Jake: These guys aren't a threat to anyone.
Finn: These guys are a threat to themselves.
Finn: These guys are a threat to themselves.
- Duke Igthorn in Adventures of the Gummi Bears was mostly cartoonishly harmless. At one point, he had captured Granni Bear and was trying to extract the recipe for the Gummi Berry Juice from her. Rather than torture, he actually tickles her with feathers until she gives in. Thankfully, it was an incorrect recipe, proving that the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique (with feathers) is still useless. However, if one looks deeper, one can gain some respect for the man; he seems to keep a legion of superstrong ogres twice his size in line by mere force of personality, is never seen not wearing a suit of chainmail (which is HEAVY), and, at one point, knocks out two armed guards with his bare hands.
- It's also clear that if it hadn't been for the Gummi Bears, he would have taken over Dunwin a long time ago. Even if most people now believe that the Gummi Bears only are fairy-tale characters, they remain a threat to Duke Igthorn, that the king's knights only can dream of being. And there's also one episode, where he blows up a tower and could have killed Princess Calla (she even was unconscious for a while). So yes, Duke Igthorn sure had his dangerous moments.
- The Ice King in Adventure Time certainly has the potential to be a great threat, being a powerful magic user but constantly thwarted by a boy and his dog doesn't do much for his reputation. His defeats are often so pathetic that they're depressing, and in the end, it's almost always Finn beating up an old man. He's so pathetic that one episode starts with Finn simply "grounding" him for misbehaving again (he tries to argue, but only gets more time added onto his punishment, ultimately he just gives in without even trying to actually fight).
- To give an idea of his power, in an alternate timeline the Ice King once helped in destroying the world by causing it to freeze over after the nuke that created The Lich. Only his sheer idiocy and the fact he's verging on the border of a constant Heel–Face Turn because the heroes are his frenemies keeps him from being one of the show's biggest threats next to The Lich. The fact that his crown drove him completely insane in addition to granting him his ice powers contributes a bit to his status as a Harmless Villain. Adventure Time also lampshades it in "Conquest of Cuteness", where the villains are a race of tiny, cute creatures that can't do any harm at all. Finn and Jake feel sorry for them and pretend to be defeated.
- Pretty much every villain from Aqua Teen Hunger Force falls under this category. Although since only one out of the three 'heroes' has any kind of competence or fighting ability, the villains often end up causing a lot of damage anyway, despite it being easily avoidable, as most of the time, the heroes don't even care enough to try and stop them. Yeah, it's that kind of series.
- Played with in The Batman with veteran Bat-villain Killer Moth. As with his comics version, he started out as some weirdo in a costume. He later got transformed into a giant super-strong mutant moth with the ability to spit acid... but he retains his milquetoast personality, so he's really pretty easy to deal with.
- In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Make 'Em Laugh", we have the Condiment King, one of the comedians brainwashed into a villain by the Joker. He fights by squirting ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce which, amazingly enough, does manage to take down one restaurant patron, subsequently intimidating the rest into actually handing over their priceless valuables. Batman takes him down in one easy punch and, seeing how pathetic the guy is, actually offers to go easy on him.Batman: Now listen, Mustard Man, or whatever you call yourself: you're obviously new at this, so I'm willing to go easy on you, provided you give back the loot and don't even think about doing this again.
- Waspinator from the Beast Wars portion of the Transformers franchise often fits this category, though his counterpart in the Transformers: Animated series, was portrayed as all things his predecessor was not: deadly, powerful, vengeful, psychotic, and even a little scary.
- In The Blinkins, Grog sets many traps to catch the Blinkins, with no luck, and he's easily bullied by the more threatening Mr. Slime and Mr. Sneed.
