Just Eat Gilligan in Western Animation.
- Adventure Time: Several problems in the series are caused by Princess Bubblegum being unnecessarily vague. For example, in "What Have You Done?" she has Finn and Jake capture the Ice King, but when asked why she just says "he did nothing." She doesn't clarify what exactly she meant by that until after Finn and Jake set him free.
- Animaniacs: Parodied in "Slappy Goes Walnuts". When Slappy Squirrel runs out of walnuts, she and Skippy go off to raid a walnut tree guarded by her arch-nemesis, Doug the Dog. When Skippy suggests that they should just go to the store to buy the walnuts they need, Slappy declines the offer because she doesn't believe it would make the episode very entertaining.Slappy: Oh, yeah, we'll have them in hysterics with that bit! Six minutes in a checkout line! Ooh, somebody stop me, I'm laughing!
- Captain N: The Game Master: It never occurs to Captain N and our heroes that he could teleport to Mother Brain's lair and shoot her with his Zapper, thus resolving the plot and allowing him to go home.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 13 is The Friend Nobody Likes within the organization because he's The Jinx and a Walking Disaster Area. He also is an Insufferable Imbecile who will probably march to his decommissioning thinking he is the best agent the KND ever had regardless of any evidence to the contrary. No less than four episodes revolve around his epic capacity to cause chaos with his stupid yet well-meaning bumbling (one of which even ends with the kids in Sector Five leaving him with the enemy the moment they discover that the "kidnapped agent" they were assigned to save is him knowing that this is far worse than anything they could do themselves) and when the KND hold an election for their new leader (by way of a game of tag), everybody gangs up to take out Numbuh 13 because as much as nobody wants the job, nobody wants him in charge even more. Why he hasn't been decommissioned is never explained.
- Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines suffers from a worse example of this trope than Wacky Races: the Vulture Squadron destroyed 182 planes, 2 balloons, 1 ship, 1 Zeppelin, 1 gas station, and 1 train throughout their quest to "Stop the Pigeon" but never caught Yankee Doodle Pigeon. It never occurs to Dick Dastardly that he could just shoot Yankee Doodle to bits with a gun-equipped fighter plane.
- Dexter's Laboratory is one of the biggest examples of this trope in animation. For all his genius, Dexter is never able to keep Dee-Dee out of his laboratory. It never occurs to him that he could just use an ID checkup system for the entrance to his lab and keep Dee-Dee out for good.
- In the Disney short "Old Sequoia," Donald Duck as a park ranger had plenty of perfect opportunities to off the beavers that sought to down the titular tree, but is distracted by the ringing of the telephone in his outlook post, despite being super-fast when it came to travel up and down it.
- In another Disney short, "No Sail", has Donald Duck and Goofy use a coin-operated sailboat that lets out its sail for a limited time if you drop in a nickel. The problem comes when they run out of nickels; they could not have been stranded at sea for so long if they had even thought of paddling the boat using their hands and/or feet.
- A lot of the time in The Dreamstone, it seems most of the Urpneys would have quite gladly accepted being liberated by the heroes. At least one episode also shows the Wut army could very easily neutralise Zordrak in battle. As such most episodes revolve around the heroes dishing out Disproportionate Retribution to only the Urpneys and sending them back to begin another scheme. Similarly, the Wuts and the Dream Maker would remain dormant or Forget About Their Powers until the final climax, always sending the more fallible Noops to fumble for the first twenty minutes of the episode. Or the heroes could Take a Third Option and kill Zordrak by leading him into a trap or something.
- Lampshaded in an episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. After being locked out of Ed's house by Sarah, the Eds begin to scour the entire Cul-de-sac for somewhere they can watch the Monster Movie Marathon. Cue this exchange.
- And throughout the series, it never occurs to the Edds that they could raise money by washing cars or something instead of creating all sorts of scams running on No OSHA Compliance just to earn money for some jawbreakers.
