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No-Respect Guy

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Gee, I wonder why.
The Only Sane Man who is surrounded by morons and never gets a break. If anything good happens to them in a given episode, it will inevitably be undone by episode's end.

No matter what the character does, no matter how noble their intentions, they just cannot get the respect of their peers. It's not that they deserve to be unhappy. They are a genuinely Nice Guy who in some other story would be loved and respected. But since they are in a comedy ensemble, their role is to suffer to keep the humor rolling, even if the audience finds them sympathetic.

While the "I don't get no respect" line is indelibly associated with Rodney Dangerfield, the characters he plays are not examples of No Respect Guy as they are Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists who don't generally deserve respect. Also note that the other characters have to treat the character unfairly for them to be playing this trope. If they are as stupid as everyone else, they are just a Butt-Monkey.

Subtrope of Only Sane Man. If the character themselves complain about this, it's Dude, Where's My Respect?.

See also Memetic Loser, the Out-of-Universe version. And Kafka Komedy where the Nice Guy is always treated like crap no matter how reasonable and well-intentioned are they.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: In spite of his relatively equal level to Tanjiro, Zenitsu gets no recognition for his merits (especially from girls) because he's lazy, complacent, wimpy, and cowardly. He's a good guy and an excellent warrior, but he's incredibly obnoxious.
  • Maison Ikkoku: Yusaku Godai.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Deconstructed with Shinji Ikari. Years of this treatment have convinced him that no one loves him. In which case, there's no reason for himself or anyone else to live...
  • Nerima Daikon Brothers: In a way, Hideki.
  • Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Brief, AKA "Geek Boy" is the unlucky Tagalong Kid to the main characters. Things look up for him near the end when after being revealed to be a Bishōnen, Panty falls for him. Unfortunately, he's whisked off by the villains to be the Apocalypse Maiden.
  • Rent-A-Girlfriend: Kazuya Kinoshita, the main protagonist. His ex, his friends, his own family, pretty much everyone freely talks about how lame he is while he just takes it.It's heavily deconstructed, as this results in him having very low self-esteem who easily puts himself down over many things, and resorts to using a rental girlfriend and lying just to feel better.
  • Sailor Moon: Artemis frequently gets treated like dirt by Luna no matter how hard he tries to support her and the others.
  • Sket Dance: Bossun falls into this occasionally.
  • Sonic X: Played with Knuckles. On the one hand, he is the one who remains focused on the task of returning back to their world and gathering the Chaos Emeralds. On the other hand, he's still infamously gullible (though Cosmo chalks it up to him wanting to give people chances), and his short temper and pride make it easy for him to get into problems.
  • Tenchi Muyo!: Kiyone.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: This coupled with Demoted to Extra caused Misawa's Face–Heel Turn.

    Comic Books 
  • Empowered... dear Lord, Empowered. Setting aside the fact that the general populace and criminal element all regard her as a joke, the level of emotional abuse and sexual harassment she deals with from the 'Superhomeys' reaches the point where they are the ones posting pictures of her on the internet after the villains leave her chained up humiliatingly for them to find. Not to mention the fact that her teammates forgot about her after a battle and left her trapped/embedded in the landscape more than once. At least one reader has wondered why she has not thrown her lot in with the Forces of Evil out of sheer spite.
    • Probably because the Forces of Evil also humiliate her and sell pictures of her tied up and half-nude on the internet. Who'd kill the, um, cash cow?
    • She's also genuinely dedicated to fighting crime and being a hero. Presumably it's the only thing keeping her from buying a muumuu and running off to become a hermit.
  • At least from his son Shinji's perspective, Paul Patton Jr. gets little to no respect, both in and out of his Fox persona. Shinji becoming "The Ghost Fox" is largely based on his feelings of wanting to honor his father's super-heroic altruism.
  • The Ultimates: Nerd Hulk (a clone of Hulk with the rational mind of Bruce Banner) is just a nerd interested in "Lord of the Rings" trivia, with fears and insecurities, in a team composed of hardened soldiers and military people. No, nobody has any respect for him.

