Strictly Formula / Western Animation

• Abby Hatcher: The episodes follow more or less the same pattern. Abby and Bozzly mind their own business, Bozzly hears something, they go to investigate, they encounter the Fuzzly of the day, things go wrong, Abby and Bozzly get on Abby's scooter, over-the-top antics ensue, Abby realizes what the issue is, and they help the Fuzzly out.
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Most episodes have Jimmy invent something to solve a problem, only for it to backfire, forcing Jimmy to find a way to reverse the effects, usually with another invention and/or a "brain blast".
• Most episodes of American Dad!, particularly in later seasons, revolve around Stan doing something callous to a family member (usually in some ill-advised attempt to improve their lives after observing some supposed defect about them) and, after causing an escalating amount of chaos in his stubborn goals, eventually learning a lesson about being more considerate and tolerant. On rarer occasions another Smith member gets an Aesop, usually Steve revolving around his own formula of gaining popularity or impressing a girl.
• A lot of the first-season episodes of Amphibia follow a formula along the lines of "Character X gets into a disagreement with Character Y, Character X decides to do their own thing for a bit, Character X's actions cause some kind of major problem, and after resolving the problem, X and Y reconcile and admit they could both have done better." This started to tone down in the second season when the show started to go into the Myth Arc involving King Andrias trying to conquer earth.
• Animaniacs has this with each of their segments:
  • The segments featuring the Warner siblings were formulaic. Usually, we’d first be introduced to the person who the Warners would be pestering (usually with them being a jerk to someone else). Then the Warners would show up and begin bothering the person.
  • The Buttons and Mindy shorts were extremely formulaic. The parents leave their preschool child Mindy in the yard while they go out for some reason with no supervision other than Buttons the dog. Mindy gets out of the yard and starts following some random thing, while Buttons gets into danger trying to protect his charge. Eventually Mindy ends up right back where she started from, where the parents find the two and see no evidence that their child has been out and about and considerable evidence that Buttons have been misbehaving in some manner, getting the dog in trouble. This was deliberately lampshaded in Mesozoic Mindy, where all the dialogue except for a few key words was reduced to grunts: "Buttons! UG Mindy! No OOG tarpit!". At the end of the episode, Buttons fell into the tarpit while protecting Mindy, resulting in him getting scolded.
  • Chicken Boo: Various people have an issue. Someone with "Boo" in their name is called forth to deal with said problem. Said person is extremely obviously a six-foot-tall rooster in a Paper-Thin Disguise, which one person immediately sees through, but that person can't convince anyone else "He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken!". Boo saves the day, but his disguise comes loose, and the people he just saved immediately turn against him, while the lone complainer acts smug. Boo walks off into the sunset alone.
  • Katie Ka-Boom: Katie is having a perfectly fine day when some perceived slight causes her to overreact (except she never overreacts; she's a teenager!) She (literally) turns into a monster. Her family tries to talk her down, but only succeeds in making her angrier. Eventually she (still literally) explodes, leaving the house in shambles. She then immediately reverts to normal as either the problem fixes itself, or she easily fixes it, and waltzes off like nothing happened.
  • Pinky and the Brain. "Gee, Brain. What do you want to do tonight?" "Same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!" "Pinky! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so, Brain, but [non sequitur]." Brain explains zany scheme for how to take over the world. Pinky initially thinks it's brilliant, then points out an apparent flaw. Brain irritatedly explains that he's taken this flaw into account and has a way to work around it. They launch the zany scheme. The scheme fails, usually due to Pinky stupidly screwing up a simple task and/or Brain getting so distracted by his frustration with Pinky that he misses a critical opportunity. Back to the lab. Rinse. Repeat.
• Much of Avatar: The Last Airbender's first season had its episodes structured as so: Team Avatar needs to make a stop somewhere for rest/money/bending practice reasons. At this location, they meet someone who or learn something that won't be important until much later. Some conflict ensues and, depending on its nature, the group either fights the antagonists and escape, solves the locals' problems, or both. Like the Amphibia example above, this was toned down in the second season when the show started to go much deeper into the Myth Arc.
• The British preschool-aimed series Boo! adheres to the same format every episode. The only difference between each episode is the setting, where the viewer has to play a "game" similar to hide and seek and find the eponymous main character, a blue puppet... thing... that seems to have the power to transform to match its settings the third time it is "found". Boo's three friends, the stuffed animals Growling Tiger, Laughing Duck and Sleeping Bear, also tag along Every. Single. Episode. It then ends with one of a few stock songs that teach the viewers about colours, sounds, etc. And then Boo's hiding again and the narrators say, "We have to find him next time when we all play BOO!" Evidently, children around a certain age generally learn best through repetition.
