Nope, nothing looney about this!
"Roger Rabbit and his cartoon comrades cast real shadows. They shake the hands and grab the coats and rattle the teeth of real actors. They change size and dimension and perspective as they move through a scene...and the cartoon characters look three-dimensional and seem to be occupying real space."
A special effect intended to show live-action, flesh-and-blood performers interacting with animated (usually ink-and-paint) characters.
If the story is a comedy, and it usually is, the characters tend to be medium-aware and recognize each other as belonging to either category. However, in some early examples like Pete's Dragon, animation is just a special effect and the animated characters are in-universe not different from the actor.
This is one of the oldest special effects in Hollywood (the 1914 animated film, Gertie the Dinosaur, actually had creator Winsor McCay interacting with animated Gertie in real time on a vaudeville stage), and has been done several times with varying degrees of realism, though it was probably perfected by the 1988 Disney/Amblin film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
A sub-category of this trope is any story where cartoon characters are real and exist independently from "real" human beings (which may or may not be set in Toon Town and/or an Alternate Tooniverse). Since this is such a visual idea, it's not very common in forms of media that lack a visual aspect, although exceptions exist—including the trope maker itself.
This is mainly a hand-drawn animation trope. While CGI characters are often depicted alongside live-action characters, they are usually depicted as live-action in-universe, and are rarely portrayed as visually or stylistically different from their live-action surroundings. CGI characters, because they have the potential to look more "real" to audiences, are not as prone to this kind of portrayal.
A Sub-Trope of Medium Blending, and an extended version of Rotoscoping. Compare and contrast Serkis Folk and Starring Special Effects. Not to be confused with Live-Action Cartoon, which is about live-action media making use of typical cartoon tropes.
Compare Animated Actors (the in-universe counterpart to this trope), Refugee from TV Land, Disneyesque.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The opening of Excel♡Saga briefly features Excel, Hyatt, Nabeshin, and a few other characters running through a real-world environment. However, they do not interact with any live-action performers.
- Twilight of the Cockroaches is a rare Japanese example of the first type of Roger Rabbit Effect. A live-action character lives in an apartment with a society of anime roaches.
- The wall calendars for Yotsuba&! feature Yotsuba drawn into color photographs, sometimes interacting with real people.
- "Mom" in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
- This trope also seems to be referenced in "Vomiting Point", when Panty and Stocking (drawn in their regular cartoony art style) visit a realistic city populated by much more realistically drawn people.
- Spellbound! Magical Princess Lil'Pri: The second opening and ending sequences feature the live-action singers with the animated characters whom they represent. The show's replacement, the Pretty Series, also does this.
- The end of the first half of the 12th and final episode of the Pop Team Epic anime adaptation has Shouta Aoi making a live action guest appearance As Himself in an otherwise animated world, interacting with Popuko and a petrified Pipimi, and taking them back through time during the credits.
- During the cooking musical number in the first episode of KiraKira★Pretty Cure ŕ la Mode, a live action human, only shown by their hands, is seen cooking alongside Ichika.
- The end credits of Sarazanmai feature photos and video footage of real world locations that appear in the anime, some of which feature the animated characters standing around in them.
- Possibly the earliest example of this trope in Japanese animation can be seen in a trailer for the 1960 Toei produced movie adaptation
of Journey to the West; Son Goku enters the live action office of the then president of Toei Animation and shakes hands with him. It's just a few seconds, but still impressive given the technology of the time.
- One episode of Jewelpet Sunshine is focused on Yaginuma, a not-very-sapient goat who is somehow part of Sunshine Academy's high school classes. Ordinarily Yaginuma is animated like the rest of the characters, but in this specific episode he's live-action and some Jewelpets, who are animated like normal, appear next to him. At the end of the episode, Labra notices he looks different and realizes she never undid whatever spell she cast on him to make him live-action before doing just that.
Asian Animation
- In Canimals, the animated Canimals appear in live-action environments, and sometimes humans appear alongside them.
Comic Books
- A storyline from Astro City features an animated lion character, Loony Leo, coming to life and discovering the ups and downs of Hollywood stardom.
- Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!note inhabitants of the DC Universe's Earth-C, a World of Funny Animals. Occasionally, they lend a hand to characters such as Superman and the Teen Titans.
- Dorothy, a Photo Comic adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, mixes photos of human models with illustrated creatures and environments for the Oz scenes.
- Howard the Duck would fall into in this trope, except for the fact Howard is technically a flesh-and-blood being, and not an actual cartoon character.
- The Warren Strong episodes of Tom Strong.
- A section of the second volume of Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III is done with photographs of the action rather than drawings.
- An issue of a Superman comic had Mr. Mxyzptlk step out of the comic as it was being drawn and discuss the storyline with the staff of DC Comics. The sequence was done with photographs of the actual staff in their actual office, with a still-toony Mxyzptlk composited in.
- Issue #8 of Count Duckula (Marvel, based on the Cosgrove-Hall TV cartoon) has Duckula conversing with a live Geraldo Rivera on the cover. The Geraldo in the body of the story is drawn.
- Megaton Man when he stumbles into Savage Dragon's world
Fan Works
- Technically, most Intercontinuity Crossovers in fanfiction between live-action and animated series are these. How it is treated varies widely, though. Most frequently, it's not mentioned at all or Handwaved.
- This Toon Round, one of the side-continuities of This Time Round. In one Round Robin, it's stated that a Toonside character interacting with the regular Outside setting must be carrying his own laws of physics around with him to exist at all.
