All For Nothing / Western Animation

Examples of All for Nothing in Western Animation TV series

The following have their own pages:

• The Owl House

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• In The Adventures of Puss in Boots, the group spend a small arc trying to track down clues to lead them to an artifact known as the "Obelisk of Night". After helping out the person said to have it, they find that he just has a replica of it and points them to where the real obelisk is found; the group's home town of San Lorenzo.
• In The All-New Popeye Hour short "Popeye the Carpenter", Olive asks Popeye, and then Bluto, to hang a picture in her house. Bluto tries to hang it, but Popeye interferes, resulting in the destruction of Olive's house. After discovering that it's a portrait of Popeye, Bluto quits in disgust. Popeye eats his spinach and rebuilds Olive's house. Afterward, he tries again to hang the picture, driving in the nail with "one teeny tap" … which destroys Olive's house again.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force
  • In Video Oujia, Meatwad can talk to the dead through the titular video game. Shake kills himself in an over the top manner so he can haunt Meatwad from the game. Unfortunately for him, Meatwad had already grown bored of Video Oujia and moved on to Insult Master.
  • In Super Bowl, Meatwad wins two super bowl tickets from a bag of Enchiladitos chips. Carl and Shake battle for Meatwad's favor to get the extra ticket. Not wanting to suck up to Meatwad anymore, Shake tries to win another pair by eating bag after bag Enchiladitos. Resulting in him geting diabetes and cancer. In the end Meatwad picks Boxy Brown instead. To add insult to injury, Meatwad forgets the tickets and goes to a farm instead. Shake is not too pleased.
    Meatwad: Yep, Super Bowls are fun. We got bragging rights this year! Number one...
    Shake: Who?
    Meatwad: Number one!
    Shake: Who? Who's 'Number one'?
    Meatwad: I dunno...
    Shake: YOU DON'T KNOW? Because you went to a *HORN SOUND* FARM you *HONK NOISE* imbecile! Get back here, you cost me my one chance! I got *BUS HORN* DIABETES and CANCER because of you!
  • In Remooned, The Mooninites work together with Shake and Meatwad to get Ignignokt's Uncle Cliff's check cashed. After failing to get it cashed at a gas station, which the clerk tries in vain to explain they don't cash checks, it turns out it's not even a check, but a bill for medicare. And it admits radiation when overdue. Err even knew it was a bill and told Ignignokt that but just went along with it under the assumption that he knew something he didn't.
• Arcane: Jayce eventually offers a deal to Silco to give him everything he wants, but only if he hands over Jinx to Piltover for her crimes, and cashes in all of his remaining political clout to make the council agree to it. Silco admits to Jinx he dismissed it out of hand because she's his daughter and he loves her. And Jinx blows up the council anyways.
• Invoked and averted in the Batman: The Animated Series episode [[Batman: The Animated Series E18 "Beware the Gray Ghost"" Beware the Gray Ghost"]], where actor Simon Trent, who played the titular character of the Show In A Show "Beware the Gray Ghost", believes that the series ruined his career — only to find out one of its fans, and someone inspired by the character, was Batman himself, leading to realize "So it wasn't all for nothing."
• In the Big City Greens episode "Homeshare Hoedown", Cricket puts the Green home up on Share BNB as a way to make quick money. He ends up running himself ragged trying to keep up with the demands of his guests, and when he genuinely tries to show them a real farm experience, he ends up overdoing it and drives them away. But at least he got paid for his troubles, right? Nope. He set the whole thing up using Gloria's Share BNB account, so she got the guests' $100 instead of him.
• Defied in Bob's Burgers episode The Equestranauts. When Tina's favorite horse doll is stolen, Bob Belcher goes undercover at a convention as a fan of the show the doll is from to get it back. After being caught and almost given an embarrassing tattoo, while getting a small part of it on his rear, he gets the doll back. Tina decides she's too old to play with dolls and put it away. Not pleased with her decision after everything he went through, Bob quietly, then shouting, orders Tina to continue playing with it, which she does.
• Centaurworld: In the final episode "The Last Lullaby" when Horse learns that the War all started because the General's treatment towards the Elk created the Nowhere King, she's devastated that everything she ever fought for was a lie. If anything, it might've never happened in the first place if only the General had accepted the Elk's proposition they reunite.
