Didnt See That Coming / Western Animation

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• One episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "Grounder the Genius", had the eponymous bumbling robot minion accidentally end up with Dr. Robotnik's stolen Super Genius Program in his head; he instantly transforms into an uber-chessmaster with enough smarts to incapacitate Sonic and decide that the bad doctor has no place in his own schemes for world domination. In the end, he has Sonic and Tails on the ropes with a lightning generator and announces that he's thought of every possible occurrence... except the one where fellow bumbling robot minion Scratch shows up trying to help and accidentally knocks his head off.
• Amphibia: After King Andrias was revealed to be Evil All Along in the Season 2 finale, it casted Anne, Marcy and Sasha's quest to get the Calamity Box's three gems recharged so they can go home in a whole new light: Andrias is revealed to come from a long line of galactic conquerors, and his goal was to get the box recharged which also resulted in the three girls losing their connections with them (as evidenced by the glow draining from their eyes as the gems get recharged), so they will be ineffective against him while he uses the power of the box to take over all worlds, even Earth. However, he didn't realize Anne only charged her gem halfway; thus she still retains her connection with her gem and gains a Super Mode so she can fight against Andrias.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Azula "miscalculated" one thing, possibly in her life: Mai's loyalty to Zuko.
  • In the Alternate Universe short "School Time Shipping", Zuko, understandably, utters this when Katara reveals her choice of date to the dance: the Blue Spirit, Zuko's alter ego.
  • Fire Lord Ozai faces a couple in the last episode: an Unknown Known Aang regaining control of the Avatar State and then and Unknown Unknown Energy Bending.
  • Korra has a habit of landing in the middle of #3. Because she has no information on her enemy (and very few means of getting it), every episode or two, her enemies pull out something she didn't know about and proceed to hit her with The Worf Effect. The most brutal example was when Tarrlok turned out to be not only a bloodbender, but able to bloodbend under any moon phase, something established to be impossible in the original series.
  • In Season 3 of Korra, there's an armless waterbender named Ming-hua who makes liberal use of Combat Tentacles. She and Mako are fighting in a cave and she has no water so she lures him down to a pool. However, Ming-hua made one big mistake, she didn't know he was able to generate lightning. Shockingly for her, by luring him down to the pool, she just gave him the opportunity to kill her. He gets clear of the pool and shoots it with lighting, killing her pretty much instantly.
• Ben 10: At the end of "Grudge Match", when their Enemy Mine has come to an end, Kevin immediately traps Ben and moves in for the kill. He taunts Ben by saying that, as his Evil Counterpart, he knows the abilities of all ten of Ben's aliens, and has most their powers at once, meaning Ben can't surprise, let alone defeat him. Ben responds by turning into his eleventh alien, Cannonbolt, and proceeds to wreck Kevin in under a minute.
• Discussed by Gin Rummy in The Boondocks episode "A Date with the Health Inspector". He talks about how there are "known unknowns" (things that we know that we don't know), and "unknown unknowns" (things that we don't know that we didn't know), in order to justify how the plan that they had to capture a killer was so far going badly.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Live It Up Tonight", the Tillermans sings a song version of called "I Did Not Account For This", where they didn't anticipate the problems they have. Molly didn't account for bats being apart of the tour and Cole running away in fear, Cole didn't account for how scary bats are, and Owen and Paige didn't account for their date night to turn into a mission to get a receipt for worms for an auditor because Elwood threw away the receipt after turning it into a temporary house for his pet worm.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Superman: The Animated Series:
    • In "Bizarro's World", Superman shows up wearing his Kryptonite-Proof Suit so that he can subdue Bizarro, his degenerated clone, with some Kryptonite. However, to his shock, Bizarro is immune to it, meaning that he isn't as genetically-similar to him as he anticipated.
    • In "Knight Time", Brainiac is surprised when he blasts who he thinks is Batman only for Superman to emerge from the resulting fireball, having taken on the guise of Batman with Bruce Wayne having gone missing (due to Brainiac kidnapping and brainwashing him for his plans). His reaction is typically understated:
      Brainiac: Kal-El. This development was highly improbable.
    • Likewise, in "Superman's Pal", Metallo's plan is thwarted because he didn't consider the Unknown Known of the hostage trying to help his intended victim.
  • Amanda Waller in Justice League Unlimited.
    Lex Luthor: Did you really think you could take me all by yourself?
