Never Live It Down - Television Tropes & Idioms

Bright Noa, the only character to be a main character in Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Chars Counterattack is best known not for being a main character in so many series, but for hitting his crew members. Fandom loves to cite how much Bright slaps people for very little reason. Interestingly, Brightslaps are well received by the fandom, who tend to credit him for turning whiners into MEN OF DESTINY.
- Even Super Robot Wars gets in on the joke, where he regularly knocks some badassery into such pilots as Shinji Ikari.
- Similarly, Dozle Zabi only says "Once the Big Zam is mass produced..." once. And its one of the most memorable lines in the series. Same applies to "This is no Zaku, boy! No Zaku!!!"
- Olba Frost has a great deal of hatedom due to one episode where he became furious at the heroes for hurting his brother. Never mind his big brother got injured taking an attack for him. Never mind they've gone through so much hell that they only have each other for emotional support. Never mind for the rest of the series he's a perfectly calm and composed person. Never mind he wants to redeem himself in the eyes of his brother and stand on his own two feet. Nope, he's a sniveling male Yandere, through and through.
  - Even Kira "Jesus" Yamato isn't immune. Fans seem to have clung to the idea that he's actually a poor pilot that relies on Freedom's Beam Spam abilities and only sits in the corner letting his computer do all the work. This was only true in his first battle with Freedom, in which he does indeed use full burst mode for almost the entire fight, but that's understandable because he's getting the hang of it, and the show wanted to hammer "THIS IS FREEDOM'S GIMMICK! IT HAS MANY GUNS!" into the audience. But after that he mostly sticks to sabers and his one rifle (which doesn't use the targeting computer) and in fact moves around in battle quite a bit. He never uses his Beam Spam more than once or twice per battle after that, yet the fandom seems only remember him sitting in one spot and letting his computer do all the work for the rest of Seed and all of Destiny.
  - The computer comparison is easily understandable in that in all the various UC series every pilot had to manually target every single shot because of jamming Minovsky radiation handicap. Hell, Gundam00 (which has more than a few Take That's against Gundam SEED Destiny) had the very last stroke of the last battle be without computers (you can see both cockpit monitors have died).
- If you listen to the internet, Lunamaria Hawke couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if she was standing inside it because she missed a shot on a civilian shuttle. Similar shots have also been missed by Char Aznable, Camille Bidan, and Amuro Ray among others, but only Luna ever gets this treatment.
  - The rationale is that unlike the other characters, Luna is a sniper specialist, piloting a still-top-of-the-line super prototype, firing multiple shots on a civilian shuttle on a easily calculable trajectory, under no pressure of enemy fire, well within targeting range. Her mistake cost her side millions of lives.
Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto has haters who claim he was always an impossibly huge Jerk Ass, instead of just aloof and somewhat rude, and that this was mostly in response to Naruto and Sakura usually when they were genuinely irritating him. For example, many are quick to cite all the times that he's put down Naruto, but forget that Naruto is the same way towards him and much louder about it.
- Also from Naruto is Sai. He asked Naruto once when they first met if Naruto had male genitalia, as an insult no less. But from the way to fans talk you'd think every other word out of Sai's mouth is penis, even as he runs around brandishing a measuring tape.
  - He brought up Naruto's genitals four more times in the same arc, but none after his Heel Face Turn and opening up to Naruto (once again support that, he did know what it meant and was just insulting him), making this a recurring, but exaggerated habit.
- The fandom also tends to exaggerate Hinata's fainting spells despite the fact that she only fainted once in the manga. It doesn't help that she is more prone to fainting in the anime.
  - Twice actually, once off-screen, once on-screen.
And as for Naruto himself...y'know that "Sexy Jutsu" or whatever he does in the anime, an actual, honest-to-goodness ninja attack that involves turning into an alluring female (and is a regular super in the fighting games)? In the manga, he does this twice, total, both in volume 1, it's very obviously just a comic relief moment, and it's never mentioned or cited by anyone ever again. (There is one shot, many, many, many volumes later, of a "jutsu" involving silhouettes of two presumably naked male characters in a loving embrace, but this is also obviously just comic relief.)
The title character of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha has a tendency to take Defeat Means Friendship to ridiculous levels of excess, and many fans act as if she's truly looking for excuses to blow people up. However, the reason she's so quick to attack is because her weapons are incapable of killing people.
- And she always tries diplomacy first. It's just that her opponents are never willing to just talk, so she has to force them to listen to her.
- Ironically, the only character Defeat Means Friendship was played straight for was Fate and the only other character it was used for, if played with in this example, was Vita. The fandom would have you think that she beats the crap out of all of her friends despite befriending Yuuno, Chrono, Amy, Arisa (arguably not a Defeat Means Friendship), Suzuka, Hayate, among others without being locked in battle.
- Hayate's Cosplay Otaku Girl tendencies are also subject to a great deal of exaggeration, based off her designing the Wolkenritters' barrier jackets in a deliberate attempt to make "knight-like clothing".
- Shamal's Lethal Chef tendencies tend to get exaggerated in fan works, despite Hayate suggesting in the first A's sound stage that her cooking has improved significantly and the Wolkenritter conceding that it's not as good as what Hayate makes, but it's "not bad." (It doesn't help that the other Wolkenritter like to remind her about her mistakes).
Every member of the primary cast of Gundam Wing has at least one minor trait or famous moment that ended up being their standard fanfic portrayal. Heero's subdued emotions and early self-loathing have made people think he's an emotionless Emo (wha?!), Wu Fei's arrogance and one single instance of calling a woman he didn't know "Woman" make him a psychopathic misogynist...
- Heero's also characterized as constantly trying to self-destruct his Gundam. Actually, when he did that in the TV series, he was facing an ultimatum to either hand over his Gundam or have the colonies' inhabitants slaughtered, and chose to Take A Third Option through Heroic Sacrifice.
- Relena only yelled Heero's name out loud thrice in the series. People bash her as if she finished every episode with a Say My Name scream.
- In all honesty, Wu Fei IS a misogynist. But this says more about ancient Chinese culture than the character, who was raised among it.
If Zoids fanfiction were to be believed, one would think Bit and Leena were constantly stealing each other's snacks, but it's only happened maybe once or twice on the actual show.
How many times did Suzumiya Haruhi grope Mikuru? Yes, more than once. And how many times did she rewrite reality without even knowing that she's doing so? Once, and maybe twice. But considering how some people react, one would think she does these things every single episode.
- Just from the show, she changed the batting order, created the phantom of a murderer, she changes her seating arrangement to sit behind Kyon, she creates a closed reality that almost destroys/remakes the world, she created espers, aliens and time travelers, she made Itsuki transfer in... There's a lot of little, subtle things. While it's not every episode, it's significantly often enough.
- The original text is probably referring for when she completely change the world, not the minor stuffs.
- How many times did she rape Mikuru? ZERO. Yet somehow she managed to make it onto the page picture for Rape Is Love anyway.
  - What, were you expecting a page picture depicting actual rape?
  - More then that, She just grope Mikuru once, in Mikuru introdution. She did strip and change her costumes a lot, but groping (with only the purpose of feeling her breasts) was only once. Twice, if you count when she made the Computer Club President grope her.
Shiro Emiya from Fate Stay Night is often branded Captain Obvious based on one moment that didn't really even happen: the infamous "People die when they are killed." line isn't even an accurate translation; what he said was more along the lines of, "Normal people are supposed to die from (these kinds of injuries)". He may be stupid in other ways, but pointing out the obvious isn't really one of them.
- One of Shiro's ideals as The Messiah is that he doesn't want to see Saber (and, for the most part, Saber specifically) injured because of his own weakness. If you listened to the internet, you'd think his every other sentence is "Stay In The Kitchen!"
There was one instance in Full Metal Alchemist where the colonel is seen slacking off at work and avoiding paperwork until the last second. This wasn't even a very important episode, just a little fanservice since he hadn't shown up in a while. However, try to find ONE Royai fic (Or even just a fic about the colonel in general) that doesn't at least mention this 'tendency'. Just one.
- Author example. Al hides a kitten in his armor once, and this is repeatedly parodied in the manga omakes (for example having an enormous cat that breaks out of the armor or multiple cats that claw Marta when she tries to hide in there, resulting in Al recovering his memory of being at the Gate).
James from Pokemon in one episode remarked that he wanted a doughnut once. In the show's earlier days, he seemed to be known for wanting doughnuts.
Thanks to the predominance of Fanon for Ranma 1/2, many of the characters suffer Never Live It Down to some extent.
- Akane Tendo used a mallet to hit her Jerk With A Heart Of Gold fiancé twice in the anime, and only a few times in the manga... but lots of people also used mallets, including Ranma (more often than Akane,) Soun, Genma, and a few oneshot characters. In fanfiction, she's the only one who's ever known to use a mallet when things get violent, despite the fact she canonically prefers her fist (and a shinai, to a lesser extent, in the anime version).
  - In the So Bad Its Horrible fanfic Twisted Path, the God Mode Sue protagonist uses his magic powers to make special weapons for the cast to use in the final battle. No points for guessing what Akane's weapon was.
- Ranma Saotome claims he Wouldn't Hit A Girl three times at most. Possibly influenced by the prevalence of the Armor Piercing Slap, fanfic Ranma is infamous for looking down on women's combat abilities, something he never does in either version of the canon, and for refusing to strike back at women even if they're trying to actively kill him.
- Shampoo once made usage of special mushrooms that made the consumer vulnerable to hypnotic suggestions, and twice tried to take advantage of a piece of love magic that fell into her hands. She didn't even plot the mushroom incident on her own. Fanfiction portraying her as a villain invariably plays up her as being a kind of "mistress of love potions and mind-controlling poisons". In canon, chemical usage is the specialty of Kodachi Kuno. And even Kodachi sticks with paralysis and sleeping powder.
- Akane stopped calling Ranma "pervert" relatively early on in the manga, and when she used it again after many, many volumes of absence, the obvious Call Back made it very funny. To the fandom, it's pretty much her Catchphrase. Though she does frequently accuse him of lecherous intentions, it's rare that she actually says "pervert".
In Mahou Sensei Negima, Nodoka will forever be considered the series' foremost Covert Pervert after she came up with a certain solution to the love triangle involving herself, Negi, and Yue. Granted, she is a Covert Pervert, but her fantasizing (which is only actually seen about 3 times in 250+ manga chapters) is greatly exaggerated by the fandom.
Light Yagami spends the vast majority of his time portraying a near-flawless modest front over a cold, calculating and, above all, rational interior. Even that little business about being the god of the new world is calmly accounted for - most of the time. However, he's usually remembered for his two Evil Laughs, his near-sexual pleasure in victory, and his abiding love of potato chips.
- The potato chips I will grant you, but I found those other moments to be very revealing of the truly unstable psyche that was lying underneath that supposedly rational exterior. You forgot, also, the freakout session at having been "humiliated" by L for simply telling him who he was. In public, he seems very calm, but once he's behind the locked door of his own room...
  - No, that freakout's Evil Laugh 1, and as you say, it's based in his delusions. However, even that is quickly patched over with fantasies about how Light's totally going to pwn L; he returns to a relatively even keel very fast. Humiliation and triumph are the two big triggers that destabilise him (Lind L. Tailor, Raye Pember, Naomi Misora, the runup to L's death, Near, and the fireworks he goes out with), but "rational" doesn't begin to imply "sane". The point is that everything he does follows a coherent, if twisted and sociopathic, narrative, and that that internal instability is not his baseline - though what's really fun is to watch that baseline pitch higher and higher as the series progresses. Your Mileage May Vary.
For Yu-Gi-Oh!, people who complain about shows they don't watch have always made fun of Yu-Gi-Oh! characters for having strange hair. In the original show however, only Yugi had exceptionally strange hair. The only other people who came close were really no different than any traditional cartoon caricatures. Of course the later series (not made by the original creator) ran with this, and led to another lead character with strange hair in 5Ds.
- That happens to Dragon Ball, which gets often mentioned to as "that show with spiky-haired dudes". The only spiky-haired characters are Goku and Vegeta, sometimes Yamcha, Gohan and Goten, and all the aforementioned minus Yamcha plus Trunks when they're Super Saiyans. And all of these but Goku and Yamcha don't appear until halfway through the series. HFIL, there are about as many "bald" characters (Krillin, Tenshinhan, Muten Roshi, Nappa, Piccolo kinda... Also Vegeta's large forehead went under Memetic Mutation in Japan), but you never see this called "that show with the bald dudes". To be fair, they tend to stand out the most, but still, you'd think everyone in this show has Shonen Hair by listening to some.

