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* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'': In "Train Stops Play", Stepney is chased down by some cricketers in an old car named Caroline. Stepney's driver sees them speeding and honking frantically at him and tells Stepney to go faster, assuming they want a race. It isn't until they reach the next station and Caroline has broken down that they realize the cricketers were just trying to retrieve a ball that landed in one of Stepney's trucks.
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** Aquaman himself screws things up royal more than a few times by not bothering to, and often outright refusing to, explain what's going on due to his haughty royal arrogance and [[FantasticRacism disdain for the "Surface Dwellers"]]. In ''The Enemy Below'' him not bothering to try and communicate with the surface world gets him usurped temporarily and nearly causes TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, and had he not outright refused to tell Superman what's going on in ''The Terror Beyond'' they could have easily let Doctor Fate finish his ritual.
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* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'', after a requested examination by Star Command, XR is diagnosed with mental fatigue. Which his superior sent him out on a mandated vacation, which turned out to be a trap set up by XR's evil older brother, XL, in order to capture XR, switch heads, so XL disguised as XR can infiltrate Star Command and plant a bomb. All of this could have been prevented if one of the LGM's didn't make a spelling error when XR had "metal fatigue" all this time.
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* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'': Double D has a recurring problem with this, in part due to a mix of SesquipedalianLoquaciousness and CannotSpitItOut.
** In "Dim Lit Ed", Edd organies a scavenger hunt to improve the average IQ of the cul-de-sac kids, but when they along with the other Eds automatically assume the prize is a jawbreaker, he neglects to spell it out for them till the very end what the prize actually is, resulting in him receiving a thrashing.
** In "The Day the Ed Stood Still", he and Eddy dress Ed up like a monster, and Ed [[BecomingTheMask soon becomes convinced he really]] ''[[BecomingTheMask has]]'' [[BecomingTheMask become a monster]] and goes on a rampage through the cul-de-sac. Not once does Double D try to explain to the terrified kids that the "monster" is just Ed in a costume; instead, he just acts like everyone already knows.
** In "Dim Lit Ed", Edd organies a scavenger hunt to improve the average IQ of the cul-de-sac kids, but when they along with the other Eds automatically assume the prize is a jawbreaker, he neglects to spell it out for them till the very end what the prize actually is, resulting in him receiving a thrashing.
** In "The Day the Ed Stood Still", he and Eddy dress Ed up like a monster, and Ed [[BecomingTheMask soon becomes convinced he really]] ''[[BecomingTheMask has]]'' [[BecomingTheMask become a monster]] and goes on a rampage through the cul-de-sac. Not once does Double D try to explain to the terrified kids that the "monster" is just Ed in a costume; instead, he just acts like everyone already knows.
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* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' Candace jumps to the conclusion that her best friend is dumping her when she gets the text message "CYL BFF". Cryptic, but one might expect a teenager glued to her phone to know that it meant "See you later, best friend forever" and not "Candace, you loser. Bad friendships fail".
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* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' Candace jumps to the conclusion that her best friend is dumping her when she gets the text message "CYL BFF". Cryptic, but one might expect a teenager glued to her phone to know that it meant "See "Call you later, best friend friends forever" and not "Candace, you loser. Bad friendships fail".fail".
** In another episode, Candace bakes a pie for Phineas and Ferb's "Bust Day". Phineas thinks she said "Bus Day", which isn't for a while.
** In another episode, Candace bakes a pie for Phineas and Ferb's "Bust Day". Phineas thinks she said "Bus Day", which isn't for a while.
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* In ''Disney/LiloAndStitch 2'', Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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* In ''Disney/LiloAndStitch 2'', ''Disney/LiloAndStitch2StitchHasAGlitch'', Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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** This seems to be a borderline CentralTheme for at least the first half of Season 7, as "All Bottled Up"[[note]]Starlight literally bottles up her anger and doesn't tell Trixie how upset she's making her. The bottled anger eventually breaks out and infects other ponies who proceed to berate Trixie until Starlight confesses her anger.[[/note]], "Rock Solid Friendship"[[note]]Pinkie's interference gets in the way of a potential friendship between Maud and Starlight, and Starlight doesn't tell her this until Maud's already left.[[/note]], "Forever Filly"[[note]]Rarity tries to spend the day with Sweetie Belle by doing all the things Sweetie Belle loved doing when she was younger, unaware that Sweetie Belle's grown out of them. Sweetie eventually snaps at her over it.[[/note]], "Parental Glidance"[[note]]Rainbow is increasingly annoyed and embarrassed by her parents' overenthusiastic cheering until she explodes at them.[[/note]] "A Royal Problem"[[note]]The Royal Sisters become increasingly bitter at how easily the other seems to have it compared to them and their lack of appreciation for each other. It takes a forced [[SwappedRoles role swap]] for them to reconcile.[[/note]] and "Triple Threat"[[note]]Spike ends up inviting Thorax and Ember to Ponyville on the same day and, fearful of a potential Dragons vs Changelings war because of their opposite personalities, tries to keep them separated throughout the day. They end up taking offense at the attempts when the truth comes out and ultimately help each other with their respective problems.[[/note]] all have conflicts that could have been avoided if everyone involved had just tried to talk things out rationally in advance before things boiled over.
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* WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar episode "Maurice at Peace" opens with the Zoo receiving a half corrupted fax implying that Maurice only has 24 hours to live. Skipper insists that they make absolutely sure this is true, citing this trope as the reason.
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* WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'' episode "Maurice at Peace" opens with the Zoo receiving a half corrupted fax implying that Maurice only has 24 hours to live. Skipper insists that they make absolutely sure this is true, citing this trope as the reason.
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* In the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', Scaramouche discovers that [[spoiler: Jack has lost his sword]] and immediately rushes off to tell Aku. He does and the two then track down Jack to kill him for good, only to find [[spoiler: Jack's regained his sword in the time since Scaramouche last saw him, meaning he has the ability to kill Aku again]]. Aku is ''extremely'' unimpressed with this revelation and responds by [[spoiler: [[YouHaveFailedMe blowing up Scaramouche's head]] as punishment]].
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* Many of the worse parts of ''TransformersAnimated'' could have been avoided if Sumdac had told them about how he found their "friend" Megatron...
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* Many of the worse parts of ''TransformersAnimated'' ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' could have been avoided if Sumdac had told them about how he found their "friend" Megatron...
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* The ''PunkyBrewster'' episode "Growing Pain" had Glomer growing every time he sneezes. The flowers of Margaux's parade float help him to slowly shrink, but since Punky is competing ''against'' Margaux for best parade float, she yanks Glomer away to build her own float. Glomer tries to tell her about the flowers but Punky angrily exclaims, "I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!" Later, Punky's float turns out to be Glomer, and another sneeze causes him to collide with Margaux's float. Punky now sees Glomer shrinking from the flowers. She asks him "Why didn't you tell me?" Glomer replies, "Well, I trying to. But ''you'' say 'I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!'"
