Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog has recurring character Sergeant Doberman. Sergeant Doberman is naturally intimidating, yelling out military orders to anyone in sight. He is always standing on top of his "soldiers" when training them with a serious attitude and never lets them ask questions.
Animaniacs: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot run afoul of one after accidentally joining the army in "Boot Camping".
Magister Hulka of the Plumber Academy in the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Basic Training". Hulka is an instructor at the Plumbers' Academy, and the only Plumber more honored and decorated than Max.
Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: In the TV series, Bruiser is at one point called back to Betelgeuse to be decorated for his efforts in the Toad Wars and asked to pull a stint as a guest instructor at the Betelgeusian Military Academy so the cadets can "learn from a real marine." Bruiser responds with child-like glee, but asks the rest of the team to take his mom home, because "cadet training can get pretty ugly." And true to form...
Bruiser: THE NAME'S BRUISER, AND FOR THE NEXT 48 HOURS, YOU WILL EAT, SLEEP AND BREATHE BERSERK! YOU GOT THAT?!
Commander Hoo-Ha of the Tomato Scouts in Camp Lazlo is a sadistic muscular bison. He is the leader for both Camp Kidney and Acorn Flats. His appearances brings the whole camp to anxiety, as they are often accompanied by pain and suffering.
In a flashback scene in Celebrity Deathmatch, Jennifer Lopez has a guy like this as a personal trainer before her match with Dolly Parton. He plays the Trope straight until she actually thanks him for everything, and then he gets a little choked up.
Clone High: Eleanor Roosevelt, in addition to being creepy, is an aggressive gym coach whose intention for the year is to make the students feel even more insecure about their body’s physique
Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines: Dick Dastardly will waver into this frequently when his Vulture Squadron charges goof up, or in the case of "Fur Out Furlough," go against him.
Dastardly:[to Klunk and Zilly, who sabotaged his plane] I hope you realize that this is tantamount to treason!
The Day My Butt Went Psycho!: Zack's grandmother's butt turns into this when she is left to babysit Zack and Deuce.
Louis Gossett Jr. parodies his An Officer and a Gentleman role mentioned above, in an episode of Family Guy, right down to the "steers and queers" line.
Parodied in an episode of Garfield and Friends where a guy like this is training pizza delivery men. Justified, of course, as these guys have to deliver to Garfield, who is using every trick in the book to make sure they fail to get there within the guaranteed thirty minutes. (Not just because he wants the pizza for free, but because it's fun. After all the "recruits" fail to do so, the drill sergeant decides to go it himself, and almost makes it, but not quite, eventually signing a peace treaty with Garfield promising a free pizza with everything (except anchovies) every day.
Double subverted in Generator Rex when Noah and Rex decided to stay a few days at the Providence training camp called Basic. On the first day, they find that their drill instructor is a fairly nice dude. The next day they learn the hard way that he's only nice on the first day.
Drill Instructor: Where did you maggots learn to brush your teeth?! [Rex and Noah do a Spit Take] Drill Instructor: Did you just mess up my floor?! Pick that up and put it back in your mouths!
Sgt. Slaughter on G.I. Joe and the old WWF shows. There is a variant in a flashback in GI Joe where Leatherneck serves as a drill sergeant, but when he sees one of his trainees seriously injure a comrade in training with sadistic glee, he immediately calls the offender to his office to punish him.
Beachhead in GI Joe, who aside from being an Army Ranger Drill Sergeant Nasty, is, in the most recent revision of the universe, also called upon by the armed forces to train Marine, Delta Force, SEAL, and on special occasions Force Recon soldiers. This is before he joins GI Joe. Do not cross Beachhead. His toy is one of the few non-ninja good guys who comes with a mask that's not removable.
Sgt. Uniblab from The Jetsons. So tough and demanding, the recruits end up cross-wiring him and causing him to Self Destruct. Also George's commanding officer, his own boss Mr. Spacely.
