Intoxication Ensues

[excited] I FEEL GREAT! I FEEL GREAT! I FEEL GREAT! [suddenly depressed and dejected] I feel bad. [suddenly excited again] I don't even watch football! I don't even watch football! I can't remember my legs!
—Strong Sad, after drinking orange juice laced with several heaping spoonfuls of (decaffeinated) instant coffee, Homestar Runner

One or more characters accidentally partakes of some behavior-altering substance. There are several ways this can happen:

However it happens, they wind up behaving in a very loopy manner.

This type of one-shot (no pun intended) drug use is far more likely to cause Hilarity than to be used in the service of a Drugs Are Bad aesop. If there's a Will They or Won't They? situation already established between two characters, the writers may be tempted to bring in Kissing Under the Influence.

See also I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin. If the substance in question goes beyond altering behavior and causes the characters to hallucinate, it's a Mushroom Samba. If the character passes out immediately afterwards, it's a Non Sequitur Thud. Sometimes Intoxication Ensues from a G-Rated Drug. If most of the cast are affected, this becomes Everybody Must Get Stoned - and if that leads to romance, it's Love Is in the Air.

The alcoholic subtrope is Unsuspectingly Soused.

As the Real Life section shows, this is a VERY bad idea in Real Life, regardless of the legality or illegality of the substance in question. It ignores the concepts of "set and setting" that are essential to any good experience with a substance and essential to avoiding doing things - like driving or interacting with police for example - that could lead to a very dangerous situation, may induce fear and terror in someone who does not know what is happening to them - which is almost a guaranteed recipe for a "bad trip" with some drugs and for a generally bad day with everything. Finally, with some drugs (everything from alcohol to ecstasy and sedatives) this can set someone up for Date Rape.

Examples of Intoxication Ensues include:

Anime and Manga

  • In the manga & anime of Ah! My Goddess, Belldandy gets drunk on cola, and proceeds to wander around town granting wishes.
  • This happens to Usagi twice in Sailor Moon, in both cases she mixes up alcohol with juice. First in the first season in an episode based directly on a manga chapter she winds up Kissing Under the Influence (bad Mamoru!); and a second time in the third (S) where it's actually much funnier. In the second case she goes completely la-la and starts speaking gibberish in both Japanese and English at swanky party, the (English) guests find her delightful.

Usagi: (butting into a discussion on the theory of relativity) The pudding of relativity? Let's see... Well, in other words, you take milk, eggs and sugar, and stir it all up. Then you put a lid on it, and for about 30 minutes, you steam it... Oh! And if you forget the whipped cream, you're no good as a woman. Yeah.

    • Even funnier is the fact that the Americans she's speaking to at the party during this play along with it, seeming to be actually interested in this and finding it a new and unique take on the subject before Mamoru escorts her elsewhere.
    • What's even more hilarious about these incidents is that Usagi normaly takes no more than a couple of sips of the drink in question. Either that's some strong wine they're having or she's an utter lightweight.
    • The dub sadly changes this as much as possible into her getting sick from drinking too much juice. She still seems pretty drunk, though.
  • At the beginning of The Tyrant Falls in Love, Souichi unknowingly drinks a bottle of alcohol that's actually a powerful aphrodisiac. It doesn't change his personality (which is as bad-tempered as ever), but it does make him painfully turned on and severely immobilized to the point where he's unable to relieve it by himself. Morinaga, who's wanted him for years, decides to help him in a way that goes far beyond Kissing Under the Influence. What happens in the morning after the drug wears off is not a pretty sight.
  • Admiral Leti of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha downs one bottle of Earth wine in the last Sound Stage of the second season during the Hanami Festival. Then she downs another. Then another. Then she starts screaming out for Hayate's knights using their "Wolkenritter" name while in front of some Muggles and generally making a spectacle of herself until Lindy and Fate leads her away before she blows the Masquerade wide open.
  • In Hidamari Sketch, Hiro wrongly bought alcoholic juice at Yuno and Miyako's welcoming party, and the two freshmen got drunk. While Miyako is still herself, the generally innocent Yuno started ranting about It Just Bugs Me's... and Sae uttering an Engaging Conversation even she was not drunk...
  • Rock Lee's sake induced drunken kung fu in Naruto.
  • In Clannad After Story, after drinking one cup of sake, Nagisa immediately starts acting like a Clingy Jealous Girl towards Tomoya... in regards to her mother. Then said mother gets drunk too, and starts acting flirtatiously towards Tomoya. Needless to say, Tomoya was not very happy about this situaton.
    • Not helped at all by Akio finding the whole situation hilarious, and going out of his way to make it worse.
      • Until Sanae cheerfully tells him that she wasn't entirely joking about her attraction to Tomoya. He didn't find it so amusing after that.
  • In One Piece Luffy eats a bit of a cactus whilst trekking the desert of Alabasta in an attempt to quench thirst. Luffy chases around Zoro and Chopper mistaking them for the Big Bad, yelling "Croooooocoooooodiiiileeeeee! I'll kick your ass!", getting them separated from the rest of the crew... again.
  • In the first Dragonball Z Deadzone movie, Gohan eats a delicious looking apple from Garlic Jr.'s personal orchard. Turns out that "Children mustn't eat those". Cue the drug trip montage.
  • Seto no Hanayome has all the female cast and Saru drinking Uoihatsu, a mermaid drink that makes a person "act on their instincts". This leads to a group of drunken junior high schoolers running around a movie set, and hilarity ensues.
  • Cardcaptor Sakura featured an Omake in which Kero Beros and Spinel Sun fight over and chase the last takoyaki given to them all across town. At one point, Spinel Sun plows face-first into a cake, Intoxication Ensues, complete with a dazed hiccup and crazy mouth lasers of all things.
    • This is actually "Suppi-chan's" normal reaction to anything that has sugar with it, and the reason that he's not allowed sweets. Nakuru and Kero-chan, both lovers of all things sugary, find it utterly hilarious when they're not the targets of the resulting mouth lasers.
  • Genshiken has a "New Member Party" in the first season, where one potential member gets soused and wanders the restaurant signing the theme song from Kujibiki Unbalance loudly. Granted, his character type is one that may do things like that anyway, regardless of alchohol consumption or public exposure.
  • In one episode of Inuyasha, the party is exposed to an alcoholic vapor which intoxicates those who breathe it. Several members of the party cannot hold their liquor, apparently. Sango, in particular, starts behaving in a very interesting way towards Inuyasha. Cue the cries of "Sit!"
  • To LOVE-Ru OAV 5 has all the harem acting this trope out, except Rito, who's trying to figure out why they're acting like they are.
  • A chapter of Hayate the Combat Butler holds this, when Nagi and Sakuya enter a hot spring that has differing effects on people, presumably because a meteor crashed nearby. Nagi gets into the water and begins to act drunk, while Sakuya seems to be unaffected and begins to go find help. When Hayate shows up, she tries to hide, but Nagi still acts drunk until he lifts her from the water. She quickly recovers, then realizes she's being held by her butler, who she has a crush on, and was formerly in a hot tub.. She isn't happy.
  • In Detective Conan Heiji gives Conan some chinese wine as a medicine, and is scolded by Ran when he becomes totally wasted. Made funnier in the dub because Conan starts hitting on Ran.

Comic Books

  • In comics, one adventure Superman had resulted in acting in a very... festive manner.
    • Another (also featuring kryptonite) had him seeing every member of the Justice League in overly-cartoony chibi-style, using heat vision on the TV when he sucks at video games, and getting a severe case of the munchies.

