Very Special Episode / Western Animation

Even cartoons can get serious from time to time.

Shows listed in alphabetical order:

---

The following have their own pages:

• Arthur
• Family Guy

---

Individual examples:

A

• Adventure Time has moments that smack of this trope. "Princess Cookie" is unusual, because it's played like a classic Very Special Episode, but isn't topical and doesn't have a moral. Baby Snaps is a cookie who holds up a convenience store and holds the customers hostage, demanding Princess Bubblegum's crown. In an unusually somber flashback, he tells Jake about Bubblegum's visit to his orphanage when he was a child. She told him he could be anything he wanted, and, seeing how happy she made the other children, he told her he wanted to be a princess like her. She laughed at him, and he spent the rest of his life coveting her crown. Jake tells him he doesn't need her crown to be a princess, and that he can found his own kingdom where anyone can be what they want. Jake tries to help him escape, but when the law catches up to them, Snaps attempts suicide by jumping off a cliff. The last scene is set in a mental hospital, as Jake brings a crown made out of a flower to Snaps, declaring him an Honorary Princess. Between the toned-down humour, the flashback, the explicit suicide scene and all the emotional monologuing about being oneself, it feels like an intentional pastiche of cliched Very Special Episodes, but unlike a classic VSE, it's not explicitly about some particular social issue. It just seems to exist for its own sake.
• Alice's Wonderland Bakery: "Peanut Butter Change-Up" has Alice make peanut butter teacups only to learn that Jojo the Dodo is allergic to peanuts, her main symptom being itchy jelly legs, which leads to Alice deciding to replace the peanut butter with something else. This episode teaches viewers to use a good peanut butter replacement should someone have a peanut allergy.
• The Amazing World of Gumball features many downplayed examples of serious issues with a comedic tone but still conveys the message clearly.
  • "The Catfish": When Gumball and Darwin realize Grandpa Louie has no friends, they create one called Muriel, when Granny Jojo finds out Louie has been spending time online with another "woman", Muriel not existing isn't going to stop her from being destroyed. It's one of the few times on the show where there is a genuine Aesop that isn't undercut for laughs, but it's a downplayed example because the episode, tonally, is still as comedic and wacky as every other episode.
  • "The Cycle": The episode revolves around Adult Bullying when Richard Watterson is being picked on by Mr. Wilson since high school into his adult life.
  • "The Lady": Gumball, and Darwin become suspicious of Richard's connection to a woman named Samantha who is always hanging out with a group of old ladies. When they realize that Richard and Samantha are one and the same, they set out to right a wrong. This episode tackles male Cross-Dressing and plays it straight despite being somewhat of a parody of Glen or Glenda.
  • "The Faith": Elmore suddenly loses its color and turns black and white. As the town descends into chaos, Gumball and Darwin venture out to look for the source which turns out to be Alan who has lost faith in humanity. The two must convince him that while life is imperfect we must do our best to make the world a better place. Despite being about depression, it's an optimistic episode on how the world may be in chaos but we can make do with the little things we have and what we can do.
  • "The Parents": The Wattersons run into Nicole's estranged parents, Daniel and Mary, and invite them home. They vent their frustrations out on each other regarding Nicole's anger issues and her parents' strict and overachieving expectations. This episode is much more serious in tone than some other episodes and gives insight into why Nicole is spiteful to Richard's parents and other parents as well.
  • "The Spinoffs" parodies this a segment titled with "Joseph A. Banana's After-School Stories". A younger Banana Joe is told that his parents are splitting up... because they're a bunch of bananas who are still joined together. They jump apart and the whole family does a dance.
• American Dad!:
  • "The American Dad After School Special" focuses on body image and eating disorders. When Steve falls for a chubby, Perky Goth named Debbie, Stan is appalled to find that Debbie isn't the skinny, model-cheerleader-popular girl-type that Steve always lusts after (with hilarious results), but rather than Debbie succumbing to self-esteem issues because of her body, it's Stan who does after Hayley and Klaus call him out on being meaty himself.
  • A lot of episodes of American Dad (according to the DVD special about the creation of the show, seen on the volume one DVD set) can be seen as deconstructive parodies of the "very special episode" in which all conventions and expected twists, turns, and plot points seen in a "very special episode" are either subverted, mocked, or played out realistically. Case in point: "A Jones for a Smith" (the episode where Stan becomes a crack addict). At the end when Stan is rehabilitated, Francine is the only one happy that he is cured, Steve is pissed at Stan for ruining his chances at hooking up with a hot high school virgin who is attracted to nerds (and whose father is willing to let Steve sleep with her), and Hayley is begging Francine to let her into rehab for her marijuana problem (with Francine ignoring her).
• Animaniacs:
  • "A Very Very Very Very Special Show": Parodied. The Warner siblings try to win a humanitarian award, so they preach throughout the whole cartoon about smoking, violence, sexism etc. Once the award goes to a different cartoon, the Warners instantly revert back to their normal selves and go against everything they were preaching.
  • Also parodied in the opener to Episode 35. The opener begins with a subdued Yakko and Dot, talking about how the upcoming episode was a very special episode, and how it had special meaning to all of the cast, with both sounding very earnest... until they get to The Reveal about what made the episode so very special...
    Wakko: I'm not wearing any pants!
  • This happened again in the Series Finale, only instead Wakko says that the special doesn't stink.
  • Played straight in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock", which features Slappy Squirrel going insane from watching too much daytime TV and getting put into the hospital. This eventually results in Skippy being taken away by a CPS agent. The whole thing reminds one of an older relative going senile, seeing how it was based on Tom Ruegger's memories of visiting his aunt in a nursing home.
  • Parodied in the 2020 revival episode "Bun Control". The Warners deal with a bunny infestation on the studio lot, brought forth by rabbit breeder Dwayne LaPistol. The episode is based around gun control allegorized with bunnies, with a confused Wakko wondering what this very special episode was about in the end.
• As Told by Ginger is, as far as Nicktoons go, never one to shirk away from touching on real adolescent issues. Three notable episodes stand apart for their efforts to address particularly tough subject matter: "Stuff'll Kill Ya" (about caffeine addiction), "And She Was Gone"^note an Emmy nominee for Outstanding Animated Program, Less Than One Hour (about depression, suicide, and how schools overreact to students who are allegedly depressed or suicidal by assuming what they write is a cry for help), and "Losing Nana Bishop" (about death and coping with loss).
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force says it word for word in the description of a bizarrely serious episode where Frylock gets cancer and he and his friends have to deal with it in a very realistic way. It became a Running Gag for any episode that involves a serious theme (like rape or alcoholism) no matter how irreverently it treats it.

B

• Batman Beyond has so many teen drug episodes it's hard to call them "very special", but they all have that tone to them that makes them seem to count. Then again, one of them is a "excessive fashion statements = drugs" episode, and one of them is a "video games = drugs" episode. And then there's the "adoption/stalking" episode. And a couple of bullying episodes, although those are more just an excuse to have someone else Terry knows from school go insane in a way that involves Batman.
• Beavis And Butthead had a parody of them called "A Very Special Episode", where the duo finds a baby bird (or, as Beavis calls it, "a chicken nugget") and nurses it back to life. By complete accident, as in typical B&B fashion, they actually wanted to see it die. When the two managed to restore the bird by feeding it, they actually thought that the bird would automatically die only after they fed it. They were told by the nurse that the bird was going to die anyway, no matter how much they tried to help it. Of course, being stupid as they are, they thought she said to feed it so it could die.
• Ben 10 (2016): "The Charm Offensive" deals with a manipulative, sadistic bully using Dark Magical Girl Heather, aka Charmcaster, who has some unfinished business with Gwen, whom she accuses of breaking Michael Morningstar's heart. As the episode progresses, we see that Morningstar has been feeding off of Charmcaster's energies and has her trapped in an abusive relationship where he frequently yells at her and intimidates her into compliance. Michael confesses that Heather is just another obsessed fangirl to him and that he fakes being a "sensitive, caring bad boy" type to give the public what they want to fill the voids in their lives, and later on, Gwen finds the footage on the mega-store's security camera and plays it back for Charmcaster, who is furious that Morningstar has been using her and breaks up with him (while also trapping him inside her magic book forever). Earlier, Gwen even stands up for Charmcaster even though they're not on the best of terms:
  Gwen [to Morningstar as he drains Charmcaster's energy]: Quit it! You're not just a fake, you're a bully!
  Charmcaster: Why are you standing up for me? I'm your enemy!
  Gwen: Because, it's the right thing to do! And deep down, I think you know that Morningstar is a chump. He's just using you, so dump him!
• Betty Boop: The 1936 short "Be Human", which deals with animal cruelty.
• Big City Greens is known for giving a moral lesson almost every episode, though some of them tend to be serious.
  • "Cyberbullies" is about getting bullied to the point of running away for the rest of your life, and it could affect you if you don't stand up to them. A clip was even released to YouTube under Disney Channel's "Use Your Voice" campaign.
  • "Bad Influencer" is about internet influencing and who you see might not turn out to be as friendly as you thought.
  • "Friend Con" and "Flimflammed" deal with scamming; the former for a false friendship, while the latter deals with money conning and how you must be alert for such and especially when you do it yourself.
  • "Bleeped" deals with swearing and profanity, and how to control it. Amusingly, they do not bleep out the swear words; instead they use made-up ones such as "blort".
• Big Mouth has several episodes meant to teach the audience a lesson about sex, but some episodes are more obvious about delivering their point than others.
  • "Am I Gay?" displays how it's normal to question your sexual orientation.
  • "Girls Are Horny Too" is about how women experience sexual pleasure, sometimes in ways that might differ from men, as well as how women can own their sexuality without doing it for men.
  • "The Head Push" tackles sexual harassment. A popular high school student is outed as coercing girls to give him oral (performing the titular motion when they make out) and everybody else explains why that's wrong. He eventually suffers a Karmic Death. For some reason, about half of this scene is done in a Shout-Out to Seinfeld.
  • "The Planned Parenthood Show" is the most standout example, since instead of following the typical episode format, it becomes a sketch show in order to teach Coach Steve (and the audience) all the benefits of Planned Parenthood. The shorts tackle issues like abortion, contraception, vasectomies, and STDs. This became one of the better-received episodes of the show.
  • "Guy Town" tackles incel culture and how damaging it is.
  • "How to Have an Orgasm" is about, well, guess. (Specifically about the vagina, in this case.)
  • "Rankings" teaches the audience about pansexuality with the new character Ali, while also showcasing Jay's problems with biphobia and the school's unhealthy obsession with ranking characters based on their hotness. This episode backfired a bit, however, due to the unintended implications that only pansexual people can date trans people.
  • "The ASSes" is about ADHD and Adderall addiction, and why people may turn to prescription drugs when they don't need them because of other issues like depression.
  • "The New Me" introduces Natalie, the first transgender character in the series. As such, a good chunk of the episode is dedicated to transgender issues, demonstrating the prejudice that Natalie faces and having her explain to Jessi what it's like to be transgender.
  • "Vagina Shame" focuses specifically on taboo issues and insecurity about the vagina.
• The Blue's Clues & You! episode "If You Don't See It, Be It!" focuses on racism and stereotyping. The episode features Blue and her friends are putting on a superhero movie. Perriwinkle (a cat) is discourage from playing a superhero typically played by a dog. Josh later reveals his own childhood experence with racism in which his friends discourages him from play a superhero because he's Asian.
• Bluey has the episode "Turtleboy", which features a deaf character named Dougie. Deaf Connect helped work on the episode, and translated it to Auslan.
• Bobby's World:
  • The episode "The Music" discusses the death of a loved one or a friend. The episode features Bobby befriending an elderly crossing guard named Abe after getting worried about his school test on shapes. Paying attention to Bobby's problems with his attention span and fear of failing his test, Abe gives him some helpful advice by telling him "Music is everywhere" which he uses for the majority of the episode. Near the end of the episode, Bobby heads off to school only to learn that Abe passed away over the weekend from a female crossing guard. Bobby is in denial at first, because he likely has never had this happen to him before and doesn't understand the concept of death, but Bobby's father later tells him that Abe will never come back. Bobby is heartbroken over this, but then gets better when he remembers how good of a friend and how much fun Abe was, as well as the lessons that Abe taught him. After finishing his test on shapes, Bobby's teacher gives him Abe's whistle and baton, knowing that Abe would have wanted him to have it, and Bobby then decides to use it as he reprises the Serendipitous Symphony-type song Abe sang earlier in the episode. The last shot shows Abe as an angel in heaven commenting on how good of a singer Bobby is.
  Abe (as an angel watching Bobby controlling traffic): Hey, they're playing my song.
  • The Valentine's Day Episode "Bobby's Girl" also counts as it teaches kids not to hit other people. It starts with Bobby's female friend Jackie telling him that she made her Valentine's Day gift for him, but Bobby gets annoyed as the rest of the class mocks him. When Jackie apologizes, he gets a little agitated and pushes her, making her cry. When Bobby returns home, his mother scolds him by telling him not to hit a girl, while Jackie's mother is comforting her and shaking her head at Bobby. The scene then transitions to a game show appearance where the hosts tell Bobby that he hit his friend, but Bobby says that he didn't hit her but pushed her - and then another guest (who is a female) enlightens him by stating that hitting and pushing are basically the same thing. Bobby then gets inspired to apologize to Jackie.
  • Another episode in the series called "Three Kids and a Baby" has Bobby learning about where babies come from, since he's just found out that his mother is pregnant. Throughout the episode, Bobby asks this question to his father, Uncle Ted and (near the end of the episode) his mother. Before the closing credits roll, Bobby endorses some books that parents can use to teach their kids about birth, such as How You Were Born. This would later start a one season arc of Bobby's mother being pregnant and eventually going into labor and giving birth.
• Bojack Horseman has a few:
  • "BoJack Hates the Troops" is about veteran praise. In it, BoJack is labeled a pariah after stealing muffins from a Navy SEAL (who happens to be an actual seal).
  • "Brrap Brrap Pew Pew": Diane, after finding out she's pregnant at the very end of the previous episode, decides she's not ready to have a child and decides to get an abortion, tweeting about her decision to a friend. Unfortunately, Diane is in charge of ghost-tweeting for Teen Idol Sextina Aquafina, causing the public to believe that the latter is getting an abortion instead. When other celebrities applaud Sextina for announcing her "abortion" publicly, Diane and Princess Carolyn convince her to use this to boost her fame by making her the icon for pro-choice. Sextina agrees, even dropping a new song called "Get That Fetus, Kill Dat Fetus" where she sings about shooting her unborn fetus with giant guns. She even plans to fake an abortion on live TV. Diane finds this vulgar, feels like Sextina isn't taking this chance to help the pro-choice movement seriously, and that she isn't really making a difference. However, she then she meets a young girl at the abortion clinic who admires Sextina, saying that Sextina's obvious parody of abortion in her song actually makes her less afraid of getting one herself. She says getting an abortion is scary, because everyone is outside, holding signs saying you're committing an unforgivable sin, and you have to listen to your baby's heartbeat before you decide to stop that beat, but when you can joke about it, it's less scary. Diane realizes she was wrong about Sextina's role in the pro-choice movement. Getting an abortion is one of the hardest decisions a woman has to make, and Sextina's song, as weird and obnoxious as it may seem, is actually helping other women who are faced with that choice find the strength to go through with dignity.
  • "That's Too Much, Man!" is the first episode to actually attack drugs and show their negative side effects. From BoJack stalking Penny in an attempt to "make amends" for almost having sex with her when she was seventeen – although it was technically consensual due to her having instigated it and the legal age being seventeen in NM, was it really? to Sarah Lynn breaking her nine month sobriety streak and coming to a heart-breaking realization that she doesn't like anything about herself, including the drugs. The ending more than drives it home, BoJack calming Sarah Lynn down by taking her to the planetarium just for her to die of a heroin overdose. It officially set the darker tone drugs would be seen in for the rest of the series thus far.
  • "Hank After Dark" deals with abuse, specifically the cases against Bill Cosby and David Letterman in the form of similar allegations against the minor character Hank Hippaopolous, who ends up being a Karma Houdini.
  • "Thoughts and Prayers" is a two-way VSE. On one hand, it deals with gun violence and the media influencing each other, briefly touching upon both sides of the gun argument. On the other, it deals with dementia as BoJack's now-senile mother (who mentally abused him as a child) re-enters the picture. The latter topic proceeds to show up a lot during the latter half of the season when she moves back in with him.
  • "BoJack the Feminist" is less of a VSE than the previously mentioned episodes, mostly because the themes of the episode — society's treatment of abusive famous men and letting them get more roles despite their awful behavior — are prominent throughout the whole season, not just the one episode. The episode focuses on controversial celebrity Vance Waggoner, who gets hired to be a sidekick on BoJack's show despite a history of bigotry, harassment, and violence, especially towards women. Diane, as usual, is the one to speak up about how abusers in Hollywoo(d) can't keep getting away with awful behavior, and gives BoJack (and the audience) an illustrated lecture on the dangers of normalizing abuse. Vance Waggoner in particular seems to be an expy of Mel Gibson, who had a few run-ins with the law quite similar to Vance's in the show.
• Bravestarr: "The Price" centers around a designer drug called Spin, whose manufacturer starts targeting younger users. The episode's side story focuses on a kid named Jay, who gets hooked on Spin and eventually dies from overdosing on a tainted batch of the drug. The PSA scene of the episode sees Bravestarr laying a wreath at Jay's grave. Generally considered an example of a Drugs Are Bad episode done right by showing realistic consequences of drug use and addiction.
• The Busy World Of Richard Scarry has an episode called "Little Fixit" which has Huckle and Sally learning about pregnancy since Mr Fixit and his wife are about to have a baby, who they name Little Fixit. (It's a VSE because like potty training, pregnancy is rarely touched upon in kids shows, making Scarry one of very few kids shows to discuss it along with Sesame Street.)
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command did an anti-drug episode, though due to the show's sci-fi setting the popular genre convention that radiation gives you superpowers is used as a metaphor for it.

