Plenty of incompetent guards to go around in Western Animation television series!
- Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers had several examples of Queenie's Mooks being either thoroughly incompetent... or very competent, Depending on the Writer. With the first examples, Doc could hijack their communicator signals and pull lines of BS on them ("New Frontier," "Badge of Power"), sending them on a wild goose chase... or right into Goose's blasters. The more competent ones, like in "Tortuna", could be bribed or needed to be fought.
- Subverted in the Adventures of the Gummi Bears episode when trolls are holding the Gummi hostage in Gummi Glen, to force the colony to recover a treasure hidden in a tree they uprooted and put in Castle Dunwin. Unfortunately, when Gummis get to the tree they find it empty, because the castle guards were apparently smart enough to discover the treasure and moved it to the castle treasury.
- Adventure Time: The Banana Guards who are supposed to protect the Candy Kingdom are not particularly bright. In "Root Beer Guy" they completely ignored a resident (the eponymous Root Beer Guy) who claimed Princess Bubblegum had been kidnapped, preferred to watch reality TV shows over the surveillance tapes that clearly showed her being kidnapped, and only responded to Root Beer Guy when he claimed he was taking a boat out after 8:00. Fortunately, it was all just a test to determine the efficiency of the Banana Guards; Root Beer Guy, who was the only one following the clues, became the new captain of the guard.
- Amphibia: In "True Colors", the toad soldiers holding King Andrias captive are easily distracted by Hop Pop putting on an improvised one-frog performance.
- The guards of the "high security" prison in the Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes "The Boiling Rock". Sokka and Zuko somehow obtain uniforms and pass themselves off as newbies. The Alone-with-Prisoner Ploy occurs in the first of the two episodes. Strangely enough, Zuko slips up and is caught — but Sokka, who was the one alone with Suki, isn't suspected at all. Later on, Sokka pulls up his mask and goes to the side to talk to two prisoners. They're obviously not hiding particularly well because they are caught... by another prisoner. Somewhat justified in that without having a miniature zeppelin they would never have gotten in. Identity would only have to be checked at the entrance and exit. Even if someone did get a guard's uniform, there is only one exit and presumably, they DO check guards leaving.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Played With in the episode "Domes of Doom". Bleak puts Suchi in a cage, ties Ma-Ti up and strips him of his ring. However, he sets the cage near enough that Suchi can untie his master, and leaves the ring in the same room.
- DuckTales (1987):
- Used and slightly lampshaded in an episode where Huey, Dewey, and Louie are imprisoned in a room with a guard looking in at them once every hour or so. While two of the identical triplets work on the means of their escape, the third one sits in front of a trifold mirror, giving the impression — sort of — that there are three boys sitting there. Lampshaded in that one of the boys asks whether the guard won't notice that they're all wearing the same clothes, only to be told by the one devising the plan that "he's so tired, he's not going to care WHAT we're wearing, just so long as there's three of us." Improbably, this turns out to be true.
- They mess with the guards again in a Disney Adventures comic when the Beagle Boys are trying to break in to Scrooge's new voice-identification safe (one member of the gang can imitate Scrooge's voice) and leave Burger Beagle behind to guard the tied-up nephews. Correctly reasoning that Burger's gluttony far outweighs his intelligence, the kids begin to "casually" discuss how great it would be to have a cheeseburger, which they discuss in mouthwatering detail. Since this is, of course, Burger's Trademark Favorite Food, he just has to leave the room to go get a cheeseburger, telling his captives to "stay right there." Then the kids, being Junior Woodchucks, easily untie the knotted ropes around them, which the Beagle Boys were too sloppy in tying anyway.
- In the Earthworm Jim episode "Conqueror Worm", Jim, Peter, and Snot have to get Jim's supersuit back from the labs where it was put after Jim was arrested, (It Makes Sense in Context) but first have to get past the security guards!... Which they stroll right past. The sight of a giant worm, talking dog, and living booger spurs only one reaction from the guards.Guard: [on phone] Hello, DNA lab? Whatever you guys are doing in there— Cut it out!
- Parodied in Family Guy, where a Cutaway Gag has the ease of a situation being compared to escape from Canadian Alcatraz. Cue the scene where an inmate simply walks up to a guard and asks if he can leave through this door. The guard simply says sure, just be back before bedtime, and letting the inmate leave.
