Scenery Porn/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Fleischer brothers were absolute masters at this. They had little 3D model sets that fit perfectly into their cartoons. This was long before computers, mind. See Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor for example.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender has plenty of pan-shots of huge and largely detailed locales. Ba Sing Se is a goldmine for this kind of thing. Sokka once took some swordsmanship lessons that included landscape painting of a valley and [dead link]a waterfall [dead link] (based of a real one in Iceland)... that he got to look at for all of three seconds. His picture was not very good. The Fire Nation royal palace is pretty nice, too.
  • Judging by the trailer and concept pictures, The Legend of Korra will be following in its parent series' footprints in this regard, but even moreso with an Animation Bump. Oh yeah.
  • Batman: Gotham Knight did this with the first of its six shorts -- the backgrounds are very beautiful and detailed, in contrast to the character designs, which are very simple and jagged.
  • The Clone Wars animated movie and TV shows. The backgrounds and ships are all lovingly detailed and realistic. The characters... Ohmygod! Is his hair made of solid plastic??
  • In just the second episode of Futurama, they managed to do this with the Moon.
  • Code Lyoko should be the posterchild for this trope. The lead background painter by the name of Frédéric Perrin created meticulous backgrounds which were utilised in almost every scene in the non-3D sequences of the show; Indoor, Outdoor, Industrial, Urban, Nature, you name it. Check out his work for yourself.
  • The animated series Dungeons & Dragons features quite a bit of Scenery Porn, especially when showing what formidable landscape the teens had wandered into that week.
  • Though some of it hasn't aged amazingly, both Beast Wars and Beast Machines deserve mad props for this.
  • Oban Star Racers is recognizable for its stunning, picturesque backgrounds. Special note must be taken of the alien vistas in the Oban arc.
  • The animated series Samurai Jack indulged in this on many occasions. Special mention should go to the episodes "Jack and the Three Blind Archers" and "Jack Remembers the Past".
  • The Tom and Jerry theatrical short Mouse in Manhattan.
  • The cartoon To Spring, which also has lots of Technicolor Porn with all the garish paints.
  • The Simpsons: "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" has a few examples of this, including the obligatory leaving-Manhattan-via-a-bridge ending (and "camera" zoom out).
  • The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 episode "The Ancient One" is full of these, once Leo arrives at the hidden land, where the backgrounds, instead of being in the series' usual style, are painted in a manner reminiscent of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • The backgrounds on Chowder look like they came out a Moroccan and Indian influenced Dr. Seuss book. The end results are gorgeous, as shown in this opening shot from the Knishmas special.
  • While not exactly unimaginably detailed, the backgrounds from the Looney Tunes Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner shorts were very, very pretty and had gorgeous colors.
  • The House of Mouse Prop Room (an extremely large basement that's supposed to house different props and backdrops for (almost) every animated Disney movie ever made), which for some reason, looks like something drawn by Mike Mignola of all people! Guess which Disney movie Mignola was involved in!
  • The French animated series Wakfu takes a few cues from Anime... including gorgeous artwork. While this devArt page offers more characters than background, those backgrounds you do see with the characters are the barest sample.
  • Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, particularly in the first five seasons.
  • Of all shows, Family Guy can do this when they want to. It's usually when they're trying to make the setting romantic or just pretty, for whatever reason. A more specific example would be the walk on the beach Adam West had with Lois' sister.
  • Thundercats 2011, is flush with many exquisitely rendered, unique environments jam-packed into each episode, detailed (and spoiled) here.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic manages to pull this off in its Sugar Bowl of a Flash cartoon. The color, fluidity and amount of tiny details crammed into general shots are impressive. Some episodes use backgrounds that have never been seen before and are unlikely ever to be seen again, like the Training Montage in "Call of the Cutie", the fall foliage in "Fall Weather Friends", and the Wild West scenery throughout "Over a Barrel". There's also the pegasus city of Cloudsdale, an entire [dead link] city made of clouds and rainbows. Its a pretty Sugar Bowl! In fact, Cloudsdale looks very similar to Mount Olympus from Disney's |Hercules (which also falls under this trope).