The Cuckoolander Was Right / Western Animation

The Cuckoolander Was Right in Western Animation.

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• In the Adventure Time episode "Beautopia", while Finn, Jake and Susan Strong are trying to reach the titular location for the Hyooman tribe, Susan is irrationally scared of several inflatable pool toys that appear in the water, calling them "Lub-glubs". Eventually Jake gets fed up with this and goes to pop one to show Susan what she's afraid of. Turns out they're actually nightmarish Blob Monsters using the pool toys as skins.
• American Dad!:
  • While in the middle of a drug-fueled Mushroom Samba, Roger refused to let go of a big bag of cat food, afraid that he was becoming immune to gravity. At the end of the episode, he drops the bag and floats off.
  • In "Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie's Gold", Stan digs for gold which he believes Oliver North buried in the grounds of the Smith house. In the process, he interprets obviously mundane things as clues, like the arrangement and functionality of electrical outlets in the living room and some discarded ice-cream wrappers. In the end? He finds the gold, complete with attached note congratulating the discoverer on deciphering the riddle of the outlets and the ice-cream wrappers.
  • In "Black Mystery Month", one of the obvious lies Stan tells Steve as part of treating him like too much of a child is that, if boys get too little sleep, their "boy glands emit a sweet berry scent that attracts paedophiles". Later, Steve is confronted by a museum security guard, who sniffs and, well...
    "Mmm, sweet berries. Hey, champ. Get enough sleep last night?"
• Amphibia: In Scavenger Hunt, King Andrias sends Marcy a puzzle gram with various clues hidden in Newtopia. In order to find them, she has to think on a different level than others while using her intelligence and attention to detail.
• Arthur:
  • After a field trip to an art museum, Binky is convinced that an abstract painting isn't being displayed properly. Everyone dismisses him, but at the end of the episode, after a bit of research, Binky shows everyone some old footage of the artist unveiling the piece - and proves the museum has been hanging it sideways.
  • When Arthur misses a special crossover episode of Bionic Bunny and Dark Bunny, D.W. suggests that they tell each other stories about what they think happened. Her story claims that Bionic Bunny and Dark Bunny are twins separated at birth; Dark Bunny was abducted by a wicked witch and Bionic Bunny by a robot. Arthur stops her and calls her story ridiculous. At the end up the episode, Arthur asks Buster about the crossover, and it turns out that D.W. was spot on.
• Big City Greens: In one episode, Tilly Green turns out to be right about her "spaghetti theory", where the lives of the Big Citygoers can twist, connect, and intertwine by one event to the next.
• The 2006 revival of Biker Mice from Mars featured an example in the episode "Rumpity-Dumpster", where a homeless man claims to have once been abducted by aliens from Mars. When startled by an amnesiac Ronaldo Rump carrying the Regenerator, he recognizes the Regenerator as Martian technology, so he clearly isn't just another lunatic vagrant in spite of mistaking Rump for an alien.
• CatDog:
  • In "Meat Dog's Friends", it is revealed that Dog believes meat comes from meat trees planted by a man named Johnny Meatseed. Cat attempts to set Dog straight by showing him a video of animals being led into a slaughterhouse, which results in Dog becoming horrified that he had been eating food made from sentient creatures and eventually trying to eat his own brother after considering vegetables and rocks his friends on the basis that brothers are not friends. Fortunately, Johnny Meatseed turns out to be real and plants meat trees for Dog so he doesn't have to eat Cat or feel guilty about eating meat.
  • In "The Great Parent Mystery", there's a running gag where Dog explains several ridiculous theories detailing how he and Cat became separated from their parents, ranging from them being abducted by mole people to getting amnesia and consequentially believing they were country western singers. When they finally find their adoptive parents, these wacky theories turn out to be true.
• Dan Vs.:
  • Whatever ridiculous thing that Dan says wronged him this week — the Wolf-Man, George Washington's ghost, etc. — will turn out to be real, and a good portion of his other weird theories ("the dentist is a supervillain," etc.) will be correct too. Heck, in "Elise's Parents" he was actually trying to lie but still turned out to be partly right.
