History Main / WriterRevolt

->''"Anyone who can’t make money off of ''Sports Night'' should get out of the money-making business."''

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsUnite'': Archie, wanting to prove how serious they were with the event, instructed writer Ian Flynn to kill off at least one major character. Ian's response? Kill off [[spoiler:Team Dark (Shadow the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat, and E-123 Omega)]]. A group of characters he knew wouldn't stay dead for long. [[spoiler:[[ResetButton He was right.]]]]

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengersJasonAaron'' featured an extremely {{Gonk}}, refrigerator-shaped, rage-driven ComicBook/SheHulk that more resembled her cousin than herself. As Jen had recently come off of an extremely brutal AudienceAlienatingEra where ''[[ComicBook/Hulk2016 that exact thing]]'' happened and was resolved, this was panned by basically everyone, especially other Marvel writers. Her appearances in ''ComicBook/JessicaJones'', ''ComicBook/MarvelComicsOneThousand'', and ''her own one-shot'' all flat-out ignored Aaron's interpretation, while [[ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool Gwenpool Strikes Back]] featured "Fem-Hulk" with an unsubtle complaint about being forced to depict her as such. In her appearance in ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'', the title character points out how they're not so different these days as a BreakThemByTalking moment. In ''ComicBook/{{Empyre}}'', she acquires a hammer whose special amber, in combination with new meditation techniques learned from the Cotati survivors, allows her to shift into a much more feminine form, if still not her original muscular incarnation, that she says has all the strength of her "Fem-Hulk" form, but far greater intelligence and control. (Though this was revealed to be a Cotati wearing her skin.) In the Immortal She-Hulk one shot, it reveals she's STILL in trauma over the Grey She-Hulk ordeal, and also dealing with the fact she may in fact be immortal, though Al Ewing showed her as far more in control of herself despite the Hulk-speak than Jason Aaron has done.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengersJasonAaron'' featured an extremely {{Gonk}}, refrigerator-shaped, rage-driven ComicBook/SheHulk that more resembled her cousin than herself. As Jen had recently come off of an extremely brutal DorkAge where ''[[ComicBook/Hulk2016 that exact thing]]'' happened and was resolved, this was panned by basically everyone, especially other Marvel writers. Her appearances in ''ComicBook/JessicaJones'', ''ComicBook/MarvelComicsOneThousand'', and ''her own one-shot'' all flat-out ignored Aaron's interpretation, while [[ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool Gwenpool Strikes Back]] featured "Fem-Hulk" with an unsubtle complaint about being forced to depict her as such. In her appearance in ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'', the title character points out how they're not so different these days as a BreakThemByTalking moment. In ''ComicBook/{{Empyre}}'', she acquires a hammer whose special amber, in combination with new meditation techniques learned from the Cotati survivors, allows her to shift into a much more feminine form, if still not her original muscular incarnation, that she says has all the strength of her "Fem-Hulk" form, but far greater intelligence and control. (Though this was revealed to be a Cotati wearing her skin.) In the Immortal She-Hulk one shot, it reveals she's STILL in trauma over the Grey She-Hulk ordeal, and also dealing with the fact she may in fact be immortal, though Al Ewing showed her as far more in control of herself despite the Hulk-speak than Jason Aaron has done.

* When Dan Slott had May 'Mayday' Parker's family killed off in the ''ComicBook/SpiderVerse'' event, he swiftly began making Mayday more vengeful and bitter as she and her fellow Spiders faced a losing battle, going on to call the others assembled from across the multiverse "fakes" when her baby brother is abducted by the Inheritors, and that her dad was the "real one". This drew significant ire from fans and Ron Frenz in particular, who declared Slott was "no Roger Stern" and went on to point out damning continuity errors in Slott's take on Mayday. When the time came for the original creative team to tackle Mayday in a team-up book, Tom D and Frenz wasted no time at all in deliberately "adjusting" to Slott's writing style and not-so-subtly implying this Mayday was an alternative version as opposed to the one they worked on from 1998-2010. This has continued on into Mayday's backup stories during ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'', with Frenz even more incensed at the ending to ''Spider-Verse'', where she takes up Peter's old costume and declares that she's Spider-''Woman'' and that she's over it. Instead, everyone's still calling her "Spider-Girl", and she hasn't gotten over Peter's death.