• Blue's Clues is possibly the enforcer of this trope when it came to preschool shows. In each episode, Steve (or Joe) welcomes us to the house. Blue usually has an idea or something to say, so she places a pawprint on the screen, prompting Steve/Joe to play Blue's Clues to figure it out. After getting the "Handy Dandy Notebook" from Side Table Drawer, they sing a song that pretty much summarizes the point of the game, where they have to find three clues Blue places throughout the episode. When this happens, Steve/Joe draw it in the notebook. In each episode, Steve/Joe gets a letter from Mailbox as well. Usually the last clue involves "skidooing" into another place outside the house. After getting the final clue, Steve/Joe sits in the Thinking Chair and after much thought, they put the thing together and we end with Blue doing or getting what she wants. Finally, we end with the So Long Song before credits.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers had this down to an art form. Almost every episode followed the same plot points.
  • Some kid/environmentalist/native is doing something good.
  • The Rogue's Gallery villain of the day shows up, saying politically and environmentally incorrect things while destroying the environment/eroding moral values/polluting.
  • Cut to Hope Island/the Geocruiser^note  This plane that the Planeteers used where the Planeteers are going to wherever the plot happens to be. Odds are good that one of the Planeteers will know/be related/is fascinated by the subject of said kid/environmentalist/native in point one. Gaia calls and says that ecovillain of the week is doing bad stuff.
  • They get there. Wheeler makes an observation about the situation, which is inevitably wrong. The other team members (and sometimes Gaia) have to correct his stupid, ignorant ways.
  • The Planeteers try talking it out with the locals. With the exception of the kid/environmentalist/native mentioned earlier, everyone is for the ecovillain's plan, as it seems to be good for the time being because it draws in tourism/stimulates the economy/the natural thing that the planeteers are trying to save is annoying.
  • The kid/environmentalist/native is now an ally of the kids and they try to talk to the ecovillain to make him stop. He/she tries to kill the heroes.
  • The Planeteers get captured, Wheeler's fire ring does nothing. Someone comes along and saves them as the Ecovillain revs up their doomsday/mining/invention.
  • They summon Captain Planet. He flies in and is almost immediately incapacitated by the pollutant of the day. The Planeteers and the ally of the episode help wash him off. Captain Planet saves the day while making incredibly bad jokes.
  • Everyone learns a lesson about (INSERT MORAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL LESSON HERE.) These people never have a problem again.
  • Planeteer Alert!
  • End credits, theme song.
• Nearly all the Casper cartoons boil down to this:
  • Five seconds of an invisible Casper riding a bike, playing with a yoyo, etc., he fades in.
  • Casper's lonely, so he tries to befriend people, who run off screaming "A GHOST!".
  • Casper meets a small child or animal, often helping them out of a jam.
  • Casper and the friend play. Sometimes the friend discovers Casper's a ghost and runs off afraid, leaving Casper unhappy.
  • A large baddie threatens the little friend, so Casper appears, demanding, "You leave my friend alone!"; so the baddie runs off in fear. All ends well.
• Code Lyoko, the first season. Life at school, XANA's attack threatens real world, go into Lyoko to stop XANA, Return to the Past; back at school with knowledge of what will happen that day. This was done away with from season 2 on: writing-wise, Character Development moved over the series like a storm; storyline-wise, constantly banging on the reset button made XANA grow exponentially stronger with each use. Oops. Also the whole "Jeremie thinks it's XANA", "Odd think's it's not", "Aelita or a Tower Scan shows it is" and so now "One of the Lyoko Warriors must stay behind to be in danger and make the Return to the Past more dramatic".
• It does have a continuity/Myth Arc, but the general formula of Danny Phantom is followed in a strict pattern: Danny and co. have some personal problem, a ghost appears and somehow meddles in their personal problem, Danny goes ghost and beats the crap out of it, sends it to the Phantom Zone, and solves the personal problem, usually inspired by the battle. Or, to put it in Danny's own words:
  Danny: There's a rhythm to these things. Ghosts attack, we exchange witty banter, I kick ghost butt, and we all go home having learned a valuable lesson about honesty, or some such nonsense.
• The general story for each episode of The Dreamstone; Urpgor invents a device for Zordrak to help capture the stone, Sgt Blob and his men are sent to the Land Of Dreams with device in hand, the Urpneys steal the stone but screw things up (either due to their incompetance, the heroes' intervening or some other horrible twist of luck) and the Noops retrieve the stone from them just in time to prevent Zordrak sending nightmares to the Land Of Dreams. Oh and Frizz moans something for the final line. A handful of exceptions exist (usually when Zordrak finds a method of sending nightmares different from stealing the stone) but they are outweighed by the usual formula.
• Dora the Explorer: Each episode begins with Dora, and Boots, introducing themselves to the viewers. When we are introduced to the main plot of the episode, cue in The Map to show us how to get to the end of the destination with three locations. In the middle of each trip to each location, we get the "Travel Song". At one point in the episode we'll also see Backpack who gives Dora something necessary. More often than not, Swiper will show up and try to take whatever item(s) is needed from the heroes, only to be stopped by the three-time chant of "Swiper, no swiping!", but if he succeeds, he tosses the item(s) away, forcing Dora to temporarily postpone her quest to retrieve them. Finally, at the end of the episode, Dora sings "We did it" and asks the viewers what their favorite part of the trip was. In the episodes with the Explorer Stars, Dora also counts all of the stars collected in the episode.
