The Complainer Is Always Wrong / Western Animation

Examples of The Complainer Is Always Wrong in Western Animation.

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• Adventures of the Gummi Bears: Subverted by Gruffi, who is the hardest to please of Gummi Glen and complains a lot. However, his practicality is deeply respected as being typically right in his field of expertise, and as such he is usually the de facto leader of the colony.
• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
  • Subverted when the Yolkians (the villains from The Movie) come to the Earth and Jimmy says they're not to be trusted, even after they seem harmless and give everyone free stuff. It turns out they were trying to destroy the Earth and were only giving them stuff to get on their good side. After saving the town, Jimmy makes them say "We were wrong and you were right" in English and French (and tries with Chinese, but nobody knows it).
  • Really, most of the time Jimmy is always right and will always be the one to solve the problem, but no one ever trusts him because he's such a jerk about it and half of the problems were caused by him in the first place.
• American Dad!: Stan, similar to Wheeler from Captain Planet and the Planeteers, is always considered an abusive Jerkass no matter what the situation. Even when the Aesop is completely flip-flopped with another character doing the exact same thing, Stan will still be presented as in the wrong.
• Arthur: Inverted in the episode "Best of the Nest" when Brain tells the group that a hit computer game is terribly inaccurate. They dismiss it as complaining, but he turns out to be right.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Zig-zagged. The Complainer of the group, Sokka, is also The Smart Guy and Butt-Monkey. Whether this trope is in effect usually depends on the topic at hand; if the thing being discussed is a trivial matter, Sokka will almost always be wrong (often for comedic effect), but if it's something plot-relevant, he's almost always right.
  • This is prominently displayed in the episode The Fortune Teller; at first, Sokka's skepticism towards the eponymous fortune teller is played for laughs. As the episode goes on, however, his complaints about the town's blind trust make more and more sense.
    Villager: Can your science explain why it rains?
    Sokka: YES, IT CAN!
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes once has Technical Pacifist Ant-Man try to break up a battle between the Avengers and the Serpent Society by suggesting the Serpent Society talk their problems out with him instead. The Serpent Society refuses to cooperate, and instead, the fight between them and the Avengers intensifies. After the criminals escape, the Avengers scold Ant-Man for chastising their violent means of tackling villains. Did we mention that they also had hostages? Although in the second season, after quitting the team, Ant-Man has a nervous breakdown that leads a complete personality shift resulting in him becoming a new action-oriented hero who gets in trouble with the rest of the Avengers for looking like he's going around killing the members of the Serpent Society. Even when it turns out he was only teleporting them to a microscopic prison, he's still like that for the rest of the show.
• Big City Greens: Itchaboi is a rather obnoxious internet celebrity who influences his viewers into becoming "mirabulous" and "negate the hate"; this in turn causes them to behave like him. If someone dislikes Itchaboi, resents him, or refuses to accept his lifestyle or follow his words, then he calls them "haters".
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: Subverted in one episode — a "Sleazosaur" (a crocodile-like creature) named Al Negator has joined the crew of the Righteous Indignation, and Deadeye Duck is the only one who distrusts him. Bucky scolds him for this, calling him a hypocrite given his own criminal past. It looks like Deadeye is being set up as the complainer, but then Al betrays the crew and steals the ship, showing that he was actually right.
• The Busy World of Richard Scarry has the brothers Pig Will and Pig Won't, who somehow manage to embody this Aesop using only two people. As their names suggest, one agrees to every request or offer, and the other refuses every offer. In the original book, Pig Won't would always say "I won't", without even thinking about it. So one day when their father asks who wants to go with him to visit the fire station, Pig Won't declares "I won't". At the fire station, Pig Will gets to play with the Dalmatian, wear a fire suit, play with the fire hose (with adult supervision), and it all ends with an all-you-can-eat hot fudge sundae feast, and when Pig Won't sees all the fun Pig Will had, he immediately becomes Pig Me Too.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Wheeler. This reaches ridiculous levels in "Wheeler's Ark", where he's portrayed as a heartless jerk because he's the only one who doesn't want to take every injured or endangered animal they find on their missions back to Hope Island, which even Gaia told them they shouldn't do. Even on a show founded on the Green Aesop premise, removing exotic species from their natural habitat shouldn't be okay, even if everyone agrees with it.