- Grizzle from Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot is rarely seen as a real threat by the Care Bears, and usually just considered a nuisance or misguided. This is particularly surprising to those familiar with past Care Bears cartoons, as they tended to go for a Vile Villain, Saccharine Show deal; compared to the creepy Mad Scientist Professor Coldheart, or the very aptly named Evil Sorcerer No-Heart, a bungling incompetent like Grizzle (who, let's remember, actually believes an inanimate object is a robot adviser of his) is pretty pathetic.
- Beastly replaces Grizzle as the harmless villain Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot and Care Bears & Cousins. However he is just as harmless as Grizzle is, and his behavior is comparable to that of a schoolyard bully.
- The Centsables: Many of the villains are remarkably chill for being super-powered and/or criminals and have a pretty high Heel–Face Turn over rate.
- Codename: Kids Next Door Double-Subverts this regarding the Toiletnator. He is as threatening as he sounds. It isn’t so much that he's harmless, but he just isn't that evil; being more a threat to his own team. Mr. Boss once alluded to an incident where he let Numbuh One into the villains' secret lair when Numbuh One's only disguise was a t-shirt with the words "I am not Numbuh One" written on it. "Operation: F.L.U.S.H." showed he can actually be competent and dangerous — but he ends up destroying his own side with his stupidity. In "Operation: C.A.N.Y.O.N.", he successfully drained the Grand Canyon of milk when the Kids Next Door organization planned to turn it into a giant bowl of milk and cereal.
- The Toilenator is so pathetic, he can't even claim the title of "Best Toilet-Based Villain". In "Operation: A.W.A.R.D.S.", he was nominated for the title in an awards ceremony held by the other villains but lost to Potty Mouth.
- Freaky Fred, a oneshot villain from Courage the Cowardly Dog, for the given value of villain. While he's definitely eccentric and carries an all-around creepy presence, he isn't evil, and he doesn't even try to harm anyone he comes across — the only "threat" he poses is that he has a rather disturbing obsession with shaving all the hair off of people and animals.
- The Hacker in Cyberchase isn't entirely harmless, having gotten close to usurping or destroying Motherboard on more than a few occasions, and even succeeded at one point, if only temporarily. Fortunately, he's weighed back by his extreme narcissism and almost always underestimates the kid heroes. Buzz and Delete, along with newer villains like Baskerville, Wicked, and Ledge, are also frequently more harmless than not.
- The Box Ghost ("Beware!") from Danny Phantom certainly qualifies as the resident Harmless Villain, who gets little to no respect from Danny and the other evil ghosts alike. However, his threat level mainly depends on what the boxes he uses to fight with contain.
- Since the Box Ghost (apart from that time with Pandora) never seems to have plots more complicated than "throw stuff around to scare people", Danny's probably just being a bully by attacking him at all.
- His Future Badass self from The Movie on the other hand...
Future Box Ghost: Beware. - Swiper in Dora the Explorer: Any villain who can be foiled by saying "Swiper, no swiping!" isn't going to give Hannibal Lecter a run for his money.
- Oh, and when he gets the stuff? Does he keep it for himself? No, he throws it into the bushes with a cackle of, "You'll never find it now!" and runs off.
- During "The Berry Hunt", in which Dora and Boots sneak onto a hill where Swiper lives, quietly lift a bucketful of berries, then make enough noise that Swiper comes out of his hole... and the heroic duo frown at the thought that Swiper might steal "their" blueberries. "That Swiper!"
- There was an episode where he stole the friendship bracelets for friendship day. When he found out, he did a Heel–Face Turn for the rest of the episode and helped the rest of the cast find all the bracelets.
- There was also the Christmas Special, where Dora and Boots took a trip to bring a present for Santa. Along the way, Swiper swipes it, but does a Heel–Face Turn and returns it when he's told what he had taken.
- Under the theory he is only harassing Dora for fun and becomes repentant whenever he actually does something truly callous, Swiper could perhaps be considered more a prankster than an outright villain.