  • Unto itself, the Elktaur's efforts to fit in with human society and become a human were all unnecessary. He may have done it for the love of a Princess, but the problem is, she didn't even mind he was a centaur. Many years later, as the Mysterious Woman, she sadly spells it out for him that she would've loved him as the Elktaur he was.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Live It Up Tonight", Bitsy made up an award for the Mayor Whitebottom to give to her and have a ceremony for it as an excuse to have Whitebottom slander Central Park's management to the public and has an auditor try to find any dirty on Owen. After Owen and Paige managed to avoid getting in trouble with the auditor, Whitebottom didn't have any dirt to reveal at the ceremony and it was all for nothing. To add insult to injury, Bitsy has no alcohol in her hotel because when Bitsy and Helen were trapped in a store room full of liquor underground, they thought it belonged to the Dagmont Hotel and they destroyed it all just to screw with them, only to later learn they destroyed their own liquor.
• Danger Mouse: ZigZagging in "All Fall Down." Mac the Fork and Dudley Poyson have built a world-shattering earthquake device from plans stolen from Puttinghamdown Research Centre. Once the device is built, DM studies the blueprints for it and lets the villains try to use it. As DM and Penfold escape and the villains activate the device, the very building they're in (and only the building) comes crumbling to earth over them. DM notes that Colonel K must have spilt his tea on the blueprint, making what was left of it only able to get the device to enable localized quakes. Penfold wonders if he and DM went through all that for nothing, but DM reasons it did put pay to two nasty villains.
• Danny Phantom: Vlad Masters/Plasmius often claimed all he wanted was love, namely that of Maddie, the wife of his former best friend and a family of his own. Most of his goals have been just to have that happy life he's always wanted, a family, and a love to call his own. Because of his actions, Maddie's only feelings towards him are negative, and she wants nothing to do with him, the closest thing he had to a family was a girl he rejected due to being an imperfect clone of the son he wanted out of Danny, and the friend he treated poorly his whole life turning his back on him once his true colors were shown. Not only does Vlad not get anything he wanted, but he's also left with less in the end.
• Dexter's Laboratory: In "Morning Stretch", Dexter decides to put off doing his homework until later. Unfortunately, he oversleeps and only has one minute to do his homework, have breakfast, and get ready for school. So, he creates a time expansion helmet to slow down time, turning 30 seconds into 30 minutes. Dexter completes everything and turns off the helmet, but Dee Dee blocks his way out, making him miss the bus. When he asks her why, Dee Dee answers, "Snow day, school's canceled!" Dexter slowly collapses, realizing he did all that rushing for nothing.
• In the Ducktales 2017 reboot Bradford Buzzard spent decades putting numerous plans in action to make Scrooge McDuck lose his passion for adventuring and (as Bradford sees it, wasting profits on it, culminating in him forcing Scrooge to sign a contract saying he'll give it up on the Papyrus of Binding, which forces Scrooge to abide by it with magic, but then the triplets find one loophole in the contract that makes the contract null and void and the Papyrus dissolves, meaning all Bradford's efforts were meaningless in the end. Then Magica turns him into a non-sapient animal, to add insult to injury.

  Louie: According to this, Scrooge can be with his family as long as he doesn't adventure.
  Huey: But family is the greatest adventure of all!
  Bradford: That's the Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard. There's no way that...[The Papyrus begins dissolving] NO!

• In the Family Guy special "And Then There Were Fewer", Diane's plan for revenge was to kill James Woods, her ex, and frame it on Tom Tucker, her former co-anchor, with the deaths of a few side and recurring characters as by-products of the plan. In the end, the main goals of her scheme were for naught as Tom was cleared of the framing and it was revealed later on that James Woods was revived by top-secret Hollywood medicine, meaning the only things she accomplished were killing a few recurring characters, with her herself being killed by Stewie to save Lois, who learned about Diana's plot.
• Final Space:
  • Lord Commander /Jack spent all of season one trying to capture Moon Cake to open the breach into Final Space and unleash The Titans in hopes that they will save him from dying from the overuse of his powers and make him one of them. But the Titans he believed would make him into a god completely ignore him and just pull the Earth into Final Space instead. He ends the season with the breach destroyed, his forces annihilated, and him still teetering on the verge of death because of overusing his powers.
  • Much later, it's revealed that in countless timelines, Gary sacrificed himself to stop Invictus from conquering the universe. But no matter how he died, Invictus always conquered the universe anyway, making his death in vain. To add insult to injury, Invictus resurrects each Gary as part of its undead army, deliberately restoring their minds and souls first so they can't ever be free of it.
