Mugging The Monster / Western Animation

---

• Arcane: A couple of Undercity thugs try to mug a freshly freed Vi who casually beats them up offscreen and takes their clothes.
• Humorously in Archer, when the title character attacks an older gentleman in a bar for laughing at him... and gets pinned to the bar by Burt Reynolds, who also happens to be Archer's man-crush.
• The Avatar universe:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • A mugger tries to rob Iroh. Who promptly takes him down, teaches him a proper fighting stance, has a talk and some tea and convinces him to get a job. Beneficent, yes, but since he's earned the name Dragon of the West, still a monster.
    • A bunch of sandbenders manage to get their hands on Appa, the main character's pet sky bison. They are oblivious to who they really robbed until Aang finds them and demands it back. Failing to do so, they witness him go from pacifist 12something kid to extremely furious Avatar talking in chorus voice. He then starts airbending with murder in mind, at which point half of his targets don't even bother running...
  • The Sequel Series The Legend of Korra:
    • A Power Trio of protection racketeers from the Triple Threat Triad attempt to extort a Republic City music store owner, just as a teenaged girl "tourist" from the Southern Water Tribe was walking past. When she calls them out, they try to put her in her place and attack her with their respective Elemental Powers... Only to learn the hard way that she's the current Avatar Korra, already a master of three of the four elements. Cue the inevitable Curb-Stomp Battle, made even more hilarious by Korra taking out each mook with their respective element, complete with grinning gusto.
    • In the third season, Earth Queen Hou-Ting mistakes the Red Lotus, the season's main antagonists, for ordinary bounty hunters. When she tries to have them arrested, they defeat the Dai Li in a matter of seconds, and Zaheer asphyxiates the Earth Queen.
    • A gang of bandits tries to rob a passing train in Season 4. Said train happens to be Kuvira's personal transport, and she proceeds to subdue the entire gang in under half a minute.
• During Ben 10's run, Cartoon Network would occasionally show this two-minute shorts during commercials. In one of them, a pair of thugs try to steal the Rustbucket. However, they do so while Ben is hanging around. Needless to say, things do not end well for the crooks.
• In Cybersix, a trio of students attempt to rough up Adrian (who is actually the titular Cyber in disguise) for rejecting Lori's advances in class. It's actually lucky for them that Lucas spotted them from the window and decided to intervene to help Adrian.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • Joker ends up begging Batman to save him from some particularly crazy/tricky victims of his crimes in Joker's Favor and Beware the Creeper.
    • Joker's Favor: It starts out with one of these moments. Normal Joe Charlie Collins has had a bad day, and so when a car cuts him off on the freeway, It's The Last Straw and he begins to yell at the other driver — until he gets a close look and sees that the other driver is the Joker.
      Charlie: That was the Joker. I cussed out the Joker!
    • Mad as a Hatter: Jervis Tech hasn't quite become the Mad Hatter yet, but when escorting his date Alice through the park, two muggers accost them, and he quickly uses his mind control devices on them. After doing so, he orders them to "go jump in the river". They take it literally, climbing to the top of a bridge to do so.
    • Birds of a Feather: Just because Penguin always loses to Batman doesn't mean he is a bad fighter. He dominates a fight against three muggers before Batman intervenes and defeats all four of them (Batman thinks that he's with them until it's humorously resolved).
    • Harley and Ivy: Two young women pull up alongside a car of three guys, who immediately begin catcalling and making disgusting comments. One of the women politely asks the men "Didn't your mommies tell you that's not the nice way to get a lady's attention?" The jerks, not getting the hint, promptly ask if the women are going to spank them for being bad. Considering that the two women are Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, two of Gotham's most dangerous supervillains, those thugs learn the hard way when Harley promises that they are going to spank them... and proceeds to whip out a massive bazooka and blow their car to smithereens.
    • Holiday Knights: Poison Ivy gets the idea of using her mind-control lipstick to force some rich guy to finance a shopping spree for her and Harley. Unfortunately for them, they end up grabbing Bruce Wayne, who suits up and goes after them once he snaps out of Ivy's control.
  • Superman: The Animated Series:
    • Knight Time: Bane of all people falls prey to this, in which Superman has to disguise himself as Batman in order to help Robin find out where his boss has gone. At one point, Superman also finds it necessary to round up Bane, the Mad Hatter, and the Riddler. The Riddler actually manages to get the jump on him and, using one of his gizmos to restrain him, he and Hatter sit back and watch as Bane tosses Bats around for a while... until "Batman" gets tired of trying to keep up appearances. Bane winds up getting the CRAP beaten out of him while everyone else (sans Robin) watch in utter disbelief.