- "Ponies in the real world" is a fairly popular genre in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanbase, both in fanfics and in videos on YouTube such as MLP Car Decals
Films
- The Trope Namer and page image provider is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The special effects included several mechanical props covered by the animation to create the illusion of Toons being able to interact with real objects. A barroom had slots in the floor and puppeteers with large poles so animated penguins could carry real serving trays. A sink was built with a robotic pipe thingy so Roger Rabbit could splash in the sink and spit out a mouthful of water. One of the most elaborate effects was for the scenes with Benny the Cab; they were filmed with a custom rig which was essentially a steel frame with tires and a small gasoline engine to move about, with Bob Hoskins sitting on an elevated platform holding a fake steering wheel while the actual driver was down below, concealed by overlaying Benny in post. As one critic said in their review, "although this wasn't the first time that cartoon characters have shared the screen with live actors, it was the first time they did it on their own terms and made it look real."
- Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic, Coonskin and Cool World. The latter gave this trope its alternate title, Noids and Doodles.
- The 1992 "Roger Rabbit meets Evil Dead" B-movie Evil Toons had this.
- Monkeybone used this concept with stop-motion animation.
- The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle animated the titular duo (but rendered in cel-shaded CGI) with everyone else portrayed by live actors, including the villains who revert back to their animated forms, by the end of the movie.
- This was lampshaded in the trailer, where the announcer brags about the film being "a groundbreaking blend of animation and live action." One of the characters says "What about that movie Roger Rabbit?", to which Fearless Leader angrily replies "Shut up! This is totally different!" (These lines appear in the film after Fearless Leader states there has never been a way to kill a cartoon character until now.)
- Looney Tunes examples:
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action
- Space Jam, based on Nike commercials pairing Bugs Bunny with Michael Jordan. In the sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy, this is Downplayed as LeBron James is rendered as an animated character when in Tune World, while the Looney Tunes characters become "realistic" CG characters for the climactic basketball game with live-action LeBron. Played straight after the game, when the Tunes are restored to their 2D-animated forms while the humans remain live-action; also applies when Bugs and the other Tunes enter the real world.
- Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird had cameos in the live-action film My Dream Is Yours.
- Porky and Daffy jump off their animation paper and interact with humans in You Ought to Be in Pictures.
- Tom and Jerry examples:
- Anchors Aweigh features a dance number with Gene Kelly and Jerry.
- Both Tom and Jerry also appeared with Esther Williams in a Dream Sequence from Dangerous When Wet.
- Tom & Jerry (2021) keeps its animated characters animated, in the real world setting, using stylized CGI animation for the titular duo and all other animal characters. However, it's finished to match the classic 2D art style and animation of the original cartoons as much as possible.
- Back to Kelly again; his anthology film Invitation to the Dance features a segment based on Sinbad the Sailor set in an animated Middle Eastern fantasy world.
- Rock-A-Doodle, the only Don Bluth film to actually feature live actors.
- Disney used this for decades, starting with the Alice Comedies series, which started in 1923, and kept right on going through The Reluctant Dragon, So Dear to My Heart, the eternally un-re-released Song of the South, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Pete's Dragon (1977), The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, and Enchanted.
- The opening of the "Best of Disney-50 Years of Magic" documentary shows Michael Eisner interacting with Mickey Mouse. Roger Rabbit and a few others also appear.
- Fred Willard and an ensemble of live-action extras share the screen with CGI animated robots on WALL•E. Although in this case, they are only seen in footage of the past and thus never interact with the current-day cast. Word of God says the two styles are indicative of the (d)evolution undergone by humanity in the intervening centuries.
- The climax of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, as a continuation from the series, establishes that the cartoon characters are simply living in an otherwise live-action world when they get to the surface. The movie introduces the point that when the characters are dried up on land, they die and become live-action, inanimate sea objects — enough moisture will bring them back to their cartoony life. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water also has live-action/animated sequences. However this time, the animation is done with CGI instead of traditional hand-drawn animation whenever real people show up.
- Detective Whiskers in Last Action Hero is a cartoon cat in a detective outfit, but nobody but Danny sees anything weird about him.
Jack Slater: He was supposed to be back. He was only suspended for a month. Now shut up!
Danny: Listen to what I'm saying: a cartoon cat walked right into the police station! Hello!
Slater: He'll do it again tomorrow. What's your point? - The Italian Affectionate Parody Allegro non Troppo features more interaction with the cartoon characters, who periodically disrupt the live-action.
- The Mask presents an interesting case. The title artifact transforms anybody who wears it into a bizarre living cartoon until daybreak, but although they convincingly defy reality in the way you'd expect from a Tex Avery cartoon, they're still portrayed by live-action performers. Otis the dog (from the sequel, Son of the Mask) becomes all-CGI if he wears the magical mask, but Milo in the original only had a CGI head over the real dog's body.
- In the film version of The Phantom Tollbooth, Milo becomes a cartoon after crossing the tollbooth. This leads to an amusing sequence in which he goes back and forth in disbelief until the tollbooth's voice tells him to get on with it.
- Son of the Pink Panther opens with such a sequence, and several of the other films in the series end with one.
- The Don Knotts vehicle The Incredible Mr. Limpet has a bit of this. All the underwater sequences were animated, but there were a few scenes where Limpet (a man turned into a cartoon fish) peeks his head out of the water to converse with live-action characters.
- The 1974 Swedish film Dunderklumpen! has a live-action setting with mostly animated characters. Camilla, Jens and their father are practically the only characters in the movie played by real-life actors.