Jean Grey is probably the most unfortunate victim of this. How many times did she genuinely come Back From The Dead? If you don't count fake-outs, clones, androids, or shapeshifters (all of which are par for the course with almost all superheroes)... Once. Twice once Joe Quesada's anti-redhead crusade ends, one assumes. This puts the poor woman on the low end of comic book resurrections. But those who Did Not Do The Research just know her for her resurrection, and think it's more common than it actually is, or else going mad.
- This trope, in fact, used to be called "Jean Grey Escalation," but tropers kept proving the point by assuming it referred to the false notion that she "always comes Back From The Dead."
- She wasn't even really thought of this way until fans of early eighties Marvel started Running The Asylum, shoehorning her into this role, despite the 20 years of genuine Character Development she'd had since she came back. So, all the "really, she's not coming back this time" hoopla is trying to avert something that wasn't true in the first place. Fans who actually followed her since the mid eighties are... less than pleased.
- Even Deadpool claims that "Jean Grey, deaths even cheaper than usual", but since it's the writer putting those words in his mouth, we know he really meant Magneto (the true X Men poster child for Death Is Cheap).
- Here is a list of the deaths of Jean Grey. Note: the first and the last six are—by the author's own admission—uncertain (they almost seem to be included just to pad the count), another is with loads of other heroes (who all came Back From The Dead after that), and another is an alternate timeline (should that even count?). Note also that well over half are from after those Running The Asylum painted her like this. That's about the authorial equivalent of planting evidence.
In the '90s-era cartoon, Angel gets this too: His time as Archangel is the only aspect of him we see. There isn't a single episode in the series that he's in that doesn't either feature Apocalypse, or remind us of Angel's stint as his herald.
One of Lucy's personality-cementing moments in Peanuts is the famous trick of pulling a football away from Charlie Brown optimistically trying to kick it. The actual frequency of this gag has more to do with the sheer length of the strip; Schultz specifically commented he only did these strips once a year at most to make sure the joke stayed fresh and keep Lucy from appearing too nasty. So she did it 48 times in 17,000+ strips.
- Of course, doing it at the worst possible moment and getting away with it in the Animated Adaptation might have helped worsen things...
- Put the previous two together, by the way, and you get X-Nuts◊.
- Fun fact: the very first football pull was actually performed by Violet, not Lucy; she pulls the ball away because she's afraid he'll kick her hand, not out of malice. And in the last one, Rerun replaced Lucy - we never find out whether Charlie Brown kicked it or not.
John Jameson is most well known being an astronaut, even though he has spent most of his time as Captain America's personal pilot. He's also known for his superpowered alter-ego that sometimes emerges, Man-Wolf.
- The second part is subverted in The Spectacular Spider Man - when John gets powers, he becomes Colonel Jupiter, following one of the comics from the pre-Man-Wolf period.
- In fairness, John Jameson was introduced as J. Jonah's astronaut son.
Pictured above: Occurred with the many-monikered Dr. Hank Pym, a founding member of The Avengers, who once hit his wife Janet (Wasp) during a mental-breakdown-induced Face Heel Turn. (This storyline also included him killing old enemies in cold blood, and releasing murderous robots on New York just so he could look like a hero when he stopped them; the whole thing would be a Dork Age if it didn't end with Pym recovering, then single-handedly beating the Masters of Evil.) Writers have explored the issue with various levels of grace since then, but more than once his hitting Wasp has devolved into a crude running gag which still colors newer depictions of him. In particular, the Ultimate version of Hank Pym is an outright wife-beater — and since The Ultimates is so popular, this has made things even worse for the "real" Pym.
- What's particularly frustrating is that Jan and the other Avengers forgave Hank long ago — it's the writers who won't. Every time the incident is laid to rest, someone comes along to dig it up again. Most recently, Chuck Austen Did Not Do The Research; in his brief Avengers run, he wrote Hank as a misogynist, Jan as a pinball, and Hawkeye as a jerk who's held a grudge against Hank since the '80s. (In fact, they've always been close friends, and Clint's support was a big factor in Hank's redemption.) Hank and Jan have a profoundly messed-up relationship, but this was no more than a caricature of it.
- This is shown to be a part of his character in-universe, too, as a consequence of the fact that this is all writers ever do with him; in The Initiative, Trauma loses control of his powers and Hank witnesses his greatest fear: That people will never let go of the fact that he lost control exactly one time.
  - Subverted in this same issue, when Baron von Blitzschlag points out that Hank is practically a war criminal for all the things he's done outside of spousal abuse.
  - One could call it a double subversion, considering that that was Skrull!Pym. However, all the assorted Skrulls who replaced him had his memories and, inevitably, his insanity as well, so it still stands.
- Perhaps the most extreme form came in Marvel Zombies, where the local Hank Pym bit Jan's head off - to his disgust (zombies hate the taste of zombies) and to little effect (zombie, anyone?).
- On the other hand, no one ever brings up that the Wasp used Hank's clear mental illness as a means to get him to the altar.
  - The second Earth's Mightiest Heroes miniseries retconned that; Jan has been advised by a SHIELD psychiatrist to let Hank's delusion play itself out, and is exceedingly uncomfortable with marrying him in these circumstances. (This also takes the Idiot Ball away from the rest of the Avengers; of course they know it's him, they just can't say anything.)
Likewise, the frequency with which Hank Pym has changed identities (from Ant-Man to Giant-Man to Goliath to Yellowjacket, then back through several of these again, and finally to Wasp) has become a running gag as well.
- "Finally"? For now, maybe. This is more deserved than the trope though - he really does change names a lot.
- And we all know he'll change it again once Janet comes back, right?
Tony Stark / Iron Man's alcoholism has generally been worked into his story with both respect and ridicule. Like Hank Pym, Tony has suffered lately for the sins of his Ultimate incarnation (Ultimate Tony Stark is a drunk, plain and simple). Of course, at this point, if that's what he's remembered for, he's lucky...
- This is also the one aspect of the character that is ever seen in parodies like Twisted Toyfare Theater. Even the TTT version of Civil War started when a newly-sober Iron Man enforced prohibition on Megoville.
Roy Harper, a.k.a. Speedy/Arsenal/Red Arrow, has narrowly skirted the edges of this trope. His most memorable moment was his 1971 battle with heroin addiction◊. While he hasn't lapsed back into addiction, the fact that he's a former junkie is a significant part of his backstory, and comes up regularly — almost to the point of being a Disability Superpower ("That was tough, but nothing compared to giving up drugs!"). A recent issue of Titans established that this actually wasn't the last time he did heroin, either.
- It's worth noting that Roy's battle with drugs only lasted two issues. Compare to Iron Man's alcoholism, which lasted much longer and was portrayed more realistically.
  - Parodied in the Arsenal miniseries, where he goes back to his adoptive Navajo tribe to get an adult name, and is jokingly told it's "He Who Once Did Drugs".
- The irony, for Harper? You'd think that the old drug addiction that's no longer and issue and the fact that he scores more women than his mentor ever attempted to, it'd become pretty obvious he's got an addictive personality and he should instead never live down the obvious sex addiction. Nope, nope, it's all about the drugs. *face-palm*
Hal Jordan, macked a teenager.
- Guy Gardner, "One Punch!", and his '80s "complete pig" behavior tend to overshadow his current Boisterous Bruiser status.
  - Three reasons "One punch! ONE!! PUNCH!!" really isn't that big a deal: 1. Even in real life, it's nothing unusual. Lots of MMA matches have ended with a single thunderous strike that catches the opponent off guard. Mirko "Cro Cop" Flipovic practically made his entire career out of these. 2. Batman is not a violent sociopath (and certainly doesn't want to come across as one to the Justice League), so of course he'd seek to end the fight as quickly as possible. 3. Gardner's other notorious Dan Hibiki moment, against the Eradicator (the yellow visored pseudo-Superman; don't know if that's his "real" name), by all metrics, went far, FAR worse. To recap, he got sucker punched and dissed ("Others may have to put up with your idiocy, but Superman does not! AND I WILL NOT!"), and he openly admits to himself that he has no chance against this guy in a straight fight. He bravely attempts a counterattack nonetheless...and is punched several miles away, where he crashes through the roof of a warehouse. And after Gardner changes his mind and voices his support...Eradicator continues insulting him! Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed, huh?
  - Kyle Rayner's first girlfriend Alex was the trope-namer for Stuffed Into The Fridge and since then things have not gone well for his love life. Since he lost the position of the star of the Green Lantern comic, many writers and fans seem to remember him only for this, and the list of his loved ones killed has gone on to include Jade, Donna Troy (although she got better), and his mother.
Frank Miller is usually remembered for writing prostitutes and The Goddamn Batman.◊ Thankfully there are no plans to write a goddamn prostitute Batman.
- Yet. You can never be sure what Frank'll do next.
  - Ironic, given that Miller has stated his biggest regret regarding The Dark Knight Returns (before it became the template for "Grim & Gritty") was making Selina Kyle a used-up madame.
Marvel's Captain Mar-Vel is best known for dying of cancer - something he didn't like finding out when he "came back" (read: arrived in the present day via Timey Wimey Ball). Though we ultimately find out that he's not the real Captain Marvel and there was no Timey Wimey Ball.
DC Comics supervillain Doctor Light was a largely unused character who gained some relevance when it was revealed that he had raped the wife of a superhero. Since then, the fact that he's a rapist has become such an integral part of his character that he could very well be renamed Doctor Rape.
- To quote Plastic Man, "It's like that's his power now."
- Which overshadowed his previous Never Live It Down moment as being a completely worthless Joke Character!
Green Arrow and Black Canary had a twenty-year-long romantic relationship, during which time GA's total non-Dinah activity consisted of a) being raped and b) kissing another woman (once). Somehow, both writers and fans take from this that Oliver is a total slut who constantly sleeps around on the long-suffering Dinah.
- To be fair, Oliver Queen has three kids with three other women (Cissie King-Smith, Connor Hawke, and Shado's son Robert), and two of those were the result of consensual encounters. Connor predates Oliver's relationship with Dinah, but Cissie is seventeen at most.
  - Which does mean she was conceived long before he met Dinah, who he's only known for 7-10 years, in continuity. On the other hand, it does point out Ollie's rather casual attitude toward sex. (And his callous attitude toward at least one of his lovers, since he canonically ran off after Connor was born. I'm not sure about Cissie.)
  - There's no definite consensus about whether or not Cissie is his kid, but as far as we know, he doesn't know about Cissie, since he was dead for the entirety of her superhero career.
Transmetropolitan has a variation on an old joke about goats and names, delivered by a character known as Bill Chimpfucker.
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Stacy from Spider Man started out as a dominating vixen who combined The Libby, the Tsundere, and the Yandere, and was furious that a dork like Peter wasn't interested in her. After John Romita replaced Steve Ditko as head artist, her character was softened considerably and she became the Betty in a Betty And Veronica Love Triangle. Like the Aerith example below, her death led to her being remembered entirely for her later, sweeter era, as a Girl Next Door and Yamato Nadeshiko. Eventually, this evolved into her being seen as a saintly martyr, Peter's one true love who was Too Good For This Sinful Earth. After the hated story Sins Past, which put her through brutal (and retconned) Character Derailment, the fans became even more determined to remember her as a saint.
- The real irony, here? Go re-read that Sins Past arc, with the view of Gwen having changed and become a softer, nicer person during that period. Hard to see the supposed Character Derailment as derailment anymore, isn't it? Comes off much more now as Sympathy For The Devil, which then makes the story much stronger, to the point of actually somewhat working. Even more ironic is that people still moan about this story after OMD/BND...
An in-universe example: The Trapster, a B-list Marvel super villain. Charter member of the Frightful Four, wields fairly dangerous adhesive based weaponry. He also debuted calling himself "Paste-Pot Pete" and had a string of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Human Torch and Spider Man. And the Marvel heroes never let him forget it - to the point where just calling him "Pete" while he's in costume has become his Berserk Button.
- That's sort of justified because, come on, out of all the super-villain names to think of, you choose Paste-Pot Pete? You're just asking for the Wrecking Crew to give you wedgies.
The Question will never be able to live down the influence that Rorschach has on his character.
- Specifically, the JLU version.
- Which is ironic since Alan Moore based Rorschach off of The Question. Not the other way around.
  - Arguably this mixture made him a better character than his original identity as a walking Objectivist soapbox.
- Actually, contrary to popular assumption based on the Cartoon, he never really became too much like Rorschach, the character has maintained personal integrity in that way. It's just that Watchmen fans tend to look at him and see only those aspects of his personality that Rorschach was developed on. This is best summarized in the issue where Vic Sage actually does pick up Watchmen and tries to emulate Rorschach's attitude, which nearly gets him killed. He concludes Rorschach sucks.
The Comedian of Watchmen attempts to rape Sally Jupiter once, and is stopped by Hooded Justice. Lots of people, including a number of contributors to this very wiki, refer to him as a serial rapist.
- He also gets this treatment in the story, as a random protester calls him "pig and a rapist" due to Hollis Mason's book, which had recently made the more unpleasant aspects of his personality public.
- Also remember - Sally is one girl, and Comedian gave the impression he does this kind of thing regularly. Hell, that might be why he of all people wears a mask.
- Well, he does murder his pregnant Vietnamese Thang... admittedly, she does slash him with a broken beer bottle first, though the subtext there is more that he led her on and then failed to deliver on his promises than actual rape. Also, the discovery that he is Laurie Jupiter's father leads her (and several others, as well as most readers) to assume that he succeeded on a later attempt... though we eventually find out that it was consensual.
Bane, Batman's foe, received a number of augmentations, such as subcutaneous shields, and the "Venom" drug that increased his already formidable strength. He beat Batman mostly through simple intelligence, and was captured by "AzBats" pulling the Venom tube out of his head. (But he was still far from helpless.) In the comics, he weaned himself off the drug while in prison, has allied himself with and fought Batman on several occasions without any chemical assistance, and is established as an Batman-level strategist. Every single interpretation of him in other media is a thug who goes down the second he's deprived of Venom, and is often Dumb Muscle to boot.
- Batman Arkham Asylum is... a bit mixed on this. Although it portrays him as still a Venom addict, and has him almost completely paralyzed when Dr. Young literally removes all traces of it from his body, merely being unhooked from his Venom pump barely slows him down. The roof collapsing on him manages to buy enough time for Batman and Commissioner Gordon to get out... but he turns out to have been feigning defeat to try to catch Batman off guard. Unfortunately for him, Batman actually anticipated this, and knocks him into the river with the Batmobile when he tries to ambush them. Not quite "Batman-level strategist without chemical dependencies", but a step in the right direction.
- For what its worth, the Venom dependency was also averted in LEGO Batman. He actually defeats himself though, keeping with the dumb muscle portion.
- In Batman: The Animated Series Bane only uses Venom at a strategic point of the decisive fight, and is defeated when Batman opens the valve to his tank, severely overdosing him with the drug.
Superboy Prime has become an immature whiny sociopath in Infinite Crisis, but still has some motives that make him slip near Well Intentioned Extremist. But Countdown To Final Crisis gave him serious Character Derailment making him say one line after which fans forget about that and marked him as an complete idiot and nobody can treat him seriously after that. This line was:
Prime: I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!
Jimmy Olsen will never live down turning into the Giant Turtle Boy. Out of all the things he's turned into, that seems to be the one people are most determined to remind him of.
This is often how J'onn J'onzz feels about his time with the Justice League International

