History FreudianExcuse / WesternAnimation

* ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'': [[spoiler:Obake, the BigBad of Season 1]] got brain damage to the part of the brain responsible for regulating [[LackOfEmpathy empathy]]. On top of that, he was taught that [[TheUnfettered a genius shouldn't have limits]] and refuses to treat his condition, viewing emotions as a hindrance.

* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja'': Doug decided to become a tattletale back when he was six years old and Marci berated him for not telling her on Randy and Howard as soon as he saw them sneaking out of her day care center.

*** The same abuse caused Adora to have a serious GuiltComplex and a need to justify her existence. Since she grew up being constantly told that Catra's actions were her responsibility, she grows overly protective of her friends, frequently stifling them out of a desire to help and protect them. Being constantly put on a pedestal in an enviroment that does not tolerate failure also means that she feels she needs to live up to everyone's expectations, or else she has failed. This guilt complex is so extreme that when someone finally asks what ''she'' wants, the only thing she can say is "what's best for Etheria".

->'''Malory''': He'll be back! Crying for his mommy! Just like that Christmas break when I moved and forgot to give my new address to his stupid boarding school. I mean, he rode the train into the city all by himself; he couldn't pick up a phone book? Nine years old and bawling in that police station like a little girl! Huh -- what's that tell you?''
->'''Cheryl''': ''Kind of a lot, actually.''

* Subverted in Ruby-Spears' ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'', in the first episode: Wily mentions having a less than perfect childhood -- then goes right on to working on Protoman, expounding on a different subject. The show never brings it up again, implying that Wily's bid to take over the world is simply due to his villainous nature, not this trope.

** King Andrias is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[spoiler:Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon, which is actually Main/Foreshadowing and does happen, but it does deeply effect him when he thinks [[spoiler: Leif betrayed him and ran away, which was only made worse by his father being a Main/ManipulativeBastard.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/Amphibia'':

* ''Main/Amphibia'':
** King Andrias is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[spoiler:Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon, which eventually [[Main/Foreshadowing] does happen], but it does deeply effect him when he thinks [[spoiler: Leif betrayed him and ran away, which was only made worse by his father being a Main/ManipulativeBastard.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/Amphibia'':
** [[spoiler:King Andrias]] is an example of this, being manipulated by his father. Shortly after gaining power, [[spoiler:Andrias's friend Leif]] has a vision after touching the [[AncientArtifact Calamity Box]], Leif has a [[Spoiler: Doomsday vision of the world being destroyed by the moon.]]

** Even ''[[RealityWarper Discord]]'' has one. Turns out the guy has never had a single friend in his entire life, so he fails to understand the value and even ''[[EvilCannotComprehendGood concept]]'' of friendship and thinks of others as little more than playthings for his own amusement. It's the realization that acting that way will cost him the only friend he's ever had [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn that makes him promise to use his magic only for good.]] [[ReformedButNotTamed Mostly.]]

** Even ''[[RealityWarper Discord]]'' has one. Turns out the guy has never had a single friend in his entire life, so he fails to understand the value and even ''[[EvilCannotComprehendGood concept]]'' of friendship and thinks of others as little more than playthings for his own amusement. It's the realization that acting that way will cost him the only friend he's ever had [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn that makes him promise to use his magic only for good.]] [[ReformedButNotTamed Mostly.]] We also found out in "Discordant Harmony" that he will disappear if he's no longer chaotic.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'': [[spoiler: Obake, the BigBad of Season 1]] got brain damage to the part of the brain responsible for regulating [[LackOfEmpathy empathy]]. On top of that, he was taught that [[TheUnfettered a genius shouldn't have limits]] and refuses to treat his condition, viewing emotions as a hindrance.

* Played with by [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Demona]], one of the two main villains on ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. She has certainly endured more than her fair share of misery over the centuries, and [[HumansAreBastards a lot of it seems to be the fault of the humans,]] thereby setting up her [[FantasticRacism motivation]] nicely. Closer inspection, though, reveals that ''Demona herself'' directly or indirectly caused all of her own suffering, with the humans sometimes large players, but sometimes just scapegoats. It's implied that Demona is aware of this (and of her own evil) on some level... pity she's the queen of the IgnoredEpiphany. This trope is outright averted with the other main villain, [[MagnificentBastard Xanatos]], who by all accounts had an idyllic childhood but wound up a wealthy DiabolicalMastermind anyway. [[AffablyEvil And yet he's still not entirely unsympathetic]].

** Parodied with Doctor Psycho himself. When he was a kid, he always wanted to ride the Ferris wheel but he was too short and his mother told him to be patient and he'll big enough next time. As time goes on, [[DepravedDwarf he still hasn't grown big enough to ride the Ferris wheel]]. Then one day, the Ferris wheel collapses with people still on it and he felt satisfied watching all those people die and it was on that day he decided to hate women. [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse It makes no sense and even Darkseid isn't sure how those two things are supposed to connect]].

* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' explains through various {{flashback}}s and implications why Benson is such a MeanBoss with one of the worst {{Hair Trigger Temper}}s in the history of WesternAnimation: He was very quiet and meek when he was a boy until his parents explicitly taught him to raise his voice to get things done, even when it came to passing the salt. His various flings in his young adulthood ended tragically, and now the only thing he has to pride himself on is his dead-end job as park manager, dealing with a curmudgeonly MeanBoss of his own. Half the reason he is so hard on [[TheSlacker Mordecai and Rigby]] is him venting back the stress he takes from Mr. Maellard, while the other half is because he wants them to clean up their act while they still have the chance and not end up like him.* PlayedForLaughs in an ''Adult Party Cartoon'' episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow''. Ren is an AxCrazy {{Domestic Abuse}}r to Stimpy. He reasons his tendency to be violent with "the first sensation I felt in my life was unspeakable pain. From then on, I wanted to inflict the pain on others!". [[DisproportionateRetribution He was referring to a doctor who slapped him on the butt after his carriage.]]

* Taken UpToEleven in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Stripperella}}'' with the villain Dr. Cesarian who was targeting supermodels.
-->'''Stripperella:''' Why do you hate models so much?
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' Why? Because my whole life beautiful girls have spurned my advances. I vowed that one day I would make them all pay.
-->'''Stripperella:''' So just because--
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' Also, my mother was a model, she ran off when I was five; I declared then and there that I would make all models pay.
-->'''Stripperella:''' But what are--
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' ''Also,'' I once had a promising career as a model. I had a scholarship to go to modeling college and everything, but then I became horribly disfigured in a modeling accident and they said I would never model again and I vowed to make them all pay! Oh-also, my grandparents were killed by models.
-->'''Stripperella:''' I'll admit, you definitely have some valid reasons for not liking models.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012 The 2012 Ninja Turtles]]'''s version of Baxter Stockman is this, having been picked on and abused by everyone he knows, from school growing up to his co-workers.

-->'''Clover:''' Finally, an evil villain who isn't bitter about being dissed or something.
-->'''Jerry:''' It says here that the Lady Dragon left the video game industry several years ago because they refused to make some of her more eccentric games.
-->'''Clover:''' [[LampshadeHanging Figures.]]

* In previous ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' incarnations, the villains in the monster costumes had viable reasons for donning their disguises. However, in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'', any time excuses are given, they are usually always lame and pitiful, which actually makes them more villainous, especially since they are more dangerous.