  • At the end of the series all of the Team Squad's attempts to make a dent in Invictus' forces amount to nothing, and while they escape Final Space, Invictus also escapes, making their entire struggle to find sanctuary from it meaningless.
• In The Flintstones episode "The House That Fred Built", when Wilma receives a message from her mother saying she was going to move in with her daughter and favorite son-in-law, Fred buys a house for her, with him and Barney working hard to fix it up. When it's discovered that the house is built over an artesian well, Fred tries to move the house to his backyard, only for the trailer to careen out of control in the process and the house getting destroyed. It's then revealed that Wilma misinterperted her mother's letter and she was really going to live with Wilma's sister and her husband. At first, Fred and Barney laugh at the fact that they did all that hard work for nothing, along with the house getting destroyed...until Fred realizes all the money he wasted on the endeavor.
  Fred: A thousand bucks down the drain? What am I laughing at?! (Starts bawling)
• Gravity Falls:
  • When Fiddleford McGucket got sucked into a portal he helped build and saw Bill Cipher without his silly facade, the memory haunted him so much he invented a memory erasing gun in a desperate attempt to keep himself from going insane. However, as his memory log showed, not only did he wind up using the gun on himself so many times over a two year period that his mind broke anyways, but the last shot shows his insane self making a symbol representing Bill, meaning the gun failed in fully erasing the thing he wanted to forget the most.
  • The big Zodiac wheel with the ten symbols ultimately ends up as this in the Grand Finale. When The Chosen Many stand on their symbols and begin generating the human-powered circuit to destroy Bill Cipher, Stan, the one remaining, refuses until he urges Ford to say thank you for rescuing him. Ford obliges, Stan joins, and it looks like the circuit will work... but then Ford corrects Stan on his grammar, causing the two to break the circuit and argue as Dipper and Mabel try to stop them, and Bill, no longer distracted, arrives and destroys the Zodiac, turns anyone who isn't a Pines into tapestries, and continues his reign from there.
• The Legend of Korra
  • A good part of the first season involved Mako trying to be a good boyfriend while in a Love Triangle with Korra and Asami Sato, never wanting to hurt either, but still doing so because of his own tactlessness, irresponsibility and habitual lying. In the end, he loses both women by the end of the second season.
  • Bolin's work on the Earth Empire and with Kuvira is this. He joins Kuvira because he believes that they are making lives better. Bolin strains his relationships with his brother Mako and girlfriend Opal, who disapprove of Kuvira because he idolizes her. Bolin goes so far as to lash out at Mako for not thinking she is a good leader. In "Enemy at the Gates", when he is sent to Zaofu to negotiate, he finds that Opal is angry and wants nothing to do with him. When Bolin tries to tell all the good the Earth Empire has done to improve the lives of the towns, Opal tells him that all of the towns that were forced to join the Earth Empire have turned into labor camps so Kuvira can get their resources and calls him out on never checking on those towns. Bolin refuses to believe her and snaps at her that he was certain that they were making the Earth Empire a better place to live. The tension between the couple is defused, however, when Bolin hears Kuvira issue a twenty-four hour ultimatum to surrender Zaofu, lest she would take it by force. Kuvira then confirms to Bolin that what he heard is true and threatens to send him to a reeducation camp. Painfully aware of how badly he misjudged her and how many people he's hurt in the process, Bolin goes to great lengths to help derail Kuvira's plans. Lampshade in "Remembrances":
    Bolin: How can you call me "the hero of the world"? [Looks down.] I left my friends and family to join up with a psychotic dictator who imprisoned me and now, [Looks away in shame.] I'm running back home with my tail between my legs.
  • Zaheer was a terrorist that believed the true path to humanity's freedom and salvation was to cause chaos that would kill the world leaders and end the nations. He and his friends assassinate the earth queen, start a revolution and cripple Avatar Korra, stopping her from stopping his revolution. Zaheer was captured and in prison, and his friends were killed. In three years, a well-organized military push brutally crushes Zaheer's anarchist revolution, and Kuvira has shown herself to be even worse than Hou-Ting ever was, which Korra calls him out on. All Zaheer's ideals about freedom though chaos were just that, ideals. This was actually foreshadowed when Asami and Bolin were playing Pai Sho in Book Three while staking Aiwei out. Bolin, who was playing fast-paced Pai Sho, lost pretty much every time to the strategic and calculating Asami (he nearly won once, but Pabu scattered the pieces). While chaos may be effective in the short term, order tends to win out in the long term, especially when safety is threatened.
  • While this could apply to all the Big Bads of the series, a special notice goes to the fourth season's Kuvira, whose intentions were to bring order to the fractured Earth Kingdom and not leave it in the hands of someone she understandably does not see good ruler like Prince Wu. Not only does she end up defeated by the very person she claimed was obsolete, but she lost her fiancé and adoptive family while the very prince she usurped decided to abdicate anyway and democratize the kingdom into a series of states, meaning all the strong-arming and scheming ended up being just an exercise in cruelty from a woman with abandonment issues.
• Looney Tunes:
  • "Canned Feud" has Sylvester's owners going on vacation to California for two weeks, and they forgot to put him out, which means he may starve during this timespan. He does, however, succeed in finding a treasure trove of cat food in the kitchen cupboard and needs a can opener to open them, which is being guarded by a mouse. Sylvester succeeds in wresting the can opener from the mouse, and it seems he can now leave himself to his two-week supply, only to find that the mouse locked the cupboard.
  • In "Tweet And Sour", Sylvester has tried to eat Tweety so many times that Granny has threatened to have him turned into violin strings if he is caught doing so again. However, Sam the Cat has plans of his own for the canary and is uncaring that Sylvester will be deemed responsible for Tweety's disappearance. Sylvester manages to successfully protect Tweety from Sam, but this effort turns out to be in vain when Granny comes home and he tries putting Tweety back in his cage, and Granny, thinking he was after the canary again, promises to make good on her threat.
    Granny: (enters the house and believes Sylvester is trying to eat Tweety again) So! Even after all that warning!
    Sylvester: (tries to explain what really happened, but it's no use) Ah, what's the use?! She'd never believe me! (plays Chopin's "Funeral March" on the violin before falling into the cello case as a coffin to his demise)
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • By "Revolution", Chloé Bourgeois's karma finally crash down on her after several years of bothering other characters and getting away with it: After being permanently replaced as the Bee wielder by her own half-sister, Chloé's akumatization into Queen Mayor turns her into the most hated person in Paris, her father, whom she's been treating like garbage most of her life, finally grows a spine and disowns her while sending her away to New York with her mother, and Sabrina, the one actual friend she had in her life, decides enough is enough and cuts ties with her permanently. Chloé's basically left all alone with no friends, no power, no influence, and not even a parental figure in her life, as Audrey makes it clear she's not going to make Chloé's stay in New York a pleasant experience.
  • Re-creation: The Last Day: After five seasons of keeping the Earrings and the Ring from Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch, Marinette wields both of them to finally bring the Big Bad down and recover the other Miraculous... and not only does Hawk Moth manage to take them after taking a cheap shot at her and make the Wish, he gets remembered as a hero for "sacrificing himself to stop Monarch" - and the Butterfly falls into Lila's hands.
• In the special "The Quest for the Lost Mixamajig", all the Mixels had spent the entirety of the episode fighting with each other for a special treasure, only for the treasure to turn out to be a rusty old egg-beater. Worse yet, the whole treasure hunt had been just a scam deployed by the Nixels to trap all the Mixels.
• My Adventures with Superman
  • Lois and Jimmy go through hell and back to get the first picture of Superman as proof in episode "Adventures of a Normal Man", only to find out the entire thing was co-opted by Cat Grant, Ron Troupe and Steve Lombardi.
  • The League of Lois Lanes went through a lot of trouble to finally arrest Mister Mxyzptlk thanks to the aid of Clark, Lois, and Jimmy, but by the end of episode "Kiss Kiss Fall in Portal", he easily escapes from prison.
• In the Grand Finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, at the peak of her Heroic BSoD, Twilight Sparkle felt that everything she and her friends had ever accomplished was this, with the Tree of Harmony destroyed by Sombra, Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow returning more powerful than ever and turning the three pony tribes against each other, and her Friendship School being shut down.
  Twilight: Nothing we do makes any difference!
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Magic Coins", the ponies undergo a series of dangerous quests to retrieve a set of legendary treasures in order to get Niblik the troll to undo a curse. These all turn out to be entirely fruitless, as Niblik is allergic to the first treasure, the second breaks into pieces, and the third is identical to some gems Niblik already has plenty of, giving them nothing for their efforts.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "The Patrick Show Cashes In", the money the family makes through selling clearly dangerous merchandise ends up being accidentally shredded by Patrick. However, the Stars take a lesson from it: it doesn't matter how much money you make or how many toys you sell, as long as you're having fun making a show that people enjoy.
• Popeye: This tends to be a frequent twist in the theatrical cartoons:
  • "Clean Shaven Man" — Popeye and Bluto overhear Olive singing that she prefers a man who is nicely groomed, and go to the barbershop to fix themselves up. But with the barber out, they end up doing it themselves, but Bluto cheats, and sabotages Popeye's chances. After the inevitable fight, they find Olive is now going out with Geezil (a recurring character from the comics with a long, black beard). Remade years later as "Shaving Muggs."
  • "Females is Fickle" — There's a reason the cartoon in question is called that. Olive's pet goldfish jumps in the sea, and she makes Popeye go in after him. After he goes through a lot of trouble to get him back, Olive decides the fish would be happier freed and tosses him back in the sea. Outraged about how his pursuit turned out to be for nothing, Popeye then decides to give Olive her comeuppance in form of tying her up by wrapping her in ropes and tossing her over the side of the ship (but with a lifesaver on) into the water. After being tossed in a water tied up and making a huge splash, Olive starts struggling to keep herself afloat and distressingly pleads for Popeye to take the ropes off her, but Popeye completely ignores Olive's pleas to rescue her from drowning as he already returned to do his chores and sing happily. Females is fickle, indeed.
  Olive: (after seeing that her fish pet is crying in it's aquarium) Oh, the poor little fish. Cooped up in that small bowl. I'm gonna set him free. (Olive then releases her pet fish back into the ocean)
  Popeye: (shocked and outraged) What? What? (angry) Hey. Oh, well, blow me down. (Popeye ties up Olive by wrapping her up in ropes from top of her shoulders to the bottom part of her skirt) Can you beat that?
  Olive: (yells in disbelief and panic after she is tied up with rope with a lifesaver on top of the rope)
  Popeye: (grabs and pulls Olive up while she struggles to move with rope tied up around her body and twirling around her legs, then tosses Olive from the ship into the water, Olive makes a huge splash that gets her all wet after being tossed into water while tied up with rope and having a lifesaver around her shoulders, Popeye then returns to do his chores, feeling satisfied about Olive's comeuppance)
  Olive: (starts drowning and struggles to keep herself afloat while distressingly pleading for Popeye to take the ropes off her and rescue her from drowning) Popeye, I wanna take the ropes off.
  Popeye: (ignores Olive's pleas to rescue her from drowning while happily singing and doing his chores) You can bet your last nickel that women is fickle. Says Popeye the sailorman (Popeye then whistles with his pipe).
  • "Puttin on the Act" — Popeye and Olive read in the paper that vaudeville is making a comeback, so they decide to bring back their old act, and the rest of the cartoon is about their rehearsal. At the end, after the two perform a very dangerous act, Swee'pea notices something on their newspaper and shows it to them. The paper was dated for 1898!
  • "Olive's Sweepstakes Ticket" — Olive wins first prize in a sweepstakes, but unfortunately misplaced her ticket. Thinking it might be worth millions, Popeye helps her turn her house upside down until they eventually find it, only for it blow out the window, forcing Popeye to go through all manner of hijinks chasing it across the city before finally getting it back after a Bar Brawl. When Olive turns the ticket in to claim her prize, it turns out to be...a silly looking bird.
    Popeye: (Tearing his hair out) Olive, someday you're going to give me apoplexy!
• Primal (2019): The Chieftain's revenge against Spear and Fang ultimately costed him far more than he could've gained. By accepting the demon's offer, he had damned his soul so that he would never be able to ascend to Valhalla and reunite with his fallen family and friends, the very people he sought to avenge. His revenge was also ultimately unsuccessful since he failed to kill Fang or Mira before he was forcibly Dragged Off to Hell by his new master. Although he managed to kill Spear, the caveman was able to father Mira's daughter on his deathbed, meaning his legacy still lived on while the Chieftain's was no more.
• Recess:
  • In episode "Officer Mikey", Mikey Blumberg wants to become a safety ranger, but is rejected by the captain, crushing him since becoming a safety ranger was his dream. So Mikey's friends try to help him, and after an extensive Chain of Deals, they succeed in getting him on the squad. The gang goes to school happy they made Mikey's dream come true, only to find that he'd already quit less than a day in because he found it to be too hard. Mikey then tells his friends he has a new dream of being a jet pilot; they leave while he's busy talking.
  • The episode "Pharaoh Bob" has King Bob force the entire student body to construct a mud pyramid dedicated to his tenure as king. A student rebellion arises in response, and in the midst of it, rain begins to pour and melts away his pyramid. With or without the rebellion, the pyramid was doomed from the start.
• Regular Show The episode "Limousine Lunchtime" has the gang watch over Maellard’s limo for the day. Unsurprisingly, they end up destroying it, so they enter a demolition derby in order to win a new one. When they win the limo and give it back to Maellard, he actually damages it himself. He simply shrugs it off, saying that since he’s rich, he can just by another limo.
  • The episode "The Best Burger in the world" has Mordecai and Rigby want to eat the Ulti-meatum Burger that is only offered once in a hundred years but Benson continuously gets in the way and forces them to work. After trying and failing to sneak away from their work to get the burger, the two try to make clones of themselves and then sneak off to get the burgers. They finally get them and then the clones steal them. After finally jumping through another hoop and getting to eat the burgers... it cuts to Benson eating both burgers and then driving away
• Rick and Morty:
  • Rick Sanchez's stated goal in "The Rickshank Redemption" is to supersede Jerry as The Patriarch and focal point of Morty's life as well as the family's lives in general. The end of "The Rickchurian Mortydate" sees all of that fall apart as Morty decides to stay with his family and help his (possibly-clone) mother, who has gotten back together with Jerry after some ill advice from Rick regarding her possible nature as a clone sent her into an Identity Breakdown that led her back to Jerry as the one simple constant in her life. At the end of the episode the status quo at the start of Season One is restored and looks like it's going to stick since the family is genuinely happy now instead of the near-dysfunctional state they were in back then. Of course, given how the series intentionally switches between Cerebus Syndrome and Reverse-Cerebus Syndrome each season, it's all played for laughs and sobs.
    • In "Rickmurai Jack", we get a look at Rick's true origins. It turns out that a group of Ricks did kill his original wife and daughter, and he went on a rampage trying to track them down and wipe them out. However, despite all of his effort and largely annihilating the organization of Ricks behind the it, he never caught the Rick directly responsible, and ends up being responsible for the formation of the Citadel and Council of Ricks, effectively creating an organization identical to the one that was behind the death of his wife and daughter.
    • "Unmortricken": At long last, Rick C-137 comes face to face with his nemesis Rick Prime with nothing between him and his vengeful rage... and Rick C-137 loses the final fight. It's ultimately Evil Morty who takes Rick Prime down, and though he lets Rick C-137 deliver the coup de grace, it's clear that not only is his revenge hollow, he never planned for what would come after. All he really accomplished was handing Evil Morty the Omega Weapon on a silver platter.
  • In "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat", Morty Smith continuously tries to change the future so that he and Jessica end up together well until his last days when she tells him that she loves him, though he is eventually stopped by Rick from going AKIRA. However, he later overhears Jessica talking about how, after she gets out of school, she wishes to cheer up dying strangers and repeat their names on their tags over and over to console them. This means he wasn't going to die with Jessica as his wife as he likely thought, but simply being consoled while dying alone and miserable. Morty is pretty pissed about this.
• Samurai Jack:
  • In season three's "Jack and the Labyrinth", Jack breaks into a heavily-guarded fortress to steal a jewel that could potentially send him home, while competing with a Phantom Thief who plans on stealing the jewel to sell it. The two of them successfully manage to get the jewel and escape from the robots guarding the fortress, but a flame trap knocks the jewel from the thief's hands causing it to shatter. Both Jack and the thief leave empty-handed.
  • In "The Four Seasons of Death" episode of season four, the winter segment focuses on a group of mountain ogres (or something) who expend massive amounts of time and effort to forge a magic sword that can defeat Jack. Then, their chosen champion meets Jack with the sword... and it shatters against Jack's in the first blow.
  • Played for Laughs in season five. The High Priestess of Aku believes that Aku has abandoned her, and will do anything to hear his voice again. To that end, she births half a dozen daughters, raises them to be killing machines, and sends them to kill Samurai Jack and win Aku's favor again. Not only is Aku completely unaware of all this, but it's demonstrated throughout the season that it's very easy to contact Aku—dialing zero on any phone will get you an operator who will be happy to connect you to him in seconds. In the end, most of the Daughters are killed, and the last one ends up joining Jack and killing the High Priestess. Again, this all happens without Aku even noticing.