Star Wars: Darth Vader has the You Have Failed Me trope as his Never Live It Down, despite only doing it twice in the movies.
- The casual manner in which Darth Vader dispatches his incompetent underlings, as well as taking into account The Law Of Conservation Of Detail, suggests that this is a common occurrence.
- Leia kissed Luke precisely once, specifically to make a point to Han, and before and after that there is nothing particularly sexual between them, but some people seem to genuinely believe they were screwing like incestuous bunnies before Return of the Jedi. Wishful thinking? Squick!
  - Actually it was twice. Once in each film. And the romance between the two was originally intended, until sometime during Empire, when they decided on Han instead.
- A more unfortunate Star Wars example: it seems no one can mention General Grievous without someone bringing up his... less than dignified ending.
James Bond has become known as the film series where 'The main Bond girl works for the villains until she falls in love with James Bond'. In fact, this has only happened on two occasions; in Goldfinger and Casino Royale. Most of the other times, the Bond girl is either an ally of Bond from the first (e.g. You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service), an innocent drawn into the villain's schemes (e.g. Dr No, A View to A Kill, Goldeneye), working with the villains but unaware of the true nature of their plans (From Russia With Love, Octopussy), a willing accomplice/Big Bad who never changes sides (The World Is Not Enough) or effectively a slave rather than an ally of the villains (Thunderball, Live and Let Die).
- Complicating matters, several Bond films (such as Thunderball, Goldeneye and Die Another Day) have genuinely evil beautiful henchwomen as well as heroines, and Bond will sleep with said evil henchwoman, in almost every single film. Doesn't help that Bond is also a frequent offender of tropes like Sex Equals Love and Its Not Rape If You Enjoyed It.
In-universe example in Superbad:
Seth: Hey Greg, why don't you go piss your pants?
Greg the Soccer Player: That was like 8 years ago, asshole!
Seth: People don't forget!
Indirectly in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back's depiction of Jason Biggs, eternally remembered as "the pie fucker".
The parody disaster movie The Big Bus contains the immortal line "Jeeze! You eat one foot and they call you a cannibal!"
Invoked in David Cronenberg's The Brood when Robert Silverman's character intends to sue the psychiatric clinic (run by Oliver Reed) that he believes to be responsible for his lymph cancer. He knows he's going to lose the case, but he also knows that in a few years, people won't even remember the verdict.
All they'll remember is the slogun: "Psychoplasmics Gives You Cancer." Catchy, huh?

As mentioned in the Transmetropolitan example, there's an old joke that is practically the essence of Never Live It Down, which has one poor guy relating all his accomplishments over many years, and then memorably ending with: "But you fuck one goat..."

Hamlet is well-known for being indecisive and angsty, spending scenes contemplating his navel instead of doing something. It's gotten to the point where "he's a Hamlet" means "he's indecisive." But in the actual play, Hamlet acts stupidly rash just as often as he acts stupidly timid, most notably when he kills Polonius. Which means...
The Three Musketeers only say "All for one and one for all!" twice in the original books; most adaptations have them saying it all the time.
Don Quixote is well-known for being an idealistic fool in a cold grey world, a laughingstock and Butt Monkey. As a result, there's a huge Misaimed Fandom that sees him as an ideal to strive for even if he can't win. The original Quixote was an idealistic fool, but it wasn't his entire character. Both the Misaimed Fandom and the people who laugh at him forget that he was also an unsympathetic snob, who used his "knighthood" as an excuse to not pay for things and to bully his social inferiors, especially Sancho. Part of why he isn't remembered this way is the Adaptation Decay in Man of La Mancha, which emphasized his foolish idealism a lot more. ("Dream...the impossible dream...")
Ginny Weasley of the Harry Potter series has a reputation in the fandom for being a little tart who can't keep her knickers on. In the canon, she dated three guys (no, not at once) over a period of four years before marrying the last one. Interestingly, Hermione has also dated exactly three people, one for rather petty reasons, and no one accuses her of being a slut.
- That's because most of the people who subscribe to the former want Harry to hook up with the latter.
Alanna from the Tortall books suffers from a similar reputation, despite having had relationships with a grand total of three guys in her life, each of them long-term and serious, one of which became a marriage. Yet that's still more than any of Tamora Pierce's other protagonists (except Briar in the Circle of Magic universe), so she gets stuck with a Slutty McSluttington image in some readers' minds.
- The books were banned from a few school libraries as a result of her supposed sexual promiscuity, which probably didn't help.
An in-universe example is Kyp Durron, a powerful young Jedi who once got either possessed or heavily influenced by an ancient and very evil ghost, and who then fished out an indestructible superweapon that had been dropped into the heart of a gas giant and proceeded to use it to cause a supernova that destroyed a rather populated planet. He was then very quickly and easily brought back into the light and put the superweapon into a black hole, then got off basically scot-free in the trilogy where he originally featured. Basically every book to feature him since then has called him on it, particularly I, Jedi, a sort of Fix Fic trying to get the trilogy to make sense, where the main character leaves in disgust after this mass-murderer is welcomed back into the Jedi Academy for training. Other books paint Kyp as the perpetual Atoner, having it and his lack of punishment constantly brought up.
A few of the people in the Bible have traits they'll never live down. "Doubting" Thomas springs to mind.
- Yeah, and in his case, I think part of it is that he wasn't there the first time, according to John, so he got some focus on him for that reason, as well as his own "text bite". Mark records that they hadn't believed Mary Magdalene or two of the others when they told the disciples about it, and that Jesus "upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen." Luke and John record that He showed them His hands; Luke says feet as well while John says side. So yeah, they also didn't believe, and also needed it proven; maybe another factor was that he didn't believe them.
- Still a little unfair for Thomas, given that his other key moment: Jesus was planning to go back to town where the authorities would kill them. The other disciples are understandable wary. Thomas's response? "Well, let's go die with him." He may've doubted that one time, but he still was willing to go through with going into danger for the sake of his Lord.
  - Some sources claim Thomas attempted to convert India - and he was tortured to death. Without failing in his faith.
  - Back in the day this was one of the standard ways of gaining sainthood, rather than, say, just becoming Pope.
This happens in continuity in the Wayside School book series. There were three kids in the class named Eric (Fry, Bacon, and Ovens). Eric Bacon and Eric Ovens were bad at sports so everyone just assumed Eric Fry was bad at sports when he was actually great. The only time people noticed him playing was when he caught a ball that slipped out of his hand. Everyone called him "Butterfingers" after that.
- This happened with both of the others as well. Eric Bacon is much skinnier than the other two, yet he's called "Fatso;" Eric Ovens is easily the nicest and most easygoing, but he gets nicknamed "Crabapple."
In universe example with the Discworld character, Sam Vimes. One of his ancestors, Stoneface Vimes, led an army of rebels against the insane, murderous, pedophile king. But after their victory, no judge or jury could be found that would dare stand up against royalty. So Stoneface took matters into his own hands and performed the execution himself. Despite thus being one of the most important figures in Ankh-Morpork's history, the one thing everyone remembers about him is that he was a "regicide". The modern Vimes dislikes that term, saying "It was only one king. It's not like it was a habit."
- It probably doesn't help that the modern Vimes reminds everyone of Stoneface.
Josella Playton in The Day of the Triffids writes a novel which her publisher ends up titling Sex Is My Adventure. Even years after civilization has collapsed and the titular killer plants are running amok, people she meets are still mentioning this book.
Richard Rahl, protagonist of the Sword of Truth, once led his troops to cut through a peace protest staged by Too Dumb To Live political strawmen to get to the Complete Monster villains they're guarding, during the book that even fans acknowledge as a Wall Banger that's best ignored. The key word here, of course, is "once". A good chunk of the times it's mentioned on this wiki, though, it's phrased to make it sound like he spends all eleven books doing nothing but slaughtering pacifists.
- Except that that moment is just the most extreme manifestation of a theme constantly expressed throughout the books: that sufficient ends (here, stopping a Complete Monster) justify some pretty darn evil means. It's not just an isolated mistake or bad judgment, but a logical and consistent result of his character's philosophy.
Even if Eragon from the Inheritance Cycle acts like the moral equivalent of Superman in his next book, he'll never let down all of the messed up things he did in the last two books.
- Having not read the books in question... from that description, one of us is confused about what this trope really means. Most of the other examples are people who screwed up big one time, not over and over again. If you need to use the phrase "all the messed up things," this is more of a Face Heel Turn (or a Heel Face Turn, if he does Straighten Up and Fly Right).
In-Universe example: Jaime "Kingslayer" Lannister is remembered primarily for murdering the man he was supposed to protect. What is forgotten is that the king in question was a Complete Monster who was killed to prevent him from roasting an entire city full of people alive.
Twilight may be popular for other things, but now thanks to the movie, everyone associates the entire saga with sparkly vampires.
- Baseball-playing sparkly vampires.
- The sparkly vampires were already infamous (at least among Fan Haters) before the movie, but the movie definitely compounded it.
In The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, Chief Inspector Spratt is constantly having to defend himself against a reputation for killing giants ("Technically, only one of them was a giant; the others were just tall.") Of course, his full name is Jack Spratt. As in 'Jack the Giant Killer', which might gave something to do with it.

