Eye Catch

Insert dramatic music here.

An eyecatch, or commercial bumper, is a short blurb displayed when a series goes to or comes back from commercial. Anime eyecatches tend to be either humorous, with a little musical sting played over them, or simple representative pictures with the series' name; they are often an opportunity for gratuitous Fanservice. Series that run for more than one quarter frequently will have several eyecatch styles over their run, sometimes with a small set of choices that rotate from episode to episode.

Saturday morning cartoons in North America frequently had one generic set of "we'll be back after these messages" Ad Bumpers per network, played at breaks for all of the series running on that network. Generally in the west, the term "bumper" applies more to this kind of EC, and bumpers are usually done by the broadcaster, rather than as part of the show itself. In the days of syndication, some syndicated cartoons would come with their own eyecatches, but these were typically rather generic (a still from the theme sequence and a voice saying, "We'll be right back" was usually the extent of it).

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Examples

Anime

• The eyecatches for Ah My Buddha almost always featured revealing attire worn by the ladies. The exception was Jotoku Kawahara, the old lady who ran the temple: She was always fully clothed (thank God).
• Angelic Layer changed the eyecatch mid-season from just Misaki to Misaki and Hatoko. In the English voice actors' audio commentaries, someone would often announce "Commercial!" when the eyecatch showed up.
• In the second set of Angelique OVAs. The artwork consists of fairly standard images of characters posing on Tarot cards. The background however contains some suspicious background text◊ which English-speaking fans figured out came from an article about Queer as Folk (UK). Remember now — this is supposed to be a very chaste series of Dating Sims for girls... but it does have a very large fanbase of Yaoi Fangirls due to the sheer amount of slash-worthy guys involved, making this a rather funny occurrence.
• Attack on Titan has Information Available For Public Disclosure, which are often diagrams and blurbs of information on the world. For instance, the fact that nearly killing trainees is a special training exercise for the military, or that the Absurdly Sharp Blades used by the protagonists are created with closely guarded secrets by the most prominent blacksmiths.
• Azumanga Daioh has the various characters with a comic balloon (usually filling most of the screen) saying simply the letter A.
• Black Butler (2008) has the "Intermission" screen, complete with jazzy background music. Considering the theme of the show and the timing that this thing tends to appear, it often creates a good level of Soundtrack Dissonance.
• The first season of Blood+ had a shot of Saya's sword as the blood runs through the blade, with a loud noise in the background. The later seasons had a shot of several Shif weapons thrown in the viewer's direction, each making a pretty loud noise when hitting the screen.
• The eyecatch of Bokurano has one that, like many other things about the series, gets more and more meaningful and poignant as time goes on. The pilots' chairs spin, then stop with the currently selected pilot's chair in front of the camera, and a spotlight shines on it. All the pilots who haven't died yet whisper "bokurano" together, making for a rather eerie reminder of the Dwindling Party later in the series.
• Bubblegum Crisis 2040 has a pretty standard logo display eyecatch.
• Burst Angel usually features Meg and Jo in some sort of badass pose, and occasionally, they feature Amy, Sei and Kyohei.
• Cardcaptor Sakura would show one of the titular cards that would turn over to reveal one of the main characters: usually Sakura, but occasionally another character relevant to the episode.
• A Certain Magical Index has the screen cracking and breaking like glass to reveal the show title; a short musical piece plays in the background as soon as the screen cracks, a different one in each season.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun has a white/orange screen with the show's title on the white (right) half and the episode number and title on the orange (left) half of the screen, both written in the other half's color.
• The eyecatches in Chou Kuse ni Narisou feature the Unknown Rival hamming it up, and the series lead not noticing.
• Cosplay Complex also parodied this trope, since it was an OVA and had no commercials. Rather, each Eye Catch showed off the cast cosplaying characters from another anime.
• Cromartie High School parodied this trope in one episode, as it has 11-minute episodes and thus no commercial breaks.
• The Curse of Kazuo Umezu: The end of "What Will the Video Camera Reveal?" has the humorous one, showing the girls and the boy recording with a video camera fleeing from the ghost, only for the ghost to be eaten by Masami's demon neck.
• Death Note places a rule for using the Death Note in each of its eyecatches, much the same way the manga uses a page at the end of each chapter. The exceptions are episodes 25 and 26, in which only "Death Note" is shown.
• DieBuster has a small logo in the corner, and for the first 5 episodes has a chorus singing the name a few times. The 6th (final) episode has a silent logo to go with the drama of the episode.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: Cards of the seven (at the time) partner Digimon pile up before reforming into a picture of their evolved forms posing as a team.
  • Digimon Adventure 02: V-mon does incredibly silly things with chocolate eggs, spontaneously spawning the other partner Digimon to pose as a team.
  • Digimon Tamers: Vaguely LEGO-like renditions of Guilmon, Renamon and Terriermon pop around for a bit before evolving. Meanwhile, Impmon bonks Culumon on the head, making them evolve again.
  • Digimon Frontier: Pictures of the five heroes surrounded by hexagons flash around before focusing on one, turning into a picture of the hero and his Human-spirit form posing with the logo.
  • Digimon Fusion: Cards from the Super Digica Taisen game are demonstrated, with cartoony renditions of the heroes popping up. The first half had one of its two eyecatches feature ghostly images of Agumon, Garurumon, V-mon and Guilmon popping out of Taiki's X Loader and laughing at him.
  • Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time: Pictures of one of the six Heroes posing with their unevolved partner, then flicks around into a silhouetted image of them posing with their evolved partner, enclosed in a circle.
• Spoofed in D.N.Angel. In one episode, the eyecatch is used to transition between scenes instead of cut to commercial. This causes it to pop up about once every three minutes. Eventually the characters get sick of it and scream "Knock it off!" when the eyecatch appears.
• Dragon Ball:
  • The original Dragon Ball anime had two eyecatches, the first being Goku and Oolong juggling Dragon Balls on a Chinese umbrella (with Oolong failing miserably), and the second being Goku trying to take Master Roshi by surprise with a power pole attack.
  • Uniquely, the Harmony Gold dub of Dragon Ball included its own eyecatches, including two new sets for after the intro and before the end credits. They used a completely original logo and stills from the show, except for the middle break that used backgrounds from the second movie, which they never even dubbed!
  • Dragon Ball Z's eyecatches for most of its run show Goku playing with toddler Gohan, which quickly became outdated as Gohan grew up. During the Buu saga, the version before the commercial break shows Goten lifting the car that Gohan and Videl are driving in, and the one after the break shows King Kai's car crashing into Goku, who doesn't even budge but laughs apologetically. The Gohan/Videl eyecatch was included thanks to Gohan being a focus of the story again, until the story moves away from this angle yet again.
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai, a Recut of Z, replaces the original bumpers with a screen of Goku doing a Kamehameha, followed by drawings depicting the characters relevant that episode.