** Ty Lee is an incredible flirt and all-around weirdo because she had six other identical sisters and got no attention. Mai grew up a rich only child who had to stay quiet and unemotional so as to not screw up her father's political career. And with the birth of her brother is TheUnFavourite.
** In Ozai's case, it's implied he was TheUnFavourite to his father Azulon. ''The Search'' comic series gives another possible reason why Ozai is abusive to Zuko: [[spoiler:he thinks Zuko is the love child of Ursa and her childhood friend Ikem after reading his wife's letter to Ikem. It turns out that he knew all along that Zuko was his son and the reason why he abused Zuko was he was punishing Ursa for her lie.]]

** Other components to his backstory: he had to wear hand-me-''up'' girls' clothing (his parents were expecting a girl when his younger brother was born), [[ParentalFavoritism his mother loved said brother]] [[TheUnFavourite more than him]], his father loved the dog more than both brothers and named it "[[IHaveNoSon Only Son]]", his only friend (a balloon with a face drawn on it) flew away, his artistic masterpiece was destroyed, his girlfriend left him for a whale, and he was raised by ocelots. Yes, ''all of that''.

** Ty Lee is an incredible flirt and all-around weirdo because she had six other identical sisters and got no attention. Mai grew up a rich only child who had to stay quiet and unemotional so as to not screw up her father's political career. And with the birth of her brother is TheUnfavorite.
** In Ozai's case, it's implied he was TheUnfavorite to his father Azulon. ''The Search'' comic series gives another possible reason why Ozai is abusive to Zuko: [[spoiler:he thinks Zuko is the love child of Ursa and her childhood friend Ikem after reading his wife's letter to Ikem. It turns out that he knew all along that Zuko was his son and the reason why he abused Zuko was he was punishing Ursa for her lie.]]

** Other components to his backstory: he had to wear hand-me-''up'' girls' clothing (his parents were expecting a girl when his younger brother was born), [[ParentalFavoritism his mother loved said brother]] [[TheUnfavourite more than him]], his father loved the dog more than both brothers and named it "[[IHaveNoSon Only Son]]", his only friend (a balloon with a face drawn on it) flew away, his artistic masterpiece was destroyed, his girlfriend left him for a whale, and he was raised by ocelots. Yes, ''all of that''.

** Other components to his backstory: he had to wear hand-me-''up'' girls' clothing (his parents were expecting a girl when his younger brother was born), [[TheUnfavorite his mother loved said brother more than him]], his father loved the dog more than both brothers and named it "[[IHaveNoSon Only Son]]", his only friend (a balloon with a face drawn on it) flew away, his artistic masterpiece was destroyed, his girlfriend left him for a whale, and he was raised by ocelots. Yes, ''all of that''.

->'''Malory''': He'll be back! Crying for his mommy! Just like that Christmas break when I moved and forgot to give my new address to his stupid boarding school. I mean, he rode the train into the city all by himself; he couldn't pick up a phone book? Nine years old and bawling in that police station like a little girl! Huh - what's that tell you?''

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'':
** The Ice King has one revealed for all of his obsessive princess-kidnapping in the episode "Holly Jolly Secrets". [[spoiler: He obsessively kidnaps princesses in order to replace the "princess" he lost to his sanity degraded by an ArtifactOfDoom, his fiancée Betty, when he used to live in the pre-apocalypse world as Simon Petrikov.]]
** The Magic Man in "Sons of Mars" shown that he used to be a decent, respectable person who had a loving girlfriend named Margles. When Margles passed away, Magic Man became a psychopath, and began to take out his anger on everyone else.
** Lemongrab is miserable all the time because he's the only "socially awkward, sour lemon person" in existence, and he is desperately lonely and longs for someone to understand his strange ways. ([[spoiler:It was only after Princess Bubblegum made him a clone of himself to be his companion that Lemongrab actually became a happy, genuinely nice person. Except not really, as future appearances show when he becomes even worse.]])
** Marceline acts like a rambunctious prankster to distract herself from the fact that she is immortal, and will live long enough to see all of her closest friends die before her very eyes. Not to mention the fact that she has had a troubled past including [[spoiler: Being abandoned during/after the mushroom war and seeing her surrogate father, Simon Petrikov become the crazy Ice King.]]
** Inversion: Finn is a righteous hero because of an experience he had as a baby. He was alone in the woods, crying and stuck to a leaf with his own excrement. Several people passed him by and flat-out ignored his cries. Margaret and Joshua came by and picked him up, took him in, and raised him as their own; thus, Finn developed his ChronicHeroSyndrome. (He still cries when he poops. Thanks for being cool, guys.) However, he still has a great deal of personal problems such as locking traumatic moments into a mental vault. Having been a hero since 12 or younger and only having his adoptive older brother as a mentor doesn't help with dealing with the possibility of being the last human, especially since as he grows older, he won't have anyone who can help him with more complex matters.
** In "I Am a Sword", Bandit Princess explains that she turned to a life of crime because she was born with rabies and her parents didn't love her because somehow they both had mononucleosis.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** The villainous Prince Zuko was raised in a nightmarish, back-stabbing court where his sister was always more successful and favored, his once-renowned war hero uncle breaks down after losing his son in battle only to later lose his place on the throne, his [[MysteriousParent mother killed his grandfather the night she disappeared]] in order to keep her husband from killing Zuko, and his [[WellDoneSonGuy father]] not only publicly ridiculed him when giving him his trademark [[GoodScarsEvilScars scar]] and banishment from home, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking but is voiced by Mark Hamill]]. Let the ''Franchise/StarWars'' parallels begin! (Even his voice actor couldn't deny it.) And the key motivation of the outburst that got him burned and banished was [[TheMenFirst caring about the common soldiers]] of his father's army and being morally offended by a [[{{Jerkass}} general]] calling new recruits [[WeHaveReserves fresh meat]]. Show traits that could lead you to be a caring leader someday, experience agonizing pain and lose everything you have. Is there such a thing as a Skinnerian Excuse?
** The series finale gives Azula her FreudianExcuse: due to Ozai's [[TykeBomb raising of her]], her mother was distant from her throughout her childhood, leading Azula to believe that she didn't love her and only loved Zuko who, according to her father's teachings, is doing everything wrong and ''shouldn't'' be loved. Her upbringing also gives her her extreme perfectionism, as she's afraid that her father will not love her if she screws up even once. She even {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it in the BeachEpisode, when ''all'' the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad teen villains']] Freudian excuses come out.
---> '''Azula''': My own mother... thought I was a monster. ''[perks up]'' She was right, of course, but it still hurt!
*** Thus, Azula shuns love and lives life making people fear her instead. But when this ends up failing her, and the one person she thought ''did'' love her, her father, turns his back on her despite her doing everything "right", [[VillainousBreakdown the poor girl snaps.]]
*** The tie-in comic "The Search" really makes it worse when you learn that [[spoiler: Because of a fake letter sent out by Ursa claiming Zuko wasn't Ozai's child (he was, the letter was just to see if Ozai was intercepting her letters), Ozai subtly threatened to treat Zuko like he wasn't his own son, which meant he had no qualms of beating or even killing him just to get back at Ursa. Tragically, Ursa knew what Ozai would do; and so she doted and protected Zuko more...which even with perfect justification, still had to have the consequence of neglecting Azula; which fueled Azula's fears that her mother wouldn't love her because she believed her own daughter was a monster.]]
** Ty Lee is an incredible flirt and all-around weirdo because she had six other identical sisters and got no attention. Mai grew up a rich only child who had to stay quiet and unemotional so as to not screw up her father's political career. And with the birth of her brother is TheUnfavorite.
** In Ozai's case, it's implied he was TheUnfavorite to his father Azulon. The Search comic series gives another possible reason why Ozai is abusive to Zuko: [[spoiler:he thinks Zuko is the love child of Ursa and her childhood friend Ikem after reading his wife's letter to Ikem. It turns out that he knew all along that Zuko was his son and the reason he abusive to Zuko was he was punishing Ursa for her lie.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'' has a rather big list of villains who do bad things for something that happened in the past. There was one episode where a lady decided to mind-control all the guys through cologne so that they worshipped her [[DisproportionateRetribution because she was not chosen the prom queen at her high school.]] [[SeriousBusiness Seriously?]]
-->'''Clover:''' Finally, an evil villain who isn't bitter about being dissed or something.
-->'''Jerry:''' It says here that the Lady Dragon left the video game industry several years ago because they refused to make some of her more eccentric games.
-->'''Clover:''' [[LampshadeHanging Figures.]]