** [[EvilCounterpart Wario]] was introduced in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand2SixGoldenCoins'' to symbolize the development team's distaste for having to work on a game based on someone else's characters. Ironically, Wario became rather popular and [[BreakoutCharacter got his own spin-off games]].

** Zig-zagged in that the executives in charge when the film went into production were absolutely fine with the tonal shift, and even pushed a good deal of its commercial advertising to Creator/AdultSwim and other adult-oriented channels/blocks to support it. Unfortunately, over the course of production, the network saw massive changes in executive staffing, and the new guard were horrified to see the movie didn't at all fit the "for little girls" aesthetic the movie was very pointedly working against.

* Many of the [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bat-family]] (or related) writers weren't thrilled to have their book derailed to deal with the storyline ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily''. Adam Glass (''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'') ''really'' didn't like doing it (and had to because of Harley Quinn), so he ended up re-writing some of the early events of the story to show that Harley was doing this unwillingly then jumped back into his storyline as if the tie-ins didn't occur. J.H. Williams (''ComicBook/{{Batwoman}}'') and Grant Morrison (''Batman Inc.'') outright refused to derail their storylines for this and, thus, had no part in it.
** Williams revolted again, with even more fury, when DC pulled the major dick move of denying Batwoman and Maggie Sawyer their marriage, even though the two had been in a relationship for a good long while. Williams and the rest of Batwoman's creative team were so disgusted that they straight up ''quit'', sending the comic into chaos as DC scrambled for a new creative team.

** On a similar note, J.H. Williams III decided to quit ''ComicBook/{{Batwoman}}'' after DC refused to allow Kate Kane to get married to Maggie Sawyer. This helped expose DC's mandate that everyone in the Bat Family be miserable, as DC was forced to talk about the mandate in order to reassure enraged gay and lesbian fans that their meddling wasn't due to homophobia.

* When ''[[Anime/MobileFighterGGundam G Gundam]]'' was originally created, Bandai wanted the plot to be a simple story about {{super robot|Genre}}s fighting each other in a worldwide competition. Instead, Yasuhiro Imagawa created a series where the tournament was simply a backdrop for Domon to meet allies and fight his enemies, while the real plot was that several [[GovernmentConspiracy nations tried to gain control of the Devil Gundam]], a super-powerful robot capable of dominating the world. This also led to some of the most memorably ridiculous designs in mecha history, such as a windmill gundam.
** Even before ''[[Anime/MobileFighterGGundam G Gundam]]'', Creator/YoshiyukiTomino, the creator of the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' and its sequels, plotted a director revolt against Sunrise and Bandai with his ''[[Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam Victory Gundam]]'', making it his single darkest ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' show. As a part of his rebellion against the two said companies' merchandise interest at the expense of several plot elements in his Gundam series, he even created a motorcycle-like Zanscare battleship as an irony whilst the main stage of the show was meant to be Earth. The high character death rate along with [[spoiler:Katejina Loos' sudden FaceHeelTurn]] also have things to do with Tomino's rage.
** Tomino has a habit of doing this. The original Gundam was supposed to be a toy ad for an older elementary-school demographic. He turned it into, basically, "Ur-''[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 BSG]]'' with a more coherent plot". Let's not even discuss what he did with Anime/SpaceRunawayIdeon, although he was more directly responsible for that series; its DownerEnding is still pretty much a giant middle finger to his bosses.
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' [[WordOfGod director Masashi Ikeda said]] in an ''Animerica'' interview that, while not wholly against it, [[NoHuggingNoKissing he hadn't intended any romance between the characters]] because there were more important things going on. The primary writing staff, however, seems to ship Heero / Relena very heavily, especially in the numerous manga spinoffs like ''Battlefield of Pacifists'' and ''Blind Target''. ''Frozen Teardrop'' even ends [[spoiler:with them engaged and planning to start a family.]]

** In the first season of ''Series/HappyDays'', the executives didn't want the Fonz wearing a leather jacket since they thought it made him look like a thug. Garry Marshall convinced them to allow him to wear it only when he was riding his motorcycle since it would then be a legitimate piece of safety equipment. Marshall then told the show's writers to never have a scene where Fonzie wasn't on his motorcycle, just having gotten off his motorcycle, or just about to get on his motorcycle.

* ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}'': James' voice actor Eric Stuart was angry that [=4Kids=] wouldn't be paying voice actors for commercials anymore, so he hid [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TEzLbzf2CE a back-masked message in episode 130]], where James yells backwards: "Leo Burnett and [=4Kids=] are the devil!"

