Bad Boss / Western Animation

Bad Bosses in Western Animation.

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• Arcane: Downplayed with Silco. Silco does not really tolerate failure and berates or even threatens his underlings for it, displaying No Sympathy. However, he is often willing to give second chances or have his workers be useful in other ways.
• Archer:
  • Malory's response whenever Brett gets shot in the later seasons is to order him back to work or bitch about his blood ruining her rugs. In a flashback from Season 1, it is revealed that she murdered the cleaning staff for trying to unionize. Then there's her reaction to the strike in "The Rock":
    Lana: What's their (the support staff) beef?
    Malory: Oh, the same entitled crap as always. "I can't make ends meet! I'm on food stamps! My child died because I couldn't afford new bone marrow!" Just me, me, me, me, me!
    Lana: Jesus, whose kid died?
    Malory: Oh, who remembers?
  • Sterling Archer treats Woodhouse like dirt, and openly steals whatever he wants from the guy. He even thought Woodhouse was a slave until the end of Season 2. Goes to massive levels of Jerkass when Woodhouse is planning on going to Vegas with his younger brother Dicky who he hadn't seen in 20 years and likely won't see for another 20 years (Keep in mind that Woodhouse is very very elderly) Archer denies him from going and instead goes to Vegas himself with Woodhouse's brother, and ends up getting Dicky arrested then just leaves him for dead in the slammer.
• Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender in her first appearance threatened to kill the captain of her ship because he said that he wouldn't be able to dock as soon as she wanted because of the tide. She gets even worse after Mai and Ty Lee betray her, after which accidentally leaving the pit in one of her cherries is a banishable offense. And that was her being lenient!
  • To put this into perspective, Zuko's mother, who planned and possibly even carried out the assassination of Fire Lord Azulon (her father-in-law) received the same penalty of exile, possibly since "execution" would be a bad idea to mention in a children's cartoon.
  • While less so than Azula, there was also a ship warden in Season 1, Episode 6 (The Imprisoned) who threw his captain overboard for arguing whether Appa is a bison or a buffalo. Apparently throwing people overboard for the slightest offenses is a frequent occurrence, as he tells one of the other soldiers to go find someone he hasn't thrown overboard yet.
  • The Legend of Korra has Zaheer, who eliminates Red Lotus members who prove to be liabilities. Case in point, Zaheer throws Aiwei into the Fog of Lost Souls, because the latter failed to make sure that Zaheer's group captured the Avatar without a hitch, not to mention that he failed to properly cover their tracks.
  • Also from Korra, Kuvira's approach to military discipline involves getting her troops to wear metal near their necks, so if someone — Varrick, for example — proves inconvenient, she can apply the Darth Vader approach to discipline (non-lethally, but only because Varrick stopped trying to disagree). Kuvira is, to put it mildly, incredibly ruthless about her goals. She even attempted to blow up her fiance because the most dangerous of her enemies were within the blast radius, although she did appear sad about it.
• In Barbie and the Secret Door, Malucia is not kind to her servants at all, much less her subjects.
• The Batman:
  • As well as the Joker, Black Mask has a habit of shooting his numerous second-in-commands, or sending them flying into orbit, and appointing a random henchman the post.
    Black Mask: You. You're my new number one.
  • Police Chief Angel Rojas is a big time asshole in his subordinates, especially Ethan Bennett and Ellen Yin. He treated Ethan like crap and openly berated him just because Ethan supported Batman, going as far to as suspend him after Ethan publicly thanks Batman for saving him from the Joker, which along with the Mind Rape the Joker just pulled and some chemicals he was exposed to drove Ethan to become the first Clayface. He didn't learn anything from this when he found out that Ellen had become allies with Batman, firing her, smashing her Batwave device and taking her hostage to use her as bait as a trap, even employing tactics that'd make Gillian Loeb proud. However, Jim Gordon recently got his iconic rank as Commissioner and pulled it on Rojas, forcing him to let Batman go, and release and reinstate Yin, much to Rojas's chagrin.
  • Much like in other incarnations, Scarface is this to the Ventriloquist, berating him despite both being the same man with split personality.
• Vilgax in Ben 10 was apparently so much of a bad boss (though being The Dreaded doesn't help either) that no one is actually willing to work for him, forcing him to rely on Mecha-Mooks as his personal army. Considering the only time mercenaries worked for him onscreen, he was willing to send his droids against them in order to test them, it probably indeed sucks working for this guy.
  • Strangely enough, in Ben 10: Alien Force, Vilgax is revealed to have become a Villain with Good Publicity on his planet, which has been renamed Vilgaxia in his honor. It's unclear if he actually has a softer side or is just using propaganda to give himself such an image, but since he's shown saving a little girl from Ghostfreak's minion, it's possible he actually cares about his people. On the other hand, he was shown threatening his loyal servant Psyphon to death when he mentioned his defeats against Ben. Of course, Psyphon isn't a native Vilgaxian, so maybe it's just that Vilgax only cares about his people.
• Big City Greens: Chip Whistler regularly yells at, abuses, and threatens his Mooks, Greg and Rose (eventually firing them and replacing them with bouncers), and all of his other employees. It gets worse when he becomes CEO of Wholesome Foods, as his obsession with getting back at the Greens causes him to neglect his duties; when people remind him of the work he's not doing, he whines and says getting revenge on the Greens is more important. Essentially, the company is now under the control of a spoiled little boy. A good example of his treatment towards his employees comes from "Feud Fight" after Tilly and Cricket manage to lure more people by using Tilly's cuteness, Chip yells at his employee disguised as Tomato-san that he's fired and pushes him down:

  Chip Whistler: Tomato-san, you're fired. (Chip then kicks him.)

  • Another example comes from "Coffee Quest". During the episode, he mistreats Wholesome Greg, every time he makes a commentary.
    Wholesome Greg: I don't think he can hear you. Like, they're already gone.
    Chip Whistler: SHUT UP, GREG!!!
  • In "Reckoning Ball", when Greg shows Chip the viral video from "Feud Fight", he breaks his phone:
    Wholesome Greg: Remember that time you violently pelted that kid with tomatoes?'''
    Chip Whistler: (in video) What - whaaaaat!! That's right, baby! CHIP! CHIP! CHIP!
    Wholesome Greg: Well, it kinda went viral. And now, no one wants to shop here.'''
    Chip Whistler: That was taken out of CONTEXT! (Throws the phone to the floor, breaking it)
    Wholesome Greg: Aww, Chip chipped my phone. (Realization) Kind of like your teeth every time you see that kid!'''
  • And a bit later, when his employees tell him that his name is now a joke.
    Chip Whistler: Grrr... YOU'RE ALL FIRED!
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: As one might expect, most of the eco-villains are terrible employers.
  • In "Last of Her Kind", Looten Plunder makes his employees pay for the vehicles Captain Planet wrecked. When one of them, Belo, asks how he'll feed his family, Plunder flatly states that he'll probably do so poorly if he doesn't obey orders.
  • In "Summit to Save Earth", Zarm outright forces the other eco-villains into working with him, viciously insulting them in the process.
  • Hoggish Greedly shows absolutely no respect for his sidekick, Rigger, who's unfortunately bound to his position because of his grandfather having made a deal with his boss's grandfather.
    • In "Beast of the Temple", Rigger grabs onto Greedly and begs him to save him after his boss provokes Gi into flooding the base. Greedly dismisses him and says he's saving himself, though he's too busy hanging on to a pipe to try to throw him off.
    • In "The Dead Seas", Greedly once again shows nastiness towards Rigger, which includes stealing his underling's already meager dinner.
    • In "Two Futures", Greedly explicitly tells Rigger that he's not sure if the time pool is safe, so Rigger will serve as a guinea pig.
  • Though Dr. Blight treats MAL better more often than the other villains do so to their lackeys, she can be similarly nasty to him.
    • "A Good Bomb is Hard to Find" sees her leave him behind on a crashing ship. He tells the Planeteers about her latest scheme in revenge.
    • In "101 Mutations", he comments about her not feeding her guard dogs, and she says that they might take some "bytes" out of him.
• Ms. Angela Li from Daria. Aside from the fact that she funnels most of the school's budget into the football team and her own obsession with security, she's self-promoting, venal and forces the teachers (specifically Mr. DeMartino) into activities that inevitably cause extreme pain or anguish.
  • Her previous high school principal McVicker was worse.
• Venomous Drool from Fangbone!. Monsters that fail to get his magic toe of evil back from Fangbone and Bill can usually expect to be punished... painfully.
• Futurama :
  • Professor Farnsworth certainly qualifies by frequently sending the crew on dangerous missions; they're not his first crew, and based on a few exchanges, he doesn't expect them to be his last. One episode has him reward them for "not reporting my countless violations of safety and minimum wage laws." Usually, this trope is Played for Laughs in his case. In one episode Leela gets knocked unconscious, and the Professor thinking she's dead is all too willing to harvest her organs to keep himself alive.
    Hermes: Don't worry, professor, you'll get your chance someday.
  • Hermes has hints of this, along with being an Obstructive Bureaucrat:
    Hermes: Business has been slow, so I filed some paperwork to have you all reclassified as slaves.
  • Zapp Brannigan often sends his men on deadly missions, expecting total loyalty out of them over ridiculous causes, and emotionally abusing them — you just know what a prick he is when his Second-In-Command Kif Kroker would rather face almost certain death than work for him.
  • Robot Santa employs many Neptunians, using them as slave labour and feeding them little in his unsafe weapons factory on Neptune.
  • There's also Mom, who the Professor and Hermes have worked for before Planet Express, and currently physically abuses her three main minions, and they're her sons!
  • Anytime Bender gets into a position of power, he quickly becomes this. It's most obvious when he takes over as pharoah in a Sci Fi Counterpart Egypt.
  • Even Leela — who's usually just a Mean Boss when she's in charge of the ship — can cross into a mild version of this Trope sometimes, as her pride or a personal grudge often, in her own mind, can take priority to the crew's safety.
  • The entire crew has on one occasion admitted they've fantasized about getting back at an unnamed bad boss. Amy even made a blinding powder.
• Cobra Commander from the Darker and Edgier G.I. Joe: Resolute has little tolerance for failure and his men speaking out against him and as a result he often kills them.
• Trina Riffin from Grojband towards her Beta Bitch and best friend Mina. When not abusing or yelling at Mina for petty reasons, Trina's usually forcing her friend to do all the dangerous and unpleasant parts of her schemes to ruin Corey's life and/or make Nick Mallory fall in love with her, with little regard for Mina's safety.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002): Skeletor practically embodies this Trope. If an episode went by where he didn't zap one of his minions with his Havock Staff, it was a surprise. And the way he treated them was far worse in the remake; it can be summed up by what he angrily said to some new minions after he purposely led the old ones into a trap that led to them being arrested:
  Skeletor: Don't forget, I willingly sacrificed my loyal minions without a second thought, and them I liked!
  • Of course, it's obvious where Skeletor got this from. Hordak was the same. His throne room was equipped with trap doors that could be used to dump someone into a water-filled chamber below, and he'd not only do this to minions who made him angry, but simply for fun. (Mantenna was often the victim of this, being a stooge of sorts.) Of course, this was the earlier, lighter version; the remake was cancelled before Hordak could become a regular character, but from what we see he's even worse than Skeletor. One of his underlings tells him that their ranks were depleted by a battle with the Snake Men and they should wait before engaging in battle with King Grayskull. Hordak admits that's good advice, and then kills his minion. Why? Because he hates bad news.