** Bloberta herself had issues with her parents. Much like Clay, she got along better with one parent (her father) than her other--her mother who clearly showed ParentalFavoritism toward her other siblings. She was also afraid of never getting married, as everyone around her in a [[TheFifties fifties]]-esque Moralton was.
* In ''[[http://www.questforaheart.com Quest for a Heart]]'', when Millie remarks on Footman's disagreeable personality, the other Rollis tell her that he had a hard childhood. She asks for more details, and they say he had to grow up in a Rolli village in the midst of Rollis.
* Parodied in a Buttons & Mindy short on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Mindy, a curious little toddler, accidentally walks in on a bank robbery...
--> '''Mindy:''' (to one of the robbers) Whatcha doing, Mr. Man?
--> '''Robber:''' What's it look like? We're robbin' the bank!
--> '''Mindy:''' Why?
--> '''Robber:''' 'Cause we're bank robbers!
--> '''Mindy:''' Why?
--> '''Robber:''' 'Cause that's what bad guys do!
--> '''Mindy:''' Why?
--> '''Robber:''' 'Cause maybe our mothers didn't hug us when we was kids!
* Subverted in Ruby-Spears' ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'', in the first episode: Wily mentions having a less than perfect childhood--then goes right on to working on Protoman, expounding on a different subject. The show never brings it up again, implying that Wily's bid to take over the world is simply due to his villainous nature, not this trope.

* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'':
** All of Vlad's evil tendencies were blamed on the pivotal portal experiment in college. But in spite of disfiguring his face, the positives started to pile up after a while. Vlad's [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney insanely rich]], and has super powers. What more could you want? The answer: love. Vlad lost the woman he loved to the one who accidentally caused the accident to start with, and Vlad's been bitter and lonely ever since. {{Deconstruction}} as the excuse is demolished when Danny goes back in time to try and stop the accident. However, circumstances are changed to where ''Jack'' is the victim of the accident. Vlad is married to Maddie and seems to be pretty stable. We later discover that he forbade Maddie from doing ghost-catching and he kept Jack and Maddie from communicating. Ultimately, it shows Jack and Maddie were meant to be together and that Vlad was doomed from his own bitterness.
** Freakshow uses this troop to give an excuse to all the bad things he does. Everyone in his life, including himself, likes ghosts more than him. Being upstaged by ghosts his whole life messed him up but then again he might very well just be insane. Maybe a bit of both. Jazz certainly thinks so, pointing out he has Ghost Envy. Danny exploits this when Freakshow has the 'Reality Gauntlet', causing Freakshow to turn himself into a powerful ghost... and making himself vulnerable to the Fenton Thermos.
** Dan Phantom or Dark Danny, the evil future version of the show's protagonist, is an example of this as well. All of his loved ones (his mom and dad, Jazz, Tucker, and Sam) along with Mr. Lancer were killed in an explosion at the Nasty Burger. Grief stricken, Danny moves in with Vlad, who sympathizes with him. Eventually, Danny can't take the pain anymore, and wants his human emotions removed. Vlad does so, separating Danny's human half and ghost half. Unfortunately, Danny's ghost half proceeded to separate ''Vlad's'' two halves and fuse with his ghost half. The combination became Dan, and he proceeded to go on a rampage, starting by killing his former human half. He then goes back in time [[StableTimeLoop in order to cause the explosion at the Nasty Burger and therefore ensure his own creation]].
* The eponymous Dr. Thaddeus S. 'Rusty' Venture of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' has his horrific upbringing by his father to blame for his {{Jerkass}} tendencies, something that season 3 goes out of its way several times to point out. Several times, it's hinted that Rusty was forced to murder several people in his childhood by his father. That would screw up anyone.
** "That's nothing. My father made me kill a man with a house key once. I was ten!"
** Every single [[MoralEventHorizon horrifying thing]] Dr. Rusty Venture has ever done can be traced back to his just as horrifying childhood; more specifically, his complicated relationship with his father, which has left him with some very odd (and neglectful and abusive) notions about how to play father to his own teenage sons. This trope was played with in "The Doctor is Sin," in which Rusty is forced to relive "the moment that his father went from protector to tormentor/rival," and drawn upon even more heavily in "Assisted Suicide," with Dr. Orpheus entering and traversing Rusty's subconscious mind.
* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' lampshades this in the song "Who's Afraid of a Bully" from the episode "Requiem for a Reality Show".
* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'', why Bumblebee would rather work on his own than to learn the value of teamwork could be attributed to what happened in "Autoboot Camp." His first team was consisted of [[JerkJock jerks]] who went as far as unscrewing his legs then locking him inside a locker. It didn't help that his {{Drill Sergeant|Nasty}} was [[{{Jerkass}} Sentinel Prime]], who took every opportunity to humiliate him. The only ones who didn't treat him like crap were Bulkhead (who he had written off as a hic from the energon farms) and Longarm. Bumblebee eventually warms up to Bulkhead, and takes the heat for him - which boots him out of Sentinel's good graces and gets him demoted to Space Bridge Repair duty (resulting in his Stingers being downgraded to be useless in combat).
* Played with by [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Demona]], one of the two main villains on ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''. She has certainly endured more than her fair share of misery over the centuries, and [[HumansAreBastards a lot of it seems to be the fault of the humans,]] thereby setting up her [[FantasticRacism motivation]] nicely. Closer inspection, though, reveals that ''Demona herself'' directly or indirectly caused all of her own suffering, with the humans sometimes large players, but sometimes just scapegoats. It's implied that Demona is aware of this (and of her own evil) on some level... pity she's the queen of the IgnoredEpiphany. This trope is outright averted with the other main villain, [[MagnificentBastard Xanatos]], who by all accounts had an idyllic childhood but wound up a wealthy DiabolicalMastermind anyway. [[AffablyEvil And yet he's still not entirely unsympathetic]].
* Most, if not all, of Batman's rogues gallery in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', as well as Terry's in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. The only two of Terry's that spring to mind is the "skeleton Joker Gang" guy who attacked Max because she scored higher then him on an SAT, making his ice-queen mom very disappointed in him. There's also the geeky technopath student whose JerkJock dad didn't care either way about him, even after he stole his construction equipment and later buffed up in prison, although his ''particular'' hang-up was over a girl who naturally didn't care about him either.
** For reference, the above two villains of Terry's are, respectively, Terminal and Willy Watt. In the latter's case, his father frequently mocked him for being too much of a "wimp" to stand up to the bullies at school...and when Willy got PsychicPowers, his dad was one of the first ones he tried to kill in retaliation. At the end of the episode, his abusive dad actually seems ''proud'' to see that "at least he's not a wimp anymore".
** A third villain of Terry's who's got a Freudian Excuse is the one-shot villain named Payback. [[spoiler:He's a child wielding PoweredArmor that's designed to make him appear as an adult, whose father (ironically enough, a school counselor) doesn't spend enough time with him due to work, prompting him to get rid of his dad's clients' tormentors in order to free up the man's schedule]].
* Being a show about [[VillainProtagonist supervillains]], AbusiveParents and tragic backstories appear throughout ''WesternAnimation/HarleyQuinn2019'' and are played for both [[PlayedForLaughs laughs]] and [[PlayedForDrama drama]].
** Harley's parents were emotionally abusive throughout her younger years, [[spoiler: and [[OffingTheOffspring try to kill her in the present day]] [[ParentalBetrayal for a bounty]].]]
** ComicBook/PoisonIvy's father was emotionally and physically abusive, belittling her for not having any friends during her OnePersonBirthdayParty on at least one occasion and killing her "pet" ficus before beating her after she [[PrimalScene caught him sleeping with the maid]].
** Doctor Psycho's teenage son Herman angrily lists off the things he did to make his life a living hell such as locking him in the basement, murdering his friends, and [[EmbarrassingFirstName naming him Herman]]. However, the two of them make up after Psycho explains that he did it all in order to make him a better supervillain out of ToughLove.
** Parodied with Doctor Psycho himself. When he was a kid, he always wanted to ride the Ferris wheel but he was too short and his mother told him to be patient and he'll big enough next time. As time goes on, [[DepravedDwarf he still hasn't grown big enough to ride the Ferris wheel]]. Then one day, the Ferris wheel collapses with people still on it and he felt satisfied watching all those people die and it was on that day he decided to hate women. [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse It makes no sense and even Darkseid isn't sure how those two things are supposed to connect]].
** ComicBook/TheJoker, being [[MultipleChoicePast The Joker]], keeps his past a mystery but during a group therapy session at Arkham being asked about his family was enough to [[BerserkButton make him murder the psychologist]] working there before Harley. When Harley questions him on this, he steals Ivy's maid story above but replaces her plant with a ferret (much to Harley's annoyance after discovering this in the present day, as she had bought him ferret paraphernalia for years).
** Kite Man's parents resent him for [[WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent not being born with superpowers like them]] and talk down to him at every opportunity. He put up with their verbal abuse his whole life but finally learns to stand up for himself through Ivy's encouragement.