  • The Guardian who refused to allow Jack to enter the time portal he served because he wasn't "ready" yet, despite that he refused to allow the only person who could destroy Aku from completing his goal. Jack would never prove himself in time, as 50 years later, the portal was long since destroyed and the Guardian was seemingly vaporized by Aku, wasting the ages he spent protecting it. All because he wouldn't let Jack enter the portal.
  • Also during Season Five, Scaramouche learns in the season premiere that Jack had lost his sword (i.e the one thing that can harm Aku). After surviving his fight with Jack, he went on a journey to reach Aku to inform him of this fact, suffering a few setbacks along the way. Unfortunately, during that time, Jack managed to recover his sword and by the time he reached Aku, it was no longer true, earning himself a head explosion for his troubles^note Though his actions did manage to kick Aku out of his rut and allowed him to discover the truth about Ashi, which he used to his advantage. This detail actually gets a lampshading without Scaramouche realizing it.
    Scaramouche: (After learning that Aku doesn't want to see anyone anymore) Oh, no! I didn't come all this way for nothing!
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
  • All Hordak's goals and years of loyal service end up being for nothing when Horde Prime appears. Rather than receiving praise, Horde Prime mocks his attempts at forming an empire on Etheria, mind-wipes him, and sends him off to be "reconditioned".
  • Shadow Weaver betrayed everyone she was close to, emotionally (and physically in Catra's case) abused her wards, manipulated fraying friendships, and aided a violent dictatorship, all in the aim of gaining access to incredible magic power. But she’s so thoroughly destroyed her relationship with Adora that even though she convinces her to unleash all of Etheria’s magic, Adora makes it clear that Weaver won’t be allowed anywhere close to the magic she’s trying to gain. If she had genuinely protected Mystacor or treated Adora and Catra with respect, she would’ve had access to Etheria’s magic without any resistance. At the end of it all, she's utterly diminished and washed up, and accepts there is no future for her.
  • Catra has spent her entire life in the Horde, fighting to conquer Etheria. In season four, she and Hordak come very close to succeeding while working as a team. However, Catra's miscalculation results in the Horde army being kneecapped by a Rebellion ambush, undoing everything that Catra worked for. When Hordak learns that Catra exiled Entrapta and lied to him about it, he attacks her, meaning that all her efforts to earn his respect were for naught. When Horde Prime rebukes and mind-wipes Hordak, Catra realizes that conquering Etheria wouldn't have made any difference anyway.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Days of Wine and D'oh-ses", Barney decides to sober up after becoming horrified when he sees a video of what he's like when he's drunk. He joins Alcoholics Anonymous, and actually stays sober for some time after that episode (usually drinking coffee rather than beer). He eventually relapsed, however. Hell, even the end of that episode shows that he quickly developed an addictive relapse towards the coffee Moe gives him... something Moe planned on happening exactly. The B-plot also applies as well; after all of Bart and Lisa's efforts to get a perfect picture for the phone book cover contest (nearly dying in a wildfire as a result), the winning picture is their.... baby pictures, which they didn't realize were on the camera's film. Marge did, however, and won it herself. To add insult to injury, she jokes that she donated the bike she knew her kids were playing for to charity... but quickly admitted how cruel such a move would be, and lets them share the prize.
  • Homer and Apu travel to India to meet the head of the Kwik-E Mart, only for Homer to accidentally ruin Apu's chance of getting his job back.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "All That Glitters", after his spatula breaks, SpongeBob seeks out a new one called Le Spatula. After spending literally everything he had that was worth monetary value in order to buy it (including his house and clothes), it turns out that La Spatula has a mind of its own and has a higher standard than flipping Krabby Patties, and abandons SpongeBob, leaving the poor guy with nothing.
  • In "Dying For Pie", when Squidward thinks Spongebob is gonna blow up after supposedly eating a pie laced with explosives, he spends the day going through a list of fun things with him. His efforts all turn out to be for naught when Spongebob DOESN'T go off, and it turns out that Spongebob never even ate the pie in the first place. He was saving it to share with Squidward... but missteps and shoves it into Squidward's face... and only then does the pie explode.
