Distressed Dude / Western Animation

Fireman Sam has its own page.

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• Tails in at least half of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Justified, since he is 4½ years old and goes on dangerous missions with Sonic.
• Adventure Time
  • In the Season 5 episode "Vault of Bones", Flame Princess rescues a captive Finn, after authoritatively commanding the dungeon's final boss to release him and do the splits. "DO THE SPLITS! DO THE SPLITS, THOU MILK-LIVERED MAGGOT PIEEEEEEE!"
  • Prince Gumball (Princess Bubblegum's guy counterpart) featured in Ice King's Gender Flip Fanfic is one to Fionna and Cake (Finn and Jake girl counterparts).
• Disney's Aladdin is one example from being put in the dungeon, to almost drowning to beheading, etc.
• Arlo the Alligator Boy:
  • Arlo becomes this in the final third of the movie when Ruff and Stucky hold him hostage at the Met Gala and come within two seconds of hustling him out the door and using him as their newest attraction for their swamp shack. He is saved just in time by his father Ansel, who simultaneously reveals his true identity as a bird-man.
  • Done again in the I ♡ Arlo Season 1 finale when Arlo is ensnared in the Bog Lady's vine trap and hypnotized into staying with her forever.
• Two examples from Avatar: The Last Airbender: Sokka, as the show's resident Butt-Monkey, suffers from this the most (he got captured by a hole in the ground!), but Aang often receives the more elaborate setups.
• In particular, the first Batman cartoons, from 1968, which were heavily patterned after the recent live-action series. Again, Robin was often in need of rescue by Batman; but once, when Robin was tied to a table with a saw poised to divide him up the middle, he managed to rescue himself, and then go save Batman!
• Big Hero 6: The Series:
  • Alistair Krei is constantly having run-ins with supervillains, some of whom he created himself, and Big Hero 6 has to bail him out. He's basically a more bumbling version of Norman Osborn in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
  • Hiro also winds up kidnapped or captured a disproportionate amount compared to his older teammates.
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: Ty Parsec, a fellow ranger and old Academy friend of Buzz Lightyear, has a very unfortunate streak of getting himself into trouble and needing to be rescued by Buzz. In his introduction, we learn that Buzz has saved him at least 50 times. Needless to say, it annoys Ty greatly.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Ma-Ti gets captured and Bound and Gagged or nearly killed more often than a Faux Action Girl.
  • Wheeler also gets into trouble more than once, for being Hot-Blooded as well as being a Commander Contrarian.
  • And Captain Planet himself is endangered whenever pollutants and toxins are spilled on him. Usually when this happens, he just gets dispelled and his powers return to the rings, but in the first episode, the Planeteers have to bail him out.
• In Code Lyoko, the Damsel in Distressed role tends to go to Aelita, who doesn't reach Action Girl status until around Season 3, or Yumi in some sort of random Running Gag. However, there are also many episodes that involve Jérémie being the one in trouble, usually with electrocuting or trying to electrocute him. (And there was that one time where XANA sent one of his specters to clog his airways and suffocate him.) This really makes the most sense, since when you're a computer program, the most dangerous foe is the guy who controls the computer.
• Fireman Sam: In the CGI era of the series, male characters tend to be in need of rescue more often than the female characters, with Norman Price and Mike Flood being among the most common victims due to their carelessness.
  • In "Sam's Day Off" from the stop-motion era, Sam himself needed to be rescued when he got locked in his shed, which was on fire.
• The Distress Ball was passed around pretty evenly in Galaxy Rangers, as was the rescuer card. It helps that they're a Badass Crew.
• Goof Troop: Max often finds himself in perilous situations (sometimes his own fault, sometimes not). Over the course of the series, he is threatened by kidnappers, hostile burglars, and The Mafia among other things.
• Gravity Falls: When he’s not being a Badass Bookworm, Ford can fall into this trope. Especially during the Grand Finale.
• He-Man in the She-Ra: Princess of Power movie. Let's have The Nostalgia Chick talk about it, shall we?
  "And for the rest of the movie, we pretty much go in circles of capture. He-Man gets captured, He-Man escapes, He-Man gets captured, He-Man escapes, and our new wacky rebel friends have wacky adventures trying to bust him out."
• Hero: 108: Commander ApeTrully is usually captured by the animals he tries to make peace with by giving them a gift of gold, most prominently in season 1. He calls First Squad to rescue him.
• Inspector Gadget is this at least as often as his niece Penny is the Damsel in Distress. The difference between them is that the Inspector doesn't always know he's in danger. Brain, the dog, also qualifies for this trope on occasion.
