Everyone Has Standards / Western Animation

Characters with standards in Western Animation.

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• Adventure Time:
  • Ice King is forever trying to kidnap princesses to become his "wife". When Princess Bubblegum is de-aged from 18 to 13, he declares his lack of interest and leaves the room immediately.
  • Lemongrab doesn't have a problem with hurting children and attempting to eat people. But he wouldn't dare do anything to (intentionally) harm any of his own children, whom he loves dearly. However, by "Too Old," Lemongrab's standards seem to have... slipped.
  • Finn himself. While a Blood Knight, he largely refuses to kill anyone or anything that's not evil, to the extent that, in "The Enchiridion," he let out a Big "NEVER!" to being ordered to kill a "neutral" ant. Also, in "What Have You Done?", despite being enemies with Ice King, Finn made it clear that he wouldn't beat him up when Ice King hadn't actually committed any recent crimes, stating it as "against his alignment."
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • In the episode "The Words", Darwin holds the Jerkass Ball so firmly that even Miss Simian is taken aback.
    Darwin (angrily): AND AS FOR YOU! The only thing worse than hearing you slurp your coffee is watching stick to your RANCID LADY MUSTACHE!
    [Miss Simian runs off crying]
  • Played for Laughs in "The Limit", where the kids go through great and amoral lengths to torment their mother into buying them candy. But simply shoplifting the candy is going too far. With Gumball even remarking that he was "raised too well" for that.
  • In general, the characters' standards in this show tend to operate on Rule of Funny.
• American Dad!: Bullock, despite being a selfish, crooked, and slightly unstable drug addict who runs the CIA like a daycare, is not a pedophile, as confirmed by Word of God. He's also deeply horrified when he recovers from the effects of a CIA brain scrambling chip and realizes that he stole a nuclear submarine. He chews Stan out for not stopping him:
  Bullock: (in response to Stan saying that he couldn't let Bullock get mind-wiped) You don't work for me, you moron, you work for your country! *looks around* Did you let me steal an armed nuclear sub?!
  • In "The Most Adequate Christmas Ever," Stan dies and is sent to Limbo where he demands a second chance on Earth. Stan's then put on trial to determine if he deserves a second chance, wherein his selfishness and egotism is reviewed for all to see. One example of Stan being a Control Freak showed him dragging a heavily pregnant Francine into a backpacking trip across Africa despite Francine's doctor stating she was likely to give birth soon. Even when Francine exclaims her water broke Stan tells her it's her period and ignores her concerns. He then wakes up to the sounds of Francine screaming in agony as she's forced to give birth to Hayley with no painkillers or medical equipment. When the video of Hayley's birth is finished, Stan's lawyer Michelle, whose job it is to argue he deserves to go back to Earth, is angrily glaring at him alongside the prosecuting angel.
• Archer:
  • The titular character is the biggest man whore you will ever meet, but he refuses the 16-year-old Anke's advances, even though she's legal where they are (in Switzerland). As the series takes a lot of inspiration from James Bond, this is a mirroring of Bond's reaction to a similar situation in For Your Eyes Only.
  • Agent Holly may be something of a jackass, but he appears genuinely horrified by the way that Malory denies baby AJ food, angrily demanding that somebody get her something substantial to eat. His buddy Slater isn't much better, but is similarly disgusted by the idea of sleeping with Dr. Kovac's mistress while inside him, flat-out saying the lady has problems.
  • When stuck in an elevator, Archer asks to borrow Cyril's sweater and then proposes to wipe up urine with it. When Cyril protests that the sweater is cashmere, Archer sincerely apologizes and gives it back. Archer's bullying of Cyril is normally relentless, but in this case, he explains that "It's cashmere! There are rules!"
  • In "Reignition Sequence," Pam, Krieger, Cheryl, Ray, and Cyril are all sickened by the fact that Archer and Lana have rekindled their relationship after their daughter AJ's birth and are visibly in love with each otherーthey discuss how they might create a plan to break the two of them up, but when Cheryl says that "a lot of couples break up when their kid dies", everyone is appalled at what they think she's suggesting. (She explains, using a cartoonishly-drawn flipbook, that she's actually thinking of having them paying someone to kidnap AJ and then double-crossing him after the kidnapping becomes national news and everyone assumes AJ has died, upon which the kidnapper is convicted of murder and receives the death penalty. Meanwhile, AJ would be sent to Bhutan where she would undergo assassin training by Ra's Al Ghul from Batman and come back as an adult to take revenge on the five of them. Nobody agrees to her plan.)
  • The majority of the cast has the tendency to commit some serious sexual indignities, ranging from compulsive adultery to straight up sexual assault, but everyone is disgusted when Cheryl insinuates that she was regularly sexually abused by her grandfather as a child.
  • A more meta example: At the end of, "The Wind Cries Mary", Archer's longtime friend Lucas Troy makes a Deathbed Confession that he once raped Archer while he was passed out drunk. The last minute of the episode is played with a deathly seriousness. Archer screams in anguish, and in the immediate cut to him driving home with Lana and Cyril, there's an unnerving silence, Archer looks like he's miles away mentally, and Lana and Cyril look completely horrified. It just ends with Archer quietly asking Lana to turn on the radio. Even the show itself, for its near constant irreverence, knows when a situation has, nothing, to laugh at.
• Arthur: Binky picks on George on a regular basis, but he's taken aback when Molly makes George cry by cruelly making fun of his dyslexia after he innocently laughs at them during "The Last Tough Customer", and even says she was being a little harsh.
• Harvey Bullock in Batman: The Animated Series has a lot of flaws. Like, a, lot, of flaws. He's an obnoxious, oafish, belligerent, and bellicose detective who barely ever follows the law. That all said, he will never take a bribe and even balks at the mere suggestion of being dirty.
  Bullock: I step on a lot of toes. I don't want Internal Affairs looking at me too close. They might find some things I don't want found.
  Batman: Are you on the take?
  Bullock: HEY WATCH IT, FREAK! I NEVER TOOK A DIME FROM NOBODY! I just bend the rules a little.
• Baymax!: The demolition crew refuses to let the team in to save Baymax due to Baymax being a robot, mistaking him for being a toy and saying that they can't help them. However, when they see Yachi on the roof of the building that Baymax is in, the leader postpones the demolition as he draws the line on blowing up cats.
• Beavis and Butt-Head:
  • Even David Van Driessen has limits if anyone touches any student, Beavis and Butt-Head included. This was shown in "Manners Suck" when Beavis calls Mr. Manners/Candy a pervert upon being attacked, causing Van Driessen to take actions that go against his 'hippie' ways.
  • Speaking of, the second time Mr. Candy shows up he ends up trying to physically assault Beavis and Butt-Head, and Mr. Buzzcut runs to their defense. Rarely does the man show anything but disdain for any of his students, and this is notably the only time in the entire show's run he ever stands up for the moronic duo, but when the chips are down he won't tolerate anyone outright attacking his students. He actually goes on to kick the ever-loving crap out of Mr. Candy when the man takes a swing at the muscular former Marine Corps drill instructor and Vietnam war veteran instead.
    "What the hell are you doing?! This is my classroom! I DO THE ASS-WHUPPING AROUND HERE!!!"
  • Out of all their actions, Beavis and Butt-Head themselves have limits. Butt-Head can't stand seeing another guy's privates, especially Beavis. This was demonstrated in "Tainted Meat" when Beavis has a problem with his privates and being told by Butt-Head not to show him... to the point Butthead gives suggestions like telling him to wash it which, rarely happens, cured Beavis's problem. Also, while Beavis is generally an Extreme Doormat to Butt-Head, even he has his limits. When Butt-Head pushes too far, like calling him Butt-knocker one too many times, Beavis beats him up, such as kicking him in his privates as seen while watching some music video.
  • During the revival of the show, the duo would point out the stupidity of the people in shows like Teen Mom and Jersey Shore, delivering this line at one point:
    Butt-Head: I think these guys may be dumber than us.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head practically thrive on laughing at anything sex-related, themselves being the Trope Namers for Heh Heh, You Said "X". So it's telling that Jersey Shore crossed a line when a sex joke is made and the duo doesn't even chuckle.
    Vinny: She loves hot salami!
    Snooki: Vinny, shut up.
    Vinny: She loves hot salami!