  • In the Season 4 episode "Hollywaste", the Planeteers are playing stunt doubles in a movie based on one of their adventures. The eco-friendly actress who plays the movie version of Linka, Bambi Blight, is the younger sister of recurring villain Dr. Blight. Trouble happens as usual — and clues point to Bambi. Most of the Planeteers are quick to blame Bambi, but Wheeler alone trusts her. In the end, Dr. Blight reveals herself as the guilty party. After a battle and the arrest of Dr. Blight, Captain Planet says, "Bambi is proof that one bad Blight doesn't spoil the whole crop." While Wheeler is right here, it's not because he disapproves of guilt by association — he thinks she's innocent because she is an attractive Hollywood actress.
  • This trope becomes a bit hilarious when comparing the two episodes dealing with overpopulation, where in each one Wheeler takes the exact opposite stance, yet both times the "lesson" he "learns" is the same. The first season episode "Population Bomb" had him learn having too many kids is irresponsible via an obvious Lilliputian dream sequence. Four years later in "Numbers Game," Wheeler wonders why people had kids if they couldn't afford to raise them. Cue Gi jumping down his throat and putting words in his mouth simply for asking a question. This time, he has a dream that again, warns him of the danger of overpopulation. It's treated as if he's learned a lesson by the time he wakes up, despite him being right from the beginning. This is especially odd when you consider Wheeler came from a bad neighborhood in New York, and his own family's home is a hole-in-the-wall apartment. He should know better than anyone else what happens to families who have more kids than they can afford.
• Care Bears:
  • Most of the characters are characterized by unique personality quirks, but Sour Supporter Grumpy Bear is unique in being the only bear to make a hobby out of finding the cloud wrapped around every silver lining (understandably, since the universe's opinion of him tends towards the Butt-Monkey-esque.) Nonetheless, he remains one of the most awesome characters on the show, having cobbled together a fully-functional teleporter, survived an attack from a renegade bowl of fruit, and playing baseball with lightning. The complainer may usually be wrong, but even hunting for clouds among the silver linings sometimes has a silver lining.
  • The trope is outright subverted in at least one story, in which the other Care Bears spend the entire story trying to cheer Grumpy Bear up but only succeed in irritating him. Eventually, they reach the revelation that Grumpy Bear is happy being grumpy and that they should just let him go on being so.
• Donald Duck is frequently subject to this, especially in his confrontations with Chip and Dale, but "Crazy Over Daisy" is one of the biggest examples: The chipmunks spend the entire short ridiculing, tormenting, and abusing Donald to the point where they destroy his bicycle, and when he punishes them by building a new bike that the chipmunks have to power, Daisy scolds and dumps Donald for being abusive to them.
• Dungeons & Dragons (1983): The article referenced on the main page talks about this being the reason for Eric's existence in the cartoon. Fortunately, this trope was also subverted by the show: In some episodes, primarily in Season 2, there are cases where Eric is right and everyone else is wrong. One of the writers has since said that Eric was originally supposed to be right a lot more often, but Moral Guardians forced this trope. The script for the unproduced final episode subverts this trope in that the group splits in two, and looks like Eric's group may be getting set up for this, but it turns out that both groups are wrong. Fortunately, they figure out what they really need to do just in time.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy is often portrayed as selfish and irresponsible whenever he tries to change an aspect of his Crapsack World. Even when he's portrayed as having a legitimate complaint, the Status Quo Is God nature of the show means his attempts to change it just make the problem worse. The worst example of this is in "Lights Out" when Poof's fear of the dark (which he had apparently never had or been able to handle fine until that day) leads Wanda to get Poof a nightlight bright enough to burn through a metal suit of armour and expects Timmy to tolerate sleeping with it. Timmy is then portrayed as the selfish one for complaining about something that would've killed him were he not a cartoon character.