- There is not an episode of The Fairly OddParents! which couldn't have been solved or averted by creating the standing wish of "always warn me before any wish that might take away my power to make wishes" and then just flat undoing anything left. Of course, both protagonist Timmy and fairy godparent Cosmo are supposed to be idiots (the former because he's ten years old, the latter because it's funny). One episode actually commented on this concept as well as the Trope Namer: the time Timmy wishes that he loses his emotions and after that, has nothing to do but think, he comes to the conclusion that "the reason they couldn't build a boat on Gilligan's Island is because it would end the series...", which is somewhat similar to his situation. And sort of inverted during the Magic Muffin thing:Cosmo: Well, Timmy, if you want your muffin back, why don't you just wish for it back?
Timmy: That's a great idea, Cosmo! I wish I had the muffin back!
Wanda: We can't do that. You know as well as I do that the muffin's magic is more powerful than we are.
Cosmo: Well, duh! I was just wondering why he hadn't asked. Explanation
(Timmy angrily erases Cosmo's mouth, making him shout muffled gibberish) - Family Guy:
- Anyone who's watched the show for so long can tell you that many conflicts in many episodes are started by Peter's anti-social behavior, lack of intelligence or any kind of common sense, or straight-up recklessness. One episode parodying Home Alone actually contains a scene where Lois calls out Peter for all of his meddling interfering with her getting home to her child. Outside of that, Peter's incompetence is rarely, if ever, brought into question.
- There was, of course, the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party" with Meg finally giving it to Peter with both barrels about what a shitty father and overall person he really is. She then has to sit back and accept her role as the family's Bully Magnet because without her to act as a "lightning rod", the Griffins would turn their horribleness on each other and escalate to the point of mutual death.
- Virtually every episode of Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes involves a catastrophe either A. started when Reed Richards' latest invention malfunctions, B. triggered by Johnny Storm's stupidity, or C. set off when Johnny Storm's stupidity causes Reed Richards' latest invention to malfunction. Yes, it shows how the Fantastic Four aren't superheroes, but a superpowered family who gets into trouble, but it still applies.
- The Foxbusters: It never occurs once to the titular team that they could just find another predator and convince them to wipe out the evil foxes for good. On the other hand, the surviving foxes could probably re-populate their species and continue their campaign of evil once that's happened.
- Many plots in Hurricanes could have been avoided had Amanda and co. simply made a phone call to the police to get Stavros Garkos locked up for good.
- In The Incredible Hulk (1996), the military would invariably show up and ruin everything at the exact moment Bruce Banner was undergoing a procedure that would eliminate the Hulk once and for all. If they wanted to get rid of the Hulk so badly, they could have left him alone. Or simply put a bullet into Banner's brain from a mile away while he's still human. Sniper rifles were invented to kill people that it would be too dangerous to approach directly, Banner probably qualifies.
- In Jem, the rival band of Jem and the Holograms (The Misfits) would often indulge in felonies such as kidnapping, blackmail, sabotage, slander, and even attempted murder in order to boost their own sales and discredit their opponents. A simple phone call to the police would have seen them locked up for a very long time. Made worse by the fact that Jerrica owns Starlight Music and could probably do a lot more to ensure that Eric Raymond would stop causing trouble as a record executive than a pop idol. Raymond had his own army of lawyers and mega corp resources, plus Pizzazz's wealthy father and all his connections. The pilot episode also stated the reason for the Jem persona in the first place was due to some first-rate legal and financial blackmail Raymond was laying on Starlight Records (he had a stake in the company as Benton's business partner and was trying to screw Jerica and Kimber out of their shares). Worse, most of the Holograms' royalties got folded back into the business and orphanage. Raymond wasn't bothering with side ventures.
- In Josie and the Pussycats, you have to wonder why do they even put up with Alexandra, who is nothing more but The Millstone to the group. In their outer space series, they could have gotten home if they had just pushed her out of the airlock or left her on the next planet they landed.
- Justice League:
- The episode "A Knight of Shadows" has the heroes trying to keep the Philosopher's Stone away from Morgan Le Fay. When they acquire it, they lock it in the Watchtower—and it ends up being stolen. The story concludes with the stone being crushed to dust—which raises the question of why they bothered to lock it in the Watchtower in the first place. Partially justified in that Martian Manhunter is the one crushing it - it could be protected against earthly threat, or he could be using strength greater than Superman's; the League also didn't have any way to know if it would explode upon being destroyed.