    Films — Animated 
  • In Shark Tale, this is Oscar's main motivation: He doesn't seem to get much respect at the Whale Wash, and seems to get himself into unwanted situations. In his youth, he admired his dad Earl's work at the Wash so much he decided to bring it to school for show and tell, only for the class to cruelly mock him. This tragic disaster causes him to consider himself a loser and a "nobody." Since then, Oscar believes that in order to get the respect he yearns for, he has to become rich and famous. He finds his chance when the shark chasing him is killed by a fallen anchor and takes the credit becoming known as the "Sharkslayer." Oscar soon lets his great white lie go into his head and make him rich, not noticing or appreciating what he already had, until Angie blurts out her crush and genuine respect for him, leading Oscar to his Character Development.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Mario, who is usually a Fun Personified kind of person in the games, has to deal with his family and former boss not looking fondly on his job as a plumber and just being treated as unimportant in general. That changes when he winds up in the Mushroom Kingdom by accident.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Nick Schaffer (Breckin Meyer) in Rat Race. The most serious character, and the only one who doesn't jump at the opportunity of 2 million dollars, only entering the race after he gets an advantage (a helicopter pilot when the airport tower is broken). From there on, it gets worse.
  • Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai is a bumbling wannabe samurai who is a complete laughing stock of his companions, especially Heihachi. No matter what he tries, he looks like an idiot in front of everyone. Though he does earn a little bit of respect once in a while and after he dies, he is buried with his sword like the other three samurai casualties.
  • Park Gang-du from The Host (2006) is a tragicomic example, an amiable but slow-witted single father who gets little respect from anyone around him. His wife abandoned him, his siblings disrespect him, his father gets exasperated with him constantly sleeping on the job and eating pieces of the customers' food, and even his daughter, who means the world to him, gets annoyed with him as well. And when she is captured by a giant monster, the American and Korean doctors refuse to listen to him when he tries to tell them that she's still alive.
  • Newt in Pacific Rim was mostly viewed with a sort of amused contempt, up until his loony ideas reveal the true reason for the Kaiju attacks. He's back to this in Pacific Rim: Uprising; while Liwen Shao seems to value his knowledge, his goofiness and terrible language skills mean he's not exactly the most well-respected of employees, despite his high rank. Resentment about this, combined with his drifting with a Kaiju brain, gave the Precursors a way to get their hooks into his mind, leading to him secretly masterminding a plan that came within inches of destroying the world.