- The main character of the short film Badly Drawn Roy is a cartoon while everyone else is live-action, including his parents. In-universe, this occurrence is a genetic improbability similar to two parents giving birth to a child of a different race, and while uncommon and remarkable it isn't considered unbelievably impossible.
- In The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, cavemen are live-acted while dinos and other animals are animated.
- In 9 to 5, cartoon forest animals appear in Violet's fantasy vision of doing in Mr. Hart (where she is dressed like Snow White).
- (500) Days of Summer has a scene with animated birds.
- The LEGO Movie reveals that the movie's events are actually being acted out by a boy and his father, and later, his younger sister.
- The Ur-Example is likely the 2-minute film The Enchanted Drawing, in which a man draws a cartoon face and also draws a picture of a glass and a bottle of wine (which he then takes and drinks from), draws a top hat and a cigar on the cartoon head (which he then takes; wearing the hat and smoking the cigar, to the displeasure of the cartoon), gives them back to the cartoon and walks off-screen. The copyright is 1900, but the film may be even older.
- Used in the Yoram Gross, which both have animated humans and animals interacting with live-action environments.
- Perfect examples are The Little Convict and The Seventh Match, both which follow the classic version of the trope (Pete's Dragon-esque).
- The obscure film Epic (1984), the characters, who were animated, were placed in videos or pictures of real or realistically painted environments to a somewhat bizarre but charming effect.
- The Little Rascals short "Thundering Fleas" features animated, anthropomorphic fleas alongside the live action footage.
- In Ghostbusters (2016), Patty asks Rowan to transform into something small and cute before their final confrontation. Rowan responds by briefly transforming into the cartoon ghost from the Ghostbusters logo.
- The majority of the movie splits the live-action and animation segments, but The Water Babies (1978) has some small instances of blended scenes.
- In a piece of promotional material for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Kit Harington tries to play against Toothless in an audition for an "Untitled Fantasy TV Drama." Hilarity Ensues.
- Forbidden Planet: At the climax of the movie, the invisible Id Monster is made visible when it passes through a force field or is struck by ray-gun fire, and is represented by an animated outline that resembles an enormous fanged head mounted on two clawed legs.
- I'm Thinking of Ending Things: Played for Horror. Briefly, following a mental breakdown, the janitor seemingly hallucinates the maggot-infested pig (as an animated piece) and follows it into the school.
- Spider-Man: Spider-Verse
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse contains a weird, all-animated version of this with Spider-Ham. While the entire movie is animated, Spider-Ham is the only character who is treated as being a cartoon character in-universe, complete with Toon Physics, which the other characters lack.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: There are a handful of scenes with cartoon characters interacting with live-action ones, to go with the heavy Medium Blending. Early on, The Spot has a short scene talking to Mrs. Chen. In the Spider-Society base, a live-action version of The Prowler (played by Donald Glover) is among the captured villains, and a few archived scenes from the Raimi Spider-Man Trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man Series are shown as well.
- Trolls: World Tour: In the animated Poppy and Branch's internal thoughts while brainwashed by Chaz, a live-action person who's only visible from the waist below shows up to give them "Fizzie Blues Juice". They return in the ending credits, where they can be seen above the waist, but their head remains unseen.
- Chuck E. Cheese in the Galaxy 5000 does this once Chuck E. and his friends arrive on Planet Orion (as well as when in the Awesome Adventure Machine laboratory), with the team and visitors in live-action with their surroundings animated with video game-esque CGI.
- The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies will occasionally have the characters appear animated in the style of the original book illustrations before turning live-action and at some point a live-action Greg will usually be narrating in fron of a book illustration background at some point.
- The 2022 Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie borrows the idea of cartoon characters being actors from Roger Rabbit and takes it to the Present Daynote , with various art styles from classic Disney to CGI (both good and bad, Simpsons-style, and even anime (and that's just the background extras!). The main "cartoon" characters are actually 3D rendered with Cel Shading.
- In the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf film I Love Wolffy 2, when Wolffy and Wilie arrive in the real world, they remain cartoon characters until they transform into humans. They bump into live-action actors before they become humans.
- The educational film Play Safe has an owl and a robin in a live action setting, but they don't interact with the human characters at all.
Literature
- Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf and the sequels, not-quite-sequels, spiritual successors, and short stories it spawned, (not to mention a much more famous film adaptation) featuring an alternate 1947 Hollywood where the animated stars are just as real as the live-action film stars. Unlike the movie, the book presents the Toons as comic-strip characters (talking via speech balloons, for instance) rather than animated. One scene has Eddie attempting to reattach Roger's nose first with tape and then glue.
- The Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel The Crooked World implies this — the Planetville du jour is inhabited by cartoon characters. However, none of the protagonists seem to notice that the people they're interacting with are strangely coloured, although they do notice they're generally odd-looking and don't seem to work according to the normal laws of reality, biology, and so on, and the cover features a cartoon of the Doctor, so it's not clear exactly what is going on.
- In Simon R. Green's Shadows Fall, cartoon creatures are among the many inhabitants of the titular town of fictional and legendary beings. When the town is invaded by outsiders, some find out just how dangerous it is to fight semi-mutable creatures that always bounce back when injured...
- While no humans are ever present in the Max and Ruby series, a spin-off series by Rosemary Wells called "Baby Max And Ruby" combines real life objects such as toys and food with the characters◊.
- In The Magician King, it's near impossible for magicians to turn themselves completely invisible and those that do never look normal again. They look more like paintings than people.
- Toon Girl stars Susan Painter, a Fourth-Wall Observer GeneHuman with Cartoon Physics powers and an Animesque sketch look within a realistic world.
