Jerkass Ball / Western Animation

Examples of Jerkass Ball in Western Animation.

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The following have their own pages:

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

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• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • In "The Hero", Nicole and Anais become flat-out abusive, denying Gumball and Darwin necessities such as food and use of the shower, along with trying to brain them with cement cupcakes, just because they were complaining about their father at school.
  • "The Words" sees Darwin, very reminiscently of Fluttershy, take a lesson in assertiveness too far when he ends up hurting everyone else's feelings when he begins airing out his pet peeves he has with them. It takes Gumball giving him a literal verbal smackdown to get him to see the error of his ways.
• Amphibia:
  • While Sprig is a normally a Nice Guy, he gets hit with this in "Sprig vs. Hop Pop" after he overthrows Hop Pop as the leader of the farm because of his refusal to listen to Sprig's suggestions. With Sprig's 'all suggestions are good ones' policy gets the farm destroyed and refuses to listen to Anne and Polly's suggestion in putting Hop-Pop back in charge, and even calls Hop Pop a tyrant. Forcing Anne and Polly to find him themselves, and Sprig calls them backstabbers for their "betrayal". But Sprig has a Heel Realization during his and Hop Pop's second fight after Hop Pop admitting that he was wrong, and he should've listened to Sprig's suggestions. With Sprig admitting that some of his ideas were terrible and decides to let Hop-Pop run the farm again.
  • In "Croak and Punishment". Sprig's blue moon shell is stolen, and he and Anne play Good Cop/Bad Cop to find the culprit with Anne being the good cop and Sprig being the bad cop. But Anne's way of motivating Sprig to play bad cop works too well as he violently harasses every suspect and destroys their possessions. This comes back to bite him hard as he and Anne are chased by Gunther and nobody wants to help them because of the way Sprig treated them. Giving Sprig a Jerkass Realization for his behavior.
  • Sprig is at his worst again in "Family Fishing Trip". While he understandably just wanted to spend time with Hop Pop, it does not justify him sabotaging the fishing trip to make Hop Pop's girlfriend Sylvia leave. It culminates with Sprig tricking Sylvia into jumping off the boat to get flowers for Hop Pop, and he even ropes the ladder back on the boat to keep her from coming back onboard. But he quickly regrets this after realizing what a nice lady Sylvia is, and saves her from eaten by a giant crab.
  • In "Wally and Anne", the Plantars are noticeably more jerkish and out of character in this episode as they openly mock and bully Anne during the first part, and continue to get on her nerves after she gets frustrated with their teasing and show no remorse for their bullying.
  • The Plantar Trio is hit with this again in "The Dinner". Even though they were Right for the Wrong Reasons to be skeptical about Sasha and Grime's Heel–Face Turn, and their experience with the two in Reunion making things justifiably tense between both groups. However, the Plantars end up going too far when they remind Sasha of her near suicide attempt after her falling out with Anne. Sprig especially goes out of his way to antagonize Sasha whenever given the opportunity to the point of callously pointing out how she nearly fell to her death, despite Anne telling him to be on his best behavior.
  • Happens to The Plantars once more in "If You Give a Frog a Cookie", as they have become really homesick after spending so much time on Earth and became desperate for a way back to Amphibia. However, their homesickness does not justify their constant guilt-tripping on Anne, who was cautious about trusting an eccentric scientist named Dr. Frakes, and they paid for it by being nearly dissected by the latter, after she discovered their true forms. Because of that, they regret and apologize to Anne after she chews them out for their impatience.
  • While Anne's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, her 15 Minutes of Fame in "Breakout Star" because of the people of Wartwood suddenly loving her because of her pimples amplifies her jerkass tendencies as she acts even more rude to the Plantars than ever when they visit her in her apartment room, and even mocks the basement she was living in right in front of them. Which clearly offends Hop-Pop. But she regrets this after overhearing Sprig and Polly's complaining on how much of a jerk she's become, and after they try to help her hold onto her fame, she apologizes to them and decides to go back to living with them.
