Life Is But a Dream…
For one month, The Dot and Line is publishing essays, interviews, and discussions about each episode of Cowboy Bebop, which turns 20 this April.
We’ve been saying it all month long (and, if you know us in person, waaaay longer than that): Cowboy Bebop is influential as hell. Even what must be its most tone-deaf episode has proven influential, what with the mighty TVTropes.org naming an entire trope after it. The “Mushroom Samba” has become nerd shorthand for an acid trip/hallucination sequence in film and TV, and animation has its fair share of them. Here’s a roundup of a bunch of the best.
Anime
Cowboy Bebop. The episode “Mushroom Samba” gives this trope its name.
Samurai Champloo. In “Beatbox Bandits,” a field of “grass” is set on fire. Hilarity ensues. And in “The Cosmic Collisions,” the heroes run into zombies, which might have been the result of some “wild mushrooms” they ate at the episode’s beginning.
One Piece. In “Here Come the Desert Pirates! The Men who Live Free.”, the crew wanders the desert. Luffy eats the wrong kind of cactus and hallucinates enemies and a tidal wave. Hilarity ensues.
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. During “First Kiss,” Jean eats mushrooms, hallucinates, and sees visions of Marie as a moving turkey dish. Hilarity ensues.
American Animated TV
Beavis and Butt-Head. Any time Beavis has enough caffeine or sugar, he morphs into his psychotic alter ego, “The Great Cornholio.” (Plus, in the movie, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Beavis eats peyote and hallucinates, seeing himself and Butt-Head as rotting zombies surrounded by demons playing the guitar, driving mini cars, etc., set to a Rob Zombie track.)
The Simpsons. There’s, like, a dozen. “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer),” “Worst Episode Ever,” “D’oh In the Wind,” “Homer Loves Flanders,” “Selma’s Choice,” “Weekend at Burnsie’s,” “I’m Goin’ to Praiseland,” “Boy Scoutz ‘N The Hood,” “Homerpalooza,” “Bart Gets an Elephant”, “Team Homer,” “King of the Hill,” “Last Exit To Springfield,” “Married to the Blob,” and more feature this trope in some capacity, with the latter even boasting a Hayao Miyazaki-inspired hallucination.
Futurama. Matt Groening loves this trope, it seems. “Hell Is Other Robots” has Bender “abusing electricity,” which sends him on a trip the first time he uses it, and in “The Farnsworth Parabox,” the crew visits Universe 420, a universe where everyone is on drugs. “The Sting” plays with this trope as well.
Rocko’s Modern Life. The Halloween episode “Sugar Frosted Frights” sees Filburt eating Halloween candy for the first time, sending him into a sugar-rush-induced Fantasia-style fantasy.
Avatar: The Last Airbender. “The Desert” and “Nightmares and Daydreams” both feature this trope, with the latter featuring a sleep-deprived Aang hallucinating that the team pets are talking to him — a nod to how sleep deprivation makes your brain self-produce DMT. Then there’s Sokka and Momo’s infamous trip is “The Desert”, where they drink some “quenchy” cactus juice and hallucinate throughout the whole episode.
Teen Titans. This one’s as bleak as they come. In “Haunted,” Robin accidentally inhales a hallucinogen from an old mask of Slade’s and the darkest episode of the series ensues, with Robin seeing Slade everywhere and going berserk in an attempt to take him down at any cost.
South Park. Both “Major Boobage,” which findsKenny getting high off cat urine and tripping to a Heavy Metal–style hallucination, and “Quest for Ratings,” in which all the boys take hits of cough syrup, feature this trope.
Angry Beavers. “Up All Night II” sees Dag and Norbert suffer from lack of sleep and begin to hallucinate. Hilarity ensues.
Family Guy. In “Seahorse Seashell Party,” Brian suffers a bad trip after eating some spoiled psychedelic mushrooms.
Phineas and Ferb. In “The Ballad of Badbeard,” Candace starts hallucinating after touching some orange moss.
King of the Hill. “Hillenium,” “To Kill a Ladybird,” “The Son Also Roses,” and “Lost in MySpace” all feature this trope.
My Life as a Teenage Robot. In the eleventh episode of season one, the segment “Daydream Believer” had Jenny get a dream chip installed so she could experience dreams, but begins abusing it during the daytime, which givers her hallucinations.
Inspector Gadget. In “NSF Gadget,” a bunch of astronauts have their oxygen supplies laced with “crazy gas,” causing them to hallucinate space monsters and giant mushrooms.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In “Flipmode,” Space Ghost interviews Busta Rhymes, who laughs incessantly throughout much of the episode, as the cast experiences hallucinations due to a (planned) natural gas leak.
Daria. In “The Teachings of Don Jake,” all of the Morgendorffers but Daria eat psychotropic berries and hallucinate, causing them to chase after a “spirit animal.”
American Dad! “The Magnificent Steven,” “In Country…Club,” and “100 A.D.” all feature this trope to some extent.
The Venture Bros. Hank accidentally pokes himself with a drug-tipped shoe spike and starts hallucinating in “Assassinanny 911.”
Regular Show. “Weekend at Benson’s” finds Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson drinking a super-spicy concoction called “Mississippi Queen,” which makes them hallucinate.
Gravity Falls. In “The Inconveniencing,” Mabel eats way too much of a German candy called Smile Dip, which, of course, causes major hallucinations. She spends most of the episode lost in a series of crazy trips.
Bob’s Burgers. In “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal,” Bob gets drunk on absinthe and has a holiday- and My Neighbor Totoro-themed trip. In “Burgerboss,” Bob gets an 8-bit hallucination after popping pain pills to cope with his case of carpal tunnel.
Star vs. the Forces of Evil. In “Goblin Dogs,” Star, Marco, and Pony Head finally eat goblin dogs — like hot dogs…sort of — they all have a rainbow-colored trip before declaring the foodstuff the universe’s best.
Animated Film
Dumbo. Dumbo drinks water from a tub laced with champagne and a Disney Acid Sequence featuring “Pink Elephants On Parade,” ensues.
Madagascar. Alex the Lion gets hit with a tranquilizer dart, twice, and gets his own mini trip.
The Road to El Dorado. While singing “It’s Tough to be a God,” Miguel and Tulio drink lots of “punch” and smoke some cigars. A Disney Acid Sequence ensues.
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