How could she not notice that?
Neglecting to use basic powers of perception in western animation.
- Used very often in young children's programming, usually to teach the kids.
- A better example would be Blue's Clues, where the host does it, but gives off the impression that he does know it's there and is just doing it to teach the viewers.
- A worse example would be Dora the Explorer and Diego, who seem to legitimately not see the mountain on the horizon and come off as kind of stupid for it.
- Toned down a little in Blaze and the Monster Machines, as Blaze and AJ immediately answer the viewer's request and see the correct response.
- 50/50 Heroes: When Mo is turned into a giant, practically everyone is too distracted by their cellphones to notice. One of those distracted people is a woman whose walking doesn't lead her anywhere because she doesn't realize a tree is blocking her path.
- Adventure Time. Finn gets in trouble with a time and reality altering dungeon door. Opening and closing your eyes alters if one can walk through the door, what one sees or doesn't see behind it and whether time itself will dump Finn back at the door. Despite interacting with this door dozens of times and losing uncountable months to it, Finn consistently and constantly fails to notice the upside down stone snowman in front of the door. Despite at one point throwing part of the 'snow' man at the door itself. He does find a solution that in no way involves the faux-man.
- Parodied in the American Dad! episode "Faking Bad": Steve becomes a fake ID kingpin and Stan is tasked with tracking him down. Despite forming a profile that describes Steve to a T, creating a list of the kingpin's personal traits that form the acronym S.T.E.V.E. and angrily throwing his coffee mug against a board, only to have it form the shape of Steve's face, he doesn't conclude that Steve is involved. This is taken a step further when he opens the van that Steve had been using as a base of operations and doesn't notice the huge pile of counterfeiting equipment just slightly to his right. Steve explains later he used the power of misdirection (by conspicuously waving his arms around, which is only seen in the flashback).
- Amphibia: Despite that she's done her hair several times, and looked at her own reflection more than once, it isn't until season 2's "The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers" does Anne finally notice leaves are in her hair, questioning why nobody brought it up.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: At the end of "Interfection", the Wyzzerdd offers Frylock an opportunity to end his Pop-Up services with a Yes or No decision. Frylock immediately selects "No", but doesn't see the full prompt says "No, I need another 90 days to decide but I'm pretty sure I want this." Which leads to Wyzzerdd declaring that the Aqua Teens will own a lifetime service to occasionally draw from their bank account, forcing the trio to hide out in the wilderness until Wyzzerdd gives up on them.
- Beavis And Butthead: In "Drones", the military completely overlooks the antics of the titular duo when they access the drone control center. Even when one of the officers is about to get in, he gets distracted.
- Big City Greens: In the climax of "Quiet Please", Cricket finally finds a book his genre and enjoys it, but completely forgets the restriction against noise whilst doing so, thus alerting the Scary Librarian who sneaks up on him. Cricket is so engrossed in the book that he's completely oblivious to the librarian's presence right behind them — not even her shadow looming over — throughout the entire scene, especially when Bill pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and screams to save his life and lure her to him instead, and he is somehow loud enough for the librarian to hear, but not for Cricket.
- On Bunnicula, none of the human characters ever notice the supernatural goings-on.
- Cellbound has a prisoner digging a tunnel in his cell, while leaving a colossal mound of dirt right outside his window. Nobody ever notices.
- In "Flying Chip" from Chip and Potato, Potato triggers the X-ray machine at the airport, Potato being Chip's secret mouse, whom most everyone else believes is just a snuggly toy. The attendant, who appears to be a German Shepherd, sniffs Chip's bag, empties the contents, sniffs Potato in her snuggly form, shrugs, and puts the contents back in the bag, handing it to Chip.
- In the Danny Phantom episode "Maternal Instincts" while trying to escape Vlad's mansion Maddie completely ignores two Hummers, two ATV's and a freaking Helicopter while trying to find a phone. It's only after she tells Danny does she realize her mistake.
- In another episode, Danny gets too close to Samson, a rare, purple-backed gorilla who is one of the last of the species, and discovers that Samson is actually "a Delilah." With the knowledge of her actual gender meaning Delilah can mate with another gorilla to continue the species, Mr. Lancer asks how no one in that zoo bothered to check Delilah's biological attributes until Danny found out by accident.