  • In "Little Frogtown" Anne wasn't wrong for getting annoyed at some kids for cutting in line, but she ends up going too far when she uses her Monster Façade to try to scare them off. While she does briefly show remorse for causing one of them to cry, it gets the security guards attention. Anne still blames the kids for the mishap, and doesn't show remorse for getting herself along with Sprig and Polly getting banned from the arcade as well despite them doing nothing at all. Polly correctly calls Anne out for this.
• Arthur:
  • An egregious example of this happens in the episode "So Funny I Forgot To Laugh". Arthur, an established Nice Guy and a frequent bullying target, temporarily gets derailed into a bully just because the writers needed someone to harass one of his classmates over a sweater and deliver an anti-bullying Aesop.
  • Jane and David Read are normally two of the nicest parents in any kids cartoon, but in the infamous episode "Arthur's Big Hit", when Binky punches Arthur, they tell him that he now knows how D.W. felt when he punched her instead of telling Binky's parents about it.
  • Lakewood Elementary principal Mr. Haney is usually a Reasonable Authority Figure, and something of a Butt-Monkey. In "Buster's Special Delivery", he holds auditions for a student mail carrier position. When Arthur applies, he says, "I'm organized, punctual, and I think I could do a pretty good job" — Arthur is a Nice Guy who does good in school, and thus would be a good fit for the job. Mr. Haney dismissively says "You think you could do a good job?" and rejects him... even though the position was newly introduced and there's no way Arthur could have gotten any experience beforehand. He instead chooses Buster, a disorganized student who actively badmouthed the position in the first place.
  • As Arthur's best friend, Buster often tries to help him out (in episodes such as "Arthur's Baby" and "Arthur's Underwear") or support him when he's having trouble. In the first episode, "Arthur's Eyes", Arthur is mocked for needing to wear glasses. Buster stands up for him... but then raises two drinking glasses to his eyes and mockingly shouts, "Hey, look, you guys! I'm Arthur!" Arthur is mad and storms out of the room. Considering that Buster is supportive of Arthur needing glasses both earlier and later in the episode, this comes off as a bizarre, Out of Character moment.
  • Played for Drama with Binky in the episode "April 9th", which takes place several seasons after his very initial introduction as The Bully. Following a sudden and traumatic fire at school, Binky suddenly reverts to his previous tough guy persona and becomes much ruder to his friends. When they get temporarily relocated to a neighboring school, he pulls a fire alarm and causes chaos seemingly as a prank, mocking the fellow students for their scared reactions and being sarcastically impressed with how fast the firefighters would arrive. However, it's soon revealed that this is just a coping mechanism for how genuinely traumatized he was from the incident, and his inability to confront and find a healthy outlet for his fears leads to him having a panic attack once his original school is reopened and the act simply isn't enough anymore.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Aang is normally a Cheerful Child and All-Loving Hero, but there are some notable instances in the series that take an unfortunate toll on him — in "The Desert", after Appa gets kidnapped, he goes into a severe state of emotional stress and spends a while being rather grumpy and confrontational, only returning to his kind and upbeat personality after seeing a newborn baby restores his hope.
  • Similarly, Katara is prone to doing this from time to time as well despite being the calm and sensible Team Mom of the group:
    • She has a brief moment in "The Waterbending Scroll", when after Aang subconsciously bests her at waterbending, she yells at him out of jealousy. After Sokka gives her a "What was that for?" look and she sees Aang beginning to cry, she has a Jerkass Realization and apologises.
    • When Zuko joins the group after finally making a Heel–Face Turn, she is the last person to trust him and is rather spiteful towards him on a few occasions, such as when she teases him about how his firebending skills have dropped in quality in "The Firebending Masters" and making a mean-spirited remark towards him about what happened to her mother in "The Southern Raiders". In the latter episode, she also bluntly tells Sokka that he didn't love her mother as much as she did after deciding to locate her murderer. After she and Zuko confront the murderer, she finally reverts back to her normal personality and fully accepts him into the group.
• The Batman: Ethan Bennett's Clayface is generally treated as a sympathetic Anti-Villain throughout the series due to the tragic circumstances behind his transformation and his prior friendship with Bruce. The season two Halloween Episode "Grundy's Night" however sees Clayface go full-on villain with him taking advantage of the titular legend to rob mansions while taking the form of Solomon Grundy.