** Mark Millar made a big success with ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen''. Marvel proposed him to write a spin-off comic, ''ComicBook/UltimateWolverine'', but Millar wanted to make the ''Ultimate ComicBook/TheAvengers'' instead. On the other hand, Creator/KurtBusiek, the writer of the Avengers at the time, did not want that to happen, as he feared that the regular Avengers would be left under the shadow of this new comic book. As the Ultimate universe was turning into a CashCowFranchise, so badly needed by Marvel to get rid of the risk of bankruptcy, they allowed Millar to work with the Avengers. And yet, the new team got a different name, as Busiek requested, and was named "The Ultimates". Still, it was not enough for him, who resigned from writing the Avengers as a result.

* Creator/JMichaelStraczynski objected ''strongly'' to the content of ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'', but was contractually obligated to write it and include the results Creator/JoeQuesada wanted (namely, the dissolution of Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage via DealWithTheDevil). So, he threw in Aunt May saying that it was her time to go, and Peter should just let it happen; a little girl who appears to Peter and drops anvil-sized questions about what will happen if she never is; visions of his life without Mary-Jane, all of which are rather lacking; and the little girl showing back up after the deal is made, revealing that she was Mary-Jane's unborn daughter who will now never be and saying, in essence, "Wow, you really fucked this one up, didn't you?". She also called out Peter on being a constant {{Wangst}} machine and hinting that he had a belief that TrueArtIsAngsty. He also has Mephisto proclaim that a "small part of their souls will remember what you have lost", thus somehow implying whatever Peter and MJ become on the surface is just an extension of Mephisto's spell and that the real Peter and MJ are locked away, waiting for release.

** Most of the Spider-Man writing team and editorial team behind ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' bailed in frustration because of that various mandates being handed down by the ''merchandise department'' and the editorial department constantly changing the story on them. One of them, Dan Jurgens, quit ''Sensational Spider-Man'' when the mandate came down that Ben would be revealed as the clone and Peter as the real one, feeling cheated that he wasn't writing the "real" Spider-Man.

** At least one version of the team's creation revealed the entire idea was a revolt on Creator/StanLee's part as well. Supposedly, Lee was [[ExecutiveMeddling pressured by his publisher]] to FollowTheLeader and write stories within popular genres at the time. Fed up with not writing stories that he wanted, Lee decided to quit the comic scene with a book that would be the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica clone that the publisher wanted (a competing superhero team book), but would be filled to the brim with AuthorAppeal. Cue the Franchise/MarvelUniverse.

* Similarily, Creator/PeterDavid, frustrated that an issue of ''ComicBook/XFactor'' had been hijacked by a BatFamilyCrossover, jokingly suggested for a story that ComicBook/{{Magneto}} could take the adamantium out of ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}. The end result was the storyline ''ComicBook/FatalAttractionsMarvelComics''.

* The creation of Oracle was due to this. When Creator/AlanMoore was given the go ahead to have Barbara Gordon crippled in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' not long after the character decided to retire from heroics, this pissed off editor Kim Yale, as Barbara's paralysis was an afterthought to the story. This lead to John Ostrander, writer of ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad'' and Yale's husband, to reinvent her at Yale's request.

* ''Film/SmallSoldiers'' has a rare ''in-universe'' example: early on, Larry Benson and Irwin Wayfair, two remaining toy designers of a recently acquired company present their ideas for a new toy-line, one being the standard toy soldier type (the Commando Elite), and the other being edutainment friendly, peaceful monsters (the Gorgonites). Their boss, Gil Mars, demands the two lines be combined, with the Gorgonites re-purposed as the Commando Elite's enemies, which they are... but Irwin kept the original background and characterization for the Gorgonites, effectively switching the hero and villain roles from what Mars intended [[DesignatedHero even as]] the advertising [[DesignatedVillain insists otherwise]].

** Doyle had Holmes go over the Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty. But because of the the DisneyDeath manner of the fall, with no witnesses (Watson had been called away by a trick of Moriarty's), showing signs of a struggle but no bodies, Holmes was able to appear in Watson's living room several years later, having roamed the world under various aliases in the meantime.

