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Halfway Plot Switch: Difference between revisions
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If the plot switch occurs while [[Wrap It Up|wrapping up]] the story, it's a [[Gainax Ending]]. A [[Sacrificial Lion]] may fail to survive the switch. Can seem similar to [[First Law of Tragicomedies]], but that only applies to a specific change in tone (comedy to tragedy), where the plot is unaffected.
Compare [[Developing Doomed Characters]], which is about the time spent examining the mundane lives of the characters before something extraordinary happens that starts the "real" story.
{{examples}}
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== Film ==
* ''[[Funny People]]'' was advertised as a funny yet touching story of a famous comedian coming to terms with the value of his own life when he's diagnosed with a deadly disease. About halfway through the film, however, he's cured, and he spends the rest of the film getting entangled in a romance with his married ex-girlfriend.
* ''[[From Dusk till Dawn]]'' starts off as a crime-thriller about a pair of brothers on the lam who kidnap a family. Halfway through, they stumble into a slapstick-gore film with vampires. The second sequel rehashing the plot switch structure with a [[The Western|western]] with a post carriage theft plot preceding the horror.
* ''[[Psycho]]'' starts out following a woman who succumbs to temptation and steals money from her employer. The film changes to a horror story about forty minutes in when she's murdered out of the blue by a psychotic motel manager, and the rest of the film follows him. [[Alfred Hitchcock]] threw his original audience off even further by [[Dead Star Walking|hiring a well-known actress]] to play the [[Decoy Protagonist]].
* ''[[The Sound of Music]]''. A cute heart-warming family-friendly musical romp about a nun-turned-governess who teaches her wards the joy of music, and redeems their father, winning his love. And look, at the two hour mark they marry in a show-stopping number. Cue end-credits any time n--- oh wait no, that's right: Nazis. Cue 45 minutes of defiance, heartache, [[The Quisling|quislings]], and [[Dark Reprise|dark reprises]].
* ''The Cottage'', a British movie begins as a black comedy about a bungled kidnapping before turning into a dark horror comedy about a Leatherface-type slasher killer half way through. Presumably it was inspired by ''From Dusk Til Dawn''.
* The classic ''[[Predator]]'' starts with Arnie Schwarzenegger trying with his fellow soldiers to save an US politician from a band of South American terrorists. After he discovers that this was just an excuse to save some Black OPS agents, this plot is conveniently thrown out of the window when an alien with an explosive plasma [[Shoulder Cannon]] and a [[Visible Invisibility|cloaking device]] begins [[Hunting the Most Dangerous Game|hunting them]]. Unlike some other examples, this wasn't a surprise to original audiences, and the film begins with something falling to Earth from space.
* ''[[A View to a Kill]]'' starts out with an investigation of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] Max Zorin and his sale of EMP resistant microchips to [[Soviet Russia Ukraine and So On|Soviet Russia]]. [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] investigates by attending a horse sale, where he finds out that Zorin is also trading in illegal augmentations. Neither of these plot points make much of a difference in the end because right after Bond is escapes, the real plan to destroy Silicon Valley is introduced and a relatively minor clue (a check made out to Stacey Sutton) brings Bond to California.
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*** Like the book it was based on, [[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]] was specifically divided into three parts. The first introduces Alex and shows us the dystopian world in which he lives as we see him and his droogs go out and do all kinds of nasty things. Then we get to the second plot centered around the experimental rehabilitation technique, and finally the third story where Alex must deal with the effects of the technique.
* The first half of ''[[Stripes]]'' deals with the irreverent recruits just barely pulling it together to pass boot camp. The rest is about their first mission as they're sent to Italy to recover a militarized RV.
* ''[[The Descent (film)|The Descent]]'' is somewhere between this and [[Developing Doomed Characters]], as the film spends a while dealing with the personal interactions and physical hardships of a group of female spelunkers, then adds subterranean cannibals.