- Similarly in "Paradise Lost", where the League are forced to retrieve three artifacts that combine into the key that can free the Sealed Evil in a Can. In this case, the League can't destroy the key before the end of the episode, because there are lives at stake, but why didn't the people who locked him up in the first place destroy the key instead of just breaking it into three easily-recombinable pieces?
- Also in the Static Shock JL crossover, with the League keeping the last piece of Brainiac in the Watchtower. Batman even lampshades the fact that they'd be better off with it destroyed, but why it's kept intact goes unexplained. Naturally, it gets loose mere minutes later.
- Kidd Video: Kidd Video and his band try to find a way out of the Flip Side, but they have to deal with Master Blaster and the Copy Cats, and the fact that everyone in the Flip Side loves Kidd Video's music. It never occurs to them that they could find more powerful weapons than music, for example, laser guns, and simply kill Master Blaster, then pretend to "break up", allowing them to flee the Flip Side as everybody will be disappointed by their "break up".
- The subplot in one Kim Possible episode involved the characters being assigned lab partners for a school science project (and Mr. Barkin wouldn't allow them to switch). Kim is paired with a genius scientist who neither needs nor wants her help and as a result, Kim is left bored and unsatisfied because she has nothing to do. Kim's friend Monique is paired with Ron, and she is over-stressed because Ron just doesn't care and leaves her to do all the work herself. Kim and Monique could have simply worked together on Monique's project unofficially (most of the project seemed to take place outside of school) and that way all four parties would have got a decent grade and a workload that suited them. Of course if Mr. Barkin ever found out, this would likely result in 4 F's given the stern way he implied that any requests for a new partner would be turned down.
- Miraculous Ladybug: At least a partial amount of the power Lila Rossi has over her classmates because of her constant lying would be gone if someone made some fact-checking (she says she got tinnitus because she saved Jagged Stone's cat - a Wikipedia search would have revealed that Stone has always been allergic to pet fur since he was a child (hence why he owns a freaking alligator), which would make her attempt at Moving the Goalposts when Marinette calls her out on it even more blatant) or had common sense (Lila lies about having conditions (like the aforementioned tinnitus) that would demand the school's administration to ask her to hand over her medical records, and escalates to the point she flat-out says that she has a psych condition that makes her lie all the time... which is accepted, with no psych confirming it or having anybody question any of her previous statements, if she now is a certified pathological liar).
- On a broader scale, almost all the series supervillains are normal people "Akumatized" by Hawk-Moth, and the heroes' SOP for defeating a villain is to find some way to destroy the akumatized object, usually involving Ladybug using her Lucky Charm power to create some seemingly random object that allows her to execute a complex scheme to get at the object, and/or Cat Noir using his Cataclysm powers, which can destroy almost anything, on the object. But almost all the villains wear the object on their person, and while almost all powered beings in the show are implicitly super-durable, the objects don't appear any harder to destroy after an Akuma enters them, so using a regular firearm (or a family-friendly equivalent, which the Lucky Charm can create) to shoot at the villain with the same precision and reflexes the heroes display doing everything else until you hit their Akumatized object seems like a much simpler way to beat most villains.
- Mona the Vampire: Mona is almost never portrayed in the wrong despite being quite delusional and getting people into trouble because of her crazy beliefs that they're supernatural beings, and the adults are somehow stupid enough to believe her and her friends. It never occurs to anyone that Mona might require some counseling.
- My Goldfish is Evil: It never once occurs to Beanie to just flush Admiral Bubbles or feed him to predators and his problems would be over. On the other hand, Admiral Bubbles is an evil genius, so he could probably find his way back and develop something to get back for it too.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey: The basic premise is that Adam Lyon, a human preteen, is accidentally placed in a school for talking animals thanks to a clerical error that misspelled his last name. In the Animas special, Adam's outright asked why he never tried transfering back after the mistake was made painfully obvious, with him side-stepping an actual answer by saying that he's gotten attached to everyone by this point. When a similar question is posed to his parents (who turn out to be deadly allergic to animals) in a later episode, the other characters do receive a logical answer... though the audience doesn't get to hear it.Principal Pixiefrog: By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Lyon, I've always wondered: what made you allow Adam to attend an all-animal school for four television seasons?
