Calling The Old Man Out / Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: The Series introduces Cruella de Vil's mother Malevola, the head of the de Vil family and a horrid woman who makes Cruella look like a saint in comparison. In "Coup de Vil" Cruella finally snaps at the years of constant disrespect Malevola's shown her and calls her out for the hateful, domineering bitch that she is. Interestingly, Malevola responds to this disrespect with pride and sheds Tears of Joy because Cruella finally shows some spine and their relationship actually improves.
  Cruella: You're a Control Freak! You're as cuddly as a gargoyle and you have the fashion sense of a DRUID! How do you like THAT?!
  Malevola: ...at last! The daughter I've always wanted! COME TO MAMA!
• Earl of Lemongrab does this to Princess Bubblegum in the Adventure Time episode "You Made Me!", several times:
  Lemongrab: No one... No one understands! I am alone! And you made me like this! YOU MADE ME!!! YOOOU MAAADE MEEE!!! You're... my... glob! You're my glob!
  Lemongrab: It's gross! And who says your way's right, anyway? I look in the lemon heart you gave me and see my lemon way to act - and that must be right!
  Lemongrab: NO! No more helping! You unload your punkest boys on me?! Tryyy to change my ways?! YOU'RE POISON! YOU'RE POISON!!! YOU NEED RECONDITIONING!!! REEECONDITIIION YOOOU!!!
• Several occasions in American Dad!, but a great example is in "Bully For Steve." Stan takes the role of a bully and makes Steve's life miserable to get him to toughen up and face his bully. Steve finally calls him out to a fight on the playground. When Stan arrives, Steve reveals that he hired Stan's old bully, Stelio Kontos, to beat him up. Stan gets pulverized, but afterwards, admits he's proud of Steve for handling his bully his way.
• In one episode of American Dragon: Jake Long, Jake gets fed up with his job as the American Dragon after a particularly stressful week, so after a local bully gets his own unishment for pranking the school principal, Jake pulls the same trick on the Dragon Council in order to get put on temporary suspension from the position. The reins get passed to Haley in the meantime, who goes from gloating she'll do a far better job to being a frazzled, gibbering mess within days. So when Haley sees their grandfather Lao Shi start to criticize Jake for being irresponsible and not flawlessly rising to the job, she snaps and tongue-lashes him, declaring that while his actions might have been immature, him desiring to have a short break after years of thankless work is far from self-serving.
  Haley: HEY! When's the last time either of you were the American Dragon!? Well, as the little troll girl currently filling the position, let me tell you, it's stinkin' hard! I can't imagine doing it two more days, let alone two more years! And to think about everything Jake's gone through? He's had to save magical creatures on a daily basis, lie to his own dad about who he is, say good-bye to the girl he loved, all to protect a mystical world that nobody knows about. He may be the American Dragon, but he's also a 14-year-old kid who just wanted a couple days off. If that makes him immature, fine, but self-serving? With all due respect, STEP OFF!!
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Katara loudly vents her pain and frustration at her father for leaving her and her brother behind to fight in the war. Downplayed, as Katara also admits that she knows that he had no choice and didn't do anything wrong, but can't help but feel angry and hurt by it. Hakoda, loving father that he is, acknowledges her pain, expresses his regret and asks her forgiveness, which she does gives to him.
    • Toph has a straight example later on, calling out both her parents in her debut episode. She tells them in what would become one of her few moments of politeness and emotional vulnerability that she likes being a fighter and is tired of them overprotecting her. Unfortunately, to her shock, her father decides that this just a sign that she needs to be protected even more, leading to her running away with Team Avatar. And this is after seeing her in action and know she isn't as naïve and fragile as they thought. They don't make amends until "The Rift" story arc in the post-series comics.
    • The most remembered instance of this in the series, which used to serve as the page quote, goes to Zuko confronting Ozai during the final season for controlling him, emotionally abusing him, burning his face, banishing him for three years and generally being an evil, contemptible douchebag. It pisses off Ozai so much that he tries to kill Zuko with lightning right then and there. It doesn't work, thanks to Zuko knowing the only counter to lightning-bending... which was taught to him by Iroh, Ozai's brother (Zuko's uncle). This scene is not only epic for Zuko in general, but it also marks his actual Heel–Face Turn, making up for his fake-out at the end of the previous season.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • When Hiroshi Sato reveals that he's working for the Equalists, he spends quite a bit of time trying to get his daughter, Asami to undergo a Face–Heel Turn and join him. She refuses, repeatedly, before saying that his wife would have hated him for what he's become and that he has no more room for love, he's so filled with hate. Even as he tries to kill his once-beloved daughter, and she strikes him down, she's crying.