* ''[[Hancock]]'', rather infamously. It starts as a comedy about a superhero who really sucks at his job. Then halfway through, {{spoiler|it turns into a dramatic action movie when his PR person's wife turns out to be another superhero who was Hancock's former wife and they're both immortal}}. Needless to say, people weren't pleased.
* ''[[Life Is Beautiful]]'': Starts off as a romantic comedy, where Guido [[Unfortunate Names|Orefice]] eventually wins the affection of Dora and they have a son named Joshua. Switch time—Let's send them all to a concentration camp! Guido tries to make the best of the situation for Joshua by telling him that if he doesn't complain/cry and hides from the guards he would gain "points". 1000 would win a tank. {{spoiler|Just before the camp is liberated by the Americans, Guido gets caught by a guard and unceremoniously shot. The movie ends with [[Bittersweet Ending|an American tank at the gates to the camp, and Joshua exclaiming that he won]].}} Damn you, Roberto Benigni.
* ''Rat Pfink A Boo Boo''. The plot was altered during filming to accommodate anything and everything that passed through the director's hands. Most notably, when a gorilla suit became available, they wrote a gorilla into the movie. It suddenly shifts from being a gritty crime drama to a superhero spoof.
* ''Mortal Thoughts'' starts off as a [[Black Comedy]], then morphs into a [[Psychological Thriller]].
* ''[[Death Proof]]'' is about a group of attractive girls hanging out at a bar who meet a mysterious older named Stuntman Mike. And then... he kills them all, and we move onto a different group of girls.
* ''[[Frequency]]'' goes from a dramatic story about a son reconnecting with his dead father into a [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] thriller.
* Baz Luhrmann's ''[[Australia (2008 film)|Australia]]'' hits this midway through the film. Once Lady Ashley and the Drover deliver the cows to the dock, there's a [[Time Skip]], and it's suddenly revealed that the main villain has been fed to crocodiles by his second-in-command, the narrative has jumped forward several years, and Australia is suddenly in the midst of World War II. During all this, the plot changes from "deliver the [[McGuffin]]" to "rescue the child protagonist and save the Aboriginal children in the midst of Japanese bombing runs".
* This shows up in a ''science documentary'', of all things. Called ''The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schon'', it's about the titular scientist, a titan in the field of theoretical physics. The first two-thirds of the program are about his early career and work in [[Nanomachines|nanotechnology]]. It builds up some drama around the unnerving applications- a weapon of assassination, an engineered biowarfare agent, the feared [[Grey Goo]] scenario, and so forth. Then around the forty-minute mark, a student reading one of Schon's papers picks up a clue that leads to his real "dark secret": {{spoiler|He was a fraud. His papers were lies built upon fake experiments he never conducted and "evidence" he made up out of whole cloth.}} Whether this is a masterful subversion of [[Science Is Bad]] hysteria, a piss-take on the idea that the scientific community knows everything, a [[Stealth Parody]] of sensational documentaries, or just a flaw in one such documentary is up to the viewer.
* The little known 1988 film ''Permanent Record'' spends about twenty minutes convincing you it's just throw away teen angst when the kid we thought was the protagonist {{spoiler|leaps off a cliff to his death}} between jump cuts.
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* ''[[Lost Highway]]'' by [[David Lynch]] is a particularly wild example. Out of nowhere, Bill Pullman simply turns into Balthazar Getty and a completely different story unfolds...but not really.
* ''[[Tokyo Zombie]]'' - the first half of the movie centers on the main characters trying to escape the zombies on the streets of Tokyo. [[Time Skip|Five years later]], and it's set in a bizarre society controlled by the rich, and Fujio is now a professional 'zombie-wrestler'.
* ''Private Benjamin'' starts out as a story about a woman making it through basic training, but mid-way through the movie, she's not even in the Army anymore and the conflict revolves around her and her lover.
* The "Oedipus Wrecks" segment of ''New York Stories'' has the [[Woody Allen]] character's [[My Beloved Smother|Beloved Smother]] vanishing during a disappearing act of a magic show. Audience expectations are [[Subverted]], however, when she appears as a giant head floating over Manhattan, to torment her son in front of the entire world.