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* The ''PunkyBrewster'' ''WesternAnimation/PunkyBrewster'' episode "Growing Pain" had Glomer growing every time he sneezes. The flowers of Margaux's parade float help him to slowly shrink, but since Punky is competing ''against'' Margaux for best parade float, she yanks Glomer away to build her own float. Glomer tries to tell her about the flowers but Punky angrily exclaims, "I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!" Later, Punky's float turns out to be Glomer, and another sneeze causes him to collide with Margaux's float. Punky now sees Glomer shrinking from the flowers. She asks him "Why didn't you tell me?" Glomer replies, "Well, I trying to. But ''you'' say 'I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!'"
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* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': Princess Bubblegum needs the Ice King to howl with pain. She tells Finn and Jake ''that'' part, but not ''why''. And then leaves them to guard him. She was called away at the last moment, but it wouldn't have been particularly hard to say, [[spoiler:"A plague is affecting my land and I need his howls to cure it."]]
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* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'':
** Princess Bubblegum needs the Ice King to howl with pain. She tells Finn and Jake ''that'' part, but not ''why''. And then leaves them to guard him. She was called away at the last moment, but it wouldn't have been particularly hard to say, [[spoiler:"A plague is affecting my land and I need his howls to cure it."]]"]]
** In "From Bad to Worse", there's a ZombieApocalypse, and PB eventually gets bitten. Right before she turns, she says Science can solve this. Finn, Jake, and their remaining allies try desperately to synthesize a cure, which fails miserably as they have no idea what they are doing. Eventually, they find out in time [[spoiler:Science is the name of a hyper-intelligent lab rat who is able to create the cure.]]
** Princess Bubblegum needs the Ice King to howl with pain. She tells Finn and Jake ''that'' part, but not ''why''. And then leaves them to guard him. She was called away at the last moment, but it wouldn't have been particularly hard to say, [[spoiler:"A plague is affecting my land and I need his howls to cure it.
** In "From Bad to Worse", there's a ZombieApocalypse, and PB eventually gets bitten. Right before she turns, she says Science can solve this. Finn, Jake, and their remaining allies try desperately to synthesize a cure, which fails miserably as they have no idea what they are doing. Eventually, they find out in time [[spoiler:Science is the name of a hyper-intelligent lab rat who is able to create the cure.]]
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': The episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] has to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company is going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': The episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] has to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company is going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan [[ComicBook/WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
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* Happens with most characters in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', but the most notable examples come from [[spoiler:Peridot, with this trope arguably being her biggest character flaw, and one of the main reasons for her conflicts with the Crystal Gems (and anyone else for that matter); even when she's trying to be nice, she is extremely bad at explaining herself in ways that others can understand. This is trope actually serves as the climax of her redemption arc, where she fails to explain that she's contacting [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Homeworld]] not to betray the group and leave the Earth to [[EarthShatteringKaboom perish to the Cluster]], but to change the mind of one of their leaders and gain assistance in destroying said entity.]]
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* Happens with most characters in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', but the most notable examples come from [[spoiler:Peridot, with this Peridot. This trope is arguably being her biggest character flaw, and one of the main reasons for her conflicts with the Crystal Gems (and anyone else for that matter); even matter). Even when she's trying to be nice, she is extremely bad at explaining herself in ways that others can understand. [[spoiler: This is trope actually serves as the climax of her redemption arc, where she fails to explain that she's contacting [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Homeworld]] not to betray the group and leave the Earth to [[EarthShatteringKaboom perish to the Cluster]], but to change the mind of one of their leaders and gain assistance in destroying said entity.]]
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* The ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'' episode "Shoot the Messenger". An IrrevocableMessage plot gets kicked off when Po signs his autograph as "Never surrender!" on a peace treaty. This happens firstly because Tigress directs the messenger to Po's autograph line before he can say why he's there, and secondly because he then ''stays'' in the line without making any further attempt to explain things.
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* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', Stanford knows that a gravitational rift could allow [[BigBad Bill Cipher]] to enter the real world. However, he tells Dipper not to tell Stanley or Mabel about this, leading to disaster when Mabel gives it to a possessed Blendin Blandin in "Dipper and Mabel vs the Future".
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* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', Stanford the Author knows that a gravitational rift could allow [[BigBad Bill Cipher]] to enter the real world. our dimension and conquer it. However, he tells Dipper not to tell Stanley or Mabel about this, leading this. [[spoiler: However, this leads to disaster when Mabel gives it to a possessed Blendin Blandin in "Dipper and Mabel vs the Future".Future" due to not knowing the importance of the object, setting up the three-part series finale.]]
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* Happens with most characters in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', but the most notable examples come from [[spoiler:Peridot, with this trope arguably being her biggest character flaw, and one of the main reasons for her conflicts with the Crystal Gems (and anyone else for that matter); even when she's trying to be nice, she is extremely bad at explaining herself in ways that others can understand. This is trope actually serves as the climax of her redemption arc, where she fails to explain that she's contacting [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Homeworld]] not to betray the group and leave the Earth to [[EarthShatteringKaboom perish to the Cluster]], but to change the mind of one of their leaders and gain assistance in destroying said entity.]]
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** In ''Burning Low'',[[spoiler:after learning about [[TheHero Finn]]'s new relationship with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Flame Princess]], she tries to warn he and Jake that FP's physical instability risks world-ending catastrophe if she became too excited. Unfortunately, her warning came in the form of a long, boring technobabble-heavy slide show that neither of the boys paid attention to, leading to them assuming that PB's real problem was mere jealousy. A lot of unnecessary heartache and near-Armageddon followed.]] PB really should take a couple of speech classes to get her point across more quickly.
** In ''The Lich'', Billy tells Finn that he needs the gems of power from the Princesses' crowns to help save the world from the Lich. Finn steals the gems from the crowns, going so far as to ''attack'' Princess Bubblegum, without ever explaining why. As a result, PB is too late when she warns him that [[spoiler:"Billy" is really the Lich.]]
** In ''The Lich'', Billy tells Finn that he needs the gems of power from the Princesses' crowns to help save the world from the Lich. Finn steals the gems from the crowns, going so far as to ''attack'' Princess Bubblegum, without ever explaining why. As a result, PB is too late when she warns him that [[spoiler:"Billy" is really the Lich.]]
