History Main / PokeThePoodle

** An early episode (originally one of the ''WesternAnimation/OhYeahCartoons'' shorts) had Cosmo turning evil for a day. He was rather bad at being bad until Vicky advised him to [[EarthShatteringKaboom blow up the Earth]].

* ''Fanfic/RainbowDoubleDashsLunaverse:'' In "An Early Reunion", a young Cadence deals with a grumpy innkeeper, and swears she shall visit ''ruination'' upon him for not believing she's Celestia reborn. She'll write a bad review of his inn, and no-one will dare visit again. The guy retorts that the Celestia he knew would've burnt the inn down.

* When he's not pulling grandiose heists, Gru from ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' apparently likes to keep his hand in evilness by doing minor crimes and various [[EvilIsPetty petty misdeeds]], like [[ThrewMyBikeOnTheRoof giving a kid a balloon animal and then popping it]], deliberately bumping into other people's cars when {{parallel parking}}, and cutting in line at the coffee shop... with a [[CallingYourAttacks "FREEZE RAY!"]]

** The "diabolical plan" of Hacha Chacha, one of Mojo Jojo's minions in the movie, is simply to throw banana peels all over the city so that everyone will keep slipping on them.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Shia in ''Manga/PitaTen'' is a demon sent to Earth to train (or retrain according to the manga) to be evil. Evil things she does include poking Kotarou with her magic rod so lightly it's more of a massage. She ends up even living with Misha, an angel, and does all her cooking and cleaning. [[spoiler: In the manga Nya points out that her selfless behavior ultimately made her the perfect demon because she made everyone fall in love with her, then she died making everyone sad.]]

'''Spider-Man''': (immobilized) [[OhCrap Ggnn!!]]\\
'''The Ringer''': '''Come on!! Come on!!!'''\\

'''Spider-Man''': I can't!\\

'''Spider-Man''': I really can't!! Hello!!

-->'''Hedley''': Qualifications?\\
'''Bart''': Stampeding cattle...\\
'''Hedley''': [[LampshadeHanging That's not much of a crime.]]\\
'''Bart''': ...through the Vatican?\\
'''Hedley''': Kinky!

-->'''Layla''': C'mon, Duke, let's commit those crimes.\\
'''Duke''': Yeah! Let's get sushi... and... not pay!

* ''{{Series/Supernatural}}'': Season 9 ended with [[spoiler: Dean becoming a demon]]. You would think this would be a pretty major turning point for the character, and that Season 10 would have him doing some pretty dark things, right? Not exactly. The grand sum of [[spoiler: Demon Dean]]'s crimes amounts to treating his hookups poorly, beating up a bouncer, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking singing bad karaoke]]. Hardly admirable behavior, but on a show where the bad guys regularly do things like torture and murder (and the ''worst'' bad guys usually want to KillAllHumans), it's a little anticlimactic.

** Pippa, as Mr. Benevolent's Evil Consort in Season 4 gets confused between doing something "evilly" and doing it "badly". When she returns to evil in Season 5, she does things like invite two people she knows don't get on to tea on the same day. [[spoiler: Justified, since she's not really evil at all this time.]]

-->'''A Marquis (seeing that the hall is half empty):''': What now! So we make our entrance like a pack of woolen-drapers! \\

--->'''Mao''': What? I only replaced all stop signs with yields, hid people's shoes, and prank called a few places at most!

---->'''Murray''': I will hide your keys beneath the cushions of your upholstered furniture, and NEVERMORE will you be able to find socks that match!

--->'''Captain [=McGillicutty=]''': Tell me the ritual words or you'll be sleeping with the fishes!\\
'''Chieftain Beluga''': That's where I sleep anyway!\\
'''Captain [=McGillicutty=]''': Tell me, or I'll send you to the bottom of the ocean!\\
'''Chieftain Beluga''': Oh, that'd be great! I need to pick up a few things for dinner!\\
'''Captain [=McGillicutty=]''': What are those ritual summoning words?!\\
'''Chieftain Beluga''': You'll never get me to tell!

-->'''Gordito''': Oops. I just poured out alllll your dish detergent.\\
'''Dr. [=McNinja=]''': I don't think he did that accidentally at all!

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' Dragon Magazine articles, the Temple of the Shrouded Overlord believe the Ancient Overlord will bring about a thousand-year reign of darkness, so they honor this nefarious prophecy by forcibly extinguishing street lamps. This is in contrast to the Temple of the Bloodsoaked Overlord who actually do horrible things like sacrifice innocents.
** In the comic proper, it turns out that the worst thing Durkon has ever intentionally done is [[spoiler: get justifiably angry at the leaders of his faith for throwing him out in the snow with no money and no time to say goodbye to his mother and say some mean things about them when no one else can hear.]]