- The Urpneys of The Dreamstone. It takes a rather incompetent bunch of mooks to make a Sugar Bowl world like The Land Of Dreams come off as unnecessarily rough on them, and Zordrak's lazy, cowardly mooks fit that bill, spending most of their time grudgingly trying to give the population bad dreams before getting their ass handed to them by two Muggle Noop kids and their dogfish. Even the times they do actually prove formidable, they are constant victims of circumstance, fate always unraveling their schemes in the heroes' favor.
- The Copper Cranium in The Fairly OddParents! is defeated so easily, the narrator lampshades it.
- Anti-Cosmo. He's even a failure at poking the Cat.
- Crocker was initially portrayed as a legitimate threat (only being surpassed by Vicky in terms of threat level) who was only regarded as an idiot due to Cassandra Truth, but thanks to Flanderization, he's become this full-on to the point of even playing the Coyote role in a Road Runner vs. Coyote plot in one episode.
- Dark Laser is another example (at least in his later episodes). The only times he really presents a threat are when he's working with another villain.
- The Professor and Rock Bottom from the Joe Oriolo Felix the Cat cartoons have to rank as two of the most pathetic villains in western animation. Both of them are either so nonthreatening, incompetent (or in Professor's case, very prone to absentmindedness and big lapses in judgement) or just plain unlucky in their villainy, that they're barely a threat to Felix at all. They'll do themselves in with their schemes as often as Felix can stop them, and Professor gets put through the wringer a lot because of this—and because of orders from distributor Trans-Lux, Felix always had to come out on top over them. The Professor can't even succeed in his goal of using Felix's Magic Bag of Tricks anyway—the bag will only work for Felix and violently resists each attempt Professor makes to use it, but he's too stubborn to accept this. It's not really clear how seriously they take themselves as villains either, due in part to the shows breakneck writing schedule (they had mere hours to write each script) and the series light continuity—their rivalry is sometimes forgotten altogether and Professor hires Felix to babysit Poindexter or hires him as an assistant with no ill will between the two, and Rock Bottom is sometimes just a grouchy neighbor to Felix at worst instead of a crook. In "Public Enemies One and Two", both he and Rock Bottom even throw a sincere surprise birthday party for Felix. Their pitiful nature was part of the reason Master Cylinder was eventually introduced to the series—they had to present something resembling a real threat to Felix.
- Their sole appearance in The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, the episode "Attack of the Robot Rat", parodies the formula of the Joe Oriolo cartoons by taking Professor's hopelessness at defeating Felix and playing it for (rather mean-spirited) laughsnote . Professor is now a washed-up old coot living in a derelict apartment with Rock Bottom, and after he tries to defeat Felix with the eponymous giant robot, Felix, in an uncharacteristically mean moment, even takes time to rub it in his face that he'll never beat him.
- With that said, Professor has proven in several episodes, be it as a whole or in moments, that he can be a Not-So-Harmless Villain when he gets his act together. In "Into Outer Space", he completely corners Felix in his lair by sealing off every possible exit (including a mousehole)—Felix only gets away because of a big lapse in judgement on Professor's part (namely, helplessly launching him off into outer space, which ultimately works out in Felix's favor). In "Blubberino the Whale", he sicks a killer shark after Felix and keeps him on the run. In "Captain No Kiddin", he keeps Felix on the ropes in a swordfight, successfully corners him on the bow of his pirate ship, and knocks Felix's sword out of his hand. He manages to keep Felix on his guard again in "Moo Moo Island Oysters" with his Oyster Shocker. In "The Vacation Mirage", Professor has the deck completely stacked against Felix with his powerful Mirage maker, separating him from his Magic Bag in the middle of a very hot desert, and constantly tormenting him with a barrage of illusions that are so realistic, that Felix is powerless to break them—it was only by sheer dumb luck that he manages to defeat Professor (he stumbles across his lost bag and turns it into a plane, which accidentally crashes into the invisible machine).
