Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu / Western Animation

• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: In the crossover episode, Ace manages to actually best The Mask - a super-powered entity that can warp reality - at his own game. Said game was limbo dancing, but whatever works.
• Adventure Time:
  • The Lich is an Omnicidal Maniac and the most powerful entity in the show. The legendary hero Billy pummeled him into a tree and sealed him in amber to save the world.
  • When the Lich gets loose, Finn ultimately beats him once by using The Power of... Liking Someone a Lot to tear the top part of his skull off with a sweater. When he returns possessing Princess Bubblegum and goes One-Winged Angel, Finn has an Enemy Mine with Ice King and they manage to freeze him solid to beat him.
  • Finn gets this earlier by defeating the Lord Of Evil, Marceline's dad, and sealing him back in the Nightosphere.
  • When Marceline's Dad is about to suck the soul of Gunter, the penguin smacks him. Though this particular example isn't quite fair, since a later episode reveals Gunter is actually an eldritch being known as Orgalorg, who's capable of destroying planets at full power.
  • In "Betty", some of the wizards of Wizard City accidentally summon Bella Noche, a being of pure Anti-Magic that manifests as a giant magic-sucking black cube. Fortunately, while he's immune to magic he's quite vulnerable to physical attack, and the Ice King's temporally-displaced fiancee Betty manages to get to Bella Noche's core and simply punch his true form, an androgynous humanoid in a robe, in the face.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Admiral Zhao kills the moon. Crosses over with Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu, 'cause the ocean is fucking pissed about that, and Zhao dies. ^note Or, well, his body does, at least. The Book 2 finale of The Legend of Korra shows that his soul is still alive in a spirit prison, tortured by his own worst fears. What's worse is that Zuko could have saved him, but Zhao refuses to grab his hand.
  • In "The Library", the gang succeeds in escaping from the Knowledge Spirit not with bending... but with Sokka dropping down with a death-from-above-style blow to the head with a book. It practically knocks the spirit out cold.
    "That's called 'Sokka Style'. Learn it!"
  • In "The Crossroads of Destiny", while Aang is rising into the air in the Avatar State after finally unlocking the final chakra, Azula shoots down Aang with a bolt of lightning straight to the back, which nearly kills him (dying in the Avatar State would break the cycle of reincarnation).
• Ben 10:
  • In the Ben 10 episode "Ultimate Weapon", Ben-as-Four Arms and Max (though Ben was the one who did the actual fighting, and had the upper hand the entire fight, while Max knocked him out while he was distracted) were able to successfully defeat Ah Puch, the Mayan god of death. Word of God confirms that he's the real deal and not some alien in a God Guise.
  • Ben 10: Alien Force has one in the Final Battle when the lead villain Vilgax actually becomes a Cthulhu-like being when underwater. Sadly, the fight isn't really shown.
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien reveals the existence of an actual Eldritch Abomination named Diagon, who conquered several universes and tried conquering Earth in the Middle Age. He was defeated by Sir George, the founder of the Forever Knights, who tore his heart apart and sealed him away. The main plot of Season 2 focus around the Flamekeeper's Circle, a Church of Happyology that worship Diagon with the belief he gave us all our technology, and the Forever Knights, who attempt to prevent his return.
  • In the finale of Ultimate Alien, Vilgax successfully kills Diagon by baiting him into attacking a device that absorbs energy. Since Diagon is an Energy Being, that allow Vilgax to absorb him, turning in a Physical God in the process. Ironically, Ben then defeats Vilgax in his Diagon-powered form thanks to George's sword.
• Castlevania (2017) has this in the final season when it's revealed that Varney, the Miles Gloriosus Remember the New Guy? who acts like he's one of Dracula's biggest lieutenants... is Death, who's been the Greater-Scope Villain to the season, if not the entire series by driving Saint Germain to open a portal to Hell from Alucard's childhood room in Castlevania where Dracula was killed in season 2. His plan involves a Rebis, a Hermaphrodite homonculus that would contain the souls of Dracula and Lisa, the combined insanity causing The End of the World as We Know It. Trevor destroys the Rebis, then has a fight against Death which ends with him putting together a dagger with pieces scavenged across the season, expecting to die. He gets to live another day.
