Injection Plot

Don't worry Henry, it won't hurt a bit...
Well, maybe a little.

"Today is inoculation day. All students must be given inoculation darts. And don't worry. If you can't find us, we'll find you."

— Principal Pixiefrog, My Gym Partner's a Monkey.

Vaccinations are needed to keep you healthy and to have protection from diseases. When you go to the doctor for a check-up, there's a chance that you'll end up needing one.

Many episodes that focus on shots/injections, especially ones from Edutainment Shows, will focus on the importance that they serve. Often times, a character will be too afraid to get a shot and will try their hardest to avoid getting one. If they succeed, then the episode will end with them getting sick and An Aesop will be delivered about how they wouldn't have gotten sick if they had gotten vaccinated. If they end up going through with it, then they'll realize that it doesn't hurt as much as they thought it would and that Fear Is Normal. They may even get a lollipop afterwards for being a good patient!

It should be noted that needles really don't hurt that much, but if you tense up your muscles, then it will hurt a lot worse and may even cause a bad reaction.

Can overlap with Afraid of Needles if the character has a phobia of needles (which isn't limited to just syringes) and it ends up driving the plot. Such phobia can be immediately justified by having the doctor pull out a Giant Medical Syringe. Compare Blood Transfusion Plot, where a character needs to get a blood transfusion. Often a Disease-Prevention Aesop.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Quintessential Quintuplets: In Chapters 33 and 34, the quintuplets arrive at the hospital Fuutarou is staying at to get their vaccinations; Nino and Itsuki, however, run off in fear, but they end up getting dragged back to have their shots anyhow.

Comic Strips

• One Peanuts story has the effort of all of the kids dragging a terrified Snoopy to the vet to get his rabies shot. The next strip shows the dog giving his owner a Death Glare as he holds his sore arm.

Fan Works

• In The Loud House fanfiction Give it a Shot, Lynn Sr. takes a nervous Lana to the doctor to get her flu shot.
• Little Hands, Big Attitude: One chapter has Tails and Knuckles going to Maddie's clinic to get their shots. However, the day before, Sonic who did get shots before but is Afraid of Needles kept telling Tails all sorts of bloated tales about how terrifying the experience was, to the point Maddie calls him a Drama Queen. He does successfully scare the crap out of Tails, but he's pleasantly surprised when he doesn't even feel the shot and that Sonic really was exaggerating.
• This Osomatsu-san fancomic has the sextuplets get their vaccinations, but Ichimatsu is too scared to go inside. Cue his brothers forcing him inside anyway.

Literature

• Horrid Henry has the story "Horrid Henry's Injection" which revolves around Henry's class (and Peter) getting their injections. This was also adapted into the TV Series.
• In the controversial children's book Melanie's Marvelous Measles, two kids called Melanie and Jared both get vaccinated against measles but get it anyway, while two unvaccinated kids (Tina and Travis) don't. The author, whose son died of Alexander's Disease but she mistook it as the vaccine killing him, was trying to persuade people from being vaccinated.

Live-Action TV

• El Chapulín Colorado had an episode where a guy in a hospital needs an injection for a sickness and could die if he doesn't receive it, but naturally refuses to do so and El Chapulín has to help the nurse and the doctor to give him the shot. He ends up taking revenge at the end by injecting El Chapulín while pretending to give him a hug in thanks.
• Doc Martin: The episode "Remember Me" is about Martin trying to give his new receptionist Morwenna a tetanus shot, even though she is Afraid of Needles. Eventually he gets her to take it by describing what would happen if she doesn't get a shot.
• Barney Miller: One of the subplots of the episode "Werewolf" (which introduced Kenneth Tigar as recurring character Stefan Koepeknie, the werewolf of the episode title) is a flu epidemic, and a public health nurse who comes in to give flu shots to all officers. Wojciehowicz turns out to be afraid of needles. In spite of getting shots all the time, when he was in the Marine Corps. ("I fainted all the time.") He gets his shot in Barney's office. And the nurse reports that he fainted.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood brought up the subject a number of times.

Music

• The Judy Pancoast song "Gotta Get a Shot!" is about a girl who is very nervous of getting her booster shot and tries to run away, but then gets the shot anyway.

Puppet Shows

• "The Big Blue Housecall" from Bear in the Big Blue House has a subplot regarding Doc Hogg giving all the children in the Big Blue House a shot and Ojo being scared of it and hiding. Bear teaches her the song "Just say ow, say it now, and it's over."

Radio

• The Men from the Ministry episode "Don't Let Them Needle You" revolves around flu-vaccination that's going to be injected into all civil servants. Both Lennox-Brown and Lamb try in vain as hard as possible to avoid the shot, and Hilarity Ensues: in the hassle, a new truth drug meant to clear the minds of a couple of British astronauts gets mixed up with the vaccine, and as a result, all the staff in Whitehall begin to tell the truth.