    Beavis: (deadpan) Oh yeah yeah. "She loves hot salami." See, he means schlong.
    Butt-Head: (putting on an Italian accent) Oh, you think she-a slut. That's good to know, let's get back to making-a pizza.
• Beetlejuice: Beetlejuice loves pranking Lydia's parents, but he draws the line at anything that would actually hurt them. He actually saves them multiple times from more malevolent ghosts. Also, even he can't stand the obnoxious nuisance that is Lipscum.
• Big City Greens:
  • In "Feud Fight", Chip's own employees call him out for "decimating" Cricket with tomatoes, to the point most of the staff quits and results in a period of backlash.
  • In "Urban Legend", the Greens discover Gramma isn't that attained with the townsfolk, so she pretends to be an evil swamp witch to scare them away. While Bill decides to throw a barbecue to welcome them kindly and most of the family sides with him, Cricket chooses to side with Gramma because he thinks it's fun to scare people. However, Gramma's actions result in the neigbors turning on them and vowing to kill her, Cricket realizes it's not fun anymore when the victims of the pranks vowed to harm them either way.
  • In "Friend Con" when all of Chip's teeth fall out except the titanium one, Cricket does not laugh at him, claiming he has nightmares about his own teeth falling out.
  • In "The Room", Gloria and Gramma see Cricket and Tilly arguing over each other's living techniques and decide to exploit it to their advantage as reality TV-like entertainment. It goes way too far when the kids begin to destroy the bedroom, something even Gramma finds harsh.
• Bojack Horseman: In "Live Fast, Diane Nguyen", the episode starts with Bojack being his usual entitled self thinking he can go through airport security however he feels like (which includes bringing alcohol and a lighter shaped like a gun). Even though he responds well to their antics at first, even he seems disturbed when Diane's family uses her father's recently deceased corpse for a prank, AFTER they had all but forced Diane to pay for a funeral for him and couldn't be bothered to show up afterwards. When they have virtually no reaction to her understandable Rage Breaking Point, he — for maybe the first time in the series — walks out on a chance to enjoy himself at a bar with them to give her a pep talk.
• Capitol Critters: In "The Kilowatts Riots", Max has to go retrieve a key from P. Cat's litterbox. Even Moze, a cockroach, is disgusted by this.
• In Celebrity Deathmatch murder and torture are totally fine while in the ring (and sometimes outside), but in "Fandemonium II" when Ozzy Osbourne enslaves Rob Zombie and makes him give him a pedicure, Nick and Johnny think he's crossed the line. Referee Mills Lane has no such reservations, though.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Dog Spray Afternoon", when Owen meets with his tagger informant, Gooch, on who's leaving the "SHART" graffiti all over Central Park, Gooch tells him the other taggers are just as shocked at the graffiti, since there are certain spots even they wouldn't go near and they don't appreciate their tags being tagged over.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • The KND aren't fans of adults and fight adult tyranny, but what the bullies do to them in "Operation: M.A.T.A.D.O.R." (trapping them, giving them Klatchian Coffee until they fly into a rage, and then fighting them in an arena) is a line they will not cross. Numbuh Four is scolded by his teammates for participating in this demented pastime. Specifically, they acknowledge that for how anti-adult they are, the ones they go after are clearly insane super-villains. They fully refuse to go after adults that they know are just innocent bystanders. Later, Numbuh Four reveals to have standards too when he learns one of the adults he has to bully fight is his own dad.
  • Captain Stickybeard hates the KND and has battled them more than once. However, he's willing to aid them sometimes because even he thinks that eating vegetables is too cruel, and once saves them from getting eaten by a giant white asparagus.
  • While being Soopreme Leader is such a hard and tedious task (to where it is decided with an extreme version of tag), when Numbuh 13 is tagged and announces he will become Soopreme Leader, the surrounding kids proceed to dogpile him to get tagged, since while no one wants the job, they know it still needs to be done properly, and not by a well-meaning but clumsy doofus like Numbuh 13.
  • In the same episode, the Delightful Children from Down the Lane help Numbuh 362 and Numbuh One sabotage Father's plan to turn every KND treehouse on the planet into a broccoli stalk. When Numbuh One asks why always-listens-to-adults goodie-two-shoes like the DCFDTL would help them, 362 responds as she watches them sulk off that they may be loyal to the adults but even they hate broccoli, especially since as "good kids" they'd be forced to eat it more than anyone else.
  • One episode features the kids heading to the villains' grocery store (yes, the bad guys actually have a dedicated grocery store) to get the last box of Rainbow Munchies cereal in town. Turns out all the villains like it, too, and the entire plot is the two factions working to get the box and keep it for themselves. In the end, the Depraved Dentist Knightbrace is the one to finally take the cereal—and he plans to destroy it because of its high sugar content. The prospect of such an amazing cereal being destroyed is enough to get the KND and villains to agree to a truce (specifically "until breakfast is over"), and they work together to pummel Knightbrace into oblivion and share the Rainbow Munchies with each other.
  • Downplayed with Heinrich von Marzipan in the episode "Operation: C.A.R.A.M.E.L.". Known for his obsession with the sweetest candy, he manages to extract the most prized qualities from the members of Sector V to create the sacred golden caramel (said to be the sweetest candy of all). When he eats a caramel made from Numbuh 3's cheerfulness, he finds it to be too sweet.
• The Cuphead Show! gives us Duke, Emma, and Jasper, the ghostly trio who appear in "Ghosts Ain't Real!" They have an absolute field day tormenting Cuphead and Mugman, and take great pleasure running them through an absolute gauntlet of ghostly terrors, but when they think their antics have accidentally killed the two brothers, they and all the other ghosts of the graveyard are immediately incredibly remorseful.
  Jasper: Knock it off!!! We got a real problem here!
  Emma: One minute, we're all having fun. The next minute, two cups are dead.
  Duke: Oh, them poor little cups!
• Daffy Duck may have an extreme Money Fetish, but even he has limits in his greed. In "His Bitter Half," he marries a shrewish woman, but after being forced to become a Henpecked Husband and suffering constant torment from his Bratty Half-Pint stepson, he decides that no amount of money is Worth It, and ends the picture by walking out on them without looking back.
• In one episode of Darkwing Duck, Darkwing has fought Megavolt, causing the villain to flee, and he and Launchpad prepare to give chase on their motorcycle. However:
  Darkwing: Come on, Launchpad! Let's get dangerous!
  Launchpad: Hold on, DW!
  Darkwing: What?!
  Launchpad: You aren't wearing your helmet! That's a little too dangerous!
  • Naturally, Darkwing ignores this advice, and an accident happens, leading to a Dream Sequence while he's out cold where he believes his own death. When he wakes up, he decides maybe he should have the same standards.
• In Daria, the titular character and her best friend Jane have their first falling out, after Daria continued to take shots at Jerk Jock Tommy Sherman, after he died. Although this is subverted in that Daria clarifies she was only being honest about what a jerk Tommy was and acknowledged that, while it sucks that he died, she's not going to hypocritically act like he was a good person just because he died. Jane later admits she was on edge due to how they joked about his dying moments before it happened and felt like she'd been responsible, misconstruing Daria's honesty as Lack of Empathy.
• DC Super Hero Girls: In the episode "#ShockItToMe", Diana becomes concerned of the World of Man's moral integrity after discovering Leslie Willis' (later Livewire's) videos. Convinced that the people are better than this, she faces her off in front of her fans, resulting in Livewire getting the upper hand. However, as it becomes clear that this isn't a video and more of an execution, everyone stops laughing and even gasps in shock. They may find videos funny, but not when someone is actually getting killed.
• The Dragon Prince: When told that the price for a permanent resurrection is the blood of his child, Viren understandably balks at sacrificing one of his children. Aaravos then clarifies that he doesn't expect Viren to sacrifice one of his human children, but the homonculus the two created through Blood Magic. Even with that loophole, however, Viren can't bring himself to butcher an innocent being to save his own life.
• In Drawn Together, Spanky Ham is a crass and repugnant individual, even by the standards of the Drawn Together household. However, whilst he laughs happily at most of the other exhibition cages full of racist caricature toons, he gets depressed on looking at the American Indian cage, proclaiming that they're "not funny" and "got a raw deal".
• DuckTales:
  • In the Grand Finale, Flintheart Glomgold falls victim to his own machinations and is turned into a statue of gold. Scrooge is upset, saying "Ah wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy! Come to think of it, that's what he was."
