Paranoia Fuel / Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • Lub Glubs. Innocent, harmless pool floaties could be a disguise for an Eldritch Abomination that are nothing more than a shapeless mass of darkness and what appears to be a mouth filled with teeth. A lot of teeth!
  • The Ice King's backstory. He was just a normal guy until he jokingly put on a normal-looking antique crown that he had bought. Said crown turned out to be enchanted, causing him to drive away his beloved fiancee, destroying his mind and identity slowly over a period of years, and all-around ruining his entire life.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The Dai Li. Merely mentioning the war with the Fire Nation in public in Ba Sing Se will have them capture the offender and brainwash them. Anyone who is brainwashed can suddenly turn against everybody else with the simple trigger phrase, "The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."
  • Azula starts to develop Paranoia when Mai and Ty Lee betray her. She starts to realize that she couldn't control through fear and manipulation as much as she thought, and it creates the unspoken question: "If those were my friends who backstabbed me, what of my enemies or other subjects I subjugated through fear? Will they do the same to me?" It's a driving fear that starts to trigger her Villainous Breakdown.
  • The Legend of Korra: Amon and his Equalists launch an actual terrorist attack on a sports arena, which is already horrific given the family-friendly nature of the show. Right before the attack begins, the noise level goes down and you see all the members of his group, just random people in the arena crowd, slowly start putting on masks and reaching into popcorn bags to pull out weapons and bombs they snuck in, and then proceed to incapacitate every cop in the arena before they even know what's happening.
• The Batman has Ragdoll, a creepy contortionist that can stretch and bend in ways that aren't even imaginable. He once hid in Penguin's hat without being noticed, which indicates he could be hiding in any nook and cranny anywhere.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • You're sitting there in your office, and a pale but happy fellow strolls in to ask if he can copyright fish. You tell him no, you know, just doing your job, and for this, you're turned into a smiling, drooling vegetable.
  • Alternatively, you're driving home on the Highway after an awful day at work, and someone cuts you off. This being the final straw after such a bad day, you drive up next to him, roll down the window, and start into a fit of road rage. Halfway through your tirade, you discover that this man isn't just any random person - he's your city's most wanted psychopath who kills people for the fun of it, and you've just pissed him off. So you try to drive away as fast as you can, and he keeps following you, cutting you off and driving you off the main road. Finally, just when you think you're about to get away, your car runs out of gas and you have no choice but to continue on foot, and so you run into a thicket of trees... only to run right into the psychopath. You plead for your life, saying that you will do anything if he lets you live. He decides he will ask you a favor at some point in the future, takes your Driver's liscence and the information it contains, and lets you go. Terrified he'll find you again and really not wanting to know what he'll do when he finds you, you and your entire family move to another state, change your names, and stay in hiding. 2 years later, despite all of these precautions, you get a phone call, and it's from the same psychopath. How did he find you? Oh, he never lost you. And he wants his favor.
  • "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?": The end shows that, even though Batman saved him from The Riddler, Daniel Mockridge has been reduced a paranoid wreck, who triple bolt-locks his door, checks every nook and cranny in his house, and has moved all other furniture out of his bedroom before going to sleep with a loaded shotgun at his side.
    Batman: How much is a good night's sleep worth? Now there's a riddle for you.
• Batman Beyond sees Terry take a page from Bruce's book when it comes to dealing with Villain of the Week Deanna Clay. She gets away scot-free with stealing her mother Inque's money... but Batman drops by to warn her that nobody found Inque's body, so she could still be alive. So Deanna might have made an enemy of a professional saboteur who could be anywhere, anything, and might strike at any time. Inque later reappears, confirming her survival, but Deanna doesn't.
• Darkwing Duck had a planet of hats. No not like that (that comes a few episodes later and is far less upsetting), a planet full of hat-like aliens who could possess Earthlings by jumping on their heads. And could disguise themselves by simply closing their eyes. We could be in the middle of an invasion RIGHT NOW and no one would know it...
• Dilbert "Do you know how many ways the human body can spontaneously malfunction resulting in instant death?" Seven million.
