Even the silliest of cartoon characters
can be the most threatening...
- Adventure Time: This happens a lot, since the world the show takes place in is both a Cloudcuckooland and a World of Badass. Some of the most notable examples are Finn, a goofy Idiot Hero teenager who has nonetheless been taking down omnicidal Eldritch Abominations since childhood; Jake, a lazy Talking Animal who has been shown going full-on Papa Wolf in protection of his brother or children; and Ice King, a comedic Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain whose powers are in fact near Physical God levels and who can be fairly disturbing and sociopathic sometimes.
- Ice King gets special mention. You'd damn near think he's comic relief or a heart breaking character. But every once in a rare while, Simon loses control of the powers. When he does; it's not pleasant.
- The Lich is an incredibly terrifying villain through and through, though at the end of the Dimensional Prision escape he is splashed with the blood of the guardians, which brings life, and as such is turned into a giant (horned) toddler who is adopted by Tree Trunks and Mr. Pig. While Sweet Pea Trunks is a much kinder character and is often seen as a "silly man-baby" by many people, when he feels terrified and in danger, then we're shown that The Lich is still inside him and will take over his body. Even as a giant toddler he remains as terrifying as he used to be when he was a living skeleton.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Dr. Robotnik as he appeared in is regarded as less competent than his deadly serious Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) counterpart; however, he and his robot minions Scratch and Grounder execute any number of formidably dangerous plans to take over Mobius that only fail because of Sonic, and they often succeed at capturing or otherwise incapacitating Sonic. It often happens that Sonic's actions do nothing more than undo the damage that Robotnik had already done. The Chaos Emerald storyline ends with Robotnik getting all of them and achieving godlike power. It takes multiple versions of Sonic to take him down.
- Sonic, he's prone to wacky disguises in order to get past Scratch and Grounder or trick them into defeating themselves, purely for fun while he's being the hero.
- Aladdin: The Series:
- One episode had the recurring villain, Mirage, convince Chaos, who was visiting, to make a little, well, chaos, in the palace of Agrabah where Aladdin and Jasmine are holding a dinner for some nobles. Chaos is a silly blue cat with wings. He also has more power in his whisker than a palace full of genies, can grant his own wishes, shrunk Jasmine to the size of an insect and nearly got her stepped on by her own husband when she ordered him to stop his mischief, and was able to poof up an Evil Twin that Aladdin was forced to fight to a near standstill after Genie mentioned the only predictable part of Aladdin's adventures was he always won. Chaos terrifies Mirage, who is the current personification of evil, and who has proven quite capable of offing the heroes and wiping Agrabah off the map. And after the series, Chaos appeared one last time in a short Aladdin comic in Disney Adventures in a Deus ex Machina type ending by stripping the powers of a devilish entity known simply as "Evil", who was near to defeating Aladdin, when he felt things were getting too predictable.
- The Genie himself gets a couple of surprisingly scary moments, despite normally being a lovably goofy lug. Especially when one takes into account that, since he's no longer bound by the rules of the genies by virtue of being freed of his lamp, he's now capable of killing people if he wants. One time this is shown with Gregarious, a robot who can hypnotize anyone. As soon as the robot sets its sights on Aladdin, Genie comes over as a shop on TV hostess, all while still acting goofy and piledrives the robot through the floor using a hammer he whipped out of Hammerspace! He still acts cheerful and goofy the entire time he's doing this.
- Amphibia: Barry in the episode "Cursed!" appears to be a friendly candy maker but he's also a vengeful sorcerer.
- Animaniacs: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner. They may be goofy and crazy, but do not underestimate them.
- Archer:
- Cheryl and Pam are for the most part a cheerful head case and a horny, fun-loving Gasshole respectively, but Cheryl is also a pyromaniac who once threatened to crash a helicopter she was a passenger on just to drag a confession out of her brother, and Pam is a full-blown badass who paid for college by fighting in underground combat leagues — killing more than a couple of opponents in the process. In fact, the thirteen tally marks tattooed on her back are heavily implied to be a body count — and it should be noted that at this point in the series, that tattoo is wildly out of date.
- "Doctor" Krieger is an objectively insane cloudcuckoolander, but he insists that he's not a serial killer. There's also a chance that he's one of The Boys from Brazil.