An episode has Hank bring his old football coach in to teach Bobby's football team. He has them do push-ups in the mud... that he makes with a hose. Any and all injuries, pain, complaints, etc. are responded to with "take a salt tablet". Eventually, he starts going really crazy. As in "chasing the kids through the field with his car crazy. Hank has to knock him out with a propane tank to stop the madness.
In another episode, Cotton Hill also plays this trope straight when he takes over the military school that Bobby's been enrolled in after he learns that the school isn't nearly as gritty and draconian as it was back when he was a student there.
In "Peggy the Boggle Champ", Hank gives a despondent Peggy one of his coach's speeches to lift up her spirits. It starts with "Loser! You're a loser!" and goes south from there. Later, it turns out her obnoxious Boggle rival's husband is also one, saying the very same things.
The Laverne & Shirley cartoon had the girls in the army with an uppity pig named Sgt. Squealy as their superior. Squealy in turn had a Sgt. Turnbuckle.
On Looney Tunes, war-time cartoons will often sport a character of this type.
Bugs Bunny himself has "played" a character on a few occasions, usually to dupe his mark, but he honestly thought himself as a 3-star general (with the personality of Patton) in a cartoon where hats were raining from the sky and a helmet fell on his head.
Bugs[to Elmer] All right, dog-face. Why is it that everyone in this man's army has a rifle and you've got a gun??!!
In Forward March Hare, a peacetime cartoon, Bugs is accidentally drafted and faces one such sergeant — Bugs tries to be a good soldier but his repeated screw-ups cause the sarge to lose his rank one stripe at a time.
Daffy trains under one when he joins the Marines in The Looney Tunes Show episode "Semper Lie".
From Mixels, there are two military-based ones, one for the Mixels, another for the Nixels:
The Mixels have Rokit, who, while much more downplayed than others, thinks everything is Serious Business, from getting a cup of coffee to petting a cat, which makes him easily annoyed that others don't share this way of thinking. Case in point, in a flashback, he was reluctant to tell Nurp-Naut a bedtime story because he already said "Night-night", and he assumed the Glowkies were invading when they just wanted to pay a visit.
Meanwhile, the Nixels have Major Nixel, the second-in-command for the Nixels. For him, it's less that the Nixels respect him, and more that they are terrified of him, which is why they waste no time in mocking him for his failures, and even King Nixel can't stand him.
Commander Hurricane behaves/behaved this way towards Private Pansy, underlining the pegasi's warrior culture. Naturally, said commander is played by RainbowDash.
Twilight Sparkle as Clover the Clever: Look, perhaps if we all calmed down... Applejack as Smart Cookie: I agree. Let's all calm down. Fluttershy as Private Pansy: I vote for calm. Rainbow Dash as Commander Hurricane: I'll have you court-martialled for insubordination, private!
Spitfire, the captain of the Wonderbolts, is like this when she's on duty. Off-duty, she's presented as pretty easygoing (albeit with a bit of a competitive streak). But once she's on the clock, Spitfire shows no mercy to her trainees. However, she's portrayed as more fallible than most examples of this trope, as Spitfire shows poor judgement in many of her decisions.
In "Wonderbolts Academy", Spitfire constantly yells at the trainees. She also makes Lightning Dust the lead pony and fails to notice when Lightning endangers her teammates, as well as Lightning's apathy towards what could have happened. It's only after Rainbow Dash outlines Lightning Dust's actions and nearly drops out of the training program that Spitfire takes the lead pony badge away from Lightning Dust and expels her from the Wonderbolts.
This attitude is the focus of Friends Forever 11, where Spitfire is called upon to train a bunch of kids. Spitfire, terrified of kids, slips into Drill Sergeant Nasty mode by accident. They promptly burst into tears, which just makes Spitfire's fear of kids even worse.
In "The Washouts", Spitfire goes right into Drill Sergeant Nasty mode in an attempt to convince Scootaloo not to join the Washouts, since it's a dangerous stunt group where Scootaloo could easily get hurt. However, Spitfire is so over-the-top in her yelling (even by her own standards) that all the lecture does is make Scootaloo want to join the Washouts even more.
