What Happened to the Mouse?/Western Animation


 * Codename: Kids Next Door is usually good with continuity, which makes this oversight all the more damning: In "Op FUGITIVE," the operatives and the head of decommissioning, #86, are going after an escaped operative scheduled for decommissioning. #86 briefly mentions sending their best spy, #362, to infiltrate the Delightful Children's mansion (where the escaped operative is entering). They appear to capture the escaped operative, but it then turns out that #362 was captured instead. #362 became a major character in her own right, but the show never got around to answering what happened to the escaped operative.
 * What happened to the Delightful Children is also unknown, though with their final exit.
 * In the Family Guy episode "You May Now Kiss the... Uh... Guy Who Receives" Chris' romance with the blonde girl vanishes after she talks to Chris outside the City Hall.
 * In the episode where the Griffin house gets possessed by poltergeists, Herbert the Pedophile fights back against a tree demon who is about to eat Chris and the two (Herbert and the tree) fall to their dooms after the tree splits the ground open. On the TV version, this counts as a "What Happened to the Mouse" moment because we never see Herbert or the tree for the rest of the episode. On the season four DVD, however, . Apparently, The FOX censors turned this Brick Joke into a What Happened to the Mouse? moment all because.
 * That's just stupid. Fox got upset at the, but apparently have no problem with the tons of pedophilia jokes with the same character?
 * According to DVD commentary, the FOX censors have always been wary about Herbert the Pedophile (particularly on the episode where Chris has to work for Herbert to pay off a broken window. There were a lot of scenes and lines of dialogue that the FOX censors asked MacFarlane and company to tone down or eliminate). This (from the episode "Petergeist") is just one of the many examples of how wary FOX is about him.
 * In another episode where Chris is put on a diet, Stewie gloats in front of him about being able to eat whatever he wants and consequentially gains a ton of weight and grows increasingly listless as a result.
 * In the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 series, the Rat King made his appearance in the fourth season, battling to a standstill with Leonardo. After the episode was over, it was made clear that the Rat King had survived and that there was a strong possibility of him showing up again in the future. Three seasons later ("The Lost Season", "Fast Forward", and "Back to the Sewers"), the Rat King still hasn't made any appearances and is never mentioned again. For better or worse, the Rat King subplot is more or less dropped after his Season Four episode. A better title would be "What Happened to the Rat?" in this case.
 * What happened to the Rat King is answered in the "Back to the Sewer" season finale. Towards the end of the episode, he makes a cameo appearance, watching April and Casey's wedding from afar... which brings up an entirely new question. Just why the heck is he even at April and Casey's wedding?
 * Well, the Rat King had promised himself that he would be watching the Turtles (presumably waiting for a good chance to strike). He was watching the Turtles when he was at the wedding. He probably had been watching them for a long time, but he was likely off-screen.
 * Also, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles special Turtles Forever, the 1987 version of April O'Neil was kidnapped by a giant mutant banana (don't ask) and we don't know what happens to her. Knowing 1987 April, the Turtles rescued her off-screen. That's what happens every episode, after all.
 * The Simpsons does this a lot. Whatever happens in the first act to get the actual plot running will never be mentioned again. Or if it is, it'll be to hang a lampshade on this, the story's moved on and no-one's interested any more, like the badgers in "A Tale of Two Springfields".
 * Or the first part of "Tennis the Menace" where Homer buys a burial plot for Grampa Simpson, but ends up creating a tennis court in the backyard after a coffin salesman tells Homer that his backyard needs to be the size of a tennis court if he's thinking of burying Grampa there. Or the first part of "The Cartridge Family," where the plot goes from the family trying to survive a town-wide soccer riot, complete with fighting and houses being burned to a very special episode (a Simpsonized version of it, anyway) where Homer buys a gun for protection and drives Marge and the kids away because of how irresponsible he is with it? And let's not forget the bagboy strike on "Simpson Safari" that was abandoned for yet another "The Simpsons are Going to [Insert Country/Continent/State Here]" plot.