  • Also in "Master of the Dijini", Scrooge is vocally worried after Glomgold slides down a cliff during an avalanche, despite it being caused by Glomgold in the first place in his efforts to kill Scrooge.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy : Although the cul-de-sac kids (usually Kevin and Sarah) despise The Eds (usually Eddy), they are frightened, appalled, and even outraged when they see Eddy's brother enacting violence on Eddy as well as seeing the sadistic smirk on his face and just how scared Eddy is of him. This makes their standing up for Eddy and buying Ed enough time to take the Big Brother Bully down all the more satisfying.
• Edgar & Ellen: In "Nuggets of Stupidity", Edgar and Ellen find gold on their property and become even bigger jerkasses than they already were. They use the money to buy things other people want or need so that the other people can't have them, pay to have the town reconstructed in a way nobody likes it except them, and cruelly mock the other townspeople for being poor. Even Stephanie is horrified by the way they're acting.
  Stephanie: I knew you were selfish and heartless, but I didn't think you'd sink this far!
• Family Guy:
  • While Glenn Quagmire does a lot of perverted things, there are some lines he won't cross, like sleeping with Meg when she's desperate for affection (and underage). Of course, once she's 18, she's fair game. Quagmire also doesn't like when a woman is attacked, especially when he learns his sister, Brenda, was being abused. He goes so far as killing Jeffery Fecalman, Brenda's abusive boyfriend, for this.
  • Mayor Adam West is an incompetent lunatic, but even he feels that Peter shouldn't be allowed to be his own country. Then again, he was much saner at the time.
  • "The Simpsons Guy" makes it very clear that even if Springfield is an extreme World of Jerkass that has often been compared out-of-universe to Quahog in its horribleness, there is nobody in it that can withstand the extremes that the Griffins reach.
    Bart Simpson, to Stewie: You creep me out! (this is after Stewie prank calls Moe and tells him that Moe's sister is being raped and kidnaps everybody that could be considered Bart's enemy in one way or another (even Apu) with the goal of killing them alongside Bart, as a gesture of their friendship).
    • In the same episode, during their fight, Peter is shocked over Homer strangling Bart casually.
  • Vern and Johnny, the recurring vaudeville duo, are shot to death by Stewie with the latter winding up in Hell. Vern's explanation says it all:
    Vern: You're probably wondering why he's in Hell. (stern expression) Johnny liked little boys.
  • In "Peter's Sister," when Peter's Big Sister Bully Karen comes to visit, Meg relishes the abuse Peter suffers at her hands and considers it Laser-Guided Karma for how he treated her... until Karen gleefully strangles him until he passes out, stutters, and wets himself, upon which she realizes that Peter bullied and abused her all these years because Karen treated him the exact same way and helps him fight back.
• Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends may be a Jerkass, but even he can't stand how snooty and rude Duchess is.
• In Futurama, Fry and Bender are discussing Leela's love life, under the assumption that she wants to find a fellow Cyclops to date. She replies "I don't care how many eyes a man has, as long as it's less than five."
• The Ghost And Molly Mcgee:
  • Scratch's purpose is to extend misery and scare others. He apologizes to a fainted "Ann-dria" after he accidentally scares her, since that was an accident.
  • It's implied that even Molly has her limits with Scratch's scares. In "The (Un)Natural", Scratch scares the bully from the Skylarks offscreen, and whatever he did was so horrific that even Molly is shown to be disturbed by it.
  • In "The New (Para)Normal", it's revealed that the Frightmares were trapped in the Flow of Failed Phantoms for the safety of both worlds, implying that even with the Chairman's hunger for misery, and the fact that he could command them, not even he and the Council wanted them loose.
• God, the Devil and Bob: In "Bob Gets Involved" one of Bob's friends says they should shut down the schools and make kids do all the stuff adults don't want to (mow lawns, wash cars, take care of the elderly). Bob calls him an idiot.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has Fred Fredburger, one of the other stupid characters on the show besides Billy. In comparison however, Fred is beyond idiotic and Billy (who has an I.Q. of -5) finds him to be absolutely insufferable.
• Grossology: At the end of the Valentine's Day episode, Abby and Ty set Sloppy Joe and Insectiva up to meet up with each other for a date so they can capture them, but upon seeing how happy they are together, they decide to just leave them alone.
• Hazbin Hotel:
  • Charlie is an All-Loving Hero who sees the good in all the Sinners in Hell, but even she is shown to have her limits regarding what she can take.
    • During "Happy Day in Hell", she shows clear disgust at cannibals eating other people.
    • Charlie at one point holds a trust fall exercise where everyone must confess something about themselves on a stage before everyone else must catch them. When Nifty reveals she often kills mother bugs in front of their children to send a message, even Charlie is so disturbed by the statement that she doesn't bother catching her.
    • Upon seeing the extent of Valentino's abuse against Angel Dust, Charlie becomes so angry that she begins to transform into her full demon form and almost attacks Val before Angel Dust stops her. As Charlie is one of the most powerful beings in Hell, but refuses to use her full strength because she's simply too nice, her resorting to physical force means that witnessing this pushed her particularly far.
    • While Charlie's main goal is to redeem Sinners so as to grant them the chance to go to Heaven, her learning that no one actually knows how the process for whether someone goes to Heaven or Hell works, as well as learning that no one but the Exorcists and Sera know about the Exterminations, causes her to perform a "The Reason You Suck" Speech alongside Emily, denouncing the promise of Heaven as a lie if redemption for Sinners is truly impossible and if angels like Adam and Lute can commit horrible deeds yet remain in Heaven.
  • Husk is a grouch who has to be coerced into working alongside the rest of the hotel's staff. That said, he still takes his job as a bartender very seriously, and doesn't have any patience for people who would attempt to spike any alcohol served (even when not on hotel grounds), calling them out and giving them a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Rosie is one of the nicest of the Overlords of Hell, but even her politeness has its limits, as shown by how having to deal with Susan ends up being one of the few cases in which she drops her smile.
  • While the angels of Heaven in general don't seem to hold a particularly high opinion of Sinners, even they have their limits, as seen by Sera disapproving of Adam's petty grudge against Charlie. And when the exterminations are exposed to Heaven's public, they are shown arguing about it.
• Hercules: The Animated Series: When Cassandra saw a vision of her kissing Icarus, she was so disgusted that she willingly made a deal with Hades to stop the kiss for her soul on weekends. She made it clear to Hercules she does not care for the consequences of her actions as long as she gets out of the kiss. However, when it appears that Hades killed Icarus with an energy bolt, she was shocked and horrified, even saying that while she didn't want to kiss him, she didn't want him dead. When Hades revealed that he put him in an eternal sleep, and only a kiss can wake him up, she was willing to kiss him to wake him up.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • While Arnold Shortman is an All-Loving Hero, even his forgiveness and compassion have limits:
    • Mainly whenever he's dealing with Oskar Kokoshka, Arnold will be pushed past his breaking point and call Oskar out for being a hopeless, lazy loser. Normally, it's knowing that he managed to get Arnold to lose faith in him that gets Oskar to realize just horrible he is.
    • Arnold can only tolerate so much of Helga's bullshit before he snaps, such as in "Girl Trouble" where he threw yellow paint on her after constant torment during an art project.
    • When Stinky keeps rubbing in the fact that Lila prefers Arnie instead of Arnold, Arnold tells Stinky to shut up.
    • But the biggest example comes from "Arnold Betrays Iggy", when it's only after trying to do everything he can to gain Iggy's forgiveness for accidentally leaking his secret, which wasn't even his fault, but Sid and Stinky's, and humiliating himself in front of the whole city does Arnold sever ties with Iggy. The next day, Iggy has realized that Sid and Stinky were the true culprits and tries to make amends with Arnold, but by that point, Arnold refuses to even give him the time of day.
  • Helga Pataki can get pretty nasty to Arnold in her attempts to hide her crush on him, but one line that she never crosses is teasing him for anything related to his absent parents. When Helga's dad makes a remark about losing to an "orphan boy" during a parent's day competition, Helga immediately calls him out and conspires to make sure he loses.
• High Guardian Spice: While Olive has no problem spying on people and reporting their actions to the Triumvirate, she balks at killing. Even with her own life on the line, she still looks for ways to avoid killing.