* The on-going storyline of Creator/AaronSorkin's ''Series/SportsNight'' has the ShowWithinAShow teetering on the edge of cancellation, suffering through ExecutiveMeddling and finally its network up for sale. After several episodes wondering who would buy the network and if they would keep the show on the air, [[spoiler:a mysterious billionaire comes out of the woodwork and buys the network, declaring, "Anyone who can't make money off ''Sports Night'' doesn't deserve to be in the business of making money." In an episode that turned out to be the series finale]]. The series itself won critical acclaim, but struggled in ratings and only lasted two seasons on [=ABC=].

* Creator/DavidSimon got fed up with people demanding the Marlo Stanfield on ''Series/TheWire'' be thrown in jail, so the series ends with him being arrested, then let go due to the police's illegal wiretap forming a key part of their evidence. However, he did throw the fans a bone: even though Marlo ends up a free man, he's stuck in his own personal Hell, completely forgotten by the city's other drug dealers and forbidden from any further drug activity himself, and it's implied he'll go out every night picking fights with street toughs until one of them kills him.

** "The Bonding", which has as its central point a 12 year old boy dealing with the loss of his mother, was initially rejected by Creator/GeneRoddenberry because "people in the 24th century don't grieve". After Roddenberry had become less directly involved in the show, it was repitched as "people in the 24th century don't grieve ... and that is ''really'' unhealthy".

** For the opening story of Season 11, Creator/TerranceDicks commisioned Creator/RobertHolmes to write a story set in medieval times, which became "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior The Time Warrior]]". Holmes hated the idea of writing a historical story, as he found them "whimsical and twee", in part because of how many of them involved the Doctor coincidentally [[InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous meeting famous historical figures]], so he came up with a story about an alien in the Middle Ages with no connection to anyone noteworthy whatsoever.
** Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe was the producer during Season 12-14. During "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]", the high level of FamilyUnfriendlyViolence and the resulting media firestorm led to the BBC informing him that he was going to be sacked and replaced at the end of the season with a new showrunner who would not be allowed to use GothicHorror. So Hinchcliffe told the props team to ignore their budgeting and go all-out for the final two serials of the series, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E5TheRobotsOfDeath The Robots of Death]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", both of which have drop-dead gorgeous production values and are by far the best-looking the Classic series ever got. Of course, the point of this was that the budget got severely slashed for the incoming team, with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy The Invisible Enemy]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E1HorrorOfFangRock The Horror of Fang Rock]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E5Underworld Underworld]]" in particular suffering.
** The beloved Creator/RobertHolmes was script editor for Seasons 12-15 but dropped from the position after writing "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers The Sun Makers]]" due to a mixture of creative burnout, CreatorBreakdown, his [[NightmareFuel chief skill]] not working well in the new LighterAndSofter regime and tax issues. Creator/GrahamWilliams coaxed him back to write a story he intended to be the big {{Spectacle}} story of Season 16 - the most popular writer, returned and writing about the biggest ever monster. However, Holmes disliked writing "big scary monster" stories (preferring ParanoiaFuel, [[EvilIsHammy over-the-top humanoid villains]] and ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight) and didn't like doing "[[{{filler}} business as usual]]" ''Who'' either, and was no less burned out as he had been the last year. He eventually turned in a script, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E5ThePowerOfKroll The Power of Kroll]]", that used all of the most unsatisfying ''Who'' ClicheStorm elements almost as if he had listed them, and quit writing for the show. He was eventually tempted back, but it took almost a decade and [[DiedDuringProduction the stress possibly contributed to his death]].

* Music/FrankZappa And The Mothers Of Invention were asked to mime for an early television appearance performing "Son Of Suzy Creamcheese" from ''Music/AbsolutelyFree''- instead of lip syncing the lyrics, Zappa spent the entire song mouthing "you're a motherfucker" over and over again.

Well they ain't seem to mind the last three times I posed in Vogue...

* At the start of the 20th century, Richard Strauss had severely pissed off various publishing houses by his successful campaigns to improve the position of composers with respect to publishing and performing rights. Being under contract to deliver a set of his famous ''Lieder'' to the Berlin publisher Bote & Bock, he wrote the ''Krämerspiegel'' op. 66 - acid and outright libellous satires against various companies under paper-thin aliases, full of puns and self-quotations. He was promptly sued for breach of contract and instead wrote the ''Lieder'' op. 67 - which were the most recondite, technically challenging and innovative he had ever done, and so deliberately hard to sell. No publisher deigned to produce the original set until forty years later.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSurvive'' is an installment of the series made after the horribly TroubledProduction of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' and Kojima's sacking from Konami, and was generally mocked as an OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight FranchiseZombie as soon as it was announced. However, a clipboard shown at the beginning of the game has a hidden acrostic message: '''M'''arlin and '''G'''ibbon (''Metal Gear'') are listed as K.I.A., the rest of the soldiers' code initials read '''KJP FOREVER''', with the name of the PlayerCharacter as the space, and the final two entries are "Bastard Yota" and "Cunning Yuji", who are listed as '''AWOL''' insulting the game's director and producer and accusing them of abandoning their duty. (It should be observed that the Japanese loan word "cunning"/''kanningu'' has a much harsher connotation than in English, meaning "cheater".) An early story mission explains that since the higher-ups disappeared, the unit has been at a total loose end, apart from a single engineer who is doing his best to hold everything together but is powerless to do so - a situation so specific that it is easy to speculate it is a developer cry for help.