Superman: Wait, do you smell that? Somebody's making brownies. *Runs to the window and looks out across the vast gulf of space between the Watchtower and Earth* Yes! Brownies! In North Dakota! We have to go to North Dakota. Right. Now. (here is a LJ post of the comic)

  • In Jeff Smith's Bone, Thorn and Fone Bone get tipsy from hiding in the woods and eating nothing but berries. The berries could have fermented. This happens in Real Life, and birds get drunk from the juice and fly into things. Hilarity Ensues
  • A drug which does this appears in the early Tintin albums. In "The Blue Lotus", even Tintin does show the effects after a villain drugs him, although we later find out the drug was exchanged for water. (He was just faking in order to escape.)
  • In Dork Tower, this happens to Ken after he tries one of Igor's sugar-overloaded "Igor bars". He passes out four seconds later...
  • In Stone Soup, the eldest daughter tastes parts of the batter for a cake her grandma was making for the holidays. She then proceeds to slur her words (more specifically, she starts slurring "few"), with the grandmother being unaware until after she starts slurring. Then it cuts to the grandmother's daughters expressing shock that the grandmother let the eldest granddaughter taste the batter for the rum cake she was making, and wondered how much she ended up tasting as the grandmother looks sheepishly while the granddaughter is stating she loves her grandma in a very loopy manner.

Fan Works

Film

  • Alan Tudyk's character in Death at a Funeral. A strait-laced businessman takes what he thinks is an anti-anxiety pill, and spends the rest of the movie making funny faces and stripping. At, as the title suggests, a funeral.
  • Joe Dirt: Joe gets the idea to ask a police sketch artist to make a portrait of his missing parents. He raises the money, but... "Somethin' happened to my head. See, I spent the night in what I thought was an abandoned circus tent... I guess there was no circus." Cue the gibberish singing and crazy nudity as Joe is whacked out on bug bombs. Needless to say, this throws off the sketch artist considerably.
  • In Dick, the two air-headed female leads, who are working as White House interns during the Nixon administration, use their older brother's "secret ingredient" - which they don't realize is marijuana - when making brownies. Nixon loves the brownies and serves them during an important meeting with officials from the Soviet Union. (It goes rather well.)
    • Not just officials—his famous summit with Russian Premier Leonid Brezhnev is a success thanks to this trope.
  • Subverted in Eurotrip, sort of. The characters eat brownies at a Jamaican-like shop in Amsterdam, which they believe to be laced with marijuana - but in fact aren't. This doesn't stop them from acting all loopy until the owners point out that they're completely drug-free. (Then there's the time when the brother and sister make out after taking absinthe for the first time...)
  • In Bad Boys II, Marcus accidentally ingests Ecstasy, and starts acting weirdly - just as he and Mike get to their boss' house to report progresses in investigation...
  • I love you Alice B. Toklas: She had a freaky cookbook.
  • Blind Date Kim Basinger's character is allergic to alcohol (with predictable results when she imbibes). Bruce Willis injects a box of chocolates with brandy in order to sabotage her wedding to John Larroquette's Jerkass.
  • In Juno:

Juno: "I knew this girl who like had this crazy freak out because she took too many behavioral meds at once and she like ripped off her clothes, and dove into the fountain at Ridgedale Mall and was like, "Blah I am a Kraken from the sea!"
(beat)
Su-Chin: "I heard that was you."

  • In Saving Grace the two old ladies who run the village store are told that a marijuana plant is an exotic tea. They steal a few leaves and brew them up so they can taste this new tea. They proceed to get stoned, much to the bewilderment of their customers.[1]
  • Harry Potter on Felix Felicis - probably the funniest moment of the entire Half Blood Prince movie.
    • What about Ron after he ate chocolates filled with a love potion?
  • The Hangover starts out this way. The majority of the movie is the protagonists trying to unravel the resulting Noodle Incident.
  • In Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore's character eats a brownie at a dance club. The man who gave it to her said it was rich in "Vitamins T, H, & C!". She ends up passing out, and her hand-stamp ends up writing "loser" on her head.
  • In Flirting With Disaster, Ben Stiller's character finally meets his birth parents, old hippies who manufacture LSD. His newly-acquainted resentful brother doses his dinner with the stuff, but it gets eaten by a Federal agent who is along for the trip (as it were).
  • In Charlie Chaplin's short film The Cure, the protagonist has gone to a health spring resort to cure himself of alcoholism. The management finds his secret stash of alcohol and gets rid of it . . . by throwing it out the window, and right into the health spring. A wild party ensues.
  • In Chaplin's Modern Times, he mistakes cocaine for salt and ingests a generous dose. In the ensuing frenzy he ends up foiling a prison break and is hailed as a hero.
  • In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Sam Witwicky's mother eats hash-laced brownies offered to her by some students as she visits Sam's campus, causing her to act in a loopy and shameful manner.
  • In Them Thar Hills, Laurel and Hardy take a trailer to the country for health reasons, and camp out by a well that's just been used as a moonshine dump. They attribute the funny taste of the water to healthy minerals. Soon they're snockered along with a young lady who's staying with them while her husband looks for gasoline. Hilarity Ensues Then, in Blotto it's subverted when they set out to get drunk, and get giddy, silly, and maudlin, before finding out their wives had switched their hooch with a nonalcoholic substitute.
  • In Taking Woodstock, the transvestite security guard arrives with hash brownies. Elliot figures it out, and doesn't eat one. However, his stodgy parents take his angry suggestion to eat a brownie or two, and end up dancing in the rain.
  • In the vampire spoof Love at First Bite, Dracula is reduced to feeding off a New York City wino and becomes plastered: "What was that maniac drinking!? Tastes like the Volga River at low tide!"
  • In Grandmas Boy, Grandma Lilly (played by Doris Roberts) grabs the gang's weed stash, confuses it for lea leaves, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • In Bon Cop, Bad Cop, our heroes barely escape from a house that was set on fire by a booby trap in the marijuana farm in the basement. Once they get out, catch their breath, and look on the destruction, they start giggling uncontrollably, and continue to do so through the entire next scene as Da Chief chews them out for burning down said house.
  • In Young Guns, When Chavez gets the other main characters to drink Peyote to get them in touch with the "spirit world", they start talking in slow motion and keep seeing chickens. This also leads into a hilarious scene where they ride through an Indian settlement, high as a kite.
  • In History of the World Part One, during the Roman Empire part of the movie, Josephus and Comicus are on the run from the Roman Soldiers. Josephus makes a rather large makeshift joint, and lights it, to use as a smokescreen. The soldiers, hot in pursuit, pass right through the cloud, and... well, Trope Ensues.

Stoned Soldier: Do you care if it falls?
Stoned Soldier: What?
Stoned Soldier: The Roman Empire?
Stoned Soldier: [laughs] Fuck it!

  • In State Fair, Melissa Frake enters mincemeat laced with brandy into one of the fair's cooking contests. One of the judges finds it so delicious, not only do he and the other judges award Melissa, but he also takes some extra helpings for himself. A few nights later, this judge's tipsiness lands him a mention in a periodical recapping daily events at the fair. Melissa and her husband Abel encounter him during their night out, and find that he still feels intoxicated.
  • In Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke, Man accidentally gives Pedro LSD, causing him to freak out.
  • In the old movie Animals Are Beautiful People, the animals eat amarula berries once they've fallen from the trees, when they're widely accessible to everyone. Unfortunately they're a bit overripe by this point, and the juice has become alcoholic. Hilarity Ensues.