• Inside Job (2021):
  • Reagan's coworkers are all horrified by her biomechanical robot arms, with Myc even telling her that it brings her one step closer to being a supervillain. She just flips the bird with the arms in annoyance.
  • The reptoids are all shocked when they find out that Rand never hugged his daughter and built a robot to do it for him. To the point of essentially giving her what they consider an Unishment for her court sentence.^note A massive group hug/orgy instead of ripping her arms off like previously planned.
  • The evil real estate agent selling Skullfinger's volcano lair to J.R. is disturbed by his raiding the employee pension fund and planning to use it as an AirBnB, and the janitor mopping up minion blood makes the sign of the cross.
  • Despite their teasing of Reagan regarding her relationship with Rafe Masters, the rest of the gang are immediately put off when Rafe admits that he microchipped Reagan's phone in order to keep track of her.
• Johnny Bravo:
  • It is shown early in the original pilot, when a young girl asks him for the time and misinterprets her as coming on to him, that as much of a flirtatious skeeve he is, Johnny is only interested in adult women.
  • Johnny is a major Casanova Wannabe who hits on every attractive woman he sees, often totally disrespecting their personal space and using extremely bad pick-up lines; he's also 100% convinced that he's the handsomest guy on Earth (his Catchphrase? "MAN, I'm pretty!") and acts as though women would be lucky to date him. However, he's completely honest about his shallow nature and would never stoop so low as to deceive a woman into dating him. We see this firsthand in "The Sensitive Male," an episode which parodies Schoolhouse Rock!: a tutor, voiced by Jack Sheldon, who wrote and sang many Schoolhouse Rock songs, offers Johnny some lessons on how to be nice and polite to get women to like him more. Johnny naturally screws up every attempt, but the tutor tells him that it doesn't matter if he fails or not—as long as he sounds sincere, women will buy his act. He even freely admits to not believing a word of his own philosophy, pointing out that all that matters is faking sensitivity, not actually being kind. Johnny is immediately disgusted by his two-faced nature and arranges for the girls the tutor was hitting on throughout the episode to hear what he actually thought of them. As they carry him off to get revenge, Johnny remarks "Man, what a jerk."
  • In "Third Dork from the Sun", Johnny finds himself participating in an intergalactic game show and manages to luck his way through the first couple of rounds, becoming horrified after he finds out that the game show punishes losing contestants by destroying their homeworlds.
• Justice League: General Eiling, having mutated himself into this universe's version of the Shaggy Man, informs a soldier who'd been trying to stop him that he wouldn't kill him, because he knew he was just trying to do his duty.
• Kaeloo:
  • Mr. Cat may be a jerk, but even he won't let Kaeloo feel bad about something which wasn't her fault.
  • In the episode "Let's Play Trap-Trap", Quack Quack becomes a crazy cannibal and the only way to cure him is to give him some yogurt. Mr. Cat suggests that Stumpy goes to him to give him the yogurt, but it turns out that even Stumpy isn't dumb enough to confront an insane cannibal, so Mr. Cat is forced to do it himself.
    Stumpy: I may be nuts, but I'm not crazy.
  • Mr. Cat may be extremely perverted, but he draws the line at kissing people who are unconscious.
  • In Episode 72, Stumpy gets Sudden Intelligence and decides to Take Over the World by threatening to destroy the planet with a bomb. Even Mr. Cat is unsettled by the plan.
• King of the Hill:
  • In an episode, Hank loses faith in George W. Bush just because he has a weak handshake. Even Dale thinks he's crazy.
  • Dale also stands up to Peggy when she gains a reputation as "Paddlin' Peggy". Her spur of the moment spanking of Dooley gains her a reputation as a fearsome disciplinarian, which goes to her head and causes her to almost hit Dale's son Joseph for stealing her paddle. Dale intervenes and says he took it, because "Somebody had to stop you! You're crazy!"
  • Speaking of spanking: Hank, despite his outdated, controlling and borderline emotionally abusive style of parenting, draws the line of something like spanking.
  • Similarly, for all his faults, Dale simply will not cheat on his wife. Not even when a smoking hot female exterminator who also happens to be his personal hero comes onto him. This is, of course, contrasting the fact that Nancy had been shamelessly cheating on him with John Redcorn for over a decade (although she had stopped by the time of this episode, and during the episode said that if Dale did cheat on her she'd deserve it), which only Dale and Joseph are unaware of.
  • Normally, Peggy is much more supportive and encouraging of Bobby's often strange fascinations and interests than Hank is, but when Bobby falls in with a group of incredibly dorky teens who fancy themselves "warlocks", even she has to draw the line:
    Peggy: I am not just a mother, but I am also a woman, and I know a girl-repellent when I see it. [to Hank] FIX THIS!!
  • There are plenty of people who have earned Dale's scorn or, fear, like Jimmy Wichard, or Bill, when he tried competitive eating.
  • Also John Redcorn, who, although a womanizer, will not sleep with the wives or relatives of his friends. He tells Hank this in the season 3 episode "Peggy's Headache," and him becoming friends with Dale plays a role in his and Nancy's breakup.
    John Redcorn: Hank, you are my friend. I would never heal your wife the way that I heal the wives of others.
  • Bill is usually desperate for any sort of female companionship but he was horrified at the thought of sleeping with his cousin.
  • When ZZ Top makes a reality show out of pissing off Hank, they and their producers come up with almost everything they can to make him furious, including having Peggy talk on camera about Hank's narrow urethra. But when someone suggests making fun of propane, Dusty shoots it down and says that there are some lines they should not cross. In fact, Dusty and the rest of the band get pissed off when they realize the producer tricked them into destroying a car that Hank hoped to inherit from Cotton someday even after they had explicitly said they wanted to ease up on Hank. Beforehand, Dusty had admitted he did feel a bit guilty for messing with Hank but confessed it was hard to resist because of what a chronic hardass Hank is.
  • When Peggy winds up in a full-body cast after a skydiving accident, Cotton's first thought when he sees her in the hospital is that Hank might have beat her and he's horrified. Cotton may be a sexist, abusive Jerkass who treated Hank's mother like crap the entire time they were married and even used her as a footstool once, but beating your wife is apparently where he draws the line.
    Cotton: Hank, what'd you do to your wife?! I didn't teach you that!
  • Minh was willing to go redneck with Kahn in "The Redneck on Rainey Street" but drew the line when he and his buddies robbed a music store.
  • Hank worships the ground Buck walks on but objected when his attitude began rubbing off on Bobby and when Buck got Bobby involved in his shady gambling in "The Buck Stops Here".
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts:
  • Wolf doesn't like mutes very much at all, but she won't eat ones that can talk.
  • Dave and Benson rob Kipo and Wolf, but Dave is outraged when Kipo (seemingly) gives them up to the Mod Frogs and claims it goes against "the code." Benson has no idea what he's talking about—probably because Dave calls it the secret and unspoken code that they never mention.
• The Legend of Calamity Jane: In the episode "Dead or Alive" Jane transports outlaw John Wesley Hardin to trial while being hounded by bounty hunters Skully and Bone. At one point, Bone tries to shoot Jane but Skully stops him, saying it's Hardin they want.
• The Legend of Korra: In season four, Varrick and Zhu Li are experimenting with spirit vines as an energy source when it explodes and nearly kills them. Varrick immediately realizes the potential this has as a weapon, and is horrified. He tries to shut the experiment down, but unfortunately for him, Kuvira also realizes its potential as a weapon and orders the research to continue. Later, President Raiko tries to order Varrick to build Republic City its own spirit vine weapon to oppose Kuvira, but Varrick flat-out refuses.
• The Looney Tunes Show: Mac and Tosh the Goofy Gophers are unfailingly, relentlessly polite and never have anything negative to say about anyone. However, in “A Christmas Carol”, Lola’s In Name Only adaptation of A Christmas Carol is so outrageously awful that even they bluntly state that it’s terrible (though they do wait until Lola is no longer within earshot).
  Tosh (to Bugs): Is it just me, or is this play bad? Like really, really bad?
• The Loud House:
  • Luan Loud may be willing to go to extreme lengths for a laugh, especially on April Fool's Day, but she would never film someone in an embarrassing situation and then post it without their permission and is clearly disgusted when her little brother Lincoln does just that.