• Big City Greens:
  • Cricket is hit with this hard in the Christmas Episode. The only reason he wants to be on the nice list is to get a present from Santa, which contrasts with the way Tilly sees Christmas as: being kind to others. He ends up thinking Santa will never give him presents because he's naughty, and resorts to being just that. He goes so far he almost ruins the holiday for everyone, especially Tilly who is blamed for a tree crash, who calls him out for it. Having mixed feelings, Cricket has a Heel Realization and apologizes.
  • Cricket is at his worst again in "Animation Abomination", in which he demands that his version of the season finale of Kingdom of Lore (the show's lead character turns evil and everything explodes) be done as he wants, not even caring if it makes no sense for the series.
• The Dragon Prince: When Callum is in a coma because of his use of dark magic, Rayla spends two episodes being angry at him for doing so even though he did it to save her life. To be fair, however, she still gives him doting care and throws in a gentle word of encouragement every now and again. Subverted when she begins to understand how serious Callum's fever dream, or dark magic coma, is after Callum begins having trouble breathing.
• Combination of this and Idiot Ball in The Dreamstone. Rufus is usually extremely obedient and friendly, but whenever the plot calls for the Urpneys to steal the Dreamstone, he seems to gain an arrogant streak, disobeying the Dream Maker's orders and messing with the stone so as to give the villains an opening.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • Normally the nice girl, Nazz gets this from time to time, the most jarring example is in the episode "To Sir With Ed", when she humiliates Eddy in his house when she was supposed to be babysitting him. She also always laughs along with the other kids when the Eds are humiliated, but this probably is more about her being Not So Above It All.
  • Ed in "Little Ed Blue" as well. While many see his anger in this episode more as Took a Level in Badass since he managed to tell Sarah off and gave Kevin a well-deserved beating, as well as his constant pummeling on Eddy, he still qualifies here since he nearly snapped Plank in two by the end, which would've been the case had Jonny not taken out the pebble in Ed's shoe.
  • Even Edd, the most sympathetic and arguably the nicest character on the whole show, has his rare moments where he can come across as a major douchebag. A great example of this is shown in "Sorry, Wrong Ed" when he becomes completely callous of all the precarious predicaments Eddy gets into in the hands of the curse of the telephone. Even when Eddy gets trampled by hippos and even zapped by lightning right in front of Edd, Edd, again, considers it all a coincidence and even smiles at the pain Eddy suffers in the end, which has him getting the impression that being right is more important than the well-being of his friend.
  • Jimmy is more prone to holding it in later seasons of the show. It's mostly due to flanderization. A famous example is in the episode "If It Smells Like an Ed", when he frames all three Eds because Eddy gave him a wedgie. While Eddy deserved it, Ed and Edd were punished simply because they stood by Eddy's side.
• The Fairly Oddparents: The plot of "The Great Fairy Share Scare" seems to require Timmy to be an incredibly selfish Jerkass in order to make the plot work. This is pretty glaring as he had been seeing some Character Rerailment after being a jerk in some of the previous seasons. In fact, most of the post-Chloe episodes require him to be an even bigger jerk than normal to contrast her Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
• Family Guy:
  • Nearly every character is prone to this based on Rule of Funny. Lois and Brian, who by default are somewhat straight-faced and fairly empathetic characters, can become selfish, vindictive and outright sociopathic jerks if it helps with the shock value comedy. To a lesser extent, Seth McFarlane's other works are prone to this as well.
  • This was used so many times with Lois and Brian that eventually they just became full-blown Jerkasses by default.
• Goof Troop has a couple of instances:
  • In "Queasy Rider", the resident Extreme Doormat Nice Guy PJ is shown laughing at his friend, Max, after Max was humiliated. Later, after Max is being somewhat rude to him, PJ deliberately sets an overflowing hose off on Max. It's not unheard of for PJ to get revenge, but it usually requires more provocation, and regardless of circumstances, he otherwise never does anything worse to Max than be brutally honest.