      Robin: He's been working out.
    • Subverted in another episode when Clark notices that someone is following him. He turns into a dark alley, and the would-be robber thinks he's got him... but as soon as he enters the alley, no one is there, leaving him very confused. Cut to Clark up on the roof of the building next to the alleyway with a slightly annoyed look on his face...
  • Batman Beyond:
    • Despite modeling themselves after the Joker, the Jokerz gang more often them not find themselves outmatched by the people they tried to intimdate. They aren't too bright.
      • Rebirth: Part 1: A group of Jokerz decides that it would be a good idea to intimidate a certain old man by saying "We're the Jokerz!" Unfortunately, said old man is Bruce Wayne. Cue the Curb-Stomp Battle.
        Jokerz Leader: Who do you think you're talking to, old man? We're the Jokerz!
        Bruce: Sure you are.
      • Golem: A small group of Jokerz harasses Willy Watt midway through the episode. They try to put the squeeze on him, but Willy calls out his little friend...
      • Bloodsport: A lone Joker tries to mug Terry when he's being chased by the Stalker — and gets dismissed in an especially pathetic fashion.
        Joker: Your money or a pie!
        Terry: Some other time. [gut-punches him without slowing down]
      • In the crossover episode with Static Shock, Future Shock, the Jokerz lure two teens onto their turf... but one of them is Terry and the other one is Static. Obviously it doesn't end well for the Jokerz.
    • Meltdown: Mr. Freeze (one of Batman's more powerful Rogues Gallery member himself) uses his Freeze Ray against Derek Powers when he thinks that Powers is just a regular Corrupt Corporate Executive. He quickly discovers that his target was really a radioactive Walking Wasteland when Powers melts his way out of the ice and attacks Freeze.
    • The Call: In an attempt to escape Terry, Inque takes an approaching bystander hostage... who turns out to be Superman. On the whole, not her finest hour.
  • In the Justice League Unlimited episode The Once and Future Thing: Weird Western Tales, Western gunslinger bandits try to rob a time-displaced Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. They do have the sense to try to flee after they see her easily deflect "the biggest, slowest bullets I've ever seen", not that it does them any good.
• Done retroactively in DuckTales (2017). In an early episode, the Beagle Boys mug the mascot of Funzo's Fun Zone for his costume so they can further a scheme of theirs. At the end of Season 2, it's revealed that the guy who wears the costume works for F.O.W.L. — specifically, they're the Phantom Blot, arguably one of the most notorious criminals in Disney media.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • In "A Fistful of Ed", Eddy constantly taunts Jimmy by throwing hot-dogs at the latter. Jimmy gets very angry and beats Edd to a bloody pulp. This is understandable, as Jimmy has shown to be wimpy, so it's not surprising that Eddy doesn't know how powerful Jimmy really is when he gets angry.
  • Subverted with Sarah towards Ed. She constantly treats Ed like garbage, knowing he has super strength, but it's simply because Ed won't fight back against her and the fact that they both have super strength. This is played straight in "Little Ed Blue", when Sarah realizes that Ed is even more powerful than her when she gets angry after yelling at him, so she wisely stops provoking him.
• In one episode of Family Guy, a bully steals Stewie's tricycle. It does not end well for the bully...
  Stewie: Seven? Well, my, my. You're practically a lady. How ironic your life is in the hands of an infant... NOW TELL ME WHERE MY TRICYCLE IS!
• In Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, a mugger tries to rob a guy in a trench coat with a young woman. That guy turns out to be the Thing. Alicia points out that with Ben, she feels safe walking in the park at night.
• Futurama:
  • "Raging Bender" has Bender constantly harassing a thin robot sitting in front of him at the movies. Eventually, the skinny robot has enough and challenges him to "fisticuffs". Bender laughs... until the guy transforms into a much buffer form. It turns out that he's the Masked Unit, a professional robot fighter, and only a stroke of sheer luck saves Bender from being beaten.
  • In "Less Than Hero", Fry and Leela are nearly mugged by a homeless man and his tiny gun-wielding robot. However, Fry is unhurt when the robot shoots him — it turns out that he and Leela had recently developed superpowers thanks to a medical cream Zoidberg gave them, which they then use to knock the muggers around.
• Happens several times in Gargoyles with Elisa Maza. She's an NYPD detective, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and an expert markswoman. And then there are her very protective friends...
• G.I. Joe: Renegades features James McCullen attempting to play hardball with Cobra Industries CEO Adam DeCobray, saying he'll save Dr. Mindbender (who he put in danger by luring the Joes to the building) if Cobra gives in to his "proposal". Cue DeCobray revealing his true identity as Cobra Commander and making the arms dealer a "counter-proposal" with a giant, hungry, mutant cobra.