 * That last episode hung a lampshade on it. After having lost their guide and become stuck on a boat floating down a river, Homer wonders if the bag boys have resolved their strike. The episode is later dedicated to the bag boys of America, "whose ineptness and greed were the inspiration for this episode".
 * In another episode, Apu takes a bullet for James Woods (It Makes Sense in Context), says his last words and then we see him make his recovery in a hospital along with Woods before the episode ends. The assailant, who could've very well shot again at his initial target, isn't shown again.
 * In the episode where the Itchy and Scratchy producers are trying to introduce "Poochy", the show's new marketing-driven dog, a test audience sees Itchy and Scratchy driving to a fireworks factory. When they're about half a mile away from it, Poochy appears and begins doing all sorts of "cool" activities like skateboarding and playing basketball. Milhouse, who is watching the show at The Simpsons' house, screams "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?!?"
 * In "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish", Homer is diagnosed with death in 22 hours. Having nothing to lose, he agrees to join Flanders' at a barbecue, but has nothing to lose since he'll be dead by the next day. But at the end of the episode it's shown that Homer survives. The last shot of the episode is him eating chips and watching TV. The barbecue ordeal is never resolved.
 * The commentary discusses a deleted final scene where Homer has to deal with all the consequences of what he thought was his last day alive: not only is he stuck at the barbecue, but his father now wants to spend lots of time with him rather than having accepting their distant relationship, and Mr. Burns wants to talk to him after Homer insulted him and slapped his head like a bongo drum.
 * Also, in "Insane Clown Poppy" Krusty seems to have a pretty strong relationship with his daughter at the end, who just vanishes next episode.
 * In the episode "Like Father, Like Clown," Krusty's assistant, Lois Pennycandy obviously holds a torch for Krusty, but this has never been referenced or referred to again.
 * And in "Days of Wine and (Annoyed Grunt)ses" What Happened to the Bear? The commentators would also like to know.
 * Also, Barney STAYS SOBER for a few seasons, so do not put that here.
 * In "Homer At The Bat", Ozzie Smith ends up visiting a literal tourist trap, the Springfield Mystery Spot, which turns out to be some kind of Negative Space Wedgie, and he promptly falls into it. In the snapshot at the end we can see his specter hovering over the rest of the group (presumably invisible to all save the viewers). We never find out if he managed to escape the Mystery Spot, so as far as we know he's still falling through space and time...
 * It is also never revealed what happened to Scorpio after taking over the east coast and giving Homer a Football team as reward for helping his scheme.
 * Viewers with long memories will remember "Bart Gets Hit by a Car", particularly the scene where Bart goes to Hell. The Devil looks him up on a computer and says, "You're not supposed to be here until the Yankees win the World Series again," and returns him to the world of the living. October 1996 came and went. Nothing. (Okay, in fairness, he thought it would take 100 years, but come on, not even a throwaway Brick Joke?)
 * Remember Bart's Star Trek belt from the episode "The Homer They Fall"? Neither does he. The DVD commentary does make mention of how they pretty much abandoned the "Bart gets his Star Trek belt stolen" storyline for the "Homer becomes a boxer" storyline (which they also pointed out was a rehash of "Homerpalooza," only instead of Homer taking hits to the gut without feeling pain, it was hits to the head).
 * The Grand Finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender answered most questions but left three plot points hanging:, , and ?
 * The official Nickelodeon website pretty much states that was intentionally left ambiguous. Word of God has it that any ideas they could come up with were considered too dark for Nickelodeon, so they just left it alone with subtle implications of what happened.
 * Word of God has it that Ursa's fate will be revealed in the sequel comic The Promise.
 * There's also True the first three are probably dead and the fourth is on a Long Bus Trip, but still.
 * As of the first scans from The Promise, the sequel comic detailing the adventures of Team Avatar one year after the war, we can confirm the fates of three of those characters.
 * Bugger them. Where's Cabbage Man? WHERE?! (Yea he was credited with helping with the Sarcasm Mode accurate play about the Avatar, but can he sell his cabbages in peace now that the Avatar has no Fire Lord to deal with)
 * Forget Cabbage Man, what happened to Foamy?!
