Unreliable Narrator/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Unreliable Narrators in Western Animation include:

  • A truly bizarre example in The Emperors New Groove: at one point, the Emperor Kuzco breaks the fourth wall to argue with the narrator's version of events. The twist being that Kuzco is the narrator.
  • Two Looney Tunes cartoons, The Trial of Mr. Wolf and Turn Tale Wolf, have the Big Bad Wolf tell alternate versions of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs, respectively, with him as the victim.
    • A modern short featuring Daffy as "Superior Duck" had him getting frustrated with Thurl Ravenscroft's apparent inability to announce him as being faster than a bullet and more powerful than a locomotive.
  • One episode of Batman: The Animated Series focuses on 3 kids talking about different stories of who Batman is. Each one referencing a different Comic Book style for Batman.
    • The first story in Batman: Gotham Knight, "Have I Got a Story", also does this. Where each kid describes Batman differently from a different point in a single chase (in reverse order). The first describes a Shadow demon, second strikes a similar figure as Manbat, third is a robot. When Batman shows up he is, of course, human.
      • Both of those episodes are derived from a comics story, Batman # 250's "The Batman Nobody Knows."
    • The episode "P.O.V." is a Rashomon Style. The three versions are told by Harvey Bullock, who knows what really happened but is portraying himself as the competent hero and Batman as the one who screwed up; Officer Wilkes, who is genuine in his belief but makes Batman come off as a supernatural creature; and Officer Montoya, who tells the truth.
    • The 2019 Harley Quinn cartoon might be a variation, as the Black Comedy has a Denser and Wackier nature where the characters seem to be satires of themselves; Word of God has hinted that this might simply be viewing the world as Harley (who is, as everyone knows, insane) views it, the plot being subjected to her own interpretation.
  • In the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, teasers and recaps are narrated by a character who plays a prominent role within the episode. In the episode "Rogue in the House, part 2", said duty falls upon Zog, a brain-damaged Triceraton which the turtles—taking advantage of the fact that Zog believes them to be Triceratons—recruited in the previous episode. Despite accurate visuals, Zog's narration states what he wrongly believes is actually happening—that the turtles are a Triceraton sabotage unit, the Foot are Federation.
  • An odd subversion occurs in the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Clopin, a clown who appears onscreen and speaks directly to the viewer, is our narrator. At first he seems to be totally detached from the story, merely recounting the tale as it unfolds and ignoring the fourth wall. Then during the festival sequence, Clopin shows up as a character in the narrative, MCing the Festival of Fools and remaining strictly within the fourth wall. Even more oddly, he's gone from wishing the best for Quasimodo in song to making a mockery of him by crowning him the ugliest person at the festival. Later in the film, Clopin appears again, this time as a murderous, seemingly insane criminal who stages a Joker Jury trial and tries to hang Quasimodo. Again, he stays within the fourth wall throughout this sequence. Finally, at the end of the movie, he's a narrator again, and finishes off the movie with a nice little song about how we should all see the good inside of people and Quasimodo is a great guy... this after Clopin tried to murder him earlier in the movie. So, is Clopin an actor playing contradictory roles within the story? Is he meant to represent multiple people? And considering that he tried to murder the protagonist yet ends the film by literally singing his praises, can we trust anything he's told us?
    • Perhaps Clopin was NEVER aware of the fourth wall. The Court of Miracles sequence has him acting more than a bit unhinged, up to and including talking to himself. Maybe his "narration" is just more of his mad ramblings and he's actually talking to thin air?
    • It is seen at the beginning that he is performing a puppet show to little children during his narration... A likely explanation would be that his prologue/epilogue appearances occur after the events of the story, when he has "seen the light" concerning the innocence of Quasimodo, making the bulk of the movie Clopin's flashback based upon hearsay. This could even be used to justify the vast differences between the movie and the original book... something like "Hey kids, here's this funny guy's musical interpretation of this big thing that happened that one time with that one guy!" Also, his seemingly inconsistent character is justified by the fact that on the surface world of Paris he is a jovial, colorful entertainer trying to make money and impress the townsfolk, but in the court of miracles (the secret Gypsy underworld) he is a brutal leader of a minority living in constant fear of persecution.
  • The Narrator in the Earthworm Jim animated series not only often has no idea what's actually happening, he's also, at least once, bullied into reading a scene transition to the benefit of one of the villains. "Hey, Narrator guy. Read this or I'll disperse your molecules." "Oh. Erm... later, Psy-Crow and Professor Monkey-For-A-Head have defeated the evil Queen." <Scene transition to this having already happened>.
  • Anytime that South Park's Eric Cartman tells a story, you can bet that he is lying, either intentionally, or because he's just that deluded.
    • A recentTemplate:WHEN episode featuring Kanye West being offended by a joke Jimmy made up had Cartman claim he had co-created the joke. We soon see he actually believes this when he recounts the opening scene with Jimmy being more enthusiastic about seeing him and Cartman coming up with the joke all by himself. Cartman then explains the lesson is that Jimmy is such a narcissist that he rewrites his memory to include himself in a bigger role (Or something like that).
  • In one episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Grim deliberately tell Billy and Irwin distorted versions of clasic american stories claiming that he was there.
  • In The Simpsons, Homer Simpson is this in-universe. In one episode, he wanted to buy a bottle of expensive hair-regrowth formula. After the pharmacist tells him the price, Homer realizes he can't afford it, he breaks down crying and says, "Forget you, pal. Thanks for nothing," as he leaves. This is changed in his story to his friends to an angry, "Forget you, pal! Thanks for nuthin'!" as he "stormed" out.
  • In one episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Pinkie Pie tells the Cutie Mark Crusaders how she got her cutie mark. It apparently involved her being raised by Amish-looking rock farmers, and she closes her tale with "And that's how Equestria was made!" On top of that, Pinkie follows it up by offering to tell the CMC how she got her cutie mark.
  • The Muses from Hercules.
  • In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Pepper claims to have found information on AIM by clinging to the ceiling listening onto her father talking the the FBI. She later breaks down and admits her father just forgot to log off his computer.
  • American Dad put an interesting spin on this in "The American Dad After School Special". For the first half of the episode, Stan is shown becoming dangerously obese, apparently thanks to his family sabotaging his diet. Just before the ad break, we see that Stan is in fact dangerously underweight and the family's "sabotage" is their desperate attempts to help him. Since Stan is the viewpoint character...
  • In King of the Hill, certain parts of Cotton's recountings of his past are rather questionable.
  • Gir's witness account of Dib's alien video in Mysterious Mysteries is so out there it borders on Through the Eyes of Madness. He claims to have been Stacy: "The chubby lady hidin' in the bushes," and halfway through he starts talking about a giant space squirrel.

Mysterious Mysteries Host: What does that have to do with anything?!
Gir/Stacy: Me and the squirrel are friends.

    • In fact, the whole episode was an example. The episode involves Zim, Gir, Dib, and Gaz all giving their accounts of the alien video Dib takes and each one is obviously biased. As noted above Gir's is absoulute nonsense, Zim's makes him and Gir out to be sympathetic children and Dib as an Ogre-style bully, Dib's show him as a powerful and confident hero while showing Gaz as the stereotypical damsel in distress, and Gaz's shows Zim and Dib as stupid to the point of mental retardation. All parties are obviously lying to some degree and what's worse is that from the actual video the you can easily tell what really happened.
  • Thundercats: Jaga's Opening Monologue is shot through with half truths, neglecting to mention that Third Earth's "peace and prosperity" belongs solely to Thundera's upperclass Cats, or that the ruler's "just heart" does not extend to other species.