• In Invader Zim, Iggins learns the hard way why it is not a good idea to withhold the Game Slave 2 from Gaz. How? She follows him all the way to his house, writes "the game is mine" on the bathroom mirror, appears in the door, steals all the batteries in the house to keep him from getting to the save point on the game, causes the elevator to malfunction when he's still in it, and finally throws him down said elevator shaft.
• One episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes has the Rodeo Clowns kidnap Heloise. The results are predictable.
• Kim Possible: In "Graduation (Part Two)", Ron, unbeknownst to the Lowardians, comes into control of a very great power, making Warhok and Warmonga's messing with his girlfriend a very poor idea. It crosses into Bullying a Dragon when they continue messing with him even after he's taken out all their tripods and thrown Warhok across the landscape.
• Kuu Kuu Harajuku: In order to get Music alone to sign HJ-5's managerial rights over to him, Sammy Starr kidnaps her.
  Angel: Poor thing doesn't stand a chance.
  G: Music can handle herself.
  Angel: I was talking about Sammy.
• In The Legend of Vox Machina, we are introduced to the season 1 villains when a group of thugs tries to mug the carriage of the Briarwoods, a lovely couple consisting of a vampire and a Necromancer. It doesn't end well for the thugs.
• Used to hilarious effect in the Looney Tunes short "Hyde and Go Tweet", where Sylvester doesn't realize that Tweety and the huge yellow abomination are one and the same, and keeps trying to catch and eat the former, even though Tweety invariably morphs into his Hyde form and exacts vengeance on Sylvester each time.
• Used nonviolently (but very sadly) in a Russian cartoon, Maska. It's Halloween, and a little pretty girl walks down a street, alone. Then two blokes with huge monster masks jump from the corner and attempt to scare the little girl. The girl first watches indifferently, then she has enough, and tears down her face — which turns out to be a mask concealing her real face, scarier than both monster mask combined. The blokes, horrified, drop their masks and run away, leaving the girl weeping — by their scare they reminded her of her own face.
• In an episode of The Owl House, a demon sets up a scam to lure people into the woods looking for the "Bloom of Eternal Youth" so that he can drain their life force. The two people who take the bait are Eda and Lilith, two of the most powerful witches on the Boiling Isles. The end result was two unimpressed witches and one thoroughly thrashed demon.
• In one episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998), a thief — not a supervillain, just a regular, common burglar — actually tries to rob the Girls, because he had somehow never heard of them. Needless to say, it does not go over well, though they couldn't just kick his ass immediately because they didn't want to wake the Professor. At the end of the episode, the thief was heading towards Mojo Jojo's house intending to rob him.
• In an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, this happened to the Ghostmaster when he came to New York seeking revenge against the heroes. Seeing as the Ghostmaster ranks a Class 11 (according to Who's Who in the Spirit World, which possibly makes him the most powerful ghost ever to appear on the series) the crooks were lucky to escape with their lives.
• In the Samurai Jack episode "Jack's Sandals", the shoe store owner does this to the bikers. He verbally berates them for riding their bikes recklessly, and destroying property in the process. When he sees the bikers transform into cyborgs a-la "Transformers" style, you can see the store owner obviously feeling scared. Good thing Jack stepped in to deal with the bikers.
• Season's Greetings, the cartoon short on which Trick 'r Treat is based, is also about this. A man chases the adorably creepy trick-or-treater Sam into an alleyway, and, for whatever reason, attacks him. Sam is then seen walking out of the alleyway with bag full and a big smile on his mask.
• The Simpsons: In "Lisa the Beauty Queen", the blue-haired lawyer and a pair of goons confront Principal Skinner about his student fair's use of Disney's copyrighted "Happiest Place on Earth" phrase. Upon informing Skinner that he's made a big mistake, Skinner calmly informs him that so has the blue-haired lawyer, before telling him they got an ex-green beret mad. He promptly hands them all their asses.
  Skinner: Copyright: expired.
• South Park:
  • In "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Scott Tenorman repeatedly takes advantage of Eric Cartman to con him out of money and humiliate him. Cartman retaliates with a Machiavellian, sociopathic Batman Gambit that results in Scott's parents being murdered, ground into chili, and fed to Scott, timed perfectly so as Scott is having a complete breakdown over this his idols Radiohead show up and mock him for crying. The episode ends with Cartman lapping up his tears and commenting on how delicious they are while Stan and Kyle deliver a horror-filled declaration:
    Kyle: Dude, I think it might be best for us to never piss Cartman off again.