Literature

  • A Running Gag throughout The Areas of My Expertise is "getting either very high or very autistic".
  • I, Claudius has a rare serious version where after Claudius finds out that his wife Messalina has been cuckolding him (something everyone else in Rome has known for years) and that she is on the verge of having him overthrown, his evil but loyal chancellor gives him some drug which is supposed to calm his nerves. While on the substance, Claudius experiences delusions of grandeur and is able to calmly sign the death warrants of Messalina and the other 500 people at a party she held when plotting treason, something he would have been too kindly to do with a clear head.
  • Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere has a scene where Richard and Door drink some wine from Atlantis: apparently, when wine ages, it gets more potent. Richard gets tipsy on the way out and wonders if Door wants him to kiss her. Thankfully, he doesn't go for it.
  • In Anne of Green Gables, the titular character accidentally gets her best friend drunk at a tea party when she serves currant wine instead of the less-potent raspberry cordial she meant to bring out.
  • In H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, eating the lunar flora has this effect. The conversation is truly ludicrous.
  • Max on Valium, from Maximum Ride. She has to get drugged up to get rid of the chip in her arm. Hilarity Ensues.

"I love you! I love you sooo much!!!"

  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Ron gets hit with a curse that makes him silly for a time. Later, in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Ron accidentally consumes an entire box of sweets dosed with a powerful love potion (originally meant for Harry.)
    • The curse is a bit of Fridge Horror. Between his incoherency and the fact that blood was coming out of his mouth, it was implied that his loopy behavior might have been caused by internal bleeding.
  • In one of PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories Gussie Finknottle (a teetotaler and all-around spinelesss goof) gets roped into giving a speech for the award ceremonies at a local grammar school. To 'stiffen his fibers', he drinks a great deal of whiskey, and then a jug-full of OJ which both Bertie and Jeeves have spiked with alcohol. Cue hilarity.
  • In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, one of Michael Pemulis' favorite methods of revenge (served pleasantly chilled) is spiking your drink with something mind-altering. Preferably a psychedelic or deliriant.
  • The fandom isn't sure just what happened in the Haruhi Suzumiya short story Remote Island Syndrome; all we know is that Kyon mentions secondhand stories from Itsuki that he and Haruhi got drunk and acted "quite disgracefully", which isn't shown in the anime. Naturally, WMGs abound.
  • In The Wise Man's Fear, Ambrose attempts to sabotage Kvothe's admissions exam by slipping him a "plum bob," a concoction that lowers a subjects inhibitions but otherwise leaves them seeming clear and coherent.
  • In The Shortest Way To Hades by Sarah Caudwell, Julia and Selena eat pot-laced fudge while at A Party - Also Known as an Orgy, leading them to "cast off all conventional restraints and devote [themselves] without shame to the pleasures of the moment." For Selena, this means reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice while ignoring anyone who tries to talk to her; for Julia, it means trying to explain the effect of Section 478 of the Taxes Act.
  • In the first book of The Dresden Files, Harry is in his apartment when his love interest, Susan shows up, followed shortly by a demon set on killing him. Harry tells Susan to go into the basement and drink an escape potion while he deals with the demon...only to find out shortly after that she accidentally drank the "super tequila" love potion he had brewed earlier instead.
  • Happens to Obi-Wan Kenobi, of all people, in the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Labyrinth Of Evil. He inhales Neimoidian spores and proceeds to demolish a squad of battle droids while stoned out of his mind. (This is the "business on Cato Neimodia" Obi-Wan is so embarrassed about in Episode III.)


Live Action TV

  • In an episode of Just Shoot Me, all the characters try a dirt-flavored Chinese treat called "Lemon Wacky Hello," which turns out to be laced with opiates (though the ingredients only list something called, "hello.").
    • Another episode had Maya accidentally get high off of Nina's nicotine patch when she mistakes it for a Band-Aid. Another episode had the office being bombed for bugs while Nina was still inside, causing the letter she was writing in voice over to descend into gibberish.
  • In the episode "Vital Signs" on White Collar, the usually composed Neal is drugged after breaking into a medical clinic, and ends up singing Frank Sinatra, confessing to past crimes, and just acting high as a kite in general. Peter is not amused.
  • iCarly: Sam gets high from the dentist's nitrous oxide, and loses the ability to censor herself.
  • On I Love Lucy, Lucy does a commercial for health tonic Vitameatavegamin, which, unknown to her, is 23% alcohol. The director keeps asking her to do extra takes, and each time, Lucy takes a shot tablespoonful to demonstrate that it tastes "Just like candy". This results in her becoming drunk and making increasingly comedic bloopers. Possibly the first example of the trope.
  • Seinfeld, Elaine takes too many pain pills, laughs at everything, yells "Stella!" a lot.
  • Friends, Ross takes too many pain pills, accuses Chandler of being gay, declares his love for Rachel, passes out. On Rachel.
    • Ross has a sugar rush - twice - on a later episode.
    • Let's not forget the one where Chandler got drunk at Joey's birthday party and made out with...well, everyone. Including one of Joey's sisters (but he couldn't remember which one by the next morning). Fittingly, the episode is called "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister."
  • Frasier, Martin unwittingly eats a hash brownie, devises a vague notion of a dog army.
    • Hilariously, this is because Niles wanted to get high and thinks he succeeds, his hash brownie being switched with his dad's.
    • In another episode, Niles overdoses on allergy medication while in a restaurant and starts hallucinating and speaking nonsense. He ends up accidentally knocking over the fishtank and, as Frasier puts it, "sprawled out on a bed of live Koi, weeping and desperately trying to revive that little plastic diver."
  • That '70s Show, the parents accidentally eat Hyde's special brownies and share one of those drug-addled Round Table Shots their kids usually indulge in.
    • Another episode of That '70s Show had Donna order a few iced teas while at dinner with Eric. The waiters brought her Long Island iced teas. Donna tried to drag Eric under the table for a "private rendezvous."
  • Coupling, Jane takes a couple of mystery tablets, reinvents herself as a children's entertainer, creates a sock puppet who insults everybody including her.

Jane: I'm not self-centred.
Jake the Snake: You're arguing with yourself!
Jane: Well, so are you!

Sally: Susan, I'm being mocked by a talking penis.
Susan: I know...
Sally: It took me years of therapy to stop having that nightmare.

  • The Drew Carey Show, an experimental sex drug from DrugCo is dropped in the Buzz Beer tank the day Drew has to go to court.
  • A rare dramatic example: in The Dead Zone, Johnny accidentally inhales a massive dose of ketamine, which renders his normally literal visions bizarre and cryptic.
  • On an episode of Barney Miller, Wojo's girlfriend bakes him brownies which he brings to the station. Of course, they're hash brownies, leading the characters to utter such lines as "Let's go down to the docks and shoot some clams," and "Has anyone seen my legs? They're about this long."

Fish: First time I felt good in twenty years, it had to be illegal..

  • Brennan and Angela inadvertently ingest crystal meth at a club in an episode of Bones. Their goofiness is short-lived, but does result in an exchange that sums up the trope:

Booth: Are you two high?
Angela: Yes, but only accidentally, so it doesn't count.

    • In the Christmas episode of the same show and season, the team gets given an antidote for a fungus they might have inhaled. Booth has a bad reaction and pretty much gets high. What makes it even better is he starts doing this after a laundry list of side effects are read off to them, including vomiting and skin rashes, making Hodgens proclaim,

"That is so not fair."