    Literature 
  • Honsou from Graham McNeill's Storm of Iron and Ultramarines series. He is at first hated by the other Iron Warrior Space Marines for being a 'half breed'. After his promotion to Warsmith, the other Warsmiths hate and disrespect him, making extreme and insane demands of him. After destroying armies worth of enemies he still gets no respect, with random human mooks in bars telling him he's an idiot.
  • Discworld:
    • Ponder Stibbons is this at Unseen University. At least until Unseen Academicals, when he realizes he's had so many jobs foisted on him over the years, he wields enough power to make people listen to him.
    • Specifically, he holds twelve jobs at the university (not counting football coach), giving him twelve votes on the university council. This means that no matter how anyone else votes, he forms a majority all by himself.
    Ridcully: Didn't anyone notice that you were getting all this power?
    Ponder: Yes, sir, me. Only I thought it was responsibility and hard work. None of you ever bother with details, you see. Technically, I have to report to other people, but usually the other people are me.
  • Mat Cauthon in The Wheel of Time. By the middle of the series, he's one of the best fighters and generals in the world, but due to Poor Communication Kills, few of the other characters realize this, and many treat him like he's a worthless jerk. He gets crap thrown at him, Locked Out of the Loop during an important mission, molested by a queen, etc. When his army defeats a much larger force against all odds, the enemy commander rides out to congratulate... Thom Merrilin, who he thought was the general.
  • Poor Gunner First Class Jurgen from the Ciaphas Cain series always gets overlooked by everyone — most of his fellow soldiers don't consider him a "proper" Guardsman and none of the official histories or memoirs so much as mention him. (Exception: Sulla's... "writings"... mention him as Cain's aide, but never by name.) Admittedly, he's a walking disaster area hygienically and a blank, which makes people either respond to him with revulsion or flat-out ignore him, but you'd think someone would notice the number of situations he'd personally melta-gunned into submission. Luckily the one person whose opinion matters to him is Cain, and Cain thinks Jurgen is the more heroic of the pair and is constantly annoyed by the oversight.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire has several people who fit the description, but Tyrion Lannister is one of the most noteworthy. Try to restrain your royal nephew's sociopathic tendencies? Get blamed for his behavior instead. Take steps to fix the city's severe food shortage? Nobody seems to notice or care. Annihilate most of an invading army's navy and lead a charge to drive the survivors back? The first gets attributed to other people, the second is supplanted by a much larger charge by friendly reinforcements, and he gets seriously disfigured to boot. This all culminates in him getting framed for the aforementioned nephew's murder and being forced to flee for his life.
  • In The Terror, Captain Sir John Franklin is described as the officer everyone likes, but no one respects. This largely stems from his affable nature, but incompetent leadership which lead to disaster on a previous Arctic expedition and his failed governorship of Van Damien's Land. His leading the 1846 expedition to find the Northwest Passage is his last chance at gaining the respect of the Arctic Council. His incompetence and glory hound nature strikes again and almost the entire 129-man expedition, save for his exec Captain Crozier, dies from starvation, the cold, or the creature stalking the ships.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Fargo of Eureka, and deservedly so, but his new role as head of GD has actually lent itself to making him become a more responsible, and yes, respected character. Even before then, and acknowledging he caused plenty of problems thanks to certain tendencies, he was still the assistant to the director of GD and apparently competent enough as an Omnidisciplinary Scientist himself to participate or be made responsible for whatever was needed that week but had his position derided by other specialists at GD. Except Larry, who is always competing to take over his position that is.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Despite Viserys being the brains of his and Dany's attempt to reclaim the Iron Throne during his time on the show, almost all of the attention, both positive and negative, was directed toward his sister. All of the Dothraki were in love with her, and King Robert primarily focused on her when dreading their return (not that Viserys actually knew this; to him, Robert was his Arch-Nemesis, but Robert was more concerned with Dany having children, making this a case of Unknown Rival). Since Viserys was doing all of this so he could be on the throne and not Dany, it perhaps explains why he went off the rails so much more toward the end of his life.
    • Theon Greyjoy's lot in life. As the hostage/ward to keep his father in line the guy is seen by both as a stain that they can't get rid of. Tellingly taking Winterfell, the seat of power for the Starks, gets him absolutely no respect from either side, and captured for years-long torture. The guy does get a nod of respect just before his Redemption Equals Death.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street:
    • Detective Bayliss is treated like crap by the rest of the unit for being the rookie and his relative lack of field experience. Though he's a fairly kind man who rarely goes out of his way to antagonize anyone and served on the SWAT team for five years, he's still constantly mocked throughout the first two seasons. He eventually gels into the unit and grows out of this status.
    • Crime scene photographer Brodie has it worse. He's a gentle Shrinking Violet who helps the unit solve multiple murders and even sacrificed his original job to help them, but his lack of experience and his status as a former member of the press means he's constantly mocked and berated. Whenever he complains about it, he's told he needs to earn their respect in spite of his aforementioned accomplishments.
  • Freddie in iCarly. He is often abused by Sam, manipulated by Carly, and oh yeah, humiliated in front of the whole school.
  • Michael Bluth in Arrested Development.
    • Though Characterization Marches On and in later episodes/seasons, we discover that Michael is almost as much of a hopeless weirdo as the rest of his family. He just pretends that he's not.
  • The character of Dick Louden on Newhart was a No Respect Guy.
  • Dave Nelson on NewsRadio, at least after the rest of the cast has been flanderized into stupidity.
  • To some extent, McGee on NCIS.
    • I'd say so, Probie!
    • Really, McGee and Tony sort of trade this role back and forth (although, many would argue Tony partly brings it on himself). Although neither of them is surrounded by morons.
  • Drew Carey in The Drew Carey Show. Despite being the most mild-mannered and logical person in the whole cast, he doesn't get much praise from his boss, his co-worker Mimi disrespects him every chance she gets, and Drew's friends are just outright morons.
  • This became Mike Nelson's shtick in the Sci-Fi seasons of MST3K.
  • Whenever The Kids in the Hall did a skit as themselves, Kevin MacDonald inevitably took on this role.
  • On classic Doctor Who, Harry Sullivan spent most of his short time as a companion being picked on, insulted, and belittled by the Fourth Doctor. To the point that the Doctor felt justified in shouting "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!" to the sky over a misjudgement (which, granted, would have blown up both Harry and the Doctor). He returned to his regular job very quickly and never looked back.
  • Roy from The IT Crowd is a notorious Butt-Monkey who gets walked all over, and is so socially incompetent that he's usually too scared to fight back. And then there's Richmond, a mild-mannered Goth who garners even less respect than Roy.

