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Internal Deconstruction / Western Animation

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Internal Deconstruction in Western Animation.

  • American Dragon: Jake Long: The episode Being Human serves as one for the show's premise and Jake's Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World routine. He gets really frustrated when it's the last week of middle school and he has no photos in the yearbook thanks to dragon duty and training, while Lao Shi interrupts his attempts to make up for being AWOL all year. Jake decides the only way to get a break is to convince the council he's irresponsible so Haley is put in charge for a week. Haley thinks it will be a cinch, only to break down after several days of arriving late to school, doing intense training, failing tests, and performing menial labor. She ends up snapping at Lao Shi and Sun for how they don't appreciate or respect that Jake is a kid that only wanted a few days off because even she can't handle regular American Dragon duties and her brother's seeming laziness is actually exhaustion. Lao Shi takes this to heart and promises Jake that he's cutting dragon training during the summer and overall.
  • Arthur: Throughout the series, it’s been a Running Gag that Buster Baxter Cannot Keep a Secret. The beginning of the penultimate episode “Blabbermouth” reveals that he developed an infamous reputation as a blabbermouth as a result, so nobody trusts him with secrets anymore. It ends up negatively affecting his social life, as he ends up not being invited to a surprise party because they deliberately wait till the last minute to tell him as to not spoil the surprise, then forget to invite him when the last minute arrives. Arthur makes it clear that he's only sorry that he forgot to invite Buster not that he resorted to such drastic actions to keep the secret and even lists all of the instances when he trusted Buster with a secret only for him to blab it over the course of the series to explain why he, in particular, no longer trusts Buster despite being his best friend. Buster has to spend the episode learning how to keep secrets and working to prove he can be trustworthy in order for his friends to trust him again.
  • Dan Vs.:
    • The central cast consists of Dan, his only friend Chris, and Chris' wife Elise. Dan is an angry, violent little manchild who has no regard for the property of others and regularly seeks out Disproportionate Retribution against people he thinks have wronged him. Chris and Elise, though not completely normal themselves, are at least capable of functioning in society, and they've resigned themselves to Dan's constant intrusions into their lives, and to the fact that they're the only ones with any hope of reining Dan in when he's gone too far. The episode "Dan Vs. The Neighbors" highlights how strange this relationship is: new neighbors move in next door to Dan, and they're foils for Chris and Elise by virtue of their aggressive average-ness. When Dan gets up to behavior that Chris and Elise would have shrugged off or scolded Dan over, the neighbors react by calling the police. By the end of the episode, the neighbors realize just how dangerously crazy Dan really is, so they pack up and move away.
    • The episode also shows how Dan's paranoia would work in real life. Dan gets paranoid about the neighbors being too nice, thinking they're hiding something even jumping to the conclusion that they're cannibals. But instead of showing that Dan was right to be paranoid about them if only by coincidence, they turn out to be normal people who just are a lot saner/nicer than Dan is used to.
  • The titular protagonist of Daria is the former Trope Namer for The Snark Knight, and in the first two seasons, she was an archetypal example of such: a cynical teenager who deals with the flaws of society with snark and detachment. But around season 3, the show begins to ask this question: is Daria's way of dealing with her problems healthy? The answer is "no," and Daria is slowly but surely revealed to be a Stepford Snarker. Daria gradually learns that, while she may have good reasons for being detached, not engaging with society doesn't solve any problems, and several characters call her out for doing nothing about society while complaining. Daria's own flaws gradually come out into the open, and she ends up stealing her best friend's boyfriend. Finally, Daria begins to dread whether her own attitude makes her a burden of her parents.
