a nightmare... except in "Abduction".
- Art Shift: They are dreams so of course the setting will get altered.
- Big "NO!": One of the defining lines of Ned in the show. It is used several times in the intro alone.
- Big Ol' Unibrow: The movie theater ticket booth guy from "Until Undeath Do Us Apart" has one, combined with Braces of Orthodontic Overkill.
- The twins from “A Dolls House” counts as this as well.
- Black Comedy: The monsters and freaks are quite funny and ridiculous along with terrifying so one could say that this trope's mixed with Surreal Horror and Surreal Humor.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: In "Until Undeath Do Us Apart," Ned through hilarious circumstances makes an Accidental Proposal to a zombie bride, much to his dismay.
- Chess with Death: One sequence has Ned playing checkers with the Tooth Fairy over his teeth.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Not the endings of episodes, but rather the endings of Ned's nightmares, as they often end with Ned's dream-self dying or being transformed. One example is the episode "Willie Trout"; Ned's nightmare is a rather light adventure that's an homage to Pinocchio and it even seems to have a happy ending. But then the Blue Fairy appears, mistakes Ned for Pinocchio and says that he'll now become a real boy... before turning Ned into a wooden puppet. Ned screams in horror and wakes up.
- Defanged Horrors: The nightmares Ned comes across...for the most part.
- Demoted to Extra: Ned's family and classmates from the TV show to the game.
- Depraved Dentist: In the episode "The Dentist" where Ned visits a mad and sadistic dentist.
- Downer Ending: In the show, almost all the nightmares end this way. Of course, Ned wakes up and depending on the episode it might have a positive or negative influence on him. It is averted thankfully in the "Abduction" since it was the only real one.
- Down on the Farm: In "Canadian Bacon" Ned dreams about his pet pig taking him to live with his pig family on a farm in Canada
- Face Your Fears: In the dreams Ned attempts to do that though usually he still fails. In the game however....
- Forced Transformation: Ned is often turned into something against his will.
- Hell Hotel: The Tumbleweed Motel where Ned and his oblivious family are forced to stay at in "Along for the Ride".
- Homage: The Willie Trout episode was a play on Pinocchio, with Geppetto himself, and Cicero as Figaro.
- In Neds Life as a Dog, Neds transformation scene is somewhat a nod to the movie An American Werewolf in London.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Ned dreams he's the size of a doll in "A Doll's House" and at the mercy of his two bratty twin cousins.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Florence Henderson portrays herself in "Monster Ned."
- Magic Bus: In "Magic Bus" where Ned is stuck on a flying bus piloted by a demented ventriloquist dummy.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Dream!Frank Grimes seems to treat clinics like magic shows.
- Mutagenic Food: Ned is tricked into eating dog food by Conrad and Vernon in one episode, and naturally winds up dreaming that he's transformed into a dog. He gets his revenge on the bullies (in the dream, anyway) by tricking them into eating cat food, then chasing them down when they turn into cats.
- Nightmare Sequence: The entire premise of the show is based around Ned dealing with his problems through his dark and twisted nightmares.
- Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: Dream!Frank Grimes is a doctor... who's also a magician.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: One episode's nightmare is about Ned forgetting to put his clothes on and arriving to school wearing nothing but a raincoat, which he's forced to abandon before class. The episode's end has the same nightmare happen to his father.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The zombies preparing Ned and the zombie girl's wedding in "Until Undeath Do Us Apart."
- Parental Obliviousness: In his dreams, Ned's parents are often completely oblivious to their surroundings, and Ned has to be the one to get them out of peril.
- Potty Emergency: In “A Dolls House” where Ned’s twin cousins play with him like a doll and force feed him water.
- Serious Business: In "Until Undeath Do Us Apart," WHO KNEW THAT THIS ZOMBIE GIRL TOOK WEDDINGS SERIOUSLY?!
- Twist Ending: "Headless Lester": Ned isn't the one with nightmares this time around. Also in "Abduction," Ned isn't having dreams this time.
- To Serve Man: The pig family's real purpose in "Canadian Bacon."
- Unwilling Roboticisation: In the episode "Robot Ned", Ned's new robot "brother" Sammy, still mad from being smashed to pieces by the former, roboticises Ned by implanting a computer chip into his hand. It's shortly revealed afterwards that Sammy already did the same thing to the rest of Ned's family!
- Vicious Vac: The goblin from "Along for the Ride" owns one (to suck up Ned).
- Would Hurt a Child: Most of the adversaries seemed very focused on attacking Ned who's just a kid.