• One Halloween episode of Celebrity Deathmatch had one of the fights be between The Undertaker and a demon named Captain Doody. The Undertaker wins, though he only manages to drive Doody out of his human vessel, not kill him.
• Danger Mouse: In "Demons Aren't Dull," a demon from the fourth dimension challenges DM to defeat him. DM does so by surrendering and as a last request demonstrate to Penfold how the demon had won. On DM's explanation, the demon creates two doors, one in front of him connecting our dimension and one in back connecting his dimension. DM gets the demon to close his dimension's door, then DM slams the other door, trapping the demon and rendering him powerless. He then has a NASA removal unit transport the door to Alpha Centauri.
• Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic: At first, it seems like Dante broke his arm punching Cthulhu, since he ends up only defeating Lucifer's shadow form, which accidentally releases his true monstrous form from his frozen prison in the ninth circle of Hell. However, despite being a fallen angel of God and ruler of Hell, Lucifer proves a rather unimpressive villain, as the fight between him and Dante is not completely one-sided. Still, Dante doesn't truly defeat him until (with a little help from God) he reseals Lucifer back into his prison.
• One episode of Extreme Ghostbusters has the 'Busters dealing with Fenrir, who is trying to bring about the end of the world — however, the original crew had apparently already captured his master Surt in an untold tale. In Ragnarok, it's Surt who actually kills the most humans.
• In the Family Guy episode "Boys Do Cry", Brian starts shooting a gun in the air and accidentally kills the Super-Devil (a demon more evil than the Devil).
• In Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, Galactus comes calling again and a number of Marvel's heroes come in for the save. The one who drops Galactus? Ghost Rider, who nails him with his Penance Stare, making Galactus scream out in agony over the countless lives he's snuffed and drop to the ground.
• In the Gargoyles two-parter "The Gathering", Oberon, lord of the Third Race, arrives to claim Xanatos's child, changing into a half mile tall version of himself and putting the whole city to sleep while attacking the building. Xanatos and the gargoyles fight back with all manner of high technology and get him on the ropes (though Xanatos Sr.'s harpoon gun and Fox's magi-blast seem to do the most damage). Ultimately, though, they end up negotiating with him.
• In an episode of God, the Devil and Bob, no one gets killed, but Bob does win a fight against The Devil by singing a Tony Orlando song. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
• The Ghost and Molly McGee: In the Season 1 finale, Molly manages to destroy The Chairman after touching him and overloading him with her joy, disintegrating him.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Part one of the grand finale "Weirdmageddon" has the protagonist Dipper hurl himself at a giant Bill Cipher, the closest thing so far that the Gravity Falls world has to a god as far as we know, in the midst of his planetary invasion. Dipper tries to punch him in the eye but gets forced back and thrown to the ground at the last second.
  • In the show's final episode Grunkle Stan manages to trick Bill Cipher into his mind as his memories are being erased, destroying Bill with it. And for good measure, Stan punches Bill's decaying mind-scape body right in the eye, destroying Bill completely.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series: An emotionless Aya takes out the Anti-Monitor with a single blow. Then she takes his place as the Big Bad by fusing with his corpse.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
  • The whole series centers around two kids bossing around The Grim Reaper, who was subdued and captured by Mandy making a geriatric hamster bite him, no less.
  • "The Prank Call of Cthulhu" ends with Cthulhu trapped in interdimensional phone lines, sucking off his shoes in the process (an episode Running Gag).
• In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002), the protagonist has to fight Serpos, the mountain-sized (and we mean it: its sealed form is a literal mountain), three-headed snake god. After a long fight, He-Man punches it so hard it shatters, before sealing it away again (because even that had not been enough to kill it).
• Justice League
  • In "The Terror Beyond", a Cthulhuesque Eldritch Abomination tries to invade Earth. Given that the beatdown is delivered courtesy of the Justice League, but especially Solomon Grundy and Hawkgirl, the "Punch" part is extremely literal.