  • The Dreamstone does this twice over due to a Genre Shift. The pilot is a darker action-adventure revolving around the heroic Noops, Rufus and Amberley, stopping Zordrak, but with the latter's Urpney minions getting a lot of Sympathetic P.O.V.. Episodes after do a Perspective Flip to the Urpneys, who turn out to be Punch Clock Villains, making the series into a comedic Mook Horror Show revolved around the abuse they get from both foes and allies for a job they're forced into. As the series goes on, however, the Sympathetic P.O.V. switches back to other characters like Urpgor or the Noops again, showing their own day-to-day workload and how the Urpneys' constant blundering schemes obstruct it. The final parts of the series are near completely comedic, Zordrak has practically lost faith in getting the Dreamstone and become lethargic, while the hero and villain grunts rarely even fight directly and are more focused on doing their mundane job without the other side or other fantasy entities interfering, a complete contrast to the dramatic battle between good and evil in the pilot episode.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show picks apart some of the tropes used in Ed, Edd n Eddy.
    • The scams? It's a Noodle Incident, but the failed scam is precisely why the Eds are in danger.
    • The Amusing Injuries? The kid's injuries would be funny if they actually went away.
    • Eddy's big brother, who he hypes up all the time? He lied. Eddy's big brother is actually abusive. And likewise, while his bullying is cartoon slapstick, Eddy's trauma is genuine.
  • In Hey Arnold!, the episode "Helga on the Couch" deconstructs what had previously been presented as a Hilariously Abusive Childhood. Until that episode, the fact that Helga G. Pataki was The Unfavorite, with a "perfect sister", a Workaholic father and an alcoholic mother (confirmed via Word of God), had been hilarious. However, during her therapy session, it is shown just how much her home situation has actually affected her, and no one was laughing after that. The show itself also ceases to frame her family in a humorous light, regularly showcasing how dysfunctional they are, though they manage to toss in some moments that affirm they really do love each other. And Helga is given therapy because her bullying of her classmates isn't ignored by the visiting psychologist, who summons her for a session when she sees Helga assaulting Brainy.
  • Infinity Train initially focuses on Tulip's adventures as a passenger on the titular train, gaining unusual magical friends and learning life lessons that help her grow into a better person. While she's sad to leave her new friends behind, Tulip sheds her Jade-Colored Glasses and returns to Earth a full-on Nice Girl. However, the same book shows Amelia's failing to grow has trapped her in a spiral of denial on the Train for decades, and the series afterward show such an Epiphanic Prison doesn't always produce such favorable results:
    • Book 2 focuses on MT/Mirror Tulip, a mirror double created during Tulip's adventure who helped Tulip face her isolation issues. Through MT's perspective, the story examines how the denizens of the train experience the Coming of Age Story of the various humans that pass through the train. Despite living rich, full lives, the denizens of the train only really exist to help humans through their various traumas and flaws. At best, train denizens will eventually lose their new close friends back to Earth. At worst, denizens end up victims of violence or even murder from passengers who don't consider the train inhabitants real people. The cars also get increasingly absurd and cruel, including a car that just requires passengers to kick a sentient, talking Toad in order to escape. The train inhabitants live existentially horrifying lives, but have no other option available to them. This ultimately results in MT experiencing a massive existential crisis, terrified that none of her choices served any purpose except to help other people grow.
      MT: I'm a person! I was making my own choices!
      Mace: Oh, choices! And choices leads to lessons! And what were you learning, exactly? How to become what the boy needed you to be?
      MT: It wasn't like that. We were friends- we are friends!
      Mace: But they all make friends though, don't they? Companions! You might even say you became his counterpart. You might say you became kind of a... reflection. [...] You're just stuck on the train now. You're in another mirror. Face it. Being a reflection is all there is for you.
    • Book 3 adds more wrinkles to the effectiveness of the train. Stuffing emotionally damaged, immatured, and flat out broken individuals onto a dangerous train together doesn't necessarily result in positive Character Development. In fact, passengers like Grace and Simon refuse to grow and face the consequences for their actions, convincing others to follow their own destructive tendencies. Children end up stuck on the train for years, if not longer, because they aren't ready to face their own shortcomings. On top of all that, the finale shows that despite the Train's peril being subject to Could Have Been Messy, they really do kill Passengers. It's even a monster that Tulip narrowly escaped from unharmed in the first episode that subjects someone else to an incredibly graphic death.
    • Book 4 continues critiquing the whole concept of the Train. First, the lethality of the Train's hazards is reaffirmed when a pre-Character Development One-One states — with horrifying bluntness — that passengers can either resolve their problems or die, and while he vastly prefers the formers, it is quite clear that he is not deeply affected by the latter. Second, it is repeatedly shown how obnoxiously difficult it can be actually getting one's number down, to point of being unfair at times; in particular, Ryan manages to generate his exit by swearing to never abandon his best friend, only to have said exit immediately disappear expressly because he briefly considered using it. Third, we continue to see how difficult life is for the denizens, as some are actually bad at helping passengers, and others become deeply attached to their passengers and are left traumatized when they inevitably leave the Train. In many ways, the series is a Cosmic Horror Story where the Eldritch Abomination wants to help humans, but is still just as destructively alien and incomprehensible.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's first season ends every episode with Twilight Sparkle summarizing the aesop by sending a "friendship report" to her mentor, Princess Celestia; this being an actual task she's meant to do weekly in-universe. The season two episode "Lesson Zero" revolves around Twilight trying to do this, but realizing that she hasn't learned anything worth writing about that week — as the deadline approaches, Twilight becomes increasingly unhinged by her fear of failing Princess Celestia. Ultimately, this alters the status quo, with friendship letters being slowly phased out of the show after Celestia tells Twilight they're no longer mandated. This also served as the turning point of Twilight's character from the "sane" Fish out of Water group member to the neurotic personality she'd maintain for the rest of the series.
  • Phineas and Ferb
    • The show last episode "The Last Day Of Summer" effectively deconstructs both Candace and Doofenshmirtz's life goals.
    • The show runs on a Status Quo Is God formula that typically ends with whatever the eponymous boys created disappearing thanks to an outside force (most commonly Dr. Doofenshmirtz), with the boys' sister, Candace, always missing out on the chance to tell her mom. Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe shows just how detrimental it can be to run through this same routine for nearly the entire summer. Candace grows tired and dejected from being the universe's Cosmic Plaything while her brothers always have everything work out for them and, in her own words, it makes her feel like "a tiny meaningless speck in the universe". It even grows to a point where she assumes that they're the reason why everything goes wrong for her, despite them coming across the universe to save her.
  • Regular Show did this with the episode "Eggscellent" by showing what happens when the standard formula of the show isn't Played for Laughs. Rigby pursuing a goal while not thinking about what his actions could cause? Sends himself into a coma because of an egg allergy. Benson gets on the duo's case over not doing their jobs? Treated like a Kick the Dog moment and gets Benson punched in the face for being a Mean Boss. The antagonists of the episode being selfish jerks that come into conflict with the cast because of petty or bizarre reasons? All wind up being a Well-Intentioned Extremist who are only acting against the park crew because of each being a Punch-Clock Villain that can't provide help for legal reasons while trying to prevent a problem the crew is entirely unaware of.
  • The final season of Samurai Jack savagely deconstructs the show's status quo and conventions; after a fifty year Time Skip, Jack is succumbing to suicidal despair over his perpetual failure to get back to the past, while Aku is steadily going insane because Jack just won't die and stopped aging altogether. The usage of Mecha-Mooks and Never Say "Die" in earlier seasons gets thrown out fast; not only is Jack forced to kill humans in battle (nearly having a mental breakdown after the first time he does), but his inner voice subtly mocks him for acting like none of those robots he's been butchering for years were sentient. In the end, the status quo is utterly destroyed. Jack finally gets back home and kills Aku. No fake-outs, no Sequel Hooks, no last-minute twists. The future is changed and the series ends.
