Zany Cartoon - TV Tropes

One of the most widespread of animated cartoon genres and one of the most representative of animation in other media. The zany humor of these cartoons dates back to the peak of The Golden Age of Animation, but actually came to dominance slightly afterward. After the big focus on musical aspects had passed, this style of humor, which focused on wild, wacky physical reactions and behaviors from hammy cartoon characters, came to the fore. This genre is filled with Toon Physics and highly unnatural situations. It's where the tropes of walking off the cliff but not falling until you look down or painting a hole in a wall and then having it become a real hole came from.

Several of the first examples came from Looney Tunes and Tex Avery creations. The characters are as important to the genre as the visuals here, as the action was surreal and subverted natural laws, and the characters were subversive and explosive themselves. Daffy Duck is a mad overreaction that would just be physically impossible, and Bugs Bunny's iconic line "What's up, doc?" was a coolness in the face of danger that subverted expectations of the time.

Examples include but are not limited to the following:

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Western Animation Examples:

Warner Bros./Hanna-Barbera 

Cartoon Network/Adult Swim 

Disney/Pixar/FOX 

Nickelodeon/Nick Jr. 

Universal/Illumination/DreamWorks 

WildBrain/DiC 

Misc. Western Animation 

Anime and OVA Examples

Anime - Pure Examples 

Anime - Primary Genre Examples 

Anime - Secondary Genre Examples 

Miscellaneous Examples:

Non-Animated Examples 

Non-Western Animation 

Video Games 

Web Animation 

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Tropes associated with this genre

