Brick Joke/Western Animation

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• Several Road Runner/Coyote cartoons employed this joke. One of Wile E. Coyote's failed devices from the beginning of the cartoon does him in at the end.
  • Coyote installs a large metal plate underneath the road that springs up on command, intending for Road Runner to smash into it. It fails as usual and Coyote tries to figure out what went wrong, the audience expecting it to spring up and launch him into the air or something similar, only nothing happens. Later in the episode, Coyote has employed one of his numerous methods for matching Road Runner's speed and proceeds to chase him, until...
  • In another case, Coyote tries to blow Road Runner up using a glass of water on a box marked "free drink" which when taken would light a match setting off the Kablooie! Road Runner ignores the water, he informs Coyote that he can't read, and doesn't drink. Several gags later, Coyote climbs out of an Efficient Displacement hole in the ground only to crawl, tired and thirsty to the same box. After grabbing the water, there's just enough time for an Oh Crap moment before the inevitable non-lethal Earthshattering Kaboom.
• In one episode of Kevin Spencer, Kevin and his dad make a scarescrow and pass it off as a disabled person so they could get into a hockey game. This thing appears in one scene at the beginning, and once at the end, where a news reporter thinks it's a lost child.
• Popeye occasionally exhibits this trope. In one episode, Bluto is a Carnival Balloon jumper (he jumps from a hot air balloon using a parachute). When Bluto sees Olive Oyl, he ties a balloon to his announcer, who floats away. At the end of the episode, Popeye and Olive are floating down using an umbrella, and the announcer floats by, still yelling about Bluto's act.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob is training Gary for a snail race, and tells him, "I called you a lady to humiliate and demean you." Cut to Sandy, who says, "I don't know why, but I think I'll kick SpongeBob's butt tomorrow." Then, at the end of the episode when everyone has forgotten about it, Sandy shows up out of nowhere, kicks SpongeBob's butt and yells, "That's for yesterday, Squarepants!"
  • In "F.U.N." SpongeBob seeks Plankton's friendship, in the hopes that he'll be a nicer person for it. He knocks on Plankton's door, and SpongeBob tells him he can help him. Plankton responds, "You know how to induce thermonuclear fusion?" SpongeBob begins, "No, but I like to go jelly-" before Plankton slams the door in his face. Plankton launches into a rant about how stupid SpongeBob is, before having a conversation with his computer, who convinces him to use SpongeBob's friendship as a means of stealing a Krabby Patty. Plankton agrees, and goes to fetch SpongeBob, but when he opens the front door, SpongeBob is standing there, and says, "-fishing with my friends in Jellyfish Fields."
  • In the episode "The Two Faces of Squidward" some random fish gains the ability to fly. Because of an untied shoelace his shoe falls off. The episode continues and everyone forgets about it. At the very end, the shoe crashes through the ceiling of the Krusty Krab and hits Spongebob. A day later.
• "Toy Tinkers". Donald Duck and Chip and Dale are fighting over candy and sweets in a Christmas setting and are currently engaged in trench-warfare with Christmas balls and toy weapons. Dale plants a phone on Donald's side and, when Donald answers, Chip fires a toy cannon at him through the phone. Donald tries to reverse the trick eventually by stuffing a firecracker/"stick of boom" into his end, dialing them, and lighting it when they answer. The audience can see the natural conclusion coming from a mile away: it's going to blow up in his face. But the fuse snuffs out at the receiver, and Donald hangs up in anger that nothing happened. He's about to resume fighting when he has to answer the ringing phone. BOOM.
  • The 1953 Disney short Rugged Bear features Humphrey Bear seeking a safe place to hide during hunting season. He ends up in the cabin of Donald Duck, and notices a bear skin rug on the floor. He hides it in a chest and the remainder of the cartoon is his attempt to pass himself off as the rug while enduring endless indignities at the hands of Donald. He is used as a match striker, bottle opener, nutcracker, and blanket. He gets set on fire, beaten out, put through a washing machine, brushed, raked and finally mowed back into shape, and then rolled up to be slept in. After hunting season has passed Donald departs and Humphrey can finally stop pretending to be a rug. Whereupon the original "rug" (whom the entire audience has long since forgotten about) reveals itself to also have been a live bear, exits the chest, and thanks Humphrey for taking his place.
• In the second Mighty Mouse series, there is a battle between the Mad Cow and The Legion of Super Marsupials (and Mighty Mouse). In the fight at the beginning of the episode, The Sloth winds up his "Super Slow-Mo Punch" - promptly freezing. The episode continues, with Sloth standing still in the background of scenes in the HQ. At the very end, as Mad Cow appears to triumph, the punch connects, defeating him.
• In the first episode of Megas XLR, Coop and the eponymous mecha stare down a group of alien mechs, and Coop presses the button... firing a missile straight up into the air that connects with a PopTV broadcast satellite. Later, when the army re-forms into the UMD, the satellite crashes down and destroys the ridiculously oversized mecha. This is just one of many, as Brick Jokes happen so often in Megas XLR to qualify as Once an Episode.
• Winx Club: An episode ends with Layla sadly reporting that her parents have set up a marriage for her. Several intervening episodes and plotlines later, Layla brings up this long-since-forgotten-by-the-viewers issue while supporting her friend's choice to break up with her boyfriend. And cue subplot.
  • To add to the brickiness of this, the original US airing saw a lengthy hiatus. Result: Layla first mentions the Arranged Marriage in March '07, and doesn't mention it again until July.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The war meeting in "Nightmares and Daydreams" that everybody complained about not getting to see. It was eventually shown in a Flash Back in the series' finale -- and it's revealed they had a very good reason not to show it then.
  • Also Jet could count as one. I for one forgot all about him after his single episode in the first season
  • A brilliant one, set up in the seventh episode of season 1 (The Spirit World): Sokka is kidnapped by the spirit Haibei, and released 24 hours later. When asked how he was feeling, he said, "Like I seriously need to use the bathroom." Then, in season 3, episode 6 (The Avatar and the Firelord, thirty-nine episodes later), Aang mounts Roku's dragon in the spirit world, while acting out the same movements in the physical world. Katara, who cannot see the spirits, asks, "Do they have bathrooms in the spirit world?" to which Sokka replies, "As a matter of fact, they do not."
  • One in the Book Two episode "Avatar Day" has Sokka making an offhand remark about how good the deep-fried festival food that the Adventure Town of the day makes during Avatar Day. At the end of the episode, the town has changed the festival food to unfried dough in the shape of Aang, which previously required deep frying in oil.