* To the extent that ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'' has a plot, it pulls one of these. There's little plot to be seen in the first half, but once Pedro decides to run for school office, most all focus goes to his campaign.
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* The John Sayle's film ''Limbo'' starts off as a movie about a fisherman in a small Alaskan town who starts a romance with a single mom and the trouble he has bonding with her daughter. Then they go on a boat trip with his wayward brother who is suddenly attacked and murdered by drug dealers the brother owes money to. The three characters are then forced to seek shelter and fight to survive on a nearby uncharted, uninhabited island.
* The Kaiju film ''[[Rodan]]'' starts with a mining company dealing with a localized infestation of quite-large prehistoric insects, and then switches to two gigantic pterosaurs emerging from the mine and causing havoc across Japan.
* ''[[Birdemic]]'' does this somewhat jarringly. The first half is mostly about the male and female meeting and falling in love as their careers are taking off then the movie takes us live to a bird assault already in progress.
* Another documentary that manages it is ''Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows''. It starts as a straightforward year-in-the-life documentary of one of the most popular wrestlers of the era. Then comes the [[Montreal Screwjob]], and all of a sudden it's about one of the most dramatic betrayals in wrestling history.
* [[No Country for Old Men]] starts off as a thriller about a young man who is trying to get away from a murderous psycopath, all building up to a big showdown at the end whilst the Sheriff tries to understand what's going on. {{spoiler|In the last 30 minutes, Llewellyn Moss is killed ''offscreen'' by a few minor Mexican criminals, and most of the rest of the film is centered around Sheriff Bell trying to cope with his inability to keep up with the community's high crime rate}}.
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* ''[[Flight Plan]]'' starts with a recently-widowed woman waking up on a plane with her daughter nowhere to be found with no one on the flight crew or among the passengers remembeing a little girl. Soon, even she begins to doubt her own sanity, especially when the captain proposes that her daughter died along with her husband, and that she's in deep denial over this. After discovering that it's all a plot to blackmail the airline for a lot of money and frame her for it, the movie promptly turns from a psychological thriller into an action flick, where she tries to find her daughter, while trapped on a plane with a killer and his accomplice.
* 1980's Russian movie ''Air Crew'' (''Экипаж'') starts off as a [[Kitchen Sink Drama]] and then switches to a [[Disaster Movie]].
* Another Russian Movie, "The Arrows of Robin Hood" ("Стрелы Робин Гуда") has the heroes spent the first half helping an [[Impoverished Patrician|impoverished knight]] reunite with his [[Love Interest]]. They succeed, and the two get married, only to be fatally shot immediately afterwards. They are then never mentioned again, and the rest of the movie is devoted to Robin rescuing Maid Marian from the Sheriff.
* ''Evil Dead Trap'' starts off as a [[Slasher Film]] about snuff films, then becomes a near-incomprehensible supernatural horror story.
* ''[[Mad Max]]'': Beyond Thunderdome starts off as a typical post-apocalyptic action flick until Max is brought to the Oasis. Suddenly, the whole situation in Barter Town is left behind, and the theme changes to something akin to the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. Only when Max and the kids reach the Barter Town Underground are the two plots combined.
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* In episode 24 of ''[[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'' Umeko interrogated an alien about a bomb; then the rest of the episode was about the alien, and they only picked it up at the end.
** An episode of Turboranger subverts this. It seems to do this with the earlier problem of Youhei being poisoned by the monster of week being quickly overshadowed 5 minutes later by the fact that in attempts to recover the antidote for him Haruna received a blow to the skull and now thinks she's part of the bad guys with poor Youhei forgotten about. However it turns out Haruna was only fooling to get the antidote and both plots wind up tying together after all.
* ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' is fond of this, especially as seasons continue. They often end up handling cases that only look sexual that change halfway in to something completely unrelated. They never bother to explain why [[The Main Characters Do Everything|the non-special victims case isn't handed to another department]].
** One example is the episode "Vulnerable", which starts out as a case about an old woman being sexually assaulted and turns into a tangentially related storyline about another, non-sexual victim in a nursing home where the first victim just happened to be.
