Stolen Credit Backfire

When characters commit plagiarism or take credit for things they did not do, there are primarily two ways they may suffer for it. One is getting caught; the other is that they do such a convincing job that it actually causes them more trouble than if they had just turned in their own work.

This trope is known as Stolen Credit Backfire which can best be described as plagiarism or credit stealing Gone Horribly Right. How this manifests varies. Examples include:

• The person they copied did a poor or incomplete job, for which the plagiarizer gets blamed.
• The plagiarized work makes the plagiarizer look like an expert in a certain field that makes them seem valuable to some pretty shady people.
• To make it look authentic, they might try to make their own "improvements" which makes what they turned in look bad.
• The work the character is plagiarizing was actually plagiarized by the "true" author.

This trope may or may not also include the liar's deception being exposed. It is often common for them to confess their lie only for no one to believe them. A character who engages in this trope may also be a Fake Ultimate Hero or a Miles Gloriosus.

In some cases, this may be an Invoked Trope done to trap or punish the liar.

Sub-Trope of Laser-Guided Karma. May cross over with Cheaters Never Prosper. Compare Fake Identity Baggage, where a character gets into similar trouble by stealing another person's entire identity. If the backfire comes in the form of a reward that wasn't as great as the thief was hoping for, that's Undesirable Prize.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball Z: Mr. Satan claims credit for Cell's defeat at the hands of Son Gohan in the Cell Games. As a result of this, Mr. Satan is automatically entered into the World Martial Arts Tournament where he’s matched against characters with Supernatural Martial Arts and Ki Manipulation, while he simply has the average strength of a regular person and is severely outclassed. He also can't forfeit without potentially exposing himself as a fraud. Android 18 spares him public humiliation by agreeing to throw their fight in exchange for money.
• Time Paradox Ghost Writer: Teppei temporally plagiarizes an extremely popular manga from his future assistant Itsuki, and after he realizes that it's a real publication, actively keeps redrawing the manga under his name. The manga, known as White Knight, is also his first hit series after a string of failures in his own writing, so there is a lot of motivation for him to take credit for another's work. After the time travel was revealed as a ploy to keep Itsuki from overworking herself to death, Teppei ends White Knight and tries to make more series that are truly his own—none of which last more than a year, and one ends in a single volume. In a subversion, Teppei is much happier failing with his own stories than succeeding with someone else's, and the epilogue ends with still trying to make more (perhaps in another magazine).

Comic Books

• Tales from the Crypt: One story focuses on two goths who were major fans of a horror author to the point they cosplay as the characters of her stories in a cemetery at night. They enter a writing contest held by the author so they can meet her in person. One of them wins and the other murders her out of envy and goes in her place under said friend's name. She finds out too late that the author deliberately picked her friend due to not having much family that will miss her and that the author's success had been attributed to sacrificing people to monster bats in return for fame and fortune.
• The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers: Ironfist's False Friend Skyfall stole credit for designing Optimus Prime's trademark ion blaster, claiming that the only reason he didn't correct Optimus was to protect Optimus's image. This leads to Skyfall being hailed as a genius weapons designer and assigned to the Kimia Facility, the key Autobot research and development facility. When Ironfist developed cold phosphex (better known as the glass gas famously used by Cliffjumper), Skyfall developed an even more potent version called black phosphex. It was so potent, in fact, that a group of Autobots field testing it were almost killed when their weapons crumbled to dust in their hands, leaving them defenseless. The debacle resulted in Skyfall being demoted to prison guard.

