Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openLost Dr. Seuss films (censored) Western Animation
Hi Tropers! I'm an ELA teacher and secretly addicted to this site. Joined because I had a question:
My fifth graders are doing the Seussical and I'm trying to find copies of the Looney Tunes/Chuck Jones Dr. Seuss films, mainly "Horton Hatches the Egg" and "The Tail of Gertrude Mc Fuzz", since those are the subject of the play. I found some clips on Youtube but not the whole cartoons.
Also, it's been years since I've watched these classics, and while I'm not a big fan of censorship, I was wondering if anyone had seen them recently and had any advice about whether or not they'd still be "kosher" in a public school. I had a couple doubts...
1. I read online that "Horton Hatches the Egg" originally had a scene where a fish commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. I'd be in hot water if I showed that in class, so I need the censored version.
2. I remember the animated "Gertrude Mc Fuzz" has Gertrude the bird going to the doctor, who shaves off her tail feathers. I recall some off-color humor where the shave exposes Gertrude's bare fanny and the doctor is slapping her fanny with Calamine lotion, humiliating the bird. Funny in some respects, but fifth graders might get the wrong idea :P
Any advice where to find these cartoons and if school-friendly cuts exist? Thanks!
resolved Loud house memes Western Animation
Memes.The Loud House has some examples that come from fan works and not the show itself. Is this allowed?
openRWBY in Stuffed into the Fridge, Stuffed into the Fridge as a whole Western Animation
There seems to be some debating whether Pyrrha's death in RWBY counts as being Stuffed into the Fridge. I personally don't think it does, but to avoid the edit war I'm going to bring it here. As a side note this might also bring up problems with the trope page itself, considering it has seemingly contradicting definitions of the trope in the first few sentences; being first defined as having a character be left for a dead body to find, then more broadly defined as any time a character sees their loved one die. The former is a clearly defined trope with a history, the latter is awfully general to the point where a character that dies of old age in front of a loved one could arguably considered being Stuffed into the Fridge.
open Late 1980’s or Early 1990’s Animated Easter Special Western Animation
I saw it only once when I was around 8 or 9. I remember watching it at Easter time sometime between 1993 and 1996. It was an Easter cartoon special, not reoccurring TV show with an Easter themed episode. I don’t think it was a full-length movie, although it could have been. If it was a movie, it was never in theaters. All I can remember is there we’re talking farm or woodland animals. One of those animals was a rabbit, he seemed to be the central/most memorable animal character. I want to say it took place on or near a farm. There was a boy on the farm. He was the protagonist along with the talking animals. I don’t know if the boy and animals talked to each other, but the animals talked to one another. The antagonist was a machine or robotic type being I remember. I remembered that the machine/robot somehow hurt the boy, or defeated him somehow. The boy was on the ground hurt, and I remembered how bad I felt and how much I hated that evil robot machine villain thing. The animals were devastated and were on the boy’s side when this happened. I don’t remember what happened at th end, or how everything turned out for the boy and the animals. I want to say that th annals somehow saved the boy from the machine villain but I can’t distinctly remember how that happened. I have always connected the memory of this animated TV special with Easter time, and Easter themed, though I have no memory of the show itself besides the taking rabbit to associate to Easter specifically. I’ve been struggling with this memory and wanting to know what it is I remembered after all these years. I know I remember the way it made me feel the most. Maybe that’s the reason I can’t let it go, and I need to know more. I’ve been struggling with this for 15+ years. Anything would help! Thank you!
Edited by Sugarcoated1102open 1990’s Easter Special Western Animation
I saw it only once when I was around 8 or 9. I remember watching it at Easter time sometime between 1993 and 1996. It was an Easter cartoon special, not reoccurring TV show with an Easter themed episode. I don’t think it was a full-length movie, although it could have been. If it was a movie, it was never in theaters. All I can remember is there we’re talking farm or woodland animals. One of those animals was a rabbit, he seemed to be the central/most memorable animal character. I want to say it took place on or near a farm. There was a boy on the farm. He was the protagonist along with the talking animals. I don’t know if the boy and animals talked to each other, but the animals talked to one another. The antagonist was a machine or robotic type being I remember. I remembered that the machine/robot somehow hurt the boy, or defeated him somehow. The boy was on the ground hurt, and I remembered how bad I felt and how much I hated that evil robot machine villain thing. The animals were devastated and were on the boy’s side when this happened. I don’t remember what happened at th end, or how everything turned out for the boy and the animals. I want to say that th annals somehow saved the boy from the machine villain but I can’t distinctly remember how that happened. I have always connected the memory of this animated TV special with Easter time, and Easter themed, though I have no memory of the show itself besides the taking rabbit to associate to Easter specifically. I’ve been struggling with this memory and wanting to know what it is I remembered after all these years. I know I remember the way it made me feel the most. Maybe that’s the reason I can’t let it go, and I need to know more. I’ve been struggling with this for 15+ years. Anything would help! Thank you!
openDo Rick & Morty count as Decoy or Supporting Protagonists? Western Animation
The user by the name of Mack Wylde keeps trying to shoehorn the following trope into the Rick and Morty page numerous times over the past few months. I delete it with a reason proving why it can't apply, so they wait a few weeks and try to sneak it back in.