In a nonsensical variant, Granny Smith acts this way toward jars that will soon be holding zap apple jam. One actually cracks under the abuse, to which she yells "Court-martialed!" and throws it in the trash. It turns out that this, along with other odd behavior she exhibits in the episode, is actually a necessary part of helping the magical jam taste better. She knows it's absolutely ridiculous and makes her look senile, but just shrugs it off and does it anyway.
The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show had Sgt. Blast, a female officer who does not suffer the antics of Olive Oyl and Alice The Goon (both in the army under her charge) well.
Sergeant DOG in The Problem Solverz episode "Problem Solverz Academy". He gives high school social ranks to the trainees, making Roba the cool kid who doesn't have to work, Alfe obsessed with the military, and Horace a super dork with giant glasses.
Rated "A" for Awesome: In "Never Judge A Mutant By Its Slobber", the team turns Captain Scar, the Drill Sergeant nasty protagonist of a video game, into a Refugee from TV Land.
Yet again, Sergeant Zim in Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, with his portrayal skewing closer towards the book than the movie (though Clancy Brown reprises the role). He trains his recruits hard, but only for their own benefit, and the men are better for it. At one point, Rico, completely exhausted, doesn't have the strength to make it over an obstacle and announces that he wants to quit. Zim replies that he won't let Rico quit, and helps him over the obstacle so he can complete his training.
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Shaggy has one as an instructor (who refers to him as 'Private Hippy') when he is sent to military school in "The Night the Clown Cried".
Parodied in "Simpson Tide", as Homer has a memorable encounter with one of these when he enlisted in the US Navy Reserves:
Drill Sergeant: Okay, Simpson — you don't like me, and I don't like you! Homer:[brightly]I like you. Drill Sergeant:[uncertain] Uhm, alright... You like me — but I don't like you! Homer:[helpful] Maybe you'd like me if you got to know me?
The graduation ceremony for Homer's bodyguard class featured the Sergeant telling them they were worthless maggots but passed anyway because their cheques cleared.
Homer met another one while in the Army in "G.I. D'oh".
R. Lee Ermey himself did the VA for a character that was a lot like this in "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" named Colonel Leslie Hapablap. (He even paraphrased a line from Full Metal Jacket, one of Ermey's films.) He played the trope straight for the most part, except showing a slight weakness in showing that he was afraid of what the Smithsonian would do to him after Sideshow Bob stole the Wright Brothers' plane.
Bart played one in the episode Bart the General even going as far as to slap a recruit that wouldn't run past a vicious dog. He did apologize after Abe called him out on it. Though he was trying to get the kids to stand up to then remorseless Jerk Jock bully Nelson Muntz.
In "Brother's Little Helper" this is a Discussed Trope between two random soldiers overheard by Bart:
Soldier #1: I can't believe it. Sarge said we're the worst bunch he's ever seen! Soldier #2: See, I have to believe he's seen worse bunches than us. Soldier #1: But he said— Soldier #2: Yeah I know what he said, he was just trying to motivate us! Soldier #1: Well, it ruined the whole hike.
While more of a cop than a drill sergeant, Sitting Ducks has “Drill Sergeant Duck”, who is always planning schemes to arrest Aldo. She did take the role as a drill sergeant in the episode “Duck and Cover”.
Storm Hawks makes Snipe into one in the episode "Talon Academy", though in fairness, aside from the shouting and prerequisite nicknames, he's actually not that bad. The one who suffers his wrath the most, a disguised Aerrow, is also the one who keeps screwing him over in front of the other cadets for his own amusement and considers the resulting menial tasks worth it.
Thomas & Friends introduces Bradford the brake van who serves as this to the Troublesome Trucks, though he also serves as one to the trains pulling him. He deals with the train carts successfully in his debut episode.
Bradford: Listen, you horrible lot! I'm in charge now! So no bumping and none of your cheek! Cart: Ah! But we like bumping! Bradford: Not on my watch, matey. This is now a bump-free zone! Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Total Drama: Chef Hatchet, whenever he's put in charge of anything, quickly turns into a boot camp instructor. The campers quickly learn to not complain about the slop he serves them, and any challenge Chef comes up with is a blatant military exercise.