-->'''Ollie''': I'm really not good at being evil.

--> '''Strong Sad''': So for this year, I was thinking we could make everyone a cinnamon-apple crisp, but tell them it's a ginger-apple crumble. I know, I know, I'm so bad! But we could get in some serious trouble for this one. In fact, I probably shouldn't even be talking about it on the phone.

-->'''Flash as Luthor''': My fellow bad guys, I, Lex Luthor, your leader, will speak now about my, Lex Luthor's, plan. My villainous, villainous plan. Question the plan at your peril! Uh... any questions?

--->'''Fluttershy''': ''(wagging her tongue back and forth)'' How '''''wacky!'''''

** This trope is delightfully inverted with The Insurgent Generals in "The Big Job" who come off as tough and super-organized Franchise/GIJoe-esque heroes, but what was their mission all along? [[spoiler: They just sabotaged Lord Hater's hot tub; turns out they don't have the nerve to ''seriously'' impede Hater's planet-conquering operations.]]
** All the residents of Doomstone in "The Bad Guy" also qualify, but [[spoiler: it turns out none of them are really villains. They just heard it was a tough place to live and pretended to be tough guys to survive.]]

* The ''Music/WeirdAlYankovic'' song [[Music/{{Alapalooza}} "Young, Dumb and Ugly"]] is about this kind of person. "We got a reputation 'round these parts / we only leave a ten percent tip / sometimes we don't return our shopping carts / stay out of our way and don't ya give us no lip".