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic developed a character arc about how pathetic the title character was, and how a lot of his suffering was his own fault for reviewing crappy movies. The culmination of this was Critic moving past his flaws, and going out with dignity. Doug Walker then moved on to ''WebVideo/DemoReel'', a project he had been wanting to do for a long time. Unfortunately, due to the show being less popular than the Critic's and generating less site traffic, Demo Reel ended up having financial and production difficulties. Doug eventually brought back the Critic with the last episode of Demo Reel revealing that it was just purgatory for the Critic, retconning a bit of his previous character arc in the process. Since bringing the Critic back, Doug's reviewing style is accused of having become more mean spirited, such as being much quicker to attack actors involved in the films he reviews. He himself has stated in several vlogs and commentaries since the Critic's return that he doesn't care as much about offending fans as he did before.

* When Music/JunoSongs made lyrical covers of the boss themes from ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'', fans started impatiently demanding that he hurry up with Tape, Scissors, and Stapler. He responded to it first by making [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsJZzYz0gy4 a video that's all three songs... mashed together all at once without any lyrics, showing Paper Mario fighting a real-life pair of scissors, stapler, and tape roll all taped together.]] He later took another demanding comment mispelling Tape as "YAPE" and rolled with it, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQDLIGPnMJ8 making a video of this "Yape" (a tape roll with googly eyes and other office supplies tied to him)]] [[StylisticSuck badly]] singing along to a messy piano version of Tape's theme. He would later make actual covers of all three themes, these were just one-offs messing with the impatient comments.

* Most of the staff of ''WesternAnimation/TheTwistedTalesOfFelixTheCat'' openly hated the [[WesternAnimation/FelixTheCatJoeOriolo made-for-TV Felix the Cat cartoons]] made by Joe Oriolo in the late 50s/early 60s for its childish tone and banal writing, and wanted the show to exclusively follow the roots of the original silent cartoons and abandon the characters and tone of the TV cartoons. Don Oriolo, Joe's son and then-owner of Felix the Cat, [[ExecutiveMeddling insisted that they at least include certain elements from it like the Magic Bag so that the show would have some kind of tie to his dad's work.]] By the time the second season started production, Phil Roman and Don Oriolo decided to take the series into a direction more in vogue with the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons, with much more linear plotting and less surreal humor, as well as [[TheBusCameBack bringing back some of the Oriolo era characters]] like Poindexter, Master Cylinder and The Professor. This was a move that did '''NOT''' sit well with the staff--In response, "Attack of the Robot Rat" had the writers shoot back by making it a [[TakeThat very mean spirited parody of the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons]]. "Phoney Felix" can also be seen as a StealthParody of the retool of Season 2, with Felix [[HostileShowTakeover having his show hijacked]] by an imbecilic imposter who imitates some of the traits of Oriolo Felix, such as saying his "Righty-O!" catchphrase, singing the TV show theme song and using a (shoddy knockoff) of the magic bag of tricks. [[Recap/TwistedTalesOfFelix2x04TheFuzzyBunnyShowTheMilkyWay "The Fuzzy Bunny Show"]] also takes a shot at Don Oriolo himself for the retool, whose in-universe cartoon counterpart (named Donald) replaces Felix's show (which in-universe is already renamed [[SelfDeprecation "The Not-So-Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat"]]) with the [[SickeninglySweet unbearably cloying]] ''Fuzzy Bunny'' show and is congratulated by a network exec for it.

