Dirty Coward / Western Animation

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Dirty Cowards in Western Animation.

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• In an episode of American Dad!, Jeff and Hayley are approached by a mugger. Jeff shoves Hayley in front of him and runs like hell, leaving his girlfriend at the criminal's mercy. The mugger looks shocked.
• American Dragon: Jake Long: Bananas B, Jake’s new animal guardian initially seems quite helpful. But as soon as the going gets tough, he shamelessly sells out Jake and his friends to Councilor Chang, eagerly assisting her from then on with her plan to resurrect The Dark Dragon. Of course, he’s not very loyal to the villains either, abandoning them as soon as they start losing, only to find himself on the receiving end of a quite literal case of The Dog Bites Back.
• Amphibia: As can be expected of a being made from the minds of a bunch of impossibly old tyrants scared of their impending mortality. The Core practically begs Andrias to help when the tide of battle turns for the worse and is absolutely terrified as Anne obliterates it. We even see this fear of death in the episode before; when Sasha cuts its connection, it thinks she slashed its chest, and all that smugness is replaced with panic.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Yon Rha, the man who killed Katara's mother. When confronted by his victim's vengeful daughter, he cowers in terror, and while he admits that what he did was wrong, he offers his mother's life instead of his own. Katara merely gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech and leaves.
• Batman Beyond:
  • Nelson is a great example, beating up a schoolmate until Terry steps in and challenges him, at which point he is no longer mister big and tough.
  • David Wheeler from "The Last Resort" counts as well. He relentlessly tortures teenagers psychologically in his camp, but when one of his prisoners grabs him by the edge of a cliff, willing to drop him, he cowardly begs for his life.
• Beavis And Butthead: In "Prank Call", when the Stevensons are being threatened by Harry Sachz, Mr. Stevenson throws Stewart under the bus to save himself. Thankfully, he gets what's coming to him big time.
  Mr. Stevenson: Hey, this is between you and Stewart. Get him!
• Ben 10: con-artists Argit and Simian, although Simian can and will fight if backed into a corner.
  • Ben calls Malware out on being this in Omniverse when Malware sends a gasoline tanker at a busload of innocent children just to escape Ben.
• Castlevania (2017):
  • It's subtle, but the Bishop was hiding in his church alone while he sent his lackeys off to kill the speakers, confident the holy ground would keep any demons away. This is in contrast to the other nameless priest that actively was outside trying to help people. Suffice to say God was displeased and revoked the Bishop's protection which gives Blue Fangs the opportunity to invade the church and maul him to death while making no bones about how the now whimpering Bishop's actions lead to God turning on him.
  • Burly, one of the corrupt priests working under the Bishop, is introduced accosting the Elder Speaker and gleefully answers yes to his question of "Will killing an old man make you less scared of the dark?" and that's not even the least of his cowardly actions. In the end, after Trevor makes a speech about how the Bishop killing Lisa was what started Dracula's rampage and Burly "would have made murderers out of these people" and only Burly in his mob is truly guilty, the mob of villagers proceed to turn on Burly and tear him apart.
• Codename: Kids Next Door
  • The Delightful Children from Down the Lane are the biggest example. Apparently, the term "fair fight" is unknown to them, and they rarely confront even one member of Sector V without at least one Dumb Muscle, an army of mooks, or a Humongous Mecha supporting them. And if they lose their edge, they're quick to run for it. Of course, you can hardly blame them; the few times they have tried to stand up to them have been Curb-Stomp Battles (with them hitting the curb) and in the Grand Finale, Numbuh One defeated all five of them alone.
  • Ironically, they were once KND Operatives before being Brainwashed by Father, and they were far braver originally, as proven when the effect was reversed. (Sadly, Numbuh Zero knew of no way to reverse it permanently.)