    Sports 
  • American football has an excellent example in Donovan McNabb. In 11 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, he took them to a Super Bowl, five NFC championship games, and set most - if not all - of their passing records; this amounted to the fans booing him at every opportunity and his name being brought up every offseason when it came trade time.
    • Thankfully for him he shirked it after being traded to Washington. When it came time for the Redskins to visit Philly he was treated to a standing ovation (which definitely says something considering he was on a Division Rival's team). After retirement, he's generally treated in warm regard and is considered the greatest QB in Eagles History. His questionable opinions aren't making him any fans in his NFL Analyst life though.
  • With McNabb's retirement in 2012, Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears has moved into the role of the NFL's #1 no-respect guy. In terms of starts, wins, and statistics, Cutler is arguably the best overall quarterback the Bears have had since Sid Luckman in the 1940s, but you wouldn't guess it by listening to the fans and media. The Bears have had one of the worst offensive lines in the league since Cutler joined the team, which leads to him being amongst the most sacked (and injured) quarterbacks in the league in a given year. He was injured in the 2010 NFC Championship game and did not return in the 2nd half. The resulting backlash from other players and the media questioning his toughness is something he may never live down. (Never mind the fact that he had a legitimate MCL sprain and was benched on the orders of his coaches.) It doesn't help either that he was outdone by the Bears' second backup quarterback in that game.
  • Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants might be the coaching answer to McNabb. In twelve seasons with the team, he had a fair deal of success, including eight non-losing seasons, five playoff appearances, and two Super Bowl wins in 5 years (one of which is considered one of the greatest upsets in NFL history), making him a guaranteed Hall of Fame inductee in the future. However, every time he lost so much as a single game, the fans and press suddenly put him on the hot seat. It got to the point where Coughlin resigned after three straight losing seasons with the team, which were the result of poor personnel decisions by the team management and numerous injuries to key players because everyone was calling for the team to fire him.
  • Speaking of quarterbacks, Eli Manning, the younger brother of Peyton Manning, is probably the poster boy for put-upon little brothers. Over the course of his career, he's broken and held most of the Giants' quarterback records, thrown for over 55,000 yards, completed 360 touchdown passes, has a career QB rating of 84.1, and led the Giants to two underdog playoff runs that ended with him beating Tom Brady twice in the Super Bowl on the comeback, game-winning touchdown drive and winning Super Bowl MVP both times, the second time coming after he had an MVP-caliber season (4,933 yards, 29 touchdowns, and 92.9 QB rating)…and he's regularly bashed by the media and the fans as a mediocre quarterback who was bailed out by luck and a great Giants defense in both of those Super Bowls, and for much of the same reasons as Coughlin—regularly scapegoated for the Giants' struggles, which were the results of injuries and poor personnel decisions. It also doesn't help that his iconic confused face and quiet, reserved way of leading leads people to underestimate how dangerous of a quarterback he is. Despite all that, he never complains or puts down anyone and takes the blame with stride.
  • In November 2020, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told the media that he believed then-Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford "[didn't] get anywhere near the credit" he deserved, hinting that the general ineptitude of the Lions' franchise (which led two other stars, Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson, to retire in frustration due to the team's apparent inability to make needed improvements) might be holding Stafford back and making him seem like a worse player than he really is. It's worth noting that the Lions and the Packers are historically rival teams — you know it's a big deal when your rival says you deserve better. Stafford went on to prove Rodgers right after being traded to the Los Angeles Rams (who were good enough to make it to the divisional playoff round in the 2020 season despite being a bit weak in the quarterback department), where he found immediate success the following season, leading the Rams to a division title, winning a playoff game for the first time in his career, and capping it off with a Super Bowl victory.

    Theatre 
  • John Adams of 1776 who is universally described as "obnoxious and disliked", a phrase taken from Adams' writings later in life.note He perceives himself as being Surrounded by Idiots—that is, Congress. He predicts, accurately, that he'll be forgotten by historians in favor of colorful figures like Franklin and Washingtonnote  despite the fact that he was one of the principal individuals in the independence movement. However, Franklin gives Adams a sharp lecture near the end of the show about how he should have a little more respect for his colleagues, as they are as proud and accomplished as Adams.