    Amanda Waller: Actually, yeah. But on the off chance I might've been wrong...
    [the founding Leaguers have entered through the window]
    Flash: Ta-da.
  • Which is immediately followed by another one: It turns out that Brainiac is underneath Lex's suit. And skin.
  • Then, of course, there was the episode "Wild Cards". In the middle of Joker's bomb threat on Vegas being aired as a reality TV show, Batman manages to talk to Harley Quinn alone. He insinuates that Joker seems awfully close to Ace, the new henchgirl. Harley storms off toward her puddin' in a jealous rage, but not before throwing and landing a solid punch on Batman for enlightening her. Cue to a shot of Joker staring blankly at a television screen after the exchange is over.
    Joker: Have to admit, I didn't see that one coming...
• DuckTales (2017): When Scrooge finally revealed the truth about what happened to Della, he expected it to be a moment for the family to bond over their shared grief. As such, he's completely blindsided when the triplets proceed to blame him and his anger at the accusation keeps him from being able to properly explain himself.
• In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode, Boom Boom Out Goes the Ed, Ed says this after Eddy throw the TV remote at him for not realizing there's a blackout.
• In an episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has Bloo running against Mr. Herriman for the position of governing the house. This happens in response to Bloo's slander of simply saying "Herriman smalls like poo!"
  Herriman: But that's mudslinging! (gets mud thrown in his face) Should have seen that coming.
• The events of the first Futurama Christmas Episode lead Fry to lament, "I never thought it would end this way... gunned down by Santa Claus. Honestly, I didn't see it coming!"
• Gargoyles: Xanatos is the trope namer for the Xanatos Gambit and Xanatos Speed Chess, always knowing what pieces and events are in play and how certain people can be expected to react. But in "The Gathering" he was caught off guard during the fight with Oberon when Owen revealed he'd been Puck in disguise all along and reveals even minor Third Race powers can temporarily annoy or hurt Oberon.
• Storm Shadow expected a hard fought duel with Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe: Resolute but still felt he had the advantage of knowing most of their clan's most advanced skill, having already had the one person who knew the complete kata killed when he refused to pass it on to him. He didn't count on Hard Master passing it on to Snake Eyes in secret.
• In Harley Quinn (2019), Harley and Ivy go to Louisiana in search of Swamp Thing in order to find Ivy's companion Frank. In the four days they're gone from Gotham, the race for mayor goes completely crazy as the incumbent mayor is killed by Two-Face, the Joker enters the race against James Gordon to spite Debbie, an Obnoxious Entitled Housewife who is bullying his Hispanic girlfriend and her children, and ends up winning despite being the freaking Joker. When the two come back to Gotham and see that the Joker won, Ivy incredulously shouts out "We were gone for four days!"
• Happens quite a bit in Johnny Test, leading to many characters using this line.
• It was almost a Running Gag in Kim Possible how many bad guys would have Kim and/or Ron absolutely nailed to the wall, fail to account for Rufus chewing through their bonds or hitting the self-destruct for the Kill Sat, and then are absolutely stunned that their plans were foiled in the end. And they usually never learned otherwise no matter how many times it happened to the same villains. In an early episode Drakken did manage to spot Rufus in time to foil him (because a mind controlled Kim pointed it out) but he winds up underestimating Kim's brothers instead when he doesn't believe they have a portable version of a device that (as seen earlier in the episode) is normally the size of a refrigerator.
  • And then the villains in the Grand Finale face an awesome Unknown Unknown in the form of Ron's Mystical Monkey Power.
• In an episode of King of the Hill, Connie runs into the house sobbing and says that Bobby broke up with her^note Only not really, it's a ruse. Kahn's immediate response is "Wow, you just taught me the meaning of 'total surprise'."
• Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem: Just as the Metal Masked Assassin prepares to finally kill Dethklok and avenge his brother, Dethklok becomes empowered by the titular Doomstar, briefly turning them into physical gods. They promptly use their power to obliterate the Metal Masked Assassin, who dies in an explosion of gore. To say that he didn't see it coming is an understatement, as it goes far beyond anything he could've prepared for.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Applejack says this in "Swarm of the Century", when the voracious parasprites, instead of eating her apple crop, ate her barn instead.