  • On the subject of irony, Father himself was like this when he was a child. While his far braver brother led the rebellion against their villainous father, he ran and hid like a coward. Thus, his brother would become the legendary Numbuh Zero, while he would grow up to be the KND's worst enemy. Of course, he became much braver as an adult, but in "Operation: Z.E.R.O.", while his heroic brother was still more than brave enough to face their father, the younger villain still chickened out. (Though this time it was less out of fear and more out of apathy brought on by Grandfather disowning him)
  • Another example from the show is Negative Numbuh Four. Given the fact that everyone in his world is an Evil Counterpart (or a good counterpart, if the character is evil) and a polar opposite of someone in the "real" world, he is Numbuh Four's opposite in every way, and is thus a coward in every sense of the word. (Amazingly, Numbuh Four is the first one to realize this, a rare case of him holding the Smart Ball.)
• Courage the Cowardly Dog:
  • Eustace Bagge. In "The Shadow of Courage", the shadow of a deceased man, who spent the whole night scaring other people, declared that Eustace is an even bigger coward than Courage himself.
  • While Courage is usually a Cowardly Lion and The So-Called Coward, he falls into this at least once; in "Shirley the Medium", while he at first tries to save Eustace from the monster in Horst's money box, when the monster blocks off their escape route, Courage yells, "Okay, you can have him!", throws Eustace to the beast, and bugs out in a hurry. Since this is Eustace we are talking about, you won't feel bad for him.
• Zilly from Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines, will do anything to avoid getting in his plane, let alone go on their fruitless missions to stop Yankee Doodle Pigeon. He was hypnotized into being brave once, but he proved to be more a hazard than when he was a coward.
• Dagur the Deranged from Dragons: Riders of Berk is a skilled warrior, loves violence, and is chief of the feared Berserker tribe. Yet for the first two seasons he never goes anywhere without a large armada backing him up, hides behind his men in battle, panics at the first sign of things going wrong, and begs for mercy when captured. He only fights when he has no choice or he gets enraged to a point his madness takes over.
• Captain Hero of Drawn Together. Despite being a superhero who is Immune to Bullets, he frequently uses other people as human shields, and his Catchphrase is "Save yourselves!"
• DuckTales (1987):
  • "Where No Duck Has Gone Before". The actor portraying Major Courage proves to be a bona-fide coward and abandons the others on an alien ship once he realizes they really are in outer space. This came as a shock to Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but not to Launchpad.
  • From the reboot, the leader of FOWL and the final Big Bad of the series, Bradford Buzzard. He utterly loathes adventure and everything related to it due to being scared out of his mind when his grandmother, Isabella Finch, brought him on her adventures. This, however, lead to him being completely out of his element whenever he's forced into an adventure, causing him to want to run away at the first chance he gets. Even when he's defeated, his last action is to beg for mercy and protest his innocence.
• The Fairly Oddparents: King Grippulon, supposedly a fearsome king, frequently uses his wife as a shield when his life is in danger, and is willing to put his son on the throne after there are several assassination attempts.
• Family Guy:
  • Brian went to go find George W. Bush who went missing in the midst of Hurricane Katrina. Brian finds Bush hiding in a treehouse. Bush tells Brian to go away and ignores the dog's pleas to take action by rebuking "I'm reading Superfudge!" and "Don't make me do stuff".
  • Peter was one in a Cutaway Gag. Peter wants to go with Lois to her pregnant sister Carol's house. Lois is surprised and Peter asks if he's ever not been there for her. Cut to a scene where Lois gets mugged and Peter pretends not to know her as he runs away.
• There are many examples from Futurama:
  • When the chips are down, Zapp Brannigan is a coward. This quote from him sums it up.
    "I surrender and volunteer for treason!"
  • Bender. In one of the movies, he, Amy, and Fansworth are trapped by a bunch of orcs in a castle. Bender tells the two ladies he has a plan. The next scene shows him holding them up and tells the orcs to take his friends first, just to give him one more second of sweet sweet life. In "Bendin' in the Wind", the crew is plunging off a cliff. Bender grabs a nearby cable, loudly declaring, "I'll save ME!" The rest of the crew is only saved by grabbing his legs just in time.
