Times where somebody is Right for the Wrong Reasons in Western Animation.
- Adventure Time: Flame Princess eventually realises that the reason Finn has been putting out her fires is because fire is harmful to him... and reasons that it's because he's a water elemental.
- Archer:
- Lana hates new agent Conway Stern because his arrival stole her thunder and spends quite a bit of time attempting to find evidence that he's dirty. Given it's on this page, she's actually right and he's The Mole, but her reasons for suspecting him were entirely petty.
- Likewise in the case of Cecil Tunt, Cheryl's brother, who is introduced looking for evidence that she's insane to get her committed to a mental institute. As several characters point out, Cheryl is quite thoroughly crazy and having her committed might not be such a bad idea... but Cecil was only doing it because he wanted her money, having wasted most of his own inheritance (though, in a twist, on mismanagement via charity).
- Arthur:
- During an imagination sequence in "Francine's Pilfered Paper", Francine sees the author whose article she plagiarized as a man in a The Phantom of the Opera-style mask and Muffy believes he is wearing the mask because rage has disfigured him. Actually, he was just wearing it due to having sensitive skin, but he is indeed angry.
- In one episode, Arthur and Buster believe that it would be unsafe to spend the night in Arthur's grandmother's attic because the bat living there might turn them into vampires. Arthur's grandmother later explains that it was indeed unsafe to spend the night in the attic with the bat because as a wild animal, the bat might have rabies.
- In another episode, Mrs. Read hears Arthur screaming and is correct that he had a nightmare. However, she thinks the nightmare was about the spaceships he and his friends had been talking about, when really it was an Irritation Nightmare about D.W. being invited to the sleepover.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: When Azula confronts the gang, she convinces Toph she's a great liar by saying a bunch of things that were obviously false to prove that her heartbeat wouldn't change. While Azula is a good liar, she proved nothing. There's a difference between spouting obvious falsehoods and trying to convince someone that a lie is true.
- In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "The Fall of Asgard", Captain America figures that he can't be dead because a real afterlife would include Bucky Barnes. Cap isn't dead, but he is in a real afterlife. Bucky is absent because Bucky isn't really dead.
- An episode of Batman: The Animated Series has Summer Gleason hot on Bruce's tail, refusing to believe Bruce Wayne is as honest as he presents himself to be. Of course, she's right about him hiding what he really is, but she was thinking he's a Corrupt Corporate Executive or Villain with Good Publicity who's possibly connected to the mob and would outright scoff at the idea that the Upper-Class Twit was hiding that he was actually the Dark Knight.
- Batman Beyond: In "Hidden Agenda", Terry's classmate Max Gibson figures out that Terry has been leading a double-life. However, she thinks he's with the Jokerz gang instead of being the new Batman. She becomes a Secret-Keeper to Terry when she learns the truth in the end.
- BoJack Horseman:
- Todd correctly figures out that Bojack bought the video game to sabotage his rock opera, although his method of deduction was a strange series of word associations, as opposed to looking at the receipt that Bojack left under the couch.
- In "The Judge", Hollyhock starts dating a Hollywood production intern named Miles. BoJack warns her that he's just using her to eventually get laid. As it turns out, Miles is using Hollyhock... to get closer to BoJack so the latter can get Miles' script noticed. BoJack even tells Princess Carolyn later on that he hoped he was wrong this time.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
- "Mind Pollution": Inverted. When Gaia calls the other Planeteers in to brief them about the situation in Washington (Skumm selling drugs), Gi puts the information together with Linka's bizarre absence and wonders apprehensively if she could be one of the people high on Bliss. Wheeler dismisses the possibility, saying Linka is too smart to do drugs. He and the others later find out that she is high on Bliss, but he was absolutely correct in that her addiction was not of her own volition.
- "The Unbearable Blightness Of Being": Dr. Blight switches bodies with Gaia. Later, she uses the powers of nature to cause a disaster at a nuclear power plant. After Gaia-as-Blight's attempt to remedy the situation with Blight's technology proves unsuccessful, the Planeteers summon Captain Planet. Upon spotting Dr. Blight's aircraft, he deduces that the whole situation must be her fault. His conclusion is indeed correct, but at that time, he doesn't yet know of the real Blight's body-swapping scheme, and as such, he unknowingly ends up chasing Gaia.