** One particularly bad example from recent memory was "Responsible" where the entire reason for SVU to be there was "We found her on a bed that had ejaculate on it" and any sexual motive was ruled out ''right after the opening credits'' so that the plot could dive into a pretty [[Narm]]-ful examination of teenage drinking.
*** I guess and this is kinda stretching it but it could be considered a child endangerment case (which is SVU territory if I remember) because they were minors.
** An even worse one would be "Wildlife" where they were called to a case because a bodily fluid was found on a victim saliva. The murder weapon was described as a number of sharp uneven pointed things (obviously teeth) and there did not appear to be any sexual aspect to the crime. This did not stop them from investigating animal smugglers which resulted in them nearly blowing an FBI investigation getting an innocent man (and his pet tiger) eaten by wild hyenas and having Elliot shot (granted it was implied he took the case so he would not have to spend time with his family).
** Possibly the weirdest, though, was the one that had what looked like a case of child molestation ''somehow'' turn out to actually be a [[Government Conspiracy]] to test new poisons on poor immigrants, essentially [[For the Evulz]].
* Due to the high unlikeliness of drawing out a single plot over 24 hours, ''[[24]]'' often switches plots midseason.
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** Also ''I Hold Your Hand In Mine'' which starts out like a regular love song but then reveals that {{spoiler|the hand isn't attached to her body}}.
* [[The Beatles]]' [[wikipedia:A Day in the Life|"A Day in the Life"]] is the ultimate Halfway Plot Switch song. Paul even confesses that the middle part was a piano piece that he was initially working on independently.
* "Charming Weather" from Lionel Monckton's ''The Arcadians''. It starts off obviously leading into a marriage proposal - until {{spoiler|they realise they aren't alone}}, and it turns into {{spoiler|banal smalltalk}} for the chorus. Unusual since, being music, it can ''do it all over a second time''. Youtube has a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2_mEwNq86M rather badly performed recording of it].
* Katrinah Jospehina by [http://www.universalhallpass.com Universal Hall Pass]. The first half of the song is the tale of a girl (the eponymous Katrinah) who decided to explore beneath the earth. The second half consists of a twisted, echoing beat accompanying backwards-sounding fragments of the lyrics. This change is never really explained, but it's heavily implied that {{spoiler|Katrinah is either mentally ill or trapped in hell... or both.}}
* Arlo Guthrie starts out "[[Alice's Restaurant (music)||The Alice's Restaurant Massacree]]" by telling about how he was arrested for littering on Thanksgiving, but he switches halfway through to talk about going to visit the draft board. Eventually it all ties together.
* [[Gorillaz]]'s Empire Ants song, in the new Plastic Beach album. It starts with 2D singing, backed by sweet almost lift-like tropical tunes. Then, full stop, and it starts what appears a new song, with electro-techno sounds, bass, and even new vocals, from guest artist Little Dragon. And it's awesome.
* "Miserable Lie" by [[The Smiths]] seems constructed out of ''three'' separate songs, opening with a slow, gentle, serious introduction that seems to represent the end of a relationship. The song then turns on a dime to an uptempo number with a series of bitter, (yet comical) stream-of-consciousness lyrics. This shift in tone gets escalated to a manic level in the final part of the track, as Morrissey switches to a falsetto voice, howling about his perceived inadequacies in life and love. It can be argued that the ''theme'' of the lyrics stays constant, but then again, said theme is dominant in most of The Smiths' songs, as well as Morrissey's solo work.
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** One 1995 story had Jason entering a chess contest with Roger and wins $50, thus turning the story into Jason using the money to taunt his siblings. Then, the plot shifts to Jason spending all his money on 5,000 gumballs, which he eats all in one weekend. THEN, the plot shifts to Jason getting his first cavity as a result of eating all the gumballs, before finally leading up to Jason's first dentist visit.