* Murdoc Niccals, resident {{Jerkass}} of the animated band ''Music/{{Gorillaz}}'', suffered a thoroughly unpleasant childhood at the hands of his father, his brother, various school bullies, and ([[UnreliableNarrator if you believe him]]) the dinner lady who took his virginity when he was nine.
-->"I'm often asked why my behaviour is so crooked now, but it's a lot clearer when you see what manky loins I sprang from. 'Man hands on misery to man', y'know."
* In ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', Eddy's characterization can be summed up as {{Jerkass}}. [[spoiler: That was because he was trying to emulate and impress his {{Domestic Abuse}}r older brother. His breakdown and admission to this led to the others accepting him.]]
* Eustace from ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog''. It turns out that his mother is even worse than him and never liked him as a child. In addition, she favored his older brother Horst over Eustace, the former always rubbed his success in the latter's face, as well as giving him his nickname "Useless". Now we know how Eustace became the selfish {{Jerkass}} he is as an old man. While this doesn't in any way excuse his cruelty towards Courage, you can't help but feel just a little bit sorry for him for what he's been through in his childhood.
* PlayedForLaughs in an ''Adult Party Cartoon'' episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow''. Ren is an AxCrazy {{Domestic Abuse}}r to Stimpy. He reasons his tendency to be violent with "the first sensation I felt in my life was unspeakable pain. From then on, I wanted to inflict the pain on others!". [[DisproportionateRetribution He was referring to a doctor who slapped him on the butt after his carriage.]]
* Virtually every ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' villain there is. Seriously, it would be easier just to list the ones who ''didn't'' complain about everyone laughing at them.
** The most famous is Dr. Drew Lipsky aka Dr. Drakken. Apparently he had a rather twisted childhood, something that he often ranted about, given an offhanded comment Ron said. His breaking point occurred when he attempted to build robotic dates for his friends, which included Kim's dad, Dr. Possible. They laughed him off and he dropped out and became a super-villain. As Dr. P explained, it wasn't a minor chuckle, but laughed and joked about it for days.
** Shego may or may not count. Her shift to evil was because she grew to like it; it's implied that it was also because she was the common sense of her group between her hammy brother (Hego), the one with a complex about his shrinking powers and ego (Mego) and the twins (Wego, whom are presented as the least annoying.)
** Kim's archrival, Bonnie Rockwaller, also qualifies, because in one episode, it's strongly implied that her mean, sour disposition stems from an inferiority complex as a result of her two older sisters (named Connie and Lonnie) looking down on her and possibly overshadowing her, (they claim, "Connie got all ''the brains'', Lonnie got all ''the looks'', and Bonnie got ''the rest''."

