Once Per Episode / Western Animation

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• Jonesy acquires, and is fired from, a new job in just about every episode of 6teen.
• Abby Hatcher: Abby and Bozzly's Lock-and-Load Montage, as well as Abby having a "brain spark". Also Chef Jeff suffering some kind of screw-up in the kitchen thanks to Abby's bike passing through.
• Action Man (2000): At each episode's climax, Alex triggers his Awesome by Analysis powers and performs a stunt to save the day. Sometimes he also triggers these powers early in the episode as well.
• The snail in Adventure Time appears in the background every episode (complete list of appearances here). Despite his small appearances, he actually has an important role: He gets possessed by The Lich in "Mortal Folly", the first half of the Season 2 finale.
  • The only episode where the Snail doesn't appear is "Food Chain". This was done by a guest animator who was apparently unaware of the joke!
• After Adventure Time: Distant Lands premiered on HBO Max, the show's staff confirmed that the snail won't be returning to the miniseries. Instead, its role has been replaced... by Finn and Jake, of all people. But instead of them serving as an Easter Egg, they instead serve as an indicator to show which time period each special takes place:
  • "BMO" ends with the titular robot meeting Finn and Jake for the first time, as the special is revealed to take place years before the original series, showing a younger Finn playing with a teenager Jake outside of the treehouse.
  • At the end of "Obsidian", Simon arrives at the Glass Kingdom with Finn and some Banana Guards. Then Finn comes out of the van as an adult, revealing that the episode takes place a few years after "Come Along With Me". However, Jake is nowhere to be seen, other than a tattoo on Finn's chest. Lastly, Jake's granddaughter Bronwyn has taken his place as Finn's sidekick, implying that something happened to him between the finale and "Obsidian".
  • "Together Again" begins with another adventure for Finn and Jake during the early seasons of the show. And then everything starts going off the rails, ending with an elderly Finn pulling himself out of a Lotus-Eater Machine and waking up inside a dungeon with other people. After Finn frees them, they run towards the exit... until the Dead World gatekeeper arrives, welcoming them to their new home. Yup, not only the episode takes place decades after "Obsidian", but also reveals that Finn is dead. And Jake? He died between the finale and "Obsidian".
• In every episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Jimmy screws something up that is threatening to the entire town and thinks of a way to fix it. In. Every. Episode.
• In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik's catchphrase, "I hate that hedgehog!" is generally said at the end of most episodes. This is played with in "Over the Hill Hero", where shortly after Robotnik has retreated with his mooks, Captain Rescue ends the episode with "I like that hedgehog!"
• Angels of Jarm: There is a segment in each episode where some background voices say a rhyme about which angel will be selected to take care of the problem going on in Jarm, followed by the selected angel being sent through the celestial highway, speeding through a rainbow pathway from outer space to Planet Earth.
  There's work to be done!
  Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie
  Mick, Mick, Mick, Rafe
  Who will keep you safe?
  Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie
  Rafe, Rafe, Rafe, Mick
  Who will be the pick?
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
  • In just about every episode the television ends up destroyed.
  • Early episodes usually had a least one scene with the Aqua Teens in Carl's pool, though this trend was eventually dropped.
• Atomic Puppet: Joey and AP will say "Victory Pose!" and make one at the end of every episode.
• Bad Dog: Every episode had the titular scene of Berkeley being called a Bad Dog for all the chaos he caused throughout the episode (or, in some cases, because he heard those words and thought they were directed at him), and becoming so upset that he flips onto his back and goes completely catatonic until someone calls him a good dog.
• BB3B: Bar the first episode, the band members of Bis would appear at some point (unbeknownst to the characters and usually in an odd location) in the episode playing a song relevant to the plot.
  • The twins would also have an Imagine Spot, usually about how Billy Bob has made their lives worse.
• In every episode of The Beginner's Bible, there's a song.