• Face's Music Party: Each episode always starts with a warm-up dance before shifting to whatever nursery rhyme or pop song is playing, before the party ends with Face giving his "goodbye face".
• The Fairly Oddparents goes by this formula: Something in Timmy's life sucks, so he makes a wish to change it. It works out great at first, but eventually has unexpected consequences that usually put everyone in big danger, and Timmy for one reason or another is unable to wish things back to normal. So he and his fairies spend the rest of the episode trying to find a way to fix whatever's preventing him from wishing things right again, or finding another way to fix the problem, and save the day just in time. In the end, Timmy learns an important life lesson. And then forgets it. And then there's the movie specials: Every movie would involve Cosmo and Wanda (and in more recent specials, Poof) being separated from Timmy, but they get back together in the end.
• Every episode of The Frog Show follows this formula: The ferret tries to catch the frog. Someone else gets the frog. The ferret tries to get the frog back from whoever took it. The ferret manages to get the frog. However, the ferret ultimately fails to eat the frog anyway as it gets returned to its home pond.
• Grojband: Each episode follows a certain pattern — Some new music gig opportunity shows up, Corey announces to the band that they're going to play that gig, a problem comes up (usually Trina trying to ruin the gig in some way), Corey and the gang make Trina go into "Diary Mode" (make her feel a certain emotion strongly enough to make her write it down in her diary), they take the diary and play a song related to the episode's plot using the new diary entry, the problem is resolved, and finally, Corey gives a Spoof Aesop and then says "Thanks for coming out everyone!" before closing a garage door to symbolize the end of the episode.
• In season 1 of Hero: 108, a typical episode follows this pattern: a new animal species therorize the humans, Commander ApeTrully attempts to make peace with the animal king by offering them a gift of gold, the animals usually refuse the gift and capture him and he calls for First Squad with his device. First Squad arrive on the location where he's captured on their turtle tanks and there they fight off the animals and then either: they refuse to give up and a contest takes place, in which the animals show their abilities and at least one member of First Squad must defeat them or First Squad help them with a certain problem or make them realise something. At the end, the animal king joins Big Green and often gets a certain job in the base. There are quite a few episodes which deviate a bit from the formula and season 2 stops following it completely.
• Inspector Gadget. Gadget receives a classified assignment in the form of an exploding message from the chief of police. The message blows up in the chief's face after Gadget is done reading it. His niece, Penny, and dog, Brain, secretly get involved in the mission. Brain tries to keep Gadget alive from the assassins out to get Gadget, who in turn mistakes Brain for a criminal, while helping the villain agents he thinks are doing innocent civilian deeds. Meanwhile, Penny snoops around, gets in danger or captured and tied up, gets rescued or free, and ultimately solves the case. Gadget receives credit for the case that his niece had solved. A dumb joke is made, and we get an Every Body Laughs Ending. Repeat Next time, Gadget!. Finish with the And Knowing Is Half the Battle epilogue.
• The first season of Iron Man: The Animated Series went this way. Tony Stark creates some fantastic new invention, the Mandarin has it stolen, his minions play with it or chat, Iron Man's team is watching TV, they get into action, Iron man saves the device and saves the day.
• Jackie Chan Adventures follows a plot formula, though it is seasonal rather than just episodic. In all 5 seasons, the heroes must search for several different magical objects or creatures scattered around the world, before the villains get to them first.
  • The heroes usually follow a formula or running gag. Jackie is always getting into wacky fights and chases, usually involving a lot of fistfights, acrobatics, and amusing injuries. Jade is always sneaking into dangerous situations, much to Jackie's chagrin. Uncle helps out by performing research, and using a magic spell to finish things off.
  • The villains are always led by a powerful sorcerer (usually a demon), aided by human henchmen (the Dark Hand Enforcers until Season 5), and occasionally some demonic warriors. The story arc always culminates in a finale, in which the villains, after a long string of failures, suddenly get everything they need, and almost succeed with their plans until finally defeated.
• Johnny Test largely follows the formula of "his super-genius twin sisters invent something" > "Johnny uses it" > "something goes horribly wrong". Also, the Voice of Reason is a talking dog.
• Kaeloo:
  • The first season went mostly like this: Kaeloo suggests a game, Mr. Cat does horrible stuff to Quack Quack, Kaeloo Hulks Out and beats Mr. Cat up. And during all this, Stumpy does random stupid and/or crazy things. This is lampshaded in the final episode of Season 1, which was ironically just before Season 2 started and the show stopped being formulaic.
  • In-universe, the Mr. Coolskin comic books which Stumpy reads. While the audience doesn't get to see the story, the show's characters point out that all the books have almost identical plotlines.
• Looney Tunes. Most of the major characters exist primarily in Strictly Formula cartoons. For example:
  • Pepé Le Pew chasing the accidentally white-striped black cat, who runs in terror from his stench.
  • The Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons follow a basic outline. Wile E. and the Road Runner are introduced onscreen via faux scientific taxonomy, Wile E. chases him only to realize the Road Runner is too fast for him and starts setting up traps and using physics-defying ACME devices which backfire and blow up in his face. Lampshaded in a fake Cartoon Network commercial for ACME devices. "We put rockets..." (sound of explosion) "... on everything."