C

• Caillou has two: "Emma's Extra Snacks", which is about living with diabetes, and "Caillou and the Dragon", which focused on a boy with Down syndrome. There was also a book called Caillou Meets Sophie about autism. Also, in April 2020, in the wake of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic, a title called Caillou: Everything Will Be Fine was released exclusively as an eBook. In the title, Caillou learns that his day care is being shut down indefinitely and thinks it like a vacation at first, but starts to miss his friends. The title also teaches about hand-washing.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers is one big Very Special Show, telling children to not cause pollution (despite rarely going into why people polluted in the first place). However, it has many particular episodes that focused on more down to earth problems that children, teenagers and young adults may face.
  • "Population Bomb" has Wheeler discover in a dream an island inhabited by greedy, foolish humanoid mice who refuse to stop having large families. The initially clueless Wheeler is against government-mandated population control, but he learns his lesson when the humanoid mice overpopulate to the point that their island destroys itself.
  • "Mind Pollution" has Linka's cousin Boris get addicted to a designer drug called "Bliss" created by Verminous Skumm (who appeared to specialize in "pollution of the body" in the show, so to speak). The episode is notable for breaking the Never Say "Die" rule by showing Linka's cousin die from throwing himself out the window and bleeding profusely.
  • "A Formula for Hate" is about AIDS, involving Skumm spreading lies about a young AIDS sufferer such as the virus could be contracted just through casual contact and the boy being bullied and accused of having contracted it through gay sex with his (initially protective) best friend.
• The "big 3" American networks^note ABC, CBS and NBC united to air the special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, where cartoon characters from Looney Tunes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles try to teach a child called Mikey about the dangers of marijuana. Its first US airing began with a live statement from then-President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara, while airings in other countries similarly began with live statements from their respective heads of government.
• Centaurworld: "Ride the Whaletaur Shaman!" deviates from most of the show's usual zany hijinks to tackle themes of depression and suicide.
• Central Park: In Season 3 "Lunar Palaver", aside from the side plot with Bitsy following Helen on her date, this episode deals with the subject of racism, and it is treated as appropriately serious by everyone involved, to the point that even Birdie tones down his usual narrator antics. And when Owen is discussing racism with Cole, there's absolutely no music playing in the background, emphasizing how serious the discussion is.
• The Centsables: Downplayed, but every episode features some surprisingly dark moments of subtext such as "vitamins" being used to make a character feel adequate in life, running away with a "child-like genius" to get a perfect life, identity theft gangs, and pretty decent people willing to look the other way for one reason or another enabling crime to happen.
• The Chipmunks: "Cookie Chomper III" teaches about death, this time that of a pet. The Sevilles take in a lost kitten, which they name "Cookie Chomper III" or "Cookie" for short. The chipmunks spend the first few minutes adjusting to life with their new friend, but things take a tragic turn when Cookie gets out of the house and is run over by a car in the middle of the night. The rest of the episode shows how the chipmunks deal with their loss — Theodore refuses to accept that the cat is dead; Alvin tries to get rid of all the houseplants and replace them with artificial plants (so that nothing else can die on them), and Simon is too miserable to do anything. Dave later convinces the chipmunks to think about the happy memories they have of Cookie. The episode ends with Dave and the chipmunks going to the animal shelter to get a new pet; Dave tells the chipmunks that, though this pet won't be the same as Cookie, they will love it just as much. (Rather than choosing another cat, they choose a dog which they name Lily.) The episode was also based on a real-life experience, when Ross Bagdasarian Jr. (son of series creator Ross Bagdasarian) and his wife Janice Karman's dog Tiger Lily was killed by a car.
• Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers The episode "The Case of the Cola Cult" is about Gadget after many of her gadgets malfunction joins a cult where they worship a soda named Coco Cola. The episode is about the dangers of following a cult, which is ironic seeing that there is a real life Russian cult based around the character Gadget.
• Chip and Potato had an entire season revolving around the fact that the titular character's mother is pregnant, and how she deals with it.
• Clone High: Parodied to hell and back. Every single episode is "a very special Clone High", which deals with issues such as sleep deprivation, smoking raisins and death by litter. Ironically, at least one episode ("Litter Kills: Litterally") plays this trope so hard that it goes from a scathing parody of the Tonight, Someone Dies trope and becomes a sincere one about grief.
  Joan: My judgement was so poor due to sleep deprivation that I actually paid money for an embarrassing tattoo.
• C.O.P.S. (Animated Series): "The Case of the Lowest Crime" has a Drugs Are Bad theme; the cops and crooks team up to fight the distributors of Fantastic Drug Crystal Twist. Big Boss agrees to help because "DRUGS KILL!" Besides, his nephew Berserko has become one of the victims of Crystal Twist, so It's Personal.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: "The Mask" focuses on Domestic Abuse. The Pseudo-Romantic Friendship of Kitty and Bunny was torn apart by Mad Dog, a gangster dog who wants Bunny all to himself, threatens to kill Kitty if Bunny is seen with her, and buries Bunny alive as punishment for attempting to escape. What sets Mad Dog apart from other villains in the series is that he isn't a supernatural entity, or some diabolical mastermind. He's a domestic abuser, and these kinds of people do exist real life. There's also Kitty's prejudice against dogs due to Mad Dog's abuse, which she takes out on Courage during the first part of the episode; when Courage helps her save Bunny, Kitty realizes that not all dogs are bad. Some have compared this to women learning to trust men after traumatic experiences with them.
• Craig of the Creek
  • The episode "The Sunflower" about the trio meets the girl named Sun who have a hamster named Cookie. But when she realized Cookie is killed by a cat, Sun drives to tears and refuse to accept the death of a pet. So Kelsey come by her trying to reason with her.
  • "Scout Guest" is about Craig's former enemy Jason whose neglected by his father and stepmother. Needing some time away from them, he convinces Craig to invite him over for the night and is touched by how kind and loving his family is.