• Each Durarara!! episode has its unique eyecatch. The pattern is simply a silent black screen with the characters from the title ("デュラララ!!", but with a random and often huge number of ラ) arranged into some sort of shape or formation, like a spiral or a heart. This pattern is kept in the second series, but it adds "×2" and the kanji representing the "cour" the episode is part of.
• The Ensemble Stars! anime shows the CG associated with the initial four star card of one of the characters relevant to that episode (starting with a silhouette, eliciting many 'Who's that idol?' jokes) as a way of helping new watchers to get to know the huge cast.
• In general, Excel♡Saga's eyecatches are nondescript — except that the characters often talk over them, sometimes about the fact that a break is happening.
  • During the bowling episode, the events happening over the eyecatch take longer than the catch did, so the catch was repeated several times. Naturally, the characters then wondered why the catch was being repeated so many times.
  • During the "survival" episode, Excel accidentally shoots Menchi, with a lot of drama in it. In the "be right back" eyecatch, she tosses Menchi's corpse into the Great Will of the Macrocosm, asking her to reset it. In the "back to the show" eyecatch, the Great Will tells her it's done, and Excel pulls a revitalized Menchi back out.
• Eyeshield 21 has "Amefuto Clinic", where Mamori and the Devil Bat give the audience a trivia question about the rules of American football in each episode's eyecatch.
• Fairy Tail's first season has Happy doing a little dance, then him with a Balloon Belly, having apparently consumed a lot of fish. This is accompanied by a cute little jingle, which can be a moment killer when it follows a serious moment. Notably, who appeared in the eyecatches for the S-Class Exam arc in season 3 changed usually depending on who was the focus of the episode.
• Fruits Basket featured two different eyecatches in each episode, usually cute pictures of the characters' cursed animal forms. The final handful of episodes just use somber black ones. The DVD has a complete gallery of them on the bonus features.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has this in the form of pictures of characters appearing in the episode as someone yells "Fullmetal Alchemist!", but the tone of voice often changes with each episode. During certain dramatic parts of the plot, such as character deaths, the speech would be omitted. Some eyecatches can be downright disturbing. It sounds like some of them are done by native English speakers, but others are done by people who know how to pronounce the title but not what tone of voice to use when doing so. And at least one that was the verbal equivalent of Camp Gay.
• Fushigi Yuugi makes use of two, but switched rather early: The first is more light-hearted, showing Miaka against a backdrop of food and being pummelled by Tama (who wasn't yet known by non-readers of the manga), who then sits on her head as Yui looks on from behind. This is, of course, complete with bubbly music. After Yui's Face–Heel Turn, which takes place in Episode 11, it is changed into Miaka, Tamahome and Yui appearing sequentially against a starry backdrop. The music used for the new eyecatch is more dramatic.
• The Boys' Love anime Gakuen Heaven had two. One had the student council president (called the King) approaching the treasury president (called the Queen) as if flirting or asking for a date. The next eyecatch is The King on the floor devastated after being rejected and the Queen walking away nonchalantly. The eyecatches in this series also tend to have action of another sort — including one in the first episode of the token Creepy Twins with each other.
• GaoGaiGar would show technical data on various robots and tools; two per episode. These could get pretty in depth sometimes. It goes to show you how many robots, mechs and machines showed up in GaoGaiGar, that despite the series running for 57 episodes (with two eyecatches per episode) it never used the same eyecatch twice. (That said, sometimes devices were introduced in the episode for the specific purpose of being an eyecatch.)
• Get Backers shows one of the characters.
• Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing has a pretty simple eyecatch involving a brief montage of all the characters.Victory Gundam has an evolving eyecatch that advances two frames per episode.
    • For those interested here is what you get when watching all of them in one go.
  • Mobile Fighter G Gundam shows the head of the Shining Gundam in side-view (later replaced by the God Gundam) on a background with circuitry. These represent the circuits of the Mobile Trace System.
  • Gundam SEED initially has eyecatches showing off the Gundam. Once Lacus is introduced the post-break eyecatch instead switches to a scene with Lacus and Athrun. Later in the series when Lacus becomes Kira's love interest, he replaces Athrun in that scene. The eyecatch in Gundam SEED Destiny is similar to that last scene.
  • After War Gundam X and Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury simply used the title card as eyecatch. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans simply uses the episode's title as the eyecatch.
  • Since Destiny, recent Gundam series tend not to use eyecatches. However, Gundam: Reconguista in G re-introduced eyecatches, showing different main characters doing a short dance routine around the series' logo on a green background.
• Haikyuu!! rotates around different ones each episode, which consist of players attempting to hit the drink bottle on the other side of the net with the ball with various results and reactions (such as Kageyama succeeding and getting excited about it, and Hinata failing to even get the ball over the net with Tsukishima and Yamaguchi snickering beside him).
• Haré+Guu would just show Guu saying "Eyecatch", sometimes featuring other characters.
• The Non-Indicative First Episode of Haruhi Suzumiya featured a hand-drawn Eye Catch, done in crayon, halfway through the amateur video that the main characters produced. This was the only episode with an eyecatch, which Kyoto Animation tends to discard in favour of spending more time on the story. If anything, this is a commentary on Haruhi's personality since she's putting an eyecatch on a movie where there's no commercial interruption. Why? Because she wanted one!
• Hayate the Combat Butler and Psychic Squad have the characters playing shiritori (a Japanese word game) across the eyecatches for the entire show. In Hayate's case, the eyecatch sometimes contains shout outs to other anime.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers is an interesting case. It's not aired on television and is instead aired through cellphones and the internet, and the episodes are only about 5 minutes long, so the eyecatches are used to switch scenes instead. The eyecatches themselves have the logo with a chibi nation-tan popping out from behind the logo and saying the title in a slightly more high-pitched voice.
• High School D×D: Every episode showed a different girl in a state of undress and a provocative pose. On two occasions, it was Gasper Vladi instead.
• Hunter × Hunter started out with eyecatches that showed a character's name or a word related to the episode in the writing system used in the series's universe, but after Episode 26, when the show moved to a different timeslot in Japan, they were replaced with the show's logo fading in and out during a scene transition.
• Despite each episode of I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying being three minutes long, they normally have one or two eyecatches peppered through them, often accompanied by the sound of someone typing at a computer (most of them are Shout Outs). Instead of signaling a commercial break, they're used to go from one scene to the next and more emotional episodes, like Episode 11, don't have any.
• The first season of Ikki Tousen featured Hakafu kicking the camera for the "going to commercial" eyecatch, followed by her skirt lifting, giving us a panty shot for the "back to show" eyecatch. 2nd-4th seasons feature still images of suggestive poses and revealing attire on the female characters while rock music plays.