* In previous ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' incarnations, the villains in the monster costumes had viable reasons for donning their disguises. However, in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'', any time excuses are given, they are usually always lame and pitiful, which actually makes them more villainous, especially since they are more dangerous.
* In an episode of the ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'', we have this exchange from [[MadScientist Professor]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Monkey-For-A-Head]]:
--> '''Professor Monkey-for-a-Head''' : (Sees a fruit cart) Fruit carts?! I hate fruit carts!!! (The monkey fused to his head mumbles something to him) Why?! I'll tell you why! It's because a fruit cart, a STINKING FRUIT CART, killed my pa!!!
* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' explains through various {{flashback}}s and implications why Benson is such a MeanBoss with one of the worst {{Hair Trigger Temper}}s in the history of WesternAnimation: He was very quiet and meek when he was a boy until his parents explicitly taught him to raise his voice to get things done, even when it came to passing the salt. His various flings in his young adulthood ended tragically, and now the only thing he has to pride himself on is his dead-end job as park manager, dealing with a curmudgeonly MeanBoss of his own. Half the reason he is so hard on [[TheSlacker Mordecai and Rigby]] is him venting back the stress he takes from Mr. Maellard, while the other half is because he wants them to clean up their act while they still have the chance and not end up like him.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Mr. Burns. Despite being an evil, cruel and heartless businessman who has done a lot of evil things, we find out that in his childhood he was a [[CheerfulChild light-hearted and pleasant child]], who was even nicknamed "Happy" because of his pleasant nature and had very loving parents. But his own grandfather, a twisted and heartless millionaire, lured him away from his loving parents and forcibly adopted Burns. His grandfather was a coldhearted businessman who cared only about greed and power, and is directly responsible for transforming Burns from a carefree and pleasant boy to a miserable evil old man. There's also the loss of his teddy bear, Bobo, but that may or may not have actually contributed to it. He ''did'' resolve to change his evil ways once the bear was returned to him, but unfortunately couldn't take note of it since he didn't have a pen handy.
** When [[EnfantTerrible Bart]] was five, [[note]]If you ignore the series' NegativeContinuity that Bart's always a been a bad kid since birth in the earlier seasons.[[/note]]his [[SadistTeacher preschool teacher]] belittled him and verbally abused him to the point that Bart considers [[DrivenToSuicide suicide.]] This probably lead Bart being a troublemaker that we know today.
** Reverend Lovejoy was once a man eager to be a GoodShepherd, but was worn down after years of [[TheFundamentalist Ned Flanders]] coming to him for every last misdemeanor.
** [[BitchInSheepsClothing Jessica Lovejoy]] claims that it was her desire from attention from Reverend Lovejoy that made her act out in a way that frightens [[EvilerThanThou Bart]].
** Homer's mother abandoned him because she was wanted by the law, while his father told him he would never amount to anything.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Apple Bloom's cousin [[TheBully Babs Seed]] was apparently bullied herself, and only became a bully to avoid ridicule from [[AlphaBitch Diamond Tiara]] and [[BetaBitch Silver Spoon]]. Luckily, she [[HeelRealization realized that she's no different]] from the bullies from Manehattan, and [[HeelFaceTurn stopped.]]
** [[MilesGloriosus Trixie]] was revealed to have had her life ruined by the Ursa Minor incident, which left her a laughingstock throughout Equestria and demolished her career (yes, she was a jerk guilty of false advertising, but this is a universe where one can normally WinBackTheCrowd). This drives her to take her {{Revenge}} on those she deems responsible for her suffering (Ponyville, Twilight in particular) and get [[ArtifactOfDoom the Alicorn Amulet]]. [[FromNobodyToNightmare It gets worse from there.]] [[spoiler:After it's removed, [[HeelFaceTurn she regains her sanity and apologizes, leaving on good terms with Twilight.]]]]
** Even ''[[RealityWarper Discord]]'' has one. Turns out the guy has never had a single friend in his entire life, so he fails to understand the value and even ''[[EvilCannotComprehendGood concept]]'' of friendship and thinks of others as little more than playthings for his own amusement. It's the realization that acting that way will cost him the only friend he's ever had [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn that makes him promise to use his magic only for good.]] [[ReformedButNotTamed Mostly.]] We also found out in "Discordant Harmony" that he will disappear if he's no longer chaotic.]]
** Then, there's Starlight Glimmer. The creation of "Our Town" and getting the ponies there to surrender their Cutie Marks to be "equal" was because [[spoiler:as a filly, her best friend Sunburst gained his Cutie Mark, then disappeared for Celestia's school. Because of this, she feared of making any other friends because another Cutie Mark or even another ''difference'' could cause it to be ruined]].
** The aforementioned Diamond Tiara turns out to have her own issues leading to her being such a jerk. The big one is Spoiled Rich, her [[AbusiveParents unloving, unforgiving tyrant of a mother]].
** Discord, in his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Tirek, implies that Tirek thirsts for power because he feels [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex inferior to his Father]], king Vorak.