D

• Danger Rangers had an episode called "Safe And Sound" that dealt with hearing loss.
• Much like its parent series, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood often does episodes on special topics:
  • "Daniel's New Friend" introduces a disabled girl named Chrissie who uses crutches to walk, and has Daniel learn to appreciate her differences.
  • "The Baby Is Here" is about Mom Tiger's pregnancy and how Daniel prepares for a new sibling.
  • "A Storm In The Neighborhood; After The Neighborhood Storm" focuses on emergency preparedness and safety.
  • "Daniel's Allergy; Allergies At School" focused on allergies.
  • "Daniel's Goldfish Dies; Daniel's Strawberry Seeds" focused on death and the life cycle. When it premiered, it aired alongside the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episode where Fred's fish dies.
  • "Daniel's Doll" talks about defying traditional gender roles.
  • Although it doesn't mention it directly, the special Won't You Sing Along With Me? was produced in the wake of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic and addresses issues children are likely to be facing because of it, such as being upset about not being able to see friends or family.
  • "A New Friend At School; A New Friend At The Clock Factory" talks about autism.
  • "Daniel Goes To The Hospital" was promoted as one by the show's own social media, since it taught children about the experience one might go through when visiting a hospital, a topic that's rarely touched upon by children's shows.
  • "Daniel Follows The Rules At The Pool" was also promoted as one of these, as the episode focuses on pool safety.
  • "Miss Elania's Bandage; A Fair Place To Play" focuses on how to make accommodations for others in situations that aren't fair, in this case making bandages that match darker skin tones and building a playground ramp for the disabled.
• Unlike most VSE, Daria's "The Misery Chick" is about exploring grief from a teenager's perspective instead of a child's one. In the episode, a previous quarterback is praised as a hero despite being an egotistical Jerkass. Right after Jane and Daria joke about him dying, he actually is killed by his own goal post. Daria's classmates and teacher, viewing her as "the misery chick", come to her for advice on how to deal with their varying feelings on the tragedy, which Daria gets fed up with. Jane then goes out of her way to avoid her when she starts feeling that Daria isn't taking his death seriously. Finally, Daria explains believing that the world has its losses as well its gains doesn't make her miserable, just "not like them", and that even though he was a jerk, it's still horrible that he had to die. At the end of the episode, Daria advises a guilt-stricken Sandi to "find some other way to feel, then you won't feel sad."
  • One of the subplots of "Is It College Yet?" involves Quinn concerned that her new friend at her job has a drinking problem.
• Defenders of the Earth has three such episodes, two of which incorporate their respective issues into storylines where it is otherwise business as usual for the Defenders, while the third is entirely focused on the issue and contains almost none of the usual science fiction and fantasy elements. The episodes in question are One of the Guys (attitudes to disability), 100 Proof Highway (teenaged alcoholism) and The Deadliest Battle (drugs). All three episodes focus on the younger Defenders, especially 100 Proof Highway, where no adult characters are shown onscreen, apart from a brief appearance by Mandrake, who uses his powers to show Kshin the dangers of alcohol. Does not, however, include A Demon in His Pocket; though Kshin's run-in with the school bullies sets the events of the episode in motion, the subject of bullying is not a major theme in the storyline.
• Disney's Doug played it straight in the episode when Patti Mayonnaise thinks she needs to go on a diet after lagging behind in gym class and overhearing Doug talk about her weight problem (in reality, he was talking about how big his Lucky Duck Lake monster lure is), but ends up purposely starving herself to the point that borders on anorexia. Considered one of the more highly-regarded episodes from this era of Doug.
  • "Doug's Minor Catastrophe" is also a very thinly-veiled VSE against nicotine...er, Nic-Nacs.
• Spoofed in Drawn Together, in an episode appropriately named "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special". Started as a roleplay by the housemates to help Xandir decide how to inform his parents of his homosexuality, the effort quickly derailed, which resulted in nearly all of them getting killed by the end of the episode.
  • Also lampshaded in an earlier episode: ("Hi, I'm Toot Brownstein... In this episode, we poorly dealt with eating disorders!")

F

• The Fairly OddParents! The episode “It’s A Wishful Life” Has Timmy wishing he was never born because people don't appreciate him and sees that the world and his friends are much better without him. This is a clear allegory for suicide and Jorgen Von Strangle even threatens to send him to "The place where kids wish they were never born" which is an allegory for Hell.
• Fat Albert had many of these, including episodes centered on smoking, homelessness, gun safety, pedophilia, stealing, racism, going to prison, etc.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman In 2014 to 2017, The franchise released a series of "Humble Media Genius" videos to teach elementary school aged kids about the pros and cons of phones and the internet. However, the real special episodes here are the three videos that tackle the dangers of distracted driving. It's Justified because in real life, There's an increase of car accidents as a result of texting while driving. But regardless, the videos do a great job of tackling a serious topic while maintaining the usual light-hearted comedy.

G

• Galaxy High had the episode Brain Blast. Doyle's coach tells him that he's flunking his classes and has to improve his grades, or else he will be kicked off the sports team. He comes across a guy named "Punk" who gives him a fictional drug called the Brain Blaster to help him become smarter. He later starts stealing from his friends to pay for more Brain Blasters until the seller runs out of supplies, eventually becoming so desperate he goes to the rough part of the galaxy to acquire more. The episode was quite well-received, even being nominated for a Humanitas Prize.
• Gargoyles has two major Very Special Episodes, but tended to buck the trend by showing aftereffects in later episodes:
  • In "Deadly Force", the dangers of playing with a loaded gun are looked at, including a description of the path the bullet took inside the victim's body. The message may have been too graphic, however. It was initially banned from reruns due to its heavy subject matter. When it returned, the scene of Elisa getting shot was edited in such a way that the viewer could no longer see her bleeding while lying on the ground. In any case, it forced Broadway (the shooter) to mature as a character; he was initially a fan of violent cop shows and movies, but after this experience grew to prefer investigative work. His hatred of guns in this particular episode is tied directly to his personal guilt, rather than guns being wrong inherently. And, as a nice touch, Elisa spent a few episodes on crutches as she recovered; and — having noted that she shouldn't have left the gun out in the first place — was later shown making sure to keep it locked up.
  • Then there's "Lighthouse in the Sea of Time", the episode concerning illiteracy — though the gargoyles came from the Middle Ages, where the ability to read was very uncommon, it's still a little hard to credit a plot where the villain wants to throw away the personal diary of Merlin, and is stopped by heroes, who then deliver a speech about how stories are treasures. (Admittedly, the villain was just frustrated that Merlin's writings didn't include any magic spells, and quickly calmed down.) Again, Broadway's the one who got the major Character Development, becoming quite the fan of William Shakespeare — just look at that moment when he describes Castle Wyvern's kitchen, and then his eyes really light up when he describes the library. The blind author introduced in "Lighthouse" also becomes an occasionally recurring character.
  • Another has a Green Aesop about the rainforest, but actually acknowledges that people living in the area are often cutting it down in order to survive.
• The episode "My Fair Mandy" is The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy's take on this trope. Once again female body issues are dealt with in a half-hour format instead of Two Shorts as Mandy enters a beauty pageant to outdo Alpha Bitch Mindy. Despite the well-known Gainax Ending which has Mandy's smile cause a Reality-Breaking Paradox, and has Billy, Mandy, Grim and Irwin end up in the Powerpuff Girls universe, the show makes their subject clear as shown in a scene where Grim questions why anyone would participate in beauty pageants. Cue several moms encouraging their daughters to win for the sake of their love.