Many have declared JD of Scrubs as becoming Too Dumb To Live based on a few moments of poor geography and politics skills (specifically once being unable to find Iraq on a map, and not knowing the difference between a Senator and Congressman) instead of just being bad at those subjects.
- Not to mention the fact that in order to get to where he was in the show, he first had to achieve pretty good high-school grades, work his way through four years of pre-med, and then another four years of med-school.
- In fairness, this impression may be heightened by the countless other times he acts like a moron.
  - Which doesn't change that he is repeatedly shown over the course of the show as a good doctor, despite a few moments over the run where he struggled, being highly knowledgeable and effective. He also has been described on this very wiki as a Jerk Ass because of some selfish behaviour he often partakes in, and some pettiness, and he is indeed self involved and weird. But he is also consistently shown to be kind, friendly, sensitive and, if a little annoying, actually a very decent person.
Harry Kim from Star Trek Voyager and his habit of dying and coming back to life. It's been exaggerated by the fans, though, to the point where someone who only knew the show through its fans would think Harry's grave says "Harry Kim: Born: 2341. Died: 2371, 2372, 2373, 2374..."
- The same could be said of Daniel Jackson's many deaths/resurrection/ascension (although that last one only happened twice). It's lampshaded in the series itself. The Other Wiki used to list them; it's about 22 times.
  - Fanfiction also tends to over-exaggerate Daniel's coffee addiction. While he usually has a cup of coffee in his hands when they're on Earth, and Sam has commented on it a few times (mind you, over ten years), it's brought up among the fandom to the point of ridiculousness.
A recurring joke about the Daleks in Doctor Who was their inability to go up stairs. This weakness was addressed in the 1988 serial 'Remembrance of the Daleks', but the jokes persisted at least up until 2005, when 'Dalek' — which also addressed this point — was shown. It's perhaps worth pointing out that, by the time the first story aired, the audience of Doctor Who was roughly three guys and a dog, so it's possible that not enough people actually saw it for the change to sink in.
- And in some quarters it's still what the Daleks are most famous for, despite the fact that the Daleks in the new series spend half their time flying around like nobody's business. The creatures also get flak for having "plungers for hands".
- To be fair, this was a fairly important limitation before they started flying (25 years after their first appearance). The Fourth Doctor once escaped them by climbing up a ceiling duct and then calling down "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us? Bye bye!"
- The Daleks' habit of coming back from the dead, however, is as justified as the Master's reputation for doing so.
Similarly, any discussion of "Classic" (pre-2005) Doctor Who will feature a lot of people talking about "shaky sets and monsters made of bubblewrap". One particularly dedicated fan has watched every episode of Classic Who available on DVD (which includes most of the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker era that most people are recalling), and counted exactly one incident of each of those.
The Swedish TV show Hipp! Hipp! featured the character Mike Higgins. Despite using the same entry-line in every episode he appeared, it's the last line he ever said in the series that people remember:
Mike: And let me just finish by saying: Go to hell.
One of the biggest pricing game flops on The Price Is Right was a mid-90s game called "Split Decision". It has a reputation for being the game where nothing worked right and the board was constantly falling apart. In truth, there was one playing where two of the numbers fell off their markers. The game's short life was due to the fact that contestants simply had trouble understanding the rules.
In The Brady Bunch, Jan only said "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" ONCE in the whole series.
- Most people probably remember it from The Movie.
Similarly, in Friends, Chandler utters his famous catchphrase "Could x be more y?" maybe twice. Yet somehow, it becomes the go-to tease whenever any of the other characters mock him.
- If the other characters are teasing him about it, it's possible that he does it a lot off-screen and we just don't see it... or, equally plausible, it may be a Real Life (in the series' continuity) version of this trope.
- Lampshaded in one of the last seasons when Joey goes to Monica's Halloween party as Chandler, and his "impression" consists of nothing more than repeating the last thing Chandler said and adding, "BLEARGHHHHHHHHH!" on the end. Everyone laughs, except Chandler (who points out that he doesn't do that).
James Kirk is well known as a space-traveling playboy who has more notches than bedpost. In fact, despite liberal use of soft lens and hey-look-a-pretty-girl music, Kirk didn't get involved with many of the women he met in his travels and was even occasionally portrayed as an uptight boy scout. And the rest of the male cast seemed to get involved with women at least as often as Kirk did.
- Similarly, we don't actually see Scotty drunk or drinking that often, and the most stand-out example was him trying to put one over on an enemy, but in fanfic he's the guy you go to for booze. (The fact that the character is Scottish probably adds to this.)
- In a somewhat odd example, Chekov's made-in-Russia bit never became the full-blown running gag it was originally meant to be, but the way the fans go on you wouldn't know better without watching the series yourself.
  - However, used to great effect in the fourth movie The Voyage Home, because if there's a worse choice to send to ask a late-20th-century US police officer where the US Navy keeps its nuclear craft than someone clearly ignorant of local geography in an unfamiliar-but-obviously-not-US-Navy uniform speaking with a pronounced Russian accent, I can't think of who it would be.
Besides Billy's braininess, Trini's translating, Zack's dancing, Kim's gymnastics, and Jason's jocular nature, no other quirk for any of the Power Rangers from the first season lasted for longer than that particular episode's plot requirements demanded it... except for Tommy's being a complete scatterbrain, which took root in the fanon after a single episode and ultimately got many a Call Back in subsequent incarnations. This is all the more amusing for the fact Tommy is the Trope Namer for Sixth Rangers and one of the biggest Canon Sues around.
- Hilariously called back by Kat and Hayley in both his original exit in Power Rangers Turbo and his earliest episodes of Power Rangers Dino Thunder.
  - Not to mention Tommy himself after taking the time, while chased by a rampaging robot dinosaur, to buckle up and lock the door on his (open top) jeep.
  - Possibly expecting to make some sharp maneuvers and not interested in getting thrown out of the car?
In-universe example in Law and Order: SVU: A social worker is called to trial for placing a child in an abusive home, which eventually led to his death. The bad publicity and death threats she receives drive her to suicide, with her last words lampshading that she has saved hundreds of children but will only be remembered for this one.
- Very much Truth In Television. Whether justified or not, a person is expected to do their job well, and a disproportionate amount of attention is almost always placed on any and all mistakes.
While The Shield star David Rees Snell (aka "Ronnie Gardocki") had a manly beard for the bulk of the series, it's not the beard that the actor is most remembered for facial hairwise; it's his magnificent porn star moustache that David Rees Snell had for the first two seasons of the show.
When Jack McCoy has an argument with one of his subordinates over questionable tactics, expect the phrase "You once hid a witness" to come up. In the episode "Under The Influence" (s8e11), McCoy hid an exculpatory witness from the defense, in order to maintain murder charges against a drunk driver who killed two pedestrians (a mother and daughter). (He later relents, but still faced sanctions for his actions).
- Similarly, expect the fact that he slept with Claire Kincaid to pop up at least once a season.
During her time on General Hospital, whenever Winifred and Maxie were on the same screen, she would always remind her that Winnie was the one who put Spinelli in prison (as part of her job as an FBI agent). By the end of her run, she wasn't even an FBI agent anymore. She was removed from the show for other reasons.
- Sam McCall is well known for kidnapping Jason's son Jake. This is brought up every time Jason and Samantha share screen time. Despite the fact that she didn't even kidnap the boy; she merely kept quiet about who did. Even better, she would later save the same child from a burning building (in a separate incident), but she's still known as the one who kidnapped Jake.
In-universe example: Agent Booth on Bones once, in a moment of personal stress, drew his weapon and fired two rounds into a robotic clown-head atop an ice cream truck. Several seasons later, after he'd completed counseling, got reinstated and received commendations for his work, it still gets brought up by folks from other government agencies when they want an excuse not to trust him with sensitive documents.
Nanny Fine will occasionally rub Mr. Sheffield's nose in his decision to pass on producing Cats for Broadway.
Sheffield: Fran, how long will you keep reminding me of one bloody mistake?
Fran: Now... and forever, Mr. Sheffield.
Burt Newton's infamous line about Muhummad Ali at the Australian Logies: I like the boy. Meant without any malice at all, but he will be forever known (outside of Australia) as 'That racist guy who nearly got beat up by Muhummad Ali'.
Find yourself on a long-form reality gameshow? Don't say anything silly in the first week!
Shadow Moon is undoubtably the most popular Kamen Rider villains. And that's all he's remembered as. Even though in his canonical death in Kamen Rider Black RX, he had a last moment Heel Face Turn, that's always forgotten in favor of how kickass he was as a villain.

If you look at his portrayal in popular media, you'd think Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar at every concert when he actually only did so three times in his entire career. Also, the popularity of "Hey Joe" got to the point where it would be constantly requested, to Hendrix's chagrin. In this performance on British pop star Lulu's program, the Experience stops playing it midway, Hendrix says "We'd like to stop playing this rubbish", and they launch into an impromptu cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love".
- To be fair, three guitars in his entire career is probably three more guitars than most musicians have burned in their entire lives.
In the Polish circles of the Internet, "musician" and the finalist of the Polish edition of Idol Szymon Wydra is more known for how he has infamously thought of piracy as something worse than murder than for his music. And for a good reason!
- Heck, publicity in any way admitting that your views on Intellectual Property mimics the ones of the Profit-Happy American Entertainment Industry can be a tough thing to live down. I would personally salute you if that crusade against Napster isn't the first thing coming to your mind whenever you think of Lars Ulrich.
Ozzy Osbourne did a lot of crazy shit during his younger years as a rocker, but the incident that sticks out in a lot of people's minds is that particular concert where somebody threw a bat on stage, and Ozzy, thinking it was a toy rubber bat and not the real deal, bit its head off. People have never let him forget about it since, and he's had to explain more than once that "it was only fucking once."
- Then again, he did follow that up by biting the head off a live dove. So Yeah...
  - I'm pretty sure the dove happened first, then the bat.
- For Texans, that incident may take a back seat to one that occurred shortly afterward: he urinated on the Alamo, while wearing one of Sharon's dresses. It's A Long Story.
Okay how many of you ever heard of Amy Winehouse BEFORE she became a known joke for getting arrested for drug charges?
- ::Raises hand::.
- Another hand. Frank and Back To Black are teh awesome.
No one will ever let David Bowie forget that he did his best work while claiming to be a bisexual space alien.
- Well, there's that and the notorious AREA...
Jessica Simpson: "Chicken of the sea". That is all.
The Nu Metal genre as a whole. It doesn't matter how much they tweak their style or whether they overhaul it entirely, nu-metal bands will forever be known for having once played nu-metal.
Ike Turner was one of Rock And Roll's pioneers. A talented musician and producer and as part of Ike and Tina Turner, part of one of the most popular music acts of the 70s. It used to be that he was less remembered for that than for his physical abuse of his wife Tina. Now it's for his almost-comical denial of said abuse.
- On a side note, Lawrence Fishburne once remarked it was years after he played Ike in What's Love Got to Do with It that black women finally stopped giving him the evil eye.

To the Canadian Professional Wrestling fans, Shawn Michaels is forever known as the guy that screwed Bret Hart out of the WWF Championship. To this day, whenever Michaels or former WWE and current TNA referee Earl Hebner appear in Canada, the fans would chant "YOU SCREWED BRET!" at them.
- Likewise, Bret Hart is remembered by casual (or non-wrestling) fans as that guy who got screwed out of the title, and the fact that he cannot get over it.
Neither Edge nor Lita's careers were ever the same ever again in 2005, after they cheated on their previous lovers (Edge with his second wife, Lita with Matt Hardy) and started dating each other.
- Edge seems to have gotten off easy. Lita, on the other hand, was on the verge of a mental breakdown due to the constant chants of "Slut" (among many others), and retired.
While Vince Russo is the worst thing to ever happen to wrestling, in his defense, many casual fans are under the impression that he regularly had wrestlers lay down in the ring for him, and held the World Heavyweight Championship for an absurd period of time. In reality, he routinely allowed guys like Flair to use him as a punching bag. And his WHC win? He was on the losing end of that Cage Match, when Goldberg "accidentally" speared him through the side of the cage, causing him to win by default. He vacated the title two days later.
In wrestling circles, Kevin Sullivan is notable for "booking his own divorce". And you know the rest...
- ...and just in case you don't, his ex-wife would later marry Chris Benoit...