  • "Boomerang! You do always come back!"
• Futurama, "Xmas Story": Fry buys Leela a parrot, but it escapes. After Fry falls trying to get it and Leela saves him, the parrot is forgotten. Later, when Robot Santa fires a missile on them, who should appear but the parrot, unwittingly saving them by getting in the way of the missile.
  • And then, after you've once again forgotten about the parrot, Bender shows up with X-mas dinner, which turns out to be the corpse of the parrot, which he found lying in the street. Double Brick Joke!
  • Also in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", they start off by chasing the Professor's escaped monster, which is forgotten about. At the end of the episode, the monster turns out to have been hiding in the Planet Express ship all the time, and saves the Professor's life, thus earning his freedom.
  • Futurama uses this a lot. In "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", after being demoted, Hermes almost commits suicide ends up spending a paid vacation in a forced labor spa. While there, there's a brief scene where his bureaucratic instincts cause him to double the workload of an unnamed Australian man who's also working as a laborer. His efficiency in this task encourages him to pursue his career as a bureaucrat again. The viewer thinks it's just a gag to move the plot along, but when Hermes shows up two scenes later, his wife remarks that he got the labour camp running so well that, "All the physical labor is now done by a single Australian man."
    • In this same episode when Hermes is threatening to commit suicide, Professor Farnsworth urges him not to jump, instead asking for him to use a method that "wouldn't damage that healthy liver". Later, when Hermes shows up to save the day, Farnsworth yells at him to "quit hogging that liver".
  • In "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", the episode begins with Bender having an issue with his butt such that pressure could make it explode. He gets shock absorbers installed, but asks for them removed because of the appearance. The episode then goes into a Valentine's Day plot, in which Fry's head is severed from his body and attached to Amy's. When, at last, his head is re-attached to his body, a loose nerve causes him to kick when touched - and he happens to kick Bender's butt.
  • In "Fear of a Bot Planet" Bender is sent on a delivery mission to a planet occupied by human-hating robots, but gets captured due to him working with humans. Fry and Leela disguise themselves as robots to rescue him, but are found out and arrested. They then meet the Robot Elders, who talk about the planet's lug-nut shortage as the reason humans are scapegoated as evil. They escape with Bender, but are followed by a mob of robots, so Bender throws the package he was meant to deliver, which just so happens to be filled with lug-nuts.
  • In "Three Hundred Big Boys", Bender spends his $300 tax refund on a burglary kit so he can steal a $10,000 cigar. At the very end, after the cigar burns down an art exhibit, Bender is apprehended by the recurring buddy cop duo and joyously shouts, "All right! Closure!"
    • Also during that Episode, Fry is determined to use the money to drink 100 cups of coffee. By the time he does, he gains superhuman speed and uses that to save everyone from a burning building.
  • In "How Hermes Requisitioned his groove back", while waiting in line at the Central Bureaucracy, they meet a man who is waiting for his birth certificate. Four seasons later, in "Lethal Inspection", they visit Central Bureaucracy again and the old man finally reaches the window, he's told he was waiting in the wrong line and dies.
  • In the beginning of "War is the H-Word," Fry and Bender attempt to buy a pack of Big Pink ham-flavored chewing gum with a military discount, only to discover that the discount only applies to people in the military. Later, at the end of the episode, Henry Kissinger's head remarks that Fry's breath is "as fresh as a summer ham."
  • In the episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" Zapp gives Kif a book of (terrible) pick-up lines to use on his half date with Amy. One of the lines Kif nervously blurts out is "I find the most erotic part of a woman is the boobies", later, after Leela, Amy, Zapp and Kif crash land on planet Amazonia, Zapp gives away their position to the massive Amazonian women by using the pick-up line "I find the most erotic part of a woman is the..." before getting cut off.
• In the Tex Avery short Rock-a-Bye Bear, a guard dog for a hibernating bear has to stay quiet while another dog tries to get him fired by making noise. Early on, the first dog gets rid of a pin-up poster (to avoid the temptation of blowing a Wolf Whistle) by folding it into a paper airplane and throwing it out the window. At the end of the cartoon, the airplane lands into the hands of the second dog after flying for who knows how many kilometers. The dog unfolds it, whistles, and sure enough, the bear wakes up to beat the tar out of him.
• In the Lucky Luke animated movie Tous ?'Ouest, Luke fires at the Daltons during a pursuit in a mine. The bullet misses and starts ricocheting the walls before disappearing in the distance, to Joe Dalton's mocking remarks. Way, way later, Joe holds a girl hostage and forces Luke to drop his guns, which he does. Luke then points his fingers at Joe and imitates the sound of a gun firing. And suddenly the earlier bullet ricochets out of the mine and neatly disassembles Joe's gun...
• Pelswick: There is a school science fair going on. One of the exhibits is a diagram of intelligence from the school principal (dead last) to a chicken. At the end of the episode, we see the principal in bed, when he suddenly pops up, exclaiming "Hey! I'm smarter than a chicken!!!"
• Family Guy has many:
  • In "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", Cleveland criticises the Scrubs hypothetical spots for being stupid and irrelevant, and a nonsensical cutaway of Hitler juggling fish while unicycling pops up. Half an episode later, another cutaway is set up where Peter says that taking care of Joe is "the right thing to do, just like taking out Hitler", and flips back to the earlier scene... then Peter comes out and punches Hitler off the unicycle, adding "See? We had a plan for that one all along."
  • "Road to Germany" had a bit where Stewie plays with a European toy that says animal onomatopoeia in different languages. Later, he hears a cow say one of those and figures out he's in Europe.
  • In "Petarded", there's a gag about a Discovery Channel documentary about fire engines hunting gazelles in the Savannah. It's good for a laugh and then forgotten, until the end of the episode, where, after the plot, a fire engine attacks the house.
  • In "420", they cut away to Peter taking great pleasure in spotting the Title Drop in various movies and TV shows. Later on in the main plot, Brian is arrested for possession of pot and the cop says "I don't want drugs in my town! I'm a family guy!" Peter goes wild!
    • Also in "420", Peter and the gang kill Quagmire's cat. Peter then wraps the body in his coat and drives off to bury it when he's stopped by a police officer, who notes that Peter is covered with blood and has a suspicious package in the back seat. The cat's death is quickly forgotten when the cop arrests Brian for possession of marijuana, then shifts to the plot of Brian starting his petition to legalize it. We don't hear about the "cat killing" plot again until the end of the episode when Quagmire asks Peter where it is and Peter nonchalantly tells him he killed it.