  • Fry is also this. In "The Series Has Landed", Fry gets a moon rover caught in a lunar dust pool. He declares "It's every man for himself!" and bails out, only to sink up to his neck in the very same dust. He immediately calls for Leela to save him. He gets called this in "War Is The H-Word" when he, wielding the only charged phaser, blasts himself a hole to hide in. Though at the end of that episode, he does ride a bouncing ball to the peace meeting to save the life of his best friend.
    Zapp Brannigan: Look at this sissy, Kif. While others were fighting and dying pointlessly, he was hiding in a hole; wallowing in a pool of his own cowardice.
    Fry: That wasn't cowardice!
  • Towards the end of the series, Leela would seem to override Fry's cowardice, particularly in "A Farewell to Arms", where Fry chooses to stay behind on an apparently doomed Earth to let Leela have a chance of life.
  • President McNeal in "When Aliens Attack": when the Omicronians invade Earth his plan is to surrender immediately, right until it seems like the invaders are after him personally, at which point he sends Earth's forces on a suicidal attack and is prepared to let humanity be wiped out rather than hand himself over. Even Zapp Brannigan has a problem with this.
• In one of the U.S. Acres episodes of Garfield and Friends, Roy ends up facing competition when a new rooster named Plato arrives in the barnyard. All the hens immediately flock to him as he proves to be very intelligent, sensitive, and refined, especially compared to Roy. Roy eventually admits defeat and leaves, but when a weasel threatens the hens, Plato runs and hides while Roy ends up saving them, causing the hens to kick Plato to the curb, and the only one who still wanted him around was Wade Duck, mainly because he liked having someone around who was more cowardly than him.
• Preston Northwest from Gravity Falls. He was gonna leave everyone in his mansion to burn while a ghost wreaks havoc just to preserve his own dignity. And also trying to sell himself out to an interdimensional demon to save his own skin. Too bad it didn't end well for the latter.
• In Ivanhoe: The King's Knight, Prince John shows shades of this at least once, but not without justification. While participating in a siege, he has all of the enemy's arrows being fired at him and intends to spend the rest of the siege watching it from a hill. As John so eloquently put it, "What is the point of having an army if all of their arrows are meant for me?"
• Dale Gribble from King of the Hill will often sell out his friends or run away.
  • Everyone on it has traits of it. Each character on the show is more than willing to abandon each other at a minute's notice or rat the other out if the thought entered their mind, but doubly so for Peggy, who would often switch sides whenever it would benefit her. Going from supporting Hank when he was accused of Racism to claiming he was Racist just so she could enjoy a Double Standard with a smug smirk on her face. Whenever it's time to put up, she backs away or blames somebody else for what had happened when she's clearly at fault.
• Daffy Duck of Looney Tunes is a self-admitted one of these characters, and proud of it. He'll sell out his friends in an instant to save his own hide and/or claim wealth for himself. As he puts it, "Sure I'm a louse, but I'm a live louse!" During the "Hunter Trilogy" of cartoons, he freely admits he's only sending Elmer after Bugs because it's "Really duck season". His greed can overcome this, though: in "Ducking the Devil" (1957), he beats up the Tasmanian Devil when Taz takes some money from him!

  Daffy: Like I said, I'm a coward, but I'm a greeeedy little coward!

• In the Nickelodeon short Jerk Chicken & Fish Out Of Water in Cop-A-Doodle-Doo, Jerk Chicken becomes a cop to basically boss people around and yell at them from minor fractions. But when he catches the Psycho Pooch purse snatching a helpless old lady, he immediately quits the force and tries to ignore the old lady's cries for help by whistling.