- Ray Gillette is a slightly foppish Agent Peacock who has been crippled numerous times over the course of the series. He's also an extremely accomplished secret agent, a partial-conversion cyborg, and killed a bear when he was 10 years old.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Ty Lee is a bubbly, cheerful acrobat who babbles about reading people's auras and does things like walking on her hands for no particular reason. She is also able to block the flow of chi in benders, which takes away their bending powers, making her more terrifying than an army of Firebenders.
- Avatar Aang. He is generally a bit "air-headed", enjoying penguin rides, fruit pies, and bad jokes, not to mention that he is a Technical Pacifist. But there's a reason it's Technical Pacifist: provoke him, and he can and will Mind Rape you and rip out your soul.
- King Bumi appears to be a crazy old man who loves candy, bad jokes and ridiculous outfits. However, he's also one of the strongest Earthbenders in the world, and took back an entire city from the Fire Nation in under eight minutes (Granted, the Fire Nation soldiers were depowered due to an eclipse, but that doesn't stop Bumi from crushing tanks like beer cans and throwing buildings across canyons). Most notably, since he had been restrained at the time, he did all that by earth bending with his face.
- Iroh is a jovial, fun-loving, tea-sipping old man who is also an ally to Team Avatar, but as Azula can attest, there is a reason he's called "The Dragon of the West". Not to mention that during the Day of Black Sun, he broke of out his prison cell all by himself. Without Firebending.
- By the end of the series, Sokka himself grows into this. He is a jokester and a bit stubborn and has no bending. Put him to the test though and he'll come through with some amazing plans on the fly while still a competent fighter in his own right. And that boomerang of his? Across the tv series and the sequel comics, Zuko, Azula, and the Combustion Man have all been struck with it, lethally so in the latter's case.
- The Legend of Korra:
- Varrick may act flighty and absentminded, but he hides behind that ditzy exterior a ruthless Corrupt Corporate Executive who is willing to start a civil war between the Southern and Northern Water Tribes just to grab a few bucks from the conflict.
- Bolin was never exactly a slouch in a fight, but his rather simple pro-bending style, coupled with his personality, led to him being more of a backup comic relief for the first two books. Once he learns how to lavabend, however, he becomes a force to be reckoned with, shows of his raw power stopping fights before they even start.
- Ben 10:
- The Vreedle Brothers introduced in the Alien Force part of the franchise are idiots. Idiots with a tremendous overabundance of firepower and love of using it.
- Ben himself during the original series and Ben 10: Omniverse, with a carefree, cocky personality that quickly drops when the situation requires it.
- The original series-era kid Ben admits that he's well aware of the consequences if he fails, but refuses to dwell on it so it doesn't happen during a guest appearance in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. The present teen Ben seems to agree, but admits that he's often also oblivious.
- Kevin from Alien Force to Omniverse. He's aloof, snarky and sometimes serves as the team's comic relief, but if you hurt his friends or manage to anger him any other way (not that difficult), he will make you pay.
- Some of Ben's more goofy-looking aliens, such as Cannonbolt, Kickin' Hawk, Upchuck, Pesky Dust and Mole-Stache, end up being surprisingly deadly to be up against.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: Courage is a timid, cartoonish dog who is also the show's prime Butt-Monkey and source of Amusing Injuries. But don't be fooled: He can be a huge Determinator when the time calls for it, and has saved his owners, Nowhere, and sometimes the entire world from all sorts of supernatural horrors through his quick thinking.
- The Cuphead Show!: The Devil kicks off the series by singing a swaggy, jaunty tune about being a jerk and acts very much the part of a bumbling Harmless Villain... but he's also shown to be scarily good at stealing people's souls by the thousands at a time, and is directly responsible for kicking off natural disasters, wars, and famines to just cause death and suffering For the Evulz. Furthermore, he's very powerful in spite of his goofy demeanor with all his henchmen being utterly terrified of him for pretty good reason: when he loses his temper he drops the "human" from Humanoid Abomination and goes full fire-spewing Nightmare Fuel on everyone within range. Even the heroes, though willing to mock him to his face and blow him off, are also scared shitless of him with Cuphead suffering nightmares — the duo treats the fact that he owes the devil his soul as a gravely serious matter.