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** In ''Burning Low'',[[spoiler:after "Burning Low", [[spoiler:after learning about [[TheHero Finn]]'s new relationship with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Flame Princess]], she tries to warn he and Jake that FP's physical instability risks world-ending catastrophe if she became too excited. Unfortunately, her warning came in the form of a long, boring technobabble-heavy slide show that neither of the boys paid attention to, leading to them assuming that PB's real problem was mere jealousy. A lot of unnecessary heartache and near-Armageddon followed.]] PB really should take a couple of speech classes to get her point across more quickly.
** In''The Lich'', "The Lich", Billy tells Finn that he needs the gems of power from the Princesses' crowns to help save the world from the Lich. Finn steals the gems from the crowns, going so far as to ''attack'' Princess Bubblegum, without ever explaining why. As a result, PB is too late when she warns him that [[spoiler:"Billy" is really the Lich.]]
** In
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* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', Stanford knows that a gravitational rift could allow [[BigBad Bill Cipher]] to enter the real world. However, he tells Dipper not to tell Stanley or Mabel about this, leading to disaster when Mabel gives it to a possessed Blendin Blandin in "Dipper and Mabel vs the Future".
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* In LiloAndStitch 2, Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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* In LiloAndStitch 2, ''Disney/LiloAndStitch 2'', Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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* The ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] had to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company was going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
to:
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'': The ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] had has to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company was is going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
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* One hilarious example in RobotChicken, where a mother tries to teach her daughter Rosa what brittle means. This was because, she was curious to why her grandmother was walking so slow. In order to make the comparison, the mother said that being brittle is like being peanut brittle. Rosa misinterprets it as thinking she was made of the actual food of the same name. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jdfs_hcCxQ Ensues.]]
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* One hilarious example in RobotChicken, ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', where a mother tries to teach her daughter Rosa what brittle means. This was because, she was curious to why her grandmother was walking so slow. In order to make the comparison, the mother said that being brittle is like being peanut brittle. Rosa misinterprets it as thinking she was made of the actual food of the same name. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jdfs_hcCxQ Ensues.]]
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Changed line(s) 58,61 (click to see context) from:
--> '''Skipper:''' [[RunningGag Remember what happened to Manfredi and Johnson?]]
-->'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them with affection.
-->'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
* A downplayed case since nothing goes wrong as a result but in the CodeLyoko episode "Zero Gravity Zone", XANA unleashes a gravity-reversal scheme on the same day as Ulrich's soccer match. When Jeremie announces the need for a Lyoko mission, Ulrich insists he can't miss his game. Incensed and under the impression that [[JerkJock Ulrich is skipping the mission to be a glory hound]], Jeremie berates Ulrich severely enough to drive the older boy from the room in a complete funk. Afterwords, Odd reveals that Ulrich's [[AbusiveParents father]] is constantly berating him [[BookDumb for his poor grades]] and the only way Ulrich has any hope of pleasing him is when he plays soccer; to his credit, Jeremie feels terrible and later apologizes sincerely.
-->'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them with affection.
-->'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
* A downplayed case since nothing goes wrong as a result but in the CodeLyoko episode "Zero Gravity Zone", XANA unleashes a gravity-reversal scheme on the same day as Ulrich's soccer match. When Jeremie announces the need for a Lyoko mission, Ulrich insists he can't miss his game. Incensed and under the impression that [[JerkJock Ulrich is skipping the mission to be a glory hound]], Jeremie berates Ulrich severely enough to drive the older boy from the room in a complete funk. Afterwords, Odd reveals that Ulrich's [[AbusiveParents father]] is constantly berating him [[BookDumb for his poor grades]] and the only way Ulrich has any hope of pleasing him is when he plays soccer; to his credit, Jeremie feels terrible and later apologizes sincerely.
to:
--> '''Skipper:''' [[RunningGag Remember what happened to Manfredi and Johnson?]]
-->'''Kowalski:'''Johnson?]]\\
'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them withaffection.
-->'''Private:'''affection.\\
'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
* A downplayed case since nothing goes wrong as a result but in theCodeLyoko ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' episode "Zero Gravity Zone", XANA unleashes a gravity-reversal scheme on the same day as Ulrich's soccer match. When Jeremie announces the need for a Lyoko mission, Ulrich insists he can't miss his game. Incensed and under the impression that [[JerkJock Ulrich is skipping the mission to be a glory hound]], Jeremie berates Ulrich severely enough to drive the older boy from the room in a complete funk. Afterwords, Odd reveals that Ulrich's [[AbusiveParents father]] is constantly berating him [[BookDumb for his poor grades]] and the only way Ulrich has any hope of pleasing him is when he plays soccer; to his credit, Jeremie feels terrible and later apologizes sincerely.
-->'''Kowalski:'''
'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them with
-->'''Private:'''
'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
* A downplayed case since nothing goes wrong as a result but in the
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* A downplayed case since nothing goes wrong as a result but in the CodeLyoko episode "Zero Gravity Zone", XANA unleashes a gravity-reversal scheme on the same day as Ulrich's soccer match. When Jeremie announces the need for a Lyoko mission, Ulrich insists he can't miss his game. Incensed and under the impression that [[JerkJock Ulrich is skipping the mission to be a glory hound]], Jeremie berates Ulrich severely enough to drive the older boy from the room in a complete funk. Afterwords, Odd reveals that Ulrich's [[AbusiveParents father]] is constantly berating him [[BookDumb for his poor grades]] and the only way Ulrich has any hope of pleasing him is when he plays soccer; to his credit, Jeremie feels terrible and later apologizes sincerely.
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* WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar episode "Maurice at Peace" opens with the Zoo receiving a half corrupted fax implying that Maurice only has 24 hours to live. Skipper insists that they make absolutely sure this is true, citing this trope as the reason.
--> '''Skipper:''' [[RunningGag Remember what happened to Manfredi and Johnson?]]
-->'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them with affection.
-->'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
--> '''Skipper:''' [[RunningGag Remember what happened to Manfredi and Johnson?]]
-->'''Kowalski:''' The order was to smother them with affection.
-->'''Private:''' But we only heard the first half...
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* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' combined this with PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad once. The boys were [[CassandraTruth trying to tell their parents, etc.]] that they were weirded out by Mr. Garrison's new lifestyle choice. The parents thought their use of "gay" as a slur aimed at homosexuals; the boys' used the word "gay" to mean [[{{Squick}} Mr. Garrison is openly performing flagrant sexual acts in front of the entire class.]]
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* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' combined this with PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad once. The boys were [[CassandraTruth trying to tell their parents, etc.]] that they were weirded out by Mr. Garrison's new lifestyle choice. The parents thought their use of "gay" as was a slur aimed at homosexuals; the boys' used the word "gay" to mean [[{{Squick}} Mr. Garrison is openly performing flagrant sexual acts in front of the entire class.]]