• In every episode of The Beeps, the Beep Beep Tree emerges from the ground at random and starts singing its song, which causes every Beep present (even grumpy Drozzle and Heavy Sleeper Sleepy) to start dancing and singing along.
• In the original series of the Biker Mice from Mars, the title characters or someone else would demolish Limburger Plaza at the end of pretty much every episode. Got some variants, such as the episodes where Limburger is running his scheme from somewhere else (and that gets demolished instead), the episode where Limburger Plaza got demolished at the start of the episode (that consisted of Limburger rebuilding it only to have it demolished again at the end), and "Once Upon a Time on Mars", in which they decide to end the series with a bang and demolish the palace of Lord Stilton (Limburger's boss when he was on Mars) in the flashback part and, in the present sequence, Limburger Plaza, Stilton's rebuilt palace on Mars and Lord Camembert (the supreme leader of the Plutarkians) with the same attack (and they didn't even do it on purpose).
• Birdman's catchphrase on the show of the same name: "Biiirdman!", worked in two or three times per seven-minute episode. To add "Birdman is captured by the villain and saved by Avenger" and "Birdman is caught in the dark and deprived of his powers" to the list would be only mild exaggerations.
  • And in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, "I'll take the case!" was uttered in every episode.
    • Did you get that thing I sent you?
    • I couldn't hear that! I only have the one eye!
• Blaze and the Monster Machines:
  • The various STEM concepts, with each episode focusing on one which becomes its main theme.
  • The problems and obstacles Blaze and AJ encounter. Usually there are three major ones encountered per episode, each requiring three attempts to solve.
  • Blaze transforming into different things to solve a specific problem.
  • Crusher hindering Blaze with an obstacle on the track or one of his inventions.
  • The hilarious subplots featuring Crusher and Pickle with their own situations which have no relation to the main story but follow a similar theme.
  • The musical numbers, which usually occur twice each episode, with the first happening when Blaze and AJ set off, and the second focusing on the STEM concept as they try it out.
  • And finally there's Blaze's Blazing Speed, which he uses to finish something or get to his destination on time.
• Bugs Bunny has his "Eh, what's up, Doc?" line, occasionally varied depending on who he's addressing (e.g., "What's up MacDoc?" to a Scotsman, "What's up croc?" to a crocodile, "What's up duck?" to Daffy Duck).
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids: Elvis somehow finding his way into the briefing room and triggering Mr Socrates' Sneeze of Doom.
• Clue Club: Teen Genius Dotty was told by her fellow club members to stay at the clubhouse. She would show up for The Reveal anyway, often sporting "a perfectly good reason" why she was there.
• At least once per episode sometime bad will happen to Eustace at the end of each episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog; he will either get killed, locked up, or severely injured.
• The Red Guy appearing with a different job or persona in Cow and Chicken.
• Dan Vs.:
  • Dan does a Skyward Scream, swearing revenge against whatever's wronged him in this episode.
  • Dan makes an utterly ridiculous claim regarding who/whatever he's sworn vengeance on which turns out to be 100% correct. This was dropped after the first four episodes or so.
• Daria: A promo for a show-within-a-show you hardly ever actually see? The once-an-episode gag was an advert for "Next on Sick, Sad World!"
• Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: STOP THAT PIGEON!!
• Every episode of Drawn Together has at least one Lawyer-Friendly Cameo.
• Just about every episode of Duckman has the titular character commit some horrible atrocity on his office assistants Fluffy and Uranus. Since they are living plush toys, they automatically recover.
• In Earthworm Jim, at the end of each episode, a cow falls on something (a great many variations on this one).
  • Example "nothing can ruin the tenderness of this moment. Nothing. Hello? [impatient] I said nothing, not even a giant cow falling on me..."
  • The show also had a once-per-episode (or very close) gag of Peter Puppy eating haggis and reminding viewers that it is "the heart and lungs of a sheep boiled in its own stomach."