Live-Action TV
- Danger 5: Kilroy, a 2D cartoon dog, in "Final Victory", who previously hasn't appeared before, interacts with live-action Pierre and Hitler.
- Walking with Dinosaurs has CGI (or sometimes puppet) dinosaurs on live-action backgrounds, complete with footprints, splashes in water, kicking up dust, and even urinating. Also, sometimes live-acted animals interact with animated ones, like animated Australopithecus watching live-acted vultures.
- Back in 1968, Hanna-Barbera released a short-lived series called The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which featured live-action actors as Huck, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher, being pursued through various cartoon milieux by an animated Injun Joe. For the live-action intro, Injun Joe was played by Ted Cassidy (a.k.a. Lurch from The Addams Family). The series occasionally attempted some ambitious effects, such as having the human characters dance around their animated partners, first in front then behind.
- Re-Animated and its sequel series Out of Jimmy's Head both focus on a child who receives an emergency brain transplant from the Brain in a Jar of legendary animator Milt Appleday, with the result being that he can see Appleday's characters in real life.
- Lizzie McGuire used a cartoon of the title character to represent her thoughts.
- The Cold Open for one episode of The Drew Carey Show had Daffy Duck trying to apply for a job at Winfred Lauder.
- Similarly, a brief gag on Night Court features Wile E. Coyote as a defendant.
- The Walt Disney anthology series often had Walt Disney interacting with his cartoon creations. A perfect example is a 1956 episode entitled "A Day in the Life of Donald Duck", in which Donald Duck goes through a typical day at the Disney Studios. Along the way, he meets the Mouseketeers, the voice of Donald himself Clarence Nash, and of course, Walt Disney.
- A Hanna-Barbera TV special based on Jack and the Beanstalk has a live-action Jack and Gene Kelly (again) going up the beanstalk into an animated world.
- Vague example: The BBC version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has animated characters coexisting with live-action, but there was no distinction intended — the animation effect was apparently due to Japanese influence on the production, leading to odd scenes like live-action characters riding a dragon that was animated sometimes, and a practical effect in other shots. It's a bit jarring.
- A similar example somewhere between television and movie, is the original Superman Serials in which characters would become animated when flying, and return to live actors once on the ground.
- The Dancing Baby in Ally McBeal.
- On one episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, as Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion question how to put down dead budgies, one of Terry Gilliam's cut-out animations from the previous link strolls by (it's really a blow-up on a large piece of board being carried around). The two old ladies greet it with a hearty "Good morning, Mrs. Cut-Out!" This was only one of many invocations, as the animations were often required to link together the live-action sketches.
- Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: Parodied with Grum, an intentionally terrifying CGI character.
- Pumuckl: The kobold protagonist of a German children's TV series. Everything else is live-action; Pumuckl is animated.
- Done in an episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Ned gets occasional help from The Fairly OddParents!; justified since it's an episode about daydreams and they're just hallucinations.
- Beavis and Butt-Head once appeared "live" at the MTV Music Awards via this technique.
- They appeared to beside David Letterman in the Late Show set, as guests promoting their film. The use of a foul vocabulary by this pair managed to annoy Dave, as seen in this clip.
- Speaking of Dave, when The Simpsons Movie came out, Homer was brought in to do the Top Ten List.
- The same honors want to Peter and Stewie Griffin.
- They appeared to beside David Letterman in the Late Show set, as guests promoting their film. The use of a foul vocabulary by this pair managed to annoy Dave, as seen in this clip.
- The Argentinian soap Mi familia es un dibujo tells the misadventures of a family in which a pregnant woman has cartoon cravings in the last months of her pregnancy and then gives birth to a readheaded, freckled and hyperactive cartoon boy (!). It even spawned three movies! More information in the other wiki (in Spanish).
- The Saturday Night Live segment "Cluckin' Chicken" is this.
- Stewie Griffin from Family Guy makes a cameo appearance in an episode of Bones. Not just on a screen, but in the interrogation room itself! He's in fact an hallucination from Booth, who suffers from a brain tumor.
- The Powerpuff Girls once made an animated appearance on Donny & Marie (the late 90's Fox talkshow, obviously, not the 70's ABC variety show). They also helped Robert Osborne introduce a sing-along showing of The Wizard of Oz on Turner Classic Movies in 2002, when their own movie was about to be released.
- Former CBC children's block Get Set For Life did this with Radio and TV, two CG characters who would function next to the two human cohosts Alyson and Michael, and mostly existed within their Space Case.
- On the live-action game show Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, Carmen and all of her crooks are cartoon characters. Greg Lee's "father" Gus lampshaded it in one episode.
Gus Lee: Listen, son, I've been meaning to talk to. Are you aware that this, uh, "Carmine Santiago" lady you've been chasing around is... she's a cartoon, son. She's not a real person. You're aware of that.
Greg: Dad, that's how the show works.
Gus Lee: As a matter of fact, all the crooks are cartoons! And to put them in jail, you just pull on a chain that's connected to nothing! That is ridiculous! - Angelica Pickles once appeared as a guest on The Rosie O'Donnell Show. (She also collaborated on O'Donnell's album A Rosie Christmas.)