  • Subverted in "The Monster Under The Bed". We're set up to believe Dan was right about the eponymous monster, but it turns out to be a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax set up by Chris of all people.
• In the "Twin Beaks" episode of Darkwing Duck, Launchpad obtains a magic log and begins relaying cryptic clues about the situation to Darkwing (a Shout-Out to Twin Peaks, though nothing else in the episode is). Launchpad's weird insights make sense in the end, though; the log is Bushroot, who really has been whispering hints to him.
• Drawn Together: In "Gay Bash", when Hero was disappointed to get a 36-inch plasma sewing machine instead of a 36-inch plasma television, Wooldoor says they can always sew a television, which Spanky thought was ridiculous, but then Ling-Ling managed to do just that.
• DuckTales (2017): When Della Duck returns to Duckburg, she is aghast to find that Launchpad repairs Scrooge's plane by doing things such as using chewing gum for the smoke vent and insists on traditional repairs. However, when they're flying in the air, the cockpit begins to fill up with smoke. Turns out the plane is so old that fixing it the proper way only leads to it breaking down mid-flight. Launchpad's fixes, while bizarre, actually keep everything working.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: Ed's popculture grab-bag brain rarely predicts vital info, but is regularly correct in its wonky perception of reality. Thusfar he's been able to fly, insert himself into TV broadcasts, teleport and self-multiply.
• The trope is a plot point in one episode of Family Guy where Peter hears from a random guy in a chicken suit that the world is going to end on midnight during New Year's Eve. Naturally, Peter's family refuses to believe him, but after he shoves them into the basement and they survive doomsday, Peter spends the rest of the episode telling everyone he was right about the world ending.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • Crocker's theories are spot on, and he's the only person outside of other kids with fairies to recognize it. He usually manages to correctly predict what Timmy has wished for, even if he went from a completely absurd starting point to reach that conclusion, and some of his anti-fairy gear actually works, somehow.
  • In "Crocker of Gold", Cosmo is spouting a lot of crazy leprechaun facts that Timmy and Wanda don't believe...until real leprechauns appear and confirm them.
  • In the episode "A Wish Too Far!", Veronica was shocked to find out that Timmy had suddenly became popular overnight. She claimed that Timmy was faking his popularity. She was indeed correct, and once Timmy confessed to it, she lampshades it.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum:
  • In "Moppy Dearest", Chum Chum's supposed cousin Muk Muk was not a lame excuse to get out of going to the mandatory school dance; she actually does exist, and is quite the slob.
  • In "Precious Pig", Fanboy is punished for supposedly trying to violently attack the class's pet pig when he was really trying to teach him karate, but the students don't believe him except for Chum Chum. Later on after the pig was stolen, it turns out Fanboy was right when the pig suddenly uses karate to fight the class's former pet bear who went rogue, and all the students who didn't believe Fanboy were given detention as punishment.
• In the Fish Hooks episode "Just One of the Fish" Milo was the only one who knew Hank the Boy wasn't Bea disguised as a boy.
• In the Futurama episode "The Cryonic Woman," Fry meets a fellow defrostee who explains that he froze himself because he wanted to meet Shakespeare and "figured time was cyclical". Fry assures him that it's a straight line. Several seasons and one Uncancellation later, "The Late Philip J. Fry" reveals that the universe of the show indeed operates on a principle of Eternal Recurrence. The man's only error was in severely underestimating the time frame involved while relying on a cryogenic storage container to survive the heat death of the universe and a new Big Bang.
• In G2G: Got to Go, Maggie's new age spiritualist friend Rainbow is most often right when people ignore her ramblings of universal imbalance and the like.
• Matt Bluestone of Gargoyles. He's convinced there are gargoyles that patrol the city at night, and that the Illuminati exist, control even the President, and are part of an Ancient Conspiracy that stretches back to the Middle Ages. If this were a more reality-based show, he'd be nuts, but in this show, everything he believes is true. Not only that, but he eventually becomes the gargoyles' Friend on the Force and actually joins the Illuminati.