** Humorously inverted with Pistols for Pandas, a "charitable wildlife organization" that promotes conservation of pandas by... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin giving them firearms]]. Their logic is apparently that it allows the pandas to defend themselves against land developers who want to destroy their bamboo forests and build a five-star resort, but they don't even give guns to *wild* pandas. They just smuggle them into the panda enclosure at the zoo.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Anybody who pretends to be evil by [[MattressTagGag tearing off the tag on their mattress]], even though the only way that could be considered illegal is if the retailer were to remove it.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Hornigold Captain Benjamin Hornigold]], a {{pirate}}, once captured a ship and boarded it, then apologetically asked for the passengers' ''hats''. He explained that his own crew had got drunk the night before and thrown their own hats overboard. After receiving the hats, the pirates left the ship alone. This would happen occasionally: pirates would often pillage ships of menial supplies and such that they, as wanted criminals, couldn't easily obtain, and, if nobody started anything, they generally just left people unharmed. UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} himself (or was it Henry Morgan) was known for stealing medical supplies and clothes and not hurting people during such raids. Blackbeard, in particular, is famous for attacking a ship, stealing nothing but medicines for syphilis and other [=STDs=], and leaving.
* American gangs smuggle in weapons and drugs. The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Black Cobra gang]] in Sweden... [[http://www.thelocal.se/20100312/25498 steals cakes.]] AndThatsTerrible.
* And then there's the French terrorist organisation ''[[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_de_lib%C3%A9ration_des_nains_de_jardin Le Front de Libération des Nains de Jardins]]'', "The Garden Gnome Liberation Front". They stole garden gnomes and left them in the forest. Their main claim to fame was to have "liberated" a Ronald [=McDonald=] once and really pissing off UsefulNotes/McDonalds in the process...
* Among the ''many'' plots by the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}} to deal with UsefulNotes/FidelCastro was an attempt to make his hair fall out (ridding him of his iconic beard). Apparently, the CIA thought that Castro gained his power from his hair, like Samson.
* A similar plot was hatched against UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler whereby they wanted to spike his food with estrogen so they could make his mustache fall out and his voice become high-pitched and squeaky so he would lose popular support. [[ArtisticLicenseBiology Despite the fact that estrogen doesn't even remotely work that way]]. They paid his gardener to spray the gardens which Hitler ate from with estrogen. The gardener pocketed the money and dumped the estrogen down the drain.
* A member of the Japanese {{Yakuza}} was arrested in Tokyo for [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking trying to scalp tickets]] [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-12-06/yakuza-arrested-for-scalping-sanrio-theme-park-tickets/ to a Hello Kitty theme park.]]
* The German snacks-making company Bahlsen had a [[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebstahl_des_goldenen_Leibnizkekses golden Leibniz cookie sign]] hung in front of its main office in Hannover, Germany. In 2013, it was stolen, and a ransom note appeared, demanding that Bahlsen make various charitable donations, including a donation of cookies towards a children's hospital, accompanied by an image of the perpetrator dressed in a [[Series/SesameStreet Cookie Monster]] costume. Bahlsen eventually acceded to demands, donating just over fifty thousand packs of cookies to various social institutions, and the sign was returned soon after. All charges were dropped, and the identity of "the Cookie Monster" remains unknown. Bahlsen has had to repeatedly rebuff accusations that the entire crime was staged for purposes of marketing.
* Many forum {{troll}}s use juvenile insults, InsaneTrollLogic, and other LogicalFallacies to annoy people, as opposed to more severe threats that can result in real life consequences. As do school bullies, who use teasing rather than physical attacks to upset people. This can turn fairly serious, however, and in the latter case, the abuser will often graduate to more openly vicious and cruel attacks should they find mere psychological bullying boring for them.
* Common photo ops related to this trope include sitting or standing near a "Keep off the grass" sign and lighting up in front of a "No Smoking" sign. Rarely, if ever, is this done without a strong sense of irony, especially since the joke has now been used so often that it's more a [[MemeticMutation meme]] than anything else ([[http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3o4fk7Y1G1rsqfpho1_500.png even The Beatles did it!]]).
** For an even edgier version, take a picture of a no pictures sign!
* While UsefulNotes/NorthKorea has no shortage of actual atrocities, one can't help but laugh a little bit when they hack the South Korean website to spam pro-North Korea and anti-western propaganda.
* One purse snatcher stole a woman's purse... after administering the woman's husband life-saving CPR until paramedics arrived. The woman was both annoyed and grateful.
* Among the ISIS criminal acts: hacking the website of Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Population: approximately 35,000. Also, hacking the website of XV de Jaú, a Brazilian football club that, besides having only a couple thousand supporters, is so broke that they can't afford an official site. Which means the ISIS hacked a fan site.
** They also hacked the Facebook page of {{Electronicore}} band I See Stars to spout propaganda for some unexplainable reason.
* A British fascist [[https://www.facebook.com/hope.n.hate/videos/10152651907576854/ filmed himself trying to burn an EU flag]]. Keyword being "[[EpicFail trying]]".
** British [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitemark Kitemark]] 2:0 Brexiteer. Both the flag and the lighter were rigged against the poor idiot by British trading standards legislation that predates the formation of the EU...
* Played very effectively for laughs by, of all people, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill. During the 1926 General Strike, which had happened partly because of his poor decisions as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he annoyed the then-prime minister Stanley Baldwin by advocating drastic measures such as escorting food deliveries with tanks, lining the streets of London with machine-gun nests, and turning the BBC into a government propaganda organisation. Baldwin eventually rendered Churchill harmless by putting him in charge of publishing the government's own propaganda newspaper, the ''British Gazette'', which he was quite successful at. After the Strike, the House of Commons was debating the ongoing industrial difficulties that were underlying it, and a Labour MP casually mentioned the possibility of another general strike. When Churchill spoke, he discussed the production of the ''British Gazette'' and then finished by recalling the remark by the Labour MP from earlier on. Knowing that the House was aware of his aggressive attitude towards industrial action [[note]]He'd notoriously sent in the army to deal with striking miners in Wales, several years earlier[[/note]], Churchill ominously began that while he had no wish to issue threats or make bad blood, nevertheless:
-->'''Churchill''': Make your minds perfectly clear that if ever you let loose upon us again a general strike, we will loose upon you... [''ominous pause''] ... another ''British Gazette''.
** This was, as he knew, such a ridiculous threat that it defused the situation; the entire House burst out laughing.
[[/folder]]

* The first evil act of Hyde in ''Film/AyoyDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' is... smashing a mosquito. He does some reprehensible things later, but it takes him a good while to get there.
* "Just some routine mischief..." Peter Cook as George Spiggott, the Devil Incarnate in ''Film/{{Bedazzled 1967}}'', largely works by this trope, his evils consisting of petty acts of unpleasantness: scratching LP records, smashing crockery, ripping the last pages out of Creator/AgathaChristie mysteries, causing shopping bags to split, tinkering with parking meters...oh, and sinking oil tankers.

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion'': During the final scenes, we see [[spoiler:Akuma Homura]] doing this to Mami and Kyoko, by breaking the former's tea cup and causing the latter to waste a few of her apples by accident. This is in sharp contrast to [[spoiler:[[KickTheSonOfABitch her psychological torture of Kyubey]], implying that while she has become a CardCarryingVillain, she doesn't have it in her to truly torment her former friends]].