- Played with in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero episode "Grey Hairs and Growing Pains". When the Joes pretend to be civilian customers for Cobra's health spa, they are recognized immediately, and the Cobra agents play along and then trap them. Later, after the Joes get turned into old people and children, they pretend to be a family on a road trip and get into a Cobra base by asking the guard for directions and then for a bathroom. Once inside, they are immediately recognized again. Serpentor orders Dr. Mindbender to arrest the front guard for his incompetence.
- The Hey Arnold! episode "Field Trip" featured a night-guard at an aquarium who was too busy feeding and/or pestering the animals cookies to notice Arnold and his grandmother coming in and leaving with a homesick sea turtle.
- The DC Animated Universe had at least a couple examples of these, both of which became a Double Subversion:
- Part one of the Justice League episode "Injustice for All" involves Lex Luthor breaking himself and the Ultra-Humanite out of prison. The latter is stated to be a model prisoner, having accrued quite a few privileges and "necessities" during his stint there, but the guards still don't take chances with him or the other prisoners. A retina scanner is the only way into the cells, and when Humanite asks the guards to bring over his dinner, claiming to be unwell, they immediately draw their truncheons on the off chance it's a ruse. This being the Ultra-Humanite, however, they don't take into account that part of the floor has been electrified enough to render them unconscious right as they wheel the food over it, giving Humanite and Luthor the chance they need to escape.
- Then, in the Batman Beyond episode "Betrayal", two Red Shirt guards come across a prison transport lying in the road, and have the following exchange:Guard 1: I've seen month old fish that smelled better than this.
Guard 2: Could be for real. Somebody might be hurt.
Guard 1: All right. Go check. [tosses large gun to other guard] Here. In case it's a fish.
Guard 2: [humoring him] Right. [deciding to be a little savvy himself] Lock up after me.
Guard 1: You don't have to remind me. [locks cab]note
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Played with in "It's About Time". Twilight sneaks into the private library of the palace and does a VERY poor job of staying hidden, yet the guards are completely oblivious to her. She finally gets caught trying to open the door to the library, and the guard greets her politely and unlocks the door. Since Twilight is the protégé of Princess Celestia, she's always welcome in the palace and library — the guards were just ignoring her.
- During "A Bird in the Hoof", a pet phoenix, dying of old age (therefore incredibly obvious because featherless) manages to trick Celestia's own Praetorian Guard while they are putting up Wanted posters with that bird's face on. Twilight and Fluttershy aren't any better.
- The Season 2 Finale has the entire Royal Guard up and underarms because they were tipped off that something bad is going to happen. But when it does happen, they are apparently still surprised enough to be overrun without putting up as much as a fight. Let's just face it: these guys do not do good at their job.
- In "Rarity Investigates!", a stranger offering them a cake is enough to get three guards to desert their post to eat it. As a result, Rainbow Dash gets framed for a crime.
- In "Sparkle's Seven", despite Shining Armor's efforts to ramp up the security of the castle, the royal guards still aren't sterling examples of vigilance. Even discounting Zephyr Breeze (whom Luna assigned with the expectation he'd fail anyway), the other guards are easily falling for distractions — twice, by "Apple Chord"'s singing and then by Pinkie Pie's party. Also, one guard getting his medal stolen — which is the key to the doors of the castle — isn't noticed nor immediately reported. And another guard is easily fooled by Rarity's Paper-Thin Disguise when she pretends being here to relieve him.
- Season 9 has a very glaring example in "Frenemies" where Grogar sends three ex-big bads, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow, to retrieve his bell so the former can restore his full power. On the mountain the bell is being held, a lone guard, Rusty Bucket, encounters Cozy and completely fails to note her seemingly being on her own without any guardians. Even after she throws a huge temper tantrum, Rusty at most just feels bummed when Cozy leaves and tells him that she never wanted to be friends in the first place. Even later, when Cozy brings back Tirek and Chrysalis in tow, Rusty seemingly doesn't think to inform the princesses about three highly dangerous criminals being on the loose.
- Nina Needs to Go! has a scene where Nina and her grandmother set off an alarm by going into a not-allowed area on the way to the bathroom. One guard asks if they should stop them, and another replied: "Nah when you gotta go, you gotta go". In addition to this being dumb, how was he supposed to know they were on their way to the bathroom?
