Times where a loved one is taken hostage in Western Animation.
- In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Lifestyles of the Sick and Twisted," Dr. Robotnik kidnaps talk show host Throbbin Screech's niece and dangles her over a Lava Pit to secure a spot on his show.
- In "Pseudo Sonic," the titular mecha is being piloted by a character whose family is being held hostage by Robotnik.
- Subverted in the Batman Beyond episode "April Moon". A gang kidnaps a cybernetic doctor's wife and holds her for ransom in exchange for him performing cybernetic upgrades on them. Only it turns out they didn't kidnap her, she's cheating on her husband with the gang leader and ran off with them of her own free will. He got his back, though; while he eventually discovered the ruse, they never found out that he did, and the leader ended up coming back still thinking the wife was leverage. The episode lets you imagine how things played out from there.
- In the Biker Mice from Mars episode "Hard Rock," Lawrence Limburger manipulates Hard Rock into doing his bidding by using his girlfriend Darla as a bargaining chip.
- Carmen Sandiego: In the special "Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal", VILE takes Carmen's sidekicks Zack and Ivy hostage to force her to steal for them.
- The third Danny Phantom movie: Freakshow kidnaps his parents and sister as ransom for the Reality Gems.
- In the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) series, Hank the Ranger and his friend Bobby the Barbarian are kidnapped by Big Bad Venger, who keeps Bobby hostage and forces Hank to do his dirty work and not say a word about why is he doing it, much to the horror of the other kids in the group (especially Sheila the Thief, who happens to be Bobby's sister).
- Subverted in an episode of Family Guy where in a flashback, Lois is captured by criminals who demand a ransom of her rich father. They put her on the line. His response: "Now honey, you know family policy, we don't negotiate with kidnappers."
- In the episode where Peter discovers he had a black ancestor, his father in law, Carter Pewterschmitt, shows his grand kinds how noble his side of the family (i.e.: their white ancestors) were, we see a picture of of one of them holding a knife to a Native American baby, while the horrified parents hand over a basket full of corn.
- The whole problem between Zachary Foxx and Queen of the Crown in Galaxy Rangers. Zach has Eliza's body in stasis. The Queen has her Life Energy decorating her living room as a little red crystal. Acts mostly as a subversion, as Eliza's the only human psychocrystal and just too good a tool to actually destroy. The closest it came to this was "Psychocrypt," where the Queen's relentless Mind Rape against both of them caused Zach to make a suicidal run to get his wife back.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: The villains sometimes try to manipulate the heroes with hostages. It never works for long.
- In "Deadly Ransom", Dr. Blight and Duke Nukem first capture the Planeteers to lure Captain Planet, and then capture Captain Planet to force the team to deliver tons of nuclear waste. They have no intention of letting him go regardless and in fact shoot down the geo-cruiser the second the ransom is delivered. Too bad for them the heroes are pulling a Trojan Horse ploy on them.
- In "Don't Drink the Water", the villains pull out the captive Wheeler when Captain Planet turns up to stop them, threatening to kill him if the hero doesn't back off and let them carry on with their plan. The Captain, seeing the geo-cruiser already in position, pretends he's stymied. Then Bleak accidentally knocks Wheeler over the edge while celebrating their win, removing the villains' bargaining chip and speeding up the rescue.
- Subverted in Gravity Falls. After using size-altering crystals to capture Dipper and Mabel, Lil' Gideon calls their Grunkle Stan to demand the Mystery Shack's deed in exchange for their safety. However, Stan doesn't believe the twins are in danger.Stan: Oh yeah. This has gotta be your worst plot yet. I saw them playing in the yard a few minutes ago. They're fine.
Gideon: I have them in my possession! You don't believe me? I will text you a photo!
Stan: ...Text me a photo? Now you're not even speaking English! (Hangs up) - Iron Man: Armored Adventures: In the season one finale, Zhang threatens Pepper in order to get Tony and Gene to retrieve the fifth Makulan Ring for him. Tony is her best friend and they have mutual crushes on each other. She is also close friends with Gene, who seems to harbor some romantic feelings for her and vice versa. Zhang keeps Pepper hostage while Tony and Gene go into the temple, but she manages to escapes from him and his ninjas.
- Kaeloo: In one episode of Season 1, Mr. Cat takes Quack Quack, to whom Kaeloo is a Parental Substitute, as a hostage so she'll pay him money. It turns out that she doesn't have any because of the ongoing economic crisis. Mr. Cat then threatens to shoot Kaeloo if Quack Quack doesn't pay him, which also fails because Quack Quack doesn't have any money. Mr. Cat is subsequently punished by Kaeloo for what he did.
- In Kim Possible: So The Drama, Dr. Drakken uses Kim's new boyfriend Eric as a hostage. Subversion: Eric is a synthodrone working for Drakken to distract Kim and ultimately bait her into a trap.