• Gravity Falls:
  • In "Headhunters", Old Man McGucket asks Mabel if the Mystery Shack's wax figures are alive, to which she replies Sure, Let's Go with That. Guess what we find out later in the episode.
  • In "Irrational Treasure", Mabel is helping Dipper uncover a historical conspiracy, in order to prove that she's not "silly" like Pacifica said. However, throughout their quest she keeps unconsciously doing goofy things (like folding a map they find into a paper hat) which help them solve the clues. Ultimately, it's revealed that the person who laid the clues was just as big of a Cloudcuckoolander.
• Botch suspects The Hair Bear Bunch is using a variety show in their cave as a ruse for them to escape (episode "Closed Circuit TV"), but Peevly, watching on his closed circuit monitor, is entertained by the proceedings. Turns out Botch was right — the bears are seen parachuting over the wall for a night on the town.
• Happens in Invader Zim when Dib (who himself is technically this trope thanks to most characters being Cloudcuckoolanders who treat him as the insane one) tries to escape the school nurse, who declares martial law during a lice outbreak and rambles about a giant queen louse underneath the building being responsible. She's right, and Dib sheepishly apologizes.
• A part of the Question's unifying conspiracy theory in Justice League Unlimited is that it includes boy bands in a list of things like global warming, Third World conflicts, and super-germs. A later episode has a Freeze-Frame Bonus when he opens up a drive containing hidden data from the Cadmus organization, which has a file labeled "Brazilboyz." And then there’s his discovery of Baskin Robbins' thirty-second flavor. Just as he suspected.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 98, Stumpy turns out to be completely right about Smileyland's sheep being aliens.
• One episode of Kid Notorious starts with an Almost Dead Guy ranting about a Nazi conspiracy to wipe out all the Jews in Hollywood. Everyone else remembers last week, when he thought Bill Cosby wanted to drain his blood, but Evans does some digging, and, well, you can guess.

• King of the Hill:
  • Dale Gribble once correctly deduced that Chuck Mangione was secretly living inside the Arlen Mega-Lo-Mart. The audience gets to see what led him to believe the pest was a person instead of a rat, but how he figured out that it was Chuck specifically is anyone's guess. It seems like just another one of his ridiculous conspiracy theories for most of the episode, until Chuck reveals himself to Dale.
  • In "Old Glory", when Bobby is getting low grades, Peggy assumes the teacher is getting revenge on her for taking her coveted parking space at the school. We may think this is Peggy being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All as usual until the end when it turns out to be true.
• In Season 3 of The Legend of Korra, Bolin tries to guilt-trip his brother Mako into going with the rest of the gang to go find the new airbenders. He says that they’ll finally be able to go to where their dad grew up, Ba Sing Se. He tells Mako that if he happens to run into their extended family, their grandma will die of despair if Mako’s not there with him. When they finally get there, they do happen upon their extended family. Grandma is very excited to meet them.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006) has a variant—Brainiac-5 is malfunctioning and as a result, babbling incoherently. During his rants, however, he starts to reveal information about Superman that he himself doesn't know yet. Of course, neither Clark nor Timber Wolf understand what he means.
  Brainy: Superman, Green Rocks kill the Last Son! There's red, blue, gold, purple, did you know that?
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "Swarm of the Century", only Pinkie Pie recognizes the adorable bug Fluttershy found in the forest as a troublesome (and rapidly multiplying) Parasprite, but her attempts to gather up the needed equipment to get rid of the swarm is seen by her friends as her being her random self. Granted, she doesn't bother explaining why she ran at the sight of the creature and is now running all over the place trying to collect musical instruments. That changes when she manages to lead the swarm out of Ponyville.
  • Used in "Over a Barrel", where Pinkie attempts to settle things between a western town of ponies in Appleloosa and a tribe of buffalo. Unfortunately, she does so via a ridiculous song and dance number that irritates the two groups even though her message is the best solution for the both of them.
