Genie: Disney Death
Bartman: We've defeated the aliens but at such a terrible cost! Radioactive Man is
Radioactive Man: Ooooh!
Bartman: He's alive! I should have known! He always comes back in the comics!
Bartman issue #3, "The Final Collision!"
Beloved major character is seemingly killed at the climax of the movie/episode, hearts are wrenched, four-year-olds are traumatized, and then oh look, the character is Not Quite Dead after all. "I thought you were dead!", they recite before walking off into the sunset.
A variant is the Robot Disney Death where a Robot Buddy is seemingly destroyed in a Heroic Sacrifice. While at least one character mourns, the robot reappears fully repaired after an extensive period in Mr. Fixit's maintenance shop good as new and touched by all the concern.
Animated films seem destined to have these, considering the target audience is primarily young kids, and nobody wants to give a Downer Ending to them. Writers who are considering implementing it need to be extremely careful, as it can very easily come across as a tacky and cliched way to add some cheap drama to the ending. And probably been done to um death, and audiences now expect it. You run the risk of making your viewers remember they're watching television, even if it does shut up the Media Watchdogs.
Named after its (over)use in the Disney Animated Canon. That said, even Disney likes to kill 'em off for real now and then.
See also Sorting Algorithm Of Deadness, for how likely this is to happen, and Our Hero Is Dead, for when this is used as a Cliff Hanger. If used comedically, may overlap with I Got Better. If done on a massive scale, it's a World-Healing Wave.
Not to be confused with Disney Villain Death, which refers to a villain falling from a very high place, such as a cliff.
OOC:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyDeath
