History AllForNothing / WesternAnimation

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'' reboot [[spoiler: [[Characters/Ducktales2017BradfordBuzzard Bradford Buzzard]]]] spent ''decades'' putting numerous plans in action to make Scrooge [=McDuck=] lose his passion for adventuring and (as [[spoiler:Bradford]] sees it,) wasting profits on it, culminating in him forcing Scrooge to sign a MagicallyBindingContract written on the Papyrus of Binding that says he'll forego it, with Scrooge having no choice but to abide by it, but then the triplets find one loophole in the contract that makes the contract null and void and the Papyrus dissolves, meaning all [[spoiler:Bradford's]] efforts were meaningless in the end. Then Magica turns him into [[NonAnthropromicTransformation a non-sapient animal]], to add insult to injury.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'' reboot [[spoiler: [[Characters/Ducktales2017BradfordBuzzard Bradford Buzzard]]]] spent ''decades'' putting numerous plans in action to make Scrooge [=McDuck=] lose his passion for adventuring and (as [[spoiler:Bradford]] sees it,) wasting profits on it, culminating in him forcing Scrooge to sign a MagicallyBindingContract written on the Papyrus of Binding that says he'll forego it, with Scrooge having no choice but abide by it, but then the triplets find one loophole in the contract that makes the contract null and void and the Papyrus dissolves, meaning all [[spoiler:Bradford's]] efforts were meaningless in the end. Then Magica turns him into a non-sapient animal, to add insult to injury.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'' reboot [[spoiler: [[Characters/Ducktales2017BradfordBuzzard Bradford Buzzard]]]] spent ''decades'' putting numerous plans in action to make Scrooge [=McDuck=] lose his passion for adventuring and (as [[spoiler:Bradford]] sees it, wasting profits on it, culminating in him forcing Scrooge to sign a contract saying he'll give it up on the Papyrus of Binding, which forces Scrooge to abide by it with magic, but then the triplets find one loophole in the contract that makes the contract null and void and the Papyrus dissolves, meaning all [[spoiler:Bradford's]] efforts were meaningless in the end. Then Magica turns him into a non-sapient animal, to add insult to injury.

--->'''Olive:''' ''(after seeing that her fish pet is crying in its bowwl)'' Oh, the poor little fish. Cooped up in that small bowl. I'm gonna set him free. ''(Olive then releases her pet fish back into the ocean)''\\

-->'''Olive:''' ''(yells in disbelief and panic after she is tied up with rope with a lifesaver on top of the rope)''\\
-->'''Popeye:''' ''(grabs and pulls Olive up while she struggles to move with rope tied up around her body and twirling around her legs, then tosses Olive from the ship into the water, Olive makes a huge splash that gets her all wet after being tossed into water while tied up with rope and having a lifesaver around her shoulders, Popeye then returns to do his chores, feeling satisfied about Olive's comeuppance)''\\
-->'''Olive:''' ''(starts drowning and struggles to keep herself afloat while distressingly pleading for Popeye to take the ropes off her and rescue her from drowning)'' Popeye, I wanna take the ropes off.\\
-->'''Popeye:''' ''(ignores Olive's pleas to rescue her from drowning while happily singing and doing his chores)'' You can bet your last nickel that women is fickle. Says Popeye the Sailor Man! ''(Popeye then whistles with his pipe)''

--->'''Louie:''' According to this, Scrooge can be with his family as long as he doesn't adventure.\\

-->'''Olive:''' (after seeing that her fish pet is crying in it's aquarium) Oh, the poor little fish. Cooped up in that small bowl. I'm gonna set him free. (Olive then releases her pet fish back into the ocean)
-->'''Popeye:''' (shocked and outraged) What? What? (angry) Hey. Oh, well, blow me down. (Popeye ties up Olive by wrapping her up in ropes from top of her shoulders to the bottom part of her skirt) Can you beat that?
-->'''Olive:''' (yells in disbelief and panic after she is tied up with rope with a lifesaver on top of the rope)
-->'''Popeye:''' (grabs and pulls Olive up while she struggles to move with rope tied up around her body and twirling around her legs, then tosses Olive from the ship into the water, Olive makes a huge splash that gets her all wet after being tossed into water while tied up with rope and having a lifesaver around her shoulders, Popeye then returns to do his chores, feeling satisfied about Olive's comeuppance)
-->'''Olive:''' (starts drowning and struggles to keep herself afloat while distressingly pleading for Popeye to take the ropes off her and rescue her from drowning) Popeye, I wanna take the ropes off.
-->'''Popeye:''' (ignores Olive's pleas to rescue her from drowning while happily singing and doing his chores) You can bet your last nickel that women is fickle. Says Popeye the sailorman (Popeye then whistles with his pipe).

* Invoked and averted in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE18BewareTheGrayGhost" Beware the Gray Ghost"]], where actor Simon Trent, who played the titular character of the ShowInAShow "Beware the Gray Ghost", believes that the series ruined his career -- only to find out one of its fans, and someone inspired by the character, was Batman himself, leading to realize "So it wasn't all for nothing."

** "Females is Fickle" -- There's a reason the cartoon in question is called that. Olive's pet goldfish jumps in the sea, and she makes Popeye go in after him. After he goes through a lot of trouble to get him back, Olive decides the fish would be happier freed and tosses him back in the sea. Outraged about how his pursuit turned out to be for nothing, Popeye then decides to give Olive her comeuppance in form of tying her up by wrapping her in ropes and tossing her over the side of the ship (but with a lifesaver on) into the water. After being tossed in a water tied up and making a huge splash, Olive starts struggling to keep herself afloat and distressingly pleads for Popeye to take the ropes off her, but Popeye completely ignores Olive's pleas to rescue her from drowning as he already returned to do his chores and sing happily.

** "Females is Fickle" -- There's a reason the cartoon in question is called that. Olive's pet goldfish jumps in the sea, and she makes Popeye go in after him. After he goes through a lot of trouble to get him back, Olive decides the fish would be happier freed and tosses him back in the sea. Enraged, Popeye throws her into the sea as well. Females is fickle, indeed.

* In the special "The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig", all the ''{{WesternAnimation/Mixels}}'' had spent the entirety of the episode fighting with each other for a special treasure, only for the treasure to turn out to be a rusty old egg-beater. Worse yet, the whole treasure hunt had been just a scam deployed by the Nixels to trap all the Mixels.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePatrickStarShow'': In "[[Recap/ThePatrickStarShowS2E1ThePatrickShowCashesInStarGames The Patrick Show Cashes In]]", the money the family makes through selling [[MyLittlePanzer clearly dangerous merchandise]] ends up being accidentally shredded by Patrick. However, the Stars [[AnAesop take a lesson from it]]: [[AwesomeDearBoy it doesn't matter how much money you make or how many toys you sell, as long as you're having fun making a show that people enjoy]].

* ''WesternAnimation/Primal2019'': The Chieftain's revenge against Spear and Fang ultimately costed him far more than he could've gained. [[spoiler:By accepting the demon's offer, he had damned his soul so that he would never be able to ascend to Valhalla and reunite with his fallen family and friends, the very people he sought to avenge. His revenge was also ultimately unsuccessful since he failed to kill Fang or Mira before he was forcibly DraggedToHell by his new master. Although he managed to kill Spear, the caveman was able to father Mira's daughter on his deathbed, meaning his legacy still lived on while the Chieftain's was no more.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': The big Zodiac wheel with the ten symbols ultimately ends up as this in the GrandFinale. When TheChosenMany stand on their symbols and begin generating the human-powered circuit to destroy Bill Cipher, Stan, the one remaining, refuses until he urges Ford to say thank you for rescuing him. Ford obliges, Stan joins, and it looks like the circuit will work... but then Ford corrects Stan on his grammar, causing the two to break the circuit and argue as Dipper and Mabel try to stop them, and Bill, no longer distracted, arrives and destroys the Zodiac, turns anyone who isn't a Pines into tapestries, and continues his reign from there.

** In episode "Officer Mikey", Mikey Blumberg wants to become a safety ranger, but was rejected by the captain, crushing him since becoming a safety ranger was his dream. So Mikey's friends try to help him, and after an extensive ChainOfDeals, they succeed in getting him on the squad. The gang goes to school happy they made Mikey's dream come true, only to find that he'd already quit less than a day in because he found it to be too hard. Mikey then tells his friends he has a new dream of being a jet pilot; [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere they leave while he's busy talking.]]

* In the special "The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig" all the ''{{WesternAnimation/Mixels}}'' had spent the entirety fighting with each other for a special treasure, only for the treasure being just a rusty old egg-beater. Worse yet the whole treasure had been just a scam deployed by the Nixels to trap all the Mixels.

* In the special "The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig" all the ''{{WesternAnimation/Mixels}}'' had spent the entirety fighting with eachother for a special treasure, only for the treasure being just a rusty old egg-beater. Worse yet the whole treasure had been just a scam deployed by the Nixels to trap all the Mixels.

* In the special “The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig” all the ''WesternAnimation/Mixels'' had spent the entirety fighting with eachother for a special treasure, only for the treasure being just a rusty old egg-beater. Worse yet the whole treasure had been just a scam deployed by the Nixels to trap all the Mixels.

** In "WesternAnimation/TweetAndSour", Sylvester has tried to eat Tweety too many times that Granny has threatened to have him turned into violin strings if he is caught doing so again. However, Sam the Cat has plans of his own for the canary and is uncaring that Sylvester will be deemed responsible for Tweety's disappearance. Sylvester manages to successfully [[EnemyMine protect Tweety from Sam]], but this effort turns out to be in vain when Granny comes home and he tries putting Tweety ''back'' in his cage, and Granny, thinking he was after the canary again, promises to make good on her threat.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' special "And Then There Were Fewer", Diane's plan for revenge was to kill James Woods, her ex, and frame it on Tom Tucker, her former co-anchor, with the deaths of a few side and recurring characters as by-products of the plan. In the end, the main goals of her scheme were for naught as Tom was cleared of the framing and it was revealed later on that James Woods was revived by top-secret Hollywood medicine, meaning the only things she accomplished were killing a few recurring characters, with her herself being killed by Stewie [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou to save Lois]] [[HeKnowsTooMuch who learned about Diana's plot]].

** ''[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS05E26RecreationTheLastDayPart2 Re-creation: The Last Day]]'': [[spoiler:After five seasons of keeping the Earrings and the Ring from Hawkmoth[=/=]Shadow Moth[=/=]Monarch, Marinette wields both of them to finally bring the BigBad down and recover the other Miraculous... and not only does Hawk Moth manage to take them after taking a cheap shot at her and make the Wish, he gets remembered as a hero for "sacrificing himself to stop Monarch" - and the Butterfly falls into Lila's hands.]]

** By "[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS05E23Revolution Revolution]]", [[Characters/MiraculousLadybugChloeBourgeois Chloé Bourgeois]]'s karma finally crash down on her after several years of bothering other characters and getting away with it: After being permanently replaced as the Bee wielder by her own half-sister, Chloe's akumatization into Queen Mayor turns her into the most hated person in Paris, her father, whom she's been treating like garbage most of her life, finally grows a spine and disowns her while sending her away to New York with her mother, and Sabrina, the ''one'' actual friend she had in her life, decides enough is enough and cuts ties with her permanently. Chloe's basically left all alone with no friends, no power, no influence, and not even a parental figure with her life, as Audrey makes it clear she's ''not'' going to make Chloe's stay in New York a pleasant experience.
** ''[[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS05E26RecreationTheLastDayPart2 Re-creation: The Last Day]]'': [[spoiler:After five seasons of keeping the Earrings and the Ring from Hawkmoth[=/=]Shadow Moth[=/=]Monarch, Marinette wields both of them to finally bring the BigBad down and recover the other Miraculous... and not only does Hawkmoth manage to take them after taking a cheap shot at her and make the Wish, he gets remembered as a hero for "sacrificing himself to stop Monarch" - and the Butterfly falls into Lila's hands.]]