- Inverted in Season 4 The Legend of Korra when the heroes kidnap Kuvira's fiancé in an attempt to get her to leave Republic City alone, threatening to keep them apart forever if she doesn't back down. Kuvira decides to Shoot the Hostage instead.
- In "Cleanliness Is Next to Impossible" from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Crud demands that Christopher Robin help him make everything more dirty, lest he never see Pooh, Tigger or Piglet again. Christopher Robin, however, flat refuses and so Crud orders his guards, a pair of crayons, to take him away.
- In "Peter's Great Escape" from Peter Rabbit, Mr. Tod and Tommy Brock kidnap Squirrel Nutkin and take him to Rocky Island, as a means of baiting Peter Rabbit and his friends because they know he's Peter's friend and he'll come, then hopefully they can finish him off once and for all. They tell Nutkin, however, that they're having a picnic together. Despite this being Blatant Lies, he believes it.Nutkin: They wanna have a picnic!
Mr. Tod: And you are the guests of honor. And the main course. And dessert. And leftovers, if there are any. We can make sandwiches, but it's not your problem. - In Robot Chicken, the Mad Scientist kidnaps the Robot Chicken's wife once he learns that he has escaped from his laboratory, forcing him to battle all the original Robot Chicken characters in order to get to him.
- The Christmas Special Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town has a humorous variant on this trope. Burgermeister Meisterburger forces Kris Kringle to turn himself in by capturing Kris's penguin companion.
- In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, it gets revealed at the end of Season 1 that Mayor Jones is not actually Fred's father, but his kidnapper. After forcing the original Mystery Incorporated out of town, two members — Brad and Judy — attempted to come back to Crystal Cove with their newborn son. Jones, paranoid that they were still trying to look for the treasure, kidnapped their son and threatened to hurt him if they returned. Ultimately, Mayor Jones ends up Becoming the Mask and having Lima Syndrome from raising Fred like his own son, and the episode implies that he can't bring himself to hurt him, much less kill him, because of that.
- Parodied in The Simpsons. Homer, Lenny, and Carl are waiting for Mr. Burns to leave the parking lot. The mailman talks with Mr. Burns a bit in regards to skydiving (which is not what they wanted to see, as they really wanted to leave). Homer then gets the idea of tricking him into leaving by calling him by claiming that he kidnapped his wife... and then changing it to his brother, and then to his dog, and despite it being a fairly obvious deception, the mailman still fell for it.
- Star Wars Rebels: "Legacy of Mandalore" has a case of I Have Your Husband — it's revealed that Sabine's father is being held on Mandalore as a hostage in all but name in order to ensure Clan Wren's cooperation. His status was put in jeopardy after Sabine kills Imperial Viceroy Gar Saxon and starts another Mandalorian civil war. She and the rebels end up having to rescue him from a public execution in the beginning of Season 4.
- The penultimate episode of Static Shock: Omnara kidnaps Static's father. Richie, Static's best friend and sidekick, also has the tendency to get kidnapped a lot.
- The first season finale of Teen Titans (2003), Slade injects Robin's four teammates with potentially deadly nanoprobes and has his finger on the button, forcing Robin to become his sidekick. The scheme falls apart when Slade cows Robin by engaging the probes on a limited setting; the combination of this sudden inexplicable pain that seems to be under Slade's control and Robin's frantic reaction to it tips off the Titans that they are being used as hostages to control their friend. And then Robin puts the nanoprobes in himself when Slade is about to kill his friends, and since they aren't selective, he'd die too.
- An episode of Tripping the Rift had Darf Bobo tell one of the judges for his daughter's supermodel contest that he's kidnapped his wife, and if he knows what's good for her, he'll vote for his daughter. Upon seeing the picture Bobo provides for evidence, the judge tells him that's his mother-in-law, and that Bobo's free to kill her.
- Ultimate Book of Spells: In "Shadow Land," the shadow creature working for Zarlak only does so because Zarlak is holding his family hostage.
- Used in the Goultard special for Wakfu. The villain kidnaps Goultard's wife and children in order to lure him into a fight. He kills them before Goultard arrives, and taunts him about it in order to make Goultard angrier. This is actually all part of a plan to get a parasitic demon that feeds off of rage to see Goultard as a more appetizing host and jump from the villain into Goultard. The villain doesn't get to enjoy his new found freedom for long, however, as Goultard kills him immediately afterward.
- Variation in The Zeta Project: Agent Lee gets held hostage by a sadistic mercenary threatening to kill her unless Zeta surrenders. Zeta, who she has been chasing, hunting down and treating like he's less than a sentient being, intervenes immediately anyway because that's just the kind of person he is. Setting aside their relationship, though, the rest of the trope is played like this, right down to the mercenary calling Lee Zeta's 'girlfriend' in several dubs.