    • Also, when Booth hurts his back in "The Princess and the Pear," Vicodin "makes the furniture feel friendly"
  • President Bartlet on The West Wing complains in a first-season episode that his back medication makes him loopy...and is proven right, as when on the painkillers (two different opiates) at the end of the episode, he spaces out, confuses the names of his staff, and announces—with all the gravitas of the President of the United States—that he's been seriously thinking about getting a dog.
  • In Malcolm in the Middle, Lois refuses to take her painkillers on the grounds that they make her 'loopy'. Reese spikes her milk with them. There follows an odd, disjointed conversation with the high, giggly, mellow Lois and her husband, who hasn't even noticed.
  • In the Three's Company episode "Up in the Air", Jack unintentionally mixes tranquilizers and alcohol and winds up dancing with a plant in a pot on his head.
  • On one episode of WWE Smackdown!, John Bradshaw Layfield accidentally shot himself with a tranquilizer dart he had intended to use on The Big Show. While high on tranquilizers, he came out to the ring in a jacket, tie, and boxer shorts, and cut an extremely surreal promo, in which he beat up an inflatable dinosaur, claiming it was Godzilla, and commented repeatedly that The Big Show "eats pizza".
  • Spike, in his first appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, recounts an incident where he "fed off a flower person" at Woodstock. ("...and I spent the next four hours watching my hand move.") Vampires in the Buffyverse are especially susceptible to unwittingly taking drugs by drinking the blood of users, and one episode depicts a designer drug meant to be shared by a human and a vampire.
  • In a darker inversion, a lonely movie star on season one of Angel gives Angel a happiness inducing drug without him realizing it. What she doesn't know is that she doesn't want Angel to get happy, as he (this time temporarily) turns evil and tries to kill her.
  • The first episode of Walking With Beasts has some proto-horses getting drunk off fermented berries. Their reflexes are so dulled by this that one of them gets eaten by a bird.
  • In an episode of The Naked Brothers Band, Nat acts like this after going to the dentist.
  • In an episode of Taxi most of the cast gets baked out of their skulls eating Latka's (unintentionally) cocaine-laced cookies.

Jim: They're coca leaves . . . [chew-chew] . . . from Peru . . . [chew-chew] . . . southern Peru . . . [chew-chew] . . . before the rains . . .

    • In the episode "Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey", Jim slips a tranquilizer (or at least something that is not a Chiclet) into Louie's coffee while the others are trying to figure out how to get Jim a job at the taxi company. It takes effect almost immediately, causing Louie to act significantly nicer than he usually is, start singing, pass out on the hood of one of the taxis, and agree to giving Jim a job when Bobby asks him.
    • In a third episode, Alex is given some uppers and told that they are a headache remedy. He is then summoned to see the boss to explain a minor accident he had been involved in earlier while talking a million miles an hour.
  • In the Firefly episode "The Train Job", Simon drugs the mercenary Jayne to keep him from causing trouble while waiting for Mal to get back. Jayne manages to get to the cockpit/bridge and yell at Wash for a bit before the drugs take effect and he passes out.

Jayne: Now we're finishing this deal, and then maybe, maybe we'll come back for those morons... got themselves caught... and you can't change that by getting all... bendy.
Wash: All what?
Jayne: You got the light... from the console to keep you... lifting you up... they shine like... [starts grabbing at the air] little angels...
[Jayne promptly falls flat onto the floor.]
Wash: Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?

    • Simon did tell Jayne to sit down...
  • The My Name Is Earl episode "Robbed a Stoner Blind"? Randy ends up eating some "herbs" intended for his head wound and we end up viewing most of the episode via Randy's eyes in Claymation form.
  • Six Feet Under. David stashes the E tablets his boyfriend gave him in an aspirin bottle in the family kitchen. Nate decides to start taking an aspirin a day. The two events coincide the evening of a family dinner party. (See also Mushroom Samba for other repercussions of the E-filled aspirin bottle.)
  • In an episode of Spaced, Daisy buys a packet of rare Chinese spices and it then gets mixed up with cannabis while they're in a club, resulting in 'very moreish' stew.
  • A variant from Perfect Strangers: suffering from a terrible cold on the eve of a big date, with all other options exhausted, cousin Larry agrees to take "the Mypos Cure." Balki mixes up a batch of the awful potion for Larry, who forces himself to gulp it down when Balki leaves the room... and returns with a tiny spoon, the intended dosage for a single person. Larry just has time to declare to Balki "I can see through you" before he passes out. He awakens several days later, his date long missed - but hey, his cold is gone!
  • Stephen Colbert marked the demise of (father of LSD) Albert Hoffman when his interns made him a sheet of little stamps. He decides to pre-lick the entire sheet right away. The results start at Contemplating Your Hands and go all the way to an epic fourth-wall-breaking freakout over whether he's a real person and why he does the things he does. He ends the show in his set's "fireplace" (a set piece looking like a brick fireplace with a flat-screen TV showing a burning fireplace fire) and claims that the fire looks fake. He had a similar reaction when he briefly ran out of the prescription painkillers he'd become addicted to.

"You have your math but he has the math. I see numbers! And five is very angry. Come back, five!"

  • That's My Bush! - After a drug bust, the President takes three hits of ecstasy, which were indistinguishable from run-of-the-mill aspirin.
  • The Black Books episode "The Blackout" has Manny consuming too many espressos while watching cop shows, leading him to chase a purse snatcher, be mistaken for a plainclothes policeman, and sit in on an interrogation (and nab a confession through his unconventional Good Cop, Bad Cop performance).
    • Another episode, "The Big Lock-Out" has Manny trapped in the bookstore with nothing but a bottle of Absinthe, which he drinks and in the ensuing dementia roasts and eats the bees he finds on the windowsill.
    • In the first episode, Manny, as well as excessive amounts of espresso, accidentally swallows The Little Book of Calm, making him into a sort of stoned, platitude-spouting, Zen... thing.
  • In one episode of House, House slips a little something in Wilson's coffee...

Wilson: I'm not on antidepressants, I'm on speeeeeeeeeed!

    • Milder versions occur all the time on this show, especially with House himself, who at one point takes Methadone for his pain and nearly dies when he falls asleep. One moment he's cheery, the next he's at death's door. Another possible example is when too much Vicodin causes House to have a powerful halluciation of now-dead Amber, as well as imagining an entire day of Vicodin withdrawal followed by sex with Cuddy. When he realizes it was all just a hallucination, he's so freaked out he voluntarily goes to rehab.
    • A recent episode had Parks and Taub going to a patient's home to see what was wrong with him. Parks has some ice cream which was laced with LSD. The resulting acid trip is hilarious.
  • In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Crow creates a Gargle Blaster called a "Killer Shrew" out of about a dozen different sugary substances. A single sip sends TV's Frank on a hyperglycemic bender as he races around the lab jabbering madly, then passes out.
  • Appears in the "Who can keep a dead octopus on their head the longest?" episode of Kenny vs. Spenny, only enhancing the weirdness already present in the challenge.
  • In the episode of Arrested Development called "Afternoon Delight", Michael asks Oscar to give Lucille some "afternoon delight" so she wouldn't be stressed out. While the delight in question is sex, Oscar thinks he talks about marijuana, and gives her some marijuana-laced brownies. Later, completely stoned, she drives to Balboa Island in her car, runs over Tobias without realizing it, and crashes the car into the Frozen Banana stand.
  • In Dollhouse, episode 7 - "Echoes" - a hallucinogen that is transmitted by touch wreaks havoc on the dignities of several Dollhouse security guys as well as Ms. Dewitt and Topher.
  • The Knights of Prosperity didn't last long, but lasted long enough to follow this trope. One episode had the Knights getting stuck in a panic room. Esperanza, who's claustrophobic, takes some medication and subsequently becomes very loopy. Louis observes "I think she took more than the recommended dosage."
  • Night Court also used the "I ordered an iced tea but they brought me a Long Island Iced Tea by mistake" routine with Christine.
  • On How I Met Your Mother Ted is dared into doing five shots of an unnamed alcoholic drink. He's convinced that, as someone with a "super-brain," he's immune to doing anything stupid. He is wrong.