  • Ralph Wolf trying to catch Sam Sheepdog's charges, only to find himself stopped by Sam in ridiculous ways. Work is over, the two punch clocks and say goodnight.
  • Different directors also often created opposing formulas for particular characters, for example Bob Clampett interpreted Daffy Duck as The Prankster, Chuck Jones recreated him as a Fake Ultimate Hero in various genre parodies, Friz Freleng made him a show biz fanatic (usually in bitter rivalry with Bugs Bunny) while Robert McKimson often utilized him as a Loveable Rogue.
  • Many pairings between Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester (including "Speedy Gonzales", "Canery Woes", and "Here Today, Gone Tamale") involve starving mice wanting to get cheese from a factory, building, or ship being guarded by Sylvester, leading one of them to get help from Speedy Gonzales, who's friends with his sister (to which another mouse will reply, "Speedy Gonzales is friends with everybody's SEE-STER!"). This was repeated odd times with Daffy, though variations were more common.
  • Most Bugs Bunny cartoons follow the pattern established in A Wild Hare: a hunter goes after Bugs, Bugs introduces himself with "Eh, what's up, Doc?", then procedes to outsmart the hunter in various ways. Over time, additional elements and variations are introduced - Bugs Faking the Dead, Bugs saying "This Means War!", Bugs taking the Wrong Turn at Albuquerque, etc. By 1957 the formula is so established that Chuck Jones is able to deconstruct it in What's Opera, Doc?, which takes the bare elements of the typical Bugs/Elmer cartoon and restages it as grand opera. ^note As Joe Adamson explains it, "What's Opera, Doc?" is "A Wild Hare" if Wagner had scored it and UPA had designed it if they were in a mood to trash Disney.
  • The cartoons featuring Hippety Hopper the kangaroo are very formulaic. It goes like this; Sylvester (usually accompanied with his son Junior) is slacking off from catching mice. Hopper is released out of a box from a zoo or a circus, Sylvester mistakes him for a giant mouse and attempts to catch him. Hopper innocently believes Sylvester's antics are a game and plays back too roughly, leading to Sylvester getting hurt. Just about the only thing that changes from cartoon to cartoon is the ending.
• The Loud House:
  • Many episodes follow the same formula: "A" does something hidden from "B" to benefit himself (or, in rare cases, to benefit "B"). This involves constantly disguising "B" until in the end, the hoax is revealed and "A" apologizes, being forgiven or receiving punishment. Everyone is susceptible to it: Lincoln does it constantly, Clyde does it to Lincoln ("Game Boys"), all of Lincoln's friends do it to him ("Saved by the Spell"), Lori does this with her family ("Garage Banned"), the Loud Siblings do it to their parents ( "House Flip") and the parents do it with the Loud Siblings ("Pipe Dreams").
  • In several episodes, the character wants to conquer "X", but he realizes that there is something much more important in life than the achievement of "X" and ends up giving up the dispute (being often rewarded in the end with the achievement of something similar or even better). Examples include "Making The Case", "Read Aloud", "Mall Of Duty", "A Mutt Above".
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: After we are introduced the plot of the episode, Mickey sings a song and we get the four "Mouseketools" needed for the day's adventure. Throughout the episode Toodles flies to the scene whenever one of the Mouseketools needs to be used with the shout "OH, TOODLES!" - and afterwards, "We've got ears, say cheers!". That particular tidbit is reused four times, with the final time (when it's time to unveil the "secret" Mouseketool) being "Say SUPER cheers!". At the end of the journey, Mickey and the gang do The Hot Dog Dance while recapping what they did.
• Mike the Knight: Mike is given a quest by his mother the queen. He decides there's a better way of doing it that the way he's supposed to, and undergoes his Transformation Sequence, ending with his drawing his sword and being annoyed that Evie's magic has turned it into something apparently random. Eventually, everything goes wrong because of his bad decision, and he declares "It's time to be a knight, and do it right!" Whatever his sword has become turns out to be useful in sorting everything out. Fernando the Bard then sings a song about the Aesop Mike has learned.
• Miraculous Ladybug: A civilian feels they have been wronged (often by Chloe), and they get akumatized. Marinette and Adrien transform into their superhero personas, fight the villain, Ladybug conjures up her lucky Charm, defeats the villain and uses a World-Healing Wave to fix all the collateral damage. Repeat for the next episode. A few episodes in the third season avert this by having someone getting akumatized offscreen, or Ladybug de-akumatizing the villain before summoning her Lucky Charm to solve a different problem and use the World-Healing Wave.
• Barring a few exceptions, every Mister Go short follows this sequence: Mr. Go decides to do something, his dog Bip warns him he shouldn't, Mr. Go follows through with it anyway and suffers the consequences, and gets caught by someone who gives him a ticket, forcing them to run away.
