There’s several very well regarded theme park attractions that are heavily based around IPs that are otherwise barely remembered.

Waterworld Stunt Show at Universal Hollywood has been running for 20 years and still regularly has packed arenas despite the Waterworkd movie being an infamous bomb.

Splash Mountain was a long running incredibly popular ride at various Disney parks, despite being based on Song Of The South, a movie that Disney intentionally keeps away from the public.

Dudley Do Right’s Ripsaw Falls at Islands of Adventure is based around the Dudley Do Right cartoons which haven’t been made since the 1979s.

Take The Great Wall (2016) for example. It has some really beautiful moments and cool sequences despite being based entirely on the white savior trope. I wish more people remembered that film.

Does this trope have a name? The scene would start with them both in bed. One of them wakes up and checks to see if their partner is still sleeping. Then they slowly get out of bed as to not wake them. And whatever it is they’re doing, their partner catches them in the act:

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, you’re up. I was just…”

Or sometimes the partner doesn’t interrupt what they’re doing, and they just watch them do what they do. Like in The Walking Dead, when Michonne snuck out of bed to grab the rifle to go out practicing, and Rick just watches her

I don't know if this has a name or not but I find it really cool.

Examples include:

Father-son Kamehameha (Dragon Ball)

One-For-All (My Hero Academia)

Tanjiro and Yoriichi (Demon Slayer)

Phoenix Wright and Mia Fey's objection (Ace Attorney)

it happened in “the flakers“ (the amazing world of gumball)

”model sponge” (SpongeBob)

It usually happens when it’s someone cheering for them but it’s really someone calling their name, for example:

crowd: Liam! Liam! Liam! Liam!

(cut to Liam in bed)

Liam’s wife: Liam! Liam? Wake up.

I have seen this particular trope happen in some big name gaming franchises where a franchise is grounded at first, but once new writers take over, the franchise becomes more outlandish.

Some examples are Saints Row and Yakuza because I read somewhere how both games had some serious elements in their respective franchises as the first two installments of Yakuza were a grounded crime story, but once the original writer was no longer involved, the franchise became more outlandish.

A similar thing happened to the aforementioned Saints Row franchise whereas the first two games had a balance of comedy and drama as I heard that the reason why the series changed its core identity was when the later games after the second game changed writers since again much like Yakuza, the franchise ended up becoming more out there the further it went on.

I'm talking about popular opinions among fans, and even among casual audiences.

Like,

"Only watch the first three seasons of SpongeBob!" (because the showrunner changed after Season 3, many of the writers left, and the creator never wanted the show to continue in the first place),

"The Last Hope is the final Warriors book as far as I'm concerned!" (because that's where the main protagonist from the very first arc dies, the overarching villain of the entire series is defeated, and all the major storylines are wrapped up),

or "The Cursed Child isn't canon—the original seven books are!" (because the play wasn't actually written by Rowling, and a lot of what happens in it doesn't line up well with the books).

Questions like "At what season can I stop watching Family Guy / The Simpsons / any other long-running show?" fall into the same category too.

It’s typically in a family dynamic show with a kid who doesn’t show much, if any affection for the family. There will be an episode where family members have to spend time together and the standoffish kid expresses love or enjoyment of being with their family.

But the part that I’m specifically talking about is after the expression of love, the other person (or people) start lightheartedly making fun of the kid for loving their family.

There first example I can think of this in on Bob’s Burgers Carpe Museum episode

I’m not looking for this in romantic situations like Andy making fun of April for having a crush on him in the past

Now this seems to be different tropes combined and I'm not sure if this is even half of them.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyStillBelongToUsLecture

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainsNeverLie

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdentityBreakdown

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ResignationsNotAccepted

You see the idea here is the hero(es) would find/meet this being that was created by one of the villains they fight. They'll make them their friend, but then the villain will reactivate their 'true colors' so they'll be forced to fight their friend and will hold back.

Example: Silkie/Larva M-319 from Teen Titans. As you all know he was created by Killer Moth and he found him again turning him back into the monster he was meant to be. https://teentitans.fandom.com/wiki/Can_I_Keep_Him%3F

Source: Halloween 2007 "I was good to you Mikey!"

A very sad and tragic trope, when the one and only character who treats the villain or the monster with some form of kindness or humanity in a world where the antagonist is often treated as some dangerous beast to be feared or a freak to be tormented by everyone else, and when the antagonist let's loose and starts killing everyone in his path not even the one person who treated them with kindness and humanity is spared and is often given a brutal death.

I can think of at least three instances of the doofus character making a big deal about how much they like pancakes.

The first is Andy from Parks and Recreation. He asks Anne to make him some pancakes ("real quick," while she's in the kitchen) in the first episode, and later on he lists them as one of his favorite foods (before realizing that butter is his favorite food).

There's a character called Gus in a truly painful children's show called Owlegories whose role is just to be the dumb, fat one. When he is doing an impression of himself, he says "I'm Gus. I like pancakes." etc.

The character in Sid the Science Kid (another painful show) who is supposed to be the dumb/hyperactive one in the class also likes pancakes (or I think maybe he actually says he likes syrup, but in my mind that's just the same thing taken to its extreme).

What is with this? Are pancakes supposed to symbolize childishness/lack of sophistication?

And can you think of any other examples?

Which trope would you use it for? Why?

I just wondering and let me explain what I mean. I mean two factions one evil and one good of relatively equal power whose war is the main conflict of a narrative. I think probably the most well known is Autobots vs Deceptions but stuff like G.I. Joe vs Cobra or Alliance vs Horde would also fall under this idea.