  • In "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing", Peter accidentally blows up a children's hospital in order to remove a competitor's advertisement billboard. At the end of the episode, he is found guilty and serves time in jail.
    • In the same episode when Angela mentions she recommended Peter for a promotion, Peter says that he had eaten a fortune cookie which said that an obvious lesbian would bring great news. He also mentions it said a grand piano would fall on him and then looks up to make sure he is safe. He then leaves the room as nothing falls on him, but one does a few minutes later.
  • In "No Chris Left Behind" Peter interrupts a serious conversation with Lois to embark on a destructive, citywide fistfight with the Giant Chicken. Eventually he makes his way back to the house and finishes the sentence he started several hours and eight billion punching sound effects ago.
    • The giant chicken itself can count. How many people thought we'd never hear from it again after the first fight in Season One.
  • Let's not forget The Surfin' Bird song in "I Dream of Jesus". The entire first act kept Peter singing this song. After the records were destroyed, the plot with Jesus began. At the end of the episode, Peter is reminded of it and starts singing again.
  • At the beginning of the episode "Family Gay", Peter buys a horse that eventually dies, so he flings its body into Mort's pharmacy. At the end, Mort throws the corpse through the window of the Griffins' house, shouting, "Take back your fucking horse!"
    • Almost a literal brick joke, except the brick is a dead retarded horse.
  • In "Dog Gone," a drunken Brian responds to the father from Family Circus attempting to give him advice by telling him to go "f*** your wife in the face." The father pleasantly agrees to do so. A later scene shows Peter reading the newspaper and saying, "Well, that was a very shocking Family Circus."
  • A chain brick in "Blind Ambition". First, Peter found Judd Hirsch in a bowling pin making a nuclear weapon. Later, Stewie crashed into a tree and found the Keebler Elves waiting for Judd Hirsch's weapon so they could attack the Rice Krispies guys. And finally, when Peter's at the bar, he sees Crackle and Pop mourning the loss of Snap in the attack.
  • In "Stewie Kills Lois" Meg takes a pack of hot dogs to her room and says she is going to pretend they're the New York Knicks. Peter later says he has to go buy hotdogs because they keep running out for some reason.
• In the 1997 Looney Tunes short "Father of the Bird", Sylvester accidentally launches an anvil. He braces for the inevitable impact, but after a while, he realises that it's not coming down. He forgets about it right after that, and suffers through a couple more gags before the anvil finally reappears and hits Sylvester.
  • Also, in "Blooper Bunny", during the Hilarious Outtakes portion of the cartoon, Bugs stops everything in the middle of the second take to warn about a loose floor board. Later on, Elmer Fudd makes an attempt on Bugs's life, causing Daffy to go on a rant, and just as he finishes, he steps on the same floor board and gets smacked in the face.
• Early in the South Park episode "About Last Night...", Cartman tries to sell (presumably stolen) TVs to Stan and Kyle. At the end of the episode, Randy finds his TV missing.
  • In an earlier episode, "How to Eat With Your Butt", a news report in the background mentions a man killing people with a motorcycle. In the last few minutes, said motorcyclist comes through and kills Kenny.
  • In "Imaginationland," a bunch of cute but psychotic woodland creatures kidnap Strawberry Shortcake and gouge out her eye. They decide to kill her by infecting themselves with AIDS and pissing into her open socket. Later, when Stan is exploring the place, he mentions off-camera that he found Strawberry Shortcake dead with some pee in her eye.
    • And let's not forget Lemmiwinks!
  • Early example: "The Succubus". There is a Running Gag of Chef's parents talking about various encounters with the Loch Ness Monster, with the monster wanting $3.50. Then, at the end of the episode, the eye doctor casually asks Cartman, "Say, you wouldn't happen to have $3.50, would you?"
• Used a lot on The Simpsons:
  • In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", Burch Barlow announces on the radio one of the few things the town of Springfield is never going to get rid of is the bats in the public library, a crazy woman's compost pile, and the mayor Joe Quimby. Later when Bart and Lisa go to the library, bats fly out and swarm them. This brick joke has even carried onto many other episodes that feature the library.
  • "A Tale of Two Springfields" starts off with Homer trying to get a badger out of Santa's Little Helper's doghouse, before being distracted by the discovery that Springfield now has two area codes, which eventually leads to the main plot of the town being divided in two and the fight over which side will get to host a concert by The Who. (The badger even looks through the window, only for Homer to essentially tell it its role in the story is over.) Once the town is reunited, we cut to the hills above it, where the badger is leading its fellows to attack.
    • If you watch the American syndicated version, it quickly becomes a What Happened to the Mouse? moment, as all scenes with the badgers trying to incorporate themselves in the story are cut, along with the ending.
  • On the Treehouse of Horror story "B.I.: Bartifical Intelligence," Bart jumps out of Patty and Selma's window, aiming for the pool. He yells "COWA-" and is cut short when he hits the ground, ending up in a coma. Later, he wakes up, yelling "-BUNGA!"
  • In "The Front," the opening scene features Homer getting a plunger stuck to his head. The episode moves on to feature a B-plot of Homer being revealed to have never graduated high school and studying to finally get his degree. The final scene features him getting it and declaring that at his next high school reunion he'll have nothing to be ashamed of. Flash forward to the next one, where he's somehow arrived at the reunion with a plunger on his head without either himself or Marge noticing.
  • In the episode "This Little Wiggy" early on after being set up for a play date with Bart Ralph shows him his backyard and he tells him of his friend the leprechaun who tells him to burn things; Bart replies sarcastically, "Right." At the end of the episode when the family thanks Ralph for organizing the plan to save Mayor Quimby from being electrocuted, the leprechaun appears on his shoulder and tells him "You did a fine job, laddy. Now you know what you must do. Burn the house down! Burn them all!" Ralph smiles.
  • One episode begins with Principal Skinner locking Bart and the bullies in a military-grade shelter underneath the school before Superintendent Chalmers's school inspection. Bart, who manages to crawl out through a vent, is supposed to free them, but ends up driving Groundskeeper Willie's tractor and running over the superintendent, leading to his expulson. The plot takes off from there, days or weeks go by (with the main focus switching from Bart trying to get an education now that he's not in school anymore and Lisa protesting against Whacking Day), and only at the very end of the episode does Skinner realize, to his horror, that the bullies are still in the basement shelter and the episode ends with Skinner and Groundskeeper Willie driving to the school with the boxes of mountain bikes promised to them.