H

• Harvey Beaks: The episode "Later, Dingus" dealt with Blister passing away from old age.
• Hey Arnold!: The show had two back-to-back examples, abandoning the usual Two Shorts format for full-length episodes:
  • "Helga on the Couch" centered on child neglect and how bullies become bullies. The episode didn't explicitly touch on the subject outright, but given Helga's depressing story, it might as well be about that.
  • "Dino Checks Out", focusing on the death of Arnold's friend and idol Dino Spumoni, was probably the show's most serious episode. It skips the usual opening sequence and its first act is almost devoid of humor save for a handful of jokes a lot darker than normal for the most part (the most light-hearted bit being a news report on Dino's life and career), not to mention that the skies are quite gray. At least things lighten up a bit in the second act as it turns out Dino was just faking it to revive his flagging popularity, although he has to learn that his life was worth living as an imitator begins to take over.
  • "Big Bob's Crisis", one of the show's last episodes, is a downplayed version of this, as it centers on Big Bob trying to mend his ways after suffering a medical emergency (an apparent heart attack that turns out to be a mere gastric inconvenience). And even though he seems to take it too far and is eventually convinced to return to normal, at the end he seems to have learned his lesson and resolves to become less of a workaholic, self-centered jerk.

J

• Jem had several. Jem's love for talking about "faith and love and brotherly love" is even mocked by Pizzazz in one song:
  • One infamous one is their anti-drug episode. As the episode begins, a girl named Laura Halloway is brought to the Starlight House following the deaths of her parents in a car accident. Still reeling from the tragedy and feeling that no one really understands her, Laura meets another student named Bobby, who gives her drugs claiming that they'll make her feel good and help her play the guitar better. As a result, Laura hallucinates, nearly jumps from a high window believing she can fly, gets insomnia, keeps the whole house up with her horrible guitar playing, and generally acts like a jerk to everyone. Only after she gets caught stealing from Jerrica's purse and after she sees Bobby going after Ashley with the same lines he used on her, Laura goes to a support group meeting at Jerrica's suggestion and begins to recover. At the end of the episode Laura and Ashley help the police catch Bobby.
  • "Roxy Rumbles" is thick on its aesop about how reading and literacy are awesome in laid thick. Despite this it's a fan-favorite because it doubles as a Roxy-centric episode. We learn Roxy is illiterate (something foreshadowed but not obvious until you rewatch the episodes) and she abandons the band after Jetta and Pizzazz mock her for it. Roxy finds a lottery ticket that is a winner and she becomes a millionaire. She leaves the band, changes her wardrobe, and runs back to her hometown of Philadelphia to show all the people who thought she wouldn't accomplish anything in her life otherwise. To her disappointment Jem And The Holograms are in town on a tour promoting literacy. Roxy tries to outshine Jem by throwing a carnival with free food however it bombs in her face. Because Roxy couldn't read contracts she ends up losing all of her money, in addition to taxes for the lottery and the carnival fees. When Eric and her bandmates find her they remind her she has a contract and couldn't leave even if she wanted to. In the end Ba Nee, a foster girl The Holograms take care of, gives her a book for beginning readers and despite Jetta mocking her it ends on the bright note Roxy is finally learning to read.
  • The episode is not themed around him but one episode has a boy with an Abusive Parent (who according to Word of God is also an Alcoholic Parent) being kicked out of his house. He meets with a few of the Starlight Girls who have runaway. After the girls return home, the boy is told to get help instead of living by himself on the streets.

K

• King of the Hill has a few of these.
  • "Keeping Up With Our Joneses" is about the family — including Bobby — taking up smoking and then struggling but succeeding quitting. This episode was complete with a humorous PSA during the credits in which Boomhauer held up a clean white belt for his car engine next to a greasy black one and compared them to "your lungs on air" and "your lungs on smoke," then going on about "dang ol' ear hair, mang, low sperm count, talkin' bout, no good yo."
  • "Traffic Jam," which dealt with racial stereotypes in comedy, had a PSA at the end reflecting the subject of the episode.
  • The episode "My Own Private Rodeo," about Dale coming to terms with his father being gay^note (though it's revealed that he hated his father because he caught him kissing Nancy before their wedding, which his father did to cover up the fact that he was about to kiss a busboy), was nominated for a Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award... and this was in 2001. As Mike Judge later pointed out when recounting letters about the episode, this was two years before Lawrence v. Texas legalized homosexuality throughout the United States. It's not as preachy as most other TV show episodes about coming to terms with homosexuality, but it does show that gays are people too, can be anyone in your family, and do need love and support, especially if they live somewhere where people aren't tolerant of the LGBT community.
  • "Death of a Propane Salesman" discussed Hank's fear of propane after being nearly killed in a propane explosion and his denial of the problem. Luanne's boyfriend, Buckley, did die in the explosion and most of the episode dealt with her coming to terms with her grief instead of hiding it - a lesson that "Wings of the Dope," when Buckley comes back as an angel, taught a Columbine survivor some months later.
  • If it's a Luanne-centered early episode, expect it to be or border on a VSE (see "Wings of the Dope," "Pigmailon," "Leanne's Saga").
  • Not just one, but two episodes about workplace sexual harassment: "Return to La Grunta" and "That's What She Said." Extra VSE points because both of these feature Hank on the receiving end of harassment (and both show that sexual harassment isn't just a man giving a woman unwanted attention^note even though "Return to La Grunta" did go that route in the story of Luanne working as a drink server for golfers. For Hank in "Return to La Grunta," he was humped by a dolphin and the hotel staff bought him off with merchandise rather than take the event seriously while "That's What She Said" showed that telling raunchy jokes and trying to make every little thing a Double Entendre during work hours also counts as sexual harassment, no matter how clever or funny it may be).
  • "Pretty, Pretty Dresses," which deals with Bill's extreme suicidal depression. It becomes a Broken Aesop, though, when the way Bill's friends treat him is essentially a laundry list of what not to do when dealing with a suicidal person.
• Kim Possible: "Grande Size Me" subverts this. The writers were forced by Disney to do a VSE on healthy eating, so they decided to write an episode that took that Aesop and made the message as extreme and unrealistic as possible. Even the ending depicts Ron giving an completely different Aesop about avoiding vats of mutagenic chemicals to the camera while everyone else in frame just wonders who he's talking to.

L

• The Last Of The Curlews, a Hanna-Barbera special that kicked off ABC's highly successful series of Afterschool Specials, is another broader case of this trope. Hanna Barbera were known for comedies like The Flintstones, or fantasy dramas like Jonny Quest. The Last of the Curlews is a realistic story about the last Eskimo curlew and the loneliness he feels, with a Green Aesop about conservation and a dark Downer Ending.
• Two episodes of The Littles had a few of these: The first was “Prescription for Disaster” in which they meet a girl named Angela, whose mother is addicted to prescription drugs which cause her to be very irritable and neglect her, one of her pills gets into a pie Dinky Little was eating which causes him to hallucinate that his family members are monsters and make him act paranoid.
  • The other is “A Little Drunk” in which Henry meets his favorite actor who turns out to be an alcoholic, meanwhile Dinky imitates him and drinks one of his alcoholic beverages causing him to get drunk and steal a remote control car, he puts Grandpa’s life in danger and nearly hits him with the car, meanwhile the actor does a motorcycle stunt while drunk and sets the movie studio on fire and Tom and Lucy have to save him.

M

• Molly of Denali:
  • "Grandpa's Drum" talks about the racism that Alaskan Natives experienced as part of a boarding school assimilation campaign.
  • "Molly and Elizabeth" is another episode about racism. Molly and Tooey experience discrimination when tourists tell them that they aren't Native enough. They learn about Elizabeth Peratrovich and how she stood up for Alaska Native people.
• The My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "Victim of Fashion" deals with female body issues in a half-hour format, instead of the usual Two Shorts. It has Jenny competing against the Crust Cousins to see who can be more fashionable and as Jenny realizes she can't "slim down" due to her metal body, she has Sheldon and Brad disassemble her into nothing more than a skeleton (an obvious metaphor for anorexia). This also leads to some combat issues for Jenny, who becomes too weak to fight anything because all her weaponry has been removed.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is typically heavy on morals, especially early in the show's run, but some episodes stand out in particular:
  • "Bridle Gossip" is about prejudice and how to not judge a stranger just because they act differently.
  • "One Bad Apple" is about bullying, and how you should tell an adult as soon as you can instead of trying to fight back yourself.
  • "Flight to the Finish" is about not feeling ashamed of your disability, which is especially notable in that their disabled character is a series regular, Scootaloo.
  • "Tanks for the Memories" is (metaphorically) about dealing with grief. Though the story is about Rainbow Dash's pet tortoise Tank going into hibernation, it's treated as seriously as if he were leaving her for good.
  • "Common Ground" is about adjusting to life with a new parent, and was based on the death of the wife of Patton Oswalt.

O

• The OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Let's Not Be Skeletons" is about gun control, using remotes which permanently transform people into identical, powerless living skeletons as an allegory for guns. Doubles as a Bizarro Episode, due in no small part to how weird that metaphor is, as well as how weird the whole thing is in context; it's particularly odd since a recurring character already is a skeleton. It also deals with the topic at hand in a very simplistic, black-and-white manner. In the end, it turns out that the episode's events were All Just a Dream, and Carol tells a distraught K.O. that if he's concerned with public safety, he should call his local congressman, which he proceeds to do. The remotes turn out to be real... and the congresswoman K.O. had just called bans the remotes immediately.
  K.O. (singing): This remote should be controlled...
• In one episode of Ozzy & Drix, Hector gives in to peer pressure to start smoking, which lets in mind manipulator Nick O'Teen (who represents nicotine, obviously), together with his minions: Tar, Carbon Monoxide and Butane. Our heroes are unable to overpower Nick, and he is only defeated when Hector quits smoking of his own volition.
• PB&J Otter had "Follow Your Nose", which was written in part with the consultation of the American Council for the Blind. The episode features comics in Braille and characters learning how to navigate using senses other than vision.

P

• Peanuts: The special Why, Charlie Brown, Why? is dedicated to this. Linus's new friend and crush Janice has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the special concerns Janice's coping with the disease, as well as how friends, family, and strangers react to it as well (it's not all positive). The special was created out of a request for the Peanuts characters to explain how cancer works (Janice explains to Charlie Brown and Linus when they visit her in the hospital), and Janice as a character was praised by critics for handling the situation with bravery and dignity.
• The Pepper Ann episode "The Great Beyond" which is about Steve the cat getting sick with pancreatitis and possibly dying, and Pepper Ann wondering what happens to someone after they die.
• The Phineas and Ferb episode "Candace's Big Day" was a cleverly disguised VSE about healthy eating. The Doof and Perry plotline has Doof's evil scheme involving attempting to eat healthy, but he ends up dipping everything he eats into unhealthy additives and gains weight as a result.
• The Pinky and the Brain episode "Inherit the Wheeze" deals with the dangers of smoking and has a cigarette addicted Brain working alongside a corrupt tobacco company. He does speak against the company at the end.
• The Powerpuff Girls:
  • Parodied in one episode where Blossom ends up being the perpetrator of a crime (namely, stealing a rare and expensive golf club set for the Professor). The episode title, "A Very Special Blossom," alludes to the Mayim Bialik sitcom Blossom on NBC, where practically every other episode was a "A very special Blossom."
  • This was played straight, however, in "Equal Fights" (focusing on sexism) where the town is terrorized by a villain called Femme Fatale, who tricks the girls into hating boys with her propaganda. Ms. Keane and Ms. Bellum manage to bring the girls back to normal and they take Femme Fatale to jail after telling her that she has no idea what she's talking about.
• The Powerpuff Girls (2016) has an episode where the girls discover a talking pony who says that in his heart he's a unicorn, and initially appears wearing a cardboard horn. The episode was promoted as being a metaphor for being transgender, though its moral is shot in the foot in numerous ways ^note For instance, the attempt at giving him a horn via a scientific experiment (a clear metaphor for medical transition) has a very high chance of going terribly wrong which he cheerfully disregards. It does indeed go wrong, he undergoes a grotesque transformation into a monster, and he regrets it greatly. In reality, complications from medically transitioning are uncommon, people typically put a lot of thought into the process, it's practically unheard of for anyone to actually regret medically transitioning, and managing to do so in the first place is very difficult, partially because of the misconception that trans people are taking massive risks/will regret it later/are impulsively deciding to "ruin their bodies", which results in massive amounts of gatekeeping, so... this part of the metaphor doesn't really help actual trans people at all, to say the least, most notably due to the ending featuring said pony being discovered to have had an actual horn the entire time - his horn was tucked away under his mane, which, as his mother points out, he would have noticed sooner if he'd ever cut said mane. Emily Brundige, the writer of the episode, later came out and stated that the gender identity allegory was not her doing, but that of the higher-ups who looked at the episode and thought that a transgender-friendly message could come out of it. Actual trans people were... not pleased by the results, As you can tell here.
• The Proud Family;
  • There was one about gender equality where Penny joins the football team ("She's Got Game"), one where Penny greatly misuses her credit card ("Don't Leave Home Without It"), and an anti-piracy episode ("EZ Jackster"). Even the Christmas Episode kinda counts, since it was part Christmas and part the Proud Family learning about Kwanzaa, and subsequently learning to appreciate their heritage more.
  • And "Culture Shock", in which Penny makes friends with a Muslim girl who is being targeted for racism (even though the most blatant example to come from that is the infamous scene in which Penny and the Muslim family come home to find that someone spray-painted "GO HOME TOWELHEADS!" ^note Later changed to "GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!" in reruns on the Muslim girl's house — which was forgotten about in Act Three... until Penny mentioned it en passant in a speech about what she learned during her week with the Muslim girl).
  • The 2022 revival Loud and Proud revival also has its fair share of special episodes:
    • Father Figures focused on Maya and Francis having same sex parents and most of the school (Including Oscar Proud) ostracising them.
    • One Season 2 episode focused Bebe being diagnosed as autistic and the whole family (mainly Oscar) learning to accept him for who he is.
    • Another episode focused on Juneteenth and featured a (controversial) song about how slaves built the country.
• While not in the same vein as most other VSE, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo had one episode where the gang deals with a headless skateborder ghost. As they're putting the clues together, they discover a cache of drugs which earns disapproving tones from Velma and Scooby (Velma says the word "drugs" with plenty of venom in her voice while Scooby responds "Drugs? YUCK!") In the end, they find out that the ghost was a former skateboarding champ who had been disgraced for using drugs.

R

• An episode of The Raccoons titled "Join the Club!" deals with the issue of smoking. When a popular girl from Lisa's school, Donna, comes to visit the Evergreen Forest, Donna pressures Lisa into smoking cigarettes, much to her friend Bert's concern. Lisa continues to smoke to impress Donna until she has a Fantasy Sequence about the dangers of smoking, which convinces her to quit. She tells Donna she refuses to continue smoking, but Donna rejects her as a friend and she doesn't take it well. Cyril tells Lisa how he'd like to quit smoking, too, but can't, and he gives her a pep talk about individuality which makes her feel better.
• The Rocko's Modern Life episode "Who's For Dinner" has Heffer learning he was adopted and coming to terms with the fact.
• Rugrats: The "Mother's Day" episode, which touches on parental death in the form of Chuckie's Missing Mom. Although death is not mentioned explicitly, it is heavily implied that Chuckie lost his mother to a terminal illness when he was only a year old—maybe even younger than that.
  • Before this, there was the episode "I Remember Melville", which focused on Chuckie having to cope with the death of his pet bug Melville, and it's not taken lightly.
  Lil: "Well dead is when you're asleep for a long time...
  Phil continues: Like forever.