- "Hollywaste": Actress Bambi Blight (Dr. Blight's sister) is the Planeteers' primary suspect in a series of incidents. Wheeler is the only one who believes her, but doesn't present any arguments other than "she's cute, so she's innocent" and "we don't get to pick our family". In the end, he does end up right; Bambi was framed by her sister. Dr. Blight then gets arrested, and the other Planeteers apologize.
- The Casagrandes: In "The Two of Clubs", Ronnie Anne correctly guesses that Sid is sad, but thinks that because of the black substance leaking from her eyes (she thinks it's makeup and Sid is crying). Actually, the substance is squid ink.
- Charlie and Lola: In "I Completely Know About Guinea Pigs", Lola is right that Bert the guinea pig is actually a girl, but she thinks it's because her fur is long. Actually, fur length doesn't determine the sex of a guinea pig, Bert just happened to be a girl.
- Danny Phantom: In "Control Freaks", Sam's parents lead several other Amity Park parents in protesting against the presence of Circus Gothica under the belief that it'll corrupt their children. As it turns out, the ringmaster was planning on using his crew of mind-controlled ghosts to rob the town. Tucker even lampshades that they were right about Circus Gothica being evil, just not for the reasons they assumed.
- DuckTales (2017):
- While Webby Vanderquack is mourning Lena's Heroic Sacrifice in "The Shadow War!", Dewey comforts her with the standard Always with You speech. The audience is immediately shown that this is a lot more literal than he intended, since Lena is shown to still exist as Webby's shadow, meaning that she is always with her.
- In "Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!", Scrooge McDuck gets a hold of a magic quill that draws treasure maps. Just as he and the kids are about to leave to follow the map it drew he tells them that "this could be the most important moment of our adventuring lives" then opens the front door to find his long lost niece/surrogate daughter Della, having just gotten back to Earth after a decade stranded on the moon.
- Elena of Avalor: In the episode "A Spy in the Palace'', Carla Delgado enters the Avalor castle undercover as a peasant named Rita Perez, to distract Elena and her friends and gain their trust, and supplant Naomi's duty of bringing the Golden Jaquin to the Jaquin Festival to sneak into the treasury and steal a jewel in the family's Carnival tiara. During this, Naomi becomes suspicious of her behavior, but it is for a different reason as Elena convinces Naomi she's become jealous of "Rita". Two episodes later however, Naomi becomes even more suspicious when Carla's disguise begins to wear off, and it's for the right reason this time as she tries to convince Elena that "Rita" cannot be trusted.
- In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Bloo Done It", Bloo gets jealous and suspicious of an Imaginary friend named Uncle Pockets as he concluded that he was hiding something. Bloo suspected that Uncle Pockets' kindness was a front to hide some nefarious secret. While Uncle Pockets turned out to be genuinely kind, Bloo was proven right that he did hide something; Pockets buried a chest filled with memorabilia of the many children who adopted him, as he couldn't let go of all the good times and move on. This only served to make Pockets look even sweeter, much to Bloo's frustration.
- Futurama: "Decision 3012" spoofs the "birther" theories related to Obama's presidential candidacy with voters putting pressure on Chris Travers, an Earthican presidential candidate and suspected extraterrestrial, to reveal his "Earth Certificate" proving that he was born on Earth. When Travers refuses, it's suspected that he doesn't have an Earth Certificate. He really doesn't, but it's not because he's an alien or born off-planet but because he's a time-traveler from the future, meaning that, chronologically speaking, he hasn't been born yet.
- Gravity Falls: In the first episode, Dipper Pines concludes that his sister's new boyfriend, Norman, is a zombie due to his mannerisms and that he has an ulterior motive. He's half right: the guy turns out to be a bunch of gnomes in a Totem Pole Trench, and they plan to kidnap and marry her. For added hilarity, when flipping open the Journal to show her what he thinks Norman is, he accidentally turns to the correct page first before moving on to his guess.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Test of Time", Billy asks for the Grim Reaper's help so he could actually study for his history report that he failed to do. Grim's response?Grim: (spots a bottle of shampoo, then points to his bald skull) I've got to wash my hair!