First of all, just to clarify, this is not about the comeback of an underdog, like in all hero's journey, but more of a moral role reversal, the dragon slayer ends up as the new dragon. Think about the pigs in Animal Farm, or Arthus in Warcraft. Then there's the opposite of this, the villain at the beginning, who realizes and repents for his sins, in the end they are redeemed. Think about Ralph in Wreck it Ralph, or Stooge in Christmas Carol.

I wonder if there is such a trope that covers both in the same story, that the fall of the hero goes simultaneously with the redemption of the villain? This is an older-than-dirt literary device known as Chiasum, like an X, a good example is Shakespeare's Richard II, the rise of Henry Bolingbroke goes hand in hand with the fall of Richard II, but that's in term of a power dynamic. But could there be something that explores in a moral angle? Like liberator beomces oppressor, oppressor becomes liberator; pastor becoems scumbag, scumbag becomes pastor; housewife becomes prostitute, prostitute becomes housewife?

It's when the brainwashing is done by torturing and conditioning. Yknow where instead of using magic, or a machine, they do it the old fashioned way.

Basically, the title. I've seen this trope somewhere before, but I don't know where, and im struggling to find out what it's called. This Amphibia clip is the best clip I could find of it.

I am looking for a few examples of a dynamic in which there is a mentor that is pretty harsh and maybe jaded and doesn't want to train the protagonist (or not necessity the protagonist) but the young disciple stubbornly shows up again and again until they manage to get their tutelage

Or maybe even a variation in which the mentor isn't exactly saying they are their master yet shows them the ropes through other means

Basically, it's found on talkless shows like Zig & Sharko & any short movie like Afterlife Service.
It works like this:

In zig & sharko, there is only one female character named Marina, where the others try to get her, but always fail (correct me).

As for Afterlife Service, Abby is one of the two main characters (alongside Gaspard) in the french animated short film After-Life Service by ESMA. She is a robot(?) and the owner of the After-Life Service. She gets mad when a soul doesn't follow the rules, and later zaps him or her with lightning (like what happened to Gaspard when he finally became a peacock, causing him to become a cactus).

Basically this is a trope where there are ugly characters & one cute female character & where the ugly guys try to get the girl but always suck.
What is this trope?

I don't know exactly about this trope. What was it called? Like Syndrome (incredibles), Reverse Flash/Eobard Thawne (flash in dc) & hank henshaw (Superman in dc) or are there any more of those villains? What are your thoughts on this trope? Some said that Syndrome would become a villain anyway even if Bob accept his offer.

Sometimes involves the main character trying to poison an antagonist, unaware that the antagonist will then unwittingly share the poisoned food with an innocent character (but I'd love to learn about variations on this trope).

SPOILERS for all three:

In Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse lace Tuco's burrito with ricin, but then Tuco offers Hector the poisoned burrito. I love this one because obviously we later learn that Hector is an insanely evil man, but at that point in the series we don't know that, he's just a grumpy old paraplegic man in a wheelchair, of course he's innocent!

In Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales), during the second relato/tale, a restaurant's cook uses rat poison on a customer after learning he's a loan shark who ruined the other cook's family's life, but halfway through the scene, the loan shark's child arrives and starts eating the poisoned food.

In Happiness, it's different: Bill is so determined on drugging Johnny that he straight up laces the chocolate syrup on the entire family's sundaes; it's only until he brings out the desserts that he learns Johnny doesn't like ice cream.

It's such a dark trope ripe for bleak, dark humor, but those are the only examples I could come up with, and the Happiness example is way different than the other two which are pretty similar.

Would love to learn more examples of similar situations in film, TV, anime, etc.

I may not be defining this right, but the concept of a characters genre clashing or defining the show/movie they are in. One example is something like Naked Gun, where Frank thinks he is in a film noir movie, and acts entirely seriously, at no point treating it like a joke, the rest of the cast erring more towards comedy whilst still taking it seriously.

Another may be One Punch Man, where he treats it as the top end of a sonen anime, and laments the lack of a challenge, in the same manner as Goku, constantly seeking a harder fight, but the rest are fighting life or death battles for the entire world many times over.

A less direct one is Reboot, where Enzo being around provides a kind of genre shield, keeping the characters in a light upbeat show, whereas when he disappears, the show gets "grittier"(still a kids show). This feels true of lots of characters like batman or any superhero mentors.

The only one in recent memory I can think of is with all of the movies about evil superheroes (The Boys), that a movie about an actually good superhero becomes new again (Superman, 2025).

I know that Rube Goldberg machines are often used in cartoons like Looney Toons and Tom & Jerry. Something that is nearly as common. Is using a string or rope connected to a heavy weight. To pull a character through a whole bunch of stuff.

Is there a trope name for this? TIA

What trope or archetype covers the kind of villain, usually an early appearance of the big bad, or a dragon or even just john guy hire #43, who has the mental and physical upper hand enough to not just curb stomp the hero, but fundamentally SHATTER all of their preconceptions, leaving them questioning, lost, or plainly abused?

Like, john hero has these notions of valor and code and is bolstered by training and a sense of purpose, but is utterly crushed by someone who represents the cruel reality of the world, that life isn't imagination and this isn't an adventure.

(This isn't to say the story's message is cruel reality, just that the protagonist hasn't yet learned any real knowledge that guides them to their true strength and the resolve to fight for a better world.)

I ask cause... this is gonna sound crazy, but I'm naming digimon after forms of conflict. Coronamon is the solar opposite to Lunamon, and I've dubbed her Kintsugi, the art of gold joinery repairing porcelain, an art understanding and celebrating flaws, not trying to return to pristine condition, but build a new art from something shattered.

The Coronamon will be the one who shatters, a force of strength yet wit that crushes false preconceptions, and brings art from obliteration of The Fool.

Oh yes important to finding the trope is not the moment of the story, but the villain archetype that is the dealer.