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  • Adventure Time: Happens to the Earl of Lemongrab in "Too Young" when he gets fed Bubblegum's incredibly spicy cleaning potion.
  • Lampshaded in American Dragon: Jake Long where after eating some super spicy fries, Jake has to breathe fire to cool his mouth down! Back in Season 1, a random human sees Jake breathing fire while in human form and thinks he got it from eating spicy food.
  • Amphibia:
    • In "Best Fronds", after Hop Pop insists that Anne and Sprig stay home, Sprig suggests that they have some fun by tasting Hop Pop's "pain peppers". He starts breathing fire about a second after merely touching his tongue to one. He later uses it against the lake serpent to induce the same effect.
    • In "Lost in Newtopia", Anne talks about how her mother refused to let her eat any spicy food out of concern that her childhood diet of American food would mean her stomach wouldn't be able to handle it. Anne ends up proving her mom right when she and Polly spew flames after consuming burritos made with fire ants later in the episode.
    • In "All In," Captain Grime takes a bite out of ThaiGo's spicy food shortly after his stomach growls, causing him to expel fire out of his mouth. Hop Pop offers him some water.
    Grime: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! I'M DYING!!!!!!
    Hop Pop: Here, Grime, have some water.
  • Semi-invoked in Avatar: The Last Airbender. When Iroh attempts to teach Zuko lightning bending, they start off with tea.
    Iroh: To perform the technique requires peace of mind.
    Zuko: I see. That's why we're drinking tea. To calm the mind.
    Iroh: (Beat) ... Oh yeah, good point!
    • Why do I say semi-invoked? Second season finale...
      Iroh: Did I ever tell you how I got the nickname the "Dragon of the West?"
      • Because after he's chugged a whole cup of tea, he can breathe enough fire to overfill a good-sized room. That's right, tea is a Fire Breathing DinNer for Iroh!
  • In the first episode of Back at the Barnyard, the animals' Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Snotty Boy gives them personal pizzas full of hot sauce, causing all of them to breathe fire. The exception is Pip, who being Spanish has a resistance to spicy foods and calls the others lightweights.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head get a taste of this trope by eating tacos seasoned with "Mexican death sauce" in the Missing Episode "Way Down Mexico Way".
  • In the first episode of Bordertown, Pepito sneaks a pair of red chili peppers into Bud's taco at J.C's graduation party, and Bud immediately starts spewing flames...from both his mouth and his anus. He gulps down a bottle of water, only for the water to pour out his ass from the damage the fire did.
  • The result of eating the super-hot chilies in the Camp Lakebottom episode "High Plains Garbage Eater".
  • Happens more than once in CatDog:
    • In a high-quality restaurant, Dog eats the sample chili peppers which cause Cat to belch out flames. This catches his dream-interest who happened to be in the restaurant, whom he entertains by fire-broiling her steak. This backfires later when he accidentally turns her pet dog into ashes.
    • When CatDog get trapped in the reality of their favorite movie, Cat pours Dog's favorite candy snack, Red Hot Lip Smackers, into his mouth and uses him as a pistol to burn the enemy starships.
    • A major problem for Cat whenever Dog uses too much hot sauce on his tacos. Because they're conjoined, the hot sauce passes from Dog's stomach to his, causing him to belch fire out of his mouth.
  • In an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers does this intentionally during his match with Kenny G., he eats some peppers (red, naturally), which turns his breath into a flamethrower.
  • Chowder once ate a bushelful of hot peppers that caused him to breathe fire every time he opened his mouth. He had to live with fire-breathing dragons until the effect wore off.
    Mung Daal: Chowder, look what you've done! Now the animators are gonna have to draw all this fire!
  • Classic Disney Shorts: An early example comes in the Walt Disney cartoon Donald's Nephews (1938), when Huey, Dewey, and Louie feed Donald Duck a slice of pie that's been filled with Volcano Brand Mustard.