- Oscar, a oneshot foe from an episode of The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, "Phoney Phelix", is such a pathetic villain, that he makes Professor and Rock Bottom seem downright threatening in contrast. He tries to pull a Hostile Show Takeover by impersonating Felix, but he looks, acts and sounds absolutely nothing like Felix and is so stupid, that he doesn't even attempt to make his sham seem convincing. All of Felix's friends (except Roscoe) instantly see right through his act. The worst thing he does to Felix is tie him up, and he's far too incompetent to be anything more than a pest. Felix effortlessly outsmarts him and defeats him in the end.
- The villain Killface from Frisky Dingo is a good example. He builds a machine that can destroy Earth but freaks out and tries to stop it when someone activates it. He also shows some love for Earth, especially its pre-Colombian pottery and literature (but not the hip-hop). He becomes best friends with his worst enemy (who is disguised) and refuses to kill him, even after finding out his true identity. He has no problem brutally killing his "employees," though. The hero, Xander Crews, actually does more evil and harmful things than Killface.
- Harley Quinn (2019):
- Kite Man is treated like a third rate villain. Most of his appearances are strictly comedic (even by this show's standards), nobody takes him seriously, he's rather incompetent, and Poison Ivy, despite having a crush on him, is embarrassed to be seen with him in public.
- Harley is viewed as one by the public even though she, unlike Kite Man, is actually a considerable threat. This is largely due to her reputation as being the Joker's henchgirl and his attempts to discredit her after they broke up, and a lot of her plans to break out as her own villain backfiring.
- This is the defining trait of Invader Zim from the series of the same name. He was sent on a "special mission" to conquer Earth by his bosses, who had no idea Earth existed and actually just wanted him out of the way. Once there, whenever Zim's plans to conquer Earth aren't foiled by his Arch-Enemy Dib, chances are they fell apart due to his own sheer incompetence.
- Finn, Ratso, and Chow in Jackie Chan Adventures should qualify. While they are, most of the time, serving the Big Bads of each season, they serve, pretty much, as Jackie's punching bags. Even when Daolon Wong grants them demonic powers. They even had a few goes at a Heel–Face Turn, though it took the third time and the Grand Finale for it to stick (mostly because they were just as bad at being good as they were at being bad).
- Eugene, a.k.a. Bling-Bling Boy in Johnny Test. Johnny is both his archenemy and his only friend. Most of his evil ambitions are done solely for the purpose of getting a date with Susan. He eventually became much less of a villain and stopped correcting people when they called him by his real name, Eugene.
- Dark Vegan was portrayed in his first two appearances as being a legitimate threat to life on Earth, but after getting stuck on Earth he became so pathetic that Johnny frequently defeated him without knowing he was there. It eventually got to the point where he appeared in an episode without doing anything villainous, instead just taking a movie studio tour and gorging himself on his favorite food: buttered toast.
- Kaeloo: Olaf the emperor penguin, a Mad Scientist who tries to Take Over the World but never succeeds. All the heroes do is just make fun of him, and if they decide he's getting too annoying they just beat him up. In fact, there are even instances where Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack Quack, and Mr. Cat don't even do anything and he fails anyway.
- Dr. Drakken in Kim Possible is pretty much the mascot of this trope, if only because that show's Periphery Demographic makes it so self-aware. You get the feeling that he and Shego aren't even trying to harm Kim, just keep her occupied. He becomes a Not-So-Harmless Villain in some cases, especially in The Movie "So the Drama". (In fact, being the most recurring villain, he's all over the scale; sometimes he's so ridiculous that Kim hardly needs to bother, but he's also the one who occasionally comes closest to his Take Over the World goal.) Occasionally he's not so much harmless as dangerously incompetent, his plans having a tendency to go horribly right or wrong.
- This is because Drakken is an Expy of Doctor Evil, with Shego taking Scott's place as the more competent one who points out the other's ineffectiveness with snarky remarks.