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* In WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch2, Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
to:
* In WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch2, LiloAndStitch 2, Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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* In WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch2, Jumba discovers that Stitch is malfunctioning early on, and tells Pleakley. The two of them proceed to hide this information from everyone else until the very end of the movie for no reason. Consequently, Lilo and Stitch get into several fights due to Stitch losing control of himself, Nani gets increasingly frustrated as several of her appliances suddenly go missing (Jumba uses them as parts for the machine to fix Stitch), and Stitch eventually concludes that he's become too dangerous and flies off in the space ship containing the machine that can fix him ''without knowing that there is a machine that can fix him on the ship.''
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* One hilarious example in RobotChicken, where a mother tries to teach her daughter Rosa what brittle means. This was because, she was curious to why her grandmother was walking so slow. In order to make the comparison, the mother said that being brittle is like being peanut brittle. Rosa misinterprets it as thinking she was made of the actual food of the same name. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jdfs_hcCxQ Ensues.]]
--> '''Rosa:''' Where's the peanut brittle, I want the peanut brittle!!!
--> '''Rosa:''' Where's the peanut brittle, I want the peanut brittle!!!
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* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': Princess Bubblegum needs the Ice King to howl with pain. She tells Finn and Jake ''that'' part, but not ''why''. And then leaves them to guard him. She was called away at the last moment, but it wouldn't have been particularly hard to say, [[spoiler:"A plague is affecting my land and I need his howls to cure it."]]
** In ''Burning Low'',[[spoiler:after learning about [[TheHero Finn]]'s new relationship with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Flame Princess]], she tries to warn he and Jake that FP's physical instability risks world-ending catastrophe if she became too excited. Unfortunately, her warning came in the form of a long, boring technobabble-heavy slide show that neither of the boys paid attention to, leading to them assuming that PB's real problem was mere jealousy. A lot of unnecessary heartache and near-Armageddon followed.]] PB really should take a couple of speech classes to get her point across more quickly.
** In ''The Lich'', Billy tells Finn that he needs the gems of power from the Princesses' crowns to help save the world from the Lich. Finn steals the gems from the crowns, going so far as to ''attack'' Princess Bubblegum, without ever explaining why. As a result, PB is too late when she warns him that [[spoiler:"Billy" is really the Lich.]]
* As the KangarooCourt episode shows, Aang from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' does not have a future as a defense attorney. More specifically, he was put on trial for "crimes" his past life had committed, and when his friends Katara and Sokka coach him with various innocence proving facts, he sort of... spazzes out.
** There's also the communication gap of life-or-death proportions in [[GrandFinale "The Phoenix King"]]. [[spoiler:Zuko is outraged at the rest of the Gaang's seemingly slacking off when Sozin's Comet is due any day. Turns out they forgot to tell him that they've figured the Fire Nation already rules the whole world so they might as well just wait until after the comet's come and gone before fighting the Fire Lord again. Zuko then tells them the Fire Nation is going to use the comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, which he's slightly more justified in withholding from the rest as he assumed they were still planning to have the fight before the comet arrived.]]
-->'''Aang''': [[spoiler:Why didn't you tell me about your dad's [[OmnicidalManiac crazy plan]] before?]]
-->'''Zuko''': [[spoiler:I didn't think I had to. I assumed you were still going to fight him before the comet. No one told ''me'' you decided to wait!]]
** Thankfully, though, he at least manages to bridge said communication gap, because everyone takes Sozin's Comet ''way'' more seriously after that!
* The ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] had to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company was going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' a rat that ordered a roast from the main cast ''burst'' out of his rat hole snarling and lunging at them. It's not until the very end after a harrowing car chase that he tells them that he is their customer.
* The relationship between Rex and his brother Cesar in season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' goes downhill because Cesar is too tight-lipped to explain why he is cooperating with Black Knight and helping her to collect the Meta-Nanites. [[spoiler:He's planning to give that power to Rex.]]
* Near the end of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', the Watchtower's energy cannon is hacked into and used to blow up the headquarters of the GovernmentConspiracy, also destroying a good portion of a small town, for the sake of making the League look bad. The League goes out to help the survivors, and a man asks The Flash why they're helping when they shot at them in the first place. Instead of saying "Our satellite was hijacked by an enemy," Flash stutters out, "We didn't... I..."
** Another example was in ''The Terror Beyond''; Solomon Grundy has been "recruited" by Aquaman and Doctor Fate to help prevent a Cthluhu-{{Expy}} from [[SealedEvilInACan coming unsealed]]. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl come to stop them, believing they were up to no good. Rather than explaining the situation, Fate teleports Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Supes, and Grundy across the globe to have them fight it out, while he gets his ass handed to him by Hawkgirl. Great job, Doc.
** Then there was the time Metron stopped time to warn Luthor not to continue in his attempt to revive Brainiac, but neglected to explain ''why''. [[spoiler:It was Darkseid he was about to bring back to life.]]
*** Luthor even called him out on it, but Metron made a vauge comment that made it sound like [[spoiler:Darkseid's return instead of Brainiac]]'s was only the most likely option, not an absolute. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Lex then threatens to shoot him if Metron doesn't help fix things (note, Metron is a god, being held up with a gun).]]
** In the episode "Eclipsed", the whole thing could've been avoided if Mophir had just simply warn the soldiers in the cave about the dangers of the black stone it contain during the intro. Instead, he started a fight that he lost, one of the soldiers got his hands on the stone, and the evil snake spirit got free.
* A good portion of the conflicts that happen throughout ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' can be attributed to this trope. A few notable examples:
** In "Party of One", Pinkie Pie interrogates Spike to find out why the other ponies are avoiding her after-party-party for Gummy. Her aggression freaks him out and he takes her demand ("''tell'' me that my friends are avoiding me because they don't like my parties and THEY DON'T WANT TO BE MY ''FRIENDS ANYMORE!''") literally. She takes it as confirmation of her fears and becomes bitter and miserable. These two are already experts at ComicallyMissingThePoint, so it's not really much of a change from the usual for either of them to act like that.
** Similarly, in "Swarm of the Century", Pinkie actually [[spoiler:knows exactly how to rid the town of the Parasprites]], but utterly fails to explain this to anyone else other than make bizarre-sounding comments that would have made sense in context, causing a whole slew of other problems when the others think [[CloudCuckoolander she's just being Pinkie Pie]] and ignore her.
** Averted in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E20GreenIsntYourColor Green Isn't Your Color]]", since the plot is driven by deliberate secret-keeping rather than a character's inability to articulate.