* One episode of ''Belphegor'' hints the titular character had suffered a great loss in the past - the death of someone close to him due to a passenger plane crashing. Said plane was sabotaged by a general in order to kill just one man on board, who was transporting plans for a new weapon. The episode doesn't fully explain the incident and exactly who was the person close to Belphegor that died, but WordOfGod confirms this was what caused his transformation into an unfeeling criminal, detached from the rest of the world, constantly provoking life and living on the edge.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** Parodied with Stewie Griffin, whose Freudian excuse is that he was trapped in a prison for the first several months of his life. The name of the prison? "The Womb". Simultaneously subverted; he was implied to be already evil as a ''sapient sperm cell!''
** Played straighter with Peter, that not only that his mother is negligent but his stepfather was abusive towards him. His sister Karen always abused and picked on him really bad to the point that years later, Peter take his pain out on his only daughter Meg. The worst thing is that Peter's parents didn't do anything to stop Karen from picking on him.
** Also parodied in one sketch which suggests that the evil monkey who torments Chris was once a regular dude until he walked home from work one day and found his wife in bed with another monkey, then he started living in Chris' closet after losing everything. It is revealed he points at people to strike up a conversation, suffers from a copper deficiency which explains why his arm shakes, and the sinister expression is merely the face he makes while he's thinking.
** Lois' brother Patrick became "the Fat Guy Strangler" after witnessing his mother have an affair with Creator/JackieGleason.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
** Crocker wants to destroy all fairies due to losing his own fairies as a child. And do you know who was responsible for this? [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Timmy Turner]]. To be fair, though, he tried to prevent it from happening, which failed miserably. May or may not be an example of StableTimeLoop. Timmy went back in time to prevent it, but ended up causing it anyway (the original circumstances were hinted to be Cosmo's stupidity.) However, Crocker ended up gaining his obsessions with fairies and a working scanner with fairy DNA (which he lacked in the present timeline, meaning that the past was changed, albeit only the circumstances, with the outcome being the same.))
** Remy Buxaplenty is a LonelyRichKid in the extreme: his parents are so money-obsessed that they spend only two minutes a day with him and can't even remember his name. His stunts during his first appearance are partly for attention, and partly out of hatred of Timmy, stemming from the fact that Timmy has regular parents ''and'' godparents that both care about him.
** Parodied with Vicky in one episode where she and Timmy end up trapped together in an icy mountain cave: the predicament causes her to have a VillainousBreakdown followed by a temporary HeelFaceTurn, during which there's a brief scene of her lying on a psychiatrist's couch, explaining her life story to Timmy (who, for bonus points, is actually dressed as Sigmund Freud).
--->'''Vicky:''' --then, when I was eight, my parents said my turtle ran away... but he didn't run away. [''cue OcularGushers''] TURTLES CAN'T RUN!!
*** Interestingly, Vicky may actually have a ''legitimate'' FreudianExcuse: the episode that shows Crocker's backstory also reveals he was tormented by a babysitter named Vic, who is heavily implied to be Vicky's father. If he treated Vicky half as bad as he treated Crocker, then it's no wonder she turned out the way she did.
** In a BadFuture, losing the race and the love of his life caused Mr. Turner to go into denial. As dictator, [[HappinessIsMandatory he demands everyone else do the same.]]
* ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012 The 2012 Ninja Turtles]]'''s version of Baxter Stockman is this, having been picked on and abused by everyone he knows, from school growing up to his co-workers.
* On ''Toys/EverAfterHigh'', Apple White is honest, polite, kind and public-spirited in every way except one, that she refuses to accept that anyone destined for an evil or tragic fate has the right to try to avoid it or even that anyone with a destined romance can pick someone else. This arises out of a childhood trauma which gives her a great dread of an uncertain future.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'':
** Ms. Helga G. Pataki, ooh boy. Ever since she was a little girl, she has always lived in her older sister's shadow and hardly got any attention from her parents. One day, because her parents were too busy listening to Olga play the piano, she walked herself to and from preschool, had her lunchbox stolen by a dog and fell in a mud puddle. The only one nice to her on that day? [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe Arnold, who complimented her bow and held out his umbrella for her]]. The next day, after Harold stole her crackers, he gave her his. Then all the kids started laughing at her when she fawned over him. Then she snapped and became the brash person she was in the present. She had a whole episode dedicated to explaining her character, which was generous of the writers to do.
** Olga gets one as well that explains why she's always so annoyingly perky and optimistic, and why she breaks down if anything she does comes up short of perfect: their parents don't pay any attention to Helga because they pay ''all'' their attention to Olga, [[StepfordSmiler who acts perky and sweet]] as a cover for the anxiety she's developed from constantly having to live up to and exceed their expectations.
* The Mickey [=MouseWorks=] short "Mickey and the Color Caper", which premiered as part of an episode of WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse, had the Phantom Blot steal all the colors and add them to himself to become the Phantom Rainbow because he was apparently forced to wear his colorless black cloak his whole life by his parents.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'':
** [[AlphaBitch Pacifica Northwest]] was portrayed as a FlatCharacter, but it turns out she was raised by neglectful stage parents who never even taught her the idea of sharing. [[spoiler: Their treatment of Pacifica behind closed doors goes to outright mental abuse, as they've conditioned her to obey whenever they ring a bell]].
** ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'' reveals that Blind Ivan got into and eventually led the Blind Eye Society because, when he was a teenager, the other people at the carnival he worked at locked him up in a haunted house attraction for an entire night because of his tattoos. He wanted to forget the whole experience. This is why, in 2012, he [[spoiler:leads the secret society that captures people to erase their memories of any of the town's oddities]].
** Grunkle Stan has a pretty painful one that explains why he's such a greedy, miserly con-artist: [[spoiler: he accidentally ruined his brother Ford's chances of getting into a top-tier university and potentially becoming a millionaire scientist. This causes their father to disown Stan, claiming that he won't be welcomed back until he can repay the family for the potential income they lost because of his actions. He lives a miserable existence well into his 30s and, after a fight with Ford causes Ford to become lost in another dimension, channels his talent for lying into turning his brother's home into a tourist trap, allowing him to maintain Ford's home and secret lab so he can fix the dimension gate to bring his brother home. His greediness comes from his father's ultimatum making him believe that earning money was his only value to his family, and considering his only talents were lying and fighting while his brother was a genius, his self-esteem wasn't good enough to let him refute that]].
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
** Amethyst [[StepfordSmiler typically acts mischievous and rambunctious]] to relieve herself of the fact that she is the product of Ancient Space Nazis, and her troubled past including [[spoiler:A FriendlessBackground in the Kindergarten, and watching her mother figure die before her very eyes]].
** Onion acts in the same manner due to the fact he appears to not have very many friends, and rarely has the chance to see his dad.
** Lapis is a prominent example, as she nearly attacked the Crystal Gems (except Steven, the only one she liked) for leaving her imprisoned in a mirror for 5000 years (and because [[spoiler: the reason she got trapped in the mirror in the first place was because she was mistaken for an agent of the Crystal Gems by Homeworld forces]]).
** Lars acts like a jerk to Steven to hide his own insecurities.
** Peridot becomes hostile towards the Crystal Gems for destroying the things she worked hard to build, though this ends later as the series goes on. We get an explanation for this in "Too Short To Ride": [[spoiler: Peridot treats technology as an emotional crutch since, being an Era 2 Gem made for building and maintaining technology, she has no magic powers like Quartz gems or even Era 1 Pearls, who she has been taught are beneath even herself in the Gem hierarchy. Technology is literally the only thing she has, so her anger may stem from the Gems destroying what she considers her only viable contribution to a society that demands usefulness from all its subjects]].
** Pearl's crippling self-esteem issues, and all her issues that branch off from that, are because as a Pearl she was literally created to just look pretty and take orders. Despite her intelligence and insistence that she's no longer a slave, she still feels like she's only useful when she's being told what to do, fueling her emotional over-dependency on Rose and, later, Garnet.
** Rose Quartz turns out to have a spoilery one for her InnocentlyInsensitive tendencies.[[spoiler: As Pink Diamond, she was both isolated from her subjects and never taken seriously by the other Diamonds, and she lost one of the only friends she was allowed to have, her Pearl, when she injured her in a fit of rage over the other Diamonds' abuse (it's implied Pink never forgave herself for this). Pink basically had to teach herself social interaction from scratch, and developed bad habits it would take millennia to break.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/RandyCunninghamNinthGradeNinja'': Doug decided to become a tattletale back when he was six years old and Marci berated him for not telling her on Randy and Howard as soon as he saw them sneaking out of her day care center.
* Murky from ''WesternAnimation/RainbowBrite'' loved colors as a toddler. His mother yelled at him when he colored on the walls, and this traumatized him enough to want to get rid of all the world's colors as an adult.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' episode "Mutantcy on the Bouncy", the villain Cement Head states that he turned to a life of crime because his parents disowned him for being born a cement mutant.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace'' the reason the Ice Dancers are so obsessed with winning is because Jacques accidentally dropped Josee when they finally got the chance to get gold in the Olympics, becoming national embarrassments instead. Also, Josee apparently had a pretty bad StageMom who taught her that anything other than first/gold was a failure.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSylvesterAndTweetyMysteries'' had Sylvester the Cat try to capture and eat Tweety Bird as usual, but the episode "Happy Bath Day to You" revealed why he's so obsessed with eating that darn canary. It is shown in a flashback that when he was a kitten, Granny gave Sylvester Tweety as a birthday present with the intent of the bird being a playmate. When Sylvester instead tried to eat Tweety, Granny scolded the cat and told him that he'd never get any more birthday presents until he learned to play nice with Tweety.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RoadRovers'' episode "Dawn of the Groomer", General Parvo shoots down the Groomer's plan to mutate cats as his soldiers and it gets so bad that the Groomer ends up leaving Parvo for a whole year. After they reunite at the end of the episode, Parvo reveals why he was adamant about not using his technology on cats: [[spoiler:He himself is actually a mutated cat and he apparently didn't want other felines to suffer as he did.]]
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Trollhunters}}'' episode "[[Recap/TrollhuntersS1E19Airheads Airheads]]", during the Touch-A-Truck-athon, in an effort to cause Jim to lower his guard, Steve gives one about himself to Jim. It works, and though Steve taunts Jim over "falling" for it, the show actually paints everything he said to be pretty accurate.
* Taken UpToEleven in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Stripperella}}'' with the villain Dr. Cesarian who was targeting supermodels.
-->'''Stripperella:''' Why do you hate models so much?
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' Why? Because my whole life beautiful girls have spurned my advances. I vowed that one day I would make them all pay.
-->'''Stripperella:''' So just because-
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' Also, my mother was a model, she ran off when I was five; I declared then and there that I would make all models pay.
-->'''Stripperella:''' But what are-
-->'''Dr. Cesarian:''' ''Also,'' I once had a promising career as a model. I had a scholarship to go to modeling college and everything, but then I became horribly disfigured in a modeling accident and they said I would never model again and I vowed to make them all pay! Oh-also, my grandparents were killed by models.
-->'''Stripperella:''' I'll admit, you definitely have some valid reasons for not liking models.
* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'':