• Absurdly Bright Light: Lights are way brighter than in real life.
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Failing miserably to seal a place off because the thing the person is using to seal it off is obviously useless.
• Absurdly Long Limousine: Ridiculously long limousines that usually belong to rich people.
• Acme Products: Products from a corporation that sells just about everything.
• All Balloons Have Helium: Balloons inflated with human breath float like helium balloons.
• All Cloth Unravels: All clothes can unravel down to a single thread.
• Alternate Tooniverse: An alternate reality where everyone and everything is a cartoon.
• Amusing Injuries: Injuries are Played for Laughs.
  • Accordion Man: Someone gets injured in a way that makes them spread out like an accordion.
  • Anvil on Head: An anvil, weight or a safe falls on somebody's head.
  • Ash Face: Something explodes in a character's face, and the character is fine but their face is covered in ash.
  • Belly Flop Crushing: A small character gets squashed against a big character's belly.
  • Butt Sticker: A big character sits on a smaller character and the smaller one gets stuck to the bigger one's butt.
  • Cartoon Throbbing: A body part is injured, turns red and starts swelling and expanding.
  • Cranial Eruption: Someone gets a big lump on their head because they banged it.
  • Cranium Compartment: Someone's head can open and close.
  • Forcibly Formed Physique: The shape of a character's body is temporarily changed through sheer force.
  • Harmless Electrocution: Someone is unharmed by electricity.
  • Harmless Freezing: Getting frozen won't kill you or even give you frostbite and usually, not even hypothermia.
  • Harmless Liquefaction: Melting into a puddle is completely fine.
  • Hyperspace Mallet: Pulling a mallet/hammer out of nowhere to pummel someone with.
  • Illogical Safe: Someone appears to be crushed by a falling safe but they survive because they somehow ended up in it.
  • Non-Fatal Explosions: A character survives an explosion with no serious injuries.
  • Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Somebody talks nonsense before going unconscious.
  • "Pop!" Goes the Human: Someone is blown up like a balloon until they burst.
  • Punctuated Pounding: Somebody yells at another person and hits them with each insult.
  • Rump Roast: Someone ends up with their butt on fire.
  • Squashed Flat: Someone gets squashed flat like a piece of paper.
  • Sweeping Ashes: A character explodes, turns into ashes and is swept up.
  • Thumbtack on the Chair: A character puts a thumbtack facing up on a chair.
  • X-Ray Sparks: When someone is electrocuted, their skeleton is visible.
  • Your Head Asplode: Someone's head explodes.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Somebody babysits a baby who accidentally hurts them.
• Balloon Belly: Someone gains a lot of weight in their belly very quickly.
• Balloon-Bursting Bird: A bird pops a balloon.
• Banana Peel: Jokes about slipping on banana peels.
• Bankruptcy Barrel: A poor character wears a barrel.
• Barely Missed Cushion: There's a soft item ready to break a character's fall, but they land next to it instead.
• Behind a Stick: Characters are able to hide behind things way smaller than them.
• Berserk Board Barricade: Someone hastily seals off a door by hammering a bunch of planks over it.
• Be the Ball: A character turns into a ball shape and is used like a ball.
• Big Ball of Violence: When characters who are fighting are mostly obscured by a large cloud.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: A large shadow turns out to belong to a small creature or person.
• This Billboard Needs Some Salt: A large creature eats a large food-shaped object.
• Boomerang Comeback: The good guy throws something at the bad guy and misses, but then it comes back like a boomerang and hits the bad guy anyway.
• Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Crazy-looking braces (the kind you put on teeth, not on pants).
• Bubblegum Popping: A bubble from bubblegum popping that's played for comedy.
• Burning Rubber: A fast driver's vehicle leaves a trail of fire behind them.
• Buzzsaw Jaw: Eating a massive amount of food absurdly fast, perhaps accompanied by a buzzsaw sound effect.
• Cartoon Bomb: Bombs depicted as black spheres the size of bowling balls with fuses sticking out.
• Cartoon Bug-Sprayer: Old-fashioned canister bug sprayer with hand pump, still commonly used in Cartoon Land.
• Cartoon Cheese: A yellow wedge or wheel of Swiss cheese.
• Cartoon Conductor: When it seems like the conductor is playing the music rather than the orchestra.
• Cartoon Juggling: The different ways juggling is portrayed in cartoons.
• The Cat Came Back: You will not escape this character. No matter where you go.
• Circling Birdies: A dizzy character sees things floating around their head.
• Circling Saw: A saw pops out of the floor and cuts a circle around a hapless victim's feet.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: Something in the background is conspicuously animated so the viewers can predict that it will be important.
• Cooking the Live Meal: In a toon-eat-toon world, toon shall never kill toon. Toon shall cook toon alive instead.
• Covered in Kisses: Someone is covered in lipstick marks.
• Cut a Slice, Take the Rest: Someone cuts a slice of something, only to eat all the food and save that one slice.
• Deranged Animation: Animation that is weird and unsettling.
• Dinner Deformation: Somebody swallows something whole and a food-shaped bump appears in their throat.
• Door Judo: The villain tries to break down the door, but the door is actually unlocked and the hero lets them out.
• The Door Slams You: Somebody gets the door slammed in their face.
• Driving Up a Wall: A vehicle drives up a vertical or inverted surface.
• Drool Deluge: Saliva pours out of someone's mouth like a waterfall.
• Dynamite Candle: Mistaking dynamite for a candle.
• Eat the Bomb: Eating an explosive device.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Fear of mice.
• Elevator Gag: Any cartoony joke involving an elevator.
• Elongating Arm Gag: Character's body part extends a ridiculous distance for the purpose of a joke.
• Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: All pizza being drawn with generic red spots.
• Explosive Cigar: A cigar explodes when lit.
• Eye Pop: Somebody is so shocked that their eyes stretch or pop out of their sockets.
• Finger in a Barrel: Somebody puts their finger into the barrel of a gun and the shooter is injured instead of them.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: When someone spews fire out of their mouth after eating something hot.
• Flower-Pot Drop: A flower pot lands on a character's head.
• Follow Your Nose: A character smells something, usually food, and levitates while following the smell.
• Funny Animal: An anthropomorphic animal, not to be confused with Beast Man, a zoomorphic human.