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: The episode "Spots And Shots" has Lucky being afraid of getting a shot when a veterinarian comes to the farm to give them all vaccinations. He spends the whole episode trying to hide, and in the end succeeds, as the vet leaves without giving Lucky his shot. Unfortunately, Lucky ends up immediately getting the disease that the shot was meant to keep him from getting.
• In the Baby Looney Tunes episode "Flu The Coop", the kids go to get their flu shots, but Daffy and Bugs run away. At the end of the episode, they're both lethargic, bloodshot, and headachy and it's implied they both have the flu.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation: S.A.F.A.R.I.", Numbuh One goes to get a shot from Dr. Phineas B. Sharp, who hunts him in his jungle of an office. He then finds out the whole "moose-bump shot" is a plot by Chester to turn kids into literal moose, but the whole thing turns out to be a crazy story he's is telling his mom on the way to the doctor's.
• Doc McStuffins: There was an episode with an anthropomorphic soccer ball named Boomer who gets deflated. Doc says he has to get a shot to be reinflated, but he's Afraid of Needles. Doc and the toys help him overcome his fear. This episode is meant to teach kids about why it's important to get shots.
• Donkey Kong Country: In "Speak No Evil, Dude", Diddy, being Afraid of Needles, avoids getting a shot for the Kongo Bongo Gone Wrongo disease, resulting in a race against the clock to make a new vaccine to save Diddy.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "This Won't Hurt an Ed", Ed and Eddy find out that Kevin has a crippling fear of needles, so they plot to scare him by announcing that it's Booster Shot Day at school and carrying around a giant makeshift needle.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Played with for the episode "Chicken Poofs". Poofs gets the titular sickness and runs away when Dr. Rip Studwell presents a huge needle with the cure. Studwell ends up breaking the syringe, so he and Wanda have to travel to Fairy World to get another serum in a trip that ends up being humiliating for Wanda (and pointless; the flower she was instructed to get was merely used for Studwell to get a discount for a pre-made serum at the pharmacy). When Studwell and Wanda return, it turns out that the huge needle is merely a dispenser to pour the medicine into a cup, with Studwell lampshading how ridiculous it would be to use such a huge needle on a baby.
• In the Family Guy episode "Hot Shots", Lois decides not to vaccinate Stewie upon learning that it may cause autism, and she encourages the rest of Quahog to do the same. Unfortunately, while she succeeds, this causes everyone to go down with the measles, and as a result, the entire town is put under quarantine.
• Fugget About It: In the episode "Universal Prostitution and Pizza Fridays," Cookie refuses to get Gina her required vaccinations for school and homeschools her because she and Theresa think vaccines cause autism. Theresa goes to Gina's school to destroy all the vaccines and teach the class instead, but all the kids get sick and get her sick too, leading to Cookie changing her mind.
• The Mighty B!: In the second half of "Bee Patients", Bessie gets her check-up at the doctor and it's revealed that she needs a booster shot. She runs away to avoid getting it, but she gets stuck in a sink as the doctor sticks the syringe in her rump.
• In the first episode of My Gym Partner's a Monkey titled "Inoculation Day", the students of Charles Darwin Middle School are getting their vaccinations, which are given through blowdarts. Naturally, everyone runs away, except Adam (who is a human), to avoid getting their shots, but the plot is kicked off when Adam gets the booster meant for Jake and starts acting like a monkey.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: In "Needle Point", the penguins need to get a routine checkup with the zoo's vet, but Skipper becomes afraid and runs away when he finds out they have to get shots. The other penguins chase after him to force him to get his shot, and Private eventually decides to trick the vet into thinking that he is Skipper and get the shot for him so that he will stop running away. Skipper finds out that getting two shots in one day might make Private very sick or possibly kill him, so he toughens up and gets the shot. One Scream Discretion Shot later though, Skipper states that it was excruciating but laments that taking the needle was for the greater good. His fear of needles unfortunately was not cured after the episode.
• In the Pucca episode "Cat Scratch Fever", Garu's cat Mio needs to get his shots, but he's afraid of the vet and runs off, so Garu and Abyo have to catch him. He does get them in the end, but Abyo is told that he needs his shots too, so he runs away while his friends give chase.
• In one episode of Robot and Monster, Robot is bitten by Marf and gets "Robies", and he needs to get a shot before he turns into a mime. However, Robot hates shots due to an incident as a child when he went to the doctor. It's eventually revealed that he misremembered the event: he's actually afraid of lollipops, as the one the doctor gave him for getting a shot was the real cause of the incident. Unfortunately for Robot, medicine isn't given through shots anymore, but lollipops. Cue Robot silently screaming.
• Rugrats: In "The Shot", Tommy and Angelica go to the doctor to get a booster shot. Angelica tells Tommy how scary getting a shot is, which makes him and another kid named Hector run away to avoid getting one. When he eventually does get his shot, the doctor gives him a lollipop so he isn't afraid anymore. Meanwhile, Angelica ends up crying when she gets hers.
• In the Sabrina: The Animated Series episode "Witchitis", the Spellmans go to get vaccinated against the eponymous disease, but Sabrina chickens out and ends up catching it. To make matters worse, the cure is to get an injection.
• In the Sid the Science Kid episode "Getting a Shot, You Can Do It!", Sid gets told that he will be getting a shot at school. He asks his friends if they've had shots, and they all say yes (May's cat has also had a shot). The episode as a whole talks about the importance of shots.
• The South Park episode "Shots!!!" looks at the controversy over vaccinations with a plot about Cartman refusing to get a shot. He claims to be a "conscientious objector" even though he's really just Afraid of Needles. It's so difficult for the doctor to vaccinate him (since he runs away squealing like a pig and nobody can catch him) that they have to hire a hog wrestler to wrangle Cartman for his inoculation. The episode also looks at the perspective of Cartman's mother Liane, who resents being called a bad mother for being unable to vaccinate her son and is hesitant about the vaccination process.

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