- Cyber Six: Jose is a pint-sized little kid who throws tantrums, has a beyond ridiculous Leit Motif, and goose-steps from place to place. It's enough to make you forget he's a Mad Scientist with a genius-level IQ who has failed to kill Cyber Six thanks to dumb luck alone on more than a few occasions. It’s also implied he would have become the Big Bad had the series gotten a second season.
- DC Animated Universe:
- Mad Stan from Batman Beyond is a comic relief villain through and through, being a Bomb Throwing Anarchist who goes off on rants about conspiracies, big government, information overload, and then tries to blow everything up, and who lives in a Manchild's apartment with smiley faces on the walls and a chihuahua. One of his schemes even involves blowing up a building because they're planning on raising pet license taxes. He doesn't even have any powers, instead being forced to rely entirely on gadgets. However he's brutally strong, being described by Bruce as "being unstoppable when angered", surprisingly intelligent despite his rambling paranoia, a Gadgeteer Genius, Crazy-Prepared, capable of out-Batman Gambiting Batman, and despite being the only regular of Batman's Rogues Gallery to not have any powers he poses a serious threat when he goes toe-to-toe with Batman. In fact he consistently becomes more and more of a serious threat with each subsequent appearance.
- The Joker doesn’t really surprise anyone. But in the Superman: The Animated Series episode, "Worlds Finest", he surely does to both Superman and Lex Luthor. Despite Batman warning Superman that the Joker has kryptonite and "to expect the unexpected" from him, Superman brushes that off. He at least wears his lead suit when confronting the Joker, but lets his guard down since the kryptonite seems to be ineffective. The Joker then reveals he was prepared, burning Superman’s suit with a squirting flower filled with acid and uses the kryptonite, and then proceeds to dance around Superman while electrocuting him to death! If Batman didn't show up he would have killed him. The silliness doesn't stop there, as Joker keeps using a bag of marble grenades throughout, and when Luthor tries to double cross him, Joker gets the jump on him, and then proceeds to use a military Jet to destroy every building in Metropolis built by Luthor, purely out of spite!!!
- The Dragon Prince: The sort-of villainous Sibling Team of Soren and Claudia. Soren comes off as a Dumb Jock in terms of personality, but is also the youngest Crownguard ever and can fight Rayla, a trained elf assassin, on even terms. Claudia is a Genki Girl and Cloud Cuckoo Lander, but also extremely skilled at Dark Magic for someone her age.
- The Dreamstone: The Urpneys were usually incompetent and meek even by Harmless Villain standards. However several episodes imply that were it not for them being the Sleeping World's Cosmic Playthings and the heroes being Born Lucky, they could likely pull a lot of schemes off. Both "Albert's Ailment" and "The Spidermobile" have them in full control for almost the entire episode, only losing due to a last second fluke allowing the heroes to get the stone back.
- DuckTales (1987):
- Fenton Crackshell is a henpecked Momma's Boy who tends to get the worst of it in most of his appearances...until he puts his surprising cleverness, determination, and the Gizmosuit to work, at which point it becomes evident why he gets called an expy of Robocop.
- Launchpad McQuack could sometimes be dismissed as a Cloudcuckoolander and a ditz, but under pressure (such as when the boys are threatened), he reveals himself as more clever than is immediately apparent and capable and courageous enough to be genuinely heroic.
- The "Master of the Djinni" looked like a jolly goofball, but he was really a Jackass Genie, tired of serving some master again.
- DuckTales (2017): Donald Duck, much like in his theatrical and comic book appearances, is probably the unluckiest character in the entire series, which provides for quite a bit of comic relief, however, his Hair-Trigger Temper is also in effect as well, and his anger usually surfaces whenever Huey, Dewey and Louie are in danger. In the second episode, he went Berserk Mode on the Beagle Boys when they tried to hold them for ransom. Even Mrs. Beakley was impressed.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: Ed, the biggest of the three titular characters, is the walking personification of loveable goof. Dumber than a box of rocks (except for comics and horror/sci-fi movies) the only times he doesn't have a big dopey smile on his face is when he's too confused, or running away from someone. He has occasionally shown himself to have an astonishing amount of strength, but usually only as part of a gag. THEN came the episode where he was furious the entire time because he had a rock in his shoe, and laid waste to all in his path. Including ripping an entire tree-trunk from the ground. Even Sarah, Ed's nearly-as-strong and eternally tormenting little sister that rules over him (and Jimmy) with an iron fist, was terrified of him when he yelled back at her.