  • And in "Feeling Pinkie Keen", she turns out to be right about her "Pinkie Sense", a series of nervous tics and twitches that she claims to allow her to predict the future.
  • "The Cutie Map" also has her be the only one who remains suspicious about "Our Town" because of the uncomfortable smiles of the townsponies and the equal cutie marks. She's right, but too late as the leader captures her and the rest of the Mane Six.
  • A Double Subversion happens in the first part of “A Canterlot Wedding.” Something’s definitely off about the bride-to-be Cadance, but when Twilight fully confronts everyone about it, her brother, gives her a big "The Reason You Suck" Speech before storming off . Even Twilight’s friends and Princess Celestia are upset at her. The scene goes on long enough you could think that maybe Cadance was just a severe Bridezilla. Then the Cliffhanger of the episode reveals that, yep, Twilight was right, Cadance is evil. Subverted again in Part 2 though, as Twilight's suspicions take on a whole new level — it was revealed "Cadance" was actually an imposter, Queen Chrysalis, and the real Cadance had been imprisoned under Canterlot. Chrysalis even lampshades this.
    Chrysalis: It's funny, really. Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize the suspicions were correct!
• Oh Yeah! Cartoons
  • In the short "The F-Tales", Chicken Little at first comes off as a paranoid conspiracy nut, but the end of the short reveals that he's right about the sky falling.
  • The title character of "Freddy Seymoure's Amazing Life" spends the short telling completely bizarre and supposedly nonsensical tall tales, such as being given a crown to wear by an alien king in gratitude for saving his planet by solving a giant puzzle sphere. At the end of the short, Freddy turns out to be right about his dad's tie being eaten by a monster, which hints that his other stories were also true.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: In "Legends of Mr. Gar", Crinkly Wrinkly, the old, goofy fox-person, claims that Lakewood Plaza Turbo was originally a Robot Buddy of Mr. Gar's called Plazamo. In "Dark Plaza", it transpires that the Plaza has the ability to transform into a Humongous Mecha named Plazamo. "The legends were true!"
• The Ren & Stimpy Show: In "An Abe Divided", Ren hears a rumor that there's a treasure hidden in the head of the Lincoln Memorial, and recruits Stimpy's help in getting it out. Stimpy claims he knows what's hidden in Abe Lincoln's head... a stash of caramel corn! Ren brushes this off as more of Stimpy's idiocy, until they manage to crack open Abe's head and discover nothing but caramel-coated popcorn.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk and Race to the Edge depict Gobber as this — he's superstitious, and he often comes out with apparently ridiculous claims, but the kicker is that he's almost invariably right. For instance, in the Legend of the Boneknapper special, no-one believes the titular dragon exists, much less that it's as silent as Gobber claims it is (especially when legend says it's got a Sonic Scream). Considering that his stories of previous encounters with it involve fights with frozen Vikings, a hammerhead whale, a hammerhead yak being deployed from a hammerhead whale, and a volcano, you can understand the skepticism. However, not only does it exist, but it can't roar because it needs to complete its bone armor to do so — which, incidentally, is why it's been chasing Gobber, because the crucial part of its armor is acting as his belt buckle. This lampshaded in Race to the Edge when the Dragon Eye reveals the existence of the supposedly mythical Lycanwing Weredragon that Tuffnut believes he was bitten by, a bite that doesn't match up to any known dragon. In fact, it doesn't exist (Tuffnut was actually bitten by a wolf), but the myth has a real basis - it was created by Dragon Hunters to hide Dragon Eye lenses.
  Hiccup: And this is why we always listen to Gobber.

• The Simpsons:
  • In "Bart's Comet", when Springfield is threatened by a comet, the only one not panicking is Homer. He's convinced it will burn up in the atmosphere and be "no bigger than a Chihuahua's head". At the end of the episode, that's exactly what happens (it even lands next to a Chihuahua for comparison).
    Bart: But what's really amazing, is that this is exactly what Dad said would happen.
    Lisa: Yeah, Dad was right...
    Homer: I know kids, I'm scared too! [family hugs, terrified]
  • In "Brother's Little Helper", Bart, when his ADD medicine caused him to become paranoid. He became convinced that Major League Baseball was using a satellite to spy on the populace, and stole a tank to shoot it down. Mark McGwire, fresh off of his pursuit of the home run record, immediately showed up to distract everybody's attention.
  • In "Homerazzi", when the family put their valuables in a fire-proof safe, we see Bart's Krusty doll falling on Lisa's Malibu Stacy convertible turning its headlights on lighting Homer's cologne bottle causing it to boil and explode. When they see the safe smoking, Homer guesses exactly everything we've seen, but Lisa denies it as ridiculous...until the safe explodes.
  • Marge briefly becomes paranoid in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", thinking that Becky is planning to kill her and steal Homer, but every accusation she makes is debunked and everyone thinks she's crazy. At the end, however, when she finally concedes she was wrong and apologizes to Becky, Becky confesses and says she had been planning to kill her, at least originally. (According to her, she had a lot of trouble buying a shovel and decided to scrap the whole idea.)
  • "Lisa's Rival" features a subplot where Homer starts obsessively guarding a pile of sugar from thieves. Marge tries to tell him that he's being paranoid...at which Homer promptly discovers a stereotypical British gentleman hiding inside the sugar pile, who explains that he stole the sugar for his tea, "when you let your guard down for that split second, and I'd do it again."
  • Played around in "The Springfield Files": Homer is convinced he saw an alien in the woods, but everybody else thinks he's off his rocker (even Mulder and Scully). At the end of the episode, Homer is proven right, or more like half-right — There was a strange sight on the woods, but turns out that it was the result of Mr. Burns' weekly treatments.
• This is periodically the case with Sticks in Sonic Boom. Sticks is a feral badger with wildly out-of-control paranoid delusions, that regularly turn out to be entirely correct: for example, the second episode has her not only realise that Eggman is up to something when he asks to crash with Sonic and Tails for a few days, but accurately guess the name of the murder-robot he plans to use.
• South Park:
  • In the "Imaginationland" three-parter, Mel Gibson, over the course of a masochistic rant, suggests to government agents that they look over the individuals in a terrorist video, looking for someone who 'doesn't fit,' which turns out to be the hint they needed. Different from most of these cases because the agents instantly recognize it as such. "Say what you want about Mel Gibson, but the son of a bitch knows story structure!"
  • In "Reverse Cowgirl" Butters admits he thought the correct way to sit on the toilet was to sit inward so you can rest your reading material on the top and reach the handle without having to look down. Near the end John Harrington's ghost confirms that this is how he intended it to be used.
  • In "Douche and Turd" the PETA leader was a batshit crazy zoophiliac, but he still gave Stan sound (well, as sound as it gets in South Park) advice about having to accept choosing between between a giant douche and a turd sandwich for a school mascot, because douches and turds are the only kinds of people that succeed in politics and become nominees, and it will always be the only choice he ever gets, so he might as well get used to it. This particularly stands out as he was the only authority figure who didn't act in outrage to Stan's apathy to voting (compared to the adults of South Park, who compared to their awareness of PETA being insane, had Stan banished from the town).
  • Cartman becomes the Cloudcuckoolander in "Die Hippie Die" when he warns the town of an oncoming hippie music festival and is imprisoning hippies in his basement, leading to him being thrown in jail - until the festival begins consuming the town and everyone has to turn to Cartman to get rid of all the hippies.
  • In "Volcano", Cartman tells a story about Scuzzlebutt, a monster with a stalk of celery for an arm and Patrick Duffy for a leg, and who weaves wicker baskets at night. The other boys ridicule his stupid monster story right up until Scuzzlebutt appears in the end.
  • In "Time to Get Cereal", Al Gore is vindicated after it turns out that ManBearPig is a very real threat that is actively causing mayhem. Gore himself does not hesitate to rub it in the boys' face that they shouldn't have mocked him in the past, even while he helps them in finding out how to deal with ManBearPig.