- Happens to Darkwing Duck a lot. The best example is from "Just Us Justice Ducks"; Darkwing, searching the crime scene for clues to the location of Negaduck's hideout, is totally oblivious to the building in the background currently raising the giant flag with Negaduck's face on it, but easily spots a tiny bread crumb on the ground which he analyzes under a microscope and determines the hideout's location from that alone. Negaduck even planted the crumb there on purpose because he knew damn well DW wouldn't see the flag.
- The Dragon Prince: When Viren used his True Sight Serum to see past the illusions on the Dragon King's mirror, he stared so hard at the glass that he failed to notice that the frame was glowing purple.
- In the Doug episode, "Doug Door to Door", Doug has to sell Bluffscout Booster Bars to help fund the troop, but nobody likes the Booster Bars because "they taste like cement." When Mr. Swirly, who makes the chocolate bars caught wind of the situation, he rushed to his factory. No one at the factory seemed to notice there was a machine scooping cement from a cement mixer into a batch of chocolate. This had apparently been going on for at least a year as Doug mentions he couldn't sell them the year before either.
- In Duck Dodgers episode "The New Cadet", when Daffy finds out the woman taking The Cadet's place is an assassin who eliminates targets she falls in love with, he sneaks down into the engine room, walking by Porky who is tied up next to him. He only goes back for Porky after smelling his own sweat.
- DuckTales (2017):
- A darkly humorous version of this happens in the episode "Whatever Happened to Della Duck?!" Della is utterly exasperated by the realization that in the ten years she's spent trapped on the surface of the moon, she had never previously encountered either the moon civilization that resides there, nor the ridiculous amounts of gold that they own (which is necessary for her ship to function). Even though she dedicated four of those years specifically to exploring the dusty rock for anything that could help her get back home. Semi-justified as said civilization deliberately hid themselves underground and didn't have much reason to go to the surface where Della was.
- Scrooge somehow completely failed to notice that Violet and Lena had come along on the trip to Istanboar in "The Split Sword of Swanstantine!" until after they had already arrived.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: While not on screen, this trope has to be in effect during this exchange in "Who, What, Where, Ed!".
- Extreme Ghostbusters: Most of the people of New York scoff at the existence of ghosts despite the incidents that happened in the original series and the paranormal activity in the present day. It’s even further dumbfounding because Slimer is actual floating proof.
- Happens often on Family Guy. A notable example occurs in season 2 episode "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar" when Lois and Peter go to a timeshare presentation for a boat. The presenter failed to notice that over half his slides showing an ogre terrorizing the island's occupants until he heard the crowd's response, after which he tries to hurriedly proceed through all the slides showing the ogre ripping people in half and chasing them across the island, finally getting to a normal slide and following up with a Suspiciously Specific Denial.Timeshare Presenter: ...No city noise. No flesh-eating ogres. No pollution.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Hard Copy", Timmy somehow doesn't realize that Flipsy the Flipping Dog has to be turned on in order for him to flip, something Dark Laser immediately takes notice of once he takes Flipsy for himself.
- Fireman Sam: In "Castles in the Air", Elvis' cousin Jerry Lee is subbing at the fire station for Penny. Station Officer Steele not only never heard about this substitution until he arrived at the fire station, but thinks Elvis is magically in two places at once, even though Jerry Lee's blonde hair and eyebrows are clearly visible and he's wearing a completely different outfit.
- In an episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, after Bloo starts hanging with a new kid called Barry, Mac goes on a sugar rush and being fed up with getting ignored storms towards Barry's mansion. He rapidly looks through the house finding pictures of an entirely different family without Barry, even finding the family from the pictures Bound and Gagged in a closet to dismiss them cause he's looking for Bloo.
- Happens in the Futurama episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", as Bender is talking smack about their new boss Morgan; Leela and Fry are making shushing motions, and he says, "Uh oh, is she behind me?" Morgan replies with, "No, I'm in front of you!" and Bender squeaks like a mouse.
- A truly egregious example in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "Pit of Vipers." The Pentagon buys Watchdog, a special computer program from Dr. Hamler. It turns out to be a Cobra plot that nearly ruins the Joes. At the episode's end, their head General notes Dr. Hamler's "credentials were impeccable" and the Pentagon believed him. Flint dryly states the Pentagon should have checked closer to find out the real Dr. Hamler died in 1978.