S

• Sid the Science Kid had an episode done in the midst of the swine flu epidemic in 2009. "Getting A Shot: You Can Do It!" shows Sid's grandmother, who's also a nurse, coming to school to give the kids a flu vaccination. The kids then learn, sing songs, and play games about the flu vaccination's benefits.
• The Simpsons:
  • The episode "The Color Yellow": For Black History Month (which is celebrated by Springfield Elementary despite the fact that the school has a low African-American population), Lisa, at first reluctantly and then with increasing interest and obsession, investigates the mention in a 150-year-old Simpson family diary of a slave named Virgil. It eventually comes to light that Lisa's great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mabel, had helped Virgil escape to Canada and then married him. Grampa mentions that Mabel and Virgil's son was his great-grandfather, which makes Bart and Lisa one-sixty-fourth African-American. Marge wonders why this has been a family secret for so long, pointing out that no one has ever complained about the family having French ancestry. Grampa's answer is that Homer's paternal side of the family is very racist and wouldn't have tolerated a black relative, much like Homer doesn't tolerate Marge's French side of the family.
  • The Emmy-winning "Homer's Phobia" has Homer making a new friend named John (played by guest-star John Waters), but when John turns out to be gay, he's horrified and Marge calls him out for it. Things get worse when Homer thinks Bart will end up gay because John spends more time with Bart than Homer does (and even begins wearing Hawaiian shirts and dancing to 1950s music while wearing a wig). Homer tries to "cure" Bart by taking him to a cigarette billboard (which is for slim cigarettes and features two scantily-clad women pillow fighting whilst holding a cigarette each), a steel mill (that turns into a gay disco after the work day is over), and a hunting lodge (which fails). At the end, Homer learns to accept Bart for who he is, and Bart doesn't know what Homer is talking about until Lisa spells it out for him: "He thinks you're gay."
  • "The Cartridge Family" is an odd version of the very special episode. For one thing, it was a shift from the original set-up (which has The Simpsons trying to survive a soccer riot that erupted in town). For another, it was a big Series Continuity Error as Marge had a gun before on the episode where she becomes a cop and Marge never complained before about Homer having guns in the house ^note though most of the other guns Homer had were shotguns and rifles, and the gun Homer had was a handgun, which can easily be mistaken for a toy gun and is more likely to be misused by the children. For a final note, Homer learns his lesson about guns (and lying to his wife), but Marge ends up with the gun after seeing how good she looks with it, which leads to a Broken Aesop of "Yeah, guns are dangerous, but they make really good fashion accessories."
  • "Sleeping with the Enemy" has Lisa Simpson struggling with anorexia. The point of the episode is that eating disorders and insecurities about your looks aren't compressed vices. They don't go away in 20 minutes and sometimes will stay with you for life.
  • The people of Ogdenville move to Springfield in "Coming to Homerica", prompting the town to engage in a two-sided debate around immigration, paralleling America's real-world immigration debate. Putting the issue of racism aside, a country might not be able to handle mass migration because it might already have enough problems taking care of its own citizens (jobs, healthcare, crime, homelessness, etc). On the other hand, people who migrate to other countries might be trying to escape mountain-sized problems that can't be solved easily, or they are trying to support/protect their families. Long story short, the episode gives no clear answer to who is right or wrong.
• The Smurfs (1981) has the episode "Squeaky" about dealing with death. Smurfette befriends to a fieldmouse named Squeaky. After saving Papa Smurf's laboratory from the fire, Squeaky dies which saddened Smurfette. Papa Smurf tells her about life and death and Smurfette runs away.
• South Park:
  • Parodied in "Kenny Dies" where one of Kenny's many deaths was played as such a Very Special Episode that his death this time had him Put on a Bus for a season by the end. Also a subversion of their own Running Gag, after which the frequency of it was greatly lessened.
  • South Park also has the anti-bullying episode "Butterballs" that features Butters getting bullied by his grandma and played out like a schoolyard bullying story. It's not Played for Laughs in the slightest, though it does have its own subversion in the form of parodying anti-bullying programs when Stan's attempt at such a film goes south. The overall message of the episode is "Bullying is bad, but exploiting the victims of bullying for fame, money, and admiration is worse."
  • "Eat, Pray, Queef", one of the show's more Anvilicious episodes, played out like a 20-minute women's rights tract. However, it's hard to tell if it's a sincere pro-feminist message or a parody of it.
  • Parodied in "Sexual Harassment Panda", complete with a closing Public Service Announcement against suing people to make money.
  • Season 15's "You're Getting Old" is a fairly straight VSE, both for its subject matter (depression and the cynicism that comes with age, as well as Randy and Sharon getting a divorce) and for marking the show's shift towards more serious character development and angst. Being the midseason finale, it shook up many viewers for how much of a downer it was, leading many to wonder the fate of the show afterwards. Of course it's still only half-serious, being filled to the brim with scatological imagery and the following episode undoing every major change.
• SpongeBob SquarePants has a couple episodes fall into this category, albeit dealing with the subjects via the show's trademark style of humor:
  • The season 2 episode "Squirrel Jokes" had SpongeBob gain notoriety for telling insulting jokes about squirrels at the Krusty Krab's open-mic comedy shows, much to the offense of Sandy — especially after the residents of Bikini Bottom take the jokes seriously.
  • "Sailor Mouth" deals with swearing, with SpongeBob, Patrick and Mr. Krabs learning swear words after the former two see graffiti on a dumpster behind the Krusty Krab, and inevitably using them in public. There are thirteen swear words that must never be said, with all of them being censored out by nautical sounds, and the main word, Number 11, is represented by a dolphin's cackle. While mostly SpongeBob and Patrick have been using Number 11, it's Mr. Krabs who blurts out all thirteen of them before he can punish the boys by making them paint the Krusty Krab for saying Number 11 again, then all three are punished when they blurt out all thirteen words in front of Mr. Krabs's mother and are ordered to paint her house.
    Squidward: Don't you mean there are only seven?
    Mr. Krabs: Not if you're a sailor. (laughs)
  • Season 7 brought the infamous episode "One Coarse Meal", where, after learning Plankton was afraid of whales, Mr. Krabs decides to repeatedly sneak into the Chum Bucket dressed as his daughter Pearl to torment him. However, this winds up nearly driving Plankton to suicide (lying on the ground waiting for a bus to run him over) — to the point that even SpongeBob thinks Mr. Krabs had gone too far, and informs Plankton of Mr. Krabs' secret fear of mimes as a way to get payback (though afterward, SpongeBob proceeds to also scare Plankton away with a holographic projection of an entire pod of whales).
  • "Sandy's Nutmare" and "Bulletin Board" from Season 9 are basically a Very Special Duo of Episodes. "Sandy's Nutmare" has a Green Aesop warning about the draining of natural resources and warns against human greed, while "Bulletin Board" uses a bulletin board as a metaphor for online trolling/cyberbullying.
  • "Hooky", or a parody of such. The episode plays the formula more-or-less straight, with only the vice in question (fishing hooks as a G-Rated Drug) being the truly ridiculous part.
• Static Shock had many Very Special Episodes, including "Sons of the Fathers" (on racism), "Frozen Out" (homelessness), "Jimmy" (school violence/shootings), and "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" (dyslexia).
• Steven Universe is no stranger to heavy subject matter, thanks to the extraterrestrial nature of the Gems providing ripe opportunity for metaphor:
  • "Alone at Sea" is about recovering from abusive relationships, as well as drug addictions. Steven takes Lapis Lazuli on a fishing trip to help her recover from her prolonged Fusion Dance with Jasper ^note Jasper coerced Lapis into fusing with her to defeat the Crystal Gems, with Lapis agreeing solely to trick Jasper and imprison them both, where Lapis admits to missing the toxic fusion and feeling guilty about it, largely because the fusion gave her a Power High stemming from the ability to take millennia of frustration out on Jasper. Unfortunately, Jasper returns, clearly suffering Sanity Slippage from her side of the fusion, and begs Lapis to rejoin her. Although tempted, Lapis ultimately realizes that the fusion brings out the worst of her, and refuses to go back.
  • "Mindful Education" is about confronting regrets and other such troublesome thoughts through the use of Mindfulness Meditation. Connie's is prone to dwelling on her troubles, which in this case come from reflexively injuring an innocent schoolmate and running off in shame. Upon confronting them, she's able to apologize the next day, and the boy holds no hard feelings. Steven isn't so lucky, since his troubles stem from being on the receiving end of three Redemption Rejections and his growing insecurities about living up to Rose Quartz, which he tried to bottle up and ignore until they boiled over. By the episode's end, he takes the first steps in confronting them. The episode's musical number, "Here Comes a Thought", is notable for being the longest song in the show's history at the time, Garnet's second song overall, and her first duet, featuring guest animation by Takafumi Hori.
  • "Gem Harvest" is a pseudo-Thanksgiving Episode about dealing with extended family members with opposing political views. Greg's conservative long lost cousin Andy DeMayo pays a visit for the first time in ages, and turns out to be quite the Troubled Sympathetic Bigot, angry with Greg for (among other things) changing his name, having Steven out of wedlock, and associating with the Crystal Gems (calling them "hippies" and "alien refugees"), being clearly uncomfortable with their eccentricities. Andy warms up to Steven nonetheless, who eventually gets him to realize that his Appeal to Tradition had a hand in estranging him from his family. This episode's air-date is notable (whether intentionally or not) for being a week after the 2016 Presidential Election, an event that divided America like never before.
  • Parodied in the Steven Universe: Future episode aptly titled "A Very Special Episode." The plot centers around Steven going back and forth between watching Onion (fused with Pearl as Rainbow Quartz 2.0) and teaching a safety seminar to Gems (fused with Garnet as Sunstone). At the end of the episode, he passes out, and the episode is revealed to have all been part of an in-universe lecture from Sunstone about time management. She then gives out some other lessons, like not jumping off cliffs unless you're a professional like her.
  • A more straight version in Future, despite also being a plot-relevant Wham Episode, is "Growing Pains." Connie planning her departure to college causes Steven's Power Incontinence to skyrocket, so Connie directs him to her mother, a doctor, to see what's wrong. When Steven tells the doctor about what he's been through, Dr. Maheswaran explains childhood trauma, and how the life-threatening situations he's suffered in his teens have caused his brain to overreact to smaller challenges. He later has a conversation with his dad about how hard it is to live with this trauma. While some find Dr. Maheswaran's explanation very on-the-nose, it was very well-received for a rare clinical description of PTSD in a children's show, and unlike most examples on this page, Steven's trauma symptoms were present in a lot of previous episodes.
• Though Super Mario World's animated adaptation lasted just thirteen episodes, four of them can be considered Very Special.
  • "King Scoopa Koopa" focuses on nutrition and obesity, with capitalist greed thrown in as well. King Koopa opens a fast food stand and the cave people are immediately hooked. Mario, Luigi and Yoshi visit the stand and enjoy the food so much that they gain a considerable amount of weight in one sitting. Princess Toadstool forces them to go on a diet, with Mario the only one to successfully wean himself off the food. Luigi and Yoshi aren't so lucky, as the food mutates them into Chickadactyls.^note The eggs used in the food are the reason for the mutation, Mario's dislike of them is the only reason he doesn't mutate like Luigi and Yoshi did. The episode also touches addiction when Luigi and Yoshi steal Toadstool's treasure chest out of desperation and trade it to satisfy their cravings.
  • In "Born to Ride," which centers around street gangs and peer pressure, Yoshi runs away from Dome City after being yelled at by the Mario Bros. He finds the Dino Riders, a motorcycle gang, who "initiate" him after he unwillingly vandalizes a cave person's house. They successfully exploit Yoshi's child-like personality to kidnap Mario and Luigi as ransom for Koopa. Yoshi eventually catches on and saves his friends but not before the Dino Riders give one last chase.
  • "Rock TV," which has Koopa play it straight when he hypnotizes the cave people with addictive television programming.
  • "A Little Learning" focuses on bullying and how the issue is often ignored in schools. Princess Toadstool convinces the parents of the cave children that Hip and Hop need a break and allow the two Koopalings to come to school. At recess, they throw fireballs at the other kids until Yoshi stands up to them by eating their backpacks. A fight breaks out and Toadstool blames Oogtar for starting it when all he was trying to do was help defend Yoshi from Hip and Hop.