• Most early episodes of Moral Orel follow the formula of Orel learning some kind of Christian lesson and then taking it to its Logical Extreme (i.e. a combination of lectures about providing for the poor, the importance of money and the importance of not wasting what you paid for leading to Orel getting a part-time job, giving his earning to a poor guy in an alley who turns out to be a drug dealer and then getting addicted to the crack the dealer pushes on him because it'd be wasteful not to smoke it), until Clay pulls up in his car to take Orel to his study (cue a Loud Gulp from Orel) for an off-screen belt beating and the delivery of the episode's Spoof Aesop (i.e. Orel's true sin wasn't smoking crack, but using slang while doing so) before Clay gets up without putting on his belt and his pants fall down. That being said, the show does use the formula to pull a few extra gags on occasion (such as Clay plowing his car through a forest and knocking down a few trees to get to Orel.)
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the first season, characters learn a valuable lesson about friendship every episode (usually after one of the characters causes a problem or conflict by acting ignorant or confrontational), and then Twilight Sparkle writes a letter to her mentor Princess Celestia summing the lesson up in a few sentences. As of "Lesson Zero" other characters can write letters to Celestia as well, and a few episodes involve no closing letter at all, but An Aesop about friendship is still always present.
  • A side formula is always present in episodes involving the Cutie Mark Crusaders, with the three fillies trying to take up some new activity or talent in order to earn their cutie marks (with inevitable failure). Usually this causes some problem or embarrassment that merges into the Friendship Aesop formula above.
  • Another common formula is one of the main characters having a problem, and going to each of her friends in turn looking for a solution.
  • The entire series is run on the following formula: Start out the Season with a 2-Part Story where the ponies are faced with a major threat, spend the next 22 episodes delving in hijinks and Slice of Life stories, then end the Season off with another 2-parter where the ponies are faced with another major threat. There are some exceptions, of course.
• Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: Each episode begins with Kai-Lan and the viewers tickling Mr. Sun to wake him up, and then she does something fun with her group of animal friends. Eventually, tension or a problem rises for one (or two, at the very least) character(s). At the climax of an episode, the character(s) will break, usually out of frustration or sadness, and no longer want to do whatever it is Kai-Lan and company are doing. Kai-Lan tells the viewers, "We gotta gotta try, to find the reason why"^note Some episodes just have her say "Let's find, out why...". She then remembers the events leading up to the character(s)'s shutdown and figures out why they are mad or sad. Kai-Lan and others solve the character(s)'s problem, and usually sing a song and by the end of the episode the problem is resolved. Every episode ends with Kai-Lan telling the viewers "You make my heart feel super happy!".
• PAW Patrol: Most episodes will boil down to this: Someone in Adventure Bay has a problem and calls Ryder (who says his catchphrase "No job's too big, no pup's too small"), the group go to the lookout with Marshall crashing into the elevator, 2 of the pups set out with Ryder to solve the problem, end of episode with Ryder saying his other catchphrase "Whenever you're in trouble, just yelp for help!" There are exceptions of course, such as the special episodes having the entire team dispatch.
• Pinky Dinky Doo: Each episode begins with Tyler having a problem. When Pinky learns about it, it gives her an idea for a story, so her, Tyler, and their pet Mr. Guinea Pig go to The Story Box (with a song, of course) and Pinky tells her story. At the climax of each story, Pinky has to "think big" to solve a predicament - resulting in her head to expand like a balloon and she flies everywhere when it deflates. The problem is always fixed, and, in Pinky's words: "And that's exactly what happened... pretty much. The end!". Tyler learns the aesop of the story and afterwards it is "game time", where Pinky plays a series of two games with the viewers dealing with what they saw or heard in the story. Every episode signs off with "I love making up stories, I bet you can make up a story too!".
• Phineas and Ferb: The title characters decide to take on a ridiculously ambitious project, while their pet Perry the Platypus slips away to adopt his Secret Identity and thwart his Mad Scientist Arch-Enemy Dr. Doofenshmirtz. There's a song, Doofenshmirtz captures Perry. While Perry is trapped Doofenshmirtz explains his Evil Plan to Perry, along with the motivation. Perry escapes and they fight, the boys and their friends enjoy their creation while their big sister Candace runs herself ragged trying to bust them to their mother. Doof is thwarted, the results of his scheme coincidently hide the evidence of P&F's activities, and Candace is left with nothing except maybe a Throw the Dog a Bone moment, or Candace is the one who gets in trouble instead. Having established this formula, the show then riffs around it, subverting or double subverting parts of it, and leaving it behind for the odd episode. The formula is so recognizable that they were able to pull off an episode with no intelligible dialogue set in caveman times and still have it be completely obvious what was going on and what the characters were saying just based on the formula and running gags.
