Fantasy Twist

"How come even in my fantasies everyone's a jerk?"

- Daria Morgendorrfer

A fantasy sequence in a comedy which is much more unpleasant or mundane than your average fantasy, usually for no good reason.


 * The Simpsons seems to almost specialise in these. For instance, Homer's fantasy about a theme park in his backyard named "Homerland USA" consists of a shabby old thing made largely out of mattresses. And his fantasy about having two wives—which is mostly about getting twice as much housework done—turns sour when out of nowhere he gets stung by a bee. And his fantasy about having a private plane ends with him finding that the cockpit is empty. Meanwhile Bart's dream of rock stardom includes becoming a drunken, drug-addled shambles who has alienated all his friends (but he still thinks it's awesome). The list goes on and on.
 * In Family Guy:
 * Stewie once fantasised about what his life would be like when he was grown up; the fantasy consisted of a balding, middle-aged Stewie asking his wife about an unfamiliar entry on their phone bill. This was before his severe Badass Decay, such that we still would have expected Stewie to grow up to be some kind of Mad Scientist or the like. With today's Stewie, this would no longer seem particuarly surprising the way it did at the time.
 * Another instance was when Peter killed himself, only to be revealed as a daydream.
 * Dilbert once considered developing a way of leading his entire life from his bathtub. He then fantasised about being interviewed by a group of reporters about his revolutionary new lifestyle, but soon they criticised his system as pointless and even remarked that bathing was an inefficient form of cleaning, until Dilbert complained, "This fantasy's been a profound disappointment".
 * In one episode of Scrubs, J.D. thinks of a clique of attractive female doctors (the Gyno Girls) as being like a sorority, and begins to imagine them having a Slumber Party, complete with Pillow Fight. When the fight (inevitably) begins to turn into something else, Eliot snaps him back to reality. On his return to the fantasy, they're saying "I'm glad we all finally experimented with each other...but I'll never do it again!"
 * This often happens with J.D.'s other daydreams. In particular his recurring fantasy of how much he could get done as Floating Head Doctor invariably ends with his headless body screwing things up.
 * On Homestar Runner, in the Strong Bad Email dreamail, Strong Bad's fantasy of the ultimate email turns sour when Homestar comes in and starts annoying him. Strong Bad yells at the "pink border" surrounding the fantasy sequence to hold up its end of the deal.
 * This happens to Strong Bad a lot. For example, in do over, he imagines doing over several earlier emails. The fantasies end in Homestar dressed as The Cheat falling in love with Strong Bad, and Strong Bad getting beaten up by Strong Mad.
 * In your funeral, Strong Bad's fantasy about what his funeral would be like includes Coach Z accidentally taping over Strong Bad's pre-recorded eulogy, Homestar reading from "the Book of Phone", and Strong Bad having to come back from the dead to stop Strong Sad from doing an interpretive dance about him. ("Not even death can stop me from stopping my leotard-ed brother prancing around in my honor.")
 * In animal, Strong Bad's attempts at creating an imaginary animal keep coming out wrong. ("What the? Why do these keep coming out as nasty blob things?")
 * A fantasy about being invisible ends in Strong Mad sitting on him, and Strong Bad concluding "Being invisible isn't worth getting a face full of Strong Mad butt!".
 * "I think my imagination must be broken. Let's see, I'll think of the best thing ever: Beef.. stew.. Yep, it's broken alright."
 * In Bee Movie Barry's daydream
 * SpongeBob SquarePants imagines what his life would be like if he had muscles. It turns out to be exactly the same as it is now, but with muscles.
 * Likewise, in "Sleepy Time" Spongebob enters Patrick's dream and finds him riding a coin-operated seahorse ride. He tries to convince Patrick that he can do whatever he wanted in dreamland, but Patrick insists on riding the seahorse. After Spongebob leaves, the ride stops and Patrick takes out a quarter to start it up again. But then he drops it down a grate... and stays sitting down.
 * In Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog, in the first song, Billy/Dr. Horrible imagines himself slipping up and saying "Love your hair" out loud, then awkwardly trying to cover his Did I Just Say That Out Loud? moment by claiming he loves the air.
 * This Troper always sort of assumed that was a memory, except for the part where he freezes her...
 * Xkcd, naturally, takes it to a very weird place.
 * In The Leaky Establishment by David Langford, when Roy Tappen is trying to smuggle his accidentally stolen plutonium back into the NUTC, he briefly fantasises about claiming to have wrestled it from a Russian spy and being hailed as a hero. This fantasy rapidly shifts towards being asked serious questions about the supposed Russian spy, leading inevitably to being cast into the darkness with "UNEMPLOYABLE" tattooed on his forehead. Later fantasies are even worse, mostly ending with Britain becoming a radioactive wasteland, and he gets fired.
 * Subverted in Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin has an elaborate wish involving world domination, while all Hobbes wants is a sandwich. Subverted because in the last panel of the strip, Hobbes is eating a sandwich, telling Calvin "I got my wish."
 * In an episode of Recess, the gang find a $100 bill and fantasize about what they'll do with their share of the money. Each of their fantasies end with them owning and flying a jetpack, except even in his own fantasy Gus can't control his.
 * On Daria. the eponymous character's daydream about college in the middle of a placement seminar consists of her getting asked to teach at a Parisien grad school in the first week of her freshman year so that one of her professors can use her dorm room to engage in trysts with "more beautiful" students.
 * In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Run Away Runway", Candace daydreams of becoming a fashion model, who randomly starts plugging a breakfast cereal called "Candace-Os". Back in reality, Candace makes a mental note to stop fantasizing on an empty stomach.