  • In the backstory, Hordak's idea of "saving" Keldor from the face full of acid that was killing him was to turn him into Skeletor. It's not really surprising that Skeletor doesn't want to free Hordak.
• Iron Man: Armored Adventures has Justin Hammer in Season 2. How does his Dragon come into his employ? He's injected with nanobots that will kill him with the touch of a button. What does he do when he's told that that the prototype he's showing off to the military is not ready for field tests and The Dragon is proven right? After Mr. Fix states that the improvements he was trying to make would have prevented him from losing, Hammer activates his explosive leash and puts his brain in the computer with nothing else to do in life but work and be at Hammer's beck and call. Even another one of his henchmen who has a criminal record and was willing to kill people many times is shocked. Mr. Fix gets his revenge by working within the limits of his programming to engineer Hammer's Villainous Breakdown.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: The Big Bad of every season is this trope, which is why the Enforcers decide to join Jackie's side during season 4. Played with regarding Valmont and Tarakudo, both of whom promise to reward them for their efforts in helping them.
• In an episode of Jonny Quest, Dr. Zin yells at a servant serving him food and threatens to flog him. Why? Because he forgot to knock.
• Lucius Heinous VII on Jimmy Two-Shoes treats everyone who works under him like garbage. His assistant Samy gets it worse, with Lucius often testing Misery Inc's newest products on him, or else just making him do unpleasant things for his amusement. The only exception to this is Heloise. No one DARES attempt to make Heloise angry.
• In the Kim Possible episode "The Ron Factor", Dr. Director's twin brother Gemini is one of these, constantly inviting his minions to "take a seat" and then launching them into space, dropping them into a pit, etc, and then calling up the next minion in the alphabet to take over the mission. His minions keep trying to find inventive ways to avoid sitting on the chair when prompted, but it never works out.
• Buck Strickland from King of the Hill is an uncharacteristic example: he's extremely affable, but also Mr. Vice Guy, using company funds for his own enrichment (among other poor business decisions) and having affairs with his younger female employees. Hank still respects him, but only due to a fair amount of Doublethink; Buck himself seems to realize that the company would collapse without Hank there to run it for him.
  • In one episode, Hank's Funny Foreigner neighbor Kahn buys a car wash that was a popular hangout spot. Despite the entire point being that it runs itself, Kahn ends up driving customers away with his greed and Asian Rudeness. As an experienced businessman, Buck gets involved and helps Kahn run the place... by lending him Hank to do it for him. Kahn then belittles Hank constantly despite him single-handedly saving his business, leading to him hitting his Rage Breaking Point and quitting both jobs. Kahn then experiences Laser-Guided Karma, as Buck panics and bribes his "golden goose" Hank to come back to Strickland before selling his majority share of the car wash to a random guy who then acts as a mean boss to Kahn.
  • It's shown at times that Kahn himself struggles with one of these, explaining why he felt the need to punch down. In the episode "The Redneck on Rainey Street", his boss docks his pay for being late once after nearly two years of perfect attendance. In the aforementioned car wash episode, Kahn states that the first thing he would do upon becoming a millionaire would be to buy a Super Bowl ad just to tell his boss to go to Hell.
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Scarlemagne pretends to be a fair guy but disappointing him tends to be very bad for anyone even just delivering the news.
• Yosemite Sam of Looney Tunes is sometimes shown to be this he is shown beating or shooting his men for their failures. In one short sounds of beating and shooting come from his ship, and a man covered in bruises and tattered clothes runs out of the ship, telling the audience "I was a human being once".
• This was lampshaded with Principal Pixiefrog from My Gym Partner's a Monkey. Not only that he's the show's Big Bad but he's also a total Jerkass to Adam Lyon.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Queen Chrysalis, who doesn't even bother to come off as a good leader, as she fails so much at doing so, and is obviously unpleasant to her fellow changelings. To say they instantly accepted a new ruler when Chrysalis was overthrown would be an understatement.
• Potsworth & Company: When the Nightmare Prince's mother demoted him and had Count Bubba Bonebreaker replace him, Bubba reunited the Nightmare Prince's minions with his own and explained how he wanted things to be done. He then asked them if they had any questions. One had and, before he had a chance to ask, Bubba opened a trap door behind him. Bubba then asked the others if they also had questions. They then told him they didn't.
• The Real Ghostbusters: Plenty of ghostly and demonic overlords viciously oppress their followers. Then there's Mr. Tummel, a human tycoon who wants to use a transportation beam to send his fortune to the afterlife ahead of him. He gleefully reneges on his promise to not use his device if there are any side effects and has the scientist who created it thrown out the front door. Later, the Ghostbusters find Tummel's butler, gardener, and French chef locked in a closet, and they reveal that Tummel is planning to send them through the portal against their will so they can continue serving him.
• From Regular Show
  • Mr. Maellard frequently mistreats his employees (most commonly Benson, whose name he's never bothered to learn) and is shown to care more about his limousine and money than his own son.
  • Speaking of Benson, Mordecai and Rigby definitely see him as this, when, in reality he's more of a Mean Boss with ultimately good intentions, even if very well hidden sometimes. He's specially kind to them off-work.
• Mr. Smitty from Rocko's Modern Life is Rocko's boss at Kind-of-a-Lot-o Comics, and the only character on the show that Rocko openly dislikes. He has no respect for Rocko and treats all of his customers like trash in general. The rare times when it seems like he says something genuinely complimentary to Rocko, he switches back to chastising him for whatever mistake he makes or demands him to work on whatever he's ordered to do. In "Day of the Flecko", he forced Rocko to fix a minor mistake on every last comic book cover all night, and wasn't charged for it.
• From Scaredy Squirrel, Nester is actually The Dragon to his mother who really pulls the strings in the company and is much much nastier.
  Mrs. Nester's Mother: ^note her actual title YOU ARE ALL FIRED!!!
  Dave: I don't work here.
  Mrs. Nester's Mother: Well, I can give you a job if you'd like.
  Dave: Really?
  Mrs. Nester's Mother: Of course, you're hired.
  Dave: This is so gre—
  Mrs. Nester's Mother: YOU'RE FIRED!!!
• Sheep in the Big City: In the first episode, one of General Specific's soldiers asked him why he didn't simply get some random sheep and have the sheep-powered ray gun compatible to it. Instead of explaining it, General Specific opened a trap door under the soldier. And should his ray gun be completed he out right says to his subordinates that he's going to fire them all.
• The Simpsons:
  • Mr Burns is a classical stereotype of the Bad Boss. In fact, he's such a Bad Boss that he's fired Smithers — the only man who (usually) has Undying Loyalty to him — twice. Worse, he's been known, out of sheer sadism, to drop certain of his employees down a seemingly bottomless trapdoor — with the express intention of killing them (although they inevitably survive).
  • This was humorously referenced in the "Treehouse of Horror IV" segment "Bart Simpson's Dracula" in which it turns out Mr. Burns is a Dracula-like vampire — and, when Lisa tells Homer that he must stake Burns through the heart as he's sleeping in order to undo all the evil the vampires have done, Homer is pretty eager to do so — not because Burns turned Bart into a vampire, but simply because he's Homer's boss, and killing him would be "[living] out the American Dream." But it's no use: Homer does kill Burns, but just after he has appeared to die — and literally one second before he dissolves into dust — Burns very briefly comes back from the dead just to say "You're fired" — drawing a "D'oh!" from Homer.
  • Inverted in "You Only Move Twice" when Homer is working for a Blofeld-style supervillain who's the nicest boss you could ever want.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Dr. Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, big time, albeit Played for Laughs. He abuses Scratch and Grounder both physically and verbally on a regular basis, and has been shown on more than one occasion to find them quite expendable.
  • In Sonic Boom, while Eggman isn't physically abusive to Cubot and Orbot, he does belittle, demean, and insult them constantly.