  • Lola Loud is by far the girliest out of all the Loud siblings. She's in her Princess Phase, has tea parties with her many stuffed animals and dolls, and competes in beauty pageants. However, the Princess Pony comic book series is so extremely, sickeningly girly that even she is repulsed by it.
  • Lola's twin Lana may be prone to eating almost anything, even things most people find gross. However, even she is disgusted by certain types of foods, such as Lincoln's peanut butter and sauerkraut sandwich and some of her dad's less-than-savory meals.
• The Mask:
  • The Mask is chaotic, wacky, fun-loving and a troll, but he does still has morals such as when he refuses to team up with Skillit because of the fact that his idea of fun involves hurting people and also that despite being lazy he still does his job as a superhero and despite being too strong towards any girls he comes across he is very polite towards them and also pretty much cares about his friends as well like Milo and Peggy.
  • Eve, despite being much stronger than The Mask, doesn't try to do anything to Stanley other than trying to kiss him lots of times, and like The Mask still has morals, such as rejecting Pretorius because of the fact that he tried to hurt the man she loves, and at the Coco Bongo while whipping the floor with Stanley, she throws him through the ceiling, which she regrets straight away as she goes on her way to get Stanley out and warms him up when he's shaking due to being frozen with fear.
• Megas XLR: Coop's responsible for a lot of wanton destruction in every episode, but the thing to remember is that he's not doing it on purpose. While he's got no problem wailing on bad guys, the thought of intentionally committing lethal and malicious destruction is something that disgusts Coop. Unless it was the Department of Motor Vehicles, that's fair game.
• In Miraculous Ladybug, Lila Rossi steadily becomes more villainous with each major appearance, but absolutely refuses to actively go after anyone who isn't already an enemy or has somehow provoked her first (her very low clearance for provocations being in fact the reason she became a villain in the first place), and even then tries to get them on her side first. She also reserves outright violence for Ladybug only.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Pinkie Pie is a prankster and loves pulling one over on her friends. However, she absolutely will not prank the sensitive Shrinking Violet Fluttershy, acknowledging that even her softest prank could potentially hurt the shy pony's feelings. As a result, a massive Broken Base emerged when Pinkie broke her own rule in "Filli Vanilli".
  • The Mane Six's pets unintentionally cause havoc for Spike in "Just for Sidekicks" but if there's one thing they all have in common, it's that they share an extreme dislike for Angel, Fluttershy's bunny, who deliberately makes her miserable. Twilight's owl, Owlowiscious, gives Angel an Implied Death Threat and even Opalescence, Rarity's cat, can't stand him.
  • In "The Perfect Pear", Granny Smith may have a strong hatred for the Pear family, but she would never go as far as to disown her son Bright Mac for marrying one of them. Which was why she was so upset with Grand Pear, because he disowned his daughter Pear Butter on the spot when she denounced the Pear family for the Apple family after marrying Bright Mac.
  • Even when corrupted by the Alicorn Amulet, having enslaved and trapped all of Ponyville, and being willing to unleash all manner of nasty spells on ponies for anything from talking back to just for kicks, Trixie still doesn't harm the group of beavers that are angered by her force field around the town: she rolls her eyes and lets them go instead.
• My Little Pony TV Specials: Rep is intimidated by Catrina, but he will not go so far as murder. Catrina threatening the life of Baby Moondancer is the point he turns on her.
• The Owl House:
  • A Played for Laughs example with Eda: she considers herself a "weirdo" and welcomes other outcasts, though even she thinks giraffes deserved to be banished for their weirdness.
  • Luz, a very pleasant person, has no qualms with voicing her frustrations or disappointment in those she cares about.
    • In "Something Ventured, Someone Framed", Luz briefly chews out Gus for lying about the ban on Luz entering Hexside being lifted so he could use her to show up Mathollomule and ultimately landing both of them in the Detention Pit.
    • In "Sense and Insensitivity" Luz is extremely upset with King for stealing her story and completely retooling it before pushing it has his own work of fiction in spite of the project having been a collaboration, especially when he tries to get her to help him with the sequel in spite of never once crediting her as the coauthor.
    • In "O Titan, Where Art Thou", Luz is distraught that Eda would try to send her away to protect her from Belos' Day of Unity, to the point that she is willing to fight Eda just to prove that she is capable of helping and not a burden. Notably this example is also directed at herself as she is still reeling from the revelation in "Hollow Mind" that she unwittingly aided Philip's plan for genocide.
  • In "For the Future" King is visibly disturbed by the cavalier manner with which the Collector treats all of the polymorphed inhabitants of the Boiling Isles considering he has lived amongst them as people. Likewise, he also recognizes that the Collector is just a lonely kid looking for some friends and genuinely doesn't mean any harm, hence his conflict in regards to how to best take the Collector down in such a way as to ensure they won't be a threat to the Demon Realm ever again.
  • Amity, for her flaws, seems to have a lot of this:
    • Amity does believe in giving students a fair chance to learn magic, in a sort of patronizing way. When their teacher threatens to give everyone in her class extra homework if the next project on display is a failure, she stands up and volunteers to show her abomination.
    • Amity does not abide cheating, and she is absolutely horrified in "Covention" when she learns that Lilith has made a cheater out of her against her will.
    • Amity doesn't seem to appreciate someone being ganged upon, even if it's someone she takes issue with, as shown in her Cruel to Be Kind moment in "Hooty's Moving Hassle". In a deeper sense, Amity and Willow used to be friends, and so while Amity herself might feel fine picking on Willow, her old protective sensibilities flare up if somebody else picks on her.
    • The main reason she clashes with her older siblings, Edric and Emira, is that she feels that as Blights they have to act with responsibility, whereas said siblings feel fine with doing whatever they want regardless of how much trouble that causes.
• The Patrick Star Show: While Patrick is an Extreme Omnivore with a Bizarre Taste in Food, in "Olly Olly Organ Free", he actually hesitates before eating the gross food in the fridge. He only does it because his stomach is grumbling loudly and there's nothing else to eat.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Perry the Platypus had thwarted many of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Evil Plans, no matter how silly they would get. But when his scheme was learning whale speak, just so he could insult a whale for stealing his girlfriend, Perry left in disgust.
  • In "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama!", Candace has a disc of the boys' inventions as proof and is ready to bust, but after Phineas gives a Rousing Speech about all the wonderful friends and family he has and how grateful he is to be with them, Candace begins crying over realizing she can't bust her brother on his birthday, to the point she even destroys the disc.
• Pinky and the Brain: There are some lines Brain won't cross in his schemes to Take Over the World. For example, in "Inherit the Wheeze", at the last minute he backs out of a plan that would have involved marketing cigarettes to young children.
• The Powerpuff Girls would have the same gag with someone alluding to cursing only for the other character to call them out on it:
  • The original series episode "Curses" features a giant potty-mouthed monster whose swearing is so vulgar that even a pair of bikers and a convict are offended by its foul language.
  • A similar gag occurs in the 2016 reboot in the episode "In the Garden of Good and Eddie". When the Powerpuff Girls chew out Eddie for eating their giant tomato, Bubbles cusses up a storm (which is censored by a truck backing up). Buttercup, the resident Jerkass, comments that not even she would say that.
• Primal (2019): Spear and Fang will ferociously fight and kill to survive, but they both have a dim view towards excessive cruelty. This is first shown in their conflict against the Night Feeder, and more so in season 2 where they run afoul of decadent human civilizations that oppress and enslave others.
• The Proud Family:
  • Suga Mama, despite being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, has her moments of this:
    • Despite insulting Oscar, as well as physically beating him up, she will not use him for any personal gain, unlike her sister. As she said, she may not like him, but she does love him.
    • She comes from a generation where homophobia was commonplace and even institutionalized , but she’s not homophobic herself: when Oscar shows such behavior to Barry and Randall, she was disgusted.
  • LaCienaga’s an Alpha Bitch (particularly towards Penny), has shown a few examples of this as well:
    • She was disgusted towards Dijonay in "Home School," for snitching Ms. Hill, not because of the act itself, but because of Dijonay doing it for financial benefit.
    • "Juneteenth" has her disgusted at knowing Smithville's founder was a slave owner, joining the protest to have the city's name changed and being the first one to refuse leaving jail.
  • Louder and Prouder has Dijonay herself disgusted with LaCienaga when the latter tried to steal Kareem from Penny on her watch in “It All Started With An Orange Basketball.” This is especially noticeable when her past obsession with Sticky has her tell him that she won’t consider cheating on him, making her not hypocritical for calling her out on it.