Fan Works

• A Fandom-Specific Plot for Miraculous Ladybug is Marinette secretly becoming a rising star in the world of fashion under the pseudonym "MDC". Payback has Lila falsely claiming that she's MDC, only for the rest of the class to keep asking her to make things for them for free. When she protests, Alya points out that she's repeatedly suggested that "good friends" will provide such services without complaint or expecting payment; thus, Lila finds herself secretly commissioning MDC over and over as her classmates exploit her generosity just like how she'd been taking advantage of them.
• One step backwards and Three forwards: After Dame Papillion starts using the Butterfly Brooch to empower Champions, Lila exploits the fact that the new heroine is staying hidden to drop hints to Adrien that she's actually responsible. Unfortunately for her, Gabriel learns about this and believes she's telling the truth — and that she stole the Butterfly Brooch from him.
• RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: "The Hero of Oaton" has Trixie approached by a foal from a small town she supposedly helped a year ago. Trixie doesn't remember the details because the circumstances behind her being there were already embarrassing and she was drunk by the time she arrived, leading to a little awkwardness when she does not get rid of the problem this time with a fantastic display of magic. The pony responsible was someone else who just looked like Trixie in the low light. However, Trixie does manage to sort of help resolve the problem anyhow.
• Recommencer (Miraculous Ladybug): Lila convinces Alya that she's secretly the new Fox Heroine, Imperatrix. Later, after the real Imperatrix helps save Lila from an akuma, Alya accuses the heroine of being an imposter, insisting that Lila is the real deal. This only succeeds in further trashing both their reputations, as Alya's dogged insistence on accusing Imperatrix of stealing the Fox and impersonating Lila is mistaken as Shallow News Site Satire.
• Three's A Crowd (Naruto): After noticing that Sakura's been using homemade explosion tags, Kakashi declares that she'll be starting sealing lessons with him so he can supervise her. Problem is that Sakura isn't the one who's been making them, but Naruto, whose spirit wound up stuck inside her body after he was murdered. Sakura panics at the prospect of Kakashi noticing a disparity in the quality of their work and growing suspicious.
• In this untitled one-shot for Miraculous Ladybug, Alya's parents commission a dress from Marinette, only for Alya to uninvite her from her birthday party. Lila then claims that she pointed them towards an Italian designer, trying to take the credit for the gift. This naturally pisses off Marlena and Otis enough that they end the party right then and there, kicking all the guests out and calling out their daughter on how she'd treated her 'best friend'.

Films — Animation

• Meet the Robinsons: Bowler Hat Guy tries to pass off Lewis' memory scanner invention as his own. Unfortunately for him, he has no idea how it works, and after a series of disasters, the chairman kicks him out of the building and onto the street. After tricking Lewis into telling him how the machine works, he successfully takes the credit for it and has his Robot Buddy Doris reproduced for good measure. The backfire? Doris takes over all of humanity and creates a dystopic Bad Future.

Films — Live-Action

• Charlie's Angels (2019): Peter Fleming takes sole credit for creating Callisto, a new wireless power source that was actually developed by his employee Elena Houghlin. When criminals steal Callisto and try to force Fleming to show them how to use it, he tries to get out of the situation by claiming that he doesn't want to kill anyone himself before Elena makes it clear that he doesn't even know how to turn Callisto on, never mind how to modify it. This leads to Fleming being killed as surplus to requirements.
• The Mad Magician: The Great Rinaldi plagiarizes Don Gallico's sensational new illusion which involves a fiery furnace and gets himself burned to death. Ironically, Gallico had warned Rinaldi against plagiarizing this illusion.
• Throw Momma from the Train: Played with. Most of the plot is kicked off by Larry Donner's ex-wife Margaret stealing the manuscript of the novel he worked on for years and passing it off as her own. To make things worse for Larry, Margaret disappears and is believed to be dead, leaving Larry as the primary suspect. However, it turns out that Margaret just accidentally fell overboard a cruise ship, and after her return plans on writing a novel about her experience. Here is where this trope sets up her Offscreen Karma: Margaret is showcased to be a lousy writer and once she releases said book it will no doubt fail, possibly even exposing her for a fraud. Furthermore, her shady agent (who knows she performed said plagiarism) has plans to milk her reputation for as long as he can and then ditch her.
• Working Girl has Katherine steal Tess' merger idea, only to get chewed out in the end after Tess gives a detailed elevator pitch to Trask on how the merger idea came to be, which trips Katherine up after being asked how "she" came up with her brilliant idea.