• Kingpin in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a short-tempered jerk towards all his henchmen, with little to no tolerance for failure. He repeatedly chews them out for every slip up, threatens Doctor Octopus while giving her far too little time to finish the Collider project, and when Prowler refuses to kill Miles, Kingpin shoots him dead in cold blood.
• Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants has become this, not caring about his employees or his customers and willing to do anything to get a buck, even poison them. Things have been worse since the titular sponge himself has become an Extreme Doormat and Yes-Man to him when before he would call him out on his methods.
  • Of course, he shows some shades of this even prior to Flanderization; as shown in "Squid on Strike", he decides to start charging SpongeBob and Squidward for any non-work activity, such as talking, breathing, and existing.
  • In "Krabs vs. Plankton", when Plankton sues Mr. Krabs to get the secret formula, SpongeBob brings Squidward to the witness stand. SpongeBob asks Squidward disprove that Mr. Krabs is cheap, and to prove he's generous, but Squidward agrees with and disproves the corresponding questions, and tells the court that he had to go to court and testify on his first day off in three years.
  • In "Money Talks", he sells his soul to the Flying Dutchman for the ability to talk to money. When the Flying Dutchman comes to claim his soul, he is told to wait in line behind 20 other demons who Mr. Krabs also sold his soul to — including SpongeBob, because he'd rather give him his soul on payday than actual money.
  • In "Krabby Caper", when several false leads has not led to finding the thief that stole the secret ingredient to the secret Krabby Patty formula, Mr. Krabs deduces that SpongeBob was the thief all along, and calls the cops on him. When it's pointed out that Mr. Krabs is holding the bottle containing the ingredient, he confesses that he planned to pin the blame on SpongeBob for the theft so as not to pay the cost of the bottle, $1.99.
  • In "The Krabby Kronicle", Mr. Krabs forces SpongeBob to publish outlandish stories in his tabloids' newspaper that results in the reputations, and lives, destroyed of several Bikini Bottom residents. Eventually, SpongeBob gets fed up with Mr. Krabs' callous attitude about everyone else, and because he held SpongeBob's spatula hostage.
    Plankton: I lost my restaurant because of you! And I thought I was evil.
• In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Ludo mocks and berates his minions at every turn. He even tells a minion who may be suffering from internal bleeding that he's just being a baby. At least he never leaves them behind when retreating. Toffee seems to be an aversion at first after he takes over Ludo's forces but ultimately he's even worse, manipulating the minions into helping him destroy Star's Wand without warning them that doing so will trigger a massive explosion that will kill them all. All he says is "Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure" as he leads them to their deaths. And yes, he knew he'd get better.
• General Grievous, as shown in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, frequently exhibits this kind of behaviour. Any of the random battle droids are prone to getting their heads backhanded right off their shoulders when they screw up (which is a lot), and when his smuggler contact Gha Nachkt got a little uppity, he impaled him with a lightsaber. The former is explained in the bonus material as him really hating droids, and as for the latter, well, one should know to be more polite towards a psychotic murderer of billions.
  • Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus who went on and tried to kill Ventress, when his own Bad Boss, Chancellor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious ordered him to do it.
• In the Star Wars Rebels fourth season premiere, "Heroes of Mandalore", the Imperial Super Commando captain under Tiber Saxon's command, Captain Hark, implores him against increasing the power of the Duchess under the logic that the Empire could use it against the Imperial-aligned Mandalorians as well. Instead of heeding Hark's advice, Saxon turns it on him to "teach him a lesson".
• Chief and Lok from Tak and the Power of Juju.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Krang is very much this to Shredder in the 1987 cartoon; he's insulting, and doesn't hesitate to make Shredder's life miserable if he think he can get away with it. The second season opens with Krang sending Shredder to Earth without any weapons or soldiers, and in another episode makes him wait for supplies on a garbage barge. Shredder makes it clear that Krang's technology is the only thing making this abuse remotely worthwhile.
