History Main / SafetyWorst

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': In "Hurt Bike", the normally impulsive and reckless Chip Green becomes safety-obsessed after he nearly gets run over while riding his dirt bike, going so far as to cover his family's house in bubble wrap.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', "I Had An Accident": After getting a "broken butt" after a sandboarding wipeout, [=SpongeBob=] takes a doctor's orders to be more careful too far and becomes a shut-in.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Bye Bye, Nerdie" has Homer becoming so obsessed with child-proofing that everything on the playground is covered in bubble-wrap, and he then regrets it [[SpoofAesop when he learns that children not being injured means doctors make less money and child injury greeting card factories close down]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ClassOf3000'': "Safety Last" shows Eddie's parents locking him in a tower in order to protect him.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' shows the Genie sheltering Al in a bubble for protection in this manner.
* Ron discovers how dangerous pseudo-spy work is in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', and locks himself away in a panic room. He comes out when he discovers that [[ActionGirl Kim]] is in [[BadassInDistress danger]] because she went up against Drakken, Shego, and a group of henchmen who had been built up to be far more effective than previously using corporate team building exercises, with Wade, their usual MissionControl, and next to useless in a real fight.
* Tuck is almost hit by a car in ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'', and shuts himself away from the outside world. Jenny tries to reassure him of his safety by showing him at a ripe old age through the "Future Scope", [[GoneHorriblyRight which leads him to believe he will live to old age no matter what]], and spends the rest of the episode performing a number of life-threatening stunts. He forgets that even if he lives he still could get badly damaged.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AlmostNakedAnimals'', Octo becomes overly concerned for his co-workers' safety, but his solutions end up causing more harm than good.
* Oscar's parents in ''WesternAnimation/SquirrelBoy'' and they control just about everything he does (even to the point of giving him "safety cents" instead of money). Weirdly, they don't seem to have the same concerns regarding their daughter, Lulu.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Broadway Bro Down," Larry is a little boy with very overprotective parents; his parents always have him wearing a life vest to prevent drowning. During the episode, Shelly convinces him that he doesn't need to wear the vest all the time. [[spoiler: [[DeathByIrony Larry drowns at the end of the episode]], and the news reporter comments that he might have survived if he was wearing a life vest.]]
* Bummer's fear of a lawsuit causes him to go overboard in ensuring the guests' safety in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Stoked}}!'' episode "Safety Last".
* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainFlamingo'': Owen-Only's mom goes to ridiculous lengths to protect Owen-Only. He frequently wears a ridiculous amount of safety gear, his house and especially his room has a security system, he goes to the beach with too much sunscreen more often than not and he even had to wear orthopedic underpants (Which the Captain and Lizbeth had to search through dirty laundry at the pool when it got lost). He can't get a break anywhere.

* ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'': Cat wants Dog to be more careful ([[CatsHaveNineLives he has nine lives]] but Dog only has one), so he shows Dog a video about safety. Dog becomes so scared he goes too far in keeping safe (up to wearing a bubble when he goes outside) and Cat has to get him back to his old self.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'':
** In "The Safety", Darwin becomes overprotective of the Wattersons and he goes as far as to seize control of Elmore, just because Mr. Small showed a PSA to his class about how everything's dangerous and you're one step from dying, which suffered a very nightmarish tape failure.
** In "The Authority", a visiting [[MyBelovedSmother Granny Jojo]] is as overprotective of the kids as she was with Richard that [[IdiotBall they become as stupid]] from not thinking for themselves until Nicole intervenes and puts them in a speeding car, forcing them to think for their lives.
* ''Literature/{{Franklin}}'' plays this straight twice and subverts it once. In "Franklin and the Fire," Franklin becomes worried about fire after a fire at the general store run by Mr. Mole and tries to remove anything from the house that he thinks could be a fire hazard, including candles and a toaster. His parents help him by having a fire drill.
** In another story, "Mother Hen Franklin," Franklin becomes over-protective of his little sister Harriet after she gets hurt in an accident, covering her toys in soft foam and refusing to let her ride at more than a snail's pace on her bicycle. In this case, his mother helps him by reminding him of times such as when he got a little scrape playing hockey, but she comforted him and let him keep trying.
** "Franklin Plays it Safe" is the subversion. In this one, Franklin and his friend Bear start becoming militant about safety after Mr. Marmot, the village safety inspector, tells them that it's "better to be safe than sorry." When one of the branches supporting their tree fort develops a crack, they worry that it might be unsafe and try to keep their friends from playing in it. Franklin even has a nightmare of it blowing down, with everyone inside. Everyone eventually gets tired of Franklin and Bear telling them what to do and they head off to play in the tree fort, only for it to blow down just as Franklin imagined, but thankfully ''without'' anyone in it. Everyone is immediately apologetic to Franklin and Bear and the tree fort is rebuilt with adult help.
* On ''WesternAnimation/GoldieAndBear'', when the King's Men arrive in Fairytale Forest, they deem everything they spot dangerous and make a huge list of rules that prevent everyone from doing pretty much everything, including no reading, no swimming in the water, no sitting on walls, etc. Finally, Goldie gets so fed up with it that she decides to do a bit of LoopholeAbuse by figuring out a way to have everyone swim in the sky because there was no rule specifically saying that they couldn't do that. After ending up having to be rescued while trying to keep the Three Little Pigs from doing something supposedly unsafe, they come to realize they went overboard and amend the rules to say that the residents of Fairytale Forest can do all of the things that were banned before, so long as they make sure to be careful.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': Clyde's dads Harold and Howard tend to act like this. In particular the episode "Snow Way Down", where they take such extreme measures to keep Clyde safe that he and Lincoln can't have any fun at all.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' featured Flappy Bob's Learn-A-Torium, a day camp that made you wear padding to go in a ball pit, pools that were only ankle deep, and a whack-a-mole game that ended up being a long documentary about why smacking moles is wrong. ''WesternAnimation/SchoolsOutTheMusical'' revealed that its founder, Flappy Bob, was being manipulated by the pixies, and when they temporarily succeed [[VillainWorld they make the whole world like this.]]
* In "Cat City Safety Patrol" from ''WesternAnimation/PeteTheCat'', Dennis becomes this after a fall on a sidewalk pothole. He's fine because of his turtle shell but starts to worry that others could get hurt because they don't have shells. The others help him to see that his fears are really more due to what happened to him and that sometimes you just have to be brave.
* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': In "Hurt Bike", the normally impulsive and reckless Chip Green becomes safety-obsessed after he nearly gets run over while riding his dirt bike, going so far as to cover his family's house in bubble wrap.

[[folder:Film]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b15896e5_8407_4a76_93f2_4ea08eb7e2ac.jpeg]]]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', "I Had An Accident": After getting a "broken butt" after a sandboarding wipeout, Spongebob takes a doctor's orders to be more careful too far and becomes a shut-in.

* Tuck is almost hit by a car in ''WesternAnimation/{{My Life As a Teenage Robot}}'', and shuts himself away from the outside world. Jenny tries to reassure him of his safety by showing him at a ripe old age through the "Future Scope", [[GoneHorriblyRight which leads him to believe he will live to old age no matter what]], and spends the rest of the episode performing a number of life-threatening stunts. He forgets that even if he lives he still could get badly damaged.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Vetter The real-life case of David Vetter]], who had a disease known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, or just Bubble Boy Syndrome. He had no immune system whatsoever, as did some of his siblings - his older brother, who had the disease, had died in infancy, and so he was born in a sterile room by cesarean section and put in a bubble while they waited for a cure to be found for him. When he was twelve, doctors tried a bone-marrow transplant to cure his illness, only to have him die after a few weeks from infection brought on by it.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'':

Compare OverprotectiveDad when the daughter's virtue is at risk. Can also be done by a SafetyFreak who isn't necessarily a parent.

[[MyBelovedSmother Over-reactive parents]] are a quick source of comedy in any series surrounding children. Depending on the perspective, it could be a KnightTemplarParent situation, or just a one-shot gag which is never [[ResetButton referenced again]]. Sometimes the parent may get over it after the child, another parent, or a close friend gives them an AntiSmotherLoveTalk. Other times...perhaps not.

* Many 1950's Franchise/{{Superman}} stories had imaginary weddings to Lois. Often Lois would be stuck in a bubble, or in his Fortress of Solitude, or even on ''another planet entirely''. All to keep her safe from the mob of people who would surely use her as a hostage. (Never mind the mobs of people who were using her as a hostage anyway.)
* In ''ComicBook/{{PS238}}'', Tyler attempts to invoke this trope on himself during his first training session with BadassNormal The Revenant - he picks out so much safety gear that he couldn't practically move at all, because he didn't ''want'' to go out on a superhero patrol. The Revenant catches on and makes him take off the more superfluous bits.
** Tyler's parents behavior, on the other hand, is a complete aversion of this trope. They are two of the setting's most powerful super beings, and they're fairly open about hoping that attending PS 238 will expose Tyler to something (i.e. radioactivity, bizarre chemicals, magic, alien tech, other dimensions) that will trigger super powers they assume Tyler is destined to possess. Almost all of those things would just kill Tyler if he were completely normal . . . which he is.