      Asami: You really are a horrible father.
    • In Amon/Noatak and Tarrlok's backstory both of them get a chance to do this. After being forced to bloodbend innocent animals and then each other by their father, Tarrlok refuses as says he doesn't want to do that to anyone. When their father (Yakkone) is about to attack him, Noatak calls him out too, and stops him from hurting his little brother.
    • During the final season, Lin finally meets up with her mother and is clearly working hard to keep from blowing up at her. When Toph prods her to just get on with it, Lin blows up at her mother for her terrible parenting. While we've already heard part of Lin's issues and thus don't get a repeat of those, we also learn that Lin is both upset that she has no idea who her father is and, more importantly, that her mother doesn't even understand why she's mad. Whenever Lin tried to explain, her mother would just blow her off because she apparently couldn't understand why Lin would even care.
• In the Batman Beyond episode "Inqueling", it's revealed that before her mutation, Inque gave birth to a daughter named Deanna, whom she subsequently gave up for adoption. When the two reunite in the show Inque explains that she had grown up poor and let herself become Inque all for the money, and she wanted to give her daughter an easier life with normal parents and a large trust fund. When Inque reveals just how much money she has, however, her daughter tries to kill her in order to get control of her bank accounts.
  Deanna: You never gave me anything except money, Mother. How did you expect me to turn out?
• In season four of BoJack Horseman, BoJack learns his emotionally abusive mother, Beatrice, has gone senile and now can't even recognize him, leaving him bummed out... because he never got around to personally telling her off and now, may never get the chance to let her know how much he truly hated her. Later in penultimate episode of the season, he gets his chance when she's finally able to recognize him, right after she's done probably the worst thing she's ever done to him and he's ready to dump her off to die alone in the worst nursing home room he could find, no less. But, he ultimately decided to be the bigger horse and instead, tells her she's eating ice cream at the old family summer home by the lake.
• In The Boondocks episode "The Color Ruckus" at his grandmother's funeral, Uncle Ruckus finally tells off his father for abusing him as a child and using his own crappy life to justify it. The senior Ruckus responds by trying to hit Uncle with a beer bottle, only to fall backward into his mother's grave and break his neck when his back gives out.
• In Castlevania, Alucard multiple times calls out his father Dracula for being insane with grief over his mother Lisa’s death and even correctly claims that his father’s Roaring Rampage of Revenge is just “History‘s longest suicide note”. This gets subverted when Dracula does have a Heel Realization and lets his son stake him, Alucard himself deeply regrets having to commit Patricide even if it was to save world since he did genuinely love his father.
• Late in Code Lyoko, Ulrich's emotionally and verbally abusive father shows up to talk to his son about his poor academic performance. Ulrich calmly tolerates his father's lecture until his father implies Ulrich's friends (the only people who keep the poor boy sane) are behind his poor grades. Ulrich is visibly angry and snaps that his father doesn't know his friends... or him for that matter. Then when it's revealed the team needs him, Ulrich stands to leave and rebuts his father's command of "I'm not done talking to you!" with "Yeah? Well, I'm done listening.", slamming the door on his way out.
• In the DC Super Hero Girls episode, #MotherKnowsBest, Diana finally stands up to her mother for seeing only her flaws and none of her accomplishments.
  Hippolyta: Diana! Have you forgotten all that I have taught you?! I am disa-
  Diana: ENOUGH MOTHER! I will always honor you and I will always love you! But what I will no longer endure is the fear of falling short of your UNACHIEVABLE STANDARDS!
  Hippolyta: [in shock] Daughter? W-What are you saying?
  Diana: I am saying that if you do not approve of the person I choose to be... then you must get lost!
• In Big City Greens, Remy calls out his parents in "Remy Rescue" for not letting him make his own decisions and trying to keep him from hanging out with Cricket and Tilly. Fortunately, his parents see the error of their ways and let the two be friends again.
• In The Fairly OddParents!, Cosmo gets an awesome one against Mama Cosma in "Apartnership":
  Cosmo: Let's get something straight! I'm not bright! Big words confuse me! I have the attention span of a rodent! But Wanda loves me anyway. She makes me happy, and that should be enough for you!