 * When Iroh reveals to Zuko that who was given the crown of the prince of the Fire Nation as a gift, Iroh then gives the crown to Zuko. It is never seen or mentioned again, and becomes somewhat moot.
 * We also don't know how Iroh gets the crown in the first place. It was buried during the volcano eruption.
 * It is last seen hitting the floor after rolling off of a nightstand. Roku runs outside and stares at the erupting volcano for several seconds until his wife emerges from their house. She might have scooped it up to take it with her on the boat, but it is never shown or mentioned.
 * Early on in "The Fortuneteller," Aang presents Katara with a replacement necklace he wove out of Sokka's fishing line. Shortly after, the necklace unceremoniously disappears and Katara remains bare-necked until her original necklace is returned.
 * Haru, Teo, and The Duke all but vanish during the "field trip with Zuko" episodes until they can be conveniently Put on a Bus in "The Southern Raiders".
 * Significant if only for a few characters, but what Katara did in The Southern Raiders was never followed up on. We don't see much of a reaction from Sokka, and none whatsoever from Hakoda. The last mention of Kya is when Hakoda says that she'd be proud of her children, and Katara getting teary-eyed and touching her necklace. Granted the finale had other things to deal with, but perhaps the wider context could have been dealt with better. Yes, Kya's death was a major part of Katara's Character Development specifically, but as Sokka admits to Toph, it (understandably) messed up their family.
 * In the Transformers Animated two-part episode "Megatron Rising", This was explained in an interview with the story editor-originally  However, the animation of the scene was terrible. That, and they were afraid the fans would be upset (especially since it violated the character profile saying.
 * By the Grand Finale, there are still several loose threads hanging, including, as well as what happened to several characters who were simply absent in the end.
 * For example: Yeah, Animated has a lot of this. But that's what you get when a show is canceled.
 * Thankfully, a few things do get explained in the two 'AllSpark Almanacs', such as in season 4, and that there was originally a scene cut from "Endgame", showing.
 * In an episode of The Proud Family, Penny befriends a Muslim girl and her family as part of a school project on racial diversity. One night, Penny and the Muslim family return home to find that someone scrawled a racist message on the garage door (in the original version, it read, "GO HOME, TOWELHEADS!"; in the reruns, the message was digitally altered to just read, "GO HOME!") and just before it cuts to a commercial, everyone looks shocked and horrified. When the show returns, the family is having dinner at a restaurant and no one mentions it again. Even though Penny does mention that Muslim people have been discriminated against more thanks to the 9/11 attacks and that doing so is wrong, the viewer is still left asking who scrawled that horrible message on the garage and why.
 * In Beast Wars, Airazor and Tigatron left to search out the downed stasis pods, then were captured by the Vok. While a few more stasis pods showed up, there were dozens that were never seen again. The IDW comics attempt to resolve the storyline of the missing stasis pods by having all the Transformers within emerge as either Maximals or Predacons thanks to the machinations of Razorbeast in a convoluted storyline involving time-space displacement and whatnot.
 * Considering that the planet that the series takes place on is, it wouldn't be surprising if a great many of them were.
 * Not to mention it is heavily implied that the "quantum surge" in the Season 1 finale destroyed or damaged most of the pods. The ones that created Quickstrike and Silverbolt were heavily damaged causing the scanner to fuse two beast modes together for them. More telling, early in Season 2 Rhinox comes across a "blank" stasis pod. This means the Spark of the protoform inside has been extinguished, meaning it is dead, which can lead the audience to assume the remaining pods that were not destroyed upon impact suffered the same fate. Rhinox basically says that as far as they know, all of the pods are dead after the surge. Tigatron and Airazor were going to go explore to see if there were anymore, but he didn't sound hopeful. Tigatron and Airazor never found any, so we can assume they all died except for Silverbolt, Quickstrike and Rampage.