Folklore

• There's an old urban legend about a music student who was assigned to compose a piece for his final exam. Unable to perform the task himself, he searches the university's archives and finds a song that his professor composed when he was a student, and transcribes it note-for-note — but backwards. When he hands it in, the professor says, "This is Beethoven's 9th Symphony!" In other words, the plagiarism backfired on the teacher by attracting another plagiarist and exposing his own plagiarism.

Literature

• The Bestseller by Olivia Goldsmith: Judith and Daniel Gross co-write a book although Judith does the majority of the work. Worried the publisher won't accept a husband-wife team, they have Daniel pose as the sole author "Jude Daniel" with the idea that after the book is a hit, he'll reveal the truth. However, the prospect of fame and riches goes to Daniel's head, and he takes sole credit for writing the book, even crafting a special version with "hand-written notes" to indicate only he wrote it and is ready to dump Judith. But in a beautiful case of karma, the book ends up being a massive flop and Daniel is the "sole author" of a disaster that ruins his life.
• Destination Unknown: Thomas Betterton's brilliant discoveries in nuclear physics were actually the work of his wife whom he murdered to take the credit for them. When the police start catching up to him, Betterton accepts a Mysterious Benefactor's offer to disappear completely. Unfortunately, the benefactor is a businessman who kidnaps scientists to lease their discoveries to superpowers and actually believes that Betterton is the genius he pretends to be.
• Discworld, Unseen Academicals: Brazeneck University creates Pex, an In-Universe rip-off of Unseen University's Magical Computer Hex. The main difference between the two is that Pex is powered by chickens while Hex is powered by ants. Ponder Stibbons, UU's Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, seems remarkably blasé about Brazeneck's ripoff, until the end where Brazeneck is under attack from a 50-foot-tall chicken, which Ponder was perfectly aware would happen.
• Hallowe'en Party: Joyce's best friend Miranda tells her about a murder she witnessed. Joyce, being a compulsive liar and keen to show off to the other guests at the Halloween party, lies about being the one who witnessed the murder Miranda saw. Unfortunately for her, the real murderer kills her, thinking she’s the witness.
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Gilderoy Lockhart isn't any good at any spell other than Memory Charms. He never performed any of the deeds written about in his books, he just Obliviated other peoples' memories and stole all the credit. This bites him in the ass when other Hogwarts teachers sent him to seek out the basilisk.
• The Problem: Jim copies the answer to an assignment from Nancy and everyone in class copies off of Jim. Then the final stanza reveals that Nancy had the wrong answer.
• One story in a Junie B. Jones book has Junie forget about an assignment due that day where they had to write down what they did over the weekend. Rather than write down what she did, Junie copies off of fellow classmate Grace, and of course her teacher notices that she and Grace did the exact same things.