• You can bet on two things in any Eek! The Cat episode. 1) Eek will always say "It never hurts to help." 2) It will always hurt to help.
  • Also in the sub-cartoon "The Terrible Thunderlizards", Bill will say "When does the hurting stop?"
  • Also in the Thunder-Lizards, one of the Lizards themselves, if not someone else, will make a reference to the Bad Things Category. Most memorable example, in a flashback to their school years: "Yes, Cutter. I'd say having our little friend's head ripped off by the Principal would definitely fall into the Bad Things Category."
• On Esme & Roy, in every episode the monster that Esme and Roy are monster-sitting has a "monster meltdown" and Esme and Roy have to come up with a creative solution to calm them down.
• The Fairly OddParents!: The plot for every episode since mid-season 2/season 3 to season 6, with a few exceptions, can be summed up by one plan:
  • Step One: Timmy sees a recurring problem in his life.
  • Step Two: Timmy goes to Cosmo and Wanda and does a mini-rant and comes up with a "solution" that has to be done with magic. Cosmo and Wanda try to convince him to solve his problem the normal way without magic, but Timmy determines that it would take too long and/or he'd be too lazy to do it, so he makes the wish.
  • Step Three: Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda see how great the wish turns out for him or everybody (sometimes Wanda or Cosmo questions this, only to be shrugged off by the other two),
  • Step Four: The wish backfires. Timmy "has got to find Cosmo and Wanda to unwish that wish", but for some reason they are either doing something of equal importance, or they can't undo it for some reason.
  • Step Five: Timmy goes on a quest to unwish the wish. The wish gets undone,
  • Step Six: Timmy learns his lesson and makes a little speech about it.
• Family Guy:
  • At least once in every episode one character says "What the hell?" (or in Stewie's case, "What the deuce?") to another. There will also be at least one scene or gag dedicated to taking potshots at Meg.
  • In post-cancellation seasons, there is usually at least one instance of blood being depicted, often rather brutally and at least one bleeped-out swear word in each episode.
• Fudêncio e Seus Amigos: The vast majority of the episodes ended with Conrado getting a Downer Ending, which was usually being arrested, but sometimes was something else such as dying or losing everything. He would also always end the episodes saying his Catchphrase "I only get fucked in this shit!"
• On Future-Worm!, both the series proper and the original shorts, Danny would always try to solve the problem by summoning Robocarp, who would then fail spectacularly and cause Danny to admonish him by yelling "Weak!" The exception is the short where Danny meets himself from the future, where Future Danny's newer Robocarp is hit by A.I. Is a Crapshoot and the original Robocarp actually does solve the problem.
• Name one Good Vibes episode that doesn't include an instance of peeing and/or pooping.
• Grojband has several of these, always in the final act of a given episode.
  • Trina's enters Diary Mode, in which she's overcome with an emotion and writes about the events of the episode in her diary.
  • After Trina completes her diary entry, Corey gets the diary and uses the new entry as inspiration for the lyrics of the episode's song.
  • When everything is said and done, Corey delivers a Spoof Aesop reflecting on the episode's events before thanking the viewers for coming out and pulling down a garage door from out of nowhere that signifies the end of episode.
• In Inspector Gadget, Chief Quimby somehow gets blown up by his own exploding message to Gadget...no matter where he is.
  • "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Nneexxtt Ttiimmee!"
    • "Mrreeagh!"
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Jade does a Stealth Hi/Bye to Jackie almost every episode.
• In Jem, they are least two Jem songs for one Misfits in a normal episode.
• Jorel's Brother: Since Season 3, the Magic Coconut is hidden in the background of almost every episode for a short scene, inspired by the snail from Adventure Time. In some, he's clearly visible, while in others, he's very difficult or outright impossible to find.
• Animated cartoons made by Jumbo Pictures/Cartoon Pizza typically have a song that is featured in each story. In PB&J Otter it was the "Noodle Dance," in Stanley it was "The Great Big Book of Everything" and in Pinky Dinky Doo it's "Story Box."
• In Julius Jr., the It's Inventing Time and Hall of Doors segments. Also, a song at the end of each story.
• At least once per short the "Gotta Zip" song pops up in Jungle Junction.
• KaBlam! had tons of these. One includes Henry and June dancing during the opening number (except one episode due to a longer commercial break) and then jumping up to the top comic panel, while Henry or June says, "Howdy KaBlamoids!" or "Welcome back cartoon crammers!" and then the duo would introduce themselves.
  • Another one would be June pulling some sort of prank on Henry. From mimicking him, randomly bleeping out what he's trying to say, etc.
  • Another would be in Life with Loopy where Larry would say, "Hi, I'm Larry. This is my sister Loopy, and this is (insert main idea of episode)". Starting season two, he'll say, "Hi, I'm Larry. (Insert main idea of episode)".
  • Also, in Prometheus and Bob, Prometheus will try to teach Bob something, but the monkey will always mess him up.
  • Action League NOW! had a bunch of these, too (not surprising as it's a KaBlam! spin-off. One would be Meltman always getting hurt.
    • Or The Chief saying, "Blast it!" and sometimes "Blasted!".
    • And Bill the Lab Guy saying "There's nothing I can do." or "Oh, no. I was afraid of this!".
    • Stinky Diver saying "Blimey!".
    • The Flesh saying "Ouchies!".
• Kaeloo:
  • The titular character Hulking Out.
  • Mr. Cat pulling out a bazooka or a chainsaw.
• Kim Possible:
  • Near the beginning of every episode, Kim gets a page from (or, more rarely, pages) Wade on her Kimmunicator. Usually accompanied by the words "What's the sitch?"
  • Before they drove themselves, Kim and Ron would get rides from people whom they have helped in the past. The ride-giver would explain it is the least they could do after Kim helped with some incident in spectacular fashion, while Kim downplayed the feat.
• The Koala Brothers has this little gimmick: Every time Frank and Buster take off in the plane, the mailbox falls over. As an added bonus, there are some episodes where they are seen fixing said mailbox.
• The Legend of Zelda (1989):
  • Link's Catchphrase "Well, Excuse Me, Princess!" in the cartoon. In this case, it's at least twice per episode, three times if you count the opening.
  • Link's dogged attempts to get a kiss, which are always either rejected by Zelda or, on the rare occasions when she's receptive to his advances, thwarted by outside circumstances. The one time he does get a kiss, it turns out to be with an evil duplicate of Zelda rather than Zelda herself.
• Let's Go Luna!: Every episode contains a song related to its topic. There's also Luna's theme, which the kids sing in every episode.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series. The fat bald guy never quite gets to enjoy his mint chocolate chip ice cream.
• Every episode of The Magic School Bus has Arnold saying he should have stayed home, Phoebe saying what would never happen at her old school, Dorothy Ann doing her research, and Carlos making a bad joke and earning a Collective Groan of "Carlos!". There's also Miss Frizzle's "It's time to take chances, make mistakes, get messy!" and "Bus, do your stuff!"
• After The Mighty Hercules saves the day, he flies away shouting "Olympi - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ! ! !"
• Mira, Royal Detective: Mira singing "We're on the Case" after announcing the mystery of the day. Also her "thinking this through" as she comes to the final answer.
• In Miraculous Ladybug: Numerous, and sometimes more than once. Opening shot of Eiffel Tower, bad guy's butterfly scene, Marinette's transformation, Chat Noir's transformation (occasionally skipped), Ladybug confused by magic item, magical reset, next time Gadget, next time!
  • More controversially, each episode prominently features Marinette making a mistake and learning a lesson from it...even when it doesn't make any sense to treat her as being at fault for whatever went wrong.