• The Raccoons:
  • Mr. Willow is a Friendly Shopkeeper who's usually polite to his customers, but when he notices someone has done something immoral (be it causing damage to his store, shoplifting, or committing voter fraud), he's quick to give them a reasonable punishment.
  • Ingrid Bellamour from the episode "Cold Feet!" tries to reciprocate Cyril Sneer's feelings for her, but she quickly loses faith in him when she finds out he supports the Rotco Corporation and their unethical business practices.
  • In "Join the Club!", Lisa starts smoking cigarettes to try and impress Donna as a potential friend, but when she catches her younger brother Bentley playing with a cigarette, the thought of him getting involved with smoking worries her so much that she officially declares that she quits.
• Rick and Morty: Through the series, Morty Smith is slowly becoming more ruthless in killing and apathetic to seeing atrocities on the adventures with his grandfather. However, he still has a moral code and limits on what he does.
  • Morty is horrified by all of his mistakes and more horrified that he wiped all these memories instead of learning from them.
  • While Morty is mad that Hoovy's descendant attacked him out of nowhere, he stops pummeling him in retaliation on realizing that he's an old man and his children are watching. Morty apologizes but becomes upset again when the man tries to kill him again. Morty kicks him and makes his exit, unaware that he mortally wounded him.
  • It has been shown that Morty is willing to toss aside his morals for either a chance at romance or a chance to have sex; however, he reached his limit in "A Rickconvenient Mort". In that episode, he meets Planetina, a beautiful and popular superhero, and they hit it off. Morty learns that her team, the Tina-teers, were merely just using her as a product and were about to sell her to a shady man, so he kills them and rescues her. And when Morty's parents refuse to let her move in with them, he runs away with Planetina and helps her save the Earth by stopping forest fires and poachers. But Morty becomes uneasy when Planetina started to use more extreme methods like giving everyone in a traffic jam flat tires so they'll have to walk instead of driving, then goes officially overboard by cheerfully burning down an indifferent congressman's house. The breaking point is when Planetina murders 300 innocent miners for refusing to stop doing their job to Morty's horror. Even though Morty genuinely loves her, he simply can't condone her extreme methods of murdering relatively innocent people to try to protect the planet and breaks up with her to both their heartbreak.
  • Morty has killed, but all of his victims have come after him or got in his way. This is what terrifies him about Planetina, who will kill innocent people if they continue destroying the Earth. When Planetina brings up that he kills like her, Morty points out that the people he killed planned to sell her and kill him while she is killing innocent people.
  • Played for Laughs when in one episode with him and Rick gleefully razing an evil alien species' entire civilization to the ground and enjoying every second of it... until they have the option to destroy the aliens' version of the Twin Towers. They silently look at each other, and gingerly fly around it being glad they're above doing a 9/11... but not above doing a Pearl Harbor.
• Rocko's Modern Life: Despite Heffer being a Big Eater to the extreme, he gets tired of only eating sausages in one episode.
• The Simpsons:
  • Lots of people have this attitude towards the title family, either towards individual members or the whole group. A great example would be in "The Cartridge Family", where Homer joins the NRA, a group notoriously in favor of the right to own guns. After seeing him fire guns in an extremely reckless way and endangering everybody, they kick him out and try taking away his gun.
  • In "Love, Springfieldian Style", Marge and Homer play Bonnie and Clyde, while Flanders is their unwitting getaway driver. Upon seeing that they're outlaws, he is shocked, but cuts them some slack. It's the Depression, and people are desperate. However, once Flanders learns they are an unmarried couple, he decides to turn them in.
    • In the same short, at one point Homer and Marge enter a theater where a Woody Woodpecker Captain Ersatz short is being played. The (current) page quote for Dude, Not Funny! is the reaction of Wiggum at seeing the excessive (although (unfortunately) somewhat period-accurate) racism towards Mexicans (and their food) playing on screen:
      Wiggum: "Even I'm offended by this. And I'm a fat Southern sheriff."
  • In "A Fish Called Selma", Troy McClure hasn't acted in twelve years, so he's anxious to accept the offers that his agent says are "pouring in". Except the one from Paramount for "a buddy comedy with Rob Lowe and Hugh Grant". ("Those sick freaks?" he shouts.)
    • In that same episode, Selma ends up marrying Troy, but learns it's just a ploy by him to improve his career. She is convinced to continue the marriage, citing all the perks, until Troy decides the next step is to try to have a baby. She might have no qualms living in a loveless marriage for the paycheck, but bringing a child into that environment is something she just can't do.
  • Ned Flanders often acts like The Fundamentalist and crazy, and turns everyone else off by doing so, but he can usually count on his family to back him up. But even Rod and Todd won't support him in "You Kent Always Say What You Want", after his crusade against Kent Brockman (who cusses once on the air, when nobody is watching, which he apologizes for quickly) results in poor Kent being fired and fined $10 million dollars. They even tell him "you should find a new mommy."
  • "Kamp Krusty" established Krusty the Clown to be the type of corporate whore that would sponsor anything (and that is anything), no matter how horrifyingly unsafe, as long as he got paid for it. He still burst out in tears and tried to make things right when he heard how badly children were treated on the titular camp, including a child being eaten by a bear (although he went there because they had taken over it Apocalypse Now-style, and still burst into tears when Bart corrected himself and said that it was only the child's hat that had been eaten (it was a nice hat, though)).
  • In "King-Size Homer", Homer willingly makes himself morbidly obese to be able to work from home. However, he gets offended when a movie theater owner tries to bribe him with a garbage bag full of popcorn to get him to leave.
  • Bart Simpson may be an unrepentant serial prankster of a caliber so huge that at one point Lisa says he has officially become a sociopath, but there are just some things that he either finds too unsettling to try to do in the first place or at least has the kindness to regret having done after the fact:
    • For one, he, always, regrets upsetting Marge.
    • He's pretty comfortable being "just a petty crook" and the idea of becoming a full-blown member of organized crime (or being believed that he would become one when he grows up) or doing such things as stealing from the church upsets him.
    • Finally, as much as he has no problem swindling people into saying funny words or doing funny things and laughing at them when they do (such as his constant prank calls to Moe), he prefers just regular Toilet Humor and he draws the line at rape jokes and full-blown "attempted murder" levels of violence (which is why in a crossover with Family Guy, Bart pretty quickly comes to see Stewie as a horrifyingly creepy kid rather than a kindred spirit).
    • And while he may not have his sister Lisa's morally-motivated vegetarianism, he won't shoot an animal, either, even when his dad takes him hunting on the notion that A Real Man Is a Killer: when he accidentally fells a bird with a BB gun in "Bart the Mother" he becomes The Atoner for the remainder of the episode.
  • The plot of "At Long Last, Leave" happens because even if Springfield is the self-proclaimed (and very proudly at that) "meanest town in America", they still make a pretty good point with being fed up with the Simpsons' antics, which have gone past "mean" and have actually endangered the town and the lives of everybody in it several times over.
  • Marge's frequent role as Wet Blanket Wife means that others sometimes expect her to dissent on things she doesn't have a problem with. She's happy to support the building of a casino to boost Springfield's failing economy, for example, and when local Moral Guardians expect her to take the helm in protesting a touring exhibition of Michelangelo's David due to her track record, they're disappointed as she admires the sculpture and feels the whole town, children included, should see it.
  • Homer has hit many levels of Jerkass Depending on the Writer, but one hard line is that he'll never cheat on Marge, even when opportunity and temptation exist.
  • In "Homer to the Max", the family watches a mid-season sitcom with such a bad premise that even Homer (who generally likes even low-brow programs) thinks it's stupid.
  • In "The Fat and the Furriest," after Homer teams up with the bear, they raid a camper's food cooler together. Despite being a wild animal, the bear balks at Homer eating ice cream with his bare hands, slapping him and giving him a spoon.