- The live broadcast of the Academy Awards sometimes has cartoon characters as presenters. They almost always present the Best Animated Short award, although there's been exceptions (Woody Woodpecker for the Special Achievement Award to Walter Lantz, Beavis and Butt-Head presenting Best Sound Effects, Edna Mode for Best Costume and Ted for Best Sound Editing/Mixing). Belle and the Beast and Chicken Little and Abby Mallard (the latter appearance had a hilarious lampshade of the Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal trope where Abby made makeshift pants out of the envelope) are among those who have presented for Best Animated Short. Almost always, with a few exceptions, whenever animated characters present at the awards, their mouths are covered up by the envelope when announcing the winner. For the Best Animated Feature awards, the characters from the nominated films are sometimes shown sitting in the audience. If those weren't enough, Donald Duck co-hosted the 1957 ceremony!
- A few Mr. Show episodes do this. The "Biosphere" sketch features David Cross, after unsuccessfully trying to pick up woman scientists, interacting with Limited Animation animals, trying to get advice. Also, to get David out of a cult, Tom Kenny reveals who he'll meet when he goes to heaven, all of who are animated. Also the Disney-esque birds in the Intervention link that fly along with a singing John Ennis.
- Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:
- Done (very poorly) in the 1981 edition with Strawberry Shortcake and Ed McMahon. At one point someone walked in front of the camera in the spot where Strawberry was being overlaid, resulting in Strawberry seemingly floating on top of her.◊
- And if puppets should be counted as this trope, similarly to Donald Duck cohosting the Academy Awards, ALF cohosted the 1989 parade with Today anchors Willard Scott and Deborah Norville. Alf mostly did his thing in a window overlooking the parade route. At the end of the parade, Alf also appeared in a superimposed bubble alongside the two human hosts.
- Done (very poorly) in the 1981 edition with Strawberry Shortcake and Ed McMahon. At one point someone walked in front of the camera in the spot where Strawberry was being overlaid, resulting in Strawberry seemingly floating on top of her.
- In 1970, comedian Pat Paulsen interviewed Foghorn Leghorn and Daffy Duck on two separate episodes of his Pat Paulsen's Half a Comedy Hour. See both interviews here
- The eponymous McGee in McGee and Me!, who was an animate cartoon character created by the live-action Nicholas Martin, who both had adventures and learned things in a live-action neighborhood. It was also done the other way as Nicholas sometimes entered fully animated worlds in Imagine Spots and Dream Sequences.
- ABC's prime time preview of their 1976 season Saturday morning shows had Jimmy Osmond and Scooby-Doo performing the Osmonds' 1971 confection "Yo-Yo."
- Similarly, the year before, the Cosby Kids introduced CBS's 1975 season line-up and intermingled with the live-action stars of The Shazam!/Isis Hour (Isis kisses Russell on the cheek in one scene).
- Press Your Luck had the show's penalty, the Whammy, appear in front of the contestants' score and perform a cartoony stunt to erase it when it was landed upon at the big board. Similarly done in its 2002 reboot Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck which was in CGI as where the original was computer-composite 2-D. Reverted to the limited animation version when it was revived in 2019 with Elizabeth Banks.
- NBC's 1969 sitcom My World...And Welcome To It was based on stories by author James Thurber and had his art style rendered in animation (by the DePatie-Freleng studio). The animation would interact with series star William Windom (as James Monroe, assuming the Thurber avatar).
- The obscure 1987 Christmas Special A Mouse, A Mystery, and Me is about an author named Jill Roberts and her animated mouse sidekick/co-author Alex investigating the kidnapping of a Mall Santa.
- The main character of Son of Zorn is an animated character in a live-action world.
- The '90s Spanish variety show ¿Pero Esto Que Es? ("But What Is This?") was co-hosted by an animated rabbit named Vicky, who also starred in the occasional short on the show.
- If CGI fits into this trope, Odd Squad employs this often, showing dinosaurs, laser chickens and flying goldfish among the live-action cast, among many other CGI creatures as well as gadget effects. Agent Ocean, his profession being dealing with CGI creatures, is the character to use this trope.
- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at times features interviews with cartoon versions of personalities, the most frequent being Donald Trump.
- Hollywood Dog was a 1990 unsold pilot where an animated, talking dog interacted with live actors, in a rather blatant swipe of the Roger Rabbit formula.
- Kingdom Adventure: Most of the special effects (e.g. fire, rain, and magic) were done using hand-drawn animations that interacted with live-action puppets and objects, and when Dagger shapeshifted into his vulture-form, he went from a live-action puppet to a cartoon bird.
- The French 70s-80s show Les Aventures électriques de Zeltron features the robot puppet Zeltron superimposed on live action footage, usually in his visits to Earth. He's also placed over cartoon backgrounds, like in his space station and in his adventures in the early episodes. The way his puppet was visually altered after filming gave him a brightly colored appearance, in which he looks like a CGI cartoon character.
- In the second season premiere of Teachers (2016), an animated bluebird visits each of the teachers as they are getting ready to go in for the first day of school.
- Smack the Pony: One sketch features a real-life Snow White working in an ordinary office, with animated bluebirds flying around her head and cartoon bunnies skipping beside her.
- Happy!: The titular character is a blue, flying unicorn created via CGI who interacts with human detective Nick Sax, played by Christopher Meloni.
- Llan-Ar-Goll-En is a Welsh show starring a live-action detective and his 2D cartoon dog partner which, of course, uses this effect extensively, as demonstrated by this showreel.
- The ABC Weekend Special TV adaptations of the Ralph S. Mouse novels ("The Mouse and the Motorcycle," "Runaway Ralph" and "Ralph S. Mouse") combine live-action with stop-motion animation. They primarily star live humans and stop-motion talking mice (and Ralph would often interact with the main human boy in each story). An animatronic owl is also featured in "The Mouse and the Motorcycle", and "Runaway Ralph" also featured stop-motion cats (even though "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" had also featured a live cat and dog).