• Kim Possible:
  • Ron Stoppable gets this quite a bit as sidekick to the show's hero Kim. She, of course, has her moments of helplessness, but Ron gets himself into trouble even more, occasionally leading to situations when they're both captured and tied up at the same time. One episode centers on Ron learning an Aesop about "becoming a man," and features one of his teachers pointing out that he can't be very good at being a "real man" — because he keeps getting saved by a girl.
  • In So The Drama, Kim's new boyfriend Eric is taken hostage by Dr. Drakken...or so it seems. It turns out that he's actually a synthodrone created by Dr. Drakken to distract her and ultimately lead her into a trap.
• In The Legend of Korra (Sequel Series of the above), Bolin is captured by the Equalists in the third episode. Korra and Mako have to team up to rescue him before Amon can take away his bending.
• Looney Tunes: In "Eatin' on the Cuff", the Moth ends up having to be saved from the clutches of the Black Widow Spider by his fiancee the Bee.
• Mike Chilton in the two-part season finale of Motorcity. Texas in the episode "Threat Level: Texas!"
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends:
    • In "The Ghost of Paradise Estate", Pluma's grandpa Ruff, while a hero in his youth, has been trapped in a cage in Squirk's lair and held hostage to force his granddaughter to serve the villain, and needs to be rescued by her and the heroes.
    • In "Somnambula", the Big Brother Ponies, despite starting out as would-be rescuers themselves, are snared by Somnambula's magic and need to themselves be saved by Kyrie, Spike, and the baby ponies.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
    • In the Season 2 finale, Shining Armor is held captivated by Queen Crysalis posing as Princess Cadance. In a nice inversion of the usual fare, Cadance saves him (with the Power of Love, natch).
    • Spike also needs to be rescued a few times. Justified, since he's a baby dragon and all.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • The Agent P and Dr. Doofenshmirtz B-Plot parodies the tropes of Spy Fiction, including those put forth by the former page image. In every episode, Dr. Doofenshmirtz has a new trap for Perry the Platypus, which gets progressively more absurd as the show goes on. Of course, Perry always escapes, either by his own ingenuity or Doof's incompetence.
  • The title characters occasionally find themselves in this position, but being a pair of relentlessly optimistic kid geniuses, they're more likely to see it as a chance for an adventure than any cause for distress. In cases where things really do get out of control, it often forces Candace into a Cool Big Sis role. Examples include when they and their friends are tricked into a "Freaky Friday" Flip with alien criminals when a black hole has opened in the backyard, or in the Grand Finale when the boys are removed from existence.
• The Powerpuff Girls' dad, Professor Utonium, sometimes falls into this.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • In the episode "My Fair Jet", the DSA weather balloon flies off in some nasty weather, and carries Sean along with it. But luckily, Jet saves him with his jetpack.
  • In "Castaway Carrot", Carrot gets stranded on the moon but gets rescued by his family.
• Played for laughs in one episode of ReBoot, a male character (Enzo) is literally dressed up as a damsel in distress (complete with princess costume and voice changing gizmo), and the female lead dressed as a knight shows up to rescue him.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Norman Osborn gets kidnapped by the Vulture in the series' debut episode, and naturally Spider-Man needs to save him.
• Richie from Static Shock spends the first two-and-a-half seasons of the show being this, before hanging around Static causes him to develop his own powers. He gets kidnapped slightly less often after that.
• Out of the five members of the Sushi Pack, the three male members have been captured more times than the two female members (although only one episode had all three of them captured at the same time). On the other hand, at least one of each has been captured even more often (usually of the "four are captured, one sets them free" variety).
• Sym-Bionic Titan:
  • The King of Galaluna is in this state throughout the whole show (save flashbacks).
  • This also happens to Lance a few times as well, most notably when kidnapped by Xeexi and later on, G3.
• The Tale of the Great Bunny: The titular Great Bunny ends up this way, being kidnapped near the beginning of the show by the evil weasels.
• This happens to Robin from Teen Titans (2003) a few times. Once, when his teammates thought he was going crazy, they restrained him to a medical bed. In addition, Cyborg and Beast Boy usually gleefully take the opportunity to shout "Titans! GO!" while Robin is out of commission.
• A Thousand and One... Americas:
  • At the beginning of the nineteenth episode, Fito is swimming in a pool until he approaches a deep area and begins dorwning, at which point Monica gets in to save him. Fito later tells Chris he feels disgraced over being saved by a girl.