  • In the Treehouse of Horror segment "The Greatest Story Ever Holed", it's revealed that on the other side of the hole is a bunch of aliens who graciously accept most of the junk that the Springfieldians find useless, such as mattress blowout sale catalogs, banana peels, and the Zune. However, even they refuse to accept Bart's math homework.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Flash Thompson may be a Jerk Jock, but he does have some virtues. He believes in fair play when it comes to sports, and when Harry reveals about playing "juiced" on Globulin Green during the football season, before he left for Europe to rehabilitate, Flash warns that this news will strip the school of their football championship title. Flash ultimately decides to pass the news himself to the higher-ups, and owns up to it when the rest of the team thinks Harry confessed. He's also the one to criticize Peter for the way he's acting when he has the symbiote on him, pointing out that he's being a massive dick to his friends and likening his behavior to that of a drug addict: in fact, it's this little talk that encourages Peter to redeem himself and, ultimately, rid himself of the symbiote.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: J. Jonah Jameson may be a big-time Jerkass who hates Spider-Man with a passion, but there are still lines he won't cross. In "The Alien Costume," he was thrilled when he thought he had evidence of Spider-Man robbing the shuttle, but then he learned that the Rhino was actually responsible and Eddie lied about it to get his job back. He immediately turned on Brock in a fury for playing on his prejudice to make him commit libel, firing him before publicly announcing his mistake and retracting the reward he offered for Spider-Man's capture.
  Jonah: I can't have someone who works for me coloring the truth and leaving out facts! It's against everything I stand for. You're history, Brock! Outta here! Fired!
  • Likewise, when Spider-Man rescues him and other "tormentors" of Norman Osborn from the Green Goblin, he's aghast when Wilson Fisk tries to blow both Spidey and the Goblin up; even if he does distrust the vigilante, he's not that ungrateful.
• SpongeBob SquarePants
  • Squidward is a cranky person who couldn't tolerate SpongeBob's shenanigans, but he hates to see the guy in any form of pain and sometimes shows his support to him.
    • In "Pizza Delivery", after SpongeBob and Squidward go through hell and high water trying to deliver a pizza to a customer, the customer chews SpongeBob out for forgetting his drink, something that the former didn't ask for in the first place. Squidward is infuriated that the guy sent SpongeBob to tears, so he retaliates by telling the customer he can have his pizza "on the house".
    • In "Fools in April", Squidward gets annoyed with SpongeBob's innocent pranks and tries to get him back for it, but his prank involved him being flown around in the Krusty Krab and ending up in a garbage bin. The reaction from SpongeBob and the other customers only made Squidward realize that he went way too far and had to apologize for it, though he found it to be very difficult.
    • In "Born Again Krabs", Mr. Krabs is willing to sell SpongeBob's soul to the Flying Dutchman for all the money the ghost has in his pocket at the time, a mere 62 cents. Squidward is absolutely disgusted with Krabs for doing so, especially since the entire reason the Dutchman offered said money to Mr. Krabs for SpongeBob in the first place is because SpongeBob stuck up for Krabs to save him from the Dutchman, and flat-out tells him that he should be ashamed of himself for doing so.
  • Mr. Krabs may be someone who will do anything for a quick buck, but even he has his limits:
    • When Squidward's rival Squilliam comes to town with the express purpose of humiliating him in "Squilliam Returns", Mr. Krabs reveals that even he doesn't like the snobby Squilliam, and offers to help Squidward turn the Krusty Krab into a gourmet restaurant to "wipe the floor with him."
    • His Exact Words were "take him to the cleaners", so this may not an example.
    • In "Yours, Mine and Mine" when he realized Patrick's lack of sharing led to he and SpongeBob fighting over Patty Pal, he angrily calls them out over letting a simple toy get in the way of their friendship.
    • As the series went on and on, Mr. Krabs went from a well-rounded character who cared about money a little too much to a character who hardly cared about anything except money. But the one thing that no amount of money could change his mind over is the love that goes into making Krabby Patties. In an early post-movie episode, "Selling Out", he barely hesitated to sell the Krusty Krab to a corporation for an obscene amount of money, but after coming back and finding out that they used synthetic goo to make the burgers on a conveyor belt, he sabotaged their operation and didn't hesitate to spend every cent they gave him to buy the restaurant back, even when he only needed half.
  • In the episode "One Krabs' Trash", Mr. Krabs finds out that a novelty soda dispenser hat he sold SpongeBob is worth a fortune and tries to trick SpongeBob into giving the hat up by claiming that a curse will fall on him if he doesn't return the hat to its original owner Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. When Mr. Krabs finds out that Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen was real and that the novelty hat really did belong to him when he was alive, he ends up having to fight against Smitty and other undead fish over the hat. When surrounded, Krabs worries that the undead fish will eat his internal organs and leave what's left for the buzzards. Smitty replies that that sort of thing is disgusting and that he only wants Krabs to give the hat back.
  • In "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic", the members of Jellyfish Club join in with their leader, Kevin the Sea Cucumber on laughing at SpongeBob's misery but when Kevin still refuse to let SpongeBob join in despite saving them from the King Jellyfish, the spotters turned against him and name SpongeBob the new leader of the club (although SpongeBob turned it down later).
  • "Dying For Pie": Squidward hates SpongeBob, but he’s not willing to kill him and is horrified to learn that he has apparently sentenced him to death.
  • Sure SpongeBob is intent on protecting the secret formula from Plankton at all costs, but in "One Course Meal", he was angry with Mr. Krabs disguising himself as Pearl and taking advantage of Plankton's fear of whales to scare him into eventually committing suicide.
  • SpongeBob has a history of annoying Squidward, but there are times when he genuinely cares about him deep down:
    • In "Good Neighbors", SpongeBob sees Squidward didn't get his Sunday papers and assumes that's why he's grumpy today, and gathers them up for him. Also, he and Patrick are deeply hurt when Squidward harshly calls them out for stealing his pedicure, and tried to apologize to him for ruining his Sunday and even offer him a cake in return.
    • In "Squid's Visit" when he asks Squidward to stay with him when his house burns down, SpongeBob is actually worried for Squidward when he is rendered catatonic and faints.
    • In "Scavenger Pants", while looking for Squidward's nonexistent brother and Mrs. Tentacles says she only had Squidward, SpongeBob does not realize Squidward tricked him and Patrick, and instead refuses to go back until he gets the brother he never thought he had and arranges for Mrs. Tentacles to adopt them.
    • In "Jolly Lodgers" when Squidward evicts the entire Hotel Halibut with Pest Control, SpongeBob is worried that Squidward never made it out.
    • In "Krusty Koncessionaires" when Squidward is restricting SpongeBob into serving only one half so he doesn't follow him backstage, SpongeBob is understandably sad, as he was looking forward to spending the whole day with him. But he thinks it's a good idea anyway and falls for it.
• South Park:
  • Stan's sister Shelley is a downright terrible Big Sister Bully who savagely beats him every chance she gets, and generally cares very little for anyone else. However, even she is disgusted by Stan and his friends letting Trent take the blame for the fire they caused in "Pre-School", which severely disfigured their teacher. Before she'll defend them from Trent, she demands Stan and his friends own up to their teacher and admit they were responsible.
  • The remaining Goth Kids and the Vampire Kids team up and summon the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of both their subcultures. Even they can't stand his constant whining, smoking, and the fact that he insists on being called "Nightpain."
    Pete: Gawd, he is such a downer!
  • When Mrs. Garrison rants about same sex marriage being against the sacrament of holy matrimony, she's met with applause. But when her plan to get that message across is by having a Fag Drag, the audience stops cheering and suggests they should instead appeal to the governor about vetoing the bill.
    Man: We don't "hate" homosexuals, we just don't want them to be able to marry.
  • Pre-op Mr Garrison also had a moment of this in "Trapper Keeper". Despite being as prone to Serious Business as every other South Park civilian, when a harmless kids school presidential debate escalates into ceaseless fights and convolution (it was meant to satirize the 2000 United States Presidential Election, which saw numerous recounts for the state of Florida and wasn't called for George W. Bush until a month and a half after Election Day), he calls out the ridiculousness of the situation. He also furiously rebukes Rosie O'Donnell for exacerbating the situation as well as venting her discrimination for "country bumpkins" by having bias towards her nephew's side.
  • In "Fun With Veal", the South Park kids (except Cartman) are horrified by the idea of eating baby cows.
  • In "Cartman Joins NAMBLA," the episode ends with the head of the titular organization (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) delivering a speech about how he and others like him are being persecuted for something they can't change. The kids of the town refuse to accept this, outright saying: "Dude—you have sex with children." They remark that while they do believe in equality for everyone and "all that gay stuff," there's nothing redeeming about people who trick kids into sex.