- Loki: Miss Minutes, the mascot of the TVA, is an orange cartoon clock that appears several times throughout the series as a holographic image interacting with other characters.
- The intro to Return of The Saint has one.
- Following the "Dekirukana?" segments of Inai Inai Baa! during the Kana-chan and Rina-chan eras, there would be a live-action segment showing a kid doing an activity inspired by the song that just played, with an animated Kuu talking to them.
Music Videos
- A music video for The Apples in Stereo song "Signal in the Sky (Let's Go!)" features the band members playing their song in a cardboard recreation of the city of Townsville while The Powerpuff Girls fly around in the background beating up a guy dressed as the orange fish monster with the many eyes. You know the one.
- The video for "Opposites Attract" famously has Paula Abdul dueting with MC Skat Kat, a cartoon cat.note Continued in the video for MC Skat Kat's single "Scat Strut", where a cartoon version of Paula makes a small cameo.
- Most of aespa's music videos have them interacting with their digital counterparts.
- The video for "Breathless" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds has cartoon foxes, rabbits, and other animals running around.
- The video for Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" from So has Gabriel next to stop-motion characters. Blending was actually made more believable by stop-motion animating Peter Gabriel himself as well.
- The video for A Ha's "Take On Me" featured a pencil-sketch character "drawing" a live-action woman into his life.
- Gorillaz occasionally interact with live-action performers; during their Grammys performance, their computerised selves performed alongside Madonna. Another video shows them having fun with Jack Black at Venice Beach.
- Within the canon, it varies as to whether they know they're cartoon characters; 2D once said he's pleased to be a cartoon character because "Paternity suits don't stick 'cos I don't have any DNA." (Apparently they do stick when the mother is another cartoon character, as shown by the existence of 2D's numerous illegitimate children.) Murdoc also shrugged off a potential murder charge after the El Manana The Plan in which he used the crashing windmill to kill off a stalker of his, on the grounds that "I don't even have fingerprints." Murdoc claims Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the actual band creators, are their producer and photographer/video producer, respectively (although, as he further stated, "it's all bull because Damon mostly sits around playing his banjo or looking up 'ethnic instruments' on Google, and Jamie's mainly designing his beard"). Then there's this◊, to prove the point visually. There was also the interview with Franz Ferdinand that had a "photoshoot" with both band's members.
- Within the canon, it varies as to whether they know they're cartoon characters; 2D once said he's pleased to be a cartoon character because "Paternity suits don't stick 'cos I don't have any DNA." (Apparently they do stick when the mother is another cartoon character, as shown by the existence of 2D's numerous illegitimate children.) Murdoc also shrugged off a potential murder charge after the El Manana The Plan in which he used the crashing windmill to kill off a stalker of his, on the grounds that "I don't even have fingerprints." Murdoc claims Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the actual band creators, are their producer and photographer/video producer, respectively (although, as he further stated, "it's all bull because Damon mostly sits around playing his banjo or looking up 'ethnic instruments' on Google, and Jamie's mainly designing his beard"). Then there's this
- Vocaloid: Hatsune Miku did this during her "live-action" concert in Los Angeles. Each time a member of her band was introduced, she would turn to them, smile, and wave. In fact, the entire concert was an example of this. A virtual diva in the real world? Sweet!
- The smooth jazz band The Rippingtons once did a music video for their song "Tourist in Paradise", in which an animated version of the band's trademark anthropomorphic mascot, the Jazz Cat, interacts with the members and some chicks on a beach.
- They also did a video for "Curves Ahead", which has the Jazz Cat performing alongside the band members and snowboarding with them.
- The French pianist Richard Clayderman has a clip, "Smiling Joey", where for some reason he's at his piano in a boat floating down a river while various animated woodland critters are playing the parts of the orchestra.
- Disney's Princess Kesha.
- A.B. Quintanilla III Y Los Kumbia All Starz - Speedy Gonzalez
- German Punk Band Die Ärzte filmed a video starring Lara Croft.... Watch it here.
- This is done (badly) in the video for Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams Get Into My Car". A cartoon duck is crudely overlaid onto the live action footage, but it doesn't convincingly interact with the environment nor seem to have anything to do with what's going on.
- Jazz singer Al Jarreaunote did this in his video for "Mornin'".
- The Rolling Stones' "Harlem Shuffle" (Dirty Work) has an animated music video, where the live-action scenes are directed by Ralph Bakshi and the animated scenes by John Kricfalusi.
- Meghan Trainor's "Better When I'm Dancin'" has her filmed alongside the classic Peanuts characters (the song was made as a tie-in with The Peanuts Movie).
- In The B-52s' "Song For A Future Generation" video, an animated bird lands on Kate's finger at around the 2:11 mark.
- Many of Jack Stauber's videos combine live-action with animation.
- Barenaked Ladies' video for "Get In Line" (off the King of the Hill soundtrack) has the band superimposed into the animated setting of the show, where they perform the song and spy on resident Conspiracy Theorist Dale Gribble. Cartoon versions of the band also made a non-speaking cameo at the beginning.
- Full Force's "Ain't My Type of Hype" features verses by a fictional rapper named E-Coff, who is apparently just one of the group members using a vocal effect - in the music video he's portrayed as a stylized, vaguely Flava Flav-eseque cartoon character; mostly instead of interacting with anything else, he just appears in a black bubble overlaid on live action footage, but he does briefly dance alongside the band, and also raps while leaning against a live action parking meter.