T

• Teen Titans (2003):
  • "Troq" centered around racism, which has Action Girl Starfire repeatedly put down by an alien that called her the title slur, which means "nothing". And it's implied that other alien races act this way toward Tamaranians as well. Given a poke at when Cyborg goes on to tell Starfire that he knows what it feels to be put down like that — not because he's black, but because he's part-robot. Also, unlike other episodes that deal with racism, the bigot doesn't learn his lesson, even after Starfire saves his life, demonstrating that sometimes people won't let go of their prejudiced views.
  • There's also the episode "Overdrive", where Cyborg gets a new chip installed in him and develops an addiction to doing incredible things with his new power-up.
• Theodore Tugboat: "Hank's Funny Feeling" is an episode about stranger danger. In it, cargo ship named SS Malarkey starts preying on Hank. His name literally means "nonsense," he speaks in a forcedly excited voice in an attempt to hype up nearly everything that he says, he unconvincingly presents mundane objects as fantastical ones to try and earn Hank's trust, and for whatever reason, he wants to meet up with Hank alone without him ever telling anyone of his whereabouts. Hank slowly starts to pick up on these red flags, and eventually, against Malarkey's wishes, he confides in Theodore and the Dispatcher about Malarkey's suspicious behavior. It was nominated for a Gemini for excellence in children's television.
• Parodied in Tiny Toon Adventures with the episode "Elephant Issues", where the cast does an episode involving "pressing issues" so they can win another Emmy. The three shorts presented are "Why Dizzy Can't Read" (illiteracy), "C.L.I.D.E and Prejudice" (racism), and "One Beer" (alcoholism/drunk driving), the latter of which especially prominently wears being a Stealth Parody of Very Special Episodes on its sleeve, even going so far as having Buster outright Breaking the Fourth Wall and explaining to the audience that for the sake of the story and the message, the cast would be acting out of character. When parents complained about the ending of "One Beer", it was banned from the original Fox run of the show, as well as reruns on Nickelodeon, but returned to circulation for the Hub/Discovery Family reruns.
  • Although played very straight with the "Toxic Revenger" shorts that tackle pollution, and the "Pollution Solution" episode, and the "Whale's Tale" episode, all having Green Aesops.

U-Z

• The Venture Brothers did a parody of one. Interestingly, the parody doesn't come from the issue not being taken seriously, or the issue being something unimportant, but rather the issue being something so awkward most shows wouldn't talk about it: testicular torsion. At the end of the episode everyone looks extremely awkward as they're made to talk to the camera about a serious medical condition affecting genitals.
• The Wander over Yonder episode "The Troll" is an episode dedicated to trolling. There's even a word-per-word reference to the phrase "Don't feed the troll," when the titular troll's weakness is revealed.
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: The half-hour special, "I Am Harriet Tubman", tackles racism and slavery. It also first premiered in primetime.
  • The episode "I am Temple Grandin" focuses on Yadina trying to connect with an autistic boy in her grade. The plot for the episode was based off another autistic boy named CJ, who died before the episode aired.

---