• I'm Gonna Be an Angel! is an interesting case in that throughout the whole series its eyecatch featured always Noelle and Yuusuke - the main couple, but in the last episode, it was switched to one with Mikael and Raphael, implying that THEY were the main couple, because Mikael was the real main character.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor has one where the show's title is at the bottom of the screen and portraits of the crew are put up with startling rapidity. The process is reversed when the break is over.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: From Stardust Crusaders, the eyecatch would show information on a Stand. Diamond is Unbreakable added a silhouette of the Stand's user with some tidbits of Morioh landmarks, Golden Wind begins their versions with a spinning coin transitioning to the stats adding some shots of areas around Italy, Stone Ocean utilizes a short transition with strings shifting from the title.
• In the Toei Animation version of Kanon, two different characters, the arrangement changing each time, would say the show's name while standing beside the logo.
• Kemono Friends has two narrations from a zookeeper about the real-life version of a Friend introduced in that episode.
• Kiddy GiRL-AND continued the trend — however they were all done by the one artist, Dr. Moro, in how own... unique style.
• Kiddy Grade has a different pair of eyecatch images for each episode, often depicting the main characters Éclair and Lumière in similar situations in each image of the pair (e.g., Éclair sitting on a couch with a Lumière doll in one and Lumière sitting on a couch with an Éclair doll in its corresponding image). Each episode featured a different guest artist and some image pairs also sported...unusual art styles.
• Last Exile has a chrome version of the logo with the voice of a random character saying the title. The latter part is kept in the sequel, but averted for the most part.
• Lucky Star has the round little cat (The Author Avatar) from the episode card to the left of the logo with two variations; the first commercial eyecatch is on a green background with the cat yawning; the eyecatch before the Lucky Channel segment is on a pink background with the cat sleeping and snoring. Both eyecatches conclude with the four main girls saying "Lucky Star!" or "Lucky Channel!" respectively.
• Lupin III:
  • Lupin III: Part II had some funny ones, such as Lupin's gun firing while he twirls it on his finger, or jumping into his car, only for the steering wheel to break off and causing Lupin to roll out the other side.
  • Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine uses greyscale images, usually combined with the English text, "Lupin the Third".
• Lyrical Nanoha uses different eyecatches for every episode. These range from action shots to humorous snippets(such as Nanoha having a Marshmallow Dream involving Yuuno) to Shipping fuel.
• Majestic Prince usually didn't have them, but in the Breather Episode, we are treated to a very 80's-esque eyecatch of Red 5 slashing its sword in a space background.
• Marmalade Boy features eyecatches that sort out which members of the Love Dodecahedron are an Official Couple. In addition, you can always tell which characters will be featured in the second half of the episode by which ones are shown/come out on top in the Eye Catch.
• The first Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch eyecatch was composed of pictures of Lucia and Hanon in glowing stars (apparently ignoring Rina, even though the show is focused on the three as a trio). Once the OP changed for the first time, Lucia would draw a card from a deck of playing cards, with Hanon and Rina around her. She smiled if the card bore a hero and gasped at a villain; the character on the card was usually a character that had a big role in the episode, and if not, it was Lucia. The second season's eyecatch was one of the mermaids (or Hippo◊) surrounded by a bubble border; again, if no specific character held the spotlight, Lucia or Seira appeared. Caren, Noel and Coco each appeared in this eyecatch a total of one time.
• Midori Days features the eponymous character waving a wooden sign around.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid takes a somewhat different approach to this, with a chibi version of Tohru burning down the series logo to reveal the episode title. Due to her having been taken home by her father, the 13th episode instead uses a ripple effect.
• Mob Psycho 100: The eyecatches shows the characters partaking in an activity or a scene related to the current event.
• Instead of full-screen eyecatches, some shows just display the logo in the corner before going to commercial. My-HiME and Monster do this. Alternatively, the "logo in the corner" version may appear after the commercial break, as done, for example, in Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou; in this particular case the logo is also accompanied by falling sakura petals (just like it does in the opening).
• Natsume's Book of Friends has Nyanko-sensei doing something slightly different with each eyecatch (yawning, trying to catch a butterfly, etc.).
• Neon Genesis Evangelion has an eyecatch with white lettering on a black background, preceded by Japanese kanji shown with startling rapidity.
• The One Piece anime uses these, and they're downright charming. Each one features a different character.
  • Originally they simply involved a "Wanted!" Poster of the character blowing by while a snippet of that character's theme music played (although early episodes would mix the posters with different theme music, so one episode might have Zoro's poster with Nami's theme, etc). Heck even Vivi got one during her tenure with the Straw Hats.
  • When the anime had reached the Foxy arc, they were changed to viewing one of the Straw Hats through a telescope, them reacting to it and then panning down to objects related to them (Luffy's Straw Hat and Vest, Zoro Swords, Ussop's Goggles and a Dartboard, etc). The music stayed the same save for the new themes for Franky and Brook.
  • After the Time Skip, two new eyecatches were developed. The one before the commercial break features an object related to one of the crew on a table in the foreground as shadows of Straw Hats run by in the background. The Straw Hat related to that object would pass by and pick up the object before it cuts to a picture of the crew walking toward the Sunny with the title imprinted in the middle. When it came back from break, we see an red silhouetted image of Luffy trying to catch his hat and goes off screen as the title forms. He jumps down and forms the "i" of the title.
  • After the Dressrosa arc, the eyecatch changed back to the wanted posters, but this time, the background showed a scene unique to the featured character.
  • Episode 336 had a unique eyecatch featuring Chopperman in a brawl with several other characters from the episode.
  • The crossover special with Toriko also had a unique one. It was just a still image of Luffy and Toriko.
  • Yet another unique one was during the crossover special with Toriko and Dragon Ball Z. It showed Luffy, Goku, and Toriko laughing together.
  • Wano arc came with a change of art style and new eyecatches to boot. Only Luffy and Zoro got their own for now but they're splendid, showing the character preparing for an attack accompanied by a japanified version of their theme.
• Outlaw Star's involved going from, first, white to black, with gunshots firing individual letters of "OUTLAW," followed by "STAR," then with one gun cock, the logo appears with a black background. Returning from commercial, the backgrounds go from black to white, complete with a musical stinger and the sounds of a chain gun firing the letters, then a flash to the logo once more.
• Pani Poni Dash! used them constantly, not just for commercial breaks. For some reason, the early ones were of local Magical Girl Behoimi. Negima!? was much the same, probably because it was by the same studio. The use could be excessive — the last episode of Pani Poni Dash! felt like it was half eyecatches.