 * One pod was found in season 3. It was a blank and Megatron used it to create Dinobot II, with half a spark of Rampage.
 * Don't forget Transmutate!
 * I doubt anyone will!
 * In The Animals of Farthing Wood, Fox and Vixen's second son Friendly played a major role in the second season also when he was introduced, during season 3 he appeared for the first three episodes then is missing for the rest of the series.
 * In series 2, both Mossy and Ranger have sisters who each stop appearing after an episode or two.
 * Stripperella: In "Curse of the Were-Beaver", Stripperella jostles Shaw the beaver hunter to stop him from killing the were-beaver, and he falls off the roller-coaster scaffolding, landing (off-camera) with a splat and several disgusted-looking onlookers. And... we never see what happened to him ever again, so either he landed in something icky that broke the fall, or the heroine callously killed a man for doing his job.
 * Stripperella was pretty much a part of an Animal Wrongs Group in that episode, so yeah she would.
 * Code Lyoko. Far too much of it.
 * Project Carthage is mentioned once at the end of Season 2 as Franz Hopper's former employer, possible origin of The Men in Black (who are themselves not explained) and motive for creating Lyoko and XANA... and is never mentioned again after that.
 * It's revisited in (and is the main focus of) the novels, thankfully.
 * Taelia. An exact doppelganger of Aelita, subject to many fan theories about her origins -- but never mentioned after "The Girl of the Dreams". It's unknown whether she's still a student at Kadic (though quite unlikely).
 * The wolf motif in Aelita's nightmares, where they are often seen chasing her -- or, for that matter, the whole sequence with wolves chasing Mr. Pück -- goes entirely unexplained in the show. The second novel reveals that (in this universe, anyway)
 * Not so much a "what happened" as a "what will happen" in the case of Ahsoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She's neither seen nor mentioned in Star Wars Episode III (which The Clone Wars is a prequel to), which is understandable as she's a brand new character created for the series. However, that implies she's either dead or Put on a Bus, thanks to the Jedi Purge. Is it too much to hope she doesn't become Face Heel Turn fuel as the series progresses?
 * It's probably reasonable to assume that if she survives to the period of Episode III she'll become a victim of Order 66.
 * In the first of the 2003 Strawberry Shortcake Direct to Video specials, Strawberry's pet Pupcake accidentally bumps into an arrow sign, making it point the other way. Although Strawberry sees this, she doesn't bother to fix the sign, which indicates that it should be a plot point later on. Yet the sign is never seen or mentioned again.
 * In the season three South Park episode "Rainforest Schmainforest" (the one with the South Park kids being forced to join the Getting Gay With Kids Choir for an upcoming benefit concert in Costa Rica), Cartman keeps mentioning throughout Act I that Kyle has no dance rhythm because he's Jewish and, at the end of Act I, Kyle realizes this to his horror after Stan agrees with Cartman. With the exception of the bit where  in Act II, the whole storyline about Kyle coming to terms with being a lousy dancer is never fleshed out or even alluded to for the rest of the episode. (He does still dance badly in the dance at the end).
 * The episode "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" was really bad about this. The two previous episodes featured Tony Hayward and Captain Hindsight playing significant roles, but they don't appear in the finale or are even mentioned. There were also interdimensional beings besides Cthluthu who appeared in the first episode but were simply forgotten.
 * Captain Hindsight removed his own powers in the previous episode. Not much of a reason for him to be around after that.
 * Tweek becomes the "new Kenny" (translation: fourth main character) for the second part of season six. At the start of the third part, the Boys were inexplicably back to 3, despite the fact that an entire episode was dedicated to removing the previous fourth friend (who is still the fourth most important character to this day) and finding a replacement. Not only that, but Tweek is reduced to a Living Prop by the end of the season, made even weirder by the fact that some of the tertiary boys (or one-off in the case of Jimmy) became secondary characters afterwards.
 * Kenny apparently has a little sister, as seen by the sibling Letter Motif and the fact she appeared with his family. However, she's only appeared once in "Best Friends Forever". It seems odd how their daughter would be absent all the time, especially when she appears younger than Kenny who is nine.