  • In Codename: Kids Next Door, the candy-obsessed Heinrich von Marzipan eats some caramel made from someone else's most valued quality (It Makes Sense in Context) only to shriek in pain when it sets his mouth aflame.
  • Darkwing Duck suffers this more than once. In "Can't Bayou Love" he tries some brownies, which make him belch fire out of his mouth. Same goes to him in "Comic Book Capers", where he drinks some lemonade, making him breathe fire. Then in "Bad Luck Duck", when he eats a burger with hot peppers, which makes him breathe fire a bit. Also in "Monsters-R-Us", where he eats some Transylvanian goulash, which makes him breathe fire.
  • Happens in one episode of Dexter's Laboratory, when Monkey eats some lava, thinking it is candy, making him breathe fire. This episode was a parody of Speed Racer, so the cartoon logic is even looser than normal.
  • DuckTales (1987): Stay away from Scrooge's chili! In "Ducks of the West", Scrooge cooks up a potful. It turns everybody who eats it (aside from Scrooge) into a Fire-Breathing Diner. Scrooge's unintentional victims then head to a nearby horse trough to cool out their mouths.
  • Other metaphors are used in Ed, Edd n Eddy when the trio tastes Eddy's Brother's Armenian secret hot sauce. Ed's head resembles a burnt match, Edd has steam come from his ears and under his hat, and Eddy's hairs act as fuses for his head to explode.
  • Shockingly doesn't happen too often in Extreme Dinosaurs, given how much they like Mexican food. One time T-Bone chugs a jar of hot peppers and smoke streams out his nostrils, and even after he stops smoking his breath is still hot enough to melt ice.
  • The Fairly OddParents!:
    • In "Nectar of the Odds", when Timmy is trying to see which secret ingredient he should use in his lemonade, the second cup he drinks is made with taco sauce, which makes him breathe fire briefly.
    • In "The Good Ol' Days", Timmy introduces his grandfather to pizza, but one bite sets his tongue on fire.
  • No literal fire, but Family Guy did an episode where Peter takes stupid dares for $10, and the first one involves drinking a shot glass of hot sauce. Immediately after drinking, Peter sees visions of an inferno, a volcano eruption, and the Carneval in Rio.
    Peter: That last one was more "caliente" than "hot", but still HOLY CRAP!!
  • In the Tex Avery cartoon, Garden Gopher, a bulldog attempts to foil the titular animal by sticking a hot pepper into the hole in the ground that he occupies. The gopher eats it completely with no ill effects. The bulldog takes just a nibble... cue the fire engine siren as he becomes the trope.
  • Garfield:
    • In A Garfield Christmas, Grandma spikes Mom Arbuckle's sausage gravy with chili powder ("Who am I to tell you how to make gravy? The Green Country gravy champion, that's who!"), and Garfield ends up spewing a gout of flame as a result. ("Perfect.")
    • The Garfield and Friends episode "Peace and Quiet" has Binky the Clown trick Garfield into eating chocolate-covered Tabasco hot peppers, which causes Garfield to exhale fire.
  • Happens to Pete in the Goof Troop episode "Calling All Goofs" after he gets a sample of Aunt Goofelia's chili.
  • In an episode of Hey Arnold!, the kid known only as "Chocolate Boy" displays this after eating peppers in an attempt to kick his chocoholic habit.
  • This happens to Paw Rugg in The Hillbilly Bears cartoon "Going Gopher" after he dipped some turnips in spicy mustard to try and get rid of a gopher, after seeing it have no effect on the gopher he tries on resulting in this.
  • Happens once to Johnny Bravo, when he eat some spicy chili.
  • In the Kim Possible episode "Hidden Talent", Ron Stoppable purposely performs the trope using hot sauce for a talent show. Also shows up as one of his abilities in the show's third game on Game Boy Advance.
  • This happened to Iggy in the The Little Lulu Show episode "Tiny Tots Syrup", after eating some apparently spicy candies in order to get the terrible taste of said tonic out of his mouth.
  • Martha Speaks: In "Martha Makes Scents", OG Kennelly (TD's father and an inventor) draws Martha eating a chili and then breathing fire on a blackboard.