*** Probably a bigger one occurred in 1999, with a big story of Roger going on a business trip out of state, then returning home to find Jason in stitches following a Hot Wheels accident. After two days focusing on Jason and his stitches, the plot switches to Roger quitting work to spend more time with his family. He then gets scammed out of $199.99 in an infomercial. He then tries trading stocks on the internet, and winds up losing $11,000 in the second hour (after earning $3,000 in the first hour). After everyone at Roger's work goes crazy without Roger there to mess things up, he finally gets his job back and everything is back to normal.
* A ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' story had Calvin and Hobbes creating their G.R.O.S.S club and then accidentally pushing Calvin's mother's car out of the garage, leading to the duo running away from home.
** In another arc, Calvin is trying to do his homework when gravity reverses, causing him to get stuck on the ceiling. Just after everything reverts to normal, he starts to grow bigger and bigger until he falls off the Milky Way Galaxy. As he puts it, "this has been a very peculiar afternoon."
* A [[Heart of the City]] seven-week arc started with Dean mourning the end of [[Star Wars]], and ended with Heart dreaming she was in summer school. It starts [http://www.gocomics.com/heartofthecity/2006/04/10 here].
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* Fantasy Games Unlimited's ''Year of the Phoenix''. The players are told to create astronaut characters for a science fiction/space game. Partway through the first adventure the game suddenly changes to an [[After the End]] saga in Soviet controlled America 200 years later.
* ''A Lesser Shade Of Evil'' seems inordinately fond of this idea (non-[[GMs]] are asked ''not to even read the book's introduction''), especially given that the "switch" happens during the first session. [[PCs]] are asked to make [[Exalted]]-esque demigods in a [[High Fantasy]] setting... only to learn during a centuries-spanning fast forward that {{spoiler|there is no magic in this world, all their powers come from genetic engineering, the people who chose them for this duty are having a falling out, and the results of this falling out lead to an [[After the End]] setting in which the [[PCs]] have mastered a variety of scientific principles and must use them to help humanity cling to life.}} Whew.
* ''[[Dungeons
** Adventure S3 ''Expedition to the Barrier Peaks'' starts off as a standard "clean out the monster filled dungeon" scenario. After the [[PC]]s enter, they discover that the dungeon is actually part of a derelict spacecraft and they're fighting alien monsters armed with high tech weapons.
== Theater ==
* The play ''[[Done to Death]]''. Act 1 is all about meeting the 5 lead characters and setting up their writing styles and the show's fantasy sequences. Then there is a sudden death at the end of Act 1. Act 2 is then all about solving the murders.
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* ''[[Star Ocean]]s'' [[Star Ocean the Second Story|2]] and [[Star Ocean 3|3]] featured this. Halfway into the second game, {{spoiler|the planet you're on (and [[The Chosen One|its relevant prophecy]]) is essentially destroyed, throwing away nearly the entirety of the plot that preceded this event.}} In addition, halfway into the 3rd title, {{spoiler|you come to realize that the entire universe you live in is a computer simulation, pretty much throwing away the entire "war" plotline that had been going up 'till then}}.
* ''[[Xenogears]]''. At first, the plot is about two nations that have waged war on each other for generations. Then, the plot changes to {{spoiler|overthrowing Solaris, a hidden country which ruthlessly manipulates world events behind the scenes}}. After ''that'', the plot switches to {{spoiler|killing god (not ''the'' God, who is also in the game and apparently being used as an extremely long-lasting battery, but a sentient interstellar war machine that created humans on the planet to serve as its biological components)}}.