  • Funny Animal Anatomy: Anthropomorphized animals have body forms and functions differing from their real species for the sake of making them more human.
• Gale-Force Sound: When someone's yelling or shouting blows at another person like wind.
• Goblin Face: A exaggerated facial expression with a cartoonishly absurd amount of wrinkles and other realistic details, far more than the artstyle normally depicts.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Gravity working in ways that Isaac Newton would not be happy with.
• Hammered into the Ground: Someone is driven into the ground from being clonked on the head.
• Hammerspace: Pulling objects out of nowhere.
• Heart Beats out of Chest: A character's heart gets thrust out of their thorax (remaining in the body but visible).
• High-Pressure Emotion: A character literally steams when embarrassed or angry.
• Human Knot: Somebody ties someone else (or at least part of the victim's body, often a limb) into a knot.
• Human Snowball: Someone ends up rolling in a ball of snow.
• Human Snowman: A person is made into a snowman.
• Idea Bulb: A lit light bulb floats over a character to signify their "Eureka!" Moment.
• Impact Silhouette: Someone runs into a wall and leaves a hole shaped like them.
• Impromptu Campfire Cookout: Roasting food over someone or something that caught fire, often nonchalantly.
• Inflating Body Gag: Someone swells up full of gas or liquid.
• Instant Bandages: Someone appears with bandages immediately after being injured.
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: Something/someone is frozen in ice when there is no water or there's water but it's not freezing.
• Instant Roast: When an animal gets singed and ends up looking like the kind of roast that some humans eat.
• In One Ear, Out The Other: When something enters a character's ear and comes out of their other ear.
• Invisible Holes: Someone gets holes in their body that liquid pours out of when they drink, but the holes are invisible when they're not drinking.
• iSophagus: Somebody swallows a musical instrument and music comes from their body. Additionally, they can't speak while it's in their stomach/throat.
• Jaw Drop: A surprised character opens their mouth very wide.
• Juggling Dangerously: Juggling weapons or other dangerous things.
• Limited Wardrobe: Someone always wears the same outfit or nearly always.
• Lustful Melt: Melting due to sexual attraction.
• Matchlight Danger Revelation: One or more characters are in the dark, one lights a match and realizes that danger is nearby.
• Medium-Shift Gag: A cartoon character turns live-action/puppet/CGI/whatever.
• Mouse Hole: Mice live in perfectly round holes in a wall.
• Negative Continuity: Characters' relationships, homes, and time periods change with every short.
• No Knees: Animated characters' limbs lack joints such as knees or elbows.
• The Not Catch: Someone fails to catch a falling character.
• Ocular Gushers: Crying floods of tears.
• Off Like a Shot: A character striking a pose before running off.
• Overly Nervous Flop Sweat: A scared or nervous character sweats excessively.
• Packed Hero: A character in a factory ends up packaged into a box.
• Painted Tunnel, Real Train: Drawn-on tunnels work like real ones.
• Pain-Powered Leap: A character jumps impossibly high as a result of a literal pain in the butt.
• Pain to the Ass: Someone's butt gets hurt.
• Paper-Bag Popping: Blowing up a paper bag until it pops in order to wake a sleeping character.
• Piano Cover Slam: A character slams a piano cover on someone else's fingers.
• Piano Drop: A piano falls on the sky, usually onto something or somebody.
• Pie in the Face: Throwing a pie in someone's face.
• Pinball Gag: A joke scene where something or someone gets knocked around like a pinball.
• Plunger Detonator: A type of detonator with a plunger-like device on top.
• Polka-Dot Paint: A character paints a complicated pattern with a single brushstroke.
• Quaking with Fear: A character starts shaking due to being very afraid.
• Rapid-Fire Nail Biting: A nervous character bites their nails very quickly.
• Red Boxing Gloves: Goofy-looking, bright red boxing gloves.
• Red Live Lobster: Red uncooked crustaceans.
• Reaching Between the Lines: When one character is able to physically interact with another over the telephone.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Animated characters interacting with live-action people.
• Rubber Face: A common form of punishment that involves stretching a character's face on either side.
• Rubber Orifice: Cartoonishly stretchy bodily cavities (usually mouths).
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Characters chase each other through one door and exit through another, seemingly unconnected door.
• Slapstick: A comedy genre centered around Amusing Injuries.
• Something Else Also Rises: A Visual Innuendo for sexual arousal.
• Spit Take: Someone spits out their drink while they're surprised.
• Squashed Flat: A character is smashed into a pancake or flattened shape by something heavy.
• Stock Femur Bone: Most bones are straight with two bulbs at each end.
• Surprise Jump: A surprised character leaps unrealistically high.
• Surprisingly Super-Tough Thing: This thing will not break, no matter how or what method the character tries.
• Talking with Signs: Someone writes on signs instead of speaking.
• Telephone Teleport: Teleportation via phoning someone, then climbing out of the telephone.
• Too Gruesome for Cartoon Physics: Realistic Amusing Injuries.
• Toon: An animated, wacky character.
• Toon Physics: The laws of physics don't apply to cartoon characters.
• Toon Town: A place where cartoon characters live.
• Toon Transformation: A live-action character becomes a cartoon.
• Torso with a View: Someone's torso gets a hole through it but they're OK.
• Traveling-Pipe Bulge: When a character or thing travels through a pipe, the pipe bulges out.
• Typewriter Eating: Someone eats corn and it makes a typewriter noise.
• Unraveled Entanglement: A character gets tangled in something.
• Vacuum Mouth: A character inhales things with their mouth.
• Wackyland: An especially whimsical, surreal, or nonsensical area in a video game.
• Weight Taller: Someone becomes buff or fat, which makes them taller.
• Wheel o' Feet: When a character as running, a vertical upper body is perched on a rotating wheel of blur lines, which is animated in a loop.
• Wild Take: A ridiculously exaggerated shock response.
• Wingding Eyes: A character's eyes become symbols representing their current state of mind. (heart shape, dollar sign, etc.)
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: A character dies and their soul, which resembles an angel, flies upwards.
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: A character's mouth is removed.
• Wrong Parachute Gag: A falling character looks for a parachute and gets something that's not.
• Xylophone Gag: A xylophone has one exploding key.

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