- Decoy Protagonist: Sort of. The series seems to really be about the Smith's family dynamics and not just about Rick and Morty and their adventures.
- Supporting Protagonist: Rick and Morty. The series may center on their adventures but it seems to be more about their family dynamic rather than the two of them alone.
First off, the series is called Rick & Morty. Rick and Morty are the two main characters of the franchise and appear in every episode in one way or another. The overarching storyline does involve Rick's family and their own disfunctional problems from time to time, but the focus remains around Rick and Morty themselves. Rick and Morty appear in every episode, while Beth, Jerry, and Summer may not appear at all.
I already debunked the numerous attempts to throw in Decoy Protagonist because the absolute very first scene in the Pilot episode starts with Rick barging in on Morty in his room. The laconic itself proves this can't apply just by that alone.
Finally, the way it's worded isn't even sure about itself. "Seems to be" are three words that indicate there's no objectively concrete proof that it is.
I finally decided to take it here before this one-sided edit war escalates any further.
Edited by DRCEQopenYMMV.MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 Western Animation
SenorCornholio made very long entries to the YMMV page for the G4 MLP movie about They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot by outlining an entire alternate scenario for the movie/final battle, which i don't think is how that trope works, as well as a very long edit about Twilight's friends sucking with a lot of potholes.
"** The fact that Twilight's magic is completely limited in this movie ends up resulting in plenty of scenes where it could have helped them out, but didn't. As an example, after Twilight's screwing everything up and chewing out her friends results in her being captured, she could have stayed long enough to listen to Tempest Shadow's Villain Song, realized she failed friendship, used one of her various self-inflicted spells to escape (notice how the cage she's in only resists magic, but never prevents it), and declares that she'll save Tempest from what she became, all in time to meet up with her friends for the Final Battle, which also would have led to her realizing that friendship really did bring everyone together. It could have also resulted in a climactic battle with Tempest where Twilight tries to convince her that she's better than she thinks she is, leading to a Heel–Face Turn on her part like it does in the movie proper. But because she doesn't, she ends up as the Damsel in Distress that needs to be saved, and as an added kick in the teeth, her magic is stolen so she can't even try fighting anyway."
"** The Mane Five aside of Twilight can be seen as this, namely during their argument scene. Most of them did virtually nothing to help the situation involving Tempest Shadow and the Storm King get any better, either providing seemingly nothing or outright making the situation worse like with Rainbow Dash's impulsive Sonic Rainboom on Celaeno's ship, and especially Pinkie Pie's antics in Klugetown. And what's more is that they're exceptionally tongue-in-cheek about their screw-ups, like ruining several anthropomorphic creatures' homes and nearly getting five pirates and a cat man killed isn't a big deal. This leads to Twilight attempting to steal the Pearl of Transformation and arguing with her friends which, to be fair, the argument does make a point about how both Twilight and her friends messed up. However, after Twilight says her Wham Line, the five of them head off to leave Twilight alone, still fully aware that Tempest Shadow is after her, and only after she's captured do they go back to caring about her. When Twilight told Pinkie she'd be better off with without friends like them, maybe there was more truth to that statement than the writing staff realized."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=YMMV.MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017
In general the page also has stuff like "* What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Between the multiple examples of Getting Crap Past the Radar, a Downer Beginning with scary petrification, an Implied Death Threat, a Not-So-Safe Harbor where the heroes were almost Made a Slave, a depressing sequence of Canterlot's population enslaved, drowning (Robbie Rotten lampshades it here
), a severe Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure, and a Family-Unfriendly Disney Villain Death, it's easy for parents to wonder if this movie is appropriate for young children. Then at the same time, the show has done the same concepts many times before and still managed to hold a TV-Y rating, and the movie still manages to be as simple and sugary as well, so once again it all comes down to one's personal interpretation." which contradicts itself multiple times.
openPossible Edit War Western Animation
On Dec 31st, user K added this to YMMV.Coco:
- While the movie has been in production for six years, and thus wasn't created with the intent of dropping this particular anvil, the heavy subtext of "Mexico is a beautiful country full of beautiful people" is sorely needed in the United States in 2017.