- Family Guy:
- Peter Griffin is about as mature as a child who just started preschool and has the intelligence of an empty, crushed soda can. However, this doesn't stop him from being dangerous when he's really provoked, and he can hold his own in a lot of fights. Just ask Ernie the Chicken.
- Likewise, his son Chris is not only a much younger version of his father, he's also much more friendly and harmless. In spite of that, he has shown in many occasions that he will strike at the right moment whenever he's pushed past his comfort zone.
- Quagmire is probably the most infamous example of them all. He's a hyperactive sex maniac with an obsession with sexual arousal around the many girls/women he slept with. Despite that, he has a VERY vicious side of him, as he doesn't take very kindly when anyone does something to get on his vindictive side. Just ask Brian and Jeff just how well that ended for them.
- Freakazoid!: In spite of the silliness of the show, the villains managed to be more or less serious enough to appear dangerous. But if you look at him from the perspective of the bad guys, Freakazoid himself completely nails this Trope.
- Gargoyles: Puck appears to be a care-free, fun-loving, if highly mischievous trickster. As the episodes "Possession" and especially "Future Tense" illustrate, he's a terrifyingly competent schemer when he has a goal on his mind, and he's got quite a bit of magic at his disposal. And as Demona discovers, while it is rare to ever see him truly angry, when he is run.
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Cobra Commander. One of his plots involved carving the image of his face into the moon. On the other hand, he has a knack for coming up with a lot of crazy plans, and some were Crazy Enough to Work if it wasn't for G.I. Joe and betrayal by his minions.
- House of Mouse: Goofy, when he gets Drunk with Power and put in charge in "Sandwich Makers".
- Gravity Falls:
- Old Man McGucket, the local kook, has proven himself perfectly capable of mass destruction. In "Legend of the Gobblewonker" we learn he builds highly-destructive Humongous Mecha as a coping mechanism for rejection and loneliness, and in "Land Before Swine" it's implied he ate his way out of the belly of a pterodactyl. Justified in "Society of the Blind Eye", when he revealed to be a former genius scientist, who vent insane after using his mind-erasing gun on himself too many times. In the same episode he defeats the leader of the Blind Eye society by walking towards him, ignoring all shots from his memory-erasing gun, which doesn't on him due to his insanity, knocking said gun out of his hands and headbutting him into unconsciousness.
- And then there's Bill Cipher from "Dreamscaperers", an Eldritch Abomination whose goofy appearance and laid-back personality hides massive amounts of power and a twisted sense of humor. When he graduates to full Big Bad in Season 2, he becomes more vicious and manipulative, but never loses his "silly" personality, even when he breaks into Earth's dimension and brings about "Weirdmageddon" in the season finale.
- And that's completely ignoring Stan Pines, who goes through great lengths to make as much money from each and every situation he finds himself in. Stuff his great nephew in a wolf-boy costume and make him dance for money? Get into a wheel-of-fortune-esque television show through pure greed and selfishness, only to tragically lose because he literally didn't know what the word "please" was? Par for the course. But if you threaten Dipper's or Mabel's lives, he's quick to beat the shit out of you and anyone you may have helping you. As a horde of bloodthirsty zombies could attest, if they weren't currently dead. Again.
- Subverted with Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland in "Irrational Treasure". You'd think they'd start acting competent after getting order concerning an Ancient Conspiracy, but they're still as idiotic and useless as before.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
- Hazbin Hotel: As Charlie is the protagonist, her dad Lucifer, King of Hell, comes across as a goofy inventor obsessed with rubber duckies whose desperation to connect with his daugher comes across as almost a little pathetic. Try to harm his little girl though and he'll show exactly how he's ruled over demonkind for so long.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): Skeletor was portrayed in a ridiculous manner at times, but there's no doubt that if He-Man and his allies didn't exist, he would have been able to create much chaos and, possibly, take over Eternia completely.
- The Hollow: Death frequently acts melodramatic and campy but he is still The Grim Reaper and can be very threatening at times.
- Kaeloo: Stumpy can actually be quite dangerous. The most notable example is Episode 105, where he manages to very nearly erase the rest of the main four from existence, and then takes over the animation studio.
