The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to You Know That Show and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Find a Trope:
"What am I wearing?" Western Animation
Is there a trope for when a character gets brainwashed, or affected by a villain somehow and ends up wearing super out-of-character clothes (like a tomboy character in a dress), then when they get snapped out of it they look down and say "Ugh, what am I wearing?" If it's not a trope then I'm probably just vaguely remembering one specific scene, but I feel like it happens decently often in cartoons.
Evil German King? Western Animation
Is this All Germans Are Nazis? Something else? I think it's odd that we have tropes like French Jerk and Amoral Afrikaner, but not one for evil Germans in general.
- Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure: King Koo Koo is an evil, iron-fisted ruler who forces his subjects to make him laugh, and when they no longer can, he turns them into mindless robots who do nothing but laugh. Koo Koo hates how physically small he is, and plans to become the biggest king in the world, as he sees physical size as correlated to greatness. He speaks with a German accent, even though none of the settings are a definite Fantasy Counterpart Culture, and most of the other characters have American accents.
Artistic License trope? Western Animation
I've seen this one in certain cartoons:
- Sometimes when a character shouts ear-splittingly loud, even aliens can hear it in space, which shouldn't be possible.
Is there an Artistic License trope for that?
Losing the Knack? Western Animation
I'm trying to find a trope for Western Animation.Dilbert:
- Dilbert loses the knack for technology after drinking from the Pointy-Haired Boss 'cup (It Makes Sense in Context) and the world devolves to medieval times since Dilbert hasn't got the knowledge to fix the satellites that keep the world going in that episode.
Idiosyncratic episode production numbering Western Animation
This might be too rare a trope, but on the other hand, it's from The Simpsons, so it might have imitators.
As you probably realize, or know firsthand, episode titles don't fit all that well on production calendars, e.g., Deep Space Nine "Looking for Par'mach in All the Wrong Places," so instead they use a production number, like 501. This gives the producers some flexibility to change the titles as needed, but, more importantly, it enables them to easily keep track of the production schedule even if it diverges from the intended broadcast order (e.g., if they need to shoot most of Part II of a two-parter before anything of Part I).
The easiest way to create a production number is to take the season number and the intended production order number. For example, if a particular episode is supposed to be the seventh episode for Season 4 of the show, its production number would be 407.
Obviously such production numbers would not be unique for all the different shows a given studio produces, and it's even more complicated when multiple studios collaborate on a single show. So they want production numbers to be unique among all the shows they work on.
For The Simpsons, they started with 7G01, since Homer Simpson works in Sector 7G. Then the show was renewed for a second season, which was not as certain an occurrence as it is now. The first produced epiosde of the second season could quite logically have been either 7H01 or 8G01. But instead they went sort of retrograde with 7F01. And now we're on Season 32 with ZABF 22 as the most recent episode I've seen.
Oops, I forgot about QABF 02, which is indeed a Season 32 episode, though I doubt it's an episode produced ten years ago and held in reserve all this time. And I have also seen the rather lackluster ZABF 20, and also QABF 04. It's not surprising that ZABF 20 would air after ZABF 22, but I have no idea what's with this back-and-forth between the Qs and the Zs.
Is this a trope we have listed? If not, should it be?
Timon and Pumbaa type of friends Western Animation
Hero is sad/lonely/bored and then two ~same-aged characters come into his life and they have fun and get into troubles. Works like a stepping stone in hero's arc.
No Antagonist question Western Animation
Is No Antagonist the right sort of trope for something like ComicStrip.Dilbert or WesternAnimation.Dilbert when it's used of a Pointy-Haired Boss, like the Trope Namer, who's not actively working against the protagonist, and has a Friendly Enemy-sort of relationship with the protagonist?
Joke of hold neck and rub head Western Animation
what the name of the trope that a guy hold the neck of other and rub his head with his hand?
Open dumb threats at press conference Western Animation
I.e. Some idiot says some pretty stupid things in front of a bunch of news reporters and threatens to kill them if any of his "secrets" about his current problems/issues get out to the public, prompting one reporter to ask if this is the first press conference he's ever given.
Possessive Bully Western Animation
Kind of like a reverse We Want Our Jerk Back trope, where a bully or another type of jerk gets mad when someone else is annoying his favorite target, and sometimes goes as far as beating the rival bully up.