    Video Games 
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Despite all the cases he won and how he solved cases most people thought were lost causes, no one ever respects him; the judge is always quick to scold Phoenix and rarely does so for the prosecution, all the witnesses berate Phoenix and treat him like an idiot, all the prosecutors denounce Phoenix as some newbie lawyer who doesn't know jack about how trials work, and Maya is a complete idiot when it comes to even the most basic logic and she even busts Phoenix's chops a few times, yet Phoenix swore to Mia to look after Maya so he can't just ditch her. The only other person who has it slightly worse than Phoenix is Detective Gumshoe.
    • Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice arguably has it worse than his predecessor/mentor/employer Pheonix. Absolutely everybody he meets will take time out of their usual shenanigans just to make fun of him in some manner. Even his own mother and little sister along with Phoenix himself mess with him. On the plus side, he didn't get quite as much hostility from the prosecution... until Blackquill came along.
    • In one case Edgeworth fills in for Phoenix as a defense attorney and, accordingly, becomes one of these as well. He comes away with a new respect for his friendly rival; after all, Edgeworth knows that after this case he can go back to his cushy, everyone-loves-me job of being a prosecutor, but Phoenix puts up with this bullshit every day, on purpose, because of his dedication to truth and justice.
    • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Edgeworth's respect vanished immediately after he got the spotlight. In the first game, he gets accused of murder, is knocked out by a Proto Badger, is insulted by virtually everyone who isn't Kay or Gumshoe, gets whipped by Franziska constantly, encounters Oldbag twice, and let's not even mention anything regarding his Steel Samurai fanboyism. The second game isn't much better: for about half the game, Courtney and Sebastian constantly treat him like a lousy prosecutor, try to take away his investigation rights, and seek to strip him of his badge (although Courtney was secretly on Edgeworth's side all along).
  • Luigi from Super Mario Bros., especially the RPG spin-off games. In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, most people don't know who Luigi is and refer to him as the guy in green or some other variant. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, one can buy "Paper Luigi" novels between chapters detailing Luigi's epic quest as the Hero of Another Story... except that you also run into Luigi himself between chapters, and his own party members confirm that the amazing feats of badassery detailed in the novels are greatly exaggerated and Luigi actually bumbled his way through most of the adventure. However, in The Thousand-Year Door, there is one Toad child who thinks Luigi is cooler than Mario (with apologies to Mario). There's also Pennington the detective, who takes one look at your outfit and deduces that you can only be the famous Luigi, and nothing can convince him otherwise. Mario also typically shows Luigi a great deal of respect as they are very close. An example of this is in "Super Mario Odyssey" where when you obtain Luigi's outfit, Mario says of it "the L stands for winner" showing how highly he thinks of Luigi. So Luigi gets respect sometimes.
  • Youmu Konpaku from Touhou, who is 'too sweet'. She's a Hypercompetent Sidekick, Beleaguered Assistant, and Cloudcuckoolander's Minder for her lady and spiritual sensei, Yuyuko Saigyouji. Youmu is a playable character, which means that she regularly squares off against threats to Gensokyo, which usually includes Reality Warping Physical God or other individuals of equivalent power. And yet, the other characters treat her like she's an ignorant child and a mere apparatchik of Yuyuko.
  • Guardian Tales: Despite saving the day many times over, the Knight never gets the recognition they deserve for their accomplishments. Only their companions give them respect while others discredit the "dumb-faced" hero...until the Knight actually proves their worth, that is.

    Webcomics 
  • Webcomic example: Rudasor in Elijah and Azuu. "Even from myself I get no respect."
  • She isn't one anymore, but in her original few appearances, Zoe from Sluggy Freelance had shades of this. In particular, in her first appearance, she was locked out of her car, trampled twice by a mob of people, and then beaten up twice by Bun-Bun. While it was never as pronounced as her first appearance, nor is it still in effect, but random unfortunate stuff (such as failing her midterms due to changes to history that she had a hand in being on the test) happening to Zoe was a bit of a running gag for a few years after the strip started. Eventually, she got past it, but she's still a Weirdness Magnet, so it's not all gone.
  • White Mage from 8-Bit Theater. She sometimes appears to be the only person in the world with both a fully developed moral compass and an IQ above room temperature.