People won't remember Zinedine Yazid Zidane for anything else than headbutting Marco Materazzi during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, though he didn't do much else after it, as he retired...
- His performance at the 1998 World Cup won't be forgotten, at least in Brazil.
- Likewise, people won't remember Marco Materazzi for anything else than insulting Zinedine Zidane's family/religion/race during the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The actual insult was directed at Zidane's sister, whose existence Materazzi claims to have not been aware of.
Bill Buckner was one of the best hitting first basemen of his era, winning the 1980 National League batting title and finishing his career with over 2700 hits. Yet all anyone seems to remember about him is this one play he failed to make in this one World Series game...
- And you know what the really crazy thing is? The game was already blown! Yet somehow, no one seems to mention the wild pitch on the preceding play that allowed the Mets to score the tying run. Oh, and since the whole underlying theme seems to be how the Red Sox never could win the big one, shouldn't, y'know, GAME SEVEN be part of the discussion?
- Then there's Scott Norwood, a Buffalo Bills kicker who missed a go-ahead field goal in the final seconds of Super Bowl XXV. That the Bills would go on to lose the next three Super Bowls as well (their own Never Live It Down moment) probably didn't help matters.
  - I always found this ridiculous and more than a little pathetic. A Super Bowl-caliber team wins with touchdowns. Period. You NEVER want it to come down to a do-or-die, diamond-making pressure field goal. Look at how much flack the Baltimore Ravens got because Scott Norwood was scoring all the points (and they won the SB that year!). Wide Right was a litle tragic, but not particularly surprising.
  - Boy I Love Losing Superbowls.
  - Buckner got a very warm ovation when he appeared at Fenway in 2008. But I'm sure the '04 and '07 titles had nothing to do with it.
- As long as we're discussing the Red Sox... Grady Little. There probably isn't a Red Sox fan in the word who can't hear Little's name without reflexively shouting "TAKE OUT PEDRO!" For those who don't follow baseball, the Red Sox (whom Little managed) in 2003 were five outs away from reaching the World Series when Little chose to leave tiring starter Pedro Martinez in the game rather than summon a fresher pitcher from the bullpen. The Yankees tied the game and went on to win on an 11th inning home run from the unlikely Aaron Boone, knocking the Red Sox out of the playoffs. Little was fired after the season, possibly the only time that a Major League manager was ever fired for a single in-game decision.
- This can be said of many, many athletes. In NHL hockey, Ty Conklin has been a brilliant regular-season goalie for Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and now Detroit. Nobody will let him play in the playoffs, however, because of one mistake in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, playing for Edmonton, which allowed an easy goal for the opponent.
Kermit Washington was an All-Star NBA forward for the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers. After his playing days he was a popular radio host and was heavily involved in charity work. But mention his name, and 99% of people who recognize it will go straight to the night he nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich with a freak haymaker. (Often inaccurately described as a "sucker punch"). And before winning championships and Olympic gold as a coach, Rudy T was most remembered as being the recipient of that punch (despite being an All-NBA level player prior to that night).
- Tomjanovich, likewise, has noted that for much of his life people would come up to him and say, "I know you - you're the guy who got nailed."
Joe Namath was one of America's first rock star athletes, best known for his guarantee of victory for his underdog New York Jets over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Now most people, especially younger fans, think of him first and foremost for drunkenly hitting on ESPN's Suzy Kolber during a Monday Night game. It doesn't help that the incident provided the name for one of the most popular sports humor blogs around: Kissing Suzy Kolber.
- In his own era, Namath was lambasted for wearing a mink coat on the sidelines.
- Well, that and the panty hose. (It was for a commercial, not a Lifestyle Choice.)
Sam Bowie was the #2 pick of the 1984 NBA Draft out of the University of Kentucky. He played eleven years in the Association with Portland, New Jersey, and the LA Lakers. Most average NBA fans only know him as the guy the Trail Blazers drafted instead of some junior out of North Carolina... some kid named Jordan. This is a rather unfair condemnation of both Bowie and Portland, given that Portland needed a big man (of which Bowie was the best on the board, after the #1 pick, Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon) much more than they needed another shooting guard, having used the previous year's first rounder on Olajuwon's former (and future) teammate, Clyde Drexler.
- Justified, though, because the injury-prone Bowie never lived up to his potential; he only scored 1000 points for a season once, while Jordan scored more than 2000 points 11 times. Note that Houston didn't catch flak for taking Olajuwon when they didn't need a big man (they had Ralph Sampson at the time) because Hakeem did become a Hall of Fame player, leading Houston to the only two championships between '91 and '98 not won by Jordan's Bulls.
Unless you know the man personally, there is only one way and one way only you'll recognize the name "Vinko Bogataj" (an otherwise obscure Yugoslavian ski jumper from the late 60s): The spectacular ramp 1970 wipeout that forever gained pop culture icon status as "'The Agony Of Defeat' Guy."
Legendary ABC sportscaster Keith Jackson isn't sure how the Catch Phrase "Whoa Nelly!" got so closely associated with him. By his own recollection, he's said it maybe six times in thirty-plus years of broadcasting. But the sports fandom seems to think he does it at least once every broadcast. (Though he does bust it out for a Dr. Pepper commercial)
Robin Ventura played Major League Baseball for fifteen seasons. He was a three-time All-Star and a five-time Golden Glove (Best defensive player at his position) winner. Most, of course, only remember Ventura being on the wrong end on one of the most hilariously one-sided fights in baseball history: On August 4, 1993, Ventura charged the mound after getting hit by a pitch from the legendary Nolan Ryan (A player twenty years Ventura's senior). Ryan simply grabbed Ventura in a headlock and pummeled him in the head until Ryan's teammates separated them.
- The Rangers frequently show a historical highlight reel prior to games at The Ballpark that includes four Ryan highlights: The 5000th strikeout, the sixth and seventh no-hitters, and the Ventura incident. Guess which one always gets the most cheers.
- Mets fans remember Ventura for the "grand slam single" he hit to win Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS against Atlanta.
Australian cricketer Shane Warne, for sending lewd text messages while drunk. If he'd sent as many as it's generally believed he has, his thumb would have fallen off by now.
Ronaldo was known for many things, including being one of the greatest ~~soccer players~~ footballers of his generation, marrying to a few supermodels, and being a little overweight. But then an incident with transsexuals went in the media. He claims he though they were women, but still became the "transvestite-loving-player". Thankfully he resurrected himself to ~~football~~ play soccer with Corinthians, and now this incident is kind of forgotten.
Latrell Sprewell will forever be remembered as the guy who choked his coach.
Roberto Baggio was one of the best Italian strikers of all time, winning two Serie A and a UEFA Cup, and being chosen as best player in the world in 1993. Yet the most memorable fact about him is losing a penalty in the 1994 World Cup final.
- Likewise, Zico, a brilliant Brazilian player, is always remembered for losing a penalty in the game Brazil was eliminated in the 1986 World Cup.
Sportscaster Howard Cosell was a mainstay of ABC Sports: color commentator for Monday Night Football and go-to interviewer in the sports world. But he could never shake the stigma of racism attached to him after an infamous 1983 MNF game, where he reacted to a catch-and-run by Washington receiver Alvin Garrett with "Look at that little monkey run." (Garrett is Black). He resigned his MNF post at the end of the 1983 season, and never regained his status among sportscasters (his open disdain for the people running boxing - his other bread-and-butter sport - didn't help).
Similarly, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was a mainstay on CBS' NFL pregame show for twelve years. He became an instant pariah after a 1988 newspaper interview where he stated his believe that black athletes were inherently superior to whites because black were bred for size and strength during slavery.
- And that came mere months after Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis went on Nightline and aired his views that blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager." He tried to explain afterwards that he meant that what blacks lacked was experience, not intelligence. But he had long been forced out of his job by then. Defenders of Cosell, Snyder and Campanis say that they were unfairly railroaded and branded "racist" by the forces of Political Correctness.
In the early 80s, Austalian footballer John Burke pushed over an umpire and attacked a spectator. He was given a ten year suspension, effectively ending his career, but the footage has been circulating ever since. Commentator "Slug" Jordan's "He's done well, the boy" in response to the incident hasn't helped.
O.J. Simpson. Nothing more need be said.
George Brett, despite finishing his career with more than 3100 hits, is forever remembered for throwing a huge fit in 1983 when an umpire disallowed a home run for too much pine tar on his bat (a ruling that was later overturned). He doesn't mind this, though, since before that incident he was remembered for suffering from hemorrhoids during the 1980 World Series.
Jim Marshall was a two-time NFL Pro Bowler, a member of the legendary Minnesota Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" defense, held the record for consecutive games played (282) and started (270 - both since surpassed but he still holds the mark for defensive players) and who recovered more fumbles than anyone in history. But he's forever remembered as "the guy who ran the wrong way" - on October 25, 1964, he recovered a fumble and ran it 66 yards into his Minnesota Vikings' own end zone, scoring a safety for the San Francisco 49ers. (The Vikings still won the game, largely because Marshall forced another fumble later.)
Patrik Stefan, while considered to be a hockey player who never lived up to his potential, will probably never be able to live down a gaffe where he missed a shot and slipped and fell while on a breakaway against an empty net, the Edmonton Oilers skated down to the other end, and Ales Hemsky scored to take the game to overtime.
Tiger Woods seems to be heading down this path and it's only been about...a month since news broke.
Steve Garvey is a Hall of Fame baseball player and successful businessman. But ever since two paternity suits in 1989, he's become "that guy with all the kids all over the place".
Roberto Alomar: Over 2700 career hits. Twelve All-Star appearances. Ten Gold Gloves. Led the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Championships, the only ones in team history. Considered a strong candidate to make the Baseball Hall of Fame. What's he remembered for? Spitting on an umpire.
- Alomar narrowly missed being elected to the Hall his first time on the ballot. It's speculated that the spitting incident caused some writers to keep him off their ballots.
To Buckeye fans and faithful, Woody Hayes is remembered as one of their best college football coaches, leading Ohio State to two consensus and three non-consensus National Championships and 13 division titles and giving their football program the prestige and style it has today. To most others—and especially to Clemson fans—he's remembered for one thing: punching an opposing player after an interception ruined OSU's comeback and sealed Clemson's victory (and OSU's loss) in the 1978 Gator Bowl.
Juan Marichal, another baseball Hall of Famer, for years was only remembered for an incident in which he attacked Dodgers catcher John Roseboro on the field with a bat.