  • "Merry Wishmas" acts like Timmy is the one who needs to learn a lesson about not being greedy at Christmas and creating the eponymous new holiday, pushing Santa Claus out of a job. However, the episode is rife with problems that ultimately mangle the lesson. First of all, the townspeople being angry that Santa didn't give them what they wanted for Christmas should be justified, but as the musical number "Not on the List" shows, their requests keep going back and forth between reasonable (Timmy just wanted a sled) and unreasonable (one boy got a "stupid red wagon" instead of an RC dragon). Second, Santa ultimately comes off as unsympathetic because he only explains his actions after he, his wife, and his elves have spent the year freeloading at Timmy's house, driving him and his parents crazy. At one point, Timmy points out that everything could have been avoided if he'd just gotten a sled, and flat-out asks Santa why he didn't get one. Santa completely ignores Timmy's question.
• Family Guy: A particularly severe version happens in the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party". In the episode, Meg lays a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech onto Peter, Lois, and Chris because she is fed up with being the family's Butt-Monkey. Afterward, Brian convinces her to stay with them because if she doesn't, their Jerkass behavior would destroy the family, culminating in Meg staying because she has to be their lightning rod for abuse.
• Frosty Returns: Mr. Twitchell introduces a new product that is an aerosol spray called Summer Wheeze which when sprayed on snow causes it to melt and hopes to use this product to dominate the world. When he is presenting the product to the town council, one of the members raises objections out of concern for the environment. Twitchell responds to this by having his pet cat Bones press a button which sends the trustee down a trapdoor.
• Futurama: In the episode "I Second That Emotion", Bender is put through no shortage of grief on Nibbler's account. Leela is more concerned with Bender yelling at Nibbler, who she coddles.
• Galaxy High: If Doyle has a complaint about something, he is wrong. Doesn't matter if that something is dangerous, unnecessary, actually against the rules, whatever, he ultimately just needs to shut up and listen to Aimee. When he is right about something - that Fort Lauderoid's star is about to go nova - nobody listens to him.
• Garfield and Friends:
  • Parodied with the Show Within a Show "The Buddy Bears", three "cute" bears in Gay Nineties attire who endlessly perform an obnoxious "barbershop" routine with canes and madcap dancing. Their Show Within a Show is designed to teach children "educational things," but the main thrust of the lesson is simple: "Whatever the group decides is right." The Bears have no individuality whatsoever and agree with whatever the first Bear decides in the name of "getting along" (a not-so-subtle dig at The Get-Along Gang). In one instance, they outright tell children to "NEVER have an opinion of your own!" Not coincidentally, the head writer of Garfield and Friends, and the writer of this episode, was Mark Evanier.
  • They even have a few group verses to express the sentiment:
    "Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we always get along
    Each day, we do a little dance and sing a little song
    If you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong
    Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we always get along!"
    Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we never have a fight
    Anyone who disagrees is never, ever right
    If you have a point of view, then keep it out of sight
    Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we never have a fight!
  • Questioned by Garfield...
    Garfield: But what about having an individual point of view?
    B1: I have an individual point of view.
    B2: And I agree with him.
    B3: And I agree with both of them.
    All: We all have an individual point of view!
  • The Bears' debut episode features Garfield, sick of having to deal with them, manipulating their into a situation where they can't agree: choosing pizza toppings, which Garfield claims no two people "in the history of Mankind" have ever been able to agree on.
  • In another episode, Garfield hires the Buddy Bears to clean his house, then manages to get out of paying them by saying he already did. When the Buddy Bears claim to have never gotten paid, Garfield accuses them of disagreeing with him, and as a result, they are wrong. They despondently leave, empty-handed.