* Happens more than once during the course of ''[[Chrono Cross]]''. The game starts with Serge finding himself in another world where he died as a child, and needing to figure out how and why it happened. {{spoiler|Then Serge's body gets switched with Lynx and you need to find a way to undo it.}} Then you finally defeat the guy who's been presented as the ''[[Big Bad]]'' most of the game, only for {{spoiler|the dragon gods to merge together to form the "Time Devourer"}} resulting in another Big Bad to face who has nothing to do with the first. Then you defeat '''that''' Big Bad, and {{spoiler|discover you have to save Schala from the true Time Devourer, who was manipulating the false one.}}
* The [[Stealth Based Game]] ''[[Spy Fiction]]'' starts off as a campy spy game about secret agents investigating a virus being made by a weapons manufacturer. Then these characters are all killed off and the last half of the plot is about [[Metal Gear|fighting a terrorist who's disguising himself by wearing glasses and pushing his hair back who is the protagonist's brother who was probably created in a government soldier cloning project and then the protagonist's father (who is a secret agent turned terrorist and wears an eyepatch) shows up out of nowhere and the protagonist abruptly starts lecturing people about the meaning of war and]]... I guess they [[Follow the Leader|knew their audience]].
* ''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance]] 2'' starts with Nick Fury invading Latveria illegally, which leads to the Registration act coming into effect. A super hero [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]] breaks out... for three missions. Then it is dropped for {{spoiler|The Fold, a sentient network formed from nanites injected into super villains in order to control them. As the world descends into chaos, everyone, naturally, stops caring about whose side they are on, and both forces unite to defeat The Fold. Afterwards, the Registration Act is pretty much made redundant and void by the Government. Despite the fact that no one actually dies because of their conflict, and neither side really does anything incredibly bad to the other, Cap and Iron Man feel that their team won't be quite the same as it was before the war. But they still are happy to work with one another again.}}
* ''[[Disgaea]]''. The first half of the game focuses on Laharl's quest to claim his throne. After he succeeds, the second half, a [[Space Opera]] spoof, focuses on the human world. When the mastermind behind the {{spoiler|invasion}} is revealed, it leads to a [[Rage Against the Heavens]] story, and the two stories intertwine together.
* The whole Blorbs disease in ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story|Mario And Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]''. It was at the start an important issue alongside the whole 'Fawful taking over the kingdom' thing, but very quickly got dropped and rarely ever mentioned again (the last reference is how the Miracle Cure cured all cases of the disease in the kingdom, just as it smashes down the Dark Star barriers).
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* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' switches half-way from [[Cyberpunk]] to [[Space Opera]].
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'''s Vashj'ir zone. In the wake of the Cataclysm, a new island is formed several miles off the coast of Stormwind. Both factions begin sending troops, with the Alliance seeking to secure Stormwind's coast and the Horde wanting the island as a staging point for an attack. However, on the way there, the [[Player Character]]'s ship is attacked and destroyed by the [[Kraken and Leviathan|Kraken-like Ozumat]], and from then on Vashj'ir is about helping the Earthen Ring fight Ozumat and the Naga. Exactly what happened to the island is never explained, and while you can travel to it, other than a flightmaster there's nothing there.
* Zig-zagged in the first case of [[Ace Attorney Investigations]] 2. It begins with an asassination attempt on the president of a foreign country, with Edgeworth looking for the perpetrator. About halfway through, you find out that the president is fine, but one of his bodyguards has been found dead, shifting the case to a more traditional murder investigation as per the rest of the series. {{spoiler|Then you learn that the asassination attempt was staged, and the murder plotline is put on hold until you can prove it. Afterwards, theb murder plot resumes, but at the end of the case you find out that, amidst the fake asassination, someone planned to kill the president for real, setting up a [[Sequel Hook]] for the next four cases.}}
* ''[[Dark Souls]]'' starts out implying that the player is trying to cure the Darksign, but halfway through the game after ringing the Twin Bells of Awakening, the story switches from focusing curing undeath and instead about an [[Ancient Conspiracy]] and the [[Forever War]] regarding the First Flame. This event even has its own [[Sacrificial Lion]].
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{{quote|'''Lisa''': All I wanted was to save those animals while Bart became a drummer, but [[Lampshade Hanging|I never thought the two stories would intersect]]!}}
** One of the show's most infamous examples of this came when Maude Flanders died. The episode jumped tracks from the Simpsons taking a nature walk to them having a day out at a racetrack, then Maude died in an accident, and the episode became one about Ned coping with his loss. Then ''another'' plot switch came about thirty seconds later, and the rest of the episode was devoted to Homer's wacky attempts at setting up Flanders with a new girlfriend.
