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 Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at the Trope Launch Pad.
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openNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope for this? "Illiterate Universe": Usually seen in animation. We never see writing of any kind. In the odd chance a newspaper or something shows up, it is covered in scribbles, gibberish, or other weird symbols. This is usually because of two things: The producers want to export the show to many different countries, or because the outsourced foreign animators have too much difficulty drawing it. Example: Almost every DIC cartoon.
openNo Title Western Animation
What I'm looking for is a stop-motion animated short, made in the early or mid-90s. It tells a sort of a faux Japanese folk tale about a samurai who has to save a girl from a demon. The animation is the made to look as if we're watching a play, so the camera remains stationary, and instead of cutting from scene to another the props behind the characters change all the time. Also, since it's supposed to be a play, it has a on-stage narrator, an old guy with a beard. I don't remember much about the story, except that the samurai beats the demon and gets the girl. The narrator then walks to the stage, takes of a mask he was wearing and reveals that he's not actually an old guy but the samurai of the story, who's joined by the girl he saved. You'd think the story would end there, but all of a sudden the camera moves (for the first time in the movie) much closer to the characters than previously, and we see the demon attack the samurai and the girl. The demon kills both the samurai and the girl in a rather gory manner, and the short ends with that. It's quite a Mood Whiplash, as the rest of the story was more like a classic children's animation. I think the short won some big price for short films, but I can't remember which one.
openNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope for a particular type of Montage where someone is dead or leaving, or the village is about to be destroyed or have some someone leave it, and the characters look back on happier moments in the life, hanging out with that person or living in that village?
I'm asking about this because there's a parody of this in the South Park episode "Red Man's Greed". The town was about to be destroyed, and Stan says, "We had such great times here." However, all he could remember is scenes of the town being attacked from previous episodes.
Edited by NESBoyopenNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope where a character paints a surface(mostly a tunnel) and the hero falls for it, and the hero goes through the painting.The villan then wonders about it, and tries to go through it, only to be smack head first?
openNo Title Western Animation
This happens alot in cartoons there is often one episode where they shrink down and go inside a character for one reason or another. I've seen this in loadsa cartoons eg Spongebob, Rugrats, Phineas and Ferb and Futurama.
openNo Title Western Animation
I wonder if the following is Adored by the Network, or just something similar: rather than a show that is adored at the expense of other shows, it is some season of a show that is adored at the expense of other seasons of that show.
Some cases I've encountered in the last couple of years:
- In their late evening broadcast of Ben 10, Cartoon Network would only loop through season 3.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns seem to be focused on season 4.
- In Disney XD reruns of the 1994 Spider-Man series, there seems to be a special fondness for season 1, especially the Alien Symbiote episodes: at seemingly random intervals, they will restart the rerun sequence, preferably with these episodes both at the start and end of that adored season.
openNo Title Western Animation
In MLP:Fi M, Diamond Tiara brags about how her outfit shows off her cutie mark. However, her outfit actually completely covers up the cutie mark. It sounds like Informed Attribute, but that is an exampleless supertrope.
I thought it might also be Stealth Insult, except that she says it herself so it can't be an insult. So where should I put it?
Edited by storyyelleropenNo Title Western Animation
Pretty sure this only happens in western animation. The character goes to say something, sometimes with his finger pointed up to denote knowledge, but then for one reason or another finds himself speechless. And sometimes his finger will curl downward as a physical response to that. I've seen it happen Ed, Edd n' Eddy, Dexter's Lab (the Computress episode especially), and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
openNo Title Western Animation
I've seen in a lot of comedy shows that the characters have no sense of priority: serious injuries are either laughed at or ignored completely (never taken to the hospital), and things like sports and watching new episodes of a drama are almost life-or-death situations for them. It's like a combination of Black Comedy and Serious Business used as a universal opinion. It's used on most of Seth MacFarlane's shows (Family Guy, American Dad, etc.) and on Butch Hartman's shows (Danny Phantom, Fairly Oddparents, etc.),Spongebob and even on the older cartoons like Looney Tunes. What is the trope for this?
Edited by TheHeightenedIllusionistopenNo Title Western Animation
In the end of a cartoon, the babies look exactly like miniature versions of the adult couple, with exact gender correlation, like in the end of Lady And The Tramp. Does this exist?
Edit: Omg found it on this page. Gender Equals Breed, eh?
Edited by leurzopenNo Title Western Animation
Is there a step-sister trope to No One Could Survive That! where a character falls into fire/quicksand, etc. but is merely 'captured' and shows up unhurt later? It's something of a Saturday morning cartoon thing, where characters and viewers alike can safely assume that no one ever actually dies.
Not the same thing as an anime dub or edit that spares a character who died in the original or retcons his death.
Edited by CharisetopenNo Title Western Animation
Do we have a trope for when a character is of a different species from everyone else? For instance, in the cartoon Birdz, literally everyone is a bird except for Sleepy Bat, who is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
openNo Title Western Animation
What's the type of run/charge by cartoon characters where their legs/feet run around in a circular blury motion.
Sonic the Hedgehog from the Genesis games has this type run.
openNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope that is basically "All Adult Animation Is South Park"?
openNo Title Western Animation
The trope where there is one normal/generic character in a large cast mainly consisting of other characters who are alot less normal/generic. A good example would be Arthur but the cover stars of old DC Thomson Comics would fit this trope as well.
Its a bit like the generic guy but then some.
Edited by HueJass84openNo Title Western Animation
Is there a trope for when a character is inflated like a balloon, and then goes flying away when they "deflate"? I know I've seen this in cartoons, but I couldn't find that exact thing when I searched around.
openNo Title Western Animation
I've seen this alot in western animation, but I'm pretty sure it's common in other media.
It's basically like this: Bob is taking care of Alice, who has a cold. Later in the episode Alice is no longer sick, but Bob has caught the cold from her. Thrus,the role between caretaker and patient is reversed by the en of the episode.
I've could've sworn we had this already...
Edited by Oreochan

This appears in perhaps maybe anime and live action even.
The male character becomes all maternal after caring for a helpless creature or infant or both.