  • An episode of U.S. Acres featured Roy Rooster, the cast's prankster and resident smart-aleck, getting fed up with the farm and joining the Buddy Bears as "Big Bad Buddy Bird" in order to exemplify this trope. Their "episodes" involve little skits showing kids what happens when you don't agree, even over trivial things: a 16-ton safe gets dropped on your head. Roy gets safes dropped on his head throughout the episode, once for wanting chocolate ice cream when the rest of the bears wanted vanilla, and they were all buying individual cones. He eventually gets them to promise not to drop a safe on him, so he gets on with his act... and they drop two safes on him. Roy gets fed up and yells at the audience, "Don't do everything your friends do, just because they do it! Have a brain of your own!"
  • A sequel called "Roy Gets Sacked" would follow, which followed Roy as he thinks his friends don't want him anymore and finds himself back as a co-star to the Buddy Bears (who are this time accompanied by an Affirmative Action Girl) in the same role as before. This time, he is relieved to hear that they don't have any 16-ton safes to drop on him anymore. Unfortunately for Roy, they drop other things on him instead, such as a piano, a 1988 Convertible, and a 27-ton safe. Roy just makes a break for it after that last one, rather than tell the audience to make their own decisions like last time.
• The Get Along Gang: The show was, in the eyes of some, completely dedicated to this trope. The "complainer" in this case was even depicted as a compulsive gambler who'd bet the clubhouse at the slightest provocation. Mark Evanier would directly make fun of what he felt was this series' message of this trope in Garfield and Friends. (He talks about it here, and you can see the "Big Bad Buddy Bird" cartoon he talks about here (starting about a minute in).
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Writers admit that this was one of the bits of Executive Meddling they had to deal with, requiring them to depict the "good" teamwork of the G.I. Joes, and the "bad" arguing of the Cobra organization. However, they also admit this worked out in the end, since the constant squabbles and power-plays between Cobra Commander, Destro, Zartan, The Baroness, and the Crimson Twins (and later Serpentor) made for better plots, and made them much more interesting characters than many of the comparatively blander Joes.
  • Eventually satirized in "The Wrong Stuff", where the viewer gets a brief glimpse of a Cobra-produced kids cartoon show. Called "The Likeables", it features non-conformists being magically transformed into "right-thinking" clones. (The announcer even calls the show "pro-social".) This is then followed by Duke switching off a TV and stating "This had gone far enough."
  • On the Joes side, the token complainer is usually Shipwreck, though his constant bellyaching is usually echoed by his allies. ("Oh, man, not push-ups, I hate push-ups..." "Everybody hates push-ups, Shipwreck, but we gotta do 'em. So pick up the pace!"). Still, while an effective member of the team, he tends to get in trouble when he goes off on his own. But the trouble he gets into tends to foil Cobra plots.
  • Also, look at their uniforms and attitudes. G. I. Joe is the least-conformist military organization in history. There are punk-rock anarchist groups guilty of more groupthink. Granted, they are a special forces unit.
• Horseland: Subverted in an episode where the kids were afraid to tell a photographer that the costumes he chose are impractical for riding. Shep gives an aesop at the end stating that it's good to speak up when you think something is wrong and that this is very different from complaining.
• Justice League:
  • Subverted in the episode "Panic in the Sky". Batman was the only one who refused to surrender himself to the authorities. If he didn't go to confront Amanda Waller, the rest of the League would still be imprisoned and Luthor would have completed the powerful and immortal android he was going to transfer his consciousness to and make himself a living god.
  • Batman subverts this Trope quite a lot in Justice League. In the episode "Hereafter," while the rest of the Justice League discuss what should be done after Superman's apparent death and who they should recruit to replace him, Batman refuses to take part (although he does show up for the funeral). He instead focuses on trying to find out what happened to Superman, suspecting Big Blue is still alive somewhere and he turns out to be right, though it should be noted he doesn't actually contribute to rescuing or even finding Superman, and was actually on the verge of accepting Superman might be dead after all when Superman finally made it back.
  • Superman also subverted this trope when Darkseid came to the Justice League for help. Superman initially refused, having been brainwashed by him in the past and then let loose on Earth, something his reputation never fully recovered from. Everyone, even Batman, chalked it up to Superman holding a rather understandable grudge and went to help anyway. Darkseid ended up stabbing everyone in the back.