That was removed on Jan 5th after the Trump and ROCEJ thread
stated that edit may have violated the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement. I personally felt it was shoehorning an opinion in.
On Jan 8th, K replaced it with this:
- Co-Director Adrian Molina, from an interview with NPR, in response to a question about if the meaning of making a film set in Mexico over the course of six years changed at all since the 2016 election: "Well, it's a long time coming for Latinos to see themselves on screen represented in a way that they can be proud of and in a way that reflects the things that they value about their culture and they value about their families. [...] And for a family to go and see themselves reflected on screen the way they experience their lives and see that shown to the world means a lot. It means a lot for your self-esteem, and it means a lot for how you see yourself in the world."
Is this Edit War, and should I message K and tell him to go to the Trump and ROCEJ thread and Coco's discussion pages?
Edited by jameygameropen Kids show I watched as a toddler(I think) in early 2000 Western Animation
It's a little long and I'm sorry for that. But this is everything I remember and it bothers me immensely that I don't remember what the show was for some reason. The rest of this is a copy paste from a rather long text message I sent to a group chat with my friends because I'm tired and don't want to type it all out. They don't know anything either, probably because they all live in different areas than I do and I'm sure that this was a local station.
The TV I had in my room was a very small box TV. I think it had "bunny ears" as some people called them, but basically the antennae that were used to get signal or something along those lines. I rarely moved those I think, since I never used the tv to watch live television. Which brings me to how I wonder.... I would have my vcr/DVD player hooked up to it, obviously, because I have always needed light and noise to sleep for some reason. So I would put in one of my DV Ds of a movie or an episode of Angelina Ballerina (I watched that all the time back then) and I would press the repeat button on the remote to the player so it would repeat the whole thing on loop all night. But sometimes when I would wake up early on Sunday (or maybe Saturday, but I'm sure it was Sunday) mornings(like 6 am early) it would be playing this stop motion(I think) cartoon with animals and it had a male narrator who sounded like the same on on every other cartoon I watched. I can't remember if the animals had voices outside of random noises. I remember that the animation and film was low quality, even for early 2000s(more like especially for early 2000s). I checked— these didn't seem to be a part of any of the DV Ds I owned. I never caught the name of the show. My mom doesn't remember it at all, it seems. She remembers me having the TV (which I kept for about a year. I don't remember why we got rid of it, but I wanna say it stopped working since it was rather old) I also remember one morning I finally woke up and it was on again (for some reason I remember it only coming on every once in a while but it felt like forever back then) and I went to dragged my mom into my room so she could tell me the name of the show but it wasn't on anymore when we came back. Which might be a stretch, but I remember it that way, oddly. It's possible that that was one of the days she didn't want to get out of bed and took too long, so the show that had very short episodes was over. But I remember the TV being off or... something.
Okay I'm going to add something here because I don't wanna go through what I just pasted to see if I forgot or not. The show was stop motion/claymation. I think. Or it was extremely bad(especially for early 2000s) 3D animation. It depicted animals. I don't remember them talking, but there was a male narrator. I wanna say he was English, but that I'm not sure. The only specific scene/episode I remember is one where a character, who I think was an elephant, wanted to be special or was boring with who he was, or maybe he was only trying to find a talent for himself... yeah that's it I think. Anyway, he started talking to his friends about their talents and I don't remember all of them but I do remember him talking to a beaver then going home and putting mustard and/or ketchup on a tree and trying to eat the bark off of it, like the beaver does. And he got sad when it didn't go the way he planned. That's all I have, a few things in my memory might be fuzzy(like the story about the TV show seemingly just being off when I finally got my nana into the room, I could easily remember that one wrong) it I think I got the details of the show correct. I only described the TV because I think this channel was local or something. I grew up in Bullard, Texas. I want to say I was between 4-7 years old, but most likely 4 or 5 (2005-2006 area most likely.)
openThemself or themselves? Western Animation
A few days ago, The Tropper created the Recap page for the Steven Universe episode "Jungle Moon". In the summary, they had used "themselves" for Stevonnie. I changed it to "themself" as that's what the official summary uses, and what I thought was the correct pronoun. Three days ago, Tropper changed it back. So what is it? When you refer to one person, is it themselves or themself?
Edited by Crossover-EnthusiastopenTrouble understanding Administrivia Create New Redirects Western Animation
I recently made a page for Hey Arnold! The Movie and I'm trying to figure out how to make a Character page for it that redirects to the main characters page. I read the instruction on creating redirects, but they are a bit confusing to me and I want to confirm the process before I end up messing something up as I've never done this before. When I edit "Characters.Hey Arnold The Movie" do I just type in "[[redirect:Characters.Hey Arnold]]" and boom.?