• Family Guy:
  • In "The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou", Peter spent a good deal of time trying to make Chris stand up to a bully... while becoming one himself. Chris responds by socking Peter and telling him what a dick he's been.
  • In "Seahorse Seashell Party", Meg finally blows up at her family during a hurricane. While Lois gets attacked pretty hard, Peter gets the brunt of it. What she essentially says is that Lois is a callous bitch and Peter is a failure of a man.
• In the Goof Troop episode "From Air to Eternity", Pete lies and says he's not afraid of heights and then belittles PJ for his lack of accomplishments, makes him feel insecure and inadequate about his own fear of heights, coerces him into dangerous stunts for his own profits, yells at him and insults him for doing them wrong, and shames and rejects him for "lying" because Pete made an incorrect assumption which PJ didn't know he needed to correct. Then PJ and Max discover that Pete is afraid of heights and lied to PJ, which meant what he did wasn't just needlessly cruel, it was also hypocritical. PJ is a bit too meek to call Pete out directly, but with Max's help, he manages to call Pete out indirectly by tricking him into confessing to the original transgression. PJ pretends to be surprised and shames his father with all the "new information that comes to light."
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "King Tooten Pooten", Irwin's mom Judy calls her father Poppin Lockin out for his cruel ways in the past and trying to make Irwin the next Pharaoh in his family instead of letting him decide what he wants to do. Irwin accepted being the Pharaoh when Poppin Lockin told him that Mandy would love him.
• Jackie Chan Adventures has Jackie's Hyde side doing this in one episode. It's Played for Laughs, meant to drive home that Dark Jackie is just as unfettered by conscience as ever before.
  Dark Jackie: (When Uncle asks for "spit of eel" for a potion ingredient) Pull your tongue out of your mouth and wring out the spit.
  Uncle: (gasps) You call Uncle an eel!
• Justice League Unlimited:
  • Upon his resignation, Captain Marvel does this to his former idol Superman, citing how the man of steel and the team — or rather organization — as a whole have become infatuated with their power, distracted from their original purpose, and forgotten how to be heroes.
    "You don't even act like [heroes] anymore."
  • Invoked then derailed in Season 4's last episode, "Epilogue", which kept the title as it also served as the series ending for Batman Beyond; A grown Terry imagines himself reaming Bruce on his control issues and emotional distance. In the end, he doesn't actually go through with this.
• In the King of the Hill episode "Death Picks Cotton", Peggy Hill finally gets to chew out her father-in-law, Cotton, for how much of a complete jerk he's been to his son (Hank) for all of his life. The kicker? She waits until he's on his deathbed to let him have it. His response is to perish through spite alone. Afterwards, Peggy spins a lie to spare Hank's feelings.
• Legion of Super Heroes (2006): Timber Wolf calls out his father twice in the series, first when he confronts him in the lab after the Legion help restore his humanity, pointing out that his father wasn't a good parent to him and destroying his lab, second when he is Brainwashed and Crazy and confronts him at a science convention in front of a huge audience, where he accuses him of manipulating people around him and experimenting on sentient beings as well as destroying their lives and families. This time he becomes a Self-Made Orphan.
• In the Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart episode "Small", Mao Mao calls out his father Shin Mao for all the Parental Neglect he's been through.

  Shin Mao: I'll straighten this little guy out like that! [snaps his fingers] Besides, I wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself.

  Mao Mao: Embarrass.. myself? You're worried that I might... embarrass... MYSELF!? You know, sometimes when you're not around, I actually kinda like myself. I think you're more worried that I'll embarrass you!

• Metalocalypse:
  • Played with in Season 1. The Bandmates are forced to deal with their overbearing parents/guardians who force them to spend quality time with them. When the band is confronted with the idea of a Family Album, they angrily state that they are the most brutal band in the world and that their parents know nothing about being brutal. Suddenly, the trope becomes an Inversion and all the parents berate their kids for taking them for granted.
    Grandma Murderface: You little bastards think you know about brutal? Let me tell you something, there is nothing NOTHING in this world more brutal than raising a child!
  • Also briefly parodied with an absurd non-sequitur (par for the course, really, considering what show this is) in Skwisklok:
    Nathan Explosion: I guess I always hated my father. But then Explosion Sauce changed all that. [chugs barbecue sauce straight from the bottle] Explosion Sauce: It's good on its own.
  • In "Motherklok," Pickles finally has enough of his mom's attitude and, after being told by just about everybody that he should tell her to go fuck herself, he finally does exactly that.
    Pickles: Hey mom? GO FUCK YOURSELF!