    Web Original 
  • The Annoying Orange: Pear is generally looked down upon for being "boring" and prone to falling victim to Orange's antics.
  • Red vs. Blue
  • I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC: Superman is a mild example of the trope, though he somewhat grew out of it as the series went on. He is one of the most mild-mannered and idealistic members of the cast, but is looked down upon by most of his fellow superheroes (particularly Batman and Wolverine) because his series isn't nearly as successful as it once was, and many people see him as an outdated character with no relevance to the 21st century.
  • Severus Snape is portrayed as one in Potter Puppet Pals.
  • Homestar Runner: Strong Sad is a perpetual Butt-Monkey and never taken seriously despite the fact that he has more common sense than all of the other characters besides The Cheat and Pom Pom.
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged makes it into a running gag that there's one of these on every team.
    • For the Earthlings, it's Yamcha whose name has become a verb meaning 'to be defeated ignominiously'.
    • For when Yamcha isn't around, it's Krillin, he of the Krillin Owned Count.
    • For the Saiyans, it's Raditz, who's become a unit of measure for both power levels and currency ('he owes me 50 Raditz!').
    • For Freeza's lesser minions, it's Appule, with Freeza declaring Appule couldn't handle a stiff drink, much less Vegeta.
    • For Freeza's personal henchmen, it's Dodoria, where Toma admitting it was Dodoria who wiped out their team was a source of shame.
    • For the Ginyu Force, it's Guldo, who Vegeta loves to throw dog treats at, Burter has a meltdown at being accused of being slower than and Captain Ginyu has a dismissive "oh, these things happen" attitude when hearing he was killed.
    • For the Androids, it's the poorly-programmed and crash-prone Android 19.
    • For the Spice Boys, it's Enema, whose teammates admit to hating him and cared more about losing the HBO Go account they were piggybacking when he died.
    • For the post-Cell era Z-Warriors, it's Vegeta, who might be the second-most powerful of them left after Goku died and Future Trunks went home, but everyone he seeks out either either avoids him or tells him to fuck off to varying degrees of politeness.
  • In Among Us Logic, in spite of being the only voice of reason to the idiots around them, Player and Engineer are always ignored, or in some cases outright killed by their easily confused fellow players.