Mr. and Mrs. Lyon: (long, detailed response muffled by hazmat suits)
Principal Pixiefrog: Well, I'm glad that's cleared up. - My Little Pony TV Specials: Tirek's plan is to use his Rainbow of Darkness to turn ponies into demonic dragons to drive his Chariot of Darkness to cause The Night That Never Ends, even though the Rainbow of Darkness can also turn non-sentient animals such as butterflies and birds into dragons that appear more than capable of driving the chariot. There was no particular reason why Tirek needs ponies-turned-dragons to drive his chariot; if he stuck to the dragons resulting from other animals, he wouldn't have to deal with the surviving ponies at his doorstep who wound up killing him during the rescue of their friends.
- The Penguins of Madagascar: In all of the latter episodes where the Penguins have problems sleeping because of the Lemurs making too much noise, they never re-consider using earmuffs like they did in "Assault and Batteries", the first time in the series where this was an issue. Even odder, in "Operation: Break-Speare", Rico regurgitates a pair of earmuffs just so he can ignore Private citing Shakespeare, but the penguins never consider them using them for blocking the sound of the Lemurs.
- Phineas and Ferb: Did it never occur to Candace that there's a more likely chance that her Mom would believe her if she took photos of whatever activity her brothers were taking part in? In her defense, she absolutely has thought of this and has even attempted this approach a few times. It still didn't work.
- In Pinky and the Brain, considering how many times he screws them up, if Brain got rid of Pinky or at least kept him as far away from his plans as he could manage, he'd rule the world within a week, if that.
- It would seem so - but in "That Smarts," Pinky becomes as intelligent as Brain, to the delight of the latter... until a) Pinky starts indicating flaws in every single planet-conquering scheme and b) Brain realizes that the only way any of his plans will succeed is if one of them is an idiot. So he makes himself as "smart" (i.e. as stupid) as Pinky normally is... unfortunately, Pinky's seen how miserable Brain is now that the balance of power has shifted, and he makes himself as stupid as he was before! Needless to say, this doesn't stick for the rest of the series.
- It's been established in several episodes that Brain's plans are precisely what keeps them from succeeding. Pinky has come extremely close several times just by doing all the random things that come naturally to him, only for Brain to ruin it when he tries to use their position of power to his advantage for one of his schemes. Then there's the time they took a night off, and unknowingly ended up with a large group of people who wanted to find Brain and put him in charge. Basically, they'd rule the world already if they didn't keep trying to force it.
- Why doesn't Bluto just eat spinach to beat Popeye? There was one cartoon in which they were trying to be hospitalized, and Bluto did indeed eat spinach and beat up Popeye. However, Bluto didn't so much "eat" the spinach as have it forced down his throat by Popeye. At a guess, Bluto hates spinach even more than he hates Popeye, underscored by one cartoon where Bluto invents a powerful herbicide to destroy all of the world's spinach to incapacitate Popeye. Popeye pleads to the audience, and some kid with a grocery bag throws it into the screen. Popeye beats Bluto and cures all the spinach. The movie at least HandWaves this by implying that it was not that spinach itself had magical power-up properties, but that Popeye's family had long drawn strength from a diet of spinach.
- Bluto DOES eat the spinach willingly in an attempt to beat Popeye at baseball in "The Twisker Pitcher".
- In Regular Show, Benson would really save himself an awful lot of headaches (and risking of life, limb, reputation, and sanity) if he followed through with his constant threatening to fire Mordecai and Rigby and actually did it. Even when several episodes show that everybody else in the cast is capable of pulling off a faux-pas that causes absurd and apocalyptic chaos just as well as those two (and thus they need to save the day), from a strictly statistical point of view it would have been much safer. Notably, Benson hires replacements in one episode, and they are definitely better at doing their jobs, but they quit before even a single day is over because they refused to deal with all of the craziness that regularly happens in the park, forcing Benson to rehire Mordecai and Rigby.
- Samurai Jack: Aku tries to invoke this with a simple yet remarkably effective plan. He destroys every single time portal in existence so that Jack can't make it back to his own time and then retreats into hiding to wait out the years until Jack dies of old age. The problem? When Aku first flung Jack into the past, he accidentally made Jack The Ageless without realizing it, so now Jack can't die of old age. Oops.