Antidote trope? Western Animation
Trying to find a trope for WesternAnimation.The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy?:
- In the episode "Chocolate Sailor", the antidote for Billy being turned into a chocolate being was... chocolate and a flavor labelled antidote, but more specifically hard chocolates not soft chocolate. He chose the soft ones and exploded into chocolate. This despite the titular Chocolate Sailor telling him to only eat the hard ones.
What trope is it for when the antidote is the thing itself?
Edited by Merseyuser1Teenagers with magic beads Western Animation
So there was these girls and they were like typical popular girls who liked shopping etc. But they had this bracelet with beads that theyd pop off that they used to fight or something? The animation was similar to totally spies but I dont remember much.
Butter's speech about beautiful sadness Western Animation
There's a trope page with the image of Butters from South Park. He's talking to emo kids telling them how he finds the sadness of being dumped by a girl beautiful because he couldn't be sad if he wasn't happy to begin with. He called it a "beautiful sadness." I forget the trope's name. Does anyone know which one I'm talking about?
Lullabies always work? Western Animation
Lullabies always work on EVERYONE? Like, almost everyone at least. Lullabies working on non-babies at extreme minimum. Is there a trope for that?
50s gang parody? Western Animation
Trying to find a trope for WesternAnimation.Star Street The Adventures Of The Star Kids:
- In the episode "Rappin' Bats" a feud between bats and moles happens underground, and it seems to follow The Stations of the Canon plot beats for The '50s and gang fights up until the Heel–Face Turn at the end through The Power of Rock and both sides make up, suggesting an end to the feud. Greasers are included as well, in mole form.
What sort of trope is this other than a Feud Episode?
Robot Chicken Western Animation
There was a Robot Chicken sketch in which Calvin's parents from Calvin and Hobbes see Calvin playing with Hobbes and decide that he is disturbed. They then take him to a therapist and then eventually electroshock therapy and after that he ends up hallucinating and killing them. He's then arrested and ends up in an insane asylum. This feels like a YMMV trope for the simple fact that it's not at all unusual for kids Calvin's age to have imaginary friends, and that's an audience reaction. So is there a YMMV trope here? Or is the situation a bit too specific?
Date trope? Western Animation
I'm sure we've seen this in some series:
- In OK Ko Lets Be Heroes, a calendar showed Year 201X, the year wasn't given.
- A Comic-Book Adaptation of Arrow had Year 201X in one panel.
- In Western Animation/Dexter's Laboratory, one issue of the Comic-Book Adaptation had Year 200X on a calendar.
Abrupt zoom-in for spooky effect Western Animation
The camera suddenly zooms in on a scary-looking tree or ghost or whatever. Used a lot in the Thomas the Tank Engine music video "Boo Boo Choo Choo!"
Identical Family Western Animation
I was wondering if there's a trope that covers when not only a child is identical to their parents, but the parents are also identical (or incredibly similar) to eachother, ala the Van Houten family from The Simpsons.
Joke villain actually is useful? Western Animation
I've seen this in some cartoons:
- Alice the protagonist fights Bob who looks like a joke villain, but he's far from a joke in reality; he's as much of a Badass as Alice. However, he isn't a Lethal Joke Character, he's dangerous but no-one In-Universe believes he's that; everyone sees him as a joke.
I'm sure it was a stock trope in eighties cartoons unless I'm wrong.
Fighting Clown is the only one I can think of right now as well as Cassandra Truth.
Edited by Merseyuser1Outdated reference? Western Animation
I'm trying to find a trope for WesternAnimation.The Raccoons:
- In the original series, One-Shot Character Troy Malone had a voice that was a No Celebrities Were Harmed impersonation of Perry Como; he's Adapted Out of the Continuity Reboot The Raccoons: The New Adventures for now due to Perry Como's voice being unfamiliar to newer audiences and Perry being less prominent in modern pop culture.
and for another trope entirely:
- In "The Chips Are Down!" The Pigs - Floyd, Lloyd and Boyd are forced to eat undesirable-flavored potato chips as punishment for a competition gone wrong involving the potato chips.
Creepy aliens because they're plain? Western Animation
Trying to find a trope for WesternAnimation.Space Chickens INSPACE:
- The Beige are creepy-looking, beige aliens who resemble worms, but part of their creepiness comes from looking so ordinary and speaking in a plain tone with a flat voice and no emotion at all.
Takes one to know one Western Animation
When a fraud/crook can tell someone else is a fraud/crook. Like in Gravity Falls when it's said that Stanley would have known Bill Cipher was lying to Ford because Stan is a fraudster himself.
No Title Western Animation
What's the trope when the cover for an animated movie has much more shading than the actual movie?