    Western Animation 
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Frylock usually manages to avoid being injured by his roommates' stupidity, but he usually receives little to no gratitude for cleaning up their messes.
  • CatDog: Cat usually gets no respect from anyone. While he is intelligent and classy, admittingly his brother Dog is more moral and jovial.
  • Chowder: Shnitzel does most of the heavy lifting and cleaning, but this largely goes unnoticed by the rest of his co-workers.
  • Code Monkeys has Jerry and Mary. Jerry's chops are busted either through his association with his best friend Dave or pointing out a critical flaw in his plans, and Mary gets the brunt of Mr. Larrity's bad attitude because he's unapologetically sexist.
    • Mary sometimes has it coming thanks to her Straw Feminist role (even when Larrity and the others aren't being blatantly sexist).
  • Danny Phantom:
    • Danny Fenton, although he isn't the smartest in the trio consisting of himself, Sam, and Tucker. And then came Reign Storm, where from there, Danny steadily loses that status.
    • Tucker is a much more proper example. In one episode, a ghost frames him for the bad things happening to other people. However, once Tucker became the mayor of Amity Park in the Series Finale, it's safe to say he got a good bit of respect.
  • Dan Vs.: Chris is often treated like dirt, as aside from many injuries he suffers due to reluctantly tagging along with Dan in the latter's schemes, he is hated on by his wife's parents, no one in high school remembers him, and not even Dan treats him with much respect and hardly shows any emotion whenever Chris is either injured or on the verge of death. Even his wife Elise, while she does love and support him, isn’t above using him as a pawn in her spy missions, though at least Chris doesn’t know about that.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy: Edd is usually the Only Sane Man but rarely gets respect from the Eds and the other kids. However, sometimes his nebbish attitude is impeding, such as when it led to conflict between him and Eddy.
  • Family Guy: Meg is the Only Sane Man on her family, and receives constant mistreatment from the rest of her family. Then again, without her acting as the No Respect Guy, her family would quickly tear each other apart if the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party" is anything to go by. In fact, in that episode, she chooses to maintain the status of the No Respect Guy in order to keep them happy.
  • Goof Troop: PJ is The Drag-Along. Nobody ever listens to him when he tries to convince them to think through consequences or to prepare (such as reading the manual) or when he tries to tell them something has gone wrong, and he's usually right. He is also routinely treated badly by other characters (though the universe itself seems to like him fine) and multiple episodes have made him the butt of a "Shaggy Dog" Story... which wouldn't have happened if people had just listened to him in the first place.
  • Gravity Falls has Dipper Pines. Despite being (usually) one of the most down-to-earth characters with some serious insecurities and self-worth issues, he's the butt of nearly every joke from... everyone, really. Though his family usually does it without meaning to. This is juxtaposed with his twin sister Mabel, who's super confident, rarely criticized, and openly loved by everyone. While Mabel's mistakes in the show often come without overly serious consequences (until the finale), Dipper's desperate efforts to prove he's worth being listened to usually all end in horrifying disaster.
  • Harley Quinn (2019): Harley Quinn is an Olympic-level acrobat with a degree in psychology and years of experience in combat. Despite this, most people consider her a joke and refuse to consider her anything other than the Joker's girlfriend or a generic thug. Even after she took out 4/5 members of the Injustice League, Gordon who only took down the 1/5 she didn't calls her an annoyance rather than a threat.
  • Invader Zim: Dib is likely the only thing standing between a narcissistic evil alien invader and world domination. Said narcissistic evil alien invader is the person who respects him most simply by virtue of actually considering him a threat to his plans; everyone else just thinks Dib is a crackpot.
  • Jabberjaw: In spite of being the drummer for the Neptunes, Jabberjaw gets no respect because he's a shark. He equally gets no respect from Shelley, the band's tambourinist.
  • KaBlam!: Henry is rarely ever respected by the people around him, though sometimes he gets respect from June or his mom.
    • This also works for Meltman of Action League Now!.
  • Kaeloo: Quack Quack always helps his friends whenever they need it, but they don't return the favor; Kaeloo treats him like her personal slave, Stumpy exploits his talents for his own benefit, and Mr. Cat uses him as a punching bag.
  • Looney Tunes: A Running Gag in several cartoons is that Daffy Duck, no matter what he does or how talented he is, is always looked down upon by everyone whereas his rival Bugs Bunny is Loved by All and gets big rounds of applause for the smallest things he does. This ends up deconstructed in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, where the higher-ups use this as an excuse to fire Daffy when they get sick of his prima donna antics, only to find the cartoons bombing without him, since Daffy being such an unpopular Butt-Monkey is a large part of what makes them funny in the first place.
  • Monster High: Jackson Jeckyll is a timid, geeky, genuinely good guy, but he's always treated as the resident Butt-Monkey by every other student barring Frankie Stein, just for being the only half-human in a school of monsters. Not only do bullies treat him that way, the nicer students do too, and even his other self, Holt Hyde, makes fun of him. This mistreatment is often a mere Running Gag, despite the core theme of the franchise being tolerance towards different people.
  • The Proud Family: Oscar and (sometimes) Penny.
  • Robot Chicken: Violently deconstructed in a sketch where a new sniper joins the G.I. Joe team, only to be given an Embarrassing Nickname, repeatedly humiliated, and left behind like he's The Load. This drives him to join Cobra (amazingly enough Cobra Commander also gives him an embarrassing nickname, but by this point the sniper had Stopped Caring), and he gets his Who's Laughing Now? moment by killing every single Joe... except Duke, who gets some Cruel Mercy when he pleads for death too.
  • South Park: Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski, and it gets worse in later seasons. When Stan and Kyle are trying to give good advice and reasons to others, they tend to be mistreated not just by Cartman and Randy, but sometimes, by everyone else.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Squidward Tentacles is either this or a straight Jerkass Butt-Monkey, Depending on the Writer (albeit more often the latter than the former since The Movie).
  • Steven Universe: Pink Diamond is eventually revealed to be this. She was the youngest Diamond and the others always treated her as an Annoying Younger Sibling, usually brushing her off. She started acting like a Royal Brat in a desperate attempt to be at least noticed and demanded her own colony because she thought that if she could prove that she could oversee one, the others would finally treat her like an equal. It gets darker later when Pink pleads to the other Diamonds to allow her to stop Earth's colonization because she's had a Heel Realization, but they just brush her off as usual. Unfortunately, this time she had a point, and Rose Quartz soon led the Crystal Gems in rebellion, ultimately assassinating Pink Diamond, which the others still blame themselves for. Though in actuality, their dismissal of Pink and later taking over her colony led Pink to conclude that there was no way to halt the colonization other than open rebellion, and she later decided that the best way to end the war was to fake her own assassination and take on her Rose Quartz secret identity permanently.
  • T.U.F.F. Puppy: Kitty Katswell is pretty much the only competent agent yet her accomplishments are usually glossed over by the agency in favor of celebrating Dudley.

 
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The Canister

To save Debra from the Wrath of Marie, Frank take's the Blame for the Missing Canister

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Main / TakingTheHeat

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