- Every episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! has Mystery Inc. looking for clues in order to deduce who the villain is, then they catch him in a trap and unmask him. However, they don't actually reveal who the villain is until after they're unmasked. This means that they could avoid doing an episode's worth of detective work and just build the trap at the episode's beginning to catch the villain. In What's New, Scooby-Doo? they try this for the exact stated reason, and it works! The villain is locked in a jail cell to wait for the police. Then the villain attacks again, and when they check again he's right back in his cell ... because, of course, the mastermind was actually a set of twins and they only caught one. This does not, of course, explain why they never try it again.
- A common criticism of Shadow Raiders revolves around how our heroes try to destroy the Beast Planet... constantly. It never works as the Beast is (supposedly) indestructible. The show would have been over quicker had our heroes just simply done something like going inside the Beast Planet without getting killed and looking for some way to destroy it from the inside, or had simply killed the Beast Generals, thus causing some sort of link to the Beast Planet to be taken away and cause it to stop working.
- The Smurfs:
- Papa Smurf's constant willingness to help Gargamel whenever his life is in danger due to his own bungling tends to be the reason he caused them so much grief over the years. Simply leaving him to his fate after he messed up would have saved them a world of trouble.
- Then there's Brainy Smurf, whose incredible ego turns himself into The Millstone which often wrecks the village. The worst cases were "King Smurf", where he caused the Smurfs to erupt into a civil war with each other (animated series only) and "The Gingerbread Smurfs", where he created the living cookies without knowing how to get rid of them (and being dumb enough not to simply extinguish the oven and stop them from coming). He's always forgiven with little more than a scolding and is still Papa Smurf's apprentice.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM):
- The Freedom Fighters constantly take Antoine along on missions. Compared to powerhouses such as Bunnie or Dulcy, who are only nominally used, Antoine is The Load and often screws up missions via his clumsiness. The glaring aspect of this is that it is implied to be Sally, the Straight Man of the group, that insists on bringing Antoine along, compared to Sonic who loathes Antoine and often lampshades his incompetence.
- Sonic never takes the opportunity to kill or capture Robotnik after his defeat, despite the heroes' whole goal being to actually overthrow him. At one point Sonic even handily invades his lair and gives him a Curbstomp Battle solely as a distraction, despite it being an ideal opportunity to take him in. Ironically Antoine actually did try to capture Robotnik once, though he was obviously outmatched.
- Sonic Underground: Most of the events could have been avoided had Queen Aleena ignored the Oracle's words and then had Robotnik killed before he could try to remove her from the throne (hence all "the Oracle is the actual villain" WMG theories).
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Plankton would be better off creating his own burger instead of constantly trying to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula. Or better yet, close the Chum Bucket and take up a different profession.
- He managed to create an AI from scratch. He could be a respected computer scientist with no extra trouble at all.
- Plankton could also just get someone to secretly buy him a Krabby Patty instead of trying to steal it.
- Or he could take an unfinished Krabby Patty from the trash in the Krusty Krab dumpster.
- In the episode "The Algae's Always Greener", Plankton creates a machine that puts him in a reality where he owns the Krusty Krab. Rather than use the opportunity to learn the secret formula completely unopposed, he instead chooses to just bask in the glory of owning a successful restaurant.
- Ms. Puff swore to herself when she opened her boating school that she would never give up on a student, ever. As a result, SpongeBob has remained a constant thorn at her side because he not only Drives Like Crazy but he becomes a titanic Walking Disaster Area every time he sits behind a wheel and it has driven her so far up the wall with the misfortunes he's forced her to endure that she has become physically ill from all the stress and she has actually tried to kill him repeatedly in order to try to get rid of him. By this point, it's pretty clear that she probably would have a better life if she made an exception to her promise, just this once, and kicked him out of her school.
- Another idea would be to simply have her confess to SpongeBob that she hates him. If she sincerely tried to kill him, you'd think she'd at least do something to try to hurt his feelings.
- If Squidward hates his job at the Krusty Krab, hates his two neighbors even more, and openly admits to hating everyone in Bikini Bottom, why couldn’t he just move out of Bikini Bottom to go someplace else? He tried this in "Squidville", but ended up getting bored and moving back by the episode's end.