* The ExecutiveMeddling done to ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' (such as adding Elmyra to the show) pissed off writer Peter Hastings so much that he left Creator/WarnerBros to create Creator/{{Disney}}'s ''Creator/OneSaturdayMorning''. Before he did that, though, he made fun of Jamie Kellner's orders in his last script, "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets in This Town Again", in which Brain dreams that he and Pinky are sitcom stars whose popularity is sabotaged when various unfitting changes are made to their show. (As you can guess, Kellner did not take the advice this episode was telling him). Then there's the (in)famous episode "Pinky and The Brain... and Larry", in which writers Gordon Bressack and Charles M. Howell IV responded to [[ExecutiveMeddling demands]] to throw a new character into the mix by creating Larry, who is shoe-horned awkwardly into the ExpositoryThemeTune and adds ''absolutely nothing'' to the plot (a trait that the Brain [[LampshadeHanging identifies]] as the reason behind their failure in tonight's TakeOverTheWorld scheme). Alas, the execs didn't get the hint (see above about the addition of Elmyra). The final show of revolt came in the Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain theme tune:

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' executive Eddie Selzer was generally a bore who knew nothing about comedy (he once yelled at the animators for laughing while making storyboards demanding to know what the hell laughter had to do with making cartoons), and would make idiotic decisions like telling Friz Freleng not to make a cartoon starring Tweety and the recently created Sylvester. After Freleng threatened to quit over being told how to make cartoons, Selzer relented with the result being an iconic duo. He also told Bob Mckimson not to make anymore Tasmanian Devil cartoons because he thought the character was too grotesque; he only changed his mind after he found out Taz was popular. He did do some good -- since the directors all hated him, it gave them something to fight against like when Creator/ChuckJones made ''WesternAnimation/BullyForBugs'' because Selzer had told him that bullfighting wasn't funny, and Jones wanted to prove him wrong. The legend is that there wasn't even any logic going on -- Selzer merely barged into the office and burst out, completely at random, that bullfights weren't funny and there were to be no bullfighting shorts to be had at ''his'' animation studio. Figuring that if Selzer was against bullfighting, then there had to be something in it, they started thinking about a bullfighting short. The story was that Selzer had actually seen one while on vacation, but he failed to tell HIS animators why he declared bullfighting unfunny.

** Once free of BS&P's insufferable censoring what they do? A dark and edgy zombie-themed episode parodying ''Franchise/EvilDead''.

* Infamously done with the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' ThreeShorts episode "Elephant Issues". What was supposed to be a VerySpecialEpisode about television addiction, racism, and the dangers of under-aged drinking ended up as a StealthParody, opening with a monologue by Gogo Dodo unsubtly saying the upcoming show is about to make "a fruitless attempt to win another Emmy". As for the shorts themselves, "Why Dizzy Can't Read" ended with a shot of kids so engroused with {{reading|IsCoolAesop}} that they've stopped watching ''Tiny Toons'', "C.L.I.D.E. and Prejudice" revolves around Montana Max bullying [[LongLostUncleAesop a new student]] for being a robot, and "One Beer" had Buster outright breaking the 4th wall and mentioning for the sake of the story, they would be acting out of character, and it ended with the characters [[AnimatedActors leaving the studio after they "died"]], hoping the audience understood the moral and that their next episode would actually be funny. The episode was created in protest to the higher-ups wanting the showrunners to shoehorn morals into their episodes. The morals of "watch TV responsibly", "treat minorities well", and "alcohol is bad" were poorly implemented on purpose just so the executives would ask them to never try implementing morals in the show again, and ''it worked''.
* As ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' was preparing to enter a fourth season, Hasbro wanted the writers to tie-in closer to the movies, resulting in several changes, not the least of which was having Ironhide and Jazz join the main cast, along with repainting the Autobots to be a bit closer to their film colors. One of these changes was to give Optimus Prime his flames, listed in the cartoon as being "Eternal Flames", and the staff wasn't particularly fond of them. Thus, Prime was to comment how he thought [[TakeThat the flames looked dumb]], but the show was cancelled before this could occur. However, it was delivered at a live-script reading of the proposed Season 4 outline.

* During the Brazilian military dictatorship, journalists would respond to censorship by adding out of place things. Newspapers had a tendency to print cake recipes over cut content, while magazine ''Veja'' put [[https://complemento.veja.abril.com.br/timeline/img/censura.jpg paintings of demons]] and angels.

* Creator/GrantMorrison writing ''ComicBook/SupermanAndTheAuthority'' was due to this - they had learned that Creator/DanDiDio wanted to make an far-right authoritism figure and they approached Dan in wanting to mitigate the damage that could have happened. Thankfully, [=DiDio=] was tossed out soon after.