• Dungeons & Dragons (1983): In one episode, the villain causes interdimensional portals to appear under kids' beds and his minions dragged them through to perform slave-labor for him — complete with terrified parents trying to keep their kid from disappearing through the rift.
• Generator Rex. In this world, nanites have invaded every living thing. It just so happens that when a particular thing gets overloaded with nanites, it causes the body to mutate in very squicky ways, eventually causing it to grow into a giant monster striving to destroy anything in its' way. Which means that a) for example, your cat, the grass in your backyard or one of your symbiotic bacteria could turn into a rampant beast at any moment and kill you, b) your body could start mutating any second, undoubtedly causing much pain if the agony-filled screams of things that got overloaded with nanites are anything to go by.
  • If it's the latter, use what may be your last few seconds of being you to pray that you're curable, or that you at least have a bearable condition where you're still yourself even as nanite-infused being. Not everyone gets that luxury.
  • Even if Rex managed to cure every single infected being in the world, there are still nanites, so you're still left worrying if these nanites can cause mutations.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero:
  • The Gamesmaster from the episode of the same name. A ten-foot tall Psychopathic Man Child who effortlessly kidnaps Flint, Lady Jaye, Baroness, and Cobra Commander to use as playthings for his amusement. It's insane that such a creepy guy has so many resources. The Joes and Cobra already have Surveillance as the Plot Demands, but he takes it to the next level as he spies inside Cobra's base, Lady Jaye changing her clothes in a mall's fitting room, and Baroness taking a bath. He kidnaps Flint by using a helicopter to pull the elevator he was using out of the building.
  • The PSAs can be Paranoia Fuel when you think about it. There are AWOL soldiers (and military personnel) who randomly appear out of nowhere to give advice to stupid kids. Then there is one where two boys are swimming and a lightning storm is about to come their way. One of the boys stays behind, but is forced out by Deep Six (an underwater operative in a bathyoscopic suit) who, apparently, has been underwater this whole time for no reason other than to spy on little boys in their swimming trunks.
• Gravity Falls:
  • "Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained": The Hide Behind] is so good at hiding behind your back that you'll never know whether or not it's really there. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be malicious at all.
  • Bill Cipher is watching you. He's always watching you — and can see you through any image of him. He knows exactly what you're doing, when you're doing it, and why. And if it doesn't fit his plans, he'll find a way to interfere. He can also possess people, and it's not always immediately obvious as to whether a person is possessed or not (especially if they wear glasses). He can enter pretty much anyone's mind at any time, and can even destroy a person's mind from the inside out. And he wants to cause The End of the World as We Know It. Oh, it gets worse than that with some facts shared outside of the show. See, a big -part of the key to Bill's powers? Any representation of his form — a triangle/pyramid with an eye — is a window between his dimension and ours. A window that Bill can look through whenever he pleases. And that pyramid-and-eye design? It's on every US banknote ever issued. That's right, every single American paper money note is a spy-drone for an Eldritch Abomination from beyond our dimension. If you've got any cash on you, then Bill can see you and hear you.
  • If, at any time, you see something supernatural in Gravity Falls, the Society of the Blind Eye will take you and wipe your memory of it, leading to brain damage and, as seen in Old Man McGucket, insanity.
• Invader Zim: The Halloween episode featured Dib getting dragged out of his class, thrown into the back of a padded truck and taken to "the Crazy House for Boys." Think about it. They just decided Dib was insane, with no input from him at all, then picked him up and took him.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: One episode has Lucius waking up with Jimmy next to his bed. "Best friends watch each other sleep!"
• Justice League: Dr. Destiny. Go to sleep, and he can stick you in a dreamscape of your worst nightmare.
• Kid vs. Kat provides the knowledge that your cat could be an alien invader. Not only your cat, your hamster too. They're everywhere!
• King of the Hill: In "Gone With the Windstorm", Bobby is constantly being tormented by a bully who pops out of weird places (like Bobby's locker and the lunchroom conveyor belt). When Hank decides to deal with the bully's father, he discovers he's one of his victims!.