  • In "Scavenger Pants", Squidward keeps sending SpongeBob and Patrick on impossible scavenger hunts to get them to leave him alone, but they succeed with every last one. His most impossible test is to find his nonexistent long-lost brother, which they spend six whole months trying to find until they run into Mrs. Tentacles, who reveals she only had Squidward because one is enough, so that last test was all a big waste. But SpongeBob refuses to go back to Squidward because he feels he needs the brother he never even thought he had, so he and Patrick ask Mrs. Tentacles to adopt them to Squidward's dismay.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris": All of Beckett and Tendi's time, risk and effort trying to fix T'Ana's broken Caitian libido post are for nothing, as the doctor is more interested in the box that it was shipped in.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: During the "Citadel" arc, in the end, despite all the effort the Jedi put into rescuing Master Piell and getting the Nexus Route, all of it accomplished nothing. Since Master Piell died during the escape, and since Ahsoka and Tarkin are only willing to share the two parts of the code with different people (Ahsoka with the Jedi Order and Tarkin with the Chancellor) nobody can get access to the full code, rendering it completely useless. The only thing they really accomplished was to save Tarkin, which ended up doing more harm than good.
  • As a matter of fact, everything that happens in this show will ultimately not matter because of what comes after. Friendships and victories are ultimately all for naught as in the end, Order 66 will happen, the Galactic Empire will rise, and everyone will die. Those fortunate to escape are scarred for life, condemned to either run and hide or fight a bleak war against the empire for the rest of their life.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: All his planning to get rid of magic; however, unknown to him that Glossaryck was using him and his plan to release Eclipsa. In season 3, Toffee believed his master plan work; however, when Star came back and she used her magic on Toffee. Toffee couldn't believe Star came back and his plans was for nothing. This lead to him finally snapped into insanity and dies by the hands of Ludo. The creators stated that Toffee really failed and was defeated at season 3 and he's defeat drove him insane before he died.
• In one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), a pair Dream Beavers, virtually invincible and omnipotent Dream Weavers, sought to invade reality and wreak havoc, while one man's life's mission was to prevent it, at the cost of not sleeping for years. In a clash with the turtles, the beavers succeed in crossing over...only for them to be reduced to cute and harmless plush forms, much to the dismay of both the beavers and their foe that their years of effort were for naught.
• Trollhunters: Draal is captured by the Big Bad and put under Mind Control near the end of the second season, and for most of the third season the good guys are trying to rescue him. In the same episode where he escapes Gunmar's mind control, he dies saving Jim from Angor Rot.
• Wakfu: Nox committed atrocities to collect wakfu to be able to turn back time and save his family, believing everything he had down would be undone by saving them and eliminating his reason and means to do so. He succeeds in turning back time, but only twenty minutes. Upon realizing how horrible he's been and that there isn't enough wakfu in the world to take him back two hundred years, he teleports away and dies.
• W.I.T.C.H.: In the final fourth of the second season, after Phobos defeats Nerissa and regains his status as the Big Bad, he reconquers Meridian and begins planning to conquer Kandrakar as well. This was all actually part of a complex Batman Gambit set up by Will. Knowing Phobos would betray them but still requiring his help to defeat Nerissa (as only a member of the royal family could forcibly take the Seal of Nerissa from her), Will made him swear on the power of Kandrakar to return the Hearts of Meridian and Zamballa upon getting the Seal from Nerissa before releasing him. The vow acted as a mystic contract, and if Phobos were to set foot on Kandrakar with malicious designs, he would mystically forfeit everything he claimed since defeating Nerissa. To accommodate the plan, the Guardians deliberately allowed him to reconquer Meridian and even forfeited the battle for Kandrakar (Phobos being only willing to set foot on a conquered territory). However, just before the vow was broken, Lord Cedric pulled a Starscream and devoured Phobos, using Exact Words to claim all his powers and conquests (Phobos granted him a "fraction" of his power for the battle, and Cedric used it to claim 4/4's, as in all of it). Since Cedric didn't make a vow, he gets to keep everything, meaning that not only did Will's plan fail, but the Guardians had allowed Meridian and Kandrakar to fall into enemy hands for nothing. Luckily, in the finale, the girls manage to defeat Cedric anyway and save the day.
• Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: In "I Am Johann Sebastian Bach", the kids travel miles by foot to see a concert that Bach really wanted to go to, but only see a snippet of it before Bach runs off to work on his song. Yadina points out how dumb this idea was.

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