  • Chris himself is abducted in the final episode by a couple corrupt Aztec men, in the hopes that they can sell a white-skinned kid with red hair for a high price (as well as offer Chris to the gods as a human sacrifice). Though not without difficulty, Lon manages to defeat the crooked men and rescue his owner.
• Downplayed in the Thunder Cats 2011 episode "The Duelist and the Drifter" with the Drifter, an Eccentric Mentor with Not Quite Flight powers that gets himself "snagged" on tall fences three times, each time enlisting the help of The Hero Lion-O to get down, and each time, exploiting the encounter to offer Lion-O pertinent advice or aid while feigning disinterest.
• Totally Spies!, known mostly for its heroines getting into distress situations, actually features a couple of scenes where the girls' male spy helpers, Blaine and Dean, get captured by the bad guys. The spinoff The Amazing Spiez! will have a scene featuring one or more of the three Clark boys from time to time.
• Optimus Prime gets this with his love interest Elita One in The Transformers. When arriving to save her from the Decepticons, first Optimus gets captured and watches helplessly as Elita tries to save them both, nearly getting killed for it. For one reason or another, the Decepticons decide not to finish them immediately but to hang Optimus over an acid bath where Elita will have a good view of his demise (and her demise-to-be). Elita One then activates her time powers to save Optimus Prime, which leads to him finally being able to do something to rescue her. It's pretty 50/50 with them. A similar incident occurs with Blurr in "The Face of the Nijika" (minus the whole "save my girlfriend" thing).
• Wakfu:
  • Sadlygrove, the Idiot Hero, thinks of himself as a Knight in Shining Armor and thus is on the lookout for Distressed Damsels to rescue. This is turned on its head in Episode 4, where he's lured in a cursed castle by the four "Ugly Princesses". Naturally, he ends up as the Distressed Dude to be rescued by his friends.
  • The second season has this happen to Ruel, who is captured by the Dragon Pig after he killed and ate one of his pigs earlier.
• Wild Kratts:
  • The titular brothers, Chris and Martin, tend to get themselves in distress fairly often, to the point that Zach's debut episode, "Aardvark Town", is the only villain debut episode in the show where neither brother gets captured.^note Martin is captured in "Flight of the Draco" (Donita's debut episode) and "Spirit Bear" (Paisley's debut episode), while Chris is captured in "Platypus Cafe" (Gourmand's debut episode). That said, the episode they spend the most time being captured is in the second half of "Amazin' Amazon Adventure", where they first get trapped in dough by Gourmand, then kidnapped by him, Zach, and Donita, with them being tied with red cuffs when we next see them. While Koki is able to secretly remove the cuffs from the brothers and the brothers fight back in the morning after, they still spend a good chunk of the second half as captives, ultimately needing Aviva to save them.
  • Jimmy, being a Non-Action Guy, also tends to be captured by the villains a few times, requiring a member of the Tortuga crew (usually the aforementioned brothers, although Aviva saved him before) to save him as a result.
• The Winx Club fairies' boyfriends, the Specialists, have been kidnapped on at least two occasions. First at the end of Season 3, where Valtor captures four of the specialists, letting Helia go to deliver a message to the Winx girls to tell them to meet him on Andros. And near the end of Season 4's Episode 18, the Specialists are captured by Diana and her warrior fairies, only Nabu being able to avoid capture since he is the only one who has magical powers.
• W.I.T.C.H.:
  • As the heroines of a Magical Girl show, the five guardians find themselves tied up fairly often, usually due to some form of magic. However, the only person in the series to actually be bound and gagged at the same time is Badass Normal Caleb, in the episode "Ghosts of Elyon". Not to mention, he is the character who gets captured the most across the two seasons. This is probably to be expected since, by the end of the series, he's the only main character without some kind of magical powers.
  • Will's boyfriend Matt, who actually is captured by Nerissa and ends up Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • Caleb's father, Julian, also was a Distressed Dude for a while.
• Mark Lily from Ugly Americans manages to get himself into all kinds of horrifying and distressful situations.
• Happened to Scott aka Cyclops quite a bit across the various X-Men cartoons — he gets it worst on Wolverine and the X-Men (2009), mostly just so Jean Grey and Emma Frost would look better. And in X-Men: Evolution, where Mystique abducts him, steals his Power Limiter and leaves him completely blinded and indefense in the desert, as revenge having been the Spanner in the Works for her earlier. Jean saves him that time. In the latter case though, this was explicitly a Badass in Distress moment given he didn't sit around helplessly.
• All the guys in Young Justice (2010) have gone through distressing situations, but the honor has to go to Superboy.

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