Just like the Jean Grey example itself, Zero from Mega Man X is known in the fandom for dying and resurrecting at the drop of a hat, which isn't exactly fair. He's only died canonically, what, ~~4/5~~ 3 times? ~~And he's not revived the last time.~~ Scratch that, he came back as a biometal. In the words of Sigma: "ZELLO! JUZDIE!" Perhaps this is because Zero is The Obi Wan and the writers thought he was too Bad Ass to keep dead.
- According to the creator, Zero was originally supposed to stay dead the first time. It didn't work out.
- Fans also forget that X himself isn't much better. Zero was supposed to die in X5, but it was retconned to a near-death - and X himself also nearly died. Zero died later on when the Ragnarok Satellite fell, and by then X was already dead and even his 'cyber-elf' spirit had vanished from the physical world. And X was also brought back as a biometal same time as Zero. Discounting the retconned death, Zero has died twice, X once, and both have a close-call each.
- Another example from the series: Guts Man of the original Mega Man, believed to be a Dumb Muscle mostly thanks to his portrayal in the animated series. Mega Man Powered Up tried to correct this, by explicitly showing that, while Guts Man really isn't a genius, he's not that dumb, either.
Final Fantasy is often treated as thought all of its leads are androgynous bishonen men, and especially ever since Tetsuya Nomura took over the duties of being the main artist. Now, let's recap. The main characters Nomura has drawn have been this guy◊, this guy,◊ this guy◊, and this girl.◊ Anyone here actually having trouble telling their gender?
- Although most of the accusations regarding Tidus in particular were directed towards his CG model◊, which does seem to bear at least a family resemblance to American actress Meg Ryan. The rest could perhaps be blamed on Sephiroth, who seems to get as much attention, if not more, from the fangirls as the Final Fantasy heroes (...combined).
- Wait. Wait wait wait. Tetsuya Nomura is the man behind androgynous superbish? Did I hallucinate Cecil Harvey?
  - Compare with Bartz and Edgar/Locke/Sabin/Cyan. Cecil was an anomaly, perhaps an early manifestation of things to come.
- There also seems to be a belief that all Square Enix characters will look like Kuja◊. Expressed succinctly in all its wrong-headed glory by this tutorial on how to design one. Ironically, the logo of the piece shows a diverse group of characters, including a woman, that look nothing like how the tutorial depicts them.
  - Also, it should be noted that Kuja is often described as looking feminine within the actual game, making him hardly suitable for a standard.
- For me, the most gender-ambiguous character listed above (besides Kuja) is actually Lightning. I know she's a she — who doesn't at this point? — but she's definitely got some non-effeminate masculinity going for her. And if the woman is manly, what does that say about the men?
- Related is the thought that Nomura is obsessed with White Haired Pretty Boys. While he has designed some, nearly all the major examples from the Final Fantasy series were designed by Amano, including Sephiroth. That's right, Amano designed Sephiroth first.
- People like referring to crazy, spiked hairstyles as "Final Fantasy" hair, especially when meant as an insult. Cloud has pretty much been the only playable character to feature realistically impossible hair, and even he has been redesigned to have more believable hair in successive games and movies. In fact, no other final fantasy game has ever featured very outlandish hair, and the more realistic-syled games (VIII, X, XIII) look, well, realistic, but since Final Fantasy VII made the series truly hit mainstream, the series seems to be unable to live it down.
Despite resolving the majority of his issues and becoming a confident leader by the end of the game, Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife will always be known as an angsty, navel-gazing introvert. Likewise, Aerith has been painted so heavily with The Messiah and Yamato Nadeshiko brushes that most people forget that she was a spunky, energetic young woman who fell in love with an Expy of her dead first boyfriend and frequently caused problems by running off on her own. Interestingly, this creates something of a Hype Backlash, in that Square Enix is often accused of pandering to the extreme version of this when in fact they still portray the characters faithfully. Some folks in fact seem to forget that Cloud did have unresolved issues at the end of FF7 and FF7 itself also puts Aerith in the role of a messianic figure at several key plot points.
- Square Enix really has nobody but themselves to blame for this. Two words: Advent Children.
- Really, though... Aerith's death by Sephiroth's hand is something else she'll never live down. (Boo. Hiss.)
  - Sephiroth himself is often depicted in fanworks as a sympathetic figure, who angsts about only wanting maternal affection and wishing to be accepted by humanity and free of Shinra. In the original game, although he does express an intense interest in unlocking the secrets of his birth, Sephiroth does not really come off as feeling victimized by his life circumstances, nor does he ever express emotional vulnerability while under JENOVA's control. Crisis Core, however, does indicate that he is quite desperate to understand himself, but he is still not the innocent villain many make him out to be.
  - Controlled by Jenova? No, Word Of God said that Sephiroth is not under anyone's control, he's doing all of this out of his own free will, but, Fanon, what do I know?
  - Part of the problem was that the game presented this initiatlly as an instant Heel Face Turn, while also mentioning that Jenova was a psychic demon-god. Sephiroth was previously apparently a decent if quiet man, so his random turn from "upset" to "wants to kill humanity" hardly made sense without suggesting Jenova was really behind it. And that doesn't even get into the weirder parts.
Ever since Dissidia portrayed Squall looking after Bartz and Zidane while they got in troubles, he has gained a reputation as the Team Mom, which ended up making around half or more of his characterization in Fan Art, exaggerating that trait either Just For Fun or because they find it Sickeningly Sweet.
- Squall has shown shades of this in other incarnations, in particular his defense of Zell and later the entire Garden in Final Fantasy VIII, and his Leon characterization in the Kingdom Hearts series. It wasn't until Dissidia that the idea really got popular, so this may also be a case of Older Than They Think.
Samus Aran of Metroid fame has a reputation for having any planet or space station she steps on destroyed by the time she leaves. The actual truth of this has varied over the years, but here are the facts:
- In Metroid, she visits Zebes (or Zebeth). Technical limitations make it really unclear the extent of the Load Bearing Boss's destruction, but later games make it clear it survived.
- Metroid II takes place on SR-388, which survives.
  - The ending to Metroid II does imply that SR-388 is destroying itself — that, in fact, as Samus kills the evolved Metroids, their deaths cause the planet to destroy itself. It isn't until Metroid Fusion that it is clarified that the cataclysm was on a much smaller scale.
- Super Metroid starts out on a space station which gets destroyed (through no fault of her own). Samus then goes back to Zebes, and blows it up via Load Bearing Boss.
- Metroid Fusion takes place on a space station orbiting SR-388. She ends up having to Colony Drop the space station into SR-388 to stop the X parasites, destroying the colony, the X parasites, and SR-388. This is the only point where this association was literately 100% true, though Metroid Prime below was released almost concurrently with Fusion.
- Metroid Prime starts on an enemy space station. Samus defeats the Parasite Queen which had fled to the ship's reactor core, and upon its death, it fell in - not technically a Load Bearing Boss, but the same effect. Ship crashes to Tallon IV, planet is fine. Ship is wrecked and underwater and becomes another area to explore later in the game. Tallon IV is saved from destruction by Samus' intervention.
  - The Temple sealing the Impact Crater, however, catches on fire and explodes multiple times as Samus runs to her ship.
- Zero Mission is a remake/update of Metroid 1, replacing it in Canon without changing anything relevant here.
  - Although she does explore a Space Pirate mothership, which later explodes due to Load Bearing Boss yet again.
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is set on Aether, which has a recently formed Dark World that Samus destroys, saving the regular planet.
- Metroid Prime: Hunters has four planets and/or space stations, none of which are destroyed, despite the fact that you have to escape from the planets for no reason other than that there's an escape timer. The Can of the Sealed Evil In A Can does explode after the Sealed Evil is destroyed, however.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption also has multiple planets and space stations which survive. The thing that gets blown up is Phaaze, which is some sort of evil radioactive planet spaceship thing .
  - She does Colony Drop a segment of a floating city as a part of a ploy to drop a bomb onto a Phazon Leviathan Seed in order to eliminate its shield.
- The conclusion is that Samus is present when a lot of worlds explode (Zebes, Phaaze, SR-388, a couple of space stations), but she's only been responsible for four (SR-388 and the BSL space station in Fusion, Dark Aether in Echoes, and Phaaze in Corruption). So, it's not so much her fault as shoddy design and some really lousy timing. Still, if Samus comes knocking at your door, it might be a good idea to evacuate the planet just as a precaution.
  - The general trend is that the planets, space stations, etc. that explode are the ones that Samus is not expressly trying to save. If Samus wants the planet to survive, it will. If she doesn't much care or intends to kill everything anyway, it will explode. This holds true to everything except Hunters, but those self destructs are obviously faulty.
In Fire Emblem 7, Erk makes a few small comments to Priscilla about the stress of being Serra's escort. Somehow, this equals him bashing Serra to everyone who will listen every time he opens his mouth.
- Legault's flirtations with Heath in their supports result in a lot of fangirls forgetting the other, more plot-driven aspects of his character.
  - Oddly enough, said fangirls pay no attention to his flirtations with Isadora...
- Mysterious Waif Ninian has only broken down in tears twice through the storyline. Fans treat her as if she cried every single time she opened her mouth, and use it to bash her for being "weak" or standing in between Eliwood and Lyn (who has also cried in canon, BTW).
- Speaking of Eliwood, his declaration that he has no love for war led to at least half the fandom either bashing him as a "pansy-ass pussy" or painting him as a male Moe Moe who flails/cries/goes into cardiac arrest at the sight of blood.
- Chivalrous Pervert Sain says "oh, beauteous one" exactly one time within the course of the game.
- Half the fandom characterizes Shrinking Violet Florina entirely based on her fear of men.
- Lucius has been mistaken for a woman exactly once, even though his feminine looks are commented on by several characters.
  - The once part is only counting in story, lots of players make the mistake themselves
Silent Hill 2's Pyramid Head is shown to be raping a fellow monster once, forcing another into an oral sex position (he may have just been breaking him in half, or it may have just been symbolic) and otherwise just stalks James (albeit in a fairly aggressive manner); Fanon characterizes him as a rapist-murderer on par with the Reavers.
- I know, right? Violently rape one monster and it follows you forever...
- As the alternative seems to be portraying him as a sex god, this may be the lesser of two evils.
- It's not entirely inaccurate to say Pyramid Head is prone to raping. He does seem to be a manifestation of frustration/guilt/etc. etc. and one of those would be the main character's sexual frustrations.
Metal Gear Solid has this with Rosemary. A certain Codec call topped off with an argument with her emotionally distant boyfriend launched her status as one of The Scrappies of the series, with plenty of Die For Our Ship sentiments on the side.
- On the other hand, no one ever brings up the fact that Raiden did raise his hand at her, making this into something of a reversal of the aforementioned Hank Pym treatment.
- I wouldn't say it was just that call that earned her the fans ire. The whole relationship was, as said before, profoundly screwed up and would inspire sympathy for her, if it wasn't brought up every single time you saved the game. Still, she gets a lot more ire than she deserves.
The entire genre of Text Adventures - or Interactive Fiction - will forever be remembered, unfairly or not, for You Can't Get Ye Flask.
- "You may be eaten by a grue."
- "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike."
Apparently, "I're stain mah hends with your bra!" and "You cannot escape flom dess!" are the only things Geese Howard ever says according to "fans". Those phrases originated from Capcom vs SNK 2.
- On a similar note, it appears that for ANYTHING in regards to SNK characters, the only artwork they will ever use of them is from CvS2, invariably. People have got to remember that there's a reason its called Capcom vs SNK.
Cirno from the Touhou series is indeed The Ditz, but ever since she was labeled "(9) Baka" in the 9th game's instruction manual, her stupidity has become her defining trait in fandom.
- An even worse case from the same series is Mystia Lorelei. One playing character makes a joke about eating her in the eighth game: ever since then fanon basically made her into the cast's emergency food ration, with plenty of eating and chicken (she's a bird girl) jokes at her expense. In short, a bird version of Menchi.
- There's also poor Keine, the unfortunate were-hakutaku who will forever be known for all the CAVED people left in her wake.
In Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, widely considered the worst 3D Sonic game, there are hints of romantic feelings between the very human Princess Elise and the very non-human Sonic...but it's entirely on Elise's side. Not that this minimizes the squick much...but if you have to blame someone for the romance, blame Elise.
- Ever since Knuckles was fooled into thinking Sonic was the bad guy in Sonic 3 he has earned a reputation as a gullible idiot who will believe anything Eggman tells him.
  - In all fairness, Eggman somehow managed to trick him again in Sonic Adventure.
  - I think he loses the right to complain when that's where his character debuted. There's nothing to indicate he's not exactly that gullible, his fans just find it (understandably) annoying that he's forever getting typecast as a moron.
  - Oddly, some fans consider Knuckles the original Heelturnface in the series, even though he was only an enemy because of his own stupidity. Lots of fans that also want Eggman as the main villain again actually think that he used to be a badass, menacing figure. In fact, he was a much of joke back then as he was now. He was silly looking, none of machines looked very dangerous, sometimes they would be defeated by his own sheer idiocy, and he was a freqent victum of slapstick style explosions. It should also be considered a character exaggeration that virtually every Sonic other media depicts him as a menacing evil dictator, which I suppose is actually a contributer to what fans think he used to be like.
- Sonic Heroes forever cursed Shadow with a reputation as an amnesiac constantly Wangsting about being uncertain of his true identity, even though he almost immediately got his own game which resolved all that.
John Romero. Daikatana. That is all.
- Only because we're all confused as to whether or not we were ever actually made his bitches.
In-story of Mercenaries 2, your merc will be known throughout Venezuella as "the merc that Solano shot in the ass".
Francis has this in Left 4 Dead during the Crash Course campaign. Ever since Zoey shot the helicopter pilot that saved them from No Mercy hospital and they wound up crashing, Francis will take every moment he can get to never letting Zoey forget what she did.
Has happened to many Backyard Sports characters. For example, Dmitri will forever be known as The Smart Guy, while Maria will forever be known as the girl with pigtails. No professional reviewer pays attention to the personalities. They even get the characters' ages wrong when they are said in-game.
Gunpei Yokoi for a number of years was mainly known for the Virtual Boy and his tragic death, although he's recently remembered now for his positive legacy, such as Metroid and creating the Game & Watch and Game Boy.
- Interestingly enough, Gunpei Yokoi is also the man that originally came up with the idea for Nintendo to adopt the policy of 'Lateral thinking with withered technology'.
Drakengard will likely be remembered as the game where giant winged babies come out of a hole in the sky and eat everyone.
In-game example: The Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic is there when the planet Peragus is destroyed (depending on the player's choices, s/he could also be responsible for it). Regardless of whether or not the Exile is actually responsible, it seems everyone and their Twi'lek dancer is reminding them about it. On one occasion where you're allowed to pick a line about how it wasn't the Exile's fault, the character's response is that of course it was, since the Exile chose to go to Peragus. Sadly, there is no option to comment on how the Exile was drugged and rendered unconscious by an assassin droid hired by that same character in the first place...

Shortpacked! predicts this will happen to Batman.
- Interestingly, the depiction of him in the new First Wave series has him wielding Guns Akimbo. Maybe they're onto something?
Haters of the comic Ctrl Alt Del will often mention the infamous "miscarriage" comic. Take note, all ye haters: there was exactly one in the history of the comic. Shots used to only be taken at the art (Tim B^Uckly, anyone?), the often sub-par or even outright lame humor, and even the Mary Sue status of the main cast. Now, everyone and their Yahtzee will bring up, first and foremost, the miscarriage.
Monette in Something Positive has since been adopted by the MacIntyres and become a successful actress. But, despite now being in a committed lesbian relationship, she'll be remembered as the most man-loving lesbian ever...who'd rather do animals than women.

1-up (Homestar's 20X6 counterpart) loves pudding, due to one line in a cartoon saying "I want pudding!" After someone asked "Who wants pudding?"
Somewhat towing the line between this and Flanderization is Open Blue's Espartano unit. Originally, it was supposed to be of all ages and both genders, but due to the fact that one RPer kept on cranking out badass lolitas, the idea that it is an Amazon Brigade has stuck to the other regulars. Consequently, this has resulted in one regular creating an entire squad of them, as opposed to the usual single independent operatives. The line blurs between this and flanderization because each new character/group of characters added technically counts as canon unless declared otherwise.
In Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series, Mako Tsunami once threw a harpoon at someone. This got him the permanent moniker "Freaky Fish Guy." In his second appearance he harpoons two more, but at least Joey seems to have talked him out of doing it again.
Film Brain will never live down criticizing Equilibrium.
- Also, for Doug, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker.