Figured someone else might do it, but I have no idea when that might be, so I figured I'd try and do it myself.
Edited by thecarolinabull01openThe Emoji Movie page problems Western Animation
The main Emoji Movie page has a lot of weird, shoehorned examples, as does the YMMV page, mainly about how Smiler was right and/or the movie broke its own aesops. Most of the pertinent entries were written by the same troper, MeaJae97.
Examples:
"
- If Jailbreak is meant to be a strong independent minded female role model, then why does she learn to fit in with the expectations of society? It seems to suggest that you can only save the day by following tradition. And why does the movie treat her as being selfish for rejecting Gene's fairy-tale views of romance?
- If the movie was supposed to mock the excessive use of technology, then this was sure as hell broken when sending a text ultimately saves the day. Also, none of the human characters learn the drawbacks of their obsession with technology.
- Hi-5 has to learn to stop being a narcissistic jerk and yet he still yearns for popularity through the entire movie. After he says he learned his lesson, he shouts about how "they love us" without any humility. Lesson learned.
- For a movie where women "have limitless potential"
there don't seem to be any interestingly written female characters. The generic order obsessed villain, the generic princess, the generic tough girl, and the generic love interest. Note that the only female character of significance other than the villain fits three out of those four characters.
- Wisecrack Edition made the case that
the lesson of "you should reject societal expectations and express who you truly wish to be" couldn't escape unbroken. Sure, Smiler was defeated and the Emojis learn that it's perfectly fine to express more than one emotion. However, there is still the fact that they are stuck with one function, to serve Alex. What a brilliant life. Emojis were invented for this very specific purpose, so Textopolis is a terrible metaphor. The movie constantly validates the idea that they should only peruse society's intended purpose for them. In Real Life, this can easily prevent people from being themselves.
- If Emojis wanted to become more than merely vessels of conveying ideas, then Alex could simply delete them as they would have outlived their usefulness. After all, Gene didn't stop the phone from being erased. It was Alex who prevented it because his crush was so Easily Impressed.
- Aspects of the caste system still remain intact as the unpopular Emojis remain in the Loser Lounge.
- Jailbreak learns to stop valuing freedom and reverts back to being a Princess.
- Gene quickly discards the idea of leaving the phone forever.
- Hi-5 never dumps his narcissistic ways."
"* Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If the villain had simply had her way, then the movie would be far shorter. And audiences would be better off as a result.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Smiler tries to delete Gene because she sees him as an existential threat to the safety of Textopolis."
openArthur Election Episode Western Animation
Does this entry from FunnyAneurysmMoment.Western Animation (not written by me) break the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment? I haven't touched it because I don't have neutral views on how the election turned out.
- The Arthur episode "The Election"
is about a mock election that Arthur's third grade class holds as they learn about the American government. Muffy is an ambitious female candidate with Power Hair, Arthur is a down-to-earth candidate who wants to help people out, and Binky is a self-aggrandizing Cloud Cuckoolander candidate with unfeasible ideas who somehow wins the election. Fifteen years after this first aired, it comes across as an uncanny prophecy for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with Muffy as Hillary Clinton, Arthur as Bernie Sanders, and Binky as Donald Trump.
openSmitty91 Western Animation
There's a troper by the name of Smitty 91 who keeps going by different usernames and posting different entries in FiM's DMoS page. It's obvious he hates the show now, but good lord, this person is persistent. I've actually been asked about his latest entry on "Fame and Misfortune" (an episode that I, myself, hate for totally different reasons than mostly everyone else), which has since been removed, and I figured I'd let you know about this. This guy needs to stop. It is my request that this person be penalized for his continued misuse of the page.
Edited by SenorCornholioopenAdoredByTheNetwork/TeenTitansGo Western Animation
This page
of Teen Titans Go!, unsurprisingly has a lot of complaining in it. I was gonna clean it myself, but I can't even tell what examples should remain at this point.
open Improper Entry Western Animation
Steven Universe S3E20 "Bismuth" has a "Hate Dumb" entry despite the page itself specifically saying not to put them on a work's page.
openArthur Western Animation
WJTaylor4, who frequently edits the YMMV.Arthur page really, really, really hates D.W. (and calls Arthur's parents by their first names even though they're rarely said in-show). Other oddities include a 'fandom rivalry' segment that's just fans of one thing picking on other fans. Plus grammar/spelling errors.
