History PrankGoneTooFar / WesternAnimation

** In "Stannie Get Your Gun", Steve eats one of Roger's cookiees without his permission. In revenge Roger convinces Steve that he's adopted, and as part of the ruse he destroys all family photos with Steve as a baby. Roger searches the FBI archives, finding a Norwegian couple whose son was kidknapped as an infant, and tells Steve he is the child in question, leading Steve to angrily upend a bookcase burying his paralysed and wheelchair-bound father underneath, and French kiss his own sister. Roger finally reveals the prank after Steve has already tracked down the couple and introduced himself to them as their long-lost son, leaving them distraught.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chozen}}'': When Chozen and Lacy's parents Greg and Brenda visits Lacy's college for an awards ceremony, the [[DoctorJerk father]] of one of the bullying frat boys turns out to have been Greg's bully during their own college days, and Chozen decides to help his dad get back at him with a kidnapping prank. Unfortunately, the car gets stolen while the guy is still locked in the trunk, and when they finally find it again, the backseat is full of blood and guts, making it seem like they just caused his death. [[spoiler: Thankfully, he turns up alive the next morning, revealing that the car had been stolen by some white trash who just so happened to need a doctor for his pregnant girlfriend, and the bloody remains in the car were actually just afterbirth. Gross, but no murders had occured.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends:'' In "First Class Feline," Jon, Odie, and Nermal decide to teach Garfield a lesson with his penchant for trying to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi by substituting Nermal with a stuffed cat doll in the package and making Garfield's favorite meal but saying they can't eat without Nermal. Unfortunately, they underestimated the lengths Garfield would go for food as he chased after the package all the way to the central post office. When Garfield learned of the trick, he decided to [[ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine turn the tables]] by using the stuffed cat (after painting its tail to look like his own) to make them think he mailed himself to Abu Dhabi.

--->'''Arnold:''' Grandpa, why didn't you tell me? That the prank could cause blindness?
--->'''Grampa:''' Arnold, I did. I said it had a "[[NotHyperbole blinding flash]]".

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' episode, "[[Recap/TheLoudHouseS3E5CitySlickersFoolMeTwice Fool Me Twice]]", the Loud family hire stunt doubles of themselves to take the fall for whatever lethal pranks Luan may have planned for April Fool's Day. Midway through the episode, they find out that as her prank for this year, Luan hired the stunt doubles to ruin her family's reputations, each one doing something out of character for the real deal ([[ThePigPen Lana's]] stunt double being grossed out by worms, [[ChildProdigy Lisa's]] stunt double acting like a normal kindergartener, [[CompetitionFreak Lynn Jr.'s]] double breaking the real Lynn Jr.'s winning streak, and Lucy's stunt double showing her eyes). Unfortunately, Luan forgot to consider the fact that [[DidntThinkThisThrough this time she was humiliating her family to the entire town]]. So after having their reputations ruined by Luan, the Loud family decide to pack their bags and move out of Royal Woods, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone making Luan realize that she went too far with her prank.]] [[spoiler:Subverted in that this was all part of the family's plan to prank Luan, and the only boxes they packed in the moving van were Luan's.]]

%%* ''WesternAnimation/WhatsWithAndy'' '''runs''' on this trope.

** Used in the HalloweenEpisode where Arnold and Gerald prank the boarding house by imitating the infamous ''Radio/WarOfTheWorlds'' broadcast. Unfortunately, it gets out of hand when the radio show is picked up by an Creator/OrsonWelles {{expy}} reporter who blows the situation out of proportion, coupled with an attempt to make the city water tower look like a spaceship [[BigBlackout causing the city to lose power]], which sends [[ApocalypseAnarchy the entire city into hysteria]]. Even worse is that Arnold's friends were dressed like aliens for Halloween and ended up getting chased by mobs, culminating in Helga nearly getting strangled by her alien schizophrenic father.

** In the episode "Fools in April", Squidward, who has become tired of [=SpongeBob's=] [[ThePrankster April Fool's Day shenanigans,]] pulls an elaborate-- yet downright ''awful''-- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcgLrEizhYY prank]][[note]]tricking [=SpongeBob=] into stepping into a rope trap by having him clean a stain inside it, then setting the trap, which forcefully drags [=SpongeBob=] all around the Krusty Krab, through a sack of flour, across an obese customer's butt, and finally into a trash can that Squidward uses to "catch" him[[/note]] that causes [=SpongeBob=] to run out of the Krusty Krab in tears. The customers are appalled by Squidward's rotten prank and [[WhatTheHellHero call him out on this]] as they storm out of the restaurant in disgust. Squidward is subsequently hit with a MyGodWhatHaveIDone as he too realizes he had gone way too far. Later, after several unsuccessful attempts to apologize to [=SpongeBob=] due to CannotSpitItOut, Squidward tries to forget the prank ever happened, but he is haunted by memories of those who called him out, ultimately (albeit highly reluctantly) apologizing to [=SpongeBob=]... who then [[spoiler:reveals that all of the above was part of an even more elaborate prank on ''Squidward'', with the whole town in on it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chozen}}'': When Chozen and Lacy's parents Gren and Brenda visits Lacy's college for an awards ceremony, the [[DoctorJerk father]] of one of the bullying frat boys turns out to have been Greg's bully during their own college days, and Chozen decides to help his dad get back at him with a kidnapping prank. Unfortunately, the car gets stolen while the guy is still locked in the trunk, and when they finally find it again, the backseat is full of blood and guts, making it seem like they just caused his death. [[spoiler: Thankfully, he turns up alive the next morning, revealing that the car had been stolen by some white trash who just so happened to need a doctor for his pregnant girlfriend, and the bloody remains in the car were actually just afterbirth. Gross, but no murders had occured.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheNewAnimatedSeries:'' A pretty dark version happens in "The Party", where [[BigManOnCampus Doug Reisman]] plays a prank on Max Dillon; the "prank" is actually kidnapping, blindfolding him and taping a helmet to his head so he couldn't identify him, and leaving him inside a limo. It goes wrong when Max accidentally drives the car into a construction site and nearly drowns in concrete before Spider-Man saves him. Doug, however, doesn't let up, and orchestrates an insanely cruel prank that publicly humiliates Max, and drives him to a mental breakdown. Upon his transformation into [[PsychoElectro Electro]], Max electrocutes Doug to death.

** Used in the HalloweenEpisode where Arnold and Gerald prank the boardinghouse by imitating the infamous ''Radio/WarOfTheWorlds'' broadcast. Unfortunately, it gets out of hand when the radio show is picked up by an Creator/OrsonWelles {{expy}} reporter who blows the situation out of proportion, coupled with an attempt to make the city water tower look like a spaceship [[BigBlackout causing the city to lose power]], which sends [[ApocalypseAnarchy the entire city into hysteria]]. Even worse is that Arnold's friends were dressed like aliens for Halloween and ended up getting chased by mobs, culminating in Helga nearly getting strangled by her alien schizophrenic father.

** Used in the HalloweenEpisode where Arnold and Gerald prank the boardinghouse by imitating the infamous ''Radio/WarOfTheWorlds'' broadcast. Unfortunately, it gets out of hand when the radio show is picked up by an Creator/OrsonWelles {{expy}} reporter who blows the situation out of proportion and sends [[ApocalypseAnarchy the entire city into hysteria]]. Even worse is that Arnold's friends were dressed like aliens for Halloween and ended up getting chased by mobs, culminating in Helga nearly getting strangled by her alien schizophrenic father.