"How easy do you think it would be to sneak into the zoo? I have to see some penguins, like, right now."
"Go into my stable and take my finest stallion. He's yours! His name is Windjammer!"

    • From the episode, "We're Not From Here":

"Marijuana is illegal in the United States, yes, even when baked into a blueberry muffin, that someone might mistakenly eat for breakfast, before leaving for their job as a TV newscaster. 'This just in, look at my hand, how weird is my hand?' is not an appropriate thing to say on the air."

    • At the end of the episode 'Hooked', Barney takes some of the 'purple pills' the pharmacy girls left behind and ends up saying really random things to Ted and Robin and possibly hallucinating; obviously high.
    • It's somewhat of a tradition for Ted, Marshall, and Lily to get high on marijuana together (although Future!Ted insists they were just eating "sandwiches"), leading to a truly epic instance of this in "Tick Tick Tick", where Ted and Marshall have to make an attempt to go get nachos for Lily while high at a concert, which in their state, seems to them to be a massive, dangerous, bewildering, surreal quest of Lord of the Rings proportions, although in reality they were only wandering around for two minutes.
  • My Family had a joint that actually turned out to be made of cinnamon and oregano powered by the placebo effect shared by Ben and Susan. Effects range from Susan overcoming her habitual mental block as to how horrible her cooking is, Ben correcting the lyrics to Jimi Hendrix songs at the top of his voice, and the immortal phrase (on an egg-smashing demonstration of "this is your brain on drugs") "She's killed our brain!"
  • Dead Like Me, "Reapercussions." Mason starts smuggling drugs as a mule to raise cash... but the balloon breaks. Since he's a reaper, the overdose won't kill him, but he still spends most of the rest of the episode complaining about how he can't feel his arms, freaking out, and talking about The Crying Game.
  • In one episode of Midsomer Murders, Barnaby is offered cookies by a charming elderly couple. He then spends the rest of the day acting quite loopy, laughing and giggling. (Note: Barnaby laughing is among the most terrifying scenes in existence.) Later on, it turns out the elderly couple grew marijuana in their backyard, and everyone (but Barnaby) knew about it but thought he let it slide.
  • In an episode of The Closer, Brenda's niece, visiting for a few weeks as a "straighten up and fly right" experiment on the part of her parents, receives a "package" from a friend back home, which she bakes into brownies. When Brenda comes back, her impeccable nose for all things sweet conspires with her sweet tooth to lead her to the brownies in the niece's room. Brenda eats three, and while she appears to have a wonderful time, her husband Fritz was not amused when he returned.
  • In a third-season episode of Kingdom, the title character, Peter Kingdom, eats an omelet containing some special mushrooms. It's doubly funny because it's Stephen Fry.
  • Carlton experiences this in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He consumes a handful of Will's uppers at a high school dance after mistaking them for vitamin E pills, causing him to go wild and steal the dance floor in a scene strangely echoing an infamous episode of Saved by the Bell.
  • Drop the Dead Donkey. Damien gets high while reporting on soldiers burning a huge pile of confiscated marijuania.
  • One of the best examples happened in the Australian show Frontline, in the episode "My Generation". Mike, the host, has a headache, and when Shelley the receptionist looks for some Panadol for him, she finds the ecstasy tablets Marty confiscated from one of the camera dudes. The ending is hilarious.
  • The female alien protagonist in the short-lived series Something is Out There has this reaction to caffeine. Later she's smart enough to ask for decaf, but on one occasion the coffee shop attendent has run out, so he secretly gives her the normal stuff, which causes problems as she's talking to a Serial Killer at the time.
  • The X-Files. In "Three of a Kind" Agent Scully is injected with a brainwashing drug to make her forget some evidence she's uncovered, one of its side-effects being the inhibition of higher reasoning. We later see her enthusiastically flirting with an all-male group of defense contractors and The Men in Black; fortunately Melvin Frohike hauls her away, much to their disappointment.

Langley: So what killed him?
Scully: In my professional opinion? Beeeeeeeeeeep, crash!

  • Several instances from The Big Bang Theory
    • Leonard, Raj and Howard are camping out to observe the Leonid meteor shower when they eat some cookies from what Howard claims are two old schoolteachers (the schoolteachers in questions are implied to be old enough to be going to a Megadeth revival that was occuring nearby). Soon they are having weird conversations (Raj wants to be king of rabbits, Howard confesses to losing his virginity to his cousin), getting an intense case of the munchies, and missing the meteor shower entirely.
      • In the same episode, Penny dislocates her shoulder and ends up on strong painkillers, eventually forcing Sheldon to sing "Soft Kitty" as a round
    • Another example is Sheldon under the influence of Valium. "I'm Batman! Shhh!"
    • Sheldon also has a cup of coffee which acts on him like he's taken speed.
    • And of course, Sheldon singing and playing the piano after having a few "virgin cuba libres that got a little slutty"
  • In one episode of Eleventh Hour, (The American one), Jacob Hood ended up ingesting PCP. However, this was not played for laughs, and instead was taking seriously as he starts talking about philosophy and being alone.

If Kraus is correct then we appear to be living in the worst of all possible universes. But if that isn't right then the universe is receding into the threshold of the unknowable. But if Newton is correct, then all matter will dissolve into nothing. The universe is dying and we're all alone.

  • One season five episode of NCIS had Tony on painkillers, which made him act even more crazy than usual.

Tony: My fingers ... they're finging. An elevator bell sounds Ooh!

  • In the second episode of Nurse Jackie, the tyrannical hospital administrator accidentally gets a full dose of Percocet after stealing what she thought was Jackie's coffee sweetener. Hilarity ensued.
  • Urkel ends up taking Laura's diet pills which he mistakes for Vitamin C (she hid it in her Vitamin C bottle). He took 4. He ends up acting like he's on speed.
  • In Glee, the school nurse Terri (who is moonlighting as a nurse to check up on her husband Will) gives the sleepy Finn some Sudafed (which contains ingredients that also make crystal meth), which causes him to be extremely happy and energetic and gives some to the boys when they perform their mash-up. Rachel later finds out from Kurt and calls Finn and the boys cheaters, but the girls and her decide to take some for their performance as well. Rachel becomes somewhat of a Motor Mouth while introducing the girls' mash-up.
  • An episode of The Greatest American Hero has Bill experience a version of this after being shot up with Truth Serum:

"I haven't felt this good since Korea. I ever tell you? Took one in the leg. They gave me a shot. Guy was a vet. The needle.. [holds his fingers six inches apart].. I was out for a week. It was great!"