- Invader Zim runs on this. Even characters like Dib, who are usually pretty perceptive, can fail to notice obvious things; for example, in "Tak, the Hideous New Girl", Zim plants a "tracking device" on Dib... which is just Gir clinging on to the back of Dib's head. Somehow he doesn't notice the weight.
- On an episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes where Jimmy is stuck flying a plane, Heloise tells him over the radio not to press the big pink button. It's right in front of him, and bigger than he is, yet he comments that he missed it.
- Happens often on Johnny Bravo.
- One time, Johnny became a reporter and wandered the streets trying to find a story, somehow not noticing a fire, a UFO, a goofy old man dancing, and a cow wearing a dress.
- He was once challenged to find a rhinoceros in a room. He failed to notice it sitting on the sofa even after he lifted it to look under it. The rhino then beat him up and left. Johnny called out to it, asking where the rhino was, indicating he didn't know what a rhino looked like in the first place.
- One time, he became a mall cop, but kept ignoring a burglar who was robbing the place to focus on other stuff.
- Justice League: In "Wild Cards", the Joker informs the people that he has planted bombs all around the Vegas Strip and challenges the Justice League to find and disarm them while fighting off the Royal Flush Gang. Everyone in the area evacuates, except for an old woman who continues to play at a slot machine. The Joker even asks her why she is not running away, and she says the slot machine is bound to pay off sometime. She is repeatedly shown playing the slot machine and not noticing the battles going on around her.
- Kenny and The Chimp: After Kenny is infected with Salmonella, the operator help-line tells him the cure for it is by simply licking a chimp. Kenny ponders where he could find a chimp to lick on a Saturday, and asks his pet Chimpy where he could find one.
- The Kids from Room 402: Vinnie tries to enter a science fair with a project his brother Tony had previously entered in a previous fair and, unlike other times he tried to pass Tony's previous works as his own, he checked if Ms. Graves was Tony's teacher back then. As Vinnie learns when Ms. Graves reveals it, she was a judge at the previous fair and wrote "Good work, Tony" on the back of the project.
- Kim Possible:
- Ron Stoppable repeatedly fails romantic spot checks in relation to himself, with Tara the cheerleader and Yori the ninja Action Girl. He failed to recognize their interest despite being kissed by them, Yori twice in one episode.
- In "Bad Boy", Jack Hench fails to notice that two of the "villains" attending his Hench Co. villains' convention are actually Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable in disguise, even after knowing of their work and getting them to help him previously in "Ron the Man", and even after analyzing footage from a fight between Kim, Ron, Drakken and Shego. He even tries to sell Ron a tank.
- In the King of the Hill episode "Returning Japanese," the Hills stay at a luxurious hotel, except they completely missed the fact that a sliding door was barring the way into the actual room and end up thinking that the entrance was the whole room. They find out too late on their last day about the room with a bowl full of rotting fruit welcoming them in.
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- In "Dark Cupid", Adrien gushes about a masked superheroine's "hair dark as night" and "bluebell eyes", yet never considers that his classmate, mild-mannered Marinette has exactly the same traits and a habit of disappearing whenever an akuma attacks. The show milks this for all the comedy it's worth.
Adrien: Eyes as blue as...
[Marinette cranes around to look at him]- In "Mr. Pigeon", Chloé hires someone to make a derby hat from the design she stole from Marinette, and they did so perfectly. Including Marinette's signature.
- Molly of Denali:
- In "Cry Wolf," Molly asks the Kratts if wolves sleep outside when they travel, or if they stay inside caves. The brothers somehow didn't notice the cave right behind them.
- In "It Came From Beyond," Molly and Trini read online that they can get rid of vetch flowers by using a weed whacker. They failed to notice the part where it says "Weed whack before the vetch flowers or the seeds will spread." Because of this, the vetch flowers spread their seeds and grow new flowers in the process.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In the episode "Call of the Cutie", Apple Bloom is apparently distressed enough about being the last girl in her class to get a cutie mark that she briefly fails to notice that she's in the middle of a giant party.
- And in "Feeling Pinkie Keen", Twilight is too busy gloating about how right she is to see the four hundred-foot-long hydra necks that are right next to her.