• Paranoia Agent has two new eyecatches every single episode, all of them being creepy and surreal yet simplistic backgrounds.
• Penguindrum uses a map of Tokyo's Marunouchi subway line with each stop representing the current episode. This is a rare case where the eyecatch isn't just a reference to the plot but an important clue in itself since Marunouchi was targeted in two of Aum Shinrikyo's gas attacks.
• Along with the rest of its nods to the game's gameplay system, Persona 4: The Animation has eyecatches which show the hero's character stat growth.
• Persona 4: The Golden Animation: Before and after the commercial break, the show has cut-in stills of the main characters in various costumes you can acquire in the game Persona 4 Golden.
• Planetes has one where the show's title shifts from one language to another.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • The "Who's That Pokémon" segment, in which viewers are asked to identify a Pokémon by its silhouette (and, in some episodes, some information about its behavior). The Japanese version dropped this in Advanced Generation, replacing it with normal eyecatches. The American 4Kids dub kept them for the first 40 episodes of Hoenn before replacing it with "Trainer's Choice", a quiz on Pokémon knowledge. That lasted until The Pokémon Company International took over the dub.
    Okay, trainers! Which of these Pokemon^note  Arbok, Sableye, and Suicune evolves into Seviper?
    If you chose Arbok, you're right!^note Nothing evolves into Seviper, nor does it evolve into anything. Arbok does not evolve into anything; it evolves from Ekans.
  • After 5 seasons without eyecatches, the dub brought back Who's That Pokémon for Pokémon the Series: Black & White. Eventually, the Japanese version added it back as well after spending Hoenn and Sinnoh with generic eyecatches.
  • Interestingly, while the Japanese eyecatches almost always tied-in with the episode's plot (one even featured the infamous "Jigglypuff viewed from above"), 4Kids would often swap them out for completely unrelated 'mon, possibly to give The Merch a better cross-section of spotlight or just to make the answers less obvious.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure eyecatches usually involved Nagisa and/or Honoka messing around with the Card Commune, showing what abilities they had. MaX Heart included one where the three Cures are tiny, and being played with by a giant Pollun.
  • Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star's first eyecatch had Flappy and Choppy open a present to reveal a tiny Saki and Mai inside.
  • Yes! Pretty Cure 5 has an eyecatch with a four-way split-screen of the Cures doing their signature activity, ending with a "YEAH!" Shot of Nozomi and Coco.
  • Fresh Pretty Cure! has model shots of the three Cures making heart shapes with their hands. This was updated halfway through when Cure Passion came along. The returning eyecatch has chibi versions of the Cures flying around the screen, dressing up Chiffon.
  • HeartCatch Pretty Cure! has spinning slides of Tsubomi and Erika playing dress-up.
  • Suite Pretty Cure ♪ has a chibi Hummy and Hibiki sneaking some cupcakes, which makes chibi Kanade fly into a rage and chase them.
  • Smile PreCure!'s eyecatch has a hand placing a Cure Decor in the shape of the Smile emblem, or the same decor into the Royal Clock into the Smile Pact. It causes it to show a random character, usually a Cure for the first eyecatch and Candy in a different outfit or in the sky with Pop for the second one. Four times, the second was an Akanbe.
  • Doki Doki! PreCure has Mana give Ai-chan a bottle, with the other Cures inching over to see.
  • HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! has chibi versions of the Cures doing various activities with goofy faces.
  • Go! Princess Pretty Cure combines this with a Couch Gag, as each eyecatch shows Pafu with a different hairstyle.
  • Maho Girls Pretty Cure! has Mirai and Riko making bead jewelry with Mofurun.
  • KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode features one where Ichika and Pekorin...brush their teeth, for some reason.
  • HuGtto! Pretty Cure has one where Hana dreams of playing a tambourine for Hugtan, who dances erratically.
  • Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure has chibi versions of the Cures present Fuwa with different foods.
  • Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure typically has chibi versions of the Cures doing stuff together. These are animated in a more stilted, choppy manner, likely due to this season being produced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and animation being on crunch time.
  • Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure featured a villain parody of one of the regular eyecatches in episode 33.
  • Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure has the Cures cloudgazing, where Yui sees all the clouds as food.
  • Hirogaru Sky! Pretty Cure has Sora and Mashiro trying on makeup together.
• Princess Princess uses an eyecatch with one of the boys in both their normal clothes and then their princess outfits.
• Princess Tutu:
  • The first season has an eyecatch of the main character's mentor and the eventual villain, Drosselmeyer, spinning on a cog while the Nutcracker March (his leitmotif) plays in the background. The second season originally didn't have an eyecatch, since each episode was split up into two parts and joined with another show—but when they were put back together for the DVD, they added an eyecatch in which a clock spun around to the same tune, then opened to show Drosselmeyer drinking a cup of tea.
  • One of the episodes in the first season also replaced the normal eyecatch with a special one in one episode. The marriage-obsessed Mr. Cat believed the main character was going to meet him for a date at the pizza parlor, and the eyecatch shows him waiting patiently for her while humming the Nutcracker March.
• Ranma ½ had two different eyecatches, one in the first season, one applied to all of the remaining six seasons, and the first one might not have been a proper eyecatch. The differences between the two could be chalked up to the fact that the series was produced by first one studio, then dropped and picked up by a second.
  • The first season had a single eyecatch that played in the middle of the episode, and a second one that played just before the end-credits. The former consisted of Genma, in panda form, juggling three pieces of fruit and eating them on the second rotation before washing them down with a cup of tea. The second consisted of Ranma, in girl form, nonchalantly juggling first P-chan (Ryoga's cursed form), then Shampoo's cursed form, then looking horrified and barely managing to catch Genma's panda form.
  • The latter seasons had a two-parter proper eyecatch, using Super-Deformed artstyle. When the episode ended for its commercial break, Ranma-boy would come running in from the right side of the screen as an angry Akane pursued with swings of a broom, flipping over her and, to the horror of both, unintentionally landing on P-chan, who had followed Akane. When the episode returned, Ranma-boy would back in from the right as Akane, with P-chan sitting on her head, tried to strike Ranma, who backflipped away and pulled a face — only to land in a tub of cold water as Genma-panda suddenly rushed onto the scene, emerging with a dumbstruck, exasperated expression in female form.
• "Revolutionary Girl Utena" had a red curtain background where the title would appear along with the French name of the show below it.
• Rozen Maiden had a few, always accompanied by two distinctive classical jingles. They usually showed the characters drinking tea.
• Sailor Moon had new catches for each season, usually involving the team jumping around inspirationally. A few of the eyecatches were also recreated for the video games. Noteably the first part of R's eyecatch is recreated in one of the first games, unless Chibi-usa mode is selected, wherein she drops into the eyecatch on top of the Sailor Senshi. The Continuity Reboot Sailor Moon Crystal uses elaborate artwork for its eyecatches.