• The Popeye cartoons have gotten an unfair reputation as being this, but while that does apply to the bulk of the Famous Studios shorts, this is surprisingly not the case with the Fleischer Studios Popeye cartoons. Despite the notoriety of the spinach cliche and the characters love triangle, more than half of their shorts eschew the latter formula or have some clever variation of it. Out of the 109 Fleischer shorts, 49 of them (close to half of them) don't feature Bluto at all. Even shorts that do feature both Bluto and the spinach have clever gags and unique situations built around them—one short, "Fighting Pals", twists the formula by having Popeye tearing through a jungle in search of Bluto, and when he's clearly battered and fatigued from his endless search, Bluto ends up saving his life with the spinach! "Lets Celebrake" is completely devoid of conflict, as Popeye lets Olive and Bluto go out together so Popeye can take Olive's grandmother out for New Years Eve. And on top of that, there are 19 of the Fleischer Popeyes where he doesn't eat the spinach, or spinach is absent altogether.^note  The shorts in question are "Never Kick A Woman", "Hospitaliky", "Lost and Foundry", "I Like Babies and Infinks", "Popeye the Sailor and the Jeep" and its similarly named follow-up "Popeye the Sailor Presents Eugene the Jeep", "Cops Is Always Right", "Leave Well Enough Alone", "Wotta Nitemare", "Never Sock a Baby", "Nurse Mates", "Puttin on the Act", "Wimmin is a Myskery", "I'll Never Crow Again", "Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix", "Flies Ain't Human", "Pest Pilot", "Child Psykolojiky", and "Olive's Sweepstakes Ticket".
• Puppy Dog Pals. The entire show in a nutshell:
  • Episodes begin with Bingo and/or Rolly or Keia doing an activity
  • Bob (and occasionally someone else) wants to do or needs something
  • Something goes wrong
  • Bob leaves for work
  • ARF tells Bingo, Rolly, and occasionally Keia what they need to do on their mission
  • The puppies gear up for their mission
  • They encounter their destination
  • They encounter the problem
  • They meet another character from the destination
  • The guest character helps them fix the problem
  • A song is performed
  • The puppies find something to help fix the problem
  • The puppies return home
  • Bob comes home from work
  • He finds out that the problem is fixed
  • Bob does what he desired to do at the beginning of the episode
• Rainbow Rangers: Episodes begin with a problem occurring on Earth, the girls having a problem or argument on Kaleidoscopia, then a trip to Earth for the mission, which never goes well the first time they try to solve it, then using what they learned on the mission to resolve the initial dispute.
• Redakai boasts an oddly rigid structure where a fight must happen at act one, and then another fight as the climax for each episode which the good guys win. Sadly, they are often poorly done and prevent the episodes from setting up any atmosphere, partly thanks to the power-up scenes that go into each one. It is particularly obvious in some episodes that the battles are just shoehorned in and destroy otherwise salvageable plots.
• Regular Show plots tend to follow a formula; a character has a conflict, initial attempts to resolve the conflict fail and eventually characters trying to resolve the conflict leads to a bizarre confrontation with a supernatural, ultra-powerful and/or over-the-top obstacle or monster. Usually between the second and third stages there's a montage.
• Samurai Jack had plenty of creative episodes with complex plots and characterization, some could be summarized as "Aku tries to kill Jack" or "Bounty hunter(s) try to kill Jack" or "Jack thinks he's found a time portal, but it doesn't work out". The whole thing was given an epic Lampshade Hanging in "Jack vs Aku" when Aku shows up to complain how routine their feud has become;
  Aku: Oh, put that thing away, Samurai. We all know what's going to happen. You'll swing your sword, I'll fly away, and probably say something like, "I'll be back, Samurai!" And then I'll flutter off over the horizon, and we won't see each other for about a week. And then, we'll do the same thing all over again.
• Scooby-Doo: Every episode will involve a trap that they have to bribe Scooby with Scooby Snacks for, and it will go horribly awry but succeed in getting the Monster of the Week anyway Despite the Plan. Said monster will turn out to be a man in disguise, and he would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for You Meddling Kids! And the solution is explained in each episode using clues that weren't revealed to the audience until the end. Subsequent movies and revival series departed from this formula by featuring actual monsters.
• In Sheep in the Big City, General Specific needs to capture Sheep for his sheep-powered ray gun. Every episode has the same plot: General Specific gets another chance to capture Sheep. Chase Scenes occur as the secret military organization tries to grab Sheep. Each episode changes how General Specific tries to nab Sheep, and what else Sheep was doing in the Big city. But the outcome is always the same: The military surrounds or captures Sheep for a moment, but Sheep always escapes, and by the end of each episode, Sheep is always out of danger.
• Shimmer and Shine did this in the first season. Leah and Zac are doing something, then Leah calls Shimmer and Shine, who are in Zahramay Falls also doing something, and fly on their magic carpet to the human world. The genies work to help Leah with whatever she wants to do, along with granting the wishes she makes, but since they're still genies in training, they take her wishes differently and too literally. Nevertheless, the problem is solved in the end without any wishes and all, and it ends with the twins returning home.
• While The Simpsons isn't a strictly formula show, there is a pattern in many episodes:
  • The creators have a lot of material to work off of with their characters, so what usually happens is that a member of the Simpsons family (usually Bart or Homer) purposefully or inadvertently destroy the life of a secondary character and are then driven by guilt to help them, though it isn't always the fault of the family. Sometimes the character will even end up staying at the Simpsons' home until their life is put back in order. Some examples include: "Krusty Gets Busted", "When Flanders Failed", "Like Father, Like Clown", "Bart the Lover", "The Otto Show", "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", "Krusty Gets Kancelled", "Homer and Apu", and "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song". And that is just from the first five seasons, as it gets more prevalent in later seasons, to the point where it is the basis for The Movie.