- Invader Zim:
- Most of the time, the title character either falls victim to his own Genius Ditz nature or completely fails to properly use his extremely advanced technology. The few times he's half-way competent however show that he is very good at causing large scale mayhem and destruction, even if sometimes he destroys the wrong thing.
- In one episode, Zim locks GIR into "Duty Mode" (the red-eyed, serious version), and he promptly becomes much more evil and competent than Zim himself, including deciding that Zim is a threat to the mission and needs to be eliminated. Long story short, Zim just barely turns him back to normal in time to prevent a Klingon Promotion.
- Justice League:
- Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance" focused on the Flash and his Rogues Gallery. Flash's villains might be incredibly silly theme-based, pun-spouting Punch-Clock Villain holdovers from the Silver Age, but when the fighting breaks out they're able to easily take out Orion and fight competently against the Goddamn Batman.
- Flash himself is an excellent example. Wise-cracking hero with a friendly and cheerful disposition, constantly flirting and a hopeless romantic... who is also one of the most conscientious of the League in regards to collateral damage, regularly talks villains into giving up, and, if that doesn't work, can single handedly defeat living gods like Brainiac merged with Luthor.
- Kim Possible:
- Harmless Villain Drakken and Dragon Dark Action Girl poster girl Shego would arguably be Not So Harmless Villains without someone to foil their plans. Once, they attempted to build an army of cute little toy robots.... 100,000,000 of them.
- The first movie reveals what happens if the heroes were out of the picture.
- Ron could also fit: when he is temporarily made a villain in one episode, he's unstoppable. Shego (who rightly shows disdain for her boss Drakken's incompetence and demonstrated in the first movie how incredibly dangerous she'd be if she treated villainy as more than just a job and applied herself) is terrified of Evil!Ron.
- When he's back to his normal self, and two villains threaten Kim's life in the finale, man oh man, is he FURIOUS. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for them.
- In the Bad Future of "A Sitch In Time", he utterly trashes Drakken (who is now super-buff), after Shego reveals that it was she who broke up the Kim/Ron team by getting Ron's mother transferred to Norway.
- Frugal Lucre's whole villain gimmick is being cheap. He lives in and operates out of his mother's basement because supervillain lairs are expensive. Everything he uses for his evil schemes he buys from the show's Walmart Expy instead of spending big bucks on brand-name items. He also works there as a day job for the employee discount. He's even willing to pass those savings onto you, demanding only $1 from every person in the world as a ransom. He's a surprisingly effective villain despite all of this.
- Kim herself. Earlier seasons had her joking around with the villains, but she will take them down when things started getting serious. When pushed too far, she ditches any pleasantries and goes straight to beating her opponents.
- Looney Tunes:
- The Loud House: Luan Loud during April Fools Day. She "transforms" from your nice, funny 14-year-old girl to a corrupted, diabolical, evil princess and pranks her family. No wonder the Louds and Clyde are afraid of the holiday!
- The Mask:
- The Mask is a cartoonish genuinely insane man who behaves and acts like a little kid half of the time, he come on too strong towards any woman he meets, lets himself get distracted by trivial things, prefers to dance at the Coco Bongo and is a Troll to people who annoy him. He is also a powerful Reality Warper who uses his powers and ablilites to fight any supervillains that attack the city he lives in and does it with such success while trolling them that most of his enemies are scared of him. The Mask is a genuinely smart, powerful and dangerous man who can easily use his intelligence and his powers to defeat anyone who fights him powerful or not.
- Eve is a vamp who is also a southern american girl with an accent that goes with it and like The Mask is genuinely insane but like him she is also a powerful Reality Warper who can use her powers and ablilites to fight anyone who stand against her such as Pretorius who she manages to defeat and freeing Stanley the man she loves and cares about in a few seconds flat.
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir, a wise-cracking goofball of a superhero who also happens to possess the second-most powerful Miraculous in the world and the ability to destroy anything he touches.
- The various villains that Hawk Moth creates also fall under this category. Many of them possess goofy and saccharine designs and names, strange and outlandish powers and comedically weak motivations (justified in that their negative emotions are amplified when under Hawk Moth's influence). With that said, almost all of them are big enough threats that not only warrant both Ladybug and Chat Noir working together to combat on equal footing, but also cause massive collateral damage in the process.