** The title character has several -- and there's more than a hint that these continued piling up even during his adulthood. To start, there were his [[AbusiveParents parents]], who [[ResentfulGuardian resented him for the simple reason of being alive]] as they were [[ShotgunWedding forced to marry each other because of it]], with his mother, Beatrice, creating his InferioritySuperiorityComplex by giving him no intrinsical value other than to compensate for what he had done. There's also the way [[ALessonLearnedTooWell he took at heart the advice given to him]] by [[BrokenAce Secretariat.]] Still, he was able to grow up into a semi-normal horse.....who slowly lost his shit in between [[TheChainsOfCommanding the constant rehearsals of his show]], his [[WellDoneSonGuy still]] [[DesperatelyCravesAffection underlying]] [[LoveHungry issues]] accentuated by [[StageMom his mother still hanging up on his every word]], and last but not least, [[CorruptTheCutie his increasing corruption]], caused by [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll drifting around Hollywoo(d)]] and his overall [[TheCorruptible vulnerable, addictive]] nature. Most telling is his guilt at having [[EtTuBrute betrayed his friend and mentor, Herb Kazzaz]], for the sake of his career and [[TheShowMustGoOn keeping his and Herb's show ''Horsin' Around'' going]] and his [[TheOneThatGotAway unconfessed love towards Charlotte]]. By the end, the complications and inability to navigate through life, as well as [[JadeColouredGlasses his disillusion at achieving happiness on his own in any form]] has led [=BoJack=] to his [[TheEeyore current style of living]], all while being [[InternalizedCategorism convinced that he can't change at all]], [[SelfFulfillingProphecy which]] [[TragicHero only dooms him to wreak havoc on his few remains of humanity]]. This is ultimately gets {{Deconstructed|Trope}} by [[DumbassHasAPoint Todd]] in season 3, after [[spoiler:finding out [=BoJack=] had sex with his girlfriend Emily]] and Bojack attempts to justify it by being drunk.
--->'''Todd:''' [[AesopAmnesia You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it OK]]. You need to be better! ''*[=BoJack=] tries to apologize*'' No! No. [=BoJack=] just... stop. '''''You''''' are all the things that are wrong with you! [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse It's not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to you in your career, or when you were a kid. It's you, alright? It's you!]]
** Sarah Lynn within the same show had a [[StageMom manipulative, dream-crushing mom]] who insisted she continue down the [[FormerChildStar child star]] path as opposed to becoming [[ICouldaBeenAContender an architect]], a dream that would carry on even into her adult years, because [[CastingCouch "Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for [Sarah Lynn] to be an architect"]]. It's heavily implied that her stepdad was [[PaedoHunt sexually abusive.]] From the more mild telling to Joelle that she didn't have any friends her age because she was homeschooled by her stepfather "...[who was] a photographer.," to the more telling offhanded comment about being able to [[ItMakesSenseInContext distinguish the taste of bear fur]] because "[her] stepdad was a bear", to the most telling design the artists gave him – one that imitated Terry Richardson. That being said, she had an unexplained DisappearedDad and looked up to [=BoJack=] as a [[ParentalSubstitute surrogate father]], even though he would use her in about a decade and a half to come. All of this has given an explanation for her extreme [[AddledAddict drug abuse]], AnythingThatMoves attitude, slight ElectraComplex, and ultimately for being [=BoJack=] if he were a human female about two decades younger... who was actually successful in years following Horsin' Around.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'':
** Pizzazz's mother [[MissingMom ran off]] when she was very young. Her father ended up growing apart from Pizzazz after the divorce, with his only way of showing her any attention being giving her material things. This is why Pizzazz ended up a RichBitch SpoiledBrat. Pizzazz tries to [[WhenYouComingHomeDad get her dad's attention]] but [[WellDoneSonGuy can't]], which has caused her InferioritySuperiorityComplex. As a result, she wants to be ''the'' most popular rock band out there, which urges on her intense [[TheRival rivalry]] with Jem and the Holograms.
** The music video to "It's A Hard, Hard Life" shows that The Stingers spent a lot of time being [[StreetMusician poor and living on the streets]] when they started out. This explains why Rapture is a [[ConMan con artist]] and why they only seem to care about [[ItsAllAboutMe themselves]] [[TrueCompanions and each other]].
* Partway through ''WesternAnimation/OliveTheOtherReindeer'', the Postman remarks that his [[TheGrinch hatred of Christmas]] is partly because Santa didn't give him the toy train he wanted as a child.
-->'''Postman''': Santa didn't cut me any slack, so now I'm not cutting him any slack!
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** Mojo Jojo wants to destroy The Powerpuff Girls due to them replacing him as Professor Utonium's lab assistant.
** Princess Morbucks reason to becoming evil is because The Powerpuff Girls didn't let her become a powerpuff girl. She attempts to pass this off as some kind of villain tragedy, despite the fact that she was rude and insensitive towards everyone before that, and only acted nice towards the Powerpuff Girls so that she could get her way (they noted this and didn't let her join because of her stuck-up attitude). On a more serious note, a case can be made that part of her bad attitude stems from the fact that her parents (her father in particular) don't really seem to care to raise her properly, showering her with money instead and spoiling her rotten.
* The ''WesternAnimation/PoundPuppies2010'' episode "The Pupple's Court" has Miss Stiffwhiskers try to get Lucky in trouble by taking him to court over matching dogs with their owners without following proper procedure, lying that he was completely unhelpful in assisting her in finding Pugford's perfect person and that he was generally an apathetic slacker. It later turns out that the reason Miss Stiffwhiskers is doing this is because she resents Lucky for failing to match her with her perfect person when she was a puppy and now wants to get back at him by having him impounded.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' has Lynn receiving one in the episode "Middle Men" after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero her advice that Lincoln and Clyde should be as aggressive as possible on their first day of middle school backfires HARD]]. Turns out [[KidsAreCruel her first day of middle school was absolute hell]] and she had to develop the aggressive personality she's infamous for just to survive and despite her desire to turn off "school survival mode", she can't.
* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'' short "Sonnie's Edge". Sonnie is a confident and tough-as-nails rape survivor who participates in evening {{Kaiju}} BeastlyBloodSports, and she always wins. Many characters believe her edge is the anger and hate she still feels over being gang-raped and torn apart. [[spoiler:It's not that. [[EmergencyTransformation Sonnie was so badly injured by her rapists that they had to permanently implant her consciousness into Khanivore]] and she controls her otherwise brain-dead human body via an implant chip. That's why she keeps winning: [[HadToBeSharp because she is the only competitor who is really fighting for her life every night]].]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'':
** In the second season, it's revealed that [[AlphaBitch Chloé]] largely acts like a jerk out of a desire to impress her mother, who [[MissingMom left when Chloé was little]] to focus on her career. Of course, when Audrey comes back to Paris, she [[AbusiveParents constantly belittles Chloé]] - even doing so ''on live television'' - and doesn't even [[MaliciousMisnaming get her name right]] until Chloé brags about what a jerk she is. It doesn't help that [[DotingParent her father]] constantly [[SpoiledBrat spoils]] her, implicitly in an attempt to fill the void caused by Audrey's absence.
** While [[TheLancer Adrien]] isn't a bad person overall, he's shown a [[EntitledToHaveYou nasty possessive streak toward Ladybug]] and [[ExtremeDoormat an inability to assert himself socially]], both of which stem from his upbringing. Adrien's father, wealthy fashion mogul [[AbusiveParents Gabriel Agreste]], obsessively [[ControlFreak micromanaged his upbringing]] while at the same time [[ParentalNeglect utterly failing to spend any time with his son]] (and it doesn't help that his own love for his wife Emilie is not overly healthy, as [[spoiler:his reaction to her going comatose was to become [[BigBad Hawk Moth]]]]). Not helping matters is that Adrien, due to his father's controlling nature, was unable to make any friends other than Chloé, who as mentioned above has her own issues [[note]]The episode "Gorizilla" implies that Adrien's mother had a professional association with the Bourgeious family, indicating that might be the reason Gabriel tolerated Chloé[[/note]]. The result? By the time the show begins, Adrien is fairly weak-willed and has some incredibly unhealthy views on love. That being said, being around more positive influences like Nino and Marinette is helping him grow past these flaws.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':
** {{Implied}}. It's unknown why Cree Lincoln turned against the Kids Next Door, only that she got older and changed. However, "Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E." gives a big hint on a possible reason, when her sister Abby just gives up and says that there was no point in fighting that her sister and her friend Maurice since they're teens, and she's practically a teen now herself. At first Cree is shocked, but then gets happy and hugs Abby, saying she was waiting for her to say that, implying that she went though the same thing, but unlike Abby, Cree did not have someone to bring her up and give her hope.
** [[ImpliedTrope Implied]] in the comic "Operation F.O.R.G.E.T.". After known boy hater Numbuh Eighty Six/Fanny Fulbright accidentally gets decommissioned, she's shown to be a boy-loving maniac. This hints that her StrawFeminist attitude was caused by a particular NoodleIncident.
** Father's entire messed up state can be blamed on ''his'' father, Grandfather. A cruel tyrant who manages to outdo Benedict in the evil category, he was too much of a coward to stand up to him and it's implied that he turned to evil as a result. Grandfather showed little leniency to his children; heck, he preferred Monty, Ben's older brother, over him, if because it's implied he had the guts to stand up for himself, unlike Ben. From a traumatic fear of eating broccoli to perhaps his entire motivation for doing evil things and tormenting children, it can all be traced back to Grandfather.
* ''WesternAnimation/CentralPark'':
** In Season 1 "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E2SkatersCircle Skater's Circle]]", Bitsy expresses how she came from an abusive family, as well as not being popular with the other children in her youth through the song "Make 'Em Pay".
** In the Season 1 finale "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E10AFishCalledSnakehead A Fish Called Snakehead]]", Molly tries to come up with a complicated backstory for the snakehead in her comic for why it acts so evil, such as [[ParentalNeglect its mother never loving it]] and it NeverLearnedToRead.
* The ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' episode "The Man Who Hated Cats" had Mr. Block, the titular feline-hater, sing a song where he reveals that his hatred of cats is because he used to have one as a pet when he was a kid, only for his cat to disappear one day and never come back.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'': Part of the reason why J. Jonah Jameson hates Spider-Man is because his wife was murdered by a masked gunman, causing him to have a hatred of people who wear masks.
* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': "The Last Adventure" reveals where Bradford Buzzard's vendetta against the [=McDuck=] family stems from. [[spoiler: As Isabella Finch's grandson and the first Junior Woodchuck, Bradford was dragged along on several dangerous adventures under the pretense of them being "educational". He grew up to resent adventure altogether, came to the conclusion that the world was far too dangerous for its own good, and set on a quest to eradicate everything adventurous. Scrooge [=McDuck=], being the patron saint of adventure and epicenter of all sorts of craziness that he is, was the thing Bradford concluded he needed to curtail most of all.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' has at least one of these for pretty much every major character.
** [[ItsPersonalWithTheDragon Catra]] and [[TheHero Adora's]] excuses deserve special mention because it's actually the same excuse, namely Shadow Weaver's [[SarcasmMode stellar parenting skills]], albeit manifesting in vastly different ways.
*** Catra has some serious tendencies toward NeverMyFault, usually blaming Adora for anything that goes wrong because Adora didn't stop it. This can be traced back to when Shadow Weaver would constantly punish Catra for her mistakes, while chastising Adora for not having stopped it, leading Catra to develop the habit of always having Adora there to take the fall. Having also pretty much no meaningful relationships outside of Adora also means that she takes her perceived betrayal ''very'' hard.
*** The same abuse caused Adora to have a serious GuiltComplex and a need to justify her existence. Since she grew up being constantly told that Catra's actions were her responsibility, she grows overly protective of her friends, frequently stifling them out of a desire to help and protect them. Being constantly put on a pedestal in an enviroment that does not tolerate failure also means that she feels she needs to live up to everyone's expectations, or else she has failed. This guilt complex is so extreme that when someone finally asks what ''she'' wants, the only thing she can say is "what's best for Etheria".
** Glimmer was raised in a war, and lost her father at a very young age. This caused her mother, the queen, to be overly protective and careful. Because of this, Glimmer has a InferioritySuperiorityComplex the size of a mountain, manifesting as a constant need to prove herself, usually ignoring her mother's orders so she can prove how right she is. This complete disregard for orders and safety becomes a big problem in season 4, when she's [[spoiler:the queen, and still feels the need to prove how right she is, while also having the power to steamroll any objections]].
** Hordak [[spoiler:is a defective clone of the GalacticConqueror Horde Prime. His "youth" was spent as the only being with self-awareness in an army of non-sapient clones who's only purpose is to act out Prime's will. Further complicating things, Hordak has no idea that his "defect" is just his capacity for independent thought, so he's constantly trying to prove his capabilities when Prime would rather he just lie down and die.]]
** A FreezeFrameBonus implies that Entrapta was raised by robots, which would explain her ''complete'' lack of social skills.
* Principal Strickler from ''WesternAnimation/TeachersPet'' was very vocal about his dislike of dogs (which made it a good thing that Spot attended school disguised as a human boy named Scott Leadready II), with the first episode implying that he grew to dislike dogs because one that was brought to school [[{{Fingore}} bit off half of his thumb]] when he was in the fourth grade.
* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': The reason why Mitchell is such a stuck-up jerk is that he doesn't know how to interact with others and has a hard time forming friendships, making him a loner.