• Clay Puppington, father of Moral Orel's title character, got double-whammied. Already a less-than-stellar father, in the second season's finale he sunk to new depths while on a hunting trip with Orel. He gets progressively drunk throughout the day, goes into a mad rant that night, accidentally shoots Orel, blames Orel for it, tears Orel's lucky shirt for a tourniquet, then drinks the rubbing alcohol Orel had brought for exactly that kind of emergency. The drinking alone had gotten Orel to anxiously tell his father he didn't like it when Clay drank, but all the other stuff forces Cheerful Child Orel to utter the three magic words: "I hate you." Clay's response: "Hate away, Sister. Hate away..." The second whammy comes at the end of the third season's premiere, when we learn he overheard the tail-end of a conversation between Orel and his mother, in which Orel sincerely questioned why his mother married his father, and his wife dismiss Orel's claims that Clay became a different man when he drinks as "his true nature coming out." Clay got into bed soon after with an expression that leaves the impression he was thinking "My God, What Have I Done?." Unfortunately, most of that third season shows Clay getting worse, up until finally the only man who cares for him decides to abandon him, forever dooming him to a miserable marriage. His kids, at least, do grow up and have relatively happy lives.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the episode "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", Diamond Tiara cements her own Heel–Face Turn when she confronts her mother Spoiled Rich and reams her out for her controlling ways, going so far as to call the Cutie Mark Crusaders her friends.
  • In the episode "Parental Glideance", Rainbow Dash tears into her parents for their oversupportiveness, telling them how embarrassing it was. Sadly, her outburst is caught by Scootaloo, who has a Broken Pedestal moment because of it.
• Ninjago: Dragons Rising: in the episode "The Power Within", Sora calls out her parents for sticking to their own beliefs over her words and warnings (even if they have proof of the opposite thrown in their faces), neglecting her, and making her feel worthless in general. After her dad tells her to return to her family, she goes so far as saying she has a new, better, family.
• In Ōban Star-Racers, after Don Wei tells Molly that he knows that she's really his daughter, Eva, she unloads on him for abandoning her at a boarding school for most of her childhood without so much as a letter and not even recognizing her when she first joined the team.
• Pantheon: Maddie isn't tolerating her mom's attempts to dissuade her from finding out more about her dad's disappearance and accuses her of denying her dad can still be saved.
• Regular Show: In "Rigby Goes to Prom", Rigby does this to his father when they're on the edge of a cliff in the car.
  Rigby: [On the edge of a cliff in the car, with Sherm still blaming Rigby] It doesn't matter if I ever get a big job or my G.E.D, you're STILL never gonna trust me, and that's on YOU! You're so focused on your car that you never noticed me growing up! Also, it's totally YOUR fault because you were the one driving and you weren't watching the road! NOW GIVE ME THE WHEEL!
• Samurai Jack: Ashi (after having undergone her Heel–Face Turn) battles her mother, the High Priestess of the Cult of Aku, and calls her out for raising her and her six sisters as Child Soldiers to kill Jack and sending them on what was basically a Suicide Mission.
  High Priestess: How could you betray your family?! He killed your sisters, and you let him live!
  Ashi: No, you killed them! We were made for one purpose; to kill! Our fate was sealed the day we were born!
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • Both Adora and Catra rip into Shadow Weaver at different points, with Adora tearing through the "Golden Child" nonsense to point out that all Shadow Weaver ever did was manipulate and exploit her, and Catra not only outright overthrowing her and taking her job at Hordak's right hand, but also yelling at her about how many of Catra's own issues are direct results of Shadow Weaver's parenting style.
  Shadow Weaver: I've missed you, my child-
  Adora: We're past that. Try again.
  Shadow Weaver: Clever. You always were. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were different. You were-
  Adora: Special? No. What you always told me was that I didn't matter. I was special only as long as I obeyed you.
  • Near the end of the series, Hordak is ordered by his old master and creator, the Galactic Conqueror Horde Prime, to kill Entrapta, Hordak's lab partner and closest friend. This is enough for him to break through a lifetime of indoctrination and two thorough mindwipes to tell his "older brother" what he deserves.
  Hordak: I am not your "brother". You made me in your image, but I am more than that. I gave myself a name, I made a life of my own. I made... a friend. I AM HORDAK, AND I DEFY YOUR WILL!