• KaBlam!: Billy from "The Off-Beats". The running gag in the series usually involved Billy saying something that would get Tina mad, and then the Populars would literally throw him out of the group, causing Billy to crash into something.
• Kaeloo: In Episode 132, the sheep ask to befriend the main four. Kaeloo, Stumpy, and Quack-Quack love the idea of having new friends, but Mr. Cat, the paranoid cynic of the group, refuses to accept them and complains that accepting new people into the friend group would upset the pre-existing dynamic between the main characters. Mr. Cat is treated by the narrative as being wrong for complaining about the sheep wanting to befriend him and his friends.
• King of the Hill: Many episodes have rather pro-conformity messages. Whenever members of a hostile subculture appear — far-right Christians, far-left hippies, Canadians, etc — they are usually eventually exposed as selfish, bullying hypocrites of some form or another. In the end, everyone learns to not take their contrarian view of the world seriously.
• The Land Before Time: In the television series episode "The Bright Circle Celebration", everybody, especially Petrie, is excited for the upcoming Bright Circle Celebration, which seems to be a cross between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. Cera and her dad, however, think the whole holiday is ridiculous; to them, it doesn't make sense to thank the Bright Circle (the sun) for shining. Then a meteor shower starts a fire and threatens to burn down the valley, and Cera and her dad end up joining in the celebration with everyone else.
• Loonatics Unleashed: Danger Duck was nearly always relegated to this role. In one episode he even gets in trouble with the group for daring to suggest that people should own up to their mistakes and that it's better for one person to sacrifice themselves when the alternative is doom for everyone else.
• Muppet Babies (1984): Fozzie Bear. The jokes he tells are booed at regardless. Though it was subverted when Fozzie finally got fed up with the boos and decided to give up jokes. This eventually made everyone sad as they realized that seeing Fozzie miserable is worse than enduring his jokes and at least knowing he's happy. Piggy ultimately puts it best: "We love to hate your jokes!"
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the very first episode, Twilight Sparkle is complaining that being ordered by Princess Celestia to make friends in Ponyville is a complete waste of time, completely unrelated to the much more imminent threat of Nightmare Moon's return. She's right about Nightmare Moon's return being an extremely urgent situation. Making friends being an unrelated waste of time, however? Not quite.
  • Twilight spends all of "Feeling Pinkie Keen" complaining that Pinkie's "Pinkie Sense" is illogical and that she intends to prove it's all a big coincidence. By the end of the episode, Twilight is forced to admit that even though she still doesn't understand "Pinkie Sense", it's very much real.
  • Rainbow Dash, being the Hot-Blooded egotist of the group, tended to face the brunt of this in a good few episodes, especially in Season 2. Increased Character Development and the show's rotation of the Sanity Ball tends to keep it downplayed later on, however.
    • Played with in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000". While Rainbow Dash is the only one of the main six to question the Apple family's (admittedly haphazardous) dispensing of cider and is treated accordingly, she succeeds in spearheading the rest of the town into agreement.
    • "Parental Glideance": Admittedly, Rainbow Dash was really harsh when she was chewing out her parents for all the things they've done over the episode. But still, the narrative and the characters treat her as the one in the wrong for daring to have a problem with her parents' overbearing affection.
    • "Newbie Dash": Rainbow Dash joins the Wonderbolts and immediately gets saddled with the embarrassing nickname “Rainbow Crash,” which is the same thing her bullies used to call her when she was a filly. The episode frames her as being in the wrong for being upset and the Wonderbolts as justified because it’s later revealed that they all have embarrassing nicknames, so once she learns this she just accepts it and moves on.
  • Subverted in "Bats!", when everypony else doesn't listen to Fluttershy's argument to make a sanctuary for the vampire fruit bats due to the declining state of the apple orchard. She's ultimately proven right in the end.