  • "Bringin' on the Rain" takes a character who's already consistently a Jerkass, Pete, and dials up his Jerkassery. He likes to mistreat his neighbor, Goofy and his son, PJ, but he generally doesn't do both in the same episode, and when he does, the offense to one is small or subtle; sometimes he won't blatantly torment either one. In this episode he is crueler than usual to both of them: deliberately getting Goofy arrested for "two consecutive life terms" just so he could win a gardening contest and forcing PJ to do difficult manual labor during a drought while consciously depriving him of fluids. He has no remorse for any of his actions, only relenting about Goofy's treatment once caught, and acknowledging PJ's as if it weren't a problem twice. In the end, his punishment is left up to the viewer's imagination.
  • In "Inspector Goofy", Goofy, Peg, and PJ all carry one. Goofy for engaging in Selective Enforcement after promising not to, Peg by having no sympathy when said selective enforcement results in Pete getting kicked out of the house and taunting him with food, and PJ for using one of his two lines to suggest selling Pistol to the circus. This is more jarring if you think that Goofy and PJ are typically the nicest characters on the show. In particular, Goofy usually doesn't do anything deliberately mean, and PJ almost never strikes first and seldom strikes back. While Peg can be ruthless in enforcing her rules, she typically doesn't do anything blatantly cruel.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • Arnold, who is normally a nice kid and acts as The Conscience to his peers, has taken the Jerkass Ball on occasion. The most notable incidents are in "New Teacher" and especially "Egg Story".
    • In "New Teacher", Arnold's teacher Ms. Slovak retires from teaching and is replaced with Mr. Simmons. Although Simmons is a nice man who is very passionate about teaching, the students don't like him very much due to his effeminate personality, so they decide to bully him to the point that he quits. Not only does Arnold not object to it, he joins in on it!
    • In "Egg Story", Arnold and Helga are partnered together to care for an egg as an exercise in parenting. Helga, rather than be a Loving Bully to Arnold, decides to try and be nice to him for once. Before she can, Arnold rips her a new asshole, telling Helga that he is done tolerating her abuse (understandable, but Helga hasn't done anything bad to him up to this point) that he doesn't like her (obviously untrue, since Arnold has admitted to liking Helga in the past and knows that she's not a bad person deep down) and would rather work with anyone else but her (they've successfully worked together several times before this episode, aside from the "Biosquare" project). While it was probably done as Karmic Retribution to Helga for all the times she was mean to Arnold, Arnold is so much of a dick in this episode that it's difficult to take his side. Helga gets furious and rightfully calls Arnold a "big, dumb jerk." The two spend the rest of the episode arguing as a result.
  • Phoebe takes the Jerkass Ball in "Hall Monitor" after Helga teaches her to stop being an Extreme Doormat so that she can be a better hall monitor (Helga being the former Hall monitor.) Phoebe takes it way too far, and has to be talked down by Helga at the end of the episode.
  • Mr. Green in "Harold the Butcher", after getting his pressed by Harold stealing his meat, he is so blinded by his constant grudge against Harold that he acts like a Mean Boss towards Harold when he is punished to work at his shop and then vehemently refused the poor kid's offer to work full-time. However, by the end of the episode, Mr. Green forgives Harold and hired him as his apprentice.
  • "A Day in the Life of a Classroom" has Mr. Simmons hold this when he prepares for the titular documentary. He loses so much sensibility that he even wrote scripts for the students to read off of. Naturally, it goes south during filming (plus at one point, Simmons snaps at Harold and makes him cry), and Arnold points out that Mr. Simmons has always been a great teacher.
• Hilda: Episode 9, Frida firmly grabs the ball; she tries to make Hilda and David believe a ghost is responsible for the mess in her room, when it’s actually her own doing and till recently a ghost used to clean it up. She lets her friends do pretty much all the work when they help to clean up her room. She gets into two fights with David when he makes fun of her belief that rooms cleaning themselves is normal, and tells her she should accept not being perfect. Finally, when their attempts to get the missing book back fail and David and Hilda try to cheer her up, she lashes out at both of them, eventually driving both her friends away.