  • The Simpsons
    • The show does this on occasion; probably the best-known example is the episode "Homer's Enemy", which introduces a "realistic" character into the show who is so frustrated by Homer's status in Springfield that it (accidentally) kills him. The resulting Broken Base and discussion about what this says about Homer, Springfield and even Frank Grimes himself was the actual objective of the writers (who said in the episode commentary that it's "an exercise in frustration").
    • The entire episode "Barthood" deconstructs the relationship between Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, and Lisa Simpson. Specifically Homer's negligence and Lisa's veneration from their parents.
      • Bart and Homer have always had an emotionally distant relationship but rather than have it played for laughs, it shows that Homer's negligence has left a mark on Bart's psyche. Bart always felt second best because Homer focused his energies on raising Lisa and was repeatedly disappointed by Homer's negligence. When Homer does open up during a party, he reveals that he neglected Bart because the latter reminded him too much of his lost youth. After finally reconciling with Bart, Homer ruins the moment with a bumbling comment that drives Bart away once more.
      • Bart and Lisa have always had a turbulent relationship because of her intellect and Bart was unwittingly pushed out of the spotlight when Lisa was born because Marge and Homer had to focus and raising her. In this episode, Bart is not only aware of Lisa's intellect but he is deeply bitter and resentful towards her for outshining him and upstaging him at every opportunity (even though it was unintentional and it looks like she was actually trying to earn his approval). In his adulthood, Bart entered a BMX competition so he could finally step out of his sister's shadow for once but she outshines once more and it leaves Bart feeling crestfallen. When Bart's envy finally boils over, Lisa defends herself by saying Bart is a better artist than her so she know how it feels to be second best. Although, it's implied that the relationship between the two only heals when Bart moves away from her for a few months.
    • The episode "Bartless", it's shown that Homer and Marge have become so used to enduring and being publicly ostracized by Bart's usual pranks and bad behavior, they can not fathom the idea that any good would come from it or that he would have any altruistic intention of doing so. This leads them to wonder if they are unable to "like" their own son.
  • South Park
    • The series killed Kenny over and over Once an Episode, and his adventures in Hell were a subplot of The Movie. The episode "Kenny Dies" is a Very Special Episode that plays the death of a child from a debilitating illness realistically, and he seemed to be truly dead. He was replaced in the following season by Butters and later Tweek before coming back in the season finale with no explanation, and now he only dies when it adds something to the story. The "Coon and Friends" trilogy deconstructs this further, as Kenny becomes an angsty superhero named Mysterion determined to find out the truth of why he is the only one who can remembers his many deaths.
    • The episode "City People" serves as this for Liane's coddling of her son Eric Cartman. For the most part, Liane's indulgence of Cartman hasn't had massive consequences, aside from the fleeting moments where Liane puts her foot down. This time, his need for her attention and coddling leads him to sabotage her career prospects. Not only does this end with both of them in the (literal) poor house, it is clear that Liane is losing her love for her son.
    • Eric Cartman has officially been a Villain Protagonist since Season 5, The Friend Nobody Likes prior to that, and a foul-mouthed Spoiled Brat since the show's very beginning, in addition to being some combination of rude, racist, selfish, and manipulative (all in South Park's early days and continuing throughout the show's run). South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid shows the consequences of somebody like Cartman maintaining this sort of mentality into adulthood and refusing to change, namely that he becomes an alcoholic hobo who has done nothing with his life, instead spending the rest of his existence screaming insults as people on the street. This makes complete sense.
      • Being such a petty, bigoted Jerkass would eventually drive anybody's friends away from them (especially during adulthood where people are more easily able to cut others out of their lives), ensuring Cartman has no friends.
      • Having been a Spoiled Brat who can't take care of himself and won't apply his talents to anything but his fleeting desires, Cartman wouldn't be able to live on his own or get a job, so his mother would have to take care of him, even into adulthood.
      • Tying into the "City People" episode, Liane would eventually reach the point where she's had enough of Cartman and kick him out of the house. Alternatively, Liane may have become ill or passed away from old age. Either way, Cartman's on his own.