• In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Harry actually throws his father across the room in "The Uncertainty Principle," screaming that it was his fault that he took Globulin Green and became the Green Goblin. Harry doesn't go much farther with it, though, because Norman actually listens to him and starts acting like a decent father for once. Or at least, he seems to be...
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Defenders of Peace" Wag Too, before going to help the Jedi and clone troopers, chews out his father for his Suicidal Pacifism and essentially points out that no matter how well they fight, their village is still being defended by a grand total of five people and that eventually the villagers might have to defend themselves.
• Steven Universe:
  • In the episode "Nightmare Hospital", Connie calls out her mother for her control-freak tendencies and her increasing denial about how little she knows about her daughter's life, revealing A) Connie no longer needs her glasses, B) she's been studying sword-fighting, and C) she's more than capable of helping Steven deal with any "weird gem stuff" (like the two "Franken-gems" that had wound up in the hospital after being mistaken for horribly deformed car accident patients).
  • In "Drop Beat Dad," Sour Cream reunites with his absent father Marty, who offers to make up for lost time by upgrading his son's ramshackle rave into a full-blown concert. When it is revealed that Marty hijacked the show to shill disgusting soda, Sour Cream makes it known that he doesn't need Marty or his product endorsement to be a DJ — in the same gibberish language his stepfather and half-brother speak.
  • In season 3, Steven starts to learn that his mother, Rose Quartz, wasn't the saintly paragon he was always told she was, and that she had secrets she kept even from the other Crystal Gems. When Steven dreams of a palanquin he knows is connected to those secrets in "Steven's Dream", he gets angry at Garnet and Pearl when they're clearly trying not to tell Steven something. He tells them that he, as Rose's son, deserves to know the truth if anyone does. A few episodes later in "Storm in the Room", Steven goes into Rose's room in the temple and uses its ability to conjure illusions from his mind to actually interact with his mother on some level, which eventually turns into calling her out on leaving Steven to deal with her messes.
  • Sadie calls out her mother Barb in "Sadie's Song" for her suffocating and controlling nature.
  • In the finale of season 5, "Change Your Mind", Steven calls out the Diamonds on their abusive treatment towards his mother on her behalf, owing that Pink Diamond became Rose Quartz and betrayed them for always ignoring her in favor of their tyranny and her attempts to change them for the better.
  • In "Mr. Universe", Steven calls out his father for running away from home when he was a kid because his parents were too strict and leaving behind a normal life that Steven would have loved to have had.
• In the Super Mario World episode "The Night Before Cave Christmas", Oogtar takes a peek at one of the presents King Koopa wrapped for the Koopa Kids. Upon discovering Koopa is giving Bob-ombs to his children for Christmas, Oogtar calls him out and laughs when the Bob-omb explodes in his face.
• In the second episode of the original 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Shredder says the Turtles should join his forces because their existence as mutant ninjas is all due to him framing their master Hamato Yoshi and getting him banished from the Foot Clan, then following him to America with the purpose of finishing him off for good, which he attempted to do with the mutagen that did at least turn Yoshi into a mutant rat while giving the turtles their humanoid form. All the Turtles need for a response is one line from Raphael to sum up their feelings toward that:
  "Does the phrase 'go suck a lemon' hold any meaning for you?"
• W.I.T.C.H. features Will calling her mother out for lecturing her about being honest while keeping the fact that she was dating Will's teacher a secret. Said teacher agrees with Will while her mom can only gape in shock.
• Xiaolin Showdown: In the episode "Big as Texas", Clay spends most of it trying to appease his hardass father. During the showdown, though, Clay gets fed up and tells the old man where to stick, ironically causing Daddy Bailey to realize his son has become a man;
  Clay: Daddy, I love you, but if you don't mind, zip yer yap and let me get the job done my way!
• X-Men: The Animated Series:
  • As mentioned above, the '90s animated series condensed and distilled Cyclops' resentment of Corsair (originally a 3-issue-long storyline) into one tearjerker of a rant about his pre-Xavier school Dark and Troubled Past to a shamefaced Corsair, even as he helps him escape a crooked Shi'Ar cop so he can clear his name.
  • The time Magneto got called out by Wanda and Pietro, while they're kept as prisoners alongside Beast and Professor X. Up until then, neither the twins nor Magneto had an idea of this, and worse, the twins had just learned that the Maximoffs were only their adoptive parents.
• In the Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom episode "Gaston to the Rescue", the titular duo call out their dads Mr. Elf and King Thistle when they want Gaston to save them from a dwarf mine after telling him to take a hike the night before.

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