• The rather infamous episode of Justice League Unlimited, "Clash", had Superman take firm hold of the Jerkass Ball, becoming uncharacteristically irrational and antagonistic towards new league member Captain Marvel.
• The Land Before Time TV series: The episode "Search for the Sky Color Stones" gives one to Ducky and turns her into a greedy, paranoid, deceiving hoarder who would rather hunt for geodes and keep them all to herself, becoming distrustful of her friends and even forgetting about Spike who is helplessly stuck. Especially jarring considering she never acted like that before or after. She does, however, have a Heel Realization after a life-or-geode decision and apologizes to Spike afterwards.
• The Looney Tunes Show: In "Rebel Without a Glove," Bugs is forced to replace his trademark White Gloves with a new pair of fingerless biker gloves, which transform him into an insolent, aggressive thug. Once he finally receives a new pair of white gloves, he snaps back to his usual self. Unlike many examples of this trope, this episode is a fan-favorite.
• The Loud House:
  • Lincoln and his sisters are generally good but flawed kids, but in the first two seasons, there are quite a few episodes where they (or at least one of them) are derailed into unlikable jerks for the sake of the plot. Examples of this are "Making the Case", "April Fools Rules", "Ties That Bind"^note Notably one of the rare cases where it's Lincoln who does something very jerkish to his sisters and they who easily forgive him, rather than the other way around., "Out on a Limo", "Sleuth or Consequences", "Making the Grade", "The Green House", "It's a Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House", "Brawl in the Family", "No Such Luck", "The Green House" and "Lincoln Loud: Girl Guru". Thankfully, starting with Season 3, this has been toned down after Chris Savino got fired from the show.
  • Downplayed with Bobby in "Save the Date," where he breaks up with Lori after Lincoln insulted Ronnie Anne, despite Lori herself having nothing to do with this. However, he regretted it, calling his break-up with Lori "torture," and when he has to do it again later on, it's clear that he doesn't want to.
• Shaggy and Scooby got this in one episode of The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries. Velma, who now works for NASA, invites Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy, to a dinner at the White House, in honor of an achievement Velma's made. A TV Crew approaches Velma for an interview. Shaggy and Scooby jump up, push Velma aside, and then begin making faces and saying "Hi mom!". On live TV. Shaggy and Scooby, arguably two of the nicest people in gang, suddenly become obnoxious bastards while their friend, the one who invited them to this prestigious place, was in the middle of being honored. For a gag. Velma's very hurt look throughout the scene does no favors. Fortunately they're back to normal quickly.
• The early Peanuts special He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown! let nearly the entire cast hold it! Highlights include Snoopy actually physically attacking Charlie Brown and Linus, Peppermint Patty treating Snoopy as a slave, and even Charlie Brown himself at one point nearly strangling Snoopy with a leash!
• Phineas and Ferb: In Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!, when the entirety of Danville is declared naughty by Santa Claus and a confused and devastated Phineas is working with the others to find out why, Candace, in a move that's mean even for her, chooses to kick Phineas while he's down and place the blame for why Danville has been declared naughty squarely on him and his and Ferb's inventions over the summer, making Phineas feel even worse about the whole thing.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Bubbles is typically a Nice Girl, with the exception of the episode "Bubblevicious", when she starts beating up citizens for minor offenses. The episode centers on Bubbles becoming frustrated with how her sisters and the professor babying her. She sets to prove them wrong by taking the training simulator up to 11, and after some initial trouble, she proceeds to crush the monsters of the simulation and she becomes much more aggressive. She calms down and reverts to her old self when her sisters stop babying her and admit she's hardcore.
• Ready Jet Go!: Grabbed firmly by Sunspot in "Ain't No Mars Mountain High Enough". He wants to hike alone and refuses to team up with Celery. He is later humbled when the gang saves him from flying off. He's usually a Nice Guy.
• In the Recess:
  • In the episode "Lost Ball" where Gus accidentally kicks their one good ball over the fence, Mikey is only one of his direct friends who gives him a hard time about it, even though he's supposed to be one of the nicer kids.
