Blackmail Backfires in Western Animation.
- In Batman: The Animated Series, Two-Face's whole origin started with something like this. Mobster Rupert Thorne got ahold of Harvey Dent's records, which detailed his anger management issues which at times made him seem like a different person. (Often called "Big Bad Harv" by doctors.) Thorne threatened to expose them to the public unless he got a few "favors" from the DA's office. Dent's response however wasn't what he expected:Dent: There's just one problem... (raspy voice) You're talkin' to the wrong Harvey.
- After that, a violent fight broke out, and despite Batman's attempts to stop it, Dent was caught in an explosion that marred half of his face, causing his Split Personality to be given life as Two-Face, and his Start of Darkness completed. His first criminal acts as the villain were, naturally, aimed at Thorne, who now had far worse problems than ever before.
- In the first season of BoJack Horseman, a couple of bird paparazzi manage to take a bunch of pictures of BoJack having sex with his former co-star Sarah Lynn, whom he has known since she was a pre-teen. The paparazzi spend most of the season trying to contact BoJack to no avail until they finally manage to get in touch with Vanessa Gekko, then momentarily acting as BoJack's agent. Once they make their demands, Gekko points out that taking unauthorized pictures in private property and extortion are both illegal and implicitly threatens to press charges for that as well as the murder of Tupac Shakur for good measure. The blackmailers leave empty-handed.
- In Doug, Doug's sister Judy blackmails Doug into being her personal servant to keep her from telling their mother about the piece of artwork he broke. Eventually, he decides he's had enough of her and comes clean about it to their mother and gets grounded... right when Judy was banking on his help to do something really important that she absolutely begs him to help her with anyway. He agrees in exchange for her being his personal servant for the entire time he's grounded.
- In Futurama, Bender falls victim to this in an "Anthology of Interest" segment when he tries to practice some "extortion" on Leela after finding out that she murdered Hermes. She pulls out a meat cleaver.Bender: Please, honey, I'm made of metal. Like you're really gonna hurt me with a— Hey! What are you doing with that microwave?!
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures:
- In "Iron Monger Lives", Whitney Stane threatens to reveal Iron Man's identity to S.H.I.E.L.D. if he doesn't let her escape. Iron Man doesn't have to worry because they already know.
- In the Grand Finale, Ghost's plan to use Iron Man's identity as leverage once Tony Stark inherits Stark International is ruined once the identity is exposed to the whole world.
- In League of Super Evil, Justice Gene finds Voltar at a Prima Dina concert and records him professing his love for her music. He threatens to upload the video to the internet, and Voltar can't blackmail him either since he's already known as the president of the Prima Dina fanclub. At the end, Voltar accidentally uploads the video to the internet himself, but none of his teammates find this embarrassing since practically everyone loves Prima Dina, including feared supervillain Skullossus. Plus, the singer herself loves the video and gives Voltar and his friends VIP passes to the next concert.
- In one episode of Timon & Pumbaa, Simba is being forced to fight in a Roman colosseum against a lion named Claudius. To save Simba, Timon and Pumbaa try to convince Claudius to throw the fight the night before it. One of their attempts is blackmailing Claudius with a picture they took of him with a salad they had planted to make it look like he's a vegetarian, thus ruining his reputation as a vicious fighter. Claudius counters with an embarrassing picture of them from a Hakuna Matata convention in Orlando.