    • He gives a loopy but basically accurate description of Ralph and the supersuit, but by then his interrogaters are convinced that he's just babbling.
  • Will and Grace had an episode in which Jack became addicted to coffee, and he bursts into Will and Grace's apartment in the beginning of the episode with a frenzied monologue that must be quoted in its entirety:

Jack: (very rapidly, drinking iced coffee) Hey, friends, lovers, mothers, and other strangers. You're never going to believe what happened to me. (almost trips) Oh, my gosh! Did you see that? I almost did the half nelson. I almost bruised my delicates, my delicates, my domo arigato Mr. Tomatoes. (takes a huge belt of coffee) Huge news! I have met--are you ready for this? Mr. Right. Well, Mr. Right-Now, anyway. Ba-da-bum! Good night, folks, I'm here all week. Jack 2000! He works over at the Jumpin' Java. You know that coffee shop on 72nd? And his name is Paul. He is cute with a capital "Q"! And the busier it gets, the hotter he gets. And the hotter he gets, the sweatier he gets. And the sweatier he gets-- I forgot where I'm going with this, but the point is... (drinks again) Me likey he, and he likey me. And the best part is--shaZAM--he gives me free iced coffee every time I go in, which is every hour on the hour. Thank you very much! And occasionally on the half hour! (sing-song) Bah-da-da-da-da! Blblblbt! (exits, to much applause from the studio audience)

    • Also lampshaded in another episode where Will becomes 'addicted' to his painkillers in the course of a weekend after falling off his "man-clog," exhibiting laid-back behavior which disturbs Grace: "Okay, now you're freakin' me out!! There are crumbs on the carpet, your robe doesn't match your socks, and, oh, my God, there's no product in your hair! I'm calling 9-1-1!" (Episode also features the line "oooh, crackwhores are sneaky!", which this troper finds very quotable.)
  • In the Mork and Mindy episode, "Mork and the Family Reunion", Mindy accidentally eats an Orkan delicacy called flek, and begins performing spontaneous gymnastics and acting, well, Mork-like. Later, Mindy's uncle (played by none other than Robin Williams' Rapid-Fire Comedy idol, Jonathan Winters) eats some and Hilarity Ensues big time.
  • A mild case is in the 'Criminal Incarcerated' episode of Life Unexpected, where Cate starts speaking her mind on air after having eaten some of the banana bread Ryan's sister made... which is laced with pot.
  • On Law and Order: SVU, Olivia accidentally breathes in toxic mushroom fumes which cause her to become confused... to say the least.
    • "I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with a pickle!"
    • And later, when Elliot fakes mushroom intoxication in court: "It's so hot in here. I didn't order that pizza. I'm not even a fan of anchovies!"
  • After the aliens first discover dreams, Dick goes to a psychiatrist and gets antidepressants to help deal with his issues. He takes one, then another when it doesn't immediately kick in like he'd hoped, and another, and another...

TOMMY: So how was work today, Dick?
DICK: (stoned) Oh, just fine.
SALLY: How'd it go with Albright, Dick?
DICK: Oh, just fine.
HARRY: How'd it feel to have broken glass rubbed in your eye?
DICK: Just fine.

  • One episode of Stargate Atlantis has Rodney injecting himself with a massive dose of Wraith enzyme to take out his guards and escape. Once he gets home however...
  • This seems to happen a lot on Party Down. There's Roman high on weed brownies, Lydia accidentally powdering her nose with cocaine, Ron downing a bottle of Henry's Vicodin, Ron high on marijuanu fumes while spending time with rappers, Bobbie on 'shrooms, Constance... on various drugs pretty much all of the time...
  • Happens in the second-season finale of Farscape: having being badly burned in the previous episode, Moya is in serious pain, so the crew find a doctor who can provide a suitable anaesthetic while the healing process continues. However, the anaesthetic is provided in the form of a gas, which has to be liberally hosed around the affected areas, and because nobody has a proper gas mask aboard, Stark and D'Argo end up a little bit loopy while applying it.

Stark: Thaaasssit, D'Argo.
D'Argo: I caaaa' feel my tongue.
Stark: Who'sssss ffffault izzat?
D'Argo: Aw fwell you... (trails off incomprehensibly)

    • Doubly hilarious, Moya's symbiotic Pilot ends up even higher than them when the anaesthetic reaches his nervous system, insisting that he's perfectly fine even while giggling and slurring all over the place. Oh, and providing this line: "I am no higher in life than I've even been; my position is fixed!"
  • Chuck from Pushing Daisies had been sending her aunts pie laced very mildly with drugs. Olive tastes one of the pies and decides that there isn't enough "vanilla" and that said vanilla isn't particularly strong. She adds lots of it.
  • During the Bolivia special on Top Gear, the trio purchase some caramelized coca leaves (which are legal and used as a mild stimulant). Richard Hammond has "about six." Cut Description Cut to Hammond in his car, chattering away with barely a pause for breath.
  • Morwenna from Doc Martin became inexplicably, hilariously, hyper after trying some of her Grandad's old WW 2 energy pills. Turned out they were methamphetamine.[2] Mood Whiplash ensues when those same pills cause her Grandad to have a heart-attack.
  • In a christmas-themed episode of Two and A Half Men (specifically, the one where Charlie ends up sleeping with someone who might be his sister), Jake Harper has a sip of some eggnog made for the christmas party. Then he spends most of his time in the background doing things such as (somehow) getting from the hallway to the porch in a somewhat loopy manner, which eventually cumulates in him vomiting in his parents car on the way back from the party while attempting to recite Twas the Night Before Christmas.
    • In another episode, Jake also locks himself in the bathroom and is unwilling to come out due to him experiencing something weird with his body. He then mentions that the weirdness started when he ingested some items from Charlie's medical box. His description of it being a blue pill implies that he had unknowingly ingested Viagra, and likewise the weird reactions in his body was his getting an erection.


Stand Up Comedy

  • Bill Bailey once speculated that Albert Hoffman's publicized report on the effects of LSD was actually the second draft, as the first draft consisted of "my brain is melting" written five thousand times.
  • Bill Engvall recounted a time where he forgot he was on Vicodin (which he was taking for a hernia) and decided to have a "Bahama Mama", and the results include agreeing to going parasailing with a stranger, only for the high to wear off while he was in midair. Over a sea filled with sharks.
  • Mike Birbiglia has a few routines about the effects painkillers and alcohol have on him. One has about how he had a drink while in a laundry mat and believed himself to be in "a submarine in a sea of dirty clothes, with an all-Spanish crew. This resulted in him shouting for a course to be set for "permanent press" and for someone to bring him more quarters and a drink because "this place is starting to look like a laundry mat!" Another involves him being whacked out on painkillers while with his mother in the waiting room of a doctor's office. As he put it, "this was not the first time I was high while in the same room as my mother, but it was the first time she knew about it."

Video Games

  • In Metro 2033, there is a room with bad air. It's so bad that it seeps through your gas mask and gets you and Burbon high. Bourbon starts babbling on about a "Great Gate" and "marvellous songs". You get a "Hallucination" play-type, no shooting and lurching movements.
  • Persona 4,during the school field trip, the Investigation team (particularly Rise, Yukiko, and Teddie) get a little tipsy when hanging out at a local night club. This leads to the downright hilarious "King's Game" incident. How they managed to get drunk from non-alcoholic beverages (since the club explicitly stopped selling alcohol several years prior due to a rash of drunk-driving incidents) is something we will never figure out.

Visual Novels

  • Katawa Shoujo: On Rin's path, Rin comes down with a cold and misses school for a day. When Hisao goes to visit her in the afternoon, he discovers that Emi left Rin some cold medication[3] and that in the absence of specific instructions, Rin took more medication than recommended, causing her to act even weirder than she usually does. She also kisses Hisao, then has no recollection of the entire incident later.