In Transformers: Animated, established Jerkass Sentinel Prime is revealed to have been a drill sergeant back when he was Sentinel Minor. However, this was less because he wanted to make them stronger and more because he just hated being a drill sergeant.
Hunter Gathers, Brock Sampson's trainer. In flashback, it's shown that when Brock turned in an unsatisfactory performance in a swimming exercise, Gathers dropped a live grenade into the pool. With training like that, is it any wonder Brock became a Sociopathic Hero?
Surpassed in the episode "Assassinanny", where the Russian femme-fatale Molotov Cocktease drills the Venture family by shooting at them with a pair of fully-loaded Uzis — and insinuates that she's "going easy on them." No wonder she's the love of Brock's life. (Col. Gathers even later joins her ranks.)
The commander of a squad of security for Dr. Venture's yard sale invokes the trope - though he seems a bit obsessive about putting his men in dresses.
"Two Ton" 21 took to this.
On Wacky Races, Sgt. Blast (unrelated to the one on the aforementioned Popeye show) is this, mainly to his driver Pvt. Meekly, who has a propensity of misinterpreting Sarge's orders. At least twice in the Wacky Races comic book, Sarge has busted Meekly to private last class.
Coach variant:
Chuck tries to be one to the Blues in an episode of Angry Birds Toons, but they trick him into tying himself up so they can go back to sleep.
Toph, when training Aang in earthbending in "Bitter Work".
Zuko has traces of it as well.
Zuko: Remember, firebending in and of itself is not something to fear. But if you don't respect it, IT WILL CHEW YOU UP AND SPIT YOU OUT LIKE AN ANGRY KOMODO RHINO!!
The Boondocks had this played out during an episode where after a bully, Butch Magnus, stole Riley's chain, it was revealed one of his various feats was being unfazed to one of the DIs and then sending a chair in his direction.
The Casagrandes episode "Miss Step" has Frida training Carlota, later Ronnie Anne, and finally, Maria, for a baile folklorico showcase, but considering that she is too intense of an instructor, all three try to get out of dancing in the showcase by pretending to beinjured (Carlota with a sprained elbow, Ronnie Anne with an injured foot and Maria with a broken leg).
Parodied in the Daria episode "Fat Like Me". Sandi is swimming to try to lose weight and Quinn is helping her:
Quinn: Did Cleopatra rest when she was inventing mascara? Did Nefertiti rest when she was posing for statues? Did Helen of Troy rest when she was doing whatever it was she did? Beauty never rests! Now, swim, you cow, swim! Sandi: What?! Quinn: Sorry — Coach talk.
The substitute PE teacher from "Dexter Dodgeball", who forces Dexter to compete in "the most brutal sport of all": DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODGE-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL.
The Detention Warden with no name from "Dexter Detention" is a detention teacher at Dexter's school who refers to and treats the students who go to detention as "criminals", with the facility where he works at being similar to a prison setting. His harsh manners prompt Dexter and the other students to escape from him via Fast Tunneling.
"You make me sick, criminal!"
One of the Justice Friends episodes explains that Major Glory was trained into superheroics when he was young by his uncle, Uncle Sam, who treated him this way. When Mayor Glory meets Uncle Sam again as an adult, he finds out that the latter became a New-Age Retro Hippie.
Dragons: Race to the Edge: In "Team Astrid", Astrid becomes one when she attempts to train an auxiliary unit of dragon riders to protect Berk, in part to deal with her own feelings of guilt over not being able to protect her family's home from Dagur's recent attack on Berk. She demanded pushups for even the slightest infractions, and even had her team recite a variation of the Rifle Creed ("There are many dragons but this one is mine.") At one point, Hiccup asked her if she was setting her recruits up to fail so she would have an excuse to remain on Berk instead of joining Hiccup and the others on Dragon's Edge.