Billy: (starts walking off) Aw man, what're the chances of—(stops himself) HEY, WAIT A MINUTE! Do you think I'm stupid?
Grim: Well, uh...
Billy: When I asked you to be my go-go dance partner the other day you said you couldn't because you had to "wash your hair". Nobody could wash their hair that much! - Harley Quinn (2019): Poison Ivy is under Dr. Psycho's mind control, and her fiance Kite-Man thinks True Love's Kiss will break his hold on her. It doesn't work. Then Harley kisses her and it does break his hold, but not because of true love, but because Psycho was Distracted by the Sexy just long enough for Harley to slip Ivy an anti-mind control device.
- Hey Arnold!: Grandpa discovers that Dino Spumoni is not a ghost based on the fact that ghosts can't take showers....they take baths.
- Hong Kong Phooey: One episode features a criminal who can become invisible and uses this power to steal a set of rare rings. The last two rings belong to people who live in Genova, and Rosemary believes the first owner whose ring the thief will steal is the opera singer because even criminals follow the "ladies first" policy. The singer's ring is indeed the first of the last two the criminal steals but that's because the other ring already belongs to the criminal.
- Josie and the Pussycats need to find their roadies, who were taken to the lab of the Mad Scientist to be fed to his Plant Monsters. However, the 'Cats are unfamiliar with the mansion's layout, and have no idea which way the greenhouse lies. Melody, who is The Ditz and a Cloud Cuckoolander, postulates this: "Plants have to kept warm, and it's always warmer in the South. Let's go south." Valerie rolls her eyes, but can't give a better choice, so they go south. This turns out to be the right direction when they encounter Alexandra, who is disguised as a plant-creature.
- Kaeloo: In one of the season 4 episodes, Stumpy tells Kaeloo that his mother works two jobs, and Kaeloo assumes that he's lying to garner sympathy for himself. In Episode 236, which is in season 5, Kaeloo decides to ask Stumpy's little sister Poucave if this is true, and Poucave tells Kaeloo that this information is indeed false. Just as Kaeloo gleefully prepares to berate Stumpy for being a liar, Poucave clarifies, to her horror, that their mother doesn't work two jobs... she's a Struggling Single Mother who works three jobs.
- King of the Hill: In one episode, Peggy gets a lawn gnome which Hank despises, so when Bobby accidentally damages it while playing Hank uses this as pretext to get rid of it. Seeing how upset this makes Peggy, Hank confesses but claims he did the whole thing. Peggy correctly guesses that he's lying to protect Bobby, but wrongly believes that Bobby is wholly to blame and thus punishes him very harshly. Later on, Hank goes out and buys a new gnome, then gives it to Bobby to try and smooth things out. Again, Peggy figures most of this out, but assumes that Hank did it out of pity rather than guilt, ultimately deciding that Bobby's been in the doghouse long enough.
- Little Princess: In "I Want to Be a Detective", the Princess is correct when she concludes that one of her pets took the cookies. But she thinks it was Puss (the cat), when it was actually Scruff (the dog).
- Martha Speaks:
- In "Martha and Skits", the Lorraines discover that Skits (a dog) can't talk upon eating alphabet soup the way their other dog Martha can, and then he runs away. Helen thinks that he's angry with the Lorraines and Truman for describing Martha as "unique" and Skits as "just Skits", and she's wrong. However, he was unhappy about the humans' comments on Martha's uniqueness — he wasn't angry with the humans, but he was sad about not being "special".
- Subverted in "Codename: Martha". Martha overhears two men mention "taking candy from a baby" and assumes they want to actually do this due to being Literal-Minded. Then, it seems like they are indeed thieves and want to rob a jewellery store, but it turns out that they're not.
- In "Martha and the Canine Caper", Danny thinks that Martha is afraid because she's not hungry. While Martha is afraid, she only wasn't hungry because she'd eaten steak the night before.
- In "The Dog Who Came to Dinner", Helen's teacher's dog Francois stays with the Lorraines, then eats some cupcakes. The Lorraines think that Martha is falsely blaming Francois due to being jealous of all the attention he's getting — while Martha is jealous of Francois, she's not lying.