  • Subverted when the Mane 6 reform Discord. Everypony is convinced Discord can only be changed through force, watching him with their elements at the ready to turn him back to stone if needed. Fluttershy is agreeing with this mindset at first but quickly realizes that trying to impose authority on Discord only gives him more pleasure in defying it, and against the constant urges of her friends treats him with unconditional trust and kindness. This actually works, much to the surprise of everyone (most of all Discord, who'd just manipulated the Mane 6 into a situation where they would never use their elements on him again before realizing he cared about Fluttershy too much to take advantage of his new position).
  • In the episode "What About Discord?" Twilight becomes jealous when all her friends had fun with Discord over the weekend she spent indoors re-shelving her library and all the inside jokes she doesn't understand. She eventually thinks Discord put her friends under a spell and when she lets this thought out her friends are offended that she would think that of Discord and of them until she breaks down that she is jealous. Somewhat subverted as it turns out Discord didn't invite Twilight on-purpose to, as he claims, teach her a lesson it is okay to feel jealous as long as you let it out. Though no-one else is happy he did this to her on purpose and that he took joy of rubbing his fun in her face. Discord soon gets a taste of his own medicine though when the Mane 6 joke about the experience in front of him and he doesn't get the jokes since he was out of the room.
  • Zig-Zagged in the episode "No Second Prances", where Twilight is suspicious of Starlight Glimmer's new friend and former bad-pony Trixie and feels that Trixie might be manipulating Starlight for her own ends and she shouldn't make friends with her. Starlight eventually gets fed up with this and calls Twilight out on being suspicious of Trixie despite having given her a second chance and wonders what that means about herself. As it turns out, Trixie originally did only befriend Starlight as a means of getting back at Twilight, but she eventually grew to enjoy the bond they developed and was crushed when she realized she almost destroyed one of the few genuine friendships she ever made. Twilight in turn realizes that she went overboard with her suspicions and apologizes.
• The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: There's an episode in which the animals attempted to cheer up Eeyore because he spent all his days staring gloomily at clouds. In a nice twist, after each of their heavy-handed attempts failed, Piglet simply sits and talks to Eeyore, who reveals that he's not depressed — he is, in fact, playing an imaginary game with the clouds. A nice avoidance of this trope, in that the gang is encouraged to find out more about Eeyore's unusual behaviour and appreciate it on its own terms. Winnie the Pooh tends to subvert this frequently with Eeyore, with the others — and Eeyore himself — suggesting making him over to be happier and fit in more. In the end, however, they usually decide both Eeyore and the others are happy with his usual "depressed" self. This is occasionally played more straight with Rabbit, however, whose objections to the antics of the others (usually Tigger) tend to be shot down; granted, his Control Freak tendencies and extremely prudish demeanor justifies it a little.
• Pinky and the Brain: Inverted, as Pinky always complains about some kind of flaw in Brain's plan and — should Brain write off the concern — it's often an accurate prediction of how the plan falls apart. (Less so when Brain accounts for the flaw or has a genuine explanation for it.)
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo both subverted and parodied this.
  • Daphne is the subversion: she's always the first to rightfully point out that is never real, yet she'll panic and run like the rest of them, crying out "Ghost!" when it jumps out to scare them. Granted, having a six-foot freaky looking creature hop out at you would make you panic, even if you didn't believe in them.
  • Fred, meanwhile, is the parody: a Running Gag of the series is to have Fred always immediately trace every single mystery back to a kid named Red Herring, who would never have anything to do with it. The only episode where Red is guilty is one where Daphne dares Fred that he can't go a single mystery without blaming him.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show: Parodied whenever the duo is acquainted with a new group or fad. Stimpy often goads a cynical Ren into joining in; between Ren being the Butt-Monkey and Stimpy being an imbecile, this usually only leads to utter pain for Ren, with Stimpy usually earning a beating for dragging him into it in the first place.