- In the historical pageant from "Hearth's Warming Eve", the three rulers of the pony races all get through speeches claiming the future land of Equestria as their new home... before realizing the other two are nearby. Which is kind of a subversion when you consider scale. One is on the side of a mountain, another in the valley, and the third is on top of a cloud. Justified by it being a dramatic recreation for a play.
- In "Secret of My Excess" Zecora and Twilight are so immersed in a discussion of Spike's recent kleptomania problem that they fail to notice him stealing literally everything from Zecora's shack.
- Twilight is pretty bad about this. In "It's About Time", she tries to break into the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the castle. At one point, she despairs over how to find it, while pacing around right in front of it, before Pinkie Pie suggests that they ask someone in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing.Twilight Sparkle: Huh, how did I miss that?
- The same episode has a parody of it with the library guards; they spotted her instantly but didn't say anything because she's allowed to be there and they're playing along. One of them ends up letting them into the above wing when they see her trying to get in.
- "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" gives "Sonic Rainboom" a justified example with Billy and Hoops: they said there was no such thing as a sonic rainboom despite having been in a race that produced one. However, seeing as at the moment it happened one was spinning out of control and the other painfully ensconced in a pillar, they would have needed Critical Success on their spot checks to notice it.
- "The Mean Six" is probably the textbook definition of this trope — The Mane Six get separated on a camping trip and encounter negative counterparts made by Queen Chrysalis, but they don't realize the differences of the clones (disaturated manes/tails, incorrect cutie marks, opposite behavior) and assume their actual friends have gone bad, which causes a rift amongst them until Twilight resolves it. The only one who saw through this deception was the Tree of Harmony, as the Elements quickly recognize the clones as fake and the Tree defends itself by destroying them.
- The Owl House:
- Luz's mother Camila somehow completely overlooked the fact that Vee misspelled Luz's name in her letters while posing as her at summer camp.
- In "Edge of the World", it's revealed that Flora D'splora wrote a book on the last surviving titan yet was completely obvious to the fact that she had been in the same room as him five episodes earlier. This actually ends up saving everyone's lives in the long run, since if she had alerted Belos of King's true nature, the latter never would have survived long enough to get the Collector to stop the Draining Spell.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- In "The Bare Facts" is filmed from the Mayor's POV until the very end. The Mayor is kidnapped and blindfolded, but is rescued by the girls, who laugh at him. He asks why they laughed, and they tell the story of how they got there, but leave without explaining. It is only at the end that the camera zooms out to reveal the Mayor is naked.
- The girls fail to notice they're being followed by a tank, a bunch of Wacky Racer-esque cars, and Professor Utonium while they're searching for the MacGuffin of "The Powerpuff Girls Rule".
- Phineas and Ferb:
- A lot of the big ideas that the boys invent can be easily seen from a far enough distance, and yet, their mother does not even notice them. An example of this would be the first episode "Rollercoaster"; when the boys crash into the tree and fall out to safety, the coaster train can be easily seen in the flaming branches, but somehow neither Linda or Candace ever noticed.
- Done thrice "The Fast and the Phineas":
- Candace is briefly hit with this in when she snaps a picture of Phineas racing with the photographer's camera, moments after she herself was photographed while covered with ash, and she can only take home one or the other. Candace doesn't think to look the pictures over before deciding which one to take home, instead quickly grabbing the nearest photo and rides off without even checking the picture before reaching Linda; as it turns out, Candace took the picture of herself instead of Phineas', and lets out quite The Scream in reaction.
- When Candace switches on the Garcia-Shapiro's TV in time to see Phineas win the Swamp Oil 500, Linda somehow does not hear the TV announce his win despite being nearby in the next room.
- After all the modifications get taken off the car by the car wash, Perry hits the Big Red Button on the remote which blasts it up into space before falling back down and crashing into the Flynn-Fletcher's garage, allowing Linda to see the washed car and assume the boys washed it to her delight; since the car crashed in through the roof, there should be a hole in the ceiling where it crashed, and somehow Linda and Candace did not see it.
- In "Mommy Can You Hear Me?", Linda does not even see the boys' stratospheric ionizer because she's wearing headphones and listening to Lawrence's soundscapes at his request, while she is gardening.