  • The formula "the Simpsons visit X state/country/continent" is used frequently, often lampshaded with Homer announcing, "The Simpsons are going to X!"
  • A number of episodes, from all eras of the show, involve Homer and Marge breaking up, or nearly so, over something especially boorish, selfish and thoughtless that Homer does. Occasionally there's a variation in which mutual stubbornness is the cause. They inevitably reconcile by the conclusion.
  • The Show Within a Show, The Itchy and Scratchy Show, also revolves around the strict formula of Itchy playing psychotic pranks on Scratchy that inevitably leave him comically disemboweled or killed. The show seems to poke fun at cartoon writers' inability to diverse from the formula, with several episodes revolving around the cartoon taking a new direction or gimmick, and being significantly poorer in quality.
  • Many episodes also feature Homer getting a new job. He's been an astronaut, voice actor, inventor, etc.
  • On later seasons, a good amount on episodes are based on one member of The Simpsons (and a few times the whole familiy or a side character) meeting a new character voiced by a Special Guest Star, who has a heavy 2010s personality that makes sharp contrast with the Simpsons' 90s personalities. Everything comes down to a climax, and the character gets a reason for never being seen again.
• South Park:
  • A lot of jokes are Refuge in Audacity comedy about taboo subjects other shows wouldn't dare to touch and often tie in directly with events that happened in the week of broadcast. Celebrities will randomly appear and be humiliated, often by dying in horribly violent death. The same will inevitably happen to Kenny, though he will return to life following the end of the episode. The entire town will get involved in a media frenzy, hype or public outrage, only Stan and Kyle remain the voice of reason and provide an aesop or Broken Aesop near the end. Every Real Life activist, group, organization, party, religion... will be made a Butt-Monkey and be simplistically mispresented too for Rule of Funny. It's even lampshaded in the episode "Butt Out" when Kyle discovered that it's been done before, and the episode ended like it was, much to his disappointment.
  • Parodied in one episode, where we see trailers for upcoming comedy movies starring Rob Schneider. In the past few years, Rob had done two movies, The Hot Chick and The Animal, which both focused on an everyman character being turned into something else, at which Hilarity Ensues as he learns that being a [x] is harder than it looks. Consequently, the episode features multiple fake trailers for films that follow the exact same pattern as those movies—first Rob gets turned into a carrot, then a stapler, and then we see one trailer where the whole thing is complete gibberish and yet you can still figure out it's following the usual formula. It concludes with Rob Schneider accidentally getting possessed by Kenny, which is shown as following the exact same formula.
• Special Agent Oso: Oso does a training assignment and fails. He is then called away to help a child by Mr. Dos and Paw Pilot assigns Oso "three special steps" to complete the task. Paw Pilot then starts singing about the mission as a strange music video is shown. When he arrives, Oso follows the steps carefully when helping the child, needing the audience's help for very simple tasks. As the final step is completed in the nick of time, Oso returns to complete his training exercise, using the knowledge he got from his mission to earn his training award. Oso then receives a special assignment digi-medal for helping the child. The episode finishes off with a corny one-liner.
• Super Why!: One of the kids will have a (mundane) problem; the Super Readers gather in the clubhouse to discuss it; they (magically) choose a book to find the answer; they enter it in their "Y-Flyers"; they read the story and decide to help its characters; they even do it in the same order (first Alpha Pig, then Wonder Red and/or Princess Presto, and finally Super Why, each one giving a spelling/reading lesson in the process with the help of the audience) and then solve the story by changing its ending (by swapping a word in the text); they then return to the clubhouse, where, with the 'Super Letters' they gathered in their Super Duper Computer along the way, they spell a phrase that gives the answer to their problem as well.
• The 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series follows this formula in many episodes that don't involve Shredder and Krang causing havoc with their fully powered Technodrome or appearances of minor villains. Most episodes involve Shredder and Krang steal a state-of-the-art equipment or a power source which the turtles defend and save the day.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • The stories written by the Rev. W. Awdry have common elements. Two engines disagree on something; one being in the right and the other being in the wrong. The wrong engine always gets their comeuppance and is punished, with the right engine asserting themself and being rewarded.
  • Series 8-16 followed a similar format. An engine is given a job to do, but something stops them from doing the job right, either by taking a shortcut, doing something different, or adding something to make it seem better. After doing this three times, everything goes downhill, Sir Topham Hatt scolds them ("You have caused confusion and delay!"), and they proceed to correct their mistake. The job is finished in the nick of time, and ends with an "Everybody Laughs" Ending.
• A Thousand and One... Americas: All episodes except the first follow the same format: Chris is in the middle of a playful activity in his free time, then he and/or his younger brother climb upstairs to the attic alongside their pet dog Lon so they can find their late grandfather's expedition book in order to find answers about something related to pre-Columbian civilizations, then Chris begins narrating the topic to be discussed Introdump style, and at one point he falls asleep and begins dreaming of that topic; things go well during the dream until something bad or unexpected happens, and Chris wakes up when it seems like he won't make it out alive. After waking up, he resumes his playful activity.