 * Given the frequency with which Kenny died a gruesome death in early seasons, I see nothing strange about members of his family suddenly vanishing.
 * Karen has since made another appearance in "The Poor Kid."
 * In the Phineas and Ferb episode "I, Brobot", Candace captures one of the Ferbots in a sack, and it then gets picked up by the garbage collectors behind her back. We never see what happens to that Ferbot afterwards. Also, we also don't see what happens to the Candroid after the episode.
 * Perhaps the Ferbot got sent away to the place where all trash ends up.
 * When the boys set Oompa Loompa-like Ba-Dink-A-Dinks free, they promise to "lay waste to the surface dwellers." But it's a one-shot gag -- so far, their plot thread hasn't been resolved. They've had a few minor background appearances in subsequent episodes, but... not knowing where they are can be pure Nightmare Fuel.
 * In the season 4 finale of Winx Club
 * Oh, and what happened to Icy's pet duck after season 1?
 * Was the sub-plot with Mitzi in season 4 ever resolved? She was last seen in episode 18.
 * We're never going to hear from Diaspro again, are we?
 * Several King of the Hill episodes had Bobby meet a girl and presumably ended up going out with her at the end of the episode. The next episode has him single again with no mention of the girl ever again (except for one girl, who was referenced in another episode and Connie, who was already part of the main cast when they broke up).
 * Bill is also like this. In one episode he's dating Kahn's mother and mentions that he's still dating her in another one. Then, all of a sudden, he's single and lonely again. They dropped her because they decided they liked Bill has his lonely, pathetic self. Makes sense, but it would've been nice if they had actually provided an in-show explanation for her disappearance.
 * An early episode of The Fairly Odd Parents established Trixie as a closet Tomboy, apparently setting something up between her and Timmy. This is never mentioned again.
 * A relatively unimportant example in the Batman Beyond episode "Out of the Past" is at the beginning, when Terry and Bruce are watching Batman the Musical. The Stage Batman picks up Robin from the chair, and he gestures up toward the Bat-Signal. When the camera pans back down, the six villains are all on stage, and Batman is center, but Robin is nowhere to be seen.
 * From another episode, Derek Powers is betrayed by his manipulative son Paxton, with the unwitting help of Batman. At the end of the episode, Batman hints that Derek is not dead, and we are also led to believe that Paxton will serve as a villain for the remainder of the series, or at least in the next season, in a similar capacity that his father did. Neither of the Powers' are seen again in the rest of the series, except for cameos from Paxton.
 * Derek pops up again in the tie in comics, by now having degenerated so much he's forgotten his entire past life as Powers and believing himself to be Blight. Batman and Stalker fight him, ending with
 * One episode of Batman the Brave And The Bold has Batman hit with a ray that gives him a copy of Plastic Man's powers. By the end, the ray is destroyed and the villain who made it is petrified. So Batman still has the stretchy powers unless he removes the power some other way. So... is this the dawn of Plastic Batman?
 * ...come on. This is Batman we're talking about. He always has a solution.
 * In Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, it's never explained how exactly the Phantasm is able to teleport from place to place.
 * Smoke and mirrors, same as Batman and every ninja in history.
 * Also, Phantasm disappears into the smoke with  target the Joker, their fates are left unknown to Batman. Later  is seen on a boat leaving Gotham for good, but no mention of the Joker's fate is made whatsoever. Joker is shown to be very much alive in the rest of the series, with no explanation of his escape given. However, Joker is well known for usage of Never Found the Body which is why the trope Joker Immunity exists.
 * This was eventually explained in a comic.
 * In the Ben 10 Alien Force Grand Finale, did anyone see Albedo escape after Vilgax's ship sank and exploded?
 * He appears in the follow-up series Ben 10 Ultimate Alien.
 * In Kong the Animated Series, no final fate for Tiger Lucy is given. In the final two episodes, every other enemy is defeated one way or another, but Tiger Lucy, the fourth of De La Porta's henchmen (who has the least screentime of the four) is never seen nor mentioned in the final episodes.