  • In another Treehouse of Horror, in a parody of The Shining, towards the beginning of the trip to the hotel there's a throwaway gag where Lisa points out that they left Grandpa at the gas station, and nobody cares and they just keep driving. After Homer goes literally Ax Crazy, he chops down a door, only to see Grandpa, who has just arrived.
  • In "When You Dish Upon A Star", Homer meets Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, and Ron Howard. He shows them a movie script he has for them about a killer robot driving instructor who goes back in time for some reason, a buddy picture with a talking pie. They pass on it. At the end of the episode, Ron tells a film executive about an idea for a movie where a father has to choose which one of his children will live and which one will die. The executive decides to pass and then Ron tells him his other idea is about a killer robot driving instructor who goes back in time for some reason and has to make the exact same decision. The executive isn't sold on the idea until Ron adds that the robot's best friend is a talking pie.
  • On the season nine episode, "Realty Bites" (the episode where Marge becomes a real estate agent and Homer buys Snake's car at auction), there's the scene where Snake uses piano wire to decapitate Homer as he's driving. Homer narrowly misses it when he finds a gumball under the seat, but Milhouse's dad (who's driving in a similar red convertible) drives by, complaining about his sandwich not being cut, then ends up with his arm sliced off (originally, his sandwich was going to be cut, but the writers thought it was too predictable). When Marge loses her job as a real estate agent and goes to the unemployment office, Milhouse's dad is shown in line (along with Jimbo Jones, Lurleen Lumpkin [the country singer from "Colonel Homer" who fell into drug problems as seen in "Marge vs. The Monorail"], Mr. Burns's son from "Burns, Baby Burns," and the hippie in the fishing hat who got fired from his job as an "Itchy and Scratchy Show" writer on "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show" for speaking out creating Poochie) with his arm bandaged and in a sling.
  • Deep Space Homer has an opening where Homer loses an employee of the week award to an Inanimate Carbon Rod. After the entire episode goes past, with Homer going into space, and then saving his, Buzz Aldrin and the 3rd crewmember's life by jamming a 'bar' into a broken hatch they come back to earth. When they open the hatch, a gaggle of reporters ask them how they survived. Buzz Aldrin then says Homer is the hero because he jammed the bar into the hatch. Homer pulls out the bar, lifts it into the air in triumph. A reporter asks "What is that?" and another exclaims "It's an inanimate carbon rod!" The rod is then featured on the cover of Time Magazine.
  • "Itchy And Scratchy Land" has a scene where Homer and Marge go to T.G.I. McScratchy's and talk to a waiter who is getting tired of their constant New Years' celebration. Later, Marge and Lisa pass a control booth, where one viewer notices "another jumper on the roof of T.G.I. McScratchy's".
  • One nickname in the credits "Treehouse of Horror XIV" is "The Repubican Party". One nickname in "Treehouse of Horror XV" is "No, Seriously, The Republican Party".
  • In the "It's a Good Life" parody in "Treehouse of Horror II" America becomes Bonerland to correspond with Bart's history test. Marge later takes Bart to Dr. Marvin Monroe who is a member of the Bonerland Medical Association.
• In an early episode of Rocko's Modern Life, "Carnival Knowledge", Rocko and Heffer go to a carnival. One of the activities involves launching a frog into the air and having it land on a lilypad. After several attempts Rocko finally launches one in the air and it doesn't come down...until the very end of the episode, where the frog finally lands on a lilypad, meaning Rocko won the game.
  • In "Teed Off", Heffer is working as a groundskeeper at a golf course, and is seen using his tractor to make crop circles. At the end of the episode, it shows a pair of aliens visiting the course at night, looking at Heffer's crop circle, and one of the aliens says "Who keeps writing this stuff?!"
• The Fairly OddParents uses this trope often. One prominent example can be found in the season one episode "Father Time": Timmy wishes for heat vision at the start of the episode in what appears to be a gag demonstrating Timmy's stupidity; the wish is promptly forgotten once the main plot kicks in. Towards the end of the episode, Timmy remembers the heat vision and uses it to set things right.
  • Another example in the same episode has present day Cosmo and Wanda talking 70's Bill Gates out of naming his idea of linking every computer in the world "The Internet", getting him to call it "The Timmy" instead. At the end of the episode, Timmy's Dad mentions buying a new trophy from the Timmy, with Mom referring to Timmy as Internet.
  • The heat vision comes back during "Escape from Unwish Island" in season five, when Timmy rummages through a closet of old wishes for items and remembers that he still has the ability. Whereupon they all explode.
    • In fact, Timmy never unwished Heat Vision, and he will periodically remember this whenever he needs it.
• In the beginning of one episode of The Inspector (part of the Pink Panther series), the Inspector gets Sgt. Deux-Deux to loan him money in order to capture a notorious pick-pocket, despite Deux-Deux warning him that this is not a wise idea. This is forgotten once the pick-pocket steals the money from the Inspector. In the end after he is captured we find out why the sergeant was reluctant to loan him money: it was a child's play toy, and the Inspector ended up in prison with the villain for counterfeit charges.
• The Emperors New Groove has, towards the beginning of the film, Yzma and Kronk sneaking into the hidden laboratory. However, when Kronk pulls one of the two levers, it drops Yzma into a pit of crocodiles. She re-emerges, kicking away a crocodile in the process and asks "Why do we even have that lever?" before Kronk pulls the right lever and they enter the lab. Cut to the final conflict when Pacha and Kuzco reach the palace. The first scene we see is a wet Kuzco entering the chamber, kicking away a crocodile in the process and asking "Why does she even have that lever?"
  • And then when she's betrayed by Kronk, she uses a similar lever to get rid of him. This sets up another brick joke.
    • "Whoa! Who would have guessed that would lead me out here?"
  • "You know, in my defense, all your poisons look alike; you might want to think about relabeling some of them."
• In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Dead Reckoning", Deadman hijacks Superman's body, cutting him off just as he's telling Wonder Woman about a place with "milkshakes so thick--". Halfway through the episode, Deadman finally leaves him, and Superman picks up right where he left off: "You have to eat them with a spoon! (Beat) ...Why am I in Africa?"
  • This joke was done all the more skillfully, as the first thing Deadman says immediately upon possessing Supes was "I need your help."