• There was always at least one song in every episode of My Little Pony 'n Friends.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • The show initially had Twilight Sparkle write a letter to Princess Celestia telling her what she's learned about friendship that week. The third episode of the second season actually invokes this, with Twilight going progressively more insane as she realizes that she hasn't learned any friendship lesson yet, believing that a failure to send in a report will get her kicked back to Magic Kindergarten. From that point on, the reports are infrequently written by various characters before being completely phased out by the fourth season.
    • Season 2 Episode 15 subverts this with Applejack writing a report... to brag to Celestia that she didn't learn a darn thing, because she was right the whole time and everyone else needed teaching.
  • In the second season, Derpy Hooves has a Where's Waldo? type cameo in every episode.
  • Not quite every episode, but every episode in which Rarity has an appearance, the writers strive to ruin her perfect coiffure at least once.
• PAW Patrol has the pups all gather for an emergency at the bottom of the elevator, and have a clumsy moment usually caused by Marshall. They go up the elevator together, which halfway up takes about 1.2 seconds to change them all into their suits and rearrange them into the same order left-right as every other time. At the top, they all jump out of elevator, where Ryder explains the problem of the week and picks 2 particular Pups to work on it. Those 2 then go down the slide and land in their vehicle, where we hear their names shouted as the vehicle transforms. They successfully complete their mission, and at the end Ryder says "Whenever you have a problem, just yelp for help!" as well.
• Every episode of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero has the Wilhelm Scream.
• Phineas and Ferb, a Disney cartoon about two step-brothers and their summer exploits, has like a dozen of these. Part of the humor is seeing how they subvert and invert each of them in new episodes, whether said by different characters or in different phrasings. Some include:
  • Phineas telling Ferb "I know what we're gonna do today!"
  • Isabella showing up to say "Hey Phineas. Whatcha doooin'?"
  • Phineas saying "Hey, where's Perry?", followed by Perry the Platypus sneaking off to get his mission briefing from Major Monogram. And at the end of the episode, Perry comes back and Phineas says "Oh, there you are, Perry!"
  • Someone asking Phineas and Ferb "Aren't you a little young to be filling-in-the-blank?" Phineas usually responds with "Yes, yes we are,", though he answered "No, I don't think so," in "Flop Starz". Phineas and Ferb: subverting its running gags since episode 3.
    • Played with again when the question is posed by a delivery-man in "Spa Day", and answered with quite more irritation than Phineas ever exhibits by another delivery-man, who then apologizes to Phineas and explains that the first guy is new on the job.
  • Candace threatening to tell mom about Phineas and Ferb's latest crazy project.
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz shouting "Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" after being thwarted.
    • Which was inverted in "Hail Doofania!", just like every other occurrence.
      Perry sneezes.
      Phineas: Bless you, Perry the Platypus!
    • Also inverted by Vanessa in "Dude, We're Getting the Band Back Together!" after Perry helps arrange her sweet sixteen party. As Perry blast off, she calls, "Thank you, Perry the Platypus!"
    • In "Just Passing Through" the self-destruct button Doof's latest invention gets hit by his homemade bobblehead of Perry, causing him to yell "Curse you, Perry the Bobblehead!"
  • Each episode has at least one original song, the only exceptions being "Rollercoaster", "Lights, Candace, Action!", "The Lizard Whisperer", and "Mommy Can You Hear Me?"
  • Ferb says at least one but no more than three lines per episode, a la Silent Bob. He managed to get an impressive inspirational monologue in "The Lizard Whisperer", though.
    • Except for "Ready for the Bettys," where he has six lines, all of which are interrupted except for the last. (In other words, he gets to be Isabella for a day.)
  • Doofenshmirtz traps Perry differently in most episodes.
  • Doofenshmirtz makes a new evil device every episode.