Live-Action TV

• Inverted in one episode of The Big Bang Theory. Kripke fills Sheldon's office with helium while the latter has an interview with a radio show host. Sheldon revenge pranks him by booby trapping Kripke's lab and is able to watch and show from a camera by tipping a janitor. He, Leonard, and Raj see the university's president and board of directors. Leonard quickly tells Sheldon to abort. Sheldon admits he forgot to install an abort system. Cue Kripke, his lab, and the visitors covered in foamy gunk. Sheldon then sends a pre recorded video of himself bragging to Kripke, thus revealing himself as the culprit and giving a "hat tip" to Leonard and Raj for encouraging and supporting his prank.
• Cheers: Norm starts a job at a local business and immediately finds himself the company's Butt-Monkey, even being forced to share his (rather tiny) office with someone else. With some prodding from Diane, he writes up a proposal for a business plan to gain some respect only to have it stolen by his officemate. He and Diane realize what happened when they hear him reading the proposal to their bosses. They're about to intervene when the CEO shoots down the proposal because it has several oversights that render it unfeasible. Norm takes this as a sign to play it safe from then on.
• CSI: In "A Space Oddity", a TV producer plagiarizes a professor's notes on how to deconstruct "Astro Quest" (an Expy of Star Trek: The Original Series) in an attempt to relaunch the show in a Darker and Edgier fashion. The backfire happens in two ways: when he shows the sizzle reel at a convention, the show's fans riot because they hate the production (admittedly, the man went a bit too far in making it "darker and edgier") and when the professor confronts the producer over the plagiarism and misinterpreting what she meant to convey with said notes, the producer slips and breaks his skull on a piece of show memorabilia, dying instantly.
• Leverage:
  • "The Three Days of the Hunter Job": The Mark is Monica Hunter, a yellow journalist whose sensationalist reporting has ruined the reputations of numerous people. The Leverage team's con involves Parker posing as a journalist and presenting Monica with a fake story about a conspiracy to poison the American water supply. Monica intends to take full credit for the story once she is presented with proof of its authenticity, which the Leverage Team convince her of. So of course, when she goes on live television and starts rambling about a conspiracy that doesn't exist and has no evidence to back up her claims, Monica ends up a laughing stock and her credibility is completely destroyed.
  • "The Future Job": The Mark in this episode is a Phony Psychic named Dalton Rand whom the team is trying to expose as a fraud. Their plan involves convincing Rand that Tara is a real psychic, which works and Rand begins using her "gift" to his advantage. Unfortunately, Rand's phony predictions draw the attention of an ex-con named Nikolaus Kusen who wants Rand to use his "psychic powers" to find stolen money that was hidden by Kusen's partner. However, the Leverage team is able to use this to their advantage by having a terrified Rand reveal his fraudulence to Kusen in an Engineered Public Confession.
• Leverage: Redemption: "The Mastermind Job" has a man named Milton write a book based on the Leverage Team's accomplishments in which he casts himself as Nate Ford, taking credit for his role as the mastermind. The Leverage Team try to convince him not to publish the book by making him think he’s being targeted by some of the people they took down. Unfortunately, Milton's false claims have drawn the attention of a man who wants him to steal a scarab from his ex-wife, a feat Milton is incapable of performing. Thus, the team's goal changes to saving Milton's life.
• Not Going Out: In "The True Meaning Of Christmas", Lucy and Lee take credit for the kids' trampoline Frank bought them after failing to get them a creditable gift, not wanting to look pathetic in front of Lucy's parents. After convincing Frank to play along, Toby and Ann come with the news that someone stole the trampoline they bought for their kids (Frank meekly reveals he actually bought his from a shady man from the pub). After a Never My Fault argument with Frank and a dismal attempt to cover up the trampoline, Lucy and Lee are left taking credit for stupidly buying their neighbors' stolen trampoline.