* The ''Music/WeirdAlYankovic'' song "Young, Dumb and Ugly" is about this kind of person. "We got a reputation 'round these parts / we only leave a ten percent tip / sometimes we don't return our shopping carts / stay out of our way and don't ya give us no lip".

Compare KickTheSonOfABitch, where a KickTheDog moment seems to be [[DesignatedVillain perfectly justified to the audience]], due to the AssholeVictim, and TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily. Contrast ALighterShadeOfGrey. For when this is treated in-universe as a terrible thing, see FelonyMisdemeanor. Usually unrelated to StopPokingMe. A lot of jokes about DigitalPiracyIsEvil are built this way. The polar opposite of this trope is MoralEventHorizon and BeyondRedemption. For a trope about literal poodles, see PsychoPoodle. A particularly ineffective DismissiveKick can be an example.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'':

* ''LightNovel/TheDevilIsAPartTimer'': When the Devil gets trapped on Earth without his magic powers, he becomes convinced that he can conquer the world by working at a fast-food restaurant, going from part-time to full-time to owning the company and then the world. Not even the hero who has dedicated her life to fighting him sees that plan as worth worrying about. That being said, several other people point out that [[FromNobodyToNightmare this isn't that different from how he became the Demon King in the first place]], and with his immortality, he has plenty of time to make his plan work.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' has Asia trying to think up evil deeds befitting her new status as a demon. She devises such atrocities as waiting for someone to drop an eraser...and ''ignoring'' it! The mere thought has her fighting back tears.

* An episode of the Stephen Fry sitcom ''Series/AbsolutePower'' focused on Fry's PR firm tackling an unusual assignment: a mild-mannered public figure, played by Tim Brooke-Taylor, had been advised that he was too nice and therefore hard to relate to, so he hired the firm to sully his reputation. They ended up having him throw a tantrum in a hotel lobby. It was nothing compared to a Creator/RussellCrowe effort, but nonetheless, the conveniently leaked footage started having the desired effect, until the client, overcome with remorse, issued a public apology.

* A bandit in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' threatens Mario to not reveal where he's hidden. "Or I'll punch you!". In the next chapter, he changes his threat to "Or I'll clonk you!" and with each successive chapter his threat keeps changing. In the final episode, he threatens you to not tell anyone where he is "or I'll cry!"

* Sometimes, when he thinks he should be a tougher leader, ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} tries to ape his mentor Franchise/{{Batman}}'s style by trying to act like a DrillSergeantNasty. He's very, very bad at it (pretending to act dickish towards his friends once made him ''cry''), which explains why he's the most widely-befriended hero in the DC universe, while practically no one outside of Gotham likes Batman. There was also the [[DorkAge ill-advised]] period where he made a FaceHeelTurn and became Renegade, and ''Deathstroke'' was embarrassed.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', Butters's HarmlessVillain character Professor Chaos attempts all sorts of genuine evil (like destroying the ozone layer or flooding the planet) but fails because he doesn't quite understand the scope of the task he is trying to undertake. However, there are some plots that are genuinely Poke The Poodle level of evil, like when he built a machine to suck out the creamy fillings of chocolate candies and replace it with stale mayonnaise. Or when he went into a restaurant and switched two meals and hoped it'd warrant appearing on the news. He did once do something reprehensible, namely using Facebook to spread fake news about Coon & Friends.

* Fuzzy from ''Webcomic/SamAndFuzzy'' once disobeyed a 'do not rock or tip vending machine' sign… [[IncrediblyLamePun By playing an electric guitar solo in front of it and then giving it a dollar]].

* Among the ''many'' ([[IdiotPlot idiot]]) plots by the UsefulNotes/{{CIA}} to deal with UsefulNotes/FidelCastro was an attempt to make his hair fall out (ridding him of his iconic beard). Apparently, the CIA thought that Castro gained his power from his hair, like Samson.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie1986'', the witch girls Reeka and Draggle tend to do things like this--for example, pulling off the wings of a fly. But then they make the [[BlobMonster Smooze]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' episode "Crime After Crime", Bloo is trying to purposely get in trouble to be sent to bed without supper, but due to a lot of contrived coincidences, he fails at every attempt. He then asks Mac to help him get in trouble, telling him that, since he doesn't live at Foster's, they can't punish him and as such he's basically invincible. Mac is convinced, so he decides to pull off the most evil act he's ever wanted to do... jumping on the bed.