- Both Candace and Linda are hit with this in "Atlantis" when the boys rise the lost city to the surface world; Jeremy sees this and dubs her the winner of the contest, but neither of them turn around, not even when it sinks back underwater, Candace thinking he meant their poorly made castle.
- In "The Lizard Whisperer" when Candace tries to show Linda the frozen yogurt machine, neither of them somehow noticed the gigantic footprint of Steve before them. Linda also doesn't see Steve's shadow when he turned invisible from Candace freaking out.
- In "The Doof Side of the Moon" when Linda was coming home, she strangely does not even see the gigantic building from the streets despite being gigantic enough to be noticeable.
- Lampshaded in "Mom's in the House"; when Linda looks out the window, she only sees a fence and not the Perry-tronic, leaving Candace to wonder, "How could she not notice that?!" This is because Linda was in a duplicate of the Flynn-Fletcher house created by Doofenshmirtz's Duplicate-Inator-2.
- Ready Jet Go!: Carrot when he removes the spigot valve from the lemonade machine in "Astronaut Ellen Ochoa". Lemonade ends up flowing everywhere, but luckily, Sunspot serves lemonade to the neighborhood cats.
- Rick and Morty: An utterly depressing variant happens in "Auto Erotic Assimilation"; while Rick languishes unconscious in the garage after attempting suicide, not a single person comes to check on him, even though he's in there for a full day. The sheer isolation of that is bad enough, but it only gets worse when Jerry is literally out there in front of the garage, but is too absorbed in weed whacking to even turn around and see.
- Samurai Jack: In Episode XXXIV: Jack and the Swamp Wizard, Aku (disguise as a Swamp Wizard tricks Jack into gathering the Parts of Cronus that will supposedly send Jack back in time when in Reality, he planned to used them to destroy Jack. The Moment he brings Cronus to live to destroy, the Eye of Cronus is missing and when Cronus is about to finished off Jack, one of Cronus' Gauntlets comes flying off and Aku wonders how could it fly off. Only for Jack to reveal he took it and became aware of his scheme the whole time. When seeing it, Aku begins to notice its not in the Helmet because without, Cronus will collide.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Homer asks the director of the Shelbyville Orphanage where his long-lost brother lives.Director: Your brother could be anywhere. Even... Detroit.
Homer: I know he could be anywhere, that's why I want you to narrow it down! Please!
Director: You know, Mr. Simpson, if you ask me, the city of brotherly love isn't Philadelphia, it's ... Detroit.
Homer: Well, if you asked me, changing the subject makes you the most worthless, heartless excuse for a human being I ever...
Director: Read between the lines, Mr. Simpson!
Homer: Oh, I get it! Okay. Here's twenty bucks. Now will you tell me where my brother lives?
Director: Mr. Simpson, I don't want your—
Homer: Just take it and tell me!
Director: Detroit. He lives in Detroit.
Homer: Fine! Thank you! - The episode "'Round Springfield" has a double-whammy of this. Lisa is talking to her mentor Bleeding Gums Murphy in the hospital while Dr. Hibbert is taking his blood pressure. Sadly, neither of them get the hint. (And Murphy passes away later the same episode.)Murphy: I don't really have a family... All I had was a younger brother who grew up to be a doctor. He used to laugh at the most inappropriate times.
Hibbert: Ah, heh, heh, heh! You know, I have an older brother I'll never see again... He's a... jazz musician or something... - Another example is Moe, who can never recognize Bart's voice when he actually sees him, despite the headaches he has gotten from all of Bart's crank calls. He came close in one early episode, and the point was driven home with this exchange, and Moe still didn't get it:Moe: [lightheartedly] Bet you've been gettin' on a lot of trouble, eh?
Bart: Well... I've made a few crank calls... - In "Children of a Lesser Clod", Ned Flanders has Homer babysit his sons so he can go to a "Christian rock concert". A close-up shot of his ticket shows that he's actually going to a Chris Rock concert. Even when he gets home he's clueless; as he tells Homer, "You know, it's strange, I've never heard a minister use the M-F word so much..."
- In "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Homer asks the director of the Shelbyville Orphanage where his long-lost brother lives.
- Sofia the First:
- In the special "The Floating Palace", Sofia encounters a sea monster with wavy hair and is mysteriously magical, who has taken Oona hostage and demands her comb. For an odd reason, Sofia doesn't recognize the "sea monster" is Cedric in disguise, despite having his voice and several features.
- Taken to extremes in the episode "Cedric Be Good". When Sofia is out of sight, Cedric has the amulet's jewel in his possession and a good deed makes him become a giant with a voice so loud that everyone can hear him, and yet Sofia never notices, despite being in the background when this happened. It isn't until he shrinks that she does come back, and she acts like she didn't suspect anything.
- South Park:
- In "The Coon", Cartman poses as a superhero. When he reports his findings to the police, he "disappears" while talking to them, only to reveal that he is now on the other side of the room. They lose track of him again moments later when he moves back to his original position. Seconds after that, they once again can't find him, until he announces that he's about one foot to the left of where he had been.
- In the season 3 episode "Succubus", there's a Running Gag of Chef's parents telling stories of the Loch Ness Monster's increasingly ridiculous attempts to get them to give him tree-fiddy note . One such story involves the monster dressing up as a Girl Scout selling cookies. Chef's parents don't recognize him... at first.Chef's Dad: Well it was about that time that I noticed this "Girl Scout" was about eight stories tall and was a crustacean from the Paleozoic Era.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
- The police and citizens somehow mistake Morbius for Spider-Man, even though they look nothing alike. As a result, Spider-Man gets blamed for Morbius' attacks.
- Tombstone raids Aunt May's house looking for photos that prove Alisa Silvermane is a criminal. Peter's spare costume is hanging up in the darkroom, but luckily Tombstone doesn't think of turning to his right during the search.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", SpongeBob and Patrick can't seem to tell each other's voices apart from Squidward's in the bubblegram scene. Granted, this IS SpongeBob and Patrick we're talking about here, but still.....
- Played for laughs in "Home Sweet Pineapple" where SpongeBob, having lost his home to pineapple-eating nematodes, tries to stay with Squidward for the night, and the latter takes at least half a minute to notice that SpongeBob's in his house. Justified in that it was the middle of the night, Squid was half-asleep and he must have thought he was dreaming the whole thing.
- In "Dying For Pie", upon entering Mr. Krabs' office, SpongeBob instantly took notice of the pie on his desk, ignoring the huge hole in the wall.
- In "Selling Out", turns out customers can see the sludge in the Krabby O' Mondays synthetic patties by taking a bite and noticing such, but they fail to do so, probably because the restaurant's atmosphere and TVs are distracting them.
- In "Banned in Bikini Bottom" after Mr. Krabs opens a secret Krusty Krab at SpongeBob's house, Mr. Krabs scans the whole restaurant to see if the coast is clear of any police; for some reason, he completely fails to notice Plankton, despite him entering the restaurant a few moments before.
- In "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful" when Squidward comes home in a good mood after SpongeBob takes his trash away, he doesn't seem to notice until too late that his house has somehow turned into garbage; turns out SpongeBob put the trash under Squidward's real house because the dump was closed.
- Twice in the infamous "A Pal for Gary", both of which are not Played for Laughs. First, SpongeBob fails to notice that Gary has been acting strange since he brought Puffy Fluffy home, instead assuming Gary is ignoring or being mean to the new pet for no reason. Then when he sees the creature in its beast form, he tells Gary to put Puffy Fluffy down, not even realizing his snail is in near-fatal danger right before him.
- In "Chatterbox Gary" when SpongeBob begins hearing unforeseen orders from Gary's Translator Collar in the middle of the night, he completely fails to realize the collar has been swapped out with an obvious knockoff, given the speaker has been replaced by a walkie talkie, and he also fails to realize the collar somehow works without Gary meowing to activate. Justified as he was half-asleep upon being woken up and was too weary to notice the difference.
- In "Jolly Lodgers", Squidward decides to check into a hotel while his house is being rid of a sea urchin infestation by SpongeBob and Patrick; however, it turns out SpongeBob and Patrick were staying at the same hotel as his, because the hotel was hosting a jellyfishing convention — something SpongeBob and Patrick obsessively love — as told by the banner on the front of the hotel exterior which Squidward somehow didn't notice upon checking in.