- Many villains on the show could seem like this. Señor Senior Senior and Señor Senior Junior probably take the cake, though, since supervillainy is just a hobby for them. Junior doesn't even want to be a villain in the first place. This trope is even pretty much invoked by Senior, who willingly abides by Contractual Genre Blindness.
- The Croc Bandits in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness ... usually. When Po is describing how dangerous the members of his Rogues Gallery are, the best he can do for Fung and Gahri is "two guys who try really hard".
- The League of Super Evil. They not only Poke the Poodle figuratively, they might do so literally, claiming it to be a villainous deed. Which, considering that their previous plots include Voltar using a giant mech so he could play in a dunk contest, rigging a pet show to win, and selling turnip-ade under the guise of lemonade, might be a step up for them.
- In one episode of The Legend of Zelda, "The Moblins Are Revolting", Ganon's minions grow tired of doing his bidding and manage to get rid of him (temporarily), then conduct their own attack on Hyrule Castle. Link and Zelda don't even stay to defend the castle because they know his minions pose no threat. The monsters wipe each other out in the process of trying to invade and never get anywhere near the building.
- Many antagonists from Looney Tunes are perfect examples of this trope, most notably Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd. Wile E. is an obsessive predator, but his plans are nearly always self-defeating. He is the only one who gets hurt by his actions. Elmer is a hunter using firearms, but he is extremely naive and mild-mannered, making it easy for the other characters to outwit, manipulate, or bully him. Subverted in a few of the shorts, where he is smarter and/or more powerful than he looks.
- Petey Pate from Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is a weak villain because most of the people from Mouseville make fun of him for his...well...just look at him.
- The Lepodopterist in "Molly Moo Cow and the Butterflies". He's not even portrayed as malicious, but as a wimpy fool who only wants to catch butterflies, obliviously at the expense of their freedom. He even sings about how he's too cowardly to go hunting for lions or tigers, so he spends time catching butterflies as his hobby.
- The Dirt Dudes from Mr. Bogus often fall into this territory, Depending on the Writer. They can be either genuinely threatening to Bogus, or depicted as Dirty Cowards (pun intended) who find that they can't stand up to Bogus.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The diamond dogs of "A Dog and Pony Show" had tried to enslave Rarity, who has them wrapped around her hoof in minutes, and her friends' daring rescue was likely appreciated more by the diamond dogs than by herself.
- The episode "Owl's Well That Ends Well" involves the usually good dragon cub Spike temporarily becoming an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, complete with a Dastardly Whiplash ensemble. Spike is obviously stooping pretty low when he tries to make it look like Owlowiscious killed a mouse, but gets caught in the act way too quickly to do any major harm. Although, Spike does become a Not-So-Harmless Villain during his next dip into temporary villainy.
- Ahuizotl, the villain of the in-universe "Daring Do", comes off as this once it turns out he's Real After All. Pretty much all of the other true villains that the Mane Six have encountered were highly dangerous — the Mad God Discord, the love parasite Queen Chrysalis and the demonic world conqueror King Sombra. In comparison, Ahuizotl wants to use various stolen magical relics to cause an 800-year heatwave. Limited to one small, insignificant valley in an obscure pocket of Equestria... Big Bad, he ain't. Zig-zagged in that his arch-rival, Daring Do, treats him with all the seriousness of a real villain, but still, he most likely gets to keep up the villain schtick because he's too small-time for any Princess to deal with. It's eventually subverted with the reveal that he was never a villain in the first place and merely a extremely aggressive temple guardian thoroughly pissed off that ponies like Daring Do keep breaking into temples and stealing his stuff.
- Ninjago has Fugi-Dove, a wannabe supervillain in a bird costume. He poses no real threat to the Ninja, and doesn't even fight them throughout the series. When he was caught by P.I.X.A.L. trying to escape from prison, she notes that she couldn't find a record of him in her database. Then, when the Mechanic recruits a group of villains to help him, he specifically recruits everyone except Fugi-Dove.