  Father: Watch out when you pass the mailbox. That kid can wedge himself into anything!
• Legion Of Superheroes: In the second season, Dr. Londo sent a batch of nanites to infect his son who was asleep at the time and used them to force his son to kill a clone of his to frame his son for his "murder." A few years ago, you thought you were safe after you've escaped your abusive parent who only wants to use you. But not only do they know where you live but they can still control you, and you have no idea that you're being controlled until it's too late.
• Miraculous Ladybug: The akuma. It doesn't matter who you are, what your age is, or what your morals are. If you have one moment of weakness, you can be turned into a super villain at any time or place. And they're often capable of making thralls of everyone, up to and including Chat Noir.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Party Pooped": The rest of the main characters stumble into Pinkie's secret basement. They discover that she has a file cabinet on every pony in Ponyville and what kind of party they like. It's intended to be heartwarming but at the same time it takes Pinkie's obsession with getting to know her town kind of far.
  • Season 2's Discord knows way too much about the Mane Cast, in spite of the fact that he's spent the past who-knows-how-many millennia in stone.
  • Changelings. They masquerade as a loved one and feed off your love, slowly draining you and making you weaker and weaker, all the while making themselves stronger. The powered-up Changeling Queen was able to defeat Princess Celestia. Even worse, it is shown that after the Changelings' revelation back in Season 2 and all the way to Season 6; there were no updates for security protocols on dealing with potential changeling infiltrators! The only one that managed to have these protocols in place was Zecora's Faction in a Changeling-controlled Timeline, who managed to craft a salve that could forcibly strip a Changeling of their disguise. What was your excuse for not bothering to ask that timeline's Zecora for the recipe to make that salve, Twilight Sparkle?
• The Real Ghostbusters and its sequel Extreme Ghostbusters has the Grundel, a ghoul that came to kids' bedroom windows late at night and said "Come out and play..." over and over again in a really creepy voice, until the kid was mesmerized into obeying. And it only targets children. And if they're not freed from his influence, they eventually turn into a Grundel themselves. Sweet dreams, kiddies...
• Rick and Morty
  • "Total Rickall" gave us parasites that despite their intentionally ridiculous forms could well have been created by Steven Moffat. All of a sudden, memories of illogical events are being created in your head to justify the existence of people who seem to be a single gimmick repeated ad infinitum. And the more you try to figure out what the true memories are, the more chances there are of the parasites filling in the gaps for you, allowing for more of their ilk to enter your memories and gain your trust. Even if you are aware of the threat, how can you trust anyone if they can alter your memories to make your own preventative countermeasures seem like nothing more than zaniness?
  • Roy: A Life Well Lived: Imagine the ending of the game and coming back to reality. An entire life you just "lived" was nothing more but an arcade game. Everyone you know, everything you did, never really happened. While Morty comes to pretty quickly, it wouldn't be surprising if he is stuck with some conflicting memories for a while to come
  • "M. Night Shaym-Aliens" shows that you could wake up at any time and have been captured and imprisoned inside a virtual reality simulation without your knowledge, potentially revealing all your secrets to your enemies. "The Rickshank Redemption" also features this happening. Fortunately, Rick seems more annoyed than anything in both cases, softening the horror.
• Rocko's Modern Life: In one episode where the gang goes fishing, only to discover that the fish are fishing for them using ever more elaborate bait, including the life jackets and ending with Rocko's house being reeled in.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: "Beware those close to you." Mayor Jones' big reveal to Freddie in the 26th episode. The man who calls himself your father isn't really your father. He kidnapped you as a means to blackmail your birth parents into never returning to their hometown again, so he can search for a treasure that no one is sure even exists. Everything he's ever told you about your life? It's a lie.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Missionary: Impossible": Homer is unable to cover a pledge to PBS. In the ensuing chase, Homer seeks sanctuary at church where Oscar's trash can is thrown into a window. Elmo pops out and taunts Homer with, "Elmo knows where you live!"
  • "Mountain of Madness": Homer and Mr. Burns get stuck inside a cabin from avalanches and keep giving each other paranoid stares.