Wonder Woman (surprised at the serious tone in Deadman's voice): That's a pretty thick shake.

• • Word of God says that they were going to do one about Amazo in the last episode but forgot. Amazo said that he was going to flee several light-years away during a battle against Grundy in one episode, and did, failing to return before the end of the episode. They were going to include a gag in the finale showing Amazo sitting on an asteroid somewhere, wondering whether or not it was safe to return.
• In the movie version of Coraline, the eponymous character is offered some taffy-like candy in a bowl from her two elderly neighbors. The candy is so old and sticky, however, that she's unable to pry a single piece from the wad, and the candy winds up stuck to the ceiling, bowl and all. An unrelated conversation ensues between Coraline, Miss Spink, and Miss Forcible, distracting the viewer, and when Miss Spink declares, "Giraffes don't just fall from the sky, Miriam!" the candy comes unstuck and the bowl comes crashing down to everyone's great surprise.
• In Monsters vs. Aliens, one feature of the war room is a Big Red Button that launches all the nukes in the United States... which is right next to an identical button that activates the latte machine. At the end of the film, after the first half of the credits, the buffoonish President pushes the wrong button.
• In Tex Avery's "Symphony In Slang" (where Webster literally interprets a recent arrival's slang-filled story), there's a throwaway visualization of how Mary wouldn't talk to the guy. "The cat got her tongue." (It shows an innocent cat who immediately looks devious and holds out a tongue.) At the end, when asked why Webster couldn't make sense of it, the slang guy says, "What's the matter -- cat got your tongue?" We then see the same tongue-holding cat, only with a halo.
• Bounty Hamster, "The Good, the Bad, and the Adorable": Some of the cute aliens accidentally go shooting off on a huge rocket engine and end up encircling the entire planet, to return just in time to run over the villain in the climax. Marion then turns to face the audience and says: "I bet you forgot about those guys, didn't you?"
• During an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the girls find Mojo Jojo in a store complaining about the firmness of a loaf of french bread, which he uses to bonk the store's owner over the head. After the girls beg Mojo to help them fight evil with evil and nearly failing, the Monster of the Week pushes Mojo's Berserk Button. Mojo finishes his attack by bonking him over the head with the loaf of french bread.
• The Venture Brothers throws in a few of these now and then. The writers love screwing with the fans, so they deliberately dredge up details from forgettable episodes to use again later. A notably picture-perfect example is an episode in which Baron Underbheit tries to marry Dean, and one of his underlings gives the rest of Team Venture an invitation to the Baron's wedding to "Dawn" Venture - causing Hank to demand to know why his father has been hiding a sister from him. Cut to the finale of the next season, when Hank thinks that a meeting at "dawn" means that the boys will finally meet their sister, with no explanation to anyone who didn't remember the previous episode. In fact, the scene that sets up this joke is so random and at odds with in-episode continuity that this may have been planned from the start in some fashion.
  • Hank mentioning how he once jumped off the roof of the Venture Compound dressed as Batman in the season three finale. It was one of his many deaths shown in the first episode of season two. He then wondered if he might have just dreamed it.
  • If you're scratching your head on how the Monarch is invulnerable, recall the season 3 opener, where he shares a joke on how he managed to convince one Captain Sunshine that he was.
    • Captain Sunshine himself was first mentioned in a throwaway line all the way back in the first season finale. Other characters who appeared after being alluded to early on include Sgt. Hatred, Monstroso and Truckules.
• In Disney's Aladdin sequel, The Return of Jafar, Jafar was using thief Abiz-Mal to help in his revenge scheme against Aladdin & Company. Abiz-Mal uses up his first two wishes in rapid succession (He wishes for a sunken treasure, so Jafar brings him to the bottom of the ocean and the second wish brings him back). At one point near the end, Abiz-Mal gets stuck in a tree. After Jafar is destroyed and the credits roll, we cut back to Abiz-Mal, still in the tree, saying "Does this mean I don't get my third wish?"
• Catscratch has a particularly well done example. In the pilot, Gordon tries to convince Blik to not enter a barbecue contest by telling him an old Scottish tale that involves a seal woman deceiving some guy. Waffle's view of the Aesop is to never trust a seal woman. In the 14th episode, Gordon turns the attacking Banshee to stone using a falsetto voice (look, just roll with it), and the Banshee statue cracks open to reveal... a seal woman.
• Robot Chicken, of all shows, manages it (if you can manage to forget something in one minute) in "InuYasha". It's not actually about Inuyasha.
  • In another episode, the pilot and co-pilot of an airplane get into an argument which leads to the plane losing altitude. The scene quickly changes before the plane crashes. A couple skits later, a boy on a farm asks a chicken why it crossed the road, only to watch the airplane come crashing into his farm.
• In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Unfair Science Fair", Candace competes with a girl named Wendy for a job at Mr. Slushy Burger. At one point Wendy dismisses Candace as being "slow as molasses", to which Candace lamely retorts "Well, maybe I'll call you... something slower than molasses, that's for sure!" At the end of the episode, after both girls have lost their chance at the job due to their bickering, Candace suddenly points to Wendy and shouts "Snail! I'll call you 'Snail'!"