- Phineas and Ferb has the completely harmless Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The closest he came to actually harming anyone was building an invention that would destroy anyone who couldn't make up their minds.
- In his defense, he's facing a badass platypus who simply hand waves all of his crazy plots with that awesome purr/growl sound of his.
- The man was once defeated by a potted plant he hung up because Perry was busy. It doesn't get any more harmless than that!
- He also once developed a device for insulting whales (because, years earlier, a whale stole his girlfriend). Perry actually left, which caused Doofenshmirtz to chase him around, demanding that his plot be foiled.
- Most of his plans are self-foiling, though. They ultimately fail even when Perry never shows up, such as in the aforementioned plant episode.
- All of that said, "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo" shows us that without Perry to oppose him, he can be much more dangerous. (Granted, that was a unique situation, since, depending on your interpretation, it's implied that the citizens of Danville asked him to rule them out of fear for their children.)
- One episode had him cloning himself not to make it easier to take over the Tri-State Area, but so he could get errands done quicker such as standing in line.
- Professor Esmeralda Poofenplotz (Pinky the Chihuahua's nemesis) is even worse; Her first appearance revolved around finding a stash of her favorite discontinued hairspray (as she felt she couldn't commit evil without good-looking hair), and the second involved a poorly thought out plan to eat enough royal jelly to turn herself into a queen bee. Even Doofenshmirtz considers her to be a harmless villain (to the point where he didn't allow her to join his evil organisation L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.).
- The Amoeba Boys in The Powerpuff Girls (1998). Their devious plans include crimes such as disobeying a "Keep off the grass" sign (*gasp*), jaywalking (*SHOCK*), and... dare we mention it?... Littering (*DUN DUN DUN*). They only turned to such crimes after they tried, and failed, to work up the courage to steal an orange from a produce stand.
- Hilariously, the "Keep off the grass" thing turned into one of the most serious threats in the show's run. The Amoeba Boys stayed on the grass all night, through a storm, and got colds. As they are gigantic eukaryotic germ cells, this mutated into a disease that could have killed off all of Townsville and possibly the entire human race if the Girls hadn't managed to find the Amoeba Boys and convince them to let a vaccine be extracted. Of course, absolutely none of this was intentional, but hey.
- They almost crossed the line to Not-So-Harmless Villain in one episode, where they were able to create an army of duplicates of themselves using mitosis, and then stole all the oranges in Townsville, resulting in almost all the populace getting sick with scurvy (a clear-cut case of Rule of Funny). It was rather easy for the Girls to beat them to a pulp (heh, pulp. Orange jokes, heh.), but in the end, that was what they had wanted all along.
- They also sent the Girls voodoo dolls they had made to torment them with as a birthday present. When the Girls are opening their presents, they see this one marked "From the Ameoba Boys" and are assured by the Professor that the Boys can't do anything right, so the present must be safe to open.
- And yes, you read that right. They sent the voodoo dolls to their targets. When Mojo Jojo points out that's not how it works, they're completely baffled.
- The Powerpuff Girls Z version of the Ameoba Boys have a better grasp of how to be villains, but since they're just barely visible to the naked eye, it's impossible for anyone to take them seriously.
- In "Supper Villain", the Girls' next-door neighbor Harold Smith gets bored with his mundane suburban life and becomes a supervillain, holding Professor Utonium hostage with a hairdryer he claimed was a raygun. He's thwarted first because his wife insists that they finish dinner first, and then by a pie fight.
- Rocky Kwaterner has professor Torpille, who wants to freeze the titular character to turn him into a museum exhibit. He is more a nuisance than an actual threat to the protagonists, as most of the time they don’t even notice he’s stalking them and he ends up getting taken out by his own weapons or just bad luck.
- It's pretty hard to bring oneself to hate some of the villains in the Scooby-Doo cartoons, because their idea of an evil scheme was to put on a monster costume and chase a bunch of hippies and dogs around. Not to mention, the motive of those in particular, is only to "scare people away" for some reason or other, and not kill like say involved in some kind of ludicrous real estate scheme where they really, really wanted to have the rights to some particular land/house and thought the best way to do that was to put on a monster costume.