• South Park:
  • The Earth is a television show for created by aliens where they watch our conflicts for their amusements and when humanity will have peace they will cancel the show, meaning they will destroy the Earth.
  • "HumancentiPad": Kyle winds up getting more than he bargained for when he accepts the terms and conditions for an iTunes app without reading them. It is absurdly easy for something like that (probably with money stealing instead of submission to human experimentation) to happen in real life, but not legally enforceable except in very specific circumstances.
  • Advertisements. Mankind has invented ways to prevent ads from popping up, but they have adapted to their new environments, on cable TV and the Internet, in their effort to destroy us. Now, they have taken the next step in their evolution and have become actual living people. And they can be anyone.
    "Ads promise us things. Ads are perfect. But make no mistake. All ads lie. And all ads deceive. (cut to commercial)
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • In the first season, Slade laser-injects nanobots into the Titans. Think about it. Thousands of nigh invisible robots floating around in your body, possibly for decades. And what Slade wanted to use them for is a whole other can of horror.
  • Madam Rouge can stretch with rubber powers, and if that isn't enough, she can transform into anyone she's seen, right down to the clothes and this nearly lead to all the Titans being killed.
• Transformers has any number of Decepticons who disguise themselves as seemingly-innocent objects, from cars to cameras. Only the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism keeps this from being truly chilling, giving us an equally anonymous and omnipresent group of protectors and reassuring us that we can trust them. Rest easy, children. Autobots are watching over you. 2007's Live-Action Adaptation plays it to the hilt with both radio-bot Frenzy and the feral robots brought to life by the All Spark from random machines Sam passed in the street while fleeing the Decepticons... these are better left undescribed. Barricade and Bumblebee probably deserve special mention here, too; the former is a Decepticon who chose a police car to transform into, and the latter is an Autobot who chose an apparently beaten-up ride for Obfuscating Stupidity.
  • Some of the "Real Gear Robots" in the toyline invoke serious paranoia. Your MP3 player may have been subtly altering sounds so you've misinterpreted everything your friends have said, and your handphone may have been running your phone bill up by itself.
  • Revenge of the Fallen ups the ante with Alice the human Decepticon. And on the same level as Frenzy is RC-truck-bot Wheelie, but he's a Plucky Comic Relief character. There's also Reedman, a razor-thin 'Con who killed a man by jumping through his torso. Given the right lighting conditions and viewing angle, he's invisible. And Soundwave is up there, listening. Always. In fact, he's probably reading every word you type here.
    Soundwave: Nothing moves on the orb below without my being aware of it. I see and hear everything, be it out in the open or behind closed doors. My reach is invisible, intangible. My grip...cast-iron.
  • Just to make it worse, Reedman was formed from a whole bunch of tiny little pachinko-ball-things that Ravage threw up. This means it can get into anything that has even a pea-sized hole in it somewhere. And you thought regular cat barf was bad news.
  • The Transformers: Prime version of Soundwave is eerie. Design-wise, he's faceless and disproportionately slender. The other Decepticons are intimidated by him; with Starscream having to go to great lengths to get him to agree with his schemes, due to Soundwave's loyalty to Megatron. He rarely says anything; and if he does, it was usually not in his own voice, but rather a distorted recording of another character. Add on to the fact that he can monitor all Earth telecommunications at will, meaning that just like his cinematic counterpart, he hears everything. Then, recall the fact that he's one of the most dangerous fighters among the Decepticons, too. And that's if he decides to fight you; he's also tapped into the Decepticon space bridge, which allows him to open portals in front of foes and send them to a destination of his choosing, an ability which has dropped Autobots off in all sorts of unpleasant places.
• W.I.T.C.H.: Your friends and family could secretly have been replaced by someone using a glamour.
  • Your boyfriend who you trust with all your secrets? He's been replaced by a monster that feeds off of hate.
  • Your parents? Yeah, they're not really your parents and they aren't even human. Lucky your new friend told you the truth and brought you to your real brother! Except your real brother wants to drain your life force and kill your friends.

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