[[folder: Fan-Works]]

* The film ''Film/BubbleBoy''... Yeah you can probably see where this is going. Lived in a plastic bubble with tubes around the house so he could get around. Eventually went on a cross country journey wearing a mobile bubble suit. The kid didn't have an immune system and would, in fact, die if taken out of the bubble. Although, [[spoiler:his mom was lying to him; he wouldn't die, he had a perfect immune system by the time he's an adult, his mother just [[MyBelovedSmother can't stand to be separated from him]].]]

* In Jack Williamson's novelette "With Folded Hands" a new kind of robots made in order "to serve and obey and guard men from harm" took the definition of "harm" to such extremes that they wouldn't let the main character's children have an archery set because they might put an eye out with an arrow or something, and they took away his wife's tragic novels and chocolates so she wouldn't become depressed or obese. Eventually there were so many things which qualified as "harm" to some extent that pretty much all they could do was sit with folded hands. (Especially when expressing discontent was a quick trip to a futuristic lobotomy and the inability to feel any emotion other than a dopey sort of artificial "happiness.")

** In a 2002 episode Baby Bear hurts his nose when playing with Telly, and Telly become worried that they cannot play anymore without it happening again, even by doing something as simple and harmless as singing the Alphabet.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Toph was born blind, so her parents spent her entire life making sure she couldn't leave their home. Unfortunately, they were so obsessed with protecting her that they never noticed her prodigious earthbending talent that allowed her to "see" almost as well as other people, with only writing and colors as things she couldn't learn. She even managed to sneak away and become a multiple champion of an underground (literally) fighting ring, and later invents metalbending, a discipline thought to be impossible. It takes Toph singlehandedly saving her father and her friends from a cave-in through metalbending for him to finally realize his daughter is not a helpless baby but the most powerful earthbender in history. This happens ''after'' Aang beats the Firelord with her help.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Bye Bye, Nerdie" has Homer becoming so obsessed with child-proofing that everything on the playground it covered in bubble-wrap, and he then regrets it [[SpoofAesop when he learns that children not being injured means Doctors make less money and child injury greeting card factories close down]].

* Tuck is almost hit by a car in ''WesternAnimation/{{My Life As a Teenage Robot}}'', and shuts himself away from the outside world. Jenny tries to reassure him of his safety by showing him at a ripe old age through the "Future Scope", [[GoneHorriblyRight which leads him to believe he will live to old age no matter what]], and spends the rest of the episode performing a number of life threatening stunts. He forgets that even if he lives he still could get badly damaged.
* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': In one episode, Gosalyn visits an BadFuture in which she seemed to disappear from the time travel and Darkwing became Darkwarrior Duck. When he finds her, he intends to turn her into a sidekick, complete with thick, thick armor. The problem? "Dad, I can't move."
* In ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Sid becomes so freaked out by a Germ video he goes as far as to plastic wrap his entire room and only leave in a full body diving suit.

** In another story, "Mother Hen Franklin," Franklin becomes over-protective of his little sister, Harriet, after she gets hurt in an accident, covering her toys in soft foam and refusing to let her ride at more than a snail's pace on her bicycle. In this case, his mother helps him by reminding him of times such as when he got a little scrape playing hockey, but she comforted him and let him keep trying.
** "Franklin Plays it Safe" is the subversion. In this one, Franklin and his friend Bear start becoming militant about safety after Mr. Marmot, the village safety inspector, tell them that it's "better to be safe than sorry." When one of the branches supporting their tree-fort develops a crack, they worry that it might be unsafe and try to keep their friends from playing in it. Franklin even has a nightmare of it blowing down, with everyone inside. Everyone eventually gets tired of Franklin and Bear telling them what to do and they head off to play in the tree-fort, only for it blow down just as Franklin imagined, but thankfully ''without'' anyone in it. Everyone is immediately apologetic to Franklin and Bear and the tree-fort is rebuilt with adult help.

* In "Cat City Safety Patrol" from ''WesternAnimation/PeteTheCat'', Dennis becomes this after a fall on a sidewalk pothole. He's fine because of his turtle shell, but starts to worry that others could get hurt because they don't have shells. The others help him to see that his fears are really more due to what happen to him and that sometimes you just have to be brave.