- Plankton would be better off creating his own burger instead of constantly trying to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula. Or better yet, close the Chum Bucket and take up a different profession.
- Played for Laughs in the Squidbillies episode "A Sober Sunday." Early Cuyler spends the episode trying to lift the banning of liquor sales on Sunday but is unable to do so. At the end of the episode, Granny asks why he doesn't just buy his Sunday liquor on Saturday. He throws her in a fire and claims that it's too inconvenient.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars, like the movies, has some moments of the characters being doofuses when it comes to solving problems.
- In the second episode of Season 2, "Cargo of Doom", Cad Bane captures Ahsoka, and uses her as leverage to get Anakin to open a holocron he stole in the previous episode. Anakin could've pulled an I Surrender, Suckers moment on Cad Bane and pretend he's going to unlock the holocron, but not do it all, and instead use the Force to grab both his lightsaber and Ahsoka's while Bane is distracted by the holocron being levitated by the Force, kick Bane's butt, and save Ahsoka, AND prevent the holocron information from being unlocked, instead of playing it all real and opening it for him like he does in the actual episode before he attempts the lightsaber thing, which enables Bane to start kidnapping Force-sensitive infants in the next episode.
- In "Voyage of Temptation", when Obi-Wan finally finds Tal Merrick, who kidnapped the Duchess of Mandalore, Satine, he demands that Merrick surrender and release the duchess. Sen. Merrick then shows that he holds a remote detonator, and has set explosives on the ship. One press of a button, and everybody on it is blown to kingdom come. Obi-Wan never thinks of using the Force to pull the detonator out of Merrick's hand, which could've made saving Satine a LOT easier, and just follows Merrick (who still holds the detonator and is still holding Satine hostage) back to one of the droid deployers, where he plans to get off the Coronet, and does NOTHING about stopping him from blowing up the ship! And even Satine steps on Merrick's corn to get free from him and steals his blaster, when Merrick taunts them about the cons of either Obi-Wan or Satine killing him will tarnish their reputations, Obi-Wan still doesn't think of using the Force to pull the remote out of his hand. It's up to Anakin to resolve the situation, which he does do in the simplest and most direct manner by casually stabbing Merrick through the back with his lightsaber mid-monologue.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. No one ever thinks to just follow Bowser whenever he invokes Villain: Exit, Stage Left. Likewise, despite the existence of quite a few Reality Warping MacGuffins, anyone who has one tends to suffer from Complexity Addiction and/or Forgot About His Powers.
- Ulysses Feral from SWAT Kats invokes this for the title heroes' origin; despite clearly being told they had a target lock, his stubborn obsession to be the only one allowed to bring Dark Kat down not only caused the Enforcers to lose the villain (which the aforementioned target lock would've likely prevented), but also forced Jake and Chance into the crash that ended their Enforcer career and began their career as the titular gang. True, there would be no cartoon, but at least they would've been able to bring a dangerous criminal to justice. Even after the incident, Feral insists on fighting against the SWAT Kats and bringing them to "justice", even though it's been shown time and time again the supervillains they deal with are more than the Enforcers can handle, on their own, and other, more reasonable members of his force (like his niece Felina) can see the benefit of allying themselves with them.
- Entire episodes of TaleSpin are often driven by Baloo's incompetence, laziness, or audacity, or Rebecca's hardheadedness, blind ambition, or naivete. One wonders why Rebecca just doesn't let Baloo run the company instead of her.
- What could be solved simply with some logical thinking often snowballs into a very big problem. Sometimes Kit or Molly's recklessness or need for adventure complicates matters, too, though not as often as Baloo and Rebecca's character flaws do.
- Played with in one episode, where Rebecca wins a contest and needs to get her winning entry to a radio station on time to get a large sum, but she's too busy to get it mailed herself. She knows that Baloo is lazy except when something doesn't matter, so she tries to use Reverse Psychology, telling him that she'd appreciate it if he could take care of mailing it out for her, but that it wasn't important. Unfortunately for her, Baloo, already experienced with how much trouble arises from her hardheadedness and blind ambition, figures that her laissez-faire attitude means it really isn't important, so he spends the fare for the letter on himself (after Rebecca said he could keep the change) and sends it via the cheapest possible postage. Cue scramble when both parties realize what they had done.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), almost every time Shredder and Krang fail it is because of Bebop and Rocksteady's bumbling. Simply getting rid of the two or at least locking them up would result in far less humiliation for Shredd-Head and Krang.