- The undisputed king of this trope in the show is Party Crasher in Season 3, a Disco Dan who looks so unbelievably silly that everyone laughs at him when he first shows up. But he's packing Combat Clairvoyance and a Touch of Death that he uses to curb-stomp five superheroes. Not bad for a villain Hawk Moth created just to shoo some kids out of his house.
- Motorcity: The Duke of Detroit dresses like a really rich guy out jogging, is Large Ham personified, and loves to break out into random karaoke. He's also one of the most influential people in Motorcity, with enough wealth and artillery at his disposal to make your life a living hell, anytime he sees fit.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Discord is a cheerful, fun-loving, reality warping trickster who enjoys chocolate rain, cotton candy clouds, and corrupting and breaking ponies and laughing at their misery as their entire world crumbles around them, literally and metaphorically. But underneath it all, the other ponies (especially Fluttershy) learn that he's not all bad.
- On that note, don't mess with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. After Babs Seed pushed them hard enough, they rigged a trap in a parade float that would make The A-Team blush (To music that sounded suspiciously like the A-Team's theme, no less) and lured Babs into stealing it with a Batman Gambit. The only reason it failed is because the CMC had a change of heart and saved Babs from it.
- The "World Famous" Flim Flam brothers are a pair of con men who keep their sights set relatively low, aiming to scam small groups of ponies out of money or farm land. Then the Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you think about their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 and realize they're a pair of Gadgeteer Geniuses who can create a vehicle that is years ahead of any other technology in the world. Then the Season 5 Finale comes around and shows that, if nobody holds them back and they ever decide to set their sights a bit higher, they could and would reduce everything in sight to a pollution-choked wasteland dotted with smoke-belching factories, causing a Bad Future equatable to if Sombra or Chrysalis succeeded.
- Spike is often the butt of jokes and seldom taken seriously for his childishness, naiveness, and overall immaturity with his "silly little waddle" and his Precocious Crush on Rarity. It's almost enough to make one forget that he's not just a child but a child dragon who's Made of Iron and armed with powerful enough fire breath to melt solid metal or a stadium-sized block of ice in seconds. It's worth pointing out that King Sombra and the Timber Wolf King, two opponents who engaged Spike directly, are two of the few villains who ended up dead and both as a direct or indirect result of Spike's actions.
- The Owl House: The titular Owl House is embodied by Hooty, a cheerful Butt-Monkey who is socially oblivious and none too bright. But as several episodes show, he takes his job as a living security system very seriously, and can effortlessly curb-stomp some of the most powerful witches on the Boiling Isles.
- Phineas and Ferb: "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo" had a Bad Future that occurred after future Candace manages to bust her brothers, which also results in Perry being taken out of commission for a few months. Without anyone to oppose him, Dr. Doofenshmirtz manages to take over all of the Tri-State Area. Admittedly, the actions of Moral Guardians helped him, but not being opposed was still a factor.
- The Powerpuff Girls:
- Bubbles. She may act goofy and ditzy most of the time, but she's just as good as her sisters when it comes to kicking villains' asses.
- The overwhelming majority of the Rogues Gallery are regularly beaten handily by the girls, but whenever they find a way to keep them at bay, they can have Townsville completely at their mercy. Him, despite being a effeminate nut job, was revealed to have created a Bad Future in a timeline where the girls were absent, while Mojo Jojo, in spite of his usual tautological buffoonery, has came this close to destroying the girls more than once.
- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The series definitely has some of the goofiest iterations of the turtles and their extended cast, and the new characters also tend to be pretty silly. None of them are any less dangerous than they are in more serious incarnations, and in some ways, they're even more so. Except Warren Stone.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle: Bullwinkle J. Moose is one of animation's grand doofuses. But when Rocky is injured by Boris Badenov's gang in the "Picayune Pot" serial, Bullwinkle goes after them bent on tearing them limb from limb.
- The Ruff & Reddy Show: Reddy is a goofball and a little cowardly. But mess with Ruff or anyone smaller than its antagonist, then all bets are off. Reddy will fight.