  • Then there was the episode where Gus temporarily became King and the power went to his head. Changing the name Kickball to Gusball, changing the school's anthem into a personal vanity song, and imprisoning everyone for the slightest offense, especially when not agreeing to mining for cookies. And if anyone dare try to explain that cookies don't grow in the ground it only makes him more psychotic.
  • King Bob has also handled the Jerkass Ball several times. Arguably, the most egregious example occurs in "Fort Tender," where he doesn't lift a finger to help TJ and his friends regain their eponymous fort from Lawson and his Gang of Bullies on the grounds of a "Finders Keepers" rule. And when Gus protests that it's unfair, King Bob admits it but refuses to repeal it anyway. Judging him from that episode alone, you'd think, "It's a wonder King Bob hasn't been overthrown by littler kids."
  • Gretchen also held it in "Pharaoh Bob" when King Bob becomes obsessed with being remembered and decides to build a pyramid out of mud, making Gretchen his advisor. When Gretchen's friends complain about how they're being forced every recess to build a pyramid and are getting in trouble with their parents for coming home filthy, Gretchen ignores their problems and yells at them to continue it. She only snaps out of it when Bob goes overboard and starts using the hose on his subjects when they rebel and quits on the spot.
• Regular Show:
  • Rigby is normally a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but he does have his moments of being outright nasty:
    • In "It's Time", Rigby, disappointed that Mordecai won't go see a movie with him so he could hang out with Margaret, taunts Mordecai about arranging a date with Margaret to his face for several hours. This does not end up well for him, though.
    • In "Do Me a Solid", during their double date with Margaret and Eileen, Rigby puts Mordecai through several humiliating stunts, one of which he videotapes and shows everyone.
    • In "Wall Buddy", Rigby decides to send all of his trash to Mordecai's side of the room using the titular Wall Buddy because he was too lazy to clean it himself.
  • Similarly, Benson is an easily angered but often reasonable manager, though he has his moments of being a straight-up Mean Boss:
    • In "The Best Burger in the World", Benson denies Mordecai and Rigby access to the legendarily delicious, one-of-a-kind burgers until all work is done, laughs at them, ultimately eats their burgers, and mocks them on how they'll never get to eat the burgers.
    • In "Lunch Break", Benson forces Mordecai and Rigby to eat a giant sandwich, threatening to fire them if they don't finish it in record time despite him giving them permission to order whatever they want. It doesn't help that he starts shipping their stuff back to their parents and mocks them on how they'll never move away from their parents' house. Finally, after the duo do finish the sandwich, Benson forces them to complete 50 laps across the newly-constructed field or they're fired despite clearly being incapacitated.
    • Benson may be known for constantly threatening to fire Mordecai and Rigby, but "The Unicorns Have Got to Go" and "More Smarter" have moments where Benson actually threatens to assault or outright kill the duo.
    • Though not nearly as much as the aforementioned two, episodes such as "Replaced", "Muscle Mentor", and "Pie Contest" follow closely behind.
• Roman City: When the Druids attack Verbonia while he's on a diplomatic trip, Gaius Valerius, feeling betrayed, subjugates all the Celts in Gaul—even the very diplomacy-minded Acco Bouviax is sent to labor in the quarries. It takes the combined efforts of Marcus Fabricius, who appeals to Caesar Augustus himself, and Acco's daughter Aiden, who catches wind of an assassination plot against the Emperor during a Druid meeting and saves him from a Druid assassin, to convince Valerius that his general temper tantrum against the Celts was wrong.
• Rugrats: Chas Finster handles it big time in "Chuckie is Rich" when he wins ten million dollars in a sweepstakes contest and goes through Acquired Situational Narcissism. Thankfully, his son Chuckie averts this trope, instead finding rich life a miserable existence. Of course, Chas gets over the snobbishness when he loses nearly all of his money in a bad investment.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The Boys of Bummer", everyone in Springfield other than the Simpsons holds the ball when they torment Bart just for missing a game-winning catch in a baseball game, even going so far as to goad him into committing suicide.