• The Office (US): Jim learns that Robert California plans to fire Dwight after he gives his Sabre store presentation, simply to make an example of someone. While Jim wrestles Dwight to keep him away from the meeting, noted Jerkass Todd Packer steals the presentation and passes it off as his idea, causing Robert to fire him instead.
• Our Miss Brooks: In "Public Property On Parade", Mr. Conklin takes credit for a speech Miss Brooks wrote about respecting public property and condemning theft and vandalism. Conklin initially dislikes the speech, but when the Mayor praises the document he takes full credit. Later, Conklin tells Miss Brooks that the Mayor would never find out that she wrote the speech; he's immediately embarassed to find the mayor is standing just outside the room and has heard everything.
• Poker Face: Doxxxology are a washed up heavy metal band who murder their new drummer Gavin to take credit for "Sucker Punch", the song he wrote. They realize too late that Gavin ripped off Sucker Punch's melody from the theme song of the tv show Benson.
• Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: In "Turn Up The Volume", Damon competes with another engineer named Baxter for position of chief engineer. Baxter steals Damon's designs for a sonic weapon which Damon intended to use against the Monster of the Week. Unfortunately, Damon fell asleep before he could finish the plans and the weapon fails against the monster, getting Baxter into trouble. Fortunately for him, Damon arrives to bail him out.
• Seinfeld: George's subplot in "The Bottle Deposit" has him being given an assignment by his supervisor Mr. Wilhelm who doesn't actually tell George what the assignment is. Despite this, the assignment gets done and George is perfectly happy to take credit for it so he never has to worry about it again. As it turns out, Wilhelm actually did the assignment himself and didn't realize he never told George what the assignment was because he had forgotten to take his medication. When George's boss Mr. Steinbrenner reads the assignment, he recognizes that the author is certifiably insane and has George institutionalized.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: In "Books And Birdhouses", London steals a short story from Maddie for a class assignment and turns it in as her own. Not only does the story get London her first A, but it also leads to her getting a book deal worth a lot of money. As it turns out, neither Maddie nor London is the story's true creator; Maddie based it on a story by another writer she had subconsciously remembered. Since London took credit for the story and has more money, she’s sued for plagiarism by the original author.
• The Suite Life on Deck:
  • "Goin' Bananas": Zack copies Cody's paper and hands it in as his own. Unfortunately, he later learns that Cody always leaves a strange tangent in the middle of his essays as a trap for plagiarists like Zack, in this case a few sentences about having a debilitating fear of bananas. This results in Zack being forced to see a therapist to overcome his apparent phobia using extremely questionable techniques.
  • "Can You Dig It?": Through dumb luck, Zack finds the ancient crown of a dead Mesoamerican princess and takes credit for all the years of research and translating Cody did in order to find the crown's location. This bites Zack in the ass when the princess's ghost possesses Bailey and tries to kill him for taking her crown. After being rescued, Zack gives all the credit for finding the crown to Cody, mostly to get any other potential angry spirits off his back.
• The Thundermans: The subplot of "Weird Science Fair" has Barb dragging Hank into her book club. Since he can't be bothered to read the book, Hank copies Barb's notes so he has something to discuss. When Barb realizes what Hank is doing, she writes made-up notes about a cyborg baby before the next meeting so Hank will humiliate himself by talking about complete nonsense that doesn't exist in the book.
• Will & Grace: In "Past and Presents", Will's former childhood bully Kevin Wolcheck is now working at the same law firm as him. Despite both of them being adults, Wolchek is still able to bully Will into doing his work for him so he can pass it off as his own. After a pep talk from Jack, Will gets his revenge by doing a terrible job that deliberately embarrasses Wolchek.