- The official music video for the Miraculous Ladybug theme song has the live-action singers interact with Ladybug and Cat Noir.
Pinballs
- Data East's Playboy 35th Anniversary pinball shows real-life people (Hugh Hefner and the Playmates) interacting with cartoon characters (Little Annie Fanny, the Playboy Femlin, and the Playboy Rabbit).
- Similarly, the backbox translite for Last Action Hero includes Whiskers the cartoon cat hanging out with the rest of the human cast.
- Space Jam, like the film that inspired it, mixes the live-action Michael Jordan with various Looney Tunes characters.
Puppet Shows
- The Muppets at Walt Disney World ends with the Muppets being taken to see "the boss", who is an animated Mickey Mouse. He and Kermit are both members of the Weird Trade Union Fictional Animal Stars of America.
Theater
- As Gertie the Dinosaur was originally a vaudeville act with a man performing live on stage with a cartoon character, it fits here. Let The Other Wiki explain:
McCay would stand on stage in front of a projection screen, dressed in a tuxedo and wielding a whip. He would call Gertie, who appeared from behind some rocks. He then instructed her to perform various tricks, similar to a circus act. He would appear to toss a prop apple to her — McCay palmed the apple while Gertie caught an animated copy of it...
- The act ended with McCay appearing to climb onto Gertie's back (actually, he stepped through a hole in the screen, and a filmed copy of himself climbed onto Gertie), and the two rode off into the distance, which resulted in three mediums interacting with each other.
- Avenue Q: Nobody bats an eyelash at puppets and humans interacting (though a team-up with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof for Broadway Cares explored the idea in greater depth.) The audience can easily be lulled into ignoring the actors onstage who are controlling the puppets. This can be jarring when the cast comes out for the curtain-call at the end without the puppets in their hands. ("Who's that guy?")
- In fact, the characters seem to think the difference between monster puppets and human puppets is more striking than between human puppets and human... humans. However, in various in-character interviews and events, the characters seem to be aware that humans and puppets are different (they sometimes reveal themselves as Animated Actors). One video featuring Rod even treats puppets as a separate race, with him calling himself "the first Republican Puppet-American".
Theme Parks
- At the Universal Studios parks:
- The pre-show of the former ride, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, had Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera interacting with their own creations in person.
- Pulled off rather amazingly at this attraction at Universal Studios Japan, which has an animated Woody Woodpecker interact with a live-action character.
Video Games
- Super Smash Bros., insofar as Solid Snake can be considered a "normal"-looking human being. Or, for that matter, Link, Samus, and any other "normal"-looking human characters. And the coexistence of Link and Toon Link. Sort of an odd case. In Melee, one of the Event Matches pits you against what the game calls the "realistic" characters, presumably contrasted with the "cartoony" characters. But the supposedly realistic characters include the anthropomorphic animal Fox (though Fox and friends are space aliens who just happen to look like a bunch of Funny Animal cartoon characters). And the Final Destination stage's changing background is meant to show the characters actually traveling from the video game world to the real world.
- Toonstruck, wherein the real world animator Drew Blanc (played by Christopher Lloyd) gets sucked into the toon world.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- Kingdom Hearts II:
- Consider the mere existence of a Pirates of the Caribbean world, called Port Royal in this game. It is a bit jarring, because it's done in a more realistic, grittier style than the anime/cartoon styles of the rest of the game. it's even lampshaded. The protagonists are baffled upon landing on Port Royal and immediately comment that the world looks different. Kingdom Hearts III rectified this by giving the trio pirate attires when they return the third time.
- Subverted with Space Paranoids, which is based on TRON. The only live-action-style characters in that world are Tron and Sark, though unlike the cast in Port Royal, they look a bit closer to the main human cast. It helps that Space Paranoids is all blue and shiny, and that Sora, Donald and Goofy receive armor that match the world's style.
- Played straight with The Grid, which was based on TRON: Legacy, which appears in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]. Like with Port Royal, the cast found there are more realistic, which results in a few awkward scenes, as Sora and Riku, despite their world-exclusive armor, still resemble anime characters.
- The more cartoonish classic Disney characters (like Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Winnie the Pooh), and even realistic looking ones like the Disney Princesses, stick out like sore thumbs next to the Square Enix and Original Generation characters, who use a more modern anime style.
- Kingdom Hearts II:
- One TV special with Backyard Sports characters had Chuck Downfield (animated) talking with live-action NFL stars.
- Cosmic Osmo has a framed photo of himself with Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies.
- Nicktoons MLB features both Nickelodeon characters and real MLB players.
- Garry's Mod:
- Some of the animations that have realistic characters interacting with cartoonish characters (i.e. Left 4 Dead characters interacting with Team Fortress 2 characters) could count as this.
- Videos in which the Left 4 Dead characters interact with characters from other Valve games (not just TF2) also count as this, since the other Valve games exist as games in the L4D universe.
- Poker Night at the Inventory... sort of. The game features the normal 3D for characters such as Max and The Heavy, while using cel-shading for Strong Bad and Tycho.
- Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing: The realistic Jacky, Akira, Ryo Hazuki, and B.D. Joe race against the cartoonish Sonic The Hedgehog and friends, Aiai, Billy Hatcher, and more. They can also get Squashed Flat, hit with flying boxing gloves and missiles, and have other cartoonish things happen to them. Beat may also count since he comes from a realistic-type game but with stylish graphics. Real-life racer Danica Patrick joins the party in All-Stars Racing Transformed.