    [monsters burst out of giant pods and attack]
    Solomon Grundy: Grundy crush Pimple-man!
  • They had actually set up her Nth Metal mace as pretty much designed to kill Eldritch Abominations. Aquaman's trident as well; in another badass moment for the (oft parodied) King of the Seas, he beats back a legion of eldritch abominations that are trying to invade Earth.
  • "Divided We Fall" has the Flash versus the fledgling god that is Braniac-Luthor. Judging by the way the fusion of Luthor and Brainiac is implied, shortly after running around the entire world in seconds for a hypersonic clothesline punch four separate times, the Flash grabs him before proceeding to hyper-vibrate his arms and destroy via vibrations every molecule of Brainiac out of Lex Luthor's body before nearly disappearing into the Speed Force.
• The season finale of The Legend of Korra Book 2 contains the series' most triumphant example. Korra takes down Vaatu, the eternal spirit of Darkness himself, after he's merged with her Evil Uncle, killed his counterpart Raava, the Avatar Spirit, and turned into a Kaiju-sized squid-man — and what a victory it is! Korra uses her uncle's own spirit conversion technique to purify him out of existence... but even before that, she completely manhandles him. She turns her own soul into a 50-foot Korra, grabs him by his tentacles, picks him up over her shoulder, chucks him into a mountain, slams his head into the mountainside, and later, with Jinora's help, rips Raava right out of his chest. She doesn't so much punch out Cthulhu as hand him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, proving once and for all that she's not going to get a minor issue like the end of the Avatar line stop her from saving the world.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In the pilot, Twilight Sparkle and her True Companions manage to defeat Nightmare Moon, a Fallen Hero and Mad God who plunged the world into The Night That Never Ends.
  • The next season, they manage to defeat Discord, the reality-warping spirit of disharmony and chaos who plunged the world into never-ending madness. Both of these instances, however, were possible because of the Elements of Harmony, stated to be the most potent magic in Equestria by turning The Power of Friendship into what is essentially a massive rainbow cannon.
  • Turns out that even without the Elements, The Power of Friendship is capable of taking out Eldritch Abominations. The founders of Equestria managed to defeat the Windigos, monsters that feed off of hatred and tried to freeze the entire world in a never ending winter, using the spark of friendship.
  • Celestia and Luna's original defeat of Discord all those centuries ago, since though the two are Physical Goddesses in their own right, Discord is so many leagues above them in power that even they wouldn't have stood a chance without the Elements of Harmony.
  • Princess Celestia herself is on the receiving end of this in "A Canterlot Wedding, Part 2", courtesy of Queen Chrysalis. Everyone, Chrysalis included, was surprised by that outcome.
• The Real Ghostbusters:
  • The 'Busters manage to take on Cthulhu himself in "The Collect Call of Cathulhu". Though it is specifically stated that the Ghostbusters cannot harm Cthulhu, and have simply driven him away for a time, it's still quite an impressive feat on their end. In a follow-up episode, the 'Busters take care of another Old One by sucking it into an artificially created black hole (probably not a bad way to take care of a powerful being).
  • In one episode, Peter nets a humongous, ancient water elemental, Nexa, who has been harassing New York and has swallowed the others whole. He blasts Nexa with microwave particles, dehydrating him enough that he agrees to return the others and head for Antarctica to spend his days away from people.
• In the ReBoot episode "Showdown" in Season 3, we get a pretty epic example of this trope. Enzo by now is no longer a Bratty Half-Pint — he's become Matrix, took a thousand levels in badass, and considerably bulked himself up. The first thing Matrix does upon coming face to face with Megabyte? He drops his gun, dents Megabyte's chest with one punch, and then spears him through a wall!
• An everyday occurrence in Regular Show, though it's almost always in an outrageous fashion. Examples include defeating a giant floating eye monster in a staring contest and beating Death in an arm-wrestling competition.
• In the Rick and Morty episode "Something Ricked This Way Comes", after Lucius Needful betrays (or "Zuckerbergs") Summer, she and Rick proceed to go through a Training Montage that leaves them comically muscle-bound and beat him up during a live presentation. Granted, Needful's not very physically intimidating and relies on trickery, but they are still literally punching the hell out of Satan.