• PAW Patrol: Mayor Humdinger and the Kit-tastrophe crew. The latter is best exemplified when they cornered Marshall for taking the scroll from them and falling back the minute reinforcements arrived. And in the Mighty Pups Special, the former prevents himself from getting captured first by leaving his nephew to face the heroes alone. Uncle of the year, everybody.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • Major Man was secretly a coward with superpowers whose acts of heroism were all staged in order for him to gain popularity. When confronted with a real disaster, he proves entirely useless and has to beg the girls to bail him out^note ironically, said disaster was actually set up by the Powerpuffs themselves in order to expose Major Man as a fake and win back Townsville's support.
  • This is usually averted with Blossom, but this is played straight in "A Very Special Blossom" when she stole golf clubs. In that episode, Blossom was so scared of getting in trouble from what she did that she did a very flimsy attempt to blame it on Mojo Jojo.
  • Also averted with the main trio, but in "Cootie Gras", they repeatedly fled for their lives in the worry that they would get cooties from Mojo Jojo's secret weapon, Harry Pitt.
  • Buttercup in "Moral Decay". In that episode, she takes away teeth from villains to get rich, but she is horrendously frightened when said villains try to beat her up.
  • And even Dick Hardly.
• Whenever in The Proud Family the going gets tough for Penny, you can always count on her ''friends'' to get going, the other way and abandon her.
• Aku, Samurai Jack's foe, has always been a coward, rarely ever confronting Jack unless he somehow manages to disarm him of the sword — the one thing that can harm him — and fleeing at the slightest hint that he's in danger. Jack even mocks him in one episode by calling him a "cowardly shadow" when the villain is in mid-retreat. While some may call this pragmatic, given that he lost his first fight with Jack before sending him to the future to avoid death, the fact that Aku ever confronts Jack in the first place shows a lack of judgment. When Aku finally meets his end, both his future and past self react with pure terror to the realization the end has come, with Past Aku desperately fleeing from Jack with an expression of horror on his face.
• The Simpsons
  • In "Homer Simpson in: Kidney Trouble", Homer gets scared and runs away from an operation where he was donating a kidney to Grampa (losing them was Homer's fault in the first place), and spends the rest of the episode fleeing in shame. After he decides to return, he freaks out and flees AGAIN, only donating the kidney because he gets crushed by a falling car while running and the doctors just take one of his kidneys while putting him back together.
  • The whole of Springfield becomes this in "Bart's Comet" when they unanimously decide to kick Ned out of his own bomb shelter. At first, not even his wife steps forward for him, but Ned being Ned, he leaves without argument, calmly singing to himself; after trying desperately not to listen, Homer (the one who suggested it) has a Heel Realisation and leaves so Ned doesn't have to face death alone, promptly followed by everyone else.
  • "Deep Space Homer": When one of the space shuttle's test ants floats near a camera (appearing huge) before the camera cuts out, newscaster Kent Brockman immediately assumes it's an alien and not only promptly surrenders, but volunteers to serve the "new regime".
    Kent Brockman: I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves!
  • "The Yellow Badge of Cowardge" has Bart declared a coward by the whole town after he selfishly abandoned Milhouse to get beat up during a race.
    • In the same episode, Abe reveals that he abandoned his fellow soldiers during World War II by clinging onto the side of a boat to escape. He even does it again when a firework display went wrong sending the fireworks toward a group of people.
  • The "Citizen Kang" segment of "Treehouse of Horror VII" begins with Homer being abducted by Kodos and Kang. He blubbers, "Don't eat me! I have a wife and kids! Eat them!"
  • In "Co-Dependent's Day", Homer drunkenly drives and ends up flipping the car over. He allows Marge (who was also drunk) to take the heat for it. Understandably, Marge is not happy when she learns the truth.
• Antoine of the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, initially more of an arrogant Lovable Coward, was Flanderized into a dirty coward later on, at least once offering to switch sides when the Freedom Fighter base had supposedly been found. Even Snively found him to be a "little worm".
• South Park:
  • In "Fantastic Easter Special", when the corrupt pope told Stan he'd let his dad go if he gave him the rabbit who's descended from St. Peter, Randy begged him to make the deal, but when he did, chewed him out, saying he'd have gladly died for the rabbit. Earlier in the episode, when he was being interrogated, he said that he didn't know where the rabbit was, but if he did.... "I'd probably tell you, 'cause I don't wanna be here anymore".