- In "Sportz?" when SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally receive a package of sporting equipment meant for Sandy, they don't bother to look at the label on the box to see who the package is for.
- In Star Trek: Lower Decks Tendi always happens to be looking the other way when "The Dog", her attempt to create a dog from scratch, does something bizarre or horrifying, leading to her protests as it's shipped off to a facility for scientific anomalies. This is subverted at the end when it turns out she was fully aware of its abilities, she just thought it was normal for dogs.Tendi: But normal dogs hover and spit lightning right?Boimler: No, none of that!Tendi: Oooh, well then this is starting to make a lot more sense.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- "Mystery of a Thousand Moons": Upon landing on Iego, Anakin disembarks from the Twilight and sees — strangely brightly painted — battle droids approaching. He destroys eighteen of them before he notices they aren't attacking since they're Jaybo's modified and reprogrammed droids that have been serving as a welcoming party. Obi-Wan, of course, has something snarky to say about it.Obi-Wan: Very impressive. You just destroyed seventeen defenseless battle droids without suffering a scratch!
Anakin: [another droid falls in two] Eighteen, actually. - "A Distant Echo": On his holo-call with Padmé, Anakin fails to notice that his usually-slender wife is somewhat thicker in the waistline than usual and is resting her hands on her stomach. She has to spell out that she's pregnant for him on their next in-person meeting in Revenge of the Sith.
- "Mystery of a Thousand Moons": Upon landing on Iego, Anakin disembarks from the Twilight and sees — strangely brightly painted — battle droids approaching. He destroys eighteen of them before he notices they aren't attacking since they're Jaybo's modified and reprogrammed droids that have been serving as a welcoming party. Obi-Wan, of course, has something snarky to say about it.
- Star Wars Resistance: Early in "Signal from Sector Six", a half-asleep Kaz goes to the caf machine and presses a button several times, assuming it must be broken again when it won't pour. Tam walks over, shoves him aside, and presses the correct button before stealing his mug.
- Steven Universe:
- "Nightmare Hospital": Nobody at the hospital notices that a pair of "car accident victims" are moaning inhuman organ-less abominations consisting entirely of malformed gargantuan hands in the vague shape of a human body rather than, well, car accident victims until they get out of their hospital beds and start acting like zombies. Not even when trying, and failing, to find a heartbeat in the clearly-moving body.
- Earlier in the episode, Priyanka doesn't notice Rose Quartz's sword and uses it as a coat rack when she comes home and sees Connie and Steven. At least until she realizes their home doesn't have a coat rack, after which she rightfully freaks out.
- "Catch and Release":
- As Steven prepares to go to bed, he fails to notice that the "ominous triangle at the foot of [his] bed" isn't actually supposed to be there, moments before Peridot kidnaps him.
- When Peridot runs out of the Crystal Temple and into Steven's house during her escape attempt, she blithely jogs right over the warp pad.
- During her myriad attempts to escape from Steven's bathroom, including trying to flush herself down the toilet, Peridot fails to notice the window above the toilet.
- During the Zoo arc, where the Crystal Gems travel to space to rescue a kidnapped Greg, the being in charge of the institution fails to notice that Pearl and Amethyst are wearing unusual outfits for characters supposedly working for Blue Diamond.
- "Legs From Here to Homeworld":
- Centipeetle is so happy to see Steven and the Chaaaaps he brought her to eat that she initially doesn't notice Blue and Yellow Diamond standing in front of her. Only when Steven talks to the Diamonds does Centi notice them, causing her to do a Jaw Drop.
- When Steven takes everyone to Rose's dump in the desert in search of Pink Diamond's spaceship, he goes on about they'll have to split up and search around the two pink "pyramids" to find it. As he does so, everyone stares blankly at the "pyramids", which are clearly Pink's spaceship, specifically its knees as it's shaped like a pair of legs.
- "Nightmare Hospital": Nobody at the hospital notices that a pair of "car accident victims" are moaning inhuman organ-less abominations consisting entirely of malformed gargantuan hands in the vague shape of a human body rather than, well, car accident victims until they get out of their hospital beds and start acting like zombies. Not even when trying, and failing, to find a heartbeat in the clearly-moving body.