* After Creator/ManOnTheInternet, who made a name for himself putting together ''WebVideo/UndertaleTheMusical'', got one too many requests for a musical version of "Megalovania" (Which only plays on a Genocide route while the overall musical is for the Pacifist route), he released [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyXVjMUTGD0 this]], which starts as an orchestral version of "Megalovania", [[BaitAndSwitch but shifts into "The Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans"]] when Sans actually starts singing, and most of the lyrics of the first half are Sans calling the watchers out for wanting to hear the song so badly, considering how you get to the point of being able to hear it.

* [[Music/TalkingHeads David Byrne's]] 1992 album ''Uh Oh'' was one of the last compact discs to be packaged in a "longbox", a cardboard sleeve much taller than the disc itself - the format was initially conceived so that music stores could file [=CDs=] and records in the same bins, and was also considered a theft deterrent, but was eventually phased out as it was considered needlessly expensive to produce and environmentally wasteful. While some artists refused to let their albums be packaged this way altogether, Byrne just had the following sticker affixed to the longbox of his album:

* During Music/NineInchNails' time with their original label TVT Records, Trent Reznor often had to fight ExecutiveMeddling; TVT was initially not pleased to hear their debut album ''Pretty Hate Machine'' (one executive calling it "an abortion"), only to demand that Trent record a followup in the same style after ''Machine'' became a success. In addition, they refused to release Trent from his contract when he tried to leave the label. This resulted in the secretly-recorded EP ''Broken'', which had Trent comparing his experience with them to slavery and telling TVT founder Steve Gottlieb to [[TakeThat eat his heart out]] at the beginning of "[[HiddenTrack Physical]]". Even the liner notes contain sentences like "no thanks: you know who you fucking are" and "the slave thinks he has been released from bondage only to find a stronger set of chains". Years later, ''Machine'''s 2010 remastered release say "fuck you" to TVT - which has been defunct since 2008.
* Music/UncleTupelo were frustrated with their label for withholding royalties from their first two albums, and also felt they were being pressured to change their AlternativeCountry style in order to compete with {{Grunge}} - they made their third album, ''March 16-20 1992'', an entirely acoustic folk album in part because it was the furthest thing from grunge that they could do.

** In Season 8, the production team kicked out the HotScientist companion Liz Shaw because they saw her personality as too challenging, as the companion's role was to [[DamselInDistress get captured, scream]] and [[ParentService look good in a miniskirt]]. They decided to replace her with Jo Grant, a ditzy DumbBlonde, and Creator/RobertHolmes was tasked with introducing her. He went out of his way to use her silliness to make her into a BadassAdorable FearlessFool who [[MetaGuy almost poked fun at the show's conventions by existing]] rather than giving them the DamselInDistress that they wanted.

** Tomino has a habit of doing this. The original Gundam was supposed to be a toy ad for an older elementary-school demographic. He turned it into, basically, "Ur-''[[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 BSG]]'' with a more coherent plot". Let's not even discuss [[KillEmAll what he did with]] Anime/SpaceRunawayIdeon, although he was more directly responsible for that series; its DownerEnding is still pretty much a giant middle finger to his bosses.

* After Creator/ManOnTheInternet, who made a name for himself putting together ''WebVideo/UndertaleTheMusical'', got one too many requests for a musical version of "Megalovania" (Which only plays on a Genocide route while the overall musical is for the Pacifist route), he released [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyXVjMUTGD0 this]], which starts as an orchestral version of "Megalovania", [[BaitAndSwitch but shifts into "The Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans"]] when Sans actually starts singing, and most of the lyrics of the first half are Sans calling the watchers out for wanting to hear the song so badly, considering [[KillEmAll how you get to the point of being able to hear it]].

** After the success of ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'', Music/PinkFloyd was [[ExecutiveMeddling pressured by their record company into coming up with a follow-up album]]. Roger Waters responded by cramming their next album, ''Music/WishYouWereHere'', with songs that [[TakeThat ridiculed the record industry]].

* Animator Seinfeldspitstain, the creator of WebAnimation/JimmyNeutronHappyFamilyHappyHour, responded to [=YouTube=] commenters demanding a follow-up by producing a "sequel" where Jimi Neutron dies and is given a funeral in the "[[DiscreditedMeme Dead Joke Cemetery.]]"