Haru from Avatar The Last Airbender showed up in a recent episode with ~~a dumb looking~~ an ultra-sexy mustache, and the fandom still hadn't stopped making up jokes concerning it. This is partially because a certain internet parody series played him as a self-absorbed Camp Gay pretty boy several weeks before he reappeared.
- Canon example: Katara made one speech about hope and courage and freedom. The Ember Island Players's stage rendition of her was constantly waxing melodramatic about hope and "tearbending".
  - Note that both these incidents involved Haru. Hmmm....
- Sokka and Momo accidentally getting strung out on peyote for a day and a night in the desert.
Optimus Prime, similar to the above Jean Grey example, has only sacrificed his life and revived a total of two times in the G1 cartoon, and another two in the Marvel Comic rendition.
- That's just G1. Optimus also dies several times in the Beast Wars/Beast Machines era, though he's not the Optimus Prime there (although he got a close call at the end of Season 2). He also dies in Armada, and now in the second live-action movie, Revenge of the Fallen. As the first time he did it was so shocking, fans and writers alike quickly latched onto the idea, and it seems the writers have gotten carried away. Now, if the current series' Optimus doesn't do this at least once, fans are disappointed, and it even got its own little Lampshade Hanging in Beast Wars. Currently, the Transformers Robots In Disguise incarnation is the only version of Optimus to not have died at least once. Transformers Animated gets it out of the way in the series premiere.
- Similarly, Ultra Magnus is only remembered by fans for the infamous movie line, "I can't deal with that, now". Not only has it become an internet meme, but it also forever painted Magnus in fans' minds as an arrogant and lazy commander who would rather pass off responsibilities to his subordinates than actually get his own hands dirty. The fact that he's seen coordinating strategies more often than he is executing them doesn't help matters much, but he is more proactive than this misconception paints him as being.
  - Made worse because his ship was being attacked by Decepticons who outgunned them, and he was trying to save himself and the rest of his group. It wasn't "ohmygod I can't handle this," it was "STFU, I'm busy."
- Well, he did die for your sins!
- Remember how G1 Red Alert was always panicky and ultra-paranoid? If so, that makes one of us: In the aptly-named episode "Auto Berserk," when a missile hits him in the face, resulting in brain damage that would have killed him eventually, he starts acting in this manner, to the point of helping Starscream get his hands on a superweapon just to keep the Autobots, whom he believes have turned against him, away. He's fixed later. Fans seem to forget both that he was this way for one episode only due to damage, and quite how dangerous the paranoid schizophrenic Red Alert really was.
- There's also Mix-Mix-Mixmaster's Verbal Tic of re-re-repeating the beginning of a sentence... some-some-something he only actually did in one ep-ep-episode (City of Steel.) Thank-thank-thankfully. Shrapnel, however, really did repeat the last word of every sentence almost every time he appeared, appeared.
  - Beast Wars once had a damaged Waspinator think he was Shrapnel... only to start talking like Mixmaster did in City of Steel.
Ron in Kim Possible received Twenty Four Hour Superpowers at a rate not seen since Jimmy Olsen. For some reason fans latched onto his one time use of "Monkey Power" which influenced the writers to both tease and please fans with its usage in later episodes. Perhaps Everything Is Better With Monkeys.
- The "Monkey Power" was never a 24 hour power though, it was a permanent change. Even Monkey Fist got imbued with it and kept it. Ron just could never get it to work more than intermittently.
- A real example, though, is cooking. One episode shows Ron as a surprisingly excellent chef, while Kim is a disaster. Though she improves by the end of the episode and it's never mentioned again, in fanon Ron is a god in the kitchen, while Kim's cooking defies physics with its hideousness.
Tygra is Thundercats is known as a weak-willed junkie, despite being addicted twice, only one of which was actually presented as a drug.
- Just out of curiosity, how many times does one have to be addicted before the "junkie" shoe fits?
Comic Hero Aquaman is commonly haunted by his portrayal in the Super Friends cartoons, as a guy whose only real powers are swimming and talking to fish. This has actually worked out for him a little, as later iterations of the character usually go to great (and awesome) lengths to subvert this image.
Wendy broke up with Stan exactly once, in the seventh season of South Park. They got back together in the eleventh season finale and have been together ever since. Yet fanfic writers tend to portray Wendy as a manipulative shrew who breaks Stan’s heart again and again. This is usually done to justify Stan leaving her for Kyle. But even some writers who like Wendy latch onto the idea that she and Stan break up and make up all the time.
April O' Neil's yellow jumpsuit, her fucking jumpsuit. Honestly, every conversation about the old show dissolves into one about her hotness and jumpsuit, this has even made it into other adaptations, as a reference or actually happening (Hell, in the Back to the Sewers season of the 03 show, she wears one!).
- Most people can't bring themselves to admit it, but this one is likely a closet perv fascination with that jumpsuit. It has to do with the fact that said article of clothing somehow managed to border on fetish material(likely due to the cleavage she showed off), and yet that was supposed to be a kids' show? Joke theory among ThisTroper's circle of friends is April's original character design called for her to be a porn star on the way to a shoot that the Turtles just happened to save - and that got shot down long before the show ever even thought of airing.
The Fairly Oddparents: The episode "Kung Timmy" had Tootie admitting, through Suspiciously Specific Denial, that she tapped Timmy's phones. "Just the Two of Us!" had Trixie going insane and attempting to kill Timmy when the two were the last humans on Earth. The detractors of both have not forgotten these incidents.