    • ...the name of which ends in -inator, sometimes taken to ridiculous extremes (like the "Gloominator 3000-inator" from "Leave the Busting to Us"). There are exceptions: in "Mom's Birthday" Doofenshmirtz created the Shrinkspheria ("I was going to call it a Shrinkinator, but I've done the whole 'inator thing before"), and some of his inventions don't have the suffix at all, like his mind-controlling termite helmet in "The Magnificent Few" or the BO-AT from "Interview With a Platypus".
  • ... that gets destroyed/disabled/stolen by Perry, often using a self-destruct or reversal dial included on the device.
  • ... but not before somehow removing the latest Phineas and Ferb contraption with it, seconds before Candace can show the evidence to their mother, regardless of size.
    • This doesn't occur each episode, usually because the boys already made it disappear on their own by giving it away (such as a monster truck arena) or it disappeared on its own (such as a giant soap bubble bursting.) Regardless, it is gone before Candace can show it to her mother. In the movie, Candace deliberately invokes this—she defeats a robot invasion by going to tell their mom about it, confident the robots will be gone by the time mom steps outside to look.
  • After receiving his summons, Perry will exit the stage using a different secret entrance every episode.
  • The "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!" jingle always plays over a shot of Doofenshmirtz's lair.
    • Sometimes varied, when the scene is one of DEI's subsidiaries.
  • Perry is always caught within seconds of arriving on the scene of Doofenshmirtz' latest plan.
  • Doofenshmirtz will always explain the reasoning behind his latest device soon after, which usually involves some petty grievance, frequently from his youth.
• In every single episode of Noah and Nelly in Skylark, Noah or one of the animals will decide to go somewhere, and Noah will shout "All aboard the Skylark" twice (except for one episode where he has a headache, so Nelly and the animals whisper it quietly).
• Pinky and the Brain:
  • Every episode has a Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering? exchange, and ended with "What are we gonna do tomorrow night, Brain?" "Same thing we do every night, Pinky... try to take over the world!"
    
    They hung a lampshade on both of these several times. In one instance, Pinky asks Brain if he has ever been pondering what Brain is pondering, and decides that no, he never has (Which, in fact, was exaactly what Brain was thinking), and in several instances, Brain's plan was to "Find a better hiding place", "Take over Chia-World", and "Take over the Globe...theater."
  • Pinky and the Brain lampshades the escape attempts on Gilligan's Island.
    Pinky: I've seen every episode of Gilligan's Island!
    Brain: Oh really? Did you see the one where Gilligan screws it up for everyone?
    Pinky: ...No, I don't think I've seen that one...
  • The ending pattern was averted only once. When Pinky was rendered intelligent via one of Brain's inventions, Brain realized that one of them needed to be stupid to maintain the proper dynamic. Seeing that Pinky was better at being smart than he was, Brain made himself stupid. Unfortunately, Pinky felt bad about upstaging Brain and had already made himself stupid again. Both of them were stuck being idiots because neither of them had the intelligence to operate the machine again. The episode ended with "What are we gonna do tomorrow night, Brain?" "The same thing we do every night, Pinky." "What's that?" "...I have no idea." "Poit." "Narf."
  • There's the one where Pinky's stupidity screws up the plan. Played with, in that Pinky doesn't always screw up the plan directly, but if he doesn't, Brain will screw it up by getting too annoyed with Pinky's stupidity to think straight and doing something similarly stupid.
• PJ Masks has quite a few due to its formulaic nature.
  • The kids in the daytime are going about their daily tasks. Minor personal issue shown regarding one or more of the kids. Something is revealed to be missing or otherwise messed up. One of them (usually Conner) declares they need to get to the bottom of it and...
    The one declaring: PJ Masks we're on our way!
    All: Into the night to save the day!
  • Followed by Stock Footage of the sun setting, moon rising, and the kids seeing the moon while the narrator exposits how they're a band of heroes who stop villains in the night, and explains which kid becomes which hero.
  • It is revealed one or more of the three villains of the show is behind the random happenstance for some reason, and PJ Masks go about trying to stop them but are hindered by the minor personal issue affecting their ability to work together in some way.