Web Animation

  • Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad e-mail "caffeine", Strong Bad slips some instant coffee into his younger brother Strong Sad's orange juice. Hilarity Ensues (for real) as the caffeine turns Strong Sad into a hyperactive Talkative Loon.
    • The real kicker? Strong Bad referred to the substance in his younger brother's juice as Sanka. Strong Sad was somehow buzzing on decaffeinated coffee. Which, admittedly, does have trace amounts of caffeine in it, and Strong Bad did say he added "several heaping spoonfuls" of the stuff.
    • Additionally, Strong Bad and the Cheat both drink straight soy sauce with hilarious results in one episode. Strong Bad attempts to fly Bubs' Concession Stand to the moon, while the Cheat tries his best to eat it.
    • In another email Strong Bad starts acting stranger than usual, and Strong Sad asks if he took "some of my pills again", suggesting that this sort of thing is a regular occurrence.
    • In the sbemail "long pants", Homestar freaks out worse than usual upon being told that he looks like he isn't wearing any pants at all. In the later sbemail "email thunder", Homestar refers to that incident as the time he accidentally took some of Strong Sad's pills.

Webcomics

  • In the sequence from Unshelved where Dewey had mixed his muscle relaxants with his painkillers.
  • In Shortpacked, Robin DeSanto (who already has a superhuman hyperfast metabolism) ate Cadbury Eggs as a breakfast cereal and when she came down, she had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on a platform of getting a Padme Amidala doll produced and flashing her rack. She has no clear memories of doing this.
  • In this strip of Questionable Content, a change in Hannelore's anti-anxiety medication (for her OCD) causes her to get all the way to the coffee shop without realizing that she was still in her underwear. This strip lets us see what's making Tai so giggly while she's singing LSD's praises. "When you use big words, smoke comes out your nostrils!"
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony and Kat eat enough cherries from a tree taken from Gillitie Wood to stain their hands and clothes red. They get tipsy, and Mood Whiplash or two ensues.
    • Much later Annie looked suspiciously like this after the warm welcome of Foley kids in Chapter 36. It's not quite clear whether this happens because she let her emotions run free in a Heartwarming Moment or because she was out-of-body'ed in a crowd of ex-fairies.
  • In Twokinds, Keidrans can get insanely drunk off a couple slugs of normal beer. Then they start to talk like LOLcats.
  • In a Christmas arc in PvP, Skull gets stoned on a bad orange julius and ends up taking a job as a Mall Santa.
  • This strip of Loserz. And it was just coffee.
  • Girl Genius had some really good coffee from Agatha Heterodyne.
  • CRFH has a few instances of accidental exposure to blue mushrooms. These result in some of the most bizzare story arcs the comic has produced.
  • The title character of Mulberry went crazy after drinking the contents of Paula Abdul's American Idol Coke glass.

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Meatwad of Aqua Teen Hunger Force once had an episode like this, wherein he ingested some expired "cheese" that made him believe he could predict the future whenever he touched people. He began predicting disasters that turned out to be minor annoyances, such as milk going bad or the garbage stinking. In the end, it was revealed that the "cheese" he ate was actually caulk, and a listed side effect of its ingestion is "making you think you can see the future but you can't".
  • In Daria, Jake picks several unfamiliar berries while the family is out camping, which all but Daria eat. Soon, Jake and Helen are chasing after his spirit animal, while Quinn tries to use a mudpuddle as makeup; in the end, Daria has to call for them to be airlifted to a hospital.

Quinn: But why did they go insane?
Daria: Knowing Dad and his excellent woodland skills, I'd say it was the berries. Except...
Quinn: It couldn't have been the berries.
Daria: That's what I think. You ate them too and you seem okay.
Quinn: No, I meant because those weren't the glitter berries.
Daria: Glitter berries?
Quinn: You know, the glitter berries! The ones that fill your mouth with beautiful sparkling glitter when you bite into them. Those are the ones that make you act weird. I mean until you spread your shimmering wings and fly away.
Daria: Uh-oh.

  • Futurama:
    • Lrr, Emperor of Omicron Persei 8, eats a hippie right before delivering a speech in "The Problem with Popplers", and ends up rambling about his hands.

"Urg... I think there was something funny in that hippie. People of Earth - oh, that hippie's starting to kick in - we've all learned a valuable lesson today, I realize now that - dude! My hands are huge! They can touch anything but themselves. (touches them together) Oh, wait."

    • Dr. Zoidberg is injected with painkillers in "Bender Gets Made": "Why always with the fighting?"

Clack... clack. And then minutes later: "Oh God, I'm coming down!!"

    • The essence of pure flavor is nothing more than water. Water laced with LSD.
  • An episode of Dexter's Laboratory has him and Dee-Dee try coffee to see what all the fuss is about. They end up consuming all the coffee in the house and going on a hyperactive bender. Meanwhile their parents learn that they are out of coffee and go through the effects of withdrawal. Interesting fact: while Dee-Dee spent her excessive energy playing plenty of different games and activities, Dexter keeps tightening the same bolt for possibly hours, all while smiling like a stoner.
  • Happens in Beavis and Butthead. Whenever the eponymous Beavis consumes too much sugar—which doesn't actually seem to be that much—he slips into his hyperactive alter-ego Cornholio. Part of the transformation involves pulling the back collar of his shirt over his head, holding both hands up, and commencing a quest to find "TP for my bung-hole!".
    • In one episode the characters see an ad for non-alcoholic beer, which excites them when they find out you don't have to be 21 to buy it. After purchasing a pack, they sit on a sidewalk and try to become drunk ("We're fhit-saced!"). A cop comes by and gives them a test ("I'm too drunk to take a test!") which they naturally fail. The cop eventually sees that the beer isn't alcoholic, and tells them that they aren't drunk; they're just stupid. Disappointed that they aren't drunk, the two decide that all they need to do is drink more beer.
    • There's also The Movie, in which Beavis takes a bite of peyote in a desert and experiences a musical trip.

Beavis: Woah, this is cool! It's like... it's like everything looks all weird, and... woah! It's like there's all these weird shapes an'... it's sorta like... it's like a... it's like a music video!!

Space Ghost: Look: bean prints on the wrench. But what is the wrench for?
Moltar: That's for where you were trying to fix the gas leak, and you made it leak.
Space Ghost: Is that where I got all these ideas? 'Cause they're brilliant! Hey, Break all the pipes in the sub for more good ideas! Dive! Dive! Suck on the pipes!