- Three examples in "Martha Gets Spooked":
- T.D. thinks that the old house probably has a flashlight in it since "haunted houses always have flashlights". While the house is (probably) not haunted, there's still a flashlight.
- When Mrs. Parkington thinks Helen is a ghostly friend of the ghost of her Great-Aunt Martha, she's wrong about Helen and Martha being ghosts, but right in that they're friends.
- At the end of the episode, a woman's silhouette is seen on the photo. If this is a real ghost (which it may not have been), then the Parkingtons were right about the house being haunted, but wrong about Helen and Martha being ghosts.
- In "Martha Changes Her Luck", Helen and Carolina think that they shouldn't walk under a ladder — Helen because something might fall on them and cause a head injury, and Carolina because she thinks walking under ladders is bad luck. They're right that it's a bad idea to walk under this particular ladder, but that's because there's an opened paint can on top that coats Martha in paint.
- In "There Goes the Neighbourhood", Skits concludes that Martha and Kitten are friends when she licks him, but he thinks she was kissing Kitten. Actually, she was just helping him clean himself.
- In "T.D. and the Steak Tree", T.D. thinks that the idea of steaks growing on trees is ridiculous... because steaks come from the grocery store, not trees.
- In "Martha Hears", T.D. phones Weaselgraft and Pablum, pretending to be Santa Claus. Weaselgraft realises that T.D. isn't actually Santa... because they're on the naughty list.
- In "Truman's Secret", Truman's friends notice that he's been secretive, and some of them fear he doesn't want to be friends with them. The arrogant Carolina says this can't be it... because no one would want to stop being friends with her.
- In "Secret Agent Dog", Martha and T.D. see a man acting shifty and conclude he's a spy trying to steal the soup recipe at a factory. As it turns out, he is a spy, but he's actually trying to prevent the soup recipe from being stolen.
- In "Bye, Martha", Weaselgraft draws Martha's mother as a dog who looks a lot like Martha but light brown. He's just guessing what she looks like, since he doesn't know her mother, but "Martha's Thanksgiving" reveals that Martha's mother really does look like that.
- Implied in "Puppy Skits" — T.D. and O.G., in the past, thought that the puppy Skits travelled through a wormhole, but actually, he just rode in T.D.'s duffle bag. However, there is a stick under T.D.'s bed that Skits didn't have with him in the bag. This leaves the possibility open that wormholes do exist and there is indeed one under T.D.'s bed, even though Skits didn't actually travel through it.
- In "My Mother the Dog", Martha is home alone and pretends to be Mariella, claiming that the reason she can't see Mrs. Demson's recipe is because she's stuck in the bannister. When Mrs. Demson comes over and Martha claims that Mariella got free, Mrs. Demson is correct that Martha is lying — however, she thinks that Mariella is still stuck, whereas in actual fact, Mariella was never stuck to begin with.
- In "The Cheating Chum Caper", Helen sees T.D. being handed an envelope and thinks that he's secretly cheating on the math test by reading the answers. While the envelope does contain an embarrassing secret, he's not reading the test answers — the secret is that he still reads a kiddie comic.
- Metalocalypse: One episode has Murderface angrily defend his contributions to the band by claiming that even though he's a bassist, bass is the foundation of the band and therefore so is he. While this isn't an inaccurate argument with regard to bass in general (common agreement is that a good bassline, while not as immediately noticeable as other instruments, helps to organize a song and keep its rhythm, and provides contrast and backing to the other instruments due to its low and deep noise), it doesn't apply at all to Murderface, who frequently has his basslines left out of the final mix altogether in favor of ones recorded by Skwisgaar due to his lack of talent, and has been known to leave his instrument unplugged during concerts with no one noticing. However, a later episode suggests that Murderface actually is essential to Dethklok in a way that isn't immediately noticeable: namely, him being The Friend Nobody Likes allows the actual creatives of the group to channel their dislike of him into their work, giving it the necessary edge it needs to be metal.