  • In "The Jeffersons", Randy may be immature, but he is appalled at how inappropriately childish Mr. Jefferson is and forbids Stan from going near him.
  • In "Freemium Isn't Free," Stan gets hooked on a Terrance and Philip mobile app that's deliberately designed to exploit people with addictive tendencies and make them pay huge amounts of money for pointless in-game rewards. When Satan learns about the app, he's absolutely furious—he may be the Prince of Temptation and King of Hell, but the game is, as he puts it, "pure Skinner Box manipulation"—and agrees to help Stan put a stop to it. In the same episode, Cartman (an Enfante Terrible so evil that Satan's scared of him), who's always out to make a quick buck, declares the app too exploitative even for him and joins the effort to save Stan.
  • In "Major Boobage," the town outlaws cats after people start getting high off their urine. The normally nasty Cartman reveals a soft spot for kitties and starts secretly hiding them in his house, even taking in more than he can afford just to keep them safe.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
  • When the incompetent Ensign Fletcher tries to dodge responsibility for his screw-ups, he calls Mariner a hypocrite because she's a slacker who doesn't follow the rules either. Mariner points out that she might ignore rules she thinks are pointless, but she never endangers her crewmates like Fletcher is doing (except Boimler, sometimes).
  • Ransom is given the job of forcing Mariner to shape up or ship out in Season 3 because he, unlike Freeman, won't have any qualms cashiering her out of Starfleet if she steps out of line again. At one point he threatens to send her to Starbase 80, but later, he admits to Boimler that he would never send an officer there because it's a "hellhole." When Freeman ultimately decides to do just that in "Trusted Sources", Ransom is visibly shocked and asks her what she's doing, even though he's the one who reported Mariner's (supposed) infraction.
• Star Wars Rebels, "Steps Into Shadow": When Ezra has the AT-DP fire on the other Stormtroopers (which the others find very handy) and then forces the pilot to walk it off the platform into the abyss, Sabine, Zeb, and Hondo are disturbed.
  Sabine: When did Kanan teach you that?
  Ezra: (Kubrick Stare) He didn't.
• Steven Universe:
  • As kind, empathetic, and patient as Steven tries to be towards everyone, even he has his limits when it comes to Lars' Jerkass behavior, Onion's disturbing or illegal activities, and Kevin's creepiness.
    • As much of a Cuddle Bug Steven is, even he finds the Post-Heel–Face Turn Diamonds' behavior towards him to be far too overbearing.
  • Speaking of Kevin, he’s such a dick that even other Jerkasses, namely Ronaldo, will express their hatred of him in no uncertain terms.
    Ronaldo: Kevin is the worst! Boo!
  • Kevin was also a creep to Stevonnie but when he find out that they're actually a fusion of two young children, he leaves.
    Kevin: They're like two kids! I'm out!
  • The titular cool kids in Lars and the Cool Kids are presented as your typical rebellious teenagers, albeit nice ones, who don't care for authority and rules. But they do agree with Steven on the importance of not taking off in their car until everyone is buckled up.
  • Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz started out as a Royal Brat that was eager to get her own colony just so she could prove that she was worthy of respect to her "sisters" the other diamonds without actually understanding what running a gem colony entails. After developing a fascination with the organic life on Earth and realizing that continuing with the creation of her colony on it would mean killing it all, Pink did everything in her power to try to save Earth and when that proved to not be enough, she took up the identity of Rose Quartz to lead a rebellion against herself.
  • Both Blue and Yellow Diamond's Pearls seem visibly uncomfortable when the subject of Pink Diamond's Pearl comes up, despite generally being mostly stoic and haughty respectively. This is for good reason...
    • Also, Yellow Pearl seems genuinely worried about "Pink Diamond"/Steven's safety if "she" fails to keep proper composure in front of the other diamonds during the era three ball.
• SWAT Kats: Commander Feral wants to arrest the SWAT Kats and expose their identities in the process, but is not willing to break the law to do it. At the end of "Metal Urgency", when the Metallikats offer to give away the vigilantes' identities in exchange for their freedom, he deactivates them and says:
  "I don't make deals with scum."
• Team Galaxy: Galaxy High has a very strict rule forbidding space marshals using themselves as The Bait while pursuing criminals. In "Psycho-Cycle, Josh's team is nearly killed and, to an extent, almost expelled when Josh breaks this rule to solve an abduction case. Considering they are around or close to teens, this rule is justified.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Batman v Teen Titans: Dark Injustice", the Titans play harmful pranks on each other. After Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy play a prank on Robin that involves lying to him that his parents are still alive, Raven finds nothing amusing about the prank and remarks that it's just mean.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • In the episode "Dirty Work", Diesel blames Duck for making the troublesome trucks laugh at him in the previous episode "Pop Goes the Diesel". Henry points to Diesel that Duck wouldn't do such a thing, and states that while all the engines have their differences, they would never talk about them to the trucks, which would be seen as (in Gordon, James, and Henry's words) "disgraceful, disgusting, and despicable".
    • Note that what caused Diesel to blame Duck was that he sent him on a fool's errand with some broken trucks after Diesel had boasted too much for him to bear. When the other trucks start mocking Diesel relentlessly however, Duck is shocked and shuts the trucks up before apologising. He thought Diesel needed a good humbling, but not to be bullied himself.
  • Since Diesel's antics from "Dirty Work", many steam engines have gained contempt and distrust for him and even the whole diesel line. Thomas got into a rather vitriolic competition with him in "Misty Island Rescue" in particular, but when Diesel's war with Thomas leaves him dangling on unfinished tracks over a cliff, Thomas is horrified and wastes no time trying to rescue him.
• The Tick:
  • As insane and weird as the Tick is, even he finds a Mad Scientist inventing 'room temperature fire' too pointless and stupid.
  • He also explicitly states Brainchild isn't his arch-nemesis, but just a bratty kid. That said, he's more than willing to fight Brainchild.
• In the Tom and Jerry short, Million Dollar Cat, Tom is told that he will inherit a million dollars, so long as he doesn’t harm another living thing, not even a mouse. Jerry spends the entire short taking advantage of this, and humiliates Tom at every opportunity. By the end of the short, Tom decides that enough is enough, and beats up Jerry, as spending the rest of your life being humiliated by your mortal enemy is not worth a million dollars.
  Tom: Gee. I’m throwing away a million dollars... But I’m happy! Yeah!
• Total Drama
  • Duncan is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold at best, but even he is appalled at Heather backstabbing Lindsay after tricking her into thinking they were best friends. He also gets offended when Heather tries to call him a Hypocrite.
    Duncan: Ooh, that's cold, bra.
    Heather: Oh, like you're such a team player! All you do is go around scaring the crap out of everyone.
    Duncan: At least I'm straight with people!
  • When Gwen asks Trent to tell Courtney she was just friends with Duncan, he stays silent, too heartbroken from their breakup to defend her. However, when Geoff wants to throw Gwen in a dunk tank full of piranhas, he puts his foot down and tells Geoff that that is enough, he was the one who threw the game, not Gwen, and it was not her fault. Gwen thanks Trent and apologizes to him, with him telling her that they're cool.
• Villainous: Demencia is absolutely gaga for Black Hat and is mostly turned on by his temper, but even she will back down and run when he's at his most enraged.
• The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald:
  • Ronald's dog Sundae tends to be grouchy and sardonic, but even he is annoyed by the McSplorer's irritable personality.
  • Org in "Visitors from Outer Space" is an unabashed prankster, but becomes livid when Sundae makes a remark about his parents' weight.
  Birdie: Ronald, we're losing altitude!
  Ronald: It's-it's the extra weight! We don't have enough power!
  Grimace: Duh, what extra weight?
  Sundae: Gee, could it be the two-million-pound aliens hitching a ride on a rocket?
  Org: They don't weigh a million pounds! They are the right weight for their height!
• In the special Why, Charlie Brown, Why?, Linus, normally weak, builds up the bravery to defend Janice, who was sick with leukemia. First, his sister, Lucy, after giving her a drink when she yells at him for having contact with a sick person, Linus, who knows cancer isn’t contagious, yells at her for that. When Janice is a target of a bully because the chemotherapy made her lose all her hair, Linus almost gets into a fight with him, forcing the bully to return Janice’s hat and apologize.

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