  • Occurs on The Simpsons. In "Selma's Choice", Lisa drinks the water from a flume ride and declares "I am the Lizard Queen!" in parody of Jim Morrison.
    • Also the episode where Bart and Milhouse drink raw Squishee syrup and go on a sugar-induced 'bender'.
    • And, of course, the infamous Guatemalan insanity peppers which begin Homer's vision quest.
    • In "D'oh-in in the Wind", he destroys the hippies' vegetable juice business by accidentally jamming the bottling machine with a Frisbee novelty flying disc. He makes up for it by picking all the other vegetables and putting them in the juicer, which turn out to be the hippies' "private vegetables;" we see a montage of townsfolk hallucinations and such, and Chief Wiggum tastes it and comments that "it's nothing but carrot juice and peyote."
    • Bart goes on another sugar-induced bender with Lisa, when the family are on holiday in London. The shop-keeper warns them that English candy/chocolate "is sweeter than what they're used to" but the pair stuff their faces, and within seconds their pupils are dilated, and chaos ensues.
  • Teen Titans features a much darker version of this trope when Robin inhales a hallucinogen and believes the assumed-dead Slade to be plotting to destroy the city and attacking him - he's so convinced it's real that he actually reacts to the nonexistent blows and comes out of the ordeal bruised and battered, with tattered clothes, as if they had been real. Fridge Horror ensues...he was doing this to himself.
  • Sokka in Avatar: The Last Airbender winds up drinking some raw cactus juice in the middle of a desert. As a side note, many have heard of Peyote but few realize that it is a cactus. Cue camera switching to Fish-Eye as Sokka becomes a Talkative Loon. He offers to share the wealth, insisting that cactus juice is the "Quenchiest!" His (much wiser) friends decline.
    • "It's a giant mushroom! Maybe it's friendly!!"
    • Immediately after he comes down from this, he decides to try the goop on the wall of a cave the group stumbled into. He begins seeing giant "buzzards". The good news is that they are actually there, the bad news is that he is pointing in the opposite direction.
      • Of course, in this case it is possible it was because he was still under the influence of the cactus juice, just able to form coherent sentences.
      • Momo had a sample from the same cactus and gets loopy as well—literally, since he can fly.
    • In an earlier episode, Aang is trying to unleash the Avatar State so the Earth Kingdom can attack the Fire Nation. He is given a tea that's supposed to stimulate his energy. He becomes very hyper.
  • The first episode of Clone High had what amounted to the entire student body getting drunk on non-alchoholic beer. Even better is Gandhi, who got drunk (and acted the craziest) even though he knew what it was in the first place, since he helped buy it.
    • And let's not even start on the episode about smoking raisins, in which a motivational speaker telling the school not to do drugs emphasizes how addicted he was by saying, "I would have smoked anything! I probably would have smoked... I dunno, raisins if I thought it would get me high!" The raisins, believed by everyone to be smokable, become potent mental drugs. It most notably affects Gandhi, who goes on a spiritual quest with a humkeycorn[4] only to wake up later, completely naked and confused.
  • Hank Venture accidentally stabs himself with one of Molotov Cocktease's drugged boot-spikes, resulting in him attempting to kill his father with a paper-mache sword.
  • Abigail and Amelia's uncle Waldo from The Aristocats, who was thrown out of a restaurant after a failed attempt at cooking. He had been basted (more like marinated) in white wine. "Oh, you are just too much!" "You mean he's had too much."
  • In The Iron Giant, Hogarth drinks some of Dean's espresso, insisting he could handle it. The following exchange takes roughly fifteen seconds:

Hogarth: So she moved me up a grade 'cause I wasn't fitting in, so now I'm even more not fitting in. I was getting good grades, you know, like all A's. So my mom says, "You need stimulation," and I go, "No, I'm stimulated enough right now."
Dean: That's for sure.
Hogarth: So she says, "Uh-uh, You don't have a challenge, you need a challenge." So now I'm challenged, all right, I'm challenged to hold on to my lunch money because of all the big mooses who wanna pound me, 'cause they think I'm a shrimpy dork who thinks he's smarter than them! But I don't think I'm smarter, I just do the stupid homework! If everyone else JUST DID THE STUPID HOMEWORK, they could move up a grade and get pounded, too! Is there any more coffee?

  • In an episode of Ruby Gloom, Misery overdoses on sugar. This being Misery, she starts running around the house, hyperactively reeling off disasters as they come to mind. ("Holland, 1134 -- SEA FLOOD! That's a lot of water...")
  • Happens in the American Dad episode "Bush Comes to Dinner": Roger gets the president drunk and the latter goes berserk. (Skinny-dipping in neighbours' pools; mini-golf in the middle of the night; "doing the Skull-and-Bones"; etc.)
  • Bugs Bunny, typically one of the only sane characters in The Looney Tunes Show, gets high on energy drinks in one episode and goes completely off the rails.
  • Done a couple of times in Family Guy examples being when a young Peter was given LSD and told its a "cheesburger", he nearly kills himself from leaping off a tower believing he could fly had the Black Knight not saved him. Another episode, Peter and Lois smoke weed so they could get the inspiration for a talent show (which doesn't help them in the slightest as when they perform, from there POV, it was done beautiful. But in reality they were singing gibberish). Brian getting Stewie drunk to show him the effects of drinking with both getting hammered and crashing their car into the local bar. And Peter at one point trying cocaine, Brian tries to talk him out of it but typically Peter doesn't listen and when Brian comes to check on him later, Peter huddled on the couch shuddering and claiming "the gub'ment took my baby!".

Real Life

  • An Austrian reporter got drunk while doing a report on mead, having to take a sip of the stuff before speaking. Several takes later, and he was hosed.
  • MMA fighter Luke Cummo is notorious for his stringent Lifefood dietary habits, but after (supposedly) getting a second-hand marijuana high, he devoured a plate of chicken wings, which affected his metabolism and contributed to his DWI arrest.
  • Sex columnist Dan Savage wrote in one of his books that something like this happened to his mother once. Dan's partner was making margaritas at a family gathering and Dan's mother was acting loopy after just one glass. It turns out the margarita "mix" already had tequila in it, and Dan's partner hadn't realized this (only wondered why the "mix" was so expensive) and had bought a whole bottle to add to it...
  • This is how The Beatles got introduced to acid. John and George were visiting their dentist/friend for dinner one night in April 1965, and he spiked their coffee with the stuff. They liked it enough to share it with Ringo. Paul was reluctant, holding out for about a year before breaking down and trying it. He still preferred weed.
    • Also: supposedly Patti La Belle's trippy monologue in the Labelle version of Cat Stevens' "Moon Shadow" was the result of an unwitting acid trip.
  • The Merry Pranksters introduced a lot of people to LSD by mixing it with various drinks (like orange juice and Kool-Aid), especially at parties called "Acid Tests". Although they would generally indicate which punch was laced with acid and which one wasn't, a number of people would either come in late or miss the hint and not know they were getting dosed. Since hilarity did not always ensue, stories of these incidents contributed to the backlash that led to the drug's prohibiton, prompting hallucinogen users to blame the Pranksters for ruining acid for everyone.
  • Ever watch a cat come off of tranquilizers? Hilarity Ensues
    • Depending on the cat, you can get the same effect when they're coming off catnip. Some cats will wander around high and lean against the wall to keep from falling over while washing their leg, while others will become incredibly spastic and tear around the room with their pupils dilated.
    • Horses as well. There's a reason you tie a drugged horse and keep it that way until the effects have worn off.
  • A lot of diet pills can have weird effects since they aren't regulated by the FDA. The least of which is hyperactivity.
    • Just in case you were thinking of going off and getting high on diet pills, the result of this is often death.
  • This happened to several people in an office in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in 2011, when one woman who worked there brought some brownies from home that she had found in her freezer. The folks who ate them thought that they had been poisoned; it turns out that the woman's son had baked pot brownies some time ago, tossed them in the freezer, and forgotten about them.
  • This can happen to people when they drink on planes or just before getting on them. Travelers who turn out to be mean drunks often end up forcing the pilots to turn the plane back so the person causing the disturbance can be removed. In the post-9/11 era, they might find themselves facing terrorism charges when they sober up.


  1. ↑ THC not being water soluble, this must be tea with milk.
  2. ↑ yes, during WW 2 both sides issued methamphetamine pills to their soldiers to keep them awake
  3. ↑ Active Ingredient: Coedine
  4. ↑ half hummingbird, half donkey, half unicorn
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