  • In "Separate Vocations", Lisa suffers the dual whammy of having a vocation aptitude test result of 'housewife' and being told she'll never be a great saxophonist because her fingers are too stubby. She turns into a Bad Girl, smoking in class, backtalking her teacher, and finally coming up with a plot to steal all the Teacher's Edition textbooks to sow chaos. Inversely, the same episode has Bart becoming a good kid after getting the result of 'police officer' on the same vocational aptitude test. Which he has to forsake to bring his sister back and induce the Status Quo.
  • One of the most infamous examples is "On a Clear Day, I Can't See My Sister". Bart plays a few pranks on Lisa during a field trip, which results in her getting a 200-feet restraining order against him (originally just 20 feet, but Judge Harm increases it to 200 because Bart insulted her), then proceeding to abuse him with it by poking him with a device should he get too close to her (read, Lisa gets close to Bart on purpose and pokes him out of the places she's in just for kicks), which is actually illegal. It gets to the point that she coldly forces Bart to live outside, which slowly causes him to become a Wild Child, and then refuses to let him back in even when Marge asks her to get rid of the order. She gets away with all of it, too.
• Stan and Kyle of South Park are usually Only Sane Men to the craziness of the world around them, and act as more moralistic foils to Cartman. At times however, often when Cartman is not in a starring role, they can act rather selfish or immoral, having nothing against using similar bullying or conniving tactics as Cartman to get what they want. This is more toned down in later seasons, though still pops up every now and then.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: To be brief, the characters seemed to pass around this like a hot potato in the post-movie episodes. That is, until Stephen Hillenburg came back to the show (until his untimely death) as of Season 9B and undid everything.
  • In "Whatever Happened To SpongeBob?", SpongeBob's friends (except Plankton) all become jerks to him, yelling at him and calling him "idiot boy" whenever the sponge comes in an accidentally messes something up for them (of course, since one of them is Squidward we're talking about here, that's not much of a surprise). They (except Squidward, who seems happy that SpongeBob was making his departure) at least realize their mistake when they find the letter he wrote after he runs away as a result of their abuse.
  • Both SpongeBob and Patrick hit this in "The Thing" when they sneak into Squidward's house, even though he told them not to, and repeatedly bother him by asking so many questions.
  • In "Choir Boys", SpongeBob deliberately halts Squidward on the way to his tryouts for the Bikini Bottom Men's Choir for the sake of wanting him to hear his song and ask him to bring him with him.
  • In "A Pal For Gary", SpongeBob holds both this and an Idiot Ball. When he brings home Puffy Fluffy, he scolds Gary for being mean to the new pet supposed to keep him company so he's not lonely, despite that pet being a monster that hates other pets, which SpongeBob completely ignores when he decides to bring it home. He's even an Ungrateful Bastard to Gary, scolding him despite Gary saving his neck from the monster. The fortune teller who owned Puffy Fluffy tried to warn him earlier, but he didn't listen, to the point of even stealing the creature without even paying. She even comments aside that no one listens.
  • Patrick gets hit with this in "Yours, Mine and Mine", as Mr. Krabs offers them a krabby patty toy that they should share; Patrick takes his way of sharing All Take and No Give, refusing to let SpongeBob play with it. It culminates in Patrick eating the toy so no one can have it; even Mr. Krabs is upset at a single toy getting in the way of their friendship, so he chews them out and gives each of them another toy allowing them to reconcile.
  • Both Mrs. Puff and SpongeBob in "Demolition Doofus" — the former letting her frustration of SpongeBob get the better of her judgement to the point that she wants him dead (which he miraculously survives due to his bad driving and because he's an invertebrate) and the latter for making fun of Mrs. Puff's deflating injury instead of apologizing for causing such.
  • A post-HD example would be "Jolly Lodgers"; both SpongeBob and Patrick are responsible for the sea urchin infestation to Squidward's house; they later Prank Call his hotel room saying they're room service, sneak into his room, and constantly keep following him around the hotel and freaking him out despite telling them not to, until he enters the jellyfish convention the hotel is hosting, which was their plan all along. They get their comeuppance when Squidward evacuates the hotel in the end.
  • "Ink Lemonade" features Patrick knowingly and deliberately scaring the daylights out of Squidward for the entire episode so that Squidward will produce ink that Patrick has been putting in lemonade that he has been selling in front of his house.