    Stan: Good call.
  • In "T.M.I.", a psychiatrist decides to test Cartman for anger issues by repeatedly calling him fat. Cartman appears to remain calm the entire time and is texting on a phone. Then the phone rings, the psychiatrist picks it up, and his wife starts yelling at him about his secret criminal record and about an affair he supposedly had with a 14-year-old girl before shooting herself in the head. He looks at Cartman in shock, who puts down the mobile phone and glares at him.
    Cartman: I'm not fat. I'm big-boned.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In one episode, a landlord named Evil J. LandBaron III tricks the naive Dennis Avarius into a deal to steal his entire family fortune, then mocks him for believing in the best in people. Unfortunately for him, Dennis happens to be the little brother and Morality Pet of Ludo, former Big Bad of the show who successfully took over an entire kingdom when at his strongest. The very same night, Ludo breaks into LandBaron's bedroom, takes the deeds away from him and has him devoured by his minions.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "The Lawless", two Mandalorian supercommandos on guard at the Sundari docks attempt to stop an old man in a cloak who lands a ship there without a permit. Darth Sidious just Force-chokes them to death without breaking stride.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
  • One episode has Shredder being jumped by a mugger upon being teleported into Central Park after a long imprisonment in Dimension X. It is one of the few occasions on the show where Shredder actually gets to kick someone's ass.
  • Another episode has a mugger try to mug the disguised turtles, which is delt with in a similar way to the "Crocodile" Dundee example shown above. The mugger demands "Give me your wallet!" Leonardo replies "I've got a better idea (draws huge katana blade) give me your knife!"
  • In "Polly Wanna Pizza," a pair of gangsters are chasing the Turtles after learning that someone with a green face bought the Living Macguffin from a pet shop. They see a man with a green face in an alley and rudely threaten him. He turns out to be a professional wrestler and throws them across the alley through the open windows of their own car.
• In Todd McFarlane's Spawn, when Angela is first introduced, a couple of thugs follow her into an alley to rape her. Naturally, only she leaves the alley.
• An episode of The Transformers had the Autobots helping the police catch carjackers by posing as normal cars, waiting to get stolen, then thrashing the hideout on arrival.
• Transformers: Prime:
  • The terrorist organization MECH attempt to steal a nuclear device from "an unarmed civilian truck". The Autobots trash the attacking cars, without bothering to transform.
  • Decepticon Knock Out enters a street race during a night of cruising, with the adjacent participant scratching his paint job. Once the race starts, Knock Out drives the racer off the mountain road.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015) The short Carjacked has a carjacker try to steal Bumblebee, Strongarm and Sideswipe and having them fight back, eventually leaving him with an ingrained phobia of cars.
• The Venture Bros.:
  • An early episode had a random bar owner combine this with Bullying a Dragon. While he likely did not know Brock was a secret agent with a literal license to kill (which he used with gusto, especially with people who disrespected him but had expired at that point), Brock is still a wall of muscle twice the bartender's size with biceps bigger than the man's head. Despite this and Brock's perpetual snarl, the guy kept mocking Brock's hairdo.
  • As part of his official arching of Billy Quizboy, Augustus St. Cloud decided to break in to his house to vandalize it. Unfortunately for him, said house actually belonged to his mother and her lover, who are both retired crimefighters. Not only is Col. Gentleman still bigger and stronger than the physically feeble St. Cloud, Upon hearing that he's her son's nemesis Rose Whalen decides that she wants to deal with him personally.
• In Wander over Yonder, Lord Hater and Commander Peepers spend an entire night bullying the Mooplexians, an apparently utterly helpless and stupid race of aliens. It turns out that they're mentally and spiritually evolved to the point of essentially living as Energy Beings and only fail to defend themselves because their corporal "shells" aren't very important to them, and at dawn they give their tormenters a brutal psychic lesson in their own insignificance.
• Young Justice (2010):
  • Once invoked with Blue Beetle. Jaime is investigating the disappearance of his friend Tye, when Tye's mother's boyfriend Maurice finds him and throws him onto the ground. Now, Jaime's no pushover...but the one you have to look out for is the Scarab in his spine, who takes the opportunity to whip out his favorite weapon (the Plasma Cannon), and demands that Jaime kill "the Maurice". Jaime, luckily for Maurice, keeps him restrained, averting this trope.
  • One time, Captain Cold decided to target a bank for a heist, completely encasing about half the street in ice. Imagine his shock when one of the ice walls explode to reveal seven super-heroines, who just happened to be having a bridal shower there. He doesn't even attempt to fight.

---