- In one episode Krang points out that Shredder firing them is a bad idea, as they don't have a lot of options in the help department for their schemes. Their attempt to solve this problem blows up in their faces.
- This gets taken to the logical conclusion in Turtles Forever, in which Utrom Shredder, AKA a villain that was besting three separate generations of Turtles as well as fairly powerful allies, has already destroyed entire universes, and is scarily competent... is defeated by their screwing up.
- Building the universe-conquering superweapon with a working power source would have done it. Given some of the stuff they used to get it temporarily working, it probably could have run at full power on a diesel engine.
- Thomas & Friends: Several plots (especially in the later seasons) could have been avoided had the engines done their jobs correctly... or if Sir Topham Hatt just simply imported some new staff from the mainland instead of using the incompetent people he has piloting his engines.
- Over the course of ThunderCats (1985) Mumm-Ra was revealed to have an incredible array of powers and resources at his disposal. If he had used several of these at once instead of one per episode, he could have won. Possibly justified by the risk of over-using powers and rendering himself weakened and easily defeated in the next episode. Also, he's ever-living. If he had been willing to just wait the ThunderCats out, they would have gone extinct in a generation (there's nowhere near enough for a breeding population). Any progress they could have made in freeing the world from his tyranny could easily be undone afterward.
- We get an answer to that question in the Dogs of War comic (which admittedly was done in 2003, long after the cartoon finished production): in a nutshell, it wouldn't be any fun.
- Speaking of ThunderCats, every animation where we see heroes wielding swords, guns or every obviously dangerous weapons, shows which also include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, etc. Every kid who watched those shows has asked at least once in their lives, "Why don't they simply use their weapons to kill the bad guys?" Or vice versa. The real reason for this is, of course, that the Standards and Practices of the time did not allow such direct violence to be shown in cartoons.
- Tom and Jerry: Tom chooses to eliminate Jerry by simply hiring an exterminator to kill him, instead of futilely chasing him. Tom actually does hire an exterminator (Butch) to help him get rid of Jerry in at least one short. The result is not only Jerry outsmarting both of them, but Tom's constant bumbling of Butch's plans angering the latter so much that he starts trying to exterminate Tom by the episode's end.
- The Transformers:
- Good thing the Decepticons never thought of getting rid of Starscream. He's the only reason the Autobots kept surviving, or even woke up in the first place
. One time he even saved the cornered Autobots just for the sake of ruining Megatron's plans. Right in front of him, complete with a smug one-liner. The first episode had a scene where he seemed to have the right idea for once (suggesting blowing up the Ark instead of boarding it; the attempted boarding is what leads to the Ark crashing to begin with), but then a Deleted Scene was uncovered years later where Megatron spells out why Starscream's idea was horrible (Megatron knew the Autobots were heading to an energy-rich planet but didn't know its exact location, hence why he wanted to follow or commandeer their ship, and why blowing them up would be counterproductive to his long-term goals). - In the episode referenced in the above example, Megatron did actually say "No, I want to know what [the Autobots] are after." in response to Starscream's hasty and reckless suggestion.
- There are also times when Starscream points out glaring flaws in Megatron's plans (i.e. the dangerous instability of their latest energy source). Megatron will invariably respond by mocking and insulting him and ignoring his advice, only to be surprised when the plan blows up in his face in exactly the way Starscream predicted. The real solution would be for them to just work together rather than constantly try to one-up each other, then worry about fighting for control after the Autobots are out of the way.
- Thanks to the extremely varied nature of the franchise and its many continuities, how much this trope applies depends on the series. Sometimes, Megatron does sum up the intellect to kill Starscream; he does so in the movie after one betrayal nearly succeeds, in Transformers: Cyberverse he kills Starscream after the first backstab, and in Transformers: Animated he practically makes killing Starscream a habit. In other series, Megatron has good reason to keep Starscream around, such as wanting an incompetent backstabber as his second-in-command, rather than risk having a competent one who might actually depose him, or feeling that Starscream's skill as an Air Commander makes up for his eccentricities.