** It happens again in "Bridle Gossip", where Zecora attempts to [[spoiler:warn the cast that they've wandered into a patch of magical plants. Unfortunately, because she insists on [[RhymesOnADime rhyming everything]], it ends up sounding like a threat, and when the effects of the plants kick in the cast blames Zecora for cursing them. It doesn't help that that they're already somewhat scared of her.]] It could, however, be justified [[spoiler:on the basis that she was new in Ponyville and was still learning the local language]].
** The entire plot of "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E22ABirdInTheHoof A Bird in the Hoof]]" could have been avoided entirely if Princess Celestia had simply [[spoiler:mentioned that Philomena was a phoenix]], though the fair share goes to Fluttershy for [[YouDidntAsk not asking]].
** "Luna Eclipsed" has the problem of Luna's FishOutOfTemporalWater-ness interfering with trying to reintegrate with modern society. Not helping matters is (once again) Pinkie Pie, who riles up the younger ponies by screeching "IT'S NIGHTMARE MOON!" and running, despite knowing she's not evil anymore and that she's trying to fit in. Things could have been solved earlier if Pinkie had ''mentioned'' something to Luna about it before, instead of after Luna decides to cancel Nightmare Night.
** In "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle notices her brother's bride acting suspiciously in a number of ways, but the most sensitive way she can express this is to burst in on the wedding rehearsal shouting that "SHE'S EVIL!" which only makes everyone turn against her. The lack of messages given to Twilight about the wedding early on due to heightened security, making her find out about the wedding just a day or two away from the ''actual'' wedding might have contributed to this. Twilight's lack of evidence might also be justified in the sense that she had no possible way of collecting any in this case, let alone any that could not be contradicted. Especially annoying because the ''episode immediately prior'' featured the lesson "Don't jump to conclusions'' and Twilight should have had it fresh in her mind.
** In "One Bad Apple", the entire plot of the episode could have been resolved in the first 10 minutes easily if the CMC had just ''talked to Applejack about it'' to begin with, which [[OnlySaneWoman Sweetie Belle]] ''repeatedly'' tried to get the others to do to start with.
** In "Games Ponies Play", the cast mistake a random tourist for the inspector they were supposed to host because they didn't bother to ask for her name.
** Celestia seems to have a knack for having poor communication. The fourth season finale has one of her schemes fail and, in a desperate move, have Twilight absorb the Alicorn powers for herself. The problem is that she then forbids Twilight from telling the others about what happened, which includes the FaceHeelTurn of one of their friends. This, as you might guess, leads into a NearVillainVictory that could have easily been avoided.
** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' shows that ''all'' the human versions of the Mane Six suffer from this, as Sunset Shimmer is able to destroy their friendship simply by dropping a few pieces of misinformation that could easily be cleared up. Instead, they all assume the worst of each other, and it takes several years and the influence of Twilight before they think to actually ''talk'' to each other about what happened. After that, it takes about five minutes before they make up.
** In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'', the Humane Five start a band, but start to squabble over issues like Rainbow hogging the spotlight, Rarity's focus on the costumes, etc. Sunset notices this, but doesn't feel like she's been a part of the group long enough to speak up. This allows the Dazzlings to take advantage of the tensions and achieve a NearVillainVictory, though luckily Sunset realizes what's going on and stops the fighting. If they had simply worked the issues out when they first appeared, the Dazzlings could have been stopped earlier.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'', this is the AccidentalAesop of an episode mostly devoted to WhatMeasureIsANonCute; while the Crabnasties do look much uglier than the [[WalkingWasteland Flories]], a big part of what led the ponies to side with the latter was the former's relentless efforts at ripping a trail of destruction through Dream Valley in an attempt to find the Flories and their refusal to stop and explain who they were and what they were doing.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' Candace jumps to the conclusion that her best friend is dumping her when she gets the text message "CYL BFF". Cryptic, but one might expect a teenager glued to her phone to know that it meant "See you later, best friend forever" and not "Candace, you loser. Bad friendships fail".
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', when Fat Tony and his mob come to kill Homer in one episode, they find themselves under fire from an unknown sniper. Attempting to get a visual on their assailant, Fat Tony asks [[MeaningfulName Johnny Tightlips]] if he saw the shooter. Unfortunately, Johnny "sees alotta things". Which isn't exactly that helpful in the current situation.
** In another episode, Johnny Tightlips has been shot during a gunfight:
-->'''Legs:''' Johnny Tightlips, where'd they hit ya?
-->'''Johnny:''' I ain't sayin' nothin'.
-->'''Legs:''' But what'll I tell the doctor?
-->'''Johnny:''' Tell him to suck a lemon.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' combined this with PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad once. The boys were [[CassandraTruth trying to tell their parents, etc.]] that they were weirded out by Mr. Garrison's new lifestyle choice. The parents thought their use of "gay" as a slur aimed at homosexuals; the boys' used the word "gay" to mean [[{{Squick}} Mr. Garrison is openly performing flagrant sexual acts in front of the entire class.]]
** It doesn't help that when Mr. Garrison and his partner, Mr. Slave, are asked to make a speech in front of the parents, they're intentionally trying to be as offensive as possible with their homosexuality as part of a [[ZanyScheme Get Rich Quick Scheme to sue the school for discrimination]]. He becomes increasingly frustrated as the audience can't stop talking about how "brave" they're being.
*** And just to top it off - Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave are subsequently sent to the same "Rehabilitation Camp" as the boys had been sent to, since they "obviously [couldn't] tolerate your own behavior!"
** There was also another episode, "Raisins", where Wendy broke up with Stan. Stan gets Jimmy to tell her that she is a "continuing source of inspiration to him". Unfortunately, Jimmy gets stuck on the first syllable of "continuing", so it sounds like he's saying "you are a cunt". Wendy is offended and walks away, and only then can Jimmy finish the sentence. Maybe not a good idea to send the boy with the ghastly stutter on this errand.
** Subverted in "The F Word". When the boys write "fags get out!" to get rid of the obnoxiously loud Harley bikers, the town demands an explanation to why they wrote hate speech against homosexuals. The boys explain they were referring to the bikers and the whole misunderstanding is solved in about 5 minutes.
** WesternAnimation/SouthPark loves to play this for laughs. There's an episode-long example in which Subway spokesman Jared confesses that he only lost so much weight because of his aides, [[DontExplainTheJoke which everyone interprets as AIDS.]] By [[OverlyLongGag the end of the episode,]] he's angrily muttering to himself that he doesn't understand why everyone hates him for offering to give aides/AIDS to children, while literally [[LampshadeHanging beating a dead horse.]]
* Invoked in the ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' episode "Chocolate With Nuts" with a character that is so ''insanely enthusiastic'' about the prospect of buying some chocolate from door-to-door salesmen Spongebob and Patrick that he scares them away for the entire episode, both afraid that they've pressed his BerserkButton instead. "'''''CHOCOLAAATE!'''''"