  • In "Super Fun Time", when a school field trip was turned into a hostage situation, Mr. Garrison's instant reaction was "please let me go, these children are worth more to you", and for the rest of the episode, anytime they talked about killing a hostage, he yelled "not me, not me, not me, not me".
  • In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", Eric Cartman is challenged to a fight with Wendy after he makes fun of breast cancer. He spends the entire episode trying get out of said fight, to no avail.
  • The PC Principal. He has no problem beating up, harassing and humiliating grade-school students who disagree with his views, but becomes easily intimidated when someone his size (like Mr. Garrison) stands up to him without fear of consequences. Whatever Mr. Garrison did to him, it certainly seemed to teach him more humility.
  • A particularity nasty example in Season 20 when Skankhunt42 (Gerald Brofloski) frames his toddler son for his crimes, just to avoid getting into trouble with his wife. The other trolls are rather disgusted by this.
• Flash Thompson wasn't one in the original Spider-Man comic, where he usually is portrayed as hot-headed and brave enough to face villains, but Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) made him one; in this version, he has no issues with trying to offer Peter as a snack to save his skin when confronted by Venom, and even left Harry Osborn behind to escape Taskmaster.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "School Spirit", when attacked by monsters, Brittney Wong uses the people around her (including a girl in a wheelchair) as shields and shoves several of them into the monsters to slow them down while trying to escape.
• Thomas & Friends: Henry was this in his introductory episode, "The Sad Story of Henry". He goes inside a tunnel during a rainstorm and refuses to come out because he's afraid that the rain will spoil his paint and isn't concerned about getting the passengers to their destination. As a result, he gets bricked up in the tunnel "for always and always and always" as punishment for disobedience. In the next episode, "Edward, Gordon, and Henry", he eventually regrets his decision and longs to be let out of the tunnel, having overcome his fear of the rain. He gets his chance when Gordon breaks down near his tunnel and Edward isn't strong enough to move the heavy express coaches by himself.
• Safari Joe in ThunderCats (1985). Lion-O assumes he's a coward from the start, and when he finally runs out of ammo and no longer has any tricks, the hero is proven right. The villain does nothing but fall to his knees and plead for his life. (Given what he had done, Lion-O might not have spared him if this had been the Darker and Edgier remake.)
• The Tick: The mayor of The City reveals that whenever he uses the Die Fliedermaus signal (akin to the Bat Signal), Die Fliedermaus disconnects his phone and promptly leaves town.
• Courtney from Total Drama definitely qualifies. Her most infamous act of cowardice was using an injured Sam as a Human Shield to protect herself from leeches in All-Stars, which combined with her bossy nature got her switched to the Villainous Vultures.
• Starscream from the Transformers franchise is a particularly famous example of this trope. He is arrogant and smug whenever he has the upper hand in battle, and instinctively flees as soon as any fight starts even leaning in the enemy's favor. Starscream fights like a coward as well, with cheap shots and ambushes, even if he probably had the advantage anyway.
  • In Transformers: Animated, he makes several clones to help him overthrow Megatron (hey, it's The Starscream we're talking about here), each of which represent one facet of his personality. This being Starscream, his 'army' consists of a pantophobe^note Skywarp and Clone #3370318, an egomaniac^note Thundercracker, a suck-up^note Sunstorm and Clone #2716057, a chronic liar^note Ramjet, a Green-Eyed Monster^note Thrust, a greedy slagger ^note Dirge, and... a female clone^note Slipstream.
  • Averted in Transformers: Armada, where Starscream is instead portrayed as utterly fearless even in his attempts to overthrow Megatron.
• The king in Wat's Pig does not want to fight the battles. During the second battle, he goes and hides under Wat's covers in the countryside while his brother does all the fighting. As a result, the invaders successfully take over the kingdom.

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