  • The hero who is at fault then realizes their mistake and quickly turns things around in the PJ Masks' favor, saving the day, leading to the last one with...
    The one who was at fault: PJ Masks all shout hooray!
    All: Cause in the night we saved the day!
• The Powerpuff Girls: Almost every episode starts with a skyline shot and the narrator saying "The city of Townsville!", and ends with "So once again the day is saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls!" Some episodes have characters delivering a different opening line such as the Mayor saying "The city of Townsville... is entirely mine!" and the Professor introducing "the town of Citiesville".
• In each episode of The Problem Solverz, the team will consult Tux Dog for advice on their case, and Roba will stamp someone with the "Problem Solved" stamp.
• Regular Show: something supernatural or just plain weird happens almost every episode.
• Road Rovers had Hunter's "I would not have predicted this!" in response to some new development.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle: Rocky fails to recognize Boris in his newest disguise. "That voice. Where have I heard that voice?" (To be fair, this isn't once per episode, but it happens multiple times in a typical saga.)
  • And the companion line: "Allow me to introduce myself!" followed by Boris handing Rocky a pre-printed business card with his nom de guerre on it.
    • Although this happens once per ending, the episode titles as presented by the narrator should not be forgotten.
  William Conrad: Be with us next time for Fill-In-The-Blanks or Mad Lib!
• The "Peabody's Improbable History" segments ended with a pun that was set up along the way, and elicited groans. It was often Lamp Shaded.
• Rosie's Rules:
  • Rosie sings the "I've Gotta Know" song to begin each story.
    Rosie: I have a great big question / And I just can't let it go / Yo quiero saberlo / I really gotta knooooow!
  • When Rosie feels overwhelmed, she flops to calm herself down.
  • In every episode, Rosie video chats with her Abuela.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for You Meddling Kids."
  • "Scooby-Dooby-Doooooooooo!"
  • Also, musical chase scenes
  • Also, scooby snacks
  • Also, "Let's Split Up, Gang!!"
  • Was "Jinkies!" "Velma said 'Jinkies!' It must be a clue!" only in the spinoff A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, or what?
  • Also, one that was Freddy having to accuse Red Herring of being the villain. Ironically, during the one episode when Freddy promised to not accuse Red of anything, Red really was the one behind the crime. Pretty bad timing, wasn't it...
  • Nearly every episode goes like this: they're all riding the Mystery Machine, Scooby steals Shaggy's sandwich, the gang stops somewhere and are warned of a ghost, all but Scooby and Shaggy are convinced that it is a silly superstition, Fred suggests they investigate and split up so he and Daphne can go off-camera, the ghost terrorizes Scooby and Shaggy when they ditch Velma to obtain food, no one believes them, the ghost terrorizes Scooby and Shaggy again and Velma is there but she cannot see anything due to her glasses being knocked off, eventually she finds her glasses and the ghost terrorizes everybody, they are scattered in a silly montage, they regroup and Fred comes up with a trap of some sort, the trap requires Scooby and Shaggy to be used as bait with a bribe of Scooby Snacks, the ghost is caught and revealed to be a person chasing people away for financial gain of some sort.
    • And they always screwed up the trap somehow. Luckily, the screwup always caused the villain to get caught, just not in the way everybody was hoping for.
    • The Scooby Snack bit is lampshaded in one of the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episodes where Shaggy admits that there's nothing he and Scooby wouldn't do for a Scooby Snack. Another episode also lampshaded the splitting-up - after Fred merely suggests they do so, Scooby and Shaggy immediately begin to walk off; when Fred points out he didn't say how they'd split, Shaggy asks him "Like, do we ever do it any other way?"
• The Secret Show has three of these.
  • Every episode starts off with half a minute from "The Fluffy Bunny Show", hosted by Sweet Little Granny. Unfortunately, Granny never gets to finish her theme song, as Agent Ray interrupts and removes her and her bunnies from the set
    Ray: Sorry, Sweet Little Granny, but this timeslot is needed urgently!