      • At this point, Cartman has no friends (since they've all abandoned him), no family (either because Liane disowned him or she'd died of old age), no life skills, no connections, nowhere to live, and his personality would cause him to lash out at the rest of the world and blame it for his own faults instead of trying to get his life back together, ensuring that nobody would want anything to do with him ever again, while simultaneously making it so Cartman is incapable of repairing his broken life.
  • Steven Universe:
    • Early on, Steven's adventures with the Crystal Gems are mostly kept separate from his mundane life with the citizens of Beach City. As the show progresses, the two threads begin intersecting more and more, showing what happens when normal people get involved in magical adventures. The Beach City residents are put in increasingly life-threatening situations by Gem involvement, being attacked by monsters or endangered by ancient technology. Mayor Dewey’s political career is destroyed by his inability to protect the town from Gem threats, Connie's parents are (initially) very upset to learn about her dangerous adventuring with Steven and the Crystal Gems, and Lars dies and has to be brought back by Steven’s healing powers after getting dragged to Homeworld.
    • Steven Quartz Universe's All-Loving Hero status is his defining trait, and he always goes out of his way to help everyone he can, even villains. In the first two seasons, this is played completely straight. Then in season three, he tries to help Jasper and the Ruby Squad... and they cruelly reject him; Jasper doesn’t want his help and Eyeball repays his kindness by trying to murder him. Later, when it's revealed Rose Quartz was really Pink Diamond in disguise, Steven tries to play damage control among the Crystal Gems like usual. Amethyst tries and fails to get him to open up about his own emotions instead, only to eventually snap and explain that it shouldn't be Steven's job to look after everyone, as he's just a kid and she and the other Crystal Gems are millennia-year-old adults who should know it isn't right of them to dump all their issues on a child. Future goes further to show that this became a troubling complex he doesn't know how to break out of as an older teen, admitting to Peridot that he no longer knows how to be friends with someone when he doesn't have to be their Living Emotional Crutch.
    • As the show progresses, it parodies its own Animated Musical status more and more; it’s made very clear that the characters really are just randomly bursting into song. Lars complains about people singing instead of helping him work, Sapphire deliberately annoys Jasper with a repetitive song, Steven tries to sing only to be disrupted by his cellphone ringing, Pearl sings a Torch Song about Rose then looks over and realizes Steven and Greg heard the whole thing, and when the Crystal Gems are temporarily mind-wiped, Steven is so used to people spontaneously singing that he finds it unsettling when they don’t do so.
    • The movie heavily criticizes the show’s reliance on The Power of Friendship and Defeat Equals Friendship, pointing out that friendships can’t work without trust and work between both parties; Steven tries to befriend Spinel and seemingly succeeds, only for a misunderstanding to make her turn on him again because her Start of Darkness has left her deeply paranoid. And even when they make peace, she refuses his offer to stay on Earth with the Crystal Gems because she feels that her actions have been too alienating for her staying to be a healthy situation for anybody. The movie also deconstructs the Earn Your Happy Ending note the original series ended on, noting that life is ever-changing and expecting it to stop at Happily Ever After is unrealistic and impractical. The Crystal Gems will always have some sort of work to do.
    • The epilogue limited series, Steven Universe: Future basically flips the original series' on its head; most of the threats Steven faced before were external, and he was able to help his friends sort through their own personal problems. Now, all of the external threats are dealt with, but they've taken their toll on Steven's mental and physical state. Since everyone else is moving forward with their lives, Steven finds himself having to deal with his own personal issues and with nobody able to help him to sort through them.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    • The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) cartoon changed Splinter from Hamato Yoshi's pet rat mutated into a humanoid being to Hamato Yoshi himself being mutated into a rat. While the change does has potential benefits to the character and his rivalry with Oroku Saki aka Shredder, it's evident that the cartoon only changed this origin to avoid Hamato Yoshi's more bloody past and fate. Future adaptations of the franchise would take this origin story change and explore its full darker potential.
      • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) returns Splinter to being Hamato Yoshi but also incorporates his comic book's past into the mix, namely a blood feud between him and Oroku Saki over Tang Shen. The result is a Shredder who kidnapped Splinter's daughter and raised her as his own, is willing to go to any lengths to kill Splinter (including letting the world be destroyed), and at the end of the fourth season, successfully murders Splinter as he did to Hamato Yoshi in the comics.
      • Most incarnations of Splinter don't really dwell on having been transformed from a human into a rat and living in the sewers. In Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Splinter desperately pines for the Glory Days when he was still human, and is heavily implied to be suffering from PTSD over his transformation.
  • Total Drama: Duncan's character undergoes this in Season 3 and 5. He started as a delinquent with a soft side, unfortunately his deliquency is enabled over the course of Season 2 giving him a sense of entitlement and warped mentality that his deliquency is the right way to live. Season 3, he cheats on Courtney, and naturally she dumps him for it. He moves on quickly due to Courtney mistreating him and starts dating Gwen. Nonetheless, everyone starts to think less of him leaving him with no allies. Due to his arrogance, he thinks he can charm the self-respecting Courtney into an alliance as soon as the teams merge and is naturally rebuffed. His soft side comes back to bite him when his feelings towards Gwen get him eliminating further reinforcing his mentality his soft side is a flaw. Season 5 takes this and rolls with it to the end when his entitlement leads him to want Courtney and Gwen at the same time. Only by this point, Courtney has moved on and wants nothing to do with him, so he only ruins his relationship with Gwen who has grown past his bad boy image. At the same time, he starts growing and becoming nicer, but has an Ignored Epiphany instead thinking it was his growth that alienated Gwen not his sense of entitlement so he resorts to blowing up Chris' cottage to prove he's bad which only results in him going to prison with Gwen thoroughly unsympathetic.
  • Transformers: Animated:
    • Sentinel Prime was usually played as a joke, with his rudeness, arrogance, and distrust of human serving only to make the audience hate him and laugh at his misfortune. "Predacons Rising", on the otherhand, played his attitude for drama, by having him declare that his girlfriend deserves to die for a situation outside her control.
    • The series also deconstructs Starscream, who, in every continuity, tries to overthrow Megatron, and is always forgiven for his treachery and allowed to stay in the Decepticons. Here, however, Megatron just kills Starscream for his treachery, since any leader worth his salt wouldn't bother keeping such a blatantly treacherous underling in his ranks. Starscream is only saved by being brought Back from the Dead by an Allspark fragment, and Megatron only lets him back into the Decepticons because he can use Starscream's treachery to help his plans; once the second Starscream is no longer useful, he gets killed once again.
    • The series' version of Waspinator is also one of these. In Beast Wars, Waspinator was an ineffectual, dimwitted Butt-Monkey with bizarre speech patterns and mannerisms who was constant being blown apart and having to repair himself, all of which was Played for Laughs. Here, however, he was an Autobot framed for being a spy and sent to prison, being driven mad by the abuse he suffered. His mannerisms and speech patterns are signs of his insanity, and when this Waspinator gets blown up and pulls himself back together, it’s horrifying and the result of being experimented on and mutated by Blacksrachnia.
  • T.U.F.F. Puppy took apart its bad guy's tendencies to give Just Between You and Me speeches in "Doom and Gloom". After another failed crime, Larry directly points out that Snaptrap's habit of announcing his evil plans to T.U.F.F. is why they keep getting arrested. When Larry forms his own criminal group, he becomes a far more successful villain by simply not telling his plans and saving the gloating for after he accomplished them. Another aspect taken apart is that due to being so used to the bad guys telling them what they were up to, T.U.F.F. is rather soft when it comes to stopping crimes without advance knowledge.

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