• Strawberry Shortcake:
  • This is combined with Idiot Ball during the third special in the 1980s when the Peculiar Purple Pieman claims that Strawberry Shortcake cheated to secure his victory and her friends deny her (honest) innocence. Then she herself ends up getting the Jerkass Ball when she walks back in to take revenge, putting her on both ends of the trope.
  • 2003 series: Angel Cake winds up on both ends of this trope, sometimes coming off as even jerkier than resident Anti-Hero Peppermint Fizz.
    • In "The Play's the Thing", Blueberry Muffin, Ginger Snap, and Orange Blossom feel genuinely bad for their act of banning Cinderella from the Ball, so they decide to lift the ban. Angel Cake gives them the Jerkass Ball to set the story right, defying Adaptational Nice Guy for their characters.
    • In the 2003 series's fourth Season, Angel Cake sometimes gets this, violating her Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold personality from the first three seasons (She even played the villain in "Sleeping Beauty"!). She still is a nice girl deep inside, though, making her a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
  • The turtles' large dose of Adaptational Jerkass means they all tend to take the ball a lot. All four have moments where they make morally questionable decisions, act rude or dismissive to each other for no reason, and fail to take the feelings of anyone but themselves into consideration. Raph has this especially bad in Season 1.
  • While usually a Nice Girl, April has one such moment of this. When her father gets mutated into a bat, April explodes in anger, cuts all ties with the Turtles, and acts spiteful towards them, especially Donnie.^note It actually was their fault, albeit accidentally, but her reaction is still a bit much. In "Mutagen Man Unleashed", she blames them for Mutagen Man's attack on her, and in "Target: April O'Neil", she angrily refuses to accept Donnie's apology and ends up pushing him away, but she does take a second to listen to his advice that some things can't be controlled. When she learns Casey lost his friend in an incident, this served as an eye opener to make her realize she is doing things wrong and she decides to call the Turtles for help when she's attacked by Karai. After she's saved, she finally reverts to her normal personality, as she apologizes to them for the way she acted and decides to renounce to her grudge-holding ways.
• Thomas & Friends, much akin to Friendship Is Magic, utilizes this often for Aesop value. This is especially prominent in later episodes, where even formally wise and kind engines like Edward can suddenly gain bouts of Acquired Situational Narcissism or Fantastic Racism. This got toned down as of Season 17.
• In The Tick episode "The Tick Vs Arthur", Arthur is tired of being weak and being everyone's punching bag, so he steals villain Baron Violent's belt which gives him his super strength. At first he uses it for good, but after a while, he begins to abuse it, demanding respect and free things from everyone. When the Tick tries to interfere, Arthur beats him up. Eventually, after some convincing from his girlfriend, Carmalita, Arthur realizes what a jerk he's become and destroys the belt.
• Some of Tom and Jerry shorts employ this. It's often Tom who's being the bad one, but Jerry sometimes gets it, in order to justify Tom winning, even if often Jerry gets away with it. One of the clearest examples of this is the Chuck Jones-directed The Year of the Mouse (a remake of Mouse Wreckers), where Jerry and another mouse drive a sleeping Tom insane purely For the Evulz, which makes Tom's victory all the sweeter.
• Total Drama: The show has a tendency to have characters normally known for being Nice Guys or Girls and give them a sudden or unexpected Out-of-Character Moment of jerkassery — and unlike with the show's Idiot Ball moments, it's rarely to justify an elimination.
  • DJ is sometimes shown picking on Harold along with Geoff and Duncan, despite the fact that he's ordinarily a contender for the nicest character on the show. Geoff to a lesser extent, as most of the time outside of this arc (in season one at least), he's shown to be nice, if not quite as nice as DJ.
  • Bridgette is another common victim of this. Despite normally being one of the nicest characters on the show and having a compassionate and pacifistic personality, she has occasionally done some rather mean or violent things, such as ridiculing Tyler for his phobia of chickens, acting like a Clingy Jealous Girl towards Geoff, and even hitting him for saying unflattering things about her.