  • The pre-break eyecatch has the series logo against a baby blue starry sky, with the earth below it. At right, in pastels, a reverse painted silhouette of Sailor Moon is tangled in draped ribbons, along with the moon and inner planets.
  • The post-break eyecatch has silhouettes of Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon beneath a large roman column, accented by red rose petals, as the Earth hangs in a white sky with the series logo at right.
• Shakugan no Shana has eyecatches accompanied by the same loud fanfare (Da-dun-da-dun dada-da-dun, dadadada da-dun), causing Soundtrack Dissonance several times. For the second season, they usually reflected the events or characters of that episode. The ''Shana-tan' DVD specials had eyecatches between each short skit.
• SHUFFLE! was an interesting case. The first half of the series had light-hearted eyecatches with upbeat ditties, but when the show got more serious, the eyecatches in turn got more dramatic-sounding.
• Simoun is rare in that it never reuses an eyecatch — each one is a beautifully detailed drawing of a character in a pose related to the episode. Postcards of the eyecatches, and an eyecatch art gallery, were used as DVD bonus material.
• Sky Girls has one halfway through the episode. It will feature closeup (often Fanservice) of one member of the Sky Girls and a picture of said member piloting their Sonic Diver. It managed to spoil the appearances of new members of the Sky Girls team by showing them piloting a new Sonic Diver before they were even introduced as a pilot.
• Slam Dunk has several of them, usually featuring Sakuragi, Rukawa and Haruko, or Sakuragi being disciplined by Akagi.
• The original Slayers series had no eyecatch. Next had a quick montage of the main characters ending with two of them in a couple pose (often wearing school uniforms); amusingly, when Gourry and Zelgadis (both men) ended together the screen would shatter. In Try the montage showed the main characters as children and ended again on a couple pose, but this one seemed to represent possible pairings as they would be at the end of the main story arc (and the series). Both series reused a set number of eyecatches but had unique ones for the last few episodes. For the first time in the series, Slayers Revolution has the post-break eyecatch showing events directly connected to the current episode. * Slayers Next has eyecatchers in the form of a Setting Update, with memorable cards such as Amelia as a waitress and Goury and Zelgadis as a gay couple, which breaks the screen.
• In Sgt. Frog's first season the eyecatch is Keroro holding a sign... with the word eyecatch in giant letters in the background. In season 2, he crashes into the camera while swinging.
• In Sonic X, a card would appear with data about one of the characters — usually one relevant to the plot. That is how the name of Cream the Rabbit's mom Vanilla was revealed. Sometimes they double as Trailers Always Spoil, especially in the case of the weekly robot that hasn't shown up yet. This, however, is averted in Episode 26, where the featured robot, E-99, was shown in silhouette. For that extra-special effect, it took up both of the usual spots of the eyecatch (still in silhouette), and Dr. Eggman even popped up in front of the second occurrence.
• Special A has eyecatches featuring the couple of the week starting at the latter episodes.
• Stellvia of the Universe has a unique pair for each episode, too. The pre-commercial eyecatch is also often (but not always, especially when it doesn't fit) accompanied by light-hearted jingle (which is identified in the soundtrack). The post-commercial eyecatch is always accompanied by a more heroic jingle (which is also identified in the soundtrack).
• Strawberry Marshmallow's eyecatches always feature Nobue, rather than the younger girls — though they do sometimes appear in the form of key-chain/cell-phone fob type dolls. They are always against a white background, and usually, in the TV series, from odd angles, such as an extreme closeup of her bottom. The OVAs also have eyecatches in approximately the middle of the episode (ranging from 8 to 23 minutes into a 24-27 minute episode), despite, obviously, not having to break for commercials. The OVAs also change them from episode to episode, rather than reusing them as the TV series did.
• The anime adaption of Student Council's Discretion has the first eyecatch showing characters in a parody of cultural references, the second eyecatch shows pictures of the characters' school life.
• Tenchi Muyo! uses a Kabuki stage with tsuzumi and okawa sounds in its Eye Catch.
• Every episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has a different eyecatch, usually related to the plot of the episode (with the pre-break eyecatch displaying the episode's heroes, and the post-break eyecatch displays its villains), and always done in a heavily contrasted and exaggerated style with a giant lens flare. Fans took it upon themselves to make high-resolution vectorized images of them to use as wallpaper. After the timeskip, the hiphop-ish BGM of the eyecatches is accompanied by a memetic chant of "ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH!"
• The eyecatch for To Love Ru featured Lala removing her towel.
• Tokyo Mew Mew had a cute eyecatch featured Super-Deformed versions of the protagonists, and then a cute slider puzzle eyecatch.
• Trigun's eyecatch at the beginning of a break had a distinctive guitar fill; the one at the end of the break had the same riff played backwards.
• Tsuyokiss Cool X Sweet also had a guitar riff, played backwards at the end of the break.
• Urusei Yatsura: Changed several times during the TV anime series' run.
  • The first generation eyecatches played up the Ataru-Lum-Shinobu Love Triangle by having Ataru pursue either Shinobu (in the commercial intro) or a topless Lum (in the commercial outro) lustfully, only to face-fault when the girl he is pursuing changes into her "rival." The music is a piano riff of part of the chorus from "Lum no Love Song."
  • In the second generation eyecatches, Ataru is hit on the head (complete with a bump on the head) and hammered down by the series logo. The animation is the same for the intro and outro but the sound effects are different.
  • The third generation eyecatches feature a chibi Lum as a magician pulling Ataru out of a hat (commercial intro) or simply extending a hand in greeting to the viewer (commercial outro) over an excerpt of "Yume wa Love Me More" (with vocals in the intro, instrumental in the outro).
  • The animation remained the same for the fourth and fifth generation eyecatches (with a chibi Lum and a scrambled series logo) but the music and sound effects changed.
• Wandaba Style used the same image for the eyecatch each episode (the first, an image of the girls of Mix Juice, and the second, Teen Genius Susumu and Satellite Girl Kiku#8), but featured the girls saying something different each time.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The Japanese dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! has a spinning Millenium Puzzle and the word "Yu-Gi-Oh!" appear on the screen. There's also the 'Fair play fair duel' with Yami Yugi's silhouette.
  • The Season 0 anime also had one that was more Egyptian themed, usually with Yami Yugi's silhouette.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has a different one every episode, generally of a character and monster relevant to the plot for that episode.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has Yusei summoning Junk Warrior or Stardust Dragon. Near the end of the series, they did away with this entirely.
  • Zexal dropped this almost entirely. The only thing that marks the beginning and the ending of a break is the series' logo fading in or out in the screen's corner (often during dramatic close-ups). The following series, Arc-V, does exactly the same with its own logo.
• The YuruYuri anime has a separate, rather long and elaborate, Eye Catch for each of the main cast, complete with individual themes.
• YuYu Hakusho had a cute one with Super Deformed versions of the main characters killing some demons, which then form the show's title. Then Botan flies in and Koenma falls on Kuwabara's head.