  • One episode of Men in Black: The Series featured Agent Jay consuming alien salsa, resulting in him temporarily developing fire powers.
  • Middlemost Post: When Parker and Angus merely poke hot sauce with their tongues in the "Challenges" short, they explode into fire.
  • Exaggerated in an episode of The Mighty B! when Bessie and Happy eat some peppers on skewers that cause them to shoot fire out of not only their mouths but also their noses, ears, and butts, also accidentally making Instant Roasts of a nearby rack of lawn flamingos.
  • In the Mixels episode "Mixel Moon Madness", the Orbitons' food is this to the Infernites, who already have fire-breathing abilities, but this food just kickstarts it even further. Possibly justified, as space can dull taste buds considerably, so extra heat is needed to even have the ability to taste the food. But even then, not even the other Orbitons are interested in Rokit's hot sauce.
  • Mr. Bogus:
    • This shows up in the first claymation short shown during the intro before the episode "Shop Around The Clock", where Bogus attempts to put some pepper on tomato soup, but there isn't any pepper. This prompts Bogus to eat an entire container of ground pepper without any ill effects, but it's when he takes a taste of the tomato soup that he starts blowing fire.
    • Averted in the third act of the episode "Babysitting Bogus", as while Bogus does inadvertently suck up a bowlful of chili peppers, he doesn't turn red in the face or breathe fire as he just has a spastic reaction to the spiciness of the peppers.
  • Happens to Rock several times in the My Dad the Rock Star episode "Rebel Without A Nose Ring" after eating a spicy chili he made.
  • In the My Gym Partner's a Monkey episode "Have a Joyous Little Animas", eating a plate of wasabi causes Adam to breathe fire through his nose.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
    • In the pilot episode, Twilight Sparkle accidentally drinks some hot sauce thinking it's a normal drink, and though her face does turn red with a kettle-whistle effect out her ears, it's her mane, not her breath, that catches fire.
    • Played straighter in the episode "Griffon the Brush-Off," when Gilda eats some vanilla-lemon drops tainted with hot pepper. Pinkie Pie even whips out a marshmallow to roast using her breath!
    • Even Pinkie Pie herself falls victim to this; she breathes fire for a moment after literally tasting the rainbownote  in "Sonic Rainboom". She turns multiple colors, and upon reaching red, she breathes out a small flame; after that, she goes weak in the knees. Keep in mind that Pinkie is seen eating a cupcake drenched in the same hot sauce that set Twilight aflame in the above example, so she's no stranger to Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce.
  • In the Oh Yeah! Cartoons short "Skippy Spankerton: Hot Tamale Monster Movie Madness", Skippy tries to get Zola to breathe fire for her monster movie by feeding him tamales with hot sauce.
  • In the Popeye cartoon, What? No Spinach?, Wimpy puts hot sauce on some roast duck, making Popeye breathe fire.
  • The Real Ghostbusters episode "Treasure of the Sierra Tamale" had Slimer breathe fire after eating some spicy burritos.
  • Rocko's Modern Life:
    • When Heffer eats Hot Tamales in the episode "Spitballs" and is about to do this, Rocko points him to the opposite direction. The duck that was sitting next to him becomes a cooked goose.
    • Happens to Rocko in "Rocko's Happy Sack" when he eats a free sample for a pastry at the supermarket. He puts out the fire by drinking from a lobster tank, leading to the lobsters attacking him.
  • Done realistically in one of the Rugrats' earlier episodes, "Waiter, there's a Baby in My Soup", where Stu has no choice but to bring Tommy with him to an important business dinner with the president of Mucklehoney Industries (a toy factory). Tommy wriggles out of his baby chair under their notice and wanders into the kitchen where he pours garlic powder, pepper, and hot sauce into a chef's soup prepared for the president. Upon sampling the concoction, the president struggles all over the floor, gasping for water while Tommy returns inside a bowl of spaghetti.