  • The Shredder has never been regarded as a good boss in any continuity, but the incarnation of him in the 2003 cartoon has the distinction of having minions killed offscreen. When his number one scientist Baxter Stockman (who is not replaceable) bothers him, Shredder has various body parts lopped off. When a much better scientist named Chaplin enters the show, Stockman starts sabotaging him because he knows Shredder won't have any use for him if there is somebody around who can do his job better. Even his loyal minion Hun isn't safe from his abuse, Shredder once beating him for walking in on a meeting with the mayor. Shredder might have had a reason,^note Hun was part of a known street gang and his presence could blow the lid on Shredder's criminal activities. but he still beat an underling who stayed loyal to him despite feeling threatened he might be replaced.
  • The Shredder in the 2012 cartoon regularly threatens to mutilate his subordinates if they don't pull through, including his own daughter Karai. Of course, when compared to his 2003 counterpart, he's a Benevolent Boss, as despite all of his threats, he has yet to actually follow up on them.
• Total Drama:
  • Chris has an enormous amount of creative control over the show, often berates the production crew, and gets interns killed on the regular. The producers themselves don't care what he does as long as it brings in ratings, and only intervene at the threat of a lawsuit.
  • Heather's treatment of Lindsay and Beth in Island is almost criminal. In fact, she's this almost every time she takes charge of her team. In the episode "If You Can't Take The Heat...", she declares herself the Screaming Gophers' head chef for the cooking challenge, making Leshawna chop pineapples (which she's allergic to) and wasting time ordering Owen to get her makeup bag from the cabin. Leshawna gets tired of it and locks her in the freezer.
• Transformers:
  • The Transformers: While Megatron mostly abused his troops who betrayed him, his reformatted form, Galvatron is downright Ax-Crazy with a tendency to shoot anyone within reach, frequently his loyal second-in-command Cyclonus. Galvatron is so bad, in fact, that his minions actually take him to therapy, under the pretenses of collecting intel on the Autobots. Naturally, he drives the therapy planet insane rather than the other way around.
  • Beast Wars Megatron considers ALL of his troops expendable assets, except for maybe Inferno. It's really not hard to figure out why most of them betrayed him at some point, given his nigh-constant physical and verbal abuse, clearly self-centered agenda, and overall attitude that they can't be trusted with anything (which isn't unfair, mind). Notably, in the sequel series, he simply gave up on the idea of having sapient troops at all and brought in legions of drones instead.
  • The Prime version, of course, keeps this trait. At least one case had him throwing three Vehicons off his spaceship to chase someone with an important item. One of them couldn't fly. This is perhaps one of his tamer moments. The fact that he juiced himself with Dark Energon multiple times over the course of the show probably did little to help his mental state.
• The Monarch from The Venture Bros. also fits this trope, and manages to look funny while doing it because he's so bad at being a villain. Or so it would seem...
  • As do most villains, like Baron Underbheit. Seems its a part of The Guild of Calamitous Intent's bylaws. Other episodes show The Monarch as a Benevolent Boss, having a father/children relationship with his henchmen. Sergeant Hatred is noticeable for being genuinely a Benevolent Boss.
• Played for Laughs in Villainous with Black Hat, a God of Evil who runs his own Evil, Inc.. As the Anthropomorphic Personification of Cartoonish Supervillainy, he's compelled to abuse his employees physically and emotionally in amusing ways. The Chew Toy Dr. Flug receives the brunt of it, with Black Hat doing everything from magically dismembering him to spoiling the finale to his favorite show. It's also shown that Black Hat puts Flug and Demencia through Laser-Guided Amnesia for unclear reasons, leaving them unsure of how they know each other or exactly how long they've been working for him.
• Zorro: The Chronicles: Monasterio constantly berates his soldiers and issues harsh punishments on them for their failure to capture Zorro. Granted, they're idiots, but his bullying doesn't improve their performance in the slightest.

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