"Creator's Pet: Jane and David; being an educational 'toon, they're the "large and in charge" parents with no one calling them out for letting D.W. torment Arthur most of the time."
Fandom Rivalry: Ever since the rights to producing the show changed hands from Cookie Jar to Nine Story, the bronies have been picking on it and its fans. It appears that there are two groups of haters here- one being bitter about how Marc Brown chose to terminate Cookie Jar's rights and grant the rights to Nine Story instead of transferring the production rights to DHX (which is incidentally the company behind Fi M) when DHX bought up Cookie Jar, and another just sees Arthur as yet another show competing with Fi M for awards. It's easy to weed them out: those who dismiss Arthur for "not being as good since it changed production companies" fall into the former, while those that're downright condescending to the show (saying things like "You're/They're still making the show?" in a sarcastic tone) belong to the latter. "
" D.W.'s constant screaming and whining when getting on Arthur's case or when she's demanding something from others tends to get old pretty fast. D.W.'s voice in general even when she's not whining. "
"D.W. getting punched by Arthur and latere getting a swing smashed into her face, largely due to her being such an unlikable brat."
" D.W. throws a tremendous tantrum in "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" when she doesn't get the toy she wanted for Christmas, and spends several minutes screaming. It's honestly quite embarrassing especially since Dave and Jane don't do anything to stop their daughter. "
" The Tibble Twins are basically gender bender versions of D.W. and like D.W. they have no redeeming qualitiesJ who never get punished, and they're constantly roughhousing or arguing with each other."
" Take That, Scrappy!: DW finally getting punched out by Arthur in "Arthur's Big Hit". Also DW getting her face smashed in with swings by the Tibble twins in Attack of the Turbo Tibbles. "
" Unintentionally Unsympathetic: DW, in "Arthur's Big Hit" and in many, many others. Even in the episodes where she has some justifiable reason for being bratty, she tends to take it so far that it's impossible to sympathize with her. This is not made better by all the times she doesn't have an excuse, and just felt like being irritating - it makes her seem less like she's acting up because of the issue at hand and more like her already-horrible behavior is just being exacerbated by said issue. More than a few viewers cheered when the Tibble twins hit D.W. in the face with their swings in "Attack of the Turbo Tibbles", if only because she finally suffered some Laser-Guided Karma for all the crap she had pulled previously in the series. A number of viewers also cheered when Arthur punched D.W. for harassing him and then trashing his model plane in the aforementioned Arthur's Big Hit where in addition to being her usual annoying self she was stupid enough to think the model was a toy that could fly. It really says a lot for what a repulsive character DW is that even when she's attacked by a pair twins who are basically male versions of her the viewers actually cheer for the boys to rough her up. It also says a lot for just how lacking the boys are in redeeming qualities that their high point in the series is physically attacking a young girl the audience is expected to sympathize with but is so unlikable and repulsive that the boys violent actions against her are cheered and relished by the audience instead of being viewed as reprehensible."
Edited by lalalei2001openranabridged edits on YMMV/InvaderZim Western Animation
Some person named ranabridged
has been making some strange edits to the Invader Zim page, constantly neglecting full stops and commas, and even arguing with himself within his edits.
openEdit War Western Animation
NWolfman
added the following example to Trivia.Toy Story:
- Old Shame: Not the film itself by any means, but the creators have acknowledged just how poorly the computer graphics have aged, going as far as to call it their "ugliest film."
Later JameyGamer
added an additional sentence to it containing a Circular Link within the example:
- Old Shame: Not the film itself by any means, but the creators have acknowledged just how poorly the computer graphics have aged, going as far as to call it their "ugliest film." Elsewhere, the infamous "Black Friday" reel that Lasseter screened for Katzenberg of course became an instant Old Shame to John.
N Wolfman later re-wrote the example like so:
- Old Shame: Not the film itself by any means, but the creators have acknowledged just how poorly the computer graphics have aged, going as far as to call it their "ugliest film." As for the actual film, there's the norotious "Black Friday" cut John Lasserer and co. made to appease Jeff Katzenberg.
And recently Jamey Gamer has changed it back:
- Old Shame: Not the film itself by any means, but the creators have acknowledged just how poorly the computer graphics have aged, going as far as to call it their "ugliest film. "" Elsewhere, the infamous "Black Friday" reel that Lasseter screened for Katzenberg of course became an instant Old Shame to John.

Just wondering,does the trope apply if the character is not explicitly named by any of the characters.but their image and the presence is there?
The example I was thinking of adding was White Diamond from Steven Universe since they've never been named in the show itself but their image has shown up in the show.
Edited by Ultimatum