- Samurai Jack:
- Big Bad Aku is so downright silly and hilarious at times that new viewers can be forgiven for seeing him as a Harmless Villain if their first episode is something like "Aku's Fairy Tales" or "Jack vs. Aku". In episodes like "Jack Under the Sea" or "Jack and the Zombies", he reminds you just how terrifying the shape-shifting practically invincible embodiment of evil can really be.
- For a non-villainous example, there's that Totoro-like Gentle Giant that follows Jack around in Jack and the Creature. It's big, goofy-looking and incredibly dimwitted, but when it sees Jack being overpowered and viciously beaten by a gang of robot bounty hunters, the Creature transforms into a gargantuan murder-machine with More Teeth than the Osmond Family and absolutely trashes all the robots with no trouble at all.
- Scaramouche the Merciless is a flamboyant, scatting robot with a taste for the musical, a tendency towards double entendres ("Whip it out!") and who generally calls everyone "babe", even Aku (who he regularly calls on his smartphone). He is also a vicious assassin who has no problem (moral or otherwise) slaughtering an entire village to draw Jack out, and one of the few enemies in the fifth season who's actually put up a big fight and come close to actually killing Jack, thanks to his musical capabilities letting him control surrounding debris and his own blades, as well as being a skilled swordsman with a sonic-powered weapon.
- The Secret Show: A villain simply known as 'The Clown' appears and babbles on about taking over the world, while seeming completely ridiculous. The main characters decide to ignore him in favor of more visible threats, and The Clown, unopposed, takes over the world in short order.,
- Sonic Boom: The show's version of Dr. Eggman is definitely one of the goofiest iterations of the character, but he's still a mechanical genius who manages to genuinely pull off some clever plans against the heroes when they underestimate him. It's also implied that at least part of the reason he always loses is because on some level he enjoys his interactions with Team Sonic and that he could be a much bigger threat if he really wanted to be.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- SpongeBob himself is way too cheerful for his own good, childish, dimwitted, and always unwittingly causing mischief wherever he goes. However, if someone rubs him the wrong way, then things aren’t going to be pretty. While SpongeBob is almost always a Nice Guy, there have been a few times in the series where he has completely snapped, with notable instances being in “Can You Spare a Dime?” “I’m With Stupid,” and “Rock-a-Bye Bivalve.”
- Plankton is, at his best, a Laughably Evil villain, and at his worst, a pitiable Designated Villain whose only crime is that he's The Rival to Mr. Krabbs. However, in The Movie, he frames Mr. Krabs for the theft of Neptune's crown and gets him frozen in ice, and takes over Bikini Bottom and makes everyone his slave.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
- The title character, Star Butterfly, is a flighty, impulsive teenage girl... who, with or without her magic wand, can kick serious butt when she or her loved ones are threatened. This is most vividly demonstrated in the Season 1 finale "Storm the Castle".
- Eclipsa usually behaves so carefree and unconcerned with the events around her, that Star was initially unconvinced that she actually did anything to deserve her epithet of "the Queen of Darkness." While she certainly never did some of the things she was blamed for, when a dire situation personally concerns her, she is quick to stop goofing around and instead prove exactly why she nevertheless does deserve her the title of being the powerful magic user to come out of the royal family prior to Star herself.
- Steven Universe:
- Smoky Quartz definitely qualifies. Being a fusion between Steven and Amethyst, they were created out of their collective insecurities, which makes them look... unconventional. They are rather chubby, have a third arm growing out of their elbow, uses a yo-yo as a weapon and constantly makes jokes and puns. However, when it comes to battle, they easily overpower Jasper, while proving, that their yo-yo attacks are both dangerous and unpredictable.
- Hell, Amethyst herself. She's always fooling around and seems upbeat and carefree, and though she's not the most competent member of the team, she's perfectly capable of holding her own in combat. This is because while she may be a runt, she's still a Quartz gem, a born soldier, which gives her a real edge in combat notably against Pearl.
- Peridot doesn't seem all that dangerous after her Heel–Face Turn, since she's lost her limb enhancers and is a newer, weaker gem type without a gem weapon or shapeshifting abilities, in addition to her quirky and comedic personality. Then it turns out she has "metal powers" that allow her telekinetic control of metal. By the end of Season 3, she ends up poofing Jasper with a well-placed metal rod through the chest and by Season 4 she can lift cars.