  • Mr. White was a recurring Straw Character lampooning the American far-right, and he spends the majority of the "Vaccination Special" ranting about "Hollywood elites" controlling everything. Near the end, his claims of "two people running the show" are proven valid, as he's deformed in various ways to Mr. Garrison's horror.
• Steven Universe:
  • Zigzagged with Ronaldo; he first has a ridiculously incorrect theory about the events in Beach City, only to learn that most of them were caused by the Crystal Gems — something which he and the rest of the town are Fantastically Indifferent toward. However, after a minor comment from his brother, he then twists his ideas around into a new conspiracy theory in which "polymorphic sentient rocks" are trying to hollow out the Earth under the command of the "Diamond Authority". As the series progresses, we find out that while the Crystal Gems are good guys, Ronaldo's theories are true for the rest of their species. Even the term "Diamond Authority" turns out to be accurate. Indeed, it's something of a Running Gag that pretty much anything Ronaldo says about Gems will turn out to be true in some manner.
  • Rose Quartz started a war to defend Earth, and many gems that fought in it (on Homeworld's side, anyway) are still alive. Despite this, Fluorite, one of the Off-Colors (Homeworld Gems who are persecuted because they don't fall into line), doesn't think that Rose Quartz existed. And while Rose Quartz gems did indeed exist, the Rose Quartz everyone is thinking of did not. Pink Diamond, who shapeshifted herself into that form and pretended to be a Rose Quartz, was the actual leader of the Crystal Gems.
• In the Star Trek: Lower Decks, we have Lt. Levy, a major Conspiracy Theorist aboard the Cerritos who claims crazy things such as the Battle of Wolf 359 being an inside job. In the episode "Caves", he believes that the Vendorians are on the planet he and Boimler are on and are plotting to put them through a morality test. In a deconstruction of this trope, Levy is right in this instance, but because he's lost in those theories, no one believes him and it makes it quite clear that he just got incredibly lucky. Heck, the man's been stuck as a lieutenant for about a decade because of these things.
• In Stroker and Hoop, Stroker is hired by a very rich man with a tinfoil hat claiming that Ron Howard was psychically talking to him. He wanted Stroker to investigate. Stroker accepts the money, and walks off. Then Ron Howard starts contacting Stroker with his psychic powers, which Stroker blocks out with a hot dog wrapper.
• The cuckoolander is always right in Teen Titans Go!. One hundred percent of the time. It's lampshaded in the episode "Titan Saving Time", when the Robin admits that by this point he should realize that the dumber something sounds, the more likely it is to be real.
• In Thunder Cats 2011 Thundera's Catfolk Rebel Prince Lion-O suffers from a longstanding reputation as a Cloudcuckoolander due to a stubborn, romantic belief in mythical "technology," and a very public instance of Zombie Advocacy where he defended and pardoned some enemy Lizard Folk scavengers. When a Lizard army invades with a Super Weapon Surprise of laser rifles and Walking Tanks to destroy Lion-O's medieval kingdom, even he can't bring himself to gloat. He gets to feel a little pride, however, when a Lizard he pardoned shows up to repay him, slipping the key to Lion-O's prison cell in some soup.
• In the Tiny Toon Adventures Spring Break Special, Elmyra tries to capture Buster because she is under the impression that he is the Easter Bunny. At the end of the special, after Buster and Babs manage to evade Elmyra and return to ACME Acres, it is revealed that Buster really is the Easter Bunny, as his locker is filled with numerous baskets of Easter eggs.
• Wander over Yonder:
  • In the episode "The Troll", Wander was the only one who knew the troll's weakness: sitting out of the fight and ignoring everything.
  • In "The Heebie Jeebies", Sylvia constantly dismisses the scary things found in the dark forest that Wander sees, but it isn't until they are separated that she finally realizes he was right all along, and when she does, she's in for it.
• Work It Out Wombats!: In "Helper for the Day," Zeke's categorizations of items at the Everything Emporium seem confusing at first, but they make sense once people come to buy them. For example, milk and sponges don't usually go together, but Amado buys them because a sponge is useful for cleaning up spilled milk.

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