Psycrow was one once in an episode of the Earthworm Jim cartoon. He got his students to run laps by chasing after them firing his raygun. He was fired for being too nice.
Jorgen from The Fairly OddParents! trains new recruits at the Fairy Academy. His methods are often brutal.
R. Lee Ermey did this bit on Family Guy, as a jousting trainer for Renaissance Fair knights. His dialogue is given an appropriate medieval twist.
Hey Arnold!: After Mr. Simmons leaves due to Arnold's class being cruel to him on his first day as a teacher, he is replaced by a "Lt. Major" note no such rank exists in Real Life Goose, who was a drill sergeant in the Vietnam War era note a flashback in another episode actually shows that he also happened to be the Drill Sergeant Nasty of Gerald's dad.
Kenny the Shark has Kat do this sometimes when training her shark Kenny in episodes like "Pet Tricks" and "Regime Change."
Mr. Barkin, though Barkin was actually a Lieutenant.
R. Lee Ermey played against type as a helpful soldier at Area 51 in one episode.
In the episode where Kim coaches the soccer team, she acts like this as her perfectionism gets the better of her.
King of the Hill. After a skydiving accident, WWII veteran Cotton Hill is a coach version of this for Peggy's rehabilitation. As expected, he does his job above and beyond expectation, putting his legendary horrible attitude to good use in doing so.
Tenzin becomes this when he follows Bumi's advice...which falls flat on its face very quickly.
Meelo acts like this to the new airbenders...and he's five. It's Played for Laughs, though.
Meelo: Look to your left! Look to your right! One of them will not leave here alive!
Even after seventy years, Toph still gets a kick out of training (and beating up) the Avatar.
Mixels has the Muncho Coach, the gym teacher of Mixopolis Middle School. He shows little faith in his students, and also doesn't handle sassing back well. He also shares a voice actor with Rokit, mentioned above.
Rainbow Dash acts like one in quite a few episodes, most notably the "May the Best Pet Win" episode and combines this with Jerk with a Heart of Gold. While she does have a commanding voice and shoves Tank to the side, she doesn't want to put the pets through any serious danger and eventually comes around.
She also has shades of one when training the pegasi in "Hurricane Fluttershy", complete with the same whistle and cap she wore in "May the Best Pet Win" but she's a lot more lenient here. Particularly toFluttershy, though she does chastise Thunderlane for trying to get out of training. However, he really was sick and she immediately drops all plans to break the record. Her voice is also quite booming when she's trying to get Fluttershy to cheer for her. Then again, this is Rainbow Dash we're talking about.
And then again in "Rainbow Falls" when helping Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps train for the Equestria Games relay. Inverted in another two episodes with Dash as a coach, however, she does not act like this at all when coaching Apple Bloom through various activities in an attempt to earn her cutie mark, though she does look quite unimpressed by Apple Bloom's "skill" in each event. Or when she's coaching the young foals of Ponyville to carry the flag in "Flight to the Finish", she's more of a Genki Girl in this one. Maybe it's because she's good with kids.
Averted again in the IDW Comic Friends Forever 11 where Dash is extremely relaxed amongst the kids and has to calm down supposed Child Hater Spitfire. And then there's the S9 episode "Common Ground" where she's actually quite cute as a coach when teaching Quibble Pants to bring out his sporty side for Wind Sprint, his adopted daughter, to the point she is a total cute Genki Girl.
Shining Armor also has shades of one in "Games Ponies Play" where he's the Crystal Empire's sports coach as well as one of its rulers. Let's move, move, move, indeed. Might be from being the captain of the royal guards back in Canterlot.
Rainbow Dash yet again as well as Applejack count in the episode "Buckball Season" when they, as Applejack puts it, "get serious". Applejack pressures Pinkie saying if they lose the Apple Family will lose their honor while Rainbow Dash is yelling at Fluttershy to go faster through an obstacle course she designed like a majority of Olympic coaches would. Fortunately both Applejack and Rainbow realize their idea of getting "in the zone" is much different from Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who just want to have fun.