Fan Works

• The episode-long Fan Film TRULY OUTRAGEOUS: A Jem Fan Film! emulates the original Jem cartoon by containing eyecatches.
• This fan-made retro Sleepless Domain eyecatch, which mimics the style of older Magical Girl anime like the original Sailor Moon.

Live-Action TV

• Most British broadcasters use a static caption with the show's title and sometimes a superimposed channel logo, sometimes accompanied by a snatch of the theme tune, at the start and end of each break. In the past there were a few shows that used animated bumpers, notably The Prisoner (1967) with an animated pennyfarthing bike disassembling before the break and reassembling afterward. (These are not included in the main body of the remastered DVD episodes, but appear as extras.)
  
  As The BBC doesn't carry any adverts, this can cause issues when BBC programmes are repeated on commercial channels such as UK Gold, which do. Early on it was common to have eyecatches specific to the programme (usually a screencap with the programme title and channel logo) but more recently they tend to use generic eyecatches which just have the channel logo.
• Live-action shows with network content warnings sometimes have additional Content Warnings in place of where an eyecatch would go. Not really an eyecatch, but they can "catch your eye" if you're fast forwarding through the commercials.
• The Sci-Fi Channel used to have interesting eyecatches used on most shows they played. Normally they depicted something absurd or nonsensical, and then the Sci-Fi logo would fade out partially, leading the word "IF" behind.
• Syndicated Reruns of programs will occasionally feature eyecatches with an announcer, usually one of the cast, saying that "(Show) will be right back." Then during the final commercial break, there will generally be another one, this time announcing that "(Show) is brought to you by the following sponsors."
• 24 has its signature ticking clock both immediately before, and right after any commercial break.
• Beakman's World had the famous catches with the robotic-voiced bumpers. BKN infamously overlaid them with their own Ad Bumpers when they ran the series in 2000. And the Netflix version also leaves them off, what with no commercials to be cutting to.
• Better Off Ted has a fake ad for Veridian Dynamics (the show's fictional company) before the first commercial break. May be something of an inversion, as it looks so much like an authentic commercial for a generic faceless corporation that it's very easy to tune out (or skip over if you're watching via DVR.)
• Caméra Café features playing around with the coffee machine and a coffee goblet sporting the series' title. The goblet can fill normally, it can topple, it can fall after the coffee, or something absurd can happen, like the goblet filling with concrete instead of coffee.
• Dirty Jobs uses eyecatches based on the opening credits, with bugs, unidentified gooey stuff and squishy noises present.
• Fringe uses X-ray pictures that form a code when put together.
• Good Eats uses a rejoin eyecatch (the title card and a quick snippet of the theme) starting with the third-season episodes.
• iZombie comes back from commercial with the scene represented as a comic book panel (with a humorous subtitle) before changing to live-action.
• Early seasons of Kaamelott have short gags or scenes from the pilot episodes, showing the knights doing a Team Power Walk or fleeing, or Merlin misfiring a Fireball. One was original, though: King Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone and stumbling into a pond as a result.
• Showa era Kamen Rider shows have this. Shows from the Turn of the Millennium onward just directly cut to commercials with the unique exception of 2020-2021's Kamen Rider Saber, which employs them (along with an ending credits sequence, which was previously done a grand total of twice since 2000) to shorten the show's running time, facilitating filming around COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions.
• Knight Rider episodes would shrink the picture to the corner of the screen, with the space being filled by a picture of KITT at night in the first season, and a clip of KITT racing through a desert for the other three seasons. Both versions would use a dramatic fanfare based on a segment of the theme music.
  • The second season opener instead uses a clip of KITT and Goliath charging at each other.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000
  • The eyecatch usually displays the show's trademark "spaghetti ball" spinning for a few seconds before commercials, with an instrumental snippet of the Theme Tune.
  • Seasons 2 through the Joel episodes of season 5 would also have eyecatches featuring close-up shots of Gizmonic Institute.
  • Starting with Mike episodes of 5 and running through the end of the show's Comedy Central run, some of the eyecatches would be shots of various experiments in Deep 13, alongside the name of the movie being shown.
• MythBusters shows their title as letters welded on a rusted steel plate (or sometimes cut out of one) with some action occurring either to or near it (like being shot with a BB gun or moved through their building, M5, on the front of a forklift), usually before and after each commercial break. They use one that reads "Warning: Science Content" sometimes, too. This all fits in with their theme, since they use similar plates reading "Busted," "Plausible," and "Confirmed" at the conclusion of each myth.
• NCIS
  • Starting around the 2nd season or so, NCIS lets its viewers know when a commercial break is starting or ending with a grayscaled half-second snippet overlaid with a soft thump. It can also serve as a sneak peek and even potential (yet minor) spoiler, as 99.9% of the time, the eyecatch from the start of a segment will be a quick view of the end of that same segment (which will also serve as an eyecatch). Partially subverted in that these also happen right before the end credits.
  • The spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles is a bit more frenetic with its version of this, with several connected grayscaled snapshots of past and/or future events, with the sound of a camera taking a photograph.
  • A second spinoff, NCIS: New Orleans, uses a similar mechanic to the parent show, though styled differently: faces are color-cast in a shade of orange and the rest of the shot is grayed out. A musical sting featuring a tambourine accompanies the snippet.
  • NCIS: Hawaiʻi subverts this somewhat. The eye catch going into the commercial break is still there, but the flash-forward eye catch afterwards is not.
  • For NCIS: Sydney, an updated version of the parent show’s eye catch with a new sound and a glitchy transition effect is used
• A very interesting example on Person of Interest. The show's premise involves a Machine that spies on everyone. When the show comes back from commercials, the Machine's point of view of many of the security cameras around New York (and often audio feeds, articles and other means of surveillance) are seen moving across the screen, the Machine then focuses on one of them, taking us into the scene.
  • When the first scene after commercials is a flashback, a similar screen is shown, with a timeline overlay of years (and sometimes months, days and hours) which then scroll back to the year the flashback takes place in. Sometimes, the Machine recaps data straight from the commercial too, in which case, this is an Subverted Trope.
    • The only exceptions to this as of Season 3 are in the Season 3 finale "Deus Ex Machina" and its precursor "A House Divided" where we are shown the Start of Darkness of Peter Collier often straight from the commercial. We just enter the scene as with any other TV show, except "2010" is featured prominently on the screen. It's pretty jarring, considering viewers are accustomed to hearing the incoherent slur of thousands of voices straight from the commercial.
• The MTV reality show Run's House had one. It was basically a snippet of the opening sequence.
• The Australian series Spellbinder used the "Logo in the corner" version for both entering and exiting the break—quite unusual on Aussie TV of the time. Usually, kids' shows would simply go to commercial, sometimes with an eyecatch that may have simply been a freeze-frame of the title card, and then they came out, the network would superimpose a card across the bottom of the screen showing the network logo, the name of the show, and the rating.
• The Japanese Spider-Man series has eyecatches too, used as page images on the show's article here.
• The different Star Trek series will sometimes have the logo shown with a background of empty space (TNG), the station (Deep Space Nine), space with nebulas, solar flares, etc. (Voyager), or the Cool Ship (Enterprise) while a snatch of the theme music plays. The remastered Star Trek: The Original Series got ones with various scenes from the show.
  • In a similar vein, Babylon 5 would invariably show a shot of the eponymous station, or whatever planet or ship the action was taking place on at the moment, when returning from commercial. (Which incidentally makes it very obvious where the commercial went when watching on DVD.)
• Super Sentai has them, and the one for Gekisou Sentai Carranger was kept in the later episodes of Power Rangers Turbo — the Power Rangers one, of course, removed the Carranger name.
• As a series about adult tokusatsu fandom, Tokusatsu GaGaGa also employs these albeit purely as scene transitions at random points in an episode. (The show aired on NHK which, like the BBC mentioned above, is a State Broadcaster that doesn't carry adverts.)
• On Michael Moore's series TV Nation, commercial breaks were preceded by the results of humorous opinion polls. (The polling, done by the firm of Widgery and Associates, was legitimate, though the questions were preposterous.)
• Many if not all Ultra Series shows, beginning with Return of Ultraman, use their logos this way.
• Some Victorious and Big Time Rush episodes have Customized Eyecatches featuring their recent songs, but that depends if they're using their customized Credits Pushback ending credits.
• The Wild Wild West had a unique method of doing this. The last frame of the sequence before the commercial (usually a cliffhanger) was transformed into a comics-style illustration (in the pilot and from sometime during season two onwards) or alternatively a black and white (in season one)/tinted color (in the first several season two episodes) and placed into one of five panels that resembled a comic strip, with each sequence being placed in a different panel.