 * An early Kim Possible episode had Kim and Senor Senior Jr. finding out they were a perfect match through a matchmaking fad. The episode ended with Kim finding her locker full of flowers and an e-card from Junior saying he awaited seeing her again. This was never brought up again; no Stalker with a Crush storyline, no Foe Yay (well, none from Junior), nothing. It just disappeared.
 * The reason? Until the fourth season, the producers said the show only had "continuity by accident". Despite the odd Continuity Nod, the board was reset for every episode - evil lairs destroyed, villains sent to jail, lessons learnt: all undone for the next time they were needed. One episode ends with a army of monkey ninjas pledging their loyalty to Ron, never to be seen again.
 * In the Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers episode "Queen's Lair", a secondary character was forced to betray the Rangers because the Queen had his family held hostage. While the Rangers resort to an Indy Ploy to work around this change in plans, we never do find out what happened to the poor man's family. Seeing as the Big Bad is a classic God Save Us From the Queen, the things she's done to Zach's family, and the fact Never Say "Die" was heavily averted in the series...it doesn't look good for the poor bastard.
 * In Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf Shaggy has a girlfriend named Googie, after the events of the movie she is never seen again.
 * Most tag-alongs such as Scrappy and Flim-Flam don't appear that much. Scrappy appears in some movies (where he's actually got a pretty good personality) and Flim-Flam is completely absent after The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. Also, the main cast, Fred, Daphne, and Velma, will frequently be missing from certain movies and series'. It's at least almost never mentioned where they are during this time.
 * When Fred and Velma returned briefly in 1984, it was disclosed that Fred became a mystery writer and Velma was an intern at NASA.
 * In Teen Titans Kitten disappears after her encounter with Starfire in "Calling All Titans" despite the fact that Killer Moth and Fang both appear in the Battle Royale With Cheese.
 * Kitten just seemed to be your average Spoiled Brat, having a half-moth father and a boyfriend with the head of a giant spider aside, she probably doesn't have any real combat training.
 * In the Justice League two-part episode "Maid Of Honor", Princess Audrey's father, the ruler of Kaznia, dies on his deathbed when he hears about his daughter announcing her marriage to Vandal Savage, but he is never mentioned again by Audrey by the end of the second part.
 * Similarly, Supergirl's clone Galatea didn't seem dead upon her final defeat, but we don't see her again nor is she ever mentioned.
 * In Barnyard the story essentially revolves around Otis, his dad, and a pregnant Cow named Daisy; Daisy later gives birth at the end of the movie. Come the spinoff series, Back at the Barnyard, and both Daisy and her son are demoted to non-speaking background characters in early episodes. They're eventually never seen again, instead replaced with Abby.
 * Essentially every Pony in the pilot episode to My Little Pony didn't appear in the series spinoff; mainly Firefly, Ember, Twilight, and Applejack. They were major to the plot, saving everyone in Pony-Land from being turned into slaves, but they were never mentioned again. There were however comics in the UK where they did appear.
 * Ironically, Firefly, Twilight and Applejack were the inspirations for three of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic's mane six (namely Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Applejack who was the only one whose name was kept unchanged).
 * The American Dad episode "Hurricane!" has news reporter Greg get sucked up into the sky by the titular hurricane. A later scene has his boyfriend asking people if they've seen him, but it's not revealed whether he survived or if the storm killed him.
 * Seeing as how he appears in the following episodes, he has in fact survived.
 * At the end of The Critic's run (at least a couple of seasons), Jay, who up to that point hasn't had much luck with women, was in a steady relationship with a mature, decent, likable woman, and despite a few stumbles, they were hitting it off great. Then comes the short-lived internet adaptation, and she's completely gone with no explanation (along with his son and longtime boss).
 * In the first webisode, Jay mentions his "second divorce", implying that the relationship ended badly, but no details are given.
 * In the first webisode, Jay mentions his "second divorce", implying that the relationship ended badly, but no details are given.