Video Games

• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Colonel McKinsey takes credit for all of Spare Squadron's accomplishments in the hopes that he’ll get assigned to a desk job on the mainland far away from the frontlines in Usea. Instead, Osea High Command sends him directly to the frontlines, because his "accomplishments" with the Spare Squadron means that they find him to be the right man to lead the frontlines against Erusea.
• Bleed: Wyrn, the protagonist of the first game, seeks to kill all the other heroes in the world, leaving her as the only one left, under the belief that everyone will love her for it. The Rival (his actual name in the game) shows up and takes credit for killing the other heroes, which leads to him being hated by everyone else. They're still mad at him in the second game, with the anchor for the newscast between stages even going as far as saying he will never be forgiven.
• Chrono Trigger: Frog loses the Hero Badge after getting drunk. A little kid finds the Hero Badge and is hailed as the prophesied hero who will defeat the Fiendlord, getting escorted by Guardia's army across a bridge held by monsters. By the time the party catches up to him, the terrified kid is running for his life, leaving it up to Frog & co. to take out the Fiendlord themselves.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!: Akane tries to steal the credit for what Karin did to save Azami when she suddenly collapsed in public. As it turns out, when Akane approached Azami and claimed she was the one who saved her life instead of Karin, Azami wastes no time saying she is going to sue Akane for making her boyfriend break up with her because he thought she took off her shirt in public. Azami eventually finds out about her lies and Akane is now in a lot of trouble for the mess she made.
• ETU - Animated Stories: Megan steals the protagonist's designs that she made during her internship at her company. When the protagonist finds out, she decides to deliberately make terrible designs that Megan will take credit for, resulting in a model (who the protagonist's fiancé dumped her for) being humiliated and her company's agency dropping her.
• SuperThings: In "The Powerbots Battle", Mech Fixer brings up that Skrewikz was constantly taking his credit on construction and repairs to suck up to Doctor Volt, thus making him seem like the better assistant of the two. During the Powerbots battle between the two of them, this ends up sealing Skrewikz's defeat, since Mech Fixer is the better inventor of the two, and Skrewikz's mech has serious design flaws.