- There was one episode where they unmasked the villain and were all like "You're going to jail!" only for a police officer to inform them that, seeing as she was on her own property, not actually hurting or threatening anyone, and not covering up for any sort of criminal operation, she hadn't actually broken any laws and so she wasn't going to jail.
- One villain in What's New, Scooby-Doo? pretended to sabotage a bunch of carnival rides out of jealousy for her sister. They managed to unmask her, but because the rides hadn't actually been sabotaged and she hadn't otherwise broken any laws, they had to let her go, though her sister stated her intent to snitch to their mom.
- This has been averted in Mystery Inc. as the villains are much more willing to kill, or at least maim, the gang. One even tried arson to stop the door gag. No wonder this Shaggy hates mysteries.
- "The Villain Nobody Took Seriously" on The Secret Show, who was able to rule the world precisely because nobody took him seriously. He was just a clown living in an abandoned circus tent, talking about all the things he would do once he ruled the world...and then managed to get elected World Leader by changing his name to "Mark X Here", making confused voters cast their votes for him.
- Cedric from Sofia the First. He really, really wants to be an Evil Sorcerer, but he's neither mean enough nor competent enough to pull it off. His attempted assaults on Sofia to take her Amulet louse up so badly that Sofia never even realizes she's in danger. And he's really not evil, anyway.
- Sonic Boom: Some truly harmless villains are the Lightning Bolt Society, who Poke the Poodle even on their best days. Their plans mostly involve things like unscrewing salt shaker lids and gluing coins to the sidewalk. Even when the Lightning Bolts took over Eggman's lair, they still posed no threat. It's gotten to the point that everyone in the village considers them a joke.
- South Park: Butters' alter ego Professor Chaos is just about the epitome of this.Professor Chaos: [Evil Laugh] Oh, the look on their faces, when they got the wrong soup!
- Mister Smarty Smarts of Spliced, though there have been a few times that he has been a genuine threat to the other inhabitants of the Island.
- Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants. He has moments of competency, but even those don't go too well, mainly due to overconfidence or doing something so mundane, such as putting in a coin-operated self-destruct mechanism, that his plans blow up in his face, figuratively and literally. This quip from Karen sums him up best:"Plankton. One percent evil. Ninety-nine percent hot gas."
- The E.V.I.L organization, which stands for "Every Villain Is Lemons". The extent of their villainy is shining flashlights into boats at Makeout Reefnote and making fun of the young people.
Fish making out with pillow: Hey man, that's not cool! - Ludo from Star vs. the Forces of Evil is a small, dumb, puny, cowardly little creature that can't do anything right. He leads his team of equally dumb monsters into battle to obtain Star Butterfly's wand, but never actually engages in battle. He'd rather stand on the side-lines, yelling at his cronies for their incompetence. Also, as the first season advances, he becomes more and more pathetic to the point of being nothing more than a bratty child. However, the second season seems to be setting him up as more of a threat after he acquaints himself with a spider and an eagle, and finds a wand made from the missing piece of Star's wand, and what appears to be Toffee's hand.
- Strawberry Shortcake's Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak. In the first two animated specials in the first generation line, he floods Strawberryland to demand its berries as ransom, and cheats to win a bake-off in which the prize is a gazebo. With his associate Sour Grapes, their crimes in the subsequent four shows are: framing Strawberry for taking a bribe as a pet show judge and being complicit in their cheating, stealing a box of recipes, capturing a friendly monster with the intent of selling it to a circus, and trying to use the Berrykins to create a super-perfume. Sometimes, the real dangers to the heroes are unintentional on the villains' part: Lem and Ada are hiding in the recipe box, and the perfume mixing results in a smelly cloud that threatens to stink up Strawberryland. Also, as far as weaknesses go...in the third special, he crumbles under the heroine's threat to annoy him endlessly with her "berry talk".