** "Good Ol' Whatshisname" has two examples -- first Mr. Krabs tells [=SpongeBob=] and Squidward to find out their customers' names, having read in a book that doing so will make them more likely to visit the Krusty Krab often. Squidward isn't interested in this, so Mr. Krabs turns it into a contest. "The employee who learns more names wins this," he says as he holds up a brochure. Squidward assumes that he was referring to the cruise vacation depicted in the brochure, but he would have remained disinterested in the contest if he realized that Mr. Krabs was literally presenting the brochure as the actual prize. Regardless, [=SpongBob=] and Squidward are tied, and Mr. Krabs points out a mystery guy whose name is unknown even to [=SpongeBob=] (who records the customers' names in a book). Squidward comes up to the guy and asks for his name. The guy responds, "What Zit Tooya". [[WhosOnFirst Unfortunately, it sounds like, "What's it to ya?"]] Squidward asks for his name again, this time under the pretense that he's entering it into a sweepstakes. Tooya gives his name again, but Squidward still misunderstands and resorts to stealing his wallet. In the end, by the time Squidward finds Tooya's name, the police arrests him for both the theft and running a stop sign as he made his getaway, and it isn't until Mr. Krabs visits him in jail when the misunderstanding about the brochure comes to light.
* Many of the worse parts of ''TransformersAnimated'' could have been avoided if Sumdac had told them about how he found their "friend" Megatron...
** Megatron realized this too -- the first thing he did when Sumdac noticed he had been reactivated was to make up a sob story about how he was ashamed of his ruined state and made Sumdac promise not to reveal his condition to his "fellow" Autobots.
* Quite a few episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' are driven by this trope. A prime example is "The Snow Fort": Tyrone and Pablo play Mounties guarding the world's biggest snowball inside a snow fort, prepared to defend it at all costs from raiders, while Uniqua and Tasha play a ski rescue team looking for someone in need of rescue. The rescue team finds the Mounties' snow fort and conclude that someone's in trouble inside, while the Mounties spot the rescue duo and assume them to be raiders; conflict ensues.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' where Joe is caught cheating on his wife, Bonnie, Joe weakly attempts to justify his cheating by saying Bonnie cheated on him when she was in Paris because Peter told him about it. Lois interjects by saying that Bonnie ''thought'' about cheating but she never actually did it. The entire situation came to be all because Peter wasn't fully paying attention to Lois.
-->'''Joe:''' DAMMIT, PETER!
-->'''Peter:''' Now, hold on. In my defense, it is my experience that I am generally correct about most things.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Ahsoka Tano suffers from this after getting framed for multiple murders, organizing a bombing of the Jedi Temple and conspiring with the enemy.]] Due to a series of [[ContrivedCoincidence unlikely events]], any outside observers are led to believe that she is guilty. Inexplicably, she fails to tell anyone the complete chain of events from her point of view, despite multiple opportunities. Had she done so, it would have cast serious doubts on her guilt, and even a prejudiced prosecutor, not to mention the Jedi Order, would have wanted to [[spoiler:interview/interrogate Barriss Offee and Asajj Ventress before ever putting Ahsoka on trial.]]
* The ''PunkyBrewster'' episode "Growing Pain" had Glomer growing every time he sneezes. The flowers of Margaux's parade float help him to slowly shrink, but since Punky is competing ''against'' Margaux for best parade float, she yanks Glomer away to build her own float. Glomer tries to tell her about the flowers but Punky angrily exclaims, "I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!" Later, Punky's float turns out to be Glomer, and another sneeze causes him to collide with Margaux's float. Punky now sees Glomer shrinking from the flowers. She asks him "Why didn't you tell me?" Glomer replies, "Well, I trying to. But ''you'' say 'I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!'"
----
** In ''Burning Low'',[[spoiler:after learning about [[TheHero Finn]]'s new relationship with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Flame Princess]], she tries to warn he and Jake that FP's physical instability risks world-ending catastrophe if she became too excited. Unfortunately, her warning came in the form of a long, boring technobabble-heavy slide show that neither of the boys paid attention to, leading to them assuming that PB's real problem was mere jealousy. A lot of unnecessary heartache and near-Armageddon followed.]] PB really should take a couple of speech classes to get her point across more quickly.
** In ''The Lich'', Billy tells Finn that he needs the gems of power from the Princesses' crowns to help save the world from the Lich. Finn steals the gems from the crowns, going so far as to ''attack'' Princess Bubblegum, without ever explaining why. As a result, PB is too late when she warns him that [[spoiler:"Billy" is really the Lich.]]
* As the KangarooCourt episode shows, Aang from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' does not have a future as a defense attorney. More specifically, he was put on trial for "crimes" his past life had committed, and when his friends Katara and Sokka coach him with various innocence proving facts, he sort of... spazzes out.
** There's also the communication gap of life-or-death proportions in [[GrandFinale "The Phoenix King"]]. [[spoiler:Zuko is outraged at the rest of the Gaang's seemingly slacking off when Sozin's Comet is due any day. Turns out they forgot to tell him that they've figured the Fire Nation already rules the whole world so they might as well just wait until after the comet's come and gone before fighting the Fire Lord again. Zuko then tells them the Fire Nation is going to use the comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, which he's slightly more justified in withholding from the rest as he assumed they were still planning to have the fight before the comet arrived.]]
-->'''Aang''': [[spoiler:Why didn't you tell me about your dad's [[OmnicidalManiac crazy plan]] before?]]
-->'''Zuko''': [[spoiler:I didn't think I had to. I assumed you were still going to fight him before the comet. No one told ''me'' you decided to wait!]]
** Thankfully, though, he at least manages to bridge said communication gap, because everyone takes Sozin's Comet ''way'' more seriously after that!
* The ''WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' episode "Everything Is Wonderful" fits this trope to a T. All [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] had to do was inform business rival Simon Williams that the latter's company was going under and Stark himself was only purchasing it to save it. Instead of doing this flat-out, he remained aloof, inattentive, unfeeling, and cold as Simon was practically weeping at his feet. [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] called him out on it, and even though Stark knew what he was doing, it still didn't drive him to run after Simon as he stormed out in a huff. And then Simon gets transformed into [[WonderMan a being of pure energy]], driven only to destroy Stark for his perceived callousness.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' a rat that ordered a roast from the main cast ''burst'' out of his rat hole snarling and lunging at them. It's not until the very end after a harrowing car chase that he tells them that he is their customer.
* The relationship between Rex and his brother Cesar in season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' goes downhill because Cesar is too tight-lipped to explain why he is cooperating with Black Knight and helping her to collect the Meta-Nanites. [[spoiler:He's planning to give that power to Rex.]]