- Milo Murphy's Law: After Time Travel Agents Cavendish and Dakota repeatedly have their plans to prevent pistachios from going extinct in the future ruined, Cavendish realizes that Milo is always nearby when it happens and believes that he must be an enemy agent trying to thwart them. He's correct that Milo's presence is responsible, but he's not doing it on purpose; he was just Born Unlucky as per Murphy's Law and is The Jinx on top of that, which he explains when Dakota convinces Cavendish to just talk to him.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "Dark Cupid", Marinette finds a discarded love poem Adrien, her crush, wrote to Ladybug (he doesn't realize they're one and the same). However, because he didn't include who the poem is for, Tikki convinces Marinette that the poem is for her, which is...technically true. Marinette writes and mails a response poem, but forgets to sign it, and a ladybug flying in convinces him that the poem was from his hero. Which is also technically true.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- "The Return of Harmony": The Mane Six are forced to play Discord's maze but suddenly face a situation where he mind controls them into acting the opposite of their respective Element of Harmony. Twilight, the only mare who does not get corrupted, shows up right after each corruption and is shocked that her friends are acting different, but she is initally wrong about why they are acting that way, as she just assumes the maze has gotten to everypony and they've suddenly gotten moody out of frustration.
- "A Canterlot Wedding": Twilight's older brother Shining Armor is engaged to her former foalsitter Princess Cadance, who is exhibiting odd behavior, leaving her suspicious. She comes to the conclusion that Cadance is evil, but this in turn causes her to be banned from the wedding. However, it turns out her suspicions were right all along, but for an entirely different reason — "Cadance" is the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, who was gaining her power by feeding on Shining's love, and the real Cadance had been imprisoned under Canterlot. Twilight had correctly guessed that something bad was going on, but did not see through Chrysalis' disguise and wrote off Cadence as actually being evil, something even she admits when it's pointed out.Applejack: We're sorry Twi. We should have listened to you!
Twilight: It's not your fault. She fooled everypony. - "The Parent Map": Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst are correct that the friendship problem the Cutie Map assigned them to was related to their parents. However, they initially don't think they were here to resolve the issues between themselves and their parents, and instead assume the problem is their parents' conflicting ideas on how to run their childhood village (a conflict that comes to an unexpectedly quick and immediate resolution).
- In the beginning of Season 8, Chancellor Neighsay tries to close the School of Friendship believing, among a couple of valid arguments against it, that it will endanger ponykind by allowing non-pony students to attend. In the finale he ends up being right about the school endangering ponykind, but it's actually a pony student who enacts a scheme to take over the school and drain all of Equestria's magic while the group of non-pony students play a crucial role in saving the day. He has a Heel Realization over this and changes for the better.
- "The Mean Six": The mane cast minus Spike hold a camping retreat in the Everfree Forest to take some time off from the School of Friendship, but they end up lost and separated from each other. When they encounter what they think are their friends in separate locations, they are shocked to see they are not acting like themselves; while the girls were right to point out the bad behaviors, they were wrong about why they were acting mean; in reality, they encountered artificial clones of themselves made by Queen Chrysalis, and they had no idea she was around nor were aware they were clones to begin with despite the obvious physical differences (desaturated coat/mane colors, wrong cutie marks, etc.). They instead think the girls have flat-out gone bad resulting in a huge argument once they meet up, which Twilight quickly resolves.
- The Owl House:
- "The Intruder": King and Luz initially think that the potions Eda secretly drinks strengthen her powers. They do, but only because she's afflicted with a curse that slowly saps away her magic; the potion is essentially medication that temporarily reverses the effects and returns her to full strength.
- "Through the Looking Glass Ruins": Downplayed. Gus thinks that Luz wants to borrow his library card so she can go see Amity. She actually wants to do some research on the previous human who came to the Boiling Isles, but she figures why not pay Amity a visit while on her mission to figure out how to get home? Also, she needs Amity's help anyways to get her what she's looking for.
- Pinky and the Brain: In one episode, Brain uses his Mobile-Suit Human to get a job at a company, simulate an accident and sue his employer for turning him into a mouse. The judge rules in favor of the company and orders Brain to be arrested for fraud and perjury but these decisions are based on the belief that Brain is not a mouse. The judge also has Brain arrested for public nudity but that doesn't count as being "right" because mice aren't required to wear clothes in public.
- Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja: In Bash Johnson: 11th Grade Ninja, a de-stanked student thinks Bash was the one who turned him back to normal because he thinks Bash is the Ninja. He's wrong about Bash being the Ninja but is right about Bash being the one who turned him back to normal.