- Good thing the Decepticons never thought of getting rid of Starscream. He's the only reason the Autobots kept surviving, or even woke up in the first place
- A lot of the problems in Griffin Rock on Transformers: Rescue Bots can be traced back to two people: news reporter Huxley Prescott and Mayor H.B. Luskey. The severity of some of their screw-ups is grounds enough to impeach/recall/vote out the latter and hull the both of them up on charges — yet no one ever does so, despite one of the heroes being the chief of police. In season 4, the citizens of Griffin Rock learn the truth about the Rescue Bots and Chase decides to run against Luskey and actually wins, only for Chase's personality quirks to screw things up, leading Chase to resign and Luskey to resume his role as mayor.
- Wacky Races: With all of his cheating attempts constantly failing, one wonders why Dick Dastardly just doesn't try racing fairly, or better yet, quit the Wacky Races for good.
- Wile E. Coyote seems to have the ability and resources available to send away for any sort of gizmo he desires, and have it arrive immediately to aid him in his quest to catch the Road Runner. It never occurs to him to simply order some food.
- Creator Chuck Jones liked to quote George Santayana's observation, "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." Meaning, to Wile E., eating the Road Runner is largely not the point anymore. Indeed, as Cliff Claven pointed out on Cheers, "What he wants is to eat that particular Road Runner. Very existential."
- Lampshaded in Night Court of all places, with Judge Stone presiding over Wile E. Coyote and telling him that next time he's hungry he should just go to a restaurant or supermarket.
- In the shorts where Wile E. is pitted against Bugs Bunny, it's made clear that he's in it for the intellectual challenge as much as for a meal. One would assume this is probably the case in the Road Runner shorts as well. Not to mention that, due to his being an Insufferable Genius Smug Snakenote , being unable to capture a bird would be a blow to his pride, so he refuses to give up.
- Lampshaded in one of the leftover shorts from the failed pilot Adventures of the Road Runner. Wile E. explains that the reason he compulsively chases the Road Runner is that road runners are the most friggin' delicious things on Earth, including a meat chart with all the flavors of a road runner's various cuts laid out.
- A Looney Tunes comic book does actually establish that Wile E. gets his food via mail order and that catching Road Runner is just his hobby.
- This is hilariously lampshaded in a short in which Wile E. is successful in his attempts to capture the Road Runner. Of course, he's now a comically puny size thanks to Rule of Funny so the Road Runner is much...much bigger than him. Wile E. then points out to the audience that he's absolutely clueless as to what to do next.
- The heights of Wile E.'s obsession is underscored by the large number of his plans that, had they succeeded, would have destroyed the Road Runner, or at least rendered its carcass inedible.
- Really one of his main problems is that he keeps buying shoddy products from ACME. Which one episode reveals as being owned and operated by the Road Runner!
- Spoofed in this strip from the webcomic Sandra and Woo, with Woo the talking raccoon standing in for Wile E Coyote. Woo, upon failing to catch the Road Runner, does the logical thing.
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action seemed to justify this by revealing that he's some sort of "quality control" product tester/ACME agent.
- There's also a Cartoon Network commercial that shows him being asked why he keeps using Acme products when they always backfire or blow up on him, to which he says with a sign, "Good line of credit".
- Deconstructed in the Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy short "Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die", which shows that were Wile E. Coyote to actually catch the Road Runner, his life would go into a downward spiral because he never considered what he would do after finally catching him.
- Wunschpunsch: With Bubonic and Tyrannia's spells caused by the Wunschpunsch constantly broken, Maledictus T. Maggot doesn't realize that firing them is easier than repeatedly punishing them each time they fail (then again, George Jetson Job Security might be in effect).
- If Yogi Bear really is "smarter than the average bear," then why does it never occur to him that he should just try using brute force to get a pic-a-nic basket, just like real bear would. Yogi is a bear; they're strong, ferocious animals. He can just roar and wave his arms around people with a pic-a-nic basket, and chances are that they'll just run away, leaving the basket ripe for the taking. Even if people like Ranger Smith are foolish enough to try to get them back, he has claws and teeth that he can use against them. note