- Stick Girl: In the episode "Activism", the police who are interrogating Stick Girl about who smashed a lab and freed all the bunnies inside don't seem that interested in the fact that she's currently sitting inside a BULLDOZER.
- In the "Ballad of Scary Mary" episode of Sym-Bionic Titan, Mary fails to notice the girls laughing at her as the popular guy asks her out, then fails to notice the guy doing the same moments later. Justified, because unpopular Mary was clearly having the typical I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me reaction.
- The Transformers:
- While it is somewhat forgivable given the nature of the show involving robots in disguise, a number of characters in the course of the show manage to fail an astounding number of spot checks. One instance which is so ludicrous as to be hilarious involves Soundwave, already a notoriously sneaky Decepticon infiltration expert and intelligence officer... managing to hide inside Ironhide while the Autobot is in vehicle mode. Soundwave spends a good amount of time next to Blaster, his Autobot counterpart, who is also in tape player mode. Neither Autobot notices Soundwave until he decides to eject Ravage... and even then, Soundwave manages to sneak away. This astounding lack of perception carries over to the commercials as well, where in an amusing inversion of the norm (with people unwittingly carrying Soundwave into a secure location), Rumble struts back into Decepticon HQ carrying a radio he found. Soundwave, being wise to his own brand of tricks, immediately deduces the nature of the radio. Rumble... is a little slower on the uptake.Rumble: Hey, look at this radio I found!
Soundwave: Autobot intruder!
Rumble: Where?
Blaster: [transforms on Rumble's shoulder, and kicks him aside] Here! - The human characters aren't much better. In the infamously dumb episode "B.O.T.", the teen protagonists don't seem to notice that the building they're standing nearby is engulfed in flames and surrounded by a fire brigade until they hear a scream.
- While it is somewhat forgivable given the nature of the show involving robots in disguise, a number of characters in the course of the show manage to fail an astounding number of spot checks. One instance which is so ludicrous as to be hilarious involves Soundwave, already a notoriously sneaky Decepticon infiltration expert and intelligence officer... managing to hide inside Ironhide while the Autobot is in vehicle mode. Soundwave spends a good amount of time next to Blaster, his Autobot counterpart, who is also in tape player mode. Neither Autobot notices Soundwave until he decides to eject Ravage... and even then, Soundwave manages to sneak away. This astounding lack of perception carries over to the commercials as well, where in an amusing inversion of the norm (with people unwittingly carrying Soundwave into a secure location), Rumble struts back into Decepticon HQ carrying a radio he found. Soundwave, being wise to his own brand of tricks, immediately deduces the nature of the radio. Rumble... is a little slower on the uptake.
- Transformers: Animated: the Cybertron Elite Guard completely fail to notice a pair of hulking Decepticons bypass their ship's force field by digging a very short tunnel under it (both openings of which are clearly visible from the ship itself) and then ripping off their tachyon transmitter. Even though there's still a pair of gaping holes right by the ship, they have no idea that they've been robbed until several episodes later when they try to use the transmitter and realize it's gone.
- In the Winnie the Pooh cartoon episode "Grown But Not Forgotten", while the gang is trying to build a house for Christopher Robin (It Makes Sense in Context), Rabbit finds Tigger and Gopher attempting to "[put] the roof on the garage"... only they've neglected to build the garage first and somehow failed to notice. It's not until Rabbit points it out that they realize they're actually just constructing a roof on stilts with no structure underneath.Gopher: By dinghy, I knew we forgot something. (roof collapses)
- In the eighth episode of the second season of Winx Club, a monster sent to attack Red fountain is meant as a distraction while the Trix search for the codex. Realizing this, Saladin and Cordatorta bring several guards to the codex room in case the Trix find it. If any of them had looked behind them, they would've seen that Icy was following them.
- Work It Out Wombats!:
- In "Snout Wash Day," Malik has to wash Snout. The second step on the instructions for how to wash Snout was to put soap into the tub, but because Malik spilled the soap onto the instructions, he didn't put soap into the tub, which is why Snout is still dirty after being washed.
- The episode "Hopping Helpers" has Gabriela lose her glasses, but they were on top of her head the whole time.
- In the very first episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, Jubilee fails to notice the Sentinel hiding behind two very small trees. Because you know how easily purple and red blend in with the green of nature.