- The Real Ghostbusters:
- "A Ghost Grows in Brooklyn": Ray is right when he says that plants respond to music, however, he thinks it's because they have feelings. Actually, the plants are just responding to the soundwaves and it's not an emotional response.
- "Poultrygeist": Peter thinks that the farmer just imagined the were-chicken because he watches "too many horror films". While the were-chicken is real, the farmer really does watch horror films.
- In "Victor the Happy Ghost", Egon sees Slimer choking Victor and decides that Slimer is jealous of Victor. He is, but the choking was because Victor got Slimer in trouble.
- In "Cry Uncle", Ray brags to Egon's uncle Cyrus that Egon caught a bunch of ghosts singlehandedly. Cyrus doesn't believe Ray because he doesn't believe in ghosts, but he was right that Ray wasn't telling the whole truth — Ray wasn't lying, but he was exaggerating because Egon didn't catch the ghosts on his own.
- In "The Magnificent Five", when Wendell thinks that the Ghostbusters are impostors because they failed to shoot Black Bart, Dwayne assures him that they're not impostors and their failure was actually part of a plan. They are the actual Ghostbusters, but the failure to shoot Black Bart was a genuine mistake.
- Rick and Morty: He is fully aware and accepting of his moniker of "Evil Morty", and in his Motive Rant to the main Morty, he claims that what makes him "evil", the reason he does what he does, is simply due to being sick to the teeth of Ricks, and that any other Morty who has felt the same is "evil" too. To the audience, however, it's clear that what really makes him evil is that he remorselessly tortures and kills Ricks and other Mortys with impunity, to the point of barbaric overkill, though he also justifies this with the reveal that many, many Ricks also do messed-up things like torture and barabaric overkill.
- Rugrats:
- "A Very McNulty Birthday": Phil is right when he says that going to the doctor made him better when he got sick. However, he thinks it's because of the Post-Treatment Lollipop.
- "All's Well That Pretends Well": The parents think Angelica must be sick when they hear her sneezing. She is sick, but in that particular instance, it was dust that was making her sneeze. Furthermore, it's not the disease Didi was worried about, but rather a cold.
- "The Big Sneeze": Chuckie sneezes a lot when he is near Kimi and thinks he's allergic to her. While Kimi was responsible for the sneezing, and the sneezing was indeed an allergic reaction, he was not allergic to Kimi, but rather to the dandelions she'd stuffed into her diaper.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: At one point, Mermista, basing her entire strategy to sniff out a spy on a series of detective novels she likes, announces that it can't be clearly evil ex-Horde officer and full-time Evil Sorceress Shadow Weaver, because it's too obviously Shadow Weaver for it to be Shadow Weaver. She's correct, the actual spy is "Flutterina", really shapeshifter Double Trouble, but it's not exactly the most logical reasoning.
- The Simpsons:
- "New Kid on the Block": Homer is so irate that he got thrown out of an "all you can eat" restaurant without being satiated that he decides to sue for false advertising. In the process he compares himself to Don Quixote, which he thinks is a figure to emulate. In truth, his grievance is so absurd and his crusade to correct it so doomed to failure that he is, indeed, being quixotic.
- "The Boy Who Knew Too Much": Homer is chosen as a juror for the trial of Freddy Quimby, and although he (like everybody else) is convinced of Freddy's guilt, he chooses to vote Not Guilty to have the jury sequestered and enjoy cable and room service in the hotel. In the end, after Bart testifies and proves that Freddy was innocent, Homer doesn't waste the chance to brag about it.
- "Homer vs. the 18th Amendment": Homer derisively notes that prohibition is bad because "they tried that in the movies, and it didn't work." While Homer's apparently forgotten that the Prohibition Era was real, it's a good point; the Era's measures are infamous for having failed miserably at curtailing alcohol consumption (it's very hard to enforce a ban on something that's been manufactured since Sumer), and the episode itself shows Springfield mostly bungling its anti-prohibition measures (to the point that Homer only gets caught because he turned himself in out of pity).
- "My Mother The Carjacker": Homer believes his mother survived the prison bus crash because he reads what he believes to be a coded message saying "I M O K". Mona did survive and left Homer a coded message but it was on another newspaper article and it explains how she survived and what she did afterwards.