Professional Wrestling

• CMLL cycles through the luchadors on its roster for its "Regresamos" and "Continuamos" spots, which often are the only exposure to the television audience those not on the current show get.

Video Games

• Asura's Wrath does this intenionally, with the Eyecathes being just like anime ones, and is episodic like a real anime.
• Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny had something similar to this when transitioning between Felt and Viese.
• Detana!! TwinBee, TwinBee Yahoo! and Pop'n TwinBee have these, after every level is completed. Yahoo has great eyecatches, with one character per eyecatch (except TwinBee, oddly enough) saying "Yahho!" at the end.
• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice has more stages per "episode" than its predecessors. In keeping with the spirit of the series, this was Lampshaded by running eyecatches about halfway through the plot of each episode, using the battle close-ups of the cast. Instead of running fake commercials, they led into a brief skit featuring "Today's 10 Gents", a.k.a. the Diez Gentlemen.
• The Pokémon remakes FireRed, LeafGreen, HeartGold, and SoulSilver featured eyecatches that would be displayed when the player entered certain locations, usually caves, forests, and special buildings. HeartGold and SoulSilver actually featured four different eyecatches for each area, which were displayed depending on the time of day.
• Rusty has a different splash screen at the end of each level showing the game's title and Fanservice of the heroine.
• Star Parodier has a humorous splash screen at the end of each Scene, accompanied by a Title Scream.
• Being what it was, Tech Romancer had eyecatches for each Mecha's Story Mode between the dialogue and fight in each stage.
• While Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL Clash! Duel Carnival! loads, the game shows the monster Gagaga Girl rendered in the game's "pixelated chibi" style. Once in a while however, it may show the anime's female lead Kotori Mizuki cosplaying as her instead. This may be a nod to the 92nd and 93rd episodes of the anime, during which Kotori actually dressed up as her during the local (obviously Duel Monsters-themed) School Festival.

Webcomics

• The now-defunct Life of Riley used to do this in a webcomic! This was one way they handled filler strips.

Web Original

• Atop the Fourth Wall, however, does have scheduled advertising in the form of a "mid-roll" ad. While other users tend to ignore the mid-roll (although the Nostalgia Critic sometimes lampshades it), Linkara has a set of specially prepared bumpers to put around it.
• This live-actionized "anime" video by Corridor features a parodying expositional eyecatch, albeit without actual commercials.
• In Epithet Erased, there are screens that pop up before and after ad-breaks, showing facts about various characters, complete with said character saying a variation of the show's name.
• Being a Web Video, and thus not having scheduled advertising, France Five doesn't need eyecatches. It is, however, also a parody of Sentai, and since Toku shows usually feature one, so does this amateur series.
  • Episodes 2-4 have the camera turning around the Cel Shaded heroes in a "Super Sentai" Stance. In the "return" eyecatch, though, they screw it up and fall in a heap, save for Red Fromage who facepalms.
  • Episodes 5 and 6 have a very Animesque still frame of Zakaral confronting the France Five.