One of these runs the Smile Away Reformatory in the Phineas and Ferb episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted''. Unlike the common example, he is the episode's Big Bad and is evil even by the show's standards.
Robotboy has a midriff-baring PE Teacher who is very strict and looks very angry at all times. She let the kids train very hard and under heavy conditions during PE lessons. She wants them to feel the pain and become friends with the pain. She also seems to don't care about children who are disabled and let them work as hard as the abled children or let them make easy targets for Kurt during dodgeball.
In "My Fair Laddy", Coach Krupt taught nothing but "a game as old as pain itself - bombardment!" which consisted of him painfully pelting the kids with dodgeballs while yelling "BOMBARDMENT!" and no rules beyond "DUCK OR DIE!"
In "The Heartbroke Kid", after gaining lots of weight, Bart gets sent to a fat camp run by coach Tab Spangler. One exercise was the patients pulling Tab on a chariot while he whips them.
Bart: This can't be legal! Tab: It's legal enough! [whips him]
SpongeBob becomes one in "The Great Snail Race", where his training Gary for the snail Olympics is probably worse than most examples here (at least for this episode), often pushing him too hard and being an outright Jerkass to him. He does come around and apologize for everything he did and the Status Quo returns to normal.
Sandy also counts somewhat in "Prehibernation Week", when she's trying to get as much "fun" done as quickly as possible. She's completely oblivious to how SpongeBob feels about her idea of fun, but by the end, she realizes the error of her ways and apologizes for it. She even makes SpongeBob play Extreme Jacks, which is basically collecting the jacks and catching a bowling ball on your head.
In "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired", when Mrs. Puff gets fired for being unable to teach SpongeBob how to properly drive a boat, SpongeBob's new teacher, Sergeant Sam Roderick, is this. He takes his rules very seriously, such as not eating snacks in class (he even threw one student out of the classroom for eating bonbons he offered), and he makes SpongeBob crawl through the obstacle course blindfolded. Eventually, SpongeBob gets used to driving the course blindfolded, which is what leads to Sergeant Roderick getting fired and Mrs. Puff getting re-hired.
"The Inmates of Summer" has as a prison warden version of Drill Sergeant Nasty when SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally get on the wrong boat, but they actually enjoy his treatment.
Bric from Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Bric was very stern and strict, and rather a bully, in his approach to training cadets. His methods were even questioned by other instructors and Jedi Master Shaak Ti. Although it should be noted that Bric only wanted to bring out the best in the clone trainees and due to his tactics Domino Squad ended up succeeding in the end.
Supa Strikas: The coach of Iron Tank, one of the opposition teams
According to The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Mario and Luigi's instructor at the Plumbers' Academy was one of these. His name was Sergeant Kooperman, and judging from his voice, he's apparently the Earth version of Bowser.
Bradford the Brake Van from the Thomas & Friendsepisode of the same name is this mostly to the Troublesome Trucks, but he also has shown these tendencies towards the engine pulling him, causing his trains to run very late. Despite not being nice about railway safety, it is clear that he genuinely cares about it.
Bluenose the Naval Tug from TUGS is this to both the Star Tugs and the Z-Stacks. In the episode, "Munitions", his obsession with military orders over common sense is what causes a fire at the loading dock that costs the lives of Big Mickey the Crane and Kraka-toa the Naval Tramper. He also attempts to have Grampus blown up in the episode, "Regatta/4th of July", prompting the Star Tugs to save him.
X-Men: Evolution's take on Wolverine had him act as one of these types, complete with students actively dreading his Danger Room sessions.
A humourous scene in the Tie-in comic series had Xavier announce that Logan is stepping down so Beast may teach them. Their reactions?
Kitty: Are you serious!? Kurt: Our prayers have been answered!
One episode also has an actual Drill Sergeant Nasty teach them Survival training who forced them (by them, we mean the teenaged X-Men, Brotherhood, and their Human student friends) to do inhumane courses designed for Military training. They chose him over Logan's sessions, leading to many one-liner jokes by the Professor.