Web Comics

• One-Punch Man: The supposedly invincible hero King is actually a completely powerless Muggle whose victories over monsters were actually Saitama's before he was registered with the Hero Association. He only agreed to join the Hero Association because it seemed to give people such hope (and he has had some Victory Through Intimidation wins), but now he's trapped in a role he’s completely unqualified for and is sent out to dangerous situations which he only survives through sheer luck.

Web Videos

• Ultra Fast Pony: In "Bummer in the City", Suri Polomare steals the credit for creating a completely new type of fabric, which was actually Rarity's invention. Unknown to Suri, Rarity made the fabric from real baby skin. Suri winds up taking the fall for all the murdered babies, while Rarity gets away scot-free.

Western Animation

• Arthur: In the episode "How the Cookie Crumbles", Muffy is trying to create a recipe to enter for the Strawberry Festival. She starts with her recipe from last year of butter cookies with a strawberry in the batter. Arthur, Francine, Brain, and Binky add more ingredients. Muffy wins the contest, but takes all the credit. Her friends are not pleased, especially when they learn she's selling them to the Sugar Bowl. Muffy reasons she entered the contest and it was her oven that baked the cookies. The backfire part comes when it's time to bake a new batch. Muffy didn't write it down and has to recreate it from memory. The new cookies she makes don't taste the same. She heads to the treehouse to ask Arthur, Francine, and Binky and lucky for her, they just wrote the ingredients a few minutes ago. They reluctantly give her the recipe despite her still refusing to credit them. Averted at the end, when Muffy talks to her dad about her actions off-screen and decides to call her cookies "Muffy & Friends".
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Inverted in season 3. Azula gives credit for supposedly killing the Avatar to Zuko, allowing him to return home to the Fire Nation as a hero. When he asks why she would give him the glory when the Avatar's supposed death was all her doing, she tells him that she's hedging her bets — if the Avatar is truly dead, then there's plenty of glory to go around, but if he’s alive, she wants to make sure that all the blame for failing to kill him falls on Zuko.
• Camp Lazlo has an episode where the Squirrel Scouts steal a float that Lazlo made for an annual parade. But when they go to unveil it, it turns out the float is made of stuff Lazlo stole from the citizens of Prickly Pines, thus incriminating the Squirrel Scouts as thieves. Lucky for them, Lazlo comes to set the record straight.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • In "Operation: R.O.B.B.E.R.S.", the Delightful Children hire the Six-Gum Gang to steal homework from other kids which the Delightful Children will pass off as their own. Unfortunately for the Delightful Children, the first paper the teacher reviews is Numbuh Four's, leading to her viciously lambasting them for terrible work.
    Teacher: Well, this first one looks like a hundred-percent... piece of JUNK! Honestly, I think you Delightful Children should concentrate on quality over quantity when doing your homework next time! Why, I will bet even Wallabee Beetles could do a better job than this!
  • In "Operation: F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.", Numbuh 86 constantly mistreats the male Sector V members during the mission to capture a rogue operative scheduled for decommission. When the boys manage to capture said fugitive, 86 takes him and claims sole credit for his capture. Unfortunately for 86, the rogue agent is a disguised Numbuh 362, a high-ranking KND member, who proceeds to lambast her for her incompetence.
• The Cramp Twins: "Spy's Pies" has the boys dealing with a woman trying to seduce their father in order to steal their mum's laundry secrets. They deal with it by letting her have the formula their mum uses; when she uses too much, her laundry starts exploding.
• Fish Hooks: Milo creates a Fridge-Hat (a minifridge strapped to the head). Randy, one of his classmates, produces a knockoff and takes credit for both inventions. Randy also manages to create a New and Improved version but it is discovered that the hats make people's hair fall off, and Randy is blamed.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: "Toadblatt's School of Sorcery" has Billy and Mandy going to a magic summer school where they are placed in Weaselthorpe House. In order to win the House Championship, Mandy comes up with the idea to sabotage their rival Gunderstank by playing numerous pranks on Dean Toadblatt and framing Gunderstank for them. Weaselthorpe wins the championship and Nigel claims credit for their victory, much to Mandy's chagrin. However, she’s able to get her revenge by tricking Nigel into confessing to all the ways "he" sabotaged Gunderstank in front of Dean Toadblatt, who punishes Nigel by having him beaten up by a giant one-eyed dwarf.
  Nigel: Oh, come on! It was all Mandy's idea! I swear!
  Mandy: Don't be so modest Nigel. Take credit where credit is due.
• Kim Possible: In "Naked Genius", Rufus gains super intelligence and Ron has him do his algebra homework. This initially backfires when his teacher still gives him an F, since the homework was solved with advanced mathematical concepts well above what a high schooler struggling with algebra is capable of, though he's able to save face by having Rufus (hiding in his sleeve) make it look like he's writing complex formulae. This still bites him in the butt, since he now finds himself dragged around on lecturing tours, is kidnapped by Dr. Drakken and forced to make weapons (without Rufus' help), and when the scheme is exposed at the end, it's mentioned that the teacher wrote the infinity symbol on his detention slip.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series: In "Houdini", Experiment 625 finds an experiment pod labeled 611 (which their device refers to as the ultimate superweapon) while grocery shopping. Gantu takes credit for finding the pod, which really upsets 625. It’s eventually revealed that the pod's number was read upside down, and actually contained Experiment 119, whose function is to swallow people into his gooey sweetness, causing Gantu to be scolded by Hamsterviel as the experiment starts getting to work on him.