• Rugrats tends to play with this trope, especially in the early days. The formula usually has Tommy suggesting they do something, Phil and Lil agreeing, Chuckie mentioning that it's not such a good idea, one of the three calling Chuckie a "big baby" and dragging him along. It's usually subverted when the adventure goes south, but they still had a blast. In said early days, Chuckie's more temperamental attitude leads him to point this out more frequently. In one episode, he even lampshades how in every argument Tommy tricks him into following him, and suggests to just skip it and go along with the plan right away.
  • An interesting subversion is the episode "Touchdown Tommy". The B-plot has the dads watching a big football game, though Chaz wants to watch the chess tournament. They blow him off and he's stuck watching the game. Apparently, he knew what he was saying — because the dads were too busy watching football, the babies covered the living room in chocolate milk and Didi and Betty were pissed when they got back.
    Chaz: I told you we should have watched the chess tournaments.
    (The others glare at him)
  • Also subverted in "Farewell My Friend", after Chuckie is berated into joining the others on an adventure into his dad's greenhouse, and actually abandoned and left to face the assumed "monster" they face, he finally snaps at Tommy, refusing to go back and claiming him to be a bad friend for forcing him to suffer all his schemes. Tommy goes without him and is "captured" inside, leaving Chuckie to rescue him after the twins bail out again. While Chuckie admits to overreacting, Tommy admits it was a bad idea and should be more considerate to Chuckie (for that episode anyway).
    Chuckie: I don't think this is a good idea...
    Tommy: (bored) Oh come on, Chu-
    Chuckie: (angrily) I'M NOT GOING! Every time I go on one of these little adventures, I get my head stuck in a tree. Or get chased by some shadow guy or fall off a mountain.
    Phil and Lil: Mountain?
  • There's even a third instance of this happening. The episode "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" has Tommy and the twins convince Chuckie to take Chaz's favorite CD so they can play with it. When Angelica sees it and pulls a cruel Look Behind You to steal it, Chuckie quickly blames the babies for its disappearance without even thinking Angelica might have done something to it. However, it takes its so hard that he declares It's All My Fault and ends up initiating the It's a Wonderful Plot when he thinks he shouldn't have been born. The trio are very sorry for what happened and try to make up for it by giving him even more CDs to replace the one lost. Thankfully, Laser-Guided Karma hit Angelica.
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer shoots this quote to his nagging wife Marge, who is always way more sensible than him but wrong this one time. It's a "Treehouse of Horror" episode, so it's Loose Canon in a series with varying continuity over the years anyway.
  • Another gag in The Simpsons involves Homer and Marge going to see the school counselor to find out why Bart's having such a hard time in school; he suggests that Bart try to remove his personality and be more of a "faceless slug".
  • On the episode when Lisa becomes a vegetarian, we see Ms. Hoover and Lunchlady Doris push a silent "independent thought alarm" when she questions school policy, which sends an alert to Principal Skinner.
    Principal Skinner: Uh-oh. Two independent thought alarms in one day. The students are overstimulated. Willie! Remove all the colored chalk from the classrooms.
    Groundskeeper Willie: I warned you! Didn't I warn you?! That colored chalk was forged by Lucifer himself!
  • Speaking of Lisa, it's often inverted with Springfield's resident Soapbox Sadie. Many is the time she'll protest something for being "wrong", despite it ultimately being better for everyone involved or at least having no negative repercussions whatsoever outside of being dishonest or deceitful, and she'll ultimately be portrayed as having the moral high ground who everyone inevitably agrees. It's occasionally mocked, such as when the entire school anticipated she would pull such a stunt and staged a fake presentation with an imposter Comptroller to continue their dishonest act that would get some much-needed funding for the school.
• The Smurfs (1981): This is one aspect of the "communist" leanings of the show. Brainy Smurf was the usual complainer.
  • The other complainer, Grouchy Smurf, wasn't wrong, but the Smurfs found him annoying anyway. (The viewers, on the other hand...)
• South Park:
  • In the Chinpokomon episode, Kyle is constantly criticized for not keeping up with the latest fad, which eventually devolved into bombing Pearl Harbor. When all the other children abandon the fad, he tries to maintain his independence by going on the bombing run anyway. Stan gives him a hastily thought-up speech about following the crowd, and while this doesn't really convince him, he's confused enough to relent.