* An extreme example happened at Creator/RubySpearsEnterprises in the 1980s -- as Buzz Dixon [[https://youtu.be/z2Qthu2qrSE?t=2795 recounted it]], a thick-headed business affairs staffer stated that all the staff writers were there not to be creative, but to execute Joe Spears' ideas. Within minutes the writers were calling their agents and the studio lost a ton of their staff writers, which didn't bode well for the company afterwards. (Joe Spears had no idea this business affairs staffer had said any of this; when he and Ken Ruby became aware, they invited the idiot to lunch while changing the locks and emptying their office of their belongings; once that was done, they told them they were fired.)

* Depending on who you ask, {{Music/Journey}} did this with the infamous "Separate Ways" music video. Steve Perry was on record as ''hating'' the whole idea of music videos, dismissing bands popularized by them as "fashion music," and sticking to performance videos when asked to provide them for airplay. The label said "do one or else," and they strove to make a StylisticSuck ClicheStorm of a video...but the song turned out to be [[SpringtimeforHitler one of their best hits]].

* Music/MikeOldfield was, before switching record labels, constantly hounded by Virgin Media to produce a sequel to the hit album ''Music/TubularBells''. His response was ''Amarok'', an hour-long mostly instrumental series of ever-changing themes, not one bit of which could effectively be aired as a single. To top it off, 42 minutes in, there is a message in Morse code that reads 'FUCK OFF RB' (Richard Branston being the head of Virgin at the time). Immediately after switching to Warner, he proceeded to produce and release ''Tubular Bells 2''.

* Issue 10 of ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}'' is one massive example (well, ''Creator'' Revolt, actually) by Christian Weston Chandler, ignoring his vows of writing his AuthorAvatar out of the series, viciously eliminating everything that's bothered him, creating a character out of spite, then telling his fans he'll work on his comic whenever he damn well feels like it!

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengersJasonAaron'' featured an extremely {{Gonk}}, refrigerator-shaped, rage-driven ComicBook/SheHulk that more resembled her cousin than herself. As Jen had recently come off of an extremely brutal DorkAge where ''[[ComicBook/Hulk2016 that exact thing]]'' happened and was resolved, this was panned by basically everyone, especially other Marvel writers. Her appearances in ''ComicBook/JessicaJones'', ''ComicBook/MarvelComicsOneThousand'', and ''her own one-shot'' all flat-out ignored Aaron's interpretation, while [[ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool Gwenpool Strikes Back]] featured "Fem-Hulk" with an unsubtle complaint about being forced to depict her as such. In her appearance in ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'', the title character points out how they're not so different these days as a BreakThemByTalking moment. In ''ComicBook/{{Empyre}}'', she acquires a hammer whose special amber, in combination with new meditation techniques learned from the Cotati survivors, allows her to shift into a much more feminine form, if still not her original muscular incarnation, that she says has all the strength of her "Fem-Hulk" form, but far greater intelligence and control. (Though this was revealed to be a Cotati wearing her skin) In the Immortal She-Hulk one shot, it reveals she's STILL in trauma over the Grey She-Hulk ordeal, and also dealing with the fact she may in fact be immortal, though Al Ewing showed her as far more in control of herself despite the Hulk-speak than Jason Aaron has done.

* In the 1980s, there was a period where Creator/MarvelComics decided that they would not have gays in comics and Northstar of ''ComicBook/AlphaFlight'' could not be gay, even though strong hints in that matter had already been dropped. [[note]] This was due to some back and forth over UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode, which had some heavy-handed rules about what you could and couldn't depict, and Bronze Age comic writers were already in open rebellion against it, even though the publishers mandated it. Mystique and Destiny's relationship was also a victim of this policy[[/note]] Writer Creator/BillMantlo responded with a storyline revealing he was part ''fairy'' (technically, half Asgardian elf)[[note]]His first images after he returned to the comic were him in Asgard berating himself for falling for such an idiotic lie.[[/note]]. Which is all the more hilarious when you consider that X-Men is all about equality for both different races ''and'' gay people.

** One episode ended with Iggins, an obnoxious one-shot character, getting crushed in an elevator accident. When that earned an ExecutiveVeto, the writers tacked on an additional ending after a "The End" screen where said character burst out from the elevator wreckage and flew towards the camera in a superhero pose with a matching backdrop and "IGGINS!!" displayed underneath. Unlike many examples on this page, this ''was'' noticed by the network and did rather anger them.