- Pink Diamond, when we finally get to see her in flashback, is The Baby of the Bunch to the other Diamonds, and wears a puffy ballerina costume. She was also known for her antics and for being terrible at driving her own ship. She's so childishly silly that none of the other Diamonds take her seriously when she begs them to spare Earth... at which point she decides to use her Rose Quartz disguise to give the other Diamonds a threat they couldn't ignore.
- Spinel from the movie qualifies. Her animation style and movements are heavily reminiscent of a 1930s cartoon, and her purpose is as a playful 'best friend', but when Pink Diamond leaves her to her Earth colony, with Spinel stuck on an aging garden for 6000 years, she comes back to Earth with a vengeance and control of a drill injecting poison that gradually kills all organic life on Earth. Furthermore, her movements are perfect to confuse the hell out of trained soldiers, since they've never seen anything like it before.
- Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: Otto may come across as a clown, but some clowns are quite handy with chainsaws.
- TaleSpin: An antagonist's threat level is directly proportional to their zaniness. For example, Don Karnage is a complete goofball and very serious threat, whereas Shere Khan is a straight-laced Corrupt Corporate Executive and helps the heroes as often as he antagonises them. Don Karnage was something of a villainous Butt-Monkey undone as much by his own Awesome Ego as he was by the efforts of the heroes and the fact that his gang of Sky Pirates was made up of idiots, but there was always an icy menace behind Karnage's buffoonery reminding you that he would not hesitate to kill someone if it would benefit him.
- Teen Titans (2003):
- Tom Goes to the Mayor: In "WW Lasers", Tom gets his hands on a chest full of World War II memorabilia and pitches an idea for an educational restaurant to the Mayor, who insists that his nephew Terry help Tom. Terry might look, sound, and act like a hyperactive sixth grader, but he's actually 27 years old because of his addiction to an inhaler. And when Tom accidentally knocks his inhaler away while trying to calm him down, Terry beans him in the head with a brick hard enough to put him in a coma for several weeks, during which time Terry perverts Tom's idea for the restaurant into a Suck E. Cheese's with a singing animatronic Hitler.
- Transformers: Animated:
- Prometheus Black/Meltdown, despite his Disco Dan style outfits and cartoony Mad Scientist nature is, by far, the most dangerous human villain on the show. That may not seem like much, considering the other villains, but he's almost on the same level of evil as the Decepticons. While other human villains at most got a single episode of being at all dangerous, Meltdown was consistently portrayed as a genuine threat nearing if not equaling the Decepticons — who in this continuity, are incredibly dangerous threats that are more than a match for the team on an equal playing field. Between his skills in the aforementioned mad science, and a touch so corrosive that even the Dinobots quickly learned to fear it, this is far from unwarranted.
- Henry "Headmaster" Masterson, who speaks in Totally Radical Leet Lingo and possesses a device that can remove the heads of Cybertronians, and who threatened to blow up Michigan in his first appearance. His treatment of violence and warfare as just a silly game reveals him to be a deranged Psychopathic Manchild.
- Among the Decepticons themselves, there's several cases of this.
- Blitzwing, with his Split Personality and his wacky Random face is such a riot that sometimes you forget he's a merciless giant war machine who's armed to the teeth and capable of hunting you down by land or by air. Hell, his Random face has access to the abilities of both his other personalities, usually mutually exclusive, so it's technically the more dangerous of the three.
- Swindle is an Arms Dealer with mannerisms based on Ron Popeil.
- Despite his overinflated ego and propensity for running his mouth, Starscream can be surprisingly cunning and dangerous.
- The Transformers: The Junkions. They might only ever speak in TV references, but in the movie they came close to killing the last Autobots who could stand a chance against Unicron.
- Transformers: Prime: Knock Out, a Brilliant, but Lazy Decepticon doctor who has shown that when pressed, he can be very effective in combat (just ask Arcee and Bumblebee). He's also something of a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant. And may the AllSpark help you if you mess with his finish...
- Wander over Yonder: Wander, of all characters, has this really hit him in the Season 2 opener "The Greater Hater". Upon realizing he cannot befriend Lord Dominator and turn her good no matter what he tries, he immediately snaps and comes to the conclusion that they'll never be friends.
- Young Justice (2010): Klarion the Witch Boy, a Laughably Evil Psychopathic Manchild and a Cloud Cuckoolander. Also a Lord of Chaos.