  • In the episode "Douche and Turd", Stan refuses to vote for either of the titular school mascot replacements because he thinks that both choices are stupid, and gets kicked out of town for his troubles. The episode ends with a message that a person should vote even if the choice is between a douche and a turd. And then they have the whole reason for the election nullified, thus rendering Stan's vote moot anyway.
  • The show plays with this trope later in the run when Stan becomes cynical and critical of all the dumb things he and his friends enjoy. In the end, Stan reverts to his previous persona but at the cost of becoming a secret drinker...
• Strawberry Shortcake: The 2000s version seems to have this aesop quite a bit, specifically in "The Costume Party" and "Mind Your Manners", where both complainers are tricked into complying with Strawberry and her friends' views via parties. A lot of episode conflicts are solved by tricking or distracting the troublemaker into forgetting they had any reason to disagree or be upset, especially when it involves differences of opinion and personal choices.
• ThunderCats (2011): Subverted in a late episode from the first arc — the cats need to get into an elephant village held by the lizards, Lion-o decides they should go in quietly and use stealth, but Tygra argues that, given the lizards' superior firepower, they should charge in with the Thundertank. The cats are spotted and Lion-o's plan fails, then, just when it looks like the cats are doomed, Tygra comes in Big Damn Heroes-style with the Thundertank and saves the day.
• Total Drama: Courtney is admittedly bossy and often unpleasant, but this trope really kicks in during Total Drama Action. Everyone acts like she doesn't deserve to be back on the show, even though her original elimination really was the result of outright cheating. In her first episode she's put on the Killer Grips, and has to do all the work due to Owen's Sanity Slippage and Justin's refusal to do anything; nevertheless, everyone acts outraged that she thinks they're incompetent. It ends with everyone trying to vote her off (despite knowing that they couldn't) and acting like it was a Moral Event Horizon when Courtney voted for Owen instead, despite him being The Load for the entire episode.
• The Transformers:
  • Subverted with Gears, who complains about everything, but the other Autobots actually like having him around because they find his complaints amusing and his behavior never leads him to trouble. In addition, for all his complaining, he tends to point out legitimate flaws that need to be addressed and fixed, and sometimes it's things they hadn't actually thought of until he brought it up. In fact, the one time he was content and helpful it was because the Decepticons were controlling him.
  • Played straight with Huffer — unlike Gears, he's just whiny.
  • Zigzagged with Starscream, whose constant complaints about Megatron's leadership often gave the Autobots an opening for victory. However, his complaining sometimes did indeed point out legitimate flaws in Megatron's plans — in the opening episodes, for instance, Starscream is the only one to think of trying to destroy the Ark that still contained the defunct Autobots before getting yelled at by Megatron.
• Rankin/Bass's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas takes the Santa Claus myth in a creepy direction. A know-it-all preteen mouse writes a letter in the paper saying that Santa is a myth and signs it 'All of Us', meaning him and his friends. Santa decides not to deliver presents to the whole town, even though the very concept of a naughty/nice list means he could easily tell who the offender was. Everyone decides they have to build Santa a giant, expensive clock as a peace offering so he'll come visit. The mouse who started the whole mess is then taken on a tour of the town by his father to show how he "ruined everyone's Christmas with [his] opinions" and "doesn't know as much as [he] thinks [he does]."
• Unikitty!: Subverted — Unikitty and the others have a tendency to brush off Richard's complaints of various situations, purely because they think his ideas are "boring". In the end, being the eldest, the wisest, and the most serious, Richard is the one in the right, forcing the others to relent with much hesitation and agree with him.
• W.I.T.C.H.: There are some moments where they take The Power of Friendship a bit too far, where the moral feels like "if someone is your friend, the two of you must agree on everything and do everything together." Their Limited Social Circle makes it even worse. And you can bet that half of the time, the victim of this is going to be Cornelia.

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