• Samurai Jack:
  • The title character almost killed the nearly-invincible Big Bad Eldritch Abomination Aku in the first episode, and anytime the two meet later on Aku barely manages to escape. Although Jack did have supernatural aid in the form of a magic sword which was forged by the same gods which destroyed Aku's primordial form eons ago so it wouldn't eat the universe. He finally gets him in the Grand Finale.
  • In the backstory, Jack's father the Emperor defeated Aku in an epic battle and sealed him away by using the same sword, forged out of his sense of righteousness. As he nearly lost and feared Aku could one day return, he made sure that if it happened Jack would be trained to become stronger than him and do the deed-and sure enough, when Aku returns the now aged Emperor was captured before he could grab his sword, but his wife managed to bring Jack to his trainers-and the rest is history.
  • The Scotsman's Wife in the episode she's introduced winds up punching an evil celtic deity in the gut, and subsequently taking him out. He shouldn't have called her fat.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated has the Gang destroy the Nibiru Entity, a Satan-like interdimensional alien with god-like power, erasing him from time in the process. Like The Real Ghostbusters, they do so by sucking it into a black hole, in this case created by destroying the crystal sarcophagus it was using to draw power from another dimension, causing the connection to implode.
• "Self Service" has gnats starring. One sucks out a human and makes a whole Sodom and Gomorrah business out of it. Meaning that God himself is called on the plan: "YOU!" Pointing a finger at the gnat. Well, you know what gnats do with fingers...(The scene zooms out, so no trope guarantee, but it would be against the spirit of the film if Cthulhu wins.)
• The Simpsons: In the "Treehouse of Horror XXIX" intro, the family goes to a New England town for an oyster eating contest before revealed the whole thing is a trap so visitors are fed to Cthulhu. Homer convinces Cthulhu to have said eating contest since he was promised one, with the Big C agreeing. This leads to Homer not just beating Cthulhu in said contest, but also getting anything from him. Homer chooses eating Cthulhu as his prize.
• South Park:
  • Played hilariously straight when Mint-Berry Crunch, easily the lamest member of Coon and Friends barring Iron Maiden, singlehandedly vanquishes Cthulhu and banishes him back to his dimension.
  • "Oh my God, Kenny... killed Death!" "You... bastard?"
• The Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu": Kirk 1, Satan 0. Of course, it wasn't really the Infernal One but an alien pretending to be him, but the power disparity still applies. Bonus for the positive message at the end.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In the series finale "Cleaved", Marco defeats the corrupted unicorn in the Realm of Magic by grabbing its horn and throwing it about 20 feet through the air, guaranteeing that Star will have enough time to destroy the magic.
• Season 3 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars had Anakin simultaneously defeat the Daughter and the Son, the embodiments of the Light and Dark Sides of the Force respectively.
• The near universal Big Bad of Transformers is Unicron, who would have been impossible to defeat if it wasn't for the power of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, which Optimus Prime had presented earlier as being prophesied as there being a Chosen One to use The Matrix to "Light our darkest hour."
  • Megatron was just as BAMF as Optimus, when he literally punched out Unicron (or a stone effigy of him anyway) at the penultimate Season 1 episode of Transformers: Prime.
• Tales of Arcadia:
  • Trollhunters: Angor Rot is an undead assassin and Gunmar is a nigh-unstoppable warlord. Yet protagonist Jim Lake manages to kill both of them during his respective showdowns with them in the Season 1 and 3 finales.
  • 3Below: During the Final Battle, General Morando merges with Gaylen's Core to become a fifty-foot tall Physical God. But thanks to their parents providing themselves as a power source, Aja and Krel are able to destroy him with a Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Wizards (2020): During the Battle of Killahead Bridge, Callista fights Belloc — one of the demigods forming the Arcane Order — and slashes them across the eyes, permanently blinding them.
• The Venture Bros.: In "Ghosts of the Sargasso", the necromancer Dr. Orpheus is summoned to deal with a ghost... but before he can finish, Brock simply knocks its head off.

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