** Other components to his backstory: he had to wear hand-me-''up'' girls' clothing, [[TheUnfavorite his mother loved his brother more than him]], his father loved the dog more than both of them and named it "[[IHaveNoSon Only Son]]", his only friend (a balloon with a face drawn on it) flew away, his artistic masterpiece was destroyed, his girlfriend left him for a whale, and he was raised by ocelots. Yes, ''all of that''.

** Hordak [[spoiler:is a defective clone of the GalacticConqueror Horde Prime. His "youth" was spent as the only being with self-awareness in an army of non-sapient clones who's only purpose is to act out Prime's will. Understandably, this has left him with a need to prove himself to a father figure who despises his very existence]].

** Glimmer was raised in a war, and lost her father at a very young age. This caused her mother, the queen, to be overly protective and careful. Because of this, Glimmer has a InferioritySuperioritySyndrome the size of a mountain, manifesting as a constant need to prove herself, usually ignoring her mother's orders so she can prove how right she is. This complete disregard for orders and safety becomes a big problem in season 4, when she's [[spoiler:the queen, and still feels the need to prove how right she is, while also having the power to steamroll any objections]].

* Catra in ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' has some serious tendencies toward NeverMyFault, usually blaming Adora for anything that goes wrong because Adora didn't stop it. This can be traced back to her and Adora's surrogate mother, Shadow Weaver, who would constantly punish Catra for her mistakes, while chastising Adora for not having stopped it, leading Catra to develop the habit of always having Adora there to take the fall. This is also the same FreudianExcuse that led Adora to develop her GuiltComplex, since she was raised being told that anytime Catra suffered, it was her fault.

** Bloberta [[NotSoDifferent herself]] had issues with her parents. Much like Clay, she got along better with one parent (her father) than her other--her mother who clearly showed ParentalFavoritism toward her other siblings. She was also afraid of never getting married, as everyone around her in a [[TheFifties fifties]]-esque Moralton was.

** Apple Bloom's cousin [[TheBully Babs Seed]] was apparently bullied herself, and only became a bully to avoid ridicule from [[AlphaBitch Diamond Tiara]] and [[BetaBitch Silver Spoon]]. Luckily, she [[HeelRealization realized that]] [[HeWhoFightsMonsters she's no]] [[NotSoDifferent different]] from the bullies from Manehattan, and [[HeelFaceTurn stopped.]]

--->'''Todd:''' [[AesopAmnesia You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself]] [[EasilyForgiven like that makes it OK]]. You need to be better! ''*[=BoJack=] tries to apologize*'' No! No. [=BoJack=] just... stop. '''''You''''' are all the things that are wrong with you! It's not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to you in your career, or when you were a kid. [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped It's you, alright? It's you!]]