- In all fairness, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of a gazebo
.
- In all fairness, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of a gazebo
- Doctor Light in Teen Titans (2003) seems more like the team's punching bag than their enemy.
- He is also viewed this way in the comics up until Identity Crisis (2004), where he Took a Level in Badass (one that required blatant ignoring of established canon to happen). The same happened to Cat-Man.
- He doesn't come across as all that harmless so long as Raven isn't around; in his introduction, he's actually winning against the Titans and usually puts up a pretty good fight until Raven talks to him and he falls apart. If she wasn't around, he'd be anything but harmless.
- Max from Total Drama: Pahkitew Island. He tries to come across as an Evil Genius, but his incompetence and lack of common sense prevent him from being a threat to anyone. In addition, unlike most of the show's villains, his acts are more For the Evulz rather than in an effort to eliminate someone.
- Batroc the Leaper from Ultimate Spider-Man (2012). The eponymous superhero points out that Batroc is such a non-threat that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't even bother to keep a profile on him. Many of his roles usually involve him getting beaten in the Cold Open by the actual villain of the piece.
- The Venture Bros.:
- The Monarch almost qualifies. When he isn't psychologically damaged, being pushed around by the higher-ups in the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and being inept at commanding his henchmen, he can, in fact, be quite deadly. The trouble is, he's so bad at arching that his nemesis, Dr. Venture, doesn't even consider him a real threat. Later seasons show, however, that The Monarch can, indeed, be a very threatening villain, if he bothered to extend his goals beyond being a pain in the ass to Dr. Venture.
- In season 3, Sergeant Hatred better qualifies for this trope. He signs up to be Dr. Venture's arch but then resorts to extremely minor acts of villainy, such as lighting his front-yard shrubbery on fire. By the end of the season, he even lives on the Venture Compound and acts as an ad-hoc bodyguard in the absence of Brock Samson, who is working for an undercover vigilante society. Of course, he was deliberately trying to be a Friendly Enemy to Venture as his way of getting back at Monarch, who repeatedly stole from him in the past and when officially working for Venture he was capable of being more competent.
- There's also this exchange at the line for Order of the Triad archenemy try-outs:Torrid: Hey, isn't that Doctor Venture's lab?
The Intangible Fancy: Yes, I believe it is.
Torrid: Save my place in the queue. There's something I feel I must do. Something... torrid.
[After the commercial break, it's revealed that "torrid" really meant using the bathroom.] - When Phantom Limb is holding tryouts for his own supervillain organization, most of the people that show up are... well, it's no wonder the Guild turned them down. Brick Frog, indeed.
- Billy Quizboy's official nemesis Augustus St. Cloud has an EMA Ranking of 1 due to the fact that aside from being weak and wimpy despite his obscene wealth he doesn't own anything actually dangerous such as weapons or hired muscle. His sole reason for being Billy's arch is just to be a petty troll.
- Victor & Hugo: Despite being the alleged 'baddies' as their theme song suggests, they aren't exactly evil. The name of their 'No crime too small, no crime too big' company for hire is called 'Naughtiness International'. They never manage to pull off any crimes without mishap. On the rare occasions they do, they always get arrested. Even stealing sweets from a sweet shop was seen as a daring venture.
- Wander over Yonder has Something the So and So, whose name alone should tell you just how effective of a villain he is. It doesn’t take much from Wander to convince him to reform.
- In WordGirl, pretty much all of the villains qualify...but especially Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy. At least Chuck was always close to possibly killing her, but, of course, not doing so. The Amazing Rope Guy, despite his name, can't even use the rope to his advantage. He even TIES HIMSELF UP when he was trying to get Wordgirl.
- Glowface from The X's is one such villain. He even gets upset when his monologues are interrupted, and is perfectly willing to put off villain chores to play video games.
