Visual Puns in Films — Animation.
- Aladdin:
- The Genie is something of a Visual Pungeon Master. For example, this gag...Genie: [upon first meeting Aladdin] You smoke? Mind if I do? [changes forms in a puff of smoke]
- Jafar has some fun with this later into the film. He always saw the Sultan as a figurative Puppet King, so he turns the Sultan into a living marionette to make it literal as well.
- The Sultan is the good ruler of Agrabah, and his body design is based on an egg. He's a good egg.
- The Genie is something of a Visual Pungeon Master. For example, this gag...
- Alice in Wonderland:
- One of the animals living in Tulgey Woods appears to be a bird with an umbrella for a body. In other words, a literal umbrellabird.
- Also, the various insects that populate the same area as the living flowers, such as Bread-and-Butterflies, Dog-and-Caterpillars, Rocking-Horseflies, and Copper-Centipedes.
- The Unbirthday Party is chock full of them.March Hare: [after cutting a tea cup in half] Just half a cup, if you don't mind?
- The Queen of Hearts holds court in a garden. It's a court-yard.
- In Anastasia, there's a literal Freudian Slip: Freud slips on a banana peel.
- Animal Soccer World has one that, unfortunately, doesn't translate into most other languages: the hooligans are geese. The German word for "goose" is gans.
- The Bad Guys (2022): When Marmalade makes the Bad Guys wear cute animal onesies as part of their "good guy" training, the one Mr. Wolf wears resembles a sheep, making him a literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
- The Brave Little Toaster: In the song "It's a 'B' Movie," the line "It Ain't Home On the Range" is sung by a combination oven/stove, also known as a range.
- Cars:
- One scene in the first film has twin fangirls Mia and Tia flashing their headlights in front of Lightning McQueen.
- The Cars short toon "El Materdor" actually portrayed bulldozers as acting like actual bulls (in the movie said short was based on, the role of bulls were portrayed by farm equipment).
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is full of this.Flint: There's a leek in the boat!!!
[cut to a walking leek sitting in the boat] - A rare sad example from Coco: to symbolize his broken past, the animators decided to make Hector the skeleton literally broken. Some of his bones are cracked and held together with duct tape, he walks with a heavy limp, his clothing is in tatters, and he comes apart far more readily than the other skeletons. But in the epilogue, after Miguel heals the family rift and hatred of music, Hector has mended clothes and a straight gait. Now that he is remembered fondly, he's a much healthier skeleton.
- Franklin and the Green Knight: The "Brothers and Sisters" song has the lyrics "Hey, Franklin, if you get a sister, she'll do the things you do / But when you teach her painting, she'll end up painting you!" and Franklin being covered by the imagined sister in paint. She painted him.
- Frozen: As Anna sings the lines "Tonight, imagine me gown and all — fetchingly draped against the wall!", she approaches a nearby drape, twirls, wrapping herself up in it, and then dramatically leans against the wall.
- Hercules: During his song, Phil complains about getting "the greenhorn" while his horns are actually covered in green olives.
- Hercules (Pure Magic): Dionysus says "bottoms up!" while serving nectar. Then, the naked angels responsible for pouring the nectar bend in such a way that their bottoms are literally pointing up.
- Hoodwinked!: The Wolf disguises himself in sheepskin to interview his informant, a sheep named Woolworth, without disturbing the rest of the flock.
- Inside Out: Each of the personified emotions is shaped like a humanoid representation of something that evokes that emotion. Joy is a star, Sadness is a teardrop, Disgust is a stalk of broccoli, and the purple, spindly Fear? He's a raw nerve. Meanwhile, all of them are taller than Anger: Riley has a short temper.
- Kung Fu Panda:
- Kung Fu Panda 2: Shen's nanny is portrayed as an elderly female goat. A female goat is called a nanny.
- Kung Fu Panda 4:
- At the beginning, Li Shan tells Mr. Ping that he shouldn't worry about Po, since "... he's probably just kicking back and catching some rays." Immediate cut to Po kicking a giant manta ray.
- The Juniper Police Force, entirely staffed by bulls, is chasing Po and Zhen, when they enter an antique shop. All of them slow down and thread carefully as to not damage the merchandise, the employee looking on anxiously before sighing in relief as they miraculously avoid breaking anything. That was a lot of bulls in a china shop...
- The Little Mermaid has a rather dark one. When Ursula sings the line, "It's she who holds her tongue, who gets her man.", she tosses a human-looking tongue into her cauldron.
- The LEGO Batman Movie: After a bomb blows up the foundations of Gotham, the minifigures have to use their heads and stick together to save the city. I.E., by sticking the studs on their heads into the holes in other minifigs' feet, they form chains across the cracks in the ground, and pull both halves of Gotham back together.
