Best animated TV character mistakes of all time

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American Dad picture

Spring Break-Up - S3-E16

Character mistake: At one point in the show, Roger throws a bucket of water (in disguise as Scotch Bingeington) on Francine claiming "Wet T-Shirt Contest!" Francine looks disgusted when Roger states "Eh, give this one a four" to the guy judging the contest, then says to Francine "Don't feel bad, you've had three kids." Francine replies "I've had two." and Roger gasps and puts a consoling hand on Francine's shoulder. This is wrong because Francine has birthed four children. She previously gave birth to Bailey (Hayley's twin), and Greg and Terry's baby in Season 3 Episode 7 "Surro-Gate." (00:14:15)

Travis Love Benson

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SpongeBob SquarePants picture

Tenacle-vision/I Heart Dancing - S7-E8

Character mistake: In "I Heart Dancing", the lady at the Krusty Krab tells Spongebob the dancing audition is the next day. Later, Spongebob is practicing at Squidward's house for a whole night, and the next morning Squidward says they have one more day to practice, even though the audition should have been that day.

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Suggested correction: The audition could have been during the afternoon.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture

Show generally

Character mistake: Throughout the entire series, the Turtles are referred to, by others and by themselves, as amphibians. But turtles are reptiles, not amphibians. However they are amphibious, amphibious reptiles.

Quantom X

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Suggested correction: Butters is always shown as being a bit dim and slow. As a kid it's easy for him to make a mistake in thinking that there was only 132 episodes.

Ssiscool

That's why it's called a "character mistake"; also, Butters is certainly naive, but he's hardly what I would call "dim and slow."

zendaddy621

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Avatar: The Last Airbender picture

Jet - S1-E10

Character mistake: When Jet tells Katara and Aang to waterbend the water from underground in the geysers, Katara states that she has never waterbent on water she couldn't see before. However, six episodes prior to this, in 'The Warriors of Kyoshi', she waterbends the water out from Aang's lungs to save his life.

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Suggested correction: That was a moment of desperation on her part, and she probably doesn't think of it/think she can do it again without the same desperate impetus, Furthermore, the water in Aang was only a small amount and very close anyway.

dizzyd

Regardless of if she did it in desperation or not, she did use bending on water she didn't see. The mistake isn't suggesting anything about Katara's ability to waterbend unseen water, the mistake is only in regards to the statement Katara made about never using bending on water she can't see. And for Katara to forget the one time she used bending on water she didn't see would qualify as a character mistake as well. Now if she made the statement "I don't think I can do this" or "I've never used bending on underground water", etc, that would not be a character mistake.

Bishop73

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King of the Hill picture

Stressed for Success - S8-E19

Character mistake: Ben Stein asks a chemistry question about -273° Kelvin. The problem is, the scientific community never uses the word 'degrees' when referring to Kelvin. The correct way to say it would have been, "-273 Kelvin is also known as what?" Also Kelvin cannot be negative since 0 kelvin (approx -273° Celsius) is absolute zero.

Hysteria 1987

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Iron Man picture

Origin of Iron Man: Part 1 - S1-E11

Character mistake: When young Tony Stark is telling his father that their helicopter's anti-flak chip didn't kick in, he acknowledges that it was his fault by saying he blew it. When his father corrects him and says "No Tony, we blew it. Stark and Son," Tony defensively says "The anti-flak chip failed, it's not my fault," completely contradicting what he said seconds earlier. (00:14:00)

Phaneron

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Recess picture

One Stayed Clean - S3-E1

Character mistake: When Mikey looks at the Picture Day schedule, he points out that 4th grade is going last. However, the schedule says they are after 3rd grade and before 5th grade, actually making them fifth. The faculty is actually listed last on the schedule.

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Bob's Burgers picture

Can't Buy Me Math - S5-E11

Character mistake: The math test Tina gets a D on has #5 marked wrong. However it is correct. (Additionally it seems improbable she would actually get #3 and #4 wrong since she obviously understood the concept of how to do the problem and only had a problem with the division for some reason, and these questions didn't require division).

Bishop73

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Hey Arnold! picture

Married - S5-E16

Character mistake: The first time Arnold tries Rhonda's marriage predictor test, he says his favorite number is five, but Rhonda actually makes six moves. The second time, Arnold says it's three, but Rhonda counts off four.

AidanN

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Superman: The Animated Series picture

Mxyzpixilated - S2-E8

Character mistake: In the third instance where Superman manages to get rid of Mxyzptlk, he uses an article full of typos which spell the latter's name backwards as KLTPZYXM. Among the incorrect words is the word "citrimes", in which Superman has included an I and a T, so the correct word in context with the rest of the text should read "crimes" and thus the errors would spell KL-I-TPZYXM. Since there are no vowels in MXYZPTLK, however, what is the additional I doing here - and why didn't Mxyzptlk bother to mark it as a mistake, either?

Daniel4646

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Fantastic Four: The Animated Series picture Fantastic Four: The Animated Series mistake picture

Behold, a Distant Star - S2-E10

Character mistake: When Sue is brought out of surgery, her father can be seen wearing a watch. Surgeons don't wear watches or any other kind of jewelry when performing surgery, as they can't be sterilized and can also get in the way of gloves. (00:05:00)

Phaneron

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