** Lampshaded in ''Brawl in the Family'' the first bit involves a social worker fixing the family's problems. By the time they've resolved it, Lisa wonders it was the "end of our series...of adventures". They then meet with Homer's Vegas wife from a few seasons ago.
** Two particularly glaring examples are "Homer The Moe" and "Crook And Ladder" For the former, the story begins with Bart digging a hole for some inexplicable reason, which turns out to be one of Homer's crazy bar stories, then the plot becomes about Moe losing passion for bartending and returning to college while Homer takes over the bar, then the story takes another shift with Moe remodeling the bar into an upscale nightclub and alienating himself from Homer, Lenny and Carl, then Homer opens his own bar in his garage and finally the plot hinted at in the episode title gets started 2/3s through the episode.
** The plot of "Crook And Ladder" starts with Marge taking away Maggie's pacifier and Maggie destroying the house as a result, then Maggie gets calmed down with Santa's Little Helper's squeaky dog toy, only the squeaking leads to Homer being unable to sleep, so he takes sleeping pills and becomes a "zombie" of sorts and Bart and Milhouse take advantage of him, which then Homer accidentally crashing into the fire department and injuring all the volunteer firefighters, and FINALLY the main plot of Homer and his friends becoming firefighters gets under way.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' loves it too. In one episode, they go through <s> four</s> six plots in rapid succession: Peter ruins his suit, and buys some adult-size footy pajamas, he becomes a faux-superhero by rubbing his feet on the carpet and shocking people, a fed-up Lois rips up all the carpet in the house, and finds a coin worth a lot of money, which the Griffins use to open a restaurant, the restaurant then becomes a favorite of crippled people, Peter bans the cripples and fights against them and then becomes crippled himself. The remainder of the plot is devoted to him coming to terms with being in a wheelchair and apologizing to Joe for banning him.
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* An episode of ''[[The Jetsons]]'' did this, with the first half featuring a plot about George trying to get the day off from Mr Spacely and the second half befriending a bunch of alien circus fleas.
* ''[[Futurama]]'' does this now and then. In "The Cryonic Woman", the first part of the episode was about Fry, Bender and Leela losing their jobs at Planet Express, but that plot was dropped in favor of Fry's reunion with his old girlfriend. The [[Reset Button]] issue of getting their jobs back was only picked up at the end.
** Far more obvious in Bender's Game. The first two episode-length quarters are about the Planet Express crew trying to stop Mom from getting a special die. The second two quarters are pretty much the same plot again, in the crazy ''[[Dungeons
* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'' did this almost all the time, giving the impression that the viewer wasn't watching just a 11 minute show, but a brief snapshot of the Eds' lives, implying that this sort of thing goes on 24-7.
* The second episode of ''[[Clone High]]'', "Episode Two: Election Blu-Galoo". The whole episode centers around the student body presidential election, but the only reason JFK runs is to abolish term limits and reinstate Cleopatra. By the time Abe enters the race, JFK and Cleo's plan is completely discarded for the story of Abe and JFK's competition for Cleo's affection. By the end of the episode Cleo's presidential ambitions have evaporated in favour of seducing whoever's in office, a plotline abandoned within the first two minutes of the next episode.
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{{quote|'''Puggsy''': [[Wham! Line|"The name is Puggsy.]] [[Suddenly Voiced|What's yours?"]]}}
** Most of the rest of the plot is about helping a [[Heartwarming Orphan]] escape her [[Rich Bitch]] aunt and find her long-lost [[Adventurer Archaeologist]] father.
* ''[[The Fairly
* ''[[Sonic Underground]]'' used and invoked this in "Wedding Bell Blues." Since Queen Aleena didn't show for her forced marriage to Robotnik, they'll instead crown Sonia queen in her stead—with Robotnik as the real power.
* In one episode of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie go on a pranking spree. You may think the outcome will be that one prank goes too far or something, but soon an old friend of Rainbow Dash comes back and the rest of the episode is focused on her.
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