Henry VIII is often referred to as having executed all six of his wives - this happened to just two (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard). Two of the marriages Henry had annulled, another wife died in childbirth, and the last one outlived him. There's a handy mnemonic for this: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived (even though it should be Annulled-Annulled&Beheaded-Died-Annulled&Survived-Annulled&Beheaded-Survived). Still, seeing as the average persons kills zero wives in their life time it's easy to see why it's become so notable...
Joel Schumacher directed Falling Down, The Lost Boys, A Time To Kill, St. Elmo's Fire, and Flatliners, along with quite a few other movies, but most people seem to think that his entire career consisted of giving Batman Batnipples.
- There's also the issue of his directing the film version of The Phantom Of The Opera musical. Of course, Andrew Lloyd Webber worked closely with him all along, but they made some choices that effectively broke the fanbase. With regards to the title character alone, there was casting Gerard Butler in the role despite his voice turning the character's supposedly transcendent singing ability into an Informed Attribute, a disappointing expansion of his backstory, and the infamous downgrade of his deformity into "third-degree sunburn".
Though he gets a lot of flak for other things he did during his involvement with Star Trek, Brannon Braga claimed in a Voyager DVD commentary that fans never live down the fact that he wrote "Threshold":
Braga: People are very unforgiving about that episode. I've written well over a hundred episodes of Star Trek, yet it seems to be the only episode anyone brings up, you know? "Brannon Braga, who wrote Threshold!"
- On the other hand, even Braga himself agrees that it's a terrible episode.
President Herbert Hoover is continually remembered as the president who caused the Wall Street Crash of 1929. No one remembers he was known as the "Great Humanitarian" during World War I for his aid overseas (in Belgium, his name even became a word meaning "to help"), and he saw the crash coming and tried to avert it, but is 'remembered' as someone who "did nothing", though even FDR's own advisers said that "practically the entire New Deal was extrapolated" from Hoover's programs.
- Ironically, Hoover might have wound up with a better reputation had he not been elected president...
- "We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..."
Mark A. Hicks, professional Hollywood stuntman. How is he best remembered by the Internet public? As Chris Tucker's body double for the first two Rush Hour movies, netting several awards in the process? As the man who's done dangerous work in everything from Coyote Ugly to Serenity? Not likely. He is best known for flubbing a flip during an audition for a Nike ad. After which he got the part. Seriously.
- Judging by the fact that he's now starring in a movie called "Afro Ninja" (not to be confused with Afro Samurai, of course) (the name of the original Youtube clip), and the trailer actually contains the clip, it looks like he's trying to live UP to the name instead. Good for him.
- Kind of sad that he botched that stunt due to jet lag and not getting enough sleep.
A staple of basically every stand-up impressionist's act, except Pablo Francisco.
- And in Pablo Francisco's case, what celebrities can Never Live Down is their own voices, which are used to hilarious effect simply because they are funny.
- Similarly, Vaughn Meader, a best-selling comedian whose key act was his spot-on impersonation of John F. Kennedy (one of his albums, The First Family, sold millions). Then Kennedy got assassinated, and his career was over, since no one could think of him doing anything else.
Regular comics don't have it easy either. Seinfeld is known for "What's up with that?", especially "What's the deal with airline food?"
- Be fair, now. Seinfeld did not say "What's the deal with..." just once or twice.
Howard Dean. YAAAAH!
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys.
All Germans Are Nazis.
- Relatedly, Benito Mussolini, while not a good guy by any stretch, was really not all that bad by totalitarian dictator standards, and would probably be remembered as a Well Intentioned Extremist at worst, if not for his unfortunate choice of allies.
  - I think the fact he is basically the architect behind the ideology of Fascism, a model Adolf Hitler himself studied from, as well as brutally suppressed his own people, invaded several other nations in alliance with the Nazi's and sent Jews to be exterminated in the Holocaust seals his fate from the beginning. You can argue he 'wasn't so bad' if you want, though.
  - What's often forgotten is that Italy changed sides in 1943, repudiating its alliance with Nazi Germany and Japan. This was after "Il Duce's" own cabinet impeached him and removed him from power, both for his crimes against humanity as well as his two decades of mismanaging Italy's economy with his brand of "syndicalist socialism". He was going to be turned over to the Allied High Command for disposition ASAP- but Hitler ordered Otto Skorzeny to spring him from custody before they could do it. Predictably (if you know Skorzeny's track record), he succeeded. In the end, of course, the Italians attended to Mussolini themselves- with a firing squad.
  - Contrast Mussolini to Francisco Franco, a fellow fascist who did not ally with Hitler during World War Two and so managed to escape having his name blackened so thoroughly. Although you'll find few people who like him, these days.
Sally Field is one of America's most famous actresses, with a string of iconic roles under her belt. But what does the layperson remember her for? Gidget? The Flying Nun? Norma Rae? Nora Walker? Even Robin Williams' ex in Mrs Doubtfire? Nope - her 1985 Best Actress Oscar acceptance speech for Places In The Heart: BKA, "You like me! You really like me!"
- Which, in the context of her full speech, has a completely different meaning.
- Not to mention that she actually said "... you like me, right now, you like me!"
To the man on the street Napoleon Bonaparte is not recalled for being a Magnificent Bastard, a military genius, for rising from very little to become the most powerful man in the world before he was thirty-five or for establishing the Napoleonic Code. To the public at large he was a short Frenchman in a silly hat who held his hand like this, and whose only legacy is that his defeat gave us the music of ABBA.
- Also, he was short. Not all that short, though: he just looked a lot smaller next to his towering bodyguards.
  - Hell, Robespierre was short too. Probably shorter. But the Reign of Terror is generally held to be less humorous.
  - And the fact his Imperial Guard were all huge so he looked short when next to them.
Erwin Schrödinger introduced the world to an equation as central to quantum physics as Newton's to mechanics or Maxwell's to electromagnetism, numerous methods for solving and interpreting it, and polyamory in the sciences. Yet what he's remembered for is a Crosses The Line Twice joke about the Copenhagen interpretation and torturing cats.
- What makes this even more ironic is that most people think Schrödinger proposed his famous thought experiment in order to highlight how wonderfully weird the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is. When, in fact, he proposed it in order to prove the Copenhagen interpretation wrong. That the cat is simultaneous alive and dead was meant to show how utterly insane the Copenhagen interpretation was, not to show deep physical insight.
Nikita Khrushchev is mostly remembered for hitting a table with his shoe.
- Among the things he's not generally remembered for: being Stalin's political hatchetman during World War II and being in charge of the Ukraine when Stalin wanted a famine created there, which killed millions of people. These are not historically negligible things.
  - So... combination of Never Live It Down and Karma Houdini, wrapped up in one?
- In Russia he is remembered for the shoe and for the obsession with growing corn. To be fair, also by the “Khruschev's thaw”, the period after the reign of Stalin. But the corn still comes first.
- He is also remembered for his role, along with JFK's, in precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis which nearly destroyed humankind and for his "We will bury you" threat. Not exactly small potatoes.
- And Mikhail Gorbachev is remembered for one thing: that (trademarked!) birthmark on his head.
  - Russia remembers him for the anti-alcohol campaign.
  - The Germans remember him for something else entirely.
Sir John A. Macdonald confederated the provinces of Canada, built the longest railroad in the history of the world (up to that point), expanded his dominion from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean, suppressed two rebellions and governed for almost twenty years. And yet, the only things that most Canadians know about him is that he was a giant drunk and that he waffled on the Louis Riel issue. A little known fact about him is that he had a daughter with Down Syndrome. This may have been the cause of his depression.
- Similarly, William Lyon Mackenzie King is remembered chiefly for holding séances, rather than his leadership during the Great Depression or World War Two.
  - Inverted with William Lyon Mackenzie (grandfather of the above), who is now best remembered for raging against the (colonialist) machine, and has even managed to live down dressing in drag to avoid the cops. At the time, however, he was best known for being short and having red hair.
- And Pierre Trudeau, who is arguably the architect of modern Canada, is remembered mainly for flipping-off a bunch of protesters.
- The Canadian Liberal Party has yet to live down the Sponsorship Scandal, even though fairly few people know what it even was. It ruined the career of former PM Paul Martin.
- Ontarian politician Dalton McGuinty will forever be known as an evil reptilian kitten-eater from outer space. The thing is, this has actually done wonders for his career.
And who could forget President Bill Clinton? How will he be remembered? So far, it seems to be for his numerous sexual peccadilloes.
- That, and he smoked marijuana but didn't inhale.
Quite a few Real Life fighter pilots get their callsigns from one embarrassing / memorable act, even if it was only a one-time event, or taken out of context. (Contrary to many works of fanfic involving pilots, pilot callsigns are generally assigned, not self-selected.)
- Example: There was apparently one young fighter pilot who wanted the callsign "Lightning," and tried to get everyone to call him that. His bug-eyed appearance and habit of bugging his seniors by telling them things they already knew about the aircraft got him named "Bug."
- Another example: the first female tacair pilot at Miramar Air Base (Top Gun) was dubbed "Jugs" by the other Navy pilots. Apparently her. . . airframe. . . was fairly impressive.
- One pilot went by the callsign Mogas (pronounced Mo-Gas) because he once realised that he needed more gas.
Marie Antoinette, for the (in)famous "Let them eat cake" line that she didn't even say. Although she got loads of worse associations in the century after the revolution, based on what the libel pamphlets claimed she did.
Catherine The Great was an Enlightened Despot who reformed Russia, planned a coup to dethrone her husband, lead Russia into two successful wars against the Ottomans, and brought Russia into a more important role in European politics. What is she most famous for? The myth that [[she died while having sex with a stallion when it fell upon her. While she was known for her love life (notably with younger men), this myth is completely untrue since she died from a stroke whilst straining on the toilet. However, the myth manages to live on due to the fact its more exciting than what really happened, and is usually referenced in pop-cultural depictions of her.
- Fatal constipation? How is this not more exciting?
When thinking of William Howard Taft, what are people more likely to remember: His trustbusting activities that broke up U.S. Steel, among other monopolies? His military action against Nicaragua? His support of the 16th Amendment, the foundation of our modern tax code? Or that he's the only former President to also serve on the Supreme Court? Nope. None of that. People remember he was so fat he got stuck in the bathtub.
- And that the Oval Office was originally round.
Pretty much ANY given US politician whom has ever been disgraced by a scandal they were in. Namely due to when they these politicians get themselves in a scandal the media exploits how terrible it is every chance they get. (Doesn't help that some of them never really got all that well known in the media until they are in a scandal.)
While that seems to have died down recently in the early to mid 2000s, there were known cases of Catholic priests having sex with young boys. Sadly, it went to the point that Catholic priests were competing with Michael Jackson for biggest Pedo joke ever.
- Brutal, systematic abuse at Catholic schools in Ireland for over 60 years, finally reported in 2009. It may be about to start up again.
Pretty much anyone who is well known mainly in supermarket tabloids.
Samuel Adams: A great patriot during the American Revolution, one of the Founding Fathers, was largely responsible for the Boston Tea Party. What's he remembered for? Beer. He wasn't even a brewer; he was technically a maltster.
- Ethan Allen gets it even worse, though. Revolutionary War guerilla hero who, among other things, captured Fort Ticonderoga. If you mention his name today, most people will think only of the furniture company that was founded some 143 years after his death. Ethan Allen himself wasn't even a carpenter.
- Aaron Burr was best-known for shooting Hamilton.
Mel Gibson. It's been three years since "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." And yet The Colbert Report had Stephen learning that he can't get a Kosher meal during the "I don't know where I am" joke at the beginning of his Iraq visit, at which point he put a question mark next to "Mel Gibson's house". Had this outburst not happened, on the other hand, he might be best known for The Passion Of The Christ, which stirred up its own controversy.
- And it's not like that's the only offensive comment he's made. He said his own wife was going to Hell for being Protestant - before they divorced.
  - "Sugar Tits."
- Or the hypocrisy of a guy who thinks he's "more Catholic than the Pope" (to paraphrase one of his father's book titles) but sees no problem getting a divorce after committing adultery.
- It should also be noted that one of the controversies about The Passion Of The Christ besides the violence were accusations of it being anti-Semitic. Mel's drunken rank didn't exactly help the argument that it's not.
The Space Shuttle Challenger completed nine successful missions before it exploded. But there are not mentions of those. From all the stories about it, you'd think it was the maiden voyage.
- NASA itself suffers from this. The organization that managed to put man in orbit, man on the moon, recover from a potential disaster in the middle of space, nearly 130 space shuttle missions, with a grand total of 17 fatalities (3 accidents: 1967 Apollo 1, 1986 Challenger, 2003 Columbia) in 40 years, and the only time they get attention (lately anyway) and thus cries for them to be shut down, is when an accident occurs.
  - As noted in this chart.
- Speaking of NASA - the space program has provided many scientific and technological advances over the years, much of which has trickled down for public consumption. But if called on to name one, what's the one everyone defaults to? Tang, the instant drink powder.
  - And Tang wasn't even developed for the space program. It was only used by them.
The 1969 Chappaquiddick Incident, in which a car Edward "Ted" Kennedy was driving swerved into water, causing the car's sole passenger, campaign assistant Mary Jo Kopechne, to drown. Kennedy's swimming out of the sinking car (with Kopechne trapped inside), along with failing to report the incident, permanently stifled his presidential hopes and ruined his credibility as a politician. Even when he died, opponents loved to remind people about the tragedy and even exploited it to discredit him ("I'd rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than go driving with Ted Kennedy").
According to his biographer, Peter Lorre spent the majority of his film career trying to escape being typecast as a villain, and ultimately didn't succeed. Many of the roles he took specifically to counteract his first major role as a child-killer in M were either forgotten, downplayed by the studios, or made things even worse.
Woody Allen: Director, actor, screenwriter, comedian, playwright, musician, writer... but what really comes to mind when he's mentioned today? Marrying the adopted daughter of his now ex-lover Mia Farrow, after serving as her father figure since she was seven (they married when she was 22 and he was 56). He's another popular target for pedophilia jokes, despite the fact that Soon-Yi Previn was a legal adult when their relationship started. One of Farrow and Allen's biological children still hasn't forgiven him for this. On top of the relationship issue has been the rapidly declining quality of Allen's films as he descended into Fallen Creator status, so the only thing many younger filmgoers know him for is the marriage to Soon Yi and not the era in which his films were landmark events.
Orson Welles is considered to be one of the best filmmakers of all time. In popular culture, he's more well known for his later life in which he was obese and did commercials about frozen peas.
- On the flipside, film buffs seem to think he made no film other than Citizen Kane.
  - And possibly Touch Of Evil.
- And few that know of his films remember that he was a great Broadway director before he went into films, directing the famous opening production of The Cradle Will Rock and an all-African-American version of Macbeth in the 1930s.
- Some best remember him for the infamous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds that caused people to panic when they mistook it for genuine news coverage of a Martian invasion.
Sir Alec Guinness expressed great irritation that he only seemed to be remembered for that one role he didn't really like in the first place and he did because he needed the money, and once flipped out at a Looney Fan who wouldn't stop pestering him. He was bitter about this to the end of his life...and naturally, every obituary for him focused more on his role in Star Wars than anything else.
Chris Columbus wrote The Goonies, directed two Harry Potter films as well as the film adaptation of RENT, but is apparently going to "the Home Alone guy" for all eternity. On the other hand, maybe he's lucky he's not "the Stepmom guy".
Paris Hilton, before sex tape: obscure party-hopping heiress. After sex tape: slut. There's also the famous "Wal-mart" quote. Paris later claimed she was joking at the time. And the Hardee's commercial. That's about it, really.
- It probably didn't help that she did nothing to dispel her own image; she never did much else worth being remembered for.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel of Chicago is that he once mailed a dead fish to a pollster whose numbers he didn't like. Can anyone recall off the top of their heads anything else about the man?
- Yes. He's now Barack Obama's Karl Rove.
- He is also the brother of the Hollywood super-agent that Ari from Entourage was based on.
- Josh Lyman was based on him.
Kanye West may be a very talented rapper, but he became most known by non-fans as "that guy who said George Bush doesn't care about black people." Several years' worth of parodies, spoofs, and (to Kanye, at least) agreement with this comment by the general public likely led him to think he could pull a similar stunt and escape unscathed. He didn't.
- Yo TV Tropes, I'm really happy for you...I'mma let you finish, but Tiger Woods had one of the biggest scandals of all time! One of the BIGGEST scandals of all time!
Philadelphia: They boo Santa Claus.
- Cleveland: Where rivers are flammable. The infamous Cuyahoga River fire was forty years ago. It wasn't the first, but it did get them to clean up their act.
  - They also throw things. Batteries, dog bones, full beer bottles...to quote Sam Wyche when Bengals fans started acting up, "You don't live in Cleveland, you live in Cincinnati!"
  - That's odd, I thought "throwing batteries" was going back to Philadelphia.
George Bush Sr. threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister because he insisted upon attending a meeting despite having a severe cold. Following the incident, the Japanese actually adopted the word "bush" as a synonym for "to vomit in a socially embarrassing situation".
Dick Cheney shot someone in the face. He already had a reputation as an Evil Chancellor, but after the guy he shot publicly apologized for being shot, it pretty much made sure that no one is ever going to forget that.
- You have to admit, if a guy that got shot in the face apologizes for getting shot, that makes it sound like there's something fishy bout his apology.
Robert Ballard has admitted in interviews that his tombstone will state that he discovered the wreck of the Titanic, even though he's more proud of some of his other discoveries.
The literary journal Social Text published a paper by physicist Alan Sokal that was a parody of postmodern philosophy as a protest against "fashionable nonsense" in the humanities. When the hoax was revealed, many people saw it as discrediting postmodernism.
They're *still* cracking jokes about Michael Fish (British weather presenter, now semi-retired) from that one time over twenty years ago he failed to spot a hurricane coming...
The US joining the two world wars years after they had started, creating many 'late to the game' jokes throughout the decades.
Winston Churchill: You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
- Whenever a 'Flavour 2' from Eagleland gets into a fight about the wars with any other citizen from another nation, expect this to be brought up immediately after the American makes the obligatory "If it weren't for us you'd be speaking German!" comment.
Every who hears the name "Fredric Wertham" thinks only of Seduction of the Innocent, the Comics Code, and the Silver Age, while his work on racial segregation is largely forgotten. Also, Seduction of the Innocent wasn't in favour of censorship; it was just a call for some type of rating system, similiar to how movies are rated.
Microsoft Windows. Yes, the Windows-without-NT line was in fact a piece of crap. Windows NT on the other hand (which includes 2000/XP/Vista/7) has always been a stable and reasonably secure operation system, and modern versions usually don't have significantly more (or less) security and stability issues than, say, Linux.
According to some of her co-workers, at least one Deadwood bit player regularly gets recognized on the street as "Dolly the blow-job whore."
Lizzie Borden was actually acquitted of axing her father and stepmother to death. Of course, she wouldn't be famous at all if it weren't for the rhyme.
Pop quiz: Name the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "Pulaski, Tennessee"... other than "Birthplace of the Klu Klux Klan" (A stigma the town as been fighting for decades).

This is more or less the rule for all nicknames: commit one innocuously embarrassing act at the age of 8, and be nicknamed after it forever.
- Scott Adams, in The Joy of Work, recommends not saying anything at all around witty people that they can use to make fun of you. He gives an example in which a speaker says they watched a movie last night, is called a "couch potato", and despite their best efforts is nicknamed "Spud".
4Kids Entertainment may be adamant about maintaining its policy of self-censorship, but compared to 6 years ago they have been more subtle about it, now largely relies on animation imported from countries other than Japan, and even placed subtitled episodes of some of their acquired animes on their Youtube channel. But none of this is going to change the minds of their many detractors until they see the company rot to the ground.

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