• Many ThunderCats episodes followed the formula of Mumm-ra transforming and hatching his evil plan, Lion-O using his sword's Sight Beyond Sight ability, getting into trouble with the Monster of the Week that necessitates using the Sword of Omens to call upon the others and then taking the problem down with the combined team.
• Tom and Jerry can be summed up as this: Cat and Mouse chase each other until Tom (or Jerry in some cases) loses. John Kricfalusi (creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show) sums the formula in the funniest way:
  "Tom and Jerry is about as uninspired a cartoon series as was ever created. It's pure generic cartoon thinking of the time. What is a cartoon? Uh... it's where a cat chases a mouse and there is lots of hurt and noise and mayhem. It's hard to be more basic than that, so Bill and Joe didn't fix something that wasn't broken for 15 or 16 years. For that whole period they didn't even try to create new characters."
• Most Total Drama episodes start with some sort of conflict between two or more campers, a challenge which plays off that conflict (which takes up most of the episode), and an elimination ceremony that will resolve it unless the conflict is over several episodes (except for when they didn't do an elimination). It makes it extremely difficult to vary the amount of screentime, leading to Ensemble Dark Horse and Spotlight-Stealing Squad for multiple characters.
• Totally Spies!: Meet villain of the episode, girls having some problem in their personal lives, Jerry whoops them away and explains the situation, go on mission, run into villain, one or all girls get captured or discovered, one or all of them gets mutated / brainwashed etc, break free, confront villains, beat them, change back to normal, learn a life lesson that helps solve the earlier problem in their personal lives. End episode.
• Cartoons produced by Total Television are notorious for being this, most notably Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, Go Go Gophers, The World Of Commander McBragg, and others. The fact that the entire studio's output was written by just two people probably contributed to this.
• Wallace & Gromit: Not all of them, but mostly it's: Wallace and Gromit open new business. Business doesn't go so well. Wallace invents crazy new device to help business. Gromit makes a face. New invention goes awry/falls into the wrong hands/etc. Big action chase scene at the end. Gromit makes Aside Glance.
• On Wild Animal Baby Explorers, the Explorers are outside doing something when one of them wonders something related to animals. They decide to go exploring and sing the song "Let's explore, more and more / There's so much to do and see! (Wild Animal Baby!) / Let's explore, there's fun galore / In making new discoveries." They begin exploring and at some point meet up with Miss Sally, their mentor, who has useful info for them. Sometime during the exploration, Sammy the skunk hides and they have to find him. Eventually, the exploration comes to an end and they say "Out and about, over and out!" They then talk about what their favorite thing they saw was on the exploration and then one of them prompts the others to imitate something they saw one of the animals they explored doing. As they do this, recap footage begins playing of animals explored in the episode as a Bragging Theme Tune of sorts plays, talking about their exploration and how they're "the greatest bunch in history." After a brief coda, the episode ends.
• This is how a typical season of Winx Club plays out; a new villain is introduced once per season, he/she attacks the city or any place, the girls use their transformations that are right from previous seasons but fail to defeat it, a new set of mini characters will appear (ex. the pets) that are later thrown into limbo right in the next season, new characters appear to give the six girls new transformations, then they now use them to defeat the villains. Sometimes either the transformations stay permanent throughout the season or sometimes they gain some little transformations or transformations with some stupid dancing even though the world is in danger (Butterflix anyone?), and finally, the girls defeat the main villain and celebrate at the end.
• Wunschpunsch manages to take this trope to Scooby-Doo-like levels. Each episode follows this pattern: We see the villains shower attention upon their pets or going about their daily business (Bubonic commonly cooks, Tyrannia works on her appearance). Maledictus T. Maggot shows up and berates them for not having cast any evil spells lately and forces them to cooperate. The villains berate each other for their lack of achievement before coming up with an idea for a spell. They use their combined power to cast the spell. Their pets witness the resulting devastation and plot to stop it before it becomes permanent. They fail to find a solution and seek out the aid of a wise turtle who gives them a cryptic riddle. Meanwhile, the villains take jabs at each other as they revel in their wickedness. The animals figure out the riddle and reverse the spell at the last minute. Maggot shows up and gives the villains their Cool and Unusual Punishment. The animals rejoice.
• All the episodes of Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum have the same format. One of the characters has a problem, so the gang goes to the Secret Museum for help. Brad always protests against going there, but is made to come along anyways. The kids access the Secret Museum in a certain way (that can differ from episode to episode) such as through a dinosaur mouth or by posing in an Egyptian exhibit, etc. Then, they slide down the pole, in the exact same order: Xavier, Yadina, and Brad.^note Except for "I Am Mark Twain", where Xavier is last. The Secret Museum presents them with an artifact from the person they're going to meet, shows a hologram of the person, and shows the location and year. Berby delivers the kids back in time, where they meet the person. The person helps the focus character solve their problem by delivering the Aesop of the episode, multiple times, until the focus character gets it. When they get it, the kids decide to go back home, where they solve their problem.

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