- Sofia the First: In the Pilot Movie "Once Upon a Princess" after Sofia's stepsister Amber ruins her dance lesson right before her royal ball, she asks the castle sorcerer Cedric for a spell to help her dance, but when she recites the spell, everyone around her falls asleep instead, and she assumes she said the spell wrong which leads her to Freak Out. She was wrong about thinking she said the dance spell wrong, but she was right that she said it wrong in the first place, because he did not give her the words to the dance spell but one that lulls everyone in the room but the caster into a Forced Sleep and planned to blackmail her into handing her the Amulet of Avalor in exchange for the counterspell, only to get affected himself because he was also in the ballroom at the time.
- South Park:
- "Best Friends Forever": This trope is named explicitly. At the end of the episode, Kyle delivers An Aesop about how his group — which wanted Kenny kept on life support — was wrong for the right reasons (that they love him and don't want him to die). Cartman's group, which wanted Kenny taken off life-support was right for the wrong reasons (Cartman was being a selfish prick who wanted to get Kenny's PSP).
- "The Snuke": When Cartman's racist note suspicion that the new Muslim family in town are terrorists sets off an investigation that ultimately uncovers and foils a real terrorist plot being carried out by Russian mercenaries to help the British take back the United States, he concludes that his bigotry actually saved the day and thus he was doing the right thing. Kyle argues that he isn't right, "not in the way you're saying".
- "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy": Cartman (who, in this episode, was a hall monitor parodying Dog the Bounty Hunter) teams up with Kyle to take down a kindergarten teacher having a sexual relationship with Ike, since the cops won't take the case seriously. However, unlike Kyle, who's doing it because of how sick and perverted it is, Cartman's in it because he caught the pair making out in the halls without a hall pass.
- "Cartman Finds Love": Cartman tries to force Tolkien and Nicole together just because they're both black, but it turns out they're perfect for each other anyway. Later in "Tweek X Craig" he makes the same assumption about Tweek and Craig just because a bunch of Japanese girls are drawing fan art of them, turns out he's right again.
- "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers": While being chased by the 6th grade army who want to get their videotape, Cartman suggests the group wade across a river to because he's role playing as a wizard and declares the 6th graders can't cross as a rule. When the 6th graders arrive, they actually can't cross it because the water will rust their bike chains.
- "The Coon": Cartman was right that Mysterion's true identity was Kenny (something that was only made clear to the viewers later in the series), but he only came to this conclusion just from the fact that Kenny had a picture of Mysterion in his locker (Stan and Clyde also have pictures of Mysterion in their lockers).
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: In the Green Goblin's debut, he levies charges of hypocrisy at J. Jonah Jameson and Anastatia Hardy because they, as members of Oscorp's board of directors, oppose the Goblin's alter ego, Norman Osborn, of making chemical weapons with Jameson going as far as writing an expose on it and the Goblin tried to point to Anastatia having once funding Otto Octavius. However, Jameson was doing his job as a journalist and Octavius became Dr. Octopus after Anastatia cut his funding. That said, as per the comics, Jameson did create the Scorpion and Anastatia, being a version of Black Cat's mother, was married to a thief (and a lot of her money was probably built on stuff he stole), so he is technically right about them being hypocrites about his alter-ego's activities.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- "Missing Identity": When he loses his name tag, SpongeBob and Patrick are trying to retrace SpongeBob's steps that led up to him losing his nametag. SpongeBob says he put an apple on Mr. Krabs's desk, then two guys threw him in the dumpster. Patrick says the nametag must be in the apple and that they should go to Mr. Krabs's desk to find it. SpongeBob says Mr. Krabs would have thrown the apple away by now and suggests checking the dumpster for the nametag. When they get there, they discover SpongeBob is wearing his shirt backward and that he's had his nametag on the whole time. They had been wrong about the nametag being in the apple, but they did find it in the dumpster (because that's where they were when they found it).