  Gantu: If you say one word...
  625: KARMA! KARMA, KARMA, KARMA!
• Looney Tunes: Inverted in "Golden Yeggs". A goose lays a golden egg and pretends Daffy Duck did it, aware of the risks this would bring to her. As it turns out, she was completely right, as seen when a gangster named Rocky takes Daffy and demands more at gunpoint.
• The Looney Tunes Show: In "Peel of Fortune", Daffy steals Bugs' plans for an automatic carrot peeler. The invention brings Daffy a lot of money but is revealed to be highly flammable due to lacking a cooling system which Daffy failed to include as he only read the first three steps of Bugs' plans for the carrot peeler. As a result, a lot of angry people want their money back from Daffy and when he’s unable to pay them back, they destroy his and Bugs's house as revenge.
• The Owl House: In “Sense and Insensitivity”, Luz and King collaborate on a novel for a writing contest. When Luz objects to the changes King made, he turns the finished version in, claiming sole credit. The book becomes a best-seller, and King signs a contract to write a sequel... before discovering that without Luz’s input, he’s a terrible writer, and that the contract he signed forces him to turn in the sequel on a strict deadline, under threat of being crushed into a small cube if he fails to deliver.
• Popeye: In "Service with a Guile", Popeye (with help from his spinach) fixes up the admiral's car, but Bluto pushes him away before he arrives so he can take the credit. However, the car blows up and falls to pieces once it's started, leaving Bluto to get punished with rust-scraping duty while Popeye and Olive go on a date.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In "No Princess Gets Left Behind", Shadow Weaver tries to claim credit for Catra's plan to capture Bow and Princess Glimmer, stating that as Catra's superior, Catra's successes are her successes. Naturally, when the heroes manage to rescue them and destroy parts of the Fright Zone in the process, Shadow Weaver finds herself taking all the blame and is reprimanded, much to Catra's glee.
  Hordak: All you did was invite attack from an enemy combatant with detailed knowledge of our operations. If I had known, I never would have agreed to your foolish plan.
  Catra: [quietly laughing] Yeah, bad plan.
  Scorpia: [whispering]: Wasn’t it your—? [Catra elbows Scorpia] Oh!
• The Simpsons: In "Bart Gets an 'F'", Bart fakes being sick to get out of taking a test, then calls Milhouse for the answers. When Bart takes the test the next morning, Ms. Krabappel gives him an F, noting that he scored even worse than Milhouse.
• South Park:
  • Inverted in "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs." The four main boys write an offensive book, but when their parents find it, they pin the blame on Butters. However, the book unexpectedly becomes a critical hit and Butters becomes famous. Due to Acquired Situational Narcissism, he refuses to give credit back to the boys.
  • In the episode, Fish Sticks, both Cartman and Carlos Mencia falsely take credit for the titular Fish Sticks joke that Jimmy came up with. When Kanye West gets mad at being called a gay fish out of obliviousness to the joke's punchline, he tracks Carlos Mencia down and tortures him to death, and attempts to kill Cartman next.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "Arrrrgh": This episode has an inversion. After SpongeBob, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs dig up the Dutchman's treasure, the Dutchman appears and asks who's responsible. Mr. Krabs immediately throws SpongeBob and Patrick under the bus. These two each get a doubloon for their troubles, while Mr. Krabs just gets a plastic toy treasure chest.
  • "Patty Hype": SpongeBob creates the Pretty Patties (Krabby Patties with different colours) and decides to sell them by himself. When they become extremely popular, Mr. Krabs convinces SpongeBob to exchange businesses so now he will have the more profitable Pretty Patties. As it turns out, the Pretty Patties change the color of people's bodies as a side effect, leading to angry customers wanting a refund from Krabs.
  • "Artist Unknown": After SpongeBob creates an immaculate statue in one stroke, Squidward berates him, causing SpongeBob to run off. An art critic later comes in and wants to buy the sculpture, which Squidward claims as his own, only for the head to come off while being moved. Squidward, knowing he can't recreate it, recruits SpongeBob, who after being lectured by Squidward, only manages to make a mess. SpongeBob storms off right before the critic returns, and Squidward blames the whole mess on the janitor. In this mess, however, is another great statue, and the critic promises great riches for the janitor.
  • "The Lost Mattress": SpongeBob and Patrick buy a new mattress for Mr. Krabs and throw the old one out. Squidward tries to take the credit by signing their card with the words "This was all my idea". However, the old mattress contained all of Mr. Krabs's money, causing him to go into a coma when he realizes it’s gone. Squidward is held accountable by the police since he took credit for the idea.
• In one episode of Timon & Pumbaa, the pair have taken up jobs working for Boss Beaver building a large dam. After the job is finished and the dedication ceremony is underway, Boss Beaver takes full credit for building the dam while unceremoniously firing Timon (who he had forced to fire Pumbaa). When the dam is unveiled, however, it's revealed that Timon and Pumbaa had built it very shoddily, with it falling apart and causing a flood. Because Boss Beaver had claimed to have built the dam, it meant nobody would hire him for any more construction work, leading him to take a job as Timon and Pumbaa's butler.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Max plays the part of a hack writer in "Sepulveda Boulevard" who is guilty of Stealing the Credit from other writers in an homage to Sunset Boulevard. Where this trope (maybe) comes in is that the writer Max stole from is Plucky and if you look at the script they're fighting over, Plucky stole it from another writer and simply fell victim to another hack's antics.

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