Western Animation

• One brand of animation where eyecatches are largely averted are with series made in France, for the simple reason they are not cut by commercial breaks when broadcasted in their country of origin. Attempts to put commercial breaks in twenty-minutes-long children cartoons or anime in the '80s resulted in very strong protests from the parents. As a general rule, the French have a much lower tolerance for advertising compared to other nations.
• Most of the works of Mainframe Entertainment (as it was known before it got its name changed) made in the 90s and early 2000s had eye catches when going to and coming back from commercial. This includes ReBoot, Beast Wars, Weird-Ohs, Beast Machines, Shadow Raiders/War Planets, Action Man (2000) and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series.
• The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin has one that had Teddy's voice saying "My friends and I, will be right back!"
• The eyecatch for Æon Flux is a Visual Pun: a fly crawls closer and closer to a human eye seemingly without iris or pupil. The eyelashes close like a Venus Flytrap, imprisoning the fly, as the pupil of the eye rolls around to examine its catch.
• In between each episode of Alma's Way, there's a short blurb with Alma dancing in front of a teal background and the show logo enlarging.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Early episodes would occasionally cut to the main logo or characters being in the alley from the intro before cutting back.
• Archie's Weird Mysteries has these, with the voice of any of the main characters shown saying variations of "don't go away", and even the opposite "we're back".
• Beavis And Butthead has eyecatches that either use "we'll be back after this" messages or fake "Coming up, this will happen to the protagonists" announcements.
  "Butt-Head pulls a muscle and Beavis pulls his finger, right after this."
• Code Lyoko has five eyecatches in each episode, one for each member of the Five-Man Band, in variable order, with an animation of the Lyoko avatar, name and face of the character in the XANA logo. Interestingly three of these eyecatches (Jeremie's, Aelita's and Odd's) use their signature colors (light blue, pink and purple respectively) as a background while the remaining 2 (Ulrich and Yumi) use red and green respectively. While Yumi's signature color of black not being used makes sense as it would make the eyecatch unpleasant to look at and the use of green could count as subtle Ship Tease (since green is Ulrich's signature color), Ulrich having a red background is a bit confusing since red is the signature color of William Dunbar, Ulrich's rival for Yumi's affection.
• Coming Attractions, the Show Within a Show from The Critic, features these, usually as a joke at the expense of host Jay Sherman.
• Daria. The eyecatch is a slow-motion clip of something that happened earlier in the episode. A subversion occurred when Daria and Quinn pick up a hitchhiker. After they drop him off, Daria freaks out that he stole their money. Cue the eyecatch, only for it to cut halfway through and go back to the show, as Quinn explains that she gave him the money.
• The Darkstalkers cartoon has these, one of Harry and his pals firing and another of Morrigan firing.
• Dexter's Laboratory, and other rerun series have these for airings on Cartoon Network's Boomerang channel in the United States.
• Family Guy: "Airport 07", parodying Will & Grace.
• Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes has one with each member of the team making the team's symbol, a four in a circle.
• "Garfield and Friends will be back after these messages. If I feel like it."
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) featured a handful of eyecatches featuring Orko. The image of him bursting out of the background would later be featured as a recurring merchandise element.
• Inspector Gadget. Dr. Claw: "Inspector Gadget may return after these messages."^note Except for the pilot, this was usually done for the last eyecatch of the episode.
• Jem had thirteen bumpers over the course of three seasons. Netflix lacks them but television reruns and the DVD sets don't. The first few were still images but after a while they became animated. Most are Jem doing something like singing or just moving around, Jem transforming back into Jerrica, or Jem with Rio (though a third season eyecatch is her in the middle of Rio and Riot).
• KaBlam!. "Hey Ka-Blammoids, keep your hiner in the recliner! Still to come, [Insert short], [insert short], and more Action League NOW!! Right here on KaBlam!" After the commercials ended, the announcer would say "KaBlam!", while a picture of the logo would do something. Later seasons changed this to Henry trying to lift up the logo, it falls on him, and then June winks at the audience. Then the announcer would say "KaBlam!" again like previously, this was to start the next break.
• The Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon used these for both going to and coming from commercials. These got some rather nice Art Evolution in the second season, going from flat colors and generic poses to gaining some quality shading and more dynamic action poses.
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023) features ones that take the appearance of record covers, playing chill instrumentals from the show's original soundtrack.
• The Real Ghostbusters has a variety of these, all featuring the ghost from the GB logo doing something funny and then saying "TRG will return after these messages. / And now back to the RGB.". These include:
  • Getting caught whistling outside the "No ghosts" symbol, then jumping back where he's supposed to be.
  • Looking left, then ducking down as a bunch of ghosts run by.
  • Finding himself upside down, then correcting his position.
  • Getting caught trying to saw his way out of the logo's diagonal bar, then hiding the saw while blushing.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle uses several elaborate clips in rotation:
  • Bullwinkle tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat but gets a lion or a rhinoceros, whereupon Rocky says to the audience, "Now here's something we hope you'll really like."
  • Rocky delivers an urgent message to a battlefield.
  • Swami Bullwinkle announces, "Eeny meeny, chili beany, the spirits are about to speak!" Rocky: "Are they friendly spirits?" Bullwinkle: "Friendly? Just listen!"
• The Simpsons parodied this in their spin-off showcase episode:
  Announcer: Chief Wiggum, P.I. will return... right now!
• Steven Universe does an eyecatch for its 100th episode 22-minute special; after each commercial break, a short animation of the Crystal Gems (including Bismuth) arriving onto a warp pad, with Steven running to them, then tripping and parlaying it into a pose. (It's repeated for both act breaks with a differently-colored background for each.)
• In Stickin' Around, the camera zooms out of Frank watching Stanley fixing the TV. When the break is over, the eyecatch featured Stacy using Frank as an antenna.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! had episode-specific eyecatches for its first few weeks.
  Mario: Is he talking about us?
  Luigi: You better believe it!
  (jump sound effect followed by sound of power up emerging from [?] box)
• Unusually, Totally Spies! uses an eyecatch into, but not out of, a break.
• Transformers
  • The original cartoon had eyecatches before and after each break, each one showing off a different character's transformation and accompanied by the distinctive voice of Victor Caroli intoning, "The Transformers will return, after these messages". The VHS release of some episodes kept these, and added sound effects for flying, transforming, etc. With each season having their own unique set^*Season 1 and the first half of Season 2 having Optimus Prime, Starscream, Jazz and Laserbeak; Second half Season 2 with Shockwave, Grimlock, Hook, Astrotain, Cosmos, Thrust, Warpath, Devastator and Omega Supreme; Season 3 with Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Blurr, Trypticon and a random Sharkticon; and Season 4 with Scorponok and Highbrow
  • Transformers: Armada would have a scene of Optimus posing dramatically for going to commercial, and Megatron for coming back.
  • In fact, there's a whole list at the TF Wiki, covering both US and Japan.
• When X-Men: The Animated Series was brought to Japan, in addition to new openings being made for it, new eyecatches were made as well. See for yourself.

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