Wendy: Ooh, you're quick.

• • Also performed literally; at the end of "Toy to the World", the toy company executives follow up Phineas and Ferb's Perry the Platypus Inaction Figure by marketing a brick as a toy. A few episodes later, Doofenshmirtz plots to destroy a billboard that's blocking his view of the skyline, a billboard that happens to be advertising the Brick toy.
  • "Hip Hip Parade" has Candace under the threat of "the Pharaoh's curse" from Linda if she doesn't uphold a promise to spend the day without bringing up Phineas and Ferb. Naturally, Candace is unable to keep that promise, and in The Stinger, a man in a tacky Egyptian outfit walks up to Candace, confirms her identity, and tells her "Curse you."
  • There was another one in the episode "What Do It Do?", after a seemingly-abandoned joke setup.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz: See, Perry the Platypus, my new jet-rocket-skiff has more hidden traps than... um... eh, ah... what's something with a lot of hidden traps? Heh... Wow, I felt so confident going into that sentence. (Over 4 minutes later) Dr. Doofenshmirtz: You know, Perry the Platypus, I just... a golf course! A golf course has lots of traps in it! That's what I should have said.

• • Performed true to the original joke in "Summer Belongs to You." Near the Beggining Doofenshmirtz launches a giant water balloon into orbit from the Tokyo Tower. only for it to drop back down near the end and help the titular pair and their friends finish their Epic Journey.
  • For a shorter example, At the end of "Bad Hair Day," Dr. Doofenschmirtz was mistaken for an endangered orangutan, shot in the butt with a tranquilizer dart and placed in a wildlife sanctuary, where he sings a song which includes the line "...Though I'll probably lose consciousness in seventeen seconds". Exactly seventeen seconds later, he loses consciousness and falls over, thus failing to finish his song.
• Name one episode of Johnny Test that doesn't have a Brick Joke. You can't. The series lives on Brick Jokes.
• In an episode of American Dad at one point Stan and his friends are held hostage in a crime-lord's shed and Stan unleashes his secret weapon: a hamster named Cheesers whom immediately scurries away and he is quickly forgotten. At the end, Stan volunteers to stay behind under the condition that he would have a leg sawed off. He comes to the office on a crutch, but reveals that he didn't really lose a leg, and when asked how he escaped, replies, "Cheesers came back."
• In an episode of Metalocalypse, Murderface mentions a catfish that can swim up a urine stream and lay eggs in your body when they're going to the Amazon. This is quickly dismissed as Murderface being himself... until he urinates off the side of a boat and becomes "pregnant with parasites".
• In the first episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot, Jenny ignores repeated warnings of an asteroid heading for Earth, because it's a type that always burns up in the atmosphere. Later in the same episode, she's having fun with Brad and Tucker and accidentally kicks a hacky-sack into space. Later still, she gets an alert that the asteroid won't burn up in the atmosphere, because its mass was increased... by a hacky-sack.
  • In another episode, Jenny tries out for Cheerleading and as part of her 'routine', throws another cheerleader into the air, presumably to catch her. The cheerleader is hurled screaming into the sky and is never heard from again... until the very end of the episode, right after the screen cuts to black, when she suddenly falls back into frame asking what she missed. Mind you that an entire high school season went by during the ep.
• In an episode of Drawn Together, Ling Ling is seen trimming a plant to resemble two guys, with one pointing a gun at each other's head. Toot comes in, and Ling Ling asks the plant what he should do, with the one with the gun to his head saying "Don't leave, he'll kill me!". The scene continues on, and eventually everyone leaves the room, followed by an off-screen gunshot and leaves flying all over the place.
• In an episode of King of the Hill, Hank's favorite bait store is going under, and, unbeknownst to Hank, the owner is about to set fire to it so he can claim the insurance. Near the end of the episode when Hank is in court, the bait shop owner is being brought up on insurance fraud charges.
  • In the episode "Hank's Unmentionable Problem", while looking at experimental remedies for Hank's constipation, Luanne describes moxibustion, to which Hank responds "If anyone tried that to me I'd kick his ass!" During a montage later in the episode, we see Hank receiving moxibustion, and when the moxibustionist turns around, Hank gets up and punts him in the rear end.
  • In the episode "Ser-punt" Hank says he gets more staring and whispers than that bank clerk who between genders, much later in the episode Hank goes to the bank and a large hulking woman with a manish face at the bank booth angrily glares at him.
• In an episode of Totally Spies!, the girls are on a mission in Egypt, and one of the gadgets they've been given is a superpowered shovel. When Clover first attempts to use it, it spins out of control and it disappears into the horizon. Near the end of the episode, they need to find a way to split up three magical golden scarabs that are giving the villain of the episode immortality and endless power. At that point, the shovel returns, and Clover is able to grab hold of it and use it to separate the scarabs.
• In Claymation Comedy of Horrors, when the carnival ride he's testing malfunctions, Vince is sent flying off in the ride's rocket. In the end, Vince comes back, still flying in the rocket, and inadvertently ruins Wilshire's scheme.
• In the Wallace and Gromit short "A Grand Day Out" Wallace, upon arriving on the moon, casually kicks a ball into the air and then waits for it to come down before moving on. Later at the end of the credits the ball is shown still floating in space.
• Nigga Moment (perpetual conflict between niggas over trivial or ignorant things) + Nigga Synthesis (perpetual bond between niggas over trivial or ignorant things) = COMPLETE DISASTER.
  • "It is a beautiful day to fuck shit up! Hahahahahaaa!!"
• My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has several:
  • In "Swarm of the Century", upon first seeing a Parasprite, Pinkie Pie says that she needs to go find a trombone. She proceeds to gather up various instruments over the course of the episode, all while the Parasprites wreak havoc on Ponyville. At the end of the episode, she saves the day by leading the Parasprites out of Ponyville using the music of the instruments she gathered, except for the trombone. Then, we see the destruction the Parasprites have caused, leading to Pinkie playing Losing Horns with her trombone as the screen irises out.
  • In "Call of the Cutie", Apple Bloom tried making cupcakes. It doesn't end well. The cupcakes are seemingly forgotten, until near the end when an unfortunate background pony tries one.
  • In "A Bird in the Hoof", Rainbow Dash tries to get a reaction out of the British Royal Guards-inspired guards of Princess Celestia. Predictably, she fails. Towards the end, she convinces Philomena the phoenix to tickle their noses, causing them to break character, leading to an Everypony Laughs Ending.
  • In "Party of One", all of Pinkie Pie's friends are surprised that she has scheduled a party following her pet alligator's birthday. They respond as follows:

"This afternoon? As in 'this afternoon' this afternoon?"

• • • ...and are forced to make excuses why they can't attend. In the end of the episode, it was revealed that they were setting up a birthday party for Pinkie.
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, when fighting Tohru, Jackie tries to suggest to him to come work for the good guys at Section 13. One of the reasons he gives to Tohru is that Section 13 serves doughnuts on Tuesdays. At the end of the season, Tohru asks if he can work for the good guys now, as he heard they served doughnuts on Tuesday.
• In the series Arthur, Arthur was able to correctly guess the ISIS mainframe password (it was guest). In a few episodes later, two of the ISIS company girls hack into the computer, again joking about how easy it is.
• In the Two Stupid Dogs episode "Door Jam", the dogs grab a firefighter's boot to try to get into the store. Towards the end, a firefighter runs into the store with only one boot on.
• Ugly Americans has it where a preacher drops down to Hell to give Callie the Blood Oath that she is to marry Twane (despite her complete disgust at the idea). He is then brought back too near the end of the episode, finally feeling better from his fall only to be crushed by Callie's sister Lilith in her demon form.
• In Daria, Quinn asks to borrow some clothes from Daria for a "Fashion Don't Costume Gala". About 8 episodes later, Quinn is going through her closet to find something to give to charity, only to find one of Daria's jackets.
• When the explorers finally arrive at Atlantis in Atlantis the Lost Empire, a Drill Tank is actually parked near the edge of an underwater volcano outside the titular lost city. When the volcano finally erupts as a result of the villain's blimp exploding, when we see the explorers flying the crystallized ____ back to Atlantis, the drill tank actually falls into the lava.

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• Phineas and Ferb has a literal one. At the end of "Toy to the World", the creatively bankrupt toy executives are frantically trying to think of an idea for a new toy to follow up Phineas and Ferb's "Perry the Platypus Inaction Figure". They settle on marketing a brick to children. In another episode, Doofensmirtz wants to destroy the billboard that blocks his view of the city skyline. The billboard advertizes the Brick.
• Futurama: At the beginning of an episode, Fry entered the game show "Who Dares to be a Millionaire?" and the first question was about which instrument is used to hammer a nail. Option A: a hammer; Option B: a nail. Before Morbo had a chance to say what Option C was, Fry answered "nail". Near the episode's end, Fry tried to destroy an invention by hammering a nail on it... with another nail.
  • In How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back, we see an old man waiting in line at the Central Bureaucracy for his birth certificate. Cut to Lethal Inspection, aired 10 years later, the old man finally gets to Central Bureaucracy, only to have a heart attack right there.
• Megas XLR loves this trope. It occurs almost Once an Episode. In the pilot, for example, Coop misfires a missile, which strikes a PoPTV satellite. When the bad guys combine their Mechs into a ridiculously huge final robot and is about to crush the cast said satellite crushes into it.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In what is possibly a parody on the Trope Namer, "The Two Faces of Squidward" has a fish gain the ability to fly out of seeing handsome Squidward, and then proceed to lose his untied shoe. Later in the episode, the shoe falls through the roof of the Krusty Krab, causing SpongeBob to push Squidward into a pole to save him from being hit on the head with it.
  • The Great Snail Race has one. SpongeBob, who's training Gary, calls him a lady to "humiliate and demean him". Cut to Sandy, who says "I don't know why, but I think I'll kick SpongeBob's butt tomorrow.". The next day, at the end of the episode, Sandy comes out of nowhere, kicks SpongeBob off screen and yells "That's for yesterday SquarePants!".
  • In the beginning of The Smoking Peanut, Mr. Krabs is seen abusing the concept of Free Day, taking everything he can. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the oyster got upset because her pearl was stolen. Guess who stole it?
• In the Garfield and Friends episode "Attack of the Mutant Guppies", Garfield & Nermal contend with mutant guppies, who they defeat by tricking them into stomping each other down a sewer hole. Said guppies then appear in a subsequent US Acres Quickie out of a well; after scaring that show's cast off, one guppy turns to his fellows and says "Come on, lets see if we can get a spot on the Muppet Babies" (which aired opposite the show on CBS at the time).
• Ruby Gloom loves these. An early episode starts off with a game of hide and seek that is quickly forgotten as it becomes a murder-mystery. When the victim is finally found at the episode's end, it gets tagged by the seeker.
• The first episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot has a scene where Jenny is playing hacky sack and accidentally kicks her sack into space. Later, she gets an alert about an asteroid about to crash into Earth. Normally it's the sort of asteroid that just burns up in the atmosphere, but this one can make it through because its mass has been slightly increased...by a hacky sack.
  • Also in one episode, whilst auditioning for the cheerleader squad, Jenny accidentally throws a cheerleader up so high, she doesn't come down. At the end, after the Iris Out, said cheerleader falls onto the black screen and asks "What did I miss?".
• In the The Simpsons episode "Replaceable You", while Homer is talking to Roz, a beach ball falls out of nowhere into screen and Homer hits it off screen. A scene or two later, when they are in another room and Roz is meeting Mr. Burns, it falls back on screen in the room they're in, and Burns hits it off screen.
  • During "24 Minutes", Bart makes a phone call that accidentally gets crossed with that of Jack Bauer, so he leaves him a prank call. At the end of the episode, Bauer arrives to arrest Bart for the call.
  • We get a triple-whammy in "Hello, Gutter, Hello Fadder." In the opening, Moleman is seen being hassled by a pushy New Yorker, and is seen as defenseless. When he reappears later in the episode, he is revealed to be the king of the Mole People, and about to use an earthquake machine. His CMOA and Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner, "No One Escapes From The Fortress Of The Mole People", is immediately dashed, as the bungee cord both Homer and Otto were on rebounds and sends them back to the surface, to which Moleman dejectedly says "Well, except for that."
  • An extreme example in the episode "Ned N Edna's Special Blend" where a billboard in the opening sequence says "Sleazy Sam's, Remember That Name". At the very end of the episode, a store owned by Sleazy Sam is opened.
• Often common in various Pinky and The Brain shorts, typically as the means of Brain's plan failing out of control. In the first short, "Win Big", Pinky confounds Brain with his Ralph Kramden antics, which Brain ignores. Eventually getting onto the game show to win money to fund his plan to take over the world, he gets to the final round, upon which the question involves—Ralph Kramden. Brain loses. (The episode is a Shout-Out not only to The Honeymooners episode where this happens, but a Cheers episode that was inspired by The Honeymooners one, all with the same approach to the brick joke.)
• A season 2 episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender involved Sokka losing his boomerang after getting ambushed. He spends the first portion of the episode depressed over it and then seemingly forgets about it until during the climax he's randomly united with it, excitedly yelling "Boomerang, you do come back!"
  • In the same show, the episode "The Cave of Two Lovers" features the nomads singing the eponymous song:

Nomad: …'a mountain divides them apart!'…and, uh, I forget the next part, but then it goes…'SECRET TUNNEL!…' The same nomad, half an episode later: Hey, I just remembered the rest of that song! 'AND DIED…'

• • Made even funnier in that he remembers the part about death just as they're talking about possibly becoming lost in the cave forever.
  • In the season 1 episode "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part I)", Sokka is kidnapped by a spirit and taken into to the spirit world. When Aang saves him at the end of the episode, Sokka remarks that he really needs to use the bathroom. In the season 3 episode "The Avatar and the Firelord", Aang's behavior during his spirit vision of Roku prompts Katara to ask if the spirit world has bathrooms...to which Sokka responds that he knows for a fact that it does not.
• In the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode Swarm of the Century, one of the many instruments Pinkie Pie gathers is a trombone. It was NOT part of the parade Pinkie drove the Parasprites out of Ponyville with, but at the very end, when the ponies return to Ponyville and discover it's now in ruins, Pinkie plays the stock Losing Horns on it.
  • In Ponyville Confidential, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are under the mistaken impression that the way they will use the school newspaper to get their cutie marks is by making arts and crafts out of the paper, and Scootaloo patches up a bird's nest with it. Later, when the CMCs become writers for the school newspaper, Scootaloo, desperate for a story, decides to go to the same birds nest to get a story, but falls out of the tree and ends up covered in mud.
• Rocko the wallaby decides to spend a day at a carnival. Little does he know: it's full of rigged games. One game finds him trying to flip a frog onto a lilypad; pissed off by the frog's big mouth, he accidentally knocks it into the sky, forcing him to quit the game. Later, Rocko rides a roller coaster that goes so high that it leaves Earth's atmosphere. Guess who he finds up there, still calling him a loser?
  • After the diastrous roller coaster ride ends, a frustrated and spent Rocko decides to head home after being fleeced at every turn. Suddenly, there's a loud WHOOSH!, and the frog sails back down to Earth, landing perfectly on one of the lilypads. Shocked that someone finally beat one of his rigged games, the carnival's owner reluctantly gives Rocko a prize.
• Early on in the Dilbert episode "Y2K", Wally is buying credit cards off the phone, saying that when he gets his money,the year 2000 problem will wipe out the history of the bank's computers, so they can never bill him. At the very end of the episode, Wally goes to the bank to do just that...and the cashier pranks him and gives him some exploding dye dollar packs.

Cashier: No matter how many times I do that, it's still hilarious.

• In an episode of Justice League, Deadman possesses Superman while he's telling Wonder Woman about a restaurant ("They have milkshakes so thick...*possess* I need your help!" "That IS thick.") At the end of the episode, when Deadman finally leaves, Supes picks up right where he left off ("...You need a spoon to eat them. (Beat) Why are we in Africa?")
• In the teaser to one episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Steve makes fun of Dr. Weird by posing as him and shouting "Fill me with BBQ sauce because I'm dumb as hell!" A few episodes later...

Dr. Weird: GENTLEMEN! THERE'S A CHANCE THIS WILL WORK! Steve: Actually, you said there's no chance this will work. Dr. Weird: [looks back to a contraption pumping him full of BBQ sauce] FOOL! THAT WILL NEVER WORK!

• In "Lois Kills Stewie", when the family is tied up in rope, they decide to pass the time by starting a celebrity rumor. Peter suggests that Rob Schneider takes illigal immigrants from Home Depot and pays them to choke him in the shower. Later, it's shown to be apparently true.

Immigrant: Senor Rob Schnieder, you must come and see this! Rob Schneider: I don't pay you to watch TV, now get in the damn shower!