- Moana: Maui is covered in Animated Tattoos that chronicle his many amazing feats throughout his life. The one depicting his Dark and Troubled Past of being thrown into the sea as a baby by his parents is hidden under his long hair — his backstory is literally on his back!
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: During the song "Awesome as I Wanna to Be", a spotlight shines on each of the Rainbooms one by one, which is normal since they're performing on scene. It becomes significant when, in the middle of the song, all the rays of light focus on Rainbow Dash, who is literally stealing the spotlight with her showboating.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas:
- The Mayor has two faces, one colorful and cheerful and the other ashen and distressed, that changes depending on his mood. He is literally two-faced.
- Oogie Boogie is a sadistic monster who has a demented casino, sharpshooting slot machines and a torture roulette wheel in his personal lair and thoroughly enjoys hurting and killing others (while preferring to prey on helpless victims and rigging his games to be unfair to them). His motif shows how much Oogie Boogie enjoys gambling with other people's lives.
- The Princess and the Frog:
- The Fenner Brothers (the realtors selling the property Tiana wanted to buy for her restaurant) turn up at a costume party. There, they tell Tiana that she's been outbid, and that "a woman of your... background" probably wouldn't be able to maintain a high-profile restaurant anyway. All while dressed as a donkey, i.e. a jack-ass.
- Other examples occur throughout the movie. In the first musical number, the line "there's some sweetness goin' around" is accompanied by Tiana dusting pastries with powdered sugar while spun on a lazy susan.
- While in the swamp, Prince Naveen states his parents cut him off "for being a... LEECH!", and sure enough there's a leech attached to his arm.
- In Robots:
- When Rodney's parents are "making" him (out of parts), there's the exchange below. Justified in that they're, well, robots.Mr. Copperbottom: He's got your mom's eyes and my dad's nose. I knew we were smart to save those parts.
- Before they made the baby, Mr. Copperbottom was unfortunate to miss the delivery (the delivery car had just left) but fortunately for him "making the baby is the fun part".
- When Rodney's parents are "making" him (out of parts), there's the exchange below. Justified in that they're, well, robots.
- In The Simpsons Movie, Homer attempts to use a wrecking ball to free his family from an armored transport, only for it to swing back and hit him. Homer, still on the ball, then ends up getting repeatedly swung back and forth between a rock and a building with a sign reading "A Hard Place".
- In the ending of Aardman Animations' Stage Fright (included on the Chicken Run DVD), just as the villain is killed, he kicks a bucket.
- In The Swan Princess, Prince Derek orders his musicians to dress up as animals so he can have target practice (due to the servants having the day off), and they're not happy about it (even if he is using blunt training arrows). What results is a Hurricane of Visual Puns, including "This masquerade is more than I can bear!", "I've got the lion's share [of humiliation]," and multiple calls of "Duck!!" only for the duck to ask "What?" and get shot.
- Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation: Buster and Babs' story thread is resolved by having them fall through a literal Plot Hole that happens to lead back to Acme Acres.
- Toy Story:
- In the first movie, Woody asks Buzz Lightyear to "give me a hand". Buzz throws his (disconnected) arm to him. Woody is not amused.
- And in Toy Story 2, Buzz tells Rex to "use his head" to open a vent. The next scene involves Rex being used to batter the door down.
- In Turning Red, Tyler's birthday party is dull verging on dead until Meilin Lee transforms to her red panda form. She gets the party going and makes sure everyone gets in on the fun. She's clearly a party animal.
- Done wonderfully in Up with Carl's character design. The entire point of the movie is him learning to love again, to move on, and realizing how much of a blockhead he's been by living in the past and refusing to let go of Ellie. He has a square head. He is literally a blockhead.
- Wallace & Gromit:
- In A Matter of Loaf and Death, the van has a toaster mounted below the radio and Gromit has set this to do a slice of toast for Wallace's breakfast. It pops out (having been done almost black) and Wallace looks at it.Wallace: Well done, lad! [pause] Very well done.
- In The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Wallace is the one who transforms into the title creature. When he changes back (losing all of his clothes in the process), Gromit sticks him in a cardboard box with a sticker that says "May contain nuts."
- In A Matter of Loaf and Death, the van has a toaster mounted below the radio and Gromit has set this to do a slice of toast for Wallace's breakfast. It pops out (having been done almost black) and Wallace looks at it.
- In Wreck-It Ralph, at one point Ralph confronts King Candy, who puts on a pair of glasses he pulls out of Hammerspace and asks "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?" Ralph proceeds to pull the glasses off and break them over King Candy's head.King Candy: You hit a guy... with glasses... that's, that's well played.
- Zootopia:
- On Judy's first day as a police officer, Chief Bogo says "First, we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room." The audience at first thinks this is referring to Judy herself, but it is actually about a literal elephant; it was her birthday.
- Near the end, three officers are assigned to undercover; the wolf of the group puts on a very convincing sheep costume, making him a literal wolf in sheep's clothing.