- Bendy and the Ink Machine features living cartoons (who are fictional in-universe) emerging from the Ink Machine as you explore the abandoned animation studio. In Chapter 1, Bendy himself appears to be out for blood, while you can also find his old partner/nemesis Boris the Wolf, strapped to a table and vivisected. Chapter 2 gives us Boris alive and well. And then there's Sammy Lawrence, who at this point is a hybrid of human and ink-dripping cartoon. Then there's Alice Angel, made from the body of her first voice actress, Susie Campbell. Other examples revealed are The Butcher Gang, ANOTHER Alice Angel, made from the audio logs of her second voice actress, Allison Pendle, and another Boris, made from the audio logs of Thomas Connor, the man who built the Ink Machine in the first place. The last chapter reveals that the Ink Machine was made for an attempt to bring the Toons to life so that people could interact with them and get to know them better... But it didn't.
- Twin Goddesses is an obscure Japanese fighting game where the titular twins Nina and Syllin as well as the Big Bad Carmilla are portrayed by actresses in digitized live action, while everybody else - including Carmilla's minions - are hand drawn cartoon characters.
Web Animation
- The Madballs webseries is animated this way. Live action scenes have the Madballs animated into them, with dubbed voices and animated eyes and mouths placed over the humans.
- Sonic for Hire had an episode where Sonic and Tails interact with the series' creators in live-action.
- SMG4: The video "Mario in real life!?" features Mario and several other characters (Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad, Po, McShyGuy and Old Man) visiting IRL SMG4's house via a portal between the real life and Project64 dimensions. At the end, Steve brings back the portal and causes the Castle to end up in the Real World.
- Red vs. Blue:
- The season 14 episode "Red Vs. Blue Vs. Rooster Teeth" has the cast ending up in the Rooster Teeth offices, in fully CG versions instead of being Halo models.
- For a canon case, Season 16's "It Just Winked at Me" has a cyclops portrayed by RT co-founder Gus Sorola being sent to battle the animated/machinimated characters.
- The season 14 episode "Red Vs. Blue Vs. Rooster Teeth
- The Toon Sandwich spin-off, "Toon Sandwich Live!" is a slice-of-life sketch depicting the channel's Creator Couple, Joe and Rita Artmann, interacting with animated fictional characters.
- Shawn Keller's Guardians Of Pondonia uses this heavily, featuring in its first episode the main character (an animated My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Expy) teleported to Earth and interacting with humans.
Webcomics
- Sam Sprinkles, from Zebra Girl, comes from an alternate dimension inhabited by cartoon animals (literally; they are the cartoons of the main ZG universe). In the process of saving his dimension, he ends up trapped in Sandra's.
- Love Me Nice takes place in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit-like world where toons are a whole different species with Rule of Funny bred into the blood (it's apparently regarded as the toon equivalent of nigga behavior, judging by an argument Mac and Claire have on the subject), and cartoons are live productions made with toon actors. There's even a "Toon Quarter" (outside which items like bottomless handbags are contraband), but it's implied to be more like a toon ghetto.
- The Platypus Comix story True Believers portrays such comic characters as Spider-Man as actual people, and such editors as Joe Quesadilla as both their bosses and their gods (any possible comic-world occurrence they write down instantly happens to the characters).
- A bizarre example occurs in the tenth issue of Sonichu, in which the author inserts photographs of herself to replace her normal drawn self in order to destroy an evil expy of 4chan...with the power of rock and roll.
- The premise of Greystone Inn, in which some of the stars of the Show Within a Show are living cartoon characters.
Web Original
- Ami Yamato is a 3D-animated virtual vlogger who interacts with real-life people and objects in her videos. She also inserts herself into existing movies and TV shows and interacts with the characters.
- A Nico Nico Douga video (now on YouTube as well) by an international Touhou doujin group named Perry Street has a 3D animated Remilia Scarlet and Sakuya Izayoi taking a tour around the real-life San Francisco.
- The Gaming Pixie does this when she travels inside the games she reviews.
- El Origen del Miedo [How Fear Came] is a school video based on one of Rudyard Kipling's Second Jungle Book stories, in which some of the animal characters are played by kids in costumes while others are CGI. Obviously the animation is a bit crude, but you have to give them credit for ambition.
- Off the Wall is a short student film by Alex Hirsch featuring an animation student named Nick and his animated friend Wallby, a living doodle that moved around on the walls of the school.
- Animated Analysis on Mr. Coat and Friends consists of a human reviewer, and a sentient drawing of a face who floats around.
- The "SpongeBob in Real Life" videos created by YouTube user JChaseFilms revolve around SpongeBob, Patrick and the other characters from the show ending up in the real world.
- Law-Abiding Engineer and The Demo Knight are the trailers for Law Abiding Citizen and The Dark Knight, but with the Team Fortress 2 characters superimposed into them.
- The Cut the Rope accompanying shorts "Om Nom Stories" feature Om Nom in the real world.
- The Cartoon Man trilogy, in which the live action characters use numerous cartoon props, and travel into and out of a cartoon dimension.
- The series My Anime Girlfriend features a stereotypical anime girl dating a live-action man.
- Various My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan videos blend together live-action footage with animation vectors of various characters from the show. A good example is Rainbow Dash's Precious Book, the story of a human who constantly attempts to steal Rainbow Dash's Daring Do book.
- The infamous Mike Matei video Minecraft with Gadget has Matei interact with an animated Inspector Gadget.
- CLW Entertainment: The Doraemon fandub announcement "Just Finished a HUGE Episode of Doraemon!!" has an animated clip of Fenneko from Aggretsuko layered on top of live-action footage of Collin.