  • The two things that Discord hadn't planned for were Celestia breaking Twilight out of her Heroic BSoD by sending her the letters her student had sent her the entire previous season and Twilight somehow reuniting her friends and breaking them out of Discord's Mind Rape so they could use the Elements Of Harmony to defeat him. The former is likely an Unknown Unknown he couldn't have expected and the latter is a Known Unknown: he knew about who was involved but hadn't foreseen how they could do anything to stop him at that point.
  • After Chrysalis's true form was revealed in front of Celestia and her plans explained, it was obvious that Celestia wasn't going to stay still about it. What wasn't obvious was that the queen of the Changelings had already gathered enough strength to beat the Princess. Not even Chrysalis expected that!
  • King Sombra seems to have a backup curse and/or trap for almost everything. Except a combination of Spike and a thrown-by-her-own-husband Princess Cadance.
  • Done heartbreakingly so in Twilight's Kingdom Part 2 when Discord turns against the other ponies and captures the Mane Six (save for Twilight). Discord mentions that they should have seen it coming, only for a heartbroken Fluttershy to admit she hadn't at all — she was so convinced her friendship with him was ironclad, she never thought he'd turn his back on her. This turns into an Ironic Echo when Discord himself is betrayed by Lord Tirek and Applejack tells him the same exact thing.
  • In The Ending of the End Part 1, when Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow put their plan into affect and rebel against Grogar, they use the Bewitching Bell against him to steal his powers...revealing that it was actually Discord in disguise.
    Tirek: That was unexpected.
• In the final story arc of Once Upon a Time... Space, both the Humanoids and the combined fleet of the Confederation of Omega were completely caught by surprise when The Precursors decided to show up and made a star go nova right as the Humanoid armada passed by. Goes close to Ass Pull, except one of the Precursors appeared saltuarily during the series to comfort Psi when she was in trouble, and the ship that shows in the final episode had already appeared in the first one and showed their technological superiority.
• The Owl House: In the second season finale, Luz offers Belos a deal to corroborate his story once he wipes out the witches in the Boiling Isles and returns to modern-day Earth, before asking to seal the deal with a shake of their hands. After seeing that she's not hiding anything on her other hand, Belos does shake her hand... before Luz uses her free hand to brand Belos with a coven sigil using a glove she had made invisible with glyph magic, making Belos vulnerable to the very same spell that is about to kill every other branded witch.
• Phineas and Ferb: Candace is hit with this in "Picture This"; her thought-to-be foolproof plan to bust her brothers for their photo transporter has her take a picture of Linda at the Mexican-Jewish Cultural Festival and use it to teleport Linda home so she's literally in the project. However, Candace didn't realize at the time Linda got teleported, she was blindfolded and swinging a bat to hit a piñata, and once she materializes back home, she starts running around the backyard nonstop trying to find the piñata, and everyone, including Candace herself, gets chased by her.
• This was one of Hunter's Catch Phrases in Road Rovers.
  • "Yet another unexpected twist."
    Hunter: I would NOT have predicted this!
    Colleen: Face it, Hunty. The Psychic Network, you're not...
• The Simpsons
  • The episode "Homie the Clown" has Homer unable to get the thought of Krusty's Clown College out of his head, even imitating the mashed potato scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (except he sculpts a circus tent) and seeing his family in clown makeup and waving ads. Eventually he stands up and declares "I'm tired of you people holding me back! I'm going to clown college!" Bart simply remarks, "I don't think any of us expected him to say that."
  • Invoked in the episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" where Bart and Milhouse get into a giant fight. Groping around for a weapon, Bart finds Milhouse's new Magic 8-Ball and clocks him upside the head with it. As he looks at the shattered hunk of plastic in his hand, Bart remarks "I bet [it] didn't see that coming."
  • In the episode "500 Keys", a secret Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner have been keeping for years is exposed due to Homer buying a returned wedding cake and Maggie locking herself in the car. Skinner says they'd planned for the cake, but not the baby. Chalmers insists he should have seen it coming, even though Maggie hadn't been born at the time.
  • In "Bart Gets An Elephant", Springfield's radio station KBBL is having a call-in contest where winners choose between either $10,000 in cash or a fully-grown African elephant. KBBL didn't have an elephant, as it was an obvious gag prize, and DJs Bill and Marty are horrified when Bart wins and wants the elephant instead of the $10,000. After briefly spinning into a scandal, Bill and Marty are threatened with giving Bart the elephant or losing their jobs, so they finally get an African elephant for Bart. This was inspired by an incident in the 1950s version of The Price Is Right, where contestant was told he had won an African elephant, and then told he could decide (later) whether to take a $4,000 cash substitute. The contestant – much like Bart did more than 35 years later – chose the elephant, and when legal and other threats arose, the producers complied.