- The Owl House:
- In ''Agony of a Witch", two teenagers and a preteen manage to sneak through the Emperor's Castle using nothing but low level magic and disguises without anyone being aware of their presence until Luz accidentally sets off the security in the relic room.
- Justified in "O Titan, Where Art Thou". The Day of Unity is such a big event that the Emperor's Coven members are running themselves ragged to prepare for it. Thus, despite the poor quality of Eda and Luz's costumes, no one really raises any alarms until their argument about Luz going with Raine gets loud enough for someone to notice. And it's completely averted when Eda and Luz are caught; they are chained and their cell is guarded by lots of guards and Abomatons.
- With incompetent guards like Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey (a.k.a. the Goofy Guards from the Peter Potamus show), who needs villains? What did the king ever do to deserve them?
- In the second episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch Cut Lawquaine and his family are boarding a heavily guarded shuttle off-planet using fake chain codes. Cut manages to make it to the boarding ramp before one of the clone troopers recognizes his face, only managing to escape after Force 99's nearby firefight attracts more attention.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- In "Heroes on Both Sides", Clone Commander Fox ends up letting a squad of Separatist sabotage droids in, allowing them destroy a power plant on Coruscant. He could be forgiven as they were disguised as sweeper droids, but they still didn't know which way the power plant they were assigned to was and we later learn that the workers at said plant didn't even order any sweeper droids at all.
- The Separatist battle droids are even worse in this regard. Padmé notably escapes in "Bombad Jedi" by doing the old fake-out escape trick, which would have failed had any the droids been facing her or bound her legs to the wall as well (granted, the droids were not the ones who built the prison). Even worse, since there are five droids there.
- "Secret Weapons" has a Pit Droid, of all things, convince two Super Battle Droids that he was sent by General Grievous and get them to lock themselves up claiming to it to be part of a drill.
- Star Wars Rebels has several examples of this trope in play by the Empire but, two examples stand out in particular.
- "Rebel Resolve": Two stormtroopers guarding an Imperial shuttle let a courier droid that is clearly Chopper (an outdated model of astromech) on the ship despite the fact that this supposed courier droid's escort is nowhere to found. One of them even points out this out but, their partner just dismisses it.
- "Flight of the Defender" has an even worse example where two stormtroopers guarding the new TIE Defender leave their post to chase after some loth-cats that attacked them despite it not actually injuring them when Grand Admiral Thrawn is due to arrive at any moment. Worse still, they never consider just blasting the things or just trying to scare them off, and are seen later still chasing even when they are well outside the base. Makes you wonder how they even became stormtroopers in the first place.
- Steven Universe: Lampshaded in "The Trial" by Defense Zircon. At the time that she allegedly shattered Pink Diamond, Rose Quartz had been a recognized public enemy for centuries, and there were no other Rose Quartz gems in Pink Diamond's court or entourage. So how did Rose Quartz get close enough to Pink Diamond to shatter her? Why didn't her Sapphires see Rose coming? Why didn't her Agates try to fight Rose Quartz off? Shouldn't her Pearl at least have been able to sound the alarm? It is later revealed there's a very good reason for this.
- The Trope was played with in Stroker and Hoop, when Stroker has to knock a guard out to get deeper into a complex. After dressing as the guard, he gets into the next room where the guard is seemingly fooled by Stroker holding a clipboard over his face and using a bad falsetto. The guard isn't fooled for a second, asking Stroker if he thinks he's some kind of idiot. Stroker complains that the guard should have been reading a skin mag or watching a sports game instead of monitoring the camera feeds, causing the guard to retort "Hey, I happen to like my job."
- Subverted in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012). When April feigns a stomachache, the Kraang guard immediately spots (and stops) her father from sneaking away, and isn't affected when April attacks him (being a robot and all).
- The Transformers episode "The Quintesson Journal" has Blaster and Outback convincing a Sharkticon guard to deactivate the bars on their cell by bribing him with an energon cube. Once the bars are gone, the guard is promptly shot, because someone forgot to take the Autobots' weapons before locking them up.Blaster: Was that as easy as I thought it was?
- Used, played with, subverted and lampshaded frequently in The Venture Brothers, most often through the misadventures of Number 21 and Number 24, two guards who somehow manage to survive the carnage of the series, and give plausible voice to the wit and social skills necessary for career henchmen.
