"I'm OK!" yelled after slapstick violence

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Psychosis

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Anyone noticed this trend in cartoons that actually use slapstick violence of late?:

Character gets giant object dropped on them, object lands... instead of just going to the next scene knowing the character will bounce back in Looney Tunes tradition, we hear a voiceover---sometimes an in-pain-sounding-one---of "I'm OK!" or something similar *before* cutting away to the next scene.

I was wondering, if this is just an amusing joke that's gotten popular lately (since it can be funny depending on the scene/writing), or something networks' standards and practices have forced/encouraged of late (lest some kid somewhere thinks that poor little cartoon-human-kid-character didn't make it)?

Seen it used in Johnny Test often, and especially so in "The Emperor's New School" on Disney Channel. Can't recall it used much on SpongeBob though...

(EDIT: If anyone can fix the spelling error in the subject line, I'd appreciate it... thanks!)

-B.
 
I remember Invader ZIM used a variation of this during the Keef episode.

Also, Hey Arnold! used this quite a few times with Eugene. And since it was a running gag, it's possible that it's more of a joke than any form of censorship.
 
I think that for Johnny Test its more in the realm of 'catchphrase'. The same as "Woah...didn't see that coming.", you expect to hear those phrases once an episode.

I think its just funny rather than generalized.
 
On a similar note, I always wondered what was up with 90's cartoons(mostly the Nicktoons and the early Cartoon Cartoons) and the fascination with the organ known as the spleen. There were many cartoons where a character would get hurt, often times in the background, and you would hear that character shout "My Spleen!" in a similar fashion to "I'm Okay". What made the writers choose the spleen?

Another one was "My Leg!", most often used by unnamed fish and other sea creatures on Spongebob.
 
Phineas and Ferb lampshaded it in the episode about racing, there were dozen of cars crashed into a big something-shaped figure and every single driver showed up and said:

"WE'RE OK!"

That was hilarious.

Oh, and uh, yeah.
 
I think it's just a funny-sounding body organ. Arguably the funniest, although I think a case could be made for uvula.

I might argue that the "I'm OK" achieves both purposes of being funny and satisfying BS&P that nobody came to actual harm during a kid's cartoon. Couldn't say which one came first, though I'd guess the gag was in response to a storyboard meeting where someone said, "BS&P isn't going to let us crush that guy."
 
I tend to agree; in many cases, the "I'm OK!" gag and its' variants seemed to be made in a deliberate attempt to pacify the BS&P. One notable example occurs in an episode of Beetlejuice entitled "The Unnatural" in which an extra on a baseball team is running back to catch a fly ball before getting "eaten by the paisley monster"--literally. The camera then pulls back to reveal that this image is on a TV screen in a living room with the same character sitting comfortably on a couch, assuring the audience, "I'm OK, kids! He didn't really eat me!"
 
I was watching 'Dave the Barbarian' a few nights back, and one episode poked fun at this.

After Quazmir (giant naga god dude) crushes a peasant with his fist, said peasant cries out "I'm still alive, man!"

He does the same to another peasant right after, though this time it's followed by an "I'm not!"


I'm pretty sure they had a few other spins on the whole 'I'm ok' thing during it's run.
"I'm ok!....well, except for my broken bones...a-and my organs."
 
Not sure about the leg one but yeah, "Spleen" is just one of those funny words to scream out loud. It's also funny because most likely children don't know where the spleen is.

Another popular one is the always faithful, "MY EYES!"
 
"I'm okay!" (person disappears under the foot of golem) "I'm still okay!"

- The Road to El Dorado

The example that readily came to mind when I read the topic title.
 
I noticed this trend as well. I definitely feel it's meant to assure the audience that said character wasn't just violently killed on screen.
 
One of the worst examples is from 'Master of Disguise', even though its not animated. But, whenever they show the boy crash on his skateboard a few times, hes always shouting "Im okay, im okay". That movie was pretty bad, but it was dumb that the filmmakers thought the audience was stupid :mad:
 
WIIIIGUUUUMSSSS!!! :D

Another one that's not used anymore but was used often in 80's toons was "My Sacro-Iliac!" to which I still find funny to this day. :p:D
 
No mention of Ruby Gloom yet? They love doing this with Iris and Misery.

Iris says "I'm good!", everytime she does some sort of stunt, while Misery just says "Ow."
 
Close but no cigar since it's not "I'm Ok!" they said. In South Park, in the episode "Chickenlover". Kenny is injuried multiple times with Stan saying the "Oh my God! They killed Kenny!" then he saw Kenny is ok and said "Oh, nevermind".

However I think there was some episodes where Kenny mumbled "I'm ok!"....until he got hurt again.
 
I've seen this a lot lately and I can't stand it. It's obviously there so that BS&P doesn't have a conniption fit. You could make a case that there was a time when this was actually funny but you see this so often nowadays that you just know that the characters are saying this so no one freaks out.
 
Strangely, even The Simpsons has succumbed to this on occasion. "Stop! Or My Dog Will Shoot", which was an otherwise funny episode, has a lame ending to a scene where Homer is violently choked by Bart's pet python. He drops to the floor, and after a beat, he says normally, "I'm OK!" It would've been funnier if it cut to the next scene without that line.
 
I assume the spleen is the organ of choice because it sounds like something fragile yet squishy, as well as being a largely unnecessary organ.

I haven't really noticed how common "I'm OK" has become, but it definitely sounds like a case of S&P being overprotective as usual. That and the gags that involve this are usually some sort of crash instead of slapstick, so its probably used there because such an incident can actually happen in the real world and we can't have imitative acts on TV now can we?
 
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