  • Scooby suffers this again in Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico when he eats some hot peppers.
  • Happens a couple of times in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when Scooby and Shaggy eat the Moonscar Island peppers.
  • Averted and a lampshade hung thereupon by The Simpsons in "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer;" as Homer eats bowl after bowl of red-hot chili containing "insanity peppers" with no ill effects, Dr. Hibbert remarks "By all medical logic, steam should be shooting out of his ears." Adds Krusty, "His ears if we're lucky." He coated the inside of his mouth with wax for protection from the pepper's heat, but soon after swallowing they do cause him to hallucinate for a whole night.
    • Played straight earlier in the same episode, as Homer's uninsulated tongue glows neon red when it comes in contact with a Guatemalan Insanity Pepper. It evaporates anything less than an armful of liquid on contact.
    • Also played straight in The Simpsons Movie, when Homer is revived by the Inuit woman.
      Homer: More, please.
    • Used realistically, but still hilariously, in "Homer and Apu".
      Marge: Lisa, is that too spicy for you?
      Lisa: I can see through time!
  • Pick any Speedy Gonzales cartoon featuring Daffy Duck or Sylvester the Cat tasting the local food.
  • This even happens in SpongeBob SquarePants ...even though the show is set underwater. In the episode "Swamp Mates", Patrick drinks all of the illegal hot sauce the Alligators have been making. True to Luther's statement, it blows Patrick's head clean off, acting like a train and gets caught by Bubble Bass. Patrick then burnt the hot sauce maker that the Alligators used. Patrick is later used as a propeller for him and Bubble Bass to escape from the Alligators.
  • Steven Universe:
    • In "Joking Victim," Amethyst uses magical "fire salt" on some fries she gives Steven at the start of the episode. Later, he and Sadie try using it on a donut for Lars as revenge for him skipping work (among other things); between them using too much and it getting stuck in his throat, he winds up running crazily through the town, breathing fire. In this case, it's actually played semi-seriously, as Lars sets numerous things on fire and nearly chokes.
    • Played with by one joke in "Gem Harvest": Amethyst burps up some fire once, not because she ate something spicy, but because something flammable—specifically straight cooking oil.
  • In the Sushi Pack episode "Red Hot Chili Planet," Ben had to pass along a message from Wasabi to the others, but since Wasabi speaks "mustard", Ben has trouble getting the inflection right. Ikura suggests he drink some hot sauce to get it right, and with one drop, Ben is breathing fire (and starts speaking "mustard")!
  • Taz-Mania: Happens in "Francis Takes a Stand" when Francis switches Taz's lemonade recipe for a hot sauce recipe. Taz's resulting fire breath scorches Francis like a flamethrower. When Francis tries to turn the tables on Taz and takes a swig of the lemonade/hot sauce, his fire breath acts like a jet engine and propels him into a cliff.
  • In the Teen Titans Go! episode "The Spice Game", the Titans, sans Robin, all become addicted to spicy foods, using peppers and such on everything, to the point where even the mighty Habanero does nothing for them. They then consume the "Tears of Zephos" and begin breathing fire uncontrollably, forcing them to quest for milk from the Dairy King to put out the fires.
  • In one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, Elmyra accidentally feeds Dizzy Devil a can of hot chili instead of dog food. Cue the eyes watering up, breaths of flame, then running to the shower to put out the fire.
  • Total Drama Island (2023): In a rare non-spice example, Owen eats a cake fresh out of the oven, screams in pain while breathing fire, and jumps into the lake to cool off. He has no regrets.
  • In the Total DramaRama episode "Cuttin' Corners", Duncan, Leshawna, and Beth have this reaction to eating ghost peppers as one of Izzy's tests to get a piece of her cake.
  • In an episode of Xiaolin Showdown, Dojo (a dragon) needs two bottles of Clay's family recipe hot sauce to breathe enough flame to beat the Sapphire Dragon. Normally he can only breathe small soot clouds. (He was clearly a little rusty, having not done it for several centuries.)


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