  • In "Lisa's First Word", Krusty and his Fast food restaurant, Krusty Burger, holds a promotion during the 1984 Summer Olympics where they print game cards for different events and if the US won that event, customers can redeem the card for a free Krusty Burger. Krusty and his accomplices think they will get very rich since the game cards have been rigged to favor Communist countries that were good on those events. Unfortunately, they just learn the Soviet Union and other Communist countries have boycotted the Olympics, meaning those Communist-favored games will now be won by the US. Inspired by a true story (except for the rigging of the cards).
• Skull Island (2023): Irene telling Annie in "Terms of Endearment" that part of the reason why things went so badly on their first meeting before the series' start is that Irene and the Private Military Contractors she hired were, justifiably, not expecting Annie's Island to be an Isle of Giant Horrors before Dog showed up and attacked them while they were looking in his and Annie's den for Annie.
• In one South Park episode, when Kenny died, Stan didn't react the usual way. (i.e. shouting "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!") Instead, he said, "Well, who didn't see that coming?" Played straighter in another episode where the plot has already been resolved, and then in the last scene a giant bird busts through the ceiling and eats Kenny, prompting a flat "What the fuck?"
• In the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "Reflections", Petra, who is running the "Independent Archeologist Guild" booth, is trying to rile up Mariner so she can go on a rampage and use her as a distraction to find and retrieve the Grand Nagus' staff by urging others to mock her and Boimler. However, a group of outpost scientists approach the two and promptly mock their uniforms before one of them snatches Boimler's rank pip and toss it away and laugh in his face. This Rage Breaking Point moment causes Boimler to go completely apeshit, with Petra shocked it happened and wondering if things went too far. A little bit later, Ransom shows up to check on the two ensigns, only to find Boimler still on his rampage and Mariner doing the recruiting, confusing him as well.
• Star Wars Rebels:
  • In "Zero Hour", Grand Admiral Thrawn leads an assault on Atollon. Despite the incompetence of Konstantine, he succeeds in destroying the Rebel defenses, forcing their fleet to ground, and capturing their leaders at gunpoint. Unfortunately for him, he falls prey to an Unknown Unknown in the Bendu, who uses his immense Force powers to create a massive storm and rains lightning on everything in sight.
  • In "Family Reunion — and Farewell", Thrawn gets another Unknown Unknown. Ezra uses the Force to summon a herd of massive hyperspace-capable leviathans, who teleport Thrawn's ship, as well as Thrawn and Ezra, to parts unknown. Technically, it's an Unknown Known, since there are legends of these creatures all throughout space, but even if Thrawn had heard about the time they passed near an Imperial outpost, he couldn't have known that Ezra would be able to summon them.
• In an episode of The Super Hero Squad Show, shapeshifting mutant Mystique infiltrates the Squad as SHIELD agent Black Widow. The plan to get access to the heroes' store of plot devices almost works, but then villain Screamin' Mimi turns out to be undercover SHIELD agent Songbird. Doctor Doom just quietly observes "I didn't see that one coming" and flies away through the ceiling.
• In the second to last episode of Teen Titans (2003), during the Final Battle Jinx switches sides. Cyborg comments "Now that was unexpected". Control Freak nods in agreement while being pinned down by Cyborg.
  • In another episode, Robin's alternate-universe double Larry suddenly appears by splitting off from Robin's head. Raven reacts with this trope word for word.
• In an episode of ThunderCats, Mumm-Ra and the evil Mutants had succeeded in capturing ALL the Thundercats — except Snarf. When the Mutants discuss whether they should get him too, they all laugh at the notion that little, dorky Snarf could in any way possibly affect their plans now that they've essentially won. Little did they realize Snarf's talent for communicating with animals, as well as being so small and weak to be ignored to begin with, turned out to be their undoing.
• In Episode 7 of What If…? (2021), Uatu is about to declare that this universe's Thor (a hedonistic party animal that eventually learns to be responsible) ends up getting a happily ever after. Until a portal opens up and out comes Ultron's drones and Ultron, or rather, Vision wearing armor shaped like Ultron, and he has all six Infinity Stones. Uatu's reaction sums up that he had no idea this was going to happen.

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