  • The director of Uzz — "As You Know, for reasons of security, my name is changed daily. Today you may call me— " He checks his communicator and sighs sadly, before announcing that his name is "Fluffy-fuddlesticks" or "Bopybot" or something equally ridiculous.
  • Professor Professor calling to check in on Victor, always resulting in the following exchange:
    Professor: Victor! Are you still alive?
    Victor: Yes I'm still alive!
    • Usually happens while Victor is trying to quietly sneak around some bad guys, hanging from a ledge above a long drop, or surrounded by monsters. And, more often then not, immediately after falling from said ledge or being pummeled by monsters
• Nearly every episode of The Simpsons past Season 10 features Magic Realism in some way.
• South Park had a lot of these in the early seasons, though most have petered out over the years.
  • They Killed Kenny Again.
  • Cartman's "Screw you guys -- I'm going home."
  • The semi-faux-moralising summation from one of the kids, starting with: "You know, I've learned something today..."
  • Every episode features a cameo by a Visitor in some way. Even the creators themselves aren't sure how many cameos they have and even held a contest to see who could find the most of them.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Nearly every episode of SpongeBob contains at least one of the following: SpongeBob working at the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob (and sometimes Patrick) annoying Squidward, SpongeBob and Patrick going jellyfishing, Plankton trying to steal the secret formula, and (in earlier seasons) SpongeBob playing karate with Sandy.
• SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron had Enforcer Commander Feral saying "This is Feral: Bring me chopper backup!"
• Super Wish: Once per episode, Bon Bon the living chicken pinata will do a dance to his song, and then lay an egg that contains something the protagonists can use.
• In every episode of ThunderCats, several things can be counted on to happen:
  • "Ancient Spirits of Evil... transform this decayed form... to Mumm-Ra! THE EVER-LIVING!" (At least in every episode featuring Mumm-Ra as an antagonist, which was most of them.)
  • "Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight!"
  • "Thunder... Thunder!... Thunder!... ThunderCats, HO!" Even in the "Freaky Friday" Flip episode, they manage to get the ThunderCats cry in.
• Every episode of Toxic Crusaders features a bit where Killemoff describes his Evil Plan of the week, prompting his mook Psycho to always respond with "But what if [describes what happens in the rest of the episode]?" "Ridiculous! That could never happen!"
• The Transformers, in the majority of episodes that Starscream appears in, he attempts to overthrow Megatron, and fails.
  • "You've failed me yet again Starscream."
  • "My time will come Megatron!"
• Transformers: Beast Wars: Waspinator being beaten and battered, usually in a slapstick manner. In multi-part episodes such as "The Agenda", this would happen in each part.
• Underdog always utters this line when he needs to power up again: "The secret compartment of my ring I fill with an Underdog Super Energy Vitamin Pill". Cue the Wingding Eyes the moment he takes one!
• Wild Kratts: Every episode starts off with the real life brothers giving out information on whatever kind of species of animals and wonder what it would be like to follow their footsteps to learn about them right before they say, "What if... ?" and transform to their animated counterparts, kickstarting the actual show. It also ends with them transitioning back in real life to conclude what they learned about the animals.
• Woody Woodpecker: Woody's laugh. Subverted in that occasionally someone else performs it, usually to mock Woody (cf. "Well Oiled", "The Coo-Coo Bird"). If Woody loses he will sometimes do a pathetic whining variant (as in "The Clip Joint").
• Remember that episode of Xavier: Renegade Angel with a Gainax Ending?
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: You can count on these things being a constant:
  • Brad being hesitant to travel back in time.
  • The kids going to the Secret Museum in a weird way, like via a tornado.
  • The kids saying their catchphrases.
  • The time travel sequence, where Yadina makes a meditation pose and Brad spins around.

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