* Near the end of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', the Watchtower's energy cannon is hacked into and used to blow up the headquarters of the GovernmentConspiracy, also destroying a good portion of a small town, for the sake of making the League look bad. The League goes out to help the survivors, and a man asks The Flash why they're helping when they shot at them in the first place. Instead of saying "Our satellite was hijacked by an enemy," Flash stutters out, "We didn't... I..."
** Another example was in ''The Terror Beyond''; Solomon Grundy has been "recruited" by Aquaman and Doctor Fate to help prevent a Cthluhu-{{Expy}} from [[SealedEvilInACan coming unsealed]]. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl come to stop them, believing they were up to no good. Rather than explaining the situation, Fate teleports Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Supes, and Grundy across the globe to have them fight it out, while he gets his ass handed to him by Hawkgirl. Great job, Doc.
** Then there was the time Metron stopped time to warn Luthor not to continue in his attempt to revive Brainiac, but neglected to explain ''why''. [[spoiler:It was Darkseid he was about to bring back to life.]]
*** Luthor even called him out on it, but Metron made a vauge comment that made it sound like [[spoiler:Darkseid's return instead of Brainiac]]'s was only the most likely option, not an absolute. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Lex then threatens to shoot him if Metron doesn't help fix things (note, Metron is a god, being held up with a gun).]]
** In the episode "Eclipsed", the whole thing could've been avoided if Mophir had just simply warn the soldiers in the cave about the dangers of the black stone it contain during the intro. Instead, he started a fight that he lost, one of the soldiers got his hands on the stone, and the evil snake spirit got free.
* A good portion of the conflicts that happen throughout ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' can be attributed to this trope. A few notable examples:
** In "Party of One", Pinkie Pie interrogates Spike to find out why the other ponies are avoiding her after-party-party for Gummy. Her aggression freaks him out and he takes her demand ("''tell'' me that my friends are avoiding me because they don't like my parties and THEY DON'T WANT TO BE MY ''FRIENDS ANYMORE!''") literally. She takes it as confirmation of her fears and becomes bitter and miserable. These two are already experts at ComicallyMissingThePoint, so it's not really much of a change from the usual for either of them to act like that.
** Similarly, in "Swarm of the Century", Pinkie actually [[spoiler:knows exactly how to rid the town of the Parasprites]], but utterly fails to explain this to anyone else other than make bizarre-sounding comments that would have made sense in context, causing a whole slew of other problems when the others think [[CloudCuckoolander she's just being Pinkie Pie]] and ignore her.
** Averted in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E20GreenIsntYourColor Green Isn't Your Color]]", since the plot is driven by deliberate secret-keeping rather than a character's inability to articulate.
** It happens again in "Bridle Gossip", where Zecora attempts to [[spoiler:warn the cast that they've wandered into a patch of magical plants. Unfortunately, because she insists on [[RhymesOnADime rhyming everything]], it ends up sounding like a threat, and when the effects of the plants kick in the cast blames Zecora for cursing them. It doesn't help that that they're already somewhat scared of her.]] It could, however, be justified [[spoiler:on the basis that she was new in Ponyville and was still learning the local language]].
** The entire plot of "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E22ABirdInTheHoof A Bird in the Hoof]]" could have been avoided entirely if Princess Celestia had simply [[spoiler:mentioned that Philomena was a phoenix]], though the fair share goes to Fluttershy for [[YouDidntAsk not asking]].
** "Luna Eclipsed" has the problem of Luna's FishOutOfTemporalWater-ness interfering with trying to reintegrate with modern society. Not helping matters is (once again) Pinkie Pie, who riles up the younger ponies by screeching "IT'S NIGHTMARE MOON!" and running, despite knowing she's not evil anymore and that she's trying to fit in. Things could have been solved earlier if Pinkie had ''mentioned'' something to Luna about it before, instead of after Luna decides to cancel Nightmare Night.
** In "A Canterlot Wedding", Twilight Sparkle notices her brother's bride acting suspiciously in a number of ways, but the most sensitive way she can express this is to burst in on the wedding rehearsal shouting that "SHE'S EVIL!" which only makes everyone turn against her. The lack of messages given to Twilight about the wedding early on due to heightened security, making her find out about the wedding just a day or two away from the ''actual'' wedding might have contributed to this. Twilight's lack of evidence might also be justified in the sense that she had no possible way of collecting any in this case, let alone any that could not be contradicted. Especially annoying because the ''episode immediately prior'' featured the lesson "Don't jump to conclusions'' and Twilight should have had it fresh in her mind.
** In "One Bad Apple", the entire plot of the episode could have been resolved in the first 10 minutes easily if the CMC had just ''talked to Applejack about it'' to begin with, which [[OnlySaneWoman Sweetie Belle]] ''repeatedly'' tried to get the others to do to start with.
** In "Games Ponies Play", the cast mistake a random tourist for the inspector they were supposed to host because they didn't bother to ask for her name.
** Celestia seems to have a knack for having poor communication. The fourth season finale has one of her schemes fail and, in a desperate move, have Twilight absorb the Alicorn powers for herself. The problem is that she then forbids Twilight from telling the others about what happened, which includes the FaceHeelTurn of one of their friends. This, as you might guess, leads into a NearVillainVictory that could have easily been avoided.
** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' shows that ''all'' the human versions of the Mane Six suffer from this, as Sunset Shimmer is able to destroy their friendship simply by dropping a few pieces of misinformation that could easily be cleared up. Instead, they all assume the worst of each other, and it takes several years and the influence of Twilight before they think to actually ''talk'' to each other about what happened. After that, it takes about five minutes before they make up.
** In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'', the Humane Five start a band, but start to squabble over issues like Rainbow hogging the spotlight, Rarity's focus on the costumes, etc. Sunset notices this, but doesn't feel like she's been a part of the group long enough to speak up. This allows the Dazzlings to take advantage of the tensions and achieve a NearVillainVictory, though luckily Sunset realizes what's going on and stops the fighting. If they had simply worked the issues out when they first appeared, the Dazzlings could have been stopped earlier.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'', this is the AccidentalAesop of an episode mostly devoted to WhatMeasureIsANonCute; while the Crabnasties do look much uglier than the [[WalkingWasteland Flories]], a big part of what led the ponies to side with the latter was the former's relentless efforts at ripping a trail of destruction through Dream Valley in an attempt to find the Flories and their refusal to stop and explain who they were and what they were doing.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' Candace jumps to the conclusion that her best friend is dumping her when she gets the text message "CYL BFF". Cryptic, but one might expect a teenager glued to her phone to know that it meant "See you later, best friend forever" and not "Candace, you loser. Bad friendships fail".
* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', when Fat Tony and his mob come to kill Homer in one episode, they find themselves under fire from an unknown sniper. Attempting to get a visual on their assailant, Fat Tony asks [[MeaningfulName Johnny Tightlips]] if he saw the shooter. Unfortunately, Johnny "sees alotta things". Which isn't exactly that helpful in the current situation.
** In another episode, Johnny Tightlips has been shot during a gunfight:
-->'''Legs:''' Johnny Tightlips, where'd they hit ya?
-->'''Johnny:''' I ain't sayin' nothin'.
-->'''Legs:''' But what'll I tell the doctor?
-->'''Johnny:''' Tell him to suck a lemon.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' combined this with PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad once. The boys were [[CassandraTruth trying to tell their parents, etc.]] that they were weirded out by Mr. Garrison's new lifestyle choice. The parents thought their use of "gay" as a slur aimed at homosexuals; the boys' used the word "gay" to mean [[{{Squick}} Mr. Garrison is openly performing flagrant sexual acts in front of the entire class.]]
** It doesn't help that when Mr. Garrison and his partner, Mr. Slave, are asked to make a speech in front of the parents, they're intentionally trying to be as offensive as possible with their homosexuality as part of a [[ZanyScheme Get Rich Quick Scheme to sue the school for discrimination]]. He becomes increasingly frustrated as the audience can't stop talking about how "brave" they're being.
*** And just to top it off - Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave are subsequently sent to the same "Rehabilitation Camp" as the boys had been sent to, since they "obviously [couldn't] tolerate your own behavior!"
** There was also another episode, "Raisins", where Wendy broke up with Stan. Stan gets Jimmy to tell her that she is a "continuing source of inspiration to him". Unfortunately, Jimmy gets stuck on the first syllable of "continuing", so it sounds like he's saying "you are a cunt". Wendy is offended and walks away, and only then can Jimmy finish the sentence. Maybe not a good idea to send the boy with the ghastly stutter on this errand.
** Subverted in "The F Word". When the boys write "fags get out!" to get rid of the obnoxiously loud Harley bikers, the town demands an explanation to why they wrote hate speech against homosexuals. The boys explain they were referring to the bikers and the whole misunderstanding is solved in about 5 minutes.
** WesternAnimation/SouthPark loves to play this for laughs. There's an episode-long example in which Subway spokesman Jared confesses that he only lost so much weight because of his aides, [[DontExplainTheJoke which everyone interprets as AIDS.]] By [[OverlyLongGag the end of the episode,]] he's angrily muttering to himself that he doesn't understand why everyone hates him for offering to give aides/AIDS to children, while literally [[LampshadeHanging beating a dead horse.]]
* Invoked in the ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' episode "Chocolate With Nuts" with a character that is so ''insanely enthusiastic'' about the prospect of buying some chocolate from door-to-door salesmen Spongebob and Patrick that he scares them away for the entire episode, both afraid that they've pressed his BerserkButton instead. "'''''CHOCOLAAATE!'''''"
** "Good Ol' Whatshisname" has two examples -- first Mr. Krabs tells [=SpongeBob=] and Squidward to find out their customers' names, having read in a book that doing so will make them more likely to visit the Krusty Krab often. Squidward isn't interested in this, so Mr. Krabs turns it into a contest. "The employee who learns more names wins this," he says as he holds up a brochure. Squidward assumes that he was referring to the cruise vacation depicted in the brochure, but he would have remained disinterested in the contest if he realized that Mr. Krabs was literally presenting the brochure as the actual prize. Regardless, [=SpongBob=] and Squidward are tied, and Mr. Krabs points out a mystery guy whose name is unknown even to [=SpongeBob=] (who records the customers' names in a book). Squidward comes up to the guy and asks for his name. The guy responds, "What Zit Tooya". [[WhosOnFirst Unfortunately, it sounds like, "What's it to ya?"]] Squidward asks for his name again, this time under the pretense that he's entering it into a sweepstakes. Tooya gives his name again, but Squidward still misunderstands and resorts to stealing his wallet. In the end, by the time Squidward finds Tooya's name, the police arrests him for both the theft and running a stop sign as he made his getaway, and it isn't until Mr. Krabs visits him in jail when the misunderstanding about the brochure comes to light.
* Many of the worse parts of ''TransformersAnimated'' could have been avoided if Sumdac had told them about how he found their "friend" Megatron...
** Megatron realized this too -- the first thing he did when Sumdac noticed he had been reactivated was to make up a sob story about how he was ashamed of his ruined state and made Sumdac promise not to reveal his condition to his "fellow" Autobots.
* Quite a few episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'' are driven by this trope. A prime example is "The Snow Fort": Tyrone and Pablo play Mounties guarding the world's biggest snowball inside a snow fort, prepared to defend it at all costs from raiders, while Uniqua and Tasha play a ski rescue team looking for someone in need of rescue. The rescue team finds the Mounties' snow fort and conclude that someone's in trouble inside, while the Mounties spot the rescue duo and assume them to be raiders; conflict ensues.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' where Joe is caught cheating on his wife, Bonnie, Joe weakly attempts to justify his cheating by saying Bonnie cheated on him when she was in Paris because Peter told him about it. Lois interjects by saying that Bonnie ''thought'' about cheating but she never actually did it. The entire situation came to be all because Peter wasn't fully paying attention to Lois.
-->'''Joe:''' DAMMIT, PETER!
-->'''Peter:''' Now, hold on. In my defense, it is my experience that I am generally correct about most things.
* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Ahsoka Tano suffers from this after getting framed for multiple murders, organizing a bombing of the Jedi Temple and conspiring with the enemy.]] Due to a series of [[ContrivedCoincidence unlikely events]], any outside observers are led to believe that she is guilty. Inexplicably, she fails to tell anyone the complete chain of events from her point of view, despite multiple opportunities. Had she done so, it would have cast serious doubts on her guilt, and even a prejudiced prosecutor, not to mention the Jedi Order, would have wanted to [[spoiler:interview/interrogate Barriss Offee and Asajj Ventress before ever putting Ahsoka on trial.]]
* The ''PunkyBrewster'' episode "Growing Pain" had Glomer growing every time he sneezes. The flowers of Margaux's parade float help him to slowly shrink, but since Punky is competing ''against'' Margaux for best parade float, she yanks Glomer away to build her own float. Glomer tries to tell her about the flowers but Punky angrily exclaims, "I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!" Later, Punky's float turns out to be Glomer, and another sneeze causes him to collide with Margaux's float. Punky now sees Glomer shrinking from the flowers. She asks him "Why didn't you tell me?" Glomer replies, "Well, I trying to. But ''you'' say 'I don't want to hear another word about Margaux's dumb flowers!'"
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