- "A Pal For Gary": When SpongeBob brings home a seemingly adorable but dangerous creature named Puffy Fluffy to keep Gary company so he's not lonely when he's at work, he's unaware the creature hates being around other pets and keeps harassing Gary when SpongeBob is not present, and, once the sponge returns, Puffy makes it look like Gary was responsible, and SpongeBob berates him for not being nice to his new friend or roughhousing him. That night, SpongeBob sleeps through an entire battle between snail and monster which leads to the house falling to shambles; once SpongeBob notices when he wakes up, he assumes Gary did it out of jealousy for no reason. SpongeBob was right about Gary's thoughts toward Puffy that time, only he's wrong about how he sees him; Gary's not jealous of Puffy, he's afraid of him.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Cupid's Errant Arrow", Mariner firmly believes Boimler couldn't have legitimately gotten a girlfriend like Barbara and assumes she's an alien with sinister intentions. In the end, she was right to think their relationship was Too Good to Be True, but wrong to suspect Barbara. Instead, it was Boimler who was unknowingly carrying a parasite that made him irresistible to potential mates.
- Tangled: The Series: In Season 1, a lab accident strands Varian's father Quirin in frozen amber, and he concludes that Rapunzel's hair is the only thing that can free him. When Rapunzel tries to free Quirin the first time, it doesn't work, because the amber doesn't respond to the Sundrop flower and the girl whom it's power was transferred to. However, when she tries again in the Season 3 opener, she instead uses the Moonstone's decaying incantation, which in turn melts the amber and frees Quirin. In other words, Varian was right about Rapunzel's hair freeing his father, but was wrong about what power she must use.
- Ultimate Spider-Man:
- In the episode "Why I Hate The Gym", Ava believes that her school's new PE instructor deliberately failed her on her physical exam out of sexism after noticing how he only passed male students. She and Spidey later discover that she was partially correct — the coach did exclude Ava because she was a girl, but not for the reason she assumed. The new coach was actually the supervillain Taskmaster in disguise, having been hired by Doc Ock to try to narrow down which of Midtown High's students was Spider-Man by analyzing their physical performance in gym class.
- A variant in which Spidey is right for the wrong reasons when he's not trying to be right. In "For Your Eye Only", he taunts the Zodiac goons by giving them nicknames based on their animal-head masks. The ones in the lion masks he calls "Leo", and he never realises that that is actually their codename.
- What's New, Scooby-Doo?: In "A Scooby-Doo Halloween", Daphne suspects Velma's cousin Marcy to be the culprit behind the attacks of the Scarecrows and the Ghost of Hank Banning (mainly because she dislikes Marcy for acting catty towards her and getting too close to Fred) but offers no reason beyond "women's intuition". When Daphne questions her whereabouts before the gang at the town square, Marcy tells her she was working at her part-time job at the mall and shows them the security footage to prove it, with Daphne embarrassing herself when she declares that's not Marcy and gets proven wrong immediately. Marcy is unmasked as the culprit at the end of the episode, but only because Velma deduced it was her after remembering that Marcy's birthday is on the same day as Halloweennote , as well recognizing the glove she found at the water tower from the security footage, meaning that Daphne was only right due to sheer luck. She even believed Marcy wasn't the girl from the security footage until Velma corrected her.
- Winx Club:
- Tecna grows suspicious of their new teacher Avalon over his lack of wings. Her investigation soon points him to be the evil Angel of Darkness, but most of the evidence was coincidental or false. So it seems Avalon is actually good, except that he was actually Lord Darkar's spy in Alfea, so Tecna was right that Avalon was evil.
- In an early episode of the series, Musa angrily tells Stella "she's not the only princess here" after getting fed up with Stella's bratty behavior. At the time, as far as the audience knew, Stella was the only princess of the group. Several episodes later, we learn Bloom is the lost princess, and lone survivor, of a planet whose kingdom was murdered by the Trix's ancestors. Musa was right.
- Young Justice:
- The eponymous team is worried there may be a mole among them. Since Superboy is a clone created by Project CADMUS, Batman suggests that he could be a Manchurian Agent. As it turns out, Roy is also a clone and Manchurian Agent.
- Similarly, Aquaman was the only one to openly object to Red Arrow joining the Justice League, feeling that rewarding him for his Rage Against the Mentor would send a bad message. Letting Red Arrow in does turn out to be a bad idea, because he's a Manchurian Agent, and his desire to join the League is part of his programming.
